Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  She stood there, gasping. The noises muted about her, and for a few intolerable moments she made futile brushing gestures at her gown, while Norman kept repeating, “Damnation!” in rising tones.

  Georgette said coolly, “It’s too bad, Liwy. Just one of those things. I imagine the dress can’t be very expensive.”

  Liwy turned and ran. She was in the bedroom, which was at least empty and relatively quiet. By the light of the fringe-shaded lamp on the dresser, she poked among the coats on the bed, looking for her own.

  Norman had come in behind her. “Look, Liwy, don’t pay any attention to what she said. I’m really devilishly sorry. I’ll pay--”

  “That’s all right. It wasn’t your fault.” She blinked rapidly and didn’t look at him. “I’ll just go home and change.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Look, Liwy . . .” His warm fingers were on her shoulders--

  Liwy felt a queer tearing sensation deep inside her, as though she were ripping away from clinging cobwebs and-- --and the train noises were back.

  Something did go wrong with the time when she was in there--in the slab. It was deep twilight now. The train lights were on. But it didn’t matter. She seemed to be recovering from the wrench inside her.

  Norman was rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “What happened?” Liwy said, “It just ended. Suddenly.”

  Norman said uneasily, “You know, we’ll be putting into New Haven soon.” He looked at his watch and shook his head.

  Liwy said wonderingly, “You spilled it on me.”

  “Well, so I did in real life.”

  “But in real life I was your wife. You ought to have spilled it on Georgette this time. Isn’t that queer?” But she was thinking of Norman pursuing her; his hands on her shoulders. . . .

  She looked up at him and said with warm satisfaction, “I wasn’t married.”

  “No, you weren’t. But was that Dick Reinhardt you were going around with?”

  “Yes.”

  “You weren’t planning to marry him, were you, Liwy?”

  “Jealous, Norman?”

  Norman looked confused. “Of that? Of a slab of glass? Of course not.”

  “I don’t think I would have married him.”

  Norman said, “You know, I wish it hadn’t ended when it did. There was something that was about to happen, I think.” He stopped, then added slowly, “It was as though I would rather have done it to anybody else in the room.”

  “Even to Georgette.”

  “I wasn’t giving two thoughts to Georgette. You don’t believe me, I suppose.”

  “Maybe I do.” She looked up at him. “I’ve been silly, Norman. Let’s-- let’s live our real life. Let’s not play with all the things that just might have been.”

  But he caught her hands. “No, Liwy. One last time. Let’s see what we would have been doing right now, Liwy! This very minute! If I had married Georgette.”

  Liwy was a little frightened. “Let’s not, Norman.” She was thinking of his eyes, smiling hungrily at her as he held the shaker, while Georgette stood beside her, unregarded. She didn’t want to know what happened afterward. She just wanted this life now, this good life.

  New Haven came and went.

  Norman said again, “I want to try, Liwy.”

  She said, “If you want to, Norman.” She decided fiercely that it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would matter. Her hands reached out and encircled his arm. She held it tightly, and while she held it she thought:

  “Nothing in the make-believe can take him from me.”

  Norman said to the little man, “Set ‘em up again.”

  In the yellow light the process seemed to be slower. Gently the frosted slab cleared, like clouds being torn apart and dispersed by an unfelt wind.

  Norman was saying, “There’s something wrong. That’s just the two of us, exactly as we are now.” He was right. Two little figures were sitting in a train on the seats which were farthest toward the front. The field was enlarging now--they were merging into it. Norman’s voice was distant and fading.

  “It’s the same train,” he was saying. “The window in back is cracked just as--” Liwy was blindingly happy. She said, “I wish we were in New York.” He said, “It will be less than an hour, darling.” Then he said, “I’m going to kiss you.” He made a movement, as though he were about to begin.

  “Not here! Oh, Norman, people are looking.”

  Norman drew back. He said, “We should have taken a taxi.”

