Collected Short Fiction, page 419
North chuckled. “You came to the right place, then. Wait—I’ll fix you some bread and oleo. We still have some left.”
“You sure you can spare it, Hal?”
North opened a cupboard and took out a loaf of bread, and Katterson’s mouth began to water. “Of course, Paul. I don’t eat much anyway, and I’ve been storing most of my food doles. You’re welcome to whatever’s here.”
A sudden feeling of love swept through Katterson, a strange, consuming emotion which seemed to enfold all mankind for a moment, then withered and died away. “Thanks, Hal. Thanks.”
He turned and looked at the tattered, thumb-stained book lying open on North’s bed. Katterson let his eye wander down the tiny print and read softly aloud.
“The emperor of the sorrowful
realm was there,
Out of the girding ice he stood
breast-high
And to his arm alone the giants
were
Less comparable than to a
giant I.”
North brought a little plate of food over to where Katterson was sitting. “I was reading that all night,” he said. “Somehow I thought of browsing through it again, and I started it last night and read ’till you came.”
“Dante’s Inferno,” Katterson said. “Very appropriate. Someday I’d like to look through it again too. I’ve read so little, you know; soldiers don’t get much education.”
“Whenever you want to read, Paul, the books are still here.” North smiled, a pale smile on his wan face. He pointed to the bookcase where grubby, frayed books leaned at all angles. “Look, Paul: Rabelais, Joyce, Dante, Enright, Voltaire, Aeschylus, Homer, Shakespeare. They’re all here, Paul, the most precious things of all. They’re my old friends; those books have been my breakfasts and my lunches and my suppers many times when no food was to be had for any price.”
“We may be depending on them alone, Hal. Have you been out much these days?”
“No,” North said. “I haven’t been outdoors in over a week. Henriks has been picking up my food doles and bringing them here, and borrowing books. He came by yesterday—no, two days ago—to get my volume of Greek tragedies. He’s writing a new opera, based on a play of Aeschylus.”
“Poor crazy Henriks,” Katterson said. “Why does he keep on writing music when there’s no orchestras, no records, no concerts? He can’t even hear the stuff he writes.”
North opened the window and the morning air edged in. “Oh, but he does, Paul. He hears the music in his mind, and that satisfies him. It doesn’t really matter; he’ll never live to hear it played.”
“The doles have been cut off,” Katterson said.
“I know.”
“The people out there are eating each other. I saw a woman killed for food yesterday—butchered just like a cow.”
North shook his head and straightened a tangled, whitened lock. “So soon? I thought it would take longer than that, once the food ran out.”
“They’re hungry, Hal.”
“Yes, they’re hungry. So are you. In a day or so my supply up here will be gone, and I’ll be hungry too. But it takes more than hunger to break down the taboo against eating flesh. Those people out there have given up their last shred of humanity now; they’ve suffered every degradation there is, and they can’t sink any lower. Sooner or later we’ll come to realize that, you and I, and then we’ll be out there hunting for meat too.”
“Hal!”
“Don’t look so shocked, Paul.” North smiled patiently. “Wait a couple of days, till we’ve eaten the bindings of my books, till we’re finished chewing our shoes. The thought turns my stomach, too, but it’s inevitable. Society’s doomed; the last restraints are breaking now. We’re more stubborn than the rest, or maybe we’re just fussier about our meals. But our day will come too.”
“I don’t believe it,” Katterson said, rising.
“Sit down. You’re tired, and you’re just a skeleton yourself now. What happened to my big, muscular friend Katterson? Where are his muscles now?” North reached up and squeezed the big man’s biceps. “Skin, bones, what else? You’re burning down, Paul, and when the spark is finally out you’ll give in too.”
“Maybe you’re right, Hal. As soon as I stop thinking of myself as human, as soon as I get hungry enough and dead enough, I’ll be out there hunting like the rest. But I’ll hold out as long as I can.”
He sank back on the bed and slowly turned the yellowing pages of Dante.
