He cleared his throat and, deep out of gullet darkness, he spit up a tiny fleck of gold (his throat had been lined thus against cancer one year ago) and he moved his two metal feet just slightly at the “toeing of the line,” but still toeing, ah yes. And he wanted so much to run back to the safe-and-known of his hip-snuggle chair, and prisoner bands and the cool calm programming into the formula, to help Control, to die—or—die for State.
But Little Sister was at him and he knew it might not be easy. Little Sister was just past five, oh sure, but what if she, forgetting all the training of the Programs, should revert to that true age and start up her machine-gun questioning: “Whattya think, Daddy? whattya think, Daddy? whattya think?” while she danced in great expectancy and demanded to be informed. Oh God. She might even start her patented fit-dance, where she shrieked and fell to the ground and kicked. He remembered.
Now, oh now, he needed her mother whole, instead of that female jig Mother had become, worked all in metal and plastic in all the replaceable places, with the giant star-diamond rings on those fabulous removable fingers and the blue almost-all-replaced eyes staring, now always staring, like two very small fuzzy full moons out of a green settling fog while she had those long daily rubs, oh, every day! with the plastic man. “Why don’t you just go to your mother?” he said. “It’s more a little girl’s place in the spring to question her mother.” He warmed to the inspiration, to the idea of “getting out of it.” “Just drop by Little Brother’s place and both of you then run over to Mother’s place and see what you can get started. See if she’ll give you a little time from old Jon. Find out if her phfluggee-phflaggee’s still working. Or is it all rubs now, with Mother?” He hated himself for this, this slicing underhanded attack on Mother and her plastic boyfriend. He had no right to do this, really, he a proud Formula Worker for the State and surely above such shabby cheap caring and flesh-jealousy concern as to whether or not Mother, or even the most beautiful woman in the world, was rubbed.
“Going to Mother’s a real bummer now—no good,” Little Sister said. “And taking Little Brother with me is not the least bit of help in this world. They’re both too far out, if you ask me. Mother’s always on the bed for a rub and a bounce, and Little Brother’s either blasting off in his little Universe-Scoot sports space rocket, or getting ready for launch. Just play, you know, but it takes up his time; hmmph! space probes are his whole entire life.” She paused now and sized him with those hard-hard eyes she had, and he wondered how she would hit and where, knowing hit she would. —“Remember, Daddy, remember how BAD you helped me at Xmas? About my tree star? That fell?—When they let you out for one of those BIG EOC’s. And you got mad and threatened to castrate Santa Claus. What’s castrate? —Let’s show now you CARE!”
He ignored everything but his own terrible aching dread now. He could not help it; he had to ask, and the words from his trembling phfluggee-phflaggee came on almost self-propelled and hit out like space probes: “Have you—did you ever—oh, could you tell me, Little Sister—about Mother and—?”
“Sure can. And it’s not just rubs, and don’t you ever think it!” Little Sister cocked her head and looked at her daddy in a very sly-josh way. I think this manner of looking would prompt just about anyone to wonder just how far this little missy’s knowledge had traveled already along the road of the facts of life, packaged or otherwise. And he suddenly remembered that the Programs had probably told her all already about “how it used to be” in their supposedly VERY scientific approach to getting her ready for “how it was to be.” But sometimes it all doesn’t work as planned with little girls. Just as now, some “communication gone astray” in the Programs, probably, was what had prompted Little Sister to bootleg this order for pumpkin seed to that criminal seed house over the line in Olderan. Unaccountably now, he found himself wishing it were sunflower seed. He had once loved those big “suns,” some the size of dinner plates, rioting in the hell-hot simmering fields of high summer across a great midwestern land.
He came back to NOW, with a terrible thud in his thoughts. Cold and cold it took him and cold and cold he asked from the hurts that are not to be described: “What What WHAT—does he do—DO—to her—besides. Besides—Besides—rubs?”
“He gouges her every once in awhile, sorta hard, with his little old short fat stick he’s got on him that pops up every so often. SPRINGY! Sorta BIG!”
“Why Why WHY does he—DO—do—THAT?”
“How should I know!? Sometimes they get stuck together. Because she wants him to, I guess. And because she wants him to want to, I guess, and he certainly does, I guess, hee hee huk.”
