by Gene Wolfe
Alvard walks to the battered counter in the visiting room. It is his first full day on his feet, and he is proud of the newly regained ability. His face is beginning to fill out again; his shoulders are no longer so sharply boned as they were.
“I can’t give you my card,” the nervous young man seated across from him said, and held it up for him to read. “Jerome Glazer. You were a client of my father’s, and the firm has looked after your estate.”
“Is there any?” Alvard asked.
“Technically there is always an estate—certain property, certain interests—even though it’s often too small to bother with. In your case, your estate—which was considerate—is largely exhausted. Your patent was successfully circumvented about twenty-five years ago; did you know that?”
“I’ve heard.”
“When you were frozen you were legally dead, so the company …” The nervous young man searched for a few seconds among the papers in the attaché case in his lap, then gave up. “The company went to your partner’s heirs. What was his name?”
“Barry Seigle.”
“Right. So your estate consisted of the accumulating royalties from the patent, which—fortunately—was in your name rather than the company’s. Could I ask why you killed him, by the way? I’ve always wondered.”
“Sooner or later,” Alvard told him, “the time comes when the man with the money wants to get rid of the man with the ideas. I was the man with the ideas.”
“He was trying to crowd you out? Listen, I’m sorry if I upset you—it was a long time ago now.”
“Not for me,” Alvard said.
“I understand. It’s just that I more or less grew up with the case—my father used to talk about the various court fights over the patent, and the cost of keeping you cryogenically preserved, and so on. Your life has been the background of my life, in a way.”
“Your father’s dead?”
The young man shrugged.
It was a helpless, hopeless kind of shrug, and Alvard asked again, “Your father’s dead?”
“He’s gone. It used—when C.T. was newer—to happen a lot. A man, you have to realize, like Dad …”
“Yes?”
“A man like Dad would work, as he thought, all his life … in something. Dad had his law practice. He never took in partners, never tried to be big. He just tried to be the best. Some rich clients to carry the office; a few poor ones so he could feel good about himself; some cases that were out in front of the current state of the law, cases that would set precedents for the future. He tried to be the best.” Glazer had a pimple on the underside of his chin, and he picked at it with the nails of his forefinger and thumb as he spoke. “When the C.T. came in, he had already spent—I don’t know, thirty years, a little less. On his practice. Some criminal cases. Civil suits by individuals, mostly ones with some criminal angle, where it was alleged somebody had forged documents, something of that kind. And the C.T. he got wouldn’t make him young again; just keep him like he was. His digestion was bad, you know, but he played handball twice or three times a week. He was still sexually potent, I think.”
“If he killed himself, you don’t have to tell me,” Alvard said.
“He didn’t—at least, I don’t think he did. As far as we know he just—went away. I think he had the idea that he was going to bum around the continent. A lot of them thought that, you know. I went into his room that night, as it happened, and he had a kind of canvas suitcase-shaped bag, and he was putting a checkered shirt in it. I asked if he was going fishing, because every two or three years one of the rich clients would insist on his going with him, up in Maine. We’ve lost him now—he went to another firm. Anyway, Dad said yes, he was. That was the last time I ever saw him.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll see him again, of course. If he hasn’t been hurt, he’ll come back sooner or later. The ones who set out to travel like that—they don’t usually do it for long. A few years. Sometimes only a few months. Then they settle someplace to spend another thirty years doing something else. I’ll run into him somewhere, perhaps.”
“You’re carrying on with the firm, though.”
“Yes, I’m an attorney. I was going to be Dad’s first partner; now I’m running the show. You don’t retain us anymore because the money’s gone. But I feel we owe you something. I wanted to give you an accounting—I have the papers here—and to tell you I’ll act for you should the occasion arise.”
“It will arise,” Alvard said.
Glazer nodded. “I’ve been thinking of something. You know, I suppose, that just having had C.T. won’t get you out? That was a big issue some years back—whether or not the life imprisonment of an immortal prisoner constituted cruel and unusual punishment. It was decided that the term life was to be construed as five hundred years. But no one has ever ruled on cryogenic preservation. You were legally dead while you were frozen; and we can argue that your imprisonment now exceeds the term prescribed by law. If we win, we might even get you damages in addition to your release. I’d be willing to pursue that on a contingency basis.”
“I see,” Alvard said.
“So it’s much too early to give up hope. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“I expect to be released a long time before the action you’re proposing comes to trial,” Alvard said. “But go ahead with it anyway.”
“You expect to be released?”
“I said so, didn’t I? They’ll be looking for some legal way to get me out. Probably a pardon—but they might come to you, and if they do, you could suggest this business about exceeding the term. It might help someone else later on.”
“Do you mind telling me—”
“Yes, I do,” Alvard said. “In fact I won’t tell you. But if everything goes as planned, I ought to be out in a few months.”
“A few months?”
“Or a few weeks. The thing is already done, actually. I’m just waiting for it to cook.”
“Anything you say to me is a privileged communication.”
“I understand that,” Alvard said. He stood up. “Are you the only visitor?”