Henriks came back the next day, wild-eyed and haggard, to return the book of Greek plays, saying the times were not ripe for Aeschylus. He borrowed a slim volume of poems by Ezra Pound. North forced some food on Henriks, who took it gratefully and without any show of diffidence. Then he left, staring oddly at Katterson.
Others came during the day—Komar, Goldman, de Metz—all men who, like Henriks and North, remembered the old days before the long war. They were pitiful skeletons, but the flame of knowledge burned brightly in each of them. North introduced Katterson to them, and they looked wonderingly at his still-powerful frame before pouncing avidly on the books.
But soon they stopped coming. Katterson would stand at the window and watch below for hours, and the empty streets remained empty. It was now four days since the last food had arrived from Trenton Oasis. Time was running out.
A light snowfall began the next day, and continued throughout the long afternoon. At the evening meal North pulled his chair over to the cupboard, balanced precariously on its arm, and searched around in the cupboard for a few moments. Then he turned to Katterson.
“I’m even worse off than Mother Hubbard,” he said. “At least she had a dog.”
“Huh?”
“I was referring to an incident in a children’s book,” North said. “What I meant was we have no more food.”
“None?” Katterson asked dully.
“Nothing at all.” North smiled faintly. Katterson felt the emptiness stirring in his stomach, and leaned back, closing his eyes.
Neither of them ate at all the next day. The snow continued to filter lightly down. Katterson spent most of the time staring out the little window, and he saw a light, clean blanket of snow covering everything in sight. The snow was unbroken.
The next morning Katterson arose and found North busily tearing the binding from his copy of the Greek plays. With a sort of amazement Katterson watched North put the soiled red binding into a pot of boiling water.
“Oh, you’re up? I’m just preparing breakfast.”
The binding was hardly palatable, but they chewed it to a soft pulp anyway, and swallowed the pulp just to give their tortured stomachs something to work on. Katterson retched as he swallowed his final mouthful.
One day of eating bookbindings.
“The city is dead,” Katterson said from the window without turning around. “I haven’t seen anyone come down this street yet. The snow is everywhere.”
North said nothing.
“This is crazy, Hal,” Katterson said suddenly. “I’m going out to get some food.”
“Where?”
“I’ll walk down Broadway and see what I can find. Maybe there’ll be a stray dog. I’ll look. We can’t hold out forever up here.”
“Don’t go, Paul.”
Katterson turned savagely. “Why? Is it better to starve up here without trying than to go down and hunt? You’re a little man; you don’t need food as much as I do. I’ll go down to Broadway; maybe there’ll be something. At least we can’t be any worse off than now.”
North smiled. “Go ahead, then.”
“I’m going.”
He buckled on his knife, put on all the warm clothes he could find, and made his way down the stairs. He seemed to float down, so lightheaded was he from hunger. His stomach was a tight hard knot.
The streets were deserted. A light blanket of snow lay everywhere, mantling the twisted ruins of the city. Katterson headed for Broadway, leaving tracks in the unbroken snow, and began to walk downtown.
At 96th Street and Broadway he saw his first sign of life, some people at the following corner. With mounting excitement he headed for 95th Street, but pulled up short.
There was a body sprawled over the snow, newly dead. And two boys of about twelve were having a duel to the death for its possession, while a third circled warily around them. Katterson watched them for a moment, and then crossed the street and walked on.
He no longer minded the snow and the solitude of the empty city. He maintained a steady, even pace, almost the tread of a machine. The world was crumbling fast around him, and his recourse lay in his solitary trek.
He turned back for a moment and looked behind him. There were his footsteps, the long trail stretching back and out of sight, the only marks breaking the even whiteness. He ticked off the empty blocks.
90th. 87th. 85th. At 84th he saw a blotch of color on the next block, and quickened his pace. When he got to close range, he saw it was a man lying on the snow. Katterson trotted lightly to him and stood over him.
