Freedom's Ransom

by Anne McCaffrey

  “If you’d help me, Kris,” Eric said, “I have more in my work-room.” He pushed open the door to a small anteroom with work-tops and drawers in wall cabinets, many of which had been opened. As he examined one cabinet, he exclaimed again in relief. “Enough jaw trays, I think, and some of them must fit Catteni-size maws,” he was muttering to himself. He opened a wall cabinet and hauled out some paper shopping bags with the Saks Fifth Avenue logo on them as well as some bubble wrap. “Here, help me package these things, Kris. And I’ve more in the storeroom—I hope.” He pulled out the drawers he wanted her to empty and then disappeared into a closet. “Good, good,” he said, pulling some of the bubble wrap nearer so he could wrap mortars, pestles, and other items for which she had no names.

  “Now, if only Eddie Spivak has anything left, we’ll be in business even in benighted Barevi. you don’t know how lucky I feel right now, Kris;’ Eric said, almost crowing with success.

  “One for our side, Eric,” she said encouragingly.

  By the time they returned to the main office, the men had finished disconnecting the dental chair and had the lift tilted up to take its burden. Zainal was explaining the controls of the apparatus, embedded in one long side of the platform. They secured the chair with the rope that Jelco had tossed into the truck.

  “Hey, don’t use it all on this,” Eric exclaimed. “The drill rig is more important than the chair.”

  “Whyn’t you say so?” Bayes retorted huffily, tugging at a knot to be sure it was firm.

  “See if you can find something else to tie it down with, Kris,” Eric said, waving his hand toward the corridor.

  Kris went out, as much to escape the tension in the room as to be useful. She hadn’t a clue where to find more rope—someone would have found such a prize long before they arrived. But she did find some dusty draperies of a heavy fabric, and wondering that they had been left untouched, she hauled three pairs down. It must have been an attorney’s office, to judge by the bindings on the books on the shelves. It was almost a travesty to have to use the draperies but once back in Eric’s office, she asked him for something sharp to cut with and he provided her with a knife. She didn’t ask what it was originally intended for, but with it she managed to tear the fabric into strips, which she then connected into a rope of sorts. She had yards of it, ready in time for the tower to be secured to its platform. Several of Eric’s wrapped bundles were secured by adhesive tape (which he had also found a quantity of in his stores) to the empty spaces on the lift. They added a scatter of text—and reference books, nurses’ uniforms, and some aprons. There were still more parcels for herself and Eric to carry. Zainal took several from those at her feet and then they felt ready to make the long descent.

  The men, with Zainal showing them how to guide their cumbersome bundles, maneuvered into the corridor and toward the stairwell. Fortunately the powered units were easy to manipulate though the first landing on the way down took some angling, but once they found the trick to it, they proceeded at a fair pace down the stairs. Without the lifts they never would have managed. Even so, by the time they reached the last landing, everyone was sweating and winded, even Zainal. Kris leaned heavily into the final stair post, struggling to slow her heartbeat and pulse.

  “Not as fit as I thought I was,” Eric admitted, wiping his sweating forehead on his sleeve. “You guys have been splendid,” he said, beaming at the team.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dover said in a caustic tone.

  “Free dentistry for your entire family?” Eric asked.

  “If you got to start here, you’d never finish, Doc,” Dover remarked, “but kind of you to offer.” His tone was nearly sarcastic but he caught the look Jelco gave him and nodded his head.

  Their reappearance, not to mention their odd cargo, caused a complete silence in the foyer as they reached the ground floor. A few nasty looks were cast in Zainal’s direction, but he ignored them. The silence continued as everyone watched the levitated heavy equipment float to the front doors. These were glassless but Dover pushed the frames open, hauling the front of his lift with him.

  “Hey, what’ll you take for one of those things?” a bearded man asked, pulling at Eric’s sleeve.

  “No one has that much money,” Eric replied.

  “I wouldn’t insult you by offering you money, man,” was the retort.

  “That’s enough, Mac,” the Cardinal head guard said, moving swiftly between the two men. Kris idly wondered what the man would have offered as she followed the others out of the foyer. The fresh breeze cooled her face and smelled of newly mown grass and other, less salubrious odors.

