The Compleat McAndrew

by Charles Sheffield

  He turned to Mac. “Now I think that you should continue.”

  “Well…” McAndrew became uneasy. “I don’t like to criticize other people’s work, you know, and the O’Dell and Thursoe theory is highly ingenious; but it did occur to me that there could be a simpler explanation.”

  “You knew it,” Kugel said flatly. “Knew it before you ever left the Penrose Institute.”

  “No. Everything depended on the experimental results.” McAndrew turned back to me. “You see, Jeanie, the Geotron had been operating at a very precise and very high neutrino energy, a domain that to my knowledge had not been explored before in any detail. It seemed to me that the explanation for the loss of neutrinos could be something as simple as resonance capture. Certain materials, common in Earth’s interior, may have a very high capture cross-section for neutrinos of the Geotron energy. And that could account for the observed difference between production and detection. It would also be a most important scientific discovery, because such a resonance is not predicted by current theories.”

  “Mph,” I said. It meant, Mac, I have now heard more than I wish to know about lost neutrinos.

  But McAndrew, as it turned out, was close to the end. “And there’s a very simple way to tell if I’m right,” he said. “In less than twelve hours we can do an experiment with a modulated Geotron energy, far from possible resonance, and get an instant neutrino count. That’s what O’Dell, Thursoe, and I have been working on. And we are just about ready for final set up.”

  As I said, I’ve known McAndrew for a long time; long enough to interpret what he had just told me: he was all ready to do a neat physics experiment, and for the next half day nothing in heaven or earth would budge him from the Geotron facility.

  That conviction was at once reinforced by Ernesto Kugel.

  “You are of course welcome to remain here during the experiment,” he said to me placatingly. “On the other hand, one of the Administrator’s own staff members suggests that you might find a visit to our new food production plant, a few kilometers away, much more intriguing. He would be happy to serve as your escort.”

  “More than happy.” And dead on cue, Van Lyle was standing at the entrance to the cubicle. “Ready when you are, Captain Roker.”

  It was all fine—and all just a little bit too pat.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I said, “before we leave.”

  “Sure.”

  Inside the stall I sat down on the toilet seat, put my head in my hands, and thought.

  I was uncomfortable. What was the source of my discomfort? Nothing that I could put a name on, except that maybe the leopard had changed his spots a little too completely. This Van Lyle was not the Van Lyle I had known.

  But what then were the dangers? Nothing that I could think of.

  I was being paranoid. I went back out. I gave McAndrew a farewell hug, while Ernesto Kugel looked on approvingly. But as I was doing it I whispered in Mac’s ear, “I’m going to look at the food production center with Van Lyle. If I’m not back in twelve hours, you come after me.”

  McAndrew is not good at this sort of thing. “What?” he said loudly.

  “You heard.” I did not raise my voice. “See you soon—I hope.”

  Earth is an amazing place. It’s a spent force, a used-up relic, a crusted dinosaur that the rest of the System looks back on and shakes its head.

  But it doesn’t know that—or at least it won’t admit it.

  The Malvinas’ food production facility was astonishing. On the seabed, powered by abundant fusion energy and with nothing but the raw elements as working material, the production center was making foodstuffs as good as any I’d tasted through the whole system. No wonder that Earth, with a ten thousand year supply of primordial methane promised by Ernesto Kugel, wanted to renege on supply contracts. It had little interest in what it saw as extortion from the Outer System.

  Earth looked like—dare I say it?—the planet of the future.

  Maybe it was that, the total unreality of the experience, that made me lower my guard. Lyle and I were walking through a chamber where vat after vat of synthesized milk and beef extract stood in ferment.

  “We’ll visit the organic recycling center next,” he said. “But first, smell this.” We paused in front of an open container, much smaller than the others. “It is Roquefort cheese. Synthesized, but you’d never know it. Lean over, stick your head in, and take a good sniff. Then I’ll give you a taste.”

  I leaned over the tub. And I passed out cold, without ever knowing that I had gone.

  When I came to I was in a wheelchair, bound but not yet gagged. Lyle was standing at my side.

