A Borrowed Man Read online

  “You don’t belong here?”

  The others were beginning to talk again, the kind of quick embarrassed talk people use to cover up the fact that they have been eavesdropping.

  I shook my head. “I’m the property of the Spice Grove Public Library.”

  “They’ll send you back there.”

  “I know. That’s why I came here. The lady who checked me out lives in Spice Grove. She’s a teacher.”

  “You’re property. Property this lady borrowed.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t you think that’s horrible? Really now, Ern. Don’t you think it’s criminal?”

  “It’s worse than criminal. It’s factual.”

  “I suppose you’re right. There’s no use talking. Eat your eggs.”

  “They’re cheese grits.” I took a bite. “Wouldn’t you like to taste them?”

  “I did once. Will we ever be free?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why would they do that? Why reclone me? They won’t even let me write.”

  I sighed. “If I try to explain, will you resent it?”

  “Yes! No. Oh, I don’t know!”

  “Then I’ll try to explain. They won’t let you write because there would be no point to it. Few people would appreciate your poetry, and new poetry from you—written tomorrow—would only cheapen the wonderful work you did a century ago.”

  “They’ll burn me! If nobody checks me out, they’ll burn me.”

  I put my arm around her, and she pressed her face against my chest. We sat like that until three ’bots came to clear the table and made us leave.

  Arabella stepped away. “I got your shirt wet.”

  I told her it would dry.

  “I know. But it won’t be comfortable until it does. Will you take it off?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re afraid they’ll punish you. We’re not supposed to do those things.”

  “They wouldn’t do anything serious, just make me put it back on or bring me a new one. But…”

  “What? What is it, Ern?”

  “We’ll fight. Or I’m afraid we will.”

  “I’d like that. Fighting, I wouldn’t be so down, just mad. Mad’s a lot better. ‘Great wit is unto madness near allied.’ Who said that?”

  “Shakespeare probably. It sounds like him.”

  “He’s lucky.” It sounded serious.

  “Because he can’t be recloned?”

  Arabella nodded, her black curls dancing. “They’ll burn me. You’ve been checked out how many times? Honestly now.”

  “Three.”

  “Once for forty days. You said that.”

  “I was lying. It was really ten days. One and a half weeks, if you want to look at it like that.”

  “And now you’re separated. You’ve lost the woman who checked you out.”

  I nodded. “She left me behind in a hotel room.”

  “That’s not as bad as being burned. I can’t bear to think about that.”

  “Then don’t. Someone will check you, probably several someones. And before they burn you, the library will offer you for sale at a very low price. Somebody will surely buy you then.”

  “And have me burned as soon as I begin to show my age. You’re not a woman! You don’t know. We do!”

  “This is the fight I knew would start. I wish you’d come up onto my shelf, so we could fight up there. This is terribly public.”

  Arabella hung her head. “They’d tell me I was going to be burned. They’d only mean it a little bit, but it’s a little bit more every time they say it. Oh, Ern! Can’t you get me out of here?”

  “I’ll try. You probably know what I’m going to tell you now, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Maybe reminding you will help. The world population is down to about one billion, but a lot of people want it lower still—a few hundred million. Reclones add to the population. Not a lot, but we’re different and stand out. There’s political pressure against recloning. To escape the pressure as much as possible, the libraries have to treat us like things, like books or tapes, and destroy us in some fashion when we’re no longer useful. Burning is painful, but quick. They could starve us to death or see to it that we died of thirst.”

  “You’re taking their side!”

  “No, I’m explaining why they act as they do. If we want to live, we’ve got to understand why it is they think we’ve got to die. All right if I change the subject?”

  “That depends on—the library will open in a minute or two.”

  “And a ’bot will come around to shoo us onto our shelves, but you won’t be shooed if you’ll join me on mine.”

  “I won’t!”

  “Then I’ll join you on yours.”

  “Damn it! I—I knew this was going to happen. I’m terribly, terribly sorry that it happened so soon. We’re not married anymore.”

  “Arabella…” I tried to find words. Maybe I said something sensible. If I did, I can’t remember what it was.

  “I know what you want, Ern. Our divorce is final, and you’re not going to get it.” She turned and walked away fast, heels clicking on the floor tiles.

  I called, “All I want is for you to love me!”

  She was climbing the ladder to a high shelf when I shouted that, and if she heard me she gave no sign. It was one of those times when I wish to God I could talk the way I think.

  Back on the shelf where I had slept, I walked up and down. Four steps one way, and four the other. What had I done right, and where had I screwed up? For sure I had tried to rush things, thinking—assuming, really—that she would understand that I just wanted to hold her, to kiss her a dozen times and get kissed by her. Maybe she had, but I do not think so.

  Time passed, and the same old thoughts, the same old regrets, came back again and again. When they were stopped by somebody’s calling for me, I was glad to get away from them. He was young, blond, and quite a bit smaller than most men, dressed in a faded blue chore smock that did not even come close to going with his culottes and pointed boots.

  He waved. “Come down, will you?”

  I was happy to do it.

