by Jerry
Breasting the hill, I checked the horse, pulling him up almost into a rear because, as I stopped him, I heard a terrible cry of agony from quite near by. Swinging Prince around, I pushed him up onto a ridge and saw, on the corner of what had been Tenth Avenue, the strangest sight I have ever seen.
A giant mink stood at bay with a dead Indian in his mouth. Two other Indians lay on the ground, and there was a dead horse near by. Some mounted Indians and one loose horse were circling round the mink, who bristled with so many arrows that he looked almost like a porcupine. There were probably enough arrows to kill him in the end, but he would take days to die. The Indians with rifles were not with this party. Even if they had been, their bullets would have been too light to have much effect. The most intelligent thing the Indians could have done would have been to leave the mink alone now, because he would have settled down to suck the blood of the men and horses he had killed; but they were in no mood to give in and, uttering wild yells, they closed in on him, circling around him and shooting more arrows into him. This made it impossible for me to get a shot at him till suddenly, dropping the man he held, he did what I hoped he would do—stood up on his hind legs. He had seen me on the ridge, outlined against the sky, and wondered what I was. The mink’s eyesight, fortunately, is not good. As he stood looking and sniffing, his pointed face dripping with blood, I charged down straight at him—a distance of a hundred yards or so—and, pulling up about twenty paces short of him, swung Prince broadside on and put a soft-nosed bullet into the mink’s chest, midway between his short, waving forelegs. The bullet must have smashed into his backbone because he threw up his paws, almost as a man might throw up his hands, and fell backward with the Indians closing in on him, forcing their reluctant ponies up to him so that they could drive their spears into him. Once satisfied that he was dead, they expressed their pleasure.
Nothing could have suited my purpose better than this happy event, for by it I proved my value to them as a warrior. For I had realized for some time that even if they had decided to leave me behind when they left New York (they had freed me almost as soon as they caught me), I would have followed because I needed company.
The bowl of my personal existence was shattered. Here were men again. I’d forgotten how I needed men. It was interesting how my nostrils, trained by years of hunting, now dilated at the scent of men. There were also the girls, who affected me profoundly, and the horses. Women might be a necessity in youth, but horses were a pleasure that I had never forgotten. No man was ever betrayed by a horse; no horse ever deserted him or bore false witness against him.
It took me some time to explain my ideas to the Indians, and to accustom my youngest dogs to their company. The older and more savage dogs I shot after having steeled myself by drinking half a bottle of French brandy. Actually, apart from the dogs that I could not take, I regretted most leaving my wine cellar. But I had some beautiful dogs left; I had the bay stallion Tall Eagle had given me; and I had the company of a hundred and fifty magnificent young Indians and two young white girls who were burned as brown as the Indians and distinguishable from them only by their corn-colored hair and blue eyes. All this made up for what I had lost.
I was, however, faced with an ethical problem. The Indians, who had discovered heavy rifles similar to mine in some of the stores they had entered, wished me to instruct them in their use. I could see nothing to be gained by such instruction, so I tried to explain to them that this was white man’s magic and so strong that it had destroyed all the white men in the world except me, turning its forces against them in retribution for their own misuse of its power. I also pointed out that all they need do to have this great power at their disposal was to keep me alive and treat me well. I let one man fire a shot lying down, and the recoil broke his collarbone. This seemed to confirm all that I had said.
Until I was with people again, it had not occurred to me to consider my own appearance, because when a man is alone he has no appearance. I found a mirror and examined myself with some attention and amazement. I was as straight as I had always been, but I was much wider than I had thought possible. My arms were as big as my thighs; my chest was immense. My hair was long, reaching halfway down my back, and my beard reached my belt. Both hair and beard were snow white. My body hair, with which I was covered, was white in front of my body and shaded through silver into black along my spine. For ornament, I wore a diamond necklace around my neck; my only clothing was a khaki kilt that I wore for warmth, a leather belt in which was stuck my kukri, and a pair of leather shoes. On my upper arms I had some gold armlets made from expanding wrist-watch chains and other jeweled bracelets that I had joined together and mounted on wide leather straps—a pastime I had indulged in as a hobby. I could not think what I looked like until I suddenly remembered the steel engravings of an old Bible I had had as a child. I looked like Moses when he received the tablets. But the astonishing thing was how well I felt and how immensely strong I was—now that I had others against whom to measure myself.
My appearance does not seem to bother the Indians and it is evident that the two girls—their names are Helen and Christine—want to marry me and are even prepared to share me if necessary, much to the amusement of the braves, who, now that we know each other well, nudge me in the ribs and give me monosyllabic advice amplified by gestures. This situation is still unresolved and becomes daily more precarious.
My personal affairs have, however, no historic interest; and, having completed my story of the end of the white man’s world, I can only say that I ride forward with optimism and can now laugh at the change of circumstance which hoisted my race with the petard of its own ingenuity and returned this great land to its original possessors. “America for the Americans,” I say to Tall Eagle, and laugh. He says nothing. He thinks I am mad. But the girls laugh, because young girls laugh at anything, and it is spring again.
