Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

Calvin rose from his chair. "I can see, gentlemen, that some of you are more interested in being the big boss than in overcoming whatever powers these Mexica get from all the blood they spill. I apologize for wasting your time. I hear that the Mexica castrate the big boss before they cut out his heart. It's an honor you're welcome to."

He started for the door.

Austin didn't call him back. No one ran after him.

Calvin didn't hesitate. He just kept on walking. Out into the street. And still no one ran after him. Well, doggone it.

No, there was somebody. Jim Bowie-Calvin recognized his heartfire. And he was stopping and throwing a-

Calvin ducked down and to the left.

A big heavy knife quivered from the wooden wall right where Calvin's head used to be.

Calvin leapt up, furious. In a moment, Jim Bowie was there, grinning. Calvin ripped out a long string of French profanities-eloquent enough that a couple of people nearby, who spoke French, looked at him with candid admiration.

"What's got your dander up, Mr. Maker?" said Jim Bowie. "Of course I aimed right at your head. Your brother would have made my knife vanish in midair."

"I have more respect for cutlery," said Calvin. Though truth to tell, he could no more make a knife disappear in mid flight than he could stop the world from spinning. He could work with mugs because they mostly sat on the table, very very still.

"The way I see it," said Bowie, "you ain't half the maker your brother is, but you want us to think that whatever he can do, you can do. And if that makes you mad to hear me say it, as it seems to be doing-"

"I'm not mad," said Calvin.

"Glad to hear it," said Bowie. "I'm laying it out the way I laid it out to Steve Austin. I wanted your brother because he would have guaranteed our success. He wouldn't do it, and instead he got himself five thousand runaways to feed and no place to take them. Fine with me. But you, you want to come with us, and I think it's because you want a chance to show off you're just as good as your brother, only you're not, and when that fact becomes plain and evident, I think a lot of good boys from this expedition are gonna be dead because they counted on you."

Calvin wanted to blast him into pieces on the spot. But he had his own rules, even if they weren't Alvin's. You don't kill a man just for saying something you don't want to hear, even if it is a pack of lies.

So Calvin only nodded and walked on toward the dock. "Well," said Calvin, "I reckon that's a wise choice. You run on back to Steve Austin and tell him I said good luck."

Bowie, however, did not turn and go back. A good sign. "Look, Mr. Calvin, I'm here to ask you to come back. We just got to know-what can you do? Turning a bunch of pewter mugs into mush is thrilling, of course, but we need to know what you can do. You saw my knife coining early enough to dodge it, but you couldn't destroy it in flight, which suggests that Mexica bullets aren't gonna disappear in midair either. So before we take you along with your brag and your bossiness-and I mean that in the nicest possible way, those being traits I'm proud of in myself-before we take you along, we got to know: What exactly can you do that'll be of practical help in our fighting?"

"That fog yesterday," said Calvin. "That was mine."

"Easy enough to claim you caused the weather. Me, I've been running winter ever since my old pap left me the job in his will."

In reply, Calvin cooled the air right around them. "I think we got us a fog starting up right here, right now."

And sure enough, the moisture in the air began to condense until Bowie couldn't see anything else in all the world but Calvin's face.

"All right," said Bowie. "That's a useful knack."

"My knack isn't fog-making," said Calvin. "Or weather, or any other one thing."

A fish flopped up out of the water onto the dock. And another. And a couple more. And pretty soon there were scores of fish flopping around on the wooden planks right among the passersby. Naturally, some of the fishermen on the dock started picking them up-some to throw the fish back, others to try to keep them to sell. An argument immediately sprang up. "Those fish must be sick, you can't sell them!" To which the reply came, "He don't feel sick to me, a fish this strong!" Whereupon the fish flapped out of the man's arms and back into the water.

"If you ever need fish," said Calvin.

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Bowie. "But can you do it if there ain't no river?"

For a moment Calvin wanted to slap him. Couldn't he recognize a miracle when he saw one? He would have made a perfect Israelite, complaining at Moses because all they had was manna and no meat.

Then Bowie grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. "Can't you tell when you're being joshed, man? Of course you can come. Nobody has a dodge-the-knife-from-behind knack and the fog-making knack and the knack of making fish jump out of the water right up onto the dock."

"So I pass your test?" said Calvin, letting a little pissed-offedness seep into his voice.

"Sure enough," said Bowie.

"But do you pass mine?"

No sooner had Calvin said this than he felt a knife blade poking into his belly. He hadn't seen it coming, not in Bowie's heartfire and not in his body. All of a sudden there was a knife in his hand.

"If I wanted you dead," said Bowie, "would you have had time to stop me?"

"I reckon you got a knack a man can respect," said Calvin.

"Oh, that ain't my knack," said Bowie. "I'm just dang good with a knife, that's all."

Alvin woke only because he had to pee. Otherwise he could have slept for another ten hours, he was sure of it. There wasn't a deep enough sleep in the world to give him back his strength.

But when he got up, he found that he was surrounded by duties impossible to avoid. Things he had to do before he could even void his bladder. Only his mind wasn't clear, and his eyes were still bleary with sleep, and as people bombarded him with questions he found that he couldn't bring himself to care about the answers.

"I don't know," he said to the woman demanding to know where they were supposed to find breakfast in this godforsaken place.

"I don't know," he said to the man who tremulously asked, in broken English, whether more soldiers would come in boats.

And when Papa Moose came to him and asked if he thought there was fever on this side of the lake, Alvin barked his "I don't know" so loudly that Papa Moose visibly recoiled.

Arthur Stuart was lying nearby, looking like a gator sunning itself on the shore of the lake. Or a dead man. Alvin went and knelt by him. Touched him, because that way he could see his heartfire without exerting himself. He had never been so tired before that merely looking into somebody's heartfire felt like an impossible burden to him.

Arthur was all right. Just tired. At least as worn out as Alvin. The difference being that nobody was pestering Arthur Stuart with questions.

"Let this man be," said La Tia. "You see he bone tired, him?"

Alvin felt hands on his arm-small hands, thick arm- trying to raise him up. His first impulse was to shrug them off. But then a soft voice said, "You hungry? You thirsty?" It was Dead Mary, and Alvin turned to her and let her help him rise to his feet.

"I got to pee," he said softly.

"We set folks to digging latrines," she said. "We got one not far off, you just lean on me."

"Thank you," he said.

She led him along a short path through the underbrush till he came to a reeking pit with a plank across it. "I think this wouldn't be hard to find in the dark," he said.

"Bodies got to do what bodies got to do," she said. "I leave you alone now."

She did, and he did all his business. A lot of leaves had been piled up for wiping, and a couple of buckets of water for washing, and he had to admit he felt better. A little more awake. A little more vigorous. And hungry.