The Flesh Tinker and lonelist man Read online

  The Flesh Tinker and lonelist man

  Рэй Олдридж

  The author informs us that he has been a potter and a stained-glass designer for about fifteen years. He is married and enjoys sailing, gardening, and Al computer art.

  His story «Click» was a prizewinner in the Writers of the Future contest, and it was printed in the contest’s second anthology. Currently, he is working on a novel and, hopefully, a couple of short stories for Amazing Stories.(July 1987)

  THE FLESH TINKER AND THE LONELIEST MAN

  City Nereus drove slowly to the east, over the planetary sea of Cholder.

  Diam Gavagol sat at the top of the windward wave wall. Far below his dangling feet, the swell rose and fell, bursting into glowing foam. Countless creatures swam the deep, and a streak of cold fire marked each passage.

  He thought again about slipping off into the midnight waters.

  Gavagol dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at his eyes.

  Later, a pod of mariform humans passed in close formation, sleek bodies touching. He watched, envious, as they capered and leaped, those descendants of the City. A thread of wet laughter drifted up to him.

  «A joke!» he shouted down, in his rusty voice. «Tell me the joke.»

  They paid him no heed, and soon the glimmer of their passage was lost around the curve of the City’s vast flank.

  He sighed, then reeled in the stickyshock lines he had set, hoping to snare a mermaid. The glittering jelly bangles were the wrong bait, it seemed. The trouble was he didn’t have any idea of what the ocean people liked.

  Tomorrow night he would try again, with a different bait; he might get lucky.

  He meant the merfolk no harm. He had a spacious tank all ready for his visitor. But he just had to have someone to talk to. The isolation of the City was driving him mad.

  If only they would talk to him, not laugh and swim away. They would learn to like him. He knew it, he just knew it.

  Morning brought him an hour or two of rest, though his sleep was troubled by the dream. He would find himself floating on a sterile sea, drifting under a motionless sun, too weak to swim. Or he would be frozen helpless to a vast empty sheet of ice, under a cold, starless night. Or he would see himself trekking across an endless plain o f dry gravel, too tired to take another step, but unable to stop.

  When he woke, conscience drove him to his desk in the Tower. From the windows that swept the perimeter of the Status Room, Gavagol could see all the City’s vast body. A heavy cross-swell, driven by one of the faraway equatorial cyclones, raised spray against the southeast wave wall. In response, the City undulated, a motion just barely perceptible, as the linkages allowed the great blocks of monomol to slip against each other.

  The Tower swayed ever so slightly. Down in the City, he knew, the empty halls would be filled with the muffled grinding of the ancient linkages.

  He preferred the sounds of the City under strain to the silence of calm weather. It made the City seem almost alive.

  On the main board, his fingers danced on the firefly lights. Countless sensors, in every part of the City, gave up their data, and they flowed to the Tower for his tired eyes.

  He saw everything.

  He observed a decline in the army of barnacle scrubbers that roamed the articulated hull of the City. The City had already opened the autofac that built the scrubbers.

  He observed that the stocks of certain metals were below minimum. The City had already opened the vents that led seawater into the extraction facilities.

  He observed that a cyclone had wandered north into the temperate belt. The City had already altered course.

  The City was a self-regulating mechanism that never really required his intervention, and that was part of the problem. Perhaps a more meaningful job would have lifted some of the burden of loneliness.

  It jolted him when he saw the readout from the Maremma. The Spanglewine, a small guesthouse in that ancient quarter, was signaling a tenant. Wine was running from the taps, food from the autocuiz.

  Who could it be? In the two of Cholder’s long years that he had been aboard the City, no one had come.

  Was the visitor a criminal? A slaver?

  Of the City’s several quarters, the Maremma was Gavagol’s least favorite. He hurried through the narrow passages, his hand gripping the stunner in his pocket. Unsettling murals, still bright after a thousand years, writhed on every wall. Bizarre facades dissolved into tiny gardens and once-intimate courtyards, in a riotous jumble that offended Gavagol’s sense of order.

  The inn ringed one of the City’s many yacht basins. Gavagol stopped to stare, astonished. A starboat lay at the quay, moored to the griffin-headed bollards.

