The Complete Dangerous Visions

by Anthology

  “You see,” he said again, “whatever the subject views or hears, we can read back out through the devices. We have a feedback problem with the audio, although there is no problem if we move the speaker to another room.

  “At any rate,” he continued, “sensory functioning is just the half of our achievement. Watch this.”

  He stood close by the hospital bed. “Raise your hand,” he commanded the figure on the bed. It raised a hand. “Sit up!” The thing on the bed slid its legs over the edge of the mattress, pushed its torso upright with unmatched hands, waited.

  “Stand,” Trudeau said. The thing pushed itself off the bed, stood swaying beside it. On the graphic screen Goncourt could see himself, Trudeau, the room shifting back and forth as the dead-alive eyes moved.

  “Enough,” said Goncourt.

  “Down,” Trudeau commanded. Clumsily, the thing folded itself back onto the bed, guided by Trudeau’s hands. When it was again supine the screen showed the ceiling of the room momentarily, then went back to gray-green as the eyelids slid shut.

  Walking back to his own office, Goncourt said to Trudeau, “Very impressive. I’ll have to strip someone else to do it, but I will get you some people and some money.”

  “Thank you,” Trudeau said. “I’m sure this thing will work, sir.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Goncourt replied. Completing the trip to his office alone, Goncourt again drew the pipe from his pocket.

  6. Into the Great Hall

  Flip calendar pages.

  Things happen.

  Gordon Lester Wallace III (a sarge himself, you know) scuffs red dust dirt dragging drearily drawn-faced often the orderly office.—Okay, buddy,—he says to topper,—see you later.—

  Gordie-boy m iz pal Adam A. Aiken amble crossen reddish dusty sward of Fort Sealy Mae, Letohatchie Township, Independent Planet of N’Alabama, Eugene Youngerman, Governor, ambling aimlessly around toward the NCO Club, kickin pebbles, spittin casionally and hummin under their respective breaths the Fort Sealy Mae strictly unofficial alma mater.

  Adam, he sed—Gord, wappenta Jimmie O? Wuntcha poseta join the star fleet, go knock hell outen them nigra pigs on N’Haiti?—

  Gord, he sed—Wuhmm—or approximately that, pickin up the taciturn speech habits of a certain friend of his who shall remain nameless (seen as how he’s been that to this point).

  Gord, hez not sech a bad gyrene you know, ef you like gyrenes, ef you don’t then close yer eyes for a while and mebbe hill go away. With Adam A. Aiken. Least ways, Gordie been pickin up some of the speech patterns of his buddy that other guy and he don’t say so much at first but Adam he persists—Well, Gordie, well? Off you go, now you’re back, wappen? Big space battle? Ja kill any nigras? Ja getta see N’Haiti? Ja getta fuck any nigra broads?—

  Gord, hez got that other guy’s tendencies now but he don persist.—Wuhmm—that was a good answer but now Gord, he gives in, that’s iz weakness, he gives in and he sez—Yeh, we went up, yeh the Jimmie O, and the rest, we seen some nigra ships, we seen some and we zapped some. They zapped us. Wir back.—

  Pretty good, Gordon Lester Wallace III. Not as good as that other fellow would do, but good.

  Gord stops walkin and looks at the dirt (some grass too, some grass, not enough to keep a mowing crew busy much of the year but you know how manpower is on a gyrene post, all those guys around to keep busy and not much to do so maybe the topper senzem out to mow the dirt—you get on a dirt-mowing detail you think it’s senseless never mind, just mow and keep your mouth quiet about it).

  Gord don’t say no more right now.

  Adam A. Aiken he sez—We make out bad, Gord?—

  Gord he don’t answer but take a look in his face now, look in his eyes they don’t look so great.

  Now Adam he presses, very very deftly.—Hah?—he sez.

  Gord, he sez—It was pretty bad, Adam, I think we lost. Least, we broke off and come home. M now Ole Gene he called in all the friendly planets for that palaver over to Leto. You pull that guard detail too?—

  Adam sez yez.

  They sprawl up the steps of the NCO Club and smarmily float inside the screen doors, find a table and set down.—Flipia 4 a Stonewall—sez Adam. Out of his grays comes a fine anglo-saxon-blooded hand holding a fifty-boll piece. He flips it in the air, it lands on the table top with a depressing clunk m spins a couple times there, flops over with a boll a cotton m a supered numeral 50 up.

  Gordy triziz luck, gets a smiling portrait of some olden time fart looking up and goes to buy two foamies.

