p I4tk Anniversary ALL STAR ISSUE Fantasi/ and

Science Fiction OCTOBER

ASIMOV BESTER DAVIDSON DE CAMP HENDERSON

MACLEI.SH

MATHESON :

Girl Of My Dreams RICHARD MATHESON 5

Epistle To Be Left In The Earth {verse) Archibald macleish 17

Books AVRAM DAVIDSON 19

Deluge {novelet) ZENNA HENDERSON 24

The Light And The Sadness {verse) JEANNETTE NICHOLS 54

Faed-out AVRAM DAVIDSON 55

How To Plan A Fauna L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP 72

Special Consent P. M. HUBBARD 84

Science; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star ISAAC ASIMOV 90

They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To {novelet) ALFRED BESTER 100

Guest Editorial: Toward A Definition Of Science Fiction FREDRIC BROWNS' 128

In this issue . . . Coming next month 4

F&SF Marketplace 129

Cover by Chesley Bonestell {see page 23 for explanation)

Joseph IV. Fcnnan, publisher Avram Davidson, executive editoi:

Isaac Asimov, science editor Edzvard L. Forman, managing editoi;

The Magasine of Fa^itasy and Science Fiction, Volume 25, No. 4, IVhole No. 149, Oct. 1963. Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., at 40c o copy. Annual subscription $4.50; $5.00 in Canada and the Pan American Union; $5.50 in all ether countries. Ptibli- cation office, 10 Ferry Street, Concord, N. FI. Editorial and general mail should be soit ie 347 East 53rd St., Nezv York 22, N. Y. Second Class postage paid at Concord, N. H. Printed in U. S. A. © 1963 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including translations into otJut languages, reserved. Submissions must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes the Publisher assumes no responsibility fur return of unsolicited manuscripts. In this issue . , .

. . . traditionally the month of our All-Star Issue . . . are the fol- lowing items, as promised: Item: story by RICHARD MATHE- SON, about a heel and a girl with a strange talent; Item: a long poem by Mr. ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, whose former appoint- ment as Librarian of Congress constitutes one of the few acts of ofl&cial patronage of the arts of which our Republic can recently boast; Item: a story of how the pilgrimage or diaspora of The People began, by ZENNA HENDERSON; Item: an AVRAM DAVIDSON tale hnking up movies, TV, and some of those con- cerned with both; Item: a cautionary and illuminating article on an aspect of Science Fiction and Science Fact too often overlooked, by L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP; Item: a far-out account of life and death, by P. M. HUBBARD; Item: one wild, ivild story by ALFRED BESTER, which we had to break a rule to pubhsh — and are not sorry, either; and, finally, as the last Item: a guest editorial by

FRED (What Mad Universe) BROWN. Ahem . . . not in this issue, though promised, are stories by MACK REYNOLDS and TERRY CARR—dat ol’ debbd, “reasons of space,” precluded. Real

Soon Now, though . . . meanwhile, partisans of these authors, please don’t try to loll the Editor. He left for Deneb III on the morning rocket.

Coming next month . . .

. . . a novelet by ROGER ZELAZNY, with tlie intriguing (and deliberately-chosen) title of A Rose For Ecclesiastes. Accompanying this beautiful and unusual story is an unusual and beautiful cover, painted especially for it by HANNES BOK, one of the truly great Science Fantasy artists of all time. Also present will be a short novel by SIR L. E. JONES, about a discovery made on a Grecian isle . . . and what befell thereby. If you miss tliis issue you will be sprry.

4 “The second sight" as H is often called, or clairvoyance, has been so often and so well attested that it has been recognized as a legitimate and non-diabolical phenomenon by that stem, august, and level-headed body the Established Kirk of Scotland. Not particularly limited to that or to any other extrasensory ability is the ancient, ancient exhortation that great gifts durst not he used for mean purposes. Richard Matheson, in a modem key, spins a tale of life and death, love and hate and greed.

GIRL OF MY DREAMS

by Richard Matheson

He woke up, grinning, in the them. If she did, he could realh’ darkness. Carrie was having a make it big. nightmare. He lay on his side He rolled onto his back. The and listened to her breathless nightmare was ending now; or moaning. Must be a good one, he coming to its peak, he was never thought. He reached out and sure which. What difference did touched her back. The nightgown it make anyway? He wasn’t inter- was wet with her perspiration. ested in the machinery, just the Great, he thought. He pulled his product. He grinned again, hand away as she squirmed against reaching over to the bedside ta- it, starting to make faint noises in ble for his cigarettes. Lighting her throat; it sounded as if she one, he blew up smoke. Now he’d were trying to say “No.” have to comfort her, he thought No, hell, Greg thought. Dream, with a frown. That was the part you ugly bitch; what else are you he could live without. Dumb lit- good for? He yawned and pulled tle creep. Why couldn’t she be his left arm from beneath the cov- blonde and beautiful? He ex- ers. Tliree-sixteen. He wound the pelled a burst of smoke. WeU, watch stem sluggishly. Going to you couldn’t ask for everjthing. get me one of those electric watches If she were good-looking, she one of these days, he thought. May- probably wouldn’t have these be this dream would do it. Too dreams. There were plenty of oth- bad Carrie had no control over er women to provide the rest of it 6 FANTASY AXD SCIENCE FICTIO.N

Carrie jerked violently and sat ly on the wheel. One of these up with a cry, pulling the covers days, by God, he’d smack her from his legs. Greg looked at her right across her ugly face and outline in the darkness. She was walk out, free. Damn freak. He shivering. “Oh, no,” she whis- felt the skin begin to tighten pered. He watched her head be- across his cheeks. “Well?” he gin to shake. “No. No.” She start- asked. ed to cry, her body hitching with “I don’t—” sobs. Oh, Christ, he thought, this- “Which way, Carrie?" God, he’d

’ll take hours. Irritably, he like to twist back one of her pressed his cigarette into the ash- scrawny arms and break the damn tray and sat up. thing; squeeze that skinny neck “Baby?” he said. until her breatli stopped. She twisted around with a Carrie swallowed dryly. “Left,” gasp and stared at him. "Come she murmured. ’ere,” he told her. He opened his Bingo! Greg almost laughed arms and she flung herself against aloud, slapping down the turn him. He could feel her narrow indicator. Left — right into the fingers gouging at his back, the Eastridge area, the money area. soggy weight of her breasts against You dreamed it right this time, his chest. Oh, boy, he thought. you dog, he thought; this is It. He kissed her neck, grimacing at All he had to do now was play it the smell of her sweat-damp skin. smart and he’d be free of her for Oh, boy, what I go through. He good. He’d sweated it out and caressed her back. “Take it easy, now it was payday! baby,” he said, “I’m here.” He let The tires made a crisp sound her cling to him, sobbing weakly. on the pavement as he turned the ‘Bad dream?” he asked. He tried car onto the quiet, tree-lined to sound concerned. street. “How far?” he asked. She “Oh, Greg.” She could barely didn’t answer and he looked at speak. “It was horrible, oh, God, her threateningly. Her eyes were how horrible.” shut. He grinned. It was a good one. “How far? I said.” Carrie clutched her— hands to- TVhich way?” he asked. gether. “Greg, please ” she start- Carrie perched stiffly on the ed. Tears were squeezing out be- edge of the seat, looking through neath her lids. the windshield with troubled “Damn it!” eyes. Any second now, she’d pre- Carrie whimpered and said tend she didn’t know; she always something. “What?” he snapped. did. Greg’s fingers tightened slow- She drew in wavering breath. ”

GIRL OF MY DREAMS 7

“The middle of the next block," She nodded tightly. "Yes.” she said. Greg clenched his teetli, a “Which side?" spasm of avidity sweeping “The right.” through him. Fifty thousand if Greg smiled. He leaned back it was worth a nickel, he drought. against the seat and relaxed. That Oh, you bitch, you crazy bitch, was more Uke it. Dumb bitch you really nailed it for me this tried the same old Tforget rou- time! He turned the wheel and tine every time. When would she pulled in at the curb. Cutting the learn that he had her down cold? engine, he glanced across the He almost chuckled. She never street. The convertible would would, he thought; because, after come from that direction, he this one, he’d ' be gone and she thought. He wondered who’d be could dream for nothing. driving it. Not that it mattered. “Tell me ivhen we reach it,” he “Greg?” said. He turned and eyed her coldly. “Yes,” she answered. She had “What?” turned her face to the window She bit her lip, then started to and was leaning her forehead speak. against the cold glass. Don’t cool "No," he said, cutting her off. it too much, he thought, amused; He pulled out the ignition key keep it hot for Daddy. He pressed and shoved open the door. “Let’s away the rising smile as she go,” he said. He slid out, shut the turned to look at him. Was she door and walked around the car, picking up on him? Or was it just Carrie was still inside. “Let’s go, the usual? It was always the baby,” he said, tire hint of venom same. Just before they reached in his voice. — wherever they were going, she’d “Greg, please look at him intently as if to con- He shuddered at the cost of vince herself that it was worth repressing an intense desire to the pain. He felt like laughing in scream curses at her, jerk open her face. Obviously, it was worth the door and drag her out by her it. How else could a beast like hair. His rigid fingers clamped on her land someone with his class? the handle and he opened the Except for him, her bed would door, waited. Christ, but she was be tire emptiest, her nights the ugly— the features, the skin, the longest. body. She'd never looked so re- “Almost there?” he asked. pugnant to him. "I said let's go," Carrie looked to the front he told her. He couldn’t disguise again. “The white one,” she said. the tremble of fury in his voice, “\\dth the half-circle drive?” Carrie got out and he shut the 8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ” door. It was getting colder. Greg “I’ll decide on — drew up the collar of his topcoat, He broke off as die door was shivering as they started up the opened. For a moment, he felt drive toward the front door of the angry disappointment that the house. He could use a heavier bell had not been answered by a coat, he thought; with a nice, maid. Then he thought: Oh, thick lining. A real sharp one, what the hell, the money’s strll maybe black. He’d get one one of here — and he smiled at the wom- these days — and maybe real soon an who stood before them. “Good too. He glanced at Carrie, won- afternoon,” he said. dering if she had any notion of The woman looked at him his plans. He doubted it even with that half polite, half sus- though she looked more worried picious smile most women gave than ever. What the hell was with him at first. “Yes?” she asked. her? She’d never been this bad “It’s about Paul,” he said. before. Was it because it was a The smile disappeared, the kid? He shrugged. What differ- woman’s face grew blank. ence did it make? She’d perform. “What?” she asked. “Cheer up,” he said, “It’s a “That’s your son’s name, isn’t school day. ’Vou won’t have to see it?” him.” She didn’t answer. The woman glanced at Carrie. They went up two steps onto Already, she was disconcerted, the brick porch and stopped be- Greg could see. fore the door. Greg pushed the “He’s in danger of his life,” he button and, deep inside the told her, “Are you interested in house, melodic chimes sounded. hearing more about it?” While they waited, he reached “What’s happened to him?" inside his topcoat pocket and Greg smiled affably. “Nothing touched the small, leather note- yet,” he answered. The woman book. Funny how he always felt caught her breath as if, abruptly, like some kind of weird salesman she were being strangled. when they were operating. A “You’ve taken him,” she mur- salesman with a damned closed mured. market, he thought, amused. No Greg’s smile broadened. “Noth- one else could offer what he had ing like that,” he said. to sell, that was for sure. “Where is he then?” the woman He glanced at Carrie. “Cheer asked. up," he told her, “We’re helping Greg looked at his wristwatch, them, aren’t we?” feigning surprise. “Isn’t he at Carrie shivered. “It won’t school?” he asked.

be too much, will it, Greg?” Uneasily confused, the woman —

GIBL OF MY DREAMS 9

stared at him for several mo- watched the dog. It must be the ments before she twisted away, one that would pushing at the door. Greg caught “Thank you,” said the woman hold of it before it shut. “Inside,” gratefully. Greg turned back and he ordered. looked in that direction. The ?” "Can’t we wait out— woman hung up the telephone Carrie broke off with a gasp as receiver and her footsteps tapped he clamped his lingers on her arm across the kitchen floor, becom- and pulled her into the hall. ing soundless as she stepped onto While he shut the door, Greg lis- the hallway carpeting. She start- tened to the rapid whir and click ed cautiously toward the front of a telephone being dialed in door. the kitchen. He smiled and took “We’re in here, Mrs. Wheeler,” hold of Carrie’s arm again, guid- said Greg. ing her into the livingroom. “Sit,” The woman caught her breath he told her. and whirled in shock. “What is Carrie settled gingerly on the tliis?” she demanded. edge of a chair while he ap- “Is he all right?” Greg asked. praised the room. Money was in “What do you want?" evidence wherever he looked; in Greg drew the notebook from the carpeting and drapes, the pe- his pocket and held it out. "Would riod furniture, the accessories. you hke to look at this?” he asked. Greg pulled in a tight, exultant The woman didn’t answer but breath and tried to keep from peered at Greg through narrow- grinning like an eager kid; this ing eyes. “That’s right,” he said, was It all right. Dropping onto "We’re selling something." the sofa, he stretched luxuriously, The woman’s face grew hard. leaned back and crossed liis legs, 'Tour son’s life," Greg com- glancing at the name on a maga- pleted. zine lying on the end table be- The woman gaped at him, side him. In the kitchen, he could momentary resentment invaded hear the woman saying, “He’s in by fear again. Jesus, you look Room Fourteen; ^^rs. Jennings’ stupid, Greg felt like telling her. class.” He forced a smile. “Are you in- A sudden clicking sound made terested?” he asked. Carrie gasp. Greg turned his head "Get out of here before I call and saw, through tlie back drapes, die police.” The woman’s voice a colhe scratching at the sliding was husky, tremulous. glass door; beyond, he noted, with ‘Tou’re not interested in your renewed pleasure, the glint of son’s life then.” swimming pool water. Greg The woman shivered with — ”

10 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTIO.N

fear-ridden anger. “Did you hear “That information,” Greg re- me?” she said. plied, “is what we’re selling.” Greg exhaled through clench- The woman turned to Carrie, ing teeth. looking at her frightenedly. Car- “Mrs. Wheeler,” he said, “Un- rie lowered her gaze, teeth dig- less you listen to us carefully — ging at her lower hp. The woman your son will soon he dead.” looked back at Greg as he con- From the corners of his eyes, he tinued. noticed Carrie wincing and felt “Let me explain," he said, “My like smashing in her face. That’s wife is what’s known as a ‘sensi- right he tliought with savage fury. tive’. You may not be familiar Show her how scared you are, you with the term. It means she has stupid bitch! visions and dreams. Very often, Mrs. Wheeler’s lips stirred fal- they have to do with real people. teringly as she stared at Greg. Like the dream she had last night “What are you talking about?” —about your son.” she finally asked. The woman shrank from his ‘Tour son's life, Mrs. Wheel- words and, as Greg expected, an er.” element of shrewdness modified “Why should you want to hurt her expression; diere was now, in my boy?” the woman asked, a sud- addition to fear, suspicion. den quaver in her voice. Greg felt “I know what you’re thinking,” himself relax. She was almost in he informed her. “Don’t waste the bag. your time. Look— at this notebook “Did I say that we were going and you’ll see to hurt him?” he asked, smiling at “Get out of here,” the woman her quizzically, “I don’t remem- said. ber saying that, Mrs. Wheeler.” Greg’s smile grew strained. “Then—?” “That again?” he asked. “You “Sometime before the middle mean you really don’t care about of the month,” Greg interrupted, your son’s life?” “Paul will be run over by a car The woman managed a smile and killed.” of contempt. “Shall I call the po- "What?” lice now?” she asked. “The bunco Greg did not repeat. squad?” “What car?” asked die woman. “If you really want to,” an- She looked at Greg in panic. swered Greg, “but I suggest you “What car?” she demanded. listen to me first.” He opened the “We don’t know exacdy." notebook and began to read. "Jan- “Where?” the woman asked. uary twenty-second: Man named “When?” ]i7)i to fall from roof while ad- GIRL OF MY DREAMS 11

justing television aerial. Ramsay check, they were out of their Street. Two-story house, green minds with worry. Their son had with white trim. Here’s the news disappeared and they had no item.” idea where he was — I hadn’t Greg glanced at Carrie and mentioned the W'cll shaft, of nodded once, ignoring her plead- course.” ing look as he stood and .walked He paused for a moment of across the room. The woman dramatic emphasis, enjoying the cringed back apprehensively but moment fully. “I went over to didn’t move. Greg held up the their house,” he said, “they made notebook page. “As you can see,” their payment and I told them he said, “The man didn’t believe where their son was.” He pointed what we told him and did fall off at the clipping. “He was found, his roof on January twenty-sec- as you can see —down in an ond; it’s harder to convince abandoned well shaft. With a them when you can’t give any de- broken pelvis.” ?” tails so as not to give it all away.” “Do you really — “ He clucked as if disturbed. “He — expect you to believe all should have paid us though,” he this?” Greg completed her said. “It would have been a lot thought. “Not completely; no one less expensive than a broken ever does at first. Let me teU you back.” what you’re thinking rigjit now. ?” “Who do you think you’re — You’re thinking that we cut out “Here’s another,” Greg said, these newspaper items and made

turning a page. “This should in- up this story to fit them. You’re terest you. February twelfth, aft- entitled —to believe that if you ernooit: Boy, 13, name unknown, want to ” his face hardened, “ to fall into abandoned well shaft, — but, if you do, you’ll have a fracture pelvis. Lives on Darien dead son by the middle of the Circle, etcetera, etcetera, you can month, you can count on that.” see the details here,” he finished, He smiled cheerfully. "I don’t pointing at the page. “Here’s the believe you’d enjoy hearing how newspaper chpping. As you can it’s going to happen,” he said. see, his parents were just in time. The smile began to fade. “And They’d refused to pay at first, it is going to happen, Mrs. threatened to call the police like Wheeler, whetlier you beheve it you did.” He smiled at the wom- or not.” an. “Threw us out of the house as The woman, still too dazed by a matter of fact,” he said. “On the fright to be completely sure of afternoon of the twelfth though, her suspicion, watched Greg as he when I made a last-minute phone turned to Carrie. “Well?” he said. ”

12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“I don’t—" remembering. She turned. “That Let's have it," he demanded. dog out there wll try to save your Carrie bit her lower lip and son but it won’t succeed; the car tried to restrain the sob. will kill it too.” "What are you going to do?” the The woman stared at him, as if woman asked. uncomprehending, then turned Greg turned to her with a away and, sliding open the patio smile. “Make our point,” he said. door, went outside. Greg saw the He looked at Carrie again. “Weil?” collie frisking around her as she She answered, eyes closed, moved across the patio. Leisurely, voice pained and feeble. “There’s he returned to the sofa and sat a throw rug by tlie nursery door,” down. she said. “You’ll slip on it while “Greg—?” you’re carrying the baby.” He frowned grimacingly, jerk- Greg glanced at her in pleased ing up his hand to silence her. surprise; he hadn’t known there Out on the patio, there was a was a baby. Quickly, he looked at scraping noise as the woman the woman as Carrie continued overturned tlie playpen. He lis- in a troubled voice, “There’s a tened intently. There was a sud- black widow spider underneath den gasp, then the stamping of the playpen on the patio,— it will the woman’s shoe on concrete, an bite the baby, there’s a excited barking by the dog. Greg “Care to check these items, smiled and leaned back with a Mrs. Wheeler?” Greg broke in. sigh. Bingo. Suddenly, he hated her for her When the woman came back slowness, for her failure to ac- in, he smiled at her, noticing cept. “Or shall we just walk out how heavily she breathed. of here,” he said, sharply, “and “That could happen any let that blue convertible drag place,” she said, defensively. Paul's head along the street until “Could it?" Greg’s smile re- his brains spill out?” mained intact. "And the throw The woman looked at him in rug?” horror. Greg felt a momentary “Maybe you looked around dread tliat he had told her too while I was in the kitchen.” much, tlren relaxed as he realized “We didn’t.” that he hadn’t. “I suggest you "Maybe you guessed." check,” he told her, pleasantly. “And maybe we didn’t,” he The woman backed away from told her, chilling his smile. “May- him a little bit, then turned and be everything we’ve said is true. hurried toward the patio door. You want to gamble on it?” "Oh, incidentally,” Greg said, The woman had no reply. Greg ” ”

(JIRL OF MY DREAMS 13 looked at Carrie. “Anything else?” flexed reactivel) as Carrie gasped he asked. Carrie shivered fitfully. but he didn’t look at her. He fixed “An electric outlet by the bab/s his gaze on the woman’s stricken .” crib,” she said. “She has a bobby face. “Ten thousand . . she pin beside her, she’s been —trying repeated dumbly. to put it in the plug and “That’s correct.—Is it a deal?” “Mrs. Wheeler?” Greg looked “But we don’t inquisitively at the woman. He ‘‘Take it or leave it, Airs. snickered as she turned and hur- Wheeler. You’re not in a bargain- ried from the room. When she was ing position. Don’t think for a gone, he smiled and winked at second that there’s anything you Carrie. “You’re really on today, can do to prevent the accident. baby,” he said. She returned his Unless you know the exact time look with glistening eyes. “Greg, and place, it’s going to happen.” please don’t make it too much,” He stood abruptly, causing her to she murmured. start. “Well?” he snapped, “what’s Greg turned away from her, it going to be? Ten thousand dol- the snule withdrawn. Relax, he lars or your son’s life?” told himself; relax. After today, The woman couldn’t answer. you’ll be free of her. Casually, he Greg’s eyes flicked to where Car- slipped the notebook back into rie sat in mute despair. “Let’s go,” his topcoat pocket. he said. He started for the hall. The woman returned in several ‘‘Wait.” minutes, her expression now de- Greg turned and looked at the void of anything but dread. Be- woman. “Yes?” tween two fingers of her right “How—do I know— ?” she fal- hand she was carrying a bobby tered. pin. “Hmv did you know?” she “You don’t,” he broke in, “you asked. Her voice was hollow with don’t know a thing. We do.” dismay. He waited another few mo- “I beheve I explained that, ments for her decision, then Mrs. Wheeler,” Greg replied. “My walked into the kitchen and, re- wife has a gift. She knows exactly moving his memo pad from an in- where and when that accident will side pocket, slipired the pencil occur. Do you care to buy that in- free and jotted down the tele- formation?” phone number. He heard the wom- The woman’s hands twitched an murmuring pleadingly to Car- at her sides. “What do you want?” rie and, shoving the pad and pen- she asked. cil into his topcoat pocket, left "Ten thousand dollars in the kitchen. “Let’s go,” he said to cash,” Greg answered. His fingers Carrie who was standing now. He 14 fantasy and science fiction glanced disinterestedly at the now? Likely, she was wondering woman. “I’ll phone this after- where that blue convertible was. noon,” he said. “You can tell me Momentarily, Greg wondered then what you and your husband himself. Was it parked? —mov- have decided to do.” His mouth ing? He grinned drunkenly. It w^'nt hard. "It’ll be the only call gave him a feeling of power to you’ll get,” he said.’ know sometliing about that car He turned and walked to the that even its owner didn’t know; front door, opened it. “Come on, namely, that, in eight days, at come on,” he ordered irritably. tvvo-si-xteen on a Thursday after- Carrie slipped by him, brushing at noon, it would run dovra a little the tears on her cheeks. Greg fol- boy and kill him. lowed and began to close the door, He focused his eyes and glared then stopped as if remembering at Carrie. "All right, say it,” he something. demanded. “Get it out.” “Incidentally,” he said. He She turned and looked at hbn smiled at the woman. “I wouldn’t imploringly. “Does it have to be call die police if I were you. so much?” she asked. There’s nothing they could charge He turned his face away from us with even if they found us. her and closed his eyes. ?” And, of course, we couldn’t tell “Greg, does it — you then — and your son would 'Yes!” He drew in shaking have to die.” He closed the door breath. God, would he be glad to and started for the car, a picture get away from her! of the woman printed in his “What if thev can’t pav?” mind: standing, dazed and trem- "Tough” bling, in her livingroom, looking The sound of her repressed sob at him with haunted eyes. Greg set his teeth on edge. “Go in and grunted in amusement. lie dowm,” he told her. She was hooked. “Greg, he hasn’t got a chance!” He twisted around, face whit- Greg drained his glass and fell ening. “Did he have a better back heavily on the sofa arm, chance before we came?” he making a face. It was the last snarled. “Use your head for once, cheap whiskey he’d ever drink; God damn it! If it wasn’t for us, from now on, it was exclusively he’d be as good as dead aheady!” the best. He turned his head to “Yes, but—” look at Carrie. She was standing “I said go in and he down!” by the window of their hotel hv- “You haven’t seen the way it’s ingroom, staring at the city. What going to hapiren, Greg!” the hell was she brooding about He shuddered violently, fi^t- GIRL OF MY DREAMS 15

ing back the urge to grab the slammed his palm on the cradle, whiskey bottle, leap at her and breaking the connection. smash her head in. "Get out of He stood quivering before her, here," he muttered. staring at her face with widened, She stumbled across the room, maniac eyes. Slowly, Carrie raised pressing the back of a hand her hand to —avert the blow. “Greg, against her lips. The bedroom please don’t ” she began. door thumped shut and he heard Fury deafened him. He could- her fall across the bed, sobbing. n’t hear the heav^y, thudding Damn, wet-eye bitch! He gritted sound the earpiece made against his teeth until his jaws hurt, then her cheek as he slammed it across poured himself another inch of her face with all his might. She

whiskey, grimacing as it burned fell back w'ith a strangled cry. its way into his stomach. They’ll “You bitch,” he gasped. ‘Tou come through, he told himself. bitch, you bitch, you bitch!" He Obviously, they had the money emphasized each repetition of the and, obviously, the woman had w'ord with another savage blow believed him. He nodded to him- across her face. He couldn't see self. They’ll come through, all her clearly either; she kept waver- right. Ten thousand; his passport ing behind a film of blinding to another life. Expensive clothes. rage. Everything was finished! A class hotel. Good-looking wom- She’d blown the deal! The Big

en; maybe one of them for keeps. One was gone! God damn it. I’ll He kept nodding. One of these kill you\ He wasn’t certain if the days, he thought. words exploded in his mind or if He was reaching for his glass he were shouting them into her when he heard the muffled sound face. of Carrie talking in the bedroom. Abruptly, he became aware of For several moments, his out- the telephone receiver clutched in stretched hand hovered betw’een his aching hand; of Carrie lying, the sofa and the table. Then, in open-mouthed and staring on the an instant, he w'as on his feet, bed, her features mashed and lunging for the bedroom door. He bloody. He lost his grip and flung it open. Carrie jerked heard, as if it were a hundred around, the phone receiver in her miles below, the receiver thump- hand, her face a mask of dread. ing on the floor. He stared at Car- ’’Thursday, the fourteenth!” she rie, sick with horror. Was she blurted into the mouthpiece. dead? He pressed his ear against “Two-sixteen in the afternoon!” her chest and listened. At first, he She screamed as Greg wrenched could hear only the pulse of his the receiver from her hand and owm heart throbbing in his cars. 16 FANTASY AN» SCIENCE FICTION

Then, as he concentrated, his ex- Greg felt himself enveloped in pression tautly rabid, he became ice. He clutched at her arm. aware of Carrie’s heartbeat, faint “Where?” he mumbled. She didn’t and staggering. She wasn't deadi answer and his fingers dug con- He jerked his head up. \Tilsively into her flesh. “M^ere?” She was looking at him, mouth he demanded. “When?” He b^an slack, eyes dumbly stark. to shiver uncontrollably. “Carrie, “Carrie?” when? I" No reply. Her lips moved It was the arm of a dead woman soundlessly. She kept on staring that he clutched. With a gagging at him. “What?” he asked. He sound, he jerked his hand away. recognized the look and shud- He gaped at her, unable to speak dered. "Whatr or th^k. Then, as he backed “Street,” she whispered. away, his eyes were drawn to the Greg bent over, staring at her calendar on the wall and a phrase mangled features. “Street,” she crept leadenly across his mind: “. whispered, . . night.” She one of these days. Quite suddenly, sucked in wheezing, blood-choked he began to laugh and cry. And breath. “Greg.” She tried to sit up before he fled, he stood at the win- but couldn’t. Her expression was dow for an hour and twenty min- becoming one of terrified concern. utes, staring out, wondering who

She whispered, “Man . . . razor the man w^as, where he was right

. . wo/” . you — oh, now and just what he was doing.

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EPISTLE TO BE LEFT IN THE EARTH

. . . It is colder now, there are many stars, we are drifting North by the Great Bear, the leaves are falling.

The water is stone in the scooped rocks, to southward Red sun grey air: the crows are Slow on their crooked wings, the jays have left us Long since we passed the flares of Orion. Each man believes in his heart he will die. Many have written last thoughts and last letters. None know if our deatlis are now or forever

None know if this wandering earth will be found.

We he down and the snow covers our garments.

I pray you, you (if any open this writing) Make in your mouths the words that were our names.

I will tell you all we have learned,

I will tell you everything:

The earth is round, there are springs under the orchards, The loam cuts with a blunt knife. beware of Elms in thunder, the hghts in the sky are stars We think they do not see, we think also The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us

Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston for "Epistle to be Left in the Earth” from COLLECTED POEMS 1917-1952, © 1952 by Archibald MacLeish : ) : :

The birds too are ignorant. Do not listers Do not stand at dark in the open windows. We before you haveJreard this they are voices

They are not words at all but the wind rising. Also none among us has seen God.

(. . . We have thought often The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather

Pointed to one tree but it was not so.

As for the nights I w'arn you the nights are dangerous The wind changes at night and the dreams come.

It is very cold, there are strange stars near Arcturus,

Voices are crying an unknow n name in the sky —Archibald MacLeish

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18 BOOKS

THE WORM OtJROBOROS, E. R. Eddl- of death and silence spread them- son, Crown, (Xanadu Library), selves where late the fires of sun- $ 1.95 set glowed, and large stars opened like flcnvers on the illimitable This is a reprint (with Keith fields of the night sky: Arcturus, Henderson’s fine illustrations) of Spica, Gemini, and the Little the classic by an Englishman who Dog, and Capella and her kids." was "a successful civil servant” . . the heavy face of Corsus, and is now dead. His tale is a his eyes, baggy underneath, and fantasy set upon the planet Mer- somewhat bloodshed, his pendu- cury; its characters are called lous cheeks, thick blubber under- Witches, Demons, Goblins, lip, and bristly grey mustachios Ghouls, Imps, but have nothing and whiskers." All these from the to do with those we customarily first part of the book; after that I so term; such words of middle- ceased marking the innumerably Earth as "middle-Earth,” “Yule,” notew'orthy lines. The story is Pasque,” and the names of sundry mainly one of war, witchcraft, Grecian gods appear; as do Greek, adventure, conspiracy, violence, English, Scottish verse, put in the bloodshed, intrigue. Romance, mouths of the protagonists. Apart love, appear but late, and do not from tliis there are no Terrestrial flourish. The heros have names points of reference. It’s hinted like Juss, Brandoch Daha, and that the story is a dream, and as Goldry Bluszco and Spitfire: such it cannot be called to order. brother-lords of Demonland. The The prose is a rich — almost over- villains are King Gorice of Witch- rich — pastiche of the usage of the land and such henchmen as Cor- 15th to 17th centuries; it abounds sus, Corind, Corinius, Laxus. in beautiful, quotable language. Macchiavellian, lago-like, perpet-

. . the v’ash and moan of the ual turncoat, yet not altogether “. — sullen, sleepless sea." . . above despicable, is Lord Gro “one the smooth dminis the wind was who is not false save only in pol- lulled to sleep in the vast silent icy.” The tale turns upon the spaces of the sky . . "The hues Witch-King’s desire to conquer

19 20 FANT.VSY AND SCIENCE FICTIO.V

all, to destroy every rival; on the ^bought— in ouroboros they are resistance he meets; and on the just there), people ha^e bowels, side-events arising from both. It grow rich, grow poor, give alms, should be read slowly, but it make love — they do not merely should be read. The absence of kiss and declaim and posture, real people and of humanity (the they make love — men have thighs quality, not the race) from works and moles, women have breasts of Science Fiction and of Fantasy and navels and pudenda. There, is frequent — unfortunate — not too, as in ouroboros, are swords puzzling. Such experiences do not and armies and palaces, kings and really happen, they do not happen princes and lords, witchcraft and to real people, therefore our au- magic and weird. But all the while thors have difficulty putting real a life goes on which is a real life,

people into their tales. One out- and we recognize it, and we love standing and successful author, it. Tolkien, solves or at least avoids Amongst all who have written the difficulty by making his char- in this genre in the English lan- acters other-than-human — Elves, guage, Eddison stands high. Set Ores, Hobbits, and so on. So has him alongside the unknown Ori- Eddison, who preceded Tolkien, entals who composed Alf Layla somewhat eluded the imputation iva-Layla, The Thousand and One

. . . but only somewhat. As his Nights, and he does not reach Gobhns, Demons, Witches, Pix- even to their ankles. ies, Imps, despite their names, are Where, tlien, are all the rest of really intended for real people, us? his work must be judged not only by what we know of such, but by A GUN FOR DINOSAUR, L. Sprague de what we have read of such. OURO- Camp, Doubleday, $4.50 BOROS is a classic, but it is not

and cannot be a great classic. 1 found this collection of four- Comparison with the Iliad and teen shoit stories by Science Fic-

Oddyssey is, of course, out of the tion’s Mr. Erudition to be a great question —but may we not com- disappointment, and only my pare The Arabian Nights? There, sense of duty (compensating for too, is blood and war and in- my sense of wonder) kept me going trigue and sorcery, but there, too, up till 25 pages from the end. De is humanity. The farmer winnows Camp’s non-fiction, his novels, I his grain, the fisherman casts his enjoy and admire. I used to en- net, the loathsome gobbo begs in joy his short stories as well. What his filthy robes, God is wor- has happened? Have I changed? shipped, sweetmeats bought Has he? Both of us? Time after — —

BOOKS 21

time he gets hold of a great idea there has been a man on the — and throws it away in playing moon. This minor caveat over, let for laughs of the feeblest conceiv- me say that I recognize this ac- able sort. Too bad, too bad, too count of the backgrounds of the bad. The sole exception deals with Astronauts, their training for the an embittered scientist who first (American) leap into space, with good reason — hates the whole and the journeys of Shepard, human race; it is so authentic- Glenn, Grissom and Carpenter sounding that one could scream. thereunto, to be of the utmost importance. I have still not taken WE SEVEN, "by the Astronauts it all in. I know there is more to it themselves,” Simon & Schuster, all than Carpenter’s modest ob- $6.50 servance that man in space can learn useful data about harmful

The title is inescapably remi- radiation and destructive storms. niscent of Gen. Charles Augus- I concede Glenn was likely tus Lindbergh’s We—himself and right in saying that our space men his aeroplane — in which he de- will be “as unlike Buck Rogers as scribed his famous flight across the Wright Brothers were unlike the Atlantic ocean in 1927. I Icarus.” I am slightly slack-jawed suppose the efforts of Carpenter, at the space capsule’s using hy- Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Schirra, drogen peroxide steam as a fuel; Shepard, and Slayton (only 3 bemused at the report of thou- letters of the alphabet amongst sands of yellowish green particles them) must and will be regarded glowing like fire-flies up above the as more important . . . the first troposphere . . . Am I really hops to the stars, compared to ready for the future? Is the future what was only the first solo flight really ready for me? I-be-damn- across one sea. There is one big and-go-to-Hell if I know. But difference, and one which pre- ready or not — here we come. vents those of us in Science Fic- tion from regarding the accom- A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony plishments of the NASA seven as Burgess, Norton, $3.95 having fulfilled our long dreams and confident expectations: Lind- This curious work is evidently bergh got some place. The Astro- a tale of young adult hooliganism nauts didn’t. Unless cislunar in a future England. I say evi- space is a place. Let no one tliink dendy, because I’m not quite sure. I am, for Heaven’s sake, putting Here is a typical sentence from them down. But "our” future has- page 1 : “They had no hcence for n’t quite arrived yet, won’t until selling liquor, but there was no 22 F.VNTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION law yet against prodding some of hate, politics, pets, pornography the new vesches which they used (no, Boston, he himself stays to put in the old moloko, so you clean!), several kinds of fear, the could peer it witli vellocet or syn- detection of crime, adultery, art theinesc or drencrom or one or . . . and more. It’s a good book. two other vesches which would Through the kindness of Mr. give you a nice quiet horrorshow Clarke w^e are able to publish be- fifteen minutes admiring Bog And low' parts of his address last year All His Holy Angels and Saints in New Delhi, India, on receiving in your left shoe with lights burst- the UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for ing all over your niozg.” Mr. Bur- the Popularization of Science. gess, I am informed, has not really “The subsequent banquet in the invented his language — it is Rus- vast guilded hall of the Palace of sian. .4nd if I have to learn Rus- the Nizam of Hjderabad,” he sian I am sure I can find better writes, “made quite a contrast to things to read than a clock- my other dining-out place, the work ORANGE, which I find un- 23rd St. Automat.” readable. —Avram Davidson

TALES OF TEN v^•ORLDS, Arthur C. It is obvious that science fic- Clarke, Harcourt, Brace, & M'orld, tion should be technically accu- S3. 95 rate, and there is no excuse for erroneous information W'hen the I must explain, with a blush, true facts are available. Yet ac- and the hopes that authors and curacy should not be too much of a readers will forgive me, that as a fetish, for it is often the spirit result of my delayed honeymoon rather than the letter that counts. a number of books for review got Thus Verne’s From the Earth to misplaced and are just now being the Moon and A Journey to the uncovered. The fifteen-story Centre of the Earth are still en- Clarke collection is one of them. joyable, not only because Verne It is too good to have merited such was a first-rate story teller, but be- treatment. Few writers in the cause he was imbued with the ex- field handle science with such citement of scieni'e and could knowdedge as to be so convincing, communicate this to his readers. such deftness as never to place That many of his “facts” and most stumbling-blocks, and with such of his theories are now knowm to clarity of style as to appear to have be incorrect is not a fatal flaw, for none at all. His scope is not meas- his books still arouse the sense of ured in light-years alone; in this w'onder. chrestomathy he touches on love. Tlie cultural impact of science —

BOOKS 23 fiction has never been proi>erly propagate their ideas (tliough they recognised, and the time is long did not always get it published!). overdue for an authoritative study Sir Charles Snow ends his fa- of its history and development. mous essay Science and Govern- Perhaps this is a project that ment by stressing the vital impor- UNESCO could sponsor, for it is tance of “the gift of foresight.” He obvious that no single scholar will points out that men often have have the necessary qualifications wisdom without possessing fore- for the task. In one field in par- sight. Perhaps we science-fiction ticular — that of astronautics writers sometimes show foresight the influence of science fiction has without wisdom; but at least we been enormous. The four greatest imdoubtedly do have foresight, pioneers of spaceflight —Tsiolkov- and it may rub off on to the com- sky, Oberth, Goddard and von munity at large. Braun all wrote science fiction to —Arthur C. Clarke

ABOUT THE COVER

This month’s cover by Chesley Bonestell pictures a binary or double star found in the constellation Sagittarius. The star is known as U Sagittae. It consists of one white hot star and a larger red (hence cooler) companion with a tenuous surface.

The initial U simply indicates the order in which the variable star was discovered in a constellation. R is used as a starting point. After

reaching Z, the progression is RR, RS, RT . . . RZ then SS . . . ;

SZ ; and so on down to ZZ.

The painting appears in a new book by Chesley Bonestell and Willey Ley titled Watchers of the Skies. This, the latest of The People stories, was written to tell me, as well as many of the fans of The People, what happened to the Home. After all, that’s really where the story of The People began. Those of you who are familiar with the Bible will have discovered long ago that the names of the stories, and the quotations contained in them, follow loosely the wandering of the Children of Israel from the Flood to the crossing of the Jordan. This, then is Deluge which is the disaster that wiped out The People’s world and landed them on Ararat. I’ve been asked by some readers if The People exist. No. They’re strictly fiction. I wish they were real. If all people were like The People, wouldn’t it be a wonderful world? Maybe someday we will be The People. Miracles happen. The People stories are for fun. They are the Cinderella dreams, the I-must-be-adopted-because-I’m-different dreams, the If-Only dreams of all of us. I like the magic that needs no wand, no muttered incantations. After all, mankind was supposed to have domin- ion over all the world. Maybe this is the way things would work if we really did have that dominion. —Zenna Henderson

I was born in Tucson, Arizona, and, after years of wandering around, / am back here again. I am a school teacher and teach mostly the lower grades—the children between five and seven years old. That is the logical explanation of why most of my stories are about school or school teachers. Most of my life has been spent in Arizona, though in lots of places in the state. Before / finished the eighth grade I had gone to twelve different schools. I’ve taught in about as many, too. During the Second World War, I taught at one of the Relocation camps in the desert where the Japanese people from the west coast were held. In 1955, I went to France to teach at one of the American Air Force Bases north of Paris. While I was in Europe—two years—I had a chance to visit almost all the countries there. I enjoyed it very much and hope 1 can get back again—to visit—not to work. When I returned from Europe, I spent a year teaching at a sanitarium for tubercular children on Long Island Sound in Connecticut. Then I returned to Arizona. I suppose there is where I will stay—but you can’t always tell. Besides writing, I like to dance, knit, cook, travel, bowl, study lan- guages—you should see me trying to write German script and learn the Russian alphabet!—work in the garden and watch full moons through billowing thunder clouds. —Z.H. 24 ”

DELUGE

by Zenna Henderson

. . , and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. GEN. 7:17

"The children are up al- “Mother! Mother! Father! ready, Eva-lee?” asked David, Gramma!” lounging back in his chair after his The door slapped open and the first long, satisfying swallow from children avalanched in, all talk- his morning cup. ing shrilly at once until David "Foolish question, David, on waved his cup at them, and lifted Gathering Day,” I laughed. one eyebrow. ’Chell laughed at the “They’ve been up since before it sudden silence. was light. Have you forgotten how “That’s better,” she said. “What’s ’’ you used to feel? all the uproar?” “Of course not.” My son cradled The children looked at one an- his cup in his two hands to warm other and the five-year-old Eve

it, and watched idly until steam was nudged to the fore, but, as plumed up fragrantly. "I just for- usual, David started talking. “We got — oh, momentarily, I assure were out gathering panthus leaves you— that it was Gathering Day. to make our Gathering— baskets, So far it hasn’t felt much like and aU at once ” he paused and failova weather.” nudged Eve again,—‘Tou tell, Eve. "No, it hasn’t,” I answered, After all, it’s you puckering my forehead thought- “Oh, no!” cried ’Chell, “Not fully. “It has felt— odd — this my last baby! Not already!” year. The green isn’t as —Oh, good “Look,” said Eve solemnly. meaning, ‘Chell,” to my daughter- “Look at me.” of-love, “I suppose the little imps She stood tiptoe and wavered a waked you first thing?” little, her arms outstretched for “At least half an hour before balance, and then she lifted slow- that,” yawned ’Chell. ‘T supposed ly and carefully up into her moth- I used to do it myself. But just er’s arms. wait—they’ll have their yawning We all laughed and applauded time when they’re parents.” and even ’Chell, after blotting her

25 ”

26 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

surprised tears on Eve’s dark curls, “Now that that’s taken care of, laughed with us. let’s get organized. Are you all "Bless-a-baby!” she said, hug- Gathering together?” ging her tight. “Lifting all alone “No.” Lytha, our teener, already — and on Gathering Day, flushed faintly. “1 —we——our too! It’s not everyone who can party will be mostly—well have Gathering Day for her Happy She paused and checked her Day!” Then she sobered and blush, shaking her dark hair back pressed the solemn ceremonial from her face. “Timmy and I are kiss on each cheek. “Lift in de- going with Beckie and Andy. light all your life, Eve!” she said. We’re going to the Mountain.” Eve matched her parents’ sol- “Well!” David’s brow hfted in emnity as her fatlier softly com- mock consternation. "Mother, did pleted the ritual. “By the Pres- you know our daughter was two- ence and the Name and the Power, ing?” lift to good and the Glory until “Not really. Father!” cried your Calling.” And we all joined Lytha hastily, unable to resist the in making the Sign. bait though she knew he was

“I speak for her next,” I said, teasing. “Four-ing, it is, really.” holding out my arms. “Think you “Adonday veeahl" he sighed in can lift to Gramma, Eve?” gigantic relief. “Only half the “Well,” Eve considered the gap worry it might be!” He smiled at between her and me— the chair, her. “Enjoy,” he said, “But it ages the breakfast table —all the ob- me so much so fast that a daugh- stacles before my waiting arms. ter of mine is two— oh, pardon, And then she smiled. “Look at four-ing already.” me,” she said. “Here I come, “The rest of us are going to- Gramma.” gether,” said Davie. “We’re going She lifted carefully above the to the Tangle-meadows. The fail- table, over-arching so high that ova were thick there last year. the crisp girl-frill around the Bet we three get more than Lytha waist of her close-fitting briefs and her two-ing foursome! They’ll brushed the ceiling. Then she was be looking mosdy for fiahmen safe in my arms. anyway!” with the enormous “That’s better than I did,” scorn of the almost-teen for the called Simon through the laughter activities of the Teens. that followed. “I landed right in “Could be,” said Davie. “But the ftahmen jam!” after aU, your sole purpose this “So you did, son,” laughed Gathering Day is merely to Gath- David, ruffling Simon’s coppery- cr. red hair. “A full dish of it.” 1 notice you don’t turn up ”

DELUGE 27

your nose at the flahmen after ie’s free hand and the lifts were they’re made into jam,” said Ly- smoothing out long and longer. tha. “And you just wait, smarty, My thoughts went with them as I until the time comes — and it remembered the years I had Gath- will,” her cheeks pinked up a ered the lovely luminous flowers little, "When you find yourself that popped into existence in a wanting to share a flahiiien with single night, leafless, almost some gaggly giggle of a girl!” stemless, as though formed like "Flahmenl" muttered Davie, dew, or falling like concentrated "Girls!” moonlight. No one knows now “They’re both mighty sweet. how the custom of loves sharing a Son,” laughed David. “You wait flahman came into being, but it’s and see.” firmly entrenched in the tradi- Ten minutes later, ’Chell and tions of the People. To share that David and I stood at the mndow luminous loveliness, petal by watching the children leave. petal, one for me and one for you Lytha, after nervously putting on and all for us — and taking off, arranging and re- “How pleasant that Gathering arranging her Gathering Day Day brings back our loves,” I garlands at least a dozen times, sighed dreamily as I stood in the was swept up by a giggling group kitchen and snapped my fingers that zoomed in a trio and went for the breakfast dishes to come to out a quartet and disappeared in me. “People that might otherwise long, low lifts across the pasture- be completely forgotten, —come land towards the heavily wooded back so vividly every year Mountain. “Yes,” said ’Chell, watching the Davie tried to gather Eve up as tablecloth swish out the window, in the past, but she stubbornly huddling the crumbs together to refused to be trailed, but kept in- dump them in the feather-pen in sisting, “I can lift now! Let me do back of the house. “And it’s a

it. I’m big!” good anniversary-marker. Most of Davie rolled exasperated eyes us meet our loves at the Gather- and then grinned and the three ing Festival — or discover them started off for Tangle-meadows in tliere.” She took the returning short hopping little lifts, with cloth and folded it away. “I never Eve always just beginning to lift dreamed when I used to fuss with as they landed or just landing as David over mudpies and play- they lifted, her small Gathering houses that one Gathering Day basket bobbing along with her. he’d blossom into my love.” Before they disappeared, how- "Me blossom?” David peered ever, she nas trailing from Dav- around the door jamb. “Have you ”

28 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

forgotten how you looked, pre- eyes. I smiled. “I wonder what blossom? Knobby knees, straggly kind of a grampa you’d have hair, toothless grin —^!” made!” I leaned my forehead on “David, put me down!” ’CheD my folded arms briefly, then struggled as she felt herself being turned to busy myself with the lifted to press against the ceiling. straightening the rooms for the

“We’re too old for such ncm- day. 1 was somewhat diverted sensel” from routine by finding six mis- stacked, “Get 3'ourself down, then, Old mated sandals for some One,” he said from the other unfathomable reason, above the room. “If I’m too old for non- middle of Simon’s bed, the top sense, I’m too old to platt you.” one, inches above the rest, bob- “Never mind, funny fellow,” bing in the breeze from the open

she said, “I’ll do it myself.” Her window. down-reaching hand strained toward the window and she man- The oddness we had felt aged to gather a handful of the about the day turned out to be early morning sun. Quickly she more than a passing uneasiness platted herself to the floor and and we adults were hardly sur- tiptoed off into the other room, prised when the children came eyes aglint with mischief, finger straggling back hours before they hushing to her lips. usually did. I smiled as 1 heard David’s out- We hailed them from afar, cry and ’Chell’s delighted laugh, lifting out to them expecting to but I felt my smile slant down help with their burdens of bright- into sadness. I leaned my arms ness, but the children didn’t an- on the ^vindowsill and looked swer our hails. They plodded on lovingly at all the dear familiar- towards the house, dragging slow ity around me. Before Thann’s feet in the abundant grass. Calling, we had known so many “What do you suppose has happy hours in the meadows and happened?” —breathed ’Chell. skies and waters of this loved “Surely not Eve part of the Home. "Adonday veeahl” murmured

"And he is still here,” I thought David, his eyes intent on the comfortably. “The grass still children. “Something’s wrong, bends to his feet, the leaves stiU but 1 see Eve.” part to his passing, the waters “Hi, young ones,” he called, still ripple to his touch and my cheerfully, “How’s the crop this heart still cradles his name. year?” "Oh, 'Thann, Thanni” I The children stopped, huddled wouldn’t let tears form in my together, almost fearfully. ”

DELUGE 29

“Look.” Davie pushed bis, bas- “No,” I said, “Look.” ket at them. Four misshapen Far off towards the hills we failova glowed duHy in the bas- could see the Teeners coming, ket. No flickering, glittering slowly, clustered together, pan- brightness. No flushing and pal- tkns baskets trailing. ing of petals. No crisp, edible “No failova," said Lytha as sweetness of blossom. Only a dull they neared us. She turned her ^ow, a sullen winking, an un- basket up, her face troubled. appetizing crumbling. “No failova and no flahmen. Not “That’s all,” said Davie, his a flicker on all the hills where voice choking. “That’s all we they were so thick last year. Oh, could find!” He was scared and Father, why not? It’s as if the sun outraged — outraged that his hadn’t come up! Something’s world dared to be different from W'rong.” what he had expected —had “Nothing catastrophic, Lytlia.” counted on. David comforted her with a smile. Eve cried, “No, no! I have one. “We’ll bring up the matter at the Look!” Her single flower was a next meeting of the Old ones. hard-clenched flahrnen bud with Someone will have the answer. only a smudge of light at the tip, It is unusual, .you know.” (Un- “No failova?" ’Chell took Dav- heard of, he should have said.) ie’s proffered basket. “Na flah- “We’ll find out then.” He boosted men? But they always hlaom on Eve to his shoulder. “Come on, Gathering Day. Maybe the buds young ones, the world hasn’t end-

ed. It’s still Gathering Day! I’ll “No buds,” said Simon, his race you to tire house. First one face painfully white under the tliere gets' six koomatka to 'eat—aU brightness of his hair. I glanced by himself! One, two, three at him quickly. He seldom ever Off shot the shrieking, shout- got upset over anything. What ing children. Eve’s fittle heels was there about this puzzling de- pununelling David’s chest in her velopment that was stirring him? excitement. The Teeners followed “David!” ’Chell’s face turned for a short way and then slanted worriedly to him. “What’s off on some project of their own, wrong? There have always been waving goodby to ’Chell and me. failova I” We women followed slowly to “I know,” said David, fingering the house, neitlier speaking. Eve’s bud and watching it crum- I wasn’t surprised to find ble in his fingers. “Maybe it’s only Simon waiting for me in my in the meadows. Maybe there’s room. He sat huddled on my bed, plenty in the hills.” his hands clasping and unclasp- ” — ”

3U FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ing and trembling a fine, quick shuddered. “Oh, Gramma, what trembling deeper than muscles I’ve seen already! Even the Hap- and tendons. His face was so py scares me because it’s still in white it was almost luminous the Presence!” and the skiff of golden freckles “It’s not given to many,” I said, across the bridge of his nose at a loss how to comfort him.

looked metallic. “Why, Simon, it avouIcI take a “Simon?” 1 touched him briefly long journey back to our Befores on his hair that uas so like to find one in our family who Thann’s had been. was permitted to See. It is an “Gramma.” His breath caugnt lionor — to be able —to put aside in a half hiccough. He cleared his the curtain of time throat carefully as though any "I don’t want to!” Simon’s eyes

sudden movement would break brimmed again. “I don’t think it’s something fragile. "Gramma,” he a bit of fun. Do I have to?” whispered. “I can See!” “Do you have to breathe?” I “See!” I sat down beside him asked him. “You could stop if because my knees suddenly evap- you Avanted to, but your body orated.— “Oh, Simon! You don’t Avould die. You can refuse your mean Gift, but part of you Avould die “Yes, I do. Gramma.” He — tire part of you the PoAver hon; rubbed his hands across his eyes. ors — your place in the Presence “We had just found tlie first —your syllable of the Name.” failova and wondering what was All this he kncAv from first con- wrong with it when everything sciousness, but I could feel him kinda went away and I was taking comfort from my Avords. somewhere — Seeing!” He looked “Do you realize the People have up, terrified. “It’s my Gift!” had no one to See for them since I gathered the suddenly wildly — since —Avhy, clear back to the sobbing child into my arms and Peace! And noAv you are it! Oh, held him tightly until his terror Simon, I am so proud of you!” I spent itself and I felt his witli- laughed at my OAvn upsurge of drawal. I let him go and watched emotion. “Oh, Simon! May I his Avet, flushed face dry and peal touch my thrice honored Grand- back to normal. son?” “Oh, Gramma,” he said, "I With a Avordless cry, he flung don’t want a Gift yet. I’m only himself into my arms and we ten. David hasn’t found his Gift clung tightly, tightly, before his and he’s twelve already. I don’t deep renouncing AvithdraAval. He want— a Gift— especially this looked at me then and slowly one ” he closed his eyes and dropped his arms from around my ” — —

DELUGE 31 neck, separation in e^ery move- weight. The last time I had worn ment. I could see growing in the it was the Festival the year Thann topaz tawniness of his eyes, his was Called. Since then I hadn’t new set-apartness. It made me re- wanted to attend the routine alize anew how close the Pres- Group meetings — not without ence is to us always and how Thann. I hadn’t realized that I much nearer Simon was than any was losing weight. of us. Also, naked and trembling ’Chell clung to David. “I wish in my heart was the recoUection now that I were an Old One, that never did the People have one too,” she said. “I’ve got a name- to See for them unless there lay less worry in the pit of my stom- ahead portentous things to See. ach heavy enough to anchor me Both of us shuttered our eyes for life. Hurry home, you two!” and looked awa\’, Simon to veil the I looked back as we lifted just eyes that so nearly looked on the before the turn-oft’. I smiled to see

Presence, I, lest I be blinded by the warm lights begin to well up the Glory reflected in his face. in the windows. Then my smile “Which reminds me,” I said in died. I felt, too, across my heart a resolutely everyday voice, “I the shadow that made ’Chell feel will now listen to explanations it was Lighting Time before the as to why those six sandals were stars had broken through the last left on, over, and among your of the day.

bed tliis morning.” “Well,” he said with a tremu- The blow — when it came lous —grin. “The red ones are too was almost physical, so much so short ” Me turned stricken, re- that I pressed my hands to my alizing eyes to me. “I won’t ever chest, my breath coming hard, be able to tell anyone anytliing trying too late to brace against anymore unless the Power wills the shock. David’s sustaining it!” he cried. Then he grinned hand was on my ann but I felt again, “And the green— ones need the tremor in it, too. Around me the latchets renewed I felt my incredulity and disbe- lief shared by the other Old Ones A week later the usual meet- of the Group. ing was called and David and I The Oldest spread his hands we were among the Old Ones of as he was deluged by a flood of our Group — slid into our robes. I half formed questions. “It has felt a pang as I smoothed the been Seen. Already our Home has shimmering fabric over my hips, been altered so far that the failoi^a pressing pleats in with my thumb and flahmen can’t come to blos- and finger to adjust for lost som. As we accepted the fact that — ”

32 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION there were no failova and iiah- “But,” stammered someone, men this year, so we must accept speaking what everyone was the fact that there wih be no thinking, "Can the People live more Home for us.” away from the Home? Wouldn't In the silence that quivered af- we die like uprooted plants?” ter his words, I could feel the "We can live,” said the Oldest, further stricken sag of heartbeats “This we know, as we know that around me and suddenly my own the Home can no longer be our heart slowed until I wondered if biding place.” the Power was stilling it now "What’s wrong? What’s hap- now — in the midst of this con- pening?” It was Neil —Timmys fused fear and bewilderment. father. “Then we are all Called?” I "We don’t know.” The Oldest couldn’t recognize the choked was shamed. “We have forgotten voice that put the question. “How too much since the Peace to be long before the Power summons able to state the mechanics of us?” what is happening, but one of us "We are not Called,” said the Sees us go and the Home de- Oldest. “Only the Home is Called. stroyed, so soon that we have no We— go.” time to go back to the reasons.” “Go!” The thought careened Since we were all joined in our from one to another. conference mind which is par- “Yes,” said the Oldest. “Away tially subvocal, all our protests from the Home. Out,” and arguments and cries were Life apart from the Home? I quickly emitted and resolved, sluntped. It was too much to be leaving us awkwardly trying to taken in all at once. Then I re- plan something of which we had membered. Simon! Oh, poor Si- no knowledge of our own. mon! If he were Seeing clearly “If we are to go,” I said, feel- already —but of course he was. ing a small spurt of excitement in- He was the one who had told the side my shock, "We’ll have to Oldest! No wonder he was terri- make again. Make a tool. No, fied! Simon I said to the Oldest that’s not the w'ord. We have subvocally. Yes answered the Old- tools stiU. Man does with tools. est. Do not communicate tQ the No, it’s a — a machine we’ll have others. He scarcely can hear the to make. Machines do to man. burden now. To have it known We haven’t— been possessed by ma- would multiply it past his bear- chines ing. — completely. Keep his secret ‘Tor generations,”— said David, 1 came back to the awkward “Not since ” he paused to let whirlpool of thoughts around me. our family’s stream of history — —

DELUGE 33

pour through his iniiid. “Since the others. From time to time came Eva-lee’s thrice great grandfa- a sigh or a cry prefacing, “My ther’s time.” Befores knew of the metals.” or “Nevertheless,” said the Old- “Mine of the instruments”— — the est. “We must make ships.” His words were unfamiliar “The in- tongue was hesitant on the long struments of pressure and tem- unused word. “I have been in perature.” communication with the other "Mine,” I discovered— nith a Oldest Ones around the Home. glow— and a sigh ” the final Our Group must make six of putting together of the shells of them.” ships.” “How can we?” asked Neil. “We ‘Tes,” nodded David, “And have no plans. We don’t know also, from my fatlier’s Befores, the such things any more. We have settings of the — the— tire settings forgotten almost all of it. But I that guide the ship.” do know that to break free from “Navigation,” said Neil’s deep the Home would take a pushing voiee. “My Befores knew of the something that all of us together making of the navigation ma- couldn’t supply.” chines yours knew how to set.” “We wiU have the— the fuel,” "And all,” I said, "All of this said the Oldest. “When the time going back to nursery school comes. My Befores knew the fuel. would have been unnecessary if We would not need it if only our we hadn’t rested so comfortably motivers had developed their Gift so long on the achievements of fully, but as they did not our Befores!” I felt the indignant “We must each of us search withdrawal of some of those the Before stream of our lives and about me, but the acquiescence of find the details that we require in most of them. this hour of need. By the Pres- When tire evening ended, each ence, tlie Name and the Power, of us Old Ones carried not only let us remember.” the burdeir of tire doom of tire The evening sped away ahnost Home, but a part of the past that, in silence as each mind opened in the Quiet Place if each home, and became receptive to the flow must, with tire help of the Power, of racial memory that lay with- be probed and probed again, urr- in. All of us partook in a general til way of that stream that stemmed "Until— tire Oldest stood almost from the dawn of the suddenly, clutching the table as Home. In particular, each family though he just realized the enor- had some specialized area of the rrrity of what he was saying. “Un- memory in greater degree than til we have the means of leardng ” " ”

34 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

the Home — before it becomes a among the stars.” My heart gave a band of dust between tlie stars— perverse jump of excitement. “The Home w'ill no longer exist, Simon and Lytba were waiting will be homeless exiles.” up with ’Chell when David and “But the People aw'ay from the I returned. At the sight of our Heme!” ’Chell’s face puckered, faces, Simon slipped into th« close to tears. "How can w’e live bedroom and woke Davie and the anywhere else? We are a part of two crept quietly back into the the Home as much as the Home is room. Simon’s thought reached a part of us. M'e can’t just ampu- out ahead of him. Did he tell? tate—” And mine went out reassuringly. “Father!” Lytha’s voice was a No. And he won’t. little too loud. She said again, In spite of — or perhaps be- "Father, are all of us going to- cause of— the excitement that gether in the same ship?” had been building up in me all “No,” said David. “Each Group evening, I felt suddenly drained by itself.” Lytha relaxed visibly. and weak. I sat down, gropingly, “Our Group is to have six ships,” in a chair and pressed my hands he added. to my face. “You tell them Lytha’s hands tightened. “Who David,” I said, fighting an odd is to go in which ship?” vertigo. “It hasn’t been decided yet,” David shivered and swallowed said David, provoked. “How can hard. “There were no failmm be- you w'orry about a detail like that cause the Home is being broken when tire Home, the Home will up. By next Gathering Day there soon be gone!” will be no Home. It is being de- “It’s important,” said— Lytha, stroyed. We can’t even say why. flushing. “Timmy and I We have forgotten too much and “Oh,” said David. “I’m sorry, there isn’t time to seek out the in- Lytha. I didn’t know. The matter formation now, but long before will have to be decided when the next Gathering Day, we will be time comes.” gone — out.” ’Chell’s breatli caught audibly. It didn’t take long for the resil- “No Home!” she said, her eyes iency of childhood to overcome widening and darkening. “No the shock of the knowledge born Home? Oh, David,— don’t joke. on Gathering Day. Young laugh- Don’t try to scare ter rang as brightly through the “It’s true.” My voice had stead- hills and meadows as ahvays. ied now'. “It has been Seen. We But David and ’Chell clung clos- must build ships and seek asylum er to one another, sharing the — —

DELU(;e 35

heavy burden of leave-taking, as found no other habitable worlds did all the adults of the Home. before the Peace. We have no At times I, too, felt wildly, hope- idea how far we will have to go or fully, that this was all a bad if we shall any of us live to see dream to be awakened from. But another Home. Each Group is to other times I had the feeling that be assigned to a different sector this was an awakening. This was of the sky. On Grossing Day, wc the dawn after a long twilight say goodby— possibly forever a long hvilight of slanting sun to all the other Groups. It may be and relaxing shadows. Other that only one ship will plant the times I felt so detached from the seeds of the People upon a new whole situation that wonder world. It may be that we will aU welled up in me to see the sudden be Called before a new Home is tears, the sudden clutching of found.” familiar things, that had become “Then,” said David. "Why a sort of pattern among us as re- don’t we stay here and take our alization came and went. And Calling with the Home?” then, there were frightening times "Because the Power has said to when I felt weakness flowing into go. We are given time to go back me like a river — a river that to the machines. The Power is washed all the Home away on a swinging the gateway to the stars voiceless wave. I was almost be- open to us. We must take the gift coming more engrossed in the and do what we can with it. We puzzle of me than in the puzzle have no right to deprive our chil- of the dying Home— and I didn’t dren of any of the years they like it. might have left to them.” David and I went often to After David relayed the mes- Meeting, working with the rest of sage to ’CheU, she clenched both the Group on the preliminary her fists tight up against her an- plans for the ships. One night he guished heart and cried, “We leaned across the table to the Old- can’t! Oh, David! We can’t! We est and asked, “How do we know can’t leave the Home for — for how much food will be needed to nowhere! Oh, David!” And she sustain us until we find asylum?” clung to him, wetting his shoul- The Oldest looked steadily der with her tears. back at him. "We don't know,” he “We can do what we must do,” said. "We don’t know that we will he said. “All of the People are ever find asylum.” sharing this sorrow so none of us “Don’t know?” David’s eyes must make the burden any heavier were blank with astonishment. for the others. The children learn "No,” said the Oldest. “We their courage from us, ’Chell. Be — —

36 F.\NT.\SV .\NT) SCIENCE FICTION a good teacher.” He rocked her “But some other way!” ’Chell close-pressed head, his hand pat- cried. “This is so — so drastic and ting her tumbled hair, his trou- cruel!” “All baby birds shiver,” bled eyes seeking— mine. said David, clasping her cold "Mother ” David began bands. “Sprout a pin feather, Eva-lee was for every-day. ’CheU!” “Mother, it seems to me that the Presence is pushing us out of And then the planning ar- the Home deliberately and crum- rived at tlie point where work pling it like an empty eggshell so could begin. The sandal shops we can’t creep back into it. We were empty. The doors were have sprouted too few feathers on closed in the fabric centers and our wings since the Peace. I the ceramic work rooms. The sun- think we’re being pushed off the liglit crept unshadowed again and branch to make us fly. This egg again across the other workshops has been too comfortable.” He and weeds began tentative inva- laughed a little as he held ’Chell sions of the garden plots. away from him and dried her Far out in the surrounding cheeks with the palms of hk hills, those of the People who hands. “I’m afraid I’ve made quite knew how, hovered in the sky, an omelette of my egg analogy, rolling back slowdy by the heavy but can you think of anything re- green cover of the mountainsides, ally new that we have learned to lay bare the metal-rich under- about Creation in our time.” earth. Then the Old Ones, mak- “Well,” I said, searching my ing solemn mass visits from mind, pleased immeasureably to Group to Group, quietly concen- hear my own thoughts on the lips trated above the bared hills and of my son. "No, I can honestly drew forth from the very bones of say I can’t think of one new thing.” the Home, the bright, bubbling “So if you were Called to the streams of metal, drew them forth Presence right now and were until they flowed liquidly down asked. What do you know of My the slopes to the work places Creation?’ all you could say would the launching sites. And the rush be 'I know all that my Befores and the clamor and the noise of knew—my immediate Befores, the hurried multitudes broke the .’ ” that is — I mean, my father— silence of the hills of the Home David (qjened his hands and and sent tremors through all our poured out emptiness. “Oh, Moth- windows — and through our shak- er! What we have forgotten! And en souls. how content we have been with so I often stood at the windows of little!” our house, watching the sky- DELUG F. 37

pointing monsters of metal slow- The Crossing had become a ly coming to form. From afar they new, engrossing game for the had a severe sort of beauty that children. At night, shivering in eased my heart of the hurt their the unseasonable weather, cool, having-to-be caused. But it was but not cold enough to shield, exciting! Oh, it was beautifully they would sit looking up at the exciting! Sometimes I wondered glorj'-frosted sky and pick out the what we thought about and what star they wanted for a new Home, we did before we started all this though they knew that none they

surge out into space. On the days could see would actually be it. that I put in my helping hours on Eve always chose the brightest the lifting into place of the pulsating one in the heavens and strange different parts that had claimed it as hers. Da\'ie chose been fashioned by other Old one that burned steadily but Ones, from memories of the Be- faintly straight up above them. fore, the upsurge of power and But when Lytha was asked, she the feeling of being one part of turned the question aside and I such a gigantic undertaking. I knew that any star with Timmy marveled that we had forgotten would be Home to Lytha. without even realizing it, the Simon usually sat by himself, warmth and strength of working a little withdrawn from the rest, together. Oh, the People are to- his eyes quiet on the brightness gether even more than the leaves overhead. on a tree or the scales on a dolfeo, “What star is yours, Simon?” I but working together? I knew this asked one evening, feeling intru- was my first experience with its sive but knowing the guard he pleasant strength. My lungs had for any words he should not seemed to breathe deeper. My speak. reach was longer, my grasp “None,” he said, his voice stronger. Odd, unfinished feel- heavy with maturity, “No star ings welled up inside me and I for me.” wanted to do. Perhaps this was ‘Tou mean you’ll wait and the itching of my new pin-feath- see?” I asked. ers. And then, sometimes when I “No,” said Simon. “There won’t reached an exultation that almost be one for me.” lifted me off my feet, would come My heart sank. “Simon, you the weakness, the sagging, the haven’t been Called, have you?” sudden desire for tears and with- "No,” said Simon. "Not yet. drawal. I worried, a little, that I will see a new Home, but I will there might come a time when I be Called from its sky.”

wouldn’t be able to conceal it. “Oh, Simon,” I cried softly. ”

38 F.\NTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

trying to find a comfcfft for him. “What will we need in the “How wonderful to be able to new Home, Eva-lee?” she asked See a new Home!” despairingly. "Not much else left to See," ‘We have no way of knowing," said Simon. “Not that has words.” I said. “We have no idea of what And I saw a flare of Otherside kind of Home we’ll find.” If any, touch his eyes. “But Gramma, if any, if any, our unspoken you should see the Home when thoughts throbbed together. the last moment comes! That’s ‘Tve been thinking about that,” one of the things I have no words said ’Chell. “What will it be for.” like? Will we be able to lift, or “But we will have a new Home, will we be bound to the ground? then,” I said, going dizzily back Will we be able to live as we do to a subject I hoped I could now or will we have to go back to comprehend. “You said — machines and the kind of times “I can’t See beyond my Call- that went with our machines? ing,” said Simon. “I will see a Will we still be one People or be new Home. I will be Called from separated mind and soul?” Her its strange sky. I can’t See what hands clenched on a bright is for the People there. Maybe sweater and a tear slid down her they’ll aU be Called with me. cheek. “Oh, Eva-lee, maybe we For me there’s flame and bright- won’t even be able to feel the ness and pain — then the Pres- Presence there!” ence. That’s all I —know. “You know better than that!” I “But, Gramma ” his voice chided. “The Presence is with us had returned to that of a normal always, even if we have to go to ten-year-old, "Lytha’s feeling aw- the ends of the Universe. Since ful bad. Help her." we can’t know now what the new Home will be like, let’s not waste The children were laughing our tears on it.” I shook out a and frolicking in the thin blanket gaily-patterned quilted skirt, of snow that whitened the hills “Who knows?” I laughed, “Maybe and meadows, their clear, un- it will be a water world and we’ll troubled laughter echoing become fish. Or a fire world and through the windows to me and we the flames!” ’Chell who, with close-pressed “We can’t adjust quite that lips, were oi)ening the winter much!” protested ’CheU, smiling chests that had been closed so short moistly as she dried her face on a time ago. ’Chell fingered the bead the sweater. “But it is a comfort stitching on the toes of one little to know we can change some to ankle-high boot. match our environment.” ” ”

DELUGE 39

I reached for another skirt roar and many loud lamentations and paused, hand outstretched. when Eve found out that she could “ ’Chell,” I said, taken by a sud- not take all of her play-People den idea. ‘What if the new Home with her, and, when confronted is already inhabited? What if life by the necessity of making a is already there!” choice— one, single one of her “Why then, so much' the bet- play-People, she threw them all ter,” said ’Chell.— “Friends, help, in a tiunbled heap in the comer places to live of her room, shrieking that she “The\ might not accept us,” I would take none at all. A sharp said. smack of David’s hand on her “But refugees —homeless!” bare thighs for her tantrum, and a protested ’thell. “If— any in need couple of enveloping hugs for came to the Home her comfort and she sniffed up her “Even if they were different?” tears and straightened out her “In the Presence, all are the play-People into a staggering, same,” said ’Chell. tumbling row across the floor. It “But remember,” my knuckles took her three days to make her whitened on the skirt. “Only re- final selection. She chose the one member far enough back and you she had named the Listener. will find the Days of Difference “She’s not a him and he’s not a before the Peace.” her,” she had explained. “This And ’Chell remembered. She play-People is to listen.” turned her stricken face to me. “To what?” teased Davie. "You mean there might be no "To anything I have to tell and welcome for us if we do find a can’t tell anyone,” said Eve with new Home?” great dignity. “You don’t even “If we could treat our own have to verb’lize to Listener. All that way, how might others treat you have to do is to touch and strangers?” I asked, shaking out Listener knows what you feel and the scarlet skirt. “But, please the it tells you why it doesn’t feel

Power, it will not be so. We can good and the bad goes away." only pray.” “Well, ask the Listener how to It turned out that we had little make the bad grammar go away,” need to worry about what kind of laughed Davie. ‘Tou’ve got your clotliing or anything else to take sentences all mixed up.” with us. We would have to go “Listener knows what I mean practically possessionless — there and so do you!” retorted Eve. was room for only the irreducible So when Eve made her choice minimum of personal effects. and stood hugging Listener and There was considerable of an up- looking with big solemn eyes at —

40 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the rest of her play-People, Davie “Oh, they’ll be set on fire and suggested casually, "Why don’t go up in a blaze of glory,” said you go bury the rest of them? Davie. They’re the same as Called now “A blaze of glor}'!” Eve drew a and we don’t leave cast-asides long happy sigh. "In a blaze of around.” glory! Inna blaza glory! Oh, And from then until the last Davie! I’d like to see it! Can I, day, Eve was happy burying and Davie? Can I?” digging up her play-People, al- “Silly toolal" said Davie. "If ways finding better, more advan- you were here to see it, you’d go tageous, or prettier places to make up in a blaze of glory, too!” And her miniature casting-place. he lifted up from the koomatka Lytha sought me out one eve- bushes, the time for his chores ning as I leaned over the stone with the animals hot on his heels. wall around the feather-pen, lis- “Inna blaza glory! Inna blaza tening to the go-to-bed contented glory!” sang Eve happily, “All duckings and cooings. She the play-People inna blaza glory!” leaned with me on the rough grey Her voice faded to a tuneless hum stones and, snapping an irrides- as she left, too. cent feather to her hand, “Gramma,” said Lytha, “Is it smoothed her fingers back and really true?” forth along it wordlessly. We “Is what really true?” I asked. both listened idly to Eve and “That the Home won’t be any Davie. We could hear them talk- more and that we will be gone.” ing together somewhere in the “Why yes, Lytha, why do you depths of the koomatka bushes doubt it?” beyond the feather-pen. “Because —because —” she ges- "What’s going to happen to the tured with the feather at the wall. Home after we’re gone?” asked “Look, it’s all so solid — the stones Eve idly. set each to the other so solidly "Oh, it’s going to shake and so— so always-looking. How can crack wide open and fire and lava it all come apart?” will come out and everything will “You know from your first con- fall apart and burn- up,” said sciousness that nothing This-side Davie, no more emotionally than is forever,” I said. “Nothing at all Eve. except Love. And even that gets "Ooo!” said Eve, caught in the so tangled up in the things of imagination, "Then what will This-side— that when your love is happen to my play-People? Won’t Called ” The memory of Thann they be all right under here? No was a heavy burning inside me one can see them.” “Oh, Lytha! To look into the face —”

DELUGE 41

of your love and know that Some- “A candle lighted from the thing has come apart and that sun,” I said. never again This-side will you “But the candle will go out!” find him whole!” she cried. “Oh, Gramma! The And then I knew I had said candle will go out in the winds the wrong thing. I saw Lytha’s of the Crossing!” She turned her too-young eyes looking in dilated face from me and whispered, horror at the sight of her love “Especially if it never quite got her not-quite-yet love, being lighted.” pulled apart by this same what- “There are other candles,” I ever that was pulling the Home murmured, knowing how like a apart. I turned the subject. he it must sound to her. "I want to go to the Lake for a “But never the same!” She goodby,” I said. “Would you like snatched herself away from my to go with me?” side. “It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair!” “No, thank you. Gramma.” and she streaked away across the Hers was a docile, little girl voice frost-scorched meadow. —oh surely much too young to be And as she left, I caught a de- troubled about loves as 3'et! “We lightful, laughing picture of tw'o Teeners are going to watch the youngsters racing across a little new metal-melting across the lake, reeling and spinning as the hills. It’s fascinating. I’d like to waves under their feet fifted and be able to do things like tliat.”— swirled, wrapping white lace “You can —you could have around their slender brown an- I said, “If we had trained our kles. Everything was blue and youth as we should have.” silver and laughter and fun. I

“Maybe I’ll learn,” said Lytha, was caught up in the wonder and

her eyes intent on the feather. pleasure until I suddenly realized

She sighed deeply and dissolved that it wasn’t my memory at all. the feather into a faint puif of Thann and I had another little blue smoke. “Maybe I’ll learn.” lake we loved more. I had seen And I knew her mind was not on someone else’s Happy Place that metal-melting. would dissolve like mine wltii the She turned away and then Home. Poor Lytha. back again. “Gramma, The Love —” she stopped. I could feel her The crooked sun was melting groping for words. “The Love is the latest snow the day all of us forever, isn’t it.” Old ones met beside the towering “Yes,” I said. shells of the ships. Each Old One “Love This-side is part of The was wrapped against the chdly Love, isn’t it?” wind. No personal shields today. 42 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

The need for power was greater thought I had shaped for them. for the task ahead than for com- For a long time there was only fort. Above us, the huge bright the thin fluting of the cold wind curved squares of metal, clasped past the point of the ship and each to each with the old join- then the whole shell of metal ings, composed the shining quivered and dulled and became length of each ship. Almost I fluid. For the span of three heart- could have cried to see the scarred beats it remained so and then earth beneath them — the tram- it hardened again, complete, pledness that would never green smooth, seamless, one cohesive again, the scars that would never whole from tip to base, broken heal. I blinked up the brightness only by the round ports at inter- of the nearest ship, up to the vals along its length. milky sky, and blinked away In succession the other five from its strangeness. ships were made whole, but the “The time is short,” said the intervals betiveen the ships grew Oldest. “A week.” longer and greyer as the strength “A week.” The sigh went drained from us, and, before we through the group. were finished, the sun had gone “Tonight the ship loads must behind a cloud and we were all be decided upon. Tomorrow the shadows leaning above shadows, inside machines must be finished. fluttering like shadows. The next day, the fuel.” The Old- The weakness caught me as. we est shivered and wrapped himself finished the last one. David re- in his scarlet mantle. “The fuel ceived me as I drifted down, that we put so completely out of helpless and folded on myself. our minds after the Peace. It’s He laid me on the brittle grass potential for evil was more than and sat panting beside me, his its service to us. But it is there. head drooping. I lay as though I

It is still there.” He shivered had become fluid and knew that again and turned to me. something more than the fatigue “Tell us again,” he said. “We of the task we had just finished must complete the shells.” And I had drained me. “But I have to be told them again, without words, strong!” I said desperately, know- only with the shaping of thought ing weakness had no destiny to thought. Then the company of among the stars. I stared up at Old Ones lifted slowly above the the grey sky while a tear drew a first ship, clasping hands in a cold finger from the corner of my circle like a group of dancing eye to my ear. children and, leaning forward “We’re just not used to using into the circle, thought the the Power,” said David softly. DELUGE 43

“I know, I know,” I said, “And besides,” said ’Ofiell, tak- knowing that he did not know. I ing Lytha’s hands. “It isn’t as closed my eyes and felt the whis- though you and Timmy were per of falling snow upon my face, loves. You have only started two- each palm-sized flake melting ing. Oh, Lytha, it was such a into a tear. short time ago that you had your Happy Day. Don’t rush so into Lytha stared from me to David, growing up!” her eyes wide and incredulous. “And if I told you Timmy is “But you knew, Father! I told my love!” cried Lytha. you! I told you Gathering “Can you tell us so in truth, Night!” Lytha?” said ’Chell, “And say that “I’m sorry, Lytha,” said David. Timmy feels that you are his

“There was no other way to do it. love?” Ships fell by lot and Timmy’s Lytha’s eyes dropped. “Not for family and ours will be in differ- sure,”— she whispered. “But in ent ships.” time ” She threw back her head “Then let me go to his ship or impetuously, light swirling across let him come to mine!" she cried, her dark hair. “It isn’t fair! We her cheeks flushing and paling. haven’t had time!” she cried. “Famflies must remain togeth- “Why did all this have to happen er,” I said, my heart breaking for now? Why not later? Or sooner?” her. “Each ship leaves the Home she faltered, “Before we started with the assumption that it is twoing! If we have to part now, alone. If you went in the other we might never know— or live ship, we might never all be to- our lives without —a love because gether again.” he is really — I am ” She turned “But Timmy and I —we might and ran from the room, her face someday be a family! We might hidden. —” Lytha’s voice broke. She I sighed and eased myself up pressed the backs of her hands from her chair. “I’m old, David,” against her cheeks and paused. I said. “I ache with age. Things 'ITien she went on quietly. "I hke this weary me beyond any would go with Timmy, even so.” resting.” ’Chell and David exchanged distressed glances. “There’s not It was sometime after midnight room for even one of you to the next night that I felt Neil change your place. The loads are call to me. The urgency of his computed, the arrangements fin- call hurried me into my robe and ished,” I said, feeling as though I out of the door, quietly, not to were slapping Lytha. rouse the house. ” —

44 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

"Eva-lee.” His greeting hands could remotely —well, you know on my shoulders were cold both of them were upset about through my robe and the unfamil- being in different ships and Tim- iar chilly wind whipped my hems my— well, he got all worked up around my bare ankes. "Is Lytha and said he didn’t believe any- home?” thing was going to happen to the "Lytha?” The unexpectedness Home, that it was only a late of the question snatched the last Spring and he thought we were web of sleepiness out of my mind. silly to go rushing off into Space ff “Of course. Why?” “I don’t think she is,” said “Lytha’s words Timmyized,” I Neil. "Timmy’s gone with all our said. “We’ve got to find them.” camping gear and I think she’s “Carla’s frantic.” Neil shuffled gone with him.” his feet and put his hands into My mind flashed back into the his pockets, hunching his shoul- house. Questing. Before my hur- ders as the wind freshened. “If ried feet could get there, I knew only we had some idea. If we Lytha was gone. But I had to don’t find them tonight we’ll have touch the undented pillow and to alert the Group tomorrow. lift the smooth spread before I Timmy’d —never live down the hu- could convince myself. Back in miliation — the garden that flickered black “I know ‘Touch a teener and gold as swollen clouds raced touch a tender spot.’ ” I quoted across the distorted full moon, absently, my mind chewing on Neil and I exchanged concerned something long forgotten or hard- looks. ly noticed. “Clearance,” I mur- "Where could they have gone?” mured. And Neil closed his he asked. “Poor kids. I’ve already mouth on whatever he was going Quested the whole neighborhood to say as I waited patiently for the and I sent Rosh up to the hiU- vague drifting and isolated flash- place to get something—he es in my mind to reproduce the thought. He brought it back but thought I sought. said nothing about the kids.” — Like white lace around their I could see the tightening of bare brown ankles — the muscles in his jaws as he tilted "I have it,” I said. “At least I his chin in the old familiar way, have an idea. Go teU Carla. I’ve peering at me in the moonlight. gone for them. Tell her not to “Did Timmy say anything to worry.” you about—about anything?” I “Blessings,” said Neil, his stumbled. hands quick and heavy on my “Nothing— the only thing that shoulders. “You and Thann have —”

DELUGE 45 always been our cloak against —the were mudi too turbulant for wind, our hand up the hill walking or dancing or even for And he was gone towards Tangle- daring. I landed on a pale strip meadows and Carla. of sand at its edge and shivered You and Thann—you and as a wave dissolved the sand un- Thann. I was lifting through the der my feet into a shaken quiver darkness, my personal shield acti- and then withdrew to let it solid- vated against the acceleration of ify again. my going. Even Neil forgets some- “Lytha!” I called softly. Quest- times that Thann is gone on ing ahead of my words. TLytha!” ahead, I thought, my heart lifting There was no response in the to the memory of TTiann’s alive- windfilled darkness. I hfted to ness. And suddenly the night was the next pale crescent of sand, full of Thann— of Thann and me feeling like a driven cloud my- —laughing in the skies, climbing self. “Lytha! Lytha!” Calling on the hiUs, dreaming in the moon- the family band so it would be light. Pouring With Carla and perceptible to her alone and Neil. Twoing after Gatliering Timmy wouldn’t have to know Day. The bitter-sweet memories until she told him. Lytha!” came so fast that I almost crashed “Gramma!” Astonishment had into the piney sighings of a hill- squeezed out the answer. “Gram- side. I lifted above it barely in ma!" The indignation was twice time. One treetop drew its upper- as heavy to make up for the first most twig across the curling of involuntary response. the bare sole of my foot. “May I come to you?^ I asked, Maybe Timmy’s right! I taking refuge from my own emo- thouglit suddenly. Maybe Simon tion in ritual questions that would and the Oldest are all wrong. leave Lytlia at least the shreds (rf How can I possibly leave the her pride. There was no immedi- Home with Thann still here ate reply. “May I come to you?” I waiting. Then I shook myself, repeated. quite literally, summersaulting “You may come.” Her thoughts briskly in mid-air. Foohsh were remote and cold as she guid- thou^ts, trying to cram Thann ed me in to the curve erf hillside back into the limitations of an and beach. esdstance he had out-grown! She and 'Immy were snug and I slanted down into the cup of secure and very unhappily rest- the hills towards the tiny lake I less in the small camp cubical. had recognized from Lytha’s They had even found some Glow- thought This troubled night it ers somewhere. Most of them had had no glitter or gleam. Its waves died of the lack of summer, but — ”

46 F.^NT.\SY AND SCIENCE FICTION this small cluster clung with their “I respect your belief,” I said fragile-looking legs to the roof of formally, “But fear you have in- the cubical and shed a warm sufl&cient evidence to support it.” golden light over the small area. “Even so,” her voice was just My heart contracted with pity short of a sob. “Even so, however— and my eyes stung a little as I short, we will have it together saw how like a child’s playhouse ‘Tes, without your mothers or they had set up the cubical, com- fathers or any of us,” I said plac- plete with the two sleeping mats idly, “And then finally, soon, carefully the cubical’s small without the Home. Still it has its width apart with a curtain hiding points. It isn’t given to everyone them from each other. to be —in — at the death of a They had risen ceremoniously world. It’s a shame that you’ll as I entered, their faces carefully have no one to tell it to. 'That’s respectful to an Old One— no the best part of anything, you Gramma-look in the face of know, telling it — sharing it.” either. I folded up on the floor Lytha’s face crumpled and she and they sat again, their hands turned it away from me. clasping each other for comfort. "And if the Home doesn't die,” "There is scarcely time left for I went on. “That will truly be a an outing,’’ I said casually, hold- joke on us. We won’t even get to ing up one finger to the Glowers. laugh about it because we won’t One loosed itself and glided down be able to come back, being so to claps its wiry feet around my many days gone, not knowing. So finger. Its glov^dng paled and you will have the whole Home to flared and hid any of our betray- yourself. Just think! A w'hole ing expressions. Under my idle Home! A new world— to begin all talk I could feel the cry of the ever again — alone ” I saw the two youngsters —wanting some two kids’ hands convulse together way in honor to get out of this and Timmy’s throat w'orked pain- impasse. Could I find the way or fully. So did mine. I knew the would they stubbornly have to aching of having to start a new “We have our lives before us.” world over— alone. After Thann Timmy’s voice was carefully ex- was Called. “But such space! An pressionless. emptiness from horizon to hori- "A brief span if it’s to be on the zon — from pole to pole — from Home,” 1 said. “We must be out you two! Nobody else anywhere before the week ends.” — anywhere. If the Home doesn’t “We do not choose to believe die—” that.” Lytha's voice trembled a Ly'tha’s slender shoulders were little. shaking now, and they both — ”

DELUGE 47

turned their suddenly so-young turns out that you do not find it faces to me. I nearly staggered tc^ether, you’ll never forget these under the avalanche of their first magical steps you have taken crying-out— all without a word. together towards your own true They poured out all their longing loves.” and uncertainty and protest and I let laughter into my voice. rebellion. Only the young could “Things change! Remember, build up such a burden and have Lytha, it wasn’t so long ago that the strength to bear it. Finally Timmy was a ——if you’ll pardon Timmy came to words. the expression ‘gangle-legged, “We only want a chance. Is clumsy poodah that you’d rather that too much to ask? Why should be caught dead than ganging this happen, now, to us?” with, let alone twoing’.” “Who are we,” I asked sternly, “And he was, too!” Lytha's

"To presume to ask why of the voice had a hiccough in it, but a Power? For all our lives we have half smile, too. been taking happiness and com- “You were no vision of dehght, fort and delight and never asking yourself,” said Timmy, “I never why, but now that sorrow and saw such stringy hair — separation, pain and discomfort “It was supposed to look like are coming to us from the same that—” Power, we are crying why. We Their wrangling was a breath have taken unthinkingly all that of fresh air after the unnatural, has been given to us unasked, but uncomfortable emotional binge now that we must take sorrow for they had been on. a while, you want to refuse to “It’s quite possible— that you take, like silly babies whose milk two might change “I stopped is cold!” abrupdy. “Wait!” I said. “Listen!" I caught a wave of desolation “To what?” Lytha’s face was and lostness from the two and puzzled. How could I teU her I hurried on. “But don’t think the heard Simon crying, “Gramma! Power has forgotten you. You are Gramma!” Simon at home, in as completely enwrapped now as bed, miles and miles you ever were. Can’t you trust “Out, quick!” I scrambled up your love —or your possible love from the floor. “Oh, hurry!” Panic to the Power that suggested love was welling up inside me. The to you in the first place? I prom- two snatched up their small per- ise you, I promise you, that no sonal bundles as I pushed them, matter where you go, together or bewildered and protesting ahead apart if the Power leaves you life, of me out into the inky blackness you will find love. And even if it of the violent night. For a long, —

48 F.‘\NTASY AN'D SCIENCE FICTION

terrified moment I stood peering a pool of rain no larger than my up into the darkness, trying to hand in a lake bottom. see, trying to hear, trying to in- "Oh, poor Home,” whispered terpret! Then I screamed, “Lift! Lytha, “Poor hurting Home! It’s Lift!” and, snatching at them dying!” And then, on the family both, I launched us upward, away band, Lytha whispered to me from tlie edge of the lake. The Timmy’s my love, for sure, Gram- clouds snatched back from the ma and I am his, but we're will- moon and its light poured down ing to let the Power hold our love onto the convulsed lake. There for us, until your promise is kept. was a crack like the loudest of I gathered the two to me and I thunder— a grinding, twisting guess we all wept a little, but we sound — the roar and surge of had no words to exchange, no mighty waters and the lake-bed platitudes, only the promise, the below us broke cleanly from one acquiescence, the trust —and the hill to another, pulling itself sorrow. apart and tilting to pour all its We w'ent home. Neil met us moon-bright waters do\vn into the just beyond our feather-pen and darkness of the gigantic split in received Timmy with a quiet the earth. And the moon was thankfulness and they went home glittering only on the shining together. Lytha and I went first mud left behind in the lake bot- into our household's Quiet Place tom. With a frantic speed that and then to our patient beds. seemed so slow I enveloped the children and shot with them as I stood with the other Old Ones far up and away as I could before high on the eliff above the narrow' the ear-sphtting roar of returning valley, staring down with them at steam threw us even farther. We the raw heap of stones and earth reeled drunkenly away, and away, that scarred the smooth valley until we stumbled across the top floor. All eyes were intent on the of a hill. We clung to each other excavation and every mind so in terror as the mighty plume of much with the Oldest as he toiled steam rose and rose and split the out of sight, that our concentra- clouds and still rose, rolling tions W'ere almost visible flames white and awesome. Then, as above each head. casually as a shutting door, the I heard myself gasp with the lake-bed tilted back and closed others as the Oldest slowly itself. In the silence that fol- emerged, his clumsy heavy shield- lowed, I fancied I could hear the ing hampering his lifting. The hot rain beginning to fall to fill brisk mountain breeze whined as the emptiness of the lake again it whipped past suddenly activat- DELUGE 49 ed personal shields as we reacted while. Everything about the automatically to possible danger Home was suddenly so dear that even though our shields were tis- it seemed a delirious dream that sue paper to tornadoes against death was less than a week away this unseen death should it be for it. Maybe it was only some loosed. The Oldest stepped back pre-adolescent, unpattemed be- from the hole until the sheer rock havior — . But one look at Simon face stopped him. Slowly a stir- convinced me. His eyes were ach- ring began in the shadowy depths ing with things he had had to See. and then the heavy square that His face was hard under the soft shielded the thumb-sized block contours of childhood and his within, lifted into the light. It hands trembled as he clasped trembled and turned and set itself them. I hugged him with my heart into the heavy metal box prepared and he smiled a thank you and for it. The lid clicked shut. By relaxed a little. the time six boxes were filled, I ’Chell and I set the house to felt the old — or rather, the pain- rights and filled the vases with fully new—weariness seize me fresh water and scarlet leaves be- and I clung to David’s arm. He cause there were no flowers. David patted my hand, but his eyes were opened the corral gate and vride with dreaming and I forced watched the beasts walk slowly myself upright. “I don’t like me out into the tarnished meadows. any more,” I thought. “Why do I He threw wide the door of the things like this? Where has my feather-pen and watched the ruf- enthusiasm and vimnder— gone? I fle of feathers, the inquiring peer- am truly old and yet ” I wiped ing, the hesitant walk into free- the cold beads of sweat from my dom. He smiled as the master of upper lip and, lifting with the the pen strutted vocally before others, hovered over the canyon, the flock. ’Then Eve gathered up preparatory to conveying the six the four eggs that lay rosy and boxes to the six shells of ships new in the nests and carried them that they were to sting into life. into the house to put them in the green egg dish. It was the last day. The sun The family stood quietly to- was shining with a brilliance it gether. “Go say goodby,” said hadn't known in weeks. The David. “Each of you say goodby winds that wandered down from to the Home.” the hills were warm and sweet. And everyone went, each by The earth beneath us that had so himself, to his favorite spot. Even recently learned to tremble and Eve burrowed herself out of sight shift, was quietly solid for a small in the Kommatka bush where the — .

