The Anything Box

by Зенна Гендерсон

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  They're going to see all the 4s and 5s and all the minuses on the citizenship

  side of your card and you'll never make it into high school. Besides, Keeley,

  you don't need all these petty little steps. Right now, you're trained in math

  and physics past college level. You'll go crazy marking time."

  "There's other stuff to learn besides them things."

  "Granted, but are you learning them? Spell because."

  "Bee—that's not important!"

  "To this earth it is. What has changed you, Keeley? You were wild to go

  …"

  "I got to thinking," said Keeley. "All afternoon I been thinking. How come

  you guys pick brains off of Earth? What's the matter with your world, where

  ever it is? You guys ain't leveling with me somewhere."

  The substitute met Keeley's eyes. "There's nothing sinister about us," he

  said. "We do need brains. Our world is —different. We don't range from

  imbeciles to geniuses like you do. The people are either geniuses on your

  scale or just vegetables, capable of little more than keeping themselves

  alive. And yet, from the vegetable ranks come the brains, but too seldom for

  our present needs. We're trying to find ways to smooth out that gap between

  the haves and the have-nots, and some years ago we lost a lot of our 'brains'

  in an experiment that got out of hand. We need help in keeping civilization

  going for us until more of the native-born fill in the vacancy. So we

  recruit."

  "Why not pick on grownups then? There's plenty of big bugs who'd probably

  give an arm to even look at your ship."

  "That's true," nodded the substitute, "but we like them young so we can

  train them to our ways. Besides, we don't want to attract attention. Few

  grownups could step out of the world without questions being asked, especially

  highly trained specialists. So we seek out kids like you who are too smart for

  their own good in the environments where they happen to be. Sometimes they

  know they're smart. Sometimes we have to prove it to them. And they're never

  missed for long when we take them. Who is there to ask questions if you should

  leave with me?"

  "Aunt Mo," snapped Keeley, "And—and—"

  "A half-crazy old hag—no one else!"

  "You shut up about Aunt Mo. She's mine. I found her. And there is too

  someone else—Miss Amberly. She'd care!"

  "Dried up old maid school teacher!" the substitute returned bitingly.

  "For a genius, you're pretty dumb!" retorted Keeley. "She ain't so very old

  and she ain't dried up and as soon as her and Mr. Bennett stop batting so many

  words around, she won't be an old maid no more neither!"

  "But two out of a world! That's not many to hold a fellow back from all we

  could give you."

  "Two's two," replied Keeley. "How many you got that will care if you get

  back from here or not?"

  The substitute stood up abruptly, his face expressionless. "Are you coming

  with me, Keeley?"

  "If I did, why couldn't I come back sometime?" Keeley's voice was pleading.

  "I bet you know a lot of stuff that'd help Earth."

  "And we should give it to Earth, just like that?" asked the substitute

  coldly.

  "As much as I should leave Earth, just like that," Keeley's voice was just

  as icy.

  "We could argue all night, Keeley," said the substitute. "Maybe it'd help

  if I told you that Earth is in for a pretty sticky time of it and this is your

  chance to get out of it."

  "Can you guys time-travel too?" asked Keeley.

  "Well, no. But we can take into consideration the past and the present and

  postulate the future."

  "Sounds kind of guessy to me. The future ain't an already built road. We're

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  making some of it right now that I betcha wasn't in your figgering. Nope. Ifwe're in for a sticky time, I'll get stuck too, and maybe do some of theunsticking."

  "That's your decision?"

  "Yep." Keeley stood up and began to stack his books.

  The substitute watched him silently, then he said, "Suppose I shouldinsist?"

  Keeley grinned at him. "I can be awful dumb. Ask anybody."

  "Very well. It has to be voluntary or not at all. You might as well give methose earphones." He held out his hand. "They'll be of no use to you with ourtraining ship gone."

  Keeley snapped the wires and hefted the disks in his hand. Then he put themin his pocket.

