Blood Music

greenish light flickered. “Hey,” she said, marveling more at that light than everything else.

She pushed away from the railing and returned to her cart on the walkway. All very pretty, she told herself, but the important thing was to keep from freezing, and then to move when the dawn was bright enough to see by. She huddled next to the cart

“I’ll go see what’s in the building,” she said. “Maybe it’s somebody like me, somebody smarter who knows about electricity. Tomorrow morning I’ll go see.”

Asleep or awake, shivering or still, she fancied she could hear something beyond hearing: the sound of the change, the plague and the river and the drifting sheets, like a big church choir with all its members’ mouths wide open, singing silence.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Paulsen-Fuchs pulled up a chair in the viewing chamber with a distant scrape of metal and sat on it. Bernard watched him drowsily from the bed. “So early in the morning,” he said.

“It is afternoon. Your time sense is slipping.”

“I’m in a cave, or might as well be. No visitors today?”

Paulsen-Fuchs shook his head, but did not volunteer an explanation.

“News?”

“The Russians have pulled out of the Geneva U.N. Obviously they see no advantage to a United Nations when they are the sole nuclear superpower on the Earth. But before they left, they tried to get the security council to declare the United States a nation without leadership and hazardous to the rest of the world.”

“What are they aiming for?”

“I believe they are aiming for some consensus on a nuclear strike.”

“Good God,” Bernard said. He sat up on the edge of the cot and held the back of his hands up before his eyes. The ridges had receded slightly; the quartz lamps treatments were making at least cosmetic improvements. “Did they mention Mexico and Canada?”

“Just the United States. They wish to kick the corpse.”

“So what is everybody else saying, or doing?”

“The U.S. forces in Europe are organizing an interim government. They have declared a touring U.S. Senator from California in line of succession for the Presidency. Your Air Force officers at the base here are putting up some resistance. They believe the United States government should be military for the time being. Diplomatic offices are being rearranged into governmental centers. The Russians are asking American ships and submarines to be put into special quarantine stations in Cuba and along the Russian coast in the northern Pacific and the Sea of Japan.”

“Are they doing it?”

“No reply. I think not, however.” He smiled.

“Any more on the bird-fish kills?”

“Yes. In England they are killing all migratory buds, whether they come from North America or not. Some groups want to kill all birds. There is much savagery, and not just against animals, Michael. Americans everywhere are being subjected to great indignities, even if they have lived in Europe for decades. Some religious groups believe Christ has established a base in America and is about to march on Europe to bring the Millennium. But you’ll have your news over the terminal this morning, as usual. You can read about it all there.”

“It’s better if it comes from a friend.”

“Yes,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. “But even a friend’s words cannot improve the news as it is today.”

“Would a nuclear strike solve the problem? I’m no expert on epidemiology—could America actually be sterilized?”

“Highly unlikely, and the Russians are well aware of that. We know something about the accuracy of their warheads, failure rates, and so on. They could at best manage to burn out perhaps half of North America sufficiently to destroy all life forms. That would be next to useless. And the radiation hazard, not to mention the meteorological changes and the hazard of biologicals in the dust clouds, would be enormous. But—” He shrugged. “They are Russians. You do not remember them in Berlin. I do. I was just a boy, but I remember them—strong, sentimental, cruel, crafty and stupid at once.”

Bernard restrained himself from commenting on Germany’s behavior in Russia. “So what’s holding them back?”

“NATO. France, surprisingly. The strong objections of most of the non-aligned countries, especially Central and South America. Now enough talk of that. I need a report.”

“Ay, ay,” Bernard said, saluting. “I feel fine, though a touch groggy. I’m considering going crazy and making a great deal of noise. I feel like I’m in prison.”

“Understandable.”

“Any women volunteers yet?”

“No,” Paulsen-Fuchs said, shaking his head. Perfectly seriously, he added, “I do not understand it. Always they have said fame is the best aphrodisiac.”

“Just as well, I suppose. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t noticed any changes in my anatomy since the day before yesterday.” That was when the lines in his skin began to recede.

“You have decided to continue the lamp treatments?”

Bernard nodded. “Gives me something to do.”

“We are still considering anti-metabolites and DNA polymerase inhibitors. The infected animals are showing no symptoms-apparently your noocytes are not pleased with animals. Not here, at least. All sorts of theories. Are you experiencing headaches, muscle aches, anything of that nature, even though they may be normal for you?”

“I’ve never felt better in my life. I sleep like a baby, food tastes wonderful no aches or pains. An occasional itch in my skin. Oh…and sometimes I itch inside, in my abdomen, but I’m not sure where. Not very irritating.”

“A picture of health,” Paulsen-Fuchs said, finishing the short report on his clipboard. “Do you mind if we check your honesty?”

“Not much choice, is there?”

They gave him a complete medical twice a day, as regularly as his unpredictable sleep periods allowed. He submitted to them with a grim kind of patience; the novelty of an examination conducted by waldoes had long since worn off.

The large panel hummed open and a tray containing glassware and tools slid forward. Then four long metal and plastic arms unfolded, their grasping parts flexing experimentally. A woman standing in a booth behind the arms peered at Bernard through a double glass window. A television camera on the elbow of one of the arms spun around, its red light glowing. “Good afternoon, Dr. Bernard,” the woman said pleasantly. She was young, sternly attractive, with red-brown hair tied back in a stylishly compact bun.

“I love you, Dr. Schatz,” he said, lying on the low table which rolled out below the waldoes and the tray.

“Just for you, and just for today, I am Frieda. We love you, also, Doctor,” Schatz said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t love me at all.”

“I’m starting to like this, Frieda.”

“Hmph.” Schatz used the fine-maneuver waldo to pick up a vacuum ampoule from the tray. With uncanny expertise, she guided the needle into a vein and withdrew ten cc’s of blood. He noticed with some interest that the blood was purple-pink.

“Be careful they don’t bite back,” he warned her.

“We are very careful, Doctor,” she said. Bernard sensed tension behind her banter. There could be a number of things they weren’t telling him about his condition. But why hide anything? He already considered himself a doomed man.

“You’re not telling it to me straight, Frieda,” he said as she applied a skin culture tape to his back. The waldo removed the tape with a sticky rip and dropped it into ajar. Another arm quickly stoppered the jar and sealed it in a small bath of molten wax.

“Oh, I think we are,” she replied softly, concentrating on the remotes. “What questions do you have?”