A Deadly Shade of Gold by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online
Authors: John D. MacDonald
slot and then I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked across to the public beach. I walked slowly where the outgoing tide had left the sand damp and hard. The sea and the night sky can make death a small thing. Waves can wash away the most stubborn stains, and the stars do not care one way or the other.
It was a cheap and dirty little death, a dingy way to die. When dawn came, there would be a hundred thousand more souls alive in the world than on the previous day, three quarters of a million more every week. This is the virus theory of mankind. The pretentious virus, never knowing that it is a disease.
Imagine the great ship from a far galaxy which inspects a thousand green planets and then comes to ours and, from on high, looks down at all the scabs, the buzzings, the electronic jabberings, the poisoned air and water, the fetid night glow. A little cave-dwelling virus mutated, slew the things which balanced the ecology, and turned the fair planet sick. An overnight disease, racing and explosive compared with geological time. I think they would be concerned. They would be glad to have caught it in time. By the time of their next inspection, a hundred thousand years Page 26
hence, this scabrous growth might have infected this whole region of an unimportant galaxy.
They would push the button. Too bad. This happens every once in a while. Make a note to re-seed it the next time around, after it has cooled down.
Lofty McGee, shoulders hunched against the cold of the small hours, trying to diminish the impact of the death of a friend.
But Sam was still there, in a ghastly dying sprawl on the floor of my mind. He wasn't going to make the PTA. They had closed his account. I squatted on my heels and picked up a handful of the damp sand and clenched it until my shoulder muscles creaked and my wrist ached like an infected tooth.
This time they had taken one of mine. One of the displaced ones. A fellow refugee from a plastic structured culture, uninsured, unadjusted, unconvinced.
So I had to have a little word or two with the account closers.
That was what I had been trying not to admit to myself.
It wasn't dramatics. It wasn't a juvenile taste for vengeance. It was just a cold, searching, speculative curiosity.
What makes you people think it's that easy? That was the question I wanted to ask them. I would ask the question even though I already had the answer. It isn't.
Five
AT FIFTEEN-MINUTE intervals I went into the bedroom to look at Nora Gardino. In the darkened room, she was a curled girl-shape under a fuzzy green blanket, a black tousle of hair, a single closed eye, a very deep slow soft sound of breathing.
At ten-thirty I heard a sound in there. I went in. She stood by the dressing table, belting a navy blue robe. I startled her. She stared at me, shaped my name with silent lips, then came on the run for holding and hugging, shuddering and snorting against me, her breath sour.
"It was a dirty dream," she whispered, and made a gagging sound. "Just a dirty wretched dream."
I stroked her back and said, "He never came back. That's all."
She pushed herself away. "You think you can make it that easy?"
"Not really"
"Don't try then," she said, and ran into the bath room and slammed the door. I went back to the kitchen and poured myself some more coffee. I went back to the magazine article I was reading.
A southern pusgut who fancied himself a liberal was patting the coons on their burry heads by asking them to live up to the responsibilities of conditional oquality, the implication being that his white brethren were so doing. I would have liked to have sent that jolly racist crawling across bad terrain with a couple of skilled Negro infantrymen giving him covering fire. I decided that I wouldn't want to marry his daughter, and threw the magazine aside just as Nora came into the Page 27
kitchen, taking small steps. I got the orange juice from the refrigerator and handed it to her.
She sat at the table and took
It was a cheap and dirty little death, a dingy way to die. When dawn came, there would be a hundred thousand more souls alive in the world than on the previous day, three quarters of a million more every week. This is the virus theory of mankind. The pretentious virus, never knowing that it is a disease.
Imagine the great ship from a far galaxy which inspects a thousand green planets and then comes to ours and, from on high, looks down at all the scabs, the buzzings, the electronic jabberings, the poisoned air and water, the fetid night glow. A little cave-dwelling virus mutated, slew the things which balanced the ecology, and turned the fair planet sick. An overnight disease, racing and explosive compared with geological time. I think they would be concerned. They would be glad to have caught it in time. By the time of their next inspection, a hundred thousand years Page 26
hence, this scabrous growth might have infected this whole region of an unimportant galaxy.
They would push the button. Too bad. This happens every once in a while. Make a note to re-seed it the next time around, after it has cooled down.
Lofty McGee, shoulders hunched against the cold of the small hours, trying to diminish the impact of the death of a friend.
But Sam was still there, in a ghastly dying sprawl on the floor of my mind. He wasn't going to make the PTA. They had closed his account. I squatted on my heels and picked up a handful of the damp sand and clenched it until my shoulder muscles creaked and my wrist ached like an infected tooth.
This time they had taken one of mine. One of the displaced ones. A fellow refugee from a plastic structured culture, uninsured, unadjusted, unconvinced.
So I had to have a little word or two with the account closers.
That was what I had been trying not to admit to myself.
It wasn't dramatics. It wasn't a juvenile taste for vengeance. It was just a cold, searching, speculative curiosity.
What makes you people think it's that easy? That was the question I wanted to ask them. I would ask the question even though I already had the answer. It isn't.
Five
AT FIFTEEN-MINUTE intervals I went into the bedroom to look at Nora Gardino. In the darkened room, she was a curled girl-shape under a fuzzy green blanket, a black tousle of hair, a single closed eye, a very deep slow soft sound of breathing.
At ten-thirty I heard a sound in there. I went in. She stood by the dressing table, belting a navy blue robe. I startled her. She stared at me, shaped my name with silent lips, then came on the run for holding and hugging, shuddering and snorting against me, her breath sour.
"It was a dirty dream," she whispered, and made a gagging sound. "Just a dirty wretched dream."
I stroked her back and said, "He never came back. That's all."
She pushed herself away. "You think you can make it that easy?"
"Not really"
"Don't try then," she said, and ran into the bath room and slammed the door. I went back to the kitchen and poured myself some more coffee. I went back to the magazine article I was reading.
A southern pusgut who fancied himself a liberal was patting the coons on their burry heads by asking them to live up to the responsibilities of conditional oquality, the implication being that his white brethren were so doing. I would have liked to have sent that jolly racist crawling across bad terrain with a couple of skilled Negro infantrymen giving him covering fire. I decided that I wouldn't want to marry his daughter, and threw the magazine aside just as Nora came into the Page 27
kitchen, taking small steps. I got the orange juice from the refrigerator and handed it to her.
She sat at the table and took
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