50 FANT.VSY .\ND SCIENCE FICTION

leaves locked above her head and truly we were dying to this world made a tiny Eve-sized green twi- The whole house, the whole of the light. I could hear her soft croon, Home was a Quiet Place today and “Inna bkza glory, play-People! each of us without words laid the Inna blaza glory!” anguishing of this day of parting I sighed to see Lytha’s straight- before the Presence and received as-an-arrow flight toward Tim- comfort and strengtli. my’s home. Already Timmy was Then each of us took up his coming. I turned away with a share of personal belongings and pang. Supposing even after the was ready to go. We left the lake they— no, I comforted my- house, the music reaching after self. They trust the Power us as we went. I felt a part of me How could I go to any one place die when we could no longer hear I wondered, standing by the win- the melody. dow of my room. All of the Home We joined the neighboring was too dear to leave. When I families on the path to the ships went I would truly be leaving and there were murmurs and ges- Thann — all the paths he walked tures and even an occasional ex- with me, the grass tliat bent to his cited laugh. No one seemed to step, the trees that shaded him in want to lift. Our feet savored summer, the very ground that every step of this last w alk on the held his cast-aside. I slid to my Home. No one lifted, that is, ex- knees and pressed my cheek cept Eve, who was still intrigued against the side of the window by her new' accomplishment. Her frame. “Thann, Thann!” I whis- short little hops amused everyone pered. “Be with me. Go with me and, by the time she had picked since I must go. Be my strength!” herself out of the dust three times And clasping my hands tiglit, I and had been disentangled from pressed my thumbs hard against the branches of overhanging trees my crying mouth. twice and finally firmly set in We all gathered again, solemn jidace on David’s shoulder, tliere and tear-stained. Lytha was still were smiles and tender laughter frowning and swallowing to hold and the road lightened even back her sobs. Simon looked at though clouds w'cre banking her, his eyes big and golden, but again. he said nothing and turned away. I stood at the foot of the long ’Chell left the room quietly and, lift to the door of the ship and before she returned, the soft stared upward. People brushing sound of music swelled from the past me were only w'hisperings walls. We all made the Sign and and passing shadows. prayed the Parting prayers, for “How can they?” I thought a —

DELUGE 51 despairingly out of the surge of have to be when we have to be.” weakness that left me clinging to It was as I stood there in the the wall. “How can they do it? control room that I left the Home. Leaving the Home so casually!” I felt it fade away and become Then a warm hand crept into as faint as a dream. I said goodby mine and 1 looked down into to it so completely that it startled Simon’s eyes. "Come on, Gram- me to catch a glimpse of a moun- ma,” he —said. “It’ll be all right.” tain top through one of the ports “I — I ” I looked around me as we hurried back to our spaces. helplessly, then, kneeling swiftly, Suddenly my heart was li^t and I took up a handful of dirt — lifting, so much so diat my feet handful of the Home— and, hold- didn’t even touch the floor. Oh, ing it tightly, I lifted up the long how wonderful! What adventures slant with Simon. ahead! I felt as diough I were Inside the ship we put our spiraling up into a bright Glory things away in their allotted that outshone the sun spaces and Simon tugged me out Then, as suddenly, came the into the corridor and into a room weakness. My very bones dis- banked with dials and switches solved in me and collapsed me and all the vast array of incom- down on my couch. Darkness prehensibles that we bad all rolled across me and breathing called into being for this terrible was a task that took all my weak- moment. No one was in the room ness to keep going. I felt vaguely except the two of us. Simon the tightening of the restraining walked briskly to a chair in front straps around me and the clasp of of a panel and sat down. Simon’s hand around my clendied “Its all set,” he said, “For the fist. sector of the sky they gave us, but “Half an hour,” the Oldest it’s wrong.” Before I could stop murmured. him, his hands moved over “Half an hour,” the People the panels, shifting, adjusting, echoed, amplifying the murmur. changing. I felt myself slipping into the “Oh, Simon!” I whispered, corporate band of communica- “You mustn’t!” tion, feeling with the rest of the “I must,” said Simon. “Now Group the incredible length and it’s set for the sky I See.” heartbreaking shortness of the “But they’ll notice and change time. them all back,” I trembled. Then I lost the world again. “No,” said Simon. “It’s such a I was encased in blackness. I was small change that they won’t no- suspended, waiting, hardly even, tice it. And we will be where we wondering. — "

52 r.\NT.\SY AND SCIENCE FICTION

And then it came—The Call. voice until your protnise is kept. How unmistakable! I was All my fear dissolved. All my Called back into the Presence! panic and fright blazed up sud- My hours were totaled. It was all denly in a repeat of the Call. finished. This-side was a preoc- “Listen!” I cried, my voice high cupation that concerned me no and excited, my heart surging longer. My face must have lighted joyously, “Listen!” as Thann’s had. All the struggle, “Oh, David! Oh, ’Chell! I’ve all the sorrow, all the separation been Called! Don’t you bear it? — finished. Now would come the Don’t you hear it!" three or four days during which “Oh, Mother, no! No! You I must prepare, dispose of my pos- must be mistaken!” David loosed sessions, say my goodbys —Good- himself and bent over me. bys? I struggled up against the “No,” whispered ’Chell. “I feel restraining straps. But we were it. She is Called.” leaving! In less than half an hour “Now I can stay," I said, fum- I would have no quiet, cool bed bling at the straps. "Help me to lay me down upon when I left Da\id, Help me.” my body, no fragrant grass to have "But you’re not summoned pulled up over my cast-aside, no right now!” cried David. "Father solemn sweet remembrance by my loiew four days before he was re- family in the next Festival for ceix'ed into tlie Presence. We those Called during the year! can’t leave you alone in a doomed, Simon I called subvocally. You empty world!” know! I cried. Wiiat shall I do? "An empty world.*" I stood up I See you staying. His answer quicldy, holding to David to came placidly. steady myself. “Oh, David! A Staying? Oh how quickly I nnrld full of all dearness and caught the picture! How quickly nearness and remembering! And my own words came back to me, doomed? It will be a week yet. I coldly white against the darkness will be received before then. Let of my confusion. Such space and me out! Oh, let me out!” emptiness from horizon to hori- “Stay with us. Mother!” cried zon, from pole to pole, from sky- David, taking both my hands in top to ground. And only me. No- his. “We need you. We can’t let body else anywhere, anywhere! you go. All the tumult and up- Stay here all alone? I asked heaval that’s to start so soon for Simon. But he wasn’t Seeing me the Home— any more. Already I was alone. I "How do we know what tumult felt the frightened tears start and and upheaval you wiU be going then I heard Lytha's trusting through in the Crossing?” I asked. . —

DELUf.E 53

“But beyond whatever comes Hurry, hurry, hurry, whispered there’s a chance of a new life my feet as I ran. Hurry hurry waiting for you. But for me— hurry whispered the wind as I ^Vhat of four days from now? lifted away from the towering What would you do with my ships. Nora noiv now whispered cast-aside? What could you do my heart as I turned back from a but push it out into the black safe distance my skirts whipped nothingness. Let it be with the by the rising wind, my hair lash- Home. Let it at least become dust ing across my face. among familiar dust!” I felt as The six slender ships pointing excited as a Teener. "Oh, David! at the sky were like silver needles To be with Thann again!” against the rolling black clouds. I turned to Lytha and quickly Suddenly there were only five unfastened her belt. “There’ll be then four — then three. Before I room for one more in this ship,” could blink the tears from my I said. eyes, the rest were gone, and the For a long moment, we looked ground where they had stood into each other’s eyes and then, flowed back on itself and crackled almost swifter than thought, Ly- with cooling. tha was up and running for the big door. My thoughts went The fingers of the music drew ahead of her and before Lytha’s me back into the house. I feet lifted out into the open air, breathed deeply of the dear fa- all the Old Ones in the ship knew miliar odors. I straightened a what had happened and their branch of the scarlet leaves that thoughts went out. Before Lytha had slipped awry in the blue vase. was halfway up the little hills I steadied myself against a sud- that separated ship from ship, den shifting under my feet and Timmy surged into sight and my shield activated as hail spat- gathered her close as they swung tered briefly through the window. back around towards our ship. I looked out, filled with a great Minutes ran out of the half peace, to the swell of brovming hour like icy beads from a broken hills, to the upward reach of string, but finally I was slanting snow-whitened mountains, to the down from tlie ship, my cheeks brilliant huddled clumps of trees wet with my own tears and those sowing their leaves on the Ict of my family. Clearly above the wind. “My Home!” I whispered, clang of the closing door I heard folding my heart around it all, Simon’s call, Goodby, Gramma! knowing what my terror and lost- I told you it'd he all right. See— ness would have been had I you — soon! stayed behind without the CalL —

54 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

WiA a sigji, I went out to the “We’re all fine, Gramma, and kitchen and counted the four I just Saw Eve vidth two chil- rosy eggs in the green dish. I fin- dren of her own, so they vnU gered the stove into flame and, make it to a new Home.” lifting one of the eggs, cracked it “Oh, Simon! I’m so glad you briskly against the pan. told me!” I clutched my bed as it That night there were no stars, rocked and tivisted. I heard but the heavy rolls of clouds were stones falling from the garden Ughted with fitful lightnings and wall, then one wall of my room somewhere far over the horizon dissolved into dust that glowed the mtfiten heart of a mountain redly before it settled. range was crimson and orange “Things are a little untidy against the night. I lay on my bed here,” I said. “I must get out an- letting the weakness wash over other blanket. It's a little drafty, me, a tide that would soon bear too.” me away. The soul is a lonely “You’ll be aU right. Gramma." voyager at any time, but the Simon’s thought came warmly. knowledge that I was the last per- “Wdi you wait for me when you son in a dying world was like a get Otherside?” weight crushing me. I was strug- “If I can,” I promised. ^ing against dbe feeling when I “Good night. Gramma,” said caught a clear, distinct call Simon. “Gramma!” “Good night, Simon.” I cradled "Simon!” My lips moved to his my face on my dusty pillow. name. “Good night.” THE LIGHT AND THE SADNESS (Jn gratitude to Zenna Henderson for the "People"’)

And the sadness that is light blistered and bared her and she was alone. From the zone of the sun a voice came like honey thick and insistent into her

loneliness and its honeycomb. Bathed in that sweet food she rose

and entered the light till her skin lay smooth and she was clothed.

And the light that is sadness burned out in die sun. —Jeannette Nichols —

Those of us who have not yet been paralyzed by the 21" tube in our living rooms are prone to occasional melancholia about many

things it has replaced—among them the “B film.” Of course, we

can still flip a dial and catch an oldie, but it’s a little like exhuming your old mongrel pup. Below is a new-fashioned ghost story con-

cerning a most unusual B film. Why don’t you yell at your neigh- bor to turn the set down and dig in.—E.L.F.

FAED-OUT

by Avram Davidson

In an old brown house on strength of the ancient and time- Cheromoya in the foothills of the tested axiom. If Life Hands You canyon-cut range which parts A Lemon, Make Lemonade, Phil The Valley from L.A. —in short, had sought and obtained work as in Hollywood— in between a a moving picture and theatrical Chiropractic College which had villain. no charter and the premises of Success on the peripatetic an unfrocked rabbi who now stage had been moderate and full practiced as a marriage counsel- of interest, but when, in 1925, lor, lived Philip Famel, world- Philip Farnel first saw Holly- famed star of stage and screen. wood, when he observed the P. Farnel was a lovable and G-d- great studios looming like cathe- fearing little man who was so far drals amid the orange-groves, from chicanery in any form that when he looked upon the palaces he even mailed back to the Gen- of the great stars gleaming ala- eral Telephone System the occa- baster and graced with cypresses, sional dimes in extra change roses, and bougainvillea, as the which came his way in coin-box- villas and latifundia of ancient es. Nature, however, had en- Rome— seeing the great people dowed him with a ratty and evil themselves riding by like the face surmounted by a bulging wind in their great custom-made skull sparsely adorned with hair cars, red, white, mauve, cerise, and divided by a mouthful of ir- pearl grey and shocking pink regular and jutting teeth. On the he said a farewell to the foot-

55 56 FANT.\SY AND SCIENCE FICTION lights and the one-night stands the wall, the doom of the B pic- and even the occasional parts in ture was sealed; in neither spec- New York successes. He turned tacles nor horror films was there up at the office of a reputable a place for him. agent with his stills and his He accepted the situation scrap-book, and within a week he cahnly and without railing. Far- was playing a disreputable side- nel was frugal, though never nig- kick to Noah Beery in a motion gardly. He had saved, he had in- picture involving saloons, stage- vested, bought and sold. He con- coaches, and kidnapped school- tinued, in his retirement, to do teachers. so. He now owned the old brown He never had more than a sec- house on Cheromoya, which was ondary role in a Grade A picture, subdivided into apartments; as but he often was the lead scoun- well as the building occupied by drel in B films — dishonest the Chiropractic College and the guardians, chain gang captains, premises of formerly Reverend corrupt politicians, the boss of Doctor Bernardson, the marriage the turpentine camp, the brains counsellor. He collected stamps of the bank robbers. Between and coins and science fiction 1925 and 1950 Philip Farnel magazines and dealt commercial- was employed in an average of ly in all three as well, in a small three pictures a year. He was but profitable way. He had thus sober, diligent, amiable, depend- enough money for his needs and able, and he had many friends pleasures and was in some hopes and no enemies; he knew the of obtaining more through the re- great and mingled with them runs of old films in which he had without being one of them, and it appeared and which were now did not at any time occur to him on TV, although at too late an hour to snub or be snide to camera- for Famel to care to watch. men or stage-carpenters or ward- One beautiful June day when robe people or yes-men or writ- the smog had lifted and it was ers or script-girls. The wheel possible from the hills to see as turned, those who were low in far as Ingelwood or Culver City, ’25, in '35 were often high (and Mr. Farnel, who had been shop- vice versa). Secure in his many ping in the great supermarket on friendships and his own well-de- Hollywood Boulevard and was ployed if modest talents, Famel walking home (his one eccen- was always in work. In 1950 the tricity), was hailed by a passing wheel made its last turn for him motorist whom he recognized —the television was abroad in with pleasure as Malcolm Morris, the land, the handwriting was on an old-time wardrobe man. ”

FAED-OUT 57

"Wait there for me, Phil, will name. And the real body be- you?” Morris called. "I'll park and longed to somebody else and had come back.” Farnel replied that no connection with the incident. he would meet Morris in the cof- He had faked the overturned boat fee-shop nearby, and the latter so he could run away with the nodded and drove off. other woman without anyone Over coffee and sweet rolls the looking for him.” two old acquaintances chatted Farnel nodded slowly. “I re- for a while, discussing various member it now. Yes. Didn’t the friends, living and dead, and insurance company try to get then their eyes met full on for a back the life insurance money second. Morris dropped his gaze they’d paid the legal wife at the to the tabletop and began to time? How did it finally ton draw circles out of a little puddle out?” there. It always gave Farnel a Morris shrugged. "No idea,” small but definite pleasure to en- he said. “I just mentioned it as counter in real life a cliche out an example. What I mean is, of the movies, and so it was with Phil, do you believe that a similar a certain sober relish that he in- incident could of been staged quired, “What’s on your mind, here in Hollywood? I mean, it is

Mai?” . , . possible, isn’t it?” Mai gave a nervous laugh, Philip Farnel considered the hesitated, then said, awkwardly question as he sipped his coffee. but doggedly, “Couple years ago, “Whom did you have in mind?” Phil, there was an incident in all he asked. .” the papers of a man turned up “Ohhh. . Morris hesitated, alive after everybody, including made some more circles, joined his whole family and the law en- them to form figure-eights, pursed forcement agencies, they had all his mouth, and then dropped the believed him dead. He was out dumb'Show altogether by lifting fishing, this man was out fishing his eyes to Farnel’s and saying, and the boat was found over- rapidly and defiantly, “S. Max- turned and eventually they well Pierce.” toned up this body which was "No,” said Farnel, at once. identified as his and buried as his “Absolutely not.” and then, after I forget how “You don’t think so?” There many years, he turned up alive in was a disappointed, almost plead- another state and he had run off ing tone in Morris’s voice. Then, with this woman who worked for challengingly, he demanded, him and they were hving as “Why not? Why is —it so impos- man and wife under an assumed sible? I could tell you ” ” ” ”

58 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Famel cut in. "I don’t care ices and had seen S. Maxwell

what you could tell me, Mai. I’ll Pierce laid out in his casket tell you why not. Sam Pierce and that he, at least, Philip Far- didn’t disappear on any fishing nel, had accompanied the body trip, he dropped dead in his to its cremation. Morris’s reply home in Beverly Hills the day was, “It’s possible it was a wax before Pearl Harbor. He was pro- image or something. I don’t caret" nounced dead of a heart attack he concluded, with a defiant cry hy his p)ersonal physician who that was almost a shout. had been attending him for his Farnel threw up his hands. heart condition and for his ul- “Tlie doctor was bribed, the coro- cers, namely Dr. William Allen ner was bribed, the undertaker Albine, a man of the utmost in- was bribed, a wax model was tegrity; that’s why not.” made — Mali For Heaven’s sake! Morris wasn’t convinced. "He What’s put this extraordinary could of been bribed,” he said. idea in your mind, the most ri- "Dr. Albine? Are you out of diculous notion I’ve— ever heard, a j'our mind? You know better than man of your age that! Why, the man is incorrupt- Whereupon Malcolm Morris able. Listen, Mai—you know, proceded to tell him that on two and 1 know, that a certain ac- successive days in the'past week he, tress got down on her bended M.M., had seen S. Maxwell knees and offered him $10,000 Pierce and that Pierce had spok- to perform an illegal operation, en to him. What had he said and he refused, and she offered was Famel’s utterly sceptical him fifteen and twenty and question. Morris, pale, half- finally $25,000, because she ashamed, half-distraught, looked trusted him and was afraid to at him squarely, and quoted, in a — “ trust anybody else flat and hollow voice, ‘Help. " — — I know, I know Help. Help. Help. Help.'" " — and he not only refused but he talked with her the whole Much puzzled, and not a little night long and he talked her out troubled at his old acquaint- of it and she had the baby, the ance’s extraordinary and stub- delight of her life, and she bless- born delusion, Philip Famel re- es the name of Dr. —Albine every sumed his walk home. The day day of her life. So continued beautiful, all the more Morris said, “But that was a so for the ever-increasing rarity different situation.” Farnel went of such days in and around Los on to point out that they had Angeles, and by the time he both attended the funeral serv- reached his residence the weight FAED-OUT 59 upon his mind was almost lifted. most glad to see today. I’d have He prepared a roast of beef and named you, Phd; I’d have named put it in the oven, set the temper- you. And you’ll never guess why.” ature low, and then went to his He looked at his visitor; and, al- office in the rear of the apart- though Farnel smiled his grati- ment, intending to deal with the tude at the compliment, nonethe- day’s commercial correspondence, less a shiver passed down his when, acting upon a sudden im- spine. pulse, he got into his automobile “You knew the individual and drove to Beverly Hills. whom I’m about to name, Phil,” At the rear of a spacious estate Dr. Albine continued. “And you in that city, attending to the fruit were his friend, just as I had the trees espaliered against the stone privilege of being. To us he was wall, was a small and wiry man more tlian a mere figure of glam- in a faded plaid shirt, bagg\' or, although far be it from me to trousers, and a filthy felt hat. deny the immense value of what Philip Farnel approached him. he did in bringing that glamor "Doc!” he called. Dr. William into many otherwise drab lives Allen Albine turned, squinted, — the public. But I mustn’t beamed, and advanced to meet make a speech. Anyway, I know him. “Well, well, well — Phil you will receive what I’m going Famel!” he exelaimed, greeting to tell you, respectfully.” him heartily. “This is a surprise. He took anotlrer swallow of his And a very pleasant one, I hasten drink without removing his eyes to add.” The two men shook from the face of his guest, then hands and walked along, chat- removed the glass from his lips. ting of this and that, and took "One of the advantages of being seats in the patio, where an Ori- retired is that a fellow can catch ental manservant presently up on his reading. That’s just brought them drinks. They toast- what I was doing last night, at ed one another’s health, sipped, about ten P.M. I was sitting in and then exchanged a silent look. my living room with a glass of After a moment Dr. Alhine milk and an apple, and I had spoke. “I’m glad you came, Phil," some reading matter with me. he said. “A great many of my old The lamp w^as on behind my friends and patients do drop in shoulder, and the rest of the room to see me, from time to time, even was in darkness. I had finished though I’m retired, and of course looking through Time Magazine I keep busy— as, I know, do you. and after that I started browsing But if I’d been asked to name one a bit in the current number of individual out of all whom I’d be the Journal of the A.M.A. —man —

60 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

named Harrow has been doing “Because. You’re the second some remarkable research at person today who’s told me the Johns Hopkins into those non- same thing, or almost the same specific microorganism which so thing. Mai Morris —you remem- often masquerade as —but I don’t ber Mai Morris? A real old-time want to bore you, you’re a lay- wardrobe man, used to be with man. I must have dozed off, of Famous Players, used to be with course I dozed off, and I woke up old Jake Fox, then for years and with a start. But—you know how years he was with C-S — a heavy- it is, I didn’t at first realize that set man with a ruddy face. One I was dreaming, I thought I was of the first people I got to know .” still awake . . when I started work out here.” Dr. Albine told Mr. Famel And Farnel recapitulated the that he had looked up, in his circumstances of Iris meeting dream, and saw S. Maxwell with Malcolm Morris on Holly- Pierce advancing slowly towards wood Boulevard. Doctor Albine him with a perfectly silent tread. listened, nodding slowly. “He had that gloomy expres- “Well, you know. Doc, some sion upon his face which I’d outfit has leased the old C-S Stu- seen there so often,” the physi- dio down on Santa Monica, it’s cian continued, sighing, and been lying empty for years, and shaking his head regretfully. they have some sort of a deal "And I was just going to say to whereby independent TV outfits him, ‘Oh, come on, now, Sam, can sublease parts of it to make you old croaker, cheer up’ their films, and part of the deal when suddenly it hit me; Great is that the people who took it over Scott! This man is dead! And from C-S supply wardrobe. To at that moment he spoke to me.” the sub-leasers, I mean. Sub-les- Farnel said, “Don’t tell me sors. Anyway, Mai Morris was what he said, just tell me if I’m bringing some items out of stor- right. Okay, Doc?” The doctor, age for the shooting — it was a astonished, nodded his head. jungle serial, and he had a bunch And Famel repeated the words, of old-time pith helmets and "'Help. Help. Help. Help. stuff like that. You probably “ Help,' imitating as he best could wouldn’t remember, but coming the flat and hollow sound. from storage along the south end The color ebbed from Dr. Al- is an L-shaped corridor and Mai bine’s face, then slowly it re- says that he noticed as he went turned. He licked his lips. "My down that the lights were flicker- G-d, Phil," he whispered. “How ing in one arm of the L and did you know?” when he turned the corner com- —

FAED-OUT 61 ing back they were almost out No wonder he had a heart afflic- and that’s where — he says —he tion. No wonder he had an ulcer- saw Sam Pierce. Coming towards ated stomach. I tell you, Phil, in him. And saying just what I just California a husband has no said. And the next afternoon the rights which an ex-wife is bound same thing happened, only orer to respect, and in my opinion, it by where the old dressing-rooms makes a mockery of our fine, old used to be. So tell me, Doc, what Anglo-Saxon legal system.” do you think it means?” With these cutting words At first, all that Doctor Albine, ringing in his ears, Philip Famel who had been phj'sician, friend, reflected, not for the first time, and counsellor to the great and upon the unhappy story of Doc- near-great among tlie stars dur- tor Albine’s sole venture into ing the Golden Age of Holly- matrimony; and he did not say a wood, could do was shake his single word, but shook his head. head. Then he muttered some- thing to the effect of "extraordi- Farnel drove back home, pen- nary coincidence;” and then he sively, and found that his mar- sat silent for a space of time. ried sister, Mrs. Edna Carter, had Philip Famel broke the si- arrived in time to rescue the roast lence. “Doc,” he asked, “what did from the oven (where he had Sam really die of?” completely forgotten about it), Albine’s benign and wrinkled and had made sandwiches from face turned savage behind his it for herself and teen-age daugh- gold-rimmed spectacles. “I’ll tell ter, Linda. ‘Tou’d forget your you what he died of’ he said, head, if it wasn’t on your shoul- almost snarling. “He died of ders, Philly,” was her greeting to over^vork. Worn out—worn-out him. He kissed the two women, at thirty-nine! Isn’t that a fine mumbled an excuse, and sat commentary on our so-called down to eat, for— truth to tell Modern Civilization? He died the untoward incidents of the because because he was paying day and the walks, as well as the alimony to two ex-wives and the ride through the clear air, had only way he could keep up with combined to give him an appe- die payments was to borrow from tite perhaps somewhat keener his agent and the only way he than usual. could pay back his agent was to After a while he said, “Edna, make one picture after another, you remember Sam Pierce, don’t as fast as he could, with no time you?" out for rest or recreation or lei- His sister threw back her licad

sure or the finer things in life. and lifted one band. '0) [ re- ”—

62 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

member!" she cried, rhetorically. prise, and a sad one, was the in- “I will never forget him as lo^ activity he saw on all sides as he as I hve! What a loss! What a entered the offices of Cahan-Sher- tragedy! What a handsome man! man Productions in the so-called One of the greatest actors of our New Studio in Culver City. He day and age.” remembered when both the newer "Oh, come on. Mother,” said and the older C-S studios were Linda, in a scornful tone. “S. hives of industry, and although Maxwell Pierce was a ham — and he had accepted that things were you know it. He wasn’t even an not with the silver screen as they

honest ham, like Uncle PhiHy.” once were, still, it was a surprise. Mrs. Carter said, “You shut yO'ur The second surprise was what mouth,” and glared venomously the passing years had done to at her child. "Just because he Rog Sherman. The Young Lion doesn’t talk with his raoudi of Hollywood, he had been called, closed and scratch himself— once upon a time. The account P. Farnel swallowed some of how he had wrested control of roast beef. “Why do you call him the studio from Sam Cahan in a ham, honey?” he enquired. the days when the latter was still “Have you seen any of his pic- holding back cautiously from to- tures in recent years?" tal conversion to sound, flying Linda said that she had. The his private biplane across the Dark Of The Moon was on the country and interviewing Mrs. Late, Late Show. “What a bomb,” Yetta Meredith —widow of Isi- she said. “Not just because he’s dore Meredith, co-founder of the Pre-Method, as Mommy seems to studio — and then immediately think I mean. I mean, some of flying his biplane back again those real old-timey actors, like with her proxy in his pocket: Frank Sinatra, are a gas. But this is the stuff from which leg- S. Maxwell Pierce? Phooey.” end is made. Strictly from Hamsville.” But time had wrought many changes in the one-time Young It had been many years since Lion of Hollywood, and he now Farnel had laid eyes on Roger looked like a very old lion in- Sherman and he was far from deed, with hollowed eyes, hol- sure that the latter would con- lowed cheeks, hollowed throat, sent to see him. The ease with and his once leonine mane more which the appointment was scanty than other^vise. Little as niade, and the fact that it was set Philip Farnel was prepared for for the following morning, sur- this, even less was he prepared prised him. Even more of a sur- for the expression on Roger Sher- ”

FAED-OUT 63 man’s face. The head of Cahan- Northern Ireland. “Don’t tell me Sherman Productions glared at ymi don’t understand. What, you him, baleful, menacing, and hos- aren’t in cahoots with them— the tile. Farnel felt taken aback. whole rotten bunch of them? ‘Tm waiting,” said the movie Darnley Mackenzie, Emile Un- magnate. “I. Am. Waiting.” gar, Richard Rowe, Stella Smith, Realizing that the man’s time Sir Q. Fenton Stock, and all the was valuable and not to be lighdy others? I suppose it’s just the wasted, Farnel plunged right into powa-s of my imagination, I his narrative. “It’s about S. Max- merely fancied I saw your name well Pierce, C.S.,’’ he said. on the letter sent to me by that “I’ll bet it is,” said Mr. Sher- terrible shyster, Leonardo Del man. “I’ll just bet it is.” ’Then a Beffo? Ha!” flood of scarlet washed across his A faint glinunering of light face and he all but lunged from came to Philip Farnel as he rec- his desk, pointing his finger and ognized the names of other play- shaking his hand at the aston- eK more famous in past days ished visitor. “Well, let me tell than at present. “Please, C.S.,” he you that you won’t get away with pleaded. “Don’t excite yourself. it!” he shouted. “I promise you Why do you take it so personal- and your rotten friends that!” ly? It’s true, certainly, that I and And then he sank back into his others have engaged Mr. Del Bello capacious chair and fumbled a to represent us in discussions — “ capsule, a pill, and two tablets ‘Discussions,’ ” sneered Mr. into his mouth, and reached with Sherman. "On the surface, dis- a trembling grasp for tlie carafe of cusion; yes. And behind my water. back, what? Extortion! That’s Without even recovering from what it is and you won’t get away his astonishment, Farnel pushed wkli it, and when I find out how the jug within reach, and waited you’re doing it, believe me, my until the medicine had been good man, you and all your fine swallowed. Then he said, “C.S., friends will rot in the common

I do not understand.” jail. The William J. Burns Agen- “You understand, )ou under- cy is

FAED-OUT 65

wrong, I’m not complaining that stand my position. But what,” we weren’t paid well enough. and here he began to shout again, Maybe some of us were really "about your position? Sabotage! paid too much. But we were paid Espionage! Extortion! Terrorist for moving pictures intended to tactics! And you have the gall to be shown in moving picture thea- come here and tell me that you’re ters. —Television opens up an en- here about S. Maxwell Pierce, tirely yet? Shame! Shame! Ghoul! Vam- A dangerous calm descended pire! To use the form and the on the Lion of Hollywood. A voice of your old friend, you’re faint smile began its tracings on not ashamed? his distinguished face. “My “I’d just like to know how you firiend,” he said, softly, “let me did it! Why you did it, that’s ob- explain to you. You are proposing vious — to blackmail me and to to open the dike in order to irri- squeeze your rotten ransom mon- gate certain fields of land. You ey from our depleted coffers, it’s think the water will flow here, obvious. One single picture we’ve

it will flow there, it will flow ex- got in production and it hasn’t actly where you want, and it can cost me enough heart-ache, that be arranged just that way. No. bitch, Myffanwydd Evans, no No, my friend. Not so. A flood is a two million dollars, a modest lit- flood. If the actors obtain a share tle sum at today’s prices — She of the proceeds from television Stoops To Conquer, in modem sales and rentals, then everybody dress — as if you didn’t know, — ” will obtain a share. The produc- you terrible person 'The mo- er.” He began to count on his gul’s phrases came rapidly, " fingers. "The director. The assist- abmptly, his chest heaved. ants. The cameraman. The music and into at least half the scenes arranger. The costumier. The we’ve shot — you and your rotten carpenter. The electrician, die crew — ruined! ruined! — right wardrobe man, the make-up man, over the scenes. Idee double ex- the script-girl, the salad-cook in posure, that fink you hired to the commisary, the guard at the masquerade as S. Maxevell Pierce gate. Everybody. Literally, ev-er- —comes walldng, comes walk- y-bod-y. So with everybody ob- ing — and his voice all over the taining a share, what is left? Btib- sound-track 'Help! Help! Help! kis, that’s what’s left. Goat-drop- Help! Help!'—’’ pings, I’m sorry you oblige me to 'TTiis time it was Philip Ear- use such a coarse expression. And nel’s turn to reach, with trem- C-S Productions dissolves into bling fingers, for the carafe of bankruptcy. So you can under- water. ” —

It was Louella Parson’s column plete collection of Gemsback (confused beyond correction, but Amazing, his business block in mentioning both Pierce and Far- Chatsworth, and the other famil- nel and spelling their names iar items which had occupied his properly) that brought Doody time before all this. “Mrs. who?" Michaeljohn to the old brown “Mrs. Phyllis Mobery. She’s a house on Cheromoya. She sat in very well-knowm Sensitive, Phil, I the livingroom of his apartment, got to know her at the Spiritual sun-tanned, healthy, and ill at Science Church on Cahuenga ease. Boulevard, in connection with

"I suppose it’s only natural our Friday Night Dutch Suppers, that you were interested,” he said, and Phil — I want to tell you also a bit nervous. “Considering she is marvelous! Simply marvel- that you and Sam were such good ous! There isn’t a thing to which friends — she can’t turn her hand, what “He’d been keeping me for she’s done for the bedridden and years, as well you know, bless the shut-ins, she can sing, she “ you, Phil,” she said. ‘Good can paint, she has a pilot’s li- friends,’ yes, I guess we were. He cence and a black belt, and her would've married me, too, if it work with handwriting has at- hadn’t been for Irma and Doro- tracted world-wide attention.” thy ... At least that’s what he Famel felt himself utterly lost. always said, anyway. I don’t All he could say was, “Go on.” know. I just don’t— know. I never "It was over a month ago, there did. However ” Her voice lost were only the three of us, Mrs. its uncertain note and became Mobery, Laura Bender, and me, brisk. and it was at my place, Phil, you “This happened over a month were never there, I had to give .” ago . . She rummaged in her up the bungalow, Phil, it had too purse, brought out a piece of pa- many memories. I live in a court per, unfolded it. "... but I in Boyle Heights now. Well, it didn’t understand it at the time. was about eight o’clock, and sud- Mrs. Mobery told me at the time denly it seemed to’ve gotten very )f quiet and I looked at Laura and “Mrs. who?” Philip Famel she looked at me and then we squinted, leaned closer. The bur- both looked at Mrs. MoberA’ and den of the entire affair was now we saw right away that she had weighing down on him; he would slipped into Trance. So I very very much have liked to be able quickly put a pad of paper and to get back to his Burmese air- tAvo pencils right by her hands, mails, his rixdollars, his com- the soft-lead Eberhard Faber ”

FAED-OUT 67

Mongol 480, the kind she prefers, cramped, bearing down heavily,

you know ..." quite incomprehensible : Famel, Curious soft noises began to looking at it in dismay, was not escape from the parted lips of even sure that it was English. He the Sensitive, but her hearers, was certain only that it was very knowing that tliey would never ugly and that,, whatever it meant, develop into coherent speech, it did not mean well. It vanished wasted no efforts listening to in a swirl of hnes, as if there had them, but watched her hands, in- been a struggle to seize the pen- stead — old hands, strong hands, cil. After that was a space of capable with mahl-stick and about an inch, followed by an ad- brush, capable with the organ dress vigorously written — Mrs H and the judo-hold, airplane con- M Stevenson 1327 Franklin trols and pots and pans — and Street Reisshorough P.A . — and now, submitting to things utterly the words, Hi, Pipsqueek. “Hank removed from any of those others, and Bucky." The bottom of the hands grasping pad and pencils, sheet was subscribed in a large,

hands . . . writing. uneven and faltering script, out

Farnel took the sheet of yellow Fideral Unon it inns an will be paper handed to him, put on his preasarved. And over this, on the glasses and began to read — or to slant, was something else which try to read. He looked up. “Doody, Farnel could not make out. are you trying to tell me that one He looked up, met her eager person wrote all this?” glance, shook his head. “Means “Do you think I’d lie to you, nothing to me,” he said. “I’m

