Orbit 7 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  “Oh, Martie. Not like that. I want us to be deliberate about it, to think during coitus that we are really making a baby, to love it then. . . .”

  “Okay, honey. But why now? What made you say this now?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

  “Dr. Wymann, is there anything I should do, or shouldn’t do? I mean ... I feel fine, but I felt fine the other times, too.”

  “Julia, you are in excellent health. There’s no reason in the world for you not to have a fine baby. I’ll make the reservation for you. . . .”

  “Not ... I don’t want to go back to that same hospital. Someplace else.”

  “But, it’s ...”

  “I won’t!”

  “I see. Well, I suppose I can understand that. Okay. There’s a very good, rather small hospital in Queens, fully equipped. ...”

  “Dr. Wymann, this seems to be the only hang-up I have. I have to see the hospital first, before you make a reservation. I can’t explain it. . . .” Julia got up and walked to the window high over Fifth Avenue. “I blame the hospital, I guess. This time I want to pick it out myself. Can’t you give me a list of the ones that you use, let me see them before I decide?” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m amazed at myself. What could I tell by looking? But there it is.”

  Dr. Wymann was watching her closely. “No, Julia. You’ll have to trust me. It would be too tiring for you to run all over town to inspect hospitals. ...”

  “No! I ... I’ll just have to get another doctor,” she said miserably. “I can’t go in blind this time. Don’t you understand?”

  “Have you discussed this with your husband?”

  “No. I didn’t even know that I felt this way until right now. But I do.”

  Dr. Wymann studied her for a minute or two. He glanced at her report spread out before him, and finally he shrugged. “You’ll just wear yourself out for nothing. But, on the other hand, walking’s good for you. I’ll have my nurse give you the list.” He spoke into the intercom briefly, then smiled again at Julia. “Now sit down and relax. The only thing I want you to concentrate on is relaxing, throughout the nine months. Every pregnancy is totally unlike every other one. ...”

  She listened to him dreamily. So young-looking, smooth-faced, tanned, if overworked certainly not showing it at all. She nodded when he said to return in a month.

  “And I hope you’ll have decided at that time about the hospital. We do have to make reservations far in advance, you know.”

  Again she nodded. “I’ll know by then.”

  “Are you working now?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’m having a small showing in two weeks. Would you like to come?”

  “Why don’t you give me the date and I’ll check with my wife and let you know?”

  Julia walked from the building a few minutes later feeling as though she would burst if she didn’t find a private place where she could examine the list of hospitals the nurse had provided. She hailed a taxi and as soon as she was seated she looked over the names of hospitals she never had heard of before.

  Over lunch with Martie she said, “I’ll be in town for the next few days, maybe we could come in together in the mornings and have lunch every day.”

  “What are you up to now?”

  “Things I need. I’m looking into the use of plastics. I have an idea. . . .”

  He grinned at her and squeezed her hand. “Okay, honey. I’m glad you went back to Wymann. I knew you were all right, but I’m glad you know it too.”

  She smiled back at him. If she found the nursery, or the nurse she had startled so, then she would tell him. Otherwise she wouldn’t. She felt guilty about the smiles they exchanged, and she wished momentarily that he wouldn’t make it so easy for her to lie to him.

  “Where are you headed after lunch?” he asked.

  “Oh, the library . . .” She ducked her head quickly and scraped her sherbet glass.

  “Plastics?”

  “Um.” She smiled again, even more brightly. “And what about you? Tonight’s show ready?”

  “Yeah. This afternoon, in . . .” he glanced at his watch, “... exactly one hour and fifteen minutes I’m to sit in on a little talk between Senator George Kern and Hilary. Kern’s backing out of his weather-control fight.”

  “You keep hitting blank walls, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Good and blank, and very solid. Well, we’d better finish up. I’ll drop you at the library.”

  “Look at us,” she said over the dinner table. “Two dismaler people you couldn’t find. You first. And eat your hamburger. Awful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s fine, honey.” He cut a piece, speared it with his fork, then put it down. “Kern is out. Hilary thinks he got the treatment last month. And his wife too. They were both hospitalized for pneumonia at the same time.”

  “Do you know which hospital? In New York?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. What difference does . . . What are you getting at?”

  “I ... Was it one of these?” She got the list from her purse and handed it to him. “I got them from Dr. Wymann’s nurse. I wouldn’t go back to that one where ... I made them give me a list so I could look them over first.”

  Martie reached for her hand and pressed it hard. “No plastics?”

  She shook her head.

  “Honey, it’s going to be all right this time. You can go anyplace you want to. I’ll look these over. You’ll just be . . .”

  “It’s all right, Martie. I already checked out three of them. Two in Manhattan, one in Yonkers. I ... I’d rather do it myself. Did Senator Kern mention a hospital?”

  “Someplace on Long Island. I don’t remember ...”

