Children of Infinity

by Roger Elwood

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  with an introduction by

  Lester Del Rey

  illustrated by Jacqui Morgan

  Imagine a world in which a boy from

  the year 975 claims to be your brother

  . . . or one in which the first human

  child to be born on another planet

  begins to show some strange qualities.

  Imagine meeting the young alien who

  can’t stop eating . . . or fifteen-year-old

  Benji, who has reached Half Life in his

  horror world of the future.

  These are some of the young people—

  the children of infinity—who inhabit

  future worlds in these original stories.

  Written especially for this collection by

  some of the most well-known writers

  of science fiction, Children of Infinity

  may frighten you, fascinate you, make

  you laugh, or make you cry. Which-

  ever it does, it will keep you reading.

  Franklin Watts, Inc.

  New York/1973

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Roger, Elwood.

  Children of infinity.

  SUMMARY: Ten science fiction stories about young people of the future.

  1. Science fiction. [1. Science Fiction.

  2. Short stories] I. Morgan, Jacqui, illus.

  II. Title.

  PZ5.R56Ch [Fic] 72-8930

  ISBN 0-531-02599-3

  Copyright © 1973 by Franklin Watts, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  Design by Diana Hrisinko

  CONTENTS

  Foreword / Roger Elwood

  A Game of Futures—An Introduction / Lester del Rey

  Time Brother / Raymond F. Jones

  Conversations at Lothars / Barry N. Malzberg

  Wingless on Avalon / Poul Anderson

  Space—Born / Robert Bloch

  All You Can Eat / Harvey L. and Audrey L. Bilker

  Opening the Door / Philip José Farmer

  Terrafied / Arthur Tofte

  Half Life / Rachel Cosgrove Payes

  The Tower / Thomas N. Scortia

  Wake Up to Thunder / Dean R. Koontz

  roger elwood

  Foreword

  The stories presented in this anthology all have two things in common: (1) They were written especially for Children of Infinity; (2) They are about young people of the future.

  The protagonists range from the pathetic (The Cower, by Thomas N. Scortia) to the extraordinary (Terrafied, by Arthur Tofte). Within the pages of this anthology, you will read of the strange inhabitants of the planet of Avalon (Wingless on Avalon, by Poul Anderson); you will learn of a future in which thought, word, and deed are dominated by a monster computer (Wake Up to Thunder, by Dean R. Koontz); you will laugh at the vociferous appetite of a very strange young man (All You Can Eat, by Harvey L. and Audrey L. Bilker); you may cry as a youngster comes upon a man unlike any he has ever met on a grim, devastated earth many years hence (Half Life, by Rachel Cosgrove Payes); you may shudder at what happens to another young man (Opening the Door, by Philip Jose Farmer); and you may be shocked by the actions of a young girl (Space-Born, by Robert Bloch). Then there is the bittersweet quality of Time Brother, by Raymond F. Jones and the thoughtful mood of Conversations at Lothar’s, by Barry N. Malzberg.

  Each of the stories has been carefully chosen for originality and emotional impact. Certainly, the authors represented are veterans in the science-fiction genre; the only exceptions are the Bilkers and Miss Payes, but judging by how well they handled their stories, we expect to be hearing much about them as time passes.

  It is seldom that such a group of authors can be found together in a single anthology, and rarer still that they all have contributed original material. But that is precisely what you have here—a compendium of sparkling new works written with youthful science-fiction readers in mind. To start things off, why not turn to Lester del Rey’s introduction? You’ll be interested in what he has to say!

  Roger Elwood

  Margate, N.J.

  lester del rey

  A Game of Futures—

  An Introduction

  I began reading science fiction regularly when I was fifteen—more than forty years ago. At that time, there were almost no science-fiction books being published, and I had to wait until I could find the magazines on the newsstands. The stories were often badly written, but they were filled with dreams and visions of marvelous things to come.

  Most of us who read those magazines were young, and most of us were ready to believe in the possibility of much of what we read. But to the adults with whom we talked, these stories were pure trash, dealing with impossible ideas, fanciful lies, and things we would be much better leaving to trained scientists to think about.

  Well, the stories were fanciful. They dealt with atomic power, rockets that flew through space to the moon and beyond, and television gadgets in every home. There would be airplanes that could fly faster than sound. Robots and computers would do much of man’s work and thinking. The most dangerous diseases would be conquered by some wonderful drug. And surgeons might even learn how to operate on the heart, or to replace defective human organs with others!

  Very few scientists had any faith in such nonsense. They really knew very little about the atom then. Only the proton and electron had been discovered, and it seemed that it must always require more energy to break up such a simple atom than could ever be recovered from its destruction. So, atomic energy was ridiculous. (It was only one year after I first read of atomic energy that scientists discovered the neutron—which lead in seven more years to the secret of nuclear fission.)

