This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  I put my head down on the table and cried. I had one of her hands in mine, under my head, and I bathed it with tears. I wept for all the evil in the world, for all those who labored and saw no end to their labors, for all those who suffered and saw no end to their suffering, for all those who went on living because their only other choice was death. I wept because I had met kindness for the first time.

  I felt a small hand on my head, smoothing my bristly hair gently. "Poor boy," she whispered. "What are you running from? Why are you running? Is it as terrible as all that?" Her voice was a soft thread of melody, weaving around and around me, insulating me in a soft cocoon of words and sympathy and gentle kindness.

  Laurie! I will never tell you the answer to those questions. You must never know, for the truth is a deadly thing.…

  Her hand stiffened on my head, pressing down firmly so that I couldn't lift. Instinctively, I tried to raise up; her hand pressed down harder. The room was suddenly as silent as space.

  "Don't move!" she whispered. "They're in the doorway, standing there, just like you did, searching the room. Maybe they'll go away if they don't find what they're looking for."

  "Who?" I whispered. "Who are they? Tell me!"

  "Agents," she breathed. "Three of them. Not imitations like you. They're the real thing, as deadly as coiled snakes. They haven't moved yet. Now they're looking this way." I felt her hand tremble. "What cold, black eyes!"

  "Who?" My voice was harsh and low. "Who is it? What does he look like?"

  "Dark—amused—cold. He has a big nose. Not a funny nose. A terrible nose."

  Sabatini! I shivered.

  "Don't move!" There was terror in her voice. Then she sighed. "They looked away. They're going to leave. No! The dark one has called them back. They're coming into the room!"

  I struggled to raise my head, but she would not let it come up. She lowered her face close to mine. I felt the silken touch of hair against my cheek. I felt the whisper of breath against my ear, sweet breath, breath coming fast.

  "Listen carefully. There's a door straight back from here. It opens into an alley. When you get a chance, go there quickly. Wait there for me, in the alley. I'm going to get Mike to come over here. Hit him! Hit him hard! But please—don't hurt him any more than you have to. Understand?"

  "Don't!" I said. "Don't get.…"

  She screamed. It was indignation and outrage. As she lifted her hand, my head came up. She slapped my face viciously. The new pain on the old burn brought tears back to my eyes. My teeth grated together.

  I felt a steel grip on my shoulder. Orange-and-blue was there, to my left. Here and there in the room, men were standing, looking toward us. Beyond them I caught a glimpse of black clothing.

  "You slimy sewer rat," Orange-and-blue said savagely. "You foul everything you touch. Why don't you stay with your own kind, where we won't be bothered by the smell of you? Now I'm going to break you in two with my bare hands." His hand tightened.

  As if moved by a volition of its own, my hand flicked the glass resting on the table. The dregs of the yellow wine splattered in his face. I stood up, tearing the table from the floor with my straightening legs, swinging my fist as I rose. It disappeared into the orange-and-blue belly with a solid, splatting sound. He folded in the middle, and his face looked pained and unhappy. His hand released my shoulder. I started to swing again, for his face, but I remembered Laurie and opened my fist and shoved him hard. He staggered back across the room, splintering the tables and chairs in his path, scattering men to either side.

  In a second the room was a melee of crunching fists and arms and feet. Women's screams split the air, the hoarse shouts and grunts of fighting men knit it heavily together again, the shattering of bottles and glasses was a kind of music. The thin, pungent odor of alcohol fumed up.

  I turned toward Laurie. Her blue eyes begged me. Her mouth shaped a single, silent syllable: Go.

  I turned. I went. For a moment a narrow aisle opened between struggling bodies, an aisle that led to the rear. I plunged through it, one shoulder thrust forward. Men bounced off the shoulder, back into the crazy montage of fists and flashes of color and torn, bleeding faces. I reached the door. I struggled with the lock for a moment, gave up, pulled. Wood splintered. The door swung open. I stepped out into the cool, quiet night and shut the door behind me on carnage and man's brutality.

