The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction 8 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Alfred Bester

  Never mind! Quaff down your beakers, lords, Claude Ford has slain a harmless creature. Long live Claude the Clawed!

  You watch breathless as the head touches the ground, the long laugh of neck touches the ground, the jaws close for good. You watch and wait for something else to happen, but nothing ever does. Nothing ever would. You could stand here watching for an hundred and fifty million years, Lord Claude, and nothing would ever happen here again. Gradually your bronto’s mighty carcass, picked loving clean by predators, would sink into the slime, carried by its own weight deeper; then the waters would rise, and old Conqueror Sea come in with the leisurely air of a cardsharp dealing the boys a bad hand. Silt and sediment would filter down over the mighty grave, a slow rain with centuries to rain in. Old bronto’s bed might be raised up and then down again perhaps half a dozen times, gently enough not to disturb him, although by now the sedimentary rocks would be forming thick around him. Finally, when he was wrapped in a tomb finer than any Indian rajah ever boasted, the powers of the Earth would raise him high on their shoulders until, sleeping still, bronto would lie in a brow of the Rockies high above the waters of the Pacific. But little any of that would count with you, Claude the Sword; once the midget maggot of life is dead in the creature’s skull, the rest is no concern of yours.

  You have no emotion now. You are just faintly put out. You expected dramatic thrashing of the ground, or bellowing; on the other hand, you are glad the thing did not appear to suffer. You are like all cruel men, sentimental; you are like all sentimental men, squeam­ish. You tuck the gun under your arm and walk round the dinosaur to view your victory.

  You prowl past the ungainly hooves, round the septic white of the cliff of belly, beyond the glistening and how-thought-provoking cavern of the cloaca, finally posing beneath the switch-back sweep of tail-to-rump. Now your disappointment is as crisp and obvious as a visiting card: the giant is not half as big as you thought it was. It is not one half as large, for example, as the image of you and Maude is in your mind. Poor little warrior, science will never invent anything to assist the titanic death you want in the contraterrene caverns of your fee-fi-fo fumblingly fearful id!

  Nothing is left to you now but to slink back to your timemobile with a belly full of anticlimax. See, the bright dung-consuming birds have already cottoned on to the true state of affairs; one by one, they gather up their hunched wings and fly disconsolately off across the swamp to other hosts. They know when a good thing turns bad, and do not wait for the vultures to drive them off; all hope abandon, ye who entrail here. You also turn away.

  You turn, but you pause. Nothing is left but to go back, no, but 2181 ad is not just the home date; it is Maude. It is Claude. It is the whole awful, hopeless, endless business of trying to adjust to an overcomplex environment, of trying to turn yourself into a cog. Your escape from it into the Grand Simplicities of the Jurassic, to quote the brochure again, was only a partial escape, now over.

  So you pause, and as you pause, something lands socko on your back, pitching you face forward into tasty mud. You struggle and scream as lobster claws tear at your neck and throat. You try to pick up the rifle but cannot, so in agony you roll over, and next second the crab-thing is greedying it on your chest. You wrench at its shell, but it giggles and pecks your fingers off. You forgot when you killed the bronto that its parasites would leave it, and that to a little shrimp like you they would be a deal more dangerous than their hosts.

  You do your best, kicking for at least three minutes. By the end of that time there is a whole pack of the creatures on you. Already they are picking your carcass loving clean. You’re going to like it up there on top of the Rockies; you won’t feel a thing.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  SHIRLEY JACKSON

  The last story of Miss Jackson’s to appear in these annuals (One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts, in our fifth series) made a full tour of the best-of-the-year anthologies: it was also featured in Judith Merril’s S-F: the yeaR’s greatest and in Martha Foley’s the best american short stories. I see no reason why similar kudos should not fall to the lot of this tender, funny, and wholly delightful fantasy on the unexpected nature of omens—pure Jackson at her inimitable best.

  THE OMEN

  It would be pushing truth too far to say that Grandma Williams was the finest person in the world to live with. As her daughter said sometimes, but only after the greatest professions of loyalty, “She’s just the sweetest old lady in the world, of course, but sometimes she’s very trying.” And her son-in-law, whose patience was immense, and whose courtesy was unfailing, had been heard to say with an affectionate smile to his wife, “Granny seems to be aging rapidly these days.” Even her grandchildren, of whom there were two, sometimes found themselves exasperated by her, and would say in such cases, “Oh, Granny,” or “Gosh,” in the tone of voice used by children when words fail them.

  Ordinarily, however, everyone loved Grandma Williams almost as much as she loved them, and they ate the custards she prepared so tenderly, and bore with the small surprises she invented for them, and gave her warm scarves and gloves for Christmas, and homemade valentines on Valentine’s Day, and gardenias on Mother’s Day, and took her out to dinner and the theater on her birthday, and saw that her glasses were found when she lost them and brought her home books from the lending library and remembered to kiss her goodnight and to be polite to the two or three old friends who still remained to her, and who came sometimes to call. And when Granny announced brightly at breakfast one morning that today she was going shopping no one criticized her, or even smiled.

