Giles Goat Boy (30 page)

Anastasia in her embarrassment had touched her brow to my arm (Stoker having sprung out from between us to illustrate the dance he had in mind), and thinking to assure her that her husband’s talk did not distress me, innocently I patted her behind, as was my wont when any lady of the herd needed calming. She looked up at me with quick wonder, also squeezed my arm uncertainly, and Stoker broke off his raillery to shout with laughter.

“Olé!”
some others called.

“Stop!” Max commanded, stamping his feet.

“No no, Maxie, he just started! Watch he doesn’t eat your hair-pins, Stacey; they eat anything, you know. Not like your gorilla-friend …”

“I don’t listen!” Max cried, and covered his ears once more. To me he said desperately, “Pat her on the head, you got to pat her! It’s different with human girls!” Then to Stoker, more determinedly: “I’m not her father, Stoker, much as I wish I was. But neither she nor Georgie’s going with you. You got to kill me first.”

Anastasia made a flutter of protest; Stoker laughed delightedly and drew his pistol; the cattle-prods moved towards us. I began to perspire.

Max opened his arms. “Na, wait,” he pleaded, “I make you a bargain. You told me once you watched the Bonifacists burn some Moishians in the Riot,
ja?
”

“Only a few,” Stoker answered modestly; the prospect of a bargain clearly amused him. “They were sure I was spying, but didn’t know for which side, so the day I took a tour of their extermination campuses they only did a few.”

Max’s thin face glared. “But you told me you enjoyed it,
ja?
”

“
Enjoyed
it! I never had so much fun—except the day you and I pushed the EAT-button. What a party! This one chap in particular, we couldn’t wait to try: biochemist named Schultz—maybe you’ve heard of him? He’d decided the only way to keep West-Campus culture from going up in smoke was to fireproof the Moishians. So he invented some kind of asbestos bagel, I believe it was, and ate nothing else for three months before he was picked up. When the Bonifacist scientists heard about it they put him straight in the oven—they don’t miss a trick! You know, it’s surprising how
thirsty
you got, around that place! Siegfrieder beer is the best in the University, and they had two kegs of it down by the ovens: one for enlisted men and one for officers and guests.”

Breathless I asked, “Did it work? The bagels?” and only realized I’d been baited when Stoker’s glee rang round the gorge.

“Founder forgive you!” Max said softly. And to Stoker: “Laugh all you want, I got reason to think this boy’s a Grand Tutor, even though there’s things he’s got to learn yet. And this poor suffering girl you call your wife—she’s a passèd Graduate, if ever there was one! So I make you this bargain, Stoker, you got one speck of right-mindedness in you: let her and George go on by themselves to Great Mall, and do what you want with me. Burn me up if you want, like poor Chaim Schultz—rest his mind!”

Stoker snapped his fingers. “
Chaim
, that was it! Chaim Schultz the biochemist. Very warm type, I remember. So many of you Moishian chaps were …”

In tears now, Max threw himself at Stoker’s knees. “For Founder’s sake let them go! Burn me!”

Anastasia and I hastened to calm him, she assuring him (her earlier complaint to the contrary notwithstanding) that her husband’s bark was far worse than his bite when it came to maltreating her, and I that I had more faith in my incorruptibility than Max seemed to, and no intention to let anyone suffer in my stead. As to Anastasia, I was not persuaded that her decision to remain with Stoker was freely chosen, nor contrariwise that it was simply coerced; I meant to investigate the matter further and act accordingly. In short—I vowed with some heat—the three of us would go together, whether to Great Mall and Main Gate or to the Power Plant. I might have added, but chose not to, that I was curious to see with my own eyes what flunkage really was, the better to understand its opposite, and thus looked forward to visiting both the Power Plant and Main Detention; also that Max’s pathetic gesture touched me less with gratitude and respect for him than with disapproval, even with a small, unexplainable contempt. It was but an amplifying of my own sentiments when Stoker said, “These Moishians, I swear to the Dunce, they
enjoy
being persecuted!” His tone was most amiable. “Don’t let anybody tell you they’re the Chosen Class: they volunteered!”

He ordered Max then to get off his knees and end the theatrics; he could burn all three of us if he had a mind to, he declared, and throw Croaker in for a backlog, but in fact he wanted only to entertain us for the night, inasmuch as he’d never matched drinks with a billygoat before, to say nothing of a Grand Tutor.

