Including Venture Science FictiotJ

The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth (novelet) ROGER ZELAZNY 4 Final Appeal J• H. BRENNAN 31 Low-Level Weather THEODORE L. THOMAS 39 Essentials Only JACK SHARKEY 40 Books JUDITH MERRIL 53 The End of Eternity ERNESTO GASTALDI 60 Tripsych RON SMITH 65 Illusion (verse) WALTER H. KERR 70 Better Than Ever ALEX KIRS 71 Science: Oh, East Is West and West Is East- ISAAC ASIMOV 80 Ado About Nothing BOB OTIUM, JR. 90 Uncollected Works LIN CARTER 93 Maiden Voyage (novelet) J. W. SCHUTZ 103 F&SF Marketplace 129 Cover by Ed Emsh (illustrating ttThe Doors of His Face, •••")

/ oseph W. Ferman, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Isaac Asimov, SCIENCE EDITOR

Ted White, ASSISTANT EDITOR Edward L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOR Robert P. Mills, CONSULTING EDITOR

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 28, No. 3, Whole No. 166, Mar, 1965. Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., at 50f a copy. Annual subscription $5.00; $5.50 in Canada and the Pan American Union; $6.00 in all other countries. 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 f.aid at Concord, N.H. Printed in U.S.A. © 1965 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, inc uding translations into other laHguages, reserved. Submissions must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes; the Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicit6d manuscrit>ts. Here is a good strong story with a good strong plot and good strong characters. It carries with it such a degree of conviction that we are half-persuaded that Mr. Roger Zelazny, its author, has himself been a member of the perilous profession of baitman in the perilous seas of Venus. Do not begin this story now unless you can read it right through, ignoring all interuptions.

THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH

by Roger Zelazny

I'M A BAITMAN. No ONE IS BORN illusion and the two middle fingers a baitman, except in a French nov­ become dozen-ringed archipelagoes el where everyone is. (In fact, I as the outers resolve into greengray think that's the title, We are All peninsulas; the thumb is too short, Bait. Pfft!) How I got that way is and curls like the embryo tail of barely worth the telling and has Cape Horn. nothing to do with neo-exes, but You suck pure oxygen, sigh pos­ the days of the beast deserve a few sibly, and begin the long topple to words, so here they are. the Lowlands. There, you are caught like an in­ The Lowlands of Venus lie be- field fly at the Lifeline landing tween the thumb and forefinger of area-so named because of its the continent known as Hand. nearness to the great delta in the When you break into Cloud Alley Eastern Bay-located between the it swings its silverblack bowling first peninsula and "thumb". For a ball toward you without a warning. minute it seems as if you're going You jump then, inside that fire- to miss Lifeline and wind up as tailed tenpin they ride you down canned seafood, but afterwards­ in, but the straps keep you from shaking off the metaphors-you making a fool of yourself. You gen- descend to scorched concrete and erally chuckle afterwards, but you present your middle-sized tele­ always jump first. phone directory of authorizations Next, you study Hand to lay its to the short, fat man in the gray 4 THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 5 cap. The papers show that you are and waterfront entrepreneurs not subject to mysterious inner rot­ make up the remainder of its in­ lings and etcetera. He then smiles habitants." you a short, fat, gray smile and I turned to Mike Dabis, a fel­ motions you toward the bus which low entrepreneur, and commented hauls you to the Reception Area. on the lousy state of basic re­ At the R.A. you spend three days search. proving that, indeed, you are not "Not if the mumbled truth be subject to mysterious inner rottings known." and etcetera. He paused behind his glass be­ Boredom, however, is another fore continuing the slow swallow­ rot. When your three days are up, ing process calculated to obtain you generally hit Lifelife hard, and my interest and a few oaths, be­ it returns the compliment as a fore he continued. matter of reflex. The effects of al­ "Carl," he finally observed, pok­ cohol in variant atmospheres is a er playing, "they're shaping Ten­ subject on which the connoisseurs square." have written numerous volumes, so I could have hit him. I might I will confine my remarks to noting have refilled his glass with sulfuric that a good binge is worthy of at acid and looked on with glee as his least a week's time and often war­ lips blackened and cracked. In­ rants a lifetime study. stead, I grunted a noncommital. I had been a student of excep­ "Who's fool enough to shell out tional promise (strictly under­ fifty grand a day? ANR?'' graduate) for going on two years He shook his head. when the Bri~ht Water fell "Jean Luharich," he said, •the through our marble ceiling and girl with the violet contacts and poured its people like targets into fifty or sixty perfect teeth. I under­ the city. stand her eyes are really brown." Pause. The Worlds Almanac re "Isn't she selling enough face Lifeline: " ... Port city on the east­ cream these days?" em coast of Hand. Emplovees of He shrugged. the Agency for Non-terrestrial Re­ · "Publicity makes the wheels go search comprise approximately 'round. Luharich Enterprises 85% of its 100,000 population jumped sixteen points when she (2010 Census). Its oth~r resi­ picked up the Sun Trophy. You dents are primarily personnel ever play golf on Mercury?" maintained by several industrial I had, but I overlooked it and corporations engaged in basic re­ continued to press. search. Independent marine biolo­ "So she's coming here with a gists, wealthy fishing enthusiasts, blank check and a fishhook?" 6 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Bright Water, today," he nod­ A doubting nod. ded. "Should be down by now. "Straight union rates. Triple Lots of cameras. She wants an time for extraordinary circum­ Ikky, bad." stances," he narrated. "Be at Han­ "Hmm," I hmmed. "How bad?" gar Sixteen with your gear, Friday "Sixty day contract, Tensquare. morning, five hundred hours. \Ve Indefinite extension clause. Mil­ push off Saturday, daybreak." lion and a half deposit," he re­ "You're sailing?" cited. "I'm sailing." ''You seem to know a lot about "How come?" it." "Money." "I'm Personnel Recruitment. "Ikky guano." Luharich Enterprises approached "The bar isn't doing so well and me last month. It helps to drink in baby needs new minks." the right places." "I repeat-" "Or own them," he smirked, aft­ ". . . And I want to get away era moment. from baby, renew my contact with I looked away, sipping my bit­ basics-fresh air, exercise, make ter brew. After awhile I swallowed cash ...." several things and asked Mike "All right, sorry I asked." what he expected to be asked, I poured him a drink, concen­ leaving myself open for his trating on H.SO., but it didn't monthly temperance lecture. transmute. Finally I got him soused "They told me to try getting and went out into the night to you," he mentioned. 'When's the walk and think things over. last time you sailed?" Around a dozen serious attempts "Month and a half ago. The to land lchthyform Leviosaurus Coming." Levianthus, generally known as "Small stuff," he snorted. "When "Ikky", had been made over the have you been under, yourself?" past five years. When Ikky was "It's been awhile." first sighted, whaling techniques "It's been o'!:er a year, hasn't it? were employed. These proved That time you got cut by the screw, either fruitless or disastrous, and a under the Dolphin?" new procedure was inaugurated. I turned to him. Tensquare was constructed by a "I was in the river last week, up wealthy sportsman named Mich­ at Angleford where the currents ael Jandt, who blew his entire roll are strong. I can still get around." on the project. "Sober," he added. After a year on the Eastern "I'd stay that way," I said, "on a Ocean, he returned to file bank­ job like this." ruptcy. Carlton Davits, a playboy THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 7 fishing enthusiast, then purchased I stood in the empty Square. the huge raft and laid a wake for The foggy towers of lJfeline lkky's spawning grounds. On the shared their mists. nineteenth day out he had a strike and lost one hundred and fifty Shoreline a couple eras ago, the bills' worth of untested gear, along western slope above Lifeline with one Ichthyform Levumthus. stretches as far as forty miles in­ Twelve days later, using tripled land in some places. Its angle of lines, he hooked, narcotized, and rising is not a great one, but it began to hoist the huge beast. It achieves an elevation of several awakened then, destroyed a con­ thousand feet before it meets the trol tower, killed six men, and mountain range which separates us worked general hell over five square from the Highlands. About four blocks of Tensquare. Carlton was miles inland and five hundred feet left with partial hemiplegia and a higher than Lifeline are set most bankruptcy suit of his own. He of the surface airstrips and private­ faded into waterfront atmosphere ly owned hangars. Hangar Sixteen and Tensquare changed hands four houses Cal's Contract Cab, hop more times, with less spectacular service, shore to ship. I do not like but equally expensive results. Cal, but he wasn't around when I Finally, the big raft, built only climbed from the bus and waved for one purpose, was purchased at to a mechanic. auction by ANR for "marine re­ Two of the hoppers tugged at search." Lloyd's still won't insure the concrete, impatient beneath it, and the only marine research it flywing haloes. The one on which has ever seen is an occasional ren­ Steve was working belched deep tal at fifty bills a day-to people within its barrel carbureator and anxious to tell Leviathan fish sto­ shuddered spasmodically. ries. I've been baitman on three of "Bellyache?" I inquired. the voyages, and I've been close "Yeah, gas pains and heart­ enough to count Ikky's fangs on burn." two occasions. I want one of them He twisted setscrews until it to show my grandchildren, for per­ settled into an even keening, and sonal reasons. turned to me. I faced the direction of the land­ ''You're for out?" ing area and resolved a resolve. I nodded. "You want me for local coloring, "Tensquare. Cosmetics. Mon­ gal. It'll look nice on the feature sters. Stuff like that." page and all that. But clear this­ He blinked into the beacons If anyone gets you an Ikky, it'll be and wiped his freckles. The tem­ me. I promise." perature was about twenty, but 8 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the big overhead spots served a and stalked off. I wondered how double purpose. much they had paid him to be able "Luharich," he muttered. "Then to squat in his hanger and suck you are the one. There's some peo­ juice from his generator. ple want to see you." Enough, I guess, knowing Cal. "What about?" I never liked the guy, anyway. "Cameras. Microphones. Stuff like that." Venus at night is a field of sable ''I'd better stow my gear. Which waters. On the coasts, you can one am I riding?" never tell where the sea ends and He poked the screwdriver at the the sky begins. Dawn is like dump­ other hopper. ing milk into an inkwell. First, "That one. You're on video tape there are erratic curdles of white, now, by the way. They wanted to then streamers. Shade the bottle get you arriving." for a gray colloid, then watch it He turned to the hangar, turned whiten a little more. All of a sud­ back. den you've got day. Then start "Say 'cheese'. They'll shoot the heating the mixture. close closeups later." I had to shed my jacket as we I said something other than flashed out over the bay. To our "cheese". They must have been rear, the skyline could have been using telelens and been able to under water for the way it waved read my lips, because that part of and rippled in the heatfall. A hop­ the tape was never shown. per can accommodate four people I threw my junk in the back, (five, if you want to bend Regs climbed into a passenger seat, and and underestimate weight), or lit a cigarette. Five minutes later, three passengers with the sort of Cal himself emerged from the of­ gear a baitman uses. I was the only fice Quonset, looking cold. He came fare, though, and the pilot was like over and pounded on the side of his machine. He hummed and the hopper. He jerked a thumb made no unnecessary noises. Life­ back at the hangar. line turned a somersault and evap­ "They want you in there!" he orated in the rear mirror at about called through cupped hands. "In­ the same time Tensquare broke terview!" the fore-horizon. The pilot "The show's over!" I yelled back. stopped humming and shook his "Either that, or they can get them­ head. selves another baitmanl" I leaned forward. Feelings His rustbrown eyes became nail­ played flopdoodle in my guts. I heads under blond brows and his knew every bloody inch of the big glare a spike before he jerked about raft, but the feelings you once took THE DOORS OF HIS PACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 9 for granted change when their -er from the generator beside the source is out of reach. Truthfully, center blister, it is connected by I'd had my doubts I'd ever board shortwave with the sonar room, the hulk again. But now, now I where the movements of the quarry could almost believe in predestina­ are recorded and repeated to the tion. There it was! angler seated before the section A tensquare football field of a control. ship. A-powered. Flat as a pan­ The fisherman might play his cake, except for the plastic blisters '1ines" for hours, days even, with­ in the middle and the "Rooks" fore out seeing any more than metal and aft, port and starboard. and an outline on the screen. Only The Rook towers were named when the beast is graffied and the for their corner positions--and extensor shelf, located twelve feet any two can work together to below waterline, slides out for sup­ hoist, co-powering the graffies be­ port and begins to aid the winches, tween them. The graffies-half only then does the fisherman see gaff, half grapple-can raise enor­ his catch rising before him like a mous weights to near water level; fallen Seraphim. Then, as Davits their designer had only one thing learned, one looks into the Abyss in mind, though, which accounts itself and is required to act. He for the gaff half. At water level, didn't, and a hundred meters of the Slider has to implement eleva­ unimaginable tonnage, undernar­ tion for six to eight feet before the cotized and hurting, broke the ca-_ graffies are in a position to push bles of the winch, snapped a graf­ upward, rather than pulling. fle, and took a half-minute walk The Slider, essentially, is a mo­ across Tensquare. bile room-a big box capable of We circled till the mechanical moving in any of Tensquare's criss­ Bag took notice and waved us on cross groovings and "anchoring" on down. We touched beside the per­ the strike side by means of a pow­ sonnel hatch and I jettisoned my erful electromagnetic bond. Its gear and jumped to the deck. winches could hoist a battleship "Luck," called the pilot as the the necessary distance, and the door was sliding shut. Then he whole craft would tilt, rather than danced into the air and the Bag the Slider come loose, if you want clicked blank. any idea of the strength of that I shouldered my stuff and went bond. below. The Slider houses a section op­ Signing in with Malvern, the de erated control indicator which is facto captain, I learned that most the most sophisticated "reel" ever of the others wouldn't arrive for a designed. Drawing broadcast pow- good eight hours. They had wanted 10 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION me alone at Cal's so they could pat­ he encouraged it. We had sailed tern the pub footage along twen­ together before and our positions tieth-century cinema lines. had even been reversed upon a Open: landing strip, dark. One time. So I wasn't surprised when I mechanic prodding a contrary stepped off the' lift into the Hop­ hopper. Stark-o-vision shot of slow kins Locker and found him wait­ bus pulling in. Heavily dressed ing. For the next ten minutes we baitman descends, looks about, ins,>ected the big room in silence, limps across field. Closeup: he walking through its copper coil grins. Move in for words: "Do you chambers soon to be Arctic. think this is the time? The time he Finally, he slapped a wall. will be landed?" Embarrassment, "Well, will we fill it?" taciturnity, a shrug. Dub some­ I shook my head. thing.-"! see. And why do you "I'd like to, but I doubt it. I think Miss Luharich has a better don't give two hoots and a damn chance than any of the others? Is who gets credit for the catch, so it because she's better equipped? long as I have a part in it. But it [Grin.] Because more is known won't happen. That gal's an ego­ now about the creature's habits maniac. She'll want to operate the than when you were out before? Slider, and she can't." Or is it because of her will to win, ''You ever meet her?" to be a champion? Is it any one of ''Yeah." these things, or is it all of them?" "How long ago?" Reply: ''Yeah, all of them." -"Is "Four, five years." that why you signed on with her? "She was a kid then. How do Because your instincts say, 'This you know what she can do now?" one will be it'?" Answer: "She "I know. She'll have learned ev­ pays union rates. I couldn't rent ery switch and reading by this that damned thing myself. And I time. She'll be up on all the the­ want in." Erase. Dub something ory. But do you remember one else. Fadeout as he moves toward time we were together in the star­ hopper, etcetera. board Rook, forward, when Ikky "Cheese," I said, or something broke water like a porpoise?" like that, and took a walk around "How could I forget?" Tensquare, by myself. "Well?" I mounted each Rook, checking He rubbed his emery chin. out the controls and the underwa­ "Maybe she can do it, Carl. ter video eyes. Then I raised the She's raced torch ships and she's main lift. scubaed in bad waters back home." Malvern had no objections to He glanced in the direction of in­ my testing things this way. In fact, visible Hand. "And she's hunted in THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 11 the Highlands. She might be wild "That you, Carl?" enough to pull that horror into her "That's right, Mike. Let me have lap without flinching. some juice down here, you double­ " ... For Johns Hopkins to foot crossing rat." the bill and shell out seven figures He thought it over, then I felt for the corpus," he added. "That's the hull vibrate as the generators money, even to a Luharich." cut in. I poured my third cup of I ducked• through a hatchway. coffee and found a cigarette. "Maybe you're right, but she "So why am I a doublecrossing was a rich witch when I knew her. rat this time?" came his voice "And she wasn't blonde," I add- again. ed, meanly. "You knew about the camera­ He yawned. men at Hangar Sixteen?" "Let's find breakfast." "Yes." We did that. "Then you're a doublecrossing rat. The last thing I want is pub­ When I was young I thought licity. 'He who fouled up so often that being born a sea creature was before is ready to try it, nobly, once the finest choice Nature could more.' I can read it now." make for anyone. I grew up on the "You're wrong. The spotlight's Pacific coast and spent my sum­ only big enough for one, and she's mers on the Gulf or the Mediter­ prettier than you." ranean. I lived months of my life My next comment was cut off negotiating coral, photographing as I threw the elevator switch and trench dwellers, and playing tag the elephant ears flapped above with dolphins. I fished everywhere me. I rose, settling flush with the there are fish, resenting the fact deck. Retracting the lateral rail, I that they can go places I can't. cut forward into the groove. Amid­ When I grew older I wanted big­ ships, I stopped at a juncture, ger fish, and there was nothing dropped the lateral, and retracted living that I knew of, excepting a the longitudinal rail. Sequoia, that came any bigger I slid starboard, midway be­ than Ikky. That'spartofit ... tween the Rooks, halted, and I jammed a couple extra rolls threw on the coupler. into a paper bag and filled a ther­ I hadn't spilled a drop of coffee. mos with coffee. Excusing myself, "Show me pictures.'' I left the galley and made my way The screen glowed. I adjusted to the Slider berth. It was just the and got outlines of the bottom. way I remembered it. I threw a "Okay.'' few switches and the shortwave I threw a Status Blue switch and hummed. he matched it. The light went on. 12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The winch unlocked. I aimed slamming the door hard enough to out over the waters, extended the shake the bond. arm, and fired a cast. "Mind telling me who author­ "Clean one," he commented. ized you to bring up the Slider?" "Status Red. Call strike." I she asked. threw a switch. "No one," I replied. "I'll take it "Status Red." below now." The baitman would be on his "Just move aside." way with this, to make the barbs I did, and she took my seat. She tempting. was wearing brown slacks and a It's not exactly a fishhook. The baggy shirt and she had her hair cables bear hollow tubes, the tubes pulled back in a practical man­ convey enough dope for an army ner. Her cheeks were flushed, but of hopheads, Ikky takes the bait, not necessarily from the heat. She dandled before him by remote con­ attacked the panel with a nearly trol, and the fisherman rams the amusing intensity that I found dis­ barbs home. quieting. My hands moved over the con­ "Status Blue," she snapped, sole, making the necessary adjust­ breaking a violet fingernail on the ments. I checked the narco-tank toggle. · reading. Empty. Good, they had­ I forced a yawn and buttoned n't been filled yet. I thumbed the my shirt slowly. She threw a side Inject button. glance my way, checked the regis­ "In the gullet," Mike murmured. ters, and fired a cast. I released the cables. I played I monitored the lead on the the beast imagined. I let him run, screen. She turned to me for a sec­ swinging the winch to simulate his ond. sweep. "Status Red," she said levelly. I had the air conditioner on and I nodded my agreement. my shirt off and it was still un­ She worked the winch sideways comfortably hot, which is how I to show she knew how. I didn't knew that morning had gone over doubt she knew how and she did­ into noon. I was dimly aware of the n't doubt that I didn't doubt, but arrivals and departures of the then- hoppers. Some of the crew sat in "In case you're wondering," she the "shade" of the doors I had left said, "you're not going to be any­ open, watching the operation. I where near this thing. You were didn't see Jean arrive or I would hired as a baitman, remember? Not have ended the session and gotten a Slider operator! A baitmanl Your below. duties consist of swimming out She broke my concentration by and setting the table for our friend THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 13 the monster. It's dangerous, but in its berth. She did say "good you're getting well paid for it .. Any day," though, which I thought questions?" showed breeding as well as deter­ She squashed the Inject button qtination, in reply to my chuckle. and I rubbed my throat. "Nope," I smiled, "but I am Later that night Mike and I qualified to run that thingamajig­ stoked our pipes in Malvern's cab­ ger-and if you need me I'll be in. The winds were shuffling available, at union rates." waves, and a steady spattering of "Mister Davits," she said, "I rain and hail overhead turned the don't want a loser operating this deck into a tin roof. panel." "Nasty," suggested Malvern. "Miss Luharich, there has never I nodded. After two bourbons been a winner at this game." the room had become a familiar She started reeling in the cable woodcut, with its mahogany fur­ and broke the bond at the same nishings (which I had transported time, so that the whole Slider from Earth long ago on a whim) shook as the big yo-yo returned. and the dark walls, the seasoned We skidded a couple feet back­ face of Malvern, and the perpetu­ wards as it curled into place, and ally puzzled expression of Dabis she retracted the arm. She raised set between the big pools of shad­ the laterals and we shot back along ow that lay behind chairs and the groove. Slowing, she trans­ splashed in corners, all cast by the ferred rails and we jolted to a tiny table light and seen through a clanging halt, then shot off at a glass, brownly. right angle. The crew scrambled "Glad I'm in here." away from the hatch as we skidded 'What's it like underneath on a onto the elevator. night like this?" "In the future, Mister Davits, do I puffed, thinking of my light not enter the Slider without being cutting through the insides of a ordered," she told me. black diamond, shaken slightly. "Don't worry. I won't even step The meteor-dart of a suddenly il­ inside if I am ordered," I an­ luminated fish, the swaying of gro­ swered. "I signed on as a baitman. tesque ferns, like nebulae-shad­ Remember? If you want me in ow, then green, then gone-swam here, you'll have to ask me." in a moment through my mind. I "That'll be the day," she smiled. guess it's like a spaceship would I agreed, as the doors closed feel, if a spaceship could feel, above us. We dropped the subject crossing between worlds-and and headed in our different direc­ quiet, uncannily, preternaturally tions after the Slider came to a halt quiet; and peaceful as sleep. 14 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Dark," I said, "and not real "I think she'll have to." choppy below a few fathoms." "And if she does, can you do it?" "Another eight hours and we "A fair question," I puffed. "I shove off," commented Mike. don't know the answer, though." "'Ten, twelve days, we should be I'd incorporate my soul and there," noted Malvern. trade forty percent of the stock for ''What do you think lkky's do­ the answer. I'd give a couple years ing?" off my life for the answer. But "Sleeping on the bottom with there doesn't seem to be a lineup of Mrs. Ikky, if he has any brains." supernatural takers, because no "He hasn't. I've seen ANR's one knows. Supposing when we skeletal extrapolation from the get out there, luck being with us, bones that have washed up-" we find ourselves an lkky? Suppos­ "Hasn't everyone?" ing we succeed in baiting him and ". . . Fully fleshed, he'd be get lines on him. What then? If we over a hundred meters long. That get him shipside will she hold right, Carl?" on or crack up? What if she's made I agreed. of sterner stuff than Davits, who ". • . Not much of a brain box, used to hunt sharks with poison­ though, for his bulk." darted air pistols? Supposing she "Smart enough to stay out of our lands him and Davits has to stand locker." there like a video extra. Chuckles, because nothing ex­ Worse yet, supposing she asks ists but this room, really. The for Davits and he still stands there world outside is an empty, sleet­ like a video extra or something else drummed deck. We lean back and -say, some yellowbellied embodi­ make clouds. ment named Cringe? "Boss lady does not approve of It was when I got him up above unauthorized fly fishing." the eight-foot horizon of steel and "Boss lady can walk north till looked out at all that body, sloping her hat floats." on and on til1 it dropped out of "What did she say in there?" sight like a green mountain range "She told me that my place, with . . . And that head. Small for the fish manure, is on the bottom." body, but still immense. Flat, crag­ "You don't Slide?" gy, with lidless roulettes that had "I bait." spun black and red since before my "We'll see." forefathers decided to try the New "That's all I do. If she wants a Continent. And swaying. Slideman she's going to have to ask Fresh narco-tanks had been con­ nicely." nected. It needed another shot, ''You think she'll have to?" fast. But I was paralyzed. THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 15 It had made a noise like God "You I" playing a Hammond organ . • • "Me?" And looked at me I "You." I don't know if seeing is even Hair like the end of the rain­ the same process in eyes like those. bow, eyes like nothing in nature, I doubt it. Maybe I was just a gray fine teeth. blur behind a black rock, with the "Hello." plexi-reflected sky hurting its pu­ "There's a safety rule against pils. But it fixed on me. Perhaps what you're doing, you know." the snake doesn't really paralyze "I know. I've been worrying the rabbit, perhaps it's just that rab­ about it all morning." bits are cowards by constitution. - A delicate curl climbed my But it began to struggle and I still knife then drifted out behind us. couldn't move, fascinated. It settled into the foam and was Fascinated by all that power, by plowed under. I watched her re­ those eyes, they found me there flection in my blade, taking a se­ fifteen minutes later, a little brok­ cret pleasure in its distortion. en about the head and shoulders, "Are you baiting me?" she finally the Inject still unpushed. asked. And I dream about those eyes. I heard her laugh then, and I want to face them once more, turned, knowing it had been in­ even if their finding takes forever. tentional. I've got to know if there's some­ "What, me?" thing inside me that sets me apart "I could push ·you off from here, from a rabbit, from notched plates very easily." of reflexes and instincts that al­ "I'd make it back." ways fall apart in exactly the same "Would you push me off, then way whenever the proper combi­ -some dark night, perhaps?" nation is spun. "They're all dark, Miss Luha­ Looking down, I noticed that rich. No, I'd rather make you a gift my hand was shaking. Glancing of my carving." up, I noticed that no one else was She seated herself beside me noticing. then, and I couldn't help but notice I finished my drink and emptied the dimples in her knees. She wore my pipe. It was late and no song­ white shorts and a halter and still birds were singing. had an offworld tan to her which was awfully appealing. I almost I sat whittling, my legs hanging felt a twinge of guilt at having over the aft edge, the chips spin­ planned the whole scene, but my ning down into the furrow of our right hand still blocked her view wake. Three days out. No action. of the wooden animal. 16 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Okay, I'll bite. What have you masculinity by catching one of ev­ got forme?" ery kind of fish in existence.' Fish "Just a second. It's almost fin­ are a very ancient masculinity sym­ ished." bol, you know. So I set out to do it. Solemnly, I passed her the I have one more to go.-Why do wooden jackass I had been carv­ you want to reinforce your mascu­ ing. I felt a little sorry and slightly linity?" jackass-ish myself, but I had to fol­ "I don't," she said. "I don't want low through. I always do. The to reinforce anything but Luharich mouth was split into a braying Enterprises. My chief statistician grin. The ears were upright. once said, 'Miss Luharich, sell all She didn't smile and she didn't the cold cream and face powder in frown. She just studied it. the System and you'll be a happy "It's very good," she finally said, girl. Rich, too.' And he was right. "like most things you do-and I am the proof. I can look the way appropriate, perhaps." I do and do anything, and I sell "Give it to me." I extended a most of the lipstick and face pow­ palm. der in the System-but I have to She handed it back and I tossed be able to do anything.'' it out over the water. It missed the ''You do look cool and efficient," white water and bobbed for awhile I observed. like a pigmy seahorse. "I don't feel cool," she said, ris­ "Why did you do that?" ing. "Let's go for a swim." "It was a poor joke. I'm sorry." "May I point out that we are "Maybe you are right, though. making pretty good time?" Perhaps this time I've bitten off a "If you want to indicate the ob­ little too much·." vious, you may. You said you could I snorted. make it back to the ship, unassist­ "Then why not do something ed. Change your mind?" safer, like another race?" "No.'' She shook her end of the rain- "Then get us two scuba outfits bow. and I'll race you under Ten­ "No. It has to be an Ikky." square. "Why?" "I'll win, too," she added. "Why did you want one so badly I stood and looked down at her, that you threw away a fortune?'' because that usually makes me feel "Man reasons," I said. "An un­ superior to women. frocked analyst who held black "Daughter of Lir, eyes of Picas­ therapy sessions in his basement so," I said, "you've got yourself a once told me, 'Mister Davits, you race. Meet me at the forward Rook, need to reinforce the image of your starboard, in ten minutes." THE DOORS OP HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOU1ll 17 ''Ten minutes," she agreed. "No," she said, and turned away And ten minutes it was. From from both of us. the center blister to the Rook took She raised her hands to her maybe two of them, with the load I eyes. was carrying. My sandals grew very "Here, keep these for me." hot and I was glad to shuck them She passed him a box full of her for flippers when I reached the unseeing, and when she turned comparative cool of the corner. back to me they were the same We slid into harnesses and ad­ brown that I remembered. justed our gear. She had changed "Ready?" into a trim one-piece green job that "No," I said, tautly. "Listen made me shade my eyes and look carefully, Jean. If you're going to away, then look back again. play this game there are a few I fastened a rope ladder and rules. First," I counted, "we're go­ kicked it over the side. Then I ing to be directly beneath the hull, pounded on the wall of the Rook. so we have to start low and keep "Yeah?" moving. If we bump the bottom, "You talk to the port Rook, aft?" we could, rupture an air tank I called. "They're all set up," came the an­ She began to protest that any swer. ''There's ladders and drag­ moron knew that and I cut her lines all over that end." down. "You sure you want to do this?" "Second," I went on, "there asked the sunburnt little gink who won't be much light, so we'll stay was her publicity man, Anderson close together and we will both yclept. carry torches." He sat beside the Rook in a Her wet eyes flashed. deckchair, sipping lemonade "I dragged you out of Govino through a straw. without-" "It might be dangerous," he ob­ Then she stopped and turned served, sunken-mouthed. (His away. She picked up a lamp. teeth were beside him, in another "Okay. Torches. Sorry." glass.) "... And watch out for the "That's right," she smiled. "It drive-screws," I finished. "There'll will be dangerous. Not overly, be strong currents for at least fifty though." meters behind them." "Then why don't you let me get She wiped her eyes again and some pictures? We'd have them adjusted the mask. back to Lifeline in an hour. They'd "All right, let's go." be in New York by tonight. Good We went. copy." She led the way, at my insist· 18 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ence. The surface layer was pleas­ So I leaned into it, hard. I don't antly warm. At two fathoms the shake in the water. Or, if l do it water was bracing; at five it was doesn't matter and I don't notice nice and cold. At eight we let go it. I began to close the gap again. the swinging stairway and struck She looked back, sped on, looked out. Tensquare sped forward and back. Each time she looked I was we raced in the opposite direction, nearer, until I'd narrowed it down tattooing the hull yellow at ten­ to the original five meters. second intervals. Then she hit the jatoes. The hull stayed where it be­ That's what I had been fearing. longed, but we raced on like two We were about halfway under and darkside satellites. Periodically, I she shouldn't have done it. The tickled her frog feet with my light powerful jets of compressed air and traced her antennae of bub­ could easily rocket her upward into bles. About a five meter lead was the hull, or tear something loose if fine; I'd beat her in the home she allowed her body to twist. stretch, but I couldn't let her drop Their main use is in tearing free behind yet. from marine plants or fighting bad Beneath us, black. Immense. currents. I had wanted them along Deep. The Mindanao of Venus, as a safety measure, because of the where eternity might eventually big suck-and-pull windmills be­ pass the dead to a rest in cities of hind. unnamed fishes. I twisted my head She shot ahead like a meteorite, away and touched the hull with a and I could feel a sudden tingle of feeler of light; it told me we were perspiration leaping to meet and about a quarter of the way along. mix with the churning waters. I increased my beat to match I swept ahead, not wanting to her stepped-up stroke, and nar­ use my own guns, and she tripled, rowed the distance which she had quadrupled the margin. suddenly opened by a couple me­ The jets died and she was still ters. She sped up again and I did, on course. Okay, I was an old fud­ too. I spotted her with my beam. dyduddy. She could have messed She turned and it caught on her up and headed toward the top. mask. I never knew whether she'd I plowed the sea and began to been smiling. Probably. She raised gather back my yardage, a foot at two fingers in a V-for-Victory and a time. I wouldn't be able to catch then cut ahead at full speed. her or beat her now, but I'd be on I should have known. I should the ropes before she hit deck. have felt it coming. It was just a Then the spinning magnets be­ race to her, something else to win. gan their insistence and she wav­ Damn the torpedoes! e~d. It was an awfully powerful THE DOOllS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 19 drag, even at this distance. The ing, softbelly, leadpipe on shoulder call of the meat grinder. SWIMUKEHELLI maskcracked, I'd been scratched up by one not broke though AND UPI once, under the Dolphin, a fishing We caught a line and I remem­ boat of the middle-class. I had ber brandy. been drinking, but it was also a rough day, and the thing had been Into the cradle endlessly rock­ turned on prematurely. Fortunate­ ing I spit, pacing. Insomnia to­ ly, it was turned off in time, also, night and left shoulder sore again, and a tendon-stapler made every­ so let it rain on me-they can cure thing good as new, except in the rheumatism. Stupid as hell. What log, where it only mentioned that I said. In blankets and shivering. I'd been drinking. Nothing about She: "Carl, I can't say it." Me: it being off-hours when I had a "Then call it square for that night right to do as I damn well pleased. in Govino, Miss Luharich. Huh?" She had slowed to half her She: nothing. Me: "Any more of speed, but she was still moving that brandy?" She: "Give me an­ crosswise, toward the port, aft cor· other, too." Me: sounds of sipping. ner. I began to feel the pull myself It had only lasted three months. and had to slow down. She'd made No alimony. Many$ on both sides. it past the main one, but she Not sure whether they were happy seemed too far back. It's hard to or not. Wine-dark Aegean. Good gauge distances under water, but fishing. Maybe he should have each red beat of time told me I spent more time on shore. Or per­ was right. She was out of danger haps she shouldn't have. Good from the main one, but the smaller swimmer, though. Dragged him all port screw, located about eighty the way to Vido to wring out his meters in, was no longer a threat lungs. Young. Both. Strong. Both. but a certainty. Rich and spoiled as hell. Ditto. Each air bubble carried a curse Corfu should have brought them to daylight as I moved to flank her closer. Didn't. I think that mental from the left. cruelty was a trout. He wanted to She had turned and was pulling go to Canada. She: "Go to hell if away from it now. Twenty meters you want!" He: 'Will you go separated us. She was standing along?" She: "No." But she did, still. Fifteen. anyhow. Many hells. Expensive. Slowly, she began a backward He lost a monster or two. She in­ drifting. I hit my jatoes, aiming herited a couple. Lot of lightning two meters behind her and about tonight. Stupid as hell. Civility's twenty back of the blades. the coffin of a conned soul. By Straightlinel Thankgodl Catch- whom?-Sounds like a bloody 20 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION neo-ex . . . But I hate you, An­ "How's your shoulder?" derson, with your glass full of "All right. How about you?" teeth and her new eyes . • . Can't Daughter of Lir . . . keep this pipe lit, keep sucking to­ "Fine. By the way, you're down bacco. Spit again I for a nice bonus." Eyes of perdition I Seven days out and the scope "Don't mention it," I told her showed Ikky. back. Bells jangled, feet pounded, Later that afternoon, and ap­ and some optimist set the thermo­ propriately, a storm shattered. (I stat in the Hopkins. Malvern prefer "shattered" to "broke". It wanted me to sit it out, but I gives a more accurate idea of the slipped into my harness and wait­ behavior of tropical storms on Ve­ ed for whatever came. The bruise nus and saves lots of words.) Re­ looked worse than it felt. I had ex­ member that inkwell I mentioned ercised every day and the shoulder earlier? Now take it between hadn't stiffened on me. thumb and forefinger and hit its A thousand meters ahead and side with a hammer. Watch your­ thirty fathoms deep, it tunneled self! Don't get splashed or cut- our path. Nothing showed on the Dry, then drenched. The sky surface. one million bright fractures as the "Will we chase him?" asked an hammer falls. And sounds of break­ excited crewman. ing. "Not unless she feels like using "Everyone below!" suggested money for fuel," I shrugged. loudspeakers to the already scurry­ Soon the scope was clear, and it ing crew. stayed that way. We remained on Where was I? Who do you think alert and held our course. was doing the loudspeaking? I hadn't said over a dozen words Everything loose went over­ to my boss since the last time we board when the water got to walk­ went drowning together, so I de­ ing, but by then no people were cided to raise the score. loose. The Slider was the first thing "Good afteroon," I approached. below decks. Then the big lifts "What's new?" lowered their shacks. "He's going north-northeast. I had hit it for the nearest Rook We'll have to let this one go. A few with a yell the moment I recog­ more days and we can afford some nized the pre-brightening of the chasing. Not yet." holocaust. From there I cut in the Sleekhead ... speakers and spent half a minute I nodded. "No telling where this coaching the track team. one's headed." Minor injuries had occurred, THE DOORS OP HIS PACE, THE LAMPS OP HIS MOUnl 21 Mike told me over the radio, but you?" nothing serious. I, however, was "Yeah." marooned for the duration. The "Get bad storms out there?" Rooks do not lead anywhere; "Sometimes." they're set too far out over the hull ''Try to think of the worst one to provide entry downwards, what you were ever in. Got a slide rule with the extensor shelves below. handy?" So I undressed myself of the "Right here." tanks which I had worn for the "Then put a one under it, imag­ past several hours, crossed my flip­ ine a zero or two following after, pers on the table, and leaned back and multiply the thing out." to watch the hurricane. The top "I can't imagine the zeroes." was black as the bottom and we "Then retain the multiplicand were in between, and somewhat -that's all you can do." illuminated because of all that Oat, "So what are you doing up shiny space. The waters above did­ there?" n't rain down-they just sort of "I've strapped myself in the got together and dropped. chair. I'm watching things roll The Rooks were secure enough around the floor right now." -they'd weathered any number of I looked up and out again. I these onslaughts-it's just that saw one darker shadow in the for­ their positions gave them a greater est. arc of rise and descent when Ten­ "Are you praying or swearing?" square makes like the rocker of a "Damned if I know. But if this very nervous grandma. I had used were the Slider-if only this were the belts from my rig to strap my­ the Slider!" self into the bolted-down chair, HHe's out there?" and I removed several years in pur­ I nodded, forgetting that he gatory from the soul of whoever couldn't see me. left a pack of cigarettes in the ta­ Big, as I remembered him. He'd ble drawer. only broken surface for a few mo­ I watched the water make tee­ ments, to look around. There is no pees and mountains and hands power on Earth that can be com­ and trees until I started seeing pared with him who was made to faces and people. So I called Mike. fear no one. I dropped my ciga­ "What are you doing down rette. It was the same as before. there?" Paralysis and an unborn scream. 'Wondering what you're doing ''You all right, Carl?" up there," he replied. 'What's it He had looked at me again. Or like?" seemed to. Perhaps that mindless "You're from the midwest, aren't brute had been waiting half a mil- 22 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION lenium to ruin the life of a mem­ I ftip8opped across the deck, ber of the most highly developed girding myself with a deBated species in business . . . squiggler. "You okay?" "Five hundred meters, twenty . . . Or perhaps it had been fathoms!" boomed the speakers. ruined already, long before their The big traps banged upward encounter, and theirs was just a and the Slider grew to its full meeting of beasts, the stronger height, m'lady at the console. It bumping the weaker aside, body to rattled past me and took root psyche ... ahead. Its one arm rose and length­ "Carl, dammit! Say something!" ened. He broke again, this time near­ I breasted the Slider as the er. Did you ever see the trunk of a speakers called, "Four-eighty, twen­ tornado? It seems. like something ty I" alive, moving around in all that "Status Red!" dark. Nothing has a right to be so A belch like an emerging cham­ big, so strong, and moving. It's a pagne cork and the line arced high sickening sensation. over the waters. "Please answer me." "Four-eighty, twentyl" it repeat­ He was gone and did not come ed, all Malvern and static. "Bait­ back that day. I finally made a man, attendl" couple wisecracks at Mike, but I I adjusted my mask and hand­ held my next cigarette in my right over-handed it down the side. hand. Then warm, then cool, then away. Green, vast, down. Fast. This is The next seventy or eighty thou­ the place where I am equal to a sand waves broke by with a monot­ squiggler. If something big decides onous similarity. The five days that a baitman looks tastier than what held them were also without dis­ he's carrying, then irony colors his tinction. The morning of the thir­ title as well as the water about it. teenth day out, though, our luck I caught sight of the drifting ca­ began to rise. The bells broke our bles and followed them down. coffee-drenched lethargy into small Green to dark green to black. It pieces, and we dashed from the had been a long cast, too long. I'd galley without hearing what might never had to follow one this far have been Mike's finest punchline. down before. I didn't want to "Aft!" cried someone. "Five hun­ switch on my torch. dred meters I" But I had to. I stripped to my trunks and Bad! I still had a long way to started buckling. My stuff is al­ go. I clenched my teeth and stuffed ways within grabbing distance. my imagination into a straitjacket. THE DOORS OP HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 23 Finally the line came to an end. "Nowhere," said a crewman, I wrapped one arm about it and "we lost him right after you went unfastened the squiggler. I at­ over. Can't pick him up on the tached it, working as fast as I scope now. Musta dived." could, and plugged in the little in­ "Too bad." sulated connections which are the The squiggler stayed down, en­ reason it can't be fired with the joying its bath. My job ended for line. Ikky could break them, but the time being, I headed back to by then it wouldn't matter. warm my cofFee with rum. My mechanical eel hooked up, I From behind me, a whisper: pulled its section plugs and "Could you laugh like that after­ watched it grow. I had been wards?" dragged deeper during this opera­ Perceptive Answer: "Depends tion, which took about a minute on what he's laughing at." and a half. I was near-too near­ Still chuckling, I made my way to where I never wanted to be. into the center blister with two Loathe as I had been to turn on cupfuls. my light, I was suddenly afraid to "Still hell and gone?" turn it off. Panic gripped me and Mike nodded. His big hands I seized the cable with both hands. were shaking, and mine were The squiggler began to glow, pink­ steady as a surgeon's when I set ly. It started to twist. It was twice down the cups. as big as I am and doubtless twice He jumped as I shrugged off the as attractive to pink squiggler-eat­ tanks and looked for a bench. ers. I told myself this until I be­ "Don't drip on that panel! You lieved it, then I switched off my want to kill yourself and blow ex­ light and started up. pensive fuses?" If I bumped into something I towelled down, then settled enormous and steel-hided my heart down to watching the unfilled eye had orders to stop beating immedi­ on the wall. I yawned happily; my ately and release me-to dart fit­ shoulder seemed.good as new. fully forever along Acheron, and The little box that people ta~ gibbering. through wanted to say something, Ungibbering, I made it to green so Mike lifted the switch and told water and fled back to the nest. it to go ahead. As soon as they hauled me "Is Carl there, Mister Dabis?" aboard I made my mask a neck­ "Yes, ma'am." lace, shaded my eyes, and moni­ "Then let me talk to him." tored for surface turbulence. My Mike motioned and I moved. first question, of course, was: "Talk," I said. · 'Where is he?" "Are you all right?'' 24 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Yes, thanks. Shouldn't I be?" Then I got Mike interested in a "That was a long swim. 1-I game of chess that went on until guess I overshot my cast." daylight. It limited conversation to '1'm happy," I said. "More triple­ several "checks", one "checkmate", time for me. I really clean up on and a "damn!" Since he's a poor that hazardous duty clause." loser it also effectively sabatoged "I'll be more careful next time," subsequent talk, which was fine she apologized. "I guess I was too with me. I had a steak and fried eager. Sorry-" Something hap­ potatoes for breakfast and went to pened to the sentence, so she ended bed. it there, leaving me with half a bag­ Ten hours later someone shook full of replies I'd been saving. me awake and I propped myself on I lifted the cigarette from be­ one elbow, refusing to open my hind Mike's ear and got a light eyes. from the one in the ashtray. "\Vhassamadder ?" "Carl, she was being nice," he "I'm sorry to get you up," said said, after turning to study the one of the younger crewmen, "but panels. Miss Luharich wants you to dis­ "I know," I told him. "I wasn't." connect the squiggler so we can "I mean, she's an awfully pretty move on." kid, pleasant. Headstrong and I knuckled open one eye, still all that. But what's she done to deciding whether I should be you?" amused. "Lately?" I asked. "Have it hauled to the side. Any­ He looked at me, then dropped one can disconnect it." his eyes to his cup. "It's at the side now, sir. But she "I know it's none of my bus-" said it's in your contract and we'd he began. better do things right." "Cream and sugar?" "That's very considerate of her. I'm sure my Local appreciates her Ikky didn't return that day, or remembering." that night. We picked up some "Uh, she also said to tell you to Dixieland out of Lifeline and let change your trunks and comb your the muskrat ramble while Jean had hair, and shave, too. Mister Ander­ her supper sent to the Slider. Later son's going to film it." she had a bunk assembled inside. "Okay. Run along, tell her I'm I piped in "Deep Water Blues" on my way-and ask if she has when it came over the air and wait­ some toenail polish I can borrow." ed for her to call up and cuss us I'll save on details. It took three out. She didn't, though, so I de­ minutes in all, and I played it cided she was sleeping. properly, even pardoning myself THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH 25 when I slipped and bumped into you're doing, you're selling face­ Anderson's white tropicals with the cream when you work for face­ wet squiggler. He smiled, brushed cream sellers." it off; she smiled, even though "Oh, that's not what's biting me. Luharich Complectacolor couldn't I admit the commercial angle irri­ completely mask the dark circles tates me, but Tensquare has al­ under her eyes; and I smiled, wav­ ways been a publicity spot, ever ing to all our fans out there in vid­ since the first time it sailed." eoland.-Remember, Mrs. Uni­ "What, then?" verse, you, too, can look like a . "Five or six things, all added up. monster-catcher. Just use Luharich The main one being that I don't facecream. care any more. Once it meant more I went below and made myself a to me than anything else to hook tuna sandwich, with mayonnaise. that critter, and now it doesn't. I went broke on what started out as Two days like icebergs-bleak, a lark and I wanted blood for what blank, half-melting, all frigid, it cost me. Now I realize that may­ mainly out of sight, and definitely be I had it coming. I'm be~inning a threat to peace of mind -drifted to feel sorry for Ikky." by and were good to put behind. I "And you don't want him now?" experienced some old guilt feelings ''I'll take him if he comes peace­ and had a few disturbing dreams. fully, but I don't feel like sticking Then I called Lifeline and out my ne·ck to make him crawl checked my bank balance. into the Hopkins." "Going shopping?" asked Mike, "I'm inclined to think it's one who had put the call through for of the four or five other things you me. said you added." "Going home," I answered. "Such as?" "Huh?" He scrutinized the ceiling. "I'm out of the baiting business I growled. after this one, Mike. The Devil "Okay, but I won't say it, not with Ikkyl The Devil with Venus just to make you happy you guessed and Luharich Enterprises! And right." the Devil with you!" He, smirking: "That look she Up eyebrows. wears isn't just for Ikky." "What brought that on?" "No good, no good," I shook my "I waited over a year for this head. ''We're both fission chambers job. Now that I'm here, I've decid­ by nature. You can't have jets on ed the whole thing stinks." both ends of the rocket and expect "You knew what it was when to go anywhere-what's in the you signed on. No matter what else middle just gets smashed." 26 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "That's how it was. None of my "I've heard the stories about you business, of course-" both," he said. "So you're a heel "Say that again and you'll say it and a goofoff and she's a bitch. without teeth." That's called compatibility these "Any day, big man," he looked days. I dare you, baitman, try up, "any place . . ." keeping something you catch.'' "So go ahead. Get it said!" I turned. "She doesn't care about that "If you ever want that job, look bloody reptile, she came here to me up.'' drag you back where you belong. I closed the door quietly behind You're not the baitman this trip." me and left him sitting there wait­ "Five years is too long." ing for it to slam. "There must be something un· der that cruddy hide of yours that The day of the beast dawned people like," he muttered, "or I like any other. Two days after my wouldn't be talking like this. May­ gutless Hight from empty waters I be you remind us humans of some went down to rebait. Nothing on really ugly dog we felt sorry for the scope. I was just making things when we were kids. Anyhow, ready for the routine attempt. someone wants to take you home I hollered a "good morning" and raise you-also, something from outside the Slider and re­ about beggars not getting menus." ceived an answer from inside be­ "Buddy," I chuckled, "do you fore I pushed off. I had reappraised know what I'm going to do when Mike's words, sans sound, sans I hit Ufeline ?" fury, and while I did not approve "I can guess." of their sentiment or significance, "You're wrong. I'm torching it to I had opted for civility anyhow. Mars, and then I'll cruise back So down, under, and away. I home, first class. Venus bank­ followed a decent cast about two ruptcy provisions do not apply to hundred-ninety meters out. The Martian trust funds, and I've still snaking cables burned black to my got a wad tucked away where moth left and I paced their undulations and corruption enter not. I'm go­ from the yellowgreen down into ing tO' pick up a big old mansion the darkness. Soundless lay the wet on the Gulf, and if you're ever night, and I bent my way through looking for a job you can stop it like a cockeyed comet, bright tail around and open bottles for me.'' before. "You are a yellowbellied fink," I caught the line, slick and he commented. smooth, and began baiting. An icy "Okay," I admitted, "but it's her world swept by me then, ankles to I'm thinking of, too.'' head. It was a draft, as if someone THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH ll had opened a big door beneath me. Too fast, I felt a cramp coming I wasn't drifting downwards that on. One flick of the beam, cried fast either. rabbit. One second, to know . . . Which meant that something Or end things up, I answered. might be moving up, something big No, rabbit, we don't dart before enough to displace a lot of water. hunters. Stay dark. I still didn't think it was Ikky. A Green water, finally, to yellow­ freak current of some sort, but not green, then top. Ikky. Hal Doubling, I beat off toward Ten­ I had finished attaching the square. The waves from the explo­ leads and pulled the first plug sion behind pushed me on ahead. when a big, rugged, black island The world closed· in, and a grew beneath me . . . screamed, "He's alive!" in the dis­ I flicked the beam downwards. tance. His mouth was opened. A giant shadow and a shock I was rabbit. wave. The line was alive, too. Waves 9f the death-fear passed -Good-bye Dabis, Violet Eyes, downwards. My stomach implod­ Ikky. I go to the Happy Fishing ed. I grew dizzy. Grounds. Maybe I did something Only one thing, and one thing wrong ... only. Left to do. I managed it, Somewhere Hand was clenched. finally. I pulled the rest of the What's bait? plugs. I could count the scaley articu­ A few million years. I remem­ lations ridging his eyes by then. ber starting out as a one-celled or­ The squiggler grew, pinked into ganism and painfully becoming an phosphorence . . . squiggled I amphibian, then an air-breather. Then my lamp. I had to kill it, From somewhere high in the tree­ leaving just the bait before him. tops I heard a voice. One glance back as I jammed "He's coming around." the jatoes to life. I evolved back into homo sapi­ He was so near that the squig­ ence, then a step further into a gler reflected on his teeth, in his hangover. eyes. Four meters, and I kissed his "Don't try to get up yet." lambent jowls with two jets of "Have we got him?" I slurred. backwash as I soared. Then I did­ "Still fighting, but he's hooked. n't know whether he was following We thought he took you for an ap­ or had halted. I began to black out petizer." as I waited to be eaten. "So did I." The jatoes died and I kicked "Breathe some of this and shut weakly. up." 28 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION- A funnel over my face. Good. "She won't let anyone in the Lift your cups and drink . . . Slider. Listen, Mike says come on "He was awfully deep. Below in. He's right behind you in the scope range. We didn't catch him blister." till he started up. Too late, then." I sat up and turned. Mike was I began to yawn. watching. He gestured; I gestured "We'll get you inside now." back. I managed to unease my ankle I swung my feet over the edge knife. and took a couple deep breaths. "Try it and you'll be minus a Pains in my stomach. I got to my thumb." feet and made it into the blister. ''You need rest." "Howza gut?" queried Mike. "Then bring me a couple more I checked the scope. No Ikky. blankets. I'm staying." Too deep. I fell back and closed my eyes. ''You buying?'' ''Yeah, coffee." Someone was shaking me. "Not coffee." Gloom and cold. Spotlights bled ''You're ill. Also, coffee is all yellow on the deck. I was in a jury­ that's allowed in here." rigged bunk, bulked against the "Coffee is a brownish liquid that center blister. Swaddled in wool, I bums your stomach. You have still shivered. some in the bottom drawer." "It's been eleven hours. You're "No cups. You'll have to use a not going to see anything now." glass." I tasted blood. "Tough." "Drink this." He poured. Water. I had a remark but I ''You do that well. Been prac- couldn't mouth it. ticing for that job?'' "Don't ask how I feel," I croaked. "What job?" "I know that comes next, but don't "The one I offered you-" ask me. Okay?" A blot on the scope! "Okay. Want to go below now?" "Rising, ma'am! Rising!" he "No. Just get me my jacket." yelled into the box "Right here." 'Thanks, Mike. I've got it in "What's he doing?" here," she crackled. "Nothing. He's deep, he's doped "Jean!" but he's staying down." "Shut up! She's busy!" "How long since last time he "Was that Carl?" showed?" ''Yeah," I called. "Talk later,• "Two hours, about. • and I cut it. "Jean?" Why did I do that? THE DOORS OF HIS FACE, THE LAMPS OP HIS MOUTH 29 "Why did you do that?" a conspiracy to make me Slide ... I didn't know. "Is that an order?" "I don't know." "Yes-No! Please." Damned echoes! I got up and I dashed inside and monitored. walked outside. He was rising. Nothing. Nothing. "Push or pull?" Something? I slammed the "wind" and he Tensquare actually rocked! He came like a kitten. must have turned when he saw the "Make up your own mind now.'' hull and started downward again. He balked at ten fathoms. White water to my left, and boil­ "Play him?" ing. An endless spaghetti of cable "No!" roared hotly into the belly of the She wound him upwards-five deep. fathoms, four . . . I stood awhile, then turned and She hit the extensors at two, went back inside. and they caught him. Then the graffles. Two hours sick. Four, and bet- Cries without and a heat light­ ter. ning of flashbulbs. "The dope's getting to him." The crew saw Ikky. "Yeah." He began to struggle. She kept "What about Miss Luharich?" the cables tight, raised the graf- "What about her?" Oes .•. "She must be half dead." Up. "Probably." Another two feet and the graf­ "What are you going to do about fles began pushing. it?" Screams and. fast footfalls. "She signed the contract for this. Giant beanstalk in the wind, She knew what might happen. It his neck, waving. The green hills did." of his shoulders grew. "I think you could land him.'' "He's big, Carll" she cried. "So dol." And he grew, and grew, and "So does she.'' grew uneasy . • . "Then let her ask me.'' "Now!" lkky was drafting lethargically, He looked down. at thirty fathoms. He looked down, as the god of I took another walk and hap­ our most ancient ancestors might pened to pass behind the Slider. have looked down. Fear, shame, She wasn't looking my way. and mocking laughter rang in my "Carl, some in here!" head. Her head, too? Eyes of Picasso, that's what, and "Now!" 30 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION She looked up at the nascent Her hand moved to the button, earthquake. jerked back. "I can't!" "Now!" · It was going to be so damnably She pushed it. simple this time, now the rabbit I lowered her still form to the had died. I reached out. floor and finished things up with I stopped. Ikky. "Push it yourself." It was a good seven hours be­ "I can't. You do it. Land him, fore I awakened to the steady, sea­ Carl!" chewing grind of Tensquare's "No. If I do, you'll wonder for bl~des. the rest of your life whether you "You're sick," commented Mike. could have. You'll throw away your "How's Jean?" soul finding out. I know you will,. "The same." because we're alike, and I did it "Wheres the beast?" that way. Find out now I" "Here." She stared. "Good." I rolled over. I gripped her shoulders. "••. Didn't get away this time." "Could be that's me out there," I offered. "I am a green sea ser­ pent, a hateful, monstrous beast, So that's the way it was. No one and out to destroy you. I am an­ is born a baitman, I don't think, swerable to no one. Push the In­ but the rings of Saturn sing epi­ ject." thalamium the sea-beast's dower.

