Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack - Edmond Hamilton - Страница 18

Julia saw the bright lights behind her. They blinded her in the rear-view mirror until she knocked the mirror out of focus. She glanced at the speedometer. She was going as fast as the engine would permit.

She was weary from the beat of the motor and the ache of steady driving. Her body was drained of energy. The “Wide-awakes” seemed to be losing their effect. In spite of herself, she nodded. Too tired to think of anything else, she was thinking—almost dreaming, almost in half-slumber—of a steamy bath; of perfumed heat caressing her body; of soft, restful water lapping at her thighs.

Even the prospect of invasion had receded into some dim, dumb corner of her mind; it no longer concerned her. The demands of personal survival had pushed it aside; personal survival and the knowledge of her own incapacity to prevent, forestall, or counter it. And at last exhaustion had overcome even the demands of survival.

The brilliant lights behind began to pain upon her fatigue-soaked eyeballs. They shimmered in the windshield; they—

She realized they were gaining on her.

A car without a governor.

A crazy, reckless driver.

Walt!

Suddenly the fatigue vanished. Fear alerted her. She stiffened. Her heart pounded. She glanced behind her, squinting.

There was a sickening wrench at her body; she felt herself twisting, being sucked out of space.

Teleportation!

She grabbed the wheel. She was almost too weak to resist. She fought off the terrible, insistent fingers, she shrank away from them; she moaned.

Walt ceased the effort.

She was limp. She struggled to marshal her resources. Her will was not yet depleted so much that she could not fight back.

She concentrated on being where she was, in the car, on the highway. She felt a futile but exhilarating surge of victory.

Her hand trembled when she switched off the automatic-drive. The wheel under her hands began to vibrate. The car was sensitive to her control. It was alive and deadly and hurtling like a rocket.

I can’t outrun him now! she thought. He has too much speed!

. . . I’ve got to get off the highway. I’ve got to take a side road toward the mountain. There’ll be curves and twists and turns. They will cut his speed down. Maybe I can out drive him.

Side roads slipped by to her right and left.

She prepared to brake the car for the next cut-off slot.

It appeared far ahead; a dark slit on the left outlined by her rushing headlights.

She depressed the brake; the tires screamed.

The car skittered and fishtailed. She clung desperately to the wheel, battling the great chunk of metal with every ounce of her tiny body.

And somehow the car hurtled through the slot, across the other half of the highway, onto the hard topped, farm-to-market road that climbed toward the distant crest.

Walt’s car, braking shrilly, hurtled past her and was lost in the night.

Julia stamped the accelerator viciously. Her car plunged forward.

Lonely trees and brush stood like decaying phantoms in the splatter of her headlights. Far ahead, winking down the mountain, she saw the headlights of another car—crawling toward her slowly, like twin fire flies, indolent after a night of pleasure. The road was pitted, and the car beneath her jolted.

It was then in the loneliness of the seldom traveled farm road that she noticed the gasoline gauge.

The gas remaining in the tank could not be sufficient to take her another ten miles. The peg rested solidly on the empty mark to the left.

She began to cry.

*

The tears almost blinded her; she jerked the car back, just in time, from a ditch. She held it toward the fearful darkness ahead. Dawn that purpled the east seemed lost forever from this road and this life.

The road climbed slowly; then steeply.

Behind her now the bright lights like great flames crept closer, burning everything. The lights had pursued her for only half an hour; it seemed an eternity. The road began a great bend around the first sharp thrust of mountain. She slowed.

The headlights were gaining.

She wanted to give up.

The motor coughed.

Walt was almost upon her; elation throbbed in his being. He had been driving on manual; he dared not risk automatic-drive, not since his wreck. He was not quite as alert as he might have been. The strain was beginning to slow his reactions.

The curve was sharper; ahead, a hair-pin turn. Walt swung out to pass her and force her to stop or plunge over the side into the deepening valley. It was the maneuver he had seen the policemen perform.

The headlights of the early farmer with a heavy load of milk suddenly exploded at the curve.

Julia gasped and slammed on her brakes.

Walt jerked his eyes from Julia’s car an instant before the crash.

*

“Crazy God damned fool,” the farmer said as he crawled painfully from the wreckage of his pick-up truck. “Crazy God damned fool!” He clutched at his arm; it was broken and bleeding. “Passing on a curve! God damned fool, passing on a curve!”

Julia had stopped her car. She ran toward the two wrecks.

