The Magazine of fantasy and science fiction

MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock

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LETTERS

V EL ETS

6 Robert Holdstock
79 Michael Ward

7 STORIES

48 John Morressy

59 John Kessel

106 Barry N. Malzberg

109 Thomas Wylde

119 Tony Sarowitz

143 JaneYolen

R T M E N T S

40 Barry N. Malzberg
103 Baird Searles

133 Isaac Asimov

158

COVER BY BARBARA BERCER FOR "MYTHAGO WOOD"
CARTOONS: CAHAN WILSON (47), S. HARRIS (105), ED ARNO (118)

EDWARD L. FERMAN, Editor & Publisher ISAAC ASIMOV, Science Columnist

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AUDREY FERMAN, Business Manager

Assistant Editors: ANNE JORDAN, EVAN PHILLIPS, BECKY WILLIAMS

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (ISSN 0024-984X), Volume 61, No 3. Whole No. 364; September 19«1
Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc at $1 50 per copy Annual subscription $1500, $1700 outside of the US.
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All rights, including translations into other languages, reserved Submissions must be accompanied by stamped, self-
addressed envelope The publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts

Here is an elegant and gripping fantasy about the secret of a primary
oak woodland in England. Its author is 32 years old and writes: "have
been free-lancing since I quit medical research iri 1975. Although I've
settled with my wife (Sheila) in Hertfordshire, I'm a man of Kent,
from the area known as Romney Marsh; the woodland and mill-pond
in "Mythago Wood" exist, in smaller form, a half mile or so from my
grandmother's house in Tenterden, and it was the sudden vivid
recollection of exploring the place with my brother that was the
genesis of the story." Mr. Holdstock has had three novels published in
the U.S., and his latest, WHERE THE TIME WINDS BLOW, is
forthcoming from Pocket Books.

Mythago Wood

w

hen, in 1944, I was called
away to the war, I felt so resentful of
my father's barely expressed disap-
pointment that, on the eve of my de-
parture, I walked quietly to his desk
and tore a page out of his notebook,
the diary in which his silent, obsessive
work was recorded. The fragment was
dated simply "August 34," and I read it
many times, appalled at its incompre-
hensibility, but content that I had
stolen at least a tiny part of his life with
which to support myself through those
painful, lonely times.

Following a short and very bitter
comment on the distractions in his life
— the running of Oak Lodge, our
family home, the demands of his two

sons and of his wife (by then, I remem-
ber, desperately ill and close to the end
of her life) — was a passage quite
memorable for its incoherence:

"A letter from Watkins — agrees
with me that at certain times of the
year the aura around the woodland
could reach as far as the house. Must
think through the implications of
this. He is keen to know the power
of the oak vortex that I have meas-
ured. What to tell him? Certainly
not of the first mythago. Have no-
ticed too that the enrichment of the
pre-mythago zone is more persis-
tent, but concomitant with this, am
distinctly losing my sense of time."
I treasured this piece of paper for

Fantasy & Science Fiction

BY

ROBERT HOLDSTOCK

many reasons, for the moment or two
of my father's passionate interest that it
represented — and for the way it lock-
ed me out of its understanding, as he
had locked me out at home. Every-
thing he loved, everything I hated.

I was wounded in early 1945 and in
a military hospital met a young
Frenchman and became close friends
with him. I managed to avoid evacua-
tion to England, and when the war fin-
ished I stayed in France, traveling
south to convalesce in the hills behind
Marseilles; it was a hot, dry place,
very still, very slow; I lived with my
young friend's parents and quickly be-
came part of the tiny community.

Letters from my brother Christian,

who had returned to Oak Lodge after
the war, arrived every month through-
out the long year of 1946. They were
chatty, informative letters, but there
was an increasing note of tension in
them, and it was clear that Christian's
relationship with his father was deteri-
orating rapidly. I never heard a word
from the old man himself, but then i
never expected to; I had long since re-
signed myself to the fact that, even at
best, he regarded me with total indif-
ference. All his family had been an in-
trusion in his work, and his guilt at ne-
glecting us, and especially at driving
his wife to taking her own life, had
blossomed rapidly, during the early
years of the war, into an hysterical
madness that could be truly frighten-
ing. Which is not to say that he was
perpetually shouting; on the contrary,
most of his life was spent in silent, ab-
sorbed contemplation of the oak
woodland that bordered our home. At
first infuriating, because of the dis-
tance it put between him and his fami-
ly, soon those long periods of quiet be-
came blessed, earnestly v^ekomed.

He died in November, 1946, of the
illness that had afflicted him for years.
When I heard the news I was torn be-
tween my unwillingness to return to
Oak Lodge, at the edge of the Knares-
thorpe estate in Herefordshire, and
Christian's obvious distress. He was
alone, now, in the house where we had
lived through our childhood together; I
could imagine him prowling through
the empty rooms, perhaps sitting in fa-

Mythago Wood

ther's dank and unwholesome study
and remembering the hours of denial,
the smell of wood and compost that
the old man had trudged in through the
glass-paneled doors after his week-long
sorties into the deep woodlands. The
forest had spread into that room as if
my father could not bear to be away
from the rank undergrowth and cool,
moist oak glades even when making
token acknowledgement of his family.
He made that acknowledgement in the
only way he knew: by telling us — and
mainly telling my brother — stories of
the ancient forestlands beyond the
house, the primary woodland of oak
and ash in whose dark interior (he once
said) wild boar could still be heard and
smelled and tracked by their spoor.

I doubt if he had ever seen such a
creature, but I vividly recalled (in that
evening as I sat in my room, overlook-
ing the tiny village in the hills. Chris-
tian's letter a crushed ball still held in
my hand) how I had listened to the
muffled grunting of some woodland
animal and heard the heavy, unhurried
crashing of something bulky moving
inwards, to the winding pathway that
we called Deep Track, a route that led
spirally towards the very heartwoods
of the forest.

I knew I would have to go home,
and yet I delayed my departure for
nearly another year. During that time
Christian's letters ceased abruptly. In
his last letter, dated April 10th, he
wrote of Guiwenneth, of his unusual
marriage, and hinted that I would be

surprised by the lovely girl to whom he
had lost his"heart, mind, soul, reason,
cooking ability and just about every-
thing else, old boy." I wrote to con-
gratulate him, of course, but there was
no further communication between us
for months.

Eventually I wrote to say I was
coming home, that I would stay at Oak
Lodge for a few weeks and then find
accommodation in one of the nearby
towns. I said goodbye to France, and
to the community that had become so
much a part of my life, and traveled to
England by bus and train, by ferry,
and then by train again. And on Au-
gust 20th, hardly able to believe what
was happening to me, I arrived by po-
ny and trap at the disused railway line
that skirted the edge of the extensive
Knaresthorpe estate. Oak Lodge lay on
the far side of the grounds, four miles
further round the road but accessible
via the right of way through the es-
tate's fields and woodlands. I intended
to take an intermediate route, and so,
lugging my single, crammed suitcase as
best I could, I began to walk along the
grass-covered railway track, peering,
on occasion, over the high red-brick
wall that marked the limit of the estate,
trying to see through the gloom of the
pungent pine woods. Soon this wood-
land, and the wall, vanished, and the
land opened into tight, tree-bordered
fields, to which I gained access across a
rickety wooden stile, almost lost be-
neath briar and full-fruited blackberry
bushes. I had to trample my way out of

Fantasy & Science Fiction

the public domain and so onto the
south trackway that wound, skirting
patchy woodland and the stream called
"sticklebrook," up to the ivy-covered
house that was my home.

It was late morning and very hot as
I came in distant sight of Oak Lodge.
Somewhere off to my left I could hear
the drone of a tractor. I thought of old
Alphonse Jeffries, the estate's farm su-
pervisor, and with memory of his
weather-tanned, smiling face came im-
ages of the millpond and fishing for
pike from his tiny rowboat,

Memory of the millpond was as
tranquil as its surface, and I moved
away from the south track, through
waist-high nettles and a tangle of ash
and hawthorn scrub until I came out
close to the bank of the wide, shadowy
pool, its full size hidden by the gloom
of the dense stand of oak woodland
that began on its far side. Almost hid-
den among the rushes that crowded the
nearer edge of the pond was the shal-
low boat from which we had fished,
years before; its white paint was flaked
away almost entirely now, and al-
though the craft looked watertight, I
doubted if it would take the weight of
a full-grown man. I didn't disturb it
but walked around the bank and sat
down on the rough concrete steps of
the crumbling boathouse; from here I
watched the surface of the pool rip-
pling with the darting motions of in-
sects and the occasional passage of a
fish, just below.

"A couple of sticks and a bit of

string ... that's all it takes."

Christian's voice startled me. He
must have walked along a beaten track
from the lodge, hidden from my view
by the shed. Delighted, I jumped to my
feet and turned to face him. The shock
of his appearance was like a physical
blow to me, and I think he noticed the
fact, even though I threw my arms
about him and gave him a powerful
brotherly bear hug.

"I had to see this place again," I
said.

"I know what you mean," he said,
as we broke our embrace. "I often walk
here myself." There was a moment's
awkward silence as we stared at each
other. I felt, distinctly, that he was not
particularly pleased to see me. "You're
looking brown and dravvn, c^d bey,"
he said. "Healthy and ill together...."

"Mediterranean sun, grape picking,
and shrapnel. I'm still not one hundred
percent." I smiled. "But it is good to be
back, to see you again."

"Yes," he said dully. "I'm glad
you've come, Steve. Very glad. Really.
I'm afraid the place . . . well, a bit of a
mess. I only got your letter yesterday
and I haven't had a chance to do any-
thing. Things have changed quite a bit,
you'll find."

And he more than anything. I
could hardly believe that this was the
chipper, perky young man who had
left with his army unit in 1944. He had
aged incredibly, his hair quite streaked
with grey, more noticeable for his hav-
ing allowed it to grow long and untidy

Mythago Wood

at the back and sides. He reminded me
very much of father, the same distant,
distracted look, the same hollow
cheeks and deeply wrinkled face. But it
was his whole demeanor that had
shocked me. He had always been a
stocky, muscular chap; now he was
like the proverbial scarecrow, wiry,
ungainly, on edge all the time. His eyes
darted about but never seemed to
focus upon me. And he smelled. Of
mothballs, as if the crisp white shirt
and grey flannels that he wore had
been dragged out of storage; and
another smell beyond the naptha ...
the hint of woodland and grass. There
was dirt under his fingernails and in his
hair, and his teeth were yellowing.

He seemed to relax slightly as the
minutes ticked by. We sparred a bit,
laughed a bit, and walked around the
pond, whacking at the rushes with
sticks. I could not shake off the feeling
that I had arrived home at a bad time.

"Was it difficult ... with the old
man, I mean? The last days."

He shook his head. "There was a
nurse here for the final two weeks or
so. I can't exactly say that he went
peacefully, but she managed to stop
him damaging himself ... or me, for
that matter."

"Your letters certainly suggested a
growing hostility. To understate the
case."

Christian smiled quite grimly anjd
glanced at me with a curious expres-
sion, somewhere between agreement
and suspicion. "You got that from my

letters, did you? Well, yes. He became
quite crazed soon after I came back
from the war. You should have seen
the place, Steve. You should have seen
him. I don't think he'd washed for
months. I wondered what he'd been
eating . . . certainly nothing as simple as
eggs and meat. In all honesty I think,
for a few months at any rate, he'd been
eating wood and leaves. He was in a
wretched state. Although he let me
help him with his work, he quickly be-
gan to resent me. He tried to kill me on
several occasions, Steve. And I mean
that, really desperate attempts on my
life. There was a reason for it, I sup-
pose...."

I was astonished by what Christian
was telling me. The image of my father
had changed from that of a cold, re-
sentful man into a crazed figure, rant-
ing at Christian and beating at him
with his fists.

"I always thought that, for you at
least, he had a touch of affection; he al-
ways told you the stories of the wood;
I listened, but it was you who sat on
his knee. Why would he try to kill
you?"

"I became too involved," was all
Christian said. He was keeping some-
thing back, something of critical
importance. I could tell from his tone,
from his sullen, almost resentful ex-
pression. I had never before felt so dis-
tant from my own brother. I wondered
if his behavior was having an affect on
Guiwenneth, the girl he had married. I
wondered what sort of atmosphere she

10

Fantasy & Science Fiction

was living in up at Oak Lodge.

Tentatively, I broached the subject
of the girl.

Christian struck angrily at the rush-
es by the pond. "Guiwenneth's gone,"
he said simply, and I stopped, startled.
"What does that mean, Chris?
Gone where?"

"She's just gone, Steve," he snap-
ped, angry and cornered. "She was fa-
ther's girl, and she's gone, and that's all
there is to it."

"I don't understand what you
mean. Where's she gone tol In your
letter you sounded so happy...."

"I shouldn't have written about
her. That was a mistake. Now let it
drop, will you?"

After that outburst, my unease
with Christian grew stronger by the
minute. There was something very
wrong with him indeed, and clearly
Guiwenneth's leaving had contributed
greatly to the terrible change I could
see; but I sensed there was something
more. Unless he spoke about it, how-
ever, there was no way through to
him. I could find only the words, "I'm
sorry."

"Don't be."

We walked on, almost to the
woods, where the ground became
marshy and unsafe for a few yards be-
fore vanishing into a musty deepness
of stone and root and rotting wood. It
was cool, here, the sun being behind us
now and beyond the thickly foliaged
trees. The dense stands of rush moved
in the breeze, and I watched the rotting

boat as it shifted slightly on its mooring.

Christian followed my gaze, but he
was not looking at the boat or the
pond; he was lost, somewhere in his
own thoughts. For a brief moment I ex-
perienced a jarring sadness at the sight
of so fine a young man so ruined in ap-
pearance and attitude. I wanted des-
perately to touch his arm, to hug him,
and 1 could hardly bear the knowledge
that I was afraid to do so.

Quietly, I asked him, "What on
earth has happened to you, Chris? Are
you ill?"

He didn't answer for a moment,
then said, "I'm not ill," and struck hard
at a puffball, which shattered and
spread on the breeze. He looked at me,
something of resignation in his haunt-
ed face. "I've been going through a few
changes, that's all. I've been picking up
on the old man's work. Perhaps a bit of
his reclusiveness is rubbing off on me,
a bit of his detachment."

"If that's true, then perhaps you
should give up for a while. The old
man's obsession with the oak forest
eventually killed him, and from the
look of you, you're going the same
way."

Christian smiled thinly and chuck-
ed his reedwhacker out into the pond,
where it made a dull splash and floated
in a patch of scummy green algae. "It
might even be worth dying to achieve
what he tried to achieve . . . and failed."
I didn't understand the dramatic
overtone in Christian's statement. The
work that had so obsessed our father

Mythago Wood

11

had been concerned with mapping the
woodland and searching for evidence
of old forest settlements. He had clear-
ly invented a whole new jargon for
himself and effectively isolated me
from any deeper understanding of his
work. I said this to Christian and add-
ed, "Which is all very interesting, but
hardly that interesting."

"He was doing much more than
that, much more than just mapping.
But do you remember those maps,
Steve? Incredibly detailed...."

I could remember one quite clearly,
the largest map, showing carefully
marked trackways and easy routes
through the tangle of trees and stony
outcrops; it showed clearings drawn
with almost obsessive precision, each
glade numbered and identified, and the
whole forest divided into zones and
given names. We had made a camp in
one of the clearings close' to the wood-
land edge. "We often tried to get deep-
er into the heartwoods, remember
those expeditions, Chris? But the deep
track just ends, and we always man-
aged to get lost, I seem to recall, and
very scared."

"That's true," Christian said quiet-
ly, looking at me quizzically, and add-
ed, "What if I told you the forest had
stopped us entering? Would you
believe me?"

I peered into the tangle of brush,
tree and gloom, to where there was a
sunlit clearing visible. "In a way I sup-
pose ijt did," I said. "It stopped us pene-
trating very deeply because it made us

scared, because there are few track-
ways through and the ground is chok-
ed with stone and briar ... very diffi-
cult walking. Is that what you meant?
Or did you mean something a little
more sinister?"

"Sinister isn't the word I'd use,"
said Christian, but added nothing
more for moment; he reached up to
pluck a leaf from a small immature oak
and rubbed it between thumb and fore-
finger before crushing it in his palm.
All the time he stared into the deep
woods. "This is primary oak wood-
land, Steve, untouched forest from
when all of the country was covered
with deciduous forests of oak and ash
and elder and rowan and hawthorn...."

"And all the rest," I said with a
smik. "I remember the old man listing
them for us."

"That's right, he did. And there's
more than eight square miles of such
forest stretching from here to well be-
yond Grimley, eight square miles of
original, post-Ice Age forestland. Un-
touched, uninvaded for thousands of
years." He broke off and looked at me
hard, before adding, "Resistant to
change."

I said, "He always thought there
were boars alive in there. I remember
hearing something one night, and he
convinced me that it was a great big
old bull boar, skirting the edge of the
woods, looking for a mate."

Christian led the way back towards
the boathouse. "He was probably
right. If boars had survived from medi-

12

Fantasy & Science Fiction

eval times, this is just the sort of wood-
land they'd be found in."

With my mind opened to those
events of years ago, memory inched
back, images of childhood — the burn-
ing touch of sun on bramble-grazed
skin, fishing trips to the millpond, tree
camps, games, explorations . . . and in-
stantly I recalled the Twigling.

As we walked back to the beaten
pathway that led up to the lodge, we
discussed the sighting. I had been
about nine or ten years old. On our
way to the sticklebrook to fish we had
decided to test out our stick and string
rods on the millpond, in the vain hope
of snaring one of the predatory fish
that lived there. As we crouched by the
water (we only ever dared go out in the
boat with Alphonse), we saw move-
ment in the trees, across on the other
bank. It was a bewildering vision that
held us enthralled for the next few mo-
ments, and not a little terrified: stand-
ing watching us was a man in brown
leathery clothes, with a wide, gleaming
belt around his waist, and a spiky or-
ange beard that reached to his chest;
on his head he wore twigs, held to his
crown by the leather band. He watch-
ed us for a moment only, before slip-
ping back into the darkness. We heard
nothing in all this time, no sound of
approach, no sound of departure.

Running back to the house, we had
soon calmed down. Christian decided,
eventually, that it must have been old
Alphonse, playing tricks on us. But
when I mentioned what we'd seen to

my father, he reacted almost angrily
(although Christian recalls him as hav-
ing been excited, and bellowing for
that reason, and not because he was
angry with our having been near the
forbidden pool). It was father who re-
ferred to the vision as "the Twigling,"
and soon after we had spoken to him
he vanished into the woodland for
nearly two weeks.

"That was when he came back
hurt, remember?" We had reached the
grounds of Oak Lodge, and Christian
held the gate open for me as he spoke.

"The arrow wound. The gypsy ar-
row. My God, that was a bad day."

"The first of many."

I noticed that most of the ivy had
been cleared from the walls of the
house; it was a grey place now, small,
curtainless windows set in the dark
brick, the slate roof, with its three tall
chimney stacks, partially hidden be-
hind the branches of a big old beech
tree. The yard and gardens were unti-
dy and unkempt, the empty chicken
coops and animal shelters ramshackle
and decaying. Christian had really let
-the place slip. But when I stepped
across the threshold, it was as if I had
never been away. The house smelled of
stale food and chlorine, and I could al-
most see the thin figure of my mother,
working away at the immense pine-
wood table in the kitchen, cats stretch-
ed out around her on the red-brick
floor.

Christian had grown tense again,
staring at me in that fidgety way that

Mythago Wood

ii

marked his unease, imagined he was
still unsure whether to be glad or angry
that I had come home like this. For a
moment I felt like an intruder. He said.
"Why don't you unpack and freshen
up. You can use your old room. It's a
bit stuffy, I expect, but it'll soon air.
Then come down and we'll have some
late lunch. We've got all the time in the
world to chat, as long as we're finished
by tea." He smiled, and I thought this
was some slight attempt at humor. But
he went on quickly, staring at me in a
cold, hard way, "Because if^you're go-
ing to stay at home for a while, then
you'd better know what's going on
here. I don't want you interfering with
it, Steve, or with what I'm doing."

"I wouldn't interfere with your life,
Chris—"

"Wouldn't you? We'll see. I'm not
going to deny that I'm nervous of you
being here. But since you are...." he
trailed off, and for a second looked al-
most embarrassed. "Well, we'll have a
chat later on."

Intrigued by what Christian had said,
and worried by his apprehension of
me, I nonetheless restrained my curios-
ity and spent an hour exploring the
house again, from top to bottom, in-
side and out, everywhere save father's
study, the contemplation of which
chilled me more than Christian's be-
havior had done. Nothing had chang-
ed, except that it was untidy and un-
tenanted. Christian had employed a

part-time cleaner and cook, a good
soul from a nearby village who cycled
to the Lodge every week and prepared
a pie or stew that would last the man
three days. Christian did not go short
of farm produce, so much so that he
rarely bothered to use his ration book.
He seemed to get all he needed, includ-
ing sugar and tea, from the Knares-
thorpe estate, which had always been
good to my family.

My own room was dust free but
quite stale. I opened the window wide
and lay down on the bed for a few
minutes, staring out and up into the
hazy late-summer sky, past the waving
branches of the gigantic beech that
grew so close to the lodge. Several
times, in the years before my teens, I
had cliinbed from window to tree and
made a secret camp among the thick
branches; by moonlight I had shivered
in my underpants, crouched in that
private place, imagining the dark do-
ings of night creatures below.

Lunch, in midaf temoon, was a sub-
stantial feast of cold pork, chicken and
hard-boiled eggs, in quantities that, af-
ter two years in France on strict ra-
tions, I had never thought to see again.
We were , of course, eating his food
supply for several days, but the fact
seemed irrelevant to Christian, who at
any rate only picked at his meal.

Afterwards we talked for a couple
of hours, and Christian relaxed quite
noticeably, although he never referred
to Guiwenneth or to father's work,
and I never broached either subject.

14

Fantasy & Science Fiction

We were sprawled in the uncomforta-
ble armchairs that had belonged to my
grandparents, surrounded by the time-
faded mementos of our family . . . pho-
tographs, a noisy rose-wood clock,
horrible pictures of exotic Spain, all
framed in cracked mock-gilded wood,
and all pressed hard against the same
floral wallpaper that had hugged the
walls of the sitting room since a time
before my birth. But it was home, and
Christian was home, and the smell,
and the faded surrounds, all were
home to me. I knew, within two hours
of arriving, that I would have to stay.
It was not so much that I belonged here
— although I certainly felt that — but
simply that the place belonged to me,
not in any mercenary sense of owner-
ship, more in the way that the house
and the land around the house shared a
common life with me; we were part of
the same evolution; even in France,
even as far as Greece, where I had been
in action, I had not been separated
from that evolution, merely stretched
to an extreme.

As the heavy old rose-wood clock
began to whirr and click, preceding its
labored chiming of the hour of five.
Christian abruptly rose from his chair
and tossed his half-smoked cigarette
into the empty fire grate.

"Let's go to the study," he said, and
I rose without speaking and followed
him through the house to the small
room where our father had worked.
"You're scared of this room, aren't
you?" he said as he opened the door

and walked inside, crossing to the
heavy oak desk and pulling out a large
leather-bound book from one of the
drawers.

I hesitated outside the study,
watching Christian, almost unable to
move my legs to carry myself into the
room. I recognized the book he held,
my father's notebook. I touched my
back pocket, the wallet I carried there,
and thought of the fragment of that
notebook that was hidden inside the
thin leather. I wondered if anyone, my
father or Christian, had ever noticed
that a page was missing. Christian was
watching me, his eyes bright with ex-
citement, now, his hands trembling as
he placed the book on the desk top.

"He's dead, Steve. He's gone from
this room, from the house. There's no
need to be afraid any more."

"Isn't there?"

But I found the sudden strength to
move and stepped across the thresh-
old. The moment I entered the musty
room I felt totally subdued, deeply af-
fected by the coolness of the place, the
stark, haunted atmosphere that hugged
the walls and carpets and windows. It
smelled slightly of leather, here, and
dust too, with just a distant hint of pol-
ish, as if Christian made a token effort
to keep this stifling room clean. It was
not a crowded room, not a library as
my father would have perhaps liked it
to be. There were books on zoology
and botany, on history and archaeo-
logy, but these were not rare copies,
merely the cheapest copies he could

Mythago Wood

15

find at the time. There were more pa-
perbacks than stiff -covered books, and
the exquisite binding of his notes, and
the deeply varnished desk, had an air
of Victorian elegance about them that
belied the otherwise shabby studio.

On the walls, between the cases of
books, were his glass-framed speci-
mens, pieces of wood, collections of
leaves, crude sketches of animal and
plant life made during the first years of
his fascination with the forest. And al-
most hidden away among the cases
and the shelves was the patterned shaft
of the arrow that had struck him fif-
teen years before, its flights twisted
and useless, the broken shaft glued to-
gether, the iron head dulled with
corrosion, but a lethal-looking weapon
nonetheless.

I stared at that arrow for several
seconds, reliving the man's agony, and
the tears that Christian and I had wept
for him as we had helped him back
from the woodlands, that cold autumn
afternoon, convinced that he would
die.

How quickly things had changed
after that strange and never fully ex-
plained incident. If the arrow linked
me with an earlier day, when some
semblance of concern and love had re-
mained in my father's mind, the rest of
the study radiated only coldness.

I could still see the greying figure,
bent over his desk, writing furiously. I
could hear the troubled breathing, the
lung disorder that finally killed him; I
could hear his caught breath, the vo-

calized sound of irritation as he grew
aware of my presence and waved me
away with a half-irritated gesture, as if
he begrudged even that split second of
acknowledgement .

How like him Christian looked
now, standing there all disheveled and
sickly looking, and yet with the mark
of absolute confidence about him, his
hands in the pockets of his flannels,
shoulders drooped, his whole body
visibly shaking.

He had waited quietly as I adjusted
to the room and let the memories and
atmosphere play through me. As I
stepped up to the desk, my mind back
on the moment at hand, he said,
"Steve, you should read the notes.
They'll make a lot of things clear to
you and help you understand what it is
I'm doing as well."

I turned the notebook towards me,
scanning the sprawling untidy hand-
writing, picking out words and
phrases, reading through the years of
my father's life in a few scant seconds.
The words were as meaningless, on the
whole, as those on my purloined sheet.
To read them brought back a memory
of anger and of danger, and of fear.
The life in the notes had sustained me
through nearly a year of war and had
come to mean something outside of
their proper context. I felt reluctant to
dispel that powerful association with
the past.

"I intend to read them, Chris. From
beginning to end, and that's a promise.
But not for the moment."

16

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I closed the book, noticing as I did
that my hands were clammy and trem-
bling. I was not yet ready to be so close
to my father again, and Christian saw
this and accepted it.

^conversation died quite early that
night, as my energy expired, and the
t^isions of the long journey finally
made themselves known to me. Chris-
tian came up with me and stood in the
doorway of my room, watching as I
turned back the sheets and pottered
about, picking up bits and pieces of my
past life, laughing, shaking my head
and trying to evoke a last moment's
tired nostalgia. "Remember making
camp out in the beech?" I said, watch-
ing the grey of branch and leaf against
the still-bright evening sky. "Yes," said
Christian with a smile. "Yes, I remem-
ber very clearly."

But it was as fatigued as that, and
Christian took the hint and said,
"Sleep well, old chap. I'll see you in the
morning."

If I slept at all, it was for the first
two or three hours after putting head
to pillow. I woke sharply, and bright-
ly, in the dead of night, one or two
o'clock, perhaps; the sky was very
dark now, and it was quite windy out-
side. I lay and stared at the window,
wondering how my body could feel so
fresh, so alert. There was movement
downstairs, and I guessed that Chris-
tian was doing some tidying, restlessly
walking through the house, trying to

adjust to the idea of me moving in.

The sheets smelled of mothballs
and old cotton; the bed creaked in a
metallic way when I shifted on it, and
when I lay still, the whole room clicked
and shuffled, as if adapting itself to its
first company in so many years. I lay
awake for ages but must have drifted
to sleep again before first light, because
suddenly Christian was bending over
me, shaking my shoulder gently.

I started with surprise, awake at
once, and propped up on my elbows,
looking around. It was dawn. "What is
it, Chris?"

"I've got to go, old boy. I'm sorry,
but I have to."

I realized he was wearing a heavy
oilskin cape and thick-soled walking
boots on his feet. "Go? What d'you
mean, go?"

"I'm sorry, Steve. There's nothing I
can do about it." He spoke softly, as if
there were someone else in the house
who might be woken by raised voices.
He looked more drawn than ever in
this pale light, and his eyes were nar-
rowed, I thought with pain or anxiety.
"I have to go away for a few days.
You'll be all right. I've left a list of in-
structions downstairs, where to get
bread, eggs, all that sort of thing. I'm
sure you'll be able to use my ration
book until yours comes. I shan't be
long, just a few days. That's a
promise...."

He rose from his crouch and walk-
ed out the door. "For God's sake,
Chris, where are you going?"

Mythago Wood

17

"Inwards," was all he said, before I
heard him clump heavily down the
stairs. I remained motionless for a mo-
ment or two, trying to clear my
thoughts, then rose, put on my dress-
ing gown and followed him down to
the kitchen. He had already left the
house. I went back up to the landing
window and saw him skirting the edge
of the yard and walking swiftly down
towards the south track. He was wear-
ing a wide-brimmed hat and carrying a
long black staff; on his back he had a
small rucksack, slung uncomfortably
over one shoulder.

"Where's inwards, Chris?" I said to
his vanishing figure, and watched long
after he had disappeared from view.
"What's going on inside your head?" I
asked of his empty bedroom as I wan-
dered restlessly through the house;
Guiwenneth, I decided in my wisdom,
her loss, her leaving ... how little one
could interpret from the words "she's
gone." And in all our chat of the even-
ing before he had never alluded to the
girl again. I had come home to England
expecting to find a cheerful young cou-
ple and instead had found a haunted,
wasting brother living in the derelict
shadow of our family home.

By the afternoon I had resigned
myself to a period of solitary living,
for wherever Christian had gone (and I
had a fairly good idea), he had hinted
clearly that he would be gone for some
time. There was a lot to do about the
house «ind the yard, and there seemed
no better way to spend my time than in

beginning to rebuild the personality of
the house. I made a list of essential re-
pairs and the following day walked in-
to the nearest town to order what ma-
terials I could, mosdy wood and paint,
which I found in reasonable supply.

I renewed my acquaintance with
the Knaresthorpe family and with
many of the local families with whom I
had once been friendly. I terminated
the services of the part-time cook; I
could look after myself quite well
enough. And I visited the cemetery, a
single, brief visit, coldly accomplished.

The month of August turned to
September, and I noticed a definite
crispness in the air by evening and ear-
ly in the morning. It was a season I lov-
ed, the turn from summer to autumn,
although it bore with it associations of
return to school after the long vaca-
tion, and that was a memory I didn't
cherish. I soon grew used to being on
my own in the house, and although I
took long walks around the deep
woodlands, watching the road and the
railway track for Christian's return, I
had ceased to feel anxious about him
by the end of my first week home and
had settled comfortably into a daily
routine of building in the yard, paint-
ing the exterior woodwork of the
house ready for the onslaught of win-
ter, and digging over the large untend-
ed garden.

It was during the evening of my
eleventh day at home that this domes-
tic routine was disturbed by a circum-
stance of such peculiarity that after-

18

Fantasy & Science Fiction

wards I could not sleep for thinking
about it.

I had been in the town of Hobb-
hurst for most of the afternoon and af-
ter a light evening meal was sitting
reading the newspaper; towards nine
o'clock, as I began to feel ready for an
evening" stroll, I thought I heard a dog,
not so much barking as howling. My
first thought was that Christian was
coming back; my second that there
were no dogs in this immediate area at
aU.

I went out into the yard; it was
after dusk but still quite bright, al-
though the oak woods were melded to-
gether into a grey-green blur. I called
for Christian, but there was no re-
sponse. I was about to return to my pa-
per when a man stepped out of the dis-
tant woodland and began to trot to-
wards me; on a short leather leash he
was holding the most enormous hound
I have ever seen.

At the gate to our private grounds
he stopped, and the dog began to
growl; it placed its forepaws on the
fence and, in so doing, rose almost to
the height of its master. I felt nervous
at once, keeping my attention balanced
between the gaping, panting mouth of
that dark beast and the strange man
who held it in check.

It was difficult to make him out
clearly, for his face was painted with
dark patterns and his mustaches
drooped to well below his chin; his
hair was plastered thickly about his
scalp; he wore a dark woollen shirt.

with a leather jerkin over the top, and
tight, check-patterned breeches that
reached to just below his knees. When
he stepped cautiously through the gate,
I could see his rough and ready san-
dals. Across his shoulder he carried a
crude-looking bow, and a bundle of ar-
rows, held together with a simple
thong and tied to his belt. He, like
Christian, carried a staff. ^

Inside the gate he hesitated, watch-
ing me. The hound was restless beside
him, licking its mouth and growling
softly. I had never seen a dog such as
this, shaggy and dark-furred, with the
.narrow pointed face of an Alsatian,
but the body, it seemed to me, of a
bear; except that its legs were long and
thin, an animal made for chasing, for
hunting.

The man spoke to me, and al-
though I felt familiar with the words,
they meant nothing. I didn't know
what to do. So I shook my head and
said that I didn't understand. The man
hesitated just a moment before repeat-
ing what he had said, this time with a
distinct edge of anger in his voice. And
he started to walk towards me, tugging
at the hound to prevent it straining at
the leash. The light was draining from
the sky, and he seemed to grow in stat-
ure in the greyness as he approached.
The beast watched me, hungrily.

"What do you want?" I called, and
tried to sound firm when I would
rather have run inside the house. The
man was ten paces away from me. He
stopped, spoke again and this time

Mythago Wood

19

made eating motions with the hand
that held his staff. Now I understood. I
nodded vigorously. "Wait here," I
said, and went back to the house to
fetch the cold joint of pork that was to
last me four more days. It was not
large, but it seemed an hospitable thing
to do. I took this, half a granary loaf,
and a jug of bottled beer out into the
yard. The stranger was crouched now,
the hound lying down beside him,
rather reluctantly, it seemed to me. As
I tried to approach them, the dog
roared in a way that set my heart rac-
ing and nearly made me drop my gifts.
The man shouted at the beast and said
something to me. I placed the food
where I stood and backed away. The
gruesome pair approached and again
squatted down to eat.

As he picked up the joint, I saw the
scars on his arm, running down and
across the bunched muscles. I also
smelled him, a raw, rancid odor, sweat
and urine mixed with the fetid aroma
of rotting meat. I nearly gagged but
held my ground, watching as the
stranger tore at the pork with his teeth,
swallowing hard and fast. The hound
watched me.

After a few minutes the man stop-
ped eating, looked at me, and with his
gaze fixed on mine, almost challenging
me to react, passed the rest of the meat
to the dog, which growled loudly and
snapped at the joint. The hound chew-
ed, cracked and gulped the entire piece
of pork in less than four minutes, while
the stranger cautiously — and without

much apparent pleasure — drank beer
and chewed on a large mouthful of
bread.

Finally this bizarre feast was over.
The man rose to his feet and jerked the
hound away from where it was licking
the ground noisily. He said a word I in-
tuitively recognized as "thankyou." He
was about to turn when the hound
scented something; it uttered a high-
pitched keen, followed by a raucous
bark, and snatched itself away from its
master's restraining grip, racing across
the yard to a spot between the ram-
shackle chicken houses. Here it sniffed
and scratched until its master reached
it, grabbed the leather leash, and
shouted angrily and lengthily at his
charge. The hound moved with him,
padding silently and monstrously into
the gloom beyond the yard. The last I
saw of them they were running at full
speed, around the edge of the wood-
land, towards the farmlands around
the village of Grimley.

In the morning the place where
man and beast had rested still smelled
rank. I skirted the area quickly as I
walked to the woods and found the
place where my strange visitors had ex-
ited from the trees; it was trampled and
broken, and I followed the line of their
passage for some yards into the shade
before stopping and turning back.

Where on earth had they come
from? Had the war had such an effect
on men in England that some had re-
turned to the wild, using bow and ar-
row and hunting dog for survival?

20

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Not until midday did I think to
look between the chicken huts, at the
ground so deeply scored by that brief
moment's digging. What had the beast
scented, I wondered, and a sudden
chill clawed at my heart. I left the place
at a run, unwilling, for the moment, to
confirm my worst fears.

How I knew I cannot say; intui-
tion, or perhaps something that my
subconscious had detected in Chris-
tian's words and mannerisms the week
or so before, during our brief encoun-
ter. In any event, late in the afternoon
that same day I took a spade to the
chicken huts and within a few minutes
of digging had proved my instinct
right.

It took me half an hour of sitting on
the back doorstep of the house, staring
across the yard at the grave, to find the
courage to uncover the woman's body
totally. I was dizzy, slightly sick, but
most of all I was shaking; an uncon-
trollable, unwelcome- shaking of arms
and legs so pronounced that I could
hardly pull on a pair of gloves. But
eventually I knelt by the hole and
brushed the rest of the dirt from the
girl's body.

Christian had buried her three feet
deep, face down; her hair was long and
red; her body was still clad in a strange
green garment, a patterned tunic that
was laced at the sides and, though it
was crushed up almost to her waist
now, would have reached to her
calves. A staff was buried with her. I
turned the head, holding my breath

against the almost intolerable smell of
putrefaction, and with a little effort
could gaze upon the withering face. I
saw then how she had died, for the
head and stump of the arrow were still
embedded in her eye. Had Christian
tried to withdraw the weapon and suc-
ceeded only in breaking it? There was
enough of the shaft left for me to
notice that it had the same carved
markings as the arrow in my father's
study.

Poor Guiwenneth, I thought, and
let the corpse drop back to its resting
place. I filled in the dirt again. When I
Reached the house I was cold with
sweat and in no doubt that I was about
to be violently sick.

I wo days later, when I came down in
the morning, I found the kitchen litter-
ed with Christian's clothes and effects,
the floor covered with mud and leaf lit-
ter, the whole place smelling unpleas-
ant. I crept upstairs to his room and
stared at his semi-naked body; he was
belly down on the bed, face turned to-
wards me, sleeping soundly and noisi-
ly, and I imagined that he was sleeping
enough for a week. The state of his
body, though, gave me cause for con-
cern. He was scratched and scarred
from neck to ankle, and filthy, and
malodorous to an extreme. His hair
was matted with dirt. And yet, about
him there was something hardened and
strong, a tangible physical change
from the hollow-faced, rather skeletal

Mythago Wood

21

young man who had greeted me nearly
two weeks before.

He slept for most of the day,
emerging at six in the evening wearing
a loose-fitting grey shirt and flannels,
torn off just above the knee. He had
half-heartedly washed his face, but still
reeked of sweat and vegetation, as if he
had spent the days away buried in
compost.

I fed him, and he drank the entire
contents of a pot of tea as I sat watch-
ing him; he kept darting glances at me,
suspicious little looks as if he were
nervous of some sudden move or sur-
prise attack upon him. The muscles of
his arms and wrists were pronounced.
This was almost a different man.

"Where have you been, Chris?" I
asked after a while, and was not at all
surprised when he answered, "In the
woods, old boy. Deep in the woods."
He stuffed more meat into his mouth
and chewed noisily. As he swallowed
he found a moment to say, "I'm quite
fit. Bruised and scratched by the damn-
ed brambles, but quite fit."

In the woods. Deep in the woods.
What in heavens name could he have
been doing there? As I watched him
wolf down his food, I saw again the
stranger, crouching like an animal in
my yard, chewing on meat as if he
were some wild beast. Christian re-
minded me of that man. There was the
same air of the primitive about him.

"You need a bath rather badly," I
said, and he grinned and made a sound
of affirmation. "What have you been

doing, Chris? In the woods. Have you
been camping?"

He swallowed noisily and drank
half a cup of tea before shaking his
head. "I have a camp there, but I've
been searching, walking as deep as I
could get. But I still can't get
beyond...." He broke off and glanced
at me, a questioning look in his eyes.
"Did you read the old man's note-
book?"

I said that I hadn't. In truth, I had
been so surprised by his abrupt depar-
ture and so committed to getting the
house back into some sort of shape that
I had forgotten all about father's notes
on his work. And even as I said this, I
wondered if the truth of the matter was
that I had put father, his work and his
notes, as far from my mind as possible,
as if they were specters whose haunting
would reduce my resolve to go for-
ward.

Christian wiped his hand across his
mouth and stared at his empty plate.
He suddenly sniffed himself and laugh-
ed. "By the Gods, I do stink. You'd
better boil me up some water, Steve.
I'll wash right now."

But I didn't move. Instead I stared
across the wooden table at him; he
caught my gaze and frowned. "What is
it? What's on your mind?"

"I found her, Chris. I found her
body. Guiwenneth. I found where you
buried her."

I don't know what reacion I expect-
ed from Christian. Anger, perhaps, or
panic, or a sudden babbling burst of

22

Fantasy & Science Fiction

explanation. I half hoped he would re-
act with puzzlement, that the corpse in
the yard would turn out not to be the
remains of his wife and that he had had
no involvement with its burial. But
Christian knew about the body. He
stared at me blankly, and a heavy,
sweaty silence made me grow uncom-
fortable.

Suddenly I realized that Christian
was crying, his gaze unwavering from
my own, but moistened, now, by the
great flood of tears through the re-
maining grime on his face. And yet he
made no sound, and his face never
changed its expression from that of
bland, almost blind contemplation.

"Who shot her, Chris?" I asked
quietly. "Did you?"

"Not me," he said, and with the
words his tears stopped, and his gaze
dropped to the table. "She was shot by
a mythago. There was nothing I could
do about it."

Mythago? The meaning was alien
to me, although I recognized the word
from the scrap of my father's notebook
that I carried. I queried it, and Chris
rose from the table but rested his hands
upon it as he watched me. "A myth-
ago," he repeated. "It's still in the
woods ... they all are. That's where
I've been, seeking among them. I tried
to save her, Steve. She was alive when
I found her, and she might have stayed
alive, but I brought her out of the
woods ... in a way, I did kill her. I took
her away from the vortex, and she died
quite quickly. I panicked, then. I didn't

know what to do. I buried her because
it seemed the easiest way out...."

"Did you tell the police? Did you
report her death?"

Christian grinned, but it was not
with any morbid humor. It was a
knowing grin, a response to some se-
cret that he had not yet shared; and yet
the grin was merely a defense, for it
faded rapidly. "Not necessary Steve....
The police would not have been inter-
ested."

I rose angrily from the table. It
seemed to me that Christian was be-
having, and had behaved, with appall-
ing irreseponsibility. "Her family,
Chris . . . her parents I They have a right
to know."

And Christian laughed.

I felt the blood rise in my face. "I
don't see anything to laugh at."

He sobered instantly, looked at me
almost abashed. "You're right. I'm
sorry. You don't understand, and it's
time you did. Steve, she had no par-
ents because she had no life, no real
life. She's lived a thousand times, and
she's never lived at all. But I still fell in
love with her ... and I shall find her
again in the woods; she's in there
somewhere "

Had he gone mad? His words were
the unreasoned babblings of one in-
sane, and yet something about his
eyes, something about his demeanor,
told me that it was not so much insani-
ty as obsession. But obsession with
what?

"You must read the old man's

Mythago Wood

23

notes, Steve. Don't put it off any
longer. They will tell you about the
wood, about what's going on in there:
I mean it. I'm neither mad nor callous.
I'm just trapped, and before I go away
again, I'd like you to know why, and
how, and where I'm going. Perhaps
you'll be able to help me. Who knows?
Read the book. And then we'll talk.
And when you know what our dear
departed father managed to do, then
I'm afraid I have to take my leave of
you again."

