An attractive middle-aged woman sat down on the other end of his suitcase and began speaking in rapid French, making sharp gestures, like karate shops, with her well-groomed hand. She was trying to explain something to him, but of course he couldn’t understand her. She broke into tears. Fred couldn’t even offer her his handkerchief, because it was dirty from last night.

  “My wife,” he tried to explain. “My—wife—is missing. My wife.”

  “Bee-yay,” the woman said despairingly. “Vote beeyay.” She showed him a handful of dirham notes in large denominations.

  “I wish I could understand what it is you want,” he said.

  She went away from him, as though she were angry, as though he had said something to insult her.

  Fred felt someone tugging at his shoe. He remembered, with a start of terror, awakening in the cell, the old man tugging at his shoes, trying to steal them but not understanding, apparently, about the laces.

  It was only, after all, a shoe-shine boy. He had already begun to brush Fred’s shoes, which were, he could see, rather dirty. He pushed the boy away.

  He had to go back to the hotel to see if his wife had returned there, but he hadn’t the money for another taxi and there was no one in the waiting room that he dared trust with the bags.

  Yet he couldn’t leave Casablanca without his wife. Could he? But if he did stay, what was he to do, if the police would not listen to him?

  At about ten o’clock the waiting room grew quiet. All that day no planes had entered or left the airfield. Everyone here was waiting for tomorrow’s plane to London. How were so many people, and so much luggage, to fit on one plane, even the largest jet? Did they all have tickets?

  They slept anywhere, on the hard benches, on newspapers on the concrete floor, on the narrow window ledges. Fred was one of the luckiest, because he could sleep on his three suitcases.

  When he woke the next morning, he found that his passport and the two tickets had been stolen from his breast pocket. He still had his billfold, because he had slept on his back. It contained nine dirham.

  Christmas morning. Fred went out and treated himself to an ice cream sundae. Nobody seemed to be celebrating the holiday in Casablanca. Most of the shops in the ancient medina (where Fred had found a hotel room for three dirham a day) were open for business, while in the European quarter one couldn’t tell if the stores were closed permanently or just for the day.

  Going past the Belmonte, Fred stopped, as was his custom, to ask after his wife. The manager was very polite and said that nothing was known of Mrs. Richmond. The police had her description now.

  Hoping to delay the moment when he sat down before the sundae, he walked to the post office and asked if there had been any answer to his telegram to the American Embassy in London. There had not.

  When at last he did have his sundae it didn’t seem quite as good as he had remembered. There was so little of it! He sat down for an hour with his empty dish, watching the drizzling rain. He was alone in the ice cream parlour. The windows of the travel agency across the street were covered up by a heavy metal shutter, from which the yellow paint was flaking.

  The waiter came and sat down at Fred’s table. “Il pleuve, Monsieur Richmon. It rains. Il pleuve.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Fred. “It rains. It falls. Fall-out.”

  But the waiter had very little English. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “Joyeuse Noël. Merry Christmas.”

  Fred agreed.

  When the drizzle had cleared a bit, Fred strolled to the United Nations Plaza and found a bench under a palm tree that was dry. Despite the cold and damp, he didn’t want to return to his cramped hotel room and spend the rest of the day sitting on the edge of his bed.

  Fred was by no means alone in the plaza. A number of figures in heavy woollen djelabas, with hoods over their heads, stood or sat on benches, or strolled in circles on the gravel paths. The djelabas made ideal raincoats. Fred had sold his own London Fog three days before for twenty dirham. He was getting better prices for his things now that he had learned to count in French. The hardest lesson to learn (and he had not yet learned it) was to keep from thinking. When he could do that, he wouldn’t become angry, or afraid.

  At noon the whistle blew in the handsome tower at the end of the plaza, from the top of which one could see all of Casablanca in every direction. Fred took out the cheese sandwich from the pocket of his suit coat and ate it, a little bit at a time. Then he took out the chocolate bar with almonds. His mouth began to water.

  A shoe-shine boy scampered across the gravelled circle and sat down in the damp at Fred’s feet. He tried to lift Fred’s foot and place in on his box.

