"Bay 100?" Something struck a chord; I remembered following Rena down
the corridor, passing a door that was odd in some way. Was the number
100 on that door? "Is that the one that's locked off, with the sign on
it that says anybody who goes in is asking for trouble?"
"That's the one. Though," he added, "nobody is going to get in. That
door is triple-plate armor; the lock opens only to the personal
fingerprint pattern of Defoe and two or three others."
"What's inside it that's so important?"
He said coldly, "How would I know? I can't open the door." And that was
the end of the conversation. I knew _he_ was lying.
* * * * *
I had changed my bet with myself on the way. I won it. Rena was in the
room waiting for me. She was sound asleep, stretched out on the bed.
She looked as sober-faced and intent in her sleep as a little girl--a
look I had noticed in Marianna's sleeping face once.
It was astonishing how little I thought about Marianna any more.
I considered very carefully before I rang for a bellboy, but it seemed
wisest to let her sleep and take my chances with the house detective,
if any. There was none, it turned out. In fact, the bellboy hardly
noticed her--whether out of indifference or because he was well aware
that I had signed for the room with an official travel-credit card of
the Company, it didn't much matter. He succeeded in conveying, without
saying a word, that the Blue Sky was the limit.
I ordered dinner, waving away the menu and telling him to let the chef
decide. The chef decided well. Among other things, there was a bottle
of champagne in a bucket of ice.
Rena woke up slowly at first, and then popped to a sitting position,
eyes wide. I said quickly, "Everything's all right. No one saw you at
the clinic."
She blinked once. In a soft voice, she said, "Thank you." She sighed a
very small sigh and slipped off the bed.
I realized as Rena was washing up, comparisons were always odious,
but--Well, if a strange man had found Marianna with her dress hitched
halfway up her thigh, asleep on his bed, he'd have been in for
something. What the "something" would be might depend on circumstances;
it might be a raging order to knock before he came in, it might only
be a storm of blushes and a couple of hours of meticulously prissy
behavior. But she wouldn't just let it slide. And Rena, by simply
disregarding it, was as modest as any girl could be.
After all, I told myself, warming to the subject, it wasn't as if
I were some excitable adolescent. I could see a lovely girl's legs
without getting all stirred up. For that matter, I hardly even noticed
them, come to think of it. And if I _did_ notice them, it was certainly
nothing of any importance; I had dismissed it casually, practically
forgotten it, in fact.
She came back and said cheerfully, "I'm hungry!" And so, I realized,
was I.
We started to eat without much discussion, except for the necessary
talk of the table. I felt very much at ease sitting across from her,
in spite of the fact that she had placed herself in opposition to
the Company. I felt relaxed and comfortable; nothing bothered me.
Certainly, I went on in my mind, I was as free and easy with her as
with any man; it didn't matter that she was an attractive girl at all.
I wasn't thinking of her in that way, only as someone who needed some
help.
I came to. She was looking at me with friendly curiosity. She said, "Is
that an American idiom, Tom, when you said, 'Please pass the legs'?"
* * * * *
We didn't open the champagne: it didn't seem quite appropriate. We had
not discussed anything of importance while we were eating, except that
I had told her about the old man; she evidently knew nothing about him.
She was concerned, but I assured her he was safe with the Company--what
did she think they were, barbarians? She didn't answer.
But after dinner, with our coffee, I said: "Now let's get down to
business. What were you doing in the clinic?"
"I was trying to rescue my father," she said.
"Rescue, Rena? Rescue from what?"
"Tom, please. You believe in the Company, do you not?"
"Of course!"
"And I do not. We shall never agree. I am grateful to you for not
turning me in, and I think perhaps I know what it cost you to do it.
But that is all, Tom."
"But the Company--"
"When you speak of the Company, what is it you see? Something shining
and wonderful? It is not that way with me; what I see is--rows of my
friends, frozen in the vaults or the expediters and that poor old man
you caught."
There was no reasoning with her. She had fixed in her mind that all the
suspendees were the victims of some sinister brutality. Of course, it
wasn't like that at all.
Suspension wasn't death; everyone knew that. In fact, it was the
antithesis of death. It _saved_ lives by taking the maimed and sick and
putting them mercifully to sleep, until they could be repaired.
True, their bodies grew cold, the lungs stopped pumping, the heart
stopped throbbing; true, no doctor could tell, on sight, whether a
suspendee was "alive" or "dead." The life processes were not entirely
halted, but they were slowed enormously--enough so that chemical
diffusion in the jellylike blood carried all the oxygen the body
needed. But there was a difference: The dead were dead, whereas the
suspendees could be brought back to life at any moment the Company
chose.
But I couldn't make her see that. I couldn't even console her by
reminding her that the old man was a mere Class E. For so was she.
I urged reasonably: "Rena, you think something is going on under the
surface. Tell me about it. Why do you think your father was put in
suspension?"
"To keep him out of the way. Because the Company is afraid of him."
I played a trump card: "Suppose I told you the _real_ reason he's in
the vaults."
* * * * *
She was hit by that, I could tell. She was staring at me with wonder in
her eyes.
"You don't have to speculate about it, Rena. I looked up his record,
you see."
"You--you--"
I nodded. "It's right there in black and white. They're trying to save
his life. He has radiation poisoning. He was a war casualty. It's
standard medical practice in cases like his to put them in suspension
for a while, until the level of radioactivity dies down and they can
safely be revived. Now what do you say?"
She merely stared at me.
I pressed on persuasively: "Rena, I don't mean to call your beliefs
superstitions or anything like that. Please understand me. You have
your own cultural heritage and--well, I know that it looks as though he
is some kind of 'undead,' or however you put it, in your folk stories.
I know there are legends of vampires and zombies and so on, but--"
She was actually laughing. "You're thinking of Central Europe, Tom,
not Naples. And anyway--" she was laughing only with her eyes now--"I
do not believe that the legends say that vampires are produced by
intravenous injections of chlorpromazine and pethidine in a lytic
solution--which is, I believe, the current technique at the clinics."