The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin

by Lisa Yaszek

  There was another car in the road ahead, moving slowly.

  Flin overtook it.

  It was well out in the middle. He waited a moment for the driver to see that he wanted to pass and make room for him. The car continued to block the road. He sounded his horn, politely at first and then loudly. The car stayed where it was, moving slower and slower so that he had to brake to keep from hitting it.

  “What are they doing?” whispered Ruvi. “Why won’t they let us by?”

  Flin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  He began to be afraid.

  He pulled as far as he could to the left, riding on the rough berm. He sounded the horn and tramped on the throttle.

  The other car swerved too. Its rear fender struck his front one. Ruvi screamed. Flin steadied the wildly lurching car. Sweat prickled like hot needles all over his skin. He stamped his foot hard on the brake.

  The other car skidded on ahead. Flin swung the wheel sharp right and pushed the throttle down, whipping the big car across the road and onto the berm on the other side.

  For one brief moment he thought he was going to make it. But the other car swayed over with ruthless speed and punched and rebounded and punched again with its clattering fenders like a man pushing another with his shoulder. Holes and stones threw Flin’s car back and forth. He fought to control it, hearing the voices of men shouting close by . . .

  Hit the sonofabitch, knock his goddam ass off the road. That’s the way—

  There was a tree ahead. His headlights picked it up, brought it starkly into view, the rough-textured bark, the knots and gnarls, the uneven branches and dark leaves. Flin spun the wheel frantically. The lights made a wide slicing turn across meadow grass and weeds. The car bounded, leaped, sprang over uneven ground and fell with a jarring crash into the ditch of a little stream and died.

  Silence, dazed and desperate.

  Flin looked back. The other car had stopped at the side of the road. Men were getting out of it. He counted five. He thought he knew what men they were.

  He reached across Ruvi and opened the door and pushed her ahead of him. “We’re going to run now,” he said, surprised at the flat banality of his voice, as though he were speaking to a child about some unimportant game. The car tilted that way and Ruvi slid out easily. Flin came behind her into mud and cold water that lapped around his ankles. He half helped, half threw her up the low steep bank and followed, grabbing her hand then and pulling her along.

  He did not look back again. He did not have to. The men called as they ran, laughing, hooting, baying like great hounds.

  Crooked fire lighted a curtain of black cloud. Flin saw trees, a clump of woods. The fire died and was followed by a hollow booming. The woods vanished. He continued to run toward them. The grass and weeds tangled around his legs. Ruvi lagged, pulling harder and harder against his grip, sobbing as she ran.

  They were among the trees.

  He let go of her. “Go on. Hide yourself somewhere. Don’t make a sound no matter what happens.”

  “No. I won’t leave—”

  He pushed her fiercely, trying not to scream at her aloud. “Go on!”

  The young men came loping through the long grass, into the trees. They had a light. Its long white beam probed and poked.

  See anything?

  Not yet.

  Who’s got the bottle? I’m dry from runnin’.

  See anything?

  They’re in here somewhere.

  Breath rasping in big hard throats, legs ripping the undergrowth, feet trampling the ground.

  I’m gonna find out, by God. After I take care of that sonofabitch I’m gonna find out.

  Whatcha gonna find out, Jed?

  If it’s true they lay eggs or not.

  Laughter.

  Who’s got the goddam bottle?

  Wait a minute, hey, right there, swing that light back, I hear the bastards moving—

  Hey!

  Flin turned, straightening his shoulders, standing between them and Ruvi.

  One of them held the light in his face. He could not see them clearly. But he heard the voice of the one called Jed speaking to him.

  “All right, greenie, you’re so anxious to teach us things—it ain’t fair for us to take and not give, so we got a lesson for you.”

  “Let my wife go,” said Flin steadily. “You have no quarrel with her.”

  “Your wife, huh?” said Jed. “Well now, how do we know she’s your wife? Was you married here under the laws of this land?”

