Now suddenly they were not.
Helen and he had talked late. She had begun to have strong misgivings about her decision to let him know of the c ange on the eve of his test. She had weighed it, decided. that it was the “right” thing to do, then had learned the ages old sour truth that right and wrong can sometimes be determined only through hindsight. It had not been fair, she later concluded, to load anything else on his mind just before his test; But it had not seemed fair, either, to let him leave without knowing. . . to return to an empty house.
The decision was necessarily hers; she had been his guardian since earlier that same day. The papers had been signed and sealed; the court had given approval. Now she found with a sigh that being a “parent” was not unalloyed pleasure; it was more like the soul searching that had gone into her first duty as member of a court martial.
When she saw that her “baby” was not quieting, she had insisted that he go to bed anyhow, then had given him a long back rub, combining it with hypnotic instructions to sleep, then had gone quietly away when he seemed asleep.
But Rod had not been asleep; he had simply wanted to be alone. His mind raced like an engine with no load for the best part of an hour, niggling uselessly at the matter of his father’s illness, wondering what it was going to be like to greet them again after twenty years why, he would be almost as old as Mum! switching over to useless mental preparations for unknown test conditions.
At last he realized that he had to sleep forced himself to run through mental relaxing exercises, emptying his mind and hypnotizing himself. It took longer than ever before but finally he entered a great, golden, warm cloud and was asleep.
His bed mechanism had to call him twice. He woke bleary-eyed and was still so after a needle shower. He looked in a mirror, decided that shaving did not matter where he was going and anyhow he was late then decided to shave after all . . . being painfully shy about his sparse young growth.
Mum was not up, but she hardly ever got up as early as that. Dad rarely ate breakfast these days . . . Rod recalled why with a twinge. But he had expected Sis to show up. Glumly he opened his tray and discovered that Mum had forgotten to dial an order, something that had not happened twice in his memory. He placed his order and waited for service another ten minutes lost.
Helen showed up as he was leaving, dressed surprisingly in a dress. “Good morning.”
“Hi, Sis. Say, you’ll have to order your own tucker. Mother didn’t and I didn’t know what you wanted.”
“Oh, I had breakfast hours ago. I was waiting to see you off.”
“Oh. Well, so long. I’ve got to run, I’m late.”
“I won’t hold you up.” She came over and embraced him. “Take it easy, mate. That’s the important thing. More people have died from worry than ever bled to death. And if you do have to strike, strike low.”
“Uh, I’ll remember.”
“See that you do. I’m going to get my leave extended today so that I’ll be here when you come back.” She kissed him. “Now run.”
Dr. Matson was sitting at a desk outside the dispensary at Templeton Gate, checking names on his roll. He looked up as Rod arrived. “Why, hello, Walker. I thought maybe you had decided to be smart.”
‘I’m sorry I’m late, sir. Things happened.”
“Don’t fret about it. Knew a man once who didn’t get shot at sunrise because he overslept the appointment.”
“Really? Who was he?”
“Young fellow I used to know. Myself.”
“Hunh? You really did, sir? You mean you were”
“Not a word of truth in it. Good stories are rarely true. Get on in there and take your physical, before you get the docs irritated.”
They thumped him and xrayed him and made a wavy pattern from his brain and did all the indignities that examining physicians do. The senior examiner listened to his heart and felt his moist hand. “Scared, son?”