Dr. Futurity (1960) (19 page)

SEVENTEEN

As the time ship moved into the future, Parsons understood at last why Loris had changed her mind. Why she had returned to Nova Albion for him, knowing that he had killed her father.

In the month that had followed, she had discovered that she was pregnant. Possibly she had even gone ahead into the future and seen her children. In any case, she had let the children be born; she had not had the zygotes removed and put covertly into the great Soul Cube, to merge with the hundreds of millions already there.

Realizing that, he felt a profound, humble emotion toward her; and, at the same time, pride.

"What's your brother's name?" he asked the girl. His daughter, he realized with a further deepening of emotion.

Grace said, "Nathan. She--our mother--wanted us to have names that you would approve of." She lifted her head and studied him. "Do you think we look like you? Would you have recognized us?"

"I don't know," he said. He was too overcome to think about it right now.

"We knew you," Grace said. "But of course we expected to see you; we knew that you came there, to do what had to be done. And we knew that you were unable to go through with it."

And so, he thought, you came back and did it for me. Both of you. Aloud, he said, "How does your mother feel about what you did?"

"She understands that it's necessary. It would not have worked out, for her to have children by Corith. There was already too much interbreeding. She was aware of that, even in your time. But there did not seem to be any alternative, and the old lady--our great grandmother, Nixina--would not permit anything else. Of course in our time she's long since dead."

Parsons said, "Tell me why you have the caduceus emblem on your clothing."

"I'd rather wait," she said. "Until we get back. So we can all be there, my mother and my brother and you and I."

He thought,
The family in its entirety
.

"She told you about me?" he asked the girl.

"Oh, yes," she said. "All about you. We've waited a long time to see you face-to-face." Her even white teeth flashed as she smiled at him. Exactly as Loris had smiled at him, he thought.

History repeats itself, he thought. And this woman waiting year after year, all her life, until this moment: seeing her father for the first time. But, in contrast to Corith, I was not entombed in a transparent cube.

As he and his daughter stepped from the time ship, Loris came to meet them. Gray-haired, a handsome middle-aged woman . . . in her late fifties, he realized. Still the strong face, the erect posture. Her hand came out, and he saw the pleasure in her eyes, her dark, full eyes.

"The last time I saw you," she said huskily, "I cursed you. I'm sorry, Jim."

"I couldn't bring myself to do it," he said. "I got there, but that was all." He became silent then.

"For me, that was a long time ago," Loris said. "What do you think of our children?" She drew Grace over to her, and now, from the other ship, Nathan appeared. "They're almost nineteen," she said. "Don't they look healthy and sound?"

"Yes," he agreed tightly, surveying the three of them. This is so much like
his
situation, he thought. If he had returned to life. His wife much older, his two children--which he did not even know he had. He said, "The combination of my racial heritage and yours makes an attractive amalgam."

"The union of the opposites," Loris said. "Come along, so we can sit down and talk. You can stay awhile, can't you? Before you go back to your own time?"

To my wife, he thought. How hard it is to reconcile that with this. With what I see here.

The Wolf Lodge did not seem to have changed in appearance in twenty years. The same dark, massive, aged beams. The wide stairs. The stone walls that had impressed him so much. This building would continue to stand a long, long time. The grounds, too, remained the same. The lawns and trees, the flower beds.

"Stenog remained in Drake's place for ten years or so," Loris said. "In case my father made a second try. Stenog had no way of telling what our circumstances were. He believed that Corith could still make an assassination attempt, but of course my father has been buried now for almost the full twenty years. We did not make any more attempts to revive him. Nixina died soon after our return from Nova Albion, and without her, much of the impetus dwindled away."

The power behind it all, Parsons thought. The savage, relentless schemes of a dried-up little old lady, who imagined herself as the protagonist of an ancient race reborn.

Loris said, "It was a fatal blow to us to discover that the man whom we had selected as the epitome of the conquering whites was actually a man from our own times. Born in our culture, adhering to its values. Stenog went back into time to protect our culture. That is, the aspect of our culture that he had taken the job of supporting. Our tribe, as you know, does not follow their system of birth or death." She added, "I have something to tell you about that, Jim."

Later, the four of them sat drinking coffee and facing one another.

"What is the caduceus?" Parsons asked. By now, he had begun to get an inkling.

His daughter said, "We're following in your footsteps, sir."

"That's right," Nathan said with agitation. "It's still illegal, but not for long--in another ten years we know it'll be accepted. We've looked ahead." His young face gleamed with pride and determination. Parsons saw some of the family's fanaticism, the desire to prevail at all costs. But in this boy, there was a fuller grasp on reality. He and his sister were not so far removed from the world as it actually was; the near-paranoid dreams were gone.

At least he hoped they were gone. Shifting his gaze, he studied Loris. The older Loris.

Can she manage them? he wondered. The image of the boy and girl at Corith's bedside remained in his mind. The swift act, completed in a matter of seconds; he had not been able to do it, and so they had, in his place. Because they believed that it had to be done. Possibly they were right. But--

"I'd like to know about your illegal group," he said, indicating the caducei.

With enthusiasm, the boy and girl spilled out their accounts, interrupting each other in their eagerness. Loris, silent, watched them with an expression that Parsons could not read.

They had, they told him, about a hundred and forty members in their profession (as they called it). Several had been caught by the government and exiled to the Martian prison colonies. The group distributed inflammatory propaganda, demanding the end of the euthanors and a resumption of natural birth--at the very least, the freedom of women to conceive and give birth, or to turn their zygote over to the Soul Cube if they preferred. The element of
choice
. And, as an essential, the end of enforced sterilization for the young men.

Breaking into her children's account, Loris said, "You understand that I'm still Mother Superior. I've been able to get a small number of males out of the hands of the sterilization agency . . . not many, but enough to give us hope."

