David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

Something occurred to me then, but I didn't say it. Instead, I asked, "How did it get out?"

"They had the wrong kind of glass in the cage. They thought they had hundred-strength. It was only ten. There's going to be an investigation, but it looks like there was some kind of foul-up in supply. Nobody knew."

I tried to sit up and couldn't. I was strapped to the bed.

"Uh, don't," Dinnie said, putting her hand on my chest gently. "You've got five broken ribs and a punctured lung. You're lucky you didn't hit a major blood vessel. You were under that Chtorran for fifteen minutes before we got you out. You were on CPR maintenance for at least thirteen of those minutes."

"Who-?"

"Me. And you're lucky, buster, because I'm damned good at it. It's a good thing you took a step back before he fell on you, else I wouldn't have been able to reach your face with the mask-or your chest with the thumper. It took seven men to roll that Chtorran off. They wanted to flame it, but I wouldn't get out of the way. You can thank me later. They weren't too happy about it. Who have you got mad at you anyway? I never saw so many angry men with torches. But I don't abandon my patients. By the way, I think one of those broken ribs is mine. Don't ask. I couldn't be gentle. Oh, and you've also got a fractured kneecap. You were on the table five hours." She hesitated and then mouthed the words, "On purpose."

"Huh?"

She leaned over me to fluff my pillow, and as she did her mouth came very close to my ear. "Somebody didn't want me to save you," she whispered.

"Huh?"

"Sorry," she said out loud. "Here, let me fluff that better."

Again, she whispered, "And they wanted to let you die on the table. But you're under medical protection here, and nobody's going to be allowed to see you without a nurse present. Me."

"Uh . . ." I shut my mouth.

Sitting back again, she said, "By the way, you may be a hero. Some of the doors in that room were jammed. No telling how many people that thing might have killed if you hadn't stopped it before the rest of the cavalry arrived."

"Oh." I remembered the Chtorran swinging around and starting toward me, and suddenly, I was nauseous

Dinnie saw the look of alarm on my face, and was there with a basin almost immediately. My stomach lurched and my throat convulsed-and there were cold iron claws digging into my chest

"Here!" She shoved a pillow into my arms, wrapped me around it so it splinted my abdomen and chest. "Hang onto that." -nothing came up. I retched again, and then once more. Each time the pain dug into me again.

"Don't worry about your incision-you're well-glued. I did it myself. You won't splatter."

But the feeling had passed. The pain had blotted out the need to vomit.

I looked at Dinnie. She grinned back. And in that moment, I resented her all over again. For her presumption of such familiarity. And then I felt guilty for resenting her when I owed her so much. And then I resented her for making me feel guilty.

"How are you feeling now?"

I took inventory. "I feel like shit."

"Right. You look like it too." She got up then and went to the door and whistled. "Hey, Fido-!"

A ROVER unit trundled in then and wheeled up to the bed. She plucked a handful of sensors out of the basket on top-they looked like poker chips-and started sticking them to various points on my chest and forehead, neck and arms. "Three for EKG, three for EEG, two for pressure and pulse, two for the pathologist, one for accounting and an extra one for luck," she said, reciting the nurse's mnemonic.

"Accounting?" I asked.

"Sure. It automatically checks your credit rating while you're lying there, so we know how much to charge."

"Uh, yeah."

She turned to the ROVER unit and studied its screen. "Well, bad news for your enemies. You'll live. But a word of advice: next time you try to make love to a Chtorran, you be the boy. You're a lot safer on top."

She peeled off the sensors then and dropped them back into the basket. "I'll leave you now. Can you fall asleep by yourself, or do you want a buzz-box?"

I shook my head.

"Terrif. I'll be back with your breakfast."

And then I was alone again. With my thoughts. I had a lot to think about. But I fell asleep before I could sort things out.

I WAS back in Whitlaw's classroom.

I felt panicky. I hadn't studied for the test-I didn't even know there was to be one. And this was the final exam!

I looked around. There were people here I didn't know, but as I looked at them, their faces solidified into familiarity. Shorty, Duke, Ted, Lizard, Marcie, Colonel Wallachstein, the Japanese lady, the dark fellow, Dinnie, Dr. Fromkin, Paul Jastrow, Maggie, Tim, Mark-and Dad. And then a lot of other people I didn't recognize. A little too many.

Whitlaw was in front of the room, making sounds. They didn't make sense. I stood up and said so. He looked at me. They all looked at me. I was in the front of the classroom and Whitlaw was in my seat.

A little girl in a brown dress was sitting in the front row. Next to her, just sliding up, a gigantic orange and red Chtorran. He turned his blackeyed gaze to me and seemed to settle down to listen.

"C'mon, Jim!" Whitlaw hollered. "We're waiting!"

I was angry. I didn't know why. "All right," I said. "Listen, I know I'm a screwup and an asshole. That part is obvious. But, see, what I've been doing is assuming that the rest of you aren't. I mean, here I am listening to you people making noises like you know what you're doing, and I've been believing you! What an asshole I am! The truth is, you people don't know what you're doing either-not any more than I do-so what I'm telling you is that my experience is just as valid, or just as invalid, as yours. But whatever it is, it's my experience, and I'm the one who's going to be responsible for it."

They applauded. Whitlaw raised his hand. I pointed at him. He stood up. "It's about time," he said. He sat down.

"You're the worst, Whitlaw!" I said. "You're so good at pouring your bullshit into other people's heads that it keeps floating to the top for years afterward. I mean, you gave us all these great belief systems about how to live our lives and then when we tried to plug into them, they didn't work. All they did was create inappropriate behavior."

Whitlaw said, "You know better than that. I never gave you a belief system. What I gave you was the ability to be independent of a belief system, so you could deal with the facts as they happened to you."

"Yeah? So how come every time I try to do that, you come in and give me another lecture?"

Whitlaw said, "If you've been inviting me into your head and letting me run my lectures on you, that's your fault. It isn't me who's doing that. It's you. You're the one running those lectures. I'm dead, Jim. I've been dead for two years. You know that. So quit asking me for advice. You're living in a world I know nothing about. Quit asking me for advice and you'll be a helluva lot better off. Or ask me for advice, if it's advice you want-and if it isn't appropriate, then ignore it. Get this, asshole: advice isn't the same as orders; it's only another option for a person to consider. All it's supposed to do is widen your perspective on the thing you're looking at. Use it that way. But don't blame me if you don't know how to listen."

"Must you always be right?" I asked. "Sometimes it gets awfully annoying."

Whitlaw shrugged. "Sorry, son. But that's the way you keep creating me."

He was right. Again. He always would be. Because that was how I would always create him.

There were no other hands. "Then we're clear? I'm running this life from now on? Right."

I looked at the little girl in the brown dress. She didn't have a face. And then she did. It was Marcie's face ... and Jillanna's face ... and Lizard's face....