  “We were married under our own laws—”

  “You hear that, boys? Well, your laws don’t cut any ice with us, greenie, so it don’t seem that you are man and wife as we would say. Anyway, she stays. That’s part of the lesson.”

  Jed laughed. They all laughed.

  In their own language Flin said to Ruvi, “Run now.”

  He sprang forward at the man holding the light.

  Another man moved quickly from the side and struck him across the shoulders and neck with something more than the naked hand. A tree branch, perhaps, or a metal bar. Flin went down, stunned with pain. He heard Ruvi cry out. He tried to tell her again to run but his voice had left him. There were scuffling sounds and more cries. He tried to get up and hard-shod feet kicked him and stamped him down. Iron knuckles battered his face. Jed bent over him and shook him.

  “Hold him up there, Mike, I want to be sure he hears this. You hear me, greenie? Lesson One. Niggers always keep to their own side of the road.”

  Crash. Blood in the mouth, and pain.

  Ruvi?

  “Hold him, Mike, goddam it. Lesson Two. When a white man takes a mind to a female nigger, she ain’t supposed to get uppity about it. It’s an honor, see? She’s supposed to be real nice and happy and flattered. See?”

  More blood, more pain.

  Ruvi, Ruvi!

  “Lesson Three. And this one you better remember and write out and hang up where all the other red, blue, green, and purple niggers can see it. You never lay a hand on a white man. Never. No matter what.”

  Ruvi was quiet. He could not hear her voice.

  “You understand that? No matter what!”

  Hya-hoo!

  Give it to him, Jed. Tell him so he don’t forget.

  Dark, night, thunder, red fire, red blood, silence, distance, one long fading echoing voice.

  —just like a real human woman by God what do you know—

  Laughter.

  Ruvi—

  Gone.

  There was a great deal of public indignation about it. Newspapers all over the world had editorials. The President made a statement. The Governor made a formal apology for his state and a sincere promise to find and punish the handful of men responsible for the outrage.

  Grand Falls protected its own.

  No witnesses could be found to identify the men involved in the incident that had occurred in town. Judge Shaw was sure he had never seen them before. So was the policeman. The attack itself had taken place out in the country, of course, and in the dark. Flin did not remember the license number of the car nor had he seen the faces of the men clearly. Neither had Ruvi. They could have been anyone from anywhere.

  The name “Jed” by itself meant nothing. There were a number of Jeds in the neighborhood but they were the wrong ones. The right Jed never turned up, and if he had Flin could only have identified him definitely as the man he himself had struck in front of the Grand Falls Hotel. (“Mighty hot tempered, he seemed,” Judge Shaw said. “Took offense where I’m sure none was meant. Like he just didn’t understand our ways.”)

  So there was no finding and no punishment.

  As soon as the doctors told him he was fit to travel, Flin informed his group that he was returning home. He had already been in contact with Galactic Center. So
meone else would be sent to take his place. They were very angry about the whole thing at home and various steps were being considered. But since Earth was not a member planet she was not subject to galactic law, and since the future of a world was considerably more important than the actions of a few individuals or the feelings of their victims, probably nothing very drastic would be done. And Flin recognized that this was right.

  Sherbondy came to see him.

  “I feel responsible for all this,” he said. “If I hadn’t advised that trip—”

  “It would have happened sooner or later,” Flin said. “To us or to somebody else. Your world’s got a long way to go yet.”

  “I wish you’d stay,” said Sherbondy miserably. “I’d like to prove to you that we’re not all brutes.”

  “You don’t have to prove that. It’s obvious. The trouble now is with us—with Ruvi and me.”

  Sherbondy looked at him, puzzled.

  Flin said, “We are not civilized any more. Perhaps we will be again some day. I hope so. That’s one reason we’re going home, for psychiatric treatment of a kind we can’t get here. Ruvi especially . . .”

