He managed to say, ‘I’ve heard that about addicts in general; they like to hook other people.’
‘Do you forgive me?’ Kathy asked, also rising.
‘No,’ he said. He felt wrathful and dizzy. Not only do I not forgive you, he thought, but I’ll do everything I can to deny you a cure; nothing means anything to me now except getting back at you. Even my own cure. He felt pure, absolute hate for her. Yes, this was what she would do; this was his wife. This was precisely why he had tried to get away.
‘We’re in this together,’ Kathy said.
As steadily as possible he walked toward the exit of the cafeteria step by step, past the tables, people. Leaving her.
He almost made it. He almost.
——————————————————————————–
Everything returned. But totally different. New. Changed.
Across from him Don Festenburg leaned back, said, ‘You’re lucky. But I’d better explain this. Here. The calendar.’ He pushed a brass object; across the desk Eric saw. ‘You’ve moved slightly over one year ahead.’ Eric stared. Sightlessly. Ornate inscriptions. ‘This is June 17, 2056. You’re one of the happy few the drug affects this way. Most of them wander off into the past and get bogged down in manufacturing alternate universes; you know, playing God until at last the nerve destruction is too great and they degenerate to random twitches.’
Eric tried to think of something useful to say. Could not.
‘Save yourself the effort,’ Festenburg said, seeing him struggle. ‘I can do the talking; you’ll only be here a few minutes so let me get it said. A year ago, when you were given JJ-180 in the building cafeteria, I was fortunate enough to get in on the flurry; your wife became hysterical and you of course – disappeared. She was taken in tow by the Secret Service and she admitted her addiction and what she had done.’
‘Oh.’ The room dropped and rose as he reflexively nodded.
‘So that – you’re feeling better? So anyhow, but now Kathy is cured, but we won’t go into that; it hardly matters.’
‘What about—’
‘Yes, your problem. Your addiction. There was no cure then, a year ago. However, you’ll be gratified to hear that there is now. It came into being a couple of months ago, and I’ve been waiting for you to show up – so much more is known about JJ-180 now that I was privileged to compute almost to the minute when and where you’d appear.’ Reaching into his rumpled coat pocket, Festenburg brought out a small glass bottle. This is the antidote which TF&D’s subsidiary now manufactures. Would you like it? If you took it now, twenty milligrams, you’d be free of your addiction even after you return to your own time.’ He smiled, his sallow face wrinkling unnaturally. ‘But – there are problems.’
Eric said, ‘How is the war going?’
Deprecatingly, Festenburg said, ‘What do you care? Good God, Sweetscent; your life depends on this bottle – you don’t know what addiction to that stuff is like!’
‘Is Molinari still alive?’
Festenburg shook his head. ‘Minutes he’s got and he wants to know about the Mole’s state of health. Listen.’ He leaned toward Eric, his mouth turned down poutingly, his face puffy with agitation. ‘I want to make a deal, doctor. I’m asking astonishingly little in return for these medication tablets. Please do business with me; the next time you take the drug – if you’re not cured – you’ll go ten years into the future and that’ll be too late, too far.’
Eric said, ‘Too late for you, but not for me. The cure will still exist.’
‘You won’t even ask what I want in return?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Eric shrugged. ‘I don’t feel comfortable; I’m being subjected to pressure and I don’t care for that – I’ll take my chances with the drug without you.’ It was sufficient merely to know that a cure existed. Such knowledge obliterated his anxiety and left him free to do as he liked. ‘Obviously, my best bet is to use the drug as often as physiologically possible, two or three times, going farther into the future each time, and then when its destructive effects become too great—’
‘Even one use,’ Festenburg said between his clenched teeth, ’causes irreversible brain damage. You damn fool – you’ve already used it too much. You saw your wife; you want that damage for yourself?’