He was lying face-down. Katterson bent and carefully rolled him over. His cheeks were still red; evidently he had rounded the corner and died just a few minutes before. Katterson stood up and looked around. In the window of the house nearest him, two pale faces were pressed against the pane, watching greedily.
He whirled suddenly to face a small, swarthy man standing on the other side of the corpse. They stared for a moment, the little man and the giant. Katterson noted dimly the other’s burning eyes and set expression. Two more people appeared, a ragged woman and a boy of eight or nine. Katterson moved closer to the corpse and made a show of examining it for identification, keeping a wary eye on the little tableau facing him.
Another man joined the group, and another. Now there were five, all standing silently in a semi-circle. The first man beckoned, and from the nearest house came two women and still another man. Katterson frowned; something unpleasant was going to happen.
A trickle of snow fluttered down. The hunger bit into Katterson like a red-hot knife as he stood there uneasily waiting for something to happen. The body lay fence-like between them.
The tableau dissolved into action in an instant. The small swarthy man made a gesture and reached for the corpse; Katterson quickly bent and scooped the dead man up. Then they were all around him, screaming and pulling at the body.
The swarthy man grabbed the corpse’s arm and started to tug, and a woman reached up for Katterson’s hair. Katterson drew up his arm and swung as hard as he could, and the small man left the ground and flew a few feet, collapsing into a huddled heap in the snow.
All of them were around him now, snatching at the corpse and at Katterson. He fought them off with his one free hand, with his feet, with his shoulders. Weak as he was and outnumbered, his size remained as a powerful factor. His fist connected with someone’s jaw and there was a rewarding crack; at the same time he lashed back with his foot and felt contact with breaking ribs.
“Get away!” he shouted. “Get away! This is mine! Away!” the first woman leaped at him, and he kicked at her and sent her reeling into the snowdrifts. “Mine! This is mine!”
They were even more weakened by hunger than he was. In a few moments all of them were scattered in the snow except the little boy, who came at Katterson determinedly, made a sudden dash, and leaped on Katterson’s back.
He hung there, unable to do anything more than cling. Katterson ignored him and took a few steps, carrying both the corpse and the boy, while the heat of battle slowly cooled inside him. He would take the corpse back uptown to North; they could cut it in pieces without much trouble. They would live on it for days, he thought. They would—
He realized what had happened. He dropped the corpse and staggered a few steps away, and sank down into the snow, bowing his head. The boy slipped off his back, and the little knot of people timidly converged on the corpse and bore it off triumphantly, leaving Katterson alone.
“Forgive me,” he muttered hoarsely. He licked his lips nervously, shaking his head. He remained there kneeling for a long time, unable to get up.
“No, no forgiveness. I can’t fool myself; I’m one of them now,” he said. He arose and stared at his hands, and then began to walk. Slowly, methodically, he trudged along, fumbling with the folded piece of paper in his pocket, knowing now that he had lost everything.
The snow had frozen in his hair, and he knew his head was white from snow—the head of an old man. His face was white too. He followed Broadway for a while, then cut to Central Park West. The snow was unbroken before him. It lay covering everything, a sign of the long winter setting in.
“North was right,” he said quietly to the ocean of white that was Central Park. He looked at the heaps of rubble seeking cover beneath the snow. “I can’t hold out any longer.” He looked at the address—Malory, 218 West 42nd Street—and continued onward, almost numb with the cold.
His eyes were narrowed to slits, and lashes and head were frosted and white. Katterson’s throat throbbed in his mouth, and his lips were clamped together by hunger. 70th Street, 65th. He zigzagged and wandered, following Columbus Avenue, Amsterdam Avenue for a while. Columbus, Amsterdam—the names were echoes from a past that had never been.
What must have been an hour passed, and another. The streets were empty. Those who were left stayed safe and starving inside, and watched from their windows the strange giant stalking alone through the snow. The sun had almost dropped from the sky as he reached 50th Street. His hunger had all but abated now; he felt nothing, knew just that his goal lay ahead. He faced forward, unable to go anywhere but ahead.
