Chief Director Michael Wingate looked at me closely.
“Why do you want an outside opinion?” he asked.
“For my sake, sir,” I said. No expression. “And for yours.” His glance sharpened. You could see the knife edge thinning. And glittering.
“All right,” he said. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll order it immediately.”
He motioned to an aide and began dictating a tape-recorded memo that would result in the convening of a committee of civilian scientists to investigate the present physical status of Hyman R. Lewisohn. And to prognosticate his fate. I tiptoed away while he was dictating. He waved to me as I departed. He was already surrounded by the mob. Seeking his favors. His most precious was, I hoped, waiting for me.
The home of Louise Rawlins Tucker was on Oxford Street, about two kilometers from the place Paul and I leased in Chevy Chase. The house was well-sited; it had a university air: obso red brick, aged ivy, extravagant grounds, an air of staid respectability. Its most salient feature, for my profit, was a walled garden. Now sere, with patches of blued snow still lurking in the shadows. Flagstoned walks. Bare trees and withered brush.
“I don’t like evergreens,” Louise Fawlins Tucker said firmly. “Ah, what is?”
There was a charming arbor. It would, I hoped, be painted in the spring. Before the wild grape sprouted. There were two semicircles of benches: wood-slatted seats about a shallow depression that might have been, once a pond. Fish? Lilies? Anything.
The dinner party was for twelve. Precisely seven ems and five efs.
“Ah, it is best to have two wandering ems,” Louise Rawlins Tucker said firmly.
I had sent, at great expense, natural gladiolus. Enough to fill several vases and metal pots throughout the downstairs area. The splotches of soft color enlivened the dim, somewhat depressing interior. Louise Rawlins Tucker inspected my gift with great favor and thanked me.
“Regardless of what objects hint,” she said, firmly, “you can’t be all bad.”
“And what do objects hint?” I asked.
“Ah,” she said.
We dined, a sedate but pleasant party, from a buffet of adequate but unimaginative dishes. The proshrimp were undercooked, the prolet salad distressingly flaccid. But there was an excellent bowl of natural pasta with a prosauce hyped with what I guessed to be prorooms and natural Italian garlic sausage. Quite good. I had a second helping.
“You’ll get fat,” Grace Wingate said to me.
“More of me for you,” I murmured.
“Awful em,” she whispered. But she smiled.
Other than that brief exchange, we had engaged in no other talk except polite greetings after her late arrival. She spoke to the others; I spoke to the others. Slowly, gradually, I found myself cast in the role of a “wandering em.” I was content, trying to compute the status of the guests.
They all seemed to be acquainted which, naturally, made me feel the outsider. Although I met nothing but gracious thaw and smiling pleasantry. All obsos except for Grace and myself. Two of the ems and one of the efs were Georgetown professors. A Vermont Senator and his wrinkled daughter. An ef from the higher echelons of CULSEC, DOB. Another ef, crippled, a poet who, she told me, composed by a complex word-chess-move code. I couldn’t compute it. She showed me a sample poem she just happened to have with her. I couldn’t compute it.
But I should not carp; they were all profitable objects. Or at least inoffensive. In their tweeds and quilted skirts. Bangles and hunting stocks .Neuter objects. Precisely the background for Grace Wingate ; and me. For our scenario. Might as well suspect that assemblage of I leprosy as of passion hidden in their midst.
The after-dinner drink, as you might have predicted, was medium-dry sherry. The glasses were elegant crystal, just large j enough for an eye douche. I waited until Grace Wingate was ' temporarily alone. Then carried my miniature sherry over to her. “Warm in here,” I said. Brilliantly. :
“Yes,” she said. Distantly. “Isn’t it.”
“There’s a garden,” I said. “I peeped through the draperies. How does one get out there?”
“A side door from the kitchen,” she said. Faintly. “A walk leads ; around.”
“Five minutes?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Bring your cloak,” I said. “It’s cold.”
