The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg

by Barry N. Malzberg

  “But there’s life — “

  “No time, no time,” Base says and slips out of contact; it is like the bodies sliding apart after intercourse, all evasion, all collapse to some central, detached part and, · clenching his fists, Walker finds himself alone in the cabin and nothing to do but sleep. Well, sleep then. He can deal with the situation later.

  V

  In his sleep Walker dreams and in the dream his wife is in the cabin talking to him. “It’s all your fault,” she says, “every bit of it is your fault, you never understood, you never cared, you never for one moment considered the implications of what you were doing.” “Now wait a minute,” Walker says to her (he seems to be in some kind of nightdress and his wife, wearing an opaque gown which he used to despise, is sitting cross-legged on his bunk, her chin in her hands, a complacent hostility severing her from him forever), “don’t get started on that tack again, I’m just an employee. A functionary of the agency. In fact I’m only a technician so don’t start pinning me with that guilt and culpability stuff again. It was only a job and I was in it long before you knew me and you took me on those terms so it’s too late now.” She says nothing for a moment, this being one of her most infuriating habits, and then, quite horridly, winks at him. “That won’t go any more,” she says. “You’re forty years old. You know exactly what’s going on and you’ve known for a long time now. You’re a man. You’re one of the oldest people in the project.”

  “But in very good physical condition. I’m in such good physical condition — ”

  “Three hundred years of death and dreams to put you on Ganymede,” she says. “Three hundred years. Isn’t the price a little too high?” And he leans forward to tell her for the first time what he truly thinks of her and what he has wanted to do to her on so many unspeakable nights but the bitch flicks out, just wanders out of there the way the Ganymedian police have, and there is nothing to confront.

  “You bitch,” he says, “you dirty bitch,” but this is not too satisfactory either and so he only drifts into another dream, much vaguer and more sordid this time, having something to do with campaigning for national office after his triumphant return from Ganymede and finding himself at a party with fifty blondes and a fat national committeeman who fondles all of the women obscenely as he asks Walker to tell him, in twenty words or less, exactly why he thinks he is entitled to public office and what he will do for the national committeeman if he is granted the nomination.

  VI

  He is awakened by the aliens. They perch at the foot of his bed, shimmering in a kind of haze, and the spokesman reminds him that Walker has exceeded the two hours granted him to reverse the mission and return home. “You’re leaving us little choice,” the alien says. “We’re going to have to take very serious action.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Walker says. “I tried to talk to them about you but they cut me off. I really wanted to discuss this, I mean I wasn’t sitting on it or anything like that.”

  ‘’I’m afraid that’s no excuse.”

  “And in the second place,” Walker says, tearing himself from the bunk and starting to move around the cabin, trying to force some jauntiness into his bearing, no reason to let a couple of aliens get you down, “in the second place, I couldn’t turn the mission around even if I wanted to. It’s all remote control. It’s all computer. All that I do is come along for the ride. Everything is triggered from the Base.”

  “That’s very interesting,” the alien says, “but I’m afraid has nothing to do with the situation. You really have to get out of here, you know; you’re pushing us beyond our limits.”

  “Why don’t both of you talk?” Walker says, slapping a bulkhead, dodging an overhang, reeling to his knees to reach the medicine cabinet and some simulated caffeine. “Wouldn’t it be easier that way?”

  “Policy and procedure,” the spokesman says. The aliens exchange nods. “He’s only assisting me on this tour.”

  ‘’I’d really like to leave,” Walker says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. The fact that Ganymede has life on it and so on makes your case a very strong one. I’m not a lawyer but I think that you have some very good arguments. But what can I do?” He shows them the palms of his hands. “I have no essential control.”

  The silent alien looks at him and says, “You have enough armament on this thing to destroy a planet.”

  “Yes,” Walker says, “that’s quite true, quite b·ue. I told that to you before and I admit that that happens to be the case. But we didn’t intend to use it. It’s just that the agency is essentially military in nature and we have to carry along war technology in order to make the financing. If you understand what I’m saying, it’s very complicated the way they do things. Also, the armament is just for show so if we run into any aliens in space we can protect ourselves. Of course we’ve never met any aliens up until now and I wouldn’t do anything at all to you. I mean, you can see that my position is hardly aggressive.”

  “Can you operate the armament?” the silent alien says. He seems to be genuinely engaged; unlike the other, once talking, he has a real interest in his work. Perhaps on Ganymede he is an ordnance expert.

  “1 don’t know,” Walker says. ‘’I’ve received a little instruction, just the basics and so on, but actually it’s pretty

  sophisticated stuff and I don’t think that anyone directly in the agency knows exactly how to operate it. I mean, I know a few things about it, yes.”

  “I mean, is it voluntary?”

  “Oh. Is it voluntary? You mean, unlike the operation of the craft, could I actually use the weapons myself? Well, that’s an interesting point,” Walker says, “now that you bring it up. The answer is that I probably could, come to think of it. It isn’t connected to the Base computer like everything else. Actually, it’s kind of antiquated and hand-controlled, I believe.”

  ‘’Well then,” the chief alien says, “you certainly could destroy us if you elected to, now couldn’t you?”

