Peter Reed

Gift of Darkness

His name was Crispin Tyler and he had worked very hard for twenty-nine of his fifty-two years. Intersystem Metals had automatically acquired his talents through the standard screening tests, had installed him in the junior executive training program and, except for the mechanical memories of the bank of Ref-dex equipment in Personnel, had forgotten him.

There had been a long succession of desks, stretching back through twenty-nine years, and as he sat in his office, wrapped in a spell of mellow sadness that had become endemic, it was as though he could see those desks reflected in angled mirrors, stretching back into dusky shadows.

And this, of course, was the best desk of them all — styled and designed for him after the rather frighteningly brisk young lady from Office Engineering had spent two days watching him work. The communi-phones were right here, of course, and the wall screen buttons right there, and the slightest foot pressure over on that spot slid the file drawer open with greasy silent movement. Dicto-writing was made simple by the microphones set in just such a way that his normal tone reproduced the necessary letters and memos. It was best not to sigh, because then the metal throat of the interrogator would say, “Repeat, please,” electronically disturbed by a sound that could not be spelled.

Crispin Tyler was a small man, paunchy and soft from the office years, with a mild sweetness in the expression around his mouth, a spaniel-like defenselessness in his weak brown eyes.

He had come slowly up out of anonymity into what could be called the number six slot in the huge, convoluted operations of Intersystem, only because of a small, still, cold spot in his mind that could integrate all factors of a policy problem and come up with the right solution — for other men to put into effect.

Let Crispin Tyler take a shot at that. Old Tyler ought to take a look at this. Here’s Tyler’s solution, Joe. Yes, I know how rough it’s going to be, but have you ever known him to be wrong?

Decisions over the years. On Alpha Crusis 10 the blackened dredges on the dead seas were towed to a forgotten shore and dismantled. On Zeta Tauri 7 humans were slowly eliminated from the work crews, until at last the bitter suns threw only the divergent shadows of the Claw People against the blue clay, as they marched to board the elevators that would drop them seven thousand meters into the torn bowels of the planet. The pitchblende deposits on Gamma Aquilae 3 were abandoned and all the planets within two parsecs of mighty Antares were resurveyed.

He was a poniard scabbarded in gelatine, an axe blade with a haft of feathers, a projectile robbed of its charge.

For twenty-seven of the twenty-nine years there had been the hope — the delusion — that one day there would be authority and responsibility, and with it would come the flowering of latent abilities to be a leader of men; a hope that the brown eyes would gleam, the soft voice harden, the warm fatty fist pound a table with authority.

...she had been so slim and young and unaware. When they were together she wore low shoes and he stood very erect, gaining thereby a half-inch of height. But now he could look at her firm tallness and it was hard to believe that she had been pliant in his arms, had borne him a golden daughter, a strong-muscled son. He was still certain of her love, but he knew that it was more tinged with pity than respect, whereas one of his dominant emotions toward her was pure awe...

Desperate loneliness in the midst of life. His mother had called him Cris. No one else had ever done so. Always on the edge of groups, trying to join in with a shy smile, with a funny remark that no one ever seemed to hear. Secretly he had taken the course from that doctor, the one who promised to develop dominance. But no one had ever noticed any difference.

He was the man who could be at the club, and the steward would not know he was there. He could watch the games and never be invited to join. Once he memorized four stories that he thought were quite funny. It was a full week before he had a chance to tell the first one. They listened politely, laughed politely, went back to the game. He walked out with the smile stiff on his lips. That smile was such a constant. Smile and people will like you. Be a good listener. Ask people about their problems. He had been smiling for twenty years.

It was in not having a friend — one true friend. He wanted a friend he could sit with and talk to and listen to. He felt, without egotism, that he had certain things worth saying. In childhood there had been a friend. Billy. But of course Billy had been invisible to everyone else. Crispin Tyler had never told anyone about Billy.

There was some joy, of course, in the hobbies. In his study were the cases containing first flight spacemail covers to all colonized planets, including that extremely rare and valuable one dating back to 1959, a letter sent from New Mexico to New York via the moon. And there was the portfolio of water colors, done with neat precision. And the boxes of uncut gems.

