Memories of the Future Page 17

  MR. BLEU: Ciely!

  MRS. BLEU (returning with three full ones): Apologize to our guest this minute, you bitchy little brat!

  CIELY: He’s your guest, not mine. (Runs outside.)

  MRS. BLEU (sitting back down on the sofa): I don’t know what we’re going to do with her. I just don’t.

  RALPH (putting his booted feet on the coffee table and leaning back to a more comfortable position): I know what I’d do with her!

  MR. BLEU: And she’d have it coming too.

  MRS. BLEU: We’ve tried everything. Cutting off her allowance. Locking her in her room. Washing her mouth out with soap. But she goes right on being just as snotty as ever, and keeps right on reading those buks.

  STARFINDER: Buks?

  MRS. BLEU: You know—those make-up things with words.

  STARFINDER: But isn’t she taught out of books at school?

  MRS. BLEU: You’re talking about textbuks. I’m talking about buks. Like you get from the underground liberry.

  MR. BLEU: Mildred, I think Ralph’s bottle is empty. While you’re at it, bring me another one. And bring Uncle John another one too.

  STARFINDER: Skip me again, ma’am.

  RALPH: Dirty capitalist pig!

  STARFINDER: I think I’ll get some air.

  * * *

  Outside in the bright morning sunlight, he wipes his forehead with the regulation handkerchief that came with the uniform and puts his captain’s hat back on. He takes a deep breath. In another minute he’d have—

  Best to forget about it.

  He looks up and down the block. Ciely is nowhere in sight.

  Some distance down the street there is an eruption of verdure that indicates a park. Perhaps she is there.

  He finds her sitting on a green bench that girds a spreading shade tree. She has a small branch in her hand and is tracing evanescent patterns on the grass. In her azure dress, she looks like a piece of the sky that has broken free and drifted down to the ground.

  He crunches along a pebbled path and seats himself beside her. He sits there dumbly, not knowing what to say. For a long while, Ciely doesn’t say anything either. Then, not looking at him, she asks, “What did you think of my devoted parents, Starfinder?”

  “Cynicism doesn’t become you, Ciely.”

  “I know it doesn’t. And evasiveness doesn’t become you.”

  He takes refuge behind a scholarly approach. “The major components of any given culture have a tendency to think alike and to behave alike and to glorify their own ignorance. Nevertheless, such people form the foundation of all stable societies. Without them, there wouldn’t be civilizations.”

  “But you don’t understand, Starfinder. You made all that money while everybody else was trudging along the highway toward economic security, and you still don’t understand.” She is looking at him now. Earnestly, “If the haute bourgeoisie were just the foundation, it would be all right. But they are the walls and the floor and the roof, too. Their unions are so powerful that whatever they say, goes. It’s like serfs taking over a fiefdom and remaining serfs; like muzhiks taking over a landowner’s estate and remaining muzhiks; like sailors taking over a ship and remaining sailors.”

  “If they didn’t remain sailors, the ship might sink.”

  “It would be better if it did.”

  Starfinder sighs. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere, Ciely.”

  She nods. Sadly. “I know. Anyway, we’re talking about tomatoes when the subject is really potatoes.”

  “I’ve deeded my house in the country to your parents, with the proviso that they bequeath it to you. I’ve also established a trust fund for you, with no strings attached, so that when you come of age you can do anything you want, ‘haute bourgeoisie’ or no ‘haute bourgeoisie.’ You can even write poetry if that happens to be your bent. My lawyer has instructions to sell both my limousines and to deposit the money, less his commission of course, in a bank account in your name.”

  She has resumed tracing evanescent patterns in the grass. He waits for her to say something, but the silence is broken only by the shrill voice of a mother sitting on a nearby bench, reprimanding one of her children.

