That brought the tears to Arthur’s eyes. The way Harry accepted whatever was coming from him, without hesitation, forthrightly. You could be married a million years and such instant rapport would be impossible. Arthur loved Harry fiercely then. The tears slid down his cheek and he took a deep breath, then leaned over and whispered in his friend’s ear.
“Christ,” Harry said when he had finished. He stared earnestly at Arthur. One finger slowly tapped the blanket. “Now I know I’m dreaming.” He blinked at the cloud-filtered sunshine coming through the window curtains. “You wouldn’t…” Abandoning that question, he said, “When did this happen to you?”
“This morning.”
Harry looked at the curtain. “Ithaca. She can tell me. I’ve been confused. She left…”
Arthur took the metal spider from his pocket and held it before Harry’s face, resting it in his palm. It moved its legs in a slow, restless dance. Harry’s eyes widened and he made an effort to back up against the pillows. “Christ,” he repeated. “What is it? What is it doing here?”
“It’s a miniature von Neumann probe,” Arthur said. “It explores, recruits. Does research. Gathers samples. It makes copies of itself.” He returned the spider to his pocket. “Captain Cook has his own enemies,” he said.
“So what are you, a slave?”
Arthur didn’t respond for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Who else…?”
Arthur shook his head. “There are others.”
“What if it’s another…layer of deception?” Harry asked, closing his eyes again.
“I don’t think it is.”
“You’re saying there’s hope.”
Arthur’s expression changed to puzzlement. “That’s not the word I’d use. But there’s a new factor, yes.”
“And this is all you know.”
“All I know,” Arthur said. He touched Harry’s arm. They sat quietly for a few moments, Harry thinking this over. The effort tired him.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve known you long enough. You told me so I could die with some good news, maybe, right?”
Arthur nodded.
“They let you tell me.”
“Yes.”
Harry closed his eyes. “I love you, old buddy,” he said. “You’ve always managed to come up with the craziest things to keep me amused.”
“I love you, too, Harry.” Arthur stepped outside the room to call Ithaca in. She resumed her seat, saying nothing.
“I think you must…have a lot of work to do,” Harry said. “I can’t think straight and…I’m too tired to talk much now.” He waved his finger: time to go.
“Thanks for coming by,” Ithaca said, handing him the tape from the small recorder. Arthur hugged her tightly, then bent over the bed and took Harry’s head gently between his hands.
Thirty years. I can still recognize him behind the mask of sickness. He’s still my beloved Harry.
Arthur squinted, trying to hold back the flooding warmth in his eyes, trying to will another world where his friend would not be dying — ignoring for the moment the Earth’s own illness, ignoring the general for the particular, a more human scale of magic — and knowing he would fail; Also trying to memorize something already passing: the shape of Harry’s face, the set of his eyes, slightly athwart one another, even more elfin in his illness, though glazed; unable to imagine this fevered face with rounded nose and high forehead and strawlike patchy hair, even this ill frame, decaying in a grave.
“I’ll carry you around with me wherever I go,” he said, and kissed Harry on the forehead. Harry reached up slowly and hooked his hand around Arthur’s wrist, touching his heated lips to Arthur’s right palm.
“Same here.”
Arthur left the room quickly, eyes forward. In the parking lot, he sat behind the wheel of the rental car, stunned, his head seeming stuffed with sharp twigs.
“Thank you for letting me do that, I’d like to go back to my family, if there’s time.”
As the sun rose high over Los Angeles, nothing constrained him from returning to the airport and taking the next available flight back to Oregon.
42
Hicks leaned against a massive marble-covered pillar, watching dozens of people enter and leave the hotel lobby. Most were dressed in business suits and overcoats; the weather outside was brisk and there had been cold rain just an hour before. Many others, however, seemed ill equipped for the weather; they were out-of-towners, gawkers.
Much of official Washington had seemed to come to a standstill. With the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House in open conflict now, such petty considerations as budgets had to wait. The tourist trade, oddly, had momentarily increased, and hotels through much of the city were jammed. Come see your Capital in an uproar.
After an hour, he still had not spotted Bordes, so he checked for messages at the desk. There were none. Feeling more isolated than ever, his stomach sour and his neck tense, he returned to the pillar.
It was remarkable how life went on without apparent change. By now, most of the people on Earth were aware the planet might be under sentence of death. Many had neither the education nor the mental capacity to understand the details, or judge for themselves; they relied on experts, who knew so very little more than they. Yet even for those with more education and imagination, life went on — conducting business (he imagined the events being discussed over expense-account lunches), politics almost as usual (House investigations notwithstanding), and then back at the end of the day to family and home. Eating. Visits to the bathroom. Sleeping. Lovemaking. Giving birth. The whole cyclic round.
A tall, gangly black youth in a green army overcoat passed through the rotating front door, paused, then walked ahead, looking right and left suspiciously. Hicks clung to the security of not moving, not making himself conspicuous, but the boy’s head turned his way and their eyes met and held. Bordes raised one hand tentatively in greeting and Hicks nodded, pushing away from the pillar with his shoulder.
The youth approached him quickly, coat swishing around his ankles. An embarrassed grin crossed his face. He stopped two yards from Hicks and offered his hand, but Hicks shook his head angrily, refusing to touch him.
“What do you want from me?” he asked the boy.
Reuben tried to ignore Hicks’s discomfiture, “I’m pleased to meet you. You’re an author, and all, and I read…Well, forget that. I have to say some things to you, and then get back to work.” He shook his head ruefully. “They’re going to work all of us pretty hard. There’s not much time.”
“All of who?”
“I’d feel better talking where nobody will pay attention,” Reuben said, staring steadily at Hicks. “Please.”
“The coffee shop?”
“Fine. I’m hungry, too. Can I buy you lunch? I don’t have a lot of money, but I can get something cheap for both of us.”
Hicks shook his head. “If you convince me you’re on to something,” he said, “I’ll spot you lunch.”
Reuben led the way to the hotel cafeteria, emptying now as the lunch hour ended. They were led to a corner booth, and this seemed to satisfy the boy’s need for privacy.
“First,” Hicks said, “I have to ask: Are you armed?”
Reuben smiled and shook his head. “I had to come here as soon as I could, and I’m almost broke now as it is.”
“Have you ever been in a mental institution, or…associated with religious cults, flying-saucer cults?”
Again, no.
“Are you a Forge of Godder?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what you have to say.”