Orbit 13 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  I cursed and threw things around, then another thought hit me. The _Loretta_! I ran to the dock in a frenzy of fear that they had scuttled her. But she was there, swaying and bobbing in the changing tide. I went aboard and decided not to leave her again. In the morning I saw that the sail was gone.

  I stared at the mast and the empty deck. Why? Why for God’s sake had they taken the sail?

  They’ll be back, I kept thinking all morning. And I’ll kill them both. Gradually the thought changed. They would beg me to go with them inland, and I would say yes, and we would go into the first swamp and I would take their gear and leave them there. They would follow me out soon enough. They had needed the sail for a shelter, I thought dully. After noon I began to think that maybe I could go with them part of the way, just to help them out, prove to them that it was hopeless to go farther.

  My fury returned, redoubled. All my life I had managed to live quietly, just doing my job, even though it was a stupid one, but getting paid and trying to live comfortably, keeping busy enough not to think. Keeping busy enough to keep the fear out. Because it was there all the time, pressing, just as the silence here pressed. It was a silent fear, but if it had had a voice, its voice would have been that scream we had heard. That was the voice of my fear. Loud, shrill, inhuman, hopeless. I felt clammy and chilled in the heat, and my stomach rejected the idea of food or drink.

  Come back, I pleaded silently, willing the thought out, spreading the thought, trying to make contact with one of them. Come back for me. I’ll go with you, do whatever you want to do. Please!

  That passed. The storm came, and I shivered alone in the _Loretta_ and listened to the wind and the pounding rain. I thought about my apartment, work, the pamphlets I wrote. The last one I had worked on was titled: “Methods of Deep Ploughing of Alluvial Soils in Strip Farming in Order to Provide a Nutritionally Adequate Diet in a Meatless Society.” Who was it for? Who would read past the title? No one, I answered. No one would read it. They were planning for a future that I couldn’t even imagine.

  The silence was more profound than ever that evening. I sat on deck until I could bear the mosquitoes no longer. Below, it was sweltering, and the silence had followed me in. I would start back at first light, I decided. I would have to take a smaller boat. A flat-bottomed boat. I could row it up the waterway, stay out of the ocean. I could haul it where the water was too shallow or full of debris.

  The silence pressed against me, equally on all sides, a force that I could feel now. I would need something for protection from the sun. And boiled water. The beer was nearly gone. They hadn’t left me much food, either. I could do without food, but not without water and maps. Maybe I could make a small sail from discarded clothing. I planned and tried not to feel the silence. I lectured myself on synesthesia -- I had done a pamphlet on the subject once. But the silence won. I began to run up the dock, screaming at Corrie and Delia, cursing them, screaming for them to come back. I stopped, exhausted finally, and the echo finished and the silence was back. I knew I wouldn’t sleep; I built a fire and started to boil water.

  I poured the water into the empty beer bottles and stacked them back in their original boxes. More water started to boil, and I dozed. In my near sleep, I heard the scream again. I jumped up shaking. It had been inhumanly high, piercing, with such agony and hopelessness that tears stood in my eyes. I had dreamed it, I told myself. And I couldn’t be certain if I had or not.

  Until dawn came I thought about the scream, and it seemed to me a thing uttered by no living throat. It had been my own scream, I thought, and I laughed out loud.

  I loaded an aluminum rowboat the next day and rigged up a sail that might or might not fall apart when the wind blew. I made myself a poncho and a sun hat, and then, ready to go, I sat in the boat and watched some terns diving. They never had asked me what I had wanted to do, I thought bitterly.

  Not one of them had asked me what I would have liked to have done.

  J.P. had complained about being forced into teaching, while I would have traded everything I had for the chance to write, to teach -- but worthless things, like literature, art appreciation, composition. A pelican began to dive with the terns, and several gulls appeared. They followed the pelican down, and one sat on his head and tried to snatch the fish from his mouth.

