The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Read online

  So hideously … yet, he could see the picture as if it were before his eyes now in the full light of Berlin. And he could see the man who was trying to sell it to him, a tall, good-looking youth with blond hair and broad shoulders, speaking the Berliner variety of Icelandic.

  White flesh gleaming …

  Mary had been silent for several minutes, but he could hear her breathing. Then, ‘Hal, haven’t you done enough since you came home? Must you make me tell the gapt even more?’

  ‘And just what else have I done?’ he asked fiercely. Nevertheless, he smiled slightly, for he was determined to make her speak plainly, to come out and ask. Not that she ever would, but he was going to get her to come as close as she was capable.

  ‘That’s just it, you haven’t done anything,’ she whispered.

  ‘Now what do you mean?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘The night before you left for the Preserve, you said you were too tired. That’s no real excuse, but I didn’t say anything to the gapt about it because you had fulfilled your weekly duty. But you’ve been gone two weeks, and now—’

  ‘Weekly duty!’ he said loudly, resting on one elbow. ‘Weekly duty! Is that what you think of it?’

  ‘Why, Hal,’ she said with a surprised note. ‘What else am I to think?’

  Groaning, he lay back down and stared into the dark.

  ‘What’s the use?’ he said. ‘Why, why should we? Nine years we’ve been married; we’ve had no children; we never will. I’ve even petitioned for a divorce. So why should we continue to perform like a couple of robots on tridi?’

  Mary’s breath sucked in, and he could imagine the horror on her face.

  After a moment which seemed to bulge with her shock, she said, ‘We must because we must. What else can we do? Surely, you’re not suggesting that? …’

  ‘No, no,’ he said quickly, thinking of what would happen if she told their gapt. Other things he could get away with, but any hint on her part that her husband was refusing to carry out the specific command of the Forerunner … He did not dare to think about that. At least, he now had prestige as a university teacher and a puka with some room in it and a chance to advance. But not if …

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I know we must try to have children, even if we seem doomed not to.’

  ‘The doctors say there’s nothing physically wrong with either of us,’ she said for perhaps the thousandth time in the past five years. ‘So, one of us must be thinking against reality, denying with his body the true future. And I know that it can’t be me. It couldn’t be!’

  ‘ “The dark self hides overmuch from the bright self,” ‘ said Hal, quoting The Western Talmud. ‘ “The Backrunner in us trips us, and we know it not.” ‘

  There was nothing that so infuriated Mary, herself always quoting, as to have Hal do the same. But now, instead of beginning a tirade, she cried, ‘Hal, I’m scared! Do you realize that in another year our time will be up? That we’ll go before the Uzzites for another test? And, if we fail, if they find out that one of us is denying the future to our children… they made it clear what would happen!’

  Artificial insemination by a donor was adultery. Cloning had been forbidden by Sigmen because it was an abomination.

  For the first time that evening, Hal felt a sympathy with her. He knew the same terror that was making her body quiver and shake the bed.

  But he could not allow her to know it, for then she would break up completely, as she had several times in the past. He would be all night putting the pieces back together and making them stick.

  ‘I don’t think there is too much to worry about,’ he said. ‘After all, we are highly respected and much needed professionals. They’re not about to waste our education and talents by sending us to H. I think that if you don’t get pregnant, they’ll give us an extension. After all, they do have precedent and authority. The Forerunner himself said that every case should be considered in its context, not judged by an absolute rule. And we—’

  ‘And how often is a case judged by the context?’ she said shrilly. ‘How often? You know as well as I do that the absolute rule is always applied!’

  ‘I don’t know any such thing,’ he replied soothingly. ‘How naïve can you get? If you go by what the truecasters say, yes. But I’ve heard some things about the hierarchy. I know that such things as blood relationship, friendship, prestige, and wealth, or usefulness to the Sturch, can make for a relaxation of the rules.’

