by Damon Knight
“But the Spacing League’s regulations still won’t allow cyborgs in crews.”
She looked annoyed.
He shrugged. “Sorry. Dumb thing to say . . . What’s that red down there?”
“Oh, that’s our ‘stomach’: the AAFAL unit, where”—she grinned —“we digest stardust into energy. It’s the only thing that’s never transparent, the red is the shield.”
“How does it work?”
“I don’t really know. I can make it go, but I don’t understand why—I’m only a five-and-a-half technician now. If I was a six I could tell you.” She glanced at him sidelong. “Aha! I finally impressed you!”
He laughed. “Not so dumb as you look.” He had qualified as a six half a century before, out of boredom.
“You’d better be kidding!”
“I am.” He followed her back across the palely opalescing floor, looking down, and down. “Like walking on water . . . why transparent?”
She smiled through him at the sky. “Because it’s so beautiful outside.”
They dropped down through floors, to come out in a new hall. Music came faintly to him.
“This is where my cabin—”
Abruptly the music became an impossible agony of sound torn with screaming.
“God!” And Brandy was gone from beside him, down the hallway and through a flickering wall.
He found her inside the door, rigid with awe. Across the room the wall vomited blinding waves of color, above a screeching growth of crystal organ pipes. Nilgiri crouched on the floor, hands pressed against her stomach, shrieking hysterically. “Stop it, Mactav! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
He touched Brandy’s shoulder, she looked up and caught his arm; together they pulled Nilgiri, wailing, back from bedlam to the door.
“Nilgiri! Nilgiri, what happened!” Brandy screamed against her ear.
“Mactav, Mactav!”
“Why?'1
“She put a . . . charge through it, she’s crazy-mad . . . sh-she thinks . . . Oh, stop it, Mactav!” Nilgiri clung, sobbing.
Maris started into the room, hands over his ears. “How do you turn it off!”
“Maris, wait!”
“How, Brandy?”
“It’s electrified, don’t touch it!”
“How?”
“On the left, on the left, three switches—Maris, don’t— Stop it, Mactav, stop—”
He heard her screaming as he lowered his left hand, hesitated, battered with glaring sound; sparks crackled as he flicked switches on the organ panel, once, twice, again.
“—it-it-it-it!” Her voice echoed through silent halls. Nilgiri slid down the doorjamb and sat sobbing on the floor.
“Maris, are you all right?”
He heard her dimly through cotton. Dazed with relief, he backed away from the gleaming console, nodding, and started across the room.
“Man,” the soft hollow voice echoed echoed echoed. “What sire you doing in here?”
“Mactav?” Brandy was gazing uneasily to his left.
He turned; across the room was another artificial eye, burning amber.
“Branduin, you brought him onto the ship; how could you do this thing, it is forbidden!”
“Oh, God.” Nilgiri began to wail again in horror. Brandy knelt and caught Nilgiri’s blistered hands; he saw anger harden over her face. “Mactav, how could you!”
“Brandy.” He shook his head; took a breath, frightened. “Mactav—I’m not a man. You’re mistaken.”
“Maris, no . .
He frowned. “I’m one hundred and forty-one years old . . . half my body is synthetic. I’m hardly human, any more than you are. Scan and see.” He held up his hands.
“The part of you that matters is still a man.”
A smile caught at his mouth. “Thanks.”
“Men are evil, men destroyed . . .”
“Her, Maris,” Brandy whispered. “They destroyed her.”
The smile wavered. “Something more we have in common.” His false arm pressed his side.
The golden eye regarded him. “Cyborg.”
He sighed, went to the door. Brandy stood to meet him, Nilgiri huddled silently at her feet, staring up.
“Nilgiri.” The voice was full of pain; they looked back. “How can I forgive myself for what I’ve done? I will never, never do such a thing again . . . never. Please, go to the infirmary; let me help you?”
Slowly, with Brandy’s help, Nilgiri got to her feet. “All right. It’s all right, Mactav. I’ll go on down now.”
“Giri, do you want us—?”