CHANGING YOUR ADDRESS? The Magazine of FANTASY and SCIENCE FICTION will follow you anywhere providing you let us know six weeks in advance. Please be sure to give us your old address as well as the new one, and add the ZIP number. (If convenient, send the address label from the wrapper of the next copy of F&SF you receive.) Subscription Service MERCURY PUBLICATIONS 34 7 East 53 Street New York, N.Y. 10022 ]. H. Brennan is the editor of a weekly newspaper in Ulster, North­ em Ireland. He writes: "have enfoyed reading science fiction and fantasy for years. Took seriously to writing fiction about six months ago, with FINAL APPEAL one of the first attempts at SF." And an extraordinarily successful attempt it is. The Law itself may be comparatively certain and easily ascertained, but what about the fudicious application of the Law? Juries and ;udges are certainly fallible. Is there a better way? Mr. Brennan's story here concerns a murder trial of the future, in which "human error'" has been eliminated ... or has it? Wrote MelviUe: '"Who's to doom, when the fudge himself is dragged to the bar?'"

FINAL APPEAL

by J. H. Brennan

"PERMISSION TO APPEAL, YouR His was the last case of the day Honour?" and as he turned to leave, the Clerk There was a second's pause and of Court, a dapper little man with just the slightest hint of humming cheerful, almost elfin features, in the silence of the courtroom be­ leaned across and quietly switched fore the Judge said: "Permission off the Judge. granted." That was the special circuit, In Chambers, Kellett disrobed Kellett thought. Permission to ap­ slowly, lost in thought. peal was always granted, an imbe­ He was an old man, tall and cile safeguard where no safeguard thin, stooping, frail. He carried was needed. with him an odd air of indecision Kellett rose and bowed, mur­ which, however, vanished when he muring, "As Your Honour pleases.'' spoke. The cold, harsh tones used Like his bow, the words were a for­ words· precisely and betrayed a ra­ mality of practice seldom observed zor mind. At the peak of his career, in these days. But Kellett, in many Kellett had been close to invinc­ ways, was a live anachronism. He ible; even today he was one of the liked these little touches of a less most formidable men in his pro­ frenzied era. fession. .Jl 32 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Carefully he folded up his As he left Chambers, walking gown, then, placing the limp white with slow dignity along the corri­ wig on top, he stored them both dor towards the ancient stone steps away on the top shelf of his locker. leading to the cells, Kellett thought His thoughts depressed him. Half with extreme distaste of the com­ the trouble was that he disliked his ing interview. The case, he now client; but then who would not? saw, had been quite hopeless from Fat little Henry Woods who the start. Briefly he wondered how sweated all the time and screamed he had ever come to take if on. for Justice when he wanted Mercy There might have been no other would insist that an appeal was soul within the building as he carried through. He refused to un­ walked down the long stone steps, derstand that appeals, like courtesy but at the bottom, near the en­ to the Judge, were mere formali­ trance to the cells, a single warder ties. in familiar blue snapped upright Woods had killed his wife. from a daydream, then relaxed as Sane men do not kill_ recognition dawned. Ergo Woods was not sane. Kellett nodded briefly, waiting The Appeals Court Judge without sign of emotion as the man would reason the same way. The unlocked the massive door to Cell Supreme Court Judge would rea­ Block One. Together they stepped son the same way-if Woods in­ through and the door swung shut sisted on this final futility. AD ~ behind them. The corridor was hots reasoned the same way. The windowless, lit by hidden, artificial appeals procedure remained to light. guard against mechanical instabil­ Woods' cell was a little more ity, or the possibility of a faulty than half way along. The warder programming: nothing more. selected another key, pressed it Kellett sighed. He could remem­ briefly on the lock, then stepped ber days, but only just, when he back as the door opened to allow had enjoyed his work. That was Kellett to pass inside. before the government abandoned The cell itself was tiny, little -a legal system riddled with the changed for generations. Its only anomalies which human error furniture was a table and a wooden could produce and replaced it with bench. a cold perfection in the shape of In prison-before prisons were Judges which could never be abolished-such a cell would nev­ swayed by an emotion, or bluffed er have been tolerated. But here it on a point of law. was a temporary confinement Kellett hated them with irra· where the prisoner spent perhaps tiona) intensity. an hour before and after trial. His FINAL APPEAL 33 next move was to Treatment Cen­ the mescal derivative which had tre ... or to freedom. begun to oust alcohol as the world's And in Woods' case he would barrier against reality. move on to neither. His lot would "Mr. Kellett, I thought you'd be a luxury detention centre until never get here I This thing has been his appeal was heard. driving me crazy! It shouldn't be Woods jumped up eagerly from allowed, leaving a man buried the bench as Kellett entered. He down here after his trial with noth­ was that nervous, balding type of ing to do but think!" He reached man who might have been a bank up and actually gripped Kellett's clerk or a civil servant in the days lapels. "What are my chances in before bank clerks and civil serv­ the appeal, Mr. Kellett? Pretty ants had been replaced by the ubi­ good, huh? I want the truth, re­ quitous robots. As it was Woods member!" was a member of the vast non-em­ Kellett fought down a wave of ployed, the men and women who revulsion. Even in his present ex­ never worked and never would, tre~ity, Woods' behaviour was in drawing from an automised State abominable taste. Eventually he a generous allowance which per­ said coldly: "Your chances of ac­ mitted them to live in such luxur­ quittal, Mr. Woods, are negligible. ious boredom that, on occasion, The appeal is a mere formality­ they became unhinged. at most a delaying tactic. The re­ This was, presumably, what sult is a foregone conclusion. Ap­ had happened to Henry Woods. peal Judge will uphold the deci­ For years he must have had all sion of the Court today." that his heart desired-a seven­ Woods' eyes grew wide; there story home with robot servants, was perspiration on his upper lip three private flyers, two swimming to match the beads upon his fore­ pools with built-in weather control head. "You can't mean that, Mr. devices, a personalised Feelerama Kellett! There must be something and a thousand more beside. you can dol Please, Mr. Kellett, Yet Henry Woods was prema­ there must be some way round turely bald and sweated all the these machines. You've studied ro­ time and could not always meet botics. For God's sake-" your eyes. One bright and sunny "Control yourself!" Kellett snap­ morning he woke up before his ped, taking a backwards step to wife and strangled her. rid himself of Woods' grip. ''You He came over, standing so close murdered your wife. You can not that Kellett noticed with distaste expect your circumstances to re­ the dilation of his pupils. Woods main unchanged after that!" He had been taking drugs; probably paused briefly, staring down at the 34 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION other man. "Frankly I cannot see today! Mightn't it?" he added on­ why you are making such a fuss. surely. When I was first called to the Bar "No,'' Kellett said shortly. the sentence might have been "Please understand, Mr. Wood, death." that we are dealing with robots Woods moved over to the wood­ and programming. All these ma­ en bench and sat down slowly. "It chines are programmed in exactly might as well bel I've seen what the same way; they have to be-the the operation does to a man. The Law is standard. Their brains are old self is gone. But what do you constructed on the same principles care? What do any of you care? and they all reach conclusions by It's me they're going to do it to!" a process of relentless logic. Given Kellett sighed inwardly. It was the sanie set of premises-or evi­ at times like this he was most temp­ dence, if you like-they will all ted to take to drugs himself. They reach the same conclusion. We would, he felt, provide a buffer have no fresh evidence to intro­ between the Woods's of humanity duce : the conclusion is inescap­ and himself-a buffer which was able." often sorely needed. "If we lose at the Appeals Court, "Mr. Woods," he murmured pa­ we can take the case to the Su­ tiently, "you may as well get used preme Court, can't we?" to the idea now as later. You are "That, Mr. Woods, is your pri­ going to undergo leucotomy be­ vilege as a citizen." cause you murdered your wife and Suddenly Kellett felt very tired. are considered legally insane. That Woods, he knew, would never un­ was the sentence of the Court to­ derstand the futility of his position. day and-" He would drag the case through Woods jumped up and caught Appeals Court to Supreme Court his arm. "But we've appealed, Mr. and then complain because there Kellett! I'm relying on you!" was no higher Court in which to "The Appeals Court sits at the stage another hearing. Despite his end of this week. Leucotomy will efforts the result would never for be postponed until the end of this an instant be in doubt. week, that is all," said Kellett bru­ When all was said and done, tally. Woods would undergo leucotomy. "But Mr. Kellett-" Woods' voice had risen to an uncomforta­ Unlike the lower Court, which ble pitch. "-you might convince had been modelled on traditional the Appeals Judge that I shouldn't lines, the Appeals Court was held have it. It might take a different in a purely functional room. Apart viewpoint from the Judge in Court from Kellett and his client, there PINAL APPEAL 35 were only two people present, the cused. "You hardly spoke a word Clerk of Court and a bored war­ the whole tim~. How did you ex­ der, armed with gasgun lounging pect to win if you didn't say a near the door. thing!" Comfortable armchairs were HI did not expect to win, Mr. provided for lawyer and client, Woods." Kellett wished heartily he while the large black box which had never taken on the case. Even was the Judge was actually his inbred dislike of robot Judges built into the wall facing them. was nothing to his growing dislike The Clerk, declining the official, of his client. The man was not only straight-backed chair provided for a murderer, he was an imbecile! him, hovered fussily around the Sighing, he made one more at­ desk before the Judge, carefully tempt. "Mr. Woods, why not ac­ sorting the taped transcripts of the cept the fact that you have been lower Court proceedings. convicted? The Appeal was a for­ "Shall we begin?" he asked even- mality. The Judge considers evi­ tually. . dence-nothing more. I could Kellett nodded and the clerk be­ have made an hour-long plea for gan to feed the tapes into a slot be­ leniency to keep you happy, but it neath the Judge's speaking panel. would have been a waste of time. In ninety seconds the robot had We are not dealing with humans evaluated the evidence and con­ who can be swayed by playing on sidered the decision of its mechan­ their emotions. We are dealing ical colleague. There was a soft with robots!" crackling behind the speaking panel "There's still the Supreme before the Judge said: "Any fur­ Court," Woods said. ther evidence, Mr. Kellett?" Kellett rose. "There is no fur­ The Supreme Court was very ther evidence, Your Honour." similar to the Appeals Court in The Judge assimilated this neg­ structure, but there was one major ative information. Then: "The ver­ difference in procedure. While dict of the lower Court is upheld." the Appeals Judge evaluated tapes And that was all. The entire of the original trial in silence at top hearing had taken slightly more speed, the Judge of the Supreme than three minutes. Kellett mur­ Court played the tapes aloud dur­ mured wearily: "Permission to ap­ ing evaluation. During this play­ peal, Your Honour?" back, Kellett was at liberty to add After a second the Judge said: his comments on any point which "Permission granted." might be held in favor of his client. "You didn't try!" Woods ac- For Kellett. from beginning to 36 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION end, it was an exercise in futility. abruptly. Woods seemed on the Woods was sitting nervously on point of hysterics. The Judge, as the edge of his chair, listening to Kellett knew it would, hesitated for the evidence pouring like a radio a second before stating: "Verdict from the Judge's speaking panel. upheld." The Clerk, a cheerful young man His stomach knotting, Kellett who followed the current fad for rose again. "Permission to appeal, multi-coloured contact lenses, had Your Honour?" nodded off to sleep and seemed in The Clerk glanced up in danger of toppling from his chair surprise and seemed about to speak. beneath the judge. Even the warder looked mildly in­ Kellett closed his eyes briefly terested: it was not often a lawyer and sank back in the armchair, lis­ made a fool of himself. tening to the voice of Woods' next The Judge, however, digested door neighbour. the request as carefully as it had " ... the whole truth, and noth­ digested the evidence earlier in the ing but the truth. Mrs. Ann Leslie, hearing. Eventually it said: "Per­ Your Honour." mission refused." Kellett sat bolt upright. Out of Kellett, still on his feet, asked: nowhere, without warning, his "On what grounds, Your Honour?" subconscious had presented him He could have repeated the re­ with a loophole in the Law. As the ply verbatim. It followed the estab­ woman's voice droned on, he lished pattern perfectly. "Since thought it over carefully and with there exists no Court of higher au­ growing excitement realised it thority than the Supreme Court, might work. He glanced across at an appeal cannot be put into prac­ Woods, but failed to catch his eye. tice following a Supreme Court de­ In the hours that followed, Kel­ cision. The question itself is mean­ lett waived his right to comment on ingless. Appeal machinery cannot the evidence. Woods at first seemed be set in operation; it follows that bewildered, then angry and finally permission to appeal must be re­ dispirited. Kellett allowed him to fused." suffer. It depended on the robot's pro­ At the end of an eternity, the gramming, of course, but Kellett evaluation of evidence was over took the chance. As Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Judge re­ Judge, this robot would normally peated the question of its Appeals have a more extensive program­ Court counterpart. ming than the average Judge. He Kellett rose slowly, said, "No prayed that programming includ­ further evidence to add, Your ed a really wide look into legal his­ Honour," then sat down again tory.- PINAL APPEAL 37 "There is one Court higher than entiate between valid and nonsen­ the Supreme Court," he said. "I in­ sical argument so long as it re­ tend to appeal to God." mained logical and did not contra- "Mr. Kellett!" exclaimed the dict their programming. · Clerk of Court. The warder snig­ He took a deep breath. "I pro­ gered. pose to appeal this case to God, "I am not in possession of suf­ as representing the highest Judge ficient data to understand your sub­ recognised by the State." mission, Mr. Kellett" said the He paused. Judge. With the faintest hiss of static, "Your Honour is aware of the the Judge said: "If I allow your concept of God?" asked Kellett. He point, Mr. Kellett, by what means was sweating slightly. The damn would you make the appeal?" thing would have to have some idea This was the one he had been of God. dreading. "Since no man may meet "In its broadu outlines." God until after death," said Kellett, "Your H

