Dannerman glared at Martin, who glared defiantly back, but then closed his eyes and went to sleep. Or pretended to, Pat thought angrily. Dannerman turned to Dopey. “Then what is the purpose?”
Dopey was silent for a long moment. “I do not think I may discuss that. Moreover,” he added, sounding sorrowful, “I believe that you have not been candid with me about our discussions before General Delasquez and Commander Lin leaped on me and crushed me to death. That is not fair. Please do not attempt to deceive me again. Also,” he added, turning toward the wall, but looking over his plume at Dannerman, “please also learn that you must not attempt to steal things which do not belong to you and you do not understand.”
It sounded as though the message was meant for Martin Delasquez-but then why was he looking at Dannerman? Before Pat could ask, Dopey was gone through the opening wall. A moment later the Docs followed.
“I guess the conversation’s over,” Dannerman said wryly.
Pat sighed. “You know what would be nice? It would be nice if he would, just once, say good-bye when he goes.” And then she turned to the unfinished business of Martin Delasquez. “Bastard,” she said. “What were you trying to do?”
Delasquez would have had a harder time of it-Pat would have seen to it herself-if he hadn’t abruptly pressed his hand to his forehead, staggered and sat down. “Pardon,” he said. “Perhaps I am not entirely recovered. In any case I was merely attempting to establish contact in another way, in the hope that something could be gained for all of us.”
“Sure you were,” Jimmy Lin sneered. Pat opened her mouth to tell the general a few more home truths about himself, but then closed it again. What was the point? Dannerman seemed to have lost interest in the subject; his hands were still turning something over in his pocket, and his expression continued to be abstracted.
For a while the others pressed Pat for all she could remember about these “tachyons,” but it wasn’t much; she had said just about all she retained from those long-ago courses, and after a few minutes Rosaleen turned to something more useful. She had been experimenting with the cooker Dopey had brought, and ten minutes later there were heavenly smells of decent meals coming out of the thing.
The reality was as good as the aroma. Pat had forgotten how fine a cup of hot Irish stew could taste. Even Martin recovered swiftly enough to cook up and devour some sort of fried-banana thing. It wasn’t until they were all on their seconds that Rosaleen cleared her throat. “Patrice?” she said. “Were there not some studies, long ago, about how to produce these tachyon things Dopey was talking about?”
Pat swallowed and thought for a moment. “Studies? But the tachyons were never found.”
“Yes, you said that,” the old lady said patiently. “But I do recall some speculations on the subject. It was while I was studying at the high-energy institute in Kiev; we were analyzing the instrumentation of the synchrotron, and the instructor mentioned, purely for our entertainment, I am sure, that someone had once suggested faster-than-light particles could be generated with a sufficiently powerful instrument.”
“With a synchrotron?” Pat said, and then, “Oh! That radiation from Starlab!”
Rosaleen nodded. “Exactly.”
Then Pat had to explain what they were talking about to Martin and Jimmy Lin, who had heard nothing about synchrotron radiation being observed from the orbiter. Danner-man, on the other hand, listened for only a moment, then said, “I think I’ll take a little nap.”
He wasn’t the only one. Martin was losing interest in the discussion; he lingered only for a few moments, then silently removed himself to a side of the cell and lay down, closing his eyes. Rosaleen yawned. “A full belly makes a sleepy brain,” she said. “Do you think one of us should stay awake?”
“Not me,” said Jimmy Lin; so Pat volunteered. It wasn’t that she wasn’t drowsy herself; it was that she had something else on her mind. Not Martin’s treachery; not what Dopey had told them, astonishing though that was; the thing that was preoccupying her thoughts was the delicious fact that, at last, she had her comb back. It was what she had yearned for-well, one of the things, anyway-and while most of the captives had stretched out to nap away their full bellies Pat knelt before the mirror wall, carefully drawing it through the tangles of her hair.
That was one good thing about the place, she thought. You never had to hunt for a mirror. The bad thing was what the mirror revealed. Pat gazed discontentedly at the dark roots on her hair, the smudges of unidentified filth on her blouse, the circles under her eyes. What was even worse was that she was uncomfortably aware that she didn’t smell very good, either. The hoarded drops of perfume from her carryall were running low, her little deodorant stick was long gone-and in any case the deodorant paste had left her unwelcome thatch of armpit hair sticky and tangled.
What she needed was a bath. She thought longingly of a slow soak in a hot tub, with scented bubble-bath foam rising high over the steamy water. . . and, yes, then also a wardrobe of clean clothes to put on afterward. Even a bar of soap would be fine. She thought of all the million little soap chips she had thrown away over her lifetime because they got to be too small to bother with. She would have paid a high price for any one of them right now.
A stirring a few steps away from her attracted her attention. It was where Dan had settled himself to sleep, but he didn’t appear to be sleeping. He had taken off his jacket to wrap it over his head-well, that was a sensible enough thing to do, to keep the light out-but she saw that he had one hand up inside the garment, right in front of his face, and the hand was moving as though he were doing something with it inside the jacket.
Pat informed herself that whatever he was doing, it was none of her business. Picking his nose? Something equally distasteful and private? Not to mention that she wasn’t really speaking to the man. . . . But it went on for a surprisingly long time, and curiosity overcame her scruples. “Dan?” Softly, so as not to wake the others. “What are you doing?”
The motion stopped. A moment later Dan’s head popped out, regarding her. “It’s nothing,” he said.
“Well, sorry. I just thought-“
But he was shaking his head as though to tell her not to pursue the subject. Baffled, she watched as he wrapped the jacket around his hand and stood up. He looked as though he were pondering something. When she opened her mouth he shook his head at her again, then seemed to come to a decision. He touched the wall with one hand, then raised the other, wrapped in the jacket, to press against it. He held it there for a bit, frowning, then slowly moved it up and down.
He seemed to be expecting something. Whatever it was, it didn’t happen. He shrugged and sighed. . . .
And then something did happen. The wall puckered and opened just where his hand was. A moment later a great fist- a Doc fist, taloned and immense-poked through and snatched the garment from his hand. “Shit!” he said, jumping back.
“What-?” Pat began, but almost at once the wall puckered again, the fist reappeared, it dropped the jacket on the floor and was gone again.
Dannerman looked angry. He picked up the jacket and shook it free. “The bastards,” he muttered. “I guess they saw what I did after all, and now they’ve taken it away from me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pat
Pat didn’t think she had screamed when that fist poked through the wall, but she must have-must have made some sort of noise, anyway, enough so that a sleeper or two woke and saw something going on. Then their questions woke the rest. “It was the wristlet, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “You took it off Dopey’s body!”
He admitted it with a nod. “I had one of those glass buttons, too,” he said. “Did you know they glow in the dark? Under my coat I could see it easily; and the bracelet looked like metal, but it was soft. Rubbery. It slipped right off when I pulled at it.”
Rosaleen was looking at him curiously. “What did you think you were going to do with them?” She had wakened totally and quickly, as though there were no difference between sleeping and waking for her; Pat wondered if that was what it was like to be old.
Dannerman shrugged. “I didn’t know. It occurred to me that maybe they were a sort of key to the wall, so I tried that out-“