“Any kid knows better, any two year old kid,” the farmer said; he stared, unbelieving, at his arm. He sat down and was sick.

It was growing lighter. Mist lay over the valley. The air was damp with fading night.

Julia’s feet made harsh clicks on the road.

At Walt’s car she stopped. The farmer watched her with mute pain behind his eyes.

Reaction set in. She thought she was going to be sick, herself. She leaned against the wrecked car.

“We better get him out,” the farmer said dully.

Julia nodded.

Between the two of them, they forced the door open and lifted Walt out to the pavement.

“Easy,” the farmer said.

Julia stood over Walt’s limp body. His jaw was broken and twisted to one side. His chest was bloody; blood trickled from his nose; his hair was matted with blood.

“He’s still breathing,” the farmer said hoarsely.

He looks so boyish, she thought. I can’t believe . . . he doesn’t seem a killer. I hate whoever made a killer out of him.

Walt’s chest rose and fell; his breath entered his body in tremulous gasps.

She wanted to bathe his face with cool water and rest his head on her lap. She wanted to ease his pain.

She turned away.

In the tool compartment of the wreck she located a tire iron. She brought it back.

Her hand was slippery around the icy metal.

He’s dying anyway, she thought. It doesn’t have to be my hand that kills him. Tears formed in her eyes.

Walt moaned.

Julia’s hand tightened on the tire iron.

But the risk . . . she thought: if he should wake up and heal himself . . . he’ll kill me. The world will never be warned of the invasion, then. It’s his life against the world; his life against a billion lives.

*

She lifted the tire iron. She averted her eyes as she got ready to swing it savagely at his unprotected skull.

Cursing, the farmer reached out with his good hand and grabbed her upraised wrist. “My God, what are you trying to do?”

“I’ve . . . I’ve got to kill him.”

The farmer stepped between her and Walt.

“I’ve got to.”

“Not while I’m here, Miss, you don’t.”

“Listen—!” she began. Then hopelessly, she let the arm holding the tire iron fall limply to her side. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him, she thought.

Nobody will believe me; not a person on the planet. It’s too fantastic: an invasion of earth. I’ve got to have some sort of proof to make them believe me.

No proof.

I can’t let Walt die! she thought. He’s the only proof I have. He’s the only one who can convince anyone of the invasion.

He’s got to live! she thought. I’ve got to get him to a hospital.

Walt’s face was bloodless.

“ . . . he’s dying,” the farmer said.

“But he can’t die!” Julia cried desperately. “He can’t die!”

“You’re crazy,” the farmer said evenly. “First you get ready to brain him with a tire iron and then you say he’s got to live. Lady, if I hadn’t stopped you when I did, he’d be dead as hell right now.”

“I wasn’t thinking; I didn’t realize . . . .”

Breath rattled in Walt’s throat.

“Gas . . . I’m out of gas,” Julia said.

She ran to the wrecked truck. She jerked a milk can upright. She unscrewed the cap and emptied milk on the pavement.

With the tire iron she split the gas tank and caught as much of the sharp-smelling fluid as she could in the emptied can.

It sloshed loudly as she raced to her car with it. She fumbled the gas tank cap off. She was trembling so badly that she spilled almost as much as she poured into the opening. When the gas was all gone, she threw the milk can from her.

“I’ll back up!” she cried to the farmer. “You’ll have to help me get him into the back seat.”

He’s got to live, Julia thought. If the doctors can just bring him to consciousness, he can heal himself. When he realizes I’ve saved his life, maybe he’ll listen to me. He’s got to listen. I’ll convince him, I’ll reason with him. He’ll be able to prove to everybody that there will be an invasion. When they see all the things he can do, they’ll have to believe him . . . .

They put Walt in the car. They handled him as gently as they could.

“He’s almost gone,” the farmer said.

“Get in front with me. You need a hospital, too.”

The farmer slipped in beside her.

Julia spun the car around and plunged down the road toward the super-highway.

“Where’s the nearest doctor?”

“Town eight miles down the road,” the farmer said. He grimaced in pain. He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. He wiped off the blood and stared at it drying across the back of his hand. “I . . . think I’m hurt inside.” There was barely controlled hysteria in his voice. He coughed again and shuddered. “My wife, she wanted me . . . to stay home this morning . . . .” He shut his eyes tightly. “I’ve got to patch the roof.” He opened his eyes and looked pleadingly at Julia. “I’ve got to patch the roof, don’t you understand!”

“I’m driving as fast as I can. Which way do I turn down there?”

