Eschaton 02 The Siege of Eternity

by Frederik Pohl

  There was a Bureau interrogator sitting alertly in a straight-backed chair, but he wasn't interrogating. Sensibly enough, Hilda thought, he was simply listening as they talked among themselves, while his recorders were capturing everything that was said.

  They all looked a lot cleaner than they had on the aircraft, and the ones from Starlab were wearing fresh clothes from the safe house's stores. They looked as though they'd had some sleep, too-not necessarily alone, Hilda thought, noting the way the Dannerman with the beard and the Pat who seemed to be affixed to him were cozily sharing a bowl of strawberries in one corner of the room.

  Tipler's thesis was that when the expansion of the universe finally ran out of steam and the whole thing fell back into that bizarre point in space that had exploded into the Big Bang-the "Big Crunch," as they called that ultimate collapse-everybody who had ever lived would live again. Tipler called it "the Omega Point." That even more bizarre creature, Dopey, called it "the eschaton." But it was the same basic idea.

  When she checked around they seemed to be one Pat short. "A couple of doctors are checking Pat Five over," the one called Patrice explained. "Want some coffee? There are clean cups over there."

  She took some. So did the deputy director, looking pleased with the way things were going. Dopey, who was in the next room, had been telling his interrogators all kinds of things about the mass of high-tech materiel on Starlab. Pell nodded. "We're going to have to go back up there to get it. The director's getting that set up now."

  Hilda looked skeptical. "How are you going to know how to make it work?"

  But that wasn't a problem, Patrice explained. Dopey himself didn't know how to operate most of it – he had admitted as much, evidently somewhat amused at the thought – but he didn't have to. One of the creatures Dopey called his "bearers" was a specialist in that sort of thing. He could operate any of it, and show the Bureau's people how.

  Hilda looked incredulous. "The golem can do that?"

  "One of them can. The other's a kind of biological-medical handyman; he's the one who fixed up the guard last night."

  "And he fixed Rosaleen up, too," Dannerman-beard called from across the room. "Between the two of them they can do all kinds of things, if Dopey tells them to."

  They sounded like pretty handy gadgets to Hilda. She opened her mouth to say as much to the deputy director, but he wasn't paying any attention to the conversation. He was scowling at the screen, on which Dopey was complaining one more time to his interrogators about how desperately they needed their real food. It clearly was not what Pell wanted to hear from the alien; he got up and headed for the door to the other room.

  But as he opened it Dopey caught sight of Hilda just behind Marcus Pell. "Stop now," Dopey said peremptorily, waggling his plumed tail in reproof. "I do not require much rest, but I must have some. I will answer no further questions for the next – " he twiddled his little paws in his belly bag – "twenty-five minutes." He didn't wait for a reply but hopped off his perch on a coffee table and brushed past the deputy director as he entered the library room.

  He advanced on Hilda. "My dear Brigadier Morrisey, I appeal to you as a woman. Please relieve our distress! See that the foodstuffs are delivered to us at once!"

  Hilda Morrisey was not used to being appealed to as a woman. Actually, she thought it rather quaint, but she shook her head. "I have nothing to say about that, Dopey."

  The little alien sighed. "In that event I will sleep for the remainder of the twenty-five minutes." And he squatted down on the floor, under a dictionary stand. As he closed his eyes the great fan of his tail bent forward, covering him from the light, and he was still.

  The deputy director glared around the room, looking for someone to blame. Then he shrugged. "You're in charge," he snapped at Hilda, and hurried out of the room-on his way, Hilda supposed, to find a secure screen so he could check in with headquarters.

  Being in charge was nice, Hilda thought, but it would have been even nicer if she knew what she was supposed to do. For starters she nodded at the guards and interrogators. "You can all take ten," she said. As they left gratefully she peered at Dopey. "Is that the way the thing sleeps?"

  Patrice answered for all of them. "I don't know. We never saw him sleep before."

  "Urn," Hilda said, and then got down to business. "All right. Tell me what you've found out so far," she ordered, looking at her own Dannerman.