But the golden daughter and the strong son and the statuesque wife had a way of taking the flavor and dignity out of such pursuits.

Your father’s upstairs playing with those envelopes again. Pop’s daubing up some more pictures, Janie. Yes, dear, I suppose it is quite interesting, if you understand all about gems.

He knew they loved him, and he loved them in turn.

But there was not one friend.

No one.

Ever.

Valentine McGuire was the head of Intersystem Metals. It was correctly reported that once, in fevered speech, he had split a mahogany board table with his fist.

His voice was lute, French horn, tempest and summer breeze. The face of a character actor, clown, Viking and soldier. He — played on the minds and emotions of men with all the ruthlessness of hypersonics. He won at poker, bribed the air police, and married two actresses and a female poet called the most beautiful woman in the known universe — one after the other, of course. His grey hair was thick and alive and his laugh smashed against distant walls like ripe fruit.

“Crispin,” said Valentine McGuire, “no man has been more valuable to this great organization.”

“I’m... thank you.”

“I am the figurehead. I am the man the public knows. It is your keen intelligence that has brought us through trying times, Crispin.”

“I wouldn’t say—”

“You know that it is the policy of Intersystem Metals to retire all executive personnel at fifty-five, I believe.” Warmth in the McGuire voice chilled a trifle.

“Yes, sir, I realize that.”

“You are, of course, conversant with our current problem on the three planets of Beta Virginis and the four planets of Delta Virginis in the Spica Mines Subsidiary.”

“Of course, sir. That’s been a bad one for over ten years, with the way—”

“Exactly, Tyler. Exactly! If we are to maintain our just and proper share of the universe market in Spica-chrome, the most valuable known metal, an end must be made to the infamous political maneuverings of that upstart competitor, Transpace. They have succeeded in setting up such a preferential tax structure in the whole Virginis System that, at the current moment, we are delivering Spica-chrome to forty-three percent of customer planets at a loss. This is such a large operation that we cannot afford to handle Spica-chrome as a marginal product. I have your last report here. I’m sorry, Tyler, but I’m not at all satisfied with your recommendations.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but—”

“I know, I know. Man, I can read. You state clearly that there are too many unknowns in the equation.” Valentine McGuire leaned back and smiled like a large sleepy cat. “Crispin, how would you like to take a little run out there and equate those unknowns?”

There was a roaring in Crispin Tyler’s ears. The room shifted abruptly out of focus and slid slowly back. “This is... it’s—”

“You have every right in the world to refuse, of course. It’s a three-year trip each way. Add six months of investigation time. It will take you four years over retirement age. It’s, frankly, a hell of a lot to ask a man. You can say no, and I won’t blame you. But I do think I have the right to tell you that the eventual future of this great enterprise depends on your answer.”

“I might not pass the—”

“Physical tests? When you took your semi-annual physical four months ago I instructed them to give you the additional space tests. You came through with flying colors. You’re in good shape, Tyler. Naturally we will arrange a very ample tax-free bonus and pay you the usual double salary for all space time. It ought to add up to a very respectable estate for your children.”

“If I could think it over, Mr. McGuire, and then—”

“Believe me, there’s nothing I would like better than to give you time to think this all over. But I’m afraid I’ll have to have your answer right now. I have taken the liberty, and forgive me if I offend you, of discussing this matter with Mrs. Tyler. Charming woman. Charming. She was upset, of course. You’re a very lucky man, Crispin. She could not, of course, leave two children of seventeen and nineteen alone, and six and a half years would be too long a time to delay the balance of their education. She wept a bit, Crispin. And she told me she would leave the decision up to you without trying to influence you in one way or the other.”

Crispin Tyler felt as though the world were falling away beneath him. He held tightly to the arms of the chair. “Over six years,” he said thickly. “Never been off Earth.”

“A great adventure!” McGuire said. “God, how I envy you!”

