Right now was his chance to use his power and save his life. And he was going to do it. He could still move, nothing could stop him.
He groped in his pocket and pulled out the old silver watch, fumbling with the stem. A few twists and he'd cheat death, he'd never have to ride that Hell-Bound Train. He could go on forever.
Forever.
Martin had never really considered the word before. To go on forever but how? Did he want to go on forever, like this; a sick old man, lying helplessly here in the grass?
No. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. And suddenly he wanted very much to cry, because he knew that somewhere along the line he'd outsmarted himself. And now it was too late. His eyes dimmed, there was a roaring in his ears
He recognized the roaring, of course, and he wasn't at all surprised to see the train come rushing out of the fog up there on the embankment. He wasn't surprised when it stopped, either, or when the Conductor climbed off and walked slowly towards him.
The Conductor hadn't changed a bit. Even his grin was still the same.
"Hello, Martin," he said. "All aboard."
"I know," Martin whispered. "But you'll have to carry me. I can't walk. I'm not even really talking any more, am I?"
"Yes you are," the Conductor said. "I can hear you fine. And you can walk, too." He leaned down and placed his hand on Martin's chest. There was a moment of icy numbness, and then, sure enough, Martin could walk after all.
He got up and followed the Conductor along the slope, moving to the side of the train.
"In here?" he asked.
"No, the next car," the Conductor murmured. "I guess you're entitled to ride Pullman. After all, you're quite a successful man. You've tasted the joys of wealth and position and prestige. You've known the pleasures of marriage and fatherhood. You've sampled the delights of dining and drinking and debauchery, too, and you traveled high, wide and handsome. So let's not have any last-minute recriminations."
"All right," Martin sighed. "I can't blame you for my mistakes. On the other hand, you can't take credit for what happened, either. I worked for everything I got. I did it all on my own. I didn't even need your watch."
"So you didn't." the Conductor said, smiling. "But would you mind giving it back to me now?"
"Need it for the next sucker, eh?" Martin muttered.
"Perhaps."
Something about the way he said it made Martin look up. He tried to see the Conductor's eyes, but the brim of his cap cast a shadow. So Martin looked down at the watch instead.
"Tell me something," he said, softly. "If I give you the watch, what will you do with it?"
"Why, throw it into the ditch," the Conductor told him. "That's all I'll do with it." And he held out his hand.
"What if somebody comes along and finds it? And twists the stem backwards, and stops Time?"
"Nobody would do that," the Conductor murmured. "Even if they knew."
"You mean, it was all a trick? This is only an ordinary, cheap watch?"
"I didn't say that," whispered the Conductor. "I only said that no one has ever twisted the stem backwards. They've all been like you, Martin looking ahead to find that perfect happiness. Waiting for the moment that never comes."
The Conductor held out his hand again.
Martin sighed and shook his head. "You cheated me after all."
"You cheated yourself, Martin. And now you're going to ride that Hell-Bound Train."
He pushed Martin up the steps and into the car ahead. As he entered, the train began to move and the whistle screamed. And Martin stood there in the swaying Pullman, gazing down the aisle at the other passengers. He could see them sitting there, and somehow it didn't seem strange at all.
Here they were; the drunks and the sinners, the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew. They knew where they were going, of course, but they didn't seem to give a damn. The blinds were drawn on the windows, yet it was light inside, and they were all living it up singing and passing the bottle and roaring with laughter, throwing the dice and telling their jokes and bragging their big brags, just the way Daddy used to sing about them in the old song.
"Mighty nice traveling companions," Martin said. "Why, I've never seen me such a pleasant bunch of people. I mean, they seem to be really enjoying themselves!"
The Conductor shrugged. "I'm afraid things won't be quite so jazzy when we pull into that Depot Way Down Yonder."
For the third time, he held out his hand. "Now, before you sit down, if you'll just give me that watch. A bargain's a bargain"
Martin smiled. "A bargain's a bargain," he echoed. "I agreed to ride your train if I could stop Time when I found the right moment of happiness. And I think I'm about as happy right here as I've ever been."
Very slowly, Martin took hold of the silver watch-stem.
"No!" gasped the Conductor. "No!"
But the watch-stem turned.
"Do you realize what you've done?" the Conductor yelled. "Now we'll never reach the Depot! We'll just go on riding, all of us forever!"
Martin grinned. "I know," he said. "But the fun is in the trip, not the destination. You taught me that. And I'm looking forward to a wonderful trip. Look, maybe I can even help. If you were to find me another one of those caps, now, and let me keep this watch"
And that's the way it finally worked out. Wearing his cap and carrying his battered old silver watch, there's no happier person in or out of this world now and forever than Martin. Martin, the new Brakeman on That Hell-Bound Train.
THE DANCER FROM THE DANCE
by M. John Harrison
Chosen by Stephen R. Donaldson
The watchman rubbed his hands and looked round for a minute or two, as if he expected something else to happen. "Eleven o'clock," he called at last; and though he couldn't commit himself to a description which seemed so subject to qualification as to be in bad faith, added: "And all's all."
It's difficult to describe the effect such prose had on me when I first read it. Or rather, heard it. Truth to tell, I'd never heard of Mr. John Harrison when I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance at a science fiction convention in, of all places, Oslo, Norway. (We were both rather far afield at the time, I more than he.) In the name of that pleasure, I went to hear him read "The Dancer from the Dance" which for me was yet another form of being far afield, since as a rule I don't enjoy listening to anyone read aloud.
Standing at a lab table in a chemistry classroom before an audience of earnest, intelligent, and cruelly shy Norwegians, flanked by bunsen burners and sinks, Harrison proceeded to weave an enchantment the likes of which I'd never encountered before. In almost every sentence, he astonished me with images, names, and locutions that seemed to reach far beyond their literal grasp.
The people who live in them believe that insects the size of horses infest the Heath.
The Plaza of Realized Time.
If you approached them properly one of them would always tuck her chalk down her grubby white drawers, lick the snot off her upper lip, and lead you to Orves.
In less than a page, Harrison had entranced me. I forgot that I sat on a hard wooden chair in a tiered gallery plainly intended for lectures of numbing impersonality. I forgot that I didn't like readings. Half the time, I forgot to squirm, which for me is as natural as breathing, and at least as necessary. When I met Vera Ghillera, Vriko's immortal ballerina, Egon Rhys, leader of the Blue Anemone Ontological Association, and The greatest clown of his day, called by the crowd "Kiss-O-Suck," I had the dreamlike sensation, at once languid and exhilarating, that they played out their oblique drama on the black surface of the lab table below me.