A King of Infinite Space Page 19

  “I knew there’s a reason why I like you, Alec,” he says. “You’re quite imaginative.”

  Another pause. “In fact, I think I’ll let you live.”

  “Thank you.” I don’t know what else to say. My heart’s thudding against my chest.

  “But…” Another calculated sigh, longer and more expansive than before. “But you presume too many things, not the least of which are the limits of my patience. You need to be taught a lesson in etiquette.”

  Then he casts his eyes around the cabana and the poolside, studying his guests in turn, before his gaze settles behind me. He raises his hand and points behind my left shoulder.

  “Die, please.”

  There’s a strangled gasp, and I turn around just in time to see John drop his platter.

  It crashes to the cement floor as his eyes widen in horror. He grasps the sides of his head as his face twists in agony. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out except for the choked echo of a scream.

  My own platter falls from my hands as I rush to him. I manage to catch John in my arms before he hits the ground. Suddenly, he seems to weigh as little as if we were in the hub.

  His fingers clutch at the sleeves of my robe—the robe he gave me the day we first met in the White Room, when he told me we were friends and that I shouldn’t urinate on the floor any more—and there’s a thin red line coming from his nose.

  He stares in my eyes as his legs thrash spasmodically, then we collapse together on the cement. His eyes grow wide, looking at me, past me, at something I never saw a hundred and four years ago…

  And then he dies.

  That’s it. That’s all. He just dies.

  Alien birds twitter in strange trees. Cool water rushes from somewhere nearby. Someone shifts their feet; someone else coughs. And then Mister Chicago, as casually as if someone has just spilled a salt shaker, says:

  “This has been an interesting conversation, Alec. Do drop by again sometime.”

  He rises from the bench and walks away. His entourage follows in his wake, trailing him as he saunters toward the break in the hedges where the path to the castle begins. The red-haired woman bends to pick up a grape from John’s spilled tray; she catches my eye, gives me a sly wink, then gently pushes the grape between the lips of her cruel mouth.

  I’m the property of a madman. For this creature, life itself is nothing more than a plaything. Life can be bought and sold, molded and manipulated, used and ultimately discarded. For the time being, I’m his favorite toy, but all children eventually get tired of their toys and throw them away. John was his favorite toy once, and look what’s happened to him.

  That’s when I realize that I have to escape.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  * * *

  PRIVATE REVOLUTION

  Lost he, indeed, who’d freedom sell,

  And still believe esteem to hold.

  —Jewish Seder song (traditional)

  With John dead, everything changed, and not for the better. We may have disliked him, but I don’t think anyone actually hated him; we’d often ridiculed him and his milquetoast demeanor behind his back, but he had also earned a certain grudging respect. From the moment we had awakened in the White Room, John had been our friend, the one who had given us clothes to wear and taught us how to behave like adults, and none of us had forgotten that. Now he was gone, and it wasn’t long before we realized how much we needed him.

  Our associates were able to give us our daily assignments, but now that we didn’t have John acting as an intermediary between us and the Main Brain, there was no one we could turn to when there were problems that needed sorting out. Before last week, that might not have troubled us; we had our jobs, and they were virtually the same every day. But Mister Chicago had picked a fine time to kill his majordomo out of spite; now his servants had no one to coordinate the preparations for the New Year’s party. We had instructions from our associates, but no human guidance.

  Although I only told Shemp, Russ, and Sam what had happened at the pool, the story of the circumstances surrounding John’s death spread quickly among the deadheads. Most of my fellow menials avoided contact with me for the next few days, and from time to time I caught hostile glares from some. Nor could I blame them; if I had not been so insolent, Mister Chicago wouldn’t have killed John, although it could be argued that murder is a rather extreme way of reasserting authority. I also think Mister Chicago was showing off before his jaded guests. What is ultimate power, after all, other than the ability to kill with the merest word, without fear of reprisal? It must be a wonderful temptation to simply say, “Die, please,” and watch someone fall down dead before your eyes. Godlike, in its own sinister way…but Mister Chicago seemed to enjoy playing God.

