Perhaps because he was off his feed that morning, perhaps because Benedict had forgotten his coat, Gilfoyle didn’t even blink. “I’ve no time for that today,” he snapped.
“You don’t seem to understand.” Benedict filled his chest and paced the rug in front of the conference desk softly, noting uneasily that his shoes were muddy from the fiasco in the park, but still the tiger. “I want more money.”
“Not today, Benedict.”
“I could get twice as much elsewhere,” Benedict said. He bored in as he always did, but there seemed to be a flaw in his attitude—perhaps he was a bit hoarse from running in the early-morning air—because Gilfoyle, instead of rising with an offer, as he always did, said, “You don’t look very snappy this morning, Benedict. Not like a company man.”
“... The Welchel Works offered me...” Benedict was saying.
“Then why don’t you go to the Welchel Works.” Gilfoyle slapped his desk, annoyed.
“You need me,” Benedict said. He stuck out his jaw as always, but the failure in the park had left him more shaken than he realized, and he must have said it in the wrong way.
“I don’t need you,” Gilfoyle barked. “Get out of here or I may decide I don’t even want you.”
“You . . .” Benedict began.
“Get out!”
“Y—yessir.” Completely unnerved, he backed out of the office.
In the corridor, he bumped into Madeline.
“About that down payment . . .” she said.
“I—I’ll tend to it. If I can just come over . . .”
“Not tonight,” she sniffed. She seemed to sense a change in him. “I’m going to be a little busy.”
He was too shattered to protest.
Back at his desk, he mulled over and over the figures in his notebook. At lunch he stayed in his chair, absently stroking his paperweight—a tiger-striped lump he had bought in palmier days, and as he stroked it he thought of Ben. For the first time in several weeks he dwelled on the tiger, unexpectedly, overwhelmingly homesick for him. He sat out the rest of the afternoon in misery, too unsure of himself now to leave the office before the clock told him it was time. As soon as he could he left, taking a cab with a five-spot he had found in a lower drawer, thinking all the time that at least the tiger would never desert him, that it would be good to take Ben out again, comforting to run with his old friend in the park.
Forgetting the elevator, he raced up the stairs and into his living room, stopping only to switch on a small lamp by the door. “Ben,” he said, and threw his arms around the tiger’s neck. Then he went into his bedroom and hunted up the microphone. He found it in his closet, under a pile of dirty drawers.
“Ben,” he said softly into the microphone.
It took the tiger a long time to get to his feet. His right eye was so dim now that Benedict could hardly see him. The light behind the left eye had gone out. When his master called him to the door, he moved slowly, and as he came into the lamplight, Benedict saw why.
Ben’s tail was lashing only feebly, and his eyes were dimmed with dust. His coat had lost its luster, and the mechanism that moved his response to Benedict’s commands had stiffened with disuse. The proud silver ruff was yellow, spotted here and there where the moths had eaten it too close. Moving rustily, the tiger pressed his head against Benedict.
“Hey, fella,” Benedict said with a lump in his throat. “Hey. Tell you what,” he said, stroking the thinning fur, “soon as it gets late enough, we’ll go out to the park. A little fresh air—” he said, voice breaking, “fresh air’ll put the spring back in you.” With an empty feeling that belied his words, he settled himself on the couch to wait. As the tiger drew near, he took one of his silver-backed brushes and began brushing the tiger’s lifeless coat. The fur came out in patches, adhering to the soft bristles and Benedict saddened, put the brush aside. “It’ll be OK, fella,” he said, stroking the tiger’s head to reassure himself. For a moment Ben’s eyes picked up the glow from the lamp, and Benedict tried to tell himself they had already begun to grow brighter.
“It’s time,” Benedict said. “C’mon, Ben.” He started out the door and down the hall, going slowly. The tiger followed him creakily, and they began the painful trip to the park.
Several minutes later the park gates loomed reassuringly, and Benedict pushed on, sure, somehow, that once the tiger was within their shelter his strength would begin to return. And it seemed true, at first, because the darkness braced the tiger in some gentle way, and he started off springily when Benedict turned to him and said, “Let’s go.”
Benedict ran a few long, mad steps, telling himself the tiger was right behind him and then slowed, pacing the tiger, because he realized now that if he ran at full strength Ben would never be able to keep up with him. He went at a respectable lope for some distance, and the tiger managed to keep up with him, but then he found himself going slower and slower as the tiger, trying gallantly, moved his soft feet in the travesty of a run.
Finally Benedict went to a bench and called him back, head lowered so the tiger wouldn’t see that he was almost crying.
“Ben,” he said, “forgive me.”
The big head nudged him and as Benedict turned, the faint light from the one good eye illuminated his face. Ben seemed to comprehend his expression, because he touched Benedict’s knee with one paw, looking at him soulfully with his brave blind eye. Then he flexed his body and drew it under him in a semblance of his old powerful grace and set off at a run, heading for the artificial lake. The tiger looked back once and made an extra little bound, as if to show Benedict that he was his old self now, that there was nothing to forgive, and launched himself in a leap across the lake. He started splendidly, but it was too late—the mechanism had been unused for too long now, and just as he was airborne it failed him and the proud body stiffened in midair and dropped, rigid, into the lake.
When he could see well enough to make his way to the lake, Benedict went forward, still grinding tears from his eyes with heavy knuckles. Dust—a few hairs—floated on the water, but that was all. Ben was gone. Thoughtfully, Benedict took the microphone from his pocket and dropped it in the lake. He stood, watching the lake until the first light of morning came raggedly through the trees, struggling to reach the water. He was in no hurry because he knew, without being told, that he was finished at the office. He would probably have to sell the new wardrobe, the silver brushes, to meet his debts, but he was not particularly concerned. It seemed appropriate, now, that he should be left with nothing.
Newsmen are the practicing sociologists of our time. On and off the record, they observe (as the most dedicated and perceptive scholars or reformers seldom can) the bare bones of contemporary society: the economic, technological, institutional realities on which the political musculature and social skin are molded.
The combination of newsman-science-fiction-writer has a tradition that goes back to Cleve Cartmill, and includes Clifford Simak, Cyril Kornbluth, and Richard Wilson, a tradition of excellence, and also of rarity. It is not surprising that recent trends in SF have attracted more newsmen to the field—but it did startle me to realize that there are more newsmen represented in this Annual than any other single occupation.
Mrs. Reed is actually an ex-newswoman—but very recently so. She was voted “New England Newspaperwoman of the Year,” twice in eight years while combining newswork with short-story writing, a private life as a faculty wife, the birth of two children, and her first two novels. (Latest: At War as Children, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964.) A Guggenheim novel award last year finally took her out of the ranks of the working press.