  "I'll keep them. Someday I’ll figure out how come this setup works withoutwords. If I can't, we've got men who can take stuff like this and figger outthe other end of it."

  "You're not so dumb, Keeley," the substitute smiled suddenly.

  "No, I'm not," said Keeley. "And I'm gonna prove it. Starting Monday, I'mgonna set my mind to school. By then I oughta be up with the class. I onlyhave to look a coupla times at a page to get it."

  The substitute paused at the door. "Your last chance, Keeley. Coming orstaying?"

  "Staying. Thanks for the help you gave me."

  "It was just an investment that didn't pay off," said the substitute. "ButKeeley…"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm glad you're staying. I was born on Earth."

  The Grunder

  Almost before Crae brought the car to a gravel-spraying stop in front of theMurmuring Pines Store and Station, Ellena had the door open and was out andaround the corner marked His and Hers. Crae stared angrily after her, his jawset and his lips moving half-audibly. Anger burned brightly in his brain andthe tight, swollen sickness inside him throbbed like a boil. It was all herfault— all because she had to smile at every man—she had to entice everymale—she always—! And then the fire was gone and Crae slumped down into theashes of despair. It was no use. No matter how hard he tried—no matter what hedid, it always ended this way.

  This was to have been it. This trip into the White Mountains—a long happyfishing trip for the two of them to celebrate because he was learning to curbhis jealousy, his blind, unreasoning, unfounded jealousy that was wreckingeverything he and Ellena had planned for a life together. It had gone so well.The shadowy early morning beginning, the sweep up the hills from the baking,blistering valley, the sudden return to spring as they reached pine country,the incredible greenness of everything after the dust and dryness of thedesert.

  And then they had stopped at Lakeside.

  She said she had only asked how the fishing was. She said they had knownthe same old-timers. She said—! Crae slid lower in the car seat, writhinginside as he remembered his icy return to the car, his abrupt backing awayfrom the laughing group that clustered around Ellena's window, his measured,insane accusations and the light slowly dying out of Ellena's eyes, the quiet,miserable turning away of her white face and her silence as the car roaredon—through hell as far as the two of them were concerned—through the rollingtimberland to Murmuring Pines.

  Crae wrenched himself up out of his futile rememberings and slid out of thecar, slamming the door resoundingly. He climbed the three steps up to thesagging store porch and stopped, fumbling for a cigarette.

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  "Wife trouble?"

  Crae started as the wheezy old voice from the creaking rocking chair brokethrough his misery. He stared over his half-raised cigarette into the fadedblue eyes that peered through dirty bifocals at him. Then he put the cigarettein his mouth and cupped his palms around his light.

  "What's it to you?" he half sna
pped, but even his hair-triggered temperseemed to have deserted him.

  "Nothing, son, nothing." The chair rocked violently, then slowed down."Only thing is, I kinda wondered, seeing her kite outa the car like that andyou standing there, sulling up. Sit down a spell. I'm Eli. Old Eli."

  Inexplicably, Crae sat down on the top step and said, "You're right, Eli.Plenty of trouble, but it's me—not my wife."

  "Oh, that-a-way." The frowsy old head nodded.

  "Yeah," muttered Crae, wondering dismally why he should be spilling hisguts to a busted-down old coot like this one. "Jealous, crazy jealous."

  "Can't trust her, huh?" The chair rocked madly a moment, then slowed again.

  "I can too!" flared Crae.

  "Then what's the kick?" The old man spat toward the porch railing. "Way Isee it, it takes a certain amount of co-operation from a woman before she cango far wrong. If you can trust your wife, whatcha got to worry about?"

  "Nothing," muttered Crae. "I know I've got nothing to worry about. But,"his hand clenched on his knee, "if only I could be sure! I know there's nological reason for the way I feel. I know she wouldn't look at anyone else.But I can't feel it! All the knowing in the world doesn't do any good if youcan't feel it."