  Yet it was difficult explaining this to anyone; even my closest friends became leery of being seen with me. Which was just as well; being left alone gave me more time to think, even while I served food, cleaned tables, mopped floors, and changed bedsheets. Whatever my escape plan was going to be, it had to be foolproof. There would only be one shot at this, because if I screwed up and was caught, there was little doubt in my mind that the next person of whom Mister Chicago requested a sudden and painful death would be me.

  But I had a few ideas, and an ace up my sleeve.

  Mister Chicago doesn’t leave his servants leaderless for very long. The afternoon of the second day after John’s death, I’m on hands and knees in the Great Hall, scrubbing at the Zodiac mosaic, when Shemp comes in from outside, carrying the mop and bucket he had been using on the front terrace. He vanishes into the custodial closet and comes back out empty-handed. For a moment I think he’s done, but then I catch a glimpse of his face and see that he’s visibly frightened. He sees me kneeling on the floor, hesitates as if he wants to say something…then he seems to think better of it and marches past without a word, crossing the hall to climb the stairs to the gallery, where he disappears down the hall to Mister Chicago’s suite.

  He still hasn’t returned by the time I finish scrubbing the floor. I go to the dining room and start setting the table for dinner; when Kate and Anna arrive a little while later, I tell them what I saw. Neither knows any more than I did, but Anna blanches at the news. All through dinner, she looks up expectantly whenever she hears someone enter the dining room or the kitchen, hoping that it’s Shemp. But he’s still absent by the time dinner is over, and so is Mister Chicago. By now she’s frightened, and I’ve come to full realization that she’s in love with my best friend. Once again, I find myself jealous of Shemp. If I had acted a little more quickly, she might have been mine…

  A couple of hours later, after we’ve gone back downstairs to our quarters, Shemp finally reappears. He looks different; not only are his robes new and fresh, but his hair, which he had grown to nearly shoulder length, has been cut back to a butch, and the beard he had cultivated has been trimmed to a neat little goatee. Oddly, he looks almost the same way he did one hundred and four years ago, on that last summer afternoon at Lollapalooza.

  Anna shouts his name when he enters the servants’ mess and throws herself on him. He catches her in his arms in an embrace which is fond, yet oddly formal. His friends rush over to ask what had happened, but then he releases Anna and shushes everyone.

  “Umm…” His face is red with embarrassment. “Look, I…um, well, this is a little weird, but…” He stops, then goes on. “Mister Chicago asked me to be…I mean, he wants me to take over for John.”

  Total silence. Everyone settles back in their seats, except Anna; she stands next to him, holding his hand as her eyes search his face. “I know this is kinda bizarre,” he continues, “but…well, John’s gone, and he called me in and…he goes, y’know, ‘I need a new majordomo’ and I go, ‘Hey, really, what’s that…?’”

  Scattered laughter. A grin flickers across Shemp’s face and is gone the next instant. “Anyway, so he asked me to…y’know, be the head dude and everything, so…”

  He stares a
t us; we stare back at him. “But that doesn’t change anything,” he quickly adds. “I’m still…I mean, I’m still one of you guys, and…well, just because I’m supposed to be giving orders around here doesn’t mean that anything’s going to change, because…”

  Then he goes on to tell us that he’ll now be coordinating the preparations for the New Year’s ball, starting tomorrow morning when he’ll give us new work assignments in addition to our existing jobs; that, although he’ll soon be moving down to a private room one level below us, we can still find him there through our associates (a furtive glance at Anna); that he hopes to do as good of a job as John did before his death (his gaze flickering toward me), but that he wants to be more approachable than John was; that we should always consider him to be our friend…

  Oh, yeah, and one more thing: we’re not to call him Shemp anymore. From now on, we’re to address him as Christopher…Chris, for short. In fact, his associate has been reprogrammed not to respond to comlink summons addressed to Shemp. Nothing personal (another glance at me), but he really doesn’t like that nickname.

