Immigrant Read online

  With dinner over and with Monty gone somewhere into the crowd, he found himself in the bar, sitting on a stool and nursing a drink that the Kimonian bartender had recommended as being something special.

  The girl came out of nowhere and floated up to the stool beside him, and she said:

  "What's that you're drinking, friend?"

  "I don't know," said Bishop. He made a thumb toward the man behind the bar. "Ask him to make you one."

  The bartender heard and got busy with the bottles and the shaker.

  "You're fresh from Earth," said the girl.

  "Fresh is the word," said Bishop.

  "It's not so bad," she said. "That is, if you don't think about it."

  "I won't think about it," Bishop promised. "I won't think of anything."

  "Of course, you do get used to it," she said. "After a while, you don't mind the faint amusement. You think, what the hell, let them laugh all they want to so long as I have it good. But the day will come - "

  "What are you talking about?" asked Bishop. "Here's your drink. Dip your muzzle into that and - "

  "The day will come when we are old to them, when we don't amuse them any longer. When we become passй. We can't keep thinking up new tricks. Take my painting, for example - "

  "See here," said Bishop, "you're talking way above my head."

  "See me a week from now," she said. "The name's Maxine. Just ask to see Maxine. A week from now, we can talk together. So long, Buster."

  She floated off the stool and suddenly was gone.

  She hadn't touched her drink.

  8

  He went up to his rooms and stood for a long time at a window, staring out into the featureless landscape lighted by a moon.

  Wonder thundered in his brain, the wonder and the newness and the many questions, the breathlessness of finally being here, of slowly coming to a full realization of the fact that he was here, that he was one of that glittering, fabulous company he had dreamed about for years.

  The long grim years peeled off him, the years of books and study, the years of determined driving, the hungry, anxious, grueling years when he had lived a monkish life, mortifying body and soul to drive his intellect.

  The years fell off and he felt the newness of himself as well as the newness of the scene. A cleanness and a newness and the sudden glory.

  The cabinet finally spoke to him.

  "Why don't you try the live-it, sir?"

  Bishop swung sharply around.

  "You mean - "

  "The third room," said the cabinet. "You'll find it most amusing."

  "The live-it!"

  "That's right," said the cabinet. "You pick it and you live it."

  Which sounded like something out of the Alice books.

  "It's safe," said the cabinet. "It's perfectly safe. You can come back any time you wish."

  "Thank you," Bishop said.

  He went into the room and sat down in the chair and studied the buttons on the arms.

  History?

  Might as well, he told himself. He knew a bit of history. He'd been interested in it and taken several courses and did a lot of supplemental reading.

  He punched the History button.

  A panel in the wall before the chair lit up and a face appeared - the face of a Kimonian, the bronzed and golden face, the classic beauty of the race.

  Aren't any of them homely? Bishop wondered. None of them ugly or crippled, like the rest of humanity?

  "What type of history, sir?" the face in the screen asked him.

  "Type?"

  "Galactic, Kimonian, Earth - almost any place you wish."

  "Earth, please," said Bishop.

  "Specifications?"

  "England," said Bishop. "October 14, 1066. A place called Senlac."

  And he was there.

  He was no longer in the room with its single chair and its four bare walls, but he stood upon a hill in sunny autumn weather with the gold and red of trees and the blueness of the haze and the shouts of men.

  He stood rooted in the grass that blew upon the hillside and saw that the grass had turned to hay with its age and sunshine - and out beyond the grass and hill, grouped down on the plain, was a ragged line of horsemen, with the sun upon their helmets and flashing on their shields, with the leopard banners curling in the wind.

  It was October 14th and it was Saturday and on the hill stood Harold's hosts behind their locked shield wall and before the sun had set new forces would have been put in motion to shape the course of empire.

  Taillefer, he thought. Taillefer will ride in the fore of William's charge, singing the Chanson de Roland and wheeling his sword into the air so that it became a wheel of fire to lead the others on.

  The Normans charged and there was no Taillefer. There was no one who wheeled his sword into the air, there was no singing. There was merely shouting and the hoarse crying of men riding to their death.

  The horsemen were charging directly at him and he wheeled and tried to run, but he could not outrun them and they were upon him. He saw the flash of polished hoofs and the cruel steel of the shoes upon the hoofs, the glinting lance point, the swaying, jouncing scabbard, the red and green and yellow of the cloaks, the dullness of the armor, the open roaring mouths of men - and they were upon him. And passing through him and over him as if he were not there.

  He stopped stock-still, heart hammering in his chest, and, as if from somewhere far off, he felt the wind of the charging horses that were running all around him.

  Up the hill there were hoarse cries of "Ut! UT!" and the high, sharp ring of steel. Dust was rising all around him and somewhere off to the left a dying horse was screaming. Out of the dust a man came running down the hill. He staggered and fell and got up and ran again and Bishop could see that blood poured out of the ripped armor and washed down across the metal, spraying the dead, sere grass as he ran down the hill.

