"Yes madame," the drugstore answered eagerly. "A recent scientific breakthrough, from A. G. Chemie at Bonn. I'll get
it for you." From an orifice at the end of the glass counter a package tumbled; it slithered to a halt directly before them and Pete picked it up. "The same price as the old."
He paid the drugstore and then he and Carol walked back out onto the dark, deserted parking lot.
"All for us," Carol said. "This enormous place with a thousand lights on and that Rushmore circuit clamoring away. It's like a drugstore for the dead. A spectral drugstore."
"Hell," Pete said, "it's very much for the living. The only problem is, there just aren't enough of the living."
"Maybe there's one more than there was," Carol said; she removed a strip of rabbit-paper from the pack, unwrapped it, placed it between her even, white teeth and bit. "What color does it turn?" she asked, as she examined it. "Same as the old?"
"White for non," Pete said. "Green for positive."
In the dim light of the parking lot it was hard to tell.
Carol opened her car door; the dome light switched on and she inspected the strip of rabbit-paper by it.
Carol looked up at him and said, "I'm pregnant. We've had luck." Her voice was bleak; her eyes filled with tears and she looked away. "I'll be goddamned," she said brokenly. "The first time I've ever been in all my whole life. And with a man who's already—" she was silent, breathing with difficulty and staring fixedly past him into the night darkness.
"This calls for a celebration!" he said.
"It does?" She turned to face him.
"We get to go on the radio and broadcast it to the whole world!"
"Oh," Carol said, nodding. "Yes, that's right; that's the custom. Won't everyone be jealous of us? My!"
Crawling into her car, Pete snapped on the transmitter of the radio to the emergency all-wave broadcast position. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "You know what? This is Pete Garden of Pretty Blue Fox at Carmel, California. Carol Holt Garden and I have only been married a day or so, and tonight we made use of the new type of West German rabbit-paper—"
"I wish I were dead," Carol said.
"You what?" He stared at her in disbelief. "You're nuts! This is the most important event of our lives! We've added to the population. This makes up for Luckman's death, it balances it out. Right? He caught hold of her hand and compressed it until she moaned. "Say something into the mike, Mrs. Garden."
Carol said, "I wish all of you the same luck I've had tonight."
"You're goddam right!" Pete shouted into the microphone. "Every single one of you listening to me!"
"So now we stay together," Carol said softly.
"Yes," Pete agreed. "That's right, that's what we decided."
"And what about Patricia McClain?"
"The hell with everybody else in the world except you," Pete said. "Except you and me and the baby."
Carol smiled a little. "Okay. Let's drive back."
"Do you think you're able to drive? We'll leave your car here and both go back in mine and I'll drive." Quickly, he carried her suitcases to his own car, then took her by the arm and led her. "Just sit down and take it easy," he said, seating her in his car and fastening the safety belt in place.
"Pete," she said, "do you realize what this means in terms of The Game?" She had turned pale. "Every deed in the pot belongs to us, automatically. But—there is no Game right now! There aren't any deeds in the pot, because of the police ban. But we must get something. We'll have to look it up in the manual."
"Okay," he said, only half-listening to her; he was busy carefully guiding his car up into the sky.
"Pete," she said, "maybe you win back Berkeley."
"Not a chance. There was at least one Game subsequent to that, the one we played last night."
"True." She nodded. "We'll have to apply to the Rules Committee in the Jay Satellite for an interpretation, I guess."
He frankly did not care about The Game at this moment. The idea of a child, a son or daughter ... it obliterated everything connected with Luckman's arrival and death and everything else in his mind, all that had happened of late, the banning of the group.
Luck, he thought, this late in life. One hundred and
fifty years. After so many tries; after the failure of so many, many combinations.
With Carol beside him he drove his car back across the dark Bay to San Rafael and their apartment.
When they got there, and had gone upstairs, Pete headed at once for the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
"What are you doing?" Carol asked, following after him.
Pete said, "I'm going out on a whing-ding; I'm going to get drunker than I've ever before been in my life." From the medicine cabinet he got down five Snoozex tablets and, after hesitating, a handful of methamphetamine tablets. "These will help," he explained to Carol. "Goodbye." He swallowed the pills, gulping them down all together, and then headed for the hall door. "It's a custom." He paused briefly at the door. "When you learn you're going to have a child. I've read about it." He saluted her gravely and then shut the door after him.
A moment later he was downstairs, back in his car, starting out alone in the dark night, searching for the nearest bar.
As the car shot upward into the sky, Pete thought, God knows where I'm going or when I'll get back. I certainly don't know—and don't care.
"Wheeoo!" he shouted exultantly, as the car climbed.
The sound of his voice echoed back to him and he shouted again.
X
ROUSED FROM HER sleep, Freya Gaines groped for the switch of the vidphone; groggily she found it and snapped it on.
" 'Lo," she mumbled, wondering what time it was. She made out the luminous dial of the clock beside the bed. Three A.M. Good grief.
Carol Holt Garden's features formed on the vidscreen. "Freya, have you seen Pete?" Carol's voice was jerky, anxiety-stricken. "He went out and he still hasn't come back; I can't go to sleep."
"No," Freya said. "Of course I don't know where he is. Did the police let him go?"
"He's out on bail," Carol said. "Do—you have any idea what places he might stop at? The bars are all closed, now; I was waiting for two o'clock thinking he'd show up no later than two-thirty. But—"
"Try the Blind Lemon in Berkeley," Freya said, and started to cut the connection. Maybe he's dead, she thought. Threw himself off one of the bridges or crashed his ear-finally.
Carol said, "He's celebrating."
"Good god why?" Freya said.
"I'm pregnant."
Fully awake, Freya said, "I see. Astonishing. Right away. You must be using that new rabbit-paper they're selling."
"Yes," Carol said. "I bit a piece tonight and it turned green; that's why Pete's out. I wish he'd come back. He's so emotional, first he's depressed and suicidal and then—"
"You worry about your problems, I'll worry about mine," Freya cut in. "Congratulations, Carol. I hope it's a baby." And then she did break the connection; the image faded into darkness.
The bastard, Freya said to herself with fury and bitterness. She lay back, supine, staring up at the ceiling, clenching her fists and fighting back the tears. I could kill him, she said to herself. I hope he's dead; I hope he never comes back to her.
Would he come here? She sat up, stricken. What if he does? she asked herself. Beside her, in the bed, Clem Gaines snored on. If he shows up here I won't let him in, she decided; I don't want to see him.
But, for some reason, she knew Pete would not come here anyhow. He's not looking for me, she realized. I'm the last person he's looking for.