  “But I wouldn’t think of it,” Walker says hastily. ‘’I’m non-aggressive. Utterly. Really, I’m embarrassed about the whole thing, and I want to take it up with Base just as soon as possible. I’m sure that when they learn that Ganymede has inhabitants they’ll be just as upset as I and cancel the mission. I’m sure they’ll cancel the mission.”

  “1 don’t know,” the alien says. “The whole situation is very dangerous. Should we eliminate him?” “Let’s give him a little while longer,” the other alien says. “After all, he’s being honest with us. He has no authority.”

  “But I have good faith,” Walker says. “1 can show good faith.” He feels the shaping of an idea. “1 really could show you that I mean what I’m saying and that — ”

  “How about another two hours?” an alien says. “Two hours so that he can explain the situation.”

  “Give him three.”

  “Yes,” Walker says, “I’ll clear the thing up in three hours. That would be fine. And if I don’t — ”

  “If you don’t,” the ordnance expert says, rubbing his appendage through the P on Ganymede Police, bringing it to something of a shine, “if you don’t, we’ll take measures.”

  “1 will,” Walker says, “1 really will,” and leans forward to tell them a lot more about the good faith he will show but they vanish; so much for their interest, and certain beeps from the transmitter indicate that Base thinks it is about time that he came out of rest period and did some useful tasks. “You dirty sons of bitches,” Walker says to the receiver and then shudders with a thin sense of shock; he had never realized until this instant that he felt that way about them.

  VII

  He tries to bring up the matter of the aliens with Base but they are not hearing any of it at the moment; for reasons which are not made quite clear, he is to give another speech almost instantly. “Come on, come on,” Base nags him as he moves around the cabin setting up the equipment once again, “don’t you understand there’s no time to waste?” It seems to
have something to do with riots and protests or perhaps Walker is merely working on a chain of inference. At any rate, the speech when he delivers it is full of soothing phrases and rather frantic reassurances which, because he has had no time to discuss it beforehand, make his delivery rather strained and awkward. “The project was rebuilt from the ground up for the sake of mankind,” he finds himself saying and “Certain insignificant but noisy fractions of the populace are participating in a poison campaign” and “Ganymede, the jewel of the heavens, hangs before me now as a token forever of the ingenuity of mankind, his courage, his mission,” and “The purpose of this expedition goes far beyond advantage to one party or persons” and when he has finished the speech the transmitters go into a glittering series of explosions, wires and circuits jetting a pure horrifying flame which he can only witness until they turn to smoke and ash. Base informs him that there is some minor problem, sabotaged circuits on the conveyors or whatever, and asks him to hold firm; they will be back to him in due course. “Another speech,” Base says,

  “you’ll have to do another speech.”

  “Listen,” Walker says, “about those aliens — ”

  “No time,” Base says. “Certain adjustments have to be made

  here.”

  “But there are aliens — ”

  ‘’I’m sorry,” Base says. The tone is regretful, contained,

  the sound of disconnection a crisp pop in the empty spaces of the cabin. Walker squeezes himself through a hatchway or two and, blowing some dust off the armaments, looks it over. It seems comprehensible enough. He recalls vaguely reading an instruction booklet once.

  VIII

  “Children?” his wife had said. “Do you think I’m crazy?” and had looked at him with a mad, bleak expression; confronting her that way, in the jammed spaces of the bed, he had understood for the first time how far it had all gone and the depths of her estrangement. “Do you really think that I’d bring children into this situation? You don’t understand me, do you?” she said, turning, her back fitting smoothly, coldly, against the palpitations of his chest, “you don’t understand a Single thing that ever went on; I can see that now. I can see everything.”

  “It isn’t that bad,” he said, mumbling, futile, holding himself below in an instinctive gesture of loss, feeling the sag of his scrotal sac through spread fingers. (Could such devastation come from something that minute, that vulnerable?) “Things aren’t what they should be but we’re still going on; there’s been a real leveling off of international tension and the race problems, well, we’ll always have a race problem but some of the space pressure is easing and — ”

  “Oh, you damned fool,” she said against him, her voice mingling into laughter, “you damned fool, do you think I’m talking about the world? The hell with the world! Do you really think I’d bring children to us?” And broke into laughter then, full harsh laughter, and Walker turned from her, back to back; like some sea beast, they had jammed against one another in the night, his mumbles and sighs against her whimpers, the conjoinment of their buttocks hard and yet somehow perfect under the cold damp of the sheets. And in the morning had fucked, simply and unspeakingly, he rising above her to such heights that he felt he could confront the walls.

  Well, that had been a long time ago. No point in getting into any of that so late in the game.

  He finds himself thinking that in many ways, in certain aspects, she had looked like the aliens.

