Citadel Part 3

"No, thank you, Mary. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

There was no appeal. The day was over, and he had to go home.

He stared helplessly at his empty office, his mind automatically counting the pairs of departing footsteps that sounded momentarily as clerks and stenographers crossed the walk below his partly-open window.

Finally he rolled his chair back and pushed himself to his feet.

Disconsolate, he moved irresolutely to the window and watched the people leave.

Was.h.i.+ngton--aging, crowded Was.h.i.+ngton, mazed by narrow streets, carrying the burden of the severe, unimaginative past on its grimy architecture--respired heavily under the sinking sun.

The capital ought to be moved, he thought as he'd thought every night at this time. Nearer the heart of the empire. Out of this steamy bog. Out of this warren.

His heavy lips moved into an ironical comment on his own thoughts. No one was ever going to move the empire's traditional seat. There was too much nostalgia concentrated here, along with the humidity. Some day, when the Union was contiguous with the entire galaxy, men would still call Was.h.i.+ngton, on old, out-of-the-way Earth, their capital. Man was not a rigorously logical race, as a race.

The thought of going home broke out afresh, insidiously avoiding the barriers of bemus.e.m.e.nt which he had tried to erect, and he turned abruptly away from the window, moving decisively so as to be able to move at all. He yanked open a desk drawer and stuffed his jacket pockets with candy bars, ripping the film from one and chewing on its end while he put papers in his brief case.

Finally, he could not delay any longer. Everyone else was out of the building, and the robots were taking over. Metal treads spun along the corridors, bearing brooms, and the robot switchboards guarded the communications of the Ministry. Soon the char-robots would be bustling into this very office. He sighed and walked slowly out, down the empty halls where no human eye could see him waddling.

He stepped into his car, and as he opened the door the automatic recording said "Home, please," in his own voice. The car waited until he was settled and then accelerated gently, pointing for his apartment.

The recording had been an unavoidable but vicious measure of his own.

He'd had to resort to it, for the temptation to drive to a terminal, to an airport, or rocket field, or railroad station--_anywhere_--had become excruciating.

The car stopped for a pedestrian light, and a sports model bounced jauntily to a stop beside it. The driver c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at Marlowe and chuckled. "Say, Fatso, which one of you's the Buick?" Then the light changed, the car spurted away, and left Marlowe cringing.

He would not get an official car and protect himself with its license number. He would not be a coward. He _would_ not!

His fingers shaking, he tore the film from another candy bar.

Marlowe huddled in his chair, the notebook clamped on one broad thigh by his heavy hand, his lips mumbling nervously while his pencil-point checked off meter.

"Dwell in aching discontent," he muttered. "No. Not that." He stared down at the floor, his eyes distant.

"Bitter discontent," he whispered. He grunted softly with breath that had to force its way past the constricting weight of his hunched chest.

"Bitter dwell." He crossed out the third line, subst.i.tuted the new one, and began to read the first two verses to himself.

"_We are born of Humankind-- This our destiny: To bitter dwell in discontent Wherever we may be._

"_To strangle with the burden Of that which heels us on.

To stake our fresh beginnings When frailer breeds have done._"

He smiled briefly, content. It still wasn't perfect, but it was getting closer. He continued:

"_To pile upon the ashes Of races in decease Such citadels of our kind's own As fortify no--_"

"What are you doing, David?" his wife asked over his shoulder.

Flinching, he pulled the notebook closer into his lap, bending forward in an instinctive effort to protect it.

The warm, loving, sawing voice went on. "Are you writing another poem, David? Why, I thought you'd given that up!"

"It's ... it's nothing, really, uh ... Leonora. Nothing much. Just a ...

a thing I've had running around my head. Wanted to get rid of it."

His wife leaned over and kissed his cheek clumsily. "Why, you old big dear! I'll bet it's for me. Isn't it, David? Isn't it for me?"

He shook his head in almost desperate regret. "I'm ... I'm afraid not, uh--" Snorer. "It's about something else, Leonora."

"Oh." She came around the chair, and he furtively wiped his cheek with a hasty hand. She sat down facing him, smiling with entreaty. "Would you read it to me anyway, David? Please, dear?"

"Well, it's not ... not finished yet--not right."

"You don't have to, David. It's not important. Not really." She sighed deeply.

He picked up the notebook, his breath cold in his constricted throat.

"All right," he said, the words coming out huskily, "I'll read it. But it's not finished yet."

"If you don't want to--"

He began to read hurriedly, his eyes locked on the notebook, his voice a suppressed hoa.r.s.e, spasmodic whisper.

"_Such citadels of our kind's own As fortify no peace._

"_No wall can offer shelter, No roof can s.h.i.+eld from pain.

We cannot rest; we are the d.a.m.ned; We must go forth again._

"_Unnumbered we must--_"

"David, are you sure about those last lines?" She smiled apologetically.

"I know I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned, but couldn't you change that? It seems so ...

so harsh. And I think you may have unconsciously borrowed it from someone else. I can't help thinking I've heard it before, somewhere?

Don't you think so?"

"I don't know, dear. You may be right about that word, but it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, I'm not going to try to get it published, or anything."

"_I_ know, dear, but still--"

He was looking at her desperately.

"I'm sorry, dear!" she said contritely. "Please go on. Don't pay any attention to my stupid comments."