'All right, doctor. We'll run a routine security probe on her. But I'm certain it's okay.' The Secret Service man nodded and departed.
'Thanks,' Kathy said presently.
'I consider addiction to such a toxic drug a major illness,' Eric said. 'In this day and age worse than cancer or a massive cardiac arrest. It's obvious I can't dump you. You'll probably have to enter a hospital; you're probably aware of that already. I'll contact Hazeltine, find out all they know ... but you understand it may be hopeless.'
'Yes.' She ducked her head in a spasmodic nod.
'Anyhow, you seem to have a great deal of courage.' He reached out, took hold of her hand; it was dry and cold. Lifeless. He let it go. 'That has always been one thing I've admired in you – you're not a coward. Of course that's how you got yourself into this in the first place, by having the guts to try some new substance. Well, so now we're back together.' Glued fast to each other by your possibly fatal drug habit, he thought with morose despair. What a reason to resume our marriage. It was just a little too much for him.
'You're a good egg, too,' Kathy said.
'Do you have any more of the stuff?'
She hesitated. 'N-no.'
'You're lying.'
'I won't give it up. I'd rather leave you and try to make it on my own.' Her fear had become, momentarily, obstinate defiance. 'Look, if I'm hooked on JJ-180 I can't give you the supply I possess – that's what it means to be hooked! I don't want to take any more; I have to take it. Anyhow, there's not much.' She shuddered. 'It makes me wish I were dead; that goes without saying. God, I don't know how I got myself into this.'
'What's the experience like? I understand it involves time.'
'Yes, you lose your fixed point of reference; you pass easily back and forth. What I'd like to do is put myself at the service of someone or something, find a use for the period that I'm in the hands of. Could the Secretary use me? Eric, maybe I could get us out of the war; I could warn Mplinari before he signs the Pact of Peace.' Her eyes glowed with hope. 'Isn't it worth trying?'
'Maybe so.' However, he recalled Festenburg's statements on the subject; perhaps Molinari had use of JJ-180 already. But the Mole clearly had not tried – or been able – to find a route back to pre-pact days. Perhaps the drug affected each person uniquely. Many stimulant, hallucinogenic drugs did.
'Can I get access to him through you?' Kathy asked.
'I – suppose so.' But something sprang to life inside him and made him wary. 'It would take time. Right now he's recovering from the kidney operation, as you seem to know.'
She shook her head then, nodding with pain. 'Jesus, I feel awful, Eric. Like I'm not going to survive. You know... impending disaster. Give me a bunch of tranquilizers; it might help a little.' She held out her hand and again he saw How badly it shook. Even worse, it seemed, than before.
'I'll put you in the building's infirmary,' he decided, rising to his feet. 'For the time being. While I figure out what to do. I'd prefer not to give you any medication, though; it might further potentiate the drug. With a new substance you never—'
Kathy broke in, 'Want to know what I did, Eric, while you were off getting the Secret Service? I dropped a cap of JJ-180 into your coffee cup. Don't laugh; I'm serious. It's true, and you've drunk it. So you're addicted now. The effects should begin any time; you'd better get out of this cafeteria and to your own conapt, because they're enormous.' Her voice was flat and drab. 'I did it because I thought you were going to have me arrested; you said you were and I believed you. So it's your own fault. I'm sorry ... I wish I hadn't, but anyhow now you have a motive for curing me; you've got to find a solution. I just couldn't depend on your sheer goodwill; we've had too much trouble between us. Isn't that so?'
He managed to say, 'I've heard that about addicts in general; they like to hook other people.'
'Do you forgive me?' Kathy asked, also rising.
'No,' he said. He felt wrathful and dizzy. Not only do I not forgive you, he thought, but I'll do everything I can to deny you a cure; nothing means anything to me now except getting back at you. Even my own cure. He felt pure, absolute hate for her. Yes, this was what she would do; this was his wife. This was precisely why he had tried to get away.
'We're in this together,' Kathy said.
As steadily as possible he walked toward the exit of the cafeteria step by step, past the tables, people. Leaving her.
He almost made it. He almost.
Everything returned. But totally different. New. Changed.
Across from him Don Festenburg leaned back, said, 'You're lucky. But I'd better explain this. Here. The calendar.' He pushed a brass object; across the desk Eric saw. 'You've moved slightly over one year ahead.' Eric stared. Sightlessly. Ornate inscriptions. 'This is June 17, 2056. You're one of the happy few the drug affects this way. Most of them wander off into the past and get bogged down in manufacturing alternate universes; you know, playing God until at last the nerve destruction is too great and they degenerate to random twitches.'
Eric tried to think of something useful to say. Could not.
'Save yourself the effort,' Festenburg said, seeing him struggle. 'I can do the talking; you'll only be here a few minutes so let me get it said. A year ago, when you were given JJ-180 in the building cafeteria, I was fortunate enough to get in on the flurry; your wife became hysterical and you of course – disappeared. She was taken in tow by the Secret Service and she admitted her addiction and what she had done.'
'Oh.' The room dropped and rose as he reflexively nodded.
'So that – you're feeling better? So anyhow, but now Kathy is cured, but we won't go into that; it hardly matters.'
'What about—'
'Yes, your problem. Your addiction. There was no cure then, a year ago. However, you'll be gratified to hear that there is now. It came into being a couple of months ago, and I've been waiting for you to show up – so much more is known about JJ-180 now that I was privileged to compute almost to the minute when and where you'd appear.' Reaching into his rumpled coat pocket, Festenburg brought out a small glass bottle. This is the antidote which TF&D's subsidiary now manufactures. Would you like it? If you took it now, twenty milligrams, you'd be free of your addiction even after you return to your own time.' He smiled, his sallow face wrinkling unnaturally. 'But – there are problems.'
Eric said, 'How is the war going?'
Deprecatingly, Festenburg said, 'What do you care? Good God, Sweetscent; your life depends on this bottle – you don't know what addiction to that stuff is like!'
'Is Molinari still alive?'
Festenburg shook his head. 'Minutes he's got and he wants to know about the Mole's state of health. Listen.' He leaned toward Eric, his mouth turned down poutingly, his face puffy with agitation. 'I want to make a deal, doctor. I'm asking astonishingly little in return for these medication tablets. Please do business with me; the next time you take the drug – if you're not cured – you'll go ten years into the future and that'll be too late, too far.'
Eric said, 'Too late for you, but not for me. The cure will still exist.'
'You won't even ask what I want in return?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
Eric shrugged. 'I don't feel comfortable; I'm being subjected to pressure and I don't care for that – I'll take my chances with the drug without you.' It was sufficient merely to know that a cure existed. Such knowledge obliterated his anxiety and left him free to do as he liked. 'Obviously, my best bet is to use the drug as often as physiologically possible, two or three times, going farther into the future each time, and then when its destructive effects become too great—'