Read Shiva and Other Stories Online
Authors: Barry N. Malzberg,Catska Ench,Cory Ench
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Anthologies, #Short Stories, #Anthologies & Short Stories, #Time Travel
Shiva and Other Stories (6 page)
Coursing
T
HERE WAS THIS WOMAN AND HER NAME WAS MARIA.
She lived in a console of the great ship
Broadway
and whispered to Hawkins in the night, promises of love and fealty, warmth and connection. Hawkins could not touch her, could not consummate the promise because she was a simulacrum, a collection of electrons and impulses in the bottle but she made dark periods lively indeed and they had promised that at the end of the voyage, if Hawkins were to do what he meant to, she would be waiting for him, the real Maria; and she would make all these things true. Hawkins did not really believe this, did not believe any of it but the light years were vast, the ship was vacant and full of the stink of antiseptic, and if he were not able to converse with Maria there would have been nothing at all. So he thanked them in his heart for their time and trouble, their cruelty and their manipulativeness, and let it go by. He let everything go by. The twenty-fourth century was all accommodation.
Hawkins, a felon interred on Titan, had been given a conditional release to go to the Pleiades System and negotiate with the King of the Universe. The King of the Universe, through pulsar, had advised the inner clusters that he would destroy them greatly unless every knee bent and every tongue did give homage. The King of the Universe might have been insane, but very little was known of the Pleiades Cluster and it was assumed that any culture with technology advanced enough to make possible this kind of communication could not be dismissed out of hand.
Half
a hand yes—send them a felon to do the negotiating—but the last time an alien threat had been entirely ignored brought about the Slaughtering Hutch of a hundred years. The King might have been a child given access to powerful communications
matériel
or a lunatic acting out for therapy; on the other hand he might be exactly what he said, in which case the inner clusters had a problem. Hawkins, a failure, was half a hedge against riot. Keep a civil tongue, the Advisors had said, evaluate the situation, and try to buy him off; if he refuses to negotiate or turns out to be what he seems then you know where the self-destructs are. Try to get near enough to take the King down. There’s enough armament on the
Broadway
to take down the Pleiades themselves. And have a good time; after all, the Advisors concluded, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Thirty-three Earth days is nothing for a man who has done half a lifetime; think of it as front-loading.
Hawkins lay in the ship’s abscess, just inside the probes, and said to Maria, “This isn’t going to work. They’ll wipe me out as errata; we’re an unidentified flying object.”
“I love you,” Maria said softly; “I want to hold you against me. You are the gentlest and most wonderful man that I have ever known and I want you to be mine, all mine.”
“I have to get serious,” Hawkins said; “there’s no time for passion here.”
“Don’t put me off, you dark fool,” Maria said. “Closer and closer. Touching in the night. You will pacify the King and return; we will meet on Ganymede and in the silence and the density we will hold one another. Oh, if we had only met earlier; none of this would ever have happened to you.”
Hawkins said, “I don’t want to think about what it would have been like if we had met earlier. I don’t want to talk about that now.” He reached for the volume switch and lowered Maria’s voice to a soothing burble. For reasons which were quite sufficient the technicians had made it impossible for him to cut off Maria completely, but he was able at least to modulate; this made it possible for him to find some periods of sleep. In the intricate alleys of metal and wire he could still hear her voice, extract the shape of words.
Lover. Apposite. Breasts.
Hawkins felt a regret which verged on pity, but he urged himself to be strong. He could not listen to her now. He was scheduled for a confrontation with the King of the Universe shortly. The King had scheduled it all. Hawkins would be brought before him in the dock of an artificial satellite and explain his condition, offer his terms. The King had stated that he had not been surprised; he knew that it would only be a matter of time until the Inner Cluster sued for mercy. The
Broadway
had been tracked all the way with farsighted devices, had been under the King’s mighty surveillance since it had torn free of the sun outside the orbit of Jupiter.
Hawkins huddled in the ship and awaited judgment. He thought of all the alleys and corridors of his life which, like the alleys and corridors of the ship, seemed to work endlessly and musically against one another, bringing him to this tight and difficult center. If he had done this then he might not, instead, have done that; if he had served his time penitentially rather than with defiance they might have sought someone else to deal with the King. But then again defiance was good because they needed a man who would take a position and most felons got broken within the early months of their confinement. Then too there was Maria who had been given to inflame and console but with whom, instead, he had fallen into a difficult kind of love. It was not her corporeality but the electron impulses themselves, the cleverness and sophistication of the device, which had hooked him in. Someday, if he lived through this, he would try to explain it all to the technicians. He doubted if they would listen; creating their wonderful devices they had come only to hate themselves because they could not be part of them. If the twenty-fourth century was for accommodation, then it was also for paradox. It was a paradoxical age. The
Broadway
veered and the gray abscesses colored to flame; the King of the Universe materialized before him in holographic outline. “I thought this would be easier,” the King said. “Of course I am at a good distance from this image so don’t think of anything foolish.”
