She silenced him with a kiss, then said something quite odd. “Never forget the moments we’ve had,” she said in deadly earnest. “They’ll keep me with you always.”
There was something about how she said those words that chilled him to the bone. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Congratulations, Crane,” said Mr. Mui, bowing formally. “You’ve delivered early, within budget, no labor problems, no scientific problems. You paid for it yourself and have pledged to return the area to its natural state when you leave. You are a man of your word, sir. I appreciate that.”
“And I appreciate Liang Int’s commitment to our goal.” Crane also bowed. “You didn’t buckle, even under pressure.”
Again Mr. Mui bowed. Smiling, Lanie said, “Well, in just about twelve hours we will have the culmination of the project—and my husband’s dream. You gentlemen will have to excuse me. I seem to have misplaced my son.”
She left them then, though Charlie had been merely an excuse. She knew exactly where her son was. She was doing everything she could to hold herself together tonight. While everyone else was celebrating, she’d drawn inward, fearful. The nightly dreams of death were more intense than ever and all day today she’d felt a cloud of doom floating about her. She’d been unable to shake it and spent most of her time trying to hide her apprehension from others.
Kate was lugging Charlie around. He was a boy whose feet very rarely touched the ground. Kate and Sumi were talking by the buffet table, Charlie leaning out to sneak canapés, which he promptly threw at anyone walking past.
Lame made her way through the excited crowd to join them, grabbing Charlie’s arm just as he was about to launch a food missile on a low trajectory right at Whetstone’s head.
“So who’s handling whom?” she asked, taking the boy who was beginning to look tired and irritable. It was way past his bedtime.
“I’ll take aunt duty anytime to motherhood,” Kate said, realigning her sequins. “Play with ’em, wear ’em out, then give ’em back to mama.”
“You have a very wonderful child,” Sumi said, turning to her left and speaking to empty air. “Don’t you think, Paul?”
“Paul?”
“I’m sorry,” Sumi said, shaking her head. “Let me introduce you. Paul, this is Elena King Crane.”
“C-call me Lame,” she said, narrowing her eyes and looking at Kate.
“Paul is Sumi’s chipmate,” Kate said. “A friend from Sumi’s own mind. Someone to talk with, share with.”
“You mean like an imaginary friend?” Lanie asked.
Sumi laughed with Paul, her gaze on thin air. “Imaginary to you,” she said. She looked at Lanie. “To me he’s my better half. He’s intelligent, wise … loves to do things: to travel, go to parties, hiking. In fact, we were wondering if it would be all right if Paul and I did a little exploring down here?”
“Well, sure,” Lanie said. “Take one of those carts parked beneath the computer room overlook. Go wherever you want, but watch out for the nuke ports. Fall down one and it’s four miles nonstop to the bottom.”
“Thanks.” Sumi smiled, then turned to Paul. “Let’s go.”
They wandered off, Lanie looking at Masters. “Is Sumi all right?”
“Yeah.” Kate smiled. “It’s a Yo-Yu thing. The chip draws directly from the subconscious, but it also stores previous load, like an extra brain, enabling each experience with your ‘friend’ to be recalled and built upon. You’ve been locked up underground too long or you’d have seen this with many people. The chip is a way for basically lonely people to have companionship. Better than that, older people who are not only lonely, but alone, find a whole new world of attachment and happiness in a relationship that doesn’t tax them or judge them.”
“But Sumi’s Vice President of the United States,” Lanie returned. “Does he always go out in public that way?”
“Not always,” Kate said, “but a lot. I think that Paul is relatively aggressive in not wanting to miss anything.”
“You better be sure to warn me when Paul’s around. I don’t want to step on his toes or anything.”
“The chip is very agile. It avoids contact with others.”
“You act as if we’re talking about a real person.”
“As real as Sumi, I suppose,” Kate said. “What about you? You don’t look as excited as I would have expected you to be on the most important night of your life.”
“It’s that obvious?”
“In fact you look scared, honey. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Lanie said, holding Charlie close to her breast, nuzzling him with her cheek. “This cavern has begun to feel like a crypt, or something. When this is over, I never want to go in another cave as long as I live.”
“You’re the second person I’ve heard say that tonight.”
“Who’s the other?”
“Burt Hill.”
Burt Hill was at the bottom of Tube #33, systematically searching for conspirators. He had climbed out of the cage and was walking around the nuclear core, a journey of ten seconds’ duration. He’d felt danger all over him, the way he used to before Doc Crane had taken him out of the hospital and given him a job. Like a sudden chill descending and enfolding him, he could feel the icy grip of betrayal strangling his heart.
He looked up to see faint light, a glowing spot four miles above, a giant eye looking down at him. He climbed back in the cage and hit the lever. The cage zipped silently upward, markers on the wall indicating how far he’d risen. The wall was paved with explosives. He could never check all hundred tubes tonight. He’d have to think of something else. Then an idea hit him.
Crane sat with Whetstone in the computer room. For once, Stoney was more drunk than Crane. Although, Crane thought, that wasn’t quite true. Since Lanie had stepped into his soul, he scarcely drank. They watched the party through the window, its sound muffled.
“Do you find it like a dream sometimes?” Whetstone asked, his skin pale, nearly translucent, his lips tinged purple.
“All this?” Crane asked. “Not a dream, actually. Hell, I was here for every shovelful of dirt that came out of that stinking desert ground. It’s too real to me. But … there is something … I don’t know how to put it.”
“Let me help you.” Stoney smiled. “You’ve devoted your entire life to one thought, one goal. Now that you’re on the verge of achieving it, you feel disconnected somehow, maybe even useless.”
“You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“That’s where I was when I met you, dear boy. A man can make only so much money before its pursuit loses its fire. You and your wild notions put the fire back in my life. And, with this, I feel like my life has been worthwhile.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“I die now, Crane.”
“Oh, come on, Stoney. This isn’t the night to—”
“No,” Whetstone said. “It’s true. My life of drive and dissipation has finally caught up with me.”
“Isn’t there anything to be done?”
Whetstone shrugged. “They have all these extraordinary machines for keeping rich folk alive for decades after we should have died. That’s not for me. Too ghoulish. I lived as a man. I’ll not die as Suction Valve A-57 of some damned machine.”
“How long have you got?”
The man looked wistful. “How long does it take a leaf to detach itself from a tree in the fall and float to the ground? It’s fall, Crane.”
Crane looked him in the eye without pity or anguish. They were both men who knew what death was and weren’t afraid of it. “I’m going to miss you,” he said.