Collected Short Fiction, page 587
Until Burkhardt. He had done it, working round the clock, outproducing his neighbors on Novotny IX and selling them his surplus, cabling his extra pennies back to Earth to be invested in blue-chip securities, and finally—after eighteen years—amassing the $30,000-plus-accrued-interest that would spring him from indenture.
Twenty billion people on nine worlds wanted to know why.
The day after his return, he held a press conference in the hotel suite provided for him by the Colonization Bureau. Admission was strictly limited—one man from each of the twenty leading news services, no more.
Wearing a faded purplish tunic and battered sandals, Burkhardt came out to greet the reporters. He looked tremendously dignified—an overbearing figure of a man, thin but solid, with enormous gnarled hands and powerful forearms. The gray in his hair gave him a patriarchical look on a world dedicated to cosmetic rejuvenation. And his eyes, shining like twin beacons, roved around the room, transfixing everyone once, causing discomfort and uneasiness. No one had seen eyes like that on a human being before. But no one had ever seen a returned colonist before, either.
He smiled without warmth. “Very well, gentlemen. I’m at your disposal.”
They started with the peripheral questions first.
“What sort of planet is Novotny IX, Mr. Burkhardt?”
“Cold. The temperature never gets above sixty. The soil is marginally fertile. A man has to work ceaselessly if he wants to stay alive there.”
“Did you know that when you signed up to go there?”
Burkhardt nodded. “I asked fort the least desirable of the available colony worlds.”
“Are there many colonists there?”
“About twenty thousand, I think. It isn’t a popular planet, you understand.”
“Mr. Burkhardt, part of the terms of the colonist’s indenture specify that me must marry. Did you fulfill this part of the contract?”
Burkhardt smiled sadly. “I married less than a week after my arrival there in 2319. My wife died the first winter of our marriage. There were no children. I didn’t remarry.”
“And when did you get the idea of buying up your indenture and returning to Earth?”
“In my third year on Novotny IX.”
“In other words, you devoted fifteen years to getting back to Earth?”
“That’s correct.”
It was a young reporter from Transuniverse News who took the plunge toward the real meat of the universe. “Could you tell us why you changed your mind about remaining a colonist? At the spaceport you said something about there being a woman—”
“Yes.” Burkhardt chuckled mirthlessly. “I was pretty young when I threw myself into the colonization plan—twenty-five, in point of fact. There was a woman; I loved her; she married someone else. I did the romantic thing and signed up for Novotny IX. Three years later, the newstap from Earth told me that she had been divorced. This was in 2322. I resolved to return to Earth and try to persuade her to marry me.”
“So for fifteen years you struggled to get back so you could patch up your old romance,” another newsman said. “But how did you know she hadn’t remarried in all that time?”
“She did remarry,” Burkhardt said stunningly.
“But—”
“I received word of her remarriage in 2324, and of her subsequent divorce in 2325. Of her remarriage in 2327, and of her subsequent divorce in 2329. Of her remarriage in the same year, and her subsequent divorce in 2334. Of her remarriage in 2335, and of her divorce four months ago. Unless I have missed the announcement, she has not remarried this last time.”
“Did you abandon your project every time you heard of one of these marriages?”
Burkhardt shook his head. “I kept on saving. I was confident that none of her marriages would last. All these years, you see, she’s been trying to find a substitute for me. But human beings are unique. There are no substitutes. I weathered five of her marriages. Her sixth husband will be myself.”
“Could you tell us—could you tell us the name of this woman, Mr. Burkhardt?”
The returned colonist’s smile was frigid. “I’m not ready to reveal her name just yet,” he said. “Are there any further questions?”
A long toward mid-afternoon, Burkhardt ended the conference. He had told them in detail of his efforts to pile up the money; he had talked about life as a colonist; he had done everything but tell them the name of the woman for whose sake he had done all this.
Alone in the suite after they had gone, Burkhardt stared out at the other glittering towers of New York. Jet liners droned overhead; a billion lights shattered the darkness. New York, he thought, was as chaotic and as repugnant to him as ever. He missed Novotny IX.
