CHILLER Read online

  “I—I’ve looked into it a little. Anyway, Mrs.—”

  “Looked into it? Say, you’re not siding with Skinner over this, are you?”

  Careful, very careful. “I don’t think anybody has to take sides,” she said slowly and mildly. “Cryonics isn’t the issue—”

  “Oh, so you give it that fancy name, too? Pseudoscientific nonsense. I’m surprised.”

  She reminded herself that keeping cool was always a better strategy, particularly when you did not want to provoke more questions. Under his penetrating gaze she felt uncomfortable, glad he could not see the medical alarm bracelet she wore; it had a small I2 logo.

  “That’s what they call it. Who cares?” she asked in what she hoped was a light, casual tone.

  “Well, I care.” Blevin glowered and shot a clenched fist into the space between them. “If those nuts have started to get support among our own students—people who will be our colleagues in a few years—then they’re more dangerous to us than I ever thought.”

  “Look, they’re not the point. I’m sure Skinner will apologize to you, to Mrs. Yamada”—I’ll make damned sure he does!—“and we can forget about this.”

  Blevin studied his fist as though it belonged to someone else, his jaw working with irritation. “No. This kind of thinking has to be stopped. I’m going to look into it.”

  “I’m sure Skinner is the only member of the class with the slightest interest in, ah, such matters. I’ll speak to him if you like. That will put an end to the whole thing.”

  Blevin said in an odd, flat tone, “Why are you so sure about the other students?”

  She breathed shallowly, time stretching on for two slow heartbeats. “I—I just suppose so. It seems an unlikely subject to interest them.”

  “Look, you work in cryopreservation of organs yourself. You know how irresponsible talk can get out of hand.”

  “There’s a difference between advocating an idea and knowing it exists, in telling patients—”

  “No, there’s not—not in this area. Your own research shows how hard it is to keep even a simple kidney or liver preserved for more than a few days at low temperatures. When—”

  “That’s at temperatures above freezing. Below freezing, with the right cryoprotectants, there’s no reason why—”

  “Sure, sure, someday maybe. But there are nuts selling trips into the future for dying patients! You have to condemn that.”

  Susan said awkwardly, “I don’t believe I must. It is a legitimate hope. You have to allow them that much, at least.”

  “I don’t allow anything, not top—say, you’re not defending this craziness, are you?”

  Susan said carefully, “I don’t have to take a position.”

  Blevin studied her with narrowed eyes. Then to her surprise he nodded. “I… see.”

  His intent gaze unnerved her. “I—I’ll talk to Skinner.”

  Blevin said with an utterly unnatural calm, “I would appreciate that.”

  “Ah, good. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Good.” He still stood rock-solid in exactly the same spot.

  Susan stepped back. Her hands at her sides felt awkward, and she stuffed them into the pockets of her lab coat. “By the way—I was a bit curt with you the other day. I was upset, you see, over several things. I hope you didn’t feel too offended.”

  “Oh. That.” Blevin remained impassive, his sallow cheeks unmoved, as though he were thinking of something far away. “Not at all.” His words came out robot-smooth.

  “Well, then. Sorry. I’ll—I’ll be going.”

  She closed the door behind her softly and walked away with quick, hurried steps, as though fleeing a pursuer. Her shoes made a hollow clicking down the hall.

  5

  GEORGE

  The service that evening was hypnotic in its cascading beauty. Seen from the park of pepper trees and gnarled oaks that surrounded it, the great Marble Cathedral shone with alabaster radiance. The lawns and shrubs were pools of ink, like the sunken state of man’s daily world. Above them glowed spires of all-consuming brilliance, as though beams of God’s own luminosity spiked out from the massive, lofty building. The spotlights anchored along the cathedral’s flanks sent great white columns of light sweeping the sky, like the Lord’s word piercing the obdurate blackness that threatened to consume all mankind.