  Good many foamies later, Gord m Adam they float smarmily back out through the doors of the NCO Club. One um belches m neither’s sure which it was.

  Two good purebred surn N’Alabamian spacerine corps nonconditioned officers stumble m clutch at one another back to barracks and into sacks.

  Whichever one belched before, t’other one does now so they even. That’s good, nobody ahead nobody behind.

  Lights off, eyes closed, snores m wheezes m N’Alabama whirls about that old axis.

  Clock hands spin.

  Alquane zaps brightness through screened stapaglass windows Gordon needs no wakener bettern Alquane. He gets everybody up & eaten their breakfast & back to barracks & spat & polished & into pressed new grays & outside & assembled & lined up & counted off & dressed right & marched around & interposition & reported in.

  Captain Cal Koberly commanding, everybody onto the bus & they head down the red rut road, gyros twirlin, into Leto.

  Letohatchie Town Hall, meeting place of the interplanetary conference. Wow! Neo-neoclassic architecture, gabled & porticoed, columned & terraced & stepped, & in front a (would you believe this, it’s a test) Confederated Worm-morayeel, some old bearded jackass ridin an old hoarse carrying an old flag into some old battle on some old planet who knows where or what for?

  N’Alabama spacerines line up making an honor guard, double ranks facing one another (sheee-eeet lookit that ugly bassur across from Gord!) all in fine old traditional grays with glistry brass buttons & a crowd of rednecked townies (see that fat old fellow follow a filly fondly facing for a feelup) held back by town po-leese.

  Town po-leese, madgin that! White crash helmets m glistry green oneway eyemurrs, chin straps so you can’t swipt that old pretty helmet from that old, that pretty po-leese boy. Sideburns m black leather jackets with studs spellin out patriotic mottoes (Rise Agin! No mongrelization! ((That’s barely fits.)) Never! Lawnorder! . . . and other patriotic slogans) silver studs for troopers brass for sarges gold for brass.

  Tite pants, real real tite & big shiny boots, flying gloves & billy clubs & cans of insect repellant (or something). Why, those boys can’t even move without creaking.

  Well cops to keep the redneck townies (in their civvies & a large but expectable proportion of plainbutton warsurp grays) offen the gyrenes and the gyrenes to keep whoever in hell offen the backs of the official plenipotentiary ambassadorial representatives of the friendly planets.

  First delegation rolls up in a siren-howlin jeescout gyrocar, red lights flashin, two-way radio cracklin & that jeescout slews round in the red dirt tween the Worm-morayeel & the Town Hall & the ambassador de-mounts. Hez tall & pale wearn white flannel civvies & a broad-brim planter’s hat & he waves t’the gyrenes & the town cops & the redneck townies & he starts up the steps follerd by couple flunkies dressed alike unto him & carryin a briefcase & some other stuff & scurryin about in his dust & up the steps they start 2.

  Halfway up Town Hall doors open & out comes Mayor Milburn Mitchum & a couple his flunkies looking summat flustered & Mayor he dances delightingly down the steps & seizes thambassador by the hand & turnin around he links up his arms like he prolly saw someone do it oncet in some ole newsclip & been thambassador clompin up the ole steps & in the doors & outen sight jes quick enough as the ole jeescout soops off through red dirt dust (don’t they never think of them poor honor guards standing there stranglin?) along comes another siren-blastin light-blinkin howler-hootin hooter-ho
wlin jeescout with another ambassador & a couple more flunkies & it just keeps up like that, poor honor guards, poor town cops, seemin to be like all morning till everybody’s there in the Leto Town Hall there near unto the Confederated Worm-morayeel (unless you deciden you wunt bleeve that, it’s your option, buddy) & then something else happens.

  Firstall, Gord & t’other honor guards, they haven seed no sine nor cosine of their own pure surn N’Alabamian planetary delegation septin for ole Mayor Milburn Mitchum m shee-eet who pays any tention to him anyhow. Muss be they own delegation may been snuck in the back door r summin. Whose there, secastate, secawar, secacom, who knows mayen the Governor hisself (not so as to mention mayn’t been some old senator from Talladega or someplace).

  Let ole Gord wonder about that, you, now, you just relax & follow along, okay?

  Come on!

