Damon Knight: Orbit 17

And I.

I am not sure, even now, what I was then. My principal activity —all that I can ever recall doing—was tormenting Melcanno. Why? I was, I suppose, even then, straining for freedom, resentful of constraints.

“Can you help me, boys?” an old man said. “I need a drink.” “No money!” cried Jiggory. “Runaways from Lunaport!” And he ran off down the street, armed with pebbles, searching for cats. But the cats knew of him, and were elsewhere.

They had gone to the heart of the city, perhaps, to the great steel castle of Ombrindoth, built a thousand years and more ago by the great Quindrillon, first King of Earth, architect of Starport, follower of science. Or perhaps they had departed to those sections of the city where dwelt the tramp robots who, alone, unowned and unwanted, jealous of their freedom, were said to trust only the cats.

Or the cats might be following spacemen—such spacemen as might be found—in the quarters of the city they had made their own. The true spacefolk, the dwellers on the Forgotten Worlds, did not care for the mothering planet even now, when they were once again thriving in the wake of her technology. They had never forgiven her for abandoning them in the ill-remembered past. And the cats, like the starships, had mysteriously gone elsewhere.

The percolating hum that was the voice of Soribus grew louder. He was reciting things he had found in a book, lest he forget what to do tonight.

We were entering the regions of the women now. Alluring, indifferent, they watched us, we thought, their exotic eyes followed us (though their heads never moved), mildly curious, perhaps.

We were entering the regions of the women, and time was to act; to choose a woman, having inspected them all; to come with her to terms; and then to transpire with her into the bowels of her dark yet promising building. Soribus was the first of us to do so, strolling along with what seemed to us a devil-take-it attitude, though we heard giggles. Soribus, the philosopher-boy, the last of us who might have been imagined to take action in a situation as foreign as this, had advanced upon his intended. And, even greater wonder, his voice, the thrum and teakettle voice that lived below his breath, had stopped! He sauntered through this incalculable silence, free, it seemed, for the first time of bookdust and syllogisms, into the presence of his chosen, a sad, odd-eyed girl with dirty red hair and a scar on her cheek and, perched upon her shoulder, a pure white cockatoo. The Dane walked to her and began to speak, hesitated; began again and could not; and so he said nothing at all to her. For the outré silence with which the Dane had cloaked himself had proved stronger than he, and having turned off his voice, he found himself unable to start it up again, and he was standing dumbly there before her, timidly extending his hand as if to touch her breast. But her hand reached out, soft and swift, to meet his in the air, and, “Come,” she said. And soon there was only the bleak brick and pavement where a moment before the three of them, boy, bird and woman, had stood regarding one another in the warm spring night.

Jiggory touched my arm, smiled at me, and sat down to remove his clothing. He rose, his thin, tanned, quick boy’s body at once taut and relaxed; and he walked, proud and shimmering as a colt, into the night’s street and out of my sight.

I found myself alone, hesitant, but aware: aware of the city’s night sounds; of gold Arcturus high above me; aware of my limbs and organs, of my pulse; of women about me; of what Jiggory and Soribus must, even now, be commencing; of life but never death. From behind me, from the dim, crepuscular spaces between the buildings of Starport, I then grew aware of one other thing—of the heavy, ferric scraping that heralds the approach of a robot. Melcanno! He had found turpentine! Or he had had spare eyeballs! Not thinking why, I tore my clothing from my body and, throwing it to the street, I ran to a fair-haired woman, grabbed her by the hand and pulled her indoors. “Time grows short!” I cried; and she, sensing my distress and alarm—sensing, perhaps, more than this—led me up the stairs to her room.

From behind the door came a dim, metallic voice: “Fear not. I am not Melcanno.” Did he think I could not guess his tricks, anticipate them, even?

Her room was dark, filled with candles, lined with books. Books, standing like paper soldiers in shelves along the walls; formed into rows on desk and table, on windowsill; piled in great precarious stacks on the floor; tied into bundles, some, as if to make furniture (for of this there was none, save the bed); books, books filled the room. And candles were everywhere that books were not: along the bed’s headboard; on the shelves, in front of the books; in an old and rusted chandelier, pendant from the ghost-lit ceiling; in corners, on pipes, and one, even, fixed to the doorknob—such were the candles that lit us, that burned even as we entered the room’s dark confines. The bed, the bed was a huge wooden thing, rough-hewn and crudely put together; the mattress was large and soft, a fit mattress for me, I thought; there was a patch-quilt.

From the street, from below the window, I heard: “Do not doubt me. I am not Melcanno.”

Maren, she said, was her name, and she was tall and thin and full-breasted, with thick, unruly tow-hair that flowed and pale grey eyes that jumped in the glow of the candles, with skin the deep, deep tan of space, darker even than I, and I knew that she was the most ravishing beauty in Starport. I saw the robot standing in the street below—he would not dare enter the house unbidden—staring up at the window, peering at it as if, somehow, he could perceive what was happening behind it. Maren came behind me and put her arms about me and stroked my breast and said, “I know what it is to be pursued. But here, with me, you are safe—from him at least.” She led me to the bed and laid me down. Softly she touched my thigh. And we kissed.

I do not remember beginning, do not, really, remember what we did at all in the soft, warmly lit bed. Only impressions: her hand, her hand as soft and pink as mine, and sure; her arm, it seemed, was made of ivory; her lips, her mouth, her lips and I within; her throat; her breasts, her breasts, her womanhood, her passion; the strength with which she clung to me, the grace with which she made love; and I, all tongue and penis, fiercely bent; the night! the night! the robot at the door! candles, and the bookshelves, and Maren and I . . . and he waiting outside.

And again: “Melcanno is not near; I am called Morundissimis. You have shared much with me,” said the sad and ferric voice, “much of what I desire. Come and talk with me; I would not betray you.”

Though I was in her arms, passionate, at peace, time was to confront him. I made settlement with Maren and went down to the street to do the same with the robot.

I could not tell from the window, through the darkness, whether it was Melcanno. That he was capable of tricks I knew well, and I walked to the street cloaked in suspicion, fearful lest the great black hulk rob me of yet another pleasure, another of youth’s noble, quiet conquests. He sat on the curb, his shoulders hunched low, and slowly his head pivoted toward me. “I am Morundissimis,” he said, “and I am psioid.” His name and his type, the two things robots are inexorably bound to declare to all humans with whom they might have dealings. But now I could see him, I did not need even this; I need no longer fear Melcanno this night.

Still uneasy, I asked, “What do you want?” and started looking for my clothes.

“A tramp stole them,” he said, “yours and Jiggory’s.” I suddenly felt very conscious of my nakedness. “All except your trousers,” he went on, “which are three feet behind you, to the left.” I found them and crawled into them; the seat was tom open. Morundissimis arose and stared fixedly again at Maren’s window. “As for what I want here,” he said, his voice lowered to a confidential rasp, “I think that should be rather obvious.”