Across the Spectrum (49 page)

“I know that,” the boy said, impatiently. I’m sure he did.
Action movies haven’t gone out of style. They don’t bother much with fancy
special effects these days—they cost too much—they just have more killings,
more gore.

“Of course, Aikido was just a hobby for me. I got to play at
being a samurai. It relaxed me from the real world of stocks and bonds.”

The boy didn’t really want to hear me reminisce, but when
you drink another man’s whisky, you’re obligated to do some listening. He
chugged the rest of his glass of so-called Scotch, and stared expectantly at
the bottle.

I poured him another drink.

“The ‘real world.’ Now we define the ‘real world’ as doing
whatever you have to. But things will change again. The economy will come back,
and then survival will depend on knowing something about legit business.”

The boy giggled. “You want to take me on as a student, teach
me something about business, old man?”

“Maybe.” My answer surprised me. Something about this kid
appealed to me, who knows why? I did want to teach him something.

“About stocks and bonds and all that crap?”

“More about survival,” I said.

“Oh, right. You took a little martial arts once, you think
you know better than me how to get by. I live on the street, mister. I grew up
there. I know all about surviving.”

“And when things change? When survival’s about more than
pointing a gun at somebody and taking what he’s got?”

“I’m a street warrior, pop. There’s always going to be a
place for warriors.”

“You’re no warrior. You don’t know the first thing about
being a warrior. You’re just another punk who thinks he’s tough. All your ideas
come from gang leaders, bad movies, and video games like Street Fighter VIII.”

He jumped to his feet. “Nobody talks to me like that.”

“Shut up and sit down.”

He surprised both of us by obeying.

“Real warriors don’t kill anyone unless they have to,” I
said. “Not like you punks that kill people just for fun.” I could tell by the
look he gave me that it sounded hokey to him, but I plowed on anyway. “Take
Enya Sensei now. She knew a fair amount about guns, did some target shooting,
could use both handguns and rifles. But she didn’t think going around with a
gun strapped to your waist made you a warrior.

“She told me one time, ‘You depend on guns too much. There’s
going to be a time when you’re relying on one, and it won’t be the right
weapon.’

“I said, ‘Guns are the weapon of our time. I love Aikido,
but for self defense, guns are the answer.’

“She gave me kind of a sad look then. ‘Guns are just another
tool, and ultimately no tool is ever the answer.’”

I hesitated a moment. “You know, Enya Sensei didn’t actually
give advice very often. I should have paid more attention when she did.”

“What do you mean? That kind of firepower gives you real
respect out there. Everybody wants a gun like that Uzi.”

“The more fools they. Enya Sensei had it right. Firepower
won’t keep you alive out there.”

He clearly didn’t believe any of this, but I’d made him
curious. “What does, then?”

“What you do. How you act. The way you carry yourself. Being
willing to die, but not giving up. And timing. Timing is critical.”

“That the kind of bullshit your Sensei taught?”

I ignored the insult. “Yeah, that and one other thing:
change when the situation changes.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Take me. Ten years ago I lived in a penthouse over on
Seventh Street—right in the heart of the happening art district. I dated
beautiful women, ate in the best restaurants, had my suits tailor-made.

“Then the crash came, and everything changed. But I didn’t
want to change with it. I’d invested most of my money in the market, but I had
a little in bank accounts. Instead of cutting my losses, abandoning the rich
man lifestyle, I threw good money after bad, trying to get back on top. And
ended up in a cardboard box on a steam grate three blocks from the White
House.”

He reached over for the whisky, poured another healthy shot.
I didn’t know how he could chug the stuff; I still nursed my original glass.

“I didn’t adapt, didn’t change with the times, don’t you
see?” I said. “Being on the streets after years in the penthouse really threw
my timing. Money had defined my whole life, both making it and spending it.
Once I didn’t have any, I didn’t know how to act.

“That Uzi was the only thing I had. I clung to it like a
toddler to his blankie. I treated it like an amulet of good luck, like garlic
and a silver cross for warding off vampires. And I did a few other things with
it.