Hawkins was thinking of nothing foolish, concentrating instead upon the holograph. The King was a wondrous creature; the form was avian but like no bird that Hawkins had ever seen, and the beak was set of fierce design. The King half-turned, seemed to preen, displayed feathers. “Do you like this?” he said. “I wanted an imposing design in which to appear.”
“Then this isn’t how you look?”
“This is
exactly
how I look,” the King said, “and this is no time for conundrums. Can you give me any reason why I should not sack and destroy the Inner Cluster?”
“I have brought priceless gems,” Hawkins said; “if you sack and destroy there will be none of them left. Also, as a creature of some sensitivity you would not want to destroy ten trillion sentient and vulnerable souls, would you?”
The King winked. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “You think that only a lunatic would address you over the light years, threaten destruction, call himself the King of the Universe.”
“On the contrary,” Hawkins said, “we take you very seriously or why would I be here?”
“I can’t answer that,” the King said. “I merely run things, not try to account for them; and I must tell you that I am sore displeased. I think I’ll appropriate your gems and dematerialize you.”
“Don’t do it so quickly,” Hawkins said. It was impossible for him to tell whether the King was serious or capable of such action, but the entire mission had been predicated on the fact that he might be, and his own condition was humbling. “Don’t do it,” he said again, pleadingly. “We’re not without a history. There are elements of our tradition which are honorable. If not science, art; if not art a certain damaged religiosity.”
Why am I defending us?
he thought; this was the civilization, those were the technicians who first imprisoned me and then sent me out with the simulacrum of a woman to tantalize and to die. Truly, the situation is indefensible. Perceiving this, knowing that his thoughts were moving toward hopelessness and failure, Hawkins reached out and moved the volume switch. “Tell him,” he said. “Tell him the things that you tell me, Maria.”
“He is a good man,” Maria said. “I love him desperately. We talk in the night; he tells me many things. When he returns to Titan I will dwell with him in holiness and fealty forever.”
The King fluttered. “Who are you?” he said.
“My name is Maria and I am the lover of this man, Hawkins. He is a good man.”
“Where are you?”
“I walk on this ship and to and fro upon it. Where are you?”
The King said, “That is not the issue.” His speech had slurred; he seemed to have lost that edge of high confidence with which he had threatened destruction. “Show me yourself.”
“That is not necessary,” Maria said. “I am faithful to this one man.”
“Abandon him,” the King said, “and come to me instead. Perhaps we can work out something.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Maybe something can be worked out,” Hawkins said carefully. “It isn’t absolutely necessary—”
“Offer him the diamonds, but don’t offer him me.”
“I don’t want the diamonds,” the King said. He sounded petulant. “I can have the diamonds
anyway
.”
She is a simulacrum, Hawkins thought, a memory, an instance, unpurchasable. But instead he said, “If you return with me to the Inner Cluster you can have her.”
“Why return? I want her
here
.”
“Love is impossible in space,” Hawkins said quietly. “The eternal vacuum, the interposition of organism upon the void makes love impossible. Accept my assurances on that.”
“I cannot return with you,” the King said after some silence. “I would burn in the vastnesses of space. I am unprepared for a journey of any sort, confined to my castle. Leave her here.”
“I’m afraid not,” Hawkins said. “She would perish.”
“Yes, I would perish,” Maria said coldly. “I would most surely perish, Hawkins, if I could not have you. I am not property; I am your lover, I cannot be treated in this fashion.”
“You can be treated in any way I want,” Hawkins said. “Remember the conditions. You were delivered to give me solace, not argument.
“Nonetheless,” he said to the King, “as you see, it is quite impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” the bird said, “not to the King of the Universe,” and the bird turned, opened both impenetrable eyes and clawed at the floor. “That is my demand,” he said, “leave her here and the diamonds and you may go. The Inner Cluster will be spared. Take the diamonds, in fact. I don’t need them.”
Hawkins said, “For the greater good, Maria, for all circumstances, I ask you—”
“I love you,” the simulacrum said. “I know that I was made part of the equipment merely to convenience, to give you solace, but I am quite out of control and it’s you I love. I don’t want to deal with any bird.”
