"0 () THE MAGAZINE OF Fantosv AND Science Fiction

NOVEMBER..

••• AND CALL ME CONRAD

by ROGER ZELAZNY

A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS

by JOHN CHRISTOPHER

ISAAC ASIMOV

JUDITH MERRIL DUNE By FRANK HERBERT. This gripping novel of the distant future, by the author of The Dra~ton in the Sea, cen­ ters around a man whose son happens to be the possible key to all human rule, power, and indeed knowledge! It is a dazzling tour de force that blends the power of the past with a sweeping vision of the fut-ure. $5.95 AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPI RE By POUL ANDERSON. A two:.time win­ ner of the "Hugo" Award for science­ fiction writing introduces Sir D ominic Flandry - Captain in Earth's Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps and the "Agent 007" of the future. Here are swashbuckling battles galore as Flan­ dry fights his way through a clutch of enemies - human and non-human. $3.95 FLANDRY OF TERRA By PoUL ANDERSON. Captain Flandry mans the ramparts of the universe once again in these swift-paced adventures. This time he is up against a hundred­ foot-long enemy agent, a catlike beau­ ty, and a ruthless scientific tyranny. $3.95 A NICE DAY FOR SCREAMING And Other Tales of the Hub By JAMES SCHMITZ. Incredible adven­ tures from the central nexus of the Galactic Civilization in the year 3500 A.D. $3.95 TO WORLDS BEYOND Tales of the Future By RoBERT SILVERBERG. Foreword by ISAAC ASIMOV. A great master of S-F shows us our descendants in action among the stars, in provocative stories that pose such questions as: Can we out-invent intelligent aliens? What is· the definition of a zoo - and who be­ longs behind the bars, we or they? $3.95 Now at your bookstore CHILTON BOOKS, 227 So. 6th St., Phila., Pa.1910& Including Venture Science Fiction

Come to Venus Melancholy moMAS M. DISCH s

Books JUDITH MERRIL 16

The Peacock King LARRY MCCOMBS and TED WHITE 23

CtWtoon GAHAN WILSON 37

Insect Attractant mEODORE L. THOMAS 38

•• , And Call Me Conrad (2tzd of 2 parts) ROGER ZELAZNY 39

El Numero Uno SASHA GILlEN 98

Science: Squ-u-u-ush! ISAAC ASIMOV 109

A Few Kindred Spirits JOHN CHRISTOPHER 119

F&SF Marketplace 129 Cover by Gray Morrow (illustrating". • And Call Me Conrad")

Joscp/1 W. Ferman, EDITOR AXD PUBLISHER Isaac Asimov, SCIENCE EDITOR Ted White, ASSISTANT EDITOR Edward L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOR Judith Merri/, BOOK EDITOR Robert P. Mills, coNSULTING EDITOR

Tire Magazine of Fantasy and Science FictlMI, Volume 29, No. 5, Wlwl11 No. 1'N, Nov. 1965. Published monthly by Mercvr:y Press, Inc., at 50¢ a cop-y. Amrual subscription $5.00; $5.50 in Canada and thll Pan American Union, $6.00 in all other ccnurtries. Publi­ cation office, 10 Ferry_Street, Concord, N. H. Editorial and general mail should be sent to 347 East 53rd St., New York, N. Y. 10022. Second Class postage paid at Cor&t:ord, N. H. Prixted in U.S.A. © 1965 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including translations into other lang~&ages, reserved. Submissions must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed ent•elopes; the Publisher assumes no resf>orrsibilit;y for return of smsolicited nranuscripts. Thomas Disch (NADA, F&SF, August 1964) Is a relatively new SF writer who continues to impress with the iAoentive­ ness and quality of his work. An excellent example is the in­ triguing and sensitive story below, a story of romantic looe­ without flowers or moonlight or diapers-without, even, lovers.

COME TO VENUS MELANCHOLY

by Thomas M. Disch

Is THAT You, JoHN? Dm soME­ pened, you know, in the classic one just come in the door? Of sense-deprivation experiments. course, it wouldn't be John. Not But I guess my case is different. I after all this time. It was because guess they've rigged me up some I was startled I said that. If you're way so that can't happen. there, whoever you are, do you Or maybe-Christ, I hope notl mind if I talk to you? Maybe one of those hairy cater­ And if you're not there? pillar things has got inside. I real­ Then I suppose you'll mind ly couldn't stand that-thinking even less. of the whole house, thinking of Maybe it was just the wind. me, crawling with those things. Can the wind lift a latch? Mavbe I've always hated bugs. So if you the latch i~ broken. Though. it don't mind, I'll close the door. feels all right now. Or maybe I'm hallucinating. That's what hap- Have you been trying to talk to 5 6 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION me? I should have told you it's no Oh, when I think. . . . use. I can't hear and I can't see. Excuse me, I must be boring I'm broken. Do you see, there in you. I'm sure you can't be that in­ the larger room, in each corner, terested in a machine's love life. about five feet from the floor, how Perhaps I could read something they've been smashed? My eyes and aloud? He wasn't able to get at the ears. Can't they be fixed some­ microfilm library, so there's still how? If it's only a matter of vac­ plenty of books. When I'm by my­ uum tubes and diaphrams, there self I don't do anything but read. should be things of that sort down­ It gets to seem as though the whole stairs. I'm opening the trapdoor world was made of print. I look at now-do you see? And I've turned it not for what's written there but the lights on in the storeroom. as though it were a landscape. But Oh hell, what's the use? I digress. I mean you're probably not What do you like: poetry? nov­ there, and even if you are, he els? science textbooks? the ency­ probably thought to smash any clopedia? I've read all of it so spare tubes that were left. He many times I could puke, if you'll thought of everything else. excuse the expression. Whoever Ah, but he was so handsome, selected those books never heard he was really so handsome. He of the Twentieth Century. There's wasn't tall. After all, the ceiling nothing later than Robert Brown­ here isn't much over six feet. But ing and Thomas Hardy-and he was well-proportioned. He had would you believe it?-some of deep-set eyes and a low brow. that has been expurgated! What Sometimes, when he was worried did they think? That Browning or puzzled, he looked positively would corrupt my morals? Or Neanderthal. John's? Who can understand the John George Clay, that was his bureaucratic mind? name. It sounds like part of a Personally, I prefer poetry. poem, doesn't it? John George You don't get tired of it so quick­ Clay. ly. But maybe there's something It wasn't so much his features you need to know, a point of in­ -it was his manner. He took formation? If you could only talk himself so seriously. And he was to me. There must be some way to so dumb. It was that combination fix one of the mikes, there has to. -the earnestness and the stupid­ Oh, pleasel ity-that got to me. A sort of ma­ Oh hell. ternity syndrome I guess you'd call it. After all, I couldn't very I'm sony, but it's just that it's well be his wife, could I? so hard to believe that you're COME TO VENUS MELANCHOLY 7 there. It gets to seem that I only And yet ••• now ••• I'd give talk to hear myself speak. I wish this whole damn planet to be back to God I could hear myself speak. there in the academic squirrel Maybe I just sound like static cage, spinning that beautiful, dull to you. Maybe he smashed the wheel. speakers too, I wouldn't be sur­ Do you like Milton? I've got prised. I don't know. There's no the Complete Works, except for way I can tell. But I try my best: the things he wrote in Latin. I I think each word very slowly could read you something, if and try to enunciate mentally. you'd like. And that way the caterpillars I used to read things to John, won't be confused. Ha! but he didn't much appreciate it. I'm really glad you've come. He enjoyed mysteries now and I've been so long without com­ then. Or he'd study an electronics pany that I'm grateful even for the text under the scanner. But poetry illusion of it. Don't take offense: bored him. It was worse than that: since I can't ever be sure that he seemed to hate poetry. you're there, you can't be more But maybe you're not like that. than illusion for me, whether How can I tell? Do you mind if I you're real or not. A paradox. I just read it aloud for my own sake. welcome you in either case. With Poetry's meant to be read aloud. my doors wide open. ll Penseroso. Do you know it? It's been fifteen years. Fifteen It gives me goosebumps every years, four months, twelve days­ time. Figuratively. and three hours. I've got this built­ Are you listening caterpillars? in clock connected to what used to be the nerves of my stomach. How did you like that? I'm never in doubt about the time. These pleasures, Melan­ It's always right there-like a choly, give, bellyache. There've been whole And 1 with thee will choose days when I just listen to myself to lwe. tick. Well, it's all a lot of gas. That's I was human once, you know. what dear John called it. He A married woman, with two chil­ called it other things too, and in dren and a Master's in English each case I've come at last to Lit. A lot of good that ever did. agree. But such lovely gas. John My thesis was on some letters couldn't see that. He was a very Milton wrote when he was Crom­ simple sort, was John, and blind well's Latin Secretary. Dull? to the beauty of almost anything You'd better believe it. Only I'll except a rip-snorting sunset. And ever know how dull. nude women. He was uncompli- 8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION cated. Without a sense of dialec· Maybe, maybe, maybe! Oh God tics. He probably didn't under· I could scream! stand half the things I said to him. If ever there was a mismatched There now, I'm better again. couple, it was us. These things pass. Spacemen and pioneers, you Let me introduce myself. I've know, are supposed to be brighter lost my good manners living out than average. And maybe John's here alone like this. My name is I.Q. was a bit over one hundred Selma Meret Hoffer. Hoffer's my but not by much, not by half a maiden name. I use it now that sigma-distance. After all, what I'm divorced. did he need intelligence for? He Why don't I tell you my story? was only a glorified fur-trader. It will pass the time as well as He'd go out into the swamp and anything. There's nothing much hunt around for the slugs tke to tell about the time I was hu­ caterpillars laid there. He'd find man. I won't say I was ordinary­ one, maybe two, a day and keep nobody ever believes that of them­ them undernourished so thev'd selves-but I probably didn't grow slower. Eve£y three we~ks stand out in a crowd. In fact, I the ship would ceme along, pick tried very hard not to. I'm the in­ up the slugs, and leave supplies. trovert type. I don't know what the slugs I was only thirty-two when I were for. They secreted some­ found out I had leukemia. The thing hallucinogenic, but wheth­ clinic gave me six menths. The er they were using it to cure psy­ alternative was this. Of course I choses or produce them, I never chose this. I thought I was lucky found out. There was a war going I could qualify. Most people don't on then, and my theory was that it have an alternative. Of those who all haa something to do with bac­ do, few refuse. In a way it seemed teriological warfare. like an afterlife. The operation Maybe the war is still going on. was certainly a good facsimile of But my theory-my other theory, death. I have lots of them-is that the After the surgery, they used war is over and both sides have fancy acids that attacked the body killed each other off. Otherwise, tissues selectively. Anesthetics wouldn't someone have come here didn't help much then. They for me by now? whittled me down to the bare But maybe they have-maybe nerves and dumped me into this that's why you're here! Is it? tank and sealed me in. Or maybe they don't care. Voila-the Cyborg! Maybe I'm considered expendable. Between the sealing-in and the COME TO VENUS MELANCHOLY 9 shipping off there were months at last I got my way. Looking back and months while I was being on it, I suspect the whole thing wired up with the auxiliary mem­ was done to keep me busy. Those ory banks and being taught to use first few months when you're my motor nerves again. It's quite a learning to think of yourself as a traumatic experience, losing your machine can be pretty rife with body, and the tendency is to go horror. A lot of the cyborgs just go catatonic. What else is there to psycho-usually it's some compul­ do after all? Naturally I don't sion mechanism. They just keep remember much of that time. repeating the Star-Spangled Ban­ They brought me out of it with ner or say the rosary or some such shock treatment, and the first thing thing. Uke a machine. I remember was this room. It was They say it's not the same thing stark and antiseptic then. I sup­ -a cybernetic organism and a pose it still is, but then it was machine, but what do they know starker and more antiseptic. I hat­ about it? They're not cyborgs. ed it with a passion. The walls Even when I was human I was were that insipid creamy-green never any good at mechanical that's supposed to prevent eye­ things. I could never remember strain. They must have got the which way you turned a screw· furniture from a fire sale at the driver to put in a screw-and Bauhaus. It was all aluminum there I was with my motor nerves tubes and swatches of bright-col­ controlling a whole miniature fac­ ored canvas. And even so, by tory of whatits and thingumabobs. some miracle of design the room My index finger powered a Mix· managed to seem cramped. It's fif­ master. My middle toe turned the teen feet square, but then it tumblers that locked the door. My seemed no bigger than a coffin. I wanted to run right out of that That reminds me: have I room-and then I realized I locked you in? I'm sorry, when I couldn't: I was the room, the closed the door I locked it with­ room was me. out thinking. You wouldn't want I learned to talk very quickly to go out now though. According so I could give them directions for to my stomach, it's the middle of re~ecorating. They argued at first. the night. You're better off in here "But, Miss Hoffer," they'd say, we for the night than in a Venusian can't take an ounce more pavload, swamp,eh? and this furniture is Regulation." Well, that's the story of my life. That was the name of their god, When I had the reflexes of a well­ Regulation. I said if it took an act trained rat, they packed me up of Congress they'd redecorate, and and shipped me off to Venus at the 10 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION cost of some few million dollars. Now if you were John, you'd he The very last thing I learned raging mad. He didn't like to be before leaping was how to use the woken up by- microfilm scan nor. I read direct Such notes as, warbled to the from the spindle. By the time I string, learned how poorly the library Drew iron tears down Pluto's had been stocked it was to late cheek to complain. fd been planted out And made Hell grant what Love in the swamp, and John George did seek! Clay had moved in. What d:id I Indeed he didn't. John had a care about the library then? I was strange and fixed distaste for that in love. wonderful poem, which is pl'ob­ And what do you care about ably the finest ill the language. He any of this? Unless you're a cyber­ was, I think, jealous ef it. It was neticist doing a study on malfunc­ a part of me he could never pos­ tion. I should be good for a chap­ sess, even though I was his slave ter, at least. in so many other ways. Or is Excuse me, I'm probably keep­ "housekeeper" a more polite ex­ ing you awake. I'll let you get some pression? sleep. I have to sleep sometimes I tried to explain the more dif­ myself, you know. Physically I ficult parts to him, the mythology can go without, but I still have a and the exotic words, but he did­ subconscious that likes to dream- n't want to understand. He made Of forests, and enchantments fun of it. He had a way of saying J.ear, the lines that made them seem ri­ Where more is meant than diculous. Mincingly, like this: meets the ear. Come, pensive Nun, devout and And so good-night. pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure. Still awake? I couldn't go to sleep myself, so When he'd do that, I'd just ignore I've been reading. I thought maybe him. I'd recite it to myself. I think you'd like to hear a poem. I'll read that was the best way. He'd usual­ you ll Penseroso. Do you know it? ly leave the house thea, even if it It's probably the finest poem in was night. He knew I worried the language. It's by John Milton. myself sick when he was away. He Oh dear, did I keep you up did it deliber-ly. He had a gen­ with that poem last night? Or did ius for cruelty. I only dream that I did? If I was I suppose you're wondering if it noisy, you'll excuse me, won't worked both ways-whether he you? loved me. The question must have COME TO VENUS MELANCH8LY 11 occurred to you. I've given it quite infallible solution. I tried to kill a lot of thought myself, and I've him, you know. It was a silly thing come to the conclusion that he to do. I regret it now. did. The trouble was he didn't But I'd rather not talk about it, know how to express it. Our rela­ if you don't mind. tionship was ntcessarily so cere­ bral, and cerebration wasn't John's You've been here two days now forte. -fancy that! That was the idea behind lxcuse me for keeping to myself throwing us together the way they so long, but I :had a sudden, acute did. They couldn't very well send attack of self-consciousness, and a man off by himself for two years. the only cure for that is solitude. I He'd go crazy. Previously they'd invoke Milton's lovely Melan­ sent married couples, but the hom­ choly, and then everything is bet­ icide rate was incredible. Some­ ter. The beasts quiet down. Eury· thing like 30%. It's one thing for dice is set free again. Hell freezes a pioneer family to be off by itself over. Hal in, say, the Yukon. It's something But that's a lot of nonsense. else he.re. In a social vacuum like Let's not talk always about me. this, sex is explosive. Let's talk about you. Who are you? You see, apart from going out What are you like? How long will for the slugs and nmsing them in you be staying here on Venus? the shed outside, there's nothing Two days we've been together and to do. You can't build out here. still I know nothing about you. Things just sort of sink into the Shall I tell you what I imagine mud unless, like me, thev're built you to be like? You're tall-though like a houseboat. You c~n't grow I hope not so tall as to find that things-including children. It's a low room uncomfortable-with biologist's paradise, but they need laughing blue eyes and a deep hundreds of slug stations and there spaceman's tan. You're strong yet aren't biologists available in that gentle, gay yet basically serious. quantity. Besides, all the good bi­ You're getting rather hungry. ologists are in Venusburg, where And everywhere you go you there's research facilities. The leave little green slugs behind you problem then is to find the mini­ that look like runny lime Jell-0. mum number of personnel that Oh hell, excuse me. I'm always can man a station for two years of saying excuse me. I'm sick of it. idleness without exploding. The I'm sick of half-truths and reti­ solution is one man and one cy­ cences. borg. Does that frighten you? Do you Though not, as you can see, an want out already? Don't go now- 12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

I've just begun to fi~ht. Listen to Whose fault was it? Good God, the whole story, and then-maybe l'W asked myself that question a -I'll unlock the door. hundred times. It was both our By the way, in case you are get­ faults and neither's. It was the ting hungry there may still be fault of the situation. some rations left down in the I can't remember now which of storeroom. I don't want it to be us was the first to start talking said that I'm lacking in hospital­ about sex. We talked about every­ ity. I'll open the trapdoor and thing that first year, and sex is very tum on the light, but you'll have much a part of everything. What to look for them yourself. Of harm could there be in it, after all, course, you're worried that I'll with me sealed in a steel tank? lock you in down there. Well, J And how could we avoid the sub­ can't promise that I won't. After ject? He'd mention an old girl­ all, how do I know you're not friend or tell a slightly shady joke, John? Can your prove it? You can't and I'd be reminded of something even prove you exist! by degrees .... I'll leave the trapdoor open in The thing is that there's an im­ case you should change your mind. mense curiosity between the sexes For my next number I'd like to that almost never is satisfied. do ll Penseroso by John Mi1ton. Things that men never know Quiet down, caterpillars, and lis­ about women, and vice versa. ten. It's the finest poem in the Even between a man and a wife, language. there is a gulf of unmentionables. Maybe especially between a man How about that? Makes you and a wife. But between John and want to go right out and join a me there seemed to be nothing to Trappist monastery, doesn't it? prevent perfect candor. What That's what John once said. possible harm could it do? I'll say one thing for John: he Then . . . the next thing. never tattled. He could have had . . . I don't remember which of me taken away and turned to us started that either. We should scrap. All he had to do was give have known better. The borderline the word when the ship came between perfect candor and erot­ down to pick up the slugs, but ic fantasy is no wider than an ad­ when there was company he could jective. But it happened imper­ always put a good face on thinj!s. ceptibly, and before we knew quite He was a gentleman in every sense what we were doing, it had been of the word. done. It was already a habit. How did it happen then-if he When I realized exactly what was a gentleman and I was a lady? we were doing, of course, I laid COME TO VENUS MELANCHOLY 13 down the law. It was an un­ did, and when I was left on my healthy situation, it had to stop. own, after he'd gone to bed, I'd At first John was agreeable. He read. There was nothing else to do. was embarrassed, like a little boy Usually I'd read some long Vic­ who's been found out in some torian novel, but at the time I'm naughtiness. We told each other it speaking of, I mostly read Il Pen­ was over and done with. serosa. But it had become, as I've said, He shouldn't have made fun of a habit. I have a rather more vivid it. I guess he didn't realize how im­ imagination than John and he had portant it had become to me. It grown dependent on me. He asked was like a pool of pure water in for new stories, and I refused. He which I could wash away the got angry then and wouldn't speak grime of each day. Or else he was to me, and finally I gave in. I was angry for being woken up. in love with him, you see, in my Do you remember the part, right own ectoplasmic way, and this near the beginning, where it says: was all I could do to show it. "But hnil, thou goddess sage and Every day he wanted a new holy, story. It's hard to make the same Hail, divinest Melancholy"? tired old tale seem new in every Of course you do. You probably telling. Scheherazade was sup­ know the whole thing as well as I posed to have stood up for a thou­ do by now. Well, when John heard sand and one nights, but after only that he broke out laughing, a nasty thirty I was wearing thin. Under laugh, and I, well, I couldn't real­ the strain I sort of retreated into ly stand that, could I? I mean myself. Milton means so much to me, and I read poetry, lots of poetry, but the thing \'Vas that he began to sing mostly Milton. Milton has a very this song. This awful song. Oh, it calming effect on me-like a mil­ was a clever idea, I suppose, when town, if you'll excuse the pun. first he thought of it, but the com­ The pun-that's what did it. It bination of that vulgar tune and was the last turn of the screw, a his perversion of Milton's noble simple pun. words-though he claims that's It seems that when I read, I bow he understood the words sometimes read aloud without re­ when I first read them to him, and alizing it. That's what John has I still maintain that the second i told me. It was all right during the in divinest is pronounced like a day when he was off in the swamp, long e-it was aggravating in the and when he was here in the eve­ extreme, I can't tell you how much ning we'd talk with each other. it upset me. But he needed more sleep than I Do I have to repeat them? 14 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Come to Venus, Melancholy well have done it in his right Baby. mind. He had every reason to. But Cuddle up and don't be shy. I prefer to think it was the hallu­ And so on.lt's not only a bad pun cinogens. He had been all that -it's a misquotation as well. It time with nothing else to eat. I've should be Hail, not Come. So vul­ never been five days without food, gar. It gives me goosebumps even so I don't know how desperate that now. would make one. I told him to leave the house In any case, when I came to right that minute. I told him not to myself again and opened my eyes come back till he was ready to I found I had no eyes to open. apologize. I was so angry I forgot He'd smashed every receptor in the it was the middle of the night. As room, even the little mobile at­ soon as he was out the door, I was tachment for cleaning. The ashamed of myself. strange thing was how little I He came back in five minutes. cared. It seemed hardly to matter He apologized outside the door, at all. and I let him in. He had the large I opened the door for five min­ polyetheline bag over his shoulder utes so he could get out. Then I that he uses to gather up the slugs, closed it so no more caterpillars but I was so relieved I didn't think could get in. But unlocked. That anything of it. way John was free to come back. He put them on the visual re­ But he never did. ceptors. There must have been The supply ship was due in two twenty, all told, and each one was days later, and I guess John must about a foot long. They fought have spent that time in the shed each other to get right on the lens where he kept the slugs. He must because it was slightly warmer have been alive, otherWise the pilot there. There were twenty of them, of the supply ship would have foul, gelatinous slugs, crawling on come in the door to look for him. my eyes, oh God! I shut off my And nobody ever came in the door eyes and I shut off my ears, be­ again. cause he was singing that song Unless you did. again, and I locked the doors and They just left me here, deaf and I left him like that for five days blind and half-immortal, in the while I recited Il Penseroso. middle of the Venusian swamp. If But whenever I came to that only I could starve to death--or one line, I could never say it .. wear out-or rust-or really go insane. But I'm too well made for It was perhaps the halluci­ that. You'd think after all the nogens, though he might just as money they spent on me, they'd COME TO VENUS MELANCHOLY 15 want to salvage what they could, the storeroom. Then run like hell. wouldn't you? Five minutes should be time I have a deal to make with you. enough, shouldn't it? I'll only I'll let you out the door, if you'll want to read a bit of ll Penseroso. do something for me. Fair enough? Is it a deal? The trapdoor is Down in the storeroom there are open, and I'm opening the outside explosives. They're so safe a child door now just to show you I'm in could use them. John did, after all. earnest. If I remember rightly, they're on While you set to work, I think the third shelf down on the west I'll read something to pass the wail-little black boxes with time. DANGER written on them in red. You pull out the little pin and set Hello? I'm waiting. Is every· the timing mechanism for any· thing all right? Are you still there? thing from five minutes to an Or were you ever there? Oh please, hour. It's just like an alarm clock. please-! want to explode. That Once they're set, just leave would be so wonderful. Please, I them in the storeroom. They'II be beg of you! nearer to me down there. I'm over I'm stili waiting.

TREASURE HUNT

While taking a mid-year Inventory, we found a few copies of each of four issues of VENfURE SCIENCE FICTION. This is a rare find and we are offering these copies to our read.ers at $1.00 each or $3.00 for aU four copies.

January, 1957-Vol. 1, No. 1, fea­ May, 1958-Vol. 2, No. 3, featuring turing the novelette, "Virgin Planet'~ a novelette by Theodore Sturgeon, by Poul Anderson and short stories by short stories by Edmond Hamilton, Isaac Asimov, Charles Beaumont, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon R. Dickson Theodore Sturgeon. and a science article by Isaac Asimov.

May, 1957-Vol. 1, No. 3, featuring July, 1958-Vol. 2, No. 4, featuring novelettes by Marion Zimmer Brad· novelettes by C. M. Kornbluth and ley and James E. Gunn, and short Clifford D. Simak, short stories by stories by Walter M. Miller, Jr., Poul John Novotny, Lester del Rey, and Anderson and Theodore Sturgeon. a science article by Isaac Asimov.

Send order and remittance to Mercury Press, 347 E. 53 Street, New York, N. Y.l0022 BOOKS

You READ THIS IN OCTOBER, BUT have no notion-some occult I write it in July. The books are equation, perhaps, combining in mostly June, July, and August mystical quantities the critical, publications, and I suppose this is commercial, and cocktail party­ what they mean by "summer read- clairvoyants' assessments of a giv­ ing." The surprising thing is not en writer in a given year? But I how readable the current batch of am quite sure about the casual novels is, but how serious the reader's meaning: when the roes­ bulk of this "light reading" turns sage obtrudes to the point of ob­ out to be. scoring the action, the book is too I rush to clarify. Serious is not serious. a word to bandy lightly. I am not It is the writer's kind of "sen­ talking about the publishers' kind ous" I am using here. Every one of of "serious," interchangeable with the eight novels stacked in front "prestige;" nor the critics' "seri- of me is at least technically "light ous," which is somewhere between fiction;" they are action stories, "worthy" and "impressive;" nor the adventures, thrillers. Yet all of casual reader's "serious," roughly them are vehicles for thematic synonymous with "dull." I have in statements and/or ethical explo­ mind the writer's meaning: "im- rations of utmost seriousness. One portant" -to the writer. might almost entertain the hope I suppose all the shadings ac- that writers (in s-f, at least) are tually relate to "message" or giving new consideration to the theme. When a writer has some- quaint old notion that the best thing to say that is important (to way to instruct is to entertain. him), he is serious about the writ- And if seven out of eight do not ing of it. The critic takes it seri- quite bring off the double effort­ ously if the writer manages to well, perhaps that is why they are impress him with the worth of the "summer books;" and none fail en­ statement. What yardstick the tirely; and besides, there is only publishers use to measure the one John D. MacDonald. merit of any man's message, I The MacDonald entry• is not 0 THI!: GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH, & EVERYTHING, John D. MacDonald, Gold Medal, 40¢, 207 pp. 16 BOOKS 17 actually one of this summer's crop, and supermarkets, conventions but a reissue of THE GIRL, THE and court orders, automobile acci­ GOLD WATCH, 8c EVERYTHING, dents, road repairs, Roods and which somehow missed being re­ storms and fires and swamps, ur­ viewed here when it first ap­ ban renewals and rural electri­ peared. I am, frankly, pleased fications. They not only inhabit that the chance now falls to me: this world; they live with it: their the opportunity to discuss Mac­ problems come out of it and they Donald in an s-f column is all too must cope with it somehow to find rare. their solutions. Inevitably, the The first MacDonald story I re­ characters themselves are genu­ member reading was "A Child is inely contemporary, with mores Crying." (If you missed it, try and morals and methods recogniz­ THE SHAPE OF THINGS, ed. ably similar to yours and mine Damon Knight, Paperback Li­ and the people's next door. brary.) Since then I have read I do DIJt for a moment intend to everything of his I've seen : short say that MacDonald is a "realist" stories and perhaps thirty or forty of the camera variety, painstak­ novels: mysteries, suspense, sex ingly, painfully, recording the thrilJers, satires, and, infrequent­ ordinariness of the ordinary. On ly, fantasy and science fiction. I the contrary: he is a storyteller in have never read a bad one; and the grand style, a singer of bright though I recall only one book that romances, bold adventures, deep had the trappings of the officially­ tragedies, and high humor. He serious novel I cannot recall more selects the unusual and colorful to than two or three that seemed to write about-but the selection is me to have been written unseri­ made from the richness of choice ouslv .. offered by the complexity and ex­ TGTGW8cB is the first full­ citement of the world we live in. length MacDonald s-f since THE His heroes are almost always mus­ PLANET OF THE DREAMERS, but cular and competent, his hero­ he is not only one of the best s-f ines beautiful and loving-but writers when he does it-he thinks the masculine competence is tech­ like one no matter what he's writ­ nical as well as physiological, and ing. feminine tenderness expresses it­ MacDonald's characters do not self as generously in bed as in the live in the never-never land of kitchen. He writes fastmoving most popular fiction. They inhabit yarns about situations charged the familiar world of machinery with conRict and suspense­ and motels, political upheavals but behind it all is an informed and realty scandals, syndicates and thoughtful comprehension of 18 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the forces (natural, technological, stories originally published here political, economic) actually at ("Marque and Reprisal," "Arsenal work in our society, out of which Port," and "Admiralty"): a the drama emerges. fastmoving futurehistorical full of And just every now and then, song, drink, blood, brawn, and he also writes a gleefully bal­ lofty-minded piracy in the high loon-busting, pomposity-pricking spaces, with even a little bit of sex farce. TGTGW&E is one of these thrown in this time. If you over­ -to start with. (The Miami look what may have been intended Scene, with settings straight out as Serious Political Significance of musical extravaganza; beaches (the roaring blood of the Vikings and bikinis, yachts and motels, physically and morally triumph­ conventioneers and arty-parties; ant over the mealymouthed plus the slinkiest villainess since conformist e-t-lovin' peacemoR­ Caniff stopped doing the Dragon gers), and what appears to have Lady, the sturdiest secretary since been set forth as serious economic Winnie Winkle got married, and and tactical theory (the advan­ the bounciest hillbilly since Daisy tages of private enterprise in Mae.) It is also a solid science­ space-faring, and of privateering fantasy, with some fine detail­ in space warfare), it's the usual work attached to the Gold Watch ripsnortingly readable Anderson Gimmick. And (like it says in the adventure, complete with a multi­ title) it has at least a touch of just lingual spaceswinging minstrel, about everything MacDonald does and a lovely interstellar lady spy. best: cops-and-robbers, shipboard As for Gunnar himself-if stuff, financial intrigue, slugfests, only Errol Flynn were still alive! suspense-and-pursuit, and several And while I'm being nostalgic, varieties of plain and fancy sex. what ever happened to Poul An­ Did I mention that under the derson-! mean that other Poul antics this is a serious book? Anderson: the man who wrote, for instance, "Sam Hall?" Unfortunately, there is only one MacDonald-though I might Not up to the same level of make Poul Anderson a much good fast summer reading, but closer second, if I could take the short, unpretentious, and ade­ presumably serious part more seri­ quate, is THE BALLAD OF ously. THE STAR FOX"' is the BETA-2"' -a space-mystery in book version of the Gunnar Heim which an anthropology student of