Parsons thought, Maybe they have to be fanatics. In a world like this, where they're fighting compulsory sterilization, exile to prison camps without trial, vicious
shupos
. And, underneath it all, the ethos of death. A system devoted to the extinction of the individual, for the sake of the future.

Whatever virtues it might have, whatever good aspects--

"I guess there's no chance that you could stay here," Grace said. "With mother and us."

Awkwardly, Parsons said, "I don't know if you know it, but in my own time I have a wife." He felt his face flush, but neither of the children seemed embarrassed or surprised.

"We know," Nathan said. "We've gone back several times to have a look at you. Mother took us back when we were younger; we persuaded her to. Your wife seems very nice."

Loris said, in a practical tone, "Let's be realistic. Jim, at this point, is twenty years my junior." But something in her eyes, a certitude, made Parsons wonder what she was thinking.

Does she know something important about me? he asked himself. Something that I have no way of knowing? They have use of their time-travel equipment for any purpose that they want.

In a low voice, Loris said, "I know what makes you look so worried, Jim. You saw them kill my father. I want to tell you why they did it. You're afraid it's the maniacal fanaticism of the family showing itself in one more generation. You're wrong. They killed Corith to save your life. If he had lived, he would have had you destroyed; I knew it, and so did the children. They saw you were unable to do it, and they admire you more. It was the highest morality possible. But your life is worth too much to them, to let anything happen to you. Their whole outlook is based on what I've told them about you, and what they've seen for themselves. You, with your system of values, your humane ethics, your sense of others, have formed them. And, through their profession, you will alter this society. Even if you yourself are not here."

None of them spoke, for a time.

"You were a powerful and unanswerable lesson for this society," Loris said.

To that, Parsons could say nothing.

Loris said, "And so was your profession."

"Thanks," he said finally.

The three of them smiled at him with great tenderness. And with love. My family, he said to himself. And, in these children, the best of both of us, of Loris and me.

"Do you want to go back to your own time now?" Loris said, in her considerate, mature manner.

He nodded. "I suppose I should."

Disappointment, crushing and bleak, appeared on the children's faces. But they said nothing. They accepted it.

Later on, Loris sent both Grace and Nathan off, so she and Parsons could be alone for a time.

"Will I ever be back here?" he asked her bluntly.

With composure, she said, "I won't tell you."

"But you know."

"Yes," she said.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"I don't want to rob you of the power of choosing for yourself. If I tell you, it will seem determined. Out of your hands. But of course, it would still be your choice--as it was your choice not to kill my father."

"Do you believe that choice actually exists? That it's not an illusion?"

She said, "I believe it's authentic."

He let it go at that.

"In one matter, however," she continued, "you have no choice. You know about that--what remains to be done. Of course, you can do it here as well as back in your own time."

"Yes," he said. "But I'd rather do it back there."

Rising, Loris said, "I'll take you back. Do you want to see the children again before you go?"

He hesitated, considering. "No," he decided. "I feel that I have to go back. And if I see them again, I probably won't."

Matter-of-factly, Loris said, "We've been without you for their lifetime. But for you, only an hour or so passed. If you decide to come back to us, it will follow a twenty year period for you. But--" She smiled. "For us, it will probably be during the next few days. You see?"

"You won't have to wait," he said.

Loris nodded.

"How strange," he said. "Having two families, at different periods in history."

"Do you consider that you have two? I see only one. Here, with the children. You have a wife back in your own time, but no family." Her eyes flared with the familiar determination.

Parsons said, "You would be a difficult person to live with." He spoke half-jokingly, but with more than a little seriousness.

"This is a difficult period in time," Loris said.

He could hardly argue that.

As they walked toward the time ship, Loris said, "Would you be afraid of the problems here? No, I know you wouldn't. There's no fear on your part. You would be a lot of help to us."

At the ship, as he shut the door after them, he said, "What about Helmar? Is he still around?"

Loris said, "He went over to the government, to join them."

That did not surprise him. "And Jepthe?"

"She's with us here. But in retirement. She's gotten quite feeble; in her old age she has none of Nixina's strength."

Presently she switched on the controls. He was on his way back, at last, to his own time.

"I'm afraid your car was wrecked," Loris said. "When the dredge picked you up. We hadn't had the experience we needed then."

He said, "That's all right. I have insurance."

Once more, the highway with its educational signs. Cars moving toward San Francisco, and, on the other side, the traffic on its way to Los Angeles. He stood uncertainly on the shoulder of the road, smelling the oleander that the public roads department had planted, miles of it between the two strips. Then he began to walk.

Trudging along, wondering if any of the cars would stop-- it meant unhooking from the automatic beam--he considered the work that lay ahead of him. He did not have to undertake it at once; in fact, he had years to accomplish it. Most of his lifetime.

He thought of his house, Mary standing on the front porch as he had last seen her. Image of her waving, pert and fresh in her green slacks . . . hair shining in the early-morning sunlight as he set off to his office.

How will I feel when I see her? he asked himself.

I wonder how soon I'll be going back into the future.
A method of communicating with Loris had been arranged between them. How easy it would be . . .

A car slowed, left the lane, and coasted to a halt on the shoulder. "Engine trouble?" the driver called to him.

"Yes," he said. "I'd appreciate a ride into San Francisco."

A moment later he had gotten in; the car started up and rejoined the beam.

"Strange looking outfit you have on," the driver remarked politely, but with curiosity.

Parsons realized that he had come back to his time wearing clothes from another world entirely. And he had left his gray instrument case somewhere. This time it really was lost.

The ring of industrial installations around San Francisco appeared ahead. He watched the factories, tracks, towers, and sheds go by beneath the highway.