Flatlander - Larry Niven [30]
He was lying on his left arm, hiding his watch. I was all alone in an empty room, and I still didn’t know what time it was.
I never found out. It was hours before Miller finally dared to interrupt his boss. He stuck his round, blank face around the doorjamb, saw Loren sprawled at my feet, and darted back with a squeak. A minute later a hypo gun came around the jamb, followed by a watery blue eye. I felt the sting in my cheek.
“I checked you early,” Julie said. She settled herself uncomfortably at the foot of the hospital bed. “Rather, you called me. When I came to work, you weren’t there, and I wondered why, and wham. It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty bad,” I said.
“I’ve never sensed anyone so scared.”
“Well, don’t tell anyone about it.” I hit the switch to raise the bed to the sitting position. “I’ve got an image to maintain.”
My eye and the socket around it were bandaged and numb. There was no pain, but the numbness was obtrusive, a reminder of two dead men who had become part of me. One arm, one eye.
If Julie was feeling that with me, then small wonder if she was nervous. She was. She kept shifting and twisting on the bed.
“I kept wondering what time it was. What time was it?”
“About nine-ten.” Julie shivered. “I thought I’d faint when that—that vague little man pointed his hypo gun around the comer. Oh, don’t! Don’t, Gil. It’s over.”
That close? Was it that close? “Look,” I said, “you go back to work. I appreciate the sick call, but this isn’t doing either of us any good. If we keep it up, we’ll both wind up in a state of permanent terror.”
She nodded jerkily and got up.
“Thanks for coming. Thanks for saving my life, too.”
Julie smiled from the doorway. “Thanks for the orchids.”
I hadn’t ordered them yet. I flagged down a nurse and got her to tell me that I could leave tonight, after dinner, provided that I went straight home to bed. She brought me a phone, and I used it to order the orchids.
Afterward I dropped the bed back and lay there awhile. It was nice being alive. I began to remember promises I had made, promises I might never have kept. Perhaps it was time to keep a few.
I called down to surveillance and got Jackson Bera. After letting him drag from me the story of my heroism, I invited him up to the infirmary for a drink. His bottle, but I’d pay. He didn’t like that part, but I bullied him into it.
I had dialed half of Taffy’s number before, as I had last night, I changed my mind. My wristphone was on the bedside table. No pictures.
“‘Lo.”
“Taffy? This is Gil. Can you get a weekend free?”
“Sure. Starting Friday?”
“Good.”
“Come for me at ten. Did you ever find out about your friend?”
“Yah. I was right. Organleggers killed him. It’s over now; we got the guy in charge.” I didn’t mention the eye. By Friday the bandages would be off. “About that weekend. How would you like to see Death Valley?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m kidding, wrong. Listen—”
“But it’s hot! It’s dry! It’s as dead as the moon! You did say Death Valley, didn’t you?”
“It’s not hot this month. Listen …” And she did listen. She listened long enough to be convinced.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said then. “If we’re going to see a lot of each other, we’d better make a—a bargain. No shop talk. All right?”
“A good idea.”
“The point is, I work in a hospital,” Taffy said. “Surgery. To me, organic transplant material is just the tools of my trade, tools to use in healing. It took me a long time to get that way. I don’t want to know where the stuff comes from, and I don’t want to know anything about organleggers.”
“Okay, we’ve got a covenant. See you at ten hundred Friday.”
A doctor, I thought afterward. Well. The weekend was going to be a good one. Surprising people are always the ones most worth knowing.
Bera came in with a pint of J&B. “My treat,” he said. “No use arguing, ‘cause you can’t reach your wallet, anyway.” And the fight was on.
THE DEFENSELESS DEAD
The dead lay side by side beneath the