The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Vistata Form

by J. Neil Schulman

  It was time to try it again.

  It was a happy little dance. The blue figure-8 warbled and squiggled its way across the dome and around the edge. It turned somersaults and cartwheels. It metamorphosed into different shapes and sprang back again. It shrank down to a pinpoint, then rebounded into a giant. When it had finished, a red figure-8 began repeating the dance the blue one had done ... and Vera found she no longer had the facility to handle even a simple counterpoint. Her hands and feet just couldn't synchronize. Fugue in Blue tumbled to a halt.

  She tried it again, slower, but it still wouldn't work. She tried it a third time and a fourth, slower each time, with no better results.

  She keyed the laser into standby mode, rested her arms on the console, and lowered her head onto her arms.

  A few minutes, dark and silent, passed like this. But soon, Vera turned off the laser, disconnected it from its console, plugged it directly into the power outlet--bypassing the console's circuit breaker--and aimed the instrument not straight up at the dome's center, but almost horizontally at the wall. It was not the first time she had gone through this procedure. The first time was the day she'd returned home from the hospital after her aborted premiere.

  When Vera released the power dampers and turned the laser on again, it focused its full spectrum in a tight beam with a power output of 86 watts, burning a hole one third of a centimeter in diameter into the wall. Even a meter away from the beam, off axis, she could feel its heat. She was wearing black, she thought dimly; good: black would absorb the entire spectrum.

  She was contemplating the puzzle of whether the beam would continue straight through the black or refract through the skin under it when Eleanor walked into the dome.

  She was also still in her black evening formal.

  Eleanor saw the laser beam burning into the wall, and knew what it meant. She took a breath and said calmly. "If I was able to begin again on the laser after fifty-five years, then you can after sixteen, if you want to."

  "So I can follow in your footsteps again?" Vera asked.

  "I followed in your footsteps," Eleanor said, "when I reasoned that if you had the innate ability to compose Fugue in Blue, I had the same innate ability to attempt Nocturne in First."

  Vera laughed bitterly, and moved in closer to the beam. "I'm surprised you never went to law school."

  Eleanor walked a few steps closer to the Tiger Pit and stopped again. "Then we are different," she said. "I never wanted to."

  "Neither did I," Vera said.

  "If you need to find yourself through art," Eleanor went on, moving another step closer, "there are media other than lasegraphy, in which you wouldn't have to compete with me."

  "I watched you, Mother," Vera said. "You tried them all. Dance, music, painting, sculpture, your Little Holy group. If you couldn't find yourself that way, neither can I. Besides, I'm not looking to find myself. I know what I'd find. You." She moved closer to the beam.

  Eleanor walked slowly to the edge of the Tiger Pit. "This is no answer, Vera," she said.

  "'I never would be missed,'" Vera paraphrased. "Except by Stanton, maybe. Oh, didn't I tell you? We fucked on the way to your party."

  "He told me," Eleanor said.

  "What?"

  "He told me." Eleanor stepped down into the Tiger Pit. Just half a meter more... "We've been drifting apart for years. We've both known it. Perhaps the only thing that's kept us together this long has been the children. Or the tax shelter seven sons provide," she added with bitterness of her own. "We've made plans to separate when I move out to study with Moulton in Pacifica."

  An expression of terror appeared on Vera's face as she realized the full implications. "My Goddess," she shrieked, "I can't even steal your husband, except as his spare part!"

  Eleanor took another step.

  "Don't come any closer," Vera said.

  "Vera, you mustn't do this to yourself," Eleanor pleaded.

  "What are you worried about, Mother? It's more real than I am. I'm just a ghost, remember? It'll go right through me as if I'm not even here."

  Vera moved closer to the laser and Eleanor made her move, trying to push Vera away from the instrument.

  Eleanor fell in front of the beam's path, and the beam burned into her from her shoulder to her waist. She fell to the floor of the Tiger Pit, unconscious.

