a new novelet by

RICHARD McKENNA author of THE SAND PEBBLES fRITZ LEIBER

HARRY HJtRRISON Including Venture Science Fiction

Seven Day's Wonder EDWARD WELLEN 3 The Day After Saturation D. K. FINDLAY 18 The Sky of Space (verse) KAREN ANDERSON 24 The Question LARRY M. HARRIS and DONALD E. WESTLAKE 25

The Importance of Being Important CALVIN W. DEMMON 28

Books AVRAM DAVIDSON 31 Ferdinand Feghoot: LX GRENDEL BRIARTON 36 The Journey of Ten Thousand Miles WILL MOHLER 37 Captain Honario Harpplayer, R.N. HARRY HARRISON 53 Game For Motel Room FRITZ LEIBER 63 Science: You, Too, Can Speak Gaelic ISAAC ASIMOV 72 Zack With His Scar SYDNEY VAN SCYOC 82

Hunter, Come Home (novelet) RICHARD MCKENNA 91 In this issue ... Coming next month 17 Editorial 127 FcrSF Afarketplace 129 Cover by Emsh (illustrating "Hunter, Come Home")

Tile Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 14, No. 3, Whole No. 141, Mar. 1963. Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., at 401 a copy. Annual subscriptitm $4.50 in U. S. and Possessions, $5.00 in Canada and the Pan American Union; $5.50 in all other countries. Publication office, 10 Feny Street, Concord, N. H. Editorial and !ll'neral mail should be sent to 347 East 53rd St., New York ZZ, N. Y. Second Class posllage paid at Concord, N. H. Printed in U. S. A. © 1963 by Mercury Press, Inc. All l"ights. including translntions into otht'T langlfages, reserved. Submissions must be accom­ f'allied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes; tire Publisher assumes no responsibility for 1·rturu of uu.solicitcd manuscripts.

Joseph W. Ferman, PUBLISHER Avram Davidson, EXECUTIVE EDITOR [ saac Asimov, SCIENCE EDITOR Edtt•ard L, Ft'rman, MANAGING EDITOII Introduction to Edward Wellen's SEVEN DAY'S WONDER Once upon a time, in the Holy City of Jerusalem, we met a prophetess, a white-haired woman who was mad in many languages, living and dead, and who cried aloud-as others had done before he1·, on the same hallowed hills-her mes­ sage. Which was, that Male without Female is nothing, that both principles exist in the Godhead, that one must say not qnly, "Our Father, Our King," but also, "Our Mother, Our Queen"; and that these two Divine Essences are exemplified -in the physical world-by the positive and negative charges of electricity. The Jerusalem in which she preached, however, is the one which is in Asia, not the one which is in Heaven; and it was not prepared to hearken overlong to an old woman who skimmed along the streets crying, "Electricity! Divine power! Divine love!" Time passed, we forgot her, we forgot her message, we descended from Mount Zion, and eventually we became an editor and received the MSS of this story which -for the first time in a decade-linked before us phophecy and electricity. Do not laugh. The Philistines thought David mad . ." . Edward Wellen is a writer by occupation, his stories have appeared in many Science Fiction and crime fiction maga­ zines, in PLAYBOY, on TV, and-and no less than four of them-in the Gnome Press anthology, All About The Future. He lives m New Rochelle and lists as his interest, "psycho­ somatosemantics, particularly the branch psychosomato­ semitosemantics." His story is about Gillian Ebon, who was charged with the Word in more ways than one; of Casey Knapp, who had probably never heard of Gehazi, of Milly Henry, she of the varnished eyes and mincing gait; and of what befell them all in the harlot ci.ty by the marge of the western sea.

3 SEVEN DAY'S WONDER

by Edward Wellen

THOUGH IT SHOOK ALL THE stretching out thumb and first way from Phoenix ..the auto de­ and second fingers of the right ferred breaking down and reached hand at right angles to one an­ Los Angeles. And when I saw the other. lights, strings of pearls clasping Then the auto pulled away and the throat of the harlot city, I its gears gnashed. The woman said, "This will do." waved but Jan Sobotka did not So Jan Sobotka stopped the look back but sped the auto away. auto and it idled and· shook. But And I sorrowed that my mes­ his wife said, "Why don't you let sage had in no wise pierced his us take you on in?" resistance and I blamed not, him But I said, "I will walk. I must but myself. And I walked and meditate." And I set foot on the remembered a happening. On ground. one of his stops for coffee, to And she said, "I don't get all break the spell of highways by you say but I know it's good. 0, I day and headlights by night, I wish we was rich, so I could do came from the rest room and something for you." found the auto gone. I waited with So I said, "You have done folded arms and soon it came much for me." back and stopped and I stepped Then she said, "You sure you'll in and it wheeled and went on. be all right? You're so helpless And Jan Sobotka said, "I thought like. Like a lamb." And her eyes you was laying down in the filled. back." But the woman was sitting I said, "I place my trust in the apart from him and she gave him Lord." a look and then smiled at me, her She could say no more but eyes and her cheeks bright. pressed my hand between rough And I walked and thought hands and left in my palm a how another time, while his fore­ folded paper that I later saw was finger poked and circled in his a ten dollar bill. Jan Sobotka worn little purse for the coins to cleared his throat but said noth­ pay for our coffee and currant ing. buns, his lips moved silently. I made my sign of blessing, And I swirled the cup to stir the 4 SEVEN DAY's WOl'DER 5 muddy broth and watched him And I looked and saw I was by sadly. For men have reviled me a filling station. Beside it was a often and I divined what was in used car lot where a great sign his mind. My talk seemed to him stood showing a Jezebel disport­ wild and strange and he would de­ ing and saying, in the shape of a liver himself of me. So it was no funneling cloud, "Drive a bar­ shock when the woman and I re­ gain!" I looked away from the turned from looking at a caged sign and saw, at the side of the coyote, who squatted with head on filling station, a tap, and it forepaws, eyes bright and sick, dripped. And I went and placed and sat in the auto and it rat­ my hand on the tap. tled as it would shake apart. And But a man in a gray uniform Jan Sobotka said, "Sounds like said, "And what do you think the whole rear end." And the you're doing?" woman said, "How can we pay So 1 said, "I thirst." for it?" He stopped the car at a The man's face grew red and crossing and said to me, "Guess he said, "Next you'll want a you better get another lift. Me handout. All you bums think this and the missus has to find a ga­ here's the promised land, every­ rage and wait repairs. Sorry to thing for nothing and on a silver see you go." But I waited with charger. I had to work hard for folded anns and watched him and what I got." suffered for him. And after a I said, "I thirst." minute he went around the auto But the man's face grew redder kicking and tapping and at last and he said, "Mosey on." pulled off a hub cap and took out Just then a tank truck drove up three loose bolts. And he said, beside me and the driver leaned 'What you know. Someone want out and laughed and said, "What's to jest, that is." He turned from going on, Jel?" my eyes and picked up a lump And the man in gray said, that had fallen when he kicked a "Ah, look what wants curb serv­ fender and he cracked it and ice." gazed at the soil inside and crum­ So I took my hand from the bled it away slowly and he tap and walked away, desiring to seemed sad. shake off the dust of that place. But he was not so sad as I felt But the adamant man said, now visioning him vanishing un­ "And don't come around again saved into the city. So I walked or I'll have the bulls boot you into mourning and as I walked the Tomorrowland." darkness lifted and I saw the eye­ And the driver, hooking the lids of the day. hose- to the filling pipe, laughed. 6 FANTASY A::-o;D SCIENCE FICTIOX I turned and raised my hand away. People were gathering and and opened my mouth to speak. there came a sound like a wail But a shining Fiat charged and the young man turned to me onto the blacktop and slid to a and said, "Quick, what's your stop by a pump and the driver name?" sounded his horn and called out, So I said, "Gillian Ebon." "What about action?" "Where you staying?' And the man in gray, standing I said, "I only now came to the with the truck driver by the fill­ city and have nowhere to lay my ing pipe, would have gone to head." him but I lifted up my voice and Then he said, "Aha. Why I cried out, "You have given me ask, the cops find you're a vagrant water of gall to drink. Surely you they'll jug you and seal the stop­ have heaped coals of fire on your per. So you're an old pal, Gillian, own head. The Lord will level and you're staying with me. Let this place with the ground." me do the talking." So saying, I moved toward the The oily smoke thickened and two men and pointed my finger. less flame flickered through and And a spark leaped from my hand the air stank. An officer drew us and the sky flamed and charred. aside. Men carried away the The blast flung me far but I shrouded shapes and I murmured had no hurt. The blast felled the prayers for their souls. sign and lay flat the Jezebel and Then I saw the officer was on her head a tire, like a black speaking to me, but the young man halo. And I looked and saw the broke in and said, "Can't you see two; men were consumed as stub­ he's in a state of shock? He's Gil­ ble. And I groaned, for I re­ lian Ebon, friend of mine." joiced not at the destruction of And the officer said, "And who them that hated me. are you?" And I looked for the driver of The young man said, "Casey the Fiat and a voice behind my Knapp." shoulder said, "Man, you made The officer said, "The disc jock­ me sweat a puddle." And I turned ey? On KALE?" and saw a young man with . curly And Casey Knapp said, "The hair and a floating eye. And he same." He smiled, then said, said, "We both escaped with the "Man!" And he looked at his wrist skin of our teeth." watch and shook it and bits of I said, "Praise be to God." crystal fell and he said, "What time He said, "Man, look at my is it, Lieut?" heap." . The officer said, "Sergeant. Six­ The searing heat drove 'us seventeen." SEVE:-; D:\ y's WO?\DER 7 And Casey Knapp said, ";\Ian, He said, "Aha!" Then he smiled there goes my job. How about and said, "Know why you're a picking up on us after I do my jonah?" show, Sarge?" And he would have gone on The officer licked a pencil stub but I said, "There was a fire in a and wrote and let us go. paper_plant and a man tested the Casey Knapp said, "It's only a workers for voltage. Then he told few blocks, Gillian." And '"e the foreman to let me go. For he walked. He eyed me a while and said I have exceedingly dry skin then said, "You really dig that re­ and sweat amazingly little and so ligious jazz, don't you? What I build up a thirty-thousand-volt mean is, you're deeply devout." charge in my body." Casey Knapp So I said, "I came from the Bi­ gave a slanting nod and pushed ble Belt and my father taught me out his lips. And I said, "So I Bible and Belt." And I saw mv went home and fell on mv knees father, patriarchal, bestriding the and said, 'Deliver me, ·I pray red carpet, fire in his eyes and Thee, from the beak of the vulture voice, and my mother, dim in the Thou hast set upon me.' And I shadows. prayed long and the light failed Then Casey Knapp said, "What and I was plunging to despair. do you work at?" But then like the passing of a cold I said, "I have worked with breath of air across dark waters cotton gin and with threshing ma­ the brooding spirit wakened its chine, I have labored in mine and wings and passed before my face. in factory. But now I go to and fro And the hair of my flesh stood up upon the earth and where I find and as a lightning flash I saw into need of the Word and of healing the soul of things. And I saw the there I tarry for a time." world is charged." And Casey Knapp said, "And Casey Knapp said, "Charged?" what do you do for money?" And I said, "Is it not said, In So I said, "I take no thought for the beginning was the Word and the morrow. I have feasted and I the Word was God? Did not all have fasted." being begin with a bolt of light­ We passed on by an undertak­ ning? It struck the sea and the sea er's. Casey Knapp pulled higher conceived. All is charged. The the zipper tab on his jacket, and words that tell of charge are them­ he· said, "Now, this-this curse selves charged. The ampere is pro­ business. Anything like it hap­ duced by one watt acting through pen before?" one ohm and it is equal to one I said, "Wherever I have worked coulomb per second and its sign there were explosions and fires." is I. And 1-ampere is by interpre- 8 FA!IOTASY AKD SCIENCE FICTI0:-.1 tation God the Father, and watt stave graved deeper but the man is What the Ineffable, and coul­ gave a shrug and a nod. And Casey omb is by interpretation Dove, Knapp came back and shucked his which is to say the Holy Ghost, coat and sat near me at a desk and ohm has the sound of homme, on which a microphone stood. And which is l\1an. In short, I saw he picked up a sheet of paper and that God is Electricity. And I said looked at it and laughed and tore weeping, 'Why me, 0 Lord, why it in two. But then he held the me?' But His will I will not resist. pieces and showed me the writing. I am fearfully and wonderfully He said, "Cue sheet. Tells made to carry the Word." Then aft­ what comes when. My gimmick is er silence I said to Casey Knapp, to make records tell a story. Like "And what of you?" so." He said, "What? 0, nothing And I looked where he pointed much. I saw the light of day in and I read, Get Thee Behind Me, Toledo 0 then moved to Cairo III Satan (Will Bradley), Scratch My and then here. I missed out on the Back (Variety Seven), It Feels fi~hting-bum .ticker. I became a Good (John Kirby). disc jockey." Then he said, "But I'm not using I said, "You seem young to those records today. You'll see have gained material success." why." And he looked up and wait­ He smiled and said, "0, I'm pre­ ed. Then the man pointed a finger cocious all right. Like Job; he at him and he spoke. "Folks, this cursed the day he was born. But is Casey Knapp again, bringing success? D.j. on .a small station?" this generation, that generation, He smiled again and said, "Why every generation the beat. No com­ I was buying go-juice early in the mercials today, for I went to share morning, an even gallon holds a very special experience with more gas after a night of cooling." you." And his voice trembled as he He took my elbow. "Here we are," told of witnessing me pronounce a he said. curse and its fulfillment in holo­ We passed through a revolving caust. And he told of talking with door and he led me to a room. Be­ me and of finding I had spoken hind glass a man was pacing and with the eternal amid lightnings. worry writ a stave across his brow. And he said, "Say, wouldn't it be He halted when he saw us and wonderful, folks, if we could get pointed to a clock. Gillian to use his wonder-working Casey Knapp smiled and told power in blessing, in healing? Let me to sit and he went behind the me hear from you." glass and talked to the man. The And he looked at the man and man pulled at his nose. and the I heard Roclt of Ages begin. SEVEN DAY'S WOl"DER 9 Casey Knapp turned a switch Then Casey Knapp unlocked his on his microphone and spoke to hands and swung his feet to the me. "Gillian, here's your chance to floor and said, "Do I sense a bar­ spread the Word before more peo­ gain?" ple than you've reached in all your I put out my hand and we shook wandering. What do you say?" hands. So I said, "So be it," feeling sad And Casey Knapp said, "The pride, humble joy. boss is Gjelbert Kreshmet. He'll And Casey Knapp said, "You want to hom in, but I'll handle have a set speech, a text?" him." But I said, "When the spirit is We smoked for a space and then on me I know not what I do till I Casey Knapp led me up stairs and do it." stopped before a door. Casey Knapp nodded and said, He said, "Scuff the rug when "That's all right. Just electrify 'em." you cross to shake his hand." And he switched on his micro­ But I said, "Not so. There will phone and looked at the man and be no guile." made a sign of cutting his throat. And he nodded and said, "So The hymn faded away and he be it." said, "And now, folks, it is with And we walked in. A young deepest reverence that I tell you woman at a blinking switchboard . . . the next voice you near saw Casey Knapp and rolled her . • . will be that of . . . Gil­ eyes up and waved him on. She lian Ebon, the Messenger of Elec­ saw me and put a hand over the tricity." And he pointed his finger mouthpiece and said, "This the at me. Messenger of Electricity?" And Casey Knapp said, "The A strange voice filled the room same." and I saw it was the voice of the She kept her hand over the man behind the glass. And he said, ·phone and looked until we were in ''You're in for it, Casey. I told an inner room. you/' And he pointed to the ceil­ Casey Knapp made toward a ing. "Right away." heavy man at a desk and leaned But Casey Knapp smiled and and breathed hard in his face. The his chair squeaked and he put his man drew back but smelled with heels on his desk and his hands delicately quivering nostrils. And behind his head. the man said, "All right, you're The man shook his head and sober. But I thought I hired a d.j., soured his mouth and then dusted notaj.d." his hands. He eyed me strangely Casey Knapp said, "Gjelbert and went. Kreshmet meet Gillian Ebon." 10 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION And I moved lightly across the And he said, "We'll get you new rug and shook Gjelbert Kreshmet's threads." And he fitted me out in hand. a store, choosing an electric blue He sized me as I were goods. suit~ and then took me to his rooms Then a beryl winked as he shook and left me to bathe and change, his finger. And he said, "Now, I saying, "When this thing gets off want none of your lip, Casey. Is the ground you'll have your own what you said true?" place and a real wardrobe." Casey Knapp crossed his heart. But I thought, What, shall I Gjelbert Kreshmet said, "You frivol thinking on such? There is know how much dumping the com­ the Word, the Word, the Word! mercials cost the station?" In an hour Casey Knapp Casey Knapp closed his eyes phoned and told me where to meet wearily. him. It was a loft he leased for a Gjelbcrt Kreshmet said, "Well, meeting place. We walked worn you gambled and won. The re­ planking and it echoed, but he sponse is astounding. Even a spon­ said, "Man, I can see it jumping." sor biting." A woman said, "There's a crowd But Casey Knapp said, "No now." sponsors." And I turned and saw she was Gjelbert Kreshmet's mouth flew fair to look upon. But when she open. drew near she walked mincing. Casey Knapp said, "Believers and her eyes lured; she had shaped are going to send in to build a them like almonds. Temple of Electricity." Then Casey Knapp said, "Milly Gjelbert Kreshmet smiled nod­ Henry meet Gillian Ebon. Milly's ding and said, "I've underrated taking charge of the mail." you, Casey." And he drew a form And she gazed smiling and I from a drawer and said, "Now, thought, Would good had evil's merely to make everything legal-" lure. And she seemed quick to But Casey Knapp said, "Gillian sense my feelings, for a flush rose is hen-tracking nothing. His Word beneath her paint. Then I greeted is his bond." her kindly, for there is none not And Gjelbert Kreshmet lifted worth saving. heavy lids and said, "I've really Casey Knapp took hold of her underrated you." arm and said, "You may not sus­ Soon Oasey Knapp and I left. pect it, Gillian, but Milly is really And he looked at my clothing and a very religious-minded girl." said, "Your Sunday best?" And she said, "That's a hot-" -so I said, "I am wearing all my but she stopped and a look of pain belongings." came over her face. SEVEN DAy's WONDER 11 And Casey Knapp said, "She's would allow people to give to help from the Bible Belt too." spread the Word and the healing. She took a step away from him And he mused and said ancient and said, "The men mostly wore Egyptian temples had slot ma­ galluses." chines to vend holy water. And he He said, "Can it." spoke of Tibetan praycrwheels She leaned to me and said, that turned in the streams to gen­ "Spoke out of turn. Big Whee] erate prayers. And he said those doesn't like." inventions were forerunners of my He said frowning, "Do some­ own harnessing of science to re­ thing for me." ligion. And he said, "Wc"ll mass And she said, "You're so sweet produce faith. The thing is to ad­ when you want something." vertise you, sell you." He said, "Get some eats. Gillian, But I sighed and said, "My what'II you have?" Father's business is not a thing of So I said, "Lime juice and gra­ buying and selling." ham crackers." He smiled and said, "Bingo!" She gazed at me gravely then Then with fair words and soft turned quickly to Casey Knapp. speech he drew a vision of the He said, "0, anything." good works we would do. And she winked at me and And I said, "So be it." minced away. So Casey Knapp and I talked of where the seats He sowed my fame broadcast would stand and when the meet­ and the following night the loft ings would take place. Then Milly trembled under the mu]tituae. But Henry came back with food and on the eve of that he would have handed me mine, saying, "No lime, done a shocking thing. tangerine." And she handed Casey I found him hanging many old .Knapp a deviled egg sandwich and crutches and leg braces and canes black coffee and took for herself a of the disabled upon the walls as lettuce-and-tomato sandwich and signs of cures. I waxed wrathful a wedge of apple pie and a small and he sought to justify the thing, container of milk. And we ate sit­ saying, "You know how they ting on empty packing cases. start off a collection plate." And Casey Knapp said, "Let the belly he turned to MiJiy Henry, who was transubstantiate and let us make combing her amber hair, and it plans." was crackling, and said, "Isn't that And we talked. And I said I right?" would give of my power freely. But she said, "It isn't right­ And Casey Knapp said we positive­ but it's so." ly must not charge for it but we Yet I held firm and he took 12 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION them down. And I sought to con­ and went from strength to sole him, saying true signs would strength. Casey Knapp urged me hang in their place. to meet privately those he called And they did, a legion of them. useful contacts, men and women For they came, the lame and the of standing, for he said he right halt. And my heart went out to connections were all-important. them, but with love, not pity, for But I told him we are all of the pity is to scorn as sleep is to death. same clay and there would be no And faith won out over pain, end­ respecting of persons. But they ing fits and restoring seeing and came also in their turn. hearing and feeling. And Electri­ But the healing devoured my city bore my message and my im­ being. Times my voice gave out. age across the land. And the gath­ And the third evening I came erings grew. back of the curtain wholly drained. And I won followers, such as Milly Henry undid her kerchief Alec Tyron, who stayed after the and passed it across my brow, but first meeting ended and came to the kerchief scarecly grew damp. me and removed his hat, revealing Casey Knapp said, "Veronica a shock of baldness, and wept wiped." with gladness and begged to Milly Henry turned varnished serve. He was an electrician and eyes on him and his smile van­ we put him in charge of wiring ished. And she passed the ker­ and the like. And Casey Knapp chief across my brow again gent­ had him install air conditioning, ly. saying that relief .from smog made A noise like the rushing of for readier belief. mighty waters filled my ears. And And I preached the Word and then I came back to my strength. showed how every word is charged. Casey Knapp was saying, Sometimes I begin by raising a "You're beat, Gillian. You know text. "Six times the wording is, yourself the human body is a con­ while the world was in the mak­ denser. What you need is charg­ ing is, 'And God saw every thing ing. I'll have Alec rig up some­ good.' The seventh time the word­ thing.'' ing is, 'And God saw every thing And my mind was in a mist that he had made and behold, it and I let him persuade me. was very good. 'What does very But when the time came, Milly mean but that the whole is greater Henry was loud in protest, saying, than the sum of its parts?" And "This thing goes up to thirty thou­ sometimes the spirit seized me sand volts. I looked it up; they only straightway. use two thousand in the electric We held three meetings daily chair.'' SEVEN DAy's WONDER 13 Yet I had faith, I had belief in watching her scratch her arm and a higher power, and when the she smiled and said, "I've a rash curtain rose and the needle on the liking for stMwberries." Then her voltmeter swung far over and the hand stilled and she said, "Would gathering drew quick breath I the itching end if I believed?" grasped the bare wires. And I nodded, too full to speak. And the higher power charged She looked as if she would say my veins, my blood caught fire, more but turned instead to a and that day I healed many. And newspaper and read for a time it was the same the next day and and then threw it aside, saying, the next. "And for that they chop down But I saw too that Alec Tryon's forests." manner .was strange. And I I came early next morning and thought, Out of early contact found her there and said, "Good comes a sense of owning and out of morning." seeming disregard comes a feeling But she said, "Oh morning," of hurt. So I sought him out and with no spark gap between. strove to encourage him .and "What's good about it?" strengthen him with my words .. But And I saw she was in heaviness he smiled without understanding of heart. But I knew not what to and kept his eyes on his work and say to comfort her. And I went it troubled me. For he was splic­ out to the gathering. ing wires as I talked, and as I Then the rented organ swelled talked I thought sadly. What is and rose and I grasped the wires understanding but seeing connec­ and the spirit came on me and an tions? electric something passed between And Milly Henry changed also. me and the gathering and I From the first all she said and did, preached the Word as I had never and all she did not say and do, done. rubbed me the wrong way, as if After, among those who lin­ of purpose to repel. But latterly gered I saw Jan Sobotka behind even in her mocking she seemed his woman. She said, "Do you re­ to be kicking against the pricks of member us?" conscience. I smiled at both and raised my Casey Knapp said, "You're a hand in my sign of blessing. And bad influence, Gillian. Of late she's Jan Sobotka showed in his re­ been coming early. If that makes joicing how he had been fearful. sense. But that isn't the worst of And when all had gone I went it. She told me to watch my lan­ with a high heart to see Casey guage." And he seemed shocked. Knapp. And I said, "Is Milly Hen­ Soon after that she saw me ry your woman?" 14 FANTASY AND SCIE)I;CE FICTIO)I; He looked up from a page of And her face grew pale and figures and gazed at me. Then at thin, her papery lips moved in last he said, "Opposites do at­ prayer and she was careful and tract. Oculus-dokos, vou want to troubled about many things. spark her, go ahead.'' On the seventh day of my stay And twent to see l\Hlly Henry. in the city it came to me I saw She ran to meet me. Her foot­ Casey Knapp little. Often he for­ steps were a tabor in my heart. got the time of the meetings and Her eyes were shinning and she came late, saying he had been said clasping me, "You were won­ rapt in business. So I sought him derful!" out in his room at the far end of I felt transfigured. I said, the loft. The rug deadened my "Have I found favor in your sight?" steps. I waited. And I murmured more into her Then he looked up from sheets tresses. of paper on his desk as at a ghost. Then as if remembering herself But then he widened his mouth, she drew apart and said, "Gillian, that had become a coin slot, and you've made me see the light. I said, "Why, hello!" He tapped the shall be pure in mind and soul papers and said, "Man, you have· and body." Her face was wet with n't begun to realize your potential. tears but she seemed not to know The world is your pearl." she was weeping and smiled. A Ministering Angel passing by Blood sang in my ears and my smiled curiously into the room. temples throbbed madly and I Casey Knapp rose and kicked the knew my mouth :was agape; door shut. He lighted a brown She said, "You've given me a cigarette. wholly new conception of living." Then he said, "You're going to And as I said nothing, she said, be a force, a real power, in the "Aren't you proud of regenerating state, in the nation, in the world. me? Then why are you with­ Have you noticed how the local holding your blessing?" politicians are hot to trot with And I grew angry. She could you, with the vote you represent? not understand why, and I grew No questions about the explosion, angrier, gazing at her almond eyes hey?" and carmen lips. I shivered. The voice of the She put her face in her hands tempter, the voice of pride. By that and said, "Of course. I must sin fell the angels. I said, "Why cleanse myself. No powder, no have I seen you little?" · paint." And she went out with bent He said, "Man, I'm up to my neck and full eyes, and strait was ears." He pointed to filing cabi­ her gait as she went. nets and said, "How'm I doing as SEVEN DAY's WONDER 15 necording Angel? Soon I'll need cannot put into words. In the IBM punch cards." He showed end we always come back to the me a page of figures and said, "The Ineffable." wages of salvation. By fish-black He said, "F the Ineffable." we'll take in more than-" He Yet I refrained mvself. I stro,·e stopped and looked at me. Then he not to speak. I said, (will be silent. said, "What gives?" But the Word was in my heart ns a I said, "Why have I seen you burning bush and I could not for­ little?" bear. I said, "You have souled He drew deep of brown smoke, yourself to the Devil." then said, "I leave the holy bit to He said, "Guilty as chm:ged." you. Between ourselves, I always Then he laughed and said, "Don't feel uncomfortable when I hear mind me. I'm always sadng comfortable words." things to shock people. Doesn't I shook my head sadly. mean I mean them." He took another drag and said, I said, ''\Vhy have I seen you "You want the straight dope? little?" Okay, why should I pander to He crushed his cigarette and your altar ego too? Man, you're go­ said, "You wanted Milly. I let you ing to need me bad when this have her. But, damn it, I don't healing jazz kicks back. Say a child have to hover around watching you dies because the parents take it to and that sepulchritudinous doxy vou instead of to a doctor. 'Vho's together." going to cover? You stick to your I said, ''You lo\'e her and yet department, I'll stick to mine." His did not fight to hold her?" hand plucked at the sheets. He said, "Why, you psalm-sing­ I said, "At the Last Trump-" ing muzzler, I could've fried you He said, "Spades, no doubt." a dozen times over by letting Alec I said, "At the Last Trump jolt real juice through those wires. there will be but two departments, But last things first. I'm thinking the sheep and the goats." of what we stand to reap. Man! He said, "Kid yourself but dm1't There are more dames. More guys kid me. Man, open your eyes. The like you too but I put a lot into world's in bad shape. It's round you and I mean to cash in." but it's crooked just the same. The I said, "Real juice?" Man Upstairs is not quite right in He said, "Man, it isn't the ,·olts the upper story. If there's a Man that kill you, it's the amps. Alec's Upstairs." been giving you only a tingle." He The one horror grew from the smiled and said, "If the faithful other. Yet I refrained myself. I knew that they'd hoot you out of said, "There are some things you town." I 16 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The light became heavy dark­ head of a nail. I went downstairs. ness before my face. And I bowed Alec Tryon saw me and said, down my head listening to a still "Yes, Messenger?" small voice that became still small­ I gazed around the basement at er. The iron entered into my soul. all manner of machines. I moved across the rug with a He said, 'We've coine a long dragging step and I stretched out way since the old Leyden jars." my hand and pointed a finger at I said, "You think I have not Casey Knapp. faith? I have faith. Do not with­ He said, "Don't touch me!" hold I-Ampere from me. Will it be And he was sore afraid. an easy job?" And he fell and he lay down He galvanized, his eyes shining dead at my feet. and unquestioning. And he said, I looked out a window. The "Yes, Messenger." sun seemed fixed like the bright Soon it will be time.

CORRECTION, PLEASE

In our August 1962 issue we printed Theodore R. Cogswell's words to the song THE ROPER, the music of which is by John Jacob Niles. Through an error in transcription our text concluded: "For the bats, they will flee you when the Rope comes for you, And there'll be no forgiveness on that troubled day. Be no forgiveness on that troubled day." The correct last stanza should be: "Now all you fine ladies take heed to this story And watch lest your winging should lead you astray. For the bats they will flee you when the Roper comes for you, And there'll be no forgiveness on that troubled day." There have been a number of queries about purchasing the sheet music. Publisher is G. Schirmer, Inc., 609 5th Ave., N.Y.C., and the catalogue number.is 10377. In this issue . . . . . , are stories by EDWARD WELLEN, DONALD E. WEST­ LAKE, and LARRY M. HARRIS (Lawrence Jannifer), all of them well-known to afficionados of the mystery story, and all of them-so far our records, which were somewhat damaged in the Zeppelin raids of the year '15, indicate-new to these pages. New here, also, is Canadian author D. K. FINDLAY, with a new, \\'ry view on the possible evolution of superman; even newer is young California Funny Man CALVIN W. DEMMON, humor slightly muted for (we trust) this occasion only, his first appearance in professional print. SYDNEY VAN SCYOC, a woman, despite the false moustache, is new only to F&SF, not to other Science Fiction magazines; and-wait! don't go away!-elsewhere-famous HAH­ RY HARRISON, author of fast-moving, hard-hitting SF novels ami stories, winds up our "new" list with a hilarious account of an extra­ terrestrial's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars. So much for new chums. Back with us again is RICHARD McKENNA, whose nm·cl of strange ways and strange life on a distant planet will intrigue and pleasure you; so is WILL MOHLER, whose poignant talc of frozen seas will melt the hardest heart; and so is FRITZ LEIBER, with a merry and not-so-merry romp with a strange, strange woman.,.

