Triton

by Samuel Delany

  “Yes!” Bron said. “Thank you!” Hanging up, he turned, angrily, from the phone.

  The little redhead (who’d made noises about sharing a transport compartment back into Tethys) was the only one waiting.

  “Seems I just got a letter from my girlfriend,” Bron explained, realizing as he did so that it might just as easily be (in fact he hoped it was) an official apology from the Earth enforcement-girls (or whatever the hell they called them there) about the way he had been treated. “But they seem to have sent it on ahead by accident.” An apology from the Spike? He smiled. Well, it was to be expected. But really, he didn’t feel she’d done that much to apologize for. “I’ll have to stop off and pick up the letter. I really enjoyed those games. I guess we’ll be running into each other again—Tethys isn’t that big a city, and once you meet someone, you practically can’t get away from them.”

  “We probably won’t,” the redhead said with a mischievous smile. “I don’t live in Tethys.”

  “Oh,” Bron said. “I thought you said you lived in a—oh, you mean your co-op isn’t in the city.”

  “That’s right.” And the redhead began to talk animatedly about something else, till they reached the transport. “Oh, and may I ask you a mildly embarrassing favor: Could you pay my fare with one of your to—

  kens. It’s only half a franq on your credit; I know it seems silly but—”

  “Oh, sure,” Bron said, opening his purse and fingering around for his half-franq token. He pushed the coin-shape into one of the change slots beside the entrance. (There was still some leftover money; but Sam seemed to have forgotten about it.) The green light flashed, and the token rolled out again into Bron’s palm.

  “Thank you,” the redhead said, and walked through the gate.

  Bron put the token in again; the light flashed again; again the token was returned (and somewhere two fares were billed against his labor credits on some highly surveyed government tape); returning the token to his purse, he followed the redhead onto the transport platform, constructing schemes of paranoid complexity about why the redhead might not want his presence in the city known. After all, basic transportation was a nonrefusable (what the dumb earthies would call “welfare”) credit service.

  They rode a while together. Then the redhead said good-bye and got off. (Bron’s fantasies had gone to the other extreme by now: the redhead was probably just a skinflint credit cadger. Ex-Intelligence indeed!) Bron realized as the doors closed that actually he had no idea at all where the man lived (in some other city? on some other moon?); he didn’t even know his name. Had he actually said he was living in the homosexual co-op, or just that someone had been living there? It had all been too artfully ambiguous. Forget it! Bron thought: Oh, forget it; he stood up, while the floor swayed, and went to stand at the doors. If he was going to pick up his letter at a postal outlet, before he got home, he’d better do it here:

  The transport pulled into the Plaza of Light Station.

  He expected his letter to be flashed in the viewing screen above the card slot (since there was a viewing screen). Instead, a larger slot at knee-level slowly extruded the black and gold edging of a space-mail enve—

  lope. He pulled it out the last inch. (Inside, something chunked] reproachfully.) Across the gray flimsy, covering one corner of his identity number, large pink letters proclaimed:

  GOVERNMENT FACSIMILE

  In the lefthand corner it said: “Gene Trimbell (the Spike)” but instead of an identity number beneath it (which would contain her mail-routing code, wherever she was in the Solar System), there was an old-fashioned return address:

  Lahesh, Mongolia 49-000-Bl-pz

  Asia, Earth.

  Bron picked up his card and crossed the lobby, mistily mosaicked with ornate light-shapes from the colored glass wall across from him. He went out the arch, onto the Plaza, found a bench and sat. Across from him sat two very nervous-looking women (one of whom was naked). The Plaza, as usual at this time in the afternoon, was almost deserted. He opened the envelope by small pinches, unfolded the letter (stamped across the top, in the same pink: GOVERNMENT FACSIMILE). He recognized the erratically punctuated, ill-capitalized print of a first draft from a voice-scripter. Given the badly-aligned, heavily serifed type, it was probably a very old voice-scripter, too. Leaning forward on his knees, he read:

  Bron, and then I guess you better put a colon no a dash—the world is a small place italicize is. And moons are even smaller. Running into you like that out here made me realize how italics small. In a small world when you get that unpleasant choice of being blunt or well mannered, after you’ve tried manners and that doesn’t seem to work I guess you have to be blunt period bluntly comma I don’t want to have an affair with you semicolon I don’t even particularly want to be your friend period paragraph.

