The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde Page 9

  One is called a warrior, and the other a coward… or a saint.

  But where does cowardice begin and saintliness leave off?

  A man must fight for his life when attacked, Sharet thought. That much he was certain of.

  He looked out over the barren Negev. How many armies had marched back and forth over these wastelands? Philistines, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Turks, Persians, Egyptians… the catalogue was endless.

  And now Larus would have the final absurd horror played out—let us perish, finally, with our hands folded, while the weapon that could save us lies unused.

  For the sake of Humanity. What kind of Humanity could ask that?

  Sharet stared at the stars, as if in defiance. He knew that he had made his decision. As long as nations existed, a people had the right to fight for their survival.

  He turned and began to walk back to his room. He knew that he would sleep now.

  As he turned the corner of a building, he saw the figure of Dr. Lams looking out over the desert.

  Well, let him be, Sharet thought, he—

  Something had moved along the side of the building to Larus’ back!

  It moved again, and now Sharet could see a figure in a burnoose crouched in the shadow of the building.

  Sharet slowly drew his pistol. Suddenly the Arab leaped up and ran at Lams. Sharet could see a knife gleam in the moonlight.

  Lams turned, and screamed in panic.

  The Arab was less than five feet from Lams when Sharet shot him. He fell in a crumpled heap at the scientist’s feet.

  Lams’ hands were shaking again. So close! he thought. He had seen death before, in the camps, and had been near it himself, but not this kind of death, not a dagger in the hands of an assassin.

  “Filthy scum!” he found himself shouting. “Murderers!”

  Sharet is right. No man is obligated to let another slit his throat. A man must kill, when it means his life…

  Emotions coursed through his frail old body that he had not believed himself capable of—feral, visceral emotions; hate, fear, and the animal hunger for self-preservation.

  The tall figure of Ariah Sharet was now standing over the body. Larus was compelled to agree with the colonel now. Abstract humanitarianism was one thing… violent death was quite another.

  Sharet stood over the dead Arab. He kicked the body over onto its back.

  His stomach twitched as he saw the bloodied face. The Arab was a boy, barely sixteen—a poor ignorant kid. What had he known of why he had died?

  Ariah Sharet felt like crying. How many boys like this had died for things they did not even understand? Individuals, as well as peoples had a right to live. He no longer felt like a soldier.

  He felt like a killer of children.

  “You’re right,” the two men said simultaneously.

  They started at each other’s words.

  Sharet recovered first.

  “I have killed a child,” he said. “Funny, how much all children look alike. Arabs, Jews, Russians, Americans. Perhaps that is the important thing, not geopolitics, not even peoples. To think that the Conversion Bomb could kill all the children.”

  “And I,” replied Larus, “have had a dagger at my throat.”

  “Well, we have both seen each other’s side now,” said Sharet.

  “So we have. What are we going to do now? Build Conversion Bombs and save ourselves… or destroy the prototype and my notes and save the world?”

  “I’d like to leave that decision up to you, now,” said Colonel Sharet.

  Larus laughed humorlessly.

  “And I to you, Colonel,” he said.

  A cold breeze blew in off the Negev. The two men shivered.

  “In physics,” said Larus, “decisions are so simple. A thing is either right or it is wrong…”

  “In fife,” replied Sharet, “things are never simple. A few things we know are right, a few things we know are wrong. But the rest?”

  “What is the right decision, Colonel?” asked Larus. “Tell me, if you can, please tell me.”

  Sharet’s face bore the look of the damned.

  “There is no right decision,” he sighed. “One thing we can be sure of—whatever we decide will be wrong.”

  And the night seemed to grow darker.

  The Last of the Romany

  “It’s been a long hot journey,” said the man with the waxed mustache. “A Collins please, bartender.”

  The fat bartender reached over to the console, punched the “Collins” button, and asked “Gin, rum, vodka or grahooey?”

  “Gin, of course,” said the man with the waxed mustache. “A grahooey Collins indeed!” He lit up a large olive-green cigar.

