Alternate Realities (61 page)

“Another time.” He glanced down and brushed marble dust and abrasive from his black-clad thigh. “I’m hungry; I find no prospect here.”

“First Citizen,” said the invisible voice, carefully modulated.

“He’s a University Master,” Waden said. “Colonel, I suggest you withdraw that escort of yours to the suggested perimeter immediately, and trust us for your security; the scope of this incident is wider than may appear to you.”

“Go,” the colonel said. Waved his hand. There was a hesitation.
“Out.”
His forces began to melt away.

“I’m going to supper,” Herrin said.

“Citizen Law,” said the colonel. “We’re anxious to have an understanding.”

Herrin turned and walked to the door. “Keye, Waden,” he paused to say, “good evening.”

“Herrin,” Waden warned him. “They will be confined to the port area.”

“That is the appropriate place.”

“There will be no intrusion.”

“Good evening.”

“Good evening, Herrin.” Waden walked forward, set a hand on his shoulder, and pulled him into a gentle embrace with a pat on the arm, then let him go again. It was odd, without particular emotion, neither passionate nor personal; it was for the invisible, and Herrin suffered it with some humor, patted Waden’s arm as well, exchanged a wryly amused look at Keye, and left, into a hall now deserted.

But he was disturbed at the prospect of Outsiders, and his heart was still beating quite rapidly. It was begun, Waden’s work, Waden’s art. He felt a residue of anger, and at the same time tried to reason it away ... for whatever was begun in there, whatever—and at the moment he had no wish to divert himself with speculations—it meant a new policy and program which would widen more than Waden’s reality: it was his own which was being expanded. Things which
he
had set in motion were simply coming into play and, he reasoned, perhaps it was as well, with his own Work almost finished, that another phase should begin unfolding. He was melancholy with a sense of anticlimax, that somehow he had expected more elation in his own accomplishment than he felt at the moment.

Keye occurred to him, a recollection of her quiet regard in that room, her understated presence ... her silences, which warned him that whatever was underway, Keye never announced her programs, that she perhaps deluded herself of power, and might do things without warning.

What have I said to her?
he wondered, but he had always been reticent. In his heart he had always known that Keye was apt to undertake such a maneuver. He had never spilled information to her which he did not ultimately destine for Waden’s ears.

But he might have given her silent communications.

And she had deserted him at the moment when his own accomplishment was highest. She had never come to admire his work, not that he ever knew. She had watched it until the closing of the dome sealed it, but she had never seen the heart of it.

Had not, he supposed, wanted that influence upon her. Not yet. Perhaps she would never come; would always evade it. That evidenced a certain fear of his strength and talent. He decided so, more satisfied when he put it in that perspective. And Waden avoided it; in another kind of fear, he thought, fear of disappointment, perhaps-—or the enjoyment of anticipation. He knew Waden, knew well enough Waden’s unwillingness to be led; of course Waden was going to feign nonchalance at the last moment, was going to occupy himself with whatever he could and ignore him as long as he could.

He felt more and more confident. He smiled to himself as he walked down the stairs to his own apartment, a stairway now clear of strangers and invisibles.

That night he stood at the window to look out on the city and there was a darkness where before lights had shone over the dome. He missed the glow, and yet the darkness itself was a sign of completion. Generations to come might want to light the Square by night; but for his part, it belonged in the sun, which gave it essence. He turned his face from the window and paced, restless, his thoughts more toward the port than, this night, toward Jenks Square.

He took the brooch which had lain on the table, from beside the tray which the servants would take away, but no one had pilfered the brooch and he had not, in fact, expected that it would vanish. He ran his fingers over it, traced the smooth spirals of the design and the silky surface of the blue stones. Invisible, like the makers, like the mind which had shaped it and the hands which had handled it until his took it up.

And he went to the closet and clipped it to the collar of the Black he would wear tomorrow. The humor of it pleased him; he had had enough of invisible absurdities, because still the memory of that Outsider hand which had dared check him rankled. His arm felt bruised. So he chose his own absurdities. Let Waden comment. He dusted himself and stripped off his still dusty garments and tossed them into the corner, his old and own habits; the Residency had made him too meticulous, as Keye had wished to make him, observant of her amenities.