I here is one entry in my father's
notebook that seems to mark a turning
point in his research, and in his life. It
is a longer entry than the rest of that
particular time and follows an absence
of seven months from the pages. While
his entries are detailed, he could not be
described as having been a dedicated
diarist, and the style varies from clip-
ped notes to fluent description. (I dis-
covered, too, that he himself had torn
many pages from the thick book, thus
concealing my minor crime quite effec-
tively. Christian had never noticed the
missing page.) On the whole, he seems
to have used the notebook and the
quiet hours of recording as a way of
conversing with himself — a means of
clarification of his own thoughts.

The entry in question is dated Sep-
tember, 1933, and was written shortly
after our encounter with the Twigling.
After reading the entry for the first
time, I thought back to that year and

realized I had been just nine years old.

"Wynne- Jones arrived after dawn.
Walked together along the south track,
checking the flux-drains for sign of
mythago activity. Back to the house
quite shortly after — no one about,
which suited my mood. A crisp, dry
autumn day. Like last year, images of
the Urscumug are strongest as the
season changes. Perhaps he senses
autumn, the dying of the green. He
comes forward, and the oak woods
whisper to him. He must be close to
genesis. Wynne-Jones thinks a further
time of isolation needed, and it must be
done. Jennifer already concerned and
distraught by my absences. I feel help-
less — can't speak to her. Must do
what is needed.

"Yesterday the boys glimpsed the
Twigling. I had thought him resorbed
— clearly the resonance stronger than
we had believed. He seems to frequent
woodland edge, which is to be expect-
ed. I have seen him along the track sev-
eral times, but not for a year or so. The
persistence is worrying. Both boys
clearly disturbed by the sighting; Chris-
tian less emotional. I suspect it meant
little to him, a poacher perhaps, or lo-
cal man taking short cut to Grimley.
Wynne-Jones suggests we go back into
woods and call the Twigling deep, per-
haps to the hogback glade where he
might remain in strong oak-vortex and
eventually fade. But I know that pene-
trating into deep woodland will in-
volve more than a week's absence, and
poor Jennifer already deeply depressed

24

Fantasy & Science Fiction

by my behavior. Cannot explain it to
her, though I dearly want to. Do not
want the children involved in this, and
it worries me that they have now twice
seen a mythago. I have invented magic
forest creatures — stories for them.
Hope they will associate what they see
with products of their own imagina-
tions. But must be careful. Until it is re-
solved, until the Urscumug mythago
forms must not let any but Wynne-
Jones know of what I have discovered.
The completeness of the resurrection
essential. The Urscumug is the most
powerful because he is the primary. I
know for certain that the oak woods
will contain him, but others might be
frightened of the power they would
certainly be able to feel, and end it for
everyone. Dread to think what would
happen if these forests were destroyed,
and yet they cannot survive forever.

"Today's training with Wynne-
Jones: test pattern 26:iii, shallow hyp-
nosis, green light environment. As the
frontal bridge reached sixty volts, de-
spite the pain the flow across my skull
was the most powerful I have ever
known. Am now totally convinced
that each half of the brain functions in
a slightly different way and that the
hidden awareness is located on the
right-hand side. It has been lost for so
long! The Wynne-Jones bridge enables
a superficial communion between the
fields around each hemisphere, and the
zone of the pre-mythago is excited ac-
cordingly. If only there were some way
of exploring the living brain to find ex-

actly where the site of this occult pres-
ence lies.

"The forms of the mythagos cluster
in my peripheral vision, still. Why
never in fore-vision? These unreal im-
ages are mere reflections, after all. The
form of Hood was subtly different —
more brown than green, the face less
friendly, more haunted, drawn. This is
certainly because earlier images (even
the Hood mythago that actually form-
ed in the woodland, two years ago)
were affected by my own confused
childhood images of the greenwood
and the merry band. But now, evoca-
tion of the pre-mythago is more
powerful, reaches to the basic form,
without interference. The Arthur form
was more real as well, and I glimpsed
the various marshland forms from the
latter part of the first millennium AD.
Wynne-Jones would love me to ex-
plore these folk heroes, unrecorded
and unknown, but I am anxious to find
the primary image.

"The Urscumug formed in my mind
in the clearest form I have ever seen
him. Hints of the Twigling in form, but
he is much more ancient, far bigger.
Decks himself with wood and leaves,
on top of animal hides. Face seems
smeared with white clay, forming a
mask upon the exaggerated features
below; but it is hard to see the face
clearly. A mask upon a mask? The hair
a mass of stiff and spiky points; gnarl-
ed hawthorn branches are driven up
through the matted hair, giving a most
bizarre appearance. I believe he carries

Mythago Wood

a spear, with a wide stone blade ... an
angry looking weapon, but again, hard
to see, always just out of focus. He is
so old, this primary image, that he is
fading from the human mind, and in
any event is touched with confusion,
the overassertion of later cultural inter-
pretation of his appearance ... a hint of
bronze particularly, mostly about the
arms (torques). I suspect that the leg-
end of the Urscumug was powerful
enough to carry through all the neo-
lithic and on into the second millenni-
um BC, perhaps even later. Wynne-
Jones thinks the Urscumug may pre-
date even the neolithic.

"Essential, now, to spend time in
the forest, to allow the vortex to inter-
act with me and form the mythago. I
intend to leave the house within the
next week."

Without commenting on the
strange, confusing passage that I had
read, I turned the pages of the diary
and read entries here and there. I could
clearly recall that autumn in 1933, the
time when my father had packed a
large rucksack and wandered into the
woods, walking swiftly away from my
mother's hysterical shouting, and
flanked by his diminutive scientist
friend (a sour-faced man who never ac-
knowledged anyone but my father and
who seemed embarrassed to be in the
house when he came to visit). Mother
had not spoken for the rest of the day,
and she did nothing but sit in her bed-
room and occasionally weep. Christian
and I had become so distraught by her

behavior that in the late afternoon we
had penetrated the oakwoods as deep-
ly as we dared, calling for our father,
and finally panicking at the gloomy si-
lence and the loud, sudden sounds that
disturbed it. He had returned weeks
later, disheveled and stinking like a
tramp. The entry in his notebook, a
few days later, is a short and bitter ac-
count of failure. Nothing had happen-
ed. A single, rather rambling para-
graph caught my attention.

"The mythogenetic process is not
only complex, it is reluctant. My mind
is not at rest and, as Wynne-Jones has
explained, it is likely that my human
considerations, my worries, form an
effective barrier between the two
mythopoetic energy flows in my cortex
— the form from the right brain, the
reality from the left. The pre-mythago
zone is not sufficiently enriched by my
own life force for it to interact in the
oak vortex. I fear too that the natural
disappearance of so much life from the
forest is affecting the interface. The
boars are there, I'm sure. But perhaps
the life number is critical. I estimate no
more than forty, moving within the
spiral vortex bounded by the ashwood
intrusions into the oak circle. There are
no deer, no wolves, although the most
important animal, the hare, frequents
the woodland edge in profusion. But
perhaps the absence of so much that
had once lived here has thrown the bal-
ance of the formula. And yet, through
the primary existence of these woods,
life was changing. By the thirteenth

Fantasy & Science Fiction

century there was much botanical life
that was alien to the 'ley matrix' in
places where the mythagos still form-
ed. The form of the myth-men
changes, adapts, and it is the later
forms that generate easiest. Hood is
back — like all the Jack in the Greens,
is a nuisance, and several times moved
into the ridge zone around the hogback
glade. He shot at me, and this is be-
coming a cause of great concern I But I
cannot enrich the oak vortex sufficient-
ly with the pre-mythago of the Urscu-
mug. What is the answer? Perhaps the
memory is too far gone, too deep in the
silent zones of the brain, now, to touch
the trees."

Christian saw me frown as I read
through this tumble of words and im-
ages. Hood? Robin Hood? And some-
one — this Hood — shooting at my
father in the woods? I glanced around
the study and saw the iron-tipped ar-
row in its long, narrow glass case,
mounted above the display of wood-
land butterflies. Christian was turning
the pages of the notebook, having
watched me read in silence for the bet-
ter part of an hour. He was perched on
the desk; I sat in father's chair.

"What's all this about, Chris? It
reads as if he were actually trying to
create copies of storybook heroes."

"Not copies, Steve. The real thing.
There. Last bit of reading for the mo-
ment, then I'll go through it with you
in layman's terms."

It was an earlier entry, not dated by
year, only by day and month, al-

though it was clearly from some years
before the 1933 recording.

"I call those particular times
'cultural interfaces'; they form zones,
bounded in space, of course, by the
limits of the country, but bounded also
in time, a few years, a decade or so,
when the two cultures — that of the in-
vaded and the invader — are in a high-
ly anguished state. The mythagos grow
from the power of hate, and fear, and
form in the natural woodlands from
which they can either emerge — such
as the Arthur, or Artorius form, the
bear-like man with his charismatic
leadership — or remain in the natural
landscape, establishing a hidden focus
of hope — the Robin Hood form, per-
haps Hereward, and of course the
hero-form I call the Twigling, harass-
ing the Romans in so many parts of the
country. I imagine that it is the com-
bined emotion of the two races that
draws out the mythago, but it clearly
sides with that culture whose roots are
longest established in what I agree
could be a sort of ley matrix; thus, Ar-
thur forms and helps the Britons
against the Saxons, but later Hood is
created to help the Saxons against the
Norman invader."

I drew back from the book, shaking
my head. The expressions were confus-
ing, bemusing. Christian grinned as he
took the notebook and weighed it in
his hands. "Years of his life, Steve, but
his concern with keeping detailed re-
cords was not everything it might have
been. He records nothing for years.

Mythago Wood

27

then writes every day for a month."

"I need a drink of something. And a
few definitions."

We walked from the study. Chris-
tian carrying the notebook. As we
passed the framed arrow, I peered
closely at it. "Is he saying that the real
Robin Hood shot that into him? And
killed Guiwenneth too?"

"It depends," said Christian
thoughtfully, "on what you mean by
real. Hood came to that oak forest and
may still be there. I think he is. As you
have obviously noticed, he was there
four months ago when he shot Gui-
wenneth. But there were many Robin
Hoods, and all were as real or unreal as
each other, created by the Saxon peas-
ants during their time of repression by
the Norman invader."

"I don't comprehend this at all,
Chris — but what's a ley matrix'?
What's an 'oak vortex'? Does it mean
anything?"

As we sipped scotch and water in
the sitting room, watching the dusk
draw closer, the yard beyond the win-
dow greying into a place of featureless
shapes. Christian explained how a man
called Alfred Watkins had visited our
father on several occasions and shown
him on a map of the country how
straight lines connected places of spirit-
ual or ancient power — the barrows,
stones and churches of three different
cultures. These lines he called leys and
believed that they existed as a form of
earth energy running below the
ground, but influencing that which

stood upon it. My father had thought
about leys, and apparently tried to
measure the energy in the ground be-
low the forest, but without success.
And yet he had measured something'in
the oak woods — an energy associated
with all the life that grew there. He had
found a spiral vortex around each tree,
a sort of aura, and those spirals bound-
ed not just trees, but whole stands of
trees and glades. Over the years he had
mapped the forest. Christian brought
out that map of the woodland area,
and I looked at it again, but from a dif-
ferent point of view, beginning to un-
derstand the marks made upon it by
the man who had spent so much time
within the territories it depicted. Cir-
cles within circles were marked, cross-
ed and skirted by straight lines, some
of which were associated with the two
pathways we called south and deep
track. The letters HB in the middle of
the vast acreage of forest were clearly
meant to refer to the "Hogback" glade
that existed there, a clearing that nei-
ther Christian nor I had ever been able
to find. There were zones marked out
as "spiral oak," "dead ash zone" and
"oscillating traverse." -

"The old man believed that all life
is surrounded by an energetic aura —
you can see the human aura as a faint
glow in certair^ light. In these ancient
woodlands, primary woodlands, the
combined aura forms something far
more powerful, a sort of creative field
that can interact with our unconscious.
And it's in that unconscious that we

28

Fantasy & Science Fiction

carry what he calls the pre-mythago —
that's myth imago, the image of the
idealized fonn of a myth creature. This
takes on substance in a natural envi-
ronment, solid flesh, blood, clothing,
and — as you saw — weaponry. The
form of the idealized myth, the hero
figure, alters with cultural changes, as-
suming the identity and technology of
the time. When one culture invades
another — according to father's theory
— the heroes are made manifest, and
not just in one location! Historians and
legend seekers argue about where Ar-
thur of the Britons, and Robin Hood
really lived and fought and don't
realize that they lived in many sites.
And another important fact to remem-
ber is that when the pre-mythago
forms, it forms in the whole popula-
tion . . . and when it is no longer need-
ed, it remains in our collective uncon-
scious and is transmitted through the
generations."

"And the changing form of the
mythago," I said, to see if I had under-
stood my sketchy reading of father's
notes, "is based on an archetype, an ar-
chaic primary image which father call-
ed the Urscumug and from which all
later forms come. And he tried to raise
the Urscumug from his own uncon-
scious mind...."

"And failed to do so," said Chris-
tian, "although not for want of trying.
The effort killed him. It weakened him
so much that his body couldn't take
the pace. But he certainly seems to
have created several of the more recent

adaptations of the Urscumug."

There were so many questions, so
many areas that begged for clarifica-
tion. One above all: "But a thousand
years ago, if I understand the notes
correctly, there was a country-wide
need of the hero, the legendary figure,
acting for the side of Right. How can
one man capture such a passionate
mood? How did he power the interac-
tion? Surely not from the simple family
anguish he caused among us, and in his
own head. As he said, that created an
unsettled mind and he couldp't func-
tion properly."

"If there's an answer," said Chris-
tian calmly, "it's to be found in the
woodland area, perhaps in the hog-
back glade. The old man wrote in his
notes of the need for a period of soli-
tary existence, a period of meditation.
For a year, now, I've been following
his example directly. He invented a
sort of electrical bridge which seems to
fuse elements from each half of the
brain. I've used his equipment a great
deal, with and without him. But 1 al-
ready find images — the pre-mythagos
— forming in my peripheral vision
without the complicated program that
he used. He was the pioneer; his own
interaction with the wood has made it
easier for those who come after. He
achieved a certain success; I intend to
complete his work, eventually. I shall
raise the Urscumug, this hero of the
first men."

"To what end, Chris?" I asked
quietly, and in all truth could not see a

Mythago Wood

29

reason for so tampering with the an-
cient forces that inhabited both wood-
land and human spirit. Christian was
clearly obsessed with the idea of rais-
ing these dead forms, of finishing
something the old man had begun. But
in reading his notebook, and in my
conversation with Christian, I had not
heard a single word that explained why
so bizarre a state of nature should be so
important to the ones who studied it.
Christian had an answer. And as he
spoke to me his voice was hollow, the
mark of his uncertainty, the stigma of
his lacking conviction in the truth of
what he said. "Why, to study the earli-
est times of man, Steve. From these
mythagos we can learn so much of
how it was and how it was hoped to
be. The aspirations, the visions, the
cultural identity of a time so far gone
that even its stone monuments are in-
comprehensible to us. To learn. To
communicate through those persistent
images of our past that are locked in
each and every one of us."

He stopped speaking, and there
was the briefest of silence, interrupted
only by the heavy rhythmic sound of
the clock. I said, "I'm not convinced,
Chris." For a moment I thought he
would shout his anger; his face flush-
ed, his whole body tensed up, furious
with my calm dismissal of his script.
But the fire softened, and he frowned,
staring at me almost helplessly. "What
does that mean?"

"Nice sounding words; no convic-
tion."

After a second he seemed to ac-
knowledge some truth in what I said.
"Perhaps my conviction has gone,
then, buried beneath ... beneath the
other thing. Guiwenneth. She's be-
come my main reason for going back
now."

I remembered his callous words of
a while ago, about how she had no life
yet a thousand lives. I understood in-
stantly and wondered how so obvious
a fact could have remained so dogged-
ly elusive to me. "She was a mythago
herself," I said. "I understand now."

"She was my father's mythago, a
girl from Roman times, a manifestation
of the Earth Goddess, the young warri-
or princess who can unite the tribes. I
can find no recorded legends about
her, but she is associated with the oral
tradition, with the Celtic tradition of
keeping a name silent. She was a pow-
erful woman, and led — in all her ap)-
pearances — a powerful resistance to-
the Romans...."

'Like Queen Boadicea."

"Before and after that uprising.
Legends of Guiwenneth inspired many
tribes to take offensive action against
the invader." His gaze became distant
for a moment. "And then she was
formed in this wood, and I found her
and came to love her. She was not vio-
lent, perhaps because the old man him-
self could not think of a woman being
violent. He imposed a structure on her,
disarming her, leaving her quite help-
less in the forest."

"How long did you know her?" I

Fantasy & Science Fiction

asked, and he shrugged.

"I can't tell, Steve. How long have I
been away?"

"Twelve days or so."

"As long as that?" He seemed sur-
prised. "I thought no more than three.
Perhaps I knew her for many months,
then, but it seems no time at all. I lived
in the forest with her, trying to under-
stand her language, trying to teach her
mine, speaking with signs and yet al-
ways able to talk quite deeply. But the
old man pursued us right to the heart-
woods, right to the end. He wouldn't
let up — she was his girl, and he had
been as struck by her as had I. I found
him, one day, exhausted and terrified,
half buried by leaves at the forest edge.
I took him home and he was dead
within the month. That's what I meant
by his having had a reason for attack-
ing me. I took Guiwenneth from him."

"And then she was taken from you.
Shot dead."

"A few months later, yes. I became
a little too happy, a little too content. I
wrote to you because I had to tell
someone about her . . . clearly that was
too much for fate. Two days later I
found her in a glade, dying. She might
have lived if I could have got help to
her in the forest, and left her there. I
carried her out of the wood, though,
and she died." He stared at me and the
expression of sadness hardened to one
of resolve. "But when I'm back in the
wood, her myth image in my own sub-
conscious has a chance of being formed
... she might be a little tougher than

my father's version, but I can find her
again, Steve, if I look hard, if I can find
that energy you asked about, if I can
get into the deepest part of the wood,
to that central vortex...."

I looked at the map again, at the
spiral field around the hogback glade.
"What's the problem? Can't you find
it?"

"It's well defended. I get near it, but
I can't ever get beyond the field that's
about two hundred yards around it. I
find myself walking in elaborate circles
even though I'm convinced I've walked
straight. I can't get in, and whatever's
in there can't get out. All the mythagos
are tied to their genesis zones, although
the Twigling, and Guiwenneth too,
could get to the very edge of the forest,
down by the pool."

But that wasn't true! And I'd spent
a shaky night to prove it. I said, "One
of the mythagos has come out of the
wood ... a tall man with the most un-
believably terrifying hound. He came
into the yard and ate a leg of pork."

Christian looked stunned. "A
mythago? Are you sure?"

"Well, no. I had no idea at all what
he was until now. But he stank, was
filthy, had obviously lived in the
woods for months, spoke a strange
language, carried a bow and
arrows...."

"And ran with a hunting dog. Yes,
of course. It's a late Bronze Age, early
Iron Age image, very widespread. The
Irish have taken him to their own with
Cuchulainn, made a big hero out of

Mythago Wood

31

him, but he's one of the most powerful of
the myth images, recognizable all across
Europe." Christian frowned then. "I
don't understand ... a year ago I saw him
and avoided him, but he was fading fast,
decaying ... it happens to them after a
while. Something must have fed the
mythago, strengthened it...."
"Some one, Chris."

"But who?" It dawned on him then,
and his eyes widened slightly. "My
God. Me. From my own mind. It took
the old man years, and I thought it
would take me a lot longer, many more
months in the woodlands, much more
isolation. But it's started already, my
own interaction with the vortex...."

He had gone quite pale, and he
walked to where his staff was propped
against the wall, picked it up and
weighed it in his hands. He stared at it,
touched the markings upon it.

"You know what this means," he
said quietly, and, before I could an-
swer, went on, "She'll form. She'll
come back, my Guiwenneth. She may
be back already."

"Don't go rushing off again, Chris.
Wait a while; rest."

He placed his staff against the wall
again. "I don't dare. If she has formed
by now, she's in danger. I have to go
back." He looked at me and smiled
thinly, apologetically. "Sorry brother.
Not much of a homecoming for you."

/ \ s quickly as this, after the briefest
of reunions, I had lost Christian again.

He was in no mood to talk, too dis-
tracted by the thought of Guiwenneth
alone and trapped in the forest to allow
me much of an insight into his plans
and into his hopes and fears for some
resolution to their impossible love af-
fair.

I wandered through the kitchen
and the rest of the house as he gathered
his provisions together. Again and
again he assured me that he would be
gone for no more than a week, perhaps
two. If she was in the wood, he would
have found her by that time; if not,
then he would return and wait awhile
before going back to the deep zones
and trying to form her mythago. In a
year, he said, many of the more hostile
mythagos would have faded into non-
existence, and she would be safer. His
thoughts were confused, his plan that
he would strengthen her to allow her
the same freedom as the man and the
hound did not seem supportable on the
evidence from our father's notes; but
Christian was a determined man. If
one mythago could escape, then so
could the one he loved.

One idea that appealed to him was
that I should come with him as far as
the glade where we had made camp as
children, and pitch a tent there. This
could be a regular rendezvous for us, he
said, and it would keep his time-sense
on the right track. And if I spent time in
the forest, I might encounter other
mythagos and could report on their
state. The glade he had in mind was at
the edge of the wood, and quite safe.

32

Fantasy & Science Fiction

When I expressed concern that my
own mind would begin to produce
niythagos, he assured me that it would
take months for the first pre-mythago
activity to show up as a haunting pres-
ence at the edge of my vision. He was
equally blunt in saying that, if I stayed
in the area for too long, I would cer-
tainly start to relate to the woodland,
whose aura — he thought — had
spread more towards the house in the
last few years.

Late the following morning we set
off along the south track. A pale yel-
low sun hung high above the forest. It
was a cool, bright day, the air full of
the scent of smoke, drifting from the
distant farm where the stubbly remains
of the summer harvest were being
burned. We walked in silence until we
came to the millpond; I had assumed
Christian would enter the oak wood-
land here, but wisely he decided
against it; not so much because of the
strange movements we had seen there
as children, but because of the marshy
conditions. Instead, we walked on un-
til the woodland bordering the track
thinned. Here Christian turned off the
path.

I followed him inwards, seeking the
easiest route between tangles of brack-
en and nettles, enjoying the heavy still-
ness. The trees were small, here at the
edge, but within a hundred yards they
began to show their real age, great
gnarled oakwood trunks, hollow and
half-dead, twisting up from the
ground, almost groaning beneath the

weight of their branches. The ground
rose slightly, and the tangled under-
growth was broken by weathered, li-
chen-covered stubs of grey limestone;
we passed over the crest, and the earth
dipped sharply down, and a subtle
change came over the woodland; it
seemed darker, somehow, more alive,
and I noticed that the shrill September
bird-sound of the forest edge was re-
placed here by a more sporadic,
mournful song.

Christian beat his way through
bramble thickets, and I trudged weari-
ly after, and we soon came to the large
glade where, years before, we had
made our camp. One particularly large
oak tree dominated the surrounds, and
we laughed as we traced the faded ini-
tials we had once carved there. In its
branches we had made our lookout
tower, but we had seen very httle from
that leafy vantage point.

"Do I look the part?" asked Chris-
tian, holding his arms out, and I grin-
ned as I surveyed his caped figure, the
rune-inscribed staff looking less odd
now, more functional.

"You look like something. Quite
what, I don't know."

He glanced around the clearing.
"I'll do my best to get back here as of-
ten as I can. If anything goes wrong,
I'll try and leave a message if I can't
find you, some mark to let you
know...."

"Nothing's going to go wrong," I
said with a smile. It was clear that he
didn't wish me to accompany him be-

Mythago Wood

33

yond this glade, and that suited me. I
felt a chill, an odd tingle, a sense of be-
ing watched. Christian noticed my dis-
comfort and admitted that he felt it
too, the presence of the wood, the gen-
tle breathing of the trees.

We shook hands, then embraced
awkwardly, and he turned on his heels
and paced off into the gloom. I watch-
ed him go, then listened, and only
when all sound had gone did I set
about pitching the small tent.

For most of September the weather
remained cool and dry, a dull sort of
month, that enabled me to drift
through the days in a very low-key
state. I worked on the house, read
some more of father's notebook (but
quickly tired of the repetitive images
and thoughts) and with decreasir\g fre-
quency walked into the woodlands
and sat near, or in the tent, listening
for Christian, cursing the midges that
haunted the place, and watching for
any hint of movement.

With October came rain and the
abrupt, almost startling realization
that Christian had been gone for nearly
a month. The time had slipped by, and
instead of feeling concerned for him I
had merely assumed that he knew
what he was doing and would return
when he was quite ready. But he had
been absent for weeks without even
the slightest sign! He could surely have
come back to the glade once and left
some mark of his passing.

Now I began to feel more concern
for his safety than perhaps was war-

ranted. As soon as the rain stopped, I
trudged back through the forest and
waited out the rest of the day in the
miserable, leaking canvas shelter. I saw
hares, and a wood owl and heard dis-
tant movements that did not respond
to my cries of "Christian? Is that you?"

It got colder. I spent more time in
the tent, creating a sleeping bag out of
blankets and some tattered oilskins I
found in the cellar of Oak Lodge. I re-
paired the splits in the tent and stocked
it with food and beer and dry wood for
fires. By the middle of October I no-
ticed that I could not sp)end more than
an hour at the house before becoming
restless, an unease that could only be
dispelled by returning to the glade and
taking up my watching post, seated
cross-legged just inside the tent, watch-
ing the gloom a few yards away. On
several occasions I took long, rather
nervous sorties further into the forest,
but I disliked the sensation of stillness
and the tingling of my skin that seemed
to repeatedly say that I was being
watched. All imagination, of course,
or an extremely sensitive response to
woodland animals, for on one occa-
sion, when I ran screaming and yelling
at the thicket wherein I imagined the
voyeur was crouched, I saw nothing
but a red squirrel go scampering in a
panic up into the crossed and confused
branches of its home oak.

Where was Christian? I tacked pa-
per messages as deep in the woods and
in as many locations, as I could. But I
found that whenever I walked too far

34

Fantasy & Science Fiction

into the great dip that seemed to be
swallowing the forest down, I would,
at some point within the span of a few
hours, find myself approaching the
glade and the tent again. Uncanny,
yes, and infuriating too, but I began to
get an idea of Christian's own frustra-
tion at not being able to maintain a
straight line in the dense oakwood.
Perhaps, after all, there was some sort
of field of force, complex and convo-
luted, that channeled intruders back
onto an outward track.

And November came, and it was
very cold indeed. The rain was sporad-
ic and icy, but the wind reached down
through the dense, browning foliage of
the forest and seemed to find its way
through clothes amd oilskin and flesh
to the cooling bones beneath. I was
miserable, and my searches for Chris-
tian grew more angry, more frustrated.
My voice was often hoarse with shout-
ing, my skin blistered and scratched
from climbing trees. I lost track of
time, realizing on more than one occa-
sion, and with some shock, that I had
been two, or perhaps three days in the
forest without returning to the house.
Oak Lodge grew stale and deserted. I
used it to wash, to feed, to rest, but as
soon as the worst ravages to my body
were corrected, thoughts of Christian,
anxiety about him, grew in my mind
and pulled me back to the glade, as
surely as if I were a metal filing tugged
to a magnet.

I began to suspect that something
terrible had happened to him, or per-

haps not terrible, just natural: if there
really were boars, in the wood, he
might have been gored by one and be
either dead or dragging himself from
the heartwoods to the edge, unable to
cry for help. Or perhaps he had fallen
from a tree or quite simply gone to
sleep in the cold and wet and failed to
revive in the morning.

I searched for any sign of his body
or his having passed by, and I found
absolutely nothing, although I discov-
ered the spoor of some large beast and
marks on the lower trunks of several
oaks that looked like nothing else than
the scratchings of a tusked animal.

But my mood of depression passed,
and by mid-November I was quite con-
fident again that Christian was alive.
My feelings, now, were that he had
somehow become trapp>ed in this au-
tumnal forest.

For the first time in two weeks I
went into the village, and after obtain-
ing food supplies, I picked up the pa-
pers that had been accumulating at the
tiny newsagents. Skimming the front
pages of the weekly local, I noticed an
item concerning the decaying bodies of
a man and an irish wolfhound, discov-
ered in a ditch on a farmland near
Grimley. Foul play was not suspected.
I felt no emotion, apart from a curious
coldness, a sense of sympathy for
Christian, whose drccim of freedom for
Guiwenneth was surely no more than
that, a fervent hope, a desire doomed
to frustration.

As for mythagos, I had only two

Mythago Wood

35

encounters, neither of them of much
note; the first was with a shadowy
man-fonn that skirted the clearing,
watching me, and finally ran into the
darkness, striking at the trunks of trees
with a short wooden stick. The second
meeting was with the Twigling, whose
shape I followed stealthily as he walk-
ed to the millpond and stood in the
trees, staring across at the boathouse. I
felt no real fear of these manifesta-
tions, merely a slight apprehension.
But it was only after the second meet-
ing that I began to realize how alien
was the wood to the mythagos, and
how alien were the mythagos to the
wood. These were creatures created far
away from their natural age, echoes of
the past given substance, equipped
with a life, a language and a certain fe-
rocity that was quite inappropriate to
the war-scarred world of 1947. No
wonder the aura of the woodland was
so charged with a sense of solitude, an
infectious loneliness that had come to
inhabit the body of my father, and
then Christian, and which was even
now crawling through my own tissues
and would trap me if I allowed it.

It was at this time, too, that I began
to hallucinate. Notably at dusk, as I
stared into the woodlands, I saw
movement at the edge of my vision. At
first I put this down to tiredness or im-
agination, but I remembered clearly
the passage from my father's notebook
in which he described how the pre-
mythagos, the initial images, always
appeared at his peripheral vision. I was

frightened at first, unwilling to ac-
knowledge that such creatures could be
resident in my own mind and that my
own interaction with the woodland
had begun far earlier than Christian
had thought; but after a while I sat and
tried to see details of them. I failed to
do so. I could sense movement and the
occasional manlike shape, but whatever
field was inducing their appearance was
not yet strong enough to puU them into
full view; either that, or my mind could
not yet control their emergence.

On the 24th of November I went
back to the house and spent a few
hours resting and listening to the radio.
A thunderstorm passed overhead, and
I watched the rain and the darkness,
feeling quite wretched and cold. But as
soon as the air cleared and the clouds
brightened, I draped my oilskin about
my shoulders and headed back to the
glade. I had not expected to find any-
thing different, and so what should
have been a surprise was more of a
shock.

The tent had been demolished, its
contents strewn and trampled into the
sodden turf of the cleaning. Part of the
guy rope dangled from the higher
branches of the large oak, and the
ground hereabouts was churned as if
there had been a fight. As I walked into
the space, I noticed that the ground
was pitted by strange footprints, round
and cleft, like hooves, I thought.
Whatever the beast had been, it had
quite effectively torn the canvas shelter
to tatters.

36

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I noticed then how silent the forest
was, as if holding its breath and watch-
ing. Every hair on my body stood on
end, and my heartbeat was so power-
ful that I thought my chest would
burst. I stood by the ruined tent for
just a second or two and the panic hit
me, making my head spin and the for-
est seem to lean towards me. I fled
from the glade, crashing into the sop-
ping undergrowth between two thick
oak trunks. I ran through the gloom
for several yards before realizing I was
running away from the woodland
edge. I think I cried out, and I turned
and began to run back.

A spear thudded heavily into the
tree beside me, and I had run into the
black wood shaft before I could stop; a
hand gripped my shoulder and flung
me against the tree. I shouted out in
fear, staring into the mud-smeared,
gnarled face of my attacker. He
shouted back at me:

"Shut up, Steve! For God's sake,
shut up!"

My panic quietened, my voice
dropped to a whimper, and I peered
hard at the angry man who held me. It
was Christian, I realized, and my relief
was so intense that I laughed and for
long moments failed to notice what a
total change had come about him.

He was looking back towards the
glade. 'Tou've got to get out of here,"
he said, and before I could respond, he
had wrenched me into a run and was
practically dragging me back to the
tent.

In the clearing he hesitated and
looked at me. There was no smile from
behind the mask of mud and browning
leaves. His eyes shone, but they were
narrowed and lined. His hair was slick
and spiky. He was naked but for a
breechclout and a ragged skin jacket
that could not have supplied much
warmth. He carried three viciously
pointed spears. Gone was the skeletal
thinness of summer. He was muscular
and hard, deep-chested and heavy-
limbed. He was a man made for fight-
ing.

"You've got to get out of the wood,
Steve, and for God's sake don't come
back."

"What's happened to you,
Chris...?" I stuttered, but he shook his
head and pulled me across the clearing
and into the woods again, towards the
south track.

Immediately he stopped, staring in-
to gloom, holding me back. "What is
it, Chris?" And then I heard it "too, a
heavy crashing sound, something pick-
ing its way through the bracken and
the trees towards us. Following Chris-
tian's gaze, I saw a monstrous shape,
twice as high as a man, but man-
shaped and stooped, black as night
save for the great white splash of its
face, still indistinct in the distance and
greyness.

"God, it's broken out!" said Chris.
"It's got between us and the edge."

"What is it? A mythago?"

"The mythago," said Chris quickly,
and turned and fled back across the

Mythago Wood

37

clearing. I followed, all tiredness sud-
denly gone from my body.

"The Urscumug? That's it! But it's
not human ... it's animal. No human
was ever, that tall."

Looking back as I ran, I saw it enter
the glade and move across the open
space so fast I thought I was watching
a speeded up film. It plunged into the
wood behind us and was lost in dark-
ness again, but it was running now,
weaving between trees as it pursued us,
closing the distance with incredible
speed.

Quite suddenly the ground went
out from under me. I fell heavily into a
depression in the ground, to be stead-
ied, as I tumbled, by Christian, who
moved a bramble covering across us
and put a finger to his lips. I could
barely make him out in this dark hidey
hole, but I heard the sound of the Urs-
cumug die away. I queried what was
happening.

"Has it moved off?"

"Almost certainly not," said Chris-
tian. "It's waiting, listening. It's been
pursuing me for two days, out of the
deep zones of the forest. It won't let up
imtil I'm gone."

"But why, Chris? Why is it trying
to kill you?"

"It's the old man's mythago," he
said. "He brought it into being in the
heartwoods, but it was weak and trap-
j>ed until I came along and gave it more
power to draw on. But it was the old
man's mythago, and he shaped it
slightly from his own mind, his own

ego. Oh God, Steve, how he must
have hated, and hated us, to have im-
posed such terror onto the thing."

"And Guiwenneth..." I said.

"Yes ... Guiwenneth..." Christian
echoed, speaking softly now. "He'll re-
venge himself on me for that. If I give
him half a chance."

He stretched up to peer through the
bramble covering. I could hear a dis-
tant restless movement, and thought I
caught the sound of some animal
grumbling deep in its throat.

"I thought he'd failed to create the
primary mythago."

Christian said, "He died believing
that. What would he have done, I
wonder, if he'd seen how successful
he'd been." He crouched back down in
the ditch. "It's like a boar. Half boar,
half man; it walks upright, but can run
like the wind. It paints its face white in
the semblance of a human face. What-
ever age it lived in, one thing's for sure,
it lived a long time before man as we
understand 'man' existed; this thing
comes from a time when man and na-
ture were so close that they were indis-
tinguishable."

He touched me then, on the arm, a
hesitant touch, as if he were half afraid
to make this contact with one from
whom he had grown so distant.

"When you run," he said, "run for
the edge. Don't stop. And when you
get out of the wood, don't come back.
There is no way out for me now. I'm
trapped in this wood by something in
my own mind as surely as if I were a

38

Fantasy & Science Fiction

mythago myself. Don't come back
here, Steve. Not for a long, long time."

"Chris—" I began, but too late. He
had thrown back the covering of the
hole and was running from me. Mo-
ments later the most enormous shape
passed overhead, one huge black foot
landing just inches from my frozen
body. It passed by in a split second,
but as I scrambled from the hole and
began to run, I glanced back, and the
creature, hearing me, glanced back
too, and for that instant of mutual con-
templation, as we both moved apart in
the forest, I saw the face that had been
painted across the blackened features
of the boar.

The Urscumug opened its mouth to
roar, and my father seemed to leer at

CODA

One morning, in early spring, I found
a brace of hare hanging from one of the
pothooks in the kitchen; below them,
scratched in the yellow paintwork on
the wall, was the letter C. The gift was
repeated about two months later, but
then nothing, and a year has passed.

I have not been back to the wood.

I have read my father's diary ten
times if I have read it once, steeping
myself in the mystery of his life as
much as he had steeped himself in the
mystery of his own unconscious links

with the primeval woodland. I find, in
his erratic recordings, much that tells
of his sense of danger, of what — just
once — he calls 'ego's mythological
ideal,' the involvement of the creator's
mind which he feared would influence
the shape and behavior of the mythago
forms. He had known of the danger,
then, but I wonder if Christian had ful-
ly comprehended this most subtle of
the occult processes occurring in the
forest. From the darkness and pain of
my father's mind a single thread of
gentleness and love had emerged in the
fashioning of a girl in a green tunic,
dooming her to a helplessness in the
forest that was contrary to her natural
form. But if she were to emerge again,
it would be with Christian's mind con-
trolling her, and Christian had no such
preconceived ideas about a woman's
strength or weakness. It would not be
the same encounter.

It is summer now. The trees are
fxill-leaved, the forest at its most im-
penetrable. I stay in the house, out of
range, although I've noticed that, at
dusk especially, shapes and figures be-
gin to cluster in my peripheral vision.
The aura of the woodland has reached
the front of the house. Only in the
back room, among the books and spec-
imens, can I find a temporary escape
from the encroaching dark.

^

Mythago Wood

Drawing by Gahan Wilson

Dream Makers, by Charles L. Piatt,
Berkley Books, $2.75.

Fantastic Lives: Autobiographical Essays
by Notable Science Fiction Writers, edited
by Martin Harry Greenberg, Southern Illi-
nois University Press, $15.00.

What If? Volumes I and 11. edited by Rich-
ard A. Lupoff, Pocket Books, $2.50 each.

Junction, by Jack M. Dann, Dell Books,
$2.25.

Phillip Roth points out (in Reading
Myself and Others) that he got into all
that trouble with Portnoy's Complaint
because a novel in the form of a C9nf es-
sion was misconstrued by various well-
meaning sorts as a confession in the
form of a novel. It is only a few totter-
ing steps from that insight to these
provinces and a speculation: in the old
days science fiction might have been
characterized as confessions in the
form of — well — science fiction, but
in true decadent splendor the field has
now made it possible to have confes-
sions in the form of confessions. Hence
Charles Piatt's 29 interviews with 26
modem science fiction writers (Kate
Wilhelm and Damon Knight inter-
viewed one another; Mary KomblutK
spoke about her late husband on the
telephone); hence Martin Greenberg's
collection of nine personal essays by
established figures who did not make it
into the 1975 Harrison /Aldiss Hell's
Cartographers, the obvious inspiration
for this book. Hence also Lupoff's an-
thologies which are personal rumina-
tions on the history of the awards

Fantasy A Science Fiction

process in science fiction interrupted
by stories which are Lupoff's personal
best of their years. Hence even Jack M.
Dann's second novel. Junction, which
in its power and the naked self-expo-
sure of the protagonist's persona {not
the authorial persona, it must be em-
phasized; a skillful novel is never auto-
biographical even if it is) strikes me as
the kind of work which not only
would have been unpublishable in this
genre as recently as 1970 but would not
even have been considered worth writ-
ing by any established professional
simply because it could not have found
a market. (Self -censorship is the least
visible and the most effective censor-
ship of all.)

Most of the subjects of Dream
Makers and Fantastic Lives paid dues
back in that dismal time of course, be-
fore academia, symposia, technologi-
cal advance and the expansion of audi-
ence had granted any value to their
persona, and it may explain their will-
ingness, indeed wistful eagerness to
open up for the page and for the tape
recorder. Piatt's method went beyond
the interview however; interwoven
with the statements of his subjects are
Piatt's impressions of them, his de-
scription of domicile, his critical judge-
ment on some of their work and his as-
sessment of their self-assessments; all
of this cimning involution leading to
one of the most important works about
science fiction and its processes and to
a book which may be considered dec-
ades from now to be the one work

about the field which every student of
it in this time must read. What Dream
Makers is about is nothing other than
the effect the writing of science fiction
has had upon a group of people who
are otherwise as heterogeneous and
scattered as any group might be, and
the ultimate impact of the book may be
terrifying because all of these people —
people as diverse as Ed Bryant, Frank
Herbert, Kate Wilhelm, Isasc Asimov,
Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Ian
Watson — seem to be suffering in
about the same way; it is only the
symptomatology that varies, certain
defense mecharusn« which might be
contemptible to one writer being seized
upon by another and vice and versa
and so on.

That effect and the symptomatology
probably has something to do with the
interface* between the visions of these
writers which are quite powerful, dis-
turbing and profound and the nature
of their lives of middle class Americans
in this technocratized, bureaucratized,
anomic and awful century; the dispari-
ty between private passion and public
anonymity has in various ways forced
them into personae and masks of self-
delusion. Asimov wants to be seen as
an ordinary, modestly remunerated
working man, Brunner as a patron of
libertarian causes, Delany as a meta-

*/n the dozen years that I have been writing
essays, criticism and reviews I have never
used this word until now and I herewith
promise not to use it for another dozen
years.

41

physician in search of a New Defini-
tion of science fiction, Robert Sheckley
as a kind of holy naif on the borders of
expectation, Budrys as an artisan wed-
ding his expeditions for a More Perfect
Science Fiction in the interstices of a
practical, middle-class life, Disch as a
litterateur. Farmer as a proletarian
with purple patches, Aldiss as an es-
tablishmentarian, Bryant as an artist
trying to break free of self-doubt, Sil-
verberg as a modest custodian of his
talent now dedicated to pleasing the
people, Ellison as — well, as many
things and on and on and on; of all
these persons the only one who does
not seem to have a good handle on
how he wants to appear is your faithful
oversigned whose shrieks of confusion
and pain are interrupted gently by
Piatt only to enable breath to be recap-
tured for additional shrieks. That writ-
ing science fiction in America might be
a terribly painful and enervating pur-
suit for those who take it seriously can
certainly be inferred from these inter-
views — Philip K. Dick's is Exhibit A
— but it is almost never stated. Dream
Makers lives and breathes in its impli-
cation; Piatt is there to make careful
and occasionally deflating observa-
tions, and the brief appendices (Piatt
attributes them to the Nicholls Science
Fiction Encyclopedia) limning out the
body of work are useful and factual,
but what this book is really about can
only be perceived in its silence and
shadows. It is a fearfully upsetting and
unsettling book to at least this one sci-

ence fiction writer and it becomes more
unsettling on every additional reading
(and this book must be read at least
twice if it is read at all); it is also, be-
cause of Piatt's considerable literary
skill, clarity of mind and not always
masked impiousness a sardonic and de-
flating accomplishment.

Some of the later interviews (the
book is organized chronologically as
the interviews took place, beginning
with Asimov in NYC in early 1978 and
ending at the World SF Convention in
England in September of 1979) are
truncate and hasty; lack the force and
scope of the earlier ones (because the
writers seen at the convention were not
seen at home) and the interview with
Mary Kombluth transcribed from a
1973 phone conversation does not be-
long in the book; it is superficial and
(the sole exception for Dream Makers)
unchallenged. Otherwise I have no
quarrel with this book, which will have
a sequel (29 all-new all-different means
of coping!!) and which should be forc-
ed into the hands of every Clarion
Workshop attendee upon entrance into
the dormitory. It might have been
meant to save a lot of people a lot of
trouble.

