Short Fiction

gratified. “It’s no more than you have coming to you, Byron,” he said. “I’m grateful that I could be the one to make it come to pass.”

He glanced conspiratorially at the male nurses. “You know how important this is to me. It’s the triumph of a whole new approach to psychic rehabilitation. I mean to say our heroes of space travel are entitled to freedom when they come back home to Earth, aren’t they?”

“Definitely,” I said, scrubbing some of the sweat off my face onto my sleeve.

“So we’ve got to end this system of designated areas. We can’t avoid the tensions that accompany space travel, no. But if we can help you eliminate harmful tensions with a few run-throughs, why, it’s not too high a price to pay, is it?”

“Not a bit.”

“I mean to say,” he said, warming up, “you can look forward to the time when you’ll be able to mingle with your old friends from the rocket, free and easy, without any need for restraint. That’s a lot to look forward to, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said. “I look forward to it very much,” I said. “And I know exactly what I’m going to do the first time I meet one⁠—I mean without any restraints, as you say,” I said. And it was true; I did. Only it wouldn’t be a broken beer bottle that I would do it with.

I had much more elaborate ideas than that.

The Knights of Arthur

I

There was three of us⁠—I mean if you count Arthur. We split up to avoid attracting attention. Engdahl just came in over the big bridge, but I had Arthur with me so I had to come the long way around.

When I registered at the desk, I said I was from Chicago. You know how it is. If you say you’re from Philadelphia, it’s like saying you’re from St. Louis or Detroit⁠—I mean nobody lives in Philadelphia anymore. Shows how things change. A couple years ago, Philadelphia was all the fashion. But not now, and I wanted to make a good impression.

I even tipped the bellboy a hundred and fifty dollars. I said: “Do me a favor. I’ve got my baggage booby-trapped⁠—”

“Natch,” he said, only mildly impressed by the bill and a half, even less impressed by me.

“I mean really booby-trapped. Not just a burglar alarm. Besides the alarm, there’s a little surprise on a short fuse. So what I want you to do, if you hear the alarm go off, is come running. Right?”

“And get my head blown off?” He slammed my bags onto the floor. “Mister, you can take your damn money and⁠—”

“Wait a minute, friend.” I passed over another hundred. “Please? It’s only a shaped charge. It won’t hurt anything except anybody who messes around, see? But I don’t want it to go off. So you come running when you hear the alarm and scare him away and⁠—”

“No!” But he was less positive. I gave him two hundred more and he said grudgingly: “All right. If I hear it. Say, what’s in there that’s worth all that trouble?”

“Papers,” I lied.

He leered. “Sure.”

“No fooling, it’s just personal stuff. Not worth a penny to anybody but me, understand? So don’t get any ideas⁠—”

He said in an injured tone: “Mister, naturally the staff won’t bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?”

“Of course, of course,” I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there?

Anyway, the way to keep the staff on my side was by bribery, and when he left I figured I had him at least temporarily bought. He promised to keep an eye on the room and he would be on duty for four more hours⁠—which gave me plenty of time for my errands.

I made sure Arthur was plugged in and cleaned myself up. They had water running⁠—New York’s very good that way; they always have water running. It was even hot, or nearly hot. I let the shower splash over me for a while, because there was a lot of dust and dirt from the Bronx that I had to get off me. The way it looked, hardly anybody had been up that way since it happened.

I dried myself, got dressed and looked out the window. We were fairly high up⁠—fifteenth floor. I could see the Hudson and the big bridge up north of us. There was a huge cloud of smoke coming from somewhere near the bridge on the other side of the river, but outside of that everything looked normal. You would have thought there were people in all those houses. Even the streets looked pretty good, until you noticed that hardly any of the cars were moving.

I opened the little bag and loaded my pockets with enough money to run my errands. At the door, I stopped and called over my shoulder to Arthur: “Don’t worry if I’m gone an hour or so. I’ll be back.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. That would have been pointless under the circumstances.

After Philadelphia, this place seemed to be bustling with activity. There were four or five people in the lobby and a couple of dozen more out in the street.

I tarried at the desk for several reasons. In the first place, I was expecting Vern Engdahl to try to contact me and I didn’t want him messing with the luggage⁠—not while Arthur might get nervous. So I told the desk clerk that in case anybody came inquiring for Mr. Schlaepfer, which was the name I was using⁠—my real name being Sam Dunlap⁠—he was to be told that on no account was he to go to my room but to wait in the lobby; and in any case I would be back in an hour.

“Sure,” said