A for Anything

by Damon Knight

  His father merely cocked an eyebrow at him, and motioned to Blashfield to get his men aboard.

  “Well, what are we afraid of?” Dick demanded. “Uncle George? Listen, Dad, if it’s all the same to you—”

  The Man turned. “Yes?”

  “I’m not a baby,” said Dick.

  “Richard,” said his father slowly, “you have led a somewhat sheltered life. I agree that you are not a baby; but being a man means more than fighting one duel. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I suppose so,” said Dick.

  “Meaning that you don’t. You’ll be on your own soon enough, and able to make your own mistakes. Perhaps you should have had that freedom earlier. But until then, you will do as I suggest. Here comes your mother now; go and say good-by to her.”

  Dick looked up; she was just emerging from the covered passage. The light scent she used enveloped him; her kiss was cool and undemanding as always. “Good-by, dear Dick.”

  After her came Adam, burning-eyed, with Constance and Felix breathless beside him. Ad was carrying something square wrapped in silk; he pressed it into Dick’s hand. “It’s a present,” he said. “A memory book. Padgett helped us pick the quotations, and Litts bound it—we thought he’d never finish in time.”

  “I told him what designs to make,” said Constance. “Dick, I hope you like the binding, and everything. Will you send me some enamels for my collection?” Her color was high; she looked about to burst into one of her meaningless fits of tears.

  The Man urged him toward the gangway. The dyne engine was warmed and idling; the wash from its underjet steamed out around them. “I know how you feel,” the Man said in his ear, “better than you think. When you get to Eagles—” he pressed a thin envelope into Dick’s hand—“give this to a man named Leon Ruell. Have you got that?”

  “Ruell,”Dick repeated.

  “That’s right. He’ll explain things better to you than I can.” To Dick’s astonishment and discomfort, there were signs of emotion in the Man’s face. They gripped hands; then the Man pushed him up the gangway. Stooping, he entered the cabin. Padgett had left room for him next to the door; Blashfield and the guards were ranked behind. The pilot, a stolid young slob named Otto, turned in his high seat to wait for orders.

  The gangway was being trundled off. Looking through the open doorway, Dick could see his father standing erect, his clothes rippling in the jet-wash. Around him the family stood waiting; there was Miss Molly, late as usual, with Edward in her arms; too bad, he had wanted to say good-by to Eddie—; and the Rev. Dr. Hamper had turned up from somewhere, and Dr. Scope, and Sim the stableboy.. ..

  With the low sun gilding their faces, they all looked like strangers. It was as if there were a wall of colored glass beyond the doorway, and they had all got on the wrong side.

  Otto was looking questioningly down at him. Dick raised his hand; Otto turned, and the door closed. The sighing rush of the jet grew heavier; there was a whine and racket as the internal props cut in. Slowly and steadily, the dyne began to lift.

  Looking now through the cabin window, Dick saw the ground drop away. The people grew foreshortened, their heads craned upward, hands went to brows. The landing field slipped aside. The lawn had a new, thick greenness as it opened out, spread itself like a carpet; now he could see all the familiar corners at once, as if by some unlawful and magical vision. There was the little strip of lawn between the house and the bridle path, with the old sundial and the birdbath in the middle: how many long afternoons had not that sundial and birdbath bounded his universe! Looking down, he could see every familiar unevenness in the ground; it was like looking into the past, and he stared, fascinated and uneasy.

  Now the rooftops of the house itself drew back; he could see the bluish sheen of the slates, drying under the sunlight, and the birds’ nests in the gutters; he saw the soot-blackened mouths of the chimneys gaping to heaven, and the towers’ empty heads. Now the house fell away, the earth opened out around it, and for a moment Buckhill lay spread nakedly below him: the stables, the games courts, the glen, everything, all in its hidden proportion. Dwindling, dimming, it was a relief map, a model of a country he had dreamed about. Those tiny dots of color were people, standing on the lawn; he could not even guess which. Then even the dots winked out, the house was swallowed up, and there was nothing but the wooded hill, streaming with violet shadow, receding.