“ . . . turn right.”

“We’ll be to a doctor just as soon as I can get there.”

She slowed down and turned onto the concrete slab of the super-highway.

Then she slammed the car to a full stop; she backed up out of the line of traffic, back onto the cross road. She cut the motor.

*

Julia had felt the bridge in her mind snap shut. Instantly even the most obscure brain compartment was open to her. Fatigue vanished. She was alert; she was able to think with great clarity.

The lightning recovery of herself forced a series of ever widening implications to her attention; in a blinding flash of insight she was (perhaps actually for the first time) aware of the degree to which she could transform society.

Given time, she—she alone—like the magician Prospero in The Tempest could create some paradise of cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces and solemn temples and winding brooks and crisp channels and green lands that need never (the Calibans being transmuted by power beyond the lust for power) dissolve into air, thin air, leaving not a cloud behind.

If all the people were as she, the great globe of the world could become an enchanted island: with wars and bloodshed and prejudice and inhumanity forgotten.

Some such was her thought. It washed over her, the vision, and vanished in the acute reality of the moment. Such a dream was athwart the invasion plan of the aliens.

She was out of the car. She was opening the rear door. She stood at Walt’s head. He’ll have to help me, she thought, he has information I want.

She felt for the pattern of his body. She experienced it. Concentrating with the full force of the human brain, she began to mend the breaks and ruptures and wounds.

It took time.

Don’t reheal his mutant bridge, she thought. Leave him defanged.

His jaw returned to its socket. The dried blood on his skin no longer led from vicious gashes: they had closed and were knitting.

She was finished. He was still unconscious.

Even as she turned to heal the farmer, a section of her brain drew conclusions from the fact she could be relieved of her powers. Some outside force was responsible for holding the bridge closed in her mind. It could be turned on and off.

But why, when the force controlling her bridge had vanished, had Walt’s bridge remained intact? She reviewed all the information she had.

There are two compartments of mutants on the alien ship.

Then each compartment must have its own . . . frequency. The aliens selected Walt, she thought, to kill me because his bridge operated on a different frequency than mine.

Speechless the farmer had watched her heal Walt; now he relaxed under the soothing fingers of her thought. He felt the bone in his arm being made whole again.

He no longer needed to cough.

*

She tried to create a bridge in his brain; but she could not; it was outside the pattern. If she were to give him one, it would require surgery.

She was once again in the seat beside him.

“You’re a, you’re an angel,” he said. Awe made his voice hollow. “I’ll be God damned if you’re not an honest to Jesus, real live angel.”

“I’m human.”

“ . . . you couldn’t be.”

“Well, I am.”

He frowned, “ . . . lady, after what I just seen you do, I’ll believe it if you say so. You just tell me, I’ll believe it.”

“I’ve got to get into San Francisco. I’ll have to leave you. You can catch a ride or something.”

He scrambled out of the car.

Impulsively Julia reached in her handbag for a bill. She found one. “Here,” she said, thrusting it on him, “this is for your milk.”

The farmer took it automatically. He put it in his wallet and put the wallet back in his overalls without bothering to watch what he was doing. He was watching her.

If they’re all as easy to convert as he is . . . she thought.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?” she said.

“If you’re human, what am I?”

“We’re not quite the same,” Julia said. “Maybe some day we will be . . . .”

She wheeled onto the super-highway and headed toward San Francisco.

She switched on the automatic-drive and turned her attention to Walt.

She was unable to awaken him. After such a severe shock as he had experienced, his nervous system demanded rest; he no longer had the recuperative powers of a mutant.

Even if I alert Earth, she thought what can we do? How can we prepare? I could . . . but I’m only one. They’d gang up on me and kill me in a minute . . . . Earth will fight; at least we won’t give up. I’ll have to get us as ready as I can, and we’ll fight.

I need Walt. What kind of weapons will we be up against? Where will the invasion strike first? When? He’ll have scraps of information that I can put together to tell me more than he thinks he knows.

How can I convince him to help me?

. . . if I’ve figured it out right, there’s got to be records somewhere. Birth certificates, things like that. If I’m right about babies being missing the year of the last big saucer scare, there’s got to be birth certificates. I’ll check newspaper files in San Francisco.

If I can just find Walt’s birth certificate! That will convince him!

She thought about the space station floating somewhere in the sky; she tried to picture the aliens who manned it.

God knows how, she thought, but we’ll fight!

*

In the space station, the aliens were in conference.