  The horses came back again, some of them riderless, running with their necks outstretched, with the reins flying in the wind, with foam dashing from their mouths.

  One man sagged in the saddle and fell off, but his foot caught in the stirrup and his horse, shying, dragged him sidewise.

  Up on top of the hill the Saxon square was cheering and through the settling dust he saw the heap of bodies that lay outside the shield wall.

  Let me out of here! Bishop was screaming to himself. How do I get out of here! Let me out -

  He was out, back in the room again, with its single chair and the four blank walls.

  He sat there quietly and he thought:

  There was no Taillefer.

  No one who rode and sang and tossed the sword in the air.

  The tale of Taillefer was no more than the imagination of some copyist who had improved upon the tale to while away his time.

  But men had died. They had run down the hill, staggering with their wounds, and died. They had fallen from their horses and been dragged to death by their frightened mounts. They had come crawling down the hill, with minutes left of life and with a whimper in their throats.

  He stood up and his hands were shaking.

  He walked unsteadily into the next room.

  "You are going to bed, sir?" asked the cabinet.

  "I think I will," said Bishop.

  "Very good, then, sir. I'll lock up and put out."

  "That's very good of you."

  "Routine, sir," said the cabinet. "Is there anything you wish?"

  "Not a thing," said Bishop. "Good night."

  "Good night," said the cabinet.

  9

  In the morning he went to the employment agency which he found in one corner of the hotel lobby.

  There was no one around but a Kimonian girl, a tall, statuesque blonde, but with a grace to put to shame the most petite of humans. A woman, Bishop thought, jerked out of some classic Grecian myth, a blond goddess come to life and beauty. She didn't wear the flowing Grecian robe, but she could have. She wore, truth to tell, but little, and was all
the better for it.

  "You are new," she said.

  He nodded.

  "Wait, I know," she said. She looked at him: "Selden Bishop, age twenty-nine Earth years, IQ 160."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said.

  She made him feel as if he should bow and scrape.

  "Business administration, I understand," she said.

  He nodded, bleakly.

  "Please sit down, Mr. Bishop, and we will talk this over."

  He sat down and he was thinking: It isn't right for a beautiful girl to be so big and husky. Nor so competent.

  "You'd like to get started doing something," said the girl.

  "That's the thought I had."

  "You specialized in business administration. I'm afraid there aren't many openings in that particular field."

  "I wouldn't expect too much to start with," Bishop told her with what he felt was a becoming modesty and a realistic outlook. "Almost anything at all, until I can prove my value."

  "You'd have to start at the very bottom. And it would take two years of training. Not in method only, but in attitude and philosophy."

  "I wouldn't - "

  He hesitated. He had meant to say that he wouldn't mind. But he would mind. He would mind a lot.

  "But I spent years," he said. "I know - "

  "Kimonian business?"

  "Is it so much different?"

  "You know all about contracts, I suppose."

  "Certainly I do."

  "There is not such a thing as a contract on all of Kimon."

  "But - "

  "There is no need of any."

  "Integrity?"

  "That, and other things as well."

  "Other things?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "Try me."

  "It would be useless, Mr. Bishop. New concepts entirely so far as you're concerned. Of behavior. Of motives. On Earth, profit is the motive - "

  "Isn't it here?"

  "In part. A very small part."

  "The other motives - "

  "Cultural development for one. Can you imagine an urge to cultural development as powerful as the profit motive?"

  Bishop was honest about it. "No, I can't," he said.

  "Here," she said, "it is the more powerful of the two. But that's not all. Money is another thing. We have no actual money. No coin that changes hands."

  "But there is money. Credit notes."

  "For the convenience of your race alone," she said. "We created your money values and your evidence of wealth so that we could hire your services and pay you - and I might add that we pay you well. We have gone through all the motions. The currency that we create is as valid as anywhere else in the galaxy. It's backed by deposits in Earth's banks and it is legal tender so far as you're concerned. But Kimonians themselves do not employ money."

  Bishop floundered. "I can't understand," he said.

  "Of course you can't," she said. "It's an entirely new departure for you. Your culture is so constituted that there must be a certain physical assurance of each person's wealth and worth. Here we do not need that physical assurance. Here each person carries in his head the simple bookkeeping of his worth and debts. It is there for him to know. It is there for his friends and business associates to see at any time they wish."

  "It isn't business, then," said Bishop. "Not business as I think of it."

  "Exactly," said the girl.

  "But I am trained for business. I spent - "

  "Years and years of study. But on Earth's methods of business, not on Kimon's."

  "But there are businessmen here. Hundreds of them."

  "Are there?" she asked.

  And she was smiling at him. Not a superior smile, not a taunting one - just smiling at him.

  "What you need," she said, "is contact with Kimonians. A chance to get to know your way around. An opportunity to appreciate our point of view and get the hang of how we do things."

  "That sounds all right," said Bishop. "How do I go about it?"

  "There have been instances," said the girl, "when Earth people sold their services as companions."

