Between the Strokes of Night

by Charles Sheffield

  “Hamburg.” Wolfgang whispered the word, almost to himself. “See, that was Hamburg. My sister was there. Husband and kids, too.”

  Charlene did not speak. She squeezed his hand, much harder than she realized. The explosions went on and on, in a ghastly silence of display that almost seemed worse than any noise. Did she wish the screen showed an image of North America? Or would she rather not know what had happened there? With all her relatives in Chicago and Washington, there seemed no hope for any of them. She turned around. On the floor, a mask had been placed over the lower part of Salter Wherry’s face. Ferranti had opened Wherry’s dark shirt, and was doing something that Charlene preferred not to look at too closely to his chest. The assistant was preparing a light-wheeled gurney.

  Dead, or alive? Charlene was shocked to see that Wherry was fully conscious, and that his eyes were swivelling to follow each of the displays. There was an intensity to his expression that could have been heart stimulants, but at least that dreadful glazed and filmy look was gone.

  Charlene followed Wherry’s look to the screen at the back of the room. A fuzzy image was building there, with a distorting pattern of green herringbone noise overlaid upon it. As the picture steadied and cleared, she realized that she was looking at Jan de Vries. He was sitting in a Shuttle seat, a pile of papers on his lap. He looked thoroughly nauseated. And he was crying.

  “Dr. de Vries — Jan.” Charlene didn’t know if he could hear her or see her, but she had to cry out to him. “Don’t try to rendezvous. We’re operating a missile defense system here.”

  He jerked upright at her voice. “Charlene? I can hear you, but our vision system’s not working. Can you see me?”

  “Yes.” As soon as she said the word, Charlene regretted it. Jan de Vries was dishevelled, there was a smear of vomit along his coat, and his eyes were red with weeping. For a man who was so careful to be well-groomed always, his present condition must be humiliating. “Jan, did you hear what I said?” she hurried on. “Don’t let them try to rendezvous.”

  “We know.” De Vries rubbed at his eyes with his fingers. “That message came in before anything else. We’re in a holding orbit until we’re sure it’s safe to approach Salter Station.”

  “Jan, did you see any of it? It’s terrible, the world is exploding.” “I know.” De Vries spoke clearly, almost absently. Somehow Charlene had the impression that his mind was elsewhere.

  “I have to talk to a doctor on Salter Station,” he went on. “I would have done it before launch, but there was just too much confusion. Can you find me one?” “There’s one here — Salter Wherry had a heart attack, and she’s looking after him.”

  “Well, will you bring the doctor to the communicator? It is imperative that I talk with her about the medical facilities on Salter Station. There is an urgent need for certain drugs and surgical equipment — “ Jan de Vries suddenly paused, looked perplexed, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Charlene. I hear you, but I am having difficulty in concentrating on more than one thing just now. You said that Wherry had a heart attack. When?”

  “When the war started.”

  “A bad attack?”

  “I think so. I don’t know.” Charlene couldn’t answer that question, not with Salter Wherry gazing mutely at her. “Dr. Ferranti, do you have time to talk for a few moments with Dr. de Vries?”

  The other woman looked up from her position by Wherry. “No. I’ve got my hands more than full here. But tell me the question, and I’ll see if I can give you a quick answer.”

  “Thank you,” said de Vries humbly. “I’ll be brief. Back on Earth there are — or were — four hospitals equipped to perform complete parietal resection, with partial removal and internal stitching of the anterior commissure. It needs special tools and a complicated pre- and post-operative drug protocol. I would like to know if such an operation could be performed with the medical facilities available at Salter Station’s Med Center.”

  “What the hell is he going on about?” asked Hans in a gruff whisper over his shoulder to Wolfgang. “The world’s going up in flames, and he’s playing shop talk about hospitals.”

  Wolfgang gestured to Hans to keep quiet. Jan de Vries had stated many times that he was unencumbered in the world, an orphan with no living relatives, and no close friends. His griefs should not be for lost family or loved ones. But Wolfgang could see the look on de Vries’ face, and something there spoke of personal tragedy more than general Armageddon. A strange suspicion whispered into Wolfgang’s mind.

