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  Tomorrow and Tomorrow

  Charles Sheffield

  In the hard-science Tomorrow & Tomorrow, Sheffield explores changes in the solar system and the theory of a closed vs. open system wrapped around a tale of a musician’s fanatical love for his wife. Drake Merlin has his dying wife Ana and himself cryonically frozen so they can be together once a cure for her disease is found. Several times over 15 billion years he is awakened only to find no cure and, one time, he accidentally causes Ana’s death. But if the theory of a closed system is true and the universe shrinks, he and Ana can return to a point when she is alive.

  Tomorrow and Tomorrow

  by Charles Sheffield

  PART ONE

  Love and Death

  Chapter 1

  The Edge of Doom

  Time: The Great Healer, the Universal Solvent.

  And if time cannot be granted?

  When Drake finally received a clear medical diagnosis after months of secret terrors and false hopes and specialist hedging, Ana had less than five weeks to live. She was already in a final decline. Suddenly, after twelve marvelous years together and a future that seemed to spread out before them for fifty more, they saw the world collapse to a handful of days.

  It had begun simply — more than simply. It had begun with nothing, a red car in the driveway when he did not expect one. Ana’s car.

  He had been passing the house almost by accident, on his way from a teeth-cleaning appointment to a meeting at the new concert hall. Like everyone else, Drake had complained about the acoustics, and the hall managers had called him in to be more specific.

  The grace period for construction changes without extra charge would end in less than thirty days, and they were worried.

  Well, he could be specific, very specific, about bass absorption and soggy midrange sound and resonant high frequencies. But Ana should not be home. She had a rehearsal in the afternoon. She had told him when she left that she planned an early lunch with the pianist and clarinet player, and she would not be home until about six o’clock.

  Car problems? The Camry had been balky for the past week.

  He parked in the drive and went inside, noticing the puddle of water on the blacktop and vowing for the hundredth time to have it resurfaced. Ana was not in the kitchen. Not in the dining room or den or living room.

  He felt the first twinge of anxiety as he ran upstairs. His relief when he saw her, fully clothed in blue jeans and a tartan shirt and peacefully sleeping on their bed, was surprisingly strong.

  He went across and shook her. She opened her eyes, blinked, and smiled up at him.

  He bent forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, love. Except I feel so tired.”

  “Did you stay up late?” Drake had been downtown to hear a performance of one of his own recent works, and glad-handing his public afterward had kept him out until after midnight.

  Ana shook her head. “I was in bed by ten. I’ve been feeling this way a lot recently. Weak and feeble. But never as bad as this.”

  “It’s not like you. Why don’t we give Tom a call?”

  He had expected her to say it wasn’t necessary, that all she needed was a little more relaxation — Ana, between singing engagements and teaching, drove herself hard.

  To his surprise, she nodded. “Would you call him for me?” She lay back and closed her eyes. “I just want to lie here for a little longer.”

  Drake had worried from that moment on, even if at first no one else seemed to. Tom Lambert was a close friend as well as their family doctor. He came over the same evening, grumbling about what other patients would say if they thought he made house calls.

  He examined Ana for a long time. He seemed more puzzled and curious than concerned.

  “It could be simple fatigue,” he said when he was done. He accepted a small Scotch in a large glass and added lots of ice. The three of them were sitting in the den. Tom raised his glass to Ana before he took a sip. He sighed. “All I can say is, if it is anything, then it’s something that I’ve never seen before.”

  “Do you think we should just forget about it?” Ana asked. She was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her. Drake, studying her now rather than simply accepting her presence, decided that she seemed thinner. “You know, take two aspirin and wait for tomorrow.”

  “Forget about it?” Tom sounded shocked. “Of course not. What sort of doctor do you think I am? I want to send you to a specialist,”

  “Of course.” Ana’s tone was teasing. She and Tom had had the argument before. “Today’s typical physician: can’t possibly tell you what’s wrong with you unless you see at least four other doctors — who of course all get their fees. If you people were musicians, nothing would be written for anything less than a quintet.”