LOW-LEVEL WEATHER by Theodore L. Thomas

AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, THE factory in the tunnel and follow scientists who study weather have the dispersion of the smoke. By finally got around to the most im­ noting how one fluid flows in an­ portant region of all. This is the other, they learn how smogs form. region that lies the first few hun­ In fact, almost the entire field of dred feet above the ground. Here fluid ~ynamics comes in handy. is where people live, people and Much work is being done to an­ all other living things. The branch alyze the effects of temperature of meteorology that deals with inversions in which a layer of this low-level region is called mi­ colder air overlies warmer air. crometeorology. But the work done so far has Measurements have shown not involved the addition of mate­ that conditions existing in the rials to the low-level air to cause low-level region are quite differ­ desirable results. Deodorants, nu­ ent from those in higher layers. trients, medications could be add­ For one thing, temperature chang­ ed in a manner now reserved for es are unusually large. From war gases. Particle sizes and den­ ground surface to a foot or two in sities could be adjusted so that the air, it is common to find a liquid droplets or a powder hang temperature range greater than 15 at a predetermined elevation. If degrees F. A few hours of time an area such as a valley were may often produce a temperature threatened by an oncoming mass change of 50 degrees or more. of cold air, polymerizable fogs of This occurs when the sun sets, or proper density could be discharged when it rises. On hillsides, or near to form an overhead layer that bodies of water, these tempera­ would polymerize to produce a ture changes produce airflows that solid film. The area would be pro­ have much to do with the climate tected by a canopy. Strong films of the region. The airflow is relat­ might produce the greenhouse ef­ ed to air pollution. fect and actually warm the entire The micrometeorologists can area. Perhaps whole cities could set up controlled experiments in be tented in this manner, and wind tunnels and watch what man would finally be in a position happens. They can put a model to produce his own weather. 39 Our newspaper recently carrietJ. a report about the •tired child syndrome· (symptoms: anxiety, chronic fatigue, nightmares, ab­ dominal pains) which two pediatricians ascribed to "hunching for hours in front of the 7V set... Their report went on to say "the content of nightmares, phobias and compulsions were related directly to the television programs ..." Ca"ied to the ultimate, the consequences may not be pleasant to contemplate, but we maintain that there are many beneficial by-products. For instance, we think it safe to say that never has there been a generation of children so apprised of the need to use a debdorant. Jack Sharkey has evidently also considered this general matter, and the result is below, for you to read and enfoy.

ESSENTIALS ONLY

by Jack Sharkey

I'M SORRY I EV,ER TOLD ARTIE No-More. A simple gadget. Two Undstrom about that hole toTer­ disintegrator-heads set in circuit ra Two. I should've had more at the cheese-platform. The mouse sense. I mean, Artie's a great guy, sticks his head in, the beam leaps in many ways. He puts up the across the poles, and the house­ money for the beers as often as he wife is saved the trouble of dis­ accepts a drink on me, he's neatly posing of dead rodents. You can't groomed, reads and follows all the blame Artie for the fact that the ads for popularity through hy­ first thousand manufactured had giene, and he's helped me get rich the heads mounted backward, can as all getout, through his inven­ you? Not only did the mouse's tions, plans and schemes. presence activate a beam that The trouble is none of Artie's carved a mouse-sized hole clear ideas work out right. They end up around the globe and back to the doing something spectacular, all other side of the trap; the house­ right; it's just that the spectacle is wife still had a live mouse to con­ never quite the one he had in tend with, and the cheese was mind at the outset. Take his Mouse- eaten, anyhow. Did Artie softer? 40 ESSENTIALS ONLY 41 By no means. The moon stations "But how can you be sure it's bought his defective traps to bore another dimension, Burt?" Artie cableholes around our satellite so asked me, scowling into his mug the outlying stations could get TV of ale. "It might be simple tele­ shows, and Artie was a hundred portation to another part of Earth, thousand bucks richer. or to another planet entirely." Or take his missile-shield. At I shrugged and spread my the first warning of attack, a net­ hands. "What's wrong with either work of interlocking rays would of those? Instant transmission to safely keep out enemy rockets. other places is a pretty good setup Trouble was, the shield also kept in itself." out sunlight, fresh air, inspecting "If you knew how it worked," officials, and the all-clear signals, Artie pointed out shrewdly. ''You and put everyone inside the hemi­ can't patent a hole in your cellar sphere into a state of perfect sus­ wall. You sure your star-readings pended animation. The first time were accurate?" he asked. it was tested, the country had to "On the nose," I said. "All the do without Chicago for three familiar configurations: Orion, months, until the generator ran the Dipper, Polaris, everything. I down. Did Artie get chewed out? even took two photographs and Well, yes, for about five minutes, overlaid the negatives. Everything until someone realized that such lined up. It's just got to be another a system was perfect for starships. Earth, in another dimension. It's Crew and passengers and ship gorgeous, Artie. I went exploring, were guaranteed a safe, non-con­ a few hundred yards in all direc­ suming trip to anywhere in the tions. Beautiful pre-blight chest­ universe, with the ship itself like­ nut trees in a grove where my ga­ wise protected from meteorites, rage ought to be, a crystal-blue cosmic rays, and all the nasty lit­ river running down what should tle disadvantages of interstellar be Highway 1 7, a mile-wide field flight. This time Artie cleared half of flowers where I expected to see a million. the fish cannery. I love the place, So, despite immediate annoy­ Artie. I could move there right ances, his life has been fantasti­ this minute, without a qualm." cally serendipitous. However, I Something glinted in Artie's still think I should've kept my eyes, then. Something I'd never mouth shut about that hole to seen before in this moolah-mad Terra Two; knowing Artie, I friend of mine. A kind of soft, mean. mellow glint. He looked almost But I didn't. And here's what human, suddenly. happened: "Pick up that newspaper, Burt," 42 FANTASY AND SCIENCK FICTION he said, pointing beside his re­ girl friend Bessie Bliss. They live frigerator. I did as indicated, and behind the gas works and never get held it, waiting. 'What do you to go anywhere." read in it?" "Now, Artie-" I said warning­ "Well," I said, "there's nothing ly, "The last blind date you set up really new in the news . . . Rus­ for me, my girl kept quoting Swin­ sia warns U.S., robbers heist bank, burne all night and eating choco­ Dean of girl's college arrested as late creams five at a time." head of vice ring, two five-year­ "You'll love Bessie," said Artie, old boys blow up city hall. Just placing a fond hand on my shoul­ run-of-the-mill stuff." der. "A million laughs. Great per­ Artie nodded sagely. "Exactly. sonality." Bit by bit, person by person, place "Can't I pick my own girl?" I by place-The whole world go­ pleaded. ing to hell on greased rollerskates, "What if she doesn't hit it off right?" with Janice?" he warned. 'With a jet assist," I nodded. 'What if Bessie doesn't hit it "But it doesn't have to go that off with me?" I complained. "You way. Not any more." can't start a dynasty with a fist­ "Artie-!" I said, a little dazed fight." by his innuendo. ''You think we "So which girl?" he sighed. "All should start our own world?" you ever seem to meet are giggly 'Why not! Think of it: No coeds and jumpy librarians." more taxes, no more rent, no more "I know," I said, "but I did midnight muggings-" meet somebody different the other I thought of it, and added a night. Her name is Topaz Jenson. few negatives of my own. "No She used to do a strip act, but more movies, no more fireworks, when her bookings got cancelled no more best sellers . . ." in Rangoon, she got interested in "Movies," Artie said decisively, Buddhism, and now she's gentled "are getting steadily worse, it is down somewhat. Is Janice inter­ against the law to possess fire­ ested in Nirvana?" crackers, and best sellers are slant­ "I doubt it," Artie mused. "Are ed toward the movies anyways." you?" "Okay," I said, convinced. 'We "I am, the way Topaz approach­ start our own world." A thought es it. She figures that the more struck me, and I spoke it aloud, help she gets, the better, so she al­ slightly selfconscious. 'We'll need ways keeps her midriff bare so w­ women- Well, you know." erybody can contemplate her na­ "I know two who'd love to go," vel. It's a pleasure to help her out." said Artie. "Janice LePage and her "She-" Artie seemed hesitant, ESSENTIALS ONLY 43 then plunged. "She doesn't happen "To a secret spot that only Burt to be pushy about it? I mean, does knows," said Artie, between torrid she try and win converts all the glances at Janice LePage, who had time?" bared her midriff without even "Do you mean if she meets Jan- meeting Topaz, thus saving us an ice, Janice might start going hour of fanatic exhortations. I'd around with a bare midriff?" I lied, and told Topaz that Janice asked. Artie nodded. I nodded was already of her persuasion. In right back. Artie smiled. fact, Artie and I were up to our "I'll put her name on the list." ears in whoppers already, having 'What list?" I said, frowning neglected to inform either girl of dubiously. the extent of the picnic grounds, 'We've got to approach this nor of our dynastic ambitions. thing methodically. Boy. Scout That could come later, after we'd Handbook, so we can rough it in cemented the hole in my cellar leisure, a case of gin and a bott1e .wall. of vermouth, till we lose the taste · When our foursome got abreast for the stuff, suntan lotion, since of my front porch, the girls kind we'll be outdoors a lot. Five hun- of held back on the front walk. dred-carton cases of filter-tip ciga- 'What are we going in here for?" rettes, till our tobacco ·fields are asked Janice, with a little less ready to harvest- . . . And stuff bounce than her voice had been like that." employing on the stroll over. "Oh," I said, seeing the wisdom "I think picnics should be out- of his plan. "Okay. Fair enough. A doorsier," abetted Topaz. girl apiece, handbook, gin and ver- "We are going outdoors," Artie mouth, lotion, cigarettes. I'll go said smoothly. phone Topaz." "I don't want to picnic in a "And tell her to bring all the back yard," said Janice, planting ice she can carry," said Artie. "I her feet solidly and pouting. ''Es­ hate warm martinis." pecially this near the fish can­ nery." "I love picnics," said Topaz, "Just come see the place," I resplendent in puce shorts and begged. "If you don't think it's the green halter, her ink-blue eyes most romantic picnic spot you ever twinkling under their blueblack saw, we'll take you right home. lashes. She bore a wicker hamper Honest." full of fried chicken and potato ''Well-" said Topaz, uncer­ salad in one hand, and a Tibe­ tainly, looking to Janice for some tan prayerwheel in the other. kind of support, one way or the "Where're we going?" other. 44 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "If we don't like it, you'll really "See?" said Artie, taking Jan­ take us home?" said Janice, run­ ice's elbow and guiding her across ning a nervous hand through her the verdant dale toward the twin­ lemon-blonde hair. "Right away, kling serpentine of the river. "A no delay? No pleading or ... ?" lovely spot for a picnic.'' "Honest!" Artie and I chor­ "It-It is nice .. .'' Topaz ussed, raising our hands in what murmured to me, as I followed his turned out to be the scout's-oath example and vector. "But how gesture, no doubt influenced by come I can't see your house when the handbook we'd conned the I look back? Nothing but a black night before for info on fire-light­ hole in the air.'' ing, water-finding, and camp "A-A trick of the light," I songs. said. "I don't know why you can't "Okay," said Topaz. "We'll go see it. Don't ask me. Just can't.'' I look." ended with a laugh that became a Trying to be calm about it, we nervous giggle that became a hie­ led the way into my house and cough and stopped. down into the cellar. The hole Both girls looked at one another, shimmered invitingly. Beyond it, frowned, then pulled away from green fields of grass lay like sun­ us and stood defiantly shoulder to soaked emerald, and dark cool shoulder. "I think-" said Janice, shadows lingered invitingly be­ fighting a quaver, "you two men neath the arching trees. owe us some sort of explanation.'' "What are those big boxes out "Yes," said Topaz. "This isn't there?" asked Topaz. your back yard, Burt. It isn't a back "Cigarettes," said Artie. "We yard at all. It's a whole planet. I didn't want to run out of ciga­ feel it. Heel it in my navel!" rettes.'' He nibbled a hangnail, Artie looked at me, we ex­ lowered his eyes. changed a despairing look, and "I don't see the cannery," To­ then we blurted out the whole paz added, puzzled. frenetic story, each continuing "You-You can't see it from when the other ran out of air. here," said Artie. "Go outside and When it was told, we stood with look. Go on. It's real nice. Real downcast eyes, awaiting their nice. Go on. Outside. Go" righteous indignation and insult­ Smiling a bit apprehensively at ed wrath. There was a lull, then one another, the girls gave a what­ Janice spoke. can-possibly-happen? shrug in "It's a wonderful idea!" she said, unison and stepped through the and Topaz was nodding happily gap in the cellar wall. Artie and when we looked up. "Except for I followed like lightning. one thing.'' ESSENTIALS ONLY 45 "What thing? What? We'll fix "But they'll have to bring their it. Right away!" said Artie, with­ own smokes!" I growled, following out checking with me, although I Artie toward the black hole over was behind him to the hilt. the grassy green ground of the ''Marriage," said Janice. 'We field. have to get married, first. Other­ We picked up the Joneses wait­ wise, your idea's fine." ing at a bus stop, and the Kerricks "Okay," said Artie. "But please coming out of a delicatessen. Ma­ -Not a word to the preacher vis and Walter Jones were about about this place." our own ages, but the Kerricks, "You surely don't expect us to Idabel and Henry, were in their leave to get married?" said Janice, late forties. "We probably won't amazed. "You have to bring the have any children," they said, preacher here." when we'd made our offer, "but we "A Buddhist preacher," ap­ don't mind being baby-sitters for pended Topaz. the rest." "But why here?" I said, shocked. We decided this wasn't a bad "He'll surely tell someone when he idea, and sent Mavis and Walter goes back-" to my place to tell the girls things "Back?" gasped Topaz. "But he were developing splendidly, and mustn't go back. If he goes back, the Kerricks back into the delica­ we can't stay here." tessen for an extra pound of sa­ "For pete's sake, why not?l" ex­ lami, then Artie, myself and the ploded Artie. Kerricks set out to hunt up a "Who'll marry our children?" Buddhist preacher. (Janice didn't said Jan ice, reasonably. "Do you care what his religion was, so long want a rash of illegitimate grand­ as he was a legal marryer.) children?" We found Soong Lai How "And we'll need at least two picketing a cummerbund factory, other couples," said Topaz, with and soon enlisted him to the cause. irrefutable logic, "unless you want It was getting near suppertime, so our grandchildren intermarrying we had to talk him into taking a into their own family." cab with us (he thought walking "Okay, okay, anything!" said was good for the soul, but we were Artie. "Don't go away! We'll get ten miles from town already), and the preacher and two other cou­ heading back to my place. ples. Then will you be satisfied?" Janice and Topaz and the "Perfectly," sighed Janice, and Joneses had finished the chicken Topaz bobbed her head in amiable by the time we got back, but there agreement. "A preacher and two was plenty of potato salad to go other couples will do nicely." with the salami, so we all made a 46 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION good meal, and then settled back cover that. Couldn't we have a to the business at hand: getting doctor?" wed. Seeing the brief flash of dismay "I regret," said Soong Lai How, on my face, Topaz softened the "that such a marriage cannot be blow with, 'We could get a female performed at this time. We must Buddhist doctor, Burt. That way, have a bridal barge.'' Soong wouldn't be lonely here, "What's a bridal barge?" I said, and we'd kill two birds with one eagerly. "We'll rent one." stone." "I seriously doubt," continued Before I could reply, lidabel Soong, "that such an object can be Kerrick snapped her fingers and made to broach yon narrow portal. elbowed Henry. "Didn't I tell you It must be built, bv the bride­ there was something odd about grooms themselves, a~yhow. l11en, this place, dear? There are no at the moment of sunset, hand in birds. Or even insects. Probably no hand with your intended, you two fish in the rivers, either." men, your blushing brides, and I looked around, a bit shaken. myself, will be borne down yon She was quite correct. On Terra swift blue stream, as man is borne Two, we were truly alone. That down the stream of life, and I will meant stocking the place with sprinkle you with the waters there­ game, learning the art of hus­ of, and-But it takes too long to bandry, taking along a balance of tell. It's quicker to just do it. Build predators so we wouldn't be up to the barge, and I'll marry you the our tailbones in the more timid ensuing sunset." species. "Artie!" I called. "Artie, Artie lost the toss, so while he come over here, quick!" -under the supervision of Soong He was only too glad to drop Lai How-began to hew down a the hatchet and run to my side. magnificent bronze-barked chest­ "What's up now?" he demanded, nut, I betook myself to the rest of wiping drizzles of salt sweat from the group, who were making vast his forehead. I told him, and inroads into Topaz's icebucket, watched the sag-lines of momen­ along with our gin and vermouth. tary gloom set themselves into the "I was thinking," said Mavis harder configurations of grim de­ Jones, between mammoth pulls at termination. "Okay. We'll get some a pint-size stein of crystal liquid game for the place. Pigeons, from which came the red alien horses, tarantulas, piranhas, puf­ stare of two green olive-pimen­ fins, anacondas, grebes, and so tos, "it would be awful if one of us fortll. And while we're getting the came down with appendicitis. things-" he said with taut humor, Your boy scout handbook doesn't clapping a hand on Henry's shoul- ESSENTIALS ONLY 41 der and pointing toward the fa11en Pike, Perch, Trout, Bass-And hatchet, "-you can build the clams and oysters and lobster! bridal barge!" We've got to bring cuttings from While the Joneses were think· grape vines, so we can make wine, ing it over, Artie and I raced for too." the black hole and dashed into the "So we hire a gardener,'' I said. sanctuary of my cellar. He turned "But look-Let's make It a female his head and looked back at the gardener, who happens to be a hole. "Could we get animals Buddhist doctor on the side. We through there, Burt? I mean like don't want to overcrowd the place." cows and things? How long did it Artie glanced through the hole, take you.to poke that gap?" where the Joneses and Kerricks "I didn't poke it," I said. "It were leading Topaz, Janice and just appeared. I hooked up my Soong in a rousing camp song. new gas heater yesterday morning, "It's overcrowded already," he so I had to move the wires leading sighed. "A Buddhist gardener-doc· to my electric stove, upstairs in tor isn't going to burst the seams." the kitchen. By the fuse box, I We started upstairs for the hall mixed the plugs by accident, and and my phone. "And we can ask got the TV running in parallel her if she has any pregnant fish, with the air-conditioner and stove. too." I didn't know it till I turned the Millicent Sprague turned out to main power switch on again. My be everything we needed. A firm TV, stove, and air-conditioner Buddhist, she had her M.D. from went on together, and this hole Johns Hopkins, a passion for gar· appeared in the wall, at the focal dening, and a tankful of fish, well point of the three units. I'm afraid on the way to motherhood, which to turn anything off. I hate to she had filched from the lab. think of this month's electric bill." ''This is so exciting," she said, "Okay," Artie sighed. 'That lets as we assisted her through the hole out widening. How about we in the cellar wall, taking care not bring a bunch of calves through, to shatter her fishtank. "A new and let them grow on the other world, all our own. I have a purse­ side?" ful of surgical tools, and there's a "It's a start," I said hopefully. carboy of ether out in the cab, "And maybe we can bring only which should last us until we fig­ one chicken, and a few dozen eggs ure out how to make the stuff our· for her to set on." selves." "And some pregnant fish," said "Books," said Artie, as we start· Artie, beginning to smile. "Eating ed upstairs toward the cab. "We've fish, I mean. Mackerel, Pickerel, got to get hold of books, books on 48 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION things, lots of things. How-to sinking feeling that was becoming books, I mean. After all, what do too familiar to my stomach. we know about insulation, brick­ "Other things we'll need. Hon­ laying, brickmaking, plumbing, estly, Burt," she said, sweetly, weaving, re-soling, glazing, or sensing my disappointed slump in stuff like that? We've got to get the gathering darkness, "we've kept books on everything, boy!" it to a minimum, an absolute mini­ "Go ahead," I said. "I'll get the mum. Essentials only. Get the carbov of ether." things on the list, and we're all While Artie got on my phone, ready to go." I hurried out and got the ether, . Artie entered through the hole and also settled up Millicent's at that moment, with the an­ taxi-tab, which was a bit steep, nouncement that a gross of How­ since she'd come from two states to books were on the way by spe­ away. I trundled the enormous cial messenger. I drew him aside. bottle back inside by keeping it off "\Ve're near the summit," I said, the vertical and rolling it along handing over the list. "We fi]] this its bottom comer, damn near lost prescription, and Terra Two is it descending the ce11ar stairs, then ours." finally heaved it out the hole onto He leaned close to the paper, the twilit sward of Terra Two. squinted, then moaned softly. "It'll "We need a fire," was Topaz's take us all night to do this!" he first greeting to me. "It's getting scowled. Then, "But if it's the only chiJlv out here." way-?" "The scout handbook-" I be­ "It is," I said. "Come on, let's gan. get on it. And by sunset tomorrow "It's too dark to read it. We we']] be riding the bridal barge." need a fire to read how to build "Okay" said Artie. "But let's one." She shivered prettily in her hurry. Idabel Kerrick has 'views' shorts and halter, her navel just on intemperance, and if she finds barely visible in the gloom for any· out those five boxes are full of ciga­ who wished to contemplate it.. I rettes, we may come back to find a saw she had a length of paper in riverful of filter-tip mulch." her hand, so I took it from her and "She didn't object to the mar­ said, "Rub two dry twigs together. tinis," I exclaimed. When they start smoking and "She couldn't. I told her it was glowing, set this on fire, and stick mineral water, and even if she it into a pile of pre-piled twigs." knows the difference, she can't ad­ "Oh, I can't bum that," said mit it. How would a temperate Topaz. ''That's our list.• woman know she was drinking al­ "List of what?" I said, with a cohol?" ESSENTIALS ONLY 49 I gave up arguing, tore the list chest (brimful of high-heeled across the middle, and Artie and pumps and scarlet evening I split up into a two-man early­ gowns), a steel tool box full of evening scavenger hunt. One long tools, a shopping bag filled with night's work-Then a world of seeds for every imaginable food­ ourownl plant (and none of us knew which seed would grow which plant), Four-thirty P.M. of the follow­ three lowing calves (two female, ing day found us down by the riv­ one male), seven hens and a roos­ erside in Terra Two. The bridal ter, a nanny goat for immediate barge, built of four well-trimmed milk needs, Janice's manicure set, chestnuts, bobbed sluggishly on its Mrs. Kerrick's mother's portrait of rope tether on the blue swirls of Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Kerrick's rushing river. On the brink, ready barbell set, Mrs. Jones' cookbook, to board, stood Idabel and Henry Mr. Jones' fishing tackle, Soong Kerrick, Mavis and Walter Jones, Lai How's hand-painted lacquer Janice, Topaz, Artie and me. rice bowl with matching chop­ Soong Lai How was already sticks, a snow shovel (just in aboard, toward the prow, dipping case), a tobaggan (same reason), river water-for practice-in a an itinerant plumber named Casey large silver ladle hastily stolen Yates, Mrs. Kerrick's chiropodist from my kitchen. (a man named Grivvel, a bit surly, And on the river bank beside us but a dandy bridge-player), Milli­ stood the other items that would cent's fish tank (containing a preg­ populate Terra Two: The five car­ nant pike, but no longer any other tons of smokes, a bottle of ver­ fish, thanks to the pike, who was mouth with one liquid ounce miss­ -after all-eating for seventy), ing, half a case of gin, the scout a pool table with balls and cue­ handbook, a bottle of suntan lo­ sticks, a deck of cards, a Scrabble tion, Topaz's prayer-wheel and set, checkers, chess, parcheesi, empty wicker hamper, a jar con­ tinkertoy (thinking of the chil­ taining three olives (one missing dren-to-be), a mahogany banquet its pimento), a quarter-pound of table, with cloth, matching nap­ salami, Topaz's icebucket (aslosh ery, dinnerware set for twelve, and with warm water), one gross of a ten-pound box of cutlery, the How-to books, a pair of molting complete works of Mark Twain, lovebirds in a cage, two mated Dr. Grivvel's siamese cat, Casey Irish setters, Janice's girl friend Yates' portable hi-fi (in whose Bessie Bliss (whom Janice had cabinet reposed the complete re­ promised could be maid-of-honor corded works of Laughing Jay at her ·wedding), Topaz's hope Hawkins), a cast-iron weather 50 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION vane, a dozen assorted-length switch in my cellar, and get left lightning rods, garden tools, fif­ behind. Besides, if someone turns teen sacks of cement, and Artie's it on again, the door'll reappear." beloved "I Go Pogo" button. "I've thought of that," said Ar­ I had just finished cataloguing tie. "Here's what I'm going to do. all these items in my mind when I run a line from the back of this Artie announced, peremptorily, raft across the field and through "Okay, folks, let's get it aboard!" the doorway. The far end I attach "This stuff?!" I gasped. "On a to a board suspended between two four-log raft?" chairbacks. On the board I place "\Ve have to, Burt," Artie ex­ a heavv brick, wound with wire plained. "The current's kind of and then wired to the handle of swift along here, and no telling the switch. Upstairs, I mount a where the bridal barge will end brass ashtrav on a cord attached up downstream. Do you want to to your pa;lor chandelier, Burt, pole the thing back?" and draw it back in an arc that I admitted I did not, so we all will send it through the TV tube set to work loading the raft, leav­ and smash it. I fasten the ashtray ing outselves a minimum of foot­ -at the upper end of its arc­ room on which to stand at the around an iron hook held against launching. Wherever we ground­ an electromagnet. Then-as soon ed, there would we establish our as we set sail here-the line taut­ colonv. ens, the board slips from the chairs, In-an hour, it was done. The the brick drops, the switch cuts off sun hung low over the western the power, the magnet releases the horizon, the sky overhead turned a hook, the ashtray arcs through the smoky crimson, Artie and I took TV tube, and there's no more door our places beside Janice and To­ to Terra Two, nor the means to paz, and Casey Yates, the nearest re-create one. I figure no two TVs to the rope, prepared to cast off. have perfectly identical circuits, "Oops!" exclaimed Artie. "Hold so even rebuilding your set won't it, Yates." re-create that door. Besides, who'd We all looked up expectantly. ever dream such a thing would Artie gave a what-a-dope-l-am happen?" laugh, and said, "We can't leave We all agreed it was a good yet. Not with the door to Earth idea, and Artie hurried off to do still wide open. We've got to close it. We waited, with mounting sus­ it after us, so no one can follow pense, eyeing the slow descent of and spoil our paradise." the sun toward the shimmering "But how?" I asked. "Someone ·golden horizon. Then he came will have to throw the cutoff dashing through the hole, paying ESSENTIALS ONLY 51 out line behind him, hopped And, while everybody was fight­ aboard the raft, and tied the line ing to save the supplies and main­ firmly to the starboard log. "Okay," tain their balance and not get sea­ he grinned. "Cast off, Yates, and sick, the line leading back through let the ceremony begin!" the black doorway pulled taut- Again we took our places beside There was a fractional hesita­ the girls, Soong began to intone tion, and the doorway vanished. something singsongy and sprinkle And the chestnut grove van­ us with river water, Bessie Bliss ished, and the river vanished, and sobbed softly behind us, Idabel the entire landscape vanished- Kerrick, sipping a tall martini, And there we were, standing on eyed the cigarette-crates with a the remains of my garage, with our squint of suspicion, the others tumbled goods crashing loudly stood close-packed as elevator pas­ about us, right in the center of sengers and tried to look solemn, Highway I 7 in the middle of the and Casey Yates cast off the line. evening rush hour. There was only In the pinkening glow of sunset, one thing to do. We scattered and our little raft nosed its way out ran, leaving stunned and baffied from shore, picked up speed grad­ motorists to get around our block­ ually, and began to rock . . . ade as best they could. A police "The fish!" Millicent cried in­ whistle was blowing loudly in the anely. "Save the fish!" The large distance, and I didn't care to stick tank was indeed sliding portside around and explain. in increasing acceleration, but why anyone should worry about a "How did I know you'd created fish's falling into a river is beyond a whole dimension?!" Artie said, me, unless Millicent was con­ later that evening in his kitchen, cerned by the pike's delicate con­ as we sipped fortifying draughts dition. At any rate, she dove for of cold ale. "Misdirection, that's the tank, collided with the Ker­ what it was. The doorway fooled ricks, who in turn staggered me. I thought it was simply an en­ against the heaped supplies, and trance, not part of the whole." then the ten-pound box of cutlery "Maybe it's just as well," I said. crashed to the heaving logs and "You can't get cold ale on Terra tore right through the thick plaited Two. I'm sorry about you and Jan­ grass bindings between them. The ice. I guess she had a right to get logs began to separate, faster and sore." faster, men on one side, women on "Is it my fault she was falling the other, and a spread-legged into the river when we switched Soong trying to be with both back?" shrugged Artie. "It only groups. took the firemen an hour to dig 52 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION her feet out of the highway, didn't played catch with a silken ball. it?" The trees were a riot of color, filled "Yeah, but I think it's a good with every imaginable fruit, and thing they didn't believe her ac­ all the birds seemed to be birds of cusations, or you could be warm­ paradise. ing a cot in a cell right now. Luck­ "Artie!" I shrieked, jumping ily, they just figured she was up. "Artie!" potted." He dashed in, staggered against "She was. In the highway." the side of the door, and grinned ''Well, anyhow," I said, getting foolishly. "We've done itl" he up. "I don't mind all the other cried. "Another Earth! We'll call waste, but I wish you'd see about this one Terra Three, and we getting me a new television. I won't have to stock it with any­ don't want to miss the Late Show body but ourselves!" tonight. It's got Ginger Rogers." "Right!" I chortled gaily. "Come "I'll take care of it, I promise," on,let's hurry!" said Artie. "But there're no TV­ Then, as I stepped forward, I sales places open tonight. You can noticed something odd. So did Ar­ watch it here, if you want." tie, because he halted at my side. I thanked him, re-filled my "Hey," he said, "do you think it's mug, and went into his living only a coincidence that they all room. The only comfortable chair look like Ginger Rogers?" I could find faced the set badly, so '1-1 hope it is," I said, un­ I hefted the TV out a foot, near easily. "The Late Late Show is the mouth of the air-conditioner, 'Frankenstein Meets the Wolf- and turned it on. "Come on, Ar­ man'." tie," I called, "it's starting." We stared at the gorgeous vista "Just a second," he said. "I'm a bit longer, then at each other, tired of ale. Let me put on a pot and then Artie reached over de­ of coffee." I heard the click as he cisively and turned off the TV. turned on his electric range, and The Grecian glen vanished with then his living room wall van­ the Ginger Rogers movie. "How ished, and I was looking into a about a hand of Gin?" sighed Ar­ glorious Grecian glen, in which tie. laughing maidens in filmy gowns I followed him into the kitchen. danced on the emerald sward and "You're on." BOOKS

