Orbit 12 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  “Christ!”

  “Hell of it was,” said the project manager, “we really needed her in the morning.”

  “For what?”

  “Really needed her,” the project manager repeated. He staggered out of the room and disappeared in the hall.

  Folger answered his own question the following day. Through devious channels of information, he learned that Valerie had been scheduled for vivisection.

  That night, Folger climbed the mountain above his house. He felt he was struggling through years as much as brush and mud. The top of the mountain was ragged, with no proper peak. Folger picked a high point and spread his slicker over damp rock. He sat in the cold and watched the dark Atlantic. He looked up and picked out the Southern Cross. A drizzle began.

  “Well, hell,” he said, and climbed back down the mountain.

  Folger took an Institute launch out beyond the cape and anchored. He lowered the cage, then donned his scuba gear. He said into the sonex: “Query—Valerie—location.”

  Later that morning, Folger suffered his loss.

  Maria shook him awake in the morning. Folger awakened reluctantly, head still full of gentle spirals over glowing coral. The water had been warm; he needed no suit or equipment Endless, buoyant flight—

  “Señor Folger, you must get up. It has been seen.”

  His head wobbled as she worried his shoulder with insistent fingers. “Okay, I’m awake.” He yawned. “What’s been seen?”

  “The big white one,” Maria said. “The one that killed Manuel Padilla three days ago. It was sighted in the bay soon after the sun rose.”

  “Anybody try anything?” Folger asked.

  “No. They were afraid. It is at least ten meters long.”

  Folger yawned again. “Hell of a way to start a morning.”

  “I have food for you.”

  Folger made a face. “I had steak last night. Real beef. Have you ever tasted beef?”

  “No, Señor.”

  Maria accompanied him down the mountain to the village. She insisted upon carrying some of the loose gear; the mask, a box of twelve-gauge shells, a mesh sack of empty jars. Folger filled the jars with sheep’s blood at the village butcher shop. He checked his watch; it was seven o’clock.

  The skiff was tied up at the end of the second pier. The aluminum airboat glittered in the sun as they passed it. Inga Lindfors stood very still on the bridge. “Good morning, Folger,” she called.

  “Good morning,” said Folger.

  “Your answer?”

  Folger appraised her for a moment. “No,” he said, walking on.

  The carcinogenic spread of the war finally and actively engulfed the Falkland Islands. The systematic integrity of the Institute was violated. Many components scattered; some stayed to fight.

  Folger, his stump capped with glossy scar tissue, had already said his good-byes.

  Suspended in the cold, gray void, Folger realized he was hyperventilating. He floated free, willing himself to relax, letting his staccato breathing find a slower, smoother rhythm. Beside him, a line trailed up to the rectangular blur of the skiff’s hull. Tied to the nylon rope were a net and the unopened jars of sheep’s-blood bait.

  Folger checked his limited arsenal. Tethered to his left wrist was the underwater gun. It was a four-foot aluminum tube capped with a firing mechanism and a waterproof shotgun shell. A shorter, steel-tipped shark billy was fixed to a bracket tied to the stump of Folger’s right arm.

  Something intruded on his peripheral vision and he looked up.

  Arrogant and sure, the two deadly shadows materialized out of the murk. The Lindfors wore only mask, fins, and snorkel. They appeared armed only with knives.

  Folger saw them and raised the shark gun in warning. Per Lindfors grinned, his teeth very white. With slow, powerful strokes, he and his sister approached Folger from either side.

  Disregarding Inga for the moment, Folger swung the muzzle of the shark gun toward Per. Per batted it aside with his free hand as Folger pulled the trigger. The concussion seemed to stun only Folger. Still smiling, Per extended his knife-hand.

  Inga screamed in the water. Per disregarded Folgers weak attempt to fend him off with the billy and began to stroke for the surface. Folger turned his head.

  A clownish face rushed at him. Folger stared at the teeth. The pointed nose veered at the last moment as the shark brushed by and struck at Per. The jaws cleanly sliced away Per’s left arm and half his chest The fish doubled back upon itself and made another strike. Per’s legs, separate and trailing blood, tumbled slowly through the water.

  Then Folger remembered Inga. He turned in the water and saw half her torso and part of her head, a swatch of silky hair spread out fanlike behind the corpse.

  He looked back at the shark. It turned toward him slowly and began to circle, eerily graceful for its immense size. A dark eye fixed him coldly.

  Folger held the metal billy obliquely in front of his chest The tether of the shark gun had broken with the recoil.

  The shark and Folger inspected each other. He saw the mottled coloration of the shark’s belly. He thought he saw a Marine Forces code branded low on the left flank. He keyed the sonex:

  “Query—Valerie—query—Valerie.”

  The shark continued to circle. Folger abruptly realized the shark was following an inexorably diminishing spiral.

  “Query—Valerie—I am Folger.”

  “Folger.” An answer came back. “Valerie.”

  “I am Folger,” he repeated.

