by Anthology
This all came back to me as I sat there at the ballet. It suddenly seemed very strange to have those naked suits onstage, as though what I thought as a child was the only possible, logical explanation for all the hiding. Why else should adults, especially this audience, educated-looking and rather elderly, each one sex and looking married to the other, why should they have to see a program with pretend skin on the dancers? Ludicrous!
So, this story. . . .
SHALL THE DUST PRAISE THEE?
Damon Knight
Introduction
Somehow, inexplicably, I have grown rather fond of Damon Knight, 1st president and founder of the Science Fiction Writers of America. After thought, I must chalk it up to the fact that he is married to Kate Wilhelm, who is a better writer than I am, which offends me, but is one of those truths one must finally face up to. She is also lots prettier. Ergo, because Kate is a better writer than I, I recognize that she is a better person than I, and being a better person, there must be something she sees in Damon that makes him lovable and worth while, and out of respect and admiration for Kate, I have let it slop over onto Damon. A sticky and entirely unseemly situation, at best.
Now there are those who contend Damon Knight is worth while in his own right. As author of Hell’s Pavement and The Analogs and Mind Switch, which many contend are brilliant novels of pure speculative fiction. As editor of A Century of Science Fiction and Cities of Wonder and 13 French Science Fiction Stories and eleven other anthologies, touted as the peak of literacy in the genre. As critic of the scene, epitomized by his collection of essays, In Search of Wonder, which helped win him a Hugo in 1956 as Best Science Fiction Book Reviewer. All this is said in defense of Damon Knight. There may even be merit in it.
Yet if this be so, if Knight is indeed the paragon his fans would have us believe, then explain the following:
Knight, sitting in a restaurant with friends, watching James Blish and myself at another table, as Blish explained in pantomime a hilarious newspaper cartoon to me, totally bewildered and bursting into tears when Blish refused to explain the meaning of his bizarre hand movements. . . .
Knight, having incurred the wrath of a host of writers in attendance at the Milford (Pa) SF Writers Conference (of which he is the founder and director, since 1956), finding two fifteen-foot hardwood pilings inserted through front and back windows of his car, not uttering a word of anger or protest, but merely sulking for two days. . . .
Knight, managing not only to sell “The Man in the Jar” to a leading magazine, but having the audacity to include it in his latest collection, Turning On, without cleaning up the specious logic of the denouement. . . .
Knight, having a surfeit of brilliant Kate Wilhelm stories already bought up for his Orbit series of original science fiction anthologies, refusing to sell a perfect gem of a Kate story to this anthology, forcing the poor woman to sell it to him for some nebulous far-distant collection he is putting together. . . .
Each of these imponderables forces the conclusion that Damon Knight is a spoilsport. Now how’s that for feet of clay!
Spoilsport was born in Baker, Oregon, in 1922. He was semi-educated in Hood River, Oregon, public schools. He spent a year after high school studying at the WPA Art Center in Salem, Oregon, then moved to New York and joined an early fraternity of science fiction buffs called The Futurians in 1941. He did some science fiction illustration (which he admits was bad), worked for Popular Publications as an assistant editor on their pulp magazines, and as a reader for the Scott Meredith Literary Agency. He has been a free-lance writer since 1950, pouting all the while.
His first story sale (a result of flagrant intimidation and temper tantrums) was to Donald Wollheim (now editor of Ace Books) at Stirring Science Fiction when he was eighteen; since then he has sold close to a hundred stories, five novels, four collections of stories and the previously noted anthologies, et. al.
About this Damon Knight story: he sent it in despite the fact that I told him bluntly there was no place for his kind of fellow in such an august collection. I liked it well enough, but I was going to send it back, just to show him nobody likes a smartass, when I received a letter from Kate. She said he had been making her life a living hell. They live in “a large delicate Victorian mansion in Milford, with three active boys, three tomcats and an indeterminate number of tropical fish,” and Damon was really taking it out on Kate because I’d asked her for a story, but not him, and he threatened her that if his story was rejected and hers sold, he would have her shanghaied onto a white slave boat sailing to Marrakech.
Needless to say, he got his way, as usual. Thus, you will find in this anthology one Damon Knight story, and none by Kate Wilhelm. We’re taking this up at the next ‘Inquisition of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
Shall the Dust Praise Thee?
The Day of Wrath arrived. The sky pealed with trumpets, agonized, summoning. Everywhere the dry rocks rose, groaning, and fell back in rubble. Then the sky split, and in the dazzle appeared a throne of white fire, in a rainbow that burned green.
Lightnings flickered away toward the horizons. Around the throne hovered seven majestic figures in white, with golden girdles across their paps; and each one carried in his gigantic hand a vial that smoked and fumed in the sky.
Out of the brightness in the throne came a voice: “Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.”
And the first angel swooped down, and emptied his vial in a torrent of darkness that smoked away across the bare earth. And there was silence.
Then the second angel flew down to earth, and darted this way and that, with his vial unemptied: and at last turned back to the throne, calling, “Lord, mine is to be poured out upon the sea. But where is the sea?”