  “Okay, Shemp,” I say.

  It’s supposed to be a joke. Everyone chuckles when I say this, including Anna, but Shemp…Chris, that is…half-turns his head toward me. He bats his eyes a few times and his lips move just a little, like a drunk mumbling a curse against an old foe from the past.

  Something suddenly tightens in my temples.

  A mild headache. A little eyestrain. Nothing more, nothing less. But we both know what it means.

  “Sorry, Chris,” I add.

  He smiles and moves his lips again. The headache is gone.

  “No problem, Alec,” he replies, and his smile becomes a grin.

  Then he takes Anna under his arm, says good night, and turns to walk his girlfriend to the little room down the hall that he won’t be using much longer. Anna seems a little reluctant to go—when our eyes meet for a brief instant, I see bewilderment, perhaps even fear—but she leaves with him anyway.

  Once they’ve disappeared, Sam picks up his unfinished bowl of stew and stands up from the table. “Meet the new boss.” he murmurs. “Same as the old boss.”

  Count on a boomer to quote a line from a Who song. “Cut it out,” I say. “I’ve known Shemp all my life. He won’t sell out.”

  I don’t know why I’m defending Shemp, considering what he just did. Habit, I guess. He’s my oldest friend, and some allegiances die hard.

  Sam glances at me. “God, you’re so young.”

  Next morning, Shemp reappears in the servants’ mess after breakfast to tell us what we’re going to be doing for the upcoming party. He reads aloud from a list on his sketch pad; when he folds back a page, I notice that he’s torn out all his drawings, and wonder what’s become of them.

  About half of the household staff, myself included, are tasked to redecorating the castle and its grounds: hedges trimmed into topiary animals, garlands hung from the windows, paper lanterns strung along the footpaths, and so forth. Many are assigned to opening the guest cottages outside the castle and making them ready—the next ship is due to arrive only a few days from now, so they have to hurry—while others, including Anna, will be temporarily reassigned to the kitchen staff when they begin preparing the banquet. Entertainers will be arriving soon, including two separate groups of musicians and something called the Solar Circus Troupe; they need people to help them set up for their performances, and Shemp assigns Russell and Sam to that crew.

  This and a dozen other tasks, in addition to our regular jobs, means that we shouldn’t expect to return to our quarters until well after midnight. In recognition of this, Shemp informs us that curfew has been temporarily suspended and that lights-out is being delayed until 0200. However, our morning wake-up call will continue to hold at 0600, meaning that we’ll only have a minimum of four hours’ sleep each night.

  I note that he hasn’t included himself anywhere in the duty roster. As our new majordomo, Shemp apparently considers himself exempt from everything except supervising his former peers. As it turns out, this is indeed the case; whenever I see him after this morning, it’s when he suddenly appears at someone’s shoulder, either to hassle them about some petty mistake, or to nag them to move faster.

  His transformation from Shemp to Christopher isn’t just a change of name, it’s a change of attitude. The Shemp who once mocked John gradually becomes the same sort of person he once detested: a micromanagerial busybody, parading around with his notepad as if it’s a royal scepter and he’s been ordained to keep the riffraff in line. Way back when, he alienated himself from his father when he refused to join the family business by becoming a manager-trainee in the Big Bee supermarket chain; now I think Warren Meyer would have been proud of his prodigal son. He’s becoming an asshole just like his old man.

  It all comes to a boil several days later, when he catches me taking a breather in the rose garden outside the west wing. I’ve been on hands and knees for the last two hours, pruning the roses and saving the discarded petals in a jar for the bowls of rosewater the house staff leaves in the bathrooms of the guest suites. My back’s aching, my arms are caked with dirt up to my elbows, and I’m trying to suck out a tiny rose thorn lodged in the pad of my left thumb; it’s a bad time for Shemp to come up behind me and tap the top of my head with his notebook.

  “Let’s go, Alec,” he says. “Chop chop. Time waits for no one.”