0 THE STAR Fox, Poul Anderson, Doubleday, $4.50, 274 pp. 0 THE BALLAD OF BETA-2, Samuel R. Delany, and ALPHA YES, TERRA NO!, Emil Petaja; Ace double, 45¢, 96 pp. & 156 pp. :ao<>KS 19 the far future unravels the mean­ phan stage-manage their whole ing of a ballad sung by the de­ show for them. scendants of the degenerated sur­ In spite of all this, the book vivors of an early "Universe"-type holds up tolerably well; Petaja starflight. If the protagonist had a sets his scenes vividly and con­ touch of Gunnar Heim's arrogant vincingly-and if his philosophi­ charm (or any other kind) in cal points tend to be sentimental, place of his scholarly smugness; or his emotional convictions are if the style were less noticeably strongly communicated. (or more successfully) reminis­ How much the book may have cent of Cordwainer Smith's dis­ gained for me by being read in tinctive technique, the whole close conjunction with three other thing would have come off better. new novels, each of which at­ As it is, the basic idea is good temps a somewhat similar ethical enough to carry you through the exploration, I'm not sure; certain­ novella length. ly, all four books gained interest by contrast and comparison. ALPHA YES, TERRA NO!," OD I suppose there must be some the flip side, is a considerably profound socio-literary signifi­ more ambitious effort, in several cance involved when four sepa­ ways. Its most successful effect is rate writers of rather different the characterization of the emis­ backgrounds (and with four dif­ sary from Alpha to Earth, a com­ ferent publishers) all tum at the plex, credible and likeable extra­ same time to the same kind of terrestrial who unfortunately Stapledonian universe-survey to turns out not to be the hero after examine metaphysical-and-ethical all. The major device of the novel, questions. But there is another equally unfortunately, is the fa­ multiple coincidence I found miliar Galactic Council hearing, even more intriguing: the return, at which the alternatives of de­ as it were, of the Lone Space­ struction or membership for Terra ranger. are considered, and decided, on Whether through inner motiva­ the testimony of a short handful tion or external pressure, the pro­ of earthmen. This situation has tagonist in each of these books defeated some fine authors in the either makes, takes, takes over, or past; Petaja contrives to make the breaks into, a previously unavail­ whole thing even weaker than able means of swift travel through usual by using as Terra's repre­ space-time; then, either alone or sentatives a group of earthers with with a tiny group of handpicked some admixture of Alphan blood, companions (not a crew, not an and then having his friendly AI- expeditionary force), ventures 20 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION into the unknown for personal worked out some of neatest time· reasons which become subordinat· travel non-paradoxes I have come ed to the urgencies of ethical across. problems arising out of contact Neither FURY nor ALPHA has with varied alien races. the richness of texture or complex· (Was it just a month or so ago ity of theme to be found in I was complaining about the lack Moudy's NO MAN ON EARTH" or of proper heroes? Well, it is true Davidson's MASTERS OF THE that some of this month's batch MAZE •; and if neither of these have heroism rather thrust upon manage to bring off quite-success· them-but they accept it. All ful resolutions, it is probably be­ these, and Gunnar Heim too!) cause of the major proportions of the problems they try to explore. Lloyd Biggle"', like Petaja, Mr. Davidson is not only very makes use of a comparatively con· well known to readers of this ventional s-f format: the Mvsteri­ magazine, but probably the most ous Machine from Somewh~re­ widely published of the four au­ in this case, Somewhen. His hero thors; Walter Moudy is a Kansas is an air-force engineer type who City attorney whose novel, so far seizes semi-control of the strange as I know, constitutes his debut as sphere, involving himself in voy· a writer of fiction. ages through time and space that Like Petaja, Moudy makes use result in a sort of reversal of the of a human-e-t crossbreed as hero Galactic Trial problem: Major -but this time the device pro­ Karvel has to decide how to apply vides credibility for both the his own ethics to civilizations super-capabilities and the moti­ with vastly different values. vations that enable Thad Stone, Although the past and future single-handed, to invent, finance, folk all come off a bit Flash Gor· build, and operate his own star· donish, and most of the 20th ship at a time in the fairly near Century types carry a faint taint future when solar space travel is a of cardboard too, Biggle has cre· going thing, but faster-than-light ated a warmly believable charac· is no closer to terrestrial technol· ter in the bitter, capable, one­ ogy than it is today. legged Major. He has also taken The most successful parts of thoughtful care in both the setting the book are those concerned with and the solutions of his ethical Thad's development and the be­ problems, and- hallellujaf- has ginnings of his urgent search for

0 THE FURY OUT OF TIME, Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Doubleday, $4.50, 257 pp. 0 No MAN ON EARTH, Walter Moudy, Berkley, 50¢, 176 pp. 0 MASTERS oF THE MAZE, Avram Davidson, Pyramid, 50¢, 158 pp. BOOKS 21 his aUen father. I belieYetl MUTINY IN SPACB (F&SF Books, Moudy's 21st Century Kansas June). (This time, you see, he City, and I came about as close as was serious.) I tlo come, to believing in his His device is a mystical-meta­ young superman-for a while. physical Maze, accessible (from This was a considerable accom­ our world) through entry-points plishment, because I had first to known to, and guarded by, certain overcome the complete lack of selected members of an ultra­ conviction of the overdone open­ secret esoteric order of freema­ ing, describing young Thad's birth sons; the Maze shortcircuits space­ on a reservation (maintained by time in some way, so that it pro­ callous sociologists to study prim­ vides passageway between an in­ itive hill people), and his sur­ finite variety of universes and vival despite his rumored "man­ probabilities. witch" paternity. And then I'm In lesser hands, such a con­ afraid I lost not only credence, struct could easily have been an but most of my interest, when the amalgam of all that's worst in search for daddy became by de­ Lovecraft and Weird Tales. Dav­ grees a search for a civilization to idson's incredible ear for dialogue, satisfy super-Thad. Too many his ·sharp eye for detail, and his planet-stops with too many super­ resulting deft touch with a wide ficially created civilizations, per­ range of characterizations, (the haps? Or a loss of emotional explorer-writer hero; the very identification with the maturing Victorian elderly gentleman; the superman? I don't know-and it New England Sheriff; fascist­ is perhaps unfair to make such minded Major Flint; Darius comparisons with a first novel, but Chauncey, soldier and ardent it may be counted as high credit snake-worshipper; Arrettagorretta, to the book that I consider the of the Chulpex; Et-dir-Mor of Red contrasts-but I still remember Fish Land; and lots more) turn the impact of such a tour in Sta­ the Maze into a curse-and-con­ pledon's sTARMAKER; and I venience adjacent to the most never lost touch with Robin in matter-of-fact realities. And for Sturgeon's MATURITY. three quarters of the book, while Certainly an encouraging first the scene is being set, and Nate offering-rather more rewarding Gordon is making his first acci­ than either ALPHA or FURY, and dental and fumbling, then eager in many ways as successful as and questing, journeys through Davidson's book. the Maze, the quality of the ad­ As for Davidson, he goes far to venture is almost Carrollian in redeem himself for the travesty of feeling. 22 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION And then the whole thing falls hie-level effort, considerably less apart (as Moudy's did), from the successful. Are there really extra­ point where the ineffable Masters terrestrials in Eldrid? Or is Clay of the Maze are introduced, and Howard living in a World of Fan­ Nate starts dashing through flash­ tasy? (Besides which, the psychia­ ing vistas of strange worlds, seek­ trist is in love with Howard's ing Ultimates which seem to be wife.) far over his head, and perhaps the THE MAIN EXPERIMENT"" has author's too. some of everything: psionics, the I do not think Davidson can be British-establishment-research-gut­ faulted for failing to accomplish fit (a la Hoyle and Pincher and what he essayed here; but one Snow), a mad scientist, weird­ might say mildly that a writer of supernatural events, a love affair, his experience should possibly lots of Somerset local color, a Lord have known better than to attempt and his Beautiful Daughter-all a Definition of Truth in a short told in the genteel-languid tones action novel. of the typical British county mys­ tery. · The same accusation can be leveled, I suspect, at "Harry Kress­ And there are some reprints and ing." I do not know what literary reissues: experience lies behind this pseu­ TOMORROW AND TOMORROW, donym, but from the quality of the Hunt Collins, Pyramid, 50¢, 190 writing in THE cooK,., I assume pp. "Vikes" (Vicarions) vs. "Rees" there is more than enough to jus­ (Realists) in drug-happy sex-spree­ tify my complaint. This is a beau­ fullobby-lousy future society. tifully underkeyed, suspenseful, THE PILGmM PROJECT, Hank . double-level story of (maybe) Searles, Crest, 60¢, 2 24 pp. (F&SF Satan at work in two quiet house­ Books, December, 1964) holds-but Kressing does no more FIFrH PLANET, Fred Hoyle and to clarify his definition of Ulti­ Geoffrey Hoyle, Crest, 50¢, 192 mate Evil than Davidson did for pp. (F&SF Books, March, 1964) Ultimate Good. MAROONED, Martin Caidin, Ban­ tam, 75¢, 301 pp. plus appen­ Two other new novels should dices. (F&SF Books, October, be mentioned briefly: 1964) NIGHT SLAVES,. is another dou- -JuDITH MERRIL

0 THE cooK, Harry Kressing, Random House, $4.95, 244 pp. 0 NICHT SLAVES, Jerry Sohl, Gold Medal, 50¢, 174 pp. 0 THE MAIN EXPERIMENT, Christepher Hodder-Williams, Putnam, $4.95, 250 pp. Larry McCombs is a former physics teacher now doing graduate work at Harvard. Ted White is a writer (ANDROID AVENGER, Ace; PHOENIX PlUME, Lancer; INVASION FROM 2500, with Terry Carr, Monarch) and a rarely-consulted authority on New York City subways. Both of which eminently qualify him to commute occa­ sionally to our offices (by car), where he holds the post of assistant editor. Their collaboration is a skillful and vivid blending of man's two most exciting and enigmatic challenges: the explora­ tion of space--and of the human mind.

THE PEACOCK KING

by larry McCombs and Ted White

THE FIRST SENSATION WAS LIKE had come from the hyperspace the initial nausea they'd known jump. with the LSD. It was the nausea of They were freef Once again, total special disorientation, and their consciousnesses expanded worse. Before he'd lost touch with out into the universe, this time his body, Eric had felt it frag­ with even greater exultation. menting, wrenched into disinte­ 'We've been here before!" Was gration. Then his last conscious­ that Karen's thought or his own? ness of the controls, the ship­ He felt emotionally entwined and even his physical self-was with her; his thoughts were her gone, and there was no longer thoughts. No matter whose, that time nor space, but only their still­ thought voiced their mutual ela­ linked awareness of each other's tion. spirits, freed into a void between "Tao," was the reply-: motion and fixity. There was no longer any bound­ Karen's touch was an emotional ary between their inner selves and caress to which he readily re­ the Outside, no boundary between sponded. Their link, carefully them. All was Tao, all was now. built and fostered over the long Briefly they'd known this before, months before, transcended the the uncrippling of release from the cteavage from physical reality that stunted senses of their bodies, the 23 24 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION blossoming perception of whole­ "No time for that this morn­ ness. Now they experienced it to a ing," he replied decisively, dig­ far greater extent, feeling them­ ging a commanding finger into selves unfolding, outward . • • her navel. "Up and at 'em!" Suit­ Then, suddenly, they were not. ing his actions to the words, he They were hanging in space, their sprang limberly to his feet and skin-suited bodies joined by bare made a mock grab for her hair. hands, pivoting on a common axis "Okay, boss, okay. I'm coming." amid the empty stars. Eric had Eric palmed a door open and only just enough shocked aware­ stepped into the bathroom. While ness to hold his breath. the walls sprayed him with alter­ Where was the ship? Where was nating soapy and clear water, he the Peacock? washed his face and scalp clean of stubble with a depilitory cloth. Eric rolled over lazily and While blasts of hot air dried stretched. The auto-clock had him, he felt his crown. "I still gradually raised the lights in the haven't gotten used to this bald room and wafted a fresh breeze head," he complained as he across the· sleeping floor to gently emerged into the bedroom again, wake them. With a soft grin at the where Karen had folded down the figure next to him, still stubbornly wall to cover the sleeping pad and curled into a hedgehog curl, he reveal closets and drawers. waved a hand at the wall panel She took one wincing glance at controlling the infrared lamps in her own reflection in a large van­ the ceiling. As the cozy warmth itv mirror, and turned to the bath. died away, he ran a tender hand "Don't believe that stuff they give along Karen's bare back and vou about convenience for attach­ tweaked her ear. ing the control electrodes," she "Wake up, Porkypine. It's our said at the door. "It's just to keep big day." us faithful to each other-no one With a great show of reluc­ else would take a second look at tance, Karen slowly rolled over us! Romantically, anyhow!" and stretched out, rubbing and By the time Karen had emerged arching her back against the resil- · from the bathroom, Eric had iant plastic-covered foam floor slipped into the one-piece suit like a friendly feline. Noting with that fit him like a second skin. He pleasure Eric's continually fresh remembered wryly the many al­ delight in the sight of her body, most embarrassing sessions of Karen wiggled provocatively. "Al­ measurements and fittings that ways interested in business, are had gone into the making of the you?" suit. Looking down his front, he THE PEACOCK KING 25 announced in mock doubt, "I stilJ with some reluctance they had 6.­ feel like I ought to wear a pair of naJly agreed to loan it to these pants over this thing." peculiar Americans who seemed "What's the matter? Ashamed so well to understand the beauty of it?" Karen wriggled her way and meaning of the treasure. into her own suit. As he seated himself cross­ "No, but just don't make any legged on the mat before the table, provocative gestures in that thing Eric brought his palms together in before we're strapped in, or I may imitation of two of the king's be embarrassed on nationwide hands and bowed to the scroll. television." "May the Peacock live up to its "It'H give the columnists some­ billing," he intoned, only half thing new to write about," Karen seriously. tossed back over her shoulder as Buddhist legend had it that the she palmed another door and Peacock King removed the evil walked through it. thoughts and passions from the Eric foJlowed her into the liv­ minds of humans, while his pea­ ing room, where a breakfast sat cock devoured the poisonous steaming fragrantly on the low snakes, insects and plants in his Japanese table. While Karen bus­ path. The government had initial­ ied herself with the tea, he care­ lv resisted their desire to name the fuJly chose a scroU from a rack ship the Peacock, but had finaJly hidden in a waH panel. He care­ given in to what some higher of­ fuJly unroJled it until it hung its ficials regarded as sheer friviolity. fuJI silken length against the rear Meantime Karen had taken the wall of a tall recess opposite the three perfect jonquils which lay breakfast table. on the breakfast tray and careful­ "For today, a special blessing ly arranged them in a jet black from the Peacock King. The silk vase before the scroll. Their deli­ hanging depicted in faded subtle cate fragrance blended with that colors a six-armed figure seated of the tea. upon the back of a peacock, whose They ate in silence, slowly sa­ many-eyed tail spread out as a voring the good food, eyes and background to the resplendent minds fixed upon the ominous and king. The scroJI was an eleventh yet benevolent face before them. century Buddhist painting, and When thev had finished, and they'd fallen in love with it dur­ swallowed ·one last ceremonious ing one of their tours through Ja­ cup of tea, they rose and bowed to­ pan. No amount of money could wards the scroJl, and then passed persuade the monks o( the Nin­ through a door which had thought­ naji temple to part with it, but fully slit open at their gesture. 26 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The apartment which they It was a cemplex ritual, con­ were now leaving was cleverly de­ taining within it the rhythm and signed to simulate the open grace heauty of a dance. One could find of a Japanese pavilion. While its justification enough in the action walls were net actually sliding of the ritual itself, but at the end screens, and indeed were loaded of each section of the dance, he with automatic machinery, the made a mark on a piece of paper basic design and decoration had with a brush pen, until at last be skilfully suggested fresh air and had twelve symbols arranged in a sunshine lurking in the corners. pattern. This effect they'd contributed to For a time he silently studied with their own choice of furniture the pattern. Then he turned to the and hangings. book. For a longer time he studied But there were no windows. the pages related to the diagram And this for a simple reason: he'd drawn. Finally he spoke soft­ the apartment was located in a ly, with a puzzled note to his vast government complex buried voice. deep underground. Now that they "The symbol is Ming I, 'Intelli­ had deserted the apartment, this gence Wounded.' 'The good and fact was obvious. No pretense had intelligent officer goes forth in the been made with the long steel-grey service of his country, notwith­ corridor which stretched austerely standing the occupancy of the before them. Their padded foot­ threne by a weak and unsympa­ steps scraped loud echoes from the thising sovereign. In the circum­ featureless walls. stances it will be wise to realize They had taken perhaps twenty the difficulty of the position and steps down the corridor when Eric maintain firm correctness.' " suddenly stopped, snapping his "It seems clear enough to me," fingers. "We almost forgot to con­ Karen suggested. "The government sult the oracle." still insists that we must claim any "Not thinking of backing out habitable planets for the United now, are you?" Karen taunted States and take whatever measures lightly, but she followed him hack might be necessary to keep them into the apartment. from the knowledge of the Com­ From another concealed shelf munist Bloc or the Chinese. We in the living room Eric removed a must 'maintain firm correctness'­ well-worn pair of black volumes do whatever seems right to us in and a handful of thin sticks. the circumstances.'' While Karen sat silently watching, "Yes," Eric replied, "but I have Eric began casting the yarrew two moving lines, in the second stalks. and sixth places. 'He is wounded mE l!E.A.COCK KING tJ in the left thigh. He saves himself previous hyperspace ships are pre­ by the strength of a swift horse. He sumed lost, and the project is fortunate.' But in the sixth line, would've been abandoned, had not 'There is no light, only obscurity. Captain Arbogast of the Lucifer ll He had at first ascended to the top managed to radio back a report on of the sky. His future shall be to go their transition to normal space into tlte earth.' " just outside the orbit of Pluto. He For a few momeRts they pen­ reported that not only had the dcned the reading i11 silence. Eric jump created a period of tempo­ shrugged, and the11 a quiet bell­ rary insanity-analysis indicates tone sounded. "We're late," he extreme schizophrenia-but that commented needlessly, and then his crewmate was missing. He then quickly but respectfully re­ took the LJccifer ll on the long placed the I Ching and the yarrow jump to Alpha Centauri, never to stalks in their cabinet. regain contact with us or return. The corridor took them to an Since one more ship was ready, a elevator, and when that disgorged radically new training program them they were met by others, who was instituted. Eric Bowman and escorted them, hand in hand, into Karen Hamblin, who are with us the briefing room where a handful here now, have been thoroughly of reporters aad a barrage of cam­ trained in all possible techniques eras and microphones waited of interpersonal communication, for them. The air was faintly blue until they are able to function al­ and slale; the r~freshers were ma­ most as a single person, and .. .'' able to cope with the concentra­ A slight pressure from Karen's tion of nervously smoked ciga­ hand told Eric she was thinking rettes. the same thing. On the monitor As they· entered, the pool an­ screens behind the glittering nouncer was speaking suavely into lenses of the cameras and to one the microphones, following an side he could see their images. olHliRe being held for him on cue Only their heads and shoulders cards by a grip behind the cam­ showed; linked hands were dis­ eras. creetly ignored. As the announcer ". • . as you all know, culmi­ droned on, his mind wandered nates over a year of training and back over the preparation so briefly preparation for this trip. The Pea­ recapped ..• cock represents the fifth in the ex­ They had originally been chos­ perimental class of faster-than­ en among a thousand others in a light ships and is a last-ditch at­ test of intuitive abilities adminis­ tempt to conquer the problems of tered at colleges, universities and interstellar flight. All four of the schools across the country. Eric 28 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION had been a graduate student at losophies to the Western mind. Harvard, pursuing a course in the While there was general higher philosophy of science and delving echelon approval of Dr. Tomp­ into the interrelationships be­ kins' goals, there were many mis­ tween oriental philosophy and givings about his methods. Basic­ modern physical science. He had ally what was desired was a pilot­ taken the tests for the fun of it, ing team who could function to­ and had almost laughed it all off gether as a fully autonomous unit, when he was infonned he'd been and maintain their sanity when chosen for further testing. exposed to the mind-wrenching Karen had been living with a schizophrenia apparently experi­ jazz musician in Chicago and had enced in hyperspace. heard about the tests at the Uni­ Little was known about hyper­ versity of Chicago, where she oc­ space. Popularly it was referred to casionally modeled for art classes. as a translation from one level of She'd taken the tests on a whim, reality to another. One of its im­ having always suspected her in­ mediately obvious uses became tuition was more reliable than apparent when it was discovered most, and on another strange that in returning to normal space whim, much to the disgust of her one could return to a different sec­ boyfriend, had decided to go to tor of it. The new reality of hyper­ California for the further tests and snace bore a remarkable resem­ training. blance, Dr. Tompkins decided, to Eric and Karen had met descriptions in some Buddhistic soon after arrival, and had instant­ writings of Nirvana. His decision ly been attracted to each other. was to crash-train his candidates The project was isolated in the to accept, at least temporarily, high Sierras, almost ten miles be­ such a state. yond the end of the nearest paved After a few months of basic road, and conducted in greatest tutoring in Taoism, Zen, and-on secrecy. The secrecy was not so their own, Tantrik Buddhism­ much due to any fear of sabotage Karen and Eric found themselves or spying, but rather fear of public achieving a certain serenity and opinion and pressure, were news control over their own mental about the activities there to leak processes. And, because they had out. For, much to the dismay of become lovers, they had found a the government authorities, the closeness accented by their prac­ project had been put in the charl!e tice of maithuna, the yoga of love of a rather far-out philosopher who -reaching that rare state of love had written many books on the where they moved in complete adaptation of Eastern mystic phi- awareness of each other. Mean- THE PEACOCK KING 29 time, the original thousand had learned earlier. It would be im­ been inconspicuously weeded possible, Eric knew, to ever lose it down to about fifty of those who now: the products of their mo­ showed the most promise. mentary brilliance would always Along with the disciplines of be with them. Buddhism, drugs were also used. When Dr. Tompkins felt that First, Eric and Karen took part in they had been adequately pre­ a group of fifteen who chewed the pared, he brought the last six sur­ rOQt bark of the Africanta­ vivors of the course together to bernanthe iboga. This was one of take lysergic acid diethylamide, the lesser known of the psychedel­ popularly known as LSD-25. This ics, the sa-called consciousness­ drug, the most potent of the psy­ expanding dmgs. chedelics by far, could be used, The drug produced several when taken in a comparatively hours of euphoric halucinations, large doseage, to simulate schizo­ in which they took great delight. phrenia. It was to be the final test. At first they watched, fascinated, The eight hours they spent to­ as they became aware of familiar gether under that drug were a time objects in new detail and marvel­ that Eric and Karen would never ously glowing colors. There was a forget. At first it went as before, a great deal of easy laughter among tingling euphoria bringing with it the fifteen, and Eric and Karen halucinatory powers. But while found themselves drawn into a before they had felt some vestige deep affirmation of each other of personal control, this time they which I'06e and peaked upon the did not. Eric felt himself slipping waves of their delight. over a vast precipiece, and knew After the heady sensations had he was powerless to halt himself. worn off, there followed almost The renewed colors seemed not twenty-four hours of sleeplessness quite so sharp this time, perhaps during which time they found Llecause they had each retained a their brains highly sharpened. It little more sense of awareness af· was unlike the stimulation of such ter their previous psychedelic ex· drugs as dexadrine; there was no perience. But then they began to nervousness or excitation. It was find themselves able to make simply as though all the mental things melt and change form be­ fog which normally obscures fore their eyes, simply by will· thought had been blown away and ing it-or even by suggestion from replaced by brilliantly illuminat­ another. For some minutes (that ing sunshine. During this period might have been hours or seconds) they devoted themselves to the they stared at each other. Eric was final digesting of all they had possessed by the knowledge that 30 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION he had only to look into Karen's There they lost all conscious· eyes to plumb the depths of her ness of time or space, but became soul: all would be known to him. simply two spirits floating in a As he stared at her, and she at him, great sea of sensations-colors, they saw a succession of demons sounds, feelings, smells, all and angels, age and youth, good heightened to a new and marvel· and evil forms sliding across their ous beauty. In the midst of faces. For a moment, Eric's heart maithuna lovemaking, they sud· froze, as he saw on Karen's face denly lost all awareness of having the ugly vision of Evil Incarnate, come from two bodies. Their then she shifted her position, the heightened rapture seemed to shadows changed, and it was gone, transcend the physical, and there to be replaced by a look of loving was between them only one great acceptance. spirit occupying the entire room, At first they'd stayed with the even the entire universe. Eric was others, participating in part in the conscious of a wisp of thought, group gestalt, finding ecstacies of whose he did not know: "When meaning in the paintings and mu­ this is all over, I wonder if we'll sic. But as each of the six fell ever get sorted out into our own deeper into the experience, there bodies again?" was less communication between They didn't. At first the som~ them and the others. what uncomfortable insights into Eric had a vision then, of an their own mental processes that unparted, fourth-dimensional fig­ the drug had given them left them ure of himself stretching back with what Dr. Tompldns assured through adolescense, childhood, them was a common sort of psy· and early infancy to birth. He had chological hangover: for some always been alone, he realized. days they were rather touchy and Man is born alone. Now each of jumpy, their thoughts bound up in them was experiencing this alone­ the problem of integrating all the ness, each had withdrawn into new things they had learned about himself. themselves. But he was not lonely. As he But this initial period of reori­ grappled with this, he became entation passed, and they found a aware of Karen again, aware of new awareness of each other. Most the depth of being which they of their conversations were con­ shared. He found himself growing stantly being punctuated with the absorbed in her-and found phrase, "I know." They found her returning his response. Soon much less need for talking then­ they quietly left the group to re­ a simple look into each others' turn to their room. eyes could convey more than THE PEACOCK KING 31 an hour's talking. Whether mak­ alone, dying alone. In one sense ing love, or quietly strolling we will never cease being alone. through the stunted sage under the This makes many lonely. There's close high clouds, they were star­ a difference ..." tled to find that each could feel ''Yes," they chorused, and then both the physical and emotional looked at each other and laughed. sensations in the other. If LSD "The experience you went was supposed to simulate con­ through strips away all the de­ ditions in hyperspace, they could fenses. Most of us have sought to hardly see why the concern; this hide our aloneness from ourselves. was a new sort of heaven-not a Many simply can't face it. You hell of insanity. did, and you transcended it. You "I never knew that schizophre­ accepted it, you affirmed it. You nia was supposed to be like that," used it as a starting point, a jump­ Karen confessed, puzzled, to Dr. ing off place. Tompkins. "I don't think you'll have any "For you, apparently it wasn't a trouble with the jump-and I've schizophrenic condition at all," selected you to make it." replied Tompkins. "At least, They had been so wrapped up not as we clinically define it. You in exploring their new mutual found higher realities, while clas­ personality that they were almost sically the schizophrenic condi­ startled at Tompkins' reminder of tion represents a withdrawal from the project's ulterior purpose. reality, or at least a retreat into a They gazed into each others' eyes, personal sort of reality which has­ hands tightly clasped, probing n't much in common with external their emotions and intuition. Then reality. Eric laughed delightedly. "Yes," he "The difference seems to be in said, "we will go.'' the way you approached the ex­ That had been just the begin­ perience, the way in which yeu ning. They were given every op­ two had prepared yourselves emo­ portunity to develop their growing tionally." love, living now in the apartment "I understand one of the others buried deep in the government had a bad time of it," said Eric. complex, but the major part of "Yes, Reynolds. He had what this second phase of the project we call 'the horrors.' When he got was a rigorous training program, in deep enough he couldn't take spending so many hours in the it, he couldn't take the loneliness. mockup of the space ship cabin Every man is an island-you that it became-as intended­ know that now. We are each practically an extension of their unique beings, hom alone, living bodies. 32 FANTASY AND SCIENCE PicnON They were to pilot a unique shaven heads with a cybernetic kind of ship, for it could travel helmet. By removing the gap in everywhere simply by transla­ muscular reaction time in this tion into hyperspace. It had no fashion, a far more positive con­ need for rockets, no need to By. trol could be assured. But at the same time, it had to be During one of their brief vaca­ equipped for space conditions, tions they had asked for the chance since their first jump would be a to travel to Japan for a visit to preliminary one to the edge of the some of the temples and monaster­ solar system, and from there the ies of the Buddhist religion, for big jump, across stars. Once in the they now considered themselves to Alpha Centauri system, they represent a new synthesis of Budd­ would have to hedgehop, looking hism. Its complex, yet simple ritu­ each planet over before making als seemed to bring the mind to any landings. And, once landed, just that state of calmness needed they would not disembark, but for their mental unity. Tile gov­ would return immediately, direct­ ernment had acceeded to the trip, ly to Earth. Computors would have after successfully arranging to carefully recorded and compilated conceal it as a public relations the data from each of their jumps, tour. carefully tracking their path. They Now they were ready to board would be able to backtrack auto­ the Peacock for the trip that might matically to any point they'd al­ bring mankind to the stars, or ready touched upon; it was only might end their lives· within the the path ahead which needed to be next hour. The announcer beside picked out. them finished his speech with a Once they'd recorded the way, smooth transition to the pair: it could be followed, automatical­ " ... and so mankind's dreams ly, in one direct jump, from of stellar travel ride today with Earth. Future trips would be closer this fine young couple who are to the old ideal of teleportation standing here at my side. How do than space travel, and could be ac­ you feel today, Eric and Karen?" complished automatically. But for They looked at each other, tried the initial exploration a great deal to suppress a grin and failed, and more was needed. then Karen said to the announc­ The controls would not be op­ er, "We'll go." erated by their hands-although He was somewhat startled, but some auxiliary systems could be­ managed a well-modulated appre­ but rather by direct mental im­ ciative chuckle. "Well, I'm sure pulse, transmitted through a maze everyone is relieved to hear that. of fine electrodes fitted to their Do you anticipate any trouble?" THE PEACOCK KING 33 This time Eric answered quick­ mum functioning of their mental­ ly. ''Well, as a matter of fact, yes. empathetic contact. We might get killed." As the last minutes were count­ This was beyond the announc­ ed off Eric reached over for a last er's experience, and after an in­ hasty kiss, and they become so in­ sistent signal from his director off volved that they were only recalled camera, he brought the interview to reality by the overhead speaker to an end. 'Well, Karen and Eric, which insisted, "Peacock Control, the best wishes of the whole world si~ify ready!" . ride with you today. We'll be pray­ "Ready and willing," Karen ing for you." snapped back with mock efficien­ Eric answered, suddenly seri­ cy, and then with a laugh they ous. 'We thank you," he said, nod­ settled into place. ding. Then he reached for Karen's The vacuum pumps outside the hand just as she extended it, and hull were rapidly fading in their they walked through the newsmen monotonous throb as the air be­ and were followed by their anony­ tween the ship and the walls of the mous government escorts down pocket it nested in was exhausted. another corridor. The vacuum was necessary; other­ The ship was nestled in the wise their departure would create center of the great underground a sizeable implosion. It would be complex, a large sphere, the en­ maintained until their return, for trance port of which seemed sim­ the same reasons. ply another door at the end of the As the last seconds ticked away, corridor. They clambered into the Eric and Karen found themselves small control capsule, and for the fully alert, every sense tensed to next few minutes were completely the slightest reaction of the ship. engaged in the details of attaching They did not glance at each other, the control helmets to their graph­ yet knew each others' feelings and ite-smeared heads, the sensors fears completely. which monitored their physical "God bless you. Four. Three, reactions for ground control, and Two. One. Jump," came the voice reading and checking over the in­ from Ground Control, and with struments before them. The capsule the last word came a sudden did not smell quite as the mockup wrench which threw the Peacock had; otherwise Eric could tell no into hyperspace. difference. Eric reached out and met Karen's hand, and their fin­ Something had thrown them gers locked. Tests had borne out back out again; something had their insistence that physical precipitated them into normal touch was necessary for the opti- space before it had been time. 34 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Naked of the ship, they would die to relax himself, looSe himself in minutes. Eric felt a cold tin­ from the panicking fear. Slowly, gling in his eyes, then noticed he began to disassociate himself Karen's were shut. Quickly he from physical sensation. closed his own. As a boy he'd sometimes laid That was better. That's better, upon a bed as motionless as possi­ he thought. Or was that his ble. He used to call it "floating." thought? After a time it would seem as He felt a hand-squeeze. Mine. though he was indeed floating; With his eyes closed, swinging he'd no longer be able to feel his in complete weightlessness, hold­ body, no longer even be able to tell ing even his lungs motionless, he the position of his limbs. He could feel the same special disori­ would spin in that narrow void entation stealing over him again. until finally he became frightened His lungs seemed ready to burst, and convulsively started, opened and he panicked. He exhaled with his eyes, and reasserted himself in a shudder, and convulsively the world of sensation. grabbed Karen's hand with crush­ It was like that now. They had ing force. They were in space! to get out, out of physical reality Alone, alone, alone. -back into that otherwhen of hy­ He would never again know perreality. Disassociation: that such true aloneness. In his mind's was the key. While he let himself eye he still saw the cold unwink­ spin out of his body, he tried to ing stars wheeling about them. He recall, to recreate the way they was fallingl-and there was no had done it before, with the LSD, bottom! and he let his spirit grope out­ Was this to be their fate, to per­ wards, linking with Karen's, ish alone and insignificant among knowing and understanding­ the empty stars? Was this the elsewards. meaning of the prophesy from the Their two bodies hung, dust I Ching? motes in the vast starscape, for a No. He felt Karen's reassuring long moment. Then they were grip. She squeezed, gently. 'His gone. future shall be to go into the earth.' There was no sensation of time. Believe, Eric, believe. As soon as they'd reestablished There is a way, Karen tried to that transcendent contact, time show him, pulling him, leading ceased. for them and they floated him. Let yourself go free. in an unbracketed infinity. For Then he understood. Deliber­ Eric it was also a period of insight ately, he recalled into his mind and understanding; now he knew. the disciplines, carefully he began There was never any way of tell- THE PEACOCK KING 35 ing how long they'd hung together "Congratulations on making the out there in space-much later first leg. How was it?" the medicos told them that it could "A little bigger than we expect­ have been only a matter of a few ed," Eric said, and exchanged a seconds, ilut for Eric those had knowing grin with Karen. been long seconds indeed, even They were still waiting for the after he'd cut himself off from his reply to that one when, shifting body with its screaming lungs and his weight, &ic suddenly felt a frostbitten skin. And if they'd sharp pain aver the mass of lesser been, even for only a m()tJlent, aches and pains in his left leg. alive in normal space, it had been There was a smooth furrow cutting for a finite amount of time, while a shallow groove through suit and afterwards, in non-space-call it skin. Blood still oozed into the gap. hy-,erspttce, another dimension, or After a moment of surprise, he nowhere-there was only infin­ reali~d the only possible explana­ ity ... tion. "I must've been grazed by a Then they, and the ship, were tiny meteor or something while through, the jump completed. we were-out there," he told Ka­ Eric was aware again of the touch ren. A cool chill blew through his of the electrodes clamped to his mind as he momentarily recalled aching skull, his numbed feet and the vast majesty of the lost and hands, his ringing ears and bleed­ fearfully empty space in which ing nose, and-most of all-the they'd hung. He shuddered. Then rasping breath shuddering up into he was secure and confident again, his body. nested in his awareness ef Karen He opened bloodshot eyes and and the control capsule. stared into Karen's. Then they Karen looked startled, and then were laughing together. quoted softly: " 'He is wounded in "You're the Lost Weekend per­ the left thigh. He saves himself by sonified," she said. the strength of a swift horse. He is "Hey, we did it!" he said at the fortunate.' " same time. Then he reached over­ For &ic a laugh came CJUickly head for the small gray mike, and with his release of breath. "And pulled it down, the cord tense the rest of it, then. It's not omi­ against its return spring, and re­ nous at all. 'There is no light, only peated his words, this time fer obscurity.' That was hyperspace. Earth. And, 11e had at first ascended to His arm ached while he the tep of the sky. His future shall held the mike and waited. Finally be to go into the earth.' I the small speaker behind them think that augers well for eur safe spat twice and then crackled, return.'' 36 FANTASY AND SCII!.NCE FICTION Karen paused, then said, "I crazy, others got half-way through, wish I understood why that hap­ as we did, and came out too soon, pened to us-1 mean, our getting without their ships. But we-" thrown back out into normal space Karen nodded. "We pulled our­ like that. But at least now we selves through, we went from nor­ know what happened to the other mal space back into hyperspace by man who disappeared." ourselves. An 'act of will' ••• "There seems to be a lot more Do you suppose-?" to the jump than just a matter of "It's possible. I seemed to un­ mechanics," Eric said, musing. derstand about that, after we went "Once human beings are involved, back in. It felt as though I was an act of will seems to be involved. regaining something ... some past Hyperspace isn't another physical knowledge. I felt a familiarity. I place; it's sort of like a state of don't think we'll have any more mind-and our minds can appar­ trouble with our jumps, and­ ently interreact with it. Our mis­ who knows? Perhaps in time, with take seems to have been in assum­ experience, we won't need the ship ing that because we'd experienced at all" something similar with drugs that "Teleportation-?" Karen's eyes we could expect the same sort of glistened. thing. We must not have handled Then the radio sputtered again it just right-because hyperspace and Ground Control asked, "Are is not an LSD experience, and you two sure you're ready? Every­ once in it it appears we do have thing ready for the big jump?" some measure of control over it. "More than ready," Eric replied. The others-who knows? Ap­ And, maintaining firmness and parently the experience was be­ correctness, mankind reached for yond their capabilities. Some went the stars.

