Door Into Summer Page 19

  She glanced at it curiously but said nothing. I said solemnly, "Tragedies cannot be undone but this will help. The kid's education, you know."

  She refused a fee and went back into the office. I turned back to Picky and said, "Give this to your grandmother. Tell her to take it to a branch of the Bank of America in Brawley. They'll do everything else." I laid it in front of her.

  She did not touch it. "That's worth a lot of money, isn't it?"

  "Quite a bit. It will be worth more."

  "I don't want it."

  "But, Picky, I want you to have it."

  "I don't want it. I won't take it." Her eyes filled with tears and her voice got unsteady. "You're going away forever and... and you don't care about me any more." She sniffed. "Just like when you got engaged to her. When you could just as easily bring Pete and come live with Grandma and me. I don't want your money!"

  "Picky. Listen to me, Picky. It's too late. I couldn't take it back now if I wanted to. It's already yours."

  "I don't care. I won't ever touch it." She reached out and stroked Pete. "Pete wouldn't go away and leave me... only you're going to make him. Now I won't even have Pete."

  I answered unsteadily, "Picky? Rikki-tikki-tavi? You want to see Pete... and me again?"

  I could hardly hear her. "Of course I do. But I won't."

  "But you can."

  "Huh? How? You said you were going to take the Long Sleep thirty years, you said."

  "And I am. I have to. But, Picky, here is what you can do. Be a good girl, go live with your grandmama, go to school-and just let this money pile up. When you are twenty-one-if you still want to see us-you'll have enough money to take the Long Sleep yourself. When you wake up I'll be there waiting for you. Pete and I will both be waiting for you. That's a solemn promise."

  Her expression changed but she did not smile. She thought about it quite a long time, then said, "You'll really be there?"

  "Yes. But we'll have to make a date. If you do it, Ricky, do it just the way I ten you. You arrange it with the Cosmopolitan Insurance Company and you make sure that you take your Sleep in the Riverside Sanctuary in Riverside... and you make very sure that they have orders to wake you up on the first day of May, 2001, exactly. I'll be there that day, waiting for you. If you want me to be there when you first open your eyes, you'll have to leave word for that, too, or they won't let me farther than the waiting room-I know that sanctuary; they're very fussy." I took out an envelope which I had prepared before I left Denver. "You don't have to remember this; I've got it all written out for you. Just save it, and on your twenty-first birthday you can make up your mind. But you can be sure that Pete and I will be there waiting for you, whether you show up or not." I laid the prepared instructions on the stock certificate.

  I thought that I had her convinced but she did not touch either of them. She stared at them, then presently said, "Danny?"

  "Yes, Ricky?"

  She would not look up and her voice was so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her. "If I do... will you marry me?"

  My ears roared and the lights flickered. But I answered steadily and much louder than she had spoken. "Yes, Picky. That's what I want. That's why I'm doing this."

  I had just one more thing to leave with her: a prepared envelope marked "To Be Opened in the Event of the Death of Miles Gentry." I did not explain it to her; I just told her to keep it. It contained proof of Belle's varied career, matrimonial and otherwise. In the hands of a lawyer it should make a court fight over his will no contest at all.

  Then I gave her my class ring from Tech (it was all I had) and told her it was hers; we were engaged. "It's too big for you but you can keep it. I'll have another one for you when you wake up."

  She held it tight in her fist. "I won't want another one."

  "All right. Now better tell Pete good-by, Picky. I've got to go. I can't wait a minute longer."

  She hugged Pete, then handed him back to me, looked me steadily in the eye even though tears were running down her nose and leaving clean streaks. "Good-by, Danny."

  "Not `good-by,' Ricky. Just `so long.' We'll be waiting for you."

  It was a quarter of ten when I got back to the village. I found that a helicopter bus was due to leave for the center of the city in twenty-five minutes, so I sought out the only used-car lot and made one of the fastest deals in history, letting my car go for half what it was worth for cash in hand at once. It left me just time to sneak Pete into the bus (they are fussy about airsick cats) and we reached Powell's office just after eleven o'clock.