  “Ah, there you are, Jeanie,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Back with us at last. Are you ready for action?”

  My head reeled, and a cloying smell was still in my nostrils. How long had I been out? I didn’t know, but it felt like an age. McAndrew might arrive at any moment. I had to think, and I had to survive until that happened.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to,” I said, “but I know it won’t work. They’ll come after me.”

  “Will they now?” Lyle cocked his head politely. “Don’t take this wrong, Jeanie, but I think you are mistaken. Though I have to say that I am looking forward to the appearance of Professor McAndrew. The show wouldn’t be the same without him. I also think it would be better for the time being if your mouth were taped, just in case.” And a minute later, “I must say it was a surprise to me that you came here at all.”

  That, I think, is just where we came in. And a couple of minutes later it was Mac’s arrival in a second wheelchair, pushed by Anna Griss herself, that sent me to a final misery.

  “Mac,” I whispered, after he had been rolled up alongside me. I was already full of an awful suspicion. “Where are the others?”

  “Others?” He frowned at me, high forehead wrinkling. “Others? I came by myself.”

  McAndrew had done what I asked him to do—literally. He had come after me. Alone.

  Well, at least there were few illusions left. And when Anna Griss came forward to stand in front of us, there were none. She was, as ever, elegantly dressed, carefully made up, and totally self-confident. She stared at us for a few seconds without speaking. At me, I would suggest, with a total cold hatred; at McAndrew, as at a wayward child who despite the best of advice has gone terribly and incorrigibly wrong.

  “It took a while, didn’t it?” she said. “How long has it been since the Oort cloud? But it finally worked out all right. I knew it would.”

  “You won’t get away with this, you know,” I said. “People know where McAndrew is. They know where I am.”

  “I’m sure they do,” said Anna Griss. “But accidents happen, don’t they? A tour of the recycling facility, an unfortunate entry into a clearly forbidden area…”

  “You’re a monster.”

  “Thank you. But I don’t think I need to listen to that sort of thing. And I don’t need to watch it.” She turned to Lyle. “Put the gag back on the mouthy one. She talks too much. Then finish both of them. Before you do that, I need one more word with you. I’ll be outside.”

  Typical Anna. She wouldn’t watch, she wouldn’t listen; so if there ever were an investigation, for any reason, she could proclaim her innocence. Hear no evil, see no evil.

  She left. But Van Lyle was still there, and he was more than enough. He walked forward, sticky tape in his hand, and stood in front of me.

  “It will be nice to hear you scream, Jeanie,” he said quietly. “I won’t be able to give you all that you deserve, the thing I’d really like to give you. We don’t have time for that. But I can’t wait to hear you grovel. I want to hear you beg, Jeanie.”

  “Maybe you will.” I made my voice quiver. “And maybe you won’t.” He was moving closer. “But if you tape my mouth, you’ll never hear anything from me. Ever. So go ahead.”

  He hesitated. “You’ll beg all right,” he said, “and you’ll grovel. Trust me,
Jeanie. You’ll plead, and you’ll beg, and you’ll scream. Just you wait.”

  He left the room. But he had not taped my mouth.

  Mac’s wheelchair stood right next to mine. “Don’t move,” I said, and I leaned as far over to the left as I could. I could get my mouth down to the cords that bound his right hand—just.

  Undoing knots in thick cord may sound easy. It isn’t, especially when you can’t see what you’re doing, you’re in a desperate hurry, and you have to work only with your mouth. The lips are very sensitive organs, but we are visual animals. I felt with my tongue and lips, tugged and twisted with my teeth, and was convinced that I was getting nowhere.

  I forced myself to remain calm, to be patient, to pull gently instead of tearing and biting. McAndrew did not move, even when my teeth were catching more of his flesh than the cords.

  It took forever before I felt the first loosening, a knot responding to my quivering mouth. But then it came faster. The second knot seemed easy. At last Mac’s right hand was free.

  “Right,” he grunted. “I’ll have us out in a minute.” He reached across to his other hand, with the loose bonds still on his right wrist. As he worked on his left hand, I craned my head around to watch for the return of Van Lyle.

