Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

“You know, I am not angry at you.”

Alyx winced as her foot struck something, and grabbed her knee.

“No, I am not,” he said. “It has been delightful—except for tonight, which demonstrates, between ourselves, that the whole thing was something of a mistake and shouldn’t be indulged in again—but you must understand that I cannot allow a creation of mine, a paring of my fingernail, if you take my meaning, to rebel in this silly fashion.” He grinned. “No, no,” he said, “that I cannot do. And so” (here he picked up a glass cube from the table in back of him) “I have decided” (here he joggled the cube a little) “that tonight—why, my dear, what is the matter with you? You are standing there with the veins in your fists knotted as if you would like to strike me, even though your knee is giving you a great deal of trouble just at present and you would be better employed in supporting some of your weight with your hands or I am very much mistaken.” And he held out to her— though not far enough for her to reach it—the glass cube, which contained an image of her husband in little, unnaturally sharp, like a picture let into crystal. “See?” he said. “When I turn the lever to the right, the little beasties rioting in his bones grow ever more calm and that does him good. A great deal of good. But when I turn the lever to the left—”

“Devil!” said she.

“Ah, I’ve gotten something out of you at last!” he said, coming closer. “At last you know! Ah, little one, many and many a time I have seen you wondering whether the world might not be better off if you stabbed me in the back, eh? But you can’t, you know. Why don’t you try it?” He patted her on the shoulder. “Here I am, you see, quite close enough to you, peering, in fact, into those tragic, blazing eyes—wouldn’t it be natural to try and put an end to me? But you can’t, you know. You’d be puzzled if you tried. I wear an armor plate, little beast, that any beast might envy, and you could throw me from a ten-thousand-foot mountain, or fry me in a furnace, or do a hundred and one other deadly things to me without the least effect. My armor plate has in-er-tial dis-crim-in-a-tion, little savage, which means that it lets nothing too fast and nothing too heavy get through. So you cannot hurt me at all. To murder me, you would have to strike me, but that is too fast and too heavy and so is the ground that hits me when I fall and so is fire. Come here.”

She did not move.

“Come here, monkey,” he said. “I’m going to kill your man and then I will send you away; though since you operate so well in the dark, I think I’ll bless you and make that your permanent condition. What do you think you’re doing?” for she had put her fingers to her sleeve; and while he stood, smiling a little with the cube in his hand, she drew her dagger and fell upon him, stabbing him again and again.

“There,” he said complacently, “do you see?”

“I see,” she said hoarsely, finding her tongue.

“Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she said.

“Then move off,” he said, “I have got to finish,” and he brought the cube up to the level of his eyes. She saw her man, behind the glass as in a refracting prism, break into a multiplicity of images; she saw him reach out grotesquely to the surface; she saw his fingertips strike at the surface as if to erupt into the air; and while the fat man took the lever between thumb and forefinger and— prissily and precisely, his lips pursed into wrinkles, prepared to move it all the way to the left—

She put her fingers in his eyes and then, taking advantage of his pain and blindness, took the cube from him and bent him over the edge of a table in such a way as to break his back. This all took place inside the body. His face worked spasmodically, one eye closed and unclosed in a hideous parody of a wink, his fingers paddled feebly on the tabletop and he fell to the floor.

“My dear!” he gasped.

She looked at him expressionlessly.

“Help me,” he whispered, “eh?” His fingers fluttered. “Over there,” he said eagerly, “medicines. Make me well, eh? Good and fast. I’ll give you half.”

“All,” she said.

“Yes, yes, all,” he said breathlessly, “all—explain all —fascinating hobby—spend most of my time in this room—get the medicine—”

“First show me,” she said, “how to turn it off.”

“Off?” he said. He watched her, bright-eyed.

“First,” she said patiently, “I will turn it all off. And then I will cure you.”

“No,” he said, “no, no! Never!” She knelt down beside him.

“Come,” she said softly, “do you think I want to destroy it? I am as fascinated by it as you are. I only want to make sure you can’t do anything to me, that’s all. You must explain it all first until I am master of it, too, and then we will turn it on.”

“No, no,” he repeated suspiciously.

“You must,” she said, “or you’ll die. What do you think I plan to do? I have to cure you, because otherwise how can I learn to work all this? But I must be safe, too. Show me how to turn it off.”

He pointed, doubtfully.

“Is that it?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “but—”

“Is that it?”

“Yes, but—no—wait!” for Alyx sprang to her feet and fetched from his stool the pillow on which he had been sitting, the purpose of which he did not at first seem to comprehend, but then his eyes went wide with horror, for she had got the pillow in order to smother him, and that is just what she did.

When she got to her feet, her legs were trembling. Stumbling and pressing both hands together as if in prayer to subdue their shaking, she took the cube that held her husband’s picture and carefully—oh, how carefully!—turned the lever to the right. Then she began to sob. It was not the weeping of grief, but a kind of reaction and triumph, all mixed; in the middle of that eerie room she stood, and threw her head back and yelled. The light burned steadily on. In the shadows she found the fat man’s master switch, and leaning against the wall, put one finger—only one—on it and caught her breath. Would the world end? She did not know. After a few minutes’ search she found a candle and flint hidden away in a cupboard and with this she made herself a light; then, with eyes closed, with a long shudder, she leaned—no, sagged —against the switch, and stood for a long moment, expecting and believing nothing.

But the world did not end. From outside came the wind and the sound of the sea-wash (though louder now, as if some indistinct and not quite audible humming had just ended) and inside fantastic shadows leapt about the candle—the lights had gone out. Alyx began to laugh, catching her breath. She set the candle down and searched until she found a length of metal tubing that stood against the wall, and then she went from machine to machine, smashing, prying, tearing, toppling tables and breaking controls. Then she took the candle in her unsteady hand and stood over the body of the fat man, a phantasmagoric lump on the floor, badly lit at last. Her shadow loomed on the wall. She leaned over him and studied his face, that face that had made out of agony and death the most appalling trivialities. She thought:

Make the world? You hadn’t the imagination. You didn’t even make these machines; that shiny finish is for customers, not craftsmen, and controls that work by little pictures are for children. You are a child yourself, a child and a horror, and I would ten times rather be subject to your machinery than master of it.

Aloud she said:

“Never confuse the weapon and the arm,” and taking the candle, she went away and left him in the dark.

She got home at dawn and, as her man lay asleep in bed, it seemed to her that he was made out of the light of the dawn that streamed through his fingers and his hair, irradiating him with gold. She kissed him and he opened his eyes.