  Last official plenipotentiary ambassadorial representative delegation piles outen dust-churnin jeescout gyrocar (see that arready, right?) & marches up steps of Town Hall ambassador arm-narm with Mayor Milburn Mitchum & into the Town Hall & the twin ranks of gray-uniformed shiny-brassed spacerine honor guards starten to peel off from the farthest end two steps forward right angle turn & marchen to the old Letohatchie Town Hall themselves marchin now in a double line splittin at the base of the Confederated Worm-morayeel (maybe it’s just a big outdoor garbage bin ef you’d ruther bleeve that) & up the old Town Hall steps to the double-doors & some civvy suburbs flunky opennin the doors form & they marchen right into the Hall & into the Great Hall meetin chamber & range theirselfs around the room (as rehearsed—you weren’t that) and standin at pray rest as honor guards (not to mention skeweritty) durin the meeting itself.

  Which is very handy for Gordon Lester Wallace III ef he cares to hear what happens at the meeting, which who knows whether he does or not, hes just a spacerine sarge doin his duty as he seen it, right? But maybe hez interested anyhow.

  There’s a speaker’s table in the front & there’s a man settin in’t & a couple flunkies around him & facing the speaker’s table’s a bunch of leetle tables & chairs & things like that & every one’s got somebody settin in’t & they’re all buzzin & burbling around & everybody looken pretty grim spitin’ a casional laugh hearn there & each leetle table gotten a pitcher ont fulla something & some glasses & there being a big one on the speaker’s table & a glass for the fella settin there & some for his flunkies & the poor spacerine honor guards standing around the room, they dryeran all hell & nobody gives them no drinks but then who’s this meeting 4, the meeters or the greeters?

  Fat florid-faced fella at the main place he standen up now & he leanin ford close to a amplifier microphone inconspicuous stuck in fronna his place & he sez firstoff—Ahem!—

  Or summin like that. Not really Ahem, no, but more of a throat-clear m call torder he’da done better rappen a gavel only nobody brought one (a head will roll for that as if an excuse were needed) so he says instead, approximately at least,—Ahem!—

  Everybody looken up, & he sayin—Arr, weccum to N’Alabama & weccum t’Leto, a ben Eugene Youngerman, Governor this planet, & am dlited twelcome you.—

  Polite hums and humphs.

  —A hopen yall ben enjoin the hospitality, traditional surn hospitality, of N’Alabama m this lovely town of Letohatchie, hopen yall found our commodations satisfactory, little presents to your liking, bedmates cozy & friendly and alla that.—

  Polite humphs and hums.

  —Now we got serious business to transact. You all know the glorious past history of our peoples, fine surn traditions & practices of the past. No need to remind you of fine glorious past of our ancestors on O’Earth before the furgem Jewrab takeover.—

  (No need but he reminded them for a longish while. Well.)

  —What we asked everybody here to talk about is this little problem we got with, uh, them black bassurds, uh, N’Haiti. Now any fool knows a white man can lick a nigra in a fair fight, of course, it’s natural. Innate superiority. We all learn that from first grade onward. Even O’Earth sociologists knew that. Pahneers like Audey Shooey, Henny Gart, Jawny Kimball, they knew that the human race was the highest creation of nature and that the purebred white man was the highest form of humanity.

  —Now we got this little problem going with N’Haiti, & I can well imagine how some of you—Ole Guv Youngerman, he looken around to see who’s pain attention & who’s more intersted in studyin his fingernails—how some of you—Ole Guv resumes—matt wonder how come we can’t smash them nigra brutes with proven superiority of our kind.—

  He stops for a smallish swig (depending on your measuring cup of course) of that nice fluid from the jug, looks around, ambassador from N’Missa seems to be asleep, ambassadors from N’Transvaal plane some kind of under-the-table hands-game with the ambassador from N’Maddoxia, ambassador from N’Eensmyth maybe pain attention or maybe just staring abstructionously ahead. Ole Guv, he shaken a mane of white hair (worth many a vote, that, long hair bein okay if it’s white one might guess) an resumes (or might we say reresumes):

  —Way, lookitit like so: now no one would argue that a man in’t superior to a varmint, whetherts a snarlin mean cuayo-peen biggerna plow-horse or a teeny varse. But a cuayo-peen, he gettin a man outen the open, he’ll rip him up but good with his tushes & his spines. Or a varse, you get some varse inside you, you might be a goner too. That don’t make no cuayo-peen nor no varse the equal of a man, but an inferior order a creation can be given special parz to overcome a superior order a creation.

