New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Keith Bulmer

  ‘I don’t want to go to grandma,’ said the boy. It was the first time he had spoken since leaving school. ‘I don’t know grandma, she don’t know me.’

  ‘The uncertainty makes his life difficult,’ said the man, ignoring the boy’s remark. ‘He can have no proper career without an official guardian or parent to sign forms - you have to sign forms every day on Primdora - and so he is getting sidetracked and will probably be Z-graded. I do my best but I get sick of it all. Everywhere there’s regulations. They keep bringing in more regulations. I just found today that they’re re-structuring the educational system, so he may be sent to another school further away. Then we’ll have to move rooms. More expense. All these regulations, you can’t escape them ... They’re supposed to rationalize community life, aren’t they? Instead, they’re like a wall round you.’

  ‘I hope the lad’s a comfort to you,’ Jefffris suggested.

  ‘Who makes all these regulations? I can’t understand how they get so complex. It didn’t used to be like this. Where did they start, where do they stop? Do you know, I get a small supplementary family allowance for the boy which is taxed with my wage so that I in reality keep less cash than I would if I didn’t get the allowance?’

  ‘Can’t you forgo the allowance?’

  ‘I went to see the computer about it. If I forgo the allowance now, I can never reclaim, and the tax structure might change next year in my favour. Then again, the rating scale comes into it - the amount of living-space we can claim ... it’s a headache.’

  ‘Your grandfather has a lot of problems,’ Jefffris said to the boy.

  The boy nodded. ‘He has a lot of problems.’ He kept looking down at his shoes.

  * * * *

  In the Beta arm of the galaxy, Jefffris rested with his companions on a delightful satellite called Rampam. It was a pastoral world, where a simple philosophy ruled and crime was almost unknown.

  Wandering down a country lane by the sea, one moonlit night, Jefffris encountered a slender man who appeared to be of no more than late middle age, yet claimed he was a million years old.

  ‘Longevity and immortality are among the oldest dreams,’ said Jefffris, ‘and are likely to remain dreams. No biological structure is stable enough to remain intact over long periods of time.’

  ‘A biological structure is only a highly organized state of inorganic material. All material carries the potential of life. The secret of continuous organization was discovered right there on Argustal,’ said the ancient youth.

  He pointed up at the gibbous moon sailing over the tree-tops.

  ‘If you’ve got time, stranger, I’ll tell you a story about it.’

  ‘I’d be glad to listen.’

  ‘That’s a rare talent, stranger,’ said the slender man. His expression cheered slightly, and he launched into his story.

  Argustal is the parent world of Rampam. Long ago, there lived on Argustal a regal young man called Tantanner. He possessed an equable temperament, and was content to let the years drift by in sport and laughter. Happiness came easily to him because he was married to a beautiful lady called Pamipamlar, whose nature was fully as sunny as his.

  I have to pass over all their years of content together, for contentment has no history - it leaves its traces, indeed, but they cannot be described. Suffice it to say that one day Tantanner saw strange marks upon his beloved’s face. He said nothing to her, so as not to alarm her, and imagined that the marks would fade away. Dawn followed dawn, and the marks did not fade. They deepened. He watched more anxiously. The times of snows came and went. The marks remained. They formed little lines upon Pamipamlar’s forehead, below and beside her eyes, and about her pretty mouth.

  Still he said nothing to her, but one dark night he rode out silently. Crossing a bleak moor, he went to where the last of a degenerate race of sub-humans eked out their existence in underground caves. These sub-humans - who, I’ve heard, are to be found on every planet in the early millennia of its development - were savage but cowardly; they fell back before Tantanner’s royal insignia and, when he showed himself unafraid, they fawned upon him, as rabbits will try to charm a fox. He knew these untrustworthy creatures held old legends which the human race of Argustal had discarded, and so he demanded of them the meaning of the increasing marks upon the countenance of his beloved.

  The sub-humans disputed among themselves, sometimes almost scratching each other’s eyes out as they asserted and denied. Some maintained that the marks belonged to an ancient force called Illness, but eventually another point of view prevailed. A gnarled man with a face studded with hideous warts and hairs stood forth and addressed Tantanner where he stood beside his mount.

  ‘Lord sire of the Upright Ones, when Knowledge recedes like an ocean, it leaves Names like shells upon the great beaches of History. We can only pick up these shells and offer them to your inspection, without ourselves understanding their contents.’

  ‘Speak and tell me what ails my fair one.’

  ‘Lord sire, her cheek of vellum is being inscribed by Age.’

  ‘Age? What is Age?’

  ‘A shell we pick up, Lord sire, knowing not its contents -except that one or two of us supposed that upon that spotless vellum you have discerned the faintest handwriting of Death.’

  ‘Death? What is Death?’

  ‘It is another shell, O Lord sire, lying half-buried in the vast sands of the Past.’

  With that, Tantanner had to be content. He rode back to the castle and settled by his fragrant Pamipamlar; but those two dark shells, Age and Death, returned continually to his mind.