Coming soon . . • . . . and adventuring on a perilous voyage into deep space is JAMES WHITE, and offers a fresh view of what it may be like Out There for man, machine, and man-and-machine. HINIYOSI-11 SAITO, leading Japanese SF writer, contributes our first transla­ tion from that language. And KIT REED returns, taking a some­ what less than worshipful view of certain medical' men, into whose healing (?) hands an other-timely emmissary chances to fall. Nota Bene:· Just arrived and set for Spring publication: a novel, com­ plete in one issue by POUL ANDERSON. Also purchased, and to follow, a DAMON KNIGHT novel, complete in two issues. And by "complete" we mean Complete-not one word has been cut from either. " The ;oint appearance here of GORDON R. DICKSON and RANDALL GARRETT, as guest-reviewers of each other's new books, is a harmless ;ape on the part of Your Editor, and does not represent collusion between these two great men. 17 It is somewhat curious that this story, dealing with over­ population, should have been written by a native of Canada, our great and good neighbor to the north, a nation with a comparatively small population and a comparatively high standard of living; rather than by a native of, say, Japan­ India-or the West Indies. D. K. Findlay was born in Ontario in 1923 and practiced law in Carleton Place, a town near Ot­ tawa, until going overseas during World War II as a co"e­ spondent for MacLean's, the leading Canadian magazine. (Note to MacLean's: why not a U.S. edition?) He now lives in Ottawa and writes full time, more than fifty of his stories having appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers (R.I.P.), Ladies Home Journal, MacLean's, and other Cana­ dian and U.S. as well as British magazines. Mr. Findlay is the author of the novels SEARCH FOR AMELIA (]. B. Lippin­ cott Co., 1958), and THIRD ACT (Bles [Canada], 1961), and is now working on a third. He lists his amusements as "Skiing and figure skating in the winter; in the summer, moping, wait­ ing for winter . ..."Explosion is defined as "a violent burst­ ing; an outburst." When an explosion occurs, things are hurled out of context, and their form is often radically changed. The author of this tale of the .. population explosion" and-the fu­ ture. has, by the way, four children. We may be sure that they can ski and skate . . . but can they swim? -

THE DAY AFTER SATURATION

. by D. K. Findlay

WHEN DR. BYROM, ONCE A PRo­ raphy, descended to his office that fessor of embryology, now Direc­ morning he knew that there was tor of the Department of Demog- trouble ahead. The communica- .£ 18 THE DAY AFTER SATURATION 19 tori had been flashing all night. laughed. "I'm happy to say that we His assistant was waiting for are in full production ·here. Up him. "Rioting in India. There's a till dawn this morning, we had rumor that human births have our usual quota of ten thousand. ceased there." Right now, we're in the midday "There's always rioting in In­ control to give the staff a rest. dia. And always rumors." Births will begin again at sixteen ''The Department of Public Or­ hours, right on schedule. We're der wants you to issue a state­ pretty well organized here, you ment." know." Such was the state of nervous "I do know it-to our cost." tension of the world's masses that "What's all the excitement re-assuring statements were re­ about, Doctor? My people tell me quired every few hours. This was that the streets are swarming and the business of the Department of all circuits jammed." Public Order which Dr. Byrom "They have some reason to be remembered had been simply the nervous. Must I remind you of the government news service in the date, Doctor? November 13, good old days. 2026." "Get Dr. Yeager at Montauk "What! That old wive's tale! One." Surely they don't take it seriously?" Montauk One was the largest "Let me refresh your memory, maternitv Centre of the area and Doctor. Long ago-in the year Dr. Yeager was its director. He · 1960-the University of Illinois and Dr. Byrom were old adver­ published a series of predictions saries. Dr. Yeager believed in the on the growth of world popula­ destiny of man and the beneficent tion. They were interesting be­ principle in Nature. He and the cause they were the first of a se­ optimists who shared his opinions ries of computer predictions pro­ had done much to frustrate the at­ grammed on adequate data. They tempts of the Department of De­ predicted that the Day of Satura­ mography to control population tion:._the day on which there growth. would be no more room for hu­ Dr. Yeager appeared on the man beings on earth would be No­ communicator screen, genial and vember 12, 2026." confident, wearing his sterile hos­ "They were wrong-as usual. pital uniform. Babies are still being born." "Doctor, there's a story that hu­ "And what a world they are be­ man . births are coming to a stop. ing born into!" Any sign of it at Montauk Ot:te?" "Not my department. My job is "What a question!" The Doctor to bring them into the world. It's 20 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION up to you people to find room for lead us? Out to the stars, perhaps them." -almost certainly. But you may Dr. Byrom was about to switch be sure that man will rise to his off but Dr. Yeager had something necessity!" more to say. "I was going to call Abruptly closing the conversa­ you about another matter. A mat­ tion, Byrom said, "I'll be over this ter of embryology. You told me afternoon, if I can find the time." that if ever I had an expectant Byrom knew it woull be a full mother with a sudden rise or fall day of conferences-futile con­ in temperature and a change in ferences and futile announce­ the foetal heartbeat to let you ments to the public that every­ know." thing was normal. Normal-the "You have one?" word had lost its meaning. "Yes. It looks like a premature His assistant entered with a delivery. Probably this afternoon. folio of aerial photographs. "The You'd better come and assist. Help report on the marinas, sir. I'm me celebrate-it will be our mil­ afraid things are worse than we lionth delivery. The state ought to expected." give me a medal." The marinas were an unex­ "The state ought to liquidate pected development. During the you." latter half of the twentieth cen­ "Still the pessimist, Byrom?" tury all the available waterways Stifling his desire to shout, the had been dammed to provide hy­ Director growled, "Don't you dro-electric power. Because of the think I've got cause to be? The silting-up of the dams and the history of mali-" great amount of waste dumped Genuine enthusiasm shone on into the water, the drainage sys­ Dr. Yeager's face. "The history of tem had collapsed. The already man, exactly! Think of it! One over-burdened economy had been day an ape, or ape-like creature, unable to cope with the problem gave birth to a man, or man-like and marshes had spread over the creature. Since then . . ." face of the world. The Mississippi, "Since then they have given Nile, Congo, and Ganges Valleys, birth to so many man-like crea­ among others, now were vast tures that there soon won't be swamps and seas were forming in room for them. If," he said, gloom­ many places, such as Wisconsin, ily, "there's room even now." where once before in the time of But Yeager wouldn't have it so. the dinosaurs, there had been true "Man's estate is too great, too pre­ sea. cious," he said, sincerely. "Who On the fringes of the marshes knows where the next step will the marinas began to appear. At THE DAY AFTER 5.4-TUR.o\TION 21 first they were well-built settle­ lapsing them and sweeping away ments with substantial houses and the inmates. The loss of life had open waterways for streets, then been great, but few bodies were under the pressure of numbers found. The Department of Public they began to deteriorate. They Order had segregated the area and became shack towns perched on refused to allow reporters and pho­ stilts with narrow alleys of planks. tographers in. As they grew in extent the water Dr. Byrom, in his official ca­ became stagnant and a stench pacity, had visited the scene with hung over them-the smell of a young scientist from the De­ chemicals and the decomposition partment of Biology as his guide. of vegetable matter. Typhus re­ They went along the crooked appeared, along with ancient fe­ plank walks through a scene of vers that no one had heard of for desolation. Wrecked houses, half­ years. The water extruded a· scum submerged; a deposit of gray mud and beneath it the familiar fishes over everything, the water littered and plants died off and others with flotsam and patches of float­ flourished fantastically. ing material. Looking at the pictures, Dr. "What is that stuff?" Byrom was reminded of the dis­ "Shredded clothing." aster at Cobequid. "What shredded it?" -The Cobequid had been one of The young scientist shrugged the last of the National Open his shoulders. Spaces to disappear. The Depart­ "Curious. One would expect to ment of Biology had fought hard find floating bodies. What do you to keep it out of the public do­ people think about it?" main on the ground that it was un­ The young scientist said bit­ fit for human habitation but it was terly, "We are not allowed to overruled by the Congressional think in our Department now." Committees. The vast marsh, once "I know how you feel, Altimas," a natural preserve teeming with said Dr. Byrom, "but listen. Public wild life, had been taken over as life and public office are today an amphibious settlement. At first, simply efforts in the realm of the the movement of the tidal waters possible. We go from expedient to kept conditions viable, but as hut expedient-and we always lose was added to ricketty hut, the area the fight. As one private person to became a vast slum. Then came another, what do you think?" disaster with a mysterious ele­ Altimas relaxed. "We don't ment added. know. Public Order says a tidal Six months ago, a high spring wave washed the bodies out to sea. tide rose against the houses, col- Perhaps. Since we are not allowed 22 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION to think, we can only point out a size. They appear to be increasing coincidence-the spring tide co­ in size and numbers-this is their incided with a natural phenome­ world, not ours. What about the non that has been going on here for human species, Doctor?" eons-the annual migration of the "Well, you know. A species eels. The females come down the doesn't suddenly come to a stop. It river here and meet the males dwindles. Or it mutates." waiting for them in the tidal shal­ "Any hope in mutation? You lows. Have you ever seen the mat­ people did a lot of work on it, ing of the eels?" didn't you? Any results?" "No." "About all we can say with cer­ "Fantastic! Millions of serpen­ tainty is that it is a definite feature tine bodies locked in a writhing, of the evolutionary process. Some twisting, turning mass, churning biologists think that it is acciden­ up the sea like a great turbine. tal in the sense of being without Their sexual ardor is orgiastic­ preparation; others think it is an incredible!-there is nothing like implicit response to environment it on earth. Once I happened to changing or about to change. be near them, on the fringe of the There is certain evidence to sug­ migration-! was knocked off my gest that species may have periods feet and my diving suit was cov­ of vigor and periods of instability; ered with their slime." in the latter they are apt to mu­ They looked down at the dark tate downwards." water. Little catspaws flecked it, a •"Not hopeful, is it?" sign of movement below the sur­ "No. We arc coming to the face-a flat evil head followed by brink. Nobodv knows what is a body as thick as a hawser ahead." ' emerged and vanished in pursuit That afternoon he went bv shut­ of something. tle to Montauk where the tiers of "Doctor, you can see what is delivery rooms were being pre­ happening here," said Altimas. He pared for multitudinous birth. He waved his hand at the marsh found Dr. Yeager concerned about stretching away on all sides. "We the expectant mother whose con­ have created an environment here dition he had reported. They went that is unfavorable to man and fa­ to the wards to examine her. vorable to other species. Take the "Her body temperature has fall­ order of Anguilla, for instance­ en ten degrees-unheard of!" eels-that chap we just saw. We The woman's color had become used to have about twenty differ­ greenish. She was moaning, un­ ent kinds of eels, now we have able to answer questions. Her ab­ forty-some of them of immense domen was cold to the touch. THE D!\.Y AFTER SATURATION 23 "Looks to me like prenatal tigial gills of the human embryo, shock," said Dr. Byrom. "What's had appeared on each side of the her history?" neck. "You know we have no time for "Give it to me." he said. case histories nowadays but I hap­ His intelligence had warned pen to know that the woman was him that the slippery skin would brought in from a distressed area, be cold, but its touch was a shock. one of those wretched marinas off He looked at the mutant-at the the coast." round body, the arms so shocking­ He watched the dial recording ly small, the little feet like stumps, the foetal heartbeat; he used his the chinless mouth-and put it in stethoscope. the basin of warm water. It sub­ "Slow, much too slow! There's merged with a swift darting mo­ something very much wrong here. tion. I'm going to send her to the de­ "Are you mad!" cried Yeager livery room at once." trying to catch it. In the delivery room the pa­ Byrom knocked his hand away. tient fell into a convulsion. "Look." "I think you're going to lose A line on each side of the neck her," said Byrom. became vivid, rose-colored-the Dr. Yeager came quickly to a gill slit trembled on the verge of decision. In spite of the human opening. The creature revived and condition, the official medical at­ looked at them with not-quite­ titude had not changed-a baby human eyes-then the rosy color must be brought info the world. paled, the light faded from eyes The surgical team was summoned; and skin. It died before their eyes Dr. Yeager prepared to cut open because the gill mechanism had the abdominal wall. not sufficiently developed. In a matter of minutes he held "The poor woman," Yeager mut­ up the baby by the feet. It was a tered. "She's given birth to a freak, strange color, whitish and un­ a monster." wrinkled, so smooth it almost Byrom turned and stared at slipped from Yeager's grasp. It him, bleakly. The bitter taste of was alive, its mouth made gulping despair was in his mouth. "No movements. more than that she-ape of whom "Your millionth child seems to you spoke gave birth to a freak or be suffocating," said Dr. Byrom. a monster when she was delivered Yeager applied the Crossman of a man," he said. Yeager gaped breather but the creature could not at him. "We've already taken the absorb the oxygen. Byrom noticed next step," Byrom went on, his that three parallel slits, the ves- voice rising, harshly. "Only it's 24 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION not up to the stars that we're being them, 1\fontauk Point came to its led-it's down-it's down-" His end. Past the last rock, where By­ voice cracked. He waved his hand rom's furious and hopeless hand at the window, gesturing. pointed wildly, lay the open The others, fallen silent, fol­ and wide-ranging, cradle-rocking lowed his gesture. Just below sea.

THE SKY OF SPACE

No moFe a crystal sphere with nailed-up stars, Nor floor of Heaven, but a stranger thing And fitting words have not been made to bring Praise to old wonders' new-born avatars. This is no site of grand Miltonian wars, No trophy hall of myth where beast and king Act out the lays that Homer's kinsmen sing In Attika or Danmark, Hind of Pars. Yet even when with new-coined phrase we trace Those shapes of splendor that equations fill- Or when some Rhysling sees what now we miss­ Even then will the balladry of space Resound with Old Olympian echoes still And ghost-gods walk in each Ephemeris. -KAREN ANDERSON Introduction to THE QUESTION by LARRY M. HARRIS and DONALD E. WESTLAKE and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IMPORT ANT by CALVIN W. DEMMON Not infrequently it used to happen that we would get an idea for a story, only to find that another writer had not only gotten the same idea, but had written it down (and sold it) before we did; other writers report the same phenomena. Now we are an editor and we find it often happens that a MS will ar­ rive on our desk only a day or so after we have bought one on the same theme. Coincidence? Telepathy? The Collective Un­ conscious? Who knows? At any rate, only a week after we got the Harris-Westlake story, along came the Demmon story. Intrigued by the way the different writers, who are unknown to each other, handed the subject which occurred to them in­ dependently, we decided to print both stories together. We think that two differently-angled views may, like those of the stereoscope, produce a three-dimensional image.

Larry M. Harris has a brown beard and plays the piano. Don­ ald E. Westlake has a red beard and lives in Canarsie. After reading their conjoint story of what happened once to· Rossi, who was convinced that the universe was aimed, like a pistol, straight at his head, we have been wondering: is either beard real? And, for that matter, is either Harris or Westlake?

THE QUESTION by Larry M. Harris and Donald E. Westlake

THE ROOM WAS VERY QUIET, anything would have disturbed which disturbed Rossi. But, then, Rossi: he was trying to correct 25 26 FANTASY A:-.:D SCIENCE l'ICTION term papers for an English I "Mr. Rossi," the voice cut in, course, and he had reached the quite without rancor, ''I'm quite state where the entire room had serious. Please believe me." begun to grate on his nerves. "Now, look-" Soon, he knew, he would have to "Please, Mr. Rossi," the voice get up and go out for a walk. It said. "Relax." was the middle of the afternoon, Even as you and I, Rossi was and if he went for a walk he sometimes prey to the impression would meet every housewife in that the universe was aimed, like the development. That, too, would a pistol, straight at his head. The be irritating: but all life, he had afternoon had done nothing to re­ begun to realize, was a choice be­ move this impression, and this tween irritations. He sighed, telephone call, with its idiotic picked up the next sheet and fo­ question, was the final straw. The cussed his eyes. world narrowed, contracted, and The coma is used to mark off centered around Rossi's head. Ev­ pieces of a sentence which ... erything, everything, was part of a The telephone rang. conspiracy directed at Rossi, and ... pieces of a sentence which everybody was out to do him aren't independent so that ... harm. It rang again. "Relax?" he asked the receiver. "God damn," Rossi said, to no­ "Now, look, whoever you are. I'm body· in particular, and went working here. I'm trying to get across the room to answer it, some work done. I don't need any­ breathing heavily. As he reached body calling up to ask stupid-" the receiver he had won the battle "It is not a stupid question," for control, and his "Hello," was the voice told him patiently. almost polite. "Please believe that I-that we "Hello, there," a voice on the really must know your answer to other end said, a bright and cheery it." voice. "What kind of weather is it Somehow, even through the red outside?" fog of anger, Rossi believed the There was a brief silence. voice. "\Vhat is this, then?" he Rossi said: "What?" asked thinly. "Some kind of TV "I asked you," the voice said, program?" just as cheerfully, "what kind of "\Vhy-no," the voice said. weather it was outside." "And it isn't a research poll, a Control snapped. "Who the hell psychiatric game or a practical are you?" Rossi said. "The Weath­ joke. We are quite serious, Mr. er Bureau? Of all the damn Rossi." fool-" "Well," Rossi said, having THE QUESTION 27 come to a decision, "the hell with bent down from his position at the you." He began to hang up. But telephone and took a look toward the voice continued to talk, and the front window of the room. curiosity won out, briefly, in its "It's a nice day," he said. "Or battle with anger. The whole anyhow it looks like a nice day. Is world was, admittedly, after Ros­ that what you want?" si: but he had his choice of irri­ "Exactly," the voice said, and tants. It was the phone call versus Rossi thought he could hear relief his English I class. in its tones. "Can you go into a He put the receiver back to his little more detail?" ear. "Well," Rossi went on, feeling "-must insist," the voice was even more embarrassed-the way sayi:qg. "It will really be much things had gone all day, now was simpler, Mr. Rossi, if you just an­ the moment when someone would swer the question. \Ve can call walk in on him and find him de­ again, you know, and continue to scribing the weather to a strange call. We don't in the least want to voice on the telephone-"well, bother or disturb you, but-" it's a little cloudy. But nice. I "It would be a lot simpler," can't see the sun because of the Rossi told the voice, "if you'd let clouds, but there's plenty of light me know why you want an an­ and it looks warm. Kind of misty, swer to a question like that. What I suppose you'd say." kind of weather is it outside-my "Ah," the voice responded. "You God, can't you look for yourself? can't see the sun, you say?" Or call Information, or some­ "That's right," Rossi told him. thing?" "But it's a good day, if you know "I'm af:raid I can't tell you any what I mean. A little cloudy, but more," the voice said, with a trace -say, look, what the hell is this, of what might have been real re­ anyhow?" The thought of someone gret, and might have been only the surprising him during so odd a actor's version of it so common conversation gave rise to one last among television quiz show an­ sudden spurt of irritation. "Call­ nouncers. "But if you'll just-" ing up strangers to ask stupid "Some kind of a nut," Rossi questions like-" muttered. "Thank you, Mr. Rossi," the "What was that?" the voice voice said smoothly. "Thank you asked. very much." Rossi shook his head at the And then-and then-it said phone. "Nothing," he said. "Noth­ something else. Obviously not ing." And then, possibly under meant for Rossi's ears, it reached the spur of embarrassment, he them nevertheless through pure ac- 28 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION cident, just before the stranger on ly-aimed right at the Rossi head. the other end of the line rang off. Just a few words, heard dis­ Just a few words, but in those few tantly, the few words a man words Rossi realized that he had might say as he was hanging up been right, right all along. Every­ a telephone receiver, to someone thing centered around Rossi. else in the room ... Maybe he woulq never know why, "It's okay, Joe," the voice said or how. But the world, the entire casually. "He can't see it. You world, was-truly and complete- can take it away."

Calvin W. Demmo_n says that, "I was bom in Los Angeles shortly after World War I. I graduated with a BA in English from the University of California, and taught high-school English for a couple of years. Right now I'm a stationery sales­ man. I've read F&SF since the first issue, with occasional lapses, and I have to fight over possession of each new one with my wife Carol, who has sold a few True-Confessions­ type stories but prefers (I think) to stay home and take care of our two children." Personally, we don't believe a word of it, but, be that as it may, his story containS a lesson for all of us. This means you.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IMPORTANT

by Calvin W. Demmon

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS an apartment which looked down a little boy who lived all by him- upon a Very Busy Street, and he self in the Big City. He lived in ·had a television and a record play- • TilE IMPORTANCE OF BEING IMPORTANT 29 er and there were blue curtains on get his elevator or his parking his windows. space or his broccoli seemed to His name was Stanley Scheer, prove to Stanley Scheer that They and he was about eight or nine. had some sort of Mysterious Plan Stanley Scheer believed him­ for him. Because he was the most self to be the most important per­ important man in the world They son in the world. He believed that had to watch out for him, and everybody else in the whole world make sure that he carried out his had been put there to help Stanley 'ultimate purpose. This Stanley Scheer. And, worst of all, he Scheer was sure of, and this he be­ thought they all knew about it. lieved. They had some sort of Ulti­ For Stanley Scheer thought that mate Purpose in mind for him, everything that happened to him and it was up to Them to make was of great importance to every­ sure that nothing happened to body else, and that a whole lot of him until he fulfilled it, because what happened to him had been he was the Most Important Man planned by everyone else. He In The World. thought that all the world was a It got so that Stanley Scheer stage, and he was doing an im­ was devising little Tricks for portant monologue under the di­ them. He would get his bank book rection of Them. down from the shelf and take his For example, Stanley Scheer car downtown and walk toward firmly believed that if he really the bank and then, instead of en­ needed to do something, They tering the bank, he would dart would make provision for it. He into the cafe next door to see if he believed that if he needed an ele­ could surprise Them before they vator in a Hurry to take him down had everybody bustling around to the garage below They would again. He would suddenly turn make sure that one was waiting on right on his way to work instead his floor. He believed that if he of turning left, hoping to- catch wanted broccoli for lunch in the Them with their automobiles cafeteria downtown and there stopped and their streetlights was only enough broccoli for one turned off. He would jump up in person left They would save it for the middle of a television pro­ him. And he believed that if he gram and spin to another channel needed a parking place someone to try to see what They were unimportant would get a Message· watching in the evening. He nev­ or something from Them and pull er caught them at anything, but out right in front of Stanley that didn't shake his faith in Scheer. Them. "You can't see Radio Waves, The fact that he didn't always either," he would say to himself. 30 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION • One day Stanley Scl1eer got his waiting behind him. He mashed bankbook down from the shelf, the accelerator to the floor and took the waiting elevator down to roared out of the parking lot, the garage, and drove to the bank. careening wildly around corners As he pulled into the crowded and rocketing down the street parking lot a car pulled out of a with smoke pouring from his ex­ parking place directly in front of haust pipe. him, leaving him a vacant space. In the bank parking lot, the It was the only vacant space on car which had been waiting be­ the lot. Stanley Scheer smiled, hind Stanley Scheer pulled into-­ drove into the space, stopped his the space. The Most Important car, and got out. He walked into Man In The World got out, shook the bank, deposited his paycheck, his head, . smiled sadly, and walked back to the parking lot, walked towards the bank .. entered. his car, and started it up. Stanley Scheer, who was killed Then he dropped it into reverse in a head-on collison on his way and spun out of the parking space, home, had fulfilled his Ultimate barely missing a car which was Purpose.

Handsome, Sturdy VOLUME FILES {or Your Copies of FANJASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Each Volume File will keep 12 copies of FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION clean, orderly, and .ceadily accessible. Sturdily built,­ the files are covered with a rich black and red washable leatberette, 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 fully prepaid on a- money back basis if not satisfactory. Order direct from: JESSE JONES BOX CORPORATION Dept. P&SF . P.O. Box 5120 ~ Philadelphia 4 1', Pa, BOOKS

SPECTRUM, Kingsley Amis and purposely restricted themselves to Robert Conquest, ed., Har­ "material which has not had wide court, Brace, $4.50 circulation in Britain." This does not mean (although it might have) This is a collection of rather that they present the neglected good stories, all or at any rate treasures of French, Flemish, Nor­ many of which will be familiar to wegian or Azcrbaijanian SF; no, those who have kept up with their duck, this is all straight Yank mag reading in this field. Kingsley stuff-and if it is not clear to me Amis (in case any of our readers why the fact of the contents not learned to read last week) is the having had wide circulation in author of LUCKY JIM, the original Britain makes them particularly Angry Young Man novel. It has suitable for further circulation in never been entirely clear to me ex- the U.S. of A., well, what the actly what he was angry about; as Hell. Most of them are worth near as I can see it is because he reading again. The only ones lacks the ;ight Class accent and which I hadn't read were William hence cannot join the British Tenn's Null-P and Robert A. Foreign Service-probably his Heinlein's By His Bootstra.ps, good luck, probably ours, too. He though I had heard of both quite is also the author of a survey of often. The Tenn item tells of a Science Fiction, of sorts, NEW post-H-war America where all pub­ MAPS OF HELL, mention of which lie gifts, from the presidential of­ can cause veins to swell and voices fice to scholarships, are given not to rise wherever two or three SF because the recipients are out­ writers are gathered together. Rob- standing but because they are­ ert Conquest is apparently a Brit- statistically-average. This over­ ish poet, whose works, I am throw of "the conception that the ashamed to say, are otherwise un- best should govern" is full of £as­ known to me. The two of them cinating possibilities, and even have been readers of Science Fie- though Mr. Tenn's incorrigibly an­ tion since the Thirties. They note tic mind obliges him to play it for in their preface that they have laughs (tittimehahas, not yocketi- 31 32 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION bopchas), it still provides food for The subtitle of THE SATAN BUG thought. The Heinlein story is is, "A tale of a diabolical con­ twenty-two years old, and while spiracy," and I guess that's true. the particular time-paradox prem­ Some evidence of the book's style ise (in effect the same one with can be obtained from the follow­ which Mr. Heinlein played, for ing paragraph : our amusing and perplexing, in " 'Please take this at once, to Calling All You Zombies [F&SF, this address in Warsaw.' He March, 1959]) is naturaliy not pushed a slip of paper across the as impressive today-so many sto­ table. 'You will be paid a hundred ries having meanwhile borrowed pounds, all expenses, and a hun­ from it-it is still a clever and dred pounds on your return. A readable item. Others in the book delicate mission, I realize, per­ include Frederik Pohl's famous haps even a dangerous one, al­ twist on The Affluent Society, though in your case I should not The Midas Plague, which now think so. We have investigated seems (after a third reading) you very carefully, Mr. Cavell. rather too long; Algys Budrys's You are reputed to know the by­ The Executioner, a socio-theologi­ ways of Europe as a taxi-driver cal tale of a judge who loses a knows the streets of London: I do faith-and then regains it-with not foresee that frontiers will pre­ a difference; 'Robert Sheckley's al­ sent you with much difficulty.'" ready classical Pilgrimage To Wowl Earth, an amusing satire on a cer­ In short, this is a thriller of tain type of sex7and-travel story the classical variety, with a science ("... nearbye the booming surf fiction background involving bac­ deafened, inflamed and maddened teriological warfare. Those who them."); Katherine MacLean's Un­ like James Bond (the creature of human Sacrifice; and 'others by another Ian) should certainly like Simak, Barr, Berryman and Elli­ this one. Personally, I prefer the ott. We can find no quarrel with works of Jane Austen. the editors' statement, "There are kinds of ingenuity, kinds of inven­ THE EXPERT DREAMERS, Frederik tion, kinds of questions, ways of Pohl, ed., Doubleday, $3.95 putting such questions, notions of possibility, effects of irony and wit, In collecting stories of Science of wonder and terror that only sci­ Fiction by sixteen scientists Mr. ence fiction can offer.'' frederick Pohl, in THE EXPERT DREAMERs, has demonstrated a THE SATAN Buc, Ian Stuart, Scri~ very clever idea. That he has dem­ ners, $3.95 onstrated it entirely successfully BOOKS 33 is, perhaps, not proven. It may, stories and hence, by definition, however, be said of the book that, a minor classic. (I decided I've like the curate's egg, "parts of it been using "classic" too often so are very nice." The word "stories", Ike gets downgraded to Classic, to begin with, is used with some junior grade.) Dr. Chandler Dav­ license. "On the Feasibility of is's "Adrift On The Policy Level", Coal-Driven Power Stations", by is an attack on the Giant Corpora­ 0. R. Frisch, for example, is really tion, current concepts of success, an essay-I guess-in which the and scientific dependence on big co-discoverer of the uranium fis­ business-a mordant, clever sion effect speculates satirically thing; unquestionably the best in on the dangers of anthracite and the book. Norbert Weiner (as W. bituminous in the same manner Norbert) contributes a curiosity; that others warn against the dan­ Willy Ley (as Robert Willey-I gers of atomic fuels. The fact is must say I've seen more ingenious that coal smoke (and, for that pseudonyms than these two) has matter, oil-smoke), is dangerous. unwisely consented to the resur­ I am for outlawing the whole busi­ rection of a story from 1940; Dr. ness. Back to cord-wood;-plant Leo Szilard's "The Mark Gable trees on all the land producing Foundation" is just barely a story expensive food-surpluses. But­ -but its sardonic wit more than a story? Come on, Fred. Then there makes up for this. There are more, is something called "The Singers" but I won't bother. This collection -three pages from a novel by W. is not one of Mr. Pohl's best ef­ Grey Walter, not even an essay; fol'ts, or even one of his better ones. and a chunk from radio-astrono­ -Avram Davidson mer Fred "Hoyle's. novel, THE BLACK CLOUD, which I can sum UNWISE CHILo, Randall Garrett, up only in the words of one of the Doubleday, $3.50 characters, viz: "This is unbear­ ably scientific." UNWISE CHILD, Randall Gar­ As for the stories proper-"At rett's latest, has something of dif­ The End of the Orbit," by the re­ ference to offer to those who may markable Arthur C. Clarke, it be expecting the usual Garrett ex­ seems to me deals with something citement. It concerns itself with which is already scientifically pos­ the need of those in authority to sible, and hence is not Science remove from the Earth a robotic Fiction as we know it (to coin a super-intelligence whose built-in phrase). But it is interesting as a desire to learn and experiment morality tale. Isaac Asimov's with its learnings has brought it "Lenny" is one of his robotics to the brink of being a threat to 34 FANTASY AND SCI.£l'CE FICTIOl' the world that created it. UNWISE not to be missed. In the robotic CHILD deals mainly with the voy­ intelligence named Snookum.s, age carrying this intelligence to a Randall Garrett has come up with safely distant world and what re­ a point of view, a character, with sults during this voyage when hu­ the appeal of an identity that pos­ man elements begin to interact sesses at once great powers and with the robotic one. great vulnerability. And when To describe the book in tenns this identity becomes trapped by of its action only, though, is to do the logic of its own nature be­ it an injustice. Randall Garrett is tween the iron walis of the Asimov a great story-teller, and it is the Robotic Laws, and Christian the­ fate of story-tellers that their very ology-then character and theme excellence in that department come together in a way that gives alone fills our eyes and minds un­ this book a value beyond the en­ til we see nothing but what is tak­ tertainment of its action. It ing place beyond the window of should be read. words on the page before us. The -Gordon R. Dickson windows of the pages in Randall Garrett's writing are constructed NECROMANCER, Gordon R. Dick­ in so clean a style as to be practi­ son, Doubleday, $2.95 cally transparent. We all but fall through them physically into the One of subspecies of the science action. fiction novel is, what I call the So there is the tendency to take "Van Vogtian novel" -since A. E. a great deal for granted in a story van Vogt was the originator of the by this author. We assume as a subspecies. Damon Knight has re­ regular part of the table d'hOte ferred to the method used in writ­ that the plot will be sound, eco­ ing such a novel as the "kitchen nomical, and effective, that the sinl technique" because it is ap­ logical and science elements in parently written by throwing in the science fiction will be true, every idea that comes into the au­ full-weight, new-minted coin of thor's head while he writes it­ the realm-something we do not including, one supposes, the always do with other authors. And kitchen sink. Van Vogt has ad· like the professional magician, mitted in print"' that that is pre­ sometimes this author makes it cisely the method h~ always used; seem a little too easy-and we run he never saved an idea back be­ the danger of foregetting every­ cause he thought that doing so thing but the magic carpet ride. would tend to dam up the flow; In UNWISE CHILD, however, • Of WORLDS BEYOND, FantOSIJ there is something more, which is Pre88, 1948 BOOKS 35 instead, he put the idea into what hanging loose with nowhere to go. he was working on and went on What were those mysterious with ·the story. whisperings in the roots of the Such a book, obviously, cannot Venusian trees?) be static. I mean, like, man, you Gordon R. Dickson's NECRo­ got to have action! You see the MANCER is the story of Paul For­ general rule is: Use an idea once main, a young man of mysterious -and then throw it away! Only background (so mysterious, in a relatively small handful of the fact, that Paul is puzzled by it gadgets, situations, et cetera, can himself) in a world that is practi­ be used again. The author cannot cally run by a giant robot com­ work in depth. He does not ex­ puter linkage called the Complex. plore an idea; he's too busy get­ Working against this computer­ ting the next one in. based government is a mysterious One of the peculiarities of such group called the Chantry Guild, novels is that a leading character run by a man called Walter Blunt, inevitably get~ killed during the whom Paul can never get a good novel and pops up hale and hearty look at. (If you become suspicious some chapters later. Van Vogt's at this point, you are very likely Kathleen Layton in Slan and Gil­ right.) I will not recount-as the bert Gosseyn in The World of A, book jacket does-all the varied for examples. Why? Well, it is in­ gimmicks that Paul runs into dur­ evitable that, during the process of ing the course of the novel. Suffice writing such a book, the author it to say that they are many, imag­ will have an idea for knocking off inative, and almost all thrown the hero or heroine-so, in order away. The action is fast and well­ to follow the rules, he has to use paced; the futuristic science is that idea. There's nothing wrong well thought out; the philosophy with that, because the author is deep and perceptive. knows an idea for resurrection Mr. Dickson is a good writer will come along pretty quickly. and handles the "kitchen sink \Vriting such a book is not as technique" better than most. I am easy as it may sound. The more not trying to damn the book with fecund a writer's imagination, the faint praise; instead, I have some more difficult it becomes, because, very loud damns with which to in order to be a good book, all praise it. Again, as with Van those things have to be tied to­ Vogt, I find myself at the end gether into a coherent whole. Van with a huge mass of unexplained Vogt's weakness was that the end material. Here's a plot-thread of the novel always left a good tagged "the Alternate Laws". double-handful of plot threads Wot's it mean, Mr. D.? Who'd 36 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION you say Blunt was, again? Who novel, by all means read NECRO­ killed Malam, and how? And MANCER-but don't expect to get why? And what was Kantele do­ any more out of it than you would ing? And . . , And like that. out of Van Vogt. If you like the Van Vogtian -Randall Garrett

Through Time And Space With ferdinand feghoot: LX

In 1989, Ferdinand Feghoot's assistance was desperately called for by the most independent and powerful of all great corporations, the Universal Telephone and Telegraph Company. "Mr. Feghoot," pleaded its distraught emissary, "nothing works right any more. Our communications satellites, our Earthside trans­ mitters, even the sets in our copters and cars haven't worked since last Tuesday. As soon as you switch them on they give out one deep, bell-like note-and that's all! It's driving us crazy. I'm so worried that I can't remember whether my own number is 3 5 02-4 72 2 96- 859-00067-33 or 2503-742926-589-06007-88 or-" He began sobbing pitifully. "Have you no clue to the cause?" Feghoot asked. "\V-we know what it is. It's a ray from the s-s-system of Altair. It was turned on on Tuesday, and we've ~ad n-o-nothing but those awful bell-like notes ever since! It's an Altarian plot, Mr. Feghoot! Please, please help us." "Now, now, Mr. Coupling," soothed Ferdinand Feghoot. "It's no plot, really it isn't.· This just happens to be one of those rays when everything goes Dong/" -9RENDEL BRIARTON (with thanks to Vee Heintzelman) This story, about Tyson St.]. Tyson III, is sensitive and mov­ ing-words whose meaning depends not only on their defini­ tions but on who writes them, who reads them, and what they are about. Mr. Will Mohler, who knows his adventurous bach­ elor hero quite well, describes himself as a "hermit without a cave. Confirmation of the existence of the author," he con­ tinues, "is still pending. This story is one of a series of experi­ ments . . . whose objective it is to isolate the virus of obses­ sion [with] stone walls which extend forever in every direc­ tion, and with frozen seas, with a view to melting them. "The author warns that he has met the protagonist of this story on many docks, in railroad stations and at airfields, but just as often on ships at sea, on overseas flights, exploring the pre­ cincts of Buddhist temples, climbing mountains with snow on them-even making love to girls with eyes like black wings." He adds that he, the author, lives in Washington, D. C., and is a gargoyle.