  I breathed deeply for a moment, my back against the door.

  "Wait for me," Laurie had said. Wait? Wait here to bring death to you? Wait here like death to draw you close with bony arms and press your face with fleshless lips? Wait? No, Laurie. There may be peace and quiet here, but you are better off back there. Death is peace, too; death is quietness.

  The end of the alley was framed with lights. I started walking toward the lights, feeling cold and lonely and lost.

  Good-by, Laurie. Good-by.

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  Chapter Nine

  The dream was upon me like a smothering blanket. I writhed under it, helpless to change it, unable to wake. I dreamed about the running, the dark, the silence, and the fear, the feet that chased me, the burning of my hand, and the dropping of the coal and the shame and the emptiness…

  Both of them were there, Frieda and Laurie, first one and then the other, and sometimes fading together into one person who was both of them. Frieda would give me the egg-shaped crystal pebble, and I would try to hold it, tightly, but it would vanish and Laurie would give it to me again. And sometimes they would be together, friendly, and seem to whisper although I couldn't hear a sound, and they would look at me and smile or shake their heads or laugh. And Frieda faded away and then there was only Laurie.

  She sat upon a low, green hillock, strumming upon her stringed instrument, singing. I knew she was singing because I could see her mouth open and shut and her white throat swelling, but there was no sound. I held the pebble, and inside me was a living flame, strong and irreverent. With a final flourish of her hand, she finished and tilted her head back and raised her arms, spreading them wide, opening to me. I took a step toward her, struggling, because something held me back.

  Slowly, her yellow tunic began to peel away from her body like petals from the heart of a flower. She rose from the spreading petals, a thing of blinding beauty, white, slim, lovely, and infinitely desirable. I stumbled toward her on leaden feet, my hand stretched out to touch her. She leaned toward it…

  The strings on her instrument broke. They curled around her waist like live things.…My hand was crushing a slender white flower, and below, coiled around the stem, was a nest of writhing snakes…

  I woke with an overwhelming sense of shame and sin and bewilderment, wondering why I should dream these dreams, and yet caught up in them so strongly that it was hard to face reality again.

  Beneath me was a hard, smooth surface. I was lying on my back, and I could feel it slick under my hand. I opened my eyes. Sunlight streamed through a narrow window upon a clean, dark-red, plastic floor. I sat up. It was only a small room. There was a table in it, two chairs, and, in an alcove, a small stove and a cooler.

  Everything was old but spotlessly clean. I got slowly to my feet, remembering.…

  The light from the street had reached into the alley with probing fingers. I was only a few steps from the fingers when I heard a door open behind me and the running of light feet.

  "Wait!" a voice had whispered, drifting to me on the night wind. "Don't go out there! Wait!"

  Helplessly I had waited. I waited until she reached me. I let her put one hand on my arm and turn me around to face her. Standing beside her for the first time, I realized how small she was. Her dark head did not reach much above my chest. She scolded me angrily.

  "I told you to wait," she had said, scowling. "Men have no sense at all."

  "They were after me," I had said. "You knew that. If you're with me when they catch me or if they find out that you have helped me, they'll kill you. That would be the kindest thing they'd do."
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  "Killing!" She had made a wry, disgusted face.

  "Let me go," I had pleaded. "Things happen to people when I'm around them. Bad things. Don't get mixed up in it."

  "But I am mixed up in it. Where are you going?"

  I shrugged. If I had known of any place that would have satisfied her, I would have lied.

  "Come with me, then. You can't sleep in the street."

  She had turned and marched off. Helplessly, I followed her. She led me through narrow alleys and down dark streets, up unsuspected steps and through empty warehouses that rustled with secret scurryings. She was careful but not over-cautious. She knew where she was going and how to get there.

  She spoke only once. "Why do they want you?"

  "They want something they think I have."

  "Do you have it?"

  I couldn't lie. "Not on me. I know where it is."