“I’m not going to tell you everything. A man’s entitled to
keep some of his ugly truth to himself. I will tell you this: if you get
desperate enough, you’ll end up doing things you hate yourself for.”

“Yeah.” He scrunched his face up, like he had a picture in
his mind he preferred not to see.

I wondered what he had done to survive. I didn’t ask. “So I
found myself on the street, and I still didn’t change. Kept trying to act the
big shot, which didn’t work very well. I ran scared most of the time, terrified
somebody might kill me, terrified I’d have to keep living like a bum.

“One night I found myself in this alley, surrounded by these
young punks—dudes about your age. One guy—he had a machete—sniggered when I
pointed the Uzi at him. It scared me. Even if I didn’t impress him, the gun
should have. ‘Bet you ain’t got no bullets in that thing,’ he said.

“I didn’t, of course. After the crash, ammo disappeared even
faster than food. I’d been out for a month. I was shaking so bad he could
probably see the gun jiggle. I stared at the rusty machete and thought about
begging. I’d have given them anything they wanted, if I’d had anything they
wanted.”

The kid nodded. He knew that kind of fear.

“But I didn’t. I didn’t have a damn thing. I knew I was
dead. And somehow, that freed me from the fear. A little voice whispered in my
head, said ‘Man, if you’re going to die anyway, what have you got to lose?’

“Machete guy gave this evil grin, and pulled the machete up
like a sword. He cut straight down at my head. And at the right moment, I moved
a little to the side and toward him and slammed him in the solar plexus with
the butt of the Uzi. He stumbled. I made a little turn, grabbed the hilt of the
machete, and threw him into a brick wall. He slumped to the ground, lay there.
Now I had the machete. I shoved the gun into my waistband, looked at the
others.

“The second guy—the one with a knife—just stood there,
looking scared, but the third one came running at me swinging a two-by-four at
my head. And I just stepped off the line again. Only since I had the machete, I
sliced him across the abdomen when I did it. He screamed, dropped the board,
and grabbed his stomach, tried to hold himself together.

“Man, the punk with the knife scaled a fence in nothing
flat. I backed out of the alley, left the two of them there. I don’t know if
they lived or not.”

The kid had straightened up in the chair while I told the
story. He set his glass on the table, and didn’t pour another drink. He tried
to look tough, but I could almost smell his fear.

“You’ve got a lot more style than those punks. More sense,
too. You know how to adapt. You spent the evening staking me out, but when I
invited you in, you came in, shared a bottle with an old man. Figured to soften
me up before you pulled that knife out from under your shirt.”

His hand went to it immediately—a reflex. He stared at me
wide-eyed.

“What, you didn’t think I noticed it? I saw it when we first
met. I’d be willing to bet you know a few tricks with it, too.”

He hesitated. His hand held the knife hilt, but he didn’t
pull it out. His eyes cut toward the door, back at me.

“Go ahead, son, make your move. You got to have a lot of
quick on me. I’m probably old enough to be your granddaddy. It ought to be
worth the risk. I get good heat in this basement, and winter’s not far off. And
you could end up with the gun. It’s a nice gun.”

He looked like a cat caught in a corner by a dog. Half of
him wanted to run; the other half wondered what would happen if he swiped his
claws across my nose, and jumped up on my back.

“Just don’t forget you’re taking a risk. I might have found
some ammo for the Uzi. And even if I haven’t, I’m willing to bet my life I can
take that knife away from you.”

He vaulted out of the chair sideways, toward the door, away
from me. Got there in about two seconds, then wasted fifteen or twenty trying
to get all the locks undone. If I’d wanted to shoot him, I’d have had all the
time in the world.

But I didn’t want to shoot him. I said, “Sure you have to be
going? All right, then. Come back another time.”

Maybe he would. Maybe after a couple of days he’d tell
himself he was nuts to be scared of an old guy like me, and he’d come back to
kill me.

Or maybe he’d come back to listen.