  "That's a hunk of truth if I ever heard one," wheezed the old man, leaningacross his fat belly and poking a stubby finger at Crae. "Like getting turnedaround in directions. You can say 'That's East' all you want to, but if itdon't feel like East then the sun goes on coming up in the North."

  There was a brief pause and Crae lifted his face to the cool pine-heavybreeze that hummed through the trees, wondering again why he was spreadinghis own private lacerations out for this gross, wheezing, not-too-clean oldstranger.

  "Them there psy-chiatrists—some say they can help fellers like you."

  Crae shook his head, "I've been going to a counselor for three months. Ithought I had it licked. I was sure—" Crae's voice trailed off as heremembered why he had finally consented to go to a counselor.

  "Bring a child into an atmosphere like this?" Ellena's voice was anagonized whisper, "How can we Crae, how can we? Anger and fear and mistrust.Never—not until—"

  And his bitter rejoinder. "It's you and your slutting eyes that make 'thisatmosphere.' If I don't watch out you'll be bringing me someone else's child—"

  And then his head was ringing from the lightning quick blow to his face,before she turned, blazing-eyed and bitter, away from him.

  "No go, huh?" The old shoulders shrugged and the old man wiped one handacross his stubby chin.

  "No go, damn me, and our vacation is ruined before it begins.""

  "Too bad. Where you going? Big Lake?"

  "No. South Fork of East Branch. Heard they've opened the closed part of thestream. Should be good fishing."

  "South Fork?" The chair agitated wildly, then slowed. "Funny coincidence,that."

  "Coincidence?" Crae glanced up.

  "Yeah. I mean you, feeling like you do, going fishing on South Fork."

  "What's my feelings got to do with it?" asked Crae, doubly sorry now thathe had betrayed himself to the old feller. What good had it done? Nothingcould help—ever —but still he sat.

  "Well, son, there's quite a story about South Fork. Dunno when it started.Might be nothing to it." The faded eyes peered sharply through the glasses at

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  him. "Then again, there might."

  "What's the deal?" Crae's voice was absent and his eyes were on the His and

  Hers signs. "I've been coming up here for five years now and I never heard any

  special story."

  "Seems there's a fish," said the old man. "A kinda special kinda fish. Not

  many see him and he ain't been seen nowhere around this part of the country

  'ceptin on South Fork. Nobody's ever caught him, not to land anyway."

  "Oh, one of those. Patriarch of the creek. Wily eluder of bait. Stuff like

  that?"

  "Oh, not exactly." The rocking chair accelerated and slowed. "This here one

  is something special."

  "I'll hear about it later, Pop." Crae stood up. Ellena was coming back down

  the path, outwardly serene and cool again. But she went in the side door into

  the store and Crae sat down slowly.

  'They say it's a little longer than a man and maybe a man's reach around."

  The old man went on as though not interrupted.

  "Pretty big—" Crae muttered absently, then snapped alert. "Hey! What are

  you trying to pull? A fish that size couldn't get in South Fork, let alone

  live there. Bet there aren't ten places from Baldy to Sheep's Crossing as deep

  as five feet even at flood stage. What kind of line you trying to hand me?"

  "Told you it was kinda special." The old man creased his eyes with a

  gap-toothed grin. "This here fish don't live in the creek. He don't even swim

  in it. Just happens to rub his top fin along it once in a while. And not just

  this part of the country, neither. Heard about him all over the world, likely.

  This here fish is a Grunder—swims through dirt and rocks like they was water.

  Water feels to him like air. Air is a lot of nothing to him. Told a feller

  about him once. He told me might be this here Grunder's from a nother

  dy-mention." The old man worked his discolored lips silently for a moment "He

  said it like it was supposed to explain something. Don't make sense to me."

  Crae relaxed and laced his fingers around one knee. Oh, well, if it was

  that kind of story—might as well enjoy it.