Carrying that ridiculous sherry, I stalked determinedly through a back hall, past two serving objects in the kitchen. They didn’t even look up when I unchained the side door and stepped out. I was ' wearing a winter-weight zipsuit. But still the cold shocked, tingled I skin. I walked about, apparently inspecting withered shrubs and I frozen lawn. Breathing deeply. Plumes of white. Then I sat cautiously on one of the scabbed benches under the bare arbor.
She was with me in a few minutes. Weiring a hooded cloak that | framed her face. A cloud of russet wool, and those paled features, j She sat alongside me. Billowing down onto the bench.
“Not for long,” she said breathlessly.
“Long enough,” I said.
I maneuvered between her and the house. Anyone watching— why would anyone do that? Want to do that?—would see only my back. Perhaps the top of her head.
I set the little sherry glass aside. I took her hands. She withdrew her arms into the loose sleeves of her cloak so that our clasped hands were enveloped.
“You’re freezing,” she said.
“No, no,” I said. “Not now. First of all, I know you trust Louise. The others?”
“They couldn’t care less,” she said.
“Yes, I suppose so. Grace, I can cope with my own danger. But not yours. If there’s any—”
“You think I care?” she asked scornfully.
I stared at her. It was an instant when, I thought then and I thought later, we came whole to each other. Why else should I suddenly be sickened by my life’s turbidity? The time’s? I wanted lightness, clarity, simplicity, elegance, airy laughter and spidery beauty. I wanted Grace.
“Your husband doesn’t listen,” I told her. “Not really.”
Her eyes widened.
“How did you know? No, not really. He doesn’t. Nick, I have so much to give.”
I may have looked at her in amazement. I would have laughed at that dumb line from a lesser ef. But if absence makes the heart grow fonder, it also makes it more flatulent. I was prepared to believe her; she did have so much to give.
I took by trying to absorb her. Not only somber eyes, patrician nose, soft lips, glistening teeth, sharp chin, stalk neck, but her. We spoke in low voices, short sentences. Exploring. We were emotional archaeologists. Not digging with shovels. Crass that, and counterproductive. But with dentist’s pick, jeweler’s loupe, camel’s-hair brush. Gently uncovering and examining. Learning each other. Sentences getting longer. Voices murmuring off into sighs. Warmed hands clasping tighter.
“I’ve wanted,” she said, “all my life to become devoted. Completely. To someone. Or something. I love Michael. But he’s not the all I wanted. I see that now. I thought Beism might offer what I need. I don’t think so. I need a—a target. Nick, are you a target?”
“I think so.”
“My target?”
“I want to be. But it’s your determination to make, isn’t it?”
“All mine?”
“Well . . . no. But I must change my nature.”
“That’s a great deal to ask,” she said gravely.
“Yes.” Nodding. “But I want to. Grace, I really want to. That’s something, isn’t it?”
We both sighed. Happy with our anguish.
“What is it?” I asked her. Nicholas Bennington Socrates Flair. “What is lover’
She shook her head.
“Devotion,” she said. After a moment. “That’s what it is for me. It may be something else to you. Pleasure. Duty. Whatever. ” “Devotion?” I mused. “To what?” “Oh,” she said. Looking about. “To anyone. Or anything. Worthy.”
“Am I worthy?” I asked her.
; “I don’t know. Yet.”
“Are you worthy? Of my devotion?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she said. “I know.”
“We may die,” I said. Using a word that was not officially approved.
“I don’t care,” she said. Looking again into my eyes. “Do you?”
Suddenly I didn’t.
“No,” I said. Gripping her sweated hands inside the covering cuffs. “It’s meaning, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Meaning. That’s what I want, Nick. Meaning.”
“Love,” I said.
“Love,” she said.
We circled down from our panting high to discuss ways and means. The house of Louise Rawlins Tucker would be our “safe place.” Grace assured me she could arrange for access during afternoons. Servers absent. So we plotted. With the sad acknowledgment of how small plans must bring grand ardors low.
