Alternate Realities (58 page)

Most of the workers of other sorts were discharged with their bonuses, only a few kept for the labor of clearing away the dust and the fragments. It was work for the skilled apprentices now.

For weeks the dome remained dark except for the lights which shone inside it. And then the perforations of the innermost shell revealed the lacery which had been made by apprentices burrowing wormlike between the second and outermost shells, and light began to break upon the interior, flowing moment by moment in teardrops and shafts across the pavings and the curtain-pillars and upon the walls of the shells ... and upon the central pillar, where the stonework became the uplifted countenance of Waden Jenks, which became first calm and then, as the hours passed and the light angles changed, shifted.

Watchers came. Citizens passed time watching and from time to time invisibles strayed through ... few, and tolerable, a momentary chill, like the passing of a cloud; at times Herrin truly failed to notice, rapt at his work, until the shadow of a robe swept by. It was inconsequential. He paid far more attention to the shadowing of a brow, to the small indentation at the corner of the mouth, to the detailed modeling of illusory hair which swept to join the design itself. He worked and sometimes after work must straighten with caution, as if his bones had assumed permanently the position his muscles had held for hours, ignoring pain, ignoring warmth and cold, until sometimes one of the apprentices had to help him from the position in which he had frozen himself.

“It’s beautiful,” one said, who was steadying him on his feet, on the platform. Gentle hands, careful of him. “It’s
beautiful
, sir.”

He laughed softly, because it was the only word that would came to the man’s tongue;
beautiful
was only one aspect of it. But he was pleased by the praise. He got down from the platform, which was a man’s height from the ground, was steadied by another apprentice who waited below, with a group of others, and there was a pause among the workers, a small space of silence.

It struck him that this had been going on, that at times they did pause when he walked through, or when he was in difficulty, or when he began work or when he stopped.

“What are you doing?” he asked roughly. “Back to work.” His back hurt still; he managed to straighten, and heads turned. He looked back and met the faces of the apprentices who had been helping him, eyes anxious and unflinching from his outburst. He shook off their further assistance and walked on, flexed aching hands and turned to look back at the Work, which was bathed in the play of light from the tri-level perforations of the dome.

He took in his own breath, held for the moment in contemplation.

Not finished yet. The central work was not finished. The outer shells were all but complete. Apprentice after apprentice had been sent off. Perhaps, he thought, he should acknowledge those departures, offer some tribute; he realized he was himself the object of a second silence, all the heads which had formerly turned to feign work turned back again.

“Good,” he said simply, and turned and walked away.

It took him at least through dinner each night to get the knots out of his muscles. It was not just the hands and back; every joint in his body stiffened, every muscle, from the greater which held his arm steady to the tiny one of a toe which had been balancing him, rigidly, his whole body a brace for his hand which held the cutter, for hour after hour, without interruption. He had given up on lunch; often omitted breakfast because once awake he had not the patience to divert himself to eat; dinner was all there was left, and he had his plate of stew at Fellows’ Hall, and a second and a drink which helped ease his aches and relax his muscles ... not too much any longer. It had occurred to him that such a regime might ultimately affect his coordination and his health; he attempted moderation. He sat in Fellows’ Hall at dinnertime, in Student’s Black well dusted with white marble dust, and swallowed savory food which he did not fully taste because his mind was elsewhere, and drank cold beer which was more relief because of the temperature than because he tasted it. He saw little of where he was, perceived instead the dusting of marble, the cutting of the beam, the image itself, as if it were indelibly impressed on his retinas, persisting even here. He walked back to the Residency and without noticing the desk and the night guard on duty there, walked to his room and stripped off the dusty Black to bathe in hot water, to soak the aches out, to wrap himself in his robe against the chill and look a last time out the window. He gazed on the night-floods and the dome far beyond the tall hedge of Port Street, the lighted dome resting there as the bright heart of Kierkegaard. This he did always before going to bed ... no reason, except that his thoughts went in that direction, and it was more real to him than the room was; more real than the Residency, than any other thing about him. He looked to know, to set his world in order, because it
was
there, and seeing it made the day worth the pain.

