Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume One

by Short Story Anthology

  She could take up her painting. Or she could dial her friends. Or she could wait till Henry came home. Or she could go up and play with David....

  She walked out into the hall and to the bottom of the stairs.

  "David!"

  No answer. She called again and a third time.

  "Teddy!" she called, in sharper tones.

  "Yes, Mummy!" After a moment's pause, Teddy's head of golden fur appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "Is David in his room, Teddy?"

  "David went into the garden, Mummy."

  "Come down here, Teddy!"

  She stood impassively, watching the little furry figure as it climbed down from step to step on its stubby limbs. When it reached the bottom, she picked it up and carried it into the living room. It lay unmoving in her arms, staring up at her. She could feel just the slightest vibration from its motor.

  "Stand there, Teddy. I want to talk to you." She set him down on a tabletop, and he stood as she requested, arms set forward and open in the eternal gesture of embrace.

  "Teddy, did David tell you to tell me he had gone into the garden?"

  The circuits of the bear's brain were too simple for artifice. "Yes, Mummy."

  "So you lied to me."

  "Yes, Mummy."

  "Stop calling me Mummy! Why is David avoiding me? He's not afraid of me, is he?"

  "No. He loves you."

  "Why can't we communicate?"

  "David's upstairs."

  The answer stopped her dead. Why waste time talking to this machine? Why not simply go upstairs and scoop David into her arms and talk to him, as a loving mother should to a loving son? She heard the sheer weight of silence in the house, with a different quality of silence pouring out of every room. On the upper landing, something was moving very silently - David, trying to hide away from her....

  He was nearing the end of his speech now. The guests were attentive; so was the Press, lining two walls of the banqueting chamber, recording Henry's words and occasionally photographing him.

  "Our serving-man will be, in many senses, a product of the computer. Without computers, we could never have worked through the sophisticated biochemics that go into synthetic flesh. The serving-man will also be an extension of the computer - for he will contain a computer in his own head, a microminiaturized computer capable of dealing with almost any situation he may encounter in the home. With reservations, of course." Laughter at this; many of those present knew the heated debate that had engulfed the Synthank boardroom before the decision had finally been taken to leave the serving-man neuter under his flawless uniform.

  "Amid all the triumphs of our civilization - yes, and amid the crushing problems of overpopulation too - it is sad to reflect how many millions of people suffer from increasing loneliness and isolation. Our serving-man will be a boon to them; he will always answer, and the most vapid conversation cannot bore him.

  "For the future, we plan more models, male and female - some of them without the limitations of this first one, I promise you! - of more advanced design, true bio-electronic beings.

  "Not only will they possess their own computer, capable of individual programming; they will be linked to the World Data Network. Thus everyone will be able to enjoy the equivalent of an Einstein in their own homes. Personal isolation will then be banished forever!"

  He sat down to enthusiastic applause. Even the synthetic serving-man, sitting at the table dressed in an unostentatious suit, applauded with gusto.

  Dragging his satchel, David crept round the side of the house. He climbed on to the ornamental seat under the living-room window and peeped cautiously in.

  His mother stood in the middle of the room. Her face was blank; its lack of expression scared him. He watched fascinated. He did not move; she did not move. Time might have stopped, as it had stopped in the garden.

  At last she turned and left the room. After waiting a moment, David tapped on the window. Teddy looked round, saw him, tumbled off the table, and came over to the window. Fumbling with his paws, he eventually got it open.

  They looked at each other.

  "I'm no good, Teddy. Let's run away!"

  "You're a very good boy. Your Mummy loves you."

  Slowly, he shook his head. "If she loved me, then why can't I talk to her?"

  "You're being silly, David. Mummy's lonely. That's why she had you."

  "She's got Daddy. I've got nobody 'cept you, and I'm lonely."

  Teddy gave him a friendly cuff over the head. "If you feel so bad, you'd better go to the psychiatrist again."

  "I hate that old psychiatrist - he makes me feel I'm not real." He started to run across the lawn. The bear toppled out of the window and followed as fast as its stubby legs would allow.

  Monica Swinton was up in the nursery. She called to her son once and then stood there, undecided. All was silent.

  Crayons lay on his desk. Obeying a sudden impulse, she went over to the desk and opened it. Dozens of pieces of paper lay inside. Many of them were written in crayon in David's clumsy writing, with each letter picked out in a color different from the letter preceding it. None of the messages was finished.

  "My dear Mummy, How are you really, do you love me as much -"

  "Dear Mummy, I love you and Daddy and the sun is shining -"

  "Dear dear Mummy, Teddy's helping me write to you. I love you and Teddy -"

  "Darling Mummy, I'm your one and only son and I love you so much that some times -"

  "Dear Mummy, you're really my Mummy and I hate Teddy -"

  "Darling Mummy, guess how much I love -"

  "Dear Mummy, I'm your little boy not Teddy and I love you but Teddy -"

  "Dear Mummy, this is a letter to you just to say how much how ever so much -"

  Monica dropped the pieces of paper and burst out crying. In their gay inaccurate colors, the letters fanned out and settled on the floor.

