If the Russians did photograph the ETI satellite, the invader, they would find it old and pitted. I had been there thousands of years. What a surprise that would be; they, too, might remember . . . until the molelike adversary closed up their minds and they forgot again. Were made to forget again, as the deformed landscape, clouded over by the poisoned atmosphere, occluded their senses and thoughts and they fell again, as before.
Recurrent cycles, I realized, of coming awake for a time, then falling back into sleep. I had, like the others, been asleep, but then I had woken up; or, rather, I had been awakened out of my sleep deliberately. The voice of a friend had called to me, as it moved among the rows of new corn, new life, and I had heard and recognized it. That voice was always calling, always attempting to wake us up, we who slept. Perhaps eventually we all would awaken. To communicate once again with our parent race beyond the stars . . . as if we had never left.
Albemuth. Our first home. We were wanderers, exiles, all of us, whether we knew it or not. Perhaps most of us wanted to forget. Memory – to be aware of our true condition, our identity – was too painful. We would make this place our home and we would recall nothing else. It was easier that way.
The simplicity of unawareness. The easier way. Deadly in its outcome: without memory we had fallen victim to our adversary. We had forgotten him, too, and been overtaken and surprised. That was the price we paid. We paid it now.
When I returned to consciousness I found myself in the recovery room, with a nurse taking my pulse. My chest hurt, I had difficulty breathing. An oxygen mask covered my nose. And I was terribly hungry.
“My,” the nurse said brightly. “We really ran our little car into a lot of trouble.”
“What happened to me?” I managed to say.
“Dr Wintaub will discuss your surgery with you,” the nurse said. “After you’re taken to your room.”
“Did you notify . . . ?”
“Your wife is on the way here.”
“What city is this?” I said.
“Downey.”
“I’m a long way from home,” I said.
Half an hour after I had been taken upstairs to a two-patient room, Dr Wintaub entered to examine me.
“How do you feel?” he asked, taking my pulse.
“A bad headache,” I said. I could not remember having had such a headache; it was equaled only by the pain I had experienced the night Valis had informed me of Johnny’s birth defect. And my sight seemed impaired again, as well.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Dr Wintaub pulled the covers back, inspected my bandages. “Your lung was punctured by a broken rib,” he said. “That was why we entered the chest cavity. You’re going to be here, I’m afraid, for some time. The steering wheel of your car caught you head on and did most of the damage – “ His voice abruptly came to a halt.
“What is it?” I said, afraid at what he had found.
Til be back in a minute, Mr Brady.” Dr Wintaub departed from the room; I was left to wonder about it. Presently he returned with two male technicians. “I want his bandages removed,” Wintaub said. “And the splints. I want to examine the wound.”
. They began removing the bandages, with extreme gentleness. Dr Wintaub watched critically. I felt nothing, no discomfort, no pain. The headache remained; it was like a migraine headache, with a flashing grid of extraordinarily intense pink light in my right eye, a field of blurred color slowly moving from left to right.
There, doctor.” The technicians stepped back.
Dr Wintaub came close; I felt his deft fingers touch my chest. “I performed this surgery,” he murmured. “About two hours ago.” He studied his wristwatch. “Two hours and ten minutes ago.”
“Could you look at my eyes?” I said. “That’s where the pain is.”
Impatiently, Dr Wintaub flashed a light in my eyes. “Follow the light,” he murmured. “You’re tracking okay.” He returned to my chest. To the two technicians he said, “Take him down to X-ray and do a full chest series.”
“All right to move him, doctor?” one of the technicians asked.
“Just be extremely careful,” Wintaub said.
I was wheeled down to X-ray and chest plates were made, several of them, and then I was returned to my room. While waiting at X-ray I managed to sit up enough to see my own chest.
A firm pink line crossed it. The incision had healed.
No wonder Dr Wintaub wanted immediate X-rays; he had to know if the internal damage had mended as well.
Shortly, two unfamiliar doctors entered and began to examine me; with them they brought nurses and equipment. I lay silently, staring at the ceiling. My headache had begun to abate, for which I was thankful, and my vision was clearing, except for a residual pink phosphene color. From what I had seen of my chest, plus my knowledge of the meaning of the pink phosphene light, I understood the situation. Valis had handled my case, as he had handled Johnny’s, in the most economical fashion possible: normal surgical procedure and then, under the influence of the satellite and its emissions, unnaturally rapid repair. Probably I was ready to leave the hospital.
The problem, however, lay with the doctors. They had never encountered such a thing.
“How soon do you think I’ll be out of here?” I asked Dr Wintaub when he appeared after dinnertime; I was sitting up eating a regular meal. I felt fine, now. The doctor could see this. It did not appear to please him.
This is a teaching hospital,” he said.
“You want the student doctors to see me,” I said.
“That is correct.”
“The chest cavity has repaired itself?”
“Completely so, as nearly as we can tell. But we’ll need to keep you under observation; it may be superficial repair.”
“Has my wife been called?” I asked. “Yes, she’s on her way. I told her the operation was successful. Mr Brady, have you ever had surgery before?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Did they note a highly accelerated rate of repair? Of tissue recovery?” I said nothing.
Dr Wintaub said, “Can you account for this, Mr Brady?”
“Hormone production,” I said.
“Not possible.”
“I’d like to be discharged,” I said. “So I can go home tonight with my wife.”
“That is out of the question, Mr Brady. After an operation of this severity – “
Til sign out AMA,” I said. “Against medical advice. Bring me the forms.”
“No way, Mr Brady. I won’t cooperate with you. We are going to study you until we know what has taken place in your body following surgery. When you came in liere, one lung was almost – “
“Bring me my clothes,” I said.
“No.” Dr Wintaub left the room; the door shut after him.
I got out of bed and searched the closet and drawers, No clothes, except for a hospital gown. I put that on. If I had to I would leave that way. Neither Dr Wintaub nor the hospital could hold me in view of my complete recovery.
There was no doubt of my recovery. I could feel it physically, and in my mind I was aware of it, as aware as I had been that night I comprehended Johnny’s birth defect. The only problem I had was getting home. And that was a minor one.
I left the hospital room and walked down the hall, looking into rooms with open doors, until I saw a room with no one in it. The patients were out getting exercise after finishing dinner. Entering the room I opened the clothes closet. All I could find were a pair of fuzzy carpet slippers, a woman’s bright print dress with plunging backline, and a turban made of pastel fabric. It would be better if I resembled a woman, I realized; they would be looking for a man. Fortunately, the woman whose clothes these were had an enormous build; I was able to get into all of them, and, after picking up a pair of dark glasses from a drawer, I set out into the hall again.
No one stopped me or interfered with me as I made my way down the corridor to a stairwell. Moments later I had reached the ground floor and had come out onto the parking lot. All that remained was to sit on a bench watching the incoming cars until I saw Rachel’s Maverick.
I found a bench to one side, seated myself, and waited.
An unspecified interval later – my watch was gone, either destroyed or in the patients” property safe – the green Maverick pulled hastily into a slot and Rachel and Johnny emerged, both distraught and disheveled.
As Rachel hurried up the walk past my bench I stood up and said, “Let’s take off.”