  George meditated on this immaculate grandeur as he approached. It helped him prepare his mind for the service. This was the first time he had seen the majesty of the marble fortress embedded in the grasp of night. Great slabs of rock rose straight from the ground like soaring spirits. Tall windows sent prickly light beaming outward, the multicolored biblical scenes larger than life and working with jewellike facets. The surrounding oaks were dwarfed by the erect radiance of the cathedral. From their leafy recesses more great spotlights raked the stalwart buttresses and arches.

  He was like those solid stacks of stone, George thought. Men like him were the essential underpinning to the glory of the Church itself. They had to do the silent holy labors. He felt himself a member in a stalwart legion, a massive presence unsung but felt everywhere within the airy reaches of this majestic transept and nave.

  He let himself enter into the service, as always. The outer shell of himself fell away, the lean and efficient carapace he wore in the world. It was a hard, durable armor, and George carried it like a righteously borne weight.

  But seated, letting the vibrant minister’s words pour over him like a warm torrent, George felt his shell evaporate, leaving his second self exposed. He was awash in the grand old resonant harmonies, as the choir rose throughout the holy hour to offer up sweet messages that seemed to come not from the white-gowned faithful but from serene, angelic voices suspended high in the lofty reaches of the luminous yet massive stoneworks.

  George had always sought solace in church, ever since his sainted parents had died. Weeknight prayer meetings, singing suppers, and the weekly carnivallike atmosphere of Sunday school, with a potluck dinner after—those had made warm, reassuring islands in a cold world.

  He had learned something about money then. He was an unruly boy who spent most of his time alone, fiddling with computers at school or wandering the fields and woods. The foster homes that had taken him in then were in it for the state payments, nothing more. For a few coins they went through the motions. The women in them had treated him okay, but there had been no connection, only a casual neglect, and George had early on learned that only the Church offered him any true shelter. The time he had beaten the Childress boy in a fight, bloodied him up pretty bad, not able to stop kicking the kid after he was down—the minister had gotten him out of that trouble, when his foster parents had just handed him over to the cops, turning away. So he’d gotten another foster home, just as cold as the last one. The couple had not been hostile, just indifferent, which was really worse. And they’d lived too far away to ever let him see that minister again.

  But here he felt the old currents running in him again. The vast vault of the cathedral had felt cool at first, but a warmth crept into him as the songs rose and George’s own voice joined the finer silky ones that filled the humming, gravid air. By the time the collection plate had passed, with George leaving five twenties in it—spread out like a green fan, startling the wrinkled old lady next to him in the pew—he could feel his pulse accelerate.

  The commanding voice of the minister was rich and strong, the baritone words reaching down into powerful bass notes as the sentences rose and fell like great waves on a warm, tropical ocean. As the sermon began George listened carefully, absorbing everything, but the point of it eluded him at first.

  Then it began to dawn on him: The minister had been in a holy contest on the television, a medium George had little time for.

  But the thing this man of the cloth fought! George watched one of the large TV screens mounted along the vestry as the pictures and words rolled forth. A videotape from some local TV news. The dog seemed ordinary enough until h
e understood. Then the screen filled with the dog’s sudden snarl, the black lips pulled back from suddenly bared yellow-white teeth.

  A shock of recognition ran through George. He had seen beasts like this in movies, heard their growls in his dreams. One had attacked him when he was wandering on a farmer’s plowed land. He had been running away from a foster home, crying as he stumbled along—when the farmer’s dog had come at him with that same angry deep rumbling. It had bit him twice, and George had run away. A few weeks later he had gone back to that place, though, and when the dog leaped at him, he had swung the baseball bat he carried behind his back. The crack of connection, his joy, the dog going limp and useless in midair—that image floated before him now as he watched the screen. Here was another hound of hell.

  Then the strong voice spoke on, booming in the immensities of the cathedral. The meanings penetrated slowly as he shook off the memories of the farmer’s dog.

  The very idea of it all took a long, shattering moment to even comprehend. It shook George, outraged him, made him break out in a sudden clammy sweat of revulsion. He had known that California was a lair of baseness, of perversion and dissolution and the decay of souls. But this thing the minister described—the words winding on like glistening snakes, the minister’s voice pealing on with full and horrid detail—was beyond mere human evil. It was direct interference with the holy and natural order.

