The Last Defender Of Camelot

by Roger Zelazny

  It had been three weeks, yesterday ...

  loo long, she decided, I should have waited. No! Impossible! But what if he goes as Riscomb went? Nol He won't. He would not. Nothing can hurt him. Never. He is all strength and armor. But—but we should have waited till next month to start. Three weeks ... Sight withdrawal—that's what it is. Are she memories fading? Are they weaker? (What does a tree look like? Or a cloud—I can't remember! What is red? What is green? God! It's hysterical! I'm watching and I can't stop it!— Take a pill! A pill!

  Her shoulders began to shake. She did not take a pill though, but bit down harder on the handkerchief until her sharp teeth tore through its fabric.

  "Beware," she recited a personal beatitude, "those who hunger and thirst after justice, for we wi7/ be satisfied. -

  "And beware the meek," she continued, "for we shall attempt to inherit the Earth.

  "And beware ..."

  There was a brief buzz from the phone-box. She put away her handkerchief, composed her face, turned the unit on.

  "Hello ... ?"

  "Eileen, I'm back. How've you been?"

  "Good, quite well in fact. How was your vacation?"

  "Oh, I can't complain. I had it coming for a long time. I guess I deserve it. Listen, I brought some things back to show you—like Winchester Cathedral. You want to come in this week? I can make it any evening.'*Tonight. No. I want it too badly. It will set me back if he sees . ..

  "How about tomorrow night?" she asked. "Or the one after?"

  "Tomorrow will be fine," he said. "Meet you at the P & S, around seven?"

  "Yes. that would be pleasant. Same table?"

  "Why not?—I'll reserve it."

  "All right. I'll see you then."

  "Good-bye."

  The connection was broken.

  Suddenly, then, at that moment, colors swirled again through her head; and she saw trees—oaks and pines, poplars and sycamores—great, and green and brown, and iron-colored; and she saw wads of fleecy clouds, dipped in paintpots, swabbing a paste! sky; and a burning sun, and a small willow tree, and a lake of a deep, almost violet, blue. She folded her torn handkerchief and put it away.

  She pushed a button beside her desk and music filled the office: Scriabin. Then she pushed another button and replayed the tape she had dictated, half-listening to each.

  Pierre sniffed suspiciously at the food. The attendant moved away from the tray and stepped out into the hall, locking the door behind him- The enormous salad waited on -the floor. Pierre approached cautiously, snatched a handful of lettuce, gulped it.

  He was afraid.

  // only the steel would stop crashing and crashing against steel, somewhere in that dark night ... If only ...

  Sigmund rose to his feet, yawned, stretched. His hind legs trailed out behind him for a moment, then he snapped to attention and shook himself. She would be coming home soon. Wagging his tail slowly, he glanced up at the human-level clock with the raised numerals, verified his feelings, then crossed the apartment to the teevee. He rose onto his hind legs, rested one paw against the table and used the other to turn on the set.It was nearly time for the weather report and the roads would be icy.

  "I have driven through countrywide graveyards," wrote Render, "vast forests of stone that spread further every day.

  "Why does man so zealously guard his dead? Is it because this is the monumentally democratic way of immortalization, the ultimate affirmation of the power to hurt—that is to say, life—and the desire that it continue on forever? Unamuno has suggested that this is the case. If it is, then a greater percentage of the population actively sought immortality last year than ever before in history... .*'

  Tch-tchg, tchga-tchgt

  "Do you think they're really people?"

  "Naw, they're too good."

  The evening was starglint and soda over ice. Render wound the S-7 into the cold sub-subcellar, found his parking place, nosed into it.

  There was a damp chill that emerged from the concrete to gnaw like rats* teeth at their flesh. Render guided her toward the lift, their breath preceding them in dissolving clouds.

  "A bit of a chill in the air," he noted.

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  Inside the lift, he sighed, unwound his scarf, lit a cigarette.

  "Give me one, please," she requested, smelling the tobacco.

  He did.

  They rose slowly, and Render leaned against the wall, puffing a mixture of smoke and crystallized moisture.