  Mary sat upright in bed.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that the Urielites can be bribed?’ she said in a shocked tone.

  ‘I would never ever say that to anybody,’ he said. ‘And I will swear by Sigmen’s lost hand that I did not mean even to hint at such a vile unreality. No, I am just saying that usefulness to the Sturch sometimes results in leniency or another chance.’

  ‘Who do you know to help us?’ said Mary, and Hal smiled in the darkness. Mary could be shocked by his outspokenness, but she was practical and would not hesitate to use any means to get them out of their predicament.

  There was silence for a few minutes. Mary was breathing hard, like a cornered animal.

  Finally, he said, ‘I don’t really know anybody with influence except Olvegssen. And he’s been making remarks about my M.R., though he does praise my work.’

  ‘See! That M.R.! If you’d only make an effort, Hal… ‘

  ‘If only you weren’t so eager to downgrade me,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Hal, I can’t help it if you go along so easily with unreality! I don’t like what I have to do, but it’s my duty! You’re even making a misstep by reproaching me for what I have to do. Another black mark—’

  ‘Which you will be forced to repeat to the gapt. Yes, I know. Let’s not go into that again for the ten thousandth time.’

  ‘You brought it up,’ she said righteously.

  ‘That seems to be all we have to talk about.’

  She gasped, and then she said, ‘It wasn’t always that way.’

  ‘No, not for the first year of our marriage. But since then—’

  ‘Whose fault is that?’ she cried.

  ‘That’s a good question. But I don’t think we should go into it. It might be dangerous.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t care to discuss it.’

  He was himself surprised at what he had said. What did he mean? He did not know; he had spoken, not with his intellect but with his whole being. Had the Backrunner in him made him say that?

  ‘Let’s get to sleep,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow changes the face of reality.’

  ‘Not before—’ she said.

  ‘Before what?’ he replied wearily.

  ‘Don’t play shib with me,’ she said. ‘This is what started the whole thing. You trying to … put off your … duty.’

  ‘My duty,’ said Hal. ‘The shib thing to do. Of course.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to do it just because it’s your duty. I want you to do it because you love me, as you are enjoined to do. Also, because you want to love me.’

  ‘I am enjoined to love all of mankind,’ said Hal. ‘But I notice that I am expressly forbidden to perform my duty with anyone but my realistically bound wife.’

  Mary was so shocked that she could not reply, and she turned her back to him. But he, knowing that he was doing it as much to punish her and himself as doing what he should, reached out for her. From then on, having made the formal opening statement, everything was ritualized. This time, unlike some times in the past, everything was executed step by step, the words and actions, as specified by the Forerunner in The Western Talmud. Except for one detail: Hal was still wearing his dayclothes. This, he had decided, could be forgiven, for it was the spirit, not the letter, that counted, and what was the difference whether he wore the thick street garments or the bulky nightclothes? Mary, if she had noticed the error, had said nothing about it.r />
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  Afterward, lying on his back, staring into the darkness, Hal thought as he had many a time before. What was it that cut through his abdomen like a broad, thick steel plate and seemed to sever his torso from his hips? He was excited, in the beginning. He knew he must be because his heart beat fast, he breathed hard. Yet, he could not—really—feel anything. And when the moment came—which the Forerunner called the time of generation of potentiality, the fulfillment and actualization of reality—Hal experienced only a mechanical reaction. His body carried out its prescribed function, but he felt nothing of that ecstasy which the Forerunner had described so vividly. A zone of unfeeling, a nerve-chilling area, a steel plate, cut through him. He felt nothing except the jerkings of his body, as if an electrical needle were stimulating his nerves at the same time it numbed them.

  This was wrong, he told himself. Or was it? Could it be that the Forerunner was mistaken? After all, the Forerunner was a man superior to the rest of humanity. Perhaps, he had been gifted enough to experience such exquisite reactions and had not realized that the remainder of mankind did not share his good fortune.

