I couldn’t see well enough there and I didn’t want to light a match, so I moved back to the light and fumbled through the keys until I found the key tagged “D.” I opened the cell with as little noise as I could manage.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here in a hurry.”
He slipped out and pushed the door shut behind him. We started for the stairs. We were almost there when I heard somebody coming up. Jimmy grabbed my arm and pulled me back. We flattened out as best we could.
The policeman looked around in the dark and said, “Be you up here, Robards?” Then he saw us and started to say, “What the hell?”
I stepped out and pointed one of the pistols at him. I hadn’t loaded it. I had just stuck them in my pocket.
I said, “Easy now. I’ve got nothing to lose by shooting you. If you want to live, put up your hands.”
He put up his hands.
“All right. Walk down here.”
Jimmy opened the door for him and the policeman stepped inside the cell. While his back was turned, I hit him with the pistol. I probably hurt him worse than I did Sgt. Robards—a gun is a good deal more solid than a sack of sand—but I didn’t feel quite so bad about it because I didn’t know him. He groaned and fell and I didn’t try to break the fall at all. Instead I swung the cell door shut and locked it.
Then I heard the sound of low voices in one of the other cells and somebody said, “Shut up,” quite clearly to somebody else.
I turned and said, “Do you want to get shot?”
The voice was collected. “No. No trouble here.”
“Do you want to be let out?”
The voice was amused. “I don’t think so. Thank you just the same. I be due to be let out tomorrow and I think I’ll wait.”
Jimmy said, “Come on. Come on. Let’s go.”
On the stairs, I said, “Where’s your signal? We’ve got to have it.”
“It’s not here,” Jimmy said. “The soldiers took all my gear when I was arrested. All they have here are my clothes.”
“We’re in trouble,” I said. “My signal is broken and lost.”
“Oh, no!” Jimmy said. “I was counting on you. Well, we can try to get mine back.”
There was no real comfort in that. We collected Jimmy’s coat and clothes and headed into the night. When we were three blocks away and on a side street we stopped for a moment and kissed and hugged, and then I handed Jimmy one of the guns and half the ammunition. He loaded the gun immediately.
Then he said, “Tell me something, Mia. Would you really have shot him?”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “My gun wasn’t loaded.”
He laughed and then he asked in another tone, “What do we do now?”
“We steal horses,” I said. “And I know where, too.”
Jimmy said, “Should we?”
I said, “This man stole Ninc and everything else I have. He smashed my signal, and he beat me up.”
“He beat you up?” Jimmy said, immediately concerned.
“I’m all right now,” I said. “It only hurt for a while.”
There was a fetid, unwashed odor hanging around the entire district and the rain did nothing to carry the smell away. Instead the wetness seemed to hold the odor in place in a damp foggy stink that surrounded and penetrated everything. There were Losel pens all along the street. When we came to Fanger’s place, we slipped by the pen and if the Losels heard us, they made no noise. I had marked the stable and we went directly to it and slipped inside. Jimmy closed the door behind us.
“Stand outside and keep watch,” I said. “These are mean, unpleasant people. I’ll pick out horses.”
Jimmy said, “Right,” and slipped outside again.
When the door had clicked shut, I struck a match. I found a lamp and lit it. Then I started along the rows. I found Ninc, good old Nincompoop, and my saddle and I saddled up. Then I picked out a fairly small black-and-white horse for Jimmy and quickly saddled it, and added saddlebags.
After that, I took a quick look around. I didn’t find my gun, but I found the bubble tent thrown in a corner—apparently they hadn’t figured out how it worked. I found my bedroll, too. The rest of my things I wrote off. I decided that I would have to get Jimmy to share his clothes with me.
On impulse, then, I took out my pad and pencil. I wrote, “I’m a girl, you Mudeater!” and hung the note on a nail. I blew the light out.
We led the horses to the street and rode. I didn’t regret the note, but I was feeling sorry I hadn’t picked a better name than Mudeater. On the way, I asked Jimmy how he got caught.
He said, “There’s an army encampment north of here. They’ve got a scout from one of the other Ships there.”
“I’ve seen it,” I said.
“Well, I got caught looking the place over,” Jimmy said. “That’s where my gear is.”
“I’ve got a map,” I said. My copying hadn’t come out well so I had reluctantly added a map of Mr. Kutsov’s to my package. “We’ll go that way.”
I told Jimmy about Mr. Kutsov. “He left this afternoon. After he left, I gathered things we’ll need. All we have to do is pick them up and get going. The sooner we get away from this town, the better.”
When we got to the house, we rode to the back.
“Hold the horses,” I said. “I’ll be out in just a second.”
We both dismounted and Jimmy took Ninc’s reins from me. I went up the steps and inside.
“Hello, Mia,” Mr. Kutsov said as I stepped inside.
I shut the door. “Hello,” I said.
“I came back,” he said. “I read your note.”
“Why did you come back?”
He said sadly, “It didn’t seem right to leave you here by yourself. I be sorry. I think I underestimated you. Be that another child from the Ships outside?”
