The Mantooth

  'Kataya.'

  'Yes..... She's twenty-six, and in the full flower of womanhood.She desperately wants a child, but apparently the rest of us don't doanything for her. And then Dr. Welles, there.' Hepointed. 'Thirty-four, and married to a man who can't give herchildren. Should they both be punished for it? And your own Sylviana.Wouldn't the two of you, at least, consider having a child?'

  But Kalus' mind was reeling. The concept of free love was soincredible to him, at once both desirable and unthinkable..... He gavevoice to only one of the myriad questions that confronted him.

  'Is there no other way?'

  'There's always artificial insemination: taking a man's spermand a woman's egg and placing them together, either in the uterus, orin the laboratory. But that's so cold and mechanical. Also,we're trying to stay a little closer to nature than our predecessors,hoping to avoid some of their mistakes. And for me, at least,there's a ?spiritual' side to it: which sperm cell is MEANT tofertilize which egg. Can you see what I'm driving at?'

  Kalus, who had understood very little, could only say. 'I have madelove to only two women in my life. And I should have been more thancontent with the one, if she..... Well if..... I don't know if Ican help you,' he finished weakly. But then, whether because of thealcohol, the other man's openness, or the sheer physical need to letit out, he told him.

  'I made love to Kataya last night.'

  'Good,' said Smith warmly. 'Good for you.'

  'Not good for me. . .or Sylviana. She learned of it, and cast meout.' He lowered his face, bitter and ashamed. 'I feel as ifI'm already dead.'

  Smith was quiet for a moment, allowing the other to gather himself, thensimply said what he thought.

  'You did nothing wrong, Kalus. I see in you no more of the user andthe taker than I do in myself---probably the reason we've both sleptwith so few women. But as for Sylviana. . .maybe she won'tunderstand. But maybe, in time, she will. Welles is probably givingher the same talk right now.'

  At this Kalus looked down into the bowl once more, and saw to his reliefand glimmering hope that Dr. Welles was in fact speaking seriously withSylviana, who blushed, looking down, then up at him uncertainly.

  'In the meantime,' Smith continued, 'Try not to isolateyourself so much. Loneliness will kill you by itself. Throw inalienation and remorse, and it's no wonder you feel the way youdo.' He looked the man-child straight in the eye, and said sincerely.

  'Be my friend, Kalus. The rest of us aren't so bad. But if youhave trouble being open with them, then start with me. I'm notnearly as shallow and glib as I come across---a defense mechanism Iguess, to keep myself from being hurt. But I do care, and I'd behonored.' And he gave Kalus his hand on it.

  Kalus took it in his own, finding unexpected relief, as Sylviana watchedhim, and listened to Dr. Welles, and felt her hard resolve begin towaver.

  And all might still have been well, but for the sinister and unknowntiming of the Stranger, who at that moment descended the rise at a colddistance from the two men, and seeing the strange and alluring newwoman, devoted to her all his questionable attention.

  Chapter 44

  William, who admitted to having no last name, was of slightly less thanaverage height, with dark hair, a rough complexion, and a certainquality of nondescriptness about his face and features.

  Until one met the eyes. These were at once both black and pierced withlight, aloof and penetrating, as if possessed of some underworldknowledge that rendered all waking truth both poignant and, in the end,utterly meaningless. Once seen, though the rest of the face remaineddifficult to recall, these darkened orbs were indelibly burned intomemory---fierce, desperate, and dying. Restless, fearful, weary of thecrumbling bridge that so narrowly separates life from death.....

  He had not always been this way. Though his childhood had been tragicenough---abandoned shortly after birth, stored like some kind ofhazardous waste in orphanages and foster homes, moving on as he became atroubled adolescent (and who wouldn't be?) to jails and juveniledetention centers---it had not killed him, and that at least wassomething. He had run away (escaped) at the age of sixteen, and like somany other lost souls without hope or guidance, had gravitated to NewYork City to be tried by the relentless hell-fire of the streets.

