2020 Read Online Free PDF Page B

provocative wiggle. It is extraordinary how a bit of information can change your point of view.
    The threat of the end of the world aside , I remember thinking then, we live in wonderful times.
    * * *
    A miniature life-support unit, consisting of racks of equipment sent over from GD Inc., and two exotic consoles from Switzerland, had been set up around a lab table in the living room, a nest of tubing and thin wires terminating in a light-enhancing stereo microscope. Keiko was there, apparently keeping a constant vigil. The judge had grown but he was still quite small, inhabiting a heated area on a textured slide.
    Keiko was a feverish specter. After I had politely put my eye to the microscope eyepiece for a moment she gave me her hand. An understanding had developed between us.
    “How can he live like that?”
    “He can’t,” she said. “His doctors tell us that he’ll survive for seven days maximum.”
    “How tragic,” I said, searching my professional vocabulary for the right thing to say.
    “What’s it matter?” a strange elderly voice said. I looked around me, startled. By the expressions on Keiko’s and Unix’s faces I realized we were listening to the judge; apparently his voice was picked up by sensors on the microscope stage and piped through the home quatro sound. His voice seemed to come from everywhere. The effect was eerie; my skin tingled and I felt myself tremble with momentary fright. The voice spoke again: “Those goddamned NASA bunglers, we’re all about to die anyway.”
    They were behind schedule, it was true. But even given their failings, nothing could quite justify the acid criticism, the savage personal insult, the vitriol that filled the room for ten minutes as the judge described NASA’s response to the crisis. And the rest of the world’s. I spare you the details.
    In the end, the judge told me, his one regret was that he’d wanted to go out big.
    Unix rolled her eyes.
    I had to bite my tongue.
    “Put me back now, goddamnit,” the judge said.
    “What does he mean?” I asked.
    “He goes with Aunt Keiko,” Unix said. “Has to do with body temperature.”
    “We’ll rest now,” Keiko said. “Thank you, Cooper, for coming by.”
    I held out my hand forlornly, and Keiko touched it briefly before turning to be alone with her husband. The look in her eyes confirmed that I had lost her, absolutely, to a 117-year-old man the size of a tomato seed. And a mean-spirited bastard besides. Perhaps that’s what it took to cling so tenaciously to life.
    Keiko opened the top of her hospital gown and slipped him down into her bosom. Out of respect I tried not to stare.
    Unix looked at me with raised eyebrows. “For him, it’s the adventure of a lifetime.” Then she swallowed and looked alarmed at having let slip an off-color remark.
    Embarrassed for her, I blurted out, “Finally conclusive proof that size isn’t everything.” It was really a stupid joke, but Unix looked at me gratefully while Keiko pretended not to hear, turned with dignity to leave the room.
    Unix put her hand on my back. “Say, Coop,” she said.
    * * *
    It must have been the comet.
    Unix walked me out to my Lotus with a shy batting of her green-lined eyes and thanked me for the way I’d helped her aunt.
    “If you only actually knew,” I said.
    “I know. Look, what counts is, you did the right thing in the end. My aunt’s happy; little Caesar is back on his throne. Frankly, I think she’s missing a bet. I’ve thought so from the beginning. Especially now, with your comet in the sky.”
    Then Unix kissed me, really kissed me.
    I kissed back.
    She slipped her tongue between my teeth and wiggled it around.
    We fell against the car, shamelessly groping at one another, sliding down the hood and along the fender and over the headlight, pulling at one another’s clothes, half naked by the time we rolled onto the soft lawn.
    What can I say of that first encounter that could do justice to our passion, to the