Eros Descending: Book 3 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Page 17
“Forget about Robert, and forget about yourself!” said Christine. “Can't you see what's been happening? He's not well!”
“You keep saying that!” snapped Simon. “All right, he's not well. We'll take him to a doctor and he'll get well!”
“I've tried to get him to go to one for the past month,” said Corinne. “But he keeps refusing.”
“We're not going to ask him if he wants to go,” said Robert. “We're going to tell him he's got to.”
“You're not telling my father anything!” said Simon. “And if he doesn't want to go to a doctor, that's his decision. God will give him the strength to continue his work.”
“He's not capable of making that decision, Simon,” said Robert.
“Who is?” said Simon contemptuously. “You?”
“You utter fool!” cried Christina. “Are you so blind that you still don't understand what I'm trying to tell you?” She turned to Corinne. “You lived day and night with him for thirty-six years. Can't you tell that something's terribly wrong?”
“He's been snappish, and he's had trouble sleeping,” she said, “but he's been like that before. You were too young to remember, but once, about twenty-five years ago, he had a bleeding ulcer and didn't tell anyone until —”
“I'm not talking about a bleeding ulcer!” screamed Christina in frustration. “My God, can't either of you see it?”
“See what?” said Simon peevishly. “All I see is a man who stopped me from helping my father ward off a violent attack by an alien.”
Christina turned to Robert. “Will you tell him, for God's sake, or do I have to?”
“Simon,” said Robert, trying to submerge the antagonism he felt toward his brother-in-law, “I didn't save your father from the Andrican.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you did!”
Robert shook his head. “I had to save the Andrican from your father.”
“That's a lie!” exploded Simon.
“No, Simon. It's the truth.”
“Why would Father attack an Andrican?”
Robert looked briefly at Christina, then turned back to Simon. “Because his body isn't the only part of him that's sick.”
Simon was on his feet instantly, his hands balled into fists. “You take that back! Thomas Gold is as sane as you are!”
“Taking it back won't change the truth of it,” said Robert. “Look at his behavior pattern over the last few weeks. He can't sleep, he's moody, half the time he can't even put a coherent sentence together.”
“He's been edgy, that's all. He's been working, on his sermon.”
“You heard him tonight, Simon,” said Robert. “He didn't put two seconds of work into that sermon.
“He did! He spent all week working on it!”
“Was that the kind of sermon he usually produces after he's worked so long and so hard?” asked Robert.
“I'll prove it to you?” shouted Simon. “I'll bring it up on his computer!”
“I don't think that's a very good idea,” said Robert.
“You just don't want to admit you're wrong, and that you've defamed a great man,” said Simon.
“He's ordered us all to leave his computer alone, Simon,” said Christina, a note of desperation in her voice. “I think we should honor his wishes.”
“He won't mind,” said Simon confidently. “Not if it's used to clear his good name.”
“I don't think you should do this, Simon,” said Corinne.
“So you're siding with them?”
“I'm siding with your father,” she replied. “Unlike you and your sister, I don't worship him. I just love him, and I don't want to know what's in the computer.”
“He'd be touched by your faith in him,” said Simon sardonically. He walked to the office doorway. “I'll be out in a minute or two, and then I expect an apology from each of you. Not to me,” he added, “but to him.”
He entered the office and the door slid shut behind him.
There was a momentary silence.
“How did it happen?” asked Christina numbly.
“How could it happen to a man like that?”
“You speak about him as if he were a saint,” said Corinne gently. “And he's not. He's just a man.”
“Mother, you don't even know what I'm talking about?”
“You're talking about your father,” replied Corinne. “That's all that's important.”
Christina turned her tortured gaze on her husband. “He was up there for only five hours. Five hours! Maybe Fiona Bradley's on the right side after all! Maybe it's finally Satan's turn to win!”
Robert put an arm around her, and she buried her face on his shoulder, her body finally convulsed by the sobs that she had been holding back.
“We're going to have to hunt up a doctor who can keep his mouth shut,” said Robert at last. “And I think he'll have to be treated right here in the apartment. I don't think either he or the church can stand the publicity he'll receive if we move him to a clinic.” He paused. “Right now anyone who saw the sermon probably thinks he was just having an off night—and most of them will forget what they saw soon enough. What we've got to do now is control the damage and keep it from spreading.”
“You talk about it as if it were some kind of public relations campaign, instead of a man's soul!” said Christina bitterly.
“He'll live,” responded Robert. “But we can't let one man's problems destroy the church or the cause he's fought for. The fact that Thomas Gold had a human weakness must not be the downfall of everything he's worked for.”
“I know,” said Christina. “It just seems so ... so dispassionate to be discussing it like this.”
Robert sighed. “I'm sorry. But we have to decide upon a course of action. And maybe, because of my work, I've been a little less sheltered than you and Simon. Believe me, I've seen Men and aliens both commit far greater sins than your father will ever commit.”
“I don't care about Men and aliens. I just care about my father.”
