Orbit 15 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  Punishment was terror. Punishment was being trapped within one’s own mind, helplessly frightened beyond endurance, until one became a shrieking animal. The memory of past punishments was often enough to induce a spontaneous recurrence. This, too, was cause for punishment. As the time for distribution of punishments approached each week, Mac, Sam, and Willie grew increasingly nervous. Even this Sevenday, when they had no reason to expect punishment, they sat each in his own cell, anxious and cold. Perhaps there hadn’t been enough people listed for punishment to make up the needed fifty percent. Perhaps Jennings had picked people at random to fill the quota.

  The warning bell rang. In every dorm, on every floor, the agonized screams of the unlucky people filled the corridors. Those who had earned reinforcement were relieved; every one of them felt the same intense gratitude. Every one of them wore the same rather silly smile. They stood up, shuddered once in nervous reaction, and went out to meet their friends.

  On this particular Sevenday, Sam and Mac joined Willie at the latter’s dorm, to watch an old movie and then play some pinball. Jennings had announced at the Fiveday lecture that the movie would be Philip Gatelin and Roberta Quenlini in Slaves of Blood. It was one of Willie’s favorites. Mac always enjoyed Gatelin’s old adventure pictures, and Sam had never seen the movie before. They took seats as close to the front of the dorm’s rec room as possible. They sat in silence through the entire movie. Mac wanted to point out special sequences to the other two, but he restrained himself. Willie laughed and applauded during the love scenes and the battle scenes. Sam was entertained but said little.

  “Well, then, Prince Collante,” said Gatelin, in the role of Gerhardt Friedlos, based on the character made famous by Ernst Weinraub’s trilogy, “we seem to be alone.”

  The evil prince smiled. He removed his huge plumed hat and his black, gem-studded gauntlets. He dropped these articles to the richly patterned carpet of his apartment. “Yes,” he said languidly, “we are quite alone. I have planned this moment well. You may expect no aid from your, ah, comrades.”

  Friedlos laughed. He leaned easily against a gigantic mirror. “You may discover that in my difficult journey here, I have taken the liberty of disposing of your guards. You, also, may expect little succor from that quarter.”

  “I am not dismayed. Observe,” murmured Prince Collante. He undid the sword belt that girdled his hips. “I ask that you do the same, in the interests of delicacy. I have assembled a wide variety of blades, there, upon that divan. You may take your choice, and then I shall make my own. There is no reason to hurry.”

  “As you wish, Collante,” said Friedlos, likewise unbuckling his scabbard and casually allowing it to fall to the floor. He turned and went to the divan. Sam cried out.

  “Watch,” said Willie. “Just be quiet and watch.”

  While Friedlos was carefully examining the swords, Collante unsheathed his rapier, which he had not let fall from his hands, and attacked Friedlos’ unprotected back. With one quick slash, Collante opened a long, bloody wound in Friedlos’ right arm.

  The audience booed. Mac and Willie laughed at their reaction. Friedlos was equally without anger as he turned to face his antagonist. “I see that you have leaped to a somewhat unfortunate conclusion,” he said. “If you had not always been so eager to flee our appointed confrontations, to leave the actual swordplay to your underlings, you might have learned that I fence with my left arm. That lesson will cost you dearly.” Friedlos snatched a rapier and came quickly to his fighting posture, his torn right arm hanging lifelessly at his side, the sleeve of his satin shirt soaked red with his blood. The audience cheered him through the scene, as Friedlos and Collante fought back and forth across the prince’s magnificent room.

  “He did it all himself, too,” said Willie. “I always wanted to be Philip Gatelin when I was a kid.”

  “Me, too,” said Mac. “Until I found out about him.”

  “I didn’t never believe any of that stuff,” said Willie.

  “Quiet,” whispered Sam. “Watch the movie.”

  Friedlos’ sword caught the prince’s, and his blade slipped down the other’s until their basket hilts clanged together. Smiling grimly, Friedlos made a quick circular motion with his wrist, and Collante’s sword flew across the room. “Now, you fools!” cried the evil prince. Five secret doors opened, and five men dressed in the uniforms of the Suprina’s guard rushed to Collante’s aid. Friedlos made no move other than to engage the nearest guardsman.

  “Oh, hell,” said Sam. “The prince is a creep.”

  “You’re getting the hang of it,” said Mac. He immediately regretted saying anything.

  “What?” asked Sam.

  “Nothing,” said Mac.

  “Quiet,” said Willie. “Watch the movie.”

  ~ * ~

  book five: a slight fracture in the facade of life

  When Sam awoke the next morning, her cell was brightly lit by sunlight shining through the clear plastic wall opposite the door. The day was beautiful, though evidently windy, judging by the sheets of paper blowing in unrhythmic gusts across the yard, so far below her room.

  There ought not to have been any light in the cell when she got up. The sun should not have yet risen. Everything should still be black. Sam was frightened.

  Even if the alarm bell had rung and she had slept through it, Grigarskas would have made sure that Sam got up in time for the Oneday lecture. Sam couldn’t understand what had happened, but she knew what she had to do. She had to get dressed as quickly as possible and run to the lecture hall. And she had to be prepared to be punished the following Sevenday. Sam got herself ready with tears in her eyes.

  She opened the door to her cell. It was dim beyond, much darker than her cell. It was also not the corridor that ought to have been there; Sam stepped out curiously into a marvelously decorated room, filled with grotesque, expensive objects and a perplexing jumble of colors and textures. For a moment, she did not know where she was. A man she had not seen spoke to her. “You are never late, are you, Friedlos?” said the man.

  Sam smiled. She recognized the tall, dark man who lounged so impudently on the far side of the chamber. “Well, then, Prince Collante,” she said, “we seem to be alone.”

  The man smiled in reply. He took off his bizarre feathered hat and his heavy black gloves. “Yes,” he said, “we are quite alone.”

  Sam listened to Collante, knowing what he would say, what he would do. She felt a thrill of excitement; if this strange affair developed in the same way, exactly as in Slaves of Blood, it would be fun. She had a flash of panic: Collante was at least eighteen inches taller than she, and with a comparable reach and strength, not to mention the fact that she had never touched a sword in her life. She was momentarily terrified that she would depart the script and her life at the same moment, with Collante’s rapier right through her. The feeling passed; she spoke her lines with no conscious prompting, and she trusted that her movements would be similarly directed. “You, also, may expect little succor from that quarter,” she said confidently.

  ~ * ~

  Anxiously Mac dressed and left his cell. No one else was about. The corridors were oddly, oppressively silent. He ran to the elevator. He hated the sound his heels made on the black and white checkerboard tiles. The noise echoed.

  Outside, the day was very cold, though bright. There was no one in the yard. The walls stood out against the deep blue of the sky; the walls were as blank as dreamless sleep, taller than anything built by men should be. The only sounds were the clumsy noises of Mac’s feet as he ran across the distance to the lecture hall. The wind was cold, and Mac’s cheeks and ears stung after a little while.

  “Jennings isn’t going to be crazy about this,” thought Mac. “I don’t think anybody’s missed a lecture in years. And it has to be me, huh? Terrific.” He felt a cold, heavy feeling in his bowels. He was a little lightheaded with fear, and his ears buzzed. “Jennings isn’t going to be none too fond of this trick.”

/>   “I am not dismayed.” Mac looked up in surprise. He had just pushed open the door of the lobby in the lecture hall. He turned around, but there was only a satin-padded door with a silver knob in the shape of a dryad and a goat copulating. Mac turned around again. The stranger was removing a belt with a scabbard from his waist. “Observe,” said the man, whom Mac had no difficulty identifying, but more trouble accepting. “I ask that you do the same, in the interests of delicacy.”