He looked his fill, and started for the bed, with his eyes and his mind full of the Work, seeing nothing about him, his thoughts occupied wholly with the alteration which he had to make tomorrow, which could only be made when the sun passed a certain mark, and he had to
see
in advance, and do the cutting then.

There was a knock at the door.

It took him a moment, to blink, to accept the intrusion. Waden. No one else ever disturbed him here. He knew no one else in the Residency ... and in fact, no one else in the city ever called on him.

“Waden?” he invited the caller without even going that way; and the door opened.

It was, of course. Waden walked in, casual-suited, in the Student’s Black he affected at some hours and on some days. “Sorry. Ill?”

“Tired.” Herrin sat down in one of the chairs, reached to the convenient table to pour wine from a decanter, two glasses. Waden took his and sat down. “Social call?” Herrin asked, constrained to observe amenities.

“I haven’t seen you in two weeks.”

Herrin blinked, sipped, sat holding the glass. “That long?”

“I see ...” Waden made a loose gesture toward the nighted window. “
That
. From my office upstairs. I get reports.”

Games. Herrin refused to ask, to plead for reaction, which Waden would surely like, that being the old game between them. He simply raised his glass and took another slow sip.

“They talk,” Waden said, “as if you’re really doing something special out there.”

“I am.”

Waden smiled, “And on budget. Amazing.”

“I told you what we’d need.”

“I could wish for equal efficiency elsewhere ... Am I keeping you from ... someone?”

“No.” Herrin almost laughed. “I’m afraid I’m quite dull lately. Preoccupied.”

“Not seeing Keye?”

He shook his head ‘

“What, a falling out?”

“No time.” He had not, in fact, realized that he had not seen Keye in the better part of two months. He had simply postponed events. Waden, Keye, whatever had been important before ... waited. He was amazed, too, to realize that so much time elapsed, like someone disturbed from a long sleep. “I’m afraid I haven’t been social at all. To try to hold the details in my memory ... you understand ... it shuts out everything else.”

“Details.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand. Your art is different, First Citizen.”

“ ‘Not creative.’ I recall your judgment. I am capable of such concentration; I currently have nothing that demands it; the limits of Freedom do not exercise me.”

Herrin raised a quizzical brow, drained his glass, added more. “I heard a shuttle land last week.”

“Two weeks ago,” Waden laughed, and chuckled. “You
are
enveloped, Artist. Are you really that far from consciousness? A shuttle, a considerable volume of trade, a fair deal of traffic on Port Street, and none of this reached you.”

“It made no shortage of anything
I
needed.”

“You
are
master of your reality,” Waden mocked him. “And it’s all made of stone.”

“No,” Herrin said softly, “
your
reality, First Citizen. You are my obsession.”

“An interesting fancy.”

“
Should
I have noticed?”

“What, the shuttle?”

“
Should
it have been of interest to me?”

Waden smiled and refilled his own glass. “A man who forgets his personal affairs would hardly think it of interest, no. It was a military landing, Artist. There’s a campaign on. They were interested in
Singularity’s
itinerary. I’ve opened negotiations with them. I happen to have years of McWilliams’s past records, cargo, statistics on all the pirates. The military is very interested. But that’s very far from you, isn’t it?”

“What negotiations?” he was genuinely perplexed. Waden had come here for a reason, bursting with something pent up. He drew a deep breath and looked Waden in the eyes. “Let me venture a guess. Your ministers and your departments are beyond their depth and you have no confidence in them. This is no casual call.”

“Your intelligence surpasses theirs.”

“Of course it does; it surpasses
yours
, but of course you have no intention of admitting it. What have you gotten yourself into?”

