Orbit 20

by Damon Knight

  “What?” asked John, looking up from his reading. John was tired; he had a crop of new students, and they seemed more incompetent than the last bunch.

  “Antifreeze, snow tires, you know,” answered Mary.

  “Do we have to talk about it now?” said John, testily.

  “It has to be done,” persisted Mary. She glanced at the sculpture.

  “You’re right, of course. I’ll get some antifreeze tomorrow and see about having the tires changed.” He forced a smile. The knot in his stomach had changed to a pain, and the diarrhea had been worse. He would have to see a doctor about it. Now the pain came back, worse than before.

  It was Wednesday night.

  Mary was tired; it had been a long day, and she had spent most of it convincing her supervisor that indeed, it was poor manufacturing of the hardware and not her design that was causing the malfunction of the interface. She had finally won, but in all, the fiasco had cost her nearly two weeks’ work.

  John arrived and immediately began to clean up around the house. Knowing part of this was her responsibility, but not feeling then that she wanted to take it, Mary was irritated, but she held her tongue. She ate listlessly of the tuna casserole he prepared; she didn’t like tuna casserole, and he knew it. After dinner she sat down to watch TV. She didn’t want to have to think hard enough to read.

  John sat down close to her and watched with her for a few minutes. Then he turned to her and blew in her ear.

  “Let’s make love,” he whispered. He kissed her neck.

  “I’m tired,” she said, turning away.

  “Come on, think what it’ll do to the sculpture.”

  She agreed.

  Afterward, she lay with her head on his chest.

  “We have to plan things for tomorrow night,” said John.

  “Please, John, must we, right now?”

  “I think we should,” he said, glancing to where the sculpture glowed in the darkness.

  “Okay,” she agreed, then. “But first I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” In the bathroom she took four aspirin—that’s all there were left. Her head felt like it would explode. Absently, she scratched her arm, then looked at it. It was a fiery red. She would have to see a doctor about the rash and the headaches.

  It was Thursday evening. Jim and Elsie Anderson arrived on time. John ushered them into the living room. Mary and he had dimmed the lights and pulled the synergy sculpture out from before the window so that it took up a central space in the room. John and Mary were quite proud of the sculpture. It was now nearly three feet high, very complex, and quite brilliant. As near as they could determine from using the rating scale in the manual, their sculpture indicated that their relationship was ninety-five percent ideal.

  “Wow,” said Jim Anderson as he caught his first glimpse of it. From behind him, John grinned widely at Mary.

  “Ohhh,” cooed Elsie. “It’s so bright.” Mary grinned back at John.

  John mixed drinks for them all, and then they sat, surrounding the synergy sculpture as though it were a fireplace.

  “Look here,” said Elsie, pointing. “I’ve never seen a shape like that before.”

  “It looks almost like a Klein bottle,” said Jim, gazing closely to where Elsie pointed.

  “What’s a Klein bottle?”

  “A three dimensional Moebius strip,” he explained. He pointed to another shape. “And this one is a torus.”

  “The colors,” exclaimed Elsie, “they’re just.. .just breathtaking.”

  Mary and John beamed with pride. It seemed that the sculpture pulsed as a result. But perhaps that was just their imaginations.

  “We’re quite proud of how it turned out,” said Mary.

  “But, of course, it’s still growing,” added John quickly. He gestured, “See? It’s got probably six inches left to take up.” He smiled widely.

  “Well, yours is certainly more spectacular than ours was,” said Elsie.

  “Was?” asked Mary.

  “Oh,” she said coyly, “didn’t Jim tell you? Ours was mistuned and something was wrong with the sensing unit. We had it taken in for repairs the day after you saw it.”

  Covertly, John nudged Mary, and they both giggled inwardly.

  After the Andersons had left, Mary said, mockingly, “Oh, didn’t you know, ours was mistuned. Why I’m sure it would have been as good as yours if only we hadn’t got a lemon.” They both laughed loud and long over that.

  The next day, John only worked in the morning. He was caught up with his work and had no labs, so he came home unexpectedly. He made a stop along the way and picked up two tickets for the theater that evening.

  Mary also found that her work load was light, and she too took off early. One of the other engineers in her office was trying to get rid of two tickets to the football game that evening. Mary took them off his hands, expecting to surprise John with them.

  They arrived home together. Inside, they both spoke simultaneously.

  “I’ve got two tickets to the theater,” said John.

  “I’ve got two tickets to the football game,” said Mary.

  “What?” they both said, again at the same time.

  They were both immediately angry. John spoke.

  “You mean you bought tickets without checking with me first?”

  “Me? What about you?” she shouted back.

  John felt his stomach tighten and his bowels loosen.

  Mary felt her head begin to throb and her arm begin to itch.

  Then, at the same time, they both looked at the sculpture. It seemed to them that it began to dim. Again, they spoke simultaneously, although in lowered tones.

  “Okay, let’s go to the theater,” said Mary.

  “Okay, let’s go to the football game,” said John.

  The sculpture began to glow again.

  “What do you mean, the headaches and the rash are psychosomatic, Doctor?” said Mary. “That can’t be. My husband and I have the most beautiful, most complex synergy sculpture on the block.”