  Henry Swinton caught the express home in high spirits, and occasionally said a word to the synthetic serving-man he was taking home with him. The serving-man answered politely and punctually, although his answers were not always entirely relevant by human standards.

  The Swintons lived in one of the ritziest city-blocks, half a kilometer above the ground. Embedded in other apartments, their apartment had no windows to the outside; nobody wanted to see the overcrowded external world. Henry unlocked the door with his retina pattern-scanner and walked in, followed by the serving-man.

  At once, Henry was sur-rounded by the friendly illusion of gardens set in eternal summer. It was amazing what Whologram could do to create huge mirages in small spaces. Behind its roses and wisteria stood their house; the deception was complete: a Georgian mansion appeared to welcome him.

  "How do you like it?" he asked the serving-man.

  "Roses occasionally suffer from black spot."

  "These roses are guaranteed free from any imperfections."

  "It is always advisable to purchase goods with guarantees, even if they cost slightly more."

  "Thanks for the information," Henry said dryly. Synthetic life-forms were less than ten years old, the old android mechanicals less than sixteen; the faults of their systems were still being ironed out, year by year.

  He opened the door and called to Monica.

  She came out of the sitting-room immediately and flung her arms round him, kissing him ardently on cheek and lips. Henry was amazed.

  Pulling back to look at her face, he saw how she seemed to generate light and beauty. It was months since he had seen her so excited. Instinctively, he clasped her tighter.

  "Darling, what's happened?"

  "Henry, Henry - oh, my darling, I was in despair ... but I've just dialed the afternoon post and - you'll never believe it! Oh, it's wonderful!"

  "For heaven's sake, woman, what's wonderful?"

  He caught a glimpse of the heading on the photostat in her hand, still moist from the wall-receiver: Ministry of Population. He felt the color drain from his face in sudd
en shock and hope.

  "Monica ... oh ... Don't tell me our number's come up!"

  "Yes, my darling, yes, we've won this week's parenthood lottery! We can go ahead and conceive a child at once!"

  He let out a yell of joy. They danced round the room. Pressure of population was such that reproduction had to be strict, controlled. Childbirth required government permission. For this moment, they had waited four years. Incoherently they cried their delight.

  They paused at last, gasping, and stood in the middle of the room to laugh at each other's happiness. When she had come down from the nursery, Monica had de-opaqued the windows, so that they now revealed the vista of garden beyond. Artificial sunlight was growing long and golden across the lawn - and David and Teddy were staring through the window at them.

  Seeing their faces, Henry and his wife grew serious.

  "What do we do about them?" Henry asked.

  "Teddy's no trouble. He works well."

  "Is David malfunctioning?"

  "His verbal communication-center is still giving trouble. I think he'll have to go back to the factory again."

  "Okay. We'll see how he does before the baby's born. Which reminds me - I have a surprise for you: help just when help is needed! Come into the hall and see what I've got."

  As the two adults disappeared from the room, boy and bear sat down beneath the standard roses.

  "Teddy - I suppose Mummy and Daddy are real, aren't they?"

  Teddy said, "You ask such silly questions, David. Nobody knows what 'real' really means. Let's go indoors."

  "First I'm going to have another rose!" Plucking a bright pink flower, he carried it with him into the house. It could lie on the pillow as he went to sleep. Its beauty and softness reminded him of Mummy.

  Outside, by Brian W. Aldiss

  They never went out of the house.

  The man whose name was Harley used to get up first. Sometimes he would take a stroll through the building in his sleeping suit—the temperature remained always mild, day after day. Then he would rouse Calvin, the handsome, broad man who looked as if he could command a dozen talents and never actually used one. He made as much company as Harley needed.

  Dapple, the girl with killing grey eyes and black hair, was a light sleeper. The sound of the two men talking would wake her. She would get up and go to rouse May; together they would go down and prepare a meal. While they were doing that, the other two members of the household, Jagger and Pief, would be rousing.

  That was how every "day" began: not with the inkling of anything like dawn, but just when the six of them had slept themselves back into wakefulness. They never exerted themselves during the day, but somehow when they climbed back into their beds they slept soundly enough.

  The only excitement of the day occurred when they first opened the store. The store was a small room between the kitchen and the blue room. In the far wall was set a wide shelf, and upon this shelf their existence depended. Here, all their supplies "arrived." They would lock the door of the bare room last thing, and when they returned in the morning their needs—food, linen, a new washing machine—would be awaiting them on the shelf. That was just an accepted feature of their existence: they never questioned it among themselves.

  On this morning, Dapple and May were ready with the meal before the four men came down. Dapple even had to go to the foot of the wide stairs and call before Pief appeared; so that the opening of the store had to be postponed till after they had eaten, for although the opening had in no way become a ceremony, the women were nervous of going in alone. It was one of those things.…

  "I hope to get some tobacco," Harley said as he unlocked the door. "I’m nearly out of it."

  They walked in and looked at the shelf. It was all but empty.

  "No food," observed May, hands on her aproned waist. "We shall be on short rations today."

