Orbit 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Night

  Cassius glowered. “Quit it, Kagle. Weepy expressions don’t fool me. You don’t give a God damn for anybody else.”

  Kagle seemed to muse over this. “In a sense perhaps that’s true. Else I wouldn’t be in this peculiar work. Or intending to go ahead with it, as I am. But I am rather sorry for you, Mr. Andrews.”

  The “Hah!” from Cassius was short, cackling, grotesque.

  “Oh, I realize you don’t believe me, but I truly am sorry in my own way. I shouldn’t have put you through it. I should have been aware of the personal element. Also, I should have avoided it because I’m beginning to see the pattern which I hinted about. In the aftereffects, I mean.”

  Suddenly Kagle leaned close to the Aircoupe again. For the first time there was raw, fundamental emotion on his face:

  “If it became widely known that I could arrange such experiences I’d have no peace. No, I can’t let you write, Mr. Andrews. For if they came after me en masse, there’d be no end. Don’t you see what I could offer them? That is to say—” Eyes haunted now. “—if I would, which I won’t, because I know where it would lead?”

  “No,” Cassius said, low. “I don’t see.”

  “I could say to them, come to me, steel yourself, prepare to endure five minutes of the most agonizing pain on this earth. Live through the most anguished of deaths, the most violent. Then you’ll be free the rest of your life. Free because the worst will be over. Free because, statistically, don’t you see, you and millions like you won’t ever die so violently. You’ll die the lesser death of a Peckham, with only a bit of eminently endurable pain. Nothing near the kind of pain which, say, that criminal endured.”

  Cassius snickered. “Who’d fall for that?”

  “Many, Mr. Andrews. In fact I believe most. I won’t pretend it’s a riskless proposition, I’d have to say to them. You might, just might, be one of the few in ten millions who will die violently one day. But the risk is infinitesimal. While the reward—well, I could say, if you go through the ultimate, the worst now, think of the years ahead. The years of not having to fear, always fear the unknowable. Dying a Peckham’s death then would be child’s play, don’t you see? And should you lose the gamble—die a violent death after all, I would say—why, then even it might be a whit less terrible. Of course the real benefit, I would say, lies in the years free of fear. If that sounds like a foolish offer, Mr. Andrews, five minutes of hell in exchange for a lifetime of release from the terror dying holds—if it sounds illogical that anyone would accept—if you believe people wouldn’t clamor for it—then I submit, Andrews, that you don’t know a damn thing about the nature of the world you’re living in.”

  “No one would want—” Cassius began, unsure.

  “Wouldn’t they? Are you aware of the temper of men’s minds over the past eighty years? What do most people desire of life anymore, Mr. Andrews? To be secure against the harms of life. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps we’ll never understand all the complicated reasons lost back in the years. But people want it. The price keeps rising, but they still want it. I could give it to them. At the price of being Butcher Balk for five short minutes. And they can stand it. Wanda stood it. Flange stood it. Afterward, there’d be nothing left to fear. The world is peopled with Peckhams, not Butcher Balks, Mr. Andrews.”

  Then, slowly, Kagle sighed. “But I’ll never say any of that, Mr. Andrews. I’ll never say I could pull fear’s fangs, simply because I know they’d want it. They wouldn’t be satisfied with less than everything once they heard. Not until they learned the real price. Not until it was too late. Not until the world’s engine stopped.”

  “Yours hasn’t stopped,” Cassius snarled.

  “No,” Kagle said, almost sad again. “But then I’ve never permitted myself to experience more than two senses of any subject at any one time.”

  His pale hand lifted, in the general direction of the moon high above the world, as if to say the subject was at last exhausted. Flickering on his face were the expressions of two men, one the god, one the assassin of everything.

  The god could have slain the assassin by surrendering his godhood in suicide. Being a god, he couldn’t quite. No, said the gas-blue eyes, he couldn’t quite, ever.

  “Good night, Mr. Andrews.” Dr. Kagle definitely sounded weary. “I know it’s been too harrowing. But you did ask me about your brother. What choice did I have?”