  There was good, scientific evidence that rockets could drive out into space. But most people had never read the work of Hermann Orberth. Rockets, we were told, could not work in the vacuum of space because there was no air for the rocket blast to push against. (Of course, rockets work by the laws of inertia, not by air pressure, but it was hard to convince even engineers of that!)

  Television had been demonstrated, but it was very crude; a viewer could barely tell the difference between a man’s face and his hand. Therefore, nobody was interested in such nonsense. Like helicopters, it was all right as a toy or a scientific plaything, but it would never be practical.

  A few people were willing to admit the ideas were possible, but they believed none would come true for at least another century, by which time all of us would be dead, so why worry about such things?

  Within fifteen years—by 1945—we had already developed most of those wild and impossible fantasies into practical reality. There were very few television sets, but their seven-inch tubes showed excellent pictures, and manufacturers were busy designing sets for sale. The new wonder drugs had perhaps saved a million lives already and were conquering diseases that had previously been considered hopeless. An atomic bomb had been exploded in Nevada. Long-range rockets had done horrible damage to London, and the scientist responsible for the V-2 was already designing what would become the Saturn booster.

  The future that supposedly had been impossible or more than a century away had arrived in a brief space of fifteen years. The men who had scoffed at the impossible junk we read were now turning to science-fiction fans for information about all these new marvels.

  Does all this mean that young people are smarter than adults, or that science-fiction read
ers are smartest of all? No, not necessarily. Young readers usually are much more ready to accept future possibilities and think beyond the immediate present—which is why the largest part of the science-fiction readership has always been young. Naturally they are more ready—they have not yet been forced to keep their mind on the present world in order to make a living. Experience is a wonderful asset, and adults have more experience than younger people, with rare exceptions. But in adjusting to ideas that are not yet a part of life, experience is a severe liability, unless the habit of such thought has already been developed.

  It is in developing such habits that science fiction has proved its value. It is entertainment, of course, but it is also a game of sorts. The writer and the reader play a sort of game of living in a future, where the rules and ways of life have changed. Note that this is not supposed to be the future. (That would be serious business, if possible, and not a game.) It is only a possible future. The next story will put us in still a different future. We may have as many as ten futures in ten stories, and each will require us to think a little differently if we are to enjoy it properly.

  This, as we now know, is not at all a stupid game; instead, it is perhaps the most valuable mental practice we can learn.

  Not long ago, Alvin Toffler wrote a best-selling book entitled Future Shock. He found that the future comes much too quickly and is too different from the recent past for most people to adjust to it. As an example: Life in 1900 was very little changed for most people from what it was in 1800; but between 1930 and 1945, as indicated above, the change was radical; the average man found it very difficult to adjust to atom bombs, cold wars, new industries, and the vanishing of some of our previously most important occupations. And within industries, the knowledge and experience gained over a long period of time might suddenly become obsolete.

  High fidelity became a major industry as a result of new record developments just before 1950. By 1960 the engineers were just beginning to breath easily at their jobs when stereo records were developed. This new technique meant that almost every component had to be redesigned to do what had previously seemed impossible.

  Then, in 1965, tubes became obsolete and men who had spent lifetimes learning how to think in tube terms suddenly had to master the very different transistors. And now, at this moment, the industry is faced with quadrisonics, which imposes still more difficult demands on new designs. The man who mastered his field may have had to relearn his basic thinking three or four times in less than twenty years. In effect, he has been forced to jump to a new future before he can fully adjust to the last change.

  From Toffler’s book, one can find just how severe a strain this constant future change imposes on our society. It may well prove to be our most difficult challenge as human beings—even more difficult than the ecological problems, which are also evidence of how rapidly our thinking must change.

  But one group seems to have had far less difficulty in making the necessary adjustments. The readers of science fiction have had long training in the theory of adjusting almost instantly to a different future. And from the hundreds of them I know, they have carried theory into practice. Their “useless” reading for fun has proved one of their most useful and valuable ways of training for the real, changing world.

  Science fiction remains fun to read. But it is also a splendid way to prepare for whatever futures we may meet.

  raymond f. jones

  Time Brother

  The sky over the cemetery was a gray canopy shutting out sunlight, joy, hope, purpose. Ben Lambert stared into the twin graves as the coffins of his father and mother were placed on the canvas belts that would soon lower them from his sight forever. He did not know precisely what death was, but if death were the end of time, then he, too, was dead. He was frozen in this moment. Forever would he stand, in his mind, beside this open pit that gaped to receive his love.

  Ben was seventeen that summer, and he loved the parents who had given him life. He had no conflicts that forced him to hate, tolerate, or be forever at odds with his mother and father. He adored them, respected them, and loved them.

  And now they were gone. In a car crash five nights ago. Ben was alone, as he never knew a human being could be alone. No brothers or sisters. His parents had conceived only him.