COMING NEXT MONTH

CUGR THE CLEVER by JACK VANCE The five novelets which make up CUGEL THE CLEVER are something quite special. To those who remember Jack Vance's THE DYING EARTH, these novel­ ets, in the same setting, will be a long-awaited feast. To all, a fascinating read­ ing experience is in view. Next month, the first in the series: THE ovEawoaLD. -\.if.~(] - 3T3V r~ ..

' 37 THE SCIENCE SPRINGBOARD

INSECT ATTRACTANT by Theodore L. Thomas

THERE HAS BEEN INCREASING now possible to lure male cock­ criticism of the use of chemical roaches to their death. There's a poisons to kill insects. The poisons potent weapon here. But insects do a good job, but they may also aren't the only ones. Higher ani­ kill birds, fish, and other animals, mals also use scent to attract their to say nothing of people. Yet in­ mates. sects kill millions of people every Well, now. Is it possible that we year. Some insects transmit dis­ have been overlooking the real rea­ eases. Others infect and destroy son why a man marries a certain food crops. So we are in a dilemma. woman? Perhaps the chemist can Insects must be eliminated, but give the answer. Here prowls a fe­ they must be eliminated safely. male of the species Homo sapiens, Research has shown that the fe­ producing a chemical attractant males of many species of insects use peculiar to her genetic heritage. a scent to attract the males. It turns Along comes the one receptive male aut that the sex attractant is an ex­ able to detect that particular at­ tremely potent chemical com­ tractent even through a cloud of pound. The male of the cockroach Chanel No. 5. Mating must follow. will come arunning when exposed Suppose later the female stops pro­ to as little as 30 molecules of the ducing the attractant, or suppose scent produced by the female. In it wasn't exactly the right one after order to identify this chemical, the all, and the male then finds another chemists collected cockroaches in a female with the right one. There jar, and blew clean air through the would have to be a change of mates, jar. By freezing out the contents of no help for it. If this is the way the air, they were able to obtain things really are, a new kind of 12.2 milligrams of the attractant marriage counselor could evolve to and identify it. It took the chemists cope with the situation. He would nine months and I 0,000 female be an organic chemist, skilled at cockroaches, but they did it. It is analysis and synthesis.

38 Here is the second and final part of Roger Zelazny's novel of a far-future Earth. (No Juwm done if you missed the first part; see synopsis by the author.) The setting here is a myslerimu and extraordinary tour of radioactive Greece-whers the sights mostly have large teeth and an unfriendly nature, and the tour party itself is something less than homogeneous. It all adds up to some truly jarring encounters and a surprising ending.

• • • AND CALL ME CONRAD by Roger Zelazny (Conclusion)

SYNOPSIS: So I left my Cassandra-my mer­ I was minding my own business, maid, my bride of two months­ like any good creature of darkness, there on the isle of Kos, and I re­ when the call came through from turned me to Haiti. There did I meet Port-au-Prince. I was to conduct a with Cort Myshtigo, who was some­ tour: Me, Conrad Nomikos, Com­ what blue and Vegan, being from missioner of the Earthoffice Depart­ the world of Taler. ment of Arts, Monuments and Ar­ Cort wanted to write a book, chives. How mortifying! I am a high­ about the Earth, about what we had level goof-off, a Commissioner­ left here after the Three Days. and Commissioners just don't do That's not much, but he wanted to things like that. . . • see it, all, and he'd named me as the Not unless circumstances tend to guide he wanted running the show. be somewhat extraordinary, that is. So okay. He was the scion of the 39 40 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION wealthy Shtigo-gens-he could call kill me, and golems are supposed to the shots. have governors which prevent them In Haiti did I renew my acquaint- from harming people. Therefore, it ance with such notables as George seemed that someone had sabotaged Emmet-Earth's chief biologist and it, so that it could polish me off. Director of the Earthoffice Depart- Hasan, of course. But why? ment of Wildlife Conservation-and Who could want me dead? I'm a his fickle wife, Ellen; and with nice guy, and-well ..• Donald Dos Santos and his consort, Just because a couple people, like Diane of the Red Wig, the moving Phil, Hasan, and maybe Red Wig forces in the Radpol; and Phil knew I was a few centuries old and Graber, Earth's poet laureate; and had once been known as Karaghiosis last but never least, Hasan the As- the killer, founder of the Radpol Re­ sassin, Earth's last mercenary. tumist Party, why should my life be Lorel Sands, the Earthdirector, in jeopardy now? But someone had said, "Go thou and conduct this seemed to wish me gone. tour." So that was it. Naturally, I decided to find out Ere we left, however, I catered why. to a whim of the Vegan's and took I was also faced with the task of him to a voodoo ceremony. There preserving the Vegan's life during did Hasan distinguish himself by this time-for it appeared that Diane throwing a fit and murdering non- was the real moving spirit behind the existent people. Oh, mal! I took this Party, and she'd gotten Don to hire as an indication that he had been Hasan to get Myshtigo dead. hired to kill someone in the near Why, again? future, and that he was acting it out • Well, once before had the Vegans while under the influence of what- tried to move in on us-to buy up ever the hell he was smoking those Earth property, to set up their dark, days-even though Mama Julie satanic resorts on our world and to maintained that he was possessed of exploit our people. That was when Angelsou, the deathgod. Karaghiosis the killer had bombed The Nile Valley was our first stop, their resorts and smashed the Earth­ and there did I go mad when the gov Realty Office on Madagascar, earthquake came and sank Kos be- which had been selling them the neath the wine-dark Aegaean-Kos, land. and my Cassandra. . . • See, I am one of the descendents I fought with anything in sight of the survivors of the Three Days. when this happened, until finally There were Earth colonists on Mars Hasan sicced the robot-golem on me. and Titan when that brief war oc­ I smashed it, and the battle brought curred, and they never came back­ back my wits; but it had tried to not till much later, anyhow, and then ••• AND CALL ME CONRAD 41 not to stay, just to administer. They an island culture, because nobody developed an interstellar drive after had bombed islands. The Office ac­ they considered the Earth a dead tually administers only to the islands; issue. They went out to the stars, those unfortunates who live about they found an ancient and cultured the mainland Hot Places suffer the people-the Vegans-and they ob­ Office and derive few benefits from tained umbrage among them, wGrk· it. (They hate the Office too, of ing as registered aliens in the Vegan course, which makes the whole thing Combine. Also, they constituted the even more difficult, should the Earthgov in absentia. They had a Office ever really try to help.) majority, and they began administer­ So, here I am, protecting a Vegan ing the Earth via a big civil service until I can find out what he's up to. office, after they discovered that Also, I'm protecting me. It's a big there was still something down here job. Before leaving Egypt for Greece, to administer to. I was involved in a small altercation The Radpol and I disapproved with a boadile, which is a mutant when the resort business started. We croc (I don't care what George calls stalemated them half a century ago­ them), while keeping Myshtigo alive. no new Veggy resorts, no new Radpol Then Diane asked me to help kill violence-and since then I've been Myshtigo, on the basis of an obscure marking time, playing like dead. Radpol communique. Diane fasci­ The real aim of the Radpol was nates me, but the Veggy's death could not resistance, but Return. We had boomerang. We can't strike til1 we wanted the appropriate Earthfolk to know what he's up to, I say. It just come back to help us rebuild the might be something good, for once. home world. They didn't, though. We don't really know. They just left us with an Office de­ SCJ I've got a lot of people mad signed to administer to our humble at me, and I can't get away from the needs and preserve the cultural her­ feeling that either Hasan the Assas­ itage of the race. Ha! The mainland sin gr I will have to go before this had been bombed all to heU. We were thing is settled-and he's tough.

