by Jeff Sutton
"She can read your thoughts?" He was startled.
She nodded. "She guesses the future from that."
"Then why doesn't she advertise herself as a mind reader?"
"Oh, no." She shook her head. "People like to have their fortunes told, perhaps because they know that fortune tellers only tell the good things. It gives them hope. But most people would be afraid to have their minds read. She wouldn't get many customers."
"Why is that?" he demanded.
"People don't like you to know what they're thinking."
"How does she do it?"
Kathy considered the question. "I don't know," she said finally. "I don't even think Granny knows. It's just something she does."
"That would be scary."
"Very scary," she agreed.
He thought of Mr. Clement again, and said, "Reading minds isn't the same as looking into the future."
"There's a difference," she admitted.
"Do you believe anyone can do that?"
"Look into the future? Granny says so."
"I guess she'd know."
"Yes, she'd know." Her tone settled the issue.
A voice from the loudspeakers announced that the carnival had opened.
Kathy didn't appear to have heard. A few spectators wandered in through the entrance, the signal for the barkers to begin their cries. Barracuda, The Human Fish, stalked out from The Strangler's booth and returned to his own.
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Hot Mouth waved at them as they passed. It all made Jedro feel very good.
"You'd never get tired of this," he exclaimed impulsively.
"Occasionally I do."
"I won't," he stated. He couldn't imagine that the excitement could ever end. Drinking in the strange sights along the sawdust street, he thought it the most marvelous place in the entire universe.
As the carnival came to life, its noises swept over them in a growing wave. Pleasant aromas filled the air. The animals on the merry-go-round jumped up and down as they spun around and the sky wheel, still devoid of passengers, sent its small buckets reeling against the stars. Clanking cars rolled into the Tunnel of Love. Everything that was to be seen was to be seen here, he thought.
Who could ask for more? Perhaps someday he would be a lion tamer like Jason Hart. Jedro, The Lion Tamer; or perhaps he would simply bill himself as Jedro The Great. Glancing at Kathy, he wondered what she would think of him then.
His face brightened as they came to a poster showing a tall, thin man standing alongside a relk to emphasize his height. His finger was pointing to a sign which read: SEE GEORGE -- TALLEST
MIDGET IN THE UNIVERSE!
"No one could fall for that gag," he cried.
"But they do," she corrected. "The people here marvel at midgets. Have you seen their troupe?
They're wonderful. Being the tallest of the short makes George appear even more wonderful."
"But he's not a midget," he objected.
"Of course not." She tossed her head and smiled. "Dr. Faust -- you've met him, haven't you? --
says that people believe anything that's in writing.
If you want to make a person believe something, write it."
"Why is that?"
"It has to do with psychology," she explained. "Dr. Faust says it's related to the permanency of the written word."
"What do you think of him?"
"He frightens me, perhaps because he's a hypnotist." She appeared momentarily startled at her confession, then quickly consulted her watch. "I
have to start work. I'm already late."
"This was great," he exulted. He looked hopefully at her.
"I'll show you some more later," she promised.
"That would be fine." Walking with her toward The Snake Woman's booth, he felt as if he were treading on air. Kathy was wonderful. Pretty, too, especially when she smiled. Yet there was a sadness in her face that he couldn't decipher. It had been there at his mention of Earth, and he'd detected it several times since. He wondered if it were because her father had run away. Why would he do a thing like that? She was an orphan, just like he was. The thought brought a constriction to his throat. That wasn't so bad for a boy. A boy could move around, make it on his own. But not a girl. Girls needed someone to take care of them. He was glad The Snake Woman had taken her in, given her a home.
Abruptly he halted, staring at a small booth across the way. Above its lurid posters was the single word: TATTOOING.
"What is it?" she asked quickly. Before he could answer, a tall, lean man emerged from the booth, gazing both ways along the sawdust street. Jedro gaped at him. His bony face with the big curving nose and the hairless skull were covered with strange colored patterns that gleamed under the yellow sun.
