 |
 |
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] 68 TraitOr to the Living 69 admit that I may be biased. My resistance to the idea that there could be an afterlife may be warping my judgment." "You'll talk to Frances today, and no matter how extensively Western has researched her, he won't be able to find out everything. There are some things that only you would know about her." Gordon smiled and said, "Yes, but according to my theory that won't matter. It won't be Frances I'll be talking to; it will be some thing, some entity, that has some means of knowing everything about Frances. a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r Mind reading, maybe. Or perhaps it's observed Frances from her birth and so knows all about her." "Oh, for God's sakes!" Patricia said. Her body was certainly beautiful, he thought, but her expression of anger, coupled with a complete lack of makeup, made her face ugly. He got out of bed and put on his pajamas and a thin dressing robe. He grinned at her and said, "Maybe some hot coffee will cool you off. Don't get mad just because I'm exercising my male prerogative." "What's that?" "I should have said human, not male. Homo sapiens is the rational animal. For everything that needs to be explained, he ignores the facts or, rather, twists them to suit his own beliefs." "Well, that may be what you do," she said, "but I don't! I know that Western killed my father and stole his invention, and I know that those are the dead! I can look at things objectively!" "Sure you can," he said. "Look, I'll make the coffee and you put your makeup on." "Does my face jar you that much?" she said. "You don't..." ".. . look so great myself in the morning," he said. "Yes, I know, and I apologize. I should have learned from Frances when to keep my opinions to myself." He walked around the bed to kiss her, but she turned her back and made for the bathroom. He went into 70 Traitor to the Living the kitchenette, mentally kicking himself and wondering why he had said things designed to anger her. Doctor Sloko had thought that he hacf a deep-seated need to get the women he loved angry at him. He had agreed that might be possible, but why did he have that need? Neither he nor Sloko had ever found out. Patricia came out of the bathroom smiling. Her hair was in a Psyche knot, but she still had no makeup on. She was going to test him further. He wasn't going to do anything now to upset her, he told himself. He kissed a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r her, and this time she did not refuse. "Let's start all over again," she said. "Good mom- ing, Gordon." "And a good morning to you," he said. "I'll be back in a minute," and he went to the bathroom. When he came out, she was seated on the sofa in front of the TV and drinking black coffee. He sat down by her and sipped the hot liquid. The news was mostly about the events at Western's and their implications. There were shots of a riot on the parking lot below Western's between antis and pros, sluggings, hangings of signs on heads, police firing tear gas and shooting foam over the cement so that no one could stand up, a number being hustled off in vans, and ambulances carrying off the more seriously hurt. There were some scenes of parades by pro-Westemites in New York City and San Francisco. A Senator Gray from Louisiana was interviewed. He proposed that mediums should be built at government expense and installed in all cities with more than fifty thousand population. Free sessions, or moderately priced sessions, should be provided for the public. Gray had a deep, rich voice and a sincere expression which seemed to have been made for TV; he was becoming well known to the public because of his pro-MEDIUM speeches. This was the first, however, in which he had proposed that MEDIUM be made available to everybody. He was for the common man, the man who did not have the money to buy sessions so that he could talk to his Traitor to the Living 71 beloved dead. He was outraged that the greatest thing since creation was restricted to the rich. "He wants to be president," Gordon said, "and he may make it. He's shrewd, he knows that many of his constituents are fundamentalists or Catholics who think that MEDIUM is the devil's own machine. But he's willing to stick his neck out, because the majority of people in this country think as he does. Why should the wealthy have not only the best of life but a monopoly a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r on the dead? Gray may get to be president on that platform. alone." "Western could be president if he wanted to," Patri- cia said. "I'm surprised that he hasn't announced his candidacy." "Maybe Gray is his man," Carfax said. "It's better to be the power behind the throne than to sit on it. But I'm not so sure that MEDIUM shouldn't be reserved as a plaything for the rich. If it becomes available to everybody, its impact on society will be tremendous." "Like what?" Patricia said. "We may become the modern Egyptians, focusing our lives on death. This world will be looked at as only a short stage preparing for the next one, the long one." "Isn't that the way it's always been?" "Theoretically, yes. Practically, never." Patricia shuddered and put her hands on her face. "Oh, it's awful!" "It could be. It'll be different, anyway, unless MEDIUM turns out to be a gateway to a world different from what most people think. Look at the legal profession. Some lawyers have already published articles extrapolating changes in court and police procedure if MEDIUM becomes legally acceptable. A murdered man might be sworn in as the prosecution's star witness. And what about property? Can a dead man have a legal right to administrate his own business or his own estate? Why should he be cut off from its benefits just because he's in another world? On the other hand, what will the rights of the man who first 72 Traitor to the Living owned the property be? Will John D. Rockefeller, after a long court battle, regain control of Standard Oil? Will George Washington run for president again? If he did, who could beat him, except maybe Abe Lincoln? And how could George Washington run this country competently? He couldn't, because conditions have changed so vastly and deeply that he could not possibly under' stand them. And ..." a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r "You're being ridiculous!" Patricia said. "Yes, I know. But if you think about all that could happen, you can see what a mess it could be. And probably will be." "Whatever happens, whoever owns MEDIUM is going to be very very rich," Patricia said. "Even if the government should take it over, it'd have to lease it from the owner." Gordon wanted to make some comment about the dollar bills shining in her eyes, but he refrained. He couldn't blame her for thinking about how wealthy she would be if she proved that she was the rightful owner. She was human, and he had thought about how half of those billions would be his if he should marry Patricia. Was that behind his making love to Patricia? No, he told himself, greed had nothing to do with it. Besides, if it had been driving him, even unconsciously, would he have deliberately angered her this morning? Wouldn't he be doing everything possible to make her pleased with him? But then his remarks might spring from another unconscious source. The drive to convince himself that money had no part in his interest for her. Life was complicated enough without bringing in the dead, too. And they were coming in, they were coming in. At 09:00, he left the hotel. The air was clear, and the skies were blue except for a few clouds left over from the night's seeding. He saw a bus a block to the west but decided to walk to the La Brea MT line. It was only ten blocks to the east, and he needed the ex Traitor to the Living 73 ercise. Besides, he wanted to check for shadowers and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |