“Well, we’ll dispose of you in some way,” said the Maneater, returning to his desk, talking over his shoulder at the frightened girl. “And soon—uh!” He found himself face to face with Horty.
The Maneater’s hand crept out and closed around the jewels. “Don’t come one small half-inch nearer,” he rasped, “or I’ll smash these. You’ll slump together like a bag of rotten potatoes. Don’t move, now.”
“Is Zena really dead?”
“As a doornail, son. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it was so quick, I mean. She deserved a more artistic treatment. Don’t move!” He held the crystals together in one hand, like walnuts about to be cracked. “Better go back and sit down where it’s comfortable.” Their eyes met, held. Once, twice, the Maneater sent Horty his barbed hate. Horty did not flinch. “Wonderful defense,” said the Maneater admiringly. “Now go and sit down!” His fingers tightened on the crystals.
Horty said, “I know a way to kill humans too.” He came forward.
The Maneater scuttled back. Horty rounded the desk and came on. “You asked for it!” panted the Maneater. He closed his bony hand. There was a faint, tinkling crackle.
“I call it Havana’s way,” said Horty thickly, “after a friend of mine.”
The Maneater’s back was against the wall, round-eyed, pasty-faced. He goggled at the single intact crystal in his hand—like walnuts, only one broke when the two were crushed together—uttered a birdlike squeak, dropped the crystal, and ground it under his feet. Then Horty had both hands on his head. He twisted. They fell together. Horty wrapped his legs around the Maneater’s chest, got another grip on the head, and twisted again with all his strength. There was a sound like a pound of dry spaghetti being broken in two, and the Maneater slumped.
Blackness showered in descending streamers around Horty. He crawled off the inert figure, pushing his face almost into Bunny’s. Bunny’s face was looking down and past him, and was no longer vacant and staring. Her lips were curled back from her teeth. Her neck was arched, the cords showing starkly. Gentle Bunny… she was looking at the dead Maneater, and she was laughing.
Horty lay still. Tired, tired… it was almost too much effort to breathe. He raised his chin to make it easier for air to pass his throat. This pillow was so soft, so warm… Feather-touches of hair lay on his upturned face, delicately stroked his closed eyelids. Not a pillow; a round arm curved behind his head. Scented breath at his lips. She was big, now; a regular human girl, the way she always wanted to be. He kissed the lips. “Zee. Big Zee,” he murmured.
“Kay. It’s Kay, darling, you poor brave darling…”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her, his eyes a child’s eyes for the moment, full of weariness and wonder. “Zee?”
“It’s all right. Everything’s all right now,” she said soothingly. “I’m Kay Hallowell. Everything’s all right.”
“Kay.” He sat up. There was Armand Bluett, dead. There was the Maneater, dead. There was—was—He uttered a hoarse sound and scrambled uncertainly to his feet. He ran to the wall and picked Zena up and put her gently on the table. She had plenty of room… Horty kissed her hair. He gathered her hands together and called her quietly, twice, as if she were hiding somewhere near and was teasing him.
“Horty—”
He did not move. With his back to her, he said thickly, “Kay—where’d Bunny go?”
“She went to sit with Havana. Horty—”
“Go stay with her a little. Go on. Go on…”
She hesitated, and when she left, she ran.
Horty heard a mourning sound, but he did not hear it with his ears. It was inside his head. He looked up. Solum stood there, silent. The mourning sound appeared again in Horty’s head.
“I thought you were dead,” Horty gasped.
I thought you were dead, the silent, startled response came. The Maneater smashed your jewels.
“They were through with me. They’ve been through with me for years. I’m grown… complete…. finished, and I have been since I was eleven. I just found out, when you sent me to—to speak to the crystals. I didn’t know. Zena didn’t know. All these years she’s been… oh, Zee, Zee!” Horty raised his eyes after a bit and looked at the green man. “What about you?”
