Algis Burdrys - The Man Who Tasted the Ashes

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THE MAN WHO TASTED ASHES

Algis Budrys

THE CAR HE'D stolen was a beautifully groomed thing: all polished lacquer and chrome,

with almost brand-new dual tread whitewall tires on the nickeled wire wheels. But the

transmission was bad, the brake drums scraped, and there was a short circuit in the wiring

somewhere, so that he had to keep over sixty miles per hour or the generator would not

charge at all. He would have stolen another one if he could, but he had got onto the turnpike

before he realized just how unreliable this one was. If he changed cars at a restaurant, it

would be reported and the police would stop him when he tried to leave the turnpike.

No, he was trapped with what he had. Hunched over the wheel of his roaring cage, the

yellowish headlights reflecting white from the lane markers, Redfern swept his eyes

systematically over the instruments: ammeter, fuel gauge, oil pressure, water temperature,

speedometer, odometer. He thought of himself as doing it systematically, every ten minutes,

like a professionally trained driver. Actually, he was dividing his attention almost equally

between the road and the odometer. A hundred and ten miles covered, seventy miles to go,

ninety minutes before the ship was due to take off, with or without him, average speed

required: 42.62, approx.; round off to allow for stopping the car at the exit toll booth, for

covering two miles of back roads, for leaving the car and running an unknown distance

across a weed-grown field to the ship's airlock--they would take off on schedule with him six

inches from the slamming airlock door; they would not stay themselves a microsecond to

accommodate him--say fifty miles per hour, average. Then allow for speedometer error. Say

fifty-five miles per hour, indicated, average. Allow for odometer error. Say sixty miles per

hour, indicated, average. Allow for unforseen delays. Sixty-five miles per hour.

Redfern's foot trembled on the accelerator pedal. His thigh ached from hours of unremitting

pressure. His car flashed by signboards, wove continually around immense trailer trucks in

the slow lane. His mind raced to keep up with the changing figures on the odometer. He

wished he weren't feeling a slight miss in the engine whenever he eased up on the

accelerator. He cursed the car's owner for his false-front prodigality with wax and

whitewalls.

He looked at his watch again. Four in the morning. He turned the radio on, ignoring his fear

that something else might happen to the car's wiring.

"--And that's the news," the announcer's professionally relaxed voice said. "After a word

about United Airlines, we'll hear, first, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, followed by--"

His watch was slow.

Five minutes? Fifteen minutes? How long did the news take?

He held the watch to his ear. It was an expensive one, wafer thin, beautifully crafted, left over

from his younger days--he could barely hear it running. Was it running at all?

Redfern was a leathery man, his yellowish-white hair brushed back from angular temples, a

scruffy Guards mustache over his nearly invisible lips. His suits were made for him by a

London tailor, from measurements taken in 1925; they were gored and belted in the backs

of the jackets. Outdoors, he wore a Burberry and carried a briefcase. People who saw him

on the street in Washington always took him for someone with diplomatic connections. But

since Redfern was always seen afoot, these connections perforce had to be minor. Was he

an assistant attaché of sorts, perhaps? At his age? Looking at Redfern, people would

wonder about it.

People. But the man who'd sat easily on the edge of Redfern's lumpy bed in the wallpapered

hotel room--that man, now...

That man had coal-black hair, broad, flat cheekbones above a sharply narrowing chin, oval,

maroon-pupiled eyes and cyanotic lips. He smiled easily and agreeable across the room.

Redfern sat in the one chair, sipping at the water tumbler half- full of gin. The bottle his visitor

had brought up was standing on the bureau. His visitor, who had given the name of Charlie

Spence, was not drinking.

"You don't look like a Charlie," Redfern said abruptly over the tumbler's rim. "You look as

cold as ice."

Spence laughed, his small mouth stretching as far as it could. "Maybe I'm made of it," he

said. "But then, you're nothing but a lump of coal. Carbon." He brushed his fingertips

together.

"But then," Redfern mocked sharply, "I don't pretend to be gregarious."

"Oh, I don't pretend--don't pretend at all. I am gregarious. I love the company of people. I've

been moving about among them for several years, now."

"All right," Redfern said sharply, "we've already settled that. Let's let it be. I don't care where

you come from--I don't really care what you're made of. It may surprise you, but I've thought

for some time that if people were coming to this world from other places, they'd be bound to

get in touch with me sooner or later."

"Why on Earth should we try to get in touch with you?" Spence asked, nonplused.

"Because if you people have been coming here for years, then you're not here openly.

You've got purposes of your own. People with purposes of their own generally come to me."

Charlie Spence began to chuckle. "I like you," he laughed. "I really do. You're a rare type."

"Yes," said Redfern, "and now let's get down to business." He gestured toward the bureau

top. "Pour me some more of that." Alcohol affected him swiftly but not deeply. Once it had

stripped him of the ordinary inhibitions, he could go on drinking for some time before his

intellect lost its edge. Since he always took two aspirins and went straight to bed at that

point, it was not a serious sort of weakness. But without his inhibitions he was a very

unpleasant man.

"It's a simple business," Charlie Spence was saying a little later. "The ambassador will land

at National Airport and be met by the usual sort of reception committee. Red carpet, band,

dignitaries, and so forth. But the red carpet will be a little shabby, the band won't be

first-rate, and the reception committee will not be quite as high-ranking as it might be. After

all, the ambassador's country is definitely on the other side of the fence."

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