Now Wait for Last Year (27 page)

Eric said, 'That's the trouble with hypochondria. You never know.'

'Well,' Teagarden said with a ragged sigh, 'okay – I didn't realize it either.'

Turning to Don Festenburg, Eric said, 'What about Freneksy? Does he know?'

With a faint, quivering smirk of nervousness Festenburg said, 'Of course.'

'Any reaction from him?'

'Concern.'

'You're not letting any further 'Star ships in here, I assume.'

Festenburg said, 'Doctor, your job is to heal the patient, not to dictate policy.'

'It would help me to heal the patient if I knew that—'

'Cheyenne is sealed off,' Festenburg conceded at last. 'No ship except yours has been permitted to land since this occurred.'

Eric walked to the bed and gazed down at Gino Molinari lost in a tangle of machinery that maintained his temperature and measured a thousand conditions extant deep within his body. The plump, short figure could hardly be seen; the face was completely obscured by a new item, scarcely ever employed up to now, for catching extremely delicate alterations in the brain. It was the brain, at all costs, that had to be protected. Everything could go but the brain.

Everything could go – except that Molinari had forbidden the use of an artiforg heart. So that was that. Medically speaking the clock had been set back a century by this neurotic, self-destructive injunction.

Already, without examining the now-open chest of the man, Eric knew that he was helpless. Outside of the field of org-trans he was probably no more competent a surgeon than Teagarden. Everything in his own career had hung on the possibility of replacing the failing organ.

'Let's see that document again.' He took the paper back from Teagarden, studied it more thoroughly. Surely as wily and resourceful a man as Molinari had imagined some viable alternative to org-trans. It couldn't end here.

'Prindle has been notified, of course,' Festenburg said. 'He's standing by, ready to speak over TV when and if it's certain we can't revive Molinari.' His voice was flat, unnaturally so; Eric glanced at him, wondering how he truly felt about this.

'What about this paragraph?' Eric said, showing the document to Dr Teagarden. 'About the activation of the GRS Enterprises robant simulacrum, the one of Molinari used in the video tape. To be put on TV tonight.'

'What about it?' Teagarden said, rereading the paragraph. 'The airing of the tape will be scratched, of course. As far as the robant itself goes I know nothing about it. Maybe Festenburg does.' He turned questioningly to Don Festenburg.

That paragraph,' Festenburg said, 'is senseless. Literally. For instance, what's a robant doing in cold-pak? We can't make out Molinari's reasoning and anyhow we've got our hands full. There're forty-three paragraphs to this damn document; we can't carry them all out simultaneously, can we?'

Eric said, 'But you know where—'

'Yes,' Festenburg said. 'I know where the simulacrum is.'

'Get it out of the cold-pak,' Eric said. 'Activate it as per the instructions in this document. Which you already know to be legally binding.'

'Activate it and then what?'

'It'll tell you itself,' Eric said, 'from then on.' And for years to come, he said to himself. Because that's the whole point of the document. There will be no public announcement that Gino Molinari has died because as soon as that so-called robant is activated it will not be so.

And, he thought, I think, you know it, Festenburg.

They looked at each other silently.

To a Service man Eric said, 'I want four of you to accompany him while he does it. Just a suggestion, but I hope you take me up on it.'

The man nodded, beckoned to a group of his co-workers; they fell in behind Festenburg, who looked confused and frightened now and in no way self-possessed. He left on his reluctant errand, the group of Secret Service men close behind.

'What about a further attempt to repair the ruptured aortic artery?' Dr Teagarden demanded. 'Aren't you going to try? A plastic section can still be—'

The Molinari in this time sequence,' Eric said, 'has been battered enough. Don't you agree? This is the moment to retire it; that's what he wants.' We're going to have to face a fact, he realized, that none of us wants to face because it means we're in for a kind of government – have had a kind of government already – hardly in accord with our theoretical ideas.

Molinari had founded a dynasty consisting of himself.

