She looked angry and her chin started to quiver. "I think she has something to do with this!"

"What? If you mean Belle, she doesn't. Not exactly, anyway."

"She's not going to cold-sleep with you?"

I think I shuddered. "Good heavens, not I'd run miles to avoid her."

Picky seemed slightly mollified. "You know, I was so mad at you about her. I had an awful outrage."

"I'm sorry, Ricky. I'm truly sorry. You were right and I was wrong. But she hasn't anything to do with this. I'm through with her, forever and forever and cross my heart. Now about this." I held up the certificate for all that I owned in Hired Girl, Inc. "Do you know what it is?"

I explained it to her. "I'm giving this to you, Picky. Because I'm going to be gone so long I want you to have it." I took the paper on which I had written an a.s.signment to her, tore it up, and put the pieces in my pocket; I could not risk doing it that way-it would be too easy for Belle to tear up a separate sheet and we were not yet out of the woods. I turned the certificate over and studied the standard a.s.signment form on the back, trying to plan how to work it in the Bank of America in trust for-"Ricky, what is your full name?"

"Frederica Virginia. Frederica Virginia Gentry. You know."

"Is it 'Gentry'? I thought you said Miles had never adopted you?"

"Oh! I've been Picky Gentry as long as I can remember. But you mean my real name. It's the same as Grandma's... the same as my real daddy's. Heinicke. But n.o.body ever calls me that."

"They will now." I wrote "Frederica Virginia Heinicke" and added "and to be rea.s.signed to her on her twenty-first birthday" while p.r.i.c.kles ran down my spine-my original a.s.signment might have been defective in any case.

I started to sign and then noticed our watchdog sticking her head out of the office. I glanced at my wrist, saw that we had been talking an hour; I was running out of minutes.

But I wanted it nailed down tight. "Ma'am!"

"Yes?"

"By any chance, is there a notary public around here? Or must I find one in the village?"

"I am a notary. What do you wish?"

"Oh, good! Wonderful! Do you have your seal?"

"I never go anywhere without it."

So I signed my name under her eye and she even stretched a point (on Ricky's a.s.surance that she knew me and Pete's silent testimony to my respectability as a fellow member of the fraternity of cat people) and used the long form: "-known to me personally as being said Daniel B. Davis-" When she embossed her seal through my signature and her own I sighed with relief. Just let Belle try to find a way to twist that one!

She glanced at it curiously but said nothing. I said solemnly, "Tragedies cannot be undone but this will help. The kid's education, you know."

She refused a fee and went back into the office. I turned back to Picky and said, "Give this to your grandmother. Tell her to take it to a branch of the Bank of America in Brawley. They'll do everything else." I laid it in front of her.

She did not touch it. "That's worth a lot of money, isn't it?"

"Quite a bit. It will be worth more."

"I don't want it."

"But, Picky, I want you to have it."

"I don't want it. I won't take it." Her eyes filled with tears and her voice got unsteady. "You're going away forever and... and you don't care about me anymore." She sniffed. "Just like when you got engaged to her. When you could just as easily bring Pete and come live with Grandma and me. I don't want your money!"

"Picky. Listen to me, Picky. It's too late. I couldn't take it back now if I wanted to. It's already yours."

"I don't care. I won't ever touch it." She reached out and stroked Pete. "Pete wouldn't go away and leave me... only you're going to make him. Now I won't even have Pete."

I answered unsteadily, "Picky? Rikki-tikki-tavi? You want to see Pete... and me again?"

I could hardly hear her. "Of course I do. But I won't."

"But you can."

"Huh? How? You said you were going to take the Long Sleep thirty years, you said."

"And I am. I have to. But, Picky, here is what you can do. Be a good girl, go live with your grandmama, go to school-and just let this money pile up. When you are twenty-one-if you still want to see us-you'll have enough money to take the Long Sleep yourself. When you wake up I'll be there waiting for you. Pete and I will both be waiting for you. That's a solemn promise."

