Modern Masterpieces of Science Fiction

by Sam Moskowitz

  “You mean, you think that Jannessa—”

  “I don't know what may have happened — but I have thought about it. I don't think you have thought about it at all. Frank.”

  “I've thought of little else these last seven-teen years.”

  “Surely ‘dreamed’ is the word, Frank?” Forbes looked across at him, his head a little on one side, his manner gentle. “Once upon a time some-thing, an ancestor of ours, came out of the water on to the land. It became adapted until it could not go back to its relatives in the sea. That is the process we agree to call progress. It is inherent in life. If you stop it, you stop life, too.”

  “Philosophically that may be sound enough, but I'm not interested in abstrac-tions. I'm interested in my daughter.”

  “How much do you think your daughter may be interested in you? I know that sounds callous, but I can see that you have some idea of affinity in mind. You're mis-taking civilized custom for natu-ral law, Frank. Perhaps we all do, more or less.”

  “I don't know what you mean.”

  “To be plain — if Jannessa has survived, she will be more foreign than any Earth foreigner could possibly be.”

  “There were eleven others to teach her civilized ways and speech.”

  “If any of them survived. Suppose they did not, or she was some-how sepa-rated from them. There are authen-ticated instances of children reared by wolves, leopards and even antelopes, and not one of them turned out to be in the least like the Tarzan fiction. All were sub-human. Adaptation works both ways.”

  “Even if she has had to live among savages she can learn.”

  Dr. Forbes faced him seriously.

  “I don't think you can have read much anthro-pology. First she would have to unlearn the whole basis of the culture she has known. Look at the different races here, and ask your-self if that is possible. There might be a veneer, yes. But more than that—” He shrugged.

  “There is the call of the blood—”

  “Is there? If you were to meet your great-grand-father would there be any tie —

  would you even know him?”

  Franklyn said, stubbornly:

  “Why are you talking like this, Jimmy? I'd not have listened to another man. Why are you trying to break down all that I've hoped for? You can't, you know. Not now. But why try?”

  “Because I'm fond of you, Frank. Because under all your success you're still the young man with a romantic dream. I told you to remarry. You wouldn't — you preferred the dream to reality. You've lived with that dream so long now that it is part of your mental pattern. But your dream is of finding Jannessa — not of having found her. You have centred your life on that dream. If you do find her, in what-ever condi-tion you find her, the dream will be finished — the purpose you set your-self will have been accomp-lished. And there will be nothing else left for you.”

  Franklyn moved uneasily.

  “I have plans and ambitions for her.”

  “For the daughter you know nothing of? No, for the dream daughter; the one that exists only in your mind, what-ever you may find, it will be a real person — not your dream puppet, Frank.”

  Dr. Forbes paused, watching the smoke curl up from his cigarette. It was in his mind to say: “Whatever she is like, you will come to hate her, just because she cannot exactly match your dream of her,” but he decided to leave that unspoken. It occurred to him also to enlarge on the un-happi-ness which might descend on a girl removed from all that was familiar to her, but he knew that Franklyn's answer to that would be — there was money enough to provide every luxury and conso-la-tion. He had already said enough — perhaps too much, and none of it had really reached Franklyn. He decided to let it rest there, and hope. After all, there was little like-li-hood that Jannessa had either survived or would be found. The tense look that had been on Franklyn's face gradu-ally relaxed. He smiled.

  “You've said your piece, old man. You think I may be in for a shock, and you want to prepare me, but I realize all that. I had it out with myself years ago. I can take it, if it's necessary.”

  Dr. Forbes' eyes dwelt on his face for a moment. He sighed, softly and privately.

  “Very well,” he agreed, and started to talk of some-thing else.

  “You see,” said Toti, “this is a very small planet—”

  “A satellite,” said Jannessa. “A satellite of Yan.”

  “But a planet of the sun, all the same. And there is the terrible cold.”

  “Then why did your people choose it?” Jannessa asked, reasonably.

