A Day in the Life

by Gardner Duzois

  Jesse turned to stare at him. “Look after yourself, Col,” he said.

  The other swung onto the step. “A’ be O.K. A’ be great.” He let go, vanished in the night.

  He’d misjudged the speed of the Burrell. He rolled forward, somersaulted on rough grass, sat up grinning. The lights on the steamer’s trail load were already fading down the road. There were noises around him; six mounted men showed dark against the sky. They were leading a seventh horse, its saddle empty. Col saw the quick gleam of a gun barrel, the bulky shape of a crossbow. Routiers . . . He got up, still laughing, swung onto the spare mount. Ahead the train was losing itself in the low fogbanks. De la Haye raised his arm. “The last car . . .” He rammed his heels into the flanks of his horse, and set off at a flat gallop.

  Jesse watched his gauges. Full head, a hundred and fifty pounds in the boiler. His mouth was still grim. It wouldn’t be enough; down this next slope, halfway up the long rise beyond, that was where they would take him. He moved the regulator to its farthest position; the Lady Margaret started to build speed again, swaying as her wheels found the ruts. She hit the bottom of the slope at twenty-five, slowed as her engine felt the dead pull of the train.

  Something struck the nearside hornplate with a ringing crash. An arrow roared overhead, lighting the sky as it went. Jesse smiled, because nothing mattered anymore. The Margaret seethed and bellowed; he could see the horsemen now, galloping to either side. A pale gleam that could have been the edge of a sheepskin coat. Another concussion, and he tensed himself for the iron shock of a crossbow bolt in his back. It never came. But that was typical of Col de la Haye; he’d steal your woman but not your dignity, he’d take your trail load but not your life. Arrows flew again, but not at the loco. Jesse, craning back past the shoulders of the freight cars, saw flames running across the sides of the last tarp.

  Halfway up the rise; the Lady Margaret laboring, panting with rage. The fire took hold fast, tongues of flame licking forward. Soon they would catch the next trailer in line. Jesse reached down. His hand closed slowly, regretfully, around the emergency release. He eased upward, felt the catch disengage, heard the engine beat slacken as the load came clear. The burning truck slowed, faltered, and began to roll back away from the rest of the train. The horsemen galloped after it as it gathered speed down the slope, clustered around it in a whooping knot and beat upward with their cloaks at the fire. Col passed them at the run, swung from the saddle and leaped. A scramble, a shout; and the routiers bellowed their laughter. Poised on top of the moving load, gesticulating with his one free hand, their leader was pissing valiantly onto the flames.

  The Lady Margaret had topped the rise when the cloud scud overhead lit with a white glare. The explosion cracked like a monstrous whip; the shock wave slapped at the trailers, skewed the steamer off course. Jesse fought her straight, hearing echoes growl back from distant hills. He leaned out from the footplate, stared down past the shoulders of the load. Behind him twinkled spots of fire where the hell-burner, two score kegs of fine-grain powder packed round with bricks and scrap iron, had scythed the valley clear of life.

  Water was low. He worked the injectors, checked the gauge. “We must live how we can,” he said, not hearing the words. “We must all live how we can.” The firm of Strange had not been built on softness; what you stole from it, you were welcome to keep.

  Somewhere a semaphore clacked to Emergency Attention, torches lighting its arms. The Lady Margaret, with her train behind her, fled to Durnovaria, huddled ahead in the dim silver elbow of the Frome.

  MARY

  Damon Knight

  * * *

  There is an unfortunate tendency to point out Damon Knight’s accomplishments as a critic and editor—the Hugo-winning In Search of Wonder, his anthologies, his pioneering editorship of Orbit—and ignore his fiction, in spite of its complexity, beauty and power, its urbane intelligence. All as demonstrated in “Mary”: one of the first stories to deal with clones, and, not at all incidentally, one of SF’s most moving and memorable love stories.

  Here is a future of quiet voices, cool shadows, shuttered stairwells, boats rocking at mooring, white ceramic islands on a placid blue sea, crystalline music, wine, new cloth. A drowsy, civilized afternoon of life, full of pastels and pleasant silences, where all the pieces fit neatly together and everything works smoothly and calmly, except for one piece just a little out of kind . . .

  G.D.

  * * *

  Thirty sisters, alike as peas, were sitting at their looms in the court above the Gallery of Weavers. In the cool shadow, their white dresses rustled like the stirrings of doves, and their voices now murmured, now shrilled. Over the courtyard was a canopy of green glass, through which the sun appeared to swim like a golden-green fish: but over the roofs could be seen the strong blue of the sky, and even, at one or two places, the piercing white sparkle of the sea.

  The sisters were ivory-skinned, strong-armed and straight of back, with eyebrows arched black over bright eyes. Some had grown fat, some were lean, but the same smiles dimpled their cheeks, the same gestures threw back their sleek heads when they laughed, and each saw herself mirrored in the others.

  Only the youngest, Mary, was different. Hers was the clan face, but so slender and grave that it seemed a stranger’s. She had been brought to birth to replace old Anna-one, who had fallen from the lookout and broken her neck sixteen springs ago: and some said it had been done too quick; that Mary was from a bad egg and should never have been let grow. Now, the truth was that Mary had in her genes a long-recessive trait of melancholy and unworldliness, turned up by accident in the last cross; but the Elders, who after all knew best, had decided to give her the same chance as anyone. For in the floating island of Iliria, everyone knew that the purpose of life was happiness: and therefore to deprive anyone of life was a great shame.

  At the far side of the court, Vivana called from her loom, “They say a new Fisher came from the mainland yesterday!” She was the eldest of the thirty, a coarse, good-natured woman with a booming laugh. “If he’s handsome, I may take him, and give you others a chance at my Tino. Rose, how would you like that? Tino would be a good man for you.” Her loom whirled, and rich, dark folds of liase rippled out. It was an artificial fiber, formed, spun, woven and dyed in the loom, hardening as it reached the air. A canister of the stuff, like tinted gelatin, stood at the top of every loom. It came from the Chemist clan, who concocted it by mysterious workings out of the sea water that tumbled through their vats.

  “What, is he tiring of you already?” Rose called back. She was short and moon-faced, with strong, clever fingers that danced on the keyboard of her loom. “Probably you belched in his face once too often.” She raised her shrill voice over the laughter. “Now let me tell you, Vivana, if the new Fisher is as handsome as that, I may take him myself, and let you have Mitri.” Mounds of apple-green stuff tumbled into the basket at her feet.

  Between them, Mary worked on, eyes cast down, without smiling.

  “Gogo and Vivana!” someone shouted.

  “Yes, that’s right—never mind about the Fisher! Gogo and Vivana!” All the sisters were shouting and laughing. But Mary still sat quietly busy at her loom.

  “All right, all right,” shouted Vivana, wheezing with laughter. “I will try him, but then who’s to have Gunner?”

  “Me!”

  “No, me!”

  Gunner was the darling of the Weavers, a pink man with thick blond lashes and a roguish grin.

  “No, let the youngsters have a chance,” Vivana called reprovingly. “Joking aside, Gunner is too good for you old scows.” Ignoring the shrieks of outrage, she went on, “I say let Viola have him. Better yet, wait, I have an idea—how about Mary?”

  The chatter stilled; all eyes turned toward the silent girl where she sat, weaving slow cascades of creamy white liase. She flushed quickly, and bowed her head, unable to speak. She was sixteen, and had never taken a lover.

  The women looked at her, and th
e pleasure faded out of their faces. Then they turned away, and the shouting began again: “Rudi!”

  “Ernestine!”

  “Hugo!”

  “Areta!”

  Mary’s slim hands faltered, and the intricate diapered pattern of her weaving was spoiled. Now the bolt would have to be cut off, unfinished. She stopped the loom, and drooped over it, pressing her forehead against the smooth metal. Tears burned her eyelids. But she held herself still, hoping Mia, at the next loom, would not see.

  Below in the street, a sudden tumult went up. Heads turned to listen: there was the wailing of flutes, the thundering of drums and the sound of men’s rich voices, all singing and laughing.

