New Writings in SF 22 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Kenneth Bulmer

  Captain Briggs had gone into his cabin while talking and after some huffing and puffing he dragged out from under his bunk a rusty old sword.

  ‘I came across this on an old battlefield and I reckon it might have done some foul deeds in its day. There were stains on it which I fear might have been blood, but I got the wife to set to with some juice of lemon and clean it up. It’s still a might handy little toothpick! See here. Mister Zimbabwe, this cross of Savoy up near the hilt seems to indicate it must have been a good Italian blade once. Will you not carry it about your person as a cutlass for a few days until Goodschaad there has had a bit of time to cool his temper?’

  I refused the kind offer for, as you all know, we have our own methods of fighting which are more than superior to anything that Earth can produce (Murmurs of dissent). I am sorry; I had no wish at all to open any old sores. It has been such a long time since we have needed to use any of our more military skills. Please, my friends, be patient, for my tale has run much of its course!

  That evening a mist sprang up and made the ship’s riding lights glow and flicker, barely visible in the gloom. I was glad that the swell had gone down a little and I borrowed a lantern from Ned to begin some of the more basic repairs to my own craft.

  I heard the noises of the crew bedding down for the night. In that part of the Ocean there was little chance of a collision and there was no lookout posted. Consequently, I was a little surprised to hear someone moving stealthily near the water breakers just aft of the mainmast.

  I pretended that I had not heard anything and continued with my repair work. The fault was basic enough to make the remedy a difficult one. Much cleaning of small parts was required and I resolved to broach the subject of using some of the alcohol for this purpose with Captain Briggs in the morning.

  My concern for my space-craft did not distract me from the more pressing business of the secret figure that lurked somewhere behind me. He was closer than I had thought for I barely detected the swish of a weapon and ducked almost too late. The axe, for that was the weapon, missed the top of my head by a scant couple of inches and imbedded itself deep in the spruce starboard top-gallant rail.

  The assassin-manqué withdrew the blade, leaving a mighty scar in the rail. A scar which, at a later time and place, was to give rise to a deal of conjecture. I turned and grappled with the man, and threw him against the foremast. He dropped the axe and clawed at my eyes. As I had guessed, it was Goodschaad. Using a mild nerve stunner I soon had him sprawled helpless on top of the forehatch. I asked him why he had tried to kill me, pointing out-that I had done him no deliberate harm, and that his only injuries had come about as the result of accidents. At first he would not answer me, contenting himself with spitting on the deck and muttering sullenly to himself. In an attempt to break the impasse I offered him a little money, but he struck it from my hand with an angry curse.

  ‘I would not touch your filthy tin! I’d as soon have the glue from a frow’s leather. You take me for a jock-gagger, do you? I tell you. Mister Zimbo-Zambo, I would sooner starve in a Bremen stews than take denaly from your black hand. The captain may have took your bribe but I’ll rot ‘ere I do like. The sooner you’re off this clean ship with your stinking black body and your dirty ways, the better. I only wish my axe had slit your fuzzy black head from your stinking black body!!’

  I attempted to calm him, but my efforts only served to exacerbate his rage. He went on: ‘Don’t touch me, filth. Just you wait. One day all your money will be worth nothing and then the day of people like me, ordinary, clean people, will come and we will sweep all you blacks and the degenerated intellectuals and the gypsies and the Jews into the sea or into huge jails where you will all die while the country is purged. One day there will be a final solution to all of this. One day we shall find a leader (interestingly enough, Goodschaad did use the word ‘Führer’ for leader) who will unite all right-thinking people. You think that you are so damned clever and so safe. You and your Jewish brethren are flymy to anything crooked. You crowd out honest folk and steal our jobs and houses. The cry will come for Lebensraum and you will vanish for ever and no more will this earth be polluted!’

  I was appalled by this diatribe of hatred and prejudice. If Goodschaad were typical of German opinion, then I dreaded to think what the future might hold for Europe and the rest of Earth. It was this one speech, as much as my feelings of guilt for what was soon to happen, that led me to wait for another hundred years before coming again. We all know how much better it would have been had I come earlier. I wonder though. Perhaps it was better for mankind that they should know the meaning of “World War’ so that you can better appreciate the peace which now reigns. I honestly don’t know.

  I let the German sailor go back to his quarters without making any further comment. I cannot believe that Captain Briggs and most of the rest of the crew did not hear our violent exchange, but no comment was made at all by anyone. To my surprise, there was not even any comment on the large gash in the rail caused by the madman’s axe.

  For the next seven days the voyage was uneventful. We ran eastwards, averaging about seven knots, in weather that just kept the right side of fair.