  I thought again of all the pamphlets I had written, all the thousands of pages I had read in order to condense them. All wasted because in reducing them to so little, too much had been left out. I started to row finally.

  When I left the mouth of the bay, I turned the small boat southward. The sea was very blue, the swells long and peaceful. Cuba, I thought. That many people, some of them had to be left. And they would need help. So much had been lost already, and I had it, all those thousands of pages, hundreds of books, all up there in my head.

  I saw again the undersecretary’s white, dry, dead face, the hurt there, the fear. He hadn’t expected me to come back at all, I realized. I wished I could tell Corrie.

  The wind freshened. If not Cuba, then Central America, or even South America. I put up my little sail, and the wind caught it and puffed it, and I felt only a great contentment.

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  * * * *

  Grania Davis

  YOUNG LOVE

  HEADHI! I is so sugarsweet happy. Me and Jonsy is forever in love. For months, I couldn’t think of nothing but Jonsy and his lovey-face. My queeny-pals was a-giggling and a-pooching me all the time, but I doedn’t care. I knowed they was just jealous of my jolly-fine joy.

  It were maybe ten months ago. A super-special day. Me and my queeny-pals, Mimi, Judy, and Sally gotted tickets to the beach, and we taked the rapid down super-early in the morning. It were a nice, bright, warmsy day, and it feeled jolly-fine to get away from the stuffy old commune for a bitsy.

  Me and my queeny-pals hain’t haved enough points for a outing for nearly two months before that, when we getted tickets for Golden Gate Park. But that were a real cold, blowy day.

  So there we was, feeling super-spindly and wowsy. A-playing in the sand, and a-feeling of the sunny, and a-running in the shivery waves. And we was laughing and chittering, and smoking a little grassy. And Mimi alltimes so funny, when she feeling upper, she start mocking the commune-mommy:

  “Come on now, queenies, line up for bruncheon. Do not push or shove. Do not take more food-a than you can finish. Wasters will get demerits. After bruncheon we will have bingo and checkers in the aud. Points for the winners. Demerits for dragglers.”

  When Mimi talk like the commune-mommy, it so hyster. We was all tearful with giggling, and getting sand in our mouths.

  Soonly it were bruncheon time, and we was starvy. We dipped out the tokens what comed with our tickets, so we could get food-a at the beacheteria. We drawed straws, to see who haved to stand in liny to get it, and I losed. I groaned and chrised, but little doed I know it were my super-lucky day.

  I glumphed along the beach with every’s tokens, till I getted to the beacheteria, and there were a real long liny. I standed behind a old mommy and groaned and chrised somemore.

  The singalong were playing “Riding on the Rapid” and “Old Man Moses.” So I singed along, for awhile, while the liny creeped up. Then I looked around, behind me, and feeled like I just won 100 points in the aud, cause behind me were the most lovey-faced tommy I never seed.

  He gleamed at me, and I gleamed back. And soonly we forgetted all about the singalong and the liny, and just standed there, gleaming and gleaming.

  Finally he said, “Hi, queeny, what’s you name?”

  My heart quicked up and I said. “Silvy, what’s yours?”

  And he said, “Jonsy.”

  And then we gleamed somemore, while the singalong played “Old Man Moses.”

  And then he said, “Where does you live?”

  And I said, “At the Powell Street queeny-commune. Where does you live?”

  And he said, “Oh, not so farsy, at the Eddy Street tommy-commune.”
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br />   And then we gleamed somemore.

  And then he said, “Maybe I could come to your aud, sometime, on fun-night, and we could have some fun.”

  And I said, “That would be headhi. Ours fun-night are on Friday, that tomarrio. You could come then.”

  But then the glumphy old mommy up ahead sharped, “Hey, you youngs, you is interrupting the singalong.” So we quit chittering, and singed “Old Man Moses,” but we still gleamed and gleamed.

