Once, when she was in one of her fretful moods, Alex had said to her, “Don’t live for the moment—live into the moment, on your toes, eyes bright.” Good advice, maybe, but she could not even consider a world without Alex in it. To face the crushing guilt and stress of her deception and go on without him was so dark and horrible an idea that she knew she would have to come upon it slowly, by not looking ahead at all. What had Alex said, back when they pulled that demented cockroach caper? “If you keep your eye on your goals, you’re not keeping it on your ass.”
Well, yes. Surely he would understand if she kept her mind focused on nothing beyond her next step. Her interior fantasies, so warmly confident only days before, now rang with hollow irony. “Till death do us part” was not a vow any longer; it had been a prediction.
She drove through blackness and wrestled with the spreading dark within her. At least Alex had not gone the way she had seen others go, she thought. Some of her elderly relatives lost control of wits and bowels long before they quite got the hang of dying. We all plan on being gallant and lucky and carrying on. We call ourselves “middle-aged” when we’re pushing sixty, as though we planned on living to a hundred and twenty.
Alex didn’t die that slow, humiliating way. She remembered a funeral she had attended as a teenager, and the whole litany of preparation. They gave the deceased woman a final wash and set, all part of the fixed price, yet another benefit of “the quiet trade,” as some called it. At least it wasn’t a cremation. While people thought of being burned to a crisp as more neat and sanitary, she knew that in the early days of that profession the morticians had added solemn organ music to the service. Atmospheric, tasteful, and it did cover the sounds of the cremation. When the head had reached the boiling point of water, the skull exploded with a loud pop. Finicky mourners found this disturbing.
She had learned the circumlocutions of death then and instantly hated them. She remembered her gathering outrage at the “she’s better off now” talk from a priest. Only later could she see that the priest had made her angry to start her through her grief.
But the idea—better off dead—was still a profound insult to humanity, unnoticed by most only because the horror was so commonplace. Sure, death was natural. More certain than taxes, which you could cheat on. Nothing was as sure—not human causes, the world’s unending crises, even the whirl and gleam of stars, which would eventually gutter out, too. In the end there was only the triumphant tick of time, sounding alike for elephants and sea turtles and the giant silent sequoias.
Brace up, girl, she thought as she passed a car with a license plate that made her blink: god is. Where had she seen that? The memory would not come.
Forget it. Focus on the present. Don’t let the weight of depression fall on you, she lectured herself as she swung into the Immortality Incorporated parking lot.
One car in the lot. Inside there was only Ray Constantine, standing watch, haggard. In the cool, bleached fluorescent light he told her that Alex’s suspension was complete. She listened to the details of the final cooldown. Made some entries on the suspension log. Carried on a desultory conversation, words echoing behind a sheet of gray glass.
Yes, they would have to let some other I2 personnel in on the secrets. They should discuss what they should do in the long run. Their primary loyalty had been to Alex, and now they had to think long term. Yes, they would take responsibility, maybe doing jail time. Yes, they had to think about the man Kathryn had seen, what their responsibility was there. All dense, unsettling questions.
“No one’ll have any chance of reviving if the company itself goes under,” Ray said wearily.
Kathryn became alert. “You’re—I mean, we’re—that shaky?”
“We’re small. The California Medical Board keeps inventin’ new ways to hassle us in the courts. The media think we’re a creepy joke. Sure we’re vulnerable.”
Ray went on, detailing how few people they could really rely on, and she was stunned to realize that the core of cryonics was really only a few dozen. Without them, I2 would wither.
Alex had been one of the truly vital ones. His loss crippled I2, endangered Alex’s own chances of revival. There was much more at stake here than one man’s life.
Kathryn said suspiciously, “You went along with me on suspending Alex because you saw that a murder would sensationalize cryonics forever, swallow it up in tabloid scandal.”
Ray squinted at her, eyes wry and wise. “That was part of it.”
“And the rest?”
“Somebody kills your buddy, you do your best for him.”
“That simple?” she asked doubtfully.
“That simple.”
“But if this gets out, never mind all the legal charges we’ll face—it could kill cryonics.”
“Right. And rob Alex and Susan and all the others of whatever slim chance they have.”
She felt obligation descend like an inert weight. Now that light had dawned, she saw that even if Ray and Bob had other reasons to go along with suspending Alex, that didn’t mean they were less reliable. They had been looking long term, while she was wrapped in her own shock and grief.
She sighed and paid attention as Ray settled some details of the suspension. Maybe men were better at separating emotion and logic; she would have to get better at that, too. Being tired didn’t help. Little details threw her off. The telephones made a small popping noise, but when she picked one up, there was only a dial tone. Ray’s voice droned on. She realized she was nearing the end of her inner strength.
Ray was, too. His eyelids began to droop. She summoned up a burst of caffeine energy and cajoled him into one of the dorm bunk beds. He dropped into exhausted sleep before she could gently close the sound-insulated door.
As she passed by one of the telephones, it clicked. She picked it up, but the line was dead. No dial tone. She replaced it, filing away a mental note to call the phone company.