  Chapter Seven

  A little before six they were crossing the Allegheny Plateau south of the ancient city of Pittsburgh—detouring, Dick judged, so as to stay out of sight of the great houses that clustered more thickly to northward. Once into the plain, they turned still more to the south, more than seemed sensible; but Dick let the matter go. He ate without appetite from the tray Padgett served him; he felt numbed and listless. The one burst of anger had been his last. The image of Cashel’s falling body was still with him; he worried at it absently, as if it were an old sore tooth gone dead at the root.

  Past the Mississippi the wild country began, thousands of square miles of nothing but grass, rippling in the wind like an endless yellow-green sea. It was hypnotic and disturbing; Dick found himself overwhelmed by the sheer brutal size of the world. From their height, the great plain had a perceptible curvature; clear and bright in the sun, it looked as if they could reach down and touch it; and yet he knew that those clustered black dots, almost invisible, must be men or animals…

  “Bison,” said Padgett with interest, peering down through a pair of binoculars. “Quite a good-sized herd. And there’s a hunting party—Comanches, probably.”

  He passed the binocular to Dick. Staring down at the suddenly magnified scene, he could see the dusty brown backs humping along like a living avalanche; flights of birds exploded ahead of them from the grass, and an occasional frantically tossing head of deer or antelope zigzagged away to either side. Behind them came the hunters, round black heads over the manes of the horses. Dick saw two or three rifles; the rest of the party were armed with bows. The bobbing forms were tiny and doll-like, unreal in their silence: for one moment Dick could amost imagine himself astride the plunging body, dust hot in his nostrils, the drumming of hooves in his bones … then it was gone. The tiny figures raced backward, lost in another dimension.

  The sun rose with torturous slowness; the morning seemed to take forever. Unused to sitting still so long, Dick felt his muscles beginning to cramp. Padgett sat placidly beside him, eyes bright with interest. He was too well trained to speak when not spoken to, but Dick could tell that the stream of informative comment was running along just the same in his neat gray head. If they passed over a ruined city, visible like a pale scar through the earth that had mounded it over, Padgett would know or conjecture which one it was, and could tell you who founded it, and many curious and edifying incidents in its history. He knew the names of mountains and rivers, where the old state lines had run, which half-visible tracks were railroads, which highways.

  “Padgett,” said Dick, “do you think there’s going to be a feud?”

  The tutor looked at him gravely. “There was a similar case,” he said, “I remember, in the Carolinas, some thirty or thirty-five years ago. One cousin was said to have drowned the other in Port Royal Sound; of course, the elder branch claimed it was an accident. The following year, there were three or four more deaths from duels between the two branches of the family, and I believe one man shot from ambush. The Columbia House Bretts, and the Pamlico Bretts. I don’t suppose you ever heard of them; the male line is extinct, if I am correct.” When Dick was silent, he added, “Of course, that was some time back, but I would say it could happen. Your family has a certain reputation for hot-head-ness.”

  Dick felt a flush warming his cheekbones; he almost welcomed it as a relief from the numbness. “I don’t care what you think,” he said. “I’d do the same thing again.”

  “Oh, well,” said Padgett, unabashed, “it may very well have been the best thing you could have done. For the time bein
g, at least; in the long run, no one can say.”

  Dick looked at him curiously. “How’s that?”

  “Reputation is everything in a place like Eagles. I imagine the rumors will be flying ahead of you; it isn’t every youngster who comes to Eagles fresh from his first mankilling. And of course, while you’re there, you’ll be relatively safe from reprisals; however, at the same time, a young man with a reputation has to maintain it. On the whole,” said Padgett, leaning back in his familiar summing-up attitude, “I’d say your chances have been widened, in both directions, by the duel … Ah! There they are; aren’t they beautiful?” He leaned forward again, gazing raptly out the window. “I’ve always wanted to live in the Rockies.”