  But unlike most, he had survived. Here, through various undergroundactivities, ranging from petty theft and burglary to traffickingnarcotics, he had somehow managed to keep body and soul together. Andno one seemed to take much notice of one more suspected junkie, livingin abandoned buildings and selling small quantities of marijuana,cocaine, and whatever assorted pills he could buy, make, or steal fromdockside warehouses. He was left alone for the most part, and asidefrom the odd roughing up by the police, given tentative permission toexist.

  But as he unknowingly turned the page on his twentieth year (for thedate of his birth was known to no one, and his childhood but a blur ofpain and abuse without names or numbers for reference), and as he foundhis heart still beating, his lungs still demanding air, and the varioushungers of life giving him no chance to cease his restless moving, asmall miracle had occurred. Someone noticed, and more than that, fellin love with him: a fifteen-year-old Chicano girl named Kathy.

  Their meeting was chance enough, and would have passed like so manyothers, but for the small compassion that still lived in him. Findingher tearful and alone on the front steps of a tenement, in which heralcoholic father had beaten and fondled her for perhaps the thirtiethtime, refraining from actual rape only because she screamed so loudlyand the walls were thin, William sat down beside her, gave her hisbandana to wipe the blood from her ear, and offered to take her to apublic health clinic that he knew. When she declined as the result of aquestionable immigration status (and a desire not to return to the evenmore brutal life of Guatemala City), he had given her an ounce ofmarijuana, along with spoken directions to the condemned building inwhich he slept on the floor on a mattress of flattened cardboard boxes.If she needed anything, he said, he would try to help.

  The next day when he returned to check on her, he found that her father,aided in his spiritual pilgrimage by a fifth of tequila, had fallen fromthe fire escape, and was now in a City hospital pending deportation.That was why she had not returned to their room, but remained on thefront steps, freed from one hell but confident that another awaited her,which no doubt it did: she had no money, and would soon be evicted.

  William had bought her breakfast, stolen her a jacket and scarf, thenbrought her to his mansion of rats, fallen plaster, moldering walls, andwarmed by a kerosene heater which only smoked dangerously towardmorning.

  After waiting for three days to be put to work on the streets, she foundto her amazement that he neither demanded she sell herself to others orperform sex tricks for him, and had not put a hand on her except inawkward comfort and reassurance. That night she gave herself to him,they made sweet and tender love; and he had done something even moreinexplicable. He had cried, and promised to protect her with his lifeagainst the bitcheries of poverty and despair that he knew so well.

  >From that time on they were inseparable, living where they could, doing what they had to do, to survive. William was not, in fact, a junkie, though he came as close to the line without crossing it as any human being ever could. But for Kathy's sake he gave up hard drugs almost completely, finding that with her he no longer needed the barbiturates to sleep, injected amphetamines to feel alive in the night, or alcohol to keep the spiritual agony from killing him. Without the world's help, or even its consent, he pulled himself and his young woman up out of the gutter, and as she had done for him, gave them both a reason to live.

  But then Armageddon had come, oblivious to his, and everyone's,agonies and ecstasies, bitter triumphs and long defeats. The War, thathad been building for centuries from Man's ignorance, and inabilityto overcome his instinct for violence, finally broke out. The satellitelasers had protected the City for a time, keeping the first wave ofmissiles off them, for perhaps an hour. B
ut it didn't take a geniusto know that New York's famous minutes were numbered.

  So through the crash of panic-stricken people, trying to evacuate ormerely crying, 'Oh, my God!' while still others who had not seenor heard the broadcasts stood about in a daze and tried to understandwhat was happening, William took Kathy and sought out his friend,Dr. Wilhelm Krause---the black pessimist, partly insane. Looting, too,had broken out, but it was halfhearted, so that even the police, grimsoldiers of the street, showed little inclination toward retaliatoryviolence. The City, for all its noise and seeming activity, was in astrangling state of shock.