  "Who does it belong to? Them?"

  "No."

  "Who, then? You?"

  "I don't know. Maybe to me. Maybe to no one. Maybe to anyone."

  "But not to them."

  "Never to them!"

  She had nodded then, a white blur in the darkness. She had said nothing more until she led me up the narrow steps on the outside of the building, through the door, into this kitchen. She had pulled heavy curtains across the windows and turned on a small light. Only then did I notice that the instrument she had been carrying in her hand was smashed, the strings dangling loosely.

  "It's broken," I had said stupidly.

  She had smiled at it ruefully. "It can be mended. Quicker than some of the heads that were broken tonight."

  "Because of me."

  She had hesitated. "Because of you. I thought it was the right thing to do."

  "You were wrong."

  She had smiled at me. "It's too early to say. Are you hungry? I can fix something."

  I shook my head.

  "Then we should get some rest. You look exhausted."

  I had realized then how very tired I was. I looked around the room.

  She nodded at the door and looked at me curiously. "There's only the one bed—"

  "I'll sleep here on the floor. I've slept worse places." I remembered the oversoftness of Siller's beds.

  Her smile had been almost shy. "All right. Good night." She went to the outside door, pushed a bolt into place, turned, and walked quickly to the bedroom door.

  As she hesitated there, I remembered something. "You don't even know my name."

  She had turned. "That's right. I don't."

  "It's William. William—"

  "That's enough. Good night, William."

  "Good night," I had said softly.

  After the door closed behind her, it had been very quiet, I listened for a long time. But after she had closed the door, she had not touched it again. The door between us remained unlocked.

  A blanket was on the floor. I must have tossed it off during the restless night. She had come out in the darkness to cover me. I pictured her, standing above me to lower the blanket gently over my body and silently returning to bed.

  I gritted my teeth. I had let her help me. I had put her into danger as deadly as my own. But that wasn't enough. One thing the dream had told me I could understand. I must get away from here, now, before she woke.

  Quickly, quietly, I walked to the outside door. Silently I snicked back the bolt, swung the door open.…

  "Where are you going?" Laurie said reproachfully.

  I turned, slowly. She was standing in the bedroom doorway, a white robe wrapped close around her throat, falling straight almost to the floor. With her sleep-filled eyes and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders, she looked like a little girl.

  It was no easier to lie to her now than it had been last night. "I was going to leave before you woke up. That would have been rude. Safer but rude. Good-by, Laurie. I won't waste time trying to thank you for what you did for me. Words can't even suggest how much I owe you, how grateful I am."

  "Don't be silly," she said, tossing her head back. "You can't leave now. They'll be watching for you."

  "They'll always be watching for me," I said slowly. "So it doesn't matter when I leave. But every minute I'm here increases the danger to you."

  She frowned. "Come back," she said imperiously. "Sit down!" She motioned to one of the straight wooden chairs.

  Reluctantly, I came back. I sat down. She went into the alcove and opened the cooler door. She took out a ham and a handful of eggs and some cold, boiled potatoes. Over half the meat had been cut neatly away.

  "Don't you think it's strange," she said, "that wherever you go, on any world, you'll find pigs and chickens and potatoes?"

  She looked at me out of the corners of her eyes as she cut thin slices from the ham and dropped them into a skillet on the stove.

  "I didn't know that," I said.

  "It's true. There are other animals and vegetables that are native only to one or two planets, but pigs and chickens and potatoes are everywhere. And there are men everywhere. And men can intermarry with women from other worlds and have children, and the pigs and chickens and the others that are universal can mate, but none of the rest. Isn't that strange?"

  "Yes," I said, wondering what she meant.

  The ham sizzled and fried. Into another skillet she put butter, and cracked eggs into it. She diced the potatoes in with the ham. "How do you explain it?" she asked.

  I frowned. "I guess there's only one explanation. Men must have come from one planet originally. They spread out to the other worlds from there, and they took the pigs and chickens and potatoes with them."

