The Keeper made an overruling sign of please-let-me-help. “It’s your last half-hour, Wolf,” he reminded Tropile. “I’ll fix the stool for you.”
He entered and slammed and banged it together, and left with an expression of mild concern. Even a Son of the Wolf was entitled to the fullest appreciation of that unique opportunity for meditation, the last half-hour before a Donation.
In five minutes, the Keeper was back, looking solemn and yet glad, like a bearer of serious but welcome tidings.
“It is the time for the first Donation,” he announced. “Which of you—”
“Him,” said Tropile quickly, pointing.
Boyne opened his eyes calmly and nodded. He got to his feet, made a formal leavetaking bow to Tropile, and followed the Keeper toward his Donation and his death. As they were going out, Tropile coughed a would-you-please-grant-me-a-favor cough.
The Keeper paused. “What is it, Wolf?”
Tropile showed him the empty water pitcher—empty, all right; he had emptied it out the window.
“My apologies,” the Keeper said, flustered, and hurried Boyne along. He came back almost at once to fill the pitcher, even though he should be there to watch Boyne’s ceremonial Donation.
Tropile stood looking at the Keeper, his sub-adrenals beginning to pound like the rolling boil of Well-aged Water. The Keeper was at a disadvantage. He had been neglectful of his charge—a broken stool, no water in the pitcher. And a Citizen, brought up in a Citizen’s maze of consideration and tact, could not help but be humiliated, seeking to make amends.
Tropile pressed his advantage home. “Wait,” he said to the Keeper. “I’d like to talk to you.”
The Keeper hesitated, torn. “The Donation—”
“Damn the Donation,” Tropile said calmly. “After all, what is it but sticking a pipe into a man’s backbone and sucking out the juice that keeps him alive? It’s killing, that’s all.”
The Keeper turned literally white. Tropile was speaking blasphemy and he wasn’t stopping.
“I want to tell you about my wife,” Tropile went on, assuming a confidential air. “Now there’s a real woman. Not one of these frozen-up Citizenesses, you know? Why, she and I used to—” He hesitated. “You’re a man of the world, aren’t you?” he demanded. “I mean you’ve seen life.”
“I—suppose so,” the Keeper said faintly.
“Then you won’t be shocked,” Tropile lied. “Well, let me tell you, there’s a lot to women that these stuffed-shirt Citizens don’t know about. Boy! Ever see a woman’s knee?” He sniggered. “Ever kiss a woman with—” he winked—“with the light on? Ever sit in a big armchair, say, with a woman in your lap—all soft and heavy, and kind of warm, and slumped up against your chest, you know, and—”
He stopped and swallowed. He was almost making himself retch, it was so hard to say these things. But he forced himself to go on: “Well, that’s what she and I used to do. Plenty. All the time. That’s what I call a real woman.”
He stopped, warned by the Keeper’s sudden change of expression, glazed eyes, strangling breath. He had gone too far. He had only wanted to paralyze the man, revolt him, put him out of commission, but he was overdoing it. He jumped forward and caught the Keeper as he fell, fainting.
Tropile callously emptied the water pitcher over the man. The Keeper sneezed and sat up groggily. He focused his eyes on Tropile and agonizedly blushed.
Tropile said harshly: “I wish to see the new sun from the street.”
The request was incredible. Even after the unbelievable obscenities he had heard, the Keeper was not prepared for this; he was staggered. Tropile was in detention regarding the Fifth Regulation. That was all there was to it. Such persons were not to be released from their quarters. The Keeper knew it, the world knew it, Tropile knew it.
It was an obscenity even greater than the lurid tales of perverted lust, for Tropile had asked something which was impossible! No one ever asked anything that was impossible to grant, for no one could ever refuse anything. That was utterly graceless, unthinkable.
One could only attempt to compromise. The Keeper stammeringly said: “May I—may I let you see the new sun from the corridor?” And even that was wretchedly wrong, but he had to offer something. One always offered something. The Keeper had never since babyhood given a flat no to anybody about anything. No Citizen had. A flat no led to anger, strong words—perhaps even hurt feelings. The only flat no conceivable was the enormous terminal no of an amok. Short of that—
One offered. One split the difference. One was invariably filled with tepid pleasure when, invariably, the offer was accepted, the difference was split, both parties were satisfied.
“That will do for a start,” Tropile snarled. “Open, man, open! Don’t make me wait.”
The Keeper reeled and unlatched the door to the corridor.
“Now the street!”
“I can’t!” burst in an anguished cry from the Keeper. He buried his face in his hands and began to sob, hopelessly incapacitated.
“The street!” Tropile said remorselessly. He himself felt wrenchingly ill; he was going against custom that had ruled his own life as surely as the Keeper’s.
But he was Wolf. “I will be Wolf,” he growled, and advanced upon the Keeper. “My wife,” he said, “I didn’t finish telling you. Sometimes she used to put her arm around me and just snuggle up and—I remember one time she kissed my ear. Broad daylight. It felt funny and warm—I can’t describe it.”
Whimpering, the Keeper flung the keys at Tropile and tottered brokenly away.
He was out of the action. Tropile himself was nearly as badly off; the difference was that he continued to function. The words coming from him had seared like acid in his throat.
“They call me Wolf,” he said aloud, reeling against the wall. “I will be one.”
He unlocked the outer door and his wife was waiting, holding in her arms the things he had asked her to bring.
Tropile said strangely to her: “I am steel and fire. I am Wolf, full of the old
