AFTER THE FACT Page 4

  Jan's smile was conspiratorial, but it looked honest. "And now there are two of us who know you did."

  FOUR

  Coming out of the Italian restaurant some indeterminate time later, emerging into the mild spring night, Jerry had put strange memories out of his mind. He felt suddenly inspired to burst into song, if only in a muted way.

  But after singing only a few words he came to a sudden stop. "What're we going to do tomorrow? But never mind that, what're we going to do now?" He felt enthusiastic, ready to explore new worlds. Had he had too much to drink? No, hardly that. Not really. Just one martini and a little wine.

  " 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,' " Jan quoted brightly, " 'creeps in this petty pace from day to day—' "

  "You're quoting again. You definitely have a habit of doing that."

  "When one works constantly with Dr. Pilgrim, one tends to get into the habit." Jan gave no sign of having been at all affected by the wine she had consumed.

  "I suppose one might do that, if one has any stock of quotations at all upon which to draw. Of course if one is studying for a degree in computer science, and trying to hold down a job at the same time, one hasn't had time to read all those books that one is supposed to read."

  Dr. Pilgrim's assistant shook her head, sighing tolerantly. Somehow she and Jerry had come to be holding hands as they strolled the city street. There were only a few passers-by. Spring moths swarmed the brilliant street lamps.

  "This is a bank building," said Jan suddenly, tugging at Jerry's hand, bringing him almost to a stop in front of what was indubitably a bank. "Springfield has little banks. Chicago has big ones where you can find what you need no matter what. If you really need a bank, Jerry, I think a man in your situation should look for one in Chicago. Remember that."

  "Is that Walt Whitman too? Or I suppose Lincoln recommended Chicago banks."

  "Lincoln had some interesting ideas on banking. But that's beside the point."

  "Jan." Now Jerry did come to a full stop. "Did you have a whole lot more to drink than I did, or what?"

  "Oh no. Oh, no, no, no." She was vastly, but apparently soberly, amused.

  "Then I don't get it. What you were saying about the banks. There must have been something I missed, or…"

  "Don't worry about it now. Maybe someday you'll want to remember it." She smiled as if she were pleased with him.

  Whatever. They strolled on. "Jan, what're we going to do tomorrow, really? I don't want to screw up my chances for this job, I think I'll like it. I mean even apart from the financial… Hey, Pilgrim was going to see us again tonight, isn't that what he said?"

  "Yes, I think he will."

  "Do you think I'm too drunk to see the boss tonight? I am feeling a little light-headed."

  "Not this once," she assured him, taking his hand again. "This once it will be perfectly all right."

  "At least I don't have t'drive anywhere tonight. And there's no hurry, is there? It's days and days before I have to get back to Chicago." He paused to glare sympathetically at the silhouette of the Great Emancipator, here confined to a window as part of his twentieth-century career in advertising.

  "We'll do our best to keep you busy."

  "I bet you will."

  "Look," said Jan, looking ahead herself and gesturing lightly in that direction.

  About five parking spaces ahead of them, nestled up to the metered curb, was the unmarked Foundation van. Dr. Pilgrim was in it, or at least most of him was, for he was sticking his dark curly head out of one of the side windows. A moment later he had slid quickly from the vehicle and was approaching on foot.

  To Jerry's relief, the boss looked reassuringly tolerant of his employees' condition. Maybe, Jerry thought hopefully, he and Jan didn't look as intoxicated as he was beginning to feel. He really didn't deserve to feel like this, he hadn't taken that much wine…

  Pilgrim appeared almost but not quite ready to join them in their revelry. "Some people here who would like to talk to you, Jerry," he said, after a quick exchange of looks with Jan. "One more little item to be taken care of before you retire to a well-earned rest. Are you game for one more small adventure? But of course you are."

  "Some people?" asked Jerry. "Who?"

  "My backers. You have already spoken with one of them, this most attractive lady, on the phone." Pilgrim was holding open the side door of the van for Jerry to get in. "The gentleman is Mr. Helpman." At least the name sounded like that to Jerry.

