Orbit 15 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  Mac laughed quietly and opened his notebook. On the first page, as blank as all the others in the notebook, he wrote Fiveday Lecture, First Week in September. He clicked his ballpoint pen shut, closed the cover of the notebook and clipped the pen to it, and put the notebook in his lap. Then he yawned and slouched down further in his seat.

  “Let us begin,” said Jennings. “I would first like to say that what we have today is obstacles. Obstacles, my ladies and gentlemen. We encounter various kinds of obstacles in life, do we not? Who will say that we do not? Of course we do. We find obstacles in our paths, no matter where those paths may lead. Even if the goal is something as trivial as emptying one’s bladder, sometimes there are obstacles.” Jennings paused, in the event that the audience might want to laugh. There was no laughter. Mac frowned; it was one of Jennings’ rare lapses in taste. Perhaps, though, Mac thought, perhaps the lapse in taste had been intentional, not a lapse at all. Perhaps—

  “—imparting knowledge,” Jennings was saying. “A bomb is as good a weapon as any. But it takes no delicacy, no refinement at all to turn a city into scraps and shards. Or an army, for that matter. An airplane is gorgeous, sometimes. Who will deny, who among you, my ladies and my own gentlemen, will deny the utter loveliness of your regular Lockheed Foxtrot slash Niner Four Starfire tactical fighter? You will recall the movies we saw several months ago. You will recall the beauty. If you pause to reflect, it will all come back to you. Still, there are greater attainments within the panoplic field. There is yet the music of genuine cultivated skill.”

  Jennings had that, all right, thought Mac. Genuine skill. It was becoming more and more obvious. Jennings’ own behavior had been carefully planned to parallel the development of his lectures on weaponry. When Jennings had discussed bombs, grenades, rifles, and armored vehicles, his manner had been heavy, contemptuous, and authoritarian. When he had lectured on aircraft, submarines, guided missiles, and small arms, he had been almost sensitive and emotional, like the connoisseur of food or art might act toward the absolute idealization of his dreams. Lately, while the topics had changed gradually to gas warfare, guerrilla tactics, and methods of obfuscation and misdirection, Jennings had seemed crafty, sure of himself once more, but more mysterious than he had ever been. Mac understood at last. He wondered if anyone else did. He wondered if the knowledge would be practical.

  The discussion of obstacles had begun. Jennings was pointing to a screen on which a slide of old German antitank obstacles was projected. “These are dragon’s teeth, ladies and gentlemen,” said Jennings. “Note them well.” Mac unclipped his pen, opened the cover of his notebook, and wrote Obstacles. “These are, as you see, truncated pyramids of, oh, I would guess reinforced concrete. Does that sound reasonable? Concrete pyramids? What do you think they might be used for? You, there. Chico.” Jennings pointed to a young man in the seventeenth rank.

  “They are antitank obstacles, sir,” said Chico.

  “Very good,” said Jennings. “Excellent. No punishment this Sevenday for Chico.” Mac shook his head, smiling. He knew that Jennings was only pretending that he had forgotten that he had just finished instructing the audience on the purpose of the obstacles. Jennings’ actions were easier to predict, and that helped ease the constant boredom.

  “They put these in rows,” said Jennings. “The teeth in the front are lower than the teeth in the back. That way, a tank running over them is made to tip up. Clever, eh? And subtle, eh? And beautiful in its own way, eh? What do you think, Maureen?”

  A woman only a few seats away from Mac stood up. “I quite agree,” she said, and sat down again.

  Jennings laughed. “No punishment this Sevenday for Maureen,” he said. Mac knew that, despite those words, Maureen had just as good a chance of being punished as anyone else. Another slide was shown, of double-apron barbed wire. Mac wrote Obstacles again, beneath the previous entry. He stopped listening to Jennings, believing that he had learned all that he could from the man. He spent the rest of the lecture period writing the word Obstacles in single columns down the pages of his notebook.

  ~ * ~

  book twelve: finding time in a busy schedule

  The warning bell rang. Willie sat up in bed, startled, bleary with sleep. He yawned and stretched; he smiled when he remembered how Jamison Hawke, in the role of Gror the Wild Man, explained his survival in the African jungles: “When I wake up,” said Gror, “I wake up all at once. I don’t lounge comfortably, I don’t rub my eyes. I don’t raise my arms above my head and wonder about how cold the bathroom floor may be. I am awake, and I am deadly, for the jungle is always deadly. If I indulged in the luxury of a slow awakening, it would be my last.” Willie loved the old Gror movies, as foolish as they seemed in the years since their initial popularity. Willie tried to be as much like Gror as he could; the difficulty was that he only remembered about waking up “all at once” after he was already awake. For the thousandth time, Willie realized that were he in Gror’s place, he would have been jungle food a long time ago. He licked the odd, unpleasant taste from his lips and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.

  A loud bang sounded on the cell door. “All right, Willie,” came the trusty’s voice. “No time for no little Raven to be all tucked in tight. Get your ass out of that bed.”