  Her black hull pitted by unimaginable years, she rolled gently in the lagoon’s small surge. The boat was an alien design; no human eye had crafted that faceted cylinder.

  He gathered his courage, then he stepped resolutely through the iris into

  the Spanglewine’s taproom.

  His hand sweated on the stunner, but he kept it concealed in his pocket. For a moment nothing moved in the pleasant gloom of the room. Then Gavagol heard a scuffling noise coming from behind the pearlstone bar.

  «Who’s there?» Gavagol asked, eyes straining.

  The only reply was a further thrashing, then the sound of shattering glassware.

  Gavagol stepped closer. «Here, now,» he said, «what are you doing? This is a Trust property. You’re not authorized.»

  An impossibly tall shape slowly rose behind the bar, and Gavagol took an involuntary step back.

  «Authorized?» The tall shape had a deep, cold voice. «Authorized? I’ve been coming here since before the ocean took the Nerians. And who might you be?» The shape wobbled, though there was no trace of drunkenness in the voice.

  Gavagol swallowed. «I’m the Watcher here, duly appointed by the Trustees.»

  The mysterious visitor made a sound remarkably like a senile giggle. Then he came around the end of the bar into the light, walking with a careful, loose-kneed stride.

  Gavagol had never seen a human that gave such an ambiguous impression of age. The man carried some o f the stigmata of years, a clean-shaven face lined with a million fine wrinkles, a mane of tangled white hair under an antique hat of flame velvet, eyes sunk deep beneath heavy brows. But the man exhibited a flamboyant vitality. His clothes had an archaic style, but a dandyish cut. His hands were long and sheathed with smooth muscle. His lips were full, red, and he laughed to reveal strong white teeth.

  «Stare! I know I’m an apparition!»

  Gavagol’s eyes were wide. «I mean no offense.»

  «Croakery! You burst in here, interrupt my sentimental voyage among the dusty bottles of yestercentury, demand my bona fides, and stare, as if I were a rare menagerie beast. But no matter. Have a drink with me!»

  The visitor lifted a square bottle into the light. He shook it with a look of glee. «Come,» he said, turning toward a booth in the corner, where a window admitted a beam of pale sunlight.

  The man’s movements were so certain, so purposeful, that Gavagol was swept along, as if in an eddy of dark water. He settled carefully into the booth, his hand still holding the stunner. The deep-set eyes peered at him, glittering, and Gavagol saw that they were a most unusual magenta.

  «You can release the death-grip you have on that weapon,» the visitor said pleasantly, flourishing two smeary tumblers. He splashed them half-full of a cloudy celadon liquor and pushed one toward Gavagol. «First, I have no reason to harm you. Second, I’m Shielded. Your health, Watcher!» He drank with a practiced flourish.

  Gavagol drank more cautiously. «I would,» he said, «drink to yours if I k
new who you were.»

  The ancient slammed his heavy fist to the table, and the bottle jumped. «What?» he roared in that potent voice. «You pretend not to know me? I, the Flesh Tinker, notorious on every pangalac world?»

  Gavagol’s mouth dropped open. Did legend sit glaring across the table? He had always dismissed the Flesh Tinker as a traveler’s tale. Well, perhaps a colorful delusion gripped this unusual person.

  Gavagol adopted a placatory tone, «Oh, I’ve heard of you, of course, who hasn’t? My name, by the way, is Diam Gavagol. Uh, pardon me, but how shall I address you?»

  «„Sir“ will suffice. Or you can call me Tinker. But never call me Flesh!» The Flesh Tinker leaned across the table, breathing powerful fumes. «I am more than that!» He giggled again, a startling sound in such an otherwise impressive being.

  «Well. to your good health, sir.»

  They drank again. The cloudy liquor was potent, augmented by some swift hallucinogen, and Gavagol felt the world start to skew. The Flesh Tinker’s eyes expanded into huge purple holes in the withered terrain of his face, and Gavagol hastily looked away.

  «But,» Gavagol said, «you still haven’t explained why you’re here in City Nereus. The Trustees are somewhat sticky about their rules.»