“When would—”

“I have taken — the liberty of booking passage for you on the Starbelle leaving Moonport a week from tomorrow, and another ticket on the shuttle which will get you there two hours before takeoff. You will be allowed two hundred Earth pounds of personal effects, reading material, that sort of thing. But I believe you’ll find the Starbelle extremely well-equipped as far as amusement is concerned.” McGuire looked at him with an odd expression, chuckled, and said, “I’m certain you’ll have a most enjoyable voyage.”

“Well, it looks like—”

Valentine McGuire came quickly around his desk, shook hands, propelled Crispin toward the office door. “Can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, old man, personally and for the sake of this great corporation. You’ll never regret it. Every step is being taken to assure your... eh... happiness.”

Crispin Tyler found himself sitting in his own office with very little idea of how he had got there. He was very faintly nauseated and his heart thudded with uncomfortable force.

“I won’t go,” he said softly. It was the last protest he made.

The situation was not disagreeable — to sit at the head of the table and be the subject of family conversation, the object of quick, surprised little glances from Janie, Cliff and Florence.

“I just can’t believe it. I can’t!” Florence said. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Now, now,” he said. “Someone has to go. When I get back the kids will be on their own. We’ll have the rest of our lives, doing all the things we’ve always wanted to do.”

Florence used a corner of her napkin to blot up the tears, and she smiled bravely. She collected the dishes from the main course and pushed them into the disposal chute, opened the neighboring cabinet and took out the dessert which had just arrived.

“Gosh!” Cliff said softly. “Two hundred thirty light years. Say, they got everything on those long cruise ships! Three-way video, tournaments, parties, hostesses, hobby shops, gyms—”

“You sound like you want to go along,” Crispin said, smiling.

“Would I? Man!”

“I know you,” Janie said. “You’d like it for a week and then you’d want to get off.”

“Anything I don’t like, it’s a smart-aleck girl.”

“Children!” Florence snapped. “At least make your father’s last week here as pleasant as possible.”

Crispin had half hoped that they would all spend the evening together. But Cliff was needed on the school Kell-ball team and Janie had accepted, a week before, a dance invitation that she couldn’t break, and Florence had to go later to a committee meeting of the League of Women Voters.

After the children had gone Florence came to him in the library as he was standing in front of the heat screen and embraced him. Crispin realized that he should appreciate it and enjoy it, but there was something about the abundance of her upper arms and her bosom, her lilac perfume and the warmth of her that made him feel smothered. He endured it patiently, repressing the instinct to fight his way out into the open.

“I shall miss you, Crispin,” she whispered.

“Um. And I’ll miss you, of course.”

“But believe me, Crispin, you will have a good voyage. I know you will. I promise it.”

“How can you promise that?” he asked.

She laughed coyly. “Never you mind, now, Mister Man. I just know you will.”

He spent the evening rearranging the stamp collection, finishing up little odds and ends of mounting that he had been putting off for some time. In the middle of the night he had a series of dreams about falling. Each one woke him up, and each one left him bathed in sweat. Florence’s door was ajar and he could hear, faintly, the soft wet rattle of her breathing. Janie came home late. Her escort laughed in the lower hall. Crispin realized that by the time he returned she could be married and have children. In fact, it was a distinct probability.

He was alone and afraid in the night.

Very alone.

As always.

The elevator lifted slowly up the shining flank of the shuttle. He lost them for a moment and then saw them again, apart from the others. Three small dwindling figures. Their mouths were saying, “Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!” Their arms waved. In a pagan culture the dead were placed on barges, and they floated away down the river. Or was it out on the tide? No matter.

Three dots below. Wife and seed of the womb. Guaranteed immortality. Warm flesh waving and wet mouths saying, “Good-by! Good-by, Crispin Tyler. Good-by, husband and father and provider and soft mild little man who was a part of our lives and his suits never fitted right and he wasn’t good at games and he always seemed just a little oddly out of focus to us and for some mysterious things he did each day they paid him astonishingly well. Good-by.”

Crispin Tyler spent his first week on the Starbelle in a suspension that was like that half-breath between life and death. He lay on his soft bed in the small, neat cabin and ate what was sent to him. He stared straight up to where he knew the rounded snout of the Starbelle thrust through the supercooled nothingness. There was no sound in his cabin. When he held his fingertips against the metallic wall he could sense the faintest vibration. There was no other clue to movement. Below him were other living areas, adjusted to gravitational and atmospheric conditions of various non-human passengers.