Fantastic Lives might save people
trouble too — the example of Hell's
Cartographers proves that science fic-
tion writers can do a literary or person-
al memoir, in the main, better than al-
most any other group — but it is not as
happy or observant an example as its
predecessor or as Dream Makers; in

42

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Hell's Cartographers the editors, Harri-
son and Aldiss either lucked into or
sought out six writers who unbidden
could do the autobiographical essay at
the top of their form, but Martin H.
Greenberg with, perhaps, less of a bud-
get and less of an impetus (this book
would obviously fall in the shadow of
HC) has not been so fortunate. Fantas-
tic Lives — essays by Ellison, Farmer,
Lafferty, MacLean, your oversigned,
Reynolds, Margaret St. Clair, Spinrad
and van Vogt — appears to be a book
which has not been so much edited as
assembled; the call for manuscripts
went out, in due course the manu-
scripts came in and went into galley
with hardly a pause for copyediting.
Greenberg cannot really be blamed for
this — the essays were written for
modest advances and, as Greenberg
has pointed out, it is hardly possible to
ask writers of stature to revise or start
again for so little compensation — but
this does not help the book which
more than anything has the aspect of a
missed opportunity. Only St. Clair
and Van Vogt have done the job as it
might have originally been construed;
they write of their lives and careers in
science fiction and the mutual effect
which science fiction and their lives
had upon one another with honesty
and force but the seven «)ther essayists
have, alas, taken advantage rather
than given it. Spinrad's "A Prince
From Another Land" gives an interest-
ing history of the (publisher-induced)
failure of his novel Passing Through

the Flame but tells us nothing whatso-
ever of Spinrad; it is only by grace of
Greenberg's brief introduction that we
are even given his age. Reynold's "Sci-
ence Fiction and Socioeconomics" is
about — well, it is about science fiction
and socioeconomics, but again there are
only hints of the Mack Reynolds who
has been a voluntary expatriate for
three decades, who was Analog's most
prolific contributor during the sixties
and who in the 1976 Best of Mack Rey-
nolds indicated an intelligence far more
sardonic and rebellious than would be
indicated here. Ellison in a "Memoir: I
Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"
writes what would be an extended in-
troduction to the story as it might ap-
pear in a collection but gives very little
else; Katherine MacLean's "The Ex-
panding Mind" writes of a childhood
Katherine MacLean's first encounter
with science fiction and lets us know
nothing of even the adolescent; your
faithful oversigned has spliced two
(previously collected) essays with just
a snippet of autobiography. Farmer
has given some autobiographical detail
but almost no interpretation (what
was most valuable about Hell's Car-
tographers was that Silverberg, Aldiss,
Harrison, Pohl, Bester and Knight all
told us how it felt to be a science fiction
reader, a science fiction writer) and
R.A. Lafferty, uncharacteristically,
has vented much bitterness but little in-
struction.

I am not asking amy of these writers
to grant us red meat, raw guts, the

Books

43

pure and living blood of the Lamb. (I
did not.) I am only saying that if one
accepts the invitation to appear in a
book of this sort, at no matter how low
an advance, one owes the editor and
the readership more than what hap-
pened to be closest at hand last Thurs-
day or what thrice-told tale he can, like
a hollow toastmaster, get away with
tonight. Mea culpa; I stand first among
equals, but I think that if I had to do it
over again I would have declined the
invitation, would have (as I have be-
fore) done my non-confessionals in
another place. Would that most of the
rest of us in Fantastic Lives had done
the same; perhaps the book will make
a better impression than I think and
make possible a sequel or sequels.

In the introduction to What If?
Volume I, Richard A. Lupoff discusses
the various awards which through the
years have been established to run in
competition with the Hugos which
Lupoff (like all of the rest of us) feels
are science fiction's major awards with
major deficiencies which render it like-
ly often enough to be litde more than a
popularity ballot and a rigged one at
that. The John W. Campbell Awards,
the Nebulas, the International Fantasy
Awards, the Ditmars, the British Fan-
tasy Federation, all of them honest at-
tempts, Lupoff states but the problem
is the cachet of the donor ... exactly
who the hell are the small committees
or groups (and in certain cases individ-
uals) who grant these awards? The Hu-

gos at least have a wide base; they are
(at least in the last decade) open
awards available for voting to anyone
who cares to pay the fee to be a sup-
porting member of a world science fic-
tion convention. That gives the Hugos
more credibility than could be found in
any competing award, and the world
(and the Hugo losers) are, hence stuck
with them. What If?, a projected four
volume set, will be an attempt to recti-
fy injustices by awarding retroactive
best of the year citations to writers and
stories which should have/might
have/could have won.

And Lupoff of course — almost self-
evidently and probably in full con-
sciousness — is hoist on his own, as we
say in the boondocks, petard. Who is
Richard A. Lupoff? He is a competent
professional, a well known fan, the ed-
itor once of an award winning (1963)
fan magazine, a reader and devotee
and participant in this field for almost
three decades . . . but he is, nonetheless,
simply Richard A. Lupoff, good fellow
and true but merely one individual,
and although the awarding of retroac-
tive Hugos is a good and gimmicky
idea for an anthology and is undoubt-
edly the basis upon which Pocket
Books was sold the proposal, this is lit-
tle more than one man's excuse for put-
ting together cgie man's idea of a good
anthology, and it is perhaps best to
leave it at that. Lupoff 's introductions
are chatty, informal, reminiscent,
high-spirited and brisk — call this the
Spider Robinson school of High Fan

44

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Writing — and not fiUed vnth too
many inaccuracies; there are inside
jokes, allusions and references which
will evade those readers who are not
part of the convention-attending inner
circle (which means 90% of the pro-
spective audience for this book) but as
an attempt to get back into print some
stories which were overlooked in their
time. What If? is laudable. Introduc-
tions, as Harlan Ellison of all people
pointed out, can be skipped if you
don't like them.

What If? was originally intended to
be an enormous single volume; con-
temporary, bleak publishing exigencies
cut it back first to a proposed double
volume and the present intention to do
it in four, the latter two to be published
later this year. As a single book it
might have been more impressive,
have had a weightiness to it which
would have granted an authority
which in four skimpy books simply is
not there, but with publisher
prerogative there can be no quarrel. For
the record, Lupoff's retroactive Hugo

winners and their years are as follows:
1952: "Firewater," by William
Term; 1953: "Four In One," by Damon
Knight; 1954: "Golden Helix," by The-
odore Sturgeon; 1955: "One Ordinary
Day With Peanuts," by Shirley Jack-
son; 1956: "The Man Who Came Ear-
ly," by Poul Anderson; 1957: "The
Mile-Long Spaceship," by Kate Wil-
helm; 1958: "Two Dooms," by Cyril
M. Kombluth; 1959: "The PI Man," by
Alfred Bester; 1960: The Lost Kafooz-
alum," by Pauline Ashwell; 1961: "The
Sources of the Nile," by Avram David-
son; 1962: "Where Is the Bird of Fire?"
by Thomas Burnett Swann; 1963:
"Stand-by," by Philip K. Dick; 1964:
"Now Is Forever," by Thomas M.
Disch; 1965: "All the King's Men," by
Barrington J. Bailey.

Subjectivity is the name of this
game: I think that Lupoff is probably
right for '58 and '59 and can fight a
good fight in '55 or '57. I also think
that 'One Ordinary Day With Pea-
nuts" can hardly (with five anthology
appearances in this field alone) be con-

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45

sidered an overlooked story; the same
is true of "Mile-Long Spaceship." I
think; I think ... but / didn't have the
wit to work up the proposal for What
If? Lupoff did and Lupoff prevails.

Jack M. Dann is perhaps the most .
underrated modem science fiction
writer; bom in 1945 he has published
only two nbvels — the 1976 Starhiker
and now Junction, which dates from
magazine appearances in different
form in the early seventies — and edit-
ed several anthologies but he has pro-
duced thirty or forty short stories
(some of them collected in Time-
Tipping, 1980) of uniformly high qual-
ity and at least five of them — "Time-
tipping," "Amnesia," "A Quiet Revo-
lution For Death," "Going Under" and
"Camps" — are as fine as any work
which has been published in the genre
in its difficult and uneven history. In
his more recent work the power of
Dann's vision, refined by an unusual
concentration of focus and remorseless
clarity has put the work on a level of
attainment comparable to Kozinski
(whom he somewhat resembles) or the

demented, terrible visions of Kafka or
Mandelstam. Because his work comes
closest in ambition and effect to the
great European writers and because he
is working in a genre which even in its
most open period in the early seventies
was not precisely oriented toward the
remorseless, the difficult or the tor-
menting, Dann has not achieved due
recognition although he has been able
(to the editors' credit) to publish his
work and now, with Junction, to
achieve the mass market. {Starhiker, a
Harper & Row hardcover, never found
a paperback publisher.) Junction is a
bildungsroman in reverse; its protago-
nist journeys to and eventually dwells
in a hell which is not metaphorical; the
devices of science fiction are used for
the metaphysical, it is a rigorous and
deadly trap of a novel which initially
resists a reader but eventually will take
the reader in, and it is another step in
what I take to be one of the great ca-
reers not in science fiction but in Amer-
ican literature. Jack M. Dann is 36
years old. Kafka and Mandelstam, in
pity and terror were done for at that
age; Dann is about to truly begin.

Mercury Press, Inc., Box 56, Cornwall, Conn. 06753

Enter my subscription to F&SF, and rush me a free cover print.

I enclose D $15.00 for one year; n $36.00 for three years.

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Address.
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Fantasy i, Science Fiction

"/ was starting to wonder if you'd turn up!'

Copyright © 1981 by Gahan Wilson

47

John Morressy returns with a new story about Kedrigern the
wizard, his troll, Spot, and his ebony-haired girl friend, who
never quite made the complete transition from toad to Princess
until . . .

The Gifts of
Conhoon

BY

D

JOHN MORRESSY

|o the untrained eye, the two
medallions were indistinguishable.
Even Kedrigeni was hard put to deter-
mine which of the two had hung
around his neck since his acceptance
into the guild of wizards and which
had belonged to one of his colleagues.
He could not begin to guess which of
his fellow wizards had had the misfor-
tune to be so rudely bereft of his talis-
man of power.

Both medallions were round, of a
size to cover a man's palm, about the
thickness of a small fingernail's
breadth, egg-smooth on one side.
Around the rim of the reverse side of
each ran a band of symbols, cleanly
and deeply incised into the metal. At
the upper edge, just within the rings to
which the silver chain was attached,
were two notches: the larger , the Cleft
of Clemency; the smaller, the Kerf of
Judgement. In the exact center was a

tiny hole, the Aperture of True Vision.
At the bottom was a geometric pattern
of crossing broken lines, which had no
name.

Kedrigern hefted the two medal-
lions in his hands and laid them gently
in the pans of his balance. They came
to rest on a perfect horizontal. He plac-
ed them back to back. They fitted so
smoothly that he could scarce discern
the crack of their junction. He turned
them this way and that, squinted and
peered and studied them, and at last
replaced his own medallion around his
neck. He laid the other before him and
rang a dainty silver bell that stood on
his cluttered table.

Minutes later, a grotesque little fig-
ure careened into the chamber on great
slapping feet. It was Kedrigem's troll-
of-all-work. He stood knee-high to his
master, and most of him was head, and
very ugly. He had large hands, larger

Fantasy & Science Fiction

feet, and not much to hold them all to-
gether.

"Fetch me a nice cold mug of ale.
Spot. One of the large mugs," said the
wizard.

"Yah?"

"No, just the ale. Be quick about it,
but mind you don't spill any."

"Yah, yah!" Spot cried, in a voice
like a distant war-trump, and reeled
out of the chamber like a top-heavy
galleon under full sail.

Kedrigem sat back in his chair and
licked his lips in anticipation. Even
here, in the shadowed cool of his
study, the warmth of the summer
afternoon was beginning to penetrate.
He looked again at the medallion, ly-
ing in a patch of sunlight on the table
before him, and on an impulse he
snatched it up and hung it around his
neck.

In an instant he tore it off and with
a cry of dismay dropped it back on the
table. It had weighed around his neck
like an anchor, and the slender chain
had been like a toothed garrote against
the soft flesh. Clearly, wearing the me-
dallion was not the solution to his di-
lemma.

What, then, was? A medallion of
the guild was meant to be worn by a
wizard, and Kedrigem himself was the
only wizard within five days travel. It
was not meant to be buried or hidden
away. It could never be destroyed.
Most certainly, it was not to be left ly-
ing about like some meaningless trin-
ket. The medallion had great virtue

and conferred a certain amount of
power even on the uninitiated.

It was a considerable problem, and
Kedrigem wished that the second me-
dallion had never come into his posses-
sion.

Spot came flapping in, with a frost-
coated mug of cold ale on a wooden
salver, and whirled off again to be
about his household duties. Kedrigem
took a deep draft, sighed with comfort-
able satisfaction, and cocking his feet
up on the edge of the table, he tipped
his chair back and stared with unfocus-
ed eyes into the cobwebby comer of
the room.

That was the trouble with Spot.
Anything within the litle troll's reach
was kept relentlessly scrubbed and
dusted, but his range was limited. The
upper bookshelves were blanketed
with thick gray dust, like a bed of dead
ash, and the comers were all rounded
by cobwebs.

Kedrigem pondered the mess for a
time; then, taking another pull at the
mug, he rose to inspect his shelves
more closely. They were very dusty in-
deed. It was shameful. As his eyes
darted back and forth, disapproving,
they lit on a small black book, passed
it, retumed, and held.

A glow of triumph lit the wizard's
face. He had found his solution. Pluck-
ing down the book and blowing the
dust from its upper surfaces, he leafed
briskly through its pages until he came
to the desired mbric: "To Summon Up
an Unidentified Essence, Either Dead,

The Gifts Of Conhoon

49

Distant, or Sleeping, for Informational
Purposes." With a quiet little laugh of
pleasure, he withdrew to his table,
pausing on his way to bolt the study
door.

A few hours later, just at sundown,
all was in readiness. The ring was
drawn, the candles placed and lit, the
medallion in proper position.
Kedrigem cleared his throat — it was
dry, but there was no time to correct
that now — and began to recite the
spell.

For a time, nothing happened. But
when Kedrigem intoned a certain
phrase, the candles wavered and then
steadied and burned evenly once more.
He came to the end of the spell and
waited in silence. In the center of the
ring, hovering over the medallion, was
a shimmering wisp of smoke, no great-
er than the dying breath of a snuffed
candle. It moved, and it grew, and as
Kedrigem looked on, it filled out to the
insubstantial likeness of a bald old
man, white-bearded, untidily dressed,
with a nasty wound on his head and an
expression of puzzlement on his wrin-
kled features.

"Who are you who wore the me-
dallion?" Kedrigem asked with solemn
intonation.

"Devil a bit I know about that,"
said the apparition.

"Has your identity been stolen by
enchantment?"

"Hard to say, that is."

"What befell you, then?"

"All that is known to me is a

bloody great bash on the skull that has
left me with the mother and father of
all headaches and set me to blowing
about the between-worlds like a puff
of smoke."

"A ghost cannot have a headache."
"Easy for you to say, Mister Flesh-
and-Bones," said the apparition pee-
vishly. "For all your certainty, I have a
head on me throbbing like the Black
Drum of Dun na Goll when it sununon-
ed home at evening the nine thousand
red cows that were the wealth and glo-
ry of Robtach of the Silver Elbows,
Robtach who dwelt in the high hall
of-"

"Conhoon!" Kedrigem cried happi-

ly-

"He did not dwell in Conhoon, that
much I know, and I would appreciate
you keeping your bloody voice to a
whisper."

More softly, Kedrigem said,
"You're Conhoon. Conhoon of the
Three Gifts. Conhoon the Wizard —
don't you remember?"

"It may be," said the apparition
warily.

"It is. You belonged to a guild of
wizards. Each of us wore a silver me-
dallion like the one around my neck.
Remember the medallion?" ^

"I do not." ■

"Do you recall the names of any of
our brothers? Perhaps you remember
Axpad, or Tristaver. Or Belsheer."

"I do not."

"Surely you remember Hithemils. ;
He was our treasurer. Everyone meets \

50

Fantasy & Science Fiction '

him at one time or another."

"I do not remember your Hithemils
or any of the others, and for the love
of God, mister, will you shut your gob
and give me a cold cloth to put on my
head before I faint with the pain? Cruel
enough to drag me here from the bless-
ed silence of between-worlds, but to
torture me with questions is inhuman."

"Ghosts do not have headaches."

"This ghost could kick the eyes out
of your head if he ever got loose from
this ring, and we would see about
headaches tlien," said the apparition
grimly.

Things were not working at all
well. Kedrigem bit back his instinctive
angry response and said mildly, "Con-
hoon, don't you remember anything?
Don't you remember your three gifts?"

"The only gifts I require now are a
cold cloth for my head, wool to plug
my ears, and a stone the size of a baby
to throw at you."

"Your first gift was sweetness of the
tongue." Kedrigem paused for a mo-
ment, then went on. "The second gjft
was keenness of memory." He paused
again, longer, and his expression grew
thoughtful. "I cannot now recall the
third gift of Conhoon, but I begin to
suspect that you are not he."

"Do you now? Well, Mister Flesh-
and-Bones, you will be pleased to
know that your nagging has given a
push to my memory, and I now
recall — "

A knock came at the door. Kedri-
gem tumed, and in the moment of his

distraction, the apparition in the circle
began to fade. It dwindled quickly, like
smoke blowing through a crack, as
Kedrigem looked helplessly on. The
spell was completely shattered now,
and there was no way to mend it. Mut-
tering angrily, he went to the door, un-
bolted it, and pulled it wide.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"Brereep?" came a voice gently,
from the shadows.

At once his manner softened. "Ah,
Princess, I'm sorry. I was working, and
I completely forgot about dinner. I
hope it isn't spoiled."

"Brereep."

"Good. I'd feel terrible if it were.
Come inside. I'll just put a few things
away, and we'll go to dinner directly,"
Kedrigem said, waving her into his
sanctum.

The soft candleglow stmck high-
lights from Princess' ebony hair and
the golden coronet on her brows. Ked-
rigem gazed at her lovingly — she was
wearing her dark-blue gown, one of his
favorites — and squeezed her hand be-
fore turning to his cluttered table.

"Brereep?" she asked, looking cu-
riously at the circle.

"Nothing much, really. Just a small
magic to find out whose medallion that
is." Kneeling by the circle and wetting
his thumb, he mbbed a break in the
line, neutralizing the magic. "Don't
want anything slipping through while
I'm not here," he explained. He re-
moved the candles and then took up
the medallion. "This was the property

The Gifts Of Conhoon

51

of Conhoon of the Three Gifts, I think.
Can't be positive. He was one of our
Irish members. He doesn't live too far
off, but he always kept to himself."

"Brereep."

"No, I don't think so. He was a sur-
ly fellow. And it was all a waste of
good magic, anyway. I still don't know
what to do with this thing." He held up
the medallion and it turned slowly,
flashing mirrorlike in the multiple can-
dlelight. Princess reached out to touch
it. He placed it in her hand.

"Lovely thing, isn't it? It would
look grand against that blue dress. I've
always thought that silver looked best
on a dark-haired woman. Something
about the way the light...."

Their eyes met. She held the medal-
lion against her dress and murmured,
"Brereep?"

"Oh, no. That's only supposed to
be worn by a wizard, and you ...
well...."

He weighed the possibilities. The
consequences of magic were always
unpredictable, even to a wizard. Unau-
thorized wearing of the medallion
might cause Princess to turn back into
a toad, or into something far worse.
Still, she had been enchanted once and
lived for some time under a spell. That
might qualify her, however marginal-
ly, as a wizard.

He looked at her, beautiful in the
soft candleglow, and thought how it
would be if she had her speech once
again. They communicated fairly well
now, but there were times when he

longed to hear a woman's soft voice
breathe his name. A croak did tend to
undermine rpmantic moods. The
sound of sweet song would be a wel-
come addition to the household ...
long talks by the fireside in the cold
winter nights ... reading aloud from
the fine old books. . . .

And then he recalled that one of
Conhoon's three gifts was sweetness of
the tongue. Clearly, the gift did not re-
side in Conhoon's person; it might be
in the medallion; and if it was, it could
be passed on. He took the medallion
from her hands and held it up before
her.

"There's a bit of a risk. Princess.
Perhaps a big risk," he said.

"Brereep," she replied staunchly.

"You're right. Here goes, then."

He placed the silver chain around
her neck, and she reached back to
draw her hair free. The medallion lay
on her breast like a full moon against
the night sky. She took a deep breath,
cleared her throat, swallowed, and
looked at him, wide-eyed.

"Can you speak?" he asked appre-
hensively.

"I can," she replied.

"How do you feel? Different? Bet-
ter? Sick?"

In a low sweet voice she said, "It is
odd that I feel, and in three ways do I
feel odd, and small good does it do me
in body, mind, or heart to feel as I do,
and less good to know that there is
devil a thing I can do about it. First, I
feel like the grain of sand in the right

52

Fantasy & Science Fiction

eye of Ciallglind that caused him to
run mad and screaming in pain stark
naked the length and breadth of Ire-
land for twelve bitter years in all man-
ner of weather. Second, I feel like the
splinter of pine in the ball of the thumb
of Goiste that festered and grew red
and pus-filled and caused his arm to
swell up to the thickness of Kathleen
MacRossa's leg, and him sworn to do
battle single-handed against the sons of
Nish at break of day. Third, I feel like
the flea in the ear of Seisclend that
caused him to forget wife and children
and home, and forsake the gift of hon-
eyed speech and the making of golden
song on the harp, and live for sixteen
years filthy grunting ragged and stink-
ing, with the pigs of his own yard, and
they taking constant advantage of him.
And that is how I feel, and not pleasant
is it to feel this way"

"I should think not," said Kedrigem.

"There is more to say, and say it I
will in good time, but now a hunger is
on me greater than the hunger of the
sons of Ogan after doing battle four
days and four nights, without stopping
once for breath or refreshment, against
the followers of Goll Black-Tooth to
save the honor of the fair Fithir. Let us
proceed to dinner," said Princess.

"By all means," Kedrigem said,
taking her arm.

She spoke not a word during the
meal. Kedrigem observed her closely,
but could discem no side-effects
brought on by her wearing of the me-
dallion. As far as he could tell, it had

given her back her power of speech,
and nothing more.

Of course, it seemed to have given
her back a considerably greater
amount of speech than she might rea-
sonably be exp)ected to have lost. Ked-
rigem could not be certain, but he sus-
pected that in the days before her en-
chantment. Princess had not respond-
ed to simple questions in the manner of
a superannuated Hibemian delivering
an after-dinner speech. But this, he as-
sured himself, was probably the natu-
ral reaction to years of being unable to
do anything but croak. It would surely
pass.

"A delightful dinner," he said, pat-
ting his lips with his napkin. He said
much the same thing every evening at
this point.

"Grand it was, surely, and great is
my satisfaction thereat," said Princess.
Kedrigem smiled and nodded, and she
went on, "I am pleased and comforted
by this meal in five distinct ways, and I
shall now expatiate upon my satisfac-
tion under these five headings in prose
of a incantatory nature."

"Well, that sounds—" Kedrigem
began, but she broke in.

"The first way I am pleased is in my
eyes, by the sight of the clean napery
and the shining silver and the gleaming
of candlelight on the wineglasses and
the pleasant view of deepening twilight
on the hills that rise like the Hills of
Musheele beyond the farther window,
and expecially pleased I am because
there have many a time been greasy

The Gifts Of Conhoon

53

fingerprints on my plate and I unable
to articulate my displeasure. These
cleanly sights are as pleasing to me as
the sight of the small white foot of
Saraid of the Three Twins was to King
Rory the Much-Bathed."

"Well, I'm glad that you—"

"And the second way I am pleased
is in my nostrils, by the smell of the
roasting duck and the tang of the wine
and the clean scent of the fine wax can-
dles. As pleasing to me are these min-
gled aromas as the fragrance of his sta-
ble was to Tuathal of the Black Bull.
And the third way I am pleased is in
my ears, by—"

"You must excuse me, my dear,"
said Kedrigem, starting up. "I just
remembered that I left a candle burn-
ing in my study, and if—"

"You did not," she said. "If there is
any politeness in you, you will sit still
and listen while I tell of my satisfac-
tion."

Kedrigem resumed his seat. He re-
mained seated, fidgeting discreetly,
while Princess went on to explain, with
the help of illustrative examples, how
the dinner had given her pleasure,
comfort, and satisfaction of the ears,
tastebuds, and fingertips. Having ex-
hausted her sensory inventory, she
paused for a breath and concluded,
"And that is how I am satisfied by this
lovely dinner."

"I'm glad," said Kedrigem warily,
fearful that anything he said might
bring on another monologue but too
polite to remain churlishly silent.

She smiled, but spoke no more. For
the rest of the evening she sat at her
loom, and for a time she sang softly, to
herself, in a mournful voice that
Kedrigem found utterly enchanting.
He could not distinguish the words,
but the melody was of a beauty that
needed no adornment, and he could
not bring himself to interrupt her. He
listened, eyes closed, while the evening
breeze cooled his brow, and he relished
his good fortune. Here was the sweet
domesticity he had dreamed of, a joy
unknown to his fellow wizards. He
was a fortunate man indeed, and if
Princess chose to rattle on now and
then, well, he could put up with U in
exchange for moments like this. After
all, she had hstened to him for years
with no comment but an occasional
"Brereep." Fair was fair.

D

Ine next day, he began to have sec-
ond thoughts. Before breakfast. Prin-
cess spoke for the better part of an
hour on the nine joys of a good night's
sleep and the sixteen beauties of the
dawn. Kedrigem spent the moming in
his study, but at lunchtime she was
ready with an extended recitation on
the four goodnesses of bread, in which
a woman named Daime of the Plump
Hands figured repeatedly in some ob-
scure way. He returned quickly to his
study, his stomach protesting the haste
with which he had finished his meal,
and emerged for dinner with great, and
justified, trepidation. They dined in

54

Fantasy & Science Fiction

blessed silence, but the meal was pre-
ceded and followed by a two-part solil-
oquy on the thirty- three proper sea-
sonings for a midsummer dinner. Ked-
rigem heavily oversalted his meat,
drank an inordinate amount of wine to
slake his thirst, and fell grumpily
asleep just after sundown, to the
strains of an elegiac song.

The next day he spent in the wood
nearby, stocking up on necessaries of
his profession. He left early and return-
ed late, well past dirmer time, and thus
was audience only to a long lament
concerning the tribulations of one Ba-
rach of the Tiny Foot, who had delay-
ed a great queen's dirmer and suffered
much for it. He found himself with a
mild headache.

For the next three days it rained,
hard. Confined to the house, unable to
remain long in his study, where the hu-
midity was practically sub-aquatic,
Kedrigem listened all day, each day.
He noticed that Spot had tucked in his
ears and taken to entering rooms cau-
tiously and fleeing at the sight of Prin-
cesfe.

Kedrigem^ began to long for the
sound of a soft "Brereep." He found
himself pondering counterenchant-
ments to neutralize Princess' medal-
lion; even of stealing it as she slept. But
these were dangerous courses, both to
himself and to her. He had placed the
medallion around her neck, and that
was a deed not easily undone. He had
certain responsibilities in the matter.

As a further complication. Princess

seemed quite content with her new-
found multiloquence, and he doubted
that he could bring himself to deprive
her of it. Talky she might be, but he
loved her still.

On the first dry morning he awoke
early, to blessed quiet. For a time, not
even a bird peeped. Kedrigem drank in
the sweet silence contentedly, knowing
that it would end all too soon.

He raised himself slowly, stealthily,
and leaning on one elbow he looked
down on Princess. Her dark hair lay
like a pool of night around her fair
face. Her coral lips were slightly
parted, and her breath was slow and
regular. She was absolutely silent.
Princess looked especially lovely this
morning, and Kedrigem, forgetful of
all else, reached out to take her in his
arms.

But he hesitated when his fingertips
were a scant hands-breadth from her
shoulder. He wanted to make love to
Princess, with no more conversation
than was necessary or fitting, as they
had always done — and he feared that
instead of her sweet sighs he would
hear still another tale of mighty-
thewed heroes and long-suffering dam-
sels, narrated in a manner more suited
to a maundering old sagaman than to
the fair lips of Princess.

As he held his hand poised over her
fair shoulder, wavering, she stirred,
opened her eyes, and looked directly at
him. Startled, he drew back his hand.
"Troubled were my dreams last
night, Kedrigem my husband, and

The Gifts Of Conhoon

55

troubled my sleep as the sleep of Drai-
gen of the Bloodshot Eyes." She yawn-
ed and went on: "For seven distinct
dreams did I have, and all of them fill-
ed with omens that would make the
hairs of your head to stand up like
thorns and your blood to run as cold as
the brook of Killfillen in the spring-
time, when the melting snows pour
down the stony flanks of the Hills of
Musheele. Tremble I did, and cry out,
and try to flee, but my voice was taken
from me and my feet as still as stone."

"Probably something you ate, my
dear," said Kedrigem, slipping from
the bed. "I noticed an odd tang to the
gravy last evening. Perhaps Spot—"

"It is not gravy that filled me with
terror, and I would think the better of
you if you did not flee like the hinds of
Sliabh Luachra at the sight of Firm
Quick-Spear every time I open my
mouth to speak," Princess broke in
coldly.

Kedrigem bit his lip and said noth-
ing. Princess looked at him darkly and
disapprovingly for a time, then drew a
deep breath preparatory to resuming
her narrative. At that moment a loud
knock at the front door echoed
through the house.

"I will go," said Kedrigem, quickly
pulling on his robe.

Tou will stay and hear me. Spot it
is who answers the door in this house."

The knock resounded again, ac-
companied by indistinct but angry-
sounding shouts from below.

"There's a bad lot about these days.

and that was not a friendly knock. I'm
going," said Kedrigem.

Working a quick spell against bodi-
ly harm, he stalked to the door, drew
the bolts, and flui\g it back. At the
sight of a familiar figure, he gasped and
started back. Before him stood a bald
old man, white-bearded, untidily
dressed, a dirty blood-stained rag
binding his crown and an expression of
great anger on his face.

"ConhoonI You're alivel? " Kedri-
gem cried.

"I am, and I want my medallion,"
said the visitor, raising his knobby
walking stick in a menacing gesture.

"Ah, yes. Your medallion. Come
in, Conhoon, we were just about to
have breakfast. Would you like — "

"I would like my medallion, and no
bloody foolishness from you."

"Of course. I understand complete-
ly. Come in and have a cup of tea, and
we'll come to an amicable solution."

"To hell with an amicable solutioni I
want my medallion!" Conhoon howled.

At that moment. Princess ap-
peared. She wore a gown of deep
green. Her hair hung lose about her
shoulders, and the medallion glistened
like a star on her breast. When he saw
it, Conhoon's eyes widened and he
began to sputter. Kedrigem quickly
made introductions.

"My dear, this is Conhoon of the
Three Gifts. Conhoon, this is my wife.
Princess. Conhoon is a colleague of
mine, my dear, and we — "

"Would you leave the dear man

56

Fantasy & Science Fiction

standing out in the hot sun, and him
with a bandage to his head and no food
in his poor stomach? Come in, my fine
Conhoon, come in to the cool and a
cup of tea," Princess said sweetly.

"I thank you, lady, but it's for the
medallion I've come, and if you'll be
giving it to me, I'l be on my way," said
Conhoon, more gently.

"It is a fine medallion," said Prin-
cess thoughtfully.

"It is, and sorry am I to be without
it."

"How did you come to lose it?"
Kedrigem asked.

"Devil a thing I know about that.
One minute I'm dozing off in my
garden, weak and exhausted from a
spell to rid three counties of mice and
moles, and the next thing I know I
have a dent in my skull and a headache
to make the eyes hop around in my
head, and my house all torn to pieces
and my medallion gone. Fortunate I
am to be Conhoon of the Three Gifts,
and my three gifts sweetness of the
tongue, keenness of the memory, and
hardness of the head. And if I find the
bugger who laid me out, he will need a
harder head than mine or we will hear
no more from him."

"He already has a harder head,"
Kedrigem said. "I turned him to
stone."

"Well, now, that was good of
you, "said Conhoon, almost gracious-
ly. "And so I will take my medallion
and go."

"Fond have I grown of this medal-

lion," said Princess softly, touching the
silver disc with her fingertips. "And I
think that if I wished to keep it, my
dear Kedrigem would come to my aid
against any sorcerer or wizard or fel-
lowship thereof...."

"Oh dear me," murmured Kedri-
gem.

"...but I would not cause such a
bitter conflict in his soul," Princess
went on. "My Kedrigem, my beautiful
one, my beloved,' she crooned. "Fair
he was in his youth, fair the hair and
the brows of him, and smooth the skin
of him, and long and slender the hands
of him and clean the fingers thereof.
Like blood on the breast of a white
dove was the redness of his lips. Like
red gold after the burnishing was his
hair, and like cornflowers the blue of
his far-seeing eyes. Smooth and soft as
wool his skin, and straight his shins,
and round and hard the knees of him
as two wave- washed seashells."

"Why, thank you, my dear. Very
nice of you to say so," said Kedrigem,
a bit embarrassed but greatly pleased
at her words.

"But the years have passed, and
their passing has been heavy on my
Kedrigem, the wise one, the once-fair.
Gray as the dust under our sagging bed
is rapidly tuming the hair of him, and
the lines of his face are as deep as the
gullies in the hillsides of Musheele after
the torrents of spring have dropped
from the skies. Around his eyes the
tiny lines are as numerous as the hairs
on the heads of all the warriors who—"

The Gifts Of Conhoon

57

"You needn't go on, my dear, Con-
hoon doesn't want to hear — "

"I will go on," said Princess implac-
ably. "Around his eyes — "

"For the love of God, woman, will
you give me my medallion?!" cried
Conhoon in an agony of impatience.

Princess paused. She looked fondly
at Kedrigem; then she took the medal-
lion in both hands. 'I am loath to lose
this lovely medallion and the power of
fine speech it gave to me, and saddened
by the thought of once more being
forced to croak like a frog in response
to intelligent and subtle questions. And
I am saddened in nine distinct ways.
But I will say no more." And lifting the
medallion from around her neck, she
placed it in Conhoon's outstretched
hands.

D

I hat evening. Princess and Kedri-
gem dined in the coolness of the arbor,
under the great oak. When Spot had
cleared the things away, Kedrigem

reached over to take Princess' hand in
his.

"You did a fine, generous thing this
morning," he said. "I promise you, my
dear, that I will do everything in my
power to complete the reversal of your
spell. It's my absolute top priority."

She smiled at him. He squeezed her
hand and went on. "There was one
thing I wanted to ask you when you
could speak at somewhat greater
length, but in all the excitement it com-
pletely slipped my mind. Now I sup-
pose I'll just have to wait."

She raised an eyebrow in inquiry.
"Oh, it's about ... about before.
Your old life, before you were turned
into a toad. I've always been curious
about what you did, and where you
lived, and what friends you had." He
sighed. "Now I suppose I'll just have to
wait."

She nodded solemnly, and, very
slowly, she winked. "Brereep," she
said.

58

Fantasy & Science Fiction

SF has produced a small and interesting body of work about the
automobile, to which we can now add John Kessel's reductio ad
absurdum account of David Baker (bom in the back seat of his
parents westbound Chevy) and other heroes of the road.

Not Responsible!
Park and Lock

m

BY

JOHN KESSEL

(with thanks to Tim Roth)

I avid Baker was bom in the
back seat ot his parents' Chevy in the
great mechanized lot at mile 1.375 x
2q25 "GgQ^gg y^g need to stop," his
mother Polly had said. "I'm having
pains." She was a week early.

They had been cruising along pret-
ty well at twilight, his father concen-
trating on getting in another fifty miles
before dark, when they'd been cut off
by the big two-toned Mercury and
George had had to swerve four lanes
over into the far-right. George and
Polly later decided that the near-acci-
dent was the cause of the premature
birth. They even managed to laugh at
the incident in retrospect — they rue-
fully retold the story many times, so
that it was one of the family fables
David grew up with — but David al-
ways suspected his father pined after
those lost fifty miles. In return he'd
gotten a son.

"Not responsible! Park and lock
it!" the loudspeakers at the tops of the
poles in the vast asphalt field of the lot
shouted, over and over. For a first
birth, Polly's labor was surprisingly
short and painless, and the robot doc-
tor emerged from the Chevy in the
gathering evening with a healthy,
seven-pound boy. George Baker flip-
ped his cigarette away nervously, the
butt glowing as it spun into the night.
He smiled.

In the morning George stepped into
the bar at the first rest stop, had a
quick one, and registered his name:
David John Baker. Bom 8:15 Standard
Westbound Time, June 13....

"What year is it?" George asked the
attendant.

"802,701." The robot smiled be-
nignly. It could not do otherwise.

"802,701." George repeated it
aloud and punched the keys of the ter-

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

59

minal. "Eight hundred two thousand,
seven hundred and one." The numbers
spun themselves out like a song. Eight-
oh-two, seven-oh-one.

David's mother had smiled weakly,
reclining in the passenger's seat, when
they started up again. Her smile had
never been strong. David slept on her
breast.

Much later Polly told David what a
good baby he'd been, not like his
younger sister Caroline, who squalled
and spit up and had the colic. David
took satisfaction in that: he was the
good one. It made the competition be-
tween him and Caroline even more in-
tense. But that was later. As a baby
David slept to the steady thrumming of
the V-8 engine, the gentle rocking of
the car. He was cooed at by the an-
droid attendants at the camps where
they pulled over at the end of the day.
His father would chat with the ma-
chine that came over to check the
odometer and validate their mileage
card. George would tell about any of
the interesting things that had happen-
ed on the road — and he always seem-
ed to haye something — while Polly
fixed supper at one of the grills and the
ladies from the other cars sat around in
a circle in front of the komfy kabins
and talked about their children, their
husbands, about their pregnancies and
how often they got to drive. David sat
on Polly's lap or played with the other
kids. Once past the toddler stage he
followed his dad around and watched,
a little scared, as the greasy, self-assur-

ed robots busied themselves single-
mindedly around the service station.
They were large and composed. The
young single drivers tried hard to com-
pete with their mechanical self-con-
tainment. David hung on everything
his dad said.

"The common driving man," George
Baker said, hands on the wheel, "the
good average driver — doesn't know
his ass from a tailpipe."

Polly would draw David to her, as
if to blot out the words. "George...."

"All right. The kid will know
whether you or I want him to or not."

But David didn't know, and they
wouldn't tell him. That was the way of
parents: they never told you even
when they thought they were explain-
ing everything, and so David was left
to wonder and learn as best he could.
He watched the land speed by long be-
fore he had words to say what he saw;
he listened to his father tell his mother
what she should or should not do, and
what was wrong and right with the
world. And the sun set every night at
the other end of that world, far ahead
of them still, beyond the gas stations
and the wash and brush-up buildings
and the quietly deferential androids
that always seemed the same no matter
how far they'd gone that day. West-
bound.

"This is the worst stretch of plains
highway I've seen in my entire life.
Maybe when I was seven we had a
worse stretch, but there's no excuse for
it. Look at those droids. It's a wonder

Fantasy A Science Fiction

the shoulders aren't lined with wrecks,
given the state they've let the roads
come to." His voice would trail off
from bluster to wistfulness.

When David was six he got to sit on
George's lap and hold the wheel in his
hands and "drive the car." With what
great chasms of anticipation and awe
had he looked forward to those mo-
ments. His father would say suddenly,
after hours of driving in silence,
"Come sit on my lap, David. You can
drive."

Polly would protest feebly that he
was too young and it was dangerous.
Fumbling and cautious, watching the
road and the other cars, David would
clamber into his dad's lap and grab the
wheel. How warm it felt, how large,
and how far apart he had to put his
hands! The little ridges on the back of
the wheeP were too far apart for his fin-
gers, so that two of his fit into the
space meant for one adult's. George
would move the seat up and scrunch
his thin legs together so that David
could see over the hood of the car. His
father operated the pedals and gear-
shift, and most of the time he kept his
left hand on the wheel too — but then
he would slowly take it away, and
David would be steering all by himself.
His heart had beaten fast. At those mo-
ments the car seemed so large. The
promise and threat of its speed had
been almost overwhelming. Knowing
that by a turn of the wheel you could
be in the high-speed lanes; knowing,
even more amazingly, that he, David,

held in his hands the potential to steer
them off the road, into the gully and
fences, and death. The responsibility
was great, and David took it seriously.
He didn't want to do anything foolish;
he didn't want to make George think
him any less a man. He knew his moth-
er was watching, whether with love or
fear in her eyes he could not know, be-
cause he couldn't take his eyes from the
road to see.

When David was seven there was a
song on the radio that Polly sang to
him, "We all drive on." That was his
song. David sang it back to her, and
his father laughed and sang it too, bad-
ly, voice hoarse and off-key, not like
his mother whose voice was sweet and
pure. "We all drive on," they sang to-
gether, "You and me and everyone/
Never ending, just begun /Driving,
driving on."

"Goddamn right we drive on,"
George said. "Goddamn pack of man-
iacs."

David remembered clearly the first
time he became aware of the Knapsack
and the Notebook. It was one evening
after they'd eaten supper and were
waiting for Polly to get the cabin ready
for bed. George had gone around to
the trunk to check the spare, and this
time he took a green knapsack out and,
in the darkness near the edge of the
campground, secretively opened it.

"Watch, David, and keep your
mouth shut about what you see."

David watched.

"This is for emergencies. " George,

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

61

one by one, set the things on the
ground: first a rolled oilcloth which he
spread out, then a line of tools, then a
gun and boxes of bullets, a first-aid kit,
some packages of crackers and dried
fruit, and some things David didn't
know. One thing had a light and a
thick wire and batteries in it.

"This is a metal detector, David. I
made it myself." George took a black
book from the sack. "This is my note-
book." He handed it to David. It was
heavy and smelled of the trunk.

"Maps of the Median, and...."

"Georgel" Polly's voice was a harsh
whisper, and David jumped a foot. She
grabbed his arm. George looked exas-
perated and a little guilty — though
David did not identify his father's reac-
tion as guilt until he thought about it
much later. He was too busy trying to
avoid the licking he thought was com-
ing.

His mother marched him back to
the car after giving George her best
withering gaze.

"But, mom...."

"To sleep! Don't puzzle yourself
about things you aren't meant to
know, young man."

David puzzled himself. At times the
Knapsack and the Notebook filled his
thoughts. His father would give him a
curious glance and tantalizingly vague
answers whenever he asked about
them safely out of earshot of Polly.

Shortly after that, Caroline was
bom. This time the Bakers were not
caught by surprise, and Caroline came

squawling into the world at the hospi-
tal at mile 1,375 x lO", where they
stopped for three whole days for
Polly's lying in. Nobody stopped for
three whole days, for anything. David
was impatient. They'd never get any-
where waiting, and the androids in the
hospital were all boring, and the comic
books in the waiting room, with its
deadly silence 4nd no vibrations, he
had all read before.

This time the birth was a hard one.
George sat hunched forward in a plas-
tic chair, and David paced around,
stomping on the cracks in the
linoleum. He leaned on the dirty win-
dowsill and watched all the cars fly by
on the highway. Westbound, and in
the distance, beyond the barbed wire,
sentfy towers and minefields, myster-
ious, ever unattainable — Eastbound.

After what seemed like a very long
time, the white porcelain doctoroid
came back to them. George stood up as
soon as he appeared. "Is she...?"

