The Knights of Arthur Read online

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  The Knights of Arthur

  By FREDERIK POHL

  Illustrated by MARTIN

  _With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen ... for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys!_

  I

  There was three of us--I mean if you count Arthur. We split up toavoid attracting attention. Engdahl just came in over the big bridge,but I had Arthur with me so I had to come the long way around.

 

  When I registered at the desk, I said I was from Chicago. You know howit is. If you say you're from Philadelphia, it's like saying you'refrom St. Louis or Detroit--I mean _nobody_ lives in Philadelphia anymore. Shows how things change. A couple years ago, Philadelphia wasall the fashion. But not now, and I wanted to make a good impression.

  I even tipped the bellboy a hundred and fifty dollars. I said: "Do mea favor. I've got my baggage booby-trapped--"

  "Natch," he said, only mildly impressed by the bill and a half, evenless impressed by me.

  "I mean _really_ booby-trapped. Not just a burglar alarm. Besides thealarm, there's a little surprise on a short fuse. So what I want youto do, if you hear the alarm go off, is come running. Right?"

  "And get my head blown off?" He slammed my bags onto the floor."Mister, you can take your damn money and--"

  "Wait a minute, friend." I passed over another hundred. "Please? It'sonly a shaped charge. It won't hurt anything except anybody who messesaround, see? But I don't want it to go off. So you come running whenyou hear the alarm and scare him away and--"

  "No!" But he was less positive. I gave him two hundred more and hesaid grudgingly: "All right. If I hear it. Say, what's in there that'sworth all that trouble?"

  "Papers," I lied.

  He leered. "Sure."

  "No fooling, it's just personal stuff. Not worth a penny to anybodybut me, understand? So don't get any ideas--"

  He said in an injured tone: "Mister, naturally the _staff_ won'tbother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?"

  "Of course, of course," I said. But I knew he was lying, because Iknew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because beingthere gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could makeany other way. What other kind of hotel was there?

  Anyway, the way to keep the staff on my side was by bribery, and whenhe left I figured I had him at least temporarily bought. He promisedto keep an eye on the room and he would be on duty for four morehours--which gave me plenty of time for my errands.

  * * * * *

  I made sure Arthur was plugged in and cleaned myself up. They hadwater running--New York's very good that way; they always have waterrunning. It was even hot, or nearly hot. I let the shower splash overme for a while, because there was a lot of dust and dirt from theBronx that I had to get off me. The way it looked, hardly anybody hadbeen up that way since it happened.

  I dried myself, got dressed and looked out the window. We were fairlyhigh up--fifteenth floor. I could see the Hudson and the big bridge upnorth of us. There was a huge cloud of smoke coming from somewherenear the bridge on the other side of the river, but outside of thateverything looked normal. You would have thought there were people inall those houses. Even the streets looked pretty good, until younoticed that hardly any of the cars were moving.

  I opened the little bag and loaded my pockets with enough money to runmy errands. At the door, I stopped and called over my shoulder toArthur: "Don't worry if I'm gone an hour or so. I'll be back."

  I didn't wait for an answer. That would have been pointless under thecircumstances.

  After Philadelphia, this place seemed to be bustling with activity.There were four or five people in the lobby and a couple of dozen moreout in the street.

  I tarried at the desk for several reasons. In the first place, I wasexpecting Vern Engdahl to try to contact me and I didn't want himmessing with the luggage--not while Arthur might get nervous. So Itold the desk clerk that in case anybody came inquiring for Mr.Schlaepfer, which was the name I was using--my real name being SamDunlap--he was to be told that on no account was he to go to my roombut to wait in the lobby; and in any case I would be back in an hour.

  "Sure," said the desk clerk, holding out his hand.

  I crossed it with paper. "One other thing," I said. "I need to buy anelectric typewriter and some other stuff. Where can I get them?"

  "PX," he said promptly.

  "PX?"

  "What used to be Macy's," he explained. "You go out that door and turnright. It's only about a block. You'll see the sign."

  "Thanks." That cost me a hundred more, but it was worth it. After all,money wasn't a problem--not when we had just come from Philadelphia.

  * * * * *

  The big sign read "PX," but it wasn't big enough to hide an older signunderneath that said "Macy's." I looked it over from across thestreet.

  Somebody had organized it pretty well. I had to admire them. I mean Idon't like New York--wouldn't live there if you gave me the place--butit showed a sort of go-getting spirit. It was no easy job getting afull staff together to run a department store operation, when any citythe size of New York must have a couple thousand stores. You know whatI mean? It's like running a hotel or anything else--how are you goingto get people to work for you when they can just as easily walk downthe street, find a vacant store and set up their own operation?

  But Macy's was fully manned. There was a guard at every door and awalking patrol along the block-front between the entrances to makesure nobody broke in through the windows. They all wore green armbandsand uniforms--well, lots of people wore uniforms.

  I walked over.

  "Afternoon," I said affably to the guard. "I want to pick up somestuff. Typewriter, maybe a gun, you know. How do you work it here?Flat rate for all you can carry, prices marked on everything, or whatis it?"

  He stared at me suspiciously. He was a monster; six inches taller thanI, he must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He didn't lookvery smart, which might explain why he was working for somebody elsethese days. But he was smart enough for what he had to do.

  He demanded: "You new in town?"

  I nodded.

  He thought for a minute. "All right, buddy. Go on in. You pick outwhat you want, see? We'll straighten out the price when you come out."