IT. DowN BELow. . . . Death, heat, mud-streaked Death, heat, mud-streaked tides. New shoretines • • • tides, new shorellnes . • . Vulcanil;m on Chios, Samos, I had brought my whole convoy lkaria, Naxos ... out of its way in order to check Halicarnassos bitten away • . • the scene. Myshtigo took notes. The western end of Kos vtsfhle Lorel had said, "Continue on again, butsowhat? with the tour. Damage to property 42 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION has not been too severe because northern slopes. Now it was a tiny the Mediterranean was mostly full islet, and no one had made it up of junkstuff. Personal injuries to the top in time. were either fatal or are already be­ "You lived there," said Mysh­ ing taken care of. -So continue tigo. on." I nodded. I skimmed in low over what re­ "You were born in the village of mained of Kos-the westward tail Makrynitsa though, in the hills of of the island. It was a wild, vol­ Thessaly?" canic country, and there were "Yes." fresh craters, fmning ones, amidst "... But you made your home the new, bright, sealaces that there?" crissed and crossed over the land. "For a little while." The ancient capital of Astypalaia " 'Home' is a universal con­ had once stood there. Thucydides cept," said the Vegan. "I appre­ tells us it had been destroyed by a ciate it." powerful earthquake. He should "Thanks." have seen this one. My northern I continued to stare downward, city of Kos had then been inhab­ feeling sad, bad, mad, and then ited from 366 B.C. Now all was nothing. gone but the wet and the hot. There were no survivors-and the Athens after absence returns to plane tree of Hippocrates and the me with a sudden familiarity mosque of the Loggia and the cas­ which always refreshes, often re­ tle of the Knights of Rhodes, and news, sometimes incites. Phil once the fountains, and my cottage, read me some lines by one of the and my wife-swept by what tides last great Greek poets, George Se­ oi: caught in what sea-pits, I do not feris, maintaining that he had re­ know-had gone the ways of dead ferred to my Greece when he said, Theocritus-he who had done his ". . . A country that is no longer best to immortalize the place so our own country, nor yours many years before. Gone. Away. either" -because of the Vegans. Far . . . Immortal and dead to When I pointed out that there me. Further east, a few peaks of were no Vegans available during that high mountain range which Seferis' lifetime, Phil retorted that had interrupted the northern poetry exists independent of time coastal plain were still poking and space and that it means what­ themselves up out of the water. ever it means to the reader. While There was the mighty peak of I have never believed that a lit­ Dhikaios, or Christ the Just, which erary license is also good for had overlooked the villages of the time-travel, I had other reasons ••• AND CALL ME CONRAD 43 for disagreeing, for not reading waited for the next development. it as a general statement. The Radpol vendetta had It is our country. The Goths, frightened the expatriates as well the Huns, the Bulgars, the Serbs, as the Vegans. They did not realize the Franks, the Turks, and lately that the descendents of those who the Vegans have never made it go had lived through the Three Days away from us. People, I have out­ would not willingly relinquish lived. Athens and I have changed their best areas of coastline for Ve­ together, somewhat. Mainland gan resorts, nor yield up their sons Greece though, is mainland and daughters to work in those re­ Greece, and it does not change for sorts; nor would they guide the me. Try taking it away, whatever Vegans through the ruins of their you are, and my klephtes will stalk cities, indicating points of inter­ the hills, like the chthonic aven­ est for their amusement. That is gers of old. You will pass, bu,t the why the Office is mainly a foreign hills of Greece will remain, will service post for most of its staff. be unchanged, with the smell of We had sent out the call of re­ goat thigh-bones burning, with a turn to those descendents of the mingling of blood and wine, a Martian and Titanian colonies, taste of sweetened almonds, a cold and there had been no return. wind by night, and skies as blue­ They had grown soft out there, soft bright as the eyes of a god by day. from leeching on a culture which Touch them, if you dare. had had a headstart on ours. They That is why I am refreshed lost their identity. They aban­ whenever I return, because now doned us. that I am a man with many years Yet, they were the Earthgov, de behind me, I feel this way about jure, legally elected by the absent the entire Earth. That is why I majority-and maybe de facto fought, and why I killed and too, if it ever carne to that. Prob­ bombed, and why I tried every le­ ably so. I hoped it wouldn't come gal trick in the book too, to stop to that. the Vegans from buying up the For over half a century there Earth, plot by plot, from the ab­ had been a stalemate. No new sentia government, there on Taler. Veggy resorts, no new Radpol vio­ That is why I pushed my way, un­ lence. No Return either. Soon der another new name, into the there would be a new develop­ big civil service machine that runs ment. It was in the air-if Mysh­ this planet-and why Arts, Mon­ tigo was really surveying. uments and Archives, in particu­ So I carne back to Athens on a lar. There, I could fight to pre­ bleak day, during a cold, drizzling serve what still rernined, while I rainfall, an Athens rocked and re- 44 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION arranged by the recent upheavals of the bom1Jing of MadagasctJr. of Earth, and there was a question Believe that, if you want to. in my head and bruises on my Konstantin Karaghiosis sat in body, but I was refreshed. The this chair, insisted another. National Museum still stood there I was really afraid to go into between Tossitsa and Vasileos the bathroom. Irakliou, the Acropolis was even more ruined than I remembered, Later that night, as I walked and the Garden Altar Inn-for­ the wet and rubble-strewn pave­ merly the old Royal Palace-there ments of my almost deserted city, at the northwest corner of the Na­ my old memories and my current tional Gardens, across from Svn­ thoughts were like the coming to­ dagma Square, had been shaken gether of two rivers. I'd left the but was standing and open for others snoring inside, descended business, despite. the wide stairway from the Altar, We entered, we checked in. paused to read one of the inscrip­ As Commissioner of Arts, Mon­ tions from Perikles' funeral oration uments and Archives (mainly -"The entire Earth is the tomb of though, I feel, because I was the great men" -there on the side of only Greek in the party), I re­ the Memorial to the Unknown Sol­ ceived special considerations. dier, and I studied for a moment I got The Suite. Number 19. those great-thewed limbs of that It wasn't exactly the way I'd left archaic warrior, laid out with all it. It was clean and neat. his weapons on his funeral bed, The little metal plate on the all marble and bas-relief, yet door said: somehow almost warm, because This suite was the headquarters night beq1mes Athens-and then of Konstantin Karaghiosis during I walked on by, passing up Leo­ the founding of the Rad1wl and hros Amalias. much of the Returnist Rebellion. It had been a fine dinner: ouzo, Inside, there was a plaque on giuvetsi, Kokkineli, yaourti, Me­ the hedstead which read: taxa, lots of dark coffee, and Phil KonsttHttin Karaghiosis slept in arguing with George about evolu­ this bed. tion. In the long, narrow front room "Do you not see a convergence I spotted one on the far wall. It of life and myth, here, during the said: last days of life on this planet'?" The stain on this wall was 'What do you mean?" asked caused by a bottle of beverage, George, polishing off a mess of hurled across the room by Kon­ narantzi and adjusting his glasses stantin Karaghiosis, in celebration for peering. , • • AND CALL ME CONllAD 45 "I mean that, as humanity rose things you have mentioned which out of darkness it brought with it are native to Earth are mutations, legends and myths and memories creatures originating near various of fabulous creatures. Now we are Hot Spots about the world. There descending again into that same is one such place up in the hills of darkness. The Life Force grows Thessaly. If the Black Beast were weak and unstable, there is a revi­ to crash through that door at this sion to those primal forms which moment, with a satyr mounted on for so long had existed only as dim its back, it would not alter my racial memories-" opinion, nor prove yours." "Nonsense, Phil Life Force? In I'd looked at the door at that what century do you make your moment, hoping not for the Black home? You speak as though all of Beast, but for some inconspicuous­ life were one single, sentient en­ looking old man who might sidle tity." by, stumble, and pass on, or for a "It is." waiter bringing Diane an unor­ "Demonstrate, please." dered drink with a note folded in­ "You have the skeletons of three side the napkin. satyrs in your museum, and photo­ But none of these things hap­ graphs of live ones. They live in pened. As I passed up Leoforos the hills of this country. Amalias, by Hadrian's Gate, and "Centaurs too, have been seen past_the Olympieion, I still did not here-and there are vampire flow­ know what the word was to be. ers, and horses with vestigial Diane had contacted the Radpol, wings. There are sea serpents in but there had been no response as every sea. Imported spiderbats yet. Within another thirty-six plow our skies. There are even hours we would be skimming from sworn statements by persons who Athens to Lamia, then onward by have seen the Black Beast of foot through areas of strange new Thessaly, an eater of men, bones trees with long, pale, red-veined and all-quite mythy-and all leaves, hanging vines, and things sorts of other legends are coming that brachiate up above, and all alive." the budding places of the strigue­ George sighed. fleur down among their roots; and "What you have said so far then on, across sun-washed plains, proves nothing other than that in up twisty goat trails, through high, all of infinity there is a possibility rocky places, and down deep ra­ for any sort of life form to put in vines, past ruined monasteries. It an appearance, given the proper was a crazy notion, but Myshtigo, precipitating factors and a continu­ again, had wanted it that way. ous congenial environment. The Just because I was born there, he 46 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION thought he'd be safe. I'd tried to "'. • • Carry no fewer than three tell him of the wild beasts, of the magnesium flares on his person, cannibal Kouretes-the tribesmen while traveling." I pulled the pin who wandered there. But he want­ from one and cast it to the ground. ed to be like Pausanius and see it The dazzle would not be visible all on foot. Okay then, I decided, below, because of the angle of the if the Radpol didn't get him, then hillside and the blocking masonry. the fauna would. I did not stare into the bright But, just to be safe, I had gone flame, but above, at the silver­ to the nearest Earthgov Post Of­ limned figures. There was Hermes, fice, obtained a duelling permit, presenting the infant god to Zeus, and paid my death-tax. I might as while the Corybantes tripped the well be on the up-and-up about Pyrrhic fantastic on either side of these things, I decided, me being the throne; then there was Ikaros, a Commissioner and all. whom Dionysius had taught to cul­ If Hasan needed killing, I'd tivate the vine-he was prepar­ kill him legally. ing to sacrifice a goat, while his daughter was offering cakes to the The street was deserted, was god (who stood aside, discussing quite dark. I turned right into her with a satyr); and there was Leoforos Dionysiou Areopagitou drunken Silenus, attempting to and moved on until I reached the hold up the sky like Atlas, only not battered fence that runs along the doing so well; and there were all southern slope of the Acropolis. the other gods of the cities, paying I heard a footfall, way back be­ a call to this Theater-and I spot­ hind me, at the corner. I stood ted Hestia, Theseus, and Eirene there for half a minute, but there with a horn of plenty . . . was only silence and very black "You burn an offering to the night. Shrugging, I entered the gods," came a statement from gate and moved to the tenemos of nearby. Dionysius Eleutherios. Nothing I did not turn. It had come from remains of the temple itself but the behind my right shoulder, but I foundation. I passed on, heading dicl not turn because ·I knew the toward the Theater. voice. I moved to the proskenion. The "Perhaps I do," I said. relief sculpture-work started at the "It has been a long time since steps, telling tales fro111 the life of you walked this land, this Greece." Dionysius. Every tour guide and "That is true." every member of a tour must, un­ "Is it because there has never der a regulation promulgated by been an immortal Penelope-pa­ me (Number 237.1, if you care), tient as the mountains, trusting in , , • AND CALL ME CONUD 47 the return of her kallikanzaros­ sight. The other led up into the weaving, patient as the hills?" hills. At the first hill stood the "Are you the village story-teller Dead Man, who held your thread these days?" in his white, white hands. Beyond He chuckled. him, at the next hill, it lay across "I tend the many-legged sheep a burning rock. On the hill beyond in the high places, where the fin­ the rock stood the Black Beast, and gers of Aurora come first to smear he shook and worried your thread the sky with roses." with his teeth. "Yes, you're the story-teller. "And all along the length of the Why are you not up in the high strand stalked a great foreign war· place6 now, corrupting youth with rior, and yellow were his eyes and your song?" naked the blade in his hands, and "Because of dreams." he did raise this blade several "Dreams?" times in menace. "Aye." "So I came down to Athens­ I turned and looked into the an­ to meet you, here, at this place­ cient face-its wrinkles, in the to tell you to go back across the light of the dying flare, as black as seas-to warn you not to come fishers' nets lost at the bottom of up into the hills where death the sea, the beard as white as the awaits you. For I lmew that the snow that comes drifting down dreams were not mine, but that from the mountains, the eyes they were meant for you, oh my matching the blue of the head­ father, and that I must find you doth corded about his temples. He here and warn you. Go away now, did not lean upon his staff any while still you can. Go back. more than a warrior leans on his Please." spear. I knew that he was over a I gripped his shoulder. ceDtury old, and that he _had never "Jason, my son, I do not turn taken the S-S series. back. I take full responsibility for "There before me lay Athens," my own actions, right or wrong­ he told me. "This place, this Thea­ including my own death, if need ter, you-and here sat the\ old be-and I must go into the hills women. The one who measures out this time, up near the Hot Place. the thread of life was pouting, for Thank you for your warning. Our she had wrapped yours about the family has always had this thing horizon and no ends were in sight. with dreams, and often it is mis· But the one who weaves had di­ leading. I too, have dreams­ vided it into two very thin threads. dreams in which I see through the One strand ran back ocross the eyes of other persons-sometimes seas and vanished again from clearly, 501lletimes not so clearly. 48 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Thank you for your warning. I am frGm fright. By day, it is said that sorry that I must not heed it." he sleeps in a coffin, guarcied by "Then I will return to mv flock." the Kourete tribesmen." "Come back with me t& the inn. Strange things do come out of We will fly you as far as Lamia the Hot Places," I said. "We know tomorrow." that." "No. I do not sleep in great " ... Where Prometheus spilled buildings, ngr do I fly." too much ofthe fire of creation." "Then it's probably time you "No, where some bastard lobbed started, but I'll humor you. We a cobalt bomb and the bright-eyed can camp here tonight. I'm Com­ boys and girls cried 'Eloi' to the missioner of this monument." fallout. -And what of the Black "I had heard you were impor­ Beast?" tant in the Big Government again. "The size of an elephant, and Will there be more killing?" very fast-an eater of flesh, they "I hope not." say. He haunts the plains. Perhaps We found a level place and re­ some day he and the Dead Man clined upon his cloak. will meet and they will destroy "How do you interpret the one another." dreams?" I asked him. "It doesn't usually work out that "Your gifts do come to us with way, but it's a nice thought. every season, but when was the -That's all you know about him?" last time you yourself visited?" "Yes, I know of no one who has "It was about nineteen years caught more than a glimpse." ago," I said. "Well, I shall try for less than "Then you do not know of the that." DeadMan?" ". . . And then I must tell you "No." ofBortan." "He is bigger than most men­ "Bortan? That name is famil­ taller, fatter-with flesh the color iar." of a fimbelly, and teeth 1ike an ''Yeur dog. I used to ride on his animal's. They began telling of back when I was a child and heat him about fifteen years ago. He with my legs upon his great ar­ comes out enly at night. He drinks mored sides. Then he would growl blood. He laughs a child's laugh as and seize my foot, but gently." he goes about the countryside leak­ "My Bortan has heen dead for ing for bleed-people's, animals', so long that he woul8 ROt even it does not matter. He smiles in chew upon his own bones, were he throl.l@h beelroom windows late at to dig them up in a IMdem in­ night. He burns churches. He cur­ carnation." dles milk. He causes miscarriages "I had thought so, too. But two • • • AND CALL MI. CONltAD 49 days after you departed, from your through arches of the years, came last visit, he came crashing into hounding after me. It touched my the hut. He apparently had fol­ eyes. Tired, they closed. lowed your trail across half of Greece." Greece is lousy with leg~d, "You're sure it was Bortan ?" fraught with menace. Most areas "Was there ever another dog the of mainland near the Hot Places size of a small horse, with armor are historically dangerous. This is plates on his sides, and javrs like because, while the Office theoreti­ a trap for bears?" . cally runs the Earth, it actually "No, I don't think so. That's only tends to the islands. Office probably why the species died out. personnel on much of the main­ Dogs do need armor plating if land are rather like twentieth-cen­ they're going to hang around with tury Revenue Officers were in people, and they didn't develop it certain hill areas. They're fair fast enough. If he is still ali've, game in all seasons. The island he's probably the last dog on Earth. sustained less damage than the He and I were puppies together, rest of the world during the Three you know, so long ago that it hurts Days, and consequently they were to think about it. That day he van­ the logical outposts for world dis­ ished while we were hunting I trict offices when the Talerites de­ thought he'd had an accident. I cided we could use some adminis­ searched for him, then decided be tration. Historically, the main­ was dead. He was incredibly old landers have always been opposed at the time." to this. In the regions about the "Perhaps he was injured, and Hot Places though, the natives are wandering that way-for years. not always completely human. But he was himself and he fol­ This compounds the historical an­ lowed your track, that last time. tipathy with abnormal behavior When he saw that you were gone, patterns. This is why Greece is he howled and took off after vou fraught. again. We have never seen him We could have sailed up the since then. Sometimes though, late coast to Volos. We could have at night, I hear his hunting-cry in skimmed to Volos--or almost any­ the hills.... " where else, for that matter. Mysh­ "The damfool mutt ought to tigo wanted to hike from Lamia know it's not right to care for any­ though, to hike and enjoy the re­ thing that much." freshment of legend and alien "Dogs were strange." scenery. This is why we left the "Yes, dogs were." Skimmers at Lamia. This is why And then the night wind, cool we hiked to Volos. 50 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION This is why we encountered There is no trail that leads to it. legend. You just have to kRow where it is. I bade Jason "good-bye" in Ath­ I would11't have taken them there, ens. He was sailing up the coast. except for the fact that Phil was Wise. along and I knew that he liked Phil had insisted on enduring anvthing which smacks of an ady­ the hike, rather than skimming tum, a sequestered significance, a ahead and meeting us up further sliding-panel view onto dim along the line. Good thing too, things past, etcetera. maybe, in a way, sort of . . . There is a short, sharp drop, and The road to Volos wanders down below is an egg-shaped through the thick and the sparse clearing, about fifty meters long, in the way of vegetation. It passes twentv across, and the small end huge boulders, occasional clusters of the. egg butting into a bitten-out of shacks, fields of poppies; it place in the rock; there is a shal­ crosses small streams, winds about low cave at the extreme end, usu­ hiUs, sometimes crosses over hills, ally empty. A few half-sunken, al­ widens and narrows without ap­ most square stones stand about fn parent cause. a seemingly random wav. Wild It was still early morning. The grapevines grow around the peri­ sky was somehow a blue mirror, meter of the place, and in the cen­ because the sunlight seemed to be ter is an enormous and ancient CDilling from everywhere. In tree whose branches act as an um­ places of shade some moisture still brella over almost the entire area, clung to the grasses and the lower keeping it dusky throughout the leaves of the trees. dav. Because of this, it is hard to It was in an interesting glade see into the place. alo11g the road to Volos that I met But we could see a satyr in the a half-namesake. middle, picking his nose. The place had once been a I saw George's hand go to the shrine of some sort, back in the mercy-gun he carried. I caught Real Old Days. I came tdawn the place, so that it reflected upon tomorrow." a stand of small trees, and I "Check. And as to weap­ moved to the other end. ons .•. ?" I collected some stones and He fetched his knapcase, slung one at a tree. I missed. opened it. It bristled with inter­ I slung a dozen more, hitting esting sharp things, glistened with with four of them. ovoid incendiaries, writhed with I kept at it. After about an coils of metal and leather. hour, I was hitting with a little He withdrew two items and more regularity. Still, at fifty closed the pack. meters I probably couldn't match My heart sank. Hasan. "The sling of David," he an- The night wore on, and I kept nounced. slinging. After a time, I reached I inspected them. what seemed to be my learning "At what distance?" plateau, accuracy-wise. Maybe six "Fifty meters," he said. out of eleven of my shots were ''You've made a good choice,'' I coming through. told him, not having used one in I had one thing in my favor over a century myself. "I'd like to though, I realized, as I twirled the borrow one tonight, to practice sling and sent another stone with. If you don't want to lend- it smashing into a tree. I delivered to me, I can make my own." my shots with an awful lot of ''You may take either, and force. Whenever I was on target practice all night with it." there was much power behind the "Thanks." I selected one and strike. I had already shattered hung it from my belt. Then I several of the smaller trees, and picked up one of our three electric I was sure Hasan couldn't do that lanterns. "If anybody needs me, with twice as many hits. If I could I'll be up the road at the clear- reach him, fine; but all the power ••• AND CALL ME CONRAD 57 in the world was worthless if I his Gauzy. He emerged a moment couldn't connect with it. later with his pipe and a block of And I was sure he could reach hardened, resinous-looking stuff, me. I wondered how much of a which he proceeded to scale and beating I could take and still grind. He mixed it with a bit of operate. burley and then filled the pipe. It would depend, of course, on After he got it going with a where he hit me. stick from the fire, he sat smoking I dropped the sling and yanked itbeside me. the automatic from my belt when "I do not want to kill you, I heard a branch snap, far off to Karagee," he said. my right. Hasan came into the "I share this feeling. I do not clearing. wish to be killed." 'What do you want?" I asked "But we must fight tomorrow." him. "Yes." "I came to see how your practice "You could withdraw your chal- was going," he said, regarding lenge." the broken trees. "You could leave by Skimmer." I shrugged, reholstered my auto­ "I will not." matic, picked up the sling. "Nor will I withdraw my chal­ "Comes the sunrise and you lenge." will learn." "It is sad," he said, after a We walked across the clearing time. "Sad, that two such as we and I retrieved the lantern. must fight over the blue one. He Hasan studied a small tree which is not worth your life, ermine." was now, in part, toothpicks. He "True," I said, "but it involves did not say anything. more than just his life. The future We walked back to the camp. of this planet is somehow tied up Everyone but Dos Santos had with whatever he is doing.'' turned in. Don was our guard. He "I do not know of these things, paced about the warning perimeter, Karagee. I fight for money. I have carrying an autometic rifle. We no other trade." waved to him and entered the "Yes, I know." camp. The fire burnt low. I fed it Hasan always pitched a Gauzy m0re sticks. -a one-molecule-layer tent­ "Do you remember the time we opaque, feather-light, and very bombed the Coast of Gold, in tough. He never slept in it, though. France?" he asked. He just used it to stash his junk. "I remember." I seated myself on a log before "Besides the blue ones, we the fire and Hasan ducked inside killed many peeple." 58 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Yes." clean areas, which they used as "The future of the planet was resorts, and from which they tour· not changed by this, Karagee. For ed the rest of the Earth. But you here we are, many years away wanted the Earth to belong only from the thing, and nothing is to people. You said that if we gave different." the blue ones an inch, then they '1 know that." would want it all. You wanted the "And do you remember the men by the stars to come back and days when we crouched in a hole rebuild the cities, bury the Hot on a hillside, overlooking the bay Places, kill the beasts which prey at Piraeus? Sometimes you would upon men. feed me the belts and I would "As we sat there, waiting for strafe the blazeboats, and when I the fireball, you said that we were grew tired you would operate the at war, not because of anything gun. We had much ammunition. we could see or hear or feel or The Office Guard did not land taste, but because of the Powers in that day, nor the next. They did the Sky, who had never seen us, not occupy Athens, they did not and whom we would never see. break the Radpol. And we talked The Powers in the Sky had done as we sat there, those two days and this thing, and because of it men that night, waiting for the fireball had to die here on Earth. You said to come-and you told me of the that by the death of men and blue Powers in the Sky." ones, the Powers might return to "I forget .•." Earth. They never did, though. "I do not. You told me that There was only the death. · there are men, like us, who live "And it was the Powers in the up in the air by the stars. Also, Sky which saved us in the end, ~ere are the blue ones. Some of the because they had to be consulted men, you said, seek the blue ones' before the fireball could be burnt favor, and they would sell the over Athens. They reminded the Earth to them to be made into a Office of an old law, made after museum. Others, you said, did not the time of the Three Days, saying want to do this thing, but they that the fireball would never again wanted it to remain as it is now­ bum in the skies of Earth. You had their property, run by the Office. thought that they would bum it The blue ones were divided among anyhow, but they did not. It was themselves on this matter, because because of this that we stopped there was a question as to whether them at Piraeus. I burnt Mada· it was legal and ethical to do this gaskee for you, Karagee, but the thing. There was a compromise, Powers never carne down to Earth. and the blue ones were sold some And when people get much money • • • AND CALL ME CONRAD 59 they go away from here-and I took several mouthfuls into they never come back from the sky. my lungs. At first there was noth­ Nothing we did in those days bas ing. I continued to draw on it, caused a change." and after a minute there was a "Because of what we did, things gradual feeling of coolness and remained as they were, rather than tranquility which spread down getting worse," I told him. through my limbs. It tasted bitter, "What will happen if this blue but it relaxed. I handed it back. one dies?" The feeling continued, grew "I do not know. Things may stronger. It was very pleasant. I worsen theri. If he is viewing the had not felt that sedate, that re­ areas we pass through as possible laxed, for many weeks. The fire, real estate tracts, to be purchased the shadows, and the ground by Vegans, then it is the old thing about us suddenly became more all over again." real, and the night air and the dis­ "And the Radpol will fight tant moon and the sound of Dos again, will bomb them?" Santos' footsteps came somehow "I think so." more clearly than life, really. The "Then let us kill him now, be­ struggle seemed ridiculous. We fore he goes further, sees more." would lose it in the end. It was "It may not be that . simple­ written that humanity was to be and they would only send another. the cats and dogs and trained There would also be repercussions chimpanzees of the real people, -perhaps mass arrests of Radpol the Vegans-and in a way it was members. The Radpol is no longer­ not such a bad idea. Perhaps we living on the edge of life as it was needed someone wiser to watch in those days. The people are un­ over us, to run our lives. We had ready. They need time to prepare. made a shambles of our own world This blue one, at least, I hold in during the Three Days, and the my hand. I can watch him, learn Vegans had never had a nuclear of his plans. Then, if it becomes w.ar. They operated a smoothly necessary, I can destroy him my­ efficient interstellar government, self." encompassing dozens of planet$. He drew on his pipe. I sniffed. Whatever they did was esthetically It was something like sandalwood pleasing. Their own lives were that I smelled. well-regulated, happy things. Why "What are you smoking?" not let them have the Earth? "It comes from near my home. They'd probably do a better job I visited there recently, It is one with it than we'd ever done. ~d of the new plants which has never why not be their coolies, too? It grown there before. Try it." wouldn't be a bad life. Give them 60 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the old ball of mud, full of radio­ nings, I prayed, give it to me that active sores and populated by l may break the Powers in the Sky I cripples. I returned the pipe again. Why not? "Thank you, Hasan, but I'm not I accepted the pipe once more, ready for the Bo Tree." inhaled more peace. It was so I stood then and moved off to­ pleasant not to think of these ward the place where I had cast things at all, though. Not to think my pack. of anything you couldn't really do "I am sorry that I must kill you anything about. Just to sit there in the morning," he called after and breathe in the night and be me. one with the fire and the wind was enough. The universe was singing The world outside us was bright its hymn of oneness. Why open the and clear and clean and filled bag of chaos there in the cathedral? with the singing of birds, and But I had lost my Cassandra, there were no-expressions on every my dark witch of Kos, to the mind­ face that morning. less powers which move the Earth I had forbidden the use of the and the waters. Nothing could racJio until after the duel, and Phil kill my feeling of loss. It seemed carried some of its essential en­ further away, somehow insulated trails in his jacket pocket, just to behind glass, but it was still there. be sure. Not all the pipes of the East could Lorel would not know. The assuage this thing. I did not want Radpol would not know. Nobody to know peace. I wanted hate. I would know, until after. wanted to strike out at all the The preliminaries completed, masks in the universe-earth, the distance was measured off. water, sky, Taler, Earthgov, and We took our places at the oppo­ Office-so that behind one of site ends of the clearing. The ris­ them I might find that power ing sun was to my left. which had taken her, and make it "Are you ready, gentlemen?" too, know something of pain. I did called out Dos Santos. not want to know peace. I did not "Yes," and "I am," were the want to be at one with anything replies. which had harmed that which was "I make a final attempt to dis­ mine, by blood and by love. For suade you from this course of just five minutes even, I wanted actien. Do either of you wish to to be Karaghiosis again, looking at reconsider?" it all through crosshairs and ''No," and "No." squeezing a trigger. "Each of you has ten stones of Oh Zeus, of the hot red light- similar size and weight. The first • , , AND CALL ME CONRAD 61 shot is, of course, given to he who Hasan rubbed his shoulder, was challenged: Hasan." shook his head. . We both nodded. He put the second stone to his "Proceed then." sling, worked it rapidly through a He stepped back and there was powerful windup, then released it nothing but fifty meters of air at me. separating us. We both stood side­ Right between the hip and the ways, so as to present the smallest ribcage, that's where it caught me. target possible. Hasan fitted his I fell to the ground and it all first stone to the sling. turned black. I watched him wind it rapidly A second later the lights came through the air behind him, and on again, but I was doubled up suddenly his arm came forward. and something with a thousand There was a crashing sound in teeth had me by the side and back of me. wouldn't let go. Nothing else happened. They were running toward me, He'd missed. all of them, but Phil waved them I put a stone to my own sling back. then and whipped it back and Hasan held his position. around. The air sighed as I cut it DosSantos approached. all apart. "Is that it?" asked Phil softly. Then I hurled the missile for­ "Can you get up?" ward with all the strength of my "Yeah. I need a minute to right arm. breathe and to put the fire out, but It grazed his left shoulder, I'll get up." barely touching it. It was mostly "What is the situation?" asked garment that it plowed. DosSantos. The stone richocheted from tree Phil told him. to tree behind him, before it I put my hand to my side and finally vanished. stood again, slowly. All was still then. The birds A couple inches higher or lower had given up on their morning and something honey might have concert. broken. As it was, it just hurt like "Gentlemen," called Dos San­ blazes. tos, "you have each had one chance I rubbed it, moved my right arm to settle your differences. It may through a few circles to test the be said that you have faced one plav of muscles on that side. another with honor, given vent to Then I picked up the sling and your wrath, and are now satisfied. put a stone to it. Do you wish to stop the duel?" This time it would connect. I "No," said I. had a feeling. 62 FANTASY AND SCJENCB FICTION It went around and around and I wiped the blood from my it came out fast. cheek. I fitted the stone. Hasan toppled, clutching at his There was death riding in my left thigh. right arm as I raised it. Hasan felt Dos Santos went to him. They it too, because he flinched. I could spoke. see this from across the field. Hasan's robe had muffled the ''You will all remain exactly blow, had partly deflected it. The where you are, and drop your leg was not broken. He would con­ weapons," said the voice. tinue as soon as he could stand. It said it in Greek, so no one but He spent five minutes mas­ Phil and Hasan and I understood saging it, then he got to his feet it, for sure. Maybe Dos Santos or again. During that time my pain Red Wig did. I'm still not certain. had subsided to a dull throbbing. But all of us understood the Hasan selected his third stone. automatic rifle the man carried, He fitted it slowly, care­ and the swords and clubs and fully ... knives of the three dozen or so men He took my measure. Then he and half-men standing behind began to lash at the air with the him. sling ... They were Kouretes. All this while I had the feeling Kouretes are bad. -and it -kept growing-that I They always get their pound of should be leaning a little further flesh. to the right. So I did. Usually roasted. He twirled it, threw it. The speaker seemed to be the It grazed my fungus and tore at only one carrying a firearm. . . . my left ear. And I had a handful of death Suddenly my cheek was wet. circling high above my shoulder. Ellen screamed, briefly. I decided to make him a gift of it. A little further to the right His head exploded as I deliver­ though, and I wouldn't have been edit. hearing her. "Kill them!" I said, and we be­ It was my turn again. gan todoso. Smooth, gray, the stone had the George and Diane were the feel of death about it . . . first to open fire. Then Phil found I will be it, this one seemed to a handgun. Dos Santos ran for his say. pack. Ellen got there fast, too. It was one of those little pre­ Hasan had not needed my order monitory tuggings at my sleeve, of to begin killing. The only weapons the sort for which I have a great he and I were carrying were the deal of respect. slings. The Kouretes were closer • •• AND CALL ME CONllAD 63 than our fifty meters though, and jamming, too. The pain in my theirs was a mob formation. He side was a very bad thing. Still, dropped two of them with well­ I managed to drop three of them placed stones before they began before something big and blunt their rush. I got one more, also. caught me on the side of the head Then they were halfway across and I fell as a dead man falls. the field, leaping over their dead and their fallen, screaming as they Coming to in a stiflingly hot came on toward us. place ..• Like I said, they were not all Coming to in a stiflingly hot of them human: there was a tall, place that smells like a stable • • • thin one with three-foot wings Coming to in a dark, stiflingly covered with sores, and there were hot place that smells like a a couple microcephalies with stable ••• enough hair so that they looked . . . This is not real condu­ headless, and there was one guy cive to peace of mind, a settled who should probably have been stomach, or the resumption of twins, and then several steatopy­ sensory activities on a sure and giacs, and three huge, hulking normal keel. brutes who kept coming despite It stank in there and it was bullet-holes in their chests and damn hot, and I didn't really want abdomens; one of these latter had to inspect the filthy floor too hands which must have been closely-it was just that I was in twenty inches long and a foot a very good position to do so. across, and another appeared to I moaned, numbered all my be affiicted with something like bones, and sat me up. elephantiasis. Of the rest, some The ceiling was low and it were reasonably normal in form, slanted down even lower before it but they all looked mean and met with the back wall. The one mangy and either wore rags or no window to the outside was small rags at aU and were unshaven and and barred. smelled bad, too. We were in the back part of a I hurled one more stone and wooden shack. There was another didn't get a chance to see where barred window in the opposite it hit, because they were upon me wall. It didn't look out on any­ then. thing, though; it looked in. There I began lashing out-feet, fists, was a larger room beyond it, and elbows; I wasn't too polite about George and Dos Santos were talk­ it. The gunfire slowed down, ing through it with someone who stopped. You have to stop to reload stood on that other side. Hasan lay sometime, and there'd been some unconscious or dead about four 64 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION feet away from me; there was dried "Because of your quarrel with blood on his head. Phil and my bodyguard," he stated, rubbing M yshtigo and the girls were talk­ his cheek. ing softly in the far corner. "-Over whether or not he was I rubbed my temple while all going to kill you." this was registering within. My "Me? Kill .... ?" left side ached steadily, and vari­ "Forget it," I said. ous other portions of my anatomy "We are going to die here, had decided to join in the game­ aren't we?" he asked. if each of them had glowed with a "That is the custom of the coun­ different color, I'd have looked try." like a Yule tree. I turned away and studied the "He's awake," said Myshtigo. man who was studying me from "Hi, everybody. I'm back again," the other side of the bars. Hasan I agreed. was leaning against the far wall They came toward me and I then, holding his head. I hadn't assumed a standing position. This noticed his getting up. was sheer bravado, but I managed "Good afternoon," said the man to carry it. behind the bars, and he said it in 'We are prisoners," said Mysh­ English. tigo. "Is it afternoon?" I asked. "Oh, yeah? Really? I'd never "Quite," he replied. have guessed." 