  Muttering all the obscenities he knew, Cassius jammed his card into the ignition slot and rammed the Aircoupe away from the vicinity of the funeral parlor, leaving the blister open so he could shout back, “You rotten bastard, I’ll tell the world about this, I’ll let them know—”

  * * * *

  X

  The Etaoin Pub was located on the fourth sub-level of the Capitol World Truth Building.

  The pneumodoor went hush-hush open, then closed. Cassius heard it dimly. He was slumped over the bar, looking at his globe of Old Kentuckye Woodesman 120 Proof Sippin’ Sauce.

  He heard footsteps. He continued to peer into the amber infinity of the booze. Who the hell cared about footsteps?

  “Cassius? It is you! Good God in heaven, sweets, what’s happened?”

  The barkeep ambled over. “Friend of yours, lady?”

  “You’re new around here.”

  “Yeah. Hired on two weeks ago.”

  “This man works on the paper upstairs.”

  The barkeep sniggered. “When?”

  “What?”

  “Lady, this guy’s been campin’ here since the day I started.”

  Fuzzily Cassius recognized the voice of Joy de Veever. His body felt weighted with bags of lead shot. It was an effort merely to turn and blink his red eyes slowly, like an owl.

  Joy had something clasped in her arms. Her glance was alternately indignant and sympathetic.

  “I should have thought of coming to this bar sooner, Cassius. But you’re not the drinking type.”

  “Every time some of the boys from the paper come in,” said the barkeep, “he goes to the john. First time, when he didn’t come out for a while, I thought he was sick. Went back there myself. He was just standing. Told me to leave him alone. I did. When the boys left after lunch, he came out. Same routine in the evening, too. Sometimes he leaves but he always comes back. Wonder where he goes at ni—”

  “Thanks for your help,” Joy cut in. “I’ll take over. Cassius?”

  “Lee me lone,” he said, finding it like climbing Everest to gesture.

  “Cassius, what in God’s name is the trouble?”

  Getting no answer, Joy pulled up the next stool. She told the barkeep she wanted nothing to drink. The tone clearly instructed him to leave. He did. Cassius blinked at the object in Joy’s hand. Some sort of book with a tricky shining clasp.

  “Cassius love, I’ve been searching for you ever since I got back yesterday. It’s apparent that I shouldn’t have spent that week and a half in Bonn at the Floorwax Institute trade show.” She sounded affronted. “In the interval it seems you’ve completely lost your mind.”

  “Perfly all right.” His tongue was oh so heavy. “Perfly.”

  “Perfectly my eye! I just talked to Hughgenine upstairs.”

  “Bothrin me. Come in here and bother me. I didn’t make it to the men’s in time.”

  “Bothering! I should hope so! After all, when you don’t show up to work for sixteen days straight, it’s natural for him to bother. Cassius—darling—” And the tears were genuine all at once, rolling down over her rouged cheeks. “Are you in trouble? Hughgenine said he lost his temper. He’s sorry he fired you on the spot. He’ll take you back if only you’ll tell somebody what’s wrong. Cassius? Wake up and listen to me! You’re being horrid. You don’t know the agony I’ve been through. Last night I nearly had your floor super thinking you’d suffered a heart attack and must be lying dead inside your flat. What hit that place? Your books were all torn apart.”

  “So wat?” he inquired. “So wat, so wat? Joy lee me lone.”

  “
I will not leave you alone! I’ll get you to a doctor. Do something! Are you having a nervous breakdown, sweetheart? To destroy your things that way—all the notes for the biography of that colonel strewn all over in pieces—”

  “Stupid book. Useless goddam wase time.”

  “Are you in trouble with some woman, Cassius?”

  He giggled, but it had a dull sound.

  “Cassius, I must say it again. You’re treating me very unkindly. After all, you do mean something to me, you know. Please, please, please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Oh nothin. I just got a tase for booze, ‘s all.”

  “Obviously.” Joy couldn’t help sounding smug. “And obviously you’re in no shape to help anybody who wishes to help you, whether it’s Hughgenine or me or anyone. That’s why I brought this. I figured if the answer can’t be gotten from you, it can be gotten from this. Unless you’ve lost your mind so thoroughly you’ve broken every single habit you ever had.”

  She was extending the object in her hand. The clasp looked vaguely familiar. Why did he feel alarmed?

