a directed electromagnetic pulse that took out all our electronics, including your vision. You might have lost a few brain cells when it burned, but nothing that can’t be fixed. After the EMP, they used a missile on Miz Citrine’s floor. I’m afraid she died instantly.”
Stone feels as if he is being shaken to pieces, both physically and mentally. Why is Scarfe telling him this? And what about June?
Stone croaks her name.
“She’s dead, Mr. Stone. When the raiders assigned to bag her had begun to work on her, she killed herself with an implanted toxin-sac.”
All the lilies wither when winter draws near.
The stretcher party has reached the medical facilities. Stone is lifted onto a bed, and clean hands begin to attend to his injuries.
“Mr. Stone, “ Scarfe continues, “I must insist that you listen to this. It’s imperative, and it will take only a minute. “
Stone has begun to hate this insistent voice. But he cannot close his ears or lapse into blessed unconsciousness, so he is forced to hear the cassette Scarfe plays.
It is Alice Citrine speaking.
“Blood of my blood,” she begins, “closer than a son to me. You are the only one I could ever trust.”
Disgust washes over Stone as everything clicks into place and he realizes what he is.
“You are hearing this after my death. This means that what I have built is now yours. All the people have been bought to ensure this. It is now up to you to retain their loyalty. I hope our talks have helped you. If not, you will need even more luck than I wish you now.
“Please forgive your abandonment in the Bungle. It’s just that a good education is so important, and I believe you received the best. I was always watching you.”
Scarfe shuts off the cassette. “What are your orders, Mr. Stone?”
Stone thinks with agonizing slowness while unseen people minister to him.
“Just clean this mess up, Scarfe. Just clean up this whole goddamn mess.”
But he knows as he speaks that this is not Scarfe’s job.
It’s his.
A SHORT COURSE IN ART APPRECIATION
We were so happy, Elena and I, in the Vermeer perceptiverse. Our days and nights were filled with visual epiphanies that seemed to ignite the rest of our senses, producing a conflagration of desire that burned higher and higher, until it finally subsided to the embers of satiation, from which the whole inferno, phoenixlike, could be rekindled at will. There had never been a time when we were so thrilled with life, so enamored of the world and each other—so much in love.
Yet somehow, I knew from the start that our idyll was doomed to end. Such bliss was not for us, could never last. I don’t know what it was that implanted such a subliminal worm of doubt in my mind, with its tiny, whispering voice that spoke continually of transience and loss and exhaustion. Perhaps it was the memory of the sheer avidity and almost obscene yearning greed with which Elena had first approached me with the idea of altering our natural perceptiverses.
She entered my apartment that spring day (we were not yet living together then, a symbol, I believe, of our separate identities that irrationally irked her) in a mood like none I had ever witnessed her exhibit. (I try now to picture her unaltered face, as I observed it on that fateful day, but it is so hard, after the dizzying cascade of perceptiverses we have experienced, to clearly visualize anything from that long-ago time. How can I have totally forgotten the mode of seeing that was as natural as breathing to me for thirty-some-odd years? It is as if the natural perceptiverse I was born into is a painting that lies layers deep, below several others, and whose lines can be only imperfectly traced. You will understand, then, if I cannot recreate the scene precisely.)
In any case, I remember our conversation from that day perfectly. (Thank God I resisted the temptation to enter one of the composerperceptiverses, or that memory, too, might be buried, under an avalanche of glorious sound!) I have frequently mentally replayed our words, seeking to learn if there was any way I could have circumvented Elena’s unreasoning desires—avoiding both the heaven and hell that lay embryonic in her steely whims—yet still have managed to hold onto her love.
I feel now that, essentially, there was no way. She was simply too strong and determined for me—or perhaps I was too weak—and I could not deny her.
But I still cannot bring myself to blame her.
Crossing the memory-hazed room, Elena said excitedly, “Robert, it’s out!”
I laid down my book, making sure to shut it off, and, all unwitting, asked, “Not even a hello or a kiss? It must be something wonderful, then. Well, I’ll bite. What’s out?”
“Why, just that new neurotropin everyone’s been waiting so long for, the one to alter the perceptiverses.”
I immediately grew defensive. “Elena, you know I try to steer clear of those designer drugs. They’re just not—not natural. I’m not a prig, Elena. I don’t mind indulging in a little grass or coke now and then—they’re perfectly natural mind-altering substances that mankind’s been using for centuries. But these new artificial compounds—they can really screw up your neuropeptides.”
Elena grew huffy. “Robert, you’re talking nonsense. This isn’t one of the regulated substances, you know, like tempo or ziptone. Why, it’s not even supposed to be as strong as estheticine. It doesn’t get you high or alter your thinking at all. It merely gives you a new perceptiverse.”
“And what, if I may ask, is a perceptiverse?”
“Oh Robert,” Elena sighed in exasperation, “and you call yourself educated! That’s just the kind of question I should have expected from someone whose nose is always buried in a book. The perceptiverse is just the universe as filtered through one’s perceptions. It’s the only universe any of us can know, of course. In fact, it might be the only universe that exists for any of us, if those physicists you’re always quoting know what they’re talking about.”
“Elena, we’ve had this discussion before. I keep telling you that you can’t apply the rules of quantum physics to the macroscopic world....”
“Oh, screw all that anyway! You’re just trying to change the subject. Aren’t you excited at all?”
“Maybe I would be, if I knew what it was all about. I still don’t understand. Is this new drug just another hallucinogen?”
“No, that’s just it; it’s much more. It alters your visual perceptions in a coherent, consistent manner, without affecting anything else. You don’t see anything that’s not there; you just see what does exist in a different way. And since sight’s our most critical sense, the effect’s supposed to be like stepping into another universe.”
I considered. “And exactly what kind of universe would one be stepping into?”
Elena fell into my lap with a delighted squeal, as if she had won the battle. “Oh Robert, that’s just it! It’s not what universe, it’s whose!”
“Whose?”
“Yes,