  Dr. Ferranti finally turned her head to stare at de Vries’ image. “We don’t have the equipment. And seeing that” — she jerked her head at the main display unit — “I guess we’ll never have it.”

  Salter Station’s orbit had steadily taken it farther west, to the sunlit side of Earth. Now they looked directly down on the Atlantic Ocean. The tiny dark ulcers on the Earth’s face had spread and merged. Most of Europe was totally obscured by a smoky pall, lit from within by lightning flashes and surface fire-storms. The east coast of the United States should have been coming into view, but it was hidden by a continuous roiling mass of dust and cloud.

  And the seeker missiles were still being launched. As enemy targets were hit and vanished from the displays, new bright specks rose like the Phoenix from the seething turmoil that had been the United States, setting their paths over the pole toward Asia. The guiding hands that controlled them might be dead, but their instructions had long since been established in the control computers. If no one lived to stop it, the nuclear rain would fall until all arsenals were empty.

  “Can you put together a facility for the operation?” asked de Vries at last. Unable to see the displays himself, he did not realize that everyone in the central control room was paralyzed by the scene of a dying Earth. His question was an urgent one, but no one would reply. Since the beginning of the day everything had taken place in a slow dream, as though the world around de Vries was already running down toward its final end.

  “Can you build one?” he repeated.

  Ferranti shivered, and finally replied. “If we wanted to we might be able to build a makeshift system to do the job — but it would take us at least five years. We’d be bootstrapping all the way, making equipment to make equipment.” She looked down again at Salter Wherry, and at once lost interest in talking further to de Vries. Wherry’s breathing was shallower, and he was trembling. He appeared to be unconscious.

  “Come on,” she said to her assistant. “I didn’t want to move him yet, but we have no choice. We have to take him back to the center. At once, or he’ll be gone.”

  With Wolfgang’s help, Wherry was carefully lifted on to the lightweight carrier. He still wore the breathing mask over his lower face. As he was lowered into position, his eyes opened. The pupils were dilated, the irises rimmed with yellowish-white. The eyeballs were sunk back and dark-rimmed. Wolfgang looked down into them and saw death there.

  He begin to straighten up, but somehow the frail hand found the strength to grip his sleeve.

  “You are with the Institute?” The words were faint and muffled.

  “Yes.” It was a surprise to find that Wherry was still able to speak. “Come with me.” The weak voice could still command. Wolfgang nodded, then hesitated as Olivia Ferranti prepared to wheel Wherry slowly away. Charlene was speaking to de Vries again, asking the question that Wolfgang himself had wanted to ask.

  “Jan,” she was saying. “We’ve tried to reach Niles. Where is she?” “She is here. On this ship.” De Vries put his hands to his eyes. “She’s unconscious. I didn’t want her to come. I wanted her to wait, build up her strength, have the operation, then follow us. She insisted on coming. And she was right. But back on Earth, she could have been helped. “Now…” Wolfgang struggled to make sense of de Vries’ words. But the frail hand was again on Wolfgang’s arm, and the thread of voice was speaking again. “Come. Now. Must talk now.”

  Wolfgang hesitated for a second, then reluctantly followed
the stretcher out of the control room.

  Salter Wherry turned his head toward Wolfgang, and a dry tongue moved over the pale lips. “Stand close.”

  “Don’t try to talk,” said Ferranti.

  Wherry ignored her. “Must give message. Must tell Niles what is to be done. You listening?”

  “I’m listening.” Wolfgang nodded. “Go ahead, I’ll make sure that she gets the message.”

  “Tell her I know she saw through narcolepsy. Thought she might — too simple for her. Want her to know reason — real reason — why had to have her here.” There was a long pause. Wherry’s eyes closed. Wolfgang thought that he had lapsed into unconsciousness, but when the old voice spoke again it sounded stronger and more coherent.