  He looked rebellious. "Christ, Hilda! They've been talking for hours! It's all on the tapes, anyway."

  It was a reasonable answer, so she tried a different tack. "Then let's get to something they haven't talked about. Don't you have any questions that haven't been answered yet?"

  Pat spoke up for him. "Well, I do," she said, sounding tentative, turning to the other Pats. "You said something about another one of us who died?"

  The two other Pats looked at each other. Patrice sighed. "Yes, that was Patsy. We were swimming and these other creatures-they looked sort of like seals-"

  "More like a hippopotamus," Pat One corrected.

  "Anyway, they had some kind of electric shockers. Like electric eels, I guess. And they lived in the water and- Well, things went sour, and one of them killed Patsy. Do we have to talk about this now? It was bad."

  "I'm afraid you do," Hilda informed her-not cruelly, but not particularly sympathetically, either. Making people talk about things they didn't want to talk about was basic to her job description. "You have to talk about everything. Now, these animals with the electric shockers-"

  "They weren't animals," Dannerman-beard corrected her. "They were fellow prisoners, just like us."

  "Anyway, all that's on the tapes already," Patrice said. "There were lots of different kinds of-people-from different planets there and- Oh, hi!" she said, turning to greet Pat Five as she entered.

  "Hi," Pat Five said, looking belligerent. She spotted the table with the coffee cups and headed toward it.

  "Come on," Pat One coaxed. "Don't keep us in suspense. What did the doctors find out?"

  "They found out I was pregnant," Pat Five said, pouring a cup and adding four or five spoonfuls of sugar. "They wanted me to go into a hospital here for observation. I told them screw that. There are plenty of hospitals in New York and I want to go home. And then I want to get back to work."

  "So do I," said Patrice eagerly. "I was thinking about it all the time we were in that damn cell…" Then her face fell. "Oh, hell," she said. "I didn't think. How in the world are we ever going to sort that out?"

  "Sort what out?" Hilda demanded.

  Pat-the real Pat-answered for them all. "Sort out which of us is going to run the Observatory, of course." They were all silent for a moment, then she added gloomily, "I don't think it'll be me, anyway."

  Patrice gave her a curious look. "Why not you?"

  Canada's Rights in "Starlab" Technology Unquestionable.

  We must not forget that Canada has a special interest in the Starlab venture, since it was on Canadian soil that the first returnees from Scarecrow captivity reached the Earth.

  – Globe and Mail, Toronto

  She glanced bitterly at Hilda. "Because these people tell me I'm goddam prey, that's why. I've got this damn lump of something in my head, and according to them somebody's likely to grab me and saw my head off to get at it."

  "Oh," Patrice said, nodding, "you mean the bug. I've got one, too."

  Hilda snapped to attention. "You do?"

  "Sure. So did Patsy-the one of us who died. And, of course, all the ones who went back to Earth-you two"-nodding at the Earthly Pat and Dannerman-"and Jimmy Lin, and Martin, and Rosie. It's a spy thing."

  Dannerman, frowning, opened his mouth, but Hilda was in command. "Tell me exactly what you mean, 'spy thing,' " she demanded.

  And was astonished to hear the answer. The bugs in the head were little transmitters-well, no surprise there; everyone had guessed that much. But these weren't simple sound-only bugs. You put on a kind of helmet that acted as a receiver, P
atrice said, "And then you were the other person. The other you. I saw that jail cell you were in, Pat. Through your eyes. Just like I was there."

  The bearded Dannerman confirmed what she said. "I was in your head once when you were waking up with a hangover, Dan. And Martin said he was at Kourou, and Jimmy Lin was back in the Chinese space center; in fact I think one time when our Jimmy was listening in the one of him that was in China was getting laid. He said it was just like being there. You could see, hear, taste, smell, feel-it was virtual-reality stuff, only better than anything I've ever seen."

  Then they were all talking at once, waking Dopey. "You people are very noisy," he complained, peering out from under his great plume, but no one paid attention to him.

  "You mean," Pat said shakily, "you could feel and see everything I did? Everything?"