**There can’t be any doubt but that she’s dead,** Forential projected.

**Your Walt is a good one,** Lycan thought. **Best mutant on the ship.**

Jubilation flowed back and forth. The other aliens congratulated Forential.

**It was nothing,** Forential told them.

**I feel infinitely better, now that she’s out of the way,** the Elder commented.

**We’ll strike with the main force a day before we planned to,** Lycan told them. **That’s best all around. We expect most trouble from the American Air Force. It will be least alert on a Sunday morning.**

*

In San Francisco Julia drew up in front of an unpretentious hotel on Polk Street. Walt, was still unconscious in the back seat.

After she arranged for a room, she returned to the car. She seized Walt at his arm pits and hauled him to the sidewalk. She held a tight distortion field around his body. He was dead weight against her. She draped one of his arms about her neck. When she began to walk, his feet shuffled awkwardly.

She felt as conspicuous as if she were smoking a pipe.

She wedged her body against the door of the hotel and dragged Walt inside. Although he was invisible, the effect of his body pulling down on hers was readily apparent. She half stumbled toward the elevator.

The clerk, a counterpart of the one she had had in Hollywood looked up in annoyance. He snorted through his nose. He eyed her narrowly. He seemed about to leave his position behind the desk.

Julia propped Walt against the wall and rang for the elevator. She smiled wanly in the direction of the clerk. Shaking his head and grunting his disapproval, he settled back in his chair.

Walt’s heavy breathing was thunderous in her ear. She braced him with her hip when he started to slip to the floor.

The elevator came.

“Step up, please.”

Straining against his weight, she hauled Walt’s feet up over the edge of the cage. The feet scraped loudly on the floor.

The elevator operator raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. He cocked his head to one side. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” Julia said brightly. “Everything’s fine.”

The operator started the car. “A young lady ought to be careful in this town,” he said. “A young lady oughtn’t to drink so much.” He shook his head sadly. “There’s a case of rape in the papers nearly every day.”

“ . . . I’ll be careful.”

“They pick up young ladies in bars all the time. You never can tell about the men you’re liable to meet, if you go in bars. You have to watch yourself in this town.”

“Seven, please.”

“Yes, ma’m.”

The elevator stopped. Julia dragged Walt out.

“You mind what I say!” the operator called after her. “You be careful, now, and stay out of bars. You never can tell . . . .”

Once she got Walt inside her room, she breathed a sigh of relief. She released the distortion field. He was visible again.

She removed the top sheet from the bed. She wrestled his body onto the bed.

She ripped the sheet into strips. She worked rapidly. She was still able to hold off fatigue; she felt no need of sleep. She was ravenously hungry.

With the strips of sheet, she tied Walt securely. She used a knot that would require cutting to be undone. She pulled the strips tight. They did not interfere with free circulation, but there was no possibility of them being slipped. She had no intention of not finding Walt there when she came back.

She surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction.

*

Whistling softly she left the room and walked down the corridor. She stopped whistling abruptly and glanced around in embarrassment. She had remembered the old adage: ‘A whistling girl and a crowing hen are sure to come to some bad end’.

There seemed to be something indecent about whistling in public.

The fact that she had, colored her emotions with uneasiness.

She realized that there might be a million such superstitions—many of them not recognized as superstitions at all—buried in her personality. Her brain might be highly efficient, but was it efficient enough to overcome all the emotional biases implanted by twenty-four years of environment? Was even her knowledge of the real nature of the world—was mankind’s—sufficient to overcome such biases?

Perhaps, she thought, I’m not as smart as I thought I was. There may be deep and illogical currents in me. Perhaps I’m not, not mature enough for such power as I’ve been given.

Annoyed, she took out a cigarette, and in defiance of cultural tradition, lit it there in the corridor while she waited for the elevator.

The operator did not approve of women smoking in public. He said so.

She ate in the coffee shop.

After the meal, she took a cab to the offices of the morning paper.

In the entranceway to the building, sure that no one was watching, she became invisible.

Half an hour later, possessed of the information she had come after (harvested from the back files of the paper) she was once again in the street.

In her room, she went to the telephone. She placed a long distance call to a Boston hospital.

The news had not been widely reported. She found most of the names in brief paragraphs stating that Mr. and Mrs. such and such had settled their suit against the so and so hospital out of court. In the three cases where the confinements had been in private homes, there had been kidnapping stories in the paper. In one of the cases, a man had later been convicted and executed—although the body of the child had never been recovered from the pond into which the prosecution contended it had been thrown.