Phil? Laura and I saw it. Of sorry.” course, you have to understand Doodie Michaeljohn gave a that she was just the medium wordless exclamation, tapped her wherebye those who have passed finger excitedly on the yellow beyond communicated— with us sheet, then clapped her hand to . . Go, on, Phil her forehead. “Oh, of coursel “No, I — well, just let me read Phil! Take it — hold it upside .” this . . His voice died away. down — and hold it up to a mir- In a clear Spencerian hand at ror. That one over there. Go on, the top of the page someone had Phil!” written. Mother Mother Mother Famel obeyed. He saw reflect- Dearest Mothe— and had broken ed his own face, those irregular off abruptly without even a trace and ugly features which had been of the final r. Immediately suc- his misfortune as a boy and his ceeding this an entirely different fortune as a man. Many thoughts handwriting began — small. went rapidly through his mind. ” ”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION but he forced his glance down She seemed surprised at his to the reflection of the paper. All surprise. Very quickly, she said, the writing was reversed and in- “Yes, of course it is, Phil. And comprehensible, and then part of I’ve finally figured out what it it jumped suddenly into almost- means, don’t you see, Phil? I’ve clarity. He tilted the paper until figured out what it means. He the slanting words were straight, wouldn’t Appear to me, Phil, he then jumped, startled, his breath wouldn’t want to even faintly hissing. The woman came up be- take a chance of frightening me, hind him. "There,” she said. so this is what he did, you see.” “Now do you see?” She chuckled, faintly, fondly. “Yes,” he said. “I can see it “He never was much of a speller. now.” ‘F-a-e-d-o-u-t’ That’s one mistake Doodie help help Doodie help he always used to make. And he help stop then or no peace for me was probably in a hurry this time, darling D fiix no Ive got to faed- too, because who knows how out hel much time he had. If there’s any His quick and frightened res- such thing as Time as we know piration was the only sound for a it. There . . . Don’t you see, second or two. Then Doodie Phil, Sam wasn’t just a player, a said, “We called up, you know, mere mummer, Sam was an art- that Mrs. Stevenson? And she ist, Sam was an actor. He had oh said everybody else used to call her such a tremendous talent, and he husband ‘Henry’ and she was the didn’t use it in the movies, he only one who called him ‘Hank’, could-n’t use it in the movies. He and ‘Bucky’ was the name they was type-cast and he couldn’t es- had for their httle child before it cape and he needed money, he was born, only it didn't— live, and always needed money, Irma and she started to cry Dorothy and their alimony, and “Doodie—” so he let the studio push him into “ — but she managed to tell us one piece of tripe after another that his nick-name for her was and that’s the reason — ‘Pip-’—” — She stopped abruptly. Looking “Doodie ” That the Veil of away from Famel, she said in a Oblivion should be lifted to no lower tone, “That’s not the rea- better end than the exchange of son. It’s not the whole reason. He domestic trivia or the proclama- loved the rich hving and the big tion of obsolete pohtical slogans house he hved in and the big seemed suddenly intolerable to houses he visited in and the big Famel. “Doodie, this is Sam’s cars he drove. He loved the fine, handwriting!” fancy clothes he was always buy- —

FAED-OUT 69 ing and he loved the stupid But once on the set, what did he crowds at the stupid premieres have to do? Nothing. He just had every few months, another pre- to stroll through his lines, show miere for him because every few his dimples, flash his teeth, take months there was another pic- the girl in his arms, and that was ture.” it. Philip Farnel looked at a pho- “It was easier for you, Phil,” tograph in a gold frame, showing Doodie said. “Actors like you and the beautiful features of S. Max- Quentin Stock and Emile Ungar well Pierce. The star’s arm was and lots of others. You looked on around Farnel’s shoulders and the it as a job. You were round pegs latter was looking at him with an and you fitted comfortably into affectionate smile which made round holes. But with Sam it was his face even more than usually different. He knew that he was ugly, devoid as it was of even the prostituting himself and he hated minor dignity of villainy. “He it but he went right on doing it. was always talking of going on the He used to talk about 'that one “ — ’ ” stage,” Farnel recalled. ‘I’m go- talent which is death to hide ing to throw it all up, Phil,’ he Farnel nodded. "I know . . . used to say. 'When this cbntract He used to call it ‘the real Sin .’” is up I’m going to tell the Studio agaiirst the Holy Ghost . . where to go, and then it’s New And then Pierce had died, York for me. I don’t care what worn-out at thirty-nine, but at parts I have to take at first or least — Doodie said— at least he how hard I’ve got to work. Soon- was at peace, at rest. “Until they er or later Broadway wiU give took his old pictures out of the me the kind of part I want, and vaults and dusted them off and then, Phil, I’ll be the happiest began showing them on TV. Be- ” man alive.’ cause, you know, after he died, Doodie Michaeljohn nodded. his popularity faded awfully fast. S. Maxwell Pierce had told her The pictures dated so quickly, the same things, too; told them to the War and all, and there were her often — and often with tears. newer and younger handsome But he had never made the move, men to take his place, and the had never been able to bring him- exhibitors just stopped booking self to make the sacrifice, do the his pictures and the distributors hard work required. Not that the didn’t even push them. But by screen was a snap, no. Sometimes now, you see, Phil, they’re so old he had to be up at five in the that they’re quaint— isn’t that a morning after only a few hours terrible thing, Phil? Isn’t that sleep, to be on the set at seven. terrible? People look at those bits 70 FANT.VSY .AND SCIENCE FICTION

/ and pieces of Sam Pierce’s heart balancing television rentals for and body and soul, that he killed Dark Of The Moon (starring S. himself making, and they smirk Maxwell Pierce) against the loss- and titter and yawn and reach es being sustained in the making for another can of beer, because of She Stoops To Conquer (star- it’s only midnight and they are- ring Myffanwydd Evans), was n’t sleepy enough to go to bed. persuaded to make the experi- It’s just killing time to them, ment. Dark Of The Moon was re- Phil, And it’s just making mon- tired to the vaults once more, ey, for the studio. But do you and, with that, the ghost of S. know what it is to Sam, Phil? Maxw'ell Pierce w'alked no more. V\’hy, you only have to read this How long it w'ill last, of course, desperate plea of his for help, no one knows. After all. Pierce

Phil. Each time I read it, it’s an starred in close to thirty pictures, arrow in my heart. Doodie help and appeared in many others help stop then — that should be made before he reached starhood. ‘stop the?M,’ of course — stop the Sherman will not remain active people who’re showing his old in movie-making forever; and films. FUx no — that’s what he when he retires, the complete used to call the movies, the flics, stock of C-S films jrasses out of flickers, you know, English slang, his hands. Only his continuance

I don’t know where he picked it for the present, plus the law-suit up. Oh, Phil!” (for it finally came to that) filed She began to cry and he awk- by tlie surviving old movie stars wardly put his arms around her for a share in die TV rights to the and patted her. "That’s what it films they played in — only these means. That’s why he’s haunting tw'o things continue to keep S. people and tire studios. It’s why Maxwell Pierce off the video his face and his voice keep com- screen. ing onto the prints and the sound- Philip Farnel aw'aits the fu-

tracks of whatever it is tliey’re ture with patience, resignation, making there, and why he shows optimism, and — in this particu- up and appeals to all these peo- lar instance — no small measure

ple, Phil. Because . . . Phil of sadness. ... as long as his old films keep He had held S. Maxwell on being shown, his soul won’t be Pierce to be his close and be-

able to rest in peace . . loved friend. He had, silently, silently, silently, and very deep- The matter was settled, for the ly, too—envied S. Maxwell time being, at least, without too Pierce every atom of personal much difficulty. Roger Sherman, beauty and personal charm which —

FAED-OUT 71

Pierce had possessed and he, from tlie Valley of Death, had Famel, had not. He had sufiEered sought out friends, had sought out in the great star’s death, and this enemies, had sought out casual wound, which time had eventual- acquaintances, and even strang- ly healed, had been opened again. ers. It had been opened afresh — or But it seemed to have forgot- was this yet another wound? ten, utterly forgotten, that it had and it still pained, and still it ever known Philip Farnel. bled. For Pierce’s shade, drawn

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There are writers who won’t go the encyclopedia, let alone around the comer, to check a fact: out upon the knaves. Al-Sheikh L. Sprague de Camp, as all the world knows, goes half-way around the world to check his facts (DRAGON HUNT, F & SF, Jan. 1963). But suppose the “facts” are concerned with a world un- known and hence unknowable?—an imaginary world? Is the writer free to make up everything? Not so, says the Sheikh. Certain situa- tions are inescapable, and certain facts evolve logically therefrom. His article on terrestrial and extra-terrestrial ecology, particularly

in regard to animal life, will be of interest to all readers—as well as writers (hint, hint)—of Science Fiction.

HOW TO PLAN A FAUNA

by L. Sprague de Camp

“When you get your breath, planetary banker? The one who Richard,” said Professor Glomp, calls everybody ‘dahling’? Con- “you might tell me why you want grat —Who did?” to drag me into that infernal ma- "The Wonger Ping! —That sin- chine of yours.” ister secret society that The bearded savant had ‘Tes, I know about them. I wrapped himself around a table suppose you want me to help res- leg, the better to resist the efforts cue her. Where did they take of Richard Farnswortli, inter- her?” planetary explorer extraordinary, “I don’t know exactly, except to drag him out of his laboratory that it’s somewhere in the forty- and into the three-place space third super-galaxy.” cruiser on the lawn. Wien Farns- "Then how—" worth saw that even his mighty Farnsworth cracked a feeble thews failed to budge the scien- grin. “For once I got you the tist, he gasped: dinkum oil. I wasn’t in time to “They’ve — kidnapped — Miss stop their ship, but I caught one Discoimtel” of the ground crew and —ah “The daughter of that inter- persuaded him to describe their

72 ” ” ”

HOW TO PLAN A FAUNA 73 base planet. He didn’t know its a scorpion sting yourself. But name, but he’d been there, and he until I see it — Here, we’re wast- gave me enough details for you to ing time. Show me this prisoner.” identify tlie planet.” “I let him go.” “Well?” “What?" “Its gravity, temperature, and “Sure. I figured I’d gotten all atmosphere are the same as ours, the information I could,— and he but its surface is all bare and promised to reform ” rocky, without vegetation. The “Why you— you — only iorm of life is a huge carni- vore called the waufl, something Farnsworth had never heard of like a saber-toothed tiger with ecology. This' may be defined as bat’s wings, octopus tentacles, biological economics; or, if you and lobster claws as well as its prefer, economics may be defined regular paws and fangs. Oh, yes, as human ecology. A workable it also has a sting on the end of biota ( = fauna + flora) must .” its tail . . be made up of parts that furnish “Wait,” interrupted Glomp. each other with means of living.

“Did you say it’s the only form of A fauna composed entirely of car- life?” nivores would be like a manufac- “My informant was positive. turing company consisting entirdy The Wonger Ping have explored of managers, witli no workmen, the whole planet— clerks, or salesmen. “What does the waufl eat?” As a matter of fact, Edgar Rice

“Wonger Fingers, when it Burroughs’ Mars approaches this can.” state. To judge from the stories, “How about the rest of the the only wild life found over vast time?” areas of Mars is the banth, a ten- “It’s cannibalistic. They cat legged Martian lion. There is no each other.” sign of the tliundering herds of Glomp sighed. “You’ve been herbivores needed to support a led down the garden path again, population of baiiths, who could Richard. The ecological Gestalt not live on the mere snack pro- is impossible, like the famous vided by an occasional Deja cat-and-rat farm. —There soon Thoris. would be no waufls In planning faunas of far- “Don’t say ‘impossible,’ Profes- flung planets, an author should sor. It’s not scientific." know a little ecology, just as his “Don’t tell me what’s scienti- imagined future civilization fic! It’s not impossible, in your shoidd have a workable economy. sense, that you’ll grow wings and We can get an idea of what con- 1\ TANTASY AND SCIENCE I lCTION stitutes a workable ecology, at too tliickly for animals, save for least on a planet like ours, by climbing and flying types. looking at those that have actu- Every animal is a member of ally worked. a food chain. The simplest kind The parts of extraterrestrial of food chain has two members: biotas that most concern heroes say, the elephant and the plants of science fiction are the larger it cats. The plants in turn live on land animals. Some people sup- air, sunsliine, and mineral salts. pose that the richest faunal en- Since men destroy all forms of vironments on Earth arc, on plant and animal life indiscrim- land, the tropical rain forest and inatelv, we will leave them out of in the water, the tropical oceans. consideration. Both suppositions are wrong. On the other hand, a Brazilian The most teeming aquatic plant may be eaten by ants, who faunas are in the polar oceans. are eaten by an anteater, who is All animal ocean life depends on eaten by a jaguar, ffere we have single-celled plants, the algae, a four-link food chain. save for narrow strips along the On land we find animals and shores where some water animals plants living in an ecology of brow'se on seaweeds. The algae in many short chains, like plant- turn depend on the carbon diox- elephant or plant-ant-anteater- ide in the water. The cooler the jaguar. In the ocean, on the other water, the more carbon dioxide it hand, food chains form much can hold in solution. longer series. In a typical food The richest land faunas are chain, an alga is eaten by a cope- found in the sub-tropical savan- pod (a small crustacean), which nas and the temperate prairies. is eaten by a mullet, which is These are lands .vith a rainfall of eaten by a weakfish, which is

10 to 30 inches a year. This is eaten by a sand shark, which is enough to support a rich crop of eaten by a tiger shark. grass and perhaps occasional Moreover, the ocean chain has stands of trees. many other branches and inter-

Below 10 inches of rain, the connections. The tiger shark is vegetation is too sparse for rich glad to snap up a weakfish or any animal life. Above 30 inches, the of many other fish. Many other forest shuts off the sun and keeps fishes cat the mullet, who in turn down the growth of grass and cats many small crustaceans. If other low-growing plants on you diagram the ecology of a which large herbivores live. piece of ocean, you get a spider- Above 50 inches we get the rain web of lines connecting the eat- forest, wherein the plants grow ers and the eaten. HOW TO PLAN A PAUXA 75

The distinctive thing about an right mind would attack a buffalo, oceanic fauna is that (with the and it would be a waste of time trivial exception noted) every for a tiger to try to live on mice. oceanic animal above pinhead So long as the tiger sticks to buf- size is a carnivore. The reason is falo and the w easel to mice, they that the larger sea animals are too get along. large to “graze” on tlie sea’s soup There are exceptions to this of one-celled plants. On land, rule. Wolves and wdd dogs, run- where plants gro\v larger than any ning in packs, kill herbivores animals, ecological conditions are larger than themselves. Extreme different. differences in size between preda- We can imagine a planet on tor and prey occur in the baleen which the land plant life was all whale, widi its internal mustache single-celled, as it is in the oceans for straining tons of small fish and on Eardi. It would form a thin, crustaceans out of sea water, the lichenlike coating over otherwise anteater with its tongue, and army bare rocks. In such a case, land- ants that swarm over and kill animal life, like sea-animal life small mammals and reptiles. But, on earth, would consist of a tier on die whole, a carnivore’s prey is of tiny herbivores, no bigger than usually of the same order of size small insects, preyed upon by suc- as the carnivore. cessive tiers of carnivores of in- In fact, we can line up the creasing size. herbiv'ores and carniv'ores of a As things are on earth, land fauna according to size, in a kind herbivores come in all sizes be- of a ladder of eaters and eaten. If cause the plants on which they we do this with the animals of live come in all sizes, too. While modern Wyoming, we might hst: many herbivores, like the ele- phant, can eat a variety of plants, Carnivores Herbivores many others specialize on one Grizzly bear Bison particular kind. Thus koalas eat Puma Wapiti nothing but eucalyptus leaves. Wnlf Mule deer Furthermore, as herbivores have Coyote Prongbuck developed different sizes and Bobcat Jack rabbit shapes, carnivores have also spe- Ferret Prairie dog cialized in eating herbivores and Shrew Misc. insects otlier carnivores of certain kinds. Among carnivores, tire favorite This list has several flaws, be- food is generally somewhat small- cause nature is seldom so tidy as er tlian die eater, but not too the list implies. For one thing, the much smaller. No weasel in his grizzly is not really a bison-eater. 76 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

It is an omnivore. That is, it eats On the rare occasions that we almost anything on the menu that do find two species competing di- is not hke (grass and leaves) too rectly, one is usually on its way hard to digest. The crow and the out. Thus the thylacine (the mar- cockroach are other omnivores. supial wolf) died out in Australia Once in a while a grizzly kills a when men introduced the dingo; deer. But I have never heard of its a few thylacines may survive in attacking the bison, who, as far as Tasmania. A species evolves, not the healthy adult is concerned so as to take over a niche in the is practically without natural ene- ecology already occupied by an- mies. other well-adapted species, but to Furthermore, we could add fill a niche that has not yet been many more mammals to this list: occupied. That is what paleon- black bear, moose, mountain tologists mean when they speak of sheep, fox, and a host of rodents the opportunism of evolution. (beaver, muskrat, red squirrel, Having so evolved, a species may ground squirrels, mice, marmots, spread into a neighboring terri- and so on), not to mention all the tory where it does directly com- birds, reptiles, insects, and other pete with another, and one or the non-mammals, on down to proto- other goes under. Moreover, when zoans and viruses. All these or- a new species enters an area, by its ganisms fit into the ecological very presence it provides a new web. But I oversimplify to make niche in the environment for the my point plain. This is that, in a parasites and predators that can real Terran land fauna, the her- prey upon it. bivores come in various sizes, The most striking thing about adapted to various foodstuffs and any real biota is not the animals ways of getting them. The carni- themselves, be they as huge as the vores, which prey upon them, also blue whale, as swift as the duck come in the sizes most suitable for hawk, or as unbeautiful as the living on herbivores of various wart hog. It is the way the biota kinds. fits together as a living whole. The Notice that no two of the ani- flow of living matter from plant to mals on my list competes directly herbivore to carnivore and back to with any other. Even when they plant matter again is delicately eat the same food, they tend to eat balanced, so that any drastic it at different times and places. change in one part brings about Thus both the puma and the wolf changes elsewhere. Thus an in- eat deer; but the puma hunts in crease in Arctic hares brings an hills and forests, while the wolf increase in the foxes, lynxes, and prefers to hunt on open plains. owls that live on the hares. HOW TO PLAN A FAUNA 77

The greatest disturber of the starvation while the range has natural balance is man. Most of continued to deteriorate, so that it the Earth's larger animal life has can now support fewer deer than been destroyed in the last few it could before 1907. centuries, directly by hunting and indirectly by taking away its land If we look at the whole Wyom- for human purposes. By cutting ing fauna, we also see that, among down the trees and letting goats the herbivores, different species eat the seedlings as fast as rely on different ways of keeping they come up, men have turned one jump ahead of their enemies. most of the region around the Sometimes, like the bison, they Mediterranean Sea from parkland depend on sheer size and strength, to desert. Annoyed at some preda- or on an armament of horns and tor because it steals their chick- hooves. Sometimes, like the deer

ens, men kill it off, only to find and prongbuck, they can run fast that the mice and other rodents it Sometimes, like the porcupine, ate, multiplying without a natural they wear armor. Sometimes, like check, are a far worse pest than the beaver and the muskrat, they the predator ever was. are amphibious, living in or near Even well-meant efforts to im- water to which they can flee. prove an environment often have Sometimes like the red squirrel disastrous results. For instance, they climb trees; sometimes like before 1907 a herd of 4,000 deer the birds and bats they fly; some- lived on the Kaibab Plateau in times like the gopher and prairie Arizona. Pumas, wolves, and coy- dog they burrow. otes kept the numbers of the deer Likewise, the carnivores of the in check. Men, either foolishly biota have also developed various judging animals by human moral habits of life to correspond with standards or not wanting any com- those of the herbivores. Thus we petition in the business of killing have the pouncing puma, the run- for sadistic fun, decided to help ning wolf, the chmbing marten, the deer by destroying their “ene- the burrowing badger, and the mies.” So they killed off the pred- swimming mink. ators. Now, when we list the animals Sure enougli, the deer in- of any other biota, we find that the creased to 100,000 by 1924. But general array of species falls into then the deer destroyed their much the same ecological niches sources of food by overcropping. as we have in Wyoming—with In two years, more than half the due allowance for differences of deer starved to death. Ever since, chmate, vegetation, and geologi- the deer have been declining by cal era. A kangaroo is not much —

78 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

like a prongbuck. But in Australia played a curious assortment of it plays much the same role: that land animals. All the large her- of a medium-sized, gregarious bivores were placental mammals, vegetarian, depending on its like us. Tliey looked something speed for safety. Australia also like the camels, tapirs, horses, has burrowing, tree-climbing, and rhinoceroses, and rabbits of the gliding marsupials to correspond northern continents, albeit they to our own gophers, squirrels, and had evolved separately while flying squirrels. South America was cut off from Australia has on the whole a the rest of the world, by the proc- poorer fauna than Wyoming. But ess of convergent evolution. There East Africa has a much richer were also creatures that looked one, with a tremendous assortment like nothing else on earth, such as of herbivores, from the elephant the ground sloths and tlie glyptod- down to mice, and oddities malian tortoises. The carnivores, like the giant amphibious hippo- however, were either marsupials, potamus and the burrowing, ant- from a saber-toothed honlike beast eating aard-vark. Back in the down through wolflike, catlike, Pleistocene period, when mam- and weasel-like forms; or giant malian evolution reached its flightless birds with eagle’s beaks, climax, all the continents except also in graded sizes up to that of Antarctica — even Australia an ostrich. had mammalian faunas compar- able in size and variety to that of The niches into which animals Africa today. Or, to be more exact, have fitted themselves have natu- to the African game preserves, for rally affected their bodily forms. most of Africa outside the pre- The largest herbivores, depending serves is hardly wilder than Iowa. on their size for protection, are

If we go back to earlier geologi- called “graviportal”; that is, cal periods, we find the faunas weight-carrying. To bear their still breaking down into similar mass, their legs are thick and assortments of animals, hke the pillarlike. Today we see such legs same tune played on different in- in elephants and rhinoceroses. In struments. In the Jurassic and the early Oligocene, the titanoth- Cretaceous there were carnivorous eres and baluchitheres were the dinosaurs in graded sizes, preying leading graviportals. In the Cre- upon an assortment of herbivor- tacious, the graviportals were the ous dinosaurs, which relied upon horned dinosaurs and a few sur- size, horns, speed, armor, or swim- viving sauropod dinosaurs. ming abihty to protect themselves. Herbivores that run away from Miocene South America dis- danger are classed as “cursoriar HOW TO PLAN A FAUNA 79 and have a slender, long-legged fight back effectively. ^Vith them, build. Either graviportals or cur- hunting is strictly business. They sorials may be armed with horns, want a good meal at the cost of the tusks, or the spiked tails of the fewest possible scratches and glyptddont Doedicurus and the bites. armored dinosaur Stegosaurus. Fictional descriptions of imag- Other shapes include the fossorial inary faunas are often wrong in (burrowing), arboreal (climb- the way they distribute the differ- ing), armored, amphibious, and ent kinds of wild life. They give flying. Climbing, burrowing, and the unpression that the fauna con- flying animals are always fairly sists mainly of large, fierce, dan- small, for engineering reasons. gerous animals, created for the Can you imagine an elephant’s special purpose of enabling the climbing a tree? hero to show his mettle. Amphibious types have special But, in a real fauna, the smaller adaptations, such as closable nos- animals far outnumber the larger, trils, eyes and nostrils on the top and the smaller they are the more of their heads (one extinct hippo- numerous they are. You may not potamus had its eyes on stalks!) see the swarms of smaller crea- and the ability to hold one’s breath tures, but they are there. What for several minutes at least. looks like an empty stretch of prairie teems with small rodents So, if you wish to plan a fauna — mice, gophers, rabbits, prairie for Planet X, this fauna should dogs, ground squirrels — not to have a general form like that of mention reptiles, insects, and oth- these known faunas. It should er non-mammals. They are hidden have many different species of in the grass or holed up for the day herbivores, of different sizes, pro- watching, whether in W5'oming vided with various means of de- or Uganda, it is a rule of thumb fense or escape. It should also that, for every animal you see, a have a smaller number of species score of others are, watching you. of carnivores, in graded sizes for Also, the herbivores far out- preying most effectively on the number the carnivores. It takes herbivore without directly com- about ten pounds of plant food to peting with one another. grow one pound of herbivore. The Although a hungry carnivore other nine pounds are used up in will sometimes attack another, moving around and carrying on smaller carnivore — the lion has the animal’s life processes. Like- been known to kill the leopard, wise, it takes about ten pounds of and the leopard the serval —most herbivore to grow one pound of carnivores avoid prey that can carnivore. SO FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

While herbivores have devel- where fresh-water lakes freeze oped a variety of horns, tusks, and over solidly in winter— al- sharpened hooves as weapons, car- though the eastern United States nivores content themselves with did have a bear-sized beaver dur- claws and teeth. Horns would be ing the Pleistocene. of little use to a carnivore and so are not developed. Suppose Richard Farnsworth Neither do we find the massive finds a planet with a plausible graviportal build among carni- fauna. How would the animals vores. Such a predator would not receive Farnsworth? be agile enough to catch its prey, Most animals will be herbivor- while its size would require a vo- ous. The most numerous forms racious diet. The largest theropod among these will either be small dinosaurs, Saurophagus and Tyr- creatures, like Terran mice and annosaurus, came pretty close to rabbits, or they will be cursorial the graviportal build. It had, how- tj’pes like deer, antelopes, and ze- ever, been suspected that they bras. These will all run away were carrion-eaters as much as ac- when approached, even if they tive predators. Perhaps they made have never been shot at. They are their livings as do some eagles: harmless unless our hero tries by robbing smaller predators of some lunatic stunt like grabbing their catches. Their size would an animal with his bare hands. enable diem to muscle in on the In some peculiar faunas, as feasts of smaller theropods, who among the Antarctic penguins had slain the prey that the lum- and seals, the animals have no bering monsters could not catch natural land enemies and so no for themsches. The same might instinct to avoid them. A man can be true of the carnivorous mam- walk among such creatures and mal Andreu’sarchus from the kill them with a club. But this is Mongolian Eocene, with a yard- not the way of a normal fauna. long skull. Larger herbivores — the gravi- We must also remember that portals and the large armed cur- the environment limits the num- sorials — will probably ignore our ber of niches into which different explorer as long as he keeps his species can fit. Thus we do not distance, say 100 yards. If he find tree-climbing or water-loving comes close enough to bother animals in the midst of a treeless them, they may move off or they and waterless desert. Large am- may attack. There is no way of phibious animals, like the hippo- telling in advance which they will {jotamus and the crocodile, do not do. It depends on the species, the usually range into countries circumstances, the individual : —

now TO PLAN A FAUNA 81 animal, and how that animal hap- As for the carnivores, the larg- pens to be feeling. Although tlic er ones may tr^’ to make a meal African elephant is usually will- from our explorer. A theropod ing to let well enough alone, one dinosaur probably would, having naturalist, without provocation, no brain to speak of, but well-de- was stalked and pursued by one. veloped senses of sight and smell When the elephant had been and a few simple reflexes that tell killed, it turned out to have a it to snap up an)’thing that looks badly abscessed tusk. Suffering edible. On the other hand, large from a king-sized toothache, tlic carnivorous mammals are likely beast had been looking for some- to be more cautious about ap- one on whom to ^ent its rage. proaching strange creatures. If, As another example, I was giv- however, the country has been en the following advice in Africa hunted before by men witli guns, If you run at a herd of buffalo, the carnivores, like all the other shouting and waving your arms, animals, will probably run at the they will probably run away. But first sight or smell of man. if }'ou try that with one buffalo A wild animal is especially you may be killed. There is at likely to be dangerous under three least one coward in every herd. ciraimstances. One is when a He starts to run, and that starts carnivore either has never learned the others. But if you run at a that man is not fair game or is single buffalo, he may not be a getting too old and slow to catch coward, and then you’re dead. its normal prey. Most herbivores won’t botlier The second is when any large you if you don’t bother them; but animal has been molested or you annoy the large ones at your wounded. Animals do not have peril. I heard of one man who, human intelligence, but they do driving his automobile in Africa, have human tempers. If irritated passed an elephant eating by the enough, they may lose these tem- roadside. The man seems to have pers and attack even when pru- had confused ideas about ele- dence would dictate a stealthy re- phants, for he stopped his car, got treat. out, and walked over to offer the The third case is when animals elephant a bun. However, this was have been protected and become ho circus elephant. The beast half-tame, and foolish people killed the man by throwing him like the man who tried to give a twenty feet into the air and then roll to a wold elephant— treat utterly demolished his car, from them with undue familiarity. At which the other occupants had close quarters any wild animal, wisely fled. even when it has supposedly been )

82 FANT.VSY AND SCIENCE FICTION

tamed, is as dangerous as its size not get its deadly fore-hooves off and armament permit. The grace- the ground. ful, liquid-eyed whitetail doe, the It was a stalemate. If Lyman roly-poly kinkajou, the comical Lyon let go, he would be killed capuchin monkey, and the perky before he could get up. His grip chipmunk all love their own way was weakening when he thought and have hair-trigger tempers. to release one ear in order to get Thwart them, and you risk a out a pocket knife with his free maiming bite or kick. Scores of hand. But then he could not open tourists are injured every year in the knife with one hand, even us- Yellowstone Park because, in ing his teeth. spite of all the warning signs, At last he pulled the buck’s they insist on getting too close to head down to his own and seized the friendly-looking bears. the buck’s nose in his teetli. Then, Most wild animals are harm- having both hands free, he opened less because they fear men. When the knife and cut the buck’s throat. for any reason they lose that fear Covered with the deer’s blood, he they become dangerous. Let me staggered back to his house and tell you a true story to illustrate. into the kitchen, to the horror of About a hundred years ago, my his womenfolk. (You can read a great-grandfather in upstate New fictionalized version of this inci- York, Lyman R. Lyon, kept a herd dent in Walter Edmonds’ excel- of tame deer in a paddock in back lent novel The Big Barn. From of his house. One evening, while all I have been told, however, my visiting the paddock, he turned forebear was much less of a hick his back on the buck. Because it than the “Ralph Wilding ” of the was springtime, the buck had no story. antlers. But suddenly, for no rea- son, the buck butted my ancestor Altogether it should not be in the small of the back and hard, with a little thought, to plan Imocked him flat. a plausible fauna for an imagi- As my great-grandfatlier rolled nary planet. Just remember that over, the buck sprang over the animals do not do things for fallen man and tried to spear him which they are patently unfitted with its hooves. My great-grand- by evolution. Turtles do not, for father, with great presence of instance, climb trees, nor do mind, seized the deer’s ears in lions live on algae. Notliing sub- both hands and pulled down. Be- sists on notliing, and every spe- cause my ancestor was a large, cies fits into a food chain in an heavy man, the buck, standing ecological web. The eaten always spraddle-leggcd over him, could outnumber the eaters many times HOW TO PLAN A FAUNA 83

over. Wild animals seldom attack environment offers an unoccupied people, save for what seems to the niche in which a species can make animal a good reason: to obtain a a living, some form will sooner or badly needed meal or to rid itself later come to take advantage of the of a tormentor. And, if a given opportunity. Like people.

COMING SOON

THE TREE OF TIME—a suspenseful and actionful 2 part novel by—Damon Knight

THE LOST LEONARDO—about the mysterious disappearance of a master- piece from the Louvre, by the author of whom Kingsley Amis says “ex- traordinary imaginative power”— G. Ballard

THE EYES OF PHORKOS—an intriguing and thrilling fantasy about the most astounding discovery in the history of archaeology by—L. E. Jones

PACIFIST—a tense, provoking SF tale by—Mack Reynold

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME—a delightful and all too little known story by—Oscar Wilde P. M. {for Philip Maitland) Hubbard is, of course, the author of THE GOLDEN BRICK, that fine and grisly story which appeared in our Jan, 1963 issue. There he brought the past and present together; here he conjectures vision of a time yet to come, when the relation between the sexes—and other press-

ing and cognate matters—is handled in a manner quite differ-

ent from today’s manner ( though not toithout its own neatness of logic), while grey ash covers the far-reaching hills over which strange things run without tiring and to the sound of horns.

