Aftermath

by Charles Sheffield

  "Why would anyone except us do that?" But Art was following the beam of Seth's flashlight, and now he saw it, too. A drawer, all the way along, was open and empty.

  "We knew somebody was here before us," Dana said. "We shouldn't be surprised."

  "And they weren't after Guest. That's good news." Seth had moved along to examine the ID on the other drawer. "The name's sort of familiar but I can't place it. Who the devil is Pearl Lazenby?"

  "I don't know. Whoever she is, she should have been iced down for a long time." Art pointed to the date. "2670. Somebody didn't want her around for a while. She's out of here way ahead of time."

  "She was the leader of that big religious group," Dana said. "The Legion of Argos. Her people didn't use her real name much, that's why you didn't recognize it. They called her 'The Eye of God' and they said she could foresee the future."

  "That woman!" Seth closed the drawer. "Then she oughta be in here forever. Her group killed a ton of people. It wasn't a religion, it was a cult."

  "Your cult, my religion. The Legion of Argos certainly got one thing right. They prophesied a coming disaster." Art unwrapped the cloth from his face. "I think we can manage without these—even you, Dana.

  "But our problem isn't solved. How do we find Oliver Guest?"

  "The hard way. We look at every drawer." Seth started walking. "Come on."

  Art did the arithmetic as he followed. Eleven thousand prisoners in judicial sleep at this facility. Twelve levels occupied. They might have to examine close to a thousand IDs if the prisoners were spread evenly.

  But what better way to spend your time? Art walked behind the other two in silence, up and down each aisle, checking to make sure nothing was missed.

  Five aisles covered, out of a total of ten. They crossed to the other side. A sixth, and Art began to wonder what they would do next. Without Oliver Guest the last hope of telomod therapy was gone.

  "Jackpot," Seth said. He was leading, and he spoke so softly and casually that Art, ten yards behind, had no strong reaction. It was Dana's gasp and cry of excitement that brought him hurrying to join them.

  "How about that." Seth was cranking furiously, and his light pointed straight at the ID plate.

  Art read the inscription. 12-0456-97. Dr. Oliver Samuel Guest. 2621. Below it were handwritten words. You are a monster. May all your dreams be nightmares, your final hours agony, and may you rot in hell forever.

  "Not too popular with somebody," Seth said. "And now the real question. Dana, want to do the honors?"

  The body drawer was six feet off the ground. Dana stood on tiptoe, opened the front panel, and peered in. "He's alive!"

  "And we have to make sure he stays that way. Seth and I will have to loan him clothes, otherwise he'll freeze." Art stared around in the gloom. "There must be special equipment to lower the drawer to the ground. But I don't see it, and chances are it's not working."

  "We'll have to do it ourselves." Seth began to reach up, then paused. "I was gonna say, we bring the drawer out all the way an' lower it between us. But that's too risky. Suppose the drawer weighs five hundred pounds? We'd drop it an' kill him."

  "Dana will have to stand on our backs and unplug him. Then—if the publicity about somnol and judicial sleep isn't one big pack of lies—he ought to wake up without any action on our part. And then we can roll him off and lift him down."

  "Yeah. And then it gets really interesting." Seth leaned over, placing the top of his head against the bank of closed drawers. "I'm ready. Your move, Dr. Frankenstein. Wake the monster."

  Dana hesitated. "Do I just unhook everything?"

  "We don't know. I guess so. He shouldn't need any life-support system once he's awake." Art was also bent and waiting. "Use your good judgment."

  "Right." She placed one foot into Seth's cupped hands and scrambled onto their backs. "Though I'm not sure 'good judgment' applies at all if you wake up a man who killed eighteen people."

  * * *

  Dana inspected Oliver Guest with the aid of Seth's little flashlight. His nude body was festooned with monitor cables and sensors and tubes, but after the horror of Desmond Lota's bloated corpse he looked reassuringly normal. He might have been simply sleeping. True, his skull was hairless, and his skin cool to her touch, but the muscles beneath had atrophied little during his five-year coma. The electronic stimulator apparently worked as advertised.

