T: …friends… (laughter)…(tears)…
II
PROMISES OF SOMEDAY
THE FIRE HAD BURNED OUT LONG AGO, AND STEVENS AND THE forester had retired, but Trager and Donelly still sat around the ashes on the edges of the clear zone. They talked softly, so as not to wake the others, yet their words hung long in the restless night air. The uncut forest, standing dark behind them, was dead still; the wildlife of Vendalia had all fled the noise that the fleet of buzztrucks made during the day.
“…a full six-crew, running buzztrucks, I know enough to know that’s not easy,” Donelly was saying. He was a pale, timid youth, likeable but self-conscious about everything he did. Trager heard echoes of himself in Donelly’s stiff words. “You’d do well in the arena.”
Trager nodded, thoughtful, his eyes on the ashes as he moved them with a stick. “I came to Vendalia with that in mind. Went to the gladiatorial once, only once. That was enough to change my mind. I could take them, I guess, but the whole idea made me sick. Out here, well, the money doesn’t even match what I was getting on Skrakky, but the work is, well, clean. You know?”
“Sort of,” said Donelly. “Still, you know, it isn’t like they were real people out there in the arena. Only meat. All you can do is make the bodies as dead as the minds. That’s the logical way to look at it.”
Trager chuckled. “You’re too logical, Don. You ought to feel more. Listen, next time you’re in Gidyon, go to the gladiatorials and take a look. It’s ugly, ugly. Corpses stumbling around with axes and swords and morningstars, hacking and hewing at each other. Butchery, that’s all it is. And the audience, the way they cheer at each blow. And laugh. They laugh, Don! No.” He shook his head, sharply. “No.”
Donelly never abandoned an argument. “But why not? I don’t understand, Greg. You’d be good at it, the best. I’ve seen the way you work your crew.”
Trager looked up, studied Donelly briefly while the youth sat quietly, waiting. Josie’s words came back; open, be open. The old Trager, the Trager who lived friendless and alone and closed inside a Skrakky handlers’ dorm, was gone. He had grown, changed.
“There was a girl,” he said, slowly, with measured words. Opening. “Back on Skrakky, Don, there was a girl I loved. It, well, it didn’t work out. That’s why I’m here, I guess. I’m looking for someone else, for something better. That’s all part of it, you see.” He stopped, paused, tried to think his words out. “This girl, Josie, I wanted her to love me. You know.” The words came hard. “Admire me, all that stuff. Now, yeah, sure, I could do good running corpses in the arena. But Josie could never love someone who had a job like that. She’s gone now, of course, but still…the kind of person I’m looking for, I couldn’t find them as an arena corpse-master.” He stood up, abruptly. “I don’t know. That’s what’s important, though, to me. Josie, somebody like her, someday. Soon, I hope.”
Donelly sat quiet in the moonlight, chewing his lip, not looking at Trager, his logic suddenly useless. While Trager, his corridors long gone, walked off alone into the woods.
THEY HAD A TIGHT-KNIT GROUP; THREE HANDLERS, A FORESTER, THIRTEEN corpses. Each day they drove the forest back, with Trager in the forefront. Against the Vendalian wilderness, against the blackbriars and the hard gray ironspike trees and the bulbous rubbery snaplimbs, against the tangled hostile forest, he would throw his six-crew and their buzztrucks. Smaller than the automills he’d run on Skrakky, fast and airborne, complex and demanding, those were buzztrucks. Trager ran six of them with corpse hands, a seventh with his own. Before his screaming blades and laser knives, the wall of wilderness fell each day. Donelly came behind him, pushing three of the mountain-sized rolling mills, to turn the fallen trees into lumber for Gidyon and other cities of Vendalia. Then Stevens, the third handler, with a flame-cannon to burn down stumps and melt rocks, and the soilpumps that would ready the fresh clear land for farming. The forester was their foreman. The procedure was a science.
