The Worthing Saga (50 page)

“Is it all discharged?” he asked softly, and Doon only smiled more broadly.

“You're so young,” Doon said. And then, so quickly that Herman had no time (and the drug gave him no inclination) to resist, the younger man reached out and touched Herman's forehead lightly. The hand was dry, and it traced the faint lines that had begun to cleave the skin. “You're so young.”

Am I? Herman thought, as he rarely did, of how old he was in real time. He had gone on somec—what, seventy years ago? At his average rate of one out of four, that meant it had been only seventeen years of subjective time since he had first been able to use the sleeping drug, the gift of eternal life. Seventeen years. And all of them devoted to building Italy. And yet;

And yet those seventeen years hadn't even been half the time he had lived. Subjectively, he wasn't forty yet. Subjectively, he could start again. Subjectively, there was more than enough time for him to make an empire that even Doon couldn't break down.

“But I can't, can I?” Herman asked, unaware that his question arose from private thoughts.

Yet Doon understood. “I've learned everything you know about building, Grandfather,” he said. “But you'll never understand what I've learned about tearing down.”

Herman smiled wanly, the only kind of smile available to him under the drug. “It's a field of study I largely ignored.”

“And yet it's the only one with eternal results. Build well, and eventually your beautiful creation, Grandfather, with or without my help, eventually it
will
fall. But destroy thoroughly, destroy effectively, and what was wrecked will never be rebuilt. Never.”

And the drug took Herman's fury and hatred and turned it into regret and gentle grief. Tears spun from his eyelashes as he blinked.

“Italy was beautiful,” he said.

Doon only nodded.

And as the tears now began to flow smoothly onto the pillow, Herman whimpered, “Why'd you do it, boy?”

“It was practice.”

“Practice for what?”

“Saving the human race.”

The drug permitted Herman to smile a little at that. “Quite a warm-up, boy. What can you destroy now, after Italy?”

Doon said nothing. He just walked to the window and looked through it.

“Do you know what's going on outside your window?”

Herman mumbled, “No.”

“Peasants are pressing olives. And bringing food to Florence. A lovely scene, Grandfather. Very pastoral.”

“Does that mean it's spring? Or Autumn?”

“Who remembers?” Doon asked. “Who cares? The seasons are what we say they are on every world in the Empire, and on Capitol we care nothing for seasons at all. We've mastered everything, haven't we? The Empire is powerful, and even the attempts of the enemy to attack us are only the annoyance of mosquitoes.”

The word
mosquito
meant nothing to Herman, but he was too weary to ask.

“Grandfather, the Empire is stable. Not as perfect as Italy, perhaps, but strong and stable and with somec keeping the elite alive for centuries, what force could possibly topple the Empire?”

Herman struggled to think. He had never thought of the Empire as being a nation, like those in the International Games. The Empire was—was reality. Nothing would ever hurt. “Nothing can hurt the Empire,” Herman said.

“I can,” Doon said.

“You're insane?” Herman answered.

“Probably,” Doon said, and then the conversation lagged and the drug decided that Herman would sleep. He slept.

•    •    •

“I want to see Doon,” Herman told Grey.

“I would have thought,” Grey answered mildly, “that you'd seen enough of him last month.”

“I want to see him.”

“Herman, this is becoming an obsession. The doctors say I can't let you do anything to upset yourself. If you'll just behave reasonably for a few months, we can get you back on somec and I can give you back fifty percent of your power of attorney.”

“I don't like being considered insane.”

“It's just a technicality. It's keeping you alive, you know.”

“Grey, all I've done is try to warn—”

“Don't start that. The doctors are monitoring this call. Herman, this Empire isn't interested in your pathetic theories about Doon.”

“He said it himself!”

“Abner Doon destroyed Italy. It was ugly, it was cruel, it was pointless, but it was legal. Now to fantasize that he's also out to destroy the Empire.”

“It's not a fantasy!” Herman roared.

“Herman, the doctors said I have to call it a fantasy. To help you see reality.”

“He's going to wreck the Empire! He can do it!”

“That kind of talk is treason, Herman. Stop talking like that and we can get you declared legally sane again. But if you say things like that when you're responsible for yourself, you can be executed very quickly by Mother's Little Boys.”

