The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

XVII

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies-"

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616

So this girl tells the school nurse, "My brother thinks he's a hen." The nurse answers, "Oh, goodness! What's being done to help him?" The girl answers, "Nothing. Mama says we need the eggs."

Are a woman's delusions anything to worry about? If she's happy with them? Was I duty bound to take Gwen to a shrink to try to get her cured?

Hell, no! Shrinks are the blind leading the blind; even the best of them are dealing from a short deck. Anyone who consults a shrink should have his head examined.

Close scrutiny showed that Gwen was possibly over thirty, probably under forty-but certainly not as old as fifty. So what was a gentle way to handle her claim that she was bom more than a century ago?

Everyone knows that natives of Luna age more slowly than groundhogs who have grown up in a one-gee field. Gwen's delusion seemed to include the notion that she herself was actually a Loonie instead of the native groundhog she had claimed to be. But Loonies do age, albeit slowly, and Loonies more than a hundred years old (I had met several) do not look only thirty-odd years old; they look ancient.

I would have to try hard to let Gwen think that I believed her every word... while believing none and telling myself that it did not matter. I once knew a man who, sane himself, was married to a woman who believed devoutly in astrology. She was forever buttonholing someone and asking what sign her victim was bom under. That sort of antisocial nuttiness must be much harder to live with than Gwen's gentle delusion.

Yet this man seemed happy. His wife was an excellent cook, a pleasant woman (aside from this hole in her head), and may have been a bedroom artist equal to Rangy Lil. So why should he worry about her syndrome? She was happy with it, even though she annoyed other people. I think he did not mind living in an intellectual vacuum at home as long as he was physically comfortable there.

Having gotten off her pretty chest what was fretting her, Gwen went right to sleep, and soon I did likewise, for a long, happy, solid night of rest. I woke up restored and cheerful, ready to fight a rattlesnake and allow the snake the first two bites.

Or ready to eat a rattlesnake. Come Monday, I was going to have to find us new quarters; I'm usually willing to go out for other meals but breakfast should be available before one has to face the world. This is not the only reason to be married but it is a good one. Of course there are other ways to manage breakfast at home, but marrying and conning your wife into getting breakfast is, I believe, the commonest strategy.

Then I came a little wider awake and realized that we could get breakfast right here. Or could we? What hours did the kitchen function? What time is it now? I checked the notice posted by the dumbwaiter, was depressed by it.

I had cleaned my teeth and put on my foot and was pulling on my pants (while noting that I must buy clothes today; these trousers were reaching critical mass), when Gwen woke up.

She opened one eye. "Have we met?"

"We of Boston would not consider it a formal introduction. But I'm willing to buy you breakfast anyhow; you were fairly lively. What'll it be? This fleabag offers only something called 'cafe complet,' a bleak promise at best. Or you can get decent and we'll creep slowly out to see Sloppy Joe."

"Come back to bed."

"Woman, you're trying to collect my life insurance. Sloppy Joe? Or shall I order for you a cup of lukewarm Nescafe, a stale croissant, and a glass of synthetic orange juice for a luxurious breakfast in bed?"

"You promised me waffles every morning. You promised me. You did."

"Yes. At Sloppy Joe's. That's where I'm going. Are you coming with me? Or shall I order for you the Raffles specialty of the house?"

Gwen continued to grumble and moan and accuse me of unspeakable crimes and urge me to come die like a man while promptly and efficiently getting up, refreshing for the day, and dressing. She finished looking spic and span instead of three days in the same clothes. Well, we both did have brand-new underclothes, recent hot baths, and putatively clean minds and nails... but she looked bandbox fresh while I looked like the pig that slowly walked away. Which was all her misfortune and none of my own; Gwen was wonderfully good to wake up to. I felt bubblingly happy.

As we left room L she took my arm and hugged it. "Mister, thank you for inviting me to breakfast."

"Anytime, little girl. What room is Bill in?"

She sobered instantly. "Richard, I did not propose exposing you to Bill until after you had eaten. Better perhaps?"