“I’m not really a bird,” the King said, “this is merely a form which I project. Actually, I can be anything at all. You would be most pleasantly surprised.”
“Appearances mean nothing to me,” Maria said. “I’m sorry but it’s quite impossible. This wasn’t how the situation was supposed to be but it’s how matters have turned out, I’m afraid. No, Hawkins, I will not yield.”
“Then neither will I,” the King said. “I am not a paranoid Pleiadan but the true and invincible King of the Universe, and I will make good on my threats. I tracked you from Jovian orbit, Hawkins; I had hoped that it would be for better outcome.”
Hawkins looked at the figure of the bird, the eyes and figures glinting in the tight spaces of the cabin; he listened to the continued murmuring of Maria, now plaintive as she explained why she could not leave him. Hawkins looked at one simulacra and listened to the other as the
Broadway
ebbed and dipped in station, thinking I am man, I am twenty-fourth-century man, era of accommodation and paradox, felon of the twelfth order; you are in a Hell of a spot now. A Hell of a spot, for she cares.
But he wasn’t. He really wasn’t, after all. As he heard Maria begin to shriek in passion, as he heard her say
Oh, King o King o King
he came to understand that for some dilemmas there is, after all, resolution; if not flesh, then steel is all.
Oh Kingokingoking
Maria cried, and as the
Broadway
grandly broke stasis he began to see the light of eternity open up to him.
He’s wonderful!
Maria cried,
O King!
There was this woman and her name was Maria; she loved Hawkins, she said, and first refused the impossible embraces of a mad Pleiadan but there was a grander design and she saw it saw it saw it
okingoking.
Hawkins felt the tumble of paradox.
Just before the blankness, he mumbled,
faithless bitch
.
O flawless faithless one.
Folly for Three
G
OOD, HE SAID AGAIN, THIS IS VERY GOOD.
Just turn a little, let the light catch you. I want to see you in profile, against the light. There, he said, that’s good. That’s what I want. His voice had thickened, whether with passion or contempt she had no idea. They were still at that tentative state of connection where all moves were suspect, all signals indeterminate.
Ah, he said, you’re a piece all right. That’s what you are.
I’ve never done this before, she said. I’ve never done anything like this before. I want you to know that. She looked out the window, the gray clouds on the high floor hammering at the panes. Way, way up now. For everything there’s a first time, she said.
Right, he said, humoring her. Whatever you say. I’m your first. Best in the world. Anything for a hump. He backed against a chair, crouched, fell into the cushions, stared at her from that angle, looking upward intently, checking out her crotch, then the high angle of her breasts, pulled upward within the brassiere, arching. He muttered something she could not hear and raised a hand.
What is it? she said. What do you want?
Come here. I want you to come here right now.
Tell me why.
I don’t want games, he said. We’ll have time for that later. You want to fool around, play with yourself. Come over here. Move it.
Can’t you be a little kinder? I told you, I’ve never done anything like this before.
You want a commendation? he said. A Congressional Medal of Honor? He cleared his throat, looked at her with an odd and exacting impatience. Everybody has to have a first time, he said. Even I did once. I got through it. You’ll get through it too. But you have to close your eyes and jump. Move it over here now.
This isn’t the way I thought it would be, she said.
How did you think it would be? Flowers and wine? Tchaikovsky on the turntable? White Russians with straws? This is the setup, he said, this is what a nooner feels like. You don’t hang out in bars midday if you’re not looking for a nooner.
She looked at him, almost as if for the first time, noting the age spots on his arms, the fine, dense wrinkling around the eyes, which she had not noticed in the bar. Could she back out now? No, she thought, she couldn’t. This was not the way it was done. That was all behind her now. I’m on the forty-eighth floor and that’s all there is to it and no one in the world except this man knows I’m here. Not the kids, not Harry, not the cops. Okay, she said, I’m coming. She went toward him, trying to make her stockings glide, trying to move the way they moved in this kind of scene on
Dallas
. Maybe she could break him on the anvil of desire. Maybe she could quit him. Maybe—
There was a pounding on the door. Open up, someone in the hall said, open it! Open it now! The voice was huge, insistent.
For God’s sake, she said, who is that?
He was trembling. I don’t know, he said. What have you put us into? Detectives? Photographers? You got me into this, bitch. He backed away from her. His lips moved but there was no sound.
The noises in the hall were enormous, like nothing she had ever heard. The hammering was regular, once every three or four seconds now, an avid panting just beyond earshot. Like fucking, that’s how it sounded. Last chance, the voice said. You open the goddamned door or we break it down.
