The Complete Serials

by Clifford D. Simak

  XII

  JULY 12, 1915. Arrived this afternoon (3:20 p.m.) five beings from Vega XXI, the first of their kind to pass through this station. They are biped and humanoid, and one gains the impression that they are not made of flesh—that flesh would be too gross for the kind of things they are. But, of course, they are made of flesh the same as anyone. They glow. Not with a visible light; but there is about them an aura that goes with them wherever they may be.

  They were, I gathered, a sexual unit, the five of them—although I am not so certain I understand, for it is most confusing. They were happy and friendly. They carried with them an air of faint amusement, not at anything in particular, but at the universe itself, as if they might have enjoyed some sort of cosmic and very private joke that was known to no one else. They were on a holiday. They were en route to a festival (although that may not be the precise word for it) on another planet, where other life forms were gathering for a week of carnival. Just how or why they had been invited I was unable to determine. It must surely have been a great honor for them to be going there, but so far as I could see they did not seem to think so, but took it as their right. They were very happy and without a care and extremely self-assured and poised. But, thinking back on it, I would suppose that they are always that way. I found myself just a little envious at not being able to be as carefree and gay as they were, and trying to imagine how fresh life and the universe must seem to them. And a little resentful they could be, so unthinkingly, as happy as they were.

  I had, according to instructions, hung hammocks so that they could rest, but they did not use them. They brought with them hampers that were filled with food and drink and sat down at my table and began to talk and feast. They asked me to sit with them. They chose two dishes and a bottle, which they assured me would be safe for me to eat and drink, the rest of their fare being somewhat doubtful for a metabolism such as mine. The food was delicious and of a kind I had never tasted—one dish being rather like the rarest and most delicate of old cheeses, and the other of a sweetness that was heavenly. The drink was somewhat like the finest of brandies, yellow in color and no heavier than water.

  THEY ASKED me about myself and about my planet and they were courteous and seemed genuinely interested. They were quick of understanding in the things I told them. They told me they were headed for a planet, the name of which I had not heard before, and they talked among themselves, gaily and happily, but in such a way that I did not seem to be left out. From their talk I gained the fact that some form of art was being presented at the festival on this planet. The art form was not alone of music or painting, but was composed of sound and color and emotion and form, and other qualities for which there seem to be no words in the language of the Earth, and which I do not entirely recognize, only gaining the very faintest inkling of what they were talking of in this particular regard. I gained the impression of a three-dimensional symphony—although this is not entirely the right expression—which had been composed, not by a single being, but by a team of beings. They talked of the art form enthusiastically. I seemed to understand that it would not last for only several hours, but for days, and that it was an experience rather than a listening or seeing and that the spectators or audience did not merely sit and listen, but could, if they wished, and must, to get the most out of it, be participants. But I could not understand how they participated and felt I should not ask.

  They talked of the people they would meet and when they had met them last and gossiped considerably about them, although in kindly fashion, leaving the impression that they and many other people went from planet to planet for some happy purpose. But whether there was any purpose other than enjoyment in their going, I could not determine. I gathered that there might be.

  They spoke of other festivals. Not all of them were concerned with the one art form, but with other more specialized aspects of the arts, of which I could gain no adequate idea. They seemed to find a great and exuberant happiness in the festivals. It seemed to me that some certain significances aside from the art itself contributed greatly to that happiness.

  I did not join in this part of their conversation, for, frankly, there was no opportunity. I would have liked to ask some questions, hut I had no chance. I suppose that if I had, my questions must have sounded stupid to them; but given the chance, that would not have bothered me too much. And yet in spite of this, they managed somehow to make me feel I was included in their conversation. There was no obvious attempt to do this, and yet they made me feel I was one with them and not simply a station keeper they would spend a short time with.

  At times they spoke briefly in the language of their planet, which is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard, but for the most part they conversed in the vernacular used by a number of the humanoid races, a sort of pidgin language made up for convenience. I suspect that this was done out of courtesy to me, and a great courtesy it was. I believe that they were truly the most civilized people I have ever met.

