Chronocules Page 8

  “I’m sorry,” he said, chopping the men’s branch off behind them, “that wasn’t a very nice joke. I shouldn’t have made it.

  The men fell, abruptly, into a deep pool of shame.

  At this moment, just as Manny Littlejohn, having safely debased his followers, was about to climb down into the waiting boat, the siren of an approaching high- security vehicle became audible down the hill that led into St. Kinnow through the stacked subrubs. Hoping

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  it was what he thought it was, the Founder stayed to watch.

  The general effect of the siren as its volume increased was to paralyze. It became a sensation beyond hysteria, a bending of the perceptions. Byt the time the armored truck entered the small square backing the Town Quay, reality for waiting people had taken on the nature of its ululating, cacophonous blare. The sunlight wavered, the roadway flexed like a resonating sheet of brass, the houses shook, the people thrashed motionlessly within the blast furnace of sound. It was, when Manny .Littlejohn closed his eyes and stopped seeking metaphors, a very loud noise indeed.

  And it was what he had hoped it would be: it was the sound of wealth. Manny Littlejohn’s wealth. The truck—he knew it well, had supervised its impregnable design—was delivering the weekly percentage of that wealth needed by the Penheniot Experimental Research Village. A percentage not prestigious, not tax deductible, not even explicable to his friends (friends?). A percentage justifiable solely in personal terms, in terms of fun, and of perhaps a little very guarded hope. A percentage perversely symbolized by the bellowing of an armored truck.

  As the truck stopped on the quay the black rescue boat from the Village emerged from the mouth of Penheniot Pill across on the other side of the harbor. Operation 4c in the handbook, if the Founder remembered right. By the time the trucks masked and helmeted security guards had backed it into position and laid out the coin transmission annula, the boat was alongside the quay. One Village security man took the flexible end of the annula on board and coupled it to the boat’s sealed currency compartment while the others stood guard. Within five seconds pressure had built up in the truck

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  and currency began flowing down the annula. A further ninety seconds and the transmission was complete. The steel annula was retracted into the truck and the boat backed rapidly away from the quay. Not two minutes for the entire operation. Only then did the paralyzing noise of the siren cease.

  People found themselves able to move again. And if to move, then also to be angry. As Manny Littlejohn watched the black boat disappear up Penheniot Pill in a swirl of foam, he heard murmuring gather on the quay behind him. The sound of peevish children, he thought. As he turned to see what was happening— though he could guess quite well—Krancz came pushing through the crowd from the watchful position he had taken up on the Karstak tiering. The truck crew was already back inside the cab and the truck was beginning to move off.

  “Into the boat, sir,” Krancz said. “There’s going to be trouble.”

  “I can see that, Krancz. But I—”

  “They can get very nasty, sir,” said the man he called James. “It’s not the locals—they like the trade the Village brings. It’s the tourists. They—”

  At that moment the truck driver started up his siren again, defensively, mistakenly, beating James’ words back into his still moving mouth. Mistakenly because a crowd, once caught, will not be caught again. This time, instead of being immobilized, it was maddened. The noise provided a cover for anything, for any excess. From the shape of the crowd’s face, it was screaming. Stones could be thrown, the windows of the truck attacked with steel bars, sections from the Karstak tom away, stalls on the quay overturned so that their bubblegum, ice cream, fried chicken and doughnuts could be smeared on the truck as toddlers smear shit. The crowd

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  could stamp its ineffective feet and pound its ineffective fists. Its more clothed members could find in their pockets providential tire irons and ammonia sprays, heat foam, radio jammers and anti-scratchgas pills. The crowd could flail at the proofed exterior of the truck, expend its hate, and flail in vain. As long as it kept moving, as long as it got out of the square before the road was blocked, the three men in it were safe.

  (Nobody lay down in front of vehicles any more. Not if they wished to go on living.)

  Manny Littlejohn wanted to stay and watch. Anything might happen. One of David Silberstein’s reports (which had resulted in the electrified chassis concept) told of an armored truck being carried to the edge of the quay and toppled in. Anything might happen. Manny Littlejohn wanted to stay and watch.

  But Krancz was pulling his arm and the three security men were edging him back toward the ladder. He was an old man. Quelling crowds with the force of his personality was no longer on. Besides, too many hopeful heroes, young as well as old, had recently died that way. A simple mob, met by a voice louder, a hysteria greater than its own, could be turned. A drug mob suffered no such limitation: its voice was the loudest, its hysteria the greatest. So Manny Littlejohn turned and went meekly, wisely, down the ladder into the waiting boat.

  His departure was timely. An apathetic stall-owner, leaning on a bollard (of historic interest) and seeing the old man and his followers distant enough to be safe, mustered the energy to spit on them. Or at least to let saliva trail out of his mouth in their general direction. His action was noticed by one of the mob who had been about to tip him into the water for his uninvolvement.‘The language of spit is universal. Explanations

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  were unimportant—and, under the blare of the siren, impossible. The stall-owner became an instant Hero of the Revolution. Within a few seconds the edge of the quay was lined with angry demonstrators, hurling anything they had to hand at Manny Littlejohns rapidly departing boat. It was only by quick thinking and good seamanship that the security men got Manny Littlejohn safely away.