  He shook his head and began to stride up and down the room, his body taut with an anger he could only by great effort control.

  “An act like that—people like that—they foul and degrade everything they touch. They pass on some of themselves. I’m full of irrational feelings now. I’m afraid of darkness and trees and quiet places. Worse than that, I’m afraid of your people. I can’t go out of my rooms now without feeling as though I walk among wild beasts.”

  Sherbondy sighed heavily. “I can’t blame you. It’s a pity. You could have had a good life here, done a lot—”

  “Yes,” said Flin.

  “Well,” said Sherbondy, getting up, “I’ll say good bye.” He held out his hand. “I hope you don’t mind shaking my hand—”

  Flin hesitated, then took Sherbondy’s hand briefly. “Even you,” he said, with real sorrow. “You see why we must go.”

  Sherbondy said, “I see.” He turned to the door. “God damn those bastards,” he said with sudden fury. “You’d think in this day and age— Oh, hell . . . Goodbye, Flin. And the best of luck.”

  He went away.

  Flin helped Ruvi with the last of the packing. He checked over the mass of equipment the weather-control group had brought with them for demonstration purposes, which he would be leaving behind for his successor.

  Then he said quietly, “There is one more thing I have to do before we go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be back in plenty of time for the take-off.”

  She looked at him, startled, but she did not ask any questions.

  He got into his car and drove away alone.

  He spoke as he drove, grimly and bitterly, to someone who was not there.

  “You wanted to teach me a lesson,” he said. “You did. Now I will show you how well you taught me, and how well I learned.”

  And that was the real evil that had been done to him and Ruvi.

  The physical outrage and the pain were soon over, but the other things were harder to eradicate—the sense of injustice, the rankling fury, the blind hatred of all men whose faces were white.

  Especially the hatred.

  Some day, he hoped and prayed, he could be rid of that feeling, clean and whole again as he had been before it happened. But it was too soon. Far too soon now.

  With two fully charged miniseeders in his pockets he drove steadily toward Grand Falls. . . .

  1957

  CAROL EMSHWILLER

  Pelt

  SHE was a white dog with a wide face and eager eyes, and this was the planet, Jaxa, in winter.

  She trotted well ahead of the master, sometimes nose to ground, sometimes sniffing the air, and she didn’t care if they were being watched or not. She knew that strange things skulked behind iced trees, but strangeness was her job. She had been trained for it, and crisp, glittering Jaxa was, she felt, exactly what she had been trained for, born for.

  I love it, I love it . . . that was in her pointing ears, her waving tail . . . I love this place.

  It was a world of ice, a world with the sound of breaking goblets. Each time the wind blew they came shattering down by the trayful, and each time one branch brushed against another it was, Skoal, Down the hatch, To the Queen . . . tink, tink, tink. And the sun was reflected as if from a million cut-glass punch bowls under a million crystal chandeliers.

  She wore four little black boots, and each step she took sounded like two or three more goblets gone, but the sound was lost in the other tinkling, snapping, cracklings of the silver, frozen forest about her.

  She had figured out at last what that hovering scent was. It had been there from the beginning, the landing two days ago, mingling with Jaxa’s bitter air and seeming to be just a part of the smell of the place, she found it in criss-crossing trails about the squatting ship, and hanging, heavy and recent, in hollows behind flat-branched, piney-smelling bushes. She thought of honey and fat men and dry fur when she smelled it.

  There was something big out there, and more than one of them, more than two. She wasn’t sure how many. She had a feeling this was something to tell the master, but what was the signal, the agreed upon noise for: We are being watched? There was a whisper of sound, short and quick, for: Sighted close, come and shoot. And there was a noise for danger (all these through her throat mike to the receiver at the master’s ear), a special, howly bark: Awful, awful—there is something awful going to happen. There was even a noise, a low rumble of sound for: Wonderful, wonderful fur—drop everything and come after this one. (And she knew a good fur when she saw one. She had been trained to know.) But there was no sign for: We are being watched.