  A gate banged open, and a clatter of feet came tumbling up the stair. The white dresses rustled as the sisters turned expectantly toward the arch.

  A knot of laughing, struggling men burst through, full into the midst of the women, toppling looms, while the sisters shrieked in protest and pleasure.

  The men were Mechanics, dark-haired, gaunt, leavened by a few blond Chemists. They were wrestling, Mechanic against Chemist, arms locked about each other’s necks, legs straining for leverage. One struggling pair toppled suddenly, overturning two more. The men scrambled up, laughing, red with exertion.

  Behind them was a solitary figure whose stillness drew Mary’s eyes. He was tall, slender and grave, with russet hair and a quiet mouth. While the others shouted and pranced, he stood looking around the courtyard. For an instant his calm gray eyes met hers, and Mary felt a sudden pain at the heart.

  “Dear, what is it?” asked Mia, leaning closer.

  “I think I am ill,” said Mary faintly.

  “Oh, not now!” Mia protested.

  Two of the men were wrestling again. A heave, and the dark Mechanic went spinning over the other’s hip.

  A shout of applause went up. Through the uproar, Vivana’s big voice came booming. “You fishheads, get out! Look at this, half a morning’s work ruined! Are you all drunk? Get out!”

  “We’re all free for the day!” one of the Mechanics shouted. “You too—the whole district! It’s in the Fisher’s honor! So come on, what are you waiting for?”

  The women were up, in a sudden flutter of voices and white skirts, the men beginning to spread out among them. The tall man still stood where he was. Now he was looking frankly at Mary, and she turned away in confusion, picking up the botched fabric with hands that did not feel it.

  She was aware that two Mechanics had turned back, were leading the tall man across the courtyard, calling, “Violet—Clara!” She did not move; her breath stopped.

  Then they were pausing before her loom. There was an awful moment when she thought she could not move or breathe. She looked up fearfully. He was standing there, hands in his pockets, slumped a little as he looked down at her.

  He said, “What is your name?” His voice was low and gentle. “Mary,” she said.

  “Will you go with me today, Mary?”

  Around her, the women’s heads were turning. A silence spread; she could sense the waiting, the delight held in check.

  She could not! Her whole soul yearned for it, but she was too afraid, there were too many eyes watching. Miserably, she said, “No,” and stopped, astonished, listening to the echo of her voice saying gladly, “Yes!”

  Suddenly her heart grew light as air. She stood, letting the loom fall, and when he held out his hand, hers went into it as if it knew how.

  “So you have a rendezvous with a Mainland Fisher?” the Doctor inquired jovially. He was pale-eyed and merry in his broad brown hat and yellow tunic; he popped open his little bag, took out a pill, handed it to Mary. “Swallow this, dear.”

  “What is it for, Doctor?” she asked, flushing.

  “Only a precaution. You wouldn’t want a baby to grow right in your belly, would you? Ha, ha, ha! That shocks you, does it? Well, you see, the Mainlanders don’t sterilize the males, their clan customs forbid it, so they sterilize the females instead. We have to be watchful, ah, yes, we Doctors! Swallow it down, there’s a good girl.”

  She took the pill, drank a sip of water from the flask he handed her.

  “Good, good—now you can go to your little meeting and be perfectly safe. Enjoy yourself!” Beaming, he closed his bag and went away.

  On the high Plaza of Fountains, overlooking the quayside and the sea, feasts of shrimp and wine, seaweed salad, caviar, pasta, iced sweets had been laid out under canopies of green glass. Orchestrinos were playing. Couples were dancing on the old ceramic cobbles, white skirts swinging, hair afloat in the brilliant air. Farther up, Mary and her Fisher had found a place to be alone.

  Under the bower in the cool shade, they lay clasped heart to heart, their bodies still joined so that in her ecstasy she could not tell where hers ended or his began.

  “Oh, I love you, I love you!” she murmured.

  His body moved, his head drew back a little to look at her. There was something troubled in his gray eyes. “I didn’t know this was going to be your first time,” he said. “How is it that you waited so long?”