And again there was silence. For the dry, dusty rocks of the earth stretched away limitless under the sky; and where the oceans had been, there were only runneled caverns in the stone, as dry and empty as the rest.
The third angel called, “Lord, mine is for the rivers and fountains of waters.”
Then the fourth angel called, “Lord, let me empty mine.” And he poured out his vial upon the sun: and in an instant grew hot with a terrible radiance: and he soared back and forth letting fall his light upon the earth. After some time he faltered and turned back to the throne. And again there was silence.
Then out of the throne came a voice saying, “Let be.”
Under the wide dome of heaven, no bird flew. No creature crawled or crept on the face of the earth; there was no tree, and no blade of grass.
The voice said, “This is the day appointed. Let us go down.”
Then God walked on the earth, as in the old time. His form was like a moving pillar of smoke. And after Him trooped the seven white angels with their vials, murmuring. They were alone under the yellow-gray sky.
“They who are dead have escaped our wrath,” said the Lord God Jehovah. “Nevertheless they shall not escape judgment.” The dry valley in which they stood was the Garden of Eden, where the first man and first woman had been given a fruit which they might not eat. To eastward was the pass through which the wretched pair had been driven into the wilderness. Some little distance to the west they saw the pitted crag of Mount Ararat, where the Ark had come to rest after a purifying Flood.
And God said in a great voice, “Let the book of life be opened; and let the dead rise up from their graves, and from the depths of the sea.”
His voice echoed away under the sullen sky. And again the dry rocks heaved and fell back; but the dead did not appear. Only the dust swirled, as if it alone remained of all earth’s billions, living and dead.
The first angel was holding a huge book open in his arms. When the silence had endured for some time, he shut the book, and in his face was fear; and the book vanished out of his hands.
The other angels were murmuring and sighing together. One said, “Lord, terrible is the sound of silence, when our ears should be filled with lamentations.”
And God said, “This is the time appointed. Yet one day in heaven is as a thousand years on earth. Gabriel, tell me, as men reckoned time, how many days have passed since the Day?”
The first angel opened a book and said, “Lord, as men reckoned time, one day has passed since the Day.”
A shocked murmur went through the angels.
And turning from them, God said, “Only one day: a moment. And yet they do not rise.”
The fifth angel moistened his lips and said, “Lord, are You not God? Shall any secrets be hid from the Maker of all things?”
“Peace!” said Jehovah, and thunders rumbled off toward the gloomy horizon. “In good season, I will cause these stones to bear witness. Come, let us walk further.”
They wandered over the dry mountains and through the empty canyons of the sea. And God said, “Michael, you were set to watch over these people. What was the manner of their last days?”
They paused near the fissured cone of Vesuvius, which in an aeon of heavenly inattention had twice erupted, burying thousands alive.
The second angel answered, “Lord, when last I saw them, they were preparing a great war.”
“Their iniquities were past belief,” said Jehovah. “Which were the nations of those that prepared the war?”
The second angel answered, “Lord, they were called England and Russia and China and America.”
“Let us go then to England.”
Across the dry valley that had been the Channel, the island was a tableland of stone, crumbling and desolate. Everywhere the stones were brittle and without strength. And God grew wroth, and cried out, “Let the stones speak!”
Then the gray rocks fountained up into dust, uncovering caverns and tunnels, like the chambers of an empty anthill. And in some places bright metal gleamed, lying in skeins that were graceful but without design, as if the metal had melted and run like water.
The angels murmured; but God said, “Wait. This is not all.”
He commanded again, “Speak!” And the rocks rose up once more, to lay bare a chamber that was deeper still. And in silence, God and the angels stood in a circle around the pit, and leaned down to see what shapes glittered there.
In the wall of that lowest chamber, someone had chiseled a row of letters. And when the machine in that chamber had been destroyed, the fiery metal had sprayed out and filled the letters in the wall, so that they gleamed now like silver in the darkness.
And God read the words.
“WE WERE HERE. WHERE WERE YOU?”
Afterword
This story was written some years ago, and all I remember about it is that my then agent returned it with loathing, and told me I might possibly sell it to the Atheist Journal in Moscow, but nowhere else.
The question asked in the story is a frivolous one to me, because I do not believe in Jehovah, who strikes me as a most improbable person; but it seems to me that, for someone who does believe, it is an important question.
IF ALL MEN WERE BROTHERS . . .
Theodore Sturgeon
Introduction
This will be the shortest introduction in the book. Because, of all the writers in this anthology, the one who truly needs no introduction is Theodore Sturgeon? Well, there’s that, certainly. Because nothing anyone could say would prepare the reader for what is to follow, the first Sturgeon story in over three years? It’s a valid point. Because each Sturgeon story is a long-awaited experience, no two alike, so why bother gilding the caviar? Okay, I’ll accept that.
But none of them happens to be the reason why I am unable to write as beefy an introduction as the others in this book. The reason is simply that Sturgeon saved my life recently. Literally.
