‘I still don’t get it.’
‘There was no point at all in them letting us die of thirst so, when the water ceased to arrive, the empty cup must have been a clue of a kind. Something like “the test is over - now all get out of here”. When I sat down to think things over I was suddenly reminded of a joke we once played on a student at school. We locked him in his room. It was on the top floor and he couldn’t leave by other than the door. He had a heavy date and almost pulled it off its hinges before quietening down. Later we crept up and unlocked it. He didn’t know this, of course, and continued to sit for hours in an unlocked room under the firm impression that he couldn’t get out.’
‘So?’
‘The point is this, that student had tried the door so often and found it locked that he was unable to think of it as otherwise. We had so convinced ourselves that the room was one solid piece that we just didn’t think of it as other than a breakproof cell. At first it was probably just that. But I’m inclined to believe we could have walked out of it simply by refusing to admit that it was an impassable barrier. Perhaps it has a mentally operated lock, or something. After all, our own cages are built something like that. Laboratory ones, at least. A child can open one but an animal lacks the mental ability to operate the simple catch-mechanism. Anyway, I just stepped towards a wall and kept going.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing.’ Chappell met the captain’s eyes. ‘I mean that literally. As far as I’m concerned I stepped into the wall and was immediately back on the Prometheus, dressed, shaved and feeling fine.’
‘The others came with you,’ mused Foreman. ‘They and you must have been given restorative treatment of some kind.’ He swore with sudden exasperation. ‘Damn it! According to the chronometers we arrived twelve days ago. According to me it was ten minutes. They could have investigated every inch of my ship and probed every member of my crew and I’d never know it. What kind of creatures are we up against?’
Chappell looked at the tremendous bulk of the alien vessel depicted in the screen. ‘Clever ones, Captain, and experienced. I think it would be wise for us to think in terms of “work with” rather than “up against”. This is one race we can’t afford to antagonize.’
‘Maybe not.’ Foreman looked thoughtful. ‘What would have happened if you hadn’t walked through the wall?’
Chappell replied without taking his eyes from the screen. ‘I believe we would have died in that room,’ he said quietly. ‘Any race capable of subjecting others to such a test would have no tolerance for stupidity. And rightly so - an idiot must not be allowed access to destructive mechanisms.’
‘Fair enough. But it’s over now. You passed and we passed with you. But I’d still like to know just what was the deciding factor. Not your walking out, I can understand that, but what made them let you do it. Unlatch the cage, so to speak.’
‘An accident,’ said Chappell.
‘What?’
‘Luck.’ Chappell turned and stared at the captain. ‘We drew straws and I won. I also happened to be the oldest of the four. It didn’t strike me at the time but it’s obvious when you think about it. What is the concept of law and order based on? Respect for authority. And who is almost inevitably in the highest position of authority? The aged. Those with accumulations of experience, in this case myself. And, by giving me the water, the others showed their respect and deference to established rule. So we passed and so are acceptable to the alien culture.’
Foreman whistled as he stared at the alien ship on which lights began to flash in a familiar code. ‘Luck,’ he said and added, ‘Man! Are they in for a surprise!’
<
* * * *
SENTENCED TO A SCHEHERAZADEAN DEATH
David H. Walters
Life is but a breath away from Death. ‘Whilst there’s breath there’s life’ is an old saying and never has that been more true than in the sad case of the sentence passed on the unnamed speaker of this short piece. Of his first published writing, unrepentantly presented, with great pleasure, herewith, David H. Walters says: ‘Dedicated to Christopher Priest, who has on several occasions told me that the first sentence in any work is of great importance.’ Readers of New Writings in SF will know Christopher Priest and will now realize he has a great deal to answer for. I have only just the one word of advice - take a deep breath ...