Gaudy stripes covered his bare arms and sandaled feet.
The Tattooed Man! Jedro fought to subdue his sudden fright. Plunging a hand into his pocket, Page 28
he clasped the memory stone while his body shook and his heart thumped wildly. A mental picture of that sunny afternoon when Mr.
Clement had died brought the sweat to his brow.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"His looks startled me," he managed to say.
"Oh, that's Gurdon."
"Gurdon," he echoed. Mr. Clement had said that he would see him again.
"Most people call him The Tattooed Man," she explained. "He's a good friend of Dr. Faust. He is kind of scary."
"Yeah," he answered thickly.
"I have to hurry."
"Sure." He tore his eyes away from the lean figure of The Tattooed Man and shakily accompanied her to The Snake Woman's booth. When she went inside, he turned quickly to look back along the sawdust street.
The Tattooed Man was nowhere in sight.
5
THE BIG TENT came down.
Roustabouts sectioned it with amazing speed, folding it into neat, square bundles which packed compactly into the large flatbed wagons. Working
quickly and efficiently, other roustabouts pulled stakes, removed wires, signs, and posters, and still others dismantled booths. Jedro accompanied the lions as they were moved into small cages on one of the wagons, for the great beasts were always nervous at such times.
In what seemed to him but moments, New Chicago was falling behind. Soon, in the distance, it appeared like a toy village set upon the flat grassy plains.
Led by Dr. Faust's big red- and white-striped trailer, the procession wound among the Kliton Hills, two days later emerging onto the rolling
Wisconsin plain, where the town of New Milwaukee was situated. By the following morning, the carnival appeared exactly as it had in New Chicago;
only the surrounding landscape differed.
Jedro's days were filled with excitement; the carnival was a source of never-ending wonder. He was learning many things. He discovered that nearly all of the towns were named for great Earth cities, usually preceded by either the prefix "New" or "Little." In time he realized that every great ship carrying colonists to the stars also carried an unseen passenger whose name was Nostalgia. Men left Earth, but never forgot it. Now, on Doorn, they were trying to re-create the world from which they had come.
The carnival moved on.
New Berlin...
New Boston...
Little Rome...
As the wagon train spanned prairies, moved over rich farmlands and wound along forest roads, Jedro's horizons broadened. Best of all, he wasn't alone anymore. The lion tamer and his wife treated him as a son; Corky and Dum-Dum, the clowns, were his special friends.
"I had a son once," Dum-Dum told him, in a moment of rare confidence, then glanced away, his eyes brimming. Jedro was too choked to answer, for he knew the clown had been trying to express a long-buried sorrow. Later he learned that while Dum-Dum's laughing face was a mask to hide the tragedy of the son he had lost, Corky's plaintive sadness was founded in the loneliness of never having had a son.
But Jedro's greatest happiness came in his
friendship with Kathy. From the first, they had recognized in each other a kinship. If he was lonely, so was she, although the word was seldom Page 29
mentioned. Strolling hand-in-hand along the sawdust street, they brought to each other what all the clowns and friendly carnival folks around them could never bring: the solace of friendship founded in understanding.
In a town named Little Newark, Kathy got a substitute to handle the ticket booth while she toured the sawdust street with Jedro. They rode on the merry-go-round, laughing and shouting to each other above the raucous music.
Swooping starward on the sky wheel, they gasped at the small figures far below them on the sawdust street; then the small seat in which they were riding plunged downward, with everything suddenly growing in their vision.
The Tunnel of Love.
The Midget Troupe...
Hot Mouth, The Fire Eater...
They howled at the short, fat, tall, thin, grotesque, and twisted caricatures of themselves in the distortion mirrors. Viewing herself as a roly-poly dumpling, Kathy exclaimed, "Goodness, do I really look like that?"
"You're really pretty," he told her.
He wanted to take her to watch The Strangler, but she refused. "I get goose bumps just being near him," she confessed. Instead they went to see Twisto, The Contortionist, maneuver his lean body into unbelievable shapes.
