Citizen of the Galaxy (4 page)

“Yes, Pop. Oh, I never will, Pop!”

“I hope not. Go to bed.”

Baslim lay awake, worrying, wondering if he had been too harsh. But, confound it, it was a harsh world; he had to teach the kid to live in it

He heard a sound like a rodent gnawing; he held still and listened. Presently he heard the boy get up quietly and go to the table; there followed a muted jingle of coins being placed on wood and he heard the boy return to his pallet.

When the boy started to snore he was able to drop off to sleep himself.

Baslim had long since taught Thorby to read and write Sargonese and Interlingua, encouraging him with cuffs and other inducements since Thorby's interest in matters intellectual approached zero. But the incident involving Ziggie and the realization that Thorby was growing up reminded Baslim that time did not stand still, not with kids.

Thorby was never able to place the time when he realized that Pop was not exactly (or not entirely) a beggar. The extremely rigorous instruction he now received, expedited by such unlikely aids as a recorder, a projector, and a sleep instructor, would have told him, but by then nothing Pop could do or say surprised him -- Pop knew everything and could manage anything. Thorby had acquired enough knowledge of other beggars to see discrepancies; he was not troubled by them -- Pop was Pop, like the sun and the rain.

They never mentioned outside their home anything that happened inside, nor even where it was; no guest was ever there. Thorby acquired friends and Baslim had dozens or even hundreds and seemed to know the whole city by sight. No one but Thorby had access to Baslim's hideaway. But Thorby was aware that Pop had activities unconnected with begging. One night they went to sleep as usual; Thorby awakened about dawn to hear someone stirring and called out sleepily, “Pop?”

“Yes. Go back to sleep.”

Instead the boy got up and switched on the glow plates. He knew it was hard for Baslim to get around in the dark without his leg; if Pop wanted a drink of water or anything, he'd fetch it. “You all right, Pop?” he asked, turning away from the switch.

Then he gasped in utter shock. This was a stranger, a gentleman!

“It's all right, Thorby,” the stranger said with Pop's voice. Take it easy, son.”

“Pop?”

“Yes, son. I'm sorry I startled you -- I should have changed before I came back. Events pushed me.” He started stripping off fine clothing.

When Baslim removed the evening headdress, he looked more like Pop . . . except for one thing. “Pop . . . your eye.”

“0h, that. It comes out as easily as it went in. I look better with two eyes, don't I?”

“I don't know.” Thorby stared at it worriedly. “I don't think I like it”

“So? Well, you won't often see me wear it. As long as you are awake you can help.”

Thorby was not much help; everything Pop did was new to him. First Baslim dug tanks and trays from a food cupboard which appeared to have an extra door in its back. Then he removed the false eye and, handling it with great care, unscrewed it into two parts and removed a tiny cylinder, using tweezers.

Thorby watched the processing that followed but did not understand, except that he could see that Pop was working with extreme care and exact timing. At last Baslim said, “All done. Now well see if I got any pictures.”

Baslim inserted the spool in a microviewer, scanned it, smiled grimly and said, “Get ready to go out. Skip breakfast. You can take along a piece of bread.”

“Huh?”

“Get moving. No time to waste.”

Thorby put on his make-up and clout and dirtied his face. Baslim was waiting with a photograph and a small flat cylinder about the size of a half-minim bit. He shoved the photo at Thorby. “Look at it. Memorize it.”

“Why?”

Baslim pulled it back. “Would you recognize that man?”

“Uh . . . let me see it again.”

“You've got to know him. Look at it well this time.”

Thorby did so, then said, “All right. I'll know him.”

“He'll be in one of the taprooms near the port. Try Mother Shaum's first, then the Supernova and the Veiled Virgin. If you don't hit, work both sides of Joy Street until you do. You've got to find him before the third hour.”

“Ill find him, Pop.”

“When you do, put this thing in your bowl along with a few coins. Then tell him the tale but be sure to mention that you are the son of Baslim the Cripple.”

“Got it, Pop.”

“Get going.”

Thorby wasted no time getting down to the port. It was the morning following the Feast of the Ninth Moon and few were stirring; he did not bother to pretend to beg en route, he simply went the most direct way, through back courts, over fences, or down streets, avoiding only the sleepy night patrol. But, though he reached the neighborhood quickly, he had the Old One's luck in finding his man; he was in none of the dives Baslim had suggested, nor did the rest of Joy Street turn him up. It was pushing the deadline and Thorby was getting worried when he saw the man come out of a place he had already tried.

Thorby ducked across the street, came up behind him. The man was with another man -- not good. But Thorby started in:

“Alms, gentle lords! Alms for mercy on your souls!”

The wrong man tossed him a coin; Thorby caught it in his teeth. “Bless you, my lord!” He turned to the other. “Alms, gentle sir. A small gift for the unfortunate. I am the son of Baslim the Cripple and --”

The first man aimed a kick at him. “Get out.”

Thorby rolled away from it. “-- son of Baslim the Cripple. Poor old Baslim needs soft foods and medicines. I am all alone --”

The man of the picture reached for his purse. “Don't do it,” his companion advised. “They're all liars and I've paid him to let us alone.”

“ 'Luck for the jump,' “ the man answered. “Now let me see . . .” He fumbled in his purse, glanced into the bowl, placed something in it.

“Thank you, my lords. May your children be sons.” Thorby moved on before he looked. The tiny flat cylinder was gone.

He worked on up Joy Street, doing fairly well, and checked the Plaza before heading home. To his surprise Pop was in his favorite pitch, by the auction block and facing the port. Thorby slipped down beside him. “Done.”

The old man grunted.

“Why don't you go home, Pop? You must be tired. I've made us a few bits already.”

“Shut up. Alms, my lady! Alms for a poor cripple.”

