Over eight hundred volts, max, when the tip touches, if the stud in the handle is depressed properly …
My arm shot out and up and my fingers depressed the stud properly as it moved.
That was it for the org.
A noise came from between the rows of razor blades in its mouth as I scored a touch on its soft underbelly and whipped my arm away to the side – a noise halfway between an exhalation and “peep” – and that was it for the org (short for “organism-with-a-long-name-which-I-can’t-remember”).
I switched off my cane and walked around it. It was one of those things which sometimes come out of the river. I remember that I looked back at it three times, then I switched the cane on again at max and kept it that way till I was inside my apartment with the door locked behind me and all the lights burning.
Then I permitted myself to tremble, and after awhile I changed my socks and mixed my drink.
May your alleys be safe from orgs.
* * *
Saturday.
More rain.
Wetness was all.
The entire east side had been shored with sand bags. In some places they served only to create sandy waterfalls, where otherwise the streams would have flowed more evenly and perhaps a trifle more clearly. In other places they held it back, for awhile.
By then, there were six deaths as a direct result of the rains.
By then, there had been fires caused by the lightning, accidents by the water, sicknesses by the dampness, the cold.
By then, property damages were beginning to mount pretty high.
Everyone was tired and angry and miserable and wet, by then. This included me.
Though Saturday was Saturday, I went to work. I worked in Eleanor’s office, with her. We had the big relief map spread on a table, and six mobile eyescreens were lined against one wall. Six eyes hovered above the half-dozen emergency points and kept us abreast of the actions taken upon them. Several new telephones and a big radio set stood on the desk. Five ashtrays looked as if they wanted to be empty, and the coffeepot chuckled cynically at human activity.
The Noble had almost reached its high-water mark. We were not an isolated storm center by any means. Upriver, Butler Township was hurting, Swan’s Nest was a-drip, Laurie was weeping into the river, and the wilderness in between was shaking and sreaming.
Even though we were in direct contact we went into the field on three occasions that morning – once, when the north-south bridge over the Lance River collapsed and was washed down toward the Noble as far as the bend by the Mack steel mill; again, when the Wildwood Cemetery, set up on a storm-gouged hill to the east, was plowed deeply, graves opened, and several coffins set awash; and finally, when three houses full of people toppled, far to the east. Eleanor’s small flyer was buffeted by the winds as we fought our way through to these sites for on-the-spot supervision; I navigated almost completely by instruments. Downtown proper was accommodating evacuees left and right by then. I took three showers that morning and changed clothes twice.
Things slowed down a bit in the afternoon, including the rain. The cloud cover didn’t break, but a drizzle-point was reached which permitted us to gain a little on the waters. Retaining walls were reinforced, evacuees were fed and dried, some of the rubbish was cleaned up. Four of the six eyes were returned to their patrols, because four of the emergency points were no longer emergency points.
… And we wanted all of the eyes for the org patrol.
Inhabitants of the drenched forest were also on the move. Seven snappers and a horde of panda-puppies were shot that day, as well as a few crawly things from the troubled waters of the Noble – not to mention assorted branch-snakes, stingbats, borers, and land-eels.
By nineteen hundred hours it seemed that a stalemate had been achieved. Eleanor and I climbed into her flyer and drifted skyward.
We kept rising. Finally, there was a hiss as the cabin began to pressurize itself. The night was all around us. Eleanor’s face, in the light from the instrument panel, was a mask of weariness. She raised her hands to her temples as if to remove it, and then when I looked back again it appeared that she had. A faint smile lay across her lips now and her eyes sparkled. A stray strand of hair shadowed her brow.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Up high,” said I, “above the storm.”
“Why?”
“It’s been many days,” I said, “since we have seen an uncluttered sky.”
“True,” she agreed, and as she leaned forward to light a cigarette I noticed that the part in her hair had gone all askew. I wanted to reach out and straighten it for her, but I didn’t.