She talked to the switch board operator at the Boston hospital. She was given the superintendent. He—impressed by the fact that she was calling from the Pacific coast—sent his secretary to rummage the files for the hospital’s copy of the birth certificate.

Julia waited.

“Yes, I have it.”

“It’s on the child of Mr. and Mrs. George Temple?”

“That’s right.”

Julia concentrated as hard as she could.

“You have it in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Would you look at it closely?”

“ . . . what?”

“Look at it closely, please.”

“Young lady—”

“Please, sir.”

“All right. I am. Now what information did you want? It reads—What the hell! Where did that go? Say, how did you—”

Julia hung up. She looked at the birth certificate lying by the telephone. She picked it up. It was none the worse for teleportation.

She put it on the dresser and returned to the phone.

By the time Tuesday was well into the afternoon, when the cool rays of the winter sun lay slanting upon the murmuring crest outside, she had nine birth certificates on the dresser. Nine times the bell boy had come to her room to collect for the telephone charges. The last time, she forgot to make Walt invisible. The bell boy said nothing.

*

Julia was annoyed by her carelessness. The bell boy’s foot-falls died in the carpet of the corridor. She went to the door and looked out. He was gone.

She closed the door and crossed to the bed. She had exhausted her list of names. She set about rousing Walt.

He’s handsome, she thought.

His eyelids flickered.

He opened his eyes. Memory slowly darkened his irises. He glared up at her.

He surged at his bonds, striving to rip free and throw himself upon her. He tugged at his right hand. His fingers writhed. A frown passed over his face. He jerked his right hand savagely.

“You have been deprived of your power,” Julia said.

Stunned, he lay back. “I, I don’t understand.”

“You thought you were a Lyrian,” Julia said. “You were wrong. You’re an earthman. I am an earthwoman.”

“That’s a lie! I’m not an earthman!”

“You are now. How are you different?”

“That’s a lie. I’m, I’m . . . .” He fought against the tentacle-like strips of sheet.

“Is it a lie, Walt?”

He continued to struggle.

Smiling, she taunted him: “When I was a little girl, I used to get mad and throw rocks . . . . It never did any good. Lie still.”

I shouldn’t tease him, she thought contritely.

She felt very sorry for him. How frustrated he must feel! How hurt and puzzled and helpless and betrayed!

He’s like Samson shorn.

“I know how you feel,” she said softly. “I felt that way when you were chasing me. You’re going to listen to me. After I’m through talking to you, maybe I’ll let you up.”

Glaring hotly, he relaxed.

“I saved your life,” Julia said. “Don’t forget that. You could thank me.”

“You had a reason then. You’re a traitor. You had your reasons to.”

She slipped to the end of the bed. Gently she unlaced his shoes and slipped them off.

His face purpled with impotent anger.

She peeled off his socks.

Then, one by one, Julia compared the footprints on the birth certificates with Walt’s feet.

Hot tears of defeat brimmed up within Walt; indignant rage filled his eyes.

Julia turned to put the birth certificates back on the dresser.

None of them corresponded to his prints.

*

Walt wanted to bite down on something. He gritted his teeth. Then, as Julia was turning away from him, he felt once again the weird blending of his mind with Calvin’s. He realized that it was some exclusive power given to Calvin that caused the blending: he was not even any longer a, a Lyrian!

Joy vibrated in his body. Drawing on the new power in his mind, he hurled a picture from the wall at the back of Julia’s unprotected head.

She half turned. The heavy wooden frame hit her in the temple. With a little despairing sigh of surprise she sank to the carpet.

I’ll kill her this time, Walt thought. He displaced the binding from his right hand.

And Calvin’s mind withdrew.

Walt tried desperately to tear loose his other hand; the knot would not yield. He tried to reach Julia. He tried to reach something to throw at Julia. He could not. He let out a roar of baffled rage.

Julia was struggling to her feet.

Standing uncertainly, she shook her head. Her eyes cleared. She let out her breath. The recuperative powers of a mutant were in action. “That was an awful wallop,” she said calmly. “How did you manage it?”

Walt said nothing.

Julia wrinkled her forehead. Her mind was steady and alert. “I felt another mind just before I turned. Someone called Calvin, wasn’t it?”

Walt was sweating. How smart is she? Can she guess everything?

“Somehow he gains rapport with you.” Her fingers tapped restlessly on the dresser top. “If you could maintain contact with his mind all the time, you would; that’s obvious, isn’t it? He must make contact with yours, then. You don’t know just when he’s going to contact you, do you?”