  Eventually, they drove him from the castle, despite his love’s protests. He kissed her lined face and went forth. This time he ranged far away, scouring the planet’s distant places. He inquired in the towns and hedgerows, in farms and on highways, seeking someone or something to enlighten him.

  No one knew much. A few people knew a little. Contentment had stuffed their heads with obliviousness, you see. Once he met a solitary woman with a face like a bone who farmed forty llamas in a desert region; she turned on him savagely and said, ‘Go home, let remain buried what has remained buried! Lies at home are to be preferred to any truth abroad. You will let loose a great evil on the world if you meddle. Go home!’

  But he went on. He went on, although he felt increasingly the truth of what the woman with a face of bone had said. For he was gradually piecing together the shreds of ignorance he collected, and making a garment of revelation for himself.

  He wandered into the periphery of a volcano which had been an active sore on the face of Argustal since the world was formed. By the coast, he halted at a spot called the Green Grotto, where the sea steamed and vegetation grew thick. Turtles slithered on the beach and birds scuttled underfoot. A lizard-man and a blind youth came to visit him as he sat eating wild artichokes; he told them of his problems.

  For a long while, neither lizard nor blind man spoke. Then the lizard-man said: ‘This region is named End Quest, and I never understood why until now. It marks the end of your quest. Like you, I have some shreds of knowledge. They made no garment until joined with your shreds.

  ‘For more years than can be told, I have wondered why leaves remained on trees whether the sun shone or snow fell for, according to legend from Olden Pretimes, trees went bare half the year. I wondered also why birds hop naked under our feet, when legends from Old Pretimes say they flew with feathers far above the heads of men. Now I know the answer.’

  At these words, ‘I know the answer’, a great fear descended on Tantanner. He recalled the old lady with the face of bone and he turned to run. There was no escape. Curiosity got the better of him. He turned back and said, ‘Speak, lizard.’

  The lizard-man said, ‘Long, long ago, further than our minds can stretch, a process was invented on this planet. It was called continuous organization. I cannot tell you what it was - that’s a secret for ever lost, I suspect. It worked upon this planet, when set in motion by its masters, work
ed as tirelessly as the weather machine which keeps air circulating about us all. Under continuous organization, all biological processes remained intact as hitherto, no longer subject to the previous ageing which led to a state of energy-transference called Death. Death was feared, pale Death. Continuous organization guaranteed life. All biological creatures have been immortal on this planet since that day.’

  ‘We have not to fear Death?’

  ‘Listen. Death had a second, rosier face called Birth. When Death was banished, so went Birth. There was no need of her. Everything alive lived. For replacements there was no room. But those things which lived were subject to the attrition of external factors. No trees shed their leaves - and that original set of leaves is now made skeletal by the action of winds and frost. Birds cannot die, but the elements have eroded their feathers, so that they must go naked on the ground, being no longer able to fly. The carapaces of our turtles have worn thin as silk against the eternal sand. Many more delicate creatures - insects - have simply been fined away by the atmosphere.’

  ‘And my Pamipamlar, what of her?’

  The lizard-man looked down at the sand by his webbed feet.

  ‘Death is returning to its throne, my lord. Generation is again needed; continuous organization must itself die, its machineries run down.’

  ‘Answer my question. What of Pamipamlar?’

  ‘If you looked in a mirror at your own face, your question would be answered. The handwriting is set upon your cheek too. Death will call on you as surely as upon her.’

  Tantanner swung into the saddle and turned for home. His bitterness towered to the heavens; perhaps he recalled the words of the sage who says that the human soul is a dark corner which reflects the whole universe. His questions were answered. Fear and regret rode with him, regret that he had neglected his beloved so long. And it was a long way home.

  Alas, stranger, it was such a long way home that that foolish man arrived too late. Death had already claimed the one he loved. The world was in action again, the cycles of regeneration beginning again. But Tantanner’s world had run down to a dead stop.

  * * * *

  Jefffris sat silent, reflecting on the regenerative processes of the universe and looking up at the world of Argustal gleaming in Rampam’s night sky.

  ‘What brought you here?’ he asked the solemn storyteller.

  ‘I couldn’t bear that world any more, with my beloved dead. Now I linger here in exile, waiting for Death to escort me home.’

  * * * *

  After many years of travel, Jefffris came to the planet Earth. He had listened to countless profound comments, abstruse theories, and moving tales. All this he had reported back to the superputer.

  At this stage in its history, Earth was a second league world in the Procyon Bloc. It called itself a republic and was ruled over by the Committee of Twenty-One, the President of which was Kuo Waung-Tang.

  In a bar in a large city in Antarctica, Jefffris met a genial man who had served under Kuo Waung-Tang. He now called himself Dumb Dragon.

  ‘Yes, I have served under the great Kuo Waung-Tang and much admire him,’ admitted Dumb Dragon, as he bought Jefffris a drink. ‘I read his thoughts every night.’