  Jerry got in, taking the nearest empty seat, a captain's chair approximately amidships. In the chair beside his own there waited a youthful-looking lady he had never seen before, a well-proportioned and well-dressed lady who looked as if she would be tall when she stood up, and who was definitely attractive, though her face just now was mainly in shadow. Meanwhile from one of the seats in the far rear a black man of indeterminate age, well-dressed in suit and tie, was looking at Jerry with an air of hope.

  Pilgrim, still outside on the sidewalk, slid shut the door through which Jerry had gone aboard, leaving him in the van with the two strangers. At the same time the lady at his side asked him: "How are they treating you so far?"

  "All right. Fine." Then he scowled at his questioner. "Excuse me, but who are you?'"

  "My name is Olivia. You spoke with me on the phone."

  "Yeah. I thought I could recognize your voice. But I still don't understand—"

  "All will be explained to you eventually. Provided—" Olivia sighed. It was a worried sound, or maybe she was only tired. "Have they talked to you about going on a trip?" In the back seat Mr. Helpman nodded silently, seconding the question.

  "Trip? No, I understood that we were going to be working here around Springfield." Jerry noted with satisfaction that he was still capable of plain, coherent speech.

  "Fine. That's fine." Olivia swiveled her chair, turning her back to confer with Helpman momentarily, in whispers so low that Jerry could not hear them.

  Then she faced Jerry again. "You may tell Dr. Pilgrim that his project has my provisional approval. And good luck to you." With a last hard-to-interpret look at Jerry, and a quick decisive movement, the lady called Olivia opened the door on the street side and got out. Helpman followed her quickly, slamming the door behind him.

  For a few moments Jerry, feeling befuddled, had the whole interior of the van to himself. He supposed he might have been able to use the time to good advantage, thinking, if he had known where to start. But the whole business was so—

  —and then Pilgrim and Jan were back, piling into the van, Jan taking the captain's chair where Olivia had been, while Pilgrim settled himself in the driver's seat.

  They were both looking at Jerry with concern. "Well?" Pilgrim demanded.

  "Well, she said to tell you that whatever you're doing has her provisional approval. Is she your banker, maybe?"

  Pilgrim, relieved by the message, nodded with an odd smile. "In a manner of speaking she is." He faced forward and got the engine started.

  "I can walk back to the hotel from here," said Jerry.

  Jan, having taken Olivia's place in the luxurious armchair beside him, shook her head. She said: "There's just one more thing we'd like to show you tonight."

  " 'Always a little farther, it may be' " quoted Pilgrim from up front, where he was driving joyously and skillfully. " 'Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow...' "

  Jerry had ceased to listen to him. Jan was much more interesting than the doctor's quotations, and also more accessible, being seated where he could swivel easily to face her. She now engaged Jerry in what seemed to him an unusually witty conversation—in which he managed to hold his own quite well—while Pilgrim drove them through the darkened streets of Springfield.

  "This—this's been like no other job interview I've ever had," Jerry pronounced with feeling at one point. He meant it as a sincere compliment to Pilgrim and especially to his most delightful aide who sat almost within reach, still wearing that enchanting red dress.


  "Nor ever will have again, I should imagine," Pilgrim agreed cheerfully. The boss was still apparently unable to perceive anything improper in the speech or behavior of his prospective new employee. "Glad to have you aboard, as the cliché goes. In fact you literally cannot imagine what a burden your successful recruitment has lifted from my mind."

  "Then I'm hired? Really hired?"

  "Oh, most definitely you are hired."

  "You might almost say," said Jan from beside Jerry, "that you are already on your way to work." Then she giggled, as if she were beginning to give way at last to the chianti. Pilgrim, his face unreadable, glanced back at her once and then faced forward to the road.

  They sounded like they were joking, but they must be serious about hiring him, Jerry reflected. If they really didn't want him they'd be dropping him off at his hotel now, instead of taking him—where were they taking him, anyway? And hey, wait, how could he really be practically on his way to work?