I’m not a crystalline, Horty. I’m human. I happen to be a receptive telepath. You gave me a nasty jolt right where I felt it most. I don’t blame you and the Maneater for thinking I was dead. I did myself for a while. But Zena—
Together they stood over the tiny, twisted body, and their thoughts were their own.
After a time they talked.
“What’ll we do with the Judge?”
It’s dark now. I’ll leave him near the midway. It will be heart failure.
“And the Maneater?”
The swamp. I’ll take care of it after midnight.
“You’re a big help, Solum. I feel sort of—lost. I would be, too, if it hadn’t been for you.”
Don’t thank me. I haven’t the brains for a thing like that. She did it. Zena. She told me exactly what to do. She knew what was going to happen. She knew I was human, too. She knew everything. She did everything.
“Yeah. Yeah, Solum… What about the girl? Kay?”
Oh. I don’t know.
“I think she better go back where she was working. Eltonville. I wish she could forget the whole thing.”
She can.
“She—oh, of course. I can do that. Solum, she—”
I know. She loves you, just as if you were human. She thinks you are. She doesn’t understand any of this.
“Yes. I—wish… Never mind. No I don’t. She’s not my—my kind. Solum—Zena… loved me.”
Yes. Oh, yes… and what are you going to do?
“Me? I don’t know. Cut out, I guess. Play guitar somewhere.”
What would she want you to do?
“I—”
The Maneater did a lot of harm. She wanted to stop him. Well, he’s stopped. But I think perhaps she would like you to right some of the wrongs he’s done. All over our carnival route, Horty—anthrax in Kentucky, deadly nightshade in the pasture lands up and down Wisconsin, puff adders in Arizona, polio and Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the Alleghenies; why, he even planted tsetse flies in Florida with his infernal crystals! I know where some of them are, but you could find the rest better even than he could.
“My God… and they mutate, the diseases, the snakes…”
Well?
“Who would I be working for? Who’s going to run the—Solum! Why are you staring at the Maneater like that? What’s your idea? You—you think I—”
Well?
“He was three inches taller… long hands… narrow face… I don’t really see why not, Solum. I could play it that way for a while—at least until ‘Pierre Monetre’ wound up the arrangements to have ‘Sam Horton’ run the carnival so he can retire. Solum, you have a brain.”
No. She told me to suggest it to you if you didn’t think of it yourself.
“She—Oh Zee, Zee… Solum, if it’s all the same to you, I’ve got to be by myself a while.”
Yes. I’ll get this carrion out of here. Bluett first, I’ll just tote him to the First Aid tent. No one ever asks old Solum any questions.
Horty stroked Zena’s hair, once. His eyes strayed around the trailer and fixed on the Maneater’s body. He walked abruptly over to it and turned it over on its face. “I don’t like to be stared at…” he muttered.
He sat down at the desk on which Zena’s body lay. He pulled the chair up close, crossed his forearms and rested his cheek on them. He didn’t touch Zena, and his face was turned away from her. But he was with her, close, close. Softly, he talked to her, using their old idioms, just as if she were alive.
“Zee…?
“Does it hurt you, Zee? You look as if you hurt. ’Member about the kitten on the carpet, Zee? We used to tell each other. It’s a soft carpet, see, and the kitten digs its claws in and str-r-etches. It goes down in front and up behin
d, and it yawns, yeeowarrgh! And then it tips one shoulder under and jus’ pours out flat. And if you lift a paw with your finger it’s as limp as a tassel and drops back phup! on the deep soft rug. And if you think about that until you see it, all of it, the place where the fur’s tousled a bit, and the little line of pink that shows on the side because the kitten’s just too relaxed to close his mouth all the way—why then, you just can’t hurt any more.
“There, now…
“It hurt you to be different from—from folks, didn’t it, Zee? I wonder if you know how much there is of that in everybody. The strange people, the little people—they have more than most. And you had more than any of them. Now I know, now I know why you wished and wished you were big. You pretended you were human, and had a human sorrow that you weren’t big; and that way you hid from yourself that you weren’t human at all. And that’s why you tried so hard to make me the best kind of human you could think of; because you’d have to be pretty human yourself to do all that for humanity. I think you believed, really believed you were human—until today, when you had to face it.
