“I found out about Tricia.” She held printed pages out toward him. “I know what she was doing, why she left you.”
It took a few moments to realize that she was talking two years and not two nights ago. As Yasmin revealed what she had discovered, his spirits sank. The third blow of the day. His mother; the evidence that a global Pax Americana was possible technically, if not morally; and now this.
Yasmin might think she had proof beyond doubt about Tricia. Maybe she did. She was surely excited, relishing the description of her detective work. But Saul was not ready to accept her conclusion. Not ready to believe it. The passion, the heady excitement for each other, Tricia’s absorption in everything he did, all that could not be faked. But — she had married Rumford Leighton and Bobby Beacon and Willis Chartrain and Joseph Goldsmith. Had they, too, enjoyed Tricia’s blazing passion and focused affection?
It wasn’t something Saul wanted to think about right now. He was relieved when Yasmin told him about the Mars expedition, throwing it in almost as a by-the-way. He forgot his own troubles.
“They survived? They made it all the way to Earth, when we thought that was impossible.”
“So Moira Suomita at the State Department says.”
She held out the paper on which she had recorded the message. Saul ignored it.
“Where are they now?”
“On their way to Washington.”
“Excellent. I don’t want them going to State, though, I want them here. I’d like you to get on over there, change things so they come to the White House first, and bring the whole bunch of them here with you.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, they didn’t all survive.”
“How many?”
“Three died during orbiter reentry. Four made it back to a safe landing — but apparently two of those are being held prisoner.”
“They landed somewhere abroad?”
“No, sir. They landed in Virginia. But they were captured by members of the Legion of Argos.”
“Damn that woman and her crazy organization. They pop up all over the place. Go over to State anyway, bring the survivors.”
He read Yasmin’s sudden discomfort, and went on, “If you think they’ll give you a hard time over there, ask General Mackay to go with you. They hate her guts, and after their last runaround they’re terrified of her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And while you’re gone, I’ll see what I can do to get the other two crew members freed.”
As Yasmin left, Saul collapsed into the seat in front of the web controller. It seemed days since he had left it. How did you free members of the Mars crew from the grasp of the Legion of Argos? If you were ruthless and determined you invoked a domestic version of the Pax Americana. You found out where the prisoners were held, and went in with maximum firepower.
And if the prisoners were killed during the liberation process? Well, tough.
We had to destroy the village in order to save it. Another century, another President, another continent. But that particular disaster would not happen on Saul Steinmetz’s watch. You’d have to kill him first.
I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.
Now that was Benjamin Disraeli. It all came down to purpose and will. Saul saw only one problem. What purpose and will didn’t tell you, unfortunately, was how to do something that must be done.
40
From the secret diary of Oliver Guest.
Seth Parsigian, I surmise, is a good chess player and a better poker player. I do not mean by this, better than I am. But in the first two days at my house, we both knew who held the high cards.
Consider.
He was totally dependent on me to produce a telomere monitoring system, without which his long-term survival was doubtful. Until that work was completed, he dared not kill or injure me. He could, of course, starve and abuse me in order to force my cooperation, but even here his power was limited. I had to be well enough to work.
I, on the other hand, daily gained in strength and confidence. Soon I would reach a point where I could vanish into the faceless multitude rendered homeless and hopeless by Supernova Alpha. I could begin a new life, if not in this country, then abroad. Travel itself might be more difficult, but travel controls and restrictions would surely be less.
All these facts, obvious to an intelligence far less acute than Seth Parsigian’s, revealed themselves not in words but in acts. When I was working I could turn my back on him, fully confident that he would do nothing to harm or impede me. For him, on the other hand, constant vigilance was a necessity.
How was such continuous overview possible? The man was tough, but he was human. He had to sleep.
His solution was simple. The subbasement, from which there was no exit but the stairs, became my living quarters. I was locked down there all night, alone. It was the most frustrating situation in the world. Had the clone tanks been in working order, I would have been free to do with them anything I liked. As it was I was obliged to live for twenty-two hours a day with their gutted, useless shells in plain view, and think of what might have been.
Three times a day I ascended to the upper level of the house. There we would eat, go outside into the open air, and stroll around the big yard. Under Seth’s watchful eye (and gun) I inspected and deplored the forsaken condition of my garden. I was careful to show no special interest in Methuselah, though it would probably have made no difference had I done so. Seth was, as he said, not big on turtles.
I moved all the equipment that I needed down one floor to the subbasement. There I had light and power and running water. And there I began work. Seth didn’t need to be present, but of course he could not bear to stay away. He sat on the stairs, gun in hand, and watched my efforts.
I did not tell him this, but for those first couple of days he needed no gun. I had my compulsions, even as he had his. He had posed a challenging problem, in the central area where my own ego lies: How does one make an efficient device for telomere inspection, without genome scanners or anything else involving microchip technology?
After I had set up my microscope, ultra-centrifuge, electron capture detectors, and projection screen, I turned to Seth.
“As a first step, we are going to inspect the current state of your telomeres. For that, I need two things.”
“Anything that helps, you got it.”
I handed him two vials. “I require a skin fragment, from anywhere in your body. It can be small, all we need are a few cells. And we must have a semen sample.”
Seth looked at the vials doubtfully. “Let me make sure I got this right, before I go an’ do somethin’ dumb. You want me to jerk off in this little jar?”
“Exactly.”
“Mind if I ask why?”
“Not at all. During telomod therapy you were given two drugs. The first inhibited the telomerase enzyme. Without that, the telomeres at the ends of your chromosomes shortened every time a cell divided. The cancer cells in your body divided a number of times, rapidly, and then died. Next you were given a drug that stimulated the production of telomerase. This rebuilt the telomeres in your cells. Do you now need inhibitor or stimulant? I do not know. But once I have samples of both your germ cells and your normal body cells, I will use the information to calibrate the present condition of your telomeres.”