The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

"Somebody," Dan was saying, "needs to go out there and get those bodies in off the Bottom."

  He heard. Maybe he should protest, give way to grief, insist to be one to go even if there was no chance of his walking that far. He had no interest in finding Sarah's body, or Poll's, or Sam's. He had only one interest, and that was to get his clothes on, to get out of here. He managed it, wincing, while the meds conferred with the police and wondered if there were not some way to arrest him to get him to the hospital.

  "Get out of here," Dan warned them. There was sullen silence.

  "Mr. Tallfeather," one of the medics appealed to him.

  He shook his head. It hurt. He stared hatefully at them, and they devoted their attention to Jino, who was beyond protest.

  "Free to go?" Dan asked the police.

  "We've got your numbers," the officer said.

  Dan said nothing. Johnny walked for the door between two of them, trying not to let his knees give under him.

  They got him to the service lift, got a better grip on him once inside, because he gave way when the car dropped, and he came near to fainting. They went down, down as far as they would go, got out in the passages, walked the way to the Worm.

  He fainted. He woke up in a bed with no recollection of how he had gotten there; and then he did remember, and lay staring at the ceiling. An old woman waited on him, fed him; labored over him. Others came in to look at him, liners and Builders both. When he was conscious and could get his legs under him he tottered out into the Worm itself and sat down and had the drink he had promised himself, remembering Sarah, who had sat with him—over there. And the word whispered through the Worm that there was a strike on, that none of the liners were going out; that there was a Builder slowdown, and the name of Manley and ATELCORP was mentioned.

  There was a quiet about the place, that day, the next. There were police, who came and took photographs inside the Worm and read a court order in dead silence, ordering the Builders back to work. But the silence hung there, and the police were very quiet and left, because no one wanted to go Outside but liners and the whole City would die if the Builders shut things down. Up in the towers they knew their computers. A lot was automated; a lot was not. The computers were all their knowledge.

  There was talk of an investigation. The Mayor came on vid and appealed for calm; said there was an investigation proceeding about gang activity, about bribes; about corruption in certain echelons far down the corporation lists. There was a lot of talk. It all moved very quickly.

  "We'll get something," Dan Hardesty told him. "We got the one that went by Manley. Fellow named George Bettin. ATELCORP'S man. Flunky; but we got him."

  "They'll hang him out," he said quietly, hollowly. "So much for Manley. Yes. We got him."

  And that day the Bettin trial started he rode the lift up to the hundredth, and walked to one of the observation windows, but when he got close to it, with the far blue distance and the Newark spire rising in his view, he stopped.

  It was a long tune before a passerby happened to see him there, against the wall; before a woman took him by the arm and coaxed him away from the wall, down the corridor. They called the meds; and they offered him sedatives.

  He took them. Rode the lift down. That itself was terror. He had had dreams at night; wakened with the world hanging under him and the sky above and screamed until the Worm echoed with it.

  The drugs stopped that. But he stayed below, refused to go near the windows. Three, four days, while the Manley/Bettin trial dragged on. They never called him to testify; never called any of the liners.

  But a message came to the Worm, signed with big names in ATELCORP; and that failed to surprise him. He went, up the far, far distance to the nineties.

  He walked in, looked about him, flinched from the windows, a mere turning of his head. They wanted him to go into an office with windows. Paul Mason, the door said, President.

  "Mr. Tallfeather," someone said, trying to coax him. He turned his back to the windows.

  "He comes out here," he said, staring at the blank wall in front of him, the fancy wallpaper, the civic contribution citations. "He comes out to me."

  He stood there. Eventually someone came, and a hand rested on his shoulder. "The windows. I understand, Mr. Tallfeather. I'm terribly sorry. Paul Mason. I called you here. You want to walk back this way, please?"

  He walked, trembling, until they were in the hallway, in the safe, stone-veneer hall, and Mason drew him into a small windowless office, a desk, a few bookshelves, some chairs, immaculate, expensive. "Sit down," Mason urged him. "Sit down, Mr. Tallfeather."