  “Delicacy,” thought Mac scornfully. “I know exactly why, you creep. I seen this before.” He wondered for a moment what he was going to do, realizing that he was not Philip Gatelin, and, even more, he definitely was not Gerhardt Friedlos.

  “As you wish, Collante,” said Mac, wondering where the words had come from. He removed his own sword belt, amazed that he even had one. He relaxed then, understanding that the situation was some sort of fantasy, and that matters were likely out of his control. He turned to the divan to make a choice of swords, knowing what was certainly to happen. He tried to turn, to watch, to prevent Collante’s stroke, but he couldn’t. The swords on the divan caught his interest with their variety and excellence.

  ~ * ~

  Willie woke slowly; he snorted when he saw how late it was. He got dressed, neither more quickly nor more fearfully than usual. Willie had seen many horrible things in his life, and he had flinched at none of them; his outlook had been justified, time after time. Every horrible thing had gone away, eventually. He yawned as he walked to the elevator in his dorm. He crossed the yard, perhaps a little more hurriedly than usual, but not so much as to make him out of breath. The cold air finished the job of waking him up, and he liked the almost savage wind that cut so forcefully through the layers of his clothing. Willie could appreciate anything, human or otherwise, that earned his respect. Jennings had long ago earned Willie’s respect. The wind was a lesser thing. The walls were nothing at all.

  Willie pushed through the lobby doors of the lecture hall. He heard no voices, saw no one, was surprised at the chilliness of the building. It seemed like the heat had been turned off during the weekend and not raised again on Oneday morning. He shrugged, and waited for the elevator to take him to the lecture hall.

  The elevator arrived, its warning light blinked on, then off, and the doors opened. Willie entered. It was the only time that he had been in an elevator—any elevator, in any building—alone. He pushed the button for the seventy-third floor.

  Suddenly he felt a great tearing pain in his right arm. The pain spread up through his shoulder and began to throb. Willie stifled a cry. He raised his arm slightly to look, and the movement sent a blaze of agony through his body. The arm had a long, jagged wound and was bleeding swiftly, soaking his sleeve. Even though the pain was growing, becoming unbearable, Willie refused to cry out. The wound looked familiar. He only casually wondered how it came to be there; he was mildly startled when he began speaking, almost without his conscious knowledge. “I see that you have leaped to a somewhat unfortunate conclusion,” he said.

  The man standing behind Willie was the devious Prince Collante of Gaedre, cruel pretender to the throne of Breulandy and reputed intimate of the Suprina Without a Name. Willie only smiled coldly. Collante had attempted to take advantage of Willie’s confidence and trust, by weakening what the prince thought was Willie’s sword arm. The prince had made a fatal error.

  The two men fought then, across the gaudily appointed apartment of the prince. They overturned furniture and decorations whose price could have purchased any throne in Europe. Willie said little as they struggled, listening to the prince’s desperate pleadings, enjoying the man’s panting and wheezing as he tired. Soon, Willie knew, soon Collante would spring his final trap. Willie was ready, whatever that gambit might prove to be. Willie was always ready.

  ~ * ~

  “Look,” cried Prince Collante exultantly, “behind you!”

  “No,” said Sam, “it won’t work.” She knew only that the dark man stood before her, unarmed.

  “I think he’s right, this time,” said Mac. “I think he means it.”

  “Of course I do,” said Prince Collante.

  “Of course he does,” said Willie. “Look.”

  The three friends turned, and five men dressed in the uniforms of the Suprina’s guard were running toward them, swords raised threateningly. Collante laughed scornfully, and walked slowly from the apartment.

  “Another time, my prince,” called Sam, Mac, and Willie in unison. The prince stopped on the threshold and saluted them gallantly, laughed again, then went through the door and closed it behind him. The three friends could hear the click of the lock.

  There was little time for words. Sam faced to the right, Mac to the left, and Willie faced forward. Protecting each other’s sides, they waited for the charge of the guardsmen.

  ~ * ~

  “Simple,” said Mac. “It’s very obvious, I think. It was all part of the reinforcement. Something new.”

