A Borrowed Man (11 page)

“Listen. S'pose I could get you out of here. Would you play along?”

I shook my head.

“Hey, I been nice to you, right?”

I nodded.

“I got you that san'wich you're eatin'. I gave you a few 'backs. I even got you chocolate and gave you a shot of my dog. So why not?”

“Because another library's reclones not on loan cannot be checked out. We would be violating the law. You would be prosecuted. I would probably be burned.” That last was really stretching it and might have popped into my head because of what I had told Arabella; I would sure as shit be punished somehow, though.

“'Spose I was to pull my friend on you. You know what I mean? My one-eye friend. These big pockets on this coat ain't just for show. Get me?”

“I do. But I wouldn't come. First, because I like you. If you shoot me, you'll be getting yourself into trouble. But if I were to go with you, I'd be getting you into trouble. I prefer not to do that.”

“Yeah, right. What's the second one?”

“The doors here are alarmed. I know they must be, because they're alarmed in all libraries. When someone borrows a disk, a card is inserted in the box. It gives the date on which the disk is to be returned, and it's automatically scanned as the box passes through the door. If there's no card, or the card is invalid, the alarm goes off. There is no security 'bot at some doors, but one is always nearby.”

“You ain't no disk!”

“Correct. I am a human being, even if other human beings refuse to consider me human. Still, I've got a card.” I took it out and held it up. “My card, however, is for the library in Spice Grove, whose property I am. It would not permit me to go out the door here.”

“You can put that away.”

I did.

“Want another san'wich?”

“Yes, if you don't mind.” I sipped kafe, wondering about the Swan-n-Sweetheart. Brandy or whiskey?”

“Okay. I got ham and cheese. Or chicken salad. Up to you.”

“Ham and cheese, please.”

He tossed it. “You won't come, huh? That's firm. Only maybe you would if you knew who sent me.”

I shook my head, feeling sure he would say Colette and just as sure it would be a lie.

“The tall man. You know him, right?”

“I don't believe I do.”

“Good-lookin' guy, a lot taller than me. Wears a big hat.”

I had a strong hunch, but I said, “I don't believe we've met.”

“Well, he knows you.” The blond man stood up. “So do I, now. See you 'round.”

I wanted to thank him again for my hot chocolate and the food he had bought, but he was gone before I could get the first word out.

Thinking hard, I finished my second sandwich. I did not want the third, but it seemed to me somebody might ask questions if I just walked away and left it. Two tables away, a fat girl was reading one of the broken novels some people like now. I went to her table, smiled, and offered her the remaining chicken salad sandwich. “My friend bought too many, and I don't want it. I doubt very much that they'll take it back.”

She gave me a smile a lot warmer than mine and thanked me.

Back in the reclone section, I stopped to look up at Arabella. She sat prim and silent, her face full of thoughts. A minute or two passed before I saw one hand twitch, fumbling for a pencil. Finding there wasn't any, she came to, shrugged, and returned to her silent stare into space. It would be super cool, I thought, to move that space of hers into some museum; but I had no idea how to do it.

Then I remembered something I had forgotten a hundred years ago, grinned, and finally laughed out loud.

Arabella looked down. “It's you. Am I that funny?”

I shook my head. “I am, darling. I was laughing at myself.”

“Well, there's a 'bot looking for you. I suppose they're going to send you back.”

 

8

O
N
THE
R
OUTE
T
RUCK

The back of the truck was dark and crowded. What was worse, that truck was dead set on shaking the fillings out of my teeth. Since I didn't have any, it looked like it was going to jolt all the way to Spice Grove. Of course it might decide, I decided, that the best technique was to run into a tree. Up front the driver had springs or something. Shocks, maybe. The seat beside him probably had them, too; but the books and I did not.

Someplace I ought to mention that it was about three o'clock when I got on the truck, and after seven when it stopped for dinner. The driver let me out then and locked up.

“That's where we're goin' to eat.” He pointed. “It's not too bad. I only get six creds per meal to feed you, though. You want to order for yourself, or should I do it for you? You'll get a bowl of soup and a glass of milk if I do.”

“I'd prefer to order, of course.”

“Then you got to remember six, 'cause I'm going to have to cancel if it's more than that. Six has got to cover the works. Taxes. All that shit.”

“But you have the six creds for me.”

His nod said he knew I was going to hit him with something, but he was ready for it.

“In that case I propose a better plan. I will order what I wish, and you may order what you wish. I will pay for both dinners, yours and mine. In return, you'll allow me to ride in front, as if I were fully human. You'll of course have gotten a free dinner—anything you like—and you'll be six creds to the good, plus the cost of your own meal. What do you say?”

He pursed his lips. “What about tomorrow?”

“I ride in front until we reach Spice Grove.”

“You got to sleep in the truck.”

“I will. On the front seat.”

“You pay for your own breakfast tomorrow, and mine, too. If you'll do that, it's a deal.”

“I ride in front and sleep in front for the entire trip.”

Slowly, he nodded.

It was way too cold that night in the front of the truck; so when we stopped for breakfast, I told him I was going to walk to a nearby store and buy myself a good, warm blanket. He hesitated, then said he would have to go with me. I agreed, and he did. Afterward, I paid for our breakfasts, just as we had agreed.

When we were under way again, he said, “You're not supposed to have money.”

“While you,” I told him, “aren't supposed to have as much as you do.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“If you inform on me, I will of course inform on you. But if you do not, you can rely upon my silence.”

He thought about that, too. “I won't, only they wouldn't believe you.”

“Will it profit you to make the experiment? I can be persuasive, I warn you.”

He nodded again. “We'd be smart not to talk too much about it.”

“In which case, I won't.”