  “No,” said Fred. “Go away.”

  “Monsieur, monsieur,” the boy insisted. Or perhaps, “Merci, merci.”

  Fred looked down guiltily at his shoes. They were very dirty. He hadn’t had them shined in weeks.

  The boy kept whistling those meaningless words at him. His gaze was fixed on Fred’s chocolate bar. Fred pushed him away with the side of his foot. The boy grabbed for the candy. Fred struck him in the side of his head. The chocolate bar fell to the gravel, not far from the boy’s calloused feet. The boy lay on his side, whimpering.

  “You little sneak!” Fred shouted at him.

  It was a clear-cut case of thievery. He was furious. He had a right to be furious. Standing up to his full height, his foot came down accidentally on the boy’s rubbishy shoeshine box. The wood splintered.

  The boy began to gabble at Fred in Arabic. He scurried forward on hands and knees to pick up the pieces of the box.

  “You asked for this,” Fred said. He kicked the boy in the ribs. The boy rolled with the blow, as though he were not unused to such treatment. “Little beggar! Thief!” Fred screamed.

  He bent forward and tried to grasp a handhold in the boy’s hair, but it was cut too close to his head, to prevent lice. Fred hit again in the face, but now the boy was on his feet and running.

  There was no use pursuing him, he was too fast, too fast.

  Fred’s face was violet and red, and his white hair, in need of a trim, straggled down over his flushed forehead. He had not noticed, while he was beating the boy, the group of Arabs, or Moslems, or whatever they were, that had gathered around him to watch. Fred could not read the expressions on their dark, wrinkly faces.

  “Did you see that?” he asked loudly. “Did you see what that little thief tried to do? Did you see him try to steal... my candy bar?”

  One of the men, in a long djelaba striped with brown, said something to Fred that sounded like so much gargling. Another, younger man, in European dress, struck Fred in the face. Fred teetered backward.

  “Now see here!” He had not time to tell them he was an American citizen. The next blow caught him in the mouth, and he fell to the ground. Once he was lying on his back, the older men joined in in kicking him. Some kicked him in the ribs, others in his head, still others had to content themselves with his legs. Curiously, nobody went for his groin. The shoe-shine boy watched from a distance, and when Fred was unconscious, came forward and removed his shoes. The young man who had first hit him removed his suit coat and his belt. Wisely, Fred had left his billfold behind at his hotel.

  When he woke up he was sitting on the bench again. A policeman was addressing him in Arabic. Fred shook his head uncomprehendingly. His back hurt dreadfully, from when he had fallen to the ground. The policeman addressed him in French. He shivered. Their kicks had not damaged him so much as he had expected. Except for the young man, they had worn slippers instead of shoes. His face experienced only a dull ache, but there was blood all down the front of his shirt, and his mouth tasted of blood. He was cold, very cold.

  The policeman went away, shaking his head.

  At just that moment Fred remembered the name of the Englishman who had had supper in his house in Florida. It was Cholmondeley, but it was pronounced Chum-ly. He was still unable to remember his London address.

  Only when he tried to stand did he realize that his shoes were gone. The gravel hurt the tender soles of his bare feet Fred was mortally certain that the shoe-shine boy had stolen his shoes.

  He sat back down on the bench with a groan. He hoped to hell he’d hurt the god-damned little son of a bitch. He hoped to hell he had. He grated his teeth together, wishing that he could get hold of him again. The little beggar. He’d kick him this time so that he’d remember it. The god-damn dirty little red beggar. He’d kick his face in.

  DIO

  Damon Knight

  The sensuous and crystalline prose of Damon Knight is seen all too infrequently these days; he was never an extraordinarily prolific writer, but the period when we could count on at least two or three new Knight stories a year seems forever gone, now that he occupies his time editing anthologies and running writers’ workshops. The long story here, dating from his most productive period—the mid-1950s—makes one hope that his institutional duties will not keep him much longer away from his own art. This vivid and moving vision of a world of immortals, this poignant parable of a dying god, is science fiction at its finest.

