Alternate Realities (54 page)

His parents. Perrin. In fact his thoughts had not tended that way twice in a day in a very long time. He would bring them to Kierkegaard when his great work was finished. They would be an excellent test of it. The anticipation of the effect on them excited him.

Accomplishment, he thought, did not diminish goals: it opened new ones. To reach back to Camus and to alter that place too ... one of his apprentices, trained by the work here, would suffice to change Camus. And to change his parents’ and sister’s lives, by enveloping them in his influence, giving them prominence in Camus. ...

He smiled, self-pleased, confident, and walked from the facade of the Residency and its power and its philosophy toward his own domain at the University. He never meant to let Waden come too close to him, as Keye had come, until she tried to maneuver him and discovered that she could not.

He whistled, walking along the walk beneath the streetlamps, disturbing the night because it was his to disturb.

A shadow confronted him, gangling, robed. He
saw
it because it startled him, coming out of that patch of shadow between the two buildings. Or perhaps it had been there all along and he had not perceived it. He had truly not seen one of the Others in—he had forgotten how long. He had learned how not to see them, out of politeness.

It stood there, a blob of midnight in the light of the street-lamp, and from within the hood seemed to stare at him, a question posed. His path was blocked. The ahnit made himself ... itself? inconvenient to his progress.

He walked round it and curiously—for he was beyond such curiosity—he had a nagging impulse to look back, to see if it regarded his departing back, or if he should see it taking its own way.

Anathema.

It did not exist. He refused it existence. An inevitable question occurred to him, regarding his existence in its eyes.

His mind rebounded perversely to his analysis of the insane, who confronted a reality which swallowed them, and who thereafter, had to ignore all realities, or establish their own rules.

He laughed nervously, silently, because the night was no longer empty of threat to him. He went not to his studio, but to the Fellows’ Hall in the University, and sat at that table which he and Waden had shared on a certain night, familiar scarred wood.

The University was created for Waden, and created Herrin Law, sculptor.

He drank his beer and sat alone, because he was a Master and there were no younger Students who dared approach or question him; because he was known to be powerful and most of good sense would not come to him uninvited, fearing the edge of his wit. His apprentices had spread his reputation of late and the self-knowing retreated from hazard.

He was alone. Solitary in his Universe, the only real point.

W
aden Jenks tolerated the sitting, suffered in silence, because to admit discomfort and then go on to bear it was to admit he was constrained. Herrin prolonged the misery in self-contained humor, took whatever shots might be minutely necessary, sketched from several angles, after resetting the lighting with meticulous care.

And Waden, perched on his uncushioned chair, sat rigidly obedient.

“The lighting,” Herrin said, “will be from a number of sources. I take the seasons into account; apprentices are running the matter in the computer, so that the lighting will be exact from season to season, the sun hovering hour by hour in a series of what appear to be design-based apertures. The play of—”

“Spare me. I’ll see the finished effect. I trust your talent.”

Herrin smiled, undisturbed. Darkened an area beneath the chin and smiled the more.

“A little haste,” said Waden. “I have appointments.”

“Ah?”

“A ship in orbit. An ordinary thing.”

“Ah.”

“There is some hazard. This is McWilliams’s
Singularity
.”

Herrin lifted an eyebrow, nonplused.

“An irregular client, one of the more troublesome. I’d like you to be there, Artist.”

Both eyebrows. “Me? Where, at the port?”

“The Residency, my friend.”,

“What, you want sketches?”

Waden smiled. “I find the opinion of the second mind of Freedom—an asset. You have an insight into character. I value your assessment. Observe the man and tell me what you’d surmise about him.”

“Interesting. An interesting proposal. I bypass your naïve assumption. I’ll come.”

“Of course you will.”

He stopped in midshadow, made it a reflective pause, studiously ignoring Waden, refusing at this moment to interpret him.

A
nd on the morrow the shuttle was down and Camden McWilliams was in the Residency.

Herrin wore Student’s Black; it was stark and sufficiently dramatic for confrontations. He sat in the corner of Waden’s office, refusing to be amazed at the splendor of the decoration, much of the best of the University culled for the private ownership of the First Citizen. He knew the individual styles: the desk with the carved legs, definitely Genovese; the delicate chair which bore Waden’s healthy weight, Martin’s; the paintings, Disa Welby; the very rugs on the floor, work of Zad Pirela, meant as wall hangings, and here trod upon as carpet.

He was offended. Vastly offended. He observed, catalogued, refused to react. It was Waden’s prerogative to treat such things with casual abuse, since Waden had the power to do so; he recovered his humor and smiled to himself, thinking that there was one work Waden could not swallow, but which engulfed him.

Meanwhile he sketched, idly, and looked up with cool disinterest when functionaries showed in captain Camden McWilliams.

A black man of outlandish dress, bright colors, a big man who assumed the space about him and who had probably given the functionaries difficulty. Waden greeted McWilliams coldly, and Herrin simply smiled and flipped the page of his sketchbook to begin again.

“McWilliams of the irregular merchanter
Singularity
,” Waden Jenks said, failing to hold out his hand. “Herrin Law, Master of Arts.”

“McWilliams,” Herrin said cooly.

McWilliams took him in with a glance and frowned at Waden. “Wanted to see,” he began without preamble, “what kind of authority we have here. You’re old Jenks’s son, are you?”

“You’ve been informed,” Waden said. “Come the rest of the way to your point, McWilliams of
Singularity
.”

“Just looking you over.” McWilliams studiously spat on the Pirela carpet. “Figure the same policies apply.”