  If it were seven o’clock in the evening instead of two in the morning I would just sign it there and send it but it is two o’clock in the morning with real moonlight coming over the Lahesh mountains and doing marvelous things to the rain that’s been falling against the window for the last three minutes dash wouldn’t you know, it just stopped dash and real crickets somewhere in the eaves dash a time that lends itself to hopefully quiet and presumably rational explanations semicolon and perhaps the illusion that, however painful initially, those explanations might help.

  What do I want to explain?

  That I don’t like the type of person you are. Or that the type of person I am won’t like you. Or just: I italics don’t. Do I have the colon in there? Yes.

  And it isn’t all that altruistic, by any means. I’m angry—at the Universe for producing a person like you—and T v/ant to rake up coals. I want them to burn. What frustrates me is that—and it became apparent tonight—is that you do italics adhere to some kind of code of good manners, proper behavior, or the right thing to do, and yet you are so emotionally lazy that you are incapable of implementing the only valid reason that any such code ever came about: to put people at ease, to make them feel better, to promote social communion. If you ever achieve that, it’s only to the credit of whoever designed the behavior code a hundred years back. The only way you seem to be able to criticize your own conduct parenthesis at one point I watched the thought march across your face; you aren’t very good at hiding vour feelings; and people like that simplv cannot afford to count on appearances close parenthesis that vour version of the code was ten years out of date. Which is to so monumentally miss the point I almost wanted to cry.

  But again I am being hopelessly abstract.

  I paragraph.

  do not paragraph.

  like paragraph.

  you because: I was offended at your assumption that just because I was in the theater I would automatically like your homosexual friend: I was amused/ angered at your insistence in talking about yourself all the time and at your amusement-to-anger that I should ever want to talk about me. I thought your making Miriamne lose her job was horrible. She finally decided there must be mitigating circumstances. Of the three explanations I could come up with, the most generous is that you thought she was involved with me and it was some weird sort of jealousy. I won’t even explain the other two. All three make you an awful person. Yes, I did enjoy going out with you to the restaurant this evening and actually getting a chance to talk. But—the least offense, still, maybe it’s the fatal straw on the back of the camel—having to fight somebody off physically who wants to make out with you when you don’t want to is something I had a fair amount of tolerance for when I was twenty (and how many times did it happen to me then? Three? Five? Five and a half?). I’m thirty-four and I don’t now. At least not from people my own age! Yes, you are my type, which is why we got as far as we did. I’ve only met one other person in my life even vaguely like you dash not my type dash but another man from Mars and into metalogics wouldn’t you know. But that was so long ago I’d almost forgotten.

  Emotionally lazy?

  What’s the difference between that a
nd emotionally injured? Emotionally crippled? Emotionally atrophied? Maybe it isn’t your fault. Maybe you weren’t cuddled enough as a baby. Maybe you simply never had people around to set an example of how to care. Maybe because you quote feel you love me unquote you feel I should take you on as a case. I’m not going to. Because there are other people, some of whom I love and some of whom I don’t, who need help too and, when I give it, it seems to accomplish something the results of which I can see. Not to mention things I need help in. In terms of the emotional energies I have, you look hopeless. You say you love me.

