Immigrant Read online

  She balled a fist and rapped against his shirt front.

  "That's the answer, Buster. That's why we never write the truth. That's why we don't go back."

  "But it's been going on for years. For almost a hundred years. In all that time someone should have cracked - "

  "And lost all this?" she asked. "Lost the easy living. The good drinking. The fellowship of lost souls. And the hope. Don't forget that. Always the hope that Kimon can be cracked."

  "Can it?"

  "I don't know. But if I were you, Buster, I wouldn't count on it."

  "But it's no kind of a life for decent - "

  "Don't say it. We aren't decent people. We are scared and weak, every one of us. And with good reason."

  "But the life - "

  "You don't lead a decent life, if that was what you were about to say. There's no stability in us. Children? A Few of us have children and it's not so bad for the children as it is for us, because they know nothing else. A child who is born a slave is better off, mentally, than a man who once knew freedom."

  "We aren't slaves," said Bishop.

  "Of course not," Maxine said. "We can leave any time we want to. All we got to do is walk up to a native and say "I want to go back to Earth." That's all you need to do. Any single one of them could send you back - swish - just like they send the letters, just like they whisk you to your work or to your room."

  "But no one has gone back."

  "Of course no one has," she said.

  They sat there, sipping at their drinks.

  "Remember what I told you," she said. "Don't think. That's the way to beat it. Never think about it. You got it good. You never had it so good. Soft living. Easy living. Nothing to worry about. The best kind of life there is."

  "Sure," said Bishop. "Sure, that's the way to do it."

  She slanted her eyes at him.

  "You're catching on," she said.

  They had another round.

  Over in the corner a group had gotten together and was doing some impromptu singing. A couple were quarreling a stood or two away.

  "It's too noisy in this place," Maxine said. "Want to see my paintings?"

  "Your paintings?"

  "The way I make my living. They are pretty bad, but no one knows the difference."

  "I'd like to see them."

  "Grab hold, then."

  "Grab - "

  "My mind, you know. Nothing physical about it. No use riding elevators."

  He gaped at her.

  "You pick it up," said Maxine. "You never get too good. But you pick up a trick or two."

  "But how do I go about it?"

  "Just let loose," she said. "Dangle. Mentally, that is. Try to reach out to me. Don't try to help. You can't."

  He dangled and reached out, wondering if he was doing it the way it should be done.

  The universe collapsed and then came back together.

  They were standing in another room.

  "That was a silly thing for me to do," Maxine said. "Some day I'll slip a cog and get stuck in a wall or something."

  Bishop drew a deep breath.

  "Monty could read me just a little," he said. "Said you picked it up - just at the fringes."

  "You never get too good," said Maxine. "Humans aren't... well, aren't ripe for it, I guess. It takes millennia to develop it."

  He looked around him and whistled.

  "Quite a place," he said.

  It was all of that.

  It didn't seem to be a room at all, although it had furniture. The walls were hazed in distance and to the west were mountains, peaked with snow, and to the east a very sylvan river, and there were flowers and flowering bushes everywhere, growing from the floor. A deep blue dusk filled the room and somewhere off in the distance there was an orchestra.

  A cabinet-voice said, "Anything, madam?"

  "Drinks," said Maxine. "Not too strong. We've been hitting the bottle."

  "Not too strong," said the cabinet. "Just a moment, madam."

  "Illusion," Maxine said. "Every bit of it. But a nice illusion. Want a beach? It's waiting for you, if you just think of it. Or a polar cap. Or a desert. Or an old chateau. It's waiting in the wings."

  "Your painting must pay off," he said.

  "Not my painting. My irritation. Better start getting irritated, Buster. Get down in the dumps. Start thinking about suicide. That's a surefire way to do it. Presto, you're kicked upstairs to a better suite of rooms. Anything to keep you happy."

  "You mean the Kimonians automatically shift you?"

  "Sure. You're a sucker to stay down there where you are."

  "I like my layout," he told her. "But this - "

  She laughed at him. "You'll catch on," she said.

  The drinks arrived.

  "Sit down," Maxine said. "Want a moon?"

  There was a moon.

  "Could have two or three," she said, "but that would be overdoing it. One moon seems more like Earth. Seems more comfortable."

  "There must be a limit somewhere," Bishop said. "They can't keep on kicking you upstairs indefinitely. There must come a time when even the Kimonians can't come up with anything that is new and novel."

  "You wouldn't live long enough," she told him, "for that to come about. That's the way with all you new ones. You underestimate the Kimonians. You think of them as people, as Earth people who know just a little more. They aren't that, at all. They're alien. They're as alien as a spider-man, despite their human form. They conform to keep contact with us."

  "But why do they want to keep contact with us? Why - "

  "Buster," she said, "that's the question that we never ask. That's the one that can drive you crazy."

  15

  He had told them about the human custom of going out on picnics and the idea was one that they had never thought of, so they adopted it with childish delight.

