Again, Dangerous Visions Part 69

"Well, go on. Tell your yarn and be done with it."

"My first first mother died in an automobile crash when I was five. 1997 that would be, long before anyone had begun to suspect what the Plague had wrought and accidents of that sort were still common. No clear memories. I suspect that much of what does pa.s.s for 'memories' are no more than stories my father told me at a later time. He has always been obsessed with the past. One, though, that I'm certain is my own: she took me to a mother died in an automobile crash when I was five. 1997 that would be, long before anyone had begun to suspect what the Plague had wrought and accidents of that sort were still common. No clear memories. I suspect that much of what does pa.s.s for 'memories' are no more than stories my father told me at a later time. He has always been obsessed with the past. One, though, that I'm certain is my own: she took me to a mu museum. High ceilings. Marble stairways. And I remember that she lifted me up to look at an Egyptian statue, and I was scared. She was very pretty. My father claimed that that was the only reason he'd married her. It was an imprudent marriage. They were both very young, and father was, as the saying goes, impecunious."

"Oh yes, that that saying." saying."

"But I don't remember her face, her living living face-only the photographs of it. She looked nothing like you. Her eyes were blue, like mine, and her hair was brown streaked with copper. I remember the funeral. It rained. Emma went to the cemetery with us. The path was muddy, and the wind blew the wreath off the headstone, and I had to go running after it. There were just the three of us. Dad and me, and Emma. And Mommy, of course." face-only the photographs of it. She looked nothing like you. Her eyes were blue, like mine, and her hair was brown streaked with copper. I remember the funeral. It rained. Emma went to the cemetery with us. The path was muddy, and the wind blew the wreath off the headstone, and I had to go running after it. There were just the three of us. Dad and me, and Emma. And Mommy, of course."

"Emma became his second wife?"

"Yes. They married within two months of my mother's death. The funeral meats, and all that. The second time Dad was was prudent. Emma's father was the President and Chairman of the Board of Freedom Mutual Insurance, where he worked. Within ten years of his marriage Dad was a vice-president. Emma was a year older than Dad, twenty-seven, single, and she'd been left standing at the altar twice. She was beginning to worry. Dad had been having an affair with her for a year before the accident, though at that time I knew nothing about that. Or maybe, in a way, I did. In any case, I hated Emma heartily." prudent. Emma's father was the President and Chairman of the Board of Freedom Mutual Insurance, where he worked. Within ten years of his marriage Dad was a vice-president. Emma was a year older than Dad, twenty-seven, single, and she'd been left standing at the altar twice. She was beginning to worry. Dad had been having an affair with her for a year before the accident, though at that time I knew nothing about that. Or maybe, in a way, I did. In any case, I hated Emma heartily."

"She was twenty-seven in 1997?"

"Yes, she was a mortal. After the Berkley Rumor she was one of the first to commit suicide. Her last ten years must have been h.e.l.l for her. She could see herself aging, thickening, drying out-and Dad staying just as young as on the day he married her. She must have spent fifty dollars a week on beauty treatments in the last couple years. Then, right at the end, she cracked up. She was hysterical all the time. And I told you about the picture she painted of my father. I'll say this for the mortal condition-none of us could ever have painted a picture like that."

"Pis.h.!.+ Of course they could. You have silly notions about what art is. What did she look like, your stepmother?"

"Now, that's strange..."

I paused, but I could see that I'd let myself in for it. "The first image that came to mind was of Emma lying in bed asleep-with a beauty mask over her eyes. A mask, you see!"

"Elementary, my dear Watson. But tell me this- this-did she have brown eyes, like mine?"

"As a matter of fact, very like yours. Oh, it's that that way round." The memory of the eyeless beauty mask had been a means of evading the true point of correspondence, her eyes-their eyes. way round." The memory of the eyeless beauty mask had been a means of evading the true point of correspondence, her eyes-their eyes.

"I'll bet you were about twelve or thirteen when you saw her like that. And that you were, like young Hippolytus, aroused? Perhaps for the first time?"

