"Breakbone cramp, green-pus shakes, strangle fever-' Hazel was ticking them off on her fingers. "Blue death. Typhus. Minerva, what else?"
"Golden staphylococcus systemic infection, hepatic herpes Landrii. Worst of all, a loss of will to live. But Ishtar will not permit a person to die who has not asked for death while possessed of judicial capacity, and neither will Galahad. Tamara stayed with you every minute until that crisis was over."
"Why don't I remember any of this?"
"Be glad you don't," Teena advised.
"Sweetheart, if you had not been in the best hospital in all the known universes, with the most skilled therapists, I would be a widow again. And I look terrible in black."
Ezra added, "If you didn't have the constitution of an ox, you would never have made it."
Teena interrupted with: "Of a bull, Ezra. Not an ox. I know, I've seen 'em. Impressive."
I didn't know whether to thank Teena or to call off the wedding again. So I ignored it. "What I don't understand is how I got all those diseases. I took a hit, I know that. That could account for staph aureus. But those other things?"
Ezra said, "Colonel, you are a professional soldier."
"Yes." I sighed. "I never practiced that aspect of the profession; I don't feel easy with it. Biological warfare makes fusion bombs seem clean and decent. Even chemical warfare looks humane compared with bio weapons. Very well; that knife- was it a knife?-was prepared. Nastily."
"Yes," agreed Ezra, "somebody wanted you dead and was willing to kill all of Luna City as long as you died."
"That's crazy. I'm not that important."
Minerva said quietly, "Richard, you are that important."
I stared at her. "What makes you think so?"
"Lazarus told me."
"'Lazarus.' Teena used that name earlier. Who is Lazarus? Why is his opinion so weighty?"
Hazel answered, "Richard, I told you that you were important and I told you why. The rescue of Adam Selene. The same people who want him to stay unresurrected wouldn't boggle at killing Luna City to kill you."
"If you say so. I wish I knew what happened mere. Luna City is my adopted home; some mighty fine people in it. Uh, your son, Ezra, among others."
"Yes, my son. And others. Luna City was saved, Richard; the infection was stopped."
"Good!"
"At a price. A reference time tick was available from our rescue. The number of seconds it took us all to get aboard and get out of there was reconstructed through careful reenactment-by all of us who were involved in it with your part played by a skilled actor. This was compared with Gay's own memory of how long she was there, and the two were reconciled. Then a Burroughs space-time capsule was moved to the resultant coordinates plus four seconds, and a heat bomb was released. Not atomic but hot, star hot-some of those bugs are hard to kill. Obviously the hotel had to be damaged, with a high probability-no, a certainty-of loss of life. The threat to Luna City was cauterized but the price was high. Tanstaafl." Ezra looked grim.
"Your son was saved?"
"I think so. However, my son's welfare did not figure into this decision, and my opinion was not sought. This was a Time Headquarters policy decision. THQ rescues individuals only when those individuals are indispensable to an operation. Richard, as I understand it-mind you, I'm a recruit private on sick leave; I'm not privy to high policy decisions-as I understand it, permitting Luna City to suffer a killing epidemic at that time would have interfered with THQ's plans for something else. Perhaps this matter that Mistress Gwendolyn-Hazel-
hinted at. I don't know."
"It was and I do know and on Tertius you don't call me 'Mistress' unless you mean it, Ezra, but thank you anyhow. Richard, it was the widespread damage that airborne disease could do to their plans that caused Headquarters to act so radically. They cut it so fine that you and I and the rest of Gay's load came within a blink of being killed by that heat bomb as we escaped." (And at this point I barked my shins on a paradox-but Hazel was still talking:)
"They couldn't risk waiting even a few more seconds; some killer bugs might get into the city's air ducts. They had projected the effect that would have on Operation Adam Selene: disaster! So they moved. But the Time Corps doesn't go chasing through the universes saving individual lives, or even the lives of whole cities. Richard, they could save Herculaneum and Pompeii today if they wanted to... or San Francisco, or Paris. They
don't. They won't."
"Sweetheart," I said slowly, "are you telling me that this 'Time Corps' could prevent the Blotting of Paris in 2002 even though that happened two centuries in the past? Please!"
Hazel sighed. Ezra said, "Friend Richard, attend me carefully. Don't reject what I am about to say."
"Eh? Okay. Shoot."
"The destruction of Paris is more than two thousand years in the past, not just two centuries ago."
"But that is clearly-"
"By groundhog reckoning today is Gregorian year A.D. 4400 or the year 8160 by the Jewish calendar, a fact I found quite disturbing but had to accept. Besides that, here and now we are over seven thousand light-years from Earth."
Both Hazel and Minerva were looking soberly at me, apparently awaiting my reaction. I started to speak, then reviewed my thoughts. At last I said, "I have only one more question. Teena?"
"No, you can't have any more waffles."
"Not waffles, dear. My question is this: May I have another cup of coffee? This time with cream? Please?"
"Here-catch!" My request appeared on my lap table.
Hazel blurted, "Richard, it's true! All of it."
I sipped the fresh coffee. "Thank you, Teena; it's just right. Hazel my love, I didn't argue. It would be silly of me to argue something I don't understand. So let's move to a simpler subject. Despite these terrible diseases you tell me I had, I feel brisk enough to leap out of bed and lash the serfs. Minerva, can you tell me how much longer I must have this paralysis? You are my physician, are you not?"
"No, Richard, I am not. I-"
"Sister is in charge of your happiness," Teena interrupted. "That's more important."
"Athene is more or less right-"
"I'm always right!"
"-but she sometimes phrases things oddly. Tamara is chief of morale for both Ira Johnson Hospital and the Howard Clinic ... and Tamara was here when you needed her most, she held you in her arms. But she has many assistants, because Director General Ishtar considers morale-well, happiness-central to both therapy and rejuvenation. So I help, and so does Maureen, and Maggie whom you have not yet met. There are others who pitch in when we have too many with happiness problems- Ubby and Deety, and even Laz and Lor who are superb at it when they are needed... not surprising, as they are sisters of Lazarus and daughters of Maureen. And there's Hilda, of course."
"Hold it, please. I'm getting confused by names of people I've never met. This hospital has a staff that dishes out happiness; I understand that much. All of these angels of happiness are women. Right?"
"How else?" Teena demanded scornfully. "Where do you expect to find happiness?"
"Now, Teena," Minerva said reprovingly. "Richard, we female operatives take care of the morale of males... and Tamara has skilled male operatives on watch or on call for female clients and patients. Opposite polarity isn't absolutely essential to morale nursing but it makes it much easier. We don't need as many male morale operatives to take care of our female patients since women are less likely to be ill. Rejuvenation clients are about evenly divided, male and female, but women almost never become depressed while being made young again-"