Ballroom of the Skies

Seventeen

The cabdriver was sweaty, irritable, and talkative. “Guess you folks have been out west. I can tell by that tan. You don’t get that kind of tan here in summer, or in Florida, or anywhere except out there. Jesus, it’s been a hot August here. Wet. I wish to hell I was back out where it’s dry heat.”

“It’s more comfortable,” Mary said.

“You bet your elbow it is, lady. This town goes nuts in the summer. All the rummies start sleeping in the parks. Bunch of pronies running around cutting up people. Another fleng joint war, with them throwing bombs in each other’s joints. Gawd, what a month. You hear the knock in this thing? I’m running it on kerosene, and damn poor kerosene at that.”

The driver cursed and swerved wildly to avoid a big Taj full of Pak-Indian tourists. “Think they own the damn world,” he said viciously. He shrugged, arguing with himself. “Maybe they do, come to think of it.”

“Have there been many tourists around this summer?” Dake asked.

“Too many, if you ask me. I don’t know why they come over here. I got a pal with connections. He’s all lined up to emigrate. Going to run a hack in Bombay, with a Sikh partner. He’s never had it so good. They got those quotas so tight, it’s almost impossible to get in over there.”

“You’d like to do the same thing?”

The man turned in the seat and gave him an angry glare. “Why the hell not? What is there here? Three days a week I get fuel. I get four deadheads for every tipper. I don’t even own this hack. Where’s the opportunities here? I ask you that. When I was a kid it was different. My old man owned six cabs. He had it nice. All the gas he could use.” He stopped for a light and turned around and gave Dake a puzzled stare. “What happened to us? You ever try to figure that out? Where did it all go?”

“The war.”

“That’s what everybody says. I wonder. Seems like soon as we start to climb up there again, we get knocked down. Something always tripping us up. Somebody always tripping the whole world up.”

“And then picking it up again?” Mary asked, smiling.

“Lady, in this world, you pick yourself up.” He started up slowly, cursing the cars that passed him. “You know what I figure?”

“What?” Mary asked obediently.

“I figure we got to depend on those atom rocket boys. They’re working day and night, I understand. What we haven’t got is resources. Now you take Mars, or Venus. I bet those places are loaded with coal and oil and iron and copper and every damn thing we need. We just got to get there first and stake a claim. Then we’ll be okay.”

“And if we never get off the Earth?”

The driver’s shoulders slumped. He said, in a dejected voice, “You know, mister, I just don’t like to think about that. It means we’re stuck here. And things aren’t the way they used to be. My old man used to take me out to Yankee Stadium. Yell his fool self hoarse. Can I do that? Who wants to yell at a bunch of silly broads playing softball, I ask you? Those good old days, mister, they’re gone. Believe me. TV we had, and baseball, and all the gas you wanted. Every time I see those Indians around, I feel like maybe we’re one of those kind of tribes, with bones sticking through our nose, and big spears. We’re for kicks, mister.”

They rode in silence for a time, nearing the apartment. The driver said, “When we used to have all them saucers around, my old man used to say it was time the Martians landed and took over. The old man had something, you know. Know what I think?”

“What?” said Dake.

“I figure those Martians took a good long look around and said to each other, boys, we better go away and come back in ten thousand years and see if these folks have grown up any. Man, it’s dangerous down there. Is this place you want in the middle of the block?”

“Right over there on the right, driver,” Mary said.

“Class, eh? Isn’t that where that racketeer used to live? Larner? Mig Larner?”

“That’s the place, driver.”

They got out. The driver took the fare, grinned. “I didn’t figure you to deadhead me. I can almost always tell. Be good now. Watch out for them Martians.”

They walked into the coolness of the air-conditioned lobby. Johnny came around from behind the desk, hand outstretched. “Here for good this time, Dake?”

“I think so.”

“Little stubborn, was he, Mary?”

“Did I take long?”