  “Sure. And if you people were doctors, you’d only perform with hundreds of people watching. Anyway, don’t change the subject. I want you to see a specialist. I’m going to make an appointment for you to see Dr. Kevin Williams.”

  “But if you don’t know what it is,” Drake protested, “how do you know what sort of specialist she needs?”

  Tom Lambert seemed slightly embarrassed. “I said I’d never seen anything like this, in my own practice. But it doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas. Kevin Williams specializes in diseases of the blood and lymph systems. He’s head of a group at NIH. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s damned good. Don’t worry, Ana.”

  “I wasn’t going to. I don’t believe in it. Drake’s the worrier in the family.”

  “Then don’t you worry, either, Drake. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Tom nodded, and when he spoke again it was as though he was talking to himself. “Yes, we will. And we’ll do it quickly.”

  Tom did his best. Drake never doubted that for a moment. Ana saw Dr. Williams the next day, then there came a bewildering succession of other doctors and tests in the following two weeks. Ana’s teasing remark to Tom was an understatement. Drake counted twelve different physicians, not counting the individuals, many of them also MDs, who administered the MRIs, IVPs, myelograms, and multiple blood workups.

  Tom said little, but Drake knew in his heart that there was a big problem. Ana’s lassitude continued. She was definitely losing more weight. She had been forced to cancel her teaching and her near-term concert engagements. One morning she was sitting at the kitchen table, pale winter sunlight slanting through onto her fair hair. Drake noticed the translucent, waxen sheen to her forehead and the pattern of fine blue veins on her temples. He was filled with such dread that he could not speak.

  The grim biopsy result, when it finally came, was no surprise. Tom delivered the news himself, one drizzly evening in early March.

  “An operation?” Ana, as always, was calm and rational.

  Tom shook his head.

  “How about chemotherapy?”

  “We’ll try that, naturally.” Tom hesitated. “But I have to tell you, Ana, the prognosis is not too good. We can certainly treat you, but we can’t cure you.”

  “I guess that’s it, then.” Ana stood up, already a little unsteady on her feet because of muscle loss in her legs. “I’m going to bring coffee for all of us. It ought to have perked by now. Cream and sugar, Tom?”

  “Uh… yes.” Tom looked up at her unhappily. “No, I mean, cream, no sugar. Whatever. Anything is fine.”

  As soon as Ana was out of the room he turned to Drake. “She’s in denial. That’s natural, and it’s not surprising. It will take a while for her to adjust.”

  “No.” Drake stood up and went across to the window. The last heavy snow of the winter was melting, and fresh green shoots of spring growth were poking through. A few more da
ys would bring bloom to the snowdrops and crocuses.

  “You don’t know Ana,” he went on. “She’s the ultimate realist. Not like me. Ana’s not in denial. I’m the one that’s in denial.”

  “I’m going to prescribe painkillers for her,” Tom continued, as though he had not been listening. “All the painkillers she wants. There’s no virtue in pain. In a case like this I don’t worry about addiction. And I’m going to prescribe tranquilizers, too… for both of you.” Tom looked toward the kitchen, making sure that Ana was out of earshot. “You might as well know the truth, Drake. There’s not one damned thing we can do for her. Forget the chemotherapy. If it buys more than a few weeks for Anastasia, I’d be surprised. I feel that medical science is still in the dark ages about this disease. As a doctor I have to worry about you, too, Drake. Don’t neglect your own health. And remember I can be here, night or day, whenever either one of you needs me.”

  Ana was coming back. She paused on the threshold, holding a tray of cups, coffeepot, cream and sugar. She smiled and arched an eyebrow. “You two all done? Safe for me to come back in now?”

  Drake looked at her. She was thin and fragile, but she had never been more beautiful. Beautiful and brave and loving. At the idea of living without her his chest tightened. He felt as though he could not breathe.

  Ana was his life, without her there was nothing. How could he ever bear to lose her?

