Armor (31 page)

“He paddled all the way around in a little circle until he saw this little ledge kind of rock sticking out next to the wall and he paddled over, his little paws just churning, until he got there and then he just dug and clawed and scrambled up there, all the way on top of it where he could rest a little. And where I could see his little hips all crushed.”

She shook her head to clear it, gritting her teeth. She began to talk more quickly, anxious to get it over with.

“But the rock he was on was too small, even for him and he was so. . . tiny! It was wet, too, from the water and. . . and from the blood and slippery. He fell back in, when he twisted around to try and lick away the pain.

“But instead of getting right back up there he seemed to be lost and he paddled around some more until I yelled down to him to get back on the rock and. . . when he heard my voice . . . he looked up at me, right into my eyes, and whimpered for help.”

She stopped abruptly. She buried her face in her hands.

When she looked back up, she was a ghost.

“He whimpered all the time from then on. Everytime he paddled he’d let out this pitiful little yelp. And everytime he got back up on the rock where he could catch his breath he would howl up to me to come get him and save him. There was no way to do that. Just no way. It was too deep and I didn’t have a ladder or a rope and even if I’d had one, it was too far for me to climb. So all I could do was sit there and listen and watch him paddle and dig and scramble his way back up onto that rock and then, in just a second or two, slide back into the water. Pretty soon the water was red.

“And he was such a tiny puppy he couldn’t lose that much blood and live. But he did. He was like a. . . I don’t know. Like a little motor. Paddling around and around like he could always do it.”

She looked at us as if pleading. Back and forth into our dead frozen eyes. “But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He wasn’t a motor. He wasn’t a machine. He was a puppy! I could hear how it hurt him. He was in agony!

“But he just kept on, paddling and climbing up and slipping back down into that red water and blood, sometimes his little head would just disappear for a few seconds. But he’d always come right back up again.

“At first I admired him so! Oh, I thought he was the bravest, most noble little thing I had ever seen, to keep at it like that. But. . . after a while. After the first hour. . . I mean, there was just no. . .

“I just hated him. I hated him. Because he wouldn’t die. He was putting me through it, too. And I couldn’t stand it! I couldn’t stand it! I mean, there was just no way. And …”

Her voice cracked, broke. There was no way to stop it. But she told the rest of it through her aching.

“I went to the garden, the rock garden Morn was making and I got the biggest rocks I could carry and I took them back to the well and I sat there at the edge and I threw them at him until he was dead. I. . . I crushed his head with them.”

She collapsed into fitful, racking sobs. Holly, tears plainly visible on his own cheeks, rushed to her and wrapped her in his arms. She clung to him, letting herself have it for some seconds. Then her head began shaking violently against his chest. “No!” she blurted and tore herself away. Holly tried to cradle her again but she propped her palms against his chest, holding him off and looking him in the eye so he would really know. . .

“No! No, Holly. No, my darling you don’t understand! It’s. . . it’s. . . I hate Felix, too. Holly. I hate him the very same way I did that puppy and I hate us for watching and for not being able to stop watching and I hate him for making us see how brave he can be and. . . But mostly. ...”

She shrugged out of his grasp, stood up from the stool. Her voice was low and resigned and clotted with her shame. “Mostly I hate me. Holly. Because I would do it again. Yes, I would. I would. If I could do it again. I’d kill Felix now. I’d kill him. Anything to stop the awful whimpering. Anything!

“Don’t you see, Holly? Don’t you see? You can’t love me!

Look! Look how hateful I am!”

And then she fell against him, surrendering at last to his care. And his judgment. But there was no judgment there. For Holly felt the same way. He told her so as he held her. And as he told her he, too, began to cry and shake with the pain and shame and self-hate.

I tried to reach them. God, how I wanted to! But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I knew what to say. I knew what to do. I needed the release so badly, more than they did, more, worse, than they could ever know.

But I was blocked. Stuck tight to the rim of me, to the meat of my fear and loathing and hiding out behind and from the legend I had bled for so long.

I remember trying to stand up. . .