  “From Boston to New York?”

  “Sure. The privacy would have been worth it.”

  She laughed. “You’re funny when you try to act ardent.”

  “It isn’t an act.” His voice was suddenly a little somber. “It’s not just an hour, you know. I feel as though I’ve been waiting five years.”

  “I do, too.”

  “Why couldn’t I have met you first? It was such a waste.”

  “Poor Georgette,” Liwy sighed.

  Norman moved impatiently. “Don’t be sorry for her, Liwy. We never really made a go of it. She was glad to get rid of me.”

  “I know that. That’s why I say ‘Poor Georgette.’ I’m just sorry for her for not being able to appreciate what she had.”

  “Well, see to it that you do,” he said. “See to it that you’re immensely appreciative, infinitely appreciative--or more than that, see that you’re at least half as appreciative as I am of what I’ve got.”

  “Or else you’ll divorce me, too?”

  “Over my dead body,” said Norman.

  Liwy said, “It’s all so strange. I keep thinking; ‘What if you hadn’t spilt the cocktails on me that time at the party?’ You wouldn’t have followed me out; you wouldn’t have told me; I wouldn’t have known. It would have been so different . . . everything.”

  “Nonsense. It would have been just the same. It would have all happened another time.”

  “I wonder,” said Liwy softly.

  Train noises merged into train noises. City lights flickered outside, and the atmosphere of New York was about them. The coach was astir with travelers dividing the baggage among themselves.

  Liwy was an island in the turmoil until Norman shook her.

  She looked at him and said, “The jigsaw pieces fit after all.” He said, “Yes.”

  She put a hand on his. “But it wasn’t good, just the same. I was very wrong. I thought that because we had each other, we should have all the possible each others. But all the possibles are none of our business. The real is enough. Do you know what I mean?”

  He nodded.

  She said, “There are millions of other what ifs. I don’t want to know what happened in any of them. I’ll never say ‘What if again.”

  Norman said, “Relax, dear. Here’s your coat.” And he reached for the suitcases.

  Liwy said with sudden sharpness, “Where’s Mr. If?”

  Norman turned slowly to the empty seat that faced them. Together they scanned the rest of the coach.

  “Maybe,” Norman said, “he went into the next coach.”

  “But why? Besides, he wouldn’t leave his hat.” And she bent to pick it up.

  Norman said, “What hat?”

  And Liwy stopped her fingers hovering over nothingness. She said, “It was here--I almost touched it.” She straightened and said, “Oh, Norman, what if--”

  Norman put a finger on her mouth. “Darling . . .”

  She said, “I’m sorry. Here, let me help you with the suitcases.” The train dived into the tunnel beneath Park Avenue, and the noise of the wheels rose to a roar.

  First appearance-- Fantastic, Summer 1952. Copyright, 1952, by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company.

  Eyes Do More than See, by Issac Asimov

  I have a role which I state loudly on every possible occasion. The role is, that I never write anything unless I am asked to do so. That sounds awfully haughty and austere, but it’s a
fake. As a matter of fact, I take it for granted that the various science fiction magazines and certain of my book publishers have standing requests for material, so I write for them freely. It’s just the scattering of others that have to ask.

  In 1964, I was finally asked by Playboy to write a story for them. They sent me a dim photograph of a clay head, without ears, and with the other features labeled in block letters, and asked me to write a story based on that photo. Two other writers were also asked to write a story based on that same photo and all three stories were to be published together.

  It was an interesting challenge and I was tempted. I wrote “Eyes Do More Than See,” In case I have given the impression in the previous introductions in this volume that my writing career has been one long succession of triumphs ever since “Nightfall”; that with me, to write is to sell; that I wouldn’t recognize a rejection slip if some fellow writer showed me one--rest easy, it is not so.