We plunged into the sea of clouds.
Dark was the sky, moonless. The stars shone like broken diamonds. The clouds were a floor of lava.
We drifted. We stared up into the heavens. I “anchored” the flyer, like an eye set to hover, and lit a cigarette myself.
“You are older than I am,” she finally said, “really. You know?”
“No.”
“There is a certain wisdom, a certain strength, something like the essence of the time that passes – that seeps into a man as he sleeps between the stars. I know, because I can feel it when I’m around you.”
“No,” I said.
“Then maybe it’s people expecting you to have the strength of centuries that gives you something like it. It was probably there to begin with.”
“No.”
She chuckled.
“It isn’t exactly a positive sort of thing either.”
I laughed.
“You asked me if I was going to run for office again this fall. The answer is no. I’m planning on retiring. I want to settle down.”
“With anyone special?”
“Yes, very special, Juss,” she said, and she smiled at me and I kissed her, but not for too long, because the ash was about to fall off her cigarette and down the back of my neck.
So we put both cigarettes out and drifted above the invisible city, beneath a sky without a moon.
* * *
I mentioned earlier that I would tell you about Stopovers. If you are going a distance of a hundred-forty-five light years and are taking maybe a hundred-fifty actual years to do it, why stop and stretch your legs?
Well, first of all and mainly, almost nobody sleeps out the whole jaunt. There are lots of little gadgets which require human monitoring at all times. No one is going to sit there for a hundred-fifty years and watch them, all by himself. So everyone takes a turn or two, passengers included. They are all briefed on what to do till the doctor comes, and who to awaken and how to go about it, should troubles crop up. Then everyone takes a turn at guard mount for a month or so, along with a few companions. There are always hundreds of people aboard, and after you’ve worked down through the role you take it again from the top. All sorts of mechanical agents are backing them up, many of which they are unaware of (to protect against them, as well as with them – in the improbable instance of several oddballs getting together and deciding to open a window, change course, murder passengers, or things like that), and the people are well-screened and carefully matched up, so as to check and balance each other as well as the machinery. All of this because gadgets and people both bear watching.
After several turns at ship’s guard, interspersed with periods of cold sleep, you tend to grow claustrophobic and somewhat depressed. Hence, when there is an available Stopover, it is utilized to restore mental equilibrium and to rearouse flagging animal spirits. This also serves the purpose of enriching the life and economy of the Stopover world, by whatever information and activities you may have in you.
Stopover, therefore, has become a traditional holiday on many worlds, characterized by festivals and celebrations on some of the smaller ones, and often by parades and worldwide broadcast interviews and press conferences on those with greater populations. I understand that it is now pretty much the same on Earth, too, whenever colonial visitors stop by. In fact, on
e fairly unsuccessful young starlet, Marilyn Austin, made a long voyage Out, stayed a few months, and returned on the next vessel headed back. After appearing on tri-dee a couple times, sounding off about interstellar culture, and flashing her white, white teeth, she picked up a flush contract, a third husband, and her first big part in tapes. All of which goes to show the value of Stopovers.
* * *
I landed us atop Helix, Betty’s largest apartment-complex, wherein Eleanor had her double-balconied corner suite, affording views both of the distant Noble and of the lights of Posh Valley, Betty’s residential section.
Eleanor prepared steaks, with baked potatoes, cooked corn, beer – everything I liked. I was happy and sated and such, and I stayed till around midnight, making plans for our future. Then I took a cab back to Town Square, where I was parked.
When I arrived, I thought I’d check with the Trouble Center just to see how things were going. So I entered the Hall, stamped my feet, brushed off excess waters, hung my coat, and proceeded up the empty hallway to the elevator.
The elevator was too quiet. They’re supposed to rattle, you know? They shouldn’t sigh softly and have doors that open and close without a sound. So I walked around an embarrassing corner on my way to the Trouble Center.