THE REST OF 11IE ROBOTS, Isaac Asi­ popular magazine science fiction mov, Doubleday, $5.95 can sti11 honestly be either faulted A PAIL OF Am, Fritz Leiber, Ballan­ or favored as juvenile. It is almost tine, 50¢ forty years now since Hugo Gems­ DOCTOR TO 111E STARS, Murray back's first "scientifiction" maga­ Leinster, Pyramid, 40¢ zines established a vehide for his sHoCK n, Richard Matheson, Dell, pre-Time linguistricks; almost 50¢ thirty since Howard Phillips Love­ STIJRCEON IN ORBIT, Theodore Stur­ craft's death consolidated his geon, Pyramid, 40¢ Stranger-seeking cult. It is a full quarter-century since the combined There is a fantasy of fantasies readership of these overlapping cherished alike by friends and cirdes formed the dedicated audi­ foes of science fiction : the self- ence that underlay the "Golden image of s-f as an enfatlt terrible of Age" of the early Campbell As­ literature, glittering in space-mail tounding and Unlcown . .. against the meta11ic sheen of sharp- It was in these magazines that angled twirly-knobbed technofacts. the first science fantasies by Leiber, The fact is, s-f has a past. I am Sturgeon, and Asimov first appear­ not speaking of heroic ancestries ed (all three, as it happened, in the classical and medieval voyages 1939). Leinster was writing in the to the Moon. I mean the immedi- genre before Gemsback invented ate line of descent common to all the label. The youngest writer in contemporary fiction forms, start- this current crop of short story col­ ing in the· early-mid-nineteenth lectipns is Matheson, with only century with Hawthorne, Shelley, fifteen years behind him-the Poe, Verne, Swift, and Butler, and same fifteen years in which s-f has taking contemporary forms with firmly established itself as a book Kipling, Doyle, Twain, Bierce, publishing "category." Wells, and London around the Clearly, neither critic, author, or tum of the century. publisher may any longer responsi- Not even the specialty field of bly either ignore the field, or over- 53 54 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION look its failures, because of its sup­ stories that make up the first third posed youth or lack of background. of the book run a clear, but close, second to the group in I, Robot­ Unhappily, neither the Sturgeon and they do include such memor­ nor Asimov volumes are representa­ able items as Victory Unintention­ tive of the authors' current work. al, Let's Get To[!,ether, and Lenny. The most recent of the robot stories At this size (55 6 pp.) and price dates from 19 57; the Sturgeon and in view of the availability of selections were all written in the much of the material elsewhere, early 'fifties. The fact is, neither this is primarily a volume for col­ writer has done more than a hand­ lectors and gift-givers; but it is a ful of s-f stories in the last five or must for collectors and complet­ six years. Asimov turned to science ists, enhanced as it is by revealing fact writing in '57; since then he author's notes between the stories; seems to do just about one piece of and for anyone to whom even half science fiction a year. Sturgeon­ the stories are new, it's still worth since his story in the special issue the price. of F&SF honoring him in 1962- The Sturgeon collection is less seems to have done everything but. even-textured. Three things for/ I keep coming across movie novel­ about/against it must be said im­ izations, suspense stories, articles, mediately: columns, and reviews in everything I) If, like me, you missed from The Realist to the National Extrapolation when it appeared in Review.•• magazine form in 1953 (as Beware Both authors have, also, been the Fury), run-do not walk-to extensively collected and antholo­ your nearest newsstand; all you gized; the present collections are, need is forty cents. then, barrel-scrapings-and as 2) Reading instructions: When such they come off surprisingly you finish that first story, put the well. book down for a bit, before you The Rest of the Robots is just start downhill on the others. And, what it says: all the positronic if you must read the author's intro robot stories not previously reprint­ notes-leave them till last. ed in I, Robot. There is no need to 3) So far as I know, none of the report here on the two novels in­ five selections have ever appeared cluded in this giant package, The in book form before. Caves of Steel and The Naked There is, I am afraid, some Sun, beyond saying that they are cause for this last item. The Wages there; both have been too much re­ of Synergy, for instance, has one of printed and reviewed to need fur­ the most compelling openings you ther comment. The eight short have ever read; I wish I could say BOOKS 55 half as much for its end. Make superb craftsman; occasionally he Room for Me will, I think, fasci­ rises far above it, but never sinks nate other Sturgeons fans as it did below.- These are typical Leinster me; it seems to have been a sort of standards: tightly woven, solidly first-take on the ideas that grew, structured, absorbing, credible shortly afterwards, into More Than space-science adventures. Nothing Human (the gestalt, bleshing, et spectacular; very good reading. al.). Here the concepts are unde­ fined, the terminology still unde­ If Richard Matheson had Mur­ veloped, the characters arrested ray Leister's structural strength and halfway between lifelike realism storytelling technique-but he and artistic truth in one of the doesn't. Shock II is, typically, full hoariest old s-f plots on the books. of brilliant conceptions and incom­ But the germ is there. plete executions. Well, not quite The last two stories in the book full-I keep reading Matheson be­ are there, I assume, only because cause about one time in ten he does no one else has reprinted them. I what he sets out to do. Tnat is approve the motive, in general; but doing a great deal, and in this book with such items as Fear Is a Busi­ he does it once, and perhaps twice, ness, The Perfect Host, and in thirteen tries. Tandy's Story (to name just the Seven of these are primarily hor­ most obvious few) still not avail­ ror stories One, Graveyard Shift, able in any Sturgeon collection­ actually horrified me; and Crilltets well, it seems odd, at least, that no contained one scene of possibly un­ hardcover publisher has realized forgettable horror. The problem that there is still enough prime here, I think, is that though Mathe­ Sturgeon uncollected to fill just son's characters ring true, it is more such a giant volume as the Asimov. the ring of a coin on a counter than of a struck gong: the overtones are The Leinster book picks up missing. We see the people, even chronologically where Asimov left recognize them, as we might famil­ off, with a 19 57 novella, The iar faces on the street; we do not Grandfathers' War; this and the know them, as we come to know other two shorter, but still hefty, even the most bizarre and unlikely novelettes (both 1963 ), Med beings, for instance, in Sturgeon's Ship Man and Tallien Three, are work. (This can be a matter of all part of the Interstellar Medical style. Leinster, for example, sel­ Service series. doms takes us inside his people­ I have never read a bad story by but neither does he rely for effects Murray Leinster, and do not expect on the kind of emotional shock to. At his standard level, he is a which requires strong empathy.) 56 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Of the other six entries, one is a at our follies more than mocking at amusing-enough Playboy-joke story us. (F&SF readers will remember A Flourish of Strumpets, and five Rump- Titty- Titty- Tum - Tah­ are psychological or philosophical Tee; SF readers, The Beat Cluster; s-f. From Shadowed Places has a chess addicts, The 64-Square Mad­ profound theme, inventively plot­ house.) But scattered among them ted, and superficially written. are three of the angriest, most ef­ Mute is the kind of story that keeps fective, true horror stories I have me reading Matheson hopefully; ever read: The Foxholes of Mars, this one works-and by itself The Last Letter, and Coming At­ would make the book worthwhile. traction, all searing indictments of The Leiber collection, like Mat­ the anti-love, anti-laughter, forces heson's ranges from 1950 through at work in the world of today-till­ 1962. Like Matheson and Stur­ tomorrow. geon, Leiber is an uneven writer. Leiber's effectiveness is largely UnJike Sturgeon, he is still active due to his knack of suiting style to in sf; unlike Matheson (or, hope­ theme. He knows how to use both a fully, just ahead of him) he has broad canvas and a hairline brush, mastered his craft to the point when to illuminate with moonglow where even the least of the stories and when with spotlights. His least hit a good average. Like both of efforts are, I think just that-least the others, Leiber is colorful, inven­ effort. Bread Overhead, Time tive, emotional, sometimes shock­ Fighter, Pipe Dream (which com­ ing-more the pyrotechnician than plete the Table of Contents) are the cookbook cook. And his versa­ all good enterainment-and as tility includes a pronounced flair long as editors, critics, and pub­ for satire, well displayed here. lishers keep their standards (of pay Between the warmth and optim­ and praise) at the low level con­ ism of the opening and closing sidered suitable for science fantasy stories (A Pail of Air and The Nice as a supposed step-child of litera­ Girl with Ftve Husbands, both ture, even our best writers will statements of the endurance and sometimes settle for providing no power of personal love in two very more than that minimum, with the different future worlds), are a scat­ -too-quick story for the too-quick tering of soft-satires, affectionate check. · needle-jabs at a wide variety of hu­ Magazine editors have the excuse man experience: art-and-culture, of pages to fill and budgets to fit. advertising and marketing, chess, Book editors might fulfill their re­ beatniks, s-f fans, science, business, sponsibilities to authors, publish­ religion. politics . . . ers, and readers better by exercis­ These are gay stories, laughing ing a more demanding selectivity, BOOKS 57 tossing out the shoddy "category" he has packed half a lifetime of standards, and setting "main­ writing experience into that decade. stream" criteria for quality. I think And he has learned; he is one of they would get it-and I think the few men who might, with re­ they would sell more books. spect to them both, be compared to Murray Leinster for honest crafts­ THE PLANET BUYER, Cordwainer manship. He rarely lets a reader SO¢ Smith, Pyramid, down; but it is just as rare to be Perhaps the most exciting new uplifted-out of yourself, as they "name" in s-f this decade has been say-by a Silverberg story. Cordwainer Smith's. Like most of The cover blurb calls Regan's Heinlein's early work, Smith's Planet "a wild and wacky novel of stories are written out of a care­ the next World's Fair." The adjec­ fully planned future history, with tives are a bit strong, but the general a uniform set of principles of soci­ impression is correct. The Fair is ology, psychology, and political on the Moon, the protagonist a economy applicable to all. But super-enterpreneur in 1992's Big­ Smith is much more the poet than big-business network of global fin­ the engineer, and the shapes and ance; the tempo is fast, with no in­ colors that Rare across the horizons trusive "message" or complex char­ of his framework are more reminis­ acters to slow the pace. Moderately cent of Sturgeon and Leiber than funny, occasionally pointed, con­ Heinlein and Asimov. sistently well plotted and smoothly The Planet Buyer is not, to my written. Good commuter reading. taste, the best of his work, and if you read the magazine version (The THE GREAT TIME MACHINE HOAX, Boy Who Bought the Earth) you Keith Laumer, Simon & Schuster, will probably find very little more $3.95 that matters in this expansion. But One might almost say the same, I have not yet been able to put with a different synopsis, for this down a Cordwainer Smith story un­ novel-but not quite. Keith Lao­ finished-including this one. mer's first story was published only five years ago. He is a Captain in REGAN's PLANET, Robert Silverberg, the Air Force, and for a part-time Pyramid, 40¢ writer, has turned out a prodigious I cannot say the same for Robert amount of material in a short time. Silverberg, or for his fairly enter­ Superficially, the similarities be­ taining new novel. Silverberg has tween Laumer and Silverberg are been writing only ten years-but considerable: great productivity, because he is one of the most pro­ continually better craftsmanship, lific writers ever to hit the s-f field, strong plottiPg, fast action. But- 58 PANTASY AND SCIENCE PICTION With the exception of the Retief naturalist mysticism is as strong as series, Laumer has rarely repeated her contention that most "scienti­ himself in content or in technique. fic" laboratory techniques are inap­ One feels that with this book he did plicable to investigation of ESP less than he might have, that he phenomena. was perhaps trying to write a "purely commercial" novel. Once She points out that all alleged again, the jacket blurb is close to ESP experiences consist of releas~s accurate when it says, "an explosive of information (or fantasy) from mixture of danger, excitement, and the subconscious mind of the sub­ high good humor." (Read "enjoy­ ject, and that there are other areas able" for "explosive.") More signi­ of human experience involving ficant: behind the fun and games, similar emergences of subconscious the not-yet-expert technician has thought-"intuition," "creativity," permitted the reader a glimpse of "religious experience," as examples. something vigorous, assertive, and We know almost nothing about the stimulating-persumably the au­ nature or mechanics of these pro­ thor. If he decides to use the craft cesses. Mrs. Heywood proposes the he is rapidly acquiring to commun­ hypothesis that some mode of ex­ icate as well as entertain, if he change of information on a subcon­ learns to say more instead of less, scious level is a probably universal Keith Laumer may well become a natural human function, less un­ very good writer. derstood than other kinds of com­ munication because of the blocks ESP, A PERSONAL MEMOIR, Rosalind between our conscious and subcon­ Heywood, Dutton, $4.50 scious minds. The road to more Whatever your bias about ESP comprehension, and to reliable test­ and you are rare indeed if you ing procedures, she says, is through have none-this book will not fit a greater knowledge of the actual your preconceptions. functioning of the subconscious. First, the author herself fits no Perhaps when we know more about stereotypes. Neither dry spiJ'!ster how and why information is stored nor dreaming widow, .fluttery and released in the unexplored cultist nor flatfooted statistician, areas of the mind, we can deter­ Mrs. Heywood is a well-read, witty, mine more accurately how it arrives thoughtful, sophisticated woman, there. a wife and mother who has worked To this end, Mrs. Heywood has as nurse, housekeeper, and diplo­ written this "personal memoir," so matic hostess for many years in as to present her own ESP experi­ many parts of the globe. Second: ences in the fullest pOssible con­ her distaste for spiritualist-super- text. She believes it is necessary to BOOKS 59 examine such incidents in the Diques of investigation are those of framework of surrounding circum­ the clinical psychologist. Certainly, stances, with due attention to the I found here a more balanced, in­ personalities and emotional rela­ telligent, and productive approach tionships of the participants, and to investigation of ESP than I have to the inner emotional and outer ever read elsewhere. social and intellectual climates of One (inevitable) quibble: This each experient. Some of the book book was published originally in is dull; the author apologizes in England. The author documents advance for this, but maintains that her frequent references and quota­ the duller portions of her own his­ tions conscientiously. Why did the tory are as significant in a study of American publisher not correct the her claims to ESP as the drama footnotes to show American pub­ often surrounding the incidents lishing data for those items availa­ themselves. ble here? I think her approach is correct, and that the only appropriate tech- -JUDITH MERRIL

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City . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • State ...... Zip No...... Science fiction, as a separate medium and field of expression, is catching on aU over the world at present. In Italy it has been less than four years since the first anthology of SF appeared (trans­ lated American and British stories) and SF has followed an ex­ ponential growth curve ever since. In 1963 in Trieste the first International Science Fiction Film Festival was so successful that it was repeated in 1964 and appears to be an established part of the summer season there. More and more SF is being read in· Italy in both books and magazines and all but a microscopic per­ centage of this is translated. Of the original Italian SF some is very bad, outright imitations of American-British SF laced with characters named Vladimir Clarcke, Thomas Cochran, Lady Benz and Ayme Algys. But this might be caUed an attempt to come of age, you must imitate what is existent before you can advance into uncharted territories. Some Italian writers are already doing this, and Emesto Castaldi is one of the best. THE END OF ETERNITY is a story that is typically Italian-and typically science fiction at the same time. It reflects the European and Italian mutual suspicion of aU the atomic powers and the typically Italian assumption that at heart aU politicians are dishonest. And, with Latin ease, it is not only science fiction but fantasy and a dream aU at the same time.-H. H.

THE END OF ETERNITY

by Ernesto Castaldi

(translated from Italian by Harry Harrison)

RoMB SLBEPS. THE AFTERNOON on memories of its past, for in this heat bums the millennium old ru- air there is something of the breath ins, scorched and crumbled by the of the Caesars, and of the millions sun. It is the hour in which the of citizens, now dust. Perhaps it is air seems to stop moving, dwelling the air, saturated with the sweat of 60 nnt END OP ETERNITY 61 the legions that weighs nostalgical­ His Excellency the Minister of ly on the truncated columns of the Foreign Affairs. I am alone in the forum. world and old. I am no longer at­ It is a cemetery of memories. tracted by wine nor by women. My Like a ravaged ant-hill, its corri­ soul is as calm and inoffensive as dors and cells uncovered, in this a pool of still water. I look to be muted hour Rome displays the an­ what I am: alone, old, calm and cient scars which departed barbar­ inoffensive. Rome is my only ians have inflicted down through friend. the ages. It is like an ant-hill dried As you must know, as everyone by the sun, in whose useless re­ now knows, the Russian ultima­ mains stupid beetles wander about, tum arrived unexpectedly, while in tirelessly. The sun's piercing light Geneva they were still discussing heats the pavements built to be disarmament. The revelation was skimmed by the light steps of ves­ made that hidden somewhere in .tal virgins trodden by the victorian subterranean Rome is a bomb of feet of gladiators and worn smooth one hundred megatons awaiting by the sandled feet of monks. It the electronic command to ex­ brazenly illuminates the walls of plode. hidden cells, picks up the marble It is a ·novel idea to neutralize limbs of gods fallen into disgrace. the defences of the whole western Like beetles perspiring Germans world while at the same time ren­ wander among the ruins, legs rosy dering useless all their detection with the sun, scarves tied about stations. The missiles will remain blond ringlets. And feet. Enormous in their places on the launching feet of civilized barbarians, bring­ ramps because the atom bombs ing back to Rome a little of its civil­ have been secretly set under the ization which has been wandering enemy's cities. about in the Northern fogs for ten The destruction of Rome is to be centuries. an example, like Hiroshima. The For the Romans of today it is Russian statement leaves no alter­ a sacred hour, the pennichella. native. Surrender or death. They sleep, and if they sleep a lit­ There has not been time to as­ tle longer or a little deeper than semble the Italian parliament. in other cities, it is perhaps be­ The Minister of Foreign Affairs cause time stops in the streets and had me called in great haste, and squares here. One breathes eter­ gave me his instructions. I have nity. just put his family into the black THERE ARE JUST TWENTY Mercedes and now I am waiting, MINUTES TO THE END. with the motor running, in front I am Romolo, the chauffeur for of the Ministry. 62 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION In Rome no one knows what is mean. Under the Quirinale, per­ happening: why spread panic? If haps, or hidden beneath the Colos­ the bomb explodes there is no safe­ seum-or in some subway tunnel. ty. And an excavation is impossi­ A car brakes to a squealing stop ble in the few minutes that have next to mine and three highly-ex­ been granted us. cited elderly gentlemen alight. The Minister is standing near Their faces are enough to tell me the telephone, his eyes on the black that they know as they ask to be instrument that is connected di­ taken immediately to the Minister. rectly with Washington. He I lead the way and take them sweats. He is like a condemmed to the Honorable's office. He is still man already seated in the electric there, tense, at the telephone: he chair, hoping desperately for the seems very upset. bell to ring announcing his par­ The three enter and begin talk­ don. ing in desperation, they are scien­ They are waiting to hear from tists, and in their opinion it is a Washington. If they surrender death sentence. With a hundred then Rome is safe. megaton bomb not even the dust I know what is about to happen of Rome will remain. They speak because I listened shamelessly be­ of the space-time continuum, hind a door. I am alone in the mathematical equations, an ex­ world with very little pride, and plosion of such magnitude will pro­ getting on in years, it is only for duce a gigantic distortion. I don't Rome that I am sorry. understand it all. Does it matter? Ten minutes have already gone The telephone rings and every­ by. The Minister's wife is nervous, one stares, wide-eyed. No one an­ she knows nothing but she is an­ swers it. The Minister reaches for noyed at having been called here the instrument, hesitates, then so suddenly. His daughter is cross raises it. His voice trembles. and complains because she had had "Pronto." to cancel a hairdresser's appoint­ He listens and his eyes fill with ment. I ignore them, I only want tears, he nods and puts back the to enjoy this last look at my city. receiver. He turns to the others, I want to see everything closely, trying to assume a solemn atti­ clearly as never before. I want to tude, and then stammers, "It is the take it with me "after". Wherever end. It will explode." after may be, of course. The three scientists look horri­ Cars have begun to appear. Ro­ fied, still unbelieving for an in­ mans who took short Pennichellas stant then without a word run to­ are beginning to stir. wards the stairs. Where is it? The bomb, I "Where are they going?'' I ask, THE END OF ETERNITY 63 but he doesn't answer me. He the destruction of Rome. But fear takes my arm and looks at his sets him stammering as he stares watch. repeatedly at his watch. "Ten minutes," he murmurs. Watches, clocks everywhere. "Ten minutes to save ourselves." He They will all stop at the same hour pushes me in front of him and we -in five minutes. hurry to the car. Some of the of­ An old woman crosses the street fice workers tum and look at us, and I cannot miss her. Her body puzzled. flies about thirty meters and lies We scramble into the car. The motionless. Minister doesn't explain but his "Don't stop, go on, go on. You've terror is so apparent that no one killed no one. She only had four asks any questions. "Drivel" be minutes to live anyway. Go!" shouts! I am calm. It feels as though all "Whereto?" this is happening to someone else, "Wherever you please but drive this insane and useless chase. The ~rive out of Rome!" mushroom will catch up with us I hammer the car into gear and anyway, five million degrees, we we scream forward, a hundred kil­ won't even feel it. ometers an hour. The Minister's It will be like a distortion they wife is crying and the daughter said, in time and in space. No, in keeps repeating over and over, space-time. What difference does 'Why? Why?" it make? My head is empty. Leaning on the hom I turn into Everything I see around me will the Aurelia at 180 kilometers an be ended in three minutes more. hour. Saint Peter's is already far Two minutes. The end of Rome behind. The police are stopping is the end of the world, the old traffic to give me the right of way. legend is about to come true. In Green, yellow, red. On, on, on. Rome's place there will be a hole Nothing makes sense anymore. fifteen kilometers wide and two­ Those we see from the car win~ hundred deep. But time-what dows are ghosts-ghosts of the about time? One minute to go. The dead. We, too, are ghosts. road marker says seven kilometers Everything is about to end. Sev­ out of Rome. The daughter is cry­ en minutes more. ing now, she has stopped worry­ Now the daughter, her eyes ing about the hairdresser. We are popping with sudden panic seems the only ones trying to escape. The to begin to understand. The Min­ Minister, realizing the impossibil­ ister is muttering a steady stream ity of total evacuation, is trying to of invective against "Those in successfully carry out a partial one Washington" who have permitted -his own. 64 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Half a minute. The Minister me the horizon is blocked off by trembles while his wife and daugh­ low hills. ter cling to him. The second hand From a clump of trees at the reaches zero hour and I feel like edge of this dark area of burned shouting to the farmers planting in grass someone is peering at me, the fields, to tell them to stop. The and I raise my arm in greeting. He time for planting is past. The earth steps out hesitantly and others ap­ trembles with horror and a terri­ pear, starting towards me. The ble light grows up from Rome. man who acts as their leader ad­ It is the end. The road surface vances, holding a crude spear be­ leaps against the car and I slam fore him and looks into my eyes on my brakes. They scream, the without fear. They are all dressed car plunges and shudders to a stop in sheepskins and armed with in the ditch. A hot wind tears at spears and lances. I see them with­ us. I cling to the wheel as from out understanding. behind us the wave of blinding The chief stops an arm's dis­ light advances. The car is bathed tance away from me and says, 'We in brilliance as a roar crumbles saw your signal from Albalonga land and sky. and we came. Here I will build Flames. Smoke. For a fraction of my city. Who are you?" a second I know I have stopped "I am Romulo, I drive for , , ," existing, yet I am alive again. All "Drive?" about me the landscape is cre­ "I drive ..." mated. The sky is black and seems The chief looks at me challeng­ to be rising higher, higher, higher, ingly and says, slyly, "I'm the driv­ detached from the earth. er here. I am in command. Here I I look down at mvself. I am na­ shall build my city. I am Remo and ked but unharmed. 'The Mercedes the city shall be Rema." has disappeared. The farmers, the At last it is all clear. I know that Minister and his wife, the daughter I must kill this man. I shake my all are gone. I am in the very cen­ head and sigh: ter of a vast, burned area. Around "No. It will be called Rome." From the wattle-scented Antipodes Ron Smith sends fJ8 the fol­ lowing reductio ad absurdem of three beloved SF plots which will never be the same again-and a good thing, too.

TBIPSYCH

hy Bon Snaith

The Presence YES, I THOUGHT, THAT WAS THE the Speedway Patrol Snifhounds? answer. Hadn't he been the one to suggest It had taken a long time, but that I buy a new three-acre five­ now I knew, and I had to admit it. level home (with each level split There was something wrong with into three sections) only 1500 me. miles from work? Hadn't he, then, That was what my psycho-robot been the one to suggest that I quit had been trying to make me under­ my job at Amalgamated Robot stand before I wrenched it from its Button Corp. ("The Buttons That floor boltings and smashed it Sew Themselves On!") so I could against the wall. look for other employment more in If I had listened then, I now keeping with my new social posi­ realized, I would have saved tion, as owner of a new Joybug and Blanche all of the pain I subse­ a home in the suburbs? Hadn't he, quently caused her. when things didn't work out, been If it hadn't been for Georgel the one to suggest that I buy the The thought hurtled through my stun-gun? And, finally, hadn't he brain savagely. been the one who showed me how And now, suddenly, my old it operated and then encouraged cunning returned. After all, hadn't me to use it? he really been the cause of it all? No, he hadn't been. I realized Hadn't he been the one who sug­ that now. gested that I buy the new 1997 He'd been the one who had sug­ model telepathic-robot radar-con­ gested that I go to the psycho-robot. trolled Joybug, so I could outrace The thought shot through my 65 66 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION head like the jab of a hypodermic came through. "Sir, you've hurt needle: 1 shouldn't have shot him. your hand ..." It was true that he was only I looked down and saw I had stunned, but he would be stunned crushed the empty glass. for life. Or had I? Suddenly I heard the And what would Blanche say hideous, alien laugh of the Pres­ when she found out? ence within me-the Thing, I I took another Mars-Mellow now realized, that controlled my from the Bot-tender across the bar thoughts and actions, as if 1 were from me, pondering the question no more than a robot, to be turned deeply. I had half finished the on and off at will. The Thing that drink before I remembered. A would destroy the world, for what­ smile snaked across mv mouth. It ever its purpose, if I did not think was going to be all rlght about of some way to stop it. Blanche. "Hadn't you better do some­ I had shot her too. thing about your hand?" the faint Vaguely I wondered why, but I voice of the Bot-tender was saying. waved the thought away with a "If I may suggest, sir . . ." finger of Mars-Mellow. "It is nothing," I answered soft­ I had shot them. Or was it me? ly. I picked the robot up and threw Now I stiffened, my fingers curl­ it against the wall. ing tightly around the glass. What Then I stood, my arms still half­ was it I was trying to remember? raised, frozen. A trace, a thin Something in the back of my mind whisp of smoky thought, remained stirred, like the dark, oppressive of my sudden revelation. presence of an alien thought-en­ . • . if 1 did not think of some tity. It covered my mind like a way to stop it. thick, misty, chilling cloud. I shiv­ I smiled in triumph. It was too ered. late for the Presence to stop me. Something was wrong! The I took the stun-gun from be­ pain welled up in me, as if a wide, neath my plasti-cloak and stuck searing streak of burning sulfer the muzzle in my left ear. had flamed through my brain. I cried out. Reunion And then, from a distance "'fRAT WASAFINE MEAL,GRAND­ across half infinity, I heard a voice. ma," he said after swallowing· the A soft, metallic voice. I opened my last pill. He leaned ba«:k in his eyes and saw that it was the Bot­ forma-chair and tried to belch. tender. "What's the matter, son?" It was hard to understand what Grandma asked. it was saying, but finally the words "I can't belch," he said. TRIPSYCH 67 "It's those artificial artificial "Well, son, I suppose they'd had food-pills they feed you on the a little too much to drink." ships, that's what. They upset your "How's Mary, Grandma?" stomach." "You mean that girl you had be- "They're all right, Grandma. fore you went away?" You've got old fashioned ideas. "How is she?" One thing, though, they aren't the "She's dead, son." same as the real thing." He brushed his eyes with the "Artificial food-pills are what sleeve of his uniform, to keep them I've eaten all my life. They better from blurring, and tightened his not try to put no synthetic substi­ jaw. "How did it happen, Grand­ tutes on the market now. I won't ma?" have it." "Her second husband killed "One thing I'll say for you, her." Grandma, you've got spunk." "Oh? She wasn't even married "That comes from good living, when I left, Grandma." son. How was the voyage? You "Things happen fast, son." haven't told me about it yet. Your He turned his head awav for an mother worries, you know." instant, to compose hims~lf. His "She shouldn't. There's nothing steel-gray eyes contracted to to it. With faster-than-light travel, needle-points. it's like going to Chicago on the Grandma looked up from her tube-train." half-finished plasti-plate of artifi­ "That's nice. She doesn't worry cial food-pills. "What is it, son?" much anyway, son." "Nothing, Grandma," he lied. "Where is she this morning?" The room had seemed to grow very "She and your father are still in dark, as if it were filling with bed." space. "Mom and Dad," he said. "Oh. They were out kind of late "Do you think they'll be up before last night. Didn't they know I was I leave? It's almost dawn and I coming?" have to leave in ten minutes." "They figured you'd want to be "Goodness no, son," Grandma alone the first night, son." smiled. "They just got to bed." "Oh. Guess they didn't know I "Oh. Well, do you think they'd was only going to be here one mind if I woke them-just to say night. I heard them come in, but I goodbye?" was asleep so I didn't get up. You "I wouldn't do that, son. They learn to hear things in your sleep were out all night and they're when you're out in space where pretty tired." there's nothing but silence. What "I know. But I would like to see was all the singing about?" them before I leave. Do you think 68 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION if I just looked in their room, with­ turned and looked back at the out waking them?" strange kitchen. The low cush­ "That would be nice, son, but ioned benches, the streamlined I'm afraid you can't." table, the smooth design of the au­ "\Vhv not, Grandma?" tomatic artificial food-pill indica­ "The' door's locked, son. Your fa­ tor along one wall, the color of the ther always locks it. You see, a cou­ walls themselves, were all new to ple of times I've opened it-" him. "We redecorate every year," "Oh. Well, didn't they say any- Grandma had said. "It was even thing last night when they came prettier year before last." in?" He smiled dispiritedly. He'd "Sure, son. They said lots of never know . .lie took one last look things." at the ancient, wrinkled woman sit­ "I mean about me." ting there. "Things can sure "Well, son, no, I can't recall change in a week," he sighed. that they did. I did tell them you'd He turned and walked quickly gone to sleep and they said, "That's down the spiral rampway to his good." But I don't recall them say­ copter. He headed toward the ing anything else. spaceport. The ship was waiting. "I guess they were tired." He was going home. "They were a little drunk, too, son." The Alien 'Well, Grandma, I guess I'd better get going. Got to get back to AFTER IT WAS OVBR, YOU BOTH the ship." The lean youngster got lit up and lay quietly, smoking. up from the table. The old woman ''You're an alien, aren't you?" looked up at him without moving, you asked her. her fingers playing idly with an "No," she said, looking at you artificial food-pill. queerly. "I wouldn't fret about it, son," "No?" You looked at her in sur­ she said wisely. "They'll be here prise. She was lying with the sheet next time." turned back and she hadn't "Yes," he said, sighing, "but I changed shape yet. "I thought you guess you won't, Grandma. So this were. " is goodbye." "I'm not," she said. "Goodbye, son. Have a good "How can I be sure?" trip." "Haven't I proved it to you al­ "Thank you, Grandma." He ready?" she asked, smiling. turned and walked to the auto­ Her look was innocent enough, matic sliding door. It slid back au­ but you knew she was playing a tomatically. On the threshold he game. Beneath that facade was a TR.IPSYCH 69 mind as sharp, as calculating as laughed. You knew she was bluff­ yours. Almost. ing. There was no place she could "I know you're after the Secret," have concealed a weapon-not you said, launching a frontal at­ even under the pillow. You had tack. the pillow. She turned her head and looked "What are you trying to pull?" at you. ''\Vhat secret?" she asked. you snarled visciously. "Don't blow smoke in my face," "Pull?" She feigned puzzlement, you said. looking at you as if she was an in­ "Sorry." nocent child who had just had her "And don't try to pretend you pigtails yanked for the first time. don't know about the Secret." You knew better. "Pull?" she re­ "All right, I won't pretend. But peated. "Pull? I'm not trying to what is it? If it has anything to do pull anything. I was just joking. with boys, honey, I can tell you-" You know, sheets, cover . . ." "You know what I mean. You "All right, baby," you said, know about the Secret. I'm not eas­ flinging back the sheet and stand­ ily fooled. You've been on my trail ing up. "Play it your way; but for months." you've played it out, baby. The "And I tracked you down and curtain's down, the third act's over got you up here to learn your se­ and the popcorn's stale." cret. That it?" She smiled at you, a She was looking at you, her eyes loose, wet, seductive smile. She wide and staring. You knew you was playing the game well. were hitting her; she wasn't that "That's it," you said. good an actress. The smile disappeared. "You're You started putting on your nuts," she said. pants. "Know what I mean?" you "It's no use," you sneered, pull­ asked. ing the sheet up to your chin. "I've She said nothing; her tongue got you figured." was hanging out. She laughed. It came from her "What's wrong?" you countered. throat, a bubbling sound like the "Do I surprise you? Did you think choking of a wombat. "And I've got your seduction would really work? you covered," she said. Well, it won't. You thought to get You froze, your flesh crawling, me under your control, but it won't as if the sheet over your limbs was work. And you won't discover the a gelatinous mass of pulp. A Secret. There's nothing you can stream of ice water flooded its way do. You're powerless until you do down the inside of your spine. You discover the Secret. And you can't looked at her, warily. trick it out of me." And then, suddenly, you "To hell with your secrets. You 70 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION owe me-" can't just walk in here and-" You cut her off. "It won't work," "You aliens will never learn," you said. "You'll get nothing out of you sneered. me. " "You're nuts!" she screamed at She was rising out of bed now; you. her face was turning purple. The You shut the door and slid thing to do was leave, fast. quietly into a deliquescent puddle "Why you lousy, stinking bum," and flowed down the hall, laugh­ she was saying. She was defeated ing inwardly. and she knew it. "Listen, you It was, after all, your Secret

ILLUSION

Our outpost on the moon supported one and only one so that duty tours there (ten years earth time) became a lonely chore which no one coveted. To ease the pain, the Watchers learned strange habits such as Zen and dream sculpture; golem manufacture and peyote cultivation. One might dare even chalk a pentogram now and then.