  «To Croakery with the Trustees and their rules! I’m here because this is the way I come. Cholder was always an important stop on my circuit, and I’m not one to abandon a profitable tradition, just because all the customers are gone. Besides, after I’ve spent a day or two roistering in my accustomed haunts, I’ll set out over the Indivisible Ocean and drum up a little trade. Eh?»

  «The merfolk employ your services? How do they pay?»

  «Pay? They pay in the same coin as all my customers. Amusement!» The Flesh Tinker roared with laughter; he sounded like a triumphant predator. Then he fixed those unsettling eyes on Gavagol. «But you, young man, have you no need for my services? Your eyes, are they not a little close-set? I could spread ’em. Your ears are a bit in need of cropping, not so?»

  Gavagol felt uneasy. «Your offer is most kind, but I’m satisfied with my appearance.»

  The Flesh Tinker smiled politely. «As you wish. I force my services on no one. Anyway, there’s little enough amusement in nose-bobbing. Though I`m reminded of a time on Pachysand…» But the Flesh Tinker’s voice trailed away, and the old man filled the tumblers again.

  Gavagol protested. «Much more, and I'll be under this table.»

  The Flesh Tinker’s expression was sly. «Or else you’ll start believing me, eh?»

  «Oh, no. I mean, I do believe you.»

  «Damn you!» the Flesh Tinker shouted, suddenly wild-eyed. Saliva gleamed at the corners of his mouth. «You think me an ancient dingwilly, rich enough to own a starboat and cunning enough to evade his keepers. Don’t deny it, now, or I shall mute you into a night-conger and root you to the floor of the Indivisible Ocean!»

  Gavagol`s knees rattled together under the table. He could think of nothing to say, so he sat silently, stiff with liquor and fear. Now he did believe the old man. He was sitting face to face with a legend.

  As quickly as it began, the Flesh Tinker’s fury was over, and he smiled. «Never mind, young man. You’re the only drinking companion to be had in the City. I’ll mind my manners.» The Flesh Tinker lifted his glass companionably.

  Gavagol realized suddenly that, for the first time in the years he had been on Cholder, he wasn’t lonely. Frightened, yes, but not lonely.

  He drank; he began to talk. The Flesh Tinker listened, nodding, making sounds of interest, pouring when the level of Gavagol’s glass fell too close to the tabletop.

  He spoke of his job, at first emphasizing the great responsibility he bore to the City and the Trustees. But as he grew drunker, he veered closer to the truth: that he was a useless, but traditional appendage, and that he spent his time observing the City’s ability to do without him.

  The Flesh Tinker murmured sympathy, and poured.

  Gavagol drank some more and started to talk about his insomnia. By degrees, he got around to the loneliness.

  «There’s no one else here. No one. The City has no self-willed mechаnisms, so I don’t even have a robot to talk with.»

  Gavagol wiped a maudlin tear away. «This is silly, but… I tried to have a pet once. All the cleaning mechs look the same here, square slabs of monomol with feet. And how can you make a pet out of something you can’t tell from all the others? A foolish idea, really, but I thought it might help.»

  He took another long drink, and his head swam. «I painted its name on its carapace — Ralf I called it. I think it did help; I talked to it and made little messes for it to clean up, and it seemed pleased. Ridiculous, I know.»

  «But a couple days later it rotated to another part of the City, or the maintmechs scrubbed the paint off. Anyway, I couldn’t find it.» Another tear rolled slowly down Gavagol’s face.

  The Flesh Tinker looked faintly repelled. «A pitiful story, friend Watcher.»

  «I envy the merfolk, you know» Gavagol rambled on, oblivious. «Whenever I see them, they’re swimming together, laughing, playing, making love… all together in the sea. A beautiful sight, don’t you agree?» His voice was slurred, and his eyes felt impossibly heavy. «In the sea. Sometimes I’d give anything to join them.» His head tipped forward; he caught himself with a start and looked up at the Flesh Tinker.

  Who was leaning toward him, pinning him with those burning magenta eyes. «Yes, you think you might be happy among them, then?»

  Gavagol nodded, trying to concentrate through the buzzing distraction of the celadon liquor. «Yes, perhaps. You. see no outcasts. among the merfolk»

  The Flesh Tinker’s face was a shimmering blur, but Gavagol thought he saw a flash of sharp white teeth. Perhaps the old man smiled. His head sagged again, and this time it thumped to the table.

