The Age of the Pussyfoot

Fourteen

Forrester snapped tight the baggy trousers, tucked in the pullover, slipped his feet into sandals, and hooked the joymaker to his belt. “Out!” he barked. “Which way?”

“This way, Man Forrester.” An opening in the wall widened like a pair of parentheses, and Forrester bolted through it. A lounge, a ramp, an open double door, and he was out into the midway again, with the bright sun pounding down on him, the gay crowds staring at him casually.

He glanced around: yes, there was the DR vehicle, shining white overhead, its attendant with chin on hand gazing into space. “Where’s Heinzie?” he cried.

“Following, Man Forrester. Do you wish to fight him here?”

“Hell, no!”

“Where would you prefer, Man Forrester?”

“You idiot, I don’t want to fight him at all. I want to get away from him.”

He was attracting attention from the crowd, he saw. Their expressions were no longer vacant, but puzzled, and beginning to be hostile.

The joymaker said hesitantly, “Man Forrester, I must ask you to be specific. Do you wish to avoid combat with Man Heinzlichen permanently?

“That’s the idea,” Forrester said bitterly. “But I see it’s a little late for that now.” Because the Martian was churning out of the double doors of the crawling building and heading straight for him. “Oh, well,” said Forrester. “Easy come, easy go.”

The Martian planted himself in front of Forrester, puffing. He said, “Hello, dere. Sorry I kept you waiting so long.”

“You didn’t have to hurry on my account,” said Forrester cautiously. He was scanning the Martian carefully for weapons, but there didn’t seem to be anything. He was wearing what looked like a wig, close blond curls that hugged his scalp, surrounded his ears and jawline, and went down in back to the nape of his neck, but otherwise he was unchanged in appearance from the last time Forrester had seen him. And he did not even carry a stick. His joymaker was clipped to his belt; his hands were empty and hung loosely at his sides.

“Vell,” said the Martian, “you were with de Forgotten Men, you know, and den I had other things to do. Anyway, here we are, so let’s get it over with. O.K.?”

Forrester said honestly, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Fight, you fool!” cried the Martian. “What de hell do you think you’re supposed to do?”

“But I’m not even mad,” Forrester objected.

“Dog sweat!” roared the Martian. “I am! Come on, fight, will you?” But his hands still hung at his sides.

Forrester shifted position cautiously, sparing the time for a glance around. The crowd was definitely interested now, forming a neat ring around them; Forrester thought he could see bets being made on the outcome. The DR man overhead was watching them carefully. At least, Forrester thought, if I let him kill me, they’ll just freeze me up again. And then they’ll put me back together later on. And maybe the freezer isn’t such a bad place to be for a while, until this business with the Sirians get straightened out. . . .

“Are you going to fight or not?” the Martian demanded.

Forrester said, “Uh, one question.”

“Vell?”

“The way you talk. I had an argument about that the other day—”

“What’s de matter with de way I talk?”

“It’s a sort of German accent, I thought, but this other Martian was Irish, and he talked the same way—”

“Irish? German?” Heinzlichen looked baffled. “Look, Forrester, on Mars we got six-hundred-millibar pressure, you understand? You lose some of de high frequencies, dat’s all. I don’t know what ‘German’ or ‘Irish’ is.”

“Say, that’s interesting!” Forrester cried. “You mean it’s not an accent, really?”

“I mean you wasted too much of my time already!” the Martian cried and leaped for his throat. And right there, in the bright midway with the ambulatory plants jolting past him and the crowds cheering and shouting, Forrester found himself fighting for his life. The Martian was not only bigger than he was, the damned skunk was stronger! Fleetingly Forrester blazed with anger: how dare the Martian be stronger? What about the supposition that light-gravity inhabitants would lose their muscle tone? Why was he not able to crush this flimsy, light-G creature with a single blow?

But he could not; the Martian was on top of him, systematically thudding his head against the paving of the midway. It was Forrester’s good fortune that the flooring was a resilient, rubber-like substance, not concrete; all the same, he was developing a headache, and his senses were spinning. And now the Martian added insult to injury. “Get up and fight!” he bawled. “Dis is no fun!”

