Time To Teleport Page 5

  The figurine, the little Grecian maiden with the water jar in white plastic, was no longer on the floor where Eli had thrown it. It was once more standing upright in its usual position on the table.

  5

  The cocktail break, Eli discovered, was in this instance something more than just a pleasant afternoon interlude. It was, in fact, a sort of combination celebration and send-off party, to mark not only the conclusion of two years of preparatory work, but the beginning of the operations, since they would start getting Eli ready for the first of these directly after it.

  Eli found himself welcoming the opportunity to sit back and take a good look at the people whom he was counting on to do a number of rather drastic things to him and get away with it successfully. In this moment he thought, as he watched them and listened to the chatter, that Howell's single-minded egocentricity was reassuring rather than otherwise. The man was so certain of himself. Tammy, also, he shifted his eyes to the girl, was reassuring, for a different, almost opposed reason. She seemed the kind of person who would think of him, even when stretched out unconscious on the operating table, as another person, and not as so much flesh and bone to be tinkered with. There was comfort in Tammy, as he had noticed during the testing of the night before. A feeling of concern for him seemed to flow out from her and lap around him.

  As for Mel and Ntoane—they were the unknown quantities. Of the two, Eli thought he preferred the Basuto. There was an echo of wisdom to him that seemed to be lacking in the younger man. Perhaps, thought Eli, that's what I have against Mel, the fact that he's young. But usually I like people for that reason.

  He shook his head. There was something about Mel that puzzled and disturbed Eli, a hint of deep-buried, repudiated resentment against Eli for which there could be no reason. Eli thought about it; then gave up as Howell dropped unexpectedly down beside him.

  "How d'you feel?" demanded Howell.

  "Fine," Eli considered. "A little frightened, I suppose."

  "Of the operation. Naturally," said Howell. "Atavistic fear of being hurt, of being helpless. Not afraid of dying, are you?"

  "Is there any danger?" countered Eli.

  "None," said Howell. "We'll put you under with a lytic mixture this evening. Then take twenty-four hours to get your body temperature down. By that time we'll be able to keep you on the operating table until all of the major organs are out and replaced."

  "I suppose you've got the—er—substitutes ready?" asked Eli, feeling a little queasy at the notion.

  "My God!" said Howell. "We've had two years to culture them. They ought to be ready."

  "Oh? They're all cultures?"

  "Of course." Howell peered at him. "You don't think we'd take a chance on anything out of an accident bank?"

  Eli did not answer immediately. He was thinking at the moment that it might somehow perhaps be a little more friendly to think of his new heart and liver, or whatever they were going to replace, being natural-grown accessories, so to speak, than the impersonal offsprings of a culture bath.

  "No telling what factors we might introduce if we did that," Howell went on.

  "It seems to me," protested Eli, mildly, "that I've heard of cultured body parts being refused by the body so that—"

  "Nonsense!" said Howell. "In the beginning they had a few cases due to incomplete knowledge of body typing. Not for twenty years now. No, no, it's perfectly simple. Cut, attach mechanical standby, remove, replace, detach mechanical, and there you are."

  Eli winced. Howell, in his attempts to reassure his patient was being markedly unsuccessful.

  "If you want, I can take you down to the operating room now," said Howell, "and show you the complete procedure."

  "No thanks," said Eli. And as promptly as if he had run up a distress signal, Tammy and Seth both came swooping down at once to break up the conversation.

  As soon as he was free, Eli slipped away from the party and went up to the solar roof to be by himself. The sun was just dipping toward the horizon. It had already stained a path of reddish gold across the restless waters of the ocean, from out of the west. The sky was luminous; but in the east the waters were dark. Eli took a turn limping around the deck of the solar.

  He had not thought that he would be afraid of anything. But now, whether triggered either by Seth's unexpected visit, or by the imminence of the operation itself, fear was gnawing at him internally. Not a great fear, of the kind that chills the body and stiffens the muscles, but a little rat's tooth of gnawing uneasiness that worked at the back of his mind like an ulcer might have worked at his stomach lining. Deny it to Seth as much as he could, he could not hide from himself the fact that he operated largely with what appeared to be instinct. And at this moment, that instinct was warning him of… what? Coming up against that question mark, Eli grinned a little sourly to himself. There was no lack, he thought, of things to make him uneasy.