  The bartender punched the “gin” button, and tapped the serve bar. The clear plastic container of cloudy liquid popped up through the serving hole in the bar.

  The man with the waxed black mustache looked at the drink, and then at the console, and then at the bartender. “Do not think me rude, my friend,” he said, “but I’ve always wondered why there are still bartenders, when anyone could press those silly buttons.”

  The bartender laughed, a fat good-natured laugh. “Why are there bus drivers on robot buses? Why are there brewers when the beer practically brews itself? I guess the government figures that if everyone who was unnecessary was fired, they’d have a hundred million unemployed on their hands.”

  The man with the mustache, who called himself Miklos, toyed with the battered guitar, which leaned against the bar. “I’m sorry my friend, for my remark,” he said. “Actually, bartenders are still useful. Could I talk to that machine? And they still don’t have an automatic bouncer.”

  “Oh?” said the bartender, leaning close to Miklos. “I was in Tokyo last year, and there they have a great padded hook that drops from the ceiling, grabs a drunk, and heaves him out the door. All untouched by human hands. Ah, science!”

  Miklos scowled, and then brightened. “Ah, but the bartender still must decide who to bounce! A very delicate task, not to be trusted to a machine. Therefore, a bartender will always be necessary. Another Collins, please.”

  “Why are you so concerned with my usefulness?” asked the bartender, punching out another Collins.

  The man with the waxed black mustache and the weather-tanned face became very serious. “It is one of the things I search for in my travels,” he said. “It is very important.”

  “What is?”

  “Men who are still useful,” said Miklos. “They are like rare birds. When I spot one, it makes my whole day. I’m sort of a people watcher.”

  “You travel a lot?” asked the bartender, with a little laugh. “You must be one of the idle rich.”

  “No,” said Miklos without smiling. “It’s part of my job to travel.”

  “Job? What kind of job? There are no more traveling salesmen, and you hardly look like a pilot—”

  Miklos puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. “It is a hard thing to explain,” he said. “Actually, there are two jobs. But if I succeed in one, the other is unnecessary. The first job is to search.”

  “To search for what?”

  The man with the waxed mustache picked up his guitar and fiddled with the strings. “To search,” he said, “for the Romany.”

  “The what?”

  “The Romany, man! Gypsies.”

  The bartender gave him a queer look. “Gypsies? There aren’t any Gypsies left. It wouldn’t be permited.”

  “You’re telling me?” said Miklos, sighing. “For fourteen years I have searched for the Romany. I’ve hitched, when nobody hitches, I’ve bummed when nobody bums. I’ve looked in fifty states and six continents. I even went to the Spanish caves, and do you know what? They have a big mechanical display there now. Robot Romany! Flamenco machines. The things even pass a metal hat around. But the Romany are gone. And yet, some day, somewhere… Maybe you could… perhaps you would…?”

  “Me?” said the bartender, drawing away from the man with the must
ache.

  “Ah, but of course not. Nobody knows. And of course, everyone thinks I’m crazy. But let me tell you, my friend, crazy is strictly relative. I think you’re all crazy. Nothing personal, you understand. It’s this dry, clean, shiny Romany-killing world that’s crazy. But come close, and I’ll let you in on a secret.”

  Miklos stuck his face in the bartender’s ear. “They have not killed the Romany,” he whispered. Then louder: “I am the last Romany. That’s the other job, to keep it all alive until I can find them. It’s a good joke on the world. They try to kill the Romany, and when they fail, they try harder. But it is good for them that they do not succeed, for it is the Romany that keeps them alive. They don’t know it, but when I am gone, they will die. Oh, they’ll walk around in their nice, antiseptic cities for a few hundred years before they realize it, but for all practical purposes, they’ll be dead.”

  “Sure,” said the bartender. “Sure.”

  The man with the waxed black mustache frowned heavily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I forget that I’m crazy, and then I become crazier. A neat paradox no?”

  “You sound like an educated man,” said the bartender, “a not-stupid man. How come you can’t get a job?”

