Counter-Clock World (15 page)

17

But time present how do we measure, seeing it hath no
space? It is measured while passing, but when it shall
have passed, it is not measured; for there will be nothing to be measured.

—St. Augustine

Seizing a rifle from one of the slowed-down Library guards Sebastian Hermes scampered toward the stairs. As he reached them he heard voices below, echoing up. Maybe they’re below the next floor down, he hoped; he descended rapidly. And found himself unopposed.

The corridor of the next floor down, like that above, teemed with halting, heavily weighed armed men. He saw, as through a glass clearly, Ann Fisher, a great distance off, standing by herself. So he hurried in that direction, evading without difficulty those who languidly tried to intercept him . . . and then, as before, he confronted her; once again she blanched in recognition.

Slowly, matching his words to her time-sense, he said, “I— can’t—get—out. So—I—will—kill—you.” He raised the rifle.

“Wait,” she said, “I’ll—make—a—deal—with—you— right—here—and—now.” She peered at him, trying to make him out, as if she perceived him only dimly. “You—let—me— go,” she said, “and—you—can—take—Lotta—and—leave.”

Did she mean it? He doubted it. “You—have—the—authority—to—order—that?” he asked.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“But I’m taking you along,” he said. “Until she and I are out of here.”

“Pardon?” She strained, trying to follow his too-rapid discourse. “Okay,” she said finally, evidently having deciphered what he had said. She seemed fatalistically resigned; surprisingly so.

“You’re afraid,” he said.

“Well
of course
I am.” Astonishingly, her speech did not seem slowed, now; evidently the injection had begun to wear off. “You come bursting in here and running about berserk, lobbing grenades and threatening everyone. I want to get you out of the Library and I don’t care how I do it.” She spoke, then, into her lapel microphone. “Put Lotta Hermes into an aircar on the roof. I’ll join her there.”

“You have the authority?” he asked, amazed.

“My father is pro tem Chairman of the Erad Council. And you’ve met my mother. Shall we go up to the roof?” She seemed calmer now, with a good deal of her old poise. “I don’t want to get killed by some psychotic,” she said patiently. “I know you, don’t forget. I just happened to be very much afraid you’d do this, exactly what you’ve done. I would have stayed away from the Library entirely, but in the present complex situation—”

“Let’s get up to the roof,” he interrupted. “Come on.” He goaded her, with the rifle, toward the nearby elevator.

“Calm down,” Ann said, frowning reprovingly. “Nothing’s going to happen except for what we agreed on: Lotta will be waiting. If you go mad and fire off that rifle it’s she that might be killed, and you don’t want that.”

“No,” he agreed. She was right; he had, now, to get control of himself. The elevator arrived and Ann Fisher motioned the armed guards out of it. “Get lost,” she told them brusquely. “Guns,” she said disdainfully to Sebastian as he and she ascended. “And the kind of people who use them. Compensates for a weak ego. Look at you with that thing; all of a sudden you’re not afraid of anything, because you can make anyone do anything you want. Vox dei, as the Udi commandos call guns. The voice of God.” She reflected. “I suppose it was a mistake to seize your wife and detain her for a second time; we were pressing our luck.”

“Killing Officer Tinbane,” Sebastian said, “was a dreadful act of wanton cruelty. What did he ever do to you?”

“He did what you did,” Ann Fisher said. “He burst in here with a gun and shot it out with a few harmless old Erads— unarmed Erads.”

“Vengeance for that,” Sebastian said bitterly. “I assume you’re going to go after me, now, for what I’ve done today. Until you get me, too.”

“We’ll see,” Ann Fisher said with tranquillity. “The Council will have to meet and vote on it. Or else they can vote to let me make the decision.” She eyed him.

“The Library,” he said, “respects violence.”

“Oh yes; we certainly do. In fact we’re very much afraid of it; we know what it can accomplish. We employ it ourselves, not gladly, but in admission of its efficacy. Look what
you
accomplished, today.” They had reached the roof; the elevator had stopped and the doors now slid soundlessly open. “Where did you get that rifle?” she asked curiously. “It looks like one of ours.”