  The world was quivering on the edge of an explosion that would tear it apart, like a balloon at the bursting point. There were hints, through Hassan, of those who might have designs upon his life. And, if this were not enough, he faced an ordeal rather like that of a guinea pig who goes first under the knife in the discovery of a new technique of an experimental laboratory. But more than this—Eli halted his pacing and leaned with one arm upon the back of a chair to gaze somberly at the ceaselessly moving ocean—there was the matter of his own deep unhappiness and out-of-placeness in the world. He knew what he was about to do, and what he had done; but there was no way in which he could tell whether these things which he had done and was about to do, would bring him peace.

  He shook off these morbid thoughts. The sun was even closer to the horizon now; and he reminded himself that there were things to be done.

  He sat down on the chair, and pushed the key on the communicator in the middle of the table before him. He had not pressed the vision key, only the audio. The bubble itself, in which the head of the operator should have appeared, remained milky. But her voice came from it. "Calling?"

  "Scrambler," replied Eli. He was referring to the mechanical device at World Central which mixed up its incoming messages on a random basis, so as to make them completely un-traceable; and then sent them forth from its own location in one of the basements of Cable Island.

  There was a moment's pause, and then a single silvery chime came from the clouded half-bubble.

  "Scrambler on. Go ahead, sir," said the voice of the operator. There was another chime and Eli knew that even the operator was now out of the circuit.

  "Number two-nine-four, Cable. Island," said Eli. Again, there was an almost imperceptible pause. Then Kurt Anders' voice spoke from the bubble. "Anders here," it said.

  "Kurt," said Eli. "It's me." He reached out and pressed the picture button. Immediately before him, the bubble cleared; he stared into the face of his former underspokesman for the Underseas Domes.

  Kurt's slim face looked up at him in astonishment, which as Eli watched, slowly began to mix itself with gladness. "Eli—" Kurt was beginning. Eli cut him short. "No, I haven't changed my mind," Eli said. "I just called up to tell you that you could announce my resignation now, Kurt. That is, if you haven't done so already."

  The excitement in Kurt's face faded slowly as Eli watched. The face became hard and Eli was amazed to see, how bitter. "You can't do this, Eli," said Kurt, at last. "Oh, but I can," said Eli, smiling, but looking at him closely. "Tell me, Kurt. I always thought you'd be the sort of a man to welcome the position of spokesman. But you really don't want it, do you?"

  "No," said Kurt flatly, his eyes meeting Eli's. "I don't."

  "Mind telling me why?"

  "No, I don't mind telling you why," retorted Kurt. "Under ordinary situations it would have come about naturally, and it would have been just what I would have wanted. But you handed it to me to hold just when it started to fall apart."

  Eli held his face steady; but the shock struck home internally. He had not seen himself before this in the light of a man who
hands over a bankrupt company with all the airs and graces of making a valuable present to one who had long wanted it.

  "If you feel that way, Kurt," Eli said calmly, "you don't have to take the job, of course."

  "Don't I?" flared Kurt. "Who else is there?"

  "Why, I imagine the Domes can find somebody," said Eli evenly.

  "Oh sure, they can find somebody!" said Kurt. "They can find somebody to prop up behind the desk here. But that's not what's needed, Eli, and you know it."

  Eli sighed.

  "Kurt," he said, "that is the same old argument that has kept men in positions of responsibility against their will since civilization began. I'm not indispensable. No one is. And you, and to a lesser extent several hundred other men, are as capable of handling the job of spokesman for Underseas as well as I ever could."

  Kurt looked him squarely in the eye.

  "That's not true, Eli." he said.

  "It is, whether you believe it, or not," said Eli. "I took up politics the way anybody might take up a job as a salesman. I might have easily gone into deep-sea diving. And if I had, Underseas would have gotten along just as well without me. So I can't be all that indispensable and valuable now."

