The Tomorrow File Page 34

  I laughed. “Paul, you’re way ahead of me.”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  We estimated it would take about a week for the request to clear Data & Statistics in GPA-1, and another two weeks to be processed by Angela’s Purchasing Department in Washington. If she was going to take the bait, it couldn’t be before late September, perhaps early October.

  I was content to wait. I would be patient. Sometimes anticipation is more satisfying than realization.

  I wasn’t so patient with the preliminary reports Paul was receiving from his Neuropsychiatry Team: the psychological profile of Art Roach. Of all scientific jargons, sociological gobbledygook was the worst. Closely followed by psychiatric guck. I wanted objective judgments. I received such kaka as “anal positive . . . cyclothymic personality . . . severe status orientation . . . probable overcompensating inferior . . . possible paranoiac schizophrenia, etc., etc.”

  In my disciplines, a gene is a gene, a cell is a cell, a virus is a virus, and a brain is never a mind. I wanted their language to be as exact.

  Finally, in desperation, I posed a series of questions, through Paul. The answers that came back substantiated my splanchnic opinion of the em.

  Art Roach was shrewd without being intelligent. He was deeply conscious of the circumstances of his birth—he was a bastard—and his lack of conditioning. To reinforce his self-esteem, he pampered his corpus—mirrors, massages, saunas, laxatives, and nasal sprays. He was motivated by status almost totally. His sadistic sexual behavior served to obliterate his essential belief in his own unworthiness. He was a slave striving to be a master.

  To my question, “If status is threatened, is this object capable of violence?” the answer was unequivocal and mercifully short: “Yes.”

  The private data bank reports on Angela Berri, sent by commercial mail to my father and forwarded by commercial mail to my letter drop, were less revealing. I scanned the background material swiftly: “NF . . . bom in Chicago . . . father a bartender. . .etc., etc. ” It wasn’t important. No one had roots anymore. History was inoperative.

  The quality of her brain had been, apparently, recognized at an early age. She received advanced conditioning, then was accepted by the Science Academy at the age of thirteen. I was already aware of her doctorates and of her career after she entered Public Service.

  Something I hadn’t known: She had been married at the age of eighteen to an em named John Findlay. He had suicided three weeks after their marriage. No details provided. None were necessary. I could guess.

  I spent more time scanning reports of her personal finances and credit rating. At first glance, they revealed nothing. Her total wealth was substantial, but nothing that could not be accounted for by her annual rank-rate. She neither deposited nor withdrew sizable sums at regular intervals. Her expenditures seemed to be what might be expected of an ef with her income. The totality did not form a mathematical model of the greedy object I knew her to be. Until. . . .

  I was scanning an Instox copy of her household insurance policy. I zipped the fine print. It seemed normal. I went back for a slower scanning. Ah! She was paying insurance premiums on more than 100,000 new dollars’ worth of personal jewelry and furs. This in an age when some of the wealthiest efs leased their jewelry and furs.

  The policy had a footnote to this assessment: “See Appraisal Affidavit No. 6-49-34G-2-B

  I searched for this document, but it was missing from the file. No matter. She could not resist adorning her corpus—with gems and costly furs that were hers alone.

  So I believed the insurance policy, without yet knowing how she had managed to cover the purchases of 100,000 new dollars’ worth of jewelry and furs. I was saddened, because greed seemed to me so drab. There are more admirable vices.

  I decided to take the limousine to Washington, D.C. These trappings of official majesty counted for something in the Nation’s Capital. In Manhattan, the new breed of pimps selected the identical vehicles: big, black, sedate, silent, powerful. Tooty cars to drop off street whores along Park Avenue.

  Our chauffeur was a perky, red-wigged ef with the face of a choirboy and a corpus to match. I wondered how much love she had paid the ruler of the motor pool for this cushy assignment. Whatever, she seemed to be happy; her humming never ceased. Finally, Paul leaned forward and pressed the button that raised the bulletproof, soundproof plastiglass partition between driver and passengers. Then he settled back. Mary Bergstrom was seated solidly between us, knees together. So we drove south. Stiff. Rarely speaking. A grim trip.