  “Ass is out,” called Willie, frowning. “Mr. Zepkin, sir.”

  “You ain’t kidding.” The man’s high-pitched laugh faded as he went along the hall, checking on the others. Willie stared at the cell door and held his hand out at arm’s length, the fingers spread. Then, slowly, he closed the hand in a fist. It was a very obscene gesture that he had learned from one of Gatelin’s first pictures, The Silver Sergeant.

  It was Sevenday morning, clear, dark, the stars cut off abruptly by the top of the gigantic walls, the lights on the rim of those walls already turned off. It would be light soon.

  “Here’s the famous Raven, getting dressed for Sevenday rituals, one of his favorite times of the entire week,” murmured Willie. “Here’s the Raven, almost unable to control his excitement, as he skips washing, brushing his teeth, and combing his hair in the nervousness and sincere religious passion that grips him every week at this time.” He spat on his floor, pulled on the special, drab vestment of his rank, and left his cell. The halls were crowded with others on their way to the assembly hall; Willie nodded to some, spoke to few, ignored most. He was already thinking about reinforcement. And about punishment.

  The assembly hall itself never failed to annoy him. It was so obviously one of Jennings’ great schemes to impress his audience. Willie was irritated by that; he refused to be intimidated into respecting Jennings. If the man couldn’t do it with his own personality or his own actions, owning a big room sure wasn’t going to do it for him. The great doors with the murals of the tauroctonous Mithra had been flung open, and slowly moving streams of people were passing through. Willie tried to push his way through. “No need to hurry,” he thought. “This is dumb. Just slow down. Everybody’ll get in. Slow down.” But he still pushed, unable to stand the stupid way people ahead of him were walking, staring blankly, wasting his time.

  Willie took his place in the ranks of the Ravens. The lower levels of initiates took their places against the walls of the tremendous assembly hall. The Ravens, the very lowest rank, were so far from Jennings’ speaking platform that none of them could hear the man’s words, and some of the weaker-eyed among the Ravens couldn’t even see him. Only the other Patres, the Runners of the Sun, and the Persians could hear Jennings easily. The Lions and the Soldiers could hear him often. The Occults and the Ravens were kept informed of Jennings’ pronouncements by means of messengers who made whispered reports at frequent intervals. Willie never listened very closely to the messengers, either.

  After quite a while, the rest of the initiates arrived and took their places. Willie sat, nervously fidgeting, wishing the entire ritual were over, wishing the business of the week’s punishment and reinforcement were over. He thought of
Sam, and tried to look toward the group of Lions. Most of the Lions sat against the same wall as Willie’s particular cult of Ravens, about half the distance to Jennings’ platform. It was much too far to make out Sam’s form among the others. Willie recalled that their friend Mac had been elevated from the rank of Soldier to that of Lion. Mac would be in the same temple as Sam, although probably not in the same cult. Just as well, thought Willie. Sometimes Willie was suspicious even of Mac’s attentions to Sam.

  Jennings arrived and took his place. He greeted each group of worshipers. A messenger hurried to the Ravens and reported that Jennings had mounted the platform. Willie made an impatient face. Another messenger came and said that Jennings had ritually greeted each rank. Willie stopped listening. The morning passed slowly. The only motion came from the shuffling of the messengers, who reported each step in the ritual as though it had never happened before.

  Some minutes after the sermon, Willie was aroused from a shallow doze by an irregular noise in the ritual hall. A low buzzing was originating from the ranks between the Ravens and Jennings’ platform. It sounded like clamor. There was never any clamor during the ritual. Risking punishment, Willie whispered to the Raven next to him. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said the woman. “I can’t see. People are standing up. I thought I saw Jennings bend over up there. Maybe he had to get sick.”

  Willie laughed, but his humor faded. If anything, it meant that the ritual would take longer than usual. If anything, it meant punishment.

  ~ * ~

  “It was really scary,” said the messenger, his voice hoarse and shaken. He had no ritual words to rely on. He was speaking as one person to a group of curious listeners, without the benefit or protection of his position. “I never saw anything like that. It was a Runner of the Sun, I think. I only saw the guy for a second or two. It had to be, or else another Pater. They’re the only ones close enough, right? He jumped up on the platform, and then he said something. I couldn’t make it out. One of my friends said it sounded like ‘Get the hell out of here.’ That’s crazy. I don’t know. Then he just put a knife in Jennings’ throat. Jennings went down. That’s all. I got to go.” People were screaming, frightened, trying to be heard. Others, more thoughtful, were trying to question the messenger; it was no use. He pulled away from the crowd and moved on.

  ~ * ~

  book thirteen: the election of a fitting climax

  Mac sat at the head of his cot, his back against the gray wall, his knees drawn up. Sam sat at the foot of the cot, her hands folded in her lap. Her face had a sad expression. Willie stood by the cold plastic slab of a window, staring out at the walls across the yard. After a few seconds of silence, he turned around and looked at Mac. “You know what your trouble is?” he said.