That could come later. She was alone now with Alex. In the silence of the big bay, she knew that this was the real reason she had come tonight.
He rested in a gleaming stainless steel cylinder, one of a long row in the main bay. His was eight feet tall and mounted on wheels. If—no, when, she admitted to herself—the truth came out, they might well have to move him quickly, hide him with Susan in the arroyo. She laid her palm on the cool reassurance of the steel. She was certainly a cryonicist now, she thought with bitter irony. She believed—because she had to. This was the only chance, remote though it might be, that Alex would ever walk this earth again, peer into her with those oblique, knowing eyes.
She walked out onto the loading dock and switched off the lights. Time to close up, set the alarm system. The night sky leaped at her, stars behind a thin layer of haze, glowing like jewels in oil.
The whole world spun beneath the same twinkling stars. Somewhere elderly couples planted vegetable gardens, never sure they would see them yield fruit. Fighter pilots climbed into cockpits, eager for the flight that might turn to fight. Teenage athletes fell into deep slumber, muscles tired and sore from hours of practice, readying for competitions that most of them would, inevitably, lose. Thousands were falling into heady, delirious love. Legions of women strained and sweated to bring forth the fruit of good marriages, which would look at first like unpromising little monkeys. Millions more were laughing securely with friends. Young boys labored over equations in still rooms. Girls wrote poems in spiral notebooks, and some of those lines might last a thousand years. The world not only went on, it lusted to do so, leaning forward like a runner at the blocks, ready to sprint into the unknown.
But she had no choice. She had to go on, because the battle for Alex’s slim chances—and Susan’s, and dozens more—lay ahead. In a very real way, she was the one without hope, the one left behind.
A hand closed on her left shoulder. Another snatched her right wrist, thrust it behind her back. It forced her arm high, bending her over.
“Anybody else awake?” a hard man’s
voice asked.
He grabbed her left arm and wrenched it behind her back. She struggled, and he rammed her hands high behind her back. The pain cut off her breath. She could not shout.
“Never mind, I know there’s not, you sassy bitch. I heard every word in here.”
“Ah—ah—” she gasped.
“Wonder how? Think you chillers got all the secrets? Well, I got ways of listening in on your phones.”
The man’s voice was almost conversational. She knew she had heard it before. “I walked straight on in. You’re so sure of yourselves, you didn’t even set the burglar alarm.” His laugh was like a series of grunts.
How did he know so much? He force-marched her to walk back inside the main bay. Something wrapped around her wrists. She had to shout to Ray, get him—
A greasy cloth gag covered her mouth. It tightened, thrusting between her lips, covering her clenched teeth. A grimy stench made her throat clench. She tried to shout. Only a muffled moan escaped.
Hands jerked her back a few inches and then slammed her forward. Her forehead smacked into a polished concrete wall. Splintering pain made everything reel. He spun her around.
“You turned me down for lunch once, ‘member?”
Him. The man in the night.
He had come on to her at Fashion Circus, too, weeks ago. All this time he had been out there, watching, waiting. His stiff, concentrated face froze her thoughts. The eyes. They were utterly unmoving, as if he were looking straight through her at some imagined ideal.
“Real cool chick, you were.”
He spun her away from the wall, forcing her wrists high, and pushed. She had to walk forward or else fall over. He levered her against the big cylinders. Her face smacked against the cool, slick surface. She could see her warped reflection in the gleaming steel beneath the high lamps.
“This is ‘bout right. These valves, they got a simple default switch.”
In the curved steel she saw his mirror image lick his lips. The eyes were jumpy, as though he were on drugs. “I can be cool, too, y’know,” he said with a flat, threatening tone.
She felt him twist her left foot. He jammed it into a narrow space between two metal support struts. Then he wrenched her around and pinned her shoulder against the cylinder, eyeing her.
“Looks good. One more touch.” He pulled a short length of rope from the pocket of his exercise suit—the same one he had been wearing that night. He looped it around her neck and lashed it to the support struts. She thrashed but could not move.
“I untie you later, maybe the chillers will get stuck with this one, too,” he said, bemused. His deep voice was detached, as though he were talking to someone she could not see. “Cops’ll swarm all over this place. They’ll find that hideout of yours for sure.” He jerked her constraints to test them. “Set free the dead. Send them to the valley.”
She guessed that he was trying to make it look as if she were accidentally caught here. “I’ll just disconnect this safety alarm, too,” he said, pulling leads loose at the top of a large liquid nitrogen delivery dewar.
Metal scraped her left ankle. What was he planning? She worked her tongue against the greasy gag. That only moistened it, bringing a foul taste gushing down her throat. She tried to pull herself free. Standing on one foot, hands bound, she could not get the leverage to yank her left foot out.
“Firm stuck,” he said, standing back with a jagged smile. “Ummm. More convincing if you dropped your equipment. Right about here.” Tools and wires clattered at her feet.
She saw what was coming and thrashed against her restraints.