SPECIAL CONSENT

by P. M. Hubbard

The young woman stopped came from outside, but she was half-way up the hill, breathing a one of the ones they did not stop. little roughly because of the extra Inside the second circle she paused burden she carried. She put a again, pressing her hand against hand up to screen her eyes from the her side and once more out of tremendous flare of the sunset. The breath. Then she went up the last first circle of standing stones was slope, made the required gestures close above her now, tall outlines and went straight down into the blurred by the overflow of tire green darkness beneath the enormous and gold light that poured down stone lintel. She sat dowm on the from the sky. This circle was a worn stone and waited. restoration, only a century or two Presently the Mother said, “Your old. The inner circle was a mix- fatlier is dead, Madi. Have you ture. Tire great stones at the top anyone else?” of the hill had always been diere, “No one scheduled. Mother.” ^ce the time w'hen the Mother “Then what do you want?” had been what she now again was. Madi told her. The Mother did They did not stop her at the first not reply, and after a bit Madi circle nor yet at the second. She told her again. Nothing more hap-

84 SPECIAL CONSENT 85 pened. Once or twice the darkness stage. What a disappointment for stirred as though it was going to you. Can’t thoy give you a name speak, but nothing came. She went from the public hst?" up into the air. She shook her head, smiling. He The sunset had gone at last. looked at her anxiously, but she The old women said that a hun- turned and went out. dred years before the sunsets had been much longer and more bril- When she had chosen a daugh- liant. They had been getting dull- ter, she had gone to her father to er slowly ever since the Fire. Now get his consent. He had already the sky was apple-green and lumi- been scheduled as available sub- nous, but the fierceness had gone. ject to consent and was glad enough to let his name go forward. As she came in, her husband None of the scheduled people threw a cloth over what he was do- found life very interesting, though ing. He giggled slightly with em- they were comfortable enough, barrassment. She made a scornful and although consents were mostly noise in her nose. “Making things kept for close friends and rela- like things,” she said. “Back to the tions, tliey were generally avail- dark ages. Why don’t you aU stand able. The Exchange Equalization on your heads? The effect would be Account Office, which managed much the same." tliese things, refused as a matter He blinked at her sulkily, twist- ef policy to maintain a long public ing his hands behind his back. “I list, and needed very good reasons don’t believe that.” His voice was before making a name available. If very deep. “We were talking about a woman chose to have a child, she it today at the works. I don’t be- knew she would have to provide a lieve it’s necessarily wrong. They private exchange. And that meant did it all those years.” He stood consent, men for a woman in up, powerful and lithe, tucking in Madi’s class. his midriff instinctively so as to The man behind the counter throw up the pectoral muscles and greeted her warily. Even if he did tensing his legs to round out the net know her by sight, he knew calves. She laughed at him. what the clothes meant. You had

“Men did it. And even men to be careful. She said, “My father were coming to see that it was was scheduled and had given his wrong in the end, even before the consent, but he has died.” Fire. But never since. And we’re He clicked his tongue sympa- not going back to that, just to thetically, but he looked more ap- amuse you. Father’s dead.” prehensive than ever. “Oh dear," “Oh, I’m sorry. Just at this late he said, “I’m sorry, madam. We 86 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION can’t accept it, as you know. The things happen, in fact, quite of- rules are very strict and we daren’t ten. Once people on the schedule make exceptions.” let their names go forward, there “I know that,” she said. is a great tendency for them, even "Can you perhaps give us an- with the best will in the world, to other name from the scheduled go for natural wastage. It is some- list? There’d have to be consent, thing we find it very hard to com- of course, but I expect )OU could bat. And in any case, it is not our arrange something.” job to combat it. We are here to She shook her head a second make things more difficult, not time. “I want to talk to the Regis- easier. You’ll have to get another trar,” she said. consent from the scheduled list.”

“Well, I don't know. I could ask The Registrar got up and looked at whether the Registrar is available.” her blankly. “Unless you can get a “Now,” she said. Special Consent. That would be acceptable, but it’s not easy. You “The public hst? ” said the Reg- know the conditions.” istrar. She looked at the younger woman with absolute detachment, He was exercising himself in the not unsympathetic but not in- courtyard, swinging the weights volved. "I don’t think there’s a about and bending and stretching. case. This daughter was not re- He had oiled himself and the quired, was she?” muscles worked like gilded ropes. “No, I chose her myself.” He was so beautiful that her heart “By your husband?” turned over at the sight of him. “Yes. I chose him, too, like a She said, “Stop preening your- fool. He has two years to go.” self and come inside.” He smirked “You are one of us. You talk to a little and came after her, very the Mother. Have you talked to her lithe and well-balanced against about this?” her draped protuberance. “She knows, yes. I told her what He said, “Have you been to the I wanted. She did not say any- E.E.A. Office? Did they give you thing.” a name?” The Registrar turned up her “I went, yes. I saw the Regis- hands palms outwards. "I can’t trar. She couldn’t help. They can’t make a name available, Madi, not make a name available from the under the ordinary dispensation. public list for a chosen child like

And you know what the law is, this.” and you know why it is what it “But when you chose her your Is. We must have a hfe for a life, father was available and had con- even with natural wastage. These sented. You couldn’t tell he was SPECIAL CONSENT 87

going to go off naturally before- them. You can’t suddenly saddle us hand.” with a responsibility you would be “All the same, they won’t accept the first to deny us in other circum-

it. They want another consent, or stances.” the child goes.” She turned on him in cold an- "Well, don’t you know anyone ger. “I won’t have you talking like on the scheduled list you can ask?” this. You’ve been talking to some- “I don’t. Do you?” one — the other men at the works, "No, of course I don’t. How I suppose. There’s too much talking should I? But you know everybody. at the works.” You are one of those. Won’t some- He sulked after that, and she ?” body— could do nothing more with him. "Why should they?” Instead she went out and set her He was watching himself in the face westwards to where, on top wall-glass, moving his arms slight- of the rounded curve of the hill, ly to see the muscles move on his the green nipple of turf showed shoulders. His mind was only half where the Mother lived. with her. He said, “It’s the compe- tition tomorrow at the works. Do All round the skyline the grey you think I’ve a chance? Don’t you volcanic hills shut in the strug- think I’ve put on a bit these last six gling green. Every year or hvo the months?” vegetation, driven on by the ant- She said, "A Special Consent like industry of the people, would do.” climbed and closed over anotlrer “What?” He was really listen- hiU. The time might come when ing now. “Who’s going to give you there was nothing but green as far a Special Consent?” She looked at as tlie eye could see. Now to the him without speaking. He laughed mind’s eye the grey went on be- a little uncertainly. “Not me, for yond till the mind sickened at the one. There’s two years to go, my thought of it. But it was only the

lady, before I go on the list. You men who thought of it at all. know that.” One of the men said, “I’ve been “It’s your child.” thinking.” “Mine? Only in the sense that This was the thing they shared. you couldn’t manage it entirely by The women took thought, and yourself. Otherwise — He looked made decisions and drove the or- at her sharply. “I’m not altogether ganization on into unrelenting a fool, you know, madam. I know survival. The men, in between why you chose me and how limited times, were free to think. my use is. You can’t have it both “The Mother has come back,” he ways. Men will be what you make said. “We know that. Once she was 88 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION everything, then she was nothing, but we all know it will happen. now she is everything again. I Meanwhile they are what they think I know why. I think at first are.” there was all the world to expand The sky was colouring towards in and too few people. The world sunset, but the men, tired with the was at their feet if they could keep {diysical labour they were equipped going, but they were vulnerable. to perform, but could not organize, Expansion was everything. Hence still sat there, staring out over the the Mother. She was always the roofs to the dense green and the

Killer as well, but at that stage circle (rf grey hills beyond. They creation was everything. thought, extravagantly and incon- “The next stage came when the clusively, but did not speak. world had filled up a bit. Now it was other people that were the ’The horn blew as he came to trouble. There was fighting to be the foot of the grey slope, and he done and a lot of things to be wished he had not come so far. made, instead of simply found and Something had been nagging at endured. The Father took over him, filling his mind hut failing from the Mother. That was what to make itself understood, and the they call the Dark Ages now— all urge to be on his own had been that time when the Father was on overwhelming. Now it was too late; top. We were all right then. That he knew what it was. They had was right up to the Fire, though been working on him, up there on they say that the Mother was com- the central hill-top. Madi was cme ing back, even before. Since the of those. She could arrange that.

Fire it’s been the Mother again. It Otherwise he could never have

had to be, now it’s expansion come so far, not as late as this. The

again. But it’s not just expansion. cultivators and the rehabilitation

It’s multiplication by the rules, teams had long ago packed up and the Mother and the Killer working gone back towards the town. Noth- hand in glove. The E.E.A., do you ing moved on the green as far back

see? It’s the key to everything. TTie as he could see, and grey hills could

Mother’s behind it, we all know hold anything. The sky had lost its that. But give us time and room fire; it was getting dark. The horn enough, and the Father will be blew again, and he started to run. back. Meanwhile we can think. He could run much faster than They can’t stop that. They can’t they could, but they would keep on see over the hills, not as we can. forever. They were the Mother’s What’s more, they know it and re- hunters, whose minds were not sent it. The Father will be back. their own. The essential thing was

None of us will see it, of course, to run in the right direction, not SPECIAL CONSENT 89

to get lost where they could run in the darkness with his head on him down. He knew what they his hands. He no longer cared would do if they caught him. He about his remaining two years. It had known two men found like did not seem worth waiting for. that. He only saw them once, short "Send them away,” he said. "I will figures, bunched in twos and do what you want, but don’t let threes, moving momentarily on the them come in.” skyline. They ran knock-kneed, She opened the door. There was even at a gallop. In front of them a rush of feet, suddenly checked, the tall, panic-stricken man ran and a long, shrill, multiple sigli. effortlessly for his life. Madi spoke to them, using words If they had run by scent, like he did not expect to understand. dogs, he could have held his line, She was one of those. She had the but they split and headed him. He authority, and the old language, had been running several minutes Tlien she went out and shut tire when he found himself on grey ash door after her. He heard horns again and the horn blew from al- twice after that, but very far away. most in front. He broke back, picked up his direction in the last of the daylight and ran as he had never run before. 'Tes, madam,” said the man be- Near the first houses his breath hind the counter, “everything’s went and there were horns on both quite in order. We have had your sides of him. The runners were Special Consent through and the quite silent except for their breath- matter has already been dealt witli. ing. The doorway showed dark in Do you wish to see the Registrar, the dusk, and he ran straight into madam?” it. The door shut behind him. It “No, no. So long as everything was quite dark inside. He heard is in order. I have no time.” She bare feet pattering round the caught her breath and seemed to house. They stopped, and some- double in on herself. The clerk thing put a nose to the door and watched her with bright, apprais- sniffed. There was a long sigh fol- ing eyes, male and inscrutable. lowed by a burst of laughter, high- Then she recovered herself and set pitched and throaty, and the feet out, walking carefully but pur- took up their pattering again, posefully, for the great green dome round and round the house. at the centre of the world. Just Someone moved the inside latch short of the first circle she fell, but slightly, and he caught up his des- she was not one to be left lying, perate breathing and listened. and th^y came out and carried her Then he began to sob, sitting there in. Dr. Asimov’s monthly column came in accompanied by the fol-

lowing, and we should like to share it with the Gentle Reader. “The Memorial Day Weekend is coming up and I’ve got a few tasks that will he keeping me busy month’s end. So I did my

columnary stint early and am mailing it now to beat the holiday

weekend to the punch. No doubt you will both be goofing off as soon as the calendar gives you the shadow of permission. Mem- orial Day! Whee-e-e-el f Believe me, fewer Iwlidays and more old-fashioned industry and stick-to-itiveness will put this country

back on its feet. What we need is the good old fourteen-hour day, seven-day week we practiced when my old man had a cahdy-store. This modern trend to the ten-hour day, six-day week is ruining us. f Anyway, enclosed is TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR which contains a load of good stuff on the erratic motion of the Sun, and on yellow dwarfs, white dwarfs, red dwarfs and black dwarfs—information no child should be without in these race- conscious times.”

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR

*by Isaac Asimov

It came as a great shock to me, in childhood days, to learn that our Sun was something called a “yellow dwarf” and that sophisti- cated people scorned it as a rather insignificant member of the Milky Way.

90 TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR 91

I had made the very natural assumption, prior to that, that stars were little things, and everything I had read confirmed the notion. There were innumerable fairy tales about the tiny stars whieh (I gathered) must be the little children of the Sun and Moon, the brightly shining Sun being the father and the dim, retiring Moon the mother.*

When I found that all those minute points of liglit were huge, glar- ing suns greater than our own, it not only upset the sanctity of the heavenly family for me, but it also offended me as a patriotie inhabitant of the Solar system. Consequently, it was with grim relief that I eventu- ally learned that not all stars were greater than the Sun after all; that, in fact, a great many were smaller than the Sun.

What’s more, 1 found some of those small stars to be intensely fasci- nating and in order to talk about them, I wall begin Asimov-fashion at the other end of the stick, and consider the Earth and the Sun.

The Earth docs not really revolve about the Sun. Both Earth and Sun (taken by themselves) revolve about a common center of gravity. Naturally, die center of gravity is closer to the more massive body and

the degree of closeness is proportional to the ratio of masses of the trvo bodies. Thus, the Sun is 333,400 times as massive as the Earth, and the center of gravity should therefore be 333,400 times as close to the Sun’s center as to the Earth’s center. The distance betw'een Earth and Sun, center to center, is about 92,870,000 miles; and dividing that by 333,- 400 gives us the figure 280. Therefore, the center of gravity of the Earth-Sun system is 280 miles from the center of the Sun. This means that as the Earth moves around this center of gravity in its annual revolution, the Sun makes a small circle 280 miles in radius about the same center, leaning always away from the Earth, Of course, this trifling wobble is quite imperceptible from an observation point outside the Solar system; say, from Alpha Centauri. But what about the other planets? Each one of them revolves with the Sun about a common center of gravity. Some of the planets are both more massive than the Earth and more distant from the Sun, each of these factors working to mo\e the center of gravity further from the Sun’s center. To show^ you the result, I have worked out the following table (w hich, bj the way, I have never seen in any astronomy text).

’ I had curiously naive ideas about the comparative importance of the sexes in those day s. 92 FANTASY AND SCTENCE FICTION

Planet Distance (miles) of center of gravity of Sun-planet system from center of Sun Mercury 6 Venus 80 Earth 280 Mars 45 Jupiter 460.000 Saturn 250.000 Uranus 80,000 Neptune 140.000 Pluto 1,500 (?)

The radius of the Sun is 432,200 miles, so the center of gravity in every case but one hes below the Sun’s surface. The exception is Jupiter. The center of gravity of the Jupiter-Sun system is about 30,000 miles above the Sun’s surface (always in the direction of Jupiter, of course). If the Sun and Jupiter were all that existed in the Solar system, an observer from Alpha Centauri, say, though not able to see Jupiter, might (in principle) be able to observe that the Sun was making a tiny cirde about sometliing or other every twelve years. This “something or other” could only be the center of gravity of a system consisting of the Sim and another body. If our observer had a rough idea of the mass of the Sun, he could tell how distant the other body must be to impose a 1 2- year revolution. From that distance, as compared with the radius of the circle the Sun was making, he could deduce the mass of the other body. In this way, the observer on Alpha Centauri could discover the pres- ence of Jupiter and work out its mass and its distance from the Sun

without ever actually seeing it.

Actually, though, the wobble on the Sun imposed by Jupiter is still too small to detect from Alpha Centauri (assuming their instruments to be no better than ours). What makes it worse is that Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (the other planets can be ignored) impose wobbles on the Sun, too, which compheate its motion. But suppose that circling the Sun were a body considerably more massive than Jupiter. The Sun would then make a much larger circle and a much simpler one for the effect of other revolving bodies would be swamped by this super-Jupiter. To be sure, this is not the case with the Sun, but is it possible that it might be so for other stars? Yes, indeed, it is iwssible. TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR 93

In 1834, the German astronomer, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, con- cluded, from a long series of careful observations, that Sirius was mov- ing across the sky in a wavy line. This could best be explained by sup- posing that the center of gravity of Sirius and another b^y was moving in a straight line and that it was Sirius’s revolution about the center of gravity (in a period of some 50 years) that produced the waviness. Sirius, however, is about 21^ times as massive as the Sun and for it to be pulled as far out of hne as observation showed it to be, the com- panion body had to be much more massive than Jupiter. In fact, it turned out to be about 1 ,000 times as massive as Jupiter or just about as massive as our Sun. If we call Sirius itself "Sirius A’’ then this thousand-fold-jupiter companion would be "Sirius B.” (This use of let- ters has become a standard device for naming components of a multiple star system.) Anything as massive as the Sun ought to be a star rather than a planet and yet, try as he might, Bessel could see nothing in the neighborhood of Sirius A where Sirius B ought to be. The seemingly natural conclu- sions was that Sirius B was a bumt-out star, a blackened cinder .that had used up its fuel. For a generation, astronomers spoke of Sirius’ "dark companion.” In 1862, however, an American telescope-maker, Alvan Graham Clark, was testing a new 18-inch lens he had made. He turned it on Sirius to test the sharpness of the image it would produce, and, to his chagrin, found there was a flaw in his lens, for near Sirius was a sparkle of light that shouldn’t be there. Fortunately, before going back to his grinding, he tried the lens on other stars, and the defect disappeared! Back to Sirius — and there was that sparkle of light again. It couldn’t be a defect; Clark had to be seeing a star. In fact, he was seeing Sirius’s “dark companion” which wasn’t quite dark after all, for it was of the 8th magnitude. Allowing for its distance, however, it was at least dim, if not dark, for it was only 1/120 as luminous as our Sun — there was still that much of a dim glow amid its supposed ashes. In the latter half of the 1 9th Century, spectroscopy came into its own. Particular spectral lines could be produced only at certain tempera- tures so that from the spectrum of a star its surface temperature could be deduced. In 1915, the American astronomer, Walter Sydney Adams, managed to get the spectrum of Sirius B and was amazed to discover that it was not a dimly glowing cinder at all, but had a surface rather hotter than that of the Sun!

But if Sirius B was hotter than the Sun, why was it only 1/120 as bright as the Sun? The only way out seemed to be to assume that it was —

94 FANTASY AND SCIF.NCE FiCTTOX much smaller than the Sun and had, therefore, a smaller radiating sur- face. In fact, to account for both its temperature and its low total lumi- nosity, it had to have a diameter of about 30,000 miles. Sirius B, al- though a star, was just about the size of the planet, Uranus. It was more dwarfish than any astronomer had conceived a star might be and it was white-hot, too. Consequently, Sirius B and all other stars of that type came to be called “white dwarfs.” But Bessel’s observation of the mass of Sirius B was still vaUd. It was still just about as massive as the Sun. To squeeze all that mass into the volume of Uranus meant that the average density of Sirius B had to be 38,000 kilograms per cubic centimeter, or about 580 tons per cubic inch. Twenty years earlier, this consequence of Adams’ discovery would have seemed so ridiculous that the entire chain of reasoning would have been thrown out of court and the very concept of judging stellar temperatures by spectral lines would have come under serious doubt. By Adams’s time, however, the internal structure of tire atom had been worked out and it was known that virtually all the mass of the atoms was concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the very center of the atom. If the atom could be broken down and the central nuclei allowed to ap- proach, the density of Sirius B and, in fact, densities millions of times greater still, became conceivable. Sirius B by no means represents a record either for the smallness of a star or for its density. Van Maanen’s Star (named for its discoverer) has a diameter of only 6,048 miles, so that it is smaller than tlie Earth and not very much larger than Mars. It is 1/7 as massive as our Sun

(about 140 times as massive as Jupiter) and that is enough to make it fifteen times as dense as Sirius B. A cubic inch of average material from Van Maanen’s star would weigh 8,700 tons. And even Maanen’s Star isn’t the smallest. In the course of this last year, William J. Luyten of the University of Minnesota has dis- covered a white dwarf star with a diameter of about 1,000 miles only half that of the Moon.

Of course’, the white dwarfs can’t really give us much satisfaction as "little stars.” They may be dwarfs in volume but they are sun-size in mass, and 'giants in density and in intensity of gravitational fields. What about really little stars, in mass and temperature as well as in volume? These are hard to find. When we look at the sky, we axe automati- cally making a selection. We see all the large, bright stars for hun- TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR $5 dreds of light years in all directions, but the dim stars we can barely see at all, even when they are fairly close. Judging by the stars we see, our Sun, sure enough, is a rather in- significant dwarf, but we can get a truer picture by confining ourselves to our immediate neighborhood. That is the only portion of space through which we can make a reasonably full census of stars, dim ones and all. Thus, within five parsecs (161/2 light years) of ourselves, according to a compilation prepared by Peter Van de Kamp of Swarthmore Col- lege, there are 39 stellar systems, including our own Sun. Of these, 8 include two visible components and 2 include three visible com- ponents, so that diere are 5 1 individual stars altogether. Of these, exactly three stars are ccmsiderably brighter than our Sun and these we can call “white giants.”

Star Distance Luminosity (light-years) (Sun — 1)

Sirius A 8.6 23 Altair 15.7 8.3 Procyon A 11.0 6.4

There are then a dozen stars that are as bright or nearly as bright as the Sun. We can call these “yellow stars” without making any in- vidious judgements as to whether they are dwarfs or not.

Star Distance Lumino: (light-years] (Sun =

Alpha Centauri A 4.3 1.01

Sim • « * 1.00 70 Ophiuchi A 16.4 0.40 Tau Ceti 11.2 0.33 Alpha Centauri B 4.3 0.30 Omicron. Eridani A 15.9 0.30 Epsilon Eridani 10.7 0.28 Epsilon Indi 11.2 0.13 70 Ophiuchi B 16.4 0.08 61 Cygni A 11.1 0.07 6 1 Cygni B 11.1 0.04 Groombridge 1618 14.1 0.04 : —

96 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Of the remaining stars, all of which are less than as luminous as the Sun, four are white dwarfs

Star Distance Luminosity (light-years) (Sun = 1)

Sirius B 8.6 0.008 Omicron. Eridani B 15.9 0.004 Procyon B 11.0 0.0004 Van Maanen’s Star 13.2 0.00016

This leaves 32 stars that are not only considerably dimmer than the Sun, but considerably cooler, too, and therefore distinctly red in ap- pearance. To be sure there are cool red stars that are nevertheless much brighter in total luminosity than our Sun because they are so giganti-

cally voluminous. (This is the reverse of the white dwarf situation.) These tremendous cool stars are “red giants” and there are none of tliese in the Sun’s vicinity — distant Betelgeuse and Antares are tlie best known examples. The cool, red, small stars are “red dwarfs.” An example of this is the very nearest star to ourselves, the third and dinunest member of the Alpha Centauri system. It should be called Alpha Centauri C, but be-

cause of its nearness, it is more frequently called Proxima Centauri. It is only 1/23,000 as briglit as our Sun and, despite its nearness, can be seen only wdth a good telescope. To summarize, then, there are, in our vicinity: 0 red giants, 3 white giants, 12 yellow stars, 4 white dwarfs and 32 red dwarfs. If we con- sider the immediate neighborhood of the Sun to be a typical one (and we have no reason to think otherwise) then well over half the stars in the heavens are red dwarfs and considerably dimmer than the Sun. Indeed our Sun is among the top ten percent of the stars in luminosity "yellow dwarf” indeed!

The red dwarf stars offer us something new. When I discussed the

displacement of the Sun by Jupiter at the beginning of the article, I pointed out that the displacement could be larger, and therefore possible to observe from other stars, if Jupiter were considerably larger. An alternative would be to have the Sun considerably less massive. It is not the absolute mass of either component, but the ratio of the

masses that counts. Thus, the Jupiter-Sun ratio is 1 : 1,000, which leads TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR 97 to an indetectable displacement. The mass ratio of the two components of the Sirius system, however is 1 : 2. 5 and that is easily detectable. If a star were, say, half the mass of the Sun and it were circled by a body eight times the mass of Jupiter, the mass ratio would be abom 1:60. The displacement would not be as readily noticeable as in tin case of Sirius, but it would be detectable. Exactly such a displacement was detected in 1943 at Sproul O'a servatory in Swarthmore College, in connection with 61 Cygni. Froii: unevennesses in the motion of one of the major components, a thiir component, 61 Cygni C was deduced as existing; a body with a mas: 1/125 of our Sun or only 8 times that of Jupiter. In 1960, similar displacements were discovered for the star Lalande 21185 at Sproii! Observatory. It, too, had a planet eight times the mass of Jupiter. Now, in 1963, the same observatory announces a third planet oui side the Solar system. The star involved is Barnard’s Star.

This star was discovered in 1916 by the American astronomci . Edward Emerson Barnard and it turned out to be an unusual star in deed. In the first place, it is the second nearest star to ourselves, bein-j only 6.1 light-years distant. (The three stars of the Alpha Centauri sys tern, considered as a unit, are the nearest at 4.3 light years; Lalandf 21185 at 7.9 hght years is third nearest. Next is Wolf 359 and then the two stars of the Sirius system — at 8.0 and 8.6 light years respec tively.)

Barnard’s Star has the most rapid proper motion known, partly be- cause it is so close. It moves 10.3 seconds of arc a year. This isn’t much really, for in the 47 years since its discovery, it has only moved a little over 8 minutes of arc (or about one-quarter the apparent width of tlu moon) across the sky. For a "fixed” star, however, that’s a tremendousl-. rapid movement; so rapid, in fact, that the star is sometimes called “Barnard’s Runaway Star” or even "Barnard’s Arrow.” Barnard’s Star is a red dwarf with about one-fifth the mass of the

Sun and less than 1/2500 the luminosity of the Sun (though it is nine times as luminous as Proxima Centauri).

The planet displacing Barnard’s Star is Barnard’s Star B and it is the smallest of the three invisible bodies yet discovered. It is about 1/700 the mass of the Sun and hence roughly 1.2 times the mass of Jupiter, Put another way it is about 500 times the mass of the Earth. If it pos- sesses the overall density of Jupiter, it would make a planetary body about 1 00,000 miles in diameter. All this has considerable significance. Astnmomers have about de- cided from purely theoretical considerations that most stars have plan- 98 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ets. Now we find that in our immediate neighborhood, at least three stars have at least one planet apiece. Considering that we can only detect super-Jovian planets, this is a remarkable record. Our Sun has one planet of Jovian size and eight sub-Jovians. It is reasonable to sup- pose that any other star with a Jovian planet has a family of sub-Jovians also. And indeed, there ought to be a number of stars with sub-Jovian planets only. In short, on the basis of these planetary discoveries, it would seem quite likely that nearly every star has planets. A generation ago, when it was believed that solar systems arose through collisions or near-collisions of stars, it was felt that a planetary family was excessively rare. Now we might conclude that the reverse is ture; it is tlie truly lone star, the one without companion stars or plan- ets, that is the really rare phenomenon.

And yet die red dwarfs aren’t quite as little as they seem to be from their luminosity. Even the smallest red dwarf; Proxima Centauri, for in- stance; is not less than 1/10 the mass of the Sun. In fact, stellar masses are quite uniform; much more uniform than stellar volumes, densities or luminosities. Virtually all stars range in mass from not less than 1/10 of the Sun to not more than 10 times the Sun, a stretch of but two orders of magnitude. There is good reason for this. As mass increases, the pressure and temperature at the center of the body also increases and the amount of radiation produced varies as the fourth power of the temperature. In- crease the temperature 10 times, in other words, and luminosity in- creases 10,000 times. Stars that are more dian 10 times the mass of the Sun are therefore unstable, for the pressures associated with their vastly intense radia- tions blow them apart in short order. On the other hand stars with less than one-tenth the mass of die Sun do not have an internal tem- perature and pressure high enough to start a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. The upper limit is an absolute one. Too-massive stars blow up and actually don’t exist. Too-light stars merely don’t shine and can’t be seen, so that the lower limit is an arbitrary one. The little bodies may exist even if they can’t be seen. Below the smallest luminous stars are, indeed, the non-luminous planets. In our own Solar system, we have bodies up to the size of Jupiter which is perhaps 1/100 die mass of the feebly glowing Proxima Cen- tauri. A body such as 61 Cygni C would have a mass 1/12 that of TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR 99

Proxima Centauri. Undoubtedly there must be bodies closing that re- maining gap in mass. Jupiter, large as it is for a pknet, develops insufficient heat at its center to lend significant warmth to its surface. Whatever warmth exists on Jupiter’s surface derives from Solar radiation. The same may be true for 6 1 Cygni C. However, as we consider planets larger still, there must come a point where the internal heat, while not great enough to start nuclear reac- tions, is great enough to keep tbc surface warm, perhaps warm enough to allow water to remain eternally in the liquid form. We might call this a sui>er-planet but, after all, it is radiating energy in the infra-red. Such a body would not glow visibly hence “black dwarfs,” but if our eyes were sensitive to infra-red we might see them as very dim stars. They might, tlierefore, be more fairly called “sub-stars” than super- planets. Harlow Shapley, emeritus director of Haiward College Observatory, thinks it possible that such sub-stars are very common in space, and that they might even be the abode of life. To be sure, a sub-star Avith an Earth-like density would have a diameter of about 150,000 miles and a surface gravity about 1 8 times Earth-normal. To life developing in the oceans, however, gravity is of no importance. Is it possible that such a sub-star (with, perhaps, a load of life) might come rolling close enough to the Solar system, some day, to attract exploring parties. We can’t be certain it won’t happen. In the case of luminous stars, we can detect invaders from afar, and we can be certain that none will be coming this way for millions of years. A sub-star, however, could sneak up on us unobserved; we’d never know it was approaching. It might be right on top of us — say, within fifteen billion miles of the Sun —before we detected its presence through its reflected light and through its gravitational perturbations on the outer planets. Then at last mankind might go out to see for themselves what a little star was like and set to rest that generations-long plaintive chant of childhood “How I wonder what you arel” Only— it wpn’t be tivinkling. “Debonnaire” is our word for Alfred Bester the man; trimly- bearded, ornately-waistcoated, tcit, gent., columnist for bogue and HOLIDAY. “Absorbing” is our word for Alfred Bester the au- thor; deep, rich, and all too few have his stories here been, from OF TIME AND THIRD AVENUE (Oct. 1951) to THE PI MAN (Oct. 1959). Now, in his first appearance in The Magazine since his retirement as its stimulating and controversial Books Editor, he mamges to deal in a different way with a theme we honestly believed had been dealt to death. Welcome back, Mr. Bester, with your reductio ad absurdem account of an Adam who delved not and an Eve who did not spin; ft’s a pleasure.

