They came toward us quite slowly. I don’t think it was deliberate. They were cold, and the way was slippery. I didn’t know any of them, and then the snow-light slicked across two panes of glass.
The VLO wasn’t coming. It didn’t exist. Electronic Metals existed. Clovis had betrayed us, after all.
“There’s still time,” I tried to say.
“Not really,” he said. He turned away from them again and stood in front of me so I wouldn’t see them. He blotted them out, as long ago he’d blotted out the harsh light and fear of the world, so I could learn to bear it. “Listen,” he said. “None of this matters. What we’ve had matters—
“No Silver—Silver—”
“Yes. Trust me. It’s true. And I’m not afraid of this. I was only afraid for you. Do you understand?”
I shook my head. He took my hands and held them against his face, and he looked at me, and he smiled at me. And then he glanced back again, and they were very close.
Swohnson was in the lead.
“You’ve been a bit of a silly girl,” he said to me, “creeping off with your friend’s property. It isn’t, ah, legal, you know.”
I don’t think he recognized me, but he disliked me just the same. I’d made him come out in the cold. He always got the rotten jobs—placating the mob and irate callers, shutting the gate, doing the visual interviews and acting dumb, chasing runaway machines and female children across the winter countryside.
I couldn’t say a word that would alter anything, but the words tried to come, and Swohnson showed his teeth at me and said, “You’re lucky if no one lodges charges. Not that that’s our business. Our business is this, here. Didn’t you know how dangerous these things can be? They can short out at a second’s, er, notice. A faulty line. Yes, you’ve been bloody lucky.”
I started to plead, and then I stopped. Silver was standing by me, looking at them silently. None of them looked in his eyes.
“Er, yes. Give us the lady’s bags,” said Swohnson. “Um, you take the guitar, will you,” he added to one of the other four bears. “That’s E.M. property.”
Silver put down the bags quietly. Men picked them up. He handed the guitar to the elected man, who said, “Thanks—Oh, shit,” and bit his mouth.
“Yes, they’re convincing,” Swohnson said. “Till they blow a gasket. Now, young lady. We stopped your cab on the road. It’ll take you back to the city.”
“She hasn’t,” Silver said, “got the fare.”
They all started. Swohnson coughed. He swung around on another bear. “Go and put some, ah, cash in the damn cab. Enough for the ride.”
The bear hurried off. They were obedient henchmen. If Silver resisted them, would they be enough to stop him? And then I saw something come out of Swohnson’s pocket, in his gloved paw. He toyed with it, so I could see the buttons.
“Don’t,” Silver said, “do it in front of her.”
Swohnson coughed again. His breath fluffed through the air. The Canyon vibrated.
“Oh, don’t worry. You don’t think we’d carry you to the car when you can walk? Start walking now. Left, right. Left, right.”
Silver walked, and I walked. The men walked with us. No one spoke. We went up the steps and came out in the ravine. When we got to the top, the cab was back, a bear leaning on one side.
“All paid up and primed for the city center,” he said, quite cheerfully. “All right? Mr. Swohnson?”
“Fine.”
Swohnson walked on, and Silver walked, and I tried to and one of the bears caught my arm and prevented me. My bags were lying by the taxi.
“Here’s your cab, now, please.”
“Let me,” I said. “Let me come with you. As far as—the center.”
“Sorry, madam. No.”
“Let me. Please. I won’t do anything.”
Silver was taller than they were. He walked like an actor playing a young king. The cloak flared from his shoulders. His hair blazed through the monochrome white-blueness of the day, as he walked away from me toward the long black car like an ancient hearse.
“You see,” I said to the man, smiling, plucking at his sleeve, “you see I’d much rather.”
He shook me off. Agitated, he said, “It’s only a bit of metal. I know it looks—but it isn’t. Let it go, can’t you. They’re dangerous. It could hurt you. We just take them apart. Melt it down. It’ll be over in another hour. That’s no time, is it. Nothing to fret about.”
I held out my hands to him and he backed away.
Silver moved in a graceful bow to get into the car. The windows were tinted like Swohnson’s spectacles, and I couldn’t see him anymore, not even the fire of his hair, his hair, his hair.
Swohnson got into the car. The others called. The man who had stopped me ran up the road to them, slipping once and almost going down.
“Please,” I said to the empty distance between us.
Their car started. Snow fanned away from it. It moved powerfully. It raced and dwindled.
“Please,” I said.
It was gone.
Automatically, I fumbled to open the taxi door, and one by one I loaded the bags into it, and the umbrella. Then I got in and shut the door.
I sat in the taxi. I wasn’t crying. I was making a little noise, very low, I can’t describe it. I couldn’t seem to stop. I think I may have been trying still to say “Please.” I sat and watched the clock in the taxi.
I didn’t even think of going after them. They had, at least, taught me that.
It’ll be over in another hour.
When you leave me, there’s nothing.
There’s all the world.
It’ll be over, in another hour.
Where the cat had scratched me, my wrist hurt.
I watched the clock. I didn’t visualize any of what they did to him. I didn’t wonder about it. I didn’t feel him die.
“Jack’s lost all his glass. All smashed.”
When the hour was up, I took off my left boot and smashed the glass over the taxi clock, and taking up the largest shard I could find I cut my wrists with it.
Blood is very red. I began to feel warm. Everything grew dark. But in the dark, little bright silver flames were turning and burning…
When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love with night…
Somewhere there was a great rushing and roaring. The sky was falling. The sky with its Silver stars, his hands, his feet, his limbs, his torso, even his genitals scattered to give light, dismembered like Osiris, Romeo, Dionysos.
The sky fell in the Canyon.
Later, the door of the cab was wrenched open.
“Oh, Jesus,” someone said to me. I heard this someone retching and fighting to control the spasms. But I closed my eyes and slept.
• 5 •
I remember the hospital in little blurred white flashes, like damaged film. I needn’t describe that. Or the pain, which didn’t stay in any part of me, but ran through all over me, so that even to turn was awful. I remember
