Callahan's Secret (5 page)

“About like you or I gulping a double.”

“Oh.” She relaxed slightly.

“But it is extremely out of character for Finn. The last time I saw him order ten drinks was the first night he came here, years ago.”

Many others at or near the bar knew the story; an audience was developing as Callahan reached his decision - “What’ll it be, Mickey?”

“Rye, Michael.” Just like that night.

“You want to talk about it?” Callahan asked. -“First the toast.”

Callahan nodded at that, and set to work. He builds drinks the way Baryshnikov dances. Ten shots of rye soon sat before Finn. One after another the tall alien downed them. That first night he had thrown each individual empty into the fireplace and made the same toast ten times; this time he didn’t bother. When he was done, some of the empties weren’t even touching-but he picked the last one up and the rest came with it. He walked to the chalk line, faced the hearth. By now he had our attention.

“To my people,” he said clearly and tonelessly, and flung the cluster of glasses. I hadn’t known even Finn could throw that hard: there was a violent explosion in the fireplace. It is designed like a parabolic reflector, so that it is nearly impossible to make glass spray out of it; nonetheless, that bursting should have littered the room with shards. It did not for the same reason that my clothes were dry.

“Jesus, big fella,” Long-Drink said. “What can we do?” There was a vigorous rumble of agreement on all sides.

Mickey Finn came back to Earth-an expression perhaps uniquely appropriate here-and looked around at us gravely. His composed features were at odds with the droplets running down them; I had the crazy thought that these were the raindrops that had failed to fall on him, time-shifted somehow to now. But of course it was just that Finn’s still not used to hanging human expressions on his pan, and tends to forget in times of crisis: he truly was hurting.

“My Friends,” he told us, “if I could think of anything you could do, I would surely tell you. Would surely have to1d you before now.”

“Then tell us the problem,” Tommy Janssen said. “Maybe we’ll come up with something.”

Finn tried a smile, a poor job. “I doubt it, Tommy. I have been thinking about this particular problem since I first came here, years ago, and I do not think there is a solution.”

Callahan cleared his throat, a sound like a speeding truck being thrown suddenly into reverse. “Mickey, as you know, I don’t hold with pryin’ in my joint. If you don’t feel like telling us your troubles, I’ll coldcock the first guy that asks a leading question. But I strongly recommend that you unload. Little thing you might not know, having spent so many centuries alone-out in deep space: sometimes, just naming your burden helps. But it’s up to you, pal.”

Finn thought it over. “You may be right, Michael. You always have been so far. In fact, you have stated my problem. I am alone. I have been alone for centuries. I shall always be alone, until my death comes.”

“The hell you say,” Long-Drink burst out. “Why, counting the regulars that ain’t in tonight, I make it about a hundred and fifty close friends you’ve got. You can stay at my crib anytime, for as long as you like, and the same goes for the rest of us, ain’t that right?”

There were universal shouts of agreement. Finn smiled a pained smile. “Thank you all,” he said. “You are true Mends. But your generous offer does not speak to my problem. I did not say I was lonely. I said I was alone.”

“Mickey,” Josie Bauer began silkily, “I told you once already-“

“Again, thanks,” he said, sketching a gallant bow. “But it would, forgive me, hurt more than it would help.”

“Hurt how?” she asked, not in the least offended.

“Physically, for one thing, it would hurt you. You recall the Niven story you lent me once, about Superman’s sex life?”

“Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’, sure,” she said.

“Yes,” Finn said sadly. “Orgasm involves involuntary muscle spasm-and while I am not as strong as Superman, I am much stronger than a Terran man. And you are slightly built.”

There was something peculiar about Finn’s face. The eyes, that was it. His eyes hadn’t looked like that since the first night he’d come here. Hollow, btirnt out, empty of all hope. Why hadn’t they looked like that up on the roof? Or had I just failed to notice in the dark, distracted by lust? “It would hurt me, too,” he went on. “Not physically-.-spiritually. Human females often become angry when I fry to explain this, Josie, please do not be offended, but would it not be fair to say that what you were just about to offer me was a transient sexual relationship?”

“Now, hold on a goddam-“

“I said, ‘Please’, Josie.”

