Yondering

by Robert Reginald (ed)

  “That,” said its wearer, “would be a long story.”

  “Never mind, then. Life is too short for long stories. But would you confide in us, briefly, the date of your birth?”

  The kilted man seemed a bit reluctant to part with it, but did so:

  “12 August 1907.”

  The audience gasped as one…and then there was applause—hesitant at first, but growing in confidence and volume, and punctuated by shouts of recognition. For they knew him at last. Only the tam and the kilt had prevented them from recognizing him from old pictures (and that may have been the purpose of those articles of dress). The shouts became concerted, became a chant that grew and swelled and rocked the room.

  “Who is the man who led the way?”

  And it answered itself:

  “GEORGE CLAY!”

  And two or three voices, raggedly overlapping, cried from diverse parts of the room:

  “Who is the man who’s here today?”

  And the congregation responded:

  “GEORGE CLAY!”

  And one man at the very back of the room rose and shouted:

  “And who’s the man who’s here to stay?”

  And any doubts anyone might have had about this proposition were swept away by the unanimous, enthusiastic reply:

  “GEORGE CLAY!”

  Yes, George Clay! The applause and enthusiasm were unbounded. Various persons rushed forward to greet Clay, to shake his hand. One of these was Dave Grandcourt, who almost ran from his remote (as it seemed at the moment) Table Seven to grab both of Clay’s hands and agitate them. There were not many men he admired, but this was one of them.

  George Clay—the first Evergreen and still flourishing, that man who in old age had been, by the strangest set of chances, struck at once young and long-lived. But of course that was a story too well known to everyone present to need retelling.

  * * * *

  It took a while for this tumult to die. It hadn’t yet done so completely when Stentor overrode it and brought the room to order. Most of the congratulators of George Clay gravitated back to their tables, but Dave Grandcourt, still glowing with elation, held his ground.

  “I believe,” pronounced Stentor with a genial humor, “that we may safely assume that you are the oldest person here, Mr. Clay.”

  Cheers and laughter.

  But once again there came that same startling interruption:

  “Not so fast!”

  And a man stood up, a man at Table Eleven in the second row, not ten feet from where George Clay and Dave Grandcourt stood. The other people at the table where this man had been sitting looked up at him, first with slack mouths (he evidently had not prepared them for his announcement), and then with some continuing uncertainty. Truth to tell, there was something a little odd about him, although it was difficult to say just what it was. It wasn’t, of course, age that set him apart, because, like everyone else, he appeared to be within a year or two of thirty. He certainly wasn’t distinguished by gray hair: his, in fact, was almost oppressively black. He wasn’t distinguished by an impressive bearing, because his middle-sized frame seemed to have gone a little soft. And it wasn’t by nobility of countenance; for his face showed a peculiarly intense, almost aggressive, blandness: as if a meek man had decided to be arrogant, or an arrogant man to be meek.

  “I believe,” said this man, speaking very deliberately and somewhat coarsely, “that I can lay claim to a longer life than can George Clay.”

  The ripple of astonishment that spread through the room was followed by a quieter one of skepticism…with, here and there, little eddies and whorls of outright disbelief and scorn.

  “Well, sir,” said Stentor cautiously, “can you prove that? Do you have with you proof of age?”

  “That man,” said the challenger, leveling an arm at George Clay, who stood looking on with a good deal of interest and yet without concern, “offered no proof of age.”

  “He doesn’t need to,” replied Stentor. “There are those here who know him from very long ago and those who recognize him by sight. But we do not know you, sir. I am afraid that you will have to show us some proof of your rather astonishing claim.”

  The challenger shrugged. “Oh, well, if you insist….”

  And he reached inside his jacket. He extracted something and held it out, not toward Stentor or his nearest neighbor, but toward George Clay, as if offering him such proof as was needed.

  A deafening explosion clapped the walls of the large room and George Clay flung up his arms and toppled backward like a falling tree.