  “I was waiting for you,” she said faintly, and it seemed to her that it was so, and that she had always known it. Her arms tightened around him, wishing to draw him closer to her body again.

  But he held himself away, looking down at her with the same vague uneasiness in his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How could you have known I was coming?”

  “I knew,” she said. Timidly her hands began to stroke the long, smooth muscles of his back, the man’s flesh, so different from her own. It seemed to her that her fingertips knew him without being told; they found the tiny spots that gave him pleasure, and lingered there, without her direction.

  His body stiffened; his gray eyes half closed. “Oh, Mary,” he said, and then he was close against her again, his mouth busy on hers: and the pleasure began, more piercing and sweet than she had ever dreamed it could be. Now she was out of herself again, half aware that her body was moving, writhing; that her voice was making sounds and speaking words that astonished her to hear. . .

  Near the end she began to weep, and lay in his arms afterward with the luxurious tears wetting her cheeks, while his voice asked anxiously, “Are you all right?_ Darling, are you all right?” and she could not explain, but only held him tighter, and wept.

  Later, hand in hand, they wandered down the bone-white stairs to the quayside strewn with drying nets, the glass floats sparkling sharp in the sun, spars, tackle and canvas piled everywhere. Only two boats were moored at the floating jetty below; the rest were out fishing, black specks on the glittering sea, almost at the horizon.

  Over to eastward they saw the desolate smudge of the mainland and the huddle of stones that was Porto. “That’s where you live,” she said wonderingly.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you do there?”

  He paused, looked down at her with that startled unease in his glance. After a moment he shrugged. “Work. Drink a little in the evenings, make love. What else would I do?”

  A dull pain descended suddenly on her heart and would not lift its wings. “You’ve made love to many women?” she asked with difficulty.

  “Of course. Mary, what’s the matter?”

  “You’re going back to Porto. You’re going to leave me.” Now the unnamed thing in his eyes had turned to open incredulity. He held her arms, staring down at her. “What else?” She put her head down obstinately, burying it against his chest.

  “I want to stay with you,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “But you can’t. You’re an Islander—I’m a Mainlander.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why this foolishness?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He turned her without speaking, and they stepped down from the promenade, went into the shadow of some storehouses that abutted on the quayside. The doors were open, breathing scents of spices and tar, new cordage, drying fish. Beyond them was a pleasant court
yard with boats piled upside down on one side, on the other a table, an umbrella, chairs, all cool in the afternoon shadow. From there they took a shallow staircase up into a maze of little streets full of the dim, mysterious blue light that fell from canopies of tinted glass between roofs. Passing a house with open shutters, they heard the drone of childish voices. They peered in: it was the nursery school—forty young Bakers, Chemists, Mechanics, fair skins and dark, each in a doll-like miniature of his clan costume, all earnestly reciting together while the shovel-hatted Teacher stood listening at the greenboard. Cool, neutral light came from the louvered skylights; the small faces there clear and innocent, here a tiny Cook in his apron, there two Carters sitting together, identical in their blue smocks, there a pale Doctor, and beside him, Mary saw with a pang, a little Weaver in white. The familiar features were childishly blunted and small, the ivory skin impossibly pure, the bright eyes wide. “Look—that one,” she whispered, pointing.

  He peered in. “She looks like you. More like you than the others. You’re different from all the rest, Mary—that’s why I like you.” He looked down at her with a puzzled expression; his arm tightened around her. “I’ve never felt quite this way about a girl before; what are you doing to me?” he said.

  She turned to him, embracing him, letting her body go soft and compliant against his. “Loving you, darling,” she said, smiling up, her eyes half-closed.

  He kissed her fiercely, then pushed her away, looking almost frightened. “See here, Mary,” he said abruptly, “we’ve got to understand something.”

  “Yes?” she said faintly, clinging to him.

  “I’m going to be back in Porto tomorrow morning,” he said. “Tomorrow!” she said. “I thought—“

  “My work was done this morning. It was a simple adjustment of the sonics. You’ll catch plenty of fish from now on. . . . There’s nothing more for me to do here.”