  "Fair enough." I started past him.

  He grabbed me by the arm. "No tricks," he ordered. "You come out thesame door you went in, understand?"

  "Sure," I said, "if that's the way you want it."

  That figured--one way or another: either they got a commission, or,like everybody else, they lived on what they could knock down. I filedthat for further consideration.

  Inside, the store smelled pretty bad. It wasn't just rot, though therewas plenty of that; it was musty and stale and old. It was dark, ornearly. About one light in twenty was turned on, in order to conservepower. Naturally the escalators and so on weren't running at all.

  * * * * *

  I passed a counter with pencils and ball-point pens in a case. Most ofthem were gone--somebody hadn't bothered to go around in back and hadsimply knocked the glass out--but I found one that worked and an oldorder pad to write on. Over by the elevators there was a storedirectory, so I went over and checked it, making a list of thedepartments worth visiting.

  Office Supplies would be the
typewriter. Garden & Home was a goodbet--maybe I could find a little wheelbarrow to save carrying thetypewriter in my arms. What I wanted was one of the big ones where allthe keys are solenoid-operated instead of the cam-and-rollerarrangement--that was all Arthur could operate. And those things wereheavy, as I knew. That was why we had ditched the old one in theBronx.

  Sporting Goods--that would be for a gun, if there were any left.Naturally, they were about the first to go after it happened, when_everybody_ wanted a gun. I mean everybody who lived through it. Ithought about clothes--it was pretty hot in New York--and decided Imight as well take a look.

  Typewriter, clothes, gun, wheelbarrow. I made one more note on thepad--try the tobacco counter, but I didn't have much hope for that.They had used cigarettes for currency around this area for a while,until they got enough bank vaults open to supply big bills. It madecigarettes scarce.

  I turned away and noticed for the first time that one of the elevatorswas stopped on the main floor. The doors were closed, but they wereglass doors, and although there wasn't any light inside, I could seethe elevator was full. There must have been thirty or forty people inthe car when it happened.

  I'd been thinking that, if nothing else, these New Yorkers were prettyneat--I mean if you don't count the Bronx. But here were thirty orforty skeletons that nobody had even bothered to clear away.

  You call that neat? Right in plain view on the ground floor, whereeverybody who came into the place would be sure to go--I mean if ithad been on one of the upper floors, what difference would it havemade?

  I began to wish we were out of the city. But naturally that would haveto wait until we finished what we came here to do--otherwise, what wasthe point of coming all the way here in the first place?

  * * * * *

  The tobacco counter was bare. I got the wheelbarrow easilyenough--there were plenty of those, all sizes; I picked out a nicelight red-and-yellow one with rubber-tired wheel. I rolled it over toSporting Goods on the same floor, but that didn't work out too well. Ifound a 30-30 with telescopic sights, only there weren't anycartridges to fit it--or anything else. I took the gun anyway; Engdahlwould probably have some extra ammunition.

  Men's Clothing was a waste of time, too--I guess these New Yorkerswere too lazy to do laundry. But I found the typewriter I wanted.

  I put the whole load into the wheelbarrow, along with a couple of oddsand ends that caught my eye as I passed through Housewares, and Ibumped as gently as I could down the shallow steps of the motionlessescalator to the ground floor.

  I came down the back way, and that was a mistake. It led me right pastthe food department. Well, I don't have to tell you what _that_ waslike, with all the exploded cans and the rats as big as poodles. But Ifound some cologne and soaked a handkerchief in it, and with that overmy nose, and some fast footwork for the rats, I managed to get to oneof the doors.

  It wasn't the one I had come in, but that was all right. I sized upthe guard. He looked smart enough for a little bargaining, but not toosmart; and if I didn't like his price, I could always remember that Iwas supposed to go out the other door.

  I said: "Psst!"

  When he turned around, I said rapidly: "Listen, this isn't the way Icame in, but if you want to do business, it'll be the way I come out."

  He thought for a second, and then he smiled craftily and said: "Allright, come on."

  Well, we haggled. The gun was the big thing--he wanted five thousandfor that and he wouldn't come down. The wheelbarrow he was willing tolet go for five hundred. And the typewriter--he scowled at thetypewriter as though it were contagious.

  "What you want that for?" he asked suspiciously. I shrugged.

  "Well--" he scratched his head--"a thousand?"

  I shook my head.

  "Five hundred?"

  I kept on shaking.

  "All right, all right," he grumbled. "Look, you take the other thingsfor six thousand--including what you got in your pockets that youdon't think I know about, see? And I'll throw this in. How about it?"

  That was fine as far as I was concerned, but just on principle Ipushed him a little further. "Forget it," I said. "I'll give you fiftybills for the lot, take it or leave it. Otherwise I'll walk right downthe street to Gimbel's and--"

  He guffawed.

  "Whats the matter?" I demanded.

  "Pal," he said, "you kill me. Stranger in town, hey? You can't goanyplace but here."

  "Why not?"

  "Account of there _ain't_ anyplace else. See, the chief here don'tlike competition. So we don't have to worry about anybody taking theirtrade elsewhere, like--we burned all the other places down."

  That explained a couple of things. I counted out the money, loaded thestuff back in the wheelbarrow and headed for the Statler; but all thetime I was counting and loading, I was talking to Big Brainless; andby the time I was actually on the way, I knew a little more about this"chief."

  And that was kind of important, because he was the man we were goingto have to know very well.