Z I E 0 F fantosv AND Science Fiction Including Venture Science Fiction The Riddle Song VANCE AANDAHL 5 Counter Security (short novelet) JAMES WHITE 11 Books AVRAM DAVIDSON 31 Punk's Progress ROBERT W ALLSTEN 37 Gladys's Gregory JOHN ANTHONY WEST 55 The Nature of the Place ROBERT SILVERBERG 62 The Jazz Machine RICHARD MATHESON 64 Science: The Lost Generation ISAAC ASIMOV 72 Ferdinand Feghoot: LIX GRENDEL BRIARTON 83 The Pleiades OTIS KIDWELL BURGER 84 Satan Mekatrig ISRAEL ZANGWILL 93 Peggy and Peter Go to the Moon DON WHITE 125 In this issue • •• Coming next month 4 Editorial 128 P&SP Marketplace 129 Cover by John Pederson, ]r. (see page 4 for explanation) The Magazine of Fantasy and Sciexce Fit:tio11, Volume 24, No. 2, Whole No. 141, Feb. 1963. Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., at 401 a co{>y. Annual subscription $4.50 in U. S. and Possessions, $5.00 in Canada and the Pan American Union; f5.50 in all other countries. Publication office, 10 Ferry Street, Concord, N. H. Editoria and general mail should be sent to 347 East 53rd St., New York 22, N. Y. Second Class postage paid at Concord, N. H. Printed in U. S. A. (0 1962 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including translations into other laJ&guages, reseroed. Submissions must be accom· panied b'/ stamped, self-addressed envelopes; the Publisher IISsumes no responsibility for retu.-n o unsolodted manuscripts. Joseph W. Ferman, PUBLISHER Avram Davidson, EXECUTIVE EDITOR Robert P. Mills, CONSULTING EDITOR Edward L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOil Isaac Asimov, CONTRIBUTING SCIENCE EDITOR In this issue ••• • • • RICHARD MATHESON returns to us, after an absence whose length we all regret (somewhat mitigated by our having an­ other story of his in our inventory). VANCE AANDAHL strikes a blow for liberty and on behalf of a type of American we hope is not vanishing, viz. the local "character." New to us but not tQ our former sister-magazine, EQMM, is MW A Award-winner ROBERT W ALLSTEN, who brings us up to date on gigolos. A fine, off-beat -and off-planet-story makes three for F&SF by OTIS KID· WELL BURGER. We have two Whites with us this time: DON WHITE of England, with a light-hearted and wicked little piece; and JAMES WHITE of Ulster, whose long story is a combination of SF and mystery; and ROBERT SILVERBERG's brief and pointed item, which might be called, if we were a spelling-reformer, Science Filosophy. Readers who remember (and who can forget?) JOHN ANTHONY WEST's sardonic report of the husband who atrophied while his wife fluttered and nattered will not want to miss his newest mordant story of matrimony. And lastly is the an­ tique splendor of the late and illustrious ISRAEL ZANGWILL's account of G-d, Man, and Devil in a vanished London. THIS MONTH's COVER depicts an unmanned exploratory rocket land­ ing on a hypothetical planet. The gaseous clouds arc the great nebulae in the constellation Orion. They take the planet out of our solar system. Coming next month . • • • and under full steam, is RICHARD McKENNA, CPO, USN (Ret.), whose stories you have seen here twice before-and whose new mainstream novel (a sure best seller) has been taken by the SEPost, Book Of The Month Club, and the movies-with an SF novel neatly blending love, combat and ecology. Also a nautical note: the first F&SF story by HARRY HARRISON­ screamingly funny-is about an old-time Royal Navy captain named Honorio Harpplayer. Nuff sed? ···why is everybody fond of Vance Aandahl?'' a disgruntled and unsolicited question asked recently, via our mail. The answer is, pretty simply, ··Because he is a damned good writer, that's why." He says of his latest story that he ..meant it to be subtle and elliptical, with intimations of fantasy-in a sense the old man represents everything that is romantic and imag­ inative in man, and his age and singularity represent the fact that these things are disappearing in our culture." In a sensei · And in another sense, or other senses, we inquired, are there perhaps Allegories, References to Mythology, Hidden Meanings, in the story? Is the old man, say, Hercules? Or a Hercules, Southron Mountain style? All that we can say of young Mr. Aandahl's reply is that it was subtle and elliptical, with intimations of fantasy . What was the golden