  The dog. The dog was from hell. A frozen hell. It had been there and returned.

  And its ugly black lips grinned—sarcastic, infuriating.

  George felt his second self absorb the minister’s unfurling, billowing words. They struck into him like blows, staggering him mentally, confusing him, setting his skin afire with prickly rage, knotting his fists tight and hard as he sat in the pew and watched the sway and thrust of the minister, pressure building until he heard his own heartbeats as fearsome, shuddering, ever-hastening hammer-blows.

  Other fears shot through him, moments, memories. He caught only fragments. An image of something flat, ominous. Smooth and malignant, like a black lake.

  As the minister cried out, “Pity those yanked viciously back into our sad world!” the power of the words made George see it, feel it. Floating up from watery rest, into the harsh glare of heartless doctors, their sharp chrome knives gleaming.

  Hot disgust rushed into his throat like vomit. The images that the minister called up pounded at him furiously, and he clutched at his jimmy-john in fear.

  He could not help himself. George shook throughout the last minutes of the rolling, powerful sermon. Cryonics, they called it. Usurping the rightful terminology of science.

  The Reverend would confront these people tomorrow, appear on television. The time and channel flashed on the screen: Call in after the show! Let them hear the faithful voices lifted.

  George saw that his appointment with a real estate operator next morning would prevent him seeing the Reverend. Okay—he’d tape it. His outer, crisp self set an internal reminder, while his inner self fumed at the Reverend’s pealing sentences.

  And George would do his own research into this usurping horror, this cryonics. He knew their company name, and from that his skills could lead him on a long path into their operations. Those skills themselves were gifts he could lift up unto God.

  The rage built in him, like a tidal flood of searing lava that lapped at the words and scalded them, consumed them. But the minister had turned now to bless the sacrament, and through the roaring in his ears George could make out a bass theme from the big organ mounted high up the chancel walls, its majestic brass gleaming in the flicker of a thousand candles. He realized dimly that as the minister spoke, the lights throughout the cathedral had ebbed away, acolytes moving like silent agents to light ranks upon ranks of milky candles.

  Now the service swept on to its climax, a hymn that rolled on through the thumping of his own fevered heart. He rose to his feet, gasping.

  Heads turned to watch. Hands plucked at his suit. He batted these away. Turned. Made his way to the outer end of the pew. Walked on thumping legs like the trunks of aged oaks. Left the cathedral.

  6

  KATHRYN

  The host for Mornin’, L.A.! was a blow-dry blond man with teeth that rivaled the full moon, Kathryn thought, in luminosity, though not in sincerity. His hostess partner had black hair, an obvious dye job, with teeth to match his. She wore a flowery print job that covered a lot but didn’t conceal much.

  Kathryn settled into her well-padded seat in the audience as the show’s canned theme music boomed through the studio, pseudohip synthesizer stuff beeping along in four-four time. There were about a hundred people in the audience, nearly filling all the seats. Amazing, she thought, that people will haul themselves out for a nine o’clock talk show, which meant getting to the studio before eight. For Kathryn, the question of why anyone would bother ranked right up there with riddles like the origin of life, the destiny of intelligence, and why overweight men wore T-shirts in public.

  At least I-Squared had the lead-off position, complete with a second guest, some minister. In the third guest slot, after Alex left, would be a guy who had a new trick in real estate investing that sounded like a scam. But then, to most of the people here, cryonics did, too. Ummm—wonder if that’s Today’s Hidden Theme?

  Alex came onto the set led by the hostess, who was wearing spike-heel pumps, the heels too high for comfort or her figure. Alex looked cool, composed, but Kathryn caught the little fingering of his moustache that meant he had a fidgety bone left somewhere in his body. He wore his only business suit, a dark blue that she hoped would not come over on TV as funeral-director black. He looked severe amid all the pastels and fake flora of the set, which might be a positive, making him seem careful and sincere. She was impressed at how he carried himself, this man who was seldom out of shorts and sneakers.