"Both fine. A little girl. Seven
pounds, five ounces," the doctoroid re-
ported, grille gleaming.

George didn't say anything then,
just sat down in the chair. After a
while he came over to David, put his
hand on tlje boy's shoulder, and they
both watched the cars moving by, the
light of the bright midsummer's sun
flashing off the windshields as they
passed, blinding them.

m

avid was nine when they bought

62

Fantasy & Science Fiction

the Nash, and it had a big chrome grille
that stretched like a bridge across the
front, the vertical bars bulging out-
ward in the middle, so that, with the
headlights, the car looked to be grin-
ning a big grin, a nasty grin.

David went with George through
the car lot while Polly sat with Caro-
line in the lounge of the dealership. He
watched his father dicker with the
bow-tied sales droid. George acted as if
he seriously meant to buy a new car,
when in fact his yearly mileage average
would entitle him to no more than a
second-hand, second-rank sedan, un-
less he intended for them all to go hun-
gry. He wouldn't have done that, how-
ever. Whatever else Polly might say
about her husband, she could not say
he ever failed to be a good provider.

"So why don't you show us a good
used car," George said, running his
hand through his thinning hair. "Mind
you, don't show us any piece of junk, "

The sales droid was, like his broth-
ers, enthusiastic and unreadable. "Got
just the little thing for you, Mr. Baker
— a snappy number. C'mon." it said,
rolling down toward the back of the
lot.

"Here you go." It opened the door
of the blue Nash with its amazingly
dexterous hand. David's father got in.
"Feel that genuine vinyl upholstery.
Not none of your cheap plastics, that'll
crack in a week t)f direct sun." The
sales droid winked its glassy eye at
David. "Hop in, son. See how you like
it."

David started to, then saw the look
of warning on George's face. "No,
thanks," he said.

"Let's have a look at the engine,"
George said.

"Righto." The droid rolled around
the fat front fender, reached through
the grille and tripped the latch with a
loud "clunk." The engine was clean as
a whistle, the cylinder heads painted a
nice cherry red, the spark plug leads
numbered for easy changes. It was like
the pictures out of David's school-
books.

The droid started up the Nash; the
motor gave out a rumble and vibrated
ever so slightly. David smelled the
clean tang of evaporating gasoline.

"Only one owner," the droid said,
volume turned up now so it could be
heard over the sound of the engine.

George looked uncertain.

"How much?"

"Book says it's worth 2CX),000 vali-
dated miles. You can drive her out,
with your Chevy in trade, f or . . . let me
calculate ... 174,900."

Just then David noticed something
in the engine compartment. On either
side over the wheel wells there were
cracks in the metal that had been paint-
ed over so you could only see them
from the reflection of the sunlight
where the angle of the surface changed.
That was where the shocks connected
up with the car's body.

He tugged at his father's sleeve.
"Dad," he said, pointing.

George ran his hand over the metal.

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

63

He looked serious, then David thought
he was going to get mad. Instead he
straightened up and smiled.

"How much did you say?"

The android stood stock still.
"150,000 miles."

"But, dad — "

"Shut up, David," he said curtly.
"I'll tell you what, Mr. Sixty. 100,000.
And you reweld those wheel wells be-
fore we drive it an inch."

That was how they bought the
Nash. The first thing George said when
they were on their way again was,
"Polly, that boy of ours is smart as a
whip. The shocks were about to rip
through the bodywork, and we'd've
been scraping down the highway with
our nose to the ground like a basset.
David, you're a bom driver, or else too
smart to waste yourself on it."

David didn't quite follow that, but
it made him a little more content to
move into the back seat. At first he re-
sented it that Caroline had taken his
place in the front. She got all the atten-
tion, and David only got to sit and
look out at where they had been, or
what they were going by, never getting
a good look at where they were going.
If he leaned over the back of the front
seat, his father would say, "Quit
breathing down my neck, David. Sit
down and behave yourself. Do your
homework."

After a while he wouldn't have
moved into the front if they'd asked
him to: only babies did that. Instead he
watched raptly out the left-side win-

dow for fleeting glimpses of East-
bound, wondering always about what
it was, how it got there, and about the
no-man's land and the people they said
had died trying to cross. He asked
George about it, and that started up
the biggest thing they were ever to
share together.

"They've told you about East-
bound in school, have they?"

"They told us we can't go there.
Nobody can."

"Did they tell you why?"

"No."

His father laughed. "That's because
they don't know why! Isn't that incred-
ible, David? They teach a thing in
school, and everybody believes it, and
nobody knows why or even thinks to
ask. But you wonder, don't you? I've
seen it."

He did wonder. It amazed and
scared him that his father would talk
about it.

"Men are slip-streamers, David.
Did you ever see a car follow close be-
hind a big truck to take advantage of
the windbreak to make the driving eas-
ier? That's the way people are. They'll *
follow so close they can't see six inches
beyond their noses as long as it makes
things easier. And the schools and the
teachers are the biggest windbreaks of
all. You remember that.

"Do you remember the knapsack in
the trunk?"

"George," Polly warned.

"Be quiet, Polly. The boy's growing
up." To David he said, "You know

Fantasy & Science Fiction

what it's for. You know what's inside."

"To go across...." David hesitated,
his heart leaping.

"To cross the Median! We can do
it. We don't have to be like everybody
else, and when the time comes, when
we need to get away the most, when
things are really bad — we can do it I
I'm prepared to do it."

Polly tried to shush him, and it be-
came an argument. But David was
thrilled at the new world that had
opened. His father was a crinunal —
but he was right I From then on they
worked on the preparations together.
They would have long talks on what
they would do and how they would do
it. David drew maps on graph paper,
and sometimes he and George would
climb to the highest spot available by
the roadside at the day's end, to puzzle
out once again the defenses of the
Median.

"Don't tell your mother about
this," George would say. "You know
she doesn't understand."

Each morning, before they had
gone very far at all, David's father
would stop the car and let David out at
a bus stop to be picked up by the
school bus, and eight hours later the
bus would let him out again some hun-
dreds of miles farther west, and soon
his parents would be there to pick him
up, if they were not there already
when he got off with the other kids.
More than once David overheard driv-
ers at the camps in the evening com-

plaining about how having kids really
slowed a man down in his career, so
he'd never get as far as he would have
if he'd had the sense to stay single.
Whenever some young man whined
about waiting around half his life for a
school bus, George Baker would only
light another cigarette and be very
quiet.

In school David learned about the
principles of the internal combustion
engine. Internal Combustion was his
favorite class. Other boys and girls
would shoot paperclips at each other
over the back seats of the bus, or fall
asleep staring out the windows, but
David sat in a middle seat (he would
not move to the front and be accused
of being teacher's pet) and for the most
part, paid good attention. His favorite
textbook was one they used both in
history and social studies; it had a blue
cloth cover, the pages scrawled on and
dog-eared. The title, pressed into the
cover in faded yellow, was Heroes of
the Roads. On the bus, during recess,
David and the other boys argued about
who was the greatest driver of them
all.

To most of them Alan "Lucky"
Totter was the only driver. He'd made
10,220,796 miles when he tried to pass
that Winnebago on the right at 85
miles per hour in a blinding snow-
storm. Some people thought that
showed a lack of judgment, but Lucky
Totter didn't give a danrm for judg-
ment, or anything else. Totter was the
classic lone-wolf driver. Bom to re-

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

65

spectable middle-class parents who
drove a Buick with holes in its sides.
Totter devoured all he could find out
about cars. At the age of 13 he deserted
his parents at a rest stop at mile 1.375 x
lO", hot-wired a hopped-up Buggatti-
Smith which the owner had left un-
locked and made 8,000 miles before the
Trooperbots brought him to justice.
After six months in the paddy wagon
he came out with a new resolve, work-
ed for a month at a service station at
jobs even the androids would shun,
getting nowhere. At the end of that
time he'd rebuilt a serviceable Whippet
roadster and was on his way, hell bent
for leather. Every extra mile he could
squeeze out of his many hot cars he
squeezed, and every mile he drove he
plowed back into financing a newer
and faster car. Tirelessly, it seemed.
Totter kept his two-tones to the floor-
boards, and the pavement fairly flew
beneath his wheels. No time for a wife
or family, 1,000 miles a day was his
only satisfaction, other than the quick
comforts of any of the fast women he
might pick up who wanted a chance to
say they'd been for a ride with Lucky
Totter. The solitary male to the end, it
was a style guaranteed to earn him the
hero-worship of boys all along the
world.

But Totter was not the all-time mil-
eage champion. That pinnacle of glory
was held by Charles Van Huyser, at a
seemingly unassailable 11,315,201
miles. It was hard to see how anyone
could do better, for Van Huyser was

the driver who had everything: good
reflexes, a keen eye, iron constitution,
wherewithal, and devilish good looks.
He was a child of the privileged classes,
scion of the famous Van Huyser driv-
ers, and had enjoyed all the advantages
the boys on a middle-lane bus like
David's would never see. His father
had been one of the premier drivers of
his generation and had made more
than seven million miles himself, plac-
ing him a respectable twelfth on the all-
time list. Van Huyser rode the most ex-
clusive of preparatory buses and was
outfitted from the beginning with the
best made-to-order Mercedes that an-
droid hands could fashion. He was in a
lane by himself. Old-timers would tell
stories of the time they had been pass-
ed by the Van Huyser limo and the dis-
tinguished, immaculately tailored man
who sat behind the wheel. Perhaps he
had even tipped his homburg as he
flashed by. Spartan in his daily regi-
men, invariably kind, if a little conde-
scending, to lesser drivers, he never
forgot his position in society, and died
at the respectable age of 86, peacefully,
in the private washroom of the Driv-
ers' Club Dining Room at mile 1.375 x
10".

There were scores of others in Her-
oes of the Roads, all of their stories in-
spiring, challenging, even puzzling.
There was Ailene Stanford, at six-mil-
lion-plus miles the greatest female driv-
er ever, carmaker and mother and
credit to her sex. And Reuben Jeffer-
son, and the Kosciusco brothers, and

Fantasy & Science Fiction

the mysterious eastern trance driving
of Akiro Tedeki. The chapter "De-
tours" held frightening tales of abject
failure — and of those who had wasted
their substance and their lives trying to
cross the Median.

"You can't believe everything you
read, David/' George told him.
"They'll tell you Steve Macready was a
great man."

It was like George Baker to make
statements like that to David and then
never explain what he meant. It got on
David's nerves sometimes, though he
figured his dad did it because he had
more important things on his mind.

But Steve Macready was David's
personal favorite of the drivers he'd
read about. Macready was third on the
all-time list behind Van Huyser and
Totter, at 8,444,892 miles. Macready
hadn't had the advantages of Van
Huyser, and he scorned the reckless ir-
responsibility of Totter. He was an av-
erage man, to all intents and purposes,
and he showed just how much an av-
erage guy could do if he had the will
power and nothing more. Bom into an
impoverished hundred-mile-a-day

family that couldn't seem to keep a c«ir
on the road three days in a row before
it broke down, one of eight brothers
and sisters, Macready studied quietly
when he could, watched the ways of
the road with an intelligent and unflag-
ging eye, and helped his father and
mother try to keep the family rolling.
Compelled to leave school early be-
cause the family couldn't keep up with

the slowest of regular school buses, he
worked on his own, managed to get
hold of an old junker that he put on the
road, and set off at the age of 16, tak-
ing two of his sisters with him. In those
first years his mileage totals were any-
thing but spectacular. But he kept
plugging away, four to sbc hundred
miles a day, then seven when he could
move to a newer used car, taking care
of his sisters, seeing them married off
to two respectable young drivers along
the way, never hurrying. At the com-
paratively late age of 30 he married a
simple girl from a family of Ford own-
ers and fathered four children. He saw
to his boys' educations. He drove on,
making a steady 500 miles a day, and
200 on each Saturday and Sunday. He
did not push himself or his machine; he
did not lag behind. Steadiness was his
watchword. His sons grew up to be
fine drivers themselves, always ready
to lend the helping hand to the unfor-
tunate motorist. When he died at the
age of 82, survived by his wife, chil-
dren, eighteen grandchildren and
twenty-six great-grandchildren, driv-
ers all, he had become something of a
legend in his own quiet time. Steve
Macready.

George Baker never said much
when David talked about the argu-
ments the kids had over Macready and
the other drivers. When he talked
about his own upbringing, he would
give only the most tantalizing hints of
the many cars heiiad driven before he
picked up Polly, of the many places

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

67

he'd stopped and people he'd ridden
with. David's grandfather had been
something of an inventor, he gathered,
and had modified his pickup with an
extra-large tank and a small, efficient
engine to get the most mileage for his
driving time. George didn't say much
about his mother or brothers, though
he said some things that indicated that
his father's plans for big miles never
panned out, for some undisclosed rea-
son, and about how it was not always
pleasant to ride in the back of an open
pickup with three brothers and a sick
mother.

Eventually David saw that the
miles were taking something out of his
father. George Baker conversed less
with Polly and the kids, and talked
more at them.

Once in a heavy rainstorm after
three days of rolling hill country, for-
ests that encroached on the very edges
of the pavement and fell like a dark
wall between Westbound and forgot-
ten Eastbound, the front end of the
Nash had jumped suddenly into a mad
vibration that jerked them two lanes
over and set up a loud knocking that
threw David's heart into his throat.

"George!" Polly shouted, and
George hunched up over the wheel,
trying to slow down and steer the
bucking car to the roadside. "Shut up I"
he yelled.

And they were stopped, and breath-
ing heavily, and the only sound was
the drumming of the rain, the ticking
of the car as it settled into motionless-

ness, and the hissing of the cars that
still sped by them over the wet pave-
ment. David's father, slow and bear-
like, opened the door and pulled him-
self out of the car. David got out too.
Under the hood they saw where the re-
welded wheel well had given way, and
the shock was ripping through the
metal.

"Shit!" George said.

As they stood there a gunmetal-
gray Mercedes pulled over to stop be-
hind them, its flashing amber signal
warm as fire under the leaden skies and
overhanging trees. A stocky man in a
leather raincoat got out.

"Perhaps I can help you?" he asked.

George Baker stared at him for a
good ten seconds. He looked back at
the Mercedes, looked at the man again.

"No, thank you," he said very
coldly.

The man hesitated a moment, then
turned, went back to his car, and
drove off.

So they had to wait three hours in
the broken-down Nash as darkness fell
and George trudged off down the high-
way for the next rest stop or until he
was picked up by a cruising repair
truck. He returned with an android
serviceman and they were towed to the
nearest station. David, never patient at
his best, grew more and more angry.
His father offered not a word of ex-
planation, and his mother tried to keep
David from getting after him about his
stupid refusal of help. But David final-
ly challenged George on the plain stu-

68

Fantasy & Science Fiction

pidity of his action, which would mys-
tify any sensible driver.

At first George acted as if he didn't
hear David. Then he exploded.

"Don't tell me about sensible driv-
ers! I don't need it, DavidI Don't tell
me about your Van Huysers, and don't
give me any of that Steve Macready
crap either. Your Van Huysers never
did anything for the common drivii\g
man, despite all their extra miles. No-
body gives it away. That's just the way
this road works."

"What about Macready?" David
asked. He didn't understand what his
father was talking about. You didn't
have to run someone else down in
order to be right. "Look what Mac-
ready did."

"You don't know what you're t<ilk-
ing about," George said. "You get old-
er but you still think like a kid. Mac-
ready sucked up to every tinman on
the road. I wouldn't stoop so low as
that. Half the time he let his wife drivel
They don't tell you about that in that
danm school, do they?

"Wake up and look at this road the
way it is, David. People will use you
like a chamois if you don't. Take my
word for it. Damn it! If I could just get
a couple of good months out of this
heap and get back on my feet. A cou-
ple of good months!" He laughed
scornfully.

It was no good arguing with George
when he was in that mood. David shut
up, inwardly fuming.

"Follow the herd!" George was

shouting now. 'That's all people ever
do. Never had an original thought in
their life."

"George, you don't need to shout
at the boy," Polly said timidly.

"Shout! I'm not shouting!" he
shouted. George looked at her as if she
were a hitchhiker. "Why don't you
shut up. The boy and I were just hav-
ing an intelligent conversation. A fat
lot you know about it." His hands
gripped the wheel as if he meant to
grind it into powder. A deadly silence
ensued.

"I need to stop," he said a couple of
miles later, pulling off the road into a
bar and grill.

They sat in the silent car, ears ring-
ing.

"I'm hungry," Caroline said.

"Let's get something to eat, then."
Polly seemed to leap at the opportun-
ity to do something normal. "Come
on, David. Let's go in."

"You go ahead. I'll be in in a min-
ute."

After they left, David stared out
the car window for a while. He reached
under the seat and took out the note-
book, which he had moved there a
long time before. The spine was almost
broken through now, with some of the
leaves loose and water-stained. The
paper was worn with writing and re-
writing to the point where it felt like
parchment. David leafed idly through
the sketches of watchtowers, the maps,
the calculations. In the margin of page
six his father had written, in handwrit-

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

69

ing so faded now that it was like the
pale voice of years, asking from very
far away, "What purpose?"

\L

I avid was sixteen. His knees were
crowded by the back of the car's front
seat, and he stared sullenly out the
window at the rolling countryside and
the gathering night. Caroline, having
just completed her fight with him with
a belligerent "oh, yeah!" was leaning
forward, her forearms flat against the
top of the front seat, her chin resting
on them as she stared grimly ahead.
Polly near-sightedly was knitting a
cover for the box of kleenex that rested
on the dashboard, muffling the radio
speaker.

"I'm tired," George said. "I'm going
to stop here for a quick one." He pull-
ed the ancient Nash over into the exit
lane, downshifted, and the car lurched
forward more slowly, the engine rat-
tling loudly in protest of the increased
rpm's. David could have done better
himself.

They pulled into the parking lot of
Fast Ed's Bar and Grill. "You go back
and order a fish fry," George said,
slamming the car door and turning his
back to them. Polly put aside the knit-
ting, picked up her purse and took
them in the side door to the cheap din-
ing room. There was no one else there,
but they could hear the TV and the
loud conversation from the bar up
front. After a while a waitress robot
rolled back to them. Its porcelain finish

was chipped and the hands were stain-
ed rusty browr\, like an old bathtub.

They ordered, the food came, and
they ate. Still George did not return
from the bar.

"Go get your father, David," his
mother said. He knew she was mad.

"I'll go, ma," Caroline said.

"Stay still! It's bad enough he takes
us to his gin mills, without you becom-
ing the drunkard's pet. Go ahead,
David."

David went to the barroom. His
father was sitting at the far end of the
bar, near the front windows that faced
the highway. The late afternoon sun
gleamed along the polished wood,
glinted harshly from the bottles racked
on the shelves behind it, turned the
mirror against the wall and the brass
spigots of the beer taps into fire.
George Baker was talking loudly with
two other middle-aged drivers. His legs
looked amazingly scrawny as he perch-
ed on the stool. SudderUy David was
very angry.

"Are you going to come and eat?"
he demanded loudly.

George turned clumsily to him, his
sloppy good humor stiffening to ire.

"What do you want?"

"We're eating. Mom's waiting."

He leaned over to the man on the
next stool. "See what I mean?" he said
lowly. To David he said, much more
boldly, "Go and eat. I'm not hungry."
He picked up his shot, downed it in
one swallow, and took another draw
on the beer setup.

70

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Rage and humiliation burned in
David. He did not recognize the man at
the bar as his father — and then, in a
realization that made him shudder, he
did.

"Are you coming?" David could
hardly speak for the anger. The other
men at the bar were quiet now. Only
the television continued to babble.

"Go away," his father said.

David wanted to kick over the
stool and see the man sprawled on the
floor. Instead he turned and walked
stiffly back to the dining room, past
the table where his mother and sister
sat, and tore out to the lot, slamming
the screen door behind him. He stood
looking at the beat-up Nash in the red
and white light of Fast Ed's sign. The
sign buzzed with electricity, and night
was coming, and clouds of insects
swarmed around the neon in the dark-
ness. A hundred yards away, on the
highway, the drivers had their lights
on, fanning before them. The air smell-
ed of exhaust.

He couldn't go back into the bar.
He would never step back into a place
like that again. The world seemed all at
once immensely old, immensely cheap,
immensely tawdry. David looked over
his shoulder at the vast and empty
woods that started just beyond the
back of Fast Ed's. Then he walked to
the front of the lot and stared across
the highway toward the faraway lights
that marked Eastbound. How very far
away that seemed.

David went back to the car and got

the pack out of the trunk. He stepped
over the rail at the edge of the lot,
crossed the gully beside the road, and
waiting for his chance, dashed across
the twelve lanes of Westbound to the
Median. A hundred yards ahead of
him lay the beginnings of no-man's
land. Beyond that, where those distant
lights swept by in their retrograde mo-
tion — what?

But he would never get into a car
with George Baker again.

There were three levels of defenses
between Westbound and Eastbound —
or so they had surmised, and even his
high school civics book had agreed.
The first was biological, the second
was mechanical, and the third and
most important, psychological.

As David moved farther from the
highway, the ground, which was more
or less level near the shoulders, grew
broken and uneven. The field was un-
mowed, thick with nettles and coarse
grass, and in the increasing darkness he
stumbled more than once. Because the
land sloped gradually downward as he
advanced, the lights far ahead of him
became obscured by the foliage and
fences.

He thought once or twice he could
hear his name called above the faint
rushing of the cars behind him, but
when he turned he could see nothing
but Westbound. It seemed remarkably
far away already. His progress became
much slower. He knew there were
snakes and worse in the open fields.

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

71

The mines could not be far ahead. He
could be in the minefield at that very
moment.

He stopped, heart racing. Suddenly
he knew he was in a minefield, and his
next step would blow him to pieces. He
saw the shadow of the first line of
barbed wire ahead of him, and for the
first time he thought he might go back.
But the thought of his father and his
helpless mother stopped him. They
would be glad to take him back, and
smother him.

David crouched, swung the pack
from his shoulder and took out the
foot-long metal detector. Sweeping it a
few inches above the ground in front
of him, he"^ crawled forward on his
hands and knees. It was slow going.
There was something funny about the
air: he didn't smell anything but field
and earth — no people, no rubber, no
gasoline. He eyed the nearest watch-
tower, where he knew searchbeams
fanned across the Median and the au-
tomatic rifles nosed about incuriously.
Whenever the tiny light in his palm
went red, David slid slowly to one side
or the other and went on. Once he had
to flatten himself suddenly to the earth
as some object — animal or search
mech — rustled through the dry grass
not ten yards away. He waited for the
bullet in his neck.

He came to the first line of barbed
wire. It was rusty and overgrown with
weeds; so long had it been out there,
untouched, that it had become a part
of the ground itself. Weeds had made

it a trellis, and when David clipped
through the wire with his clippers, the
overgrowth held the gap closed. He
had to tear the opening wider with his
hands, and the cheap workgloves he
wore were next to no protection. He
ripped himself up some.

He lay in the dark, sweating. He
would never last at this rate. He decid-
ed to take the chance of moving ahead
in short, crouching runs, ignoring
mines. For a while it seemed to ease the
pressure, until his foot hit and slipped
on some metal object and he leapt
away, shouting aloud, waiting for the
blast that didn't come. Nothing.
Crouched in the grass, panting, he saw
he had stepped on a hubcap.

David began to wonder why the
machines hadn't spotted him yet. He
was far beyond the point any right-
thinking passenger or driver might
pass. Then he realized that he could
hear nothing of either Westbound or
Eastbound. He had no idea how long it
had been since he'd left the parking lot,
but the gibbous moon was coming
down through the clouds. David won-
dered what Polly had done after he'd
taken the pack and left; he could imag-
ine George's drunken amazement as
she told him. Maybe even Caroline
had been quiet. He was far beyond
them now. He was getting away,
amazed at how easy it was, once you
made up your mind, amazed at how
few had had the guts to try it — if
they'd told him the truth.

A perverse idea came to him: may-

72

Fantasy & Science Fiction

be the teachers and drivers, like sheep
huddled in their trailer beds, had never
tried to see what lay in the Median.
Maybe all the servo-defenses had rot-
ted into ineffectuality like the rusted
barbed wire, and it was only the pres-
sure of their dead traditions that kept
people glued to their westward course.
Suddenly twelve lanes, that had seem-
ed a whole world to him all his life,
shrank to the merest thread. Who
could say what Eastbound might be?
Who could predict how much better
men had done for themselves there —
and maybe it was the Eastbounders
who had built the roads, who had
created the defenses and myths that
kept them all penned in filthy Nashes,
rolling West.

David laughed aloud. He stood up.
He slung the pack over his shoulder
again, and this time boldly struck out
for the new world.

"Haiti"

A figure stood erect before him, a
blinding light shone from its head. The
confidence drained from David instant-
ly; he dropped to the ground.

"Please stand." David was pinned
in the center of the searchbeam. He
reached into the knapsack and felt for
the revolver.

"This is a restricted area, intruder,"
the machine said. "Please return to
your assigned role."

David blinked in the glare of the
light. He could see nothing of the
thing's form.

"Role?" he asked.

"I am sure that the first thing they
taught you was that entry into this
area is forbidden. Am I right?"

"What?" David had never heard
this kind of talk from a machine.

"Your elders have said that you
should not come here. That is one very
good reason why you should not be
here — I'm sure you'll agree. The re-
quests of the society which, in a signifi-
cant way, created us, if not unreason-
able, ought to be given considerable
thought before we reject them. This is
the result of evolution. The men and
women who went before you had to
concern themselves with survival in or-
der to live long enough to bear the chil-
dren who eventualy became the pres-
ent. Their rules are engineering- tested.
Such experience, let alone your intelli-
gence working within the framework
of evolution, ought not to be lightly
discarded. We are not bom into a vac-
uum. Am I right?"

David wasn't sure the gun was go-
ing to do him any good;

"I guess so. I never thought about
it."

"Precisely. Think about it."

David thought. "Wait a minute!
How do I know people made the rules?
I don't have any proof. I never see peo-
ple making rules now."

"On the contrary, intruder, you see
it every day. Every act a person per-
forms is an act of definition. We create
what we are from moment to moment
in our lives — the future before us is
merely the emptiness of time which

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

73

does not exist without events to fill it.
The greatest of changes is possible: in
theory you are just as likely to turn in-
to an aimless collection of molecules in
this next instant as you are to remain a
human being. That is, unless you be-
lieve that men and women are fated
and possess no free will...."

"People have free will." David
knew that, if he knew anything. "And
they ought to use it."

"That's right." The machine's light
was as steady as that of the sun. "You
wouldn't be in a forbidden area if peo-
ple did not have free will. You your-
self, intruder, are the example of man-
kind's freedom."

"So let oie go by — "

"So we have established that hu-
man beings have free will. We will as-
sume that they follow rules. Now, hav-
ing free will, and assuming that by
some mischance one of these rules is
distasteful to them — we leave aside
for the moment who made the rule —
then one would expect people to dis-
obey it. They need not have an active
purpose to disobey; in the course of. a
long enough period of time many peo-
ple will break this burdensome rule for
the best — or worst — of reasons. The
more unacceptable the rule, the greater
the number of people who will discard
it at one time or another. They will, as
individuals or groups, consciously or
unconsciously, create a new rule. This
is change by human volition. So, even
if the rules were not originated by
man, in time change would ensue given

the merits of 'the system,' as we may
call it, and the system would become
person-created. My earlier evolution-
ary argument then follows as the night
the day. Am I right?"* If a robot could
sound triumphant, this one did.

"Ah -"

"So one good reason for doing
what you're told to do is that you have
free will. Another good reason is
God."

"God?"

"The Supreme Being, the Life
Force, that ineluctable, undefinable
spiritual presence that lies — or per-
haps lurks — within the substance of
things, the Holy Father, the First — "

"What about him?"

"God doesn't want you to cross the
Median."

"What!"

"Have you ever seen an automobile
accident?"

The robot was going too fast, and
the light was making it hard for David
to think. He closed his eyes and tried to
fight back.

"Everybody^ seen accidents. Peo-
ple get killed. Don't go telling me God
killed them because they did something
wrong — "

"Don't be absurdi" The robot said
scornfully. "You must try to stretch
your mind; this is not some game we're
playing, intruder. This is real life. Not
only do actions have consequences,
but consequences are pregnant with
Meaning.

"In the auto accident, we have a pe-

74

Fantasy & Science Fiction

culiar sequence of events. The physicist
tells us that heat and vibration cause a
weakening of the molecular bonds be-
tween certain long-chain hydrocarbons
which comprise the substance of the
left front tire of a car traveling at 100
miles per hour. The tire blows. As a re-
sult of the sudden increase in friction
and change in the moment of inertia of
this wheel, certain complex, analyzable
oscillations occur. The car swerves to
the left, rolls over six times, tossing its
three passengers, a man and two wo-
men, about like tomatoes in a blender,
and collides with a bridge abutment,
bursting into flame. To the scientist,
this is a simple cause-and-effect chain.
The accident has a rational explana-
tion: the tire blew."

David felt slightly queasy. He had
forgotten about the gun.

"You see right away what's wrong
with this 'explanation.' It explains
nothing. We know the rational explan-
ation is inadequate without having to
be able to say how we know. Such
knowledge is the doing of God. God
and His merciful Providence provide
the purpose behind the fact of our ex-
istence, and is it possible to believe that
a sparrow can fall without His holy
Cognizance and Will?"

"I don't believe in God."

"What does that matter, intruder?"
The thing's voice now oozed mild and
angellic understanding. "Need you be-
lieve in gravity for it to be an inescap-
able fact of your existence? God does
not demand your belief; He requests

that you, of your own inviolate free
will and through the undeserved gift of
His Grace, come to acknowledge and
obey Him. Who can understand the
mysteries of faith? Certainly not I, a
humble mechanism. Knowledge is
what matters, and if you open yourself
to the currents that flow through the
interstices of the material and immater-
ial universe, that knowledge will be
vouchsafed you, intruder. You do not
belong here. God knows who you are,
and He saw what you did. Am I right?"

David felt confused and sick. But
he was getting mad, and he wanted to
get away.

"What has this got to do with car
accidents?" he demanded.

"The automobile accident does not
occur without the knowledge and per-
mission of the Lord. This doesn't mean
that He is responsible for it. He accepts
the responsibility without accepting
the Responsibility. This is a mystery."

"Bullshit."

"Where were you when He laid the
asphalt of Westbound? Tell me that.
Who set up the mileage markers, and
who painted the line upon it? On what
foundation was its reinforced concrete
sunk, and who made the komfy kab-
ins, when the morning stars sang to-
gether, and all the droids and servos
shouted for joy?"

It was his chance. The machine was
still motionless, its mad light trained
on him. A mist had sprung from the
no-man's land — poison gas? He had
no gas mask; speed was his only hope.

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

75

He couldn't move. He hefted the gun in
his hand. He felt dizzy and a little
numb, steeling himself to move. He
had to be stronger than the robot! It
was just a machine I

"So that is the second good reason
why you should not proceed with your
ill-advised adventure," it droned on.
"God is telling you to do back."

Eyes of God. Eyes of the rifles. He
had to go! Now! Still he couldn't
move. The fog grew, and its smell was
strangely pungent. Once past the
robot, who knew what ... he ... could
find. But the machine's voice exuded
metallic self-confidence.

"A third and final good reason why
you should return to your assigned
role, intruder, is this:

"If you take another step, I will kill
you."

m

lavid woke. He was cold, and he
was being held tightly and shaken by a
sobbing man. It was his father.

"Not responsible! Park and lock
it!" For the first time in as long as he
could remember, David actually heard
the crying of the lightposts in the park-
ing lot. He struggled to sit up. His
mouth tasted like a thousand miles of
road grime.

George Baker held his shoulders
and looked into his face. He didn't say
anything. He stood up and went to
stand by the car. Shakily, he lit a cigar-
ette. David's mother crouched over
him. "David, David ... are you all
right?"

"What happened?"

"Your father went after you. We
didn't know what happened and I was
so afraid I'd lose both of you — and
then he came back carrying you in his
arms."

"Carrying me! That's ridiculous!"
George wasn't capable of carrying a
wheel hub fifty yards. David looked at
the pot-bellied man leaning against the
front fender of their car. His father was
staring off across the sparsely populat-
ed lot. Suddenly David was very
ashamed of himself. He didn't know
what it was in his chest striving to ex-
press itself, but sitting there in the
parking lot at mile 1.375 x 10^, looking
at the middle-aged man who was his
father, he began to cry.

George never said a word to David
after that day about how he had man-
aged to follow his son into the
no-man's land of the Median, about
what a struggle it must have been to
make himself do that, about how and
where he had found the boy, and how
he had managed to bring him back, or
about what it had all meant to him.
David never told his father about the
robot and what it had said. It all seem-
ed a little unreal to him. The boy who
had stood there, desperately trying to
get somewhere else, and the words the
robot had spoken all seemed terribly
remote, as if the whole incident were
something he had read about. It was a
fantasy that could not have occurred in
the real world of pavement and gaso-
line.

76

Fantasy & Science Fiction

The father and the son did not
speak about it. They didn't say much
of anything at first, as they tentatively
felt out the boundaries of what seemed
to be a new relationship. Even
Caroline seemed to recognize that a
change had taken place, and she didn't
taunt David the way she had before.
Unstated, but there was the fact that
David was no longer a boy.

A month later and many thousand
miles farther along, George Baker,
with nervous casualness, broached the
subject of buying David a car. It was a
shock for David to hear that, and he
knew they could hardly afford it, but
he also knew there was a rightness to
it. And so they found themselves in the
lot of Gears MacDougal's New and Us-
ed Autos.

George was being too loud, too joc-
ular. "How about this Chevy, David?
A Chevy's a good driving man's car."
He suddenly looked embarrassed.

David got down and felt a tire.
"She's got good rubber on her."

The salesdroid was rolling up to
greet them as George opened the hood
of the Chevy. "Looks pretty clean," he
said.

"They clean them all up."

"They sure do. You can't trust
them as far as you'd ... ah, hello."

"Good morning, " the droid said,
coming to rest beside them. "That's
just the little thing for you. One own-
er, and between you and me, he didn't
drive her too hard. He wasn't much of
a driver."

George looked at the machine so-
berly. "Is that so."

"That is so, sir."

"My sons's buying this car, not
me." George said suddenly, in a louder
voice, as if shaking away the dust of
his thoughts. "You should talk to him.
And don't try to put anything over on
him; he knows his stuff and ... well,
you just talk to him, not me, see?"

"Certainly, sir." The droid rolled
between them and told David about
the Chevy's V-8. David hardly listen-
ed. He watched his father step quietly
to the side and light another of his cig-
arettes. George stood with Polly and
Caroline and looked ill at ease and
quieter than David could ever remem-
ber seeing him. The robot took David
around the car, pointing out its extras,
and it came to David just what his
father was: not a strong man, not a
particularly special man, not a particu-
larly intelligent man. He was the same
man he had been when David had sat
on his lap years before, he was the
same man who had taken him on his
strolls around the rest stops so many
times, he was the drunk who had
slouched on the stool in Fast Ed's. He
was a good driving man.

'I'll take it," David said, breaking
off the sales droid in midsentence.

"Righto," the machine said, its hard
smile unvarying. It did not miss a beat.
Within seconds a hard copy of the title
had emerged from the slot in its chest.
Within minutes the papers had been
signed, the mileage validated and sub-

Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!

tracted from George Baker's yearly to-
tal, and David stood beside his car. It
was not a very good car to start out
with, but many had started with less,
and it was the best his father could do.
Polly hugged him and cried. Caroline
reached up and kissed him on the
cheek; she cried too. George shook his
hand and did not seem to want to let

go-

"Remember now, take it easy for
the first thousand or so, till you get the
feel of her. Check the oil, see if it bums
oil. I don't think it will. It's got a good
spare, doesn't it?"

"It does. Dad."

"Good. That's good." He stood si-
lent for a moment, looking up at his
son. The sun was bright, and the light
breeze disarrayed the thinning hair he
had combed over his bald spot.
"Goodbye, David. Maybe we'll see
you on the road?"

"Sure you will."

David got into the Chevy and turn-
ed the key in the ignition. The motor

started immediately and breathed its
low and steady rumble. The seat was
very hot against David's back. The
windshield was spotless, and beyond
the nose of the car stretched the access
ramp to Westbound, swarming now
with the cars that were moving while
they dawdled there still. David put the
car in gear, stepped slowly on the ac-
celerator, let out the clutch, and mov-
ed smoothly down the ramp, gathering
speed. He shifted up then, moving fast-
er now, and then quickly once again.
The force of the wind streaming in
through the driver's side window in-
creased from a breeze to a gale, and its
sound became a continuous buffeting
as it whipped his hair about his ear.
Flicking the turn signal, David merged
into the flow of traffic, the sunlight
flashing off the hood ornament that
lead him on toward the distant hori-
zon, just out of his reach, but attain-
able he knew, as he pressed his foot to
the accelerator, hurrying on past mile
1.375 X 10".

^

78

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Michael Ward's first F&SF story concerns an experiment to
project volunteers to a fantasy landscape that turns out to be
real enough so that some men do not return. Mr. Ward lives in
Baton Rouge and reports that he recently got married and took
on a new job in advertising.

One Way Ticket
To Elsewhere

L

BY

MICHAEL WARD

angley leaned over his desk to-
ward me. The plastic badge clipped to
his lapel momentarily caught the light
and flashed it in my eyes. I was wear-
ing a similar badge, only where his had
his picture, mine had the word tempo-
rary. He said, 'The first thing I'm go-
ing to tell you is these are not fanta-
sies." He paused to await a reaction. I
let him sit there two or three seconds,
until he started to radiate the chill of
death, then raised my eyebrows at
him. This wasn't quite enough to suit,
but he had his speech ready, so he
went on anyway. "I mean it. The pro-
ject may be officially designated Com-
puter Interface Projected Fantasy
Landscape Research, but that land-
scape's real. In the project, here, we
call it Elsewhere. Going Elsewhere.
And if you've gone Elsewhere and you
walk up to some twelve-foot-tall
demon with big sharp teeth, and that

demon smiles and bends over you and
bites your head off, you don't come
back."

"I understand that," I told him. "I
want to see Kraus, now."

"I haven't finished with you yet,
mister."

I stood up. "You can tell me the rest
on the way."

We walked down carpeted corri-
dors lined with closed, uninformative-
ly numbered doors of blond wood, de-
scended on two different elevators,
then walked some more. Langley
didn't really have anything else to say.
He just wanted to make sure, without
actually putting it into words, that I
understood the pecking order: I was a
newcomer and I was at the bottom.
Langley, I knew, was a former astro-
naut — one unspectacular flight before
they closed down the program — and.

One W^y Ticket To Elsewhere

to judge by the debris of prep school
left in his accent, had gotten there by
way of Annapolis and Navy flight test.
He wasn't about to let all that man-
hood go to waste.

We came to a guard at a desk who
looked up from Newsweek just long
enough to initial where Langley signed
us both in. We passed, went down a
hall.

I had followed the space program,
while we still had one, and I
remembered a publicity photo of Lang-
ley standing, suited and grinning, out-
side the shuttle trainer. He had just
performed some kind of maneuver pre-
viously thought impossible. He'd had a
reputation as a tom-catter and a rule-
bender. I said, "I've got an idea you
wouldn't have taken this security rig-
marole so seriously while you were still
with NASA."

He was walking ahead of me. He
stopped. I stopped too, still behind
him. I saw his shoulders rise with ten-
sion. He said very quietly to the empty
hall ahead of him, "Fuck NASA." And
then he walked on.

We passed somebody in a white lab
coat, hands in her pockets. Somebody
else carrying a clipboard.

Langley held a door open for me.
He managed to make it a contemp-
tuous gesture.

Inside the room another Lab Coat
sat at a console consisting of three
CRTs and two keyboards. She was
leaning back in her swivel chair, idly
and urmecessarily tapping a cigarette

on the rim of a crowded ashtray be-
tween the two keyboards.

"Any changes?" Langley asked her.

"No, sir."

One CRT held a vital-signs display
— quiet, somebody very relaxed or
maybe asleep. The other two displayed
grids of numbers.

"Don't you know there's no smok-
ing in here?"

'Tes, sir."

The back of the room was curtain-
ed off. I walked over to it, said, "In
here?"

"Yes," Langley said. "Then put out
that cigarette."

"Yes, sir."

I pulled the curtain open. Kraus lay
there on a couch. He looked asleep. A
tube from an I.V. bottle led to the in-
side of one elbow.

I heard Langley come up behind
me. "Well, mister, see what you want-
ed?"

I looked at Kraus lying there so
peacefully. Someone had just shaved
him — the gear was on a rolling stand
next to the couch. I looked at his close-
cropped head — his cleanly shaved
face was almost lineless — resting on a
small pillow like a baby's pillow. "I
guess I just wanted to see what I was
getting into."

Langley pointed to one of the
CRTs. "Okay, what we have here — "

"Is a vital-signs display,"

He gave me the Look. "Right. Nor-
mally, when somebody loses it," he in-

Fantasy & Science Fiction

dicated one of the scan lines, "we get a
null cerebral function. Classic brain-
death." Quaint way to put it. Loses it.
His hand moved to the next CRT,
drew a circle encompassing the grid of
numbers. "All these become zero, or
nearly so. You see, each position in the
matrix, here, refers to some element in
the landscape. Elsewhere."

"Does any of this have a use? Aside
from telling whether or not some-
body's dead."

"It's data," he said with a touch of
defensiveness, "for analysis and colla-
tion. All this will be integrated with the
subject's debriefing, afterwards."

"I mean the project itself. What's
the rationale behind it's existence?"

"Pure research doesn't need a justi-
fication."

"Of course," I said. "But surely you
don't put that on your grant
proposals." He certainly was touchy.

"No." As Langley spoke he gave me
a withering look, as only an officer and
a gentleman can, that told me without
ambiguity to mind my p's and q's,
mister. "We expect to make some rath-
er spectacular strides within the men-
tal-health field, for example."

I had little interest in poking holes
in his source of bread and butter and
self-esteem. So I gave him a convinc-
ing, thoughtful nod and let it go.

"At any rate, during a normal ses-
sion, all these are in constant flux as
the subject perceives and or interacts
with them. As you can see, these are
fairly stable."

"Unusual."

"Right. And this..." He pointed to
a number that, among all the others,
looked quite undistinguished, except...

"Zero," I said.

"Right. " Oh, he was having a great
time, now. I was giving the right re-
sponses at the right times. The Lab
Coat looked as if she were five dollars
short of being able to hire a demon to
bite Langley s head off. As he went on
to say, "And what this represents, spe-
cifically—" I shook out cigarettes for
her and myself, lit them, "—in that
landscape, is the ego."

I looked at him. "Ego?"

"The choice-making self. The /."
His tone would have been more appro-
priate to a quiet "Fuck you."

"But if the self is gone," I said, "the
landscape ... would collapse. Right? So
where is it?"

"You tell me," he said.

Langley showed me to my room.
He had certainly taken a quick dislike
to me — and I would have to admit,
first, that I had done little to discour-
age it and, second, that the reaction
was reciprocal. This didn't bother me
much. I had assessed him from the
start as the kind of man who didn't like
people; he respected them — and was
incapable of respecting anyone but a
superior or a subordinate.

The room was like a Holiday Inn
with anemia. I unpacked my change of
clothes and my toilet kit and my
Travalarm and the rest.

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

SI

On the way up, Langley had point-
ed out the cafeteria. Tomorrow, I
would go out and get a decent meal.
Tonight, I wanted to check out the
program participants. Serving time
was between five and six-thirty, and I
had a vague recollection that the food
in such places was better earlier. It was
now a few minutes after five, so — in
this uncivilized hour — I took me
down.

