Algis Budrys - The End of Summer

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2024-12-24 0 0 150.54KB 20 页 5.9玖币

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Illustration by Kandis Elliot

Nothing is forever. Some things, however, last a very long time...

Americaport hadn't changed since he'd last seen it, two hundred years before. It was set as far away

from any other civilized area as possible, so that no plane, no matter how badly strayed, could possibly

miss its landing and crash into a dwelling. Except for the straight-edge swath of the highway leading

south, it was completely isolated if you forgot the almost deserted tube station. Its edge was dotted by

hangars and a few offices, but the terminal building itself was small, and severely functional. Massive with

bare concrete, aseptic with steel and aluminum, it was a gray, bleak place in the wilderness.

Kester Fay was so glad to see it that he jumped impatiently from the big jet's passenger lift. He knew he

was getting curious looks from the ground crew clustered around the stainless steel ship, but he would

have been stared at in any case, and he had seen the sports car parked and waiting for him beside the

Administration Building. He hurried across the field at a pace that attracted still more attention, eager to

get his clearance and be off.

He swung his memory vault impatiently by the chain from his wristlet while the Landing Clearance officer

checked his passport, but the man was obviously too glad to see someone outside the small circle of

airlines personnel. He stalled interminably, and while Fay had no doubt that his life out here bored him to

tears, it was becoming harder and harder to submit patiently.

"Christopher Jordan Fay," the man read off, searching for a fresh conversational opening. "Well, Mr.

Fay, we haven't seen you here since '753. Enjoy your stay?"

"Yes," he answered as shortly as possible. Enjoyed it? Well, yes, he supposed he had, but it was hard to

feel that way since he'd played his old American memories at augmented volume all through the flight

across the Atlantic. Lord, but he was tired of Europe at this moment; weary of winding grassy lanes that

meandered with classic patience among brooks and along creeks, under old stately trees! "It's good to

be back where a man can stretch his legs, though."

The official chuckled politely, stamping forms. "I'll bet it is at that. Planning to stay long?"

Forever, if I can help it, Fay thought. But then he chuckled to himself. Nothing was forever. "I don't

know," he said to the official in an offhand tone.

"Shall I arrange for transportation to New York?"

Fay shook his head. "Not for me. But the man who drove my car up might be a customer."

The official's eyebrows rose, and Fay suddenly remembered that America, with its more liberal social

attitudes, might tolerate him more than Europe had, but that there were still plenty of conservatives

sheltered under the same banner.

As a matter of fact, he should have realized that the official was a Homebody; a Civil Service man, no

doubt. Even with a dozen safe places to put it down within easy reach, he still kept his memory vault

chained to his wrist. Fay's own eyebrows lifted, and amusement glittered in his eyes.

"Driving down?" The official looked at Fay with a mixture of respect, envy, and disapproval.

"It's only fifteen hundred miles," Fay said with careful nonchalance. Actually, he felt quite sure that he was

going to throttle the man if he wasn't let out of here and behind the wheel soon. But it would never do to

be anything but bored in front of a Homebody. "I expect to make it in about three days," he added,

almost yawning.

"Yes, sir," the man said, instantly wrapping himself in a mantle of aloof politeness, but muttering "Dilly!"

almost audibly.

Fay'd hit home with that one, all right! Probably, the man had never set foot in an automobile. Certainly,

he considered it a barefaced lie that anyone would undertake to average fifty mph during a driving day.

Safe, cushiony pneumocars were his speed--and he an airlines employee!

Fay caught himself hastily. Everybody had a right to live any way he wanted to, he reminded himself.

But he could not restrain an effervescent grin at the man's sudden injured shift to aloofness.

"All right, sir," the official said crisply, returning Fay's passport. "Here you are. No baggage, of course?"

"Of course," Fay said agreeably, and if that had been intended as a slur at people who traveled light and

fast, it had fallen exceedingly flat. He waved his hand cheerfully as he turned away, while the official

stared at him sourly. "I'll be seeing you again, I imagine."

"I'm afraid not, sir," the man answered with a trace of malevolence. "United States Lines is shutting down

passenger service the first of next dekayear."

Momentarily nonplussed, Fay hesitated. "Oh? Too bad. No point to continuing, though, is there?"

"No, sir. I believe you were our first in a hectoyear and a half." Quite obviously, he considered that as

much of a mark of Cain as necessary.

"Well, must be dull out here, eh?"

He cocked a satiric eye at the man and was gone, chuckling at that telling blow while the massive exit

door swung ponderously shut behind him.

The car's driver was obviously a Worker who'd taken on the job because he needed money for some

obscure, Workerish purpose. Fay settled the business in the shortest possible time; counting out

hundred-dollar bills with a rapid shuffle. He threw in another for good measure, and waved the man

aside, punching the starter vibrantly. He was back, he was home! He inhaled deeply, breathing the

untrammeled air.

Curled around mountains and trailed gently through valleys, the road down through New York State was

a joy. Fay drove it with a light, appreciative smile, guiding his car exuberantly, his muscles locked into

communion with the automobile's grace and power as his body responded to each banked turn, each

surge of acceleration below the downward crest of a hill. There was nothing like this in Europe--nothing.