"Uh- Oh, hell, I don't enjoy waiting for breakfast and I see nothing to be gained by making Bill wait for his. We don't have to look at him; I'll grab a table for two and Bill can sit at the counter."

"Richard, you are a soft-hearted slob. I love you."

"Don't call me a soft-hearted slob, you soft-hearted slob. Who lavished spending money on him?"

"I did and it was a mistake and I got it back from him and it won't happen again."

"You got some of it back from him."

"Got back what he had left and quit rubbing my nose in it, please. I was an idiot, Richard. Too right."

"So let's forget it. This is his room?"

Bill was not in his room. An inquiry at the desk confirmed what knocking had shown to be likely: Bill had gone out a half hour earlier. I think Gwen was relieved. I know I was. Our problem child had become a major pain in the Khyber. I had to remind myself that he had saved Auntie to see anything good about him.

A few minutes later we entered the local Sloppy Joe. I was looking around for a free table for two when Gwen squeezed my arm. I looked up, then looked where she was looking.

Bill was at the cashier's station, paying a check. He was doing so with a twenty-five-crown note.

We waited. When he turned around he saw us-and looked ready to run. But there was nowhere to run except past us.

We got him outside without a scene. In the corridor Gwen looked at him, her face cold with disgust. "Bill, where did you get that money?"

He looked at her, looked away. "It's mine."

"Oh, nonsense. You left Golden Rule without a farthing. Any money you have you got from me- You lied to me last night-you held out on me."

Bill looked doggedly stubborn, said nothing. So I said, "Bill, go back to your room. After we've had breakfast we'll see you there. And we'll have the truth out of you."

He looked at me with barely restrained fury. "Senator, this ain't none of your pidgin!"

"We'll see. Go back to the Raffles. Come, Gwen."

"But I want Bill to return my money. Now!"

"After breakfast. This time let's do it my way. Are you coming?"

Gwen shut up and we went back into the restaurant. I saw to it that we did not discuss Bill; some subjects curdle the gastric juices.

About thirty minutes later I said, "Another waffle, dear?"

"No, thank you, Richard, I've had enough. They're not as good as yours."

"That's 'cause I'm a natural-born genius. Let's finish up, then go back and take care of Bill. Shall we skin him alive, or merely impale him on a stake?"

"I've been planning to question him on the rack. Richard, life lost some of its beauty when truth drugs replaced thumb screws and hot irons."

"My beloved, you are a bloodthirsty little wretch. More coffee?"

"You just say that to flatter me. No more, thank you."

We returned to the Raffles, went to Bill's room, were unable to raise him, went back to the desk. The misanthrope who had checked me in was again on duty. I asked, "Have you seen anything of William Johnson, room KK?"

"Yes. About thirty minutes ago he collected his key deposit and left."

"But / bought that key!" Gwen said, rather shrilly.

The desk manager was unruffled. "Gospazha, I know you did. But we return the deposit for the return of the key. It doesn't matter who rented the room." He reached for his rack, took down key card KK. "The deposit just barely pays for changing the magnetic code if someone fails to return his key- it doesn't pay for the nuisance. If you dropped your card in the corridor and somebody picked it up and turned it in, we would pay the deposit... then you would have to pay a second deposit to get into your room."

I took Gwen firmly by the elbow. "Fair enough. If he shows up, let us know, will you? Room L."

He looked at Gwen. "You don't want room KK?"

"No."

He turned his attention to me. "You have Room L at its single rate. For double occupancy we charge more."

Suddenly I had had it. All the kaka, all the shoving around, all the petty nonsense I could take. "You try to clip me one more crown and I'll haul you down to Bottom Alley and unscrew your head! Come along, dear."

I was still fuming when I let us into our room and locked the door. "Gwen, let's not stay in Luna. The place has changed. For the worse."

"Where do you want to go, Richard?" She looked and sounded distressed.

"Uh- I would opt to emigrate, right out of the System-

Botany Bay, or Proxima, or such-if I were younger and had two legs." I sighed. "'Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.'"

