v Including VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION FEBRUARY • 33rd Year of Publication NOVELETS THE HEALER'S TOUCH 56 Susan C. Petrey NIGHTLIFE 88 Phyllis Eisenstein SHORT STORIES UNDERSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOR 4 Thomas M. Disch SERGEANT PEPPER VARIATIONS 22 Howard Roller and Parke Godwin MASCOTS 38 Stanley Schmidt BLACKMAIL 78 Georse Florance-Guthridse ALMOST HEAVEN 120 Garry Kilworth HIGH STEEL 142 Jack C. Haldeman II and Jack Dann DEPARTMENTS BOOKS 31 John Clute STAR STORIES (Verse) 76 Sonya Dorman FILMS: The Crowbar in the Concrete 85 Baird Searles SCIENCE: The Circle of the Earth 130 Isaac Asimov CARTOONS: JOSEPH FARRIS (119), HENRY MARTIN (141) COVER BY DAVID HARDY FOR "HIGH STEEL" EDWARD L. FERMAN, Editor & Publisher ISAAC ASIMOV. Science Columnist DALE FARRELL, Circulation Manager AUDREY FERMAN, Business Manager Assistant Editors: ANNE JORDAN, EVAN PHILLIPS. BECKY WILLIAMS The Magazine of fantasy and Science fiction (ISSN: 0024-9MX), Volume 62, No. 2, Whole No. 369; february 1982. Published monthly by Mercury Pre55, Inc at S1.50 per copy Annual subscription $15.00; S17.00 outside of the U.S. (Canadian subscribers: please remit in U.S. dollars or add 15%.) Postmaster: send form 3579 to Fantasy and Science fiction, Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753. Publication office, Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753. Second cla55 postage paid at Cornwall, Conn. 06753 and at additional matlin1offices. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright© 1981 by Mercury Pre55, Inc. All ri&hts, includina translations into other lanauaaes. reserved. Submis~ions must be accompanied by stamped, self­ addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts. The idea of having a go at a second chance at life is a fairly familiar one in sf, but there is nothing old-hat in this fresh and ironic vision from Thomas M. Disch, in which Richard Roe, an empty page waiting to be filled, comes to Boulder, Colorado to work and hike and, well, look for a purpose in life .... Understanding Human Behavior A ROMANCE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS ;~OMAS M. DISCH He would wake up each mom- establishea preferences, no identity in ing with a consciousness clear as the the usual sense of a history to attach Boulder sky, a sense of being on the his name to - he just didn't want any­ same wave length exactly as the sun­ thing very much. light. Innocence, bland dreams, a Not that he was bored or depressed healthy appetite - these were glories or anything like that. The world was that issued directly from his having all new to him and full of surprises: the been erased. Of course there were strangeness of anchovies; the beauty of some corresponding disadvantages. old songs in their blurry Muzak ver­ His job, monitoring the terminals of a sions at the Stop-and-Shop; the feel of drive-in convenience center, could get a new shirt or a March day. These sen­ pretty dull, especially on days when no sations were not wholly unfamiliar, one drove in for an hour or so at a nor was his mind a tabula rasa. His use stretch, and even at the busiest times it of the language and his motor skills didn't provide much opportunity for were all intact; also what the psycholo­ human contact. He envied the wait­ gists at Delphi Institute called generic resses in restaurants and the drivers of recognition. But none of the occasions buses their chance to say hello to real of newness reminded him of any earlier live customers. experience, some first time or best time Away from work it was different; or worst time that he'd survived. His he didn't feel the same hunger for so­ only set of memories of a personal and cializing. That, in fact, was the major non-generic character were those he'd disadvantage of having no past life, no brought from the halfway house in 4 FantaiY lr Science Fiction Delphi, Indiana. But such fine mem­ He lived now in a condo on the ories they were - so fragile, so dis­ northwest edge of the city, a room and tinct, so privileged. If only (he often a half with unlimited off-peak power wished) he could have lived out his life access. The rent was modest (so was in the sanctuary of Delphi, among men his salary), but his equity in the condo and women like himself, all newly was large enough to suggest that his summoned to another life and respon­ pre-erasure income had been up there sive to the wonders and beauties in the top percentiles. around them. But, no, for reasons he He