Damon Knight - Orbit 16

The people were quiet, and the crowd they formed all along the Avenue was not moving. It was a period of relief, too infrequent not to be savored. Those braver and stronger were able to relax and take their minds off their fooling. Now there was no worry about stumbling, being pushed, being downed, being caught in a deadly intersection flux where they could easily be turned around so they would be moving dangerously, fatally backward. They were quiet; they were resting. Some looked up while stretching their necks to renew their acquaintance with the haze of might-have-been blue sky. Others twisted shoulders and hips gingerly, then vigorously to ease and bury the cramps and stiffness. Almost all of them dropped their hands from the shoulders of the person in front, first to pockets and pouches and secret places to touch their coins and offer brief thanks, then to flex their fingers and arms before swiftly repositioning them to prevent themselves from being pressed forward.

A May wind that hinted of winter and summer in alternate gusts cascaded down the Avenue. A noon sun glinted blindly off glass, aluminum and polished blue steel.

The crowd waited to move again.

Then, apparently without reason, someone laughed, loudly, with such natural gusto and infectious good humor that a silent dam was flattened, and it was at last the time to talk.

Donovan, a full head and more taller than most around him, looked anxiously to the woman at his side. She was pale, and even without the pressure of advance, he could see that her arms were already beginning to tremble.

“You okay, Alice?”

Her answering grin was hard and quick, her mind obviously concentrating on feeding her muscles strength she did not have. Her post, a squat, dark-skinned man in front of her, had straps on his overcoat, and Donovan wondered how long it would be before she clutched at them for support and was angrily, fiercely shaken off. He tried to judge whether or not it would be worth the trouble to figure a way she might be saved. And he knew he was dreaming. It had been at least two days since she last even made an attempt to answer his questions or laugh at his jokes. She was losing, and they both knew it. And she was beginning to hate him for his strength, and they knew that too.

I wonder, he thought, if all great leaders had troubles like mine.

I wonder, he thought, if she’d give me her coin.

“Hey, Donovan,” someone behind him shouted impatiently (it sounded like the man who claimed to have been a plastics president; not that anyone cared). “How are we doing?”

Donovan, slightly shaken by his last, almost ghoulish thought, stretched up off his heels, squinting past the glare of the windows at the nearest signpost half a block away. “It looks like Fiftieth coming right up.”

“Are you sure? I thought we were there last night.”

“Positive, pal,” he said, showing his displeasure and disdain by not looking around.

“Okay, Donovan, if you say so. Thanks anyway.”

“Don’t mention it. Again.”

Then he ducked his head to rub his neck in an effort to hide the fact that he was smiling. It felt good, putting down a man with a voice like that. But Donovan did understand how much easier it was now to lose your place when you were so close to the Building. Tensions were higher and anxiety easier to succumb to, and more often now than before, there were some who tried desperately to bull ahead through the crowd. They seldom lasted long; their screams were short. Donovan looked again and nodded to himself. They were nearing the surge from the West Side out of the Lincoln Tunnel. The going was slower, the casualties more frequent. He considered himself more than a little lucky that he was in the center of the street, away from the grinding pressures at the crowd’s edge, where those who normally fought to stay away from shop and door windows were those immediately faced with the crossbuck of every intersection flow. My God, he thought, it must be hell in Times Square.

There was a sharp, splintering crack. Despite the danger of losing his balance, Donovan turned quickly toward the sound, searching until he spotted a whirlpool movement. Someone, or two or three, had been tripped, pushed or just squeezed out, and through plate glass. If they were still alive, they would probably starve to death. Once out, there was no getting back in. The helicopters that came twice a day and dropped tiny packets of food paid no attention to the pieces of clothing that sometimes waved weakly from upper-story windows. Some, in a grand gesture, would throw their coins into the crowd, but it was only a gesture, because few dared to bend down to retrieve them.

“How many, Donovan?” a woman called.

“How the hell should I know, Sal?”

“Well, dammit, boy, go on over there and look!”

And the crowd laughed.

“Donovan?”

“Yes, Annie.”

“Will my coin fit?”

“They all do, dear.”

“Thank you, Donovan. I just wanted to know.”

“That’s all right, dear.”

And the crowd, well trained, did not laugh.

Somewhere, back when there was time, they began to call themselves Donovan’s Doers, refusing him a title but remembering his name. They depended on him to be wary of the traps, the sudden forward lurch that resulted when a group ahead of them fell. They assigned him the task of keeping track of their progress, telling them jokes, making them laugh, forcing them to move when they could move no longer. Whenever the time for talk ended, there was always his voice; and it seemed to them, and to Donovan, that he had always been there. He was the only constant. The Doers were always changing.

“Hey, Donovan, tell us a story.”

It wasn’t a child.

“I don’t know if I have enough time. Seems to be a movement up there, a block or two, give or take.”

A woman called out something in Italian and several people laughed. Donovan frowned, not wanting to be the butt of a joke he couldn’t understand. In his position it wouldn’t be right.

“Hey, Donovan, you know what she said?”

He shook his head as if he really didn’t care, and the crowd laughed.

“She said maybe you’re too busy cuddling up to your post.”

There was more laughter, echoing now, and Donovan looked down at Alice, hoping for a smile. But she was staring dead ahead, her fingers twisted weakly in her post’s shoulder straps, her arms so bent that her elbows nearly touched the squat man’s coat. He started to say something, but a man, a new one by the voice, interrupted him with the beginnings of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and those who still had the energy joined him. They were mostly off-key, but uncaringly so, and the words eventually swung to a ribald burlesque of the original. A fat man began to jounce in time to the music until he was kicked into stopping. The pitch rose slightly, the tempo picked up; an old woman suddenly screamed hysterically and fell. There was a moment’s hesitation before ranks formed and she was helped to her feet. She sobbed, put out her hands, and was silent. Damn, Donovan thought, and marked the place where she stood. He decided he didn’t want to look that way when they started again. There were times, he admitted sourly to himself, when he hated being a leader. Sometimes it just wasn’t any fun.

And thinking of the old woman reminded him of the girl beside him.

“Hey, Alice,” he said softly to the sweep of her dark hair and the slope of her breast. “Keep your eye on the Building. Believe me, it’s the best way, girl. Just watch it, don’t let it go. See how it grows, the closer we get? Just think of it, Alice, the whole world, the whole damn world at your feet. At last. No more dark streets, no more buildings to blot out the sun; nothing but sky and sky and a hell of a lot of more sky. Free, Alice, and we’re getting there. Damn, but we’re getting there.”