"Sweetheart-"

"Yes, dear?"

"I'm here, and I want to mother you. I go where you go. I'll follow you to the ends of the Galaxy. But I don't want to leave Luna City just yet... if you will indulge me. We can go out now and search for somewhere else to stay. If we don't find a place-Rabbi Ezra may be right-can't we put up with that surly clerk until Monday? Then we can certainly find a place."

I concentrated on slowing my heart, managed it. "Yes, Gwen. We might shop for a place to move into after the weekend, after the Shriners leave, if we can't find a suitable place available at once. I wouldn't mind that shmo on the desk if we were sure of proper cubic after the weekend."

"Yes, sir. May I tell you now why I need to stay in Luna City for a while?"

"Eh? Yes, certainly. Matter of fact, I ought to stay rooted to one spot for a while, too. Get some writing done, make some money to offset the rather heavy expenses of this week."

"Richard. I've tried to tell you. There are no money worries."

"Gwen, there are always money worries. I'm not going to spend your savings. Call it macho if you like, but I intend to support you."

"Yes, Richard. Thank you. But you need feel no pressure of time. I can lay hands promptly on whatever amount of money we need."

"So? That's a sweeping statement."

"It was intended to be, sir. Richard, I stopped lying to you. Now is the time for large chunks of truth."

I brushed this aside with both hands. "Gwen, haven't I made it clear to you that I don't care what fibs you've told or how old you are or what you have been? It's a fresh start, you and me."

"Richard, stop treating me as a child!"

"Gwen, I am not treating you as a child. I am saying that I accept you as you are. Today. Now. Your past is your business."

She looked at me sadly. "Beloved, you don't believe that I am Hazel Stone. Do you?"

Time to lie! But a lie is no good if it's not believed (unless it is told to be disbelieved, which could not apply here). Time to fan-dance instead. "Sweetheart, I've been trying to tell you that it does not matter to me whether or not you are Hazel Stone. Or Sadie Lipschitz. Or Pocahontas. You are my beloved wife. Let's not cloud that golden fact with irrelevancies."

"Richard, Richard! Listen to me. Let me talk." She sighed. "Or else."

"'Or else'?"

"You know what 'Or else' means; you used it on me. If you won't listen, then I must go back and report that I have failed."

"Go back where? Report to whom? Failed in what?"

"If you won't listen, it doesn't matter."

"You told me not to let you leave!"

"I won't be leaving you; I'll just be running a quick errand, then back home to you. Or you're welcome to come with me- oh, I wish you would! But I must report my failure and resign my commission... then I'll be free to go with you to the ends of the universe. But I must resign, not simply desert. You are a soldier; you understand that."

"You are a soldier?"

"Not exactly. An agent."

"Uh... agente provocateuse?"

"Uh, close." She smiled wryly. "Agente amoureuse perhaps. Although I wasn't told to fall in love with you. Just to marry you. But I did fall in love with you, Richard, and it may have ruined me as an agent. Will you come with me while I report back? Please?"

I was getting more confused by the minute. "Gwen, I'm getting more confused by the minute."

"Then why not let me explain?"

"Uh- Gwen, it can't be explained. You claim that you're Hazel Stone."

"I am."

"Damn it, I can count. Hazel Stone, if she is still alive, is well over a century old."

"That's right. I'm well over a hundred." She smiled. "I robbed the cradle, dear one."

"Oh, for God's sake! Look, dear, I've spent the last five nights in bed with you. You're an exceptionally lively old bag!"

She grinned at me. "Thank you, dear. I owe it all to Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound."

"You do, eh? A patent nostrum took the calcium out of your joints and put it back into your bones, and ironed out the wrinkles in your face, and restored your youthful hormonal balance, and unclogged your arteries? Order me a barrel of it;

I'm slowing down."

"Mrs. Pinkham had expert help, dearest. Richard, if you would only let me prove to you who I am, by my thumbprint on the Declaration of Independence, your mind would then be open to the truth, strange though it is. I wish I could offer you identification by retinal patterns... but my retinas had not been photographed then. But there is that thumbprint. And there is blood typing, too."