Her expression changed but she did not smile. She thought about it quite a long time, then said, "You'll really be there?"

"Yes. But we'll have to make a date. If you do it, Ricky, do it just the way I ten you. You arrange it with the Cosmopolitan Insurance Company and you make sure that you take your Sleep in the Riverside Sanctuary in Riverside... and you make very sure that they have orders to wake you up on the first day of May, 2001, exactly. I'll be there that day, waiting for you. If you want me to be there when you first open your eyes, you'll have to leave word for that, too, or they won't let me farther than the waiting room-I know that sanctuary; they're very fussy." I took out an envelope which I had prepared before I left Denver. "You don't have to remember this; I've got it all written out for you. Just save it, and on your twenty-first birthday you can make up your mind. But you can be sure that Pete and I will be there waiting for you, whether you show up or not." I laid the prepared instructions on the stock certificate.

I thought that I had her convinced but she did not touch either of them. She stared at them, then presently said, "Danny?"

"Yes, Ricky?"

She would not look up and her voice was so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her. "If I do... will you marry me?"

My ears roared and the lights flickered. But I answered steadily and much louder than she had spoken. "Yes, Picky. That's what I want. That's why I'm doing this."

I had just one more thing to leave with her: a prepared envelope marked "To Be Opened in the Event of the Death of Miles Gentry." I did not explain it to her; I just told her to keep it. It contained proof of Belle's varied career, matrimonial and otherwise. In the hands of a lawyer it should make a court fight over his will no contest at all.

Then I gave her my cla.s.s ring from Tech (it was all I had) and told her it was hers; we were engaged. "It's too big for you but you can keep it. I'll have another one for you when you wake up."

She held it tight in her fist. "I won't want another one."

"All right. Now better tell Pete good-by, Picky. I've got to go. I can't wait a minute longer."

She hugged Pete, then handed him back to me, looked me steadily in the eye even though tears were running down her nose and leaving clean streaks. "Good-by, Danny."

"Not 'good-by,' Ricky. Just 'so long.' We'll be waiting for you."

It was a quarter of ten when I got back to the village. I found that a helicopter bus was due to leave for the center of the city in twenty-five minutes, so I sought out the only used-car lot and made one of the fastest deals in history, letting my car go for half what it was worth for cash in hand at once. It left me just time to sneak Pete into the bus (they are fussy about airsick cats) and we reached Powell's office just after eleven o'clock.

Powell was much annoyed that I had canceled my arrangements for Mutual to handle my estate and was especially inclined to lecture me over having lost my papers. "I can't very well ask the same judge to pa.s.s on your committal twice in the same twenty-four hours. It's most irregular."

I waved money at him, cash money with convincing figures on it. "Never mind eating me out about it, Sergeant. Do you want my business or don't you? If not, say so, and I'll beat it on up to Central Valley. Because I'm going today."

He still fumed but he gave in. Then he grumbled about adding six months to the cold-sleep period and did not want to guarantee an exact date of awakening. "The contracts ordinarily read 'plus or minus' one month to allow for administrative hazards."

"This one doesn't. This one reads 27 April, 2001. But I don't care whether it says 'Mutual' at the top or 'Central Valley.' Powell, I'm buying and you're selling. If you don't sell what I want to buy I'll go where they do sell it."

He changed the contract and we both initialed it.

At twelve straight up I was back in for my final check with their medical examiner. He looked at me. "Did you stay sober?"

"Sober as a judge."

"That's no recommendation. We'll see." He went over me almost as carefully as he had "yesterday." At last he put down his rubber hammer and said, "I'm surprised. You're in much better shape than you were yesterday. Amazingly so."

"Doc, you don't know the half of it."

I held Pete and soothed him while they gave him the first sedative. Then I lay back myself and let them work on me. I suppose I could have waited another day, or even longer, just as well as not-but the truth was that I was frantically anxious to get back to 2001.

About four in the afternoon, with Pete's flat head resting on my chest, I went happily to sleep again.

CHAPTER 10.