Clean, hard, demanding work; Trager thrived on it by day. He grew lean, almost athletic; the lines of his face tightened and tanned, he grew steadily browner under Vendalia’s hot bright sun. His corpses were almost part of him, so easily did he move them, fly their buzztrucks. As an ordinary man might move a hand, a foot. Sometimes his control grew so firm, the echoes so clear and strong, that Trager felt he was not a handler working a crew at all, but rather a man with seven bodies. Seven strong bodies that rode the sultry forest winds. He exulted in their sweat.
And the evenings, after work ceased, they were good too. Trager found a sort of peace there, a sense of belonging he had never known on Skrakky. The Vendalian foresters, rotated back and forth from Gidyon, were decent enough, and friendly. Stevens was a hearty slab of a man who seldom stopped joking long enough to talk about anything serious. Trager always found him amusing. And Donelly, the self-conscious youth, the quiet logical voice, he became a friend. He was a good listener, empathetic, compassionate, and the new open Trager was a good talker. Something close to envy shone in Donelly’s eyes when Trager spoke of Josie and exorcised his soul. And Trager knew, or thought he knew, that Donelly was himself, the old Trager, the one before Josie who could not find the words.
In time, though, after days and weeks of talking, Donelly found his words. Then Trager listened, and shared another’s pain. And he felt good about it. He was helping; he was lending strength; he was needed.
Each night around the ashes, the two men traded dreams. And wove a hopeful tapestry of promises and lies.
Yet still the nights would come.
Those were the worst times, as always; those were the hours of Trager’s long lonely walks. If Josie had given Trager much, she had taken something too; she had taken the curious deadness he had once had, the trick of not-thinking, the pain-blotter of his mind. On Skrakky, he had walked the corridors infrequently; the forest knew him far more often.
After the talking all had stopped, after Donelly had gone to bed, that was when it would happen, when Josie would come to him in the loneliness of his tent. A thousand nights he lay there with his hands hooked behind his head, staring at the plastic tent film while he relived the night he’d told her. A thousand times he touched her cheek, and saw her spin away.
He would think of it, and fight it, and lose. Then, restless, he would rise and go outside. He would walk across the clear area, into the silent looming forest, brushing aside low branches and tripping on the underbrush; he would walk until he found water. Then he would sit down, by a scum-choked lake or a gurgling stream that ran swift and oily in the moonlight. He would fling rocks into the water, hurl them hard and flat into the night to hear them when they splashed.
He would sit for hours, throwing rocks and thinking, till finally he could convince himself the sun would rise.
GIDYON; THE CITY; THE HEART OF VENDALIA, AND THROUGH IT OF SLAGG and Skrakky and New Pittsburg and all the other corpseworlds, the harsh ugly places where men would not work and corpses had to. Great towers of black and silver metal, floating aerial sculpture that flashed in the sunlight and shone softly at night, the vast bustling spaceport where freighters rose and fell on invisible firewands, malls where the pavement was polished, ironspike wood that gleamed a gentle gray; Gidyon.
The city with the rot. The corpse city. The meatmart.
For the freighters carried cargoes of men, criminals and derelicts and troublemakers from a dozen worlds bought with hard Vendalian cash (and there were darker rumors, of liners that had vanished mysteriously on routine tourist hops). And the soaring towers were hospitals and corpseyards, where men and women died and deadmen were born to walk anew. And all along the ironspike boardwalks were corpse-seller’s shops and meathouses.
The meathouses of Vendalia were far-famed. The corpses were guaranteed beautiful.
Trager sat across from one, on the other side of the wide gray avenue, under the umbrella of an outdoor café. He sipped a bittersweet wine, thought about how his leave had evaporated too quickly, and tried to keep his eyes fr
om wandering across the street. The wine was warm on his tongue, and his eyes were very restless.
Up and down the avenue, between him and the meathouse, strangers moved. Dark-faced corpsehandlers from Vendalia, Skrakky, Slagg; pudgy merchants, gawking tourists from the Clean Worlds like Old Earth and Zephyr, and dozens of question marks whose names and occupations and errands Trager would never know. Sitting there, drinking his wine and watching, Trager felt utterly cut off. He could not touch these people, could not reach them; he didn’t know how, it wasn’t possible, it wouldn’t work. He could rise and walk out into the street and grab one, and still they would not touch. The stranger would only pull free and run. All his leave like that, all of it; he’d run through all the bars of Gidyon, forced a thousand contacts, and nothing had clicked.