  At Rehabilitation & Reconditioning Hospice No. 4, we went immediately into colloquy with Group Lewisohn. In addition to Dr. Seth Lucas and Maya Leighton, the Group now included a hematologist, a neuropsychologist, two oncologists, an interne, three nurses, a dietician. We went over the most recent scannings quickly. There had been little change, physically, since my last visit. No grave deterioration, but no improvement either.

  “It’s not the scannings that bother me so much,” Lucas said nervously. ‘ ‘But I think there’s been a loss. The object refuses to let •us test motor ability. So the loss may be psychological. But I’m convinced there’s a growing lassitude there. Maya?”

  “I concur,” she said promptly. “He doesn’t grab my tits anymore. Physical? Psychological? I can’t say. Both, probably. But there’s a definite slowing down. One symptom is a lengthening of verbal response. Nick, we’re with him every day, so we can’t determine its significance. You haven’t seen him for weeks; you’ll be able to compute it easier than we can.”

  “All right.” I sighed. “I’ll take a look. Is he serving at anything?”

  “At something.” The psychologist nodded. “Lots of books, computer printouts, confidential reports. He hasn’t volunteered any information and, of course, we haven’t asked. But his morale is degenerating. No doubt about it. It may be due to his current service or it may be physiological in origin.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” I said. I meant it ironically, but he missed it.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “Is it depression?” I asked him

  “Close to it.”

  “Is he eating?” I asked the dietician.

  “Poorly. We’re giving supplements by injection. When we can. He’s a difficult patient.”

  “The understatement of the year.” I looked at the blood em. “Doctor?”

  “Nothing’s serving,” he said gloomily. “A very stubborn case.”

  Then we all sat in silence a few moments. I was thinking—and I presumed the others were computing along similar lines—how important the survival of this disgusting, magnificent object was to my own career. His life had become my life. I would not let him go without a struggle.

  “The parabiosis suite?” I asked Lucas.

  “Almost finished. Want to take a look?”

  “Yes. Paul, you and Mary and Maya come along. Then we’ll beard the ogre in his den. I thank all of you.”

  The new suite designed for the parabiotic treatment of Hyman Lewisohn had a fatal flaw. I pointed it out as calmly as I could. The purpose of the massive and lovable alteration of three hospice rooms was to shield him from the fact that his veins and arteries had been snugged with the veins and arteries of a healthy “donor” or “volunteer” or “partner” whose natural immunity might help rid Lewisohn’s circulatory system of the proliferation of immature white cells.

  Lewisohn, I knew—we all knew—would not willingly endure this vital linkage. He scorned personal relationships, intimate relationships. They sickened him. He gloried in his independence, in his uniqueness. To such an extent that he rejected every opportunity for friendship. I do not wish to dwell too long on the neuropsychiatric motivation of this em’s behavior, except to point out that his physical ugliness, his achondroplasia, was undoubtedly the gross motivating factor. But unfortunate as that might have been, it may also have been the stimulus of his creative energy. Such things happen.

  In any e
vent, I had no wish to “cure” this psychic twitch. In fact, it was to my interest that he continue to function as before. My only concern was his continued existence and ability to serve. Nothing more.

  So I pointed out to Dr. Seth Lucas that the dividing wall erected between Lewisohn’s new suite and the room in which the donor would reside was much too thin. Sounds would carry. Lewisohn would become aware of some object existing on the other side of that partition through which ran the tubes and wires necessary for the exchange.

  We spent almost an hour planning how the dividing wall might be improved: widening, the addition of insulation, the use of ultrasonic baffles, the placement of Lewisohn’s three TV monitors to mask sounds from the donor’s chamber, etc. Maya Leighton proposed that visitors’ chairs and Lewisohn’s computer be placed on the side of his bed away from the wall, manipulating his attention in that direction. An excellent suggestion.

  Then we all trooped down one floor to examine the patient in his ' present quarters.

  I saw at once what Maya Leighton and Seth Lucas had meant by i the object’s lassitude. His obscene insults were as vituperative as usual. But they came fitfully, in bursts, almost as a duty to maintain his reputation. Or his ego image. But between outbursts were periods of a condition distressingly akin to catatonia: head turned ! aside, eyes unfocused, jaw hanging slackly. That enormous skull seemed more distorted than ever; the corpus had shrunk. Skin on neck and shoulders hung loosely, without tone. Spittle gathered in 1 the comers of his mouth. Maya wiped it gently away. He looked up , at her dully. She took his hand. I watched. His fingers did not curl about hers.