  “I found your other diary too, Cassius. In pieces. This one was intact.”

  “Too tough,” he muttered. “Too dam tough tear up. Hey.” Again he blinked. “Snoopin?”

  “Yes, snooping. I admit it. I had to find some explanation for the peculiar, awful way you’re behaving. Now you tell me how to open this lock, Cassius. Either that or you tell me what’s the matter with you. Else I’ll go to the stationer’s where you bought it. See, the name’s stamped in gold on the back. It’s right on this level. I’ll force them to disclose the code.”

  “Gimme tha,” he said, lifting his eighty-pound hand, trying to thrust it through the gloomy darkness of the bar.

  The effort cracked away some of his lethargy. He felt he must have the diary in his possession. Then he knew why. The last entry mentioned the Commuter’s Rest Mortuary Chapel by name. Didn’t it?

  He wasn’t positive. He thought so. Warning bells, so faint he barely heard them.

  “I will not.” Joy held the book miles away. “I will not give it to you.”

  “I said gimme—!” he cried, standing. He toppled on his face.

  From afar, Joy said to the barkeep, “You watch him. This man’s sick. I’m going to get this book opened and then we’ll take him to a hospital. You just watch him a few minutes. No, you shut up, do as I say! Want to lose your job? The paper owns this building, leases this space, or aren’t you aware of that? Here, Cassius. Stand up.”

  As he fumbled his way back to the stool with her help, he managed to perceive what it meant. Joy, poor old Joy. Sure she wanted to help. Sure. The locked diary tantalized her. Anything that might harbor a scrap of something hot tantalized her.

  Paper leased the space? For the stationer’s too, probably. They’d come across with the code under threat. He made one more abortive lunge for the book.

  He grabbed the poly bar rim to keep from falling. He could see it now. He didn’t actually care but he felt he should. The book would open to a tune whose notes and name he couldn’t recall. Then Joy’s curious eyes. They’d glitter, running down the entries.

  Then showing it to Hughgenine. Then the trail to Kagle. Joy’s hot one, the big hot one in reach at last. Plus her sense of avenging him. As if that mattered.

  Christ. What Kagle had said was true, true. First one person would have—he shuddered and knuckled his eyes and moaned a little—those experiences. Then the next would have to see what the experience was. Then the next after that. Then someone would see how it could pull the fangs of fear. Go through the worst, the very worst, and your imagination won’t have anything to gnaw on, year after year. Wanda Kagle put it right. I’ve been there.

  Christ, the government and the do-gooders would probably seize everything. The public good. Uplift. You can stand five minutes of Butcher Balk to be free, can’t you? Take a chance, you’re bound to die like Peckham. Think of the peace. I’ve been there.

  Dimly he recalled the thousands on the waiting lists of the Securo Corporation. They’d want it. Everyone would want it but a few who, like Kagle, might see the threat. They would cry out. Their cries would be lost in the howls of happiness- Get it over. Nothing so bad ever again.

  I’ve been there.

  Did they know what it would do? Did they care? No, they wouldn’t care, they’d weep for joy as it multiplied, on, on, to the ends of the earth—

  But though he knew these things in a dim way, he couldn’t put them all into words. It took too much effort.

  “Worl’s engine,” Cassius whimpered. “Joy don, worl’s engine.”

  Or had he said it aloud at all? He wasn’t sure. He’d made the effort in his skull. Whether the effort had stirred his voice box, lips, tongue, he couldn’t say. He felt so immeasurably tired. He crawled back up on the stool Even his sense of urgency, alarm, had aborted. No longer could he be sure why he’d spoken. It certainly couldn’t have been for any good reason. He didn’t have any good reasons.

  Still, something made him squeak it once more, “Worl’s engine.”

  The barkeep clucked his tongue. “Mister? The lady can’t hear you.”

  A feeble whisper, dying: “Worl’s engine.”

  “Mister, you’re dreaming. The lady left.”

  That roused him a little. “Use have a dream. This dog. Chasin me. Not anymore. No dreams since—”

  The sentence dribbled off. It didn’t seem worth finishing. Only the drink. His hand crawled out. Only the drink seemed worth finishing. And he wasn’t even certain about that, really.

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