But he had had to come back. Smiling gently, he opaqued the windows of his suite. It was winter, now, on Novotny IX’s colonized continent. A time for burrowing away, for digging in against the mountain-high drifts of blue-white snow. Winter was eight standard months long, on Novotny IX; only four out of the sixteen standard months of the planet’s year were really livable. Yet a man could see the results of his own labor, out there. He could use his hands and measure his gains.
And there were friends there. Not the other settlers, though they were good people and hard workers. But the natives, the Euranoi.
The survey charts said nothing about them. There were only about live hundred of them left, anyway, or so Donnoi had claimed. Burkhardt had never seen more than a dozen of the Euranoi at any one time, and he had never been able to tell one from another. They looked like slim elves, half the height of a man, gray-skinned, chinless, sadeyed. They went naked against their planet’s bitter cold. They lived in caves, somewhere below the surface. And Donnoi had become Burkhardt’s friend.
Burkhardt smiled, remembering. He had found the little alien in a snowdrift, so close to dead it was hard to be certain one way or the other. Donnoi had lived, and had recovered, and had spent the winter in Burkhardt’s cabin, talking a little, but mostly listening.
Burkhardt had done the talking. He had talked it all out, telling the little being of his foolishness, of his delusion that Lily loved him, of his wild maniac desire to get back to Earth.
And Donnoi had said, when he understood the situation, “You will get back to Earth. And she will be yours.”
That had been between the first divorce and the second marriage. The day the newstapes had brought word of Lily’s remarriage had nearly finished Burkhardt, but Donnoi was there, comforting, consoling. and from that day on Burkhardt never worried again. Lily’s marriages were made, weakened, broke up, and Burkhardt worked unfalteringly, knowing that when he returned to Earth he could have Lily at last.
Donnoi had told him solemnly, “It is all a matter of channelling your desires. Look: I lay dying in a snowdrift, and I willed you to find me. You came: I lived.”
“But I’m not Euranoi,” Burkhardt had protested. “My will isn’t strong enough to influence another person.”
“Any creature that thinks can assert its will. Give me your hand, and I will show you.”
Burkhardt smiled back across fifteen years, remembering the feel of Donnoi’s limp, almost boneless hand in his own, remembering the stiff jolt of power that had flowed from the alien. His hand had tingled for days afterward. But he knew, from that moment, that he would succeed.
Burkhardt had a visitor the next morning. A press conference was scheduled again for the afternoon, and Burkhardt had said he would grant no interviews before then, but the visitor had been insistent. Finally, the desk had phoned up to tell Burkhardt that a Mr. Richardson Elliott was here, and demanded to see him.
The name rang a bell. “Send him up,” Burkhardt said.
A few minutes later, the elevator disgorged Mr. Richardson Elliott. He was shorter than Burkhardt, plump, pink-skinned, cleanshaven. A ring glistened on his finger, and there was a gem of some alien origin mounted on a stickpin near his throat.
He extended his hand. Burkhardt took it. The hand was carefully manicured, pudgy, somehow oily.
“You’re not at all as I pictured you.” Burkhardt said.
“You are. Exactly.”
“Why did you come here?” Elliott tapped the newsfax crumpled under his arm. He unfolded it, showing Burkhardt the front-page spread. “I read the story, Burkhardt. I knew at once who the girl—the woman—was. I came to warn you not to get involved with her.”
Burkhardt’s eyes twinkled. “And why not?”
“She’s a witch,” Elliott muttered. “She’ll drain a man dry and throw the husk away. Believe me, I know. You only loved her. I married her.”
“Yes,” Burkhardt said. “You took her away from me eighteen years ago.”