Illusion became occupational hazard as well as salve for lonely wounds. Reports came of capsules in lunar skies jilst big enough to swallow but of all communiques none topped this: "Look, no hands," from a moonbrain who thought himself a cheese.

----WALTER H.KERR We had a good deal of interesting information about this story'• authOf', but unfortunately it seems to have been eaten by an ar­ madillo (the information, not the auth01'), and all that we can teU you now is that he is in his twenties, lives in New YOf'k City, skin dives a lot, and writes a lot. There is nothing whimsical about his first F&SF stOt"Y about Clinton and •the movies", and whlle it is set in the future, it has-a.s all such stOf'ies, if good storiel, must have-implications f01' the definite here and now.

BETTER THAN EVER

by Alex Kirs

JOE AND MONICA WENT TO THE expression of mild. discomfort With Movie. Like everyone else, they which she might announce a head­ were gone for a month. Clinton ache. You looked at the eyes now met them at Noordberg's Thursday and thought: This girl has suf­ party-the one you went to to get fered. He felt like telling her un­ out of going to the one on Satur- pleasantly, You have too much day-and treated them to an et tu makeup on; go wash your face. stare. "Clint's still deepening his rut," ''Welcome back to the real Joe said. Clinton smiled. world," he said. "And Soon I will disappear from "Clint, don't be like that," Mon- sight in it, hmmn?" Joe's face was ica said. Clinton saw that she had even worse; all the old, familiar been aged by the experience. To his tics had been ironed out. If a sou­ certain knowledge-compounded venir balloon, subsiding into of a five years' acquaintanceship, a wrinkles week by week on the man­ thousand bits of awed gossip, and tie, had had a bit of fresh air valved some eerily inappropriate newspa- into it, it would have inspired per headlines-her tawny eyes had much the same feeling; it looked looked out over the ruins of one of nice, yes, but how long would it the most creepily disastrous love last? Clinton stared coldly at their affairs imaginable, with the same faces; that the change had been 71 72 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION predictable made it no easier to he said, suddenly tired. In the stomach. The women came out background, amid couches that haggard and viciously serene; the looked like coffee-tables and cof­ men, looking calm and dedicated fee-tables that looked like couches and noble. -it made no difference at all on "Clint, why don't you give in?" which you sat-Noordberg was Monica said. "You're getting bit­ cosying up to Janet. Noordberg ter, and there's nothing so useless was short and plump, with little, as a bitter nonconformist." stupid eyes; he could not smile, or "So now I'm a nonconformist?" light a cigarette, or say hello, with­ he asked her, pleasantly. "And bit­ out looking sinister. He had the ter as well. Why is it I seem to re­ manners of an octopus, and a member a time-excuse me, it was heart of gold. Janet had the sort of so terribly long ago-when we all politeness that dealt with sex agreed it was a matter of individ­ fiends as if they were somebody's ual choice?" He thought, If she grandfather; grandfathers, so says, "We htl1le come to our senses, treated, could not believe their naw," I will bite my fist. And then luck and coyly turned their faces he thought, Maybe I really mean away for a moment, growing tusks. it. But even Monica occasionally There was no reason to stay any knew which arguments could be longer; Clinton pointed with his counted on to kick her in the shins. chin, and Joe and Monica turned "Oh, you're impossible," she to look. 'What is that theme they said. And then, to Joe. "And it play," Clinton murmured, "when would have meant so much to him, the cavalry comes over the hill? too." Joe tousled her hair, looking Excuse me; Good night." He drift­ noble. Clinton felt himself in the ed away into the throng; a sociolo­ position of a kitten playing with a gist, tracing with a dull spoon the ball of wool; it was interesting, course of his progress, would have and lots of fun, and so he contin­ discovered a beautiful graph; Non­ ued playing . . . perhaps, if he involvement at the Perimeters of played long enough, he would find Small Groups. Coming up behind himself disentangled, able to let Janet, he put his nose possessively go. in her hair. She turned her good, "Would it, now?" he said. ''You delicate, unpretty face to his; was tempt me; why not tell me all it possible there was relief in her about it?" eyes? He thought, Oh, she really "It was the greatest experience loves me. of my life," she said. "Time to go, pet," he said fond­ "You should he ashamed to say ly. 'We have a date, remember?" things like that about your life," Yes, she loved him; between show- BETrER THAN EVER 73 ing consideration for him, or for Monica's, I would be sitting on a Noordberg, there was no need for mountain wearing a yellow robe, decision at all. Rising, she smiled. shuddering whenever a man came "Such a nice party, Mr. Noord­ within fifty miles." berg," she said. "Good night." "Clinty, Monica's not very "Good night, Noodle. See you," bright. You should be kinder to Clinton said. Noordberg told them her." And then, reflectively, "Not Good night and how much he had exactly a movie; they all tell us enjoyed having them; possibly his that. Somehow I get the impres­ heart was broken, but he just sion it isn't anything like a movie looked sinister. Joe and Monica­ at all.'' and several others-waved faintly "Movie, shmoovie," he said. as they went out the door. "Besides, think of the result. Can Later, in the dark, his arms in you imagine me going around be­ their habit around her as she lis­ ing Calm, Dignified and Noble? tened through his skin to his slow­ I'm not the type. And you know, it ing heart, he blew a strand of her would be more of a consolation if hair from his lips and said: "Joe it weren't so damn obvious that an and Monica are back. Did you awful lot of people are the type.'' talk to them?" She stirred then, half sitting up. ''Yes. You?" she said. He nod­ She said: "Clinty, you know ded. how Noordberg does? The way he "Same old story," he said. ''You looks at you as if he were a mad know, I'm getting very tired of be­ scientist and you were the retort ing Above All That, but it's still in which he was going to mix true; I just don't see lopping a something dirty?" Clinton chuck­ month off my life-I have a life, led in spite of himself; wither po­ you know-watching some god­ liteness, now? damn movie. If only they didn't "Good old Noodle," he said. come out looking so noble, smell­ "Well, he was one of the first to ing at every pore of having been go, and ever since he came back, through a transmogrifying experi­ he doesn't.'' In the darkness her ence." He removed an arm from face could tell him nothing; nor her, groped, found cigarettes and his, her; he frowned. lit up. He breathed a cloud of "Are you kidding? I've seen him smoke out into the dark, carefully a dozen times since he came back, aiming it away from her hair. and believe me, he's the same as "You know what Monica said to ever. If anything, he's worse." But me?" he ask~d. "She said, 'It was mentally he began to tote and tal­ the greatest experience of my life.' ly, wishing for a better memory. My God, if I had had a life like She continued: 74 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "No, Clinty, it's not the same at measure because, when he trum­ all. He tries to, but it's just going peted at the world his I''Ve got through the motions. As if he problems of my own, her on­ thought you expected him to, and verbalized answer had been, didn't want to hurt your feelings, Enough for both of us? In a world or make you anxious about him." where everybody depicted love in "Kiddo, go to sleep; you're al­ comic-strip colors, they found' ready dreaming. Still, it's a nice richer expression in halftones; idea. Everybody doesn't have to they did not make scenes. Gone end up noble?" back over, the conversation was She made an affirmative noise, the closest she could ever come to reclining, choosing her own side telling him she was deeply trou­ of the bed. He settled back to wait bled. for the extinguishing breath of It was some little while before sleep, and for tomorrow, which Clinton fell asleep. would be a better time to wonder whether it was reassurance he had Clinton worked as an account harvested, after all. executive in an advertising agen­ "They must be government ap­ cy. He had a radical and extreme­ proved," she said suddenly. "Must­ ly personal view of his situation; n't they?" he thought it was like being a "Mustn't who? Oh." Clinton Boy Scout in a large room filled blinked; it was an odd thought. "I to the ceiling with cotton candy. guess so," he said. "Otherwise You coud breathe, it was delicious, somebody would have raised a and there was plenty of it-but stink. Unless you're thinking about you could not see your hand in the money, how much it costs? Fi­ front of your face, much less find nancing, friendly banks; sure it's two sticks to rub together. He told government approved." this to everyone; they thought, "Umn," she said; he felt her How original, how bitter, and falling away, diminishing, reced­ laughed, sometimes a little vague­ ing into the void of sleep. At the ly. By the law of averages, he last possible instant before total ought to have met somebody who unconsciousness, she murmured: would have said, What have you "Joe and Monica don't need to got against contentment? so that hold hands all the time, now." he could have replied, Content­ He had thought himself wor­ ment with what? But he never ried before; now he worried. She had. · was cool and calm and resolutely He lived seven blocks from his considerate always; he had taken office, .and always walked home, her to his bosom perhaps in some smiling devilishly as he outpaced BETI'Eil THAN EVEll the taxicabs of his trapped supe­ Boor, working on something in his riors enroute to Sutton Place. The lap. Clinton smiled; it was exactly evening after the party, on im­ his idea of how an artist should pulse, he walked a couple of polish something-tailor-fashion blocks out of his way to the con­ on the floor, lovingly absorbed. verted brownstone in which Ber­ Then he made out what it was nie lived. Bernie was an artist, Bernie was polishing. He strolled and would have been an exceed­ over and sat on the floor, facing ingly expensive one, if he had not Bernie. been rich. It did not matter that "Going hunting?" he asked; and he was really an artist, and paint­ wondered why his voice sounded ed the large, disturbingly whorled so odd. emptiness he would have painted Bernie held the rifle out to be if he had been starving in a loft; admired. He did not hold it clum­ in their large repertoire of smiles, sily-artists, whatever their faults, gallery owners have a special one do not hold things clumsily-but reserved for the very rich, and it between the way its essential func­ was the only one Bernie ever saw. tion dictated it be held, and the Clinton walked up, on deep way he held it, there was an enor­ plush; the door opened to his mous and unbridgeable gap. Yet, knock. Bernie, half-dressed and somehow, Clinton did not find carrying a dirty rag in one hand, this sufficiently reassuring. · greeted him with a broad smile. "Isn't it beautiful?" Bernie "Clint! Come on in. What have asked. "All my life, I never real­ you been doing, anyway-I have­ ized the . . . depth to these n't seen you since • . •" things. Do you know they're al­ "Since the Movie," Clinton said most a perfect symbol for power? easily, entering. As always, he Pure power? Think of it, curled stopped in front of the painting up dormant in there, sleeping in that faced the entrance. It was a its little nest in a cave of stee~ large thing, covered with count­ ready to burst out instantly at the less overlapping concentricities slightest call. Think of itl The that seemed to diminish infinitely perfect symbol for power; hard amid bitter smoke. Bernie had a and cold but turgid with latent title for it, but like most artists, flame and noise." Bernie was a literary imbecile; "Bernie . . . " Clinton began. Clinton called it Kinsey in Hell, 'They get dirty, though. The and found it tenaciously disquiet­ minute you hang them up, they ing. As usual, it held his attention attract dust like a magnet." Clin­ for some seconds; when he turned, ton exhaled-why was it, with re­ ·it was to find Bernie seated on the lief?-and tried again. 76 FANTASY AND SCIENCB FICTION "Bernie, you've been listening "Oh, you mean, the technical to the wrong salesman." part? That's funny ... because "Huh? What? You mean you afterwards you just don't remem­ don't approve? Clint, you're the ber very much of that. It's not just last person on earth I would have a . . . you don't just sit there, I thought . . ." His face was so mean. And it goes on for a month, crestfallen that Clinton had to so there are intermissions, only laugh. you do exercises instead of just "No, no-it's just that you were walking around. And you eat a lit· quoting the wrong sales pitch. The tle bit, just to keep the internal one you gave is the one for pistols, muscles in trim, because they feed you know, like on TV." He made you intravenously while you're shooting motions with thumb and out. But nobody really pays much forefinger. "That's a rifle. You're attention to the . . . technical supposed to look at it in a combin­ part." ation of the ways you would look "So tell me the story, then," at a Patek Philippe watch and a Clinton said. "Come on, Bernie, ... and a jet plane." gimme the plot." "Oh," said Bernie. He appeared "But, Clint, that's impossible. to think for a moment. "You know, It's too big . . . there's too much, it's impossible to buy a pistol in it would take a vear. And some of this city. I tried and tried, and it it I'm not even s~art enough to ex· was like trying to get permission plain. I haven't got the ... I'm to buy ten pounds of heroin. It's not a wordsmith, Clint. Could you not just the red tape; it's the atti­ ima~ine somebody painting a tudes of the people you have to go Rembrandt from a wooden man­ to. Pure Kafka." He means Orwell, nikin, for chrissake?" thought Clinton. He just doesn't "Very easily," said Clinton know the difference. softly. Bernie opened his mouth . "Bernie, tell me about the and then closed it again and Movie," Clinton said. looked doubtfully down at the "What's to tell? Why don't you floor. "Bernie, there are people just go and find out for vourself? who can paint Rembrandts from Monica was telling me about you mannikins," Clinton said. just this morning, Clint. Monica "And I can't, you mean? Well, is very upset about you." all that has changed, let me tell "Monica should have her mouth you!" Bernie stopped, looking at washed out with soap. Come on, Clinton, who beat down the sud­ tell me what happens in there aft­ den, betraying intensity. er you go in and they take your · "By all means, tell me," Clin­ ticket and you sit down." ton said. BETTER THAN EVEll 71 "It was the greatest experience when it resembled one of those of my life," said Bernie, in a holy Gennan photographs, in which ev­ voice. "It shook my very founda­ erything is incredibly sharp and tions and rearranged them. It dramatically three-dimensional, made me realize, absolutely, what realler than real. I had been doing wrong." He 'What's it called?" Clinton looked at Clinton, not defiantly, said. but as a man looks who has told "It's called New Horizons. Do the truth, and is awed by it. you like it?" Clinton's mind swal­ "Bernie, what are you painting lowed the title, swished it around now?" Clinton asked, and sighed a little, and spat it up slightly for saying it; he had had to. changed. Earth Mother, Here We "It's over there by the window," Go! he thought, giving it a last said Bernie. Clinton got up and steady stare. He strolled, whis­ strolled toward the easle. He did tling softly as he might in some not have to force himself to stroll; bright hospital, to the door. he knew in advance almost exact­ "Goodby, Bernie," Clinton said. ly what he would see. Closing the door, he glanced It was on the easel, and unfin­ back. On the wall, Kinsey lis­ ished-and yet it was finished be­ tened as each devil told how it had yond necessity or sense. On the done absolutely everything with very large canvas, two big young every other devil, had always done people, boy and girl, held hands so and would always continue to and gazed out over the viewer's do so, world without end, so that head. They were handsome and all the case histories were exactly muscular and clean; he bare to the the same, and all the lines of all waist, she in blouse and shorts. the columns of all the tables held Behind them, vibrant with early­ the same number. morning light, stretched a pasto­ ral landscape; high in the sky was His apartment was dark; he did the meticulous glint of an • air­ not bother calling out. He walked plane. Clinton would have de­ to the kitchen and found the note, scribed their expressions as being one comer held down by a large that of cows who have just lifted unopened can of tomato juice, in their muzzles from a pond-cows the middle of the table. He read: who have been told to express ''I'm a conformist and a moral Calm Courage, High Ideals. Every weakling and a coward. Every­ square inch of the canvas was one else has gone, and there painted as realistically as a pho­ seems to be provision for those tograph, and yet, it was obviously of us who weren't cut out to be unfinished; it would be finished noble. I'm not strong enough, 78 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Clint; I can't fight everyone •.. Janet came back, still in and myself and yau, too. This love with him, still loved; he told way I'll just have to fight yau. her, "Yau look older," which was a Or maybe I'm brave; we'll still lie, because she looked yaunger, be in love a month from now." like a nineteen-year-old product of Dachau instead of a twenty­ There was no salutation, and it four-year-old product of Smith . was unsigned. A jar next to the . . . they were at somebody's can held a bouquet of brushes and place-when were they not at pencils; he selected a grease pen­ somebody's place?-and it was cil from it and wrote, on top of her necessary that he stay by the TV note, I lave yau, in thick black set, to check up on a commercial. letters. Then he drew a heart He sat near it, waiting for the sta­ around it. tion break, paying no attention to He opened a cabinet, took down the party in the backgraund. In a bottle of scotch and sloshed midscene, the television set made some in a glass. He lifted the glass a hideous, quite unconscionable to his lips, where the rim made an noise; the screen broadcast scan­ unexpected, musical trill against ning-patterns. Behind him there his teeth. He regarded his hand was a faint stir, a tension. The with considerable surprise. "Well, screen made a visual burp, and well," he said aloud, in tones of was occupied by a small man; not sprightly interest. literally a small man, but a man He emptied the glass in one you knew had a small saul. He long swallow, sloshed rather a lot had nasty glittering eyes and a more into it, and put the bottle pinched weak mouth, and every away. \IVhistling softly, he strolled inch of him reeked of a perverted through the dark apartment to the intimacy with, and knowledge of, bedroom. Bedrooms in which only power. The small man said, in a men have slept smell of socks; prim, defiant voice, ALL STAND. bedrooms in which men and wom­ To the sound of scraping chairs en have slept smell only of wom­ behind him Clinton turned, to see en. At least, to men. He lay down Janet standing, all of them stand­ on his side of the bed, occasionally ing, blank-eyed and loose­ sipping at his drink, for quite a mauthed, standing waiting for the long time. He stared at the ceil­ next order. ing, and let his mind wander, as men under such circumstances are . . . Clinton opened his eyes; prone to do, back over the good he had not been asleep. It had times, the very good times. He been a waking dream, differing closed his eyes . . . from a daydream in that it needed BETTER THAN EVER 79 no will's push to help its progress. then pretending innocent lechery; It was familiar; he had had it in his mind he looked again at many times. Bernie's picture, the two big chil­ Clinton sat up on the bed; if he dren in front of their pastorale, \Vere a clairvoyant, where, oh and wondered what it was that where, would he find an honest lurked beneath, that must needs medium? Boy, what a director insist so loudly that it was not you'd make, he thought. Picking there. up his drink, he stood and then He could not go to the Movie; walked to the bedroom's french he was the devil he knew. He took windows, opened them, and went a small, civilized sip of his drink out on the small terrace. He tilted and, stretching out his arm deli­ his head and rocked back; above cately let the glass fall into the him to all sides were sheer cliffs, abyss beneath him. Always the one terraced escarpments, of thou­ for the dramatic gesture he sands upon thousands of lighted thought, carefully not saying it windows. High above, the stars in­ aloud lest it tum into a sob, and, visible because of the diffusion of looking up again, shook his futile light from the windows was the fist viciously, not knowing if he sky. Clinton thought of Noord­ did so at the windows, or at the berg, innocently lecherous and sky. SCIENCE 0

OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST-

by Isaac Asimov

ABOUT HALF A YEAR AGO, I BOUGHT MYSELF A SIXTEEN-INCH GLOBE on a nice wooden stand, with an electric light inside and a brass holder to keep it tipped at 231/2 degrees. Now it stands in my attic study, to the left of my typewriter. I use it as reference and as an objet d'art, but most often, I use it as a means of self-hypnosis. Faced with a nasty question as to just how to phrase some thought percolating through the softly-reverberating interior of my skull, I can stare at the globe and find escape in a delightful period of non-thought as I study the outlines of Cambodia. Of course, as a side-effect, I am becoming more and more familiar with the shape of our planet's subdivisions, and I am beginning to fancy myself as a geography buff. Consequently, you may imagine my chagrin when, faced with a simple geographic question in a recent issue of Analog, I came up with what I was told was a wrong answer. I have been fuming about it ever since. Essentially, I was asked to name the American state which was farthest north, farthest south, farthest west and farthest east, and you yourself are welcome now (without looking at a map) to write down your own opin­ ions on the matter. Have you done it? All right, then, I will now go into the matter in de­ tail and we'll-see if I can't figure out some way of having been right all along.

Of the four cardinal points of the compass, north and south offer no problems at all. The turning of the Earth on its axis makes it possible for two unique points to exist on the planet; the two points where the axis intersects the Earth's surface. These are, of course, ·the North Pole and 80 OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST- 81 ' the South Pole. These can be defined in terms of latitude (see GHOST LINES IN THE SKY, May, 1g64) as goo Nand goo S respectively. We can define north then as the direction you face when you face the North Pole and have your back to the South Pole. Similarly, south is the direction you face when you face the South Pole and have your back to the North Pole. These are absolute directions, too. If point B is north of A, there is no way of so altering your point of view as to consider point B to be south of point A. Let's take an actual case. The city of Omaha, Nebraska, is just about 1000 miles nearly due north of Houston, Texas. Therefore, we would ex­ pect that if a person in Houston took a plane and flew 1 000 miles due north, he would end in Omaha. Would our Houstonian, however, not also reach Omaha, eventually, if he flew south from Houston and continued flying in that direction with­ out turning either left or right? And would not that mean that Omaha might be considered to be south of Houston. The answer is no! Our traveller, flying south from Houston, would be facing the South Pole and after flying about 8,300 miles he would reach and pass over the South Pole. As soon as he had passed the South Pole, be would no longer be facing it. It would be at his back and he would be fly­ ing north. Aft-er flying north for 12,500 miles he would pass over the North Pole and promptly be flying south again. After traveling south­ ward for 3,200 miles, he would reach Omaha. All in all, he has travelled 12,500 miles north and 11,500 miles south. His net motion has been 1,000 miles north. Therefore we need expect no confusion between north and south. We can answer such questions as: "Which is the most northerly state of the union?" without having to answer "Wen, that depends-" We need only ascertain which state extends itself nearest the North Pole, and to deter­ mine that we can go by the parallels of latitude, which mark off the dis­ tance from the Equator to the North Pole in ninety roughly equal units called "degrees." (They are not quite equal because the Earth is not quite a sphere.)

One trick to the question of "which state" rests in the hope that the person being questioned will forget that the United States no longer con­ sists of 4 8 states. If the 48 states of "contiguous United States" are alone considered, then a hasty glance at the map may mislead you. In most drawings of the map of the United States, Maine, in the far northeast comer seems to be 82 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION drawn so as to extend farther upward than Washington in the far north­ west corner. This is an illusion born of the fact that in most such maps, parallels of latitude are presented as curved lines, convex to the south. In a Mercator projection, in which the parallels are presented as perfectly straight and horizontal lines, you will have no trouble seeing that Maine falls short. Its most northerly point is only about 4 7. 5o N, whereas the northwestern boundary of the United States is at 49.0° N. If we concentrate on the northwest, then, and consider the Mercator straight line which marks off the boundary between the United States and Canada, we might be tempted to suppose there was no one most northerly state. Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota seem to be in a five-way tie at the 49.0° mark. This is not quite so, however, as you will find if you inspect the north­ ern boundary of Minnesota closely. The 49° N boundary continues east­ ward for about V3 of the way across the state until it reaches Lake of the Woods. It then turns abruptly northward for about 30 miles, chopping off a small section of the shore, north of the lake, before returning south to a line of rivers and lakes that carries the boundary gently southeast­ ward to Lake Superior. The section north of the Lake of the Woods, about 124 square miles in area, is the northernmost portion of the 48 states, reaching about 49.4° N. The reason for the existence of this bite into what should clearly be Canadian territory, is the fact that in 1818, when that section of the boundary was established, maps were imperfect and the northern shore of the Lake of the Woods was thought to be south of the 49° N mark. By the time the matter was straightened out, the United States had estab­ lished sovereignty in the little jag under question, and Great Britain de­ cided to let the matter rest. It turns out, then, that Minnesota is, of the 48 states, the farthest north. However, on January 3, 1959, Alaska was admitted into the Union as the 49th State and a number of statistics had to be overhauled at once. As we all know, Texas had to be demoted to second largest state, for Alaska, with an area of 571,065 square miles is 2.2 times as large as Texas. It is, indeed, nearly a fifth as large as all48 states put together. (It is also larger than any Canadian province with the exception of Quebec. Quebec is 1.04 times as large as Alaska.) In addition, Alaska carries off the palm as the nation's most northerly state. Every bit of it lies north of Minnesota's northernmost jag. Point Bar­ row, Alaska's northernmost point is about 71.3° N. Thanks to Alaska, the United States is one of the Arctic nations, but it OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST- 83 is, nevertheless, far from being the most northerly. It is, in point of fact, only fifth most northerly. The fourth most northerly nation is Norway. Norway itself does not reach quite as far north as Point Barrow, but about 500 miles north of that land is the island of Svalbard, better known to us as Spitzbergen. It is Norwegian territory and its northern tip reaches 80.8° N. Third most northerly is the U.S.S.R. The northernmost point of Siberia (and of Asia, generally) is Cape Chelyuskin, which is roughly 77.5° N. Farther north still are a group of Soviet islands, collectively known as Severnaya Zemlya, which stretch north to about 81.3° N. Second most northerly is Canada. Of Canada's continental territory, the Boothia peninsula stretches farthest north. Its northernmost point, at 71.4° N, is the northernmost point of North America. In the Arctic Ocean, north of Canada, lies a group of islands under Canadian sovereign­ ty. Most northerly of these islands is one called Ellesmere Island. Its north­ ernmost point, Cape Columbia, reaches 82.7° N. That leaves the most northerly nation of all and you might have some fun asking someone for a quick answer to: "What nation is most north­ erly?" The answer is Denmark, which attains this distinction through its possession of Greenland. The most northerly point of Greenland, Cape Morris Jesup, reaches 83.7° N. It is the closest known land to the North Pole-which is only about 400 miles farther north. Now let's try south. The 48 states stretch southward in two places; in Texas and in Florida. The southernmost point in Texas is just east of the city of Brownsville, 15 miles west of the mouth of the Rio Grande. There the state attains a latitude of 25.9° N. Florida, however, does a trifle better. The southern tip of the Florida peninsula is at about 2 5.1 ° N. Running on a southwesterly line from southern Florida, moreover, are the Florida Keys, which curve down to a most southerly point at Key West, which is at 24.6° N. Florida is thus the most southerly of the 48 states. Florida's distinction, like Minnesota's was removed with the admission of a new state. On August 21, 1959, Hawaii was admitted to the Union as the 50th State. The most southerly of the Hawaiian islands is Hawaii itself. Its south­ ernmost point, appropriately named "South Cape" is about 18.9° N, ~ that Hawaii is an easy winner for the title of most southerly state. The fifty states of the Union, which spread over 52.6° of latitude from the Arctic Ocean to the tropical Pacific are nevertheless all in the North­ ern Hemisphere, so that the United States is nowhere in the running for the mark of the most southerly nation. 84 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Of course, the most southerly land region of all is Antarctica, on which the South Pole itself is located. However, Antarctica can scarcely be counted, for barring some transient scientists and explorers its popula­ tion is zero. If we eliminate Antarctica and the various scrubby islands off its shores, we could ask ourselves, "What populated nation is farthest south?" We might begin by considering the three continents that extend south of the equator. Of these, Africa does least well. Its southernmost point, Cape Agulhas (part of the Union of South Africa) is at 34.8° S. This is no closer to the South Pole than Los Angeles is to the North Pole, yet it suffices to make the Union of South Africa the fifth closest nation to the South Pole. Fourth closest is Australia. Its southernmost point, at Wilson's Promon­ tory (southeast of Melbourne) is at 39.1° S. South of that point, how­ ever, is the Australian island of Tasmania, which reaches 43.6° S. This is about as close to the South Pole as Buffalo, N.Y. is to the North Pole. New Zealand draws third place. It consists of two chief islands, North Island and South Island, and the southernmost point of the latter is at 46.6° S. In addition a small New Zealand island (Stewart Island) lies south of South Island and reaches 4 7. 2 ° S, about as far south as Seattle, Washington is north. It is South America, however, that is the most southerly of the in­ habited continents. It's shape narrowing steadily, continues on for some 500 miles beyond the most southerly point reached by New Zealand. Ar­ gentina and Chile, battling it out for first and second place, march down that southward stretch side by side, to the strait of Magellan. Argentina stops short just before the strait, the entire shore of which is Chilean terri­ tory. The southernmost point of South America is therefore Chilean and is at 53.9° S. To the southeast of the strait, however, is the island of. Tierra del Fuego. Argentina skips over the strait and has in its possession part of that island. Indeed, the dividing line is north and south, with Argentina own­ ing the eastern half and Chile the western. The southermost part of the island is Argentinian at 55.0° S., but there are a few islands south of Tierra del Fuego, which belong to Chile. The most southerly is Horn Island, on the south of which is Cape Hom, at about 56.0° S. Chile is therefore most southerly nation and Argentina second. Cape Hom, the most southerly land (outside Antarctica and sur­ rounding islands) is, indeed, only 650 miles or so north of the northern­ most tip of the White Continent. Even so it is no closer to the South Pole than Moscow is to the north. OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST- 85 We come, next, to east and west. At first thought, this should give us no difficulty. The east-west line lies at right angles to the north-south line, and as you face north, east is at your right hand and west at your left. The existence of the North and South Poles thus completely defines east and west, as well as north and south. In fact, east was probably the first direction to be distinguished by early man, since it was the general direction of the rising sun, and during the long cold winter nights, eyes must have peered eagerly in that direction for the first sight of dawn. But there is no unique most-easterly or most-westerly point. This in­ troduces a certain confusion. For instance, both Quito, Ecuador, and the mouth of the Amazon River are on the Equator. If you look at a map of South America, you will see that Quito is about 2100 miles due west of the mouth of the Amazon. If you were at the mouth of the Amazon and flew 2,100 miles due west, you would reach Quito. Of course, you could leave the mouth of the Amazon in an easterly di­ rection and by traveling at 2 2, 900 miles reach Quito in that way, too. This may look like our previous attempt to reach Omaha by travelling southward from Houston, but it isn't. In travelling southward from Hous­ ton, we changed our direction to northward when we crossed the South Pole, the unique most-southerly point. There is no unique most-easterly point, however, and in travelling east from the mouth of Amazon, we can reach Quito without ever going in any direction but east. In fact, you could keep circling the earth forever, traveling eastward at all times. And, of course, the same goes for traveling westward. Let's put it another way- You can travel due north or due south for no more than 12,500 miles; but you can travel due east or due west for an infinite distance. This means that we can't play the game of finding a most easterly or a most westerly nation. Europe is east of North -America, but Asia is east of Europe and North America is east of Asia-and so on forever. Well, theit, what can we do about this mess? Shall we say that Quito is 2,100 miles west of the mouth of the Amazon? Or 22,900 miles east? Surely, any sane man would say, "Choose the direction that gives you the smaller number!" It is not always easy to tell which direction gives the smaller number, however, for the full length of the east-west direction varies with latitude. At the equator, you will travel due east (or west) 25,000 miles before returning to your starting point. At the latitude of Minneapolis, Minne­ sota, you will travel only 17,500 miles and at the latitude of Oslo, Nor­ way, only 12,500 miles. 86 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION It would make sense therefore to say something is I 0,000 miles east of Quito, but not I 0,000 miles east of Oslo. In the latter case you should more properly say it is 2,500 miles west of Oslo. To avoid this sort of ambiguity, we can make use of degrees of longi­ tude (see GHOST LINES IN THE SKY, again). The earth is sliced into longitudinal degrees as an orange is sliced into segments, and every east·· west journey covers exactly 360° in returning to the starting point. If, as one goes north (or south) from the equator, the total length of the east­ west journey decreases, so, in exactly matching fashion, does the length of the longitudinal degree. If we measure distances east and west in degrees, then, we can choose the direction that will give us a figure of less than 180° and that will re­ move all ambiguity.

