This Fortress World

by Gunn, James

  I set it upright, silently, and felt my way forward. Only a few feet farther on, my hands met a wall. As I felt my way to one side and then the other, I realized that my luck had run out. There was no break in the wall. It met the houses on either side. I had chosen a blind alley.

  My breath was a flame in my throat as I looked up. A few feet above my head, the dense darkness of the wall met the lesser dark of the sky. I didn't face the back of a building; it was a wall, with a top to it.

  I leaped. My fingers touched the top of the wall and slipped off. I fell back into the alley. I jumped again, desperately. This time my fingers caught and held. For a long time I hung there without power to move, feeling the strength ebbing from my fingers. Then slowly, painfully, I pulled myself up until I got my arms over the top. I rested again.

  Cautiously, with great effort, I swung my body over. With the wall conquered, my fingers could no longer hold me. I toppled over the edge into a deep, dark pit.

  When I opened my eyes, I was staring into the sky. It was still dark. A strange thread of sound reached my ears. Very distant or very soft, I couldn't tell at first, and then I realized what it was and where I was and what was happening. The sound was close. It was the whisper of shoes on pavement. They were on the other side of the wall, creeping closer.

  I stood up, feeling curiously rested. Motionless, silent, I peered through the darkness. I seemed to be in some kind of enclosed court. It was paved, and the ground here was higher than that on the other side of the wall. The top of the wall came just to my shoulders.

  The feet were closer now, only two of them. They stopped, just on the other side of the wall. A soft, swishing sound was the brush of palms against the wall. I debated stealing away to another exit, hesitated, fearing the noise, and as I hesitated, decision was taken away from me.

  There was a light scuffling on the other side of the wall, a thump, a thin rasp of shoes against the wall, and a slight sigh. Against the grayish blackness of the sky the round blackness of a man's head was outlined. It changed as I looked, bending forward and twisting to pierce the night.

  My right hand flashed out and caught his throat so that he couldn't warn the others. He hung there, half over the wall, writhing in my grasp. I could sense his indecision. If he let loose of the wall, all his weight would be suspended from the hand that clutched his throat.

  Instinct won. As my hand tightened, he released his hold on the wall and clawed for my wrist and fingers. But already the lack of air had begun to weaken him, and desperation drained his skill. He tore at my hand. I grabbed his wrist with my left hand to help support his weight. He twisted, the cords in his neck swelling in protest. I sensed his eyes bulging in the darkness, his face purpling, thickening. His clawing and began to paw, ineffectually. I leaned backward, pulling. As he came over the wall, he stopped struggling. A limp body fell at my feet.

  I knelt beside him, feeling for his heart. It beat strongly. I sighed. There had been enough killing. I stripped off his jacket and shirt. The shirt, thin and silky, tore easily in my hands. With one sleeve I gagged him. The other bound his hands behind him. A wide strip from the body of the shirt tied up his feet.

  I could waste no more time. I raised myself to the top of the wall and lowered myself silently into the alley. I made my way out slowly, cautiously. As I drew near the street, the darkness lessened. I stayed in the shadows while I looked up and down the street as far as I could see without exposing myself. It seemed empty. I hesitated for a moment and shrugged. Time was more precious than caution.

  No shouts greeted me as I stepped out of the alley. No deadly flashes marked my exit. I walked down the side of the street, hugging the buildings, breathing deeply. It was not ordinary air I drew in; my lungs tingled with the wine of safety. I walked toward the glow ahead. Now it did not spell danger. It meant people who would not know me. It meant light and laughter and life. I was tired of skulking in the lark. I was weary of hiding and hate. And most of all I was sick of death.

  A few minutes brought me to the edge of the lights. I heard nothing behind me. The tenements had slowly given way to larger, newer, and more luxurious multiple dwellings. These had been replaced by small shops, but they were dark. The light came from larger places farther on. They were brilliant with glowing signs and colorful, alluring decorations. Into the street from their open doors came bright streamers of light.

