He Who Shapes (3 page)

own compensations.

His son Peter was now ten years old. He was attending a

school of quality, and he penned his father a letter every week.

The letters were becoming progressively literate, showing signs

of a precociousness of which Render could not but approve. He

would take the boy with him to Europe in the summer.

As for JillJill DeVille (what a luscious, ridiculous name!he

loved her for it)she was growing, if anything, more interesting

to him. (He wondered if this was an indication of early middle

age.) He was vastly taken by her unmusical nasal voice, her

sudden interest in architecture, her concern with the unremov-

able mole on the right side of her otherwise well-designed nose.

He should really call her immediately and go in search of a new

restaurant. For some reason though, he did not feel like it.

It had been several weeks since he had visited his club. The

Partridge and Scalpel, and he felt a strong desire to eat from an

oaken table, alone, in the split-level dining room with the three

fireplaces, beneath the artificial torches and the boars' heads

like gin ads. So he pushed his perforated membership card into

the phone-slot on his desk and there were two buzzes behind

the voice-screen.

"Hello, Partridge and Scalpel," said the voice. "May I help

you?"

"Charles Render," he said. "I'd like a table in about half an

hour."

"How many will there be?"

"Just me."

"Very good, sif. Half an hour, then.That's 'Render'?

R-e-n-d-e-rl"

"Right."

"Thank you."

He broke the connection, rose from his desk. Outside, the

day had vanished.

The monoliths and the towers gave forth their own light

now. A soft snow, like sugar, was sifting down through the

shadows and transforming itself into beads on the windowpane.

Render shrugged into his overcoat, turned off the lights,

locked the inner office. There was a note on Mrs. Hedges'

blotter.

Miss DeVille called, it said.

He crumpled the note and tossed it into the waste-chute. He

would call her tomorrow and say he had been working until late

on his lecture.

He switched off the final light, clapped his hat onto his head,

and passed through the outer door, locking it as he went. The

drop took him to the sub-subcellar where his auto was parked.

It was chilly in the sub-sub, and his footsteps seemed loud on

the concrete as he passed among the parked vehicles. Beneath

the glare of the naked lights, his S-7 Spinner was a sleek gray

cocoon from which it seemed turbulent wings might at any

moment emerge. The double row of antennae which fanned

forward from the slope of its hood added to this feeling. Render

thumbed open the door.

He touched the ignition and there was the sound of a lone

bee awakening in a great hive. The door swung soundlessly

shut as he raised thesteering wheel and locked it into place. He

spun up the spiral ramp and came to a rolling stop before the

big overhead.

As the door rattled upward he lighted his destination screen

and turned the knob that shifted the broadcast map.Left to

right, top to bottom, section by section he shifted it, until he

located the portion
 
of Carnegie Avenue he desired.
 
He

punched out its coordinates and lowered the wheel. The car

switched over to monitor and moved out onto the highway

marginal. Render lit a cigarette.

Pushing his seat back into the centerspace, he left all the

windows transparent. It was pleasant to half-recline and watch

the oncoming cars drift past him like swarms of fireflies. He

pushed his hat back on his head and stared upward.

He could remember a time when he had loved snow, when it

had reminded him of novels by Thomas Mann and music by

Scandinavian composers. In his mind now, though, there was

another element from which it could never be wholly dis-

sociated. He could visualize so clearly the eddies of milk-

white coldness that swirled about his old manual-steer auto,

flowing into its fire-charred interior to rewhiten that which had

been blackened; so clearlyas though he had walked toward it

across a chalky lakebottomit, the sunken wreck, and he, the

diverunable to open his mouth to speak, for fear of drowning;

and he knew, whenever he looked upon falling snow, that

somewhere skulls were whitening. But nine years had washed

away much of the pain, and he also knew that the night was

lovely.

He was sped along the wide, wide roads, shot across high

bridges, their surfaces slick and gloaming beneath his lights,

was woven through frantic cloverleafs and plunged into a

tunnel whose dimly glowing walls blurred by him like a mirage.

Finally, he switched the windows to opaque and closed his

eyes.

He could not remember whether he bad dozed for a moment

or not, which meant he probably had. He felt the car slowing,

and he moved the seat forward and turned on the windows

again. Almost simultaneously, the cutoff buzzer sounded. He

raised the steering wheel and pulled into the parking dome,

stepped out onto the ramp, and left the car to the parking unit,

receiving his ticket from that box-headed robot which took its

solemn revenge on mankind by sticking forth a cardboard

tongue at everyone it served.

As always, the noises were as subdued as the lighting. The

place seemed to absorb sound and convert it into warmth, to

lull the tongue with aromas strong enough to be tasted, to

hypnotize the ear with the vivid crackle of the triple hearths.

Render was pleased to see that his favorite table, in the

corner off to the right of the smaller fireplace, had been held for

him. He knew the menu from memory, but he studied it with

zeal as he sipped a Manhattan and worked up an order to

match his appetite. Shaping sessions always left him ravenously

hungry.

"Doctor Render . . . ?"

"Yes?" He looked up.

"Doctor Shallot would like to speak with you," said the

waiter.

"I don't know anyone named Shallot," he said. "Are you sure

he doesn't want Bender? He's a surgeon from Metro who

sometimes eats here . . ."

The waiter shook his head.

"No sir'Render.' See here?" He extended a three-by-five

card on which Render's full name was typed in capital letters.

"Doctor Shallot has dined here nearly every night for the past

two weeks," he explained, "and on each occasion has asked to

be notified if you came in."

"Hm?" mused Render. "That's odd. Why didn't he just call

me at my office?"

The waiter smiled and made a vague gesture.

"Well, tell him to come on over," he said, gulping his

Manhattan, "and bring me another of these."

"Unfortunately, Doctor Shallot is blind," explained the

waiter. "It would be easier if you"

"All right, sure." Render stood up, relinquishing his favorite

table with a strong premonition that he would not be returning

to it that evening.

"Lead on."

They threaded their way among the diners, heading up to

the next level. A familiar face said "hello" from a table set back

against the wall, and Render nodded a greeting to a former

seminar pupil whose name was Jurgens or Jirkans or something

like that.

He moved on, into the smaller dining room wherein only two

tables were occupied. No, three. There was .one set in the

corner at the far end of the darkened bar, partly masked by an

ancient suit of armor. The waiter was heading him in that

direction.

They stopped before the table and Render stared down into

the darkened glasses that had tilled upward as they approached.

Doctor Shallot was a woman, somewhere in the vicinity of

her early thirties. Her low bronze bangs did not fully conceal

the spot of silver which she wore on her forehead like a caste-

mark. Render inhaled, and her head jerked slightly as the

tip of his cigarette flared. She appeared to be staring straight up

into his eyes. It was an uncomfortable feeling, even knowing

that all- she could distinguish of him was that which her minute

photo-electric cell transmitted to her visual cortex over the hair-

fine wire implants attached to that oscillator-convertor:
 
in

short, the glow of his cigarette.

"Doctor Shallot, this is Doctor Render," the waiter was

saying.

"Good evening," said Render.

"Good evening," she said. "My name is Eileen and I've

wanted very badly to meet you." He thought he detected a

slight quaver in her voice. "Will you join me for dinner?"

"My pleasure," he acknowledged, and the waiter drew out

the chair.

Render sat down, noting that the woman across from him

already had a drink. He reminded the waiter of his second

Manhattan.

"Have you ordered yet?" he inquired.

"No."

". . . And two menus" he started to say, then bit his tongue.

"Only one," she smiled.

"Make it none," he amended, and recited the menu.

They ordered. Then:

"Do you always do that?"

"What?"