'Why aren't we dead?" I asked "Things like this do not happen him. on Taler," he observed, "or on any "Because I wanted you alive," ·of the worlds in the Vegan Com­ he stated. "Oh, not you personally bine." -Conrad Nomikos, Commission­ . "Too bad you didn't stay there," er of Arts, Monuments and Ar­ I said. "Don't forget the number chives-and all your distin­ of times I asked you to go back." guished friends, including the "This thing would not have oc­ peet laureate. I wanted any prison­ curred if it had not been for your ers whom they came upon brought duel." back alive. Your identities are, I slapped him then. I couldn't shafl we say, condiments." bring myself to slug him. He was "To whom do I have the pleas­ just too pathetic. I hit him with ure of speaking?" I asked. the back of my hand and knocked "This is Dector Moreby," said him over into the wall. George. "Are you trying to tell me you "He is their witch doctor," said don't know why I stood there like Dos Santos. a target this morning?" "I prefer 'Shaman' or 'Medicine ••• AND CALL ME COmAD 65 Chief,'" corrected Moreby, smil­ cultural anthropology, from New ing. Harvard. I decided to study a Hot I moved closer to the grillwork tribe in depth-and after some and saw that he was rather thin, blandishments I got this one to ac­ well-tanned, clean-shaven, and cept me. I started out to educate had all his hair woven into one them, too. Soon though, they were enormous black braid which was deferring to me, all over the place. coiled like a cobra about his head. Wonderful for the ego. After a He had close-set eyes, dark ones, a time, my studies, my social work, high forehead, and lots of extra came to be of less and less impor­ jaw reaching down past his Adam's tance. Well, I daresay you've read Apple. He wore woven sandals, a Heart af Darkness-you know clean green sari, and a necklace what I mean. The local practices of human fingerbones. In his ears are so-well, basic. I found it were big snake-shaped circlets of much more stimulating to partici­ silver. pate than to observe. So I took it "Your English is rather pre­ upon myself to redesign some of cise," said I, "and 'Moreby' is not their grosser practices along more a Greek name." esthetic lines. So I did really edu­ "Oh goodness!" He gestured cate them, after all. They-do things gracefully, in mock surprise. "I'm with ever so much style since I've not a local! How could you ever come here." mistake me for a local?'' 'Things? Such as?" ·"Sorry," I said, "I can see now "Well, for one thing, they were that you're too well-dressed." simple cannibals before. For an­ He giggled. other, they were rather unsophisti­ "Oh, this old rag . . . I just cated in their use of their captives threw it on.-No, I'm from Taler. prior to slaying them. Things like I read some wonderfully rousing that are quite important. If they're literature -on the subject of Re­ done properly they give you class, turnism, and I decided to come if you know what I mean. Here I back and help rebuild the Earth." was with a wealth of customs, su­ "Oh? What happened then?" perstitions, taboos-from many "The Office was not hiring at the cultures, many eras-right here, time, and I experienced some dif­ at my fingertips." He gestured ficulty in finding employment lo­ again. "Man-even half-man, Hot cally. So I decided to engage in man-is a ritual-loving creature, research work. This place is full of and I knew ever so many rituals opportunities for that." and things like that. So I put all "What sort of research?" of this to good use and now I oc­ "I hold two graduate degrees in cupy a position of great honor. 66 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FIC'UON 'What are you trying to tell me people a chance to measure them­ about us~" I asked. selves against a standard, to be "Things were getting rather dul1 tested, and possibly · to rtldeem around here," he said, "and the na­ themselves. He is most Christian tives were waxing restless. So I de­ in this respect." cided it was time for another "And true to his name, I sup­ ceremony. I spoke with Procrustes, pose?" the War Chief, and suggested he Hasan came over and stood he­ find us some prisoners. I believe it side me, stared out through the is on page 577 of the abridged grillwork at Moreby. edition of The Golden Bozcgh that "Oh, good, good," said Moreby. it states, 'The Tolalaki, notorious "Really, I'd like to keep you around head-hunters of Central Celebes, awhile, you know? You have a drink the blood and eat the brains sense of humor. Most of the Kou­ of their victims that they may be­ retes lack this adjunct to what are come brave. The Italones of the otherwise exemplary personalities. Philippine Islands drink the blood I could learn to like you ..." of their slain enemies, and eat "Don't bother. Tell me about part of the back of their heads and the way of redemption, though." of their entrails raw to acquire "Yes. We are the wardens ef the their courage.'-Well, we have Dead Man. He is my most inter­ the tongue of a poet, the blood of esting creation. I am certain that two very formidable warriors, the one of you two shall realize this brains of a very distinguished during your brief acquaintance­ scientist, the bilious liver of a ship with him." He glanced from fiery politician, and the interest­ me to Hasan to me to Hasan. ing-colored flesh of a Vegan-all "I know of him," I said. "Tell in this one room here. Quite a me what must be tlane." haul, I should say." "You are called upon to bring "You make yourself exceedingly forth a champion to do bettie with clear," I observed. "What of the him, this night, when he rises women?" again from the dead." "Oh, for them we11 work out a "What is he?" protracted fertility rite ending in "A vampire." a protracted sacrifice." "Crap. What is he really?" "I see." "He is a genuine vampire. ". • . That is to say, if we do You'll see." not permit all of you to continue "Okay, have it your way. He's a on your way, unmolested." vampire, and one of us will fight "Oh?" him. Howr' "Yes. Procrustes likes to give "Catch-as-catch-can, bare- , • , AND CALL ME CONRAD 67 handed-and he isn't very diffi­ wouldn't take Moreby's word fgr cult flo catch. He'll just stand anything. Therefore, we malt plan there and wait for you. He'll be an escape, else we wiD 'be served very thirsty, and hungry too, poer up on a chafing dish. fellow." "Phil, do )1011 reiiMlather the "And if he is beaten, do your read to Volos?" I asked. prisoners go free?" "I tbink so. It's 'been a long "That is the rule, as I originally time . . . But wb.ere are we now, outlined it some sixteen or seven­ exactly?" teen years ago. Of course, this "If it is of any help," answered contingency has never arisen Myshtigo, from beside the win­ " dow, "I see a glowing. It is not any "I see. You're trying to tell me color for which there is a word in he's tough." your language, but it is off in that "Oh, he's unbeatable. That's the direction." He pointed. "It Is a fun of it. k wouldn't make for a color which I normally see in the good ceremony if it could end any vicinity of radioactive materials if other way. I tell the wl.tole story of the atmosphere is deuse enough the battle before it takes place, about them. It is spread over quite and then my people witness it. It a large area." reaffirms their faith in destinv and I moved to the window and my own close associatien with its stared in that direction. workings." "That could be the Hot Spot, He yawned, covering his mouth then," I said. "If that is the case, with a feathered wand. then they've actually brought us fur­ "I must go to the barbecue area ther along toward the coast, which now, to supervise the decking of is good. Was anyone conscious the hall with boughs of holly. De­ when we were brought here?" aide upon your champion this aft­ No one answered. ernoon, and I'll see you all this "All right. Then we'll operate evoning. Good day." under the assumption that that is "Trip and break your neck." the Hot Spot, and that we are very He smiled and left the shack. close to it. The road to Volos should be ilack that way then." I I' called a meeting. pointed in the opposite direction. "Okay," I said, "they've got a "Since the sun is on this side of weird weird Hot One called the the shack and it's afternoon, head Dead Man, who is supposed to be in the other direction after you hit very tough. I am going to fight the road-away from the sunset. him tonight. If I can beat him we It ~ight not be more than twenty· are supposed to go free, but I five kilometers." 68 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "They will track us," said Dos him we are lost. We will need you Santos. to guide us out of here, if we do "There are horses," said Hasan. succeed in breaking free. We can­ "What?" not count on Mister Graber. "Up the street, in a paddock. "Second," he said, "you are not There were three near that rail ear­ the only man capable of fighting an lier. They are back behind the exotic menace. Hasan will under­ edge of the building now. There take the defeat of the Dead Man." may be more. They were not strong­ "I can't ask him to do that," I looking horses, though." said. "Even if he wins, he will "Can all of you ride?'' I asked. probably be separated from us at "I have never ridden a horse," the time, and they'll doubtless get said M yshtigo, "but the thrid is to him pretty fast. It would most something similar. I have ridden likely mean his life. You hired him thrid." to kill for you, not to die." Everyone else had ridden horses. "I will fight him, Karagee," he "Tonight then," said I. "Ride said. double if you must. If there are "You don't have to." more than enough horses, then "I will kill the Dead Man," turn· the others loose, drive them said Hasan, "and I will follow away. As they watch me fight the after you. I know the ways of hid­ Dead Man you will make a break ing myself from men. I will fol­ for the paddock. Seize what wea­ low your trail." pons you can and try to fight your "It's my job," I told him. way to the horses. "Then, since we cannot agree, "-Phil, get them up to Mak­ leave the decision to the fates," rynitsa and mention the name of said Hasan. "Toss a coin." Korones anywhere. They will take "Very well. Did they take our you in and protect you." money as well as our weapons?" "I am sorry," said Dos Santos, "I have some change," said El- "but your plan is not a good one." len. "If you've got a better one, let's "Toss a piece into the air." hear it," I told him. She did. "First of all," he said, "we can­ "Heads," said I, as it fell to- not really rely on Mister Graber. ward the floor. While you were still unconscious "Tails," she replied. he was in great pain and very "Don't touch itl" weak. George believes that he suf­ It was tails, all right. And there fered a heart attack during or was a head on the other side, too. shortly after our fight with the "Okay, Hasan, you lucky fel­ Kouretes. If anything happens to low, you," I said. "You just won a , •• AND CALL ME CONltAD 69 do-it-yourself Hero Kit, complete The whole place smelled of sweat with a menster. Good luck.H and urine and retten fruit and He shrugged. smoke. "It was written.'' We went about eighty meters He sat down then, his back and turned left. It was the end of agaislst the wall, extracted a tiny the street, and we moved along a knife from the sole of his left san­ downhill path into a big, cleared dal, and began to pare his finger­ compound. A fat, bald-headed nails. He'd always 'been a pretty woman with enormous hrusts and weU-groomed killer. I guess clean­ a face that was a lava field of car­ liness is next to dia·blerie, or some­ cinoma was tending a low and thing like that . . , dreadfully suggestive fire at the bot· tom of a huge barbecue pit. She As the sun sank slewly in the smiled as we passed by and west, Moreby came to us again, smacked her lips mflistly. bringing with him a coatingent of Great, sharpene&l slakes lay on Kourete swordsmen. the groun~ about her . . • "The time has come," he stated. Up fUil'ther ahead was a level "Have you decided upon your area of hardpacked bare earth. A champion?" huge, vine-infested, trepic-type "Hasan will fight him," I said. tree which had adapted itself to "Very zood. Then come alene. our climate stood at tbe one end of Please do not try anything foolish. the field, and all about the field's I should hate to deliver damaged peripheries were rows of eight..foot goods at a festival." torches, already waving great Walking within a circle of lengths of fire like pennants. At the blades we left the shack and moved other end was the most elaborate up l!lte skeet of the village, passing shack of them all. It was abaut by the paddock. Eight horses, five meters high and ten across the heads low, stood witltin. Even in front. It was painted bright red and the diminishing light I could see covered all over with Pennsyl­ that they were not vocy good horses. vania hex signs. The entire mid­ Their flanks were all ~overed with dle section of the front wall was a sores, and they were quite thin. high, sliding door. Two armed Everyone ilanced at them as we Kouretes stood guard before that went lty. door. The village consisted of about The sun was a tiny piece of thirty shaclts, sueb as the one in oraa~~;e-rind in the west. Moreby whith we had been £onfined. It marched us the leBgth of the field was a dirt road that we walked on, toward the tree. and it was full of ruts and rubbish. Eighty to a hunched spectators 70 FANTASY AND SCIENCJ!. FICTION were seated on the ground on the These things did he do on that other side of the torches, on each night. Mighty is his power." side of the field. "Mighty, of mighty!" cried the Moreby gestured, indicating the crowd, and someone began beat· red shack. ing upon a drum. "How do you like my home?" he "Now will we call him to life asked. again ..." "Lovely," said I. The crowd cheered. "I have a roommate, but he "To life again!" sleeps during the day. You're about "To life again." to meet him." "Hail!" We reached the base of the big "Hail!" , tree. Moreby left us there, sur­ "Sharp white teeth . rounded by his guards. He moved "Sharp white teeth!" to the center of the field and began ''White, white skin . " addressing the Kouretes in Greek. ''White, white skin!" We had agreed that we would "Hands which break • • ." wait until the fight was near its "Hands which break!" end, whichever way, and the "Mouth which drinks •• ," tribesmen all excited and concen­ "Mouth which drinks!" trating on the finale, before we "The blood of life!" made our break. We'd pushed the "The blood of life!" women into the center of our "Great is our tribe!" group, and I managed to get on "Great is our tribe!" the left side of a right-handed "Great is the Dead Man!" swordsman, whom I intended to "GREAT IS THE DEAD kill quickly. Too bad that we were MAN!" at the far end of the field. To get They bellowed it, at the last. to the horses we'd have to fight our Throats human, half-human, and way back through the barbecue inhuman, heaved the brief litany area. like a tidal wave across the field. "... And then, on that Our guards too, were screaming it. night," Moreby was saying, "did Myshtigo was blocking his sensi­ the Dead Man rise up, smiting tive ears and there was an expres· down this mighty warrior, Hasan, sion of agony on his face. My head breaking his bones and casting was ringing too. Dos Santos him about this place of feasting. crossed himself and one of the Finally, did he kill this great en­ guards shook his head at him and emy and drink the blood from his Don shrugged and turned his head throat and eat of his liver, raw and back toward the field. still smoking in the night air. Moreby walked up to the shack , , , AND CALL ME CONIL\D 71 and struck three times upon the his chest, his armpits, his neck, his sliding door with his wand. groin. He climbed out of the big One of the guards pushed it box and stood beside the cata­ open for him. falque, dwarfing Moreby. An immense black catafalque, He was wearing only a loin­ surronded by the skulls of men cloth and large, goatskin sandals. and animals, was set within. It His skin was white, dead white, supported an enormous casket fishbelly white, moon white . . . made of dark wood and decorated Dead white. with bright twisting lines. "An albino," said George, and At 1\foreby's directions, the his voice carried the length of the guards raised the lid. field because it was the only For the next twenty minutes he sound in the night. gave hypodermic injections to Moreby glanced in our direc­ something within the casket. He tion and smiled. He took the Dead kept his movements slow and ritu­ Man's stublty-fingiH'ed hand and alistic. One of the guards put led him out of the shack and oAto aside his blade and assisted him. the field. The Dead Man shied The drummers kept up a steady, away from the torchlight. As he slow cadence. The crowd was advanced, I studied the expression very silent, very still. on his face. Then Moreby turned. "There is no intelligence in that "Now the Dead Man rises," he face," said Red Wig. announced. "Can you see his eyes?" asked ". . . Rises," responded the George, squinting his own. His crowd. glasses had been broken in the "Now he comes forth to accept fray. the sacrifice." "Yes, they're pinkish." "Now he comes forth .•." "Does he have epicanthiaJ "Come forth, Dead Man," he folds?" calletl, turning back to the cata­ "Mm . Yeah." falque. "Uh-huh. He's a Mongoloid­ And he did. an idiot, I'll wager-which is why At great length. it was so easy for Moreby to do For he was big. what he's done with him-and Huge, obese. look at his teeth! They look filed." Great indeed was the Dead I did. He was grinning, be­ Man. cause he'd seen the colorful top of Maybe 3 50 pounds' worth. Red Wig's head. Lots of nice, He sat up in his casket and he sharp teeth were exposed. looked all about him. He rultbed "His albinism is the reason be- 72 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FIC'OQN hind the nocturnal habits Moreby full of Novocain before encoun­ has imposed. Look! He even flinch­ ters such as this one. His lack of es at the torchlight! He's ultrasensi­ pain responses adds to the image tive to any sort of actinics." of his invicibility. Also, I've giv­ 'What about his dietary hab­ en him a hormone shot. He's been its?" putting on weight recently, and "Acquired, through imposition. he's grown a bit sluggish. This Lots of primitive people bled their compensates for it." cattle. The Kazaks did it until the "You talk of him and treat him twentieth century, and the Todas. as though he's a mechanical toy," You saw the sores on those horses said Diane. as we passed by the paddock. "He is. An invincible toy. An Blood is nourishing, you know, if invaluable one, also.-You there, you can learn to keep it down­ Hasan. Are you ready?" he asked. and I'm sure Moreby has regulated "I am," Hasan answered, re­ the idiot's diet since he was a moving his cloak and his burnoose child. So of course he's a vampire, and handing them to Ellen. he was brought up that way." The big muscles in his shoulders "The Dead Man is risen," said bulged, his fingers Hexed lightly, Moreby. and he moved forward and out of "The Dead Man is risen," agreed the circle of blades. There was a the crowd. welt on his left shoulder, several "Great is the Dead Man!" others on his back. The torchlight "Great is the Dead Man!" caught his beard and turned it to He dropped the deadwhite hand blood, and I could not help but re­ then and walked toward us, leav­ member that night back at the ing the only genuine vampire we hounfor when he had enacted a knew of grinning in the middle of strangling, and Mama Julie had the field. said, "Your friend is possessed of "Great is the Dead Man," he Angelsou," and "Angelsou is a said, grinning himself as he ap­ deathgod and he only visits with proached us. "Rather magnificent, his own." isn't he?" "Great is the warrior, Hasan," "What have you done to that announced Moreby, turning away poor creature?" asked Red Wig. from us. "Very little," replied Morebv. "Great is the warrior, Hasan," "He was born pretty well­ replied the crowd. · equipped." "His strength is that of many." "\Vhat were those injections "His strength is that of many," you gave him?" inquired George. the crowd responded. "Oh, I shoot his pain centers "Greater still is the Dead Man." • •• AND CALL ME CONRAD 73 "Greater still is the Dead Man." arms came out and caught Hasan "He breaks his bones and casts beneath the armpits. Hasan seized him about this place of feasting." his shoulders, tracing fine red fur­ "He breaks his bones " rows up his sides as he went, and "He eats his liver." he drew red beads from the places "He eats his liver." where his fingers dug into snow­ "He drinks the blood from his capped muscle. throat." The crowd screamed at the "He drinks the blood from his sight of the Dead Man's blood. throat." Perhaps the smell of it excited the "Mighty is his power." idiot himself. That, or the scream· "Mighty is his power." in g. "Great is the Dead Man!" • . . Because he raised Hasan "Great is the Dead Man!" two feet off the ground and ran "Tonight," said Hasan quietly, forward with him. "he becomes the Dead Man in­ The big tree got in the way, and deed." Hasan's head sagged as he struck. "Dead Manl" cried Moreby, as Then the Dead Man crashed Hasan moved forward and stood into him, stepped back slowly, before him, "I give you this man shook himself, and began to hit Hasan in sacrifice!" him. Then Moreby got out of the way It was a real beating. He flailed and motioned the guards to move at him with his almost grotesquely us to the far sideline. brief, thick arms. The idiot grinned an even wid­ Hasan got his hands up in front er grin and reached out slowly to­ of his face and he kept his elbows ward Hasan. in the pit of his stomach. "Bismallah," said Hasan, mak­ Still, the Dead Man kept strik­ ing as if to turn away from him, ing him on his sides and head. and bending downward and to the His arms just kept rising and fall· side. in g. He picked it off the ground and And he never stopped grinning. brought it up and around fast and Fi:Dally, Hasan's hands fell and hard, like a whiplash-a great he clutched them before his stom· heel-of-the-hand blow which land­ ach. ed on the left side of the Dead . . . And there was blood com· Man's jaw. ing from the corners of his mouth. The white white head meved The invincible toy continued maybe five inches. its game. And he kept on grinning . • • And then far, far off on the oth­ Then both of his short, bulky er side of the night, so far that only 74 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION I could hear it, there came a voice fewer than three magnesium flares that I recognized. on his person, while traveling." It was the great hunting-howl of Ellen only had two left, that my hellhound, Bortan. meant. Bless her. Somewhere, he had come upon The idiot had stopped hitting my trail, and he was coming now, Hasan. running down the night, leaping He tried to kick the flare away. like a goat, flowing like a horse or a He screamed. He tried to kick the river, all brindle-colored-and his flare away. He covered his eyes. eyes were glowing coals and his He rolled on the ground. teeth were buzzsaws. Hasan watched, bleeding, pant­ He never tired of running, my ing ... Bortan. The flare burnt, the Dead Man Such as he are born without screamed ... fear, given to the hunt, and sealed Hasan finally moved. with death. He reached up and touched one My hellhound was coming, and of the thick vines which hung nothing could halt him in his from the tree. He tugged at it. It course. resisted. He pulled harder. But he was far, so far off, on the It came loose. other side of the night • • • His movements were steadier as he twisted an end around each The crowd was screaming. hand. Hasan couldn't take much more of The flare sputtered, grew bright it. Nobody could. again ... From the comer of my eye (the He dropped to his knees beside brown one) I noticed a tiny ges­ the Dead Man, and with a quick ture of Ellen's. motion he looped the vine about It was as though she had thrown his throat. something with her right hand The flare sputtered again. . . . He snapped it tight. Two seconds later it happened. The Dead Man fought to rise. I looked away quickly from that Hasan drew the thing tighter. point of brilliance that occurred, The idiot seized him about the sizzling, behind the idiot. waist. The Dead Man wailed, lost his The big muscles in the Assas­ grin. sin's shoulders grew into ridges. Good old Reg 237.1 (promul­ Perspiration mingled with the gated by me): blood on his face. "Every tour guide and every The Dead Man stood, raising member of a tour must carry no Hasan with him. o o • AND CALL ME. CONllAD 75 Hasan pulled harder. He advanced upon the idioL The idiot, his face no longer This time his grip was un· white, but mottled, and with the breakable. veins standing out like cords in his The Dead Man fell, and he did forehead and neck, lifted him up not rise again. off the _ground. As I'd lifted the golem did the Dead Man raise It was like turning off a radio Hasan, the vine cutting ever more which had been playing at full deeply into his neck as he strained volume: with all his inhuman strength. Click ••• The crowd was wailing and Big silence then-it had all chanting incoherently. The drum· happened so fast. And tender was ming. which had reached a fren­ the night as I reached out through zied throb, continued at its peak it and broke the neck of the without letup. And then I heard swordsman at my side and seized the howl again, still very far away. his blade. I turned then to my left The flare began to die. and split the skull of the next oae The Dead Man swayed. with it. • • • Then, as a great spasm Then, like click again, and full racked him, he threw Hasan away volume back on, but all static this from him. time. The night was torn down The vine went slack about his through the middle. throat as it tore free from Hasan's Myshtigo dropped his man with grip. a vicious rabbit-punch and kicked Hasan took ukemi and rolled to another in the shin&. George man· his knees. He stayed that way. aged a quick knee to the groin of The Dead Man moved toward the one nearest him. him. Dos Santos, not so quick-or Then his pace faltered. else just unlucky-took two bad He began to shake all over. He cuts, chest and shoulder. made a gqrgling noise and The crowd rose up from where clutched at his throat. His face it had been scattered on the grew darker. He staggered to the ground, like a speedup film of tree and put forth a hand. He beansprouts growing. leaned there panting. Soon he was · It advanced upon us. gasping noisily. His hand slipped Ellen threw Hasan's burnoose along the trunk and he dropped to over the head of the swordsman the ground. He picked himself up who was about to disembowel her again, into a half-crouch. husband. Earth's poet laureate Hasan arose and he recovered then brought a rock down hard on the piece of vine. the top of the burnoose, doubtless 76 FANTASY AQ SCIENCE FICTION callecting much bad karma but They did. They went. not looking too wonied ~out it. Hasan and I turned, there be­ By then Hasan had rejoinefll our side the barbecue pit, and we little group, using his hand to par· wafted. The others cut back again, ry a sword cut by smiting the Bat going off through the woods, head­ of the blade in an eld samuri ing teward the village and the manuve£ I had thousht lost tG the paddock. The mob kept ri~ht on world f1uever. Then Hasan, too, comins, toward Hasan and my· had a sword-after another rapid self. movement-and he was very pra. The first wave hit us and we ficient with it. began the killing. We were in the We killed or maimed all our V-shaped place where the path guards before the crowd was half­ disgorged from the woods onto the way to us, and Diane-taking a plain. To our left was a smoulder­ cue frem Ellen-lobbed her three ing pit; to our right a thick stand magnesium flares across the field ctf trees. Three did we kill and and into the mob. several set a-bleeding, ere they fell We ran then, Ellen and Retl back, paused, then moved to Bank Wig supporting Dos Santos. us. But the Kouretes had cut us off We stood back to back then and and we were running northwards, cut them as they closed. off at a tangent from our ~eal. "If even one has a gun we are 'We cannot make it, Karagee," dead, Karagee." called Hasan. "I know." "I know." Another half-man fell to my " •.. Unless you and I delay blade. Hasan sent one, screaming, them while the others go ahead." into the pit. "Okay. Where?" They were all about us then. A "At the far barbecue pit, where blade slipped in past my guard and the trees are thick about the path. cut me on the shoulder. It is a boM:le's neck. They will not "Fall back, thou fools! I say be able te hit us all at a time." withdraw, thou freaks!" "Righ~-You hear us!?" I ad­ At that, they did, moving back dressed the others. "Make for the beyond thrust-range. horses! Phil will guide you! Hasan The man who had spoken was a.uci I will hold them for as long as about five and a half feet tall. His we ean!" lower jaw moved like that of a Red Wig turnetl her head, b& puppet's, as though on hinges, and gan to say somethiJll. his teeth were like a row of domi­ "Don't argue! Go! You want to noes-all darkstained and click­ live, don't you!?" ing as they opened and closed. r- o • AND CALL M:l CONRAD 71 "Yea, Procrustes," I heard one ."Only for the moment," he said. say. ''We will track them, find them, "Fetch nets! Snare them alive! and bring them back.,; Do not close with them! They I laughed. have cost us too much already!" "You lose," I said. "They'll make Moreby was at his side, and it." whimpering. He kicked me again. ". . . I did not know, m'lord." "This is how your rule applies?" "Silence! thou brewer of i:U. I asked. "Hasan conquered the tasting sloshes! Thou hast cost us Dead Man." a god and many men!" "He cheated. The woman threw "Shall we rush?" a&ked Hasan. a flare." "No, but be ready to cut the nets Procrustes came up beside him when they bring them." as they bound us within the nets. "It is not good that they want "Of the death?" he asked. us alive," he decided. "Let us taJre them to the Valley "We have sent many to Hell, to of Sleep," said Moreby, "and there smooth our way," said I, "and we work our wills with them and are standing yet and holding leave them to be preserved against blades. What more?" future feasting." "If we rush them we can take "It is good.'' said Procrustes. two, perhaps four more with us. If "Yes, it shall be done." we wait, they will net us and we Hasan mutt have been working die without them." his left arm through the netting all "What matters it, once you are that while, beCllll5e it shot out a dead? Let us wait. So long as we short distance and his nails raked live there is the great peacock-tail Procrustes' leg. of probability, growing from out Procrustes kicked him several of the next moment." times, and me once for good meas­ "As you say." ure. He rubbed at the scratches on And they found nets and cast his calf. them. We cut three of them apart "Why did you do that, Hasan?" before they tangled us in the I asked, after Procrustes turned fourth. They drew them tight and away and ordered us bound to moved in. barbecue stakes for carrying. I felt my bJade wrenched from "There may still be some meta· my grasp, and someone kicked me. cyanide left on my fingernails," he It was Moreby. explained. "Now you will die as very few "How did it get there?" die," said he. "From the bullets in my belt, "Did the others escape?" Karagee, which they did not take ' 78 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION· from me. I coated my nails aher I peared undecfGot. They writhed sharpened them today." whenever one of our bearers "Ah! You scEatched the Dead stepped on them. , Man at the beginning of your bout The trees became simple ferns. .. Then these, too, vanished. Great . "Yes, Karagee. Then it was sim­ quantities of shaggy, blood-colored ply a matter of my staying alive lichens replaced them. They grew until he fell over." over all the rocks. They were faint­ "You are an exemplary assassin, ly luminous. Hasan." There were no more animal "Thank you, Karagee." sounds. There were no sounds at We were bound to the stakes, all, save for the panting of our still netted. Four men, at the order four bearers, the footfalls, and the of Procrustes, raised us. occasional muffled click as Pro­ Moreby and Procrustes leading crustes' automatic rifle struck a the way, we were borne off through padded rock. the night. Our bearers wore blades in their belts. Moreby carried several As we moved along an uneven blades, as well as a small pistol. trail the world changed about us. The trail turned sharply up­ It's always that way when you ap­ ward. One of our bearers swore. proach a Hot Spot. It's like hiking The night-tent was jerked down­ backward through geological eras. ward at its corners then; it met As we advanced along the way with the horizon, and it was filled the trees grew smaller, the spaces with the hint of a purple haze, between them wider. But they were fainter than exhaled cigarette­ not like the trees we had left be­ smoke. Slow, very high, and slap­ yond the village. There were twist­ ping the air like a devilfish coast­ ed (and twisting!) forms, with ing on water, the dark form of a seaweed swirls of branches, spiderbat crossed over the face of gnarled trunks, and exposed roots the moon. which crept, slowly, about the sur­ Procrustes fell. face of the ground. Tiny invisible Moreby helped him to his feet, things made scratching noises as but Procrustes swayed and leaned they scurried from the light of upon him. Moreby's electric lantern. "What ails you, lord?" By twisting my head I could de­ "A sudden dizziness, numhness tect a faint, pulsating glow, just at in my members . . . Take thou the border of the visible spectrum. my rifle. It grows heavy." It was coming from up ahead. Hasan chuckled. A profusion of dark vines ap- Procrustes turned toward Ha- • • • AND CALL ME CONRAD 79 san, his puppet-jaw dropping were raised again and borne to the open. top of a ridge froom which a trail Then he dropped, too. ran down into a fluorescent, pock­ Moreby had just taken the rifle blasted pit. The great rocks of the and his hands were full. The place seemed almost to be burning. guards set us down, rather ungent­ ''This," I said to Hasan, "was ly, and rushed to Procrustes' side. described to me by my son as the "Hast thou any water?" he asked, place where the thread of my life and he closed his eyes. lies across a burning stone. He saw He did not open them again. me as threatened by the Dead Moreby listened to his chest, Man, but the fates thought twice held the feathery part of his wand and gave that menace onto you. beneath his nostrils. Back when I was but a dream in "He is dead," he finally an- the mind of death, this site was nounced. - appointed as one of the places "Dead?" where I might die." The bearer who was covered "To faD from Shinvat is to with scales began to weep. roast," said Hasan. "He wiss good," he sobbed. They carried us down into the He wiss a great war shief. What fissure, dropped us on the rocks. will we do now?" Moreby released the safety "He is dead," Moreby repeated, catch on the rifle and stepped back. "and I am your leader until a new "Release the Greek and tie him war chief is declared. Wrap him to that column." He gestured with in your cloaks. Leave him on that the weapon. flat rock up ahead. No animals They did this, binding my come heft, so he will not be mo­ hands and feet securely. The rock lested. We will recover him on the was smooth, damp, killing without way back. Now though, we must indication. have our vengeance on these two." They did the same to Hasan, He gestured with his wand. "The about eight feet to my ri~ht. Valley of Sleep is near at hand. Moreby had set down the lan­ You have taken the pills I gave tern so that it cast a yellow semi­ you?" circle about us. The four Kouretes "Yes." were demon statues at his side. "Yes." He smiled. He leaned the rifle "Yes." against th«; rocky wall behind him. "Yiss." "This is the Valley of Sleep," he "Very good. Take your cloaks told us. "Those who sleep here do now and wrap him." not awaken. It keeps the meat pre­ They did this, and soon we served, however, providing us 80 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION against the lean years. Before we twelve feet away. His head leave yoa, though-" His eyes snapped in that direction. turned to me. "Do you see where I He spent the last second of his have set the rifle?" life screaming, as the force of I did not all&wer him. Brotan's leap pulped him against "I believe your entrails will the ground, before his head was stretch that far, Commissioner. At snatched from his shoulders. any rate, I intend to find out." He My beiihound had arrived. drew a dagger from his belt and advanced upon me. The four half­ The Kouretes screamed, for his men moved with him. "Who do eyes are glowing coals and his you think has more guts?" he asked. teeth are buzzsaws. His head is as "You or the Arab?" high above the ground as a tall Neither of us replied. man's. Although they seized their ''You shaH both get to see for blades and struck at him, his sides yourselves," he said through his are as the sides of an armadillo. A teeth. "First you!" quarter ton of dog, my Bortan He jerked my shirt free and cut . . . He is not exactly the kind it down the front. Albert Payson Terhune wrote He rotated the blade in a slow about. significant circle about two inches He worked for the better part of away from my stomach, all the a minute, and when he was fin­ while studying my face. ished they were all in pieces and ''You are afraid," he said. ''Your none of them alive. face does not show it yet, but it "What is it?" asked Hasan. will." "A puppy I found in a sack, Then, "Look at me! I am going washed up on the beach, teo tough to put the blade in very slowly. I to drown-my dog," said I, "Bor­ am going to dine on you ane day. tan." What do you think of that?" There was a small gash in the I laughed. It was suddenly softer part ef his shoulder. He had worth laughing at. not gotten it in the fight. His face twisted, then it "He sought us first in the vil­ straightened into a momentary lage," I said, "and they tried to look of puzzlement. stop him. Many Kouretes have ''Has the fear driven you maa, Glied this day." Commissioner?" He trotted up and lic:keti my "Feathers or lead?" I asked him. face. He wagged his tail, made He knew what it meaBt. He dog-noises, wliggled like a puppy, started to say something, ami then and ran in small circles. He he heard a pebble click about sprang toward me and licked my , , , AND CAU. ME CONRAD 81 face again. Then he was off ca­ "Does he understand?" asked vorting once more, treading on Hasan. pieces of Kouretes. "I think so," I told him. "His is "It is good for a man to have a not an ordinary dog brain, and he dog," said Hasan. "I have always has had many many more years been fond of dogs." than even the lifetime of a man in Bortan was sniffing him as he which to learn understanding." said it. "Then let us hope he finds some­ "You've come back, you dirty one quickly, before we sleep. • old hound," I told him. "Don't you ''Yes." know that dogs are extinct?" He wagged his tail, came up to We hung there and the night me again, licked my hand. was cold. "I'm sorry that I can't scratch We waited for a long time. Fi­ your ears. You know that rd like nally, we lost track of time. to though, don't you?'' Our muscles were cramped and He wagged his tail. aching.· We were covered with the I opened and closed my right dried blood of countless little hand within its bonds. I turned wounds. We were all over bruises. my bead that way as I did it: Bor­ We were groggy from fatigue, tan watched, his nostrils moist and from lack of sleep. quivering. We hung there, the ropes cut­ "Hands, Bortan. I need hands to ting into us. free me. Hands to loosen my "Do you think they will make it bonds. You must fetch them, Bar­ to your village ?'• tan, and bring them here. •• "We gave them a good start. I He picked up an arm that was think they have a decent chance. • lying on the ground and he de­ "It is always difficult to work posited it at my feet. He looked up with you, Karagee." then and wagged his tail "I know. I have noticed this "No, Bortan. Li11e hands. same thing myself." Friendly hands. Hands to untie ". . . Like the summer we me. You understand, don't vou?'• rotted in the dungeons of Corsica." He licked my hand. · "Aye.• "Go and find hands to free me. ". . . Or our march to the Chi­ Still attached and· living. The cago Station, after we had lost all hands of friends. Now, quickly! our equipment in Ohio."' Go!·' - ''Yes, that was a bad year." He turned and walked away, ''You are always in trouble paused, looked back once, then though, Karagee. 'Born to knot the mounted the trail. tiger's tail,' •• he said, "that is the 82 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION saying for people such as y0u. you'll cut yourself. The •th.er end. They are difficult to be with. My­ -Yes." self, I Ieve the quiet and the He picked it up properly and shade, a book of poems, my pipe looked at me. I moved my right " hand. "Hush! I hear something!" "The ropes. Cut them." There was a clatter of liooves. He did. It ~ok him fifteen A satyr appeared beyond the minutes and left me wearing a eot:keyed angle of the light from bracelet of blood. I had to keep the fallen lantern. He moved nerv­ moving my hand to keept him from ously, Jllis eyes going from rna to slashing an ark!ry. But Ire freed it. P.lm;an and back again, aJild up, "Now give me the knife and dowa, arouad, aad past us. I'll take cal'e of the rest." "Help us, .tittle horny one," said He placed the blade in my ex­ I, i'a Greek. tended hand. He 31lvanced carefully. He saw I took it. Seconds later I was the hlood, the mangled Kouretes. free. Then I freed Hasan. He turned as if to Oee. When I turned again the satyr "Come back! I need you! It is I, was gone. I heard the sound of the player of the pipes." frantic hoofbeats in the distance. Pie stopped and turned again, his nostrils quivering, flaring and I might say that if our party had falling. His pointed ears twitched. taken the long way &om Lamia to He came l>ack, a pained ex­ Volos-the coastal road-the pression on his near-human face whole thing mi~ never have hap­ as he passed through the place of pened the way that it did, and gore. Phil might be alive today. But I "The blade. At my feet," I said, can't really judge aH that occUPI'ed gesturing with my eyes. "Pick it in this case; even now, looking up." back, I can't say how I'd rearrange He did not seem to like the no­ events if it was all to be done over tion of touching anything man­ again. The Forces of final dis­ made, especially a weapon. ruption were already goose-step­ I whistled the last lines of my ping amidst the ruins, arms up­ last tune. raised ... -It's late, it's late, so late . • • We made it to Volos the follew­ His eyes grew moist. He wiped ing afternoen, and on up Mount at them with the \lacks of his Pelion to Portaria. Across a deep shaggy wrists. ravine lay MakrynitMl. "Pick up the blade and cut my We cmssed over and found the bonds. Pick it up.-Not that way, others. • • • AND CALL ME CO'llo"RAD 83