  I had been right. From these places came the sound of boisterous laughter, free and unrestrained, a clink of glasses, and a murmur of many voices. I stopped and looked around me. A few pedestrians were in the street, some wandering out of one door and into another, some walking purposefully toward some destination.

  A uniformed mercenary, his scarlet and gold bright even though disheveled, stepped out of a doorway into the night and blinked at me owlishly. As he made out my black uniform, he straightened, his back stiff, and walked away. A ship, sparkling in the night, drifted down from the sky on slowly turning vanes.

  I watched, and it was strange and lovely and wonderful. And I was an alien, apart from it, alone and unwanted.

  I moved slowly toward one of the smaller places. It did not seem quite as crowded as the others, and the music that drifted from it was softer and more personal. I stopped in the doorway, blinking in the light. The interior was blurred and indistinct, but I could hear the strumming of a stringed instrument clearly now and the soft music of a low voice…

  'The stars are my home

  I shall see them no more.

  They are lost in the black of the night—'

  The voice broke off. The babble of voices stilled. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I saw that the men close to me had turned to stare, their faces hard and unfriendly. My gaze drifted to the girl perched on a table at the rear of the place. In her hands she held a wooden instrument with a long neck and a broad body. It had six strings. As our eyes met, her fingers drifted across the strings with a faint, jangling dissonance. Her eyes were blue and deep.

  I started. For a moment she had reminded me of—But the girl Siller had called Frieda had light hair. This girl was smaller, too, and not so beautiful—or was it beauty I was thinking of? Certainly she was lovely here with her dark brown hair tumbling around her shoulders, her arched dark eyebrows—one just a little raised and crooked—over surprising blue eyes, her straight, short nose, her vivid, generous red mouth, the smooth flow of her cheek and chin to white shoulders set off by a bright yellow tunic…

  No, this was not Frieda, and there was really no resemblance. Except that she seemed as out of place here as Frieda had seemed out of place in the Cathedral. I had known immediately that Frieda was patrician. With this girl, I wasn't so sure. But there was something vital about her, something in her pose, in her slender white hand barely touching the strings of her instrument, in her face, in her eyes. She lived! One could sense it like the warmth from a flame. It radiated from her, perhaps it was responsible for the ring of uniformed men clustered around her, standing or sitting on chairs or on the floor.

  She stared at me intently, her eyes narrow with speculation. Her eyes shifted, widening, to inspect the room and her fingers drifted across the strings of her instrument. A wry smile curled her lips as the chord rang low and clear.

  'Stars, stars, millions of stars,

  Everywhere they shine.

  Worlds, worlds, millions of worlds—

  Come back, O man of mine.

  Come back, come back, O man of mine,

  Wherever you may roam.

  My arms are wider than the stars—

  To welcome you back home'

  Her arms opened to me. The room rang with laughter.

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  Chapter Eight

  I could feel my face growing red, my jaw hardening. It was a joke. I didn't understand it, but the others did, and they were laughing at me. I wondered why she had made them laugh at me.

  As I wondered, the answer came. I was the only man in the room who w
as dressed in black. They thought I was an Agent. Tension—I had sensed it subconsciously—had been tightening every nerve in the room. Laughter had been a release.

  There were spacemen in black and silver, mercenaries in various sparkling, two tones, although Imperial orange and blue predominated; there were a few women in brilliant, skin-tight tunics and short-skirts, but there were no shadow-black Agents.

  Across the room, the girl's arms dropped, urgently, her eyes wide with a mute appeal. She wanted me to leave. She was right, but I couldn't force myself to move. Behind me was the night. I would not go back into it. My face was grim as I met her eyes and slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook my head.

  She shrugged and looked down at one of the men sitting on the floor. She spoke to him and forgot me. As quickly as that, she forgot me.

  There was an empty booth near the back. I walked toward it, and the noises that had drifted to me when I was outside rose around me now, the talk, loud and soft, the clinking glasses, the music. I sat down, and the room receded until it was a long way off, and I wondered if I would have the strength to get up again.