For a moment there was a baleful look in Waden’s brown eyes, and then humor. “Indulge your fancies. They’re of no consequence. You’re only moderately wrong, my Dionysus: rationality is always superior to impulsive acts, even creative ones. But no, I don’t want your advice; I don’t need it.”

“What do you need?”

Waden laughed. “Nothing, of course. But possibly what I’ve always needed, a little less solitude. Already you relieve my mind. I’ve shaken the world, Artist, and you’ve not even felt the tremors; what marvelous concentration you have.”

“Have you taken sides?”

“Ah. To the point and dead on. Negotiations: Freedom will always be commercially poor so long as it relies on piratical commerce. And I am too great for this world.”

“What have you done?”

“What would you do, as Waden Jenks?”

“Build this world. You’re about to swallow too much, First Citizen. Digest what you have already; what more do you need, what—?” He lifted a hand toward the roof and the unseen stars. “What is
that
? Distances that will add to the vacancy you already govern. Hesse is still uncolonized. Half this world is vacant. What need of more so soon? Your ambition is for
size.
And you will swallow until you burst.”

Waden Jenks tended to laugh at his advice, to take it in humor. There was no humor in Waden now.

“I will jar your Reality, Artist. Come with me. Come. Let me show you figures.”

Herrin sucked in his breath, vexed and bothered and inwardly disturbed already; arguments with Waden were not, at this stage, productive of anything good. “My Reality is what I’m doing out there, First Citizen. Don’t interfere with my work. I have no time to be bothered with trivialities.”

Waden’s eyes grew darker, amazed, and then he burst out laughing. “With trivialities! O my Dionysus, I love you. There’s all a universe out there. There’s scale against which all your ambition is nothing; there are places you’ll never reach, peoples who’ll never hear of you and never care, and you’re
nothing
. But you shut that out, no different from the citizen who sweeps the streets, who has all the Reality he can handle.”

“No. You’ll give it all to me. That’s what you’re for. You asked me what
I
would do. I’d build up this world and attract the commerce you say we have to have. You’re looking for a quick means, because Waden Jenks has no duration, only breadth. You’ll devour everything you can, First Citizen, and those same people beyond your reach will always gall you; but not me. Because someday ... at some time however far away ... someone who’s known
my
work will get out there, and carry my reputation there, and in
time
, in time, First Citizen—when we’re both gone—I’ll get there. My way.”

“Will you?” Waden’s grin looked frozen for the moment, and Herrin, wine-warmed, felt a little impulse of caution. “A little time
giving
orders has improved your confidence, hasn’t it? I neglect to mention your program would simply build an economy the pirates would delight to plunder. We have
one
commodity now which we have to sell: the pirates themselves, which will buy us what will save us great expense. But I did invite comment. Plan as you choose. You’ve taught me something?”

“What, l?”

“That duration itself is worth the risk; and that’s my choice as well, Artist. By what I do ... neither Freedom nor other worlds will go unshaken.

“Whom have you dealt with?”

“The trade ... we can’t get from merchants. But there’s more than one way to get it, isn’t there? The military wants a base in this sector; wants to build a station, to do for us what would take us generations. So I give them our cooperation. And Camden McWilliams ceases to annoy us.”

“You’ve cut us off from the only commerce we get,” Herrin exclaimed. “They’ll desert you, this foreign military. They’ll leave you once they’ve got what they want. They’ll
change
things here, impose their own reality, never mind yours.

Waden shook his head.

“You’re confident,” Herrin said. “Do you really think you can handle them? It’s
wide
, Waden.”

“Does it daunt
you?
You talk about posterities. Does that length of time daunt you? And does it occur to you that what I do cannot be without effect in duration as well as breadth?”

“It occurs to me,” he admitted.

“You never fail me,” Waden said. “Whenever I’m in the least perplexed, you’re the best reflection of my thoughts. My unfailing mirror. Arguing with you is like arguing with myself.”

“You no longer have to flatter, First Citizen. Do you merely flex your unpracticed talents?”