  Chapter 2

  “O! call back yesterday, bid time return.”

  Tom was gone before ten o’clock. He could tell that Ana, who had been putting on her best front just for him, was exhausted.

  Ana went off to bed as soon as Tom had left. Drake followed, half an hour later. She was already asleep. He lay down beside her without undressing, convinced that would be a waste of time. His mind was too active for any form of rest.

  He closed his eyes. He imagined Ana, as she had been when they’d first met.

  He always told people that he had loved her before he even saw her. The occasion of their first meeting was an end-of-term examination. Drake, as Doctor Bonvissuto’s star pupil in musical composition, had been taking a test alone, in a small room next to Bonvissuto’s austere office.

  It was not the ideal setting for concentration, but Drake had been through the routine several times before. While he was setting down the parts of a fugal theme provided by his teacher, Bonvissuto was interviewing would-be choral scholars and students in the next room.

  The test material was not inspiring work, and Drake could do it almost automatically, using sheets of lined score paper and a pencil. Bonvissuto scorned computers and all other aids to the rapid writing out of music.

  “You think you need computer to write fast, eh?” He had scowled at Drake on their very first session together. “Handel, he write Messiah, every note, in twenny-four day. You do as good in two-three month, I don’t grumble. You want computer to help? Fine. Provided you write more and better. Better than Bach. Better than Monteverdi, better than Mozart. They had no computer.”

  From Bonvissuto, that counted as mild comment. But he meant what he said. Drake slaved away at the test, without benefit of centuries of technological development, while in the next room a succession of young men and women came and went.

  Most of them, Drake knew, arrived prepared to sing as Brunnhilde or Tristan or the Queen of the Night. Bonvissuto would have none of it.

  “Something simple. Not the grand opera. The simple song, the folk song. You sing that real good, a cappella, then maybe we think about Verdi an’ Mozart an’ Wagner.”

  They would sing unaccompanied, often off-key and loud. And Bonvissuto would comment, equally loudly.

  “What key did you think you were in at the end there? And what language? Did you ever hear about diction? This song is in English, for Christ’s sake. Listening to you it could have been in Polish or Chinese or anything.”

  Bonvissuto reversed the traditional pattern. When he was angry and excited, the Italian accent disappeared. In its place came perfect English and a Kansas twang. The same thing happened during his lessons with Drake, who had once been unwise enough to mention that fact. The teacher had winked at him and said, “Whoever heard of an Italian from Kansas? Whoever heard of a composer from Kansas?”

  Drake finished writing out the fugue, turned the page, and went on to the final question. “Provide a suitable melody to go with the given accompaniment.”

  He looked at what followed and realized that the question was going to be a snap. He knew the original piece. He was looking at the piano part of “Erstarrung,” the fourth song from the Winterreise song cycle. All he had to do was write out the vocal part. The accompaniment happened to be given in A-minor, up a tone from the version that he was most familiar with, so he would have to transpose; but that was trivial.

  He read the question again to be sure. “Provide a suitable melody.” It didn’t say, “Compose a suitable melody of your own.” And he certainly could not improve on Schubert.

  As he wrote in the vocal line he heard the door open again in the next room. There was a mutter of conversation, then a single chord, E major, on Bonvissuto’s piano.

  A woman’s contralto voice began to sing, “Blow the wind southerly.” It was a strong, true voice, slightly husky in the lower register and with just a touch of an attractive vibrato on the high notes. Drake paused to listen. After the final note there was a pause, then again a single chord on the piano. It confirmed what Drake already knew. The woman had finished exactly on E natural, in the key where she had started. She had been right on pitch all the way through.

  Drake heard another muttered sentence or two spoken in the next room, then the door opened and closed again. He waited, writing in the last few bars of the exercise. Surely Bonvissuto hadn’t sent her away, just like that, without talking to her some more. Drake wanted to hear her sing again.

  On an impulse he collected his answer sheets, stacked them neatly, and walked across to the connecting door. He turned the doorknob and went through without knocking.