  Three hundred yards out he signaled to the men to circle so that he could watch what happened on the quay. He stood up on the foredeck, supporting himself against the mast, his black jacket beating in the wind. He might be old, but not so old that he didn’t take an interest in the world around him. The operations of human nature fascinated him, provided him with justification.

  The armored truck had been blocked in its attempt to leave the quay by a blundering mass of minicars. The windows of its cab were becoming starred and blurred by the barrage of bricks and the melting effect of the heat foam. Now that it was stationary the truck’s tires had no chance—plastique, against which the truck itself was fully protected, would rip their bullet-proof covers to shreds. In regretful self-defense the truck driver activated a battery of scratchgas sprays.

  The crowd retreated, its screaming inaudible beneath the weight of the siren, leaving the field to its few members experienced enough to have taken short-term im- munizers. It pressed its hands—when there were enough hands—to the (harmless) blistering rash that grew like fungus on its naked skin.

  The foresighted ones, the distillation, the essential mob, gathered warily around the truck where it squatted. Inside it the truck-crew, three ear-plugged bruisers, sat tight, trusting that the windows would hold and

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  that the heat foam which now covered the entire roof of the cat) wouldn’t roast them out before the mob grew bored and went away. To leave their shell and be overpowered in such a company was to be dead and/or sexually mutilated. Bottles of pickled fuzz balls were as common in university digs as policemen’s helmets once had been. And anthropologically far sounder.

  Manny Littlejohn watched the truck settle on its brake drums as the plastique took effect. The electrified chassis shorted itself out with a small flash. Seeing this, men and women at once began climbing over the truck, slipping on its food-spattered surface, vainly seeking leverage
, a way into the powerless crew. The siren outlet was found, and the blare faded abruptly. The crowd cheered. Several of its members, having ignored the warnings and used water to soothe their (harmless) blistering rash, were now dying noisily of the chemical reaction. The crowd cheered, and cheered again. Somebody mercifully started the f.a. music. On the body of the truck the men and women were losing interest. The silencing of the siren was victory enough. Three of them began dancing to the music, slipped on melted ice cream and fell painfully. They lay on the ground, suddenly shivering, self-disgusted. The final gesture, the suitable termination, was provided by an inspired young man, naked, with thick reddish hair—Manny Littlejohn could clearly see it glinting in the sunlight—who leaped onto the bonnet of the truck and stood, legs apart in archetypal little boy’s defiance, to pee a golden rainbow at the windscreen and the men inside. When his bladder was empty, the last drops shaken away, he jumped lightly back down onto the ground. The crowd cheered as it had never cheered before.

  (As for the truck men, it was to them a wasted gesture: behind the filthied glass one of them was already

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  dead, his companions too ill from dehydration and heatstroke for a spray of urine here or there to make much difference.)

  Manny Littlejohn lingered, his boat circling in the crowded, indifferent tideway. Something was still lacking. For his picture of human nature to be complete he needed the behavior of the police, and probably, now that the disturbance was over, there would not be long to wait. A squad of policemen—the one he had seen up by the Customs House?—gas-masked, in protective clothing, armed with shields, sticks and tranquilizer pistols, preceded by a cloud of scratchgas, charged seven abreast down the alley beside the King of Prussia public house. They clubbed a path through the now weary crowd, and approached the truck. Evidently the sides of the cab were too hot to be touched, even through protective gloves. While one of the policemen swept the heat foam carefully off the roof with his stick, the squad commander shouted instructions at the figures dimly visible within. It is doubtful if he received much response. Certainly the doors of the cab, which were not by ordinary measures openable from without, were not opened from within. After a suitable pause tile squad commander called for a towing vehicle to remove the truck, to take it back to the police station where there was steel-cutting equipment available, and a morgue on the premises.

  The last Manny Littlejohn saw of the truck was its uneven progress up beside the King of Prussia, jolting on its brake drums, trailing tom strips of rubber, while the police clubbed a few more members of the crowd, pour encourager les autres. The situation of the three men inside the truck was imaginable, with skinned faces and swollen tongues, joggling companionably on the front seats before slipping, with a distinct air of

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  dissipation, down in a pile onto the cab floor, among the control levers and safety equipment lockers. The crowd, bored now under the raw sun and anarchic within itself, responded to the clubs of the police by singing We shall overcome and retiring into a high haze.

  Manny Littlejohn told James to drive on. His vision of humanity was now satisfactory, completely justifying. And time was short. The black boat dug its stem into the water and roared away, past the main river purifying station and around the point into the calm, sun-dappled water of Penheniot Pill. The sound of singing faded, till only the faint murmur of the engines and the swish of water along the boat’s side remained to sully the ancient, oak-clad stillness. Manny Littlejohn, settling himself on the foredeck, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Life was good.