I suppose, later, we stroked palms politely, and nodded on parting. Then we were inside, her cloak was over her arm. I saw the simple chemise of slithery silk. Imagined the living flesh glowing within. Humid scents and clever crannies. I hoped she dreamed the same of me. And thought she might.
About ten days later, I was in Bismarck, North Dakota, addressing the annual convention of the Association of US Historians. I was not about to tell historians that history was inoperative. That it no longer offered precedents. Some of my remarks:
“As historians, you must know that most civilizations have perished. Or are perishing. Birth, growth, stop. It is the fate of most objects and most societies. Some in a wink, some longer. Some by interior rot, some by external aggression.
“But, as you also must know, some political, religious, and social corpora have continued to exist. For aeons. Not in their original form, true. Not with their original structure, laws, directions, methods, goals. But by evolving. Adjusting to new input. It is the one lesson, the one great lesson, history can teach us. Change.
Either change conquers us, or we embrace change, learn to profit from change.
“I am here tonight to discuss with you a change in the Public Service branch of the US Government, the proposed establishment of a Department of Creative Science. I want to suggest how I feel this new Department will change the history of the US and, eventually, change the history of the world. To help us all adjust to new input, and to help us all survive. Because that, essentially, is what we’re talking about—survival.”
And so forth. And so forth.
I was back in the motel. In my room. Lying naked in bed with Samantha Slater. Both of us breathing like long-distance runners. Having had our first offs. One of her amazingly long, slender, hairless legs was clamped between my thighs. Her flesh could have been squeezed from a tube. I hugged it. Just the one leg. It was enough.
My Portaphone attache vase buzzed.
“Kaka,” I said.
I disentangled, got out of bed, stumbled over to the desk. The case continued buzzing while I fumbled about, pulling the curtains, turning on a lamp.
“You’re all red,” Samantha said.
“I wonder why?” I said. I got the case open, switched it on.
“Flair,” I said.
“Nick? Paul here. Go to scrambler.”
“Wait a minute." I pressed the button, turned the code indicator. “What is it, Paul?”
“Nick!” Excited. “I think I may know how they’re doing it. I mean the botulism. In GP A-11.”
“How?”
“Are you alone? Can we talk?”
“Reasonably.”
“Look, tonight I was in the office. Helping to get out the mail. We’ve had a postal metering machine on order for weeks, but it hasn’t come yet.”
“So?”
“So we’ve been using stamps. Licking a stamp and putting it on every envelope. So a few days ago Senator Blarney went into Bethesda for a hernia operation. I guess you scanned it.”
“No. I didn’t. Paul, it’s hardly an item that might excite my interest.”
“Well, look,” he said. Almost stuttering in his frenzy to get it out. “Blarney is important to us. He’s Chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, you know. Well, I thought—”
“Paul, will you get to it?”
"Well, I thought it would be a nice gesture to send him a personal get-well-quick note. From all of us at DCS. You compute?”
“Yes, Paul,” I said wearily. “I compute. So?”
“So I wrote out the letter, handwritten, and addressed an envelope. Mary Bergstrom folded the letter, put it in the envelope, and sealed it. Then she licked a stamp and stuck it on the envelope."
“Paul, what is this?”
“That’s when it hit me! Nick, don’t you see? I haven’t looked into it, but surely there’s a possibility. What if the botulism guck is in the glue on the stamps? Wouldn’t that account for the number of victims in GPA-11? The age range? The scattered outbreaks elsewhere? Tourists traveling through GPA-11 and buying stamps they used when they got back home? Nick, for God’s sake, all the victims are getting the dose from licking US postage stamps!”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“What do you think, Nick? Nick? Are you there, Nick?”
“I’m here,” I said into the transmitter. “What about the infant who stopped? It wouldn’t be mailing a letter.”
