A Thousand Deaths (3 page)

**COURANE, Sandor: 
No indication that the addressee understands the above is necessary. There will be no further directives unless COURANE, Sandor, does something foolish**

 

"They really hit you over the head with it, didn't they?" said Mr. Masutani.

Courane turned around quickly, startled. He was bitter and upset, and he didn't like having the superintendent sharing his moment of defeat. "Leave me alone," he said.

"Will you be staying here tonight? They want you in New York by noon tomorrow."

"I don't know. Maybe I'll see my parents tonight."
 

Masutani coughed. "If you won't be here, let me know. I want to move your mattresses down here." Courane said nothing. He went back to his apartment, his thoughts jumbled and bleak.

How easy it would be to prepare for his new life, he thought. He went to his closet and brought out a small canvas zipper bag. His whole future would be packed in that one bag. Five pounds of socks and shirts and, if he went home to get one, a photograph of his folks. He almost wished that he was married, just to be able to take another thing with him. It occurred to him that TECT might merely have been trying to calm his fears or delude him, that he wasn't going on to a new life somewhere. When he stepped across the teletrans threshold, he might easily step out on the bottom of the ocean or on the top of some nameless mountain in Antarctica. TECT had no discernible strain of mercy programmed into it, but there was a kind of savage irony.

Courane put the zipper bag on the bed—he felt a twinge of perversity, wishing that he could dispose of that bed so that Masutani couldn't profit from the situation—and began to stuff it full of clothing. He was glad, in a way, that there was a short limit to the amount of belongings he could take with him. His poverty wouldn't be so apparent wherever he was going. He finished packing, zipped the bag closed, and dropped it to the floor. That chore was done. He looked around him, around the apartment, wondering what else he could do to occupy his mind. There didn't seem to be anything urgent. He was dismayed that he could wrap up his affairs, his life, so quickly and effortlessly. Wouldn't there be some loose ends? Weren't there some people who would miss him terribly? Wasn't there anything in the world that would suffer without his attention?

No, there wasn't. That was what TECT had tried to tell him. That was why it had decided to excise him from the community at large. TECT had said that Courane was a weed in the garden. TECT admitted that Courane wasn't a threat or a danger, but weeds had to be removed nevertheless. They used up resources and contributed nothing. They disturbed the garden's integrity. They offended the sense of proportion of the gardener—and that was what TECT was these days, even though it always added that it operated "in the name of the Representative."

One telephone call would be enough. "Hello, Dad?"

"Sandy?"

Courane coughed nervously but said nothing. He was already sorry he had called.

"Sandy?"

"Dad? Hey, just calling to see how you and Mom are."

"We're fine, Sandy, we're both fine. How are you?"

"Fine, Dad. It's awful cold here."

"Cold here, too. The landlord has the thermostat set at some goddamn freezing temperature. Your mother has to wear her big blue sweater to bed. I was going to go buy one of those little heaters, but your mother's afraid of being gassed to death in the middle of the night."

"Uh huh."

"So, what's up with you? We went to Vienna weekend before last to visit your mother's brother. They bought a little farm. Filthy place. I didn't like it, but you know your mother. How's your new job?"

Courane felt his eyes fill with tears. His mouth was dry. He wished that it were tomorrow, next month, five or ten years in the future and whatever was going to happen would be done and finished. No, instead he had to go through it all, step by step, and he couldn't just close his eyes and wait for it all to go away. It would go away eventually, but it would disappear the hard way. "That's one of the reasons I called, Dad. I got laid off."
 

"Laid off? You mean fired?"
 

"Yeah."

"Goddamn it, Sandy. That's the third time. They're liable to—"
 

"They already have." Courane closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He had a headache. He spoke in a low, weary voice. "I got a message on the tect here at home that TECT has ordered something special for me."

"What?" His father sounded almost frantic, much more concerned than Courane was himself.
 

"I don't know, Dad. I'm not sure."

Courane's father was astonished. "You mean to tell me that you don't know what they're going to do to you? You didn't ask?"
 

"I was a little afraid."

"Sandy, you put the phone down and you go to your tect and you find out. I'll wait."
 

"It'll cost a fortune."

"The hell with that," said Courane's father. "I'd think that would be the least of our worries. I don't believe you sometimes, son."

"I'll be right back." Courane was feeling more anguish than he showed to his father. He wanted more than anything not to distress his parents, but that would be almost impossible. Knowing that, Courane wished to keep the hurt and grief at the lowest possible level. This wasn't the first time in his life that in seeking to protect his mother and father, he had succeeded only in wounding them more deeply. This knowledge burned him as he hurried downstairs.

He confronted the tect. "Regarding the last message to Courane, Sandor, what precisely are the details of my sentence?"

 

**COURANE, Sandor: 
You are to be sent as a colonist to the agricultural world of Epsilon Eridani, Planet D. You will become part of an integrated farming community. Your future of successes or failures will thus be of no consequence to the community at large here on Earth, yet you will be placed in an environment which will demand much of you and reward you with peace and satisfaction**

 

"That's not so bad," said Courane.

 

**COURANE, Sandor: 
No, it's not. Many successful but harried citizens would be willing to trade their situations with you. You will lack for little on this distant world, except of course for personal contact with old friends and family, and certain material possessions. But in the balance you must weigh your new self-esteem, gained through hard work and the knowledge that you are free and owe your liberty and good life to no one, that your happiness is of your own making**

 

"Well, then, I'm very grateful."

 

**COURANE, Sandor: 
And well you should be. You would do well to recall that TECT in the name of the Representative had no part in selecting you for this treatment, or in prejudging your lapses, or in deciding your fate. These things were made necessary by the current standards of the community, and TECT in the name of the Representative must be absolved of all direct responsibility.
 