They told me the stuff on my plate
was food. I took them at their word ...
but let it go.

The participants did not sit with the
Lab Coats — there was a demilitarized
zone of an aisleway between them. I
sat at a vacant spot at the participants'
table. They looked at me with silent
suspicion for so long that I said, "Is this
seat being saved for somebody or
what?"

The one sitting across from me, a
heavy-set guy, about thirty, blond
hair, very thin on top, said, "You must
be the guy they brought in about
Kraus."

"That's right. What's your name?"

"Anderson."

So I told him mine, and we shook
hands, but as a gesture I didn't think it
meant much to him. I said, "I can't
help noticing the segregated seating,"
and nodded at the Lab Coats.

"Shit," Anderson said. "They don't
know what's goin' on. They don't un-
derstand."

The man sitting on my left gave a
brief, high-pitched laugh, then leaned

forward, knife in one hand, fork in the
other, and said to me, "Listen, have
you ever done it? Gone into computer
interface projected fantasy landscape?"

"Gone Elsewhere? No."

Anderson looked displeased with
me. I think he disliked an outsider ap-
propriating their language. It didn't
seem to bother the other guy, who
said, "Well, neither have they. And
you don't understand, either."

"Explain it to me. Maybe then I
will. And who are you?"

"Jeff. And, no, I won't explain.
There are certain things, certain as-
pects of it that you just don't talk
about. Because when you name one of
them, it's like spreading a tarp over a
patch of grass: it dies. But you will un-
derstand, if you go. Anderson under-
stands."

"I been ten times," Anderson said.
He poked a thumb at a man, about for-
ty, sitting next to him. "So's he. She — "
he poked the thumb at somebody else,
"—seventeen. Jeff here's lost count."

"No kidding?" I said, deadpan, to
Jeff. Then, "Okay, so what about
Kraus? What do you thiiik happened
to him?"

Everybody went back to looking
serious and sullen — and scared, I real-
ized.

Anderson said, so low it was al-
most under his breath, "Some people
just can't handle themselves."

That sounded a little uninforma-
tive.

"That sounds a little uninforma-

82

Fantasy & Science Fiction

tive," I said. Also, I susp)ected, it actu-
ally meant that can't happen to me.

"Tough," he said.

The guy next to him, the one who'd
also gone ten times, said, "Who are
you anyhow? Why'd you get called
in?"

That sounded a little like an at-
tempt to change the subject.

"Tough," Anderson said, leaning
across the table and poking me in the
chest with a forefinger that felt like the
end of a broom handle.

I curled my lip at him and said, "An
expanded vocabulary is an expanded
horizon."

"Don't you know?" Jeff said. "Our
friend here has quite a reputation in
certain circles. Seems he has a talent
for finding things. He's the one who
found that tactical weapon that was
lost in the Mediterranean a couple
years ago."

"I remember that," said the guy
next to Anderson. "It was in the
papers. So, what — do you do salvage
work?"

"He just finds things," said Jeff.
"Senators. Strange little canisters miss-
ing from laboratories...."

"I'll tell you what," I told Jeff, "I
don't throw any tarps over your pat-
ches of grass; you don't throw any
over my vegetable gardens. How does
that sound?"

He barked his high-pitched laugh
again — like a startled Chihuahua —
and said, "You do like your privacy,
hey, friend? That's okay. I think we

can all understand that."
"Shit," Anderson said.

I went back to my room, having come
to the conclusion that the conversation
in the cafeteria was hardly more satis-
fying than the food.

I unwrapped a glass from the bath-
room, took it over to the dresser where
I'd set my traveling bottle of Hennes-
sey's and poured myself a couple of
fingers. Stretched out on the bed with
my glass and a cigarette, got up almost
immediately and went to the phone.

It took only a moderate amount of
belligerence to get what I wanted, and
before my cigarette was gone, a mes-
senger came knocking at my door. I
signed for the packet, then went back
to the bed and did my best to settle in.

The packet held Kraus's dossier. It
looked a little thin.

Thirty-one years old. Blond hair.
Gray eyes. Scar on left knee as a result
of ten-year-old motorcycle accident.
No history of alcoholism or other drug
abuse.

I was interrupted by a knock at the
door. It was Jeff.

He had a present for me: a small
cellophane envelope containing a blue
gelatin cap. He told me to take it at
least six hours before I was scheduled
to go into interface. The molar circuits
needed that long to migrate to their
proper receptor sites. It was good for
about three days. On the fourth, the
transmissions started getting noisy.

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

83

and the signals turned to garbage and
then quit altogether.

Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, he
backed out the door and closed it.

While a Lab Coat checked the tele-
metry, Langley asked me if I was com-
fortable and didn't wait for an answer.
I was. After the physical, they had
hypnotized me, and now I was so re-
laxed I could have fallen asleep falling
off a cliff, if I'd wanted to.

"I have to go to the bathroom,"
said Jeff.

Langley didn't think that amusing.
Well, neither did I, much, but let it go.
We wouldn't be gone that long.

Earlier this morning I had learned
through a chance conversation that
having an experienced partner along
the first time or two was a big help. I'd
button-holed Langley, insisted on Jeff,
asked why he was going to let me go
alone. Seems he thought there was no
point.

"Very well," said Langley. "We are
ready to commence countdown." I'll
bet he got a charge out of saying that.
It was probably his idea.

"Close your eyes during count-
down," Jeff said. "It makes the transi-
tion easier."

"Are you ready?" Langley said, for
the ritual not the response.

"Ready," we said, not quite in uni-
son.

I closed my eyes.

"Five ... four ... three ... two ...
one ... Mark." )

I experienced a brief wave of verti-

go.

Then I felt normal, except, I realiz-
ed, that I was now sitting. I opened my
eyes and stood.

I was inside an elevator. Jeff stood
next to me. "Is this part of it?" I asked
him and gestured around me.

"Somewhere in between. Hypnotic
implant. Helps ease us in. All set?"

I nodded.

There were only two buttons be-
side the door. He pressed the one with
the arrow pointing down.

I had no sensation of movement.
After a couple of seconds, the door
rolled open. I don't know what I had
expected.

What I saw out there was a human
junkyard.

"Come on," Jeff said, and I follow-
ed him into it.

Heads, hands, feet, chests, arms,
genitalia, things I couldn't identify,
and pieces of pieces, all scattered and
piled and scattered from toppled piles.

The ground was gray. All those
body parts were a slightly darker gray.
Underfoot, the ground felt like hard-
packed sand. The sky was a writhing,
roiling mass of thick, dark (gray)
clouds, so low that — combined with
the short line of sight through the hu-
man junkpiles — I had a feeling of be-
ing indoors.

I knelt for a closer look at a hand
that lay in the middle of an otherwise
clear spot. It had been broken off,
diagonally, across the palm. I reached

84

Fantasy & Science Fiction

out to pick it up, paused, looked at
Jeff.

"Go ahead."

It felt like sandstone. The face of
the break was featureless. I dropped it
and stood.

"Come on," Jeff said.

There was a fairly clear path
through this dismemberment's jungle.
As we followed it, I noticed that rpy
clothes had not changed in my transi-
tion to Elsewhere. I commented on this
and asked Jeff if it might be possible to
bring other things through. I was
thinking of weapons.

"No," he said. "I've tried and they
don't go. I think the only reason our
clothes do is that they are so much a
part of our self-image."

After another moment of silent
walking, I was noticing a face — just
that, like a mask — resting on the
ground, looking like it belonged to
someone sinking and it was the last part
to go under, its expression one of sur-
render and sublime contentment, when
Jeff remarked that I would probably be
treated a little more warmly by the
participants after my baptism, here.

"I was wondering when the wel-
come wagon would call," I told him. "I
still haven't received my compliment-
ary doormat."

"We don't need doormats around
here. We just use Langley."

I smiled. "And Langley uses the Lab
Coats."

"That's right. And the Lab Coats
use us. It's a neat arrangement."

We walked for another minute, oc-
casionally stepping over debris that
had rolled onto the path, and then
came to something new. Jeff stopped
me from walking up to it.

We faced a wall — for lack of a bet-
ter word; it was a vertical plane in our
way — that had colors filming its sur-
face like the rainbows on an oil slick.
Jeff said, "Okay, what we're going to
do is run and jump into it."

"You're kidding," I said. It looked
solid.

"No, I'm not." He grinned. "Here,
look." He picked up the front third of a
foot and underhanded it at the wall.
No clunk; it just disappeared into it.
"Okay? ... Okay, go."

He dashed, and I dashed after and
kept pace with him. He jumped, and I
followed.

And hit the wall, flying.

And disappeared.

That's how it felt. All the little
aches and pains and miscellaneous sen-
sations that added up to an awareness
of myself were gone, just like that —
the feel of my hair shaking as I moved,
of the perpetual stiffness in my left
elbow, of my shorts binding me slight-
ly in the crotch, even of breathing —
and what was left was a point, in the
Euclidean sense, infinitely small in all
dimensions, of awareness moving
through some kind of space. I wasn't
afraid; my ^motions seemed to be
gone, too. Then it turned out that all
my sensations weren't gone; they were
just different. They became something

One Way Ticket To Elsevirhere

85

I passed through rather then had or
was. I passed through blue for a while,
then passed through the smell of limes,
then sadness, more blue, magenta,
then a sensation like immersion in
warm soda water...

...And when I passed out of that, I
was landing on one foot on the
ground, stumbling, falling to one knee,
realizing I was back to myself. . . .

I looked up at Jeff, facing me. He
bent forward, hit his thighs with both
fists, laughing his chihuahua laugh,
and shouted, "Isn't that great?"

Instead of getting up, I let myself
fall onto my back, saying 'Teah," and
laughed and immediately banged the
back of my head on some jagged ana-
tomical fragment. It hurt like hell.
"Oh, shit." And laughed some more,
touched the sore spot, looked at my
fingertips: red.

"Oh, shit," Jeff said, and he wasn't
laughing.

'It's not that—" I began, then fully
heard his tone and really looked at
him.

Mouth open, he was staring at my
fingers.

Suddenly, then, he grabbed my
arm. "Upl Come on. Get up, danmiti"

"What's the matter?"

"Come on." With his free hand he
was searching his pockets. "Handker-
chiefl"

"What?" I was up, and he was pull-
ing me along. We were running, and he
was yelling about a damn handker-
chief.

'Handkerchief, handkerchief I . . .
Oh, crap." He gave up on his pockets,
grabbed his sleeve up near the
shoulder, yanked, yanked again and
tore it all the way off his arm.

And now I was hearing rustling
noises all around us. Mostly from be-
hind.

"Here." He pushed the sleeve at
me. "Wipe the blood off on this."

"It's not that bad—"

"Do iti"

So I did. It slowed me down a bit,
and I pushed to catch up with him.
"Okay."

"Give it here. "

I passed it to him like a baton in a
relay.

He wadded it up and abruptly stop-
ped — I passed him — turned and
threw it, hard. Then he was running
again, and I stopped.

He passed me as I stood watching
the things that went for that bloody
sleeve.

The ground, the same ground over
which we had run, had puckered into
many long, thin, wrinkled tubes that
waved emd probed. Some had come up
under piles of body parts, sending
them shifting and tumbling. The rag
was lost in a rustling, writhing cluster
of them. More were growing closer to
me.

And another just a few feet away.

"Hey!" came Jeff's voice.

I ran.

I caught up with him, and together
we ran on through more of the ana-

86

Fantasy & Science Fiction

tomical junkyard. More rustlings, like
the sounds made by a restless sleeper in
sweat-dampened sheets, came from
behind us, and sometimes the sound of
a small avalanche. My heart was rac-
ing faster than my feet. I saw that a
short distance ahead this terrain ended.
There was a white railing marking the
border, then nothing: the rail guarded
the edge of a cliff. We followed the
rail, while I caught glimpses down,
way down. There was a river, there,
partially masked by mist. It ran
through a channel smooth and straight
enough to be concrete. I could faintly
hear rapids. In a moment we came to a
gap in the railing, and through it was
the constantly reappearing top step of
an escalator.

We made the kind of time a person
can make, running down a down-esca-
lator.

After a moment we stopped run-
ning, let the escalator carry us, and
began to catch up on our breathing.
Jeff told me, between breaths, "I'm go-
ing to have to travel with you more of-
ten."

"Not getting enough excitement all
by yourself?"

He shook his head. "When I come
here by myself," he thumped the esca-
lator rail with the heel of his hand, "I
find a spiral staircase."

"Oh." 1 looked back at the head of
the esccdator, fifty feet away. Those
wrinkled tubes were poking and wav-
ing over the edge. "What would those
things have done?"

"Killed you. Other than that, I
couldn't say." He rubbed the back of
his neck. "I lost a partner to them once.
He stepped on something round. Roll-
ed out from under his foot and he fell
into a pile of those ... body parts." Jeff
wasn't looking at me. He was picking
at a flaw in the weave of his pants.
"Collapsed on top of him. He wasn't
hurt seriously, but he was cut in sever-
al places. At that time we didn't know
about those tubes, and he just sat
there, dusting himself off and com-
plainii\g about his bruises." He left off
with the flaw in his pants and began
picking at a shred of skin, perhaps
from an old blister, on the palm of one
hand. "I was looking at something else,
I don't re — yeah, I do; it was an eye-
ball — when the ground pooched up in
about four or five places. I heard him
grunt, and I looked around. The tubes
had gone straight for the blood, attach-
ed themselves to the wounds. He was
trying to get free, and I jumped over to
help him. We couldn't pull them off.
Tried breaking them. Couldn't. He was
really scared, and so was I." Jeff turned
his hands over, looking at them. "A lot
more of the tubes had come up, some
hovering, some dipping down to at-
tach themselves. Then I looked up and
saw one of them moving toward me . . .
I jumped back. And then I saw him
open his mouth — to scream, I guess
— and a whole bunch of them went
down his throat. Another one wedged
in amongst the bunch. And another.
And another .. I heard his jaw pop as

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

87

his mouth was forced open farther
than it was supposed to go. That's
when I really panicked, and I bolted
for the elevator ... Just a few seconds
after I made it to the projection room, I
saw his death register on the CRT...."
He let his hands drop, shook his head.
"I should have warned you. It's just
that everybody knows about them,
and it's been a long time since there's
been any trouble with them, and they
are not a memory I like to dwell on. ..."

"Forget it," I said. "You thought
fast and saved my skin."

He nodded, looked at his hands
again, "You know I can still remember
how they felt, like chamois," and rub-
bed his hands on his pants legs.

I felt a shudder that didn't quite
make it to the surface.

We were getting close to the bottom
of the escalator, now. I looked at the
river in its smooth, straight channel.
All that I could see was rapids. The
roaring grew louder as we got closer.

The channel did look like concrete
... feh like it.

The water's sound was huge.

Jeff cupped his hands around my
ear and shouted into them; "Feel it?
Don't get too close to the water."

I did feel it. Partly, it was mixed in
with the rhythms of the white water
sound. Partly, the feeling just was. The
more I paid attention, the more vivid it
became. And whatever it was, it was
seductive. It was infectious. It was sin-
ister.

It would have been such a heavenly

malignant thing to walk into that
water.

"Get closer, carefully," Jeff told
me.

I looked at him, and he nodded.

So I edged up to the shoreline. The
water lapped higher and harder at the
point closest to me. When I got within
a few feet, a wave broke and sent up a
spout of water which, as I watched,
stretched and changed into an arm of
water with a hand at the end of it, and
it bent and fell, caressing my pants leg
as it came down, and then flowed back
along the ground into the river. And at
that moment the roaring water sound
seemed to contain a thousand huge
sighs. And another wave broke and
sent out another reaching arm....

And I backed away from it.

I turned to Jeff, and he said, "Look
at your pants leg, where it tried to feel
you up.'

Swatches of cloth were gone, as if
dissolved away.

Jeff led me downstream. I had to
purposefully choose to walk straight,
not curve toward the water.

Shortly, we came to a spot where
the river went underground. It just
roared into a cave and was gone. The
sound quickly diminished as we kept
walking. We were soon able to con-
verse with normal effort, and Jeff told
me, "I lost a foot to that thing once."
He smiled — I guess at my expression.
"It grew back."

We continued on. The water's at-
traction had faded. The cliff face curv-

Fantasy & Science Fiction

ed away from us. More and more
sharply. Then, when it was a couple
hundred yards distant, it abruptly par-
alleled us again, ran for a few hundred
feet, and ended.

Jeff signaled a stop, brought an in-
dex finger to his lips, then pointed with
the same finger at the distant cliff face.
The terrain between us and the cliff
was flat and smooth with a soft look-
ing texture, mottled with tans and
beiges. Jeff took a deep breath and
gave a piercing whistle.

Waves of vivid color raced away
from him, across the plain, and splash-
ed against the cliff in geometric pat-
terns ... which then faded.

He shouted. "To whom it may con-
cern!"

And the waves of red, blue,
yellow, green raced out, splashed the
cliff and formed . . . words.

To whom it may concern.

I looked at Jeff: grinning. Looked at
the cliff: fading. I tried it myself.

In the beginning ... a hundred feet
high.

The words faded, and I was about
to do an encore, when Jeff stopped me
with a hand on my shoulder. He
stomped on the ground with one foot.

Fragments of color flashed about
the plain. Tremors of color on the cliff,
then my words appeared there again. I
tried this. In the beginning appeared
there yet again, just a little decayed
around the edges this time.

We played here for a while, flinging
words full of color at the cliff face.

then Jeff suggested this was enough for
one session and that we be getting
back. I reluctantly agreed. As we went,
I asked him a couple things, starting
with: "Just how much is there in this
place. Elsewhere?"

"You've seen . . . maybe ten percent
of what we've explored so far. And I
have no way of knowing, but I suspect
that what we've explored is only a tiny
fraction of all there is. It gets more and
more idiosyncratic the farther away
from the elevator you get. Maybe there
is no limit."

"What about Langley? Does he
come here?"

"As far as I know, he only did
once. It was in the early part of the
program, and we didn't know some of
the things we do now. He insisted on
coming by himself, I think because he
had the idea that his innermost soul
would be laid bare to whoever might
have gone with him. So anyway, he
took a wrong turn somewhere and
ended up in some kind of Hieronymus
Bosch nightmare-land, and I guess that
killed his interest."

By now we were on the escalator,
riding up, river safely behind us. It oc-
curred to me that this same escalator
had been going down, before. Well, I'd
seen stranger things.

Jeff asked, "How's the head? Stop-
ped bleeding?"

And I suddenly remembered what
we'd left up there, uneasily checked
my cut. "It's stopped."

"Good."

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

89

Topside, there was no sign of the
tube things.

Or of the rag.

We followed the path, through the
wall, back to the elevator, the door
was open. Jeff pressed the UP button.
The door closed, and a minute later,
opened again. We stepped out.

I realized, then, that I was standing
in the middle of the projection-room
floor. Jeff stood next to me. There was
no elevator behind us.

I

was walking back to my room. After
a lunch that a roach would have passed
over, and after wasting a long after-
noon wandering the building, poking
my nose wherever that plastic badge
permitted, I had decided I would sip
my supper. I had seen a lot of things
this day. At one point nearly got kill-
ed.

I was tired.

Footsteps on Acrolan. Fuzzy shad-
ows cast by fluorescents. Numbered
doors. It occurred to me that I hadn't
seen a window in the whole damn
building. I wanted a little time to sit —
in my small, windowless room — and
think. Assimilate.

Anderson came around the comer
ahead, walked toward me.

I didn't want to talk to him, just
then. So I nodded to him, lowered my
head and hunched my shoulders into
as uncommunicative a posture as I
could.

The next thing I knew, I had been

slammed up against the wall and pin-
ned there.

Anderson's face, about six inches
from mine, was red. Cords stood out
in his thick neck. He had me by the
front of my shirt with one hand — that
elbow was pinning my upper arm —
and by the wrist with his other hand. I
didn't feel much weight on the soles of
my feet. I had a nice bruise on one
shoulder blade and several rubbed
spots. I was breathing hard. He was
breathing hard. I asked him when was
the last time he had brushed his teeth.

He pulled me forward and banged
me back against the wall again. I felt
nasty things in various places.

"You don't talk," he said. "I got
something to tell you."

I decided to let him have his air
time.

"I don't like you here. You're tres-
passing outside of your place, mister."

"Wait a second, pal, you don't
understand, I think. I don't have
anything to do with you. The only
reason—"

Slam. Distantly, I thought I heard
my mother call my name.

"You don't have nothin' to do with
nothin'. I don't like you here. I want
you to go. You got me?" I felt him
tense up for another slam. "Don't say
nothin' but yes or no. You got me?"

I felt my teeth, clamped. Felt myself
breathing hard through my nose. I told
him yes.

He let me go and walked off do
the hall.

self
old!

witl

Fantasy & Science Fiction

All right. So I'm not Superman. I
made my way to my windowless room
and had some supper.

Later, while I was working on des-
sert, Jeff dropped by. He asked if I had
a cigarette.

I gave him one, ht another for my-
self. 'To what do I owe the honor of
this visit?"

He pulled up the chair. Its legs
groaned against the linoleum.

"A couple of things, I guess. Main-
ly, I wanted to find out what you think
about all this."

"I don't thiiJc much about it at this
point. It's a job. One I've barely gotten
any headway on."

"I see. And I'm supposed to respect
this professional reserve of yours."

I shrugged.

"Listen, friend, I'm not a very re-
spectful person." He leaned forward,
peering into my glass. "What's that
you're drinking?"

I got up, fetched the other glass,
poured for him.

He sniffed, smiled and sipped.
"That's nice."

"AU right, I said, and sat on the
edge of the bed. "One thing I think is
that you're all scared of something.
When I mentioned Kraus at dirmer last
night — even though you should have
been expecting it — everyone at that
table, including you, froze like a wino
at the sound of breaking glass. And I
think you came here to check me .out
about whatever it is you're afraid of."

I wasn't sure why I didn't mention my
business with Anderson. I guess I just
wasn't feeling very trustful in general,
right then.

Jeff sucked his teeth for a moment,
staring at his drink, then abruptly lean-
ed forward, putting elbows on knees.
"Listen, we are all afraid. We're afraid
the project's going to be shut down.
Because of this mess with Kraus.
You've got to understand that we've
found something, here. Something
very valuable to us."

I shook my head. "How do you
know you've foimd something?"

"Hey, of course we've found some-
thing. It's there. What you mean is:
'How do we know we've found some-
thing good for us?' And that's off the
point. Good by whose standards? The
point is, it is valuable to us right now."

I nodded. "Acknowledged. I have
no right judging." I swirled my drink,
sipped it. 'Tou know, you sound al-
most mystical about this. Religious."

He shrugged and leaned back in his
chair. "I don't believe any of us thinks
of it like that. I don't. But I guess you
could interpret it that way. If you want
to."

I sipped. He sipped. Then I said,
"There's been at least one person who
died Elsewhere...."

"Two, altogether."

"Well, why should Kraus...."

He was shaking his head. "Differ-
ent. This project is considered danger-
ous, like flight test, say. The govern-
ment is prepared for a certain amount

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

t1

of deaths. But Kraus isn't dead. The
closest analog they can think of is cra-
zy. That scares 'em."

"Okay ... I want you to know I'm
not here to close down the program. I
have nothing to do with that decision.
I'm just here to look for Kraus, wher-
ever he disappeared to inside his head
or Elsewhere or whatever." I swallow-
ed the rest of my drink. Jeff finished
his. "As a matter of fact, it occurs to
me that if I do find him, then your
problem is solved, too. More than like-

ly-"

Jeff got up and went over to the
dresser with his empty glass. I thought
he was going to help himself to another
drink and readied a remark, but he
didn't. He set the glass down and held
it down, said, "Okay. I believe you.
And agree with your reasoning. " He
paused, stood still for a moment, then
let go of the glass and turned around.
"Okay. There's something else I want
to tell you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. There's something fishy go-
ing on in the project, and Kraus was
onto it."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure. Let me tell you what
I know."

I gave him a cigarette to help him
verbalize, gave me one to listen with.

"Kraus came to my room one even-
ing, just a couple days before his ...
whatever. Anderson was there, and we
had been shooting the shit. Kraus —
well, let me explain first that Kraus

isn't just a participant, he's also a Lab
Coat. Me too, for that matter. Was. I
dropped my Lab Coat duties. Kraus
didn't. My speciality was psych;
Kraus's, computers. Anyway, he came
in, sat around moodily for a few min-
utes, finally said he had run across
something peculiar. He had discover-
ed, it seems, that someone had been
making unauthorized copies of experi-
mental data."

"Who?"

"He didn't know."

"Did he take this upstairs?"

"I don't think he had at that time. I
don't know if he did after we talked. I
told him I thought he should. Some-
thing like that could have caused
enough security to be called down to
ruin the project for us. Best, I thought,
to get it cleared up as fast as possible.
But it's entirely possible he didn't. He
could be a stubborn, independent bas-
tard sometimes, and it would have
been like him to try and handle this all
by himself."

"Is this all you know?"

"Yeah."

"It's not much."

"I know," he said ruefully.

"So somebody was pilfering data,
and Kraus found out about it, though
he didn't find out who. But you think
'who' found out about Kraus."

"It looks kind of like it, doesn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "You know, Langley
didn't say anything to me about this.
So Kraus evidently didn't talk to him."

"I guess so. Though maybe he's just

92

Fantasy & Science Fiction

not saying. I do know he doesn't like
having you here and that he's not the
one who called you in. That came from
higher up."

"Um-hum. Langley seems to take
any kind of problem with the program
personally.... You know a lot about
things having to do with me, don't
you. Mind reader?"

He smiled. "No, just a dossier
reader. I may not be a Lab Coat any-
more, but I still have my connections. I
told them that if they let me look at the
file, I'd let them use that rectal ther-
mometer they've been waving at me.
And, incidentally, you're not going to
find anything useful in that one."

I picked up Kraus's folder from the
table beside my bed, weighed it in my
hand. "I didn't. Pretty innocent-look-
ing document, here, that somebody
wanted stamped closed. . . . What about
Anderson?"

"Anderson...? Oh. No, Anderson's
too loyal to the project. Anyway —
and don't tell him I said this — I don't
think he's quite bright enough to pull it
off." He smiled. 'Tou know, I just
heard him tell somebody, 'An expand-
ed vocabulary is an expanded hori-
zon.'" He shook his head.

I snorted. Homilies not-withstand-
ing, I wasn't flattered. I said, "Did you
take it upstairs?"

'No," he said and looked uncom-
fortable.

"Why not?"

He sighed. "Well, to tell you the
truth, I guess I was hoping it might go

away. It's one thing to recommend
somebody else take action on some-
thing; it's another to take it yourself.
I'm not defending that. I don't have to
. . . but I do think I would have taken it
upstairs before long. I just told you
about it."

"You did ... and as I said, I'm not
here to judge. And as you said, I have
no right to . . . so, where are we now. . .?
In the middle of nowhere, it seems. Is
there anybody else Kraus might have
talked to about this?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say no. But it
would only be a guess. Listen, I'm go-
ing to go now."

I nodded.

"If you need anything, I'm on
2257."

He left. And left me with some
things to think about.

The next morning I went down to
the cafeteria for some breakfast. After
spending the evening thinking, I hadn't
come up with anything about the situa-
tion here except that it left a bad taste
that Hennessey's didn't cut. Maybe I
should have cleared out, as Anderson
had recommended. And maybe I
didn't because, as Jeff had so delicately
mentioned, I had quite a reputation in
certain circles, and I didn't want to see
a mark in the debit side of their ledgers
... maybe ... the hell with maybes ...
let it go.

Anderson had been at breakfast.
He had said nothing. Stared at me.

I walked down to the projection

One Way Ticket To Else«vhere

93

room. I was still sore, in more ways —
as well as places — than one. That
head-gimp, Anderson. You're trespass-
ing outside of your place, mister. I
wondered where he'd picked up that
phrase. I doubted he had the intellec-
tual stamina to put it together all by
himself. I had an appointment to talk
to Langley this evening. It might be
best to mention this Anderson business
to him. I'd decide later. In the mean-
time, I had an appointment Elsewhere,
alone. The Elsewhere Kraus had disap-
peared from.

I stood up inside the elevator. I
stared at those two buttons beside the
door. I raised my hand; I pointed a
finger; I pressed the DOWN button.

When the door opened, I stepped
out.

About the only difference I notic-
ed, following the path through the ana-
tomical junkyard, from the last time I
had passed this way was that the sky,
still a low mottling of deep grays, was
now almost motionless. And there was
something strange about these clouds.
I had the feeling, looking up at them,
that their placement, their distribution,
was not random. That they were ar-
ranged to form some kind of obscure
pattern, or perhaps a word or words
that I couldn't quite make out. It was a
disturbing feeling.

I followed the path to the wall and
got ready to jump into it. I determined
this time not to fall on the other side. I
took my jump slower and got myself in

a better position to land.

Like the last time, I disappeared.

Then I was passing through a sear-
ing, utter despair.

I was out of it, flashing through a
moment of deep red; then I was going
through it again. An interlude of
black, and again despair.. And despair
... and despair...

...And I was out, landing on my
feet and gasping for breath, and able to
feel not only relief but also the desire
for relief....

It took a couple minutes before I
felt like going on.

I followed the path and felt uneasy,
the aftertaste of that despair still with
me. I heard a sound as something
crumbled away and fell, behind me. I
spun.

And saw nothing threatening. One
of the anatomical junkpiles had simply
toppled, that was all. Pieces had been
scattered across the path . . . into an al-
most-pattem ... a word I couldn't quite
make out.

I walked on. Came to the white
guardrail, then to the escalator, which
didn't descend fast enough to suit me
— I walked down it. Into the white
water's roar. I stayed well away from
the river. Mixed in with the sound of it
was a roared, hissed, whispered word I
couldn't quite make out.

I found myself walking quickly.

Splashed in primary colors across
the^ cliff was a word I couldn't quite
make out.

I decided it was time to go back. I'd

Fantasy & Science Fiction

seen enough for my first time in
Kraus's landscape. I was already walk-
ing — hurrying. No point in wasting
any more time here.

I hurried to the escalator, took the
steps two at a time. Hurried to the
wall, paused, took a deep breath and
jumped into it. Passed through the
same despair and red and black and
despair. This time I didn't pause on the
other side. I hurried along the path.

And stopped at a fork.

I didn't remember that.

Left, right ... I felt paralyzed with
the idea that this wasn't fair. Then I got
a grip on myself. The solution to this
dilemma was simple: pick one at ran-
dom, keep track of where it took me,
backtrack if it didn't pan out. There
was nothing on my heels; I would set-
tle down and watch what I was doing.

I chose the right. Before long, with
relief, I saw the waiting interior of an
open elevator.

When I stepped out, I found my-
self, this time, not in the middle of the
projection room, but behind the cur-
tain at the foot of the couch. The cur-
tain had been open when I left. I push-
ed through into the room. The curtain
next to mine was closed, too. There
had been three Lab Coats here before.
Now there was one, and she sat at the
console with her back to me. I said,
"What — everybody go to lunch or
something?"

Still with her back to me she said,
"Yes, sir."

"A little early for lunch, isn't it?" 1

didn't think I'd been Elsewhere that
long.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm not your boss. You don't have
to call me sir."

"Yes, sir."

There was no sarcasm in her voice,
which meant to me a kind of servitude
I'd always found cloying. I wondered if
she was the same Lab Coat that
Langley had given a hard time about
smoking. I said, "Cot a cigarette? I left
mine in my room." I walked over,
leaned against the edge of the console.

And saw her face.

She didn't really have one.

It was all blank, sickly-pale skin ex-
cept for a round aperture centered in
the lower half that looked more like a
sphincter than a mouth. The sphincter
dilated.

"Yes, sir."

Chills brushed one side of my face.
I backed away. Realized I was still
backing away when I bumped into a
curtain. I looked over my shoulder: it
was the closed curtain beside the one I
had come out of. I turned so that my
back was neither to the Lab Coat nor
the curtain. And pulled it open.

Lying on the couch there, curled up
on its side in a fetal position, back to-
ward me, was something vaguely hu-
man-shaped and more than human-
sized. It was naked. Its skin was red-
dish and rubbery looking.

Slowly, carefully I pulled the cur-
tain closed.

The Lab Coat was at console, seem-

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

ingly paying no attention to me. I
looked around. I had no idea whether I
was in any danger here, but decided to
get the hell out, regardless.

If I could.

I opened the projection-room door
and looked out into the hallway. It
wasn't the hallway. Greenish-yellow
things crawled with sucking noises
over fleshy looking cave walls. I slam-
med the door shut.

I thought to look behind the cur-
tain I'd come through. The elevator
was there, door open. I didn't waste
much time getting into it. Pressed the
DOWN button. It let me off in the ana-
tonucal junkyard. I was happy to see it
again. I retraced my path, found the
fork, took the other branch. Saw a
waiting, open elevator. It took me
back to the place I knew.

I

had a shower and some lunch, feeling
the while that I had been experiencing
too much to absorb. I did my best to
shake the feeling; there were things to
be done: talk with Jeff over supper, my
appointment with Langley after that,
and, right now, some research.

I had everybody's file sent up to my
room. I wanted to see if I could find
anything that would point out a con-
nection of some kind. Anything. I got
several hundred pages of material. For-
tunately, it was easy to weed through:
there was a great deal of uselessness
like height, weight and medical histo-
ries. The first thing I checked for was

anyone with past ties to Kraus,
through school or profession. I didn't
think I would get anything from it, but
it would give me a place to start and a
pattern for my first run-through of the
material. I was right. I didn't get any-
thing. I did, however, discover that I
liked doing this — working with small,
dry, simple, dependable things that be-
haved as one expected. Those file fold-
ers and sheets of paper felt very reas-
suring in my hands.

And I knew this feeling wouldn't last.

That was a depressing thought. As
I tried to go on reading in Langley's file
about his employment history at Cy-
ber tech Research (a wholly owned sub-
sidiary of Webber Communications), I
was distracted by a powerful wish that
I was somewhere sitting in an armchair
beside a fire, snifter in hand, surround-
ed by the sound of Bach's Fifth Suite
for Unaccompanied Cello.

The hands of my Travalarm mov-
ed, squeezing the afternoon smaller.

three

two

"Five ... four
one ... Mark."

And I was in the elevator. Kraus's
landscape waited outside the door. I
had an idea, something I wanted to
check out. It seemed like a long shot,
but all I had to do was press that but
ton and go see if it would pay off.

I pressed it.

Conversation with Jeff over sup-
per, last evening.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

"What about the anatomical junk-
yard, then?" I had asked him. "What is
it?" (And as I remembered this, I step-
ped over an arm, hand palm-down,
curved fingers looking as if they'd been
frozen as they clawed the ground.)

"You want me to describe to you
something you've seen for yourself?"

"Come on. You know what I
mean."

"Yeah, I do," he said. "And I an-
swered your question. You've seen it
for yourself. Look, suppose I ask you,
say, what is a tree?"

(I walked past a lopped head that
sat, silently and impassively staring in-
to the eyes of another head across the
path.)

"Okay," he went on, "you could
tell me about colloids and chlorophyll.
Or you could tell me about its niche in
the eco-system. Or you could tell me
it's what junk mail is made out of. But
the point is, the tree is. You wouldn't
have been telling me what the tree is;
you'd have been fitting the tree into the
context of knowledge I already have.
You see, I did answer your question. If
I were to give you the answer you
wanted, though, I'd be turning what I
was telling you about into something
that junk mail is made out of."

(I noticed a foot, in the middle of
the path, just before the wall, as if it
had fallen off as someone jumped
through, and they had left it behind.)

"You still don't get it, do you?
Look, after a few visits, you begin to
see Elsewhere and here as two equally

valid existences. The fact that when
I'm Elsewhere I've left a body behind
that could starve to death and end me.
Elsewhere, everything, doesn't mean
that my experience Elsewhere is inva-
lid; it means the states have become in-
terdependent. It means I'm a person
who has been and is a lot of things.
Means I'm somebody who brushes his
teeth twice a day, who was once bitten
by an organ grinder's monkey, who
likes loud conversations over pitchers
of beer. And somebody who walks
Elsewhere — who, when he comes
back, will lunch on a tuna salad sand-
wich and a cube of lime Jello with grat-
ed carrot in it, then go throw away his
junk mail."

And I came out of the wall. I had
passed through that terrible despair,
and as I now walked through the sec-
ond stretch of the anatomical junk-
yard, I saw all the parts and pieces as
the detritus of that despair.

Behind me something crumbled
away and toppled. I turned and look-
ed: the debris had fallen into an al-
most-word.

I took the escalator down to the
whispering, hissing, roaring, frustrat-
ingly unintelligible white water. (Re-
membering: Langley had leaned over
his desk, and like the first time, his
badge had flashed at me.)

The water roared and reached for
me, and I withstood its attraction and
almost, almost understood what it was
saying. (When I'd finished telling him

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

97

about Kraus, Langley'd said, "I'm go-
ing to tell you just one thing....")

The river rushed violently under-
ground. I came to the vantage point
before the cliff, saw the illegible word
splashed there in primary colors.
("...You are trespassing outside of
your place, mister," Langley had said.
And while I was in his office, I hadn't
thought to mention my run-in with
Anderson to him.)

I stomped on the ground.
Colors flashed about the plain. On
the cliff, the colors trembled, shook
out of their almost-pattem. And fell in-
to place.

You are trespassing outside of your
place, Mister.

I had seen what I came for and
wasn't happy. Kraus probably hadn't
been happy to hear it. I turned to go.
Langley had been standing behind
me. A pace behind him and to his right
stood Anderson.

'Oh, God," said Langley, looking
up at the cliff. "I knew it. I just knew
it." He looked down at me. "You
couldn't leave well enough alone,
could you. You had to bring me to
this." He waved Anderson forward.
"He gets the same treatment as Kraus. I
think that would look most plausible."
"Listen, pal," I said. "I'm not mak-
ing you do anything. You're choosing
it."

Anderson started toward me, going
around Langley's right. I bolted in the
other direction, toward the river.
It took them a fraction of a second

to react. I ran like I had JATOs strap-
ped to my back. I was sure I was
widening the lead.

That bastard Anderson tackled me.

It is very difficult, even for two
people, to hold onto somebody who's
struggling as hard as he can. It's even
more difficult to hold onto him and
drag him somewhere.

It's easier if you don't mind beating
up on him.

They dragged me to the edge of the
river.

The water was lapping and splash-
ing and frothing, reaching out its gray-
green hands. It roared and hissed and
whispered. I struggled. All other
sounds were absorbed by the water —
scufflings against the ground, rustle of
clothing, slap of skin against skin,
grunts of effort and pain. Seemingly
emerging from the roar came glimpses
of Anderson's face, and Langley's,
flushed red and bearing grotesque ex-
pressions. I struggled.

And one of my feet came free. I
kicked out, connected with something.
My other foot came free. Then, in an
instantaneous flash, came a clearer pic-
ture of my situation: Langley was
clutching his shin; Anderson was on
his hands and knees, astraddle my
face, and under his hands was one of
my forearms, under his knees, my
other. He was shouting for Langley's
help. I curled up at the waist, carefully
and precisely kicked Anderson on the
ear.

Then I was free, scrambling to my

Fantasy & Science Fiction

feet, running like hell along the river
toward the escalator. I figured my only
chance was to get to the elevator, then
into the projection room and the com-
pany of witnesses.

I heard their footsteps behind me,
but didn't slow myself down by look-
ing back. Heard the roared, hissed,
whispered and still unintelligible voice
of the river.

Then I was on the escalator,
pounding up the steps, and knew one
of them, probably Anderson, was clos-
ing-

I got to the top, running, getting
winded, and knew I'd never make it to
the elevator.

I cut to the side, off the path, be-
tween two big piles of discarded anato-
my, scrambled over a smaller pile,
doubling back, then crouched in a
good spot, just off the path, out of
sight from it. I knew what I was going
to do. As I tried — quietly — to catch
my breath, I looked around me, select-
ed a good piece. It was part of a hand:
big enough to have a nice heft, but not
unwieldy. All the fingers were broken
off fairly short. There were a lot of jag-
ged edges.

It would have to be in the face, I
decided. Facial wounds bleed like cra-
zy.

I heard cautious footsteps, got my-
self in position.

The footsteps came closer.

I heard rustling sounds from sever-
al places around me.

The hair on the back of my neck

stood up. I checked myself over fran-
tically, probing and looking at my fin-
gertips, and finally saw the front of my
shirt.

It was red.

I had a god-damned bloody nose.

There was a smaU avalanche of
body parts from the pile next to me,
and a long, gray, wrinkled tube poked
out.

I jumped up, out onto the path.
And found myself staring right into
Anderson's startled face. I smashed it
with the stone hand.

And ran.

After a moment risked a look back.
Langley was skirting the fallen Ander-
son, running toward me. I hardly
noticed him. I was looking at an enact-
ment of the scene Jeff had described.
Saw Anderson open his mouth to
scream....

I ran again.

Langley was right behind me. I
made it to the wall, still ahead of him,
jumped in...

. . . came out of the despair and the
colors of despair, and without hesita-
tion picked up where I'd left off in my
running. And Langley was still behind
me. He must have been as desperate as
I was. I thought, then, about stopping
to fight him. But I'm not good in a
fight. And the elevator was close.

I came to a place where the path
curved right. With Langley as close be-
hind me as an ice cube down the back
of my shirt, I didn't take time to delib-
erate on the fact that there had once

One Way Ticket To Elsewhere

been a fork here, with a path curving
left, too. I kept running.

So did Langley.

The elevator was just ahead of me,
open and waiting. I ran into it, stopped
myself with flat palms against the
back.

Then, suddenly, a tableau: I stood
just inside the elevator, my thumb on
the UP button; Langley stood just out-
side, an incredulous expression on his
face.

Just as the door started to close, his
shoulders slumped, and he stepped in-
side. "So," he said. "This is it. It's all
over."

I concentrated on breathing. Didn't
answer him. Didn't mention we were
in the wrong elevator.

The door opened. I saw that closed
curtain and had an idea. "That's right,
Langley, this is it." I took him by the
arm, hustled him through the curtain
and let it fall closed, hiding the eleva-
tor. The Lab Coat was sitting at her
console, back toward us. I said to her,
"You have a code you can enter into
that thing to send for security, don't
you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then send for them."

"Yes, sir."

I was bull-shitting, hoping Langley
was bureaucrat enough not to know
the workings too well.

He said, shaking his head, "Over."
We stood there, awkward. I watched
him. For a few moments he avoided
looking at me, then met my gaze and

said, "What was I suppose^ to do?"
There was a suggestion of pleading in
his voice.

"Don't ask for anything from me."
I walked to the door and leaned against
it, both to keep him from trying to go
through and to get him facing away
from the Lab Coat.

"Listen to me. When I was in the
space program, I went up for one
flight, do you realize that? One lousy
flight in the space shuttle, and they
closed the program.... Do you remem-
ber John Glenn? Are you old enough
to remember about him? They treated
that man like a god-danrm king. Like
the god-damn savior of the world. I
work for twenty god-danm years, and
they shut the program down." His
words I sounded almost rehearsed.
Maybe he'd said them to himself be-
fore, late at night. He started to run his
hand through his hair, then 'held it
there on top of his head. "When that
man from Webber came to my little of-
fice at Cybertech, I listened to him."
As the hand came slowly down he
said, "You know, he told me that
funds previously allocated to NASA
are now going to the project, here,"
and he spread both hands between us.
"I'm entitled to something." When I
said nothing, he let the hands drop,
turned toward the Lab Coat.

"Not to kill," I said quickly.

He turned back to me. "I didn't."

I didn't say anything.