  “Well, when our own world began to die and we had to die with it or go some-where else, our people thought about those they could reach. Some were too hot, some were too big—”

  “Why too big?”

  “Because of the gravity. On a big planet we could scarcely have crawled.”

  “Couldn't they have ... well, made things lighter?”

  Toti made a negative move-ment of his head, and his silver hair glistened in the fluor-escence from the walls.

  “An increase in density can be simu-lated; we've done that here. But no one has succeeded in simu-la-ting a decrease — nor, we think now, ever will. So you see our people had to choose a small world. All the moons of Yan are bleak, but this was the best of them, and our people were despe-rate. When they got here they lived in the ships and began to burrow into the ground to get away from the cold. They gradu-ally burnt their way in, making halls and rooms and galleries, and the food-growing tanks, and the culture fields, and all the rest of it. Then they sealed it, and warmed it, and moved in from the ships and went on working inside. It was all a very long time ago.”

  Jannessa sat for a moment in thought.

  “Telta said that perhaps I came from the third planet, Sonnal. Do you think so?”

  “It may be. We know there was some kind of civili-za-tion there.”

  “If they came once, they might come again — and take me home.”

  Toti looked at her, troubled, and a little hurt.

  “Home?” he said. “You feel like that?”

  Jannessa caught his expression. She put her white hand quickly into his slaty-blue one.

  “I'm sorry, Toti. I didn't mean that. I love you, and Telta, and Melga. You know that. It's just ... oh, how can you know what it's like to be different — different from every-one around you? I'm so tired of being a freak, Toti, dear. Inside me I'm just like any other girl. Can't you under-stand what it would mean to me to be looked on by every-one as normal?”

  Toti was silent for a while. When he spoke, his tone was troubled:

  “Jannessa, have you ever thought that after spending all your life here this really is your world? Another might seem very ... well, strange to you.”

  “You mean living on the outside instead of the inside. Yes, that would seem funny.”

  “Not just that, my dear,” he said, care-fully. “You know that after I found you up there and brought you in the doctors had to work hard to save your life?”

  “Telta told me.” Jannessa nodded. “What did they do?”

  “Do you know what glands are?”

  “I think so. They sort of control things.”

  “They do. Well, yours were set to control things suit-ably for your world. So the doctors had to be very clever. They had to give you very accu-rate injec-tions — it was a kind of balan-cing process, you see, so that the glands would work in the proper propor-tions to suit you for life here. Do you under-stand?”

  “To make me comfort-able at a lower tempe-rature, help me to digest this kind of food, stop over-stimu-lation by the high oxygen content, things like that,” Telta said.

  “Things like that,” Toti agreed. “It's called adapt-ation. They did the best they could to make you suited for life here among us.”

  “It was very clever of them,” Jannessa said, speaking much as she had spoken years ago to Telta. “But why didn't they do more? Why did they leave me white like this? Why didn't they make my hair a lovely silver like yours a
nd Telta's? I wouldn't have been a freak then — I should have felt that I really belong here.” Tears stood in her eyes.

  Toti put his arms around her.

  “My poor dear. I didn't know it was as bad as that. And I love you — so does Telta — as if you were our own daughter.”

  “I don't see how you can — with this!” She held up her pale hand.

  “But, we do, Jannessa, dear. Does that really matter so very much?”

  “It's what makes me different. It reminds me all the time that I belong to another world, really. Perhaps I shall go there one day.”

  Toti frowned.

  “That's just a dream, Jannessa. You don't know any world but this. It couldn't be what you expect. Stop dream-ing, stop worrying yourself, my dear. Make up your mind to be happy here with us.”

  “You don't understand, Toti,” she said gently. “Some-where there are people like me — my own kind.”

  It was only a few months later that the observers in one of the domes reported the landing of a ship from space.

  “Listen, you old cynic,” said Franklyn's voice, almost before his image was sharp on the screen. “They've found her — and she's on the way Home.”

  “Found — Jannessa?” Dr. Forbes said, hesi-tantly.

