Classic PJ Farmer

by Philip José Farmer

  Dorothy pulled her hand out of Deena’s grip.

  “I have to go. I have to talk to Old Man, tell him I’m not seeing him anymore.”

  “Stay away from him,” pleaded Deena, again seizing Dorothy’s hand. “You’ll go to talk, and you’ll stay to do what I did. What a score of others did. We let him make love to us because he isn’t human. Yet, we found Old Man as human as any man, and some of us stayed after the lust was gone because love had come in.”

  Dorothy gently unwrapped Deena’s fingers from her hand and began walking away.

  Soon she came to the group of cottonwood trees by the bank where the creek and the river met and there she stopped.

  “Old Man!” she called in a break between the rolls of thunder. “Old Man! It’s Dorothy!”

  A growl as of a bear disturbed in his cave answered her, and a figure like a tree trunk come to life stepped out of the inkiness between the cottonwoods.

  “What you come for?” he said, approaching so close to her that his enormous nose almost touched hers. “You want me just as I am, Old Man Paley, descendant a the Real Folk—Paley, who loves you? Or you come to give the batty old junkman a tranquillizer so you kin take him by the hand like a lamb and lead him back to the slaughterhouse, the puzzle factory, where they’ll stick a ice pick back a his eyeball and rip out what makes him a man and not an ox.”

  “I came…”

  “Yeah?”

  “For this!” she shouted, and she snatched off his hat and raced away from him, toward the river.

  Behind her rose a bellow of agony so loud she could hear it even above the thunder. Feet splashed as he gave pursuit.

  Suddenly, she slipped and sprawled facedown in the mud. At the same time, her glasses fell off. Now it was her turn to feel despair, for in this halfworld she could see nothing without her glasses except the lightning flashes. She must find them. But if she delayed to hunt for them, she’d lose her headstart.

  She cried out with joy, for her groping fingers found what they sought. But the breath was knocked out of her, and she dropped the glasses again as a heavy weight fell upon her back and half stunned her. Vaguely, she was aware that the hat had been taken away from her. A moment later, as her senses came back into focus, she realized she was being raised into the air. Old Man was holding her in the crook of his arm, supporting part of her weight on his bulging belly.

  “My glasses. Please, my glasses. I need them.”

  “You won’t be needin em for a while. But don’t worry about em. I got em in my pants pocket. Old Man’s takin care a you.”

  His arm tightened around her so she cried out with pain.

  Hoarsely, he said, “You was sent down by the G’yaga to get that hat, wasn’t you? Well, it din’t work cause The Old Guy’s stridin the sky tonight, and he’s protectin his own.”

  Dorothy bit her lip to keep from telling him that she had wanted to destroy the hat because she hoped that that act would also destroy the guilt of having made it in the first place. But she couldn’t tell him that. If he knew she had made a false hat, he would kill her in his rage.

  “No. Not again,” she said. “Please. Don’t. I’ll scream. They’ll come after you. They’ll take you to the State Hospital and lock you up for life. I swear I’ll scream.”

  “Who’ll hear you? Only The Old Guy, and he’d get a kick out a seein you in this fix cause you’re a Falser and you took the stuffin right out a my hat and me with your Falser Magic. But I’m gettin back what’s mine and his, the same way you took it from me. The door swings both ways.”

  He stopped walking and lowered her to a pile of wet leaves.

  “Here we are. The forest like it was in the old days. Don’t worry. Old Man’ll protect you from the cave bear and the bull a the woods. But who’ll protect you from Old Man, huh?”

  Lightning exploded so near that for a second they were blinded and speechless. Then Paley shouted, “The Old Guy’s whoopin it up tonight, just like he used to do! Blood and murder and wicked-ness’re ridin the howlin night air!”

  He pounded his immense chest with his huge fist.

  “Let The Old Guy and The Old Woman fight it out tonight. They ain’t goin to stop us. Dor’thy. Not unless that hairy old god in the clouds is going to fry me with his lightnin, jealous a me cause I’m havin what he kin’t.”

