By Gilbert Stuart.
His late period.
Size 9' x 5'; heroic.
In the beginning of May newspaper stories again began to appear about Donner, but I could not understand them. The stories were datelined Washington. Donner was reported in top-level conferences, deeply classified. There were no leaks, no one knew what the talks were about. But the presidential press secretary was irritable with the reporters who asked questions, and the cabinet members were either visibly worried or visibly under orders to keep their mouths shut. And worried. I showed one or two of the stories to Dr. Cooperstock, but he was too tired to guess at implications.
He was hanging on, but it would not be for long. Any night I expected the call from his nurses, and we would not be able to save him again.
Then I was called to my office. I was lecturing to fourth-year men when the annunciator spoke my name; and when I got to my office Governor Hewlett was there.
"I need to see Dr. Cooperstock," he said. "I'm afraid it may excite him. The resident thought you should be present."
I said, "I suppose you know that any shock may kill him. I hope it's important."
"It is important. Yes." The Governor limped ahead of me to the elevator, his bald head gleaming, smiling at the nurses with his bad teeth and his wonderful eyes. Dr. Cooperstock was a hero to me. Governor Hewlett was something less, perhaps a saint or a martyr. He was what St. George would have been if in the battle he had been killed as well as the dragon; Hewlett had spent himself against Donner in the campaign and now he lingered on to serve out his punishment for his daring, the weasels always chipping away at him, a constant witness before commissions and committees with slanders thick in the air, a subject for jokes and political cartoons. A few senators and others of his own party still listened to him, but they could not save him from the committees.
The Governor did not waste words. "Dr. Cooperstock, what have you done? What is Wayne Donner up to?"
Cooperstock had been dozing. Elaborately he sat up. "I don't see, sir, that it is—"
"Will you answer me, please? I'm afraid this is quite serious. The Secretary of Defense, who was with me in the House fifteen years ago, told me something I did not suspect. Do you know that he may be asked to resign and that Wayne Donner may get his job?"
Dr. Cooperstock said angrily, "That's nonsense. Donner's just a businessman now. Anyway, what conceivable difference can—"
"It makes a difference, Dr. Cooperstock, because the rest of the cabinet is to be changed around at the same time. Every post of importance is to go to a man of Donner's. You recall that he wanted to he President. Perhaps this time he does not want to bother with a vote. What weapon have you given him to make him so strong, Dr. Cooperstock?"
"Weapon? Weapon?" Cooperstock stopped and began to gasp, lying back on his pillow, but he thrust me away when I came to him. "I didn't give him any weapon," he said thoughtfully, after staring at the Governor's face for a moment, forcing his lungs to work more easily. "At least, I don't think I did. It was only a commercial matter. You see, Governor, I have never believed in over-classification. Knowledge should be free. The basic theory—"
"Donner doesn't intend to make it free, Dr. Cooperstock, he plans to keep it for himself. Please tell me what you know."
"Well, it's fusion power," Cooperstock said.
"The hydrogen bomb?"
"Oh, for God's sake, Governor! It is fusion of hydrogen, yes, but not in any sense a bomb. The self-supporting reaction takes place in a magnetic bottle. It will not explode, even if the bottle fails; you would have to coax it to make it blow up. Only heat comes out, with which Donner is going to drive steam generators, perfectly normal. I assure you there is no danger of accident."
"I was not thinking of an accident," said the Governor after a moment.
"Well—In that event—I mean, it is true," said Cooperstock with some difficulty, "that, yes, as the reactor is set up, it would be possible to remove the safeguards. This is only the pilot model. The thing could be done."
"By remote control, as I understand," said Hewlett wearily. "And in that event each of Donner's power stations would become a hydrogen bomb. Did you know that he has twenty-four of them under construction, all over the nation?"
Cooperstock said indignantly, "He could not possibly have twenty-four installations completed in this time. I can hardly believe he has even one! In the New York plant on the river we designed only the fusion chamber itself. The hardware involved in generating power will take months."
"But I don't think he bothered with the hardware for generating power, you see," said the Governor.