  "Anyway," went on the old man, "like I said, this here Grunder's a special

  fish. Magic, us old-timers would call it. Dunno what you empty,

  don't-believe-nothing-without-touch-it-taste-it-hear-it-proof younguns would

  call it. But here's where it hits you, young feller." The old finger was

  jabbing at Crae again. "This here Grunder is a sure cure for jealousy. All you

  gotta do is catch him, rub him three times the wrong way and you'll never

  doubt your love again."

  Crae laughed bitterly, stung by fear that he was being ridiculed. "Easy to

  say and hard to prove, Pop. Who could catch a magic fish as big as that on

  trout lines? Pretty smart, fixing it so no one can prove you're a ring-tailed

  liar."

  "Laugh, son," grunted the old man, "while you can. But who said anything

  about a trout line? Special fish, special tackle. They say the Grunder won't

  even rise nowhere without special bait." The old man leaned forward, his

  breath sounding as though it came through a fine meshed screen. "Better

  listen, son. Laugh if you wanta, but listen good. Could be one of these fine

  days you'll wanta cast a line for the Grunder. Can't ever sometimes tell."

  The tight sickness inside Crae gave a throb and he licked dry lips.

  "There's a pome," the old man went on, leaning back in his chair, patting

  the front of his duty checked shirt as he gasped for breath. "Old as the

  Grunder most likely. Tells you what kinda tackle."

  "Make your line from her linen fair.

  Take your hook from her silken hair.

  A broken heart must be your share

  For the Grunder."

  The lines sang in Crae's mind, burning their way into his skeptical brain."What bait?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and facetious. "Must

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  be kind of scarce for a fish like that."

  The faded old eyes peered at him. "Scarce? Well, now that depends," the oldman said. "Listen."

  "This is your bait, or your lure or flies,

  Take her sobs when your
lady cries,

  Take the tears that fall from her eyes

  For the Grunder."

  Crae felt the sting of the words. The only time he'd seen Ellena cry overhis tantrums was the first time he'd really blown his top. That was the timeshe'd tried to defend herself, tried to reason with him, tried to reassure himand finally had dissolved into tears of frustration, sorrow anddisillusionment. Since then, if there had been tears, he hadn't seen them—onlyfelt her heart breaking inch by inch as she averted her white, still face fromhis rages and accusations.

  "My wife doesn't cry," he said petulantly.

  "Pore woman," said the old man, reaming one ear with his little finger."Anyway, happen some day you'll want to go fishing for the Grunder, you won'tforget."

  The sound of Ellena's laughter inside the store drew Crae to his feet.Maybe they could patch this vacation together after all. Maybe Ellena couldput up with him just once more. Crae's heart contracted as he realized thatevery "once more" was bringing them inevitably to the "never again" time forhim and Ellena.

  He went to the screen door of the store and opened it. Behind him, he couldhear the creak of the old man's chair.

  "Course you gotta believe in the Grunder. Nothing works, less'n you believeit. And be mighty certain, son, that you want him when you fish for him. Onceyou hook him, you gotta hold him 'til you stroke him. And every scale on hisbody is jagged edged on the down side. Rip hell outa your hand firststroke—but three it's gotta be. Three times—"

  "Okay, Pop. Three times it is. Quite a story you've got there." Crae letthe door slam behind him as he went into the shadowy store and took thegroceries from an Ellena who smiled into his eyes and said, "Hello, honey."

  A week later, the two of them lolled on the old army blanket on thespread-out tarp, half in the sun, half in the shade, watching the piling ofdazzling bright summer thunderheads over Baldy. Stuffed with mountain trout,and drowsy with sun, Crae felt that the whole world was as bright as the skyabove them. He was still aglow from catching his limit nearly every day sincethey arrived, and that, along with just plain vacation delight, filled himwith such a feeling of contentment and well-being that it overflowed in asudden rush of tenderness and he yanked Ellena over to him. She laughedagainst his chest and shifted her feet into the sun.

  "They freeze in the shade and roast in the sun," she said, "Isn't itmarvelous up here?"

  "Plumb sightly, ma'am," drawled Crae.