It was a pose Rodin might have enjoyed working with. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I stopped by when I did, rather than five or ten minutes later.
Chuck Fuller and Lottie, Eleanor’s secretary, were practicing mouth to mouth resuscitation and keeping the victim warm techniques, there on the couch in the little alcove off to the side of the big door to TC.
Chuck’s back was to me, but Lottie spotted me over his shoulder, and her eyes widened and she pushed him away. He turned his head quickly.
“Juss…” he said.
I nodded.
“Just passing by,” I told him. “Thought I’d stop in to say hello and take a look at the eyes.”
“Uh – everything’s going real well,” he said, stepping back into the hallway. “It’s on auto right now, and I’m on my – uh, coffee break. Lottie is on night duty, and she came by to – to see if we had any reports we needed typed. She had a dizzy spell, so we came out here where the couch…”
“Yeah, she looks a little – peaked,” I said. “There are smelling salts and aspirins in the medicine chest.”
I walked on by into the Center, feeling awkward.
Chuck followed me after a couple of minutes. I was watching the screens when he came up beside me. Things appeared to be somewhat in hand, though the rains were still moistening the one hundred thirty views of Betty.
“Uh, Juss,” he said, “I didn’t know you were coming by…”
“Obviously.”
“What I’m getting at is – you won’t report me, will you?”
“No, I won’t report you.”
“… And you wouldn’t mention it to Cynthia, would you?”
“Your extracurricular activities,” I said, “are your own business. As a friend, I suggest you do them on your own time and in a more propitious location. But it’s already beginning to slip my mind. I’m sure I’ll forget the whole thing in another minute.”
“Thanks, Juss,” he said.
I nodded.
“What’s Weather Central have to say these days?” I asked, raising the phone.
He shook his head, so I dialed and listened.
“Bad,” I said, hanging up. “More wet to come.”
“Damn,” he announced and lit a cigarette, his hands shaking. “This weather’s getting me down.”
“Me too,” said I. “I’m going to run now, because I want to get home before it starts in bad again. I’ll probably be around tomorrow. See you.”
“Night.”
I elevated back down, fetched my coat, and left. I didn’t see Lottie anywhere about, but she probably was, waiting for me to go.
I got to my car and was halfway home before the faucets came on full again. The sky was torn open with lightnings, and a sizzlecloud stalked the city like a long-legged arachnid, forking down bright limbs and leaving tracks of fire where it went. I made it home in another fifteen minutes, and the phenomenon was still in progress as I entered the garage. As I walked up the alley (cane switched on) I could hear the distant sizzle and the rumble, and a steady half-light filled the spaces between the buildings, from its flash-burn-flash-burn striding.
Inside, I listened to the thunder and the rain, and I watched the apocalypse off in the distance.
Delirium of a city under storm –
The buildings across the way were quite clear in the pulsing light of the thing. The lamps were turned off in my apartment so that I could better appreciate the vision. All of the shadows seemed incredibly black and inky, lying right beside glowing stairways, pediments, windowsills, balconies; and all of that which was illuminated seemed to burn as though with an internal light. Overhead, the living/not living insect-thing of fire stalked, and an eye wearing a blue halo was moving across the tops of nearby buildings. The fires pulsed and the clouds burnt like the hills of Gehenna; the thunders burbled and banged; and the white rain drilled into the roadway which had erupted into a steaming lather. Then a snapper, tri-horned, wet feathered, demon-faced, sword-tailed, and green, raced from around a corner, a moment after I heard a sound which I had thought to be a part of the thunder. The creature ran, at an incredible speed, along the smoky pavement. The eye swooped after it, adding a hail of lead to the falling raindrops. Both vanished up another street. It had taken but an instant, but in that instant it had resolved a question in my mind as to who should do the painting. Not El Greco, not Blake; no: Bosch. Without any question, Bosch – with his nightmare visions of the streets of Hell. He would be the one to do justice to this moment of the storm.