My dreams were pleasanter this time. The only bad one I remember was not too bad, but simply endless frustration. It was a cold dream in which I wandered shivering through branching corridors, trying every door I came to, thinking that the next one would surely be the Door into Summer, with Ricky waiting on the other side. I was hampered by Pete, "following me ahead of me," that exasperating habit cats have of scalloping back and forth between the legs of persons trusted not to step on them or kick them.

At each new door he would duck between my feet, look out it, find it still winter outside, and reverse himself, almost tripping me.

But neither one of us gave up his conviction that the next door would be the right one.

I woke up easily this time, with no disorientation-in fact the F doctor was somewhat irked that all I wanted was some breakfast, the Great Los Angeles Times, and no chitchat. I didn't think it was worthwhile to explain to him that this was my second time around; he would not have believed me.

There was a note waiting for me, dated a week earlier, from John: Dear Dan, All right, I give up. How did you do it? I'm complying with your request not to be met, against Jenny's wishes. She sends her love and hopes that you won't be too long in looking us up-I've tried to explain to her that you expect to be busy for a while. We are both fine although I tend to walk where I wed to run. Jenny is even more beautiful than she used to be.

Hasta la vista, amigo, John P.S. If the enclosure is not enough, just phone-there is plenty more where it came from. We've done pretty well, I think.

I considered calling John, both to say h.e.l.lo and to tell him about a colossal new idea I had had while asleep-a gadget to change bathing from a ch.o.r.e to a sybaritic delight. But I decided not to; I had other things on my mind. So I made notes while the notion was fresh and then got some sleep, with Pete's head tucked into my armpit. I wish I could cure him of that. It's flattering but a nuisance.

On Monday, the thirtieth of April, I checked out and went over to Riverside, where I got a room in the old Mission Inn. They made the predictable fuss about taking a cat into a room and an autobellhop is not responsive to bribes-hardly an improvement. But the a.s.sistant manager had more flexibility in his synapses; he listened to reason as long as it was crisp and rustled. I did not sleep well; I was too excited.

I presented myself to the director of the Riverside Sanctuary at ten o'clock the next morning. "Rumsey, my name is Daniel B. Davis. You have a committed client here named Frederica Heinicke?"

"I suppose you can identify yourself?"

I showed him a 1970 driver's license issued in Denver, and my withdrawal certificate from Forest Lawn Sanctuary. He looked them over and me, and handed them back. I said anxiously, "I think she's scheduled for withdrawal today. By any chance, are there any instructions to permit me to be present? I don't mean the processing routines; I mean at the last minute, when she's ready for the final restimulant and consciousness."

He shoved his 11ps out and looked judicial. "Our instructions for this client do not read to wake her today."

"No?" I felt disappointed and hurt.

"No. Her exact wishes are as follows: instead of necessarily being waked today, she wished not to be waked at all until you showed up." He looked me over and smiled. "You must have a heart of gold. I can't account for it on your beauty."

I sighed. "Thanks, Doctor."

"You can wait in the lobby or come back. We won't need you for a couple of hours."

I went back to the lobby, got Pete, and took him for a walk. I had parked him there in his new travel bag and he was none too pleased with it, even though I had bought one as much like his old one as possible and had installed a one-way window in it the night before. It probably didn't smell right as yet.

We pa.s.sed the "real nice place," but I was not hungry even though I hadn't been able to eat much breakfast-Pete had eaten my eggs and had turned up his nose at yeast strips. At eleven-thirty I was back at the sanctuary. Finally they let me in to see her.

All I could see was her face; her body was covered. But it was my Ricky, grown woman size and looking like a slumbering angel.

"She's under posthypnotic instruction," Rumsey said softly. "If you will stand just there, I'll bring her up. Uh, I think you had better put that cat outside."

"No, Doctor."

He started to speak, shrugged, turned back to his patient. "Wake up, Frederica. Wake up. You must wake up now."