ring? What was the old man, then young, engaged in doing the night before Mr ...King" planned to fix him for good? Why is he now .. dressed all in tattercloth"P And why is it that he never seems to eat? What is the meaning of his laughter? Why is he so fond of apples? Why don't you read this story and try to find out? THE RIDDLE SONG by Vance Aandahl THERE ONCE WAS A MAN looked at them. Sometimes he dressed all in tattercloth. He sat would clap his gnarled hands to­ on the curbs of the city, smoking gether, open his toothless mouth, five cent cigars from morning to and laugh. Sometimes he would night, but where he slept I do not talk to himself, slowly and with know. He was an old man, with great dignity. Sometimes he would yellow eyelids and soft gray eyes sing ... "I just sit here in the noon­ that seemed to melt away when I day sun .•." 5 6 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Then we would come to him, "Don't know any new songs." running from the vacant lots and He chewed on the butt of the candy stores and sunlit places of cigar and glared at the apple. summer, sprawling around his Then he smiled such a smile that feet in the hot gutter, gazing his eyes squinted shut and his wordlessly up at his cracked lips gums showed from cheek to cheek. I could hear him wheezing out a "I just sit here in the noonday little laughter deep down in his sun ... throat. And when they come to get me, "Maybe you'd like an old song. I'll hit them with sticks, Would you like that?" And I won't eat my vegetables, "I don't know." And I'll grow skinny as a mar­ "Promise I get the apple." ble •.•" "Not unless I like the song." I And if we were quiet, he would tossed the shining red fruit from smile at us and sing the song hand to hand, watching his eyes again. But if we giggled or tried follow it back and forth. Then I to talk to him, his lips would held it up to my nose, crossed my clamp around the stub of a cigar eyes, and licked my lips. and he would stare resolutely over "Now, hold on, boy. I'll sing our heads, as though we didn't you a good song." exist, puffing up a wall of smoke I nodded my head and leaned between his face and the world. back on the cement, fondling the One day, when I was alone, I apple and waiting for him to be­ approached him with an apple in gin. He pulled the cigar from his my hand. Squatting down and mouth with two stub fingers and gazing at his face, I began to pursed his lips at me. But then he shine the red fruit on my shirt. smiled again, and his shaggy little He puffed on his cigar and head bounced up and down with glanced quickly at my hands. laughter •.• "That's an apple, hain't it?" "Good morning, Mr. King! "Yes." Good morning, Mr. King! "Like apples?" Good morning, Mr. King! "Yes." I took a drink from your morn­ "Now don't laugh at me, boy." ing spring, "I wasn't going to." A-running through a yellow "I sure like apples. Myself." gold ring; "Me too. Want some?" Within your garden it was "No tricks now, boy." done, ''You gotta sing me a song. A Yesterday night and in tomor­ new song." row's sun!" THE RIDDLE SO~G 7 He returned his cigar to its 'Well," I said, lying down next home, brushed a fly off his fore­ :to them in the dirt, "I'm not head, and clapped his hands. afraid." "Now give me that apple, boy, "I'm not either!" said the bigger 'cause that's a good one!" of the two, a fat boy named Roger "I didn't like it." who told everybody else what to "Why?" do. "It didn't make sense." "Yeah, but you know what "That's 'cause it's a riddle Daddy said," warned his little song." brother, Bobby. "What's a riddle song?" "Don't be a nincompoop!" "That's a song that don't make grow led Roger. sense. You gotta figure it out." "Guess what he did." I looked "I won't give you my apple un- at them out of the corner of my til you tell me what it means." eye. "Nobody knows what it means." "What?" asked Roger, staring "God does." over the stump and down the "Sure, but people don't." street. "Mother told me that God "He sang a new song. It was knows everything." better than the other one." "Hain't you gonna give me that "The other one's funny. He's a apple?" funny old man." "Mother told me that God "This one was a riddle song.'' knows everything and I better be "\Vhat's that?" . careful what I do and not talk to "I don't know.