  "I met another routie shep," he recalled, "in Switzerland. Big as Sigmund. A hunter though, and as Prussian as they come," he grinned.

  "Sigmund likes to hunt, too," she observed. "Twice every year we go up to the North Woods and I turn him loose. He's gone for days at a time, and he's always quitehappy when he returns. Never says what he's done, but he's never hungry. Back when I got him I guessed that he would need vacations from humanity to stay stable. I think I was right."

  The lift stopped, the door opened and they walked out into the hall, Render guiding her again.

  Inside his office, he poked at the thermostat and warm air sighed through the room. He hung their coats in the inner office and brought the great egg out from its nest behind the wall. He connected it to an outlet and moved to convert his desk into a control panel.

  "How long do you think it will take?" she asked, running her fingertips over the smooth, cold curves of the egg. "The whole thing, I mean. The entire adaptation to seeing."

  He wondered.

  "I have no idea," he said, "no idea whatsoever, yet. We got off to a good start, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I think I'll be able to make a good guess in another three months."

  She nodded wistfully, moved to his desk, explored the controls with finger strokes like ten feathers.

  "Careful you don't push any of those."

  "I won't. How long do you think it will take me to learn to operate one?" *

  "Three months to leam it. Six, to actually become proficient enough to use it on anyone, and an additional six under close supervision before you can be trusted on your own. —About a year altogether."

  "Uh-huh." She chose a chair.

  Render touched the seasons to life, and the phases of day and night, the breath of the country, the city, the elements that raced naked through the skies, and all the dozens of dancing cues he used to build worlds. He smashed the clock of time and tasted the seven or so ages of man,

  "Okay," he turned, "everything is ready."

  It came quickly, and with a minimum of suggestion on Render's part. One moment there was grayness. Then a dead-white fog. Then it broke itself apart, as though a quick wind had risen, although he neither heard nor felt a wind.

  He stood beside the willow tree beside the lake, and she stood half-hidden among the branches and the lat-tices of shadow. The sun was slanting its way into evening.

  "We have come back," she said, stepping out, leaves in her hair. "For a time I was afraid it had never happened, but I see it all again, and I remember now."

  "Good," he said. "Behold yourself." And she looked into the lake.

  "I have not changed," she said. "I haven't changed... .'*

  "No."

  "But you have," she continued, looking up at him. "You are taller, and there is something different... ."

  "No," he answered.

  "I am mistaken," she said quickly, "I don't understand everything I see yet."

  "I will, though."

  "Of course."

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Watch," he instructed her.

  Along a flat, no-cotored river of road she just then noticed beyond the trees, came the car. It came from the farthest quarter of the sky, skipping over the mountains, buzzing down the hills, circling through the glades, and splashing them with the colors of its voice—the gray and the silver of synchronized potency—and the lake shivered from its sounds, and the car stopped a hundred feet away, masked by the shrubberies; and it waited.
It was the S-7.

  "Come with me," he said, taking her hand. "We're going for a ride."

  They walked among the trees and rounded the final cluster of bushes. She touched the sleek cocoon, its antennae, its tires, its windows—and the windows transpared as she did so. She stared through them at the inside of the car, and she nodded.

  "It is your Spinner."

  "Yes." He held the door for her. "Get in. We'll return to the club. The time is now. The memories are fresh. and they should be reasonably pleasant, or neutral."

  "Pleasant," she said, getting in.

  He closed the door, then circled the car and entered. She watched as he punched imaginary coordinates. The car leaped ahead and he kept a steady stream of trees flowing by them. He could feel the rising tension, so hedid not vary the scenery. She swiveled her seat and studied the interior of the car.

  "Yes," she finally said, "I can perceive what everything is."

  She stared out the window again. She looked at the rushing trees. Render stared out and looked upon rushing anxiety patterns. He opaqued the windows.

  "Good," she said, "thank you. Suddenly it was too much to see—all of it, moving past like a ..."

  "Of course," said Render, maintaining the sensations of forward motion. "I'd anticipated that You're getting tougher, though."