Nilgiri shook her head, hands curled in front of her. “No, Brandy, it’s okay. She’s all right now. Me too—I think.” Her smile quivered. “Ouch . . .” She started down the corridor toward the lift.
“Branduin, Maris, I apologize also to you. I’m—not usually like this, you know. . . .” Amber faded from her eye.
“Is she gone?”
Brandy nodded.
“That’s the first bigoted computer I ever met.”
And she remembered: “Your hand?”
Smiling, he held it out to her. “No harm; see? It’s a nonconductor.”
She shivered. Hands cradled the hand that ached to feel. “Mactav' really isn’t like that, you know. But something’s been wrong lately, she gets into moods; we’ll have to have her looked at when we get to Sanalareta.”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“I don’t think so—not really. It’s just that she has special problems; she’s in there because she didn’t have any choice, a strife-based culture killed her ship. She was very young, but that was all that was left of her.”
“A high technology.” A grimace; memory moved in his eyes.
“They were terribly apologetic, they did their best.”
“What happened to them?”
“We cut contact . . . that’s regulation number one. We have to protect ourselves.”
He nodded, looking away. “Will they ever go back?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, someday.” She leaned against the doorway. “But that’s why Mactav hates men; men, and war—and combined with the old taboo … I guess her memory suppressors weren’t enough.”
Nilgiri reappeared beside them. “All better.” Her hands were bright pink. “Ready for anything!”
“How’s Mactav acting?”
“Super-solicitous. She’s still pretty upset about it, I guess.”
Light flickered at the curving junctures of the walls, ceiling, 'floor. Maris glanced up. “Hell, it’s getting dark outside. I expect I’d better be leaving; nearly time to open up. One last night on the town?” Nilgiri grinned and nodded; he saw Brandy hesitate.
“Maybe I’d better stay with Mactav tonight, if she’s still upset. She’s got to be ready to go up tomorrow.” Almost-guilt finned resolution on her face.
“Well … I could stay, if you think—” Nilgiri looked unhappy.
“No. It’s my fault she’s like this; I’ll do it. Besides, I’ve been out having a fantastic day, I’d be too tired to do it right tonight. You go on in. Thank you, Maris! I wish it wasn’t over so soon.” She turned back to him, beginning to put her hair into braids; quicksilver shone.
“The pleasure was all mine.” The tight sense of loss dissolved in warmth. “I can’t remember a better one either … or more exciting—” He grimaced.
She smiled and took his hands; Nilgiri glanced back and forth between them. “I’ll see you to the lock.”
Nilgiri climbed down through the glow to the waiting flyer. Maris braced back from the top rung to watch Brandy’s face, bearing a strange expression, look down through whipping strands of loose hair. “Good-bye, Maris.”
“Good-bye, Brandy.”
“It was a short two weeks, you know?”
“I know.”
“I like New Piraeus better than anywhere; I don’t know why.”
“I hope it won’t be too different when you get back.”
“Me too. .
. . See you in three years?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Oh, yeah. Time passes so quickly when you’re having fun—” Almost true, almost not. A smile flowered.
“Write while you’re away. Poems, that is.” He began to climb down, slowly.
“I will . . . Hey, my stuff is at—”
“I’ll send it back with Nilgiri.” He settled behind the controls, the flyer grew bright and began to rise. He waved; so did Nilgiri. He watched her wave back, watched her in his mirror until she became the vast and gleaming pearl that was the Who Got Her— 709. And felt the gap that widened between their lives, more than distance, more than time.
★
“Well, now that you’ve seen it, what do you think?”
Late afternoon, first day, fourth visit, seventy-fifth year . . . mentally he tallied. Brandy stood looking into the kitchen. “It’s— different.”
“I know. It’s still too new; I miss the old wood beams. They were rotting, but I miss them. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and don’t know where I am. But I was losing my canyon.”
She looked back at him, surprising him with her misery. “Oh . . . At least they won’t reach you for a long time, out here.”
“We can’t walk home anymore, though.”
“No.” She turned away again. “All—all your furniture is built in?”
“Um. It’s supposed to last as long as the house.”
“What if you get tired of it?”