  “Isn’t it something I can do for you, dear?” her daughter asked, looking into the coffee pot. “I may go into town today, and I’d be glad to do any errands you want.”

  “Happy to get you anything myself,” said her son-in-law. “Easy to stop off somewhere on my way home.”

  Granny shook her head vehemently. “This is important shopping,” she said. “I have to do it myself.”

  “Can I go with you?” asked her younger grandchild, who was eight years old, and who was named Ellen and was commonly supposed to resemble Granny as a girl.

  “Indeed you may not,” Granny said. “This is a surprise.”

  If a slight sigh went around the breakfast table Granny did not notice. “A surprise for everyone,” she said. “You remember yesterday?”

  Everyone remembered yesterday; yesterday had been an event. Yesterday Granny had received in the morning mail a check for thirteen dollars and seventy-four cents, with a covering letter saying that the sender had owed it to Granny’s husband for nearly fifty years, and so was paying it now to his widow, with interest. Granny’s son-in-law had figured out the interest for her, and it was quite proper. Granny, today, was rich. “A surprise for everyone,” she repeated happily, “with my new money.”

  Her daughter opened her mouth to protest, and then stopped. Nothing that Granny could possibly buy with thirteen dollars and seventy-four cents would give her more pleasure than surprises for everybody. “I think that’s wonderful,” her daughter said finally, eying her family around the table.

  “Very kind of you,” said Granny’s son-in-law.

  “I want—” began Ellen.

  “Dear,” said her mother, “this is to be a surprise.”

  “But I want to know,” said Granny. “Robert, will you get me a pencil and paper?” Her older grandchild, who was ten, departed and returned in haste, partly because he had been carefully taught to treat his Granny courteously, and partly because surprises did not come every day.

  “Now,” said Granny, her pencil poised over the paper. “Margaret?”

  “You mean what do I want?” said her daughter. She thought. “I don’t really know,” she said slowly. “A handkerchief, perhaps? Or a box of candy?”

  “If I were to get you a bottle of perfume,” said Granny with great cunning, “what kind would you most like?”

  Her daughter considered again. “Well,” she
said, “I usually wear a kind called ‘Carnation.’ “

  “Carnation,” Granny said. She wrote on her paper. Then she looked inquiringly at her son-in-law. “John,” she said. “What for you?”

  He frowned soberly. “Let me see,” he said. “I suppose what I most need is a few good cigars. ‘El Signo,’ I generally smoke.”

  “Cigars,” Granny said complacently. “A very good thing in a man. Your grandfather used to say that cigarettes were for women and children. What kind, again?”

  “El Signo,” said her son-in-law.

  “I can’t possibly write such an outlandish name,” said Granny. “What is it in English?”

  “The sign,” he told her, not looking at his wife.

  “The sign,” Granny said as she wrote. “You see,” she explained, “I can always ask the man what it means, in cigars.”

  “Now me?” said Ellen.

  “Now you, Granddaughter.”

  “A doll’s house with real glass in the windows,” said Ellen immediately, “and a bride doll, and a live kitty and—”

  “Not a live kitty,” said her mother hastily.

  “A stuffed kitty?” said Ellen, wide-eyed. “A blue stuffed kitty?”

  “Splendid,” said Granny. “Blue cat,” she wrote. “Robert?” she said.

  “Roller skates,” said Robert. “Walkie-talkie.”

  “What?” said Granny.

  “Walkie-talkie,” said Robert. “It’s a sort of telephone, like.”

  Granny stared at her son-in-law, who smiled and shrugged. “Telephone,” Granny said, and wrote it down. Then she leaned back and looked farsightedly at her list. “Carnation “ she read. “The sign. Blue cat. Telephone.” She smiled around the table at the family. “Now me,” she said, “I want a ring.”

  “A ring?” said her daughter. “Granny, you have rings. You have your diamond ring, and the little one set with a cameo, and Dad’s silver seal ring, and—”

  “Not any of those,” said Granny, shaking her head vigorously. “I saw a little ring I wanted, in the five and ten the other day. It cost twenty-nine cents, and it was silver-plated and it had on it two hearts set together. I liked that ring.”

  Her daughter and son-in-law exchanged glances. “If you’ll wait till your birthday,” said her daughter, “perhaps you might have the same ring in real silver; if it’s something you like we could easily have it made.”

  “I want this one,” said Granny. She rose from the table, picked up her list, and put it carefully into her pocket. “Now,” she said. “Now I am going shopping.”

  She departed for her room to get her coat and hat, and her daughter said anxiously to her son-in-law, “Do you think it’s all right? I could insist on going along.”

  “She’s getting so much pleasure out of it,” said the son-in-law, “it would be a real shame to spoil it. And of course she’ll be all right.”

  “Everyone’s always glad to help an old lady, anyway,” said the daughter. “If she gets into any difficulty, that is.”