Dr. Cooperstock began to gasp again. The Governor sat watching for a moment, his face sagging with a painful fatigue, and then he roused himself and said at last, "Well, you shouldn't have done this, Dr. Cooperstock, but God bless you, you're a great man. We all owe you a debt. Only we'll have to do something about this now."
In my office the Governor took me aside. "I am sorry to have disturbed your patient. But it was important, as you see."
"Donner is a terrible man."
"Yes, I think that describes him. Well. It's all up to us now," said the Governor, looking very gray. "I confess I don't know what we can do."
"Surely the government can handle—"
"Doctor," he said, "I apologize for troubling you with my reflections. I've not much chance to talk them out with anyone, but I assure you I have thought of everything the government can do. Donner has eight oil senators in his pocket, you know. They would be delighted to filibuster any legislation. For more direct action, I'm afraid we can't get what we need without a greater risk than I can lightly contemplate. Donner has threatened to blow up every city of over eight hundred thousand, you see. I now find that this threat is not empty. Thank you, Doctor," he said, getting up. "I hope I haven't distressed your patient as much as he has distressed me."
He limped to the door, shook hands and was gone.
Half an hour later it was time for my rounds. I had spent the time sitting, doing nothing, almost not even thinking.
But I managed to go around, and then Dr. Cooperstock's nurse signaled me. He had asked her to phone Nan Halloran for him, and should she do it? There was a message: "I have something else for Wayne."
I found that puzzling but, as you will understand, I was in an emotionally numb state; it was difficult to guess at what it meant. I told the nurse she could transmit the message. But when Nan Halloran arrived, an hour or two later, I waited in the hall outside Dr. Cooperstock's room until she came out.
"Why, Doctor," she said, looking very lovely.
I took her by the arm. It was the first time I had touched that flesh; we had not even shaken hands before. I took her to my office. She seemed eager to go along with me. She asked no questions.
In the office, the door closed, I was extremely conscious of being alone in a room with her. She knew that, of course. She took a cigarette out of her purse, sat down and crossed her legs. Gallant, I stumbled to my desk and found a match to light her cigarette.
"You've been worrying Coopie," she said reproachfully. "You and that Hewlett. Can't he stay out of a simple business matter?"
She surprised me; it was such a foolish thing to say and she was not foolish. I told her very briefly what Hewlett had said. No one had told me to be silent. She touched my hand, laughing. "Would it make so very much difference . . . Martin? (May I?) Donner's not a monster."
"I don't know that."
She said impishly, "I do. He's a man like other men, Martin. And really he's not so young, even with all the treatments. What would you give him, with all his treatments? Twenty more years, tops?"
"A dictatorship even for twenty minutes is an evil thing, Miss Halloran," I said, wondering if I had always sounded so completely pompous.
"Oh, but bad words don't make bad things. Sakes! Think what they could call me, dear! Donner's only throwing his weight around, and doesn't everyone? As much weight as he has?"
"Treason—" I began, but she hardly let me get even the one word out.
"No bad words, Martin. You'd be astonished if you knew what wonderful things Wayne wants to do. It takes a man like him to take care of some problems. He'll get rid of slums, juvenile delinquents, gangsters . . ."
"Some problems are better not solved. Hitler solved the Jewish question in Europe."
She said sweetly, "I respect you, Martin. So does Wayne. You have no idea how much he and Dr. Cooperstock think of you, and so do I, so please don't do anything impulsive."
She walked out the room and left it very empty.
I felt turgid, drained and a little bit stupid. I had never wanted anything as much as I had wanted her.
It was several minutes before I began to wonder why she had taken the trouble to entice me in a pointless conversation. I knew that Nan Halloran was her own bank account, spent as thriftily as Donner's billions. I wondered what it was that I had had that she was willing to purchase with the small change of a few words and a glimpse of her knees and the scent of her perfume.
Before I had quite come to puzzle the question through, while I was still regretting I had had no higher-priced commodity for her, my phone rang. It was Dr. Cooperstock's nurse, hysterical.
Nan Halloran's conversation had not been pointless. While we were talking two ambulance attendants had come to assist Dr. Cooperstock into a wheelchair, and he was gone.