Approaching Oblivion Part 2

"Names. I'm memorizing."

Silence, as Knox memorizes. He almost has it down perfect now. He's been memorizing for weeks. n.i.g.g.e.r, spook, jig, c.o.o.n, shade, dinge, spade, s.h.i.+ne, boogie, darkie, burrhead; sheenie, mockie, hebe, yid, shonicker, kike; greaser, beaner, chili-belly, pocho, spic, wetback, meskin, halap.e.c.k.e.r; wop, guinea, dago, mackerel-snapper, bead-counter, poper, ring-kisser, vattik; kraut, dog-eater, redskin, gut- eater, polack, bohunk, mick, frog, limey, canuck, nip, c.h.i.n.k, slanteye, gook, slope, creamer, d.i.n.k, splib, shater, jungle bunny, christ-killer.

"What's all that you're memorizing?"

"Just some stuff."

Silence.

"I don't think you love me."

"I love you."

"Then why don't you pay some attention to me?"

"I want to get ahead in the Party."

Silence.

"I love you. I really do."

"I know. It's just sometimes you ignore me."

"I want to get ahead in the Party."

Silence.

"What do I say?"

"When?"

"When I'm dreaming?"

"I don't know. I wake up and say something and you go back to sleep."

"Do I ever talk about anything in particular?"

"That man you killed."

"I don't talk about that."

"I wouldn't lie about that to you, Charlie. You do."

"No."

Silence.

"I wonder where it all comes from."

Silence.

"Are you unhappy, Charlie?"

"No, I'm okay."

"Why don't you stay home tonight?"

"I can't. I want to get ahead in the Party."

Silence.

"But I love you, Brenda. Honest to G.o.d, I do."

"Sometimes I think you're chasing something."

"I'll see you later. I'll wake you when I come in."

On the a.s.sembly line, two weeks later, Knox was fitting rectangular green blocks into the appropriate rectangular holes in yellow bases, when the Line Supervisor stopped to congratulate him.

"Heard you had your first kill a couple of weeks ago, Knox," he said. He waved to the next man on the line to pick up the beat while Knox talked. "Heard you really comported yourself like a champ. Top stuff, Knox."

Knox smiled shyly. He had never really learned to accept compliments graciously. "Thanks, Mr.

Hale."

The music playing in the background was Sousa's Was.h.i.+ngton Post March, interpreted by the Oval Office Strings. It swirled softly through the air above the a.s.sembly line, and Knox found his speech- patterns keeping time.

"Knox," Hale said, "come on over here where we can talk. I want to talk to you about something."

Knox unbuckled his harness and slid out of the formfit. He followed the Line Supervisor to a corner of the manufactory. near the towering stacks of a.s.sembled block/bases, ready for disa.s.sembling and re-feed input at the other end of the line.

"You know that guy, works two down on your right?"

Hale asked. He was looking at Knox closely; very closely. Knox sensed his answer had to contain just the right tone.

"Quint?"

"Quintana, you mean."

Hale had snapped the response in so quickly, Knox did not have a chance to say yeah, I know him, I've talked to him a few times, seems a nice enough guy. Now, he did not say it, though Hale was clearly waiting for him to say something.

"Changed his name?"

Hale nodded, with meaning.

"Oh," Knox said, softly. He looked around as if trying to orient himself.

"Have you, uh, ever heard him say anything...?" Hale let the sentence trail off, but its directional indicator was blinking.

"Anything...what...?"

"Well, anything...peculiar. Troublesome, you know what I mean?"

Quite suddenly, Knox knew precisely what Hale meant. "I don't talk to him much. I keep to myself a lot."

Hale pursued it. "But you have talked to him? You have heard him say things, is that it?"

Knox's mind was racing. "Nothing very much, just..."

"Just what?"

"Just about the line's speed, that's all."

"When was that?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Mr. Hale, I don't remem-"

"Could that have been a month ago, when we had that pile-up and the line had to be stopped for an hour?"

"Well, I don't know, exactly, it could have been."

