He said to Kamakura, “Is there anything new from the park yet? That rumor that Haldersen’s actually got a supply of the drug?”
“Seems to be true, Tim. The word is that he and his friends caught the character who spiked the water supply, and relieved him of a roomful of various amnesifacients.”
“We’ve got to seize them,” Bryce said.
Kamakura shook his head. “Not just yet. Police are afraid of any actions in the park. They say it’s a volatile situation.”
“But if those drugs are loose—”
“Let me worry about it, Tim. Look, why don’t you and Lisa go home for a while? You’ve been here without a break since Thursday.”
“So have—”
“No. Everybody else has had a breather. Go on, now. We’re over the worst. Relax, get some real sleep, make some love. Get to know that gorgeous wife of yours again a little.”
Bryce reddened. “I’d rather stay here until I feel I can afford to leave.”
Scowling, Kamakura walked away from him to confer with Commander Braskett. Bryce scanned the screens, trying to figure out what was going on in the park. A moment later, Braskett walked over to him.
“Dr. Bryce?”
“What?”
“You’re relieved of duty until sundown Tuesday.”
“Wait a second—”
“That’s an order, Doctor. I’m chairman of the committee of public safety, and I’m telling you to get yourself out of this hospital. You aren’t going to disobey an order, are you?”
“Listen, Commander—”
“Out. No mutiny, Bryce. Out! Orders.”
Bryce tried to protest, but he was too weary to put up much of a fight. By noon, he was on his way home, soupy-headed with fatigue. Lisa drove. He sat quite still, struggling to remember details of his marriage. Nothing came.
She put him to bed. He wasn’t sure how long he slept; but then he felt her against him, warm, satin-smooth.
“Hello,” she said. “Remember me?”
“Yes,” he lied gratefully. “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”
Working right through the night, Mueller finished his armature by dawn on Monday. He slept a while, and in early afternoon began to paint the inner strips of loudspeakers on: a thousand speakers to the inch, no more than a few molecules thick, from which the sounds of his sculpture would issue in resonant fullness. When that was done, he paused to contemplate the needs of his sculpture’s superstructure, and by seven that night was ready to move to the next phase. The demons of creativity possessed him; he saw no reason to eat and scarcely any to sleep.
At eight, just as he was getting up momentum for the long night’s work, he heard a knock at the door. Carole’s signal. He had disconnected the doorbell, and robots didn’t have the sense to knock. Uneasily, he went to the door. She was there.
“So?” he said.
“So I came back. So it starts all over.”
“What’s going on?”
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“I suppose. I’m working, but come in.”
She said, “I talked it all over with Pete. We both decided I ought to go back to you.”
“You aren’t much for consistency, are you?” he asked.
“I have to take things as they happen. When I lost my memory, I came to you. When I remembered things again, I felt I ought to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I felt I ought to leave. There’s a difference.”
“Really,” he said.
“Really. I went to Pete, but I didn’t want to be with him. I wanted to be here.”
“I hit you and made your lip bleed. I threw the Ming vase at you.”
“It wasn’t Ming, it was K’ang-hsi.”
“Pardon me. My memory still isn’t so good. Anyway, I did terrible things to you, and you hated me enough to want a divorce. So why come back?”
“You were right, yesterday. You aren’t the man I came to hate. You’re the old Paul.”
“And if my memory of the past nine months returns?”
“Even so,” she said. “People change. You’ve been through hell and come out the other side. You’re working again. You aren’t sullen and nasty and confused. We’ll go to Caracas, or wherever you want, and you’ll do your work and pay your debts, just as you said yesterday.”
“And Pete?”
“He’ll arrange an annulment. He’s being swell about it.”
“Good old Pete,” Mueller said. He shook his head. “How long will the neat happy ending last, Carole? If you think there’s a chance you’ll be bouncing back in the other direction by Wednesday, say so now. I’d rather not get involved again, in that case.”
“No chance. None.”
“Unless I throw the Ch’ien-lung vase at you.”
“K’ang-hsi,” she said.
“Yes. K’ang-hsi.” He managed to grin. Suddenly he felt the accumulated fatigue of these days register all at once. “I’ve been working too hard,” he said. “An orgy of creativity to make up for lost time. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Fine,” she said.
They went out, just as a dunning robot was arriving. “Top of the evening to you, sir,” Mueller said.
“Mr. Mueller, I represent the accounts receivable department of the Acme Brass and—”