The Very Best of F & SF v1

by Gordon Van Gelder (ed)

  She doesn’t look at me, only keeps sidling farther away. My terror detonates into anger.

  “Come back here!” With my free hand I’m working the .32 out of my belt. The sun has gone down.

  She doesn’t turn but straightens up warily, still hugging the thing. I see her mouth working. Is she actually trying to talk to them?

  “Please...” She swallows. “Please speak to me. I need your help.”

  “RUTH!”

  At this moment the nearest white monster whips into a great S-curve and sails right onto the bank at her, eight feet of snowy rippling horror.

  And I shoot Ruth.

  I don’t know that for a minute—I’ve yanked the gun up so fast that my staff slips and dumps me as I fire. I stagger up, hearing Ruth scream, “No! No! No!”

  The creature is back down by his boat, and Ruth is still farther away, clutching herself. Blood is running down her elbow.

  “Stop it, Don! They aren’t attacking you!”

  “For god’s sake! Don’t be a fool, I can’t help you if you won’t get away from them!”

  No reply. Nobody moves. No sound except the drone of a jet passing far above. In the darkening stream below me the three white figures shift uneasily; I get the impression of radar dishes focusing. The word spells itself in my head: Aliens.

  Extraterrestrials.

  What do I do, call the President? Capture them single-handed with my peashooter?... I’m alone in the arse end of nowhere with one leg and my brain cuddled in meperidine hydrochloride.

  “Prrr-eese,” their machine blurs again. “Wa-wat hep...”

  “Our plane fell down,” Ruth says in a very distinct, eerie voice. She points up at the jet, out toward the bay. “My—my child is there. Please take us there in your boat.”

  Dear god. While she’s gesturing, I get a look at the thing she’s hugging in her wounded arm. It’s metallic, like a big glimmering distributor head. What—?

  Wait a minute. This morning: when she was gone so long, she could have found that thing. Something they left behind. Or dropped. And she hid it, not telling me. That’s why she kept going under that bromel clump—she was peeking at it. Waiting. And the owners came back and caught her. They want it. She’s trying to bargain, by god.

  “—Water,” Ruth is pointing again. “Take us. Me. And him.”

  The black faces turn toward me, blind and horrible. Later on I may be grateful for that “us.” Not now.

  “Throw your gun away, Don. They’ll take us back.” Her voice is weak.

  “Like hell I will. You—who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, god, does it matter? He’s frightened,” she cries to them. “Can you understand?”

  She’s as alien as they, there in the twilight. The beings in the skiff are twittering among themselves. Their box starts to moan.

  “Ss-stu-dens,” I make out. “S-stu-ding... not—huh-arming... w-we... buh...” It fades into garble and then says, “G-give... we... g-go....”

  Peace-loving cultural-exchange students—on the interstellar level now. Oh, no.

  “Bring that thing here, Ruth—right now!”

  But she’s starting down the bank toward them saying, “Take me.”

  “Wait! You need a tourniquet on that arm.”

  “I know. Please put the gun down, Don.”

  She’s actually at the skiff, right by them. They aren’t moving.

  “Jesus Christ.” Slowly, reluctantly, I drop the .32. When I start down the slide, I find I’m floating; adrenaline and Demerol are a bad mix.

  The skiff comes gliding toward me, Ruth in the bow clutching the thing and her arm. The aliens stay in the stern behind their tripod, away from me. I note the skiff is camouflaged tan and green. The world around us is deep shadowy blue.

  “Don, bring the water bag!”

  As I’m dragging down the plastic bag, it occurs to me that Ruth really is cracking up, the water isn’t needed now. But my own brain seems to have gone into overload. All I can focus on is a long white rubbery arm with black worms clutching the far end of the orange tube, helping me fill it. This isn’t happening.

  “Can you get in, Don?” As I hoist my numb legs up, two long white pipes reach for me. No, you don’t. I kick and tumble in beside Ruth. She moves away.

  A creaky hum starts up, it’s coming from a wedge in the center of the skiff. And we’re in motion, sliding toward dark mangrove files.

