"Knew him." Croyd said. "A long while back." He let the tips of his claws rap sharply against the glass bottle. "But I won't ever forget him…."
The Long Sleep
"Tell me about Pan Rudo," Hannah said.
"Now I'm talking early fifties," Croyd answered. "That may be too far back for whatever you're after."
She shook her head.
"I want to hear about it," she told him.
He clapped his hands together abruptly, squashing a darting moth.
"Okay," he said. "I was around twenty years old at the time. But I'd been infected with the wild card virus when I was going on fourteen — so I'd had plenty of experience with it. Too much, it seemed. It still depressed me a lot in those days. I got to thinking about it, and I decided that since I couldn't change the condition maybe I could change my attitude toward it somehow, come to better terms with it. I read a lot of pop psychology books — about making friends with yourself and getting well-adjusted and all that — but they didn't do me any good. So one morning I saw a piece about this guy in the Times. He was chairing a local conference. Kind of interesting. Neuropsychiatrist. He'd actually known Freud, studied with him for a while. Then he was at the Jungian Institute in Switzerland for a time. Got back to physiology then. He was involved with a group doing dauerschlaf research while he was in Zurich. Ever hear of it?"
"Can't say that I have," she said.
He took a swallow of beer, moving his left foot to crush a pawing beetle.
"The theory behind dauerschlaf is that the body and the mind heal themselves better and faster while a person's asleep than when he's awake," he said. "They were experimenting with the treatment of drug withdrawal, psychological disorders, TB, and other stuff by putting people to sleep for long periods of time, using hypnosis and drugs. They'd induce artificial comas to promote healing. He wasn't into that much when I met him, but I'd learned of it earlier, because of my condition — and the connection intrigued me. I checked him out in the phone book, called, got his secretary, made an appointment. He had a cancellation for later that week, and she gave me that one."
Croyd took a quick swallow.
"It was a rainy Thursday afternoon in March of 1951 then, that I first met Pan Rudo — "
"Do you recall the date as well?" Hannah asked.
"Afraid not."
"How is it that you recall the year, the month, and the day so readily?"
"I count days after I wake up," he replied, "to keep track of how far along I am in my waking cycle. It gives me an idea of how much rationality I have left, so I can make plans for things I want to get done. When the days dwindle down to a precious few I avoid my friends and try to get off somewhere by myself so nobody gets hurt. Now, I woke up on Sunday, I came across the article two days later, I got the appointment for two days after that. That makes it a Thursday. And I tend to remember months when things happen, because my picture of a year is kind of a jagged thing based on seasons. This was spring and rainy — March."
He took a drink of beer. He swatted another moth.
"Damn bugs!" he muttered. "Can't stand bugs."
"And the year?" she said. "How can you be sure it was 1951?"
Because it was in the fall of the following year, 1952, that they tested the hydrogen bomb in the Pacific."
"Oh," she said, brow furrowing slightly. "Sure. Go ahead."
"So I went to see him the year before the hydrogen bomb got tested," he continued. "They were working on it then, you know. They'd decided to go ahead on it back In '48."
"Yes, I know," she said.
"A mathematician named Stan Ulam cracked the equations for Teller. Speaking of mathematicians, did you know that Tom Lehrer was a Manhattan Project mathematician? He wrote some great songs — "
"What happened when you got to Dr. Rudo's office?"
"Right," he responded. "Like I said, it was raining, and this trench coat I had on was dripping wet when I came into his reception area, and there was a pretty oriental rug on the floor. Looked as if it had silk in it, even. The receptionist hurried around her desk to help me, saying she'd hang it in their rest room rather than have it on a brass coat tree near the door which looked as if it held her own coat as well as the doctor's.
"I reached out and caught hold of all the water on the coat and the rug with my mind, and I removed it. I wasn't sure what to do with it then, so I held it in between places. You know what I'm talking about? You hear about Aces and Jokers who can teleport things — I've had the power a number of times myself — making things disappear in one place and reappear in another without seeming to pass through intervening space. But did you ever wonder where something is when it's in between places? I think about things like that a lot. Now, I wasn't sure of my range yet — though it seemed I could send smaller objects farther off than larger ones — and I wasn't sure how much water I'd just picked up, so I couldn't say for certain that I could send it all outside his sixth-floor window and let it fall down onto Park. I had been experimenting this time, though, with hiding things in between places — at first just to see whether it could be done — and I learned that it could. I'd learned that I could make things disappear in one place and not appear in another for a while — though I felt a kind of pressure in my mind and body while I was doing it. So I just held my water and smiled.
"'No need,' I told her. 'See? It's okay.'
"She stared at the thing as if it were alive, even running a hand over it, to make sure. Then she hung it on the tree.
"'Won't you have a seat for a moment, Mr. Crenson?' she said. 'I'll let Dr. Rudo know you're here.'
"She moved toward the intercom on her desk, and I was about to ask her where that rest room was — so I could get rid of my water — when an inner door opened and Dr. Rudo came into the reception area. He was a six-footer, blond and blue-eyed, who put on a professional smile and extended his hand as he came up to me.
"'Mr. Crenson,' he said. 'It is good to meet you. I am Pan Rudo. Won't you come into my office?' His voice was rich and resonant, his teeth very white.
"'Thanks,' I said.
"He held the door for me and I entered the next room. It was brighter than I'd thought it might be, with a few pastoral watercolors bearing his signature and architectural etchings signed by others on the walls, another oriental rug on the floor, lots of reds and blues in it. A large aquarium occupied a table to the left of the door, bright fish darting and drifting within it, a chain of bubbles along a rear corner.
"'Have a seat,' he told me, his speech slightly accented — German, and maybe something else — and he gestured toward a big, comfortable-looking leather chair facing his desk.
"I took the chair. He moved around the desk and seated himself. He smiled again, picking up a pencil and rolling it between his hands.
"'Everybody who comes here has problems,' he began, maintaining eye-contact.
"I nodded.
"'I'm no exception, I guess,' I told him. 'It's hard to know how to begin, though.'
"'There are certain broad categories most people's probblems fall into,' he said. 'Family, the people you work with….'
"'No problems there,' I said. The pressure of holding the water was bothering me, and I looked around for a suitable container into which I might deposit it. A metal wastebasket would have been fine, but I couldn't see one anywhere about.
"'Money? Sex?' he suggested.
"'No, I've got plenty of money, and I get laid pretty regular,' I said, wondering whether I could move it beyond his window and let it go. Only, it was even farther away than the one in the reception area.
"I shifted in the chair and checked out the other side of the room.