At the end of the week he arose, dressed carefully, and, with a little tremor of excitement, went to join the other passengers. It was like that first day at boarding school, the first day working for Intersystem, the first day of marriage.

He visited the pool where the artificial sunlight browned the girls and young men, the two theaters, the game rooms, the village street on the third level. He sat at a sidewalk cafe and watched the couples stroll by, arm in arm.

And slowly the sense of motion and travel was lost, and this was the world, the known world.

It was then that he realized that he was still alone.

It was during that second week while Crispin sat at his usual table at the sidewalk cafe, that a man came over shyly and said, “Would you mind awfully if I sat with you?”

“Of course not, of course not!” Crispin said, trying to get into his tone the invitation and kindliness that he felt.

The stranger was apparently in his late forties, a sallow, rather undistinguished-looking man of small stature. His smile was warm, however. “Not much point in commenting on the weather, is there?” he said. “My name’s George Brown, Cabin seven thirty-three.”

“Why, you’re a neighbor of mine! I’m in seven thirty-two right across the corridor. Crispin Tyler.”

They shook hands. George frowned. “Not the Crispin Tyler from Intersystem! I thought you looked familiar.”

“Have I met you before?” Crispin asked, surprised.

“I attended the Merton auction a year and a half ago. You overbid me on that set of Arcturus covers.”

“Did I, now? You know, I paid too much for those. My wife, Florence, she thought I was crazy. I wanted ’em because they were carried on the last flight of the old Corsair. Had to have ’em.”

George nodded. “I know what you mean. I’m a slave too. Collecting is in my blood, I guess. Stamps, covers, uncut gem stones, original woodcuts.”

Crispin beamed with delight. “Say, that is a coincidence, Mr. Brown. I collect stones too. And you know? I brought a few of the really choice items along. Stones and covers. Couldn’t bear not to see ’em for six and a half years. Would you like a look at them?”

“I certainly would!”

“Come on then, Mr. Brown.”

“Make it George, will you?”

“If you’ll call me... uh... Cris.” Crispin had tried that before, with others. They would call him “Cris” once, or even twice, and then revert back to Crispin or all the way back to Mr. Tyler. But to his complete delight George called him Cris three times on the way down to the cabin, and did it with complete naturalness.

They had dinner together and afterward Crispin had three drinks in celebration of this new friendship. It was two over his usual limit. By Gad, this George Brown was a real fellow. Interesting, too. Going to Virginis System to set up a new population survey method for Central Census. Lonely. Had to leave his wife and kids behind too.

When Crispin awoke in the morning he realized that he had done a great deal of talking. Too much. George Brown would probably consider him a damn fool.

But to his delight George seemed glad to see him and they breakfasted together. In mid-morning George inspected the newest portfolio of watercolors and expressed his liking for them.

That evening they sat in the artificial darkness in the small park outside the theater and once again Crispin Tyler spoke aloud the thoughts and dreams that no one else had ever had time to listen to.

The happiest weeks of Crispin Tyler’s life fled by. Often he was hoarse from talking. Together they discussed philosophy, galactic law, women, the history of warfare, the responsibilities of interplanetary corporations, the probable future of science and invention, the cynicism of the younger generation — and Crispin found that they were in remarkable accord on all major points.

No man is an inexhaustible well. Crispin was proud of having at last found a friend. A great measure of the self-confidence of youth had returned to him. But after seven months spent exclusively in the eager company of George Brown, Crispin Tyler began to feel a shade oppressed. He longed for one day — one whole day — of being alone with his thoughts.

But try as he might, he could not manage it. George, though sensitive in other matters, seemed impervious to even the broadest hint. And Crispin could not quite bring himself to be blunt about it. He tried sneaking out of his cabin earlier. George would find him at breakfast, and sit down, jovial and smiling.

It almost seemed as though — Crispin shied away from the thought — as though George had to be with him. Odd! It was a strange sort of compulsion.

