It took every coin and bill we had, to pay it the balance. But, in a way, that was ethical.
Soon we were walking down between walls of the frozen earth, he carrying the bags, the guitar, I, the umbrella, to the place where the steps are cut.
The Canyon, which had been created by an ancient quake prior even to the Asteroid, hadn’t been touched by the new one. At the bottom, between the tumbled blocks that give this end its name and close it on three sides, there was a ballroom floor of smooth treeless, rockless snow, hard and bluish as a sort of aluminum. A lovely place for a VLO landing. Secretive, and negotiable only in such a way, or on foot.
The last time on the clock had read as six minutes past noon.
“Have we missed it?” I asked. But I smiled at myself. We would have seen it going over if we had, we had been close enough.
“Oh, I should think so.”
It was very very cold in the Fall. It was like standing in the bowl of a metal spoon. Strange echoes came and whispers went. The growl of the plane, when it arrived, would be deafening.
“He is, of course, late,” I said.
“Five minutes.”
“Eight minutes. What do we do if he doesn’t come?”
“You’ll curse him. I’ll carry you back to the city.”
“You’ll what?”
“Carry you. The whole twenty, thirty miles. Running at eighty miles an hour all the way, if you like. The highway is comparatively flat.”
I laughed, and my laugh rang around the silver spoon.
“If he doesn’t, I dare you to.”
“No dare. It’s easy.”
“And terribly inconspicuous.”
And then I heard the plane.
“Oh, Silver. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s going to work.”
I stared into the sky, but all I saw was its lavender-blue wintryness.
“Can you see the plane, Silver?”
“No,” he said, “I can’t. And the reason for that is, I think, that there isn’t one. The Canyon sides are distorting some other sound.”
“Then what?”
“A car. Yes, listen. Brakes.”
“Why would a car stop here?”
“Clovis?”
“Then something has gone wrong.”
I can only describe the feeling this way: It was as though someone loosened a valve in each of my limbs simultaneously, and some precious vital juice ran out of me. I felt it go with an actual physical ache, sickening and final. My lips were frozen, my tongue was wood, but I managed to make them move. “Silver… The rocks behind us. I can’t get by them, but you can. You can run over them, jump them, and go down the other side. And up the Canyon. I won’t come because, if you carry me, it would have to slow you, make it that much more awkward. Because the surface—isn’t flat. You said, a flat surface.”
He turned and looked at me. His face was attentive, the eyes flattening out, cold gold-red fires.
“It wouldn’t be so easy over rocks, no. Much, much slower.”
“You’ll need to be fast.”
“What is it?”
“It’s—I don’t know. But I know you have to run. Now, Silver.”
“Not without you.”
“They can’t do anything to me.”
“They can do everything to you. You’re no longer coded. If someone wants me, and I’m no longer here.”
It came to me he knew what I meant before even I knew it. He had always known then, better than I, that they—that they—
“I don’t care, Silver. Please, please run away.”
He didn’t move, except he turned to face the way we had come, and I, helpless, powerless, turned to do the same. As we did so, he said, “And anyway, my love, they’d have, I think, some means of stopping me from getting very far.”
They. Five figures were coming down the steps onto the ballroom floor. They all wore fur coats, fur hats. They looked like bears. They were funny.
They came toward us quite slowly. I don’t think it was deliberate. They were cold, and the way was slippery. I didn’t know any of them, and then the snow-light slicked across two panes of glass.
The VLO wasn’t coming. It didn’t exist. Electronic Metals existed. Clovis had betrayed us, after all.
“There’s still time,” I tried to say.
“Not really,” he said. He turned away from them again and stood in front of me so I wouldn’t see them. He blotted them out, as long ago he’d blotted out the harsh light and fear of the world, so I could learn to bear it. “Listen,” he said. “None of this matters. What we’ve had matters—listen to me. I love you. You’re a part of me. I’m a part of you. You can’t ever lose that. I’m with you the rest of your life.”
“No Silver—Silver—”
“Yes. Trust me. It’s true. And I’m not afraid of this. I was only afraid for you. Do you understand?”
I shook my head. He took my hands and held them against his face, and he looked at me, and he smiled at me. And then he glanced back again, and they were very close.
Swohnson was in the lead.
“You’ve been a bit of a silly girl,” he said to me, “creeping off with your friend’s property. It isn’t, ah, legal, you know.”
I don’t think he recognized me, but he disliked me just the same. I’d made him come out in the cold. He always got the rotten jobs—placating the mob and irate callers, shutting the gate, doing the visual interviews and acting dumb, chasing runaway machines and female children across the winter countryside.
I couldn’t say a word that would alter anything, but the words tried to come, and Swohnson showed his teeth at me and said, “You’re lucky if no one lodges charges. Not that that’s our business. Our business is this, here. Didn’t you know how dangerous these things can be? They can short out at a second’s, er, notice. A faulty line. Yes, you’ve been bloody lucky.”
I started to plead, and then I stopped. Silver was standing by me, looking at them silently. None of them looked in his eyes.
“Er, yes. Give us the lady’s bags,” said Swohnson. “Um, you take the guitar, will you,” he added to one of the other four bears. “That’s E.M. property.”
Silver put down the bags quietly. Men picked them up. He handed the guitar to the elected man, who said, “Thanks—Oh, shit,” and bit his mouth.
“Yes, they’re convincing,” Swohnson said. “Till they blow a gasket. Now, young lady. We stopped your cab on the road. It’ll take you back to the city.”
“She hasn’t,” Silver said, “got the fare.”
They all started. Swohnson coughed. He swung around on another bear. “Go and put some, ah, cash in the damn cab. Enough for the ride.”
The bear hurried off. They were obedient henchmen. If Silver resisted them, would they be enough to stop him? And then I saw something come out of Swohnson’s pocket, in his gloved paw. He toyed with it, so I could see the buttons.
“Don’t,” Silver said, “do it in front of her.”
Swohnson coughed again. His breath fluffed through the air. The Canyon vibrated.
“Oh, don’t worry. You don’t think we’d carry you to the car when you can walk? Start walking now. Left, right. Left, right.”
Silver walked, and I walked. The men walked with us. No one spoke. We went up the steps and came out in the ravine. When we got to the top, the cab was back, a bear leaning on one side.
“All paid up and primed for the city center,” he said, quite cheerfully. “All right? Mr. Swohnson?”
“Fine.”
Swohnson walked on, and Silver walked, and I tried to and one of the bears caught my arm and prevented me. My bags were lying by the taxi.
“Here’s your cab, now, please.”
“Let me,” I said. “Let me come with you. As far as—the center.”