  It was November 23rd. I spent much of my time working on the repairs to my craft, which proved somewhat more difficult than I had hoped, Nearly all the dirt and impurities had been removed through the good offices of the alcohol— I had contrived to use eight barrels during the operation. Sadly, all my attempts to steer clear—if I may be permitted a nautical metaphor (murmurs of laughter)—of the unfortunate Goodschaad were doomed to failure. While swinging up the barrels, the hoist slipped and the poor fellow was struck a fearful blow by a cask which then smashed down into the hold. The fumes from this accident caused Captain Briggs to have the hatch cover left off—a state of affairs which held up till ... but I run ahead of myself. Ned Head patched up the German’s cut brow with a few stitches of cobbler’s twine. Little was said by anyone at the time, but I fear it made any hope of curing our quarrel quite vain.

  Things were going well. My only worry about repairing my ship was the central power source. This had also been contaminated and I had to remove it and open it to check the degree of damage. As you all know, but as no person knew in 1872, the power fuel that we use on Poseidon is reliable and cheap. But, it is also fatal to any human who might have the misfortune to be exposed to it. Thus, I had to choose my moment with the utmost care.

  Two days later, I thought my moment had arrived. The weather was fair and Captain Briggs had just made his entry in the log. The lower tops’l jib was set, as was the foretop stays’l. Luncheon was over and I was recovering from the eternal stew of potatoes and onions and enjoying, yes, enjoying, one of the good Captain’s stogies. I had decided that, since I could not beat him, it would be wise to join him. (Laughter).

  Sophia Matilda was asleep, clutching her favourite rag doll while Mrs. Briggs played us an assortment of hymns on her ‘Parlour Poll’—as the crew called her melodeon. Although she possessed a certain mechanical skill on the machine, this was offset by a tragic deficiency in her repertoire.

  I see from a rather marked lassitude in some of you, that I had better hasten my tale towards its conclusion.

  I finished my cigar and glanced, from habit, at the clock on the wall of the saloon. Although I had been on board the ship for ten days, I never got used to Captain Briggs’ strange idiosyncracy of having a clock without any hands on his wall. It was so bizarre that I never quite knew how to broach the subject with him. For me that will always be one of the great unsolved mysteries of the sea.

  Suddenly, Albert Richardson, the mate, suggested that, as the weather was so fine, they should take out the ship’s boat and row round the ship. Mrs. Briggs leaped at the idea, as I knew she would, and scurried to wake ‘Baby’. Captain Briggs was nothing loath and the rest of the crew followed suit. The only exceptions to the trip were myself—I pleaded excess of work on my steam-launch—and Goodschaad who, to my disappoi
ntment, cried off on account of his still wounded head.

  The boat was duly lowered, and I barely had time to slip Mr. Richardson his promised ten dollars for his sterling suggestion, made, of course, at my prompting, before they all piled carefully in and pulled away.

  Before returning to the delicate work in hand, I stood and watched the happy little party. The last thing I remember of them was ‘Baby’ standing in her mother’s lap and waving to me.

  ... Forgive me. For a moment I was quite overcome by the sad memory...

  The boat was quite close in under the port quarter when I heard a cry from somewhere up forrard. I turned at the rushing of feet but there was nothing I could do to stop the crazed German. Like me, he had used the boat trip for his own ends; but his were revenge. He had ripped away the auxiliary power unit and was dashing to the stern with it, intending to throw it overboard.

  I tried to stun him, but it was too late. My power made him stumble but he had enough forward momentum to heave the power unit far out over the stem, where it splashed into the swelling waters of the Atlantic Ocean, not ten feet from the ship’s boat and its crowded crew.

  There was an enormous explosion as the unit hit the water and the sodium chloride reacted with the propellant. A great wave swept over the ship, flooding into the cabins and soaking all the bedding. An oar, thrown high into the air, came down on to the binnacle, smashing the compass into unusable wreckage.

  As the bubbles subsided and the sea resumed its implacable motion, I scanned the area as soon as I was able. There was a deal of dead and dying marine life. But, there was no human life. None!

  All that was left in thousands of square miles of ocean was myself and ... and Goodschaad. I bent over him, seeing instantly what I had both hoped and feared. His brief exposure to the radiation from the auxiliary power source had taken its toll. He was a dying man.

  I lifted him and began to walk with him along the deck. I had intended, I swear to you, to try and save him. Then he spat in my face and cursed me. I stopped and held him, while he raved at me. He tried to blame me for the tragedy and promised me that one day all who were not pure Germans would face ... the word he used was ‘Endloesung’ which means an ultimate or ‘final solution’.

  Holding him there, near the rail, I looked down at the face of this man consumed with hatred, and I thought of bluff, honest Captain Briggs, his wife and young baby. I thought of Ned and the rest of the good fellows who had just died that blasphemously sudden death. And, I dropped Gottlieb Goodschaad into the grey-green waters and I stood and watched as he drowned. I did nothing to help him. I watched him drown.