After a moment, considering deeply, Eric said, ‘For what I’ll get out of it, yes. By the time I’ve used it twice I’ll know the outcome of the war and if the outcome is unfavorable possibly I’ll be in a position to advise Molinari how it could be avoided. What’s my health compared to that?’ He was silent then; it seemed perfectly clear to him. There was nothing to discuss: he sat waiting for the effects of the drug to wear off. He waited to return to his own time.
Opening the glass bottle, Festenburg poured out the white tablets; he dropped them to the floor and ground them to dust under his heel.
‘Did it occur to you,’ Festenburg said, ‘that within the next ten years Terra may be so destroyed in the war that TF&D’s subsidiary may no longer be in a position to supply this antidote?’
It had not occurred to him; although jolted, he managed not to show it. ‘We’ll see,’ he murmured.
‘Frankly I have no knowledge of the future. However, I have knowledge of the past – of your future, this last year.’ He produced a homeopape, which he turned toward Eric and spread out on the desk. ‘Six months following your experience in the White House cafeteria. It’ll interest you.’
Eric scanned the lead article and its headline.
SWEETSCENT IMPLICATED AS PRIME MOVER IN
DOCTOR’S PLOT AGAINST ACTING UN SECRETARY
DONALD FESTENBURG, HELD BY SECRET SERVICE.
Abruptly Festenburg whipped the newspaper away, crumpling it and tossing it behind him. ‘I’m not saying what became of Molinari – find that out for yourself, since you’re uninterested in reaching a rational agreement with me.’
After a pause Eric said, ‘You’ve had a year to print up a fake of the Times. I seem to recall that such has been done before in political history . . . Joseph Stalin did it to Lenin during Lenin’s last year. Had a completely phony edition of Pravda printed, given to Lenin, who—’
‘My uniform,’ Festenburg said wildly, his face dark red and quivering as if it were about to burst. ‘Look at my shoulder patches!’
‘Why couldn’t that be faked, too? I’m not saying it is, or that the homeopape was faked.’ After all, he was not in a position to know one way or another. ‘I’m merely saying it could be, and that’s enough to cause me to suspend my judgement.’
With enormous effort Festenburg managed to gain partial control of himself. ‘All right; you’re playing cautious. This entire experience is disorienting for you – I understand. But doctor, be realistic for a moment; you’ve seen the pape, you know that in a way which I’m not specifying I succeeded Molinari as UN Secretary. Plus the fact that six months from your own time period you were caught red-handed conspiring against me. And—’
‘Acting UN Secretary,’ Eric amended.
‘What?’ Festenburg stared at him.
‘A pro tern situation is implied. Transitional. And I wasn’t – or won’t be – caught “red-handed.” The pape merely relates an accusation; there’s been no trial, no conviction. I could be innocent. I could be about to be framed, and by you. Again, recall Stalin during his last year, the so-called—’
‘Don’t lecture me in my own field! Yes, I know of the situation you related; I know how completely Stalin fooled the dying Lenin. And I know about the doctor’s plot, paranoiacally engineered by Stalin during his final illness. Okay—’ Festen-burg’s voice was steady. ‘I admit it. That homeopape which I showed you just now – it was faked.’
Eric smiled.
‘And I’m not Acting UN Secretary,’ Festenburg continued. ‘But as to what actually has happened — I’ll leave it to you to guess. And you’re not going to be able to; you’re going to return to your own time a few moments from now knowing nothing, not a damn thing, about the world of the future – whereas if you had made a few deals with me you could know everything.’ He glowered at Eric.
‘I guess,’ Eric said, ‘I’m a fool.’
‘More than that: polymorphic perverse. You could be going back armed with incredible weapons – in the figurative sense, of course – to save yourself, your wife, Molinari. And for one year you’ll stew … assuming that you survive your drug addiction that long. We’ll see.’
For the first time Eric felt a wavering doubt. Was he making an error? After all, he had not even heard what he would need to pony up in order to consummate the deal. But now the antidote had been destroyed; it was too late. This was just talk.