  “Of course. Who else would I be meaning?”

  “Are you — quite sure, Frank?”

  “You old sceptic. Would I have rung you if I weren't? She's on Mars right now. They put in there for fuel, and to delay for proximity.”

  “But can you be sure?”

  “There's her name — and some papers found with her.”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  “Not enough, eh?” Franklyn's image grinned. “All right, then. Take a look at this.”

  He reached for a photo-graph on his desk and held it close to the trans-mitting screen.

  “Told them to take it there, and transmit here by radio,” he explained. “Now what about it?”

  Dr. Forbes studied the picture on the screen carefully. It showed a girl posed with a rough wall for a back-ground. Her only visible garment was a piece of shining cloth, draped around her, rather in the manner of a sari. The hair was fair and dressed in an unfam-iliar style. But it was the face looking from beneath it that made him catch his breath. It was Marilyn Godalpin's face, gazing back at him across eighteen years.

  “Yes, Frank,” he said, slowly. “Yes, that's Jannessa. I ... I don't know what to say, Frank.”

  “Not even congratulations?”

  “Yes, oh yes — of course. It's ... well, it's just a miracle. I'm not used to miracles.”

  The day that the newspaper told him that the Chloe, a research ship belonging to the Jason Mining Corpo-ration, was due to make ground at noon, was spent absent-mindedly by Dr. Forbes. He was sure that there would be a message from Franklyn Godalpin, and he found him-self unable to settle to any-thing until he should receive it. When, at about four o'clock the bell rang, he answered it with a swift excite-ment. But the screen did not clear to the expected features of Franklyn. Instead, a woman's face looked at him anxiously. He recognized her as Godalpin's house-keeper.

  “It's Mr. Godalpin, doctor,” she said. “He's been taken ill. If you could come—?”

  A taxi set him down on Godalpin's strip fifteen minutes later. The house-keeper met him and hurried him to the stairs through the rabble of journa-lists, photo-graphers and commen-tators that filled the hall. Franklyn was lying on his bed with his clothes loosened. A secre-tary and a frightened-looking girl stood by. Dr. Forbes made an exami-na-tion and gave an injection.

  “Shock, following anxiety,” he said. “Not surprising. He's been under a great strain lately. Get him to bed. Hot bottles, and see that he's kept warm.”

  The housekeeper spoke as he turned away.

  “Doctor, while you're here. There's the ... I mean, if you wouldn't mind having a look at ... at Miss Jannessa, too.”

  “Yes, of course. Where is she?”

  The housekeeper led the way to another room, and pointed.

  “She's in there, doctor.”

  Dr. Forbes pushed open the door and went in. A sound of bitter sobbing ended in choking as he entered. Looking for the source of it he saw a child standing beside the bed.

  “Where—?” he began. Then the child turned towards him. It was not a child's face. It was Marilyn's face, with Marilyn's hair, and Marilyn's eyes looking at him. But a Marilyn who was twenty-five inches tall — Jannessa

  THE WITNESS

  by

  Eric Frank Russell

  No court in history had drawn so much world attention. Six television cameras swivelled slowly as they followed red and black-robed legal lights parading solemnly to their seats. Ten microphones sent the creaking of shoes and rustling of papers over national networks in both hemispheres. Two hundred reporters and special correspondents filled a gallery reserved for them alone. Forty representatives of cultural or-ganizations stared across the court at twice their number of governmental and diplomatic officials sitting blank-faced and impassive.

  Tradition had gone by the board; procedure resembled nothing familiar to the average lawyer, for this was a special occasion devised to suit a special case. Technique had been adapted to cope with a new and extraordinary culprit, while the dignity of justice was upheld by means of stagy trim-mings.

  There were five judges and no jury, but a billion citizens were in their homes watching and listening, determined to ensure fair play. Ideas of what constituted fair play were as var-ied as the unseen audience, and most of them unreasoning, purely emotional. A minority of spectators hoped for life, many lusted for death, while the waverers compromised in favor of arbitrary expulsion, each according to how he had been influenced by the vast flood of colorful and bigoted propaganda preceding this event.

