Again, Dangerous Visions

by edited by Harlan Ellison

  "You son of a bitch," he hears mission control say and then the man at the desk catches his lapse and gasps, "what's wrong? We've lost you. We have you heading earthward. Did you," and the man's voice is a high, heavy squeak against the walls, the dim lights, the three urinary receptacles that move uneasily on the floor, "did you fire the retro-rockets? Did you?"

  "Yes," he says, "I am coming home." He tries to shut off mission with his left hand but the connections are one-way; they are, as the major warned them, constantly audited and the comptroller says, "what are you doing? What are you doing?"

  "I'm going home," he says. "I've had it. I won't take it any more. You cannot program the universe you sons of bitches, there are things going on outside of all of this which you cannot envision let alone understand and there must be an end to this banality: do you understand that? It has got to end sometime. The universe is vast, man is small, you fucking sons of bitches."

  "Crazy," he hears mission control say and he hears the word respectfully, enjoying its admirable precision, its principle of summation, its relevance to the situation at whole. It is the first relevant thing which mission control has ever said to him. "Oh you sons of bitches there are stars out there you haven't even discovered yet, how did you think you could do this to us? We're human, human do you understand that. Oh you bastards," the astronaut says and even for the degree of excitement invoked his voice is remarkably level, "let me tell you there must be an end to all of this and it better not be equivocal."

  Below him, far below him, he can hear the voices of the two men; they are no longer telling jokes, they are no longer describing sites, they are only, in a painful high bleating not unreminiscent of the characters in the children's cartoon, begging the astronaut and mission to tell them what has happened to them. The astronaut flicks on the proper interconnection and says, "I figured I'd take a little jaunt home and then get you on the return trip. Oh you bastards. You bastards."

  He will not get them, of course. The module, computer controlled, invariable to the last, will go all the way it has to go and stagger into the Pacific and there will be a recovery crew for him—because he is no less important than he ever was and maybe moreso—but for the moment, the admonition itself is enough. He folds his hands over his stomach, closes his eyes, feels the slow surge of surfaces coming over to him.

  "It would all be a good deal if I could get fucked," he says then.

  SEEN AS IN DISTANT FRIEZE LIKE BABYLON OR THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

  Much later than all of this the astronaut has a dream; he dreams that he is a character in a story which I am writing about him and as he opens his eyes to confirm what for him can only be a monumental nightmare he sees me staring at him, infinitely patient, infinitely wise, infinitely hurt, knowing everything that he will never understand and he says, closing his eyes, "but why are you writing all this? It isn't even the present let alone the future; it's the past, it all happened a long, long time ago, it's as far in the past as Babylon or the Holy Roman Empire; don't think of me, think of Centaurus, think of the moons of Ariel. I'm only a damned anachronism: why bother, why bother?" and I say to him then putting the paper away and leaning back into my own couch of torment, "of course, of course, but don't you see, you're the future too: the future and the past intermingled and there's no understanding one without the other because we are all linked together; you, history, myself, the possibility, the two of us touchng for a moment in that simulation of motion known as narration and what else is there? In the long run everything is history," and the astronaut says "That's too much for me, I don't understand anything you're saying," and falls quickly back to sleep falling, to his muddled perception, into a long, long spiralling tunnel and at one end of this tunnel is the center of the earth and at the other is the moon and somewhere between the two he whirls in orbit endlessly, seeking, the fine tensors of his eyes guiding him unerringly to the other side of the planet.

  Afterword

  About half of this story is mine, a fifth of it Harlan Ellison's and the remaining 30% is the property of the National Aeronautics & Space Agency which has taught us so well of the uses of metaphor in the past decade and whose future is apt to be at least as interesting as its past.

  The trouble with most modern science fiction for me—make that 90% of it or upwards—is that its writers fail to tangle with the simple implications of their material and the material, due to the rather subterranean origins of the field, is often little more than the exploitation of issues for their easiest outcome. This will be changed, of course; science fiction is now unwillingly being compelled to grow up as our little lunatic asylum is being invaded by a group of attendants who, however clumsily, are taking us toward reality.