  There is a gnawing ache at the base of his sternum that has all the earmarks of a duodenal ulcer, but which is nothing of the sort. Once again, he assumes a scholarly air. “Given a democracy, Ciely, sooner or later there’s bound to be an establishment, and inevitably its values are going to flavor the societal soup. Renascence’s establishment is comprised of workingmen; but, believe me, if it were comprised of businessmen, it wouldn’t be any better; and if it were comprised of intellectuals, it would probably be worse.” His words sound empty, even to him.

  “You’re still talking about tomatoes, Uncle John.” She throws away her branch and gets to her feet. “I think it will be best if we go back now. My mother and father are probably worried about where I am. As you probably noticed, I’m uppermost in their minds, morning, noon, and night.”

  They leave the park and walk up the street of squarish houses, side by side but parsecs apart. They come to a halt by the little walk that leads up to the Bleus’ front porch. In a Andromedae’s morning light, the flowerbed in the front yard is a multicolored glory to behold. There is one exactly like it next door. In fact, there is one exactly like it in every front yard on the block.

  “Are you coming in, Uncle John?”

  Starfinder shakes his head. “It would serve no useful purpose. Say goodbye to your folks for me, and tell Ralph I’m ready to leave.”

  “Very well.”

  She stands staunchly before him, looking at last into his eyes. She is not nearly as thin now as she was when he first saw her in the boatbay of the eel, nor nearly as frail. And yet she seems to sway slightly in the morning breeze. “Goodbye, Uncle John. Tell Charles I’ll say goodbye to him later.”

  “All right.”

  And then, without warning, she is in his arms, sobbing. “Oh, Starfinder, I’ve been so mean, and I didn’t want to be—honest! I know you had to bring me home, I know you can’t afford to saddle yourself with a twelve-year-old misfit like me, and I don’t blame you in the least. I know all you did for me and I know I can never repay you in a thousand years, I know, I know, I know, and, oh, Starfinder, I love you, you and Charles, and please, when I’m grown up, come back for me!”

  She turns, runs quickly up the walk, climbs the porch steps and disappears into the house. Starfinder’s “duodenal ulcer” takes a turn for the worse. In fact, it nearly doubles him over. Along the periphery of his vision he sees fields and trees and little hills clad with green and growing grass, and then, subtly, the fields fade away, and the hills and the trees, and the grass pales and vanishes, and all that is left is bleak and barren earth.

  * * *

  Ralph comes out of the house, descends the porch steps, staggers a little as he crosses the lawn, and starts to climb behind the wheel of the limousine. Starfinder taps him on the shoulder. “You’re too drunk to drive, Ralph,” he says.

  Ralph turns around, regards him blearily. “Nobody gets drunk on beer. Beer ish the moderage of beveration.”

  “I don’t like drunks,” Starfinder says. “I especially don’t like beer drunks. They’re hypocrites, slobs, and loud-mouths.”

  “Dirty capitalist pig!” Ralph shouts and makes a wild swing in Starfinder’s general direction.

  Starfinder turns him around, propels him across the lawn, boots him in the buttocks and sends him sprawling facedown in the Bleus’ flowerbed. Then Starfinder returns to the limousine, gets behind the wheel, backs out of the driveway and heads for his house in the country, where he will spend the rest of the day winding up his affairs.

  He feels a little better, but not much.

  * * *

  De-orbit, whale, Starfinder commands, standing on the bridge. Dive back into the past.

  The whale does not respond.

  Clearly, it is dozing and has failed “hear” his command.

&
nbsp; De-orbit, whale, he “says” again, doubling the mental voltage of the telepathic command. Dive back into the past!

  The whale does not budge.

  Starfinder is about to repeat the command again when a hieroglyph appears in his mind:

  ???

  You know perfectly well where she is, whale. She’s on Renascence. Now de-orbit and stop playing games!

  ??

  That’s all behind us now, whale. Now, it’s just you and me. Two comrades instead of three. De-orbit!

  You can’t leave me in the lurch, whale! Remember our pact!

  !!!

  Damn it, whale! Do you want me to kidnap her?

  Silence.

