A Matter For Men Part 36

"What surgery?" And then I remembered-"Oh!"-and came awake. "Wednesday?" I started to sit up, found I couldn't, and fell back into the bed. "Wednesday? Really?"

"Yup."

"Have I been unconscious for three days?"

"No more than usual," Ted said. "You know, with you it's hard to tell sometimes." Then, seeing my expression, he added, "You've been floating in and out. You've also been heavily drugged. So's most everybody else. They've had so many casualties to treat that they just plugged everybody into their beds and kept them on maintenance. You're one of the first to wake up. I had to pull a few strings to do that. I wanted to have a chance to see you-to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?"

He touched the bandage around his head. "See? I had my surgery. They did the implant. I'm in the Telepathy Corps now. My transfer became official when the implant went in."

"Is it working? Are you receiving?"

Ted shook his head. "Not yet. Not for a while. First I have to go through a two-week training to learn how to experience myself more intensely. But I'm already sending. They're continually recording me, calibrating my connections and storing my sense of self so I won't lose touch with who I really am, all that kind of stuff. It gets very complex. The training is designed to rehabilitate your ability to experience. Do you know we spend most of our lives being unconscious, Jim? Before you can be a telepath, you have to wake up-it's like having a bucket of ice water thrown in your face. But it's incredible!"

"I can see," I said guardedly. His eyes were bright. His face was shining. He looked like a man possessed with a vision.

He laughed then-at himself. "I know-it sounds weird. To be a telepath is a daring adventure, Jim-you have to surrender yourself to the network. But it opens up a whole new world!"

"Have you done any receiving yet?"

"Just a little. Just enough so they would know that the connections were in. Jim, I know this sounds stupid, but I've been doing the most wonderful things! I tasted vanilla ice cream! That is, somebody else tasted it, but I tasted it with her! And I kissed a redhead. And I smelled a flower. And I touched a kitten. And an ice cube! Have you ever really felt what cold is?"

I shook my head. I was startled by the change in Ted. What had they done to him? "Uh, why? What was the purpose?"

"To see if I could experience things," he explained. He said it quietly. "You know-like pressure, heat, cold, taste, smell, vision -all that stuff. Once it's certain that the incoming linkage is working properly, then we test the broadcasting connections. Only first I have to train my natural ability to experience living. So I don't send spurious messages-like if I'm feeling cranky one day, it would color my perceptions. So I have to give that up. G.o.d, it's terrific! I love it!" He stopped and looked at me. "So, Jim. What's new with you?"

I couldn't help it. I started giggling. "Well, I killed a Chtorran. Another one."

"Yeah. I heard about that. I saw the tapes. It's been on all the news channels. You can't believe what's going on! It's the greatest game of uproar I've ever seen."

"Really?"

"It's the best! It's the funniest political circus since the vicepresident was found in bed with the attorney general. Everybody's running around and screaming that the sky is falling, and why isn't somebody doing something about it? The Africans are the most upset. They lost some of their loudest mouthpieces."

"Wow," I said. "Who?"

"Well, Drs. T!Kung and T!kai-and Dr. Kwong, the one you had the argument with."

I snorted, remembering. "It's poetic justice. Who else? I saw Lizard in the audience. Was she hurt?"

"Who?"

"Major Tirelli. The chopper pilot."

"Oh, her. No, I saw her at the funeral. They had a ma.s.s service for the victims. Cremated the remains in case the Chtorran bite had bugs in it."

"Oh. Good."

Neither of us said anything for a moment. We just looked at each other. His face was glowing. He looked like a very shy schoolboy, eager and excited. He did not look like the same person.

In that moment, I found myself actually liking him. "So," he said. "How do you feel?"

"Fine, I guess. Numb." I smiled. "How about yourself?"

"Pretty good. A little scared."

I studied his face. He looked back at me unashamedly. I said, "You know, we haven't had much time to talk since we got here." He nodded.

"This may be the last time I get to talk to you."

"Yeah, it may be."

"Yeah," I said. "I wanted to tell you how p.i.s.sed I was at you. That I thought you were acting like a real a.s.shole."

"S'funny. I was thinking the same about you."

"Yeah. But I guess-I just want you to know that I-uh, I appreciate you. A lot."

He looked embarra.s.sed. "Yeah. Me too." And then he did something uncharacteristic for him. He came over to the bed, sat down on it, leaned over me and hugged me gently. He looked into my eyes, leaned down and kissed me once, very lightly on the lips. He brushed my cheek with his hand.

"If I never see you again-" he said, "-and there is that possibility-if I never see you again, I want you to know this. I do love you. You're an a.s.shole most of the time, and I love you in spite of yourself." He kissed me again, and this time I didn't resist it. There were tears in my eyes and I didn't know why.

THIRTY-EIGHT.

THIS TIME, when I awoke, it was daylight.

And the Very Reverend Honorable Dr. Daniel Joseph Fromkin was sitting quietly in a chair studying me.