  I HAVE said they glowed. I think by that I mean they glowed in spirit. It seemed that they were accompanied, somehow, by a sparkling golden haze that made happy everything it touched—almost as if they moved in some special world that no one else had found. Sitting at the table with them, I seemed to be included in this golden haze and I felt strange, quiet, deep currents of happiness flowing in my veins. I wondered by what route they and their world had arrived at this golden state and if my world could, in some distant time, attain it.

  But back of this happiness was a great vitality, the bubbling, effervescent spirit with an inner core of strength and a love of living that seemed to fill every pore of them and every instant of their time.

  They had only two hours’ time. It passed so swiftly that I had to finally warn them it was time to go. Before they left, they placed two packages on the table and said they were for me. They thanked me for my table (what a strange way for them to put it). Then they said good-by and stepped into the cabinet (the extra large one), and I sent them on their way.

  Even after they were gone, the golden haze seemed to linger in the room. It was hours before all of it was gone. I wished that I might have gone with them to that other planet and its festival.

  One of the packages they left contained a dozen bottles of the brandy-like liquor. The bottles themselves were each a piece of art, no two of them alike, being formed of what I am convinced is diamond; but whether fabricated diamond or carved from some great stones, I have no idea. At any rate, I would estimate that each of them is priceless, and each carved in a disturbing variety of symbolisms, each of which, however, has a special beauty of its own.

  In the other box was a—well, I suppose that, for lack of other name, you might call it a music box. The box itself is ivory, old yellow ivory that is as smooth as satin, covered by a mass of diagrammatic carving which must have some significance which I do not understand.

  On the top of it is a circle set inside a graduated scale. When I turned the circle to the first graduation there was music and through all the room an interplay of many-colored light, as if the entire room was filled with different kinds of color, and through it all a far-off suggestion of that golden haze. And from the box came, too, perfumes that filled the room, and feeling, emotion—whatever one may call it—but something that took hold of one and made one said or happy or whatever might go with the music and the color and perfume. Out of that box came a world in which one lived out the composition or whatever it might be—living it with all that one had in him, all the emotion and belief and intellect of which one is capable.

  Here, I am quite certain, was a recording of that art form of which they had been talking. And not one composition alone, but 206 of them, for that is the number of the graduation marks and for each mark there is a separate composition. In the days to come I shall play them all and make notes upon each of them and assign them names, perhaps, according to their characteristics, and from them, perhaps, can gain some knowledge as well as entertainment.

&
nbsp; XIII

  THE TWELVE diamond bottles, empty long ago, stood in a sparkling row upon the fireplace mantle. The music box, as one of his most choice possessions, was stored inside one of the cabinets, where no harm could come to it Enoch thought, rather ruefully, that in all these years, despite regular use of it, he had not as yet played through the entire list of compositions. There were so many of the early ones that begged for a replaying that he was not a great deal more than halfway through the graduated markings.

  The Hazers had come back, the five of them, time and time again, for it seemed that they found in this station, perhaps even in the man who operated it, some quality that pleased them. They had helped him learn the Vegan language and had brought him scrolls of Vegan literature and many other things. They had been, without any doubt, the best friends among the aliens (other than Ulysses) that he had ever had. Then one day they came no more. He wondered why, asking after them when other. Hazers showed up at the station. But he had never learned what had happened to them.

  That was the way it was with so many things. The galaxy was so large and so diverse and complex that you could never hope to keep in step with it. There was too much to know and too much to understand. And a large part of it was beyond human understanding.

  He knew far more now about the Hazers and their art forms, their traditions and their customs and their history, than he’d known that first day he’d written of them, back in 1915. But he still was far from grasping many of the concepts that were commonplace with them.

  There had been many of them since that day in 1915 and there was one he remembered in particular—the old, wise one, the philosopher, who had died on the floor beside the sofa.