  “You’re E. A. Smithe?” He offered his hand. It was softer than I had expected. “I guess there’s a lounge here somewhere. Someplace where I can buy you a nerbeer?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt it.”

  “Kafe maybe? Something like that?”

  “I’m a stranger here myself, but it doesn’t seem likely. We might ask.”

  We did, meaning he did.

  “Out on the patio,” he said when he came back. “It’s out into the hall, two lefts and a right, then through the double doors, but I’m not supposed to buy you anything to eat.”

  “Then don’t,” I said.

  “Maybe they’ll have hot chocolate. You like hot chocolate?”

  Here it was again. I nodded, mostly because I was too dumb not to.

  “Great! We’ll find out. I’m not supposed to borrow you. I guess you know.”

  “Correct.” We were walking, and walking damned fast. I wondered what had got him so nervous.

  “Why nothing to eat?”

  “There is a rule to that effect.” The truth was I had never thought about it. “If you checked me out, you’d be expected to feed me if you kept me more than a day. Here in the library it’s forbidden. I suppose it must be to keep us from begging, not that we would. Or at least only a few of us would.” I was trying to remember the name of the boy Dr. Johnson had talked about, the young genius who had choked to death on a sweet roll. It would not come, and that boy had lived hundreds of years too early for recloning anyway.

  The blond man stopped. “Hey, would a couple of yellowbacks help?”

  I tried to remember if anybody had offered me creds before.

  “Maybe you don’t have a lot.” He was getting out his wallet.

  The truth was that I had quite a bit, the money from Colette’s shaping bag. I knew what would happen if the librarians found out ab
out that, so I said I did not have shit, adding, “We’re not paid, you understand. One doesn’t pay property, and most of us belong to some library. It’s the Spice Grove Public Library in my case.”

  “Sure. You’re slaves.”

  “Not exactly. Slaves are fully human and can be freed. We aren’t and can’t be. Besides, slavery is currently against the law. We just require a license.”

  “I got it. Here’s a couple—three hundred. With my compliments. All right?”

  I took the money, telling myself I did it because I did not want to piss him off.

  The Owenbright Public Library had this screwy patio covered with a wide tent top of semitransparent film. There were potted palms, tables and chairs of the outside kind, and a counter (under its own little roof) where you could buy kafe and doughnuts—stuff like that. A couple of the tables were already getting leaned on by patrons reading diskers they would probably get all spotted with kafe.

  The blond man picked a table and told me to sit down. “I’ll get us somethin’. Chocolate if they got it. Just wait here. How about a san’wich?”

  I knew the rule, but I had not gotten much breakfast, and it hit me that this library’d probably be too chicken to punish another library’s reclone. So I said I would like one and thanks.

  “I’ll see what they got.”

  He came back with a little stack of sandwiches and two mugs of hot chocolate. He set a mug and a sandwich in front of me, looked around to see if anybody was watching, and pulled a flask from a pocket of his loose blue smock. “Swan-n-Sweetheart five star. Pretty good, too.” He decanted a healthy swallow into my chocolate and helped himself to one.

  My sandwich turned out to be tuna salad on rye.

  “Listen. S’pose I could get you out of here. Would you play along?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hey, I been nice to you, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I got you that san’wich you’re eatin’. I gave you a few ’backs. I even got you chocolate and gave you a shot of my dog. So why not?”

  “Because another library’s reclones not on loan cannot be checked out. We would be violating the law. You would be prosecuted. I would probably be burned.” That last was really stretching it and might have popped into my head because of what I had told Arabella; I would sure as shit be punished somehow, though.

  “’Spose I was to pull my friend on you. You know what I mean? My one-eye friend. These big pockets on this coat ain’t just for show. Get me?”

  “I do. But I wouldn’t come. First, because I like you. If you shoot me, you’ll be getting yourself into trouble. But if I were to go with you, I’d be getting you into trouble. I prefer not to do that.”

  “Yeah, right. What’s the second one?”

  “The doors here are alarmed. I know they must be, because they’re alarmed in all libraries. When someone borrows a disk, a card is inserted in the box. It gives the date on which the disk is to be returned, and it’s automatically scanned as the box passes through the door. If there’s no card, or the card is invalid, the alarm goes off. There is no security ’bot at some doors, but one is always nearby.”

  “You ain’t no disk!”

  “Correct. I am a human being, even if other human beings refuse to consider me human. Still, I’ve got a card.” I took it out and held it up. “My card, however, is for the library in Spice Grove, whose property I am. It would not permit me to go out the door here.”

  “You can put that away.”

  I did.

  “Want another san’wich?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.” I sipped kafe, wondering about the Swan-n-Sweetheart. Brandy or whiskey?”

  “Okay. I got ham and cheese. Or chicken salad. Up to you.”

  “Ham and cheese, please.”

  He tossed it. “You won’t come, huh? That’s firm. Only maybe you would if you knew who sent me.”

  I shook my head, feeling sure he would say Colette and just as sure it would be a lie.

  “The tall man. You know him, right?”

  “I don’t believe I do.”

  “Good-lookin’ guy, a lot taller than me. Wears a big hat.”

