Дэймон Найт - Orbit 7

She smiled back at him. If she found the nursery, or the nurse she had startled so, then she would tell him. Otherwise she wouldn’t. She felt guilty about the smiles they exchanged, and she wished momentarily that he wouldn’t make it so easy for her to lie to him.

“Where are you headed after lunch?” he asked.

“Oh, the library …” She ducked her head quickly and scraped her sherbet glass.

“Plastics?”

“Um.” She smiled again, even more brightly. “And what about you? Tonight’s show ready?”

“Yeah. This afternoon, in …” he glanced at his watch, “… exactly one hour and fifteen minutes I’m to sit in on a little talk between Senator George Kern and Hilary. Kern’s backing out of his weather-control fight.”

“You keep hitting blank walls, don’t you?”

“Yes. Good and blank, and very solid. Well, we’d better finish up. I’ll drop you at the library.”

“Look at us,” she said over the dinner table. “Two dismaler people you couldn’t find. You first. And eat your hamburger. Awful, isn’t it?”

“It’s fine, honey.” He cut a piece, speared it with his fork, then put it down. “Kern is out. Hilary thinks he got the treatment last month. And his wife too. They were both hospitalized for pneumonia at the same time.”

“Do you know which hospital? In New York?”

“Hell, I don’t know. What difference does … What are you getting at?”

“I … Was it one of these?” She got the list from her purse and handed it to him. “I got them from Dr. Wymann’s nurse. I wouldn’t go back to that one where … I made them give me a list so I could look them over first.”

Martie reached for her hand and pressed it hard. “No plastics?”

She shook her head.

“Honey, it’s going to be all right this time. You can go anyplace you want to. I’ll look these over. You’ll just be …”

“It’s all right, Martie. I already checked out three of them. Two in Manhattan, one in Yonkers. I … I’d rather do it myself. Did Senator Kern mention a hospital?”

“Someplace on Long Island. I don’t remember …”

“There’s a Brent Park Memorial Hospital on Long Island. Was that it?”

“Yes. No. Honey, I don’t remember. If he did mention it, it passed right over my head. I don’t know.” He put the list down and took her other hand and pulled her down to his lap. “Now you give. Why do you want to know? What did you see in those hospitals that you visited? Why did you go to the library?”

“I went to three hospitals, all small, all private, all run by terribly young people. Young doctors, young nurses, young everybody. I didn’t learn anything else about them. But, in the library I tried to borrow a book on obstetrics, and there aren’t any.”

“What do you mean, there aren’t any? None on open shelves? None in at the time?”

“None. They looked, and they’re all out, lost, not returned, gone. All of them. I tried midwifery, and the same thing. I had a young boy who was terribly embarrassed by it all searching for me, and he kept coming back with the same story. Nothing in. So I went to the branch library in Yonkers, since I wanted to see the hospital there anyway, and it was the same thing. They have open shelves there, and I did my own looking. Nothing.”

“What in God’s name did you plan to do with a book on obstetrics?”

“Isn’t that beside the point? Why aren’t there any?”

“It is directly to the point. What’s going through your mind, Julia? Exactly what are you thinking?”

“The baby is due the end of December. What if we have another blizzard? Or an ice storm? Do you know anything about delivering a baby? Oh, something, I grant you. Everyone knows something. But what about an emergency? Could you handle an emergency? I thought if we had a book …”

“I must have wandered into a nut ward. I’m surrounded by maniacs. Do you hear what you’re saying? Listen to me, sweetheart, and don’t say a word until I’m finished. When that baby is due, I’ll get you to a hospital. I don’t care which one you choose, or where it is. You’ll be there. If we have to take an apartment next door to it for three months to make certain, we’ll do it. You have to have some trust and faith in me, in the doctor, in yourself. And if it eases your mind, I’ll get you a book on obstetrics, but by God, I don’t plan to deliver a baby!”

Meekly she said, “You just get me a book and I’ll behave. I promise.” She got up and began to gather up their dishes. “Maybe later on we’ll want some scrambled eggs or something. Let’s have coffee now.”

They moved to the living room, where she sat on the floor with her cup on the low table. “Is Kern satisfied that no biological warfare agent got loose to start all this?”

Martie looked at her sharply. “You’re a witch, aren’t you? I never told you that’s what I was afraid of.”

She shrugged. “You must have.”

“Kern’s satisfied. I am too. It isn’t that. His committee decided to drop it, at his suggestion, because of the really dangerous condition of the world right now. It’s like a powder keg, just waiting for the real statistics to be released. That would blow it. Everyone suspects that the death rate has risen fantastically, but without official figures, it remains speculation, and the fuse just sits there. He’s right. If Hilary does go on, he’s taking a terrible risk.” He sighed. “It’s a mutated virus that changes faster than the vaccines that we come up with. It won’t be any better until it mutates into something that isn’t viable, then it will vanish. Only then will the governments start opening books again, and hospitals give out figures for admittances and deaths. We know that the medical profession has been hit probably harder than any other. Over-exposure. And the shortage of personnel makes everything that used to be minor very serious now.”

Julia nodded, but her gaze didn’t meet his. “Sooner or later,” she said, “you’ll have to turn that coin over to see what’s on the other side. Soon now, I think.”

Julia wore flowered pants and a short vest over a long-sleeved tailored blouse. With her pale hair about her shoulders, she looked like a very young girl, too young to be sipping champagne from the hollow-stemmed goblet that she held with both hands. Dwight Gregor was in the middle of the circle of stones, studying the effects from there. Gregor was the main critic, the one whose voice was heard if he whispered, although all others were shouting. Julia wished he’d come out of the circle and murmur something or other to her. She didn’t expect him to let her off the hook that evening, but at least he could move, or something. She probably wouldn’t know what his reactions had been until she read his column in the morning paper. She sipped again and turned despairingly to Martie.

“I think he fell asleep out there.”

“Honey, relax. He’s trying to puzzle it out. He knows that you’re cleverer than he is, and more talented, and that you worked with the dark materials of your unconscious. He feels it and can’t grasp the meaning… .”

“Who are you quoting?”

“Boyle. He’s fascinated by the circle. He’ll be in and out of it all evening. Watch and see. Haven’t you caught him looking at you with awe all over his face?”

“Is that awe? I was going to suggest that you tell him I’m good and pregnant.”

Martie laughed with her, and they separated to speak with the guests. It was a good show, impressive. The yard looked great, the lighting effects effective, the waterfall behind the basket-weave fence just right, the pool at the bottom of the cascading water just dark and mysterious enough… . Martie wandered about his yard proudly.