He looked at his little daughter laughing there. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear himself to pieces. He wanted to throttle her. He wanted to lash out at everything. He couldn’t talk. His phfluggee-phflaggee refused to do its job. He pressed the button marked WAILS and finally he wailed.
“Oh Daddy, pipe down, shut that thing off—it’s just fun, Mama-boyfriend fun. And whatever they’re doing, it sure looks humpy-good to me. I stand there and laugh and laugh. I like to watch ’em, though, whenever I can, through this secret peep I’ve got. And when they get going good, I just jump around in sight and yell, ‘Hi! Mama! Mama! hi! old Plastic Guy! you old pot.’ And you should see how they scramble to sit back in shape and pose natural! You’d probably have to press your Ho-Ho button on that silly thing you’ve got there and die laughin’. But, according to the Programs, it’s not supposed to be anything to hide and be ashamed of. Just good old hotsy-totsy fun between two consented, as they say. REALLY wantin’ it BAD! Huk huk hee.”
The gold came on up in his aching throat—fleck after fleck after fleck now and fell to the floor, sounding like, in the Old Times, rain-pats as he gasped. He just looked at Little Sister, expanda-vision tuned to Horror-Gaze Gaze-on. He couldn’t speak a sound. She seemed at a great distance. He waved to her with his hand that had all gone tin and his arm that was like a ton. She waved back. He screamed with his button screamer for a full fifteen seconds, for it seemed that might help some, some noise, some manifestation of outrage.
“I don’t think it’s what it oughta be at all,” Little Sister said flatly, when the button screaming had subsided. “Too much of a racket. Since Mother’s mostly tin and old Plasto-Jon’s mostly plastic, they make an awful lot of commotion going after it the way they do—juga-boom splat splat rattle rattle shake-a-shake rumple rumple ragh-a-ragh-a-ragh-a-ragh ohhhhhhh ummmmmmm.” (Little Sister went jerky-jumpy and did little-girl bumps and grinds to illustrate her sounds.) “And they really breathe hard sometimes, both of them, with their breath bags pumping like CRAZEE! He takes off all Mother’s clothes first, every stitch, just before they start—nylons and nasties tossed all over! Also his. They sorta undo each other. Otherwise they’d get too hot. Probably. Whattya think, Daddy? Whattya think, Daddy? Whattya think?”
He fell forward. Or more, he just crumpled to a heap on his Formula Hut floor and became right before her eyes a very sad pile of quite expensive “replacement” metal and flesh-strip in a swoon. “Daddy’s sick!” she said, mumbling worriedly to herself and the whirring emptiness around her. “I wonder why Daddy’s sick? I wonder what I should do? Oh well—”
She eyed him with a little girl’s real love for her daddy for a couple of seconds or so and she decided that he would probably eventually be O.K. on his own, or, if not, the State could just melt him up and start over as she had seen it done in the Programs. So why was she standing around, and who cared how it turned out anyway? He sure as heck wasn’t any help to her right now, and never had been, really. Neither had Mother. And Little Brother—brrrkkk boooooo—bad news all the way. So she took off, running as hard as she could across the planned-greening yards, all up with the metal grass now after Seasons finally had set the wheels right to put old winter on the skids and under on the giant yard-sheet Control rolls, all over Moderan.
But she still didn’t know how in the world she wa
s going to find some dirt, and sneak it, to grow those “punkins.” She did know, though, one thing: Daddy had certainly been as useless as usual in helping her solve a problem.
DECEMBER FOR STRONGHOLD 9
THE SKY closed up high that early-morning day, and all seemed usual-fine over steely Moderan. Then there came a cover-break as vapor far aloft grew most pointy and great-dangerous claws that dipped and seethed, swished and swirled, as all subheaven appeared to fight. He (still in his slinger bed) wondered and felt almost young for a little while, seeing this sky excitement enliven his usually-dull weather wall. He had, in all his remembered times, even in Olderan, gone getter in the dark and swirly days, when King Death and Queen Threat seemed about to extend their sways to include cloud cover and all the world under. Yes! there moved strange danger-sign, doom portent and emblems of disaster, in the air that regulated early-morning day, but only for a little while. Then all rolled smooth to the slate-gray vapor shield of old December, and he knew that another full day of Knob Time was ironed in. Central had thumbed right again, the correct knobs had sunken home and things were now switch-functional and normal-toggles-it in the sky over steely Moderan.