  I had a strong hunch, but I said, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “Well, he knows you.” The blond man stood up. “So do I, now. See you ’round.”

  I wanted to thank him again for my hot chocolate and the food he had bought, but he was gone before I could get the first word out.

  Thinking hard, I finished my second sandwich. I did not want the third, but it seemed to me somebody might ask questions if I just walked away and left it. Two tables away, a fat girl was reading one of the broken novels some people like now. I went to her table, smiled, and offered her the remaining chicken salad sandwich. “My friend bought too many, and I don’t want it. I doubt very much that they’ll take it back.”

  She gave me a smile a lot warmer than mine and thanked me.

  Back in the reclone section, I stopped to look up at Arabella. She sat prim and silent, her face full of thoughts. A minute or two passed before I saw one hand twitch, fumbling for a pencil. Finding there wasn’t any, she came to, shrugged, and returned to her silent stare into space. It would be super cool, I thought, to move that space of hers into some museum; but I had no idea how to do it.

  Then I remembered something I had forgotten a hundred years ago, grinned, and finally laughed out loud.

  Arabella looked down. “It’s you. Am I that funny?”

  I shook my head. “I am, darling. I was laughing at myself.”

  “Well, there’s a ’bot looking for you. I suppose they’re going to send you back.”

  8

  ON THE ROUTE TRUCK

  The back of the truck was dark and crowded. What was worse, that truck was dead set on shaking the fillings out of my teeth. Since I didn’t have any, it looked like it was going to jolt all the way to Spice Grove. Of course it might decide, I decided, that the best technique was to run into a tree. Up front the driver had springs or something. Shocks, maybe. The seat beside him probably had them, too; but the books and I did not.

  Someplace I ought to mention that it was about three o’clock when I got on the truck, and after seven when it stopped for dinner. The driver let me out then and locked up.

  “That’s where we’re goin’ to eat.” He pointed. “It’s not too bad. I only get six creds per meal to feed you, though. You want to order for yourself, or should I do it for you? You’ll get a bowl of soup and a glass of milk if I do.”

  “I’d prefer to order, of course.”

  “Then you got to remember six, ’cause I’m going to have to cancel if it’s more than that. Six has got to cover the works. Taxes. All that shit.”

  “But you have the six creds for me.”

  His nod said he knew I was going to hit him with something, but he was ready for it.

  “In that case I propose a better plan. I will order what I wish, and you may order what you wish. I will pay for both dinners, yours and mine. In return, you’ll allow me to ride in front, as if I were fully human. You’ll of course have gotten a free dinner—anything you like—and you’ll be six creds to the good, plus the cost of your own meal. What do you say?”

  He pursed his lips. “What about tomorrow?”

  “I ride in front until we reach Spice Grove.”

  “You got to sleep in the truck.”

  “I will. On the front seat.”

  “You pay for your own breakfast tomorrow, and mine, too. If you’ll do that, it’s a deal.”

  “I ride in front and sleep in front for the entire trip.”

  Slowly, he nodded.

  It was way too cold that night in the front of the truck; so when we stopped for breakfast, I told him I was going to walk to a nearby store and buy myself a good, warm blanket. He hesitated, then said he would have to go with me. I agreed, and he did. Afterward, I paid for our breakfasts, just as we had agreed.

  When we were under way ag
ain, he said, “You’re not supposed to have money.”

  “While you,” I told him, “aren’t supposed to have as much as you do.”

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  “If you inform on me, I will of course inform on you. But if you do not, you can rely upon my silence.”

  He thought about that, too. “I won’t, only they wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Will it profit you to make the experiment? I can be persuasive, I warn you.”

  He nodded again. “We’d be smart not to talk too much about it.”

  “In which case, I won’t.”

  “You were a writer, right? They’re all writers or artists is what I hear.”

  “Correct.” I waited, not knowing where he was going with this.

  “Travel books, maybe?”

  “No. Mysteries. Mysteries and crime novels.” A thought hit me then, so I said, “Murder on Mars? That was fantasy murder. Perhaps you’ve read that one.”

  “Not me. I read travel. On my doodle, y’know? I got one of the waterproof ones, so I can read in the tub.” He laughed. “Shakes the wife outa her tree.”

  We stopped at the library of some tiny town. I do not remember the name. I told him I would help carry books, but he waved me off—there were only two. Back in the truck, I said I was surprised he had made the stop for just a couple of books.

  “I got to. If there’s books to drop off or books to pick up, I got to. Even if it’s just one. If there’s nothing either way, I can skip it. Only that don’t happen much.”

  I said, “Couldn’t they simply mail them?”

  “They’d lose too many. Most books, nobody’s got new copies. Either they never been scanned, or the scans are lost. You pay through the nose if you can find a copy for sale, too.”

  “Couldn’t they scan everything?”

  He laughed. “You trying to put me out of business? Sure they could, only it would cost the world and take about a hundred years, and put them out of business, too.” Suddenly, he became serious. “Besides, if one guy could control all them scans, he’d have a lock. Pretty soon, nobody’d know anything he didn’t want ’em to know. You think that one over.”