  I stare mindlessly at the wedge. Alien technological secrets? I can’t see any, the power source is tinder that triangular cover, about two feet long. The gadgets on the tripod are equally cryptic, except that one has a big lens. Their light?

  As we hit the open bay, the hum rises and we start planing faster and faster still. Thirty knots? Hard to judge in the dark. Their hull seems to be a modified trihedral much like ours, with a remarkable absence of slap. Say twenty-two feet. Schemes of capturing it swirl in my mind. I’ll need Estéban.

  Suddenly a huge flood of white light fans out over us from the tripod, blotting out the aliens in the stern. I see Ruth pulling at a belt around her arm, still hugging the gizmo.

  “I’ll tie that for you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  The alien device is twinkling or phosphorescing slightly. I lean over to look, whispering, “Give that to me, I’ll pass it to.”

  “No!” She scoots away, almost over the side. “It’s theirs, they need it!”

  “What? Are you crazy?” I’m so taken aback by this idiocy I literally stammer. “We have to, we—”

  “They haven’t hurt us. I’m sure they could.” Her eyes are watching me with feral intensity; in the light her face has a lunatic look. Numb as I am, I realize that the wretched woman is poised to throw herself over the side if I move. With the alien thing.

  “I think they’re gentle,” she mutters.

  “For Christ’s sake, Ruth, they’re aliens!”

  “I’m used to it,” she says absently. “There’s the island! Stop! Stop here!”

  The skiff slows, turning. A mound of foliage is tiny in the light. Metal glints—the plane.

  “Althea! Althea! Are you all right?”

  Yells, movement on the plane. The water is high, we’re floating over the bar. The aliens are keeping us in the lead with the light hiding them. I see one pale figure splashing toward us and a dark one behind, coming more slowly. Estéban must be puzzled by that light.

  “Mr. Fenton is hurt, Althea. These people brought us back with the water. Are you all right?”

  “A-okay.” Althea flounders up, peering excitedly. “You all right? Whew, that light!” Automatically I start handing her the idiotic water bag.

  “Leave that for the captain,” Ruth says sharply. “Althea, can you climb in the boat? Quickly, it’s important.”

  Coming.

  “No, no!” I protest, but the skiff tilts as Althea swarms in. The aliens twitter, and their voice box starts groaning. “Gu-give... now... give...”

  “Qué llega?” Estéban’s face appears beside me, squinting fiercely into the light.

  “Grab it, get it from her—that thing she has—” but Ruth’s voice rides over mine. “Captain, lift Mr. Fenton out of the boat. He’s hurt his leg. Hurry, please.”

  “Goddamn it, wait!” I shout, but an arm has grabbed my middle. When a Maya boosts you, you go. I hear Althea saying, “Mother, your arm!” and fall onto Estéban. We stagger around in water up to my waist; I can’t feel my feet at all.

  When I get steady, the boat is yards away. The two women are head-to-head, murmuring.

  “Get them!” I tug loose from Estéban and flounder forward. Ruth stands up in the boat facing the invisible aliens.

  “Take us with you. Please. We want to go with you, away from here.”

  “Ruth! Estéban, get that boat!” I lunge and lose my feet again. The aliens are chirruping madly behind their light.

  “Please take us. We don’t mind what your planet is like; we’ll learn—w
e’ll do anything! We won’t cause any trouble. Please. Oh, please.” The skiff is drifting farther away.

  “Ruth! Althea! Are you crazy? Wait—” But I can only shuffle nightmarelike in the ooze, hearing that damn voice box wheeze, “N-not come... more... not come...” Althea’s face turns to it, open-mouthed grin.

  “Yes, we understand,” Ruth cries. “We don’t want to come back. Please take us with you!”

  I shout and Estéban splashes past me shouting too, something about radio.

  “Yes-s-s,” groans the voice.

  Ruth sits down suddenly, clutching Althea. At that moment Estéban grabs the edge of the skiff beside her.

  “Hold them, Estéban! Don’t let her go.”

  He gives me one slit-eyed glance over his shoulder, and I recognize his total uninvolvement. He’s had a good look at that camouflage paint and the absence of fishing gear. I make a desperate rush and slip again. When I come up Ruth is saying, “We’re going with these people, Captain. Please take your money out of my purse, it’s in the plane. And give this to Mr. Fenton.”

