Berserker - Earth Descended Part 6

All entrances and exits to their small domain were walled up-the masonry was rough and temporary-looking, if there was any comfort to be derived from that. The guard was heavy all around.

Food was slid in through a tiny door, and garbage dragged out, and water continued to flow through the Daedalian plumbing. And that was all.

What material to use, to sculpt the thousand channels? It must be soft...

When he had a hundred cunning perforations built through a wing he tested it. Strapped it on and gave a strong, quick push down and it felt as if his arm had for a moment rested on something solid and ready to be climbed.

One clouded night when there were a thousand channels and he had decided the wings were ready, the father mounted into the sky. Ascending awkwardly and breathlessly at first, he soon learned to relax like a good swimmer. When some height had been attained, a long, gliding, coasting rest let the arm muscles recover before more work was necessary. In an hour, in air that was almost calm, he flew the length of the whole cloud-shrouded island, and was not winded or wearied. Then back toward the pinpoints of the House's lamps, which served to guide him home.

When he landed, the wings were warm, almost hot, with heat that had been gathered into their channels out of the air itself, and somehow turned to pushing force. Daedalus still had not the words or thoughts to make clear, even in his own mind, just how the wings worked. In daylight a strong push down with one completed wing, and you could see a vapor-puff big as a pumpkin appear in the beaten air and fly off rearward, spinning violently. Icarus extending a hand into the puff said he could feel the chill...

Food and water and gold, in small quant.i.ties, they would carry at their belts. In daylight, across the sea to Sicily; a few hours should be enough. And they could turn northward to the mainland, if they flew into difficulty. "In the morning, son. Now sleep."

...He had not yet paid the price, but he knew that it would come. Squinting into the hot, rising sun, he absently marked its dull sheen on Icarus' wings, and waited for the breath of wind to help them rise among the gulls.

CALENDARS.

"I have decided to die," Matthew Pandareus announced to his wife on their first evening together after their long vacation trip to Mars. Actually they had been back on Earth for a week, but Iris had begun an evening cla.s.s in the history of paperweights and they had not had a real chance to talk since their return.

Tonight they had just finished dinner tete-a-tete in their condominium apartment and he had strolled from the dining alcove to look out through the living room's gla.s.s wall at the fantastic complexities of city lights extending below, around and above their middle-cla.s.s, middle-level dwelling.

"Dear, you had a similar idea once before, thirty years ago." Iris's clinging gown swished faintly about her shapely legs as she followed to stand slightly behind him at the window. "Here, you forgot your brandy."

"Thank you. Closer on forty," he amended, turning to accept the gla.s.s from her hand. She turned away busily again as soon as she had pa.s.sed it on and Pandareus had no very clear look at her face.

Iris switched on the fireplace with a wave of her hand and adjusted the mood of the background music to something a little more capricious. "Thirty," she said firmly, coming back to face him. The communication screen chimed then and she was off to answer it. Maintaining his stance in the living room Pandareus heard the short conversation-just some friends calling to welcome them back and ask how their voyage had been. Iris invited them over a week from Tuesday but they were busy that night. They would call again tomorrow or the next day and some date for a get-together would be worked out.

Now she was back in the living room again, wearing an expression he knew well, that of being firmly in the right though without animosity for those who weren't. "Thirty," she said firmly. "It was right after you won the golf tournament." If it was time to argue, Iris was ready. Even studying her familiar face at close range, he could neither see nor remember which parts of it were synthetic skin and which her own, rejuvenated. There were no actual wrinkles on it anywhere, only the ghost of a line or two at the corners of the eyes. Even under close inspection she could be taken for a youthful twenty-eight. Her face and body were changing no more over the decades than were his golf or bowling score. He and Iris took long vacations from each other sometimes, but stayed married. He had found no one with whom he would rather live.

"It's nearly a hundred years since we were married," he recalled aloud and tasted his brandy. "Will you miss me very much?"

"I shall miss you, of course. Our relationship has been-very nearly perfect. But if it will make you happy, Matthew, go ahead and die. What is it? Boredom?"

"Not really." He indicated with the most minimal inclination of his head, which Iris instantly interpreted correctly, that they might go and seat themselves near the fire. Stretching out his legs there in front of his chair, Pandareus continued: "I think you know me well enough to believe that I am not trying to appear altruistic when I say that the time has come for me to move on and make room for someone else."

"Of course, dearest."