  “Folger,” came the reply. “Love/hunger-hunger/love.”

  “Valerie—love.”

  “Hunger—love.” The shark suddenly broke out of her orbit and drove at Folger. The enormous jaws opened, upper jaw sliding forward, triangular teeth ready to shear.

  Folger hopelessly raised the billy. The jaws closed empty and the shark swept by. She was close enough to touch had Folger wished. The shark drove toward the open sea and Folger swam for the surface.

  * * * *

  He tossed the yarrow stalks for an hour. Eventually he put them away, along with the book. Folger sat at the table until the sun rose. He heard Maria’s footsteps outside on the stone walk. He listened to the sound of her progress through the outside door, the kitchen, and the hall.

  “Señor Folger, you didn’t sleep?”

  “I’m getting old,” he said.

  Maria was excited. “The great white one is back.”

  “Oh?”

  “The fishermen fear to go out.”

  “That’s sensible.”

  “Señor, you must kill it.”

  “Must I?” Folger grinned. “Fix me some tea.”

  She turned toward the kitchen.

  “Maria, you needn’t come up tonight to fix supper.”

  After his usual meager breakfast, Folger gathered together his gear and walked out the front door of his house. He hesitated on the step.

  You become what you live.

  She lived shark.

  He said into the wind, “What do you want me to do? Carve a cenotaph here on the mountain?”

  “What, Señor?” said Maria.

  “Let’s go.” They started toward the trail. “Hold it,” said Folger. He walked back to the house and opened the front door to the wind and rain. He chocked it with a rock. Then he climbed down the path to the sea.

  <>

  * * * *

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  DIRECTION OF THE ROAD

  THEY DIDNT used to be so demanding. They never hurried us into anything more than a gallop, and that was rare; most of the time it was just a jigjog foot pace. And when one of them was on his own feet, it was a real pleasure to approach him. There was time to accomplish the entire act with style. There he’d be, working his legs and arms the way they do, usually looking at the road, but often aside at the fields, or straight at me; and I’d approach him steadily but quite slowly, growing larger all the time, synchronizing the rate of approach and the ra
te of growth perfectly, so that at the very moment that I’d finished enlarging from a tiny speck to my full size—sixty feet in those days—I was abreast of him and hung above him, loomed, towered, overshadowed him. Yet he would show no fear. Not even the children were afraid of me, though often they kept their eyes on me as I passed by and started to diminish.

  Sometimes on a hot afternoon one of the adults would stop me right there at our meeting place and lie down with his back against mine for an hour or more. I didn’t mind in the least. I have an excellent hill, good sun, good wind, good view; why should I mind standing still for an hour or an afternoon? It’s only a relative stillness, after all. One need only look at the sun to realize how fast one is going; and then, one grows continually— especially in summer. In any case I was touched by the way they would entrust themselves to me, letting me lean against their little, warm backs, and falling sound asleep there between my feet I liked them. They have seldom lent us grace as do the birds; but I really preferred them to squirrels.

  In those days the horses used to work for them, and that too was enjoyable from my point of view. I particularly liked the canter, and got quite proficient at it. The surging and rhythmical motion accompanied shrinking and growing with a swaying and swooping, almost an illusion of flight. The gallop was less pleasant. It was jerky and pounding: one felt tossed about like a sapling in a gale. And then, the slow approach and growth, the moment of looming-over, and the slow retreat and diminishing, all that was lost during the gallop. One had to hurl oneself into it, cloppety-cloppety-cloppety! . . . and the man usually too busy riding, and the horse too busy running, even to look up. But then, it didn’t happen often. A horse is mortal, after all, and like all the loose creatures grows tired easily; so they didn’t tire their horses unless there was urgent need. And they seemed not to have so many urgent needs, in those days.

  It’s been a long time since I had a gallop, and to tell the truth I shouldn’t mind having one. There was something invigorating about it, after all.

  I remember the first motorcar I saw. Like most of us, I took it for a mortal, some kind of loose creature new to me. I was a bit startled, for after a hundred and thirty-two years I thought I knew all the local fauna. But a new thing is always interesting, in its trivial fashion, so I observed this one with attention. I approached it at a fair speed, about the rate of a canter, but in a new gait, suitable to the ungainly looks of the thing: an uncomfortable, bouncing, rolling, choking, jerking gait. Within two minutes, before I’d grown a foot tall, I knew it was no mortal creature, bound or loose or free. It was a making, like the carts the horses got hitched to. I thought it so very ill-made that I didn’t expect it to return, once it gasped over the West Hill, and I heartily hoped it never would, for I disliked that jerking bounce.

  But the thing took to a regular schedule, and so, perforce, did I. Daily at four I had to approach it, twitching and stuttering out of the west, and enlarge, loom-over, and diminish. Then at five back I had to come, poppeting along like a young jackrabbit for all my sixty feet, jigging and jouncing out of the east, until at last I got clear out of sight of the wretched little monster and could relax and loosen my limbs to the evening wind. There were always two of them inside the machine: a young male holding the wheel, and behind him an old female wrapped in rugs, glowering. If they ever said anything to each other I never heard it In those days I overheard a good many conversations on the road, but not from that machine. The top of it was open, but it made so much noise that it overrode all voices, even the voice of the song-sparrow I had with me that year. The noise was almost as vile as the jouncing.