  After a moment, "Relax," he said, "relax now," and somewhere a button was pushed, and she relaxed, and they drove on, and on and on, and finally the car began to slow, and Render said, "Just for one nice, slow glimpse now, look out your window."

  She did.

  He drew upon every stimulus in the bank which could promote sensations of pleasure and relaxation, and he dropped the city around the car, and the windows became transparent, and she looked out upon the profiles of towers and a block of monolithic apartments, and then she saw three rapid cafeterias, an entertainment palace, a drugstore, a medical center of yellow brick with an aluminum Caduceus set above its arehway, and a glassedin high school, now emptied of its pupils, a fifty-pump gas station, another drugstore, and many more cars, parked or roaring by them, and people, people moving in and out of the doorways and walking before the buildings and getting into the cars and getting out of the cars; and it was summer, and the light of late afternoon filtered down upon the colors of the city and the colors of the garments the people wore as they moved along the boulevard, as they loafed upon the terraces, as they crossed the balconies, leaned on balustrades and windowsills, emerged from a corner kiosk, entered one, stood talking to one another; a woman walking a poodle rounded a corner; rockets went to and fro in the high sky.

  The world fell apart then and Render caught the pieces.

  He maintained an absolute blackness, blanketing every sensation but that of their movement forward.

  After a time a dim light occurred, and they were stillseated in the Spinner, windows blanked again, and the air as they breathed it became a soothing unguent.

  "Lord," she said, "the world is so filled. Did I really see all of that?"

  "1 wasn't going to do that tonight, but you wanted me to. You seemed ready."

  "Yes," she said, and the windows became transparent again. She turned away quickly.

  "It's gone," he said. "I only wanted to give you a glimpse."

  She looked, and it was dark outside now, and they were crossing over a high bridge. They were moving slowly. There was no other traffic. Below them were the Flats, where an occasional smelter flared like a tiny, drowsing volcano, spitting showers of orange sparks skyward; and there were many stars: they glistened on the breathing water that went beneath the bridge; they silhouetted by pinprick the skyline that hovered dimly below its surface. The slanting struts of the bridge marched steadily by.

  "You have done it," she said, "and I thank you." Then; "Who are you, really?" (He must have wanted her to ask that.)

  "I am Render," he laughed. And they wound their way through a dark, now-vacant city, coming at last to their club and entering the great parking dome.

  Inside, he scrutinized all her feelings, ready to banish the world at a moment's notice. He did not feel he would have to. though.

  They left the car, moved ahead. They passed into the club. which he had decided would not be crowded tonight. They were shown to their table at the foot of the bar in the smalt room with the suit of armor, and they sat down and ordered the same meal over again.

  "No," he said, looking down, "it belongs over there."

  The suit of armor appeared once again beside the table, and he was once again inside his gray suit and black tie and silver tie clasp shaped like a tree limb.

  They laughed.

  "I'm JUS! not the type to wear a tin suit, so I wish you'd stop seeing me that way."

  "I'm sorry," she smiled. "I don't know how I did that, or why.""I do, and I decline the nomination. Also, I caution you once again. You are conscious of the fact that this is ail an illusion. I had to do it that way for you to get the full benefit of the thing. For most of my patients though, it is the real item while they are experiencing it. It makes a counter-trauma or a symbolic sequence even more powerful. You are aware of the parameters of the game, however, and whether you want it or not this gives you a different sort of control over it than I normally have to deal with. Please be careful." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." "I know. Here comes the meal we just had." "Ugh! It looks dreadful! Did we eat all that stuff?" "Yes," he chuckled. "That's a knife, that's a fork, that's a spoon. That's roast beef, and those are mashed potatoes, those are peas, that's butter ..." "Goodness! I don't feel so well."

  "... And those are the salads, and those are the salad dressings. This is a brook trout—mm! These are French fried potatoes. This is a bottle of wine. Hmm— let's see—Romanee-Conti, since I'm not paying for it— and a bottle of Yquem for the trou—Hey!" The room was wavering.