  “I had my own reasons for needing her — and she had hers for coming. I don’t know what they were; I want her to know mine. And I want her to carry plan out here. I hoped we wouldn’t blow ourselves up down there, but I had to prepare for worst. Just in time, eh?” There was a wheezing groan, that Wolfgang realized was a laugh. “Story of my life. Just in time. ‘Nother day, we’d have been too late.” He moved his arm feebly as Ferranti took it to make an injection. “No sedatives. Hurts — in my chest — but I can stand that. You, boy.” The eyes burned into Wolfgang. “Lean close. Can’t talk much more. Tell you my dream, want you to tell Niles to make it hers.”

  Wolfgang stooped over the frail body. There was a long pause.

  “Genesis. You remember Genesis?” Wherry’s voice was fading, indistinct. “Have to do what Genesis says. ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ Fruitful, and multiply.” Wolfgang looked quickly at Ferranti. “He’s rambling.”

  “Not rambling.” There was a faint edge of irritability still in the weak voice. “Listen. Made arcologies to go long way — seed universe. Be fruitful, and multiply. See? Self-sustaining, run thousand years — ten thousand. But can’t do it. We’re weak link. Fight, change minds, change societies, kill leaders, breakdown systems. Damned fools. Never last thousand years, not even hundred.” They had reached the Med Center, and Wherry was being lifted onto a table all prepared for emergency operations. A needle was sliding into his left arm, while a battery of bright lights went on all around them.

  Wherry rolled his head with a last effort to face Wolfgang. “Tell Niles. Want her to develop suspended animation. That’s why need Institute on station.” The breathing mask had been removed, and there was a travesty of a smile on the tortured face. “Thought once I might be first experiment. See stars for myself. Sorry won’t be that way. But tell her. Tell her. Cold sleep… end of everything… sleep…”

  Olivia Ferranti was at Wolfgang’s side. “He’s under,” she said. “We want you out of here — we’re going to operate now.”

  “Can you save him?”

  “I don’t think so. This is the third attack.” She bit her lip. For the first time, Wolfgang noticed her large, luminous eyes and sad mouth. “Last time it was a patch-up job, but we hoped it would last longer than this. One chance in ten, no more. Less unless we start at once.”

  Wolfgang nodded. “Good luck.”

  He made his way slowly back along the corridors. They were deserted; everyone on the station had retreated with their thoughts. Wolfgang, usually impervious to fatigue, felt drained and beaten. The explosions on Earth rose unbidden in his mind, a collage of destruction with Jan de Vries’ sad face overlaid on it. The morning optimism and the joking inventory of supplies with Charlene felt weeks away.

  He finally came to the control room. Hans was alone there, watching the displays. He seemed in a shocked trance, but he roused himself at Wolfgang’s voice.

  “The missile defense system has been turned off. They were too busy with themselves — down there — to waste their time on us. Your ships will start docking any time now.”

  “What’s the situation?” Wolfgang nodded his head at the screen, where the big display showed the smudged and raddled face of Earth.

  “Awful. No radio or television signals are coming out — or if they’re trying, they’re lost in the static. We tried for an estimate of released energy, just a few minutes ago. Thirty-five thousand megatons.” Hans sighed. “Five tons of TNT for every person on the planet. There’s night now, all over Earth — sunlight can’t penetrate the dust clouds.”

  “How many casualties?”

  “Two billion, three billion?” Hans shook his head. “It’s not over yet. Disease and climate changes will get the rest.”

  “Everyone? Everyone on Earth?”

  Hans did not reply. He sat hunched at the console, staring at the screen. The whole face of the planet was one dark smear. After a few seconds Wolfgang continued back to his own quarters. Hans and the others were right. Soon the ships would be docking, but before that there was the need for solitude and silent grief.

  Charlene was waiting for him in a darkened room. He went and took her in his arms. For several minutes they sat in silence, holding each other close. The pace of events had been so fast for many hours that they had been numbed, and only now did their awful significance begin to sink home. For Charlene in particular, less than twenty-four hours away from Earth and the Neurological Institute, everything had a feeling of unreality. Soon, she felt, the spell would break and she would return to the familiar and comfortable world of experiments, progress reports, and weekly staff meetings.