"There are-what?-maybe eleven billion people on the planet now, and I think the number has hardly changed in the last few centuries. Fortunately starvation and disease are no longer problems. But it is a mixed blessing that practically no one dies unintentionally any more-how can new lives be lived if the old will not make way? When was the last time you saw a child? If every-"

"Speaking of children," Iris interrupted. "I don't mean to interrupt, but speaking of children, I hope you're not planning to have yourself terminated before the nineteenth."

"Of what? This month?" Automatically he looked for a calendar but could not see one. "Why?"

"Janet called." His previous wife. "I mean, she left a message while we were on vacation. Things have been so hectic I forgot to tell you. Your five-great grandson is making his bar mitzvah on that date, you're to be sure to attend."

"Bar mitzvah?" He rehea.r.s.ed in his mind the names and generations comprising the straight unbranching line of his descendants. "I didn't think Liang was Jewish."

"Perhaps what Janet meant was his confir-mation. At any rate-"

"-be sure to be there. Yes. Well, I had hoped to get away soon, having decided that it was the right move to make. But Janet would really feel hurt-if I know her. Is there any way we could get together with her, maybe this week or next week, and discuss it face to face? Let's see, when-"

The communications screen chimed. Another set of friends, these just back from their own vacation.

The next day in his office on the upper floor of the duplex apartment he consulted his business calendar as soon as he could find the time. He dis-covered there was no use after all in trying to get in touch with Janet and see her, because even if the nineteenth were clear he had made commit-ments for important business meetings on the twenty-first and twenty-second. The firm in which he was a partner-dealers in antiques and folk art-was a small one and no great wealth hung on his decisions, but still an obligation was an obligation.

He switched his calendar to the following month. Studying the new pattern of appointments and memoranda displayed electronically on the glowing gla.s.s screen he at first found nothing in it that could not in good conscience be entrusted to his heirs and a.s.signs. But wait, there was the antique furniture auction in Minneapolis. Of course, he and Iris had gone to a great deal of trouble to plan their vacation so he would be sure to be back in time for that. The auction would be an ideal chance for him to train one or two of the younger people in the firm as buyers and he supposed he owed it to his partners to carry on that far.

Now, the month after that...of course, he was supposed to be in Europe for the round of trade shows.

Again, the feeling that he would be letting others down if he bowed out. His wife might have a chance to go along. She also wanted to take part of the history study group that she was heading-all adults, of course-to Europe.

The next month, now, was all clear, except for trivia that he could disregard if he put his mind to it. He did put his mind to it. Then with his electronic stylus he wrote. TERMINATION across that month on the calendar screen.

That evening, however, after helping Iris grade papers from her drama group before some friends came over, he paused suddenly with a foodbar halfway to his mouth, staring after his wife who had just vanished into the kitchen to start preparing the drinks and smokes and slices and dip. He had just been struck by the realization that the month he had tentatively chosen for his demise was the month of their hundredth anniversary. He had been deliberately keeping his calendar for that month clear of other major events, never dreaming that he could forget the big one.

Of course, they could have some worthy celebration (was it on the , fifteenth or the sixteenth?) and then he could terminate a few days later-but no. The scene would be very awkward. He could hear the questions now:And what are you and your husband doing to celebrate, my dear? And the good wishes:May the next hundred years be as happy as the first. No, any time that month would definitely be too close.

He would have to ask Iris how she felt abut it. But there was the door and the bridge club was starting to arrive.

The next day Pandareus had his lawyer on the screen-they were locked in a time-consuming squabble with another art dealer over the correct attribution of an early-American painting-and he took the opportunity to discuss the legal aspects of dying.

The lawyer shook his head. "Haven't time to go into the whole thing right now. But it's not advisable for you to terminate at present. You'd do much better to wait until after the first of the year. The tax structure..." Pandareus had to cut the call short a minute later and hurry out to meet a potential big customer for lunch-so he managed to gain no very clear understanding of the tax structure. But he had become convinced that dying before the first of the year was financially inadvisable.

His first feeling was actually one of relief. This enforced delay would give him a breathing s.p.a.ce in which to plan calmly for an exit that would have some dignity and perhaps even a touch of ceremony about it.

But in his heart he knew that if you let projects slide long enough it was difficult to get back to them.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would try to set up a termination date as soon after the first of the year as possible.

When he came down from the office that night-later than he had planned-he found Iris sprawled on the sofa, her shoes off.

