The Silver Metal Lover s-1

by Tanith Lee

  “Please don’t argue with me,” I said.

  “I’m not arguing,” he said. His face was grave.

  We stood there, motionless in the firelit darkness, a long while.

  Gone to earth, we stayed in the flat five days. It was a fearsome, banal, claustrophobic existence. We discussed strange topics, as for example that he could protect me from attack, and maybe not himself, the distances between certain types of stars, what the insides of the walls were like. We also talked of constitutionals through the subsidence—but didn’t risk them. I lived on apples and crackers. It was hopeless, since there was no foreseeable end. Finally something embarrassing and embarrassingly simple drove me out on the street. As I’d missed my contraceptive shots, I began again to menstruate, as I had at twelve and thirteen. I’d been aware it might happen, but never got around to more than the most cursory of the provisionings against the event. So, rather than starvation, hygiene forced me back into the unsafe world.

  I ran along Tolerance, along the boulevard. Eyes everywhere accused me. Under the elevated a woman stepped out of a shed and caught me eagerly by the arm. “You’re the bitch who sleeps with a robot!” But she didn’t say that. She said: “We missed you at the market. People asked after you both. Where’s he? Not sick, is he?”

  “Oh, no. It’s just so cold out.”

  I forget what else we said. Something, and then she let me go. When I got back into the apartment, I was shaking. But later I realized, and Silver explained to me, over and over, that all this proved nothing had changed.

  Next day, I went out alone again. I walked through the streets, through the stores. A couple of times people said hallo to me. No one accused me. Something inside me, a tense wire, sagged and slackened. E.M.’s retraction was a tiny little wave, which had hit the beach of the city, and passed unnoticed.

  He sat cross-legged on the brass bed, playing the guitar softly, and said to me, “Go out again tomorrow, and if nothing happens, we’ll go out together tomorrow night. One pitch only. An experiment.”

  “No—”

  “Yes. Or you’ll be down to eating the poor cat’s candles.”

  So the next day I went out, about three in the afternoon. I walked along the frozen sidewalks and around into the arcade where he’d sung the first time and I’d been so afraid of singing myself. As if to sing were something to fear. To sing.

  I glanced around the arcade. No one was in the archway, but people trotted to and fro and in and out of the shops. A long translucent icicle hung down from one of the ledges above, pointing like an arrow to the spot on the snow beneath, where Jason and Medea stood and looked back at me, with two tight little matching smiles.

  • 2 •

  “Hallo, Jane.”

  “Hallo, Jane.”

  “Ooh, what a silver face you’ve got.”

  “Yes, Jane, it is rather silver. Makeup, or did you catch it off him?”

  I’d forgotten, my heart hammering its way through my ribs, my breath snarled up in my throat, forgotten that when you learn to sing you learn to control your voice. But I was doing it anyway.

  “Catch what off whom?” I said.

  “Gosh,” said Jason, “what impeccable grammar. Off that peculiar actor friend of yours.”

  Do they know? How can they be here? As if they’re waiting for me—

  Don’t answer. Switch. Throw them.

  “Isn’t it cold?” I said.

  “Not for you in that lovely green cloak.”

  “Is that his?” Medea inquired.

  “Whose?”

  “Your rude friend.”

  “I have a lot of rude friends.”

  “Oh,” said Medea. “Does she mean us?”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about him. Obviously had a lovers’ tiff. What a shame, when you’re living here in the slums to be with him.”

  They know. I think they know it all. Do they know where I live? Where Silver is? How can they…

  “If you mean the man with the red hair you saw on the bridge,” I said, “we’ve split up, yes. He’s gone east.”

  “East?”

  “Out of state.” (Like Swohnson and E.M. and their new line in farm machines.) “There’s the chance of a good part there, in a drama.”

  “And left you all alone? In this slummy bit of the city?”

  “Jason,” I said, “what gave you the idea that I live around here?”

  “Well. You’ve left your mother, and your mother’s stopped your credit and your policode and all that. Then we asked around rather. Described you very accurately—diet-conscious, bleached hair—And we heard about how you sang in the street with your friend who’s gone east. How brave, when you can’t sing. Do you do it the way we do? Someone said you come here, to this arcade.”