THE JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAND MILES

by Will Mohler

TYSON ST. J. TYSON III SLEPT swaddled in old sheets and mat­ on an ornate old sofa in the front tress covers held in place with hall of the house because all of spirals of twine. Smaller articles the rooms had been given a clean­ had been carefullv sorted, cata­ ing which was somehow supposed logued and put away more or less to suffice for a longer time than ritually in a variety of crates and ordinary cleanings. The rugs had trunks. been swept and beaten then rolled The smaller · things, because up and wrapped in heavy brown they were so numerous and yet so paper. The furniture had been special, had been most demanding 37 38 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION of time, of thought and of emo­ had often wept at such times, tional resources. A meaning or especially during her later years. even a chain of meanings at­ There were things still more en­ tached to each article. In some igmatic, and so more demanding cases an article would have no in thefr way, and there were obvious intrinsic value but had things which were not enigmatic been cherished by someone now at all. There were drapes, table Gone Across, or might have been scarves, runners, doilies, candle­ cherished by the Departed, and so sticks, sconces, lamps, vases, cloi­ had to be created with optimum sonne boxes, trays, incense burn­ reverence. Aunt Lucy's miniature ers, fire tongs and pokers, squash cedar chest of handkerchiefs racquets, shellacked canoe pad­ which were never, never to be dles, antlers, mounted birds, bal­ washed was a case in point, as sam pillows, clocks, paperweights, was the five-inch-diameter glass china figurines and hair receivers, orb which Mother had kept in her souvenir knickknacks from three pillow every night of her life and World Expositions, pokerwork without which she had been un­ plaques, albums of photographs able to sleep. There were objects and of postcards, steel engrav­ which might have been prosthetic ings, lithographs and photographs devices of some kind, and while in a variety of frames and the the owner or owners of these were decorations that went behind the unknown and may even have frames-the pheasant feathers, Passed before Tyson was born, it the lacquered palm fronds, the was impossible to doubt that they gilded reed maces which Father had been deeply meaningful to had called 'cattails', to Mother's someone, perhaps even vital. distress-many acutely personal Mother had often held up bits of things best described as bedroom cloth and odd objects, saying: and sickroom requisites, and arti­ "This belonged to poor dear Aunt cles of women's clothing which Pru Whitlow who Passed when would never, never be worn you were a wee thing," or "Your again, ivory-colored, very fragile Great grandfather carried this and disturbing to touch, in tissue against his heart at Shiloh." Ty­ paper with moth flakes. son had been made to handle It had been necessary to class­ these things and examine them ify everything according to fragil­ without quite knowing what he ity and sentimental value before was supposed to see, and Mother wrapping and packing. The fact had held them to her breast for a that these things were being put long time before putting them away and not taken along had to be away where they belonged. She justified somehow in each case; THE JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAND MILES 39 each item had had to be reassured He had slept with his head sup­ of the regard in which it was held, ported by the arm of the sofa at touched in a certain way before such an angle that the sun caught being packed away, as had each him full in the face at exactly piece of furniture before being twenty-seven minutes before sev­ swaddled against the hungry air. en. His eyes opened instan.tJy and Gummer, a toothless and other­ without blinking or protest-sun wise nameless young man from on shallow water, pale blue and the shanty settlement, limited of also uncommonly round. wit but strong in reliability and It would have been difficult to loyalty, had been engaged to wash find fault with Tyson's face. It was the windows and wax the floors. rectangular and more perfectly The shutters had then been se­ symmetrical than most faces one cured and the furniture moved as sees nowadays. In spite of generos­ far as possible from view so that ity of flesh and a striking smooth­ the pieces, strange in their mum­ ness, the bone structure was ap­ my-wrappings, could not beckon parent. It was generally held that or rebuke Tyson from the shad­ the Tysons had good bones. Ma­ ows as he passed the rooms on his trons of the town, when com­ way to the bathroom or the kitch­ pelled at last to say something en. The doors had been left open Christian, described Tyson's face because closing them would have as 'basically sound'. A good face made an oppresive tunnel of the really. Basically sound. And such hallway. Besides, Tyson could not a ready smile! The eyes, though, have endured the finality of clos­ were very round. Not with the best ing the doors-not before it was will in the world could that fact actually time to go. Passing these be evaded. dark mouths, though, was like Tyson supported himself on one jumping over deep pits; they ex­ elbow and studied the alarm erted a gravitational pull that was clock, waiting for it to sound. It almost physical, and he had to was a tense business, much like flee past them with his eyes fixed watching a balloon expand to the straight ahead. He had already breaking point. It had been set for said goodbye to the rooms. a quarter to seven. Fond as he was Tyson had taken every possible of the little clock, he had been precaution against oversleeping forced to admit that it was not a on steamer day, but it was the sun precision instrument. There was a shining in through the fanlight fifteen-minute factor of error, and over the front door that woke him Tyson had erred on the side of by tickling his sinuses and deto­ earliness. It was a travel alarm, a nating a fine head-clearing sneeze. flat clock which formed a hollow 40 FAl\iTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION prism when unfolded for use. He It was easier to focus the eyes might have locked the alarm mech­ upon the words Walmco Travel anism, folded the clock and packed Alarm on the face of the clock it between layers of linen in his than upon the hub from which valise, but the prolonged tension the hands radiated for the same might weaken the spring and he mysterious reason that it was eas­ could never be absolutely sure ier to gaze at the subtle cleft at that the catch would not jar loose the tip of a person's nose than to and allow the alarm to go off at look directly into his pupils. Fo­ the worst possible time. He was cussing the mind was a more not sure what the worst possible challenging undertaking. time would be, but he supposed W almco: A dead end, con­ that it would be when he was sur­ trived, sterile, not even euphoni­ rounded by people and could not ous. The word could hardly be ut­ open the valise with its burden of tered without some loss of dig­ painfully personal things. It could nity. happen while he was on the pier Alarm: A terrible word, taken or on the deck of the steamer, or by itself. Sirens and voices like even in his cabin when he was sirens. Vision of wild-eyed people with someone. This last image rushing into wintry streets in their was at once the least clear and the underwear. And worse, much most disquieting to contemplate. worse, a vision and a memory: The alarm . had to be allowed to Dr. Mathers could not conceal ring and to run down. Even as a his alarm ... numbness punctuated with dull "I do not wish to alarm you, but aches crept from the point of his Mrs. Tyson . . ." elbow upward to his shoulder, The Alarm in her eyes, and the thence downward over his rib­ pain ••• cage to the point of his hip, he re­ Nights-and seasons-of a­ mained motionless. The alarm was larm •.• not to go off while he was looking There was almost no combina­ elsewhere, nor even while he was tion of words which the word thinking of something else. If he 'alarm' did not convert into a mem­ should be taken by surprise, the ory or a promise of terror. Why clock would win and he would did the manufacturer allow such a lose. It had become a game with symbol to be stencilled on his definite rules and even a tradition product? of sorts, like golf, though he had no Travel: One could think about recollection of having decided up­ travel, and one always had, or so it on such a contest, let alone mak· seemed. It was not one thing but ing up rules. an endless series of things. If, THE JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAND MILES 41 while waiting for the alarm to There had been two distinct peri­ shatter the sunny silence of the ods-the period of Spanish Gal­ place, he tried to concentrate on leons, tamed dragons and naviga­ the clock, its essence, if it had an ble clouds, then the period of essence, behaved like a drop of hissing locomotives and great quicksilver. When he pondered white steamers. The images of the significance of the clock in the the earlier period, though more po­ scheme of his existence, it was to etic, were swaddled in batting like discover its essential innocence of the objects in the trunks, but the significance. He could not recall later and more prosaic images had the advent of any new preoccupa­ the power to produce that hot tion with time-no time-clock to squirming behind the navel, or a punch, no cows or goats to milk. sensation of being stretched like a It made sense only with reference rubber band between poles of in­ to the idea of travel, or of depar­ effable guilt and pleasure. What ture. Time did not reveal itself as came between these two epochs? harshly to Tyson as it does to most It was within and about this hiatus men, nor as clearly. When he between dreamy Then and heart­ thought of his life in chronological quickening Now that time became terms at all it was only as a reflec­ most muddled for Tyson, not be­ tion of a long odyssean vision, but cause it was a forgotten period but there was a break in it. because, in spite of his best efforts, Like the grand ideas of Man­ it was too well remembered. There hood and Freedom it had begun had been the swift, silent, solemn with what he now acknowledged comings and goings of Dr. Math­ as puerile yearning. At no time ers, and two practical nurses, Miss could he remember saying "Today Crench and Miss Moomaugh, I have begun to think of travel." whose faces had looked like tools Like the other grand ideas, it had for rending and tearing things. been there all the time, but seemed There had been frightening smells to have been unaccountably over­ and sounds and the sudden turning looked before each incandescent on of lights at unlikely hours. moment when it had emerged From upstairs, the sound of a little upon consciousness. Perhaps it bell. was something written in the se­ Good Lord, the bell! cret code of genes and chromo­ Tyson propelled himself from somes, or it emerged with the first the sofa, in spite of the near-paraly­ stirrings of those sinister cloistered sis of the upper half of his body, glands about which poor dear and staggered toward the front Mother had spoken with such pite­ door. As one of several precau­ ous quivering of voice and of lips. tions he had taken against over- 42 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION sleeping on that morning he had macy. The cards depicted such lo­ placed a small copper dinner bell cal scenes as the Town Square, within the mail-slot so that when the Town Hall (as it had been be­ the flap was pushed open the bell fore 1900), the firehouse (as it would be dislodged and fall to the had been before 18 8 4), the bridge floor with a fine clatter. On the across Big Nimminy Creek below front door he had tacked a note Squatters Crotch, the newer bridge to Mr. Clough the mailman: across the Little Nimminy above Squatters Crotch and The Crotch DEAR MR. CLOUGH, itself. Four of the cards showed KINDLY KNOCK WHEN the more or less precipitous north­ YOU MAKE YOUR MAIL west face of Utter Hill which, for DELIVERY. I SHOULD CON­ reasons nowhere recorded, was SIDER THIS A GREAT PER­ called Big Indian Drop. He had SONAL FAVOR. AS YOU taken care to mail these last at MAY KNOW, I AM TO EM­ least two days apart so that the BARK UPON AN EXTEND­ duplication would not be too obvi­ ED JOURNEY THIS VERY ous. DAY. I THANK YOU. On each of the postcards Ty­ T. TYSON son had written a message in the fine copperplate hand of which Tyson ordinarily received very he was so justly proud. These little mail, so to insure that Mr. messages wished him Godspeed Clough would come on steamer and good health and urged him to day he had addressed a series of temper his well known adventur­ postcards to himself and mailed ous spirit with caution to assure them, using a· mailbox on the oth­ that he would return one day to er side of town. He did not know recount his exploits to the home­ how long it took for a postcard to bodies. All ended with protesta­ reach oneself through the mail, so tions of the deepest affection and he had begun mailing the self­ were signed simply 'P'. Writing addressed cards ten or eleven days the cards had given him a delicious in advance. The cards themselves ·feeling of conspiracy against the had come from an album which somnolence, the indifference and had belonged to his late aunt, but the blank opacity of the town and they were loose cards which had its people. It was sort of nice to not yet been mounted and were receive the cards too, even know­ duplicates with no writing on ing that he had sent them to him­ them. This had relieved him of self. He was sure that other people the awkwardness of buying such would have sent such cards to postcards at Doc Strathmer's Phar- him if they had taken time to THE JOURNEY QF TEN THOUSAND MILES 43 think about it. People don't, the other things would have meant though; they are hypnotized by the entering one of the rooms and repetitive character of their daily opening one of the trunks or boxes routin~s. poor things, poor inert, -obviously out of the question. dispirited things. He could not leave the bell on the But how thoughtless he had hall table all by itself. It would be been when he arranged to have the too easy to remember it sitting little bell fall to the floor when the there-waiting, as it were, while mail-slot was pushed open. How the months and the years passed could he have forgotten the mean­ and no one came. It would have ing of the bell? He picked it up as to be taken along in one of his he would have picked up a con­ valises. He would wrap the clapper tainer of some supersensitive ex­ in a handkerchief. Having settled plosive and he seized the clapper upon this solution and thereby between his thumb and forefinger. dispelled the anxieties brought on He peered through the narrow by the near thing with the bell window beside the front door, but and the mail-slot, he became he saw only the foreshortened aware that he was not suitably lawn, the back of the Supermarket clad for the part of the house in and of the bowling-alley, where which he stood. Like his father huge oak trees and lilac and for­ before him, he wore Dr. Bella­ sythia bushes had once been, the man's Health Underwear (For All empty boxes and crates and ref­ Climes and All Weathers), and use-cans behind the buildings, but in this yellowish, all-embracing on the narrow, shadowed concrete garment he had slept, though not walk between the buildings there without a giggly Devil-may-care was no one. When he allowed sense of wickedness, for it was a himself to imagine what it would proud tradition that the Tysons have been like to hear the sudden were not the sort of people who jangle of the little bell again . . . slept in their underwear, not un­ there in the empty house with the der ordinary circumstances, cer­ mummified furniture, the coffins tainly. But how special were the of memory that were the trunks new circumstances, and how new and boxes, the shuttered rooms, the day! his legs went numb, vibrated fool­ He also wore the oilcloth mon­ ishly and threatened to buckle like ey-belt which he had made him­ rolls of wet paper. self. It had separate compartments He stood there in the hall for a for important papers, travelers' long time; holding the bell by the checques, large bills, smaller bills clapper, pondering what should be and change. These compartments done with it. To pack it among were all filled to capacity and this 44 FANTASY AND SCIEKCE FICTION made sleeping with the belt on a historic monuments and endless rather lumpy experience, but it hotels but had nothing to do with had seemed a good idea to start the singing islands, the pagodas in getting used to it, and the minor emerald lakes, the jungles and discomfort was nothing compared the rivers of mist and sun, the sea­ to the feeling of adequacy, inde­ cliff terraces with the clusters of, pendence and readiness for any­ beautiful people in bright cloth­ thing which the belt afforded him, ing, always gay, relaxed and, even as he slept in his underwear. above all, friendly. They would The money-belt and what it always be glad to see him-al­ stood for represented a definite ways brimming over with exciting stage in the realization of Tyson's plans which included him-Ty­ grand idea, or in the blossoming of son. And the Girl. No imaginable Tvson himself, as did the travel itinerary could include that gold­ a!~rm clock and what it stood en adventure. She would have for. The money-belt had come very large eyes, which always first, representing as it did his looked up at him . . . But they visit to Mr. Peters at the bank, his had discussed practical matters first positive gesture towards de­ only, and Mr. Peters had been parture. To this estimable elder of very nice abo.ut it, very helpful. the community he had confessed He had even congratulated Tyson his dream-though only in a very for not having allowed his Rom­ general way. An horizon was a any impulses to obliterate alto­ better object for contemplation gether that basic prudence for than a road. It was wise to plan a which the Tysons had always been departure, but the journey itself noted as long as he-Mr. Peters should be a flight from plan. Even -could remember. as he talked to Mr. Peters about He could remember how Mr. the care and disposition of prop­ Peters' expression had embodied erty, the handling of th~ regular the espirit of seriousness, even of checks from the estate, foreign ex­ quiet anxiety, which was the nec­ change, the services performed by essary atmosphere of the bank, American Express and ways of and which was like the thin shell carrying money while traveling momentarily containing the hot, -he had told Mr. Peters of his secret exhilaration that stirred in money-belt-he reflected secretly his vitals. He could remember ev­ that the protean promise beyond ery word that passed between Mr. the fact of actual departure must Peters and himself. It could not never be permitted to crystallize have been very long ago. Nothing into a mere itinerary. An itinerary had happened to dispel the sense could include seaports, cathedrals, of ecstatic release he had felt when THE JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAJ'I;D MILES 45 he left the bank; on the contrary, some townspeople. This circum­ everything subsequent to that oc· stance had made of him a furtive, casion seemed to have enhanced surly and generally uncommuni­ the feeling. cative man. Also he drank. Was It was certainly after having it Tyson's glad announcement been to the bank that he bought that had changed him on that late the alarm clock at Doc Strath­ spring night, or was it the night mer's Pharmacy. Between the itself? A light westerly breeze had moods surrounding each occasion carried, besides the usual carbon there was a clear line of demarca­ monoxide of the town, the scent of tion, but the second mood, which lilac from the green streets and the had its locus in Doc's Pharmacy, scent of the green itself. The en­ even within the cloud of malty va­ croaching darkness had not been a por surrounding Doc himself, mere dwindling of light but an ir· would not have been possible ridescent invasion from the roots without the first-the more re­ of trees in Druid forests and from strained and solemn mood of the the caves of old Atlantis. Tyson bank. had concluded that there was "I expect to do a bit of travel­ something contagious in his own ing, you know," he had said, and joy and consciousness of freedom. Doc had responded with a won· He had never realized what an af­ derfully phlegtny "Well, well, fable old soul the druggist really well!" If Mr. Peters had been the was, and quite possibly no one first person to whom he had con­ else had realized it either. How fessed his intentions as fact, it more clearly we see thein, Tyson was with Doc that he had first had thought, making a mental shared the meaning and the spirit note to develop this shard of of what lay beyond the fact of de­ thought later on, in solitude, and parture. In a way this was strange find out what it meant. because Doc had always been Doc had been eager to talk about darkly regarded by the Tyson travel, especially about Paris. He household-the ladies of the Ty­ had been stationed there after the son household, now departed. War. He winked and snickered There had been some unpl~asant­ when he spoke of Paris. "Let me ness about a young woman and an give you a list of places," he had abortifacient, years before and in said. He had promised to prepare another town, and the mere fact such a list, just for Tyson, and that Doc had emerged from that while Tyson was unclear about scandal a free man and still a li­ what was meant by "places,. he censed pharmacist had never fully was flattered and excited by the exonerated him in the eyes of novelty of being party to a manly 46 FANTASY AND SCIEJ'\CE FICTION conspiracy. He 'Was astonished at ion pads and corn-remover, five the ease with which he seconded Phillies- and a paper of Beechnut Doc's winking, gutteral chuckling scrap, Fletcher's Castoria and Pe­ and warped smile. terman's Ant Powders, cryptic pre­ A change in the wind had scriptions and Doctor Pierce's brought the moving organic scent Golden l'vfedical Discovery, Nujol of the harbor and the sea to min­ and Serutan, three rolls of toilet gle with the other fragrances of paper and a carton of Luckies, the night and those of the phar­ backwoods nostrum and physi­ macy. Their conversation turned cians' specific. Most of them had to the relative merits of travel by seemed a little apologetic, as wel1 air and by sea. Both favored the they might, poor lumpy things of sea and ships. More remarkably, it clay. Oddly enough they had en­ was discovered that they both ad­ hanced his mood rather than viti­ mired Masefield. Tyson had quot­ ating it. Here they would stay, ed: poor domesticated clods, immured in petty fears and dusty, inertia, l must down to the seas again, impoverished of color and of song; to the lonely sea and the he, winged spirit, lover _of the sky . • . world, viveur, follower of whale­ roads, would be their ambassador While he had searched his to Samarkand. Never had he felt memory for the next line, Doc such a tenderness for the people had quoted: of the town-for the strangers and for those he had known for Be red with rage and pale with years. lust, The most poignant figure to Make beauty come, make peace, waddle into the garish light of make trust, Doc's Pharmacy out of the en­ Water and saltness mixed with chanted night had been the former dust; darling of football and ukelele players and princess unaware of Tyson had owned that he did Tyson's private fantasies, Viola not know that one. Murge, now wife of a drunkard, Out of that magic night, incon­ mother of pallid, skinny nose­ gruous, unaware of magic, came pickers, char, scullion, groaner Doc's customers to interrupt their over tubs, bloated slattern. Her good talk with their requests for nose still turned up pertly in the aspirin and nose-drops, for cold middle of the edematose face and cream and Vaporub, for Ex-Lax, her eyes were still pointlessly Noxema, Hair-off, Kleenex, bun- bright-two dew-drops on a cow- THE JOURI'EY OF TEN THOUSA:\0 :\IlLES 47 flop. Tube of Pazo and jar of Dr. that Doc had never again been in­ Lemoine's Enema Compound clined to chat as he had that first ("Blessed Relief for the Cos­ night, seemed in fact to have lost tive"). "Why Viola -Murge! How that special mood, Tyson's mood little you have changed," Tyson _ had not changed at all. It had to had felt compelled to say. Her be taken into account that Doc smile had been the flick of a cam­ was a busy man and the responsi­ era shutter and her answer some­ bilities of a druggist were grave thing sibilant and incomprehensi­ ones.) Still, he could remember ble. The back view as she left was having set the alarm for eight even more pitiable: her skirt, ow­ A.l\1. on a Christmas morning to ing to the burgeoning of her but­ be sure of being awake and fully tocks, was shorter in back than in dressed if anyone should call. No front, and between the hiked-up one had, but he could remember skirt -and the collapsed stockings setting the clock in the reflected the varicose veins behind her light of the snow outside. Yet it knees were too, too visible. was still spring, or it· was spring "Time . . ." Doc had mused, again. Time, as Doc Strathrner "The chariot of man, juggernaut had said, was a chariot. of woman. The sun spilled into a pool of "True. Oh, true!" Tyson had light halfway between the end of concurred. Everything had been the sofa and the front door, per­ luminously true that night. versely enough, considering that It could not have been long the hands ·of the travel alarm still ago. Tyson sat on the edge of the stood at twentv-seven minutes be­ sofa with a sheet wrapped about fore seven. It ~as not ticking. him like a Roman toga. He had There was a thunderous knock-­ been sitting still too long and felt a ing on the front door, but nothing slight chill. The alarm clock had came through the mail-slot. Trail­ been obligingly silent while he had ing his toga-sheet, Tyson edged gone to the door to fetch the little along the wall toward the front bell and while he had stuffed it door and peered through the side with a sock and packed it among window. It was Gummer, who his shirts. The_ clock, a mystery had pr6mised to help him with his itself, was 'prolific of mysteries. bags. Tyson opened the door Now it had been late in spring enough to allow him to stick his when he bought it, and through head out. There stood Gummer in the following summer he had made his flowered Hawaiian shirt and other purchases at the Pharmacy, bib overalls. Gummer never smiled, all more or less related to his de­ having no teeth to display and be­ parture. (And while it was true ing conscious of this lack. 48 FAXTASY AND SCIEXCE FICTI0:-1 Tyson was tempted to ask Gum­ ey-belt a greenish coin which Gum­ mer what time it was, but he did mer accepted without word or ex­ not yield to this temptation, such pression before bending to pick as it was. There was, after all, a up the valises. Code. There· was no rule against Tyson permitted himself a brief a person of Gummer's class seeing moment of revery while combing a person of Tyson's class in his his hair in the bathroom. He used underwear, especially in such a more or less lemon-scented oil sternly moral undenvear as . Dr. on his hair and he took special Bellaman's, but one did not admit pains with the hair on the sides of to one of Gummer's station that his head. When he visualized the one did not know what time it Girl, himself with the Girl, he was, nor indeed that anything never saw her face clearly, only a pertaining to one's affairs was generalized cameo profile opposite other than firmly administered. his own more angular one, as he Besides, the sun was high in the imagined it would look, her hair sky and shone straight down, re­ shining in its way, his in its. He vealing the streaks of oily grime in knew that his own face was much the otherwise colorless hair of the paler in the vision than in real unwashed Gummer. There was life, but the revery was essentially plenty of time for making one's a thing of carven moonlight any­ toilet and dressing properly, way. Although he thought of it as though no time for endless rituals happening on the deck of a ship, which he might otherwise become there were always Japanese lan­ hopelessly mired. The presence of terns hanging in the background. Gummer automatically excluded He supposed that they would have such acts anyway. The things Japanese lanterns on modern would understand, as would the ships, on the first class levels at rooms and the house itself. least, for balls and the like. "Ah, Gummer, do come right Gummer went on ahead ·with in," said Tyson, opening the door the three bags. ''I'll be along pres­ to admit him. It made him ently," Tyson said. Still standing cringe inwardly to see Gummer in the hallway, he closed his eyes wipe his bare feet on the rough and whispered: "Forgive me, jute doormat. Gummer entered Mother, but there comes a time without speaking. when a man must . . ." He bit "You may remove these three," his lower lip. "It is not Goodbye," Tyson said, indicating three large he added. "It is never Goodbye, valises of old but noble leather. actually". "I will bring the toilet case my­ He closed the front door be­ self." He extracted from his mon- hind him, keeping his eyes closed THE JOUR!\"EY OF TEN THOUSAND ~IlLES 49 while he tested the knob. He then the band of rich material helped hastened after Gummer, holding suppress the fullness about his his breath so that the scent of the middle, which was somewhat exag­ honeysuckle on the front-porch gerated by the money-belt. Praskin trellises could not reach out to de­ had hastened to agree that it was tain him. In a way it was fortunate just the thing. The red motif was that the supermarket and the bowl­ reiterated by a "Buddy poppy" in ing alley all but isolated the old the lapel. This paper flower had house from the street. Once he been sold to him by a young wom­ had gained the street there would an on Main Street, not too long be no temptation to look back. If ago, surely. But 'the crowning the broad lawn-the rolling prai­ touch was the cane, which Praskin rie of his childhood-or the old had assured him no bon vivant oak trees or the flowering shrubs should be without. This cane 'vas had still been there, it would have the latest development in acces­ been impossible. sories for the sophisticated. The crook unscrewed and the shaft If the whole town did not al­ contained three cylindrical flasks ready know of Tyson's impending in which spirits could be carried. departure, and if the spectacle of Tyson did not take strong drink, Gummer struggling down the but the ingenuity of the device street with the three bags did not was not lost on him. He had filled confirm this fact for any observer, the little flasks with root beer, not the dullest person on the street which would be a little warm to could have failed to understand drink, of course, but would be very that Tyson was dressed for some­ refreshing if he had to wait for a thing out of the ordinary. His out­ long time at a pier or a customs fitter had been Seymour· Praskin, a shed. It would show people what a worldly-wise gargoyle, proprietor provident and up-to-the-minute of the Cosmopolite Men's Shop. chap he was. When he swung the Tyson wore a white linen suit, cane it hardly gurgled at all. In his double breasted because 'We are a other hand he carried the small little portly", the black and white leather toilet kit, in which, at the shoes, the flat straw hat with the last moment, he had packed the red ribbon that matched the red moribund alarm clock along with cummerbund-the happiest in­ an emergency ration of two peanut spiration of all. He had seen men butter sandwiches. wearing red cummerbunds in the Tyson would have liked to say colored advertisements showing goodbye to Mr. Praskin, but an gay, carefree passengers on cruise "Out to Lum:h" sign was swinging ships. Besides being very dashing, behind the glass door of the shop 50 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION when he passed. It seemed rather "You know . . . the list of late in the day to be going for places. In Paris." (Where was the lunch, but it was quite possible Doc Strathmer of the night of that he -would meet him at Doc's luminous truths?) Pharmacy. Surely Doc would have "I'm sure I don't know what the prepared his list of "places" in Paris hell you're talking about" said by this time, knowing that this Doc, disappearing again into the was Tyson's day of departure. back room of the shop. "Wait here, if you please," Ty­ They are not themselves when son said to Gummer, rummaging they drink, thought Tyson. He under his cummerbund and pro­ was puzzled and disappointed by ducing another coin for that faith­ Doc's behaviour, but still un­ ful retainer. daunted. He proceeded to the There were no customers in the bank, Gummer trailing behind drugstore when he entered, but he with the bags. It was true that Mr. could see Doc himself just disap­ Peters at the bank was a very pearing into the back room: He busy man, but he would have time looked terrible-as though he to say goodbye, surely. Mr. Peters might be emerging from a particu­ was a man of probity, and to Ty­ larly bad bout with the bottle. Ty­ son's almost certain knowledge son called after him and Doc re­ was not a slave of drink like Doc. turned to the counter, shoulders Through the glass door of the drooping, eyes squinting painfully. bank Tyson could see the girl at "Hello Tyson," he said. How tired the desk nearest the door pick up he sounded, poor man. her telephone, and by the time he "Well!" said Tyson, briskly. had opened the door, Mr. Peters, "Well, well!" curiously pale and tense, was ap­ "Well what?" asked Doc. proaching him across the shiny "Well . . . it's about that floor. The banker smiled some­ time." what feebly, and because he kept "That time," said Doc, flatly advancing, Tyson backed onto a nonresponse. the sidewalk. "\Vhy, I'm leaving, you know." "Well . . . Just thought I'd "Oh," said Doc after a long say goodbye. Got a steamer to pause. catch, you know," said Tyson as "Now, I wondered about that gaily as he could. Mr. Peter's smile list. Of places . . ." Tyson faded. winked at Doc with unsquelched "Steam . . . ?" He looked over cheer. Tyson's shoulder at Gummer, who "List," said Doc with a down­ stood patiently, still holding the ward inflection, dead. heavy bags. "Gummer ..." THE JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAND MILES 51 ''Yethir?" said Gummer. Dillard had changed in all the "Gummer . . . You will take years Tyson had known him ex­ proper care of our old friend, cept possibly his sneer, which he won't you?" no doubt practiced before a mirror ''Yethir." to achieve optimum nastiness. His "Weill" said Tyson, briskly, companion of the moment ap­ hoping to inject some of his own peared to be of the same ilk-an zest into this strangely funereal ex­ ilk which the town would do well change. "A journey of ten thousand to expunge by whatever means the miles begins with one step. Con­ law allowed. fucius said that." The two idlers giggled and '"And he was right," said Mr. nudged one another as Tyson and Peters emphatically. "He was a Gummer approached. man." Then, after a pause. "Take "You! Go ahead!" said Dillard care, Tyson." Leeks to his companion. Tyson had been smiling reso­ "No, you!" said his companion. lutely all the way down the long They pushed each other and strug­ street, saluting with his cane the gled mightily to save their laugh­ people he knew or the people ter for later, making noises like whose way of stopping in their caged mice. tracks and staring suggested that "Come, Gummer," said Tyson, they knew him. The latter class drawing himself up to full height. predominated. By the time he He had to pass between the two reached the pier at the foot of the sniggering idlers and the great hill the muscles below his cheek­ sagging shed which stood on the bones ached and his mouth was pier, obstructing the view of the frozen. He almost envied poor harbor. Gummer from whom no one ex­ At the end of the pier no great pected any expression whatever steamer waited, nor was there any and whose face, therefore, was al­ water as far as the eye could see­ ways wonderfully slack. only grey tidal flats with little Leaning against the bollards on drifts of rubbish here and there, the pier were two men, one of the rotting ribs of dead ships and whom was Dillard Leeks, the one huge rusty boilers like flayed mon­ person Tyson wanted least to see sters. at that or any other time. Dillard Dillard Leeks closed his C\'CS had been one of the boys with and threw back his head. His face whom Tyson had been expressly expressed an ecstasy like that of a forbidden to play as a child. martyr on the rack; His friend A professional blot-on-the-town, shielded his eyes to avoid looking idler and drunkard, nothing in at Tyson. Leeks, in the voice of 52 1'.\:'\T:\SY AI'I:D SCIE!'\CE i'ICTION one who struggles to keep from Gummer put his hand on Ty­ coming apart altogether, called: son's shoulder, a liberty he had "Missed 'er again, eh Tyson?" never taken before. "Let's go, Mis­ At that moment a cruel thing ter Tyson," he said. His voice was happened, or an avalanche of cruel odd too-more grown-up than Ty­ things, long poised for the mo- - son had ever heard it before, deep­ ment, broke loose from its high er but also very gentle. place. The alarm clock in Tyson's Thev turned their backs on the toilet kit chose that moment to go rotting· pier and started back up off. The muffied sound was loud the long hill through the town. and obscene-a \'isceral sound. The midafternoon sun beat down The two tormentors shrieked with and heat shimmered on the street. laughter and pounded one another "Why can't it be dark, Gum­ on the arms and shoulders. "Oh, mer?" asked Tyson in the voice of no, no, no( Too good!" wailed the a very small boy trying not to cry. nameless one, his face between his "Why isn't it e\·er dark?" knees, slapping the back of his own head with open palms. Tyson tried to shout at them, The oceanographers tell us that but the only sound to come from the polar ice-caps are meltiltg at him was a long voiceless wheeze. such a rate that our littorals are He advanced upon his enemies shrinking measurably year by year, shaking his cane violently. Sud­ but those great masses will have to­ denly an amber fluid spurted from melt much faster if they are to the cane, leaving a .trail of brown­ keep up with the comparatively ish spots on the front of Tyson's rapid congestion of some of our white suit. The root beer. Leeks eastern harbors with alluvial silt, and his friend were reduced to a urban refuse, industrial waste, spastic condition by that unex­ ravaged soil and all the Tet U1l­ pected bonus of misfortune. catalogued kinds of dust. · Introduction to Harry Harrison's CAPTAIN HONARIO HARPPLAYER, R.N. Harry Harrison-husband of elf-small and pretty-witty Joan, father of Todd and Moira-may be described (accurately, if incompletely) as an owl-eyed pear-shaped cyclone with the humor of a super-sophisticated Puck, the bite of a rather mis­ anthropic Gila Monster, and a heart of more than commonly pure gold. Futhermore, he is the only man we ever heard of who was ever struck by lightning on the Isle of Capri. Plucked from his high school graduation by an Army insensitive to belles lettres, H.H. was sent to serve as an aerial gunner in Texas "until \forld War II, with this small aid, was won." He next "spent eight years as a commercial artist, editor, pub­ lisher, free-lance writer, operator of an art studio (called a factory in the trade) dedicated to grinding out comic books, and other loathsome jobs in and around NY magazines until with a shrill scream sold the air conditioner and all furniture and fled with wife and child to Mexico." After this semi­ tropical interlude the Harrisons (plus second child) moved to England, then Italy, then Denmark, where-the Relation continues-they "Settled in nicely now thank you in 300 year old bondegaard, children in Danish schools, seeing many countries each summer and loving them all. Miss some things about NY, but mostly a good Pastrami sandwich with a new pickle. Hilsel" The author of THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT and DEATHWORLD here departs from his usual prose style and spins a fun-ny, fun-ny yam about the Royal Navy dur­ ing the Napoleonic Wars. Any resemblance between it and the works of one C. S. F-r-st-r is impurely coincidental. All hands fall to! Prepare to be amused!