She greeted him with a faint welcoming cry. "Ahh! Come rub my feet. I have had a day. Matthew, the story of which you will hardly be inclined to believe."

"That conference on endangered virus species?"

"That was yesterday. No, I went shopping this morning and this afternoon I had to go see that place where we were planning to store our boat next winter-remember, you were too busy to go?"

"Oh, yes." He sat on the sofa, and began to rub a foot, squeezing the arch and instep with an expert touch. "Join me in a drink?"

"Gladly. And that was only the start. From the boat storage estabishment I had to go-"

The communicator screen chimed. The caller was the computer service company, reminding them that their home terminals were to be dis-connected for a day's maintenance tomorrow.

After dinner-and after Iris had gone wearily to bed-he dragged himself with proud determination up the stairs to his office again. Jaw outthrust, he set himself to decide firmly once and for all-insofar as such decision might be possible for one man aided by computer-the year, month and day upon which his life would end. He dropped into the chair before his desk with a sigh, brushed aside the printouts, acc.u.mulated during dinner, ofAntique Dealer's Bulletin and five other periodicals he never had time to read. He punched for a combined full printout, on microtape, of his business and social calendars for the next twelve months. Next year's vacation, for example, had been arranged that far in advance. He and Iris were planning to go back to Indonesia, where they had not visited for sixty years. He took his tired mind firmly in hand. Forget about seeing Indonesia again.

While riding the tubeliner to Boston to attend a cla.s.s reunion he finished other tasks in time to put the calendar microtape into a projector and begin work on the problem. Scanning back over the printout-chronologically from the scheduled vacation-setting his mind in as ruthless a frame as possible, he mentally pruned out an under-brush of minor appointments, celebrations and entertainments planned from a sense of social duty. With his finger gliding on the projected image of the microtape he drew the surcease of eternity closer and even closer to the hurtling moment of the present in which he dwelt.

"Would you care for a c.o.c.ktail, sir?"

"No, thank you." He could have used one, but, nagged by the urgency of finishing before they got to Boston or probably not at all in the immediate future, he stuck with his work. Four months nearer to his present, moving anti-clockward from next year's vacation, his finger stopped, having run into the notable barrier of the annual banquet of the Old Marrieds' Club, for which he and Iris had standing reservations.

Yes. That would set a time. Attend the banquet, dropping to a few old friends broad hints that he would not be back next year, delay a decent month and then bow out.

He straightened in his seat, turned off the projector and slid it back into its travel case. Settled, and they were just pulling into Boston. Once in a while things worked out just right.

On the day he got home from the reunion he began trying to get in touch with his physician. It was a few days before the doctor, repeatedly trying to return his call, did so at a moment when Pandareus was available. Communication established, Pandareus promptly asked for and was given the name of another doctor, who had done terminations for several other people.

"There aren't any real specialists," his own doctor a.s.sured Pandareus. "Not in the field you want. Not enough people are having it done. How about a round of golf on Wednesday?"

"Can't," said Pandareus automatically and then consulted his calendar to make sure of why. "My father's coming into town that day. Maybe next week?"

The doctor looked off screen, evidently checking his own calendar, and frowned. "I'll try to call you back on it. You'll like Dr. James. One of the best men in the city."

"Thanks."

"Right."

Pandareus broke the connection and punched for Dr. James. A busy-signal. Well, he would try calling in the afternoon, before the time came to leave for the matinee.

Eventually he got through. "Dr. Jame's office," a receptionist of timeless prettiness told him.

"How do you do. I'd like to make an appointment to talk to the doctor, or talk to him right now if that's feasible. It's regarding my contemplated termination."

"I see, sir." Even before taking his name she asked, "And when is your preferred date for termination?"

He told her.

The receptionist was gently, exquisitely concerned. "I'm sorry, sir, but Dr. James will be on vacation that month."

But he persevered. Iris helped a lot. Seated with her in an aircab on his way at last to Dr. James's office to be terminated, he looked back on the months since his first firm decision to die and found the time, as viewed from his present angle, to be almost disconcertingly short.

Iris, riding beside him, was tired. She held an envelope containing some of the necessary papers, which they had only just managed to have signed in time, this very morning. "Oh, G.o.d, I'm dead," she murmured without thinking, and then looked over at him with alarm. "That was thoughtless of me, wasn't it?"

"Not at all, my dear. I won't be easily upset today. I feel happy. Completed. Fulfilled. A successful race run, a well-earned rest ahead, as it were. I want you to share my joy."