  Miklos raised his head proudly. “Can’t get a job! Sir, before I became Miklos, the Last Romany, I was assistant vice president in charge of sales for General Airconditioning. I am a moderately wealthy man. I know what success in this boring world is. You can have it.”

  “But with your money…”

  “Bah! I wanted to see the exotic Orient, for example, so what was there? Tokyo was New York, Hong Kong was Chicago, Macao was Philadelphia. Far Samarkand is now a Russian rocket port. It’s all gone. The Baghdad of the Caliphs, the China of Kubla Khan, Far Samarkand, Cairo… Oh, the cities are still there, but so what? They’re all the same, all neat and clean and shiny.”

  “You ought to be glad,” said the bartender. “They cleaned up the opium traffic and the prostitution. They licked malaria and yellow fever—even dysentery. They got the beggars off the streets, and built sanitary markets for the street vendors. I was in Tokyo, as I said, and it’s every bit as modern as New York.”

  Miklos snorted cigar smoke. “And while they were at it, they replaced the Caliphs and Sultans and Khans with City Managers. Feh!”

  “Well,” said the bartender, “you can’t please everybody. Most folks like things the way they are.”

  “They think they do. Ah well, I’ve got things to do. Can you tell me where there’s a playground?”

  “A playground? You wanna play golf or something?”

  “No, no, a children’s playground.”

  “There’s one three blocks west of here,” said the bartender, “but what do you want there?”

  “It’s part of the job, my friend,” said Miklos, getting up and hoisting his guitar to his shoulder. “It keeps me from thinking too much and doing too little, and besides, who knows, maybe it does some little good. Good-by.” He left the bar whistling a chardash.

  “A nut,” mumbled the bartender, tossing the used containers into the disposal. “Seems harmless enough, though.”

  The playground was the standard model, one block square, surrounded by a six-foot force-fence, with one entrance on each side. In addition to the usual exponential hopscotch board, force-slides and basketball grid, there was some newer equipment, including a large tri-D, and a robot watchman. Most of the children were seated on benches in front of the tri-D watching “Modern Lives,” the playground educational series. They seemed quite bored, except when, as a sop to their frivolity, someone was hit over the head.

  The man with the waxed black mustache and the battered guitar walked through the gate. He was noticed only by the robot watchman.

  “Sir,” rasped the robot, “are you the parent or guardian of any of these children?”

  Miklos blew a smoke ring at the robot. “No!”

  “Peddlers, beggars, salesmen, roller skates, pets and children over twelve years of age are forbidden in the playground,” said the robot.

  “I am not a peddler, beggar, salesman, roller skate, bicycle, pet or child over twelve,” said Miklos, who knew the routine.

  “Are you a sexual deviate?” asked the robot. “Sexual deviates are prohibited from the playground by law, and may be forceably removed.”

  “I am not a sexual deviate,” said the man with the mustache. Predictably, the robot stood there for a moment, relays clicking confusedly, and then rolled away. Miklos entered the playground, threw away his half-smoked cigar, and sprawled himself on the last bench in front of the tri-D.

  He strummed a few random chords on the guitar, and then sang a staccato song in Spanish. His voice was harsh, and his playing, at best, passable, but both were loud and enthusiastic, so the total effect was not unpleasing.

  A few of the younger children detached themselves from the group around the tri-D and grouped themselves around Miklos’ bench. He went through “Santa Anna,” some very amateurish flamenco, and an old Israeli marching song. By the end of the marching song, all but the oldest children had gathered around him. He spoke for the first time. “My name is Miklos. Now my friends, I will sing for you a very nice little song about a rather nasty fellow. It is called ‘Sam Hall.’ ”

  When he got to the part of the chorus which goes: “You’re a buncha bastards all, damn your eyes,” the robot came rolling over at top speed, screeching “Obscenity is forbidden in the playground. Forbidden. No child must say naughty words. No obscenity. Will the child who said the bad words please stop.”

  “I said the bad words, you pile of tin,” laughed Miklos.