53 CAPTAIN HONARIO HARPPLA YER, R.N.

by Harry Harrison

CAPTAIN HoNARIO HARPPLAYER Water splashed onto the sails was pacing the tiny quarter-deck and the Redundaut instantlr sank of the H.M.S. Redundant, hands lower in the water. Harpplayer clasped behind his back, teeth clasped his hands behind his clamped in impotent fury. Ahead back and hated himself for this of him the battered French fleet display of unwarranted temper to­ llimped towards port, torn sails wards the faithful Shrub. Yet he flapping and spars trailing over­ had to keep up this pose of strict side in the water, splintered hulls disciplinarian before the crew, agape where his broadsides had the sweepings and dregs of a thou­ gone thundering through their sand waterfronts, just as he had to fragile wooden sides. wear a girdle to keep up his own "Send two hands for'ard, if you front and a truss to keep up his please, Mr. Shrub," .he said, "and hernia. He had to keep up a good have them throw water on the front because he was the captain mainsail. Wet sails will add an of this ship, the smallest ship in eighth of a knot to our speed and the blockading fleet to bear a post we may overtake those cowardly captain, yet still an important frogs yet." part of the fleet that lay like a "B-but, sir," the stolid first mate strangling noose around Europe, Shrub stammered, quailing before locking in the ·mad tyrant Napo­ the thought of disagreeing with leon whose dreams of conquest his beloved captain. "If we take could never extend to England any more hands off the pumps whilst these tiny wooden ships we'll sink. We're holed in thirteen stood in the way. places below the waterline, "Give us a prayer, cap'n, to and ...." speed us on our way to 'eaven "Damn your eyes, sir! I issued cause we're sinkin'!" a voice called an order, not a request for a de­ from the crowd of seamen at the bate. Do as yQu were told." pumps. "Aye aye, sir," Shrub mumbled, "I'll have that man's name, Mr. humbled, knuckling a tear from Dogleg," Harpplayer called to the one moist spaniel eye. midshipman, a mere child of scv- 54 C.\PTAIN HONARIO HARPPLAYER 55 en or eight, who commanded the pathies of these illiterate men by detail. "No rum for him for a such means, but it was his duty to week." keep a taut ship. Besides, if he "Aye aye, sir," piped Mr. Dog­ didn't make any jokes the men leg, who was just learning to talk. would hate him for the slave­ The ship was sinking, the fact driving, cold-blooded, chance­ was inescapable. Rats were run­ taking master that he was. They ning on deck, ignoring the curs­ still hated him, of course, but ing, stamping sailors, and hurling they laughed while they did it. themselves into the sea. Ahead the They were laughing now as French fleet had reach the safety they cut away the tangle of rig­ of the shore batteries on Cape ging and dragged out the bodies Pietfieux and the gaping mouths to lay them in neat rows upon the of these guns were turned towards deck. The ship sank lower in the the Redundant, ready to spout water. fire and death when the fragile "A vast that body dragging," he ship came within range. ordered, "and man the pumps, or "Be ready to drop sail, Mr. we'll have our dinners on the bot­ Shrub," Harpplayer said, then tom of the sea." raised his voice so all the crew The men laughed a ragged could hear. "Those cowardly laugh again and hurried to their Frenchies have run away and tasks. cheated us of a million pounds in They were easy to please, and prize money." Harpplayer envied them their A growl went up from the crew simple lives. Even with the heavv who, next to a love for rum, loved work, bad water and an occasion;! the pounds, shilling and pence touch of the cat, their existence with which they could buy the was better than his tortured life on rum. The growl was suddenly cut the lonely pinnacle of command. off in muffled howls of pain as the The decisions were all his to mainmast, weakened by the badly make, and to a man of his morbid aimed French cannon, fell onto and paranoic nature this made life the mass of laboring men. a living hell. His officers, who all "No need to drop sail, Mr. hated him, were incompetents. Shrub, the slaves of our friend Even Shrub, faithful, long-suffer­ Boney have done it for us," Harp­ ing, loyal Shrub, had his weak­ player said, forcing himself to ness: namely the fact that he had make one of his rare jest~ so loved an I.Q. of about 60 which, com­ by the crew. He hated himself for bined with his low birth, meant he the falseness of his feelings, in­ could never rise above the rank of gratiating himself into the sym- rear-admiral. 56 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION While he considered the varied like a wolf among the sheep. events of the day Harpplayer be­ Broadside after broadside had gan his compulsive pacing on the roared out from the precisely serv­ tiny quarterdeck, and its other oc­ iced English guns, ten balls for cupants huddled against the star­ every one that popped out of the board side where they wouldn't French cannon, manned by cow­ be in his way. Four paces in one ardly sweepings of the eighth and direction, turn, then three-and-a­ ninth classes of 1812, grey­ half paces back with his knee bearded patriarchs and diapered bringing up with a shuddering infants who only wished they were crack against the port carronade. back in the familial vinyards in­ Yet Harpplayer did not feel this, stead of here, fighting for the his cardplayer's brain was whirl­ Tyrant, facing up to the wrath of ing with thoughts, evaluating and the death-dealing cannon of th~ir weighing plans, rejecting those island enemy, the tiny- country that held a modicum of sanity left to .fight alone against the and only considering those that might of an entire continent. It sounded too insane to be practical. had been a relentless stern chase, No wonder he was called "Sap­ and only the succor of the French sucker Harpy" throughout the fleet port had prevented the destruc­ and held in awe as a man who tion of the entire squadron. As it could always pull victory from was, four of them lay among the the jaws of defeat, and always conger eels on the bottom of the at an immense cost in lives. But ocean and the remaining six that was war. You gave your com­ would need a complete refitting mands and good inen died, and before they were .fit to leave port that was what the press gangs on and once more dare the retributive shore were for. It had been a long might of the ships that ringed and trying day, yet he still would their shores. not permit himself to relax. Ten­ Harpplayer knew what he had sion and the agony of apprehen­ to do. sion had seized him in the relent­ "If you please, Mr. Shrub, have less grip of a Cerberus ever since the hose rigged. I feel it is time soon after dawn that morning for a bath." when the lookout had announced A ragged cheer broke from the the discovery of sails on the hori­ toiling sailors, since they knew zon. There had been only ten of what to expect. In the coldest them, Frenchy ships of the line, northern waters or in the dead of and before the morning fog had winter Harpplayer insisted on this cleared the vengeful fonn of the routine of the bath. The hoses Redundant had been upon them, were quickly attached to the Ia- CAPTAIN HONARIO HARPPLAYER 57 boring pumps and soon columns of just what it is. Send the hands to icy water were jetting across the the braces, if you please, fill the deck. main-tops'l and lay her on the "In we go!" shouted Harpplay­ starboard tack." er, and stepped back well out of "Can I put my pants on first?" the way of any chance droplets, at "No impertinence, sir, or I'll the same time scratching with a have you in irons!" long index finger at the skin of his Shrub bellowed the orders side, unwashed since the previous through the speaking trumpet and summer. He smiled at the childish_ all the hands laughed at his shak­ antics of Shrub and the other of­ ing naked legs. Yet in a few sec­ ficers prancing nude in the water, onds the well trained crew, who and only signalled for the pumps not six days before had been to cease their work when all of wenching and drinking ashore on the white skins had turned a nice civvy street, never dreaming that cerulean. the wide-sweeping press gangs There was a rumble, not unlike would round them up and send distant thunder yet sharper and them to sea, lept to the braces, louder, from the northern horizon. hurled the broken spars and cord­ Harpplayer turned and for a long age overside, sealed the shot holes, instant saw a streak of fire painted buried the dead, drank their grog against the dark clouds, before it and still had enough energy left died from the sky, leaving only an over for a few of their number to after-image in his eyes. He shook -do a gay hornpipe. The ship his head to clear it, and blinked heeled as she turned, water rapidly a few times. For an in­ creamed under her bows and then stant there he could have sworn she was on the new tack, reaching that the streak of light had come out from the shore, investigating down, instead of going up, but this new occurrence, making her that was manifestly impossible. presence felt as the representative Too many late nights playing bos­ of the mightiest blockading fleet ton with his officers, no wonder the world, at that ·time, had ever his eyesight was going. known. "What was that, Captain?" "A ship ahead, sir," the mast­ Lieutenant Shrub asked, his words head lookout called. "Two points scarcely audible through the chat­ off the starboard bow." tering of his teeth. "Beat to quarters," Harpplayer "A signal rocket-or perhaps ordered. one of those new fangled Congreve Through the heavy roll of the war rockets. There's trouble over drum and the slap of the sailors' there and we're going to find out bare horny feet on the deck, the 58 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION voice of the lookout could be barely hidden rowers with underwater heard. oars, but they would have to be "No sails nor spars, sir. She's midgets to fit in the boat. It was about the size of our longboat." decked over and appeared to be "Belay that last order. And covered with a glass hutment of when that lookout comes off duty some kind. All in all a strange de· I want him to recite five hundred vice, and certainly not French. times, a boat is something that's The unwilling slaves of the Oc· picked up and put on a ship." topus in Paris would never master Pressed on by the freshing land the precise techniques to construct breeze the Redundant closed rap· a diadem of the sea such as this. idly on the boat until it could be No, this was from some alien land, made out dearly from the deck. perhaps from beyond China or the "No masts, no spars, no sails­ mysterious islands of the east. what makes it move?" Lieutenant There was a man seated in the Shrub asked with gape-mouthed craft and he touched a lever that puzzlement. rolled back the top window. He "There is no point in specula· stood then and waved to them. A tion in advance, Mr. Shrub. This concerted gasp rlm through the craft may be French or a neutral so watchers, for every eye in the ship I'll take no chances. Let us have was fastened on this strange occur· the carronades loaded and run out. renee. And I want the Marines in the "What is this, Mr. Shrub," futtock-shrowds, with their pieces Harpplayer shouted. "Are we at a on the h.alf-cock, if you please. I fun fair or fi Christmas panto­ want no one to fire until they re· mime? Discipline, sir!" ceive my command, and I'll have "B-but, sir," the faithful Shrub anyone who does boiled in oil and stammered, suddenly at a' loss for served for breakfast." words. "That man, sir-he's "You are the card, sir!" green!" "Am I? Remember the cox'in "I want none of your damn non· who got his orders mixed yester­ sense, sir," Harpplayer snapped ir· day?" ritably, annoyed as he always was "Very gamey, sir, if I say so;" when people babbled about their Shrub said, picking a bit of gristle imagined "colors." Paintings, and from between his teeth. "I'll issue sunsets and such tripe. Nonsense. the orders, sir." The world was made up of healthy The strange craft was like noth· shades of grey and that was that. ing Harpplayer had ever seen be­ Some fool of a Harley Street quack fore. It advanced without visible had once mentioned an imaginary motive power and he thought of malady which he termed "color CAPTAIN HONAB.IO HARPPLAYE& 59 blindness" but had desisted with then pointing to the sun, making his tomfoolery when Harpplayer circular motions around his head, had mentioned the choice of sec­ pointing to the clouds, malting onds. falling motions with his hands, "Green, pink or purple, I don't and shrilly shouting "M'ku, m'ku!" care what shade of grey the fellow ''Feller's barmy," the Marine of­ is. Throw him a line and have him ficer said, "and besides, he got too up here where we can hear his many fingers." story." "I can count to seven without The line was dropped and after your help," Shrub told him an­ securing it to a ring on his boat grily, "I think he's trying to tell us the stranger touched a lever that it's going to rain." closed the glass cabin once more, "He may be a metereologist in then climbed easily to the deck his own land," Harpplayer said above. safely, "but here he is just another "Green fur ..." Shrub said, then alien." clamped his mouth shut under The officers nodded agreement, Harpplayer's fierce glare. and this motion seemed to excite "Enough of that, Mr. Shrub. the stranger for he sprang for­ He's a foreigner and we will treat ward shouting his unintelligible him with respect, at least until we gibberish. The alert Marine guard find out what class he is from. He caught him in the back of -the is a bit hairy, l admit, but certain head with the butt of his Tower races in the north of the Nippon· musket and the hairy man. fell to ese Isles are that way, perhaps he the deck. comes from there. I bid you wel­ ''Tried to attack you, Captain," come, sir," he said addressing the the Marine officer said. "Shall we man. "I am Captain Honario keel-haul him, sir?" Harpplayer, commander of His "No, poor chap is a long way Majesty's ship, Redundant." from home, may be worried. We "Kwl-kkle-wrrl-kl . . I" must allow for the language bar­ "Not French," Harpplayer mut· rier. Just read him the Articles of tered, "nor Latin nor Greek I war­ War and impress him into the rant. Perhaps one of those barbaric service. We're short of hands after Baltic tongues, I'll try him on Ger· that last encounter." man. lch rate Ihnen, Reiseschecks "You are of a very forgiving na· mitzunehmen? Or an Italian dia· ture, sir, and an example for us all. lect? E proibito; pen} qui si v~n­ What shall we

CAME FOR MOTEL ROOM

by Fritz Leiber

SONYA MOVED AROUND THE look it. Like a car, a body needs wann, deeply carpeted motel room tender constant care, regular tune­ in the first gray trickle of dawn as ups, an occasional small repair if to demonstrate how endlessly and above all it needs to be inti­ beautiful a ]?ody can be if its own­ mately loved by its owner and er will only let it. Even the body from time to qme by an admiring of a woman in, well, perhaps, her second party, and then it never forties, Burton judged, smiling at loses beauty and dignity, even himself in lazy reproof for having when it corrupts in the end and thought that grudging word . dies. "even." It occurred to him that Oh, the dawn's a cold hour for bodies do not automatically grow philosophy, Burton told himself, less beautiful with age, but that a and somehow philosophy always lot of bodies are neglected, abused gets around to cold topics, just as and even hated by their owners: love-making and all the rest of the women in particular are apt to best of life make one remember grow contemptuous and ashamed death and even worse things. His of ·their flesh, and this always lean ann snaked out to a bedside shows. They start thinking old table, came back with a cigarette and ugly and pretty soon they and an empty folder of matches. 63 64 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Sonya noticed. She rummaged was the sort of dream in which in her pale ivory traveling case actor and onlooker might float and tossed him a black, pear­ forever. In the morning twilight shaped lighter. Burton caught the she looked now like a schoolgirl, thing, lit his cigarette, and then now like a witch, now like an studied it. It seemed to be made age-outwitting ballerina out for of black ivory and shaped rather her twenty-fifth season but still in like the grip of a revolver, while every way the premiere dauseuse. the striking mechanism was of As she moved she hummed in a blued steel. The effect was sin­ deep contralto voice a tune that ister. Burton didn't recognize, and · as "Like it?" Sonya asked from she hummed the dim air in front across the room. of her lower face seemed to change "Frankly, no. Doesn't suit you." color very faintly, the deep pur­ "You show good taste-or ples and blues and browns match­ sound instinct. It's a vacation ing the tones of the melody. Pure present from my husband." illusion, Burton was su .. e, like "He has bad taste? But he mar­ that which some hashish-eaters ried you." and weed-smokers experience dur­ "He has bad everything. Hush, ing their ecstasy when they hear Baby." · words as colors, but most enjoy­ Burton didn't mind. Not talk­ able. ing let him concentrate on watch­ To exercise his mind, now that ing Sonya. Slim and crop-haired, his body had had its fill and while she looked as trjmly beautiful as his eyes were satisfyingly occu­ her classic cream-colored, hard­ pied, Burton began to set in order topped Italian sportscar, in which the reasons why a mature lover is she had driven him to this preferable to one within yoohoo­ cosy hideaway from the bar where ing distance of twenty in either they'd picked each other up. Her direction. Reason One: she does movements now, stooping to re­ quite as much of the approach trieve a smoke-blue stocking and work as you do. Sonya had been trail it across a chair, momentarily both heartwarmingly straightfor­ teasing apart two ribs in the up­ ward and remarkably intuitive at ward-slanting Venetian blinds to the bar last night. Reason Two: peer at the cold gray world outside, she is generally well-equipped for executing a fraction of a dance adventure. Sonya had provided figure, stopping to smile at empti­ both sportscar and motel room. ness . . . these movements add­ Reason Three: she does not go ed up to nothing but the rhythms into an emotional tailspin after and symbolisms of a dream, yet it the act of love even if her GAME FOR MOTEL ROOM 65 thoughts trend toward death then, star cfuster. I belong to a totally like yours do. Sonya seemed both different species. We could no lovely and sensible-the sort of more start a child than a Chihau­ woman it was good to think of hau and a cat or a giraffe and a getting married to and having rhinoceros. Unlike the mare and children by. the donkey we could not even get Sonya turned to him with a a cute little sterile mule with smile, saying in her husky voice glossy fur and blue bows on his that still had a trace of the hum ears." in it, "Sorry, Baby, but it's quite Burton grinned. He had just impossible. Especially your sec­ thought of Reason Four: a really ond notion." grown-up lover plays the most "Did you really read my mind?" delightfully childish nonsense Burton demanded. "Why couldn't games. we have children?" "Go on," he said. Sonya's smile deepened. She "\Veil," she said, "superficially said, "I think L will take a little of course I'm very like an Earth chance and tell you why." She woman. I have two arms and two came over and sat on the bed be­ legs and this and these side him and bent down and "For which I am ctcrnallv kissed .him on the forehead. grateful," he said. ' "That was nice," Burton said "You like them, eh?" lazily. "Did it mean something "Oh yes-especially these." special?" "Well, watch out-thev don't She nodded gravely. "It was to even give milk,' they're t.ised in make you forget everything I'm esping. You see, inside I'm .very going to tell you." different," she said. "My mind is' "How-if I'm to understand different too. It can do mathemat­ what vou tell?" he asked. ics faster and better than one of "After a while I will kiss you your electric calculating ma­ again on the forehead and then chines-" you will forget everything I have "What's two and two?" Burton told you in between. Or if you're wanted to know. very good, I'll kiss you on the nose "Twenty-two," she told him, and then you'll remember-but be "and also one hundred in the unable to tell anyone else." binary _system and eleven in the "If you say so," Burton smiled. trinary and four in the duodeci­ "But what is it you're going to tell mal. I have perfect recall-1 can me?" remember every least thing I've "Oh," she said, "just that I'm ever done and every word of every from another planet in a distant book I've leafed through. I can 66 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION read unshielded minds-in fact et is much more advanced than anything up to triple shielding­ yours we still have husbands and and hum in colors. I can direct wives and a very stuffy system of my body heat so that I never really monogamy-that seems to go on need clothes to keep me warm at forever and everywhere-oh yes, temperatures above freezing. I can and on my planet we have death walk on water if I concentrate, and taxes and life insurance and and even fly-though I don't do it wars and all the rest of the uni­ here because it would make me versal idiocy!" conspicuous." She stopped suddenly. "I don't "Especially at the present mo­ want to talk about that any more," ment," Burton agreed, "though it she said. "Or about my husband. would be a grand sight. Why are Let's talk about you. Let's play you here, by the way, and not be­ truths, deep-down ·truths. What's having yourself on your home plan­ the thing you're most afraid of in et?" the whole world?" ''I'm on vacation," she grinned. Burton chuckled-and then "Oh yes, we use your rather primi­ frowned. "You really want me to tive plane~ for vacations-like give you the honest answer?" he you do Africa and the Canadian asked. forests. A little machine teaches "Of course," she said. "It's the us during one night's sleep several first rule of the game." of your languages and implants in "Well," he said, "I'm most our brains the necessary back­ afraid of something going wrong ground information. My husband with my brain. Growing wrong, surprised me by· giving me the really. Having a brain tumor. money for this vacation-same That's it." He had become rather time he gave me the lighter. Usu­ pale. · ally he's very stingy. But perhaps "Oh Poor Baby," Sonya said. he had some little plot-an affair "Just you wait a minute." with his chief nuclear chemist, I'd Still uneasy from his confes­ guess-of his own in mind and sion, Burton started nervously to wanted me out of the way. I can't pick up Sonya's black lighter, but be sure though, because he always i-ts black pistol-look repelled him. keeps his mind quadruple-shield­ Sonya came bustling back with ed, even from me." something else in her right hand. "So you have husbands on your "Sit up," she said, putting her left planet," Burton observed. arm around him. "No, none of "Yes indeed! Very jealous and that-this is serious. Pretend I'm possessive ones, too, so watch your a very proper lady doctor who for­ step, Baby. Yes, although my plan- got to get dressed." GAME FOR MOTEL ROOM 67 Burton could see her slim back what he'd glimpsed in the mirror and his own face over her right as an illusion, like the faint colors shoulder in the wide mirror of the he'd fancied forming in front of dresser. She slipped her right her humming lips. Perhaps Sonya hand and the small object it held had an effect on him like hashish behind his head. There was a or some super-marijuana-a click. plausible enough idea considering "No," said Sonya cheerily. "I how much more powerful drug a can't see a sign of anything wrong beautiful woman is than any opi­ in your brain or likely to grow ate or resin. Nevertheless- wrong. It's as healthy as an in­ "Ail right, Sonya," he said, fant's. What's the matter, Baby?" "what's your deepest fear?" Burton was shaking. "Look," he She frowned. "I don't want to gasped reproachfully, "it's won­ tell you." derful to play nonsense games, "I stuck to the rules." but when you use magic tricks or "Very well," she nodded, "it's hypnotism to back them up, that's that my husband will go crazy cheating." and kill me. That's a much more "What do you mean?" dreadful fear on my planet than "\Vhen you clicked that thing," yours, because we've conquered all l1e said with difficulty, "I saw my diseases and we each of us can live head turn for a moment into a forever (though it's customary to pinkish skull and then into just disintegrate after forty to fifty a pulsing blob with folds in it." thousand years) and we each of "Oh, I'd forgotten the mirror," us have tremendous physical and she said, glancing over her shoul­ mental powers-so that the mere der. "But you were really just thought of any genuine insanity imagining things. Or having a is dreadfully shocking. Insanity is mild optical spasm and seeing so nearly unknown to us that colors. even our advanced intuition does­ "No," she added as he reached n't work on it-and what is un­ out a hand, "I won't let you see known is always most frightening. my little XYZ-ray machine." She By insanity I don't mean minor tossed it across the room into her irrationalities. \Ve have those, all traveling case. "It would spoil our right-my husband for instance, nonsense game." is bugged on the number 3 3, he As his breathing and thoughts won't begin any important ven­ quieted, Burton decided she was ture except on the thirty-third day possibly right-or at least that of the month-and me, I have a he'd best pretend she was right. It weakness for black-haired babies was safest and sanest to think of from primitive planets." 68 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Hey, wait a minute," Burton thing on him so that I could run objected, "you said the thirty-third to an officer of public safety and day of the month." have the maniac put away, but I "On my planet the months are can't, I can't, he never makes a longer. Nights too. You'd love slip, and I begin to feel I'm going them-more time for de:nwnstrat· crazy-I, with my supremely ing affection and empathy." trained and guarded mind-and I Burton looked at her brooding· just have to get away to vacation ly. "You play this nonsense game planets and forget him in loving pretty seriously," he said. "Like someone else. Come on, Baby, you'd read nothing but science let's-" fiction all your life." "Wait a minute/" Burton com­ Sonya shrugged her lovely manded. "You say you've insur­ shoulders. "Maybe there's more in ance on your planet. Are you in­ science fiction than you realize. sured for much?" But now we've had enough to that "A very great deal. Perfect game. Come on, Black-Haired health and a life-expectancy of Baby, let's play-" fifty thousand years makes the "\Vait a minute," Burton said premiums cheap." sharply. She drew back, making "And your husband is the bene­ a sulky mouth at him. He made ficiary?" his own grim, or perhaps his half­ "Yes, he is. Come on, Burton, emerged thoughts did that for let's not talk about him. Let's-" him. "No!" Burton said, pushing her "So you've got .a husband on back. "Sonya, what does your hus­ your planet," he said, "and h~'s band do? What's his work?" got tremendous powers and you re Sonya shrugged. "He manages deathly afraid he'll go crazy and a bomb factory," she said listlessly try to kill you. And now he does and rapidly. "I work there too. I an out-of-character thing by giv· told you we had wars-they're ing you vacation money and-" between the league our planet be­ "Oh yes!" she interrupted agi­ longs to and another star cluster. tatedlv, "and he's such a dreadful You've just started to discover the mixed-up superman and he al­ super-bombs on Earth-the fission ways keeps up that permissible but bomb, the fusion bomb. They're uncustomary quadruple shield and clumsy oversize toys. The bombs he looks at me with such a secret my husbnd's factory manufactures gloating viciousness when we're can each of them destroy a planet. alone that I'm choke-full of fear They're really fuses for starting day and night and I've wished al\d the matter of the planet disinte­ wished I could really get some- grating spontaneously so that it GAME FOR MOTEL ROOM 69 flashes into a little star. Yet the said smiling nervously and drop­ bombs are so tiny you can hold one ping the black thing on the white in your hand. In fact, this ciga­ sheet. "Why's Baby so excited?" rette lighter is an exact model of "Sonya," Burton said, "Maybe one of them. The models were for I'm crazy, or maybe you are only Cosmos Day presents to top offi­ playing a nonsense game backed cials. My husband gave me his up with hypnotism-but . . ." along with the vacation money. Sonya stopped smiling. "\\'hat Burton, reach me one of your foul is it, Baby?" Earth cigarettes, will you? If Burton said, "If you really do you're going to refuse the other ex­ come from another planet where citements, I've got to have some­ there is almost no insanity, homi­ thing." cidal or otherwise, what I'm going Burton automatically shook to tell you will be news. Sonya, some cigarettes from his pack. we've just lately had several mur­ "T.ell me one more thing, Sonya," ders on Earth where a man plants he rapped out. "You say you have a a time-bomb on a big commercial perfect memory. How many times airplane to explode it in the air have you struck that cigarette and kill all its passengers and lighter since your husband gave it crew just to do away with one to you?" single person-generally for the "Thirty-one times," she an­ sake of collecting a big life-insur­ swered promptly. "Counting the ance policy. Now if an Earth­ one time you used it." murderer could be cold-blooded She flicked it on and touched or mad enough to do that, why the tiny blue flame to her ciga­ mightn't a super-murderer-" rette, inhaled deeply, then let the "Oh no," Sonya said slowly, tiny snuffer snap down ·the flame. "not blow up a whole planet to get Twin plumes of faint smoke rid of just one person-" She wreathed from her nostrils. "Thir­ started to tremble. ty-two now." She held the black 'Why not?" Burton demanded. pear-shaped object towards him, "Your husband is crazy, only you her thumb on the knurled steel­ can't prove it. He hates you. He blue trigger. "Shall I give you a stands to collect a fortune if vou light?" die in an accident-such a~ a "NO!" Burton shouted. "Sonya, primitive vacation planet explod­ as you value your life and mine ing. He presents you with money -and the lives of three billion for a vacation on such a planet other primitives-don't work that and at the same time he gives lighter again. Put it down." you a cigarette lighter that is an "All right, all right, Baby," she exact model of-" 70 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "I can't believe it," Sonya said She turned around, not looking very faintly, still shaking, her eyes at him. far away. "Not a whole planet ''You 1vere right," she said. " She said, "Naw I've got the evi­ "But that's the sort of thing in­ dence to put my husband away sanity can be, Sonya. What's for evert I can't" waitl" more, you can check it," Burton She whirled into action, snatch­ rapped out flatly. "Use that XYZ­ ing articles of clothing from the ray gadget of yours to look through floor, chairs and dresser, whip­ the lighter." ping them into her traveling case. "But he couldn't," Sonya mur­ The whole frantic little dance took mured, her eyes still far away. less than ten seconds. Her hand "Not even he could ..." was on the outside door before she "Look through the lighter," Bur­ paused. ton repeated. She looked at Burton. She put Sonya picked up the black down her traveling case and came thing by its base and carried it over to the bed and sat down be­ over to her traveling case. side him. "Remember not to flick it," Bur­ "Poor Baby," she said. "I'm go­ ton warned her sharply. "You'd ing to have to wipe out your mem­ told me he was bugged on the ory and yet you were so very clever number thirty-three, and I imagine -1 really mean that, Burton." that would be about the right He wanted to object, but he felt number to allow to make sure you paralyzed. She put her arms were settled on y.our vacation plan­ around him and moved her lips et before anything happened." towards his forehead. Suddenly He saw the shiver travel down she said, "No, I can't do that. her back as he said that and sud­ There's got to be some reward denly Burton was shaking so much for you." himself he couldn't possibly have She bent her head and kissed moved. Sonya's hands were on the him pertly on the nose. Then she other side of her body from him, disengaged herself, hurried to her busy above her traveling case. bag, picked it up, and opened the There was a click and her pinkish door. skeleton showed through her. It "Besides," she called back. "I'd was not quite the same as the hate you to forget any part of me." skeleton of an Earth human­ "Hey," Burton yelled, coming to there were two long bones in the life, "You can't go out like that!" upper arms and upper legs, fewer "Why not?" she demanded, ribs, but what looked like two "Because you haven't a stitch of tiny skulls in the chest. clothes on!" GAME FOR MOTEL ROO~-( -71 "On my planet we don't wear Burton stood in the open door them!" for half a minute, stark naked The door slammed behind her. himself, looking around at the un­ Burton sprang out of bed and exploded Earth. He started to say threw it open again. aloud, "Gosh, I didn't even get the He was just in time to see the name of her planet," but his lips sportscar take off-straight up. were sealed.