  “Getting it,” Mac said at last. But his legs were still tied when I saw the door opening.

  “No more,” I whispered. The two of us sat frozen as Van Lyle walked again in front of us. Mac had left the cords around both wrists, and his forearms rested on the arms of the wheelchair. It looked as though he was securely tied, hand and foot. As for me, I was still taped like a trussed chicken, arms and legs.

  “So, Jeanie,” Lyle said. “You don’t know if you’ll ask for mercy, eh? Well, I ought to tell you that Dr. Griss left the final steps in my hands. How you go is completely up to me—and to you. Quick and easy, or slow and hard. Do you think you can persuade me to be nice to you? Let’s find out.”

  He moved behind me and pushed my wheelchair forward. Then he came past me, to the panel that controlled the great double doors.

  “Take a look at this, Jeanie.”

  The doors slid open. Pungent fumes rose from the pit that was revealed before me, searing my throat. I saw a great pond of dark liquid, just beyond the doors and a few feet down.

  “Ten seconds in there,” Lyle said conversationally, “and you’d be choking. Half a minute, and your skin would start to peel off. But we don’t have to rush everything like that. You can be dipped in and out like a bit of beef fondue, a toe or a foot or a hand at a time, as often and as slow as I choose to do it. Would you like to beg now, Jeanie? Or would you like to take your trial dip this very minute? Or maybe you would like me to be really merciful, and knock you unconscious first?”

  I could hardly move, but I jerked and screamed and writhed against the tapes, making as much noise as I possibly could. Lyle laughed delightedly. Between us we were making a frightful din. How much of my screaming was genuine panic? I don’t know, but I’m sure a good deal of it was, because my chair was rolling steadily closer to the edge without being pushed. There was a small lip at the very brink of the pit, but it might not be enough to halt the forward motion.

  I was an arm’s length from death—the chair nearing the edge—Van Lyle walking by my side and peering at my face, savoring my expression.

  Then, from behind—at last—came the squeak of unoiled wheels.

  Before Van Lyle could move, McAndrew was on him. Mac had freed his legs and was out of the wheelchair. Smarter than I would have been, he came forward in one silent rush, pushing the wheelchair in front of him like a ram. The edge of the seat caught Lyle behind the thighs at knee level. He fell backward into a sitting position. Before he could cry out he was at the edge. He and the chair went right on over. There was a scream and a great splash. McAndrew halted at the brink, staring down.

  “Mac!” I screamed. I was still rolling.

  He half-turned and threw himself in front of my wheelchair, stopping it with his own body. At the very edge, we both peered into the pit.

  Lyle had gone in flat and facedown. He rose to the surface in a cloud of steam, screaming and clawing at his eyes. As we watched, his hair and skin began to smoke and frizzle. His arms waved and thrashed down on either side of him. Then he went under again.

  The vat was more corrosive than Lyle had suggested. Twice more he rose, howling in agony. But the liquid must have reached his lungs. By the time he went under for the last time he was silent, a dark-green mass that was already losing its human form.

  And while Van Lyle was dying, McAndrew kept tearing at the tapes that held me. I think it was the only thing that kept him from plunging in himself to try to help.

  The tapes were strong, and Mac’s hands were trembling. It was two more minutes before I could stand up, advance shakily to the brink, and peer down into the choking green fumes. I saw a dark vat, with sluggish ripples moving across the surface. About ten feet away from the edge floated an amorphous rounded lump.

  “Don’t look,” McAndrew said. “He’s dead.”

  “Of course he is. But it was his own damned fault.”

  I don’t know how angry I sounded, but Mac winced. “Come on, Jeanie,” he said. “It’s over now. Let’s get out of here.”

  “It’s not.” And then, when he stared at me. “It’s not over. Not yet. Come on, Mac. I may need help.”

  I ran back, through the sequence of chambers that threaded the food production facility like beads on a necklace. Anna Griss sat at a table in the third one, calmly reading. She had just enough time to cry out in surprise before I reached her.

