The Game-Players Of Titan Part 12

"About four."

"A.M.?" He couldn't believe it. How come the bar was still open? "They don't allow bars open that late, in any state."

"Maybe I looked at the clock wrong," Mary Anne said.

"No," Pete said. "You looked at it right. But something's wrong; something's terribly wrong."

"Ha, ha," Mary Anne said.

He glanced at her. At the tiller of the car sat the shapeless slime of a vug. "Car," Pete said instantly. "What's at the tiller? Tell me."

"Mary Anne McClain, Mr. Garden," the car said.

But the vug still sat there. He saw it.

"Are you sure?" Pete said.

"Positive," the car said.

The vug said, "As I said, I can charm Rushmore circuits."

"Where are we going?" Pete said.

"Home. To take you back to your wife Carol."

"And then what?"

"And then I'm going home to bed."

"What are you?" he said to it. he said to it.

"What do you think? You can see. Tell someone about it; tell Mr. Hawthorne the detective or better yet tell E.B. Black the detective. E.B. Black would get a kick out of it."

Pete shut his eyes.

When he opened them again it was Mary Anne McClain sitting there beside him, at the tiller of the car.

"You were right," he said to the car. Or were you? he wondered. G.o.d, he thought; I wish I was home, I wish I hadn't come out tonight. I'm scared. Joe Schilling, he could help me. Aloud he said, "Take me to Joe Schilling's apartment, Mary Anne or whatever your name is."

"At this this time of night? You're crazy." time of night? You're crazy."

"He's my best friend. In all the world."

"It'll be five A.M A.M. when we get there."

"He'll be glad to see me," Pete said. "With what I have to tell him."

"And what's that?" Mary Anne said.

Cautiously, he said, "You know. About Carol. The baby."

"Oh yes," Mary Anne said. She nodded. "As Freya said, 'I hope it's a baby.'"

"Freya said that? Who to?"

"To Carol."

"How do you know?"

Mary Anne said, "You telephoned Carol from the car before we went to Dave's Place; you wanted to be sure she was all right. She was very upset and you asked why and she said that she had called Freya, looking for you, and Freya had said that."

"d.a.m.n that Freya," Pete said.

"I don't blame you for feeling like that. She's a hard, schizoid type, it sounds like. We studied about that in psych."

"Do you like school?"

"Love it," Mary Anne said.

"Do you think you could be interested in an old man of one hundred and fifty years?"

"You're not so old, Mr. Garden. Just confused. You'll feel better after I get you home." She smiled at him, briefly.

"I'm still potent," he said. "As witness Carol's impregnation. Whooee!" he cried.

"Three cheers," Mary Anne said. "Just think: one more Terran in the world. Isn't that delightful?"

"We don't generally refer to ourselves as Terrans," Pete said. "We generally say 'people.' You made a mistake."

"Oh," Mary Anne said, nodding. "Mistake noted."

Pete said, "Is your mother part of this? Is that why she didn't want the police to scan her?"

"Yep," Mary Anne said.

"How many are in it?"

"Oh, thousands," Mary Anne-or rather the vug-said. Despite what he saw he knew it to be a vug. "Just thousands and thousands. All over the planet."

"But not everyone's in on it," Pete said. "Because you still have to hide from the authorities. I think I will tell Hawthorne."

Mary Anne laughed.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Pete fumbled about.

"Mary Anne removed the gun," the car informed him. "She was afraid if the police stopped you and they found it they'd put you back in jail."

"That's right," Mary Anne said.

"You people killed Luckman. Why?"

She shrugged. "I forget. Sorry."

"Who's next?"

"The thing."

"What thing?"

Mary Anne, her eyes sparkling, said, "The thing growing inside Carol. Bad luck, Mr. Garden; it's not a baby."

He shut his eyes.

The next he knew, they were over the Bay Area.

"Almost home," Mary Anne said.