  Vera screamed. And she never knew whether, in that last instant, her mother had slipped in front of the laser, or whether her mother had lost her balance as Vera had tried to step out of her mother's way.

  Chapter 13

  Vera's screams brought Stanton to the lawn dome quickly. For a brief moment he thought it was Vera on the floor and Eleanor screaming. Then he saw the fire-gem medallion around Eleanor's neck. His expression in that instant, as he realized how much she meant to him, was truly desolate. His first impulse was to sweep the lifeless-looking body of his wife into his arms. But he knew enough of first aid not to assume her dead--or to move an accident victim--so he left her as she was, on her back. Eleanor was not bleeding; the laser had sealed the blood vessels it cut.

  "Quiet!" Stanton ordered Vera, to stop her from screaming; she took a sharp intake of breath and fell silent.

  Fifteen-year-old Mark showed up at the lawn dome seconds after his father. "Don't come in," Stanton told him. "Your mother's been hurt. Get Gramps up and tell him to keep everyone else out of here."

  "Do you need anything?" Mark asked.

  "The robots will get anything. Move it!"

  Mark left as Stanton punched his wristphone for the domestic computer and began barking orders in staccato bursts. "Stanton Darris, emergency priority. Begin sequence. One. Family limousine is to taxi to the lawn dome, soonest. Two. Phone emergency room of Kingston General Hospital and notify them of an injury accident involving a laser at high power. Interrupt sequence--Vera, turn that raping laser off--sequence resume, three. Place me in phone contact with hospital on-duty medic, soonest. Four. Domestic robots are to bring one videophone with medical sensor kit and one emergency medical kit to the lawn dome, immediately. Interrupt sequence." Was there anything else? "Resume sequence, uh, four--correction, five. Place Darris company limousine on standby. End sequence."

  "Readback emergency priority sequence," the domestic computer began. "One, family limousine--"

  "Waive readback. Uh, record in permanent. Stand by. Don't touch her," Stanton told Vera, who had shut off the laser and was now kneeling next to her mother.

  "I wasn't going to," Vera said.

  The family's blue Astarte parked in front of the lawn dome just as Mark ran in, carrying the videophone, medical sensors, and emergency kit. "I thought I told you to stay out of here," Stanton said.

  "The robots were taking too much time," Mark said as he brought the equipment to Stanton.

  "All right, good work," Stanton said. "Now, get out."

  "But--"

  "Now!"

  Mark got out. Stanton placed an oxygenator on Eleanor's nose, then attached sensors to her forehead, chest, and right earlobe.

  With no further action possible for a few seconds, he looked dully at Vera. "What happened?"

  "It ... it was an accident."

  "A lasegraphic instrument can't burn like this by accident."

  "I'd ... set it up that way. I was trying to--"

  Stanton shushed her as his wristphone buzzed. It was the emergency-room physician, a black woman who spoke with an Afrikaans accent. She looked at Eleanor's injuries through the videophone, read her EEG, temperature, heartbeat, respiration, and blood color, then turned back to Stanton. "It's bad," she said. "I'm dispatching an ambulance with paramedic team. We'll know more when we get a look inside. Do you have her medical history available."

  "Our computer has it. I'll transfer it."

  Stanton gave orders to the domestic computer, and a few seconds later the doctor was reading Eleanor's chart.

  The doctor said, "This says that your wife is taking mannitol supplements as part of her ant
igeric regimen. Did she take it today?"

  "If she's supposed to take it, she took it. Eleanor's a fanatic about such things."

  "Her fanaticism may pay off. Next. Whose laser did this? We'll need exact technical specifications."

  "It's my daughter's," said Stanton.

  "I want her to accompany your wife to the hospital."

  "She's only twelve years old," he said. "This is her mother."

  "Can she handle emotional shock?"

  Stanton did not answer immediately.

  Vera said, "Yes, she can."

  Stanton looked at Vera questioningly.

  "Then you'd better get her," the doctor said.

