The Robert Silverberg Science Fiction MEGAPACK® (9 page)

“Fine with me,” the policeman said. “It’s about two hundred blocks to the north. Got a good pair of legs?”

“Never mind,” Rolf said. “I’ll take the subcar.”

* * * *

Kenman Road was a quiet little street in an expensive-looking end of Yawk. 12406 was a towering building which completely overshadowed everything else on the street. As Rolf entered the door, a perfumed little Earther with a flashing diamond where his left eye should have been and a skin stained bright purple appeared from nowhere.

“We’ve been waiting for you. Come on; Kal will be delighted that you’re here.”

The elevator zoomed up so quickly that Rolf thought for a moment that he was back in space. But it stopped suddenly at the 62nd floor, and, as the door swung open, the sounds of wild revelry drifted down the hall. Rolf had a brief moment of doubt when he pictured Laney and Kanaday at this very moment, playing cards in their mouldering hovel while he walked down this plastiline corridor back into a world he had left behind.

Quinton came out into the hall to greet him. Rolf recognized him by the missing ears; his skin was now a subdued blue to go with his orange robe.

“I’m so glad you came,” the little Earther bubbled. “Come on in and I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

The door opened photoelectrically as they approached. Quinton seized him by the hand and dragged him in. There was the sound of laughter and of shouting. As he entered it all stopped, suddenly, as if it had been shut off. Rolf stared at them quizzically from under his lowering brows, and they looked at him with ill-concealed curiosity.

They seemed divided into two groups. Clustered at one end of the long hall was a group of Earthers who seemed completely identical, all with the same features, looking like so many dolls in a row. These were the Earthers he remembered, the ones whom the plastic surgeons had hacked at and hewn until they all conformed to the prevailing concept of beauty.

Then at the other end was a different group. They were all different. Some had glittering jewels set in their foreheads, others had no lips, no hair, extra eyes, three nostrils. They were a weird and frightening group, highest product of the plastic surgeon’s art.

Both groups were staring silently at Rolf.

“Friends, this is Rolf—Rolf—”

“Dekker,” Rolf said after a pause. He had almost forgotten his own last name.

“Rolf Dekker, just back from outer space. I’ve invited him to join us tonight. I think you’ll enjoy meeting him.”

The stony silence slowly dissolved into murmurs of polite conversation as the party-goers adjusted to the presence of the newcomer. They seemed to be discussing the matter earnestly among themselves, as if Quinton had done something unheard-of by bringing a Spacer into an Earther party.

A tall girl with blonde hair drifted up to him.

“Ah. Jonne,” Quinton said. He turned to Rolf. “This is Jonne. She asked to be your companion at the party. She’s very interested in space and things connected with it.”

Things connected with it, Rolf thought. Meaning me. He looked at her. She was as tall an Earther as he had yet seen, and probably suffered for it when there were no Spacers around. Furthermore, he suspected, her height was accentuated for the evening by special shoes. She was not of the Individ persuasion, because her face was well-shaped, with smooth, even features, with no individualist distortion. Her skin was unstained. She wore a clinging off-the-breast tunic. Quite a dish, Rolf decided. He began to see that he might enjoy this party.

* * * *

The other guests began to approach timidly, now that the initial shock of his presence had worn off. They asked silly little questions about space—questions which showed that they had only a superficial interest in him and were treating him as a sort of talking dog. He answered as many as he could, looking down at their little painted faces with concealed contempt.

They think as little of me as I do of them.
The thought hit him suddenly and his broad face creased in a smile at the irony. Then the music started.

* * * *

The knot of Earthers slowly broke up and drifted away to dance. He looked at Jonne, who had stood patiently at his side through all this.

“I don’t dance,” he said. “I never learned how.” He watched the other couples moving gracefully around the floor, looking for all the world like an assemblage of puppets. He stared in the dim light, watching the couples clinging to each other as they rocked through the motions of the dance. He stood against the wall, wearing his ugliness like a shield. He saw the great gulf which separated him from the Earthers spreading before him, as he watched the dancers and the gay chatter and the empty badinage and the furtive hand-holding, and everything else from which he was cut off. The bizarre Individs were dancing together—he noticed one man putting an extra arm to full advantage—and the almost identical Conforms had formed their own group again. Rolf wondered how they told each other apart when they all looked alike.

“Come on,” Jonne said. “I’ll show you how to dance.” He turned to look at her, with her glossy blonde hair and even features. She smiled prettily, revealing white teeth.
Probably newly purchased?
Rolf wondered.

“Actually I do know how to dance,” Rolf said. “But I do it so badly—”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said gaily. “Come on.”