  "And I tell you you are!" said Kurt desperately. "Underseas is falling apart without you. Eli—" he hesitated. "The whole world is falling apart without you."

  Eli burst into loud laughter. "Don't be a damn fool, Kurt," he said harshly. "I called not only to tell you about publishing my resignation now, but to ask if there was anything I could do to help. But I can see now that if I even twitched a finger you'd have me back carrying the whole load again." He shook his head, grinning a little savagely. "No, no, Kurt, you're going to have to struggle through this on your own. So long, and good luck!" he reached for the cutoff switch.

  "Wait!" called Kurt. "Tell me where you are, at least. Give me a phone number, Eli—"

  "No, Kurt," said Eli, shaking his head. "That would make it too easy." He pressed the cutoff switch and the screen went blank.

  Eli drew a deep breath. He shook his head and punched another number on the set.

  "Scramble," he said, without waiting for the operator to speak to him. There was the customary pause, and then the screen cleared and he saw Hassan looking up at him.

  "Are you calling direct?" asked the fat man, without preamble.

  "Of course not," replied Eli sharply. Hassan shrugged and breathed out.

  "It might have been an emergency you were calling about; and no time or chance to scramble," he said. "How's it going where you are!"

  "Pretty much as expected," said Eli. "But what I called about was that I'd like some information from you."

  "Always glad to oblige," said Hassan. "Who on, this time?"

  "My former underspokesman, Kurt Anders," said Eli. "Is he in some personal trouble, or something of that order?"

  "Anders?" said Hassan. "Nothing political, in any case. He's got a health problem, though." Eli's eyebrows jerked up. "Health problem?" he said. Hassan looked at him ironically.

  "He's quivering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, according to his physician," Hassan said. "That job you wished on him is just a little too much for the boy." Eli frowned.

  "Well, keep an eye on him," Eli said. "If something serious happens to him, I'd like to know about it." Hassan shrugged.

  "If that's what you want." His eyes narrowed a little as they rested on Eli. "I'd say you had other things to occupy your mind, myself." Eli raised his eyebrows, ironically. "Oh?" he said. Hassan did not smile.

  "That's right," he said. "A whisper's come in to me here that your assassin's already been picked out."

  "But you don't know who he is," said Eli, smiling a little grimly.

  "No," replied Hassan. "But according to the word I got, he's at the station with you there, right now."

  Eli stiffened suddenly.

  "He—you said?" he inquired sharply.

  "Or she." Hassan spread his hands. "Sex wasn't specified." He gazed curiously at Eli. "You could duck out right now."

  Eli shook his head, slowly; his eyes abstracted and thoughtful.

  "Up to you, then," said Hassan. "Keep your eye open for the little birds. If I get something definite, I'll ship the information on to you." Eli nodded. Hassan stretched his hand out over the controls of his own phone, and then hesitated. "Was there something more you wanted from me?"

  "No," said Eli, rousing himself. "No. Thanks, that's all for now." He reached out his own hand to the communication set and broke the connection. A voice broke suddenly on his ears. He whirled around.

  "Oh, there you are," cried Tammy cheerfully, advancing on him. "I've been looking all over for you. Dr. Howell's already down on the operating level of the station. You're to come down and I'll start getting you ready."

  Eli was conducted by Tammy to a room adjoining the operating room and put to bed in what looked like a large, quilted stretcher, with an equally thick cover of the same design that covered him completely up to his chin. Only one arm protruded, and into this, at the junction of the medium basilic and median cephalic vein inside the right elbow, Tammy pushed and taped a hollow needle. From the needle a light tube ran up to a bottle hanging head downwards from a T-shaped rack beside the stretcher.

  Eli looked at the straw-colored liquid in the bottle. "That's what Arthur called the lytic mixture, isn't it?" he asked.

  "That's right," Tammy smiled down at him, fastening the magnetic strip that held the edges of the top covering to the stretcher and enclose Eli, by the simple expedient of pressing them together at the bottom and then running her pinched fingers along until their full lengths were in contact.