"And you're just going to let me off?" he said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know." He was sick, then, in the corner of the car, like an animal would be. Mary Anne said nothing after that and he said nothing either. What a terrible night this had been, he thought to himself. It should have been wonderful; my first luck. luck. And instead- And instead- And now he could not reasonably dwell on the theme of suicide, because the situation had become worse, was too bad for that to be a solution. My own problems are problems of perception, he realized. Of understanding and then accepting. What I have to remember is that they're not all in it. that they're not all in it. The detective E.B. Black isn't in it and Doctor Philipson; he or it isn't in it either. I can get help from something, somewhere, sometime. The detective E.B. Black isn't in it and Doctor Philipson; he or it isn't in it either. I can get help from something, somewhere, sometime.

"Right you are," Mary Anne said.

"Are you a telepath?" he said to her.

"I very much certainly darn right am."

"But," he said, "your mother said you weren't."

"My mother lied to you."

Pete said, "Is Nats Katz the center of all this?"

"Yes," she said.

"I thought so," he said, and lay back against the seat, trying not to be sick again.

Mary Anne said, "Here we are." The car dipped down, skimmed above the deserted pavement of a San Rafael street. "Give me a kiss," she said, "before you get out." She brought the car to a halt at the curb and looking up he saw his apartment building. The light was on in his window; Carol was still up, waiting for him, or else she had fallen asleep with the lights on.

"A kiss," he echoed. "Really?"

"Yes really," Mary Anne said, and leaned expectantly toward him.

"I can't," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, "of what you are, the thing that you are."

"Oh how absurd," Mary Anne said. "What's the matter with you, Pete? You're lost in dreams!"

"I am?"

"Yes," she said, glaring at him in exasperation. "You took dope tonight and got drunk and you were terribly excited about Carol and also you were afraid because of the police. You've been hallucinating like mad for the last two hours. You thought that psychiatrist, Doctor Philipson, was a vug, and then you thought I was a vug." To the car, Mary Anne said, "Am I a vug?"

"No, Mary Anne," the Rushmore circuit of the car answered, for the second time.

"See?" she said.

"I still can't do it," he said. "Just let me out of the car." He found the door handle, opened the door, stepped out on the curb, his legs shaking under him.

"Good night," Mary Anne said, eyeing him.

"Good night." He started toward the door of the apartment building.

The car said, after him, "You got me all dirty."

"Too bad," Pete said. He opened the apartment building door with his key and pa.s.sed on inside; the door shut after him.

When he got upstairs he found Carol standing in the hall in a short, sheer yellow nightgown. "I heard the car drive up," she said. "Thank G.o.d you're back! I was so worried about you." She folded her arms, self-consciously blus.h.i.+ng. "I should be in my robe, I know."

"Thanks for waiting up." He pa.s.sed on by her, went into the bathroom and washed his face and hands with cold water.

"Can I fix you something to eat or drink? It's so late now."

"Coffee," he said, "would be fine."

In the kitchen she fixed a pot of coffee for both of them.

"Do me a favor," Pete said. "Call Pocatello information, the vidphone autocorp, and find out if there's a Doctor E.R. Philipson listed."

"All right." Carol clicked on the vidphone. She talked for a time with a sequence of homeostatic circuits and then she rang off. "Yes."

"I was seeing him," Pete said. "It cost me one hundred and fifty dollars. Their rates are high. Could you tell from what the vidphone said if Philipson is a Terran?"

"They didn't say. I got his number." She pushed the pad toward him.

"I'll call him and ask." He clicked the vidphone back on.

"At five-thirty in the morning?" in the morning?"

"Yes," he said, dialing. A long time pa.s.sed; the phone, at the other end, rang and rang. "'Walkin' the dog, see-bawh, see-bawh,'" Pete sang. "'He have-um red whisker, he have-um green paw.' Doctors expect this," he said to Carol. There was a sharp click, then, and on the vidscreen a face, a wrinkled human face, formed. "Doctor Philipson?" Pete asked.

"Yes." The doctor shook his head blearily, then scrutinized Pete. "Oh, it's you."

"You remember me?" Pete said.