'That simulacrum can't rule in Gino's place,' Teagarden protested. 'It's a construct and the law forbids—'

'That's why Gino refused the use of an artificial organ. He can't do what Virgil has done, replace each in turn, because by doing so he'd be open to legal challenge. But that's not important.' Not now, anyhow. He thought, Prindle isn't the Mole's heir and neither is Don Festenburg, however much he'd like to be. I doubt if the dynasty is endless but at least it'll survive this blow. And that's quite a lot.

After a pause Teagarden said, 'That's why it's in cold-pak. I see.'

'And it'll stand up to any test you care to give it.' You, Minister Freneksy, anyone including Don Festenburg who probably figured it out before I did, he realized, but couldn't do anything about it. 'That's what distinguishes this solution; even if you know what's going on you can't stop it.' This rather enlarged the concept of political maneuvering. Was he horrified by this? Or impressed? To be honest, as yet he did not know. It was too novel a solution, this collusion of Gino Molinari with himself, behind the scenes. His tinkering with the colossal entity of rebirth in his own inimitable, faster-than-the-eye way.

'But,' Teagarden protested, 'that leaves another time continuum without a UN Secretary. So what's gained if—'

'The one which Don Festenburg has gone to activate,' Eric said, 'undoubtedly comes from a world in which the Mole was not elected.' In which he went down to political defeat and someone else became UN Secretary. There no doubt were a number of such worlds, considering the closeness of the original vote in this world.

In that other world the absence of the Mole would have no meaning, because he was simply one more defeated political figure, perhaps even in retirement. And – in a position to be thoroughly rested up and fresh. Ready to tackle Minister Freneksy.

'It's admirable,' Eric decided. 'I think, anyhow.' The Mole had known that sooner or later this battered body would die beyond the possibility of reconstruction except by artiforg means. And what good was a political strategist who couldn't look ahead to his own death? Without that he would have been merely another Hitler, who didn't want his country to survive him.

Once more Eric glanced over the document which Molinari had presented them. It indeed was airtight. Legally the next Molinari absolutely had to be activated.

And that one, in turn, would see to it that he provided himself with a replacement. Like any good tag-team of wrestlers it could theoretically go on for ever.

Could it?

All the Molinaris, in all the time-continua, were aging at the same rate. It could only go on for thirty or forty more years. At the most.

But that would carry Terra through and out of the war.

And that was all the Mole cared about.

He was not trying to be immortal, a god. He was simply interested in serving out his term of office. What had happened to Franklin D. Roosevelt in a previous major war was not going to happen to him. Molinari had learned from the mistakes of the past. And he acted accordingly, in typical Piedmontese style. He had found a bizarre and colorfully idiosyncratic solution to his political problem.

This explained why the UN Secretary's uniform and homeopape shown to Eric a year hence by Don Festenburg were counterfeit.

Without this, they might conceivably have been real.

That alone justified what Molinari had done.

An hour later Gino Molinari summoned him to his private office.

Flushed, glowing with good humour, the Mole in a spanking new uniform leaned back in his chair and expansively, at leisure, surveyed Eric. 'So the nurts weren't going to start me up,' he boomed out. Then abruptly he laughed. 'I knew you'd put pressure on them, Sweetscent; I had it all worked out. Nothing by accident. You believe me? Or you think there was a loophole, they might have gotten away with it, especially that Festenburg – he's plenty smart, you know. I admire the hell out of him.' He belched. 'Listen to me. Well, so much for Don.'

'I think they almost got by,' Eric said.

'Yes, they did,' Molinari agreed, somber now. 'It was very close. But everything in politics is close; that's what makes it worth the effort. Who wants a sure thing? Not me. By the way: those video tapes are going on the air as planned; I sent poor Prindle back to the vault or wherever it is he hangs out.' Again Molinari laughed loudly.

'Am I right,' Eric said, 'that in your world — '

'This is my world,' Molinari interrupted; putting his hands behind his head he rocked back and forth, eyeing Eric brightly.

Eric said, 'In the parallel world you came from — '

'Garbage!'

' — you were defeated in your attempt to become UN Secretary; is that right? I'm just curious. I don't intend to discuss it with anyone.'