Phil had gaided lhem to Mak­ denta~, is up near the summit of rynitsa, aslted for a bottle of wine Mouat Pelion, there." and his copy of Prometh6us Un­ "Really?" bound, and had sat up with the ''1'11 shew it to you sometime." two, well into the evening. "All right." In the morniag, Diane found "The aods ad th.e titans hattled him smiling, and ccld. near he.e abo," said Diane, cam­ I buik him a pyre amidst the ing up on my odl• side. "Did the cedars near the ruined l!piBcopi, titaDs not •proot Mount Pellen because he did not want to be and pile it atop OS&a iB an attempt buried. I heaped it with incense, te scale Olympus?" with aromatic herbs, and it was "So gees Ghe te:LiinJ; But lllae twice the heig1tt of a man. That gods were kind and resklred Ule night it woltld bum and I would scenery aftec the bloody battle." say good-bye to anod.er friend. It "A sail," said Hasan, gt11turi!tg seems, looking back, that my life with a half-peeled orange in his has mainly been a series of arrivals hand. and departures. I say "hello." I say I looked out over t;he wateM and "goad-bye." Only the Earth en­ there was a tiny blip on the dures .• , hori2011. Hell. "Yes, this place is still used as a So I walked with the group that port." afternoon, out to Pagasae, the port "Perhaps it is a shiploatl of of ancient Iolkos, set on the prom­ heroes," said Ellen, "retumiDg ontory opposite Volos. We stood with some more fleece. What will in the shade of the almond trees they do with all that fleece, a!Jy· on &he hiU that gives good vantage how?" to both seascape and rocky rid~ "It's not the fleece tLat's impor­ "It was from here that the tant," said Red Wig, '"it's the get­ Arggnauts set sail on their quest ting ef it. Every good story-tener for die Golden Fleece," r-told no used to know that. The women­ one in particular. folk can always make stullllin.g "Who all were they?" asked garments from flee~es. They're Ellen. "I read the story in school, used to picking up the remains but I forget." after quests." "There was Herakles and "It wouldn't match your hair, Theseus and Orpheus the singer, dear." ad Asclepius, and the sons of the "Yours either, child." North Wind, and Jason, the cap­ "That can be changed. Not so tain, who was a pupil of the .:en­ easily as yours, of course .••" taur, Cheiron-whose cave, foci- "Across the way," said I, in a 84 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION loud voice, "is a ruined Byzantine how. I called the Port this morn­ church-the Episcopi-which ing, and they are sending me a I've scheduled for restoration in Skimmer tonight. You people go another two years. It is the tradi­ ahead and do whatever you want, tional site of the wedding feast of · but I'm finished." Peleus, also one of the Argonauts, "Is something wrong?" and the sea-nymph Thetis. Per­ "No, nothing is wrong, but it's haps you've heard the story of that time that I left. I have much to do." feast? Everyone was invited but He rose to his feet and stretched. the goddess of discord, and she "I have some packing to take came anyhow and tossed down a care of, so I'll be going back now. golden apple marked 'For the Fair­ You do have a beautiful country est'. Lord Paris judged it the here, Conrad, despite. -I'll see property of Aphrodite, and the fate you all at dinnertime." of Troy was sealed. The last time He turned and headed down the anyone saw Paris, he was none too hill. happy. Ah, decisions! Like I've I walked a few steps in his often said, this land is lousy with direction, watched him go. myth." "I wonder what prompted that?" "How long will we be here?" I thought aloud. asked Ellen. There was a footfall. "I'd like a couple more days in "He is dying," said George, Makrynitsa," I said, "then we'll softly. head northwards. Say, about a week more in Greece, and then My son Jason, who had pre­ we'll move on to Rome." ceded us by several days, was ~ne. "No," said Myshtigo, who had Neighbors told of his departure for been sitting on a rock and talking Hades on the previous evening. to his machine, as he stared out The patriarch had been carried off over the waters. "No, the tour is on the back of a fire-eyed hell­ finished. This is the last stop." hound who had knocked down the "How come?" door of his dwelling place and "I'm satisfied and I'm going borne him off through the night. home now." My relatives all wanted me to come "What about your book?" to dinner. Dos Santos was still "I've got my story." resting; George had treated his "What kind of story?" wounds and not deemed it neces­ "I'll send you an autographed sary to ship him to the hospital in copy when it's finished. My time is Athens. precious, and I've all the material It's alwavs nice to come home. I want now. All that I'll need, any- I walked down to the Square • • • AND CALL ME CONRAD 85 and spent the afterneon talking to to do it. He said he'd finished it. my descendents. Wou}d I tell them If he hadn't, then I'd been-protect­ of Taler, of Haiti, of Athens? Aye. ing a dead DMln all the while, to I would, I did. Would they teD no end. If he had, then I needed me of the past two decades in to know the results, so that I c•uld Makrynitsa? Ditto. make a very fast decision concern­ I took some flowers to the grave­ in~ what remained of his lifespan. yard then, stayed awhile, and Dinner was no help. Myshtigo went to Jason's home and repaired had said all he cared to say, and his door with some tools I found he ignored or parried our ques­ in the shed. Then I came upon a tions. So, as soon as we'd had our bottle of his wine and drank it all. coffee, Red Wig and I stepped out­ And I smoked a cigar. I made me side for a cigarette. a pot of coffee too, and I drank "What's happened?" she asked. all of that. "I don't know. I thought maybe I still felt depressed. you did." I didn't know what was coming "No. What now?" off. ''You tell me." George knew his diseases "Kill him?'' though, and he said the Vegan "Perhaps yes. First though, showed unmistakable symptoms of why?" a neurological disorder · of the "He's finished it." e.t. variety. Incurable. Invariably "What? Just what has he fin­ fatal. ished?" And even Hasan couldn't take "How should I know?" credit for it. "Etiology unknown," "Damn it! I have to! I like to 'twas. know why I'm killing somebody, So everything was revised. I'm funny that way." George had known about M ysh­ "Funny? Very. Obvious, isn't tigo since the reception.-What it? The Vegans want to buy in had set him en the tra~k?" again, Earthside. He's going back -Phil had asked him to observe to give them a report on the sites the Vegan for signs of a fatal thev're interested in." disease. ,;Then why didn't he visit them Why? all? Why cut it short after Egypt Well, he hadn't said why, and and Greece? Sand, rocks, jungles, I cguJdn't go ask him at the me­ and assorted monsters-that's all mmt. he saw. Hardly makes for an en­ I :had me a p110blem. couragiDK appraisal." Mysldigo had either finished his ''TheD he's scared, is why, and job or he hadn't enough time left lucky he's alive. He could have 86 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION been eaten by a boadile or a Kou­ passing when he'd called me in rete. He's running." Egypt, and he had suffered an "Good. Then let him run. Let attack, had been through a lot. It him hand in a bad report." seemed he'd leave a message for an "He can't, though. If they do old friend then, on a matter like want in, they won't buy anything this. that sketchy. They'll just send So I opened Percy B's dud epic somebody else-somebody tougher and looked within. -to finish it. If we kill Myshtigo -It was written on the blank they'll know we're still for real, pages at the end of the book, in still protesting, still tough our­ Greek. Not modem Greek, though. selves." Classical. "... And he's not afraid for It went something like this: his life." "No? What then?" "Dear friend, although I abhor "I don't know. I have to find out, writing anything I cannot rewrite, though." I feel I had best tend to this with "How?" dispatch. I am unwell. George "I think I'll ask him.,. wants me to skim to Athens. I will "You are a lunatic." too, in th~ morning. First though, She turned away. regarding the matter at hand- "My way, or not at all," I said. "Get the Vegan off the Earth, "A,., way, then. It doesn't mat- alive, at any cost. ter. We've already lost." "It is important. I took her by the shoulders, "It is the most important thing kissed her neck. in the world. "Not yet. You11 see." "I was afraid to tell you before, She stood stiflly. because I though Myshtigo might "Go home," she said, "it's late. be a telepath. That is why I did It's too late." not go along for the entire journey, I did that. I went back to lakov though I should dearly have loved Korones' big old place, where to do so. That is why I pretended Myshtigo and I were both quar­ to hate him, so that I could stay tered, and where Phil had been away from him as much as possi­ staying. ble. It was only after I managed I stopped, there in the death­ to confirm the fact that he was Bot room, in the place where Phil had telepathic that I elected to join last slept. His Prometheus Un­ you. bound was still on the writing "I suspected, what with Dos table, set down beside an empty Santos, Diane, and Hasan, that bottle. He had spoken of his own the Radpol might be out for his , • , AND CALL ME CONRAD 87 blood. If he was a telepath, I The Vegans too, weuld like to see figutecl he weuld learn of this this happen. They do not want the quickly and do whatever needed Earth. Whatever for? If they want to be done to assu»e his safety. If to exploit Earthmlk, they have he was not a teleparh, I still had mere of them on Taler than we do great faith in your ability to defed here on Earth-and they're not do­ him against almost anything, Ha­ ing it, not massively or malicious­ san included. But I did not want ly, at any rate. Our ex-pop has him apprised of my knowledge. I elected what labor exploitation it did try to warn you though, if you does undergo in preference to re­ recall. turning here. What tloes this incli­ "Tatram Yshtigo, his grand­ cate? Returnism is a dead issue. father, is one of the finest, most No one is coming back. That is noble c:&eatures alive. He is a why I quit the movement. Why philosopher, a great writer, an you did too, I believe. The Vegans altruistic administrator of servi£es would like to get the home world to the public. I became acquainted problem off their hands. Surely, with him during my stay on Taler, they want to visit it. It is instruc­ thirty-some years ago, and we later tive, sabering, humbHag, and became close friends. We have downright frightenin~ far them to been in communication ever sin~:e come here and see what can be that time, and that far back, even, done to a world. was I advised by him of the Vegan "What needed te be done was Combine's plans regarding the for them to find a way around our disposition of Earth. I was alse ex-pop-gov on Taler. The Talerites sworn to secrecy. Even Cort cannot were not anxious to give up their know that I am aware. The oW only claim for taxes and existence: man would lose face, disastrously, the Office. if this thing came out ahead of "After much negotiation though, time. and much economic suasion, in­ "The Vegans are in a very em­ cluding the offer of full Vegan harassing position. Our expatriate citizenship to our ex-pop, it ap· countrymen have forced their own peared that a means had been economic and cultural dependence found. The implementation of the upon Vega. The Vegans were made plan was given into the hands of aware-quite vividly! -during the Shtigo gens, Tatram in espe­ the days of the Radpol Rebellion, cial. of the fact that there is an indige­ "He finally found a way, he be­ nous population possessiDg a strong lieved, of returning the Earth organization of its own and desir­ proper to an autonomous position ing the restoration of our planet. and preserving its cultural integri- 88- FANTASY AND SCIE.NCE FICTION ty. That is why he sent his grand­ His belongings we carried out son, Cort, to do his 'survey.' Cort to the place where the Skimmer is a stnmge creature; his real talent would land, in front of the bouse. is acting (all the Shtigo are quite Before the others (including Ha­ gifted), and he loves to pose. J be­ san) came up to bid him good-bye, lieve that he wanted to play the be turned to me and he said: "TeD part ol an alien very badly, and me, Conrad, why are you tearing I am certain that he has carried it down the pyramid'?" with skill and efficiency. (Tatram "To needle Vega," I said. "To also advised me that it would be let you know that if you want this Cort's 1m role. He is dying of place and you do manage to take drinfan, which is incurable; also, it away from USy you'll get it in I believe it is the reason he was worse shape than it was after the chosen.) Three Days. There wouldn't be "Believe me, Konstantin Kar­ anything left to look at. We'd bum agbiosis Korones Nomikos (and the rest of our history. Not even a all the others which I do not saap for you guys." know), Comad, when I sal' that The air escaping from the bot­ he was Rot surveying reaJ estate." tom of his lungs came out with a "But allow me ooe last Byronk high-pitched whine-the Vegan gesture. Take my word that he equivalent of a sigh. must live, and let me keep my "Commendable, I suppose," he promise and my secret. You will said, '"but I did so want to see iL not regret it, when you know an. Do- you think you could ever get "I am sorry that l ne?er got to it back together again? Soon~ per­ finish your elegy, and damn you haps?" for keeping my Lara, that time in "What do you think," Kerch 1-Phil" "I noticed your men markiDg manv of the pieces." Very well then, l decided, life I shrugged. -not death-for the Vegan. Phil "I have only one serious question had spoken and I did not doubt then-about your fondness for his words. destruction . . ."he stated. I went back to Miltar Korones' "What is that?" dinner table and stayed with "Is it reaUy artt" M yshtigo until he was ready to "Go to hell." leave. I accompanied him back to Then the others came up. I lakov Korones' and watched him shook my head slowly at Diane pack some final items. We ex­ and seized Hasan's wrist long changed maybe six words duri1lg enough to tear away a tiny needle this time. he'd taped to the pahn of his hand. ••• AND CALL ME CONRAD 89 I let him shale hands with the He'd ence said he wanted some­ Vegan too, then, briefly. thiag big, bright, fast, and without The Skimmer buzed down out mush:. of the darkening sky and I saw I applied the torc:h to a comer M yshtigo aboard, loaded his bag­ of the pyre. The flame bit, slowly, gage personally, and closed the began to chew at the weod. Hasan dQGr myself. started another toKh going, stuck it h took aff without incident and inw the ground, stepped back, and was gone in a matter of-moments. watched. End of a nothing jaunt. As the flames ate their way up­ I went back inside and changed wards I prayed the old prayers and my clot11in". poured out wine upon the ground. It was time to burn a friend. I heaped aromatic herbs onto the Heaped high into the night, my blaze. Then I, too, stepped back. ziggmat of logs bore what remain­ " '. . . Whatever you were, ed of the poet, my frteml. I kindled death has taken you, too,' " I teld a torch and put out the eleetric him. " 'You have gone to see the lantePn. Hasan stood at my side. moist flower open along Acheron, He had helped bear the corpse to among Hell's shadows darting fit­ the cart and had taken over the fully.' Had you died young, your reins. I had built the pyre OR the passin~ would have been mourned cypress-filled hill abQve Volos, as the destruction of a great talent near the ruins of that church I before its fuiAllment. But you mentiOJte.i earlier. The wateiS of live~ and they cannot say that the bay were ealm. The sky was now. Some choose a short and clear and the stars were Dright. supernal life befue the walls of Dos Santos, who did not ap­ their Troy, others a long and less prove of cremation. had decided traubled oae. And who is to say not to attend, saying that his which is the better? The gods did wounds were troubling him. DiaRe keep their promise of hnmortal had elected to remain with him fame to Achillens, by inspiring the back in· Makrynitsa. She had not poet tu sing him an immortal spoken to me since our last con­ paean. But is he the happier fer versation. it, being now as dead as yourself? Ellen and George were seated I cannot judge, old &lend. Lesser on the bed of the c:art, which was bal'd, I remember some of the backed beneath a large cyp:ress, words you, tee, wrote of the mi&hti­ andtltey were holding hands. Tht~J est of the AxJives, and of the time were the only others present. Phil of hard-hurled duths: 'Bleak dis­ would not have liked my relatives appointments rage this coming­ wailing their dirges about him. together place: Menace of sighs in 90 PANTAIY AND SCIENCE PlcnON a jeopardy of time • • • But the ''What of the Black Beast?" ashes do not bum backward to "Not a snort nor a snuffle." timber. Flame's invisible music We watched for a long, long shapes the air to heat, but the day time, as the night retreated into is no longer.' Fare thee well, itself. At several points, Bortan's Phillip Graber. May the Lords ears pricked forward and his nos­ Phoebus and Dionysius. who do trils dilated. George and Ellen had love and kill their poets, commend not moved. Hasan was a strange­ thee to their dark brother Hades. eyed watcher, without expression. And may his Persephone, Queen of "What will you do now, Hasan?" the Night, look with favor upon I asked. thee and grant thee high steal iD "Go again to Mount Sindjar," he Elysium. Good-bye.'' said, "for awhile.'' The Dames had almost reached "And then?" the top. He shrugged. I saw Jason then, standing be­ "Howsoever it is written,• he side the cart, Bortan seated by his replied. side. I backed away further. Bortan And a fearsome noise did come came to me and sat down at my upon us then, like the groans of an right. He licked my hand, once. idiot giant, and the sound of "Mighty hunter, we have lost us splintering trees accompanied it. another," I said. Bortan leapt to his feet and He nodded his great head. ·howled. The donkeys who had The flames reached the top and drawn the cart shifted uneasily. began to nibble at the night. The One of them made a brief, braying air was filled with sweet aromas noise. · and the sound of fire. Jason clutched the sharpened Jason approached. staff which he had picked from the "Father," he said, "he bore me heap of kindling, and he stiffened. to the place of burning rocks, but It burst in upon us then, there you were already escaped." in the clearing. Big, and ugly, arid I nodded. everything it had ever been called. "A no-man friend did free us The Eater of Men . . . from that place. Before that, this The Shaker of the Earth • • • man Hasan destroyed the Dead The Mighty, Foul One . . • Man. So your dreams have thus far The Black Beast ofThessaly. proved both right and wrong.'' Finally, someone could say "He is the yellow-eyed warrior what it really was. If they got away of my vision," he said. to say it, that is. "I know, but that part too, is It must have been drawn to us past." by the odor of burning flesh. , , , AND CALL MB CONllAD 91 And it was big. The size of an • • • And these things caused elephant, at least. it to swerve once more in its charge, What was Herakles' fourth crashing into the then-empty cart labor? and killing both donkeys. The wild boar of Arcadia, that's I ran against it then, thrusting what. the staff up under its left front leg. I suddenly wished Herk was still The staff broke in two. around, to help. Bortan kept biting, and his A big pig . . . A razorback, snarl was a steady thunder. When­ with tusks the length of a man's ever it slashed at him with its tusks arm . . . Little pig eyes, black, he relinquished his grip, danced and rolling in the firelight, wildly away, and moved in again to worry it. It knocked down trees as it I am sure that my needle-point came ... deathlance of steel would not have It squealed though, as Hasan broken. It had been aboard the drew a burning brand from the Vanitie, though .. , blaze and drove it, fire-end for­ Hasan and I circled it with the ward, into its snout, and then sharpest and most stakelike of the spun away. kindling we could find. We kept It swerved too, which gave me jabbing, to keep it turning in a time to snatch Jason's staff. circle. Bortan kept trying for its I ran forward and caught it in throat, but the great snouted head the left eye with it. stayed low, and the one eye rolled It swerved again then and and the other bled, and the tusks squealed like a leaky boiler. slashed back and forth and up and • . . And Bortan was upon it, down like swords. Cloven hooves tearing at its shoulder. the size of breadlones tore great Neither of my two thrusts at its holes in the ground as it turned, throat did more than superficial counterclockwise, trying to kill us damage. It wrestled, shoulder all, there in the orange and danc­ against fang, and finally shook it­ ing flamelight. self free of Bortan's grip. Finally, it stopped and turned Hasan was at my side by then, -suddenly, for something that waving another firebrand. big-and its shoulder struck Bor­ It charged us. tan in the side and hurled him From somewhere off to the side ten or twelve feet past me. Hasan George emptied a machine-pistol hit it across the back with his into it. Hasan hurled the torch. stick and I drove in toward the Bortan leapt again, this time from other eye, but missed. its blind side. Then it moved toward Bortan, 92 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION who was still regaining his feet­ blue woolen shirt, a faint smile, its head held low, tusks gleaming. and my still-smoking elephant I threw my staff and leapt as it gun. moved in on my dog. It had already "Uh-hi, Cassandra. How've dropped its head for the death you been?" blow., She dropped the gun and looked I caught both tusks as the head very pale. But I had her in my descended almost to the ground. arms almost before it hit the Nothing could hold back that ground. scooping slash, I realized, as I "I'll ask you later," I said, "not bore down upon it with all my now. Nothing now. Let's just sit strength. here beneath this tree and watch But I tried, and maybe I suc­ the fire bum." ceeded, somehow, for a second ..• And we did. At least, as I was thrown throagh the air, my hands tom and A month later, Dos Santos was bleeding, I saw that Bortan had ousted from the Radpol. He and managed to get back out of the way. Diane have not been heard of I was dazed by the fall, for I since. Rumor has it that they gave had been thrown far and high; and up on Retumism, moved to Taler, I heard a great pig-mad squealing. and are living there now. I hope Hasan screamed and Bortan roared it's not true, what with the affairs out his great-throated battle-chal­ of these past five days. I never did lenge once more. know the full story on Red Wig, , • • And the hot red lightning and I guess I never will. If you of Zeus descended twice from the trust a person, really trust him I heavens. mean, and you care for him, as • • • And all was still. she might have cared for me, it would seem you'd stick around to I climbed back, slowly, to my see whether he was right or wrong feet. on your final big disagreement. Hasan was standing by the She didn't though, and I wonder blalting pyre, a flaming stake still if she regrets it now? upraised in spear-throwing pasi­ I don't really think I'll ever see tion. her again. Bortan was sniffing at the quiv­ Slightly after the Radpol shake­ ering mountain of ftesh. up, Hasan returned from Mount Cassandra was standing beneath Sindjar, stayed awhile at the Port, the cypress beside a dead donkey, then purchased a small ship and her back against the trunk of the put out to sea early one DMlrning, tree, wearing leather trousers, a without even saying "good-bye" or • • • AND CALL ME CONllAD 93 giving any indication as to his embryosurgery, now before it's too destination. It was assumed he'd late, and make his next kid a found new employment some­ water-breather as well as an air­ where. There was a hurricane breather, because of all that great though, several days later, and I big virgin frontier down under­ heard rumors in Trinidad to the neath the ocean, where his de­ effect that he had been washed up scendents can pioneer, and him on the coast of Brazil and met with be father to a new race and write his death at the hands of the fierce an interesting book on the subject, tribesmen who dwell there. I tried, and all that. Ellen is not too bot but was unable to verify this story. on the idea though, so I've a hunch Howevec, two months later, the oceans will remain virgin a Ricardo Bonaventura, Chairman little longer. of the Alliance Against Progress, I've decided to retain the Office a Radpol splinter group which had for the time being. I'll set up some fallen into disfavor with Athens, kind of parliament after I've whip­ died of apoplexy during a Party ped up an opposition party to the function. There were some mur­ Radpol-Indreb, or something murlngs of Divban rabbit-venom like that maybe: like. Independent in the anchovies (an exceedingly Rebuilders, or such. lethal combination, George as­ Good old final forces of disrup­ sures me), and the following day tion . . . We needed them down the new Captain of the Palace here amid the ruins. Guard vanished mysteriously, And Cassandra-my princess, along with a Skimmer and the my angel, my lovely lady-she minutes of the last three secret even likes me without my fungus. sessions of the AAP (not to men­ That night in the Valley of Sleep tion the contents of a small wall­ did it in. safe). He was said to have been a She, of course, was the shipload big, yellow-eyed man, with a of heroes Hasan had seen that day slightly Eastel'n cast to his features. back at Pagasae. No golden fleece Jason is still herding his many­ though, just my gunrack and such. legged sheep in the high places, Yeah. It had been the Golden up where the fingers of Aurora Vanitie, which I'd built by hand, come first to smear the sky with me, stout enough, I was pleased roses, and doubtlelis he is corrupt­ to learn, to take even the tsunami ing youth with his song. that followed that 9.6 Richter Ellen is pregnant again, all thing. She'd been out sailing in it delicate and big-waisted, and at the time the bottom fell out of won't talk to anybody but George. Kos. Afterwards, she'd set sail for George wants to try some fancy Volos because she knew Mak- 94 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION rynitsa was full of my relatives. ly a matter of finding the best Oh, goocl thing-that she had this buyer-because our exile regime feeling that there was danger and lost its only other cause for exist­ bad carried the htavy artillery ence the minute the citizenship ashore with her. (Good thing, too, thing went through. They could that she knew how to use it.) I'll justify themselves while there were have to learn to take her premon­ still Earthmen out there, but now itions more seriously. they're all Vegans and can't vote I've purchased a quiet villa on for them, and we're sure not going the end of Haiti opposite from the to, down here. Port. It's only about fifteen min­ Hense, the sale of a lot of real utes' skimming time from there, estate-and the only bidder was and it has a big beach and lots of the Shtigo gens. jungle all around it. I have to have Wise old Tatram saw that the some distance, like the whole is­ Shtigo gens did not own Earth, land, between me and civilizatien, though. The entire purchase was because I have this, well-hunting made in the name of his grandson, -problem. The other day, when the late Cort Myshtigo. the attorneys dropped around, they And M yshtigo left this distribu­ didn't understand the sign: "Be­ tion-desire, or last will and testa­ Will'e the Dog." They do now: The ment, Vegan-style ... one who's in traction won't sue for . . . In which I was named. damages, and George will have I've, uh, inherited a planet. him as good as new in no time. The Earth, to be exact. The others were not so severely Well- taken. Hell, L don't want the thing. I Good thing I was nearby, mean, sure I'm stuck with it for though. awhile, but I'll work something So here I am, in an unusual out. position as usual. It was that infernal Vite-Stats The entire planet Earth was machine, and four other big think­ purchased from the Talerite gov­ tanks that old Tatram used. He ernment, purchased by the large was looking for a local administra­ and wealthy Shtigo gens. The pre­ tor to hold the Earth in fief and ponderance of expatriates wanted set up a resident representative Vegan citizenship anyhow, rather government, and then to surrender than remaining under the Talerite ownership on a fairly simple resi­ ex-gov and working in the Com­ dency basis once things got rolling. bine as registered aliens. This had He wanted somebody who'd been l;,een coming for a long time, so the around awhile, was qualified as an disposal of the Earth became main- administrator, and who wouldn't • , , AND CALL ME CONllAD 95 want to keep the place for his very "Dear Whatever-the-Blazes-Your­ own. Name-Is, Among others, it gave him one "It is most unsettling to begin of my names, then another, the a letter this way, so I'll respect second as a "possibly still living." your wishes and call you Conrad. Then my personnel file was check­ " 'Conrad,' by now you are aware ed, and more stuff on the other of the true nature of my visit. I guy, and pretty soon the machine feel I have made a good choice in had turned up a few more names, naming you as heir to the property all of them mine. It began picking commonly referred to as Earth. up discrepancies and peculiar sim­ Your affection for it cannot be ilarities, kept kapocketting, and gainsaid; as Karaghiosis you in­ gave out more puzzling answers. spired men to bleed in its defense; Before long, Tatram decided I you are restoring its monuments, had better be"surveyed." preserving its works of art (and Cort came to write a book. as one stipulation of my will, by He really wanted to see if I the way, I insist that you put back was Good, Honest, Noble, Pure, the Great P-yramid!), and your Loyal, Faithful, Trustworthy, Self­ ingenuity as well as your tough­ less, Kind, Cheerful, Dependable, ness, both physical and mental, is and Without Personal Ambition. singularly amazing. Which means he was a cock­ "You also appear to be the eyed lunatic, because he said, closest thing to an immortal over­ "Yes, he's all that." seer available (I'd give a lot to I sure fooled him. know your real age), and this, to­ Maybe he was right about the gether with your high survival lack of personal ambition, thou~h. potential, makes you, really, the I am pretty damn lazy, and am not only candidate. If your mutation at all anxious to acquire the head­ ever does begin to fail you, there aches I see as springing up out of is always the S-S series to continue the tonnented Earth and black­ linking the great chain of your jacking me daily. days. (I could have said 'forging,' However, I am .willing to make but it would not have been polite, certain concessions so far as per­ inasmuch as I know you are an sonal comfort is concerned. I'll accomplished forger.-AII those probably cut myself back to a six­ old records! You drove poor Vite­ month vacation. Stats half-mad with discrepancies. One of the attorn~ (not the It is now programmed never to ac­ one in traction-the one with the cept another Greek birth certificate sling) delivered me a note from as proof of age I) the Blue One. It said, in part: ". • • I commend the Earth 96 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION into the hands of the kallikanzaros. We have money now, and we According to legend, this would own our own property again, and be a grave mistake. However, I am that makes a big difference. Maybe willing to gamble that you are even Returnism isn't completely even a kallikanzaros under false dead. If there is a vital program to pretenses. You destrey anly what revive the Earth, we may draw you mean to rebuild. Probably you back some of the ex-pop, may snag are Great Pan, \Vho only pretended some of the new tourists. to die. Whatever, you will have Or, if they all want to remain sufficient funds and a supply of Vegans, they can do that, too. heavy equipment which wtll be We'd like them, but we don't need sent this year-and lots of forms them. Our Outbound immigration for requisitioning more from the will be dropping off, I feel, once Shtigo Foundation. So go thou people know they can get ahead and be thou fruitful and multiply, here; and our population will in­ and reinherit the Earth. The gens crease more than just geometri­ will be around watching. Cry out cally, what with the prolonged if you need help, and help will he fertility period brought on by the forthcoming. now quite expensive S-S series. I "I don't have time to write you intend to socialize S-S completely. a book. Sorry. Here is my auto­ I'U do it by putting George in graph, anyhow: charge of a Public Health program, -Cort Myshtigo featuring mainland clinics and "P.S. I still dunno if it's art. offering S-S all over the place. Go to hell yourself." We'll make out. I'm tired of be­ ing a gravekeeper, and I don't That is the gist of it. really want to spend from now till Pan? Easter cutting through the Tree of Machines don't talk that way, the World, even if I am a Darkborn do they? with a propensity for trouble. I hope not, anyhow . . . When the bells do ring, I want to The Earth is a wild inhabita­ be able to say, "Alethos aneste," tion. It is a tough and rocky place. Risen Indeed, rather than drop­ The rubbish will have to be clear­ ping my saw and running (ring­ ed, section by section, before some a-ding, the bells, clackety-clack, anti-rubbish can be put up. the hooves, etcetera). Now is the Which means work, lots of it. time for all good katlikanzaroi Which means I'll need all •he . . Youknow. Office facilities as well as the So ... Radpol organization, to begin Cassandra and I have this villa with. on the Magic Island. She likes it , , , AND CALL ME CONRAD 97 here. I like it here. She doesn't "You never believe mel" mind my indeterminate age any­ "Of course I do. It just happens more. Which is fine. that this time you're wrong, dear." Just this early morning, as we She swam away then, my mad lay on the beach watching the sun mermaid, out into the dark waters. chase away stars, I turned to her After a time she came back. and mentioned that this is going "Okay," she said, smiling, shak­ to be a big, big ulcer-giving job, ing down gentle rains from her full of headaches and such. hair. "Sure." "No, it isn't," she replied. I caught her ankle, pulled her "Don't minimize what is immi­ down beside me and began tickling nent," I said. "It makes for incom­ her. patibility." "Stop that!" "None of that either." "Hey, I believe you, Cassandra! "You are too optimistic, Cas­ Really! Hear that? Oh, how about sandra." that? I really believe you. Damnl "No. I told you that you were You sure are right!" heading into danger before, and ''You are a smart-alecky kalli· you were, but you didn't believe me kanz--ouch !" then. This time I feel that things And she was lovely by the sea­ should go well. That's all." side, so I held her in the wet, till "Granting your accuracy in the the day was all around us, feeling past, I still feel you are underesti­ good. mating that which lies before us." Which is a nice place to end a She rose and stamped her foot. story, sic:. Sasha Gilien has a fine knack for translating Ufe' s mysterious processes into the world of memos and machinery, papers and pettifoggery. Rememher TWO'S A CROWD (July, 1962) which reduced birth, adolescence and lunacg lo their simplBSt aAd funniut fractionsP Here, Mr. Gilien opens our eyes to the enigm• of Death-er (more in context) to the tletai!s of processing out.