  Even if I dared, she needs more than just a father. She needs a mother, too.

  Starfinder throws his captain’s hat on the deck. Not only is he furious, his “duodenal ulcer” is killing him. All right, whale, this is the end! It so happens that I have a house in the country down below and that I happen to own stock in half the major corporations on Renascence and. . . . And then he remembers that he deeded his house in the country to the Bleus and that he liquidated all his stock to buy the star eel and to establish a trust fund for Ciely and that he is as poor as he was before he went pastbacking—to wit, as a church mouse.

  Moreover, without the whale’s cooperation, he can’t amass another fortune.

  Would he if he could?

  Would he, if he could, buy another house in the country and settle down for the rest of his life among the “haute bourgeoisie”?

  He would sooner settle down among the Great Apes of Tau Ceti III.

  Ciely has no option. At least not until she comes of age.

  By then, it may well be too late. By then, she may very well be a Great Ape herself.

  It is true that her parents aren’t really Great Apes. But they might just as well be.

  Why did he blind himself to the glaring truth? Why did he refuse to face the inexorable fact that they do not give a damn about her, never have and never will?

  Because the alternative was kidnapping her?

  Hardly. He already has two crimes lying on his doorstep. There is sufficient room for one more.

  Because there isn’t enough room for two people in the whale?

  Hardly. There is enough room in the whale for a whole girl’s school.

  Because living in the whale, in space, in time, would deprive Ciely of a proper education?

  Hardly. Not with the entire past, with its wealth of music, paintings, sculptures, literature, drama, philosophy, and science at her very fingertips.

  Because she would be deprived of the company of young people?

  Hardly. He could set up housekeeping in a place-time of her choice, and she could attend school and become part of a peer group and remain a part for as long as she chose. All he would need would be money, and with the whale’s cooperation he could amass another fortune anytime, anywhen.

  A panorama of what he and the whale can do for her appears before his eyes, dazzling him. It has been there all along, but up till now he has refused to look at it.

  Why?

  Why did he pretend it wasn’t there? Why did he pretend that in stranding Ciely among the “haute bourgeoisie” he was acting in her own best interests?

  The answer, when it comes, punctures his ego like a pin piercing a balloon.

  He acted as he did because he knew that the freedom he stole when he stole the whale was in jeopardy. Because, whenever he balanced that freedom against the love of a little girl, he always put his thumb on the scales. Free, unfettered, he was afraid to cross his Red Sea, his Hellespont, his Alps, his Rubicon, his Atlantic, and his Isthmus.

  Well, he is afraid no more.

  * * *

  He lands the lifeboat in the Bleus’ front yard, knocking down the pretentious cast-aluminum sign and demolishing the rest of the flowerbed. He pounds on the front door so hard he nearly knocks the house down, and when a startled Mrs. Bleu opens it, he rushes through the living room without difficulty. She is fast asleep on her narrow bed. Her pillow is wet with tears. He picks her up, grabs an armful of dresses out of a nearby closet and carries her in her night clothes back down the stairs and through the living room and out onto the porch and down the steps and across the ruined flowerbed to the lifeboat.

  Behind him, a half-awake Mr. Bleu bellows, “Bring back my dotter, you space-bum, you!”

  “Kidnapper!” screams Mrs. Bleu.

  Somehow, they sound like actors in a play.

  Starfinder lofts the lifeboat. Miraculously, his “duodenal ulcer” has healed. Ciely doesn’t come fully awake till they are halfway to heaven. “Starfinder, you came back!” Presently the whale shows above them, a gigantic silhouette against the stars. Starfinder docks the boat and they make their way together to the bridge. Now will you de-orbit, whale? Now will you dive?

  There is a great crepitation as 2-omicron-vii energy fills the drive tissue. A faint creaking of bulkheads as the whale girds itself for the de-orbital thrust. And a rebus thrown in for good measure:

  The whale breaks free. A moment later, it dives.