  And yes, I have loved others and I know what it feels like: when you love someone, you want to help them in any way you can. Do you want to help me? Then just stay out of my life and leave me alone and// Hey what are you doing, huh?// Writing a letter, come on go back to sleep// How was your evening out at the Craw?// It was okay, now goodnight, please// Hey, look—why don’t you just get rid of him, just say get lost I mean: for someone you keep insisting you like so much you’ve spent more hours agonizing over all the things he’s done that tear you up than you have about your last three productions// That’s what I was just doing now go back to sleep I said// Tell him it’s over// I said that’s what I just did// Oh, hey, now, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t um your letter there looks pretty first-drafty, I mean I’ll put it through the corrector for you if you want and// Is that damned thing still on oh for// Look I’ll run it through and you can lie down and get some sleep// No, don’t bother, I’m sending it like it is, I just don’t have the

  Which was all there was.

  The first paragraph had produced a sort of stunning chill. He read the rest numbly—not so much with a feeling of recognition, but as if he were reading about something he’d overheard that had happened to someone else. He finished the last paragraph wondering harder and harder whether it was Charo or Windy she was talking to (somehow it seemed important to know); then the frustration suddenly overturned. What the hell had she been saying to them about him anyway? Not to mention the rest of the company? Anger welled. The type of person he was? He knew her type! Where did she come off presuming he’d had anything personal to do with that crazed lesbian’s dismissal? Everyone was being laid off. Even him Didn’t she realize everything was coming apart? There was a war on! And taking offense because he’d wanted to introduce her to a guy who was probably his best friend! And fighting him off physically? Well, then, he thought: If you don’t want somebody to proposition you, make it clear in the first place! And that nonsense about “agonizing”: who did he have to agonize to? He’d been arrested; and practically tortured—practically? He had been tortured! And had he agonized to her about what had been done to him (That crap about not being able to hide his feelings! He’d certainly kept that to himself!) She was some dumb actress who probably hadn’t ever had a real emotion in her life!

  And he’d loved someone like that?

  Now that was crazy! How could anyone sane love such a shallow, and presumptuous, and worthless, and conceited ...

  Breathing harder, he launched into the letter again. The first part? This time it just seemed crazy from the start. She must be crazy! First off, if she really thought he had done all those things she accused him of in the second part, why would she have spent any time with him at all? Obviously she couldn’t believe the things she’d said. Why say them, then? Why even suggest them? She was crazy and vicious! That simpering drivel about moonlight and helping others. (And then she’d elbowed him off to go crawling up into bed with someone she could tell how awful he was!) How could he possibly have gone all gooey for someone so obviously deranged and sick as—

  Which is when the women in clothes on the bench across from his stood up, staggered a step forward, grasped her throat, and made a strangled sound.

  Bron looked up, dragged a great breath in on top of his anger: it did nothing to relieve him. And his ears were painfully stopped.

  Somewhere across the Plaza, someone screamed.

  Then he felt a breeze on his neck that grew. And grew. And grew. And grew—Bron suddenly staggered erect. The war he thought. It must be the ... ! The gale behind him pushed him three steps forward. The letter was snatched away, chattering. It hurled, like a slab of gray slate, against the transport station’s kiosk, which, as if from the letter’s impact, sagged. A piece of the kiosk roofing came off and spun away, bouncing over the Plaza, hit one man, who went down on his knees clutching his head, and shattered a shop window.

  And the other kiosk walls were down, were tearing away, were skidding across the concourse.

  And it was getting dark.

  Staggering in the gale, Bron looked up. The shield’s colors, in patches, were fading to black—a black that was suddenly emptier than any he’d ever seen. The date-lights around the Plaza had gone off too. And the stars—! (A quarter of the sky was dark; more than a quarter!) They looked like the bright tips of long needles, shoved down at him, inches close. And the roaring! Somewhere something was gathering and pulling itself up and then ... it tore loose! Bron was shoved backward. His knees hit the bench; he fell, grabbing the seat, felt something strike the bench hard enough to rattle it. He threw himself down to clutch the ground. Something else hit the bench and shattered. Bron’s eyes snapped open in the stinging wind.