  They had been sitting on the sofa, talking. He even could remember the subject of their talk. The old one had been telling of the perverse code of ethics, at once irrational and comic, which had been built up by that curious race of social vegetables he had encountered on one of his visits to an off-track planet on the other side of the galactic rim. The old Hazer had a drink or two beneath his belt and he was in splendid form, relating incident after incident with enthusiastic gusto.

  Suddenly, in mid-sentence, he stopped his talking, and slumped quietly forward. Enoch, startled, reached for him. But before he could lay a hand upon him, the old alien slid slowly to the floor.

  The golden haze faded from his body and slowly flickered out. The body lay there, angular and bony and obscene, a terribly alien thing there upon the floor, a thing that was at once pitiful and monstrous. More monstrous, it seemed to Enoch, than anything in alien form he had ever seen before.

  IN LIFE it had been a wondrous creature, but now, in death, it was an old bag of hideous bones with a scaly parchment stretched to hold the bones together. It was the golden haze, Enoch told himself, gulping, in something near to horror, that had made the Hazer seem so wondrous and so beautiful, so vital, so alive and quick, so filled with dignity. The golden haze was the life of them. When the haze was gone they became mere repulsive horrors that one gagged to look upon.

  Could it be, he wondered, that the goldenness was the Hazers’ life force and that they wore it like a cloak, as a sort of overall disguise? Did they wear their life force outside of them while all other creatures wore it on the inside?

  A piteous little wind was lamenting in the gingerbread high up in the gables. Through the windows he could see battalions of tattered clouds fleeing in ragged retreat across the moon, which had climbed halfway up the eastern sky.

  There was a coldness and a loneliness in the station—a far-reaching loneliness that stretched out and out, farther than mere Earth loneliness could go.

  Enoch turned from the body and walked stiffly across the room to the message machine. He put in a call for a connection direct with Galactic Central, then stood waiting, gripping the sides of the machine with both his hands.

  GO AHEAD, said Galactic Central.

  Briefly, as objectively as he was able, Enoch reported what had happened.

  There was no hesitation and there were no questions from the other end. Just simple directions (as if this was something that happened all the time) on how the situation should be handled. The Vegan must remain upon the planet of its death, its body to be disposed of according to the local customs obtaining on that planet. For that was the Vegan law, and, likewise, a point of honor. A Vegan, when he fell, must stay where he fell, and that place became forever, a part of Vega XXI. There were such places, said Galactic Central, all through the galaxy.

  THE CUSTOM HERE, typed Enoch, IS TO INTER THE DEAD.

  THEN INTER THE VEGAN.

  WE READ A VERSE OR TWO FROM OUR HOLY BOOK.

  READ ONE FOR THE VEGAN, THEN. YOU CAN DO ALL THIS?

  YES. BUT WE USUALLY HAVE IT DONE BY A PRACTITIONER OF RELIGION. UNDER THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, HOWEVER, THAT MIGHT BE UNWISE.

  AGREED, said Galactic Central. YOU CAN DO AS WELL YOURSELF?

  I CAN.

  IT IS BEST THEN THAT YOU DO.

  WILL THERE BE RELATIVES OR FRIENDS ARRIVING FOR THE RITES?

  NO.

  YOU WILL NOTIFY THEM?

  THEY ALREADY KNOW.

  HE ONLY DIED A MOMENT OR TWO AGO.

  NEVERTHELESS THEY KNOW.

  WHAT ABOUT A DEATH CERTIFICATE?

  NONE IS NEEDED. THEY KNOW OF WHAT HE DIED.

  HIS LUGGAGE? THERE IS A TRUNK.

  KEEP IT. IT IS A TOKEN FOR THE SERVICES YOU PERFORM FOR THE HONORED DEAD. THAT ALSO IS THE LAW.

  BUT THERE MAY BE IMPORTANT MATTERS IN IT.

