Bim got a lot of what-are-you-kidding-me on his face. Then it turned to a tolerant smile. "For Faust." He nodded toward the speaker: the music halted, lurched, then Bryan Faust's voice roared out for love and the violent display that would prove it real. "Faust came in this morning, kid. You didn't know? He's been making it down from moon to moon through the outer planets. I hear he broke 'em up in the asteroids. He's been to Mars and the last thing I heard they love him on Luna as much as anywhere else. He arrived on Earth this morning, and he'll be up and down the Americas for twelve days." He thumbed toward the pit and shook his head. "That's his liner." Bim whistled. "And did we have a hell of a time! All them kids, thousands of 'em, I bet. And people old enough to know better, too. You should have seen the police! When we were trying to get the liner in here, a couple of hundred kids got through the police block. They wanted to pull his ship apart and take home the pieces. You like his music?"
Buddy squinted toward the speaker. The sounds jammed into his ears, pried around his mind, loosening things. Most were good things, touched on by a resolved cadence, a syncopation caught up again, feelings sounded on too quickly for him to hold, but good feelings. Still, a few of them …
Buddy shrugged, blinked. "I like it." And the beat of his heart, his lungs, and the music coincided. "Yeah. I like that." The music went faster; heart and breathing fell behind; Buddy felt a surge of disorder. "But it's … strange." Embarrassed, he smiled over his broken tooth.
"Yeah. I guess a lot of other people think so too. Well, get over with those solvent cans."
"Okay." Buddy turned off toward the spiral staircase. He was on the landing, about to go up, when someone yelled down, "Watch it—!"
A ten-gallon drum slammed the walkway five feet from him. He whirled to see the casing split—
(Faust's sonar drums slammed.)
—and solvent, oxidizing in the air, splattered.
Buddy screamed and clutched his eye. He had been working with the metal rasp that morning, and his gloves were impregnated with steel flakes and oil. He ground his canvas palm against his face.
(Faust's electric bass ground against a suspended dissonance.)
As he staggered down the walk, hot solvent rained on his back. Then something inside went wild and he began to swing his arms.
(The last chorus swung toward the close. And the announcer's voice, not waiting for the end, cut over, "All right all you little people out there in music land …")
"What in the—"
"Jesus, what's wrong with—"
"What happened? I told you the damn lift was broken!"
"Call the infirmary! Quick! Call the—"
Voices came from the level above, the level below. And footsteps. Buddy turned on the ramp and screamed and swung.
"Watch it! What's with that guy—"
"Here, help me hold . . . Owww!"
"He's gone berserk! Get the doc up from the infirm—"
("… that was Bryan Faust's mind-twisting, brain-blowing, brand-new release, Corona! And you know it will be a hit! …")
Somebody tried to grab him, and Buddy hit out. Blind, rolling from the hips, he tried to apprehend the agony with flailing hands. And couldn't. A flash bulb had been jammed into his eye socket and detonated. He knocked somebody else against the rail, and staggered, and shrieked.
("… And he's come down to Earth at last, all you baby-mommas and baby-poppas! The little man from Ganymede who's been putting the music of the spheres through so many changes this past year arrived in New York this morning. And all I want to say, Bryan …")
Rage, pain, and music.
("… is, how do you dig our Earth!")
Buddy didn't even feel the pressure hypo on his shoulder. He collapsed as the cymbals died.
Lee turned and turned the volume knob till it clicked.
In the trapezoid of sunlight over the desk from the high, small window, open now for August, lay her radio, a piece of graph paper with an incomplete integration for the area within the curve X4 + Y4 = k4, and her brown fist. Smiling, she tried to release the tension the music had built.
Her shoulders lowered, her nostrils narrowed, and her fist fell over on its back. Still, her knuckles moved to Corona's remembered rhythm.
The inside of her forearm was webbed with raw pink. There were a few marks on her right arm too. But those were three years old; from when she had been six.
Corona!