  “Ulcerative colitis, and a stomach ulcer?” asked John unbelievingly. “Are you sure, Doctor?”

  The Memory Machine

  The Great Modesty Sweepstakes

  This anthology is the fourth in a distinguished series by the editors, in which . . . the combination of little known masterpieces by outstanding writers in the field of horror have [nc] earned both the acclaim of the critics and the support of the readers. . . .

  Sam Moskowitz is known as a researcher and scholar in the field of the fantastic and has authored many basic books on the history of science fiction. . . .

  Alden H. Norton is a veteran editor of such nostalgic fantasy magazines as Astonishing Stories, Super Science Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels, who has a weakness for this type of material.

  —“Editors’ Note” in Horrors in Hiding, edited by Sam Moskowitz and Alden H. Norton

  * * *

  Harrison is one of the few writers of today who maintain the old grim jesting vigour of yesterday; ever since “Deathworld,” the last of the great ASF serials, which began appearing in the January 1960 issue, he has been a favourite on an imposing scale.

  —The Astounding-Analog Reader, Volume Two, edited by Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss

  * * *

  DAW Books is a new publishing company designed for one specific purpose—to publish science fiction. That is our only directive. DAW Books derives its name from the initials of its publisher and editor, Donald A. Wollheim, who has been in the forefront of science fiction all his life. As a fan, as a writer, as an anthologist, and for the last three decades as the editor whose work has most consistently found favor in the eyes of those who spend their money for science fiction in paperback books.

  Donald A. Wollheim is those readers’ best guarantee that behind every book bearing his initials is the experience and the work of someone who likes what science fiction readers like, and who will do his best to give it to them. . . . />
  —D. A. W.

  “A Statement to Science Fiction Readers,” in an early DAW book

  * * *

  I tried to argue him out of his foolish stand, but he was adamant. I was positive that Pan Dan Chee liked me; and I shrank from the idea of killing him, as I knew that I should. He was an excellent swordsman, but what chance would he have against the master swordsman of two worlds? I am sorry if that should sound like boasting; for I abhor boasting—I only spoke what is a fact. I am, unquestionably, the best swordsman that has ever lived.

  —John Carter, in Liana of Gathol, by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  * * *

  But No Flowers on Mother’s Day

  Eddore was—and is, huge, dense, and hot. Its atmosphere is not air, as we of small, green Terra know air, but is a noxious mixture of gaseous substances known to mankind only in chemical laboratories. Its hydrosphere, while it does contain some water, is a poisonous, stinking, foully corrosive, slimy and sludgy liquid.

  And the Eddorians were as different from any people we know as Eddore is different from the planets indigenous to our space and time. They were, to our senses, utterly monstrous; almost incomprehensible. They were amorphous, amoeboid, sexless. Not androgynous or parthenogenetic, but absolutely sexless; with a sexlessness unknown in any Earthly form of life higher than the yeasts. Thus they were, to all intents and purposes and except for death by violence, immortal; for each one, after having lived for hundreds of thousands of Tellurian years and having reached its capacity to live and to learn, simply divided into two new individuals, each of which, in addition to possessing in full its parent’s mind and memories and knowledge, had also a brand-new zest and a greatly increased capacity.

  —First Lensman, by E. E. Smith, Ph. D.

  * * *

  Also Known as Redneck Delight

  Their courses were built into their guidance system, in a way that nobody had figured out; you could pick a course, but once picked that was it—and you didn’t know where it was going to take you when you picked it, any more than you know what’s in your box of Cracker-Joy until you open it.

  —Gateway, by Frederik Pohl

  * * *

  If Only We Could Train Ours Like That

  Outside in the growing darkness the animals were on their nightly peregrinations, moving in from the woods, beginning to circle the house. The dogs could sometimes be seen from the house, running in packs wild as wolves. Cats bristled and spat in the hedges when they went out to the privy or to fetch more wood for the dying fire.

  —Comet, by Jane White

  * * *

  Spawning God Knows What Tufts and Armpits

  Her eyes had been enlarged, and her naturally small chin further diminished, in accordance with the fashion dictates of the time, even as Hagen’s dark eyebrows had been grown into a ring of hair that crossed above his nose and went down by its sides to meld with his moustache.

  —“To Mark the Year on Azlaroc,” by Fred Saberhagen, in Science Fiction Discoveries

  THE BIRDS ARE FREE

  “Your techniques of shivering and coughing are quite good. Your technique of throwing out all your food, while a bit drastic for my taste, may well be warranted here. However, your technique of falling senseless to the ground and then lying there limp, while your consciousness retreats into an imaginary world, is inefficient in the extreme.”

  Ronald Anthony Cross

  The last night we spent in the high country, we climbed up to the top of one of those large flat buttes and sat near the edge. From there we watched the campfires come on, one by one, all around the great lake and for miles and miles along the road leading to it. The effect was of a large number nine of fire, and the festival of Our Lady of the Lake was begun.

  After a while the master broke the silence. It was not often that he did so, for he spoke only when necessary. In fact, he was meticulous about the expenditure of energy in any form.