  “There’s a Brent Park Memorial Hospital on Long Island. Was that it?”

  “Yes. No. Honey, I don’t remember. If he did mention it, it passed right over my head. I don’t know.” He put the list down and took her other hand and pulled her down to his lap. “Now you give. Why do you want to know? What did you see in those hospitals that you visited? Why did you go to the library?”

  “I went to three hospitals, all small, all private, all run by terribly young people. Young doctors, young nurses, young everybody. I didn’t learn anything else about them. But, in the library I tried to borrow a book on obstetrics, and there aren’t any.”

  “What do you mean, there aren’t any? None on open shelves? None in at the time?”

  “None. They looked, and they’re all out, lost, not returned, gone. All of them. I tried midwifery, and the same thing. I had a young boy who was terribly embarrassed by it all searching for me, and he kept coming back with the same story. Nothing in. So I went to the branch library in Yonkers, since I wanted to see the hospital there anyway, and it was the same thing. They have open shelves there, and I did my own looking. Nothing.”

  “What in God’s name did you plan to do with a book on obstetrics?”

  “Isn’t that beside the point? Why aren’t there any?”

  “It is directly to the point. What’s going through your mind, Julia? Exactly what are you thinking?”

  “The baby is due the end of December. What if we have another blizzard? Or an ice storm? Do you know anything about delivering a baby? Oh, something, I grant you. Everyone knows something. But what about an emergency? Could you handle an emergency? I thought if we had a book ...”

  “I must have wandered into a nut ward. I’m surrounded by maniacs. Do you hear what you’re saying? Listen to me, sweetheart, and don’t say a word until I’m finished. When that baby is due, I’ll get you to a hospital. I don’t care which one you choose, or where it is. You’ll be there. If we have to take an apartment next door to it for three months to make certain, we’ll do it. You have to have some trust and faith in me, in the doctor, in yourself. And if it eases your mind, I’ll get you a book on obstetrics, but by God, I don’t plan to deliver a baby!”

  Meekly she said, “You just get me a book and I’ll behave. I promise.” She got up and began to ga
ther up their dishes. “Maybe later on we’ll want some scrambled eggs or something. Let’s have coffee now.”

  They moved to the living room, where she sat on the floor with her cup on the low table. “Is Kern satisfied that no biological warfare agent got loose to start all this?”

  Martie looked at her sharply. “You’re a witch, aren’t you? I never told you that’s what I was afraid of.”

  She shrugged. “You must have.”

  “Kern’s satisfied. I am too. It isn’t that. His committee decided to drop it, at his suggestion, because of the really dangerous condition of the world right now. It’s like a powder keg, just waiting for the real statistics to be released. That would blow it. Everyone suspects that the death rate has risen fantastically, but without official figures, it remains speculation, and the fuse just sits there. He’s right. If Hilary does go on, he’s taking a terrible risk.” He sighed. “It’s a mutated virus that changes faster than the vaccines that we come up with. It won’t be any better until it mutates into something that isn’t viable, then it will vanish. Only then will the governments start opening books again, and hospitals give out figures for admittances and deaths. We know that the medical profession has been hit probably harder than any other. Over-exposure. And the shortage of personnel makes everything that used to be minor very serious now.”

  Julia nodded, but her gaze didn’t meet his. “Sooner or later,” she said, “you’ll have to turn that coin over to see what’s on the other side. Soon now, I think.”

  Julia wore flowered pants and a short vest over a long-sleeved tailored blouse. With her pale hair about her shoulders, she looked like a very young girl, too young to be sipping champagne from the hollow-stemmed goblet that she held with both hands. Dwight Gregor was in the middle of the circle of stones, studying the effects from there. Gregor was the main critic, the one whose voice was heard if he whispered, although all others were shouting. Julia wished he’d come out of the circle and murmur something or other to her. She didn’t expect him to let her off the hook that evening, but at least he could move, or something. She probably wouldn’t know what his reactions had been until she read his column in the morning paper. She sipped again and turned despairingly to Martie.

  “I think he fell asleep out there.”

  “Honey, relax. He’s trying to puzzle it out. He knows that you’re cleverer than he is, and more talented, and that you worked with the dark materials of your unconscious. He feels it and can’t grasp the meaning. . . .”

  “Who are you quoting?”

  “Boyle. He’s fascinated by the circle. He’ll be in and out of it all evening. Watch and see. Haven’t you caught him looking at you with awe all over his face?”

  “Is that awe? I was going to suggest that you tell him I’m good and pregnant.”

  Martie laughed with her, and they separated to speak with the guests. It was a good show, impressive. The yard looked great, the lighting effects effective, the waterfall behind the basket-weave fence just right, the pool at the bottom of the cascading water just dark and mysterious enough. . . . Martie wandered about his yard proudly.