  They were, he noticed, definitely heading out into the country again. They were driving through solid darkness now, except for passing headlights.

  These, along with the headlights of the van itself, revealed a narrow highway. But the next time Jerry interrupted his talk with Jan to look ahead, the highway had been replaced with a gravel road. And now there were no other headlights to be seen, in either direction. Roadsigns had now ceased to exist also, being replaced by wooden fenceposts and wire beyond the tall grass and fringe of weeds that overhung the edge of the road.

  Jerry was just starting to doze off, seatbelted into his comfortable chair, when the van slowed to a stop. Pilgrim opened the driver's door into an enormous silence.

  "Our local headquarters," said Jan. She sounded like a cheerful nurse, and she was acting like one now, helping Jerry out of his seatbelt and then out of the van. Standing on grass and gravel, he felt somewhat disconnected from his own arms and legs. Looking up, he beheld more stars, many more, than anyone ever saw in Chicago.

  The van had stopped in a driveway, close to the front of an isolated structure that appeared to be a farmhouse. It was a two-story frame building painted white, looking ghostly in the night. There were no lights in the house when they arrived. But now Jan tripped lightly up the wooden steps and opened the front door and reached inside, turning on a light over the porch. Meanwhile Pilgrim, surprisingly strong, had taken over the job of supporting Jerry. Jerry found himself being walked up the steps as if two bouncers instead of one five-foot-five researcher had him by the elbows. Not that the job was done discourteously.

  Once inside the house, the two senior officials of the Foundation turned on some more lights, and guided Jerry through it. He was blinking rapidly by this time, and his eyes didn't really focus all that well any more. At first he didn't see anyone else in the house, but he thought there must be other people around somewhere, because he heard a door close softly, several rooms away, while Jan and Pilgrim were both still with him.

  His two escorts were conferring in low-voiced haste; he couldn't hear what they were saying, but whatever it was, it was all right because both of them were smiling when they turned back to Jerry.

  "The best thing will be for you to get some rest," Jan was assuring him now, "before we do anything else. There's a room back here that's going to be yours when we get you all moved in. Wouldn't you like to lie down for a while?"

  Jerry didn't answer for a moment, because just now, out of the corner of his eye, he had seen something strange: a diminutive figure, like a masked and somewhat deformed child, passing briefly through his range of vision at the end of a hallway. Now he was seeing things.

  "Jerry? I say, wouldn't you like to lie down?"

  "Oh. Course I would. Specially if you come with me." Then Jerry could feel his face turning red for having said a thing like that. At the same time he chuckled.

  Jan, more than ever the skillful nurse, was not perturbed. "I'll see you settled into your room. Then for the time being you'll have to rest."

  "Busy day tomorrow," Jerry agreed helpfully, as she assisted him down the hallway. He was demonstrating proudly that he was still capable of thought. There were no strange little monsters in sight now. Probably by the sheer power of his will he could keep them at a distance.

  His last remark for some reason evoked a laugh from Jan. It was the freest laughter he'd heard from her yet, a pleasant, ringing sound.

  "That is for sure," she agreed, "a very busy day." And she marched him on, with Pilgrim leading the way. They passed a room whose door, white-painted wood with an old white doorknob like the other doors inside the house, had been left ajar, and Jerry glanced in. He was able to see very little except a white, free-standing screen that reminded him of doctors' offices and hospitals.

  "Here we are," said Pilgrim, leading, and they went on past that doorway and into the next one. Jerry was dimly aware of a narrow white bed, coming closer to him with little lurching motions, in time with his own unsteady strides. Then the bed unexpectedly clipped him at knee level and he toppled over onto it. The landing was beautifully comfortable, even though somehow in the course of falling he had turned over so that he was now lying on his back.

  His eyes had closed of themselves. When he opened them again, Jan and Pilgrim were still there. A bottle had just clinked on glass, and they were holding little glasses with clear liquid in them, raising the glasses to each other, in the act of toasting something.