He swung the metal pipe connector from the top of the liquid nitrogen dewar around. Aimed it at Kathryn.
“You chillers never thought about the soldiers of the Lord, did you?”
Kathryn murmured and lunged against the rope. Her ankle shrieked with sharp pain.
With a single twist the man unscrewed the round valve at the top of the dewar. An eerie howling resounded. Gray mist shot from the end of the pipe, three feet from Kathryn’s face. The banshee wail came from nitrogen vapor forced through the pipe. It took several seconds to chill down the metal, and then the liquid would flow freely. Frost formed instantly on the pipe, and a gust of intolerable cold washed over her face.
She tried to brace herself for what she knew would come, but it was no use. With a gurgling whoosh a full volley of liquid nitrogen shot out, fraying into droplets that burst over her, every splatter a piercing pain.
“May the Lord rest your soul,” the man said solemnly. Then, his mouth twisting, “Tell my mommy and daddy that I love them.”
He folded his hands before him and bowed his head.
Kathryn twisted, banging against the steel. She could not jerk her ankle free. The vapor clouded the air, cutting off her view. She tried to shout, but her lungs were full of cottony lumps. Liquid nitrogen spurted over her. Intense pain sheeted across her skin.
She got out a moan. Then she could feel nothing in her lips, her mouth, except the stinging that raged like liquid fire and shrieked into her mind, blotting out everything.
Fall. Get away from it. She let her right leg go limp. Veering, she slumped sideways.
Something thumped hard against her. The man was standing out of the vapor, pushing her into the spray with a length of pipe. At this angle the spray spattered more fully across her face and neck and chest. Her nose had turned chalk white.
She thrashed left, right, trying to shake off the pipes, to fall. To get away. Her face struck the shelving, a hard rap that rang in her skull. Her nose broke off. It flapped across her face, held by a shred of iced skin. She wrenched her head around, trying to flee from the monstrous pain. Her nose bounced and tumbled below her eyes. The skin flap stretched. Her chest exploded with burning torment. Her nose broke away, tumbling into the nitrogen vapor clouds.
She shut her eyes. Agony shot through her, banishing thought. Her lips were rigid in the effort to scream. Frozen.
Pain was an immense gray ocean that opened to receive her. Her last thought was of Alex.
6
GEORGE
The Reverend spun around, surprised. “You!”
“Evening, Reverend.”
“I thought you were to go to see Alberto when—when…”
George stepped into the Reverend’s study with assurance. He had slipped in unobserved, the midnight shadows enfolding him like an ally. “I decided different. Those drugs he gave me, kept me under two whole days. Fixed up the wound. But they gave me ideas, too.”
“Ideas?” Reverend Montana looked uneasy.
“I’ve finished the chiller work. Time to think about what comes next.”
“You… got… her?” the Reverend said distastefully.
“Sure. I knew they’d be off guard.”
“I want you to know I never thought all this would work out so—so…” The Reverend’s voice trailed away. He collapsed into his big lounging chair, his face gray and drained.
George was getting tired of Montana’s moods. “Why’d you help Dr. Lomax?”
“Because he’s my brother,” the Reverend said with a sigh.
“You never said you had—”
“We kept it quiet. I helped him, he helped me. Gave me the startup money on this whole cathedral operation.”
“You don’t seem much like him.”
“I’m not, I suppose.” The Reverend stared into space, as if vainly trying to look inside himself. “Alberto does many fine things, mind you. Church work. He donates to UCI, too, supported research there for many years.”
“An impressive man,” George said neutrally, sitting down in a deep leather chair.
The Reverend looked worried, as though casting about for some angle. “And he did save you, George. Remember that.”
“I know what he’s thinking now, though,” George said flatly. He was seeing the Reverend in a fresh light now, as a man caught by his own limitations. Certainty flowed through George, his analytical side su
re and quick. Maybe the stimulants Lomax had given him helped. They suppressed the pain of his wound, gave him a tingling, jittery energy. And they had made him cool and decisive in dealing with the Sheffield woman. Now they would have to get him through this.
“What do you mean by that?” the Reverend asked guardedly.
“The chillers, they’re hurt bad. Real bad. So I’ve done my job.”
“Indeed—but at a terrible cost.”
“You told me it was my mission. Now I want to pass on to other things.”
“Other—” The telephone rang, two short pulses and a long one. Obviously a coded call.
“I’m not here. Tell him.”
The Reverend’s eyes got large. He licked his lips and picked up the receiver. “How did it go?”
A pause. George tried to read the conflicting emotions that swept over the Reverend’s knotted face. “No, no sign of him here. Maybe he’s waiting for the right moment.”
The Reverend swallowed hard, glanced at George. “I don’t think that’s right, Alberto.”
George could not help but smile. The Reverend said, “No, no.” His words came out flat and quick.
Certainty settled further in George, bringing bristling strength to his arms and legs, the places where powers lurked. “I’ll call, of course.” The Reverend hung up.
“He’s got a little party waiting for me, hasn’t he.” It was not a question. The Reverend looked away.
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