In February of 1966 I committed one of those incredible life-blunders that defy explanation or analysis. I entered into a marriage with a woman . . . a person . . . a something whose mind was as alien to me as the mind of a Martian might be. The union was a disaster, a forty-five-day nightmare that left me closer to the edge of the cliff than I had ever been. At the precise moment I thought surely I couldn’t retain my grip on the handle of—everything, I received a letter from Ted Sturgeon. It was part of the interchange of letters that resulted in obtaining this story for the anthology, but it was concerned entirely with what was happening to me. It pulled together the sprung wires of my life. It was one of those pieces of honest concern that (if lucky) everyone will clutch onto at a terrible time of helplessness and desperation. It demonstrates the most obvious characteristic of Sturgeon’s work—love. (We once talked about that. It became clear to Sturgeon and myself that I knew virtually nothing about love but was totally familiar with hate, while Ted knew almost nothing about hate, yet was completely conversant with love in almost all its manifestations.) I would like, with Ted’s permission, to quote from that letter. It will say infinitely more about his work and what motivates him than anything I could attempt. From here down, Sturgeon speaking:
“Dear Harlan: For two days I have not been able to get my mind off your predicament. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that your predicament is on my mind, a sharp-edged crumb of discomfort which won’t whisk away or dissolve or fall off, and when I move or think or swallow, it gigs me.
“I suppose the aspect that gigs me the most is ‘injustice.’ Injustice is not an isolated homogeneous area any more than justice is. A law is a law and is either breached or not, but justice is reciprocal. That such a thing should have happened to you is a greater injustice than if it happened to most representatives of this exploding population.
“I know exactly why, too. It is an injustice because you are on the side of the angels (who, by the way, stand a little silent for you just now). You are in the small company of Good Guys. You are that, not by any process of intellectualization and decision, but reflexively, instantly, from the glands, whether it shows at the checkout in a supermarket where you confront the Birchers, or in a poolroom facing down a famous bully, or in pulling out gut by the hank and reeling it up on the platen of your typewriter.
“There is no lack of love in the world, but there is a profound shortage in places to put it. I don’t know why it is, but most people who, like yourself, have an inherent ability to claw their way up the sheerest rock faces around, have little of it or have so equipped themselves with spikes and steel hooks that you can’t see it. When it shows in such a man—like it does in you—when it lights him up, it should be revered and cared for. This is the very nub of the injustice done you. It should not happen at all, but if it must happen, it should not happen to you.
“You have cause for many feelings, Harlan: anger, indignation, regret, grief. Theodor Reik, who has done some brilliant anatomizations of love, declares that its ending is in none of these things: if it is, there is a good possibility that some or one or all of them were there all along. It is ended with indifference—really ended with a real indifference. This is one of the saddest things I know. And in all my life, I have found one writer, once, who was able to describe the exact moment when it came, and it is therefore the saddest writing I have ever read. I give it to you now in your sadness. The principle behind the gift is called ‘counter-irritation.’ Read it in good health—eventual. I would like you to know that if it helps and sustains you at all, have my respect and affection. Yours, T. H. Sturgeon.”
Thus ended the letter that helped and sustained me. Enclosed with the letter was No. 20 of “Twenty Love Poems based on the Spanish of Pablo Neruda”, by Christofer Logue. From Songs, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1959. It is this freedom of giving, this ability and anxiousness to meet love and give it freely in all its forms, that makes Sturgeon the mythical creature that he is. Complex, tormented, struggling, blessed by incredible gentleness and, above all, enormously talented, what you have just read is the soul of Theodore Sturgeon. I pray you, go on now to the very best thing to be found in all writers: a sample of the work that motivates the life that is led. And thank you.
If All Men Were Brothers . . .
The Sun went Nova in the year 33 A.E. “A.E.” means “After the Exodus.” You might say the Exodus was a century and a half or so A.D. if “A.D.” means “After the Drive.” The Drive, to avoid technicalities, was a device somewhat simpler than Woman and considerably more complicated than sex, which caused its vessel to cease to exist here while simultaneously appearing there, by-passing the limitations imposed by the speed of light. One might compose a quite impressive account of astrogation involving the Drive, with all the details of orientation here and there and the somewhat philosophical difficulties of establishing the relationships between them, but this is not that kind of a science fiction story.
It suits our purposes rather to state that the Sun went Nova with plenty of warning, that the first fifty years A.D. were spent in improving the Drive and exploring with unmanned vehicles which located many planets suitable for human settlement, and that the next hundred years were spent in getting humanity ready to leave. Naturally there developed a number of ideological groups with a most interesting assortment of plans for one Perfect Culture or another, most of which were at bitter odds with all the rest. The Drive, however, had presented Earth with so copious a supply of new worlds, with insignificant subjective distances between them and the parent, that dissidents need not make much of their dissent, but need merely file for another world and they would get it. The comparisons between the various cultural theories are pretty fascinating, but this is not that kind of a science fiction story either. Not quite.