We are now ready to take up the question, ''Which state of the Union is farthest east and which is farthest west?" To me, it seems that the clearest way to do this is to pick some point within the United States which we can "travel east or west to the farthest limit of American terri­ tory without, in either case, traveling more than I80°. If we consider only the 48 contiguous states, we can use as our refer­ ence meridian the one marked 100° W on our maps. That's a nice even number and the meridian cuts right through the middle of Nebraska be­ sides and that's close enough to the middle of the country. As one sweeps the meridian line eastward, one reaches the Atlantic Ocean off the state of Georgia. Continue moving eastward, and state after state falls behind until only New England is left. And then, finally, only Maine is left. The easternmost portion of Maine is at a city appropriately named Eastport, which lies 33.0° east of our reference meridian. Consequently, it seems fair to decide that of the 48 states, Maine is most easterly. Now let's move westward. If it is your impression that California is the most westerly state of the 48, forget it. The most westerly portion of California is Cape Mendocino on its northern coast and it lies about 24.1° west of the reference meridian. Oregon does a little better, for Cape Blanco on its southern shore is 24.5° west of the reference meridian. It is the state of Washington that holds the record, however, for Cape Flattery at the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, touches a point 24.8° west of the reference meridian. Of the 48 states, then, Maine is easternmost and Washington western­ most. What, though, if you add the 49th and 50th states, Alaska and Hawaii. OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST- 87 A quick glance at the map shows you that both new states lie to the west of the 48. Therefore, they leave Maine in undisputed possession of the eastern championship but must decide the western championship between themselves. The main portion of Hawaii consists of eight separate islands of which the most westerly is Niihau, which reaches 60.2° west of the reference meridian. Howevel", Hawaii can do even better than this. West of the main island lie a string of small islands, shoals and reefs (the Leeward Islands) which reach out for nearly 1500 miles in a northwesterly direction. All of them are part of the state of Hawaii though they are virtually uninhabited, and serve mainly as the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation. The westernmost of these is Kure Island (also called Ocean Island) which is somewhat smaller than Manhattan and which lies 78.5° west of the reference meridian. And Alaska? Can that do better? Alaska extends westward into four peninsulas, of which the second from the top, Seward Peninsula, reaches most westerly, and is the most westerly part, in fact, of North America. It ends in Cape Prince of Wales, which is 68.0° west of the reference meridian. This beats out the Ha­ waiian main islands, but not the Leeward Islands extension. However, Alaska has an island chain of its own. Extending from the southernmost peninsula (Alaska Peninsula) are an arc of islands called the Aleutian Islands. The Aleutians are unusual in that they extend Alaska farther to the south than most people would imagine. The southernmost Aleutian island is Amchitka, which is at a latitude of about 51.7° N, (just about the lati­ tude of London). This means that there are parts of Alaska which are farther south than Berlin or Warsaw. But it is the westerly reach that now concerns us. The islands stretch across 1200 miles of the Pacific and the most westerly of the group to form part of Alaska is the island of Attu. (It and the nearby island of Kiska, were occupied for a while by the Japanese during World War II, the only part of the fifty states to suffer this indignity-though to be sure, Alaska was not then a state.) Attu is 87.4° west of the reference merid­ ian, and Alaska, then, is the most westerly state.

To summarize, then- In answering the question concerning the ex­ treme states of the Union, I made some quick judgments :iD my mind and came up with: 88 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION my answer Analog answer south Hawaii Hawaii north Alaska Alaska west Alaska Alaska east Maine Alaska (And how did you do?)

Why the discrepancy about the easternmost state? Well, I made use of a reference meridian that made it convenient to estimate east and west in the United States. To do the same for Europe I would have used a different reference meridian, for China still a different one and so on. This sort of thing was also done, more or less officially, by the various sea­ going nations, until it was finally decided to establish a .single reference meridian for the use of everyone (see GHOST LINES IN THE SKY, yet again). This overall reference is the Prime Meridian, which passes through Greenwich Observatory in London. Everything west of that is marked off in degrees West Longitude; everything east in East Longitude. The two types of longitude meet at 180°, which is the meridian directly antipodal to the Prime Meridian. We might possibly, then, define any point in East Longtitude as east of any point in West Longitude. Of two objects, both in East Longitude, the one with the higher degree value is more easterly; of two objects, both in West Longitude, the one with the lower degree value is more easterly. By this convention, an object is farthest east, if it passes beyond 179° E to touch 180° and farthest west if it passes beyond 179° W to touch 180°. At 180°, east is west and west is east and always the twain shall meet. Naturally, the 180° line can introduce east-west confusion, but by a fortunate coincidence, it passes over nearly the minimum of land and the maximum of water (making possible a very convenient International Date Line which is not identical with the 180° meridian, by the way, though many, including Analog in its answers, confuse the two. But that's for an­ other article someday.) All the 48 states, fortunately are in West Longitude. The easternmost point of Maine is at 67° Wand the westernmost point of Washington is at 124.8° W. Even Hawaii does not extend quite to the confusion of the 180° line, for Kure Island is at 178.5° W., just 1.5° short of the fatal mark. But Alaska? OH, EAST IS WEST AND WEST IS EAST- 89 Well, the 180° line passes right through the Aleutian islands, leaving a stretch of about 300 miles of the islands beyond that crucial line and, therefore, in East Longitude. Attu, for instance is at 172.6° E. The island nearest the 180° line from the East Longitude side is Semisopoch­ noi Island (the Aleutians were once Russian territory, you know) which reaches~ longitude of about 178.85° E. Semisopochnoi Island has the highest value of East Longitude of any land area forming part of the fifty states and, by the east-west convention of the Prime Meridian, is therefore the most easterly portion of the fifty states. From this standpoint, Alaska is the most easterly state, as well as the most westerly and northerly. However, I consider that a highly artificial and strained viewpoint. Imagine you are standing on Tanaga Island, an Aleutian island at rough­ ly 179° W, and are being asked where Semisopochnoi Island is. Are you going to point and say, "Oh, about 100 miles west." Or are you going to point in the opposite direction and say, "Oh, about 13,900 miles east." So I reject the east-west convention involving the Prime Meridian, which is based on the purely man-made accident of its placing, and upon the agreement to number from the Prime Meridian in both directions in­ stead of in one direction only, sweeping all the way round to 360 degrees. Having rejected that, I insist on insisting that Maine is the most easterly of the 50 states. -With all due respect to the Gentle Readers of the great state of Alaska, of course.

Co•iDg Nell Monlll ...... is the first of two sequels to POUL ANDERSON's MARQUE AND REPRISAL (Feb. 1965). If you've read the first, you'll be anxiously awaiting this one; if you haven't, no gnashing of teeth, please-ARSEN­ AL PORT is a complete short novel, and may be enjoyed by all. And, to the countless writers of those demanding notes to Dr. Asimov asking for new fiction-we can finally say, let out your belts a notch. We do have a new short story by ISAAC ASIMOV, and it will appear in these pages next month. When this story first appeared in our offices, Avram Davidson read it, scrawled "buy" on it, and remarked that it was good to see Bob Ottum (THE GIRLS ON CHANNEL N, April 1957) back again with a good, snappy, way-out story. Since then, we have discovered that we have discovered a new Bob Ottum (the ]r. on the byline had gone unnoticed). Bob Ottum Jr. is a 17-year-old high school senior, the winner of a national writing award, and the son of our earlier contributor. With all the confusion about identity, it's stiU the same good, snappy, way-out story.

ADO ABOUT NOTHING

by Bob Ottum Jr.

TODAY WE REACHED THE END "Ah, Frank,- I didn't put the of the universe. It was a big sign sign there. This is uncharted area, with red letters all lit up. you know, and . . ." HTHIS IS THE END OF THE "Well, give me a fix and we11 UNIVERSE-DO NOT PRO­ fly around the thing!" CEED BEYOND THIS POINT" "But Frank, it says . . ." We pulled the ship in close and "I see what it says! Now give cut all the power. Frank hollered mea fix!" over the intercom: ''Yes sir. We're in section six, "What in the hell is this?" semisection nine, sector three, We didn't have any charts of parallel eight, diagonal seven, the area. The reason we had come subsector . . " out this far. was so that I could "Johnny?" make some. No ship had ever been ''Yes?" out this far before. "Did you ever read that story "Well, Frank, I . . . I guess about the guys who are out in a it's the end of the universe. That's space ship, and they come to a what the sign says." wall?" "Dammit, there isn't any end to "No sir." the universe! It just keeps on going! "Well, they try to get past the You know that as well as I do. If wall, and when they do, they die, this is your idea of a joke . . . " because the wall is what separates 90 ADO ABOUT NOTHING 91 heaven from the rest of the uni­ "No you won't. The Space Ad­ verse." ministration needs men like you. "Oh." I'll go." "It looks solid, doesn't it?" "But Frank, what if . . ." "Well, yeah, but that could just "Aw, come onl All this upset be an optical illusion." over nothing! Let's behave like a "Do you think we ought to couple of men." chance revving her up to full pow­ "OK. You're right. Can I help er and going ahead?" you put on your suit?" "Well, I don't know sir. Maybe "Yeah. Meet me in the pressure one of us better get out and have room." a close look at the thing. It could Ours was one of the two-man be just a cloud of dust particles jobs, used only for charting. One that • • ." of us sat at either end. He flew, "Can we pull in any closer?" and I drew. The pressure room was "Maybe. If it is solid, then it right in the middle of the ship. I may have some gravity of its own. helped the captain put on his suit, Then it would just pull us right and then went back to watch him smack into it." on the television monitor. "Are you a religious man, "How is it out there, Frank?" Johnny?" "I'm fine. I'm almost there. I "No • • • I, uh • • • well, how think I can see the . • • the do you mean?" • . . well, I'll be damned!" "I mean like believing that this "Is something the matter? is the wall that separates heaven Frank?" from the rest of the universe. Do He was right up against the you think there is a heaven?" wall. It was solid all right. I could "I guess there's a heaven. But I see him hunched over in one little never thought . • ." spot. "We could even be dead right "Johnny?" now. Like, you know, maybe we ''Yes sir?" crashed into an astroid or some­ "Have you got a quarter?" thing. Maybe we're dead, and now "A .•• awhat?" we've reached heaven." "A quarter. Twenty-five cents." "I don't feel like I'm dead. "Well, I don't know, sir. What Wouldn't we have remembered it do you need a quarter for?" . if we had crashed?" "You find me one. I'm coming "Yeah, I guess so. One of us is go­ back for it." ing to have to go out there and There was some money in the have a look." ship. I don't know why, but for "I'll go, Frank." some reason, somebody had knoWD 92 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION to have some money on board. them, plastered all over it. Old When the captain got back, I gave signs. There was an "Eat At Joe's," him the money. and a great big "Kilroy was here," "Why do you want a quarter, and hearts with names in them. Frank?" As I got closer, I could even see ''You'd better get one for your­ the hand scrawled four-letter self, too. And start getting your words with crude drawings. suit on. I'll be right back." · . As I got right up against the He took the quarter and left. wall, I noticed the little white And he came right back. But there square sign. It said, was something wrong. His eyes were all glassy, and his mouth just "OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE NOT hung loosely at the jaw. His eye­ CONVINCED THAT THIS IS brows ' were turned up, and his THE END OF THE UNIVERSE. forehea

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Each Volume File will keep 12 copies of FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION clean, orderly, and readily accessible. Sturdily built, the files are covered with a rich black and red wa.shable leatherette, and the lettering is in 16-carat gold leaf. Reasonably priced at $2.50 each, 3 for $7.00, or 6 for $13.00, they are shipped fullv preoaid on a money back basis if not satisfactory. Order1 direct from: JESSE JONES BOX CORPORATION Dept. F&SF , P.O. Box 5120 ., Philadelphia 41, Pa, Lin. Carter recently informed us that he ·uvea in a creaky old Charles Addams house in Queens with his wife Noel, a dog, a guinea pig, a baby skunk and two rabbits, squeezed in amid five thousand books." (Or did he say two books, squeezed in among five thousand rabbits?) No mtltter. What does matter is the good story below. It concerns the most prolific writer who ever-weU, not lived exactly"-and it is more than apt to please and surprile you.

UNCOLLECTED WORKS

by Lin Carter

STRANGE, THAT YOU SHOULD in my case, save for certain minor ask if I minded growing old. Ac­ physical annoyances, such as those tually, old age has much occupied I have just alluded to, are rather my mind recently. Age, you see, pleasantly limited to a lack of­ my boy, has overtaken me by such what shall I call it?-excitability, imperceptible degrees that I was perhaps? The burning issues of hardly conscious of its surrepti­ literature, which, in my more tious advance. But, of late, I have youthful years seemed so desper­ had the matter brought to my at­ ately important, can now scarcely tention by a certain shortness of rouse me to anything stronger breath and an increased and ·un­ than a vague displeasure, or, pleas­ steady activity of my heart, when­ ure. I become more interested in ever I am foolish enough-or for­ the temperature of my afternoon getful enough-to climb stairs or tea, than in the current state of to walk further along the cliffs letters; more concerned with the than I have become accustomed to health of my EI-Martinique roses, doing. than with the decline in elegance Age is a curious phenomenon, if of form . . . subjects which once I may call it that (for I would aroused within me a degree of fer­ rather, for my peace of mind, rank vor and evangelical zeal I am now it with the accidents than with the mildly embarrassed to recollect. certainties of life). Its symptoms The life of a literary critic (or, 93 94 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION as I much preferred to entitle my who once observed that "books 'calling', an apostle of letters) does, make a damned poor substitute for after all, seldom demand violent living." I fear I am the living proof physical activity _or emotional ex­ of that coined adage . . . although ertion. Therefore I am hardly I always rejoined, "yes, but life is made aware of any lessening of damned empty without books.") my bodily capabilities. As for life, I beg your pardon? Ah-you itself ... you know, young man, read Filigree. Well, it was an when I look back on my little amazing little trifle, and beguiled handful of years, I find it oddly me all one summer. It is a dis­ difficult to disentangle the strands tinct pleasure to see young jour­ of my personal life from the tex­ nalists like yourself actually read­ ture of my professional career! ing some of the writers they make Does that disturb you? But it is up features about! It is a joy to me true: I cannot be sure, for exam­ to learn that the young people still ple, which disturbed me more in remember me, for you might say recent years, the death of my third it is my greatest regret in life that wife, or the lamentable stupidity I was not gifted by the Gods to be of the distinguished members of a creator of literature myself, but the Swedish Academy of Litera­ one of that lesser breed who mere­ ture not to award the Nobel to the ly comments, in print, on their great Ezra Pound before his reading. I am, therefore, flattered death (he always said he would that you came all the way out here outlive me by at least long enough to gather "copy" on an old writer­ to compose a savage epitaph for on-writers. I am surprised, in fact, my memorial-stone; I attacked too that your magazine (I am sorry fiercely, I regret, his last volume that I am not familiar with it, but of canzoni). And I find myself, we get so few, so very few, Ameri­ when looking back, dating the can magazines over here) should events of my inner emotional life be at all interested in a passe gen­ with the events of my career . . . tleman of letters, to send you so "When did I meet Par Lagerk­ far for an interview. I hope, I do vist?" I will ask myself. "Ah, yes, hope, that you will not ask for my that summer Barbara and I rented comment on Mr. Kerouac and his the villa near Capri!" Or: "Now work, or why I refused to attend where was I when Roger was Mr. Graves' testimonial dinner born?" "Oh, of course, correcting that summer in Paris . . . proofs on my Filigreel" Eh? Is that my chief regret? (Does all this seem inhumane Oh, probably not. I lack the, shall to the young? Well, perhaps it is. I say, stamina, for creative work. Who was it-Bertrand Russell?- It demands a certain physical dur- UNCOLLECTED WORKS 95 ability to be a writer of the prime publish seventy-six years from rank, ltke Tom Wolfe writing in now. What else could you expect long-hand on the top of his icebox an aging critic to regret most, but fof 46 hours, or Hemingway liv­ those masterpieces of the future ing on gin and black coffee for ten not yet written, whose authors are hours at a stretch. Pounding a yet unborn? typewriter is hard work, young Bear with me, young man. And man, I assure you! Ditch-digging, you need not look at me so ... my by comparison, demands far less wits are intact although my body of one, or so I have been told. is somewhat the worse for wear. I What is my greatest regret? Ah, know you could never dare pub­ what an interesting question! You lish what I am going to tell you, might say, I chiefly regret never but as I have never related this to having met Yeats. Or that I am a living soul, let a talkative and most sorry to have published that lonely old man unburden himself, savagely satirical critique of here in the shadow of his summer Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a roses ••• Young Man, when it was being serialized in The Egoist in 1913 I never lmew his name. To me, (or thereabouts). But-no, that these many, many years, he has would be telling you what you ex­ been simply: The Gentleman in pect to hear, and it would be beg­ Green. He has always been an ging the question. enigma to me. Sometimes I won­ Shall I be very cryptic, young der if I ever met him at all, in stranger? Very well. I most regret reality, or if his tall figure slipped that I shall not live to read the from a waking dream. Perhaps he supreme monument of American was a phantom of the mind, fiction, Willard Paxton's Those dreamed in a doze over a cool glass Who Err. It shall not be printed of good Chateau Medoc on a soft until some forty years after I_ die and wistful autumn afternoon ..• (if the local physicians are cor­ Do you know Paris? Ah, if you rect in their estimates of my cur­ lmow Paris at all, you must Imow rent state of wellbeing). Or, that I the Left Bank. There is a little, shall never experience the merci­ cobble-paved side-street off the less wit of those glittering come­ Place d'Opera, going up the hill dies that shall earn for the as yet towards the old Cathedral of St. unborn Juan Ramon Chiminez Stephan's. Seventy years ago there his immortality as "the Argentine was a tiny, and very dirty, bistro Shakespeare" . . . or those intoxi­ on that crooked street that winds cating sonnets, the Adorations, and meanders and zig-zags its di­ that Claude de Montaubon will l&pidated way under the shadow 96 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION of Bernette's belltower, once the Two editors had I visited, in fear talk of the continent, with its cor· and trembling but sans result, and belled arches and baroque, sexless had talked poetry with a bearded angels, pigeons roosting on their Russian expatriate who looked like blown, frozen bronze tresses. an unclipped goat and who ve­ Nearby is the attic studio where hemently believed the future of Nerval lived once, and down the "modern" poetry lay in imitating hill towards the Opera, that stucco Pushkin in vers libre. apartment building whose con· I stopped on my way back to cierge, if asked with a coin, could my flat at the little bistro for a wheeze out some quaint reminis­ cool glass and a warm bun. It was cences of d'Auberville and the crowded with the afternoon troop poets of the Paladins, who used to of sight-seers from the Cathedral, gather there on rainy, Proustian so I shared a corner table with an afternoons and utter manifestos elderly gentleman of scholarly, designed to resuscitate literature. even professorial, appearance. He I had only been in Paris a ·was neatly, but cheaply dressed, month or less. The unexpected slim and going grey over the tem­ success of my first (and only) slim ples, in an old suit of bottle-green volume of verse, Mandragore, had with lapels whose pointed width gone to my head. Still lacking of became passe a . full generation twenty, I fled the bourgeois, stifl· ago, and a loose foulard at his ing atmosphere of America, hop­ throat, half-hidden beneath a ing to find in the City of Light sharp little spike-like goatee, also those ideal regions in whose pure, grey. As is universal with two stimulating atmosphere perfect strangers sharing a table or a seat, verse could be composed, and we ignored each other save for among whose aloof, Olympian sa· covert, side-wise glances. He sat lons I would take mv brilliant back, watching the crowd, a per­ place. Ah-to be youn'g, and an nod before him from which he artist, and living in Paris in those rarely sipped. When he reached dim days! It was Valhalla and EI for the glass, I noted his hands : Dorado combined, where Heine stained with grease, which sa­ died and Proust drowsed. There vored of the inventor, while his was an industrious young Degas in long hair and the genteel decay of every garrett, and a few wilted his accoutrements suggested, rath­ Rimbauds still ornamented the er, the artist. His face was in shad­ more picturesque gutters and ow, but the profile, with the jut­ scrawled "Dieu est morte!'' in pas­ ting goatee and patriarchal, hawk­ tel chalk on the alley-walls. beaked nose, reminded me ines­ I had spent a fatiguing day. capably of Cardinal Giambatiste UNCOLLECTED WORKS 97 in the Louvre's collection of El age, or metaphor, in one of the Greco. I drew out a copy of my philosophers that so intrigued the book (which, I fear, I carried with young intellectual I was then, that me everywhere and pointedly took it became a profound and motivat­ out and read in public) and began ing force in selecting my career. leafing through it. Perhaps you recall it : the notion The garcon took _my order, and that if you put fifty million mon­ my companion finished his drink. keys to work, scribbling aimlessly Somehow or other we struck up a (for this was long before the type­ conversation. I was very proud of writer was invented) they would my aristocratic French (as I fan­ eventually produce, letter-perfect, cied it) and delighted to display the complete works of Montaigne?" my linguistic accomplishment, I nodded, absently-in my day, scorning as mere touriste the it had been "Shakespeare," but I American who spoke English in let him go on without comment, Paris. He elicited from me my curious as to where all this was profession, and casually exercised leading, even as you doubtlessly a remarkable literary knowledge are. He adjusted a monocle, took a which excited my interest. I over­ sip of pernod, and continued: rode his polite protest, and bought "I was possessed by that para­ him a second pernod-I was dox. The verb is precise: it was as drinking Medoc, priding myself if a demon had entered me. I was on the taste of a born connoisseur fascinated and enchanted bv the -and listened as he held forth. idea. Later, in my courses in ~ath­ "As you may have noticed from ematics and symbolic logic at the my hands, young sir, I am a tech­ University, I was electrified to dis­ nician. A mechanic, if you will. I cover that even so quaint and bi­ am fortunate enough to possess a zarre a concept, was, after all, few patents, obtained idly in my quite within the realms of possi­ youth, and these bring a sufficient bility. After all, the number of income for me to live as I please possible letter-combinations with­ and perform my experiments as I in any alphabet is quite finite, you will. There is no name, as yet know. Of course, the project, as coined, for my speciality . . . I originally envisioned by the phi­ have christened it Bibliochanics losopher (was in St. Goudet?) for my own amusement. would consume fifty thousand "When I was a young student years. But, still, it was possible. in Prague-that would be long "And so I became an experi­ before you were born, my young mental mechanical engineer. Arid friend-I read widely and, I fear, a very successful one, if I may be indiscriminately. I recall an im- so immodest as to be truthful. Dur- 98 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ing the years that followed, busy ble modifications on the linotype ones, and crowded with events, I and on the typewriter, itself, pro­ remained under the valence of viding me the wherewithall to that demonic possession. At continue my work. Rather early in length, financially independent, my attempts to increase the speed thanks to my inventions, I began of the combinations, I eliminated toying with the idea. Again, the actual letters, replacing them with verb is precise, for I played with spools of paper tape punched with the notion as an idle amusement, a coded system of dots and dashes. to beguile my leisure. Most inven­ Next, I devised a phonetic system tors of my youth had a perpetual­ composed of sounds, not letters ... motion machine hidden away in I shall not bore you by recounting the cellar, or a fantastic aerofoil of the many years it took before I was some eccentric and da Vincian ready to-begin. But at length my design. My hobby was the writing­ machine (which I called Bibliac, machine. for only a maniac would attempt a "After some years of idle tinker­ device that could write all the ing, I conceived of a unique de­ books in the world) was ready. It vice-and a leisurely hobby gave operated at perfect random, and birth to an absorbing, full-time "wrote" at a speed impossible to pursuit. My mechanism was not achieve by hand-hundreds, even unlike the modem typewriter, but thousands of times faster than the perfected far beyond that crude typewriter. I had increased the device. It did .not use letters af­ speed by reducing the size of the fixed to the ends of rods, but paper spools and the coded wheels wheels of raised letters, which re­ that punched through them . . . volved at random, creating a pat­ ah, I shall not try to explain, but, ternless meaninglessness-a chaos in short, I had the mechanical of "chance" combinations of let­ equivalent of the fifty million mon­ ters. The main problem, since I keys." did not have fifty thousand years "And did they produce Mon­ at my disposal, was to accelerate taigne?" I asked, rather lightly, I the printed combinations. My ex­ fear, for the Gentleman in Green periments consumed many years, fixed me with a serious glance. and devoured my youth as well. "No, they did not. For many My invention went through a hun­ months, Bibliac produced undi­ dred .models, a hundred improve­ luted gibberish, at the rate of mil­ ments, and rapidly ate into my lions of 'words' a day." small stipend. I was lucky enough, "Surely you did not read-" purely as by-products to my main "No. I had devised a monitor research, to patent several valua- that spot-scanned the tapes and UNCOLLECTED WORKS 99 was keyed to register any signifi­ "Can it be-you mean-?" cant combination of phonemes, The Gentleman in Green nod­ any that would seem to display a ded, with a faint smile. "Of course, logical pattern. After two full no one had ever bothered to work years, during which Bibliac con­ out the logical implications of the tinue to operate without a pause, fifty-million-monkeys paradox. It such a combination was noted. I would not begin with Montaigne, translated the tape, but could but with the very beginnings of make no sense out of it at all. Ut· written literature! Thence for­ ter Babel, yet, undeniably, certain ward, it would trace the develop­ 'words' reappeared in the text over ment of letters through time in or­ and over. One cannot devote a derly sequence. For, you see, there sizable portion of one's life to a existed a living equivalent of the certain project and then give up. I fifty-million-monkeys-the human determined to secure the advice of race, itself." an old friend from the University, I stared at him, staggered, not who had made his home in Paris knowing whether he was mad or even as I. He identified the text merely entertaining me with an without delay-why had I never amusing fable, but completely lost thought to consult a linguist. in his tale. He continued: "Why, of course,' Markoy said "I watched my invention repro­ when I showed him my transla­ duce the entire literature of the tion. 'You have here an early pas­ Greeks (including, I must note, sage of Enmerlulr and the Lord of the fourteen lost comedies of Aris­ Aratta, the ancient Babylonian totle which perished with the epic. And in the original Sumeri­ Alexandrian Library, the long­ an, too. It is, you must be aware, vanished Marsyas of Homer, and widely considered the most an­ the many lost works of Hesiod, cient known work in any litera.. Pindar, Sappho, and the Cyclic ture." poets). By winter Bibliac had en· ''From then on, I dwelt in Para­ tered upon the Romans. Ah, what dise, tasting such delights as only an unending delight. I was watch­ he can savor, who sees the dream ing the complete vindication of all of a lifetime coming true before my dreams-the fulfillment of my him. During the next years, Bibliac life's workl" progressed through the Sumerian, I ordered the glasses filled, and the Babylonian, the Assyrian and as the long grey shadows of after­ finally, the Egyptian literatures. noon mingled with the plum-pur­ Ere long it began on Homer, and ple of evening, he talked on. from that point on, its course was "The next years were somewhat a predictable one." less interesting, for they merely 100 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION repeated the triumph endlessly, gigantic novel, Those Who Err, with the literature of the Middle which Willard Paxton, the great­ Ages, the Reformation, and so on est of the American novelists, will into modern times. There is no die before completing, even as did point in listing these modem the great Cervantes, before finish­ works, for you are already familiar ing the Quixote to which it shall with many of them." be compared. I have read the Ar~ I nodded, secretly wondering if thuriad of Gwyn Rhys Jones, a Bibliac had reproduced my own Welshman, and the greatest epic book of verse? "Now that Bibliac poet since Milton. And I have ex­ is silent," I said, going along with plored the intricate music of the his fantastic tale, "you must be cyclic-dramas of Von Bremen . . • ready to publish an account of and the rich dream-imagery of your experimental work in the Taliesin in Limbo, for which the technical journals, and reap your English King, Charles IV, will well-deserved harvest of fame-?" knight Edward Quinsey Marlin­ His reply was not at all what I son. I, alone of all men, recall the had expected. He fixed me with a subtle music of the opening cou­ quick glance. plet of Tierney's mock-romance, "Finished? But it is not-the Baghdad .•. 'Sindbad am I, sailor experiment goes on." of Ocean,/Sailor of all of the "But how can it go on, when it Orient Seas' . . . ah, yes, my fine has reached .••" young poet, you who do not even "The only direction is-for­ believe what I am saying is the ward," he said cooly. My shock truth ... at this hour, Bibliac is must have been visibly traced on puzzling its tireless way through my features, for he leaned for­ poems and tales in Neo-Anglic, a ward and tapped the marble table­ language which has not yet evolved top with his forefinger. from present-day English ... Bib­ "Last week I read the works liac will run forever, tireless as that shall enrich the next century. any automaton, filling its endless Bibliac is printing the unwritten spools of paper tape with the tri­ words of the future." umphs of the thirtieth, and the "That is-impossible-surely?'' fortieth and even the fiftieth cen­ I said weakly. turies ... 'to the last syllable of re­ He cut through my fumblings corded time' • • •" with a short, decisive gesture. "Listen to me, young man. I You are looking~ young man, with have read the productions of gen­ very much the same expression I ius that shall astonish the world must have worn, when the Gen­ long after you and I are dust. That tleman in Green uttered those UNCOLLECTED WORKS 101 words. He must have been irritated But he has plagued me forever by my vapid stare, my idiotic since. Was he just a clever cadger­ comments, my not-very-well-con­ of-drinks, who repaid the gener­ cealed air of ironic tolerance of ous with a fine-spun romance? what may, after all, have merely Was he just a cafe hanger-on, been a madman, and not a genius seeking the ear of the well-pursed, who has rifled through the treas­ gullible tourist? Was he insane­ ure vaults of Tomorrow. deluded-a dreamer-an eccen­ What? Oh, he sprang up from tric would-be inventor, seeking the table and darted angrily into funds for some wild invention the street-and was struck down that would never see the light of by a bicyclist. His fine brow struck day? the curbstone, splattering it with Perhaps my first theory is the crimson ... ah, why should I both­ soundest of all. Surely you, a jour­ er recalling it yet again I nalist, must have listened to many Hmm? Dead? Perhaps-the surprising revelations over a free crowd gathered swiftly, the gen­ glass of liquor? I recall a grizzled darmes . . . I was shaken to the Irishman for whom I bought a core of my spirit and hesitated­ glass of beer once, in McSorley's fatally hesitated-then he was in New York. He confided to me gone, taken away in an ambu­ that he had sold his soul to As­ lance, and my one and only modeus for eternal youth . . . but chance-gone with him. His unfortunately had neglected to name, his address-1 never knew. realize it meant eternal poverty, Whether he lived or died-for­ since no amount of money could ever unknown. support a man who never dies.