And things were switch-functional and normal-toggles with him too. To all outside appearances. But old (and older did they turn). Some catch in the smooth workings, a malfunction of the Joy-trims, was in the heart and mind now, clawing the good times down, negating all his tall ambitions, selling short his many strong longings for power—everything now sunken to ciphers. Floating airborne zeros and great blank rectangles of levitated Nothing rolled, bumped and collided in his mind; and he moved on a vast windless plain where all the flat in the world was end-to-end and side-to-side. A strong and gummy stillness boxed his ears and smacked his face to almost smotheration while he tried to coax his mind and his combative spirit closed him down, clamped upon him and would not let him run. Yes! Did Stronghold #9 have mental dejection and old-iron lassitude? Was he a copout now in the great life-wars for top-up? Was he old? Was He Old? WAS HE OLD?
(Yes! Yes! YES!) But he still dreamed of a Battle. That Meeting-Down-the-Wind seemed planned, and had been for as long as he could think back upon it. Some gigantic contention, with just himself on one side and all the others out there . . . He would dream a white horse charging, two little new-metal children cheering from the arms of a beautiful new-metal lady, and the Enemy, in all the colors that would challenge the integrity of all-white, staging the doom-power up. Maybe . . . maybe . . . today . . . ?
Stronghold #9 rose from his slinger bed (which rising was a slinging out, at the press of a switch, of all the metal-and-flesh-strip load that he now was) and went at once from his in-bed long-thought to walk upon the parapet of his stark fort, which fort was also termed Stronghold #9. (In these ominous and great times, when men were mostly new-metal held together by a few flesh-strips where green fluids coursed in tube-miles, and metal brain pans sloshed for real chemical thinking, the protector-complex—that is, the Stronghold—and the man “replaced” were one and the same designation. Stronghold 9, the man; Stronghold 9, the fort. YES! And, in a way, a man now really was but a little fort that strolled, what with all his new-metal shell protecting toward peril—and peril all everywhere!)
Round and round he slumped now under the slate-gray vapor shield of that December day, and a district seasons-weather automatic seeing him plod gave him a wind thumb, depressed the cold-gales button to let a chill and whistly movement of wintry atmosphere attend his meditations. Sometimes, in their locked-on menialities, the lowly civil servants of a place, through instinct, perceive a thing clearer and more thoroughly than they ever could through brain. Our December attender in weather control for the district that encompassed Stronghold 9 could clearly ascertain, by the downburdened shoulders, the low-bent head and the thirk thirk thirk of the round and round on the parapet, that here walked a man with a Stronghold load of tough thoughts in his brain pans and tremendous hurts across his pain baffles. So why not flip him the wind digit to go with his terrible despair and let him leg old worry-and-woe out in a hurricane gale? Pour it on! If it had been flesh times and Old Days, I strongly do suspect that this little weather civil attender was the type who would have spirited the grieved one’s new maroon scarf from Christmas back to the store in a snow-down, to pay in on Easter eggs (it was that bad!)—just to let the worrier savor better the weather and tough times as he strode the anxious planks.
But The Trip comes on headlong, and The Trip does bloom full-scale, no matter what’s a what or who’s a who. The Trip does get us on the legs we trip; The Trip does take us on the legs we sit. The Trip is a getter and a taker. Yes! THE TRIP! Like old elephants, hide-slack and sick, tremble-lumbering home to ancient pachyderm grave sites; like old dogs in the Old Years succumbing for many a kennel-bed day and then up-ping on a last morning to break out and run run run that final doggy dash, many and many a mile, as if to shake the Dread Thing down the wind—but nothing shakes it. It is the no-shake shaker of us all. YES!
It was written large in the founding contracts of Moderan that no Stronghold master “with his flesh-strips few and played-down and the bulk of him new-metal man now” would ever have to face Last Call and go The Trip. But things are what Things are. Wave a contract at it and say ha! I don’t have to. HA! HO! HEE! . . . . . . REFUSE to be old!! CRAP!!!