"Ugh," exclaimed Kathy, "he reminds me of Caesar." Jedro laughed. Caesar was The Snake Woman's anaconda.
They watched Barracuda, The Human Fish, swim in his glass tank amid fronds, seaweed, and a host of strange sea creatures. Rail-thin, with diminutive ears pinned close to his shaved head and a body covered with silvery scales, Barracuda peered out at the spectators through bulbous eyes.
Kathy explained that the stems of the fronds really were air tubes through which he breathed whenever he turned his face from the crowd.
The night came to an end too soon.
"It was fun," Kathy said with a sigh, when at last they stood in front of The Snake Woman's booth.
"Next time we'll watch the lion tamer," he exclaimed. As he bade her good night, his heart sang with pure joy. Traveling in the wagons, first with one and then another of the performers or roustabouts, he became privy to a host of rumors, few of which offered any basis in fact.
He heard strange stories of how, at every new town, Dr. Faust would stand unobtrusively at the entrance to the sawdust street, scanning the face of each new arrival; how he would closet himself for days at a time in his big red- and white-striped trailer, attended only by The Tattooed Man, who was said to have worked for Faust back when the latter had been a master hypnotist in show business.
Other rumors had it that Faust was a secret imbiber of creel, a powerful native drink that stimulated the sense in bizarre ways; and that he was a hater of mankind, a fugitive from some unnamed terror, a man with an unmentionable past. Although Jedro paid scant attention to the whispers, he did perceive that the carnival owner was both hated and feared, although he wasn't certain why.
But he didn't wonder at the unsavory rumors concerning The Strangler's cruelty. While the carnival was unloading at Little Rome, he had surprised the brutish performer in the act of jabbing the lions through the bars with a pointed stick.
"Don't do that," he cried angrily.
The Strangler whirled, his stupid face filled with malevolence. "Why not?" he growled.
"You're hurting them!"
"Makes 'em frisky," sneered The Strangler. "They put on a better show."
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He jabbed viciously at Taber and the big cat crouched, snarling.
"Stop that," shouted Jedro.
The Strangler swung toward him. "You trying to tell me what to do?" he roared.
His heart pounding, Jedro dashed between the performer and the cage.
Looking up into the mean eyes, he cried, "I'll tell Mr. Hart -- I'll tell everyone what you're doing!"
"I'll smash you," muttered The Strangler. Turning abruptly, he vanished among the wagons.
Jedro knew that he had made a dangerous enemy but didn't care; no one had the right to hurt the animals.
Thereafter he avoided The Strangler, yet couldn't help but notice that the strong man wasn't without friends. One was Barracuda, The Human Fish.
Another was The Human Pincushion. Occasionally Jedro would see them together in the mess tent or strolling along the sawdust street. More surprising, he discovered that The Strangler occasionally visited Granny. Kathy said that was because Granny liked everyone.
But Granny, too, was a target for rumor. "When she looks into her crystal ball," ran the whisper,
"she is really looking into your mind." Other whispers had it that she was pondering your soul.
Old and emaciated, with bony hands ridged with blue veins and a shriveled face made grotesque by gleaming dentures, she nevertheless managed a gentle smile. If she were held in awe, she also was well liked.
Occasionally Jedro managed to share breakfast with Kathy and The Snake Woman in the big warm mess tent. At other times, as he and the blond girl walked along the sawdust street, they gravely discussed life. But not once did she mention her past, nor did he question her about it. Intuitively he knew that it was sealed off behind a curtain of pain. All in all, there was but one jarring note in his mind: the presence of The Tattooed Man.
Why had he killed Mr. Clement? Every time Jedro glimpsed The Tattooed Man or thought of him, the question came unbidden. Each time, touching the memory stone to feel its warmth, he instinctively knew the answer: The Tattooed Man had been trying to get the memory stone. But why?
For that question, he had no answer.