  She passes him something small; the notebook. He takes it slowly.

  “Estéban! No!”

  He has released the skiff.

  “Thank you so much,” Ruth says as they float apart. Her voice is shaky; she raises it. “There won’t be any trouble, Don. Please send this cable. It’s to a friend of mine, she’ll take care of everything.” Then she adds the craziest touch of the entire night. “She’s a grand person; she’s director of nursing training at N.I.H.”

  As the skiff drifts out, I hear Althea add something that sounds like “Right on.”

  Sweet Jesus... Next minute the humming has started; the light is receding fast. The last I see of Mrs. Ruth Parsons and Miss Althea Parsons is two small shadows against that light, like two opossums. The light snaps off, the hum deepens—and they’re going, going, gone away.

  In the dark water beside me Estéban is instructing everybody in general to chingarse themselves.

  “Friends, or something,” I tell him lamely. “She seemed to want to go with them.”

  He is pointedly silent, hauling me back to the plane. He knows what could be around here better than I do, and Mayas have their own longevity program. His condition seems improved. As we get in I notice the hammock has been repositioned.

  In the night—of which I remember little—the wind changes. And at seven-thirty next morning a Cessna buzzes the sandbar under cloudless skies.

  By noon we’re back in Cozumel. Captain Estéban accepts his fees and departs laconically for his insurance wars. I leave the Parsonses’ bags with the Caribe agent, who couldn’t care less. The cable goes to a Mrs. Priscilla Hayes Smith, also of Bethesda. I take myself to a medico and by three P.M. I’m sitting on the Cabanas terrace with a fat leg and a double margarita, trying to believe the whole thing.

  The cable said, Althea and I taking extraordinary opportunity for travel. Gone several years. Please take charge our affairs. Love, Ruth.

  She’d written it that afternoon, you understand.

  I order another double, wishing to hell I’d gotten a good look at that gizmo. Did it have a label, Made by Betelgeusians? No matter how weird it was, how could a person be crazy enough to imagine—?

  Not only that but to hope, to plan? If I could only go away.... That’s what she was doing, all day. Waiting, hoping, figuring how to get Althea. To go sight unseen to an alien world...

  With the third margarita I try a joke about alienated women, but my heart’s not in it. And I’m certain there won’t be any bother, any trouble at all. Two human women, one of them possibly pregnant, have departed for, I guess, the stars; and the fabric of society will never show a ripple. I brood: do all Mrs. Parsons’s friends hold themselves in readiness for any eventuality, including leaving Earth? And will Mrs. Parsons somehow one day contrive to send for Mrs. Priscilla Hayes Smith, that grand person?

  I can only send for another cold one, musing on Althea. What suns will Captain Estéban’s sloe-eyed offspring, if any, look upon? “Get in, Althea, we’re taking off for Orion.”

  “A-okay, Mother.” Is that some system of upbringing?

  We survive by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine.... I’m used to aliens.... She’d meant every word. Insane. How could a woman choose to live among unknown monsters, to say good-bye to her home, her world?

  As the margaritas take hold, the whole mad scenario melts down to the image of those two small shapes sitting side by side in the receding alien glare.

  Two of our opossums are missing.

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  I See You – Damon Knight

  After a year or so of reading story submissions for the magazine, I discovered that I could have saved myself a lot of time had I just printed up form letters that said, “Damon Knight used this same idea better and more succinctly years ago.” Damon Knight (1922-2002) wrote, edited, criticized, and occasionally illustrated science fiction stories for more than six decades, during which time he penned dozens of great stories and novels. This one, which appeared in the special Damon Knight issue, struck me as being prescient.

  You are five, hiding in a place only you know. You are covered with bark dust, scratched by twigs, sweaty and hot. A wind sighs in the aspen leaves. A faint steady hiss comes from the viewer you hold in your hands; then a voice: “Lorie, I see you—under the barn, eating an apple!” A silence. “Lorie, come on out, I see you.” Another voice. “That’s right, she’s in there.” After a moment, sulkily: “Oh, okay.”