What have you done? she said to the man. Stunned, absolutely without response, he ran his hands over his clothing, looked stupidly at the belt. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she said. This wasn’t part of it.
Who is out there?
Nothing. He had nothing to say. He brought his clothing against him helplessly in the thin off-light in which she had so recently posed. She heard the sound of keys in the hallway. They were going to open the door.
* * *
An hour earlier in the bar she had said, Let’s go now. I have a room in the Lenox around the corner.
Fast mover, he had said. His briefcase was on his lap, concealing an erection she supposed, one elbow draped over it awkwardly, clutching the briefcase there, the other hand running up and down her bare arm. She could feel the tremor in his fingers. He wanted her. Well, that was
his
problem.
I can be fast when I want, she said. Other times I can be slow. Whatever you say, big boy, I’m on your side. Who can believe these lines? she thought. This is what it’s come to now.
Okay, he said. Just let me finish this drink. He raised the cocktail glass. I paid for it, he said, it’s mine, I ought to have it.
She pressed his arm. You only think you’re paying, she said.
I’m
paying. All the way, up and down the line. In his face she could see the pallor of acknowledgment, a blush of realization.
I’ve got a hot one here
, that face was saying. Well, that’s the idea all right.
Let’s go, friend, she said. She pushed away her own glass, clung to him for an instant, then pulled him upright. Let’s see how fast you are where it counts. Out in the clean fresh air and then forty-eight stories
up,
that’s the right place to put it.
He released her, yanked upright from the stool, took out a twenty, and put it on the bar. We’ll see how fast I am, he said. He took the briefcase against his side, gripped the handle. Now, he said. The lust on his face seemed to struggle for just a moment with doubt, then faded to a kind of bleakness as she reached out again and stroked him. Now and now. He rose gravely to her touch. For God’s sake, he said. For God’s sake—
Now, she said.
They struggled toward the door. The man on the stool nearest the entrance looked up at them, his glasses dazzling in the strobe and said, You too? Every one of you?
She stared. She had never seen this man in her life. Of course, she reminded herself, the salesman with the briefcase was new also. Two strangers, one maybe as good as the other when she had walked in but the salesman was the one she had picked and in whom the time had been invested. No looking back. She said nothing, started toward the door.
Fornicators, the seated man said, infidels. Desolate lost angels of the Lord. Have you no shame? No hope?
Out on the street, the salesman said, Another bar, another crazy. They’re all over the place. This city—
I don’t want to hear about the city, she said. Please. Just take me to the hotel. Right now. She was appalled by the thought that the man at the bar would come after them. The thought was crazy but there it was. To the hotel, she said. I’m burning up, can’t you tell. She yanked at his wrist. Now, she said, let’s go.
She began to tug at him, he broke into a small trot. Hey, he said, hey look, it’s all right. We’ve got all afternoon. I’m not going anywhere, we have hours. We have—
I’m afraid he’s following us, she said. There, it was out, be done with it. I’m afraid he’s going to come after us.
Who? The guy from the bar?
His footsteps, she said, I know them. He’s coming up behind us. She turned and pointed, ready for a confrontation right there but of course there was nothing. A couple of secretaries giggling, a man with a dog, a beggar with a sign saying
I AM BLIND
, that was all. Quickly, she said, before he finds us. I know he’s on the way.
She moved rapidly then, dropping her grip, striding out, making the salesman race. Let him struggle, she thought. Let him chase her a little. She was afraid of the man in the bar whether or not he was coming. Desolate lost angels of the Lord. Fornicators, she thought. We’re all fornicators but some of us know more than others. There was something to come to terms with in this but she simply could not. All she wanted to do was get to the forty-eighth floor of the Hotel Lenox, take him into that room, get it over with, take him as deep as her brains. Make it happen, make it done. Get it into her. She was burning. Burning.
* * *
That morning in the kitchen he had said, I don’t know how late I’ll be. There’s a conference midday and then I have to go out with the accounts exec again. I could be tied up till midnight with this guy, he’s a professional drunk. If that’s it I’ll just get a room in the city and sleep in.
That’s nice, she said. That’s the third time I’ve heard that this month. Why bother coming home at all?
Hey, he said, his head tilting to attention, you think I’m lying? You think this is some kind of crap here, that I’m making up a story? Then just say it.
I didn’t say a thing.
You think I’m running around? he said. I’m knocking my brains out to keep us in this $250,000 house we can’t afford and can’t sell and you’re running tabs on me? Maybe we ought to have a discussion about that.