His wine was gone. Trager looked at the glass dully, turning it in his hands, blinking. Then, abruptly, he stood up and paid his bill. His hands trembled.
It had been so many years, he thought as he started across the street. Josie, he thought, forgive me.
TRAGER RETURNED TO THE WILDERNESS CAMP, AND HIS CORPSES FLEW their buzztrucks like men gone wild. But he was strangely silent around the campfire, and he did not talk to Donelly at night. Until finally, hurt and puzzled, Donelly followed him into the forest. And found him by a languid death-dark stream, sitting on the bank with a pile of throwing stones at his feet.
T:…went in…after all I said, all I promised…still I went in….
D:…nothing to worry…remember what you told me…keep on believing….
T:…did believe, DID…no difficulties…Josie…
D: …you say I shouldn’t give up, you better not…repeat everything you told me, everything Josie told you…everybody finds someone…if they keep looking…give up, dead…all you need…openness…courage to look…stop feeling sorry for yourself…told me that a hundred times….
T:…fucking lot easier to tell you than do it myself…
D: …Greg…not a meathouse man…a dreamer…better than they are…
T: (sighing)…yeah…hard, though…why do I do this to myself?…
D: …rather be like you were?…not hurting, not living?…like me?…
T: …no…no…you’re right….
2
THE PILGRIM, UP AND DOWN
HER NAME WAS LAUREL. SHE WAS NOTHING LIKE JOSIE, SAVE IN ONE thing alone. Trager loved her.
Pretty? Trager didn’t think so, not at first. She was too tall, a half-foot taller than he was, and she was a bit on the heavy side, and more than a bit on the awkward side. Her hair was her best feature, her hair that was red-brown in winter and glowing blond in summer, that fell long and straight down past her shoulders and did wild beautiful things in the wind. But she was not beautiful, not the way Josie had been beautiful. Although, oddly, she grew more beautiful with time, and maybe that was because she was losing weight, and maybe that was because Trager was falling in love with her and seeing her through kinder eyes, and maybe that was because he told her she was pretty and the very telling made it so. Just as Laurel told him he was wise, and her belief gave him wisdom. Whatever the reason, Laurel was very beautiful indeed after he had known her for a time.
She was five years younger than he, clean-scrubbed and innocent, shy where Josie had been assertive. She was intelligent, romantic, a dreamer; she was wondrously fresh and eager; she was painfully insecure, and full of hungry need.
She was new to Gidyon, fresh from the Vendalian outback, a student forester. Trager, on leave again, was visiting the forestry college to say hello to a teacher who’d once worked with his crew. They met in the teacher’s office. Trager had two weeks free in a city of strangers and meathouses; Laurel was alone. He showed her the glittering decadence of Gidyon, feeling smooth and sophisticated, and she was suitably impressed.
Two weeks went quickly. They came to the last night. Trager, suddenly afraid, took her to the park by the river that ran through Gidyon and they sat together on the low stone wall by the water’s edge. Close, not touching.
“Time runs too fast,” he said. He had a stone in his hand. He flicked it out over the water, flat and hard. Thoughtfully, he watched it splash and sink. Then he looked at her. “I’m nervous,” he said, laughing. “I—Laurel. I don’t want to leave.”
Her face was unreadable (wary?). “The city is nice,” she agreed.
Trager shook his head violently. “No. No! Not the city, you. Laurel, I think I…well…”
Laurel smiled for him. Her eyes were bright, very happy. “I know,” she said.
Trager could hardly believe it. He reached out, touched her cheek. She turned her head and kissed his hand. They smiled at each other.
HE FLEW BACK TO THE FOREST CAMP TO QUIT. “DON, DON, YOU’VE GOT to meet her,” he shouted. “See, you can do it, I did it, just keep believing, keep trying. I feel so goddamn good it’s obscene.”
Donelly, stiff and logical, smiled for him, at a loss as how to handle such a flood of happiness. “What will you do?” he asked, a little awkwardly. “The arena?”