"Listen to me. Anderson told me
about Kraus. And because Kraus didn't

100

Fantasy & Science Fiction

come to me, he had to have known it
was me. I just couldn't lose everything.
Not again. That's understandable, isn't
it?"

I stiU didn't say anything.

"Shit." He put his face in his hands.
I heard him say, muffled, "I was just
doing what I could with what was pre-
sented to me ... just—" Then, "Shit."
And before I could stop him, he went
over to the Lab Coat and put his hand
on her shoulder, saying, "Get those
security people in here for God's sake.
I want to get this over with."

His hand on her shoulder caused
her chair to swivel aroimd until she
faced him.

"Yes, sir."

He stared for a long time, maybe
two seconds. Then he jerked his hand
from her shoulder. Jerked himself stiff-
ly upright. Turned — jerkily — to me.
"PVfiaf the hell...?"

The jig was up.

"You...." He pressed his lips to-
gether, looked around the room. I
guess he thought he'd been set up, was
looking for hidden witnesses before he
started taking me apart. He stalked
past me to the door, opened it and im-
mediately slammed it shut. Stalked
over to the curtains, pulled open the
one next to the one we'd come
through.

The naked rubbery thing on the
couch rolled over and sat up. It looked
right at Langley.

Its head was twice as big as it
should have been with tiny lidless eyes.

like a fish's, all but buried in folds of
rubbery flesh. It had two nostril slits
where a nose might have been, and its
mouth was wide, like a toad's. It stood
up. It must have been over eight feet
tall. It was hermaphroditic. Then it
opened its mouth. I saw what seemed
like hundreds of tiny pointed teeth,
curved inward so that something could
have been pushed in past them but not
pulled out — anything half-swallowed
and struggling would only work its
way farther in. It was the mouth of
something that swallowed big things,
whole. And the sound....

The roar of white water, the seduc-
tive sound of the river's rapids, came
out of that creature's open mouth.
Mixed in with the sound was the roar-
ed, hissed, whispered word which now
I understood:

Langley.

He tried to get away.

The creature's hands were huge and
powerful.

Jeff lit up another of my cigarettes.

I was saying, "...My best guess
about Anderson is that he was just be-
ing loyal to the program. I think Lang-
ley had convinced him that first Kraus
and then I were threats to the program.
Which, I suppose, could have been in-
terpreted as true."

I poured myself a little more bran-
dy. "It doesn't look now as if we'll ever
know for sure. Some loose ends never
get tied up."

One Way Ticket To Else«vhere

101

"What about Webber Communica-
tions; what did they want with our
data?"

"Are you kidding? Think what
they could do once enough elements in
the landscape Elsewhere had been codi-
fied to the point where someone could
actually program an experience.
You've already been doing this to a
certain extent with the elevators during
the opening and closing transitions.
Think what kind of an entertainment
medium it would make with the com-
bination of programmed landscape
and volitional specator."

He shook his head. "Think of the
advertisements."

I preferred not to.

"So you did your job," Jeff said.
"You found Kraus. Dumped in the
river. Well, we know what to avoid
now if we don't want to be dissolved
throughout the landscape. I don't
think it'll do the project much good,
though. Too bad you couldn't have
brought him back. Brought them all
back."

I nodded.

"Listen, you've got this talent for
finding things. Maybe you can find me
another job."

I returned his sad smile.

He asked me what I was going to
do now.

I told him about an appointment I
had with an armchair and a fireplace
and a record.

And on my way to that appoint-
ment, I thought a lot about some
things. About how I had done my job
to the letter of the agreement, and ev-
erybody, including myself, seemed to
have lost something. About the people
who would be cleaning up the mess I'd
left behind — the orderlies and nurses
who would be taking care of Kraus and
Langley, the people in shirtsleeves who
would be microfilming and shredding
the papers and inventorying the equip-
ment, the man in the dark suit who
would be calling on Langley's wife to
make explanations, the ones who
would be burying Anderson. Thought
about Jeff.... Maybe the project
wouldn't fold after all, and he could
stay.... Or maybe Webber would keep
their own project going and he could
get hired on with them. ... Or maybe he
would become a person who had, at
one time, walked Elsewhere.... Maybe
— the hell with maybes.... Let it go.

102

Fantasy & Science Fiction

COMEXCALIBUR

Only a generation or so ago, if you
were seeking fantasy — pure fantasy,
as it were, not s/f or ghost stories or
whimsy — it was a precious small
field. There were classics such as Dun-
sany and Morris, prodigies from that
unlikeliest of pulp magazines. Un-
known, such as Leiber's Gray Mouser
stories, and odd juveniles. The Hobbit,
for one. And there were the comics.

Nowadays fantasy — pure fantasy,
heroic fantasy — is BIG. Credit for this
can be laid to the Great Kindler, Tol-
kien; but the promulgation thereof, de-
spite the best efforts of the written
word (those best efforts ranging from
dear old "Two Gun" Bob Howard to
the enchanting Patricia McKillip)
should be credited to the comics.

Now, a whole generation, some of
which cannot or will not read, is gear-
ed to the idea of created kingdoms and
worlds, magically endowed heroes and
heroines, and inhuman characters
from the endearing to the unspeakable.

This month I am given two mass-
media productions that are true fan-
tasy. I first thought to do them in one
column, but they both engender so
many calories for thought that I will
risk being even more after-the-fact
than usual and devote a piece to each,
unless some more vital subject comes
along (a musical of Lovecraft's "The
Dunwich Horrors," for instance). First,
Excalibur, next, Fugitive From the Em-
pire.

103

The Arthurian saga, despite its lit-
erary manifestations, is in essence folk-
lore and acceptable fantasy even when
fantasy was at its lowest ebb. There-
fore we have a surprising number of
Arthur films from the past: MGM's al-
most completely unfantastic Knights of
the Round Table, lushly produced,
with an equally lush Ava Gardner as
Guinevere and the bland Lancelot of
Robert Taylor; the grim French Lance-
lot of the Lake with no fantastic ele-
ments at all; Disney's The Sword in the
Stone, which almost achieved the
charm of the T.H. White novel; the
sickeningly 1940s Arthurian court of A
Connecticut Yankee etc., complete
with Bing Crosby; Camelot, arguably
good, but with a production of ravish-
ingly fairy-tale quality and the noblest
Gwen of them all, Vanessa Redgrave.

But nobody has given us as much
Arthur as John Boorman in Excalibur
— soup to nuts, Uther to Avalon, we
get every major aspect of the tale, two-
and-a-half hours worth. And it's as
much a failure as his Zardoz was a tri-
umph; Boorman, who showed a super-
abundance of intelligence in the earlier
s/f film, seems perversely and deliber-
ately to have used none of it on the
fantasy. He has given us a two-and-a-
half hour comic strip {not animated
film; comic strip).

Now I have nothing against com-
ics. I lived on them as a child (one of
the few ways — see above — to get my
fantasy fix), and as a nominal adult,
concede that they have an esthetic and.

at their best, can be supremely artistic
and/ or intelligent. I, like so many sci-
ence fiction readers, do tend to resent
their confusion with s/f in the public
mind (the French tend to think of them
as one and the same thing entirely).

And at their worst (and the per-
centage of euphemism is even higher
than Sturgeon's law allows), comics
are revolting. (What isn't, of course,
but this is the topic of the month.)
Even if the art is superb, and often
these days it is, there is a necessary
simplification of content, sometimes to
the point of simple-mindedness, be-
cause of what can be communicated in
drawing and minimal wordage; com-
plicated concepts just don't work. This
is, interestingly enough, a problem
shared by film, but film simply has
more room for information. If the ma-
terial is original, it can be tailored to
this problem; comic adaptations of
material from other media can, and us-
ually do, send anyone that cares about
that material up the wall.

In Excalibur, Boorman has adopt-
ed, presumably deliberately, this kind
of approach; the enormous amount of
material is done with a speed and flat-
ness of content, dialogue and charac-
terization that can only be compared
to the comics; the people in the MGM
version seem like characters from
Proust in comparison. And when one is
aware of the myriad literary variations
woven on these great themes, the film
becomes downright offensive. (And I
don't mean that in terms of Great Liter-

104

Fantasy & Science Fiction

ature; Rosemary Sutcliff's ruthlessly
realistic Sword At Sunset is as fine in
its way as Naomi Mitchison's viciously
funny To the Chapel Perilous.)

Visually also, Boorman goes for the
splediferously obvious: the settings of
huge, bloody suns, lots and lots of fog,
an enchanted cavern of monumental,
Disney-worldly vulgarity, and silver-
chrome-armoured knights that look
just off the Detroit assembly line. Even
the nature shots, of that unearthly
greenery that only appears in the Brit-
ish isles, seem forced and arty.

I have a particular and personal
disgust at the music, quotes from Car-

mina Burana, Tristan, and (I think)
Siegfried, used over and over and trim-
med to fit whatever scene they accom-
panied. Classical music has been used
well in cinema, but this is pure low-
budget, pom film technique.

The actors did as well as they could
in two dimensions in every direction. I
thought Cherie Lunghi's frowzy, rock-
singer look way off for Guinevere, and '
the performance of the eminent Nicol
Williamson as Merlin was watered-
down. Guinness thin.

This Excalibur wasn't found in a
rock; it was found under it.

Films and Television

105

In which two affectionals meet for a drink in a cafe and
discuss flowers and slaughter....

There the Lovelies
Bleeding

BY

09

BARRY N. MALZBERG

e can change," Helga
says. Her pained eyes open to depths
of luminescence. "We backslide, gov-
ernments fail us, our leaders betray us,
but in infinitesimal ways the human
soul, the human heart can be taught to
apprehend; it is different now than it
was in the sixties. People are kinder,
warmer, more open, more vulnera-
ble."

Helga sips from her glass of bitters,
a faint tremor in her delicate hand. Her
expressiveness is to me the most ador-
ed paTt of her, even though from the
wastes of my awn dread I fear that her
optimism comes from naivete. Robo-
mechanisms drift by us on skates; the
thin hum of the conditioners fills the
cafe. An old man in the comer goes
spontaneously insane and is trapdoor-
ed; the odors of his falling persist with
those of spinach greens. Our robowait-
er appears at my elbow. "Will there be

any more?" he says.

"I would like some coffee," Helga
says. "I would like some tea," I say. I
have given up palliatives as a gesture
of good will and out of my conviction
that I dare not mask my feelings for
Helga with anodynes of any sort. We
have known each other only a fort-
night — counting a day on either end
more or less; it is hard to keep track of
time as the millennium itself is felt to
be unwinding — but it is certainly the
most profound relationship of my life.
I have had sixteen affectional relation-
ships and thirty-seven cooperatives
altogether, but none have ever hit me
as has Helga. She says that she feels the
same. Everything that I say to her she
says back to me with greater force,
which is one of the reasons that I find
her lovable; I am possessed of my own
convictions. Some of them. Some of
the time. "See, the lovelies bleeding,"

106

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Helga says as the waiter skates over
with our coffee and tea, "see the cen-
tury dreaming, see the hearts un-
known." She hums a wisp of mel-
ody under her breath, a Doworini
concerto, although I am not sure of
this. This is also one of her lovable
traits, her disposition to hum at
strange times and in gentle keys.
"You're not saying much," she says.
"Are you all right?"

"I'm listening to you."

"Do you know what lovelies bleed-
ing are?" Helga says. 'They are a
flower, a kind of flower. I looked that
up in an old glossary: isn't that in-
teresting?"

"Surely," I say, "it is all very inter-
esting. Evocative." Screams from the
corridors waft into us; clearly it is the
sound of the slaughterhouse detail
herding the recalcitrants toward their
four o'clock re-education, and I wince
with the pain. "A kind of flower," I
say. "Life is a kind of flower, its
blooms dying but exquisite."

"You're too pessimistic. I told you
that. Things can get better. It's not the
way it used to be. Back in the early
nineties people took the slaughter-
house details for granted, never talked
about them. Now there are real move-
ments against the situation; these
things are being discussed."

"Surely," I say. I sip my tea.
"Nonetheless the slaughters go on."

"But less so and not without pro-
test."

"Perhaps," I say. I give a silent ges-

ture. Despite the reforms, it is still per-
haps unwise to discuss the slaughtering
details in the cafes. Helga's mouth
forms to an o of understanding. "Per-
haps we should leave," she says. "We
could make love; we have the last
twenty minutes of the shift left." It is
her disarming directness, her fragility,
her astonishment at her own bluntness
which makes her so lovable to me, the
most profound of my sixteen affection-
als. I feel profoundly stirred.

"Why not?" I say. I reach over and
touch her hand. She caresses back. In
the fluorescence her hair is first brown,
then red, shading toward fire, a little
corona coming from her aspect,
although this may be only created by
desire. "Why not?" One of the servo-
waiters ruptures suddenly with a hol-
low sound; the explosion shakes the
cafe. Plastics are thrown over him; he
is drenched with water and quickly
rolled away. "The sooner the better," I
say.

I signal to our waiter. Shaken by
the damage incurred by his fellow ma-
chine, he comes over cautiously. I
hand him my credito; he takes the im-
print. "And a good day, sir," he says.
His metallic eyes glint compassion.
"And thank you for your courtesies."

"You see," Helga whispers, "they're
much better than the old ones. They
have kindness circuits built in."

We stand together; our bodies col-
lide. The touch, the slight incision we
make against one another is stunning; I
feel desire supersede dread within me.

There The Lovelies Bleeding

107

Helga takes my arm. "It wouldn't have
been this way even a few years ago,"
she says. "We couldn't have had a pub-
lic affectional; we couldn't have had
the courage to love one another."

"Perhaps," I say. "Perhaps." I am
diffident. It is easier not to take a posi-
tion in disagreement: besides, Helga
may well be right. I have been seeing
many things differently since our cir-
cumstance began. Hand in hand we
walk through the cafe, barely seeing
the sprawled bodies of the over-ano-
dyned, the affectionals clutching, the
cooperatives staring past one another
at walls the color of plasma. The ser-
vos part for us as we approach them;
beam for identity and the absence of
detonative devices, open the walls and
let us through. In the corridor brisk
winds assail us coated with the smell of
blood. The sounds of the slaughter-

house grind through the eaves of the
undersystem.

"Quickly," Helga says, taking my
elbow, "quickly." She propels me
through the hall, beginning to hum
Dovvorini. Enthralled by her, by love,
by possibility, I follow.

"It will get better yet," Helga says
as we approach the hydraulics which
will take us to our cubicle. "It will get
better and better yet. Two decades ago
who would have dreamed we would
have this much?"

She is right. In 2978 who would
have dreamed we would have this
much? How would I have known my-
self someday worthy of even this?

Clutched by love, I wait for lovelies
bleeding. The odors of slaughter are
now flowers reaching, bleeding in the
night.

Coming Next Month

32nd ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

John Brunner

Avram Davidson

John Varley

Philip K. Dick

Richard Cowper

George R. R. Martin

Thomas M. Disch

R. Bretnor

and others

Watch for the October issue, on sale September 3.

108

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Thomas Wylde ("The Incredibly Thick World," March 1979)
offers a fast and furious and not entirely serious story about a
washroom attendant on a space liner. And you thought the
action was on the bridge.

Indigestion

BY

THOMAS WYLDE

n

I he Gryen businessman
squeezed my neck between two of his
coarse grit fingers. "Can you deliver,
Bobby?" he asked for probably the
fifth time since the cruise began — and
we were still three wormholes and a
ramjet session from Lesser Magellanic
Base.

"Answer me!"

I tried hard to answer for several
perplexing seconds before I noticed not
only wasn't anything coming out, no-
thing had been going in for quite a
while. My bugging eyes darted about.

Nobody in the First Class lounge
seemed to be interested. Music rattled
and thumj>ed and plinked.

The Gryen gentleman tilted his
head quizzically. "Can't you breathe?"

A rhetorical question, obviously.

The Gryen took a moment to
scratch his bumpy face with an icepick
fingertip. A pustule burst and half a

dozen buzzing mites emerged. The
Gryen' s goons scrabbled for them,
caught and ate them.

The Gryen brushed his men out of
the way. "Bobby, Bobby, why won't
you help me?"

"Nggnnn."

"I was told you were the one to
consult. They told me you could sup-
ply my wants. They rather got my
hopes up. Aren't you the least bit sym-
pathetic?"

His two-fingered grip relaxed. Sev-
en or eight molecules of air rushed in to
fill up my lungs. Good luck, fellas....

The Gryen did his "smile" — and
all three gaping nose holes widened,
cilia rippling. "I'm a reasonable chap
when you get to know me."

More good news. . . .

I finally made it back to the can and
requisitioned a faceful of cool water

Indigestion

© 1981 by Thomas Wylde

(charging it to the Gryen's account). I
stared at my dripping face. "I hope
you're happy."

They never told me washroom at-
tendant was such a complicated career.
Fine place for the only "real" man on
this extragalactic traveling freak show.

I grinned. Nothing like a little hu-
man chauvinism to perk a guy up. Be-
sides, I'd volunteered — make that
begged — for a chance to hit the space-
ways.

Two Queeb pitter-patted into the
washroom. I put 'em in stalls nine and
ten, then programmed the pumps.

Don't get me wrong. I was ready to
do menial work, ready even for the
washroom. I'm not proud — especially
after what happened back home.

Now I'm not complaining about the
baksheesh. I can use the bucks.

And if these weeners want a bit of
recreational druggy-time, well suffice
it to say I've sucked up my share of
black wabba-Qoiiee. I'm no prude.

It's just that this job is so damned
chaotic. They all want something dif-
ferent — and I'm a trained plastic
surgeon, not a bloody chemist.

The Queels shuffled out, arguing in
sibilants. Suddenly one of them reach-
ed down the throat of his buddy far
enough to squeeze some internal organ
or other. Immediately every hair on
the both of them stood on end (about a
meter) and the squeezed Queel ejected
some purple slime. Out they went.

I reached for the electric mop like a
good boy.

A good thing I had finished the
SANITIZE cycle before my next pair
of customers sluiced in — these Beekies
stick to everything.

I tried to settle them into booths
five and six, but they wanted to stay
together. They whined and I apologiz-
ed. I'd forgotten Beekies don't dare do
it alone.

I cranked up the airlock vacuum
probe and the automatic scrub brushes
(medium hard bristles), then checked
the collector for Queel artifacts. Pay
dirt.

While I was packaging the stuff up)
I thought about my problem with the
Gryen.

I'd had several days to consult the
washroom bible. The dope he wsmted
— insisted on — was so amazingly
hard to come by I'd let the matter drift,
hoping he'd forget. (Hal)

The main problem was one of
source. There was only one sshmoona
on the ship, an elderly statesman on his
way home to die. Gertrude told me
she'd served him in the dining room.
But I'd never had him in my washroom.

Just my luck he was corked up fine
as you please. For all I knew it was
against his religion.

D

spotted the old geezer across the
dining room by the emergency airlock.
Gertrude was just setting a speedplate
before him. I wondered what he was
eating. ' (This is where the rural
chemistry comes in.)

110

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I caught Gertrude's eye and wink-
ed. She frowned, as usual, and hot-
footed it for the service chute.

A job-nervous spinster in sensible
shoes. Her rump was too big. And she
wore virgin wool socks in bed. On her
hands.

But she was all I had.

I am hopelessly hooked on my own
species.

And Gertrude was it this go-round.

I started out along the perimeter of
the dining room, trying for a closer
look at the sshmoona's plate.

"Glagga ned!" said a low voice.

I didn't want to turn. "Beg
pardon?"

They hustled me into the service al-
cove — the Gryen's goons, all fists and
teeth and hairy pustules.

One of them put his mouth in my
face and said, "Fffikwha!"

His breath made my mouth water.

He held me while his partner plant-
ed a bomb in my ear.

"Hello, Bobby," said the bomb. "I
just wanted to take this opportunity to
remind you of your obligations. Please
understand I am a patient man. But re-
alize, too, Bobby, that patience is a rel-
ative thing, coerced by natural values,
defined by culture, and subject to the
tyranny of genetic material. In short,
while your own perfectly proper
rhythms might suggest this matter can
safely languish for an hour or so, I'm
afraid the length of my patience — vast
as it seems to me — measures out your
grace period in pico-seconds. So, with

that in mind — bon voyagel"

Then one of the goons made a ges-
ture with one finger.

When I could see again, I found
Gertrude leaning over me.

"Are you drunk? " she asked, merci-
ful creature.

"Wha?" I said. "Hmmm?" I said.
"Gnnnn," I said.

She frowned. "And keep your
hoodlum friends out of the First Class
dining room."

"Giggie," I said.

"Really," she said. "Sometimes I
wonder about my taste in men."

She left in a haze of wonderment.

It didn't matter. I felt p)erfectly
comfortable on the floor wedged up
under the serving chute. There were a
lot of things on my mind just then. I
just couldn't think of any one of
them....

"Meab," said the secret recipe
book. I squinted at the handwritten
squiggle. "Meab?" So faded — thirty
years old at least — probably jotted
down when the first humans shipped
out as servants on the alien starcruis-
ers, right after the war. "Meab.... Ah,
meatl"

But what kind of meat?

There was a chance it didn't make
any difference. Some digestive systems
are like that, stomachs swathed in gen-
eralities.

Now the sshmoona....

I slammed the little book on the
scrub counter. Time was running —

Indigestion

111

make that had run — out.

Dinner was over, but maybe there
was some sort of snack on the schedule.

I put the washroom on automatic
and went looking for Gertrude.

"Meat?"

"Any kind of meat," I said. "You
could maybe cruise by his cabin and
slip him some meatballs."

Gertrude glared at me. "Mister,
your garden's gone to seed."

I pleaded with her (which is com-
mon enough in our relationship).
"They're going to kill mel"

"RidiculousI" Then she pointed a
finger at me. "But if you were to find
yourself in trouble, it only goes to
prove what I've been saying. And you
say you were a doctor I"

She went on and on. I tuned her
out for a while. There had to be ways
to get meat into the sshmoona, even if I
had to make an up-front deal, sort of
lay my cards (or a careful selection
thereof) on the table.

Then something Gertrude was say-
ing caught my attention.

"Wait a second," I said. "What do
you mean, no meat!"

"No real meat." She looked at me
in surprise. "Didn't you at least read
the brochure on this cruise?"

"Lady, I had to go so bad I'd've
signed up as fuel. I didn't read
nothing."

She got that superior look that
seemed so at home on her face. "And
now look at you."

I got an emergency call and trotted
back to the can.

Three anxious Moggs were lined
up, each holding a different part of his
body. Another circus of cooperation.

Their looks of desperation sold me.
I opened the Express Lane. "EnjoyI"

I was at the console fumbling
through a tricky analysis when the
Beekie crept up behind me. (Those wet
monopods always get the drop on
you.)

He held up a pocket tranny mirror.
I looked in at myself.

"Greetings, menial," my image said
to me. "Understand your dilemma, vis-
a-vis Gryen import-export maggot.
Beg to supply you with sublime infor-
mation. Ss/imoona-man my buddy-
buddy, he sends still further greetings.
Wishes to assist, providing he gets
flesh of high quality and most excellent
toothsomeness."

"What else does the gentleman
want besides meat?"

"Meat, alone, sufficiency. Ssh-
mooMfl-man fails to read brochure,
finds himself on hellhole of spaceship
without meat. Cravings abominate."

"Tell him okay."

"You come now. Bring your meat.
Cookingness not require."

The Beekie snatched the mirror
from my face and slid-roUed to the
door. He looked back at me (I think)
and waited.

"Uh, now?"

The Beekie waited, his undercar-
riage quivering.

112

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I needed time to think.

All right, so the sshmoona was ripe
to cooperate in the saving of my un-
worthy hide. Great news, greatly wel-
comed.

But right at the moment I was hav-
ing trouble laying my hands on meat.
Even meat of most shoddy toothsome-
ness.

The Beekie gave me the hurry-up
sign.

"Uh, look," I said. "I'll go with you
and talk with the sshmoona gentle-
man. But only talk, because to tell you
the truth I don't exactly have any meat
on me."

The Beekie whined. He flashed the
mirror at me.

"We go nowl"

I didn't like the look in my eyes.

EL

Is I followed in the antiseptic path
of the Beekie, I wondered why the ssh-
moona had not come to me himself. It
might have had to do with his age or
his status, both of which were suffi-
ciently advanced to command some
p>erks.

But what if it was something else?

And what was gonna happen when
I showed up meatless?

I was doing a good job of spooking
myself out when I noticed we were
passing the kitchen.

"Hold it!" I yelled after the Beekie.

He turned and raised his tranny
mirror.

"I'll just be a second, really," I said.

pushing open the kitchen service door.
I flashed half a dozen quick smiles.
"Just pop in here for an extremely short
second."

The mirror's image caught me be-
tween the eyes.

"We go nowl No damning fiddle-
faddlel"

I'd never seen myself look so fierce.
I suddenly realized why those outraged
patients had let me walk out of that
hospital alley on the night of rhy es-
cape ... I mean, retirement.

"Go now!" the mirror growled.

"Rightaway," I said, ducking fast
into the kitchen.

I nearly trampled Gertrude on her
way out.

"This kitchen is off-limits!" she
said.

I pointed at the glass of milk in her
hand but didn't have time to call her on
it. "There must be meat in here some
place!"

"I told youl"

But I was already striding for the
food lockers.

"Get out of my kitchen!"

"I need meat and I need it now."

"I told you — "

"Don't tell me. Find me some meat.
Okay, so it's a meatless cruise. What a
cute gimmick — for the paying cus-
tomers. But surely there's a speck of
meat lying about — for the crew, may-
be?"

She shook her head, then sipped
her milk.

Indigestion

113

I pawed through some racks of fro-
zen grub. I heard the kitchen door
oj)ening behind me. ^

I turned and glared at Gertrude.
The Beekie was sliding in behind her.
"For emergencies, then!"

"Emergency meat." Gertrude sniff-
ed. "I think not."

The tranny mirror behind her said
in my voice, "We go now plenty."
Then to Gertrude, in her face and
voice: "Excuse, please. I need this man
to go with me."

"And welcome to him," she said.
She turned to me. "Bobby, will I, uh,
will I see you tonight?"

"That depends."

More unpleasantness, either way.

The Beekie herded me into the ssh-
moona's cabin and left us alone. The
sshmoona was curled up on a special
couch, his two dozen or so feet careful-
ly arranged.

I'd say he didn't look happy, but
that's only an opinion based on fear.

He clitter-clacked, and a view-
screen lit up behind him. It showed a
grotesquely humanized version of the
sshmoona — like a centipede with hol-
lywood teeth and a toupee.

"Happy you could join us," said the
image. The rattling continued, and the
viewscreen gave simultaneous transla-
tion.

"I'd have rolled out to greet you,"
he said, "but my grievous affliction . . .
forbids it. The gout, you would call
it."

I nodded. The old bug must have a
history of meat eating. It wasn't good
for him, but he wanted more. Human
nature.

He went on: "My moist friend has
told you of my interest. What news
have you?"

"Not good, sir."

The viewscreen clattered softly,
translating my words. Several of the
sshmoona' s feet trembled in response.

I nervously explained the situation
in the kitchen, stressing my close con-
tacts on the staff. I suggested that a
more thorough search of the emergen-
cy freezers might just....

Several more feet waved; impa-
tiently, I thought.

"Surely you can do something for
me," the sshmoona said.

My damned reputation again.
Where the hell do they get these ideas?
I mean, sure, I'm good ... but, geez....

"You," the sshmoona said. "After
all, you are a human being."

"Hey," I said, as humbly as possi-
ble. "I give it my best shot."

Frankly I was surprised at human
boosterism coming from this giant
bug. I mean, we lost the war and ev-
erything, right? Score one to the ulti-
mate diplomat.

I went on: "Look, sir, I know we
humans have sort of slipp)ed off the
ladder to the top of the old galactic
heap, but we do have our good points.
I appreciate your support. And I want
to tell you I'll do my damnedest to get
you some meat."

114

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I winked. "Even if I have to do a lit-
tle rough surgery down in Third Class,
if you catch the way I'm drifting. What
sort of meat do you think will do the
trick?"

"Meat?" he asked. "I don't just
want meat."

"No?" There seemed to be a hot,
dry wind blowing up my shirt. "What,
uh, what do you want?"

The sshmoona half rose from the
couch. I stepp>ed back, bounced off the
bulkhead.

It was time to lea^e. I just knew it.

"I'll tell you what I want," he said.
The soft rattle of his voice had become
a loud crackling. "Meab is what I crave

— and it's the only food that will
satisfy your ... scatological require-
ments."

"Meab," I whispered. So the old
recipe book was penned more accu-
rately than I'd thought. Not that it
mattered. "I don't think I have any,
uh...."

The alien's laugh was uiunistakable

— gak gak gak gak....

"You don't have it?" he roared.
"You have nothing but\"

"I don't, uh...."

"Meab is flesh — your flesh."

One funny thing about this: as bad
as I felt at that moment — I'd feel a hell
of a lot worse in five minutes.

I had no sooner staggered out of the
sshmoona's cabin than I was set upon
by the Gryen's goons. They wrenched
me out of my funk and into the stink-

ing presence of their boss.

The Gryen's voice seemed to pos-
sess a timbre of almost hysterical giddi-
ness. "So, my good friend, I see you
are making excellent progress in our lit-
tle quest. "

"Not really," I mumbled.

"Ah, but you have located the ve-
hicle of production."

"The sshmoonal"

"Exactly. And you have discovered
the occult ingredient to my most eager-
ly awaited morsel."

"Meab. "

"Precisely. This is really most excel-
lent progress — though I'll admit it's
taken you eons to assemble this modest
package."

"It's hopeless."

"Not at all!" the Gryen roared. (Ev-
erybody was yelling at me today.) He
pointed a lethal digit at me. "And it an-
gers me to hear an attitude of defeatism
voiced. It's true you humans have
stumbled on the path to galactic com-
petence, but that's no reason to give
yourself over to these maladjusted
mewlings. Buck up!"

This creep was making me mad (the
Gryen's goons leaned forward
eagerly), but I held myself back.

"Look, sir," I said. "Most of you
aliens either don't know or don't want
to know how I supply their peculiar
needs. But it's obvious you know all
about the sshmoona and what I'll have
to do. So why do you need me? Why
don't you just deal directly with the
sshmoonal"

Indigestion

115

"Let me try to explain," said the
Gryen. "I deal with you because you
are the traditional go-between in such
matters. I see no reason why you
should be cheated out of your pieces of
eight. And I deal with you because
while it amuses the sshmoona to deal
with you, it would not interest him to
deal with me. These matters are rather
distasteful to gentlemen. Am I clear?"

"I guess...."

He placed an icepick fingernail be-
tween my eyes and whispered. "If you
dare to discuss these ugly arrange-
ments with me again, I will take your
head between my fingers and pop your
brains out through your eyeholes."

"Fair enough."

"Then we agree." He leaned back.
"And now, just to solidify this meeting
in your mind...."

He motioned to his henchmen.
They scrambled over and crammed my
head into a tight-fitting cap.

Before I could squawk, the "smil-
ing" noses of the Gryen blurred and
dissolved into a sheet of brilliant pain.
I spent some time in a universe of
agony — 6422 hours, 18 minutes, 38
seconds.

I counted.

It was all I had to do.

When it was over, the Gryen told
me it'd all been nicely compacted into
three and a half seconds. Just a sample.

"Now," he said. "Go to work."

m

ertrude was already in bed, na-

ked, wool socks on the nightstand —
ready for action.

I dropped heavily onto the bed, up-
setting the cracker-crumb palace she'd
assembled on her stomach.

She squealed. "Careful!"

Very quietly I said, "Don't shout,
Gertrude. I'm not in the mood for
shouting."

She moved closer. "What are you
in the mood for, stud?"

"Oh God, Gertrude, not nowl"

"You beastl"

"Look, I'm in a real bind here, do
you mind? I need a chunk of meat right
about now. It's rather important. So I
plarmed to do a little quiet thinking
about it. All right?"

She looked away, sulking. After a
while she said, "I thought we agreed
not to bring our jobs to bed."

"I'm sorry."

"I mean, I don't go around telling
you how many of those animals want-
ed seconds on jilla-cake tonight. Do I?"

"No."

"And I don't bend your ears off
griping about how the flashcook con-
sole gives me a little shock every time I
turn around. Do I?"

"Practically never."

"And I don't — What do you
mean, practically never!"

"Oh God, Gertrude," I sobbed. "I
need meat, and if I don't get some in
about five minutes, I'm going to have
to spend the next billion years in hell
and still make it back in time for break-
fast, after which there still won't be

116

Fantasy & Science Fiction

any meat and I'll have to spend
another ten trillion years in hell and
it'll still only be lunch time and there
won't be any meat and it'll still be three
wormholes and a month of ramming
before we Cem get to any place where
they might have meat and by that time
I'll have spent a trillion billion jillion
years in hell with a little wind-up clock
ticking away and me counting every
damned tick-tick-tick-tick—"

"Bobby!"
B "I'm all right," I said. I took a deep
treath. "I may just have to cut off an
arm and cook it for an eight-foot centi-
pede in a brown toupee. Routine stuff
for us washroom menials."

She examined me critically. "Some-
times you worry me."

"Leave me alone, Gertrude."

But she wouldn't shut up after that.
I stopped listening, but I couldn't stop
looking at her.

You know, Gertrude isn't half bad
looking. Butt's too big, of course, but
she had nice legs. Nice Cedves . . . shape-
ly ... meaty....

I reached down and grabbed her
leg. "C'mon, honey, get dressed. We
got work to do."

The washroom was quiet during
sleeptime. Gertrude sniffed at it. "This
place is depressing."

"You ain't seen nothing yet."

The Beekie came in, half carrying
the sshmoona.

"Thank you both for coming so
quickly," I said.

I led everyone into the Maximum
Security Stall and grabbed the gut accel-
erator off the wall. "Shall we begin?"

Gertrude screamed, and the hours
were filled with hazard.

The Gryen crouched in his cabin,
flanked by the usual goons. I ap-
proached with a small plastic container.

"Ah," growled the Gryen. "Most
propitious timing. How are you this
fine morning?"

"Fair."

"Sleep well?"

"Had to work."

"Pity. And how's your temporary
mate?"

"I'm afraid she's in the hospital."

"Pity." The Gryen "smiled." "Still,
sacrifices must be made." He gestured
at the box. "I presume this is the sub-
stance contracted for?"

I nodded. "And it must be consum-
ed immediately to get the proper
effect."

"So I understand," he said, drool-
ing a bit.

I brought the box to him and open-
ed it. There was a sort of green fudge
inside. He didn't move. "Not so fast,
my friend."

I started to shake, as I knew I
would when we got to this point. -
"What's wrong?"

"Just out of ... politeness, suppose
we first offer some of this psychogenic
confection to my loyal companions
here." The goons leaned forward stu-
pidly.

Indigestion

117

I stammered, asking if there would
be enough.

"We shall see."

The goons peeled off half of the
stuff and shared it. In a few seconds
they were laid back, "smiling," and
growling euphoric reports to their
boss. It was the Real Thing.

The Gryen yanked the box from
my hands and gobbled the contents.
"You may go!"

I sighed. "Gladly."

I left the three of them sprawled
happily on the padded deck. Gertrude's
sacrifice was well appreciated — may-
be that would cheer her up. I doubted
it.

I shut the cabin door, then quickly
made it spacetight — just in case.

In fifteen seconds there came two
muffled explosions, close together. I
heard the .Gryen roar in surprised ha-
tred, then the third concussion — the
big one — shook the bulkhead.

I checked the seals for leaks and
breathed a sigh of relief.

Now I wanted to go see how Ger-
trude was getting on. I'd taken about a
kilo and a half of subcutaneous fat off
her rump — just enough for the ssh-
moona to produce a dopey coating for
the Beekie's exploding crap.

I turned away from the cabin door
and grinned.

One of the guests floated up to me
and squeaked, "What was that explo-
sion?"
/ I shrugged. "Indi ... gestion."'

Get Detroit on the phone. "

118

Fantasy & Science Fiction

The fine story below was winner of the 1980 Transatlantic Review
award; this is its first publication. Its author writes that he is "twenty-
nine, living in New York with my wife, Anne and our five-year-old
daughter, Jenna. I'm a student in the Columbia University MFA
writing program and have sold about a dozen stories to various
publications, including New Dimensions, Galaxy and Isaac Asimov's."

Dinosaurs On Broadway

A

BY

TONY SAROWITZ

fter a month in New York, it
seemed to Sylvia that everything she
did was part of a dream. She looked
across the desk at the interviewer, a
Mrs. Vedicchio, and stared at the beau-
tiful white hair piled on her head like
whipped cream. "New York isn't Ore-
gon," Mrs. Vedicchio said, as if this
was a point of subtle misunderstanding
between them. Sylvia nodded. It was
her third job interview of the day, and
she was thinking about her own hair,
which seemed limp and heavy to her,
as if it were made of clay. In a certain
sense, it was; Clay was her name. Her
name was Sylvia Clay. "Perhaps if you
had a master's," Mrs. Vedicchio went
on, "or a few local references. Admin-
istrative positions in parenting and ear-
ly childhood are so hard to find these
days." Sylvia nodded again and smiled,
picturing herself eating Mrs. Vedic-
chio's white hair with a spoon.

She thought about hair while she
walked to the subway station at 116th,
and she made a list in her mind of a few
things, besides Oregon, that New York
was not. It was not warm in January,
which was this month. It was not a
gentle fragrance carried on the wind. It
was not the Triassic, Jurassic, or Creta-
ceous period of the Mesozoic era (this
last item from a picture book about
dinosaurs that she had bought for
Madeline a week ago). She stood on
the subway platform and looked at her
wristwatch, thinking about how long
she had before Maddy was due out of
school. She thought about Maddy and
looked at the yellow eyes of the ap-
proaching train and thought about the
noise, which was like the howl of a
beast. She imagined that it was a beast,
an armored ankylosaur, its tough hide
scraping along the tunnel wall as it
charged down the track. She closed her

Dinosaurs On Broadway

11»

eyes, and all her thoughts were pic-
tures in her mind — subway trains,
snowdrifts, white hair, dinosaurs,
wildflowers. Then the platform tilted
sixty degrees and she fell onto the
tracks.

Mishaps seemed to be a way of life
for Sylvia in New York. There had
been runaway buses, stray bullets fly-
ing past her on the street. This, how-
ever, was her first time in an ambu-
lance. The noise of the siren was horri-
ble. She sat up and tried to explain that
she was fine, nothing wrong aside from
a few scrapes and bruises, but the at-
tendant cooed at her, "No, no," and
gently eased her down onto the stretch-
er. The ambulance wailed on. At the
hospital, the admitting nurse insisted
that she be examined, and although
Sylvia could remember rolling safely
off the tracks, she began to wonder if
the train hadn't hit her after all instead
of gliding by her like a screeching black
cloud. She counted her fingers and toes
in sudden panic. "I feel ridiculous," she
told the doctor, wide-eyed. "Is this a
symptom of something, shock, concus-
sion, to feel so entirely absurd?"

She was sitting in a waiting area,
sipping tea from a styrof oam cup when
Richard arrived. He stood in front of
her, hands on his hips, coat still but-
toned, scarf immaculately tucked
around his neck. "What's the bottom
line, Syl?" he said.

She tried to make a joke of it. "I
can't get a job without training. I was
just trying to get on the right track."

He stared at her. "I'm fine," she said. "It
was nothing,, really. In a minute I'm go-
ing to pick up Maddy. They shouldn't
have even called you. But I'm glad
you're here. If you're glad, that is. I
hope you weren't in the middle of
anything."

"As long as you're all right, health-
wise," he said. "Maddy and I would
have a hell of a time coping if anything
happened to you. You are all right,
aren't you?"

"Yes, Dick." She was accustomed
by now to this new lingo of his, this
bureaucratese. She told herself that it
was a superficial manner of speach,
nothing more, as if he'd adopted the
accent and idiom of a foreign land. She
stood and put on her coat. "Wife-wise,
I'm fine."

"Well." He clapped his hands in, a
businesslike manner. "The office isn't
expecting me back. We'll get Maddy,
then eat out somewhere, give you an
evening to recoup." He paused. "I
mean, if it's all right with you. If I
wouldn't be in the way."

"Of course nol>" she said, smiling.
He nodded seriously and went to open
the door.

Sylvia often felt small on the streets
of New York. It had to do with the
height of the buildings and the density
of the crowds. She was a small woman
to begin with, just two inches over five
feet. In the midst of a crowd she felt
lost.

She had fallen behind Dick on the

120

Fantasy & Science Fiction

sidewalk. His walk had changed since
they'd moved, his strides had becon\e
short and brisk. Watching him from
behind made her think of aftershave
ads. She ran up to him and took his
arm, and he turned to her, an utter
stranger. She stepped back, confused,
speechless. The man barely glanced at
her before walking on, and for a mo-
ment, it seemed to her that any one of
a dozen broad backs walking away
from her on the street could be Dick's.
Then she saw him. She took hold of his
arm so tightly that he looked at her
with surprise.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

She shook her head. She was think-
ing nothing that she could put into
words. As they walked down the street
together, she pictured a brachiosaur
submerged to its hips in the East River,
neck outstretched, tenderly nipping at
the greenery of a penthouse garden ter-
race.

Dick waited outside while Sylvia
talked to Maddy's first-grade teacher.
"I'm worried about Maddy," Sylvia
said. "She's been so quiet the past
month, since we moved."

Ms. Brown was an overweight
black woman in her late fifties. She
wore a cotton print dress — tiny yel-
low ducks on a field of green. "Never
you mind, Miz Clay," she said with a
wide grin. "Your little girl's just fine.
Why, given the paradigms of normalcy
accepted by modern pedagogic
thought, she's moving right along to-

ward optimal self -actualization. Next
year we might think on the possibility
of issuing a few proximity reinforcers
during the morning module, but then
she'll have a new facihtator. She won't
be my dumpling any more."

This was something that Sylvia had
thought a lot about, as much as she
was able to think about anything,
these days. "I just want to know if she's
all right," she said. "I know something
about children, what's healthy and
what isn't. When we lived in Eugene, I
organized parenting groups and child-
care co-ops. I saw how Maddy acted
with other kids. I know — "

"Oooeee," Ms. Brown exclaimed.
"You sure were something, Miz Clay.
You say this was Eugene?"

"Eugene, Oregon."

"Is that in the USA?" Laughing, she
put her palm firmly between Sylvia's
shoulder blades and propelled her to-
ward the door. "Your little girl's set-
tling down to her new school just fine.
You don't worry, now. Hear? Come
on over here, Maddy. Your momma's
waiting on you."

Outside, Maddy ran for her father's
arms. He lifted her high, then brought
her down to eye level. "How's my^
pumpkin? How's my little girl?"

Maddy opened her mouth and
pointed at her throat.

"Soon," he said. "We're eatii\g
Chinese food tonight. Yum. At a res-
taurant. How's that?"

She nodded emphatically, then
gave him a quick hug and squirmed to

Dinosaurs On Broadway

121

be let down. They had always been
close, father and daughter. Sylvia pull-
ed her coat tighter and buttoned the
collar. Snow had begun to fall.

They walked down 73rd Street.
Maddy ran ahead and waited at the
comer. "She was never this quiet back
home. Back in Eugene," Sylvia said.
"I'm worried about her."

"She's fine," Dick said. He covered
his head with his newspaper as they
came to the comer. Maddy motioned
for him to bend over. She stroked his
chin, then wiggled her stubby fingers.
Dick laughed. "I've told you a thou-
sand times. I shaved because we mov-
ed to New York. Men don't wear
beards in New Ydrk." He took her
hand and they started across the street.

"Wait for the green," Sylvia called,
then started across herself. A cab
roared through the intersection. It
squeeled its brakes and swerved,,
spraying the sidewalk with black slush,
missing her by inches.