  He did so, sank into a chair. A secretary scurried in with an offer of hot tea.

  "No," Johnny said quietly. "Please," Mason said. "Something else."

  "Tea," he said. The secretary left in haste. Mason sat in another chair, staring at him. . . a thin man, white-haired, with hard lines.

  "Mr. Tallfeather," Mason said. "I've been briefed on your case. My staff came across with it. I've heard what happened."

  "Heard," he echoed. Maybe there was still a craziness in his eyes. Mason looked uneasy.

  "It was a man of ours, George Bettin. That's as far as it went; you've followed the trial."

  He nodded, staring at Mason all the while.

  "ATELCORP has no legal liability—certainly no criminal fault—but we want to make amends for this. To do right by you."

  "To get the liners working again," he said bitterly.

  "That, too, Mr. Tallfeather. I think your case, more than the end of the trial—I think justice done on this level may do more to heal the breach. We want to offer you a position. This office. A job."

  "Only I stop talking. I stop saying what happened."

  "Mr. Tallfeather, the public welfare is at stake. You understand that; it's more than the project. The strike. . . is illegal. We can't have that."

  He sat still a moment. "Yes, sir," he said, very, very softly. Wiped at his face. He looked about him. "Thoughtful of you. No windows."

  "We're terribly sorry, Mr. Tallfeather. Our extreme condolences. Sincerely."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You just come to the office when you like. The door. . . doesn't go past the windows out there. You come when you like."

  "Doing what, Mr. Mason?"

  "We'll develop that."

  "And I don't talk about my sister; about my team."

  "We'd prefer not."

  "You're scared," he said.

  Mason's face went hard.

  "I'll take the job," he said. The tea had just arrived. Mason put on a smile and rose, offered him a hand and clapped him on a still-bruised shoulder. "Your own secretary, you choose from the pool. Anything you want in the way of decor. . ."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mason smiled, which was not a smile. The secretary stood there with the tea, and stepped aside as Mason left. Johnny walked over and took the tray, set it down himself. "That's enough," he said. "Go away."

  And that afternoon the press came, escorted by Mason.

  "What do you think of the investigation, Mr. Tallfeather?"

  "What was it like, Mr. Tallfeather?"

  He gave it to them, all the titillation the vid addicts could ask for, how it felt, dangling in air like that, watching the others die. He was steady; he was heroic, quiet, tragic; appealed for the liners to go to work, for an end to the civic agony.

  They left, satisfied; Mason was satisfied, smiled at him. Clapped him on the shoulder and offered him a drink. He took it, and sat while Mason tried to be affable. He was pleasant in turn. "Yes, Mr. Mason. Yes, sir."

  He went back to his office, which had no work, and no duties.

  He was back in the morning. Sat in his office and stared at the walls.

  Listened to vid. The liners went back to work. The strike was over. The whole City complex breathed easier.

  He stayed all the day, and left by his own door, when Mason left; used a liner's key to prep the service elevator; waited in the hall outside.<
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  "Mr. Mason."

  "Hello, Johnny."

  He smiled, walked to join Mason, and Mason looked uncomfortable there in the hall, the quite lonely hall, in front of ATELCORP'S big soundproof doors.

  "Want you to come with me," he said to Mason.

  "I'm sorry—" Mason started to say, headed for the doors.

  Johnny whipped the hand and the razor from his pocket, encircled his neck, let it prick just a little. "Just want you to come with me," he said. "Don't yell."

  Mason started to. The razor bit, Mason stopped, and yielded backward when he pulled him, down the hall, which at this time just before quitting time, with the Man in the hall—was very quiet.

  "You're crazy," Mason said.

  "Move." He jerked Mason backward, to the service elevator. Someone had come out. Saw. Darted back into the office. Mason started resisting and stopped at another nick.