  “Wonderful,” said Willie sullenly. His arm had actually been badly wounded, and it was now carefully dressed and bandaged.

  “I wonder how much was real,” said Sam. “I wonder if we could have gotten away.”

  “Away?” asked Willie. He really didn’t seem to have much interest in the discussion.

  “Sure,” said Mac. “If we knew what to do, we could have gone out right through the front gate. I’ll bet there was nobody around. Maybe Jennings was testing us. Maybe he was giving us a chance.”

  “I think it was all a mistake,” said Willie.

  “It couldn’t have been real,” said Sam. “But maybe.”

  “Maybe,” said Mac, with a thoughtful expression.

  “Oh, hell,” said Willie. It was still Sevenday evening. He wondered how he was supposed to take notes the next morning, at the Oneday lecture.

  ~ * ~

  It was the fifth week of Quintember; the weather was hotter each day, more humid, so that the air conditioning made the plastic-slab windows steam up. The world outside was invisible through the wet haze, or else, when someone rubbed the stuff away, the yard below looked blurred and unreal. The high gray walls around the yard were close. They looked like death.

  book SIX: the elegance of useless activity

  The old year ended, the pageantry of Jennings Day passed, the mild weather of December changed into the windy coldness of Unuary, Diuary, Tertuary. Quatober brought spring. Like a hungry cat, greedy for prey, the hot weather attacked and took possession of the year. By the beginning of Quintember the temperature had climbed into the mid-nineties and remained there, day after day, night after sultry night. The humidity matched the thermometer’s readings, and the air seemed heavy and almost unbreathable. Sam hated it, Willie abided it, Mac loved it. Jennings didn’t seem to notice, and the white-uniformed trusties simply couldn’t.

  It was the fifth week of Quintember. Nearly half the year had gone by already, a year that had begun with the usual promise and illusion: a year of potential reinforcement, of minimal punishment. Willie had planned to record the number of Sevendays that were given to each, but dropped the scheme shortly after the first of Diuary. Sam had shown interest in his project, but when he quit she said nothing. In Quintember he couldn’t even remember why he had begun. He learned nothing.

  It was baseball season, of course. Because of their success on the football field, Willie, Sam, and Mac had been allowed to play on the same baseball team. Willie was the catcher and batted fourth. Sam was the first baseman and batted eighth. Mac was the shortstop, even though he was left-handed, and batted second. Willie didn’t enjoy being a catcher, any more than he enjoyed being a linebacker. He liked batting cleanup, though.

  The pitcher, a woman named Sheila, looked toward Willie for his signal. He decided on the slider. Her fast ball didn’t have much zip on it, but her breaking stuff was working. She nodded, went into her windup, and threw. The batter swung and topped a roller to Mac at shortstop. Because he was left-handed, and because Jenning
s had decided that Mac had to play that position, Mac had developed a unique method of fielding ground balls. If they were hit to his right, he would be out of position and off balance to throw the runner out at first. Consequently he had to stop the ball, take one more step with his left foot, plant it and pivot so that he faced toward the outfield, and snap the ball underhand to first. It cost him almost a full second more than a right-handed shortstop, and his throws were often low and in the dirt, but a lot of practice with Sam had made their infield as good as any. Jennings never said anything or showed that he was at all pleased whenever Mac made one of his odd fielding plays; still, Willie was aware that their team had the best record of reinforcement in the entire league.

  Willie stood up behind the plate, waiting for the next batter to take her place. He looked out at Sam, who stood behind and to the left of first base. It seemed to Willie that the right fielder had been murmuring to her at the end of each inning, as the fielders ran off the field and into the dugout. He would make sure this time. He would keep his eye on the right fielder, on his lips; Willie didn’t care how foolish he looked, standing still after the last out, staring apparently in a daze. If that man was making whispered suggestions to Sam, the team would soon need a new outfielder. Willie didn’t care what Jennings would do—and Willie knew exactly what he would do.