  I remember thinking, bitterly: The bastard is going.

  I introduced Mary Bergstrom and Paul Bumford. He did not acknowledge their presence. Finally, he gathered enough energy to demand of me when he’d be out of this “dungheap.”

  “Soon,” I promised him. “We’re moving you to a new suite. Upstairs. More room. More privacy. You’ll like it there.”

  He cursed me mechanically, then lost interest, looked about vaguely. Seth Lucas fussed at him, watching the electronic monitors. The little white spheres bounced across the black screens or traced graceful curves. Thankfully, there were only minor aberrations. Ping-ping-ping. Ka-voom, ka-voom, ka-voom. Ahh-waa, ahh-waa, ahh-waa. Soft sounds of existence.

  I noted Paul surreptitiously examining a pile of books stacked at the bedside. There was the usual disorder of computer printouts, folders, manuscripts, envelopes with the red tags of restricted material. But I could not believe the em was capable of serving productively in his present state.

  Outside, we held an impromptu, low-voiced colloquy in the corridor.

  “Paul?” I asked.

  “Going.”

  “Mary?”

  “I concur.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Seth”—I turned to him—“you have that list of potential donors from FO’s and hospices. Start bringing them in for serological workups. Begin with twenty. We’ll make our initial choices from them.”

  “Right.”

  “Get a crew on that wall immediately. Prepare to start parabiosis next Wednesday. I’ll come down with a surgical staff from GPA-1 to help you with the hookup. Now . . . where can we get a vodka-and-Smack in this necropolis?”

  They all laughed. Dutifully.

  On our way to the Executive Lounge, I drew Paul Bumford aside for a moment.

  “What were the books, Paul? Alongside Lewisohn’s bed?”

  “I only saw three of them: The Methodology of Modern Revolution. A Psychohistory of Terrorism. And The Roots of Social Discontent. ”

  “Oh?” I said. “That’s interesting.”

  Beds had been reserved for us in Transients Quarters. I could forgo the honor; let Paul Bumford and Mary Bergstrom endure those hard cots. I knew Maya Leighton had leased a small apartment in Hamlet West. I pleaded my need in doleful tones. She had a dinner engagement that evening with Art Roach. I told her what to do: Flash him and cancel it, claiming a sudden medical emergency.

  “And so it is,” I assured her.

  “So it is,” she agreed. “It’ll be wonderful losing him for anight. How much longer do I have to jerk him, Nick?”

  “Three months max,” I told her. “But probably only a month. Maybe a little more. Can you endure?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Maya, your reports have been a big help.”

  “But he’s such a yawn, Nick, such a yawn. There’s nothing to him. After the novelty has worn off.”

  I insisted on cooking dinner for us. It took an hour’s touring of local markets to find a natural steak, four small, sad natural potatoes, a natural Spanish onion. We settled for green probeans, a plastipak of synthetic scallion greens, a half-kilo of prorooms— “Taste-engineered to please the most discriminating palate.” And a liter of actinized brandy.

  It turned out to be an unstructured, improvised, and rather splendid evening. At least, I enjoyed it, and I tried to please Maya. Her profit, being part of mine, most of mine, was important to me. Also, at that point in time, I was in need of mindless bliss. She was always in need of mindless bliss. This is merely an observation, not a value judgment.

  I baked the minuscule potatoes in Maya’s microwave oven, chilled them swiftly in the quik-freez section of her refrigerator, then sliced them and fried them with chopped onions and scallion greens. The steak was microwaved, the probeans and prorooms cooked together, then turned into the frying pan at the last moment for a coating of oil and seasoning. The whole thing was palatable, eminently palatable.

  Perhaps our enjoyment was whetted by the brandy. We attained a level of beaming inebriation and held it for hours, not becoming maudlin, slovenly, physically uncoordinated. But relaxed in an almost floppy state, grinning continually, occasionally teasing, playing like puppies. I could not recall ever feeling such a sense of physical belonging with another object.