“I know,” agreed Robert. “He's a fine and decent man who's spent every day of his life staring temptation in the eye and turning away from it. He just faced one temptation too many. Under other circumstances, he might have reacted in a totally different manner.”
“That's very small comfort, to me or to him,” said Christina bitterly.
“I'm a scientist,” answered Robert apologetically. “I'm better at analyzing problems than finding comforting things to say about them. I feel for your father, I ache and bleed for him just as you do—but I also see that some important decisions have to be made.”
Suddenly Simon reentered the room, his face drawn and pale. He walked, trancelike, to a chair and sat down heavily.
There was a long, tense silence.
“I can't believe it!” he muttered at last.
“I'm sorry, Simon” said Robert sympathetically.
“My own father!” said Simon, his face tortured. “How could he?”
“Whatever it is, he couldn't help himself, Simon,” said Corinne.
“You!” he said, turning upon her. “You knew something was wrong all along! You had to know!”
“Even if I did, what could I have done about it?”
“You could have told me. I might have saved him!”
“Saved him?” asked Robert, puzzled.
“From hell,” said Simon bitterly. “His actions have condemned him to everlasting perdition.”
“Nonsense,” said Robert. “He's not responsible for his actions, Simon. He's mentally incompetent.”
“We are all responsible for our actions!” said Simon in agonized tones. “I begged him not to go up to that place. I begged him!”
“Don't blame yourself, Simon,” said Corinne. “If anyone's responsible for what's happened to him, it's me.”
“You?” said Simon distractedly.
“I should have been a better wife to him. I should have done more. Obviously I didn't satisfy all his needs.”
“Don't speak to me like that!”
He pointed a trembling finger at her. “Don't you ever say that my father needed what those creatures offered!”
“Creatures?” asked Corinne. “What creatures?”
“They're not creatures, Simon,” said Christina. “They're sentient beings, and you tried to use them for your own purposes, just as the Velvet Comet uses them for its purposes.”
“You mean the Andricans?” asked Corinne curiously.
“What do you think we've been talking about?” said Christina.
“They're malevolent, evil things, and they corrupted the most noble man I've ever known!” raged Simon. “And I'm going to make them pay dearly for it, as God is my witness!”
“Get a grip on yourself, Simon,” interjected Robert.
“We've got some decisions to make. Your father needs psychiatric treatment.”
“It doesn't matter,” said Simon dully.
“What are you talking about?” demanded Robert. “He's sick. He needs professional help.”
“Don't you understand?” grated Simon in tortured tones. “He's going to spend all eternity in hell, and here you are talking about how to treat him for the most insignificant speck of time. His soul is lost, and you're worrying about his mind!”
“Don't talk rubbish!” snapped Robert. “God isn't going to punish him for being ill.”
“What do you know about it? You call yourself a Jesus Pure, but you eat meat, and you sing, and you see sin and you make no attempt to fight it. You turned your back on your religion to pursue the petty, meaningless truths of agnostic science—so don't you tell me what God will or won't do!”
“Simon, you've had a terrible shock,” said Robert, “but so have all the rest of us. Instead of recriminations, it seems to me that we ought to be thinking about what's best for your father.”
“He's lost already,” said Simon. “We've got to stop this from ever happening to anyone else.”
“Damn it!” exploded Robert. “He's not lost! He's lying on a bed in the next room, and he needs our help!”
“Fool!” snapped Simon. “The church fights an unending battle against the forces of evil, and my father has become a casualty. Don't you understand? He was tempted, and he succumbed! His soul has been made unspeakably unclean; no doctor can put it right again!”
“I hope that if I ever fall from the path of righteousness,” said Robert, “I receive more compassion from those I love than you're showing him.”
Simon's face twisted in agony. “Do you think I don't love him, or that I don't share his pain?” he said, his voice breaking. “He's my father! If I could take his pain and his sin as my own, I would. If I could accept his eternal punishment as my own, I'd bear it gladly. But I can't! He can't be redeemed. He can only be avenged!”
Suddenly he froze, his gaze fixed on a point across the room, and they all turned to see Thomas Gold supporting himself against the framework of the bedroom doorway.
“I heard voices shouting,” said Gold wearily. “Is everyone all right?”
Christina quickly went to him.
“Everything's fine, Father,” she said gently. “Let me help you back to bed.”
He shook his head. “I have to talk to Simon.”
Simon stared at him, his expression a mixture of pity and repugnance. “I can't!” he whispered.
Gold reached his hand out, as if he could touch his son across the intervening twenty feet.
“Simon,” he said.
Simon shook his head. “I have to go.”
“Please...” mumbled Gold.
Simon backed away until he reached the front door, then ordered it open.
“I loved you, Father!” he said, tears streaming down his face. “I truly did!”
Then he was gone, and the door slid shut behind him.
“I wanted to talk to him,” Gold said to Christina.
“I wanted to...” His voice trailed off.
“He's upset, Father,” she said soothingly. “He'll be back.”
“Will he?”