  ‘Yet he sent you into exile for ten years when you refused to serve on the Committee.’

  ‘What else could Kuo do? I am grateful for that ten years. Now I have nothing to do with politics. I merely tell animal stories to anyone who cares to listen.’

  ‘Thanks, not today. But I’d like hear why you left politics.’

  Dumb Dragon laughed engagingly. ‘I simply discovered that mankind is not rulable although he perennially wishes to be ruled. Why? For a simple reason: because your perspectives change so radically when you make the transition from governed to governor. It’s like a high tower - you can’t see the top from the bottom, so you climb to the top, and then you can’t see the bottom. It’s hopeless. Ruler and ruled are almost different species.’

  ‘The lust for power has a history as long as mankind.’

  ‘Certainly. But I refer to something more complex. I really must tell you one of my latest animal stories. Do you mind very much?’

  Jefffris enjoyed the man’s company. ‘Make me like it.’

  ‘That’s good. Story-tellers are brave men - they always battle with the listener’s wish to dislike what they hear, for the listener wishes to be ruler of the story, although inwardly he longs to be dominated by it. Okay, this story is called “The Lion Who Had Ecology”, bearing in mind that on Earth this year ecology and conservation are fashionable subjects. It probably means we are due for another big destructive war.’

  He beamed at the wall, as if turning a smiling face towards the future no matter what happened, and commenced his story.

  The last African lion was sitting comfortably under a deodar, reading the current issue of ‘Digest of World Lion Problems’, when a zebra of his acquaintance called Leopold galloped up and coughed expectantly (said Dumb Dragon, making lion and zebra faces as he went along).

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said the zebra.

  ‘What is it now?’ asked the lion. He had a grudge against Leopold, just could not stand the zebra’s airs and graces, and promised himself that he would eat him one day soon when it was not quite as hot.

  ‘The animals would like to have a word with you, sir,’ said Leopold. ‘Looks like there’s another ecological crisis brewing.’

  The lion gave in with a bad grace and padded north across the game preserve with the zebra. Crowds of animals and birds of every variety - every remaining variety - were heading in the same direction. The leaders of this multitude had halted by a dried river-bed and were staring across it, meanwhile uttering many cries of disgust, if not actual oaths. They stood back respectfully to let the lion through.

  ‘Well, what seems to be the trouble this time?’ he asked.

  Nobody liked to thrust forward and answer, although a couple of jackals sidled up and said, ‘We tried to get the mob to disperse but they wouldn’t. Do you want us to try the skunk-gas on them?’

  Ignoring them, the lion peered across the river-bed. On the far side, a short distance away, some black men were working, unloading bricks from trucks and marshalling heavy machines. Nearer at hand, other men were watching elephants push down large trees and drag them away.

  ‘Scabs! Blacklegs!’ hissed the crowd, but the elephants ignored them and continued working.

  ‘Oh, isn’t it terribly awful!’ exclaimed an ostrich called the Rev. Dean William Pennyfever, wringing his hands. ‘Bang goes a slice more of the veldt. They’re putting up their simply nauseating little dwellings on the very spot where I emerged from the egg.’

  ‘Dwellings, indeed,’ exclaimed a giraffe, contemptuously. ‘Putting up a whole bloody town, more like it, right where I enjoy a spot of necking. Perishing blacks! Dirty beasts!’

  ‘Now then, remember they’re victims of colonialism,’ said the lion sharply. ‘Besides, we don’t know it’s a whole town. We must get our facts right before we issue a complaint. Has anyone - you parrots - actually asked those men what’s going on there?’ Silence fell, the animals shuffled about uneasily, not looking up at their leader.

  ‘There you are then,’ said the lion. ‘Typical silly emotionalism. You moan and complain and you haven’t a clue as to what is actually happening in the world. You’re too parochial. Naturally, I share your anxiety about anything - anything at all - which encroaches on the amenities of the jungle, but statistically, let me assure you, those black chaps are having absolutely no effect on this continent’s magnificent natural resources.’

  Many animals, including hyenas, monkeys and snakes, clapped this fiery speech and shouted ‘Here, here.’ But a bespectacled hippo, recently divorced, came up to the lion and spoke in a grumpy way. (Dumb Dragon put on a hippo face.)

  ‘That’s all very well as far as it goes, Mr. Lion, but I represent the Amalgamated Mammal and Reptile Union, and the workers have vested in
me the authority to ask you to do something positive about this latest infringement of our territory. We don’t want words, we want action, right, lads?’

  A great cry went up from the beasts, especially the rhinos, many of whom acted as shop-stewards.

  ‘We all want action,’ the lion said impressively. ‘I am much more anti any attempt to curtail living space than you are, because I am more aware of all the ecological factors involved. Nevertheless, it would be extremely unwise to let the sight of a few bricks precipitate us into a hasty move - a stampede or something silly, in which our weaker brethren might get trampled underfoot, or eaten, or even left destitute and incapacitated.’