  He braced himself. Anyone who entered Bonvissuto’s office uninvited could expect a hot welcome.

  The expected blast did not come. Professor Bonvissuto was not there. Alone in the room, standing by the piano and staring at him uncertainly, was a slim, blond-haired girl.

  He stared back. Her hair was cut a little lopsided. She wasn’t very tall, maybe five four, and her pale blue dress didn’t look quite right on her. Drake, no connoisseur of clothing, did not realize that it had been intended for someone a couple of inches taller. But the most striking thing about her, far more significant than clothes, was her age. She looked about fifteen. It was hard to believe that the mature contralto voice he had heard came from her.

  “Are you next?” she said finally. “I thought I was the last one. He won’t be long.”

  He realized that he had been staring, but so had she. She must assume he was there for a vocal audition. He thrust his sheaf of papers out toward her. “I’m not here to sing. I was taking an exam. I’m one of Professor Bonvissuto’s students. Was that you?”

  “What me?”

  “Singing. ‘Blow the wind southerly.’ ”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “It was good.” He wanted to add that it was wonderful, heart-stopping, soul-searing. Instead he said, “Where is he?”

  “The professor? He went to register me. I didn’t think I’d be accepted, and it’s the last day to sign up. He said he could push it through.”

  “He can. He knows how.” Drake, not knowing what to do next but reluctant to leave, sat down on the piano stool.

  She asked from behind him, “Do you play?”

  “Yes. Not very well.” He was convinced that he could feel her critical stare burning into the back of his head. Music was full of prodigies: tiny infants picking out chord sequences, concert performers under ten years old, composers who wrote great works in their teens. And here he was, over eighteen and still a student. He wanted to blurt out
that he had started late, that his family had been too poor to think of music lessons, that he had come to music only when he found that, almost against his will, melodies arose in his head to go with poetry that he was reading.

  He couldn’t say any of that. Instead, to hide his self-consciousness, and with “Erstarrung” still in his head, he began to play the restless, uneasy triplets of the song’s introduction.

  “I’ve heard that a couple of times,” said the voice behind him. “But it’s a man’s song. Do you know ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’?”

  “ ‘Margaret at the spinning-wheel’?” Drake was much more comfortable with the English translation. He paused for a moment, then began to play a steady, pulsing figure.

  “That’s it,” the girl said at once. “Did you know that Schubert wrote it when he was only seventeen?”

  “I know.” It was a possible criticism, making the point that Drake was a lot older than seventeen and had done nothing. But before he could say more she went on: “It’s a little bit high for me. But I can handle it. Start over.”

  After the four brief figures of the introduction she began to sing, “Mein Ruh ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer.” “My peace is gone, my heart is heavy.” Drake, understanding the German words only vaguely but feeling the strong musical rapport between them, put all his mind into his playing, sensing and adapting to her vocal line.

  They performed the whole song. After the final slowing chords on the piano there was total silence. He turned and found a smile on her face that matched his own delight. Before they could speak, a sound came from the doorway: four steady hand claps.

  “You know, don’t you, the penalty for playing my Steinway without my permission?” Bonvissuto walked toward them. “What are you doing in here, Merlin?”

  Drake picked up his exam papers and held them out. “I finished.”

  “Yeah?” Bonvissuto skimmed the sheets for a couple of seconds. He snorted. “I told Leila Nielsen, using ‘Erstarrung’ was one dumb idea, you were sure to know it. No matter. Plenty of stuff you don’t know for next time.” He smiled sadistically. “How’s your Webern?” And then, before Drake could reply, “Go on, go on. Out of here, both of you.” He waved his hands at them. “Merlin, we’ll discuss your test tomorrow morning. Werlich, I registered you. You’re legal. You come in at one tomorrow, we’ll work on your middle register. Now, go. What you waiting for?” And then, when they were almost out the door, “Since you two are going to be performing in public together, you’d better practice. You need polish.”