  "To success," said Dr. Pilgrim softly, and with a gesture included in his toast a picture that happened to be hanging on the wall. Jan hoisted her glass a notch in that direction too, before she tossed the contents down.

  Jerry looked up at the wall between his two fellow workers. By now he certainly had no trouble recognizing the face in that dark frame, though it was younger than you usually saw it, and wore no beard. Abraham Lincoln, in one of his usual sloppy suits. Was it a photograph or a painting? Did everyone in his time dress like that?

  "And now, Jerry, one more drink for you." Jan's arm went very nicely around his neck and shoulders, to raise his head. 'Are you sure I need another?' he wanted to ask as he swallowed obediently. Some milky stuff, quite pleasant. He hoped it would be good for hangovers.

  A moment after that the support of Jan's arm was gone, and Jerry's eyes were closed again, and he could hear himself snoring. It would be all right. A little nap, just a little, and he would spring up again and show these people that he wasn't really drunk.

  "Like a light," he distinctly heard Jan commenting. He could hear her and someone else who must be Pilgrim hovering at his bedside a moment longer, and then there were the soft sounds of feet retreating. They both went out, darkening the room and shutting the door on him, but the door wasn't completely closed. He could tell that by the gentle incompleteness of the sound it made. Then both of them were gone, somewhere down the hall.

  In another moment, Jerry knew, he would be sound asleep. It wasn't that he minded sleeping—but to be practically carried in here like this—that was somewhat humiliating. He felt an urge to sit up, get up, assert himself in some minor way, do something of his own volition. Show them—show them how tough he was. That was the idea. After that he would be willing to take a nap.

  It wasn't really hard to get back on his feet, just as sometimes in a dream it was very easy to do things that should be hard. Things in dreams, he had noticed, tended to be very easy, or else utterly impossible.

  He was standing at the white door of his room, and pulling it open, before he realized that this wasn't the door leading out into the hall. This one instead opened into an adjoining bedroom, where a white hospital-type screen blocked out most of the light that would otherwise have shone in here from the hallway. In this dim room there was a fair amount of what looked like hospital equipment.

  This room too contained a bed, but the figure under its white sheets wasn't Jan, that was for sure, damn it all anyway. And it was far too long a figure to be Pilgrim. Yes, a long and bony figure—really a familiar one in thes
e parts—with dark hair and a darkly bearded face that showed as little more than a mass of shadows above the sheets.

  Stupidly, without any real intention of doing so, Jerry took one more step closer to the bed, and then another. He stood looking down at that shadowed face for what seemed to him a long time. He began to feel a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach—but the feeling, like everything else, was too remote to be of any real importance. Then the figure on the bed stirred lightly, as if in sleep, and Jerry turned away from it hastily and stumbled back into his own room.

  He had one thought: if it were only wine that had befuddled him, what he had seen just now ought to have shocked him sober. So what had overcome him was more than wine. And that meant—

  The last thing he saw clearly was the white bed from which he had arisen, swinging up to claim him, with finality this time.

  FIVE

  Coming back to life was a slow, gradual, and painful process. Jerry's head was throbbing with what felt like the patriarch of all hangovers. To make matters worse, at some time during the night someone had stolen his soft white bed, substituting for it a bag of some coarse, malodorous fabric that crackled each time he moved as if it were stuffed with very crisp and durable dried leaves.

  Somewhere outside the barricade of his eyelids, light had reappeared. It was daylight, he supposed. But that was no cause for rejoicing. He was in no hurry to behold what daylight might reveal. In fact he was rather afraid to find out. He couldn't really remember what had happened to him last night.

  He had been through a job interview, of sorts.

  Oh, he remembered that much, all right. He, Jerry Flint, the graduate student from the big city, had driven down to Springfield to talk to some people about a job, and had made a total and utter ass of himself. That much he could remember with bitter clarity, though a great many of the details were still mercifully obscure. And then just at the end of the evening, before he had passed out totally, he had looked in the bed in the next room of the converted farmhouse, and thought that he saw—