"Be sure, Knox. We don't want you indicting a man on a guess." He was watching Knox like a shrike.

Indicting. The word burned in Knox's mind. But if Hale was asking these questions-and Hale was a ward lieutenant in the Party-there must be a good reason. Knox let his thoughts roll back quickly. Quint.

Correction: Quintana. Man doesn't change his name unless he has something to hide. "Quintana." That was a foreign name if ever he'd heard one. Probably a chili-belly. And, yes, Quint...ana had been saying all that about how fast the line moved, and how it didn't seem to serve any real purpose, fitting the block/bases together just to take them apart and put them together again...and that had been the same week of the pile- up, Knox was now sure of it. And the more thought he gave it, the clearer it became to him that Quintana was not what he seemed to be. Those little eyes, that way he moved his hands when he slipped the blocks into the holes.

"I'm sure."

"Knox," said Hale, and he was smiling tightly now, "you aren't just another average Party hanger- on. You've got s.p.u.n.k. Come see me over at the ward office one evening."

And he walked away. Knox returned to his formfit, buckled in, and took up the beat. But he kept half a watch on Quintana, down there on the right.

And when the conveyor belt began to jerk and stutter, Knox looked immediately: at Quintana: at the overflow of blocks piling up in front of him: at the base with the defective holes into which Quintana was trying to hand-hammer a green block. So it was true. Quintana was a disrupter.

Someone yelled, "Get him!"

Knox was unbuckled and out of his formfit in a moment. Perhaps because he had been already alerted by his talk with Hale. Others were stumbling out of their a.s.sembly line trance, beginning to mill around looking for who the "get him" might be. But Knox knew!

He found a loading dock truck behind his station--it hadn't been there earlier-but it was there now- someone must have left it, contrary to regulations-and he wrenched loose the long iron rod that served as control handle for the truck. It was only three steps, three long steps, and he was standing over Quintana, who was desperately trying to clear away the pile-up.

Knox swung from the hips. The rod caught Quintana across the shoulders and he was jacked forward over the line. He half-twisted, throwing up his hands to protect his head, as Knox came around on the back swing.

The rod smashed across Quintana's throat, and his head skewed around till Knox heard cartilage snap. Then the others were there, dragging Quintana from his form/it.

They beat him, the ones in the back forcing away the ones in the front so everyone could have a chance, but in the end, it was Knox himself, Knox with the iron rod, who stood spraddle-legged over the disrupter, that greaser, and arched back till his stomach muscles were drumhead tight, the rod gripped perfectly with both hands, right thumb tucked inside left palm, and brought it straight back up and over and down, and crushed Quintana's skull with an impact sound like a dead fish hitting a plastic countertop.

Then Knox flipped the rod into a comer, stood over the dead beaner and looked around with a tight expression. "He won't f.u.c.k us up again. Let's get back to work."

As he buckled in, he looked across the manufactory, and Mr. Hale was staring at him. He smiled, proud.

Mr. Hale winked and gave him a "V."

Charlie Knox. Is a man. Who.

Is lying in bed dreaming.

He is dreaming about men in black garments coming for him. Hold that. They aren't men. Yes, they are. No.

Charlie Knox cannot tell if they are men or not.

He thinks (in the dream) that they are men, but they don't walk like men. There is some small alien movement--the way a lizard scurries, stops, scurries is alien; the way a chicken bobs, catches up, bobs is alien-the way their limbs are hinged. But they are men. No. They must be men.

No. Definitely.

"Charlie!"

Silence.

"Charlie, wake up, you're crying, Charlie!"

"I'm not, I'm okay, what, what's that...uh?"

"You were crying in your sleep."

"It was the coffee."

"Who is Quintana, Charlie?"

"n.o.body. A guy. n.o.body."

"Charlie, something awful is happening to you."

"Shut up, Brenda. Let me sleep."

Silence.

"Oh G.o.d."

"Come, Charlie. Lie over here."

"Hold me."

"Don't cry."