Over there, they left no room for his kind among their stately people.

He had almost forgotten what it was like to sit low behind the windscreen of a two-seater and listen to

the dancing explosions of the unmuffled engine. It was good to be back, here on this open, magnificent

road, with nothing before or behind but satin-smooth ferroconcrete, and heaped green mountains to

either side.

He was alone on the road, but thought nothing of it. There were very few who lived his kind of life. Now

that his first impatience had passed, he was sorry he hadn't been able to talk to the jet's pilot. But that, of

course, had been out of the question. Even with all the safety interlocks, there was the chance that one

moment's attention lost would allow an accident to happen.

So, Fay had spent the trip playing his memory on the plane's excellent equipment, alone in the

comfortable but small compartment forward of the ship's big cargo cabin.

He shrugged as he nudged the car around a curve in the valley. It couldn't be helped. It was a lonely life,

and that was all there was to it. He wished there were more people who understood that it was the only

life--the only solution to the problem which had fragmented them into so many social patterns. But there

were not. And, he supposed, they were all equally lonely. The Homebodies, the Workers, the Students,

and the Teachers. Even, he conceded, the Hoppers. He'd Hopped once himself, as an experiment. It had

been a hollow, hysteric experience.

The road straightened, and, some distance ahead, he saw the white surface change to the dark macadam

of an urban district. He slowed in response, considering the advisability of switching his safeties in, and

decided it was unnecessary as yet. He disliked being no more than a pea in a safetied car's basket,

powerless to do anything but sit with his hands and feet off the controls. No; for another moment, he

wanted to be free to turn the car nearer the shoulder and drive through the shade of the thick shrubbery

and overhanging trees. He breathed deeply of the faint fragrance in the air and once more told himself

that this was the only way to live, the only way to find some measure of vitality. A Dilly? Only in the

jealous vocabularies of the Homebodies, so long tied to their hutches and routines that the scope of mind

and emotion had narrowed to fit their microcosm.

Then, without warning, still well on the white surface of open road, the brown shadow darted out of the

bushes and flung itself at his wheels, barking shrilly.

He tried to snap the car out of the way, his face suddenly white, but the dog moved unpredictably, its

abrupt yell of pain louder than the scream of Fay's brakes. He felt the soft bump, and then his foot jerked

away from the clutch and the car stalled convulsively. Even with his engine dead and the car still, he heard

no further sound from the dog.

Then he saw the Homebody boy running toward him up the road, and the expression of his face changed

from shocked unpleasantness to remorseful regret. He sighed and climbed out of the car clumsily, trying

to think of something to say.

The boy came running up and stopped beside the car, looking up the road with his face drawn into tearful

anger.

"You ran over Brownie!"

Fay stared helplessly down at the boy. "I'm sorry, son," he said as gently as he could. He could think of

nothing really meaningful to tell him. It was a hopeless situation. "I...I shouldn't have been driving so fast."

The boy ran to the huddled bundle at the shoulder of the road and picked it up in his arms, sobbing. Fay

followed him, thinking that ten thousand years of experience were not enough--that a hundred centuries

of learning and acquiring superficial maturity were still insufficient to shield the emotions trapped in a

young boy's body, at the mercy of his glandular system, under a shock like this.

"Couldn't you see him?" the boy pleaded.

Fay shook his head numbly. "He came out of the shrubs--"

"You shouldn't have been driving so fast. You should have--,'

"I know." He looked uselessly back up the road, the trees bright green in the sunshine, the sky blue.

"I'm sorry," he told the boy again. He searched desperately for something, some way, to make

recompense. "I wish it hadn't happened." He thought of something, finally. "I...I know it wouldn't be the

same thing, but I've got a dog of my own--a basset hound. He's coming over from Europe on a cargo

ship. When he gets here, would you like to have him?"

"Your own dog?" For a moment, the boy's eyes cleared, but then he shook his head hopelessly. "It

wouldn't work out," he said simply, and then, as though conscious of guilt at even considering that any

other dog could replace his, tightened his arms on the lifeless bundle.

No, it hadn't been such a good idea, Fay realized. If he weren't so snarled up in remorse and confusion,

he'd have seen that. Ugly had been his dog and couldn't be separated from him, or he from Ugly. He

realized even more strongly just precisely what he had done to the boy.

"Something wrong? Oh--', The Homebody man who had come up the road stopped beside them, his

face turning grave. Fay looked at him in relief.

"I had my automatics off," he explained to the man. "I wouldn't have, if I'd known there was a house

around here, but I didn't see anything. I'm terribly sorry about the...about Brownie."

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摘要：

AlgisBudrys-TheEndofSummerIllustrationbyKandisElliotNothingisforever.Somethings,however,lastaverylongtime...IAmericaporthadn'tchangedsincehe'dlastseenit,twohundredyearsbefore.Itwassetasfarawayfromanyothercivilizedareaaspossible,sothatnoplane,nomatterhowbadlystrayed,couldpossiblymissitslandingandcras...

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