  “Eyes Do More Than See” was rejected with muscular vigor. The manuscript came flying through my window all the way from Chicago, bounced off the wall and lay there quivering. (At least that’s how it seemed.) The other two stories were accepted by Playboy, and a third story, by someone hastily called in to backstop me, was also accepted.

  Fortunately, I am a professional of enviable imperturbability and these things do not bother me. I doubt whether anyone could have guessed that I was disturbed except for the short screaming fit of rage I indulged myself with.

  I checked with Playboy and made sure the story was mine to do with as I please, despite the fact it was based on their photo. It was!

  My next step was to send the story to F & SF, explaining to them (as is my wont in such cases) that it was a reject and giving them the exact circumstances. They took it, anyway.

  Fortunately, F & SF works reasonably quickly and Playboy works abominably slowly.

  Consequently “Eyes Do More Than See” appeared in F & SF a year and a half before the story-triad appeared in Playboy. I spent an appreciable length of time hoping Playboy would get indignant letters complaining that the situations in the triad had been stolen from an Asimov story. I was even tempted to write such a letter myself under a false name (but I didn’t).

  I contented myself, instead, with the thought that by the time Playboy had published its triad, my little story had not only been published elsewhere but had been reprinted twice and was slated to appear in still a third anthology. (And this collection represents a fourth, and how do you like that, Mr. Hefner?)

  ***

  Eyes Do More than See

  After hundreds of billions of years, he suddenly thought of himself as Ames. Not the wavelength combination which, through all the universe was now the equivalent of Ames--but the sound itself. A faint memory came back of the sound waves he no longer heard and no longer could hear.

  The new project was sharpening his memory for so many more of the old, old, eons-old things. He flattened the energy vortex that made up the total of his individuality and its lines of force stretched beyond the stars.

  Brock’s answering signal came.

  Surely, Ames thought, he could tell Brock. Surely he could tell somebody.

  Brock’s shifting energy pattern communed, “Aren’t you coming, Ames?”

  “Of course.”

  “Will you take part in the contest?”

  “Yes!” Ames’s lines of force pulsed erratically. “Most certainly. I have thought of a whole new art-form. Something really unusual.”

  “What a waste of effort! How can you think a new variation can be thought of after two hundred billion years. There can be nothing new.”

  For a moment Brock shifted out of phase and out of communion, so that Ames had to hurry to adjust his lines of force. He caught the drift of other-thoughts as he did so, the view of the powdered galaxies against the velvet of nothingness, and the lines of force pulsing in endless multitudes of energy-life, lying between the galaxies.

  Ames said, “Please absorb my thoughts, Brock. Don’t close out. I’ve thought of manipulating Matter. Imagine! A symphony of Matter. Why bother with Energy. Of course, there’s nothing new in Energy; how can there be? Doesn’t that show we must deal with Matter?”

  “Matter!”

  Ames interpreted Brock’s energy-vibrations as those of disgust.

  He said, “Why not? We were once Matter ourselves back--back--Oh, a trillion years ago anyway!

  Why not build up objects in a Matter medium, or abstract forms or--listen, Brock--why not build up an imitation of ourselves in Matter, ourselves as we used to be?” Brock said, “I don’t remember how that was. No one does.”

  “I do,” said Ames with energy, “I’ve been thinking of nothing else and I am beginning to remember. Brock, let me show you. Tell me if I’m right. Tell me.”

  “No. This is silly. It’s--repulsive.”

  “Let me try, Brock. We’ve been friends; we’ve pulsed energy together from the beginning--from the moment we became what we are. Brock, please!”

  “Then, quickly.”

  Ames had not felt such a tremor along his own lines of force in--well, in how long? If he tried it now for Brock and it worked, he could dare manipulate Matter before the assembled Energy-beings who had so drearily waited over the eons for something new.

  The Matter was thin out there between the galaxies, but Ames gathered it, scraping it together over the cubic light-years, choosing the atoms, achieving a clayey consistency and forcing matter into an ovoid form that spread out below.