  He bared the table, he banisjied the restaurant. They were back in the glade. Through the transparent fabric of the world he watched a hand moving along a panel. Buttons were being pushed. The world grew substantial again. Their emptied table was set beside the lake now, and it was still nighttime and summer, and the tablecloth was very white under the glow of the giant moon that hung overhead.

  "That was stupid of me," he said. "Awfully stupid. I should have introduced them one at a time. The actual sight of basic, oral stimuli can be very distressing to a person seeing them for the first time. I got so wrapped up in the Shaping that I forgot the patient, which is just dandy! I apologize."

  "I'm okay now. Really I am." He summoned a cool breeze from the lake. "... And that is the moon," he added lamely. She nodded, and she was wearing a tiny moon in the center of her forehead; it glowed like the one above them, and her hair and dress were all of silver.The bottle of Romanee-Conti stood on the table, and two glasses.

  "Where did that come from?"

  She shrugged. He poured out a glassful.

  "It may taste kind of flat," he said.

  "It doesn't. Here—" She passed it to him.

  As he sipped it he realized it had a taste—a fruite such as might be quashed from the grapes grown in the Isles of the Blest, a smooth, muscular charnu, and a capiteux centrifuged from the fumes of a field of burning poppies. With a start, he knew that his hand must be traversing the route of the perceptions, symphonizing the sensual cues of a transference and a counter-transference which had come upon him all unaware, there beside the lake.

  "So it does," he noted, "and now it is time we returned."

  "So soon? 1 haven't seen the cathedral yet... .**

  "So soon."

  He willed the world to end, and it did.

  "It is cold out there," she said as she dressed, "and dark."

  "I know. I'll mix us something to drink while I clear the unit."

  "Fine."

  He glanced at the tapes and shook his head. He crossed to his bar cabinet.

  "It's not exactly Romanee-Conti," he observed, reaching for a bottle.

  "So what? I don't mind."


  Neither did he, at that moment. So he cleared the unit, they drank their drinks, he helped her into her coat and they left.

  As they rode the lift down to the sub-sub he willed the world to end again, but it didn't.

  Dad, I hobbled from school to taxi and taxi to spaceport, for the local Air Force Exhibit—Outward, it was called. (Okay, I exaggerated the hobble. It got me extra attention though.) The whole bit was aimed at seducing young manhood into a five-year hitch, as I saw it. But it worked. I wanna Join up I wanna go Out There. Think they'll take me when I'm old enuff? I mean take me Out—not some crummy desk job. Think so?

  I do.

  There was this damn lite colonel ('scuse the French) who saw this kid lurching around and pressing his nose 'gainst the big windowpanes, and he decided to give him the subliminal sell. Greati He pushed me through the gallery and showed me all the pitchers of AF triumphs, from Moonbase to Marsport. He lectured me on the Great Traditions of the Service, and marched me into a flic room where the Corps had good clean fun on tape, wrestling one another in null-G "where it's all skill and no brawn," and making tinted water sculpture-work way in the middle of the air and doing dismounted drill on the skin of a cruiser. Oh joy!

  Seriously though, I'd like to be there when they hit the Outer Five—and On Out. Not because of the bogus balonus in the throwaways, and suchlike crud, but because I think someone of sensibility should be along to chronicle the thing in the proper way. You know, raw frontier observer. Francis Parkman. Mary Austin, like that. So I decided I'm going.

  The AF boy with the. chicken stuff on his shoulders wasn't in the least way patronizing, gods be praised. We stood on the balcony and watched ships lift off and he told me to go forth and study real hard and I might be riding them someday. I did not bother to tell him that I'm hardly intellectually deficient and that I'll have my B.A. before I'm old enough to do anything with it, even join his Corps. I just watched the ships lift off and said, "Ten years from now I'll be looking down, not up." Then he told me how hard his own training had been, so I did not ask howcum he got stuck with a lousy dirtside assignment like this one. Glad I didn't, now I think on it. He looked more like one of their ads than one of their real people. Hope I never look like an ad.