“You know that isn’t true. She walked out on you because she thought I could further her career, which was so. I didn’t even know another man had been in the picture until she got that letter from you, postmarked the day your ship took off. She showed it to me—laughing. I can’t repeat the things she said about you, Burkhardt. But I was shocked. My marriage to her started to come apart right then and there, even though it was another three years before we called it quits. She threw herself at me. I didn’t steal her from anybody. Believe me, Burkhardt.”
“I believe you.”
Elliott mopped his pink forehead. “It was the same way with all the other husbands. I’ve followed her career all along. She exists only for Lily Leigh, and nobody else. When she left me, it was to marry Alderson. Well, she killed him as good as if she’d shot him, when she told him she was pulling out. Man his age had no business marrying her. And then it was Michaels, and after him Dan Cartwright, and then Jim Thorne. Right up the ladder to fame and fortune, leaving a trail of used-up husbands behind her.”
Burkhardt shrugged. “The past is of no concern to me.”
“You actually think Lily will marry you?”
“I do,” Burkhardt said. “She’ll jump at it. The publicity values will be irresistible. The sollie star with five broken marriages to millionaires now stooping to wed her youthful love, who is now a penniless ex-colonist.”
Elliott moistened his lips unhappily. “Perhaps you’ve got something there,” he admitted. “Lily might just do a thing like that. But how long would it last? Six months, a year—until the publicity dies down. And then she’ll dump you. She doesn’t want a penniless husband.”
“She won’t dump me.”
“You sound pretty confident, Burkhardt.”
“I am.”
For a moment there was silence. Then Elliott said, “You seem determined to stick your head in the lion’s mouth. What is it—an obsession to marry her?”
“Call it that.”
“It’s crazy. I tell you, she’s a witch. You’re in love with an imaginary goddess. The real Lily Leigh is the most loathsome female ever spawned. As the first of her five husbands, I can take oath to that.”
“Did you come here just to tell me that?”
“Not exactly,” Elliott said. “I’ve got a proposition for you. I want you to come into my firm as a Vice President. You’re system-famous, and we can use the publicity. I’ll start you at sixty thousand. You’ll be the most eligible bachelor in the universe. We’ll get you a rejuvenation and you’ll look twenty-five again. Only none of this Lily Leigh nonsense. I’ll set you up, you’ll marry some good-looking kid, and all your years on Whatsis Nine will be just so much nightmare.”
“The answer is no.”
“I’m not doing this out of charity, you understand. I think you’ll be an asset to me. But I also think you ought to be protected against Lily. I feel I owe you something, for what I did to you unknowingly eighteen years ago.”
“You don’t owe me a thing. Thanks for the warning, Mr. Elliott, but I don’t need it. And the answer to the proposition is No. I’m not for sale.”
“I beg you—”
“No.”
Color flared in Elliott’s cheeks for a moment. He rose, started to say something, stopped. “All right,” he said heavily. “Go to Lily. Like a moth drawn to a flame. The offer remains, Mr. Burkhardt. And you have my deepest sympathy.”
At his press conference that afternoon, Burkhardt revealed her name. The system’s interest was at peak, now; another day without the revelation and the peak would pass, frustration would cause interest to subside. Burkhardt told them. Within an hour it was all over the system.
Glamorous Lily Leigh, for a decade and a half queen of the solido-films, was named today as the woman for whom John Burkhardt bought himself out of indenture. Burkhardt explained that Miss Leigh, then an unknown starlet, terminated their engagement in 2319 to marry California industrialist Richardson Elliott. The marriage, like Miss Leigh’s four later ones, ended in divorce.
“I hope now to make her my wife,” the mystery man from Novotny IX declared. “After eighteen years I still love her as strongly as ever.”
Miss Leigh, in seclusion at her Scottsdale, Arizona home following her recent divorce from sollie-distributing magnate James Thorne, refused to comment on the statement.
For three days. Lily Leigh remained in seclusion, seeing no one, issuing no statements to the press. Burkhardt was patient. Eighteen years of waiting teaches patience. And Donnoi had told him, as they trudged through the gray slush of rising spring, “The man who rushes ahead foolishly forfeits all advantages in a contest of wills.”
