I frowned at the way I was telling it. I said, «Damn it, I’m trying to tell you something funny, something crazy I did, and I’m going at it all wrong. But now that I’ve messed it up anyway I might as well finish filling in the rest of the background. I was drinking a lot then, regularly and heavily. Well on my way to becoming a lush. Rory was trying to straighten me out, and so was Bill—Bill was still single then and living in San Francisco—but I was pretty blue and discouraged and neither of them was having much luck working on me.
«And then one night, getting drunk alone in my room, I happened to reread that ancient book with the thing about the sewing machines in it. And I got to thinking, why not? We didn’t, and still don’t for that matter, know the basic principle of any form of interstellar drive except the rocket, but there must be one. And since we don’t know how it will work we’re quite as likely as not to come across it accidentally, aren’t we? Only we might speed up the time of that accidental discovery by deliberately messing around with screwy coils and hook-ups.
«I had half a bottle of whisky left when I decided that. I poured it down the drain and went to bed. And the next morning I went to the bank and drew out every cent I had, about a thousand bucks. I quit my job by telephone and I moved to another room in a different part of town so neither Rory nor Bill could find me.
«Then I went out and bought—God help me, Ellen, but this is the truth—three used sewing machines. One of them an electric portable and two old-fashioned treadle ones I had to find in antique shops and pay fancy prices for. And a flock of electric and electronic stuff, wire, coils, condensers, vacuum tubes, transistors, switches, crystals, batteries, everything I could think of.
«I holed in that room and tried random crazy circuits and. contraptions fifteen or sixteen hours a day for two weeks. I went out only to eat, and I didn’t take a single drink.» I grinned. «Maybe that was what was wrong. Maybe I’d have been more lucky—or more intuitive—if I’d combined that spree with a drinking spree, but I didn’t. You’d think I’d have found something, if not an interstellar drive, out of the tens of thousands of crazy things I tried, but I didn’t. At the end of the two weeks all I’d accomplished was to go broke and burn myself a few times with a soldering iron.
«And that was when Bill finally found me and walked in on me. I started explaining to him what I’d been doing or trying to do, and I started laughing because suddenly I was seeing the whole thing in perspective—or maybe seeing it through Bill’s eyes—and I realized how howlingly funny it was, so I howled, and after a while Bill got the joke and was howling with me.
«Anyway, it cured me of the long black depression I’d been in, and somehow it brought Bill and me closer than we’d ever been before. That evening, after I’d fixed things to start back to work the next day and had borrowed money from Bill to live on until I got a pay check again, Bill got a little drunk with me, something he doesn’t often do. But it was a happy drunk I had, and a mild one, not the escape drinking I’d been doing up to two weeks before. I was out of that.»
I grinned at Ellen. «Well, that’s the story of the sewing machines. It’s been a joke between Bill and me ever since, and he seldom misses a chance to kid me about it. Now you can kid me too.»
Ellen smiled. «I love that story, darling, but not because it’s funny—although I suppose it is. I love it because it’s you, and I love you so I love it. Only you’re wrong about one thing.»
«What’s that?»
«We have got an interstellar drive. It’s in you, and people like you. It’s even in me a little, now that I’ve caught it from you. It’s in Klocky, in Rory, in almost everybody that works with rockets. Even in M’bassi.»
«M’bassi?» I must have looked blank. «He’s no starduster. He’s a mystic.»
She smiled again. «Maybe you’ve never asked him what he’s mystical about. Try it next time you see him.»
There was a light tap on the door and Grundleman came in. «Just another minute,» he said. «Thought I’d give you that much warning.» He stepped out and closed the door again.
«Max, darling, promise me something?»
«Anything,» I said.
«If I die—we know I won’t, but if I do—promise me that you won’t let it throw you, won’t let it start you drinking.»
«I promise.»
The door opened again, this time not Grundleman but a nurse and an orderly. The orderly said, «I’m sorry but you’ll have to leave now, sir. We’re to prepare the patient.» To prepare her, to shave her hair, her lovely chestnut hair so beautiful against the white pillow. I bent down and kissed her hair, and then her lips.
Dr. Grundleman came to me in the waiting room. «They’re taking her into Operating now, Mr. Andrews,» he said. «Dr. Weissach is ready. But she may be on the table a long time, and you won’t be able to see her for at least twenty-four hours after the operation, if that soon. You’ll be more comfortable at a hotel, and I can phone you as soon as—»
«I’ll wait,» I said.
I waited.
I wished that I could pray. Then I did pray, God, I don’t believe that you exist, and I believe that if you do exist you’re an impersonal entity and that if you notice the tall of sparrows you don’t do anything about it, on request or otherwise, but if I’m wrong, I’m sorry. And in case I’m wrong I pray to you that …
Years later, Grundleman came back. He was smiling. Thank God, he was smiling.
He said, «A beautiful operation. Weissach worked a miracle. I think she’ll live.»
I stared at him. «You think she’ll live! A beautiful operation but you only think she’ll live.»
He quit smiling. «Yes, she has an even chance now, or slightly better than even. But she won’t be completely out of danger for three or four more days.»
Jesus God, I thought, what had the odds been before? What had the odds against her been while I was talking to her only two and a half hours ago? What does a doctor mean when he says a patient’s chances are excellent? That it’s one chance in a hundred or one in a thousand?
«Will I be able to see her tomorrow?»
«Perhaps. It’s too soon for me to promise that for sure. Phone me tomorrow morning.»
«I’ll phone you as soon as I check in somewhere, so you’ll know where to reach me.»
He nodded.
In my room at the hotel I discovered how tired I was. I hadn’t slept much the night before and the strain of worry is more tiring than physical labor.
But before I let go, I phoned the rocket port and talked to the man I’d put in charge there, told him I’d probably be away a week, and made sure everything was going smoothly and that he’d know where to reach me if he needed help or advice.
I called the hospital to let them know where I was, and then I slept. But fitfully; every slight sound from outside wakened me because my ear was tuned to the telephone, listening for it to ring, hoping it wouldn’t.
It didn’t.
But even fitful sleep adds up over a long enough period, and morning found me rested and feeling better. And hungry as hell because, I realized now, I’d completely forgotten to eat the day before.