  "I don't think I'd care much for that. It sounds... well, like babysitting or reading to old ladies or..."

  "Can you play an instrument or sing?"

  Bishop shook his head.

  "Paint? Draw? Dance?"

  He couldn't do any of them.

  "Box, perhaps," she said. "Physical combat. That is popular at times, if it's not overdone."

  "You mean prizefighting?"

  "I think that is one way you describe it."

  "No, I can't," said Bishop.

  "That doesn't leave much," she said as she picked up some papers.

  "Transportation?" he asked.

  "Transportation is a personal matter."

  And of course it was, he told himself. With telekinesis, you could transport yourself or anything you might have a mind to move - without mechanical aid.

  "Communications," he said weakly. "I suppose that is the same?"

  She nodded.

  With telepathy, it would be.

  "You know about transportation and communications, Mr. Bishop?"

  "Earth variety," said Bishop. "No good here, I gather."

  "None at all," she said. "Although we might arrange a lecture tour. Some of us would help you put your material together."

  Bishop shook his head. "I can't talk," he said.

  She got up.

  "I'll check around," she said. "Drop in again. We'll find something that you'll fit."

  "Thanks," he said and went back to the lobby.

  10

  He went for a walk.

  There were no roads or paths.

  There was nothing.

  The hotel stood on the plain and there was nothing else.

  No buildings around it. No village. No roads. Nothing.

  It stood there, huge and ornate and lonely, like a misplaced wedding cake.

  It stood stark against the skyline, for there were no other buildings to blend into it and soften it and it looked like something that someone in a hurry had dumped down and left.

  He struck out across the plain toward some trees that he thought must mark a watercourse and he wondered why there were no paths or roads, but suddenly he knew why there were no paths or roads.

  He thought about the years he had spent cramming business administration into his brain and remembered the huge book of excerpts from the letters written home from Kimon hinting at big business deals, at responsible positions.

  And the thought struck him that there was one thing in common in all of the excerpts in the book - that the deals and positions were always hinted at, that no one had ever told exactly what he did.

  Why did they do it? he asked himself. Why did they fool us all?

  Although, of course, there might be more to it than he knew. He had been on Kimon for somewhat less than a full day's time. I'll look around, the Grecian blonde had said - I'll look around, we'll find somewhere that you fit.

  He went on across the plain and reached the line of trees and found the stream. It was a prairie stream, a broad, sluggish flow of crystal water between two grassy banks. Lying on his stomach to peer into the depths, he saw the flash of fishes far below him.

  He took off his shoes and dangled his feet in the water and kicked a little to make the water splash, and he thought:

  They know all about us. They know about our life and culture. They know about the leopard banners and how Senlac must have looked on Saturday, October 14, 1066, with the hosts of England massed upon the hilltop and the hosts of William on the plain below.

  They know what makes us tick and they let us come; because they let us come, there must be some value in us.

  What had the girl said, the girl who had floated to the stool and then had left with her drink still untouched? Faint amusement, she had said. You get used to it, she had said. If you don't think too much about it, you get used to it.

  See me in a week, she ha
d said. In a week you and I can talk. And she had called him Buster.

  Well, maybe she had a right to call him that. He had been starry-eyed and a sort of eager beaver. And probably ignorant-smug.

  They know about us, and how do they know about us?

  Senlac might have been staged, but he didn't think so - there was a strange, grim reality about it that got under your skin, a crawling sort of feeling that told you it was true, that that was how it had happened and had been. That there had been no Taillefer and that a man had died with his guts dragging in the grass and that the Englishmen had cried "Ut! UT!" which might have meant almost anything at all or nothing just as well, but probably had meant "Out."

  He sat there, cold and lonely, wondering how they did it. How they had made it possible for a man to punch a button and to live a scene long dead, to see the death of men who had long been dust mingled with the earth.

  There was no way to know, of course.

  There was no use to guess.

  Technical information, Morley Reed had said, that would revolutionize our entire economic pattern.

  He remembered Morley pacing up and down the room and saying: "We must find out about them. We must find out."

  And there was a way to find out.

  There was a splendid way.

  He took his feet out of the water and dried them with handfuls of grass. He put his shoes back on and walked back to the hotel.

  The blond goddess was still at her desk in the Employment Bureau.

  "About that babysitting job," he said.

  She looked startled for a moment - terribly, almost childishly startled, but her face slid swiftly back to its goddess-mask.

  "Yes, Mr. Bishop."

  "I've thought it over," he said. "If you have that kind of job, I'll take it."

  11

  He lay in bed, sleepless, for a long time that night and took stock of himself and of the situation, and he came to a decision that it might not be as bad as he thought it was.

  There were jobs to be had, apparently. The Kimonians even seemed anxious that you should get a job. And even if it weren't the kind of work a man might want, or the kind that he was fitted for, it at least would be a start. From that first foothold a man could go up - a clever man, that is. And all the men and women, all the Earthians on Kimon, certainly were clever. If they weren't clever, they wouldn't be there to start with.