by Algis Budrys
"Which Al?" Hawks asked.
"What's happening to him?" she said, moving only her lips. "What are you doing to him?"
"I don't know, exactly," Hawks said. "I'm waiting to find out."
She sat up and twisted to face him, her breasts moving under the loose top. "Do you have any kind of a conscience?" she asked. "Is there anyone who isn't defenseless before you?"
He shook his head. "That kind of question doesn't apply. I do what I have to do. Only that."
She seemed to be almost hypnotized by him. She leaned closer.
"I want to see if Al's all right," Hawks said, getting up.
Claire arched her neck and stared up at him. "Hawks," she whispered.
"Excuse me, Claire." He stepped around her drawn-up legs and moved toward the house.
"Hawks," she said hoarsely. The top of the swimsuit was almost completely off the upper faces of her breasts. "You have to take me tonight."
He continued to walk away.
"Hawks — I'm warning you!"
Hawks flung open the house door and disappeared behind the sun-washed glass.
5
"How'd it go?" Connington laughed from the shadows of the bar at the other end of the living room. He came forward, dressed in a pair of printed trunks, his stomach cinched by the tight waistband. He was carrying a folded beach shirt over his arm and holding a pewter pitcher and two glasses. "It's a little like a silent movie, from here," he said, nodding toward the glass wall facing out onto the lawn and the pool. "Hell for action, but short on dialogue."
Hawks turned and looked. Claire was still sitting up, staring intently at what must have been a barricade of flashing reflections of herself.
"Gets to a man, doesn't she?" Connington chuckled. "Forewarned is not forearmed, with her. She's an elemental — the rise of the tides, the coming of the seasons, an eclipse of the Sun." He looked down into the pitcher, where the ice at the top of the mixture had suddenly begun to tinkle. "Such creatures are not to be thought of as good or bad," he said through pinched lips. "Not by mortal men. They have their own laws, and there's no gainsaying them." His breath puffed into Hawks' face. "They are born among us — car hops, dice girls, Woolworth's clerks — but they rise to their heritage. Woe to us, Hawks. Woe to us who would pursue them on their cometary track."
"Where's Barker?"
Connington gestured with the pitcher. "Upstairs. Took a shower, threatened to disembowel me if I didn't get out of his way in the hall, went to bed. Set the alarm for eight o'clock. Put down a tumblerful of gin to help him. Where's Barker?" Connington repeated. "Dreamland, Hawks — whatever dreamland it was that awaited him."
Hawks looked at his wrist watch.
"Three hours, Hawks," Connington said. "Three hours, and there is no Master in this house." He moved around Hawks to the outside door. "Yoicks!" he yapped twistedly, raising the pitcher in Claire's direction. He pushed clumsily at the door with his shoulder, leaving a damp smear on the glass. "Tally ho!"
Hawks moved farther into the room, toward the bar. He searched behind it, and found a bottle of Scotch. When he looked up from putting ice and water into a glass, he saw that Connington had reached Claire and was standing over her. She lay on her stomach, facing the pool, her chin resting on her crossed forearms. Connington held the pitcher, pouring awkwardly into the two glasses in his other hand.
Hawks walked slowly to the leather-covered settee facing the windows, and sat down. He put the edge of his glass to his lips, and rested his elbows on his thighs. He put both hands around his glass, holding it lightly, and tilted it until he could sip at it. The lower half of his face was washed by reddish sunlight mottled with faint amber dispersions and glassy points of shifting light. The arch of his nose and the upper part of 'his face were under a curtain of shadow.
Claire rolled half over and stretched up an arm to take the glass Connington handed down. She perfunctorily saluted Connington's glass and took a drink, her neck arching. Then she rolled back, resting her raised upper body on her elbows, her fingers curled around the glass she set down on the pool coaming. She continued to look out over the water.