  I am not really a science fiction writer—of my 20-odd published stories in the field I would say that only two or three are genre pieces and my novel, The Empty People, is sheer metaphor—but I know this field and care almost passionately for its possibilities and suspect that to the degree literature has any future as a viable force affecting (or afflicting) the lives of men it will be in the field of science fiction. The literary novel, with occasional brilliant one-shots excepted, is pretty well plumbed-out and category fiction, as we know it, is dying. I hope to stay around for a while to witness all the interesting things that should be happening within the next decade; with the exception of this minor morbid streak and chainsmoking, I have no bad habits.

  Introduction to

  STONED COUNSEL

  As with "K. M. O'Donnell," "H. H. Hollis" is a pen-name. I've had dinner with Mr. Hollis and his incredible wife, and I can state without any reservations that he is the single most enthralling dinner conversationalist I've ever encountered. He is also a man for whom one cannot feel anything less than enormous respect. I'd dwell on that, but it's so rare a feeling to get off another human being, I'd probably be talking about something too esoteric for most people to relate to. Suffice it to say, though I know Hollis's real name, substituting me for the Magdeburg hemispheres and pulling me apart by Percherons could not pry from my lips the true identity of this noble creature.

  Though he has not as yet written a novel, Hollis's short stories—"The Guerilla Trees," and "Sword Game," both of which were on the final Nebula ballot for 1968, most prominent among them—have drawn to him a perceptive coterie of readers: those anxious to be in on the ground floor, so to speak, of a building talent.

  The 5700 worder he here offers is a lovely thing, and quite apart from the innovativeness of its subject matter, or the lucidity with which the basic premise is pursued, I'd like to draw your attention to the writing itself. For my money, Hollis is one of the nicest stylists working in our genre today. His style is a model for those of us who rail at the limitations of linear type, who seek with almost psychopathic ferocity to expand the parameters of communication set by mere words on paper. Some of us savage the language shamefully, some of us desert and go to films or other visual media, some of us become so trickily cute we are ripe candidates for Rod McKuen's little publishing company. And men like Hollis see clearly that writing with what Flaubert called "clean hands and composure" is the answer. His stories are direct while subtle, distinct while complex, painstakingly written while seeming fluidly easy. Like the Great Art of Picasso or Astaire or George C. Scott, it all looks idiotically easy: until one tries it and draws grafitti or falls on one's face or makes an ass of oneself in neighborhood theatrics. What I'm submitting here, is that Hollis is (if not already, then potentially) a Great Artist.

  His story here will serve as my Exhibit A in contention of that position.

  As for the man, what he tells us of himself reads as follows:

  "H. H. Hollis is the pseudonym of an admiralty lawyer and professional Texian, with tenuous family connections to Davy Crockett and to Leander Calvin Cunningham, one of the cutthroat heroes of the Battle of San Jacinto. Born in Dallas in 1921, Hollis variously attended Ben Milam Grammar School, North Dallas High School, Southern Methodist University
(B.A. Econ.) and the University of Texas (L.L.B.). Hollis was one of the rebel student leaders who struck the University of Texas for three days in 1944 as part of a series of events leading up to censure of the school by the American Association of University Professors. He is proud of being permanent possessor of a celebrated medal awarded for essays proving the South won the Civil War, of having once been described as 'the most dangerous man in Texas' by a leader of the Neanderthal Democratic Party, and of having been one of the lawyers who tried the first successful suit to desegregate public facilities in Texas. Hollis married the girl of his dreams, and although none of their friends expected the union to last six months, it has continued for twenty-five glorious, fight-filled years. Writing science fiction is Hollis' avocation. He has written, in The Forum of the Science Fiction Writers of America, that he writes science fiction for fun. He has been selling professionally since 1965, and had two stories nominated for the Nebula in 1968, neither of which bore away the palm. One of them was selected to be published in the anthology featuring the winners. Hollis is six feet tall, blue eyed, walks with a cane, and has a touch of distinguished gray at the temples. Although not as flamboyant as some practitioners of the craft, H. H. Hollis is basically as eccentric as they come."

  STONED COUNSEL

  H. H. Hollis

  Corky Craven's cheery whistle was cut off in mid-glissando as he turned into the ground floor entrance of the old Harris County Courthouse. A glass door sucked shut at his back, and the used-up air took him by the throat. When the reek of drugs, paroxysmal sweats, and human misery surrounded him, Craven's first impulse, as always, was to retch. His crisp suit began to deliquesce. His fresh-scrubbed skin itched with grime. The glorious spring morning he had left behind might never have been.

  Not for the first time, the lawyer muttered to himself, "There must be an easier way to earn a living." With a grimace, he felt the grief case in his inside jacket pocket, then in an excess of caution pulled it out and flipped it open to be sure it was packed with a full range of hallucinogens. Two weeks before, he had come without scopolamine and had to take a shot from his opponent's case. The memory shuddered in his head. "Bastard had that scop doctored with LSD, I know he did."

  Craven stood stock still in the tiny entrance room of the courthouse, and took six deep breaths. It was better to immerse oneself in the atmosphere of the old brick and granite mausoleum at once. Otherwise the tailings of drugs and body products in the air might produce a real nausea, and nothing was more unprofessional than a vomiting lawyer.

  In an elbow-width corridor on the second floor, Corky found an old janitor with his head stuck inside a hearing cubicle like Pooh's in the honey jar. He joggled the old man's elbow. "Come on, Peeping Tom, this cube's not posted for a public hearing."

  Cackling, the swamper said, "They diden finish that Dingle deevorce yestiddy. Take a peek. That Judy Halfchick, she's dreaming the balls off them two lawyers for Ole Man Dingle."

  Jerking the senile delinquent's arm, Craven closed the door, but not before he had a glimpse of the three bodies twitching and shuddering, and a quick sniff of the trial mix. His nose told him they had used sodium pentothal to get under quickly, one of the mushrooms to open up the facts, and . . .something, he sniffed again, professional interest aroused . . .one of the hard drugs to keep them going.

  "Hlavcek," he said. "Judith Hlavcek's her name. Counsellor Hlavcek. Clear out of here. Too much air and noise and they'll snap up to consciousness, then the sixth floor will grant a mistrial, and you'll catch hell." Smiling, he went on down the narrow hall. He heard the door behind him open, the quick tap, tap of Judith Hlavcek's heels after him. Still smiling, he thought about the trial. How well he knew what they were doing! With a three-way hookup to the fitting in each left wrist, the mark of the trial lawyer now as wigs were once, they were exchanging enough blood to assure simultaneity and homogeneity in their altered perceptions, while in the triple sensory projector they were working through the differing versions of the same story that each had absorbed from his client's brain.

  Corky shook his head at Lawyer Hlavcek's clicking heels behind him. Mistrial, for sure. Lucky if she got off with a reprimand from the Grievance Committee for breaking off the hearing. All the trouble of another interview with the client. Laymen didn't stand up to drugs the way a hardened trial lawyer did, and if a client lost the thread of the story or improved it too much with his emotions, the last resort was direct ingestion of the facts. Clients had been known to refuse to give up those few cortical cells to be centrifuged and cultured and swallowed by the lawyer, and then Rule 212b came into operation. The client who refused physical preparation of the evidence to his lawyer was subject to the punitive orders of the Court all the way up to not being allowed to present his side of the case at all. Craven felt for Counsellor Hlavcek. Nothing was worse than to be wired up with a lawyer who had all the facts grooving in his cortex when you could fight back only with legal technicalities.