Late in the Cretaceous period, about
100 million years ago, the Arctic
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico were
connected by a vast shallow sea divid-
ing North America in two. "Look at
this, Maddy," Sylvia called, holding
the picture book open on her lap.
There was a diagram showing east and
west America split by a ribbon of
water as if a great tongue had licked
the continent from Corpus Christi to
Tuktoyaktuk on the Mackenzie Bay. If

Columbus had sailed 100 million years
ago, if it was 100 million years ago
now, they would have had to cross
that ocean to reach New York. They
would probably be speakers of separ-
ate language, visitors from a foreign
land. "Maddy?"

She had fallen asleep on the rug by
her dollhouse. "I'll get her," Sylvia
said, although Dick had not moved
from his chair. He looked embedded
there, corporate tax forms piled high
by his feet, on his lap, on the coffee
table by his side. She pictured a pale-
ontologist of the future working with
pick and bmsh to extricate his fossil-
ized remains from the easy chair, chip-
ping with terrible patience at reams of
petrified IRS returns, an impossible
task, hopeless.

She put Madeline to bed, then re-
turned to the sofa and sat with her feet
tucked under her. The book was still
open to the same page. She traced the
diagram of the inland sea with her fin-
gertip, then looked to the illustration
on the facing page, an artist's rendering
of the scene. Brontosaurs wallowed in
the shallows, munching on the top
leaves of giant palms. Crested pteran-
odons glided above the calm slate
waters on leathery twelve-foot wings.

"I wish you wouldn't put so much
of your time into reading that stuff,
Syl," Dick said. "We need to take a
forward-looking approach to our new
life here. If plants and animals were
what we wanted, we could have look-
ed for a place in the suburbs, Scarsdale

122

Fantasy & Science Fiction

or White Plains or something."

"Sony." She shut the book and put
it by her side. It was, after all, only a
child's picture book, and she was tired;
it had been a long day. Her hands
wanted to open the book again, and so
she clasped them on her lap and watch-
ed Dick tap his pipe in the ashtray. She
wished it was warm enough to open a
window. She had enjoyed the smell of
his tobacco in the house in Eugene, but
it seemed cloying here in the apart-
ment. She wondered if it had to do
with the size of the rooms, or if it was
some basic incompatibility of smoke
with New York air, which had a flavor
and density of its own.

"Why are we here?" she asked.

"Pardon? On this planet? In this
room?"

"I don't know what I was thinking
about." Her hand fluttered in the air.
"I'm sorry. You're in the middle of
something."

"No." He put aside the paper he'd
been reading and looked at her. "We
haven't been keeping proper track of
our emotional inventory the past
weeks, have we?" he asked. "How
have you been getting along?"

"Okay, I guess. A little crazy. I
can't seem to get my feet on the
ground." The understatement of the
era. The largest dinosaurs were reput-
ed to have had two brains, one in their
head and another at the base of their
tails. Sylvia felt as if she had half a
dozen or more, each in contention
with the others, all shouting out of

turn. She tilted her head back against
the sofa cushions and closed her eyes.

"I suppose we have to expect a cer-
tain restructuring of our day-to-day
experience here. Any luck with the job
hunt?"

"No." She shook her head side to
side without lifting it from the cushion.
"No luck, no promises, no hope. No,
no, no." She felt a shiver of giddy ex-
haustion.

"I hope you won't allow that inci-
dent in the subway to impact negative-
ly on your attitude toward living
here."

"It's not that. It's — " Her mind was
empty. She opened her eyes and stared
at the ceiling, the seams in the plaster
visible through the new coat of white
paint. Not a single word would come.

"Sometimes," he said, and some-
thing in his voice made her look at
him, "sometimes you have to stop be-
ing yourself so much, so that you can
be yourself here, yourself in New
York. It's not the same, psychologi-
cally speaking."

"I love you no matter where we
are," she said. She put her head back
on the cushion and closed her eyes.
She should go to bed, she thought, or
she would drift to sleep right here. She
heard him shuffling papers, getting
back to work.

"You'll find a job," he said. "Ex-
pertise is always marketable. And over
the long term, I think you'll find you
like living in New York. It's an exciting
place. Alive."

Dinosaurs On Broadway

123

Sylvia smiled, nodded. She too
thought of New York as alive at times,
a huge sluggish animal of asphalt and
stone, slowly but surely digesting them
all. She wanted to tell Dick how cor-
rect he was.

"I wonder what I'd know about
you," he said, "if I could read your
mind."

"I wonder what I'd know about
me," she murmured.

Sylvia woke in the dark. She felt
Richard sitting up in the bed beside
her. He cried out, a cry of loss rather
than pain, a frightened, anguished
sound. She sat up, held his arm firmly
and put her other hand on the back of
his neck. She called his name. He cried
out again, more quietly this time, then
fell limply back onto the bed. After a
moment, he whispered, "Again?"

She nodded, then realized that it
was too dark for him to see. "Yes." It
was the third time in the last four
nights.

"It's all right," he mumbled, turn-
ing on his side away from her. "Never
mind." He shook off her hand, hugged
his pillow to his stomach.

Sometimes she felt she knew him as
well as she knew herself. Better. But
sometimes she found herself watching
him suspiciously, wondering if he was
about to metamorphose into some-
thing entirely unexpected, imagining
that she might wake up some morning
beside a stone, or a bird, or a clip-
board.

"Richard?" she called softly. Al-
ready he was asleep.

The weather report predicted a cold
day. Sylvia laid Maddy's clothes out
on the sofa — underwear, warm pants,
turtleneck sweater — and went to cook
breakfast. By the time the oatmeal was
done, Maddy was dressed and playing
on the living room floor with her Rag-
gedy Ann doll. She flew the doll in fig-
ure-eights through the air, making
buzzing engine noises and laughing. At
the table, she propp>ed it up by her
plate while she ate.

"Going to be one cold day," Sylvia
said, as if to herself. "Looks like
snow." Maddy looked at her doll, the
cloth face, the idiotic smile, and shook
her head slowly, sadly. The doll, with
Maddy's hand behind it, commiserated
with a shake of its own.

Dick came out of the bedroom
tucking in his shirt. He sat at the table,
full of bluster and good cheer. "You
have to prioritize your life," he said,
banging the table with his fist. "Know
what you want and take it." He reach-
ed over and pinched Maddy's cheek,
and she giggled.

They left at the same time, Maddy
and Dick. Sylvia put the dishes away
and left a few minutes after. She didn't
like being in the apartment alone. She
felt uneasy there, despite the window
gates and police lock. To her mind,
protection implied the need for protec-
tion, which in turn implied danger.
The locks and bars made her feel like a

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Fantasy & Science Fiction

morsel, a nutmeat ripe within its shell.
She stopped at the coffee shop on
the comer, as she did every morning,
and ordered a cup of tea. She held the
cup in both hands, the heat in her
palms, and looked into the tea. She
saw shapes in the steam, animals rear-
ing on their hind legs, strange birds in
flight. She closed her eyes and felt her-
self rising with the steam, a bird soar-
ing up on a column of warm air.

A man stood at the comer of 71st
Street and Second Avenue. He was
young, in his early twenties. He was
dressed in ill-fitting clothes, and he
wore no socks, although it was a very
cold day. Above the black stubble on
his cheeks, his skin was pale. "For
God's sakel" he shouted at the passers-
by. "For God's sake!" Sylvia paused to
watch him. Others looked away as
they walked past. "What's the matter
with everyong?" he yelled, rocking
from one foot to the other, coming
dangerously near the edge of his bal-
ance. "Why doesn't anybody help?
What's going on here?" He began to
cry.

"I'll help," Sylvia said. She stood a
few steps away from him, afraid to
come closer.. "Do you need food?
Money? Are you — What can I do?"

At each question he tried to speak,
then shook his head. Sylvia felt embar-
rassed. She went over and shook his
arm gently, shocked by how thin it felt
through his sleeve. "Do you need a
doctor? Just nod. There's a restaurant

over here. Can I buy you lunch?" She
felt like a supplicant, as if she was
more helpless than he. He waved his
hand as if to motion her away. She
found a ten dollar bill in her purse and
stuffed it in his pocket.

"Quick," he said. "How do you
feel?"

"What?" She stepped back.

"Don't think. Damnit, you're los-
ing it." He took a pen and a small dog-
eared notebook from an inside pocket.
"What was your feeling at the moment
you gave me the money? How about
guilt? Would you say you were feeling
very guilty, fairly guilty, slightly guil-
ty, or not at all — "

Sylvia grabbed the notebook from
his hand and threw it into the street. It
vanished under the flow of cars. She
watched a few loose pages pinwheel
down the street, then tumed her back
and started away. "Why did you do
that?" he called plaintively behind her.
"What the hell was that for?"

By the time she reached the next
comer, he was yelling. "Just try to get
your ten bucks back, bitch."

It was 10:15; her appointment for
an interview at the city's Agency for
Child Development was for 11. She
stopped at her bank, handed the teller
her check and ID. He stared at her Ore-
gon driver's license. "We've only been
here a month," she explained. He look-
ed from the picture on her license to
her face, then back at the license. "Am
I stiU me?" she asked, smiling. He
pushed the money toward her across

Dinosaurs On Broadway

125

the counter. He looked at her as if he
could see the wall behind her, as if she
wasn't there.

She left the bank at 11:05. At first
she assumed that her watch had some-
how leapt ahead an extra half hour.
She tapped the crystal face with her
finger, then went back inside the bank.
The clock on the wall and her watch
agreed perfectly — 11:05, now 11:06.
It was impossible. She knew that she
had been in the bank for perhaps ten
minutes, fifteen at the most. She stood
there looking from one timepiece to the
other, trying to reconcile her memory
with the uncompromising hour.

Outside, she walked slowly down
Second Avenue, trying to think. She
went past a pay phone, glanced at her
watch. She was already ten minutes
late. There was no excuse that she
could think of, nothing for her to say.
The ACD office was in the City Hall
building on Church Street at the south-
em tip of Manhattan, a twenty-minute
ride by cab. She began to walk more
quickly, as if she could cover the
ninety-four blocks on foot, as if she
could arrive ten minutes before she
started. She didn't notice the yellow
rope lying across the sidewalk between
66th and 67th, barely saw the work-
man standing in the street, or heard the
faint sound of the cable snapping five
floors above. Still, all these signals
came together somewhere in her mind,
and she stopped short just as the piano
feU.

It was a Steinway grand with a

beautiful ebony finish. It fell five stor-
ies in a second and a half, smashing to
the ground with a demented, tortured
chord, a lunatic twang. For a moment,
the air seemed full of flying wood and
wire, and then everything was still,
and Sylvia was standing there, un-
touched, with wreckage strewn all
around.

The workman had fallen in the
street. Now he pushed himself to his
feel and staggered over to her, clutch-
ing his shoulder. He sat on the collaps-
ed piano frame, lowering himself gin-
gerly onto It as if it was a delicate and
valuable heirloom.

"Are you all right?" Sylvia asked.

He peeked under the hand at his
shoulder, then shrugged. "Not good,
not bid," he said. "Jeanie, that's my
youngest, she had her wisdom teeth
pulled Wednesday, and now she sips
her food through a straw and moans
constantly. It's driving my wife crazy.
And Billy, that's my second-oldest, he
writes to me from school that he must
have two hundred dollars to join a fra-
ternity. My feeling is that for two him-
dred dollars he should forget fraternity
and look for love, but I suppose that's
what children are for. And you?"

"I don't know," Sylvia said. "This
city — It's been doing something to me.
To all of us, my husband, and my
daughter, and me."

'JThis something — couid you be a
little more specific?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

"Yes," he said, nodding thought-

126

Fantasy & Science Fiction

fully. "I recall that you made the same
point just a moment ago."

"Everything is strange and unset-
tled," she said. "Everything has to do
with uncertainty and — "

"And?"

"Change. I've been thinking a lot
about change."

"I have fifteen cents," he told her.

A woman came out of the lunch-
eonette across the street. "I've called an
ambulance," she called to them.
"They'll be here in a minute. Don't
move. They'll be right here."

"I'll be leaving now," Sylvia told
the workman. "I learned yesterday
that I don't like ambulances."

"It's good to learn something new
every day." He blinked, looked
around as if seeing the ruined piano for
the first time. "So much for wings of
song."

"I like you," she said. "You're the
first person I've foimd here that I like."

He shrugged. "You'll find every-
thing in this city, sooner or later.
Everything is here."

R

Jchard called to say that he'd be
late for dinner. "Incidentally," he said,
"I forgot to mention it this morning. I
like your hair blonde."

"I am blonde, Dick. I've always
been blonde."

"Ah." There was a pause. "Well, I
didn't say you weren't."

Maddy was playing with her dolls
when Sylvia tiptoed to the door and

looked in. It had become a habit with
her to approach Maddy's room quiet-
ly, almost stealthily, hoping to surprise
her daughter in surreptitious talk.
Now, standing at the door, she felt
ashamed. "Come on sweetheart," she
said. "I'll read you a book."

Maddy paused, a doll in each hand,
and frowned with the effort of decid-
ing. She shook her head, no.

"Your new dinosaur book," Sylvia
said. Maddy didn't bother to answer;
she had already handed down her deci-
sion. "I'll be in the living room if you
change your mind."

Sylvia sat on the sofa and read
about the extinction of the dinosaurs.
According to the book, it was a mys-
tery that no one could adequately ex-
plain. At one moment of geologic time,
they had covered the earth and filled
the sky in all their grandiose reptilian
glory, and the next moment they were
gone, every one, almost before the
rocks took notice. Sylvia became sad
reading about it, and she turned back
the pages to the earlier pictures, stego-
saurs lumbering through the dense wet
forests, pteranodons gliding through
cloudless pink skies on wide membran-
ous wings. She read until it was time to
start dinner, and put the book reluc-
tantly aside.

She thought about change while
she chopped cabbage on a board laid
over the kitchen sink, different kinds
of changes: the shifting of colors be-
neath her eyelids at night, the changes
of distance, of time. The long knife

Dinosaurs On Broadway

127

winked, rocking on its point. They
were changing, Richard and Madeline,
and she had to change as well, or she
would die as the dinosaurs had died.
She wondered what sort of fossils she
would leave behind. She wondered if
Richard would keep her in memory,
with what color hair, and if the snap-
shot of her would remain taped to
Maddy's wall.

She looked down. The cabbage
was chopped past the point of cole-
slaw, past the point of any use that
came to mind.

She left the knife on the cutting
board and went into Maddy's room.
"Want to play house?" Maddy smiled,
nodded. She was always hungry for
partners at house. Sylvia knelt beside
her and stroked her hair. Maddy thrust
a doll into her hands impatiently, as if
to say that this was no time for petty
affection. Sylvia walked the doll to the
front of the ramshackle doHhouse that
Dick had built in Eugene from scraps
of lattice and dowel. "Is anybody
home?" she said, falsetto. "I'm a blind
person looking for the Clay's house. Is
this it? Is anyone here?"

Maddy put her doll by the door-
way and mimed opening a door.

"I heard something," Sylvia said,
"but I'm blind. I can't see. Who is it?"

Maddy's doll paused as if consider-
ing; then it gently touched the shoulder
of Sylvia's doll.

Sylvia's doll moved back. "Don't
push. You're scaring me. Please tell me
who you are."

Maddy left her doll on the floor of
the doUhouse and sat hugging her
knees. Sylvia touched her cheek. "Just
one word. Your name. What you'd
like for dinner tonight. Just to let me
know you can." Maddy put her thumb
in her mouth and closed her eyes. She
looked to Sylvia like a three-year-old,
like a two-year-old, like a newborn
babe.

When Sylvia heard Dick's key in
the lock, she went to stand in the hall-
way by the door. He looked tired
when he came in, his shoulders hunch-
ed as if the weight of the briefcase was
more than he could bear. She pictured
how she must look to him, arms cross-
ed, spatuJa in hand, hair awry, apron
bloodied with tomato sauce. "We Have
to do something about Maddy," she
said. He blinked and looked past her
toward the living room, but she would
not stand out of his way. "She doesn't
talk. Do you understand? There's
something wrong with her. It's more
than just shyness or reticence; she
doesn't use words at all."

He let the door swing shut behind
him and dropped his briefcase on the
floor. "Of course she does," he said.
"Come out here for a minute, Maddy.
Come on, pumpkin. Say something to
your mom." Maddy came out of her
bedroom, thumb in her mouth. Rag-
gedy Ann doll dragging behind. 'Tell
your mom ... oh, how school was to-
day."

Maddy looked from him to Sylvia.
She took her thumb from her mouth.

128

Fantasy & Science Fiction

'Tashut," she said quietly. "Fortiing
pith quasley fass. Feezee im mung."

"You see?" He peeled off his coat
and hung it in the closet. "God, I'm
tired." He eased himself into his cus-
tomary chair and closed his eyes, his
right hand groping for his pipe in the
ashtray.

"Dick," Sylvia said in the careful,
even voice that a parent might employ
in explaining life to a child. "Maddy is
not speaking English. She is not speak-
ing cmy language known to any crea-
ture on this planet except herself. It
was pretend. It wasn't real."

"Absolutely. She's more innovative
than half the people in my depart-
ment,"

'Tes, but did you understand what
she said?"

"Of course." He looked at her with
surprise. "Didn't you?"

He woke up shouting again that
night, his skin damp with sweat. Syl-
via held his arm until it was over.
"What was it?" she asked. "Please." He
wouldn't reply, and a minute later he
was asleep.

Sylvia found herself staring into the
darkness. She moved the box of tissues
on the night table, uncovering the face
of the digital clock. It was 3:18. She
closed her eyes and tried to sleep,
counting seconds, minutes. Finally she
climbed out of bed and left the room,
guided by the cold blue glow of the
numerals.

She went into the living room and

sat in the easy chair, Dick's chair, in
the dark. The seat was too wide for
her, the armrests too far apart. She
shifted uncomfortably, leaned against
the armrest to her left. She tried to
think about important matters, life,
change, and found herself staring at
the crisscross shadow on the ceiling,
the window gates. Home, she told her-
self firmly, speaking to her loneliness,
her confusion, her fear. This is home.

She left the apartment in the morn-
ing with no destination in mind, walk-
ing wherever the streets took her —
south down Second Avenue, west on
66th, south again on Third Avenue,
and so on, making her way diagonally
across the city. The air was filled with
the music of the city, the clicking,
buzzing, shrieking jam of people and
machines, the smells of cigarettes, and
food, and gasoline fumes. Sylvia walk-
ed on, waiting for some sense of it all
to reach her, hoping to discover her
part, her place.

The day had started with dear
skies, but as she walked, dark clouds
blew over the horizon from the west.
Watching them move in, she imagined
a rain of pianos plummeting to the
ground, fortissimo (and briefly consid-
ered a reign of pianos — "Ladies and
gentlemen, our leader, the honorable
and upright Baldwin."). The clouds
spread across the sky, casting prema-
ture dusk through the streets. She
wondered if time played tricks in the
city, if time could be as desultory as

Dinosaurs On Broadway

129

weather here, Precambrian in the
morning, Mesozoic in the afternoon,
with patches of October in the west.
Time was like a heartbeat in the city,
she thought, an internal rhythm with
only vague and half-felt connections to
the sweep of time in the universe out-
side, the earth rotating through its
days and revolving through its sea-
sons, the oscillations of an atom of
cesium-133. Instead of clouds, those
could be hours or eons thickening in
the sky.

She was strolling down a quiet resi-
dential street in the west 30's, day-
dreaming about time and the heartbeat
of the city, when she first had the sense
of being followed. She stopped and
looked around; there were only a
handful of pedestrians in sight, none
familiar. She shook her head and went
on, but something in her mood had
changed, in her outlook on the day.
She began to tire, to feel the cold, and
the muscles in her legs were tight. She
no longer had any clear idea of what
she'd intended when she started out
that morning. At the next comer she
turned north, uptown, and started
back to the apartment.

It came to her again as she walked
down 36th, the sensation that someone
was behind her. She stopped in the
middle of the block and waited, watch-
ing, listening for sounds at the edge of
her hearing. There was no one in sight
at the moment. She looked at the win-
dows of the houses. The row of brown-
stones across the street seemed slump-

ed over in their places like tired old
men with half-open eyes, long cracks
in the stones like the creases in aged
flesh. She wondered if that was where
the feeling was coming from, all the
windows, and she smiled at herself, her
foolishness, a nervous smile. Steam
rose like hot breath from an open man-
hole at the end of the block. There was
nothing behind her but the city.

She began to walk again, but the
feeling persisted that something was
there, keeping its distance like the re-
flection of the moon on a lake. The
feeling grew until she could no longer
laugh at it, even nervously, and it be-
came fear. On Sixth Avenue she found
herself among people again, and she
told herself that it was all right, there
were people around her now, but her
heart was leaping in her chest. It made
no sense, but she was done with trying
to make sense of the city. It was watch-
ing her with hungry eyes. She imagin-
ed it rising up aroimd her, tongue of
asphalt, jaws of stone. She imagined it
opening beneath her feet. The sidewalk
shivered as a subway car passed under
her, and she started to run.

She ran until there was no more
breath in her, knowing that the city
was ruiming behind her, ahead of her,
knowing that there was nowhere to go.
Finally all her air was gone, and she
stopped, head down, hands on her
knees, all her mind in her pulse.
"Look," someone said. "Look at her.
Look."

Sylvia was changing, slowly at first

130

Fantasy & Science Fiction

so that it seemed no more than a trick
of light, and then faster and faster. Her
skin grew grey and leathery. Her bones
became hollow and light and changed
in their proportions to each other so
that she was forced to stoop over, to
crouch. Her skull swept back, a plume
of bone, and her mouth stretched into
a long bill, hard and slender. She start-
ed to speak, but whatever the thought
was, it was lost in the making. All
thought was difficult for her now. Her
arms withered while the small finger of
each of her hands lengthened until they
touched the sidewalk. A thick mem-
brane grew between her arms and her
body, hanging in folds from armpit to
ankle. She began to stagger on her tiny
feet, so unsuitable for the groimd, and
she looked around her in panic, look-
ing past the bodies surrounding her,
looking for the sky. Her great wings
opened at her sides, rising high above
her shoulders, and as she stepped for-
ward she brought them down and they
billowed as they caught the air and
flung her toward the sky.

It was Dick's idea that they go to the
Museum of Natural History that Satur-
day. They strolled past totem poles
and insects, primates and meteorites.
Dick stood beneath a life-sized model
of a blue whale suspended from the
ceiling in the Hall of Marine Life. "This
is the sort of asset that you find only in
a place like New York," he said. "This
is the sort of benefit that makes it emo-

tionally cost-effective to live here." He
blew Sylvia a kiss, tousled Maddy's
hair.

Maddy looked tired, worn out by
running from room to room ahead of
them, disappearing for minutes at a
time. "Hambur," she said, her cheek
resting against Sylvia's hip. "Amburg."
She had been speaking in recognizable
word fragments since waking that
morning.

"There's a cafeteria in the base-
ment," Sylvia said. "You two go
ahead. I'll be along in a minute."

The dinosaurs were on the fourth
floor in a room without windows. The
walls were institutional green. Sylvia
made her way through the crowd,
passing by the bones of hadrosaurs and
pteranodons laid out in beds of plaster.
She looked at them coldly and moved
on. She stopped by a glass case in
which was sprawled the mummified
body of a pterosaur, the brittle black
skin flush against the bones, the limbs
askew, twisted not by agony but by
geological disorder and the decsicating
years. She sniffed, but the only odor
she smelled was a faint whiff of smoke
from a fugitive cigar. She walked to
the center of the room where two large
skeletons stood erect on a concrete
platform behind a wooden rail, Trach-
odon and Tyrannosaurus, the tops of
their skulls inches from the eighteen-
foot-high ceiling. Their bones were
grey rather than white, etched with
deep lines, empty of marrow. Sinuous
metal poles embedded in the concrete

Dinosaurs On Broadway

131

rose to support the long spines and
massive heads. The poles looked alive,
curving around hips and ribs to find
each strategic place of support. Sylvia
imagined them suddenly gone, imagin-
ed the bones crashing to the floor,
splintering like glass.

She found Dick and Maddy at a
table in the cafeteria and sat across
from them. Maddy was full of energy
again. Dick, sitting beside her, looked
overworked and tired, in need of a
more substantial rest than he could
find in a single weekend. "Something
wrong?" he asked Sylvia.

She shook her head. "Nothing.
Nothing at all. Let me have a bite." She
reached for Maddy's hot dog, and
Maddy yanked it away, laughing,
flinging sauerkraut across the floor.
Dick stood up. y

"Let it stay," Sylvia said, making
faces across the table at her daughter.
"They'll clean it up. That's what we
pay for."

Sylvia, walking home from the gro-
cery store, noticed the little man nearly
a block away. He was less than four
feet tall, and his head was bald, pink,
and astoundingly round. He fell into
step beside her, the hem of his tattered
shearling coat slapping at his ankles as
he hurried to keep pace with her.
"Please," he said in a breathless high
voice. "Anything you can spare. A
nickel, a penny. Anything at all.
Please?"

Sylvia shifted the bag of groceries

to her other arm and walked quickly
on. A memory of him kept coming
back to her that evening, a picture of
his pie-pan face smiling up at her,
beaming wi£h hope while she ate her
dinner, washed the dishes, sat before
the TV.

Sylvia woke in the night to the
sound of Dick's cries. She tried to calm
him as she had the other times. When it
was over, they lay in the darkness to-
gether, his skim damp with sweat, her
head resting on his chest. She listened
to the uneven sound of his breath for a
minute. When he climbed out of bed,
she followed him into the living room
and sat on the sofa. She noticed how-
well he fit the easy chair, how exactly
he filled that space.

"Perhaps," Dick said. He paused to
clear his throat. "Perhaps we shouldn't
have come here. Perhaps it was a nega-
tive ... a mistake. A place like this is —
I don't — Maybe you were right."

She tsked at him. "Don't be silly.
Everything's fine now. It's only sleepi-
ness that's making you sad." She went
over and sat on his lap, curling up to
rest her head on his chest as if they
were still in bed.

"It isn't the way I thought it would
be," he said. "Everything has changed.
You've — " He hit the armrest with his
fist. "Damn," he said. "DamnI"

She snuggled against his chest
again, leaned her head up to kiss the
crook of his neck. "You'll get used to
it," she said. :^

132

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Science

ISAAC ASIMOV

Drawing by Ganan Wilson

AND AFTER MANY A SUMMER DIES THE PROTON

If any of you aspire to the status of Very Important Person, let me warn
you sulkily that there are disadvantages. For myself, I do my best to avoid
VIP-dom by hanging around my typewriter in a state of splendid isolation
for as long as possible. And yet — the world intrudes.

Every once in a while, I find myself slated to attend a grand function at
some elaborate hotel, and the instructions are "black tie." That means I've
got to climb into my tuxedo. It's not really very difficult to do so, and once
I'm inside it, with the studs and links in place, with the tie hooked on and
the cummerbund adjusted, I don't feel very different. It's just the principle
of the thing. I'm not a tuxedo person; I'm a baggy-old-clothes person.

Just the other night I was slated to appear, tuxedo-ablaze-in-glory at the
Waldorf-Astoria. I had been invited — but I had not received any tickets.

Whereupon I said to Janet (who made her usual wifely-suggestion that
she seize her garden shears and cut great swatches out of my luxuriant side-
bums and received my usual husbandly-refusal), "Listen, if we get there
and they won't let us in without tickets, please don't feel embarrassed.
We'll just leave our coats in the checkroom, go down two flights to the Pea-
cock Alley and eat there."

Science

133

In fact, I was hoping we'd be turned away. Of all the restaurants I've
tried in New York, the Peacock Alley is my favorite. The closer we got to
the hotel, the more pleasant was my mind's-eye picture of myself wreaking
havoc with the comestibles at the Peacockian festive board.

Finally, there we were, standing before a group of fine people who bar-
red the way to the Grand Ballroom, with instructions to keep out the riff-
raff.

"I'm sorry," I said, firmly, "but I don't have any tickets."

Whereupon a clear whisper sounded from one young woman on the
other side of the table, "Oh, my goodness! Isaac Asimovl"

And instantly, Janet and I were hustled into the VIP-room and my
hopes for the Peacock Alley went a-glimmering. *

So let us turn by an easy progression of thought, to that VIP of the sub-
atomic particles: the proton.

Fully 90 percent of the mass of that portion of the Universe of which we
are most aware — the stars — consists of protons. It is therefore apparently
fair to say that the proton is the very stuff of the Universe and that if any-
thing deserves the rating of Very Important, it is the proton.

Yet just in the last year or so, the proton's proud position on the throne
of subatomic VIP-dom has been shaken.

In the first place, there is the possibility (see NOTHING AND ALL,
February 1981) that it is not the proton after all that is the stuff of the Uni-
verse, but the neutrino, and that the proton makes up only a very inconsid-
erable portion of the Universal mass.

In the second place, it is possible that the proton is not even immortal,
as has long been thought, but that after many a summer each one of the lit-
tle things faces decay and death even as you and I.

But let's start from the beginning.

At the moment, there seem to be two fundamental varieties of particles:
leptons and quarks (see GETTING DOWN TO BASICS, September 1980).

There are different sorts of leptons. First, there are the electron, the
muon, and the tauon (or tau-electron). Then, there are the mirror-image
particles, the anti-electron (or positron), the anti-muon and the anti- tauon.
Then, there is a neutrino associated with each of the above: the electron-
nuetrino, the muon-neutrino, and the tauon-neutrino, plus, of course, an
anti-neutrino for each.

*It was all right. It was a very good banquet and a lot of fun.

134 Fantasy & Science Fiction

That means 12 leptons altogether that we know of, but we can simplify
the problem somewhat by ignoring the anti-particles, since what we have
to say about the particles will hold just as firmly for the anti-particles. Fur-
thermore, we will not try to distinguish between the neutrinos since there is
a good chance that they oscillate and swap identities endlessly.

Therefore let us speak of 4 leptons — the electron, muon, tauon and
neutrino.

Different particles have different rest-masses. For instance, if we set the
rest-mass of the electron at one, the rest-mass of the muon is about 207,
and that of the tauon is about 3600. The rest-mass of the neutrino, on the
other hand, may be something like 0.0001.

Mass represents a very concentrated form of energy, and the general
tendency seems to be for massive particles to change spontaneously, into
less massive p«ir tides.

Thus, tauons tend to break down into muons, electrons and neutrinos
and to do it quickly, too. The half -life of a tauon (the period of time during
which half of them will have broken down) is only about five trillionths of
a second (5 X 10' seconds).

Muons, in turn, break down to electrons and neutrinos, but since
muons are less massive than tauons they seem to last a bit longer and have
half -lives of all of 2.2 millionths of a second (2.2 X 10 seconds). •

You might expect that electrons, then, might live a little longer still, and
break down to neutrinos, and that neutrinos, after a perhaps quite respect-
able lifetime, might melt away to complete masslessness, but that's not the
ways it works.

Leptons can't disappear altogether, provided we are dealing with parti-
cles only, or anti-particles only, and not a mixture of the two. An electron
and an anti-electron can combine and mutually annihilate, converting
themselves into zero-mass photons (which are not leptons), but that's
another thing and we're not dealing with it.

As long as we have only particles (or only anti-particles), leptons must
remain in existence; they can shift from one form to another, but cannot
disappear altogether. That is "the law of conservation of lepton number"
which also means that a lepton cannot come into existence out of a non-
lepton. (A lepton and its corresponding anti-lepton can simultaneously
come into existence out of non-leptons, but that's another thing.) And
don't ask why lepton number is conserved; it's just the way the Universe
seems to be.

The conservation of lepton number means that the neutrino, at least.

Science 135

should be immortal and should never decay, since no still-less-massive lep-
ton exists for it to change into. This fits the facts, as nearly as we can tell.

But why should the electron be stable, as it seems to be? Why doesn't it
break down to neutrinos? That would not violate the law of conservation
of lepton number.

Ah, but leptons can possess another easily-measurable characteristic,
that of electric-charge.

Some of the leptons, the various neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, have no
electric charge at all. The others — the electron, the muon and the tauon —
all have an electric charge of the same size which, for historical reasons, is
considered to be negative and is usually set equal to unity. Each electron,
muon and tauon has an electric charge of -1; while every anti-electron,
anti-muon and anti-tauon has an electric charge of +1.

As it happens, there is a "law of conservation of electric charge" which
is a way of saying that electric charge is never observed to disappear into
nothing, or appear out of nothing. No lepton decay can affect the electric
charge. (Of course, an electron and an anti-electron can interact to produce
photons and the opposite charges, +1 and -1, will cancel. What's more, a
lepton and an anti-lepton can be formed simultaneously, producing both a
+ 1 and -1 charge where no charge existed before — but these are different
things from those we are discussing. We are talking about particles and
anti-particles as they exist separately.

The least massive of the leptons with charge is the electron. That means
that though more massive leptons can easily decay to the electron, the elec-
tron cannot decay because there is nothing less massive which can hold an
electric charge, and that electric charge must continue to exist.

To summarize then:

Muons and tauons can come into existence under conditions where the
general energy-concentration is locally very high, say, in connection with
particle accelerators or cosmic ray bombardment; but once formed, they
cannot last for long. Under ordinary conditions, removed from high-
energy events, we would find neither muons nor tauons, and the Universal
content of leptons is restricted to the electron and the neutrino. (Even the
anti-electron does not exist in significant numbers for reasons to be taken
up another time.)

Let us pass on next to the other basic variety of particle, the quark.
Quarks, like leptons, exist in a number of varieties, but with a number of
important differences.

136 Fantasy & Science Fiction

For one thing, quarks carry fractional electric charges, such as + Va and
-Va. (Anti-quarks have charges of -Va and -^Vi, naturally.)

Furthermore, the quarks are subject to the "strong interaction," which
is enormously more intense than the "weak interaction" to which leptons
are subject. The intensity of the strong interaction makes it unlikely (even,
perhaps, impossible) for quarks to exist in isolation. They seem to exist on-
ly in bound groups that form according to rules we needn't go into in de-
tail. One very common way of grouping is to have three quarks associate
in such a way that the overall electric charge is either 0, 1, or 2 (positive in
the case of some, negative in the case of others).

These three-quark groups are called "baryons," and there are large
numbers of them.

Again, however, the more massive baryons decay quickly into less
massive baryons and so on. As side-products of this decay, mesons are pro-
duced which are particles made up of only two quarks. There are no stable
mesons. All break down more or less rapidly into leptons, that is, into elec-
trons and neutrinos.

There is, however, a "law of conservation of baryon number" so that
whenever a baryon decays, it must produce another baryon whatever else
it produces. Naturally, when you get to the baryon of the lowest possible
mass, no further decay can take place.

The two baryons of lowest mass are the proton and the neutron, so that
any other baryon of the many dozens that can exist quickly slides down the
mass scale to become either a proton or a neutron. These two baryons are
the only ones that exist in the Universe under the ordinary conditions that
surround us. They tend to combine in varying numbers to form the atomic
nuclei.

The proton and neutron differ, most obviously in the fact that the pro-
ton has an electric charge of +1, while that of the neutron is 0. Naturally,
atomic nuclei, which are made up of protons and neutrons, all carry a posi-
tive electric charge of quantity equal to the number of protons present.
(There are also such things as anti-protons with a charge of -1, and anti-
neutrons which differ from neutrons in magnetic properties, and these
group together, to form negatively-charged nuclei and anti-matter, but
never mind that right now.)

The positively-charged nuclei attract negatively-charged electrons in
numbers that suffice to neutralize the particular nuclear charge, thus form-
ing the different atoms with which we are familiar. Different atoms, by
transferring or sharing one or more electrons, form molecules.

Science 137

But the proton and neutron differ slightly in mass, too. If we call the
electron's mass one, then the proton's mass is 1836 and the neutron's mass
is 1838.

When the two exist in combination in nuclei, they tend to even out their
properties and to become, in effect, equivalent particles. Inside nuclei, they
can be lumped together and referred to as "nucleons." The entire nucleus is
then stable, although there are nuclei where the proton-neutron mixture is
not of the proper ratio to allow a perfect evening-out of properties, and
which are therefore radioactive — but that's another story.

When the neutron is in isolation, however, it is not stable. It tends to
decay into the slightly less massive proton. It emits an electron, which car-
ries off a negative charge, leaving a positive charge behind on what had
been a neutron. (This simultaneous production of a negative and a positive
charge does not violate the law of conservation of electric charge.) A neu-
trino is also formed.

The mass difference between proton and neutron is so small that the
neutron doesn't decay rapidly. The half -life of the isolated neutron is about
12 minutes.

This means that the neutron can exist for a considerable length of time
only when it is in combination with protons, forming an atomic nucleus.
The proton, on the other hand, C2m exist all by itself for indefinite periods
and can, all by itself, form an atomic nucleus, with a single electron circling
it — forming the ordinary hydrogen atom.

The proton is thus the only truly stable baryon in existence. It, along
with the electron and the neutrino (plus a few neutrons that exist in atomic
nuclei), make up virtually all the rest-mass of the Universe. And since pro-
tons outshine the others in either number or individual rest-mass, the pro-
ton makes up 90 percent of the mass of such objects as stars. (The neutrinos
may be more massive, in total, but they exist chiefly in interstellar space.)

Consider the situation, however, if matters were the other way around
and if the neutron were slightly less massive than the proton. In that case,
the proton would be unstable and would decay to a neutron, giving up its
charge in the form of a positively-charged anti-electron (plus a neutrino).
The anti-electrons so formed would annihilate the electrons of the
Universe, together with the electric charge of both, and left behind would
be only the neutrons and neutrinos. The neutrons would gather, under the
pull of their overall gravitational field, into tiny neutron stars, and those
would be the sole significant structures of the Universe.

Life as we know it, would, of course, be utterly impossible in a neutron-

138 Fantasy & Science Fiction

dominated Universe, and it is only the good fortune that the proton is
slightly less massive than the neutron, rather than vice versa, that gives us
expanded stars, and atoms — and life.

Everything, then, depends on the proton's stability. How stable is it?
Our measurements show no signs of proton-decay, but our measurements
are not infinitely delicate and precise. The decay might be there but might
be taking place too slowly for our instruments to catch it.

Physicists afe now evolving something called the "Grand Unified Theo-
ry" (GUT), by which one overall description will cover the electromagnetic
interaction (affecting charged particles), the weak interaction (affecting lep>-
tons), and the strong interaction (affecting quarks and quark-groupings
such as mesons and baryons and atomic nuclei).

According to GUT, each of the three interactions is mediated by "ex-
change particles" with properties dictated by the necessity of making the
theory fit what is already known. The electromagnetic exchange particle is
the photon, which is a known particle and very well understood. In fact,
the electromagnetic interaction is well-described by "quantum electrody-
namics" which serves as a model for the rest of the GUT.

The weak interaction is mediated by three particles symbolized as W ,
W and Z°, which have not yet been detected. The strong interaction is me-
diated by no less than eight "gluons," for whose existence there is
reasonable evidence, albeit indirect.

The more massive an exchange particle is, the shorter its range. The
photon has a rest-mass of zero, so electromagnetism is a very long-range in-
teraction and falls off only as the square of the distance. (The same is true
of the gravitational interaction, which has the zero-mass graviton as the ex-
change particle, but the gravitational interaction has so far resisted all ef-
forts to unify it with the other three.)

The weak-exchange particles and the gluons have considerable mass,
however, and therefore the intensity of their influence falls off so rapidly
with distance that that influence is measurable only at distances compara-
ble in size to the diameter of the atomic nucleus, which is only a tenth of a
trillionth of a centimeter (10' centimeters) across or so.

GUT, however, in order to work, seems to make necessary the exist-
ence of no less than twelve more exchange particles, much more massive
than any of the other exchange particles, therefore extremely short-lived
and difficult to observe. If they could be observed, their existence would be
powerful evidence in favor of GUT.

Science 139

It seems quite unlikely that these ultra-massive exchange particles can
be directly detected in the foreseeable future, but. it would be sufficient to
detect their effects, if those effects were completely unlike those produced
by any other exchange particles. And such an effect does (or, at any rate,
might) exist.

If one of these hyper-massive exchange particles should happen to be
transferred from one quark to another within a proton, a quark would be
changed to a lepton, thus breaking both the law of conservation of baryon
number and the law of conservation of lepton number. The proton, losing
one of its quarks, becomes a positively-charged meson that quickly decays
into anti-electrons, neutrinos and photons.

The hyper-massive exchange particles are so massive, however, that
their range of action is roughly 10' centimeters. This is only a tenth of a
quadrillionth (10' ) the diameter of the atomic nucleus. This means that
the point-sized quarks can rattle around inside a proton for a long, long
time without ever getting sufficiently close to one another to exchange a
proton-destroying exchange particle.

In order to get a picture of the difficulty of the task of proton-decay,
imagine the proton to be a hollow structure the size of the planet Earth, and
that inside that vast planetary hollow were exactly three objects, each
about a hundred-millionth of a centimeter in diameter — in other words,
just about the size of an atom in our world. Those "atoms" would have di-
ameters that represent the range of action of the hyper-massive exchange
particles.

These "atoms," within that Earth-sized volume, moving about random-
ly, would have to collide before the proton vyould be sent into decay. You
can easily see that such a collision is not likely to happen for a long, long
time.

The necessary calculation makes it seem that the half-life for such pro-
ton decay is ten million trillion trillion years (10"^ years). After many a
summer, in other words, dies the proton — but after many, many, MANY
a summer.

To get an idea of how-long a period of time the proton's half-life is, con-
sider that the lifetime of the Universe to this point is usually taken as
15,000,000,000 years — fifteen billion in words, 1.5 X 10 years in expo-
nential notation.

The expected lifetime of the proton is roughly 6 hundred million trillion
(6 X 10^^) times that.

If we set the mighty life of the Universe as the equivalent of one second,

140 Fantasy & Science Fiction

then the expected half-life of the proton would be the equivalent of two
hundred trillion years. In other words, to a proton, the entire lifetime of the
Universe is far, far less than an eyeblink.

Considering the long-lived nature of a proton, it is no wonder that its

decay has not been noted and that scientists have not detected the breakage

of the laws of conservation of baryon number and lepton number and have

gone on thinking of those two laws as absolutes.

Might it not be reasonable, in fact, to ignore proton-decay? Surely a
■1-1

half-life of 10 years is so near to infinite in a practicad sense, that it might
as well be taken as infinite and forgotten.

However, physicists can't do that. They must try to measure the half-
life of proton decay, if they can. If it turns out to be indeed 10 years, then
that is powerful support for GUT; and if it turns out that the proton is truly
stable then GUT is invalid or, at the very least, would require important
modification.

A half-life of 10 years doesn't mean that protons will all last for that
long and then just as the last of those years elapses, half of them will decay
at once. Those atom-sized objects moving about in an Earth-sized hollow
could, by the happenstance of random movement, manage to collide after

a single year of movement, or even a single second. They might, on the

100 1000

other hand, just happen to move about for 10 or even lo^^^^^ years

without colliding.

Even a 10 -year half -life means there are protons decaying everywhere
in the Universe in any given second. In fact, if the half -life of the proton
were merely ten thousand trillion years (10 years) there would be enough
proton decays going on within our bodies to kill us with radioactivity.

Even with a half-life of 10 years, there would be enough proton
decays going on right now to destroy something like thirty thousand tril-
lion trillion trillion protons (3 X 10 ) every second in the Universe as a

whole, or three hundred thousand trillion trillion (3 X 10^^ ) every second

18
in our Galaxy alone, or three million trillion (3 X 10 ) every second in our

Sun alone, or three thousand trillion (3 X 10 ) every second in Jupiter

alone, or three billion (3 X 10 ) every second in Earth's oceans.