  Late in the evening, she leaped from my lap—we had been munching each other—hauled me to my feet, tugged me toward her bedroom.

  “I have something to show you,” she said.

  “You’ve had toothbud transplants on the labia majora?”

  “How did you guess?” she giggled.

  What she had to show me was a shelved cupboard filled with all the paraphernalia of a sophisticated sexualist.

  “Why, Maya,” I murmured, “I didn’t know you cared.”

  “I joined the Thrill of the Month Club about three years ago,” she said. “But I’ve only been collecting seriously in the last year. I have some rare items here.”

  “Rare, indeed,” I agreed.

  Dildos: wood, rubber, plastic, steel; capable of being filled with hot water, metal bearings, mercury; or vibrated electrically or ultrasonically. Japanese Ben-Wa balls; German breast oscillators; French ticklers; US artificial vaginas; British Electro-Cops; inflatable sex dolls, ef and em, life-size, fitted with wigs and costumes, with heat elements and vibrators; coitus splints; molded tongues covered with nodules; clitoral stimulators; penile extensors; desensitizing cremes, lotions, and sprays to delay orgasm; vibrating fingers; dildo harnesses; vibraginas; penis rings; studded penis sleeves; open-mouthed rubber masks; double-vibrators for vagina and anus; purse-sized vibrators; erotic statuary; a “gun” with a penis barrel that “ejaculated” when the trigger was pulled; false breasts; condoms and vibrator sleeves of every conceivable abrasive design; jellies, oils, sprays. And much, much more.

  “I don’t know how they can sell that stuff,” she said. Vestigial morality there. “Isn’t there a law against it, Nick?”

  Her naivete amused me. Yes, there was “a law against it.” Several. But it was deliberate government policy not to enforce those laws. The reason given for the government’s inaction was the doubtful constitutionality of those laws and the subsequent difficulties in obtaining convictions.

  The operative reason why the government allowed—Allowed? Encouraged!—the increasing technologizing of sex was the continui
ng need to achieve and maintain Zero Population Growth. Anything that contributed to Z-Pop was in the public interest. Hence this proliferation of false penises and artificial vaginas (the expensive models trimmed with mink). Similarly, the federal government had quietly passed the word to state and local law enforcement agencies to overlook laws still on the books making homosexuality and lesbianism criminal offenses. Z-Pop was more important.

  “Now then,” I said, rubbing my hands before this cornucopia of mechanical delights, “what shall we start with?”

  Maya had a pharmacopoeia in her nest. I made full use of it the following morning. After a liter of cold water, a vitamin injection, an energizing inhalant, and two methylphenidate spansules, I began in -believe my original diagnosis of ambulatory quietus had been exaggerated.

  The brandy bottle was quite empty, but I found a new half-liter of petrorum in the cupboard under the milk. I mixed a large rum-and-Smack and sipped it while showering and using Maya’s dipilatory face creme. I called for a cab. While waiting, I examined my features in the bedroom mirror. Except for a small bite mark low on my neck, there were no obvious signs of the previous night’s debauch. And certainly no psychic scars.

  Maya was still sleeping. That great, lush corpus sprawled across the rumpled sheet. Tangled hair. Slack flesh. Bruised breasts. Smeared makeup: I heard the doorbell chime—the taxi driver—and bent swiftly for a final lick.

  “Who?” she said drowsily.

  I laughed, and left.

  We took the limo into Washington, Mary Bergstrom sitting between Paul and me, as before. During the trip I questioned both on Group Lewisohn personnel and operations. Generally, their reactions were favorable, though both felt Dr. Seth Lucas, while talented, was too young and inexperienced for the responsibility he held. I agreed, which was one reason I ruled his decisions so closely. Also, of course, if Lewisohn survived, I wanted no doubt as to whom the credit belonged. If that seems egocentric, allow me to point out that I was also quite willing to accept the consequences of failure.

  We pulled up before the old HEW Building on Independence Avenue, now headquarters of the Department of Bliss. Three limousines were parked in line before us. Two were identical to our own hearselike vehicle. The third was a white Rolls-Royce.