The nurse wheeled him out into the garden.
And there before him was the explanation of the morning's trucks.
A whole mobile television unit had trundled up those terrible roads. And a fleet of cars and, yes, that other noise was explained, too; there was a helicopter perched on the tennis court, its vanes twisting like blown leaves in the breeze that came up the mountain. The helicopter had a definite meaning, the old man knew. Someone very important must have come up in it. The air space over the institute was closed off, by government order.
And reasoning the thing through, there was a logical conclusion; government orders can be set aside only by government executives, and—yes. There was the answer.
"Are you sure you're warm enough?" the nurse whispered. But Sidorenko hardly heard. He recognized the stocky blue-eyed man who stood chatting with one of the television crew. Sidorenko's contacts with the world around him were censored and small, but everyone would recognize that man. His name was Shawn O'Connor; he was the President of the United States.
The President was shaking his hand.
"Dear man," said President O'Connor warmly, "I can't tell you how great a pleasure this is for me. Oh, no. You wouldn't remember me. But I sat in on two of your Roose lectures. Ninety-eight, it must have been. And after the second I went up and got your autograph."
The old man shook hands and let go. 1998? Good lord, that was close to 50 years ago. True, he thought, cudgeling his memory, not very many persons had ever asked for the autograph of a mathematical physicist, but that was an endless time past. He had no recollection whatever of the event. Still, he remembered the lectures well enough. "Oh, of course," he said. "In Leeds Hall. Well, Mr. President, I'm not certain but—"
"Dear man," the President said cheerfully, "don't pretend. Whatever later honors I have attained, as an engineering sophomore I was an utterly forgettable boy. You must have met a thousand like me. But," he said, standing straighter, "you, Dr. Sidorenko, are another matter entirely. Oh, yes. You are probably the greatest man our country has produced in this century, and it is only the smallest measure of the esteem in which we hold you that I have come here today. However," he added briskly, "we don't want to spoil things for the cameramen, who will undoubtedly want to get all this on tape. So come over here, like a good fellow."
The old man blinked and allowed the cameramen to bully the President and himself into the best camera angles. One of them was whistling through his teeth, one was flirting with the nurse, but they were very efficient. The old man was trembling. All right, I'm 95, I'm entitled to a little senility, he thought; but was it that? Something was worrying him, nagging at his mind.
"Go ahead, Mr. President," called the director at last, and tailored men a blue and silver ribbon.
The camera purred faintly, adjusting itself to light and distance, and the President began to speak. "Dr. Sidorenko, Shawn O'Connor took from the hand of one of his alert, well-today's investiture is one of the most joyous occasions that has been my fortune—" Talk, talk, thought the old man, trying to listen, to identify the tune the cameraman had been whistling and to track down the thing that was bothering him all at once. He caught the President's merry blue eyes, now shadowed slightly as they looked at him, and realized he was trembling visibly.
Well, he couldn't help it, he thought resentfully. The body was shaking; the conscious mind had no control over it. He was ashamed and embarrassed, but even shame was a luxury he could only doubtfully afford. Something worse was very close and threatening to drown out mere shame, a touch of the crawling fear he had hoped never to feel again and had prayed not even to remember. He assumed a stiff smile.
"—of America's great men, who have received the honors due them. For this reason the Congress, by unanimous resolution of both Houses, has authorized me—"
The old man, chilled and shaking, remembered the name of the tune at last.
The hear went over the mountain,
The bear went over the mountain.
The bear went over the mountain—
And what do you think he saw?
It worried him, though he could not say why.
"—not only your scientific achievements which are honored, Dr. Sidorenko, great though these are. The truths you have discovered have brought us close to the very heart of the universe. The great inventions of our day rest in large part on the brilliant insight you have given our scientific workers. But more than that—"
Oh, stop, whispered the old man silently to himself, and he could feel his body vibrating uncontrollably. The President faltered, smiled, shrugged and began again: "More than that, your humanitarian love for all mankind is a priceless—"
Stop, whispered the old man again, and realized with horror that he was not whispering at all. He was screaming. "Stop!" he bawled, and found himself trying with withered muscles to stand erect on his useless feet. "Stop!" The cameras deserted the President and swung in to stare, with three great glassy eyes, at the old man; and for old Sidorenko tenor struck in and fastened on him. Something erupted. Something exploding and bursting, like a crash of automobiles in flame; someone shouted near him with a voice that made him cringe. He saw the nurse run in with a hypodermic, and he felt its bite.
Endless hours later (though it took less than 60 seconds for the blood to pump the drug to his brain) he felt the falling, spiralling falling that he remembered from other needles at other times, and there was the one moment of clearness before sleep. Maureen was staring down at him, the needle still in her hand. "I'm sorry I spoiled the party, dear," he whispered, his eyes closing, and then he was firmly asleep.
It really wasn't worth the trouble. Why should they want to waste so much effort on curing him?
The nurse fussed: "There's nothing to worry about, Doctor. A fine, big man like you. Sure you had a bad spell. What's that? Do you think the President himself has never had a bad spell?"
"Why don't they leave me alone, Maureen?" he whispered.
"Leave you alone, is it! And you with twenty good years inside of you."
"You're a good girl, Maureen," he said faintly, hoarding his strength. It was really more than they had a right to expect of him, he thought drowsily. He couldn't afford many blow-ups like this morning's, and it seemed they were always happening. Still, it was nice of the President. .
He was a little more alert now, the effects of the needle, and its later measured, balancing antidotes, beginning to wear off. This was Wednesday, he remembered. "Do I have to go in with the Group?" he whined.
"Doctor's orders, Doctor," she said firmly, "and doctor as you may be, you're not doctor enough to argue with doctor's orders." It was an old joke, limp to begin with, but he owed her a smile for it. He paid her, faintly.
After lunch she wheeled him into the Group meeting room. They were the last to arrive.
Sam Krabbe, said, surly as always in the Group though he was pleasant enough in social contacts, outside: "You take a lot of hostility out on us, Sidorenko. Why don't you try being on time?"
"Sam forgets," said the Reynolds woman to the air. "It isn't up to Sidorenko, as long as he and Maureen act out that master-slave thing of having her push his chair. If she doesn't want to pay us the courtesy of promptness, Sidorenko can't help it." Maria Reynolds had murdered her husband and four teenaged children; she had told the Group so at least 50 times. Sidorenko thought of her as the only legitimate lunatic the Group owned—except himself, of course; the old man kept an open mind about himself.