  "Well, just when we had the helmet on," Pat One said consolingly. "And we could only receive ourselves-Patrice and Patsy and I could tune in on you, Dan-Dan on the other Dan and so on. Dopey had a way of tuning in on everybody-that's why they put the bugs in your heads in the first place. But he never let us do that."

  Pat was shaking her head. "Thank God I wasn't doing anything very interesting," she said. "But now I really do want to get this damn thing out."

  "Even if it kills you?" Dannerman asked.

  Dopey yawned a little cat yawn. "You people concern yourselves over such trivial things," he complained. "Why should that procedure kill you? The device no longer serves any useful purpose, since you have destroyed the relay channel on your Starlab. My medically trained bearer can remove it without harm to you."

  Pat sat up, openmouthed. "You're sure?"

  "Of course I am sure. Was it not he who installed the devices in the first place?"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dannerman knew what going to hospital was all about, because he'd done it. More than once. You went to hospitals when, for instance, the knee-breakers of the Mad King Ludwigs or the Scuzzhawk enforcers had found out you were a narc, and consequently had beaten the pee out of you. Then, when you got to the hospital, the basic thing you felt was just gratitude that you'd made it there. All you hoped for was that maybe these people could make everything stop hurting.

  This time was different. Dannerman had never before gone into a hospital when there was actually nothing wrong with him at all, and when the reason he was there was to let somebody chop holes into parts of his head where neurosurgeons hesitated to cut. Where, if they made one little slip, pow!, your brain was tapioca.

  What made it worse-not that Dannerman required that it be made -was that the somebody who was about to stab him in the worse spinal cord wasn't even a human being. It was a two-meter-tall golem, with a lot more arms than seemed reasonable, from some preposterous part of outer space. The damn thing wasn't even looking at Dannerman as it stood impassive in the lurching Bureau van. It wasn't looking at anything. It seemed to be in a standing-up coma. And it smelled terrible.

  The party had waited until after dark to make the trip to Walter Reed. Darkness wasn't perfect security. It wouldn't stop any professional snoop from switching on his IR scanner that turned any scene into broad, full-color daylight. But it might save them from being observed by some chance-met news reporter or simple civilian gawker who might just happen to be passing by the freight entrance when their little procession of cars slid through the door to the loading dock, and the door descended behind them.

  Walter Reed was meant as a veterans' hospital, but it happened to be really handy to the nation's capital. Presidents and congressmen noticed that right away, and so it became the sort of general all-purpose low-cost medical facility for the nation's top brass. What it didn't have many of anymore was military veterans, because there hadn't been that many wars lately. Now it was mainly the Federal Police Corps which supplied the bodies to fill those ready beds. The Bureau's casualties didn't mingle with shot-up street cops. The Bureau had its own little section, where security was easy to maintain.

  Dr. Marsha Evergood was waiting for them on the dock. She glanced at the pair of aliens, the Doc and the Dopey, with a mixture of skepticism and dislike but said nothing as she led them into an elevator. They made a considerable procession, with the aliens, the three bugged humans and Colonel Hilda Morrisey. The Bureau's advance party had done its job. No one else was in sight. Not in the halls behind the freight dock, not in the elevator, which was manually operated by a uniformed Bureau cadet, not in the short stretch of hallway that led them to an operating theater.

  It was a real operating theater this time, Dannerman saw. The difference between it and the Bureaus Pit of Pain were that this one had actual surgical machinery, some of the pieces faintly whispering and chuckling to themselves, and the glass wall to the gallery was ordinary glass. There was nobody watching in those seats, either.

  Dr. Evergood planted herself at the head of the operating table and peered at the Doc. "How do you want to do this?" she asked the room in general.

  The Doc didn't answer. It simply stood impassively, while Dopey methodically picked up surgical instruments and put them down again in disdain. "So very primitive." He sighed. "Still, we will do the best we can."

  The best we can. That didn't really sound good enough to Danner-man. Involuntary little choking sounds that came from Patrice and Pat showed that they felt the same way.

