Damon Knight - Orbit 18

Preferably some quiet and fatal activity.

“I’ve got it for sure, this time,” said Peter Renoir.

Semina rolled her eyes. “I’ll see it first before I believe it. What do we do?”

“Well, we drop all our clothes on the floor and then we get under the sheets of the bed and we talk. Then I get up and go for a drive in my sports car. Later you will cry.”

“Is that it?”

“There’s more.” said Peter Renoir.

“Such as?”

“Well,” said Peter Renoir with a smile. “Then the Army comes in and rapes the hell out of both of us.”

“It’s just like a movie,” said Semina and she was deeply moved by it. It almost made her want to cry but she held it in. She wasn’t scheduled to cry until the next scene.

Now, class, why is this story worth studying?

Because it is metaphor as metamorphosis. It has become a story cut off from its name, habits, associations. Detached, it sees everything and nothing. It sees all things, swirling independently and then becoming gradually connected. The change of detachment. I am talking to you personally, because detached I become only a thing, an exercise, a creation, an amusement. I become the thing, in and of itself. It is disintegration into pure existence, and at that point, I the thing, I the writer, I the reason for this story, I all of these things, am free to become endlessly anything.

A literary critic peeping through the keyhole said, “The storm over style and content will rage forever.”

Peter Renoir and Semina are trapped in an outhouse by two Dominican friars and several very irate forest rangers. Violence seems imminent. The priests are chanting, “We are only interested in the superficial.”

The forest rangers break down the door. The rangers make off with Semina, the priests disappear into the night with Peter Renoir. Semina reveals her pregnancy by word association and the rangers take her deep into the woods. They rape her and we are left with a sense of guilt. Peter Renoir is castrated in a frustrated rape attempt. We are left with a sense of accomplishment.

The dead shall live, the living die,

And Music shall untune the sky.

Hallway to hallway to hallway I flit, like a bat in a mine. The lights are dimmed and the halls are empty, eerie grey slots. I cast long shadows from low light to light as I move along, next to the wall. I can feel my upper arms slide wetly against my ribs, and my heart’s allegro thumping. A voice within me sneers: “Time for your diamond, junkie.”

Dead sober will I see him, I promise myself again. My hand shakes, and I put it back in my pocket. Familiar halls now, and I slow down as if the air is getting thicker; still in color-blind greys, and the air is perhaps filled with dust, or smoke. It is past time for my next crystal. I have not slept for five days, I am continuing on the drive of my decision.

Home. VANCOUVER CONSERVATORY, the tall door announces. I turn the knob, give the door a push to get it started. It opens. I slip through, silently cross the entrance floor. Pierson’s hologramic statue stares down at me, a short ruby-red figure transparent in the dim light. I circle him warily, alive to his presence in the shadows between me and the ceiling. Hallways, again; then another door, the door: sanctum sanctorum. You remember the old animated film Fantasia ? Suddenly I am Mickey Mouse, in Dukas’ The Sorcerer's Apprentice, about to interrupt the sorcerer over his cauldron. A deep bell clangs from the main hall and I jump. Midnight: time for the breaking of vows. I knock on the door, a mistake; I have the privilege of entering without knocking; but no, I have lost all that, I have revoked all that. An indistinct shout arrives from inside.

I push the door open and a slice of white light cuts into the hallway. In I go, blinking.

The Master is under the Orchestra, on his back, tapping away cautiously at the dent in the tuba tubing. The dent occurred at the end of the last grand tour, when one of the workmen helping to move it onto a rollcar tripped and kicked the tuba with his steel-tipped boot.

The Master looks up, white eyebrows rising like a bird’s crest. “Eric,” he says mildly, “why did you knock?”

“Master,” I say shakily, my resolve still firm, “I can no longer be your apprentice.”

Watch that sink in, like a hot poker in snow. He edges out from under the Orchestra, stands up; all slowly, so slowly. He is so old. “Why is this, Eric?”

I swallow. I have a lie all prepared, I have considered it for hours and hours; it is absurd, impossible. Suddenly I decide to tell him the truth. “I’m addicted to nepanathol.”

Right before my eyes his face turns a deep red. “You what?” he says, then almost shouts, “I don’t understand!”

“The drug,” I explain. “I’m hooked.”

Has the shock been too much for him? He trembles. He gets it out, calm and clear. “Why?”

It is all so complex. I shrug. “Master,” I say, “I’m sorry.”

With a convulsive jerk he throws the hammers in his hand, and I flinch; they hit the foam lining of the wall without a sound, then click against each other as they fall.

“You’re sorry!” he hisses, and I can feel his contempt. Why does one always whisper in this room? “You’re sorry! My God, you’d better be more than sorry! Three centuries, eight Masters of the Orchestra, you to be the ninth and you break the line for a drug? The greatest artistic achievement of all time—” he waves toward the Orchestra, but I refuse to look at it—“you choose nepanathol above it? How could you do it? I’m an old man, I’ll die in a few years, there isn’t time to train another musician like you—and you’ll be dead before I will!” True enough, in all probability. “I will be the last Master,” he cries out, “and the Orchestra will be silenced!”

With the thought of it he twists and sits down crosslegged on the floor, crying. I have never seen the Master cry before, never thought I would. He is not an emotional man.

“What have I done?” Echoless shrieks. “The Orchestra will end with me and they will say it was my fault, that I was a bad Master—”

“You are the best of them,” I get out.

He turns on me. “Then why? Why? Eric, how could you do this?”

I would have been the ninth Master of Pierson’s Orchestra. The heir to the throne. The crown prince. Why indeed? Such a joke.

As from a distance I hear myself. “Master,” I say, “I will stop taking the drug.”

I close my eyes as I say it. For an old man’s sake I will go through the withdrawal from nep. I shake my head, surprised at myself.

He looks up at me with—what is it, craftiness? Is he manipulating me? No. It’s just contempt. “You can’t,” he mutters angrily. "It would kill you.”

“No,” I say, though I am by no means sure of this. “I haven’t been addicted long enough. A few hours; eight, maybe; then it will be over.” It will be short; that is my only comfort. A very real voice inside me is protesting loudly: “What are you doing?" Pain. Muscle cramps, memory confusion, memory loss. Nausea. Hallucinations. A high possibility of sensory damage, especially to the ears, sense of smell, and eyes. I do not want to go blind.

“Truly?” the old man is saying. “When will you do this?”

“Now,” I say, ignoring the voice inside. “I’ll stay here, I think,” gesturing toward the Orchestra but still not looking in its direction.

“I too will stay—”

“No. Not here. In the recording booth, or one of the practice rooms. Or go up to your chambers, and come back tomorrow.”

We look at each other then, old Richard and young Eric, and finally he nods. He walks to the tall door, pulls it open. He turns his head back. “You be careful, Eric,” he says.