Four for Tomorrow Part 13

said someone in the darkness.

"What'U they do for an encore?" whispered someone else.

There were giggles and several off-key carols followed them. The backlight pickup was doubtless in action.

"Tonight we are quaint," said Moore.

"We danced in Davy Jones' Locker," answered Leota, "while they cringed and were sick on the floor."

"It's not the same Set," he told her, "not really. How many new faces have you counted? How many old ones have vanished? It's hard to tell. Where do old Setmen go?"

"The graveyard of the elephants," she suggested.

"Who knows?"

" 'The heart is a graveyard of crigas,'" recited Moore, 'hid far from the hunter's eye, where love wears death like enamel and dogs crawl in to die."

"That's Unger's, isn't it?" she asked.

"That's right, I just happened to recall it"

"I wish you hadn't. I don't like it."

"Sorry."

"Where is Unger anyway?" she asked as the darkness retreated and the people arose.

"Probably at the punchbowl-or under the table."

"Not this early in the evening-for being under the table, I mean."

Moore shifted.

106.

"What are we doing here anyhow?" he wanted to know.

"Why did we have to attend this Party?"

"Because it is the season of charity."

79 "Faith and hope, too," he smirked. "You want to be maudlin or something? All right, I'll be maudlin with you. It is a pleasure, really."

He raised her hand to his lips.

"Stop that!"

"All right."

He kissed her on the mouth. There was laughter.

She flushed but did not rise from his side.

"If you want to make a fool of me-of us," he said, "I'll go more than halfway. Tell me why we had to come to this Party and announce our un-Setness before every- one? We could have just faded away from the Parties, slept until spring, and let our options run out."

"No. I am a woman and I could not resist another Party-the last one of the year, the very last-and wear your gift on my finger and know that deep down inside, the others do envy us-our courage, if nothing else-and probably our happiness."

"Okay," he agreed, "I'll drink to it-to you, anyway."

He raised his gla.s.s and downed it. There was no fireplace to throw it into, so as much as he admired the gesture he placed it back on the table.

"Shall we dance? I hear music."

"Not yet. Let's just sit here and drink."

"Fine."

When all the clocks in London said eleven, Leota wanted to know where Unger was.

"He left,' a slim girl with purple hair told her, "right after dinner. Maybe indigestion"-she shrugged-"or may- be he went looking for the Globe."

She frowned and took another drink.

Then they danced. Moore did not really see the room through which they moved, nor the other dancers.

107.

They were all the featureless characters in a boot; he had already closed. Only the dance was real-and the woman with whom he was dancing.

Time's friction, he decided, and a raising of the sights.

I have what I wanted and still I want more. I'll get over it.

It was a vasty hall of mirrors. There were hundreds of dancing Alvin Moores and Leotasnee Mason) danc- ing. They were dancing at all their Parties of the past seventy-some years-from a Tibetan sid lodge to Davy Jones' Locker, from a New Years Eve in orbit to the 80 floating Palace of Kanayasha, from a Halloween in the caverns of Carlsbad to a Mayday at Delphi-they had danced everywhere, and tonight was the last Party, good night, ladies. . . .

She leaned against him and said nothing and her breath collared his neck.

"Good night, good night, good night," he heard himself saying, and they left with the bells of midnight, early, early, and it was Christmas as they entered the hopcar and told the Set chauffeur that they were returning early.

And they pa.s.sed over the stratocaruiser and settled beside the Dart they had come in, and they crossed through the powdery fleece that lay on the ground and entered the smaller craft.

"Do you wish to have the lights dimmed? Or would you prefer to have them brighter?" asked a voice at their side.

"Dim them."

"Would you case for something to eat? Or something to drink?"

"No."

"No."

"Shall I read you an article on the subject of your choice?" Pause. "Or fiction?" Pause. "Or poetry?" Pause.

108.

"Would you care to view the catalog?" Pause. "Or per- haps you would prefer music?"

"Music," she said. "Soft. Not the kind you listen to."

After about ten minutes of near-sleep, Moore heard the voice: "Hilted of flame, our frail phylactic blade slits black beneath Polestar's pinp.r.i.c.k comment, foredging burrs of mitigated h.e.l.l, spilling light without illumination.

Strands of song, to share its stinging flight, are shucked and sc.r.a.ped 81 to fit an idiot theme.

Here, through outlocked chaos, climbed of migrant logic, the forms of black notation blackly dice a flame."

"Turn it off," said Moore. "We didn't ask you to read."

"I'm not reading," said the voice, "I'm composing."

"Who-?"

Moore came awake and turned in his seat, which promptly adjusted to the movement.-A pair of feet pro- jected over the arm of a double seat to the rear.

"Unger?"

"No, Santa Claus. Ho! Ho!"

"What are you doing going back this early?"

"You just answered your own question, didn't you?"

Moore snorted and settled back once more. At his 109.

side, Leota was snoring delicately, her seat collapsed into a couch.

He shut his eyes, but knowing they were not alone he could not regain the peaceful drifting sensation he had formerly achieved. He heard a sigh and the approach of lurching footfalls. He kept his eyes closed, hoping Unger would fall over and go to sleep. He didn't.

Abruptly, his voice rang out, a magnificently dreadful baritone: "I was down to Saint James' Infir-r-rmary," he sang. "I saw my ba-a-aby there, stretched out on a long whi-i-ite ta-a-able-so sweet, so cold, so fair-"

Moore swung his left hand, cross-body at the poet's midsection. He had plenty of target, but he was too slow. Unger blocked his fist and backed away, laughing.

Leota shook herself awake.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Composing," he answered, "myself."

"Merry Christmas," he added.

"Go to h.e.l.l," answered Moore.

"I congratulate you on your recent nuptials. Mister Moore."

"Thanks."

"Why wasn't I invited?"

"It was a simple ceremony."

82 He turned.

"Is that true, Leota? An odd comrade in arms like me, not invited, just because it wasn't showy enough for my elaborate tastes?"

She nodded, fully awake now.

He struck his forehead.

"Oh, I am wounded!"

"Why don't you go back to wherever you came from?"

asked Moore. "The drinks are on the house."

"I can't attend midnight ma.s.s in an inebriated condi- tion."

no Moore's fingers twitched back into fists.

"You may attend a ma.s.s for the dead without having to kneel."

"I believe you are hinting that you wish to be alone.

I understand."

He withdrew to the rear of the Dart. After a time he began to snore.

"I hope we never see him again," she said.

"Why? He's a harmless drunk."

"No, he isn't. He hates us-because we're happy and he isn't."

"I think he's happiest when he's unhappy," smiled Moore, "and whenever the temperature drops. He loves the cold-bunk because it's like a little death to sleep in it.

He once said, 'Each Setman dies many deaths. That's what I like about being a Setman.'

"You say more sleep won't be injurious-" he asked abruptly.

"No, there's no risk."