I began to feel panicky-what would Gwen do if her delusion pattern was toppled?

Then I remembered something. "Gwen, Gretchen mentioned Hazel Stone."

"So she did. Gretchen is my great great granddaughter, Richard. I married Slim Lemke, of the Stone Gang, on my fourteenth birthday and had my first child by him at Terra's fall equinox of 2078-a boy; I named him Roger for my father. In 2080 I had my first daughter-"

"Hold it. Your eldest daughter was a student at Percival Lowell when I commanded the rescue operation. So you said."

"Part of that pack of lies, Richard. I did indeed have a descendant there-a granddaughter on the faculty. So I truly am grateful. But I had to edit the details to fit my apparent age. My first daughter was named Ingrid, for Slim's mother ... and Ingrid Henderson was named for her grandmother- my daughter, Ingrid Stone. Richard, you could not guess at the time how difficult it was for me at Dry Bones Pressure to meet for the first time five of my very own and not be able to acknowledge them.

"But I can't be Grandmother Hazel when I am being Gwen Novak. So I didn't admit it... and that was not the first time this has happened to me. I've had lots of children-forty-four years from menarche to menopause and I gave birth to sixteen by four husbands and three passing strangers-and took the Stone name back after my fourth husband died. Because I moved in with my son Roger Stone.

"I raised four of the kids Roger had by his second wife- she is a medical doctor and needed a resident grandmother. I got three of them married off, all but the baby, who is now chief surgeon at Ceres General and may never get married as he is handsome and quite self-centered and believes the old saw about 'Why keep a cow?'

"Then I started taking the vegetable compound, and here I am, fertile again and ready to raise another family." She smiled and patted her belly. "Let's go back to bed."

"God damn it, wench; that won't solve anything!"

"No, but it's a swell way to pass the time. And sometimes it puts a stop to recurrent bleeding. Which reminds me- If Gretchen ever shows up, I won't interfere a second time. I just did not fancy having my great great granddaughter crowding in on my honeymoon-a honeymoon already crowded by too many people and too much excitement."

"Gretchen is just a child."

"You think so? She is physically as mature as I was at fourteen... when I married and got pregnant at once. Virgin at marriage, Richard; happens oftener here than anywhere else. Mama Mimi was strict and Mama Wyoh was charged with keeping an eye on me, and I wasn't inclined to stray anyhow, as the Davis family was socially as high as you could be in Luna City in those days and I appreciated having been adopted by them. Beloved, I'm not going to tell you another word about me until you check my chop and print on the Declaration. I can feel your disbelief... and it humiliates me."

(What do you do when your wife persists? Marriage is the greatest human art.. .when it works.) "Sweetheart, I don't want to humiliate you. But I'm not competent to match thumb-prints. But there is more than one way to cook a wolf. This second wife of your son Roger: Is she still alive?"

"Very much so. Dr. Edith Stone."

"Then there is probably a record right here in Luna City of her marriage to your son and- Is he the Roger Stone who was once mayor?"

"Yes. From 2122 to 2130. But he's not available; he left here in 2148."

"Where is he now?"

"Several light years away. Edith and Roger out-migrated, to Fiddler's Green. None of that branch of my family is around any longer. It won't work, dear-you're looking for someone who can identify me as Hazel Stone. Aren't you?"

"Well... yes. I thought Dr. Edith Stone would be an expert and unbiased witness."

"Mmm,.. she still can be."

"How?"

"Blood typing, Richard."

"Look, Gwen, blood typing is a subject I've had to know something about, because of field surgery. I saw to it that every man in my regiment was typed. Blood typing can show who you are not; it cannot prove who you are. In a number as small as a regiment even the rare AB negative will be matched more than once; they run one in two hundred. I remember because I am one."

She nodded agreement. "And I'm 0 positive, the commonest type of all. But that's not the whole story. If you type for all thirty-odd blood groups, a blood type is as unique as a fingerprint or a retinal pattern. Richard, during the Revolution lots of our people died because they had not been blood-typed. Oh, we knew how to transfuse blood but safe donors could be found only by cross-matching, then and there. Without typing this was often too slow; many-no, most-of our wounded who needed blood died because a donor could not be identified in time.

