Finally Rexton stood up. “I’m going to freeze it at seventeen forty-five,” he announced. “Mr. President, if you will excuse me?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Rexton turned to Dad and myself. “If you two Don Quixote’s are still determined to go, now is the time.”
I stood up. “Mary, you wait for me.”
She asked, “Where?” It had already been settled—and not peacefully!—that she was not to go.
The President interrupted. “I suggest that Mrs. Nivens stay here. After all, she is a member of the family.”
With the invitation he gave us his best smile and I said, “Thank you, sir.” Colonel Gibsy got a very odd look.
Two hours later we were coming in on our target and the jump door was open. Dad and I were last in line, after the kids who would do the real work. My hands were sweaty and I stunk with the old curtain going-up stink. I was scared as hell—I never like to jump.
XXXIV
Gun in my left hand, antitoxin injector ready in my right, I went from door to door in my assigned block. It was an older section of Jefferson City, slums almost; it consisted of apartment houses built fifty years ago. I had given two dozen injections and had three dozen to go before it would be time for me to rendezvous at the State House. I was getting sick of it.
I knew why I had come—it was not just curiosity; I wanted to see them die! I wanted to watch them die, see them dead, with a weary hate that passed all other needs. But now I had seen them dead and I wanted no more of it; I wanted to go home, take a bath, and forget it.
It was not hard work, just monotonous and nauseating. So far I had not seen one live slug, though I had seen many dead ones. I had burned one skulking dog that appeared to have a hump; I was not sure as the light had been bad. We had hit shortly before sundown and now it was almost full dark.
The worst of it was the smells. Whoever compared the odor of unwashed, lousy, diseased humans with that of sheep was no friend to decent sheep.
I finished checking the rooms of the apartment building I was in, shouted to make sure, and went out into the street. It was almost deserted; with the whole population sick with the fever we found few on the streets. The lone exception was a man who came weaving toward me, eyes vacant. I yelled, “Hey!”
He stopped. I said, “You are sick, but I’ve got what you need to get well. Hold out your arm.”
He struck at me feebly. I hit him carefully with my gun and he went face down. Across his back was the red rash of the slug; I avoided that area, picked a reasonably clean and healthy patch over his kidney and stuck in the injector, bending it to break the point after it was in. The units were gas-loaded; nothing more was needed. I did not even withdraw it, but left him.
The first floor of the next house held seven people, most of them so far gone that I did not bother to speak but simply gave them their shots and hurried on. I had no trouble. The second floor was like the first.
The top floor had three empty apartments, at one of which I had to burn out the lock to enter. The fourth flat was occupied, in a manner of speaking. There was a dead woman on the floor of the kitchen, her head bashed in. Her slug was still on her shoulders, but merely resting there, for it was dead, too, and beginning to reek. I left them quickly and looked around.
In the bathroom, sitting in an old-fashioned bathtub, was a middle-aged man. His head slumped on his chest and his wrist veins were open. I thought he was dead but he looked up as I bent over him. “You’re too late,” he said dully. “I killed my wife.”
—or too soon, I thought. From the appearance of the bottom of the tub and by his gray face, five minutes later would have been better. I looked at him, wondering whether or not to waste an injection.