  I

  It is noon. Overhead the sky like a great silver bowl shimmers with heat, the yellow sand hurls it back; the distant ocean is dancing with white fire. Emerging from underground, Dio the Planner stands blinking a moment in the strong salt light; he feels the heat like a cap on his head, and his beard curls crisply, iridescent in the sun.

  A few yards away are five men and women, their limbs glinting pink against the sand. The rest of the seascape is utterly bare; the sand seems to stretch empty and hot for miles. There is not even a gull in the air. Three of the figures are men; they are running and throwing a beach ball at one another, with far-off shouts. The two women are half reclining, watching the men. All five are superbly muscled, with great arched chests, ponderous as Percherons. Their skins are smooth; their eyes sparkle. Dio looks at his own forearm: is there a trace of darkness? is the skin coarsening?

  He drops his single garment and walks toward the group. The sand’s caress is briefly painful to his feet, then his skin adapts, and he no longer feels it. The five incuriously turn to watch him approach. They are all players, not students, and there are two he does not even know. He feels uncomfortable, and wishes he had not come. It isn’t good for students and players to meet informally; each side is too much aware of the other’s good-natured contempt. Dio tries to imagine himself a player, exerting himself to be polite to a student, and as always, he fails. The gulf is too wide. It takes both kinds to make a world, student to remember and make, player to consume and enjoy; but the classes should not mix.

  Even without their clothing, these are players: the wide, innocent eyes that flash with enthusiasm, or flicker with easy boredom; the soft mouths that can be gay or sulky by turns. Now he deliberately looks at the blonde woman, Claire, and in her face he sees the same unmistakable signs. But, against all reason and usage, the soft curve of her lips is beauty; the poise of her dark-blonde head on the strong neck wrings his heart. It is illogical, almost unheard-of, perhaps abnormal; but he loves her.

  Her gray eyes are glowing up at him like sea-agates; the quick pleasure of her smile warms and soothes him. “I’m so glad to see you.” She takes his hand. “You know Katha of course, and Piet. And this is Tanno, and that’s Mark. Sit here and talk to me, I can’t move, it’s so hot.”

  The ball throwers go cheerfully back to their game. The brunette, Katha, begins talking immediately about the choirs at Bethany: has Dio heard them. No? But he must; the voices are stupendous, the choir-master is brilliant; nothing like it has been heard for centuries.

  The word “centuries” falls carelessly. How old is Katha—eight hundred, a thousand? Recently, in a three-hundred-year-old journal, Dio has been surprised to find a reference to Katha. Evidently he had known her briefly, forgotten her completely. There are so many people; it’s impossible to remember. That’s why the students keep journals; and why the players don’t. He might even have met Claire before, and forgotten... “No,” he says, smiling politely, “I’ve been busy with a project.”

  “Dio is an Architectural Planner,” says Claire, mocking him with the exaggerated syllables; and yet there’s a curious, inverted pride in her voice. “I told you, Kat, he’s a student among students. He rebuilds this whole sector, every year.”

  “Oh,” says Katha, wide-eyed, “I think that’s absolutely fascinating.” A moment later, without pausing, she has changed the subject to the new sky circus in Littlam—perfectly vulgar, but hilarious. The sky clowns! The tumblers! The delicious mock animals!

  Claire’s smooth face is close to his, haloed by the sun, gilded from below by the reflection of the hot sand. Her half-closed eyelids are delicate and soft, bruised by heat; her pupils are contracted, and the wide gray irises are intricately patterned. A fragment floats to the top of his mind, something he has read about the structure of the iris: raylike dilating muscles interlaced with a circular contractile set, pigmented with a little melanin. For some reason, the thought is distasteful, and he pushes it aside. He feels a little light-headed; he has been working too hard.

  “Tired?” she asks gently.

  He relaxes a little. The brunette, Katha, is still talking; she is one of those who talk and never care if anyone listens. He answers, “This is our busiest time. All the designs are coming back for a final check before they go into the master integrator. It’s our last chance to find any mistakes.”

  “Dio, I’m sorry,” she says. “I know I shouldn’t have asked you.” Her brows go up; she looks at him anxiously under her lashes. “You should rest, though.”

  “Yes,” says Dio.