  The hostess arranged Alex on a russet couch, one of those awful Naugahyde numbers where you lie down to sleep on a summer day and when you get up your skin peels off.

  Wendy, the hostess, then sat beside the tanned host. She managed to strike a position so that the second camera would show that she was wearing those tacky hose with the seam down the back, imitating the forties look. Alex managed to notice this, too. Irked, Kathryn imagined Wendy immersed in a vat of hot, salted oil in order to pass the time.

  Theme music down. An air of expectancy. The set was the standard neutral background stuff, tan armchairs, plastic flowers heavy on yellows and reds, and two moving cameras. One zoomed in on the host as alert lights flashed in the studio.

  He grinned and made a joke about how death and taxes were certain, only now maybe not, due to our guest today, and so on, messing up his description of what he called “cryogenics.” Sure enough, CRYOGENICS EXPERT appeared under Alex’s camera #1 shot on the studio monitor. The first thing Alex said was, “Hello. I’m afraid you misspoke our field, though. We don’t do ‘cryogenics’—that’s engineering at low temperatures. We do cryonics.”

  The host flexed his right hand as if to wave away the distinction. “Which is freezing dead people, though—that’s right, isn’t it?”

  Kathryn was relieved to see Alex lean back for just an instant, rather than obeying what she knew was his natural impulse—to hunch over earnestly, frown a little, and rattle off an incisive rebuttal. He actually stretched his arms to both sides along the russet-colored couch, the way she had drilled with him, which made him look far more relaxed and unbothered by the host’s opening salvo.

  “First, we don’t think they’re dead. Not in any deep sense.”

  The hostess said with real astonishment, “Whaaaat?”

  “Sixty years ago, anybody whose heart and lungs stopped was dead, period.” Alex smiled, showing some teeth, rather than the rather grim, tight line he usually produced. “Then came CPR—cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Suddenly, medicine said those folks weren’t really automatically dead after all. Definitions changed. When—”

  “But you
can’t cure the people you freeze, can you?” The host gave Alex a sharp, accusing look.

  “No, or we would be doing it right now. We’re just pretty sure that medicine will eventually be able to cure them.” Alex kept his arms extended along the couch, showing to good effect his shoulders and pectorals, she noticed with approval.

  Wendy watched Alex warily. “Pretty sure? Doesn’t freezing these poor people hurt them?”

  Alex said, “Well, not literally—they’re dead by the usual sense of the term.”

  “The real definition,” the hostess shot back.

  “No, ‘fraid not—the current definition will change, just as it did after CPR came in.”

  Wendy said, “I’ve heard these frozen people called ‘chillers’ and ‘corpsicles.’ How can you—”

  “Those aren’t our terms, and I object to them,” Alex said sharply.

  The host leaned forward earnestly. “But what Wendy said, isn’t there some damage from freezing?”

  “Sure—freezer burn, you’d call it when you’re talking about steaks coming out of a refrigerator. But—”

  “Ooooh!” The hostess drew back in revulsion.

  Wrong move, Kathryn thought. Too graphic.

  Alex saw it and held up a hand. “Sorry about the phrase. Medically, I should have said that cells get damaged by ice crystals. Future doctors, if they can cure cancer, can probably fix—well, let’s call it fixing frostbite.”

  “Sounds better, anyway,” the host said, hugging himself and shivering, looking out at the studio audience and getting a rather feeble laugh to which Kathryn did not contribute. At least Wendy hadn’t gotten any humor out of her “corpsicles,” because of her timing. Still, Kathryn thought, this host could use a little more class—a dash of Larry King, say, and lose the Geraldo.

  At the host’s signal they showed footage of Sparkle looking puzzled and then hostile as the cameraman came closer. Alex got in a few sentences about Sparkle’s revival, which had stimulated the invitation to come on Mornin’, L.A.!