  Finally, the old mommy getted her food-a, and then it were my turn. I putted in my tokens and taked out four platies, and seed it were turkey-a, which are one of my super-yumyum favorites. I waited for Jonsy to get his, and we walked out together, in the warmsy sun.

  They was some propers outside, like usual, reading news-bills to any what would listen. Some was from the Mother Mary Commune, on Geary. And they was trying to get people to they Sunday lovelies. Other propers was from the Anti-Grass Group, and they was telling how grassy make the lungs all rotted, and how it should be against the law, like in the oldy days.

  And they was somemore propers from the Real Food League, saying stuff about how food-a wreck brain cells and reflexes, so folks can’t blink they eyes nomore.

  But me and Jonsy was too deep in with each other to tune in on them. We jingled along, until we was nearly to my queeny-pals, and he said, “It were headhi chittering with you. Maybe we’ll sees tomarrio.”

  And I said, “Jolly-fine.”

  And then he goed on to his tommy-pals. But I were thinking about him the whole day, and on the rapid, riding home, the singalong played “Old Man Moses,” which maked my brain click right into before, and I singed so loud that my queeny-pals pooched me and giggled.

  They clicked in that somesuch were weirdy with me, and wanted me to tell, but I just sitted at supper-time, chewing my stew-a and gleaming. But by sleepy-time, I couldn’t seal it no more, so I telled. And Mimi mocked how the commune-mommy talked whenever any had a tommy guest, and that maked us all hyster in our room till lights-out.

  We four was all so upped about it, the next day, we could hardly keep from hystering all through smart-time, which we do as in the morning. That day, we haved a cable-prog on how the Eskimos lived in the oldy days. Then the smarts-mommy readed us a newsy-bill what said how the white folks army were almost to Shanghai, which maked us clap and gleam. Then she turned on the singalong, what played “Hot Sunshine” and “Riding on the Rapid” and “Old Man Moses,” and we all singed, though my brain were kind of buzzery.

  At bruncheon, we haved bacon’eggs-a, what is very glum-phy and rubbery, and not yumyum at all. We all groaned and chrised and Mimi mocked the Real Food League propers:

  “This stuff is poison. It is, all maked of chemicals. It is not meaned for human beings. It will rot your brains and reflexes. Become real folks, demand realfood!”

  But the bruncheon-mommy heared her and said how we was lucky to be in a nicey queeny-commune, with lots to eat, instead of being a freaky what couldn’t find no room in a commune and gots to sleep in the streets, and are always hungry and eating garbage. Then the bruncheon-mommy give us each a demerit, what maked us hyster unhappily.

  After bruncheon are play-time, and cause the day were warmsy, we doed it on the sun-roof, instead of the gym. Me and my queeny-pals played bangmitten against four queenies from another room, but we was so buzzery, they winned easy, and the play-mommy gived them each two points.

  Then corned supper-time, and it were rosbeef-a, what are yumyum, but thiseve, my heart were quicking so fast, I couldn’t hardly eat. Would he really come? Doed he really like me, or were he just pooching?

  Finally it were time. Fun-time. The best time of the week. I doed my hair in fine curlies, and Judy letted me use some blue pawpaint. And Sally letted me wear her bestest tunic of red shinycloth, what she getted last year from all her points. I haved to for sure promise to be super-careful and not spill no punch-a on it. And I putted on some julies and some leggies and my queeny-pals said I were the most headhi queeny they never seen.

  It were real hyster down in the aud. All the queenies from the whole commune was there and also a lot haved invited they tommy-pals from other communes and some haved invited they parents to come from the family-communes. Me and my queeny-pals hain’t invited our parents for a long time, though we keeped thinking to do it soonly. But no juice for that now.

  I goed over to the door of the aud where folks was waiting to get in. The aud-mommy only letted invited folks in, to keep out freakies. Were he there? Were he there? My heart quicked along.

  Yes, he were there! There he were! And he gleamed when he seed me. And I gleamed right back. And after the aud-mommy letted him in, we just standed there, gleaming for awhile.