  —Now these nigras, you know no nigra never made nothing worthwhile in all of history, not on O’Earth, no, old Jawny proved that sentries ago, nor noplace else neither. Just nature’s mistake, tryin out ideas, how to make something superior to the beasts of the field, old nature messed up once with the black man then got it right on the second try.

  —But nigras, they got a natural instinct to kill & destroy, and I’ll be perfectly frank with yall,—Ole Guv, he looken almost fit to cry now—we taken a thorough whompin in this war, and unless yall willing to see a sovereign planet of your own flesh and blood, a world of pureblooded surn white manhood, taken a whipping from a bunch of flat-nosed woolly-haired black nigra savages . . . —

  Ole Guv, he flailin his hands now but he still in control & he pauses dramatically to let that last word sink in,—. . .yall have to give us some help. Now that’s all there is to it.—

  That’s no shit, that’s his bit, he done spoke and a down he sit.

  Well how long you wanter hang around some dumb-ass diplomatic conference listening to speeches? You can guess what happenin after that. Alla them ole ambassadors, they expressin sympathy for the sacred blood cause of the independent planet of N’Alabama, maken speeches all day long about solidarity and Them Nigras Cain’t Be Permitted to Get Away with It.

  But the ambassador from N’Missa, he say (summat sheepishlike)—Yall know we with you one hunnerd per cent, Gene, but we get most of our heavy machine tools from N’Ghana. They stain outen this war, we stain outen it & we get along fine, but if we gettin inter it, then they gettin inter it, you no better off as before and we in bad trouble.—He go on like that for quite a while, but you gettin the message by now no doubt.

  Ambassador from N’Transvaal, he rise in place, teetern a bit (that jug in front of his table been pretty down by now) and he say summin like this:—You cause is one of destiny, Governor Youngerman, and the white surn-blooded people of your planet have the unquestioning and unlimited support of the white bore-blooded people of N’Transvaal. As you know we haven a little problem of our own in gettin on with N’Kaffirstan. Now nothin we can’t handle ourselves, understand. Ole Chaka CVII he a markable smart man for a nigra & we get along all right. And you know ole N’Kaffirstan, they happen to have the biggest & fastest space fleet in the entire N’Afrikaans sector.

  —But I’ll tell you the honest truth, Governor Youngerman, wud really rather not tread on ole Chaka’s sensitive toes. Besides, now, we haven full faith and conf
idence in the ability of N’Alabama, proud, free m white as she is, to hole her banner unstained & her purity unmixed.

  —A thank you.—And he sitten down and everybody kind of looken at him and applaud a teeny bit, and then looken at Ole Gene Youngerman and blushen a teeny bit and then the room getten to be pretty quiet once again.

  Ole Gene, he don’t give up but all he gets from anybody is expressions of solidarity (how much JD sippin quality will that buy you?) & maybe a half-headed pledge of some financial credits, which are nice but that’s not what Gene was really tryen 4.

  Well they marchen back out past the Confederated Worm-Morayeel (or garbage bin, whichever you prefer to believe . . . if you don’t like either, how about a bicycle rack?) & gettin back into their jeescout gyrocars & Gord-3 & the rest of the gray-uniformed brass-buttoned spat & polished up honor guards, including their commander Captain Cal Koberly (soon to be lieutenant) and GLW’s pal Adam Aiken, they marchen back to Fort Sealy Mae bus & out to the fort & take the night off boys.

  Gordon Lester Wallace III m Adam A. Aiken stain grays, they two bentfin boomers burnished, Gord haven a new hotspot on his boomer courtesy James O. Eastland’s recent (albeit unhappy) encounter with nigra spacefleet; they climb into Gord’s gyro & head down that beloved ole red rut road to Leto, past familiar places, seen familiar faces, parken in the street where the elite meet t’eat (or EAT, that’s near the B A R the longer-recollected set will recall). Gord puts a chumly arm around A. A. Aiken’s gray-covered shoulders m takes him up that certain staircase & they get t’the dirtyfrosted doorway Gord winks conspiratorily at Adam & goes:

  :a-rap-a-tap-tap, a-rap-a-tap-tap, tap-tatty-rap-rap, rappy-tappy-tap:

  :or something like that. Anyway, it don’t really matter none because nothing happens. He repeats the tarradiddle-de-de survural thymes, summat as he recalls his “erstwhile guru” (heh!) and friend, our ole sarge, having done, but is it a false recollection? Is it some smuggled half-bole dreadful Gord read behind the barn manly years ago rising t’cloud his mind with memories of unoccurred experiences? Leave us not spectorate on that subject too much.