  The judges took their places with the casual unconcern of those too old and deeply sunk in wisdom to notice the lime-light. A hush fell, broken only by the ticking of the large clock over their rostrum. It was the hour of ten in the morn-ing of May 17, 1977. The microphones sent the ticking around the world. The cameras showed the judges, the clock, and finally settled on the center of all this attention: the crea-ture in the defendant's box.

  Six months ago this latter object had been the sensation of the century, the focal point of a few wild hopes and many wilder fears. Since then it had appeared so often on video screens, magazine and newspaper pages, that the public sense of amazement had departed, while the hopes and fears re-mained. It had slowly degenerated to a cartoon character contemptuously dubbed "Spike," depicted as halfway between a hopelessly malformed imbecile and the crafty emissary of a craftier other-world enemy. Familiarity had bred contempt, but not enough of it to kill the fears.

  It's name was Maeth and it came from some planet in the region of Procyon. Three feet high, bright green, with feet that were mere pads, and stubby limbs fitted with suckers and cilia, it was covered in spiky protrusions and looked somewhat like an educated cactus. Except for its eyes, great golden eyes that looked upon men in naive expectation of mercy, because it had never done anyone any harm. A toad, a wistful toad, with jewels in its head.

  Pompously, a black gowned official announced, "This spe-cial court, held by international agreement, and convened within the area of jurisdiction of the Federal Government of the United States of America, is now in session! Silence!" The middle judge glanced at his fellows, adjusted his spec-tacles, peered gravely at the toad, or cactus, or whatever it might be. "Maeth of Procyon, we are given to understand that you can neither hear nor speak, but can comprehend us telepathically and respond visually."

  Cameras focussed as Maeth turned to the blackboard immediately behind him and chalked one word. "Yes."

  "You are accused," the judge went on, "generally of illegal entry into this world known as Earth and specifically into the United States of America. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

  "How else can one enter?" inquired Maeth, in bold white letters. T
he judge frowned. "Kindly answer my question."

  "Not guilty."

  "You have been provided with defending counsel—have you any objection to him?"

  "Blessed be the peacemaker."

  Few relished that crack. It smacked of the Devil quoting Scripture. Making a sign, the judge leaned back, polished his glasses.

  Adjusting the robes on his shoulders, the prosecuting attorney came to his feet. He was tall, hatchet-faced, sharp-eyed. "First witness!" A thin, reedy man came out of the well of the court, took his chair, sat uncomfortably, with fidgeting hands.

  "Name?"

  "Samuel Nall."

  "You farm outside Dansville?"

  "Yes, sir. I—"

  "Do not call me `sir.' Just reply to my questions. It was upon your farm that this creature made its landing?"

  "Your Honors, I object!" Mr. Defender stood up, a fat, florid man, but deceptively nimble-witted. "My client is a person, not a creature. It should therefore be referred to as the defendant."

  "Objection overruled," snapped the middle judge. "Pro-ceed, Mr. Prosecutor."

  "It was upon your farm that this creature landed?"

  "Yes," said Samuel Nall, staring pridefully at the cameras. "It come down all of a sudden and—"

  "Confine yourself to the question. The arrival was accom-panied by much destruction?"

  "Yes."

  "How much?"

  "Two barns and a dollop of crops. I'm down three thousand dollars."

  "Did this creature show any remorse?"

  "None." Nall scowled across the court. "Acted like it couldn't care less." Mr. Prosecutor seated himself, throwing a mock smile at the fat man. "Your witness."

  Standing up, the latter eyed Nall benevolently and in-quired, "Were these barns of yours octagonal towers with walls having movable louvres and with barometrically controlled roofs?"

  Samuel Nall waggled his eyebrows and uttered a faint, "Huh?"

  "Never mind. Dismiss that query and answer me this one: were your crops composed of foozles and bicolored mer-kins?"