  There were shouts, screams, shattering glass, chairs being scraped back and clattering to the floor—and the assailant, screaming an incoherent curse, dashed toward the fallen patriarch, with gun extended. People everywhere stood frozen where they were, or ducked or huddled, or fell to the floor.

  And Dave Grandcourt, diving gracefully in a single movement, hid his forehead and his body under the table in front of which his hero had stood.

  The screaming man halted at George Clay’s feet and pointed the gun at his head, as if to finish him off execution style.

  But Jimmy Ogg had reacted with astonishing swiftness. His red jacket blurred as he moved away from the wall and past an intervening table. He flung himself upon the gunman. They grappled and swayed. There was another shot, not so loud, it seemed, as the first; in fact, curiously muffled—and a woman at the nearest table screamed and clutched her leg.

  The other man outweighed him by forty pounds, but Jimmy showed unexpected strength. He seized the man’s gun hand at the wrist and forced it upward and out. The hand jerked convulsively and the gun discharged itself again and again, deafeningly but harmlessly, into the soft roll at the ceiling bearing Asimov’s scrolled features.

  But all this time the security guards had been converging upon them from all parts of the room, moving (as it seemed to some) in slow motion. Gibraltar was foremost; and he and two, three, four others now fell upon the struggling couple and wrestled them to the ground, handling Jimmy rather roughly in the process.

  Jimmy at last managed to get to his feet. He moved back out of harm’s way…and bumped into Dave Grandcourt, who at that moment looked out from under Table Three, one flap of the cloth draped over his forehead. Jimmy stepped aside and Dave crawled out and raised himself to his feet, looking about with a dismayed face.

  There were people clustered about and bending over George Clay and there rose from one of them the glad cry:

  “He’s alive!”

  And Clay’s voice was heard, protesting feebly, “I’m all right…all right.”

  The guards, having wrestled the would-be assassin to the floor, now wrestled him to his feet; and he was borne backward, arms out-flung, heels dragging, toward the large door—shouting as he went and with a laugh wildly and bitterly triumphant:

  “Fools! Your life is but a day and is gone. You are like the grass that is cut down. But I, I shall have Life Everlasting!”

  “Maybe,” said the grim-faced waiter, who now stood near Jimmy again. He was holding in his hand the plastic gun the fanatic had used and was examining it with a professional eye. “Maybe. But it won’t be continuous with the one you have now.”

  * * * *

  Dave was at first rather sheepish; but with a little effort, and very little loss of time, he recovered his arrogance. He had already taken in the entire situation and, straightening himself, he resumed his role as one of the Elders of the Convention.

  He saw first to George Clay. But after he had seen that Clay’s wound was not critical, and that the woman’s wound was only superficial, and that the hotel medics were forcing their way through the throng toward the injured parties, he came back to Jimmy Ogg. His manner was lofty yet, but not so severe as it had been.

  “You may congratulate yourself. I had been planning a little surprise for you at the end of the evening.”

  “Had been?” said Jimmy. His hair was disheveled and his face was very pale. He was fidgeti
ng with his red jacket, pulling it more tightly about his midriff, as if he wanted to button it; but the buttons had been torn off in the struggle.

  “Yes, had been.” And he glanced at the grim-faced waiter, who nodded and moved away. “But because of this little service you have done us, I’m going to forget that you obtained entrance here under false colors. Your heroic action,” he said, turning upon Jimmy what looked very much like a disparaging eye, “proves that your presence here was innocent. I suppose you really did mean just to see the fun. And you saw it, didn’t you? You’re very pale, Jimmy Ogg. But now you have something to brag to your father about…if he’s still around.”

  He was silent a moment, looking out over the dining room like the survivor of a battle over a battlefield. Everywhere he looked, he saw shock and grief and the aftermath of hysteria. There were men and women huddled in their chairs, slumped over their tables, or fearfully clinging to each other. Nearby, a woman who had fainted was lying on the floor, anxiously tended by her friends. His face was sickened by disgust and self-loathing. His eyes were hooded. His lips moved. “Our long lives, our precious long lives and our desire to protect them, have made cowards of us all. It has made a coward of me. We are not fit to rule. I am not fit to rule.”