  That’s become his mantra: Chop chop, time waits for no one. I know where he got it from: his dad used to say the same thing all the time. I turn around and look up at him, towering over me with his notebook under his arm, every inch the Big Bee assistant manager.

  “Y’know,” I say, “you’re such a fucking jerk.”

  His face darkens; he says nothing, but his eyelids flutter. “Go ahead,” I say. “Give me a headache. Give me an aneurysm. It won’t change anything. You’ve become a jerk…Shemp.”

  His eyes narrow to slits; his chin starts to tremble. He’s trying to appear menacing, but he looks instead like a kid ready to throw a tantrum. It almost makes me laugh.

  “Never call me Shemp again,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m Christopher now.”

  “Sure thing, Shem…”

  Pain bludgeons me to the ground. I fall face-first into the rose bushes, their soft fragrance now sickly-sweet as thorns tear against my cheeks and forehead. Shemp lets me writhe in the flower bed for a minute or two; when the agony finally subsides, I find him kneeling beside me.

  “Do you remember how I got the name Shemp?” he asks.

  I don’t say anything; I don’t think he wants me to give him an answer anyway. “It’s because some jerk in gym class saw what I looked like without my clothes on,” he continues, “and said I looked like I was one of the Three Stooges. He meant Curly, because I really didn’t resemble Moe Howard’s brother and he got them mixed up. But the name stuck anyway and I’ve had to live with it for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “No, you’re not sorry…because you’re the jerk who gave me that name.”

  My first thought is to deny this. After all, I’m the one who had always stuck up for him. For the longest time, I was his only friend, until he finally learned to be hip: smoke pot, hang out with the right crowd, listen to the right music, show up at the right parties, and stop letting his mother buy his clothes for him. Yet in the back of my mind, there’s an undeniable truth that’s been suppressed by guilt over all these years; only now does it come back to me.

  It’s true. I’m the kid in seventh-grade gym class who looked at his obese, waddling body and called him Shemp for the first time. I’ve long forgotten this, but he never has.

  “I’m sorry, Chris,” I manage to gasp. “I really mean it…I’m so sorry.”

  He shakes his head. “Naw, man,” he says softly, “you’re not sorry. It’s just that, for the first time in your life, you’ve got a reason to be scared of me.” He r
eaches down and idly flicks some dirt out of my face. “I’m not a fat little Jewboy anymore, though. I’ve got a body I’m not ashamed of, I’ve got a girl you want, I’ve got a place that’s better than yours, and I’ve got permission to kick your ass whenever I feel like it.”

  He bends lower. “Alec, I told Mister Chicago about us,” he whispers. “Told him everything about you…and y’know what? He told me that if I did a good job for him, I can do whatever I want with you. How’s that for revenge of the nerds?”

  I want to tell him that his authority is on temporary loan from a maniac who killed the last nerd for kicks, that the power is making him crazy. I want to tell him that our long friendship was real, that terrible nickname I gave him was something I had done when I was young and stupid, and that I was so embarrassed about it that I repressed the memory and have tried to make it up to him ever since.

  Most of all, I want to tell Christopher Meyer that I still love him like a brother, despite the fact that he’s been nursing a secret hatred for me all these years.

  Yet I also know anything I may say to Shemp just now, even the most tear-streaked confession, will send him ballistic. I know that, and he knows that; he’s aching for a chance to give me another migraine, if not the MINN command that will rip open a cerebral artery.

  So I don’t say nothing. I lie still and silent, and stare at the rose stems around my face, and wait for him to make the next move.

  “So don’t ever call me Shemp again,” he says at last.

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  I don’t look at him. After a few moments, I hear him stand up. “I’ve got a better job for you,” his voice says from above me. “The next ship is due to arrive this afternoon. A bunch of Superiors coming in from Ceres. I know how much you like those guys, so I think you should have the honor of meeting them at the hub.” He pauses. “In fact, I think that should be your job from now on. Think you can handle it?”