  The spray delivery system worked through skin osmosis, and those attachments were easily removed. So were the twin tubes at the corner of Guest's closed mouth and the sensor at his left eyeball. The harness that held and rotated Guest's body ought to be easy, too; she could just undo the straps. The urethral catheter would be straightforward, and the anal peristaltic activator was already uncoupled from the body. Guest was lucky. Had the gamma pulse arrived during the once-a-month period when that device was in the rectum and operating, he would now undoubtedly be dead.

  The six IVs were another matter. They entered veins at both elbows, at the hips, above the navel, and on one side of the neck. The skin around the six slender tubes was red and slightly puffy. She wasn't sure how to remove them to do the least damage.

  One of the two backs she was standing on moved a little under her foot. "How's it goin' up there?" Seth said from his head-down position below her. "You makin' progress?"

  "I'm going as fast as I can. I don't want to kill him."

  "That's all very well." It was Art, wheezy and muffled. "But you're damn near killing us. You should have taken your boots off."

  "A bit late to tell me. Hang in there." Dana made her decision. She had hesitated because she wasn't sure what to do. Waiting added no information. She unstrapped the harness and opened it, then pulled out the urethral catheter. It seemed to come out forever, but maybe that was normal for a man. Oliver Guest would probably scream the next time he had to pee. From everything she had heard, he deserved that and worse.

  The IVs gave the most cause for concern. She tugged delicately at the one in his left elbow vein, and it didn't move.

  No time for niceties. She yanked harder until it came free.

  Blood? She bent low. A few drops but nothing to worry about. They would wipe him later, once he was off the drawer.

  She removed the other IVs, wincing a bit when the tube in his navel came out snaking and bloodied for a foot and a half. Where had it been connected, and what did it deliver or remove?

  Oliver Guest should be able to tell her, he was a doctor. But first he had to survive and waken from the coma. Was there any change in the infinitesimal rise and fall of the chest? She couldn't see one, though in principle the process of awakening had already begun.

  Dana eased the body to the edge of the drawer until she was afraid to bring it farther. She looked down. "He's in position. Hold tight, I'm coming off. Be ready to catch him—he might slip."

  She shouldn't have said that. Art and Seth straightened at once and reached up to steady Guest's body and make sure it didn't fall. Dana's feet slid off their backs. She tried to protect the flashlight, dropped it, and landed on the metal floor on her tailbone with a jolt that rattled her teeth.

  "Shit!" She rubbed at her backside. "What did you do that for?"

  They ignored her complaints. "Never mind your ass," Seth said. "Get that flashlight goin', an' stand in between us an' shine it up. I got the shoulders, Art got the legs, but we can't see what we're doin'. If we have problems, grab his middle an' steady him as we bring him down."

  It was easy to give orders, but if Dana worked the flashlight crank she had no hands free. Something had to give.

  "Take a good look where you want your holds to be. And then be ready to bring him down in the dark."

  Dana worked the light to its brightest beam, keeping it going until Art and Seth were sure of their holds. She looked where her own grip on the body should be, stuck the flashlight quickly into her pocket, and reached up fast as the light faded.

  Even with three people it was an effort. Oliver Guest was a
big man, and Dana felt as if at least half his weight fell on her. She braced herself, tightened her jaw, and lowered him as slowly and carefully as she could to the floor.

  "He's down." Art's voice came out of the darkness, beside her on the floor. "But where the devil is the flashlight? I can't find it."

  "It's in my pocket. Wait a second."

  By the time Dana had the beam working again, Seth had already removed his jacket and was opening his shoulder bag. "You wearing two pairs of pants?" he said to Art. "Yes."

  "I'm not, and I got no spares. You'll have to come through with that. I'm givin' up my jacket an' a shirt. We have to keep him warm, and he has to be able to travel. How about shoes?"

  "I've got these boots, the ones I'm wearing now, and a pair of regular shoes in my bag."

  "Can he have your shoes?"

  Art bent to examine Oliver Guest's feet. "They'll never fit him—his feet are too big. But he can have the boots. They were borrowed and they're like boats on me."