She closed her eyes and pictured the rim of the sun. Centered in the flame, with the green eyes of his German father and the high cheekbones of his Arawak mother, was the impudent and insouciant, sensual and curious face of Bryan Faust. The brassy, four-color magazine with its endless hyperbolic prose was open on her bed behind her.
Lee closed her eyes tighter. If she could reach out, and perhaps touch—no, not him; that would be too much—but someone standing, sitting, walking near him, see what seeing him close was like, hear what hearing his voice was like, through air and light: she reached out her mind, reached for the music. And heard—
—your daughter getting along?
They keep telling me better and better every week when I go to visit her. But, oh, I swear, I just don't know. You have no idea now we hated to send her back to that place.
Of course I know! She's your own daughter. And she's such a cute little thing. And so smart. Did they want to run some more tests?
She tried to kill herself. Again.
Oh, no!
She's got scars on her wrist halfway to her elbow! What am I doing wrong? The doctors can't tell me. She's not even ten. I can't keep her here with me. Her father's tried; he's about had it with the whole business. I know because of a divorce a child may have emotional problems, but that a little girl, as intelligent as Lee, can be so—confused! She had to go back, I know she had to go back. But what is it I'm doing wrong? I hate myself for it, and sometimes, just because she can't tell me, I hate her—
Lee's eyes opened; she smashed the table with her small, brown fists, tautening the muscles of her face to hold the tears. All musical beauty was gone. She breathed once more. For a while she looked up at the window, its glass door swung wide. The bottom sill was seven feet from the floor.
Then she pressed the button for Dr. Gross, and went to the bookshelf. She ran her fingers over the spines: Spinoza, The Secret in the Ivory Charm, The Decline of the West, The Wind in the Wil—
She turned at the sound of the door unbolting. "You buzzed for me, Lee?"
"It happened. Again. Just about a minute ago."
"I noted the time as you rang."
"Duration, about forty-five seconds. It was my mother, and her friend who lives downstairs. Very ordinary. Nothing worth noting down."
"And how do you feel?"
She didn't say anything, but looked at the shelves.
Dr. Gross walked into the room and sat down on her desk. "Would you like to tell me what you were doing just before it happened?"
"Nothing. I'd just finished listening to the new record. On the radio."
"Which record?"
"The new Faust song, Corona."
"Haven't heard that one." He glanced down at the graph paper and raised an eyebrow. "This yours, or is it from one of your books?"
"You told me to ring you every time I … got an attack, didn't you?"
"Yes—"
"I'm doing what you want."
"Of course, Lee. I didn't mean to imply you hadn't been keeping your word. Want to tell me something about the record? What did you think of it?"
"The rhythm is very interesting. Five against seven when it's there. But a lot of the beats are left out, so you have to listen hard to get it."
"Was there anything, perhaps in the words, that may have set off the mind reading?"
"His colonial Ganymede accent is so thick that I missed most of the lyrics, even though it's basically English."
Dr. Gross smiled. "I've noticed the colonial expressions are slipping into a lot of young people's speech since
Faust has become so popular. You hear them all the time."
"I don't." She glanced up at the doctor quickly, then back to the books.
Dr. Gross coughed; then he said, "Lee, we feel it's best to keep you away from the other children at the hospital. You tune in most frequently on the minds of people you know, or those who've had similar experiences and reactions to yours. All the children in the hospital are emotionally disturbed. If you were to suddenly pick up all their minds at once, you might be seriously hurt."
"I wouldn't!" she whispered.
"You remember you told us about what happened when you were four, in kindergarten, and you tuned into your whole class for six hours? Do you remember how upset you were?"
"I went home and tried to drink the iodine." She flung him a brutal glance. "I remember. But I hear Mommy when she's all the way across the city. I hear strangers too, lots of times! I hear Mrs. Lowery, when she's teaching down in the classroom! I hear her! I've heard people on other planets!"
"About the song, Lee—"
"You want to keep me away from the other children because I'm smarter than they are! I know. I've heard you think too—"
"Lee, I want you to tell me more about how you felt about this new song—"
"You think I'll upset them because I'm so smart. You won't let me have any friends!"