  William found Dr. Krause---whom he had met while hospitalized withhepatitis (from a rusted syringe)---in his basement laboratory, sunkninety feet below the ground, side-cut into solid bedrock at the base ofgigantic Mercy Hospital. For among the towering sky-scrapers, somereaching over two hundred stories, it was not uncommon for theirfoundations to sink another tenth that distance. And along with thesubways, bored farther and farther beneath the level of the streets,they formed the literal New York underground, a silent world untoitself, a still, protected inlet in the heart of the maelstrom.

  When William burst in upon the aged Krause, the latter did not at firstseem to recognize him. For though he had been preparing for this dayfor many years, now that it had come, his mind and heart were simplyoverwhelmed. He found himself unable to act, or even think. It wasreally happening, not in theory, not in the lecture hall, but indamnable and undeniable reality. The unspeakable, of which he hadspoken for thirty years, had happened at last. There was something hewas supposed to do.....

  Slowly his weary eyes and mind focused, his German courage rallied, andhe saw before him the young man he had once caught trying to stealmorphine from the hospital storeroom. In a moment almost of nostalgia,he recalled the incident. He had not called security or the police, hadnot tried to confront the sick and desperate youth, but said simply,'Go back to your room, son. No, I'm not going to turn you in.We'll talk about it later.' And to the young man's astonishmentthey HAD talked, on several occasions and for hours at a time. Williamfound in the aging and alienated recluse a friend, and the closest thingto a father that he would ever know. When he had spoken of his life,Krause listened attentively, as if finding in the bitter tale of povertyand poor health, pursuit and persecution, a note in harmony with his ownstruggle amidst the viper-filled pit of unenlightened human nature.Upon William's release he had shown him his laboratory, and explainedwhat it was for. And he had told him to come, if this moment everarrived.

  'Hello, William,' he said quietly.

  'Doctor!' said the other breathlessly. 'I don't care aboutmyself, but you HAVE to save Kathy. She can't die, she justcan't!'

  'Now, now,' said Krause, 'There's no need to be heroic. Yousound like one of those detestable Wagnerian operas---all full of bloodoaths, and absurd quests to dubious ends. Damned prelude to the Nazisis what they were, along with Nietzsche and all that, ?Great mencreate their own morality' horse-shit. Did you know Hitler wasimpotent? That's why he never married Eva Braun. They say thatGoring used to wear eye make-up when they were alone, and---'

  'Doctor, please!'

  'Yes, yes, I know. You're sure that at any moment the lights willgo out, we'll hear the rumble from above, and the chance will belost. You underestimate me, young man. This laboratory will be intact,and protected from radiation, ten thousand years from now. You forgetthe lengths that a ?mad German' will go to.' But seeingWilliam's anguish, he said. 'Yes, we'll save Kathy. And justfor the hell of it, why don't we save you, too? Since I don'tseem to have any other volunteers.'

  William looked around him, then at the two elaborate suspension casks,the best and most advanced in the world---made by Krause's own hands,and prepared against every contingency.

  'But what about you?'

  'Me?' The old scientist laughed morosely. 'I'm an old man.Do you think I want to crawl out of one of these things a hundredcenturies from now, and try to rebuild what's left of the world? No,William, I don't mind dying. I'm just glad the two of you came,or it would have been much harder.' And at that moment they had infact heard a rumble, and felt the disbelieving earth tremble at thenuclear concussion. But the lights stayed on, and the caskets of lifestill waited.

  'Well,' said Krause grimly. 'Shall we get on with it?'

  And the young lovers were put into suspension, with precision and goodhope.

  William had woken the prescribed ten-thousand years later, intact,roughly one year from the present. He had lain very still for a time,not understanding, not remembering where he was. But as the truthslowly returned to him he felt no weight of sorrow or loss, but anunexpected joy at just being alive. And he thought of Kathy, so closebeside him. He had saved her! She was ALIVE, and they would startagain. He forced himself to remain in the soft warmth of the casket awhile longer, as Krause had instructed him. Then he turned the innerhandle, broke the seal, and emerged into the brave new world.

