A tide of small, loosely packed clouds was spreading across the stars. In all directions the town lights had gone out, all but the lights of the Hospital. The Plateau slept in a profound silence.
Well ... he'd tried to sneak into the Hospital. He'd been caught. But when he stood up in the glare of spotlights, they couldn't see him. The why of it was just as magical as before, but he thought he was beginning to see the how of it.
He'd have to risk it. Matt began to walk.
He'd never planned for it to go this far. If only he'd been stopped before it was too late. But it was too late, and he had the sense to know it.
Strictly speaking, he should have been wearing something bright. A blue shirt with a tangerine sweater, iridescent green pants, a scarlet cape with an S enclosed in a yellow triangle. And ... rimmed glasses? It had been a long time since grade school. Never mind; he'd have to go as he was.
A good thing he liked flamboyant gestures.
He skirted the edge of the bare region until he reached the houses. Presently he was walking through dark streets. The houses were fascinating and strange. He would have enjoyed seeing them by daylight. What manner of people lived in them? Colorful, idle, happy, eternally young and healthy. He would have liked to be one of them.
But he noticed a peculiar thing about the houses. Heterogeneous as they were in form, color, style, building material, they had one thing in common. Always they faced away from the Hospital.
As if the Hospital inspired them with fear. Or guilt.
There were lights ahead. Matt walked faster. He had been walking for half an hour now. Yes, there was the supply road, lit bright as day by two close-spaced lines of street lamps. A broken white line ran down the curving middle.
Matt stepped out to the white line and began following it toward the Hospital.
Again his shoulders were unnaturally rigid, as with the fear of death from behind. But the danger was all before him. The organ banks were the most humiliating imaginable form of death. Yet Matt feared something worse.
Men had been released from the Hospital to tell of their trials. Not many, but they could talk. Matt could guess a little of what waited for him.
They would see him, they would fire mercy-bullets into him, they would carry him on a stretcher into the Hospital. When he woke, he would be taken to his first and last interview with the dread Castro. The Head's burning eyes would look into his, and he would rumble, "Keller, eh? Yes, we had to take your uncle apart. Well, Keller? You walked up here like you thought you were a crew with an appointment. What did you think you were doing, Keller?"
And what was he going to say to that?
CHAPTER 5
THE HOSPITAL
ASLEEP, Jesus Pietro looked ten years older. His defenses--his straight back, tight muscles, and controlled features--were relaxed. His startling pale eyes were closed. His carefully combed white hair was messy, showing the bare scalp over which it had been carefully combed. He slept alone, separated from his wife by a door which was never locked. Sometimes he thrashed in his sleep, and sometimes, ridden by insomnia, he stared at the ceiling with his arms folded and muttered to himself, which was why Nadia slept next door. But tonight he lay quiet.
He could have looked thirty again, with help. Inside his aging skin he was in good physical shape. He had good wind, thanks partly to his borrowed lung; his muscles were hard beneath loose wrinkles and deposits of fat; and his digestion was good. His teeth, all transplants, were perfect. Give him new skin, new scalp, a new liver; replace a number of sphincter and other autonomic muscles ...
But that would take a special order from the crew congress. It would be a kind of testimonial and he would accept it if it were offered, but he wasn't going to fight for it. Transplants and the giving of transplants were the right of the crew and their most powerful reward. And Jesus Pietro was ... not squeamish, but somehow reluctant to exchange parts of himself for parts of some stranger. It would be like losing part of his ego. Only the fear of death had made him accept a new lung years ago.
He slept quietly.
And things began to add up.
Polly Tournquist's films: Someone had slipped through his net night before last. Keller's getaway last night. A gnawing suspicion, only an intuition as yet, that ramrobot package #143 was even more important than anyone had guessed. Wrinkled, uncomfortable sheets. His blankets, which were a trifle too heavy. The fact that he had forgotten to brush his teeth. A mental picture of Keller diving head-down for the mist--it kept coming back to haunt him. Faint noises from outside, from the wall, noises already an hour old, noises which hadn't awakened him but which were still unexplained. His twinges of lust for the girl in the coffin cure, and the guilt that followed. His temptation to use that ancient brainwashing technique for his own private purposes, to make the rebel girl love him for a time. Adultery! More guilt.
Temptations. Escaped prisoners. Hot, wrinkled bedclothes'
No use. He was awake.
He lay rigidly on his back, arms folded, glaring into the dark. No use fighting it. Last night had fouled up his internal clock; he'd eaten breakfast at twelve-thirty. Why did he keep thinking of Keller?
(Head down over the mist, with the fans pushing hard on the seat of his pants. Hell above and Heaven below, going up into the unknown; lost forever, destroyed utterly. The dream of the Hindu, realized in physical form. The peace of total dissolution.)
Jesus Pietro rolled over and turned on the phone.
A strange voice said, "Hospital-sir."
"Who is this?"
"Master Sergeant Leonard V. Watts, sir. Night duty."
"What's happening at the Hospital, Master Sergeant?" It was not an unusual question. Jesus Pietro had asked it scores of times at early morning hours during the last ten years.
Watts' voice was crisp. "Let me see. You left at seven, sir. At seven-thirty Major Jansen ordered the release of the deadheads we picked up last night, the ones without ear mikes. Major Jansen left at nine. At ten-thirty Sergeant Helios reported that all the deadheads had been returned to their homes. Mmmm ...." Shuffling of papers in background. "All but two of the prisoners questioned today have been executed and stored away. The medical supplies section informs us that the banks will be unable handle new material until further notice. Do you want a list of executions, sir?"
"No."
"Coffin cure proceeding satisfactorily. No adverse medical reactions from suspect. Grounds reports a false alarm at twelve-oh-eight, caused by a rabbit blundering into the electric-eye barrier. No evidence of anything moving on the grounds."
"Then how do they know it was a rabbit?"
"Shall I ask, sir?"
"No. They guessed, of course. Good night." Jesus Pietro turned on his back and waited for sleep.
His thoughts drifted....
... He and Nadia hadn't been getting together much lately. Shouldn't he start taking testosterone shots? A transplant wouldn't be necessary; many glands were not put in suspended animation, but were kept running, as it were, with a complex and exact food/blood supply and a system for extracting the hormones. He could put up with the inconvenience of shots.
... Though his father hadn't.
A younger Jesus Pietro had spent much time wondering about his own conception. Why had the old man insisted that the doctors connect the vas deferens during his gonad transplant? An older Jesus Pietro thought he knew. Even sixty years ago, despite the centuries-old tradition of large families, the Plateau had been mostly uninhabited. Breeding must have seemed a duty to Haneth Castro, as it had to all his ancestors. Besides, how must the old man have felt, knowing that at last he could no longer sire children?