  But no, that could not be, if it were true—and perish the thought that it could not be—that the Forerunner could see into every man’s mind.

  Then, Hal himself was lacking, he alone of all the disciples of the Real Sturch.

  Or was he alone? He had never discussed his feelings with anyone. To do so was—if not unthinkable—undo-able. It was obscene, unrealistic. He had never been told by his teachers not to discuss the matter; they had not had to tell him, for Hal knew without being told.

  Yet, the Forerunner had described what his reactions should be.

  Or had he done so directly? When Hal considered that section of The Western Talmud which was read only by engaged and married couples, he saw that the Forerunner had not actually depicted a physical state. His language had been poetical (Hal knew what poetical meant, for as a linguist, he had access to various works of literature forbidden to others), metaphorical, even metaphysical. Couched in terms which, analyzed, were seen to have little relation to reality.

  Forgive me, Forerunner, thought Hal. I meant that your words were not a scientific description of the actual electrochemical processes of the human nervous system. Of course, they apply directly on a higher level, for reality has many planes of phenomena.

  Surrealistic, realistic, pseudorealistic, surrealistic, superrealistic, retrorealistic.

  No time for theology, he thought, no wish to make my mind whirl again tonight as on many nights with the unsolvable, unanswerable. The Forerunner knew, but I can’t.

  All he knew now was that he was not in phase with the world line; had not been, possibly never would be. He teetered on the brink of unreality every waking moment. And that was not good—the Backrunner would get him, he’d fall into the Forerunner’s brother’s evil hands …

  Hal Yarrow woke suddenly as the morning clarion rang through the apartment. For a moment, he was confused, the world of his dream meshing with his waking world.

  Then, he rolled out of bed and stood up, looking down at Mary. She, as always, slept on through the first call, loud as it was, because it was not for her. In fifteen minutes, the second blast of bugles over the tridi would come, the women’s call. By then he must be washed, shaved, dressed, and on his way. Mary would have fifteen minutes to get herself on the road; ten minutes later, the Olaf Marconis would enter from their night’s work and prepare to sleep and live in this narrow world until the Yarrows returned.

  Hal was even quicker than usual because he still wore his dayclothes. He relieved himself, washed his face and hands, rubbed cream over his face stubble, wiped off the loosened hairs (someday, if he ever rose to the rank of a hierarch, he would wear a beard, like Sigmen), combed his hair, and he was out of the unmentionable.

  After stuffing the letters he’d received the previous night into his traveling bag, he started toward the door. Then, impelled by an unexpected and unanalyzable feeling, he turned and went back to the bed and stooped over to kiss Mary. She did not wake up, and he felt regret—for a second—because she had not known what he had done. This act was no duty, no requirement. It had come from the dark depths, where there must also be light. Why had he done it? Last night, he had thought he hated her. Now …

  She could not help doing what she did any more than he. That, of course, was no excuse. Every self was responsible for its own destiny; if anything good or bad happened to a self, then only one person had caused that happening.

  He amended his thought. He and Mary were the generators of their own misery. But not consciously so. Their bright selves did not want their love to be wrecked; it was their dark selves—the deep-down, crouching, horrible Backrunner in them—that was causing this.

  Then, as he stood by the doorway, he saw Mary open her eyes and look, somewhat confusedly, at him. And, instead of returning to kiss her again, he hastily stepped into the hallway. He was in a panic, fearing that she might call him back and begin the whole dreary and nerve-racking scene again. Not until later did he realize that he had not had a chance to tell Mary that he would be on his way to Tahiti that very morning. Oh well, he was spared another scene.

  By then, the hallway was crowded with men on their way to work. Many, like Hal, were dressed in the loose plaids of the professionals. Others wore the green and scarlet of university teachers.

  Hal, of course, spoke to each one.

  ‘Good future to you, Ericssen!’

  ‘Sigmen smile, Yarrow!’

  ‘Did you have a bright dream, Chang?’