Her eyelids fluttered, she opened her eyes. They wandered for an instant, then she caught sight of us and smiled sleepily. "Danny and Pete." She raised both arms and I saw that she was wearing my Tech cla.s.s ring on her left thumb.

Pete chirruped and jumped on the bed, started doing shoulder dives against her in an ecstasy of welcome.

Rumsey wanted her to stay overnight, but Ricky would have none of it. So I had a cab brought to the door and we jumped to Brawley. Her grandmother had died in 1980 and her social links there had gone by attrition, but she had left things in storage there-books mostly. I ordered them shipped to Aladdin, care of John Sutton. Ricky was a little dazzled by the changes in her old home town and never let go my arm, but she never succ.u.mbed to that terrible homesickness which is the great hazard of the Sleep. She merely wanted to get out of Brawley as quickly as possible.

So I hired another cab and we jumped to Yuma. There I signed the county clerk's book in a fine round hand, using my full name "Daniel Boone Davis," so that there could be no possible doubt as to which D. B. Davis had designed this magnum opus. A few minutes later I was standing with her little hand in mine and choking over, "I, Daniel, take thee, Frederica -...till death us do part."

Pete was my best man. The witnesses we sc.r.a.ped up in the courthouse.

We got out of Yuma at once and jumped to a guest ranch near Tucson, where we had a cabin away from the main lodge and equipped with our own Eager Beaver to fetch and carry so that we did not need to see anyone. Pete fought a monumental battle with the torn who until then had been boss of the ranch, whereupon we had to keep Pete in or watch him. This was the only shortcoming I can think of. Ricky took to being married as if she had invented it, and me-well, I had Ricky.

There isn't much more to be said. Voting Ricky's Hired Girl stock. It was still the largest single block -I had McBee eased upstairs to "Research Engineer Emeritus" and put Chuck in as chief engineer. John is boss of Aladdin but keeps threatening to retire-an idle threat. He and I and Jenny control the company, since he was careful to issue preferred stock and to float bonds rather than surrender control. I'm not on the board of either corporation; I don't run them and they compete. Compet.i.tion is a good idea-Darwin thought well of it.

Me, I'm just the "Davis Engineering Company"-a drafting room, a small shop, and an old machinist who thinks I'm crazy but follows my drawings to exact tolerance. When we finish something I put it out for license.

I had my notes on Twitch.e.l.l recovered. Then I wrote and told him I had made it and returned via cold sleep...and apologized abjectly for having "doubted" him. I asked if he wanted to see the ma.n.u.script when I finished. He never answered so I guess he is still sore at me.

But I am writing it and I'll put it in all major libraries even if I -k have to publish at my own expense. I owe him that much. I owe him much more; I owe him for Ricky. And for Pete. I'm going to t.i.tle it Unsung Genius. Jenny and John look as if they would last forever. Thanks to geriatrics, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and a mind that never worries, Jenny is prettier than ever at...well, sixty-three is my guess. John thinks that I am "merely" clairvoyant and does not want to look at the evidence. Well, how did I do it? I tried to explain it to Ricky, but she got upset when I told her that while we were on our honeymoon I was actually and no foolin' also up at Boulder, and that while I was visiting her at the Girl Scout camp I was also lying in a drugged stupor in San Fernando Valley.

She turned white. So I said, "Let's put it hypothetically. It's all logical when you look at it mathematically. Suppose we take a guinea pig-white with brown splotches. We put him in the time cage and kick him back a week. But a week earlier we had already found him there, so at that time we had put him in a pen with himself. Now we've got two guinea pigs... although actually it's just one guinea pig, one being the other one a week older. So when you took one of them and kicked him back a week and-"

"Wait a minute! Which one?"

"Which one? Why, there never was but one. You took the one a week younger, of course, because-"

"You said there was just one. Then you said there were two. Then you said the two was just one. But you were going to take one of the two... when there was just one-"

"I'm trying to explain how two can be just one. If you take the younger-"

"How can you tell which guinea pig is younger when they look just alike?"

"Well, you could cut off the tail of the one you are sending back. Then when it came back you would-"