  "What's it made of?" asked Eli. "The lytic mixture, I mean."

  "Chlorpromazine, mainly," she answered.

  "What's that?" Eli wanted to know. "Something new?"

  "It's been used like this for over a hundred and fifty years. You relax now," said Tammy.

  Eli wriggled uncomfortably in his cocoon. The material that enclosed him enclosed heaviness and coolness. He was aware of the needle through which the lytic mixture was dripping into his arm, not as a pain, for a small amount of local anesthetic had been used, but as a somewhat improper weight and pressure within his flesh.

  "I wish this stuff would hurry up and take effect," he growled.

  "It will," said Tammy.

  Eli yawned and woke. Tammy had vanished and he looked up into the face of Ntoane. Eli blinked.

  "Is—it all over?" he asked. His voice sounded a little croaky and unused. He cleared his throat.

  "All over," said Ntoane. "How do you feel?"

  "Feel?" echoed Eli.

  He became conscious now, of the fact that his cocoon was no longer cool, but warm. Inside it his body felt pretty much as it had always felt.

  "I feel all right," he answered.

  "Good," said Ntoane. He slipped the end of his thumb between the top ends of the magnetic fastening strips and ran it back along their length to separate them. "Take my hand and I'll help you get up now."

  "Get up?" repeated Eli. He felt ridiculous to be parroting every word Ntoane said, but the words seemed to come out by themselves, without any authority from him.

  "That's right," said Ntoane. "Here, I'll give you a hand." He slid an arm behind Eli's shoulders and helped him level him into a sitting position on the edge of the stretcher-affair. As Eli bent at the waist he felt suddenly as if he had been stabbed in the body, not merely in one spot, but in several places at once.

  "Help!" he gasped, grabbing at Ntoane.

  "What's the matter?" asked Ntoane.

  "Something's wrong inside me," said Eli.

  "Merely the incisions. In two days you won't even know they're there. Come on, up now." Eli looked up to see that Howell had come striding into the room, answering as he came.

  "What do you mean, up now?" demanded Eli indignantly. "I feel like I'm coming apart."

  "Nonsense," said Howell. "Ignore it."

&n
bsp; "You will feel better after you've moved around a bit," put in Ntoane, sympathetically.

  So encouraged, Eli allowed Ntoane to help him to his feet and support him while he took a number of unsteady steps about the room. By the time he had completed a couple of circuits, he was sweating freely.

  "That's enough," said Howell, at last. "I'll take him, Ntoane while you get a wheel chair." And he put his hands firmly under Eli's armpits, holding him until Ntoane brought back the wheel chair from the corridor outside the room.

  Once in the wheel chair, Eli relaxed.

  "Whew!" he said, wiping his forehead.

  "A little difficult at first," admitted Howell dryly. "Come along, Eli and I'll pick out something safe for you to eat. After that you can see your new visitor."

  "New visitor?"

  Howell was already moving off down the corridor.

  "The spokesman for Communications," he answered. "Alan Clyde, I think his name is."

  Eli's eyes narrowed. He pressed the motor button set in one arm of his wheel chair and rolled after the thin man.

  After a lunch consisting mainly of liquids, Eli went hunting Clyde. He found him seated with Seth up in the solar, leaning forward with his slim, handsome face politely attentive to the words of the Member. Both men turned and rose and Eli rolled from the elevator and approached them.

  "You two know each other?" he said, smiling up at them.

  "We do now," said Alan cheerfully.

  "How do you feel, Eli?" asked Seth.

  "A little sore about the midsection, otherwise fine," said Eli.

  "Good, I'm glad," said Seth. He glanced from Eli to the young Communications spokesman. "I'll leave you to your own conversation, now. Excuse me."

  The other two nodded and watched his lean figure as he went to the elevator and down out of sight. Then they turned back to each other.

  "Sit down," said Eli.

  "Thanks," Alan took a deck chair, pulling it around to face Eli. "I got your address out of Kurt. He didn't want to let me have it at first. I explained that it was something of an emergency."