He laughed. “As long as it holds me up, I don’t care what it looks like. One thing I like, though—” He pressed a plate on the wall, looking up. “The roof is polarized. Like your ship. At night you can watch the stars.”
“Oh!” She looked up and back, he watched her mind pierce the high cloud-fog, pierce the day, to find stars. “How wonderful! I’ve never seen it anywhere else.”
It had been his idea, thinking of her. He smiled.
“They must really be growing out here, to be doing things like this now.” She tried the cushions of a molded chair. “Hmm . . .”
“They’re up to two and a half already, they actually do a few things besides mining now. The Inside is catching up, if they can bring us this without a loss. I may even live to see the day when 'we’ll be importing raw materials, instead of filling everyone else’s mined-out guts. If there’s anything left of Oro by then . . .”
“Would you stay to see that?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her. “It depends. Anyway, tell me about this trip?” He stretched out on the chain-hung wall seat. “You know everything that’s new with me already: one house.” And waited for far glory to rise up in her eyes.
They flickered down, stayed the color of fog. “Well—some good news, and some bad news, I guess.”
"Like how?” Feeling suddenly cold.
“Good news—” her smile warmed him—“I’ll be staying nearly a month this time. We’ll have more time to—do things, if you want to.”
“How did you manage that?” He sat up.
“That’s more good news. I have a chance to crew on a different ship, to get out of the Quadrangle and see things I’ve only dreamed of, new worlds—”
“And the bad news is how long you’ll be gone.”
“Yes.”
“How many years?”
“It’s an extended voyage, following up trade contacts; if we’re lucky, we might be back in the stellar neighborhood in thirty-five years . . . thirty-five years tau—more than two hundred, here. If we’re not so lucky, maybe we won’t be back this way at all.”
“I see.” He stared unblinking at the floor, hands knotted between his knees. “It’s—an incredible opportunity, all right . . . especially for your poetry. I envy you. But I’ll miss you.”
“I know.” He saw her teeth catch her lip. “But we can spend time together, we’ll have a lot of time before I go. And—well, I’ve brought you something, to remember me.” She crossed the room to him.
It was a star, suspended burning coldly in scrolled silver by an artist who knew fire. Inside she showed him her face, laughing, full of joy.
“I found it on Treone . . . they really are in renaissance. And I liked that holo, I thought you might—”
Leaning across silver he found the silver of her hair, kissed her once on the mouth, felt her quiver as he pulled away. He lifted the woven chain, fixed it at his throat. “I have something for you, too.”
He got up, returned with a slim book the color of red wine, put it in her hands.
“My poems!”
He nodded, his fingers feeling the star at his throat. “I managed to get hold of two copies—it wasn’t easy. Because they’re too well known now; the spacers carry them, they show them but they won’t give them up. You must be known on more worlds than you could ever see.”
“Oh, I hadn’t even heard . . .” She laughed suddenly. “My fame preceded me. But next trip—” She looked away. “No. I won’t be going that way anymore.”
“But you’ll be seeing new things, to make into new poems.” He stood, trying to loosen the tightness in his voice.
“Yes . . . Oh, yes, I know . .
“A month is a long time.”
A sudden sputter of noise made them look up. Fat dapples of rain were beginning to slide, smearing dust over the flat roof.
“Rain! not fog; the season’s started.” They stood and watched the sky fade overhead, darken, crack and shudder with electric light. The rain fell harder, the ceiling rippled and blurred; he led her to the window. Out across the smooth folded land a liquid curtain billowed, slaking the dust-dry throat of the canyons, renewing the earth and the spiny tight-leafed scrub. “I always wonder if it’s ever going to happen. It always does.” He looked at her, expecting quicksilver, and found slow tears. She wept silently, watching the rain.
For the next two weeks they shared the rain, and the chill bright air that followed. In the evenings she went out, while he stood behind the bar, because it was the last time she would have leave with the crew of the Who Got Her. But every morning he found her sleeping, and every afternoon she spent with him. Together, they traced the serpentine alleyways of the shabby, metamorphosing lower city, or roamed the docks with the windburned fisherfolk. He took her to meet Makerrah, whom he had seen as a boy mending nets by hand, as a fishnet-clad Tail courting spacers at the Tin Soldier, as a sailor and fisherman, for almost forty years. Makerrah, now growing heavy and slow as his wood-hulled boat, showed it with pride to the sailor from the sky; they discussed nets, eating fish.