'If you do,' Molinari said, 'I'll have the Secret Service glunk you and sink you in the Atlantic. Or drop you in deep space.' He was silent a moment. 'I got elected, Sweetscent, but the drats knocked me right out of office in a no-confidence recall thing they cooked up. Having to do with the Pact of Peace. They were right, of course; I shouldn't have gotten involved in it. But who wants to make a deal with four-armed shiny bugs who can't even talk, who have to go around carrying a translation box like an indoor potty?'

'You know now,' Eric said guardedly, 'that you have to. Reach an understanding with the reegs.'

'Sure. But it's easy to see that now.' The Mole's eyes were dark and intense, fighting this out with vast, native intelligence. 'What do you have in mind, doctor? Let's have a look. What did they used to say in the last century? Let's kick it up on the roof and see if it – some damn thing.'

'A contact is ready for you in Tijuana.'

'Hell, I'm not going to Tijuana; that's a dirty town – that's where you go for a broad, age thirteen. Even younger than Mary.'

'You know about Mary, then?' Had she been his mistress in the alternate world?

'He introduced us,' Molinari said blandly. 'My best friend; he fired me up. The one they're burying or whatever it is they're doing with the corpse. It couldn't interest me less, just so they get rid of it. I've already got one, that bullet-riddled one in the casket. Which you saw. One is enough; they make me nervous.'

'What are you going to do with the assassinated one?'

Molinari showed his teeth in a great grin. 'You don't get it, do you? That was the previous one. That came before the one that just died. I'm not the second; I'm the third.' He cupped his ear, then. 'Okay, let's hear what you've got; I'm waiting.'

Eric said, 'Urn, you'll go to TF&D to visit Virgil Ackerman. That won't arouse suspicion. It's my job to get the contact into the factory so he can confer with you. I think I can do it. Unless—'

'Unless Corning, the top 'Star agent in Tijuana, gets to your reeg first. Listen, I give the Secret Service orders to round him up; that'll keep the 'Stars busy for a while, get them off our knabs. We can cite their activity regarding your wife, their getting her addicted; that'll be the covering story. You agree? Yes? No?'

'It'll do.' Once more he felt weary, even more so than before. It was a day, he decided, that would never terminate; the huge former burden had returned to weigh him into submission.

'I don't impress you very much,' Molinari said.

'On the contrary. I'm just exhausted.' And he still had to go back to Tijuana to bring Deg Dal Il into the factory from his room at the Caesar Hotel; it was not over yet.

'Someone else,' Molinari said acutely, 'can pick up your reeg and bring it to TF&D. Give me the location and I'll see that it's done right. You don't have to do any more; go get drunk or find some fresh new girl. Or take some more JJ-180, visit another time period. Anyhow enjoy yourself. How's your addiction coming? Broken it yet, like I told you to?'

'Yes.'

Molinari raised his thick eyebrows. 'I'll be damned. Amazing; I didn't think it could be done. Get it from your reeg contact?'

'No. From the future.'

'How's the war come out? I don't move ahead, like you do; I move sideways only, into the parallel presents.'

'It's going to be tough,' Eric said.

'Occupation?'

'For most of Terra.'

'How about me?'

'Apparently you manage to get away to Wash-35. After holding out long enough for the reegs to come in with strength.'

'I don't care for it,' Molinari decided. 'But I guess I've got to do it. How's your wife Katherine?'

'The antidote—'

'I mean your relationship.'

'We're separating. It's decided.'

'Okay.' Molinari nodded briskly. 'You write out the address you have for me and in exchange I'll write out a name and address for you.' He took pen and paper, wrote rapidly. 'A relative of Mary's. A cousin. Bit player in TV dramatic series, lives in Pasadena. Nineteen. Too young?'

'Illegal.'

'I'll get you off.' He tossed Eric the paper. Eric did not pick it up. 'What's the matter?' Molinari shouted at him. 'Has using that time-travel drug scrambled your wits, you don't know you've got only one tiny life and that lies ahead of you, not sideways or back? Are you waiting for last year to come by again or something?'

Reaching out, Eric took the paper. That's exactly right. I've been waiting a long time for last year. But I guess it's just not coming again.'

'Don't forget to say I sent you,' Molinari said, and beamed broadly as Eric put the paper in his wallet.