  "Look here," Mason gasped. "You're sick. It won't go bad for you; a hospital stay, a little rest. . . the company won't hold grudges; I won't. I understand—"

  He dragged Mason backward into the lift; pushed TOP; and PRIORITY, with the key in. The door closed. The car shot up with a solid lift, that long, impossible climb. He let Mason loose, while he stood by the lift controls.

  Mason stood against the wall and stared at him.

  "I just want you," Johnny said ever so softly, "to go with me."

  Mason's lips were trembling. He screamed aloud for help. It echoed in the small car.

  "We have a head start," Johnny said. "Of course they'll come. But it takes the computers to override a service key. It'll take them a moment to realize that."

  Mason stood and shivered. The car rose higher and higher, lurched at last to a stomach-wrenching stop. The door opened on a concrete room, and he took Mason by the arm and walked him outside the car. It left again. "I think they've called it," he said calmly. Used his left hand to pull the hatch lever.

  The door slammed open, echoing; the wind hit them like a hammer blow, and Mason flinched. There was a wide balcony outside, heavy pipe from which lines were strung. Mason clung to the door and Johnny dragged him forward by the arm. All the world stretched about them in the twilight, and there was ice underfoot, a fine mist blowing, bitter cold, making muscles shake. Mason slipped, and Johnny caught his elbow, walked a step farther.

  "I can't go out on the lines," Johnny said. "Can't look out the windows. But company helps. Doesn't it?" He walked him far out across the paving, his eyes on the horizon haze, and Mason came, shivering convulsively within the circle of his left arm. The wind hit them hard, staggered them both, made them slip a little on the ice. His right side was numb. He kept his arm about Mason, walked to the very railing. "No view like it, Mr. Mason. I dream of it. It's cold. And it's far. Look down , Mr. Mason."

  Mason clutched at the railing, white-knuckled. Johnny let him go, moved back from him, turned and walked back toward the lift doors.

  The hatch opened. Police were there, with guns drawn. And they stayed within the doorway, leaned there, sickness in their eyes, hands clenched together on the levelled guns.

  He laughed, noiseless in the wind, motioned toward the edge, toward Mason. None of the police moved. The world was naked about them. The soaring height of the other towers was nothing to this, to the City itself, the great Manhattan tower. He grinned at them, while the wind leached warmth from him.

  "Go get him," he shouted at the police. "Go out and get him."

  One tried, got a step out, froze and fell.

  And slowly, carefully, holding up hands they could see as empty, he walked back to Mason, took his right hand and pried it from the icy rail; took the other, stared almost compassionately into a face which had become a frozen mask of horror, mouth wide and dried, eyes stark and wild. He put his arm about Mason like a brother, and slowly walked with him back to the police. "Mr. Mason," he said to them, "seems to have gotten himself out where he can't get back. But he'll be all right now." Mason's hands clung to him, and would not let go. He walked into the housing and into the lift with the police, still with his arm about Mason, and Mason clutched at him as the lift shot down. He smoothed Mason's hair as he had once smoothed Sarah's. "I had a sister," he said in Mason's ear. "But someone shut a door. On all of us. They'll convict Bettin, of course. And it'll all be forgotten. Won't it?"

  The lift stopped at a lower floor. The police pushed him out, carefully because of Mason; and there were windows there, wide windows, and the twilight gleaming on the other buildings on the horizon. Mason sobbed and turned his face away, holding to him, but the police pulled them apart; and Mason held to the wall, clung there, his face averted from the glass.

  "I don't think I want your job, Mr. Mason," Johnny said. "I'm going back out on the lines. I don't think I belong in your offices."

  He started to leave. The police stopped him, twisted his arm.

  "Do you really want me on trial?" he asked Mason. "Does the Mayor, or the Council?"

  "Let him go," Mason said hoarsely. The police hesitated. " Let him go." They did. Johnny smiled.