  Somewhere people ran and shouted. Then the wind’s roar wedged between them and him; the bench shook above him. One end swung loose. And Bron stood; and ran. The gale growing on his left changed his course, in half a dozen steps, nearly ninety degrees, then sent him sprawling to his knees and palms. He pushed to his feet, took another step and—fell ... in slow motion, while, the air was yanked from his lungs. His face and eyes and ears burned. He flailed onto the ground that heaved, slowly, under him; and broke open (he felt it) not far off.

  Then all the air dropped, roaring, back down. The pavement under his palm parted—just a little. Little things struck his cheeks, ears, legs, and hands. His eyes were slits. And he was up and running. Had something hit his hip? It hurt miserably. He ran, hurting.

  Lights, here and there, in his streaming eyes, lit fragments of an unreal city. He stopped. The wind was raging but—he realized suddenly—not around him. Somewhere far away something immense fell and took a long time doing it.

  Some dozen people suddenly ran around him—and he turned watching them—making for a doorway. He ran again. The street became rubble under his feet. At first he thought the ground had shattered. No, only the

  (he stumbled on lengths of plastistrut, broken styro-plate, and crumbling foam) wall of the building beside him had fallen. He stepped on a piece of tilted styro-plate, that shifted. He looked down. An arm stuck out from under it—which made him stop.

  It must have been a design-house mannequin or possibly an—

  The hand, palm up, suddenly, made a fist (with ir-ridescent, multihued nails). Bron ran.

  Twenty yards later he stopped, turned: Go back, he thought. I’ve got to go back ...

  He heard them first, then saw them, crossing at the corner—maybe twenty, maybe fifty. They broke around him.

  Then one grabbed him, spun him: “You fool! You damned fool! You can’t go that way!” she shouted in his face. “That’s the direction the break is in,” then lurched on. So did Bron, wondering exactly what had broken, and where it was. He was terrified, with a chill, blunt terror that made his throat and the backs of his knees ache.

  Ahead, people were stopping.

  Someone said loudly: “Not through here! I’m sorry! Not through here!”

  People milled. Between them he saw the cordon of e-girls across the way. (The one calling was a woman.) People pressed behind him.

  “You can’t go into this area! It’s too dangerous. Now got back!”

  Some people, with looks of frustration, were starting to the right or left.

  Bron started right—the street sign (here in the licensed part of the city, where the coordinate numbers were green) told him he was two units from his co-op; which
surprised him; he hadn’t known he’d come that far.

  Following the street he was on, however, would take him into the unlicensed sector—which suddenly seemed the most ridiculous thing imaginable: The middle of a military crisis was not the time to go wandering around the u-1! (The wind was up again, but at a steady pitch—which, when you thought about it, was scarier in its implications than a sudden gust that stopped.) No, it just wasn’t the—

  He heard them, nearing; people started to move back, but Bron edged forward. The idea was neither complete nor verbal. He experienced it merely as a yearning to go home, without intellection as to method or its goal.

  Trying to unravel the web of sound into their syllabic chains, he gained the crowd’s edge.

  The mumblers, ragged and bowed, shuffled up in quarter light.

  Anticipating embarrassment, he stepped forward, shouldered among them, closed his eyes (The smell! he thought, astonished. He’d forgotten the sour, unwashed smell!), bent his head, and began to shuffle with them. He commenced his Mimimomomizolalil ... but, a dozen syllables in, got lost; so, in time to his shushing sandals, he rolled his tongue through whatever nonsense came. Once, between squeezed lids, he glanced to the side to see eyes in a scaly face close: the woman recommenced mumbling. So did Bron. And shuffled.

  The feeling was of lightness, almost of joy, of reasons and responsibilities, explanations and expiations shrugged off, abandoned. Is this, he thought (knowing a true mumbler should not be thinking), what I ought to have been doing all this time? Was he simply the sort of fool for whom it took some bellicose catastrophe to bring him to enlightment? He mumbled his nonsense, tried not to breathe through his nose, and thought: I will become a novice! I will study, I will renounce the sensory world for the blind trip toward eternity. Something else fell to the right.