  Granny, stylish in her neat black coat and a small rakish hat trimmed with violets, set out at precisely ten o’clock, an hour after her son-in-law had gone off to his office, and an hour and ten minutes after her grandchildren had climbed noisily into the school bus. Her daughter stood in the doorway and waved to her as she went down the street; Granny had insisted upon traveling into town on the bus, instead of taking a taxi, and her daughter stood in the doorway until she saw Granny reach the corner, signal competently to the bus driver with her umbrella, and climb aboard, helped, as she always was, somehow, by the driver and two friendly passengers. People would be taking care of Granny like that all day, her daughter thought, and, with an admiring smile, she turned back inside to finish off the breakfast dishes. I’ll just dress later, she thought, and run into town myself. I might meet her somewhere and bring her home.

  Granny sat proudly in the bus, perfectly aware of the attention she was attracting. Her son-in-law had kindly cashed her check, and Granny had thirteen dollars and seventy-four cents in her pocketbook. Her list, she thought, was safely tucked into her pocket, but, as a matter of fact, it had slipped out and lay unnoticed on the seat when Granny alighted in the center of town, assisted by the bus driver, a kind gentleman, and two schoolgirls.

  ~ * ~

  Not everyone had had such a pleasant two days as Granny had. Miss Edith Webster, for instance, had put in forty-eight hours (and this the first week of her vacation!) of unpleasant and fruitless argument. Edith loved her mother quite as much as Granny’s daughter loved Granny, but Edith’s mother was perhaps a shade more selfish than Granny—Granny, as Edith would have pointed out if she had known about it, had at least allowed her daughter to get married. Edith’s mother was explicit upon this point.

  “If you marry this Jerry fellow,” she told Edith—as she had gone on telling Edith, over and over, for three years— “you will be leaving your poor old mother all alone, not that I think you care about me—no, by now I know better than to think my only daughter cares about what happens to her poor old mother—but you’d always have it on your conscience, I hope, that you left your poor old mother to starve.”

  “You wouldn’t starve,” Edith had pointed out over and over for three years, although by now the words had no meaning, from being said so often. “Aunt Martha has been wanting you to come and live with her for a long time, and Jerry and I could always give you enough money to get along.”

  “Aunt Martha? What would I want to live with Aunt Martha for? You certainly couldn’t have much respect for my comfort if you tried to make me go and live with Aunt Martha.”

  On the morning that Granny set out so blithely, Edith had finally said, with more anger than she had ever shown her mother before, “I have every right in the world to get married and have a family of my own, and it’s not fair for you to try and stop me.”

  “You’re my daughter,” her mother retorted, “and you owe me all your education and all the care and love I’ve given you all these years. And I’m not going to let you throw yourself away on some good-for-nothing and leave your poor old mother to starve.”

  At that point Edith snatched up her hat and fled from the house, leaving her mother still talking, dwelling lovingly upon the symptoms of starvation, and how Edith might possibly remember to show up at her deathbed—not, however, to be forgiven.

  Walking down the street, Edith, who was actually an agreeable and pleasant girl, and who did not enjoy quarreling, told herself firmly that a decision must be reached, and immediately. Her mother did not show any signs of ever changing her mind, and, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, there was the telling fact that Jerry, who had waited patiently for three years, was beginning to remark restlessly that all his friends were married, that a man expected to settle down before he was thirty, that he personally thought that Edith’s mother would never give in, and that he thought the thing to do was up and get married, and let the old lady give her consent afterwards. Edith thought he was right, if she tried to be impartial about it, but still the courage required to defy her mother was more than she could muster.

  Going down the street (and she was at this time approximately two miles from Granny Williams, who was just then marching boldly down her own street on her way to a different bus), Edith, in her neat dark blue coat and red hat (as opposed to Granny, who was wearing a black coat and a hat with violets), sighed deeply, and thought: if I only had an idea of what to do; if only somebody, something, somehow, would show me the way, make up my mind for me, give me an omen.

  All of which is, of course, a most dangerous way of thinking.

  Edith, on her own bus, reached the center of town almost as soon as Granny did, and, by an odd coincidence, Edith even passed Granny on the street without noticing her, nor did Granny notice Edith. Perhaps, indeed, Edith thought swiftly: look at the nice old lady in the hat with flowers; perhaps the thought passed through Granny’s mind: look at the pretty girl with the sad frown. These th
ings happen daily, among the thousands of people who pass one another in crowds. At any rate Edith, whose ultimate destination was the home of a girl friend on the other side of town (someone to whom Edith could pour out her troubles, and who would give her sympathy, if no kind of help), got on the wrong bus. She was worried, and thinking about something else, and there were a lot of people waiting at the bus stop, and Edith did not look up in time to see the sign on the front of the bus, and a man in the crowd near her said loudly, “It’s the Long Avenue bus,” which was the one Edith wanted, so Edith got on, and paid her fare, and sat down in the first seat she came to, which was the seat vacated by Granny not long ago, and the seat where Granny’s list was waiting to be an omen to Edith. Edith picked it up, and put it into her pocket without thinking any more about it than that it was something she herself had dropped, like a transfer or a scrap of envelope with an address on it, and she did not even look at it when she put it into her pocket.