THEY DON'T MAKE LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO

by Alfred Bester

The girl driving the jeep was peered, hesitated, tlien glanced very fair and very Nordic. Her down at her jeans and made a blonde hair was pulled back in a face. She pulled the pants off and ix»ny tail, but it was so long that hurled them at the pigeons etern- it was more a mare’s tail. She ally cooing and courting on the wore sandals, a pair of soiled hbrary steps. As they clattered up bluejeans, and nothing else. She in fright, she ran down to Fifth was nicely tanned. As she turned Avenue, crossed, and stopped be- tlie jeep off Fifth Avenue and fore a shop window. There was a drove bouncing up the steps of the plum colored wool dress on dis- library, her bosom danced en- play. It had a high waist, a full chantingly. skirt, and not too many moth She parked in front of tlie h- holes. The price was $79.90. brary entrance, stepped out, and The girl rummaged througli was about to enter when her at- old cars skewed on the avenue un- tention was attracted by some- til she found a loose fender. She thing across the street. She smashed the plate glass shop door. THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 101 carefully stepped across the She knew exactly what she want- splinters, entered, and sorted ed; something w’arm with blue through the dusty dress racks. She accents to fit a twenty by thirty was a big girl and had trouble fit- frame for her bedroom. In a price- ting herself. Finally she aban- less collection of Hiroshige prints doned the plum colored wool and she found a lovely landscape. She compromised on a dark tartan, filled out a slip, placed it care- size 12, $120 reduced to $99.90. fully on the librarian’s desk, and She located a salesbook and pen- left with the print. cil, blew the dust off, and care- Downstairs, she stopped off in fully wrote: l.O.U. $99.90, Lin- die main circulation room, signed da Nielsen. the register, went to the back She returned to the library and shelves and selected two Italian went through the main doors grammars and an Italian diction- which had taken her a week to ary. Then she backtracked tlirough batter in with a sledge hammer. the main hall, went out to the She ran across the great hall,, jeep, and placed the books and filthied w'ith five years of drop- print on the front seat alongside pings from the pigeons roosting her companion, an exquisite Dres- there. As she ran, she clapped her den China doU. She picked up a arms over her head to shield her hstthat read: hair from stray shots. She climbed Jap. print Italian the stairs to the third floor and 20 X 30 pict. fr. entered the Print Room. As al- Lobster bisque ways, she signed the register: Brass polish Date-]une 20, 1981. Namc-Lin- Detergent da Nielsen. Address-Ce^itral Park Film, pohsli Model Boat Pond. Business or Wet mop Firm-Last Man On Earth. She crossed off the first two She had had a long debate with items, replaced die list on the herself about Business or Finn dashboard, got into the jeep and the first time she broke into the bounced down the library steps. library. Strictly speaking, she was She drove up Fifth Avenue, the last woman on earth, but she threading her way through crum- had felt that if she wrote that it bling wreckage. As she was pass- would seem chauvinistic; and ing the ruins of St. Patrick’s Ca- “Last Person On Earth” sounded thedral at 50th Street, a man ap- silly, like calling a drink a bev- peared from nowhere. erage. He stepped out of the rubble She pulled portfolios out of and, without looking left or right, racks and leafed through them. started crossing the avenue just in 102 FANT.4SY .^^D SCIENCE FICTION front of her. She exclaimed, “Just plain common sense,” she banged on the horn whidi re- grumbled, backing the jeep off the mained mute, and braked s® bus. sharply that the jeep slewed and “Hey lady, wait a minute.” slammed into the remains of a No. "Yes?” 3 bus. The man let out a squaw’k, “Listen, you know anything jumped ten feet, and then stood about TV? Electronics, how the) frozen, staring at her. say ...”

” “You crazy jay-walker," she “Are you trying to be funny? yelled. “Why don’t you look where “No, this is straight. Honest.” you’re going? D’you think you She snorted and tried to con- own the whole city?” tinue driving up Fifth Avenue, He stared and stammered. He but he wouldn’t get out of the way. was a big man, witli thick, griz- “Please, lady,” he persisted. “I zled hair, a red beard, and weath- got a reason for asking. Do you ered skin. He was wearing army know?” fatigues, heavy ski boots, and had "No.” a bursting knapsack and blanket "Damn! I never get a break. roll on his back. He carried a bat- Lady, excuse me, no offense, but tered shotgun, and his pockets you got any guys in this town?” wei'e crammed with odds and "There’s nobody but me. I’m ends. He looked like a prospector. the last man on earth.” “My God,” he whispered in a “That’s funny. I always thought rusty voice. “Somebody at last. 1 I was.” knew it. I always knew I’d find “So all right. I’m the last wom- someone.” Tlien, as he noticed her an on earth.” long, fair hair, his face fell. “But He shook his head. “There’s got a woman,” he muttered. “Just my to be other people; there just has goddam lousy luck.” to. Stands to reason. South, may- “What are you, some kind of be you think? I’m down from nut?” she demanded. “Don’t you New Haven, and I figured if I know better tliau to cross against headed where the climate w'as like the lights?” warmer, there’d be some guys I He looked around in bewilder- could ask something.” ment. “What lights?” “Ask what?” "So all right, there aren't any “Aw, a woman wouldn’t under- lights, but couldn’t you look where stand. No offense.” you were going?” “Well, if you want to head “I’m sorry, lady. To tell the south you’re going the wrong if trutli, I wasn’t expecting any traf- way. fic." 'That*s south, ain’t it?” he THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 103

asked, pointing down Fifth Ave- “WTiat’s the matter?” he asked, nue. “Won’t it go?” ‘Tes, but you’ll just come to a “What’s your name?" dead end. Manhattan’s an island. “Mayo. Jim Mayo.” What you have to do is go up- “I’m Linda Nielsen.” town and cross the George Wash- "Yeah. Nice meeting you. Why

ington bridge to Jersey." don’t it go?” “Uptoivn? W’hich way is that?" “Jim, I’ve got a proposition for "Go straight up Fifth to Cathe- you.” dral Parkway, then over to the “Oh?” He looked at her doubt- west side and up Riverside. You fully. “I’ll be glad to listen, lady

can’t miss it.” — I mean Linda, but I ought to He looked at her helplessly. tell you, I got something on my "Stranger in town?” mind that’s going to keep me pret- .” He nodded. ty busy for a long t . . His "Oh, all right,” she said. "Hop voice trailed off as he turned away in. I’ll give you a lift.” from her intense gaze. She transferred the books and “Jim, if you’ll do something for

the china doll to the back scat, me. I’ll do something for you.” and he squeezed in alongside her. “Like what, for instance?”

As she started the jeep she looked "Well, I get terribly lonesome, down at his worn ski boots. nights. It isn’t so bad during the "Hiking?” day, there’s always a lot of chores

"Yeah." to keep you busy, but at night it’s “Why don’t you drive? You can just awful.” get a car working, and there’s “Yeah, I know,” he muttered. plenty of gas and oil.” “I’ve got to do something about “I don’t know how to drive,” he it.”

said despondantly. “It's the story “But how do I come into this?” of my life.” he asked nervously. He heaved a si~h, and that "Why don’t vou stay in Neiv

made his knapsack jolt massively Vork for a while? ' If you do. I’d against her shoulder. She exam- teach you how to drive, and find ined him out of the corner of her you a car so you don’t have 1o eye. He had a poweriu! chest, a hike south.”

long, thick back, and strong leys. “Say, that’s an idea. Is it hard, His hands were big and hard, and drii'ing?” his neck was corded with muscles. “I could teach you in a couple She thought for a moment, then of da vs.” ” nodded to herself and slopped the "I don’t learn things so quick jeep. "All right, a couple of weeks, ”

104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

but think of how much time you’ll get the piano in together, Jim. It save in the long run.” wouldn’t be hard.” “Gee,” he said, “that sounds “Well, I don’t know, Lena great.” Then he turned away again. “But what do I have to do “Linda.” — for you?” “Excuse me. Linda. I Her face lit irp with excite- “You look strong enougli. ment. “Jim, I want you to help me What’d you do, before?” move a piano.” “I used to be a pro rassler.” “A piano? What piano?” “There! I knew you were “A rosewood g?:and from Stein- strong.” way’s on 57 th Street. I’m dying to "Oh, I’m not a rassler any have it in my place. The living more. I become a bartender and room is just crying for it.” went into the restaurant business. “Oh, you mean you’re furnish- I opened ‘The Body Slam’ up in ing, huh?” New Haven. Maybe you heard of “Yes, but I want to play after it?” dinner, too. You can’t listen to “I’m sorry.”

records all the time. I’ve got it all “It was sort of famous with the planned;- books on how to play, sports crowd. What’d you do be- and books on how to tune a piano fore?”

. . . I’ve been able to figure ev- “I was a researcher for BBDO.” erything except how to move the “What’s that?” piano in.” “An advertising agency,” she

“Yeah, but . . . But there’s explained impatiently. “We can apartments all over this town talk about that later, if you’ll stick with pianos in them,” he objected. around. And I’ll teach you how to “There must be hundreds, at drive, and we can move in the least. Stands to reason. Why don’t piano, and there’re a few other you live in one of them?” things that I —but that can wait. “Never! I love my place. I’ve Afterwards you can drive south.” spent five years decorating it, and “Gee, Linda, I don’t know tf it’s beautiful. Besides, there’s the problem of water.” She took Mayo’s hands. “Come He nodded. “Water’s always a on, Jkn, be a sport. You can stay headache. How do you handle it?” with me. I’m a wonderful cook, “I’m living in the house in Cen- and I’ve got a lovely guest .” tral Park where they used to keep room . . the model yachts. It faces the boat "What for? I mean, thinking pond. It’s a darling place, and you was the last man on earth.” I’ve got it all fixed up. We could “'That’s a silly question. A prop- THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 105

er house has to have a guest room. Linda shrugged. “I don’t know You’ll love my place. I turned the for sure. I think it’s the city fall- lawns into a farm and gardens, ing apart. You’ll see buildings and you can swim in the pond, coming down every now and then.

and we’ll get you a new Jag . . . You get used to it.” Her enthusi- I know where tliere’s a beauty up asm rekindled. “Now come inside. on blocks.” I want to show you everything.” “I think I'd rather have a Cad- She was bursting with pride dy.; and overflowing with decorating ‘‘You can have anytliing you details that bewildered Mayo, but like. So what do you say, Jim? Is he was impressed by her Victorian it a deal?” living room. Empire bedroom, and “All right, Linda,” he mut- Country Kitchen with a working tered reluctantly. “You’re a deal.” kerosene cooking stove. The Co- lonial guest room, with four- It was indeed a lovely house jxister bed, hooked rug, and Tole with its pagoda roof of copper lamps, worried him. weatliered to verdigris green, field- “This is kind of girlie-girlie, stone walls, and deep recessed huh?”

windows. The or al pond before it “Naturally. I’m a girl.”

glittered blue in the soft June “Yeah. Sure. I mean . . sunlight, and Mallard ducks pad- Mavo looked around doubtfully. died and quacked busily. The “Well, a guy is used to stuff that sloping larvns tliat formed a borvl ain't so delicate. No offense.” around the pond were terraced “Don't worry, that bed’s strong and cultivated. The house faced enough. Now remember, Jim, no west, and Central Park stretched feet on the spread, and remove it out beyond hke an unkempt estate. at night. If your shoes are dirty, Mayo looked at the pond wist- take them off before )ou come in.

fully. ’‘It ought to have boats.” I got that rug from the museum

“The house was full of them and I don’t want it messed up.

when I moved in,” Linda said. Have you got a change of “I ahvays wanted a model boat clothes?” " when I was a kid. Once I even — “Only what I got on.” Mayo broke off. A penetrating “We’ll have to get you new pounding sounded somewhere; an things tomorrow. \Vhat you’re irregular sequence of heavy knocks wearing is so filthy it’s not worth that sounded like the dint of laundering.” stones under water. It stopped as “Listen,” he said desperately, suddenly as it had begun. “What “1 tliink maybe I better camp out was that?” Mayo asked. in the park.” 106 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

"Why on earth?” backed away from the splash and "WeJl, I’m like more used to it spatter. than houses. But you don’t have “Good morning,” Linda said. to worry, Linda. I’ll be aromid in “Sleep well?” case you need me.” “Good morning,” Mayo said. “I “Why should I need you?” don’t know. The bed put kinks in "All you have to do is holler.” my back. Gee, that water must be “Nonsense,” Linda said firmly. cold. You’re all gooseflesh.” “You’re my guest and you’re stay- “No, it’s marvelous.” She pulled ing here. Now get cleaned ug; off the cap and shook her hair I’m going to start dinner. Oh down. ‘TVhere’s tlrat towel? Oh, damn! I forgot to pick up the lob- here. Go on in, Jim. You’ll feel ster bisque.” wonderful.”

” She gave him a dinner cleverly “I don’t like it when it’s cold. contrived from canned goods, and "Don’t be a sissy.” served on exquisite Fornisetti chi- A crack of thunder split the na with Swedish silver flatware. quiet morning. Mayo looked up at It was a typical girl’s meal, and the clear sky in astonishment. Mayo was still hungry when it “What the hell w'as that?” he ex- was finished, but too polite to claimed. mention it. He was too tired to “Watch,” Linda ordered. fabricate an excuse to go out and “It sounded like a sonic boom.” forage for something substantial. “Thepel” she cried, pointing He lurched off to bed, remember- west. “See?” ing to remove his shoes, but for- One of the westside skyscrapers getting all about the spread. crumbled majestically, sinking He was awakened next morn- into itself like a collapsible cup, ing by a loud honking and clatter and raining masses of cornice and of wings. He rolled out of bed and brick. The flayed girders twisted went to the windows just in time and contortecl. Moments later to see the Mallards dispossessed they could hear the roar of the from the pond by w'hat appeared collapse. to be a red balloon. When he got “Man, that’s a sight,” Mayo his eyes w’orking properly, he saw muttered in awe. that it was a bathing cap. He wan- “The decline and fall of the dered out to the pond, stretching Empire City. You get used to it. and groaning. Linda yelled cheer- Now take a dip, Jim. I’ll get you fully and swam toward him. She a towel.” heaved herself up out of the pond She ran into the house. He onto the curbing. The baling dropped his shorts and took off his cap w'as all that she wore. Mayo socks, but was still standing on THEY don't make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 107

the curb, unhappily dipping his into the pond. He was standing, toe into the water when she re- chest deep, splashing his face and turned with a huge bath towel. shoulders with water when Linda “It’s awful cold, Linda,” he returned. She carried a stool, a complained. pair of scissors, and a comb.

“Didn’t you take cold showers “Doesn’t it feel wonderful?” she when you were a wrestler?” called. “Not me. Boiling hot.” “No.” “Jim, if you just stand there, She laughed. “Well, come out. you’ll never go in. Look at you, I’m going to give you a haircut.” you’re starting to shiver. Is that a He climbed out of the pond, tattoo around your waist?” dried himself, and obediently sat “What? Oh, yeah. It’s a python, on the stool while she cut his hair. in five colors. It goes all the way “TTie beard, too,” Linda insisted. around. See?” He revolved proud- “I want to see what you really ly. “Got it when I was with the look like.” She trimmed him close Marines in Saigon back in ’64. It’s enough for shaving, inspected a Oriental-type python. Elegant, him, and nodded with satisfac- huh?” tion. “Very handsome.” “Did it hurt?” "Aw, go on,” he blushed. “To tell the truth, no. Some “There’s a bucket of hot water guys try to make out like it’s Chi- on the stove. Go and shave. Don’t nese torture to get tattooed, but bother to dress. We’re going to get they’re just showin’ ofiF. It more you new clothes after breakfast, itches than anything else.” and then . . . The Piano.” “You were a marine in ’64?” “I couldn’t walk around the “That’s right.” streets naked,” he said, shocked. “How old were you?” “Don’t be siHy. Who’s to see? “Twenty.” Now hurry.” “You’re thirty-seven now?” They drove dowm to Abercrom- “Thirty-six going on thirty-sev- bie & Fitch on Madison and 45th en.” Street, Mayo wrapped modestly “Tiien you’re prematurely in his towel. Linda told him she’d grey?” been a customer for years, and “I guess so.” showed him the pile of sales slips She contemplated him thought- she had accumulated. Mayo ex- fully. "I tell you what, if you do amined them curiously while she go in, don’t get your head wet.” took his measurements and went She ran back into the house. ofiF in search of clothes. He was al- Mayo, ashamed of his vacilation, most indignant when she returned forced himself to jump feet first rvith her arms ladened. ”

108 FANT.^SV AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Jim, I’ve got some lovely elk ment as they drove uptown to the moccasins, and a Safari suit, and Steinway showroom, and helpful rvool socks, and Shipboard shirts, and underfoot by turns. After a and — long afternoon of muscle-cracking “Listen,” he interrupted, “do and critical engineering involving you know what your whole tab makeshift gantries and an agoniz- comes to? Nearly fourteen hun- ing dollie-haul up Fifth Avenue, dred dollars.” they had the piano in place in “Really? Put on the shorts first. Linda’s lir'ing room. Mayo gave it

They’re drip-dry.” one last shake to make sure it was “You must have been out of firmly on its legs, and then sank your mind, Linda. VVhat’d you down, exhausted. “Je-zuz!” he want all that junk for?” groaned. “Hiking south would’ve "Are the socks big enough? been easier.” What junk? I needed everything.” "Jim!” Linda ran to him and “Yeah? Like ...” He shuf- threw herself on him with a fer- fled the signed sales slips. “Like vent hug. “Jim, you’re an angel. One Underwater Viewer With Are you all right?” Ple.xiglass Lens, $9.95? What “Fm okay.” He grunted. “Get for?” off me, Linda. I ean’t breathe.”

“So I could see to clean the “I just can’t thank you enough. bottom of the pond.” I’ve been dreaming about this for “What about this Stainless ages. I don’t know what I can do Steel Service For Four, $39.50?” to repay you. Anything you w^ant, “For when I’m lazy and don't just name it.” feel like heating water. You can “Aw,” he said, “you already cut wash stainless steel in cold wa- my hair.” ter.” She admired him. “Oh, Jim, “I’m serious.” come look in the mirror. You’re “Ain’t you teaching me how to real romantic, like the big game drive?” hunter in that Hemingway story.” “Of course. As quickly as pos- “1 He shook his head. don’t see sible. That’s the least I can do.” how you’re ever going to get out Linda backed to a chair and sat of hock. You got to watch your down, her eyes fixed on the piano. spending, Linda. Maybe we better “Don’t make such a fuss over forget about that piano, huh?” nothing,” he said, climbing to his “Never," Linda said adamant- feet. He sat down before the key- ly. “I don’t care how much it board, shot an embarrassed grin costs. A piano is a lifetime invest- at her over his shoulder, then ment, and it’s worth it” reached out and began stumbling She was frantic with excitc- through The Minuet in G. THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 109

Linda gasped and sat bolt up- She confessed that the boundaries right. “You play,” she whispered. of her world were from Fifth Ave- "Naw. I took piano when I was nue to Third, and from 42nd a kid.” Street to 86th. She was uncom-

“But 3'ou remember.” fortable outside this pale. "A little bit.” She turned the wheel over to “Can you read music?” Mayo and let him creep up and “I used to.” down Fifth and Madison, practic- “Could you teach me?” ing starts and stops. He side- "I guess so; it’s kind of hard. swiped five ivrecks, stalled eleven Hey, here’s another piece I had to times, and reversed through a take.” He began mutilating The store front which, fortunately, Rustic Of Spring. What widi the was devoid of glass. He was trem- piano out of tune and his mis- bling with nervousness. takes, it was ghastly. “It’s real hard,” he complained. “Beautiful,” Linda breathed. “It’s just a question of prac- “Just beautiful!” She stared at his tice,” she reasured him. “Don’t back while an expression of deci- worry. I promise you’ll be an ex-

sion and determination stole pert if it takes us a month." across her face. She arose, slowly "A whole month!” crossed to Mayo, and put her “You said you were a slow hands on his shoulders. learner, didn’t you? Don’t hlame He glanced up. “Something?” me. Stop here a minute.” he asked. He jolted the Chewy to a halt. “Notliing,” she answered. "You Linda got out. practice the piano. I’ll get din- "Wait for me.” ner.” “What’s up?” But she was so concentrated "A surprise.” and preoccupied for the rest of She ran into a shop and was the evening that she made Mayo gone for half an hour. When she nervous. He stole off to bed early. reappeared she was wearing a It wasn’t until three o’clock the pencil-tliin hlack sheath, pearls, following afternoon that they fi- and high heeled opera pumps. She nally got a car working, and it had twisted her hair into a coro- wasn’t a Caddy, it was a Chewy; net. Mayo regarded her with a hard top because Mayo didn’t amazement as she got into the car. like the idea of being exposed to “What’s all this?” he asked. the weather in a convertible. They “Part of the surprise. Turn east drove out of the 10th Avenue ga- on 52nd Street.” rage and back to the east side He labored, started the car, and where Linda felt more at home. drove east. “Why’d you get all no FANTASY and SCIENCE FICTION

dressed up in an evening gown?” from the kitchen with a lighted “It’s a cocktail dress.” candle, he turned to her eagerly. “What for?” “You ever see any of them 'TV

“So I’ll be dressed for where stars in here?” he asked. we’re going. Watch out, Jim!” Lin- “I suppose .so. How about a da wrenched the wheel and drink?” sheered off the stem of a shat- “Sure. Sure. But I want to talk tered sanitation truck. “I’m taking more about them TV stars.” you to a famous restaurant.” He escorted her to a bar stool, ‘To eat?” blew the dust off, and helped her “No, silly, for drinks. You’re up most gallantly. Then he vault- my visiting fireman, and I hai^e to ed over the bar, whipped out his entertain you. That’s it on the handkerchief, and polished the left. See if you can park some- mahogany professionally. “This is where.” my specialty,” he grinned. He as- He parked abominably. As sumed the impersonally friendly they got out of the car, Mayo attitude of the bartender. “Eve- stopped and began to sniff curi- ning, M’am. Nice night. MTiat’s ously. your pleasure?” “Smell that?” he asked. "God, I had a rough day in the "Smell what?” shop! Dry Martini on the rocks. "That sort of sweet smell.” Better make it a double.” "It’s my perfume.” “Certainly, M’am. Twdst or

"TVo, it’s something in the air, olive?” kind of sweet and chokey. I know “Onion.” that smell from somewhere, but I “Double dry Gibson on the can’t remember.” rocks. Right.” Mayo searched be- “Never mind. Come inside.” hind the bar and finally pro- She led him into the restaurant. duced wdiisky, gin, and several "You ought to be wearing a tie,” bottles of soda, as yet only par- she whispered, "but maybe we tially evaporated through their can get away with it.” sealed caps. "Afraid we’re fresh Mayo was not impressed by out of Martinis, M’am. What’s the restaurant decor, but was fas- your second pleasure?” cinated by the portraits of celebri- "Oh, I like that. Scotch, ties hung in the bar. He spent rapt please.” minutes burning his fingers with “This soda’ll be flat,” he matches, gazing at Mel Allen, warned, “and there’s no ice.” Red Barber, Casey Stengel, Frank "Never mind.” Gifford and Rocky Marciano. He rinsed a glass with soda and When Linda finally came back poured her a drink. THEY don't make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 111

"Thank you. Have one on me, laughed. "You remind me of the bartender. What’s your name?” kid next door. I always had to tell “They call me Jim, M’am. No him the celebrities I’d seen. One thanks. Never drink on duty.” day I told him I saw Jean Arthuf “Then come off duty and join in here, and he said. With his ” me.” horse?’ “Never drink off duty, M’am.” Mayo couldn’t see the point, “You can call me Linda.” but was wounded nevertheless, “Thank you, Miss Linda.” Just as Linda was about to soothe "Are you serious about never his feelings, the har began a gen- drinking, Jim?” tle quivering, and at the same “Yeah.” time a faint subterranean nun- “M^ell, Happy Days.” bhng commenced. It came from “And Long Nights.” a distance, seemed to approach “I like that, too. Is it your slowly, and then faded away. The own?” vibration stopped. Mayo stared at “Gee, I don’t know. It’s sort of Linda. the usual bartender's routine, a “Je-zus! You think maybe this specially with guys. You know? building’s going to go?” Suggestive. No offense.” She shook her head. “No. When “None taken.” they go, it’s always with that “Bees!” Mayo burst out. boom. You know what that soimd- Linda was startled. “Bees ed like? The Lexington Avenue what?” subway.” “That smell. Like inside bee “The subway?” hives.” “Uh-huh. The local train.” “Oh? I wouldn’t know,” she “That’s crazy. How could the said indifferently. “I’U have an- subway be running?” other, please.” “I didn’t say it was. I said it “Coming right up. Now listen, sounded like. I’ll have another about them TV celebrities, you ac- please.” tually saw them here? In person?” “We need more soda.” Mayo “Why of course. Happy Days, explored and reappeared with bot- Jim.” tles and a large menu. He was "May they all be Saturdays.” pale. “You better take it easy, Linda pondered. "WTiy Satur- Linda,” he said. “You know what days?” they’re charging per drink? “Day off.” $1.75. Look.” “Oh.” “To hell with expense. Let’s “Which TV stars did you see?” hve a little. Make it a double, “You name ’em, I saw ’em.” She bartender. You know something. 112 FANTASY AND SCreNCE FICTION Jim? If you stawd in town I could “Bartender, give me another.” show you where all your heroes "Afraid I can’t serve you, lived. Thank you. Happy Days. I M’am.” could take you up to BBDO and "Why not?” show you their tapes and films. "You’ve had enough already.”

Hoav about that? Stars like . . . “I have not had enough al-

Ifke-Red . . . Who?” ready,” Linda said indignantly. “Barber.” “Where’s your manners?” She “Red Barber, and Rocky Gif- grabbed the whisky bottle. “Come ford, and Rocky Casey, and on, let’s have a few drinks and Rocky, the Flying Squin'el.” talk up a storm about T\i' stars. 'Tou’re putting me on,” Mayo Happy Days. I coidd take you up said, offended again. to BBDO and show you their “Me, sir? Putting you on?” Lin- tapes and films. How about tliat?” da said with dignity. “Why w'ould “You already asked me.” I do a thing like that? Just trying “You didn’t answer. I could to be pleasant. Just trying to give show- you movies, too. You like you a good time. My mother told movies? I hate ’em, but I can’t me, Linda, she told me, just re- knock ’em any more. Movies saved member this about a man, wear my life when the big bang came.” what he wants and say what he “How was that?” likes, is what she told me. You “This is a secret, understand? want this dress?” she demanded. Just between you and me. If any

“I like it, if that’s what you other agency ever found out .” mean.” . . Linda looked around and "Know what I paid for it? then lowered her voice. “BBDO Ninety-nine fifty.” located this big cache of silent “What? A hundred dollars for films. Lost films, see? Nobody a skinny black thing like that?” knew’ the prints were around. “It is not a skinny black thing Make a great TV series. So they like tlrat. It is a basic black cock- .sent me to this abandoned mine tail frock. And I paid twenty dol- in Jersey to take inventory’.” lars for the pearls. Simulated,” “In a mine?” she explained. “And sixty for the “That’s right. Happy Days.” opera pumps. And forty for the “Why were they in a mine?” perfume. Two hundred and twen- “Old prints. Acetate. Catch ty dollars to give you a good time. fire. Also rot. Have to be stored You having a good time?” like wine. That’s w’hy. So took “Sure.” two of my assistants ivith me to “Want to smell me?” spend w eekend down tliere, check- » » “I already." mg. THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 113

“You stayed in the mine a “For piano lessons.” whole weekend?” After a long pause he said, “Uh-huh. Three girls. Friday “You’re drunk.” to Monday. That was the plan. “Not wounded, sire, but dead.” Thought it would be a fun deal. She lay her head on the bar, Happy Days. So. Where was I? beamed up at him roguishly, and Oh. So, took hghts, blankets, li- then closed her eyes. An instant nen, plenty of picnic, the full later, Mayo knew she had passed schmeer, and went to work. I re- out. He compressed his lips. member exact moment when blast Then he climbed out of the bar, came. Was looking for third reel of computed the tab, and left fifteen an UFA film, Gekronter Blume- dollars under the whisky bottle. norden an der Pegnitz. Had reel He took Linda’s shoulder and one, two, four, five, six. No three. shook her gently. She collapsed Bang! Happy Days.” into his arms, and her hair came “Jesus. Then W'hat?” tumbling down. He blew out the “My girls panicked. Couldn’t candle, picked Linda up, and keep ’em down there. Never saw carried her to the Chewy. Then, them again. But I knew. I knew'. with anguished concentration, he Stretched that picnic forever. drove through the dark to the 'Then starved even longer. Finally boat pond. It took him forty min- came up, and for w'hat? For who? utes. Whom?” She began to weep. “For He carried Linda into her bed- nobody. Nobody left. Nothing.” room and sat her dow'n on the bed She took Mayo’s hands. “Why which w'as decorated with an w'on’t you stay?” elaborate arrangement of doUs. “Stav? Where?” Immediately she rolled over and “Here.” curled up with a doll in her arms,

“I am staying.” crooning to it. Mayo lit a lamp “I mean for a long time. Why and tried to prop her upright. She not? Haven’t I got lovely home? went over again, giggling. And there’s all New York for sup- “Linda,” he said, “you got to plies. And farm for flowers and get tliat dress off.” vegetables. We could keep cow's “Mf.” and chickens. Go fishing. Drive “You can’t sleep in it. It cost a cars. Go to museums. Art gal- hundred dollars.” leries. Entertain . . “Nine’nine-fify.” “You’re doing all that right "Now come on, honey.” now'. You don’t need me.” "Fm.” "But I do. I do.” He rolled his eyes in exaspera- “For W'hat?” tion, and then undressed her. ”

114 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

carefully hanging up the basic He grunted.

black cocktail frock, and standing “And I don’t blame you. I did the sixty dollar pumps in a cor- an awful thing last night. I didn’t ner. He could not manage the give you any dinner, and I want clasp of the pearls (simulated) so to apologise.” he put her to hed still wearing “1 wasn’t thinking about din- them. Lying on the pale blue ner,” he said with baleful dignity. sheets, nude except for the neck- “No? Then what on earth are lace, she looked like a Nordic you mad about?” odalisque. “I can’t stand women who get “Did you muss my dolls?” she drunk.” mumbled. “Who was drunk?” “No. They’re all around you.” “You.” “Thas right. Never sleep with- “I was not," she said indig- out them.” She reached out and nantly. petted them lovingly. “Happy “No? Who had to be undressed Days. Long Nights.” and put to bed like a kid?”

“Women!” Mayo snorted. He “Who was too dumb to take ofif extinguished the lamp and my pearls? ” she countered. “They tramped out, slamming the door broke and I slept on pebbles all behind him. night. I’m covered with black and blue—marks. Look. Here and here Next morning Mayo was again and awakened by the clatter of dis- "Linda,” he interrupted sternly, possessed ducks. The red balloon “I’m just a plain guy from New was sailing on the surface of the Haven. I got no use for spoiled pond, bright in the warm June girls who run up charge accounts sunshine. Mayo wished it was a and all the time decorate their- model boat instead of the kind of selves and hang around society- girl who got drunk in bars. He type saloons getting loaded.” stalked out and jumped into the “If you don’t like my company water as far from Linda as possi- why do you stay?” ble. He was sluicing his chest “I’m going,” he said. He when something seized his ankle climbed out and began drying and nipped him. He let out a yell, himself. “I’m starting south this and was confronted by Linda’s morning.” beaming face bursting out of the "Enjoy your hike.” water before him. “I'm driving.” “Good morning,” she laughed. “What? A kiddie-kar?” "Very funny,” he muttered. ‘The Chewy.” “You look mad this morning.” “Jim, you’re not serious?” She THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 115 climbed out of the pond, looking ent. We’ve got different tastes and alarmed. “You really don’t know interests. Fact?” how to drive yet.” “Absolutely.” “No? Didn’t I drive you home “But you’re not ready to leave falling down drunk last night?” yet. So I tell you what; we’ll spend ‘Ton’ll get into awful trouble.” the whole morning practicing “Nothing I can’t get out of. driving, and then we’ll have some

Anyway, I can’t hang around here fun. \\^hat would you like to do? forever. You’re a party girl; you Go window-shopping? Buy more just want to play. I got serious clothes? Visit the Modern Mus- things on my mind. I got to go eum? Have a picnic?” south and find guys who know His face brightened. “Gee, you about TV.” know something? I was never to a “Jim, you’ve got me wrong. I’m picnic in my whole life. Once I not like that at all. Why, look at was bartender at a clambake, but the way I fixed up my house. that’s not the same thing; not like Could I have done that if I’d been when you’re a kid.” going to parties all the time?” She was delighted. “Then we’ll ‘Tou done a nice job,” he ad- have a real kid-type picnic.” mitted. And she brought her dolls. She “Please don’t leave today. You- carried them in her arms while ’re not ready yet.” Mayo toted the picnic basket to “Aw, you just want me to Hang the Alice In Wonderland monu- around and teach you music.” ment. The statue perplexed Mayo, “Who said that?” who had never heard of Lewis 'Tou did. Last night.” Carroll. While Linda seated her She frowned, pulled off her pets and unpacked the picnic, she cap, then picked up her towel and gave Mayo a summary of the began drying herself. At last she story, and described how the said, “Jim, I’ll be honest with you. bronze heads of Alice, the Mad Sure, I want you to stay a while. Hatter, and the March Hare had I won’t deny it. But I wouldn’t been polished bright by the want you around permanently. swarms of kids playing King of After dl, what have we got in the Mountain. common?” "Funny, I never heard of that ‘Tou’re so damn uptown,” he story,” he said. growled. "I don’t think you had much of “No, no, it’s nothing like that. a childhood, Jim.” — It’s simply that you’re a guy and "Why would you say a ” He I’m a girl, and we’ve got notliing stopped, cocked his head, and lis- to offer each other. We’re differ- ten^ intently. 116 F.^NTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

"What’s the matter?" Linda “So? Join me?” asked. “What the hell, why not?” He “You hear that Blue Jay?” grinned. “Let's live a little. Say, "No,” this is one swingin’ picnic, and I “Listen. He’s making a funny like the plates, too. Where’d you sound; like steel.” get them?” "Steel?" “Abercrombie & Fitch,” Linda

"Yeah. Like . . . Like swords said, deadpan. “Stainless Steel in a duel.” Service For Four, $39.50. Skoal." "You're kidding.” Mayo burst out laughing. “I sure

“No. Honest.” goofed, didn't I, kicking up all that "But birds sing; they don’t fuss? Here’s looking at you.” make noises.” “Here’s looking right back.” "Not always. Blue Jays imi- They drank and continued eat- tate noises a lot. Starlings, too. ing in warm silence, smiling com- And parrots. Now why would he panionably at each other. Linda be imitating a sword fight? removed her Madras silk shirt in Where’d he hear it?” order to tan in the blazing after- “You’re a real country boy, noon sun, and Mayo politely hung aren’t you, Jim? Bees and Blue it up on a branch. Suddenly Lin- Jays and Starlings and all that da asked, "Why didn’t you have a tf childhood, Jim?” “I guess so. I was going to ask; “Gee, I don’t know.” He why would you say a thing like thought it over. “I guess because that, me not having any child- my motlier died when I was a kid. hood?” And something else, Mo; I had to “Oh, things like not knowing work a lot.” Alice, and never going on a pic- “Why?” nic, and always wanting a model “My father was a schoolteacher. yacht.” Linda opened a dark bot- You know how they get paid.” tle. “Like to try some wine?” “Oh, .so that’s why you’re anti- “You better go easy,” he warned. egghead.”

