Green Eyes

  She laughed edgily; though his tone was casual, everything he said had the weight of a pronouncement. ‘You’re not strong enough, not yet.’

  ‘I want to tell you something about yourself.’ The curtain belled inward, eerily swathing his face in lace; he brushed it away. The ceiling lights diminished the green in his eyes to infrequent refractions. ‘You’re not totally aware of it, because you try to constrain it, but I don’t think you can totally deny it either. You feel something for me, something like love, though maybe that’s too extreme a word tor what you feel because you have been somewhat successful in denying it.’

  He paused to let her respond, but she was at first too confused to answer, then annoyed that he would assume so much, then curious because he exhibited such assurance.

  ‘Of course I’m in love with you.’ He mumbled it as if it were hardly worth mentioning. ‘I know it’s part of the program for me to love you, that you’ve…’ He ran his cane back and forth through his hands. ‘I don’t guess that’s important.’ He stared at her, his mouth thinned, his eyebrows arched, as if what he saw offered a prospect both mildewed and glorious. ‘Do you want to deny anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, and was surprised at the buoyancy she felt on saying it.

  ‘The day Magnusson died,’ he said, ‘I went down to a little room next to the lab and watched them chop him up.’

  ‘You couldn’t have,’ she said, coming to her feet.

  ‘The usual heavy infestation of the visual cortex,’ he said. ‘Remarkable changes in the ventral tegumentum.’

  She started to go to him, but then she thought how he must despise her for lying, and she sat back down, heavy with guilt.

  He picked up a paper sack from the windowledge and walked to the bed. ‘I’m going to do something about it. It’s all right.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The foolish sound of the words caused her to laugh, and the bitter laugh dynamited the stoniness of her guilt and left her shaky.

  ‘Magnusson gave me his notes before he died,’ he said. ‘I think there’s a chance I can use them to prolong my life. I’m not sure, but I’ll never find out here. I’m going to leave.’

  ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Sure I can.’ He plucked a set of keys out of the paper sack: she recognized them as the standard set issued to orderlies, keys to the vans and the pantry and various other rooms. ‘The staff is in conference,’ he said. ‘The orderlies are playing poker in the lab. None of the phones or cameras are working. And the gate.’ He smiled. ‘It’s taken care of, too.’

  His arguments were smooth, logical, insistent. He had, he said, a right to go where he chose, to spend his time as he wished. What was the future in remaining here to be probed and tested and eventually dissected? He needed her help. Where did her true responsibilities lie? To herself, to him, or to the project? She had no contrary argument, but the thought of being cast adrift with him made her afraid.

  ‘If you’re worried about my loss to the scientific community,’ he said, ‘I can assure I’m not going to co-operate anymore.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said, hurt. ‘I’m just not sure what’s right, and I don’t think you are either.’

  ‘Right? Christ!’ He lifted a small tape recorder out of the sack; the cassette within it bore Edman’s handwriting on the label. ‘Listen to this.’

  ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘Edman’s office. I told him I wanted to see how life looked from inside a crystal ball. It thrilled his tiny soul to have the beast sniffing round his pantry. These were lying about like party favors on the shelves, so I collected a few.’ He punched down the play switch, and Edman’s voice blatted from the speaker: