Meet Me at Infinity

by James Tiptree Jr.

  And the foreman let off both barrels crash, blam, straight into the throat of the stag of the forest, and the great horns fell and gored the ground.

  The first bulldozer driver jumped out and said, Screw you, I’m going home. But the foreman went and dragged the stag and he heaved him onto the Jeep and climbed in the bulldozer cab himself, howling Hit it! And the line of earth killers moved forward.

  The foxes and raccoons and chipmunks and all the animals bared their teeth and called on the deep power of the Earth, standing their ground bravely around the ghost of the man, and the old badger dipped his heavy claws in the blood of the slain stag and charged. And the birds dived screaming and the baby quail and mice rushed into the treads to jam them and the butterflies and bees rained into the cabs, all calling on their Mother the Earth.

  But the terrible machines ground forward uncaring and the fearful knives tore into the roots of the trees and tumbled them and the earth and the bones and bodies of the animals, into huge windrows, and other machines roared behind, shoveling everything together, oriole nests and badger teeth and mouse eyes and flowers and rocks and the milk of the squirrels all ground into a great heap of death down the center of the valley.

  Next came the gravel trucks and the bluestone grinders and graders and the reinforcing rod layers, and they churned to and fro, flattening and mangling everything by day and by night, and the rains carried blood and mulm in a torrent to the sea. And presently a perfectly graded ribbon of concrete was spewed over the whole length of the murdered valley. And when it was all done the foreman said, Boys, it’s a great job, and I’m going to Florida this winter and sit in the sun and drink beer. Man, you should see how nice those horns turned out, I mounted them myself on walnut veneer.

  After the valley was concrete from end to end the landscape crew sowed wire bunch-grass on the dead soil with tar mulch, and the contractor himself came out and said, Now that’s what I call pretty.

  So the road was opened at last and all the people who had been impatiently awaiting the day started fiercely driving over it, exulting in their tremendous horsepower and noise and the speed with which they arrived at the next traffic jam, all the happy people in campers and hard-tops and Minis and Caddies and muscle-hogs and beetles and panels and cycles and ranch-wagons, and all air-conditioned too. They only open their windows to cast out paper and plastic and tin and broken glass, which nestles in the wire-grass roots to form burning lenses in the smoky sun, and when the rain falls it is carried off in cleverly engineered sluiceways so that the water dries up in the flesh of the earth and the sea is fouled. And the shining cars rush on smoothly night and day burning the black secret blood of the mother and sending its smoke upon the lifeless air.

  The people are happy in their thrumming cars, on their fine new road. Only sometimes, as they zoom through the place where the valley was, their faces become strained and bleak and they have an absurd momentary fear that perhaps they cannot ever stop their engines or get out of their metal shells, but must roar on forever. But they know this is nonsense. Nothing will interfere with them. They will get where they are going.

  And when they indeed and finally get where they are going some among them may have time to ask, Why did we come here?

  Alii Sheldon’s second science-fiction-writing pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon, first appeared August 25,1972, when she submitted “Angel Fix” (included in Out of the Everywhere, Del Rey 1981) to Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story was rejected, as were most of Raccoona’s.This frustrated Alii, because editors were begging Tiptree for stories but not interested in stories that they didn’t know were by the same writer. She had, however, deliberately given Raccoona minor stories that would seem to logically come from a beginning writer. And she had apparently forgotten that even “Tiptree,” whom she had considered an instant success, had sold only ten of thirty-three stories on initial submission.

  The letter from Raccoona accompanying “Angel Fix” included this “autobiographical note”:

  I used to sell feature reporting and travel type pieces. I guess my status peak was the New Yorker. Then I got locked into teaching and research, which shows in this story. But SF is my true love. Please be warned, I’m going to learn to write it, ruat coeluml

  Ed Ferman at F&SF returned it October 6, saying, “Sorry that this one did not appeal to me quite enough to take. I did like the writing, though, and I’d be glad to see others.” By then she had already sent him “The Trouble Is Not in Your Set” (on August 28) and “Press Until the Bleeding Stops” (on August 31), the latter with the short note: “This one is just bare-faced pain.” Ferman rejected that on October 31, and she sent it to Ted White at Amazing on November 22. When he rejected it, she retired the story.

  In a letter to me on November 23,1973, Tiptree wrote:

  Hey, I’ll tell you a secret. Being an incurable weirdo, I decided to send out a couple stories under an assumed name—sorry, I mean a nom de plume. So far neither have sold—the same editors who are ragging me for stuff bounced ‘em out of the slush-pile! Instructive, eh?… I’m just stubborn enough to keep on with it.

  I’ll let you know if one sells. Private entre nous, right?

  Earlier, in an undated letter to me (circa Sep. 72), Tiptree told me of:

  … an old pal of mine who does drawings. She goes by the name of Raccoona, her own name having been, she feels, used up by a high-voltage media star so it no longer belongs to her. I enclose a sheet of doodles I extracted from her pad… I think she may try writing again, she did once. Doesn’t take herself seriously.

  In my reply I said, “Perhaps some time the two of you might be able to work up some words and pictures collaboration. Some of her drawings look a lot like some of your writing.”

  A year later, in the same November 23,1973, letter:

  Oh, listen, before I end this—talk about the surprises of people, remember my asking you about drawing because of this Wisconsin friend, “Raccoona” Sheldon? Well, she never sent any drawings but she did send me, I mean, gave me when I was there, a couple very short pieces of writing. One I don’t understand too well, but the other is quite moving. A sort of ecology fantasy, only—pause for scrabbling in my cartoons—6V2 pages of real big type. Want me to send it along? Even if you have no use for it, she’d be delighted to hear any comments. As I think I mentioned, she’s a shy type. Retreated up there after god knows what. But cheerful. (All my old friends are cheerful. We have to be.) I dunno why no drawings, maybe she’s secretly into writing. She has a lot of nuisancy family to take care of—what the world puts on people…

  The story was sent to me in January 1974. As usual, there were hand-corrections on it, and at the last minute Alii, afraid that I would recognize them as Tiptree’s, rolled the letter back into the typewriter and typed this out-of-alignment P.S.: “Looking it over I see my hash-tracks and recall I fixed it up a trifle. With her consent, I’m like you persnicky about other people’s mss. Maybe you like her version better.”

  I accepted it a couple weeks later: “It’s really nice. Weird. I’ll keep it and run it in Kyben someday soon. I’ll drop her a line and tell her so. Thanks for passing it on.” I ended up publishing it in the first issue of a new fanzine, Kha-tru, in February 1975.

  Go from Me, I Am One of Those Who Pall (a parody of my style)

  Scene: A deserted slaughterhouse, early Sunday morning

  Heroine, stark naked except for a pair of thumbscrews, staggers out of a badly tousled bed. A large box of ten-penny nails falls to the floor. Bed bursts into flames.

  Heroine: “Oh my God, the milkman!”

  Struggles into a hair shirt, opens door.

  Heroine, standing on doorstep: “The air! To breathe the diamond elixir of the great world! Oh, my electric nerves! Where is the milk?”

  Snatches up scrap of lavender johnny paper.

  Heroine, writing furiously: “I must have more milk! The smoldering fires in my bones must be quenched. My blind hunger must be assuaged. What do they c
all that stuff with the vitamin B in it? Oh, this struggle to communicate!”

  Milkman is heard approaching. Heroine tears off hair shirt.

  Milkman: “All right, Miss, what’ll it be?”

  Heroine: “So! You too are committed!”

  Flings herself around Milkman’s midriff.

  Milkman: “Hey!”

  Heroine, choking: “My love, my love! Mine! Loneliness is finished for us two! Your great eyes gaze at my flesh… Come, love!”

  Milkman, bursting into flames: “Uggrrgrrg!” Rushes from scene.

  Heroine, dejectedly picking up bottle of milk: “Oh, fool that I am! Now I’ll have to switch to Borden’s. My heart is a stone, a little black stone. A chip off the rock of death. There must be something wrong with my style. Where the hell is The New York Times?”

  Wanders over to a fresh grave in the front yard.

  Heroine, drinking milk: “Ah yes, now I remember… That delivery boy.

  Utter peace… My very hair stands on end, remembering the quivering intensity of his naked foot nakedly in the small of my back… Death, sweet friend, keep him safe for me… No! I am sentimental! It was my fault, my damned fault! Responsibility—that is the great word. I accept—Human responsibility. I stare at the facts. Expiation!… I will order the Herald Tribune.”

  Places empty milk bottle on grave, returns to house and commences to clean the floor, very humbly, with a blowtorch. Sings to herself.

  Heroine: “I’m going to buy a paper dolly I can call my own …” Bursting out: “Me! Me! Me! That’s all I hear! What’s the use of being a schizoid if I can’t get away from myself? Hate and fear, fear and hate, miserable, puking, sniveling, groveling, ignominious snot-faced limpet that I am! What will I do when the papers give out, read the Christian Science Monitor? What’s the use of using six adjectives if I don’t express what I mean—the incommunicable quintessence of me? The stammering question of my blood, that’s what I mean, if I may say so, call it what you will, but those who know it, knowing naught else beside—what am I saying? I need light, although it will not improve matters much, it’s honest.”

  Sets house on fire.

  Heroine, reflectively: “Men—I hate men. Ugh, the brutality of them! Women are good. Why haven’t I some great women friends? I love women—I will find women! Christ, it’s hot in here. Water! Water for my fevered fetid flushed frenzied …”

  Walks out, muttering. House burns to ashes, leaving heroine sleeping peacefully on grave.

  Ghost of Ernest Dowson, reading a copy of Gone with the Wind, wanders in and sits down beside her. Several puking, snot-faced, etc., limpets emerge from grave and stare reproachfully at Heroine.

  Heroine rolls over in sleep, clutches gravestone. Ghost of newsboy

  breaks from grave at a fast canter and dashes from scene.

  This could go on forever. CURTAIN

  Among her papers after her death, we found a group of poems (published as Clean Sheets, Tachyon 1996), which were written in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and included the one she would mention in “If You Can’t Laugh at It, What Good Is It?”, which actually begins,

  Sitting on a crate before the sunrise,

  I am eating a speckled banana in the public park

  With the poems was this playlet, which was also first published in Clean Sheets. It may be an early parody of Sheldon’s style rather than Tiptree’s, but it helps demonstrate the continuity between Alice Bradley, Alice Davey, Alice Sheldon, James Tiptree, and Raccoona Sheldon.

  The Trouble Is Not in Your Set

  —live from our studio in beautiful Porcupine Crossing, the voice of the Near North Woodlands. And folks, to those of you who have been saying we can’t find fabulous fascinating interviews in upper Bluegill County especially this late at night, I say, Wow! Do you have a surprise coming! Wait till you meet our guests tonight, brought to you by Uncle Carl’s Candlelight Supper-Club on Route 101, blacktop all the way to the bridge. Remember, Uncle Carl says come as you are, folks, sophisticated fun for the whole family. Oh, man, those beef patties. And now I want you to meet our first guest, Mrs. Charlene Tumpak of Wabago Falls. Mrs. Tumpak, you’re looking terrific. Why don’t you call me Dick? Now tell us, Mrs. Tumpak, how does it happen that you’re suing the township for thirty-two new stop signs?

  Sure, Dick, ha-ha. Well, I like stop signs. Don’t we all?

  How about that, folks? Didn’t I say we have some terrific personalities? Tell me, Mrs. Tumpak, why do you like stop signs? When did it start? May I call you Charlene?

  Sure, go ahead, my husband’s deaf. Oh, it started with the yellow, I guess.

  You mean you, uh, dig yellow, Charlene?

  No, first there’s that green light, Dick, it’s so awful cold. Like it just wants you to go on. Go on, keep moving—that’s what the green says. We don’t want you here. No love at all. And then it goes yellow, you know? Warmer. Like it changed its mind.

  Well, that certainly is an intriguing idea, isn’t it, folks?

  Yes. And then it goes red. Real warm! Like stay awhile. Look around, enjoy yourself, the red says to me. And I do, doesn’t everybody? Always something to see and all the other cars, it’s like a party. I love parties.

  Say, that’s some kind of philosophy you have there, Charlene.

  Yes. So when I see the yellow I always go real slow. Because it’s going to get red, you know. And when I see that old green I slow down too because the yellow might come, see? And all the little stop signs, the ones with no lights, you can just stop as long as you want and look all around. You know what I saw yesterday, by the arterial sign? Two gophers. I shouldn’t tell what they were doing, ha-ha. We should have more stop signs so people can enjoy themselves.

  Well, I must say that’s a fascinating viewpoint, Charlene. You mentioned that everybody loves stoplights. Do you know for a fact that other people really enjoy them the way you do?

  Oh sure, Dick. Why they always wave at me. And honk. Oh boy, do they honk.

  Well, that certainly was great, Charlene. I’m sure we all wish you luck in your campaign for more stop signs. Don’t we, folks? Wheel And now it’s time for our next fabulous upper Bluegill County personality, brought to you by Bill and Betty’s Bait and Booze Shoppe at Square Corners. Folks, whatever you need for that big one, Betty has it. And listen to their special this week—two dozen night crawlers with every single fifth of Wilkins Family, the whiskey you can’t forget. Wow, save one for me, Betty. And now our very special guest, Mr. Elwin Eggars. Mr. Eggars moved here from London, England, folks. I guess he knows you can’t beat the Near North Woodland for all-year fun. Tell us, Mr. Eggars, is it true that there was something unusual about your birth?

  Well, yes, you might say so. I was born fully formed. But much smaller, naturally.

  Oh golly, you mean you were a fully formed man at birth, Mr. Eggars? But small?

  Oh, yes. Luckily my parents practiced natural childbirth. Otherwise I’d have been done for, you know.

  Why was that, Mr. Eggars?

  The doctor, you know. The obstetrical chap. Actually it wasn’t the main man himself, it was an intern who got hold of me. First thing I knew he had me upside down, pommeling away. I was choking, of course. All that slime. But I could feel the hate coming at me. Had my Dad not been there they would have done away with me at once.

  Oh, what a Human-interest story, folks. How did your father happen to be there, Mr. Eggars?

  That’s the natural practice, you know, with the husband—my dad, that was—standing by. Really a piece of luck. You see they had discussed the whole thing, many times over in complete detail. So I knew just what to expect. Birth is a terrifying business, I couldn’t get my arms up at all.

  I’m sure the folks would like to know all about this tremendous experience, Mr. Eggars. Can you tell us, what did your father do?

  Well, I knew he was there, you see, although I couldn’t spot him right then what with being upside down and the pounding and the glue. But just as quick as I
could I shouted out, “Dad! Dad! Help!” As loud as possible. I picked on him, you see, because I realized Mother would be in an uncertain state.

  How did you know English? I mean, so soon?

  Oh, that came quite readily. The rudiments rather, I should say. I began to catch on about the fifth month, I should guess. I shan’t tell you what I learned first. Ha-ha.

  Oh, why not, Mr. Eggars? I bet everybody out there is just as thrilled as I am to be hearing this. We want to hear all about it, don’t we, folks? What did you learn first, Mr. Eggars?

  Oh, no, really, I shouldn’t. Ha-ha.

  Come on, you can’t stop now, Mr. Eggars. All the kids are in bed.

  Well, ha-ha. Perhaps I can put it this way. The infant picks up language by association, you know. He sees a dog and hears someone say maiow, or whatever.

  Bow-wow—don’t let me stop you.

  Right. Well, of course I wasn’t seeing anything but I could feel quite a lot, you realize. As well as hear them speaking. And considering my position in those early months, you will readily understand that I had many, shall we say, striking experiences associated with certain words?

  Fantastic, just fantastic, ha-ha-ha.

  I must say it made me intensely curious, you know. I couldn’t discover what on earth the simplest things were. Of course various gurgles and so on could be identified as food, and the jiggling was the auto, et cetera. But imagine trying to decipher shirt, for instance? Or—well, I’d best not.