  They’d been searching for me. It couldn’t be for any reason but pure nosiness and spite. And today was the day Silver and I used to come to the arcade—they’d found that out too, and stationed themselves here, waiting. And, used to coming to this spot at this time, on this day, I’d done it without considering. And walked right into them. (They know he’s a robot, they’ve spoken to Egyptia, or Clovis. They know.) But—they hadn’t found out where we were living—or they’d have turned up there. (I can just imagine their smiling faces in the doorway.) Of course. Nobody did know where we lived, we’d never told anyone, even the musicians whose lofts we’d visited had never yet been invited back.

  “Well actually,” I said, “I don’t live this end, at all. It’s sheer chance we met.”

  “Ah. A Dickensian coincidence,” said Jason.

  “Where do you live, Jane?” asked Medea, smiling, her eyes like thin slices of cobra. How I hated her, and her awful crimped blue hair.

  “Where do I live? Near the Old River.”

  “And you never open the windows.”

  “Not often.”

  “It’s interesting there.”

  “Yes. Anyway, I must go. Good-bye,” I said.

  “Good-bye, Jane.”

  “Good-bye, Jane.”

  They stood totally static as I walked out of the arcade, and I almost turned and ran for home. But as the cold of the open street breathed over me and my boots crunched in the deeper snow, I suddenly understood I’d escaped too easily. With a queasy, dizzying sensation I walked over the road and into Kacey’s Kitchens, and straight down an aisle of servicery fixtures. Pausing before a chromium in-sta-mix I saw, reflected in its curved surface, a distorted runny image of Jason and Medea flowing in at the door.

  Pretend not to be aware. Find a crowd, lose them.

  Oh God. There may not be a crowd. It’s cold, and cash is low.

  There has to be a crowd.

  There wasn’t.

  Not in Kacey’s, not in the Cookery. Not in the dozen or so stores and shops I walked through. I tried to lose them in alleyways, too, twisting and turning, going along walks I only knew because of going along them with him. Darting across hurtling roads, trying to get ahead of them—or perhaps, get them run over. But somehow they kept after me. I’d see their storefront reflections melt in, a few yards behind mine.

  The sun went. The streets darkened with dusk and brightened with extra lighting. It was getting late, and I couldn’t go home. I ached with the cold, and with hunger, and with anger and fear. I hurried into a second owner clothing store, and tried to shake them off among the moth-eaten fur coats. I almost thought I had, and then, going through the hats toward the other door, most horribly I heard Jason give a raucous hoarse sneeze. It went through me like a bullet, and then I ran. I ran out of the store, and down the street outside, skidding and sliding, clutching at intermittent lampposts to steady myself. Would they run too? Oh let them fall over and break all their legs—

  They ran. They must have. I didn’t hear them, they ran like weasels, better than me. Without knowing quite how, I’d reached the square that led to the all-night market with the fish-oil flares. As I stopped, panting and gasping, with a stitch jabbing in my sto
mach, they came up, one on either side of me, like the slatey shadows.

  “Jane, whyever were you running?”

  “Are you following me?” I cried.

  “Are we?” Medea asked Jason.

  “Sort of,” he said reasonably. “We thought we’d walk you home.”

  “Only, the river isn’t in this direction at all, Jane.”

  What now? I let myself gasp for breath, because it gave me time to think, if only I could. I mustn’t go toward Silver and the apartment on Tolerance. Nor must I go toward the Old River, since they would go with me right to the door, and I didn’t own a door over there.

  “I don’t need you to walk me home,” I said.

  “We think you do,” said Medea.

  “We were certain, with your policode not working and everything, it might be dangerous for you.”

  “You were certain you wanted to see where I lived.”

  “Is there some reason you don’t want us to?”

  “Why could that be, Jane?”

  “We’re your friends.”

  Where could I go? Where could I take them, so they’d get bored and leave me alone? I had hardly any cash on me, a few coins, no more. I couldn’t go and sit in a restaurant. And I had to get out of the cold, somehow, I couldn’t stand it anymore. My hands had no feeling, or my feet. Perhaps I’d broken all my toes as I ran and just couldn’t feel it yet—My eyes were burning. And they’d say, You’re frozen, you want to go home—why won’t you, if you’ve got nothing to hide, and no robots stashed there?