“Now stop it, Jim. I'm not a "I am?” drunk.” “Of course. No offense.” “Did you or didn’t you get “Maybe I am,” he conceded. “It smashed last night?” sure was a letdown for my old She capitulated. “All right, I man, me playing fullback in high did; but only because it was my school, and him wanting like an firsit drink in years.” Einstein in the house.” He was pleased by her surren- “Was football fun?” der. “Sure. Sure. That figures.” “Not like plas'ing games. Foot- THEY don’t make LIFE UKE THEY USED TO 117 ball’s a business. Hey, remember tasket, a green and yellow basket. when we were kids how we used to I sent a letter to my love, and on .“ chose up sides? Ibbety, bibbety, the way I dropped it . . zibbety, zab?" “Gee,” he said, much im- “VVe used to say, Eenie, meen- pressed. ‘You sing real good.” ie, mmey, mo.” “Oh, go on”! “Remember: April Fool, go to ‘Yes you do. You got a swell school, tell your teacher you’re a voice. Now don’t argue with me. fool?" Keep quiet a minute. I got to fig- "I love coffee, 1 love tea, 1 love ure something out.” He thought the boys, and the boys love me." intendy for a long time, finishing “I bet they did at that,’’ Mayo his wine and absently accepting said solemnly. another glass. Finally he deliv- "Not me.’’ ered himself of a decision. “You “Why not?’’ got to learn music.” "I was always too big.’’ “You know I’m dying to, Jim.” He was astonished. “But you’re “So I’m going to stay a while not big,” he assured her. “You're and teach you; as much as I just the right size. Perfect. And know. Now hold it! Hold it!” he really built. I noticed when vve added hastily, cutting off her ex- moved the piano in. You got mus- citement. “I’m not going to stay in cle, for a girl. A specially in the your house. I want a place of my legs, and that’s where it counts.” own.”

She blushed. “Stop it, Jim.” “Of course, Jim. Anything you “No. Honest.” jj “More wine?” “And I’m still headed south.” “Thanks. You have some, too.” “I’ll teach you to drive, Jim. "All right.” I’ll keep my word.” A crack of thunder split the sky “And no strings, Linda.” with its sonic boom, and was fol- “Of course not. What kind of lowed by the roar of collapsing strings?” masonry. “You know. Like the last min- “There goes another skyscrap- ute you all of a sudden got a Looey er,” Linda said. “What were we Cans couch you want me to move talking about?” in.” “Games,” Mayo said promptly. "Lotiis Quinze!” Linda’s jaw “Excuse me for talking with my dropped. “Wherever did you learn mouth full.” that?” "Oh yes. Jim did you play Drop “Not in the Marines, that’s for The Handkerchief up in New sure.” Haven?” Linda sang. "A tisket, a They laughed, clinked glasses, 118 FANT.VSY .AND SCIENCE FICTION

and finished their wine. Sudden- "Jim, I don’t understand. Why ly Mayo leaped up, pulled Linda’s are you so mad?” hair, and ran t« the Wonderland “You ought to be ashamed of monument. In an instant he had yourself.” climbed to the top of Alice’s head. “But I had to have house- “I’m King of the Mountain,’’ be room. You wouldn’t expect me to shouted, looking around in im- live with a lot of model boats." — ’’ perial survey. “I’m King of the “Just forget everything I said. He cut himself off and stared I’m going to pack and go south, down behind the statue. I wouldn’t stay with you if you “Jim, what’s the matter?” was the last person on earth.” Without a word, Mayo chmbed Linda gathered herself and sud- down and strode to a pile of de- denly darted ahead of Mayo. bris half hidden inside overgrown When he tramped into the boat- Forsythia bushes. He knelt and house, she Avas standing before began turning over the wreckage the door of the guest room. She with gentle hands, Linda ran to held up a heavy iron key. him. “I found it,” she panted. “Your "Jim, what’s wrong?” door’s locked.” “These used to be model boats,” “Gimmie that key, Linda.” he muttered. “No.” “That’s right. My God, is that He stepped toward her, but she all? I thought you were sick, or faced him defiantly and stood her something.” ground. “How come they’re here?” "Go ahead,” she challenged. “Why, I dumped tliem, of "Hit me.” course.” He stopped. "Aw, I wouldn’t “You?” pick on anybody that wasn’t my “Yes. I told you. I had to clear own size.”

out the boat house when 1 They continued to face each moved in. That was ages ago.” other, at a complete impasse. “You did this?” “I don’t need my gear,” Mayo “Yes. I—” muttered at last. “I can get more “You’re a murderer,” he stuff somewheres.” growled. He stood up and glared “Oh, go ahead and pack,” Lin- at her. “You’re a killer. You’re 6ke da answered. She tossed him the all women, you got no heart and key and stood aside. Then Mayo soul. To do a thing like this!” discovered there was no lock in He turned and stalked toward the bedroom door. He opened the the boat pond. Linda followed door, looked inside, closed it, and him, completely bewildered. looked at Linda. She kept her face THEY don’t make l.IFE LIKE THEY USED TO 119 straight but began to sputter. He neer or something at WNHA, the grinned. Then they both burst out TV station in New Haven. Gil had laughing. a million hobbies. One of them “Gee,” Mayo said; “you sure was spec — speel — I can’t remem- made a monkey out of me. I'd ber. It meant exploring caves. hate to play poker against you.” So anyw'ay we were up in this “You’re a pretty good bluffer flume in the Berkshires, spending yourself, Jim. I was scared to the weekend inside, exploring and death you were going to knock trying to map every'thing and fig- me down.” ure out where the underground ‘Tou ought to know I wouldn’t river come from. We brought food hurt nobody.” and stuff along, and bed rolls.

"I guess I do. Now, let’s sit The compass we ii ere using went down and talk this over sensibly.” crazy for like tiventy minutes, and “Aw, forget it, Linda. I kind of that should have give us a clue, lost my head over them boats, and but Gil talked about magnetic I—” ores and stuff. Only when wa “I don’t mean the boats; I mean come out Sunday night, I tell you going south. Every time you get it was pretty scarey. Gil knew mad you start south again. Why?” right off what happened. “I told you, to find guys who “By Christ, Jim,” he said, "they know about TV.” up ancf done it like everybody al- “Why?” ways knew they would. They’ve ‘You wouldn’t understand.” blew and gassed and poisoned “I can try. Why don’t you ex- and radiated themselves straight plain what you’re after; specifi- to hell, and we’re going back to cally? Maybe I can help you.” that goddam cave until it all “You can’t do nothing for me; blows over.” you’re a girl.” So me and Gil went back and “We have our uses. At least I rationed the food and stayed as can listen. You can trust me, Jim. long as we could. Finally we come Aren’t we chums? Tell me about out again and drove back to New

it.” Haven. It was dead like all the rest. Gil put together some radio Well, W'hen the blast come stuff and tried to pick up broad- (Mayo said) I was up in the casts. Nothing. Then we packed Berkshires with Gil Watkins. Gil some canned goods and drove all was my buddy, a real nice guy around; Bridgeport, \Vaterbury, and a real bright guy. He took two Hartford, Snringfield, Providence, years from M.I.T. before he quit New London ... a big circle. college. He was like chief engi- Nobody. Nothing. So we come 120 fantasy and science fiction

back to New Haven and settled sets I shot, and laugh when I told down, and it was a pretty good hkn. He said I was the most ac- life. curate TV poll ever invented. I’d Daytime, we’d get in supfdies ask him about what shows were and stuff, and tinker with the coming up next week, and argue

house to keep it working right. with him about . . . oh . . . Nights, after supper, Gil would go about like what movies or foot- off to WNHA around seven ball games WNHA was schedul- o’clock and start the station. He ing. I didn’t like Westerns much, was running it on the emergency and I hated them high-minded generators. I’d go down to “The panel discussions. Body Slam,” open it up, sweep it But the luck had to turn lousy; out, and then start the bar TV it's the story of my fife. After a set. Gil fixed me a generator for couple of years I found out I was it to run on. down to my last set, and then I It was a lot of fun watching was in trouble. This night Gil the shows Gil was broadcasting. run one of them icky commercials He’d start with the news and where this smart-alex woman weather, which he ahvays got saves a marriage with the right wrong. All he had was some laundry soap. Naturally I reached Farmer’s Almanacs and a sort of for my gun, and only the last antique barometer that looked like minute remembered not to shoot. that clock you got there on the Then he run an awful movie wall. I don’t think it worked so about a misunderstood composer, good, or maybe Gil never took and the same thing happened. weather at M.I.T. Then he’d When we met back at the house, broadcast the evening show. I was all shook up. I had my shotgun in the bar in "What’s the matter?” Gil asked. case of holdups. Anytime I saw I told him. something tliat bugged me, I just “I thought you liked watching up with the gun and let loose at the shows,” he said. the set. Then I’d take it and throw "Only when I could shoot ’em.” it out the front door, and put an- "You poor bastard,” he laughed, other one in its place. I must have "you’re a captive audience now.” had hundreds waiting in the badr. "Gil, could you maybe change I spent two days a week just col- the programs, seeing the spot I’m lecting reserves. in?” Midnight, Gil would turn off "Be reasonable, Jim. WNHA WNHA, I’d lock up the restau- has to broadcast variety. We oper- rant, and we’d meet home for ate on the cafeteria basis; some- coffee. Gil would ask how many thing for everybody. If you don’t ”

THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 121 like a show, why don’t you switdi months w'ere hell for me. I could- channels?” n’t keep the set turned off, and I “Now that’s silly. You know couldn’t watch it without reach- damn well we only got one chan- ing for my gun a dozen times a nel in New Haven.” night. It took all my will power to “Then turn your set off.” keep from pulling the trigger. I "I can’t turn the bar set off, it’s got so nervous and jumpy that I part of the entertainment. I'd lose knew I had to do something my whole clientele. Gil, do you about it before I went off my rock- have to show them awful movies, er. So one night I brought the gun like that army musical last night, home and shot Gil. singing and dancing and kissing Next day I felt a lot better, and on top of Sherman tanks, for Je- when I went down to “The Body zus sake!” Slam” at seven o’clock to clean “The women love uniform pic- up, I was whistling kind of cheer- tures.” ful. I swept out the restaurant, "And those commercials; w'om- polished the bar, and then turned en always sneering at somebody’s on the TV to get the news and girdle, and—fairys smoking ciga- w’catlier. You wouldn’t believe it, rettes, and but the set w’as busted. I couldn’t “Aw%” Gil said, “write a letter get a picture. I couldn’t even get to the station.” a sound. My last set, busted.

So I did, and a week later I got So ) ou see, tliat’s wdry I have to an answer. It said: Dear Mr. head soutli (Mayo ex’plained) I Mayo, we are very glad to learn got to locate a TV repairman. that you are a regular viewer of There w’as a long pause after WNHA, and thank you for your Mayo finished his story. Linda ex- interest in our programing. We amined him keenly, trying to con- hope you will continue to enjoy ceal the gleam in her eye. At last our broadcasts. Sincerely yours, she asked with studied careless-

Gilbert O. Watkins, Station Man- ness, “Where did ' he get the ba- ager. There wais a couple of tickets rometer?” for an interview’ show enclosed. I “Who? Wdiat?” showed tire letter to Gil, and he “Your friend, Gil. His antique just shrugged. barometer. Where did he get it?” “You see what you’re up “Gee, 1 don’t know. Antiquing against, Jim,” he said. “They don’t was another one of his hobbies.” care about w’hat you like or don’t "And it looked like that clock?” like. All tliey want to know is are “Just like it.” you watching.” "French?” I tell you, the next couple of "I couldn't say.” 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Bronze?” matches. You know something "I guess so. Like your clock. Is funny, the whole top of the house

that bronze?” is full of glop.” “Yes. Shaped like a sunburst?” “Glop?” “No, just like yours.” “Yeah. Sort ef white jelly, only

“That’s a sunburst. The same it’s hard. Like clear concrete. size?” Now look, see this note? It’s C. “Exactly.” Middle C. It stands for this white “Where was it?” key here. We better sit together. .” “Didn’t I tell you? In our Move over . . house.” The lesson continued for two “Where’s the house?” hours of painful concentration, “On Grant Street.” and left them both so exhausted “What number?” that they tottered to their rooms “Three fifteen. Say, what is all with only perfunctory goodnights. this?” “Jim,” Linda called. “Nothing, Jim. Just curious. “Yeah?” he yawned. No offense. Now I think I’d better “Would you like one of my get our picndc things.” doUs for your bed?” “You wouldn’t mind if I took a “Gee, no. Thanks a lot, Linda, walk by myself?” but guys really ain’t interested in She cocked an eye at him. dolls.” “Don’t try driving alone. Garage “I suppose not. Never mind.

mechanics are scarcer than TV Tomorrow I’ll have something for repairmen.” you that really interests guys.” He grinned and disappeared; but after cffnner the true purpose Mayo was awakened next morn- of his disappearance was revealed ing by a rap on his door. He when he produced a sheaf of sheet heaved up in bed and tried to music, jdaced it on the piano open his eyes. rack, and led Linda to the piano “Yeah? Who is it?” he called. bench. She was delighted and "It’s me. Linda. May I come touched. in?” “Jim, you angel! Wherever did He glanced around hastily. you fitnd it?” 'The room was neat. The hooked “In the apartment house across rug v.as clean. The precious can- the street. Fourth floor, rear. Name dlewick bedspread was neatly of Horowitz. They got a lot of folded on top of the dresser. records, too. Boy, I can tell you it "Okay. Come on in.” was pretty spooky snooping Linda entered, wearing a crisp around in the dark with only seersucker dress. She sat down on THEY don’t make LIEE LIKE THEY USED TO 123 the edge of die four-poster and mured, “and I’ll name her the gave Mayo a friendly pat. “Good Litida N.” morning, * she said. “Now Listen, He was so deeply moved that he ril have to leave you alone for a hardly touched his breakfast. He few hours, IVe got things to do. bathed, dressed, took his shotgun There’s breakfast on the table, but and a handful of shells, and went ril be back in time for luneh. All out to wander through the park. right?” He circled south, passed the play- “Sure.” ing fields, the decaying carousel, “You won’t be lonesome?” and the crumbling skating rink,

” “Where you going? and at last left the park and loafed “Tell you when I get back.” down Seventh Avenue. She reached out and touseled his He turned east on 50th Street head. “Be a good boy and don’t get and spent a long time trying to into mischief. Oh, one other decipher the tattered posters ad- thing. Don’t go into my bed- vertising the last performance at room.” Rodio City Music Hall. Then he “Why should I?” turned south again. He was jolted “Just don’t anyway.” to a halt by the sudden clash of She smiled and was gone. Mo- steel. It sounded like giant sword ments later, Mayo heard the jeep blades in a titanic duel. A small start and drive off. He got up at herd of stunted horses burst out of once, went into Linda’s bedroom, a side street, terrified by the and looked around. The room was clangor. Their shoeless hooves neat, as ever. The bed was made, thudded bluntly on the pavement. and her pet dolls were lovingly The sound of steel stopp^. arran^d on the coverlet. Then he “Tliat’s where that Blue Jay got saw it. it from,” Mayo muttered. “But “Gee,” he breathed. what the hell is it?” It was a model of a full-rigged He drifted eastward to investi- clipper ship. The spars and rig- gate, but forgot the mystery when ging were intact, but the hull was he came to the diamond center. peeling, and the sails were shred- He was dazzled by the blue-white ded. It stood before Linda’s closet, stones glittering in the showcases. and alongside it was her sewing The door of one jewel mart had basket. She had already cut out a sagged open, and Mayo tiptoed fresh set of white lin«i sails. Mayo in. When he emerged it was with knelt down before the model and a strand of genuine matched touched it tenderly. pearls which had cost him an

“I’ll paint her black with a I.O.U. worth a 5’ear’s rent on "The gold line around her,” he mur- Body Slam.” 124 FANT.CSY .CND SCretfCE FICTIOX

His tour took him to Madison morning.” Her voice trembled Avenue where he found himself with passion. “There’s no house before Abercrombie & Fitch. He standing on Grant Street. It’s all went in to explore and came at wiped out. There’s no Station last to the gun racks. There he lost WNHA. Tlie whole building’s all sense of time, and when he gone.” recovered his senses he nas walk- “No.”

ing up Fifth Avenue toward the “Yes. And I went to )our res- boat pond. An Italian Cosmi au- taurant. There’s no pile of TV tomatic rifle was cradled in his sets out in the street. Tlrere’s only arms, guilt was in his heart, and one set, over tlie bar. It’s rusted to a saleslip in the store read: I.O.U. pieces. The rest of the restaurant I Cosmi Rifle, $750.00. 6 Boxes is a pig st)e. You were living tliere Ammo. $18.00. James Mayo. all the time. Alone. There was It was past three o’clock when only one bed in back.” he got back to the boathouse. He “Lies! All Lies!” eased in, trying to appear casual, “Why would I lie about a hoping the extra gun he was car- thing like that?” rying would go unnoticed. Linda “You never shot any Gil Wat- was sitting on the piano bench kins.” with her back to him. “I sure did. Both barrels. He "Fli,” iMayo said nervously. had it coming.”

“Sorry I’m late. I ... I brought “And you ha\en’t got any TV you a present. They’re real.” He set to repair.” pulled the pearls from his pocket “Yes I do.” and held them out. Then he saw “And even if it is repaired, she was crying. tliere’s no station to broadcast.” “Hey, what’s the matter?” “Talk sense,” he said angrily. She didn't answer. “Why would I shoot Gil if there “You wasn't scared I’d run out wasn’t any broadcast,” on you? I mean, well, all my gear “If he’s dead, how can he is here. The car, too. You only broadcast?” had to look.” “See? And you just now said I She turned. "I hate you!” she didn’t shoot him.” cried. “Oh, you’re mad! You’re in- He dropped the pearls and re- sane!” she sobbed. “You just de- coiled, startled by her vehemence. scribed that barometer because “What’s the matter?” you happened to be looking at my “You’re a lousy, rotten liar!” clock. And I believed your crazy “Who? Me?” lies. I had my heart set on a ba- “I drove up to New Haven this rometer to match my clock. I’ve THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 125

been looking for years.” She ran BLAM-BLAM-BLAM. They had to the wall arrangement and ham- an odd sucking sound, as diough mered her fist alongside the clock. they were implosions rather than "It belongs right here. Here. But explosions. Far up the park, a can- you lied, you lunatic. There never opy of frightened birds mounted was a barometer.” into die sky. “If there’s a lunatic around ‘There’s somebody,” Mayo ex-

here, it’s you,” he shouted. ‘Tou’re ulted. “By God, I told you Td find so crazy to get this house decorat- somebody. Come on.” ed that nothing’s real for you any They ran north, Mayo digging more." into his pockets for more shells to She ran across the room, reload and signal again. snatched up his old shotgun and “I got to thank you for taking pointed it at him. ‘Tou get out that shot at me, Linda.” of here. Right this minute. Get "I didn’t shoot at you,” she pro-

out or I’ll kill you. I never want tested. “It was an accident.” to see you again.” Tlie luckiest accident in the The shotgun kicked off in her world. They could be passing hands, knocking her baclcwards, through and never know about and spraying shot over Mayo’s us. But what the hell kind of head into a corner bracket. China guns are they using? I never heard shattered and clattered down. no shots hke that before, and I Linda’s face went white. heard ’em all. Wait a minute.” "Jim! My God, are you all On the Btde piazza before the right? I didn’t mean to ... It Wonderland moniunent, Mayo .” just went off . . halted and raised the shotgun to

He stepped forward, too furi- fire. 'Then he slowly lowered it. ous to speak. Then, as he raised He took a deep breath. In a harsh his hand to cuff her, tlie sound of voice he said, “Turn around. We- distant reports came, BLAM- ’re going back to the house.” He BLAM-BLAM. Mayo froze. pulled her around and faced her “Did you hear that?” he whis- south. pered. Linda stared at him. In an in- Linda nodded. stant he had become transformed "That wasn’t any accident. It from a gentle teddy bear into a was a signal.” panther. Mayo grabbed the shotgun, ran "Jim, what’s wrong?” outside, and fired the second bar- "I’m scared,” he growled. Tm rel into die air. 'There was a pause. goddam scared, and I don’t want 'Then again came the distant ex- you to be, too.” The triple salvo plosions in a stately triplet. sounded again. "Don’t pay any at- 126 F.VXT.VSY A\D SCIENCE FICTION tention,” he ordered. "We’re going the words out. “Behind the trel- back to the house. Come on!” lis.”

She refused to move. "But why? “I’ll put ’em up. You fill buck- Why?” ets with w ater and stash ’em in the “We don’t want any part of kitchen. Go!” them. Take my word for it.” “Is it going to be a siege?” “How do you know? You’ve got “We’ll talk later. Go!” to tell me.” She filled buckets, and then “Christ! You won’t let it alone helped Ma)'o jam the last of the until you find out, huh? All right. shutters into the window em- You want the explanation for that brasures. “All right, inside,” he bee smell, and them buildings ordered. They went into the house falling down, and all the rest?” and shut and barred the door. He turned Linda around with a Faint shafts of the late afternoon hand on her neck, and directed sun filtered through the louvers of her gaze at the Wonderland mon- the shutters. Ma^n began unpack- ument. “Go ahead. Look.” ing the cartridges for the Cosmi A consumate craftsman had re- rifle. “You got any kind of gun?” moved the heads of Alice, the “A .22 revolver somewhere.” Mad Hatter, and the March Hare, “.'\mmo?” and replaced them with towering “I think so.” Mantis heads, all sabre mandi- “Get it ready.” bles, antenna, and faceted eyes. “Is it going to be a siege?” she They were of a burnished steel, repeated. and gleamed w'ith unspeakable “I don’t know^ I don’t know ferocity. Linda let out a sick who they are, or what they are, or whimper and sagged against where they come from. All I Mayo. The triple report signaled know is, we got to be prepared for once more. the worst.” Mayo caught Linda, heaved her The distant implosions sound- over his shoulder, and loped back ed. Mayo looked up alertly, listen- tow'ard the pond. She recovered ing. Linda could make him out consciousness in a moment and in the dimness now. His face began to moan. "Shut up,” he looked carved. Kis chest gleamed growled. “Whining won’t help.” with sweat. He exuded the musky He set her on her feet before the odor of caged lions. Linda had an boathouse. She was shaking but overpowering impulse to touch trying to control herself. "Did this him. Mavo loaded the rifle, stood place have shutters when you it alongside the sliotgun, and be- moved in? M’here are they?” gan padding from shutter to shut-

“Stacked. " She had to squeeze ter, peering out vigilantly, W'ait- THEY don’t make LIFE LIKE THEY USED TO 127 ing with massive patience. them on automatically. Then she “Will they find us?’’ Linda went into her darkened bedroom asked. and pulled Mayo’s model yacht “Maybe.” away from the closet door. She lo- “Could they be friendly?” cated the .22 in a hatbox on the “Maybe.” closet floor, and removed it along “Those heads looked so hor- with a small carton of cartridges. rible.” She realized that a dress was “Yeah.” unsuited to this emergency. She “Jim, I’m scared. I’ve never got a turtleneck sweater, jodhpurs, been so scared in my life.” and boots from the closet. Then “I don’t blame you.” she stripped naked to change. Just “How long before we know?” as she raised her arms to unclasp “An hour, if they’re friendly; the pearls, Mayo entered, paced to two or three, if they’re not.” the shuttered south window, and “W-Why longer?” peered out. When he turned back “If they’re looking for trouble, from the window, he saw her. , they’ll be more cautious.” He stopped short. She couldn’t “Jim, what do you really move. Their eyes locked, and she think?” began to tremble, trying to con- “About what? ” ceal herself with her arms. He “Our chances.” stepped forward, stumbled on the “You really want to know?” model yacht, and kicked it eut of “Please.” the way. The next instant he had “We’re dead.” taken possession of her body, and She began to sob. He shook her the pearls went flying, too. As she savagely. “Stop that. Go get your pulled him down on the bed, gun ready.” fiercely tearing the shirt from his She lurched across the living back, her pet dolls also went into room, noticed the pearls Mayo the discard heap along with the had dropped, and picked them yacht, the pearls, and the rest of up. She was so dazed that she put the world. GUEST EDITORIAL;

Toward A Definition

of Science Fiction

Science fiction is the frontier of the mind and the imagination of the human race. Science fiction is horse opera set in space, writ- ten to please unwashed adolescents who wear propellers on their beanies. It is the shape of things to come. It is the expression of mankind’s yearning to break out of his tiny corner of a galaxy and his detennination to find his inheritance out among the stars.

It’s trashy pulp magazines ith garish covers showing almost naked women being chased by bug-eyed monsters. It’s imaginative pro- phesy based on logical exti’apolation. It’s Jules Verne writing his ridiculous nonsense, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, about an imaginary invention less practical then than a spaceship is now. It’s a science fiction writer being investigated by the F.B.I. a year before Hiroshim."! because a story he’d just published indi- cated that he must (but didn’t) have inside information on some- tiring darkly secret. It's the wildest form of escape reading. It’s mankind with his face toward the stars, freed at last of superstition and recognizing his own godhood, readying himself to take over the universe and wind it up again when entropy starts to run it down. Science fiction is all of these things, but they can be boiled down; they can be stated more simply. It is a nightmare and a dream. And isn’t tliat what we're living in and living for today? A nightmare and a dream? —Fredric Brown kifk t t MARKET PLACE t * *

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NEW CONCEPT of learning self-hypnostsl Now Fontasy and Science Fiction: out of print, rare, on tape or record! Free Literature. McKinley-Smith first editions^a distinguished catalogue sent Co. Dept. T16, Box 3038, San Bernardino, Calif. upon request. Albatross Books, PO Box 123, Hollywood 28, Calif. Free Illustrated, Hypnotism Catalogue. Write Powers, 8721 Sunset, Hollywood 69, California.

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HORROR BOOKS—free literature. The world OPPORTUNITIES famous Trans-International Publishing Co. P.O. Box 2942, Paterson, N. J. Jobs, ships $500 monthly. Beginners, men, women. Sea Parer's Service, Box 3323, San Francisco 19, Calif. Books, magazines of an unusual ncrture. Send 20^ for illustrated catalog. Emersel Company, Pept. A, Box 125, Lincoln 1, Nebraska. IMPOSSIBLE, BUT TRUEI Ten times your money back if you don't earn at home, work part time, no experience necessary. Details $2.00. Dow, Box Send for free sample copy. SCIENCE FICTION 1624AL, New York 1. REVIEW, Box 1568, San Diego, California 92112. PATENTS AND INVENTIONS ATTENTION Time-Travellers! FEGHOOT AN- THOLOGY, $1.25 postpaid. FEGHOOT SWEAT- PATENT SEARCHES, S6.00I Free "Invention Rec- SHIRTS, $4.45 ditto! Paradox Press, P. O. Box ord". Information. Miss Hayward, 1029 Vermont, 3051, Berkeley 5, Calif. Washington 5, D.C.

Locate any book. Aardvarks Fantasy, Box 668, SF CLUBS San Diego 12, Calif.

PHILADELPHIA SCIENCE FICTION SOCIETY, sec- Why buy books? Send 10^ for information & ond oldest SF society in America, meets second catalog to: Science Fiction Circulating Library, Friday of every month, YMCA, 15th & Arch. P. O. Box 1308, So. Son Gabriel, California. Washington Science Fiction Association. Meets First and Third Friday Evenings each Month at EDUCATIONAL Miss E. Cullen's, 7966 West Beach Drive, Wash- OPPORTUNITIES ington 12, D. C. SERVICES—AUTHORS COMPLETE YOUR HIGH SCHOOL at home in spare time with 66-year-old school. Texts fur- nished. No classes. Diploma. Information book- POEMS WANTED, for musical setting and re- let free. American School, Dept. X734, Drexel at cording, Send poems. Free examination. Crown 58th, Chicago 37, Illinois. Music, 49-FS West 32, New York 1.

Do you have something to advertise to sf readers? Books, magazines, typewriters, telescopes, computers, space-drives, or misc. Use the F&SF Market Place at these low, low rates: $2.50 for minimum of ten (10) words, plus 25< for each additional word. Send copy and remittance to; Adv. Dept., Fantasy and Science Fiction, 347 East S3 Street, New York 22, N, Y. 129 WRITE FOR PROFIT without training. Receive mony small checks NOW. Write Publicity, Box 727SF, Kalamazoo, Michigan. MISCELLANEOUS

INDEPENDENT THINKERS— investigate Human- STAMPS ^ ism! Free Literature. American Humanist Asso- ciation, Dept. F), Yellew Springs, Ohio. FIFTEEN PLEASANT OFFERS plus valuoble lips on stomps. Write Bileskt, Station B, Winnipeg, FINE BUSINESS CARDS $4.25-100 Postpaid. Canoda. Raised Blue or Black Ink, Print Copy. Samples 10?, Williams Supply, Pittsburgh 2, Pa. 25 LARGE AMERICAN COMMEMORATIVES Accomponying approvols. Free Perforation LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS REVEALED. Colorful, ^uge, LINSTAMPs, St. Cothorines ^47, Ontario. amarine, wonderful secrets given to the few. Understanding dream symbols. Proven methods for retaining youth. Abundant life for you. 307 WORLDWIDE Different 25tf. Sensational ap- Send now for FREE 7800-word booklet. Psycho- provals. NIAGARA STAMPS, St. Catharines 247, physics Foundation, P.O. Box 822, Glendora, Ontorio. Calif.

FIFTEEN PHILATELIC ZOOLOGICAL SPECIMENS Rubber Garments etc. Illustrated brochure and 10?. Approvals. Free Watermark Detector, sample $1.00 deductible first order. Olympio, CROWN STAMPS, Virgil 347, Ontario. Box 126-A91, Brooklyn 18, N.Y.

YOUR MARKET PLACE

A market is people—alert, intelligent, active people.

Here you can reach 168,000 people ( averaging three readers per copy —56,000 paid circulation). Many of them are enthusiastic hobbyists— collecting books, magazines, stamps, coins, model rockets, etc.—actively interested in photography, music, astronomy, painting, sculptiure, elec- tionics.

If you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it The price is right: $2.50 for a minimum of ten (10) words, plus 25^ for each additional word.

Advertising Dept, Fantasy & Science Fiction

347 East 53 St, New York 22, N. Y.

130 Zhc 3mpmt cfQuality

(since 1937)

THE M/tO OF Fantasy and

Science Fiction

Vivid writing, compelling stories, and boundless imagination have earned F&SF its reputation as tops in the field. Every month tales of new worlds and the exciting people who discover them, by such outstanding authors as Theodore Sturgeon, Alfred Hester, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, John Collier, Robert Graves, and many others. 40^ a copy; $4.50 a year. (M)

British Italian French German Edition Edition Edition Edition Joseph W. Ferman, Publisher

MERCURY PRESS, INC. • 347 East 53 Street, New York 22, N. Y.