  His head throbbed painfully. His eyes were crusted shut, and it took long minutes before he could open them.

  «What.» He trailed off, unable to remember. Why was he lying under this dusty table? He tried to rise, and pain exploded. «Oh.» he groaned, clutching at his head as if to prevent it from splitting apart.

  After a bit he started to remember, in bits and pieces. The celadon liquor. The alien starboat. The Flesh Tinker.

  Despite the pain, Gavagol’s mouth curved in a smile. The Flesh Tinker had listened to him.

  Then he frowned. Had the Flesh Tinker mentioned a departure date? Gavagol felt an urgency bordering on panic. Oh no, the Flesh Tinker must not be allowed to leave so soon. Must not, must not.

  Gavagol staggered to his feet and lurched out of the Spanglewine into the bright day. The light hammered his eyes, and he moaned, but he saw the Flesh Tinker’s boat still moored to the quay.

  Relief filled him. The Flesh Tinker was still here. Gavagol turned away, rubbing at his temples. He returned through the narrow ways of the Maremma to the Tower, thinking.

  The annunciator rang insistently. Gavagol sat still for a moment, wondering if he had done the right thing. But then he straightened his back and made his face as stern as he could. He had a right to companionship, and if he did not get it, he would die. So he believed.

  The Flesh Tinker’s face, purple with rage, bloomed in the intervid screen. Gavagol drew back. The Flesh Tinker’s eyes were crazy, almost smoking with intensity. «What have you done?» The Flesh Tinker roared, teeth bared. «Let me in, or I'll wring your puny neck.»

  The Flesh Tinker was transformed, and Gavagol saw that his earlier outbursts had been no more than mild annoyance. Gavagol found his voice.

  «You don’t understand. Please, listen to me. I meant no harm. I just wanted you to stay a little longer. Just a few days more, and then I’ll lift the cyclone shell from the basin, and you can go.»

  The Flesh Tinker’s face rippled from the emotion it contained, like a face in a nightmare. His voice was a dry whisper, more terrible than the roar.

  «Oh, you will, will you? You’ll d
o me that kindness, will you?»

  Gavagol had expected anger, but nothing so deadly as this. «What’s a few days to you? It would mean so much to me. Listen, i f you’ll promise to hear me out, I’ll let you up. We can talk this over, surely.»

  «Oh, yes, yes, let me up. I`ll hear you, my word on that.» The Flesh Tinker betrayed a horrible eagerness.

  Gavagol blinked. He touched the stud that opened the Tower. Below, the blast doors groaned open, and at the same moment, a sudden certainty struck Gavagol, that he had committed a terribly foolish act.

  Almost before he could turn away from the screen, he heard the Flesh Tinker behind him, and he had a flashing nightmare vision of the Flesh Tinker, like some swift feral beast, scrambling up the drop shaft. Gavagol shuddered.

  The Flesh Tinker stepped lightly toward him, hands hooked into talons, teeth glittering in a smile o f anticipation, eyes fiery.

  «Wait.» Gavagol gasped, terrified. «You said you would hear me.»

  «And so I will, so I will. You’ll be a while dying, and I wouldn’t want you to pass away before you lift the shell.»

  Before the Flesh Tinker could reach him, Gavagol held up his hand and said, in a voice small with terror, «Wait, deadman’s switch. Look.»

  The Flesh Tinker drew back with a hiss of frustration.

  Gavagol babbled. «I don’t want to do anything unfriendly, but if I let this go, your ship. the cyclone shell will invert and mash it flat. You understand?»

  «I understand.» The cold voice had changed again; it held a great weariness. The Flesh Tinker was abruptly calm. He seated himself across the desk from Gavagol. «Pay no attention to my outbursts, Watcher. I’m an impulsive being.»

  Gavagol was shaken. Some passing irritation — yes, he had expected that. But not that killing rage. It was fortunate he had taken precautions.

  «So, Watcher. What exactly do you want from me? You know, none of this was necessary — I’d have fixed those piggy little eyes without this coercion. Didn’t I offer?»