death and Rudy's subsequent promotion. Besides that, according to John, Tari had recently been showing increasing signs of tension and anxiety.
In addition, Rudy's story of what had happened in the cabin had been strictly borne out by the police examination of the scene. There was a smudge of blood and a few hairs—graying like Rudy's, not black like Tari's —on the wall where Tari had been pummeling him. Also some more blood and hair— black like Tari's, not graying like Rudy's—on the edge of the hearth where Tari had hit his head on the way down. And the angle of the bullet hole in his temple—slightly upward, slightly backward—was consistent with Rudy's having grabbed Tari's gun hand and pushed it up, forcing a bent elbow, so that the guy fired up and back into his own head.
'Oh,” said Julie. “Well, you didn't tell me all that.” He heard her stifle a yawn. “This is certainly a wonderful conversation to be having before going to bed. Almost as calming as the eleven o'clock news.'
'Well, you asked me—'
'I know I did. Just for a minute, though, I couldn't help thinking how nice it must be to be able to say ‘What did you do today, dear?’ to your husband and hear about something pleasant, like pretty flowers or little babies.'
'You should have married a botanist, I guess. Or an obstetrician.'
'Oh well, live and learn,” Julie said. “Maybe next time.'
* * * *
Generally speaking, Gideon was a good sleeper, not given to nocturnal (or diurnal) worry or obsessive angst. But in his mid-twenties he had gone through a long patch of insomnia, lying awake deep into the small hours and fretting about the way his dissertation was going (or not going), or about his father's failing health, or simply about the way the world was going to hell in a handbasket even back then. Then, somewhere, he had read about Napoleon's method for putting himself soundly and restoratively to sleep at night no matter how anxious the circumstances. The great man would picture in his mind a multidrawered cabinet and then assign each of the matters that were worrying him to a separate drawer. in his mind's eye he would then glance briefly at the contents of each drawer and slam them firmly shut one after the other. When the last drawer was closed he would be asleep, or so he claimed.
The idea had appealed to Gideon and since then, on those few occasions when his mind refused to turn itself off at bedtime he had been constructing cabinets of his own, stuffing whatever was niggling away at him into the drawers and shutting them away for the night. The technique had worked too, although he wasn't as good a cabinetmaker as Napoleon; once in a while one of the drawers would pop open on its own, so to speak, bringing him awake at four or five in the morning in what seemed to be mid-thought, as if his mind had jump-started on its own, with or without his permission. He would lie there in the darkness, galvanized and yet dopey with sleep at the same time, feeling like an unwelcome observer, holding his breath and afraid to move for fear the fragile chain of logic would turn to vapor and disappear if his mind found out he was watching it.
Usually, that was exactly what it did, but every now and then, if things went right, the chain would hold; where there had been nothing but half-formed questions before, he would see at least the outlines of answers; where there had been only confusion and ambiguity, patterns would emerge.
So it was on this night. At 4:38 A.M. by the glowing display on the clock-radio beside his bed, his eyelids flicked open on their own. His mind was already whirring along in high gear.
At 4:51 he jumped out of bed. “Oh, wow,” he whispered to himself.
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Chapter 26
* * * *
Two minutes later, having slipped into shorts and polo shirt, he was banging at the door of John's cottage.
'What, what?” came from within, peevish and muffled.
'John, it's me. I need to talk to you.'
A groan. “Jesus, Doc, it's the middle of the night.'
'It's almost five,” Gideon said. It was nice to be waking John for a change, he thought. “Come on, let me in.'
'Let yourself in, the damn door's open.” A light went on in the cottage. John was sitting up in bed in a worn T- shirt, squinting at the light but managing to glare at Gideon as well. “Almost five,” he snarled. “Really? I must have overslept.'
'You're not in a very good mood.'
'I wonder why.'
'You're probably just a little out of sorts from those Boom-Booms.'
'God,” John said, which Gideon took as assent.
'Listen, I need to ask you something.'
John yawned and massaged his face. The stubble sounded like sandpaper. “Okay, okay, all right, sit down. What?'
Gideon pulled up a chair. “What do Klingons look like?'
John stopped rubbing his face and studied Gideon with one of his less readable expressions. “Well, I can certainly see why you couldn't wait till daylight with a question like that,” he said mildly. “How come you didn't wake me up hours ago?'
'Seriously, what do they look like?'
'What do you mean, what do they look like?'
