Dr. Turner stopped- a moment, looked away quickly, and men fixed his eyes on Malcolm. “I’m not trying to make it harder on you, Mr. Peabody,” he said quietly, “but I wanted to explain how I am able to know what’s wrong with you. So that you will understand there has been no mistake.”
Malcolm’s eyes were wild with fright. The doctor took him by the hand and led him to a specific position beside the cube. “Look right there, on the back of the heart, near the top. Do you see the strange webbing and s trial ion in the tissues? Those are your heart muscles and they have undergone irreparable decay.”
Malcolm stared inside the cube for what seemed like an eternity and then lowered his head. “Am I going to die, Doctor?” he asked meekly.
Robert Turner wok his patient’s other hand. “Yes, you are, Malcolm. On Earth, we could possibly wait for a heart transplant; here, however, it is out of the question since we have neither the right equipment nor a proper donor. … If you would like, I can open you up and take a firsthand look at your heart. But it’s extremely unlikely that I would see anything that would change the prognosis.”
Malcolm shook his head. Tears began to run down his cheeks. Eponine put her arms around the little man and began to weep as well. “I’m sorry it took me so long to complete my diagnosis,” Dr. Turner said, “but in a case this serious I needed to be absolutely certain.”
A few moments later Malcolm and Eponine walked toward the door. Malcolm turned around. “What do I do now?” he asked the doctor.
“Whatever you enjoy,” Dr. Turner replied.
When they were gone Dr. Turner returned to his office, where hardcopy printouts of Malcolm Peabody’s charts
318 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
and files lay strewn across his desk. The doctor was deeply worried. He was virtually certain—he could not know definitely until he had completed the autopsy—that Pea-body’s heart was suffering from the same kind of malady that had killed Walter Brackeen on the Santa Maria. The two of them had been close friends for several years, going all the way back to the beginning of their detention terms in Georgia. It was unlikely that they had both coinciden-tally contracted the same heart disease. But if it was not a coincidence, then the pathogen must be communicable.
Robert Turner shook his head. Any disease that struck the heart was alarming. But one that could be passed from one person to another? The specter was terrifying.
He was very tired. Before putting his head down on his desk Dr. Turner made a list of the references on heart viruses that he wanted to obtain from the data base. Then he fell quickly asleep.
Fifteen minutes later the phone aroused him suddenly. A Tiasso was on the other end, calling from the Emergency Room. “Two Garcias have found a human body out in Sherwood Forest,” it said, “and are on the way here now. From the images they have transmitted, I can tell that mis case will require your personal involvement.”
Dr. Turner scrubbed his hands, put on his gown again, and reached the Emergency Room just before the two Garcias arrived with the body. As experienced as he was, Dr. Turner had to turn away from the horribly mutilated corpse. The head had been almost completely severed from the body—it was hanging by only a thin strand of muscle—and the face had been hacked and disfigured beyond recognition. In addition, in the genital area of the trousers there was a bloody, gaping hole.
A pair of Tiassos immediately went to work, cleaning up the blood and preparing the body for autopsy. Dr. Turner sat on a chair, away from the scene, and filled out the first death report in New Eden.
“What was his name?” he asked the biots.
One of the Tiassos rustled through what was left of the dead man’s clothing and found his ISA identification card.
“Danni,” the biot replied. “Marcello Danni.”
EPITHALAMION
1
Tl
•he train from Positano was full. It stopped at the small station on the shores of Lake Shakespeare, halfway to Beauvois, and disgorged its mixture of humans and biots. Many were carrying baskets of food and blankets and folding chairs. Some of the smaller children raced from the station out onto the thick, freshly mowed grass surrounding the lake. They laughed and tumbled down the gentle slope that covered the hundred and fifty meters between the station and the edge of the water.
For those who did not want to sit on the grass, wooden stands had been erected just opposite the narrow pier that extended fifty meters into the water before spreading out into a rectangular platform. A microphone, rostrum, and several chairs were set up on the platform; it was there that Governor Watanabe would deliver the Settlement Day address after the fireworks were finished.
Forty meters to the left of the stands the Wakefields and the Watanabes had placed a long table covered with a blue and white cloth. Finger foods were tastefully arranged on the table. Coolers underneath were filled with drinks.
322 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
Their families and friends had gathered in the immediate area and were either eating, playing some kind of game, or engaged in animated conversation. Two Lincoln biots were moving around the group, offering drinks and canapes to those who were too far away from the table and the coolers.
It was a hot afternoon. Too hot, in fact, the third exceptionally warm day in a row. But as the artificial sun completed its mini-arc in the dome far above their heads and the light began to slowly dim, the expectant crowd on the banks of Lake Shakespeare forgot about the heat.
A final train arrived only minutes before the light disappeared completely. This one came from the Central City station to the north, bringing colonists who lived in Ha-kone or San Miguel. There were not many latecomers. Most of the people had arrived early to set up their picnics on the grass. Eponine was on the last train. She had originally planned not to attend the celebration at all, but had changed her mind at the last minute.
Eponine was contused when she stepped onto the grass from the station platform. There were so many people! All of New Eden must be here, she thought. For a moment she wished that she had not come. Everyone was with friends and family, and she was all alone.
Ellie Wakefield was playing horseshoes with Benjy when Eponine stepped off the train. She quickly recognized her teacher, even from the distance, because of her bright red armband. “It’s Eponine, Mother,” Ellie said, running over to Nicole. “May I ask her to join us?”
“Of course,” Nicole replied.
A voice on the public address system interrupted the music being played by a small band to announce that the fireworks would begin in ten minutes. There was scattered applause.
“Eponine,” Ellie shouted. “Over here.” Ellie waved her arms.
Eponine heard her name being called but could not see very clearly in the dim light. After several seconds she started in Ellie’s direction. Along the way she inadvertently bumped into a toddler who was roaming by himself
THE GARDEN OF RAMA
323
in the grass. “Kevin,” a mother shrieked, “stay away from her!”
In an instant a burly blond man grabbed the little boy and held him away from Eponine. “You shouldn’t be here,” the man said. “Not with decent people.”
A little shaken, Eponine continued toward Ellie, who was walking in her direction across me grass. “Go home, Forty-one!” a woman who had watched the earlier incident shouted. A fat ten-year-old boy with a bulbous nose pointed his finger at Eponine and made an inaudible comment to his younger sister.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Ellie said when she reached her teacher. “Will you come have something to eat?”
Eponine nodded. “I’m sorry for all these people,” Ellie said in a voice loud enough for everyone around her to hear. “It’s a shame they are so ignorant.”
Ellie led Eponine back to the big table and made a general introduction. “Hey, everybody, for those of you who don’t know her, this is my teacher and friend Eponine. She has no last name, so don’t ask her what it is.”
Eponine and Nicole had met several times before. They exchanged pleasantries now while Lincoln offered Eponine some vegetable sticks and a soda. Nai Watanabe pointedly brought her twin sons, Kepler and Galileo, who had just had their second birthday the week before, over to meet the new arrival. A large nearby group of colonists from Positano was staring as Eponine lifted Kepler in her arms. “Pretty,” the little boy said, pointing at Eponine’s face.
“It must be very difficult,” Nicole said in French, her head nodding in the direction of the gawking bystanders.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109