One pair of medium-size islands, “Falkland Islands,” was off the coast of Arg (“Argentina”) opposite “Santa Cruz,” which seemed to be ARG20400. Something teased his memory in that, but he couldn’t think what.
He measured the Andaman Islands; the three that were closest together were about a hundred and twenty “miles” in overall length—somewhere around two hundred kilometers, if he remembered correctly; big enough for several cities! The shortest approach to them would be from the other side of Stability Bay, SEA77122, if he and Lilac (and King? Snowflake? Sparrow?) were to go there. If they were to go? Of course they would go, now that he had found the islands. They’d manage it somehow; they had to.
He turned the map face-down in the frame, put back the pieces of cardboard, and pushed the brads back into their holes with a handle-end of the pincers—wondering as he did so why ARG20400 and the “Falkland Islands” kept poking at his memory.
He slipped the frame’s backing in under the wire—Sunday night he would bring tape and make a better job of it—and carried the map back up to the third floor. He hung it on its hook and made sure the loose backing didn’t show from the sides.
ARG20400… A new zinc mine being cut underneath it had been shown recently on TV; was that why it seemed significant? He’d certainly never been there…
He went down to the basement and got three tobacco leaves from behind the hot-water tank. He brought them up to the storeroom, got his smoking things from the carton he kept them in, and sat down at the table and began cutting the leaves.
Could there possibly be another reason why the islands were covered and unmapped? And who did the covering?
Enough. He was tired of thinking. He let his mind go—to the knife’s shiny blade, to Hush and Sparrow cutting tobacco the first time he’d seen them. He had asked Hush where the seeds had come from, and she’d said that King had had them.
And he remembered where he had seen ARG20400—the nameber, not the city itself.
A screaming woman in torn coveralls was being led into Medicenter Main by red-cross-coveralled members on either side of her. They held her arms and seemed to be talking to her, but she kept on screaming—short sharp screams, each the same as the others, that screamed again from building walls and screamed again from farther in the night. The woman kept on screaming and the walls and the night kept screaming with her.
He waited until the woman and the members leading her had gone into the building, waited longer while the far-off screams lessened to silence, and then he slowly crossed the walkway and went in. He lurched against the admission scanner as if off balance, clicking his bracelet below the plate on metal, and went slowly and normally to an up-gliding escalator. He stepped onto it and rode with his hand on the rail. Somewhere in the building the woman still screamed, but then she stopped.
The second floor was lighted. A member passing in the hallway with a tray of glasses nodded to him. He nodded back.
The third and fourth floors were lighted too, but the escalator to the fifth floor wasn’t moving and there was darkness above. He walked up the steps, to the fifth floor and the sixth.
He walked by flashlight down the sixth-floor hallway—quickly now, not slowly—past the doors he had gone through with the two doctors, the woman who had called him “young brother” and the scar-cheeked man who had watched him. He walked to the end of the hallway, shining his light on the door marked 600A and Chief, Chemotherapeutics Division.
He went through the anteroom and into King’s office. The large desk was neater than before: the scuffed telecomp, a pile of folders, the container of pens—and the two paperweights, the unusual square one and the ordinary round one. He picked up the round one—ARG20400 was inscribed on it—and held its cool plated-metal weight on his palm for a moment. Then he put it down, next to King’s young smiling snapshot at Uni’s dome.
He went around behind the desk, opened the center drawer, and searched in it until he found a plastic-coated section roster. He scanned the half column of Jesuses and found Jesus HL09E6290. His classification was 080A; his residence, G35, room 1744.
He paused outside the door for a moment, suddenly realizing that Lilac might be there too, dozing next to King under his outstretched possessing arm. Good! he thought. Let her hear it at first hand! He opened the door, went in, and closed it softly behind him. He aimed his flashlight toward the bed and switched it on.
King was alone, his gray head encircled by his arms.
He was glad and sorry. More glad, though. He would tell her later, come to her triumphantly and tell her all he had found.
He tapped on the light, switched off the flashlight, and put it in his pocket. “King,” he said.
The head and the pajamaed arms stayed unmoving.
“King,” he said, and went and stood beside the bed. “Wake up, Jesus HL,” he said.
King rolled onto his back and laid a hand over his eyes. Fingers chinked and an eye squinted between them.
“I want to speak to you,” Chip said.
“What are you doing here?” King asked. “What time is it?”
Chip glanced at the clock. “Four-fifty,” he said.
King sat up, palming at his eyes. “What the hate’s going on?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Chip got the desk chair and put it near the foot of the bed and sat down. The room was untidy, coveralls caught in the chute, tea stains on the floor.
King coughed into the side of a fist, and coughed again. He kept the fist at his mouth, looking red-eyed at Chip, his hair pressed to his scalp in patches.
Chip said, “I want to know what it’s like on the Falkland Islands.”
King lowered his hand. “On what islands?” he said.
“Falkland,” Chip said. “Where you got the tobacco seeds. And the perfume you gave Lilac.”
“I made the perfume,” King said.
“And the tobacco seeds? Did you make them?”
King said, “Someone gave them to me.”
“In ARG20400?”
After a moment King nodded.
“Where did he get them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No,” King said, “I didn’t. Why don’t you get back where you’re supposed to be? We can talk about this tomorrow night.”
“I’m staying,” Chip said. “I’m staying here until I hear the truth. I’m due for a treatment at 8:05. If I don’t take it on time, everything’s going to be finished—me, you, the group. You’re not going to be king of anything.”
“You brother-fighter,” King said, “get out of here.”
“I’m staying,” Chip said.
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Then go fight yourself,” King said, and lay down and turned over onto his stomach.
Chip stayed as he was. He sat looking at King and waiting.
After a few minutes King turned over again and sat up. He threw aside the blanket, swung his legs around, and sat with his bare feet on the floor. He scratched with both hands at his pajamaed thighs. “’Americanueva,’” he said, “not ‘Falkland.’ They come ashore and trade. Hairy-faced creatures in cloth and leather.” He looked at Chip. “Diseased, disgusting savages,” he said, “who speak in a way that’s barely understandable.”
“They exist, they’ve survived.”
“That’s all they’ve done. Their hands are like wood from working. They steal from one another and go hungry.”