  Reluctantly, a waiter brought me a glass of light wine. I huddled over it. The world revolved around me. It spoke in loud, coarse voices, spinning around my silent, near-mindless eddy at the hub.

  —Young? Hell, yes! The younger the better, I say.

  —garrison duty. Agh! A few drinks once a month and a broken-down—

  —but her old man started cussing, see? And I said, "Look, here, old man, we whipped you. You're nothing, see? I'd just as soon burn you as not, see?" So I slapped him once or twice, and I never heard another word—

  —and I left there with over one thousand chronors in hard money, fifty rings, a half-dozen watches, some of them platinum, and three diamonds, the smallest as big as my little fingernail—

  —now this one was noble—

  —sign on with one who's going places—a leader who hasn't got much but a flame in his eyes—and you've got a chance for promotion, wealth—maybe even a barony—

  —should have been at the loot of Journey's End. God! What a place! Why—

  —Was I sorry to leave Arcadia! And was she sorry to see me leave—

  —there we were, practically in the middle of this sun's corona, and the Captain—

  —class is class, I always say—

  —so I says to her, Baby, for five chronors—

  —three years without touching port. Never again—

  Chairs pushed back, squealing protest. A woman torn from a silver-and-black lap to stand panting and glowing-eyed and a little afraid by the side of scarlet-and-gold. Silver-and-black rising, weaving slightly, making ugly noises and waving his hands menacingly in the air. Scarlet-and-gold moving forward, fists balled, sneering. Arms reaching out behind them, pulling them down into chairs. Silver-and-black finding another woman in his lap, talking to scarlet-and-gold in a gay, friendly, ribald fashion.

  The world turned around me.…It turned against a background of melody, a clear girl-voice in front of singing chords—not a great voice or even a very good one but a voice which was more than both, a friendly voice, a sincere voice. It was a good voice for what it sang; men listened and were moved to tears or laughter or passion. Occasionally, through the chaos of noise and my own dulled senses, I heard a voice come clear…

  'I knew a man on Arcadee.

  I knew a few on Brancusee.

  And Lord! they were all men to me

  No matter what men say…'

  —so the Captain, he says to the Navigator, kind of slow and nasty-like, "All right, Mr. Navigator, just where do you think we—"

  —wanted money, see? And I said, Baby—

  —and the Navigator said, "Captain, I'll be hanged if I know where we are." And the Captain said—

  'The stars are free

  Though men be slaves.

  Imprison me—

  The stars are free.

  And when the slaves

  Look up, they see—

  The stars are free

  Though men be slaves.…'

  I stared at the pale yellow stuff in my glass. I lifted it up to my lips, sipped it. It was vile, sweet, cloying-wine.

  —All right, Swifty, you've had your drink, now get out and don't come back!

  The words were repeated, louder, before I realized that they were directed at me. I looked up slowly, past a swelling orange-and-blue belly; up and up to a big, unshaven face, red with anger and wine. I stared at him curiously.

  "We don't like your kind, Swifty," the mercenary said. "Better leave while you can still walk."

  He swayed. Or maybe it was my eyes. I started to get to my feet, slowly, undecided whether I disliked his remark and his heavy, arrogant face enough to change them. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice, cold and analytical, was whispering that I would never get out of the place alive if I hit him. I decided that I didn't care. I didn't like his remark. I didn't like the way his mouth moved. I disliked his face intensely. It would be a pleasure.

  Something slipped between us. Beardy orange-and-blue was pushed back. I was shoved down into my seat.

  "Leave him alone," a clear voice said. "Can't you see he's sick?"

  "Aw, Laurie," the mercenary complained like a little boy, "you'd comfort a mad dog. But this—"

  "Leave him alone!" the voice said. Clear and bell-like and angry. Orange-and-blue faded away. Something jangled as it was leaned against the edge of the table. Something yellow and flesh pink and red and blue and dark brown slipped into the seat opposite me.

