Дэймон Найт: Orbit 7

“Why are they giving me an allergy test? I thought you had to test for specific allergies, not a general test.”

“If you test out positive, then they’ll look for the specifics. They’ll know they have to look. We’re getting too many people with allergies that we knew nothing about, reacting to antibiotics, to sodium pentothal, to starch in sheets. You name it.”

The red scratch on her arm. But they hadn’t tested her for specifics. They had tested her for the general allergy symptoms and had found them, and then let it drop. At the top of the stairs she paused again, closing her eyes briefly this time. “I’m coming,” she said softly. She opened the door.

His was the third crib. Unerringly she went to him and picked him up; he was screaming lustily, furiously. “There, there. It’s all right, darling. I’m here.” She rocked him, pressing him tightly to her body. He nuzzled her neck, gulping in air now, the sobs diminishing into hiccups. His hair was damp with perspiration, and he smelled of powder and oil. His ear was tight against his head, a lovely ear.

“You! What are you doing in here? How did you get in?”

She put the sleeping infant back down in the crib, not waking him. For a moment she stood looking down at him, then she turned and walked out the door.

The three blue girls were gone, replaced by two zebra-striped girls against a black drop, so that only the white stripes showed, making an eerie effect.

“Why did you bring this up with me?” Martie asked. Their steaks were before them, two inches thick, red in the middle, charred on the outside. The Blue Light was famous for steaks.

“A hunch. I have a standing order to be informed of any research anyone does on my time. I got the message that you were looking into illnesses, deaths, all that.” Boyle waved aside the sudden flash of anger that swept through Martie. “Okay. Cool it. I can’t help it. I’m paranoid. Didn’t they warn you? Didn’t I warn you myself when we talked five years ago? I can’t stand for you to use the telephone. Can’t stand not knowing what you’re up to. I can’t help it.”

“But that’s got nothing to do with your theory.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Martie. What you’re after is just the other side of the same thing.”

“And what are you going to do now? Where from here?”

“That’s the stinker. I’m not sure. I think we work on the angle of weather control, for openers. Senator Kern is pushing the bill to create an office of weather control. We can get all sorts of stuff under that general heading, I think, without raising this other issue at all. You gave me this idea yourself. Weather-connected sickness. Let’s look at what we can dig out, see what they’re hiding, what they’re willing to tell, and go on from there.”

“Does Kolchak know? Does anyone else?”

“No. Kolchak will go along with the political angle. He’ll think it’s a natural for another special. He’ll cooperate.”

Martie nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll dig away. I think there’s a story. Not the one you’re after, but a story. And I’m curious about the clampdown on news at a time when we seem to be at peace.”

Boyle grinned at him. “You’ve come a long way from the history-of-science teacher that I talked to about working for me five years ago. Boy, were you green then.” He pushed his plate back. “What made you take it? This job? I never did understand.”

“Money. What else? Julia was pregnant. We wanted a house in the country. She was working, but not making money yet. She was talking about taking a job teaching art, and I knew it would kill her. She’s very talented, you know.”

“Yeah. So you gave up tenure, everything that goes with it.”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t give up for her.”

“To each his own. Me? I’m going to wade through that goddam snow the six blocks to my place. Prettiest little piece you ever saw waiting for me. See you tomorrow, Martie.”

He waved to the waitress, who brought the check. He signed it without looking at it, pinched her bare bottom when she turned to leave, and stood up. He blew a kiss to the performing girls, stopped at three tables momentarily on his way out, and was gone. Martie finished his coffee slowly.

Everyone had left by the time he returned to his office. He sat down at his desk and looked at the material he had pushed into the drawer. He knew now what was wrong. Nothing more recent than four years ago was included in the material.

Julia slept deeply. She had the dream again. She wandered down hallways, into strange rooms, looking for Martie. She was curious about the building. It was so big. She thought it must be endless, that it wouldn’t matter how long she had to search it, she would never finish. She would forever see another hall that she hadn’t seen before, another series of rooms that she hadn’t explored. It was strangely a happy dream, leaving her feeling contented and peaceful. She awakened at eight. The wind had died completely, and the sunlight coming through the sheer curtains was dazzling, brightened a hundredfold by the brilliant snow. Apparently it had continued to snow after the wind had stopped; branches, wires, bushes, everything was frosted with an inch of powder. She stared out the window, committing it to memory. At such times she almost wished that she was a painter instead of a sculptor. The thought passed. She would get it, the feeling of joy and serenity and purity, into a piece of stone, make it shine out for others to grasp, even though they’d never know why they felt just like that.

She heard the bell of the snowplow at work on the secondary road that skirted their property, and she knew that as soon as the road was open, Mr. Stopes would be by with his small plow and get their driveway. She hoped it all would be cleared by the time Martie left the office. She stared at the drifted snow in the back yard between the house and the barn and shook her head. Maybe Mr. Stopes could get that, too.

While she had breakfast she listened to the morning news. One disaster after another, she thought, turning it off after a few minutes. A nursing-home fire, eighty-two dead. A new outbreak of infantile diarrhea in half a dozen hospitals, leaving one hundred thirty-seven dead babies. The current flu-epidemic death rate increasing to one out of ten.

Martie called at nine. He’d be home by twelve. A few things to clear up for the evening show. Nothing much. She tried to ease his worries about her, but realized that the gaiety in her voice must seem forced to him, phony. He knew that when the wind howled as it had done the night before, the baby cried. She hung up regretfully, knowing she hadn’t convinced him that she had slept well, that she was as gay as she sounded. She looked at the phone and knew that it would be even harder to convince him in person that she was all right, and, more important, that the baby was all right.

Martie shook her hard. “Honey, listen to me. Please, just listen to me. You had a dream. Or a hallucination. You know that. You know how you were the first time you heard it. You told me you were having a breakdown. You knew then that it wasn’t the baby you heard, no matter what your ears told you. What’s changed now?”

“I can’t explain it,” she said. She wished he’d let go. His hands were painful on her shoulders, and he wasn’t aware of them. The fear in his eyes was real and desperate. “Martie, I know that it couldn’t happen like that, but it did. I opened the door to somewhere else where our baby is alive and well. He has grown, and he has hair now, black hair, like yours, but curly, like mine. A nurse came in. I scared the hell out of her, Martie. She looked at me just like you are looking now. It was real, all of it.”