  Powell was much annoyed that I had canceled my arrangements for Mutual to handle my estate and was especially inclined to lecture me over having lost my papers. "I can't very well ask the same judge to pass on your committal twice in the same twenty-four hours. It's most irregular."

  I waved money at him, cash money with convincing figures on it. "Never mind eating me out about it, Sergeant. Do you want my business or don't you? If not, say so, and I'll beat it on up to Central Valley. Because I'm going today."

  He still fumed but he gave in. Then he grumbled about adding six months to the cold-sleep period and did not want to guarantee an exact date of awakening. "The contracts ordinarily read `plus or minus' one month to allow for administrative hazards."

  "This one doesn't. This one reads 27 April, 2001. But I don't care whether it says `Mutual' at the top or `Central Valley.' Mr. Powell, I'm buying and you're selling. If you don't sell what I want to buy I'll go where they do sell it."

  He changed the contract and we both initialed it.

  At twelve straight up I was back in for my final check with their medical examiner. He looked at me. "Did you stay sober?"

  "Sober as a judge."

  "That's no recommendation. We'll see." He went over me almost as carefully as he had "yesterday." At last he put down his rubber hammer and said, "I'm surprised. You're in much better shape than you were yesterday. Amazingly so."

  "Doc, you don't know the half of it."

  I held Pete and soothed him while they gave him the first sedative. Then I lay back myself and let them work on me. I suppose I could have waited another day, or even longer, just as well as not-but the truth was that I was frantically anxious to get back to 2001.

  About four in the afternoon, with Pete's flat head resting on my chest, I went happily to sleep again.

  CHAPTER 12

  My dreams were pleasanter this time. The only bad one I remember was not too bad, but simply endless frustration. It was a cold dream in which I wandered shivering through branching corridors, trying every door I came to, thinking that the next one would surely be the Door into Summer, with Ricky waiting on the other side. I was hampered by Pete, "following me ahead of me," that exasperating habit cats have of scalloping back and forth between the legs of persons trusted not to step on them or kick them.

  At each new door he would duck between my feet, look out it, find it still winter outside, and reverse himself, almost tripping me.

  But neither one of us gave up his conviction that the next door would be the right one.

  I woke up easily this time, with no disorientation-in fact the F doctor was somewhat irked that all I wanted was some breakfast, the Great Los Angeles Times, and no chitchat. I didn't think it was worth while to explain to him that this was my second time around; he would not have believed me.

  There was a note waiting for me, dated a week earlier, from John:

  Dear Dan,

  All right, I give up. How did you do it? I'm complying with your request not to be met, against Jenny's wishes. She sends her love and hopes that you won't be too long in looking us up-I've tried to explain to her that you expect to be busy for a while. We are both fine although I tend to walk where I wed to run. Jenny is even more beautiful than she used to be.

  Hasta Ia vista, amigo,

  John

  P.S. If the enclosure is not enough, just phone-there is plenty more where it came from. We've done pretty well, I thi
nk.

  I considered calling John, both to say hello and to tell him about a colossal new idea I had had while asleep-a gadget to change bathing from a chore to a sybaritic delight. But I decided not to; I had other things on my mind. So I made notes while the notion was fresh and then got some sleep, with Pete's head tucked into my armpit. I wish I could cure him of that. It's flattering but a nuisance.

  On Monday, the thirtieth of April, I checked out and went over to Riverside, where I got a room in the old Mission Inn. They made the predictable fuss about taking a cat into a room and an autobellhop is not responsive to bribes-hardly an improvement. But the assistant manager had more flexibility in his synapses; he listened to reason as long as it was crisp and rustled. I did not sleep well; I was too excited.

  I presented myself to the director of the Riverside Sanctuary at ten o'clock the next morning. "Dr. Rumsey, my name is Daniel B. Davis. You have a committed client here named Frederica Heinicke?"