“You’re not mad?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. I been’t angry. I think I understand. I couldn’t keep you. I thought I could, but I be a foolish old man.”
For some reason, I started crying and couldn’t stop. The tears ran down my face. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You see,” he said, “you even talk as you did before.”
The front door signal, a knocker, sounded then and Mr. Kutsov got up and moved to answer the door. A green-uniformed policeman stood there in the doorway, his face yellowish in the light of the single candle in the front room.
“Daniel Kutsov?” he asked.
Instinctively, I shrank back. I swiped at my face with my sleeve.
The policeman moved one step inside the house and said in a flat voice, “I have a warrant for your arrest.”
I watched them both in fear. Mr. Kutsov seemed to have forgotten that I was there. The policeman had a hard, young face, nothing like Sgt. Robards in any way except for the uniform. Sgt. Robards was a kind man, but there was no kindness at all in this one.
“To jail again? For my book?” Mr. Kutsov shook his head. “No.”
“It be nothing to do with any book, Kutsov. This be a roundup of all dissidents, ordered by Governor Moray. It be known that you be an Anti-Redemptionist. Come along.” He reached out and grasped Mr. Kutsov by the arm.
Mr. Kutsov shook loose. “No. I won’t go to jail again. It be no crime to be against stupidity. I won’t go.”
The policeman said, “You be coming whether you like or not. You be under arrest.”
I had known that Mr. Kutsov was old, for all that my father had lived several years longer than he had, and I had suspected that his mind was no longer completely firm, but now at last his age seemed to catch up with him. He backed away and said in a voice that shook, “Get out of my house!”
The policeman took another step inside. I was fascinated and frozen. Why exactly, I cannot say, but I couldn’t speak or move. I could only watch. It is the only time in my life that this has ever happened and since then I have felt I understood the episode on the ladder with Zena Andrus a little better.
But in my case, it wasn’t just fear. Events got out of control and rushed past me, something like watching a moving merry-go-round and wanting to jump on, but never quite being able to decide to go.
The policeman lifted his gun from its holster and said, “You be coming if I have to shoot.”
Mr. Kutsov hit the policeman and in retaliation the policeman clubbed Mr. Kutsov to death while I watched. The policeman hit Mr. Kutsov once and if he had fallen that would have been the end of it, but he didn’t and the policeman hit him again and again until he did fall.
I must have screamed, though I have no memory of it. Jimmy says I did and that’s what brought him. In any case, the policeman looked up from Mr. Kutsov and stared right at me. I remember his eyes. He raised the gun he’d hit Mr. Kutsov with so many times and pointed it at me.
Then there were three reports at my elbow, one on the heels of the next. The policeman stood for a moment, balanced, and then the force of life keeping him upright was gone, and he fell to the floor. He never fired his gun. In one instant my life was his to take, and in the next he was dead.
I passed him by without even looking and bent over Mr. Kutsov. As I bent down beside him, his eyes opened and he looked at me.
I was crying again. I held him and cried. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled and said faintly, but clearly, “It be all right, Natasha.” After a minute, he closed his eyes as though he were terribly tired. Then he died.
After another minute, Jimmy touched my arm. I looked up at him. His face was pale, and he didn’t look at all well.
“There’s nothing we can do. Let’s leave now, Mia, while we can.”
He blew out the candle. As we mounted our horses, it continued to rain.
Chapter 18
WE RODE NORTH THROUGH THE NIGHT RAIN for hours. At first we stuck to the road, but when the ground started to rise and the country to roughen we cut off the road and followed a slow route of our own into the hills and forest. It was a tiring, unpleasant journey. The rain came down steadily until we were wet inside our coats. When we left the road, there were many times when we had to dismount and lead our horses through wet, rough brush that scratched and slapped. The noise of the cold wind was shrill as it blew through the trees and tossed branches. The only satisfaction that we had was knowing that with the rain as it was, following us would be close to impossible. Considering the route we took, following us would have been difficult at the best of times.
At last we decided to stop, feeling ourselves beyond pursuit and knowing ourselves within another day’s ride of the military camp where Jimmy’s gear might be. We were both tired and bruised by our experience. Jimmy had had no practice in killing people and no stomach for it. The books I used to read made killing seem fun and bodies just a way of keeping score, but death is not like that, not to any normal person. It may seem neat to point a gun, and keen to pull a trigger, but the result is irrevocable. That policeman couldn’t get back up again to play the next game, and neither could Mr. Kutsov. They were both dead for now and always. That fact was preying on both Jimmy and me.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a spear carrier in somebody else’s story. A spear carrier is somebody who stands in the hall when Caesar passes, comes to attention, and thumps his spear. A spear carrier is the anonymous character cut down by the hero as he advances to save the menaced heroine. A spear carrier is a character put in a story to be used like a piece of disposable tissue. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, “I resign. I don’t want to be used.” They are there to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. The trouble is that each of us is his own hero, existing in a world of spear carriers. We take no joy in being used and discarded. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people used and discarded. Mr. Kutsov was a spear carrier to the policeman, a spear carrier who asserted himself at the wrong moment, and then was eliminated. Then the policeman suddenly found himself demoted from hero to spear carrier and his story finished. I didn’t blame Jimmy at all. If I had been able to act, I would have done as he had, simply in order to stay alive. And Jimmy didn’t see the policeman as a spear carrier. Jimmy was always a more humane, open, warmer person than I, and it cost him greatly to shoot the man. I admit that the man was still a spear carrier to me, but nonetheless both deaths bothered me.