  They had picked a wild place, a tumbled mountain area, filled with deep ravines, clothed in flowers and trees and with a mountain brook with water that was as clear as glass and as cold as ice.

  They had played games and romped. They had swam and sunbathed and they had listened to his stories, sitting in a circle, needling him and interrupting him, picking arguments.

  But he had laughed at them, not openly, but deep inside himself, for he knew now that they meant no harm, but merely sought amusement.

  Weeks before he had been insulted and outraged and humiliated, but as the days went on he had adapted to it - had forced himself to adapt. If they wished a clown, then he would be a clown. If he were court fool, with bells and parti-colored garments, then he must wear the colors well and keep the bells ringing merrily.

  There was occasional maliciousness in them and some cruelty, but no lasting harm. And you could get along with them, he told himself, if you just knew how to do it.

  When evening came they had built a fire and had sat around it and had talked and laughed and joked, for once leaving him alone. Elaine and Betty had been nervous. Jim had laughed at them for their nervousness.

  "No animals will come near a fire," he said.

  "There are animals?" Bishop had asked.

  "A few," said Jim. "Not many of them left."

  He had lain there, staring at the fire, listening to their voices, glad that for once they were leaving him alone. Like a dog must feel, he thought. Like a pup hiding in a corner from a gang of rowdy children who are always mauling it.

  He watched the fire and remembered other days - outings in the country and walking trips when they had built a fire and lay around it, staring at the sky, seeing the old, familiar skies of Earth.

  And here again was another fire.

  And here, again, a picnic.

  The fire was Earth and so was the picnic - for the people of Kimon did not know of picnics. They did not know of picnics and there might be many other things of which they likewise did not know. Many other things, perhaps. Barbaric, folkish things.

  Don't look for the big things, Morley had said th
at night. Watch for the little things, for the little clues.

  They liked Maxine's paintings because they were primitives. Primitives, perhaps, but likewise not very good. Could it be that paintings also had been something the Kimonians had not known until the Earthmen came?

  Were there, after all, chinks in the Kimonian armor? Little chinks like picnics and paintings and many other little things for which they valued the visitors from Earth?

  Somewhere in those chinks might be the answer that he sought for Morley.

  He lay and thought, forgetting to shield his mind, forgetting that he should not think because his thoughts lay open to them.

  Their voices had faded away and there was a solemn nighttime quiet. Soon, he thought, we'll all be going back - they to their homes and I to the hotel. How far away, he wondered. Half a world or less? And yet they'd be there in the instant of a thought.

  Someone, he thought, should put more wood on the fire.

  He roused himself to do it, standing up.

  And it was not until then that he saw he was alone.

  He stood there, trying to quiet his terror.

  They had gone away and left him.

  They had forgotten him.

  But that couldn't be. They'd simply slipped off in the dark. Up to some prank, perhaps. Trying to scare him. Talking about the animals and then slipping out of sight while he lay dreaming at the fire. Waiting now, just outside the circle of the firelight, watching him, drinking in his thoughts, reveling in his terror.

  He found wood and put it on the fire. It caught and blazed.

  He sat down nonchalantly, but he found that his shoulders were hunched instinctively, that the terror of aloneness in an alien world still sat by the fire beside him.

  Now, for the first time, he realized the alienness of Kimon. It had not seemed alien before, except for those few minutes he had waited in the park after the gig had landed him, and even then it had not been as alien as an alien planet should be because he knew that he was being met, that there would be someone along to take care of him.

  That was it, he thought. Someone to take care of me. We're taken care of - well and lavishly. We're sheltered and guarded and pampered - that was it, pampered. And for what reason?

  Any minute now they'd tire of their game and come back into the circle of the firelight.

  Maybe, he told himself, I should give them their money's worth. Maybe I should act scared, maybe I should shout out for them to come and get me, maybe I should glance around, out into the darkness, as if I were afraid of those animals that they talked about. They hadn't talked too much, of course. They were too clever for that, far too clever. Just a passing remark about existent animals, then on to something else. Not stressing it, not laying it on too thick. Not overdoing it. Just planting a suggestion that there were animals one could be afraid of.

  He sat and waited, not as scared as he had been before, having rationalized away the fear that he first had felt. Like an Earth campfire, he thought. Except it isn't Earth. Except it's an alien planet.

  There was a rustle in the bushes.

  They'll be coming now, he thought. They've figured out that it didn't work. They'll be coming back.

  The bushes rustled again and there was the sound of a dislodged stone.

  He did not stir.

  They can't scare me, he thought.

  They can't scare -

  He felt the breath upon his neck and leaped into the air, spinning as he leaped, stumbling as he came down, almost falling in the fire, then on his feet and scurrying to put the fire between him and the thing that had breathed upon his neck.

  He crouched across the fire from it and saw the teeth in the gaping jaws. It raised its head and slashed, as if in pantomime, and he could hear the clicking of the teeth as they came together and the little moaning rumble that came from the massive throat.