“It is,” he said. “I came here unarmed.”

“Well,” Ann said resignedly, “guns have no loyalty; they’re not like dogs.” The two of them stepped out onto the Library’s roof field. “There she is,” Ann said, straining to see. “They’re just leaving her off. Come on.” She strode long-legged ahead of him; he hurried to catch up. The guards who had brought Lotta to the roof field furtively ducked off and disappeared; he paid no attention to them: Ann Fisher and his wife alone concerned him.

As soon as he and Ann reached the parked aircar, Lotta said, “Did you get the Anarch out, Sebastian? I overheard them talking; they have him down there, too.”

At once Ann Fisher said briskly, “No deal on that.”

Stoically, Sebastian herded her into the front seat of his car, got in behind the wheel, and handed Lotta the rifle. “Keep this pointed at Miss Fisher,” he instructed her.

Hesitantly, Lotta said, “I—”

“Your life,” he said, “depends on it, and so does mine. Remember what they did to Joe Tinbane? It was this woman’s decision to do that; she gave the order. Now will you keep the rifle pointed at her?”

“Yes,” Lotta whispered; he saw the barrel of the rifle come up: realization about Joe Tinbane had done it. “But what about the Anarch?” she asked again.

“I can’t get him out,” Sebastian said, his voice rising hoarsely. “I can’t work miracles. I’m incredibly lucky to get you and me out. So will you lay off me?”

Behind him, Lotta nodded in mute obedience.

He turned on the car’s motor and in a moment they were in the air above the Library, joining in with the mid-morning shoppers’ traffic.

Parking briefly on the roof of a downtown public building Sebastian Hermes let off Ann Fisher—taking her lapel microphone with him. Again he sent the aircar up into the sky; he and Lotta rode in silence for a time and then Lotta said, “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“I was lucky,” he said shortly. He did not tell her that he had given up, that he intended only to destroy Ann Fisher. That saving his wife had, in effect, been virtually an accident. But one, however, which he rejoiced in; he appreciated it. “The news about Joe Tinbane got flashed on the TV,” he said. “So that’s how we knew. And the TV said he had been with a woman who disappeared after the crime.”

“I’ll never get over his death,” Lotta said wanly.

“I don’t expect you to. Not for a long time.”

Lotta said, “They killed him right in front of me. I saw it happen, all of it. Children, from the Library . . . it was grotesque, like a dream. He fired at them but he’s used to firing up high, at a full-grown adult; so his shots passed right over their heads.” Again she fell silent.

Roughly, wanting to make her feel better, he said, “Anyhow you’re out of the Library. This time it’ll be permanent.”

“Will the Uditi be mad at you?” she asked. “For not getting the Anarch out? That’s really a shame . . . he’s so important a person, and I’m not; it seems so unfair.”

“You’re important to me,” Sebastian pointed out.

“Where did you get all those devices you were using? That speeded you up, and that LSD smoke bomb; I heard them discussing it; it took them completely by surprise. You don’t normally have possession of LSD and—”

“Udi gave them to me,” he broke in harshly. “They outfitted me. Arranged a pretext for getting me in and up to Section B.”

“Then they
will
be sore,” Lotta said, with perception. “They did it expecting you to haul the Anarch out, didn’t they?”

He didn’t answer; he concentrated on driving the car and watching to make certain they were not followed.

“You don’t have to say,” Lotta said. “I can tell. Don’t the Uditi have those Offspring of Might, those killer commandos? I’ve read about them . . . do they really exist?”

“They exist,” he admitted. “To some extent. I suppose.”

Speculatively, Lotta said, “Maybe Mr. Roberts will send them into the Library and not after you. That’s what they should have done; it’s not your job to get the Anarch out. You’re not a commando.”

“I wanted to go,” he said.

“Because of me?” She studied him; he could feel the intensity of her scrutiny. “Because you didn’t get me out the first time? Now you’ve made up for it, haven’t you?”

“I tried to,” Sebastian said. That had been the idea.

