The Carnelian Cube

Three:

The dead silence that fell when Arthur Cleveland Finch stood up to read his poem after being called on puzzled and disconcerted him a little, until it occurred to him that it would hardly be rational to applaud any performer until he had put on his act. Certainly the rest of the "orgy" had been on a basis of complete reason; it turned out to be a rather staid, if somewhat large dinnerparty, differing from those he had seen in the past chiefly by the absence of penguin-like dinner jackets. Even the drinks were hardly likely to produce any outbursts of uninhibited irrationality; they consisted of wine heavily diluted with water in the classical fashion.

Finch looked out over the assemblage of calm faces and read sonorously:

The silence that followed Finch's reading, as head turned toward head, was gradually filled by a scund as of fifty radiator-valves being turned on at once. Then, instead of applause there was a tentative snicker which gradually rose to an immense roar of laughter and talk. The laughers, Finch observed, were partly looking at Orange, partly at him.

"Youse—" bellowed the banker, standing up and pointing an accusing finger, though his figure was far too stout and round to make him a good doomsman—"youse—of all the—"

Someone slapped Orange on the back. The unhappy man coughed and took two steps toward Finch, and for a moment the poet thought he was about to become the victim of a physical assault. Past the banker's pudgy figure he caught a glimpse of a bony face wearing an expression of fury even more intense than Orange's own, and judged this must be his patron's first-class wife.

"No," growled the banker. "Must remain rational. One —two—three—four—five—" he retraced the two steps and subsided into his chair, glaring across a buzz of conversation. "Damndest thing I ever heard ..." "... awful insult to Orange Amaranth '..." "Ocean with its vastness! What ocean did he ever ..."

"All right," said Orange in a clear tone, standing up again. "I'm-in full control of myself now. Nobody can say that I did not resist great temptation to behave in ah irrational manner. Now, Finch Arthur Poet, get out of this room! Leave my orgy!"

"But why?" asked Finch.

"Go!" said Orange, striking his "doom" attitude again. "Under the law I cannot dismiss you as a client, but I can and shall bring charges."

Finch took a big gulp of the watered wine, shrugged and went, noticing that people avoided his eyes as he left the room. It was his own fault, of course. If he had paid any attention to the obvious laws of custom in these surroundings, he should have known that irresponsible conduct of any kind would not be looked upon with kindness, or even forgiveness. Perhaps he had been living too long in an irrational world, the world of Leo Pushman and Tiridat Arirninian.

Thinking of that old scoundrel gave his meditation another twist. Had he put hashish in the kuskus? No— hardly. There was something very odd about the way this dream went on and on through time and space. In a real hashish dream, one's sense of the temporal and spatial relations stretched this way and that, like a rubber band. There was no such variation here; objects enjoyed their normal relationship to one another and time ran on at an unvarying pace.

Well, what about Tiridat—or Armstrong Terry, if they really were the same. Perhaps he, Arthur Finch, was indulging in that risky form of mental gymnastics, the long-distance conclusion-jump. Was there any real evidence to support the idea that Terry was or was not Tiridat; or for that matter, any evidence but unreliable memory to support the idea that this world was anything but real?

The carnelian cube—if that object itself were real, if it were not also a part of the unreliable memory—might be mixed up in it somehow. He wondered if it existed here. Could one find a real object in an unreal world? If so, Terry would certainly have it.

In the lower corridor, he asked a passing girl for the location of Armstrong Terry's quarters, pushed a bell and was told to enter. Terry was sprawled on his bed with his feet up, doing nothing whatever. As he perceived Finch, the athlete folded his long legs and rolled off the couch.

"The suggestion was not a good one," said Finch grimly.

"Huh? What suggestion."

"About writing the sonnet to Orange Eulalie instead of Amaranth. He got mad and threw me out of the orgy, and everyone laughed. Says he's going to bring charges."

Terry whistled. "Aw, Arthur, I didn't think you was going to take me real serious and do it. You poets ain't got no more sense than a frog's got fur. Anyhoo, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," said Finch. "About as sorry as Hera was for Io."

