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Read Ebook: The Last Trespasser by Harmon Jim Martinez Illustrator
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Ebook has 282 lines and 13083 words, and 6 pages
Malloy made one desperate attempt to get back inside but the massive door clanged in his face, and he could hear the reverberations dying away inside and the steady retreat of footsteps.
Malloy turned away in pain from the unaccustomed brilliance and warmth of the sun and banged on the door with his fists and demanded to be readmitted.
He grew hoarser and hoarser and he slid further and further down until he was squatting on the threshold, his cheek rested against the warm varnished surface of the door.
Malloy had never been an overly proud or vain man before the Riders had come. After all, he'd had one of the most menial jobs on Earth; he had been a magazine editor. But now he felt squashed under the thumb of humiliation.
The monstrous indignity of it all!
To be thrown out of an asylum!
After a time, Malloy felt a coolness, a wetness on his head.
He dreamed a little dream to himself that he knew was a dream: they were coming to wrap him in warm sheets again.
But it was only a dream. This wetness wasn't warm--it was chilly. He finally identified it from his memories. This was rain.
He stirred himself and gathered up the brown bundle that he knew must contain his suit, papers and a little money.
Malloy trudged down the road toward the town that lay below the sanitarium, his collar turned up.
He found he didn't mind the rain so much. It tended to settle the dust, and the walk would be a long one.
Grayson Amery, the iron-haired publisher, greeted Malloy with a firm, warm, dry handshake.
"Michael, it's certainly good to see you again. You are looking well."
"Yes, the bruises left by the strait jacket straps don't show," said Malloy.
"A unique miscarriage of justice," Amery said.
"I certainly hope it's unique. I hope there aren't any more poor devils like me locked away."
Amery offered Malloy a chair with a broad, well-manicured hand. "I'm confident that there aren't. And you are out now, fortunately."
"You can call it fortune if you like," Malloy said uneasily.
Malloy hesitated. "I'm resigned to it. The flow of time washed some of the salt out of the wound. Being born is definitely a traumatic experience."
"How well I remember!" Amery said.
Malloy glanced at him sharply, then eased back in his chair. Of course, like everybody else, thanks to his Rider, Amery had total recall. Malloy couldn't even remember his first birthday party.
"Is there any way I can be of help to you, Michael?" Amery went on.
"Sure. I want my job back."
Amery's forehead squeezed into lines of distress. "Yes, I was made aware of that. But, Michael, there have been a lot of changes in the publishing business since you were with us. For instance, it would be difficult for you to proofread a manuscript today."
"I'm hardly the type who can't spell. I haven't forgotten that."
"I know, Michael, but here--have a look at this."
Amery handed over a sheet of paper.
Malloy glanced at it. It seemed a typical sheet of a writer's manuscript, though a horrible yellowish gray that made the typescript from the tatters of a ribbon almost illegible. It was also smudged with jelly-doughnut fingerprints and there were several holes burned in it by droppings of cigarette ash. Pretty sloppy, but things didn't seem to have changed much. Not until he read the paper.
--/Cynthia/--/ toward --/#)#/-- jauntily .
"'Hi,'" --/she/--# called to ).
"'/Hello/'", 'Sweetstuff', he / said /, ) to # sound # /....
Malloy looked up blankly. "What are all the cockeyed punctuation marks doing in there?" he asked.
Amery exhaled Havana smoke expansively. "That's the way things are now, Michael. Those punctuation marks indicate whether the protagonist's thoughts are self-directed or Rider-directed, or a combination of both, and which is dominant at the time, human or Rider. They became absolutely essential with the coming of the Riders."
Malloy covered his lips with his fingers. "Of course, I don't understand this punctuation now. But I could learn it quickly enough."
The publisher shook his massive head. "No, you couldn't learn it. You don't have a Rider. You could never understand all the little subtleties."
"I could fake it."
"Never. It might get past the average reader, but the author and critics would know right away. All an editor can do is watch for typographical errors and change them the way the author wanted them if his fingers hadn't tripped over the wrong keys. As it was, we used to get a good many complaints from writers about you making changes in their work."
"Grammar," Malloy explained. "I got kind of a bug about grammar. I used to fix up manuscripts some."
Rubbing out his fat cigar, Amery leaned across his desk. "This isn't like the good old days when I started out, Mike. If I had my way today, I'd get the National Guard ordered out and have those miserable slobs grind out stories with a bayonet at their backs!" The red gleam dimmed in Amery's eyes. "Those were the days, by God! Back then you didn't edit manuscripts with any dinky little blue pencil--you used a razor blade and a grease stick!"
Amery slumped down in his swivel, his eyes now only embers. "But that day is over, Mike. Writers have their rights, damn them. You get the wrong punctuation in one of their private-eye epics, Mike, and one of them will slap a suit against the company for defacing a Work of Art, and both of us could land in jail."
"Westerns," Malloy suggested in desperation. "Historical fiction. They can't employ the new punctuation. I could edit them."
"Okay." Malloy stood up. "I'll go quietly."
"Maybe you're lucky, Mike," Amery said up at him. "I remember old-fashioned ideals like privacy and free will and free enterprise. They don't exist any more. You can't tell me that my free will hasn't been affected. Why, every business deal I've had since the Coming has been strictly ethical. You know that isn't like me!"
"No," Malloy admitted thoughtfully.
"I'm even so ethical now that I recognize I owe you something. I know money can't repay--"
"Hell it can't," Malloy said quickly.
The publisher stripped off a sheaf of bills with deliberation.
Malloy pocketed them. Enough to keep him eating for a couple of months. After that, there was always the Salvation Army. He didn't have anything to worry about, really.
Amery steepled his fingers. "I hesitate to suggest a deception to anyone, but since you ask me what I would do if I didn't have a Rider, I will tell you the truth: I would pretend that I did not have a Rider."
"There's a very, very fine difference," Amery pointed out with one finger. "Semantics is no longer a living science since the Coming, but I'll try to make myself clear. You must pretend to have to pretend that you don't have a Rider. Join the Jockey Set."
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