“Do you love me?” Lotta asked.

“Yes.” Very much. More than ever before; he realized that as he sat beside her here in the aircar. Just the two of them.

“Are you—resentful? About me visiting Joe Tinbane?”

“About the motel?” he said. “No.” It had, after all, been his own fault. And there had been his journey with Ann Fisher. “I’m just sorry Joe got killed,” he said.

“I’ll never get over it,” Lotta said. As if promising.

“What did they do to you at the Library?” he asked, and prepared himself.

“Nothing. They had scheduled me to see a psychiatrist they keep; he would have done something to my mind. And that woman, that Miss or Mrs. Fisher—she showed up and talked to me awhile.”

“About what?”

“About you.” In her characteristic small voice Lotta continued, “She claimed that you and she had been intimate. That you—hopped into bed together. She claimed a lot of things like that.” She added, “But of course I didn’t listen to her.”

“Good for you,” he said, and felt the burden of the lies—
his
lies—weighing upon him. First to his wife and then, shortly, to Ray Roberts; he would have to give them a story, too. Everyone had to be placated . . . that’s the style of life, Sebastian realized, that I’ve begun to lead. As bad as R.C. Buckley, who does it naturally. But for me, he thought, it isn’t natural. And yet—here I am.

“It wouldn’t have bothered me,” Lotta said, “even if what she said about you and her turned out to be true. After all, look what I did—the motel, I mean. I wouldn’t hold it against you; I couldn’t.”

“Well, it’s not true,” he said laconically.

“She’s very attractive with that absolutely black hair and those blue eyes. A lot more attractive than me.”

Sebastian said, “I detest her.”

“Because of Joe?”

“That, and other reasons.” He did not amplify.

“Where are we going now?” Lotta asked.

“Back to our conapt.”

“Are you going to call Udi? And tell them—”

“They’ll call me,” Sebastian said, stoically resigned.

18

I will pass then beyond this power of my nature also,
rising by degrees unto Him Who made me. And I come
to the fields and spacious palaces of my memory.

—St. Augustine

At their conapt he phoned the vitarium to make sure it was still in business. Cheryl Vale answered. “Flask of Hermes,” she said merrily.

“I’m not coming in today,” Sebastian said. “Is everybody else there?”

“Everyone but you,” Cheryl said. “Oh, Mr. Hermes—Bob Lindy wants to talk to you; he wants to give you the details on how the Library got the Anarch away from him. Do you have time—”

“I’ll talk to him later,” Sebastian said. “It can wait. Hello.” He hung up, feeling terrible.

“I’ve been thinking,” Lotta said, seated on the couch across from him; her face showed agitation. “If the Library took a vengeful position regarding Joe Tinbane and what he did, then they’ll take the same position regarding you.”

“I thought of that,” Sebastian said.

“And then the Offspring of Might,” Lotta said. “I’m afraid—”

“Yes,” he said brusquely. All of them, he thought. The Rome party, the Library, Udi—because of what he had done he had managed to line all of them—
all of them
—up against him. Even the L.A. Police Department, he thought; they may think I killed Joe Tinbane because he was ensconced at a motel with my wife; I’d have an alleged motive.

Lotta asked, “Who can you turn to?”

“No one,” he answered. It was a dreadful, terrifying feeling. “No one but you,” he corrected himself; he did, after all, have Lotta back, now. And that made up for a great deal.

But it was not enough.

“Maybe,” Lotta continued, “we should hide, you and I. Go somewhere else. What they did to Joe—it’s so vivid in my mind; I can’t forget it, seeing it like I did. I remember the pit-pat of their feet on the roof, and then one of them, that one particular child, peering in through the window. And Joe had guns and he knew they were coming—but it still did no good. I think we should leave Los Angeles and maybe the Western United States. Maybe even Earth.”

“Migrate to Mars?” he said broodingly.

“The Uditi have no power there,” Lotta said. “The U.N. is the only authority, and I understand they run the colony-domes very well. Everything’s always under control. And they’re always soliciting for volunteers. You see their ad on TV every evening.”