“This world is getting old. . . .” Brandy had come with him to the bar as the evening started.
Maris smiled. “But the night is young.” And felt pleasure stir with envy.
“True true—” Pale hair cascaded as her head bobbed. “But, you know, when … if I was gone another twenty-five years, I probably wouldn’t recognize this street. The Tin Soldier really is the only thing that doesn’t change.” She sat at the agate counter, face propped in her hands, musing.
He stirred drinks. “It’s good to have something constant in your life.”
“I know. We appreciate that too, more than anybody.” She glanced away, into the dark-raftered room. “They really always do come back here first, and spend more time in here . . . and knowing that they can means so much: that you’ll be here, young and real and remembering them.” A sudden hunger blurred her sight.
“It goes both ways.” He looked up.
“I know that, too. . . . You know, I always meant to ask: why did you call it the ‘Tin Soldier’? I mean, I think I see . . . but why ‘tin’?”
“Sort of a private joke, I guess. It was in a book of folk tales I read, Andersen’s Fairy Tales”—he looked embarrassed—“I’d read everything else. It was a story about a toy shop, about a tin soldier with one leg, who was left on the shelf for years. . . . He fell in love with a toy ballerina who only loved dancing, never him. In the end, she fell into the fire, and he went after her—she burned
to dust, heartless; he melted into a heart-shaped lump. . . .” He laughed carefully, seeing her face. “A footnote said sometimes the story had a happy ending; I like to believe that.”
She nodded, hopeful. “Me too— Where did your stone bar come from? It’s beautiful; like the edge of the Pleiades, depths of mist.”
“Why all the questions?”
“I’m appreciating. I’ve loved it all for years, and never said anything. Sometimes you love things without knowing it, you take them for granted. It’s wrong to let that happen … so I wanted you to know.” She smoothed the polished stone with her hand.
He joined her tracing opalescences. “It’s petrified wood—some kind of plant life that was preserved in stone, minerals replaced its structure. I found it in the desert.”
“Desert?”
“East of the mountains. I found a whole canyon full of them. It’s an incredible place, the desert.”
“I’ve never seen one. Only heard about them, barren and deadly; it frightened me.”
“While you cross the most terrible desert of them all?—between the stars.”
“But it’s not barren.”
“Neither is this one. It’s winter here now, I can take you to see the trees, if you’d like it.” He grinned. “If you dare.”
Her eyebrows rose. “I dare! We could go tomorrow, I’ll make us a lunch.”
“We’d have to leave early, though. If you were wanting to do the town again tonight . . .”
“Oh, that’s all right; I’ll take a pill.”
“Hey—”
She winced. “Oh, well … I found a kind I could take. I used them all the time at the other ports, like the rest.”
“Then why—”
“Because I liked staying with you. I deceived you, now you know, true confessions. Are you mad?”
His face filled with astonished pleasure. “Hardly … I have to admit, I used to wonder what—”
“Soldier!” He looked away, someone gestured at him across the room. “More wine, please!” He raised a hand.
“Brandy, come on, there’s a party—”
She waved. “Tomorrow morning, early?” Her eyes kept his face. “Uh-huh. See you—”
“—later.” She slipped down and was gone.
The flyer rose silently, pointing into the early sun. Brandy sat beside him, squinting down and back through the glare as New Piraeus grew narrow beside the glass-green bay. “Look, how it falls behind the hills, until all you can see are the land and the sea, and no sign of change. It’s like that when the ship goes up, but it happens so fast you don’t have time to savor it.” She turned back to him, bright-eyed. “We go from world to world but we never see them; we’re always looking up. It’s good to look down, today.” They drifted higher, rising with the climbing hills, until the rumpled olive-red suede of the seacoast grew jagged, blotched green-black and gray and blinding white.