  YOU WILL KEEP THE TRUNK. TO REFUSE WOULD INSULT THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD.

  ANYTHING ELSE? asked Enoch. THAT IS ALL?

  THAT IS ALL. PROCEED AS IF THE VEGAN WERE ONE OF YOUR OWN.

  ENOCH CLEARED the machine and went back across the room. He stood above the Hazer, getting up his nerve to bend and lift the body to place it on the sofa. He shrank from touching it. It was so unclean and terrible, such a travesty on the shining creature that had sat there talking with him.

  Since he met the Hazers he had loved them and admired them, had looked forward to each visit by them—by any one of them. And now he stood, a shivering coward who could not touch one dead.

  It was not the horror only. In his years as keeper of the station, he had seen much of pure visual horror as portrayed in alien bodies. He had learned to submerge that sense of horror, to disregard the outward appearance of it, to regard all life as brother life, to meet all things as people.

  It was some other unknown factor quite apart from horror that he felt. And yet this thing, he reminded himself, was a friend of his. As a dead friend, it demanded honor from him. It demanded love and care.

  Blindly he drove himself to the task, stooped and lifted it.

  It had almost no weight at all, as if in death it had lost a dimension of itself, had somehow become a smaller thing and less significant. Could it be, he wondered, that the golden haze might have a weight all of its own?

  He laid the body on the sofa and straightened it as best he could. Then he went outside and, lighting the lantern in the shed, went down to the barn.

  It had been years since he had been there, but nothing much had changed. Protected by a tight roof from the weather, it had stayed snug and dry. There were cobwebs hanging from the beams and dust was everywhere. Straggling clumps of ancient hay, stored in the mow above, hung down through the cracks in the boards that floored the mow. The place had a dry, sweet, dusty smell about it, all the odors of animals and manure long gone.

  Enoch hung the lantern on the peg behind the row of stanchions and climbed the ladder to the mow. Working in the dark, for he dared not bring the lantern into this dust heap of dried-out hay, he found the pile of oaken boards far beneath the eaves.

  HERE, HE remembered, underneath these slanting eaves, had been a pretended cave in which, as a boy, he had spent many happy rainy days when he could not be outdoors. He had been Robinson Crusoe in his desert island cave, or some now nameless outl
aw hiding from a posse, or a man holed up against the threat of scalp-hunting Indians. He had had a wooden gun that he had sawed out of a board, working it down later with draw shave and knife and a piece of glass to scrape it smooth. It had been something he had cherished through all his boyhood days—until that day, when he was twelve, that his father, returning home from a trip to town, had handed him a rifle for his very own.

  He explored the stack of boards in the dark, determining by feel the ones that he would need. These he carried to the ladder and carefully slid them down to the floor below.

  Climbing down the ladder, he went up the short flight of stairs to the granary, where the tools were stored. He opened the lid of the great tool chest and found that it was filled with long-deserted mice nests. Pulling out handfuls of the straw and hay and grass that the rodents had used to set up their one-time housekeeping, he uncovered the tools. The shine had gone from them, their surface grayed by the soft patina that came from long disuse. But there was no rust upon them and the cutting edges still were sharp.

  Selecting the tools he needed, he went back to the lower part of the barn and fell to work. A century ago, he thought, he had done as he was doing now, working by lantern light to construct a coffin. And that time it had been his father lying in the house.

  The oaken boards were dry and hard, but the tools still were in shape to handle them. He sawed and planed and hammered and there was the smell of sawdust. The barn was snug and silent, the depth of hay standing in the mow drowning out the noise of the complaining wind outside.

  He finished the coffin. It was heavier than he had figured, so he found the old wheelbarrow, canted against the wall back of the stalls that once had been used for horses, and loaded the coffin on it. Laboriously, stopping often to rest, he wheeled it down to the little cemetery inside the apple orchard.

  And here, beside his father’s grave, he dug another grave, having brought a shovel and a pickaxe with him.