“Of course he will,” replied Christina. “You heard him. He loves you. Let me take you back to bed.”
“It's not necessary,” he said. “I'm feeling stronger.”
“Would you like to sit with us, then?” asked Corinne.
He gave her a look of complete indifference and shook his head. “I'll rest later. I have work to do.” He turned supplicatingly to Christina. “Please help me over to my office.”
“Your office?” she repeated, frowning.
He nodded weakly.
“I have to go back to work.”
“No you don't, Father. You're going to take a vacation now. You've been working too hard.”
“My computer,” he mumbled. “I need my computer.”
“Why don't you come in here and join us?” said Robert.
Gold stared wildly at him. “I want my computer,” he said, his voice gathering strength, his expression suddenly that of a cornered animal. “You can't keep me from it!”
“Please, Father...” said Christina, tugging gently at his arm.
He pushed her away and shambled to his office door.
“Keep away from me! I have work to do!”
“Don't go in there, Thomas,” said Robert, getting to his feet. “Come sit with us instead.”
“You can't keep me from my work!”
“It can wait until tomorrow,” said Robert, taking a tentative step toward him.
“I'm locking the door!” said Gold. “And God help anyone who tries to break it down!”
He darted into the office, and the door slid into place and locked before Robert could reach him.
And while his family tried to decide what action to take, Thomas Gold walked to his computer and stroked it lovingly with a frail, shaking hand.
“They thought they could keep me away from you,” he whispered, his eyes alight with excitement.
“They thought they could lock me away, that they could make me forget about you. That's what they thought.” He chuckled. “They thought so, they thought so, but they were wrong. Activate.”
The computer hummed to life.
“Hello,” said Gold a moment later, when the holograph of an unclad faerie hovered above the computer.
His hand reached out and caressed the empty space that was occupied by the image.
“I've missed you,” he said tenderly.
Chapter 16
Attila was sitting in his office, sipping a cup of coffee and going over the evening duty roster, when the Steel Butterfly's holograph suddenly appeared over his computer.
“What's up?” he asked.
“I've just checked over the next shuttle's list of incoming passengers, and I think we're about to get a rather important visitor,” she informed him.
“Oh?”
“He gave a phony name, and his ID checks out—but it's Thomas Gold just the same.”
Attila frowned. “You're sure? I mean, after that broadcast the other night, I'd think this is the last place his people would let him come.”
“His people probably don't know anything about it,” replied the Steel Butterfly. “A man like Gold wouldn't have too much trouble finding a way to sneak out of wherever they're keeping him. He may be crazy, but he isn't stupid.”
“If his ID checks out, what makes you so sure it's Gold?” persisted Attila.
“Cupid, you tell him.”
“He has tried to disguise himself, but there is no question that he is Doctor Thomas Gold,” said the computer. “Height, six feet four inches. Weight, 142 pounds. Mild irregularity in heartbeat. There is a small mole on the left corner of his upper lip. His hair texture is —”
“All right, I'm convinced,” interrupted Attila.
“Where did you get all this? From the shuttle's computer?”
“Yes, Attila,” answered Cupid.<
br />
“And you've compared it to your own file on Thomas Gold?”
“That's correct.”
Attila shrugged. “I was wrong. But I sure as hell never thought I'd see him again.” He looked up at the Steel Butterfly's image. “We'll detain him at the airlock, of course,” he said. “But then what? Do you want to contact someone to come and get him, or do you think we should get a little publicity out of it?”
“Oh, no,” she said with a smile. “You're the Chief of Security, and this is a Security problem. I'm happy to warn you that he's on his way, but I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do about it.”
“Thanks,” he said sardonically. “Which shuttle is he on?”
“Delta.”
“Delta,” he repeated. “That's due to dock in, let me see...” He checked his timepiece. “Seven minutes.”
He got to his feet. “I'd better get moving. Thanks for all the advance notice you gave me,” he added with a touch of irony.
He broke the communication, had his computer check to see if the tramcar was at his end of the Mall, discovered that it wasn't, and elected to ride the slidewalk to the airlock rather than wait for the car. He arrived at the airlock just as Shuttle Delta was beginning its docking maneuvers.
“Cupid?”
“Yes, Attila?”
“What name is Gold using?”
“James Westerman, Jr.”
“Patch me through to Delta.”
The pilot's face appeared above the nearest computer terminal.
“Hello, Attila,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“You've got a passenger traveling under the name of James Westerman, Jr.”
She checked her passenger list. “Right.”
“Have one of the attendants find some way to delay him—subtly, if possible—until everyone else is off the shuttle. Then let him off.”
“Is he dangerous?” she asked.
“Only to himself.”
“You're not giving us much time to set this up,” said the pilot. “I think I'd better mess up the docking procedure and take another run at it. Otherwise, by the time I manage to speak to attendants in private and inform them of the situation, he might already be disembarking.”
“I'll make it easy for you,” said Attila. “Put my voice on your public-address system.”
She reached forward and touched something out of the range of the camera, then nodded.