  A wild thought came to him: It's not an animal at all. This is just part of the gag. Something they dreamed up. If they can build a house like an English wood, use it for a day or two, then cause it to disappear as something for which they have no further use, surely it would be a second's work to dream up an animal.

  The animal padded forward, and he thought: Animals should be afraid of fire. All animals are afraid of fire. It won't get me if I stay near the fire.

  He stooped and grabbed a brand.

  Animals are afraid of fire.

  But this one wasn't.

  It padded round the fire. It stretched out its neck and sniffed.

  It wasn't in any hurry, for it was sure of him.

  Sweat broke out on him and ran down his sides.

  The animal came with a smooth rush, whipping around the fire.

  He leaped, clearing the fire, to gain the other side of it.

  The animal checked itself, spun around to face him.

  It put its muzzle to the ground and arched its back. It lashed its tail. It rumbled.

  He was frightened now, cold with a fright that could not be laughed off.

  It might be an animal.

  It must be an animal.

  No gag at all, but an animal.

  He paced back toward the fire. He danced on his toes, ready to run, to dodge, to fight if he had to fight. But against this thing that faced him across the fire, he knew, there was no fighting chance. And yet, if it came to fighting, he could do no less than fight.

  The animal charged.

  He ran.

  He slipped and fell and rolled into the fire.

  A hand reached down and jerked him from the fire, flung him to one side, and a voice cried out, a cry of rage and warning.

  Then the universe collapsed and he felt himself flying apart and, as suddenly, he was together once again.

  He lay upon a floor and he scrambled to his feet. His hand was burned and he felt the pain of it. His clothes were smoldering and he beat them out with his uninjured hand.

  A voice said, "I'm sorry, sir. This should not have happened."

  The man was tall, much taller than the Kimonians he had seen before. Nine feet, perhaps. And yet not nine feet, actually. Not anywhere near nine feet. He was no taller, probably, than the taller men of Earth. It was the way he stood that made him seem so tall, the way he stood and looked, and the way his voice sounded.

  And the first Kimonian, Bishop thought, who had ever shown age. For there was a silvering of the temple hairs and his face was lined, like the faces of hunters or sailors may be lined from squinting into far distances.

  They stood facing one another in a room which, when Bishop looked at it, took his breath away. There was no describing it, no way to describe it - you felt as well as saw it. It was a part of you and a part of the universe and a part of everything you'd ever known or dreamed. It seemed to thrust extensions out into unguessed time and space, and it had a sense of life and the touch of comfort and the feel of home.

  Yet, when he looked again, he sensed a simplicity that did not square with his first impressions. Basic simplicities that tied in with the simple business of living out one's life, as if the room and the folks who lived within its walls were somehow integrated, as if the room were trying its best not to be a room, but to be a part of life, so much a part of life that it could pass unnoticed.

  "I was against it from the first," said the Kimonian. "Now I know that I was right. But the children wanted you - "

  "The children?"

  "Certainly. I am Elaine's father."

  He didn't say Elaine, however. He said the other name - the name that Elaine had said no Earthmen could pronounce.

  "Your hand?" asked the man.

  "It's all right," said Bishop. "Only burned a little."

  And it was as if he had not spoken, as if he had not said the words - but another man, a man who stood off to one side and spoke the words for him.

  He could not have moved if he'd been paid a million.

  "This is something," said the Kimonian, "that must be recompensed. We'll talk about it later."

&
nbsp; "Please, sir," said the man who talked for Bishop. "Please, sir, just one thing. Send me to my hotel."

  He felt the swiftness of the other's understanding - the compassion and the pity.

  "Of course," said the tall man. "With your permission, sir."

  16

  Once there were some children (human children, playfully) who had wanted a dog - a little playful puppy. But their father said they could not have a dog because they would not know how to treat him. But they wanted him so badly and begged their father so, that he finally brought them home a dog, a cunning little puppy, a little butterball, with a paunchy belly and four wobbly legs and melting eyes, filled with the innocence of puppyhood.

  The children did not treat him as badly as you might have imagined that they would. They were cruel, as all children are. They roughed and tumbled him; they pulled his ears and tail; they teased him. But the pup was full of fun. He liked to play, and no matter what they did he came back for more. Because, undoubtedly, he felt very smug in this business of associating with the clever human race, a race so far ahead of dogs in culture and intelligence that there was no comparison at all.

  But one day the children went on a picnic and when the day was over they were very tired, and forgetful, as children are very apt to be. So they went off and left the puppy.

  That wasn't a bad thing, really. For children will be forgetful, no matter what you do, and the pup was nothing but a dog.

  The cabinet said: "You are very late, sir."

  "Yes," said Bishop, dully.

  "You hurt somewhere, sir. I can sense the hurt."

  "My hand," said Bishop. "I burned it in a fire."