  Warned by Mortimers wrist radio, and by the television scanners at the creek mouth, Penheniot Village was well prepared for the arrival of its Founder. As the boat rounded the final bend, Manny Littlejohn saw a casual loiterer on the Village quay glance casually in his direction, start with huge astonishment at what he saw, and hurry away to the nearest internal telephone. Within a remarkably short time, well before Manny Littlejohn’s boat had crossed the deep mooring and come alongside, Villagers had begun spontaneously to gather, pouring excitedly out of the cottages and shops and disguised industrial buildings. And at this moment, just as the boat was tying up, the chrononauts happened to trot neatly out from their crew room, oblivious to the general activity, intent upon their own program, and begin a routine (but spectacular) series of athletic exercises. The Village Green, on which their display took place, was within full view of the arriving party.

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  The rich green of the grass, the tawny figures of the athletes, the gray Cornish stone of the cottages mellowed by a golden afternoon sun, everything about the scene was delightful. Especially to Manny Littlejohn, of the generation that could still occasionally be roused to salacious joy by the commonplace sight of breasts and bellies and pelvic girdles (if sufficiently vigorously agitated). He stood entranced, while the legs swung and scissored, while the bellies rippled, while the breasts bounded. (He was pleased perhaps more than anything else by the vigor of his resultant erection. At 87 it was no mean achievement.)

  David Silberstein pushed his way through the cheering crowd.

  “Founder! Welcome . . . welcome to Penheniot. If we had only known you were coming we would have . .

  But the Founder wasn’t listening.

  “I approve of physical training,” he said. “It would be a pity if such fine . . . er . . . bodies were to be neglected in the classroom. I shall go and tell them so. Tell them I’m glad they don’t neglect their fine bodies in the classroom.”

  He stepped up onto the quay, closely followed by Krancz. After a couple of strides—and much against his better nature—he remembered the inadmissible Mer- vyn, no doubt still slumped tactlessly in the stem of the boat. He turned nobly back, preparing explanations. But James had already reversed out into deep water and was nosing away toward the Police Station beach. Manny Littlejohn was happy to see that the security men had their pride.

  Beside the Village Green he lingered, not wishing to interrupt the delightful spectacle, partaking of a summer idyll. How hot it was. Around him were his friends, his employees, his friends. . . . They were in festive

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  mood, vying for his attention. Mrs. Kops in carpet slippers, her staff with knitting and teacup-shaped hands; Daniel, unplaceable naked but for the clipboard in his hand; the Training Supervisor, Sir Edwin, also naked but too distinguished to be anybody else; the Village doctor, horn-rimmed; Color Sergeant Cole in blue helmet, leaning on his bicycle, whistle swinging from its regulation lanyard; Joseph with floury hair; these and dozens more, approaching via David Silberstein to receive their distant audience. And children too, a respectful glimpse, perhaps with a pat on the head.

  While on the outskirts of the crowd, uncomprehending, caught up in the general movement away from the quay, Roses Varco, a long piece of grass in his smiling mouth. He wasn’t one to bear grudges, even though the boat would have disturbed the fish for hours to come. Also he knew that such tumultuous occasions always involved, sooner or later, the Village Band. Above all other works of man, Roses Varco worshipped the sparkle and blare of the Village Band.

  When the chrononauts had finished their display the athletics coach trotted them over to be presented to the Founder. He shook hands with each, very properly, rustily inclining his head to look up into their dedicated, hopeful faces. They augmented his own supplies of dedication and hope, remaining themselves as rich as ever. His heart ached for them, for their inaccessible, unattainable beauty. They hurried away, not a moment to lose, to their studies. They were superb. And Krancz sidled restlessly to and fro, always watchful.

  Professor Igor Kravchensky, perhaps from a sense of occasion but more probably from vagueness, was one of the last to arrive on the scene. By the time he had scuttled down the laboratory steps, followed by Liza Simmons, the Maypole was being erected (on July
23rd)

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  in the middle of the Village Green, and the Band were tuning their instruments. Joseph had hurried away to his bakehouse. The Village was gay, bedecked with ribbons, the dancing would soon begin. In the evening the Founder would be offered his pick of the maidens, which he would gently, so as not to hurt their feelings, because he was a gentleman (and 87), decline. Meanwhile the dogs barked, the rooks rose jangled from the high trees, and Mrs. Kops did a roaring trade in ice cream comets from her little cart filled with smoking dry ice.

  Into the middle of all this came Professor Kravchen- sky and Liza. Two sore thumbs. Not even artist and putative model, in spite of slide rule and clothes, for the Villagers drew back to let them pass, neither respectful nor derisive but afraid. The professor hovered, wringing his hands, seeking Manny Littlejohn, then scuttled forward.

  “Emmanuel!”

  “Igor!” ' ■

  “Emmanuel.. . what a long time it’s been.”

  “Too long, Igor. I let foolish work keep me away too much.”

  They had embraced. Two old men, shaken by sudden, unaccustomed emotion.

  “So thin you are, Emmanuel. How are you keeping?” “An old scarecrow, Igor. Not like you—no wife to feed me. What is a man with no wife?”

  “And why is that? You should marry, Emmanuel. Marry like me. Who would say it is too late?”

  “Not too late? At eighty-seven? What woman would have me?”

  “She’d have your money, Emmanuel.”

  The professor had spoken softly, words that for anyone else were impossible. Words allowed by the love