“Grey, whether I'm sane or not, I want to talk to Doon!”

“Herman, drop it. Forget it. It was just a game. The man's your grandson. He was hurt, he tried to hurt you back. But don't let it damage you like this.”

“Grey, tell the doctors I want to talk to Doon!”

Grey sighed. “I'll tell them on one condition.”

“What's that?”

“That if they give you one meeting with Doon, you'll never ask for another.”

“I promise. I only want one meeting.”

“Then I'll do my best.”

Grey switched off the phone, and Herman disconnected his end. The telephone now would only connect him to Grey's office. He could make no other calls. He couldn't open the door. And his computer would no longer let him watch the broadcast games.

It was only an hour before Grey was back on the phone.

“Well?” Herman asked eagerly.

“They said yes.”

“Connect me then!” Herman demanded.

“I already tried. Impossible.”

“How can it be impossible? He'll talk to me! I know he will!”

“He's under somec, Herman. He went under only a few days after he wrecked—after the game. He won't be awake for three.”

And with a whimper Herman disconnected the phone again.

It took five years of therapy—five years without somec—for Herman at last to admit that his fear of Doon was abnormal, and that actually Doon had never hinted that he meant to wreck the Empire. Of course Herman had said that from the beginning, as soon as he realized that was what the doctors wanted to hear. But the machines enforced truth, and it was not until the machines told the doctors that Herman was not lying when he said those things that the doctors at last pronounced him cured and Grey's staff (Grey was under somec at the time) released fifty percent of Herman's power of attorney to him. Herman promptly signed it all back and went under somec, trying to snatch back the years of somec sleep that had been taken from him while the doctors cured him of his ridiculous delusions.

For nearly a century, Doon's and Herman's wakings failed to coincide. At first Herman hadn't tried to look Doon up—the cure had taken from him, for a while at least, any curiosity about his grandson. Then he had learned to look back on the strange episode that had so changed his life without fear or anger; and he had pored over the records of the famous game. Many books had been written on it—
The Rise and Fall of Nuber's Italy
was over two thousand views long. And as he philosophically studied the structure he had built and the way it had fallen, the desire grew in him to meet his opponent and grandson. Not
again
, because the doctors had convinced Herman utterly of the truth that he hadn't seen Doon at all after the battle.

But when Herman tried to look up Abner Doon's waking schedule at the Sleeproom, he was informed that Doon's wakings were a matter of state security. That meant only one thing Doon was sleeping longer than the absolute maximum of ten years and waking less than the absolute minimum of two months. It meant he was in a power group inaccessible even to most government officials. And it increased Herman's desire to see.

It was not until Herman had reached the subjective age of seventy that he finally succeeded. Centuries of Empire history had passed, and Herman followed them carefully. He read everything he could get into his computer on history—Empire and otherwise. He wasn't sure what he was looking for; but he was sure that he had never found it. And then one day his inquiry at the Sleeproom brought him the information that Abner Doon was awake. They wouldn't tell him how long Doon had been awake or how soon he would sleep again, but it was enough. Herman sent the message, and to his surprise, a message returned that Doon would see him. That Doon would even come to him.

Herman fretted for hours, wondering now what it was he had wanted to see Doon for. There was no filial feeling, Herman decided. Family was nothing to him. It was the wish of a great player to meet the man who had defeated him, that's all. Napoleon's wish, just before his death, to talk to Wellington. Hitlers mad craving to speak to Roosevelt. Julius's dying passion to converse, for just a moment as the blood poured from him, with Brutus.

What's in the mind of the man who destroyed you? That was the question that had nagged at Herman's mind for years, and he wondered, now, if he would find the answer. And yet this would be his only chance. Herman's five years of therapy had cost him dearly, and he could see—as so few others could—his mortality waiting around the corner. Somec only postponed, it did not end.

“Grandfather,” said a gentle voice, and Herman woke abruptly. When had he fallen asleep? No matter. Before him stood the short, now rather portly man that he recognized his grandson; It was shocking to see how young Doon was, though. Hardly older than when they had locked horns so many, many years ago.

“My legendary opponent,” said Herman, extending his hand.