“-uh… dammit, Finn, I didn’t mean a purely sexual-“

“Of course not; I do not believe myself that there is any such thing. No doubt it would have involved friendship and laughter and kindness and several other wonderful qualities for which you Terrans do not yet have words. But is not

the key word ‘transient’?”

“Well, for crying out-“

“I am wrong? You were proposing marriage?”

Josie shut very quickly up.

“Perhaps your subconscious intent was a liaison of days, or weeks, or even months. But I am sure that you were not offering to become my mate. No human ever would.”

“Christ, Mickey, don’t run yourself down. I don’t happen to be the marrying kind, but I’m sure that some nice g-“

“Look at me,” he roared suddenly, and everyone in the Place jumped a foot in the air. Deliberately, he pulled open his black sports coat, pulled open his shirt, pulled open his chest…

I tried to look away, could not. I tried to fit words around what I was seeing, could not. I tried not to be horrified, could not. A strange sound filled the room: many people sucking air through their teeth. I can’t describe it, even now: take my word for it, whatever was inside Finn’s chest, human beings aren’t supposed to see things like that. Ever.

Finn closed up his chest.

A collective sigh went up.

“I have shown you my heart,” Finn said softly. “Will you marry me?” Josie began to whimper.

“Josie, I am sorry,” he said at once, but it was too late-she was out the door and gone. He said a word then which

I’ve never heard before and hope never to hear again, something in his native tongue that hurt him worse than it did us. Josie’s a real nice lady, and Finn knew it.

Callahan cleared his throat.

“Mickey,” he rumbled, “you’re alone, we get it now. It’s a hard thing to be alone. Everyone in here has been alone, some of us are now-“

“Not as I am,” Finn stated. “Even the most unfortunate of you is less alone. Now matter how remote the chance of your fmding a mate… there is always the chance. Always you have hope, even as you despair. No human will ever pair-bond with me-and I dare not leave your planet. My Masters believe me dead; if they ever learned otherwise-“

“-they’d kill you,” Long-Drink finished.

“Worse.”

“They’d punish you.”

“Worse.”

“What’s worse?” Shorty Steinitz asked.

“They would put me back to work, unpunished. They are not like humans, who sometimes kick a machine that is not working. They would simply restore the machine to service. And, as an afterthought, they would exterminate the organisms which caused the machine to malfunction.”

“Us, you mean,” Callahan said.

“Yes.”

Mary and Callahan exchanged a look I didn’t understand.

“There’s no chance you could sneak back to your home planet without these Master clowns catching on?” she asked Finn.

“None whatsoever,” Finn said expressionlessly. “To begin with, my home planet no longer exists. It has not existed

for several centuries, and I am the last of my people.” Mary winced. “What happened?”

“The Masters found us.”

“Jesus-and killed everybody but you.”

“They killed everybody including me. But the Masters are a prudent and tidy race; they always keep file copies of what they destroy, each etched on a molecule of its own. Like all..of my people, I was slain, and reduced to a single encoded molecule. Some time after my death they felt need of a new scout, fashioned this body, and caused to be decanted into it a large fraction of my former awareness-withholding the parts that did not suit them, of course.”

Mary gasped; she was horrified. “God, you must hate them.”

Finn’s voice was bleak. “I wish greatly that I had the ability. That is one of the parts that did not suit them.”

I was as horrified as Mary. As a rule, Finn is disinclined to talk about his past, and of course none of us had ever tried to pry. I’d always wondered how he’d gotten into his former profession. Now I was sorry I knew.

(Still, I was tempted to ask him the other thing that had always puzzled me: why the body he wore looked human. Was human stock ubiquitous through the Galaxy? Had his Masters designed him specifically to come here? Or did he somehow reform his body for each new planet, each new culture? I knew that at least half his body was organic-but did that half have anything in -common-with the body he had been born into?

Perhaps the answer was equally horrifying. In any case, my Mend Finn was in pain: This was no time to be snoopy.)

“Mickey,” Mary said softly, “if you are unable to hate your Masters… then you are unable to love them. Yes? That’s why you were able to betray them.”