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3. An essentially unmarred copy of this issue-the coupon is backed up with this box, and its removal does not affect the text of the surrounding material. · 102 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION And the Italian count I met on the Gentleman in Green. You may the Riviera-twenty years ago, as live to see Those Who Err ... Ah, I recall-who sponged a full week Great God, I envy you. You will off a wealthy art-collector, by his know whether it was the truth or claim to be a genuine werewolf ... not ••• no, no, you must forgive he left our mutual host before the me, tears come easy to the old ..• full moon, and I have always rath­ Yes, the river does look lovely er regretted it. Alcohol will fre­ from here. You should see it in quently bring out, even in the June, with the willows dipping most common man,-the unex­ their thin green fingers in the pected. shallows, and the rich curve of the No, no, of course you cannot cliffs beyond. On clear days, you publish this. Just write that I r~ can actually . . . gret Pound died before being giv­ Ah, that will be my housekeep­ en the Nobel ... or that I regret er, and I expect it is time for your having never met Yeats. Or say train. Thank you so much for that I deplore the formlessness of stopping by. And-please-you contemporary letters. Or anything must forgive an old man for ram­ you will. It does not matter . bling on like this. There are so few . . . But, if you will, remember hereabouts with whom I can talk. those names. Paxton. Chiminez. Yes, yes, certainly. Just say I salute De Montaubon. Jones. Von Br~ the memory of Pound, and regret men. Sir Edward Marlinson. never having met Yeats. Anything Tierney. You are very young, you like. Anything. scarce older than I, when I met It doesn't matter. ------Mercury Press, Inc., 347 East 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 F-3

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MAIDEN VOYAGE

by J. W. Schutz

White Sands, Glenn back in the twentieth cen­ July 4, 203 7. tury-things had shaken down a bit DEAR DEE, since then. And then I asked her, I'm absolutely furious! When I with all the frost at my command, got the te~egram to report here when was the latest, the positively "within 48 hours" I almost pan­ latest, I really must be on hand. She icked, thinking of the thousands of smiled one of those infuriating cler­ things I simply must do before leav­ ical smiles and said, "I'm afraid ing. I had visions of dashing up in today is, Miss Hackaberry. You the taxicopter and just hurling my have much less time than you things on board bare instants be­ think!" and handed me a diction­ fore the take-off. And when I ary-sized bundle of forms. checked in, actually breathlessly If anything had looked at all mind you, the Reception-frump frantic I might have cooled off a blandly told me that the Ares little. But there were quite a lot of wouldn't take off for twenty-two people coming and going, all look­ daysl I could have eaten glass. I ing as relaxed as wet Kleenex, and told the woman that I certainly did­ I reallv fulminated. I asked to see n't need to sit around for three someone in authority and she re­ weeks to make a travel connection luctantly buzzed a Mr. Bowen, "in no matter how awe-inspiring they charge of passenger embarkations". might think it was. After all, I (Nice eyes and a sort of genial­ said, it wasn't as though I was John worried look.) He gave a sort of ex· 103 104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION planation. Things about medical minute with Miss Reception-desk examinations, weightlessness, in­ breathing rather nastily on my jections, and so on, that really neck. Then before I caught my sounded rather impressive, so I let breath I was put through a physical myself be persuaded not to go right examination. Lord, I didn't know back to Orlando. When they offered one person could have so much phy­ me a room at the Center, though, sique and in so many different I'm afraid I was rather rude, so here places! I ran up and down ladders, I am in a sort of crude hotel in did nip-ups, bled on command, and White Sands with my absolutely all the usual things, and a great Spartan baggage, simmering down many not so usual ones. I stripped a little before going down to supper. and redressed I don't know how I suppose there'll be nothing amus­ many times and suffered indignities ing in town to do, and I don't know I wouldn't tell about to Mother. a soul here, so I'll have a look at About two o'clock I had caught those loathsome forms afterwards up with the others. We had a diet and get to sleep early. lunch with no choice except "eat it Drop me a line soon. Lord knows or don't eat it" and I got to know the there'll be time enough. other four in my group. None of Your sizzling sister, them I would really be mad about. Thelma One boy, John Carter, who isn't too bad and who is intriguingly dis­ White Sands, tant with me, that's all. He's tall July 12,2037. and a little too thin but with good DEAR DEE, shoulders and nice eyes. I gather How wrong can a gal be? I think that he has done some rather in­ I told you in my •last letter over a teresting things in plant pathology, week ago now that I'd get some which is my line of course. The early sleep and attend to forms and others are two nondescript girls and the like later? Well, as it turned a middle-aged PHD with a short out, in the hotel's bar I met Sid beard in two tones of grey. Mills from Winter Park and went After the lunch there was a lec­ out on the town with him. ture in a small auditorium with the The next morning, the fifth, I other six groups of five people. The awoke feeling a sort of greyish whole ship's passenger list is just brown, and of course without hav­ 35 people-most of them young ing filled out any forms. I got to the and about half of them men, which Center an hour late-and found I isn't too bad for a start. You know, was one of a group of five who I like men. Father's quite wrong hadn't waited for me. I had to scrib­ about that. It's just that I'm in ab­ ble the forms at a hundred words a solutely no hurry to marry and "set- MAIDEN VOYAGE 105 tie down". Lord, how I dislike that serious matter and to be taken ac­ phrase. cordingly. I've been through so I won't bore you with the details much that I can hardly imagine of the lecture, a lot of which were how they'll fill up the next two about what to do in weightlessness weeks-but I suspect they will all and which is not normally of much right. I'm going to sign off now and use to a girl. It went on for about get some sleep. Tomorrow there's a four hours and I was getting a head­ course on how to take a bath in a ache and thinking of a hot bath, plastic envelope without drowning. supper and a good night's rest. I'll write you at least once or twice When they dismissed us we all before I leave. crowded into the hall and suddenly You might let me know how my -just like that-they dropped us pupils are doing in your compe­ down an elevator shaft! tenthands. What had happened was that Love to the gang in they had dropped the floor of the the faculty room, hall under us about thirty feet. It Thelma was all beautifully controlled and no one was hurt, of course, but we The Center, all ended up in a tangle on the floor July IS and I found myself adhering like a DEAR DEE, coat of tan to John Carter. About The day after I wrote you last half the crowd thought it was fun­ we had some fittings for "personal ny and the other half was furious. I equipment" which I will not de­ was one of the furious ones. They scribe. Actually I would never have then told us that slow-motion pic­ thought . about that particular de­ tures had been taken and that we'd tail, but when you think about it be shown them and discuss weight­ (which I have been obliged to do!) lessness the next day. a trip to the powder r~om under The next few days were even weightless conditions with the stan­ more hectic. The pictures were dard fixtures would be a bit-un­ rather amusing, incidentally, and I tidy shall we say. Enough about was complimented on the speed of that. But the bit about taking a bath my reactions. I had to give up my in a plastic sack turned out to be room at the hotel and move into the quite amusing. For the same ob­ Center on the third day, when a vious reasons you can't simply series of injections made me death­ climb into a tub in a space cabin ly ill. The Center assigned a nurse and splash and scrub, and of course to sit with me fpr a night or two. you can't go for months in a hermet­ In short, I've learned in these ically closed atmosphere without last eight days that space travel is a baths. 106 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Our bathtubs are individually suits as it collects at the bottom of fitted affairs of heavy, translucent the sack, assumes a pear shape, and white plastic as flexible and as becomes terribly heavy. Of course pleasant to touch as a chamois-skin. you don't have that problem in They look like duffle bags with sev­ space and you can use as much eral short tubes sticking out here water as you like. One of the wom­ and there, and with two loose, long­ en in the crowd did put too much sleeved rubber gloves welded into water in her "tub" and as she was them near the neck. For our fittings pear-shaped herself to begin with, and practical demonstrations we the whole affair quickly became un­ were all given a sort of nylon suit manageable and she tumbled over "for modesty" although they aren't like a kewpie doll at a fair stall. The awfully modest in my opinion. The water went right on filling up the session was co-ed, moreover. Inci­ sack and she was rolling around on dentally, John Carter, the slightly the floor in it looking like a haunted distant plant pathologist I men­ pumpkin until someone pulled the tioned, isn't as thin as I had zipper at her neck and practically thought. Rather nicely muscled, in flooded the classroom. She started fact, without being knotty, if you to giggle and there we were, all know what I mean. He caught me standing around in practically no­ giving him a little more than a cas­ thing but bread wrappers, laughing ual glance and began to blush, and our silly heads off with her. when I realized the way the male Then we were shown a movie mind was operating, I started to short of how it was actually done blush. So there we were, blushing at in space-which was graceful and each other when the idiot instructor rather weird, with a starlet model said, "Of course we won't wear floating about in mid-air wearing, I these suits when we really take believe, either less than we had baths!" been, or perhaps a flesh-colored af­ We were taught how to wiggle fair. The men· in the crowd ap­ into the things and then to seal peared to enjoy it thoroughly and I them around our necks. Once caught Carter giving me a sort of sealed inside you use the rubber "comparative" look. gloves to turn on water faucets in We've since had instructions in the outside tubes, slip your hands all sorts of improbable things. Eat­ out of the gloves and use the wash­ ing and drinking, for example, and cloth which is floating around in­ how to keep a cabin neat when side. It involves a certain amount everything floats around at the of contortionism but it's not too slightest breath of air or movement. bad, really. We were cautioned not Then, yesterday, we had an actual to put too much water into the experience with weightlessness. MAIDEN VOYAGE 107 They took us up in high altitude seems to be loaded with us. He's planes and flew us in parabolic been on some wonderful expedi­ paths so that we were actually tions that I would have worn a without weight for thirty or forty grey beard myself to have gone on. seconds at a time. The first time I'm having supper with him to­ or two I felt like I was falling night. down a well and just hung on until Tomorrow, instead of weight­ my nails turned blue. After that I lessness, we will have a session in got a little used to it and floated the centrifuge to see how many around in the air pretending I was "g's" we can stand. I'm a bit ter­ a bird. We all got a little adventur­ rified of that so I think I'll let Pav­ ous in fact and when the plane loff tuck me in rather early. Just came out of the last parabola a bit think, it's only eleven more days abruptly we all wound up in a until take-off and we have just tangled heap near the front of the thousands of things still to do. cabin. Hug your nice husband for me One of the women in the group and tell Aunt Vannie there is -1 don't know who she is as she absolutely nothing to worry about. isn't in our regular team of five­ Love, banged her upper lip a little and it Thelma started to bleed. John Carter, hastened to give her medical atten­ July 22 (Ye Gods!) tion with a clean handkerchief and Dear Dee, a lot of unnecessary little pats. The Only six more days to D-Day! woman is probably loads older than The pace is stepped up quite a bit he is but she's the dark, busty type and I haven't had tirrie to think, that men like. Quite attractive, I much less write, for the last week. suppose, in a flashy sort of way. I'm getting a little nervous too, When he'd got her tidied up she which isn't like me. I think it was _squeezed his arm and gave him one the centrifuge that did it. Or may­ of those confidential smiles. After be it was the parachute jump. the flight he went off with her The day after my date with Dr. still stuck to his arm and I haven't Pavloff we were all herded into a seen much of him since. building about five miles from the Dee, remember I told you in my Center that I had never seen be­ last letter about one of my team­ fore. It looks very much like a mates, an older man with a little bullring from the outside. Inside two-toned beard? I've been seeing it's more like the bowels of an quite a bit of him. His name's ocean liner with a lot of enormous, Pavloff and he's another plant slow-moving machinery that looks pathologist. The passenger list utterly inexorable. Which it is. 108 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION They lined us up like kids after teeth were showing clear back to recess and then, without a word of my ears and my chest had reverted warning or explanation, herded us to what it was when I was eight. I into a series of little cabins all tried to scream and couldn't. around the circumference of the Things began to tum red, then building. The cabins were rather violet, and finally black. The next Jike dentist's chairs enclosed in thing I knew my blonde technician steel and glass phone booths. Be­ was leaning over me grinning and fore I had time to ask questions a waving a tube of ammonia under young blonde technician as hand­ my nose. some as a ski instructor, but lots It seems the point of this whole less personal, had strapped me into exercise was to see if any of us the chair, attached electrodes to would let go of the little spring various places-practically strip­ gadgets (by passing out) before ping me in the process-adjusted the centrifuge hit eight "g's", a television scanner to point at my which is the critical value. If any­ face, gave me a little spring thing one had, there was little likelihood on the end of a light cord, said that he, or she, would make the "Squeeze that like grim death!" and trip. As it happened, no one did. stepped out, clanging a tomb-like Preparation for the parachute metal door behind him. jump wac; a lot more elaborate. We The next thing I knew there were given some preliminary train­ was a humming noise and the ing, lectures, films and so forth, whole cabin began to move side­ and were told that this was an wise, very smoothly. Then things elimination affair. We were all to began to happen that I hope I'll wear little hearing~aid type radios never have to go through again. and when we jumped a voice My dentist's chair smashed me in would count to twenty-five, at the back, my head snapped back which moment we were to pull our and was glued to the headrest. rip-cords, Anyone who pulled be­ Suddenly my veins were full of ice­ fore twenty-five or after twenty­ cold lead and I was breathing air seven would remain earthbound. the consistency of warm asphalt. I When the time came to make felt as if I were being slowly the jump we were taken up in stepped on by something impos­ planes with special seats arranged sibly huge. Then I caught sight of to dump us out simultaneously. myself reflected in a steel panel. We were not told when the trap My face was slipping down around would be sprung, and that was the my ears and neck, there were big, worst part. It seemed to me as gaping, red pouches under my eyes though that flight lasted a hundred like wounds, I had three chins, my years and that I held my breath MAIDEN VOYAGE 109 the whole time. Naturally when took the next plane home to Den­ the moment of truth arrived it ver. That leaves thirty-two of us caught me completely unprepared who will be passengers and the and I dropped out of the plane Center is vastly relieved because screaming so loudly that I missed there was room for only thirty­ the first three number of the count three passengers at the maximum. altogether. After that it got worse. Something that has given me al­ By the time the voice reached fif­ most as much trouble as the centri­ teen I wanted to scream ag~~n and fuge and the parachute jump com­ didn't dare. By twenty I was sure bined is the fact that I can't take I had already hit the ground and most of the stuff I had brought was dead, and would be falling with me. And I thought I had re­ through space for the rest of eter­ duced things to impossible limits. nity. I could have sworn solemnly Special clothing is provided for that ten minutes elapsed between Mars. They're like a cross between "twenty" and "twenty-one" and my an Eskimo parka and a space suit, hair had time to turn slowly grey and use up almost all of the weight between 'twenty-four" and "twen­ allowance. Skirts are out of the ty-five". question either for Mars or during Landing was an anti-climax, the trip (weightlessness again). though I did twist my ankle a lit­ Sweaters are unnecessary in the tle. I remembered to spill the wind ship which has a constant temper­ out of my 'chute on the ground and ature which is too warm for them. got out of my harness without It all boils down to two Marsuits, trouble and actually swaggered up three abbreviated nylon jumpers to the pick-up that came racing out in a choice of four colors, two pairs to get us. Feeling too cocky, I of plastic sandals, and a couple of asked the medic in the pick-up those tank suits we use to take why we had had to do all that baths in. And that's all. No style, when we had already been through no variety, even the men wear ex­ the weightlessness bit. He said in actly the same stuff. If, after all I a bored voice, "You might have to have been through, this drab ward­ crash-land on Mars, you know." I robe doesn't make me give up, I got the shakes and had to have a guess nothing will. sedative. At that, I came through Well, that's about all I have it fairlv well. Two of the men had time for now. I'll write or wire at pulled · their rip-cords before the least once more before the Day. count got to twenty, and one of Incidentally, the dark, arm-squeez­ the women did everything perfect­ ing type is named Mrs. Collow and ly but when she got back to the she's taking quite an interest in Center quietly packed her bags and Dr. Pavloff. Believe me, your Thel- 110 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ma and the Callow are going to works on biology, plant pathology, have a little "understanding" be­ statistical analysis and so on. They fore much longer. are hard to get hold of even in Hastily, of course, New York and on Mars will be Thelma worth their weight in caviar. I nev­ er dreamed I could "take them July 24, 2037 with me" but in a way I can. What Dear Dee, you do is this. Take the enclosed The day after tomorrow is IT. I signed form and the books to don't have time to give you much Major Reddiger at Building "C", news but there are several things Room 320, at Cape Kennedy I'd like you to do for me and a Space Center. He'll microfilm couple of things I want to explain. them, transfer the films to mag­ First of all, I have shipped you netic tape, and transmit the tape my suitcases with nearly every by ruby laser to the librarian at stitch in them that I had when I Mars Station One. The librarian left home. Please put the nighties, checks his files and those titles he stockings, and underthings away doesn't have he reproduces in full for me somewhere. I can probably on microfilm again. Incidentally, use those when (and if) I get Major Reddiger will· drop you a back. The same for the sweaters, card when the job is done and you but all of the dresses should be can stop. by when you're over on disposed of. The very soonest I the coast and pick the books up could return would be four years, again. I know this is a chore but as you know, and by that time they you understand that it's rather im­ will be simply antique. It's a shame portant and I'm sure you won't to lose so much money, so if mind doing it. some of the girls want to pick up Tape-and-laser will be our some hand-me-down bargains (the means of communication. In fact, stuff is nearly all new, after all) it's the way Father sent his letter you can sell them for what you for me to join him on Mars. I'll use can get and turn the proceeds over voice tapes which you can play to Aunt Vannie. The green chiffon back on your own tape recorder. evening dress I bought at Neiman You can reply in the same way. Marcus you can give to Agnes. It They transfer ordinary tapes to should suit her very well with her special ones that zip through the pink hair. If there is anything you machines at an unbelievable rate. want, help yourself. An hour of ordinary tape can be, Now about my books. In the and is, transmitted in fifteen sec­ bookcase in the living room there onds. The only drawback is that a is a shelf and a half of reference message-any message-costs a MAIDEN VOYAGE 111 minimum of $25. For that much Goodbye, Sis. I'll admit I'm a you get up to twenty-five seconds little scared. of laser time so I suppose it is Love, worth it if you have a lot to say. Of Thelma course, delivery is rather irregular since they only send private mes­ WESTERN UNION sages when the circuits aren't jam­ 7-25-37 packed with scientific data and of­ 1 443 MST/DL ficial communications, and that MRS. DELIA H. THOMAS means you sometimes have to wait 1442 CALLA CIRCLE a week before your tape gets trans­ ORLANDO, FLORIDA mitted in the few seconds it re­ DEPARTURE TO BE TELE­ quires. In any case, our "post of­ VISED ABOUT FIVE A.M. fice" will be Major Reddiger's STOP. IN PRINCIPLE PASSEN­ office. GERS BOARD EIGH_T A.M. One more thing and then I must WILL WAVE STOP NEXT LET­ sign off. Please explain to Aunt TER BY TAPE FROM INTER­ Vannie that since we won't be in PLANETARY SPACE LOVE the Van Allen belts for more than THELMA a few minutes, or an hour at the Miss Thelma Hackaberry most, and since the ship is quite White Sands, New Mexico adequately shielded, there is ab­ solutely no chance that I will be Kennedy Space Center, sterilized en route! What a thing Cape Kennedy, Florida, to worry about! Also tell her that August 27, 2037. if anyone does develop an unsus­ Mrs. Delia H. Thomas, pected intolerance to weightless­ 1442 Calla Cir., ness during the trip there is an in­ Orlanda, Fla. jection which can be given which Madam: makes one insensible to it. (The The enclosed tape contains ma­ trouble is that the patient has to be terial recorded aboard the IPSS fed, bathed, and everything as if Ares by the passenger Miss Thelma he were in a coma. This is so com­ Hackaberry. It has been transmit­ pletely inconvenient that it is done ted under conditions which assure only as a last resort. You needn't privacy and no attempt has been tell Aunt Vannie that, however.) made to cut, edit, censor or other­ There. That's all. I'll send vou wise alter the communication. at least one or two tapes during ·the Every effort has been made to pro­ voyage, and you'll both hear from duce a recorded message of the me when I've had a chance to find highest quality. It is possible, how­ out how Father is. ever, that transmitting conditions 112 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION may have suppressed or made un­ another it went like lightning. In intelligible some parts of the mes­ spite of the long wait, strapped in sage. Should this be the case, we my bunk in a sort of spacesuit­ will, upon request, supply a high­ cum-corset, I wasn't really ready volume duplicate using noise-sup­ when the speaker said . . . three, pressor techniques. Such a tape two, one RRRoar!" may not, however, completely re­ Nothing much happened at store some of the missing or gar­ first, and I had time to think, bled portions of the transmission. "It'll explode right here on the pad. Your tape may be played back I wonder if I'll have time to get on any standard recorder and is out of here?" Then I began to feel good for approximately 500 hours. a pressure like when you start a Additional copies, either normal or car fast. Only it didn't ease up. It high-volume, may be obtained up­ just got harder and harder. It was on payment of twenty-five dollars. the centrifuge all over again but The original will be destroyed after this time it seemed a million times three years from the recording worse. The noise, for one thing, date. was frightening. And I didn't Yours very truly, know when the acceleration would Alfr~d A. Reddiger, Maj. USAF stop. I got to thinking it would go on getting worse until I was Hello! Dee? squashed like a bug. There was a Where do these notes begin? lot of vibration too. I thought sure Oh, yes. something-everything-was go­ Listen, Dee. If this sounds a ing wrong. I could feel my chest little unnatural, it's because I'm flattening and my chin was hang­ reading it into the recorder. They ing down and pressing on my gave us each a sort of lightweight windpipe, cutting off what little erasable diary when we got on breath I had left. My bosoms were board. It's the only way you can trying to run down the side of my keep your thoughts in order long ribs and it hurt terribly in spite of enough to get everything down on the pressure suit. I tried to scream, tape. Anyway, here goes. I'll leave and did manage a little squeak, out the dates unless a date is im­ but then I blacked out. portant for some reason. I came to with a whiff of old­ You saw the take-off. I can tell fashioned smelling salts and looked you we were awfully cold in those up to see a young Air Force lieu­ little nylon jumpers and felt pretty tenant apparently falling on me silly in front of the cameras. head-first. The pre-takeoff procedure I must have jumped or some­ seemed endless in one way and in thing because the next thing I MAIDEN VOYAGB 113 knew the lieutenant and I were and there's a consciousness that tangled together like an old hair· it's all self-contained. You're mil· net and bouncing-hard-from lions of miles from automobiles, one wall to the other of my tiny birds, insects, even air. It's spooky cabin. We hit the walls about four at first, but you get to like that too. times before Lieutenant Pegler Everyone talks softly on a space­ (that's his name) could stop us. ship. The air was full of droplets of I had expected to be black and smelling salts and I was practically blue after bumping into all the strangling and so dizzy I could furniture with Lt. Pegler. I was hardly see. And then, dammit, I astonished not to be until I noticed started to bawl. Lt. Pegler held that almost everything-partitions, me in his arms until I calmed cabinets, washing equipment, etc. down. Then he strapped me down -is made of thin sheets of foam lightly with the harness while he rubber. Really thin. It looks terri~ cleaned up the cabin. At first I ly flimsy until you realize it doesn't didn't dare wiggle for fear of start· have to support any weight. Not ing everything all over again, but any. The floors and some of the when I began to relax it was like frames of things-my bunk for ex· Boating on a cloud and watching ample-are solid, of course, but a very military angel swimming well padded. Until you get your around in the air. Dreamy. So "space legs" you bump pretty hard much so that I fell asleep-from against nearly everything. exhaustion, I guess. The first day out was over so When I woke up again it was quickly it didn't seeem long, but easier. I just opened my eyes slow· when I look back at all the things ly and there I was. My eyes and I did, it must have been long my face muscles and my breasts enough. After the first few hours were a little sore but I felt pretty we all began to explore the ship. good. After you get used to slee~ It isn't very big, of course, but it's ing in weightlessness it's heavenly. amazingly easy to get lost without One of the first things I noticed an "up" or "down". Sometimes I when I began really noticing still get turned around. things was the silence. It's not The ship's a long cylinder, e~ absolutely silent on a spaceship, of sentially. The "rear" or the part course. That would drive you mad. that left the earth last, takes up You hear little clicks, clanks, hum· about two-fifths of the length and ming noises, snatches of voices, most of that is fuel tanks, engines, and a slight sighing from the air and so on. Passengers aren't a]. circulation system. But everything lowed in that section. Then come is muffled and seems very far away the passengers' cabins. They are 114 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION arranged around a central service Jackstraws. At meals and for shaft in groups of six. When the movies they string up thick nylon ship is standing vertically there are cords in parallel lines which we six "floors" with six cabins on each all cling to. We stick out in all floor. This makes a sort of tower directions from these cords and within the outer cylinder of the look like strings of animated ship's hull. All the cabin doors barbed wire. At first you get pains open out into the space between in the neck from trying to look in this tower and the hull. The tower all directions. It takes quite a bit is braced to the hull with girders of getting used to. and before take-off you get to your After the first day I began get­ cabins by climbing aluminum lad­ ting acquainted. In two days I ders from girder to girder. It seems knew all the passengers pretty well. terribly high then. Just before take­ John Carter, the young plant off the ladders are all folded pathologist I told you about, has an against the hull and clamped engaging smile and nice, short, down. They stay that way all dur­ crisp, black hair that isn't always ing the trip. There are thirty-two Boating around. (One man had passengers and three officers in the just a few strands of hair combed cabins. One of the cabins is vacant. sideways in long strings to cover Above, or forward of, the pas­ his scalp. On the ship that simply senger cabins there is a whole floor didn't work. The strands were al­ of open space which we use for a ways Boating around, so he shaved lounge, dining salon, and movies. all the hair off and looks loads bet­ It's the only place in the passen­ ter.) About John Carter, though. gers• part of the ship that has port­ He has a very neat, compact way holes-six very small ones. Most of moving, and gets about in No­ of the time all but one or two of Gee like a bird. Rather sensibly, them are covered. I thought this too, he seems to have lost interest was pretty stingy at first, but after in that chesty Mrs. Collow who got a few days of stars, it's enough. the split lip. She (Mrs. Collow) You can't look toward the sun, of spends most of her time with Dr. course, and the earth was only vis­ Pavloff, who's more nearly her age. ible for the first day while we were There's a Miss Pincknie in the in parking orbit. crowd who's a panic. She over­ We call this space The Bullpen, flows in all directions. I've nothing and it gets terribly crowded. It against fat girls, and this one is looks weird when it is because no nice; but in space ... really! The one is at any particular angle to trouble is our more-than-limited the walls or bulkheads, or to each wardrobe. little nylon playsuits other. It's a sort of game of People- with no bras .. (Incidentally, a bra MAIDEN VOYAGE 115 in No-Gee simply squeezes one in· mologist, a quite young, frail­ to odd shapes so no one wears one. looking girl with enormous eyes, And without weight, who needs as shy as she can be. The odd thing support? In space, every woman's a about her is that, although she Hollywood pigeon!) Well, even on passed all tests with flying colors, Daytona Beach, rompers can he she just cannot get used to weight­ sort of distressing on some women. lessness. She is the only one on the But on Pincknie! You have to see ship who never lets go of the safety her to believe her. If she had the lines. When the rest of us are muscular plumpness of some farm Boating about like a school of airy girls it wouldn't he too bad. But minnows, she just creeps along the Pincknie slept in her foundation walls, not saying anything and back in Peoria-and for cause. In giving a sweet, shy smile when No-Gee, she's a phenomenon. anyone teases her about it. It gives Every time she moves, or smiles, you a funny feeling, seeing her even-and good Heaven, when hanging on one of the cords or she chuckles-little waves of flesh going hand-over-hand on those start to roll and ripple, going from clamped-down ladders, that she one end of her to the other and alone weighs something. Everyone back again doing astonishing is fond of her, though. Her name things on the way. Some of the is Caroline Roberts. men can't look at her and some of After the first week we settled the others can't stop. into a routine that became rather She's quite good natured about dull. Weird perhaps, but dull. No­ it, however. She even uses it to body stares any more when they tease Lt. Pegler. He's a dear, but see a table of bridge without the likes to give the impression that table and no chairs. (They just he's an absolutely imperturbable clip the cards to a pillowcase to military Jeeves. Well, Pincknie keep them from floating off.) Con­ catches his eye once in a while versation groups looked strange at when she thinks he's been pomp­ first, with four or five people hold­ ous and just twitches a muscle ing hands in a circle like a chil­ somewhere-any muscle-starting dren's game. Now they don't look one of those self-perpetuating odd at all. You know that if you kootch routines, and poor Pegler don't hold someone's hand when turns violet with embarrassment. you're talking to him you'll soon The crowd are pretty average he at some wacky angle to him. University people. There are biolo­ I guess it was the business of gists, chemists, physicists, and adjusting that kept me from paying even one paleontologist. One girl too much attention to what people rather intrigues me. She's an ento- were saying. After awhile, though, 116 PANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION I began to notice that Dr. Pavloff ever known. He claims it might got curiously intense when he was even have made nuclear war seem talking about the Venus Spore, trivial, and that the Spore is the which he did a lot, and that Mrs. real reason that further expeditions Callow always seemed to be drink­ and colonization attempts on Ve­ ing in every word he said. nus were abandoned. According to You probably remember the him, the Spore approached photo­ Venus Spore affair? It was about synthesis from the opposite direc­ ten years ago. There was quite a tion to that taken by normal plant lot of talk about it. The second life. That is, instead of absorbing Venus expedition had brought it carbon dioxide and liberating oxy­ back on the boot of a spacesuit, gen, it absorbs oxygen and liber­ and it propagated violently. It ates CO. as animals do. (Sounds scared the devil out of the Plant ugly to me right there, somehow.) Quarantine Service people until The worst of the affair, he main­ they got it under control. They had tains, is that the spore, developed the whole State of New Mexico in an atmosphere with almost no isolated from the rest of the coun­ oxvgen and very little direct sun­ try for a while. For a long time light, "lost its head," as he puts it, afterwards there were wild stories. on the earth, where both are abun­ One of the most persistent ones dant, and began propagating ex­ was to the effect that some biologist plosively. He claims that Agricul­ in the Department of Agriculture ture used its entire appropriation lab had isolated the spore and had to fight the spore literally cremat­ hidden a sample somewhere while ing thousands of square miles of he threatened the world with it. the State of New Mexico with For years it was a favorite bar-room flame-throwers, and that the mon­ rumor that the F.B.I. were still ey was extremely well-spent. With­ looking for him. Being a plant out that, he says, the spore would, pathologist, I was interested in the within a decade, have used up the spore, but was never able to get earth's oxygen nearly completely much information on it. I've even and would have asphyxiated the met some other people in the field entire population of the globe. who claim that there never was At this point it gets too wild such a thing as the Venus Spore. for me. But La Callow drinks it all That the whole thing was a hoax, in and begs for more. She has him in fact. eating out of her hand, but it's dis­ Well, if you can believe Dr. gusting, I think. Especially when Pavloff, there really was a Venus he begins to criticize the Govern­ Spore and it could have become ment, suggesting that they might the worst disaster the world has have isolated colonies of the spore MAIDEN VOYAGE 117 and "tamed" it to perfonn useful worse. Better cut this bit out of jobs. Like the production of com­ the tape with your manicure scis­ mercial CO., dry ice, and even sors before Aunt Vannie hears it or control of the weather by judicious she'll be selecting names for chil­ management of the "greenhouse dren. effect." There's the last absolute inch of "Do you really think so, Pavel?" tape! she says, with a voice you could . Dee, could you • • • Damn! top a sundae with. CLICK. I see by the indicator on this machine that I'm coming to the Kennedy Space Center, end of the tape. Cape Kennedy, Florida, Just a bit more. There's to be a December 20, 2037. dance in the Bullpen tomorrow. Mrs. Delia H. Thomas, "Tomorrow" is a mere figure of 1442 Calla Circle, speech of course. Our days are Orlando, Florida. regulated by dimming the lights Dear Mrs. Thomas: for eight hours out of twenty-four .. I am enclosing your sister's sec­ But the dance is quite real. ond tape from the IPSS Ares. I'm They plan to string a sort of sorry to say that it has been neces­ checkerboard of nylon cords in the sary to delay re-transmission to you Bullpen after supper and play re­ for what were, at the time, security cordings of Wiggy Wiggin's Dance reasons. I hasten to say that you Band, which is pretty wild stuff. will no doubt have other tapes, but The crew say they do it every trip from Mars itself. and it's fun. Can you picture what About the security matter I need The Scat would be like without the not explain since Miss Hackaberry limitations usually imposed by has given a rather complete, al­ gravity? (Pun-sort of.) Lt. Peg­ though unofficial, account in her ler and Lt. Poggs have even tape. Also, I will not repeat the worked up a skit which is said to standard infonnation such a letter be absolutely gravy I I'm looking usually contains about speed, vol­ forward to it, as my date is John ume, since, after your visit to the Carter. I've seen quite a lot of him Center with your husband I am during this last month, now that aware that it is superfluous. Collow is stalking Dr. Pavloff. Thank you and Mr. Thomas Don't go getting ideas, though. for your kind words concerning my I'm a long way from Daddy's be­ recent promotion, and let me add loved "settling down" yet. He's that both Mrs. Reddiger and I are nice, of course, in a shy-masculine as relieved as you are that your sort of way, and a girl could do sister has arrived safely. 118 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The next time you and your started to hurt and tears came out husband are over here I hope you of my eyes and floated away. John will have time to have supper with Carter caught one of my tears and Mrs. Reddiger and me before re· gravely put it in his pocket. I turning to Orlando. guess that's the moment I felt Sincerely yours, the most like settling down. A man Alfred A. Reddiger, Lt. Col., USAF with an imagination like that . . . well, honestly I Dee? It was at the dance that I no­ A helluva lot has happened ticed for the first time that Pav­ since my last tape. I hardly know loff wore a gold slave bracelet. I where to begin and of course I remember thinking that it looked didn't take notes. I don't have too oddly effeminate and out of place much time, either. There's tape on him. Well, I'll tell you more enough, naturally, but we'll be about tha.t later. preparing to land in a few hours, After the skit, Lieutenants Peg· and there's quite a few things . . . ler and Poggs showed us how ball· . Now wait. Let me start this over room dancing is possible in No­ calmly and logically. There! Gee. The squares of cord are about I think I told you in my last three meters across and are sort of tape that we were going to have a springy. What you do is bounce dance, and I'll begin there. against them at an angle and go We did have the dance, and it from corner to corner of the square was lots of fun. Lt. Pegler and Lt. in a' sort of billiard-table bank shot. Poggs were a riot. They dressed in You do this as a couple, either very clever Russian ballet cos­ holding hands or with your arms tumes, made out of tissue paper around each other and once you mostly, which floated about them get the rhythm of the thing you ridiculously. Pegler was in a Cos· can leave each other, turn, bank in sack costume, and Poggs wore a opposite directions and come to­ long ballet skirt over one of those gether again, and so on. When the tank suits-padded in the obvious tempo speeds up you can go from places-and they did their whole side to side of your square in­ skit in slow-motion in mid-air to a stead of corner to corner. There is heavy Russian opera theme. At one only one couple to each square and point, where Poggs was floating as long as you stick to simple com· slowly out of his partner's reach ering in slow rhythm it's quite overhead (yes, they even managed sedate. But when you get a little to give an illusion of "up" and adventurous there's no way to put "down") iR a gracefully silly atti· on the brakes once you've left the tude, I laughed so hard my side cord too fast so that sometimes it :MAIDEN VOYAGE 119 gets a little rough -especially if let. Dee, you never saw such an ex· you hit the cord behind you at the pression of fury. He simply ripped same time as the couple in the next her hand away, and gave her a square. The Scat turns out to be really rough shove so that she quite impossible and, for that mat· sailed back across her square. She ter, so are most of the usual left the Bullpen at once, hand· "steps". With Wiggy Wiggins at over-hand, as fast as she could go. his graviest, and the squares mostly She was crying. full, it looks a little like old films Of course I followed her to her of twentieth century "Jittering". cabin to see if there was anything I It was during one of these wild· could do, but she shook her head at er sessions that I noticed the Pav· me-even with a brave little loff bracelet business. smile. You remember I told you-last Pavloff's meanness took quite a tape-about Caroline Roberts? lot of the fun out of our dance for She's the mousey, but appealing me so, although the affair lasted little girl who creeps along the another hour or so, I said good· lines instead of floating free like night to Johnny and went to my everyone else. Of course there was cabin early. no question of getting her to Well, just as I was closing my dance, although several of the boys door I heard a little noise out in tried. But she was watching, cling­ the "Space" (you can't call it a ing to a nylon cord inside an empty corridor, really) and I glanced out square on the edge of the Bullpen, just in time to see Collow coming and getting fun out of it. furtively out of Dr. Pavloff's cabin! Well, there she was not holding She didn't see me. on as tightly as usual, which shows Just as on cruise ships in the how much she was forgetting her Caribbf'an, there's a lot of this sort fear. Then, all at once, the couple of thing on spaceships, apparently. in the square in front of her hit More perhaps than on earth be­ the cord particularly hard, the cause the trips are longer. So I just shock gave a bounce to the cord shrugged and went to bed. It she was holding, and she sailed wasn't until I had put the light out across her square letting out little that I remembered that after Caro­ moaning gasps of terror. Just as line had grabbed him Pavloff had she came to the other side, clutch· stopped dancing, leaving his part· ing frantically with her hands, Dr. ner just hanging in mid-air, while Pavloff put his hand on the cord in he examined that bracelet with a front of her (he was not with the funny look on his face. Collow for once) and she grabbed I don't know why, but for the his wrist-the one with the brace- next few days I kept an eye on that 120 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION bracelet and noticed that Dr. P. Pincknie ripples with a well-placed couldn't keep his fingers off it and pat. Pincknie saw me at the same looked faintly concerned if he time and giggled, which started a brushed that wrist against any­ ripple from the opposite direction, thing. I also noticed that he turned with results that left me helpless it on his wrist almost constantly with laughter. whenever anyone talked to him on There was one incident that I his favorite subject-the Venus didn't find nearly so funny, how· Spore. It got to be such a "thing" ever. During one of the dim-out with me that I finally mentioned it periods that pass for night on to Johnny. board I couldn't get to sleep, and He didn't take it very seriously since day and night clothes are and said that middle-aged men identical, pushed out of my cabin often got little mannerisms, and I to make a quick spiral tour of the guessed he was right and dismissed space between cabins and hull. the whole business. Although I It's a mild exercise, like taking an couldn't .get over the way he had evening walk before going to bed. shoved Caroline. There wasn't a soul around, and · We were all just exhausted for for no reason at all I just poked my several days after the dance be­ head into the Bullpen which was cause we literally hadn't exercised almost dark. Not more than my a single muscle for nearly two head, because there were two months. I was not only languid, people there, off to one side. I but sore in every bone, and I'm would have ducked out instantly, sure nearly everyone else was too. except at just that moment I recog­ One of the consequences was nized John Carter's voice-just a that our usual soft-spoken, quietly word, quickly hushed. floating daily life became almost I'm not the eavesdropping sort, completely silent and inactive. Ship­ but I admit I froze like a stalking board romances bloomed, partly cat. He was with the Collow because it was easier to float with woman. They were talking in very an arm around your waist than to low voices and I couldn't hear make the effort to avoid it. Con­ what they were saying, and it versation began to be carried on could have been innocent. But mostly in whispers. just when I was deciding to give The consequence of that was Johnny, at least, the benefit of the that too often I arrived someplace doubt, she put both arms around just in time to see something I him, gave him a quick, familiar didn't need to. It was fun at times. sort of kiss and pushed off in my I even caught Lt. Pegler, of aD direction with one little chuckle of people, stimulatinc the famous absolutely disgusting satisfaction. MAIDEN VOYAGE 121 Not wanting to be caught where men on the ship liked her, and Lt. I was, I made a mad-even dan· Poggs follower her around like a gerous-dive for my cabin, and puppy when he wasn't on duty. I made it inside before she came discovered, to my surprise, that through the bulkhead. she was quite popular even with There was no question of sleep. . some of the women. And of course I was seething. I caricatured to her conversations with Dr. Pav· myself every word that woman had loff never flagged. He droned- on said in my presence and every de­ and on about photosynthesis and tail of the clothes she wore, re­ his Venus Spore, and fingered his membered all the repulsive people silly bracelet. I had ever known who looked in Noticing Collow so much, I be­ any way like her, and in general gan to notice the very slightest made a most uncharacteristic idiot things she did and one of those of myself. In the midst of it all I things was to look at that bracelet decided that if that was the way every time Pavloff touched it, and Mr. John Carter wanted it, I then look away quickly. I thought, wasn't going to speak to him for "If she thinks that thing is effem· the rest of the trip. Or ever! Then · inate, why doesn't she simply leave I started to cry, and that's messy in him alone?" space, which made it more irri· You'll forgive me if I dwell on tating than ever. that bracelet when you know how For days afterwards I tried to important it turned out to be. It ignore them both, which was im­ was, after all, just one of those possible because the ship's too identity chains with heavy links small. Then I began frankly spy· and a flat metal section slightly ing on them, being as icy as I curved to the wrist that people knew how with Mr. Carter, but have been wearing for a hundred keeping as close to them as I could. years. Pavloff's was rather massive, I had to admit that they didn't and of gold. The only thing re· seem to pay too much attention to markable about it was Pavloff's each other, and I never found constant fingering it, and the Col­ them intimately together again. low's interest. I was near them After a very little while he began once when she asked him if she following me about, trying to find might try it on, and he told her, out why I was giving him the cold with that voice change and hes­ shoulder. itance which shows so clearly That left me with no one to when men are lying, that the catch spy on but Collow. I guess I was was caught and that he couldn't becoming pretty detestable myself, get it over his fist, and that, in but I couldn't help it. Most of the fact, he hadn't taken it off in many 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION years. And then I noticed some­ was already creeping into the Bull· thing that I might not have if I pen in her slow, clinging way, and hadn't been watching her so close­ was half-way through the hatch. ly. Her face took on a flicker of Dr. Pavloff was just behind her, that expression which means, "I've and I was next, floating a little too got you, Buster!" and then she ap­ fast, and I thought I'd probably parently accepted the story and bump into him from behind. And dropped the subject. But not be­ just then, out of the comer of my fore I'd seen that unholy gleam of eye, I saw Mrs. Collow to one side satisfaction. of me and John Carter on the After a week I could speak civil­ other, both going too fast, as ly to Mrs. Collow and Mr. Carter, though, like me, they had mis­ but I was cool to them and culti­ calculated their push-off. I remem­ vated other friends. But there was ber thinking, "They are both too something nagging at the back of deft, somehow, for this really to my mind_;,_a feeling that I was happen, but we're all going to being a fool-and that something pile up in the hatch." Which we was wrong, somehow. I didn't like did. Violently. to admit it, but I just wasn't en­ Caroline was tom loose from joying the trip or the experience her grip and gave a little shiek any more, and I even found myself and grabbed Dr. Pavloff's jumper. wondering why I'd ever allowed John crashed into me and we Daddy to "talk me into it". caromed into Dr. Pavloff just as And then the terrible thing hap­ Mrs. Collow hit us from the other pened. side. We flew into the Bullpen in The only way I can give you a ball of arms and legs and brought any idea of how terrible it was is to up against one of the nylons, say that for a while there was talk which everyone grabbed. Caroline of our never landing again. Any­ started to cry again and this time where! Just circle until our air ran Dr. Pavloff had the grace to apolo­ out and we died. And that gize, and was actually patting her wouldn't have been long either. on the shoulder when he noticed Everyone was involved in the that his precious bracelet was miss­ start of it. Pincknie, and Collow, ing. It was the only time I have and John Carter, and Pavloff, and ever really seen anyone tum white. even poor little Caroline Roberts. Pavloff looked like a ghost. He had This is the way it happened. both feet and one hand on the cord The buzzer had just sounded and he was looking straight at for lunch and quite a few of us Mrs. Collow. His voice was absurd­ came out of our cabins at once, ly high and yet terribly, fright­ headed for the Bullpen. Caroline fully, controlled as he said to her, MAIDEN VOYAGE 123 "What have you done with that of little Boating rubies of blood, bracelet?" and Mrs. Collow was shouting in John said, "What bracelet?" and an amazingly authoritative voice. Pavloff glanced at him for a sec­ "John! Never mind that. The ond and was starting to explain. spore ..... here!" and she ripped I looked at Mrs. Collow, and off what was left of her jumper, there, against her breast, it's out­ soaked it with one of the squeeze­ line showing quite plainly through bottles set out for lunch and tossed her jumper, was the bracelet. And it to him. just at this moment she said, He turned quickly toward the "You've simply dropped it." bulkhead and there, where the For an instant Dr. Pavloff's bracelet had shattered, was a grey­ eyes searched in all directions, and ish, powderly cloud about as big then the same thing occurred to as a pillowcase, turning rosy him that did to me. You can't around the edges. I stared stupid­ "drop" anything in "no-gee"! ly as John approached it, cautious­ What happened next was ter­ ly, as though it were a wild animal. rible-and at the same time Mrs. Callow, nude and with a seemed so silly-over a trinket. diagonal stripe of blood across her Pavloff let go of the cord and front like a diplomatic ribbon, was with his legs against it, hurled literally holding her breath, and himself straight at Mrs. Collow. I was thinking several things at There was something flashing in once; first, that even nude she his hand. Johnny shouted. didn't look like a siren at all, next "Sis! Look OUT!" that something terrible was· going Then Pavloff hit her, the thing on that I didn't understand, and in his hand swung downward, rip­ last, an underlying joy in my mind ping her jumper and leaving her that kept repeating, "Sis. Look out, naked to the hips with a line of Sis. Sis. SIS." bright blood from one breast to At about the moment I had her navel, and the gold bracelet realized that these two were broth­ went buzzing past my head to er and sister, and that my recent strike the only solid thing in the actions had been idiotic, I saw Bullpen - the bulkhead - and Johnny, his face tense, spreading shatter into glittering pieces. the damp, ruined jumper in the Johnny hurled himself like a air and moving it around as much lance at Pavloff, his right arm ex­ of the cloud as it would cover. It tended in front of him. I heard seemed to squirm away from him, a nasty sound and saw Dr. Pav­ the edges bulging here and there, loff's cheek split wide open under turning a deeper red and baloon­ his eye, and then the air was full ing out like smoke from an oil-fire. 124 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Out of the corner of my eye I Dee, that was the beginning of saw Dr. Pavloff's limp body float­ the most terrible days I shall ever ing slowly across the Bullpen, trail­ remember. ing a chain of blood drops from I can't tell you every detail­ his cut cheek, and Lt. · Pegler ar­ no one could. I know some of the rowing across the free space tow­ things that were done to rid us of ard us. As he arrived John had the Venus Spore, and I can guess closed the wet garment into a others. I do know the effects on sort of sack and pressed it. into myself because after the first day Pegler's hands. I kept a kind of castaway's diary. "Lieutenant," he said, "Put this Here, I'll read you some of the in the reactor chamber-at once." entries. The lieutenant started to argue. 0900. Everyone on the Ares Mrs. Callow said, "That's an or­ knows about the Spore. Most of der!" them don't know the danger of it The Lieutenant gulped just yet. They've stopped the ventila­ once, took the soggy bundle and tion system to keep it from spread­ headed toward the hatch. ing and are taking all of the ducts The motion had spread the apart. You can't stay still in one cloud and I watched in fascina­ position long without beginning to tion as Mrs. Collow stripped the pant from the CO. in your own nylon suit off poor Caroline Rob­ breath. It's like trying to breath erts' back while she clung helpless­ in a paper bag. Nearly everyone ly to her rope. Then I realized the fans his or her face with something urgency and, stripping off my own -a handkerchief, a sheet of note­ jumper, went to help. paper. They've locked Dr. Pavloff We tried to stem, mop up, in his cabin. You can hear him soak out of the air, these pink bil­ yammering and screaming con­ lows of living smoke. But it was stantly. He's quite mad. Some of hopeless, and when a ventilator the men talk of strangling him to opening scooped in a tendril of it, shut him up. Mrs. Collow gave a moan and we II 00. The crew have sealed off both hung motionless in the air, the Bullpen and are doing some­ each holding a soggy pink mess of thing in there. You can smell rub­ rags in our hands. It was then that ber, or something burning. Shows I realized that the entire ship's there must still be air moving in company was in the Bullpen star­ the ventilator ducts. Everyone is ing round-eyed at three naked and marveling at Alice Collow being apparently mad women. I left my an FBI agent. Me most of all. No jumper where it was and fled to one stays in his cabin although the my cabin. cylinder between hull and cabins is MAIDEN VOYAGE 125 terribly crowded with everybody own exhalation of breath, and I am moving about in it at once. The exhausted. The thought of sleep Captain has just spoken to us on frightens me but they have the public address system .. They dimmed the lights and I find my­ are trying to burn away the colo­ self dozing and waking, dozing and nies of spore that are clinging to waking. Caroline Roberts has suc­ things. The smell is foam padding cumbed to space sickness and is burning. \Ve are asked not to move vomiting uncontrollably. She just more than we can help, so as not clings to her bunk, filling the air to use too much oxygen. That's the with globules of the contents of real danger of this stuff-it uses her stomach. It's horrible. more oxygen than five shiploads of 2230. Caroline has had to have passengers would. And it loads the the KO injection. She was begin­ air with carbon dioxide which, ning to throw up the lining of her naturally, doesn't sink "down" any­ stomach. Alice Collow, Pincknie, where. The air is full of it. It's not and I are taking turns fanning her dangerous yet, but how soon will and keeping her clean. She can it become so? And burning the open and close her eyes and breath spore takes more oxygen-and pro­ -and that's all. Poor little thing. duces more carbon dioxide. There's Second day. 0900. Most of us no way to restore the oxygen bal­ slept a little. I have passed a fright­ ance. Or is there? People are mak­ ful night. I awoke a dozen times ing all sorts of theories, wild ru­ after having been still too long. mors are starting almost one a The sensation is like being stran­ minute, but they become so absurd gled with a pillow. You wake with that they can't result in panic­ a jar, fling yourself away from yet. Left to spread, the Venus where you have been floating, and Spore could deprive an entire plan­ you pant as though you had run up et of its breathable air. In fact, on a steep flight of stairs. Breakfast Venus, it has already done so. It is late. might have done so again on earth 1130. We have all had a little if it hadn't been ruthlessly wiped something to eat-nothing hot, out? and water the only liquid. The air 1800. Lieutenants Pegler and smells horrible. Soon there will be Poggs are handing out rations. No nothing to burn in the torches. one had noticed that there hadn't They are trying to find other been any lunch. I couldn't eat my means of killing the spore. It dies supper at first. Then, to dispose of in carbon tetrachloride, but the it, I ate it out of a sense of duty. fumes of that are dangerous so 2100. We have all been in con­ they can only use it in places that stant motion all day to escape our don't have to be occupied. They've 126 FA:-.ITASY AND SCIENCE FICTION had to shut off even the slight laugh or anything. He just looked vacuum for the toilet fixtures. As at me for a long time and then soon as they told us they were said, "That means I'm important going to, everyone began to be un­ to you, I think." I said "yes". What comfortable. else was there to say? Then he 1400. Some of the women have took my face in his hands and begun to have hysterics. Because gravely kissed me. of the vacuum fixtures. They final­ Third day. 0830. We've just ly ran an emergency line to one finished breakfast. The Captain cabin-mine, I thought I'd ex­ has announced that we will all re­ plode myself before they got it main in the Bullpen "for the time fixed. The air is getting fouler by being". It's larger than the Space, the minute. Nearly everyone is but it suddenly seemed awfully panting now, like dogs. No one small and crowded. Everyone's thinks it's funny. face is red and we perspire. One of 1515. John Carter has been the crew has rigged up a fan that working like a madman with the keeps the air circulating, but the crew, fighting the spore. They have breathless feeling is bad and get­ found that oil of wintergreen, ting worse. Another announce­ sprayed into the air, slightly in­ ment. Tomorrow we will go into hibits the reproduction of the a parking orbit around Mars. Ev­ spore. At first the change in the eryone has crowded to the port­ odor of the air was heavenly, but holes and is waiting for his tum our nostrils quickly became in­ to look. Odd how nobody had sensitive to it and it was lost in thought to look out of the ship for the general stench. the last three days. Some who have 1830. w~ have just been re­ already looked say the planet looks admitted to the Bullpen for sup­ enormous. Some claim they can per. All the walls are blackened make out features of the landscape and scarred with fire. The place and no one even believes he has looks leprous and terribly depres­ seen the settlement, but that's im­ sing, but it's clean of the spore. possible. They even cleaned the air, and, 1200. The fight against the although it's still heavy with CO., spore is won I One of the crew be­ it seems marvelous. I ate my sup­ gan sticking plastic tape over an­ per with a good appetite. Johnny chored colonies whenever they was right next to me, eating si­ were found, meaning to come back lently and looking so tired. I later and bum or poison them. couldn't stand it. I blurted right When they stripped the tape off out what had been making me later the spores had died in their act like such a fool. He didn't own waste product-carbon diox- MAIDEN VOYAGE 127 ide. It's over now but they are back home. But we'll face that working furiously to reassemble when the time comes. I'm going to the air circulation system before sign off now. Hug Aunt Vannie for it becomes necessary to use the me. The next time you'll hear from retro-rockets. It will take very lit­ me will be from Mars. I'll even tle force to put us into orbit, but make Daddy add something to the enough to give us a small gravity tape. again, and when that happens CLICK. loose pieces of equipment will be­ come dangerous missiles. Kennedy Space Center, 1400. Someone remarked that Cape Kennedy, Florida, we might be in parking orbit long November 11,2038. enough for everybody to suffocate Mr. and Mrs. Arthur A. Thomas, or even starve. For a minute it 144 2 Calla Circle, looked as though there might be a Orlando, Florida. panic until Alice Callow spoke up. Dear Art and Dee: "Don't be an idiot," she said, It seems like much longer than loudly enough for· everybody to ten months since we had our first hear her, "they'll take us down in supper together here at the Cape, the ferry rockets just as they have and now in a few more weeks it always done. Your skins aren't con­ will be Christmas again. We hope taminated with the damn spore!" to see you before then, of course, I could have kissed her. Then some but if we don't, Callie is preparing other fool said something about not one of her famous plum puddings being able to live on Mars without for you two and will send it over Marsuits. That started an argu­ in time for Christmas dinner. ment, but the worst scare was over. This letter is not really to send Fourth day. 1100. We have de­ you advance Christmas greetings, celerated and are in orbit. Our though. I'll get right at it and tell cabins are clean and we're com­ you that today we had a few split fortable again. Everything works seconds at the end of an official again but the air is terribly foul. laser-cast and here's what was No one minds. We are all looking tacked onto the end of it: forward to landing. They've found First your address. Then-"An­ a way to decontaminate the Mar­ nouncing the birth of Miss Flor­ suits. The worst is over. ence Vannevar Carter, weight 1 There, Dee. That's all of my kilo 360 grams, eyes blue. Mother notes except certain personal parts and father doing marvelously, I've left out. In a few more hours Love. John and Thelma." I'll be landing. I don't know that Now don't be alarmed at young I'll ever have the courage to come Florence's weight. That's about 128 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION eight pounds earth-weight in Flori­ So, all the best to you all. See da. We had part of a second of you soon, we hope. free time on another Earth-Mars laser-cast and I took the liberty of Sincerely, adding, "Congratulations to all Alf three.. , Dee, Arthur and Aunt Van· (Alfred A. Riddiger, Lt. Col., me. USAF)