  “Don’t you remember, Brock?” he asked softly. “Wasn’t it something like this?” Brock’s vortex trembled in phase. “Don’t make me remember. I don’t remember.”

  “That was the head. They called it the head. I remember it so clearly, I want to say it. I mean with sound.” He waited, then said, “Look, do you remember that?” On the upper front of the ovoid appeared HEAD.

  “What is that?” asked Brock.

  “That’s the word for head. The symbols that meant the word in sound. Tell me you remember, Brock!”

  “There was something,” said Brock hesitantly, “something in the middle.” A vertical bulge formed.

  Ames said, “Yes! Nose, that’s it!” And NOSE appeared upon it. “And those are eyes on either side,” LEFT EYE--RIGHT EYE.

  Ames regarded what he had formed, his lines of force pulsing slowly. Was he sure he liked this?

  “Mouth,” he said, in small quiverings, “and chin and Adam’s apple, and the collarbones. How the words come back to me.” They appeared on the form.

  Brock said, “I haven’t thought of them for hundreds of billions of years. Why have you reminded me? Why?”

  Ames was momentarily lost in his thoughts, “Something else. Organs to hear with; something for the sound waves. Ears! Where do they go? I don’t remember where to put them!” Brock cried out, “Leave it alone! Ears and all else! Don’t remember!” Ames said, uncertainly, “What is wrong with remembering?”

  “Because the outside wasn’t rough and cold like that but smooth and warm. Because the eyes were tender and alive and the lips of the mouth trembled and were soft on mine.” Brock’s lines of force beat and wavered, beat and wavered.

  Ames said, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  “You’re reminding me that once I was a woman and knew love; that eyes do more than see and I have none to do it for me.”

  With violence, she added matter to the rough-hewn head and said, “Then let them do it” and turned and fled.

  And Ames saw and remembered, too, that once he had been a man. The force of his vortex split the head in two and he fled back across the galaxies on the energy-track of Brock--back to the endless doom of life.

  And the eyes of the shattered head of Matter still glistened with the moisture that Brock had placed there to represent tears. The head of Matter did that which the energy-beings could do no longer and it wept for all humanity, and for the fragile beauty of the bodies they had once given up, a trill
ion years ago.

  First appearance-- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1965. @, 1965, by Mercury Press, Inc.

  Segregationist, by Issac Asimov

  In the spring of 1967, I received an interesting request. It seems there is a periodical called Abbot tempo, supported by Abbott Laboratories, a respected pharmaceutical firm. It is a slick-paper, impressively designed job, with excellent articles on various medical and near-medical subjects. It is printed in the Netherlands and is distributed free of charge to physicians in Great Britain and on the Continent. It is not distributed in the United States.

  The editor of Abbottempo wrote to ask me to write a 2000-word science fiction story on a subject of medical interest that physicians would find at once interesting, amusing, and thought-provoking.

  I was just as swamped with work at that moment as I am at all other moments, so I sighed and put a piece of letter paper in the typewriter, intending to write out a polite refusal.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately, it takes time to pick up letter paper and a yellow second sheet, put a piece of carbon paper between, and roll the sandwich into the typewriter. It takes additional time to center the paper properly, type the date, address, and salutation.

  What with all that time, I happened to think up a story I couldn’t resist, so when I actually got past the “Dear Sir,” I found myself typing a polite acceptance.

  I wrote “Segregationist” in April 1967, on a theme that was completely and entirely science-fictional. It appeared in December 1967, just in time to be slightly behind the headlines in some respects.

  The nicest result of the publication of the story, by the way, was that Abbottempo published it in each of their eight editions. They sent me a boxed collection of the set in 1) English, 2) French, 3) Spanish, 4) German, 5) Italian, 6) Japanese, 7) Greek, and 8) Turkish. I had never before had anything I had written translated into either Greek or Turkish, and the set remains one of the more interesting oddities of my personal library of Asimoviana.