“Last ones in, dear. Martin Merman suddenly became interested in your space requirements the other day.”

Mary smiled. “He’s a hideous person. What he doesn’t know, he can guess.”

Johnny went back around to his side of the desk. “Both of you in suite 8C then?”

Stop blushing furiously, darling.

“Yes, Johnny,” she said.

“And so he’ll twin you on assignments. You’ll make an ominous pair, kids. Shard will have a happy time assigning the equivalent. Now Martin is expecting you for a couple of brief impressive ceremonies.”

They went down to the dioramic garden where Dake had first met Miguel Larner. Merman got up, his young-old face smiling, his handshake warm and firm.

He said, “It isn’t something we can give you, Dake. It’s something you have to find for yourself. You found it with Mary’s help. Are you ready to accept?”

“Completely.”

“That’s the only way we can... accept your acceptance. Without reservation. Raise your right hand, please. It isn’t necessary to repeat the phrases after me. Just say ‘I do’ when I have finished. Do you, Dake Lorin, agree in heart, mind, and spirit with the eternal obligation of Earth, the planet of your origin, to provide leadership for Empire? Do you agree to accept dutifully all agent assignments given you with the full knowledge of the end purpose of those assignments, to provide leadership through keeping Earth, the planet of your origin, in a savage and backward state, where neither progress nor regression is possible? Do you promise to bring to this duty every resource of your mind and spirit, not only those resources recently acquired, but those developed in you by your environment prior to your association with us?”

Martin Merman’s eyes were level, sober, serious.

“I do,” Dake said.

“For the sake of all mankind,” Martin Merman said.

“For the sake of all mankind,” Mary repeated softly.

“Now you are one of us, Dake. I’ll break your heart a hundred times a year, from now on. At times you’ll be sickened, angry, resentful. You will be called on to do things which, in your previous existence, you would have considered loathsome. But you’ll do them. Because the purpose is clear. Cold. Inevitable.” He grinned suddenly. It was an astonishingly boyish grin. “Anything else, Mary?” he asked.

“Another... little ceremony, Martin.”

Now who looks like a beet?

“This is a tribal ceremony, Dake,” Martin said. “A uniting. It has no legal status among us. Only a moral and emotional status. Either of you can dissolve it at any time by merely stating the desire that it be dissolved. However, in our history, no such a uniting has ever been dissolved. It is, to pun badly, a mating of the minds. And in that field there can be no deceit, no unfortunate misunderstandings, no secrets, each from the other. You will live and work together as the closest possible team. You will complement each other’s efficiencies, and heal each other’s distress. Any children you may have will be taken from you and raised on one of the heart worlds, and you will renew your relationship with them once your duties here are over. They will still be children, still need you. And your eventual Empire assignment will be as close as your assignment here. Do you accept that?”

“If Mary does.”

Mary nodded. Martin said, “Then we must have witnesses.” He smiled.

There was the faintest shimmer and Karen suddenly appeared near them. And then Johnny. And Watkins. And one by one, others from his training class. And the persons he had seen in the lobby that night long ago. And strangers. Many of them. All appearing, grouping themselves in the bright garden, their faces reflected in the garden pool.

Dake had always been a lonely man. He had never been a part of a group, never relished it, except during the months on Training T. There, for the first time, he had experienced the vague beginnings of group warmth and group unity.

And the warmth of all these people suddenly surrounded him, enfolded him. They had proud faces, and level eyes, and something unmistakably godlike about them. Super-beings who walked among men with sadness, with pride, with humility.

That group identity caught him up. He was a part of it. He knew that never again would he have the feeling of walking alone.

He stood for long moments, tasting this final acceptance, sensing the challenge of the years ahead, knowing that at this moment he began his apprenticeship.

He reached and took Mary’s firm brown hand, and turned just enough so that the two of them stood, side by side, facing Martin Merman. Her fingers tightened on his.

Dake Lorin squared his shoulders and stood quietly, awaiting Martin Merman’s words.