"I do, Matthew." But a little movement about the lips and throat, a tiny lift of the head, counter-balanced all the happy intonations she was putting into her voice. She was trying her best to act as if nothing were wrong, but after a little more than a hundred years he could infallibly tell when something out of the ordinary was bothering her.

"Iris, what are your plans for the immediate future? I really haven't had time to discuss it with you."

"I'd like to get away for a while, Matthew. But I don't see how I can. My desensitivity training group begins to meet next week. And there will be any number of loose ends to tidy up regarding vour departure."

"Something more is bothering you. I can tell. Are you going to miss me too much, after all?"

"No, dear. If your absence affects me unduly I will just think of you as being on a long trip some-where.

And keep busy."

He pressed her hand. "But there is something. I insist on hearing what it is. It is most unfair to conceal things from me at this juncture."

"Matthew, I am not going to interfere with your happy departure. You have put so much time and effort into arranging it. Into making an achievement of your whole life. To-to close it properly, like a good poem."

"Something is definitely wrong and you are going to tell me what it is. Or I will stop the cab until you do."

Iris put down the bulky envelope and looked for a tissue. "You have nothing to regret. You have certainly been a good husband to me. You have kept almost every promise you ever made."

Aha. "What promise or promises have I failed to keep?"

"I have really nothing to complain of, Matthew."

The airborne cab glided to a soft waiting halt on the roof of the building housing Dr. James's office, but neither of the pa.s.sengers got out at once. Pandareus had to spar through another verbal round or two with his wife before the reason for her unhappiness was clear.

"It was more than ninety years ago, Matthew, and I am sure you have forgotten it. But early in our marriage you did promise me that one day we would have a child."

He closed his eyes for a moment. Recollection of the promise had been coming back hazily, subconsciously, for some indeterminate time.

Perhaps she had been dropping hints, trying to remind him. Anyway, there was no real surprise in hearing about the promise now and he could not honestly deny that it had been made. An obligation was an obligation and he had several times already put off dying for lesser ones than this. This was rather more important than a five-great grandson's confirmation, he supposed.

"Iris, do you really think we have the right to bring a new life into the world?"

"Oh, Matthew, the world can certainly support one more, with hydrogen-fusion power and reclamation and all the rest. An equilibrium has been reached. It's not as if everyone were reproducing; I was reading just the other day how remarkable it is that so few exercise their legal rights to do so. The author was wondering why. And even if you did father a child once before-I've never had one. I don't think people are going to comment."

"I suppose not." He gave his wife the ghost of a smile, let his hand hang in the air for a moment and then signaled decisively for the cab to open its door. "Just let me step into James's office and let them know there's been a change of plan."

"Oh, Matthew! How loving of you to do this for me." She gripped his fingers and looked into his eyes intently. "You must understand, having a child will mean that your presence as a father is required for an indefinite period. The child will need you psychologically. It will mean years added to your life."

"I've been through it all before, remember?" He kissed her on the cheek. "The decision is made. I'll be right back."

But he was gone quite a long time, and she began to worry. Suppose he had-but no, there he was, looking a little happier than when he left, reaching briskly for the cab's door.

"James was pretty good about it all," Pandareus said, getting in. "But my change of mind meant there were more forms to be filled out and we'll have to check back with city hall, the crematorium and the lawyers and-" He broke off to snap his fingers with irritation. "I meant to ask James if he could put us in touch with a good-what d'you call 'em?-obstetrician. Doctor who oversees gestation. And also one of those hospitals where they have an artificial womb. Those're supposed to be much improved these days."

Iris was relaxed now, content and comfortable. "Oh, no, Matthew. It was on television just the other day that artificial wombs are being discontinued once again. Even the new models had too many drawbacks."

Pandareus gave the cab its new orders and leaned back beside his wife as it took off and promptly became stuck in a traffic jam at the five-hundred-meter aerial level. "Then you'll just have to go through the whole nine months of inconvenience and the big disabling trauma at the end. I went through it all with Janet." He shook his head and smiled a little. "It's going to take some planning. Well, if it will make you happy, dear. When do you want to have the baby? Get it started, I mean?"

"Let's see." Then Iris's forehead almost creased with a pretty frown of light vexation. "Oh, dear. If we got baby started right now he'd be born just when our vacation trip is on. Let's see-"

WILDERNESS.