“Never,” Max said. “These children and I aren’t going.” He took Anastasia’s arm (who still pressed mine) and made as if to lead us away. The cattle-prodders glanced to their chief for instructions; Anastasia hesitated, as did I, unable to share my advisor’s resolve.

“Doggone!” Stoker said, ignoring us all. “There
is
a fellow we’ve got to burn; I’d almost forgot him! Black chap we fished off the dam. Friend of yours, was he?”

He strode over to one of the sidecars and flashed an electric torch: there sprawled the brown-skinned, white-fleeced body of G. Herrold, his head flung back; each separate water-drop upon him sparkled in the torch-beam. We went over, shocked, and regarded our lost friend. Max moaned and tore at his beard. Anastasia snatched up the dead man’s wrist and laid her ear to his chest.

“He’s not asleep, like Croaker?” I demanded.

She shook her head. “I can’t help feeling it’s
my
fault! If he hadn’t seen me out on the bridge …”

Stoker looked from speaker to speaker with a grin. I was smitten with grief. Dark fetcher from booklift, Belly, barn; first lover and teacher of full nelson; savior, sweep, and summoner (whose left hand still clutched the buckhorn)—he was the first dead human I had seen. His mouth being open, I kissed his cold forehead, and felt on my lips, with anger, drops of the river he’d crossed at last.

“This flunking place!” I cried. “What’s it called?”

“Just ‘The Gorge,’ ” Anastasia said.

“If you go with this Dean o’ Flunks here”—Max pointed grimly to Stoker—“you might as well call it South Exit, because you’re flunked for sure.”

“I’m going to give it his name,” I declared, indicating G. Herrold. Max showed some surprise at the firmness of my tone, but shrugged. To the company at large I announced: “From now on this river’s name is
George
. And the gorge is George’s Gorge.”

Max nodded. Even Stoker cocked his head and grinned approval.

“That’s okay,” Max said. “And we’ll bury him ourselves, right here. Help me lift him out, George.”

“Now, now, Maxie!” Stoker laughed. “You don’t go sticking people underground any way you please. Health rules! Forms to fill out; questions to answer! We’ll have to fetch him up to the morgue and have him looked over—only take a few minutes if you come along. And the Staff Graveyard’s right on Founder’s Hill, above the Powerhouse; we run the College Crematorium off the same pile as the main steam-boilers.” To me he added, “Awfully clever piece of engineering, actually: big oven man from Siegfrieder College designed it when we first hired him, just after the Riot …” He interrupted himself before Max could speak, to order his men to restart their engines. They answered him with curses, but finally obeyed when the order had been repeated several times by the lieutenant. “Hop in now, friends; the night doesn’t last forever. Maxie, you ride with your wet pal there and see he doesn’t bounce out. You kids ride with me.” He grinned at his inadvertent word-play and snatched my elbow to guide me to his vehicle. “Do you kiss a girl before you climb her, George, or just sniff around? I never saw a goat go to it, much as I admire them.”

“I’m not actually a goat,” I explained politely. “There may not even be any goat in me at all. And I never climbed a human girl before—just does, when I was younger.”

“You don’t tell me!”

I nodded, rather suspecting I was being teased but for some reason scarcely caring. Max’s warning, Anastasia’s mortified “Maurice!” my grief for G. Herrold—all caution and consideration were swept before Stoker’s outrageous high spirits. I rattled on as though despite myself. “G. Herrold and I used to do tricks sometimes, while we wrestled, till Max told me a Grand Tutor shouldn’t. Otherwise I certainly would enjoy Anastasia.”

“Would you, though!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Looks pretty good to you, does she?”

“Yes indeed. I think her teats are remarkably well formed, for a human girl’s, and I especially liked the patch of black hair I saw …” I turned to the red-faced lady I was complimenting and touched my stick lightly to her crotch. “Do you have a special name for it, ma’am? What we call the escutcheon?”

Stoker’s laugh rang over the roaring engines. Anastasia shrank from my stickpoint with a gasp—but did not let go my arm. From behind, Max’s voice came shrilly.

“Quit, George! Dear boy and girl, don’t!”

I glanced back: two grinning sooty guards were lifting him into the sidecar where G. Herrold was. “Take me and let them go!” I heard him beg one of them. “They aren’t even Moishians. You can kick and beat me!” To encourage them he began pummeling his own head with both fists, and continued to do so even after they had deposited him in the sidecar and mounted their cycles. Distressed as I was by the spectacle, I felt again that odd irritation—along with bad conscience, to be sure. I helped Anastasia into Stoker’s own sidecar and climbed in beside her.