  She’d whined and barked when she was sure about it, but that had got her a pat on the head and a rumpling of the neck fur. “You’re doing fine, Baby. This world is our oyster, all ours. All we got to do is pick up the pearls. Jaxa’s what we’ve been waiting for.” And Jaxa was, so she did her work and didn’t try to tell him anymore, for what was one more strange thing in one more strange world?

  She was on the trail of something now, and the master was behind her, out of sight. He’d better hurry. He’d better hurry or there’ll be waiting to do, watching the thing, whatever it is, steady on until he comes, holding tight back, and that will be hard. Hurry, hurry.

  She could hear the whispered whistle of a tune through the receiver at her ear and she knew he was not hurrying but just being happy. She ran on, eager, curious. She did not give the signal for hurry, but she made a hurry sound of her own, and she heard him stop whistling and whisper back into the mike, “So, so, Queen of Venus. The furs are waiting to be picked. No hurry, Baby.” But morning was to her for hurry. There was time later to be tired and slow.

  That fat-man honeyish smell was about, closer and strong. Her curiosity became two pronged—this smell or that? What is the big thing that watches? She kept to the trail she was on, though. Better to be sure, and this thing was not so elusive, not twisting and doubling back, but up ahead and going where it was going.

  She topped a rise and half slid, on thick furred rump, down the other side, splattering ice. She snuffled at the bottom to be sure of the smell again, and then, nose to ground, trotted past a thick and tangled hedgerow.

  She was thinking through her nose, now. The world was all smell, crisp air and sour ice and turpentine pine . . . and this animal, a urine and brown grass thing . . . and then, strong in front of her, honey-furry-fat man.

  She felt it looming before she raised her head to look, and there it was, the smell in person, some taller than the master and twice as wide. Counting his doubled suit and all, twice as wide.

  This was a fur! Wonderful, wonderful. But she just stood, looking up, mouth open and lips pulled back, the fur on the back of her neck rising more from the suddenn
ess than from fear.

  It was silver and black, a tiger-striped thing, and the whitish parts glistened and caught the light as the ice of Jaxa did, and sparkled and dazzled in the same way. And there, in the center of the face, was a large and terrible orange eye, rimmed in black with black radiating lines crossing the forehead and rounding the head. That spot of orange dominated the whole figure, but it was a flat, blind eye, unreal, grown out of fur. At first she saw only that spot of color, but then she noticed under it two small, red glinting eyes and they were kind, not terrible.

  This was the time for the call: Come, come and get the great fur, the huge-price-tag fur for the richest lady on earth to wear and be dazzling in and most of all to pay for. But there was something about the flat, black nose and the tender, bow-shaped mouth and those kind eyes that stopped her from calling. Something master-like. She was full of wondering and indecision and she made no sound at all.

  The thing spoke to her then, and its voice was a deep lullaby sound of buzzing cellos. It gestured with a thick, fur-backed hand. It promised, offered, and asked; and she listened, knowing and not knowing.

  The words came slowly.

  This . . . is . . . world.

  Here is the sky, the earth, the ice. The heavy arms moved. The hands pointed.

  We have watched you, little slave. What have you done that is free today? Take the liberty. Here is the earth for your four shoed feet, the sky of stars, the ice to drink. Do something free today. Do, do.

  Nice voice, she thought, nice thing. It gives and gives . . . something.

  Her ears pointed forward, then to the side, one and then the other, and then forward again. She cocked her head, but the real meaning would not come clear. She poked at the air with her nose.

  Say that again, her whole body said. I almost have it. I feel it. Say it once more and maybe then the sense of it will come.

  But the creature turned and started away quickly, very quickly for such a big thing, and disappeared behind the trees and bushes. It seemed to shimmer itself away until the glitter was only the glitter of the ice and the black was only the thick, flat branches.