Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
We left the hillock. A food-laden cart came along the road. The driver,
a boy vivid in jacket and wide trousers of red and blue, bravely worn
but tattered, ran alongside guiding the oxen. When they had passed we
followed, and presently we came to the cloaks Hope had hidden. Derek and
I donned them. They were long crimson cloaks with hoods.
Hope said, "Many are gathering for the festival shrouded like that. You
will not be noticed now."
Further along the road we reached a little eminence. I saw the river
ahead of us, and a river behind us. And a few miles to the south, an
open spread of water where the rivers joined. Familiar contours! The
Hudson River! The East River. And down at the end of the island, New
York Harbor.
Hope gestured that way. "The king's palace is there."
We were soon passing occasional houses, primitive thatched dwellings. I
saw inside one. Workers were seated over their frugal evening meal.
Always the same vivid garments, jaunty but tattered. We passed one old
fellow in a field, working late in the starlight. A man bent with age,
but still a tiller of the soil. Hope waved to him and he responded, but
the look he gave us as we hurried by shrouded in our crimson cloaks was
sullenly hostile.
We came to an open cart. It stood by the roadside. An ox with shaggy
coat and spreading horns was fastened to the fence. It was a small cart
with small rollers like wheels. Seats were in it and a vivid canopy over
it. We climbed in and rumbled away.
* * * * *
And this starlit road in our own world was Broadway! We were presently
passing close to the river's edge. This quiet, peaceful, starlit river!
Why, in our world it was massed with docks! Great ocean liners, huge
funneled, with storied decks lay here! Under this river, tunnels with
endless passing vehicles! Tubes, with speeding trains crowded with
people!
The reality here was so different! Behind us what seemed an upper city
was strung along the river. Ahead of us also there were streets and
houses, the city of the workers. A bell was tolling. Along all the roads
now we could see the moving yellow spots of lights on the holiday carts
headed for the festival. And there were spots of yellow torchlight from
boats on the river.
We soon were entering the city streets. Narrow dirt streets they were,
with primitive shacks to the sides. Women came to the doorways to stare
at our little cart rumbling hastily past. I was conscious of my crimson
cloak, and conscious of the sullen glances of hate which were flung at
it from every side, here in this squalid, forlorn section where the
workers lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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