  "I'm not sick," I said. It sounded surly. It was surly. I focused my eyes on her. Close, she was still pretty, even prettier, maybe. Her face was young, but her eyes, as they looked into mine, were blue and deep and wise. A man could lose his soul in eyes like those, I thought crazily. Laurie. Laurie. I liked the sound of that. I kept saying it over and over in my mind.

  "You are sick," she said. "Up here." She tapped her forehead where the dark hair swept back smoothly at the temple. "But that isn't why I said it. I had to get Mike away before he got killed. He's a friend of mine. I don't like to have my friends killed."

  I studied her face, wondering what it was that made her so attractive. "I don't like to see my friends killed either. But they die, they die. And you realize that you don't really have any friends. No friends. That makes sense, doesn't it? You don't have any friends, so you don't care if they die. You think I'd have killed him?"

  She nodded slowly. "Oh, yes. You don't care any more. You don't care if you live or die. That makes you the most deadly thing in the galaxy."

  "Almost the deadest, too," I said bitterly. I looked away. "You're right. I think I'd have killed him. Then the others would have killed me. But a man gets tired of running away. He runs so far and then he stops, and he won't run any more."

  "Killing never solves anything," she said gently.

  I looked into her eyes again. They asked me to listen, to understand. I laughed harshly. "It solves the problem of who gets killed, you or the other fellow. You don't know."

  "I know."

  "Yesterday—yesterday I would have agreed with you. Yesterday I would have done anything to keep from killing." I felt my lip curl up at the corner. "Yesterday I was a fool. Since then I've learned that if you want to live you have to kill. Since then I've killed four men."

  She reached out quickly and laid her hand over mine. There was something maternal about it, like a mother soothing a child. "It hurts, doesn't it?"

  I jerked my hand away. "What do you know?" I said. "The world is ugly. The world is disease and death, torture and betrayal, cruelty and lust and hate and fear and greed—Why shouldn't I kill? I've seen the face of the world. It's a grinning skull. It wants my life. It would like to tear it out of me, agony by agony. Who can blame me if I fight back? Why shouldn't I kill?"

  "Because you're a man," she said.

  "I'm an Agent. They aren't men."

  "Even they. But you're no
Agent."

  I looked up quickly. The movement made my head swim, and it was a moment before her face came back into focus. Her eyes, wide and compassionate and deep, drew mine like a promise of peace and understanding.

  "You don't know that," I said weakly. But it was no use. She knew. Nothing I told her would be a surprise or a shock; to her nothing was alien; nothing would change her belief in mankind. I felt a formless sort of relief, like a storm-beaten wanderer who sees a light far off and knows that somewhere in the world there is comfort and shelter and warmth. Even if he can never reach it himself.

  "Look at your hands," she said. She took my hand again and turned it palm up on the table. "No calluses. They're white and well-formed, except where the burn is. But it's more than that. You don't walk like a killer or carry yourself like one. You don't have the arrogance and the wariness. And your face—ugly as it is"—she smiled as if ugliness had a charm all its own—"you can't change the lines of a lifetime with a few days of terror and violence."

  Laurie…Laurie. I looked away. "Laurie. You're Laurie. What do you do?"

  "Me? I—entertain."

  "Here?"

  "Here and elsewhere."

  "It can't pay much."

  "Oh, this is just for fun." She smiled. "I like to sing. I like to see people happy."

  "These?" I swept a hand at the bawdy, drunken crowd.

  "Even these." It was the second time she had used a phrase like that. It was like an affirmation of faith. I saw—in a flash of insight—that there was something between the Church and the carnivorous world. Or perhaps not between, either, but above.

  It hit me like a blow. I began to shiver. "My God!" I said. It came out like a sob. "Oh God, oh God, oh God!" I could feel tears springing into my eyes. I blinked rapidly but they kept coming. My shoulders began to shake, and I couldn't stop them. "What's the matter with me?" I gasped.

  "Don't hold it back," Laurie said softly. "Let go, if you feel like it."