  “What’s in there?” the guard asked, pointing to the Saks carriers.

  “Oh, there was a sale on,” she said whimsically and deposited them in the truck bed on one side of the dental chair. Her wrists and arms ached from lugging the oddments down so many flights. If they hadn’t had the floats, how would they have managed? With great relief, she hauled herself back into the front seat and reached for the bottle of water that she had seen earlier. She was parched. She handed it to Zainal when he slid in beside her. Murray pulled another container from the door pocket on his side and took a long swig before a whistle reminded him that a guard was clearing the sidewalk and street so they could depart.

  “Where to now?” Murray asked.

  “One-thirteen East Thirteenth Street,” Jelco said, consulting his notepad. “Eddie Spivak’s Dental Supplies.”

  “A snap,” Murray said. “We can go right down Ninth, or would you prefer Broadway or even Fifth?”

  “Most direct route, Murray. We gotta conserve gasoline, y’know,” Jelco said repressively.

  “Gotcher!”

  “Murray, is Macy’s still there?” Kris asked softly.

  “Yeah, but it still don’t talk to Gimbels, which ain’t,” and he bestowed another of his frightening toothless grins on her, reminiscent of Popeye.

  “Oh!”

  There was more traffic on the street now—most of it handcarts, many of them heaped with clothing and rolls of fabric. Kris remembered Floss and wondered what she had to trade for some blue cloth. As they passed a cart, she saw the blue had a huge stain down the middle of the bolt and she shrugged the incident aside.

  They turned left on Fourteenth to Second Avenue and then turned right, and Kris noticed there seemed to be few vehicles. Maybe one-way streets were no longer required as traffic controls. She didn’t remember this area at all, if she’d ever been in it. There were three—and four-story houses, all made into tenements to judge by the fire escapes, interspersed with concrete-block buildings that would house family-owned businesses of some sort. There were two cafes: she could see people at the counters eating whatever it was, and drinking. Coffee? She licked her lips. A cuppa would taste nice right now. Give her some energy. She was beginning to sag with fatigue. She wondered how the rolls were holding up and if there were enough to “do lunch” for everyone. They still had two trays of rock squats.

  “One hunnert and t’oiteen,” Murray said with some pride, pointing to a three- story building that had a storefront clearly marked EDDIE SPIVAK, DENTAL SUPPLIER.

  Eric sighed with relief. Some of the ground-level stores on both sides of the street looked empty from looting. Eddie Spivak’s windows boasted iron grills and there was a pull-up aluminum shutter across the front, a certain deterrent to pilfering. Murray pulled over to the side and instantly people’s heads popped out of the upper-story windows.

  “Neighbors!” he said with some disgust as he turned off the motor. “So?”

  Eric had already vaulted out of the truck back and was running down the narrow walk between Eddie’s and number 115. He pounded on the door.

  “Eddie? Eddie Spivak? It’s Eric, Eric Sachs. Are you there? Open up! Is he home?” Eric craned his neck up, looking through the iron slats of the fire escape at the observers. “I’m a dentist. An old customer of Eddie’s. Where is he?”

  “He’s in. Leastwise,” an old woman
cried in answer, “ain’t seen him or his missus today,” she added warily.

  “EDDIE!” Eric put his hands to his mouth to shout. “IT’S ERIC SACHS!” He rattled the doorknob and then stopped, peering through the grill on the small window set in the door, trying to see inside.

  Suddenly the door was pulled in and an old man stood in the doorway, staring at what to him was evidently an apparition. He had a scalpel in his raised hand that he immediately lowered after recognizing his visitor.

  “Dr. Sachs!” The man came forward, embracing Eric enthusiastically. “I can’t believe my eyes and ears. It’s been years! Where did you go to?”

  “Long story” Eric said, “but do you still have any supplies? I’m setting up my office in a new location and I need a few things … if you have them.”

  “Who’d rob a shop like mine?” Eddie said, shrugging. Then he saw the truck and its load. “You really are moving, aren’t you? Sudden?”