Walt licked his lips.

“He must be abnormal. A normal mutant couldn’t do that. I’ll have to find some way to seal his mind off from yours, I guess. I’ll have to interfere with that sort of thing. In the meantime, I’ll have to keep a sharp eye on you.”

Walt glared at her. “Damn you,” he said.

“Why don’t the aliens do the fighting for themselves?”

The question was unexpected. “You got it wrong,” he said automatically. “They are helping Lyrians out of the goodness of their hearts.” It was as if he were speaking to Calvin; it made him feel, momentarily, superior to her. He grasped the opportunity with pathetic gratefulness. “They’re afraid!” he cried triumphantly. “We’re not that far advanced yet!”

Julia paused to consider this. “Yes, that figures,” she said. “But suppose for a minute that you’re not a Lyrian. Suppose they’re using you to fight for them.”

“No,” Walt said.

“But why not?”

“No,” he repeated. He tried to keep doubt out of his voice. His anger was gone. He felt uncertain and confused. He could not think clearly.

“You’re a mutant,” Julia said. “Like I am. Our parents were earthlings. The aliens are using mutants. The aliens changed our parents’ genes—”

“I don’t understand that word.”

Julia smiled twistedly. “Think how ignorant they kept you, Walt. Isn’t that proof enough for you?”

Walt said nothing.

“ . . . Genes are the substances which transmit characteristics from generation to generation. If you wish to change hereditary characteristics, you must change the genes. The aliens changed our genes so we would be able to use all of our brains. The normal earthling is just like you are right now: unable to use more than one sixth of his brain. The aliens collected all the mutants; all of them but me. They overlooked me.”

Walt twisted uncomfortably.

“But they still control us,” Julia said. “There is a bridge that is held closed by a special frequency. That’s why we’ve just recently been able to use our full powers. They just recently turned the frequency on.”

“But—”

“The frequency that controls my bridge is different from the one controlling yours. There are two groups of mutants on the ship. The female you saw, the one you thought was a Lyrian, was a mutant from the other group. I’m on the frequency of that group. It’s the group that’s going to attack Earth first. They are the ones that are going to cause the war your Forential told you about.”

*

Walt’s mouth was dry. Stop! he wanted to cry to her. Please, stop!

“ . . . keep birth records,” Julia continued. Walt had missed some of it. “No two sets of prints can be identical. A group of babies vanished during the last big flying saucer scare. You were one of them. I was trying to find your birth certificate. If I could find it . . . .”

Julia talked on. Her voice was sincere and intense and compelling. As he listened, Walt felt the case against the aliens grow stronger.

Can’t think clearly, he told himself. Trust Forential.

No.

He did lie about the war.

Forential lied about that.

He’d lie about . . . about other things?

They kept me in ignorance, he thought. Perhaps they really were afraid I’d discover my real nature.

I don’t know; I can’t think; I can’t think!

As he watched Julia, the female who had (the truth of this slowly dawned on him) actually saved his life, he felt the first stirrings of an emotion he was not prepared to cope with. How pretty she looked, standing before him, her eyes serious and her face intent. He wanted to nestle her.

The footprints, he thought. She couldn’t find mine among the birth certificates she had. She could have faked a set if she’d wanted to. Does the fact she didn’t mean she’s not lying?

I think I’m sorry I threw the picture at her.

“If you could have heard Mrs. Savage on the phone,” Julia said, “you’d understand better. She lost her son—had him stolen—and she was still saving the birth certificate, after this long. She told me she knew she’d find him some day.”

Mrs. Savage sounds just like Forential, Walt thought.

“She’s been waiting all these years,” Julia said. “She’s never given up hope.”

Still waiting for her . . . son, Walt thought. Still waiting, still needing her son.

Walt had never thought much of his parents until now. They were obscured by Forential; they existed somewhere on Lyria. But suppose Julia were telling the truth? Would they have been more fond of him than Forential? Could they have been?

There were so many things he did not understand. He must ask Forential about the process by which babies are created; what was the connection between parent and child? It was all so puzzling.

. . . why not ask Julia?

“Wait a minute,” Walt interrupted. “I understand so very little. How are babies made?”

And there was a harsh, peremptory knock on the door. The manager’s angry voice came booming through the paneling:

“The bell boy tells me you’ve got a man tied to the bed in there! We can’t have that sort of thing in this hotel! Open the door, you hear me? Open the door!”