  Then the aud-mommy telled us to sit down and they showed a cartoon-prog what were real funny, about this dumdum cat, trying to catch this brainsy mouse, in the oldy days. And the mouse keeped on hitting the cat what gotted all grunchy and mangly, and other weirdy things what maked us hyster a lot.

  And then we folded up the chairs, and all holded hands in a circle, and we doed folk dancies, like London Bridges and Here We Go Round the Rosy. But I couldn’t hardly give them no juice cause of Jonsy being right next to me and a-holding of my hand, real tightsy, like no tommy never doed before, with his fingers slidded right up, between mine, and now and then a-squeezing and a-rubbing of them, so soonly my whole hand and arm was buzzering and I could feel the little brown curlies on his fingers, and rough places where his nails was bited, and it feeled so warm and good, like a platy of hot food-a.

  And when the folk-dancy were done, and the aud-mommy telled us to line up for punch-a and cake-a, he keeped ahold of my hand, and still rubbing and squeezing, till I were near hyster and the aud-mommy finally noticed and said we was to quit, or I’d get demerits.

  So we drinked our punch-a and eated our cake-a, and I were supercare not to spillsy on Sally’s shinycloth. And then the singalong started and it were playing “Hot Sunshine” and “Old Man Moses,” which was jolly-fine.

  And then the aud-mommy readed us a special newsy-bill about how the white folks army were almost to Shanghai, what maked us gleam. But then fun-night were over, and all the guesties have to go away, what maked me feel super down, cept Jonsy gived my hand a quick, secret squeezy and whispered, “I got tickets for the ballsy on Wednesday. You wanna come?”

  I getted so excity, I near hystered all over the shinycloth, and I said, “I sure does! That would be super-upper. No tommy never taked me ta the ballsy before!”

  Then the aud-mommy helped him with his coat, and he gived my hand another squeezy and goed away. But I never feeled so headhi in my life, and I decided I were never gonna wash my hand again.

  Oh, the week goed by sosuperslow. Smart-time, with cable-progs on how birdies used to grow in eggs, and how Eskimos used to live in the oldy days. And the singalong. And bruncheons. Sometimes the food-a were yumyum, and sometimes it were glumphy. Play-time on the roof, or the gym, with bangmitten or pingypong. Then supper. Then game-time in the aud, with checkers or bingo, and the singalong, and then maybe a movie-prog with tommies and queenies holding hands and kissing, what maked me real hyster to think I doed that with Jonsy. And chittering with my queeny-pals. And lights-out.

  Most times them things is jolly-fine. And I was glad I isn’t one of them brainsy folks what thinks theys so upper, cause they gets to live in privapts, and eats real food sometimes and has privautos, and goes to privschools. They gots to spend all the day a-thinking and a-working and a-planning for the rest of us folks. They can’t enjoy theyselves allatimes, like me. Even the commune mommies, what thinks theys so upper with they points and demerits and linies. Even them can’t have as much fun, and doesn’t get tickets out much moren me.

  But this week I were wishing now I were a little brainsy, so I could think of something else cept waiting to see Jonsy on Wednesday, what were filling my whole brain.

  But finally Wednesday comed, and I were near hyster t
he whole day, for fear he wouldn’t come. But after supper, there he were, right at the door, and my heart roared like a rapid when I seed him. He showed the tickets to the door-mommy, so I could get a pass to go, and she helped me with my coat. Headhi! Two outings in one week! I hain’t never beed on so many. While we was walking to the rapid, he taked my hand again. My other hand, this time. What maked me hyster to think that now I couldn’t wash neither hand nomore. And Jonsy asked howcome I were hystering, but I wouldn’t tell.

  And then he started to tell me how he weren’t brainsy enough for school, of course, but he were maybe enough brainsy to pass the test for the army, and then he could have a semipriv room and more tickets for outings, and stuff like that. And he were asking how I’d like to have a tommy-pal what were brainsy enough for the army.