  Wolfgang stirred in her arms. She lifted his hand and rubbed it along her cheek. “What’s the news on JN?” he said at last. “I didn’t like the look of de Vries.” Charlene shivered in the darkness. “Bad as it could be. Jan met with her this morning, when she had the final lab test results. She has a rapidly growing and malignant brain tumor — even worse than we’d feared.”

  “Inoperable?”

  “Not completely — that’s what Jan de Vries was asking about. There is an operation and associated chemotherapy program, one that’s been successful one time out of five. But only a handful of places and people could perform it. There’s no way to do it on Salter Station — you heard Ferranti, it would take five years of development.”

  “How long does she have?”

  “Two or three months, no more.” Charlene had held back her feelings through the day, but now she was quietly weeping. “Maybe less — the acceleration at launch knocked her unconscious, and that’s a bad sign. It was only three gee. And every facility that could have done the operation, back on Earth, is dust. Wolfgang, she’s doomed. We can’t operate here, and she can’t go back there.” He was again silent for a while, rocking Charlene back and forward gently in his arms. “This morning we seemed at the beginning of everything,” he said. “Twelve hours later, and now it’s the end. Wherry said it: the end of everything. I didn’t tell you this, but he’s dying, too. I feel sure of it. He gave me a message for JN, to work on cold sleep for the arcologies. I promised to deliver it to her, and I will. But now it doesn’t matter.”

  “They’re all gone,” said Charlene softly. “Earth, Judith Niles, Salter Wherry. What’s left?”

  Wolfgang was silent for a long time. In the darkness, feeling his body warm against her, Charlene wondered if he had really heard her. They were both beginning to drowse off, as nervous exhaustion drained away all energy. She felt too weak to move.

  Finally Wolfgang grunted and stirred. He took a long, steadying breath. “We’re left. We’re still here. And the animals, they’re here too. Somebody has to look after them. They can’t be left to starve.”

  He pulled her head to lean against his shoulder. “Let’s stay here, try to rest a little. Then we can go and feed old Jinx. Some things have to get done — even after the end of the world.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Interlude

  For almost four hours there had been no conversation. The three white-garbed figures were absorbed with their particular duties, and the gauze masks imposed an added isolation and anonymity. The air in the chamber was freezingly cold. The workers rubbed at their chilled h
ands, but they were reluctant to wear thermal gloves and risk decreased dexterity.

  The woman on the table had been unconscious throughout. Her breathing was so shallow that the monitors’ reassurance was necessary to tell of her survival and stable condition. Electrodes and catheters ran into her abdomen, chest cavity, nose, eyes, spinal column, and skull. A thick tube had been connected to a major artery in the groin, ready to pump blood to the chemical exchange device that stood by the table.

  All was ready. But now there was hesitation. The three checked the vital signs one more time, then by unspoken agreement went outside the chamber and removed their masks. For a few seconds they looked at each other in silence. “Should we really go through with it?” Charlene said abruptly. “I mean, with the uncertainties and the risks — we have no experience with a human. Zero. And I’m not sure how any of the drug amounts should be adjusted for different body mass and body chemistry.…”

  “What action would you suggest, my dear?” Jan de Vries had been the one who opposed the idea most vehemently when it was first proposed, but now he seemed quite calm and resigned. “Bring her body temperature back to normal? Try to wake her? If that is your suggestion, propose it to us. But you must be the one, not I, to face her and explain why we did not accede to her explicit wishes.” “But what if it doesn’t work?” Charlene’s voice was shaking. “Look at our record. It’s so risky. We’ve had Jinx in that mode for only three weeks.” “And you argue that your experience with the bear is not applicable?” “Who knows? There could be a hundred significant differences — body mass, preexisting antigens, drug reactions. And some a lot more improbable than that. For all we know, it works for Jinx because of some previous drug used in our experiments with him. Remember, when we did the same sort of protocol with Dolly, it killed her. We need to try other tests, other animals — we need more time.”