  His half-hooded eyes revolved back to Jimmy. “You saved George Clay’s life and for that I’m going to let you live. I’m going to let you live out the rest of your natural life span.”

  “Thanks,” said Jimmy.

  “But that’s it. You’ll never be an Evergreen. There are two lists. And I’m putting your name on the second.”

  Jimmy smiled and shrugged.

  “Yes, I know, Mayfly. That doesn’t bother you. You think you’re going to live forever, just as everyone your age does. That’s why you dashed forward to grab the gunman, while I took cover. The possibility that you can actually die hasn’t sunk in yet. But it will. Your courage is grounded in ignorance and in lack of imagination—and I’m going to cut those grounds out from under you. You think you’re a hero and I’m a coward…but we’ll see how much of a hero you are forty years from now when you’re banging on my door and pleading to be made an Evergreen. You may go, Mayfly.”

  “Thank you. I’ll just stop in the kitchen and collect April-May on the way.”

  An expletive burst from Dave. “You believe in pressing your luck, don’t you, Mayfly?” He broke off, because 25 February 1972, née Margaret Pressburger, was approaching. She was crying and wringing her hands. She flung herself upon Dave.

  “You were so brave!” She buried her face in his green jacket. “I forgive you. I forgive you everything.”

  Grandcourt was only momentarily baffled. It seemed that in the confusion and uproar she had not quite followed the sequence of events. He gave Jimmy a rueful, sideways, threatening look.

  “Okay,” he said. Margaret was sobbing and couldn’t hear. “Okay”—with resignation and, again, a touch of disgust—“I suppose that girl is more in your age group than in mine.”

  “I should think so,” said Jimmy, and moved off.

  The hard-faced waiter touched his forelock, or perhaps saluted him, as he passed. He made his way between the tables (ignoring persons who plucked at him, trying to order drinks) to the kitchen. But he didn’t enter the kitchen immediately. He stopped a few yards to one side of the swinging doors and leaned against the wall there, steadying himself with one hand. His face was still very pale, his forehead damp. Some minutes passed before he had quite recomposed himself and had adjusted his tunic and hair and wiped his brow.

  He went into the kitchen.

  * * * *

  April-May, her dessert duties done, was sitting beside a small table, facing the doors as if she were waiting for someone. On the other side of the table was a kitchen chair, also facing the doors. Jimmy sat down in it, as if claiming it.

  Silence for a long moment; and then their eyes met and they laughed.

  “I had an idea you might be here,” said Jimmy. “I had an idea that someone, anyway, might be here, and I hoped it would be you. And so I came.”

  “I knew you would be here,” said April-May. “It was the one place where your curiosity and humor would be sure to bring you. And I thought you might come looking for me. So I came.”

  There was another pause and then Jimmy asked slowly, “Where is He Who Tamed the Horses?”

  Her eyes, turned sideways, reproved him for his irony. “My beloved Harry was destroyed in the crash of the Topeka Space Shuttle.” She added, quoting Borges, “‘The Gods who live past all imploring, abandoned him to that tiger, Fire’.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jimmy. And then: “The Topeka Space Shuttle crash? That was some time ago. You’ve been alone all this while?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry about that too.”

  She sat watching him with a sly, sweet smile. “You’ve loved me for a long time, haven’t you?”

  His smile was so tender it was almost painful to see—only the boyishness of his face kept it from suggesting unfathomable heartbreak and loneliness. “For ages.”

  “And how long will you go on loving me?”

  His reply was a whisper. “Forever.”

  She laughed again. “That long?”

  His right arm was resting on the table. She moved her hand sideways across the table until her fingers barely touched his. He lifted his hand to cover hers, leaned forward a little to do so…and winced.

  She looked at him with concern; and, by way of explanation, he opened his red jacket. On the white cambric shirt underneath, on his right side, was a red spot about the size of a dime.