“I follow old policies where pleasant and convenient to me. That I see you at all is more remarkable than you know, for reasons that you won’t understand. Outsiders don’t. You’ll accept the same goods at the same rate and we’ll accept no nonsense. Trade here is not necessary.”

“We,” said McWilliams, “have the ability to level this city.”

“Good. I trust you also have the ability to harvest grain and to wait about while the new crop grows. Perhaps the military will assist with the next harvest.”

McWilliams chuckled softly and spat a second time. “Good enough, Jenks. Go on about your business. We’re loading at port. You know my face now and I know yours.”

“Sufficient exchange, McWilliams.”

“What’s this—thing—in the city?”

“Thing, McWilliams?”

“This thing in the middle of town. Scan doesn’t lie. What are you doing out there?”

“Art. A decorative program.”

McWilliams’s eyes rested coldly on him. “Nothing military, would it be?”

“Nothing military.” For once Waden Jenks looked mildly surprised. “Take the tour, McWilliams. There’s no restriction in Kierkegaard. Wander our streets as you will.”

“
This
city? Hell, sooner.”

“The driver will take you to the port.” Waden made a temple of his hands and smiled past them. “A safe trip, McWilliams.”

“Huh,” McWilliams said, and turned and walked out.

Herrin filled in a line, shadowed an ear, languidly looked up into Waden’s waiting eyes. “Barbarian,” he judged. “Limited in formal debate but abundantly intelligent.
Can
he level the city?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Herrin’s insouciance failed him. For a moment he almost credited Waden with humor at his expense, and then revised his opinion.

“Freedom,” said Waden Jenks, “navigates a black and perilous sea, Herrin. And
I
guide it. And I see the directions of it. And I shape things beyond this city, beyond Sartre, beyond Freedom itself. I am a power in wider affairs, and when they come calling ... I deal with them. This much you should see, when you portray
me
, Herrin Law.”

For a moment Herrin was taken aback, “My art will encompass you,” he said. “And comprehend you in all senses of the word. The man saw my work, did he not? From that great height, he saw it.”

“That pleases you.”

“It’s an intriguing thought.”

“Their vision is considerably augmented to be able to do it. Kierkegaard is a very small city, by what I know.”

“We are at our beginning.”

“Indeed. So am I. Freedom is my beginning, not my limit.”

“We once talked of hubris.”

“And discounted it. Shape your stones, Artist. My way is scope. We talked about that too. You’ll never see the posterity you work toward. You’ll only hope it exists ... someday. But I’ll see the breadth I aim for.”

“But not the duration.”

The words came from his mouth unchecked, unthought, un-cautious. For a moment Waden’s smile looked deathly, and a very real fear came into his eyes.

“You serve my interests. Go on. Pursue your logic.

“You’ll carry my reputation with yours.” Herrin followed the argument like a beast to the kill, savoring the moment, hating the role in which perpetual caution had cast him with this man. “Mutual advantage.”

Waden smiled. That was always a good answer. It was effective, because he had then to wonder if Waden conceived of an answer. It was possible that Waden did; his wit was not easily overcome.

And Herrin smiled, because it was a good answer for him to return.

So henceforth alone
, he thought firmly.
Each to his own interests.
He was linked to Waden in one way and severed from him irrevocably in another, because the war was in the open.

“You’ve seen,” Waden said, “all that could interest you. I won’t keep you from your important work.”

Herrin slowly completed a line, shaded one, sealing the image of the foreigner in all his dark force. Flipped the notebook shut and rose, left without even an acknowledgment that there was anyone else in the room but himself.

Creative ethics, Keye called it.

But in fact the visit did shake him; and when he walked out under the sky, leaving the Residency, he could not but think of a vast machine orbiting over their heads, observing what passed in Kierkegaard from an unassailable height ... that there was a force above them which had a certain power over their existence.

He did not look up, because of course there was nothing of it to be seen; and he shrugged off the feeling of it. Laughed softly, at the thought that Freedom ignored outside forces as they ignored the invisibles; that in effect he had just spent a time talking to an invisible.

The man had spat on the Pirela weavings, had spat to contemn Waden Jenks and all Freedom, and Waden had treated that affront as invisible too, but it did not remove the spittle from the priceless artwork.

That man, the thought kept insinuating itself into his peace of mind, that man despised the greatest political power on Freedom, and the work of one of Freedom’s great artists, and walked out, because there had been nothing to do.

Waden Jenks might have had him killed on the spot. Might have, potentially. But that ship was still up there with the power to level Freedom. Camden McWilliams had refused the rare chance for a closer sight of Kierkegaard, from fear? from distrust? ... or further contempt?

He refused to think more on such matters. The man was an invisible. Meditating on invisibles was unproductive. Invisibles had nothing to do with reality, having rejected their own.

The analogy was incomplete: the ship and Camden McWilliams possessed power.

Herrin shivered in the daylight and walked on the way that the outsider had rejected, into the town.

The work progressed. He reached the Square, where the eighth course of stone was being moved into place, and even while that work progressed, apprentices were at work on the lowermost courses, some mapping the places to cut, some actually cutting with rapid precision, so that already the three shells, the touch-points of the interior curtain-walls, and the foot of the central support, showed some indication of shaping, troughs, folds, incisions.

A further portion of the view which had existed on this site since the initial layout of Kierkegaard—was gone. He refused to look up toward Keye’s apartment. She might be there, might be at the University. She would spend her evenings at least contemplating what went on below. The noise would intrude on her sleep, impossible for her to ignore. He wondered how she reasoned with that.