Donnoi carried the wisdom of a race at the end of its span. Burkhardt remained in his hotel suite, mulling over the advice of the little alien. Donnoi had never passed judgment on the merits and drawbacks of Burkhardt’s goal; he had simply advised, and suggested, and taught.
The press had run out of things to say about Burkhardt, and he declined to supply them with anything new to print. So, inevitably, they lost interest in him. By the third day, it was no longer necessary to hold a press conference. He had come back; he had revealed his love for the sollie queen, Lily Leigh; now he was sitting tight. There was nothing to do but wait for further developments, if any. And neither Burkhardt nor Lily Leigh seemed to be creating further developments.
It was hard to remain calm, Burkhardt thought. It was queer to be here on Earth, in the quiet autumn, while winter fury raged on Novotny IX. Fury of a different kind raged here, the fury of a world of five billion eager, active human beings, but Burkhardt kept himself aloof from all that. Eighteen years of near-solitude had left him unfit for that sort of world.
It was hard to sit quietly, though, with Lily just a visicall away. Burkhardt compelled himself to be patient. She would call, sooner or later.
She called on the fourth day. Burkhardt’s skin crawled as he heard the hotel operator say—in tones regulated only with enormous effort—“Miss Leigh is calling from Arizona, Mr. Burkhardt.”
“Put the call on.”
She had not used the visi-circuit. Burkhardt kept his screen blank too.
She said, without preliminaries, “Why have you come back after all these years, John?”
“Because I love you.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
She laughed—the famous laugh, for his benefit alone. “You’re a bigger fool now than you were then, John.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted.
“I suppose I ought to thank you, though. This is the best publicity I’ve had all year. And at my age I need all the publicity I can get.”
“I’m glad for you,” he said.
“You aren’t serious, though, about wanting to marry me, are you? Not after all these years. Nobody stays in love that long.”
“I did.”
“Damn you, what do you want from me?” The voice, suddenly shrill, betrayed a whisper of age.
“Yourself,” Burkhardt said calmly.
“What makes you think I’ll marry you? Sure, you’re a hero today, The Man Who Came Back From The Stars. But you’re nothing, John. All you have to show for eighteen years is callouses. At least back then you had your youth. You don’t even have that any more.”
“Let me come to see you, Lily.”
“I don’t want to see you.”
“Please. It’s a small thing—let me have half an hour alone with you.”
She was silent.
“I’ve given you half a lifetime of love, Lily. Let me have half an hour.”
After a long moment she said, simply, hoarsely, “All right. You can come. But I won’t marry you.”
He left New York shortly before midnight. The Colonization Bureau had hired a private plane for him, and he slipped out unnoticed, in the dark. Publicity now would be fatal. The plane was a chemically powered jet, somewhat out of date; they were using photon-rockets for the really fast travel. But, obsolete or no, it crossed the continent in three hours. It was just midnight, local time, when the plane landed in Phoenix. As they had arranged it, Lily had her chauffeur waiting, with a long, sleek limousine. Burkhardt climbed in. Turbines throbbed; the car glided out toward Lily’s desert home.
It was a mansion, a sprawled-out villa moated off—a moat, in water-hungry Arizona!—and topped with a spiring pink stucco tower. Burkhardt was ushered through open fern-lined courtyards to an inner maze of hallways, and through them into a small room where Lily Leigh sat waiting.
He repressed a gasp. She wore a gown worth a planet’s ransom, but the girl within the gown had not changed in eighteen years. Her face was the same, impish, the eyes dancing and gay. Her hair had lost none of its glossy sheen. Her skin was the skin of a girl of nineteen.
“It’s like stepping back in time,” he murmured.
I have good doctors. You wouldn’t believe I’m forty, would you? But everyone knows it, of course.” She laughed. “You look like an old man, John.”
“Forty-three isn’t old.”
“It is when you let your age show. I’ll give you some money, John, and you can get Fixed up. Better still. I’ll send my doctors to you.”
