MacRoscope (61 page)

She screamed and ran. She crashed into the bean shelf, hurting her shoulder and sending cans toppling heavily… somehow aware that this had happened before, but unable to stop. People turned to stare, but she ignored them, crying “No! No! No!”

Somehow her unguided rush took her through a door at the rear, and she was hustling through a winter chamber with hanging slabs of raw meat, stumbling among tremendous boxes. A man with a cleaver loomed over her, and she saw the dark blood on it, and she screamed again and crashed through another door.

Then she was in a narrow alley, running between steaming garbage cans. The door behind her burst open and a man charged out. “Little girl!” he bellowed. “Little girl! Come back here!”

He was twice her size in every direction, and his skin was dark, his teeth great and white, and she fled.

There were trucks with baked black rubber tires taller than she was, and an ambience of gasoline odors and growling motors and the choking fog of exhausts, and she was trapped between them and the black man. She screamed again and dashed for yet another door, symbol of escape. It was closed. Desperately she reached up to grasp the handle and pull down the stiff latch, while the black pursuer closed in.

Suddenly it opened and she burst inside. These were strange quarters: tables of alien contour, bed-pallets of singular discomfort, toilet facilities embarrassingly foreign to biped anatomy. Yet they were obviously
quarters
, intended to be of comfort for resident creatures of established form, if not for man.

Afra went through the rooms of this complex, wondering whether the owners were present or when they might return. Obviously
someone
ran this station, or at least attended it periodically, and this was where the caretakers reclined in comfort during their off-hours.

One room terminated in a low wall, emptiness above it. She found that it was a balcony. It overlooked a courtyard of fair size, and green shrubbery sprouted from planters about its nether perimeter. This suggested that the caretakers were not so different from human beings in the things that mattered. This was essentially Earth-air, Earth-gravity, human-comfort temperature, and the decor was harmonious to manlike tastes. There had to be strong biological resemblances between the species, however many eyes or ears or antennae either had.

Noise; and into the court below marched a troop of men, a motley mob. They were in blue-collar working clothes — overalls, protective helmets, grime. Some were white in the face, some black, some yellow; most were composite shades.

She discovered that she had with her a huge shopping bag, evidently acquired at the supermarket, and she was holding it in her arms as she tried to lean over the rail for a better view. The balcony had been constructed with adults in mind, and she had a hard time of it. It did not occur to her to put down the shopping bag; that was filled with nameless but wonderfully promising things. Things that her mother would undoubtedly fashion mysteriously into chocolate cake, raspberry ice cream and crisp pin-wheel cookies. She could not let that bag go, even for a moment.

But as she poked her head over, so that one pigtail flopped against the rail, the men beneath spotted her. A rolling cry went up. “We want REPRESENTATION!” the workers cried.

“Well, send up your represen — repre — somebody!” she called back, not expecting her soprano voice to be heard in all that clamor.

A single man entered behind her. “I am he,” he said, startling her. She began to cry, but stopped in a moment, realizing that it could do no good.

The man was Schön, tremendous.

“I thought you were a crystal gazer,” she remarked in an attempt to conceal her lingering tears. She was not, actually, as surprised as she might have been.

“That was back at Aries 9,” he said. “The sun. The ref scored it 10 to 2, favor of the crystal gazer, incidentally.
This
is the moon: Gemini 21 for me, Capricorn 19 for you. I see you are dressed for the part.”

“The part?” This adult conversation was difficult.

“Your symbol. A CHILD OF ABOUT FIVE WITH A HUGE SHOPPING BAG.”

“I’m
seven
,” she corrected him primly. Then she reacted to her own statement. “I am?”

She was. No wonder adults appeared so large.

“And you called
me
immature!” he exclaimed, laughing. “What a fine time you had analyzing me, after I injected a little excitement into Ivo’s determined mundanity.
You
— a card-carrying WASP — wanted to psychoanalyze
me
in absentia. Little appreciating the inherence of aggression in the human species, the factor that brought it to dominance on Earth. Well, call me a BLASP, you who think in terms of acronyms.”

“A what?”

“A
black
Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Or a brown Mongolian Catholic, or a yellow Hottentot Moslem. I represent all of them; I
am
all of them, as you see by my symbol outside. And perhaps it is fitting, precious, that your name is Afra. That’s very close to Afram, or Afro-American, the convenient designation for—”

“A whole group. A whole — labor demonstration?”

“Exactly. I am Man’s universal spirit, and I reject all property and private rights as invalid limitations, other than purely social. I tell you that right and justice only prevail when properly dramatized — when the issue is forced. And I attack this problem, as I do all problems, with courage.”