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 zone number if there is one. (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 22, N.Y. "' The Amcrica·n edition of F&SF is now being sent to seventy two (72) countries of the world. SCIENCE 0

Our patient readers wiU find below yet another one of Dr. Asimov's insufferably tedious articles. This time he purports to teach them a language which is part Keltic and part chem­ ical. We ourself once spent three entire days in the West of Ireland, and during the whole of this time in that beautiful, green (and slightly soggy) land the o~ly person we found who didn't talk Englisl& was an elderly Armenian (who didn't talk any language, as near as WB could teU, except elderly Ar- · menian). Assuming, then, that Professor A. succeeds in teach­ ing you the Gaelic-Gena. Reader, to whom wiU you speak it, to whom? We have but one single word of the darling Zan-· guage (it also embodl.s8 all W8 know or ever need to know of chemistry), it has saved our Ufe on occasions innumerable, its original form was usquebaugh or uisgebeatha-meaning Water ofLife-and in the accursed Saxon tongue it's pro­ nounced whiskey. Make ours a double, Leo. Ike don't drink.

YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAELIC

by Isaac Asimov

IT IS DIFFICULT TO PROVE TO THE MAN IN THE STREET THAT ONE is a chemist. At least, when one is a chemist after my fashion (strictly arm-chair). Faced with a miscellaneous stain on a garment of unknown composi­ tion, I am helpless. I say, "Have you tried a dry-cleaner?" with a rising inflection that disillusions everyone within earshot at once. I cannot look at a paste of dubious composition and tell what it is good for just 72 YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAELIC 73 by smelling it; and I haven't the foggiest notion what a drug, identified only by trade-name, may have in it. It is not long, in short, before the eyebrows move upward, the wise smiles shoot from lip to lip and the hoarse whispers begin, "Some chem­ ist! Wonder what barber college he went to?" There is nothing to do but wait. Sooner or later, on some breakfast cereal box, on some pill dispenser, on some bottle of lotion, there will appear an IS-syllable name of a chemical. Then, making sure I have a moment of silence, I will say carelessly, "Ah, yes" and rattle it off like a machine-gun, reducing everyone for miles around to stunned amaze­ ment. Because, you see, no matter how inept I may be at the practical as­ pects of chemistry, I speak the language fluently. But, alas, I have a confession to make. It isn't hard to speak chemis­ try. It just looks hard because organic chemistry (that branch of chem­ istry with the richest supply of nutcracker names) was virtually a Ger­ man monopoly in the 19th Century. The Germans, for some reason known only to themselves, push words together and eradicate all traces of any seam between them. What we would express as a phrase, they treat as one interminable word. They did this to the names of their or­ ganic compounds and in English those names were slavishly adopted with minimum change. It is for that reason, then, that you can come up to a perfectly re­ spectable compound which, to all appearances is just lying there, harm­ ing no one, and find that it has a name like para-dimethylaminoben­ zaldehyde. (And that is rather short, as such names go.) To the average person, used to words of a respectable size, this con­ glomeration of letters is offensive and irritating, but actually, if you tackle it from the front and work your way slowly toward the back, it isn't bad. Pronounce it this way: PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh­ ben-ZAL-duh-hide. If you accent the capitalized syllables, you will dis­ cover that after a while, you can say it rapidly and without trouble and can impress your friends no end. What's more, now that you can say the word, you will appreciate something that once happened to me. I was introduced to this particular compound some years ago, because when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, it is used to test for the presence of a compound called glucosamine and this was something I earnestly yearned to do at the time. So I went to the reagent shelf and said to someone, "Do we have any para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde ?" And he said, "What you mean is PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh- 74 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION ben-ZAL-duh-hide", and he sang it to the tune of the "Irish Washer-· woman". If you don't know the tune of the "Irish Washerwoman" all I can say is that it is an Irish jig; in fact, it is the Irish jig; if you heard it, you would know it. I venture to say that ifyou know only one Irish jig, or if you try to make up an Irish jig, that's the one. It goes: DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee, and so on almost indefinitely. For a moment I was flabbergasted and then, realizing the enormity of having someone dare be whimsical at my expense, I said, "Of course! It's dactylic tetrameter." "What?" he said. I explained. A dactyl is a set of three syllables of which the first is accented and the next tvyo are not, and a line of verse is dactylic tetra­ meter when four such sets of syllables occur in it. Anything in dactylic feet can be sung to the tune of the "Irish \Vasherwoman." You can sing most of Longfellow's "Evangeline" to it, for instance, and I prompt­ ly gave the fellow a sample: "THIS is the FO-rest pri-ME-val. The MUR-muring PINES.. and the HEM-locks-" and so on and. so on. He was walking away from me by then, but I followed him at a half­ run. "In fact," I went on, "anything in iambic feet can be sung to the tune of Dvorak's 'Humoresque." (You know the one- de-DUM-dee­ DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-and so on forever.) For instance, I. said, you could sing Portia's speech to the "Humor­ esque" like this: "The QUALITY of MERcy IS not STRAINED it DROPpeth AS the GENtle RAIN from HEAV'N uPON the PLACE beNEATH." He got away from me by then and didn't show up at work again for days, and serve him right. However, I didn't get off scot-free myself. Don't think it. I was haunted for weeks by those drumming dactylic feet. PA-ruh-dy-METH­ il-a-l\1EE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide-PA-l'Jlh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh­ went my brain over and over. It scrambled my thoughts, interfered with my sleep and reduced me to mumbling semi-madness for I· would go about muttering it savagely under my breath to the alarm of all inno­ cent bystanders. Finally, the whole thing was exorcized and it came about in this fashion. I was standing at the 4esk of a receptionist waiting for a chance to give her my name in order that I might get in to see some­ body. She was a very pretty Irish receptionist and so I was in no YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAEUC 75 hurry because the individual I was to see was very masculine and I pre­ ferred the receptionist. So I waited patiently and smiled at her; and then her patent lrishness stirred that drum-beat memory in my mind so that I sang in a soft voice (without even realizing what I was doing) PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide ... through sev­ eral rapid choruses. And the receptionist clapped her hands together in delight and cried out, "Oh, my, you know it in the original Gaelic/" What could I do? I smiled modestly and had her announce me as Isaac O'Asirnov. From that day to this ·1 haven't sung it once except in telling this story. It was gone, for after all folks, in my heart I know I don't know one word of Gaelic.

But what are. these syllables that sound so Gaelic? Let's trace them to their lair, one by one, and make sense of them, if we can. Perhaps you will then find that you, too, can speak Gaelic. , Let's begin with a tree of Southeast Asia, one that is chiefly found in Sumatra and Java. It exudes a reddish-brown resin that, on being burnt, yields a pleasant odor. Arab traders had penetrated the Indian Ocean and its various shores during medieval times and had brought back this resin, which they called "Javanese incense." Of course, they called it that in Arabic, so that the phrase ca~e out "luban javi." When the Europeans picked up the substance from Arabic traders, the Arabic name was just' a collection of nonsense syllables to them. The first syllable "lu" sounded as though it might be the definite article ("lo" is one of the words for "the" in Italian; "le" and "Ia" are "the" in French and so on.) Consequently, the European traders thought of the substan..ce as "the banjavi" or simply as "banjavi." That made no sense, either, and it got twisted in a number of ways; to "benjamin" for instance (because that, at least, was a familiar word) to "benjoin" and then finally, about 1650, to "benzoin." In English, the resin is now called "gum benzoin." About 1608, an acid substance was isolated from the resin and that was eventually called "benzoic acid." Then, in 1834, a German chem­ ist, Eilhart Mitscherlich, converted benzoic acid (which contains two oxygen atoms in its molecule) into a compound which contains no oxygen atoms at all, but only carbon and hydrogen atoms. He named the new compound "benzin," the first syllable signifying its ancestry. Another German chemist, Justus Liebig objected to the suffix "-in" which, he said, was used only for compounds that contained nitrogen 76 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION atoms, which Mitscherlich's "benzin" did not. In this, Liebig was cor­ rect. However, he suggested the suffix "-ol", signifying the German word for "oil" because the compound mixed with oils rather than with water. This was as bad as "-in", however, for, as I shall shortly explain, the suffix "-ol" is used for other purposes by chemists. However, the name caught on in Germany, where the compound is still referred to as "ben­ zol." In 1845, still another German chemist (I told you organic chemis­ try was a German monopoly in the 19th Century) August W. von Hof­ mann, suggested the name "benzene" and this is the name properly used in most of the world, including the United States. I say, properly, be­ cause the "-ene" ending is routinely used for many molecules containing hydrogen and carbon atoms only ("hydrocarbons") and therefore it is a good ending and a good name. The molecule of benzene consists of six carbon atoms and six hydro­ gen atoms. The carbon atoms are arranged in a hexagon and to each of them is attached a single hydrogen atom. I have every impulse to pre­ sent you with the formula by arranging six C's (for carbon) in a hexa­ gon and attached an H (for hydrogen) to each. However, such shenani­ gans are frowned upon in the august pages of this periodical and I shall content myself with stating (with a feeling of sad inadequacy) that the formula of benzene is CGHs. You will have noted, perhaps, that in the long and tortuous pathway from the island of Java to the molecule of benzene, the letters of the island have been completely lost. There is nc.Jt a "j," not an "a" and not a "v" in the word "benzene." Nevertheless, we've arrived somewhere. If you go back to the Irish washerwoman compound, para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde, you will not fail to note the syllable "benz." Now you know where it comes from.

Having gotten this far, let's·start on a different track altogether. Women being what they are (three cheers), they have for centuries been shading their eyelashes and upper eyelids and eye-comers in or­ der to make their eyes look large, dark, mysterious and enticing. In an­ cient times, they used for this purpose some dark pigment (an antimony compound, often) which was ground up into a fine powder. It had to be a very fine powder, of course, because lumpy shading would look awful. The Arabs, with an admirable directness, referred to this cosmetic powder as "the finely divided powder." Only, once again, they used Arabic and it came out "al-kulhl" where the "h" is pronounced in a gutteral way I can't imitate, and where "al" is the Arabic word for "the". YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAELIC 71 The Arabs were the great alchemists of the early Middle Ages and when the Europeans took up alchemy in the late Middle Ages, they adopted many Arabic terms. The Arabs had begun to use "al-kuhl" as a name for any finely divided powdCT, without reference to cosmetic needs, and so did the Europeans. But they pronounced the word, and spelled it, in various ways that were climaxed with "alcohol." As it happened, alchemists were never really at ease with gases or npors. They didn't know what to make of them. They felt, somehow, that the vapors were not quite material in the same sense that liquids or solids were and so they referred to the vapors as "spirits." They were particularly impressed with substances that gave off "spirits"' even at ordinary temperatures (and not only when heated) and of these, the most important in medieval times, was wine. So alchemists would speak of "spirits of wine" for the volatile component of wine (and we ourselves may speak of alcoholic beverages as "spirits" though we will also speak of "spirits of turpentine"). Then, too, when a liquid vaporizes it seems to powder away to noth­ ing, so spirits also received the name of "alcohol'' and the alchemists would speak of "alcohol of wine." By the 17th Century, the word "alco­ hol" all by itself stood for the vapors given off by wine. In the early 19th Century, the molecular structure of these vapors was determined. The molecule turned out to consist of two carbon atoms and an oxygen atom in a straight line. Three hydrogen atoms are attached to the first carbon, two hydrogen atoms to the second and a single hydrogen atom to the oxygen. The formula can therefore be written as CH3CH20H. The hydrogen-oxygen group ( -OH) is referred to in abbreviated form as a "hydroxyl group." Chemists began to discover numerous com­ pounds in which a hydroxyl group is attached to a carbon atom as it is in the alcohol of wine. All these compounds came to be referred to generally as alcohols, and each was given a special name of its own. For instance, the alcohol of wine contains a group of two carbon atoms to which a total of five hydrogen atoms are attached. This same combination was discovered in a compound first isolated in 1540. This compound is even more easily vaporized than alcohol is and the liquid disappears so quickly that it seems to be overwhelmingly eager to rise to its home in the high heavens. Aristotle had referred to the material making up the high heavens as "aether" so in 1730 this easily vapor­ ized material received the name "spiritus aethereus" or, in English, "etherial spirits." This was eventually shortened to "ether." The two-carbon-five·hydrogeii group in ether (there were two of these 78 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION in each ether molecule) was naturally called the "ethyl group" and since the alcohol of wine contained this group, it came to be called "ethyl alcohol" about 18 50. It came to pass, then, that chemists found it sufficient to give the name of a compound the suffix "-ol" to indicate that it was an alcohol, and possessed a hydroxyl group. That is the reason for the objection to "benzol" as a name for the compound C6H6 • Benzene contains no hydroxyl group and is not an alcohol and should be called "benzene" and not "benzol." You hear? It is possible to remove two hydrogen atoms from an alcohol, taking away the single hydrogen that is attached to the oxygen, and one of t}le hydrogens attached to the adjoining carbons. Instead of a molecule such as CH3CH20H, you would have a molecule like CH3CHO. Liebig (the man who had suggested the naughty word "benzol") ac· complished this task in 18 3 5 and was the first actually to isolate CH3 CHO. Since the removal of hydrogen atoms is, naturally, a "dehydr~ genation," what Liebig had was a dehydrogenated alcohol and that's what he called it. Since he used Latin, however, the phrase was "alcohol dchydrogenatus." That is a rather lbng name for a simple compound and chemists, being as human as the next fellow (honest!), have the tendency to shorten long names by leaving out syllables. Take the first syllable of "alcohol" and the first two syllables of "dehydrogenatus", run the result together, and you have "aldehyde." It came to pass th~refore that the combination_of a carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atom (-CHO) which forms such a prominent portion of the molecule of dehydrogenated alcohol came to be called the "aide· hyde group" and any compound containing it came to be called an "aldehyde." For instance, if we return to benzene, Cr;Hn, and imagine one of its hydrogen atoms removed, and in its place a -CHO group inserted, we would have C6 H,,CHO and that compound would be "benzene­ aldehyde" or, to use the shortened form that is universally employed, ''benzaldehyde."

Now let's move back in time again to the ancient Egyptians. The patron god of the Egyptian city of Thebes on the Upper Nile was named Amen or Amun. When Thebes gained the hegemony over Egypt, as it did during the 18th and 19th dynasties, the time of Egypt's greatest military power, Amen naturally gained hegemony over the Egyptian gods. He rated many temples, including one on an oasis in the north YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAELIC 79 African desert, well to the west of the main center of Egyptian culture. This one was well-known to the Greeks and, ·later, the Romans, who spelled the name of the god, "Ammon." Any desert area has a problem when it comes to finding fuel. One available fuel in North Africa is camel dung. The soot of the burning camel dung, which settled out on the walls and ceiling of the temple, contained white, salt-like crystals, which the Romans then called "sal ammoniac" meaning "salt of Ammon." (The expression "sal ammoniac" is still good pharmacist's-jargon, but chemists call the substance "am­ monium chloride" now.) In 1774, an English chemist, Joseph Priestley, discovered that heat­ ing sal ammoniac produced a vapor with a pungent odor, and in 1782, the Swedish chemist, Torbem Olof Bergmann, suggested the name "am­ monia" for this vapor. Three years later, a French chemist, Claude Louis Berthollet, worked out the structure of the ammonia molecule. It consisted of a nitrogen atom to which three hydrogen atoms were at­ tached so that we can write it NH3 • As time went on, chemists who were studying organic compounds (that is, compounds that contained carbon atoms) found that it often happened that a combination made up of a nitrogen atom and two hy­ drogen atoms (-NH2 ) was attached to one of the carbon atoms in the organic molecule. The resemblance of this combination to the ammonia molecule was clear and by 1860, the -NH2 group was being called an "amine group" to emphasize the similarity. Well, then, if we go back to our benzaldehyde, C6 H6 CHO and im­ agine a second hydrogen atom removed from the original benzene and in its place an amine group inserted, we would have C6H4(CHO)­ (NH!!) and that would be "aminobenzaldehyde."

Earlier I talked about the alcohol of wine, CHaCH20H, and said it was "ethyl alcohol." It can also be called (and frequently is), "grain alcohol" because it is obtained from the fermentation of grain. But as I hinted, it is not the only alcohol; far from it. As far back as 1661, the English chemist, Robert Boyle, found that if he heated wood in the ab­ sence of air, he obtained vapors, some of which condensed into clear liquid. In this liquid he detected a substance rather similar to ordinary alco­ hol, but not quite the same. (It is more easily evaporated than ordinary alcohol, and it is considerably more poisonous to mention two quick differences.) This new alcohol was called "wood alcohol." However, for a name really to sound properly authoritative in sci- 80 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTIO:>: cnce, what is wanted is something in Greek or Latin. The Greek word for "wine" is "methy" and the Greek word for "wood" is "yli." To get "wine from wood" (i.e. "wood alcohol") stick the two Greek words together and you have "methyl." The first to do this was the Swedish chemist, Jons Jakob Berzelius, about 1835, and ever since then wood alcohol has been "methyl alcohol" to chemists. The formula for methyl alcohol was worked out in 1834 by a French chemist named Jean Baptiste Andre Dumas (no relation to the novel­ ist, as far as I know.) It turned out to be simpler than that of ethyl alcohol and to contain but one carbon atom. The formula is written, CHaOH. For this reason, a grouping of one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms (-CHs) came to be referred to as a "methyl group." The French chemist, Charles Adolphe Wurtz (he was born i~:I Alsace which accounts for his Germanic name), discovered in 1849 that one of the two hydrogen atoms of the amine group could be replaced by a methyl group, so that the endproduct looked like this -NHCH3 • This would naturally be a "methylamine group." If both hydrogen atoms were replaced by methyl groups, the formula would be -N(CH3 ) 2 and we would have a "dimethylamine group." (The prefix "di-" is from the Greek "dis" meaning "twice." The methyl group is added to the amine group twice, in other words.) Now we can go back to our aminobcnzaldehyde, C6H4 (CHO)­ (NH2). If, instead of an amino group, we had used a dimethylamine group, the formula would be C6H4(CHO)(N(CH3)2) and the name would be "dimethylaminobenzaldehyde."

Let's think about benzene once again. Its molecule is a hexagon made up of six carbon atoms, each with a hydrogen atom attached. We have substituted an aldehyde group for one of the hydrogen atoms and a dimethylamine group for another, to form dimethylaminobenzalde­ hyde, but which two hydrogen atoms have we substituted? In a perfectly symmetrical hexagon, such as that which is the mole­ cule of benzene, there are only three ways in which you can choose two hydrogen atoms. You can take the hydrogen atoms of two adjoining carbon atoms; or you can take the hydrogens of two carbon atoms so selected that one untouched carbon-hydrogen combination lies between; or you can take them so that two untouched carbon-hydrogen combina­ tions lie between. If you number the carbon atoms of the hexagon in order, one through six, then the three possible combinations involve carbons 1,2; 1,3; and 1,4 respectively. I mustn't draw diagrams here, but if you draw one for YOU, TOO, CAN SPEAK GAELIC 81 yourself (it is simple enough) you will see that no other combinations are possible. All the different combinations of two carbon atoms in the hexagon boil down to one or another of these three cases. Chemists have evolved a special name for each combination. The I,2 combination is "ortho" from a Greek word meaning "straight." Why "ortho" should be used, I am not sure, but my guess is that when, in a formula, chemical groups are written on two adjoining angles of a ben­ zene hexagon, they can be written one under the other in a straight line. (I know that sounds weak, but I have never seen an official expla­ nation, and I can't think of anything else.) The prefix "meta-" comes from a Greek word meaning "in the midst of" but it also has a secondary meaning, "next after." That makes it suitable for the I,3 combination. You substitute the first carbon, leave the next untouched, and substitute the one "next after." The prefix "para-" is from a Greek word meaning "beside" or "side by side." If you mark the I ,4 angles on a hexagon and turn it so that the I is at the extreme left, then the 4 will be at the extreme right. The two are indeed "side by side" and so "para-" is used for the I ,4 combination. · Now we know where we are. \Vhen we say, "para-dimethylamino­ benzaldehyde," we mean that the dimethylamine group and the alde­ hyde group are in the I ,4 relationship to each other. They are at oppo­ site ends of the benzene ring and we can write the formula CHOCG­ H4N(CHs)2. And there you are.

Now that you know Gaelic, what do you suppose the following are? I) alpha-dee-glucosido-beta-dee-fructofuranoside 2) two, three-dihydro-three-oxobenzisosulfonazole 3) delta-four-pregnene-seventeen-alpha, twenty-one, diol-three, eleven, twenty-trione 4) three- ( four-amino-two-methylpyrimidyl-five-methyl) -four-meth­ yl-five-beta-hydroxyethylthiazolium chloride hydrochloride.

Just in case your Gaelic is still a little rusty, I will give you the an- swers. They are: I ) table sugar 2) saccharin 3) cortisone 4) vitamin B1 Isn't it simple? In the first place, it's pronounced Van Sy-ock-so there. This funny story of a different way in which future American so­ ciety deals with the problem of Social Adjustment (if that is indeed the mot juste) was written by a new writer who grad­ uated high school and southern Indiana five years ago to become an Air Force wife. Despite several solo cross-country flights, Sydney Van Scyoc says ~he is not now flying and does not intend to fly again until she overcomes her fear of "forms, clearances and radio procedures-or until these things have been eliminated." We wish her luck; and, in the meanwhile, are pleased to pluck the fruits of her being grounded-as for instance you take this story of the Unnamed Heroine who was frantic, of Birk who was unstable and silly and exitable, of Cordon who was decisive and strong and disciplined, and of Zack who was-yechl

ZACK WITH HIS SCAR

by Sydney Van Scyoc

\\THEN SHE BLAZED FROM THE Soon he knew she knew he fol­ lifter clearing that morning Zack lowed. A tightening of muscles abandoned his sometimes-bench, warned him she w~s about to which flickered and became a turn. shrub, and slouched after her, She pierced him with bitter scarred and ugly head held low. eyes. Her flaming hair snapped and her He gazed at her, stupidly. hips -switched. There were some, She jerked and plunged ahead. coming from the offices at greens­ He followed, beginning to be edge, who would have spoken to miserable. her. But they saw her eyes, they She jerked again, glowered. saw Zack, and they stared. Zack be­ "Well?" gan to wish he had not come. He gazed, stupidly, then low- 82 ZACK WITH HIS SCAR 83 cred his eyes and slunk away. He fier and the door materialized in plunged his hands into his pock­ her face. She shimmered with fury ets, dejected. as the elevator lifted him. He heard his name behind him. He disembarked at the top floor He turned and had a glimpse of and took the service conveyor to angered male face before a fist· the clearin·g. Minutes later he caught his nose and toppled him lifted down at Headquarters green to the grass. and ran for Complaints. Mix stood His face was pain; he wanted to at the receiver bench, a big, doubt­ rock it in his hands. But people ful man who wore no fault. were watching, straight and hand­ The flame-haired woman's face some people. He stood, straight­ appeared on one of the receivers ened his nose roughly, and plodded and Mix dialed his sender. "Mix, away. He remembered the months Complaints." when he had been straight and "A man has been harassing me. handsome too, but that didn't help. I want you to stop it." When she left her office that Mix motioned to Zack. "Let my afternoon he followed again, set­ assistant take down the facts." ting his feet down as she did, Zack shoved his scarred face too switching his thick hips, carrying close to the sender. "Yeah?" his head defiantly. She gasped and scrambled her She whirled, face afire. "Quit dials, distorting before disappear­ this foolishness!" ing. Deliberately he made an ob­ Zack waited, punching reports. scene gesture. Then her face reappeared. Mix Her hand flew to his jaw, red­ took the call. dening his flesh, and she whirled "You must listen," she said. "It's away. He didn't follow until he foolishness. I don't need him." saw her hair flame above the clear­ "We got a report," Mix said. ing. She sighed. "If my counselor Then, because he had a special filed me; he was mistaken. I'm lifter pack, he waited at her apart­ only a twice-monthly-he's hardly ment block door when she came in a position to judge." plunging across the green. The "Mistaken?" Mix frowned. door dissolved and he shoved past She twitched her lips. "I am her. capable of managing my affairs She tried to push past him. He without interference. blocked her, slouched across the Patiently he said, "When we lobby thwarting her. Then, seeing get a report-" the elevator door slowly material­ "I don't need him. I have ev­ ize, he sprinted. He hit the solidi- erything under control." 84 FANTASY Al\TD SCIENCE FICTION Mix looked doubtful. booth. He dialed her number. "I'm neither irresponsible nor When she dialed herself on, he adolescent. I'm twenty-seven years simply shoved his face into the old and I supervise twenty-two sender and stared, empty-eyed. people every day. I demand you She dialed off the visual from let me decide what I need, and her end. "Get off!" she hissed. whom." "He took you off my case." "If you want to insist-" He stared into the sender. "I do!" "Get off! I don't need you." "-then I've got to ·take him He continued to stare. off." "I'm going to call your supe­ "Do it then!" She distorted, rior." then disappeared. He stared. He heard her quick Mix scrambled his own dials breathing. and nodded to Zack. She dialed her set off, then Minutes later Zack was in the tried to dial out. She realized air. The city glistened beneath when she saw him that she could him, green meadows bounded by not break the circuit from her end. low gleaming structures. Once, She scalded him with words. He tired of being ugly and misshapen, had to tighten his jaws not to he had turned in his faults, had flinch. had his body processed and had Finally he stood and left the taken a regular job. It had been an booth, leaving the set on. She interesting job of course, carefully could have his call traced when adapted to his individual needs. she thought of it, could come down But· it had taken only four hours and terminate it herself. of his day. The other hours he had When she left the clearing the spent doing the things people did, next morning she was grim on the taking classes, doing volunteer arm of a small, precise-featured work, good things, · interesting man whose name, Zack knew, was things. But soon he was looking at Cordon Gaines. She pointed when people and seeing only creases, she saw Zack leaning against a frowns, dghtnesses. Finally, stoi­ tree, hands in pockets. She pro­ cally, he had resumed his scar, de­ pelled Gaines toward him. "That's termined to accept stares and ugli­ him." ness. But still he had doubts. Was "You," Gaines commanded. he doing the right thing? Or was Zack deigned to look at him. he meddling? "You've been harassing her?" He set down at her green, Zack flicked his eyes to her. slouched into the lobby of her The man snapped his head im- building and entered the public patiently. ZACK WITH HIS SCAR 85 "Hell," Zack said disinterested­ until late afternoon. Then he went ly. to his apartment and packed his "You know that if you are an- clothing, toilet articles, spare noying her without authority you faults and half a dozen books. can be placed under physical re­ Her door was solid to all but straint." her. But he brandished his nulli­ "Hell." fier and stepped inside. She had Gaines turned· to her. "He's three pale rooms, and he knew her still under orders," he said scorn­ flaming hair would bring them fullY. alive. He found and flipped the "But his superior told me-" switch that materialized the furni­ "Don't believe it." He glanced ture. impatiently at his watch. "I have He swept her clothing from her to get to work." He was already closets and dumped it on the easing away from her. "Ignore him. couch. He dumped shoes and cos­ There's nothing else you can do." metics atop clothing and emptied "But you were going to help the contents of her storage draw­ me," she insisted. ers onto the dining counter. Then "There's nothing I can do," he he arranged his own clothing, said. "Don't make me late, dear." shoes, faults in ·their place. She stepped hesitantly away, He ordered food. When it came imploring with unhappy eyes. he took it to the bedroom and lay "Dear," he said with clipped on the bed with a book. He got up patience. once, and when he lay back dishes She bobbed her head humbly overturned, staining the spread and started toward greens-edge. with beet juice and coffee. When Zack slouched after her. he had finished eating he stacked She turned, saw him, began to the dishes on the floor, turned over walk faster. and thought about nothing until Zack walked faster. he was asleep. She ran. He awoke to her shaking his He ran. shoulder. Her hair fell in disor­ She reached the offices and derly flames over her eyes. "It isn't flung herself against the door, fair," she insisted. "Why are you which dissolved slowly. She looked persecuting me?" fearfully back. But Zack had He shrugged his shoulder from stepped behind a tree. She scanned her grasp. He leaned over the edge the green. She was frowning when of the bed. He put the dishes into the elevator lifted her. her hands. "Wanta put these on Zack lifted back to Headquar­ the conveyor for me?" ters green and worked with Mix Her hair flew back from her 86 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION face. She slammed the dishes to man of mine. My men don't the floor, and they made bouncing swear when addressing a superior chaos. "Put your own dishes on officer." the conveyor." "But he's moved into my apart­ "Your dishes," he said disinter­ men-t!" she cried. "He's sleeping in estedly: my bed. He's thrown my things She hurtled from the room. He out of my closets and put his in. heard the clicking of dials and You've got to do something." went to the doorway. He sighed. "It's not our place to Mix's doubtful face appeared handle private offenders." on her receiver. "You promised to She glared and spun the dials. relieve him and he's here in my Her flame of hair -leapt as she apartment sleeping in my bed and stomped to the door. ''I'm going to eating my food." Her words flamed bring the house manager." angrily until she sagged against She returned with an oily the sender. "Please," she begged. round little man. "That's him, he's Mix looked ponderous and con­ in my bed again," she crowed. cerned. "I relieved him right after The manager approached Zack you called, lady." apprehensively. HSir, the young "Then tell him!" She seized lady ..." he said delicately. Zack's arm, pulling him into range. Zack stretched and yawned. "Can you prove he's the man "No sleeping around this place," you complained about?" he growled. "I saw him! You said he was "Sir, if you will . . ." your assistant." "Women!" Zack flung himself Mix shook his ponderous head. off the bed. "Invite you in, then "He looks like my man." won't let you have five minutes "Well?" she demanded. peace." "You've got to see my position. I "I didn't!" she cried. "He was can't make positive identification here when I came. He broke in." over a viewer. You've got to bring But on the way down Zack him in." showed the little man his identitv "Bring him in!" She shoved card and badge. Then he took th~ Zack's face into her sender. "Just elevator back up. order him to leave me alone!" When he nullified the door she "How can I order him if he threw her weight against bini. He isn't mv man?" shoved her across the room before "He is your man. Aren't you?" himself, and she flopped into a "Are you?" Mix said. chair and glared. "Hell," Zack said. He searched her cabinets until Mix shook ·his head. "He's no he found several bottles. He poured ZACK WITH HIS SCAR 87 himself a drink. Then he went to people shouldn't be permitted to the bedroom, wadded the stained make their mistakes. But every spread and threw it against the Trouble Agent committed to mem­ wall. He pulled the covers to his ory that part of the manual which chest and opened a book. read, "Unconsciously the poten­ She had followed. She dropped tially disturbed citizen examines ungracefully to the foot of the bed. the world about him and finds it "I know I'm right. No matter what orderly and logical. He then turns mv counselor says. Birk is unstable a critical eye upon himself and a~d silly and excitable. Whereas finds over-emotionalism, illogic, Cordon is decisive, strong and dis­ imperfection of thought process. ciplined. I supervise twenty-two He therefore turns upon himself people at work every day, and I with unconscious scorn which will not marry a fool." manifests itself in foolish and Zack thrust his feet deeper into harmful decisions and attitudes. It the covers and nudged her from is the function of the Trouble the bed. Agent to draw· the pent-up fury of She didn't notice she sat on the the potentially disturbed citizen floor. Her voice rose and fell and upon his own head. Then, freed of finally she crawled to the side of his unconscious burden, the citi­ the bed and tried to tell Zack she zen is enabled to resume a normal had everything under control life, subject of course to frequent "Can't you see, I would be miser­ re-evaluation." able with Birk because he is ex­ Or, stated less formally: man­ citable and he giggles and I can't kind, through the development of stand silly men. I have to have a science and technology, had per­ man who is stable, like me." She fected the external world beyond was sobbing, and her hair fell over the endurance of its weaker mem­ her cheeks, wet. "Can't you see?'' bers. Zack slapped his book shut. So Zack cowered and let her "Lady, I can't listen to this crap rage. After a while she ceased all night." bombardment. He sat up. She leapt to her feet and the "Awrrr!" she cried, hurtling out hair leapt from her face. "You!" ofthe room. She seized at the table where his He leaned against the door­ drink stood and hurled drink and frame as she dialed Mix. Mix was glass at him. She spun around the very sorry but he could not help room, seizing, hurling, reviling. her. Zack sank into a chair as she Zack burrowed under the cov­ dialed the house manager. He too ers and covered his head with his was very sorry, and she screamed arms. Sometimes he wondered if and called him names. ss- FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION She stared at the empty screen, She sobbed. Then, her hair in then went to the cabinet and tatters, her eyes swollen, she took opened a bottle and tilted back the bottle and tilted it back and her head. She drank until she drank again. choked, spilling liquor down her Zack swung his legs across the dress. She dialed again. arm of the chair. "How about a Cordon Gaines' face sprang to crack at the bottle?" her receiver and before, he could She motioned to throw it at him. speak she poured her troubles to Then she said, "Very well, we him, telling him of Zack's behav­ shall be very civilized." She found ior, repeating every imprecation two glasses and filled them brim­ she had hurled at the manager. ming. "Didn't you ever have trou­ Gaines was calm, reasonable, bles?" she asked. rational. "You must be calm," he "Sure. I had troubles." said. "This is how they operate. "So tell me. What happened?" You can do nothing but-" He shrugged. "Nothing," he She gaped and rampaged said. "I took care of them myself." through a second recital of her ·"But I supervise twenty-two complaints and her opinion of ev­ people every day. Why won't you eryone involved. Then because he let me take care of my troubles looked pained at her language, she myself?" spat at him. He was shocked and He shook his head. He should intimated, stiffiy, that she was not have taken an anti-intoxication behaving like a lady. capsule but it was too late now and "A lady!" she screeched. "All he was uncomfortably sober any­ this happening and no one will way. He winced as she stumbled help, and I'm supposed to behave and caught herself. What if she like a lady?" fell on the bottle and cut her He twitched his thin lips in throat? How did he know she disapproval. "A lady, if she is a wouldn't? What right did he have lady, will remain a lady in all cir­ to meddle in her affairs? cumstances," he said. He even inti­ 'Why're we staying here?" she mated, overriding her rising said querulously. "Let's go out and shriek, that Zack knew his job and have a party. I feel like a party." would not be with her if she did "I've gotta get to bed soon." not require his help. "But where am I .going to Then her voice rose over his. sleep?" When it fell and he admonished "On the couch." again that she must conduct her­ "But it's my apartment." self like a lady, she scrambled her "I'm your guest. Guests sleep in dials and he disappeared. beds." ZACK WITH HIS SCAR 89 She frowned. Finally she said, She glared and began describing "What would you do if you were his various undesirable character~ me and I was you?" istics in cutting detail. He became "I'd call someone and have him very white and finally scrambled get rid of me." his dials, and she scrambled her "It didn't work." own. "Then I guess I'd get drunk," She stalked the floor and jabbed he said. the air with her fingernails as she She laughed and he laughed listed for Zack all the reasons she too. "You're all right," she said. could not tolerate Cordon Gaines. "I have got ·to have a party so all Then finally she said, "We'll call my friends can meet you." Birk and Birk will come because "It's late. I gotta get some Birk's a good guy even if I wouldn't sleep." consent to marry him. ' "Aw. You like parties." Zack nodded, biking his chair He grunted. again. She went to the sender and be~ She dialed Birk's number and gan dialing. She called the house wailed his name, giggling. manager but he was tactful, firm He appeared on the screen, a and regretful. She called friends bearlike young man with a hand­ and people who worked with her some glib face and black hair. but they too were tactful, firm and "Hey!" His shoulders heaved. A regretful, probably because Zack giggle shook from his hero's face. had moved to share the screen "Looka you." with her. "We're having a party and you She called Cordon Gaines and are late, Birk Van Bibber." he appeared with his face set for "You're drunk, kid." His shoul­ apologies. When she said he must ders shook. come right over, they were having "How could we have a party if a party, his lips tightened. "Go I'm not?' drink several cups of black coffee He giggled. His shoulders trem­ and put your head under the bled and shook. Then he scram­ shower. Call me back when you're bled off. sober." He was grinning and gleeful "I don't want to be sober," she when she dissolved the door for protested. "You're being stuffy." him. Then he saw Zack. "Who "If it's stuffy not to want your he?" fiancee calling drunk and dishev~ She plunked a brimming glass eled with a strange man peering into his hand and he drank, mo­ over her shoulder, then I am stuffy mentarily diverted. He snickered and I intend to remain stuffy." when some of the drink ran down 90 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION his chin. "Who dat man?" both arms, glaring. "You're not She puckered. "He's my guest." getting Birk's bottle!" she cried. "Didn't know you had a guest." Her voice followed them out, He beamed over Zack's hand. mourning the shambles Zack had "He's been my guest all day. almost made of Birk's life. Birk He's been following me and pester­ giggled happily. When they ing me· and I tried to get him to reached the lobby he escorted go away but he wouldn't." She Zack to the door and put him out pursed her lips and lat,~nched into with a playful shove. "That's for the whole story, working herself trying to ruin my whole life, into a temper. "It isn't fair. Be­ buddy." cause I've already decided not to Zack shook his head, straight­ marry Cordon. I decided without ened his suit and walked unstead­ him doing anything, and he's ily across the green. Soon the cool slept in my bed and ruined my air steadied him. bedspread and he's drinking too He was approaching the lifter much. How can we have a party if clearing when a strident voice he drinks it all?" cried, "You!" A brisk little woman Birk had been tittering and gig­ slammed her purse across his face gling. She turned on him. "What and reviled him scorchingly be­ are you giggling about?" fore trotting self-righteously away. "It's funny.' He got up and rubbed his nose "It is not funnv. It's all his back into shape and looked after fault. He made me decide to marry her, and he felt good. When he had Cordon and he caused it all and first seen her she had been dying he's been making me drink too lingeringly and horribly from a much so now I'm drunk but I'm not disease no doctor could diagnose. going to stand by and let him ruin Now she was obviously healthy. your life too. Making trouble, get­ He hardly noticed the throbbing ting people mixed up and drunk of his face as he strapped on his and making them marry the wrong pack and lifted off. It was one of man." She slammed her drink those good nights, when a case down, splashing the floor and her­ had terminated favorably, when a self. "Throw him out! I don't want former subject had slugged him to look at him! I hate him!" and meant it. He hated_ to go to his Birk clouded, ferocious and apartment and take off his scar. bearlike. 'Til do that.'' But- he So he hovered for a while, couldn't suppress the silent · gig-· watching the city glow and shim­ gling that shook his shoulders. He mer. Then he lifted down at pulled Zack out of the chair. Headquarters green and headed She sun;ounded the bottle with back to A-ssignments. ~ Introduction to Richard McKenna's HUNTER, COME HOME Some yeprs ago the Staff of The Magazine received one of those shocks-rare and pleasurable-which comes from find­ ing a treasure among the unsolicited MSS pouring in like the lavas which restlessly roll-the treasure in this case being en­ titled CASEY AGONISTES (F&SF, Sept., 1958), by Richard McKenna. Before your present editor saw the story in print he met Mac himself at the Milford (Pa.) Science Fiction Writ­ ers Conference-an experience fortunately often repeated, there and elsewhere. Richard McKenna is an Old Navy and an Old China Hand, a raconteur extraordinary, with eye­ brows (red) bigger than most moustachioes, a gentleman, a scholar, and the husband of the gentle Eva.·He.writes briefly of himself now: "Born 9 May 1913 in Mountain Home, Idaho. ~nlisted Navy 1931. First ten years in China. Retired as M AJ C in 1953 and came to Chapel Hill to attend UNC. Graduated 1956 with B.A. in Eng. Lit. Married day after I finished my last exam and began postgraduate work em how to live with female of species. Began writing 1957. This story written 1958, much worked on since. Have just finished China novel, THE SAND PEBBLES, for Harper's." The "China novel" has subsequently (a) won the !farper's Prize, (b) been selected for serialization in The Saturday Evening Post, (c) chosen by the Book of the Month Club, and (d) purchased for the movies! Coincidental note: While serving aboard the Asiatic transport USS Gold Star, McKenna first had his attention seriously drawn to literature by the late Commander Cecil Faine, father of Djinn Faine (DAUGHTER OF EVE, F&SF;-June, 1962) ... Mr. McKenna here gives us a story of epic quality-a conflict of cultures comparable to that of Athens and Sparta,, a struggle between men and men and between men and a life-form previously unknown to men, a struggle between one man and his own culture; and of one woman who-but we ' 91 have said enough ...Home is the sailor/ Home from the sea/ And the hunter home from the hill," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, in his own epitaph. It is not always Death, how­ ever, which beareth away the victory.