  “I’m not going home,” I blurted out.

  “Why not, Jane?”

  “I’m going to see Egyptia.”

  “Oh.” Both their faces fell. I’d scored, and I wasn’t sure how and then, “You mean that utterly abysmal moronic play she’s in.”

  “She kept saying,” said Medea, “Jane’s got to come to my first night. Jane’s got to be there, or I’ll die. How could she abandon me like this?” Medea frowned slightly. “But you aren’t.”

  It sounded very like Egyptia when Medea said it, only without Egyptia’s beautiful voice. And in the midst of panic I felt a stab of guilt. Egyptia had been wonderful to me, and I’d never called her to tell her she was wonderful, and that she would be safe. Hoping she’d now lost all interest in me and in him, my love who was her gadget, I’d shut her from my mind, as if to make it happen by sympathetic magic. But she’d shown me no malice. She’d been gloriously, sweetly kind. And tonight was her first night as Antektra, asking the peacock about brothers and dust. Through my own sick fear, I could just visualize her agonies.

  “Oh, well,” said Jason, “we’d better go with you. We thought of going, actually. At least over to The Island first.”

  We were walking, the three of us. Their policodes glinted, his on a necklet, and hers on a bangle, and I wished there were no such things and I could kill them. The tremor sites had snow on them. The sky was snowing out stars. Silver! Silver!

  Egyptia, I’m sorry, but if I get the chance to get away from these creatures, I don’t care about you—Oh, God, give me the chance—

  “We’ll go over to South Arbor and take the flyer,” said Jason.

  The Asteroid rose over the broken buildings. In the icy air, it seemed larger than ever, and touched the faces of my escort with a green-blue glaze, but probably it was an optical illusion.

  We walked. They didn’t speak to me any more. Now and then they said things to each other, sometimes about me.

  “Actors are awfully stupid.”

  “Yes, it will be a revolting night. But if Jane wants to.”

  “Isn’t she thin now? Not right for her bone structure.”

  “Wonder what Mother would say.”

  They knew they were my jailers. But they’d still failed, so far. They hadn’t been led to my home. I’d provided a legitimate excuse for not going there, and so they couldn’t be certain I was shielding anyone, or anything, from them. Not certain.

  We got to the flyer platform in time to catch the four-thirty P.M. As they clambered and clambered me into the lighted pumpkin, I tried halfheartedly to fall back, but they wouldn’t let me.

  “Come on, Jane.”

  “I just remembered, I haven’t got the fare.”

  Jason hesitated. They’re very mean, despite their riches and their thievery, and I wondered for a second if they’d abandon me after all. But then he said to Medea, “You can pay for her, can’t you?”

  And Medea, expressionless and hateful, said: “Yes, I’ll pay. I’ll pay for her on the ferry, too. Jane’s one of the poor, now.”

  “Do you remember,” said Jason, “when she offered to pay our bill in Jagged’s, and then didn’t, and they got on to Daddy and asked him for it? That was ever so funny.”

  We sat down. The flyer, a golden champagne bubble, drifted forward into the city sky, and I could have wept, from the pain of my thawing fingers, and from despair.

  Silver would be expecting me. The streets were dangerous. I had no policode. Would he, even though he couldn’t seem to be afraid for himself, be afraid for me? Silver.

  “Don’t the buildings look interesting from here?” said Jason. “Just imagine, if we had some little bombs we could drop on them. Bang. Bang.”

  “They’d look more interesting then,” said Medea complacently. “On fire.”

  Damn the pair of them. I wish there were a hell, and they could be there forever, screaming and screaming—

  No, I don’t wish that either. That wouldn’t make any difference, now.

  There was a crowd waiting for the reservoir ferry, and Jason held my arm. He’s scarcely taller than me. I thought of trying to push him in the water off the pier. But he’d only swim back.

  The ferry came and we got on it. It curved through the water and around the trees to The Island.

