Blood of Amber

Julia looked at Luke, looked at Gail. «Does that mean we just agreed on something?» she asked.

«No,» Luke said, «I don't think so.»

Gail took a drink. «You're talking about a personal code that need not have anything to do with conventional morality.»

«Right,» Luke said.

«Then it's not really morality. You're just talking duty,» she said.

«You're right on the duty,» Luke answered. «But it's still morality.»

«Morality is the values of a civilization» she said.

«There is no such thing as civilization,» Luke replied. «The word just means the art of living in cities.»

«All right, then. Of a culture,» she said.

«Cultural values are relative things,» Luke said, smiling, «and mine say I'm right.»

«Where do yours come from?» Gail asked, studying him carefully.

«Let's keep this pure and philosophical, huh?» he said.

«Then maybe we should drop the term entirely,» Gail said, «and just stick with duty.»

«What happened to power?» Julia asked.

«It's in there somewhere,» I said.

Suddenly Gail looked perplexed, as if our discussion were not something which had been repeated a thousand times in different forms, as if it had actually given rise to some new turn of thought.

«If they are two different things,» she said slowly, «which one is more important?

«They're not» Luke said. «They're the same.»

«I don't think so,» Julia told him. «But duties tend to be clear-cut, and it sounds as if you can choose your own morality. So if I had to have one I'd go with the morality.»

«I like things that are clear-cut,» Gail said.

Luke chugged his beer, belched lightly. «Shit!» he said. «Philosophy class isn't till Tuesday. This is the weekend. Who gets the next round, Merle?»

I placed my left elbow on the tabletop and opened my hand.

While we pushed together, the tension building and building between us, he said through clenched teeth, «I was right, wasn't I?»

«You were right,» I said, just before I forced his arm all the way down.

Power.

I removed my mail from the little locked box in the hallway and carried it upstairs to my apartment. There were two bills, some circulars and something thick and first class without a return address on it.

I closed the door behind me, pocketed my keys and dropped my briefcase onto a nearby chair. I had started toward the sofa when the telephone in the kitchen rang.

Tossing the mail toward the coffee table, I turned and started for the kitchen. The blast that occurred behind me might or might not have been strong enough to knock me over. I don't know, because I dove forward of my own volition as soon as it occurred. I hit my head on the leg of the kitchen table. It dazed me somewhat, but I was otherwise undamaged. All the damage was in the other room. By the time I got to my feet the phone had stopped ringing.

I already knew there were lots of easier ways to dispose of junk mail, but I wondered for a long time afterward who it was that had been on the telephone.

I sometimes remembered the first of the series, too, the truck that had come rushing toward me. I had only caught a glimpse of the driver's face before I'd moved - inert, he was completely expressionless, as if he were dead, hypnotized, drugged or somehow possessed. Choose any of the above, I decided, and maybe more than one.

And then there was the night of the muggers. They had attacked me without a word. When it was all over and I was heading away, I had glanced back once. I thought I'd glimpsed a shadowy figure draw back into a doorway up the street - a smart precaution, I'd say, in light of what had been going on. But of course it could have been someone connected with the attack, too. I was torn. The person was too far off to have been able to give a good description of me. If I went back and it turned out to be an innocent bystander, there would then be a witness capable of identifying me. Not that I didn't think it was an open-and-shut case of selfdefense, but there'd be a lot of hassle. So I said the hell with it, and I walked on. Another interesting April 30.

The day of the rifle. There had been two shots as I'd hurried down the street. They'd both missed me before I'd realized what was going on, chipping brickbats From the side of the building to my left. There was no third shot, but there was a thud and a splintering sound from the building across the street. A third-floor window stood wide open.

I hurried over. It was an old apartment house and the front door was locked, but I didn't slow down for niceties. I located the stair and mounted it. When I came to what I thought was the proper room, I decided to try the door the old-fashioned way and it worked. It was unlocked.

I stood to the side and pushed it open and saw that the place was unfurnished and empty. Unoccupied, too, it seemed. Could I have been wrong? But then I saw that the window facing the street stood wide and I saw what lay upon the floor. I entered and closed the door behind me.