And in the eighth month of the trip the full implications of the ghastly suspicion began to dawn slowly and horribly on Crispin Tyler.

...Valentine McGuire’s odd look, and his chuckle. He had said, “I’m sure you’ll have a most enjoyable voyage.” And what had Florence said? “Believe me, Crispin, you will have a good voyage. I know you will. I promise it.”...

Conversation dried in his throat and he spent long hours looking obliquely at this George Brown. They would think they were doing the best thing. Damn their motives.

The purpose grew slowly within him. It was a month in growing, and after the purpose came the plan.

On the third day of the tenth month of the voyage, on Easter morning, to be exact, Crispin Tyler expressed a desire to examine George Brown’s collection of uncut gems for the third time. George Brown sat on the bed and laid out the stones. Crispin Tyler stood over him.

“Look at me, George,” Crispin said.

George looked up just as Crispin Tyler swung, with every fiber of his strength, the claw hammer he had filched from one of the hobby shops.

The membrane tore. George fell forward. The hot oil gouted onto the rug, and the eyes popped out and the little silver coils rolled across the rug, onto the metal floor, tinkle, jangle, against the wall.

Crispin Tyler walked woodenly into his cabin and shut the door and called the Service Section. He said, “This is Tyler in seven thirty-two. I’ve made a bit of a mess in seven thirty-three across the way. Would you mind cleaning it up for me? You may scrap the robot you find there. I... I have no further use for it.”

He hung up the speaker, sat on his bed, covered his face with his hands. The tears were hot on his wrists, cooling as they ran down into his sleeves. He made thin, damp noises.

Two weeks out from Virginis Port, Mallard Chang, the Starbelle’s Doctor of Recreational Therapy, worked on his trip report.

He sighed and started the next case history:

“As a further example of the benefits which can accrue from the program planned for this three-year voyage, I wish to cite the case of Mr. C.T. The subject is an executive for a large interplanetary corporation and when he boarded the Starbelle it was immediately obvious to me that here was a repressed, neurotic, shy individual capable of constituting a problem to the Recreational Staff. I found, however, that my hands were tied, as the subject had been supplied, without his knowledge, with an Android Companion, adjusted, by relatives and business associates, no doubt, to compensate for the subject’s emotional inadequacies. Since I strongly disapprove of this method of adjustment, it came as no surprise to me when I learned that, during month eleven, the subject attacked and seriously damaged the mechanism.

“Naturally, during months eleven, twelve and thirteen, many attempts were made to bring the subject out of his state of extreme depression.

“Let me point out again that the subject, though an important man in business life, had, when he boarded the Starbelle, an almost pathetic longing to be liked and appreciated.

“When, during the fourteenth month, the subject began to use the facilities of the gym and the pool, I knew that the period of gravest danger was over. He gradually increased his own exercise time until, by the end of the sixteenth month he was in exceedingly good physical condition for a man of his years, slim-waisted, with increased chest expansion, clear eyes, muscular arms and a deep tan. Toward the other passengers with whom he came in contact he was rude to the point of boorishness, having completely lost his great passion to be liked, and having become sufficient unto himself.

“As is often the case, once his indifference to the other passengers was made evident, they began to go to almost any extreme to convince the subject that he was making a mistake about them. A definite clique formed, with the subject as the focal point. He never smiled and, when he spoke, it was generally a comment so wry that all present were nearly overcome with laughter. At length he began to respond by giving small parties. These parties added to my problems due to the sense of frustration on the part of those who were not invited.

“Since that time Mr. C.T. has appeared to be well adjusted to the trip and has remained, by all odds, the most popular person aboard.

“To summarize this case it is once again strongly urged by the undersigned that the line refuse passage space to androids, regardless of whether or not the passenger in question is aware of their nature. And it is respectfully pointed out that Mr. C. T. was not only enabled to make a satisfactory adjustment to the voyage — he has become better fitted for life. It would appear that when the Recreational Staff budget is considered for the return trip, this case should be a factor on the side of a much needed increase, both in wages and equipment.”

Content

Peter Reed
Gift of Darkness