  Mac sighed. “No. Tell me. What is my trouble?”

  “You think you know everything about everything, that’s what,” said Willie. “You thought you had Jennings figured out. You kept telling us how you had Jennings figured out. You were very proud of that, if I remember correctly. You were the one who was going to lead us out of here, as soon as you had Jennings all figured out, even though you already told us you had him all figured out. Well, it looks like you didn’t. And it’s a damn good thing you didn’t convince us, either.”

  “He’s dead,” said Sam, in a dull voice.

  “You think he’s dead,” said Mac, smiling at Willie. “You were told that he’s dead. You think that you’ve seen him dead. He may not be dead.”

  “He’s dead,” said Sam. Tears began to slide down her cheeks.

  “We’re going to leave,” said Willie.

  “He’s testing us,” said Mac.

  “He’s dead,” said Willie, “and we’re going to leave. We’re going to walk right out the front gate.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Mac. “He knows that we’ve figured him out. He let us figure him out, just like I said before. He let us think we’ve figured him out. But he’s planning on a different level. Only I’m still ahead. I’ve got to where I know that he knows, and Jennings isn’t aware that I’m ahead of the rest of you.”

  “We’re still leaving,” said Willie.

  “It’s not a good idea,” said Mac. “Even if he really is dead.”

  “It may not be a good idea to you,” said Willie, his voice angry, “but goddamn it, I’m leaving. And if you or Sam want to come with me—” Willie stalked from the room, raging, and slammed the cell door behind him. Sam looked at Mac helplessly. She got up.

  “He may be right,” she said. “Jennings is dead.”

  “I hope so,” said Mac. He sighed. Sam hurried after Willie. Mac went to the window, then sat on the edge of his cot so that he could still look out and down to the yard, several dozen stories below. He watched for a long time. He saw many people from many dorms cross the plain-colored yard, toward the front gate. He thought he saw two people that might have been Willie and Sam. Then he saw two more people that looked like Willie and Sam, and then another couple. After a while, Mac gave up. He stretched out on the cot and tried to take a nap.

  He was awakened from a light sleep by a knock on the door. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Jennings,” came the answer from the hall. The door opened, and Jennings came into the cell. Mac sat up, startled and afraid. He said nothing. “Mind if I sit down?” asked Jennings. Mac couldn’t answer. Jennings sat on the foot of the cot and began talking. “I want to make some things clear to you, Mac,” he said. “It’s best to rule people with their freely given devotion. But that’s not necessary. If you can’t have their devotion, you can govern them with their respect and a neutral manner. If you can’t have that, then you can govern them with their fear and a strong executive branch. And if you can’t even manage that, why, maybe you ought to get out of the government business altogether.” Jennings paused and gave a little laugh. “I find that sometimes I don’t even have the fear to work with. Like in your case. You’re not afraid of me, are you? Or, I mean, you weren’t. Before. You know.”

  Mac just stared.

  “Anyway,” said Jennings, not particularly noticing Mac’s reaction, “in the case of a person like you, I have to rule by other methods. Bribes and threats are out. You wouldn’t fall for either. You like to think that you like to think. That’s your bait on my hook. So, what the hell. That kind of thing costs me less than a strong army would.” Jennings laughed again. The warning bell on the wall rang. Mac looked up at it; he remembered that it was still Sevenday, that it was time for punishment and reinforcement. Jennings just smiled and shrugged.

  “I used to think you were all power and affection,” said Mac. “Like a father. Power and affection make a strange mixture, but you never lose either completely. I was wrong. You’re a demon.”

  “You had me figured out,” said Jennings. “You thought so, anyway. I let you think so. But you knew I let you. And I let you know that, too. You can’t catch up. You can’t really understand. That’s why I give the lectures and you take the notes.”

  “You’re a demon,” said Mac.

  Jennings laughed. “Everybody has what he wants. Except me. I’m dead.”

  “What about them?” Mac waved a hand toward the window.

  “Sam and Willie? They have what they want. They’re walking out the front gate, just about now. They have each other. They have what they want.”

  “You’re not going to stop them?” asked Mac.

  “Stop them from doing what? They don’t mean anything. They could have gone anytime.”

  “What about me?”

  “What about you, Mac? Do you mean, are you worth anything? I won’t answer that. You figure it out. You’re good at that. You have what you want, don’t you?”

  “Do I?”

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “No,” said Mac.

  “And you’re not. What do you feel like doing?”

  “Sleeping,” said Mac. He stretched out aga
in, yawned, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Jennings was gone. Mac was sure that he had not dreamed the conversation. “It was another Sevenday illusion, like the movies,” he thought. “I can figure it out. And I have all night to do it. Jennings’ murder might have been a Sevenday illusion. This entire week might have been ...” Mac took a deep breath and smiled. Jennings was right. Everyone had received what he wanted.