Trager laughed. “Hardly, you know how I feel. But something like that. There’s a theatre near the spaceport, puts on pantomime with corpse actors. I’ve got a job there. The pay is rotten, but I’ll be near Laurel. That’s all that matters.”
THEY HARDLY SLEPT AT NIGHT. INSTEAD THEY TALKED AND CUDDLED and made love. The lovemaking was a joy, a game, a glorious discovery; never as good technically as the meathouse, but Trager hardly cared. He taught her to be open. He told her every secret he had, and wished he had more secrets.
“Poor Josie,” Laurel would often say at night, her body warm against his. “She doesn’t know what she missed. I’m lucky. There couldn’t be anyone else like you.”
“No,” said Trager, “I’m lucky.”
They would argue about it, laughing.
DONELLY CAME TO GIDYON AND JOINED THE THEATRE. WITHOUT Trager, the forest work had been no fun, he said. The three of them spent a lot of time together, and Trager glowed. He wanted to share his friends with Laurel, and he’d already mentioned Donelly a lot. And he wanted Donelly to see how happy he’d become, to see what belief could accomplish.
“I like her,” Donelly said, smiling, the first night after Laurel had left.
“Good,” Trager replied, nodding.
“No,” said Donelly. “Greg, I really like her.”
THEY SPENT A LOT OF TIME TOGETHER.
“GREG,” LAUREL SAID ONE NIGHT IN BED, “I THINK THAT DON IS… well, after me. You know.”
Trager rolled over and propped his head up on his elbow. “God,” he said. He sounded concerned.
“I don’t know how to handle it.”
“Carefully,” Trager said. “He’s very vulnerable. You’re probably the first woman he’s ever been interested in. Don’t be too hard on him. He shouldn’t have to go through the stuff I went through, you know?”
THE SEX WAS NEVER AS GOOD AS A MEATHOUSE. AND, AFTER A WHILE, Laurel began to close. More and more nights now she went to sleep after they made love; the days when they talked till dawn were gone. Perhaps they had nothing left to say. Trager had noticed that she had a tendency to finish his stories for him. It was nearly impossible to come up with one he hadn’t already told her.
“HE SAID THAT?” TRAGER GOT OUT OF BED, TURNED ON A LIGHT, AND sat down frowning. Laurel pulled the covers up to her chin.
“Well, what did you say?”
She hesitated. “I can’t tell you. It’s between Don and me. He said it wasn’t fair, the way I turn around and tell you everything that goes on between us, and he’s right.”
“Right! But I tell you everything. Don’t you remember what we…”
“I know, but…”
Trager shook his head. His voice lost some of its anger. “What’s going on, Laurel, huh? I’m scared, all of a sudden. I love you, remember? How can everything change so fast?”
Her face softened. She sat up, and held out her arms, and the covers fell back f
rom full soft breasts. “Oh, Greg,” she said. “Don’t worry. I love you, I always will, but it’s just that I love him too, I guess. You know?”
Trager, mollified, came into her arms, and kissed her with fervor. Then, suddenly, he broke off. “Hey,” he said, with mock sternness to hide the trembling in his voice, “who do you love more?”
“You, of course, always you.”
Smiling, he returned to the kiss.
“I KNOW YOU KNOW,” DONELLY SAID. “I GUESS WE HAVE TO TALK about it.”
Trager nodded. They were backstage in the theatre. Three of his corpses walked up behind him, and stood arms crossed, like a guard. “All right.” He looked straight at Donelly, and his face—smiling until the other’s words—was suddenly stern. “Laurel asked me to pretend I didn’t know anything. She said you felt guilty. But pretending was quite a strain, Don. I guess it’s time we got everything out in the open.”
Donelly’s pale blue eyes shifted to the floor, and he stuck his hands into his pockets. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“Then don’t.”
“But I’m not going to pretend I’m dead, either. I’m not. I love her too.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend, Don. Love someone else. You’re just going to get yourself hurt this way.”
“I have more in common with her than you do.”
Trager just stared.
Donelly looked up at him. Then, abashed, back down again. “I don’t know. Oh, Greg. She loves you more anyway, she said so. I never should have expected anything else. I feel like I’ve stabbed you in the back. I…”