"What did you feel about the song, Lee?"
She caught her breath, holding it in, her lids batting, the muscle in the back of her jaw leaping.
"What did you feel about the song; did you like it, or did you dislike it?"
She let the air hiss through her lips. "There are three melodic motifs," she began at last. "They appear in descending order of rhythmic intensity. There are more silences in the last melodic line. His music is composed of silence as much as sound."
"Again, what did you feel? I'm trying to get at your emotional reaction, don't you see?"
She looked at the window. She looked at Dr. Gross. Then she turned toward the shelves. "There's a book here, a part in a book, that says it, I guess, better than I can." She began working a volume from the half-shelf of Nietzsche.
"What book?"
"Come here." She began to turn the pages. "I'll show you."
Dr. Gross got up from the desk. She met him beneath the window.
Dr. Gross took it and, frowning, read the title heading: " 'The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music … death lies only in these dissonant tones—' "
Lee's head struck the book from his hand. She had leapt on him as though he were a piece of furniture and she a small beast. When her hand was not clutching his belt, shirt front, lapel, shoulder, it was straining upward. He managed to grab her just as she grabbed the window ledge.
Outside was a nine-story drop.
He held her by the ankle as she reeled in the sunlit frame. He yanked, and she fell into his arms, shrieking, "Let me die! Oh, please! Let me die!"
They went down on the floor together, he shouting, "No!" and the little girl crying. Dr. Gross stood up, now panting.
She lay on the green vinyl, curling around the sound of her own sobs, pulling her hands over the floor to press her stomach.
"Lee, isn't there any way you can understand this? Yes, you've been exposed to more than any nine-year-old's mind should be able to bear. But you've got to come to terms with it, somehow! That isn't the answer, Lee. I wish I could back it up with something. If you let me help, perhaps I can—"
She shouted, with her cheek pressed to the floor, "But you can't help! Your thoughts, they're just as clumsy and imprecise as the others! How can you—you help people who're afraid and confused because their own minds have formed the wrong associations! How! I don't want to have to stumble around in all your insecurities and fears as well! I'm not a child! I've lived more years and places than any ten of you! Just go away and let me alone—"
Rage, pain, and music.
"Lee—"
"Go away! Please!"
Dr. Gross, upset, swung the window closed, locked it, left the room, locked the door.
Rage, pain … below the chaos she was conscious of the infectious melody of Corona. Somebody—not her—somebody else was being carried into the hospital, drifting in the painful dark, dreaming over the same sounds. Exhausted, still crying, she let it come.
The man's thoughts, she realized through her exhaustion, to escape the pain had taken refuge in the harmonies and cadences of Corona. She tried to hide her own mind there. And twisted violently away. There was something terrible there. She tried to pull back, but her mind followed the music down.
The terrible thing was that someone had once told him not to put his knee on the floor.
Fighting, she tried to push it aside to see if what was underneath was less terrible. ("Buddy, stop that whining and let you momma alone. I don't feel good. Just get out of here and leave me alone!" The bottle shattered on the door jamb by his ear, and he fled.) She winced. There couldn't be anything that bad about putting your knee on the floor. And so she gave up and let it swim toward her—
—suds wound on the dirty water. The water was all around him. Buddy leaned forward and scrubbed the wire brush across the wet stone. His canvas shoes were already soaked.
"Put your blessed knee on the floor, and I'll get you! Come on, move your …" Somebody, not Buddy, got kicked. "And don't let your knee touch that floor! Don't, I say." And got kicked again.
They waddled across the prison lobby, scrubbing. There was a sign over the elevator: Louisiana State Penal Correction Institute, but it was hard to make out because Buddy didn't read very well.
"Keep up with 'em, kid. Don't you let 'em get ahead'n you!" Bigfoot yelled. "Just 'cause you little, don't think you got no special privileges." Bigfoot slopped across the stone.