“You can’t return from there,” he said. “Once you’ve emigrated. You’re told that before you sign the legal papers. It’s a one-way trip.”

“I know that. But at least we’d be alive. We wouldn’t one night hear noises on the roof or outside the door. I guess you really should have gotten the Anarch out, Sebastian; then at least you’d have Udi to help you. But this way—”

“I tried,” he repeated, mechanically. “You heard Ann Fisher; I couldn’t make a deal regarding him. I took what I could get— I took you—and got the hell out. Ray Roberts will have to like it; it’s the truth.” But he knew, inside, that he had never at any point really tried to release the Anarch. He had been thinking only of Lotta. As Roberts had said, it constituted a near-biological drive. A drive which Roberts had feared, which had, in the end, as Roberts anticipated, won out. Once he entered the Library all talk about the “transcendental value to history” had evaporated, gone up in the smoke of the LSD grenade.

“I’d really enjoy going to Mars,” Lotta said. “We’ve talked about it, remember? It’s supposed to be fascinating . . . you get a sort of intangible sense of the cosmic, of the awesomeness of it—man on another planet. It has to be experienced, they say. To be understood.”

“The only work I can do,” Sebastian grated, “is sniffing.”

“Finding deaders who’re about to return to life?”

“You know that’s my only talent.” He gestured. “What good would that be on Mars? On Mars the Hobart Phase tests out weak, almost nil.” And because of that he had another reason. There, he would resume normal aging, and for him that would soon prove lethal: in that direction he lay only a few years from illness and death.

For Lotta, of course, it would be different. She had decades to live in normal time; more in fact than under the Phase.

But what do I care, he thought, if I die again soon? I’ve gone through it once; it’s not all that bad. In some ways I’d welcome it . . . the great endless rest. The absolute relief from all burdens.

“That’s right,” Lotta admitted. “There’re no deaders on Mars. I forgot.”

“I’d have to become a manual laborer or a clerk,” he said.

“No, I think your managerial ability would be worth a lot, your talent for organization. They’d undoubtedly give you aptitude tests; I’m positive they do. So they’d know about all your many abilities. See?”

He said, “You have the optimism of youth.” And I, he thought, the despair of old age. “Let’s wait,” he decided, “until I’ve talked to Ray Roberts. Maybe I can sell him a story he’ll believe. I mean,” he amended, “maybe I can make him understand the situation I was in. And like you say, maybe their commandos can rescue the Anarch. It really is a task for them, not for me. I’ll point that out, too.”

“Good luck,” Lotta said wistfully.

Within the hour Ray Roberts’ call came.

“I see you’re back,” Roberts said, inspecting him tautly— and critically. He seemed extremely tense, very keyed-up and expectant. “How did you make out?”

“Not well,” Sebastian said, with caution; he had to play this right all the way through, with not the slightest misstep.

“The Anarch,” Roberts said, “is still being detained in the Library.”

“I reached him,” Sebastian said, “but I couldn’t—”

“What about your wife?”

With frozen, tomb-like care, he said, “I did get her. By accident. They—the Library authorities—decided to release her. I didn’t ask for it; the idea, as I say, was theirs.”

“A détente,” Roberts said. “You received Lotta in exchange for vacating the Library premises; it turned out in a friendly manner.”

“No,” he said.

“That’s what it sounds like.” Roberts continued to scrutinize him, expressionlessly; no affect showed on the dark, alert face. “They bought you off. And—” His voice rose into sharpness. “They wouldn’t have done that unless you stood a good chance of getting the Anarch out.”

“Ann Fisher decided it,” Sebastian countered. “I started to kill her; she bought her way out. I took her with me; I even—”

“Did it occur to you,” Roberts continued, “that this is the reason why they again took your wife into the Library? To act as a hostage? In order to neutralize you?”

“I had a choice,” Sebastian said doggedly, “between—”

“They fathomed your psychological makeup,” Roberts said witheringly. “They have psychiatrists; they knew the deal you’d buy. Ann Fisher isn’t afraid of death. That was an act; she didn’t ‘buy her way out.’ She got
you
out, away from the Anarch. If Ann Fisher had been truly afraid of you she wouldn’t have been loitering anywhere in sight.”