  Floating toward them from the horizon, the first phalanx of mountains stood up bare-headed; not like Pennsylvania’s gentle hills, they sprawled peaked and blue-violet, with patches of late snow on the upper slopes. Dick stared, fascinated. Closer, he could see the black parallel lines of burnt tree-trunks against a slope of bluish white snow, like stubble on a pale chin. Closer still, the mountains grew steeper and more desolate until they were flying through a high gorge between two ranges of cloud-veiled peaks. The river, serpentine down below, was a thin silver ribbon in the softness of the green valley; the crags above were majestic, naked rock keen in the wind. And as they flew, at the head of the valley loomed the tallest peak of all, with a gleam and glitter of buildings at its summit.

  There were striations of ivory and blue, knife-edges of brass, glints of jade green, saffron, cocoa brown. Level after level rose to cover the peak, like a many-colored hat on a giant’s head, and at the top it blossomed into pure fantasy—pinnacles, minarets, domes, and one incredible shape, a skeletal golden tower that disappeared in the turbulent clouds high overhead.

  “Eagles,” said Padgett, and fell silent again.

  The mountain loomed higher still; the fantastic city tilted its face upward. They were losing altitude, dropping toward the foot of the mountain, where Dick could see a scattering of buildings, like something spilled from the heights. “Why aren’t we landing at the top?” he asked.

  “It’s the updraft. They heat the whole mountain top, and I suppose they’re not too careful about insulation; anyhow, at this altitude, it makes quite a powerful ascending current of air. Notice the clouds, how they break and boil up just overhead. You couldn’t land a plane there—or drop a bomb, either, for that matter. You’ll go up by the funicular.” He pointed, and Dick for the first time noticed a line of suspended cables that swooped up the mountainside. One car was crawling up as he watched, another descending.

  Up forward, the radio was muttering at Otto. They leveled off and hovered until a flock of small copters got out of the way, then lowered to one of the small landing areas that were clustered on either side of the central runway system. The almost inaudible howl of the jet and props cut off, leaving a ringing silence.

  An armed, uniformed man boarded the dyne almost as soon as the door was open; his speech was so good that Dick answered a whole series of mildly insulting questions, taking him for a person, before he noticed the green tattoo on his forehead, half hidden by the visor of his cap. The fellow was a slob; and he had coolly demanded—and received—Dick’s sidearm. Sputtering with indignation, Dick was about to demand the gun back, but the cautionary pressure of Padgett’s hand stopped him.

  Other places, other customs, Dick remembered. “Come on, Padgett,” he said, getting up, “you can say good-by to me at the cable-cars, anyhow.”

  “I would not advise it,” said the uniformed guard. “They would stop him at the next check point, and then there might be a little trouble. He could not accompany you as far as the funicular, in any case. These, incidentally—” he waved toward Blashfield and the rest of the guard, sitting glumly silent in the rear of the cabin—”being armed, must stay in the dyne.”

  “Good-by, misser Dick,” called Blashfield gruffly.

  “Good-by,” said Padgett, pressing his hand. Dick saw with surprise that the old man’s eyes were moist; “God guard you,” said the tutor, huskily, and stepped back.

  “Now if you will, young mister—” the guard was saying. Dick stepped down. Slobs in white coveralls were unloading the dyne’s luggage compartment, trundling the bags away on handcarts. The guard led him away in a different direction; two others in the same uniform, armed with semi-automatics, fell in behind.

  “Where are they going with my things?” Dick asked, pointing.

  “To inspection. Everything will be returned to you in good order. Now if you will step in here—”

  “Here,” was a low stucco building in which Dick was fluoroscoped, fingerprinted, examined by a dentist who tapped all his fillings, and given an identity bracelet, which, he later discovered, was locked on and could not be opened.

  Sobered and with much to think about, he found himself half an hour later standing on the glassed-in platform of the funicular railway, waiting for the down car to arrive. On the platform were three of the omnipresent, gray-uniformed airport guard, plus half a dozen people—sunburned men in big, gold-trimmed white hats, two pretty women in flimsy dresses, a bearded man in a turban, carrying a briefcase.

  When the car came down—an archaic-looking thing, painted black and gold—only four passengers got out of it. Three wore a scarlet uniform. As far as Dick could see, they were armed only with light wooden cudgels. The fourth was a man in black, with a white face. The three marched him over to the waiting airport guards, left him there, and marched back into the car. When Dick looked back over his shoulder, the man in black was trudging away in the midst of the gray squad—going where? What had he done?