HUNTER, COME HOME

By Richard McKenna

ON THAT PLANET THE DAMNED unroached and except for freckles trees were immortal, the new guys his forehead was blank, because he said in disgust, so there was no had never taken the Mordin man­ wood for campfires and they had hood test. For all his gangling ·to bum pyrolene doused on raw young six-foot body, he felt like a stem fragments. Roy Craig boy among men. As the only crouched over the fire tending a blanky in a crew of red dots, he bubbling venison stew and caught caught all the menial jobs now·. It himself wishing ~ey might still was not pleasant. use the electric galley inside their They were a six-man ringwall­ flyer. But the new guys were all ing crew and they were camped red dots and they wanted flame in beside their flyer, a gray, high ·the open and of course they were sided cargo job, a safe two miles right. downslope from a big ringwall. Four of them sat across the fire All around them the bare, fluted, from Craig, talking loudly and silvery stems speared and branched loading explosive pellets. They fifty feet overhead and gave a wa­ wore blue field denims and had tery cast to the twilight. Normally roached hair and a red dot tattooed the stems and twigs would be cov­ on their foreheads. Bork Wilde, ered with two-lobed phytozoon the new field chief, stood watch­ leaves of all sizes and color pat­ ing them. He was tall and bold terns. The men and their fire had featured, with roached black hair, excited the leaves and they had and he had two red dots on his detached themselves, to hover in a forehead. Craig's reddish hair was pulsating rainbow cloud high 92 JIU::-.;TER, COME HOME 93 enough to catch the sun above the phyto did not fall off. It was a silver tracery of the upper branch­ pretty little thing. es. They piped and twittered and A patterened green and gold shed a spicy perfume. Certain dar­ phyto with wings as large as din­ ing ones dipped low above the nerplates settled on Wilde's shoul­ men. One of the pellet loaders, a der. Wilde snatched it and tore its little rat faced man named Cobb, wings with thick fingers. It whim­ hurled a flaming chunk up through pered and fluttered. Craig winced. them. "Stop it!" he said involuntarily "Shut up, you flitterbugs!" he and then, apologetically, "It can't roared. "Let a man hear himself hurt you, Mr. Wilde. It was just think!" curious." "Can you really think, Cobbo?" "Who pulled your trigger, Whelan asked. · Blanky?" Wilde asked lazily. "I "If I tltink I tltink, then I'm wish these damned bloodsucking thinking, ain't I?" butterflies could know what I'm The men laughed. The red and doing here." white fibrous root tangle under­ He turned and kicked one of foot was slowly withdrawing, un­ the weak, turgor-rigid stems and derground and to the sides, leav­ brought it crumpling down across ing bare soil around the fire. The the flyer. He threw the torn phyto new guys thought it was to escape after it and laughed, showing big the fire, but Craig remembered the horse teeth. Craig bit his lip. roots had always done that when "Chow's ready," he said. "Come the old ringwall crew used to and get it." camp without fire. By morning After cleanup it got dark, with the whole area around the fiver only one moon in the sky, and the would be bare soil. A bro~n, phytos furled their wings and many-legged crawler an inch long went to sleep on the upper branch­ pushed out of the exposed soil and es. The fire died away. The men scuttled after the retreating roots. rolled up in blankets and snored. Craig smiled at it and stirred the Craig sat there. He saw Sidis come stew. A small green and red phyto and stand looking out the doorway leaf dropped from the cloud and of the lighted main cabin. Sidis settled on his knobby wrist. He let was the Belcon-ti ecologist who it nuzzle at him. Its thin, velvety had been boss of the old ringwall wings waved slowly. A much crew. He was along on this first thickened midrib made it a kind trip with the new men only to of body with no head or visible break Wilde in as. crew chief. He appendages. Craig turned his wrist insisted on eating and sleeping in­ over and wondered idly why the side the flyer, to the scorn of the 94 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Planet Mordin red dots. His fore­ phytos. Mordin contracted with head was blank as Craig's, but Belconti biologists . to exterminate that was little comfort. Sidis was the native life, Mordin laborers from Planet Belconti, where they served under Belconti biotechs. had different customs. All were blankics; no red dots For Mordinmen, courage was would serve under the effete Bel­ the· supreme good. They were de­ contis, many of whom were wom­ scendants of a lost Earth-colony en. Using the killer plant Thana­ that had lapsed to a stone age sis, the Belcontis cleared two large technology and fought its way islands and restocked them with a back to gunpowder in ceaseless Mordin biota. One they named war against the fearsome Great Base Island and made their head­ Russel dinotheres who were the quarters. On the other they in­ dominant life-form on Planet stalled a Great Russel dinothere. ,\lordin before men came and for He flourished. a long time after. For many gener­ When I was little, they told me ations young candidates for man­ I'd kill my Great Russel on this hood went forth in a sworn band planet, Craig thought. He clasped to kill a Great Russel with spears his arms around his knees. There and arrows. \Vhen rifles came, was still only the one Great Russel they hunted him singly. The sur­ on the whole planet. vivors wore the red dot of man­ Because for thirty years the hood and fathered the next gener­ continents refused to die. The ation. Then the civilized planets phytos encysted Thanasis areas, rediscovered l\lordin. Knowledge adapted, recovered ground. Bel­ flowed in. Population exploded. conti genesmiths designed ever Suddenly there were not enough more deadly strains of Thanasis, Great Russels left alive to meet pushing it to the safe upper limit the need. Craig's family had not of its recombination index. After been able to buy him a Great Rus­ decades of dubious battle Thauasis sel hunt and he could not become began clearly losing ground. The a man. Belcontis said the attempt must be I'll have my chance yet, Craig given up. But the phyto planet thought dourly. had become the svmbol of future Ten years before Craig's birth hope to curb pres~nt social unr~st the Mordin Hunt Council found on l\lordin. The Hunt Council the phyto planet unclaimed and would not give up the fight. Mor­ set out to convert it to one great din red dots were sent to studv dinothere hunting range. The biotechnics on Belconti. The~ Earth-type Mordin biota could they came to the phyto planet to neither eat nor displace the alien do the job themselYes. HU:-;TER, COME HOME 95 Craig was already there, finish­ "You are a man. You're twenty­ ing out a two-year labor contract. four years old." Working with other blankies un­ "I'm not a man until I feel like der a Belconti boss, he had al­ one," Craig said. "I can't feel like most forgotten the pain of with­ one until I kill my Great Rus­ held manhood. He had extended sel." his contract for two more years. "I'm afraid you'd still feel out Then, a month ago, the red dots of place," Sidis said. "I've watched had come in the Mordin relief you for two years and I think you ship, to relieve both Belconti bio­ have a certain quality your own techs and the Mordin field crews. planet has no use for. So I have a The Belcontis would go home on proposition." He glanced at the their own relief ship in about a door, then back to Craig. "Declare year. Craig was left the only blanky yourself a Belconti citizen, Roy. on the planet, except for the Bel­ We'll all sponsor you. I know Mil contis, and they didn't count. Ames will find you a job on the fm already alone, he thought. staff. You can go home to Belcon­ He bowed his head on his knees tis with us." and wished he could sleep. Some­ "Great Russel!" Craig said. "I one touched his shoulder. He couldn't never do that, Mr. Sidis." looked up to see Sidis beside him. "Why couldn't you? Do you "Come inside, will you, Roy?" want to go through life as Mar­ Sidis whispered. "I want to talk to din blanky? Would you ever get a you." wife?" Craig sat down across from "Maybe. Some woman the red Sidis at the long table in the main dots passed over. She'd hate me, cabin. Sidis was a slender, dark for her bad luck." man with the gentle Belconti man­ "And you call that fair?" ners and a wry smile. "It's fair because it's natural. "I'm worried what you'll do It's natural for a woman to want these next two years," he said. "I an all-the-way man instead of a don't like the way they order you boy that just grew up." around, that nasty little Cobb in ·"Not for Belconti women. How particular. Why do you take it?" about it, Roy?" "I have to because I'm a Craig clasped his hands be­ blanky." tween his knees. He lowered his "You can't help that. If it's one head and shook it slowly. of your laws, it's not a fair law." "No. No. I couldn't. My place "It's fair because it's natural," is, here, fighting for a time when no Criag said. "I don't like not being kid has to grow up cheated, a man, but that's just how it is." like I been." He raised his head. 96 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "Besides, no .Mordinman ever runs how to make could handle. Then away from a fight." it would kill us and rule the planet Sidis smiled. "This fight is al­ itself." ready lost." "That's what happened on Plan­ "Not the way Mr. Wilde talks. et Froy, isn't it?" In the labs at Base Camp they're ''Yes. That's what you risk. And going to use a trans-something, I you can't win. So come to Belcon­ hear." ti with us." "Translocator in the gene ma­ Craig stood up. "I almost wish trix," Sidis said. His face shad­ you didn't tell me that, about the owed. "I guarantee they won't do danger," he said. "Now I can't it while Mil Ames runs the labs. think about leaving." After we go, they'll probably kill Sidis leaned back and spread themselves in a year." He looked his fingers on the table. "Talk to sharply at Craig. "I hadn't meant Midori Blake before you say no for to tell you that, but it's one reason sure," he said. "I know she's fond I hope you'll leave with us." of you, Roy. I thought you rather "How kill ourselves?" liked her." "\Vith an outlaw free-system." "I do like to be around her," Craig shook his head. Sidis Craig said. "I liked it when you looked thoughtful. used to go there, 'stead of camping "Look, you know how the phyto in the field. I wish we did now." stems are all rooted together un­ "I'll try to persuade Wilde. derground like one huge plant," he Think it over, will you?" said. ''Thanasis pumps self-dupli­ "I can't think," Craig said. "I cating enzyme systems into them, don't know what I feel." He turned trying to predigest the whole con­ to the door. "I'm going out and tinent. In the labs we design those walk and try to think." free-systems. They can digest a "Goodnight, Roy." Sidis reached man, too, and that's what you get for a book. inoculated against each time we design a new one. \Ve also design The second moon was just ris­ a specific control virus able to kill ing. Craig walked through a jun­ off each new strain of Thanasis. gle of ghostly silver stems. Phytos Well, then." He steepled his fin­ clinging to them piped sleepily, gers. "\Vith translocation, Thana­ disturbed by his passage. I'm too sis can redesign its own free-sys­ ignorant to be a Belconti, he tems in the field, you might say. It thought. He was nearing the ring­ could come up with something wall. Stems grew more thickly, impossible to immunize, some­ became harder, fused at last into a thing no control virus we know sloping, ninety-foot dam. Craig HUSTER, COME HO~lE 97 climbed halfway up and stopped. even waist-high shrubs could eat a It was foolhardy to go higher with­ man in a week. out a protective suit. Thanasis was I'm not afraid, Craig thought. on the other side. Its free-systems He sat down and took off his boots diffused hundreds of feet, even in and let his bare feet dangle above still air. The phyto stems were all the Thanasis. 1\fidori Blake and all rooted together like one big plant the Belcontis would think this was and Thanasis ate into it like a crazy. They didn't understand sickness. The stems formed ring­ about courage-all they had was walls around stands of Thanasis, brains. He liked them anyway, to stop its sp.read and force it to Midori most of all. He thought poison itself. Craig climbed a few about her as he gazed off across the feet higher. dark Thanasis. The whole conti­ Sure I'm big enough to whip nent would have to be like that, Cobb, he thought. Whip any of first. Then they'd kill off Thanasis them, except Mr. Wilde. But he with a control virus and plant knew that in a quarrel his knees grass and real trees and bring would turn to water and his voice birds and animals and it would squeak off to nothing, because all be like Base and Russel Islands they were men and he was not. were now. Sidis was wrong. That "Just the same, I'm not a cow­ trans-stuff would do it. He'd stay ard," he said aloud. and help and earn the rest of the He climbed to the top. Thana­ money he needed. He felt better, sis stretched off in a sea of black­ with his mind made up. Then he ness beneath the moons. Just be­ felt a gentle tug at his left ankle. low he could see the o·utiine of Fierce, sudden pain stabbed his narrow, pointed leaves furred with ankle. He jerked his leg up. The stinging hairs and beaded with tendril broke and came with it, poison meant to be rainwashed still squirming and stinging. Craig into the roots of downslope prey. whistled and swore as he scraped The ringwall impounded the poi­ it off with a boot heel, careful not soned water. This stand of Thana­ to let it touch his hands. Then he sis was drowning in it and it was pulled on his right boot and hur­ desperate. He saw the tendrils ried back to camp for treatment. groping the flinty ringwall sur­ He carried his left boot, be­ face, hungry to ~elease free-sys­ cause he knew how fast his ankle tems into enemy tissue and follow would swell. He reached camp after to suck and absorb. They felt with his left leg one screaming his warmth and wav:ed feebly at ache. Sidis was stiU up. He neu­ him. ·This below him was the tralized __ the poison, gave Craig a woody, climbing form. They said sedative and made him turn into 98 FANTASY ASD SCIENCE FICTION one of the bunks inside the flyer. He snapped a red cloth to his He did not ask questions. He auger shaft and waved it high and looked down at Craig with his wry the flyer slanted down to pick him smile. up. Sidis was at the controls. "You Mordinmen," he said, and "You're the first to finish," he shook his head. said. "I don't see why you're even The Belcontis \Vere always say­ alive. Go and lie down now." ing that. "I'll take the controls," Craig said. "I feel good." In the morning Cobb sneered "I guess you're proving some­ :md Wilde was furious. thing," Sidis smiled. "All right." "If you're shooting for a week He gave Craig the controls and on the sick list, aim again," Wilde went aft. Driving the flyer was one said. "I'll give you two days." of the menial jobs that Craig "He needs two weeks," Sidis liked. He liked being alone in the said. 'Til do his work." little control cabin, with its two ''I'll work," Craig said. "It don't seats and windows all around. He hurt so much I can't work." lifted to a thousand feet and "Take today off," Wilde said, glanced along the ringwall, curv­ mollified. ing out of sight in both directions. "I'll work today," Craig said. The pent sea of Thanasis was dark ''I'm all right." green by daylight. The phyto area It was a tortured day under the outside the ringwall gleamed sil­ hot yellow sun, with his foot very, with an overplay of shifting wrapped in sack~ and stabbing colors, and it was very beautiful. pain up his spine with every step. Far and high in the north he saw a Craig drove his power auger deep colored cloud among the fleecy into basal ringwall tissue and the ones. It was a mass of migratory aromatic, red-purple sap gushed phytos drifting in the wind. It was out and soaked his feet. Then he beautiful too. pushed in the explosive pellet, "They're very fast at transfer­ shouldered his rig and paced off ring substance to grow or repair the next position. Over and over the ringwalls," he heard Sidis tell­ he did it, like a machine, not ing \Vilde back in the main cabin. stopping to eat his lunch, ignor­ "You'll notice the biomass down­ ing the phytos that clung to his slope is less dense. When you re­ neck and hands. He meant to fin­ lease that poisoned water from ish his arc before the others, if it inside the ringwall you get a killed him. But when he finished shock effect and Thanasis follows and had time to think about it, his up fast. But a new ringwall al­ foot felt better than it had all day. ways forms." HUNTER, COME HO.ME 99 "Next time through I'll blow day, men. Sidis, where's a good .fifty-mile arcs," Wilde said. place to camp?" Craig slanted down to pick up "We're only an hour from Bur­ Jordan. He was a stocky, sandy­ ton Island," Sidis said. "I used to haired man about Craig's age. He stop at the taxonomy station there scrambled aboard grinning. every night, when we worked this "Beat us again, hey, Craig?" he area." said. "That took guts, boy! You're "Probably why you never got all right!" anywhere, too," Wilde said. "But I "I got two years practise on you \•.-ant a look at that island. The guys," Craig said. ' Huntsman's got plans for it." , The praise made him feel good. He shouted orders up to Craig. It was the first time Jordan hac.l Craig lifted to ten miles and called him by name instead of headed southeast at full throttle. "Blanky." He lifted the flyer again. A purplish sea rolled above the Jordan sat down in the spare seat. silvery horizon. Far on the sea "How's the foot?" he asked. rim beaded islands climbed to "Pretty good. I might get my view. It had been a good day, boot on, unlaced," Craig said. Craig thought. Jordan seemed to · "Don't try. I'll take camp chores want to be friends. And now at long tonight," Jordan said. "You rest. last he was going to see Midori that foot, Craig." Blake again. "There's Whelan signaling," Craig said. He grounded the flyer on He felt himself blushing lvith slagged earth near the familiar pleasure as he sian ted down to gray stone buildings on the eastern pick up Whelan. Jordan went aft. headland. The men got out and When Rice and Cobb had been George and Helen Toyama, smil­ picked up, Craig hovered the flyer ing and gray-haired in lab smocks, at two miles and Wilde pulsed off came to welcome tl1em. Craig's the explosive. Twenty miles of liv­ left boot was tight and it hurt, but ing ringwall tissue fountained in he could wear it unlaced. Helen dust and flame. Phytos rising in told him Midori was painting in terrified, chromatic clouds marked the gorge. He limped down the the rolling shock wave. Behind it gorge path, past Midori's small the silvery plain darkened with -house and the Tovama home on the sheet flow of poisoned water. the cliff edge at left. Midori and "Hah! Go it, Tha.nasisl" Wilde the Toyamas-were the only people shouted. "I swear to billlets, that's on Burton Island. The island was a pretty sight down there!" He a phyto research sanctuary and it sighed. "Well, that makes it a had never been touched bv Thana- 100 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION sis. It was the only place other "Your foot!" she said. "Come than Base Camp where humans over here and sit down." She lived permanently. tugged him to a seat on the boulder. The gorge was Midori's special "What happened?" place. She painted it over and "Touch of Thanasis. It's noth­ over, never satisfied. Craig knew ing much." it well, the quartz ledge, the cas­ "Take off your boot! You don't cading waterfall and pool, the want pressure on it!" phytos dancing in sunlight that She helped him take the boot off the silvery stem forest changed to and ran cool fingertips over the the quality of strong moonlight. red, swollen ankle. Then she sat Midori said it was the peculiar beside him. light that she could never cap­ "I know it hurts you. How did ture. Craig liked watching her it happen?" paint, most of all when she forgot "I was kind of unhappy," he him and sang to _herself. She was said. "I went and sat on a ring­ clean and apart and beautiful and wall and let my bare feet hang it was just good to be in the same over." world with her. Through the plash "Foolish Roy. Why were you of the waterfall and the phyto pip­ unhappy?" ing Craig heard her singing be­ "Oh . . . things." Several fore he came upon her, standing brilliant phytos settled on his before her easel beside a quartz bare ankle. He let them stay. 'We boulder. She heard him and turned got to sleep in the field now, and smiled warmly.- 'stead of coming here. The new "Roy! I'm so glad to see you!" guys are all red dots. I'm just a she said. "I was afraid you'd gone nothing again and-" home after all." "You mean they think they're She was small and dainty un­ better than you?" der her gray dress, with large "They are better, and that's black eyes and delicate features. what hurts. Killing a Great Russel Her dark hair snugged boyishly is a kind of spirit thing, Midori." close to her head. Her voice had a He scuffed his right foot. "I'll see natural, birdlike quality and she the day when this planet has moved and gestured with the enough Great Russels so no kid has quick grace of a singing bird. to grow up cheated." Craig grinned happily. "The phytos are not going to "For a while I almost wished I die," she said softly. "It's very did," he said. "Now I'm glad clear now. We're defeated." again I didn't." He limped toward "You Belcontis are. Mardin­ her. men never give up." iWI'TER, CO.ME HOME 101 "Thanasis is defeated. Will you with valved peristalsis. A stem shoot phytos with rifles?" plus attached phytos made a kind "Please don't joke about rifles. of organism. We're going to use trans-some­ "But any phyto, Roy, can live thing on Thanasis." with any stem, and they're forever "Translocation? Oh, no!" She shifting. Everything is part of ev­ raised her fingers to her lips. "It erything," she said. "Our job here can't be controlled for field use," on Burton Island is to classify the she said. "They wouldn't dare!" phytos, and we just can't do it! "Mordinmen dare anything," They vary continuously along ev­ he said proudly. "These guys all ery dimension we choose, physi­ studied on Belconti, they know cal or chemical, and kind simply how. That's another thing... ," has no meaning." She sighed. He scuffed his foot again. Phy­ "That's the most wonderful thing tos were on both Their heads and I know about them. Will that shoulders now and all over his help you?" bared ankle. They twittered faint­ "I don't get all that. That's what ly. I mean, I'm ignorant," he said. "What, Roy?" "Tell me some one simple thing I "They make me feel ignorant. can use to make the guys take no­ Here I been ringwalling for two tice of me." years, and they already know "All right, tell them this," she more about phytos than I do. I said. "Phyto color patterns are want you to tell me something plastid systems that synthesize about phytos that I can use to different molecules. The way they make the guys notice me. Like, can recombine parts to form new can phytos feel?" organisms, without waiting for She held her hand to her cheek, evolution, gives them a humanly silent for a moment. inconceivable biochemical range. "Phytos are strange and won­ Whatever new poison or free-sys­ derful and I love them," she said tem we design for Tha_nasis, some­ sofdy. "They're mixed plant and where by sheer chance they hit on animal. Life never split itself a counter-substance. The knowl­ apart on this planet." edge spreads faster each time. The flying phytozoons, she ex­ That's why Thanasis is defeated." plained, functioned. as leaves for "No! Don't keep saying that, the vegetative stems. But the Midori!" Craig protested. "This stems, too, had internal tempera­ here translocation, now-" ture control. The continental net­ "Not even that!" Her voice was work of great conduit roots moved sharp. "The phytos have unlim­ fluids anywhere in any quanity ited translocation and any num- 102 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION her of sexes. Collectively, I don't She swished and splashed doubt they're the mightiest bio­ brushes, but she didn't pull her chemical lab in the galaxy. They shoulder away from his hand. form a kind of biochemical intel­ Craig thought about what she had ligence, almost a mind, and it's said. learning faster than we are." She "Why is it you never see a dead shook his arm with both her small phyto? Why is it there ain't enough hands. "Yes, tell them, make them dead wood on a whole continent understand," she said. "Human in­ to make one camp fire?" he asked. telligence is defeated here. Now "What eats 'em? What keeps 'em you will try human ferocity. . • • down?" oh, Roy ...." She laughed and turned back to "Say it," he said bitterly. "You him, making his arm slide across Belcontis think all Mordinmen are her shoulders. He barely let it stupid. You sound almost like you touch her. want us to lose." "They eat themselves internally. She turned away and began We call it resorption," she said. cleaning her brushes. It was near­ "They can grow themselves again ly dark and the phytos were going in another place and form, as a to rest on the stems overhead. ringwall, for instance. Roy, this Craig sat miserably silent, re­ planet has never known death or membering the feel of her hands decay. Everything is resorbed and on his arm. Then she spoke. Her reconstituted. We trv to kill it and voice was soft again. it suffers but its-y~s, its mind­ "I don't know. If. you wanted can't form the idea of death. homes and farms here . . . but There's no way to think death you want only the ritual deaths of biochemically." man and dinothere ...." "Oh bullets, Midori! Phytos "Maybe people's souls get put can't think," he said. "I wonder, together different ways on differ­ can they even feel?" ent planets," Craig said. "I know "Yes, they feel!" She rose to her there's a piece missing out of mine. feet, throwing off his arm. "Their I know what it is." He put his piping is a cry of pain," she said. hand lightly on her" shoulder. "Papa Toyama can remember "Some holidays I fly down to Rus­ when the planet was almost si­ sel Island just to look at the Great lent. Since he's been here, twenty Russel there, and then I know. I years, their temperature has risen wish I could take you to see him. twelve degrees, their metabolic He'd make you understand." rate and speed of neural impulse "I understand. I just don't doubled, chronaxy halved-" . agree." Craig stood up too and raised HUNTER, COME HOME 103 his hands. "Hold your fire, Mi­ "Craig! Ho Craig!" dori," he pleaded. "You know I "Craig aye!" don't know all them words. You're "Come a-running!" Jordan mad at me." It was too dark to see yelled. "Bork's raising hell cause her face plainly. you ain't loading pellets. I saved "I think I'm just afraid," she chow for you." said. "I'm afraid of what we've been doing that we don't know The rest of #te field period was about." much better. Jordan took his turn "The piping always makes me on camp chores and joked Rice feel sad, kind of.'' Craig said. "I and Whelan into doing the same. never would hurt a phyto. But Only Wilde and Cobb still called Great Russel, when you think Craig "Blanky." Craig felt good about whole continents hurting about things. Jordan sat beside and crying, day and night for him in the control cabin as Craig years-you scare me too, Midori." brought the flyer home to Base Is­ She began packing her painting land. Russel Island loomed blue kit. Craig pulled on his boot. It to the south and the Main Conti­ laced up easily, without any pain. nent coast range toothed the east­ "We'll go to my house. I'll em sea rim. make our supper," she said. "Home again. Beer and the They had used to do that some­ range, eh, Craig?" Jordan said. times. Those were the best times. "We'll get in some hunting, may­ He took the kit and walked beside be." her, hardly limping at all. They "Hope so.'' Craig said. started up the cliff path. Base Island looked good. It was "Why did you stay on past your four thousand square miles of contract, if .the work makes you savanna and rolling hills with sad?" she asked suddenly. stands of young oak and beech. It "Two more years and I'll have teemed with. game animals and enough saved to buy me a Great birds transplanted from Mordin. Russel hunt back on Mordin," he On its northern tip buildings and said. "I guess you think that's a fields made the rectilinear pat­ pretty silly . reason." tern of man. Sunlight gleamed on "Not at all. I thought you square miles of Thanasis green­ might have an even sillier rea- houses behind theiJ: ionic stock­ son." ____ _ ades. Base Island was a promise of He fumbled for a remark, not the planet's future, when Thanasis understanding her sudden chill. would have killed off the phytos Then Jordan's voice bawled from and been killed in its tum and the above. wholesome life of Planet .Mordin 104 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTIO:N replaced them both. Base Island Jealous, scared we'll show 'em was home. up, the Mardin lab men laughed. They were the first ringwalling And so we will, by the bones of team to come in. Wilde reported Great Russel! twelve hundred miles of ringwall Craig saw Miss Ames several destroyed, fifty percent better than times around the labs. She was a the old Belconti average. Barim, tall, slender woman and now she the Chief Huntsman, congratulated looked pinch-mouthed and un­ them. He was a burly, deep- happy. She made Sidis a lab ob­ voiced man with roached gray server. He would not ringwall any hair and four red dots on his fore- more. Craig thought about what head. It was the first time Craig Midori had told him. He particu­ had ever shaken hands with a man larly liked that notion of resorp­ who had killed four Great Rus- tion and waited for his chance to sels. Barim rewarded the crew spring it at the mess table. It came with a week on food hunting de- one morning at breakfast. Wilde's tail. Jordan teamed up with Craig. crew shared a table with lab men Craig shot twenty deer and twelve in the raftered, stone-floored mess pigs and scores of game birds. His hall. It was always a clamor of bag was better than Cobb's. Jordan voices and rattling mess gear. joked at Cobb about it, and it Craig sat between Cobb and Jar­ made the sparrowy little man very dan and across from a squat, bald angry. headed lab man named Joe Breen. The new men had brought a Joe brought up the subject of ring­ roaring, jovial atmGsphere to Base walls. Craig saw his chance. Camp that Craig rather liked. He "Them ringwalls, how they picked up camp gossip. Barim make 'em," he said. "They eat had ordered immediate produc- themselves and grow themselves tion of translocator pollen. Mil- again. It's called resorption." dred Ames, the Belconti Chief "They're resorbing sons of guns, Biologist, had refused. But the ain't they?" Joe said. "How do you labs were Mardin property. Barim like the way they mate?" ordered his own men to work on it. Wilde shouted from the head of Miss Ames raised shrill hell. the table. "That way's not for me!" Barim barred all Belcontis from "What do they mean?" the labs. Miss Ames counter- Craig whispered it to Jordon. attacked, rapier against bludgeon, Cobb heard him. and got her staff back into the "Blanky wants to know the facts labs. They were to observe only, · of life," Cobb said loudly. "Who'll for science and the record. It had tell him?" been very lively, Craig gathered. "Who but old Papa Bork?" HUNTER, COME HOME 105 Wilde shouted. "Here's what they "These Belconti women think do, Blanky. When a flitterbug gets Mordinmen are crude," Joe said. that funny feeling it ~ounds up "You'll just have to save it up for from one to a dozen others. They Mordin." clump on a stem and get resorbed "There's a pretty little target into one of them pinkish swell­ lives alone on Burton Island," ings you're all the time seeing. Wilde said. After a while it splits and a mess "Yeah! Blanky knows her," of crawlers falls out. Get it?" Cobb said. "Can she be had, They were all grinning. Craig Blanky?" blushed and shook his head. "No!" Craig clamped his big "They crawl off and plant hand around his coffee cup. "She's themselves and each one grows funny, quiet, keeps to herself a into a phytogenous stem," Jordan lot," he said. "But she's decent said. "For a year it buds off new and gOQd." phytos like mad. Then it turns "Maybe Blanky never tried," into a vegetative stem." Cobb said. He winked at Joe. "Hell, I seen plenty crawlers," "Sometimes all you have to do is Craig said. "I just didn't know ask them quiet ones." they were seeds." "I'm the guy that'll ask, giYe "Know how to tell the boy me the chance!" Wilde shouted. crawlers from the girl crawlers, "Old Bork'll come at her with Blanky?" Cobb asked. Joe Breen them two red dots a-shining and laughed. she'll fall back into loading posi­ "Lay off, Cobb," Jordan said. tion slick as gun oil," Joe said. "You don't tell ·their sex, you "Yeah, and he'll find out old count it," he told Craig. "They got One-dot Cobb done nipped in one pair of legs for each parent." there ahead of him!" Cobb "Hey, you know, that's good!" whooped. Wilde said. "Maybe a dozen sexes, The work horn blared. The men each one tearing a piece off all the stood up in a clatter of scraping others in one operation. That's feet and chairs. good, all right!" "You go on brewhouse duty un­ "Once in a lifetime, it better be til Monday," Wilde told Craig. good," Joe said. "But Great Rus­ "Then we start a new field job." sel, talk about polyploidy and Craig wished they were back in multihybrids-wish we could the field already. He felt a sudden breed Thanasis that way." dislike of Base Camp. ''I'll breed my own way," Wilde said. "Just you give me the The new job was dusting trans­ chance." locator pollen over the many lOG FANTASY A:-iD SCIENCE FICTIOX North Continent areas where, told her about spreading transloca­ seen from the air, silver streaking tor pollen. A phyto settled on into dark green signaled phyto in­ Craig's shoulder and he tried to filtration of old-strain Thanasis. change the subject. The flowerless killers were wind "What makes 'em do that?" he pollinated, with the sexes on sepa­ asked. "The guys think they suck rate plants. Old ringwall scars blood, but they never leave no made an overlapping pattern across mark on me.'1 half the continent, more often than "They take fluid samples, but so not covered by silvery, iridescent tiny you can't feel it." stands of pure phyto growth where He shook the phyto off his Thauasis had once ravaged. Wilde hand. "Do they really?" charted new ringwalls to be blown "Tiny, tiny samples. They're the next time out. It was hot, curious about us.'' sweaty work 1n the black protective "Just tasting of us, huh?" He suits and helmets. They stayed con­ frowned. "If they can eat us, how taminated and ate canned rations come us and pigs and dinotheres and forgot about campfires. After can't eat them?" two weeks their pollen cargo was "Foolish Roy! They don't eat used up and they landed at Burton us!" She stamped a bare foot. Island. They spent half a day de­ "They want to understand us, but contaminating. As soon as he the only symbols they have are· could, Craig broke away and hur­ atoms and groups and radicals ried clown the gorge path. and so on.'' She laughed. "Some~ He found Mid.ori by the pool. times I wonder what they do She had been bathing. Her yellow think of us. Maybe they think print dress molded damply to her we're giant seeds. Maybe they rounded figure and her hair still think we're each a single, terribly dripped. What if I'd come a few complicated molecule.'' She minutes earlier, Craig could not brushed her lips against a smalJ help thinking. He remembered scarlet and silver phyto on her Cobb's raucous voice: sometimes wrist and it shifted to her cheek. all vou have to do is ask them "This is just their way of trying quiet ones. He shook his head. No. to live with us," she said. No. "Just the same, it's what we "Hello, Midori," he said. call eating.'' Small phytos, patterned curi­ "They eat only water and sun­ ously in gold and scarlet and shine. They can't conceive of life green, clung to her bare arms and that preys on life.'' She stamped shoulders. She was glad to see her foot again. "Eating! Oh, Roy! him. She smiled sadly when he It's more like a kiss!" HUNTER, COME HOME 107 Craig wished he were a phyto, telling each other. Papa Toyama to touch her smooth arms and kept on his feet, pouring .the hot shoulders and her firm cheek. He wine. He looked thin and old and inhaled deeply. fragile. Craig kept his eye on Mi­ "I know a better kind of kiss," dori. Wilde was getting red faced he said. and loud and he wouldn't keep "Do you, Roy?" She dropped his hands off Midori. He gulped her eyes. bowl after bowl of wine. Suddenly "Yes, I do," he said unsteadily. he stood up. Needles prickled his sweating "Hey, a toast!" he shouted. "On hands that felt as big as baskets. your feet, men! Guns up for pretty "Midori, I . . • someday I • • ." little Midori!" "Yes, Roy?" They stood and drank. Wilde "Ho the camp!" roared a voice broke his bowl with his hands. He from up the path. put one fragment in his pocket It was Wilde, striding along, and handed another to Midori. grinning with his horse teeth. She shook her head, refusing it. "Pop Toyama's .throwing us a Wilde grinned. party, come along," he said. He "We'll see a 'lot of you folks, looked closely at Midori and whis­ soon," he said. "Meant to tell you. tled. "Hey there, pretty little Mi­ Barim's moving you in to Base dori, you look good enough to Camp. Our lab men will fly over eat," he said. next week to pick out what they "Thank you, Mr. Wilde." The can use of your gear." small voice was cold. Papa Toyama's lined, gentle On the way up the path Wilde face paled. "We have always un­ told Midori, "I learned the Tanko derstood that Burton Island would dance on Belconti. I told Pop if remain a sanctuary for the study he'd play, you and I'd dance it for of phytos," he said. him, after we eat." "It was never a Mordin under­ "I don't feel at all like danc­ standing, Pop." ing," Midori said. Toyama looked helplessly from Wilde and Cobb flanked Mi­ Midori to Helen. "How much time dori at the dinner table and vied have we to close out our projects?" in paying rough court to her after­ he asked. ward in the small sitting room. Wilde shrugged. "Say a month, Craig talked to Helen Toyama in if you need that long." a corner. She was a plump, placid "We do, and more." Anger woman and she pretended not to touched the old man's voice. "Why hear the rough hunting stories can't we at least stay here until the Jordan, Rice and Whelan were Belconti relief ship comes?" 108 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "This has been our home for sel patterns and beaten Jordan by twenty years," Helen said softly. ten points. Barim had chanced by, "I'll ask the Huntsman to give slapped Craig's shoulder, and you all the time he can," Wilde called him "stout rifle." Craig said more gently. "But as soon as glowed at the memory. He saw he pulls a harvest of pure-line Jordan coming with the payoff translocator seed out of the forc­ beer, threading between crowded, ing chambers, he wants to seed noisy tables and the fire- pit where this island. We figure to get a the pig carcass turned. Round face maximum effect in virgin terri- beaming, Jordan set four bottles on tory." _ the rough plank table. Papa Toyama blinked and nod­ "Drink up, hunter!" he said. ded. "More wine?" he asked, look­ "Boy, today you earned it!" "ing ~round the room. Craig grinned back at him and When Wilde and Midori took a Ion~ drink. "My brain was danced, Papa Toyama's music ice," he said. "It wasn't like me sounded strange to Craig. It sound­ doing it." - ed sad as the piping of phytos. Jordan drank and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. These translocator hybrids were "That's how it takes you when it's sure deathific, the lab men chor­ for real," he said. "You turn into tled. Their free-systems had high one big rifle." thermal stability; that would get "What's it like, Jordan? What's around the sneaky phyto trick of it really like, then?" running a fever. Their recombina­ "Nobody can ever say." Jordan tion index was fantastic. There looked upward into the smoke. would be a time lag in gross effect, "You don't eat for two days, they of course. Phyto infiltration of old­ take you through the hunt cere­ strain Thanasis areas was still ac­ monies, you get to feeling light celerating. Belconti bastards headed and funny, like you don't should've started translocation have a name or a family any more. years ago, the lab men grumbled. Then. . . ." His nostrils flared Scared, making their jobs last, and he clenched his fists. "Then wanted this planet for themselves. . . . well, for me . . . there was But wait. Just wait. Great Russel coming at me, get­ Craig and Jordan became good ting bigger and bigger . . . fill­ friends. One afternoon Craig sat ing the whole world . . . just waiting for Jordan at a table in the him and me in the world." Jor­ cavernous, smoky beer hall. On dan's face paled and he closed his the rifle range an hour earlier he eyes. "That's the moment! Oh, oh had fired three perfect Great Rus- oh, that's the moment!" He sighed, HUNTER, COME HOME 109 then looked solemnly at Craig. "I "We know Sidis, he's an old fired the pattern like it was some­ ringwaller himself," Jordan said. body else, the way you just said. "Hi, Sidis. You're getting fat." Three sided and I felt it hit wide, "Hello, Jordan, Roy," Sidis said. but I picked it up with a spare." "Don't see you around much." Craig's heart thudded. He He and Joe sat down. Joe un­ leaned forward. "Were vou scared capped bottles. then, even the least littie bit?" "Welre in the field most all the "You ain't sacred then, because time now," Craig said. you're Great Russel himself." Jor­ ''You'll be out more, soon as we dan leaned forward too, whisper­ pull the pure-line translocater ing. 