Finally 42nd Street, and he turned down towards where he knew Malory was to be found. He came to the building. Up the stairs, now, as the darkness of night came to flood the streets. Up the stairs, up another flight, another. Each step was a mountain, but he pulled himself higher and higher.
At the fifth floor Katterson reeled and sat down on the edge of the steps, gasping. A liveried footman passed, his nose in the air, his green coat shimmering in the half-light. He was carrying a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth on a silver tray. Katterson lurched forward to seize the pig. His groping hands passed through it, and pig and footman exploded like bubbles and drifted off through the silent halls.
Just one more flight. Sizzling meat on a stove, hot, juicy, tender meat filling the hole where his stomach had once been. He picked up his legs carefully and set them down, and came to the top at last. He balanced for a moment at the top of the stairs, nearly toppled backwards but seized the banister at the last second, and then pressed forward.
There was the door. He saw it, heard loud noises coming from behind it. A feast was going on, a banquet, and he ached to join in. Down the hall, turn left, pound on the door.
Noise growing louder.
“Malory! Malory! It’s me, Katterson, big Katterson! I’ve come to you! Open up, Malory!”
The handle began to turn.
“Malory! Malory!”
Katterson sank to his knees in the hall and fell forward on his face when the door opened at last.
A World Called Sunrise
Rocha was banished to a distant planet because of a condition of his body for which he was not to blame. But he vowed he’d break away and get back to Earth!
THE whole thing took perhaps half an hour, the trial and the sentence—the verdict had been a foregone conclusion. It was a hot day in mid-August of 2120, a dry month in a dry year. The courtroom conditioners hadn’t been working very well that day.
Ryne Rocha sat in the lead-lined box with the leaded glass window and looked out, listening while they expelled him from Earth.
The judge was a weary-looking fat-faced fellow in blue court robes. He had been through all this a thousand times before. He looked at the sheet of notes in his hand and said, “Defendant Rocha, it is the finding of this court that you shall be removed from Earth immediately, at government expense, and sent to the Quarantine World until decontaminated and fit to enter society once again.”
Rocha stared across the courtroom at the man who had just pronounced sentence. Rocha was a tall, wiry man with a cadaverous face and intense red-rimmed eyes. At this moment radioactive emissions flared and crackled about his body, but he neither felt nor otherwise was aware of them. He said. “I’ll appeal.”
“There is no right of appeal. This is not a court of law. Our job simply is to hear evidence and make the proper disposition of the case. In your case, the sentence just pronounced is the only possible one.”
Rocha’s voice sounded muffled and indistinct to him in the lead-lined box as he said, “It’s not my fault I’m radioactive! How was I to know the pile was going to blow up? I was an innocent bystander.”
“The people who might suffer from your radiations are equally innocent, Defendant Rocha. For their protection, you must be taken from Earth. There will be full compensation, of course, and your passage will be paid in both directions.”
“Thanks.” Acidly. “According to the report of the radiologist, sufficient radioactive sodium is lodged inextricably in your body to cause serious genetic damage to anyone approaching within ten feet of you and remaining in such contact longer than five minutes. We recognize the fact that you are the victim of circumstance, but this is irrelevant to the matter at hand. The isotope of sodium with which you are contaminated has a half-life of three years. Therefore, you are not to return to Earth before July 1, 2126, on penalty of immediate execution. Full compensation will be made to you for the unfortunate necessity of this action.”
Rocha stared stonily at the judge, at the two radiologists, at the law-enforcement officers. They all huddled at the far end of the courtroom, even though his neutron-emitting body was adequately shielded from them. They were afraid of him. He was unclean.
A modern-day leper. A radioactive one.
Banished to a world of his own kind, far beyond the borders of the solar system.
“I’ll be coming back!” he shouted. “And long before 2126, too! I’ll be back!”