**
COURANE, Sandor: 
Compliance with the above is to be indicated.
 

**COURANE, Sandor:  
Affirm?**

 

"Yes," said Courane, permitting the immense machine to wash its electronic hands of the affair, to salve its magnetic conscience. Courane remembered his father, still on the phone upstairs, waiting in Europe for the news. Courane hurried back to his apartment. "Hello, Dad?"

"I haven't gone anywhere."

"Well, I will be. They're sending me to another planet. Epsilon something. A farming world. I'm going to work on a commune or something."
 

"Oh."

"That doesn't sound bad."

"Except that your mother and I will probably never see you again."

Courane hesitated. He hadn't even considered that. He felt a stab of guilt. "I'll be home in a couple of hours. Is my room still empty?"

"Who do you think is staying there? Your mother will put on clean sheets. You can pick up the rest of your books and clothes."

"They won't let me take but five pounds, Dad. I have everything I need except a good picture of you and Mom. Do me a favor, though. Get Mom ready. Break the news to her so that she won't be hysterical when I get home."

Courane heard his father sigh. "Sandy, no matter what I do, she'll be hysterical when you get here. For that matter, maybe I will be, too."

Courane felt a hot tear slip down his cheek. "Dad," he said in a hoarse voice, "it's hard enough to keep myself under control. Please, I need you to be strong. You were always strong when I was little. You've always been strong for me."

"Sandy, it was never easy, and I am getting old and tired. But I will do it one more time."

"Thanks, Dad. I love you."

"I love you too, Sandy. Be careful coming home. I'll see you soon."

Courane hung up the phone. He sat on his bed and stared at the wall, where there was a framed print of Tiepolo's
Madonna of the Goldfinch,
which Courane felt was the most beautiful woman ever painted. He stared at the print, and every thought he entertained made him a little sadder. He wouldn't be allowed to take the picture with him. He would be cut off forever from both it and the world that had created it. His idle dreams of performing a startling act of genius, a work of art or a scientific breakthrough or a marvelous athletic achievement, were dead now and he had no other course but to acknowledge that dismal fact. There were so many things that Courane had wanted with the vague grasping desire of youth, and he had denied them all to himself by his failure. He had achieved something closely related to death, despite TECT's curious reluctance to be held accountable for it. Certainly Courane's failures to come would be far from the affairs of the community at large, but then so would be his triumphs, and Earth would be cheated of these. And Courane would be cheated of the acceptance that he needed so desperately. That was the true punishment.

 

It was just past sunset. The first brush of stars glinted in the sky like the dust of broken jewels on sable. The air was already cooling, and it was the rising wind that had roused Courane. Where am I? he thought. I'm on my way home, he told himself. I'm on my way to my parents' home in Greusching.

Then why was he sitting alone in the middle of some voiceless desert?
Where was he?
He stared into the sky and watched the deep blue lose the last faint measure of light. He watched the stars increase and he watched them form patterns and shapes in the heavens. He felt fear grow in him as he searched in vain for familiar constellations. There was no Dipper, no Orion, no Cassiopeia, no Draco. The moon, low on the horizon, was half the size it ought to be and was an untrustworthy purplish color.

Courane had the same feeling one has on waking from a particularly vivid dream, when the waking world and the dream are superimposed for a moment, when aspects of one distort images of the other, and one must make an effort to sort them and decide which shall have precedence for the remainder of the day.

Courane knew he wasn't on Earth, and that took away the fear he had felt looking into the strange foreign sky. But then, how did he explain being alone and lost in a waterless wilderness? That would take more of an effort, he was afraid, and he was further afraid that he was not equal to it. He breathed deeply. The cool night air was spiced with the earthy smells of the sunbaked rocks and the parched sand. A more unpleasant odor made him frown, and he sought its source. He discovered the young woman's corpse and gave a cry of alarm. He did not know who she was or why she was with him. The idea of sharing the night with a corpse did not bother him so much as the notion that he appeared to be involved in a terrible drama and had no sense at all of its significance.

He found the explanatory note before he decided to sleep, and this time he had a good idea as well. He reasoned that if he had written the note to himself, then his periods of lucidity were alternating with periods of complete forgetfulness. It was likely that he would forget her name again, as well as his mission. He decided to fasten the note to the woman's blouse, rather than stuffing it back into his pocket. Then next time he would have his explanation as soon as he discovered her again. He still did not recall what she had meant to him or why she had died, or why he was carrying her across the desert or why she had to return to the house, or where the house was or who was waiting in it for her.

As he waited for sleep, Courane hoped that when he awoke he would not start off across the sand before he discovered the body again. It was possible that he might leave her there and go wandering off into the wastes to die himself.

 

In New York, Courane arrived at the TELETRANS Substation a quarter hour early. There were very few people wandering about. Teletrans was still a very expensive way to travel; most people still used the trains and airlines, and only the rich and the desperate made the instantaneous journeys by tect. For travel between cities on Earth, it was almost prohibitively expensive. For travel between the stars, it was the only way to go.

Courane stood with his zipper bag and looked around. On the ceiling of the substation were depictions of the six men who had been the Representatives, done as though they were novel groups of stars in the sky of the northern hemisphere. These men had retired now one by one, and the last of them had turned over the power and the responsibility to the tireless and unerring TECT. The Representatives today were but nonexistent constellations and fading memories. TECT governed for them and few people noticed any difference. Surely no one voiced any objection.

It seemed that no one had been instructed to meet Courane. After a moment he realized that there was no good reason to expect that anyone should. He went to a uniformed CAS guard and asked for directions. "Just check in over there at the TECT desk," said the man with a yawn. Courane carried his bag across the polished floor.

"Good morning," he said. He dropped the bag beside him.