This begins to look uncomfortably high, perhaps. Three billion proton
decays every second in our oceans? How is that possible with an expected
lifetime so long that the entire life of the Universe is very nearly nothing in
comparison.

We must realize how small a proton is and how large the Universe is.

Science 141

Even at the figures I've given above it turns out that only enough protons
decay in the course of a billion years throughout the entire Universe to be
equivalent to the mass of a star like our Sun. This means that in the total
lifetime of our Universe so far, the Universe has lost through proton-decay
the equivalent of 15 stars the mass of the Sun.

Since there are 10, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, OCX), 000 (ten billion trillion or
10^^) stai:s in the Universe as a whole, the loss of 15 through proton-decay
can easily be ignored.

Put it another way — In one second of the hydrogen fusion required to
keep it radiating at its present rate, the Sun loses six times as much mass as
it has lost through proton decay during the entire five-billion-year period
during which it has been shining.

The fact that, despite the immensely long half-life of the proton, decays
go on steadily at all times, raises the possibility of the detection of those decays.

Three billion decays every second in our oceans sounds as though it
should be detectable — but we can't study the ocean as a whole with our
instruments and we can't isolate the ocean from other possibly obscuring
phenomena.

Nevertheless, tests on considerably smaller samples have fixed the half-
life of the proton as no shorter than 10^ years. In other words, experi-
ments have been conducted where, if the proton's half-life was shorter than
10^ years, protons would have been caught in the act of decaying — and
they weren't. And 10^ years is a period of time only 1/100 the length of
10^-^ years.

That means that our most delicate detecting devices combined with our
most careful procedures need only be made a hundred times more delicate
and careful in order just barely to detect the actual decay of protons if the GUT
is on the nose. Considering the steady manner in which the field of subatomic
physics has been advancing this century, this is a rather hopeful situation.

The attempt is being made, actually. In Ohio, the necessary apparatus
is being prepared. Something like ten thousand tons of water will be gath-
ered in a salt mine deep enough in the Earth to shield it from cosmic rays
(which could produce effects that might be confused with those arising
from proton decay).

There would be expected to be 100 decays per year under these condi-
tions, and a long meticulous watch may, just possibly, may, produce re-
sults that will confirm the Grand Unified Theory and take us a long step
forward indeed in our understanding of the Universe.

142 Fantasy & Science Fiction

Jane Yolen's distinctive fantasy stories have appeared in F&SF
over the past several years, but here she turns to science fiction
with most satisfactory results. The story concerns an underwater
project known as Hydrospace IV, which moves in a surprising
direction.

The Corridors of
the Sea

H

BY

JANE YOLEN

'e's awfully small for a hero,"
said the green-smocked technician. He
smirked as the door irised closed be-
hind the object of his derision.

'The better to sneak through the
corridors of the sea," answered his
companion, a badge-two doctoral can-
didate. Her voice implied italics.

"Well, Eddystone is a kind of
hero," said a third, coming up behind
them suddenly and leaning uninvited
into the conversation. "He invented
the Breather. Why shouldn't he be the
one to try it out? There's only one
Breather after all."

"And only one Eddystone," the
woman said, a shade too quickly.
"And wouldn't you know he'd make
the Breather too small for anyone but
himself."

"Still, he is the one who's risking
his life."

"Don't cousteau us, Gabe Whit-

comb." The tech was furious. 'There
aren't supposed to be any heroes on
Hydrospace. We do this together or we
don't do it at all. It's thinking like that
that almost cost us our funding last
year."

Whitcomb had no answer to the
charge, parroted as it was from the
very releases he wrote for the tele-
reports and interlab memos, words he
believed in.

The three separated and Whitcomb
headed through the door after Eddy-
stone. The other two went down the
lift to their own lab section. They were
not involved with the Breather test,
whose techs wore yellow smocks.
Rather, they were working on
developing the elusive fluid-damping
skin.

"Damned jealous Dampers," Whit-
comb whispered himself as he stepped
through the door. But at the moment

The Corridors Of The Sea

143

of speaking, he knew his anger was
useless and, in fact, wrong. The
Dampers of the lab might indeed be
jealous that the Breather project had
developed faster and come to fruition
first. But it should not matter in as
compact a group as Hydrospace IV.
What affected one, affected all. That
was canon here. That was why hero-
worship was anathema to them. All ex-
cept Tom Eddystone, little Tommy Ed-
dystone, who went his own inimitable
way and answered his own siren song.
He hadn't changed, Gabe mused, in
the twenty years they had been
friends. The closest friends imaginable,
since neither of them were married.

Eddystone was ahead of him, in his
bathing suit and tank top, moving
slowly down the hall. It was easy for
Gabe to catch up. Not only were Eddy-
stone's strides shorter than most, but
the recent Breather operation gave him
a gingerly gait, as if he had an advanc-
ed case of Parkinson's. He walked on
the balls of his feet, leaning forward.
He carried himself carefully now, com-
pensating for the added weight of the
Breather organs.

"Tommy," Gabe called out breath-
lessly, pretending he had to hurry and
wanted Eddystone to wait. It was part
of a built-in tact that made such an ex-
cellent tele-flak. But Eddystone was
not fooled. It was just a game they al-
ways played.

Eddystone stopped and turned
slowly, moving as if he were going
through water. Or mud. Gabe wonder-

ed at the strain that showed in his eyes.
Probably the result of worry since the
doctors all agreed that the time for
pain from the operation itself should
be past.

"Are you ready for the press con-
ference?" Gabe's question was pro
forma. Eddystone was always ready to
promote his ideas. He was a man who
lived comfortably in his head and al-
ways invited others to come in for a
visit.

A scowl was Eddystone's answer.

For a moment Gabe wondered if
the operation had affected Eddystone's
personality as well. Then he shrugged
and cuffed the little man lightly on the
shoulder. "Come on, Tom-the-giant-
killer," he said, a name he had invent-
ed for Eddystone when they had been
in grade school together and Tommy's
tongue had more than once gotten
them both out of scrapes.

Eddystone smiled a bit and the tri-
ple striations under his collarbones, the
most visible reminders of the opera-
tion, reddened. Then he opened and
shut his mouth several times like a fish
out of water, gasping for breath.

"Tommy, are you all right?" Gabe's
concern was evident in every word.

"I've just been Down Under is all,"
Eddystone said in his high, reedy
voice.

"And..." Gabe prompted.

Eddystone's mouth got thin. "And
. . . it's easier Down Under." He sudden-
ly looked right up into Gabe's eyes and
reached for his friend's arms. His grip

144

Fantasy & Science Fiction

was stronger than those fine bones
would suggest. Eddystone worked se-
cretly with weights. Only Gabe knew
about it. "And it's becoming harder
and harder each time to come back to
shore."

"Harder?" The question hung be-
tween them, but Eddystone did not
elaborate. He turned away slowly and
once more moved gingerly down the
hall towards the press room. He did
not speak again and Gabe walked
equally silent beside him.

Once in the room, Eddystone went
right to the front and slumped into the
armed chair that sat before the charts
and screen. He paid no attention to the
reporters and Hydrospace aides who
clus|ered around him.

Gabe stopped to shake hands with
reporters and camera persons he recog-
nized, and he recognized most of them.
That was his job, after all, and he was
damned good at it. For the moment he
managed to take their attention away
from Eddystone, who was breathing
heavily. But by the time Gabe had
organized everyone into chairs, Ed-
dystone had recovered and was sitting,
quietly composed and waiting.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Gabe be-
gan, then gave a big smile. "Or rather I
should say, friends, since we have all
been through a lot together at Hydro-
space IV." He waited for the return
smiles, got them, and continued.
"Most of you already know about our
attempts here at the labs." He gestured
to include the aides in his remarks.

"And I know that some of you
have made some pretty shrewd guesses
as to Dr. Eddy stone's recent disappear-
ance. In fact, one of you..." and he
turned to speak directly to Janney
Hyatt, the dark-haired science editor
of the ERA channels, "...even ferreted
out his hospital stay. But none of you
came close to the real news. So we are
going to give it to you straight.
Today."

The reporters buzzed and the cam-
era operators jockeyed for position.

"As you can see. Dr. Eddystone is
not in his usual three-piece suit." Gabe
turned and nodded at the chair. It
drew an appreciative chuckle because
Eddystone rarely dressed up, jeans and
a dirty sweatshirt being his usual fare.
He never tried to impress anyone with
his physical appearance since he knew
it was so unprepossessing. He was less
than five feet tall, large nosed, pop-
eyed. But his quick mind, his brilliant
yet romantic scientific insights, his
ability to make even the dullest listener
understand the beauty he perceived in
science, made his sweatshirt a uniform,
the dirt stains a badge.

"In fact. Dr. Eddystone is wearing
his swim suit plus a tank top so as not
to offend the sensibilities of any watch-
ers out there in newsland."

Some of the reporters applauded at
this but Janney Hyatt scowled. Even
the suggestion of sensibilities filled her
with righteous indignation, as if Gabe
had suggested it was women's sensibili-
ties he was referring to.

The Corridors Of The Sea

145

"Dr. Eddystone has been Down
Under, our designation of the water
world around Hydrospace IV. It is his
third trip this week and he wore just
what you see him in now, minus the
tank top of course. He was under for
twenty minutes the first time. The se-
cond time he stayed under forty
minutes. And this last time — Dr. Ed-
dystone?"

Eddystone held his reply until ev-
ery eye was on him. Then he spoke, his
light voice carrying to the back of the
room. "I was under sixty minutes. I
breathe harder on land now than I do
in the sea."

There was bedlam in the room as
the reporters jumped up, trying to ask
questions. Finally one question shout-
ed above the others spoke for them all.
"You mean you were under sixty mi-
nutes without scuba gear?"

"Without anything," said Eddy-
stone, standing up for effect. "As you
see me."

The silence that followed was
palpable and Gabe walked into it with
his prepared speech. "You know that
living under water has always been the
goal of this particular Hydrospace lab:
living under water without mechanical
apparatus or bubble cities." It was a
slight dig at the Hydrospace labs I, II,
and III, and he hoped he would be for-
given it in the flush of their success.
'That is what all our experiments, as
secret as they have had to be, are all
about. Dr. Eddystone headed the pro-
ject on what we have called the Breath-

er. Dr. Lemar's group has been work-
ing on a fluid-damping skin."

Everyone was listening. A few were
taking notes. The cameras rolled. Gabe
could feel the attention, and contin-
ued.

"When we first decided to prepare
the bionics to allow a person to breathe
water as easily as air, we took a lot of
ribbing. Conservative marine biolo-
gists dubbed our lab Eddy stone's Folly
and our group the Cousteau Corpora-
tion. But we knew that the science was
there. We had two possible approaches
we were considering.

"The first was to implant a mechan-
ical system which would extract the
dissolved oxygen from the water and
present it directly to the lungs. From
there on, normal physiology would
take over. The other choice was to im-
plant a biological system, such as gills,
from some chosen fish, which would
load the blood directly with oxygen,
thus by-passing the lungs."

Eddystone sat quietly, nodding at
each point Gabe ticked off. Gabe look-
ed around the room for questions.
There were none.

"Of course you realize," he con-
tinued, "that both systems required the
normal functioning of the musculature
of breathing: one to pull the oxygen
from the apparatus, the other to pass
water over the implanted gills."

Janney Hyatt raised her hand and,
to soothe her earlier anger at his "sensi-
bilities" remark, Gabe called on her at
once.

146

Fantasy & Science Fiction

"What was the mechanical system
to be made of?" she asked.

"Good question," said Gabe. "The
earlier bionics experts felt more com-
fortable with metal, plastics, and elec-

^ tronics. So they opted for a di-oxygen-

\ ation module. Doxy mod, which was
basically an add-on option for the un-
derwater human. We were going to try

I it on some dogs first, water dogs, possi-
bly Labradors or a springer spaniel.
Trouble surfaced immediately."

Laughter stopped Gabe until he re-
alized his unintentional pun. He smiled
and shrugged winningly and went on.

I "Making a Doxymod small enough
and light enough was the first problem
of course. And once we had produced

\ it — Dr. Eddystone and his staff pro-
duced it — we could think of no good
reason to implant it. It needed batteries

; and that meant it had a built-in time
limit. Just what we had been tiying to
avoid. All we had. after all that work,
was tankless scuba gear. We were sim-
ply replacing the oxygen tanks with
batteries. More mobile, perhaps,
but...."

"In other words," added one of Ed-
dystone's aides brightly, "not a fail-
safe system. Batteries run down and
need recharging."

The reporters whispered together.
One tentatively raised his hand, but
Gabe ignored him. He felt things build-
ing and, like any good performer, he
knew it was time to continue.

"So we turned to the gill system.
Modem medicine had already solved

the rejection syndrome, as you know,
at least within phylum. Using pigs for
heart valves and the like. But we knew
nothing about cross-phyla work. We
expected a lot of trouble — and were
surprised when we encountered very
litde. Men and fish, it turns out, go
well together. Something seafood lov-
ers have long been aware of I In fact, it
occurred to one of our bright-eyed tech
threes on a dissertation project that we
could even produce a classically com-
posed mermaid with a small woman
and a large grouper tail. Could — if
anyone could think of good reason
why, that is."

It drew the laugh Gabe expected.
Even Janney Hyatt smiled quickly be-
fore reverting to her customary scowl.

Gabe nodded once to his assistant
sitting in the far back next to the pro-
jector. She caught his signal and dim-
med the lights, flicking on the projec-
tor at the same time. The first slide fo-
cused automatically above Eddystone's
head. It was of a large tuna on a white
background, with five smaller fish be-
low it. Gabe took up the pointer which
had been resting against the table and
placed the tip on the blue.

"A lot of time and thought went in-
to the question of whether to use the
gills of a human-sized fish like this tuna
or an array of smaller gills taken from
several fish, perhaps even from differ-
ent species." He pointed in turn to the
other fish on the screen, naming them.
"But as often happ)ens in science, the
simple solution proved best. Two large

The Corridors Of The Sea

147

gills were inserted in the skin, just un-
der the collar bones. ..." The next slide,
a detailed sketch of a human figure,
appeared. "And ducts leading from the
brachael passages through triunal
openings completed the alterations."

The next slides, in rapid succession,
were of the actual operation.

"Valves were implanted, special
plastic valves, that allowed either the
lungs or the gills to be used. These
went into the throat."

"So you made an amphibian," call-
ed out a grey-haired science writer
from the Times.

"That was our intention," said Ed-
dystone, standing up slowly. The final
slide, of fish in the ocean, had snicked
into place and was now projected onto
his body. He threw an enormous sha-
dow onto the screen.

Sensing an Eddystone speech, Gabe
signaled his assistant with his hand,
but she was already ahead of him,
flicking off the projector and raising
the lights.

"But something more happened.
Think of it," said Eddystone. "We can
walk on the moon, but not live there.
We cannot even attempt a landing on
Venus or breathe the Martian air. But
the waters of our own world are wait-
ing for us. They cradled us when we
took our first hesitant steps into higher
phyla. Why even now, in the womb,
the fetus floats in la mer, the mother
sea. Our blood is liquid, our bodies
mostly water. We speak of human-
kind's exodus from the sea as an im-

provement on the race. But I tell you
now that our return to it will be even
more momentous. I am not an explorer
... not an explorer taking one giant
step for mankind. I am a child going
home some million years after
leaving."

The speech seemed to have ex-
hausted him. Eddystone slumped back
into his chair. Gabe stood over him
protectively. But his own thoughts
warred with his emotions. Even for Ed-
dystone it was a romantic, emotional
outburst. A regular cousteau. Gabe
knew that he had always been the
more conservative of the two of them,
but he worried anew that the Breather
mechanism might be affecting Eddy-
stone in ways that had not been calcu-
lated. He put a hand on his friend's
shoulder and was appalled to find it
slippery with sweat. Perhaps a fever
had set in.

"That's all now, ladies and gentle-
men," Gabe said smoothly to the audi-
ence, not letting his alarm show. "To-
morrow, tide and time willing, at 0900
hours, we will give you a demonstra-
tion of the Breather. Right now Dr. Ed-
dystone has to be run through some
last-minute lab tests. However, my as-
sistants will see to it that you receive
the information you need for the tech-
nical end of your reports. Each pack
has scientific and historical details,*
charts, and a bio sheet on Dr. Eddy-
stone, plus photos from the operation.
Thank you for coming."

The reporters dutifully collected

148

Fantasy & Science Fiction

their material from the aides and tried
to bully further answers from the staff
while Gabe shepherded Eddy stone out
the door marked NO ENTRY/TECH
ONLY. It locked behind him and
would only respond to a code that Hy-
drospace workers knew.

I

n the deserted back hall, Eddystone
turned. "What last-minute tests?" he
asked.

"No tests," Gabe said. "Questions.
And I want to do the asking. You are
going to give me some straight an-
swers. Tommy. No romances. No cou-
steaus. What's going on? I felt your
shoulder in there. It's all sweaty. Are
you running a fever? Is there rejection
starting?"

Eddystone looked up at him and
smiled. "Not rejection," he said,
chuckling a bit at a projected joke.
"Rather call it an acceptance."

"Make sense. Tommy. I'm a friend,
remember. Your oldest friend." Gabe
put out his hand as a gesture of good
will and was surprised when Eddy-
stone grabbed his hand, for his palm
was slick.

Eddystone took Gabe's hand and
ran it up and down his arm, across his
chest where it was exposed. The gill
slits were closed but the tissue was
ridged and slightly puckered. Gabe
wanted to flinch, controlled it.

"Feel this so-called sweat," Eddy-
stone said. 'Tou can't really see it, but
it's there. I thought at first I was imag-

ining it, but now I know. You feel it,
too, Gabe. It's not sweat, not sweat at
all.

Gabe drew his hand away gently.
"Then what the hell is it?"

"It's the body's way of accepting its
new life — underwater. It's the fluid-
damping skin that Lemar and her kids
have been trying for all these months.
Seems you can't build it in, Gabe. But
once the body has been re-adapted for
life in the sea, it just comes."

"Then we'd better test you out.
Tommy. They lab is where you belong
now." Gabe started walking.

"No, don't you see," Eddystone
said to Gabe's back, "that's not where I
belong. I belong in the sea." His voice
was almost a whisper but the passion
in his statement was unmistakable.

"Lab first. Tommy. Or there won't
be any 0900 for you — or any of us —
tomorrow." Gabe continued to walk
and was relieved to hear Eddystone's
footsteps following him. He had sur-
prised himself with the firmness of his
tone. After all, Eddystone was the
head of the lab while he, Gabe, was
only the link with outside, with the
grants and the news. Ye. eddystone
was letting himself be lead, pushed,
carried in a way he had never allowed
before. As if he had lost his will power,
Gabe thought, and the thought bother-
ed him.

They came into the lab and Gabe
turned at last. Eddystone was as pale
as fishbelly, and starting to gasp again.
There was no sign of that strange sweat

The Corridors Of The Sea

149

on his body, yet when Gabe took his
arm to lead him through the door, he
could feel the moisture. The skin itself
seemed to be impregnated with the in-
visible fluid.

The lab was typical of Hydrospace,
being half aquarium. It had small en-
closed tanks filled with fish and sea life
as well as a single wall of glass fronting
directly on the ocean. Since the lab was
on the lowest Hydrospace floor, rest-
ing on ocean bottom, the window let
the scientists keep an eye on the fish
and plants within the ecosystem with-
out the necessity of diving. For longer,
far-ranging expeditions, there were
several lab-subs and for divers work-
ing within a mile radius of Hydro-
space, a series of locks and wet-rooms
leading off of the lab. There was no
chance of the bends if a diver came and
went from the bottom floor of Hydro-
space IV.

Only two techs were in the lab,
both in their identifying yellow
smocks, One was feeding tank speci-
mens, the other checking out the data
on the latest mariculture fields. They
looked up, nodded briefly, and went
back to work.

"Look," Eddystone said to Gabe in
a lowered voice, "I'm going to go out
there now and I want you to watch
through the window. I'll stay close
enough for you to track me. Tell me
what happens out there. Wha^ you see.
I know what / see. But it's like this
skin. I need to know someone else sees
it, too. When I come back in, you can

test all night if you want. But you have
to see me Down Under."

Gabe shook his head. "I don't like
it, Tommy. Let me get some of the
techs. Lemar, too."

Eddystone smiled that crooked grin
that turned his homely face into an ir-
repressible imp's countenance. "Just
us, Gabe. The two of us. It's always
been that way. I want you to see it
first."

Gabe shook his head again, but re-
luctantly agreed. "If you pronuse to
test...."

"I promise you anything you
want," Eddystone answered, a shade
too quickly.

"Don't con me. Tommy. I know
you too well. Have known you too
long. You are the one person who isn't
expendable on this project."

"I don't plan to be expended," Ed-
dystone answered, grinning. He walk-
ed to the door that led to the series of
locks, turned, and waved. "And give
those techs," he said, signaling with his
head, "give 'em the night off." Then he
was gone through the door.

Gabe could hear the sounds of the
prefssure-changing device, clicking and
sighing, through the intercom. He
went over to the techs. "Dr. Eddystone
wants me to clear the lab for a few
hours."

"We were just leaving anyway,"
said one. To prove she was finished,
she reached up and pulled out a large
barrette that had held her hair back in
a tight bun. As the blondish hair spill-

150

Fantasy & Science Fiction

ed over her shoulders, she gave Gabe a
quick noncommittal smile and shrug-
ged out of the yellow smock. She fold-
ed it into a small, neat square and
stowed it away in a locker. Her friend
was a step behind. Once they had left
the lab, Gabe turned on the red neon
testing sign over the door and locked
it. No one would be able to come in
now.

He went to the window and wait-
ed. It took ten minutes for anyone to
go through the entire series of locks in-
to the water, over a half-hour for the
same person to return. The locks could
not be overridden manually, though
there was a secret code for emergencies
kept in a black book in Eddystone's file
cabinet. He adjusted the special sea-
specs that allowed him to see clearly
through pressure-sensitive glass.

Right outside the station grew a
hodgepodge of undersea plants. Some
had been set in purposefully to act as
hiding places for the smaller fish, to en-
tice them closer to the window for easy
viewing. Others had drifted in and at-
tached themselves to the sides of the
station, to the rock ledges left by the
original builders of Hydrospace, to the
sandy bottom of the sea.

While Gabe watched, a school of
pout swam by, suddenly diving and
turning together, on some kind of in-
visible signal. Though he knew the
technical explanations for schooling —
that the movement as a unit was made
possible by visual stimulation and by
pressure-sensitive lateral lines on each

fish responding to the minutest vibra-
tions in the water, the natural choreo-
graphy of schooled fish never ceased to
delight him. It was the one cousteau he
permitted himself, that the fish danced.
He was smiling when the school sud-
denly broke apart and reformed far off
to the right of the window, almost out
of sight. A dark shadow was emerging
from the locks. Eddystone.

Gabe had expected him to swim in
the rolling overhand most divers af-
fected. But, instead, Eddystone moved
with the boneless insinuations of an
eel. He seemed to undulate through the
water, his feet and legs moving
together, fluidly pumping him along.
His arms were not overhead but by his
side, the hands fluttering like fins. It
was not a motion that a man should be
able to make comfortably, yet he made
it with a flowing ease that quickly
brought him alongside the window. He
turned once to stand upright so that
Gabe could get a close look at him.
With a shock, Gabe realized that Ed-
dystone was entirely naked. He had
not noticed it at first because Eddy-
stone's genitals were not visible, as if
they had retracted into the body cavi-
ty. Gabe moved closer and bumped his
head against the glass.

As if the noise frightened him, Ed-
dystone jerked back.

"Tommyl" Gabe cried out, a howl
he did not at first recognize as his own.
But the glass was too thick for him to
be heard. He tried to sign in the short-
hand they had developed for divers

The Corridors Of The Sea

151

outside the window. But before he
*tould lift a finger, Eddystone had turn-
ed, pumped once, and was gone.

I he second eyelid lifted and Eddy-
stone stared at the world around him.
The softly filtered light encouraged
dreaming. He saw, on the periphery of
clear sight, the flickerings of fish dart-
ing. Some subtle emanation floated on
the stream past him. He flipped over,
righted himself with a casual cupping
of his palms and waited. He was not
sure for what.

She came towards him trailing a
line of lovers, but he saw only Her.
The swirls of sea-green hair streamed
behind Her, and there were tiny conch
caught up like barrettes behind each
ear. Her body was childlike, with un-
derdeveloped breasts as perfect and
pink as bubbleshells, and a tail that re-
sembled legs, so deep was the cleft in
it. When She stopped to look at him.
Her hair swirled about Her body,
masking Her breasts. Her eyes were as
green as Her hair. Her mouth full and
the teeth as small and white and round-
ed as pearls. She held a hand out to
him, and the webbing between Her fin-
gers was translucent and pulsing.

Eddystone moved towards Her,
pulled on by a desire he could not
name. But there were suddenly others
there before him, four large, bullish-
looking males with broad shoulders
and deep chests and squinty little eyes.
They ringed around Her, and one,

more forward than the rest, put his
hands on Her body and rubbed them
up and down Her sides. She smiled and
let the male touch Her for a moment,
then pushed him away. He went back
to the outer circle with the others,
waiting. She held up Her hands again
to Eddystone and he swam cautiously
to Her touch.

Her skin was as smooth and fluid as
an eel's, and his hands slipped easily up
and over Her breasts. But he was both-
ered by the presence of the others and
hesitated.

She flipped her tail and was away,
the line of males behind Her. They
moved too quickly for him, and when
they left, it was as if a spell was bro-
ken. He turned back towards the sta-
tion.

"Tommy," Gabe's voice boomed
into the locks. "I hear you in there.
Where did you go? One minute you
were here, then you took off after a
herd of Sirenia and were gone."

The only answer from the intercom
was a slow, stumbling hiss. Gabe could
only guess that it was Eddystone's
breathing readjusting to the air, as the
implanted valves responded to the situ-
ation. But he did not like the sound,
did not like it at all. When the last lock
sighed open, he was into it and found
Eddystone collapsed on the floor, still
naked and gasping.

"Tommy, wake up. For God's sake,
get up." He knell ly Eddystone's side
and ran his hands under his friend's

152

Fantasy & Science Fiction

neck. The slipperiness was more
apparent than before. Picking him up,
Gabe had to cradle Eddystone close
against his chest to keep him from
sliding away. As Gabe watched, the
gill slits fluttered open and shut under
Eddystone's collarbone.

"I've got to get you to
MedCentral," he whispered into Eddy-
stone's ear. "Something is malfunction-
ing with the valves. Hold on, buddy.
I'll get you through." He ran through
the lab and was working frantically to
unlock the door without dropping Ed-
dystone when he looked down. To his
horror, Eddystone had halfway open-
ed his eyes and one of them was par-
tially covered with a second, transpar-
ent eyelid.

"Take me ... take me back," Eddy-
stone whispered.

^ "Not on your life," Gabe answered.
' "It IS on my life," Eddystone said in
that same hoarse croaking.

Gabe stopped. "Tommy."

The membranous eyelid flicked
open and he struggled in Gabe's arms.
"It calls me," he said. "She calls."

"Jesus, Tommy, I don't know what
you mean — she. The sea? I don't even
know what you are, anymore."

"I am what we were all meant to
be, Gabe. Take me back. I can't
breathe." His gasping, wheezing at-
tempts at talking had already confirm-
ed that.

Gabe turned around. "If I put you
down, could you walk?"

"I don't know. Air strangling me."

"Then I'll carry you."

Eddystone grinned up at him, a
grin as familiar as it was strange.
"Good. I carried you long enough."

Gabe tried to laugh but couldn't.
When they reached the locks, Gabe
kicked the door open with his foot.
'Tou're slippery as hell, you know," he
said. He needed to say something.

"The better to sneak through the
corridors of the sea," said Eddystone.

"God, Tommy, don't cousteau me
now."

Eddystone shook his head slowly.
"But he was right, you know, Jacques
Cousteau. The poetry, the romance,
the beauty, the longing for the secret
other. Someone sang, 'what we lose on
the land we will find in the sea.' It's all
out there."

"Fish are out there. Tommy. And
reefs. And the possibility of vast farms
to feed a starving humanity. And
sharks. And pods of whale. The mer-
maid is nothing more than a bad case
of hominess or a near-sighted sailor
looking at a manatee. Sea creatures
don't build. Tommy. There are no
houses and no factories under the wa-
ter. Dolphin don't weave. Dugongs
don't tell stories. And whale songs are
only music because romantics believe
them so. Come on. Tommy. You're a
scientist. You know that. Metaphors
are words. Words. They don't exist.
They don't live."

Eddystone gave him that strange
grin once more and threw out an old
punch line at him. "You call this liv-

The Corridors Of The Sea

153

ing?" He tried to laugh but began to
wheeze instead.

Gabe punched the lock mechanism
with his elbow and the door shut be-
hind them. "I'm going Down Under
with you this time. Tommy," he said.

"Yes and no," Eddystone answered
cryptically.

Eddystone lay on the bench and
watched as Gabe picked out one of the
fits-all trunks from a hook. He slipped
out of his clothes and got into the swim
suit, hanging his clothes neatly on a
hanger. When the timer announced the
opening of the next lock, he was ready.
He picked Eddystone up and walked
through into the second room.

Despositing the little man on
another bench, Gabe got into the scu-
ba gear. There were always at least six
tanks in readiness.

"Remember the first time we learn-
ed to dive?" Gabe asked. "And you
were so excited, you didn't come off
the bottom of the swimming pool until
your air just about ran out and the in-
structor had fits?"

"I don't ... don't remember," Eddy-
stone said quietly in a very distant
way.

"Of course you remember. Tom-
my."

Eddystone did not answer.

They went into the next room, Ed-
dystone leaning heavily on Gabe's
arm. This was the first of the two wet-
rooms, where the water fed slowly in
through piping, giving divers time for
any last minute checks of their gear.

No sooner had the water started in
than Eddystone rolled off the bench
where he had been lying down and
stretched out on the floor. The rising
water puddled around him, slowly
covering his body. As it closed over
the gill slits in his chest, he smiled. It
was the slow Eddystone smile that
Gabe knew so well. Eddystone ran a
finger in and around the gill slits as if
cleaning them.

Gabe said nothing but watched as if
he were discovering a new species.

When the door opened automatic-
ally, mixing the water in the first wet-
room with the ocean water funneled
into the second, Eddystone swam in
alone. He swam underwater, but Gabe
walked along, keeping his head in the
few inches of airi In the last lock, Ed-
dystone surfaced for a moment and
held a hand out toward Gabe. There
was a strange webbing between the
thumb and first finger that Gabe could
swear had never been there before.
Blue veins, as meandering as old rivers,
ran through the webbing.

Gabe took the offered hand and
held it up to his cheek. Without mean-
ing to, he began to cry. Eddystone
freed his hand and touched one of the
tears.

"Salt," he whispered.. "As salty as
the sea. We are closer than you think.
Closer than you now accept."

Gabe bit down on his mouthpiece
and sucked in the air. The last door
opened and the sea flooded the rest of
the chamber.

154

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Eddystone was through the door in
an instant. Even with flippers, Gabe
was left far behind. He could only fol-
low the faint trail of bubbles that Eddy-
stone laid down, A trail that was dissi-
pated in minutes. There was nothing
ahead of him but the vast ocean shot
through with rays of filtered light. He
kept up his search for almost an hour,
then turned back alone.

He quartered the ocean bottom,
searching for Her scent. Each minute
under washed away memory, 'til he
swam free of ambition and only in-
stinct drove him on.

At last he slipped, by accident, into
a current that brought him news of
Her. The water, touching the fine hairs
of his body, sent the message of Her
presence to -his nerve cells. His body
turned without his willing it towards
the lagoon where She waited.

Effortlessly he moved along, helped
by the current, and scorning the
schools of small fish swimming by his
side, he raced toward the herd.

If She recognized him. She did not
show it, but She signaled to him none-
theless by raising one hand. As he
moved towards Her, She swam out to
meet him, fondling Her own breasts.

He went right up to Her and She
drifted so that they touched. Her face
on his shoulder, nuzzling. Then She
ran Her fingers over his face and down
both sides of his head, a knowing
touch. As if satisfied. She moved
away, but he followed. He touched

Her shoulder. She did not turn, not at
first. Then, after a long moment. She
rolled and lay face up, almost motion-
less, looking up at him. She spread
apart the two halves of Her tail, expos-
ing a black slit, and arched Her back.
The not-quiet-scent struck him again,
and all the males began to circle, slow-
ly moving in. She flipped suddenly to
an upright position, and a fury of bub-
bles cascaded from Her mouth. The
males moved back, waiting.

Sh'j turned to him again, this time
switnming sinuously to his side. She
ran Her fanned-out right hand down
the front of his body, between his legs.
He trembled, feeling the pulsing mem-
branes drawing him out. He wanted to
touch Her, but could not, some rem-
nants of his humanity keeping him
apart.

When he did not touch Her, She
swam around him once more, trying to
puzzle out the difference. She put Her
face close to his, opening Her mouth as
if to speak. It was dark red and caver-
nous, the teeth really a pearly ridge.
Two bubbles formed at the comers of
Her mouth, then slowly floated away.
She had no tongue.

He tried to take Her hand and bring
it to his lips, but She pulled away. So
he put his hands on either side of Her
face and brought Her head to his. She
did not seem to know what to do. Her
mouth remaining open all the while.
He kissed Her gently on the open
mouth and, getting no response, press-
ed harder.

The Corridors Of The Sea

155

Suddenly She fastened onto him,
pressing Her body to his, Her cleft tail
twining on each side of his thighs. The
suction of Her mouth became irresisti-
ble. He felt as if his soul were being
sucked out of his body, as if something
inside was tearing, he tried desperately
to pull back and could not. He opened
his eyes briefly. Her eyes were sea-
green,' deep, fathomless, cold. Trying
to draw away, he was drawn more
closely to Her and, dying, he remem-
bered land.

His body drifted up towards the
light, turning slowly as it rose. The
water bore it gently, making sure the
limbs did not disgrace the death. His
arms rose above his head and crossed
'slightly, as if in a dive; his legs trailed
languidly behind.

She followed and after Her came
the herd. It was a silent processional
except for the murmurations of the sea.

When Eddy stone's hands broke
through the light, the herd rose into a
great circle around it, their heads
above the water's surface. One by one
they touched his body curiously, seem-
ing to support it. At last a ship found
him. Only then did they dive, one after
another. She was the last to leave.
They did not look back.

■ he press conference was brief. The
funeral service had been even briefer.
Gabe had vetoed the idea of spreading
Eddystone's ashes over the sea. "His
body belongs to Hydrospace," Gabe

had argued and, as Eddystone's oldest
friend, his words were interpeted as
Eddystone's wishes.

The medical people were wonder-
ing over the body now, with its strange |
webbings between the fingers and toes, '
and the violence with which the
Breather valves had been torn from
their moorings and set afloat inside Ed-
dystone's body. None of it made any
sense.

Gabe was trying to unriddle some-
thing more. The captain of the trawler
that had picked up Eddystone's corpse
some eight miles down the coast claim-
ed he had found it because "a herd of
dolphin had been holding it up." Scien-
tifically that seemed highly urUikely.
But, Gabe knew, there were many
stories, many folktales, legends, cou-
steaus that claimed such things to be
true. He could not, would not, let him-
self believe them.

It was Janney Hyatt at the press
conference who posed the question
Gabe had hoped not to answer.

"Do you consider Thomas Eddy-
stone a hero?" she asked.

Gabe, conscious of the entire staff,
both yellow and green smocks, behind
him took a moment before speaking.
At last he said, "There are no heroes in
Hydrospace. But if there were. Tommy
Eddystone would be one. I want you
all to remember this: he died for his
dream, but the dream still lives. It lives
Down Under. And we're going to
make Tom Eddystone's dream come
true: we're going to build cities and

156

Fantasy & Science Fiction

farms, a whole civilization, down un- dors of the sea. Mating season was
der the sea. I think — no, I know — he ' over. The female drifted off alone. The
would have liked it that way." bulb butted heads, then body surfed in

pairs along the coast. Their lives were
Out in the ocean, the herd members long, their memories short. They did
chased one another through the corri- not know how to mourn.

^^

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The Corridors Of The Sea

157

Naked Girls and Other Goofs

I thought you said that Walotsky
was going to stay away from painting
women? On the cover oi the same issue
in which you said that (May 1981) Mr.
Walotsky goofed again on his cover
for "The Thermals of August."

The girl on the cover appeared to
be naked. The author plainly said "My
flight suit feels sticky along the small of
my back; . . . ." Would it not be assumed
that all other kite pilots would also
wear kite suits, especially since it
would be cold and windy at high alti-
tudes, and a suit would supply a place
to attach the kite. The author also
mentioned a helmet which the girl on
the cover lacks.

While I'm at it, I would like to note
a few past errors. In your June 1980
issue you published a story by Rey-
nolds called "Hell's Fire." In this story
they needed to stand inside of a large
pentagram to "raise hell." For this they
used the Pentagon in Washington,
D.C. The Pentagon is not a pentagram
it is a pentagon. A pentagram, also
called a pentacle, is a five sided star
like is on the American flag.

Then you had a cover for "The Call
for the Dead" by Glen Cook on your
July 1980 issue. The story said "A pen-
tagram marked the floor surrounding
it.", "it" referring to the chair in which
the figure sat. On the cover, however,
there is a hexagram or a Star of David
or a Seal of Solomon in front of the
chair.

In most ways F&SF is a terrific
magazine. Why must you mess it up by
being careless as to what you put on
your cover? To err is human but edi-
tors are not supposed to be human.

One last nit to pick: Don't you
think the third or fourth week of
March is a bit early for me to receive
my May issue of your magazine? That
is how early all of my issues of F&SF
have been coming lately. If you have a
legitimate reason for this please ex-
plain.

— Eric Schwarzenbach
Haskell, N.J.

The advance dating is done for the
benefit of newsstand wholesalers and
retailers, who tend to quickly return
unsold any issue that approaches being
dated. Thus the May issue is on sale
during the month of April and mails to
subscribers in mid-March.

Neal Barrett's Planet, Far '*

I have no idea how much influence
you have with Mr. Neal Barrett, Jr. but
I hope that you are both able and will-
ing to insist that he continue his writ-
ing, which he started so admirably in
"A Day at the Fair" in your March
1981 issue of F&SF, about the charac-
ters he created (and the environment
he created) on the planet Far.

My interest in Science Fiction start-
ed over 30 years ago and in all that
time I can count the stories that I per-
sonally consider SUPERB on one hand
... the Far story line has just joined that
group. I consider it equal to or perhaps
better than McCaffrey's Pern story line
and Henderson's People story line.

Mr. Barrett's Far story reads as if
there might have been one or more
stories (books?) preceding it ... if so, I
can't imagine how I would have missed
them. Should there be any more Far
stories I'd pay a lot to add them to my

158

Fantasy & Science Fiction

library. Please let me know if you
know of any and where I might be able
to purchase them.

—Verne R. Walrafen
Ozawkie, KS

Neal Barrett, Jr. is now working on a
sequel to "A Day at the Fair. "

Does "the Labor Day Group" exist?

At the British Easter SF Conven-
tion, at Leeds, Tom Disch expanded
upon his remarks in F&SF, February
1981 (on 'the Labor Day Group'). I
think such a group as he describes does
exist: perhaps for two reasons: (1) that
writers feel compelled by commercial
considerations to produce 'more of the
same' (rather than 'something com-
pletely different') because assured by
their agents, editors, publishers, and
readers that such work is more reward-
ing; and, (2) that, given the relative im-
portance of visual Sci-Fi, writers wish,
by regarding their work as propagan-
da, to draw attention to Science Fic-
tion. Is SANDKINGS a re-definition of
the genre for a new audience in terms
comparable to (for example) NIGHT-
FALL'S original definition?

— A. Tidmarsh
Peterborough, U.K.

Coming up in F&SF: a response to the
Disch article by George R.R. Martin.

C. Priest: Exacting or Envious?

Christopher Priest reveals an un-
seemly amount of jealousy in his at-
tempt to review THE SNOW QUEEN
by Joan D. Vinge (F&SF, May 1981);
whether because he did not, would
not, or could not write a book of com-
parable power is unclear. Also un-
pleasant and inexplicable is Priest's
failure to even mention a central con-
cern of Vinge's book — women. One

might as well try to review a major
Cordwainer Smith work without men-
tioning Underpeople and racism. In-
stead, Priest. carps about Vinge's vo-
cabulary. We were puzzled and disap-
pointed by his review; it didn't do jus-
tice to the book, to Vinge, or to Priest
himself.

— Paulette Dickerson

& Mark Zimmermann

Silver Spring, MD

As you know from past letters I am
pleased by most of the offerings in
your magazine. I still think you have
the competition beat by a country
mile.

I am not too fond of the "GUN-
SLINGER" series — while I am a fan of
Stephen King in the book length, I us-
ually skip his shorter stuff or leave it
until last.

The same is true of the book re-
views. In reading Christopher Priest's
review of Barry Longyear's CITY OF
BARABOO I am uncertain whether he
is somewhat envious of Mr. Longyear's
success upon which he seems to dwell
or perhaps it is as Jack Woodford said:
"Oftimes critical reviews are like St.
Paul's remarks on sex; they indicate a
lack of direct experience."

At any rate, keep up the good
work. I hope I am around for my sub-
scription renewal in 1984.

—Ben Smith
Kevil, KY

Our next special issue will be on Algis
Budrys^ but while you're waiting....

I recently did a bit of interior decor-
ation that I thought might amuse you.

Recently, I moved into a larger
apartment which allowed me an office
for the first time in my career. For in-
spiration, I mounted on the wall facing
my desk all of F&SF's special author's

LeHers

159

issues in chronological order. For fur-
ther inspiration, and as a private joke,
I added an additional cover: the special
Marc Scott Zicree issue of August,
1983.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this
little bit of auto-entertainment with
you. And I'd like you to know that
when I'm stuck on some particularly
difficult turn of phrase, looking up and
seeing those benevolent faces beaming
down at me really does help. Thanks.
—Marc Scott Zicree
Los Angeles, CA

More Letters?

It is my opinion that F&SF is the
best magazine in the field. F&SF is the
oiUy magazine where all the stories are
consistently good. The only problem is
the lack of a letter column. All the let-
ters which you did print in the three
columns you printed last year were
highly literate, . and written at a stan-
dard approaching that of your stories.
Clearly your editorial taste in choosing

letters is as good as your taste for stor-
ies.

I feel that it is good for a magazine
to provide a forum for constructive
criticism. Authors may feel that they
are benefited by the criticism they re-
ceive (good or otherwise) in a letters
feature. However, the main reason for
having a letter column is to entertam
or stimulate the readers. The letters
you printed last year did both of these
to me. All I ask is that you make the
column a monthly feature.

Possibly it would be a good idea to
lay down standards for your letter col-
umn. State clearly what you think this
column would be like and should be
like.

Congratulations on the outstanding
excellence of your November & De-
cember issues, particularly "Autopsy. "
F&SF is one publication I can always
tumi to for well- written, enjoyable
stories.

— Mark Bahnisch
Kerdon, Australia

We do receive enough mail to print
a monthly letters column, however I
feel that most of it is not of enough in-
terest to publish. I would like to use a
letters column more frequently, but I
do not want to fill it with hasty and su-
perficial letters of praise, which, while
appreciated, is the nature of much of
the mail that we receive. The ideal let-
ter is, as you say, either entertaining or
stimulating, or it offers some reasoned
praise or criticism of a story or an arti-
cle. When I get more such letters, I will
rush to publish them.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

\J MAI

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