Connington sat down on the edge of the pool beside her, dropping his legs into the water. Claire reached over and wiped her arm. Connington raised his glass again, held it up in a toast, and waited for Claire to take another drink. With a twist of her shoulders, she did, pressing the flat of her other hand against the top of her suit.
The sunlight slanted in from behind Connington and Claire Pack; their profiles were shadowed against the brilliant ocean and sky.
Connington refilled their glasses.
Claire sipped at hers. Connington touched her shoulder and bent his head toward her. Her mouth opened in laughter. She reached out and touched his waist. Her fingers pinched the roll of flesh around his stomach. Her shoulder rose and her elbow stiffened. Connington clutched her wrist, then moved up to her arm, pushing back. He twisted away, hurriedly set his glass down, and splashed into the pool. His hands shot out and took her arms, pulling them forward.
Light dashed itself into Hawks' face and filled his eyesockets as the sun's disk slid an edge down into sight under the eaves of the roof. He dropped his lids until his eyes were looking out through the narrow mask of his lashes.
Keeping his hold on Claire's wrists, Connington doubled his bent-kneed legs forward, planted his feet against the side of the pool, and strained himself out flat. Claire came sliding into the water on top of him, and they weltered down out of sight under the surface. A moment later, her head and shoulders broke out a few feet away, and she stroked evenly to the ladder, climbing out and stopping at the poolside to pull the top of her suit back up over her breasts. She picked her towel from the grass with one swoop of her arm, threw it around her shoulders, and walked quickly off out of sight to the left, toward the other wing of the house.
Connington stood in the pool, watching her. Then he jumped forward, and thrashed up to the steps at the shallow end, climbing out with water pouring down from his shoulders and back. He took a few strides in the same direction. Then his face snapped toward the glass wall. He changed direction obliquely, and, at the corner of the pool, did a flat dive back into the water. He swam forward, toward the diving board. For some time afterward, until the sun was entirely in sight and the room where Hawks was sitting was filled with red, the sound of the thrumming board came vibrating into the timbers of the house at sporadic intervals.
At ten minutes of eight, a radio began to play loud jazz upstairs. Ten minutes later, the electric blat of the radio's alarm roiled the music, and a moment after that there was a brittle crash, and then only the occasional sound of Barker stumbling about and getting dressed.
Hawks went over to the bar, washed out his empty glass, and put it back in its rack. He looked around. There was night outside the windows, and the only illumination came from the balcony at the end of the room, where the stairs led down from the second floor. Hawks reached out and turned on a standing lamp. His shadow flung itself against the wall.
6
Barker came down carrying a half-filled squareface bottle. He saw Hawks, grunted, hefted the bottle and said, "I hate the stuff. It tastes lousy, it makes me gag, it stinks, and it burns my mouth. But they keep putting it in your hands, and they keep saying 'Drink up!' to each other, and 'What's the matter, Charlie, falling a little behind, there? Freshen up that little drinkee for you?' Until you feel like a queer of some kind, and a bore for the times you say you don't want another one, positively. And they fill their folklore with it, until you wouldn't dream you were having a good time unless you'd swilled enough of the stuff to poison yourself all the next day. And they talk gentleman talk about it — ages and flavors and brands and blends as if it wasn't all ethanol in one concentration or another. Have you ever heard two Martini drinkers in a bar, Hawks? Have you ever heard two shamans swapping magic?" He dropped into an easy chair and laughed. "Neither have I. I synthesize my heritage. I look at two drunks in a
saloon, and I extrapolate toward dignity. I suppose that's sacrilege."
He put a cigarette into his mouth, lit the end, and said through the smoke, "But it's the best I can do, Hawks. My father's dead, and I once thought there was something good in shucking off my other kin. I wish I could remember what that was. I have a place in me that needs the pain."
Hawks went back to the settee and sat down. He put his hands on his knees and watched Barker.