  You squirm around, raising the viewer to aim it down the hill. As you turn the knob with your thumb, the bright image races toward you, trees hurling themselves into red darkness and vanishing, then the houses in the compound, and now you see Bruce standing beside the corral, looking into his viewer, slowly turning. His back is to you; you know you are safe, and you sit up. A jay passes with a whir of wings, settles on a branch. With your own eyes now you can see Bruce, only a dot of blue beyond the gray shake walls of the houses. In the viewer, he is turning toward you, and you duck again. Another voice: “Children, come in and get washed for dinner now.”

  “Aw, Aunt Ellie!”

  “Mom, we’re playing hide and seek. Can’t we just stay fifteen minutes more?”

  “Please, Aunt Ellie!”

  “No, come on in now— you’ll have plenty of time after dinner.” And Bruce: “Aw, okay. All out’s in free.”

  And once more they have not found you; your secret place is yours alone.

  Call him Smith. He was the president of a company that bore his name and which held more than a hundred patents in the scientific instrument field. He was sixty, a widower. His only daughter and her husband had been killed in a plane crash in 1978. He had a partner who handled the business operations now; Smith spent most of his time in his own lab. In the spring of 1990 he was working on an image-intensification device that was puzzling because it was too good. He had it on his bench now, aimed at a deep shadow box across the room; at the back of the box was a card ruled with black, green, red and blue lines. The only source of illumination was a single ten-watt bulb hung behind the shadow box; the light reflected from the card did not even register on his meter, and yet the image in the screen of his device was sharp and bright. When he varied the inputs to the components in a certain way, the bright image vanished and was replaced by shadows, like the ghost of another image. He had monitored every television channel, had shielded the device against radio frequencies, and the ghosts remained. Increasing the illumination did not make them clearer. They were vaguely rectilinear shapes without any coherent pattern. Occasionally a moving blur traveled slowly across them.

  Smith made a disgusted sound. He opened the clamps that held the device and picked it up, reaching for the power switch with his other hand. He never touched it. As he moved the device, the ghost images had shifted; they were dancing now with the faint movements of his hand. Smith stared at them without breat
hing for a moment. Holding the cord, he turned slowly. The ghost images whirled, vanished, reappeared. He turned the other way; they whirled back.

  Smith set the device down on the bench with care. His hands were shaking. He had had the thing clamped down on the bench all the time until now. “Christ almighty, how dumb can one man get?” he asked the empty room.

  You are six, almost seven, and you are being allowed to use the big viewer for the first time. You are perched on a cushion in the leather chair at the console; your brother, who has been showing you the controls with a bored and superior air, has just left the room, saying, “All right, if you know so much, do it yourself.”

  In fact, the controls on this machine are unfamiliar; the little viewers you have used all your life have only one knob, for nearer or farther—to move up/down, or left/right, you just point the viewer where you want to see. This machine has dials and little windows with numbers in them, and switches and pushbuttons, most of which you don’t understand, but you know they are for special purposes and don’t matter. The main control is a metal rod, right in front of you, with a gray plastic knob on the top. The knob is dull from years of handling; it feels warm and a little greasy in your hand. The console has a funny electric smell, but the big screen, taller than you are, is silent and dark. You can feel your heart beating against your breastbone. You grip the knob harder, push it forward just a little. The screen lights, and you are drifting across the next room as if on huge silent wheels, chairs and end tables turning into reddish silhouettes that shrink, twist and disappear as you pass through them, and for a moment you feel dizzy because when you notice the red numbers jumping in the console to your left, it is as if the whole house were passing massively and vertiginously through itself; then you are floating out the window with the same slow and steady motion, on across the sunlit pasture where two saddle horses stand with their heads up, sniffing the wind; then a stubbled field, dropping away; and now, below you, the co-op road shines like a silver-gray stream. You press the knob down to get closer, and drop with a giddy swoop; now you are rushing along the road, overtaking and passing a yellow truck, turning the knob to steer. At first you blunder into the dark trees on either side, and once the earth surges up over you in a chaos of writhing red shapes, but now you are learning, and you soar down past the crossroads, up the farther hill, and now, now you are on the big road, flying eastward, passing all the cars, rushing toward the great world where you long to be.