Chapter 14 Chapter 13

The red light was still on and the air pump hissed.The door opened.The person who came in was not wearing a white coat, but a small shiny nose filter that looked a bit like a two-pronged silver fork, the kind that the hostess left at the table to pinch olives out of the bottle. "Hey, Mr. Redman," he said, entering the room.He held out his hand, wearing a thin clear rubber glove, and Stu, startled by his protective attire, shook his hand. "My name is Dick Deitz. Denninger said you never play ball again if no one tells you what the score is." Stu nodded. "Okay." Deitz sat on the edge of the bed.He is short, brown, and looks like a dwarf in a Disney cartoon. "Then what do you want to know?"

"First, I wonder why you don't wear a spacesuit like that." "Because Geraldo said you're not contagious." Deitz pointed to a small white mouse behind the double pane windows.The little white rat is in a cage, and behind the cage is a stony-faced Denninger himself. "Geraldo, is it?" "The disease your friend is suffering from can easily be passed from man to guinea pig, and vice versa. If you infected man, we estimate that Geraldo would be dead by now." "But you don't want to take the risk," Stu said dryly, thumbing up the filter on his nose.

Deitz smiled dismissively and said, "That's none of my business." "What sickness did I get?" Deitz seemed to have rehearsed in advance, and said fluently: "Black hair, blue eyes, black and white ..." He looked closely at Stu, "It's not interesting, is it? " Stu was silent. "Want to hit me?" "I don't think that would do any good." Deitz sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if the plug was too high and the nostrils were a little uncomfortable. "Look," he said, "the more serious it seems, the more I joke around. And some people smoke or chew gum. That's how I hold myself together, that's all. I I don't doubt that many people have a better way. As for your illness, alas, your illness will not be found at all until the time of Denninger and his colleagues' illness can be clarified."

Stu nodded expressionlessly.Somehow, however, he had the idea that the little male midget had detected a sudden and deep relief on his expressionless face. "What's wrong with everyone else?" "Sorry, that's confidential." "How did that fellow Campion get it?" "That's a secret too." "He's in the military, I guess, and there must be an accident somewhere. Like what happened to those sheep in Utah 30 years ago, only worse." "Mr. Redman, all I have to tell you is that you have a fever, or a cold, and I'm going to jail."

Stu ran his hands over his new stubble. "You should be glad we've told you all we need to tell you," Deitz said. "You know that, right?" "I can serve my country better that way," Stu said dryly. "No, strictly speaking, that's Danninger's business," Deitz said. "Danninger and I are small people in the planning of these things, but Danninger is even younger than me. He is a Carrot, nothing else. By rights you should be happy. You know, you're also a secret. You've disappeared from the face of the earth. If you know too much, the big shots may decide to take the safest course , make you disappear forever."

Stu remained silent.He was a little shocked. "However, I am not here to threaten you. We very much want your cooperation, Mr. Redman. We need cooperation." "Where are the others who came here with me?" Deitz pulled a document out of his pocket. "Vic Palfrey, late. Norman Bruet, Robert Bruet, late. Thomas Wanamaker, late. Ralph Hawkins, Cherry Hawkins , late. Chris Ortega, late. Anthony Lemster, late." The names rolled in Stu's head, and Chris, the bartender, always kept a loaded Louisville gun under the bar, and the truck driver who thought Chris was just using it to scare people was often taken aback. .Anthony Lemster, who used to drive the famous Cobra-badged International on a rampage, sometimes circled around Harper's gas station, but was nowhere to be seen the night he wrecked the pump up.Vic Palfrey... God, he's known Vic all his life.How could Vic be dead?But it was the Hawkins family that hit him hardest.

"They're all dead?" he heard himself asking. "Is Ralph's family gone?" Deitz turned the file over. "No, there is a little girl named Eva, 4 years old. She is still alive." "Oh, how is she now?" "Sorry, that's confidential." Stotem was furious, and he grabbed Deitz by the collar and shook him back and forth.Out of the corner of his eye he saw a startling commotion behind the double panes of glass.Due to the distance and the surrounding soundproof walls, he faintly heard a siren. "What did you people do?" he cried. "What did you do? For Christ's sake tell me what did you do?"