  He was a delicate little man with hair and beard like white puffs of cloud floating away from his face and dissolving into the air. Spry as an elf. And he was old, so old; no one knew how old he was, but there was something about him all the same that was frightening, a certain austerity, or sharpness, a quality of power. When he spoke, you listened.

  He raised his hand to be sure he had my attention, then he spoke in a high, shrill voice.

  “I know you are excited. Nevertheless, you must use all your power to listen with a calm mind. Do not add anything or subtract anything. I have arranged what I wish to say to you into a list for your convenience.

  “One. We will go to the festival.

  “Two. You will fight for the championship.

  “Three. We will gain the prize money.

  “Four. If you are alert, you will have the opportunity to learn much.”

  Stunned, I waited for him to continue, but he sat quietly, looking into my eyes, smiling in his strange, distant manner, his hands now folded in his lap.

  His eyes closed. Perhaps he meditated; perhaps he slept.

  “I never dreamed,” I stammered. “I mean, we haven’t been to a city in five years, to win the purse, to fight for the championship of Our Lady; I never dreamed that when I spent those years training in the martial arts, that I was training for this.”

  He opened his eyes and held out his arm to silence me.

  “I find it necessary to speak again,” he said. “This time when I finish speaking, you must, unless I request you to answer, remain completely silent in contemplation of what I have just said. This rule should apply in your relationship with intelligent people throughout your life and, should some theory such as reincarnation prove correct, throughout your future lives as well.

  “I have asked you to listen carefully to what I say. Neither add nor subtract from it. At no point did I say, for instance, that all your training in the martial arts was toward the goal of defeating this champion. To carry it further, at no point have I suggested that your training in the martial arts had any goal whatever. It is an example of your adding to my teaching, to infer that you are being trained for something, when for all I have told you, you may be just expending energy in one form as opposed to expending it in a different manner. Your habit of adding to everything is your only obstacle in life. You must let go of it.”

  He closed his eyes. Now I thought perhaps he had gone to sleep. My mind was filled to the bursting point with myriads of conflicting, agitating thoughts, visions, conjectures.

  I took my blanket from my pack and lay down on it. Gradually my thoughts, locked in their death-struggle of duality, sank under a wave of weariness, into another dimension, where they fought on as my dreams. The last thing I saw, as I drifted off to sleep, was the image of the old man, sitting crosslegged before the fire, erect as always, relaxed as always: asleep, I wondered, or meditating?

  I seemed to be struggling against something in vain. Perhaps I had been tied up. I looked down at my wrists, and sure enough, long, indistinct hemp ropes trailed away from my wrists into smoke. I began to jerk at them frantically, but I could not get loose. Something struck me across on the shoulders and I came awake with a terrible start.

  It was just before dawn, and the master was standing over me with his staff raised, ready to strike me again if necessary. He looked furious, but I suspect that was only to impress me with my failure.

  “You should be discouraged from taking inferior action in your dreams, as well as in your waking life,” he had told me once. Also: “Your dream dilemmas are the result of lack of awareness, the same as your waking dilemmas.”

  Now, with the rim of the sun beginning to rise over the edge of the distant, flat-topped mountains, with the first bright flashes of gold and purple, we stood in the position of commencement of the early-morning form. Then we began to move slowly and carefully through the form, oiling our joints, limbering up our muscles, our sense of balance, our basic techniques; preparing our bodies for any movement they might be required to make later in the day; also measu
ring the wind currents, the altitude, adjusting to the resistance of today’s particular ocean of air.

  I became aware, for instance, of a slight southeast wind, which made it necessary to adjust the natural inclination of my body a few degrees from time to time. It would be well to keep an eye on it during the day. The footing was excellent, a trifle uneven, but for the most part solid and sure, with little mounds and hollows supplying good purchase.

  As we completed the form, I shivered in the early-morning chill. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the master was smiling happily. He considered shivering, like sneezing, an efficient, enlightened technique of adjustment to changes in the environment.

  “If something harmful gets into your nose, why, blast it out with all your might. What a thrill of survival this gives!”

  As for shivering, I have seen him take off his shirt in the iciest weather, and tremble until his outline blurred, then stop and examine the color of his skin for a certain pink hue, which he took to mean that his blood was circulating more swiftly, and the adjustment was taking place successfully.

  The yawn, however, he considered as a more or less desperate attempt to adjust the oxygen level of the body by gulping it in hysterically.

  “Breathe deeper in the first place, you fool, instead of waiting until you’ve almost passed out,” he said.

  Sickness and fainting he viewed as the result of refusal to adjust to the environment. Once, when a young woman had fainted with illness in a rainstorm, he remarked to her casually as she began to revive, “Your techniques of shivering and coughing are quite good. Your technique of throwing out all your food, while a bit drastic for my taste, may well be warranted here. However, your technique of falling senseless to the ground and then lying there limp, while your consciousness retreats into an imaginary world, is inefficient in the extreme. I suggest you abandon it and concentrate your efforts more in the area of crying out for help, or perhaps even merely moaning for sympathy.”