A gargling sound came from the corner. The hologram brightened, and the figure within it became opaque and three-dimensional. After a few seconds the image vanished with a loud sizzling noise.
Steinmetz scowled at the empty corner. “I take that as an appropriate opinion on the opposition. But now do you understand?”
Dana nodded slowly. She seemed crushed. It was because of the look on her face that Art blurted out, “If you help us to find Guest and you let us talk to him, we’ll try to make sure he’s captured.”
He knew it was stupid as soon as he spoke. Steinmetz raised his eyebrows. “Let’s see if I have this right. If we help you, you’ll help us catch him; but you were the ones who let Guest out in the first place. If it weren’t for you, there would be no problem. I assume you’re familiar with the man who kills his parents and asks for special consideration from the court because he’s an orphan?”
His words were harsh, but the humorous gleam in his eye took the edge off. Art decided that Saul Steinmetz was a very hard man to dislike — and more dangerous because of that.
“Put yourself in our position.” Art had nothing to lose. He opened his shirt, raised his undershirt, and pulled the front of his pants lower. The clean-edged scar ran from the right side of his ribs down his bare belly to well past his navel. “I have half a dozen more like this, from operations before I found the telomod therapy. The treatment saved my life, but I don’t know for how long. Without doctors who know what they’re doing, I’m under a death sentence. Not just me — Dana, and Seth, and all the others in the program. We three just happened to be near Washington after the supernova zapped the microchips. Wouldn’t you be ready to try just about anything if you were one of us?”
His shirt was still open. He began to move it across to the left. Steinmetz held up his hand.
“No need. One picture is worth a thousand words. I don’t think two would be more persuasive.” He turned to Yasmin, who was staring at him steadily. “I have to, don’t I? I know it’s different, but it’s not different enough. And politics is the art of the impossible.” He turned back to Art. “How long before your friends — no names now, even though we’re not being recorded — how long before they’re supposed to meet you up north?”
“It depends how long it takes them. They could be there now.”
“They could. But you’re not. Here’s what I can do for you. Government vehicles come and go from Washington all the time. You work out with Auden what’s going tomorrow morning, to where you need to be. I don’t want to know the place. You then have four days. After that we are going to discover that Oliver Guest is missing from the Q-5 Syncope Facility, and I’m going to mount a full-scale manhunt for the famous murderer. If you turn him in before that, fine. But don’t mention me or the White House, because nothing like this meeting ever happened.”
He stood up. “One other thing. However this turns out, I want you back here to give me a personal report. Whatever you say won’t go beyond this office. And now I must get on to other things. Do you realize that you’ve been here for over an hour?”
“We’re sorry,” Dana said.
“No, you’re not.” Steinmetz held out his hand. “Nor am I. Good luck.”
She took it, but gripped it in both of hers. “Why are you doing this for us, sir?”
“I am the President of all the people. And if I were in your position, I suspect that I’d have done exactly what you did.” Then he winked at Art and Dana, and the urge to smile back was irresistible. “And sometimes when you’re President, you have to do something that nobody else in the whole damn country could get away with, just to prove you can.” He shook Art’s hand. “You go ahead, I need a private word with Yasmin on another matter.”
When they were outside the door, Dana asked softly, “Did you vote for him?”
“No. I liked him, but he was running against the first woman candidate ever. Did you?”
“No.” She laughed. “I thought he was too rich. You’d vote for him next time, though?”
“You better believe it. After today, if he asked me nice I’d marry him.” Art realized, too late, that the man who had greeted them — Travis? — was still in the room. He had a puzzled expression on his handsome young face.
33
Front the secret diary of Oliver Guest.
My relationship with Seth Parsigian has undergone a curious evolution over the past several days. It is, to invoke the vocabulary employed elsewhere in this diary, a form of restricted mutualism. We need each other. On the other hand, we both know that our value to the other will at some time cease. We are therefore wary, releasing just enough information to satisfy the other while retaining his dependency. It is bounded symbiosis.
Initially — I am making this diary entry a few days after the fact, for reasons that should quickly become obvious — initially, as I say, Seth’s and my priorities coincided. We needed to remove ourselves far from the Q-5 Syncope Facility, and find a way to reach my home and laboratory. The tools to produce a simple monitoring device of Seth’s telomeres lay there, together with certain things of mine that he did not need to know about.
In those first hours, I was perforce almost useless. Weak physically, I was also ignorant of the ways of the world following the supernova. I had to rely on Seth. I also had an opportunity to observe him.
There was plenty to respect about Seth Parsigian, if not to admire. My roundabout attempts to learn more about the two people with him at the syncope facility produced a genial smile. “No, Doc, you don’t need to know about ’em. You picked up their first names, what more do you want? Anyway, you’ll probably be meeting ’em in a few days. Gotta be patient.”
Be patient. Good advice; but for both of us, hard to follow. Our need to reach my home and lab as quickly as possible was a shared need. When he learned where I had lived before my capture and sentencing, he groaned and said, “Glen Echo. Jeez, that’s almost back where we started. We’ll have to go all the way upriver. An’ we’ll never make it the same way we came. How are you feelin’?”
“With some effort, I can probably stand.”
“I was afraid of that. We can forget walkin’ the roads anytime soon. So it’s gotta be the river.” He stood up. “I’ll be quick as I can, but I might be a while. I could say, stay here, but I guess you’re not plannin’ on goin’ anyplace.”
He left me sitting on the block behind the syncope facility. I do not mind admitting that at that moment I had my doubts. My sustaining thought was that he needed me even more than I needed him. Even so, I was at a low ebb when he finally returned. He must have been away at least six hours, and though the night air was mild I could not lie down and rest in snow. I sat with my head in my hands, close to exhaustion.
“All set,” he said. His trousers were soaked halfway up the thighs. “Got us a boat, didn’t even have to kill anybody.”
Was he joking? I had seen the gun and knife hooked into his belt. I suspected that he meant me to notice them. With his assistance I stood up, held his arm for support, and shambled down a dirt trail leading to the wide Potomac.
I had my first direct proof of a changed world. The night river, once busy at all hours with commerce and pleasure craft, sat calm and empty. Not a light showed, on the water or on the far-off other bank.