"Mr. Redman..." "Huh? What did you people do?" The door slammed open and three tall men in olive uniforms entered.They all wear nasal filters. Stu looked at them and shouted, "Get out, all of them!" The three looked dazed and bewildered. "We are ordered..." "Get out of here, that's an order!" They quit.Deitz sat down on the bed calmly.His collar was ruffled and his hair was hanging down in front of his forehead.He looked at Stu peacefully, sympathizing with him even more.After a wild storm, Stu considered tearing off the nasal filter, but then he remembered Geraldo, the guinea pig, with such a stupid name.Despondent despair poured on him like a basin of cold water.He sat down.

"What a pity," he murmured. "Listen," Deitz said, "I'm not responsible for your being here. Neither is Denninger nor the nurses who come in to take your blood pressure. If there's any responsibility, it's Campion, but you Nor can all the blame be placed on him. He ran, but in that case, you or I probably would have. It was a technical oversight that allowed him to escape. The situation continues and we are all trying to fix it thing, but that's not our responsibility." "Then who is it?" "Nobody," Deitz said with a laugh, "responsibility has been scattered in many, many unseen directions in this case. It was an accident. It could have happened in a variety of other ways."

"Some kind of accident," Stu said, his voice almost a whisper. "What about the others? Harper, Henry Carmichael and Lila Bluett? Where's their boy Luke? Monty Sullivan..." "Secret," said Deitz. "Want to shake me again? If it makes you feel better, shake me hard." Stu didn't say anything, but Dai Huo suddenly lowered his head and began to fiddle with his trousers unconsciously. "They're all alive, you'll see them when the time comes," he said. "How's Arnett?" "Isolated." "Who died there?"

"no one." "you are lying." "I'm sorry you think so." "When do I get out of here?" "I have no idea." "Is it also classified as confidential?" Stu asked sarcastically. "No, just don't know. You don't seem to have the disease. We want to find out why you didn't. Then we'll go home and be free." "Can I shave? I itch." Deitz laughed and said, "If you start Denninger on the experiment again, I'll call the paramedics in right away and shave you." "I do it myself, I've been shaving since I was 15." Deitz shook his head firmly. "I don't think so." Stu smiled at him reluctantly. "Afraid I cut my own throat?" "I'm just saying..." Stu interrupted him with a harsh dry cough.He bent over and coughed vigorously.Deitz was like being electrocuted.He jumped up from the bed in a jerk, stepping to the sealed door as if his feet hadn't touched the ground at all.Then he groped in his pocket, found a square key, and put it in the lock. "Don't bother," said Stu gently, "I'm faking it." Deitz slowly came back to him.Now his face changed.His lips were thinning with anger, and his eyes were staring hard. "What did you say?" "Fake it," Stu said, grinning amusedly. Deitz took about two more steps towards him.His fists clenched, opened, then closed again. "Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" "Sorry," Stu said with a smile, "this is confidential." "You fucking bastard," Deitz said sullenly. "Go ahead, go out and tell them they can do the experiment." He slept soundly that night, not since they brought him here.He had a very moving dream.He'd always had a lot of dreams—his wife had complained that he slept poorly, tossed and muttered—but he'd never had a dream like this one. He was standing on a country road in the hot sun.Green corn grows on both sides of the road, stretching endlessly, stretching as far as the eye can see.There was a sign, but it was obscured by dirt and he couldn't read it.In the distance came the piercing cry of crows.On closer inspection, someone is playing a guitar.Vic Palfrey was a former actor and played beautifully. This is where I should be, Stu vaguely thought.Yes, this place, that's right. what song is that "Beautiful Heaven"? "The Fields of My Father's Hometown"? "After the Sweet Parting"?Some he remembered as childhood hymns, others were associated with baptisms and picnics, but he couldn't remember which ones. Then the music stopped.Clouds blocked the sun.He started to get scared.He began to feel that there was something horrible, something worse than plague or fire or earthquake.Something was watching him from the cornfield.Something dark was hiding in the cornfield. He looked and saw two burning red eyes behind the distant shadows, behind the far cornfields.Those eyes paralyzed him, and he was filled with hopeless terror, like an old hen feels at the sight of a weasel.He thinks that's what he is.That man has no face.Oh, my gosh.Oh my gosh, no! Then the dream faded, and he awoke with a feeling of uneasiness, confusion, and relief.He went to the bathroom window, looked at the moon with his head, and went back to bed. It took him an hour to fall asleep.It's all about that cornfield, he thought drowsily.Must be in Lowa or Nebraska, maybe Kansas up north.But he had never been to those places in his life.