“The four-month-old?” he said. Still speaking rapidly. Still stammering with excitement. “One infant, Nick. Well, what if the mother or father wrote a letter, sealed it in an envelope, then licked a poisoned stamp. And then picked up the kid and kissed it on the mouth! That’s possible, isn’t it?”
I was silent.
“What is it?” Samantha Slater asked lazily from the bed.
“Nick?” Paul said. “Are you still there, Nick?”
“I’m still here,” I said crossly.
“Well . . . what do you think?”
“A possibility.”
“What should I do, Nick? Wait till you come back?”
I computed a moment.
“No,” I said. “Don’t wait. If it’s contaminated stamps, there’s still a lot of them around. Get to the CD as soon as possible. Tell him what you suspect. Tell him to bring R. Sam Bigelow’s bloodhounds in on it. They’ll run a search and analysis. Confirm or reject. But do it immediately.”
“Right,” Paul said. “Understood. Thanks. Nick. I really think this is it.”
“Could be,” I said.
“I’m off,” he said.
“Good on you,” I said. But he had already disconnected. “What was that all about?” Samantha Slater asked as I crawled slowly back into bed.
“About licking,” I said.
“How nice,” she said.
Z-6
“Paul Bumford is an ultrabrain,” Chief Director Michael Wingate said gravely.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“A very lovable em,” he said.
I nodded. I was not, I admit too delighted with these tributes.
‘ ‘Paul suggested to me how it was being done, ” the CD went on. “The poisoned stamps. Bigelow’s crew went in and verified it. Fortunately, they were twenty-cent stamps, used mostly on postcards. If they had been the twenty-five cent denomination for first-class postage, we estimate the stop ratio would have had a ten-factor increase. We picked up the unsold stocks of contaminated stamps at post offices and put out a general alert.”
“Public?” I asked.
“Had to be,” he said grimly. “No other way. But the flak didn't last long, and we were able to limit media coverage mostly to GPA-11. Nick, one of the many things this service has taught me is the public’s short attention-span. Fifty years ago a botulism outbreak like this would have been an horrendous scandal. Screaming headlines for weeks. But the Great Stamp Recall lasted in the news for two, three days. Just another catastrophe. We’ve all learned to live with disaster. It’s part of our environment. Drought, famine, crime, earthquake, terrorism, revolution, war, rad
ioactive fallout. If you’ve seen one child bum to death on TV, you’ve seem them all. So what’s new? Too much. Too many words. Too many images. The attention span shortens. It has to. We once thought alcoholism and drug addiction were psychic surrogates for suicide. Then we realized alcoholism and drug addiction are self-defense mechanisms: the object protecting itself from depression, psychosis, or worse. Right, doctor?”
“Right,” I said.
“So our attention span shortens,” he went on. Broodingly. “As it has to. Must. If we are to survive.”
I had never heard him talk at such length. Or so intimately. He seemed to me weary. Physically weary. Kept pinching the bridge of his nose and squinching his eyes. Those jolly Santa Claus features were slack, gray with fatigue. But I would not presume to prescribe for him. I was not his personal physician. It had nothing to do with the fact that I hoped to guzzle his wife.
“The stamps, sir,” I said to him gently.
“What? Oh, yes. The stamps. . . .’’He came back from somewhere. “Well, it’s been determined they were printed here in Washington. The glue on the back is purchased from a commercial supplier in fifty-gallon drums. It’s trucked to Washington, held in storage until needed on the press. The operation is called ‘gumming. ’ It’s done after printing but before perforation. The adhesive could have been fiddled at any step along the way. Bigelow’s objects have been placed in services where they can watch what’s going on. And, of course, the warehouse and printing areas are being shared. I think it was a one-shot thing. Demented. I base that opinion on the absence of any obvious motive. No letters. No threats. No demands.”
“I still feel it may have been an attempt to destabilize the government, sir. Or perhaps in the nature of a laboratory experiment. A trial run to test the technique.”
The Tomorrow File Page 53