  “Please stop using obscenity,” croaked the robot. “Obscenity is forbidden to children.”

  Miklos lit a cigar and blew a huge puff of smoke at the robot. “I am not a child, you monstrosity. I can say what I please.” He grinned at his appreciative audience.

  Relays clicked frantically. “Are you a sexual deviate? Are you a beggar, salesman or peddler? Are you a child over twelve?”

  “We went through this already. I am none of those things. Get out of here, before I report you for interfering with the civil rights of an adult human.”

  More relays clicked frantically. There was a slight smell of burning insulation. The robot wheeled off, careening crazily. It stopped about a hundred yards away, and began to mumble to itself.

  Miklos laughed, and the children, all of whom were now clustered about him, roared with him.

  “And now, my friends,” he said, “let us talk of better things: Of pirates and khans and indians. Of the thousand and three white elephants of the King of Siam. Of the Seven Cities of Gold, and the great Caliph Haroun-al-Rashid.”

  “Have you been to all those, mister?”

  “Are you a pirate?”

  “What’s a caliph?”

  Miklos spread his large hands. “Wait, wait, one at a time.” He smiled. “No, I am not a pirate. I am a Romany.”

  “What’s a Ro…?”

  “Romany! A gypsy, my young friend. Not so long ago, there were thousands of us, rolling all over the world in bright red and yellow wagons, singing and playing and stealing chickens. Now I am the only one left, but I know all the stories, I know all the places—”

  “You ever steal a chicken, mister?”

  “Well… No, but I’ve stowed away on planes, even on a ship once. Do you know what that would have meant in the days of the pirates? Sir Henry Morgan would have made me walk the plank!”

  “Walk the… plank?”

  “Yes, he would’ve stroked his dirty black beard, and said: ‘Miklos, ye scurvy bilge-rat, ye’ll jump into the drink, and be ate by the sharks, or I’ll run ye through with me cutlass!’ ”

  “Couldn’t you call a cop?”

  Miklos grimaced and twirled the ends of his mustache. “A cop! Sir Henry would’ve ate one of your cops for breakfast. And at that, he’d be getting off easy. You know what Haroun-al-Rashid would’ve do
ne? He’d have his Grand Vizier turn him into a camel!”

  An older boy snickered loudly. “Aw, come on, ya can’t turn a cop into a camel.”

  “I can’t, and you can’t, and maybe nobody today can. But in those days, in Baghdad! Why, anyone could!”

  Most of the older children wandered away, but a hard core of six- and seven- and eight-year-olds remained.

  “You must believe,” said Miklos, “and then you can do these things. Fifty years ago, you could cross the world with your thumb. Now they say it’s impossible. But, my little friends, I know better. I have done it. How? Because I am a Romany. I believe, even if they say I’m crazy.”

  “Wow mister, Romanies is smart, huh?”

  “No smarter than you. In fact, you can only do these things if you’re a little stupid. Stupid enough to believe that somewhere, sometime, there still is a Baghdad, and Samarkand is still Far. You must be stupid enough not to care when the police and the Chairmen of the Board say you’re crazy. And if you believe hard enough, and are crazy enough…”

  “What, mister?”

  The man with the waxed black mustache sighed, and then he leaned close to the circle of small heads and whispered: “If you believe hard enough, and care long enough, and are crazy enough, and become nice and wicked, then some day you will get to the Spanish Main, and the Seven Cities of gold, and the magic city of Baghdad, where there are no robots or schools, only magicians and wild black horses. And some day, you will see Far Samarkand, shining white and gold and red above the sands of the desert. And, little friends, if you are especially dirty, and never, never wash behind your ears, and only brush your teeth once a day, and don’t watch the tri-D, and say four bad words a day for a month, and dream always of the lost far magic places, some day you will wake up, early on a cool autumn morning, and you will be a Romany!”

  Miklos picked up the guitar. “And now, my little Romany, we will sing.”

  And he played the old songs, and sang of the far places until the sweat dripped onto his mustache. Then he pulled out a red bandanna, wiped his face, and played some more.