"Ah, you're a clever woman, Aspera."

"Not clever. Just, as you were complaining, orthodox."

"It's so much easier than thinking, isn't it?"

"Mm. But you'll concede that I was right?"

"With the proviso that it was my stepmother you reminded me of-yes."

"How you do resist, Oliver. Don't you realize the point of the mask mask, why you should have found it so attractive from the first?"

"Well, I've already let it slip-the beauty mask..."

"What was it that your mother lifted you to see in that museum?"

"An Egyptian statue."

"A mummy. And within moments of your telling me about it, that's what you called her. Then you described her funeral in necrophile detail. Your dead Mommy, indeed! And the beauty mask, eyeless, black, serves a double purpose: it unites the images of the two women into a single image and it expresses that which seems to have impressed you most about both of them-their death, which also unites them."

"Astonis.h.i.+ng," I said.

She kissed my nose. "Did I win, or did I win?"

"Both."

"One other thing, Oliver-what was her name?"

I blushed. "Whose name?" I asked, trying to temporize, knowing she had caught me.

"Your mother's mother's, dolt!"

There was no getting out of it. But how in h.e.l.l had she thought to ask just that? "Hope," I said abashedly.

Aspera laughed. Truly, she had cause to laugh, but she kept it up longer than was really called for. "Hope!" she crowed triumphantly. "Hope! Hope!"

Tuesday, August 28, 2084 Aspera confesses that it was all a trap. She had learned my mother's name at the library the day after I introduced myself to her. She's been spinning her web all this time.

In reparation for the blood she drained yesterday, she has promised to make me a mask. It is to be of silver, the mate of her own-to make the punishment fit the crime.

Thursday, August 30, 2084 Chagrin comes not singly. Today, borne on the wind of my usual intercom eavesdropping, I overheard a conversation between Khalid Hatoum and another fellow (though I must know him, I couldn't place the voice) concerning me. They were in the synthesizing plant, where the occasional bleat and whistle of the vats would blot out a phrase or two, though nothing less than pandemonium would have left me unscathed.

The Unknown: Ah well, sentimentality! That can be excused. It's a color with more or less gracefulness. It's the way he mixes his colors-or fails to-that's so ruinous.

Hatoum: It's simpler than that. The man is stupid.

The Unknown: You've claimed to admire many people stupider than Regan.

Hatoum: I don't mean his native unintelligence. When one has reached his age-he's in his nineties-it's what one has made made of oneself that matters. Regan has petrified. He's become a bibelot, some piece of Sevres, callow and full of cheap fancies. Talk to him about art some time. He's living in the twentieth century. He's pre-War. He's- of oneself that matters. Regan has petrified. He's become a bibelot, some piece of Sevres, callow and full of cheap fancies. Talk to him about art some time. He's living in the twentieth century. He's pre-War. He's-

NOISE.

The Unknown: Garrulous, certainly, but not-

NOISE.

Hatoum:-a stamp-collector's notion of art. He appreciates its residues, 'works' and 'pieces'-little t.u.r.ds lined up in rows behind gla.s.s. He admires art because he supposes it endures endures. It's the outlook of a mortal.

The Unknown: (laughing) It's the card catalogue he really loves. Not even the t.u.r.ds, but their cla.s.sification. But why do you let it upset you?

Hatoum: Stupidity always upsets me, when it gives itself airs.

The Unknown: We all give ourselves airs; we all presume too far. Besides, deadheads are necessary. There has to be someone around to whom this sort of thing-

NOISE.

-importance. The world will always need farmers, and farmers will always seem a little more mortal than the rest of us. That can be worn with style too.

Hatoum: I like farmers. It's the Sunday painters I despise.

I have been the rest of the day carrying on imaginary arguments with Hatoum. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d always shows me up. It is small consolation that he is unaware of these victories.

Friday, Sept. 1, 2084 I discovered today, by accident, that Aspera has a second 'patient'-and that it is none other than the young G.o.ddess, Miss Dupont. I insisted that Aspera introduce us. She agreed, but her reluctance was as evident to the sense as a sliced onion. I pretended not to notice.