'you feel your own shots hit seed," Joe said. "We almost got it. you, Craig, and you know you Sidis has kittens every day." can't never be scared again. It's "You grow 'em, we'll plant 'em, like a holy dance you and Great eh Craig?" Jordan said. "Sidis, Russel been practicing for a mil­ why don't you get off Joe's neck lion years. After that, somewhere and come ringwalling again?" inside you, you never stop doing "Too much to learn here in the that dance until you die." Jordan labs," Sidis said. "We're all going sighed again, leaned back and to make our reputations out of reached for his bottle. this, if Joe and his pals don't kill "I dream about it lots," Craig us before we can publish." said. His hands were shaking. "I "Damn the labs; give me the wake up scared and sweating. field. Right, Craig?" Well, anyway, I mailed my appli­ "Right. It's clean and good out cation to the Hunt College by the with the phytos," Craig said. ship you came here on." "This resorption they got, it does ''You'll gun through, Craig. Did away with things being dirty and you hear the Huntsman call you rotten and dead-' 'stout rifle'?" "\Veil, arrow my guts!" Joe "Yeah, like from a long way thumped down his bottle. "Beer off." Craig grinned happily. must make you poetical, Blanky," "Move your fat rump, Jordan," he snorted. "\Vhat you really mean a jovial voice shouted. is, they eat their own dead and It was Joe Breen, the bald, squat their own dung. Now make a poem lab man. He had six bottles out of that!" clasped in his hairy arms. Sidis Craig felt the familiar helpless came behind him. Joe put down anger. "With them everything is his bottles. alive all the time without stop­ "This is Sidis, my Belconti see­ ping," he said. "All you can say ing eye," he said. they eat is water and sunshine." 110 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION "They eat water and fart he­ ings lay strapped together beside lium," Joe said. "I been reading crates of books and clothing. She some old reports. Some old-timer smiled at him, but she looked tired name of Toyama thought they and .sad. could catalyze hydrogen fusion." "It's hard, Roy. I don't want to "They do. That's established," leave here," she said. "I can't bear Sidis said. "They can grow at night to think of what you're going to do and underground and in 1he win­ to this island." ter. When you stop to think about "I never think about what we it, they're pretty wonderful." do, except that it just has to be," "Damn if you ain't a poet too," he said. "Can I help you pack?" Joe said. "All you Belcontis are ''I'm finished. We've worked for poets." days, packing. And now Barim "We're not, but I wish we had won't give us transportation for more poets," Sidis said. "Roy, you our cases of specimens." She haven't forgotten what I told you looked ready to cry. "Papa Toy­ once?" ama's heart is broken," she said. "I ain't a poet," Craig said. "I Craig bit his lip. "Heck, we can can't rhyme nothing." carry fifty tons," he said. "We got "Craig's all right. Barim called the room. Why don't I ask Mr. him 'stout rifle' on the range this Wilde to take 'em anyway?" afternoon," Jordan said. He want­ She grasped his arm and looked ed to change the subject. "Joe, that up at him. "Would you, Roy? I old guy Toyama, he's still here~ . . . don't want to ask him a Out on Burton Island. We got or­ favor. The cases are stacked out­ ders to move him in to Base Camp side the lab building." on our next field trip." Craig found his chance after "Great Russel, he must've been supper at the Toyamas. Wilde left here twenty years!" Joe said. off paying court to Midori and "How's he ever stood it?" carried his wjne bowl outside. "Got his wife along," Jordan Craig followed and asked him. said. "Craig here is going on three Wilde was looking up at the sky. years. He's standing it." Both moons rode high in a clear "He's turning into a damned field of stars. poet," Joe said. "Blanky, you better "What's in the cases, did you go home for sure on the next relief say?" Wilde asked. ship, while you're still a kind of a "Specimens, slides and stuff. man." It's kind of like art ·to 'em." "All ours now. I'm supposed to Craig found Midori alone in her destroy it," Wilde said. "Oh, belli house. It looked bare. Her paint- All right, if you want to strong- HUNTER, COME HOME 111 back the stuff aboard." He chuck­ With high good humor he even led. "I about got Midori talked helped his crew deliver the bag­ into taking one last walk down to gage to Belconti quarters. Craig that pool of hers. I'll tell her had no chance to speak to Midori. you're loadirig the cases." He He was not sure he wanted a nudged Craig. "Might help, huh?" chance. That afternoon Cobb out­ When he had the eighty-odd gunned Craig badly. Jordan tried cases stowed and lashed, Craig to console him, but Craig drank lifted the flyer to a hundred feet himself sodden. He woke the next to test his trim. Through his side morning to Jordan's insistent window he saw Wilde and Midori shaking. come out of the Toyama house and "Wake up, damn it! We're going disappear together down the gorge out again, right away!" Jordan path. Wilde had his arm across said. "Don't let Bork catch you her shoulders. Craig grounded and sleeping late. Something went went back, but he could not rejoin wrong for him last night over in the party. For an hour he paced Belconti quarters, and he's mad as outside in dull, aching anger. a split snake." . Then his crewmates came out, Still dizzy and sick four hours arguing noisily. later, and wearing his black pro "Ho Craig! Where been, boy?" suit, Craig grounded · the flyer Jordan slapped his shoulder. "I again at Burton Island.They had just bet Cobb you could outgun a cargo of pure-line translocater him tomorrow, like you did me. seed. The men got out. Wilde wore We'll stick old Cobbo for the beer, a black frown. eh, boy?" "Jordan and Blanky, you seed "Like hell," Cobb said. that gorge path all the way to the "Like shooting birds in a cage," waterfall," he ordered. Jordan said. "Come along, Craig. "I thought we picked high, sun­ Get some sleep. You got to be right ny places," Jordan objected. "It's tomorrow." shadv down there." "I ain't sleepy," Craig said. "S~ed it, I told you!" Wilde "Bet old Bork's shooting himself bared his horse teeth. "Come on, a cage bird about now," Cobb said. Rice, Cobb, Whelan! Get going They all laughed except Craig. around these buildings!" When they had finished the On the trip to Base Camp next seeding, Jordan and Craig rested morning Craig, at the controls, briefly on the quartz boulder near heard Wilde singing hunt songs the pool. For the first time, Craig and making jokes back in the main let himself look around. Phytos cabin. He seemed to be still drunk. danced piping above their heads. 112 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION The stems marching up the steep "You look pretty in that dress, slopes transmuted the golden sun like a phyto," he said. glare to a strong, silvery moon­ She smiled faintly. "My poor light. It sparkled on the quartz phytos. How I miss them," she ledge and the cascading water. said. "Where are we going, Roy?" "Say, it's pretty down here," "Russel Island, down ahead Jordan said. "Kind of twangs your there. I want you to see Great Rus­ string, don't it? It'll make a nice sel." hunting camp someday." "I want to see him," she said. A "Let's go up," Craig said. moment later she cried out and "They'll be waiting." grasped his arm. "Look at !hat color Lifting out of the field at sun­ in the sky! Over to the right!" set, Craig looked down at the de­ It was a patch of softly twin­ serted station from his side win­ kling, shifting colors far off and dow. Midori's house looked small high in the otherwise cloudless and forlorn and accusing. sky. "Migratory phytos," he said. At Base Camp six men died of "\Ve see 'em all the ·time." a mutant free-system before the "I know. Let's go up close. immunizer could be synthesized. Please, Roy." An escaped control virus wiped He arrowed the flyer toward the out a translocator seed crop and green-golden cloud. It resolved Wilde's men got an unscheduled into millions of phytos, each with rest after months of driving work. its opalescent hydrogen sac in­ The once roaring, jovial atmos­ flated and drifting northwest in phere of Base Camp had turned the trade wind. glum. The lab men muttered "They stain the air with beau­ about Belconti sabotage. They ty!" Midori cried. Her face was drank a great deal, not happily. vividly awake and her eyes spar­ On his first free day Craig kled. "Go clear inside, please, checked out a sports flyer, found Roy!" Midori in the Belconti quarters, She used to look like that when and asked her to go riding. She she was painting in the gorge, came, wearing a white blouse and Craig remembered. It was the way pearls and a blue and yellow Rare he liked her best. He matched skirt. She seemed sad, her small wind speed inside the cloud and face half dreaming and her eyes at once lost all sense of motion. unfocused. Craig forgot about be­ Vividly colored phytos obscured ing angry with her and wanted to land, sea and sky. Craig felt lost cheer her. When he was a mile up and dizzy. He moved closer to Mi­ and heading south, he tried. dori. She slid open her window to HU:'I."TER, CO~lE HO~lE 113 let in the piping and the spicy strange, inconceivably powerful perfume. biochemical mind. This cloud is a "It's so beautiful I can't bear message, from one part of it to an­ it," she said. "They have no eyes, other part of it. Doesn't it frighten Roy. \Ve must know for them how you?" beautiful they are." "You scare me." He moved She began piping and trilling slightly away from her. "I didn't ih her clear voice. A phyto pat­ know they been changing like terned in scarlet and green and that." silver dropped to her outstretched "Who stays here long enough to hand and she sang to it. It deflated notice? Who cares enough to look its balloon and quivered velvety and see?" Her lips trembled. "But wings. Craig shifted uneasily. just think of the agony and the "It acts almost like it knows changings, through all the long you," he said. years men have been trying to kill "It knows I love it." this planet. What if something ... "Love? Something so different?" somehow . . . suddenly under­ He frowned. "That ain't how I stands?" mean love." .Craig's neck-hair bristled. He She looked up. "How do you moved further away. He felt weird understand love?" and alone, without time or place "Well, you want to protect peo­ or motion in that piping, per~ ple you love, fight for 'em, do fumed phyto cloud-world. He things for 'em." He was blushing. couldn't face Midori's eyes. "What could you do for a phyto ?" "Damn it, this planet belongs to "Stop trying to exterminate Great Russel!" he said harshly. them," she said softly. "We'll win yet! At least they'll "Don't start that again. I don't never take back Base or Russel like to think about it either. But I Islands. Their seeds can't walk on know it just has to be." water." "It will never be," she said. "I She kept her eyes on his, judg­ know. Look at all the different ing or pleading or questioning, he color patterns out there. Papa could not tell. He could not bear Toyama remembers when phytos them. He dropped his own eyes. were almost all green. They de­ "Shake that thing off your veloped the new pigments and hand!" he ordered. "Close your patterns to make counter-sub­ window. I'm getting out of here!" stances against Thanasis.". She lowered her voice. "Think of it, Half an hour later Craig hov­ Roy. All the colors and patterns ered the flyer over the wholesome are new ideas in this planet's green grass and honest oak trees of 114 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Russel Island. He found Great suppose you can't help how you Russel and held him in the magni­ feel." viewer and they watched him "I don't want to help it! A catch and kill a buffalo. Midori sworn band is the greatest honor gasped. that can come to a man," he said. "Ten feet high at the shoulder. "But thanks for trying to under­ Four tons, and light ·on his feet as stand." a cat," Craig said proudly. ''That "I want to understand. I want long, reddish hair is like wire. to, Roy. Is it that you can't believe Them bluish bare spots are like in your own courage until y~u armor plate." face Great Russel?" "Aren't his great teeth enough to "That's just what women can't kill the cattle he eats?" she asked. ever understand." He faced the "What enemies can he have, to question in her eyes. "Girls can't need those terrible horns and help turning into women, but a claws-?" man has to make himself," he said. "His own kind. And us. Our "It's like I don't have my man's boys will hunt him here, here on courage until I get it from Great this planet, and become men. Our Russel. There's chants and stuff men will hunt him here, to heal with salt and fire . . . after­ their souls." wards the boy eats pieces of the "You love him, don't you? Did heart and . . . I shouldn't talk you know you were a poet?" She about that. You'll laugh." could not take her eyes off the "I feel more like crying." She screen. "He is beautiful, fierce and kept her strange eyes on his. terrible, not what women call "There are different kinds of cour­ beauty." age, Roy. You have more courage "He's the planet-shaker, he is! than you know. You must find It takes four perfect shots to bring your true courage in your own him down," Craig said. "He jumps heart, not in Great Russel's." and roars like the world ending­ "I can't." He looked away from oh, Midori, I'll have my day!" her eyes. ''I'm nothing inside me, "But you might be killed." until 'I face Great Russel." "The finest kind of death. In "Take me home, Roy. I'm afraid our lost colony days our old fath­ I'm going to cry." She dropped her ers fought him with bow and ar­ face to her folded hands. "I don't row," Craig said. "Even now, have much courage," she said. sometimes, we form a sworn band They flew to Base Camp in si­ and fight him to the death with lence. When Craig helped her spears and arrows." down from the flyer, she was really "I've read of sworn bands. I crying. She bowed her head mo- HUNTER, COME HOME 115 mentarily against his chest and "We'll kill 'em by hand," Wilde the spicy phyto smell rose from her said grimly. "We'll sow the rest of hair. our seed broadcast and go in to "Goodbye, Roy," she said. help." He could barely hear her. Then Craig fel·t numb and unbeliev­ she turned and ran. ing. Shortly after noon he ground­ ed the flyer at Base Camp, in the Craig did not see her again. foul area beyond the emergency Wilde's crew spent all its time in rocket launching frame. Wilde the field, blowing ringwalls and cleaned up at once and went to planting translocater seed. Craig see Barim, while his crew decon­ was glad to be away. The atmos­ taminated the flyer. When they phere of Base Camp had turned came through the irradiation tun­ from glum to morose. Everywhere nel in cle.an denims, Wilde was across North Continent new phyto waiting. growth in silver, green and scarlet "Blanky, come with mel" he spotted the dark green Thanasis barked. areas. Other ringwall crews re­ Craig followed him into the ported the same of South and Main gray stone building at the field Continents. Wilde's temper be­ edge. Wilde pushed him roughly came savage; Cobb cursed bitterly throu_gb a door, said "Here be is, at trifles; even happy-go-lucky Huntsman," and closed the door Jordan stopped joking. Half asleep again. one night in field camp, Craig Rifles, bows and arrows deco­ heard Wilde shouting incredulous rated the stone walls. The burly questions at the communicator Chief Huntsman, cold eyed under inside the flyer. He came out curs­ his roached gray hair and the four ing to rouse the camp. red dots, sat facing the door from "Phytos are on Base Island! behind a wooden desk. He mo­ Stems popping up everywhere!" tioned Craig to sit down in one of "Great Russel in the sky!" Jor­ the row of wooden chairs along dan jerked· full awake. "How the inner wall. Craig sat stiffiy in come?" the one nearest the door. His "Belconti bastards planted 'em, mouth was dry. that's howl" Wilde said. "Barim's "Roy Craig, you are on your trial got 'em all arrested under camp for life and honor under camp law." law," Barim said sternly. "Swear Cobb began cursing in a steady, now to speak truth in the blood of monotonous voice. Great Russel." "That . . . cracks •• • the gun­ "I swear to speak truth in the flint!" Jordan said. blood of Great Russel." 116 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Craig's voice sounded false to Island," Barim said. "Who planted him. He began to sweat. them?" "What would you say of some­ "They can walk and plant one who deliberately betrayed our themselves, sir." Craig's mouth project to destroy the phytos ?" was dry as powder. He avoided Barim asked. Barim's glance. "He would be guilty of hunt "Would l\1idori Blake be moral­ treason, sir. An outlaw." ly capable of bringing them here "Very well." Barim clasped his and releasing them?" hands and leaned forward, his Craig's face twisted. "Morally gray eyes hard on Craig's eyes. . •. I'm not clear on the word, "What did you tell Bork Wilde sir. . . ," Sweat dripped on his was in those cases you flew from hands. Burton Island to Base Island?" "I mean, would she have the Craig's stomach knotted. guts to want to do it and to do it?" "Slides, specimens, science stuff, Ice clamped Craig's heart. He sir.'" looked Barim in the eye. "No, Barim questioned him closely sir!" he said. "I won't never be­ about the cases. Craig tried desper­ lieve that about Midoril" ately to speak truth without nam­ Barim smiled grimly and ing Midori. Barim forced her slapped his desk again. "Wilde!" name from him, then questioned he shouted: "Bring them in!" him on her attitudes. A terrible Midori, in white blouse and fear grew in Roy Craig. He kept black skirt, came in first. Her face his eyes on Barim's eyes and spoke was pale but composed, and she a tortured kind of" truth, but he smiled faintly at Craig. Mildred would not attaint Midori. Finally Ames followed, slender and thin Barim broke their locked gazes faced in white, th~n Wilde, scowl­ and slapped his desk. ing blackly. Wilde sat between "Are you in love with Midori Craig and Miss Ames, Midori on Blake, boy?" he roared. the end. Craig dropped his glance. "I "Miss Blake, young Craig has don't know, sir," he said. He clearly been your dupe, as you in­ thought miserably: how do you sist he has," Barim said. "Your know when you're in love? "Well confession ends your trial except • . . I like to be around her • . • for sentencing. Once more I beg I never thought • • • I know of you to say why you have done ..1... , we're good friends.'' He gulped rullS. I don't think so, sir," he said ''You would not understand,' finally. Midori said. "Be· content with "Phyto seeds are loose on Base what you know." Ht:NTER, COME H0~1E 117 Her voice was low but firm. Midori said nothing. Crag stole Craig felt sick with dismay. a glance at her. She· sat erect but "I can understand without con­ undefiant, small feet together, doning," Barim said. "For your small hands folded in her lap. own sake, I must know your mo­ Barim slapped his desk and stood tive. You may be insane." up. "You know I'm sane. You know "Very well. Under camp law I that." sentence you, Midori Blake, to "Yes," Barim's wide shoulders outlawry from your kind. You are sagged. "Invent a motive, then." . a woman and not of l\1ordin; He seemed almost to plead. "Say therefore I will remit the full se­ you hate· Mordin. Say you hate verity. You will be set down, me." lacking every·thing made with "I hate no one. I'm sorry for hands, on Russel Island. There you all." . you may still be nourished by the "I'll give you a reason!" Miss roots and berries of the Earth-type Ames jumped to her feet, thin face life you have wilfully betrayed. If flaming. "Your reckless, irrespon­ you survive until the Belconti re­ sible use of translocation endan­ lief ship comes, you will be sent gers us alll Accept defeat and go home on it." He burned his glance home!" at her. "Have you anything to say She helped Barim recover his before I cause your sentence to be composure. He smiled. executed?" "Please sit down, Miss Ames," The four red dots blazed against he said calmly. "In three months the sudden pallor of the Hunts­ your relief ship will come to take man's forehead. Something you to safety. But we neither ac­ snapped in Craig. He leaped up, cept defeat nor fear death. We will shouting into the hush. require no tears of anyone." ''You can't do it, sir! She's little Miss Ames sat down, her whole and weak! She doesn't know our posture shouting defiance. Barim wavs-" swung his eyes back to Midori. '~Down! Shut up, you whimper­ His face turned to iron. ing fool!" Wilde slapped and "Miss Blake, you are guilty of wrestled Craig to his seat again. hunt treason. You have betrayed "Silence!" Barim thundered. your own kind in a fight with an Wilde sat down, breathing hard .. alien life form," he said. "Unless The room was hushed again. you admit to some recognizably "I understand your ways too human motive, I must conclude well," Midori said. "Spare me your that you abjure your own human­ mercy. Put me down on Burton ity." Island." 118 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION I "Midori, no!" Miss Ames turned "Break out ringwall kits. Blow to her. "You'll starve. Thanasis all the buildings," Wilde ordered. will kill you!" "Blanky,. you come with me." "You can't understand either, At Midori's house Wilde or­ Mildred," Midori said. "Mr. Ba­ dered Craig to sink explosive pel­ rim, will you grant my request?" lets every three feet along the Barim leaned forward, res·ting foundations. A single pellet would on his hands. "It is so ordered," have been enough. Craig found his he said huskily. "Midori Blake, voice. almost you make me know again "The Huntsman didn't say do the taste of fear." He straightened this, Mr. Wilde. Can't we at least and turned to Wilde, his voice leave her this house?" suddenly flat and impersonal. "She won't need it. Thanasis "Carry out the sentence, \Vilde." will kill her before morning." Wilde stood up and pulled "Let her have it to die in, then. Craig to his feet. "Get the crew to She loved this little house." the flyer. Wear pro suits," he or­ Wilde grinned without mirth, dered. "Run, boy." baring his big horse teeth. Craig stumbled out into the "She's outlaw, Blanky. You twilight. know the law: nothing made with hands." Craig drove the flyer northwest Craig bowed his head, teeth from Base Camp at full throttle, clamped. Wilde whistled tune­ overtaking the sun, making it day lessly as Craig set the pellets. They again. Silence ached in the main returned to the flyer and Jordan cabin behind him. He leaned reported the other buildings ready away from it, as if to push the to blow. His round, jolly face was flyer forward with his muscles. grim. Midori had not moved. Craig He was refusing to think at all. wanted to speak to her, say good­ He knew it had to be and still he bye. He knew if he tried he would could not- bear it. After an an­ find no words but a howl. Her guished forever he grounded the strange little smile seemed already flyer roughly beside the deserted to remove her to another world a buildings on Burton Island. They million light-years from Roy Craig got out, the men in black pro and his kind. Cobb looked at Mi­ suits, Midori still in blouse and dori. His rat face was eager. skirt. She stoood apart quietly and "\Ve'll detonate from the air," looked toward her little house on Wilde said. "The blast will kill the cliff edge. Thanasis ·thrust up anyone standing here." dark green and knee high along "\Ve're supposed to take off all aJI the paths. her clothes first," Cobb said. "You HUNTER, COME HOME 119 know the law, Bork: nothing phytos with an axe. It seemed to made with hands." express the situation. "That's right," Wilde said. Barim made his grim decisions Midori took off her blouse. She to move camp to Russel Island looked straight at Wilde. Red and seed the home island with mist clouded Craig's vision. Thanasis. Craig was helping erect "Load the kits," Wilde said the new camp when he collapsed. abruptly. "Into the flyer, all hands! He awoke in bed in a small, bare Jump, you dogs!" infirmary room at Ba~e Camp. The From his side window by •the Mordin doctor took blood samples controls Craig saw Midori start and questioned him. Craig admit­ down the gorge path. She walked as ted to joint pains and nausea for carelessly relaxed as if she were several days past. going down to paint. TJumasis "I been half crazv, sir," he de­ brushed her bare legs and he fended himself. "I didn't know I thought he saw the angry red was sick." spring out. Craig felt the pain in "I've got twenty more do know his own skin. He lifted the flyer it," the doctor grunted. with a lurching roar and he did He went out, frowning. Craig not look out when Wilde blew up slept, to flee in dream-terror from the buildings. a woman's eyes. He half woke at Away from the sun, southwest intervals for medication and clini­ toward Base Camp, wrapped in cal tests, to sleep again and face his own thought-vacant hell, Roy repeatedly a Great Russel dina­ Craig raced to meet the night. there. It looked at him with a woman's inscrutable eyes. He With flame, chemicals and grub roused into the morning of the hoes, the Mordinmen fought their second day to find aD"Other bed losing battle for Base Island. Craig squeezed into the small room, b" worked himself groggy with fa­ the window. Papa Toyama was i~ tigue, to keep from thinking. The it. He smiled at Craig. phyto stems radiated underground "Good morning, Roy," he said. with incredible growth energy. "I would be happier to meet you They thrust up redoubly each in another place." new day like hydra heads. Newly Many were down and at least budded phytos the size of thumb­ ten had died, he told Craig. The nails tinted the air of Base Island Belconti staff was back in the in gaily dancing swirls. Once labs, working frantically to identi­ Craig saw Joe Breen, ·the squat lab fy agent and vector. Craig felt man, cursing and hopping like a hollow and his head ached. He frog while he slashed at dancing did not much care. Dimly he saw 120 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION 1\Iiss Ames in a white lab smock Barim chewed his lip and come around the foot of his bed to looked at her in silence. "For your stand between him and Papa Toy­ sake now, I wish we'd never come ama. She took the old man's hand. here," he said at last. "I'll put our "George, old friend, we've emergency rocket in orbit to broad­ found it," she said. cast a warning message. That will "You do not smile, Mildred." save your relief ship, when it "I don't smile. All night I've comes, and Belconti can warn the been running a phase analysis of sector." A half-smile softened his diffraction patterns," she said. bluff, grim features. "Why don't "It's what we've feared-a spread you rub my nose in it? Say you told of two full Ris units." me so?" "So. Planet Fray again." Papa "Need I?" Her chin came up. Toyama's voice was calm. "I would "I pity you Mordinmen. You must like to be with Helen again, for all die now without dignity, crying the little time we have." out for water and your mothers. "Surely," Miss Ames said. "I'll How you will loathe that!" see to it." "Does that console you?" Barim Quick, heavy footsteps sounded still smiled. "Not so, Miss Ames. outside. A voice broke in. All night I thought it might come "Ah. Here you are, Miss Ames." to this. Even now men are forging Barim, in . leather hunting arrow points. \Ve'll form a sworn -clothes, bulked in the door. Miss band and all die fighting Great Ames turned to face him across Russel." His voice deepened and Craig's bed. his eyes blazed. "We'll stagger who "I'm told you found the virus," can, crawl who must, carry our Barim said. helpless, and all die fighting like "Yes." Miss Ames smiled thinly. men!" "\Veil, what counter-measures? "Like savages! No! No!" Her Twelve are dead. What can I do?" hands flew up in shocked protest. "You might shoot at it with a "Forgive me for taunting you, Mr. rifle. It is a Thanasis free-system Barim. I need your help, all of that has gotten two degrees of your men and transport, truly I temporal freedom. Does that mean do. Some of us may live, if we anything to you?" fight hard enough." His heavy jaw set like a trap. "How?" He growled it. "I "No, but your manner does. It's thought on Planet Froy-" the plague, isn't it?" "Our people on Planet Fray She nodded. "No suit can screen had only human resources. But it. No cure is possible. We are all here, I'm certain that somewhere infected." already the phytos have synthe- HUNTER, COME HOME -121 sized the plague immunizer that the pillow and split his lip. The seems forever impossible to human Huntsman's face paled under his science." Her voice shook. "Please tan. help us, Mr. Barim. If we can "You're mad, boy!" he whis­ find it, isolate enough to learn its vered. "Not even in madness may structure-" you say those words!" "No." He cut her off bluntly. Craig struggled up again. "Too long a gamble. One doesn't "You're the crazy ones, not me," he run squealing away from death, said. He tongued his lip and Miss Ames. My way is decent and blood dripped on his tin pajama sure." coat. ''I'll die an outlaw, that's Her chin came up and her how I'll die," ·he said. "An out­ voice sharpened. "How dare you law, on Burton Island." He met condemn your own men uncon­ Barim's unbelieving eyes. "I foul sulted? They might prefer a fight the blood-" for life." "Silence!" Barim shouted. "Out­ "Hah! You don't know ,them!" lawry it is. I'll send a party for Barim bent to shake Craig's shoul­ you, stranger." der with rough affection. "You, He whirled and stamped out. lad," he said. "You'll get up and Miss Ames followed him. walk with a sworn banCl, won't "You Mordinmen," she said, you?" shaking her head. "No," Craig said. Craig sat on the edge of his bed He struggled off the pillow, and pulled his sweat soaked pa­ propped shakily on his arms. Miss jamas straight. The room blurred Ames smiled and patted his and .swam around him. Papa Toy­ cheek. ama's smile was like a light. "You'll stay and help us fight to "I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed. live, won't you?" she said. Please forgive us, Papa Toyama," "No," Craig said. . Craig said. "All we know is to kill "Think what you say, lad!" and kill and kill." Barim said tautly. "Great Russel "We all do what we must," the can die of plague, too. \Ve owe old man said. "Death cancels all him a clean death." debts. It will be good to rest." Craig sat bolt upright. He "Not my debts. I'll never rest stared straight ahead. again," Craig said. "All of a sud­ "I foul the blood of Great Rus­ den I know-Great Russel, hotv sel," he said slowly and clearly. I know!-1 know I loved Midori "I foul it with dung. I foul it with Blake." carrion. I foul-" "She was a strange girl. Helen Barim's fist knocked Craig to and I thought she loved you, in 122 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION the old days on our island." Papa Craig turned. He looked into Toyama bowed his head. "But our the fever glaring eyes above the lives are only chips in a waterfall. grinning horse teeth. The teeth Goodbye, Roy." gaped. Jordan, in a black pro suit, "I foul the blood of Midori came shortly after. His face was Blake. I foul it with dung. 1-" bitter with contempt. He jerked Strength from nowhere explod­ his thumb at the door. ed into the bone and muscle of Roy "On your feet, stranger! Get Craig. He sprang and felt the going!" he snapped. teeth break under his knuckles. In pajamas and barefooted, Wilde fell. The others scrambled Craig followed him. From some­ down from the flyer. where in the infirmary he heard a "Blood right! Blood right!" voice screaming. It sounded like Craig shouted. Cobb. They walked across the "Blood right!" Wilde echoed. landing field. Everything seemed Jordan held back Rice and urider water. Men were rigging to Whelan. Strength flamed along fuel the emergency rocket. Craig Craig's nerves. Wilde rose, spit­ sat apart from the others in the ting Olood, swinging big fists. flyer. Cobb was missing. Wilde Craig closed to meet him, berserk was flushed and shivering and his in fury. The world wheeled and eyes glared with fever. Jordan took tilted, shot with flashing colors, the controls. No one spoke. Craig gasping with grunts and curses, dozed through colored dream­ but rock-steady in the center of scraps while the flyer outran the things Wilde pressed the fight and sun. He woke when it gr.ounded in Craig hurled it back on him. He early dawn on Burton Island. felt the blows without pain, felt He climbed down and stood his ribs splinter, felt the good swaying beside the flyer. Thanasis shock of his own blows all the way straggled across the rubble heaps to his ankles. Bruising falls on the and bulked waist high in the dim rough slag, feet stamping, arms light along the paths. Phytos grappling, hands tearing, breath stirred on their stems and piped sobbing, both men on knees club­ sleepily in the damp air. Craig's bing with fists and forearms. The eyes searched for something, a scene cleared and Craig saw memory, a presence, a completion through one eye Wilde crumpled and rest, he did not know what. and inert before him. He rose un­ He felt it very near him. Wilde steadily. He felt weightless and came behind him, shoving. Craig clean inside. moved away. "Blood right, stranger," Jordan "Stranger!" Wilde called. said, grim faced and waiting. lllJ:-\TER, C0~1E HO~IE 123 "Let it go," Craig said. Bluntings. Smoothings, Trans­ He turned down the gorge path, forming into otherness. ignoring his chest pains, crash­ Flickering awareness, planet­ ing through the rank Thanasis. vast and atom-tiny, no focus be­ Home! going home! going home! tween. The proto-sensorium of a a bell tolled in his head. He did god yearning to know himself. not look back. Endless, patient agony in search of Thanasis grew more sparsely in being. the shaded gorge. Craig heard the Form and color outfolding in waterfall and old memories cas­ middle focus. Flashings of terrible caded upon him. He rounded to foy and love unspeakable. It view of it and his knees buckled looked. Listened. Felt. Smelled. and he knelt beside the boulder. Tasted. She was very near him. He felt an Crystalline polar wastes. Wine overpowering sense of her pres­ of sweet. Gold-glint of sun on ence. She was this place. blue water. Perfumed wind ca­ Dawn light shafted strongly ress. Thorn of bitter. Rain patter. into the gorge. J.t sparkled on the Silver-green sweep of hill. Storm quartz ledge and made reflecting roar and shaking. Sharp of salt. rainbows in the spray above the Sleeping mountains. Surf beat. pool. Phytos lifted from ghost­ Star patterns dusted on blackness. silver stems to dance their own Clear of sour. Cool moons of night. rainbow in the air. Something It knew and loved. rose in Craig's throat and choked Ragged line of men gaunt un­ him. Tears blurred his good eye. der beard stubble. Green plain. "l\-1idori," he said. "Midori." High golden sun. Roar. Shaggy The feeling overwhelmed him. redness bounding. Bow twangs. His heart was bursting. He could Whispering arrow lights. Deep­ find no words. He raised his arms chested shouts of men. Lances and battered face to the sky and thrusting. Bodies ripped. Thrown. cried out incoherently. Then a Horn-impaled, beating with fists. blackness swept away his intoler­ Great shape kneeling. Threshing. able pain. Streaming blood. Deep man­ shouts dwindling to a silence. Titanic stirrings. Windy rush­ It knew and sorrowed. ings. Sharp violences swarming. The tvoman bathing. Sunlight Fittings-together in darkness. A hair streaming. Grace beyond trillion times a trillion times a bearing. Beauty that was pain. trillion patient searchings. Filter­ It shook terribly with love. ing broken lights, silver, green, Rested readiness, whole and golden, scarlet. · unblemished forever. The man 124 FANTASY. AND SCIENCE FICTION newly-minted. Bursting excite­ mune to Thanasis now," she said. ment. HOME! coming HOME! "\Ve're made new, Roy." coming HOME! The sunken red Thanasis scar It woke into its world. was gone from his ankle. All of his other old scars were gone. He held It was like waking up fresh and her hands and looked on her beau­ rested on the fine morning of a ty and believed her. day when something glorious was "We tried so long and hard to going to happen. He was sitting kill it," he said. up in a cavity at the base of a ·"It couldn't know that. To it huge phyto stem. He brushed death and decay are only vital away papery shreds and saw the changings," she said, smiling pool and heard the waterfall. With wonderfully. ''This life never split a glad cry, Midori came running. apart, Roy. In wholeness there is He stood up whole and strong to nothing but love." greet her. "Love is making a wholeness," "Midori! 1\-Hdori, when you die he said. "I know about love now." • . . ?" He wanted to know a He told her about his visions. million things, but one came first. "I had them too. We were dif­ "Can I ever lose you again, now?" fused into the planetary conscious­ "Never again." ness." She was smiling radiantly. "Do we still eat and drink and They were both naked. He was not sleep . . . and all?" excited and not ashamed. She laughed. "Foolish Roy! "We didn't die, Roy," she said. Of course we dol" She pulled at "\Ve're just made new." his hands. "Come. I'll show you." "The plague killed everybody." Hand in hand they ran to the "I know. But we didn't die." pool. The gravel hurt his feet. Be­ "Tell me." side the pool stems had fused ring­ He listened like a child, believ­ wall fashion into a series of con­ ing without understanding. Some­ necting rooms like hollow cones. where in its infinite life-spectrum He followed Midori through them. the planetary life had matched up They were clean and dry and sil­ a band for humans. "As if we were very with shadows. Outside again single giant molecules and it dis­ she pointed out brownish swell­ covered our structural formula," ings on various stems. She tore one she said. "That's how it thinks." open, the covering like thin paper, They had been resorbed into the to reveal pearly, plum-sized nod­ planetary biomass, cleansed of ules closely packed in a cavity. Thanasis, and reconstituted whole She bit one nodule in two and and without blemish. "We're im- held the other half to his lips. llt;:'\TER, CU~lE HO:I.lE 125 "Try," she said. could be duplicated everywhere, He ate it. It was cool and crisp, because it is all one. One year to with a delightful, unfamiliar fla­ it is like millions of years of vor. He ate several more, looking Earthly evolution. It raised itself at her in wonder. to a new level of awarness." "There are hundreds of these He felt her hand on his arm. vesicles," she said. "No two of He would not open his eyes. them ever taste the same. They're "Listen to me, Roy! \Ve tvah­ grown just for us." ened it. It knows us and loves us He looked at her and around at for that." the beauty of the gorge in strong, "Loves us for Thanasis!" transmuted sunlight and he could "It loves Thanasis, too. It con­ not bear it. He closed his eyes and quered Thanasis with love." turned away from her. 'And me. Tamed. A pet. A para­ "I can't. I can't, Midori," he site. I can't, Midori!" said. "I ain't good enough for "Oh no! Roy, please under­ thIS.. " stand! It thinks us now, biochemi­ "You are, Roy." cally. Like each littlest phyto, we "You loved it before. But all I are thoughts in that strange mind. wanted was to kill it," he said. I think we focus its awareness, "Now it's done this for me." The somehow, serve it as a symbol feeling flooded him agonizingly. system, a form-giver ..•." She "I want to love it back and I can't. lowered her voice. He could feel Not now. Not after. I just can't, her warmth and nearness. "We Midori!" are its thoughts that also think "Roy. Listen to me." She was in themselves, the first it has ever front of him again, but he would had," she whispered. "It is a great not open his eyes. "This life and holy mystery, Roy. Only emerged with infinite potentiali­ through us can it know its own ties. It mastered its environment beauty and wonder. It loves and using only the tiniest part of needs us." She pressed against him. them," she said. "It never split up, "Roy, look at me!" to fight itself and evolve tlnU way. He opened his eyes. She smiled So it lay dreaming. It might have pleadingly. He ran his hands dreamed forever." down the smooth curve of her back "Only we came, you mean? and she shivered. He clasped her With Thanasis?" powerfully. It was all right. "Yes. We forced it to changes, "I can love it back, now," he genetic recombination, rises in said. "Through you, I love it." temperatures and process speeds. "I give you back its love," she Whatever happened at one point whispered into his shoulder. 126 FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION Afterward, arms linked, dazed now, couldn't it?'' he asked her with their love, they walked down quietly. to ,the sea. They stood on sparkling "Yes. For any old or ill human sand and cool water splashed at who might come here," she said. their ankles. "They could have youth and "Roy, have you thought? We'll strength again forever." never be ill, never grow old. Never "Yes." He looked up at the blue, have to die." arching sky. "But there's a rocket He pressed his face into her up there with a warning message, hair. "Never is a long time." to scare them away. I wish. I wish "If we tire, we can be resorbed they could know. . . ." and diffuse through the planetary "That they are their own consciousness again. But that's not plague." death." He patted her head to rest again "Our children can serve." on his shoulder. "And their children." "Someday they'll learn," he "It could do this for anybody said.