  Lightning rammed against the ground from the charged skies, and lightning leaped up to the clouds from the charged earth. The rain fell harder than before, as if it were being shot out of a great pipe from a mountain river and pouring directly over them. But for some time the flashes did not come close to the cottonwoods. Then, one ripped apart the night beside them, deafened and stunned them.

  And Dorothy, looking over Old Man’s shoulder, thought she would die of fright because there was a ghost standing over them. It was tall and white, and its shroud flapped in the wind, and its arms were raised in a gesture like a curse.

  But it was a knife that it held in its hand.

  Then, the fire that rose like a cross behind the figure was gone, and night rushed back in.

  Dorothy screamed. Old Man grunted, as if something had knocked the breath from him.

  He rose to his knees, gasped something unintelligible, and slowly got to his feet. He turned his back to Dorothy so he could face the thing in white. Lightning flashed again. Once more Dorothy screamed, for she saw the knife sticking out of his back.

  Then the white figure had rushed toward Old Man. But instead of attacking him, it dropped to its knees and tried to kiss his hand and babbled for forgiveness.

  No ghost. No man. Deena, in her white terrycloth robe.

  “I did it because I love you!” screamed Deena.

  Old Man, swaying back and forth, was silent.

  “I went back to the shanty for a knife, and I came here because I knew what you’d be doing, and I didn’t want Dorothy’s life ruined because of you, and I hated you, and I wanted to kill you. But I don’t really hate you.”

  Slowly, Paley reached behind him and gripped the handle of the knife. Lightning made everything white around him, and by its brief glare the women saw him jerk the blade free of his flesh.

  Dorothy moaned, “It’s terrible, terrible. All my fault, all my fault.”

  She groped through the mud until her fingers came across the Old Man’s jeans and its backpocket, which held her glasses. She put the glasses on, only to find that she could not see anything because of the darkness. Then, and not until then, she became concerned about locating her own clothes. On her hands and knees she searched through the wet leaves and grass. She was about to give up and go back to Old Man when another lightning flash showed the heap to her left. Giving a cry of joy, she began to crawl to it.

  But another stroke of lightning showed her something else. She screamed and tried to stand up but instead slipped and fell forward on her face.

  Old Man, knife in hand, was walking slowly toward her.

  “Don’t try to run away!” he bellowed. “You’ll never get away! The Old Guy’ll light thins up for me so you kin’t sneak away in the dark. Besides, your white skin shines in the night, like a rotten toadstool. You’re done for. You snatched away my hat so you could get me out here defenseless, and then Deena could stab me in the back. You and her are Falser witches, I know damn well!”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Dorothy. She tried to rise again but could not. It was as if the mud had fingers around her ankles and knees.

  “The Old Guy’s howlin for the blood a C’yaga wimmen. And he’s gonna get all the blood he wants. It’s only fair. Deena put the knife in me, and The Old Woman got some a my blood to drink. Now it’s your turn to give The Old Guy some a yours.”

  “Don’t!” screamed Deena. “Don’t! Dorothy had nothing to do with it! And you can’t blame me, after what you were doing to her!”

  “She’d done everythin to me. I’m gonna make the last sacrifice to Old Guy. Then they kin do what they want to me. I don’t care. I’ll have
had one moment a bein a real Real Folker.”

  Deena and Dorothy both screamed. In the next second, lightning broke the darkness around them. Dorothy saw Deena hurl herself on Old Man’s back and carry him downward. Then, night again.

  There was a groan. Then, another blast of light. Old Man was on his knees, bent almost double but not bent so far Dorothy could not see the handle of the knife that was in his chest.

  “Oh, Christ!” wailed Deena. “When I pushed him, he must have fallen on the knife. I heard the bone in his chest break. Now he’s dying!”

  Paley moaned. “Yeah, you done it now, you sure paid me back, din’t you? Paid me back for my takin the monkey off a your back and supportin you all these years.”

  “Oh, Old Man,” sobbed Deena, “I didn’t mean to do it. I was just trying to save Dorothy and save you from yourself. Please! Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”

  “Sure you kin. Stuff up the two big holes in my back and chest. My blood, my breath, my real soul’s flowin out a me. Guy In the Sky, what a way to die! Kilt by a crazy woman!”