  "I'll do it," said Vera, and she left for the house.

  By the time Joan was roused and dressed, the ambulance had come, picked up Eleanor, and returned to the hospital. Stanton, Joan, and Vera followed in the Astarte a few minutes later. They paced, worried, and drank hot cups of coca mocha in the emergency room's waiting area for most of an hour before Dr. DeVries, the medic who'd examined Eleanor over the phone, invited them into her office, reassuringly.

  She motioned to them to sit, then lit a joynette and seated herself at her desk, ordering her computer to transcribe the conversation. She spoke to Vera first, asking questions about the accident, but only such questions as were medically pertinent; she had no desire to file an official report with the Monitors. Vera told Dr. DeVries that Eleanor had fallen in front of the beam of a lasegraphic instrument putting out its full spectrum at absolute power.

  "That's eighty-six watts!" Joan exclaimed, bewildered.

  Dr. DeVries just nodded, taking another toke. "There was extensive damage," she said, "involving the cardiovascular system, major organs, and bones. Luckily, there has been no damage to the brain, even though it was deprived of oxygen for about twenty minutes." She turned to Stanton. "Your wife was clinically dead when the ambulance got to her. You can thank the mannitol she was taking that we were able to save her. It prevented the oxygen-starved brain cells from swelling against the braincase, which would have crushed the brain to death. But there are some things about this accident I still don't understand. I was under the impression that a lasegraphic instrument puts out energy only in the visible wavelenths and ultraviolet. That sort of damage I can account for--'sunburn' lines from the ultraviolet, coagulation of blood from lines in the greenish-blue. But what I don't understand are burns that look as if they were produced by surgical laser."

  "How is a surgical laser different from my daughter's?"

  "Aside from more power output--except, it seems, in this instance--surgical lasers operate in the infrared."

  Joan bit her lip. "My instrument has an extra line in the infrared--it's called a wolf--at 10,600 Angstroms."

  Dr. DeVries nodded again. "That would explain it. That's right in the range used by many laser scapels. If your laser had been putting out lines only in the visible spectrum and ultraviolet, we might have been able to do more. As it was, young woman, I'm afraid the worst injuries inflicted on your mother were caused by this wolf."

  Joan froze, and even Vera had no idea why.

  Dr. DeVries went on. "I'm afraid conventional treatment is ruled out. But we reintroduced oxygen flow to the brain in time, and Mrs. Darris is now most of the way into controlled hypothermia. That's all we can do."

  "I see," said Stanton. "Then how long must my wife stay here?"

  "I suppose you can take her out anytime."

  "You mean damage was light enough to heal by itself? Eleanor can come home? Is she awake yet?"

  "Why, no," Dr. DeVries said. "She is comatose, with irreparable damage to much of her body."

  "I thought you said you'd saved her!"

  "We did. Oh, I'm sorry. I see you didn't understand. Mr. Darris, we've placed your wife into controlled hypothermia. We're supplying her brain with a cryoprotective artificial blood while reducing her body temperature to four degrees Celsius, where there won't be any further deterioration. Mrs. Darris can remain here like this until you can make arrangements to place her into cryonic suspension, have a surrogate body grown for her, and have your wife's brain transplanted into it. I'd say the prognosis for her complete recovery is excellent."

  "But..." Stanton almost didn't ask the next questions. "How long until the transplant can be performed? Is it possible to obtain an already-grown surrogate body so they could operate immediately?"

  Dr. DeVries shook her head. "For a brain transplant to avoid tissue rejection, the surrogate must have your wife's own genetic pattern, grown from one of her own cells. Since her ova are intact, they will probably grow the surrogate by a parthenogenic process, rather than cloning. The body will, of course, have its brain--except for parts needed for autonomic functions - inhibited in its embryonic stage to prevent personality formation. But a compatible host mother will have to carry the fetus until induced parturition at the sixth month, when a radical lobotomy is performed; then the surrogate is placed in a vivarium until puberty, when the brain is transplanted."