THE PASSENGER
Kenneth Harmon
The classic route to a man’s heart is through his stomach—and she was just his dish.
THE transport swung past Centaurus on the last leg of her long journey to Sol. There was no flash, no roar as she swept across the darkness of space. As silent as a ghost, as quiet as a puff of moonlight she moved, riding the gravitational fields that spread like tangled, invisible spider webs between the stars.
Within the ship there was also silence, but the air was stirred by a faint, persistent vibration from the field generators. This noiseless pulse stole into every corner of the ship, through long, empty passageways lined with closed stateroom doors, up spiraling stairways to the bridge and navigational decks, and down into vast and echoing holds, filled with strange cargo from distant worlds.
This vibration pulsed through Lenore’s stateroom. As she relaxed on her couch, she bathed in it, letting it flow through her to tingle in her fingertips and whisper behind her closed eyelids.
“Home,” it pulsed, “you’re going home.”
SHE repeated the word to herself, moving her lips softly but making no sound. “Home,” she breathed, “back home to Earth.” Back to the proud old planet that was always home, no matter how far you wandered under alien suns. Back to the shining cities clustered along blue seacoasts. Back to the golden grainlands of the central states and the high, blue grandeur of the western mountains. And back to the myriad tiny things that she remembered best, the little, friendly things . . . a stretch of maple-shadowed streets heavy and still with the heat of a summer noon; a flurry of pigeons in the courthouse square; yellow dandelions in a green lawn, the whir of a lawnmower and the smell of the cut grass; ivy on old bricks and the rough feel of oak bark under her hands; water lilies and watermelons and crepe papery dances and picnics by the river in the summer dusk; and the library steps in the evening, with fireflies in the cool grass and the school chimes sounding the slow hours through the friendly dark.
She thought to herself, “It’s been such a long time since you were home. There will be a whole new flock of pigeons now.”
She smiled at the recollection of the eager, awkward girl of twenty that she had been when she had finished school and had entered the Government Education Service. “Travel While Helping Others” had been the motto of the GES.
She had traveled, all right, a long, long way inside a rusty freighter without a single porthole, to a planet out on the rim of the Galaxy that was as barren and dreary as a cosmic slag heap. Five years on the rock pile, five years of knocking yourself out trying to explain history and Shakespeare and geometry to a bunch of grubby little miners’ kids in a tin schoolhouse at the edge of a cluster of tin shacks that was supposed to be a town. Five years of trudging around with your nails worn and dirty and your hair chopped short, of wearing the latest thing in overalls. Five years of not talking with the young miners because they got in trouble with the foreman, and not talking with the crewmen from the ore freighters because they got in trouble with the first mate, and not talking with yourself because you got in trouble with the psychologist.
They took care of you in the Education Service; they guarded your diet and your virtue, your body and your mind. Everything but your happiness.
THERE was lots to do, of course. You could prepare lessons and read papers and cheap novels in the miners’ library, or nail some more tin on your quarters to keep out the wind and the dust and the little animals. You could go walking to the edge of town and look at all the pretty gray stones and the trees, like squashed-down barrel cactus; watch the larger sun sink behind the horizon with its little companion star circling around it, diving out of sight to the right and popping up again on the left. And Saturday night—yippee!—three-year-old movies in the tin hangar. And, after five years, they come and say, “Here’s Miss So-and-So, your relief, and here’s your five thousand credits and wouldn’t you like to sign up for another term?”
Ha!
So they give you your ticket back to Earth. You’re on the transport at last, and who can blame you if you act just a little crazy and eat like a pig and take baths three times a day and lie around your stateroom and just dream about getting home and waking up in your own room in the morning and getting a good cup of real coffee at the corner fountain and kissing some handsome young fellow on the library steps when the Moon is full behind the bell tower?
“And will the young fellow like you?” she asked herself, knowing the answer even as she asked the question.
She whirled about in the middle of the stateroom, her robe swirling around her, and ended with a deep curtsy to the full-length mirror.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” she murmured. “Lenore Smithson, formerly of the Government Education Service, just back from business out on the Rim. What? Why, of course you may have this dance. Your name? Mr. Fairheart! Of the billionaire Fairhearts?” She waltzed with herself a moment. Halting before the mirror again, she surveyed herself critically.
“Well,” she said aloud, “the five years didn’t completely ruin you, after all. Your nose still turns up and your cheeks still dimple when you smile. You have a nice tan and your hair’s grown long again. Concentrated food hasn’t hurt your figure, either.” She turned this way and that before the mirror to observe herself.
Then suddenly she gave a little gasp of surprise and fright, for a cascade of laughter had flooded soundlessly inside her head.
SHE stood frozen before the mirror while the laughter continued. Then she slowly swung around. It ceased abruptly. She looked around the compartment, staring accusingly at each article of furniture in turn; then quickly spun around to look behind her, meeting her own startled gaze in the mirror.