“So you faced it, and you died.
“You’re full of music and laughter and tears and passion like a real woman. You share, and you know about withness.
“Zena, Zena, a jewel dreamed a truly beautiful dream when it made you!
“Why didn’t it finish the dream?
“Why don’t they finish what they start? Why these sketches and no paintings, these chords with no key signatures, these plays cut off at the second-act climax?
“Wait! Shh—Zee! Don’t say anything…
“Must there be a painting for every sketch? Do you have to compose a symphony for every theme? Wait, Zee… I’ve got a big think in my head…
“It comes straight from you. Remember all you taught me—the books, the music, the pictures? When I left the carnival I had Tchaikowsky and Django Rheinhart; I had Tom Jones, a Foundling and 1984. And when I went away I built on these things. I found new beauties. I have Bartok and Gian-Carlo Menotti now, Science and Sanity and The Garden of the Plynck. Do you see what I mean, honey? New beauties… things I’d never dreamed of before.
“Zena, I don’t know whether it’s a large or a small part of the crystals’ life, but they have an art. When they’re young—as they develop—they try their skills at copying. And when they mate (if it is mating) they make a new something. Instead of copying, they take over a living thing, cell by cell, and build it to a beauty of their own invention.
“I’m going to show them a new beauty. I’m going to point a new direction for them—something they’ve never dreamed before.”
Horty rose and went to the door. He pulled down the louvres and locked them, and shot the inside bolt. Returning to the desk, he sat down and went through the drawers. From the deep one at the left he lifted a heavy mahogany box, opened it with the Maneater’s keys, and took out the trays of crystals. He glanced at them curiously under the desk light. Ignoring the labels, he piled all the crystals in a heap beside Zena’s body, and put his head in his hands among them. It was quite dark except for the desklamp; very little light filtered into the draped oval windows of the trailer.
Horty leaned forward and kissed the smooth, cool elbow. “Now stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back, honey.”
He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and let his mind go dark. His sense of presence in the trailer slipped away, and he became detached, a wanderer in lightlessness.
Again another sense replaced his sight, and once again he found himself aware of Presences. Profoundly, this time, all “group” atmosphere was lacking, but for one—no, three quite distant pairs. But all the rest were single, isolated, sharing nothing, each pursuing esoteric, complicated lines of thought… not thought, but something like it. Horty felt the differences between the creatures sharply. One was concentrated grandeur, dignity and peace. Another’s aura was dynamic, haughty, and another closely hid a strange, pulsating, secret idea-series that entranced him, though he knew he’d never understand it.
The strangest thing of all was this: that he, a stranger, was not strange among them. Strangers anywhere on earth, on entering a club, or auditorium, or swimming pool, are, to some extent, made conscious of their lack of membership. But Horty felt no trace of such a thing. And neither did he feel included. Or ignored. He knew they noticed him. They knew he watched them. He could feel it. No one here, however long he stayed, would try communication—he was sure of that. And no one would avoid it.
And in a flash he understood. All earthborn life proceeds and operates from one command: Survive! A human mind cannot conceive of any other base.
The crystals had one—and a very different one.
Horty almost grasped it, but not quite. As simple as “survive!”, it was a concept so remote from anything he’d ever heard or read that it escaped him. By that token, he was sure that they would find his message complex and intriguing.
So—he spoke to them. There are no words for what he said. He used no words; the thing he had to say came out in one great surge of rich description. Holding every thought that had been sleeping in his mind for twenty years, his books and music, all his fears and joys and puzzlements, and all his motives, this single flash of message coursed among the crystals.