  There were four or five operating-room attendants in the room, meticulously scrubbed and masked. Though all Dannerman could see of them was their eyes, he was pretty sure that what he saw in those eyes was horror, as the weird little being from space touched their sterile racks with his unwashed fingers. What had become of asepsis? Why, for that matter, were Dannerman and Hilda and the two Pats allowed to enter in their inevitably germ-laden clothes, exhaling their germ-laden breaths, maskless, into the pure air of the operating room?

  Dr. Evergood and Dopey talked for a moment in low tones. Then Dopey raised his voice. "Anesthesia?" he said. "No, of course not, we will have no need for your anesthesia."

  "Hey," Pat said faintly.

  Dopey turned to peer at her. "Have I alarmed you? But there is no reason to fear, this bearer is quite competent. You will experience little or no pain." He paused for a moment for some of that silent communion with the Doc. Then, "He is prepared to commence. Who wishes to be first?"

  Dannerman glanced at Pat and Patrice. Both of them were gazing at him. "Me?" he said.

  Dopey took it as an offer. "Then very well," he said. "If you will simply lie on that structure over there, Agent Dannerman? Facedown, if you please. Yes, that is fine. Do you Dr. Adcocks wish to watch? If not, you may wait outside, but I think you will find it interesting-oh, what are you doing to Agent Dannerman now?"

  Dannerman felt something being draped over the back of his head as the nurses sprang to action. "They're masking the area," Dr. Ever-good said.

  "No, no, that is not necessary. One other thing, Agent Dannerman. Do you wish your actual memories restored in place of the simulations we imposed on you? That would take a bit longer, but if you wish-no? Very well. Then we can begin."

  And they did. Or Dannerman supposed that they did, though all he experienced was the Doc's light touch at the base of his skull, then a sharp sting in the same place…

  And then Dopey was saying, "You may get up now, Agent Dannerman. Which of you Dr. Adcocks wishes to be next?" And next to the operating table Dr. Evergood was incredulously holding some coppery thing in the folds of a surgical cloth, and the two Pats were looking astonished and-well, yes, there was no other word for it- looking terrified.

  One of the nurses took Dannerman's arm and led him away to the recovery room. Once outside the operating theater he pulled his mask off, gazing at Dannerman in wonder. But all he said was, "Holy shit."

  The recovery room wasn't actually much of a recovery room, but then it didn't have to be. As far as Dannerman could tell, he didn't really have anything to recover from. What the room was in the normal course of events was an
upper-floor solarium for the use of ambulatory patients. On this day the ambulatory patients were out of luck, because the deputy director had preempted the space.

  Dannerman was surprised to see that there were two people in it already: the other Dannerman and the Pat from space-not the Patrice or the Pat who had just come from the Bureau's cells, who were still in the operating room; and not the pregnant Pat Five. It took Dannerman a moment to figure out that this had to be the one called Pat One; he was still having trouble keeping them all straight.

  The nurse gazed from one to another of them unbelievingly, then shook his head. "We'll want you for tests and X rays," he said, "but you can just wait here now." And he left, still shaking his head, as Pat said:

  "Are you all right?"

  "I guess so," Dannerman said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Don't ask me what happened. I was asleep."

  "Let me see," she ordered. Dannerman bowed his neck while the others studied the place where there should have been a wad of surgical packing, but wasn't.

  They were still doing it when Patrice came in, rubbing the back of her own neck in the same way. She did have some answers, though. She had been watching while the Doc removed Danner-man's bug. "But I couldn't see much," she apologized. "It looked like the Doc used a couple of the scalpels to open up the back of your neck, Dannerman, but then he just reached in with the fingers of one of his little arms and fiddled around for a while. It didn't take long. Then he pulled this little metal thing out of you and handed it to Dr. Evergood. I didn't even see how he closed the incision up."

  "Let me look," Dannerman pleaded. Obediently the Pat bent her head, but there was nothing much to see. A pair of faint pink lines surrounded her spinal cord just below the hairline. That was all there was, and even those were fading as he looked at them.