  I lashed out and caught her with my fist high on the left cheek. While she was still reeling backward, partly stunned, I grabbed her in a neck lock.

  “Come on, Mac. Help me. Back to the vats.”

  He wasn’t much use, but it didn’t matter. My own adrenaline level was so high, I could easily have carried her all the way myself. She was faintly struggling when I thrust her into the remaining wheelchair. The sticky tape that had held me was no good any more, but the cords that had bound Mac were enough to tie her.

  I wheeled her to the very edge, so that the acrid corrosive vapors filled her throat and mine.

  “That’s Van Lyle down there.” I pointed to the sodden green hulk, floating almost submerged. “You’re going after him.”

  “Ohmygod. No, no.” She was panting, shaking her head with its newly disordered hair and smudged make-up. “Don’t push me over. Don’t kill me. Please.”

  “You were ready enough to see us killed. Here you go, Anna Griss.” I tilted the chair far forward, so that all that held her from the vat were her bonds. “This is what people get who mess around with me. You’re dead.”

  I put my face close to hers. She was too frightened for tears, but her staring eyes were watering in the poisonous fumes.

  “Say your prayers,” I whispered. “Say goodbye.”

  “No. Oh, please.” She was straining back, away from the deadly vat. “Don’t. I’ll do anything. Anything!”

  “Jeanie!” cried McAndrew.

  “Shut up, Mac. This is between me and her.”

  I moved the chair back a couple of feet and walked around in front of it to gaze into her eyes. “Look at me, Anna Griss. I’m not going to kill you—this time. But one more problem with you and you’re dead. Do you understand? If the sight or sound or smell of you crosses my path again, ever, I’ll come after you. And I’ll get you. Don’t ever doubt that. I’ll get you.”

  She did not speak, but she nodded. I turned to McAndrew.

  “I think she has the message. If she annoys either of us again, she’ll be pig feed. Come on, Mac.”

  “You can’t just leave her! She might go over the edge.”

  “If she goes, she goes.” I grabbed his arm. “No big loss. But you and I are leaving. Come on.”

  He kept turning to look at her, but he allowed me to lead him away. I did not look back.

 
“You wouldn’t have, would you?” he said at last, when we had walked through half a dozen chambers. “You wouldn’t have killed her, no matter what she did.”

  It was obvious what he wanted to hear. “No. I wouldn’t have killed her.”

  “Then why did you do all that, threatening her?”

  “Because I had to. I might as well ask, why did you push Van Lyle over.”

  “But he was going to kill you! I didn’t think—I just did it. Like you when you were screaming, going toward the pit. You just did it. What a bit of luck that was, Lyle leaving your mouth untaped! Otherwise you’d not have been able to scream, and when I ran at him he would have heard me coming.”

  I don’t usually care what credit I get. But that was a bit too much.

  “Mac,” I said. “Listen to me. I’m going to tell you something about the invariants of nature. You have yours for physics and mathematics, determinants and momentum and conserved vector currents. And I have mine—the invariants of human nature: Love, and jealousy, and fear, and hate. Van Lyle was a cruel, sadistic bastard. He was like that when we first met him, he was like that out in the Oort cloud, and he was still like that until the moment he died. He couldn’t change his nature. I deliberately told him that I wouldn’t be able to beg and scream and grovel with my mouth taped. After that there was absolutely no way he’d muzzle me—no matter what Anna Griss told him to do. He wanted to see my terror, and hear my screams. And so I had the chance to free you.”

  McAndrew is an innocent soul. He was shocked silent by what I said. Finally he sighed, and muttered, “Maybe you’re right. But I don’t see why you did that to Anna Griss.”

  “I had to—because in her own way, she’s no different from him. She has her own invariants: power, and control, and fear. Anna won’t hold back on revenge to be nice to anyone. She’ll go on, as far as she can go, until she’s stopped. You and I have just stopped her. But we could never have done that by persuasion, or logic. She had to look death in the face for herself, and stare right down his black gullet.”

  “She could still cause us trouble. She could come after us, on Earth or off it.”