  I am of a family of rigid principle and considerable self-respect The Quercian motto is “Break but bend not,” and I have always tried to uphold it. It was not only personal vanity, but family pride, you see, that was offended when I was forced to jounce and bounce in this fashion by a mere making.

  The apple trees in the orchard at the foot of the hill did not seem to mind; but then, apples are tame. Their genes have been tampered with for centuries. Besides, they are herd creatures; no orchard tree can really form an opinion of its own.

  I kept my own opinion to myself.

  But I was very pleased when the motorcar ceased to plague us. All month went by without it, and all month I walked at men and trotted at horses most willingly, and even bobbed for a baby on its mother’s arm, trying hard though unsuccessfully to keep in focus.

  Next month, however—September it was, for the swallows had left a few days earlier—another of the machines appeared, a new one, suddenly dragging me and the road and our hill, the orchard, the fields, the farmhouse roof, all jigging and jouncing and racketing along from east to west; I went faster than a gallop, faster than I had ever gone before. I had scarcely time to loom, before I had to shrink right down again.

  And the next day there came a different one.

  Yearly, then weekly, daily, they became commoner. They became a major feature of the local order of things. The road was dug up and remetaled, widened, finished off very smooth and nasty, like a slug’s trail, with no ruts, pools, rocks, flowers, or shadows on it There used to be a lot of little loose creatures on the road, grasshoppers, ants, toads, mice, foxes, and so on, most of them too small to move for, since they couldn’t really see one. Now the wise creatures took to avoiding the road, and the unwise ones got squashed. I have seen all too many rabbits die in that fashion, right at my feet. I am thankful that I am an oak, and that though I may be wind-broken or uprooted, hewn or sawn, at least I cannot, under any circumstances, be squashed.

  With the presence of many motorcars on the road at once, a new level of skill was required of me. As a mere seedling, as soon as I got my head above the weeds, I had learned the basic trick of going two directions at once. I learned it without thinking about it, under the simple pressure of circumstances on the first occasion that I saw a walker in the east and a horseman facing him in the west. I had to go two directions at once, and I did so. It’s something we trees master without real effort, I suppose. I was nervous, but I succeeded in passing the rider and then shrinking away from him while at the same time I was still jig-jogging toward the walker, and indeed passed him (no looming, back in those days!) only when I had got quite out of sight of the rider. I was proud of myself, being very young, that first time I did it; but it sounds more difficult than it really is. Since those days of course I had done it innumerable times, and thought nothing about it; I could do it in my sleep. But have you ever considered the feat accomplished, the skill involved, when a tree enlarges, simultaneously yet at slightly different rates and in slightly different manners, for each one of forty motorcar drivers facing two opposite directions, while at the same time diminishing for forty more who have got their backs to it, meanwhile remembering to loom over each single one at the right moment: and to do this minute after minute, hour after hour, from daybreak till nightfall or long after?

  For my road had become a busy one; it worked all day long under almost continual traffic. It worked, and I worked. I did not jounce and bounce so much any more, but I had to run faster and faster: to grow enormously, to loom in a split second, to shrink to nothing, all in a hurry, without time to enjoy the action, and without rest: over and over and over.

  Very few of the drivers bothered to look at me, not even a seeing glance. They seemed, indeed, not to see any more. They merely stared ahead. They seemed to believe that they were “going somewhere.” Little mirrors were affixed to the front of their cars, at which they glanced to see where they had been; then they stared ahead again. I had thought that only beetles had this delusion of Progress. Beetles are always rushing about, and never look up. I had always had a pretty low opinion of beetles. But at least they let me be.

  I confess that sometimes, in the blessed nights of darkness with no moon to silver my crown and no stars occluding with my branches, when I could rest, I would think seriously of escaping my obligation to the general Order of Things: of failing to move.
No, not seriously. Half seriously. It was mere weariness. If even a silly, three-year-old, female pussy willow at the foot of the hill accepted her responsibility, and jounced and rolled and accelerated and grew and shrank for each motorcar on the road, was I, an oak, to shirk? Noblesse oblige, and I trust I have never dropped an acorn that did not know its duty.

  For fifty or sixty years, then, I have upheld the Order of Things, and have done my share in supporting the human creatures’ illusion that they are “going somewhere.” And I am not unwilling to do so. But a truly terrible thing has occurred, which I wish to protest.

  I do not mind going two directions at once; I do not mind growing and shrinking simultaneously; I do not mind moving, even at the disagreeable rate of sixty or seventy miles an hour. I am ready to go on doing all these things until I am felled or bulldozed. They’re my job. But I do object, passionately, to being made eternal.