That marked the limit of Forrester’s civilized control. He screamed in rage and surged up; the Martian went flying. Forrester was up and after him, flinging himself on top of him, a knee in the Martian’s throat; he saw the Martian’s joymaker loose by his side and caught it up—grabbed it like a club, smashed the macelike large end against the Martian’s skull. It rang like bronze. Even in his rage Forrester felt a moment’s astonishment; but clearly the close-cropped blond wig was not merely hair, it was a protective armor skullpiece. “Louse!” roared Forrester, enraged all over again; the Martian had prepared himself for this battle by wearing a helmet! He shortened his stroke and clubbed the Martian across the face. Blood spurted; teeth broke. Again and again, and the Martian tried to cry out but could not; again, again—

Behind him the voice of the attendant from the DR cart said, “All right, all right, that’s enough. I’ll take care of him now.”

Forrester rocked back on his haunches, panting hoarsely, staring at the terrible ruin he had made of the Martian’s face. He managed to gasp, “Is—is he dead?”

“They don’t come any deader,” said the DR man. “Would you move a little bit?—Thanks. All right, he’s mine now. Wait here for the copper, please; he’ll take care of filling out a report.”

What happened next for Forrester was hazy. He had a confused memory of returning to the lavatory facilities of the crawl room and getting cleaned up again, a shower, fresh clothes, a steam of reviving gases that woke him up and cleared his head. But when he was out of the room the fog returned; it was not the drain resulting from his efforts that muddled his thinking, or the aching pain in his head where Heinzie had bashed it against the pavement. It was pure psychic shock.

He had destroyed a human life.

Not really, he told himself at once. Not now. A short rest in the freezer and then he’s good as new!

But it didn’t register with him; he was still in shock—and puzzled. He could not decide: had he imagined it, or had the Martian not been fighting back?

Adne was waiting for him, with Taiko; they had seen the fight and had stayed to help him get straightened out afterward. Help him or help the Martian, Forrester thought bitterly. It probably didn’t matter to them which. Nevertheless, he was grateful for their help. Adne took him to her own home, left him there a minute, returned with the news that his apartment was ready for him again, and escorted him there. And left him with Taiko, who wanted to talk. “Nice fight, Charles. Shook you up, of course—hell, I remember my own first killing. Nothing to be ashamed of. But, listen, if you’re going to come to work for the society you’ve got to pull yourself together.”

Forrester sat up and looked at Taiko. “What the devil makes you think I want to work for the Luddites?”

“Come on, Charles. Look, take a shot of bracer, will you? That green stud, there on the handle—”

“Will you get out of here and leave me alone?”

“Oh, for sweat’s sake,” cried Taiko impatiently. “Look, you said you wanted to help out with the society’s program, right? Well, there’s no time to waste! This is the chance we’ve been waiting for, man! Everybody’s got the Sirians on their minds; they’ll be diving into the freezers so fast the teams won’t be able to handle them, and that’s when those of us who can face the world realistically will have a chance to take action. We can get rid of the machine menace once and for all if we—” Taiko hesitated and gave Forrester a thoughtful look. Then he said, “Well, never mind that part of it just yet. Are you with us or against us?”

Forrester contemplated the problem of trying to explain to Taiko that his interest in the Ned Lud Society had been only an interest in making enough money to live on, and that, when the Sirian had left him ninety-three million dollars, that interest had evaporated. It did not seem worth the effort, so he said, “I guess I’m against you.”

“Charles,” said Taiko, “you make me sick! You of all people! You, who have suffered so much from this age. Don’t you want to try to cure the evils of machine domination? Don’t you want—”

“I’ll tell you what I want,” said Forrester, rousing himself. “I want you to go away—fast!”

“You’re not yourself,” said Taiko. “Look, when you get straightened out, give me a call. I’ll be hard to reach, because— Well, never mind why. But I’ll leave a special channel for you. Because I know you, Charles, and I know that you’ll have to decide you want to end these cowardly times and give man back his— All right! I’m going!”

When the door had closed behind him, Forrester stared into space for more than an hour. Then he rolled over and went to sleep. His only regret was that sooner or later he would wake up.