  Judith Hlavcek's arms enwrapped him from behind. He stopped. Her soft face pressed the back of his jacket. He took a step, and she hooked one leg around his. He glanced over his shoulder, and knew, after one look at her tear-stained face, that he couldn't leave her. To hell (he thought) with the Hazlitt show cause order! He reached a hand to push open the door of a hearing cube and press the stud in the door that would light the Conference in Progress sign on the panel. He felt her hand press his shoulder. "Not that room." The voice was throaty.

  Hansl Pahlevsky, his opponent in the Hazlitt case, squeezed his shoulder. Judith Hlavcek vanished, shaking her head, in the dark open door of the cubicle he had activated. Craven swallowed. "That's right. We're up on three today, aren't we? I forgot."

  "Well, don't give me that 'forgot' stuff! You haven't forgot your first roach in law school."

  Craven laughed. "That's right . . .we did smoke that crazy larkspur when we took legal bibliography. If it weren't for time stretching, do you suppose we could ever have got through that three-dimensional index to Corpus Juris Tertium?"

  "Hell no, and I didn't get through it anyway. I got Swede Pi-Ching to drill the whole thing into my head on a packet of those morning glory seeds."

  They turned into the hearing cubicle assigned to them for the Hazlitt show cause. "Why did we call him Swede? I never could figure that out."

  "He claimed to have ingested the whole course of Real Property I and II on a hookah of Irish potato peelings. Ain't that some smoke?"

  "Yeah. What ever happened to Swede?"

  "He's on our embassy staff in Peking . . .trying to turn on the neo-Maoists with rectified opium. So far no smoke. Well, everybody he's allowed to meet is very conservative. They get their highs on tobacco and tea."

  Craven took the grief case from his pocket and opened it on the small table provided for counsel. "Ready?"

  Pahlevsky leaned his chair onto its two rear legs. "There must be a better way to work out differences than this."

  "Well, we could agree to try it by using live witnesses, the way they did in the dark ages."

  Pahlevsky laughed with him. "Sure, sure. Or by combat. I could take you . . .well, with a broadsword."

  "Yeah, probably; but how about under demerol?"

  "Oh no," Pahlevsky said. "Sleep too soon."

  "All right, we've got some facts to be hallucinated. Let's go. What's your poison?"

  "Let's let the Court choose."

  They punched the little console on the counsel table, and got back a standby judge's rap. Taking care to do it simultaneously, each punched his preference of a trial drug into the box, and at once the binding readout came: LSD 3.

  "Damn," said Craven. "That's the second time this week. I'll be psychologically addicted to this dishwater pretty soon. Trade needles, Polly?"

  "Hell no," Pahlevsky replied. "Bottles."

  Silently they traded vials and each loaded a tiny syringe. They made the injections at the same time, and then busied themselves with the headpiece, in which their
dreams would be projected. As the walls of the cube began to swim, each opened the fitting in his left wrist and attached the tube from the blood mixer. With a sigh, Craven lay back on the couch and made himself comfortable.

  At once, a parade of voluptuous beauties began to sway through his forebrain. "How can Hansl do it?" he thought. "There must be something more to his life away from the courthouse than these girls. It's always girls." As his mild disapproval turned the colors of the girls muddy, Pahlevsky's reaction made them softer, rounder, more enticing. Craven began to project thin girls at his opponent, and in a moment, Pahlevsky's girls had grown so fat and Craven's so thin that they turned into rows of binary digits. For a moment, the marching o's and I's were meaningless. Then Corky realized they were repeating, in Morse, "Queerqueerqueerqueerqueer . . ."

  He snorted. That deep muscular contraction was reflected in the fragmentation of the digital figures, and the hemisphere of projection turned dark. It remained dark for a long time, surging with black on blackness, ignorant and irrelevant.

  Craven half-dozed, turning over in the back of his head the industrial matrix of the quarrel. A poisonous effluent from an automatized factory seeped into a stream. The stream was muddy, algae-grown. He contracted his cortex, and the stream became clear and sparkling. Fish leaped over its surface, and it ran faster over the clean stone bottom.