  “Keep quiet,” said Dorothy. “Save your strength. Deena, you run to the service station. It’ll still be open. Call a doctor.”

  “Don’t go, Deena,” he said. “It’s too late. I’m hangin onto my soul by its big toe now; in a minute I’ll have to let go, and it’ll jump out a me like a beagle after a rabbit.

  “Dor’thy, Dor’thy, was it the wickedness a The Old Woman put you up to this? I must a meant something to you… under the flowers… maybe it’s better… I felt like a god, then… not what I really am… a crazy old junkman… a alley man… Just think a it… fifty thousand years behint me… older’n Adam and Eve by far… now, this…”

  Deena began weeping. He lifted his hand, and she seized it.

  “Let loose,” he said faintly. “I was gonna knock hell outta you for blubberin… just like a Falser bitch… kill me… then cry… you never did ’preciate me… like Dorothy…”

  “His hand’s getting cold,” murmured Deena.

  “Deena, bury that damn hat with me… least you kin do… Hey, Deena, who you goin to for help when you hear that monkey chitterin outside the door, huh? Who… ?”

  Suddenly, before Dorothy and Deena could push him back down, he sat up. At the same time, lightning hammered into the earth nearby and it showed them his eyes, looking past them out into the night.

  He spoke, and his voice was stronger, as if life had drained back into him through the holes in his flesh.

  “Old Guy’s given me a good send-off. Lightnin and thunder. The works. Nothin cheap about him, huh? Why not? He knows this is the end a the trail for me. The last a his worshipers… last a the Paleys…”

  He sank back and spoke no more.

  My Sister’s Brother

  1960

  THE SIXTH NIGHT on Mars, Lane wept. He sobbed loudly while tears ran down his cheeks. He smacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand until the flesh burned. He howled with loneliness. He swore the most obscene and blasphemous oaths he knew.

  After a while, he quit weeping. He dried his eyes, downed a shot of Scotch, and felt much better.

  He wasn’t ashamed because he had bawled like a woman. After all, there had been a Man who had not been ashamed to weep. He could dissolve in tears the grinding stones within; he was the reed that bent before the wind, not the oak that toppled, roots and all.

  Now, the weight and the ache in his breast gone, feeling almost cheerful, he made his scheduled report over the transceiver to the circum-Martian vessel five hundred and eight miles overhead. Then he did what men must do any place in the universe. Afterward, he lay down in the bunk and opened the one personal book he had been allowed to bring along, an anthology of the world’s greatest poetry.

  He read here and there, running, pausing for only a line or two, then completing in his head the thousand-times murmured lines. Here and there he read, like a bee tasting the best of the nectar…

  MY SISTER’S BROTHER 159

  It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,

  Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…

  We have a little sister,

  And she hath no breasts;

  What shall we do for our sister

  In the day when she shall be spoken for?

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil for Thou art with me…

  Come live with me and be my love

  And we shall all the pleasures prove…

  It lies not in our power to love or hate

  For will in us is over-ruled by fate…

  With thee conversing, I forget all time,

  All seasons, and their change, all please alike…

  He read on about love and man and woman until he had almost forgotten his troubles. His lids drooped; the book fell from his hand. But he roused himself, climbed out of the bunk, got down on his knees, and prayed that he be forgiven and that his blasphemy and despair be understood. And he prayed that his four lost comrades be found safe and sound. Then he climbed back into the bunk and fell asleep.

  At dawn he woke reluctantly to the alarm clocks ringing. Nevertheless, he did not fall back into sleep but rose, turned on the transceiver, filled a cup with water and instant, and dropped in a heat pill. Just as he finished the coffee, he heard Captain Stroyansky’s voice from the ’ceiver. Stroyansky spoke with barely a trace of Slavic accent.

  “Cardigan Lane? You awake?”

  “More or less. How are you?”

  “If we weren’t worried about all of you down there, we’d be fine.”

  “I know. Well, what are your orders?”