“As far as I know.”
“There’s a motel outside the gates. I can’t think of the name of it.”
“The Lodge.”
“Are you staying there?”
Glazer nodded.
“A dark-haired girl, very pretty. A voluptuous figure.”
“I didn’t see her.”
“How about a gray-haired woman? Round face. Kind of a large nose?”
“A lot of those. But there aren’t any other visitors for you—not that I know of.”
Megan Carstensen, fresh and cool and virginal as an asphodel in an ash can, is waiting for him in his room. The wind from the open window tosses her golden hair. “I’ve got good news for you. It’s unofficial still—but good news.”
He said: “They’re turning me loose.”
“Not quite that good.” She laughed. “But the hospital is turning you loose, yes. You’re going to be discharged.”
“Uh-huh.” She was sitting on his bed, so he took the chair.
“That means you’ll be going into a cell in one of the blocks. You’ll still come in every day for an hour or so—outpatient status. I’ve been trying to persuade them that the best way to handle that is to give you a job here. After all, that was what you did before you were frozen. You were an orderly, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Alvard said. “I was an orderly.”
“I wanted to talk to you about your cell assignment. Do you know how it works now?”
Alvard shook his head.
“You get to pick cellmates. If there’s an empty cell, and you and some other people want to have it, you get it. Everyone has to agree, of course. Or if a cell has an empty bunk, you can go into it if you want to, and the people who are already there are willing to have you.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Alvard said, “before I was frozen.”
“It�
�s a relatively new thing. And of course, it’s only for good behavior. If you act up, they’ll take you out and put you in a punishment cell.”
“I don’t know who I could stay with anyway.”
“How about me?”
He stared at her.
“I’m not too bad, am I? We don’t have many cosmetics in here, so you may smell a little sweat from time to time, but I do what I can, and I shave under my arms. Naturally, if you don’t want to …”
“I do, certainly,” Alvard said. “You took me by surprise.”
“I know. Your mouth was open there for a while. I forget sometimes that you date from the period before birth-control drugs made this kind of prison possible.”
“It was possible,” Alvard said. “It was just that no one did it.”
“Anyway, it’s not exactly a honeymoon cottage. There are two other men there now—you don’t have to raise your eyebrows at me like that—but there are four bunks. If you want number four, say so.”
“I’d think that the other men would rather have a second woman.”
“If I say it’s all right, they’ll go along with it.”
“I want to come, certainly. It’s just that this is a bit of a surprise.”
Megan smiled, and the smile made her look even younger—almost like a child. “That’s good. That’s fine.” She patted the bed beside her. “Come here and sit with me. Want a hand up?”
“I can manage,” Alvard said. He stood up with little more effort than he had given to the same act before the cancer had struck, and seated himself beside her. “I have a … friend outside. Will she know?”
“Only if she finds out through the grapevine—but it’s a pretty good grapevine. Inmates tell visitors, and the visitors tell each other, down at the Lodge.”
“She used to be jealous—so did I. But it doesn’t make sense now; she’s too old.” Alvard might almost have been talking to himself. “Barry said she pulled a gun on him once.”
“They picked up most of the guns years ago,” Megan told him.
“She had other men after I was gone. She said so.”
“Did it bother you? Knowing that?”
Alvard shook his head.
“Then you’d probably get along with us all right. I trade around, you understand. But you’ll get yours, as soon as you’re strong enough. In fact, you’ll get more than yours.”
“I’m strong enough now.”
She put a hand in his lap. “Not quite, but soon. You just tell them when they ask you. It’s Two C Sixteen B. Here, write it down.” She gave him the pen she carried clipped in the opening of her tunic, looked around for paper, and finding none, handed him a book from the pile beside the bed. “You can put it in here. They’ll be around in a day or so.”
The book was Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again, and when Alvard opened it to write on the flyleaf, Wolfe’s voice said: “Mrs. Jack crossed the room and stood before the mirror looking at herself. First she bent forward a little and stared at her face long and earnestly with an expression of childlike innocence. Then she began to turn about, regarding herself from first one angle, then another. She put her hand to her temple and smoothed her brow.” A second voice interrupted, cockney and reverent, filled with an inexhaustible sincerity: “She’s Color-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion, and there’s not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.”
Megan noticed nothing; Alvard wrote 2C16B and closed the book.
The warden’s office contrives, without bars or wire or even rumpled gray cloth, to remain an organic part of the prison whole. Her desk, her couch, her private cabinet of mementos, even the scent from the bowl of violets on her small table belong to the official community that yet controls North America; but they are here as ambassadors, feigning a settled luxury in the alien country of steel and concrete.
“This is him,” the guard announced as he led Alvard in.
The warden said, “Good morning, Alan.” And then, “You may go, Sergeant Bonilla. Alan’s behavior has been exemplary—I’m sure we’ll have no trouble.”
Alvard stood in front of her desk, glad that he wore the pressed whites of the hospital. A stranger, a silent man who looked thirty or thirty-five, sat to her left in an armchair; the warden seemed to be pretending he was not present.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “that we haven’t had an opportunity to meet sooner. I’ve been talking to your file, and yours is an interesting case.”