Within a quarter-hour she had brought up the subject of my father. A very irresponsible man, she said. A weak man. How so? I asked. Because he had thrown over my mother for Emma and deserted Emma in turn for Veronica. Men are that way, I said-men are fickle. She wanted to say more, but she saw that she had already said too much.

Worried, Aspera?

Monday, Sept. 4, 2084 Aspera, bravely, brought us together. Like so many of the performers I have known, Sheila initially seems unremarkable in her merely private capacity. She fumbled making the tea, and Aspera retrieved her errors in the most un.o.btrusive way. She seemed genuinely concerned that her protegee make a good impression. Nor was Sheila ungrateful. She is, indeed, a very Cordelia of daughterliness-to the extent that she addresses Aspera, not without some whimsy, as "Little Mother."

Yet how little Sheila needed such a.s.sistance, after all. Hers is not so smooth and practiced a beauty as Aspera's. Her body is thinner and her face more angular than a bland taste might desire. Her graces are idio-rhythmic. But all that is of no matter, for she is a G.o.ddess. She is the full, and Aspera the crescent, moon. I find her eyes especially appealing: narrow and blue, they are positively wicked in their liveliness-quick, glistening, and-paradoxically-depthless. They are two mirror-bright s.h.i.+elds held up before her, a sign at once of her shyness and of warning. Her hair is dyed a metallic blue-gray that sets off those cold eyes with a severe grace. She reminds me of Veronica-the way Veronica used to be, before she turned brittle. Yes, I find her most attractive. And young, so very young!

I wish I could admire her conversation in equal measure. A sample: "Aspera tells me, Mr. Regan, that you know everything about mice."

"I spent some forty-odd years looking at bits of them through a microscope. It's been more than a pa.s.sing fancy."

"Oh, I think that's disgusting," she said, with a disingenuous shudder. "Mice are so horrible. Little squirmy crawly things-is.h.!.+"

"I'm afraid my sensibilities have become rather blunted."

"Do you have some here-on the s.h.i.+p?"

"We keep some in cages in the laboratory, and there is a large supply of ova in the outer freezing vaults."

"Where mine are too?" she asked, wide-eyed.

"Yes. But I'm sure there's no chance of their becoming confused, if that's worrying you."

As on Earth, all the ova of the women are kept on ice here. No one has yet been able to think of a better remedy for the problem resulting from immortal women with a finite number of ova, and without this rather crude expedient the menopause would be inescapable.

"But just think- think-if they were! And if I had a baby, and it were a little mouse! Or would it be half-mouse and half-baby, like the Minotaur? Then I could run him through a maze. It all has to do with chromosomes, doesn't it? And genes. Aspera says you know every gene a mouse has. You must be very brave. But what is there left for you to do, now that you know everything?"

"Now that I know everything, I shall try to make an immortal mouse."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that until they've learned about birth control. You know what a problem we we had until the Freezers opened, even with free pills for everyone." had until the Freezers opened, even with free pills for everyone."

"It's not a present danger. Unfortunately, we're a long way from realizing our aims."

"Unfortunately? Do you really identify with them so much then?"

"I say unfortunately because if we knew how to make a mouse immortal we would be much nearer an understanding of the cause of our own mutation. And then we would be able to make the mortals on Earth immortal too. Though, Lord knows, if I came up with anything, I don't see what good it will do, so far from Earth."

"And that's why you worked forty years with mice, and why you're working with them now?"

"Yes. Except that, strictly speaking, I'm not working now. I'm on vacation, as it were."

"Oh, you shouldn't do that! If you have a talent you should use use it, not hide it away. I'm only a dancer, of course, but I shall it, not hide it away. I'm only a dancer, of course, but I shall always always use my talent." I could not tell if this were more disingenuousness, or if she really were so very young as to believe what she said. use my talent." I could not tell if this were more disingenuousness, or if she really were so very young as to believe what she said.

"Can I come to your laboratory and see one of the mice some time?"

"Any time you like."

"And touch touch one?" one?"