"After peace and independence Mama Wyoh-Wyoming Knott Davis, the hospital in Kong-you know?"

"I noticed."

"Mama Wyoh had been a professional host mother, in Kong, and knew about such things. She started the first blood bank, with money raised by Major Watenabe, another Founding Father. There may be a half liter of my blood frozen in Kong even today... but what is certain is that a complete typing of my blood is on file there, because Edith saw to it that each one of us had a full typing, all known groups, before we all started a Wanderjahr in 2148."

Gwen smiled happily. "So take a sample of my blood, Richard; have it typed at Galileo University Medical Center. Get a full work-up, I'll pay for it. Compare it with my typing done in 2148, filed at Wyoming Knott Memorial. Anyone who can read English can tell whether or not the two work-ups match;

it doesn't take the sort of expertise required to match fingerprints. If that doesn't say I am me, then send for a straitjacket;

it'll be time to put me away."

"Gwen, we're not going back to Kong. Not for anything."

"No need to. We pay the blood bank at Galileo to have a transcript from Kong printed out by terminal." Her face clouded. "But it will blow my cover as Mistress Novak. Once those two records are side by side they'll know that Grandmother Hazel has returned to the scene of her crimes. I don't know what that will do to my mission; it was not supposed to happen. But I do know that convincing you is absolutely essential to my mission."

"Gwen, assume that you've convinced me."

'Truly, dear? You wouldn't lie to me?"

(Yes, I would, little love. But I must admit that your words are persuasive. All that you have said matches my own careful study of Lunar history... and you deal with little details as if you had been there. It all is convincing but the physical impossibility-you are young, darling; you are not an old crone of more than a century.) "Sweetheart, you've given me two positive ways to identify you. So let's assume that I've checked out one or the other or both. Let's stipulate that you're Hazel. Do you prefer to be called Hazel?"

"I answer to both names, darling. Suit yourself."

"All right. The sticky point is your appearance. If you were old and dried up instead of young and juicy-"

"Are you complaining?"

"No. Merely descriptive. Stipulating that you are Hazel Stone, bom 2063, how do you account for your youthful appearance? And don't give me any guff about a legendary patent medicine."

"You'll find the truth hard to believe, Richard. I have undergone rejuvenation. Twice in fact. The first time to bring me back in appearance to late middle age... while restoring my bodily economy to youthful maturity. The second time was mostly cosmetic, to make me desirable in appearance. To recruit you, sir."

"Be damned. Monkey face, is that your own face?"

"Yes. It can be changed if you would like me to look otherwise."

"Oh, no! I'm not one to insist on prettiness as long as a girl's heart is pure."

"Why, you louse!"

"But since your heart isn't all that pure, it's nice that you're pretty."

"You can't talk yourself out of it that easily!"

"Okay, you're gorgeous and sexy and evil. But 'rejuvenation' explains without explaining. So far as I've ever heard, rejuvenation is for flatworms but not for anything higher up the evolutionary ladder."

"Richard, this part you'll have to take on faith-for now, at least. I was rejuvenated at a clinic a couple of thousand years away and in an odd direction."

"Hmm. It sounds like a gimmick I might have dreamed up when I was writing fantasies."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? Not convincing. Merely true."

"So I see no way to investigate it. Perhaps I'll have to get that blood-type transcript. Uh- Hazel Stone, Roger Stone- The Scourge of the Spaceways!"

"My God, my past has caught up with me! Richard, did you ever watch my show?"

"Every episode, unless I had been caught doing something that called for drastic punishment. Captain John Sterling was my childhood hero. And you wrote it?"

"My son Roger started it. I started writing it in 2148 but I didn't put my name on it until the following year-then it was 'Roger and Hazel Stone'-"

"I remember! But I don't remember that Roger Stone ever wrote it by himself."

