Дэймон Найт - Orbit 7

Fuzzy’s famous Mud Wedding required the couples being joined or parted to roll nude in a gigantic mud bath before the ceremony, thereby adding a sense of mystery to the personality of one’s partner. It was remarkable how many divorced couples immediately remarried and vice versa, a trend of which Fuzzy heartily approved. Harley, of course, was more than willing to pay for two ceremonies to have his Amaryllis. He loved her, muddy or no, and wanted to be married to her, even if it was a hangup. But she was adamant, and when they walked away from Fuzzy’s that day, still muddy in a place or two, they were just plain Harley and Amaryllis.

Harley had to admit it had done something good for them. Amaryllis was as amorous as he had ever seen her. She could hardly wait until he found a half-hour parking space and joined her in the back seat, that beautiful back seat which still seemed to echo the “Marseillaise.” Afterwards, they wandered in a daze, until they had lost all the money they brought from the Hashbury National in slot machines, and until the old dissatisfaction had come to live with them again.

They found themselves driving the Citroën aimlessly through the back streets of Vegas, until finally they came to a lot full of motorcycles. Even at three in the morning, the neon flashed above it, identifying it as L & C’s Machine Scene, Exclusive Agents for the Libidomobile. The Libidomobile, it turned out, was a bike which was not only tuned for performance, but for satisfying sexual vibrations. They traded the Citroën even.

By the time Harley hit the first red light, he knew Amaryllis had finally found her thing. He looked back at her, bouncing there, with mixed feelings. She had found her thing, and that was fine, but now what about him? What was he supposed to do?

“Honey,” he said softly, “where should we go now?”

“I don’t care, Harley, Mexico, Alaska, Tibet, Sweden, just get this mother moving!”

And so they rode, neither sure where the desert road would take them. He could feel her arms tighten around him now and then with amazing strength, but otherwise he was alone. Left to himself, something inside Harley snapped. The mind he had disciplined so long now fantasized out of control. He dreamed of addressing the Republican Convention. “My friends,” he would say, “I give you a man …” He saw himself aboard a slim white yacht, drinking all the martinis he had ever wanted. He played golf with Paul Harvey, corresponded with William F. Buckley, Jr., mowed his own yard with a riding mower. He read the Wall Street Journal and called his broker. He wandered deliciously through a country club of the mind. As he dreamed, the tears drained from the sides of his goggles and were whipped away by the wind.

Neither of them saw the black limousine pass them in the night. Nor, of course, were they aware of the conversation taking place within, between Mr. Fenton (Fuzzy) Lipschits and his partner. “Tell me, sweetheart,” said Fuzzy as he handed the man a drink from the custom bar, “what do the Shadow know new?”

The old man fell just as Farn Hestler’s power wheel was passing his Place in Line, on his way back from the Comfort Station. Hestler, braking, stared down at the twisted face, a mask of soft, pale leather in which the mouth writhed as if trying to tear itself free of the dying body. Then he jumped from the wheel, bent over the victim. Quick as he was, a lean woman with fingers like gnarled roots was before him, clutching at the old man’s fleshless shoulders.

“Tell them me , Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt,” she was shrilling into the vacant face. “Oh, if you only knew what I’ve been through, how I deserve the help—”

Hestler sent her reeling with a deft shove of his foot. He knelt beside the old man, lifted his head.

“Vultures,” he said. “Greedy, snapping at a man. Now, I care . And you were getting so close to the Head of the Line. The tales you could tell, I’ll bet. An Old-timer. Not like these Line, er, jumpers,” he diverted the obscenity. “I say a man deserves a little dignity at a moment like this—”

“Wasting your time, Jack,” a meaty voice said. Hestler glanced up into the hippopotamine features of the man he always thought of as Twentieth Back. “The old coot’s dead.”

Hestler shook the corpse. “Tell them Argall Y. Hestler!” he yelled into the dead ear. “Argall, that’s A-R-G-A-L-L—”

“Break it up,” the brassy voice of a Line Policeman sliced through the babble. “You, get back.” A sharp prod lent urgency to the command. Hestler rose reluctantly, his eyes on the waxy face slackening into an expression of horrified astonishment.

“Ghoul,” the lean woman he had kicked snarled. “Line—!” She mouthed the unmentionable word.

“I wasn’t thinking of myself,” Hestler countered hotly. “But my boy Argall, through no fault of his own—”

“All right, quiet!” the cop snarled. He jerked a thumb at the dead man. “This guy make any disposition?”

“Yes!” the lean woman cried. “He said, to Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt, that’s M-I-L—”

“She’s lying,” Hestler cut in. “I happened to catch the name Argall Hestler—right, sir?” He looked brightly at a slack-jawed lad who was staring down at the corpse.

The boy swallowed and looked Hestler in the face.

“Hell, he never said a word,” he said, and spat, just missing Hestler’s shoe.

“Died intestate,” the cop intoned, and wrote a note in his book. He gestured and a clean-up squad moved in, lifted the corpse onto a cart, covered it, trundled it away.

“Close it up,” the cop ordered.

“Intestate,” somebody grumbled. “Crap!”

“A rotten shame. The slot goes back to the government. Nobody profits. Goddamn!” the fat man who had spoken looked around at the others. “In a case like this we ought to get together, have some equitable plan worked out and agreed to in advance—”

“Hey,” the slack-jawed boy said. “That’s conspiracy!”

“I meant to suggest nothing illegal.” The fat man faded back to his Place in Line. As if by common consent, the small crowd dissipated, sliding into their Places with deft footwork. Hestler shrugged and remounted his wheel, put-putted forward, aware of the envious eyes that followed him. He passed the same backs he always passed, some standing, some sitting on canvas camp stools under sun-faded umbrellas, here and there a nylon queuebana, high and square, some shabby, some ornate, owned by the more fortunate. Like himself: he was a lucky man, he had never been a Standee, sweating the line exposed to the sun and prying eyes.

It was a bright afternoon. The sun shone down on the vast concrete ramp across which the Line snaked from a point lost in distance across the plain. Ahead—not far ahead now, and getting closer every day—was the blank white wall perforated only by the Window, the terminal point of the Line. Hestler slowed as he approached the Hestler queuebana; his mouth went dry as he saw how close it was to the Head of the Line now. One, two, three, four slots back! Ye Gods, that meant six people had been processed in the past twelve hours—an unprecedented number. And it meant—Hestler caught his breath—he might reach the Window himself, this shift. For a moment, he felt a panicky urge to flee, to trade places with First Back, and then with Second, work his way back to a safe distance, give himself a chance to think about it, get ready …

“Say, Farn.” The head of his proxy, Cousin Galpert, poked from the curtains of the three foot square, five foot high nylon-walled queuebana. “Guess what? I moved up a spot while you were gone.”