Passage

Mandrake leaned back in his chair, his hands on the padded arms. “Why? So you can dismiss her as a crank? I realize it must be difficult, having to face the fact that your partner had reached a different conclusion about the NAE from the one you tried so hard to convince her of.” Mandrake leaned forward. “Luckily, she was not fooled by your scientific,” he put an ugly emphasis on the word, “arguments and found the truth for herself.” He glanced at the door and then looked pointedly at his watch. “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have.” This time he did stand up.

Richard didn’t. “I need to know what she said.”

Mandrake glanced uneasily at the door again. I wonder who this appointment’s with, Richard thought. Obviously someone he doesn’t want me to see. Someone he’s trying to pump about the project? Mrs. Troudtheim? Tish?

“Joanna was on her way to the ER to tell me something,” Richard said. “I’m trying to find out what it was.”

“I should think it was obvious,” Mandrake said, but his eyes had flickered suddenly with something — fear? guilt?

He knows, Richard thought, and, although it made no sense, Joanna did tell him. “No,” he said slowly. “It’s not obvious.”

Mandrake’s eyes flickered again. “She was trying to tell you what she has since told me and Mrs. Davenport, speaking from that afterlife you refuse to believe in, that there are more things in heaven and earth, Dr. Wright, than are dreamt of in your RIPT scans.” He walked around the desk and over to the door. “I’m afraid I can’t give you any more time, Dr. Wright. A gentleman is scheduled—”

A gentleman? Mr. Sage? Good luck getting anything out of him about the project. Or anything else. “I need to know exactly what she said to you,” Richard repeated.

Mandrake opened the door. “If you’d care to make an appointment for another day, we could—”

“Joanna died trying to tell me what it was,” Richard said. “I need to know. It’s important.”

“Very well.” He closed the door and went back to his desk and sat down. “If it’s so important to you.”

Richard waited.

“She said, ‘You were right all along, Mr. Mandrake. I realize it now. The NAE is a message from the Other Side.’ ”

“You bastard,” Richard said, coming out of his chair.

There was a knock on the door, and Mr. Wojakowski leaned in, wearing his baseball cap. “Hiya, Manny,” he said to Mandrake, and then to Richard, “Well, hiya, Doc. Sorry to bust in like this, but I—”

“We’re all finished here,” Mandrake said.

“That’s right,” Richard said. “Finished.” He strode out of the office, past Mr. Wojakowski and down the hall.

“Wait up, Doc,” Mr. Wojakowski said, catching up to him. “You’re just the guy I wanted to see.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” Richard said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Mandrake’s door. “It looks like he’s the guy you wanted to see, Mr. Wojakowski.”

“Ed,” he corrected. “Yeah, he called me the other day, said he wanted to talk to me about your project. I said I hadn’t worked on it for a while, but he said that didn’t matter, he wanted to talk to me anyway, so I said okay, but I had to talk to you first and see if it was okay, sometimes the docs don’t want you blabbing about their research, and I’ve been trying ever since to get in touch with you.”

He slapped his knee. “Boy, you sure are a hard guy to get ahold of. I been trying every way I could think of so I could ask you if it was okay. I know you’ve had other stuff on your mind, what with poor Doc Lander and all, but I was about to give up hope of ever getting ahold of you. Like Norm Pichette. Did I ever tell you about him? Got left behind when we abandoned the Yorktown, down in sick bay, and when he comes to, here he is on a ship that’s going down, so he hollers at the Hughes,” he said, cupping his hands around his mouth, “but she’s too far away to hear him, so he tries to think of some way to signal them. He waves his arms like crazy, he screams and whistles and hollers, but nothing works.”

Richard thought of Maisie, trying to signal him, trying to get Nurse Lucille to page him, to let her call, bribing Eugene to carry a message, finally telling her mother about the project as a last resort.

“So then he tries to use the radio,” Mr. Wojakowski was saying, “but the door to the radio room’s locked. Can you imagine that? Locking the doors on a sinking ship? Who do they think’s gonna get in?”

Locked. Himself, yanking frantically at the locked door, kicking at it, trying to get back to the lab, and Joanna, trying the door to the aft stairway and finding it locked, going down to the mail room to get the key to the locker with the rockets in it. The key. Amelia saying, “I had to find the key.”

“Pichette went all over that ship,” Mr. Wojakowski said, “looking for something he can get their attention with.”

All over the ship. Joanna going up to the Boat Deck, down to the Promenade Deck, along Scotland Road. Running all over. Up to the tab to tell him about Coma Carl, and, when he wasn’t there, up to Dr. Jamison’s office, down to the ER.