Jedro awoke in the cold hour of dawn. Throwing aside the blankets, he dressed hurriedly in the rickety old wagon that had been assigned as his personal quarters. Although it was filled with strange odors that spoke of former tenants and odd cargo, he thought it the best home he'd ever had.
The horses and relks whinnied softly as he approached their corral. He spoke reassuringly to them as he dumped fresh fodder in the troughs and filled the water tubs. Now and then he paused to pat one or scratch it behind the ear. Their large dark eyes reminded him of the rain pools set among the otog trees in the Ullan Hills.
Afterward he crept into the big tent and went to the lion cage. Lying alongside the bars, Taber lifted his head, watching him approach. Rana, sprawled on her belly with her head on her paws, raised herself from the floor and came toward him.
Jedro reached through the bars and ran his fingers through Taber's mane, then scratched Rana under the chin. He was rewarded by deep rumbling purrs. He tried to keep such visits secret, for he knew that Jason Hart would be quite angry.
"Those cats are dangerous," the lion tamer had warned time and again.
But looking into their large golden eyes, Jedro knew that Jason Hart was wrong. The lions weren't at all dangerous, not where he was concerned. They were merely lonely. And if they were irritable, it was because they were penned up. When he spoke to them, he had the odd feeling that they understood him -- if not his words, at least his thoughts.
When his chores were finished, he washed in a tub of cold water before going to the mess tent.
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Disappointed that Kathy wasn't there, he had breakfast with Corky and Dum-Dum. Devoid of their makeup and ring attire, the clowns appeared quite ordinary, although Corky's eyes never lost the sadness that gave his long face such a lugubrious expression.
Later he wandered outside. Both Klore and Bergon had risen, painting the eastern sky a glorious golden-orange. He was gazing around when he saw The
Tattooed Man emerge from the carnival owner's big red- and white-striped trailer. Jedro shrank back against the mess tent, his pulses quickening. A
sharp tremor ran through his body -- reactions he got whenever he saw the man.
Nervously he watched him.
Gurdon's bony, brilliantly patterned face gleamed in the morning sun.
G
lancing around quickly, he strode along the sawdust street. His lithe body and quick, light steps reminded Jedro of the big cats; The Tattooed Man was like them -- all sinewy, flowing movement.
Jedro's thoughts were uneasy. What business had The Tattooed Man with Dr. Faust? Although they were rumored to be close, he couldn't imagine the carnival owner choosing such a man for a friend. Yet Barracuda and The Human Pincushion had picked The Strangler; and The Strangler visited Granny...
Friendship, he was discovering, was an odd thing; likes seemed more often drawn to unlikes than likes. Or was he seeing the exceptions? Perhaps his perturbation was caused by what he'd seen in the Ullan Hills. If The
Tattooed Man ever discovered that...He shuddered at the possible consequences.
He saw Madame Brevet standing in front of her booth, her wrinkled face turned toward the sky. Her skin, in the morning light, resembled old leather.
Glancing up, he saw that the guy wire holding her sign had become loose, allowing it to cant at an odd angle.
"I'll fix it, Granny," he called. Leaping, he caught the edge of the roof and pulled himself up.
Tightening the wire, he dropped back to the street.
"My, you're agile." She patted his head, her old eyes wistful. "I used to be that way. Long ago,"
she added.
Caught by her nostalgia, he declared stoutly, "You can do other things, Granny."
"Not much." She shook her head sadly. "I'm getting old."
"You can tell fortunes. Not many people can do that."
"Bless you." She smiled toothily. "Come inside and I'll give you a treat." She led him into a small room and flipped a switch. A cone of light blazed down on a large crystal ball set atop a small table that had a chair placed at either side. The walls, ceiling and floor were covered with a dense black material, giving the impression that nothing existed beyond that which was illuminated under the cone of light. The chairs, table, and crystal ball appeared to float in a sea of nothingness. The room gave him a spooky feeling.
"Wait here," instructed Granny. She went into the next room, returning shortly with a bowl which she placed on the table alongside the crystal ball.