We’re not going to have a discussion about anything, she said. He looks forty, she thought, and his gut is starting to swell. The sideburns are ragged and at night, the nights that he’s next to me, he breathes like an old man, a sob in his throat. He’s not going to last but who lasts? What stays? Ten years ago we made plans and every one of them worked out. I’m having trouble getting wet. AIDS is crossing the Huguenot line. The kids are no longer an excuse. We moved here expecting the usual, who was to know the joke was on us? I’m entitled to something too, she said, just think of that.
What does that mean? he said indifferently. He stood, gathered papers, stacked them, and leaned to open his briefcase. You trying to tell me something?
Nothing, she said, nothing at all. Make of it what you will.
Because if that’s the deal, two can play, you know. I don’t have to get a heart attack at forty-two to keep you in a place like this. I can just let it go.
Forget it, she said. I didn’t mean anything. It was just an expression. Pushing it, she thought. We’re starting to push it now. It used to be easier; now we’ve got to get closer and closer to the bull.
Everything’s an expression, he said. He opened the briefcase, inserted the papers, closed it with a snap. There’s no time to discuss this now, he said. Maybe later we ought to settle a few goddamned things. Maybe we’ll sit down this weekend and talk.
I’ll make an appointment, she said.
Enough, he said, enough of this. I’m out the door. You got something to say, maybe you write it down in words of one syllable, we fix it so a simple guy like me can see this. We’re practical in the sales department, we only know what’s in front of us. You got to spell it out.
Me and my imaginary friend, she said.
Imaginary friend? Is that what you call him now?
You’ll be late for the bus, she said. You’ll miss your connections and what will happen midday? He stared at her. You’ve got a schedule to meet, I mean, she said. In four years he won’t be able to come, she thought. He’ll be a heavy, barking lump next to me and I’ll be counting the heartbeats, waiting for the hammer. That’s what’s going to happen. You bet it would have to be imaginary, she said.
He laughed, a strangulated groan. Too much, he said, you’re too much for me. Always were. Always ahead of me. He leaned forward, kissed her cheek, his eyes flicking down indifferently, taking in her body, then moving away, all of him moving away, arching toward the wall and then the door. Keep it going, he said, just take a tip from me and keep it going. He reached toward the door.
Just like I do, he said and with a wink was gone.
She followed him, closed the heavy service door, sat on the stool, ran her feet in and around her slippers, looking at the clock. In her mind she ran the day forward, spun the hours, turned it until it was one in the afternoon and she would be in the Lenox waiting to be taken. She had worked it all out. But that still left hours, even figuring in the time at the bar and the arrangements to be made there. Too much time altogether. She thought of that.
She thought of it for a long time and of other things, the kids off at school, the difficult arc of the morning already getting passed. What do you think? she said to herself, what do you really think of this? Does it make any sense at all? Is this what we wanted?
Desolation, a voice said. That isn’t what you wanted, that’s what you’ve got. So you do the best you can. You make it up as you go along. That’s the suburban way of life.
Well, there was nothing to say to that. There almost never was. What she could say would destroy the game. She kicked off her slippers and moved toward the stairs, ready to get dressed, ready to pull herself together. Again. Playing it out.
* * *
Two years before that, a Thursday in summer she had said, I can’t go on this way anymore, Harry. Can you understand that? It’s too much for me, it’s not enough for me, it’s a greyness, a vastness, I can’t take it. I need something else. I can’t die this way. She had run her hand on his thigh, felt the cooling, deadly torment of his inanition.
It’s not just you, she said. It’s everything. It’s everybody.
We can work it out, he said. There are things we can do.
We can’t do anything. I’ve thought it through. It’s just the situation and it’s too much. It’s not enough, it’s—
It’s not just the two of us, he said. There are things to be done.
No shrinks, she said. No counselors. We’ve had enough of them. We’re not getting anywhere.
I don’t mean that, he said. There are other things. Things we can do on our own, things that will change.
Oh, Harry, she said, Harry, you have answers, but there are no answers, there are only plagues out there and darkness.
So we’ll do something, he said, practically. He was a practical man. Because of the plagues, the risks. No one goes out there now if they can help it. I don’t want to go out there and neither do you. So we have to work something out.
What? she said. What do you want? What’s the answer?
He clutched her hand. We know all about it in the sales game, he said, and I can teach you.
Teach me what?
Masks, he said.
Masks? Halloween?
Repertory theater, he said. That’s what we’re going to have here. A little repertory theater. So get ready for the roles of your life.
Once she had loved him, she supposed. She must have loved him a lot. In deference to that, then, she laid back in the bed wide-eyed, listened to the tempo of his breathing as it picked up, touched him.