  She lays her soft palm on the nape of his neck. “Rest, then. Rest.”

  “Ah,” says Dio wearily, letting his head drop into the crook of his arm. Under the sand where he lies are seventeen inhabited levels, of which three are his immediate concern, over a sector that reaches from Alban to Detroy. He has been working almost without sleep for two weeks. Next season there is talk of beginning an eighteenth level; it will mean raising the surface again, and all the forceplanes will have to be shifted. The details swim past, thousands of them; behind his closed eyes, he sees architectural tracings, blueprints, code sheets, specifications.

  “Darling,” says her caressing voice in his ear. “You know I’m happy you came, anyhow, even if you didn’t want to. Because you didn’t want to. Do you understand that?”

  He peers at her with one half-open eye. “A feeling of power?” he suggests ironically.

  “No. Reassurance is more like it. Did you know I was jealous of your work?... I am, very much. I told myself, if he’ll leave it, now, today—”

  He rolls over, smiling crookedly up at her. “And yet you don’t know one day from the next.”

  Her answering smile is quick and shy. “I know, isn’t it awful of me: but you do.”

  As they look at each other in silence, he is aware again of the gulf between them. They need us, he thinks, to make their world over every year—keep it bright and fresh, cover up the past—but they dislike us because they know that whatever they forget, we keep and remember.

  His hand finds hers. A deep, unreasoning sadness wells up in him; he asks silently, Why should I love you?

  He has not spoken, but he sees her face contract into a rueful, pained smile; and her fingers grip hard.

  Above them, the shouts of the ball throwers have changed to noisy protests. Dio looks up. Piet, the cotton-headed man, laughing, is afloat over the heads of the other two. He comes down slowly and throws the ball; the game goes on. But a moment later Piet is in the air again: the others shout angrily, and Tanno leaps up to wrestle with him. The ball drops, bounds away: the two striving figures turn and roll in midair. At length the cotton-headed man forces the other down to the sand. They both leap up and run over, laughing.

  “Someone’s got to tame this wild man,” says the loser, panting. “I can’t do it, he’s too slippery. How about you, Dio?”

  “He’s resting,” Claire protests, but the others chorus, “Oh, yes!”

  “Just a fall or two,” says Piet, with a wide grin, rubbing his hands together. “There’s lots of time before the tide comes in—unless you’d rather not?”

  Dio gets reluctantly to his feet. Grinning, Piet floats up off the sand. Dio follows, feeling the taut surge of back and chest muscles, and the curious sensation of pressure on the spine. The two men circle, rising slowly. Piet whips his body over, head downward, arms slashing for Dio’s legs. Dio overleaps him, and, turning, tries for a leg-and-arm; but Piet squirms away like an eel and catches him in a waist lock. Dio strains against the taut chest, all his muscles knotting; the two men hang unbalanced for a moment Then, suddenly, something gives way in the force that buoys Dio up. They go over together, hard and awkwardly into the sand. There is a surprised babble of voices.

  Dio picks himself up. Piet is kneeling nearby, whitefaced, holding his forearm. “Bent?” asks Mark, bending to touch it gently.

  “Came down with all my weight,” says Piet. “Wasn’t expecting—” He nods at Dio. “That’s a new one.”

  “Well, let’s hurry and fix it,” says the other, “or you’ll miss the spout.” Piet lays the damaged forearm across his own thighs. “Ready?” Mark plants his bare foot on the arm, leans forward and presses sharply down. Piet winces, then smiles; the arm is straight.

  “Sit down and let it knit,” says the other. He turns to Dio. “What’s this?”

  Dio is just becoming aware of a sharp pain in one finger, and dark blood welling. “Just turned back the nail a little,” says Mark. “Press it down, it’ll close in a second.”

  Katha suggests a word game, and in a moment they are all sitting in a circle, shouting letters at each other. Dio does poorly; he cannot forget the dark blood falling from his fingertip. The silver sky seems oppressively distant; he is tired of the heat that pours down on his head, of the breathless air and the sand like hot metal under his body. He has a sense of helpless fear, as if something terrible had already happened; as if it were too late.