* * * *
‘Gentlemen, for so I must call you, though I do not believe the word in any way to be justified, I, who now stand before you about to perish at your hands, but strongly unrepentant, as yet unbloody and still unbowed, unjustly convicted at your “Court”, which I can only describe as marsupial of the worst nature, of an act which you, in your ignorance (and power) determine a capital crime, a felony no less, but which is, I feel, in reality an inalienable right, nay a duty on man, indeed on all sentient life, which it behoves him not to cast aside unwittingly, recklessly or without due consideration, a duty, I reiterate, which is upon us all, everyone, if we wish to survive the all embracing quietude which threatens our mortal coils, both as a race of witting beings on this the best of good earths, albeit a race composed of and comprising somewhat fractious and wayward individuals, though I must state that I find you to be far more wayward and fractious than I can adventure a guess, and individually, each man being his own prosecuting and defending counsels, judge, jury and executioner for this purpose, if perchance we wish not to succumb to the faceless, mindless hordes of ignorance and ignominy or to fall hapless and helpless into the very slime and mire of oblivion, unremembered alike by bird or beast, or any other living thing, neither celebrated nor commemorated even by the uneven memorials of chaste, chased and sculptured metal and stone even now decaying about us, a duty which I have ever striven to obey and uphold, a duty for which I now find myself cast down by my abysmal inferiors, yes you, and face to face with that final arbiter of life - death, and yet a death not sacrosanct by the mores of hallowed learning and ageold tradition, but a sprung up “nouveau” end delivered of envy out of greed, a death about to fall upon me from the bloody and glaring muzzles of those lethal instruments gripped so slackly in your mind-enfeebled (but muscular) hands, a death to follow swift upon your judgment yet withheld until my completion of this my final sentence, as is granted and allowed me by the so-called laws of this infamous gathering which must be, after all (to give you devils your due), I suppose, still willing, at least for the time being, to allow me to end what I have begun in this brief breath, and to keep to its as yet undefiled but idiotic custom that my final grammatical period shall prove also to be my final existence period as nearly simultaneously as your scabrously itchy trigger fingers can make their fatal journeys after your deadened nerves carry the futile orders from your lack-lustre minds which in their turn must await their last but unappreciative appreciation of the termination of this my sentence (O if I should die think only this of me that there’s some corner of the sludge of insensitive unthinking life that is forever grammatical), and for what, aye that’s the rub, as t’is merely that I in my wisdom, have more of it than you, that mine is a brain of intellectual virtuosity born too late for its more natural habitat in the fields of academe of yore, and having its, shortly to be terminated, truncated span at a time when the power of the powers that be is firmly grasped by your sticky and bludgeonlike fingers, the unlettered untutored unschooled duffers of a genus, sadly not genius, become dullard, unappreciative of the beauties of iambic or dactylic feet, of rhyme rhythm or scansion, unable to perceive the finer parts of the wondrous heritage of this our English speech (O God my throat is dry), you the repulsive and reprehensible result of unchecked breeding, of lascivious, lustful, lunatic lovemaking, though I fear without true appreciation of the meaning of that lovely word, the overpopulating underintelligent spawn of your barbary and barbarous forebears (foreapes?), overweening and prideful to the very great detriment of my dead peers, you, oh you of little intellect (though I regret to say of vastly superior numerica
l strength, and of firepower also), you to whom I speak, your inanimate eyes dimming in the folds of unthinking flesh, your synapses rusty with sloth as compared with me, the modern Plato, Prometheus of the Proms, giant for grammar, the very quintessence of mindful superiority, hapless only child of the last remaining family of professorial persons, sages of special sanguinity, whose motto through the eons has been “Cogitamus ergo summus”, whose crest, a field azure with an owl rampant gules with three “Rs” below argent contained within a scroll, surmounted overall by a crown of laurel vert sited atop a gerundive passant, the last of the line, the final phd ... but why go on ... and yet I must for while there’s life there’s breath, while there’s breath there’s speech and while there’s speech there’s life, a neat example of the pseudo vicious circle which I feel sure you will not appreciate, and besides I have always held that I must never start a course of action or reaction (though it is you not I who are the reactionary) which I was not able, willing and determined to see through to the bitter final end (cough cough, my throat) and here I have and am the subject of this sentence so far incomplete without its/my verb, a sonnet octave as yet lacking its complementary sestet, a verb which was at first instance to have been “continue”, but at the last I do not think I can, and here’s my end, without my verb, but true to my teaching I shall end not with a preposition (and my post position will, I know, be horizontal) but with an indefinite article, I who am that least indefinite of savants, to come to this, an ending not with a whimper but with a ...’
Bang.
<
* * * *
BETWEEN THE TIDES
Donald Malcolm
In this portrayal of an alien culture in crisis, Donald Malcolm gives due prominence to the vital similarities of civilization without undermining the essential differences. If the ancient society of Hasub broke down from whatever variety of causes - including the unpalatable fact that the world had become inhospitable - would not this be a direct commentary on the fitness of that society for the great project? If the wheel failed would not that have been caused by other forces than those of a hostile universe?
* * * *
One
The crystal wheel rotated serenely in orbit a thousand miles above the planet Hasub like a flawless jewel. It shone with pale fire, pink, almost lilac at times.
Succeeding generations had watched it grow and spread, like a flower opening with all but infinite slowness, reaching, always reaching, for something seemingly unattainable.
Now, with a diameter of a mile, it was complete. Trailing behind it in orbit, like a single strand of a web, was a crystal rope, five hundred miles long, a glittering, tenuous connection with reality. At the end of the rope was the ship.
As he watched the launch of a service shuttle, Not Simde Yorea thought: it’s been like a fairy tale, a one hundred and 64-year-old fairy tale. But now it’s going to become real and the spell will be broken.
The rocket drew a blade of faceted flame up the sky, for a few moments splitting the glowering mauve-black of the far mountains asunder. Then it thrust out among the stars.
He turned away from the telescope, rubbing his eyes, and leaned against the ledge that ran the full length of the window. Unseasonably warm night air, rich with the scents of flowers and trees, nuzzled his fine pelt through the openwork of his tunic. It was the time of falling leaves, which scuttled like crisp spiders across the land. Soon the world would sleep and dream. His hopes and aspirations were now fully awakened. Not for him, or Atira, or their cubs, or the eight other families, would there be the long hibernation until the sap rose again in the trees and the wind sang with renewed life.
