This Month's Fantasy and Science Fiction
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TO WORLDS BEYOND Tales of the Future By RoBERT SILVERBERG. Foreword. by ISAAC AsiMOV. A great· master of S-F shows ua our-descendants in action among the stars, in provocative stories that pose truch questions as: Can we out-invent in telligent aliens? What i• the definition ol a zeoo-and who belont• behind the ban, we or they? $3.95 INVISIBLE HORIZONS True Mysteries of the Sea By VINCENT GADDIS. Mystifying atoriet of disappearing ships . of vessels like the Mary Cela.te found sailing with crewa of dead men ... and many other strange doinga at sea. Most of them defy our cur rently accepted scientific belief. - but they are all baaed on absolutely authori tative sources, and many are backed up with photC)Iraphic evidence. $4.25 THE QUEST A Report on Extr"terrestrial Life By ToM ALLEN. Scientista are now seri• ou.ly inveatigating the poasibility of life on other worlda. Much amazing evidence ha~ already been found - IUch aa unex-· plained radio aignala, and foaail-like ahapea in meteora. Here ia everything we lmow now, or hope to learn aoon-in the tint book to brine it aU together. $4.95 AGENT OF THE TEHRAN EMPIRE By POUL ANDEIIISON. A two-time winner of the "Hugo" Award for aciecce-fiction writing introducea Sir Dominic Flandry Captain in Earth' a Imperial Naval IntelU· gence Corps and the "Agent 007" of the future. Here are .waahbuckling battlea galore aa Flandry fighta hia way through a clutch of enemiea - human and non human. $3.95 FUNDRY OF TERRA By POUL ANDERSON. Captain Flandry mana the ramparta of the univerae once again in theae awift-paced adventurea. Thia time he is up againat a hundred-foot long enemy agent, a catlike beauty, and a ruthlaw acientific tyranny. $3.95 Now at your boobtore CIILTOI IOOQ, 127 lo. lUI at., PWL, Pa. 11101 Including Y enture Science Picliofl ...-. .... • • • And Call Me Conrad (1st of 2 fJMts) ROGER ZELAZNY 5 Mirror, Mirror AVllAM DAVIDSON 58 Cartoon GAHAN WILSON 61 The Future, Its Promoters and False Prophets (article) E. BRANDIS and V. DMITRBVSKIY 62 Replies ISAAC ASIMOV, POUL ANDERSON, MACK REYNOLDS, RAY BRADBURY 64 No Jokes On Mars JAMES BLISH 71 The Glorious Fourth JACK SHARKEY 78 Books JUDITH MERRIL 92 Minutes Of A Meeting At The Mitre ROBERT P. YOUNG 99 Science: The Land Of Mu ISAAC ASIMOV 104 Something Else ROBHT J• TILLEY 114 P&SP Marketpl.ce 129 Cover by Chesley Bonestell (see page 98) Joseph W. FtrmtJn, EDITOR AND PUm.ISBD lsatJc A.simcru, SCIENCE EDITOR Ted Whitt, ASSISTANT EDITOR Edward L. Ferman, MANAGING EDITOR Judith Mtrril, BOOK EDITOR Robert P. Mills, CONSULTING EDITOR The Magatliftll of F•t~tasy •"d Scietu:11 Fictitm, Vol•""' Z9, No. 4, Who/11 No. J13, Oct. 1965. Published mot~thly loy Mft'cury Press, lt~c., at 50' a c"'Y· A,.,.,.,, s•bscri#imt $5.00; $S.SO in CaiiiJdtJ arul the Pa11 American UnifJn, $6.00 in all other cou11tries. Publi· cati011 office, JO Ferry Street, Co11cord, N. H. Editorial and ge11eral mail should H sent tfJ 347 East Hrd St. New Yori N. Y. JOOZZ. Sectmd Class ,ostage ,aid at C011cord, N.H. Printed in U.S.A. C 1965 l!:y Mercury Press, Inc. All rights, including tr•flslatiDM itdo othn' u~~&guages, reserved. Sul>musitm.r m•n be IJCCOffl,aflied loy namf!ed, sel/..,ddress•d entJelo,es; the PuloHsher assumu fiD res,onsibilit:y for rnurn of •Moltcited ma11uscri,U. In the relatively short time that Roger Zelazny has b8€n writing science fiction, he has gone from talented newcomer to one of the most exciting writers in the field. His first story for F&SF (A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES, Nov., 1963) appeared less than two years ago. Perhaps you have occasionally paused with a good story in your lap, closed your eyes and sensed the characters about you -felt as if you could reach out and touch a tear or steady a trem bling hand. At a later pause, you may have felt the heat of battle, heard the crackle of a weapon. And, if you were truly fortunate, caught yourself further along in the narrative smiling, or laugh- · ing out loud. This is the sort of story you are about to read-full of compassion and humor and stunning action; about a ruined Earth, dying, but not yet dead, and of the dreatn3 and struggles of man and mutant and alien for its legacy. • • • AND CALL ME CONRAD by Roger Zelazny "You ARE A KALLIKANZAROS," likanzaroi blood," she said, "and she announced suddenly. you once told me that your birth I turned onto my left side and day ..." smiled through the darkness. "AU right!" "I left my hooves and my horns It had struck me that she was at the Office." only half-joking. Knowing some of "You've heard the story!" the things one occasionally meets "The name is 'Nomikos'." in the Old Places, the Hot Places, I reached for her, found her. you can almost believe in myths "Are you going to destroy the without extra effort-such as the world this time around?" story of those Pan-like sprites who I laughed and drew her to me. gather together every spring to "I'll think about it. If that's the spend ten days sawing at the Tree way the Earth crumbles-" of the World, only to be dispersed "You know that children born at the last moment by the ringing here on Christmas are of the kal- of the Easter bells. (Ring-a-ding, 5 6 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the bells, gnash, gnash, the teeth, But there are fewer bells every clackety-clack, the hooves, etcet year, and it is not always desire era.) Cassandra and I were not in that matters. I have this feeling the habit of discussing religion, that you will change things, some politics, or Aegaean folklore in how. Perhaps-" bed-but, me having been born in "You are wrong, Cassandra." these parts, the memories are still "And I am afraid, and cold-" somehow alive. And she was lovely in the dark- "I am hurt," I said, only half- ness, so I held her in my arms to joking. sort of keep her from the foggy "You're hurting me, too • .. foggy dew. "Sorry." I relaxed again. In attempting to reconstruct the After a time I explained : affairs of these past six months, "Back when I was a brat, the I realize now that as we willed other brats used to push me walls of passion around our Octo around, called me 'Konstantin ber and the isle of Kos, the Earth Kallikanzaros'. When I got bigger had already fallen into the hands and uglier they stopped doing it. of those powers which smash all At least, they didn't say it to my Octobers. Marshalled from within face-" and without, the forces of final dis " 'Konstantin'? That was your ruption were even then goose name? I've wondered . ." stepping amidst the ruins-face "It's 'Conrad' now, so forget it." less, ineluctable, arms upraised. ""But I like it. I'd rather call you Cort Myshtigo had landed at Port 'Konstantin' than 'Conrad'." au-Prince in the antique Sol-Bus "If it makes you happy ..•" Nine, which had borne him in The moon pushed her ravaged from Titan along with a load of face up over the windowsill to shirts and shoes, underwear, sox, mock me. I couldn't reach the assorted wines, medical supplies, moon, or even the window, so I and the latest tapes from civiliza looked away. The night was cold, tion. A wealthy and influential was damp, was misty as it always galacto-journalist, he. Just how is here. wealthy, we were not to learn for "The Commissioner of Arts, many weeks; just how influential, Monuments and Archives for the I found out only five days ago. And planet Earth is hardly out to chop the long-dormant Radpol was stir down the Tree of the World," I ring again, but I did not know o£ rasped. it until several days later. "My kallikanzaros," she said The Radpol. The old Radpol too quickly, "I did not say that. • • • AND CALL ME CONilAD 7 Once chief among the stirrers the hieroglyph-prints of the her of disruption, the Radpol had ring-gulls, there on the wet sands lapsed into a long quiescence. of the beaches of Kos, we were After the departure of its sinister burning time while waiting for a half-man founder, Karaghiosis the ransom which could not come, killer (who strangely resembled which should never, really, have me, a very few old timers have said been expected. -tut!), the Radpol had weakened, Cassandra's hair is the color of had slept. Katamara olives, and shiny. Her It had done its necessary troub hands are soft, the fingers short, ling, however, over half a century delicately webbed. Her eyes are ago, and the Vegans stayed stale very dark. She is only about four mated. inches shorter than me, which But Vega could buy the Earth makes her gracefulness something office-which runs this blamed of an achievement, me being well world-and sell it many times over six feet. Of course, any woman over for kicks from out of the Petty looks graceful, precise and hand Cash drawer-because Earthgov some when walking at my side, be Absentia lives off Vegan droppings. cause I am none of these things: Vega hadn't been too eager to try my left cheek is a map of Africa it, though.