Bob Shaw - Who Goes Here?

Peace struggled to his feet, clutching his side, and swore at the departing bus. When its lights had finally vanished into the night, he looked down at himself and was aghast to see that his jacket and hose, immaculate only a short time earlier, were oil-stained and torn. He giggled hysterically for a moment, then clapped a hand over his mouth.

“I’m not going to let this thing throw me,” he announced to the lonely expanse of moonlit snow all round. “I am the master of my own destiny.” Taking stock of his physical condition, he found he could still walk although, in addition to a contused jaw, he now sported a throbbing lump on the back of his head and at every breath was experiencing a sharp pain which suggested one or more broken ribs. Travelling by public transport no longer seemed a good idea, in view of his appearance, but he had enough money to go by taxi to Porterburg and find a discreet hotel. After a shower and a night’s recuperation, he told himself, he would be almost as good as new. The first essential was to find a telephone, and from there on everything would be straightforward. Drawing the tatters of his jacket closer around himself, Peace once again set out for the nearby community, which—in spite of its geographical proximity— was beginning to seem as distant and unattainable as Shangri La.

Twenty minutes later he passed a sign which read, “HARTLEYVILLE—Pop. 347”, and limped down the single main street in search of a telephone kiosk.

Although it was early in the evening the street seemed deserted, and consequently he felt a pang of irritation on reaching a phone box to find that not only was it in use, but that there was another prospective caller waiting to get in. Reminding himself of the need to be philosophical in the face of such minor annoyances, Peace took his place in line and hoped his condition would not attract any comment. He need not have worried on that score, because the red-haired man in front—hardly sparing him a glance—was devoting all his attention to hammering on the door with his fist and shouting abuse at the man inside. It appeared he had been kept waiting for some time and, lacking Peace’s hard-won stoicism, was nearing a state of apoplexy. He kept darting from one window to another, making gestures of frustration and rage, but the dimly-seen caller within foiled him each time by turning away, as users of call boxes have done since time immemorial.

Peace watched the little drama with Olympian amusement, pondering on the pettiness of the troubles which some mortals allowed to disrupt their serenity. He was beginning to wish he could drop a hint about what real misfortune was like when the red-haired man uttered a climatic burst of obscenities,” scurried across the street and disappeared between two buildings. Less than a minute later the man in the box finished his call, came out, nodded to Peace and faded away into the night, leaving him free to make use of the telephone.

Patience does it every time, Peace thought smugly, stepping into the box. He had just begun to conjure up information about taxi services on the illuminated directory display when the door was yanked open behind him. A rough hand dragged him out into the open and he found himself gazing up into the flinty countenance of a very large and cold-eyed policeman. The red-haired man had returned to the scene with the policeman and was hopping up and down in the background.

“That’s him!” he said vindictively. “Twenty minutes he kept me waiting out here in the cold.

Run him in, Cyril, run him in!”

“Do me a favour, Reuben,” the cop replied. “Don’t try to teach me the job, huh?”

“But twenty minutes, Cyril! Everybody knows you’re only allowed three minutes in a public call box.”

“Pardon me, officer, but this is all a mistake,” Peace said, his heart sinking. “I’ve only been here a minute and…”

“Liar!” Reuben screamed. “He’s trying to con you, Cyril. He thinks you’re a dumb hick cop.”

“Is that a fact?” The policeman gave Peace a stare in which the hostility was augmented by dawning suspicion. “How did you get all messed up like that? What’s your name, mister, and where are you from?”

“Me?” Peace spoke with the calmness of desperation. “I’m from nowhere.”

Summoning reserves of strength whose existence he had not suspected, he gave the policeman a violent shove in the chest. The big man, taken unawares, lost his footing on the packed snow and fell on his back with an appalling crash of harness and equipment. Peace leapt over him and fled into one of the alleys which had begun to feature so prominently in his affairs, running so swiftly that he felt at one with the night wind, scarcely aware of his feet touching the frozen ground.

A stabbing pain in the side of his chest brought him to a standstill in a very short time, the effortless dream-flight at an end. He looked all around in the darkness. He could see nothing but moon-silvered trees and flat snowscape beyond, and there were no sounds of pursuit.

Sitting down on a convenient tree stump, he waited for his mind to catch up with his body.

Though it appeared he was safe for the minute, he found it chastening to reflect that within half an hour of setting foot on Earth he had contrived to injure himself, ruin his new clothes, and get into fresh trouble with the law.

There’s no doubt about it, he thought, adding to his little store of self-knowledge. I’m quite definitely accident prone.

The revelation prompted him to make a tough reappraisal of his plans. As his breathing gradually returned to normal there came the conviction that his only hope of keeping the morning appointment lay in getting to Porterburg alone and unaided— which meant he would have to walk all night. The prospect was a daunting one, especially as the air was growing noticeably colder by the minute, but all other options had retreated or vanished.

Aching from head to toe, already beginning to shiver, Peace lurched to his feet and began the dismal forty-kilometre trek he hoped would end at the crossroads of the past, present and future. His bout of philosophizing while waiting for the telephone already seemed pathetic, but he made a last effort to locate at lease one positive aspect of the situation, to find a nugget of hope which would sustain him through the night. At first the task seemed quite impossible—then his thoughts focused on the single, glittering achievement of the day.

“Thank God,” he said fervently, hobbling through the snow, “I managed to shake off those damned Oscars.”

His month in the Space Legion had familiarized Peace with hardship and discomfort, but in retrospect—by the time he reached Porterburg— it seemed a halcyon period of comradeship, laughter and warmth.

He inched through the city in the steely light of dawn, trying not to draw attention to himself, but at intervals was overtaken by trembling fits so violent that his torn clothing flapped audibly, giving him something of the demeanor of a drug-crazed Haitian dancer. Most of the early morning pedestrians hurried by with averted eyes, but a few were stung to compassion and approached him with offers of money or help. Where possible he quickly sent them on their way with hoarse assurances of his well-being, but two persistent cases had to be frightened off by deliberately going into the voodoo routine with extra conviction. This was strangely easy to do, and before long he was forced to accept the idea that he could be suffering from pneumonia.

Death itself had begun to seem quite an attractive prospect, but the idea of it occurring before he had completed his mission filled him with alarm. Coaxing his limbs to make greater efforts, he speeded up his progress and eventually reached the quarter of the city wherein lay the headquarters of the Space Legion’s 203 Regiment. He turned into a mean and rather narrow street and saw before him a large redbrick building, reminiscent of a brewery, which bore a sign proclaiming it to be Fort Eccles. The structure in no way resembled Peace’s conception of a Legion establishment, but he had passed the stage of caring about such anomalies. He went along the side of the building, inspecting various doors until he reached one which had a plaque identifying it as the entrance to the recruiting office.