  IX

  Base tells him that the mission must be aborted. They have no specific explanation but say that it has something to do with certain strains and stresses surrounding the project and also a vague issue of public safety. It has nothing to do with his conduct, which was exemplary but failed, somehow, to work. Perhaps later on they will be able to explain things to him in detail although there cannot be any guarantees; matters are somewhat confusing. Walker asks if there are any more transmissions for him to deliver and Base says no, thank you, not at this time, there is no point to it and in any event there is certain difficulty with the communications. They will wheel him out of the next orbit and take him home. He asks them if they want him to do the planned probe and the leaving of the artifacts and Base says no, there really is no time for this and they can do it, perhaps, next time around. Walker gathers that the situation is somewhat obscure and perhaps they are Withholding certain information from him. “Trust us,” Base says. “It’s going to be a very difficult re-entry because of certain problems here but we’ll talk you through without the automatics and everything will work out well. Trust us,” Base says and leaves him alone for the time being. Walker busies himself dismantling the equipment for transmission and then lies on his bunk, arms behind his head, whistling absently through his teeth and trying to think of nothing at all. There really is little enough on his mind; the ship will be yanked out of orbit through remote control. The aliens return, looking dour. Walker raises a hand.

  ‘’I’m leaving,” he says. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’m leaving after the next orbit.”

  “Ab,” the spokesman says, “that’s fine. Nevertheless, you did not obey our instructions. More than three hours have elapsed since our final warning.”

  ‘Tm leaving anyway. What’s the difference?”

  “You defied us.”

  “Listen,” Walker says, “you understand that there was no intent to intrude. We had no hostile intent. It was all a mistake.”

  “Nevertheless you were warned.”

  “I did what I could. Still, I’m leaving.”

  “Not sufficient,” the alien says. He turns to the other. “Not sufficient,” the other says. “It’s a serious infraction.”

  “Listen to me,” Walker says, sitting and coming over to crouch near the aliens (they are really quite short and at this height he can regard them level; see what truly attractive creatures they are). ‘’I’ll show good faith. I understand your position and I’m willing to show good faith. Just to point out to you that this was all a mistake.”

  “How can you? We can take very severe retaliatory action, you understand.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Walker says. He leans forward, throws out an explicatory palm. Everything is very simple as long as you take it step by step. He explains.

  The aliens listen quietly, look at one another, Finally nod. They agree that what Walker offers seems sufficient. Under the circumstances it is a fair and equitable offer.

  Walker smiles and relaxes. For the last ten minutes of his stay in the orbit of Ganymede, he and the aliens talk intimately to one another, exchanging reminiscences, observations and, in Walker’s case, some very frank details about sexual preferences of his wife which, unjustified as they were, Simply drove him mad.

  X

  Crouching over the armaments, suspended heavily against the wall, Walker finally sinks into a tension-induced doze, a sleep supported by sedatives and loss which carries him through five million miles of space. In this sleep he dreams that he is once again fifteen years old and present at the End of the World; staring through the window of the home in which he was born, he sees the sky turn into fire, the fire into streaks which encircle and enflame everything which he has always known. There goes the tree in the back yard, there goes the boot factory up on the hill, there goes the home of the girl whom he will, in some years, marry. She appears in the center of the flames, mournful, stricken, yearning, her mouth slowly opening to passion or torment at the center of the fire, and as the flames take her to agony she breaks into an expression more yielding than any he has ever known and, pressed as he is against his window, watching her through binoculars, he feels that he could reach and touch her, hold her in his arm, protect her against the devastation … but this is impossible, she is dead beyond recovery, and he wakes screaming, screaming, against the cold web of the armaments which seem to snatch at him with gears come alive and he hangs on for all he is worth, waiting, waiting, only a few million miles more to Earth and he can bring upon them, upon her, a
judgment more truthful than any they have ever known. “Because you deserve it, you sons of bitches,” he says.

  Behind him, the two aliens, along for the ride, chuckle wisely and make circles of approval at one another with their strange webbed appendages.

  Kingfish

  EVERY man a king, every king a saint, each and every one of us on our own piece of holy ground. That’s what he said. That’s what he said to the little guy in Berlin. I was there at the picture-taking after the private conferences, I could hear what Huey said to him over the sounds of the reporters, the hammer of the flashbulbs. Just look this way, boss. You and me and cousin Henry, Aunt Anna and Moses down the lane, there’s a glory for each of us and it can be yours too. The little guy kind of jumped and twitched when Huey squeezed him on the shoulder. The interpreter was yammering away in that German of his, but somehow I think the little guy got the message already. He knew more English than he let on. He knew a lot more stuff than he let on about everything.

  What do you say there, Adolf? Huey said, and gave an enormous wink. I could have dropped my teeth on the floor. You think we can get this rolling, just the two of us? Hey John, Huey said, motioning to me, don’t stand there like a stupe on the sidelines, join the photo session. This here is my vice president, Huey said to the little guy.

  The little guy said something in Huey’s ear, up close. That’s right, Huey said. That, too. He’s everybody’s vice president. He is the second in command, isn’t that right? He gave me a Louisiana-sized wave, clasped my hand. Holding his hand that way, backing into the Fuhrer, I had the little guy boxed against Huey. We had him in perfect position, trapped. We could have stood and tossed him over the Reichstag. But we didn’t, standing there frozen in the eye of the world, the press roaring, the sounds drifting around us and in that small abyss Huey squeezed my hand for attention and gave one perfect, focused wink. Got him, the wink said. Got him, didn’t I tell you?