  She whispered, “Does it still hurt?”

  “Only a little. The healing process is almost completed. The bullet went right through me and struck the leg of a woman seated behind me. But I will need food soon.”

  “I’ll get you some.”

  But for the moment she didn’t move, not wanting to break the contact with his hand.

  Behind them someone was scraping pans, clattering and splashing them in the soapy water. And, occasionally, through the swinging doors would come a waiter or one of the security personnel, who in passing would give them a glance of incurious appraisal or, seeing their touching hands, an amused and ready understanding.

  They didn’t care who came or went. They spoke in very low voices; and besides, they spoke in a language that had been forgotten, except by a few, when the pyramids were as yet undreamed of. It was a language that had broken the stillness of the dawn in the glad, bright morning of the race, when the men with hair streaming behind them like manes had chased the horses and had hallooed to each other across the great rolling steppes of Central Asia. It was the language with which they had greeted the Man Without Flaw when he had stepped from the glistening sphere that had dropped from the sky, who, before departing, had almost negligently granted them the Boon.

  “There can’t be many of us left now,” said Jimmy. “Perhaps there’s only the two of us.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed April-May.

  There was a sudden, thunderous hullabaloo from the larger room: cheers, applause, and the tooting of paper horns drowned by the blaring orchestra. It was now midnight—midnight of New Year’s Eve of the year 2100, the first few seconds of the twenty-second century. And there swept over them, the two who sat there in the kitchen, a wave of music and melodious laughter. It seemed that the Evergreens had quite recovered themselves: for the song was exuberant, the laughter triumphant and self-congratulatory. The boy and the girl, with the freshness of the dawn still and forever upon them, looked at each other…and smiled sadly. For the swinging doors had swung inward and had hung open for a moment, as if forced open by a gust of gaiety (or by a hurrying waiter), and they had been granted a glimpse of the Evergreens at play. They were gliding to the music across the mirrored dance floor like mayflies above the surface of a pond.

  MOHAMMED’S ANGEL, by Jack Dann

  The Australians love Vegemite, but we love
Death.

  —Placard waved after Bali settlement

  massacre by Mohammed Ghandour, Jr.,

  4 July 2019

  Laura McKenzie Langer, tall, blonde, and handsome in her teal-blue Suzi Marchette housedress, leaned against the cast iron railing of her balcony and looked out at Wilson’s Promontory. Laura had loved the Prom since she was a child. She used to imagine its landmass was a stone-gray dragon rising from the sea. It still looked like the mythical creature, especially now, when it was on fire. Smoke billowed up from the eastern tip of the national park like dragon’s breath.

  It was another stinking hot morning. The air was bitter and autumn-dry.

  Laura went back into her air-conditioned study, ordered her live-in housemaid—whom she had nicknamed ‘Helpless’—to bring her another cup of tea and a Turkish cigarette, and then tried calling her mother again. Large fashion photos in white mats and black lacquered frames covered the walls. All photos of her. Laura was Suzi Marchette, the Suzi Marchette, even if her mother had created and established the couturier brand.

  “Hello, Mother,” she said, directing Helpless to put her tea and cigarettes on the cloisonné table beside a chair with carved spiral arms where she had been sketching. The maid was a tall, fair-complected, almost pretty girl from Wales who had presented herself to Laura’s husband Jason as a legal entrant. But it was easy to see that her entry papers were forged. Laura suggested to Jason that he hire her as a provisional indentured at half-wages.

  “Mother…?”

  “Yes, dear, I can hear you very well.” The voice seemed to come from nowhere and float in the cool, breezy air.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” Laura said, agitated.

  “Well that’s very kind of you, dear. I appreciate your concern.”

  Laura motioned to her maid. “I need an ashtray. And matches.”

  “That’s why you called me?” her mother asked.

  “No, Mother,” Laura said, resigned and frustrated. “I was talking to Helpless. Turn on the visual. Please.… I can’t stand talking to a disembodied voice.”

  “You called me, remember? And I’m not ready to be presentable.”