So let the servants pick it up if they liked. Servants
washed
the clothes. They could find them wherever they were dropped and he had no present desire to be agreeable to anyone. He began to weary of the Residency, this stifling place where Waden’s guests came and went.

He thought of returning to the University. He thought even of Law’s Valley and a visit to Camus Province, recalled that he had thought of summoning his family here for his great day, that on which the Work would be finished, but
that ...
that indicated a desire for something, which he denied, and the mere thought of the logistics involved was tedium. He desired nothing;
needed
nothing. He found himself charged with a surfeit of energy, facing physical work on the morrow, but with nothing for his mind to do. He could not face bed, or sleep, and thought of Keye again, with vexation. He paced and thought even of dressing again and going out and walking the streets to burn off the energy.

He should have stayed in that conference. Waden’s invisible might have been interesting. And if he had stayed, there would have been trouble, because he was in a mood for encounter, for debate, for anything to occupy his mind, and Waden and Keye
without
the visitor would have been the company he would have chosen. But he had sensed in Waden a protective attitude toward the intruder: Waden’s Art ... he did well, he decided, to have walked out, and not to have been there in his present state of energy.

He paced, and ended up at the table again, staring at the rest of the wine which had come with dinner, and reminding himself that he had decided not to take that route to sleep; that he was headed away from that very visible precipice. It damaged him. So did lying awake and rising early, and doing physical and mental labor on two hours’ sleep a night.

With resentment, he uncapped the bottle, poured the glass full, set bottle and glass by the bedside.

He began to think where he was going next, what project he might have in mind; but the one he was finishing was still too vivid for him, refused to leave his thoughts and yet refused further elaborations. It became a pit out of which he could not climb, offering no broader perspectives, affording him no view of where he was going next.

The vision would come, he reckoned, lying abed and sipping at the wine and staring at the wall opposite, with the dark window at his left and nothing out there to dream about. It
would
come. As yet it did not.

The finish came at night. The Work stood complete and it was all done—in the dark and with no admirers. The night was cold as nights in the season could be, with a beclouded moon and puddles of rain in the dome, water which had drifted through the perforations as a light mist that haloed the lamps.

Herrin had seen the finish near, so near, had pushed himself on after dark. “Light,” he had asked of Carl Gytha and Andrew Phelps who remained with him; and John Ree, who was there for reasons unexplained; and some of the others who had decided to work the off shift of other jobs they had gotten since the project finished, or after classes they had joined after the finish of the project and nighttime strollers who had found a place to be and something going on ended up lending a hand with the carrying of this and that.
“Light,”
he would say, his back turned to all of this activity, and peevishly, for his arms ached and he had bitten through his lip from the sheer strain of holding his position to polish this place and the other. It did not occur to him to inquire whether holding that light was a strain; or it did, but he was having trouble reaching a spot at the moment and forgot to ask afterward. His own pain was by far enough, and he was beset with anxiety that he could not last, that they would face the anticlimax of giving up, and coming back at dawn to do the last work, all because
his
strength might give out. He worked, and gave impatient orders that kept the beam on the sculpture so that he could see what he was doing; he ran sore hands over the surface which had become like glass, seeking any tiny imperfection.

“We’ll
do
it,” they said about him, and, “Quiet, don’t rattle that,” and, “The foundry
has
it; we can get it. ...” The plaque, they meant: he had asked about that, in a lull for rest, and he trusted they were doing something in the matter, because he had shown them where it should go, had picked a paving-square which could come out, out where the square began to be the Square, and not Main. They had hammered the paving-square out during the day, and prepared the matrix, not only to set the names in bronze, but to seal the bronze to protect it from oxidation and from time. He heard some activity outside, and ignored it, locked in his own concentration on his own task.