Tweettlleeoo! Tweettlleeoo! tweettlleeoo! tweety! tweety! tweet! Well, there it was. The L-Tower people were beaming him. In an under edge of his mind he had suspected that they probably would. Any day now. “GREETINGS, STRONGHOLD 9, MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT, GREAT MASTER IN YOUR OWN RIGHT, MOST VAUNTED WARRIOR OF MODERAN, AND MISSILE HERO OF THE WORLD, YOUR NOW ASSIGNMENT IS—” He switched it off. He didn’t listen to any more. He didn’t need to. He knew what was going on. The same thing had happened, less than a month ago, to old-line Stronghold 6, where young-smartass Stronghold 3,159,813,425.6 (new model!) had just moved in and now ruled large. (With a lot of gimmicky new smartass ideas on how to run a gun-down for a world shoot-out.) Yes, metal-fatigue, tube-mile obstructions and plaque in the brain pans were setting in on the old line. (Cite your contract! File a grievance! Threaten to sue! Make them live-up! Who? Who? WHO?) HO! L-Tower was the governing body of Moderan.
So with shrouds in the sky, the cloud bags like death’s-heads in the wind’s push, and the dark birds of Ending edging their terrible wing-jerk on to flock the air with symbol-tone, Stronghold 9 would go down toward where it was supposed to be for him—take the roll-go to go The Trip. —As had been his wont, always, he had prepared himself the best he could for victory and this day. Knowing full well his hinge joints now, laboring, would not be half so lightning-fast and reflex-sure as once they had been easily, for a whole week he had plied them with the best oil that there was. From the great parts-and-replacement warehouses high on old Redo Row he had brought up new flexers for his lungs—well back—thinking what a bad terrible thing should one or two less-efficient whiffs of the skull-and-crossbones air do him down, be the difference, in some horrid near-equal Last Combat. The age-use aberrations of the eyes he had countered with fine-line adjustments of the best lenses to be had in all wide Moderan. His heart he had checked and valve-tightened; the piston strokes were adjusted combat-rate—one-more-time.
Now for The Enemy! And what would he be like? Old 9 had always wondered about the Last Enemy. Even in the great great times of the world-gun-down winnings for him, when all his world at his new-metal feet bussed ground, and the very cosmos seemed his renown plane, when the flame-ball sun danced for him in very heaven it almost seemed and his picture, flown large and blown flattering, swung for world reverence tall over all the Moderan miles, he had wondered. On a little back edge of his mind, yes, he had! Even when young and at thrust into the most beautiful new-metal maidens for a jug-a-jug jab-a-jab upsa garu garu garu boom-a-boom-A-BOOM-AYYYY . . . uh uh uh ohuu . . . . . . he had known the cold thought. (The iced question was never in all his life entirely out of his mind, let’s a
dmit it.)
Maybe HE would come on a dark horse shaped like a launcher, and he, #9, could counter with Old White. If he’ll show his head, I’ll blast him! thought #9. If he wants to fight me one-on-one, we’ll do it! I and my fort against him where he stands. I’ll give him the Grandpa Wumps, the high-up weird screaming wreck-wrecks, the White-Witch missiles bite and the doll bombs as they run. I’ll slap his guts shreddy with my new cosmos-range seek-and-destroy man-blammers. I’ll dice him down like pickles in the Old Times, with my multi-head slaw sludgies. He’ll wish he’d never—
•
Tweettlleeoo! tweettlleeoo! tweettlleeoo! tweety! tweety! tweet! (L-Tower!) “START ROLL-GO 11:42 1/5 CURRENT; BE SPOT 0 NOON.” (Going in on Spot 0 at high noon! Well, L-Tower could be expected—diabolic, cynical, ambivalent unto the end.)
No one had ever told him how it would be, and there had been nowhere in his life for him to learn much about how it would be. They had never given him seminars on this thing, which thing was, may be, the most important aspect of them all. And the workshops on the Last Enemy were never held. He had to rely on instinct, that intuition still deep-locked in his flesh-strips—“weaknesses” from the ages long and gone. Being a warrior, and naturally battle-ordained as one of Moderan’s most prestigious shooters, he somehow pictured something final and grand done under combat flags and eagles on steel wings. And perhaps, the night just prior to the Great Last Battle, flooding along the sky the distant sounds of faultless music would be pealing, stirring and clear, for a last-farewell cotillion. And the beautiful new-metal maidens wearing their little iron frillies . . .“Oh, wear this next to your pumper, Love, for me!” “I WILL! . . . and I’ll come back . . .”
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