  But even prepared against every contingency things can go wrong, and theDevil fingers of Chaos reach into the strongest fortress. And nothingmade by man can endure unchanging the ravages of Time.

  Something had gone wrong with Kathy's support apparatus. What it washardly matters, and no one ever learned. But she had died at least athousand years before, and all that the sealed cask had done was to actas a mummy's wrap, slowing, but not eliminating her body's naturaldecomposition. He rose to find his only love, a half-rotted corpse.

  McIntyre and Jennings had heard the anguished cries, as they searchedthrough the underground vaults and passageways for the faint life-signsthey had detected, and entered the laboratory to find him lying facedown on the floor. Screaming. He offered no resistance as the doctorinjected a sedative, and the two brought him out into the cruel light ofday.

  His true love was buried, along with all his hopes, and he never spokeof her again.

  *

  Sylviana knew nothing of this tragedy, or of the menace to himself andothers that he had since become. She saw only the obvious way that helooked at her, and the effect it had on Kalus. The man-child roseinstinctively, as if she were in danger, and would have strode down thehill sword in hand to confront him. But Smith, who had seen the suddenbrush-fire of his eyes, seized hold of his arm protectively.

  'Easy, Kalus. That's William. We'll go down together.'

  There in the depression, stiff introductions were made. Kalus, with thehelp of Smith beside him, managed to restrain his emotions, thoughmaking no attempt to conceal them. For his own part, William sneered athim indifferently, and continued to bathe Sylviana with mock interestand open lust. His only reply to her question, 'Why haven't Iseen you before?' was a rude:

  'Him Tarzan, you Jane. Me come back tomorrow.' And he had takensome food, without asking or thanks, and made off the way he had come.

  'How can you let him treat you that way?' demanded Kalus.

  Since the question was directed at no one in particular, Ruth Wellesreplied, neither apologizing nor defending their actions. She was atall, serious woman in her mid thirties, with pincers of brown hairsurrounding a pleasant face and striking eyes, which revealed to thosewho knew how to look, a nature both stubborn and compassionate.

  'That's just his way,' she said, 'And there are reasons forit. We've all been hurt and bereft by the War, but his pain.....Let's just say it's much harder for him to forgive and go one, andthat we're all worried about him, because we do care.'

  'But he won't let anyone come close enough to help him,' addedSmith. 'He storms in and out for food, occasionally takes wine ormedicine along with it, and that's all we ever see of him. We helpedhim set up a laboratory, before we knew what it was for. We consideredsmashing it afterward, but what can you do for someone who makes his ownpoison, and flaunts his own destruction?'

  'Why?' asked Sylviana. 'What does he use the lab for?'

  'To make LSD,' said Welles sadly. 'If there were poppies onthe island, n
o doubt he'd make heroin as well.'

  Kalus found himself breathing heavily, unable to control it. He beganto pace a short distance from them, then suddenly turned and came back,his manner tense and worried.

  'Maybe I am wrong to say this. Maybe I have no right. But Idon't trust that one, and I don't want him near me or mine.' Helooked squarely at Sylviana. 'If you have any sense left you willstay away from him, whatever you think of me. He means to hurt you, orI know nothing at all.'

  But her gaze was equally unyielding. 'I will see, or befriend,whoever I DAMN well please, and you have nothing to say about it.'And she returned to her work, as if he wasn't there.

  Smith released a breath, Welles shook her head, and Kataya said nothing,reproachfully. Kalus lifted the cub, forlornly lowered his foreheadagainst it, then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 45

  And so a period of days ensued in which little of note seemed to happen,as is often the case when the most potent of life's forces are atwork, though beneath the surface and not yet brought to fruition.William became a more frequent visitor, and often took long walks withSylviana. Kalus, feeling a genuine desire to work and do his share, aswell as needing something to distract him, began to work the fields withJim Smith, the botanist, his only real friend among the colonists. Hestill spoke to Kataya, but had told her that for a time it was best theykeep some distance between them, and she had not objected. Sheunderstood, and kept a warm secret of the fact that her menstrual cyclewas now a week overdue.