COMING SOON • • •

GLORY ROAD a new novel by ROBERT HEINLEIN

DELUGE the latest story of The People by ZENNA HENDERSON

NO TRUCE WITH KINGS a novelet by POUL ANDERSON

THE TREE OF TIME a short novel by DAMON KNIGHT

To be sure of receiving these, as well as many other fine new stories by top authors, fill in the coupon on the inside back cover of this issue. EDITORIAL

Lately, it seemed, we had been somewhat pre­ occupied with Neanderthals. First off, we read and reviewed William Golding's THE INHERITORS, which avid readers of our Books column will recall dealt with the death of the last of these. Next, we re-read Philip Jose Farmer's THE ALLEY GOD*, which told of the survival of the last Neanderthals into our time. Then we discussed the subject by letter with the venerable and magnificent George Alfred "Sarge" Smith, F.F.I., Curator for Archaeology at The Firelands Museum, Norwalk, Ohio. It was Curator~s Smith's opinion tliat it is nonsense to assume Neander­ thal Man was exterminated by homo sapiens; actually, the latter absorbed the former-and, inasmuch as blondness, curiously enough, is (in the Old World) found only where Neanderthal remains are found, it is seriously postulated that homo neander­ thalensis is the progenitor of all blonds. Our wife also read these books and this correspondence; since she is blonde, too, we joshed her about it. Notwithstanding this preoccupation with the past we were currently both considerably preoccupied with the future as well, awaiting the arrival of our first-born. The event occurred at a hospital which allows fathers to be present in the delivery room, and you may imagine, then, with what emotions we watched as our wife gave birth to the most Neanderthal-looking infant boy it is possible to conceive: the child had a broad, snub nose, and a low and sloping forehead, with downy hair growing down to the eyes, along the shoulders, and down the spine. The child's mother observed all, perceptively and fondly. "I shouldn't have read that Farmer book and those others," she murmured. "Never mind, I think it's cunning, isn't he ugly, I love him." So did we; but felt impelled to discuss the matter with various well-wishers-Job's comforters, the lot of them. Prenatal influence? \Ve inquired. A throw-back? What? "It isn't Phil Farmer," said Robert Heinlein; "it's you." And Robert Arthur's comment was, ""Veil, the human race is supposed to breed for survival, so maybe that's the next survival-type." We gazed-numbly, dumbly, devotedly-through the glass of the nursery where our perfectly paleolithic-looking ,.Originally, The Alley Man, F&SF, June, 1959. 127 man-child was quartcrctl, and whence we presently bore him home. \Vc were (we pondered) the Father of a New Race. Even now, no doubt, the cave-bear was stirring, ready to throw off his age-long sleep . . . the sabre-tooth tiger ... the wooly mammoth ... the dire-wolf . . . What panic there would be as our effete civil­ ization crumbled before their onslaughts! But we, ourself and our wife, and the parents of the other nco-Neanderthal children being born momently, we would be safe. Filled with atavistic know­ how, our beetling bairns would throw back the Great Beasts­ and give us marrow-bones to mumble as we cowered safely in the rear-most caves . . . Thus we reflected, and yet, as we did so, day by day, the child (we had thought it might be appropriate to name him Ab or Ug, but were chicken, and called him Ethan, in­ stead) the child changed. He developed a forehead, and a bridge to his nose. The hair receded to conventional limits. He now looks and acts almost perfectly humanoid. We say, "almost" -his head is still bumpy, and he makes curious bird-like chirpings. What it all goes to prove, blessed if we know-unless, of course, the wis- 9om of that age-old saying, "Phrenology recapitulates ornithology." -Avram Davidson

IN OUR MAY ISSUE . . .

two new stories by

RAY BRADBURY,

BRIGHT PHOENIX

and

TO THE CHICAGO ABYSS

128 ************************* : ~ :• MARKET PLACE •: •************************* • About swordplay-and-sorcery, swashbuckling BOOKS-MAGAZINES fantasy: Amra, 8 issues $2; Box 9006, Arlington 9, Va. SCIENCE-FICTION book bargains. List free. Werewolf Bookshop, Verona 15, Pa. HYPNOTISM Locate any book. Aardvarks Fantasy, Box 66B, San Diego 12, Calif. Free Illustrated, Hypnotism Catalogue. Write: Powers, 8721 Sunset, Hollywood 69, California. HORROR BOOK-"The Detective Is A Monster!" By Jell Martin. Unusual, Fascinating. $1. Trans­ International Publishers, P. 0. Box 2942, Pater­ LEARN WHILE ASLEEP, Hypnotize with your son, N. J. recorder, phonograph. Astonishing details, sensational catalog free. Sleep-Learning Re­ MAKE THIS A FEGHOOT YEARI Feghoot anthol­ search Association, Box 24-FS, Olympia, ogy, $1.25 postpaid! Feghoot-and-Fwsot (that's Washington. the Furry in the frontispiece) SWEATSHIRTS, $4.45 postpaid! Order now from: Ferdinand Feghoot, c/o The Paradox Press, P. 0. Box 3051, NEW CONCEPT of learning self-hypnosis! Now Berkeley 5, Calif. on tape or record! Free Literature. McKinley­ Smith Co. Dept. T16, Box 3038, San Bernardino, 25,000 magazines for sale. Thousands wanted Calif. in excellent condition; science fiction, weird, horror, spicy, western, adventure, others. Send list, enclosing stamp. Magazine Center, Box I.Q. TESTS 214, Little Rock, Ark. Publish in and subscribe to the JOURNAL OF Test I.Q. Accurately, inexpensively, Home­ SCIENTIFIC CONTROVERSY. Four issues, one administered, professionally interpreted. Re­ year, four dollars. Box 855, Boulder, Colorado. search data needed. University Testing Institute, R-33, Box 6744, Stanford, California. SCIAMACHY magazine presents finest experi­ mental r.oems, stories, graphics. All back issues availab eat 35¢ per copy, $1. for 3 issues. 1096 SERVICES-AUTHORS Elm St., Winnetka, Ill. AUTHORS: Submit your manuscripts for free editorial evaluation. We publish work by new BOOKPLATES authors on all subjects: poetry, fiction, non .. fiction, juveniles, religious studies. Greenwich FREE CATALOG many designs including SF and Book Publishers, Attention Mr. Clark, 489 engineering. Address bookplates, Yellow Springs Fifth Ave., N.Y.C. 4, Ohio. WRITE FOR PROFIT without training. Receive many small checks NOW. Write Publicity, Box COINS 727SF, Kalamazoo, Michigan. --~----~------Collectors-my coins for SF. Wayne Gruhn, Wanted-Agent: To exploit: Song lyrics, poems, Manilla, Iowa. and short stories. Elma Day, R 3, Lexington, S.C. FANZINES Poems for sale: Unrecognized geniusl Two reams, more on tap. Any subject or mood, enjoyable, INSIDE, a printed magazine. Bloch, St. Clair, quotable. Also written to order. From stock, George 0. Smith, Randall Garrett, and others. $2.00. To order, $3.00. Publishers welcome. 25¢1 four for $1. 90 Riverside Drive, 11 E, New Gwenn Cunningham, 3286 Wisconsin St., Oak­ York 24, N.Y. land 2, Calif.

Do you ltave sometlting to advertise to sf readers? Books, magazines, typewriters, telescopes, computers, space-drives, or misc. Use tlte f&Sf Market Place at tltese low, low rates: $2.50 for minimum of ten (10} words, plus 25¢ for eaclt additional word. Send copy and remittance to: Adv. Dept., fantasy and Science fiction, 347 East 53 Street, New York 22, N. Y'. 129 MYSTIC ARTS studying? Get Free large, valuable MISCELLANEOUS ilustrated catalog of strange, Occult, Dream Books, Pentagrams, Crystal Balls, Incenses, N-, Precision, Printed Circuit Board, Assembly Candles, legendary Oils, Perfumes, Powders, Instructions, diagrams, and r.arts list help you Roots, Herbs, Lodestones, Rings, Charms, Gem build four transistor metal ocator with range Stones, "Fortun•Telling" Cards, Ouiia Boards, up to three feet. Complete set $9.95. Easy and Planchettes, Astrology, Occult Jewe~ry, You Need Inexpensive to build. DALCO, P. 0. Box 12242, Ill Studio A30, Times Plaza, Box 224, Brooklyn Dallas 25, Texas. 17, N.Y. Color television may be yaurs for as low as $2.9B. Just moments to install. For full details VITA·PLANT. Scientific smorgasbord for vega· write, Detecto Electronics Company, 4n5-45 lotion. 100% ORGANIC. 2 lbs.-$1.00 prepaid, N.E., Seattle, Washington. 12190 S.W. 46 St., Miami, Florida. Rubber stamps, for business or home. Three lines BACK NUMBERS, overstock Fantasy & Science with ink pad, $2.00, Detecto Electronics Company Fiction and Venture SF. 5 different issues for 4725--45 N.E., Seattle, Washington. $1. (our selection). Dept. CN, Mercury Press, P. 0. Box 271, Rockville Centre, N. Y. Terrific low priced pocket radio, diode powered1 telescoping antenna, $3.95 or missle shapea Send 25~ for a sample copy of the handsome diode radio, picks up all local stations, $2.00. Japanese Edition of The Magazine of FANTASY All guaranteed, postpaid. Detecto Electronics AND SCIENCE FICTION, Mercury Pren, P. 0. Company, 4725·45 N.E., Seattle, Washington Box 271, Rockville Centre, N. Y.

YOUR MARKET PLACE A market is people-alert, intelligent, active people. Here you can reach 168,000 people (averaging three readers per copy -56,000 paid circulation). Many of them are enthusiastic hobbyists­ collecting books, magazines, stamps, coins, model rockets, etc.-actively interested in photography, music, astronomy, painting, sculptme, elec­ tronics. If you have a product or service of merit, tell them about it. The price is right: $2.50 for a minimum of ten ( 10) words, plus 25¢ for each additional word.

Advertising Dept., Fantasy & Science Fiction 347 East 53 St., New York 22, N. Y. 130 ST IN QUALITY ENTERTAIN ING STORIES IT RE GUlARlY IMAGINATION PUBLI SHES IS ASTONI SH INGLY HIGH." ENTERTAINMENT ORVILLE PRESCOTT, BOOK REV IEW NOW! 11 ISSUES - ONLY $3.00 EDITOR FOR Fill in the coupon below immediately- you THE NEW YORK TIMES will receive 11 issues ( 12 if prepaid) of The Magazine of FANTASY AND SCIEN CE FICTION, including the special Ray Bra d­ r------bury issue. ------I accept your special introductory offer. Se nd COirf/NGl me FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION for 11 months a t $3.00. u Bill me. u I enclose $3.00. Send me one extra BRADBURY month free ( 1 2 issues). HEINlEIN NAME ______ADDRESS ______'

KNIGHT C ITY ______ZON E__ ST ATE ______

No odditionol postage for U. 5. or ANOE{(SON possessions. Canada or Pa n Ameri­ can countrie;, 50¢; other countries, $ 1.00 pe r year. (see other side) (If you are already a subscriber, your present order will be extended.) T H ~ M A l• /1 Z I N f 0 I SPECIAL OFFER Fontosv AND TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS Science Fiction *II ISSUES -ONLY $3.00 As the offspring of the very natural and exciting marriage of imagination and creativity, The Magazine of INCLUDING a special FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION has through the years borne out the RAY BRADBURY ISSUE idea that its stories should be the most entertaining, stimulating read­ featuring 2 new stories ing available. In these pages you will find the best in imaginative fiction­ by Ray Bradbury, stories which are powerful and hilari­ ous, speculative and spectacular. For BRIGHT PHOENIX and instance ... coming issues will fea­ ture-GLORY ROAD, a swashbuck­ TO THE CHICAGO ABYSS, ling new novel by ROBERT HEIN­ LEIN; NO TRUCE WITH KINGS, plus a profile and a tale of war in the future-and in the past, by POUL ANDERSON; and bibliography by THE TREE OF TIME, a thrilling novel about a man with a terrible se­ cret buried in his past, by DAMON William F. Nolan KNIGHT. Plus, short stories by Fritz Leiber, Zenna Henderson, Theodore Sturgeon and many others.

FIRST CLASS Permit No. 58931 N ew York, N . Y. *ONE EXTRA MONTH FREE­ if you send pay· ment now, saving BUSINESS REPLY CARD us billing expense, No Postage Stomp Necessary if Moiled in the United States we will pass the saving along to you by extending POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY- your subscription for one extra month-giving you MERCURY PRESS, INC. 12 issues ot the same price• • 347 EAST 53 STREET

NEW YORK 22, N. Y.