“I always thought so,” Alvard said.
The warden laughed throatily. “Will you shake hands? I’ve found that some prisoners don’t want to shake hands with me.” She rose and extended her hand, which Alvard took. “Good. It isn’t often that we have a person of your abilities here—though I suppose we’ve had you for forty-three years, come to think of it. I’ve got to set up a tickler system to remind me to initiate personal contact with the really extraordinary inmates. I have the feeling we’re wasting you on hospital work.”
“I enjoy it.”
“But you might enjoy other things more. Alan, I’d like you to meet Lon.”
The silent man stood up and thrust out his hand. “Lon Matluck.”
“Lon is from the District President’s office.” The warden looked toward him. “What is the precise title of your board, Lon?”
“The Advisory Commission on Technological Development.”
“Yes. Lon has an offer to make you, Alan. A very attractive one, I think. I’ll let him explain it to you; but I should say in advance that it has the full backing of the administration here.”
Matluck said, “It’s nothing complicated. We want you to do research in your old field—applied cybernetics—for the District. Bernice assures me that her office will see that you are given a space suitable for laboratory use, and that you will be released from any other duties. I’ll coordinate with you, and with her people here, to get you the equipment you’ll require.”
Alvard said, “No.”
“Aren’t you being a little hasty?”
The warden smiled at both of them—she had the beautiful, even teeth of an actress. “I think we have to remember that Alan’s previous work led—at least indirectly—to his imprisonment. It’s natural for him to feel that he wants nothing more to do with it. What he has to realize, however—what we all have to realize—is that that kind of emotion is actually only a form of aversive conditioning. We use the same thing in our rehabilitation programs; but this is accidental conditioning—the research actually had nothing to do with the imprisonment. At some point, a functioning human being has to rise above her—or his—emotions.”
“I won’t do it,” Alvard said, “unless I’m out. Fully out. Set free by a new trial or pardoned. You can talk to my attorney.”
The warden and the man from the District President’s office exchanged glances. Then he said, “Has it occurred to you that you owe something to society? You were the inventor of speaking records—”
“Books,” Alvard told him. “Barry and I applied it to books. You sound as if you’re talking about recordings. And the courts have ruled that I did not invent them; I’ve read the transcript.”
“Nevertheless, you did invent them. You know it and we know it. Your patent was set aside on a technicality.”
“Nice of you to say so.”
“Our country is locked in a paradox. It is necessary that the people believe that they have the right of ownership of property, ideas, and so on—you have to understand that. Yet at the same time, it is vital that the government and the extragovernmental corporations—those whose assets exceed half a billion, let us say—have access to the actual real estate, inventions, or whatever. Thus we have laws of eminent domain, and so on. You have been victim of that essential system—from time to time someone has to be if our civilization is to continue. All right; we admit it and we’re willing to make it up to you now. But not to the extent of condoning murder.”
Alvard asked, “May I sit do
wn?”
The warden said, “Of course. I’ve been very remiss,” and gestured toward a chair.
Alvard sat. “Do you know why I killed Barry Seigle?”
Matluck shook his head and said, “You did kill him, then. I believe you pleaded innocent.”
“By reason of insanity. Yes, I killed him. When I was developing the Genre Jinn—that’s what we called it, and since you’re admitting I originated it, we might as well use the name—Barry Seigle made a suggestion. A technical suggestion. Do you follow me? I had been talking to him about the problem of hard-wiring that much specialized logic into the space provided by a book cover; even with microminiaturized circuit chips to work with, it wasn’t easy. And he made his technical suggestion.”
“I understand.” Matluck nodded.
“Barry handled the financial end. He raised money for us, got the backers, set up our distribution system, handled sales and advertising.”
“I understand,” Matluck said again.
“I did the research and oversaw our production facility. Also, I chose the books we would do. Each book, at first, was a new problem. Eventually I worked out some generalized hardware, but we still had to write a new assembler language program for each. I did that.”
“And that,” the warden began, “is exactly—”
Matluck silenced her with a gesture, and Alvard knew (he had been fairly sure before) who was in charge.
“Later—a long time later, when we were a success and on our way, perhaps, to being one of those extragovernmental corporations you talk about—Barry reminded me of that suggestion he had made. Please understand that it wasn’t a new idea—I had been working in that area before. And in the terms he made it, it was so general as to be valueless. But I questioned him further—it wasn’t the first time he had brought it up—and I found that he actually thought that he was the real inventor. He had let me take the patent out for legal reasons, he said, and because I had a plausible technical background.”
The warden asked, “And you killed him for that?”
“He didn’t know, you see. He didn’t know what had gone into the development. He thought that his stupid, actually useless suggestion had been the key. And I couldn’t take it. I was trying to beat his thick head against the wall, and it was the window instead, and it broke. We were eighty-three floors up, and the windows weren’t supposed to break. All that glass falling—it might have killed a hundred people.”