  "My lines won't break," he said. "There won't be any misunderstandings. No more jammed doors. I'll go back to the Bottom now. I'll talk where I choose. I'll talk to whom I choose. Or have me killed. And then be ready to go on killing. Dan Hardesty and the 50 East know where I am; and why; and you kill them and there'll be more and more to kill. And it'll all come apart, Mr. Mason, all the tower will come apart, the liners on strike; the Builders. . . no more cooling, no more water, no more power. Just dark. And no peace at all."

  He turned. He walked back into the lift.

  No one stopped him. He rode down through all the levels of the City, to the Bottom itself, and walked out into its crooked ways. Men and women stopped, turned curious eyes on him.

  "That's Johnny Tallfeather," they whispered. "That's him."

  He walked where he chose.

  There was peace, thin-stretched as a wire. The liners walked where they chose too; and the Builders; and the Residents stayed out of the lower levels. There was from all the upper floors a fearful hush.

  So the city grew.

  1981

  THE GENERAL

  (Peking)

  Man was old in this land. His dust was one with the dust which blew over the land, which had blown yellow and unstoppable from antiquity. . . which stained the great river and covered the land and settled again. The Forbidden City looked out on a land which moved, which shifted in this latter age of the world, beneath a lowering moon and the aging sun. Northward lay the vast ice sheet, but southern winds fended away that ancient enemy. Eastward lay the sea and southward the strangeness of the peninsulas and the isles; westward lay the plains, the endless plains, across which men and beasts moved again as they had moved in ages before. . . men wrapped and shielded against the sun, strange and shaggy as the beasts they rode.

  In the Forbidden City, life was abundant, sheltered by walls. There was beauty in the seasons, there was art from the cultivation of rare flowers to the intricate symbolism of gestures and nuances of dress; they had had time to grow elaborate and refined. The inhabitants named the city the City of Heaven and its beauty was beyond dreaming. It had soldiers. . . necessary when the impoverished plains tribes came with the winter winds, tribes which traded with them in good times, but which—rarely—turned, and beat themselves desperately and futilely against the walls.

  The interior, which raiders never saw, was tranquility. Even the soldiers who defended the city were armed with beauty; weapons were works of art; and those were the only outward show permitted, for the walls were plain. The interior was beautiful as the accumulated treasure of ages could make it. Not all the beauty was of gold and jewels and jade, although there was a great deal of such work; but the quiet, patient work of ordinary objects, a sense of place and permanence and above all of time. . . for while the City of Heaven was not the oldest in the Earth, still it was conscious of its passing years, and stored them up like tre
asures. It loved its age. It found life good. It found no great ambition, for it had been very long since its last outward motion; it rested at the end of days. Its quality now was patience, and meticulous loveliness, the contemplation of age and absorption in its private thoughts. Even the weather had been kind in the years of younger memory, only lately turning drier.

  Only the season finally came of the yellow wind, and the dust, the worst dust of living memory.

  Some whispered that it foretold a worse winter than any living had seen.

  Some whispered that it foretokened invasion, for the grass must be dry and the hordes would move, and war among themselves.

  But a tribe tamer than the others came for the season's trading and said, before departing again into the plains, that in the years of green grass and little dust, the hordes had multiplied, both man and beast; which meant greater numbers coming. And they told the City what the tribes had known for years, that the City had known peace because the hordes had massed for wars far to the west. . . that a single horde had dominated all the others, and a leader had risen, under whose horsetail banner all the hordes of the world-plain moved. They themselves, said the more peaceful tribe, prepared to go far away: so did all the friendly tribes, the city's friends, who could not resist such a force. But the city suspected otherwise, knowing that the tribes did not love them. It was mere rumor, they said in council, some clever trick to weaken then: courage when these very peaceful tribes ran out of trade goods and turned to brigandage.

  But the dust storms grew worse, and the tribes did vanish.

  The City of Heaven searched its records and its long memory in more earnest. Indeed all these signs were confirmed, that one thing tended to lead to the other: they ought to have mistrusted the green years and laid in greater store of weapons.

  Perhaps, some said now, they should call in the strangers their children, who would come with their machines and their starfarers' weapons and aid them to drive back the invaders.