It told of her perfect white teeth and her musical diction. It told of the time she had sent Huddie off, and the turn of her cheek, and the depth of expression which lay in her eyes. It told of her body, and cited a thousand and one human standards by which she was beautiful. It told of the eloquent rustling chords of her half-size guitar, and her generous voice, and the danger she faced in defense of the species denied her by one of the crystals. It pictured her artlessly naked; it brought back the difficult, half-concealed weeping; outbalanced her tears with a peal of arpeggio laughter; and told of her pain, and her death.
Implicit in this was humanity. With it, the base of Survival emerged, a magnificent ethic: the highest command is in terms of the species, the next is survival of group. The lowest of three is survival of self. All good and all evil, all morals, all progress, depend on this order of basic commands. To survive for the self at the price of the group is to jeopardize species. For a group to survive at the price of the species is manifest suicide. Here is the essence of good and of greed, and the wellspring of justice for all of mankind.
And back to the girl, the excluded. She has given her life for an alien caste, and has done it in terms of its noblest ethic. It might be that “justice” and “mercy” are relative terms; but nothing can alter the fact that her death, upon earning her right to survive, is bad art.
And that, in brief, all weighted down with clumsy, partial words, describes his single phrase of message. Horty waited. Nothing. No response, no greeting… nothing.
He came back. He felt the desk under his forearms, his forearm on his cheek. He raised his head and blinked at the desk light. He moved his legs. No stiffness. Some day he must investigate the anomaly in time-perception in that atmosphere of alien thought.
It hit him then—his failure.
He cried out, hoarsely, and put his arms out to Zena. She lay quite still, quite dead. He touched her. She was rigid. Rigor had accented the crooked smile resulting from the damage the Maneater had done to her motor centers. She looked brave, rueful, and full of regret. Horty’s eyes burned. “You dig a hole, see,” he growled, “and you drop this in it, and you cover it up. And then what the hell do you do with the rest of your life?”
He sensed someone at the door. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. They still burned. He turned out the desk lamp and went to the door. Solum.
Horty went out, closed the door behind him, and sat down on the mounting step.
As bad as that?
“I guess it is,” said Horty. “I—didn’t really think she was going to stay dead until just now.” He waited a moment, then said harshly, “Make conversation, Solum.”
We lost about a third of ou
r strange people. Every one of them within two hundred feet of that blast of yours.
“May they rest in peace.” He looked up at the looming green man. “I meant that, Solum. It wasn’t just a line.”
I know.
A silence. “I haven’t felt like this since I was kicked out of school for eating ants.”
What did you do that for?
“Ask my crystals. While they operate they cause a hell of a formic acid deficiency. I don’t know why. I couldn’t keep away from ’em.” He sniffed. “I can smell ’em now.” He bent, sniffed again. “Got a light?”
Solum handed him a lighter, flaming. “Thought so,” said Horty. “Stepped smack on an anthill.” He took up a pinch of the hill and sifted it on his palm. “Black ants. The little brown ones are much better.” Slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned his hand over and dropped the rubble. He dusted his hands.
Come on over to the mess tent, Horty.
“Yeah.” He rose. On his face was a dawning perplexity. “No, Solum. You go ahead. I got something to do.”
Solum shook his head sadly and strode off. Horty went back into the trailer, felt his way to the back wall where the Maneater had kept his laboratory racks. “Ought to have some here,” he muttered, switching on the light. Muriatic, sulphuric, nitric, acetic—ah, here we go.” He took down the bottle of formic acid and opened it. He found a swab, wet it in the acid and touched it to his tongue. “That goes good,” he muttered. “Now, what is this? A relapse?” He lifted the swab again.
“That smells so good! What is it? Could I have some?”
Horty bit his tongue violently, and whirled.
She came into the light, yawning. “Of all the crazy places for me to go to sleep… Horty! What’s the matter? You’re—are you crying?” Zena asked.
“Me? Never,” he said. He took her into his arms and sobbed. She cradled his head and sniffed at the acid.
After a time, when he had quieted, and when she had a swab of her own, she asked, “What is it, Horty?”
Dreaming Jewels Page 16