"Whose them? Aw please, you know I wouldn't git you in no trouble I could help. I really owe you some-thin'. Why, you know I'm always gitting in trouble myself on account of helping my friends when there isn't nothin' in it. That's why the board keeps classifying me way down with the athletes, instead of putting me where I could get some status. And now ef you go bawl me out for that, I reckon it'll be more than human flesh and blood can bear—"

"All right, all right," said Finch. "Don't burst out crying about it." For Armstrong Terry Athlete looked as though he were about to do exactly that. It occurred to Finch that advantage might be taken on his low-caste friend's melancholy.

"By the way," he said, "I lost something a little while back. A little cube of red stone, about so big, with an inscription on it. You haven't seen it anywhere, have you?"

Terry looked up at him with big, honest eyes. "Naw, cain't say I ever have."

"Sure?"

I " 'Course I'm sure." A look of indignation came into Terry's face. "You ain't hintin' I done swiped your little doodad, are you? That ain't nice, Arthur. Ain't you got no consideration for nobody's feelin's at all? I know what's wrong with you. You're just mad on account of you made a misstep and got thrown out of the orgy."

It was convincing; a little too convincing, the thought flashed across Finch's mind. "Calm down," he said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I just thought you might have seen that piece of stone. Look, tell me something; is tennis the only kind of athletics you conduct?"

"Aw, now Arthur, you're jest a-kiddin' me." He shifted rapidly from injured innocence to embarrassment, one foot twisting on the point of the toe. "You know I done beat that fellow from Locust House three times runnin' at lifting weights, and—"

He was off. Finch sat down and bore the torrent of words as patiently as possible, smiling glassily at appropriate intervals, and inserting a question now and then, like a nickel in the slot, to keep the mechanism working. The list of Terry's athletic triumph was endless, but he fortunately demanded nothing more than a willing ear and a pair of open eyes. Finch had plenty of opportunity to mature a plan of action which consisted in nothing more difficult than outsitting his friend and opponent and then searching his belongings for the carnelian cube.

It was nearly midnight before Finch won out. Terry interrupted the account of a wrestling match in which he had escaped a toehold at the imminent peril of broken bones to say " 'Scuse me, Arthur, I gotta go to the donniker." The moment he was out of the room, Finch was on his feet, beginning a brisk and competent, if somewhat superficial job on the bureau that stood at one side.

A step sounded behind him, and a hinge creaked ever so slightly. The door was fully open before Finch was in his seat again, but he had at least managed to close the drawer. His halt was a bit like that of a motion-picture film suddenly stuck.

"Hello, Orange Mrs." It was the stunning blonde.

"Hello, Finch Poet. I looked for you in your room—"

"I've been down here talking with Terry about athletics."

"Your taste in amusement is curious. It was conversation like that that made me divorce him."

"Passing over the comment as unnecessary," said Finch, "I may say that I am beginning to agree with— with thou. He piled a Pelion of detail on an Ossa of banality. But what did thou want to see me about?"

She smiled an open, candid smile, and said: "First I wanted to thank youse for that lovely sonnet! I've never been so honored at an orgy before. But youse shouldn't have done it. My co-wife Amaranth is going to make trouble for youse—and me, too."

Finch sobered. "I'm awfully sorry. I really didn't mean to get you—thou into trouble. Can I take all the blame or do anything else to' clear it up?"

Eulalie flashed a brief smile, and as Terry came in and ducked his head at her, sat down. "I don't know how youse can keep him from divorcing me, if Amaranth wants to make him."

Finch swung to Terry. "You're good with advice. What can I do about this jam I'm in with Orange?"

"Now, Arthur," Terry protested, "you done said you wudden bring up that business—"

"Not at all! Anyway, this time I'm not blaming you for anything. I just want to know what to do."

"Gee willies, I dunno. Jest set tight and hope that he won have the board reclassify you to a garbage man or agricultural farmer, or that Sullivan Michael Politician won't trade you off way up north."

"Being a garbage-collector might have a future," said Eulalie, eyeing Finch through narrowed lids. "Sullivan was one himself when he was elected House Politician. Maybe that's what Finch Arthur wants to do."

Terry grinned. "Too bad thou didn't go for him 'stead of old Orange. He's got more status and twice the money."

Eulalie looked burning lava, but before She could speak, Finch said: "All of which doesn't help very much. Listen, what's to prevent me from simply walking out? I could doubtless find something to do for a while till this blows over ..."