  "An' I have socks, plenty of 'em. Hey, that's good." Art had pulled a candle from his bag, lit it, and placed it on the floor. "Now we can manage without the flashlight," Seth went on. "Can you get these onto him?"

  He handed a pair of underpants to Dana. She moved to the bony feet and slipped the clothing over, pushing it carefully up the long legs. The calves and thighs were as hairless as the head, some side effect of the somnol or maybe of the long sleep itself. She felt awkward tucking in sex organs so she could pull the underpants up to his waist. His genitals were those of an adult male, but pink and hairless as a baby's. His belly, unless it was her imagination, had warmed a few degrees since she had pulled out the IV.

  Art and Seth had been busy on the upper body. Oliver Guest was now dressed in a shirt, sweater, and a jacket a size too small. Art was working the hands with their long, thick fingers into a pair of black gloves. They moved him to the tiers of body drawers and propped him up there before tackling pants, socks, and shoes.

  "Ain't he a beauty?" Seth said. "How'd you like to find this under your bed one dark night?"

  Oliver Guest's eyes were slitted open and the skin around them had an odd yellowish tinge. That, together with the bald bulging skull and the complete lack of eyebrows, suggested some evil idol from an ancient temple, brooding in the yellow glow of a worshiper's single candle.

  "Come on, Doctor G.," Seth said. "Can you hear me yet? Guess not, but we hafta do this. You'll lose too much heat without it."

  He was holding a green cloth cap with earflaps. He placed it on Guest's head and pulled carefully down until it was only an inch above the narrow eyes. Seth lifted an eyelid and peered at the pupil behind. "Gettin' a reflex reaction to light. He's comin' along."

  The other two were busy at the lower end. Working together they eased Art's spare pair of trousers onto Guest's legs and up to his middle.

  "Too short," Art said. "He's at least three inches taller than me. But it won't matter once we get socks and boots on. They'll come more than high enough to cover him."

  "Quick as you can," said Seth. "Then we done our best. The rest is up to him."

  "I think he's still feeling the cold," Dana said. "I'm noticing a shiver in his foot as I pull on a sock. Do we have any way to warm him?"

  "Not 'til we can get him outside, and he needs to be conscious for that." But Seth took his own blanket from his pack and began wrapping it tight around Guest's body. "Can you do the same with yours? He's a weight. We'll have one hell of a time gettin' him down them stairs 'less he can walk."

  Working together, they swaddled Guest from chin to feet. As they placed him back in position against the bank of drawers, the mouth opened and they heard a faint exhalation.

  "What did he say?" Dana was behind the awakening man, making sure that his head did not bang against the metal of the drawers.

  "Nothing." Art peered at the eyes, open wider now but with eyelids that fluttered randomly and erratically. "I think he was just groaning."

  "That's one thing you never hear when they talk about judicial sleep," Seth said. "They tell you it's not painful when a person goes under, it feels the same as nodding off for a nap. But what about waking up? That might hurt like a son of a bitch."

  "I looked into it four years ago," Art said. They had done everything for Oliver Guest that he could think of, now it was wait and see. "I was down to eighty-seven pounds and my future seemed nonexistent—this was before I found out about the telomod program. I thought maybe if I was iced down for fifty years, by that time there'd be a cure. You know what they told me?"

  "Let me guess." Dana leaned against the racks of body drawers, placed her palms together, and took on the earnest expression of a funeral home director. " 'Although we understand the reason for your request, Mr. Ferrand, you must realize that the extended syncope facilities are built and maintained using public funds. We cannot allow unsuitable and unqualified individuals to be placed there. Have you considered private alternatives?' "

  "You ran into the same jackass as I did!"

  "It looks like it. Aaron Petzel?" When Art nodded, she went on, "I got so mad with him, but it wasn't worth it. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame. He was such a sniveling bureaucrat, he acted like somnol wasn't a restricted drug and private groups were allowed to possess it. I told him that taxes from me, and people like me, built and ran every one of those syncope facilities, and paid his fucking salary as well."

  "What did he say?"

  "He told me not to use such language in his office. I never went back."