Grudgingly, Sebastian said, “Maybe—you’re right.”

“You managed to see the Anarch? He’s definitely alive?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said. He felt himself collecting perspiration from the atmosphere; it collected under his arms, down his back. He felt his pores trying to—and failing to—absorb it all. Too much had gathered.

“And the Erads were working him over?”

“There—were Erads with him. Yes.”

“You’ve changed human history, you know,” Roberts said. “Or rather
you’ve failed to change it.
You had your chance and now it’s gone. You could have been remembered forever as the vitarium owner who revived and then saved the Anarch; you would never have been forgotten by Udi or by the rest of the planet.
And an entirely new basis for religious belief would
have been established.
Certitude would have replaced mere faith, and a totally new body of scriptures would have emerged.” No trace of anger had entered Ray Roberts’ voice; he spoke calmly, merely reciting known facts. Facts which Sebastian could not deny.

“Tell him,” Lotta said urgently from behind him, “that you’ll try again.” She put her hand on his shoulder, rubbed encouragingly.

Sebastian said, “I’ll go back to the Library. Once more.”

“We sent you,” Roberts said, “as a compromise with Giacometti; he asked us to avoid violence. Now our arrangement regarding you has died; we are free to send in our zealots. But—” He paused. “They will probably find a corpse. The Library will identify the Offspring as being present in the area—immediately, as soon as the first one enters the building. As Giacometti pointed out to me last night. Still, there is nothing else we can do. With them no negotiations are possible; nothing we have or can promise will induce the Library to release the Anarch. It does not resemble the situation with Mrs. Hermes.”

“Well,” Sebastian said, “it’s been nice talking to you. I’m glad to learn the situation; thanks for—”

The screen faded. Ray Roberts had rung off. With no salutation.

Sebastian sat holding the receiver for a time and then, by degrees, placed it back on the hook. He felt fifty years older . . . and a hundred years more tired.

“You know,” he said presently to Lotta, “when you wake up in your coffin you first feel a weird fatigue. Your mind is empty; your body does nothing. Then you have thoughts, things you want to say, acts you want to perform. You want to yell and to struggle, to get out. But still your body doesn’t respond; you can’t speak and you can’t move. It goes on for—” He estimated. “About forty-eight hours.”

“Is it very awful?”

“It’s the worst experience I’ve ever had. Much worse than dying.” He thought, And I feel like that now.

“Can I bring you something?” Lotta asked perceptively. “Some warm sogum?”

“No,” he said. “Thanks.” He got to his feet, walked slowly across the living room to the window overlooking the street. He’s right, he said to himself. I have failed to change human history; I made my personal life more important—at the expense of every other living human being, and especially the Uditi. I’ve destroyed the whole newly forming basis for world theology;
Ray Roberts is right!

“Can I do anything for you?” Lotta asked softly.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, gazing down at the street below, the people and sardine-like surface vehicles. “The thing about lying there in your coffin like that,” he said, “the part that makes it so bad, is that your mind is alive but your body isn’t, and you feel the duality. When you’re really dead you don’t feel that; you’re not related to your body at all. But that—” He gestured convulsively. “A living mind tied to a corpse. Lodged inside it. And it doesn’t seem as if the body will ever become animated; you seem to wait forever.”

“But you know,” Lotta said, “that it can never happen to you again. It’s over with.”

Sebastian said, “But I remember it. The experience is still part of me.” He tapped his forehead, knocking it fiercely. “It’s always in here.” This is what I think of, he said to himself, when I’m really terribly frightened; this swims up to confront me. A symptom of my terror.

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Lotta said, somehow reading his mind, somehow managing to understand him. “For our emigration to Mars. You go in the bedroom and lie down and rest and I’ll start making calls.”

“You know you hate to use the vidphone,” he said. “You dread it. The vidphone is your bête noire.”

“I can do it this time.” She guided him toward the bedroom, her hands gentle.