"When they gonna get an automatic scrubber in here?" somebody complained. "They got one in the county jail."
"This Institute"—Bigfoot lumbered up the line—"was built in nineteen hundred and forty-seven! We ain't had no escape in ninety-four years. We run it the same today as when it was builded back in nineteen hundred and forty-seven. The first time it don't do its job right of keepin' you all inside—then we'll think about running it different. Get on back to work. Watch that knee!"
Buddy's thighs were sore, his insteps cramped. The balls of his feet burned and his pants cuffs were sopping.
Bigfoot had taken off his slippers. As he patrolled the scrubbers, he slapped the soles together, first in front of his belly, then behind his heavy buttocks. Slap and slap. With each slap, one foot hit the soapy stone. "Don't bother looking up at me. You look at them stones! But don't let your knee touch the floor."
Once, in the yard latrine, someone had whispered, "Bigfoot? You watch him, kid! Was a preacher, with a revival meeting back in the swamp. Went down to the Emigration Office in town back when they was taking everyone they could get and demanded they make him Pope or something over the colony on Europa they was just setting up. They laughed him out of the office. Sunday, when everyone came to meeting, they found he'd sneaked into town, busted the man at the Emigration Office over the head, dragged him out to the swamp, and nailed him up to a cross under the meeting tent. He tried to make everybody pray him down. After they prayed for about an hour, and nothing happened, they brought Bigfoot here. He's a trustee now."
Buddy rubbed harder with his wire brush.
"Let's see you rub a little of the devil out'n them stones. And don't let me see your knee touch the—"
Buddy straightened his shoulders. And slipped.
He went over on his backside, grabbed the pail; water splashed over him, sluiced beneath. Soap stung his eyes. He lay there a moment.
Bare feet slapped toward him. "Come on, kid. Up you go, and back to work."
With eyes tight, Buddy pushed himself up.
"You sure are one clums—"
Buddy rolled to his knees.
"I told you not to let your knee touch the floor!"
Wet canvas whammed his ear
and cheek.
"Didn't I?"
A foot fell in the small of his back and struck him flat. His chin hit the floor and he bit his tongue, hard. Holding him down with his foot, Bigfoot whopped Buddy's head back and forth, first with one shoe, then the other. Buddy, blinded, mouth filled with blood, swam on the wet stone, tried to duck away.
"Now don't let your knees touch the floor again. Come one, back to work, all of you." The feet slapped away.
Against the sting, Buddy opened his eyes. The brush lay just in front of his face. Beyond the wire bristles he saw a pink heel strike in suds.
His action took a long time to form. Slap and slap. On the third slap he gathered his feet, leapt. He landed on Bigfoot's back, pounding with the brush. He hit three times, then he tried to scrub off the side of Bigfoot's face.
The guards finally pulled him off. They took him into a room where there was an iron bed with no mattress and strapped him, ankles, wrist, neck, and stomach, to the frame. He yelled for them to let him up. They said they couldn't because he was still violent. "How'm I gonna eat!" he demanded. "You gonna let me up to eat?"
"Calm down a little. We'll send someone in to feed you."
A few minutes after the dinner bell rang that evening, Bigfoot looked into the room. Ear, cheek, neck, and left shoulder were bandaged. Blood had seeped through at the tip of his clavicle to the size of a quarter. In one hand Bigfoot held a tin plate of rice and fatback, in the other an iron spoon. He came over, sat on the edge of Buddy's bed, and kicked off one canvas shoe. "They told me I should come in and feed you, kid." He kicked off the other one. "You real hungry?"
When they unstrapped Buddy four days later, he couldn't talk. One tooth was badly broken, several others chipped. The roof of his mouth was raw; the prison doctor had to take five stitches in his tongue.
Lee gagged on the taste of iron.
Somewhere in the hospital, Buddy lay in the dark, terrified, his eyes stinging, his head filled with the beating rhythms of Corona.
Her shoulders bunched; she worked her jaw and tongue against the pain that Buddy remembered. She wanted to die.
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 1 Page 22