I woke up on the cot in Lya’s small office. Holly was nowhere in sight. Lya sat on a chair watching me. She stood up and moved to the edge of the cot. I looked up at her and . . . and all of it came rushing back. I felt the blood exploding through my veins. I opened my mouth1 couldn’t talk. Realized my eyes had closed hell, slammed shut. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t. . . .

And then I felt her arms circling my shoulders and I all but dove against her, clinging to her. My tears broke through at last, soaking her blouse. My sobs, unbid, rattled me. I babbled a lot. Most of it was confused and lost, except for saying, for admitting that I hated Him too.

And something else. I looked up after awhile, feeling and sounding like a child. Pleading. “I want to be Jack Crow again!”

She smiled warmly. Glowing protective and sure. “You will.”

“But Felix! He’s. ..”

“Felix is dead.”

“How can you be sure?” I insisted, my voice shaking.

“Maybe he never died! Maybe he never will!”

Her face became startledfrightenedhorrified in an instant. But then all was flung away with a toss of her hair and she pressed my head back between her breasts, cutting off my fears with her firm grasp and monotonous maternal coos. She rocked me to sleep, I guess.

No. I’m sure she did. She did.

The clock said three hours until dawn when I awoke again. I was alone, thank God. I sat up on the cot. I fished and found a cigarette. The door to the lab was open. I stood up and used it, crossing the vast shadowy chamber hurriedly to the main seal and the bright corridor beyond. There was no one around, no sound of scurrying techs or late partygoers. Quiet. Fresh air seemed like a good idea. I began the long climb to the outer seal.

Halfway there I stopped and noticed something: I was okay.

I shouldn’t have been. I should have felt embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated and. . . But I didn’t. I felt fine. Relieved, in fact. Like a boil finally lanced. I smiled. Maybe so.

Outside was lovely, brightly starlit. Even the view of the City seemed pristine. I stepped to the bottom of the ramp and sat down to enjoy it. Somebody giggled.

“... what else would you expect?” More giggles.

“Maybe he’s going for some kinda record.” Single giggle.

“Well, he’s got my vote for stupid.” More giggles still.

I stood up and followed the sounds. Not really defensive.

But perhaps a little.

On the Project side of the main bridge stood three Security, the gigglers, in a tight little circle. My approaching tread broke the pattern in a hurry. They gasped together, whipped around together, reached for blazers together. A single voice, however, did the hailing.

“Identify,” she ordered in a strong contralto.

I answered her, ignoring the momentary feeling of daring, with: “Crow.”

They relaxed, peering at me through the darkness. A couple of hooded heads nodded. “Good morning, Mr. Crow,” responded the contralto respectfully. I smiled at my own relief. It still worked.

“Good morning, yourself. What’s so funny?”

Two of them exchanged a nervous glance. But the boss, the contralto, remained cool enough.

“Nothing much, Mr. Crow. Nothing you’d find interesting.”

“Then why did I ask you?”

“Beg pardon. Sir?”

“Why did I ask if I wasn’t already interested?”

“Huh? Well sir, I guess. . . .”

“Don’t guess.”

“Yessir. It was. . . well, it was that Lewis guy.”

“That Lewis guy? You mean the Lewis who owns this planet? That Lewis guy?”

“Uh, yessir. Mr. Lewis.”

“What about Mr. Lewis. . . ?”

“Well, it’s just that. . .”

A sudden burst of staccato explosions had me already dropping to my feet before my conscious mind had recognized the long unheard sound of automatic rifle fire. I looked around to see the three Security still standing. Bent over somewhat, startled even, but still standing.

“Nothing to worry about, Mr. Crow. Those came from the City,” said the contralto, pointing a gloved hand across the river.

I stood up slowly, my gaze following her lead. “The City?

They have guns there?”

“Yessir.”

“I thought all weapons were forbidden them.”

“That’s the law, yessir. One of the only one’s Lew. . .

Mr. Lewis has. But somebody isn’t listening. We’ve been hearing gunfire almost every night for the past couple of weeks. ‘ ‘

“Hmm. What about blazers?”

“Oh, no. No beams. Just bullets.”