“And not a trace of false modesty,” she murmured. Yet she felt the need to help the demonstrating workers, whatever their problem might be. She wanted to be a part of the group, to participate, to conform, even in rebellion. “What
do
you want, speci — anyway?” Her stature as a five- or seven-year-old child (physically five, mentally seven?), though it prevented her from getting out the entire word “specifically,” was not any more incongruous than the rest of this bizarre sequence.

“I want freedom,” Schön said, menacing in his emphasis. “I want security. I want power. I want equality. I, the hapless peoples of the world, want everything you have now.”

“Me — the modern white?”

“Yes. You have the good life. I want the right to ravage the world as you have done. I want to destroy as much as you have done. I want to drive myself to the brink of extinction as you have done, you smug white turd. You little bitch, I mean to take—”

And she was fleeing his madness again, whether in the station or on the streets of Macon she could not tell, nor did it make a difference.

Outside was an ocean shore, and the day was windy. Ancient Indian women sat facing outward, their quick hands fashioning useful artifacts. Afra peered up and down and found no hiding place, knowing the pursuer was not far behind. He could quickly catch her here, unless—

Near at hand lay a blanket, woven of many colors but only half complete. She plumped herself down, full-size now, and composed her aging features. She took up the blanket and its attached apparatus and became one of the artisans.

Schön did not appear. Afra became interested in the blanket, noticing the fineness of its warp and weft, and the skill of her own wrinkled brown hands as they manipulated the strands. She discovered in this dull routine an excellence of self-expression, a meeting of human needs. She found that she could accept this calm, unhurried work, and take special pleasure from it. She was preserving an art, and this was a worthwhile thing to do, no matter how far beyond it the machines of civilization went. The old ways were not inferior, when the larger framework of existence was considered. There was reward in simple diligence.

Over the troubled waters flew a white dove. She watched it with minor interest, expecting it to be confused in the general turbulence of wave and cloud, but it was not. Its direction was clear, its mission firm. It flew low over the surf, skillfully reconciling the difficulties of gust and spray and maintaining its orientation. A clever bird.

It sailed over the beach toward her, and came to rest only a few feet away. She could smell the tangy spume it carried on its feathers, now fluffing dry. It walked over the sand, cocking its head forward at each step in the manner of a chicken. Then it fixed an eye on her.

“Welcome to Mars, honey,” it said.

Schön! She had been discovered after all, in the way she least expected. “How did you find me?”

“I had to give you the score, sugar. You did better on Luna, but you flubbed it when you ran out again. No problem is solved that way. Ref called it 10 to 5, me.”

“Who
is
this referee?”

“Funny thing. My Mars is in Taurus, where your Ascendant is, while your Mars is in Aries. Do you suppose this inversion is significant? Mars is the planet of initiative, you know.”

“You are avoiding my questions, pigeon,” she remarked. But she knew the answer to the problem. Obviously they were still personifying their symbols, and her seeming act of free will had been mere conformity. He knew what the symbols were, so still had an advantage over her. He would keep on winning, as long as he could shock her or scare her into running. She had to gain the initiative — and this was the obvious place to start.

She stood up, breaking the spell of the symbol. She was in a large room filled with machinery, and it had been the steady sound of its operation that had suggested the breaking of ocean surf. This appeared to be a section of the station’s power plant, and the generators were keening, rumbling and pulsating with internal potential. Somewhere there was probably an atomic furnace utilizing the total conversion of matter into energy, and these were merely the units that harnessed and channeled that awesome power.

Schön was standing before her, still mocking her. Had it been physical capture he desired, he would have had her long ago, contest or no contest. It was her mind he was after, despite his denial, and he would not give up that chase until the ram had his way or the doe escaped entirely.

Had there, she wondered, ever been a ewe for him?

“Do you know the derivation of the Mars symbol?” he inquired. He sketched it in the air: the circle with the northeast arrow emerging.

“Of course. It represents—”

“
Not
that cute little fib you tried to hand the engineer. Surely you realized the phallic essence of that pictograph? And Venus—” he described that symbol also in the
air
— “Venus is about as direct an image of the female apparatus—”

“It depends on your viewpoint,” she said, interrupting him. But she
hadn’t
thought of the symbols in this way, in spite of their normal application to designate male or female.

Schön was in effect jabbing at her now, keeping her off-balance while he set up for his pugilistic KO. The ascendant evidently influenced his entire mode of play. Similarly, her own ascendant was a continuing liability that she had to face and reconcile, if she were ever to match him on an even basis. How many planets, how many rounds remained before the terminus? Seven?