  "I did—twice. The next time I said to him, 'Let's get this straight, Mr. Petzel. The only people who can be placed in an extended syncope facility are people who've done something terrible. Is that right?' And he said, 'That is correct, Mr. Ferrand. The extended syncope facilities are part of the criminal justice system of a civilized society.' When I went there again, I said, 'Mr. Petzel, I owe you an apology. Now I understand the way that the system has to work. I'd have to kill somebody or do something really bad to get into an extended syncope facility.' And he said, 'That is correct, Mr. Ferrand.' 'Good,' I said. 'That's what I'm going to do. And you, Mr. Petzel, are going to help me. You'd better keep your eyes open from now on, night and day, because I'm coming after you. I will kidnap you, hide you away where no one can possibly hear you scream, and kill you. You will die very slowly and painfully, and I will record every step of the process. Then I will give myself up. That ought to be enough to get me a long sentence in an extended syncope facility, wouldn't you say?' "

  "Nice." Seth nodded his approval. "You didn't do it, though. Pity, because I'd like—"

  "He's awake," Dana interrupted. "I don't think he can move yet, but look at him. He's listening."

  "That's the way it's supposed to be," Art said. "There's no pain when you wake up, but sensory systems respond before motor systems. He can probably hear us, but he can't answer any questions."

  "How long?" Dana asked. She had her head cocked to one side. "How long before he can stand up and walk?"

  "Half an hour, maybe three-quarters."

  She stood up. "That's too long. We're in trouble."

  "We got half the day still," Seth said. "An' the weather's improvin'. We're in good shape."

  She held up her hand. "Shh. And listen."

  Now Art could hear it, too; a growl of large vehicles driven in low gear, more than one and steadily becoming louder.

  Seth was already by the staircase, peering downward. "Comin' here," he said. "Not that there was ever much doubt, this place is in the asshole of the state with nothin' here but the syncope facility."

  He returned to the group, rapidly but silently. "There could be a whole bunch of 'em. They're sure to have lights. If it's Pearl Lazenby's buddies, they got guns as well. The front door's the only way out, an' they're comin' in that way so we can't use it, even if we could get down there. The front door's busted, too, so anybody will know somebody's here or been here. We can't stick big boy back in his drawer
an' say we're tourists, 'cause he's wakin' up."

  He glanced from Art to Dana. In the candlelight his eyes were like a snake's, lively, flickering, and lighter than usual in their color. "We're in trouble, amigos, like Dana says. Question is, what are we gonna do? We've come too far to give up now."

  23

  Celine had been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and the week before that had been one long effort. Fatigue and the familiar-yet-strange air and gravity of Earth gave to everything a dreamlike halo. She stared at the red utility vehicles in the opened A-frame barn. She could hear running engines and see spouting black smoke behind the rear balloon tires.

  Two of the trucks moved out of the building and came rolling toward them. One woman and one man sat in the front seat of each, apparently identical people dressed in identical tunics. They halted ten yards in front of Reza and Jenny, blocking progress toward the barn. One of the men descended.

  Celine froze, and her dream mood vanished. The man in front of her was holding a light submachine gun, which he swung easily in an arc to cover the whole of her group. The woman in the other truck had a second weapon, raised and ready.

  Celine became unnaturally alert. Who greeted strangers—unarmed strangers, who had made an obvious emergency landing—in such a fashion?

  "You probably think that guns don't work no more," the man said in a Texas twang. "Well, folks, that sure don't apply to this one. You wouldn't like it one little bit if I have to demonstrate. In one minute, you're going to tell me why you came here. First, though, I want you to explain how you could fly that danged thing." He pointed his gun toward the Clark orbiter. "It's recent make, an' it sure has to be full of chips."

  "It is full of chips." Celine disliked everything about the man. Belts of ammunition hung over his shoulders and around his chest. Two handguns sat in holsters at his waist. His smile was fixed, without a trace of humor, and he had the cold, unblinking gaze of Celine's own abusive father.

  "As you can see," she went on, "we couldn't fly the orbiter too well even with working chips. We were lucky to be able to make a landing at all. We need help."