EL NUMERO UNO

by Sasha Gilien

You'VE GOT THOSE WHO LIKE the guy I was supposed to deliver the bullfights and those who don't. the papers to, except what had been I'm one of the latter, and if it had filled in on the subpoena. LAuro been up to me, I wouldn't have Cruz-Aguirre, b. an Juan de been remotely near Tijuana's Plaza Mixtopec, Gue"ero, Mexico, a. 27, de Taros that Sunday afternoon. m. Cecilia Dorotea Aguirre, 2 Unfortunately, I hadn't been in the children, r. Roman Catholic. Af­ Bureau long enough to pick my ter "Time and Date of Expiration, spots, so when I received the ma­ the office had typed in "5: 48 p.m. nila envelope with tlhe papers Sept. I i, 1964." Which figured from Fogarty's office, there was that it should be sometime after nothing for it but to get down there El Gitano's first bull, probably in and make the best of things. I the infirmary. picked myself a good ten-dollar The critic on Deportes seemed seat on the shady side of the arena to think a lot of El Gitano, rank­ and read a copy of Deportes until ing him almost up there with the the program began. I didn't know big ones. ". . . he kills impecca­ a damned thing about El Gitano, bly, superbly, with an artistry and 98 EL NUMERO UNO 99 grace solidly founded on an inex· in a practice scrimmage in Ohio. haustible well of bravery . . ." he I'm certainly not complaining of wrote in that florid Spanish that overwork; I like my job, especially tickles the aficionado. As far as since I'm an enthusiastic sports I'm concerned, it's all a lot of noise fan, and I get to attend some of to cover up a blood-thirsty and un­ the best athletic events in North sportsmanlike show; I never could America. But, as I said, bull-fight· appreciate cruelty to dumb ani­ ing isn't my idea of an athletic mals. Anyhow, the critic went on event. to deplore the fact that El Gitana My seat was near the little was fighting in Tijuana for the wooden barricade where El Gitano benefit of a bunch of gringos from and his assistants stood. They Southern California who didn't were all wearing practically the know one end of a bull from the same costume, but I could pick other. He realized, he said, the him out immediately, the way phenomenal price the promoters everyone deferred to him. Besides, were giving for the fight, but if a he was the one who had the most man is a true artist he shouldn't mournful look. I've been serving prostitute himself, etc. etc. He fin­ papers long enough to identify my ished off with a recap of El Gi­ man; he's always a trifle uneasier tana's last fight in Argentina, go­ than anyone around. I honestly ing into ecstasies about ". . • believe they're somehow vaguely manoletinas, splendid, exquisite aware that I'm in the audience. ones which sparkled like diamonds Next to me sat a young couple who -the work of one who is destined had obviously driven down from to be Numero Uno • • ." Buill Los Angeles for the fight. The girl It was almost fiye when the was thin and quite pretty,with her music started up and the proces­ hair cut short and straight, and her sion of matadors made its way clothes designed for a peasant with across the ring. I'll have to admit a lot of money. She craned out of I got a tingle when the trumpet her seat to get a better look at E1 pierced the air-brazen but mel­ Gitana. ancholy, too. But I wished it were "My God, Harry; look at that over so I could get back across the face. He's beautiful!" border. I had a big week ahead of "That's what courage looks like, me; the following night I had to kid." Harry had one of those leath­ be in Chicago where a promising er udders they use for carrying young welter-weight was going to wine; it was on a strap hanging receive a fatal concussion, and a from his shoulder. He lifted it a few days later, a college half-back few inches from his mouth and was going to get his neck broken squirted a stream of purple. "He's 100 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION going to be another Manolete." He Chico went out trailing a cape. wiped his mouth and leaned across He doubled the beast back and the girl, offering me the wineskin. forth a few times while El Gitano "A drink from the bota, amigo?" leaned on the barrier and studied "No thanks," I said coldly, "I the scene. Then Chico vaulted the don't drink." fence, and El Gitano, stiffening, "Suit yourself. Ever seen El Gi­ stepped into the ring. The bull tana fight?" stood immobile and after a few "No." seconds of indecision, went for "We caught him last year down him. I had to give it to the little in Mexico City. The man's a gen­ guy; he had guts, barely moving ius. He's going to Spain next; his skinny legs while the black they'll never be able to resist his brute hurtled toward him. He capework there." opened his cape and twisted just As far as I knew, El Gitano the tiniest bit to the right, and the wasn't going to Spain, or any­ animal seemed to wrap himself where else. He was coming with around him, following the cape me. Harry didn't notice that he like he was glued to it. wasn't talking to a fellow aficiona­ Harry and the girl were on their do; he kept on yakking. He was feet bawling, "Ole, ole!" When beginning to bore me. they sat down Harry shook his head Suddenly the ring was empty and said, "Did you ever see a nat­ and we were all looking at the urallike that?" black gate that said "Toriles". "It's so beautiful it makes you Near it was a slate which had want to cry," said the girl. "Pass chalked on it, "Angelita. Rancho me the bota, Harry." de San Martin. -495 Kilos." The I looked at my watch. Almost gate swung open, exposing a patch five-thirty. I really should have of darkness, and then the bull­ gotten over to the infirmary to be a monster-slammed out and waiting for him when he got there, charged across the sand, splinter­ but it was fascinating to watch. ing the wooden fence on the other Even the next part where the pica­ side. dor stuck the bull with a lance. The "My God, Harry," said the girl crowd booed him because he did­ with a delighted little gasp, "he's a n't do it right the first time, and killer." eventually he left the field. El Gi­ Down below, El Gitana nodded tana came out again, this time at one of his men. I heard him say with two brightly colored bander­ in Spanish, "I want to see how he illas which he hooked into Ange­ works, Chico." He was a man with lita's back. Someone handed him a very dry mouth. two more, and he neatly placed EL NUMEllO UNO 101 them as the bull roared by. And Gitana's fancy suit and setting up the third time. The entire arena for a transfusion. I pushed my way was still as he stood poised and through the little group around then it broke into a roar when he him and held out the papers and a remained standing there empty­ pen. In these cases, the usual pro­ handed, his back to the bull. He cedure is for the consignee to sign strutted off to get his cape. I hoped the writ and accompany me to the nobody would say it was like a office. I deposit him and the pa­ ballet. pers with Fogarty who makes the "It's like a ballet," said the girl. final disposition. The body, of "A ballet of death, kid." Harry, course, remains at the scene of the the philosopher, was a little stoned demise for relatives or other inter­ by now. "Oh God, look at him cite. ested parties to do with as they It's incredible." He stood up and wish. joined the rhythmic cry, "Ole, My station wagon was parked ole," that swept the crowd every close by, and I was eager to get it few seconds as El Gitana played over with so I could get back over with the animal. "Now watch his the border before the Sunday eve­ estocada, honey. He's going in ning traffic exodus began. But straight over that right horn." things started going wrong imme­ And then it happened. The diately. When I identified myself short sword started to sink into to Aguirre and handed him the Angelita when he suddenly hooked pen, instead of taking it and sign­ to the right and drove his hom ing, he ignored me. This happens deep into El Gitana's groin. The occasionally; people just don't man literally flew into the air and want to believe I've come for them, then tumbled down over the hull's especially young sports celebrities. head onto the ground. While he So I read him the particulars aloud. clutched himself, Angelita bore " ... resulting from a rupture of down into him with those enor­ the subcutaneous abdominal arte­ mous horns. The ring filled with ries, causing a massive hemorrhage men flashing capes, pulling at the ..."I then read the instructions. hull's tail, pushing his head away. ". . . to place yourself in the cus­ Finally, a few men dragged El Gi­ tody of the duly constituted officer tano from under him and carried and appear on or before 8 : 00 p.m., him to the infirmary just as Ange­ Sunday, September 18, 1964." lita dropped dead, the sword half­ Still no reaction from Aguirre. way in him. Now, my Spanish isn't perfect, but it's enough to get by, and I've When I entered the infirmary, picked up Mexican athletes before the doctors were slashing off FJ -in fact, last year I served papers 102 FANTASY AND SCIENCE. FICTION on a soccer player who got kicked with orders to bring Aguirre in and in the head in Guadalajara; he he didn't seem to be having any. even complimented me on my ac­ I tried again. cent. So it wasn't that Aguirre did­ "Senor Aguirre, would you n't understand me; he was being please sign the papers, and let's obstinate. I had the annoying go." suspicion that in some dumb In­ One of the men came in with dian way he was aware of Para­ the ears and tail of Angelito which graph XII, Subsection 5 of the had been awarded to El Gitano by Code. Fortunately for us at the the judges. He looked at them and Bureau, not many people are then turned to me. ''I'm all right, aware of it, and so when an officer Senor. I want to stay here." appears with his badge and all the "What's that got to do with it? official-looking papers, they come I showed you the papers, didn't I?" along peacefully in face of what "You showed me nada I You read seems to be the awful majesty of me something from a paper. What the law. If they took the trouble to do I care about that?" read the small print, they'd see that "How is he?" asked a w0rried Paragraph XII, Subsection 5, gives man I took to be El Gitano's man­ some of them a loop-hg_le. Buried ager. in a tangle of legal verbiage it One of the doctors said in a low states that no one is actually re­ voice, "The shock is very great. He quired to give himself up if he can is in a deep coma; I'm afraid to produce a good enough cause for move him, but we must get him to remaining alive. Of course, most a hospital." He nodded at t:Re two people never bother to read the men with a stretcher; they lifted Code-as a matter of fact it's sur­ the matador tenderlv onto it. That prising how many are content, was when I grabbed Aguirre. even delighted to sign the writ. As "Now wait a minute, Mister, for those few cranks who do take vo•1 iust can't i~nore these papers. advantage of Paragraph XII, they There are severe penalties." get a hearing, and on rare occa­ "Let me see them." sions even have their appeal grant­ I handed him the papers, confi­ ed. But it's a lot of trouble for ev­ dent he wouldn't be able to make eryone, and one of these days we're any sense out of them. After all, going to get rid of that little snag he'd been a poor boy who'd gotten which was written into the Code a only through the third grade of a couple of thousand years ago by a little rural school. But I'll be handful of bleeding hearts and damned if he didn't lie there and fuzzy thinkers. go over them word for word. It was But in the meantime, here I was an effort; he couldn't do it without EL · NUMERO UNO 103 moving his lips. After a while he what it is to be Numero Uno. Es~ looked up and said what I was pecially for me, a poor muchacho afraid he would. "It says here I from the South who was nothing can stay if I've got a good reason." -less than nothing. Now I have I brushed that aside. "Listen, a beautiful wife, an aristocrat, and Senor Aguirre, it just means a lot our children-ah, never mind, of extra red tape. Your time's come you wouldn't understand what I and that's all there is to it." mean. I'm sorry; I want to stay." "It says I can stay," he repeated I put the papers back in my stubbornly. "I've got a good reason; pocket. "If that's the way you want .soon I'm going to be El Numero it. But you'll hear from us; we're Uno in the corridas." not through with you." "Why don't you be reasonable? Aguirre nodded wearily and I We're going to get you sooner or heard the doctor say, "He seems to later. Be!tides, I'm not sure being be responding a little." Numero Uno or whatever you call it Is good enough." Naturally, old man Fogarty was "It's good enough for me." furious. Not that he shouted or I was trying to hang onto my anything like that. He just looked temper. I pulled the papers out of at me in his dusty Civil Service his hand.. "OK, pal, but if you way and said, "Of course you u~ think just because you want to derstand it reflects on everybody stand out there and stick a sword in this office." What be meant was into a few more bulls, you've got that it reflected on him, and that any right to stay here, you're wrong maybe his four decades of senior~ as hell." ity wouldn't protect him from an He shrugged and leaned baek in unpleasant-but totally ineffe~ the body in the stretcller. I walked tual-memo from his supervisor. alongside it as it was carried out ''I'm sony, Mr. Fogarty. I car­ the door. HBelieve my, my friend, ried out my duties to the letter. It if you come with me right now you wasn't my fault that-" won't regret it. I can't make any He wasn't even listening to me. promises, _but you've got a good Instead, he read over the writ and record and I'D be glad to put in a then took a pad out of his desk good word for you. It's very likely drawer. "Well, let's not talk about you'll get sent to-tile right place. it anymore. I'll simply put in You know what I mean? Once Aguirre's request for an appeal." you've had a taste of that you'll He shook his head mournfully. thank me £or getting you there." "They won't like it. It doesn't look He sat up and looked right at good when they get appeals." His me. "Senor, you don't understand voice was accusing. 104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FicnON "I'd like to assure you that I did­ tunity. Old Fogarty knows this and n't bring Paragraph XII to his at­ use& it to keep us in line. I walked tention, Mr. Fogarty. It's just that to the cafeteria hoping B Gitano he stood on his rights and-" weuld get turned down cold. "Of course." He kept writing and then looked up at me with an Fogarty's secretary-she's been expression on his juiceless face in the Bureau almost as long as he which distinctly said I was one of has-gave me one of her sour looks those crackpots who was in fa1'or as she handed me the envelope for of Paragraph XII. Taylor. I signed for it and took off "Is it all right if I go now, Mr. fer Chicago, feeling a little appre­ Fogarty? I haven't had a chance to hensive. When I got to the sta­ get dinner yet." dium, the last prelim had begun, "Yes, you can go. We're getting se I read the sports section of the the papers ready for Clarence Tay­ Trib until the main event. The col­ lor. You can pick them up tomor­ umnists seemed to like Taylor that row just before you leave for Chi­ night and saw a bright future for cago." He paused. "I hope you don't him, completely unaware tAat his have any trouble with him. Mean­ career was going to end abruptly while, Mr. Aguirre will be heM on in the middle of the sixth. A little suspension until some action is headline at the bottom of the page taken on his appeal. Let's wish for caught my eye. "MATADOR yeur sake that they tum him NEAR DEATH IN MEXICO." down." The story was datelined Tijuana. I left the office wondering what "Me~eico's most promising lmU­ the hell he meant by that remark. fighter, Lauro Aguirre (El Oi­ One of the nice. things about Civil taxs), gored here Sunday, remllins Service is that Fogarty could never unconscious for the third Hnsecu­ fire me; I had tenure. But he did tive day. Doctors report th12t while have the power to transfer me to his condition is considered ex­ another section, which I wouldn't tremely serioos, he clings tena­ like at aH. Being attached to c:Wusly te life ..." It was ob­ Sports, North American District, vious that Aguirre's appeal was is the plum job in the whole Bu­ still before the Board. Three days reau-nobody works too hat"d and already; that wasn't so good. Tirey there's all the excitoment and usually turn them down within a glamor of the sports world. Natur­ matter of hours. ally, the guys who work ia dreary It wa5 a good fight with beth sections like Auto Accident or Old hoys showing lots of power, but I Age envy us and would just love ooulda't es~joy it. When the siKth to switch places at the .first oppor- came around, Taylor caught one EL NUMEB.O UNO 105 on the temple, staggered and I recognized at once as the carbon dropped. By the time he reached copy of a transfer order. He'd done the canvas he was limp. I climbed it, all right; I'd been shifted to in through the ropes while every­ Auto Accident as of that evening. one was milling around and pre­ Naturally, Fogarty didn't want to sented him with the papers. He be around to hear me protest. was very nice about it. "I'd like to know what this is all "Jus' gimme the pen, Mister; about, Thelma. I haven't got any I'll sign them papers. C'n I say black marks on my record. Why goo 'by to my manager?" am I being sent to Auto?" "Sure, go ahead, Clarence." "It has nothing to do with your As they lifted the body onto a record. I suppose Mr. Fogarty stretcher, Taylor opened his eyes thought you'd be more-" she gave briefly and mumbled, "So long, me a complacent little smile-"ef­ Junmy. ..." fective there." The stocky little Negro who was 'What kind of baloney is that?" leaning over him clutched his Her face hardened. "Please hand. You're gonna be all right, don't argue with me, Mr. Krantz. kid; , you're gonna be all right I had nothing to do with it. You ean clear out your locker any time Fogarty wasn't in his office you want. You're supposed to check when I brought Taylor in, which in at Auto tomorrow morning. I thought was odd. He's usually They're expecting you." there to fuss over the consignee. "Did it have anything to do with checking the papers and stamping Aguirre?" everything with his signature. lu­ "I really wouldn't know." The stead, Thelma the secretary was woman was infuriating. "But I'll sitting at his desk. I turned the tell you this; Senor Aguirre was fighter over to her and she method­ granted an appeal this evening on ically went about processing him the grounds outlined in Paragraph while I stood around waiting for XII. Mr. Fogarty was understand­ her to get through so she could give ably upset-this hasn't happened me the final details on my next in our department for I don't know pick-up. When she finished with how many years. It doesn't do us Taylor she buzzed for a clerk who any good, you know; we should try came in and led him out. to keep the Section's record good "Where's Fogarty?" I asked. downtown." "Mr. Fogarty's in a meeting." All this with an accusing look. She had a smug look on her face. Good old Civil Service; nobody "He asked me to give you this." wants to be responsible for any­ She handed me a ilimsy which thing, so it's pass the hot potato 106 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION around. This time they were hand­ :massacre. They have some beauties ing it tome. down there, believe me; whole No use arguing with Thelma, so buses full of people careenillg I left the office, still boiling in­ down sides of mounmins, sports side. I couldn't understan(if how cars bashing int"O cattle, every­ A&Uirre had gotten off-unless thing. I was getting sick of the there was someone on the Board whole business; I had to hustle so who had a thing for bnllfighting. fast that half the time I llidn't get Someone whe went for aH that a ohance oo look over the pape~:s stuff about it being an Art, and a fer each day's assignments. furery Symbol of Truth, and the rest of morning the clerk in the office it. Funny thing, I had no hard would hand me a bundle of enve­ feelings toward Aguirre; in fact, I lopes and a list of locations and admired his guts. Now that I was times, and I'd \Vhip down there, out of it, I really hoped he'd make barely managing ta get it all done NumeroUno. before I checked in for the last Mter three weeks in Auto Acci­ time. Too bad they weren't paying dent, I was ready to quit and take me by the head; I Cfmld retire. the test for Post Office aerk, or I was seriously considermg the something equally exciting. For possibility of transferring to War one thing, Auto is always under­ Casualty. That's the biggest section staffed, and at the end of a shift in the Bureau, with a whole build­ you really know you've been work­ ing to itself. Right now there were ing. There'd be twelve, fifteen hundreds of people sitting around pickups a day, and when you just twiddling their thumbs. and weren't actually serving the papers new ones constantly being :hiretl. and delivering, you'd be standing At the moment there's hardly on dismal stretches of highway, or enough work for more than a halld­ under a lamp-post on some cold ful of employees who spend most street, waiting for the thing to of their time in exotic places like happen. And the blood and gore, Viet Nam and the Congo. I figwe the cracked windshields, the po­ it's the Supervisor there trying to lice putting out flares, the white­ build himself an empire in the Bu­ faced survivors, if any, in shock. reau-the more people you've got Just plain hack-work and very un­ 1ftlder you, the bigger man yon H-e. pleasant. Either that, or they're expecting a But that wasn't bad enough. lot of activity shortly, and they Once they found out I spoke Span­ don't want to be caught short­ ish, they ticketed me for Mexico handed. where the casual attitude toward So there I was, five kilometers traffic laws results in an endless out ef Mexico City, trying to keep EL NUMERO UNO 107 dry in a soggy driu:le while I "Per God's sake, you're not going waited for my last oonsipee of the to start that again, are you.?" day. Then it was home and a com­ He shook his head. "Net, not an.y forting highball, a quiet dinn~. mere. Shall we go?" aad off to bed to rest up for the I helped him up out of the next day's hassle. I was just taking wreckage and we stood there look­ the papers out of the envelope to ing at each other. see who I had comiag up, when a Finally, I said, "Frankly, big Diesel loomed around the Aguirre, I don't get you. After all curve and came toward me. I that trouble you went through with glanced at the sign on the side the Board and all that for another of the rig, "Hnos. Lopez, Trans­ chance, here you are taking it so partes." Another truckdriver, what lightly. It's almost as if yeu're glad a bore. I was gdting ready for him to see me." to jack-knife, but instead, a bright He laugheel. "Yes, I won the blue Cadillac roared out of no­ fight with yo11r Board, but I lost where and cmnched bead on into smnething else; something more him. I waited for the glass to stop important." lying and hurried 6ver to the "Oh?" Caddy, pap&s in hand. It was "My cou.rage. I fought again clear that it w.asn't the truckdriver last week, and I had nada. Noth­ for whom I'd been sent. ing! I was afraid. And the bul1s The man and the weman in the knew it; they always do. The mashed up Caddy lay still and judges, they knttw, too." He twisted. She was going to be all laughed a short bitter laugh. "Lau­ right-! had no papers for her. I ro Cruz-Aguirre, El Numero Uno." pe«ed into the car and tapped the Suddenly he grasped my hand and man on the shoulder, and when he shook it. "Senor, believe me, I am turned around, who should it be so glad you are here with your pa­ but my old friend Aguirre. pers." "Oh, no, not again," I thought. I smiled. "It's my pleasure. Just My luck to run into a tr8uble­ sign by this little 'x' and once more maker twice in a row. on this page, and everything will He smiled up at me and said, be in order." "Senor, you are very persistent." He signed the papers and gave "So are you. I don't want to a lingering look at the beautiful give you a hard time or anything, young woman who was starting ro Aguirre, but I'd like you to know stir in the car. "She'll be well taken that I caught hell because of you." care of; the little IHles, too," he said "I am sorry for that. But my rea­ softly." And then, "Come, Sencu, son was good; was it not?" why are we waiting?" 108 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION We got into the station wagon proud of the whole Civil Service. and headed for the office. When Maybe we're not as efficient as pri­ we got there, we shook hands again vate enterprise, and we're under­ and I directed him to the proper paid and all that, but damn it, one line. All of a sudden I felt proud way or another, we get the job of myself, and strangely enough, done.

SCIENCE EDITOR'S NOTE: "EXCLAMATION POINT" JULY 1965 As usual, my mathematical articles draw a great many letters and, also as usual, I manage to make mistakes. Some are arithmetical so that my evaluation of the Asimov Series toward the end of EXCLAMA­ TION POINT! (July 1965) is slightly wrong in the farther decimal places. That I can be philosophical about. But, heaven help me, in a moment of sheer chaotic madness, I worked out the number of bridge hands by dividing 521 by ( 4 x 131) instead of by (131)4• The total number is actually 54,000,000,000,- 000,000,000,000,000,000; a considerably smaller value than the one I gave. It is still a sizable number, however, for you can play a tril­ lion games a second for a billion years without repeating a single game. The Asimov Series is, as I was certain, no true discovery, for as one Gentle Reader told me, ever so Gently, it is routinely dealt with in second semester calculus or thereabouts. Several other pretty versions of the Series were suggested. My own version was: 1/21- 3/41- 5/61- 7/8! - 9/101 ... but it does not contain (as I mistakenly said it did) minus signs only. The first iterm is + 1121 even though the positive sign is not written. To get round that some readers suggested the series be written: - ( - I )/01 - 1/21 - 3/41 ... All the terms would then indeed be negative, even the first, but we would have to step outside the realm of the natural numbers to include 0 and - 1, which detracts a bit from the austere beauty of the series. Another suggested alternative is: 0/11 + 2/31 +4151 + 6/71 + 8/91 ... which-also gives 1/e. It includes only positive signs which are prettier (in my opinion) than negative signs but, on the other hand, it includes 0. Still·another reader suggested a similar series for e itself; one that goes as follows: 2/11 + 4/31 + 6/51 + 8/7! + 10/91 ... The in­ version of the order of the natural numbers detracts from its orderli­ ness but it gives it a certain touch of charming grace, doesn't it? Oh, if only mathematics loved me as I love her! -IsAAc Asi.Mov SCIENCE 0

SQJJ-U-U-USH!

by Isaac Asimov

ANYONE WHO LIXES TO SLIP HIS imagination off its leash and let it roam freely is bound to find it huntins down extremes with the greatest abandon. At least, it is so in the case of my own imagination (which, at the best of times, is held back only by a rather badly ravelled piece of string). At various times, in these monthly essays, I have tried to track down the most instantaneous instant"', the most infinite infinity"'"', the hot­ test heat.,."', the coldest cold"""""" an~ se on. Now I am impelled to track down the densest density into its (as we shall see) rather glam­ orous lair.

To begin at the beginning, we can consider the substances that exist under ordinary conditions on Earth. As I said in TO TELL A CHEMIST (May 1965), the densest normal substance is the inert metal, osmium. The density of any substance is the mass of a given volume of that substance under fixed environmental conditions. At ordinary tempera­ tures and pressures a cubic centimeter of osmium has a mass of 22.5 grams. Its density is therefore 22.5 grams per cubic ceratimeter. To make use of common units, a cubic inch of osmium has a mass of 13 ounces. Its density, therefore, is alsa 13 ounces per cubic inch. This is quite dense. Imagine a brick-shaped ohject of 2 inches by 4 inches by 8 inches. If it were an ordinary brick, its mass would be in "ULTIMATE Sl'LIT OF THE SECOND, ARgust 1959 "" VARIETIES OF THE INFINITE, September 1959 ..,.,. THE HEIGHT OF UP, October 1959 """" THE ELEMENT OF PERFECTION, N011ember 1960 109 110 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the neighborhood of 4.5 pounds. If it were made of solid, pure osmium, it would weigh about 52 pounds (and be worth about $120,- 000, though that is neither here nor there). Suppose, then, that instead of measuring st1ll more extreme den­ sities in grams per cubic centimeter or ounces per cubic inch, we measure it in terms of "osmium units" (a term I have just invented myself and take full re6ponsibility for) and abbreviate that as "o.u.". All we need do is remember that 1 o.u. is equal to 13 ounces per cubic iach or 22.5 grams per cubic centimeters and we can easily make the conversion into common units or metric units if we wish. And the use of o.u. gives us the benefit of a bit of drama. Any material with a density of 2 o.u. is, we see at 011ce, twice as dense as the densest material we can ever encounter under ordinary condi­ tions.

How can we have a material that is denser than the densest sub­ stance that exists? Remember that I gave the density of osmium "at ordinary temperatures and pressures" as the "fixed environmental con­ ditions." Since density is the ratio of mass to volume, we can increase density by changing the environmental conditions in such a way as to raise the value of the mass, lower that of the volume, or both. By sett.htg an object into motion relative to ourselves, we can (Ein­ stein's theory teDs us) both in.crease the mass and decrease the volmne. If a one-inch cube of osmium sped past us at a velocity of 80,000 rriiles a second, we would find that its length in the direction of Ught would be reduced to 0.9 inches and its volume, therefore, to 0.9 cubic inches. Its mass would be increased to 14.3 ounces and its density would therefore become 1.22 o.u. This is not much of an increase in density considering the enormous task of setting a cubic inch of osmium into motion at half the ve­ locity of light. And at all ordinary velocities, dte change in mass and volume of any object is negligible. Let's forget velocity, therefore. If we deal with an object at rest, there is no way of increasing the mass, but there are two ways of decreasing the volume. We can lower the temperature or we can raise the pressure. As far as lowering the temperature is concerned, there is a stem limit set for us-that of absolute zero, which is only about 300 Cen­ tigrade degn:es below room temperature. Unfortunately, the decrease in volume of solids with drop in temperature is quite small and 300 degrees does little. From tlie figures available to me, I estimate that a mass of osmium taking up 1 cubic inch at room temperature would SQU-U·U·USH! 111 take up 0.994 cubic inches at absolute zero. The density would rise to 1.006 o.u., which is an increase not worth dealing with. That lea~ us with pressure. Phy5icists have learned to produce pressures in the range of hundreds of tons per square inch. This is enough to distort atomic structure and force atoms to occupy a smaller volume than normal. Some solids are more compressible than others. For instance, cesium, the most compressible solid available to experimenters, can be squashed down to a volume less than half normal. The most incompressible substance, diamond, can be reduced in volume only by a couple of percent. I have come across no record of osmium itself being put un­ der high pressure, but if we assume that its volume can be reduced by 10 percent, then its clensity would move up to 1.11 o.u.

Of course, we need not confine ourselves to man-made pressures only. The universe has examples of naturally-occurring pressures far higher than anything the laboratory can produce. The center of any sizable astronomic body is under extreme pressure due to its own gravitational field. The center of the Earth, for instance, must bear the gravitationally-induced weight of its own vast mass. One calculation places the pressure at the center of the Earth at as high as 4,000,000 atmospheres. Since the pressure of 1 atmosphere is 14.7 pounds per square inch, the pressure at the center of the Earth may be as high as 30,000 tons per square inch. The avaage density ef the Earth as a whole is 0.244 o.u. The den­ sity of the rocks on Earth's surface, however, averages at merely about 0.12 5 o. u. This light crust is balanced by a dense center-not sur­ prisingly, in view of the great central pressures. The density of the material at the very center of the Earth is estimated to be as high as 0.800 o.u. This is less dense than osmium, but the material at Earth's center is a nickel-iron alloy which, under ordinary conditions, has a density of merely 0.350 o.u. In other words, the material in the Earth's center, though much less compressible than cesium, has been squashed to some­ thing more than twice its normal density. If we assume that osmium is about as compressible as nickel-iron, then we might expect a sam­ ple of solid osmium to achieve a density of 2.0 o.u. if it were trans­ ported intact to the Earth's center.

It so happens that a nennal atom is mostly empty space. Roughly speaking, an atom has a diameter of about 1 o-s centimeters, and con- 112 FANTASY AND SCntNCE FICTION tains a nucleus (possessing nearly all the mass of the atom) with a diameter of about 10-12 centimeters. These nuclei, which are the great contributors to the density of any substance, are held apart at distances at least 10,000 times their own diameter by a thinly-spread-out organization of electrons (with very little mass) in the outer reaches of the atom. As pressure increases, the electrons give until finally, their organiza­ tion breaks down altogether. This breakdown of electron organization has been calculated as taking place when pressures of 750,000 tons per square inch are reached. This is a pressure 2 5 times as great as that at the center of the Earth. The pressure at the center of a planet like Jupiter, over 300 times as massive as the Earth, must approach this figure so that it is sometimes said that Jupiter is almost the largest · chunk of normal matter that can exist. Once the electron organization collapses through pressure, then neighboring nuclei can approach each other much more closely. A given mass is then confined in a much smaller volume and the density shoots up tremendously. Matter made up of atoms in which the elec­ tron organization has broken down is referred to as "degenerate mat- ter." , It would appear that an object must have a mass about ten times that of Jupiter before it reaches central temperatures great enough to ignite thermonuclear reactions and thus becomes a star. A body this large would surely have central pressures great enough to break down the electron organization of atoms. We can suppose, therefore, that any star must have a degenerate core. Consider the Sun, for instance. It is made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, which are the least dense of all the ordinary forms of matter. Solid hydrogen has a density of about 0.03 o.u, while solid helium has a density of about 0.06 o.u. These solids are solids only at extremely low temperatures, how­ ever. At ordinary temperatures and pressures, they are gases, with den­ sities of about 0.000004 and 0.000008 o.u. respectively. At the tem­ perature of the Sun's surface (but at ordinary pressure) the densities would be 0.0000002 and 0.0000004 o.u.; and at the temperature of the Sun's center (hut still at ordinary pressure) it would be about 0.0000000001 and 0.0000000002 o.u. In actual fact, the average density of the Sun is 0.063 o.u. This is not a high density by onHnary standards, being only 1.4 times that of water, but considering the constitution and temperature of the Sun, it is tremendously high; millions of times as high as it "ought" to be. SQU-U-U-USH! 113 The answer is to be feund in the vast pressures that compress the un­ believably hot hydrogen and bellum to the point where the electron organi:Jation breaks down. It is estimated that at the center of the Sun, the temperature is about 15,000,000° K., and the density is just about 4 o.u. This cen­ tral core of the Sun (consisting almost entirely of helium) is the densest material that exists in the Solar system.

There is, however, a vast Universe outside the Solar system. There are stars that consist almost entirely of degenerate matter and that have densities which, even on the average, are considerably higher than the maximum density of the Sun's center. Because they are small, and yet white hot, they are called "white dwarfs." Only about 100 white dwarfs are known altogether. This small num­ ber is delusive. White dwarfs are so low in total luminosity that t:key must be quite close to our Solar system to be seen at all. From the number that do exist in our own steHar neighborhood, however, it can be estimated that as many as 3 percent of all stars are white dwarfs which would mean 4,000,000,000 of them in our own Galaxy alone. This is not surprising since the white dwarf may well be a ter­ minal stage in the evolution of almost all stars. The brighter the star, tb.e sooner it reaches that terminal. In another five billion years, per­ haps, all stars existing today that are brighter than the Sun will have become white dwarfs. (That does not necessarily mean that no bright stars will be left because many more will have come into existence in the meantime.) The first white dwarf to be discovered, and the best known, is Sirius B, the companion of the bright star, Sirius. It has a mass about eqaal to that of our Sun, but a diametel' of about 30,000 miles, so that it is about the size of the planet, Uranus. Its average density is about 1,500 o.u. A cubic inch of Sirius B would have a mass of 0.6 tons. Instead of having merely a degenerate core, as the Sun does, Sirius B is nearly all degenerate, with only a thin outer shell, a few hundred miles thick, of ordinary matter. Sirius B is, however, rather a mild case of a white dwarf. In gen­ eral, white dwarfs are more tightly packed and denser than Sirius B. One estimate places the average deasity of an average white dwarf at aiJout 15,000 o.u., or ten tbnes that of Sirius B. A cubic inch of average white dwarf material would then have a mass of 6 tons. The smallest white dwarf yet discovered ("Luyton's star", if we wish to use the name of the discoverer) is only 1700 miles in diameter- 114 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION less than that of our Moon. It has a volume only 1I 1 00 that of the Earth, yet it has an estimated mass equal to at least half that of our Sun. Its density would then be about 4,000,000 o.u. and a cubic inch of its material would have a mass of about 1600 tons. We are dealing here with large densities indeed, yet we are no­ where near the ultimate squ-u-u-ush. Suppose we consider Luyton's star in more detail. If it has a mass equal to half that of the Sun, then its mass must be just about 1030 kilograms. The mass of a nucleon (that is, a proton or a neutron) is about 1.67 x 10·27 kilograms, so that Luyton's star must contain about 6 x 1058 nucleons. The diameter of Luyton's star is 1700 miles or 2.74 x 108 centi­ meters. The volume of Luyton's star, therefore, comes to 1.08 x 10211 cubic centimeters. If we divide 1.08 x 10211 (the volume of the star) by 6 x 1()18 (the number of its nucleons) we find that each nucleon has, on the average, a space of 1.8 x 1 0"32 cubic centimeters in which to knock about. This is a tiny space if you look upon it as a hundred-millionth the volume taken up by an ordinary atom here on Earth. Nevertheless, it is about a hundred million times as voluminous. as the actual volume of the individual nucleon itself. In other words, even Luyton's star is ahnost entirely empty space! To indicate how empty it is, we can say that at any given instant, neighboring nucleons in Luyton's star will be separated by distances of about 500 times their own diameter. If we built a structure of one-inch cobes and had each cube placed 42 feet from its neighbor, we would rightly consider our structure to be a very loose one indeed and to consist mostly of empty space. What keeps a white dwarf from collapsing further than it does? Well, it doesn't consist of nucleons only, but of electrons as well. The electrons are no longer organized as in ordinary atoms but exist as a kind of dense "electron gas." The nucleons could be squashed together and be held together by the strong nuclear force (see BEHIND THE TEACHER'S BACK, August 196 5) but electrons can only repel each other and the closer they are forced together the more strongly they repel each other. There is then a balance between two opposing forces. There is gravitation (and nuclear force) tending to collapse a white dwarf and a powerful electron repulsion tending to expand it. An equilibrium is reached at a point depending a great deal on the total mass of the SQU-u-u-usnl 115 star. All things being equal the greater the mass of a white dwarf, the greater the gravitational force compressing it and the smaller it is. A crucial point is reached at a mass equal to 1.44 times that of the Sun. (This was first pointed out by the Indian-American astrono-­ mer, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and is therefore called "Chan· drasekhar's limit.") Above that mass, the gravitational force would overcome the greatest possible electron repulsion and a white dwarf as we know it could not exist. As early as 1934, the Swiss-American astronomer, Fritz Zwicky, pointed out what might happen if Chandrasekhar's limit were exceeded. Electrons forced against protons (the two are present in equal quan­ tities) would form neutrons. These, added to the neutrons already present, would build up a structure consisting of virtually nothing but neutrons. We would have a "neutron star." Such a neutron star, unsupported by electron gas, would collapse until all empty space was gone. Much of the star may be blown away in the supernova explosion but in the end a mass the size of the Sun might be packed into a sphere with a diameter of no more than 10 miles. The density of such a neutron star would equal about 50,000,000,· 000,000 o.u. It would be about 12,500,000 times as dense as Luyton's star, and a cubic inch of the "neutronium" from a neutron star would have a mass of 20,000,000,000 tons. Not bad! Surrounding the 10-mile-thick neutronium core of such a neutron star there would be (according to some calculations) a shell about half a mile thick made up of ordinary white-dwarf matter, and sur­ rounding that an outermost shell of ordinary matter, about 12 feet thick! Do such neutron stars actually exist? It is not certain. One estimate I have seen suggests that so far in the lifetime of our Galaxy 100,000,000 neutron stars have formed. If that is so, there is an even chance that one such star is within 100 light-years of us. However, if an object ten miles across were merely to radiate light it could not be seen unless it were very close indeed-say within the Solar system. It could radiate more than light, though. It has been calculated that when a neutron star is first formed, the neutronium core is at a tem­ perature of 5,000,000,000° K and that it takes a thousand years for it to cool to 500,000,000° K. In all this time, the thin layer of ordi­ nary matter around the star has an outer surface that remains at 10,000,000° K. and radiates x-rays. 116 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION This, now, is a different situation. X-rays are much more energetic than light and can be much more easily detected in feeble doses. Fer the first thousand years of its existence, then, a neutron star can be detected. After that its radiation fades into the soft x-rays and hard ultra-violet and is lost. Assuming that a neutron star forms each cen­ tury, on the average, there may be as many as 10 neutron stars still in their x-ray infancy and still detectable as "x-ray stars." Actually, a rocket launched on April 29, 1963, did detect two x-ray sources in the sky-one from the Crab Nebula and one, eight times as intense, from a spot in the constellation of Scorpios. The Crab Nebula is considered to be the remnant of a super-nova, the light of the explosion of which reached us nearly a thousand years &iQ. Could a neutron star be lurking there? Well, the Moon occasionally occults the Crab Nebula. If a neu­ tron really exists there, the Moon should move across it in a split­ second and the x-rays should be cut oif all at once. If the x-rays originate in a source other than a neutron star, that source may be wide indeed and the Moon would cut across it-and cut off the x-rays -only gradually. On July 7, 1964, the Moon crossed the Crab Nebula and a rocket was sent up to take measurements (the x-rays won't penetrate the at­ mosphere and must be detected in space). Alas, the x-rays cut off gradually. The x-ray source is about a light-year across and is ntt neu­ tron star. (What is it instead? Nohody knows.) What about the Scorpius x-ray star? What about others that have recently been detected? Neutron stars? It looks bad. In early 19'5 physicists at C. I. T. recalculated the cooling rate of a neutrino star, taking into account the effect of neutrino loss (see HOT STUFF, July 1962). They decided it would cool off so rapidly that it would radiate x-rays for only a matter of weeks. The chance that even a single neu­ tron star was formed in the Galaxy with radiation reaching us in the last couple of weeks is virtually nil.