I raised my head and looked at him. He nodded. I looked around the room. The blinds were drawn, and afternoon sunlight filtered through the narrow vertical slats. Dust motes danced in the beams.

"What day is it?"

"Thursday," he said. He was wearing a muted coppery-gold suit -almost, but not quite, a uniform. Where had I seen-oh, I got it. Mode. He was a Modie.

"I didn't know that," I said.

He saw that my glance was on his tunic. He nodded an acknowledgment and asked, "How are you feeling?"

I looked. I wasn't feeling anything. "Empty," I said. I wondered if I was still under the influence of the drug. Or its after effects.

"Anything else?" asked Fromkin.

"Naked. As if I've been stripped and held up for display. I have memories that I'm not sure actually happened or if I just dreamed them."

"Uh huh," he said. "Anything else?"

"Angry. I think."

"Good. Anything else?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Great." He said, "I'm here to debrief you. Are you up to it?" He looked at me expectantly.

"No."

"Fine." He rose to leave.

"Wait a minute."

"Yes?"

"I'll talk. I have some questions of my own." He raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh?"

"Will you answer them?"

He said, "Yes. As a matter of fact, I am authorized to answer your questions."

"Honestly?"

He nodded his head slowly. "If I can."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'll tell you the truth as I know it. Is that all right?"

"It'll have to do."

He looked impatient. "What's the question?"

"All right. Why was I set up to be killed?"

Fromkin sat down again. He looked at me. "Were you?"

"You know I was! That Chtorran was supposed to get me too. That's why I was a.s.signed there-so when the gla.s.s broke, I'd be the first. I wasn't supposed to have a working weapon, was I? Except I took the manual and went out to the range and familiarized myself with the gun. So it didn't work, did it?"

Fromkin looked unhappy-not pained, just sad. He said, "Yes. That was the expectation."

"You didn't answer the question."

"I will. Let's hear the rest."

"All right. Why was the Chtorran supposed to break out? I saw Dr. Zymph check the case with an aide. They weren't checking to see if it was safe. They were checking to make sure it would break at the right moment. When the Chtorran put its weight on it. Right?"

Fromkin said, "That's what you saw?"

I nodded. "All those people were supposed to die, weren't they?"

Fromkin looked at the ceiling for a moment. Composing his answer? He looked back at me. "Yes, I'm afraid so."

"Why?"

"You already know the answer, Jim."

"No, I don't."

"Go over it again. Why do you think the attack was set up?"

"After the fact, it's pretty obvious. Most of those people disagreed with the United States position on the Chtorran threat, so you invited them to a first-hand look at how one feeds. That's the guaranteed shock treatment. It always works. It worked on me, and all I had seen were the Show Low pictures. These people got the special live performance. It was set up so that none of our people were killed or injured, only those who opposed us." I studied his face. His eyes were shaded. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Pretty much," Fromkin said. "You're only missing the context."

"The context? Or the justification?"

Fromkin ignored my jibe. "You saw how the convention was progressing. Can you give me a better alternative?"

"Have you tried education?"

"Yes! Do you know how long it takes to teach a politician something? Three elections! We don't have the time! We have to make our point today. "

I must have been frowning, for he said, "You heard those delegates. They were running everything they saw and heard through the filter that the United States was using the Chtorran menace as an excuse to exploit the rest of the world again."

"Well? Isn't that true?"

Fromkin shrugged. "Frankly, it's irrelevant. The war against the Chtorr is going to last anywhere from fifty to three hundred years-if we win. That's our window for a best-case approximation.

"And? What's the worst case?"

"We could all be dead within ten years." He said it dispa.s.sionately, but the words came out like bullets. "The situation calls for extraordinary crisis-management skills. It demands the kind of unified effort that this planet has never seen. We need a controlling body that can function free of the usual inertia common to an accountable government."

"You're advocating a dictatorship?"

"Not hardly. I'm advocating universal military service for every man, woman, child, robot, dog and computer on the planet. That's all." He allowed himself a wry smile. "That's hardly a dictatorship, now, is it?"

I didn't answer. He stood up and went to the window and looked out. "The irony of the situation," he said, "is that the only surviving inst.i.tutions who have the resources to handle the situation are the very ones least able to apply those resources-the world's great technological nations. The conference is dominated by Fourth Worlders who are still in a pre-Chtorran consciousness-you know the one: 'They've got theirs, now I'm going to get mine.' And they're not going to let us play any other game while they still see themselves as not being equal partners. And the fact of the matter is, they're already equal partners. The Chtorrans find them just as tasty-they don't care!"

Fromkin turned to face me. He came back to the chair, but didn't sit down. "Jim, every day that pa.s.ses without a program of unified resistance to the Chtorran invasion pushes the window of possible victory two weeks farther away. We're rapidly approaching the point where the window becomes totally unattainable. We don't have any time. They've taken the position that the United States is their enemy, one who will use any devious means to exploit them. They don't dare give up that position, because giving it up looks exactly like admitting they've been wrong. And that's the hardest thing in the world for a human being to dobe wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?"