"Oh, yes, he did-until he got tired of the golden treadmill. I took it over from him, intending to kill it off-"

"Sweetheart, you can't kill off a serial! It's unconstitutional."

"I know. Anyhow, they took up the option and waved too much money under my nose. And we needed the money; we were living in space then and a spacecraft, even a little family job, is expensive."

"I've never quite had the courage to write a serial against deadlines. Oh, I've written episodes on assignment, using a show's bible, but not on my own and under the gun."

"We didn't use a bible; Buster and I just whipped 'em up as we went along."

"'Buster'?"

"My grandson. The one who is now chief surgeon at Ceres General. For eleven years we wrote them together, frustrating the Galactic Overlord at every turn-"

"'The Galactic Overlord!' The best villain in the creepies. Honey, I wish there were really a Galactic Overlord."

"Why, you young whippersnapper, how dare you throw doubt on the authenticity of the Galactic Overlord? What do you know about it?"

"Sorry. I apologize. He's as real as Luna City. Or John Sterling would not have had anyone to frustrate ... and I certainly believe in Captain John Sterling of the Star Patrol."

"That's better."

"That time Captain Sterling was lost in the Horsehead Nebula with the radiation worms after him: How did he get out? That was one of the times I was being punished and not allowed to watch."

"As I recall- Mind you, this was some years back. I seem to recall that he jury-rigged his Doppler radar to fry them with polarized beams."

"No, that was what he used on the space entities."

"Richard, are you sure? I don't think he encountered the space entities until after he escaped from the Horsehead Nebula. When he had to make a temporary truce with the Galactic Overlord to save the Galaxy."

I thought about it. How old was I at the time? What year in school? "Hon, I do believe you're right. I was upset that he would join forces with the Overlord even to save the Galaxy. I-"

"But he had to, Richard! He couldn't let billions of innocent people die just to keep from soiling his hands through cooperating with the Overlord. But I can see your point. Buster and I fought over that episode-Buster wanted to take advantage of the temporary truce to do the Overlord in, once the space entities were destroyed-"

"No, Captain Sterling would never break his word."

'True. But Buster was always the pragmatist. His solution to almost any problem was to cut somebody's throat."

"Well, it's a convincing argument," I admitted.

"But. Richard, you have to go easy in killing off characters in a serial; you must always leave something for the next episode. But you tell me you've never handled a series all on your own."

"I haven't but I do know that; I watched enough of them, back when. Hazel, why did you let me fill you with a lot of guff about the life of a writer?"

"You called me 'Hazel'!"

"Sweetheart-Hazel my darling-I'm not interested in blood types or in thumbprints. You are undeniably the author of history's greatest creepie The Scourge of the Spdceways. It said on the credits, week after week, year after year: 'Written by Hazel Stone.' Then, sadly, it began to read: 'Based on characters created by Hazel Stone-'"

"It did? Those later credits should have included Roger; he created the show. Not me. Those nogoodniks."

"It didn't matter. Because the characters grew anemic and died. Without you the show was never the same."

"I had to quit; Buster grew up. I supplied the twists; he supplied the gore. Sometimes I got soft-hearted; Buster never did."

"Hazel? Why don't we revive it? We'll plot it together; you write it; I'll do the cooking and housekeeping." I stopped and looked at her. "What in the world are you crying about?"

"I'll cry if I want to! You call me 'Hazel'-you believe me!"

"I have to believe you. Anybody could trick me about blood types or thumbprints. But not about commercial fiction. Not this old hack writer. You're the real McCoy, my love, the authentic scourge of the spaceways. But you're still my sweaty little nymphomaniac-I find I don't mind that you are a couple of centuries old."

"I am not either two centuries old! I won't be for years and years."

"But you're still my sweaty little nymphomaniac?"

"If you'll let me."

I grinned at her. "Do I have any say in the matter? Get your clothes off and let's do some plotting."

"'Plotting'?"

"All the best writing is done with the gonads, Hazel my lusty bride-didn't you know that? Battle stations! Here comes the Galactic Overlord!"

"Oh, Richard!"