He looked over his shoulder, at the crystal wheel and beyond it, to deep space. As yet, there was nothing to see, except stars. But the capricious planet was there, moving in its immutable course along a track of cosmic dust. The astro-physicists had shown him the math and assured him that the planet would be on time, as it had been every one hundred and sixty-four years since planets had formed within the binary system.
Something primal in him shuddered at the thought of the venture, and he closed the window, shutting out the night, and his own fears.
The room was in darkness. It soothed him. Imperceptibly, awareness of the objects there began to impress themselves on his retina. This was where it had all begun. In the cabinets along the wall on his left were the tapes and records. They told a story of nadir and zenith, frustrations and discarded plans, high hopes and achievements. Above the cabinets were ancestral photographs, the men and women who had kept alive a project that, many times, must have seemed like fantasy. Their faces glowed whitely, like those of spectres.
He walked across the soft fibrous floor and sat on the edge of his drawing table and, switching on a low light, contemplated the wall plan view of the star system.
Reduced to coloured circles, orbital and trajectoral lines, it all seemed so simple. There were two stars in the system, 8,370 million miles apart. Hasub’s star was type M, the other was type F. Hasub was a solitary world, without even a moon. The other sun had four planets. Once every 164 years, a planet from the other star, in a figure-of-eight trajectory, came within twenty million miles of Hasub. But Simde’s people didn’t have the technology to enable them to reach it. There it was, so necessary to the plan, and so elusive.
Hasub had been growing gradually, but inexorably, colder for hundreds of years. Already the polar caps had spread considerably towards the equatorial regions, where the small population of around five hundred thousand lived on the three linked continents. Prolonged observations had shown that two of the planets in the other part of the binary system would sustain life. Simde was going to attempt to take a small group there, to establish a colony. If the plan to get them there worked, then the race would have a new beginning and continue to exist. If not, it would become one with the encroaching cold.
Atira, his wife, came into the room quietly as if wafted there gently by the soft light behind her.
‘Simde.’
They touched their right hands briefly, their six digits spread out in the ritual fan, the sex digits stirring faintly. This was just one of the old customs being ignored by most of the younger members of society, and many of the older ones. Few had faith that the voyage would succeed and even if it did, it wasn’t going to save them, anyway. So ritual and discipline were discarded. Some of the really reckless and degenerate people were even foregoing hibernation by the use of drugs. Invariably, they stopped their food plants, and, often, themselves.
Atira and Simde went into another room and sat on the cushions surrounding the psycho-food plant and each inserted their index finger and thumb of the left hand into the plant and took nourishment through the tubes that extruded from the tips. Their minds began to merge with that of the plant on a subconscious level and they were again part of the sublime cycle of nature. The cold was not the only danger to the continued existence of the inhabitants of Hasub. Many of the food plants were blighted. It was not known how the blight had started. Fortunately, their plant was, so far, untainted.
‘Are the cubs in bed?’
‘Yes. Cered’s reading and Rogdon is annoying him.’
Simde eased his index digit to adjust the flow, and said, ‘Then we can expect trouble.’
She smiled, her lips curving over the subdued blue staining on her gums. Some of the other colour combinations he’d seen in use-
‘No. He won’t keep it up. I’ve left a few toys beside his bed. He’ll soon fall asleep.’
They were silent for a time, letting their minds and bodies respond to the produce of the food plant. He studied the lines of her lowered face, marvelling at the myriad flashes of light gently entrapped in her fine, pale brown pelt and the long hair that reached to her waist. A simple gown enveloped and made a mystery of her figure.
‘Simde.’
He waited for her to go on. She withdrew her digits and wiped them with a cloth and handed it to him. The food pl
ant became bright grey-green as it replenished itself from roots deep in the planet. This was their last full bonding with the plant, which had been a member of Simde’s family since before the project had begun and it was one of the oldest functional plants on Hasub. There were others older, but the bonding was of the minds only and no nourishment was provided. Since its initial bonding with Simde’s ancestors, the plant had nourished the family regularly every thirty-one days, and eased and cleansed their minds. Neri Falrac, the psycho-botanist of the project, had examined the plant and she had told them that it would soon stop. The plant had been prepared for the imminent farewell for a long time, now, and Neri was convinced that it had decided to stop of its own accord.
She said his name again, this time looking at him, her eyes a clear violet.
‘Are you having doubts?’
He finished cleaning his digits and put the cloth in the bowl.
‘No. This is something our race would always have had to do. Not merely because we need to reach the other planets to perpetuate the racial existence. Even if all was well on Hasub, we would need to break out of this region, to widen our horizons, physically, mentally, philosophically, spiritually. These are all sound justifications, but they aren’t necessary. Since its conception, this project has always been considered as a practical, scientific undertaking. Look at the advances that have accrued to almost every discipline—’
New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology] Page 12