“You were a writer, right? They're all writers or artists is what I hear.”

“Correct.” I waited, not knowing where he was going with this.

“Travel books, maybe?”

“No. Mysteries. Mysteries and crime novels.” A thought hit me then, so I said, “
Murder on Mars
? That was fantasy murder. Perhaps you've read that one.”

“Not me. I read travel. On my doodle, y'know? I got one of the waterproof ones, so I can read in the tub.” He laughed. “Shakes the wife outa her tree.”

We stopped at the library of some tiny town. I do not remember the name. I told him I would help carry books, but he waved me off—there were only two. Back in the truck, I said I was surprised he had made the stop for just a couple of books.

“I got to. If there's books to drop off or books to pick up, I got to. Even if it's just one. If there's nothing either way, I can skip it. Only that don't happen much.”

I said, “Couldn't they simply mail them?”

“They'd lose too many. Most books, nobody's got new copies. Either they never been scanned, or the scans are lost. You pay through the nose if you can find a copy for sale, too.”

“Couldn't they scan everything?”

He laughed. “You trying to put me out of business? Sure they could, only it would cost the world and take about a hundred years, and put them out of business, too.” Suddenly, he became serious. “Besides, if one guy could control all them scans, he'd have a lock. Pretty soon, nobody'd know anything he didn't want 'em to know. You think that one over.”

I said I would; and I darned near added that I had been underestimating him, which I had. If I could talk the way I think, I probably would have. It got me to thinking maybe he had been underestimating me, then about what makes us underestimate people. It is mostly them underestimating themselves, or anyhow that is what I finally came up with. Sure, I talked fancy. I cannot help that, but what about what I had been saying?

Pretty soon I got to thinking about Colette and her problem. There were things about it that bothered me quite a bit, and I sort of turned those over in my mind while we rode along and I looked at the scenery, which outside the ruined towns was mostly pretty good.

For one thing, she had said she was going to get her mother recloned. What about her father? He had been the financial genius, right? Alive again, he could make her a lot more money. After I had thought that over, I decided that she figured she could not control him, not even if he was a reclone and did not count. That was something to keep in mind.

Another thing was that sometimes she talked like he had been dead for a quarter before her brother died. Only other times it sounded like he was hardly cold. That second one seemed to me like it made a lot more sense. Her brother had lived right there in New Delphi, so why would he fiddle around for weeks and weeks before he got somebody to open that safe? I felt like he would get it opened as soon as he could.

Then there was the tall man. Colette seemed to think he was not such a bad guy. A nice crook? Nice crooks are only in books. I used to write the books—or anyhow the earlier me had written a bunch of them—and I knew. Real crooks are sons of bitches.

They had stripped her naked, just like me. Only they had not tortured her. She was a living doll, but they had not raped her. They hadn't even smacked her around for laughs. She would have talked about it if they had done it, and been bruised and maybe cut up; and she would probably have cried when she thought about it. Only she had not. All right, maybe—just maybe—no cuts and no crying; but she would have had bruises for sure, and I had not seen any. The more I thought about it the surer I got that there was something funny going on, but I could not even guess what it was. A lot of guys say that women are always mysteries; but it seemed to me, jouncing along in that truck and looking out at all that was left of one of the old cities where I used to live, that Colette had gone way over the limit.

Then there was the little blond guy with the pointed boots and the work smock. Sure, little guys carry big guns and big guys carry little ones. A plainclothes cop I had talked to one time when I—the first me, that is—was getting background for
Men Who Kill
had told me that, and he generally knew what he was talking about. Besides, it made sense. The big guys figured they did not really need a gun much. Guns are heavy, even if they are mostly plastic; and forty or fifty rounds cannot help being heavy. But the little guys carry a big gun and maybe two or three. They might need them.

So the work smock made some sort of sense, but why did the little guy give me so much money? If he was one of the gang, the gang made even less sense than I had thought. If he was not, what was he up to?

“Life is crazy.” Sometimes I say things out loud that I do not mean to say.

“For me, and that's for sure,” the driver told me, “but not for you.”

I am putting that in here because it shows the way they think about us. I wanted to explain to him that I was exactly the same as he was, sure I did; but I had been around long enough to know it would have me riding in the back of the truck again.

Anyway I asked about his problems instead, and he told me. So he talked about his wife as we rolled along, and how she spent all his money, and maybe she had another guy on the string while he was away driving the truck, and a whole lot of other stuff. None of it is worth telling here, and I would not do that anyway because none of it was really my business.

The next library we stopped at was different, a really big university library with gray stone wings running off in every direction and the main building covered with ivy. About half the books on the truck were either going there or coming back there. I helped unload and carry, and I was glad we did not have to shelve them, too; it would have taken a week. I was sweating, and tired, and really glad it was almost over when five 'bots wheeled in the books we would be taking away, bundles and bundles of them going to libraries all over the country. I said something about the stone of Sisyphus, and the driver wiped his face and said we would get lunch before we started on those. Then I said maybe we could get the 'bots to help.

The boss 'bot said, “We have other work, sir, but there is a reclone as well. It may be of help.”

Here I expected the driver to explain that I was a reclone myself, but he did not. I had been underestimating him again, and it made me want to kick myself. What he really said was, “We're going off now to have some lunch. We'll be back.”

“You must leave your truck here.” That was one of the other 'bots.

He nodded and turned to me. “We'll walk. It ain't far.”

It was not, and I found it was really nice to stroll though the campus to the cafeteria in the student center. The sun shone bright and a little warmer than I liked just then, but there were big trees on both sides of the paths and their shade made the whole walk a pleasure. When we got there, the driver paid for his own lunch, and I paid for mine. We did not even talk about it, that was just the way it was.