“You don’t like Kimberly, do you?” Eponine said to Walter Brackeen. He was a huge American Negro with soft eyes and absolutely magical fingers on a keyboard. He was playing a light jazz medley and staring at his beautiful lady while his three roommates were out, by agreement, in the common areas.
“No, I don’t,” Walter replied slowly. “She’s not like us. She can be very funny, but underneath I think she’s truly bad.”
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“What do you mean?”
Walter changed to a soft ballad, with an easier melody, and played for almost a full minute before speaking. “I guess in the eyes of the law we’re all equal, all murderers. But not in my eyes. I squashed the life out of a man who sodomized my baby brother. You killed a crazy bastard who was ruining your life.” Walter paused for a moment and rolled his eyes. “But that friend of yours Kimberly, she and her boyfriend offed three people they didn’t even know just for drugs and money.”
“She was stoned at the time.”
“No matter,” Walter said. “Each of us is always responsible for his behavior. If I put shit in me that makes me awful, that’s my mistake. But I can’t cop out of the responsibility for my actions.”
“She had a perfect record in the detention center. Every one of the doctors who worked with her said she was an excellent nurse.”
Walter stopped playing his keyboard and stared at Eponine for several seconds. “Let’s not talk about Kimberly anymore,” he said. “We have little enough time together. . . . Have you thought about my proposition?”
Eponine sighed. “Yes, I have, Walter. And although I like you, and enjoy making love with you, the arrangement you suggested sounds too much like a commitment. . . . Besides, I think this is mostly for your ego. Unless I miss my guess, you prefer Malcolm—”
“Malcolm has nothing to do with us,” Walter interrupted. “He’s been my close friend for years, since the very first days I entered the Georgia detention compound. We play music together. We share sex when we’re both lonely. We’re soul mates—”
“I know, I know. . . . Malcolm’s not really the central issue. It’s more the principle of the thing that bothers me. I do like you, Walter, you know that. But. . .” Her voice trailed off as Eponine struggled with her mixed feelings.
“We’re three weeks away from Earth,” Walter said, “and we have six more weeks before we reach Mars. I am the largest man on the Santa Maria. If I say that you’re my girl, nobody will bother you for those six weeks.”
Eponine recalled an unpleasant scene just that morning
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where two German inmates had discussed how easy it would be to commit rape in the convict quarters. They had known that she was within earshot but had made no effort to lower their voices.
At length she put herself in Walter’s huge arms. “All right,” she said softly. “But don’t expect too much. . . . I’m sort of a difficult woman.”
“I think Walter may have a heart problem,” Eponine said in a whisper. It was the middle of the night and their other two roommates were asleep. Kimberly, in the bunk below Eponine, was still stoned on the kokomo she had smoked two hours earlier. Sleep would be impossible for her for several more hours.
“The rules on this ship are fucking stupid,” Kimberly said. “Christ, even in the Pueblo Detention Complex there were fewer regulations. Why the hell can’t we stay in the common areas after midnight? What harm are we doing?”
“He has occasional chest pains and, if we have vigorous sex, he often complains afterward of shortness of breath. … Do you think you could take a look at him?”
“And how about that Marcello? Huh! What a stupid ass! He tells me 1 can stay up all night if I want to come to his room. While I’m sitting there with Toshio. What does he think he’s doing? I mean, not even the guards can mess with the king Jap. . . . What did you say, Eponine?”
Eponine raised herself on an elbow and leaned over the side of the bed. “Walter Brackeen, Kirn,” she said. “I’m talking about Walter Brackeen. Can you slow yourself down enough to pay attention to what I’m saying?”
“All right. All right. What about your Walter? What does he want? Everybody wants something from the king Jap. I guess that makes me the queen, at least in a way—”
“I think Walter has a bad heart,” the exasperated Eponine repeated in a loud voice. “I would like for you to look at him.”
“Shh,” Kimberly replied. “They’ll come bust us, like they did that crazy Swedish girl. . . . Shit, Ep, I’m no doctor. I can tell when a heartbeat is irregular, but that’s all. You ought to take Walter to that con doctor who’s
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really a cardiologist, what’s his name, the super quiet one who stays to himself when he’s not examining somebody—”
“Dr. Robert Turner,” Eponine interrupted.
“That’s the one . . . very professional, aloof, distant, never speaks except in doctorese, hard to believe he blew the heads off two men in a courtroom with a shotgun, it just doesn’t figure—”
“How do you know tkalT’ Eponine said.
“Marcello told me. I was curious, we were laughing, he was teasing me, saying things like ‘Does that Jap make you moan?’ and ‘How about mat quiet heart doctor, can he make you moan?’ ”
“Christ, Kim,” Eponine said, now alarmed, “have you been going to bed with Marcello too?”
Her roommate laughed. “Only twice. He talks better man he fucks. And what an ego. At least the king Jap is appreciative.”
“Does Nakamura know?”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Kimberly replied. “I don’t want to die. But he may be suspicious. … I won’t do it again, but if that Dr. Turner were to so much as whisper in my ear I would cream all over myself. …”
Kimberly continued her rambling chatter. Eponine thought briefly about Dr. Robert Turner. He had examined Eponine soon after launch when she had been having some peculiar spotting. He never even noticed my body, she remembered. // was a thoroughly professional examination.
Eponine tuned Kimberly out of her mind and focused on an image of the handsome doctor. She was surprised to discover that she was feeling a spark of romantic interest. There was something definitely mysterious about the doctor, for there was nothing in his manner or personality that was the least bit consistent with a double murder. There must be an interesting story, she thought.
Eponine was dreaming. It was the same nightmare that she had had a hundred times since the murder. Professor Moreau was lying with his eyes closed on me floor of his studio, blood streaming out of his chest. Eponine walked
274 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
over to the basin, cleaned the large carving knife, and placed it back on the counter. As she stepped over the body those hated eyes opened. She saw the wild insanity in his eyes. He reached out for her with his arms—
“Nurse Henderson. Nurse Henderson.” The knocking on the door was louder. Eponine awakened from her dream and rubbed her eyes. Kimberly and another of their roommates reached the door almost simultaneously.
Walter’s friend Malcolm Peabody, a diminutive, effete white man in his early forties, was standing at the door. He was frantic. “Dr. Turner sent me for a nurse. Come quickly. Walter’s had a heart attack.”
As Kimberly began to dress, Eponine glided down from her bunk. “How is he, Malcolm?” she asked, pulling on her robe. “Is he dead?”
Malcolm was momentarily confused. “Oh, hi, Eponine,” he said meekly. “I had forgotten that you and Nurse Henderson . . . When I left he was still breathing, but—”
Being careful to keep one foot on the floor at all times, Eponine hurried out the door, down the corridor, into the central common area, and then into the men’s living quarters. Alarms sounded as the main monitors followed her progress. When she reached the entrance to Walter’s wing, Eponine paused for a moment to catch her breath.
A crowd of people was standing in the corridor outside of Walter’s room. His door was open wide and the bottom third of his body was lying outside, in the hallway. Eponine pushed her way through the crowd and into the room.
Dr. Robert Turner was kneeling beside his patient, holding electronic prods against Walter’s naked chest. The big man’s body recoiled with each jolt, and then rose slightly off the floor before the doctor pushed it down again against the surface.
Dr. Turner glanced up when Eponine arrived. “Are you the nurse?” he asked brusquely.
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