“Don’t hurt Dr. Spielman, Maurice,” she pleaded. “He’s such a nice man, I wish he
was
my father. Promise?”

Stoker mounted chuckling to his seat and donned helmet and goggles. “Who needs to hurt Maxie? He does it himself!”

My laugh—I couldn’t help laughing—was lost in the blast of a small whistle he now blew several times, at the same time signaling with his arm and shouting, “Forward! Forward!” A great din rose as the cycles throttled slowly into motion, nudging, threatening, and blocking one another as if each aspired to lead the column. “Out of my way, flunk you!” Stoker would shout, and race his engine to intimidate those jockeying around him; they cursed him back with a grin, sometimes in our language, sometimes in others; we swarmed in all directions for a moment, like queen-less bees, until Stoker by thrust and knock had got clear of the tangle-whereupon with a whoop and cracking backfire he took off up the shore.
The others followed in a wobbly line, weaving and bumping over shale until we reached the roadway that came down to the broken bridge. There we turned inland on the harder pavement; Stoker opened the throttle, and we roared out of George’s Gorge at a breath-catch clip. I was amazed by the noise and speed: I clutched at the handrail and Anastasia’s shoulder; my head jerked back, and I gasped for some moments against the rush of air.

“Not so
fast!
” Anastasia fretted.

I shook my head. “It’s all right.”

Stoker’s teeth flashed through his whiskers. “Okay, hey, George?”

“I think … I like it.”

“Hooray!” Stoker let go the handlebars to shake hands with himself; Anastasia squealed and admonished him to drive more carefully. In truth he delighted in recklessness, as did his fellows: we were less a procession than a freestyle race, which Stoker led not by virtue of his rank but by speed and daring. When someone threatened to overtake us Stoker would block his way and make as if to force him into ditch or embankment; inevitably the challenger yielded with exuberant curses. Any turn in the road, however blind or precipitous, inspired him to more speed rather than less: he would bid us lean right or left as he instructed and skid full tilt into the curve, sometimes lifting the sidecar off the pavement. A signpost or streetlight picked up by our headlamp (there were not many) became a target; never slacking speed for an instant he unlimbered his pistol and blazed away, as did others behind us. Woe betide the rabbit, snake, or opossum who crossed our path: if no wrench of the machine itself could run him under our wheels, he was brought low by a fusillade of bullets as the line roared past. At all these things Anastasia shrieked and protested; excepting the fate of the animals, however, which moved her to tearful poundings of her husband’s side, she seemed as much exhilarated as afraid: between her screams and shakings of the head her breath came fast; she clutched at my wrapper for support, and though her eyes would shut against a peril-in-progress, I sometimes saw them sparkle at one’s approach. I too, alarmed as I was to the marrow by the wild novelty of the experience, had seldom felt such thrill: I even found myself applauding Stoker’s marksmanship, over Anastasia’s protests, and praising his riskiest maneuvers.

“You shouldn’t
encourage
him!” she scolded. “How can a Grand Tutor encourage reckless driving?”

I admitted cheerfully that I didn’t have the least idea whether my attitude was proper for a Grand Tutor; but I added (the notion having just
occurred to me): “It must be all right, though, come to think of it—since it’s
my
attitude, and I’m the Grand Tutor.”

“Well said!” Stoker let go the handlebars again to clap his hands, and Anastasia clawed at my arm.

“Besides,” I said, “if I’m not mistaken, you like it too.”

“I do
not!
”

Stoker shook a finger at her. “Don’t argue with the Grand Tutor, dear: you’re only a Graduate. Hey, George, is she really a Graduate?”

I considered her frowning face. Despite the racket and wild motion I sensed a good peculiar power in myself: a clarity of muscle, a tonus of thought, such as I’d rarely or never known. “She may not actually have Commenced yet, as Max thinks. I haven’t learned enough to tell. But I’m sure she must be a Candidate …”

My last words were lost on Stoker, who coming to a crossroads marked by direction-signs skidded to a halt and sprang off the motorcycle. Anastasia however was moved enough to lower her eyes, ignoring the riotous action before us. Stoker’s purpose in stopping, it developed, was to give the signpost a quarter-turn, “purely on principle,” as he later declared: a principle for the sake of which he not only sacrificed his hard-held lead but risked his life as well—bullets raised dust-puffs near his boots as the others flashed by, and clipped into the signboard over his head.