“And did you realize that innocent little Ivo thought you were having an affair with Harold Groton?”

She tried to halt her reaction, but it was as though he had knocked her breath out of her. “
What
?”

“Ivo failed utterly to comprehend your capricious Capricorn ways, and he labored under his own bumbling reverse-prejudice. White girl, white man, and all that suggestive dialogue—”

“But that was only because Harold understood how I’d—” She paused, then went on brokenly. “How I had let Brad go and — and—”

“And presented your fickle heart to Ivo — without bothering to inform him. So you just waltzed around with the engineer, enjoying the sensation, waiting for some romantic moment to let Ivo discover what was in store for him, totally insensitive to his interim feelings. Oh, lass, that was your finest hour. It was beautiful! How the irony of that little
contretemps
delighted me! But you know, he almost caught on at one point. Luckily, I succeeded in diverting him before it became conscious.”

She turned a horrified glance on him. “You — you actually — ?”

“Be practical, doll. Why should
I
match Mars to Venus, or give the water-carrier his goat? If Ivo had known how you really felt, he never would have yielded to me. As it was, the thing was near. Only his depression and the sudden breaking of the theme while he was in harness—”

“Oh, Ivo!” she exclaimed with the sharpest pang yet.

“A little late for regrets, cutie. Ivo no longer exists, unless you count his special memories, that are now part of my own experience. He has no more reality than I did while he was in control. You will have to settle for his body.”

She was running again, routed again, and it was Macon. She knew that the man behind must inevitably catch up, for there was no place to hide, no one to protect her. Her father was gone; she had seen him fall when the gun fired, there in his great overcoat; and his hat, not really silk, had rolled gruesomely toward her as though it were his severed head…

Now the black murderer was almost upon her, seeking to kill her too. In a moment his hands would fall heavily on her frail body and tear her apart—

She tripped and fell headlong on the cold pavement. He came up, his giant body looming over hers, and, as in a nightmare, she could not move.

“Got you!” he exclaimed.

It was an Easter sunrise service. Jesus Christ had died and had risen again, and she was present to give thanks, this lovely anniversary of this holy occasion. Yet her heart was heavy, for no miracle of this nature had come into her own life. Twice, three times her warning might have saved a life, the life of someone dear to her — a warning she had been too confused or self-centered to provide.

She had lost, again — yet somehow she had acquired a spiritual resource, an immortal strength to bear whatever had happened. This dawn ceremony—

She was near a tree, in this open country gathering for worship. It was a spreading live-oak, the moss festooned upon it elegantly, and on the bark of the most proximate branch nestled a large and rather handsome cocoon. As she watched, momentarily distracted from the service, the chrysalis opened and a butterfly emerged, damp and gleaming. It spread its new wings, waiting for them to dry, and it was a beautiful creature unlike any other.

Iridescence traveled along its vanes. “They don’t call me Schön for nothing,” it said to her.

She snapped out of it. The room was another mass of machinery in the bowels of the station. Monstrous power cables drained into a multi-layered grid whose purpose she could not fathom. It, too, in its way, was beautiful; everything during this session seemed to be rainbow.

“Gravity generator,” Schön remarked. “Neat trick, converting electrical power to gravitrons so efficiently. Of course they learned it millions of years ago from other species, via the macroscope; no one knows who first developed the technology for broadcasting, because the early species were hesitant to use it. Once we return to Earth, we’ll set up a local station; lots of things that process is good for besides sending information to space.”

“Is that all you’re interested in? How to make a profit from this?”

“By no means, babe. I would hardly be wasting my effort on
you
, in that case. I routed you by six points in Mars, by the way.”

That put him ahead 40 to 11, cumulative point score. She had to begin fighting back, or the final rounds would be meaningless. “Why
are
you wasting time on me? Because I’m the only viable
girl
within fifty thousand light-years?”

“Simplistic thought. You always did view male-female interaction as primarily sexual. That was one of the things that put Ivo off. He gave you love, and in exchange you offered pudenda.” He paused, but she had no comment. “Strange notion, that it is the
woman
who does the giving, in intellectual or physical love. In truth, all she does is acquiesce to the gifts of the man.”

“Assuming she acquiesces at all. Not every gift is attractive.”

“Fortunately, in the human species it is the male who has control. This is one of the reasons Man developed intelligence and culture instead of remaining backward. The control of reproduction, and thus of evolution, had to be taken away from the female before progress could be made. Some claim that man’s capacity for rape makes him more evil than those animals that are not up to such activity, but the opposite is true.”