Opening the door slowly, she ventured to thrust her head out into the corridor. It was deserted, the long rows of doors all closed during the afternoon rest period. As she stood there, a steward came along the corridor with a tray of glasses, nodded to her, and passed on out of sight. She turned back into the room and stood there, leaning against the door, listening.
Suddenly the laughter came again, bursting out as though it had been suppressed and could be held back no longer. Clear, merry, ringing and completely soundless, it poured through her mind.
“What is it?” she cried aloud. “What’s happening?”
“My dear young lady,” said a man’s voice within her head, “allow me to introduce myself. My name is Fairheart. Of the billionaire Fairhearts. May I have the next dance?”
“This is it,” she thought. “Five years on the rock pile would do it to anyone. You’ve gone mad.”
She laughed shakily. “I can’t dance with you if I can’t see you.”
“I really should explain,” the voice replied, “and apologize for my silly joke. It was frightfully rude to laugh at you, but when I saw you waltzing and preening yourself, I just couldn’t help it. I’m a telepath, you see, from Dekker’s star, out on the Rim.”
That would explain, she thought, his slightly stilted phraseology; English was apparently not his native tongue—or, rather, his native thought.
“There was a mild mutation among the settlers there, and the third generation all have this ability. I shouldn’t use it, I know, but I’ve been so lonely, confined here to my room, that I cast around to see if there were anyone that I could talk to. Then I came upon you considering your own virtues, and you were so cute and funny that I couldn’t resist. Then I laughed and you caught me.”
“I’VE heard of telepaths,” she said doubtfully, “though I’ve never heard of Dekker’s star. However, I don’t think you have any right to go thinking around the ship spying on people.”
“Sh!” whispered the silent voice. “You needn’t shout. I’ll go away if you wish and never spy on you again, but don’t tell Captain Blake, or he’ll have me sealed in a lead-lined cell or something. We’re not supposed to telepath around others, but I’ve been sitting here with all sorts of interesting thoughts just tickling the edges of my mind for so long that I had to go exploring.”
“Why not go exploring on your own two feet like anyone else? Have you so much brains, your head’s too heavy to carry?”
“Unfortunately,” the voice mourned, “my trouble is in my foot and not in my head. On the second night out from Dekker’s star, I lost my footing on the stairs from the dining hall and plunged like a comet to the bottom. I would probably have been killed but for the person of a stout steward who, at that moment, started to ascend the stairs. He took the full impact of my descent on his chest and saved my life, I’m sure. However, I still received a broken ankle that has given me so much pain that I have been forced to remain in my cabin.
“I have had no one to talk to except the steward who brings me my meals, and, as he is the one whom I met on the stairs, he has little to say. In the morning he frowns at me, at noon he glowers, and in the evening he remarks hopefully, ‘Foot still pretty bad?’ Thus, I’m starved for conversation.”
Lenore smiled at this earnest speech. “I might talk with you for a minute or two, but you must admit that you have one advantage over me. You can see me, or so you say, and know what I look like, but I can’t see you. It isn’t fair.”
“I can show myself to you,” he said, “but you’ll have to help me by closing your eyes and concentrating very hard.”
SHE closed her eyes and waited expectantly. There was a moment of darkness; then there appeared in the middle of the darkness a point of light, a globe, a giant balloon of color. Suddenly she was looking into the corner of a stateroom which appeared to hang in space. In the center of the area stood a handsome young man in a startling black and orange lounging robe, holding on to the back of a chair.
She opened her eyes; for an instant the vision of the young telepath hung in the air over her couch like a ghostly double exposure. Then it faded and the room was empty.
“That’s a terrible effort,” came his thought, “particularly when I have to balance on one foot at the same time. Well, now are we even?”
Abandoning her post by the door, she moved to the couch and sat down. “I’m really disappointed,” she smi
led. “I was sure you’d have two heads. But I think you do have nice eyes and a terrible taste in bathrobes.” She took a cigarette from her case and lit it carefully. Then she remembered her manners and extended the case to the empty air. “Won’t you have one?”
“I certainly would like to. I’m all out of them until the steward brings my dinner. But I’m afraid I’ll have to wait, unless you can blow the smoke through the ventilators to me, or unless . . . you bring me one?”
Lenore blushed and changed the subject. “Tell me, what do you do all day in your stateroom? Do you read? Do you play the flute? Do you telepath sweet nothings across the light-years to your girl friend on Dekker’s star?”
“I’m afraid my telepathic powers are a bit short-ranged to reach Dekker’s star,” he replied. “Besides, what girl would commune with me through the depths of space when some other young man is calling her from the dancing pavilion? And my musical talents are limited. However, I do read. I brought some books connected with the research I intend to do on Earth for my degree, and I have spent many happy hours poring over the thrilling pages of Extraterrestrial Entomology and Galactic Arachnida.”
“I came better prepared than you did,” she said. “Perhaps I could lend you some of my books. I have novels, plays, poetry, and one very interesting volume called Progressive Education under Rim Star Conditions. But,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “I must tell you a secret about that last one.”