Let's, however, play around with neutron stars anyway. Whether they actually exist or not, speculation remains legal-and fun. What about its surface gravity, for instance? We can consider four bodies: the Earth, the Sun, Sirius B, and a neutron star of the type we've just discussed. If we set the surface KI"avity of the Earth at 1, then the surface gravity of the three other bodies can be easily calcu· Iated: SQU-u-u-usul 117 surface gravity Earth 1 Sun 28 Sirius B 24,000 Neutron star 210,000,000,000 In a previous article (HARMONY IN HEAVEN, February 1965) I calculated that a planet moving around the Sun while skimming its surface (a "surface planet") would, if atmospheric resistance were neglected, complete its circuit in 2. 73 hours and have an orbital ve­ locity of 2 71 miles per second. We can use the same sort of calculation to work out the properties of a surface planet for Sirius B and for a neutron star. For Sirius B, a planet skimming its surface would complete the circuit of the star in exactly 65 seconds and would have to -travel at a velocity of 1,450 miles per second. As for the neutron star, a planet skimming its surface would complete a circuit in 1/2500 of a second and would have to travel at a rate of 78,500 miles per second. If a surface planet were to move at a velocity equal to 1.414 times its velocity in a circular orbit, it would escape altogether from the grip of its star. We can therefore calculate the escape velocity from the surface of our four representative bodies, giving that escape ve­ locity both in miles per second and as a fraction of the velocity of light. escape velocity fraction of light miles/ second 11elocity Earth 7 0.000038 Sun 380 0.002 Sirius B 2,000 0.011 Neutron star 110,000 0.59

In order for any object, then, to get away from the surface of a neutron star it must be travelling at a velocity equal to about 3/5 that of the velocity of light. The next question is a natural one. What kind of an object would one have to have for the escape velocity from its surface to equal the speed of light? Well, even pure neutronium would be insufficient and since ] consider that the ultimate squ-u-u-ush, it seems to me that nothing could bring about such a situation. But, again, let's pretend. Suppose we can somehow find a body so sternly compressed that even the neutrons of which it is composed 118 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION are squashed together, forcing the mass oE the Sun into a ball 4 miles across. The density of such a body would be about 310,000,000,008,000 o.u., some 6.25 times that of an ordinary neutron star, and a cubic inch of its substance would have a mass of 125,000,000,000 tons. Its surface gravity would be 1,300,000,000,000 times that oE the Earth and, again, 6.25 times that of an ordinary neutron star. A surface planet of such a "super-neutron star" would make its cir­ cuit at a velocity of 131,000 miles a second and complete that circuit in 1/10,000 of a second. The escape velocity from the surface of such a body would be equal to the velocity of light. Nothing could escape from the surface of such a super-neutron star. Light photons, neutrinos, gravitons (which carry the gravitational force) all travel at only the speed of light and could not escape. A supemeutron star could not, therefore, affect the rest of the Uni­ verse in any way. It could give no sign of its existence; neither radia­ tional nor gravitational. It could not lose heat, it could not explode, it could do nothing but remain in perfect stasis. If we accept Einstein's view of gravitation as representing a geo­ metrical shape of space; so that the fabric of space behaves as though it were curved in the presence of matter, and the more sharply curved the greater the concentration of matter; then a super-neutron sur is one in which space has curved itself into a complete sphere. The super-neutron star has 8een pinched off into a tiny Universe all its own, forever closed and self-sufficient. For any given mass, the radius of the sphere into which it must be compressed f-or this to happen is called "Schwarzchild radius" after K. Schwarzchilcl, a physicist who worried about this sort of thing back in 1916, ctnly a year after Einstein's view of gravitation was published. Naturally, we could never detect a super-neutron star even if it ex­ isted, no matter how close it was. Such a super-neutron star ought, perhaps, to be considered as not part of our Universe and therefore as not located anywhere at all. But even if we could imagine such a star located within the Earth or in a spot partly taken up by our own body, it would mean nothing. The Earth and we ourselves would flow around the object and there would be no way in which we could measure the distortion that would result-and therefore there would be no distortien. Which should, in these wretched days of continual crises and dan­ ger, be a great relief to us all. If you started this issue at the beginning, you have already en­ countered an unusual sort of dog in Roger Zelazny's novel-a quarter-ton animal with a playful passion for lopping off the heads of his master's enemies. Dog lovers may or may not be happy to know that a canine plays a substantial part in the delightful tale below, in which England's John Christopher lifts the veil to give us a glimpse into the world of the homosexual dog. (And you still wonder why they're not naming 'em Rover anymore?)

A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS

by John Christopher

IN THE ANIMAL CREATION, AS IN was a child of her one and only the human, there are spheres litter. The intention was to get rid whose existence remain unsus­ of all the pups to suitable homes, pected until chance lifts a comer and this was, in fact, achieved. of the veil. One of these, as far as Shlobber, however, having JVOVed I was concerned, was the world over-boisterous for one of the chil· of the homosexual dog. I only be­ dren in the billet we found him, came aware of it when Shlobber was brought back with apologies. came into my life. Only as a transient, we thought, Shlobber, of course, was a clas­ but somehow he stayed. Mother sic text-book case for deviation. went away to be spayed, returned Absentee father (admittedly a with joy to find her golden-haired norm amongst dogs) and most de­ son still on the scene, and cidedly possessive and domineer­ launched into that career of ag· ing mother. She was black-and­ gressive, chivvying affection white, terrier-type, with admix­ which determined and character· ture of collie and spaniel and ized their relationship. How- after more elusive extras, and Shlobber hour, day after day, she snapped 119 120 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and barked at him, and roughly He remained devoted to Mother bowled him over. And he, for his when he was at home, but from part, was, somewhat resentfully, that point, increasingly, he took devoted to her. to making excursions on his own. His perversity emerged later, A oouple of times I saw him on the and was first apparent when the beach with the same gang. They bitch further up the lane came in were at a distance, and I preferred season. She was, to human view, to leave it that way. I did not eare an ugly mustard-coloured ill­ tct know him when he was in that kempt creature, but as far as dogs particular company, and I had were concerned clearly of sur­ the idea he felt the same way. passing attraction. They came, it There was no doubt that they seemed, from the remotest corners were, in the specifically pejorative of the island, stampeding through sense, a queer lot. our garden on the way. Shlobber, The further, and disturbing, in­ larger at eighteen months than his sight came one day in early sum­ mother, romped with her on the mer, when I has gone to the beach lawn, indifferent to all this. So I to think out an awkward problem was not particularly surprised, a in a story I was writing. My mind few weeks later, when I found him often works better on the horizon­ out on his own and making over­ tal, and so I lay on the sand and tures to a male Boxer. bent my mental energies to the After that the pattern set in task. But the characters who were firmly, lat1t I still thought of him giving trouble were both impossi­ as exceptional. Tbis remained the ble and dull and, lulled by the sun case until one day on the beach and the sporific surf of transistor when he fell in with a roving pack radios, I fell asleep. When I of other dogs. There was a nervous­ awoke, it was te the familiar bark loeking Labrador-cross, a thin of a dog-of Shlobber, in fact. white creature with a funny head Opening my eyes, I saw that he and popping eyes, a paunchy a:ad the gang were not more than Spaniel, and a shaggy grey-brown twenty yards away. I was about to beast at whose origins I could not close them .n, in distaste, be2in to guess. Shlohber recog­ when something about the watklle nized these as soul-mates right of the paunchy Spaniel caught my away, and beunded off with them att61ttion. I looked at him more along the sands. I whistled him closr'ly, and thought of Birkinshaw. back, and he came sklwly and re­ As often happens, the doz:mee luctantly. In the af'terno•a he c:ls­ of the recognition sparked off oth­ appearea, ami did not return until ers. The thin \vlaite one-surely late at night. Andrew Stenner? The eyes, I saw A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS 121 now, were unmistakeable. And magazine, but all that trivia had the shaggy grey-brown thing with now been abandoned. I proposed legs too short for his body. Peter to write the definitive contempo­ Parsons! The Labrador-cross had rary novel, which would be scath­ the massive yet effeminate build ing and witty, yet profound and that I remembered in James de all-embracing. I felt that my ex­ Percy. Then who, I wondered, perience and intuitive under­ was Shlobber? And, for that mat­ standing went about ninety per ter, where? cent of the way towards fitting me Still half asleep, I glanced for this. The remaining ten per along the beach. He was there, all cent needed to be acquired. The right, and so was a dog I had Buckingham, I thought, famed never seen before. A sort of whip­ throughout the world as a Mecca pet, spotted brown and white. He for literary men, was the best place was smaller and frailer than to go to get started on it. Shlobber, but he was snapping at I looked old for my years, and his heels with vicious and right­ had been brought up in an atmos­ eous anger. The anger of the be­ phere where drinks and restaurants trayed, not only in friendship but were taken for granted. It took in art. Jonathan Blumstein, to some nerve, all the same, to walk the life, or rather, I thought haz­ through those wreaths of cigar ily, to the death. smoke, to take my place at one of My mind went back to the old the marble-topped tables on which days, to Fred Astaire and Ginger Whistler had been wont to sketch, Rogers, to Munich, to Hutton's to order a Pernod from a gnarled triple century at the Oval, to a and ancient waiter who had very girl called Gwen. Above all, to the likely brought champagne to Os­ gold and marble decor of the car Wilde. Having got so far, my Buckingham. I knew who Shlob­ reserves were exhausted. I sat and berwas. clutched my glass and stared fro­ zenly about me. Everyone seemed In 1938 I had an indulgent old and rich and distinguished. father, a habit of getting my own And accompanied; only I sat way, and high ambitions, particu­ alone. larly in relation to the arts. I was Aware of my social failings, I a day-boy at a well-known school took refuge in my art. I carried a in London and had decided that, small leather-bound notebook in instead of going up to Oxford in which to jot down observations, the autumn, I would become a descriptions, phrases which might writer. At an earlier stage I had otherwise be lost; and I brought written a few things for the school this out and began, defensively, to 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FIC1liON write in it. My self-impgrtance Tiley were all there, that first was retitored. I sipped my Pentod night. Birkimhaw, ParsOIM, de and launched imo a brief but Percy, Blumstein and Redeheacl. scandalous imaginary biography Peter Parsons looking unkempt, of the fat woman with diamonds his hair long and wild, his gue aD over her on the other side of curiously focussed fln nothing, or the room. Bngrosseti in this, I only on tile memory of one of those looked up when a figure came be­ cinema screens at which he speBt tween me and the light. I saw a so much time gazing, preparing thin man, pop-eyed, with a pale his authoritative work on the Film. faoe but a warm smile. He nod­ James de Percy, a stone eng.aver ded benignly. to be spoken of with Gill, his body "A chiel amang us, takin' huge, hands suqxisingly delicate. notes." Jonathan Blumstein, small and I recognized him, not from his nervous, scrawny-necked belrlnd face but from the Jilting accent of his bow tie, talking, talking, talk­ the Highlands. Andrew Stenner ing. And David Redehead, who was a public personality in those had been blonde and handsome pre-television days, a giant of ra­ and now had thinning hair and a dio. Additionally, a bon vivant look of failure, listening to all and skilled water-colourist. that Jonathan said. ''Ye're a writer, I gaess," he Tongue-tied, I sat even quieter said. "Come over and meet Birkin­ than he did. Under Birkinshew's shaw. He needs to be reminded of frowning stare I chank his cham­ things-death and the younger pagM-his latest novel was both gene11ation." Literary Guild and Book Society He was a man who had many Choice, and we were celebrating impulses and frequently acted on the fact-and to myself revelled them. In this case the motivation in the c&nsciousness of being in was partly amiable, partly mali­ the company of artistic and distin­ cious. He was perceptive, and guished men. In the morning there had seen, I think, my isolation would be Latin Verse, which I had aDd shyness, and pitied it. In ad­ not prepared. But one lived for the dition, Birkinshaw, then at the moment, and in this moment one height of his fame as a novelist, savoured Life. had a deeply rooted fear and envy of young writers, which it amused More than twenty years later, Stenner to exploit. He waved my sitting looking out to sea from an mild demurrant aside, took my island in the Channel, I thought arm firmly, and led me to join the of those days. By the end of the others. evening, Birkinshaw had gleaned A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS 123 that I was raw and rospaetful, un­ rumoured of Birkinshaw aDd published and unlikely to be pu'b- Blu~R~Hein was true of them aD: 1lshed for some time to come. He they belonged to that freemasonry thawed towards me and when, a w.hich comes after the Remm few days later, I ventured back to Catholics and neck and neck with the Buckingham, it was he who Standard Oi1. &pecting to \Je called me over. In the mmtths that wooed, I had my maidenly refus­ fGilowad I became, if not an ac­ als ready. But nothing of the sort cepted member of the group, at happened. At the time I 841Ve creEl­ leaet a kind of mascot, tolerated, it to my own inner purity. Later, eacouraged, oocasionally allowed thouglt, I guessed the real reason. to buy a drink. Meeting Peter Par­ The qualities which, in their own SOilS at Bil'kinshaw's funeral, one sex, attracted them were beauty dripping February day towards and inte11igence. Looking back I the end of the war, I made some sadly understood that I h~Hi failed remack about this, and he took his to qualify in either respect. mind off composing artistic cine­ Whatever had been the case in matic frames of the ceremony long the past, there was, in fact, only enough to toss me an explanation. one sexual link operating within "The same-as always." He the group. Blumstein and Rede­ spoke in clipped, obltque phrases. head had been living together for "You might have been-some­ a decade and a half in Blumstcin's thing-some ~ay. To write about house in Cheyne Walk and thek them. Boswell." He gurgled with relationship had settled into some­ 'bitter laughter. "To five moth-eat­ thing resembling a long estab­ en Johnsons." lished and moderately successful Presumably he excluded the marriage. Blumstein had wealth si:Jith. The gceat work had never and some talent; he had published been oompleted, and the last time three volumes of poetry which, al­ I had seen his name it had been though commercially uJtSuccess­ oa the cover of a badly printed ful, had ~ained him a reputation. booklet with a lot of fuzzy stills, Redehead came from a pGM fam­ many of them dealing with the fe­ ily and all he had to his credit were male nude. A sad declension. a score or so of little pieces pub­ So much for my being accept­ lished in little magazines. :Belles ed. The reverse of the coin paz­ Iettres at their most precious. zl81il me a little, too. Their con­ There had been one slim valume versation, apart from being intelli­ of them published, plainly at gent, was untrammelled, and it Blumstein's expense. dtd not take many evenings for me But fifteen years earlier, when te · realize that what I had heard they met, Redehead had had some- 124 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION thing else: physical beauty. It was shaw had gone on, and on, and this quality in him to which Blum­ on. He was talking about Time, stein, an ugly little man, had been which he gave the impression of devoted. And it did not last-by having discovered even before his early thirties, Redehead was Jack Priestley. It was at once the growing coarse and fat, and be­ greatest illusion and the final real­ ginning to lose his curly golden ity. What had been, would be. All hair. The end, according to the that we might be and love and suf­ cynics, was in sight. Blumstein fer, we had been and Joved and would ease him out and install suffered in the past. We had a younger, handsomer companion. walked the earth, and would walk It did not happen. Blumstein, it again. perhaps, was less deferential, more "Kindred spirits find each oth­ condescending, than he had been; er," he said. "We have sat at wine but he stayed true to his dilapi­ together under blue Attic skies, dated sweetheart, and to the mem­ celebrating the news from Mara­ ory of his radiance. And Rede­ thon. One day, perhaps, we shall head, for his part, was both grate­ sit on the moon, bathed in silver ful and devoted. In public, no-one earthlight, drinking Martian could remember seeing them apart. champagne." As if the past were not rampant My JZOrge, disturbed already by enough already, the nearest tran­ the cruelty of Alice, rose. Not this sistor radio began playing "The spirit, I thought, and got up rude­ Night is Young1'; with electrified ly while Birkinshaw was still roll­ strings and a coal-heaver's voice, ing on, and left. but recognizable. The dogs were in full pelt northwards along the It was a temporary revulsion, beach, with the pudgy Spaniel, provoked by my own heterosexual Birkinshaw, waddling ten yards smart, and but for a couple of behind the rest. The song was things I would probably have gone Alice, who came after Gwen and back the next week. The things more effectively. And Birkinshaw were my sense of embarrassment • . . That evening when I had over my abrupt and discourteous gone late to the Buckingham, after departure and, more important, a an hour and a half of waiting for softening on the part of Alice. The Alice to tum up for a date, and whole of that winter I was her joy­ had found him deep in one of his ful and unhappy slave, with no more pompous perorations. Hurt time or energy to devote either to and angry and cynical, I had tak­ the Buckingham or literature. My en my seat, and Blums.ein had reading was confined, feverishly, waved for the waiter, and Birkin- to scanning the lists for social A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS 125 events that would suit her vora­ kfnshaw was wheezing more, that cious but fickle taste. I missed the Pai'Solls .was developing a nervous announcement of Bllllllstein's twitch, and that Redehead, in the death. I only accidentally saw the flush of wealth and bereavement, notice of his will when my eye, was looking ten times better and intent on the theatre advertise­ happier aud more confident. I ments in The Star, semehow have seen the change in many slipped to the facing page. He had willows since, but that was the &rst left a very tidy estate-upwards of time. I thought of Alice as a wid­ fifty thousand after duty. There ow, her Commander having gone were some minor bequests, to serv­ llewn with his ship, of her delicate ants and so on. These apart, every­ skin and fair silky hair against thing was left to his old friend and black satin, and was undone. companion, David Redehead. Bored, and stinging with jealeusy With vouthful callousness, I men­ aad desire, I malie brief apologies tally wished him well in his wid­ anclleft. owhood, and returned to the more It was ovu a year before I made important matter of finding a show my next visit, and then in uni­ to which I could persuade Alice to foPm. I had been commissioned in let me take her. the Royal Artillery in Aprll, and Alice's fancy turned with the in June was posted to llle com­ spring, and this time decisively. mand of an anti-aircraft battery She met a Commander R.N. and in, of aD places, Hyde Park. I dici married him within a month. I not ca!'e much fer what seemed to think the speed of this, after her me the hysteric and self-consoio•s• prelonged dabbling with me, was ly heroic attitude of Lond•n in the the biggest blow to my vanity. Cer­ summer of Dunlcirk, and I headed tainly I took it badly. In my mis­ for the Buckingham as a :sepc~llitory ery I went back to the Bucking­ of more permanent values. I feund ham, and feund them, except fer them an there and, as on that very the dead Blumstein, in their ac­ first occasion, celebrating the suc­ customed places. They received oe&s of a book. Not Birkenshaw's, me with courtesy and amiability though, but Redehead's. but I felt there was constraint­ It had been published two days the constraillt. perhaps, with earlier, on a Monday, and, it wbich ShlaBhec's pack might have seemed, ecsta1ically reviewed the greeted a dog wh9 had left them to J'l'fVious day in the two quality foDew a &itcJ. on heat. I had made SHndays. (I had mi!llled them, my difference, my exclusion from sleeping thro11gh the tlay in the the companf of kindred spirits, in­ aftermath of two night eKttcises delicately plain. I noted that Bir- and a Ministerial inspection in 126 FANTASY AND SCIBNCI FICTION between.) And these reviews had Stenner died of a coronary, a few been effective as well as laudatory. minutes after ending an uplifting Redehead had lunched with his Post-Script to the nine o'clock publisher that day at the Ivy and News. In Italy, three years later, I been told that sales were, for a heard of· the death of Redehead, book of this kind, superb. Belles killed when a bomb destroyed the letters again, but successful belles elegant Hampstead Rat to which, lettres, belles lettres to which the after selling the Chelsea house, he cognoscenti took off their collec­ had removed. Finally, back in tive hat. Redehead was Rushed London for the last ghastly winter with his triumph, but making an of the war, there was Birkinshaw's endearing effort to be modest about death. I asked Parsons about de it. We drank '33 Kmg, toasting Percy, the only one of the group his success with bibulous and, in not accounted for. M wltiple scle­ my case at least, genuinely de­ rosis, he told me, and not long to ligh&ed good will. Even at that go. He went himself two years la­ early age I had sufficient premoni­ ter, I think of frustration. tion of the future to find the Cin­ I have never been in the Buck­ derella story of success aher long ingham since. years of failure one of my very f~t­ vorite themes. I thought of all this on my way A couple of days later I bought back from the beach, and as I did the book, and on our next quiet so the initial fantasy seemed more night read it. It was, one might and more ridiculous. By the time say, a forerunner of Cyril Con­ Shlobber returned, an hour later, nolly's ''Tbe Unquiet Grave•, a se­ I had it aD disposed of as hallu­ ries of loosely linked but rou~hly cination, an effect of sleep and continuoas pieces on Life, on the sun. But I noticed that he was Human Condition, studded with back earlier than usual and that, maxims and epigrams and snatch­ instead of belting ravenously into es of poetry. Like Connollv's bored his supper as was his wont foHow­ and greedy despair at the war's ing an afternoon with the boys, he end, this book, restless for chanj!e, turned away from it. He had a optimistic in the face of the nervous and harrassed look, as threatening gods, J!:allantly ~. though he expected the whippet to matched and re-echoed its time. come yapplng up behind him at Redehead, I saw, reallv had done any moment. When I went to read, iL He was, at long last, alion. he followed me. Seeking protec­ I saw them occasionallv there­ tion? after, but time and mortality were Putting down the book, I said: breaking up the charmed circle. "Redehead." His ears pricked~ A FEW KINDRED SPIRITS 127 and slowly went down again. He eyes, they saw it for what it was. stared miserably at my shoe. "I The most it can hope to achieve is know it all," I told him. "Not only a footnote in literary history, and who you are, but what happened. a derisive one at that. Blumstein We should have guessed, of is still remembered as a good mi~ course, but it was the belles lettres nor poet. Redehead goes down to thing that fooled us. Blumstein posterity as the man who wrote the taking over even the field of your highbrow equivalent to "We're own pitiful activity. Did you find Going to Hang Out our Washing out about it before he died? Or on the Siegfried Line." did you discover the manuscript Shlobber went out-miserably, among his effects? How did he die, I thought, but he often looked mis­ Redehead?" erable. He was missing for a day The head came up briefly, and then 1 was telephoned by the brown eyes looked into my face Animal Shelter. He had been from above the long muzzle, and brought in dead, after being run then dropped. A very ordinary over by a car that failed to stop. 1 doggy action, one might say. For­ asked them if they would bury tunately 1 had the house to my­ him, and they agreed. self. Had he run under the wheels "The point is that you found it of the car deliberately, 1 wen­ and published it under your own dered, in despaic? Or been chiv­ name. That would have counted vied under them by the vengeful to Blumstein far more than a small whippet-Blumstein? Suicide, or thing like being murdered. You murder? Or accident? He had, aft­ stole his great work, Redehead. er all, about as much road sense as And now that he's found you a rhinoceros. again, he is going to make you pay The years went by, a little fas­ for it." ter all the time, and Shlobber and Shlobber got up and started to my theories about him were leave the room. He was a restless pushed back into the unvisited de­ beast, not long happy in one spot, partments of my mind and there and normally I would have collected dust. 1 have children thought this characteristic. But I growing up, and the past is less followed him to the kitchen, and interesting just now than the pres­ stood over him. ent. :But recently one of my daugh­ "The biggest joke," 1 said, "is ters decided she wanted another that it wasn't a good book after all. budgerigar, and 1 went with her It was a silly pretentious footling to the Bird Farm to buy it. book, and when people had got the There were several gigantic out­ we-stood-alone stars out of their door aviaries, and the proprietor 128 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION had a net on the end of a long I looked at the mauve bird. A stick, to catch the bird she chose. kind of bulkiness to the set of the He knew his budgerigars well, and shoulders. De Percy? There were was generous and helpful with ad­ a group of them together up there vice. When she settled on a mauve in the comer of the aviary, amic­ bird, he said: ably perched on a far-out twig of "Just as you like, young lady. a barkless tree. A thin white one. But that's a cock." Stenner? An emerald bird with a She nodded. "I know-from tatty ungroomed look, and a fat the wattle." portentous creature in sage-green. "A hen's best, for a bird by it­ Parsons? And Birkinshaw? self." I looked for the two that were "But it's not to be by itself. I've missing, but could not see them. already got a hen. I want to breed Then there was a Bash of colour from them." across the aviary, a screeching of 'Well," he said, "I wouldn't flight and pursuit-a small grey­ pick that one. You go up along to blue pelting after a yellow with a the next cage. There's some good bald patch on top. 'uns there." "That's another thing," the pro­ When she had left he said: prietor said. "The way one bird "You know, it's a funny thing, can take against another, for no you get some cocks that are useless reason you can see. Those two, for for breeding. Not interested in instance. That blue one leads the hens at all. Spend their time with yellow bird a dog's life." other cock birds." He grinned, shaking his head. "Queer, you At least they look prettier than might say." they did.

------Mercury Press, Inc., 347 East 53 Street, New York, N. Y. 10022 F-11 Send me The Magazine of FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. I enclote 0 $5.00 for one year 0 $9.00 for two years. 0 $12.50 for three years.

Name ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• PI- prtat Addreu ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• City • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • State • • • • . • • • . . • • • • • • Zip # ...... ************************* MARKET PLACE ~ I I *''''***************11-.,,.

19 mint volume files. 6 titles. Each $1.50. Lot BOOKS-MAGAZINES $25. Postcard to Zupkas, 12 Shaw Street, Utica, N.Y. SCARCE BOOKS LOCATED! $4. Minimum. Ash· land, P. 0. Box 424, New Paltz, New York 12561. COMIC BOOKS, 1934-1949. Prince Valiant pages. Big Little Books. Radio serial tapes and preml• ums. Describe. Seuling, 2883 W. 12, Brooklyn. SF Bargains. List free. Werewolf Baobhop. N.Y. 11224. Verona 4G, Pa.

Why buy books? Send 10¢ for information and BOOKPLATES catalog too Science Fiction Circulating Library, P. 0. Box 1308, So. San Gabriel, Calif. FREE CATALOGUE-Many beautiful designs. Special designing tao. Address BOOKPLATES, locate any bookl Caribbean Magic Bookhunten. Yellow Springs 4, Ohio. Box 15070-C, Orlando, Fla. HYPNOTISM FREE BOOK "990 Successful, Little-Known Busi· neeses." Work Hamel Plymouth-8FS, Brooklyn 18, New York. Free Illustrated, Hypnotism Catalogue. Write Powers, 8721 Suset, Hollywood, California 90069.

Inventory Clearance. Send $1. for seven mystery pocket books-Mercury Mysteries, Bestseller FREE Hypnotism, Self-Hypnosis, Sleep learning Mysteries, Jonathan Press Mysteries-in good can· Catalog! Drawer G.COO, Ruidoso, New Mexico dltion. Maximum order, 21 books for $3. Send 88345. order ond remittance to: Mercury Press, Box 271, Rockville Centre, N. Y. 11571, LEARN WHILE ASLEEP, Hypnotize with your recorder, phonograph. Astonoshing details, sen­ DIANETICSo THE ORIGINAL THESIS by L Ron sational catalog free. Sleep-learning Research Hubbard. This small 101 page hard-cover book Association, Box 24-FS, Olympia, Washington. is the original work by L Ron Hubbard in his successful search for the answers to why Man is like he is, culminating In Scientology (Applied Quit smoking subconsciously-conditioning record Philosophy), a science of the mind, based on $5.95. Fletch, 2407 Catherine, Dallas, Texas Scientific truths, for Mankind today. The original 75211. Thesis contains the primary axioms, detailed descriptions of Engrams and how they impose their forces to aberrate individuals. Only $3, Distribution Center, Inc., Dept. FSF, Box 242. PERSONAL Sliver Spring, Maryland, 20907. STRANGE UNIQUE Items catalog 10¢. Black Booklo.,.rs, seekers-only 25~. Ivory_ Tower Magic Shop, D-. It, Box 5664, Minneopolla, Journal, -444-FS, Fort Lee, New Jersey 07024.. Minnesota 55417.

Do you llcnre sometlllng to advertise to II readenP loolu, magazines, typewriters, telescopes, computers, space-drives, or misc. Use tile f&Sf Market Place at tllese low, low rates: $3.00 for minimum of ten (JOJ words, plus 3011 for eacll addltlo-1 word. Send copy and remittance to: Aclv. Dept., fantasy and Science fiction, 347 last 53 Street, New Yorlr. H. Yo 10022 129 PERSONAL MISCELLANEOUS

CREATIVE THINKING. $1.00 BUYS TWENTY, all FOREIGN EDITIONS of Fantasy and Science F"oe­ diHerent, Lus1erkote Pastels. Constant reminders tion Limited oHer-Send $1. for any 3 foreign of positive thoughts. Standard Specialties, Box edition copies of F&SF (usually SO~ each)-French, -4382, San Francisco, Calif. 94101. German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, or British Venture SF. Mercury Press, Box 271, Rockville Technicians, Attorneys, Securities Salesmen could Centre, N.Y. 11571. incorporate free enterprise billions fCM" profitable exploitation of space. Securities Salesman and Adult interlocking wood puzzle. A s1ickler. SF fan wishes exchange of ideas. John Brosius, $1.00. Quality Cabinet, 1115 Industrial, Escon­ 4626 Washington Blvd. Indianapolis, Indiana. dido, Calif. 92025. ROCKETS -New ifiaca science hobby. Learn as WANTED you build & fly. I lustrated catalog 25~. Single and multistage kits, cones, engines, launchers, Mercury, Silver, Gold, Platinum; Ores assayed trackers, technical information. Fast service. • • • Wholesale Terminal, Norwood, Mass. Estes Industries, PII!Vose 24, Colorado•

YOUR MARKET PLAC~-

A market is people-alert, intelligent, active peoi)Ii. Here you can reach 180,000 people (averaging three readeii per mpy -60,000 paid circulation). Many of them are enthusiastic hobbyists­ collecting books, magazines, stamps, coins, model rockets, etc.-actively interested in photography, music, astronomy, painting, sculpture, eleo:­ tronics. If you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it. The price is right: $3.00 for a minimum of ten ( 10) words, plus 30¢ for each additional word. To keep the rate this low, we must request remittance with the order.

Advertising Dept., Fantasy 6 Science Fiction 347 East 53 St., New York, N. Y. 10021 130 ~ke Jmprint of Qualitv (since 1937)

THf MAGAZINE Of Fontosv AN o 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 Bester, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, John Collier, Robert Graves, and many others.

.''~ :.~'PJ '':.,~ ,. .. 1- ~ : . . .:~ "f;

British Spanish French German Edition Edition Edition Edition Joseph W. Ferman, Publisher MERCURY PRESS, INC. • 347 East 53 Street, New York , N. Y. 10022