  “There is only one thing to do, Lane. You must go look for the others. Otherwise, you cannot get back up to us. It takes at least two more men to pilot the rocket.”

  “Theoretically, one man can pilot the beast,” replied Lane. “But it’s uncertain. However, that doesn’t matter. I’m leaving at once to look for the others. I’d do that even if you ordered otherwise.”

  Stroyansky chuckled. Then he barked like a seal. “The success of the expedition is more important than the fate of four men. Theoretically, anyway. But if I were in your shoes, and I’m glad I’m not, I would do the same. So, good luck, Lane.”

  “Thanks,” said Lane. “I’ll need more than luck. I’ll also need God’s help. I suppose He’s here, even if the place does look God forsaken.”

  He looked through the transparent double plastic walls of the dome.

  “The wind’s blowing about twenty-five miles an hour. The dust is covering the tractor tracks. I have to get going before they’re covered up entirely. My supplies are all packed; I’ve enough food, air, and water to last me six days. It makes a big package, the air tanks and the sleeping tent bulk large. It’s over a hundred Earth pounds, but here only about forty. I’m also taking a rope, a knife, a pickax, a flare pistol, half a dozen flares. And a walkie-talkie.

  “It should take me two days to walk the thirty miles to the spot where the tracs last reported. Two days to look around. Two days to get back.”

  “You be back in five days!” shouted Stroyansky. “That’s an order! It shouldn’t take you more than one day to scout around. Don’t take chances. Five days!”

  And then, in a softer voice, “Good luck, and, if there is a God, may He help you!”

  Lane tried to think of things to say, things that might perhaps go down with the Doctor Livingstone, I presume, category. But all he could say was, “So long.”

  Twenty minutes later, he closed behind him the door to the dome’s pressure lock. He strapped on the towering pack and began to walk. But when he was about fifty yards from the base, he felt compelled to turn around for one long look at what he might never see again. There, on the yellow-red felsite plain, stood the pressurized bubble that was to have been the home of the five men for a year. Nearby squatted the glider that had brought them down, its enormous wings spre
ading far, its skids covered with the forever-blowing dust.

  Straight ahead of him was the rocket, standing on its fins, pointing toward the blue-black sky, glittering in the Martian sun, shining with promise of power, escape from Mars, and return to the orbital ship. It had come down to the surface of Mars on the back of the glider in a hundred-and-twenty-mile an hour landing. After it had dropped the two six-ton caterpillar tractors it carried, it had been pulled off the glider and tilted on end by winches pulled by those very tractors. Now it waited for him and for the other four men.

  “I’ll be back,” he murmured to it. “And if I have to, I’ll take you up by myself.”

  He began to walk, following the broad double tracks left by the tank. The tracks were faint, for they were two days old, and the blowing silicate dust had almost filled them. The tracks made by the first tank, which had left three days ago, were completely hidden.

  The trail led northwest. It left the three-mile wide plain between two hills of naked rock and entered the quarter-mile corridor between two rows of vegetation. The rows ran straight and parallel from horizon to horizon, for miles behind him and miles ahead.

  Lane, on the ground and close to one row, saw it for what it was. Its foundation was an endless three-foot high tube, most of whose bulk, like an icebergs, lay buried in the ground. The curving sides were covered with blue-green lichenoids that grew on every rock or projection. From the spine of the tube, separated at regular intervals, grew the trunks of plants. The trunks were smooth shiny blue-green pillars two feet thick and six feet high. Out of their tops spread radially many pencil-thin branches, like bats’ fingers. Between the fingers stretched a blue-green membrane, the single tremendous leaf of the umbrella tree.

  When Lane had first seen them from the glider as it hurtled over them, he had thought they looked like an army of giant hands uplifted to catch the sun. Giant they were, for each rib-supported leaf measured fifty feet across. And hands they were, hands to beg for and catch the rare gold of the tiny sun. During the day, the ribs on the side nearest the moving sun dipped toward the ground, and the furthest ribs tilted upward. Obviously, the daylong maneuver was designed to expose the complete area of the membrane to the light, to allow not an inch to remain in shadow.