Rungawa turned to face him. «Where do you wish to go, Mr. Keating?»
Jeremy felt uncertain, but only for a moment. He was slightly shorter than he had been before, and the Black Saint looked disconcertingly taller.
«I think you know what I want,» he said. «I think you’ve known it all along.»
«Really?»
«Yes. This has all been an elaborate form of recruitment, hasn’t it?»
Rungawa really smiled now, a dazzling show of pleasure. «You are just as perceptive as we thought, Mr. Keating.»
«So it has been a game, all along.»
«A game that you played with great skill,» Rungawa said. «You began by sparing the life of a man whom you had been instructed to assassinate. Then you quite conspicuously tried to get your employers to murder you.»
«I wouldn’t put it that way.»
«But that is what you did, Mr. Keating. You were testing us! You set up a situation in which we would have to save your life.»
«Or let me die.»
Rungawa shook his head. «You accepted what I had told you in Athens. You believed that we would be morally bound to save your life. Your faith saved you, Mr. Keating.»
«And you, on your part, have been testing me to see if I could accept the fact that there’s a group of extraterrestrial creatures here on Earth, masquerading as human beings, trying to guide us away from a nuclear holocaust.»
Nodding agreement, Rungawa said, «We have been testing each other.»
«And we both passed.»
«Indeed.»
«But why me? Out of seven billion human beings, why recruit me?»
Rungawa leaned back and half sat on the edge of the empty hospital bed. «As I told you in Athens, Mr. Keating, you are a test case. If you could accept the fact that extraterrestrials were trying to help your race to avoid its own destruction, then we felt sure that our work would meet with eventual success.»
Keating stood naked in the middle of the antiseptic white room, feeling strong, vibrant, very much alive.
«So I’ve been born again,» he said. «A new life.»
The Black Saint beamed at him. «And a new family, of sorts. Welcome to the ranks of the world saviors, Mr. Keating. There are very few of us, and so many of your fellow humans who seem intent on destroying themselves.»
«But we’ll save the world despite them.»
«That is our task,» Rungawa said.
Keating grinned at him. «Then give me some clothes and let’s get to work.»
BLOOD OF TYRANTS
This story was something of an experiment. Two experiments, really: one in style, the other in marketing.
It was at one of the Milford Conferences in the early Sixties that Harlan Ellison conceived of the anthology he would eventually call Dangerous Visions. In those days, the major market for science fiction short stories was among the magazines such as Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Amazing. Harlan and many other writers were dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by the magazine publishers. Dangerous Visions was Harlan’s attempt to break out of the taboos and shibboleths of the magazine market, a gigantic anthology of stories that would not be bound by the conventions of newsstand morality.
Dangerous Visions was a huge success, and Harlan immediately set to work on a second such volume, Again, Dangerous Visions. Much to my surprise, he asked me to contribute a story to the new project. I was surprised because, even though Harlan and I were friends, I did not write the kind of story that I considered a «Dangerous Vision:» a story that went beyond the constraints of taste and subject matter published in the science fiction magazines.
So I tried an experiment in style, an attempt to write a short story as if it were the shooting script for a film. The subject matter was something that I had been mulling over for years, the idea that our society is breeding barbarians in the decaying ghettos of our major cities, and sooner or later these barbarians are going to declare war against the civilization that produced them. Much the same train of thought eventually led to a full-blown novel, City of Darkness.
I finished the short story and presented it to Harlan. He hated it. He found every fault in it that it is possible to find in Western literature, and then some. Chagrined, I told him that the only other story I had on hand that had not yet been published was one that I had just finished writing, «Zero Gee.» Harlan loved that one, and published it in Again, Dangerous Visions. Perhaps what he really wanted was not so much a «Dangerous Vision,» but a technologically solid science fiction story, because that’s what «Zero Gee» is.
Harlan and I remained friends, of course. We went on to collaborate on a short story called «Brillo,» which led to a lawsuit against the ABC television network, Paramount Pictures, and a certain Hollywood producer. But that’s another story. For now, take a look at «Blood of Tyrants.»
Still photo.
Danny Romano, switchblade in hand, doubling over as the bullet hits slightly above his groin. His face going from rage to shock. In the background other gang members battling: tire chains, pipes, knives. Behind them a grimy wall bearing a tattered political poster of some WASP promising «EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.»
Fast montage of scenes, quick cutting from one to the next.
Background music: Gene Kelly singing, «You Are My Lucky Star.»
Long shot of the street. Kids still fighting. Danny crawling painfully on all fours. CUT TO tight shot of Danny, eyes fixed on the skinny kid who shot him, switchblade still in hand. The kid, goggle-eyed, tries to shoot again, gun jams, he runs. CUT TO long shot again, police cruisers wailing into view, lights flashing. CUT TO Danny being picked up off the street by a pair of angry-faced cops. He struggles, feebly. Nightstick fractures skull, ends his struggling. CUT TO Danny being slid out of an ambulance at hospital emergency entrance. CUT TO green-gowned surgeons (backs visible only), working with cool indifference under the glaring overhead lights. CUT TO Danny lying unconscious in hospital bed. Head bandaged. IV stuck in arm. Private room. Uniformed cop opens door from hallway, admits two men. One is obviously a plainclothes policeman: stocky, hard-faced, tired-eyed. The other looks softer, unembittered, even smiles. He peers at Danny through rimless glasses, turns to the plainclothesman and nods.
Establishing shots.
Washington, D.C.: Washington Monument, Capitol building (seen from foreground of Northeast district slums), pickets milling around White House fence.
An office interior.
Two men are present. Brockhurst, sitting behind the desk, is paunchy, bald, hooked on cigarettes, frowning with professional skepticism. The other man, Hansen, is the rimless-glasses man from the hospital scene.
«I still don’t like it; it’s risky,» says Brockhurst from behind his desk.
«What’s the risk?» Hansen has a high, thin voice. «If we can rehabilitate these gang leaders, and then use them to rehabilitate their fellow delinquents, what’s the risk?»
«It might not work.»
«Then all we’ve lost is time and money.»
Brockhurst glowers, but says nothing.
Another montage of fast-cut scenes. Background music: Mahalia Jackson singing, «He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.»
Danny, between two cops, walks out of the hospital side door and into a police van. Bandages gone now. CUT TO Danny being unloaded from van, still escorted, at airport. He is walked to a twin-engine plane. CUT TO interior of plane. Five youths are already aboard: two blacks, two Puerto Ricans, one white. Each is sitting, flanked by a white guard. A sixth guard takes Danny’s arm at the entry-hatch and sits him in the only remaining pair of seats. Danny tries to look cool, but he’s really delighted to be next to the window.