She took his arm. Maybe she doesn’t think I look like an ape, he thought. She doesn’t treat me the way the others do. But why am I so ugly, and why is she so pretty?

He looked at her and she looked at him, and he felt her glance on his stubbly face with its ferocious teeth and burning yellowish eyes. He didn’t want her to see him at all; he wished he had no face.

He folded her in his arms, feeling her warmth radiate through him. She was very tall, he realized, almost as tall as a Spacer woman—but with none of the harsh ruggedness of the women of Spacertown. They danced, she well, he clumsily. When the music stopped she guided him to the entrance of a veranda.

They walked outside into the cool night air. The lights of the city obscured most of the stars, but a few still showed, and the moon hung high above Yawk. He could dimly make out the lights of Spacertown across the river, and he thought again of Laney and Kanaday and wished Kanaday could see him now with this beautiful Earther next to him.

“You must get lonely in space,” she said after a while.

“I do,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. “But it’s where I belong. I’m bred for it.”

She nodded. “Yes. And any of those so-called men inside would give ten years of his life to be able to go to space. But yet you say it’s lonely.”

* * * *

“Those long rides through the night,” he said. “They get you down. You want to be back among people. So you come back. You come back. And what do you come back to?”

“I know,” she said softly. “I’ve seen Spacertown.”

“Why must it be that way?” he demanded. “Why are Spacers so lucky and so wretched all at once?”

“Let’s not talk about it now,” she said.

I’d like to kiss her, he thought. But my face is rough, and I’m rough and ugly, and she’d push me away. I remember the pretty little Earther girls who ran laughing away from me when I was thirteen and fourteen, before I went to space.

“You don’t have to be lonely,” she said. One of her perfect eyebrows lifted just a little. “Maybe someday you’ll find someone who cares, Rolf. Someday, maybe.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Someday, maybe.” But he knew it was all wrong. Could he bring this girl to Spacertown with him? No; she must be merely playing a game, looking for an evening’s diversion. Something new: make love to a Spacer.

They fell silent and he watched her again, and she watched him. He heard her breath rising and falling evenly, not at all like his own thick gasps. After a while he stepped close to her, put his arm around her, tilted her head into the crook of his elbow, bent, and kissed her.

As he did it, he saw he was botching it just like everything else. He had come too close, and his heavy boot was pressing on the tip of her shoe; and he had not quite landed square on her lips. But still, he was close to her. He was reluctant to break it up, but he felt she was only half-responding, not giving anything of herself while he had given all. He drew back a step.

She did not have time to hide the expression of distaste that involuntarily crossed her face. He watched the expression on her face as she realized the kiss was over. He watched her silently.

“Someday, maybe,” he said. She stared at him, not hiding the fear that was starting to grow on her face.

He felt a cold chill deep in his stomach, and it grew until it passed through his throat and into his head.

“Yeah,” he said. “Someday, maybe. But not you. Not anyone who’s just playing games. That’s all—you want something to tell your friends about, that’s why you volunteered for tonight’s assignment. It’s all you can do to keep from laughing at me, but you’re sticking to it. I don’t want any of it, hear me? Get away.”

She stepped back a pace. “You ugly, clumsy clown. You ape!” Tears began to spoil the flawless mask of her face. Blinded with anger, he grabbed roughly for her arm, but she broke away and dashed back inside.

She was trying to collect me, he thought. Her hobby: interesting dates. She wanted to add me to her collection. An Experience. Calmly he walked to the end of the veranda and stared off into the night, choking his rage. He watched the moon making its dead ride across the sky, and stared at the sprinkling of stars. The night was empty and cold, he thought, finally. But not more so than I.

* * * *

He turned and looked back through the half-opened window. He saw a girl who looked almost like her, but was not tall enough and wore a different dress. Then he spotted her. She was dancing with one of the Conforms, a frail-looking man a few inches shorter than she, with regular, handsome features. She laughed at some sly joke, and he laughed with her.

Rolf watched the moon for a moment more, thinking of Laney’s warning.
They just want to make fun of you. Look at the big ape, they’ll say.

He knew he had to get out of there immediately. He was a Spacer, and they were Earthers, and he scorned them for being contemptuous little dolls, and they laughed at him for being a hulking ape. He was not a member of their species; he was not part of their world.

He went inside. Kal Quinton came rushing up to him.

“I’m going,” Rolf said.

“What? You don’t mean that,” the little man said. “Why, the party’s scarcely gotten under way, and there are dozens of people who want to meet you. And you’ll miss the big show if you don’t stay.”

“I’ve already seen the big show,” Rolf told him. “I want out. Now.”