  The car was narrow and stuffy; the seats, set one above the other like chairs in an auditorium, were upholstered in stiff crimson plush. After an interminable wait, the car jerked, throbbed, and began to rise.

  Dick leaned across the aisle toward one of the men in white hats. “Pardon. Is this the only way to get up to Eagles?”

  The man looked surprised. He was lean and stringy, burnt the color of copper; his eyebrows and lashes were almost invisible. “No,” he said mildly. “They’s an express tube, comes out down the valley. Depends how much traffic, whetha they let you use it.” After a moment he asked, “Your first time up?”

  Dick nodded. The sunburnt man squinted at him confidentially, lowered his voice still more. “Don’t ask too many questions,” he said, and leaned back.

  The trip took forever. Bored, half suffocated, Dick got out eventually on a broad glassed-in platform that seemed to overhang the valley. He stared down, fascinated; down at the bottom, where the converging lines of the cable railway disappeared, the valley was a cup of gold, the snaky line of the river was intolerably bright, even through the tinted glass. Wisps of cloud vapor rushed upward past the window; the big panes bowed inward, trembled, straightened, bowed in again …

  All his previous life seemed to be down there in that improbable cup of gold somewhere, silent and stifled. Voices echoed behind him, footsteps; a hand plucked at his sleeve.

  He turned. People were crossing the platform in all directions, a glitter of color, a babble of voices. He saw three different uniforms, two beautiful women, a gang of slobs with a handtruck piled high with boxes. There was a man in a gorgeous garment of peach satin, the sleeves padded and puffed until they swelled him to twice his size; chain around his neck with a golden pendant; beard on his chin, rings on his plump fingers. He passed leisurely, leaving a wisp of perfume in his wake. Here came two women in big white headdresses, walking together, close in conversation; their black skirts swished to the ground. There strolled a boy, not more than twelve, resplendent in red-orange tights, eating peanuts from a cloth bag.

  Nearer, an ugly face was peering up into his own, as good-humored and misshapen as a bulldog’s. There was barely room on the fellow’s forehead for his green slobmark; his ears were enormous and hairy, his nose flat. “Your firs’ time at Eagles, Misser Jones?” he
said hoarsely. “If you would condescend yourself to come this way with me, jus’ for a minute now—” He backed away, showing a mouthful of tusks in what was meant for an ingratiating grin.

  Dick followed, across the platform to an open booth where another slob sat, this one a bored, sallow-skinned fellow with mournful brown eyes. “Here we have with us now Misser Richer Jones,” said the gargoyle, slapping his palm on the counter. “You take good care of him now, and no nonsense, you mind?”

  The bored slob, with a look of distaste, reached below the counter and produced two articles, a belt with two thin chains dangling from it, and a slender wooden staff about a yard long, knob-tipped at either end.

  The gargoyle, grunting with satisfaction, seized the belt and began to fasten it around Dick’s waist. “What’s this?” said Dick, resisting. For the first time, he noticed that both slobs were wearing similar belts, with the chains attached somehow to their sleeves just above the elbow. “This is what we call the elbow check, Misser Jones,” said the gargoyle, deftly threading one of the needle-tipped chains through the slack of Dick’s right sleeve. “All the men got to wear them at Eagles, and the buck servan’s too. You find before you know it that they won’ bother you at all.” He threaded the second chain through the other sleeve in the same way, removed the needles, and snapped the ends of the chains to studs on the belt. Moving his arms experimentally, Dick found the chains prevented him from raising his hands higher than his head.

  Looking around irritably, he saw that it was true: sure enough, everyone in sight was wearing some version of the belt and chains. He still didn’t like it. “I don’t understand. What’s this for?”

  “Jus’ to keep the men from disagreeing so much among theyselves,” said the gargoyle. “An’ it protecks the ladies a little, too. Now this is the stick, what we call the swagger stick—that’s the only weapon you can have in Eagles, but I jus’ show you that now; no use you to take it with you before you learn youseff how to use it the proper and correck way.” He handed it across the counter to the other slob.