  Reverend Golding stepped to the head of the graves and raised his hands. The many friends of Ben’s parents and the scattering of uncles, aunts, and cousins who had come to mourn with him and for him grew silent. The Reverend began his intonation of the dedicatory prayer over the graves.

  They meant well, Ben thought. But it was barbaric. He would be glad when the agony was finished. The open slash in the earth looked like a doorway to hell, rather than the heaven and paradise the preachers talked about.

  When the prayer was over, the Reverend announced that the graves would be closed and the flowers placed in about an hour. Those who wished could then return.

  Ben felt a tug on his arm. It was his mother’s brother, Uncle Henry. “Come on, Ben. Let’s go back to the house and then we’ll return this afternoon when the flowers are placed.”

  “No,” said Ben. “I’m never coming back. They’re not here. I don’t know where they are, but they aren’t here.”

  “Of course not,” said Aunt Catherine, Henry’s wife. “You’ve always been a sensible boy, Ben. But it helps sometimes to come to a place like this and think about life a little bit.”

  “What is there to think about here, except grief?”

  At that moment a commotion arose on the other side of the cemetery lot, across from the open graves. Ben turned. A small boy was running, breaking through the crowd, forcing his way toward the mound of fresh earth under the green canvas. He threw himself on the slope, sliding almost to the edge.

  Men and women reached out with a little cry, as if to stop him from sliding into the graves; but he clung to the edge. He reached for the top of the caskets, level with the surface of the earth. He was crying—gasping, wrenching sobs, as if he had been running for hours, sobbing in desperation.

  “Mother! My mother! Oh, Father, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again.” He sobbed and beat his small fists against the earth.

  Aunt Catherine and some other women hurried to the boy. Aunt Catherine gathered him up, against his kicking, struggling protests.

  “There, there,” she crooned. “You’ll be all right. You must be lost, little boy. These are not your mother’s and father’s graves. Tell us who you are.”

  He screamed and struggled from her grasp and threw himself on the ground again. He sobbed and beat his fist, crying for a lost mother and father.

  Ben stared, wondering at such agony that matched his own. He bent over the boy. “They are my mother and father,” he said quietly.

  Abruptly the boy ceased his sobbing and stared up hungrily at Ben. “Then you are my brother,” he said haltingly. “My brother—!”

  Ben started to protest, then looked again into those childish eyes staring at him. He refrained from saying he had no brother.

  The boy’s clothing was a kind of tunic of coarse material resembling burlap. A rope was tied about his waist. His trousers were of some kind of leathery hide, poorly processed. His shoes were little satchels of soft leather. They looked homemade.

  The boy appeared about ten years old, but he was obviously undernourished and might have been a year or two younger. Ben picked him up and nestled him against his shoulder.

  Reverend Golding stepped up. “Do you know the boy, Ben?”

  “No. I thought you or some of the others might know him.”

  “None of us that I can discover has ever seen him before. And I’ve looked up and down the road. There’s no other burial party. Let me take him. I’ll see that the authorities are notified.”

  “He seems to think his parents are being buried here.”

  “Strange. Well, we’ll have to find out where he came from and who his parents are. Let him come with me.”

  Ben felt the
small, skinny body trembling with terror and grief. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to take him with me. Please let me do that while you try to find out who he is.”

  “But aren’t you going with your uncle and aunt?”

  “Later. For the next few days I’m staying at home to get Mother’s and Dad’s things ready to dispose of.”

  “But surely you don’t want to stay alone.”

  “Yes. Very much. But I’d like to have this little fellow until we find out what his problem is.”

  “I see no harm in it. However, the authorities may not agree.”

  “You know he’ll be all right. Try to make them see that.”

  The boy was whimpering again. Ben felt a strange affinity for the lost, bewildered, unhappy child. Where could he have come from? How could he believe his parents were being buried here?

  The ranch house in the Green Oaks suburb was the only home Ben knew. It was as old as he was and in perfect condition. His father never allowed a spot of weathered paint to remain, or cracked sidewalks to go unrepaired. His mother had been a perfect housekeeper. And the three of them had had fun there—so incredibly much fun—

  Uncle Henry didn’t think it was right for him to stay alone. “I wish you’d come with us,” he said as Ben and the boy got out.

  Aunt Catherine was more understanding. “A person needs to be alone part of the time when things like this occur.”

  “I’ll be all right,” said Ben. “We’ll talk about selling the house in a couple of days. Right now, we’ve got to find out where he belongs.” He nodded to the boy standing beside the car with wondering eyes and clasping Ben’s hand tightly.

  The car drove off, and Ben and the boy turned to the house.

  “Is this where our mother and father lived?” the boy asked.

  Ben stifled his impulse to correct him. “This is where I lived with them,” he said.