wondered, as all erasees do, could not understand, the world insist­ why he'd decided to wipe out his past. ed on being organized otherwise. An His life had gone sour, that much was erasee was allowed six months at the 5ure, but how and why were questions Institute, and then he was despatched that could never be answered. The In­ to wherever he or the computer decid­ stitute saw to that. A shipwrecked ed, where he would have to live like marriage was the commonest reason everyone else, either alone or in a fami­ statistically, closely followed by busi­ ly (though the Institute advised every­ ness reverses. At least that was what one to be wary at first of establishing people put down on their question­ primary ties), in a small room or a naires when they applied to the Insti­ cramped house or a dormitory ship in tute. Somehow he doubted those rea­ some tropical lagoon. Unless you were sons were the real ones. People who'd fairly rich or very lucky, your clothes, never been erased seemed oddly unable furniture, and suchlike appurtenances to account for their behavior. Even to were liable to be rough, shabby, make­ themselves they would tell the unlikeli­ shift. The food most people ate was an est tales about what they were doing incitement to infantile gluttony, a slop and why. Then they'd spend a large of sugars, starches and chemically en­ part of their social life exposing each hanced flavors. It would have been dif­ others' impostures and laughing at ficult to live among such people and to them. A sense of humor they called it. seem to share their values except so He was glad he didn't have one, yet. few of them ever questioned the reasonableness of their arrangements. Most of his free time he spent mak­ Those who did, if they had the money, ing friends with his body. In his first would probably opt, eventually, to weeks at the halfway house he'd lazed have their identities erased, since it was about, ate too much junk food, and clear, just looking around, that erasees started going rapidly to seed. Erasees seemed to strike the right intuitive are not allowed to leave their new balance between being aware and selves an inheritance of obesity or ad­ keeping calm. diction, but often the body one wakes Undent.ilndi111 Human Behavior 5 up in is the hasty contrivance of a better than somebody else. Money was crash diet. The mouth does not lose its about the only purpose he could think appetites, nor the metabolism its rate, of, and even that was not a compelling just because the mind has had memo­ purpose. He didn't lust after more and ries whited out. Fortunately he'd dug more and more of it in the classical in his heels, and by the time he had to Faustian go-getter way. bid farewell to Delphi's communal din­ His room and a half looked out ing room he'd lost the pounds he'd put across the tops of a small plantation of on and eight more besides. spruces to the highway that climbed Since then, fitness had been his reli­ the long southwestward incline into gion. He bicycled to work, to Stop­ the Rockies. Each car that hummed and-Shop, and all about Denver, ex­ along the road was like a vector-quan­ ploring its uniformities. He hiked and tity of human desire, a quantum of tel­ climbed on weekends. He jogged. eological purpose. He might have been Once a week, at a Y, he played volley­ mistaken. The people driving those ball for two hours, just as though he'd cars might be just as uncertain of their never left the Institute. He also kept up ultimate destinations as he was, but the other sport he'd had to learn at seeing them whiz by in their primary Delphi, which was karate. Except for colors, he found that hard to believe. the volleyball, he stuck to the more Anyone who was prepared to bear the solitary forms of exercise, because on expense of a car surely had somewhere the whole he wasn't interested in form­ he wanted to get to or something he ing relationships. The lecturers at the wanted to do more intensely than he halfway house had said this was per­ could imagine, up here on his three­ fectly natural and nothing to worry foot slab of balcony. about. He shouldn't socialize until he He didn't have a telephone or a tv. felt hungry for more society than his He didn't read newspapers or maga­ job and his living arrangements natur­ zines, and the only books he ever look­ ally provided. So far that hunger had ed at were some old textbooks on geol­ not produced a single pang. Maybe he ogy he'd bought at a garage sale in was what the Institute called a natural Denver.