“You can’t leave now,” Quinton said. Rolf thought he saw tears in the corners of the little man’s eyes. “Please don’t leave. I’ve told everyone you’d be here—you’ll disgrace me.”

“What do I care? Let me out of here.” Rolf started to move toward the door. Quinton attempted to push him back.

“Just a minute, Rolf. Please!”

“I have to get out,” he said. He knocked Quinton out of his way with a backhand swipe of his arm and dashed down the hall frantically, looking for the elevator.

* * * *

Laney and Kanaday were sitting up waiting for him when he got back, early in the morning. He slung himself into a pneumochair and unsealed his boots, releasing his cramped, tired feet.

“Well,” Laney asked. “How was the party?”

“You have fun among the Earthers, Rolf?”

He said nothing.

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Laney said.

Rolf looked up at her. “I’m leaving space. I’m going to go to a surgeon and have him turn me into an Earther. I hate this filthy life!”

“He’s drunk,” Kanaday said.

“No, I’m not drunk,” Rolf retorted. “I don’t want to be an ape any more.”

“Is that what you are? If you’re an ape, what are they to you? Monkeys?” Kanaday laughed harshly.

“Are they really so wonderful?” Laney asked. “Does the life appeal to you so much that you’ll give up space for it? Do you admire the Earthers so much?”

* * * *

She’s got me
, Rolf thought. I hate Spacertown, but will I like Yawk any better? Do I really want to become one of those little puppets? But there’s nothing left in space for me. At least the Earthers are happy.

I wish she wouldn’t look at me that way.
“Leave me alone,” he snarled. “I’ll do whatever I want to do.” Laney was staring at him, trying to poke behind his mask of anger. He looked at her wide shoulders, her muscular frame, her unbeautiful hair and rugged face, and compared it with Jonne’s clinging grace, her flowing gold hair.

He picked up his boots and stumped up to bed.

* * * *

The surgeon’s name was Goldring, and he was a wiry, intense man who had prevailed on one of his colleagues to give him a tiny slit of a mouth. He sat behind a shining plastiline desk, waiting patiently until Rolf finished talking.

“It can’t be done,” he said at last. “Plastic surgeons can do almost anything, but I can’t turn you into an Earther. It’s not just a matter of chopping eight or ten inches out of your legs; I’d have to alter your entire bone structure or you’d be a hideous misproportioned monstrosity. And it can’t be done. I can’t build you a whole new body from scratch, and if I could do it you wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

Rolf stamped his foot impatiently. “You’re the third surgeon who’s given me the same line. What is this—a conspiracy? I see what you can do. If you can graft a third arm onto somebody, you can turn me into an Earther.”

“Please, Mr. Dekker. I’ve told you I can’t. But I don’t understand why you want such a change. Hardly a week goes by without some Yawk boy coming to me and asking to be turned into a Spacer, and I have to refuse him for the same reasons I’m refusing you! That’s the usual course of events—the romantic Earther boy wanting to go to space, and not being able to.”

An idea hit Rolf. “Was one of them Kal Quinton?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dekker. I just can’t divulge any such information.”

Rolf shot his arm across the desk and grasped the surgeon by the throat. “Answer me!”

“Yes,” the surgeon gasped. “Quinton asked me for such an operation. Almost everyone wants one.”

“And you can’t do it?” Rolf asked.

“Of course not. I’ve told you: the amount of work needed to turn Earther into Spacer or Spacer into Earther is inconceivable. It’ll never be done.”

“I guess that’s definite, then,” Rolf said, slumping a little in disappointment. “But there’s nothing to prevent you from giving me a new face—from taking away this face and replacing it with something people can look at without shuddering.”

“I don’t understand you, Mr. Dekker,” the surgeon said.

“I know that! Can’t you see it—I’m
ugly
! Why? Why should I look this way?”

“Please calm down, Mr. Dekker. You don’t seem to realize that you’re a perfectly normal-looking Spacer.
You were bred to look this way.
It’s your genetic heritage. Space is not a thing for everyone; only men with extraordinary bone structure can withstand acceleration. The first men were carefully selected and bred. You see the result of five centuries of this sort of breeding. The sturdy, heavy-boned Spacers—you, Mr. Dekker, and your friends—are the only ones who are fit to travel in space. The others, the weaklings like myself, the little people, resort to plastic surgery to compensate for their deficiency. For a while the trend was to have everyone conform to a certain standard of beauty; if we couldn’t be strong, we could at least be handsome. Lately a new theory of individualism has sprung up, and now we strive for original forms in our bodies. This is all because size and strength has been bred out of us and given to you.”