  "I suppose you can identify yourself?"

  I showed him a 1970 driver's license issued in Denver, and my withdrawal certificate from Forest Lawn Sanctuary. He looked them over and me, and handed them back. I said anxiously, "I think she's scheduled for withdrawal today. By any chance, are there any instructions to permit me to be present? I don't mean the processing routines; I mean at the last minute, when she's ready for the final restimulant and consciousness."

  He shoved his 11ps out and looked judicial. "Our instructions for this client do not read to wake her today."

  "No?" I felt disappointed and hurt.

  "No. Her exact wishes are as follows: instead of necessarily being waked today, she wished not to be waked at all until you showed up." He looked me over and smiled. "You must have a heart of gold. I can't account for it on your beauty."

  I sighed. "Thanks, Doctor."

  "You can wait in the lobby or come back. We won't need you for a couple of hours."

  I went back to the lobby, got Pete, and took him for a walk. I had parked him there in his new travel bag and he was none too pleased with it, even though I had bought one as much like his old one as possible and had installed a one-way window in it the night before. It probably didn't smell right as yet.

  We passed the "real nice place," but I was not hungry even though I hadn't been able to eat much breakfast-Pete had eaten my eggs and had turned up his nose at yeast strips. At eleven-thirty I was back at the sanctuary. Finally they let me in to see her.

  All I could see was her face; her body was covered. But it was my Ricky, grown woman size and looking like a slumbering angel.

  "She's under posthypnotic instruction," Dr. Rumsey said softly. "If you will stand just there, I'll bring her up. Uh, I think you had better put that cat outside."

  "No, Doctor."

  He started to speak, shrugged, turned back to his patient. "Wake up, Frederica. Wake up. You must wake up now."

  Her eyelids fluttered, she opened her eyes. They wandered for an instant, then she caught sight of us and smiled sleepily. "Danny and Pete." She raised both armsÄand I saw that she was wearing my Tech class ring on her left thumb.

  Pete chirrlupped and jumped on the bed, started doing shoulder dives against her in an ecstasy of welcome.

  Dr. Rumsey wanted her to stay overnight, but Ricky would have none of it. So I had a cab brought to the door and we jumped to Brawley. Her grandmother had died in 1980 and her social links there had gone by attrition, but she had left things in storage there-books mostly. I ordered them shipped to Aladdin, care of John Sutton. Ricky was a little dazzled by the changes in her old home town and never let go my arm, but she never succumbed to that terrible homesickness which is the great hazard of the Sleep. She merely wanted to get out of Brawley as quickly as possible.

  So I hired another cab and we jumped to Yuma. There I signed the county clerk's book in a fine round hand, using my full name "Daniel Boone Davis," so that there could be no possible doubt as to which D. B. Davis had designed this magnum opus. A few minutes later I was standing with her little hand in mine and choking over, "I, Daniel, take thee, Frederica -...ill death us do part."

  Pete was my best man. The witnesses we scraped up in the courthouse.

  We got out of Yuma at once and jumped to a guest ranch near Tucson, where we had a cabin away from the main lodge and equipped with our own Eager Beaver to fetch and carry so that we did not need to see anyone. Pete fought a monumental battle with the torn who until then had been boss of the ranch, whereupon we had to keep Pete in or watch him. This was the only shortcoming I can think of. Ricky took to being married as if she had invented it, and me-well, I had Ricky.

  There isn't much more to be said. Voting Ricky's Hired Girl stockÄit was still the largest single block-I had McBee eased upstairs to "Research Engineer Emeritus" and put Chuck in as chief engineer. John is boss of Aladdin but keeps threatening to retire-an idle threat. He and I and Jenny control the company, since he was careful to issue preferred stock and to float bonds rather than surrender control. I'm not on the board of either corporation; I don't run them and they compete. Competition is a good idea-Darwin thought well of it.