I watched until the sizzlecloud drew its legs up into itself, hung like a burning cocoon, then died like an ember retreating into ash. Suddenly, it was very dark and there was only the rain.
* * *
Sunday was the day of chaos.
Candles burned, churches burned, people drowned, beasts ran wild in the streets (or swam there), houses were torn up by the roots and bounced like paper boats along the waterways, the great wind came down upon us, and after than the madness.
I was not able to drive to Town Hall, so Eleanor sent her flyer after me.
The basement was filled with water, and the ground floor was like Neptune’s waiting room. All previous high water marks had been passed.
We were in the middle of the worst storm in Betty’s history.
Operations had been transferred up onto the third floor. There was no way to stop things now. It was just a matter of riding it out and giving what relief we could. I sat before my gallery and watched.
It rained buckets, it rained vats; it rained swimming pools and lakes and rivers. For awhile it seemed that it rained oceans upon us. This was partly because of the wind which came in from the gulf and suddenly made it seem to rain sideways with the force of its blasts. It began at about noon and was gone in a few hours, but when it left our town was broken and bleeding. Wyeth lay on his bronze side, the flagpole was gone, there was no building without broken windows and water inside, we were suddenly suffering lapses of electrical power, and one of my eyes showed three panda-puppies devouring a dead child. Cursing, I killed them across the rain and the distance. Eleanor wept at my side. There was a report later of a pregnant woman who could only deliver by Caesarean section, trapped on a hilltop with her family, and in labor. We were still trying to get through to her with a flyer, but the winds.… I saw burning buildings and the corpses of people and animals. I saw half-buried cars and splintered homes. I saw waterfalls where there had been no waterfalls before. I fired many rounds that day, and not just at beasts from the forest. Sixteen of my eyes had been shot out by looters. I hope that I never again see some of the films I made that day.
When the worst Sunday night in my life began, and the rains did not cease, I kn
ew the meaning of despair for the third time in my life.
Eleanor and I were in the Trouble Center. The lights had just gone out for the eighth time. The rest of the staff was down on the third floor. We sat there in the dark without moving, without being able to do a single thing to halt the course of chaos. We couldn’t even watch it until the power came back on.
So we talked.
Whether it was for five minutes or an hour, I don’t really know. I remember telling her, though, about the girl buried on another world, whose death had set me to running. Two trips to two worlds and I had broken my bond with the times. But a hundred years of travel do not bring a century of forgetfulness – not when you cheat time with the petite mort of the cold sleep. Times’s vengeance is memory, and though for an age you plunder the eye of seeing and empty the ear of sound, when you awaken your past is still with you. The worst thing to do then is to return to visit your wife’s nameless grave in a changed land, to come back as a stranger to the place you had made your home. You run again then, and after a time you do forget, some, because a certain amount of actual time must pass for you also. But by then you are alone, all by yourself: completely alone. That was the first time in my life that I knew the meaning of despair. I read, I worked, I drank, I whored, but came the morning after and I was always me, by myself. I jumped from world to world, hoping things would be different, but with each change I was further away from all the things I had known.
Then another feeling gradually came upon me, and a really terrible feeling it was: There must be a time and a place best suited for each person who has ever lived. After the worst of my grief had left me and I had come to terms with the vanished past, I wondered about a man’s place in time and in space. Where, and when in the cosmos would I most like to live out the balance of my days – to live at my fullest potential? The past was dead, but perhaps a better time waited on some as yet undiscovered world, waited at one yet-to-be-recorded moment in its history. How could I ever know? How could I ever be sure that my Golden Age did not lay but one more world away, and that I might be struggling in a Dark Era, while the Renaissance of my days was but a ticket, a visa and a diary-page removed? That was my second despair. I did not know the answer until I came to the Land of the Swan. I do not know why I loved you, Eleanor, but I did, and that was my answer. Then the rains came.
Modern Classics of Science Fiction Page 30