“Yes. They do not wish to be loved. They would find the idea disgusting. Love baffles and repels them, they stamp it out wherever they find it in the Galaxy. The Masters are motivated by selfinterest.”

“So are most humans,” Mary said.

Finn actually laughed. “Excuse me, Mary my new freind, but what you said is funny. All humans-without exception-want to love. No organic or emotional or psychological damage can remove that need. Humans can survive, albeit in pain, without being loved-but lock a man in a dungeon and he will find an ant to love, or try. The sociopath, who feels no emotions, wishes he could, and is driven mad by his inability. Love is the condition in which the happiness and welfare of another are essential to your own.

To any rational selfish mind, this is insanity. To a Master it would be obscenity: perhaps the corresponding horror for a human being would be ego-death.”

“Love is ego-death,” Mary whispered.

“The Masters have run across love from time to time in their expansion through the Galaxy. They’re not at all afraid that it might infect them, nor do I believe that to be a possibility, but they always exterminate it with a special pleasure, afrisson of horror, a small thrill of disgust.” Finn closed his eyes briefly. “It was the flaw for which my race

died.”

The Place was silent. Mary’s fingers were digging painfully into my arm, and I couldn’t protest because I was gripping her ann just as hard. Why was she glaring at Callahan?

“When first we encountered the Masters, we considered the problem they represented and evolved two possible solutions. One involved their complete annihilation, root, stock, and branch; the other was more risky. We loved Life, and especially Sentience, and they were sentient. We took the risk and were destroyed. Perhaps it was the wrong choice.

“In any case, I am nearly all that remains of my race, and so I am disinclined to die. I can neither love nor hate my Masters, but I can fear them and do.”

“It must have been hard for you to quit them,” Mary said.

“Yes, but not because of the fear. That came later. It was hard because I am only partly organic. I contain installations, which were programmed by the Masters. Betrayal was almost a physical impossibility for me: I was counterprogrammed. With an effort that burned out smaH components and may have taken a century off my lifespan, I was barely able to hint at how my programming might be circumvented-and these my Mends were able to interpret my hints and act on them.”

“Aren’t your… Mick, I’m sorry, I just can’t use that word~, Aren’t the Cockroaches likely to notice you’re gone and come looking for you?”

“No, Mary. The Galaxy is a big dark place, and the… Cockroaches, being rational, are cautious. if a scout fails to report in, the area he was exploring is left alone. My defensive systems are mighty; it would take a pow&ful enemy to destroy me without my consent.”

Callahan set up ,another five shots. “Finn,” he asked, “tell me if it’s none o’ my business, but is it possible for you to suicide?”

“No, Michael. Or I would have done so, before I ever caine to your tavern that first night.” He downed two of the shots. “But, as with my loyalty to the Cockroaches… thank you for that name, Mary…~ my will to live can be tampered with slightly. I could not suicide-but given the right conditions and a strong enough motivation, I could cooperate in my assassination.” He finished the remaining shots. “You will recall that on that first night here, I begged you all to kill me.”

“No, Mickey,” Callahan said softly. “I don’t recall that.” He trod his cigar underfoot and lit a new one. “I don’t ever plan to, either. One more personal question?”

“Of course, Michael.”

It was a tencent cigar or worse, but Mike took his time getting it lit. properly. “You said, ‘strong enough motivation.” Puff. “Tell me, buddy…” Puff. “… is loneliness a strong enough motivation?”

Not a chair creaked; not a sleeve rustled; not a glass clinked. The fire seemed to quiet in the hearth; the rain seemed to have stopped. Somewhere in there Mary and I had lost our grip on each other’s arm; I wanted to get mine

back, but something told me to stay still.

Finn sighed finally, and put ten more singles on the bartop. Callahan handed him a fresh fifth, and while he was drinking off the top quarter of it, Callahan said quickly and quietly, “Mickey, once upon a time you had a problem you couldn’t solve, and dying looked like the only way out. But you kept on looking for another way out, and in the proverbial nick of time you found one.”

Finn wiped his mouth with his long forearm. “Michael, I have been looking for a solution to this problem for a long time. All the time I have been on Earth. I think very quickly. In the same amount of time I could have deduced this solar system from one of your cigar stubs.”