At the third hour a ship took off with a whoosh! that dopplered away into subsonics; the old man seemed to relax. “What ship was that?” Thorby asked. “Not the Syndon liner.”

“Free Trader Romany Lass, bound for the Rim . . . and your friend was in her. You go home now and get your breakfast. No, go buy your breakfast, for a treat.”

Baslim no longer tried to hide his extra-professional activities from Thorby, although he never explained the why or how. Some days only one of them would beg, in which case the Plaza of Liberty was always the pitch, for it appeared that Baslim was especially interested in arrivals and departures of ships and most especially movements of slave ships and the auction that always followed the arrival of one.

Thorby was more use to him after his education had progressed. The old man seemed to think that everyone had a perfect memory and he was stubborn enough to impress his belief despite the boy's grumbles.

“Aw, Pop, how do you expect me to remember? You didn't give me a chance to look at it!”

“I projected that page at least three seconds. Why didn't you read it?”

“Huh? There wasn't time.”

“I read it. You can, too. Thorby, you've seen jugglers in the Plaza. You've seen old Mikki stand on his head and keep nine daggers in the air while he spins four hoops with his feet?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Can you do that?”

“No.”

“Could you learn to?”

“Uh . . . I don't know.”

“Anyone can learn to juggle . . . with enough practice and enough beatings.” The old man picked up a spoon, a stylus, and a knife and kept them in the air in a simple fountain. Presently he missed and stopped. “I used to do a little, just for fun. This is juggling with the mind . . . and anyone can learn it, too.”

“Show me how you did that, Pop.”

“Another time, if you behave yourself. Bight now you are learning to use your eyes. Thorby, this mind-juggling was developed a long time ago by a wise man, a Doctor Renshaw, on the planet Earth. You've heard of Earth.”

“Well . . . sure, I've heard of it.”

“Mmm . . . meaning you don't believe in it?”

“Uh, I don't know . . . but all that stuff about frozen water falling from the sky, and cannibals ten feet tall, and towers higher than the Presidium, and little men no bigger than dolls that live in trees -- well, I'm not a fool, Pop.”

Baslim sighed and wondered how many thousands of times he had sighed since saddling himself with a son. “Stories get mixed up. Someday -- when you've learned to read -- I'll let you view books you can trust.”

“But I can read now.”

“You just think you can. Thorby, there is such a place as Earth and it truly is strange and wonderful -- a most unlikely planet. Many wise men have lived and died there -- along with the usual proportion of fools and villains -- and some of their wisdom has come down to us. Samuel Renshaw was one such wise man. He proved that most people go all their lives only half awake; more than that, he showed how a man could wake up and live -- see with his eyes, hear with his ears, taste with his tongue, think with his mind, and remember perfectly what he saw, heard, tasted, thought.” The old man shoved his stump out. “This doesn't make me a cripple. I see more with my one eye than you do with two. I am growing deaf . . . but not as deaf as you are, because what I hear, I remember. Which one of us is the cripple? But, son, you aren't going to stay crippled, for I am going to renshaw you if I have to beat your silly head in!”

As Thorby learned to use his mind, he found that he liked to; he developed an insatiable appetite for the printed page, until, night after night, Baslim would order him to turn off the viewer and go to bed. Thorby didn't see any use in much of what the old man forced him to learn -- languages, for example, that Thorby had never heard. But they were not hard, with his new skill in using his mind, and when he discovered that the old man had spools and reels which could be read or listened to only in these “useless” tongues, he suddenly found them worth knowing. History and galactography he loved; his personal world, light-years wide in physical space, had been in reality as narrow as a slave factor's pen. Thorby reached for wider horizons with the delight of a baby discovering its fist.

But mathematics Thorby saw no use in, other than the barbaric skill of counting money. But presently he learned that mathematics need not have use; it was a game, like chess but more fun.

The old man wondered sometimes what use it all was? That the boy was even brighter than he had thought, he now knew. But was it fair to the boy? Was he simply teaching him to be discontented with his lot? What chance on Jubbul had the slave of a beggar? Zero raised to the nth power remained zero.

“Thorby.”

“Yeah, Pop. Just a moment, I'm in the middle of a chapter.”

“Finish it later. I want to talk with you.”

“Yes, my lord. Yes, master. Right away, boss.”

“And keep a civil tongue in your head.”

“Sorry, Pop. What's on your mind?”

“Son, what are you going to do when I'm dead?”

Thorby looked stricken. “Are you feeling bad, Pop?”

“No. So far as I know, I'll last for years. On the other hand, I may not wake up tomorrow. At my age you never know. If I don't, what are you going to do? Hold down my pitch in the Plaza?”

Thorby didn't answer; Baslim went on, “You can't and we both know it. You're already so big that you can't tell the tale convincingly. They don't give the way they did when you were little.”

Thorby said slowly, “I haven't meant to be a burden, Pop.”

“Have I complained?”

“No.” Thorby hesitated. “I've thought about it . . . some. Pop, you could hire me out to a labor company.”

The old man made an angry gesture. “That's no answer! No, son. I'm going to send you away.”

“Pop! You promised you wouldn't.”

“I promised nothing.”

“But I don't want to be freed, Pop. If you free me -- well, if you do, I won't leave!”

“I didn't exactly mean that.”

Thorby was silent for a long moment. “You're going to sell me, Pop?”

“Not exactly. Well . . . yes and no.”

Thorby's face held no expression. At last he said quietly, “It's one or the other, so I know what you mean . . . and I guess I oughtn't to kick. It's your privilege and you've been the best . . . master . . . I ever had.”

“I'm not your master!”

“Paper says you are. Matches the number on my leg.”

“Don't talk that way! Don't ever talk that way.”