  She turned, her face glowing. Perhaps it was from the heat of the stove. "You see that, then. It's clear, isn't it? And yet I can't find anyone, hardly, who will admit it. They'd rather distrust each other and let themselves hate aliens than admit that we all are related." She shook her head.

  "Was that why you sang those songs?" I asked. "That's what they meant?"

  She smiled. "You're the first man who ever accused me of being subtle." She turned back to the stove, humming, and then began to sing in her clear girl-voice.

  'I knew a man on Arcadee.

  I knew a few on Brancusee.

  And Lord! they were all men to me

  No matter what men say…'

  "That's what Jude says in The Book of the Prophet," I said, musing. "Not in the same words, but it's Church doctrine—"

  "You're from the Church, then." She turned quickly. "I should have guessed. Had you taken orders?"

  I shook my head.

  She heaped up two plates and brought them to the table. "And you came out of the monastery into the world. It must have been a terrible shock."

  My jaw tightened. I didn't say anything.

  "All right," she said. "Let's eat."

  Slowly I relaxed. I took a bite. The ham was delicious. It was hot and tender, and the eggs weren't cooked hard, just enough so that the white was firm. The potatoes were brown and crusty. I ate hungrily, looking across the table at Laurie, thinking how wonderful it would be to sit across from Laurie every morning, to eat the food she cooked, to listen to her effortless singing, to watch her expressive face.…

  "You've been on other worlds?" I said quickly.

  "A few."

  "Are they as bad as Brancusi?"

  "Bad?" She turned the word over in her mind, looking at it from all sides, weighing it. "If you mean hard, cruel, unjust—"

  I nodded.

  "Some of them are worse, and some of them are a little better, but not much."

  "Why?" I asked. "What's the reason for all the evil in the galaxy? Is it God's will? Is it there to test people for a better world after death, to purify their souls by fire? Or is it because men are basically evil?"

  Laurie shook her head. "I don't believe it."

  "Which?"

  "Either. If there is a God, he wouldn't be concerned with anything so petty as testing individual souls. He could do that without all this s
uffering. And people aren't bad. They're good. But they get all confused because they can't understand each other, because words can't express enough, and they can't trust even those closest to them."

  "But if people aren't born evil, how do they get that way?"

  "They're afraid of getting hurt, and they build up a wall around themselves for protection. They build themselves a fortress and sit inside it, sheltered and afraid. Afraid that someone will break in and find them there, see them as they really are, alone and helpless. For then they can be hurt, you see. When they are naked and defenseless. We're a whole galaxy of worlds, revolving endlessly, never touching, crouched within our fortresses, alone, always alone."

  "If we could only tear the walls down, all at once, and everyone could see everyone else, a man like themselves, hoping for kindness and fearing a blow." It was a stunning vision, and I sat there entranced by it.

  When I looked up, Laurie's eyes were filled with tears. "You're right," she whispered. "It would be wonderful."

  We finished our breakfast in silence. Finally I shoved back my plate and got up. "The food was delicious, Laurie. It's been beautiful, knowing you. But I've got to leave. I've stayed too long already."

  "I won't let you go until I know where you're going," she said firmly.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I'll try to leave the city. Maybe I can hide away in some village."

  She shook her head, frowning. "You couldn't leave the city without being caught. They found you last night, and they'll be watching for you. And even if you got outside, you couldn't hide. The serfs are wary of strangers. They'd turn you in."

  "The city's big. I'll find a hiding place in it somewhere."

  "You don't know it or the people. You don't know the way the city thinks. You'd have to trust someone, sometime. You'd be sure to trust the wrong person. And the nets are spread out. You'd fall into one of them."

  "What can I do?" I asked helplessly.

  "I can find you a safe place," Laurie said eagerly. "I can bring you food. You can't stay here. It's too public. But I could find a place you could hide until they got tired of looking. I have friends who would help me—"