  That, ladies and gentlemen, is my story. A day later, my ship was repaired and I used my main power unit to drive me back into the skies and back to my own planet. I did not wait so long before I returned because of the evil of one man. It was because of the surge of evil I had discovered in myself and which it took me so long to purge. It is for you, for all of you to decide whether I have been successful. After our rule for these many years, I have told you this true story to bring to you the realisation that you must now be the masters of your destinies and that we—no longer your god-like and infallible guides—are leaving you to stand on your own feet. Whether you walk or fall is now up to you.

  There will be no farewells. I think that there is no more to be said. I suggest that you now all disperse quietly to your homes and residences. Please do not loiter and, I beg of you, let there be no public outbreaks or ceremony. It is better that it ends with quiet. I do not think there is anything else but, yes, Mr. President? The ship? No she was found, but her secret has lived till today.

  Her name, Madam ? Her name was the Mary Celeste.

  Goodbye.

  Goodbye.

  <>

  * * * *

  THE INVERTED WORLD

  Christopher Priest

  On our world if you stand in one place long enough you will find yourself in exactly the same place. The trouble for Future as well as for Gerdun Mann was to keep the city of Earth in that one spot and this could only be done at the cost of enormous effort by continually moving. There is much of Christopher Priest’s enigmatic reaction to life in this infinite world he envisages existing outside the parameters of the known and familiar.

  * * * *

  One

  Gerdun Mann was on the Moon when they located him. He was working with some other reconstruction technicians on the remains of the Apollo 11 equipment, which had been unexpectedly wrecked by a moonquake. The first Moon landings still had a nostalgic value for tourists from Earth, and the necessary reconstruction work was slow and painstaking; the original site was now too badly damaged for re-erection of the repaired descent-stage, and the whole assemblage was being moved nearly a mile to the south. Mann was in the final stages of carefully duplicating—from photographs taken at the time—all the footprints and pieces of litter left by the original astronauts.

  At the end of his shift, Gerdun drove to the temporary hostel built near the new site, took off his work coverall and life-supports, showered, ate a meal and prepared to relax for a few hours before returning to finish the work.

  Gerdun Mann was a reader. There were still a few firms who printed books, catering to what was seen as a fashionable whim by a small but affluent minority. Words printed on paper were still available for those who cared to seek them out, but they were in short supply on the Moon. Once Mann had estimated that he had read everything that existed on the Moon, and that day had taken out a subscription with a firm on Earth. It was his one luxury, and he rejoiced in it. He still had seven of the books from his last consignment to read, and now he went to his room to read the last few chapters of Dombey and Son. He desired nothing more at that moment than privacy and solitude, and sufficient mental energy to finish the book before he fell asleep.

  He was aware, about an hour later, that a craft had landed near the hostel. He ignored it. He was also aware of somebody entering the hostel, and he tried to ignore that too, even as a growing certainty in him warned that his privacy was about to be invaded just as surely as his concentration had been. He sighed, and closed the book as someone knocked on the door.

  It was Fitzpatrick, his immediate senior.

  Gerdun invited him into the tiny room, noting that the man had not removed his surface-gear.

  ‘I’m off-duty,’ he said. ‘I’m tired, and I’m reading.’

  ‘And I’m sorry. I didn’t come two hundred miles for nothing.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Don’t tell me, you want the module moved to another site.’

  Inside his helmet, Fitzpatrick grinned and shook his head. ‘Not this time, no. I’ve got something for you.’ He turned his back on Mann, ‘In the bottom compartment... a package.’

  Mann opened the compartment in the back-pack and took out a small, plastic-wrapped carton.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ve been recalled to Earth. I’ve issued an authorisation, and-’

  ‘What? But I don’t want to go to Earth!’

  As well as a man in a life-support suit can shrug, Fitzpatrick shrugged. ‘Someone there wants you to go. I gather it’s important.’

  Gerdun Mann looked at the package in his hand. He had lost all desire to open it.

  ‘Listen, Joe, there isn’t a single good reason why I should go to Earth. I don’t want to go, I don’t have to go. I’ve got a contract here that runs for another three years. I don’t know anyone on Earth, and no one on Earth knows me.’

  ‘They’ve apparently found a good reason. There’s a relative they want you to meet.’

  Mann stared at him with a healthy malice, then opened the packet with deliberate motions. ‘I don’t have a single relative alive on Earth...’ He took some papers from the packet, and looked through them.

  ‘They came on the last shuttle,’ said Fitzpatrick. ‘I was radioed about them this morning, and had someone pick them up for me. Don’t ask me what it’s all about, because I don’
t know. I was told by EASA that they were top priority, and that you were to return to Earth on the same shuttle.’

  Gerdun Mann was staring at one particular piece of paper which was written in the familiar—though to Mann, abhorrent—combination of monosyllables and graphics that passed for contemporary written English.

  ‘“Department of Transliteral Geophysics”?’ he said. ‘Have you ever heard of them?’

  Fitzpatrick shook his head. ‘Have you seen the names on the masthead?’