  “Sudden,” Eric said, grinning as Kris and Jelco joined them, Zainal following more slowly. “These are my friends Kris Bjornsen and Jelco. And Zainal behind them is also.”

  “What’s a Greenie doing on this side of the Hudson?” Eddie asked, suddenly half-closing the door as if he feared Jelco might barge into his premises.

  “Escorting us. We had to work through coord channels, you might say,” Eric said with a dismissive flick of his hand.

  “Haven’t done much business,” Eddie said in a gloomy tone. “Who has time for dentistry when the world has gone to pot?”

  “I do,” Eric said. “How’s Suzie? The grandkids?”

  “Suzie’s been ill, and I don’t know where my son, the lazy wretch, has got to.” Evidently the shortcomings of his son was an old topic of conversation between them, but Eddie stepped back and gestured politely for Eric to enter.

  Kris, a spare pack with more than a dozen rolls in it looped over her arm, followed. There was an acrid smell in the air, similar to the one in Eric’s small laboratory. Every profession has a special kind of odor attached to it, she thought.

  However, nothing was wrong with Eddie’s olfactory senses because he sniffed, probably catching the odor of the rolls.

  “I need some porcelains. Some of the good Liechtenstein ones,” Eric said. “The darker shades, if you still have any.”

  Eddie gave a shrug. “Darker shades aren’t that much in demand. Come.”

  He beckoned them farther in and flipped at a wall switch. Lights came on.

  “Well! Whaddya know. Lights. Lights, Suzie. She’s been doing some knitting, you see. Someone supplies the wool, she supplies the hands,” he said, again shrugging off such a necessity. “No one teaches girls housewifely arts anymore, you know”

  The lights showed a small foyer with two stools and a countertop. Eddie lifted the edge of the section near the wall and walked back into an area where he stored his wares.

  “Good to have light. You’ll be able to see the Vitapan shade chart.” He rooted under the counter for a moment and then handed Eric a piece of cardboard with what looked to Kris like teeth inserted around the edges. Eric immediately started examining it, glancing from time to time at Zainal. Then, as if recalling himself to the task at hand, Eric pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket.

  “I gotta list of other things I’ll need. Jaw trays. Sizes one and two, mandibular—oh, twenty-one through twenty-four.”

  Eddie gave a little guffaw. “Whom are you doing dentures for? Neanderthal man? Don’t know if I have any jaw trays those sizes. But maybe I have…” He walked straight to a row of cardboard boxes, neatly extracting one about halfway down with such a deft yank that none of the ones above it were disturbed. It clattered when he put it on the countertop.

  “And some bonding gel. Several tubes of that, please.”

  “Hmm. Got that, and you’re lucky,” he added a moment later, four tubes flat on his hand. “Last I got and who knows when more will be made. Not that there’s such a big demand for this either. Where are you setting up practice?”

  “Botany,” Eric said, then tapped the porcelain teeth. “I’ll have all the colors from B-four through D-three.”

  “Done.” Eddie was pulling out yet another drawer: they could hear the clicking of glass against glass, and then he started pulling individual vials out, setting them on a tray.

  “Next? You don’t know what a relief it is to be back at work,” Eddie said with a huge sigh.

  “Who’s dere wid you, Eddie?” asked a querulous female voice from the small hall that led to the back of the building.

  “Eric Sachs, Suzie.”

  “Eric? But I heard he got transported.”

  Eddie gave Eric a wide-eyed stare.

  “I was, but I’m back, Suzie. Good to hear your voice,” Eric said, raising his to be heard.

  “Oy, Eric, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through,” Suzie said, and a very frail looking woman came into the light of the foyer. Her hair was skinned back from her face and bundled into a neat chignon. She clutched an old plaid dressing gown around her and her face looked pinched with hunger and sorrow.

  “I have a little idea, Suzie m’dear, and it must have been dreadful for you,” Eric said sympathetically.

  “Don’t kvetch, Suzie. This is business,” Eddie said, evidently to forestall a litany of disasters.

  “How’s Molly keeping?” she asked, willing to exchange information as well as kvetch.

  “I don’t really know,” Eric said, darting a glance at Kris.

  “We may be able to find out today,” Kris said, hoping that Dan Vitali might have a connection to the Florida coords so Eric could check the registry lists of the area.