He stopped finally and took the cup a worker thrust to his lips, took it in his own aching hands, drank and drew breath.

“Get the scaffolding down now,” he said, a mere hoarse whisper. “It’s
done
.”

“Yes,
sir
,” said Carl Gytha, and patted his shoulder. “Yes,
sir.
”

He swung his legs off the platform.

“It’s
done
,” someone said aloud, and the word passed and echoed in the acoustics of the dome ...
done
...
done
...
done
... drowned by applause, a solemn and sober applause, from a whole array of people who had no obligation to be there at all. He slid down into steadying hands, and there was a rush to get him a coat and to hand him his drink, as if he were their child and fragile. “What about the plaque?” he asked, remembering that.

“In, sir,” said John Ree. “Got it set and setting, and not a bubble.”

“Show me.”

They did, held their breath collectively through his inspection of it, which was exactly the size of one of the meter square paving blocks. It was set in and true as John Ree had said. They had lights on it to help dry the plastic.WADEN ASHLEN JENKS, the plaque said, FIRST CITIZEN OF FREEDOM, BY THE ART OF MASTER HERRIN ALTON LAW and ... Leona Kyle Pace, Carl Ellis Gytha, Andrew Lee Phelps, master apprentices ... Lara Catherin Anderssen, Myron Inders Andrews. ...

The names went on, and on, and filled the surface of the plaque, down to the foundry which had cast it.

Pace.
That name was there, and how it had gotten there, whether they had used an old list and no one had wanted to
see
the name to take it off before they had given it to the foundry, or no one wanted to take it off at all, or both of those things ... it was there, and an invisible was atop the whole list of workers and apprentices. He fingered the pin he wore, tempting the vision of those about him, and nodded slowly, and looked back past the encircling crowd of those who had gathered in the dark, where light still showed inside the dome and the scaffolding was coming down,

“Let’s get it all done,” he said, “so the sun comes up on it whole, and finished.”

They moved, and all of them worked, carrying out the pieces of the scaffolding, worked even with polishing cloths and on hands and knees, cleaning up any hint of debris or stain, polishing away any mark the scaffolding itself might have made.

The lights went out, and there was only the night sky for illumination, a sky which had begun to be clear and full of stars. Those who walked here now shed echoes, and began to be hushed and careful. The sculpted face of Waden Jenks, gazing slightly upward, took on an illusory quality in the starlight, like something waiting for birth, biding, and lacking sharp edges.

Some went home to bed, a trickle which ebbed away the bystanders, and more went home nursing sore hands and exhaustion, probably to lie awake all night with aches and pains; but some stayed, and simply watched.

Herrin was one, for a time. He looked at what he had created, and listened, and it still seemed part of him, a moment he did not want to end. Gytha and Phelps were still there. He offered his hand to them finally and walked away, out through the silent gates of the dome and into the presence of Others, who had come as they often did, harming nothing.

The silence then was profound. He looked back, and stood there a time, and enjoyed the sight, the white marble dome in the starlight, the promise of the morning.

Keye’s window ... was dark.

Not at home, perhaps.

He looked aside then, and walked on up Main, occasionally flexing a shoulder, recalling that he had missed supper. He resented the human need to eat, to sleep; there was a sense of time weighing on him. The mind, which he had vowed not to anesthetize again, was still wide awake and promised to remain so, working on everything about it, alive and alert and taking no heed of a body which trembled with exhaustion and ached with cramps. He thought of the port, with Waden’s guests; of Keye, with Waden; of Pace, whether
she
might have come this night and gone away unnoticed; of Gytha and Phelps; of dinner and what it was he could force his stomach to bear; of Outside and ambitions and stations and the other continent and what he should do with that and how the morning was going to be and whether it would rain; and how he could keep going if he were to go to bed without supper, whether he could force himself to have the patience for breakfast, and how long he could keep going if he skipped both—and whether Waden Jenks, in perverse humor, would not try to make little of the day and the moment and all that he had accomplished. All this poured through his mind in an endlessly recycling rush, robbing him of any hope of sleep.