  “Martie?” Boyle stopped by him. “Want to talk to you. Half an hour over by the fence. Okay?”

  Gregor left the circle finally and went straight to Julia. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly, keeping his gaze on her face. “My dear. Very impressive. So nihilistic. Did you realize how nihilistic it is? But of course. And proud, also. Nihilistic but proud. Strange combination. You feel that man almost makes it, this time. Did you mean that? Only one toe restraining him. Sad. So sad.”

  “Or you can imagine that the circle starts with the devastation, the ruins, and the death of man. From that beginning to the final surge of life that lifts him from the origins in the dirt. . . . Isn’t that what you really meant to say, my dear?” Frances Lefever moved in too close to Julia, overwhelming her with the sweet, sickening scent of marijuana heavy on her breath. “If that’s where the circle begins, then it is a message of nothing but hope. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

  Gregor moved back a step, waving his hand in the air. “Of course, one can always search out the most romantic explanation of anything. ...”

  “Romantic? Realistic, my dear Dwight. Yours is the typical male reaction. Look what I’ve done. I’ve destroyed all mankind, right back down to the primordial ooze. Mine says, Look, man is freeing himself, he is leaping from his feet-of-clay beginnings to achieve a higher existence. Did you really look at that one? There’s no shadow, you know.”

  Dwight and Frances forgot about Julia. They argued their way back to the circle, and she leaned weakly against the redwood fence and drank deeply.

  “Hey. Are you all right, Julia?”

  “Dr. Wymann. Yes. Fine. Great.”

  “You looked as if you were ready to faint. ...”

  “Only with relief. They like it. They are fascinated by it. It’s enigmatic enough to make them argue about meanings, so they’ll both write up their own versions, different from each other’s, and that will make other people curious enough to want to see for themselves. ...”

  Dr. Wymann laughed and watched the two critics as they moved about the large stones, pointing out to one another bits and pieces each was certain the other had missed.

  “Congratulations, Julia.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “Oh, no. Not after real critics have expressed opinions.”

  “Really. I’d like to know.”

  Dr. Wymann looked again at the circle of stones and shrugged. “I’m a clod. An oaf. I had absolutely no art training whatever. I like things like Rodin. Things that are unequivocal. I guess I didn’t know what you were up to with your work.”

  Julia nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “I’m revealed as an ass.”

  “Not at all, Dr. Wymann. I like Rodin too.”

  “One thing. I couldn’t help overhearing what they were saying. Are you the optimist that the woman believes, or the pessimist that Gregor assumes?”

  Julia finished off her champagne, looking at the goblet instead of the doctor. She sighed when it was all gone. “I do love champagne.” She smiled at him then. “The stones will give you the answer. But you’ll have to find it yourself. I won’t tell.”

  He laughed and they moved apart. Julia drifted back inside the house to check the buffet and the bar. She spoke briefly with Margie Mellon, who was taking care of the food and drinks. Everything was holding up well. A good party. Successful unveiling. A flashbulb went off outside, then another and another.

  “Honey! It’s really great, isn’t it? They love it! And you! And me because I’m married to you!”

  She never had seen Martie so pleased. He held her close for a minute, then kissed each eyelid. “Honey, I’m so proud of you I can’t stand it. I want to strip you and take you to bed right now. That’s how it’s affected me.”

  “Me too. I know.”

  “Let’s drive them all off early. . . .”

  “We’ll try anyway.”

  She was called to pose by the circle, and she left him. Martie watched her. “She is so talented,” a woman said, close to his ear. He turned. He didn’t know her.

  “I’m Esther Wymann,” she said huskily. She was very drunk. “I almost envy her. Even if it is for a short time. To know that you have that much talent, a genius, creative genius. I think it would be worth having, even if you knew that tomorrow you’d be gone. To have that for a short time. So creative and so pretty too.”

  She drained a glass that smelled like straight Scotch. She ran the tip of her tongue around the rim and turned vaguely toward the bar. “You too, sweetie? No drink? Where’s our host? Why hasn’t he taken care of you? That’s all right. Esther will. Come on.”

  She tilted when she moved and he steadied her. “Thanks. Who’re you, by the way?”

  “I’m the host,” he said coldly. “What did you mean by saying she has so little time? What’s that supposed to mea
n?”

  Esther staggered back from his hand. “Nothing. Didn’t mean anything.” She lurched away from him and almost ran the three steps that took her into a group of laughing guests. Martie saw Wymann put an arm about her to help hold her upright. She said something to him and the doctor looked up quickly to see Martie watching them. He turned around, still holding his wife, and they moved toward the door to the dining room. Martie started after them, but Boyle appeared at the doorway and motioned for him to go outside.

  The doctor would keep, Martie decided. He couldn’t talk to him with that drunken woman on his arm anyway. He looked once more toward the dining-room doorway, then followed Boyle outside.