  "'Compatible host mother,'" Stanton said. "Ideally, that's a close relative, isn't it?"

  Dr. DeVries nodded. Stanton looked over to Vera. When she realized that he was seriously thinking of her as a host mother for Eleanor's new body, she shuddered visibly. "I'm opposed to cerebral abortion on principle," she lied.

  "As for how long," Dr. DeVries went on, "I'm not a specialist, so I can only estimate. It depends on Mrs. Darris's genetically predetermined growth rate--age of first menstruation and so on."

  "Can't they speed things up?" Joan asked.

  "I'm afraid not. Accelerating the growth of a surrogate body beyond the natural rate causes progeria--premature senescence and death."

  "Then..." Joan could hardly speak. "How long until I get my mother back?"

  "Give or take a year or two," Dr. DeVries said, taking another toke, "I'd estimate about sixteen years."

  The Darrises' blue limousine left the hospital, minus Eleanor, just after four that morning. The flight back to Helix Vista was just as blue, with the necessity of explaining the accident weighing heavily on Vera, but neither Stanton nor Joan wanting to ask in such confined surroundings. They hardly spoke a word.

  Mark was in the living room, the only one waiting up for them, when they came in. Stanton gave his oldest son the news, then offered both Mark and Joan the sedatives Dr. DeVries had supplied for the family. Mark took his and went right up to bed.

  Joan stayed. She turned to Vera as soon as Mark was in the lift and out of earshot. "I want to know what happened to Mom with my laser," she demanded.

  Vera looked at Joan wearily. "This is no time for an interrogation. Go up to bed."

  "Maybe other people can't tell the difference," Joan said, "but you're not my mother and can't tell me when to go to bed. I'll go when you answer me. Did Mom release the power dampers? Or did you?"

  "I'll tell you in the morning. If your father says I should."

  Joan looked over to her father. "Vera hasn't even told me yet," Stanton said. "We'll see tomorrow."

  "One way or another, I will," Joan declared, then followed her brother up the lift.

  When Joan was also out of earshot, Stanton looked to Vera. "Tell me now," he said.

  Vera took a breath and blinked back tears. "I tried to kill myself. Mother tried to stop me. I guess she was too raping successful."

  Stanton shook his head. "She wasn't successful enough. She left it for me to finish the job."

  Vera looked frightened. "Of killing me?"

  "Of saving you," Stanton said. "Or should I say, saving each other?"

  "Oh, Stan," Vera said, and she fell into his arms, whimpering.

  A few minutes later they took the lift up to what last night had been Eleanor and Stanton's bed, and was now theirs. Neither of them took a sedative.

  It was a short night with little sleep for Stanton, Vera, and Joan, who were awakened by Mark Sunday morning before nine to tell the rest of his brothers the news abo
ut their mother. Mark had already briefed Gramps with what he knew. The twins, fourteen, took the news hard but managed not to cry in front of the others. Nine-year-old Zack and six-year-old Stan Jr., did cry. Collier, four, and Delaney, two, were both too young to worry about their mother's have gone away for a while; "a while," for them, meant anything from a few hours to whenever. They spent the morning, as usual, watching serials on the holy with Gramps.

  Stanton spent the morning on the phone--with his mother, with Wendell, and with his lawyers. He recorded picturegrams to the Colliers and Eleanor's three brothers, and made arrangements for Eleanor to be frozen into cryonic suspension at the Forest Hills Vivarium in Queens.

  After lunch, Vera took Joan aside in the yellow lounge and told her that she'd been very depressed at the party last night, mostly from having had to sentence a young Touchable girl to the ovens earlier in the day, and this combined with smoking too much hash had caused her to try taking her own life in the lawn dome. Their mother, Vera explained, had tried to stop her and had fallen in front of the laser while trying. Vera asked Joan to forgive her.

  Joan hesitated for a few moments, then said, "I'll forgive you when Mom tells me to."