“I recently tried this new cocktail in a bar,” Redrick was saying, pouring the whiskey. “It’s called Hell Slime, I’ll make you one later, after we eat. That, my friend, is the kind of stuff that’s hazardous for your health on an empty stomach; your arms and legs go numb after one drink… I don’t care what you say, Dick, tonight I’ll get you wasted. I’ll get you wasted, and I’ll get wasted myself. We’ll remember the good old days, we’ll remember the Borscht… Poor Ernie’s still in jail, you know?” He finished his drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and asked in an offhand manner, “So what’s new at the Institute, have you gotten started on the slime? You see, I’m a bit behind on my science…”
Noonan immediately understood why Redrick was steering the conversation in this direction. He threw up his hands and said, “You kidding, pal? You know what happened with the slime? Have you heard of the Carrigan Labs? It’s this little private setup… Anyway, they managed to get their hands on some slime…”
He described the catastrophe, the scandal, how they never figured out where the slime came from—never did clear that up—while Redrick listened in a seemingly absentminded way, clucking his tongue and nodding his head, then decisively splashed more whiskey into their glasses and said, “Serves them right, the parasites, may they all go to hell…”
They had another drink. Redrick looked at his dad—once more, something trembled in his face. He stretched out his hand and pushed the glass closer to the clenched fingers, and all of a sudden the fingers opened and closed again, grasping the bottom of the glass.
“Now things will go faster,” said Redrick. “Guta!” he hollered. “How long are you gonna starve us? It’s all for you,” he explained to Noonan. “She must be making your favorite salad, with the shrimp, I saw she’s been saving them for a while. Well, and how are things at the Institute in general? Find anything new? I hear you guys now have robots working their asses off, but not coming up with much.”
Noonan began telling him about Institute business, and as he talked, the Monkey silently appeared by the table next to the old man and stood there for a while, putting her furry little paws on the table. Suddenly, in a completely childlike manner, she leaned against the corpse and put her head on his shoulder. And Noonan, continuing to chatter, looked at these two monstrous offspring of the Zone and thought, My Lord, what else do we need? What else has to be done to us, so it finally gets through? Is this really not enough? He knew that it wasn’t enough. He knew that billions and billions didn’t know a thing and didn’t want to know and, even if they did find out, would act horrified for ten minutes and immediately forget all about it. I’ll get wasted, he thought savagely. Screw Burbridge, screw Lemchen… Screw this star-crossed family. I’m getting wasted.
“Why are you staring at them?” asked Redrick in a low voice. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt her. On the contrary—they say they exude health.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Noonan, draining his glass in one gulp.
Guta came in, ordered Redrick to set the table, and put down a large silver bowl with Noonan’s favorite salad. And then the old man, in a single motion, as if someone had just remembered to pull the puppet strings, jerked the glass toward his open mouth.
“So, guys,” said Redrick in a delighted voice, “now we’ll have one hell of a party!”
4
REDRICK SCHUHART, 31 YEARS OLD.
During the night the valley had cooled off, and at dawn it actually became cold. They walked along the embankment, stepping on the rotted ties between the rusty rails, and Redrick watched the droplets of condensed fog sparkle on Arthur Burbridge’s leather jacket. The kid was walking lightly, cheerfully, as if they hadn’t just passed a torturous night, full of a nervous tension that still shook every fiber; as if they hadn’t spent two agonizing hours on the wet summit of the bare hill in restless sleep, huddling together for warmth, waiting out the torrent of greenide that was flowing around the hill and disappearing into the ravine.
There was a thick fog lying on both sides of the embankment. From time to time, it rolled over the rails in heavy gray streams, and they would walk knee-deep in a slowly swirling haze. It smelled of damp rust, and the swamp to the right of the embankment reeked of decay. They couldn’t see anything except the fog, but Redrick knew that on both sides stretched a hilly plain with piles of rocks, and that beyond that were mountains hidden in the haze. And he also knew that when the sun rose and the fog condensed into dew, he was supposed to see the frame of a broken-down helicopter to their left and a train in front of them, and that’s when the real work would begin.
As he walked, Redrick shoved his hand between his body and the backpack and jerked the backpack up so that the edge of the helium container didn’t bite into his spine. The damn thing’s heavy, he thought, how am I going to crawl with it? A mile on all fours. All right, stop bitching, stalker, you knew what you were in for. Five hundred big ones are waiting for you at the end of the road, you can sweat a bit. Five hundred thousand, a tasty treat, huh? No way will I give it to them for any less than that. And no way will I give the Vulture more than thirty. And the kid… the kid gets nothing. If the old bastard told me even half the story, then the kid gets nothing.
He took another look at Arthur, and for some time watched, squinting, as he lightly stepped over the ties two at a time—wide shouldered, narrow hipped, the long raven hair, like his sister’s, bouncing in rhythm to his steps. He’d begged it out of me, Redrick thought sullenly. He did it himself. And why did he have to beg so desperately? Trembling, with tears in his eyes. “Please take me, Mr. Schuhart! I’ve had other offers, but I only want to go with you, you know the others are no good! There’s Father… But he can’t anymore!” Redrick forced himself to cut this memory short. Thinking about it was repellent, and maybe that was why he started thinking about Arthur’s sister, about how he’d slept with this Dina—slept with her sober and slept with her drunk, and how every single time it’d been a disappointment. It was beyond belief; such a luscious broad, you’d think she was made for loving, but in actual fact she was nothing but an empty shell, a fraud, an inanimate doll instead of a woman. It reminded him of the buttons on his mother’s jacket—amber, translucent, golden. He always longed to stuff them into his mouth and suck on them, expecting some extraordinary treat, and he’d take them into his mouth and suck and every single time would be terribly disappointed, and every single time he’d forget about the disappointment—not that he’d actually forget, he’d just refuse to believe his memory as soon as he saw them again.