"And talk," Barker said. "You're not fit company for them if you don't say 'Eyther' and 'nyther' and 'tomahto.' If you've got a Dad, you're out. They only permit gentlemen with fathers into their society. And, yeah, I know they licked me on that. I wanted to belong — oh, God, Hawks, how much I wanted to belong — and I learned all the passwords. What did it get me? Claire's right, you know — what did it get me? Don't look at me like that. I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it's all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she's comparing. She's out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don't have any collar around her neck. She's not tame. I'm not a habit to her. I'm not something she's tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves? It proves I'm still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn't stay if I wasn't. Don't kid yourself — I don't know what you think about you and her, but don't kid yourself."
Hawks looked at Barker curiously, but Barker was no longer watching him.
"If she could see me, Hawks — if she could see me in that place!" Barker's face was aglow. "She wouldn't be playing footsie with you and Connington tonight — no, not if she could see what I do up there… How I dodge, and duck, and twist, and inch, and spring, and wait for the — the —"
"Easy, Barker!"
"Yeah. Easy. Slack off. Back away. It bites." Barker coughed out bitterly, "What're you doing here, anyway, Hawks? Why aren't you marching down that road again with your ass stiff and your nose in the air? You think it's going to do you any good, you sitting around here? What're you waiting for? For me to tell you sure, a little sleep and a little gin and I'm fine, just fine, Doctor, and what time do you want me back tomorrow? Or do you want me to crack wide open, so you can really move in on Claire? What've you been doing while I was asleep? Playing stickyfingers with her? Or did Connington weasel you out of the chance?" He looked around. "I guess he must have."
"I've been thinking," Hawks said.
"What about?"
"What you wanted me here for. Why you came straight to me and asked me to come. I was wondering whether you hoped I could make you go back again."
Barker raised the bottle to his mouth and peered at Hawks over it as he drank. When he lowered it, he said, "What's it like, being you? Everything that happens has to be twisted around to suit you. Nothing is ever the way it looks, to you."
"That's true of everyone. No one sees the world that others see. What do you want me to do: be made of brass? Hollow, and more enduring than flesh? Is that what you want a man to be?" Hawks leaned forward, tight creases slashing down across his hollow cheeks. "Something that will still be the same when all the stars have burned out and the universe has gone cold? That will still be here when everything that ever lived is dead? Is that your idea of a respectable man?"
"A man should fight, Hawks," Barker said, his eyes distant. "A man should show he is never afraid to die. He should go into the midst of his enemies, singing his death song, and he should kill or be killed; he must never be afraid to die; he must never be afraid to meet the tests of his manhood. A man who turns his back — who lurks at the edge of the battle, and pushes others in to face his enemies —" Barker looked suddenly and obviously at Hawks. "That's not a man. That's some kind of crawling, wriggling thing."
Hawks got up, flexing his hands uncertainly, his arms awkward, his face lost in the shadows above the lamp's level. His calves pressed back against the leather of the settee, thudding it lightly against the wall. "Is that what you wanted me here for? So no one could say you wouldn't clasp the snake to your bosom?" He bent his head forward, peering down at Barker. "Is that it, warrior?" he asked inquisitively. "One more initiation rite? You've never been afraid to take your enemies in and give them shelter, have you? A truly brave man wouldn't hesitate to lodge assassins in his house, and offer them food and drink, would he? Let Connington the back-stabber come into your house. Let Hawks the murderer do his worst. Let Claire egg you on from one suicidal thing to the next, ripping off a leg here, a piece of flesh another time. What do you care? You're Barker, the Mimbremo warrior. Is that it? — But now you won't fight. Suddenly, you don't want to go back into the formation. Death was too impersonal for you. It didn't care how brave you were, or what preparatory rites you'd passed though. That was what you said, wasn't it? You were outraged, Barker. You still are. What is Death, to think nothing of a full-fledged Mimbremo warrior?