  It was not the first time this had happened. Once—how long ago now? —they kept little track of time—no food had appeared for three days and the shelf had remained empty. They had accepted the shortage placidly.

  "We shall eat you before we starve, May," Pief said, and they laughed briefly to acknowledge the joke, although Pief had cracked it last time too. Pief was an unobtrusive little man: not the sort one would notice in a crowd. His small jokes were his most precious possession.

  Two packets only lay on the ledge. One was Harley’s tobacco, one was a pack of cards. Harley pocketed the one with a grunt and displayed the other, slipping the pack from its wrapping and fanning it towards the others.

  "Anyone play?" he asked.

  "Poker," Jagger said.

  "Canasta."

  "Gin rummy."

  "We’ll play later," Calvin said. "It’ll pass the time in the evening." The cards would be a challenge to them; they would have to sit together to play, round a table, facing each other.

  Nothing was in operation to separate them, but there seemed no strong force to keep them together, once the tiny business of opening the store was over. Jagger worked the vacuum cleaner down the hall, past the front door that did not open, and rode it up the stairs to clean the upper landings; not that the place was dirty, but cleaning was something you did anyway in the morning. The women sat with Pief desultorily discussing how to manage the rationing, but after that they lost contact with each other and drifted away on their own. Calvin and Harley had already strolled off in different directions.

  The house was a rambling affair. It had few windows, and such as there were did not open, were unbreakable and admitted no light. Darkness lay everywhere; illumination from an invisible source followed one’s entry into a room—the black had to be entered before it faded. Every room was furnished, but with odd pieces that bore little relation to each other, as if there was no purpose for the room. Rooms equipped for purposeless beings have that air about them.

  No plan was discernible on first or second floor or in the long empty attics. Only familiarity could reduce the maze-like quality of room and corridor. At least there was ample time for familiarity.

  Harley spent a long while walking about, hands in pockets. At one point he met Dapple; she was drooping gracefully over a sketch book, amateurishly copying a picture that hung on one of the walls—a picture of the room in which she sat. They exchanged a few words, then Harley moved on.

  Something lurked in the edge of his mind like a spider in the corner of its web. He stepped into what they called the piano room and then he realized what was worrying him. Almost furtively, he glanced round as the darkness slipped away, and then he looked at the big piano. Some strange things had arrived on the shelf from time to time and had been distributed over the house: one of them stood on top of the piano now.

  It was a model, heavy and about two feet high, squat, almost round, with a sharp nose and four buttressed vanes. Harley knew what it was. It was a ground-to-space ship, a model of the burly ferries that lumbered up to the spaceships proper.

  That had caused them more unsettlement than when the piano itself had appeared in the store. Keeping his eyes on the model, Harley seated himself at the piano stool and sat tensely, trying to draw something from the rear of his mind … something connected with spaceships.

  Whatever it was, it was unpleasant, and it dodged backwards whenever he thought he had laid a mental finger on it. So it always eluded him. If only he could discuss it with someone, it might be teased out of its hiding place. Unpleasant: menacing, yet with a promise entangled in the menace.

  If he could get at it, meet it boldly face to face, he could do … something definite. And until he had faced it, he could not even say what the something definite was he wanted to do.

  A footfall behind him. Without turning, Harley deftly pushed up the piano lid and ran a finger along the keys. Only then did he look back carelessly over his shoulder. Calvin stood there, hands in pockets, looking solid and comfortable.

  "Saw the light in here," he said easily. "I thought I’d drop in as I was passing."

  "I
was thinking I would play the piano a while," Harley answered with a smile. The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because … because of the nature of the thing … because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being.

  Reassured, he pulled a gentle tumble of music from the keyboard. He played well. They all played well, Dapple, May, Pief … as soon as they had assembled the piano, they had all played well. Was that—natural? Harley shot a glance at Calvin. The stocky man leaned against the instrument, back to that disconcerting model, not a care in the world. Nothing showed on his face but an expression of bland amiability. They were all amiable, never quarrelling together.

  The six of them gathered for a scanty lunch, their talk was trite and cheerful, and then the afternoon followed on the same pattern as the morning, as all the other mornings: secure, comfortable, aimless. Only to Harley did the pattern seem slightly out of focus; he now had a clue to the problem. It was small enough, but in the dead calm of their days it was large enough.

  May had dropped the clue. When she helped herself to jelly, Jagger laughingly accused her of taking more than her fair share, Dapple, who always defended May, said: "She’s taken less than you, Jagger."

  "No," May corrected, "I think I have more than anyone else. I took it for an interior motive."

  It was the kind of pun anyone made at times. But Harley carried it away to consider. He paced round one of the silent rooms. Interior, ulterior motives.… Did the others here feel the disquiet he felt? Had they a reason for concealing that disquiet? And another question:

  Where was "here"?

  He shut that one down sharply.

  Deal with one thing at a time. Grope your way gently to the abyss. Categorize your knowledge.

  One: Earth was getting slightly the worst of a cold war with Nitity.

  Two: the Nititians possessed the alarming ability of being able to assume the identical appearance of their enemies.

  Three: by this means they could permeate human society.