The characters in “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” came back to
me and insisted on my continuing their story, in the novel
Dreamsnake.
Terry Carr rejected the story for
Universe
before I ever sent it to him. He had
seen an early draft at Clarion West 1972 and asked to see it when it was
finished, but changed his mind. Then he reprinted it in
Best of the Year.
Go figger. This story won the Nebula Award and
was nominated for the Hugo.

∞ ∞ ∞

The little boy was frightened. Gently, Snake touched his
hot forehead. Behind her, three adults stood close together, watching,
suspicious, afraid to show their concern with more than narrow lines around
their eyes. They feared Snake as much as they feared their only child’s death.
In the dimness of the tent, the strange blue glow of the lantern gave no
reassurance.

The child watched with eyes so dark the pupils were not
visible, so dull that Snake herself feared for his life. She stroked his hair.
It was long, and very pale, dry and irregular for several inches near the
scalp, a striking color against his dark skin. Had Snake been with these people
months ago, she would have known the child was growing ill.

“Bring my case, please,” Snake said.

The child’s parents started at her soft voice. Perhaps they
had expected the screech of a bright jay, or the hissing of a shining serpent.
This was the first time Snake had spoken in their presence. She had only
watched, when the three of them had come to observe her from a distance and
whisper about her occupation and her youth; she had only listened, and then
nodded, when finally they came to ask her help. Perhaps they had thought she
was mute.

The fair-haired younger man lifted her leather case. He held
the satchel away from his body, leaning to hand it to her, breathing shallowly
with nostrils flared against the faint smell of musk in the dry desert air.
Snake had almost accustomed herself to the kind of uneasiness he showed; she
had already seen it often.

When Snake reached out, the young man jerked back and
dropped the case. Snake lunged and barely caught it, gently set it on the felt
floor, and glanced at him with reproach. His partners came forward and touched
him to ease his fear. “He was bitten once,” the dark and handsome woman said.
“He almost died.” Her tone was not of apology, but of justification.

“I’m sorry,” the younger man said. “It’s—” He gestured
toward her; he was trembling, but trying visibly to control himself. Snake
glanced to her shoulder, where she had been unconsciously aware of the slight
weight and movement. A tiny serpent, thin as the finger of a baby, slid himself
around her neck to show his narrow head below her short black curls. He probed
the air with his trident tongue, in a leisurely manner, out, up and down, in,
to savor the taste of the smells. “It’s only Grass,” Snake said. “He can’t hurt
you.” If he were bigger, he might be frightening: his color was pale green, but
the scales around his mouth were red, as if he had just feasted as a mammal
eats, by tearing. He was, in fact, much neater.

The child whimpered. He cut off the sound of pain; perhaps
he had been told that Snake, too, would be offended by crying. She only felt
sorry that his people refused themselves such a simple way of easing fear. She
turned from the adults, regretting their terror of her but unwilling to spend
the time it would take to persuade them to trust her. “It’s all right,” she
said to the little boy. “Grass is smooth, and dry, and soft, and if I left him
to guard you, even death could not reach your bedside.” Grass poured himself
into her narrow, dirty hand, and she extended him toward the child. “Gently.”
He reached out and touched the sleek scales with one fingertip. Snake could
sense the effort of even such a simple motion, yet the boy almost smiled.

“What are you called?”

He looked quickly toward his parents, and finally they
nodded.

“Stavin,” he whispered. He had no breath or strength for
speaking.

“I am Snake, Stavin, and in a little while, in the morning,
I must hurt you. You may feel a quick pain, and your body will ache for several
days, but you’ll be better afterward.”

He stared at her solemnly. Snake saw that though he
understood and feared what she might do, he was less afraid than if she had
lied to him. The pain must have increased greatly as his illness became more
apparent, but it seemed that others had only reassured him, and hoped the
disease would disappear or kill him quickly.

Snake put Grass on the boy’s pillow and pulled her case
nearer. The adults still could only fear her; they had had neither time nor
reason to discover any trust. The woman of the partnership was old enough that
they might never have another child unless they partnered again, and Snake
could tell by their eyes, their covert touching, their concern, that they loved
this one very much. They must, to come to Snake in this country.