If I had the opportunity, I would make the proposal that no man should be killed except by somebody who knows him well enough for the act to have impact. No death should be like nose blowing. Death is important enough that it should affect the person who causes it.
We made our camp at last. We attended to the horses as best we could, sheltering them under the lee of some trees. Then we set up the bubble tent, pitching it on a level spot. Jimmy went after the saddlebags, bedroll, and saddles while I finished with the tent. We stowed things away in all the corners and that left just enough room to stretch out the bedroll.
We were soaking wet. The rain made a steady pitter on the bubble and we could hear the rising and falling shrill of the wind outside. We left the light on until we had taken off all our clothes. Undressing was difficult because of the lack of room and a cold saddle is an unpleasant place to put your bare bottom. Jimmy was more hairy than I had ever suspected. Finally we spread our clothes out to dry, turned out the light, and got into bed.
The bed was cold and so was I, and I put my arms around Jimmy. His skin was cold too, at first, but he was comfortingly solid. I needed comfort. I think he did, too.
I touched his cheek with my hand. “I’m not mad anymore, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t think you were. I’m sorry, anyway. I’ve got to take you as you are, even when you say stupid things. You can’t help what you think.”
He kissed me gently. I cooperated with the kiss.
“I’m glad you came for me,” Jimmy said. He moved his hand up the length of my back and across my shoulders. It gave me shivers. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Did you think I’d come?”
“I hoped, I guess. I’m glad you came. I’m glad it was you, Mia.”
He shifted and then put his hand on my breast. I put my hand over it.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“Why didn’t you ever say that before?” We’d kissed and done some other things, and I’d assumed he liked me, our differences aside, but he’d never said he liked the way I looked. I pressed the hand on my breast and I kissed his cheek and his mouth. I felt safer and warmer and more secure than I had in days. Oh, he was good to hold onto.
I let his hand go free and he let it wander. “I never dared,” he said. “You’d have used it against me. Hey, you know, that’s funny. When I touch this one, I can feel your heart beat and when I touch this one, I can’t.”
“I can feel yours, too,” I said. “Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.”
I kissed my hand and let it touch his face. Kissed his face.
“You do like the way I look?”
“Of course. You are beautiful. I like the way you look. I like your voice—it doesn’t squeak. I like the way you feel.” He moved his hand. “I like the way you smell.” His face moved in my hair.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” I said. “I don’t think I’d like this if I didn’t like the way you smell, and I never thought about it before. What do you mean I’d have used it against you?”
He said slowly, “You’d have said something snippy. I just couldn’t take the chance.”
I never realized before that he was that vulnerable, that something I might say could hurt him. “I say things sometimes,” I said, “but never if you told me that.”
He kissed my breast, moved his tongue experimentally over the nipple, and it swelled without my willing it. I thought my heart would become too large and break with the surge it made. We moved tightly into eac
h other’s arms and kissed deeply. I held Jimmy to me and my knees moved apart for him.
Sex in the Ship is for adults. If you are an adult, then it doesn’t matter particularly whom you do sleep with. Nobody checks. But just as anywhere, people tend to be fairly consistent, fairly discriminating about what they do, at least the people I’m likely to be friends with. I don’t think I’d want to know well the sort of person who makes notches on the end of her bed, the sort of person who takes sex wherever he can, the sort of person who takes sex lightly. I can’t do any of those things. I’m much too vulnerable. I enjoy making love, but I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have confidence and trust, liking and respect, beyond the basic fact of physical attraction. I had known Jimmy for nearly two years and been attracted to him for nearly that long, but making love with him was something that I could not have done much sooner than I did.
In a sense, Jimmy and I were intended for each other. Whether we had met or not, whether we had liked each other or not, we still would have had at least one child, and probably more. But that is a mechanical process that has nothing to do with living together and loving. It was nice that knowing each other we could love. The passion of age fourteen is not an ultimate, but age fourteen does not last forever and passions do grow.
Sex in the Ship is for adults. We were not officially adults, but we needed each other then, and I was no longer quite the stickler for rules that I once had been. We needed each other then and it was the proper time. If we didn’t make it back to the Ship, who would ever care? And if we made it back to the Ship, we would be officially adults and the question would be irrelevant.
So we made love there in the dark with the rain falling outside, safe in each other’s arms. Neither of us knew what we were doing, except theoretically, and we were as clumsy as kittens. It was something of a botch, too, in an extremely pleasant way. At the climax there was simply a hint of something we couldn’t reach.
We lay quietly and after a few minutes Jimmy said, “How was that?”
I said, somewhat sleepily, “I think it takes practice.”
Just before I fell asleep, I said, “It was comforting, though.”
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