Another burst followed the first. Random shots sounded next, continuing intermittently for several seconds. Gradually it faded away to only a shot or two every minute or so. I thought about Wice and Eyes and their little bands of merry men running through that muddy maze playing shoot‘em-up. Maybe missing the past couple of rendezvous had been a pretty good move after all. We stood there for a while as we were, ears keenly attuned, staring out into that dim distant glow listening to unseen strangers fighting unknown, unexplained battles. Once we saw a muzzle flash. Another time I heard a sound that could have been a cry of pain. It could have also been the wind, or the river, or an animal. Or a cry of pain.

“You see what I mean, sir,” said the contralto when the last shots seemed to have come and gone, “they got nothing to do with us. Just local trouble.”

“Luck for them,” said the youngest of the three from beside her. He gripped the butt of his blazer menacingly.

The contralto eyed him with amused disgust. “Meinhoff, you ever see what a little bitty piece of lead does to people with complexions like yours?”

He looked embarrassed. But not enough. “No, Ma’am.”. “Don’t laugh at rifles. Up to five hundred meters they’re every bit as good as blazers.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And you?” she prompted the third Security, another woman. The other woman jumped to attentiveness.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. She thought a moment.

“Only.. .”

The contralto sighed. “Only what Bader?”

“Well, ma’am, you don’t really think we need to take a bunch of potshotting deserters seriously, do you?”

“Bader, if those folks are all deserters, then who’s doing the shooting?”

The other woman opened her mouth to speak, closed it.

“What about Lewis?” I reminded them.

“Oh. Well, it’s just that. . .” She pointed the gloved hand again, this time toward a small copse of trees beside the river’s edge. “He’s right over there if you want to see for yourself.”

“You mean he’s here now?” I asked, surprised.

“Yessir. Comes down to the river to fish every night. Stays all night, too. He doesn’t leave until morning when he…”

“When he what?”

“When he sleeps it off, sir.”

“I see.” I thought a minute. “Thanks,” I said over my shoulder and headed down to the bank. She mumbled something back. I stopped after I had gone several steps and called back to her. “How long has this been going on?” “A couple of weeks, Mr. Crow,” was shouted back.

“Since the shooting started?”

There was a brief pause. Then, “Why, yessir.”

“Good night,” I shouted before actual conversation threatened. I headed toward the trees. The footing was horrible, I noticed. The grass was damp with dew this close to the water’s edge. Not the best time to fish, when any spot you might pick to sit on was wet. But then, what did fishing ever really have to do with Lewis?

He slept peacefully, quietly. Except for his breathing, which was slight, he was as still as a corpse. He was on his back with his face to the stars. His feet were splayed out at a 45degree angle from each other. His arms were twisted around with his elbows sticking out at his sides. His hands were underneath his back for some reason. Perhaps to keep warm. He looked like a cookie.

A drunk cookie, of course. Even from a couple of steps away, I could smell the syntho. There were a couple of jugs beside him, one tipped over on its side and both clearly empty. The fishing gear had been neatly stacked a step away. The line was still dry on the reel.

. I sat down on his tackle box and lit a cigarette. I vaguely recalled someone. Karen, perhaps saying no one had seen him around in quite a while. Well, this was where he’d been. Since the trouble in the City. And, of course, since the day of the picnic when he’d seen the suit. I vividly remembered the look on his face the moment he had seen it. The revulsion. The panic.

I sighed, tossed the cigarette at the river. It hissed momentarily. I reached for his shoulder, damp from the dew like the rest of him, with some indefinite idea of taking him inside to get warm. But when my hand touched him. . . .

I drew my hand back quickly, as if to avoid contamination. The disgust welled up in me. I think I snarled. I took a few steps away, glanced out across the river, then back to the. . . the cookie. I shook my head. I shuddered.

He had named Sanction well. That had been just what it was for a rich punk with too much money and not enough character. And he’d been awfully happy for awhile. He had the Project people there, to supply sanity and straight lines. And syntho. And then along had come a pack of gypsy refugees to provide just the right touch of slumming spice. The perfect cocktail party.

But sooner or later, usually sooner, the next morning shows up full of energy and sunlight and memories of the real world. It kicks most people up off their asses. But Lewis. . . . Without anybody to drink with, he drank alone. At night. In the dew. Away.