  “I think,” says Starfinder, pere et mere, leading the way to the lounge, “that we might have a glass of orange pop before we turn in. And maybe look in on ‘Ba’ and see how she’s doing with her Sonnets these fine days.”

  “observes” the whale.

  “Oh, you!” says Ciely Bleu.

  A Drink of Darkness

  “YOU’RE WALKING DOWN FOOL’S STREET,” Laura used to say when he was drinking, and she had been right. He had known even then that she was right, but knowing had made no difference; he had simply laughed at her fears and gone on walking down it, till finally he stumbled and fell. Then, for a long time, he stayed away, and if he had stayed away long enough he would have been all right; but one night he began walking down it again—and met the girl. It was inevitable that on Fool’s Street there should be women as well as wine.

  He had walked down it many times since in many different towns, and now he was walking down it once again in yet another town. Fool’s Street never changed no matter where you went, and this one was no different from the others. The same skeletonic signs bled beer names in naked windows; the same winos sat in doorways nursing muscatel; the same drunk tank awaited you when at last your reeling footsteps failed. And if the sky was darker than usual, it was only because of the rain which had begun falling early that morning and which had been falling steadily ever since.

  Chris went into another bar, laid down his last quarter, and ordered wine. At first he did not see the man who came in a moment later and stood beside him. There was a raging rawness in him such as even he had never known before, and the wine he had thus far drunk had merely served to aggravate it. Eagerly he drained the glass which the bartender filled and set before him. Reluctantly he turned to leave. He saw the man then.

  The man was gaunt—so gaunt that he seemed taller than he actually was. His thin-featured face was pale, and his dark eyes seemed beset by unimaginable pain. His hair was brown and badly in need of cutting. There was a strange statuesqueness about him—an odd sense of immobility. Raindrops iridesced like tiny jewels on his gray trench coat, dripped sporadically from his black hat. “Good evening,” he said. “May I offer you a drink?”

  For an agonizing moment Chris saw himself through the other’s eyes—saw his thin, sensitive face with its intricate networks of ruptured capillaries; his gray rain-plastered hair; his ragged rain-soaked overcoat; his cracked rain-sodden shoes—and the image was so vivid that it shocked him into speechlessness. But only briefly; then the rawness intervened. “Sure I’ll have a drink,” he said, and tapped his glass upon the bar.

  “Not here,” the gaunt man said. “Come with me.”

  Chris followed him out into the rain, the rawness rampant now. He staggered, and the gaunt man took his arm. “It’s only a little way,” the gaunt man said. “Into this alley . . . now down this flight of stairs.”

>   It was a long gray room, damp and dimly lit. A gray-faced bartender stood statuesquely behind a deserted bar. When they entered he set two glasses on the bar and filled them from a dusty bottle. “How much?” the gaunt man asked.

  “Thirty,” the bartender answered.

  The gaunt man counted out the money. “I shouldn’t have asked,” he said. “It’s always thirty—no matter where I go. Thirty this, or thirty that; thirty days or thirty months or thirty thousand years.” He raised his glass and touched it to his lips.

  Chris followed suit, the rawness in him screaming. The glass was so cold that it numbed his fingertips, and its contents had a strange Cimmerian cast. But the truth didn’t strike him till he tilted the glass and drained the darkness; then the quatrain came down from the attic of his mind where he had stored it years ago, and he knew suddenly who the gaunt man was.

  So when at last the Angel of the Drink

  Of Darkness finds you by the

  river-brink,

  And, proffering his Cup, invites

  your Soul

  Forth to your Lips to quaff it—do not

  shrink.

  But by then the icy waves were washing through him, and soon the darkness was complete.

  * * *

  Dead! The word was a hoarse and hideous echo caroming down the twisted corridor of his mind. He heard it again and again and again—dead . . . dead . . . dead—till finally he realized that the source of it was himself and that his eyes were tightly closed. Opening them, he saw a vast starlit plain and a distant shining mountain. He closed them again, more tightly than before.