  Me, I'm just the "Davis Engineering Company"-a drafting room, a small shop, and an old machinist who thinks I'm crazy but follows my drawings to exact tolerance. When we finish something I put it out for license.

  I had my notes on Twitchell recovered. Then I wrote and told him I had made it and returned via cold sleep...and apologized abjectly for having "doubted" him. I asked if he wanted to see the manuscript when I finished. He never answered so I guess he is still sore at me.

  But I am writing it and I'll put it in all major libraries even if I -k have to publish at my own expense. I owe him that much. I owe him much more; I owe him for Ricky. And for Pete. I'm going to title it Unsung Genius. Jenny and John look as if they would last forever. Thanks to geriatrics, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and a mind that never worries, Jenny is prettier than ever at...well, sixty-three is my guess. John thinks that I am "merely" clairvoyant and does not want to look at the evidence. Well, how did I do it? I tried to explain it to Ricky, but she got upset when I told her that while we were on our honeymoon I was actually and no foolin' also up at Boulder, and that while I was visiting her at the Girl Scout camp I was also lying in a drugged stupor in San Fernando Valley.

  She turned white. So I said, "Let's put it hypothetically. It's all logical when you look at it mathematically. Suppose we take a guinea pig-white with brown splotches. We put him in the time cage and kick him back a week. But a week earlier we had already found him there, so at that time we had put him in a pen with himself. Now we've got two guinea pigs... although actually it's

  just one guinea pig, one being the other one a week older. So when you took one of them and kicked him back a week and-"

  "Wait a minute! Which one?"

  "Which one? Why, there never was but one. You took the one a week younger, of course, because-"

  "You said there was just one. Then you said there were two. Then you said the two was just one. But you were going to take one of the two... when there was just one-"

  "I'm trying to explain how two can be just one. If you take the younger-"

  "How can you tell which guinea pig is younger when they look just alike?"

  "Well, you could cut off the tail of the one you are sending back. Then when it came back you would--"

  "Why, Danny, how cruel! Besides, guinea pigs don't have tails."

  She seemed to think that proved something. I should never have tried to explain.

  But Ricky is not one to fret over things that aren't important. Seeing that I was upset, she said softly, "Come here, dear." She rumpled what hair I have left and kissed me. "One of you is all I want, dearest. Two might be more than I could manage. Tell me one thing-are you glad you waited for me to grow up?"

  I did my darnedest to convince her that I was.

  But the explanation I tried to give does not explain everything. I missed a point even
though I was riding the merry-go-round myself and counting the revolutions. Why didn't I see the notice of my own withdrawal? I mean the second one, in April 2001, not the one in December 2000. 1 should have; I was there and I used to check those lists. I was awakened (second time) on Friday, 27 April, 2001; it should have been in next morning's Times. But I did not see it. I've looked it up since and there it is: "D. B. Davis," in the Times for Saturday, 28 April, 2001.

  Philosophically, just one line of ink can make a different universe as surely as having the continent of Europe missing. Is the old "branching time streams" and "multiple universes" notion correct? Did I bounce into a different universe, different because I had monkeyed with the setup? Even though I found Ricky and Pete in it? Is there another universe somewhere (or somewhen) in which Pete yowled until he despaired, then wandered off to fend for himself, deserted? And in which Ricky never managed to flee with her grandmother but had to suffer the vindictive wrath of Belle?

  One line of fine print isn't enough. I probably felt asleep that night and missed reading my own name, then stuffed the paper down the chute next morning, thinking I had finished with it. I am absent-minded, particularly when I'm thinking about a job.

  But what would I have done if I had seen it? Gone there, met myself-and gone stark mad? No, for if I had seen it, I wouldn't have done the things I did afterward-"afterward" for me-which led up to it. Therefore it could never have happened that way. The control is a negative feedback type, with a built-in "fail safe," because the very existence of that line of print depended on my not seeing it; the apparent possibility that I might have seen it is one of the excluded "not possibles" of the basic circuit design.