Germyn drew back from the thought. There was one thing that might
explain Boyne's behavior. But it was not a proper speculation for one
Citizen to make about another.
All the same--Germyn dared the thought--all the same, it _did_ seem
almost as though Citizen Boyne were on the point of--well, running amok.
* * * * *
At the oatmeal stall, Glenn Tropile thumped on the counter. The laggard
oatmeal vendor finally brought the ritual bowl of salt and the pitcher
of thin milk. Tropile took his paper twist of salt from the top of the
neatly arranged pile in the bowl. He glanced at the vendor. His fingers
hesitated. Then, quickly, he ripped the twist of paper into his oatmeal
and covered it to the permitted level with the milk.
He ate quickly and efficiently, watching the street outside.
They were wandering and mooning about, as always--maybe today more than
most days, since they hoped it would be the day the Sun blossomed flame
once more.
Tropile always thought of the wandering, mooning Citizens as _they_.
There was a _we_ somewhere for Tropile, no doubt, but Tropile had not
as yet located it, not even in the bonds of the marriage contract.
He was in no hurry. At the age of fourteen, Glenn Tropile had
reluctantly come to realize certain things about himself--that he
disliked being bested, that he had to have a certain advantage in
all his dealings, or an intolerable itch of the mind drove him to
discomfort. The things added up to a terrifying fear, gradually
becoming knowledge, that the only we that could properly include him
was one that it was not very wise to join.
He had realized, in fact, that he was a Wolf.
For some years, Tropile had struggled against it, for Wolf was an
obscene word; the children he played with were punished severely for
saying it, and for almost nothing else.
It was not _proper_ for one Citizen to advantage himself at the expense
of another; Wolves did that.
It was _proper_ for a Citizen to accept what he had, not to strive for
more, to find beauty in small things, to accommodate himself, with the
minimum of strain and awkwardness, to whatever his life happened to be.
Wolves were not like that. Wolves never meditated, Wolves never
Appreciated, Wolves _never_ were Translated--that supreme fulfillment,
granted only to those who succeeded in a perfect meditation, that
surrender of the world and the flesh by taking leave of both, which
could never be achieved by a Wolf.
Accordingly, Glenn Tropile had tried very hard to do all the things
that Wolves could not do.
He had nearly succeeded. His specialty, Water Watching, had been most
rewarding. He had achieved many partly successful meditations on
Connectivity.
And yet he was still a Wolf, for he still felt that burning, itching
urge to triumph and to hold an advantage. For that reason, it was
almost impossible for him to make friends among the Citizens; and
gradually he had almost stopped trying.
Tropile had arrived in Wheeling nearly a year before, making him one of
the early settlers in point of time. And yet there was not a Citizen in
the street who was prepared to exchange recognition gestures with him.
_He_ knew _them_, nearly every one. He knew their names and their
wives' names. He knew what northern states they had moved down from
with the spreading of the ice, as the sun grew dim. He knew very nearly
to the quarter of a gram what stores of sugar and salt and coffee
each one of them had put away--for their guests, of course, not for
themselves; the well-bred Citizen hoarded only for the entertainment of
others.
Tropile knew these things because there was an advantage in knowing
them. But there was no advantage in having anyone know him.
A few did--that banker, Germyn; Tropile had approached him only
a few months before about a prospective loan. But it had been a
chancy, nervous encounter. The idea was so luminously simple to
Tropile--organize an expedition to the coal mines that once had
flourished nearby, find the coal, bring it to Wheeling, heat the
houses. And yet it had seemed blasphemous to Germyn. Tropile had
counted himself lucky merely to have been refused the loan, instead of
being cried out upon as Wolf.
* * * * *
The oatmeal vendor was fussing worriedly around his neat stack of paper
twists in the salt bowl.
Tropile avoided the man's eyes. Tropile was not interested in the
little wry smile of self-deprecation which the vendor would make to
him, given half a chance. Tropile knew well enough what was disturbing
the vendor. Let it disturb him. It was Tropile's custom to take extra
twists of salt. They were in his pockets now; they would stay there.
Let the vendor wonder why he was short.
Tropile licked the bowl of his spoon and stepped into the street. He
was comfortably aware under a double-thick parka that the wind was
blowing very cold.
A Citizen passed him, walking alone: odd, thought Tropile. He was
walking rapidly and there was a look of taut despair on his face. Still
more odd. Odd enough to be worth another look, because that sort of
haste, that sort of abstraction, suggested something to Tropile. They
were in no way normal to the gentle sheep of the class _They_, except
in one particular circumstance.
Glenn Tropile crossed the street to follow the abstracted Citizen,
whose name, he knew, was Boyne. The man blundered into Citizen Germyn
outside the baker's stall, and Tropile stood back out of easy sight,
watching and listening.
Boyne was on the ragged edge of breakdown. What Tropile heard and saw
confirmed his diagnosis. The one particular circumstance was close to
happening--Citizen Boyne was on the verge of running amok.
Tropile looked at the man with amusement and contempt. Amok! The gentle
sheep _could_ be pushed too far. He had seen Citizens run amok, the
signs were obvious.
There was pretty sure to be an advantage in it for Glenn Tropile. There
was an advantage in almost anything, if you looked for it.
He watched and waited. He picked his spot with care, so that he could
see Citizen Boyne inside the baker's stall, making a dismal botch of
slashing his quarter-kilo of bread from the Morning Loaf.
He waited for Boyne to come racing out....
Boyne did.
A yell--loud, piercing. It was Citizen Germyn, shrilling: "Amok, amok!"
A scream. An enraged wordless cry from Boyne, and the baker's knife
glinting in the faint light as Boyne swung it. And then Citizens were
scattering in every direction--all of the Citizens but one.
One Citizen was under the knife--his own knife, as it happened; it was
the baker himself. Boyne chopped and chopped again. And then Boyne came
out, roaring, the broad knife whistling about his head. The gentle
Citizens fled panicked before him. He struck at their retreating forms
and screamed and struck again. Amok.
It was the one particular circumstance when they forgot to be
gracious--one of the two, Tropile corrected himself as he strolled
across to the baker's stall. His brow furrowed, because there was
another circumstance when they lacked grace, and one which affected him
nearly.
* * * * *
He watched the maddened creature, Boyne, already far down the road,
chasing a knot of Citizens around a corner. Tropile sighed and stepped
into the baker's stall to see what he might gain from this.
Boyne would wear himself out--the surging rage would leave him as
quickly as it came; he would be a sheep again and the other sheep would
close in and capture him. That was what happened when a Citizen ran
amok. It was a measure of what pressures were on the Citizens that,
at any moment, there might be one gram of pressure too much and one
of them would crack. It had happened here in Wheeling twice within
the past two months. Glenn Tropile had seen it happen in Pittsburgh,
Altoona and Bronxville.
There is a limit to the pressure that can be endured.
Tropile walked into the baker's stall and looked down without emotion
at the slaughtered baker. The corpse was a gory mess, but Tropile had
seen corpses before.
He looked around the stall, calculating. As a starter, he bent to pick
up the quarter-kilo of bread Boyne had dropped, dusted it off and
slipped it into his pocket. Food was always useful. Given enough food,
perhaps Boyne would not have run amok.
Was it simple hunger they cracked under? Or the knowledge of the thing
on Mount Everest, or the hovering Eyes, or the sought-after-dreaded
prospect of Translation, or merely the strain of keeping up their
laboriously figured lives?
Did it matter? _They_ cracked and ran amok, and Tropile never would,
and that was what mattered.
He leaned across the counter, reaching for what was left of the Morning
Loaf--
And found himself staring into the terrified large eyes of Citizeness
Germyn.