Doon took the offered fingers, but instead of gripping them, he spread the old man's hand on his. “Even somec takes its toll, doesn't it?” he asked, and the sadness in his eyes told Herman that, after all, someone else understood the death that somec so cleverly carried within it's life-preserving promise.

“Why did you want to see me?” Doon asked.

And heavy, slow, inexplicable tears rolled out of Herman's aging eyes. “I don't know,” he said. “I just wanted to know how you were doing.”

“I'm doing well,” Doon said. “My department has colonized dozens of worlds in the last few centuries, The enemy's on the run—we're going to out populate him if he doesn't do the same. The Empire's growing.”

“I'm so glad. Glad the Empire's growing. Building an empire's such a lovely thing.” Pointlessly he added, “I built an empire once.”

“I know,” Doon said. “I destroyed it.”

“Oh yes, yes,” Herman said. “That's why I wanted to see you.”

Doon nodded and waited for the question.

“I wondered. I wanted to know—why you chose me. Why you decided to do it. I can't remember why, you know. My memory isn't all it was.”

Doon smiled and held the old man's hand. “No one's memory is, Grandfather. I chose you because you were the greatest. I chose you because you were the highest mountain I could climb.”

“But why did you—why did you tear? Why didn't you build another empire, and rival me?” That was the question. Ah, yes, that's the question, Herman decided. It was so much more satisfying—though he still felt a small doubt. Hadn't he once had a conversation with Doon in which Doon answered him? Never. No.

Doon looked distant. “You don't know the answer?”

“Oh,” Herman said, laughing, “I was once quite mad, you know, and thought you were out to wreck the Empire. They cured me.”

Doon nodded, looking sad.

“But I'm quite better now, and I want to know. Just want to know.”

“I tore—I attacked your empire, Grandfather, because it was too beautiful to finish. If you had finished it, won the game, the game would have ended, and then what would have happened? It wouldn't have been remembered for very long. But now—its remembered forever.”

“Funny, isn't it,” Herman said, losing the thread of the conversation before Doon finished speaking, “that the greatest builder and the greatest wrecker should both come from the same—should be grandfather and grandson. Funny, isn't it?”

“It's all in the family, isn't it?” Doon said with a smile.

“I'm proud of you, Doon,” Herman said, and meant it for the time being. “I'm glad that if someone was strong enough to beat me, it was blood of my blood. Flesh of my—”

“Flesh,” Doon interrupted. “So you're religious after all.”

“I don't remember,” Herman said. “Something happened to my memory, Abner Doon, and I'm not sure of everything. Was I religious? Or was it someone else?”

Doon's eyes filled with sorrow and he reached out to the old man sitting on a soft chair. Doon knelt and embraced him. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I didn't know what it would cost you. I truly didn't.”

Herman only laughed. “Oh, I didn't have any bets out that waking. It didn't cost me a dime.”

Doon only held him tighter and said, again, “I'm sorry, Grandfather.”

“Oh, well, I don't mind losing,” Herman answered. “In the long run, it was only a game, wasn't it?”

He heard the door click open but did not turn away from the tall pile of soft plastic blocks he was building instead he sought among the blocks scattered on the warm floor an orange block. Orange was definitely required since it helped make no pattern whatsoever.

“Link?” said an overfamiliar voice behind him, a strange familiar voice that, alone of all voices, could make him turn, startled. I killed her, he thought softly. She is
dead.

But he turned around slowly and there, indeed, was his mother, flesh as well as voice, the slender, oh-so-delicious looking body (not forty-five! couldn't be forty-five!) and the immaculate clothing and the terror in her eyes.

“Link?” she asked.

“Hello, Mother,” he said stupidly, his voice deep and slow. I sound like a mental cripple, he realized. But he did not repeat the words. He merely smiled at her (the light making her hair seem like a halo, the fabric of her blouse clinging slightly to the under curve of her breast, no, mustn't notice that, must think instead of motherhood and filial devotion. Why isn't she dead? Was that, please God, the dream, and this the reality? Or is this vision why I'm in this place?) and a tear or two dazzled in his eyes, making it hard for him to see, and in the dimness he supposed for a moment that she was not blond, but brown-haired; but she had always been blond—