  ‘Shib, Yarrow! Straight from truth itself.’

  ‘Shalom, Kazimuru.’

  ‘Sigmen smile, Yarrow!’

  Then Hal stood by the lift doors while a keeper, on duty at this level in the morning because of the crowd, arranged the priority of their descent. Once out of the tower, Hal stepped onto a series of belts with increasingly swift speed until he was on the express, the middle belt. Here he stood, pressed in by the bodies of men and women but at ease because they belonged to his class. Ten minutes of travel, and he began to work his way through the crowd from belt to belt. Five minutes later, he stepped off onto the sidewalk and walked into the cavernous entrance of Pali No. 16, University of Sigmen City.

  Inside, he had to wait, though not for long, until the keeper had ushered him into the lift. Then, he went straight up on the express to the thirtieth level. Usually, when he got out of the lift, he went directly to his own office to deliver his first lecture of the day, an undergraduate course which went out over tridi. Today, Hal headed for the dean’s office.

  On the way, craving a cigarette and knowing that he could not smoke it in Olvegssen’s presence, he stopped to light one and to breathe in the delicious ginseng smoke. He was standing outside the door of an elementary class in linguistics and could hear snatches of Keoni Jerahmeel Rasmussen ‘s lecture.

  ‘Puka and pali were originally words of the primitive’ Polynesian inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. The English-speaking people who later colonized the islands adopted many terms from the Hawaiian language; puka, meaning hole, tunnel, or cave, and pali, meaning cliff, were among the most popular.

  ‘When the Hawaiian-Americans repopulated North America after the Apocalyptic War, these two terms were still being used in the original sense. But, about fifty years ago, the two words changed their meanings. Puka came to be applied to the small apartments allotted to the lower classes, obviously in a derogatory sense. Later, the term spread to the upper classes. However, if you are a hierach, you live in an apartment; if you belong to any class below the hierarchy, you live in a puka.

  ‘Pali, which meant cliff, was applied to the skyscrapers or to any huge building. It, unlike puka, also retains its original meaning.’

  Hal finished his cigarette, dropped it in an ashtray, and walked on down the hall to the dean’s office. There he found Doctor Bob Kafziel Olvegssen sitting behind his desk.

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sp; Olvegssen, the senior, spoke first, of course. He had a slight Icelandic accent.

  ‘Aloha, Yarrow. And what are you doing here?’

  ‘Shalom, abba. I beg your pardon for appearing before you without an invitation. But I had to arrange several matters before I left.’

  Olvegssen, a gray-haired middle-aged man of seventy, frowned.

  ‘Left?’

  Hal took the letter from his suitcase and handed it to Olvegssen.

  ‘You may process it yourself later, of course. But I can save you valuable time by telling you it’s another order to make a linguistic investigation.’

  ‘You just got back from one!’ said Olvegssen. ‘How can they expect me to run this college efficiently and to the glory of the Sturch if they continually drag my staff away on wild word chases?’

  ‘You’re surely not criticizing the Urielites?’ said Hal, not without a touch of malice. He did not like his superior, try though he had to overcome this unrealistic thinking on his part.

  ‘Harumph! Of course not! I am incapable of doing so, and I resent your imputation that I might be!’

  ‘Your pardon, abba,’ said Hal. ‘I would not dream of hinting at such a thing.’

  ‘When must you leave?’ said Olvegssen.

  ‘On the first coach. Which, I believe, takes off in an hour.’

  ‘And you will return?’

  ‘Only Sigmen knows. When my investigation and the report are finished.’

  ‘Report to me at once when you return.’

  ‘I beg your pardon again, but I can’t do that. My M.R. will be long overdue by then, and I am compelled to clear that out of the way before I do anything else. That may take hours.’

  Olvegssen scowled and said, ‘Yes, your M.R. You didn’t do so well on your last, Yarrow. I trust your next shows some improvement. Otherwise …’