"Are you a warrior?" he demanded. "Explain that part of it to me. What have you ever done to any of us? When have you ever lifted a finger to defend yourself? You see what we're about, but you do nothing. You're afraid to be thought a man who wouldn't fight, but what do you fight? The only thing you've ever done to me is threatened to pick up your marbles and go home. No — sports cars and ski-slopes, boats and airplanes: that's the kind of thing you strive against. Things and places where you control the situation — where you can say, as you die, that you know the quality of the man you have killed. Things and places where the fatal move can always be traced to the carelessness or miscalculation of Barker, the killer, who was finally succeeded in overcoming his peer, Barker the warrior. Even in the war, did you fight hand-to-hand, on open ground? You were only an assassin like the rest of us, striking from the dark, and if you were caught, it was your own fault. What worthy enemy, besides yourself, have you ever met?
"I think you are afraid, Barker — afraid that no one else who killed you would understand what a warrior you are. How can you trust strangers to know you for what you are? But a warrior is never afraid. Even within himself. Is that what explains it, do you think, Barker? Is that the trap you're caught in? In the far reaches of your mind, do you suppose it's all been reasoned out, and kept safe — that you must live among your enemies, to prove your bravery, but dare not meet them in combat for fear of dying unknown? Do you suppose that's why a stranger has only to threaten you in order to become drawn into your life? And why you will let him nibble and rasp you to death, slowly, but will never turn and face him, and acknowledge that you are in a fight for your life? Because if you only let yourself be whittled at, the process may take years, and anything might happen to interrupt it, but if you fight, then it will be over immediately, and you might have lost, and died unsung?" Hawks looked quizzically at Barker. "I wonder," he said in a bemused voice, "I wonder whether that might not explain it."
Barker came quietly upward out of his chair. "Who are you to tell me these things, Hawks?" he said, calmly studying him. He reached behind his back without moving his eyes and set the bottle down on the small table beside the chair.
Hawks rubbed his palms over the cloth of his jacket. "Think about what happened to you today. You had thought the formation was something like an elaborate ski-slope, hadn't you, Barker? Just another dangerous, inexorable place, like many places men have been before.
"But there were no rules to explain what had killed you, when you died. You had gone beyond the charts. You couldn't say to yourself, as you died, that you had misinterpreted the rules, or failed to obey them, or tried to overcome them. There were no rules. No one had found them out yet. You died ignorant of what killed you. And there had been no crowd to applaud your skill or mourn your fate. A giant hand reached down and plucked you from the board — for what reason, no one knows. Suddenly, you knew that where you were was not a ski-slope at all, and all your skills were nothing. You saw, as clearly as anyone could ever see it, the undisguised face of the unknown universe. Men have p
ut masks on it, Barker, and disarmed parts of it, and thought to themselves that they knew all of it. But they only know the parts they know. A man hurtling down a ski-slope has not learned the workings of gravity and friction. He has only learned how to deal with them in that particular situation, for all that he soars above them and lands safely. For all that the crowd sighs to watch a man overcome things that once killed men without mercy. All your jumping skill will not help you if you fall from an airplane without a parachute. All your past soaring and safe landing will not temper gravity then. The universe has resources of death which we have barely begun to pick at. And you found that out.
"Death is in the nature of the universe, Barker. Death is only the operation of a mechanism. All the universe has been running down from the moment of its creation. Did you expect a machine to care what it acted upon? Death is like sunlight or a falling star; they don't care where they fall. Death cannot see the pennants on a lance, or the wreath of glory in a dying man's hand. Flags and flowers are the inventions of life. When a man dies, he falls into enemy hands — an ignorant enemy, who doesn't merely spit on banners but who doesn't even know what banners are. No ordinary man could stand to find that out. You found it out today. You sat in the laboratory and were speechless at the injustice of it. You'd never thought that justice was only another human invention. And yet a few hours' sleep and a little gin have helped you. The shock has worn down. All human shocks wear off — except the critical one. You're not helpless now, like Rogan and the others are. Somehow, the creation inside your brain still lurches on. Why is that? How is it that dying didn't topple your foundations, if they are what you thought they were?