Fritz Leiber - The Science Fiction Anthology

“Well, you see, sir, she’s—”

Just then, the door re-dilated and a blue matron machine conducted a young woman into the office. She was slim and she had a head of hair that would have graced a museum beauty, while across the back and—well, “chest” is an inadequate word—of her paper chemise, “Jane Dough” was silk-screened in the palest pink.

Krumbine did not repeat his last question. He had to admit to himself that it had been answered fully. Potshelter whistled respectfully. The blue detective engines gave hard-boiled grunts. Even the blue matron machine seemed awed by the girl’s beauty.

But she had eyes only for Richard Rowe. “My Grand Central man,” she breathed in amazement. “The man I’ve dreamed of ever since. My man with hair.” She noticed the way he was looking at her and she breathed harder. “Oh, darling, what have you done?”

“I tried to send you a letter.”

“A letter? For me? Oh, darling!”

Krumbine cleared his throat. “Potshelter, I’m going to wind this up fast. Miss Dough, could you transfer to this young man’s hive?”

“Oh, yes, sir! Mine has an over-plus of Girls Next Door.”

“Good. Mr. Rowe, there’s a sky-pilot two levels up—look for the usual white collar just below the photocells. Marry this girl and take her home to your hive. If your Queen Mother objects refer her to—er—Potshelter here.”

He cut short the young people’s thanks. “Just one thing,” he said, wagging a finger at Rowe. “Don’t written any more letters.”

“Why ever would I?” Richard answered. “Already my action is beginning to seem like a mad dream.”

“Not to me, dear,” Jane corrected him. “Oh, sir, could I have the letter he sent me? Not to do anything with. Not to show anyone. Just to keep.”

“Well, I don’t know—” Krumbine began.

“Oh, please , sir!”

“Well, I don’t know why not, I was going to say. Here you are, miss. Just see that this husband of yours never writtens another.”

He turned back as the contracting door shut the young couple from view.

“You were right, Potshelter,” he said briskly. “It was one of those combinations of mischances that come up only once in a billion billion times. But we’re going to have to issue recommendations for new procedures and safeguards that will reduce the possibilities to one in a trillion trillion. It will undoubtedly up the Terran income tax a healthy percentage, but we can’t have something like this happening again. Every boy must marry the Girl Next Door! And the first-class mails must not be interfered with! The advertising must go through!”

“I’d almost like to see it happen again,” Potshelter murmured dreamily, “if there were another Jane Dough in it.”

Outside, Richard and Jane had halted to allow a small cortege of machines to pass. First came a squad of police machines with Black Sorter in their midst, unmuzzled and docile enough, though still gnashing his teeth softly. Then—stretched out horizontally and borne on the shoulders of Gray Psychiatrist, Black Coroner, White Nursemaid Seven and Greasy Joe—there passed the slim form of Pink Wastebasket, snow-white in death. The machines were keening softly, mournfully.

Round about the black pillars, little mecho-mops were scurrying like mice, cleaning up the last of the first-class-mail bits of confetti.

Richard winced at this evidence of his aberration, but Jane squeezed his hand comfortingly, which produced in him a truly amazing sensation that changed his whole appearance.

“I know how you feel, darling,” she told him. “But don’t worry about it. Just think, dear, I’ll always be able to tell your friends’ wives something no other woman in the world can boast of: that my husband once wrote me a letter!”

“No more lies,” Paula said. “For God’s sake, Doctor, no more lies. I’ve been living with lies for the past year and I’m tired of them.”

Bernstein closed the white door before answering, mercifully obscuring the sheeted, motionless mound on the hospital bed. He took the young woman’s elbow and walked with her down the tiled corridor.

“He’s dying, of course,” he said conversationally. “We’ve never lied to you about that, Mrs. Hills; you know what we’ve told you all along. I hoped that by now you’d feel more resigned.”

“I was,” she said bitterly. They had stopped in front of Bernstein’s small office and she drew her arm away. “But then you called me. About this drug of yours—”

“We had to call you. Senopoline can’t be administered without permission of the patient, and since your husband has been in coma for the last four days—”

He opened the door and nodded her inside. She hesitated, then walked in. He took his place behind the cluttered desk, his grave face distracted, and waited until she sat down in the facing chair. He picked up his telephone receiver, replaced it, shuffled papers, and then locked his hands on the desk blotter.

“Senopoline is a curious drug,” he said. “I’ve had little experience with it myself. You may have heard about the controversy surrounding it.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t know about it. I haven’t cared about anything since Andy’s illness.”

“At any rate, you’re the only person in the world that can decide whether your husband receives it. It’s strange stuff, as I said, but in the light of your husband’s present condition, I can tell you this—it can do him absolutely no harm.”

“But it will do him good?”

“There,” Bernstein sighed, “is the crux of the controversy, Mrs. Hills.”

Row, row, row your boat, he sang in his mind, feeling the lapping tongues of the cool lake water against his fingers, drifting, drifting, under obeisant willows. Paula’s hands were resting gently on his eyes and he lifted them away. Then he kissed the soft palms and pressed them on his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that the boat was a bed, the water only pelting rain against the window, and the willow trees long shadows on the walls. Only Paula’s hands were real, solid and real and comforting against his face.

He grinned at her. “Funniest damn thing,” he said. “For a minute there, I thought we were back at Finger Lake. Remember that night we sprang a leak? I’ll never forget the way you looked when you saw the hem of your dress.”

“Andy,” she said quietly. “Andy, do you know what’s happened?”

He scratched his head. “Seems to me Doc Bernstein was in here a while ago. Or was he? Didn’t they jab me again or something?”

“It was a drug, Andy. Don’t you remember? They have this new miracle drug, senopoline. Dr. Bernstein told you about it, said it was worth the try....”

“Oh, sure, I remember.”

He sat up in bed, casually, as if sitting up in bed were an everyday occurrence. He took a cigarette from the table beside him and lit one. He smoked reflectively for a moment, and then recalled that he hadn’t been anything but horizontal for almost eight months. Swiftly, he put his hand on his rib cage and touched the firm flesh.

“The girdle,” he said wonderingly. “Where the hell’s the girdle?”

“They took it off,” Paula said tearfully. “Oh, Andy, they took it off. You don’t need it any more. You’re healed, completely healed. It’s a miracle!”

“A miracle....”

She threw her arms about him; they hadn’t held each other since the accident a year ago, the accident that had snapped his spine in several places. He had been twenty-two when it happened.

They released him from the hospital three days later; after half a year in the hushed white world, the city outside seemed wildly clamorous and riotously colorful, like a town at the height of carnival. He had never felt so well in his life; he was eager to put the strong springs of his muscles back into play. Bernstein had made the usual speech about rest, but a week after his discharge Andy and Paula were at the courts in tennis clothes.