THE DRAMATIC RAY BRADBURY It's been obvious for some time that moviemakers and theatrical producers have been agonizingly slow in recognizing the potentiali­ ties of Science Fiction. However, there are indications that the movie and theater people are finally beginning to look beyond the comic books for SF source material; and the name often associated with the most encouraging projects is that of Ray Bradbury. Alan Pakula and Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird) are now working on a $10 million production of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, and Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim) is at work on a film version of F arenheit 4 51 . In the theater, Ray Bradbury is moving ahead on his own, and he has set up the Pan­ demonium Theater Company in Los Angeles. At this writing The World of Ray Bradbury was being staged there to standing-room crowds. The evening consists of three one-act plays, adapted by Mr. Bradbury from his own short stories: The Veldt, The Pedestrian and To the Chicago Abyss. To the Chicago Abyss was first published in our special (May 1963) Bradbury issue (also containing one other Bradbury story as well as a complete bibliography of his work). Some back issues of this collector's item are available to our readers at $1.00 each.

THIM.O... IIWIN ************************* I MARKET PLACE i: .************************* Science Fiction Collecter's items. Private liquida­ BOOKS-MAGAZINES tion. Closeout, Box 751, Atlanta, Ga. Why buy books? Send I 0¢ for information & Inventory Clearance. Send $1. for seven mystery pocket books-Mercury Mysteries, Bestseller catalog to: Science Fiction Circulating Library, Mysteries, Jonathan Prell Mysteries-in good con· P. 0. Box 1308, So. San Gabriel, California. dition. Maximum order, 21 books for $3. Send 25,000 magazines for sale. Thousands wanted order and remittance to: Mercury Press, Box 271, in excellent condition; science fiction, weird, Rockville Centre, N. Y. 11571 horror, spicy, western, adventure, others. Send list, enclosing stamp. Magazine Center, Box 214, WARD 0-F-F- EVIL SPIRITS! lnotructlons Little Rock, Ark. $2.00-Acumen, Box 115-G, Hull, Mass. TRY the favorite magazine of book collectors. One year $3.00. Satisfaction guaranteed. The BOOKPLATES Booklover's Answer, Webster 25, New York. SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW contains concise, FREE CATALOG. Many designs including SF and timely reviews of books, magazines, and pa­ engineering. Address bookplates, Yellow Springs perbacks. Includes articles by van Vogt, 4, Ohio. Norton, Anderson, Leinster, etc. Send for free sample copy. Box 1568, San Diego, California 92112. COINS

ATTIC TREASURE-Buy, Sell, Trade-Booklover~ 100 Foreign coins $2.95. 100 Foreign bills $3.95. Index $1.00 (free listing). Baokways, 444-SF, Rhlna, Box 6350FS, Phoenix 5, Arizona. Fort Lee, N.J. 07024. British mags NEW WORLDS and SCIENCE FAN· HYPNOTISM TASY. Send $1 for three latest issues. FANTAST (MEDWAY) (td., 75 Norfolk St., Wisbech, Combs., Free Illustrated, Hypnotism Catalogue. Write England. Powers, 8721 Sunset, Hollywood 69, California. SCARCE BOOKS LOCATED! $4. Minimum. Ash· land, P. 0. Box 424, New Paltz, New York 12561. LEARN WHILE ASLEEP, Hypnotize with your recorder, phonograph. AstoniShing details, sen­ Comic Books, published before 1955, wanted In sational catalog free. Sleep-learning Research quantity. All subjects. Immediate payment for all Association, Box 24-FS, Olympia, Washington. accepted. Bill Palmer, 1406 Vermont, Lansing, Michigan 48906. PERSONAL LONDON MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Britains finest, original, thrilling stories. For special bargain in­ STRANGE UNIQUE items catalog 10¢. Blaclc troductory offer, send $3 for 8 issues to London Magic Shop, Dept. R, Box 5664, Minneapolis, Mystery, 77 Brook Street, London W. 1. England. Minnesota 55417. "Weird Tales"; other Fantasy magazines. List for stamp. Richard Minter, Draper, North Surgeon seeking impossibly rare specimen: ra· Carolina. tional non-neurotic young un-married female, talented, personable, non-maternal, individual, BOOKS ALL subjects. Catalogs 15¢. Myers Book possessing goals and values awareness. P. 0. Service, Marquand, Mo. Box 802, Sunset Beach, Calif. SWORDSMEN read "Amra"; try a copy, 35¢. SORCERERS read "Amra"; subscribe now: 8 MADEMOISELLE-the newest, sexiest, scientific issues $2. Dick Eney, 417 Ft. Hunt Rd., Alex· way to open a bottle. Only $1 from The Jenkins andria, Virginia. Company, Box 71, West Lafayette, Ohio. Do you have something to advertise to sf readers'P loolcs, magazines, typewriters, telescopes, computers, space-drives, or misc. Use the F&SF Market Place at these low, law rates: $2.50 for minimum of ten (10) words, plus 25¢ for each additional word, Send copy and remittance to: Adv. Dept., Fantasy and Science Fiction, 347 fast 53 Street, New Y'orlc 22, N. Y'. 129 PATENTS AND INVENTIONS MISCELLANEOUS INVENTIONS wanted. Patented, unpatented. Ex­ tensive manufadurers lists. Search service. AP.· BEERS, PEACH BRANDY, WINES-Stron-t plications prepared. financial assistance avail­ Formulas, $2.00. (Complete Brew Supplies• able. For free details write New York Invention Hydrometen, Presses, Crushera). Research Enter­ Service, 141F Broadway, Room B17, New York prises, 29-MOB Samoset Road, Woburn, Masa. 6, New York. "Guide to Campsites", 384 pages, 130 maps. $2.50. Camping Family, Inc., Mexico Lane, Ma· SERVICES-AUTHORS hopac, N.Y. POEMS WANTED for muaical aetting and re­ cording. Send poems. Free examination. Crown FOREIGN EDITIONS of Fantasy and Science Fic­ Muaic, 49-FS West 32, New York 1. tion Limited offer-Send $1. for any 3 foreign edition copies of F&SF (usually SO¢ each)-French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, or British STAMPS Venture SF. Mercury Press, Box 271, Rockville Centre, N.Y. 11571. FREE G genuine postage atampsl Worth $10.00 at catalogue prices. Africa-Europe-Aaia-lritiah Rubber Stamp, 3 lines In metal pocket case. Emp.-a fascinating, valuable mixture from Send $2.00. J. Ross Co., 59 Homestead Lane, foreign convents, banks, etc. Who knows what Levittown, L.l., N.Y. you will find. Alao free valuable Booklet. Adulta only. Approval• encloaed. Frasek Co. FA2, White THE POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD. Twenty Plains, N. Y. Inspirational quotations and sayings, each one printed aeparately on Lusterkote pastels. For CELEBRATE with us: Canada Centenary offer; pocket or purae, bedroom, bathroom, anywhere 100 Different $1.00. Free with lat Valuable for ready reference, and constant reminders of foreign errors worth many dollan extra. Bileakl, positive thoughts, $1.00 to: Standard Specialties, Station B, Winnipeg, Canada. Box 4382, Son Francisco, Calif. 94101.

WANTED WHAT OUR DREAMS MEAN. Every new u­ perlence is flrat told to us In dreama. $1.00 poat Aatouncllnga wanted before 1941. Harry Noble, paid. Don Grant, 35 East 35 Str-. New York, Greystone Park, N. J. N.Y.

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A market is people-alert, intelligent, active people. Here you can reach 180,000 people (averaging three readers per copy -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, elec­ tronics. H you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it. The price is right: $2.50 for a minimum of ten (10) words, plus 25¢ for each additional word. Advertising Dept., Fantasy 6: Science Fiction 347 East 53 St., New York, N. Y. 10021 uo CLIFTON FADIMAN, writer and editor, judge of the Book'-Of-the-Month Club, writes: "Each of us ha.t hi$ own special escape-reading. Mine Is science fiction. To my mind F an.tasy and Science Fiction regularly supplies the finest the field has to of!er .. in the way of short fiction .

lOUIS ARMSTRONG writes: "I believe The of Fantasy and Science appeals to me because In it, one finds refuge and release from everyday life. We are all little children at heart and find comfort in a dream world, and these episodes in the magazine encourage our building castles in space."

BASIL DAVE 1 OR , writer Stars af the entertainment world ... notables in and editor, ju~ge of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the news . . . distinguished authors and editors writes: "I have been a fan -all owe much af their success to imagination. So of science fiction all my life, and of The Magazine of when they want relaxation or stimulation in read­ Fantasy and Science Fiction ing, they turn naturally to the finest works of for all its life. F&SF gives us some of the best writing imagination; tales of science fiction. And they in the- field, and the field find such stories-xciting, fast-paced and ex­ is one of great importance.'' ceedingly well written-in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. Here they HUGO G£RNSIACK, find curre~t tap-natchers such as Robert Hein­ pioneer in science fiction publishing, writer and editor, lein, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon and writes: "Plus ~a change, plus Isaac Asimov; plus unexpected fantasies from c'est Ia mime chose-is a French truism, lamentably writers famous in other fields, such as Stuart accurate of much of our Palmer and Mark Van Doren. As a bonus, F&SF latter day science fiction. Not so in the cyclotronic Magazine has a unique record of finding stimulating new ofFantasy and Science Fiction talents-such fine writers as Mildred Clingerman, which injects sophisticated isotopes, pregnant with Richard Matheson and Chad Oliver first appeared imagination, into many in these pages. . .. In a word, here is the best of its best narratives." of fantasy and science fiction. ORVILlE PRESCOTT, literary critic and author, Book Review Editor for the New at better newsstands everv month York Times, tttriles: "People who think that their literary 50c By subscriptiol) . $5.00 a year I. Q. is too high for them to enjoy the Magazine-of Fantasy and Science Fiction 347 East 53 Street New York 22, N. Y don't know what they are missing. The number of well­ written, ingenious and enter­ tabting stories it regularly publishes is astonishingly high."

BEN GRAUER, radio and television outstanding special events reporter: "Science fiction, I think, offers a wonderful education for its readers- it e:rtends their understanding to include the entire cosmos."