  “The play doesn’t start until midnight,” lamented Jason. “But Jane knows that. Over six hours of listening to Egyptia carrying on.”

  “Do you think,” said Medea, “we could do something to make Egyptia amused? Like putting some small creepy insects in her makeup boxes?”

  “Ssh,” said Jason. “If you tell Jane, Jane will tell Egyptia. And that would ruin the surprise.”

  “Or we could put glue into her stockings.”

  “What an intimate idea. I wonder what it’s like to be intimate with Egyptia?”

  “Oh, Jason,” moaned Medea, “please kiss my little toe—it’s ecstasy, and it makes me feel like a woman.”

  I stood by the rail, the water coiling by, not really listening. Somehow I recollect all they said. But it’s irrelevant. And presently we reached The Island pier, the landscaped gardens, and got off and walked up to the lift, and rose in it to Egyptia’s apartment.

  It was deadlock until then.

  By the time Jason spoke to Egyptia’s door, saying he and Medea were there, and not mentioning me, I was feeling violently nauseated and no longer really cared.

  All around the dead pot-plants pointed at us with their petrified claws. The night was strange and glistening and terrible. I recalled how I’d come here last and bit my tongue, the only way I could keep any control over myself. It seemed to me that if Lord came to the door again, it would be the end.

  When the door opened, no one was there but ourselves reflected in the mirrors as we trooped inside. It was also very silent, though I could smell incense and cigarines and the warm resinous scent of Egyptia’s entirely convincing pine-cone fire.

  No one seemed to be in the vast salon, either, though yellow candles were burning everywhere. It looked so cozy, so beautiful, so sumptuously welcoming, my illness began inadvertently to lift. Then I almost screamed.

  The fire had been put in the middle of the floor, and in one of the big shadowy chairs, three-quarters onto it, a head turned, and the flames outlined a crimson halo along dark red hair. It was Silver. It was—

  “If you stole anything from the hall on your way in,” said Clovis, “please replace it. This a
dvice is for your own sakes. Egyptia, who is putting the finishing touches to her makeup this very minute, is liable to return in the person of Antektra, or—worse—in hysterics yet again. And much as I’d love to see someone murder the two of you—Good God Almighty!”

  I swallowed.

  “Hallo, Clovis.”

  Having turned elegantly and slowly, caught sight of me and leapt to his feet, he was now transfixed, and I could see why I’d made the mistake. Clovis’s curling hair had been grown to shoulder length and lightly tinted red. To copy Silver? Mirror-Bias in reverse? The room shimmered. We’d parted in unfriendship, yet seeing him again I felt such a shock of relief I was ready to collapse on the floor.

  “Jane. That is you? I mean, under that blond wig and the silver skin?”

  “It isn’t a wig. It’s my natural unmolecularized color. Yes, it’s me.” I felt blazingly hot now, and unfastened the cloak and held it drooping away from me.

  “My God. Let me look at you.”

  He came across the room, stopped about a yard from me, gazed at me and said, “Jane, you’ve lost about thirty pounds. I always knew it. You’re really a beautiful boy, circa fifteen hundred. With breasts.”

  At which I burst into uncontrollable tears.

  Jason tittered, and Clovis said, “You two can go through into the servicery and dial the cellar for some wine. A dry, full-bodied red—Slaumot, if there’s any left.”

  “Are we supposed to do what you tell us?” asked Medea.

  “I think you are,” said Clovis. “Unless you’d like me to let your daddy know what you did last week. Again.”

  “Daddy doesn’t care,” said Medea.

  “There you are wrong. Daddy does care,” said Clovis. “Your daddy was talking to my daddy the other day, and both daddies agreed you would profit by instruction. Your daddy was brooding on the notion of sending both of you off on a study course similar to Davideed’s undertaking. Silt. Or something of a reminiscent color and consistency, though a rather nastier odor.”

  “You’re lying,” said Jason.

  “About the subject for study, possibly. Not about anything else. Don’t get the wine and prove it.”

  Like a lizard, Medea slithered abruptly away through the salon. Jason, impelled by the invisible bit of string which connected them, peering back at Clovis, went after her.