  “So many friends dead, and gone who knows where?” Suzie said, her tone plaintive. “How are you finding clients these days, Eric?” She pointed with a worn and arthritically gnarled hand at the tray Eddie was filling.

  “I find those I can,” Eric replied. “It’s good to contemplate being useful again.” He shot a grin at Zainal, who was still in the shadows of the doorway.

  “Useful is good,” Suzie agreed and sat down abruptly on one of the stools. It rocked under her and Eric steadied her by the arm. She wasn’t a big woman but awkward. She hauled a handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose. “Always a cold. Never am warm enough these days. I could have gone to visit Becky in Florida before it happened. At least I would have been warm.”

  “Stop with the kvetching, Suzie. Who’s been warm this winter? No one.” He evidently asked and answered many questions out loud, for she shrugged and inched herself to a comfortable position on the stool, hugging her thick dressing gown around her. Then she sniffed, looking around.

  “I smell bread. Oh, God, I’m going out of my mind. I can smell bread.” Then she looked at Kris. “I haven’t smelled bread in months!”

  “We have brought bread and some other food to trade for these items,” Eric said. “We thought that was better than money.”

  “Never thought anything would be better than money,” Suzie said, rubbing her fingers together in an age-old gesture.

  Though neither Eddie nor Eric had mentioned paying for the items that were now displayed on the countertop, Kris opened the backpack and, indeed, the odor of fresh bread wafted out. Kris offered Suzie a roll.

  “I baked them myself,” she said, almost apologetically, and passed her a roll. The old woman tentatively reached out for the bread, glancing at her husband as if she didn’t dare complete the gesture until he had agreed. He nodded.

  “Take it,” Kris said and extended her hand until the roll was nearly in the woman’s fingers. They closed on the bread as if the woman was afraid Kris would snatch it away from her.

  “Would you excuse me?” Suzie said, holding the roll protectively against her chest as she backed out of the room.

  Kris placed the backpack on the counter and offered a roll to Eddie, who eyed it as Murray had, with longing.

  “I’ve nothing to offer you to drink,” Ed
die said wistfully.

  “We have all we need,” Eric said soothingly.

  Eddie took another deep breath. “You could charge for the smell of it, you know,” he murmured. “What else?” he asked, hands on the edge of the counter.

  Eric named a few more things, which Eddie scurried to find from his supplies.

  “Now, I gotta tell you I can’t charge it, Eric, though you were always one of the promptest to settle your account,” Eddie said, eyeing the roll. “And two rolls ain’t enough.”

  Kris peered into the backpack. “Fifteen, sixteen rolls.”

  “Well…”

  “And some other food. Zainal, ask Dover to bring in a flat of the rock squats.”

  “Rock squats?” Eddie asked, surprised.

  “A sort of avian from Botany that is very tasty. Game bird. It’s been cooked.”

  “Kosher?” Eddie asked.

  “You’re asking kosher?” Eric said, surprised. He rested a hand on Eddie’s and squeezed reassuringly. “I know God is everywhere and sees all, but you look like you need a few good meals. However, to reassure you, this is a kosher-type game bird and hunted, which is permissible, even if it is alien. Are you going to go kosher on me when I have good food to offer you in return for all this?”

  “We do have gold,” Zainal suggested.

  “Gold, smold, what good is gold with shortages like we got?’ Eddie demanded.

  “You were never that orthodox, Eddie,” Eric said so firmly that Eddie Spivak gave a little shrug.

  “No, but I still got my ethnic pride.”

  Eric blew an exasperated breath out just as Dover came in with the rock squats. He had judiciously covered the tray with one of the clean bread towels. With a flourish, he flicked off the towel to show the browned halves of rock squat.

  Despite long-held principles, Eddie peered at the display. Kris could see his lips moving, not so much from hunger as from counting. The flat held twenty- four portions. And, when he achieved the total, Eddie clasped his hands together, almost reverently.

  “Enough food for days!” he said on a happy sigh. “And the bread, too?”

  “Both. Enjoy and have good health,” Eric said. ” Is this enough for what I have purchased?”