He halted at the simultaneous gasps from his audience.

Both spoke, practically in chorus: "But you can't do that!"

"Everybody has to stay in his House till his Politician trades him off to 'nother one somewheres else," explained Terry.

"Everybody knows it's the only way of keeping population adjusted to need and resources," said Eulalie, with the air of someone repeating a lesson.

"Nonsense," said Finch. "What if I did it anyway? Who'd stop me?"

"Sullivan would order but the proctors," said Terry.

"Very well," said Finch rising. "I think I'll start right now, tonight, before the Politician gets any bright ideas like that."

Again a chorus of expostulations. "You cain't go runnin' off like that, Arthur ..."

Finch grinned from the doorway. "Oh, can't I? My kind but hidebound friends, there are moments when true rationality has an appearance of the irrational. Watch me go."

"Anyway," said Terry, "you cain't go off with no more clothes than you got on. Hit gits mighty cold up in them mountains. I'm tellin' you as a friend, you better pack some things up like a reasonable man." The athlete began counting on his fingers. "You're a-going to need your razor and a toothbrush, and—"

"All right," said Finch. "I've been in the open before and I have a reasonable idea of what I need to cope with it, even if the approach strikes you as unreasonable. See you in six weeks."

He flipped a hand in farewell and left. It was remarkable how Armstrong Terry succeeded in irritating him.

One flight took him up to the floor occupied by' the Middle Division of the Client class, and he walked quickly along the corridor to his room. He opened the door, then froze. The light was on, and it showed a couple of burly men, with brass buttons on their blue pajama-like clothes, one sitting on the bed, one on his chair.

"Evening, Finch Arthur Poet," said one of them, as they hove to their feet like a pair of broaching whales. "You're under arrest."

"Huh? What for?"

"Sure thing; charge of advertising."

"Advertising?"

"That's right. You made a sensation with that there sonnet you sprang at Orange's orgy. Patron charges you with doing it deliberate."

"You mean—is it a crime to advertise?"

"Now, Finch Mr., less you say the better, or you'll have us giving evidence you behaved irrational, not recognizing the troubles made by uncontrolled ambition that comes from the new desires advertising makes. You want to come easy or resist arrest?"

Finch surveyed the pair of behemoths. "I don't know exactly what good it would do me to resist arrest from a pair the size of you two," he said, a trifle ruefully.

They grinned simultaneously. "Guess you ain't so irrational, after all," said one. "Look, friend, you ain't been arrested enough to know this is for the record, to show you're innercent and indignant."

"All right, I'll resist. What do I do?"

"Make a swing at Lafe, here."

With a sense of the ridiculous overcoming his irritation, Finch started a slow-motion roundhouse right in the direction of Lafe's jaw. The officer did an unrealistic back-flop into the chair. "Swung on me," he said to the other, who produced from his pocket a blackjack, with which he touched Finch lightly on the back of the neck.

"Prisoner subdued while resisting arrest," he remarked gravely, and with Finch between them, the pair took up their march down the corridors to what would be the prison quarters of Strawberry House.

Three cells were visible as they entered, all empty. One of them was small and bare, with only a cot in it; one large and luxurious, with an easy chair, curtains and a shaded light, the remaining one a compromise between the other two.'

The man behind the desk looked and acted like some kind of hotel clerk than like a police sergeant. Adjusting his glasses, he recognized Finch. "Hello, Arthur. Hmm, resisted arrest on a charge of advertising. Not planning on a political career, are you?"

"Not that I know of," answered Finch. .

"Sure about that?"

"Certainly I am. What would I be doing in politics?"

The man sighed. "Put him in the small cell."

The Procter who conveyed Finch into the comfortless little cell murmured: "Why didn't you give Joe an out, Finch? He likes your poetry."

"What do you mean?"

"Most people that are up for advertising claim politics, and then they get the middle cell that's usually for patrons only."

"You mean politicians get the gravy—as usual?"

"Why not? Wouldn't expect a cop to be tough on a guy that's maybe going to be his house boss, would you?"

It had not occurred to Finch before, but of course venality would be a part of any rule of absolute reason. He went to sleep wondering where he would wake up.