Short Stories - Metrognome and other Stories

by Alan Dean Foster

  She wasn't the usual date, but he'd expected as much. Quiet, watching everything and everyone no matter where they went. As he slowly won her confidence she let him take her anywhere, except for parties. She absolutely re­fused to go partying.

  "I don't like them," she told him frankly. "The peo­ple are noisy, they drink too much, and then they get silly and out of sorts. You can't learn anything from peo­ple in that state. They all act like preadolescents."

  "Not like us mature folks, hmm?"

  He was joking, but she wasn't.

  "We're not mature, Troy. We're both still adoles­cents."

  "Maybe you think of yourself that way, Eula, but I don't. I'm twenty‑three."

  He could not interpret the look she gave him. Finally she said, "Each of us has an image of ourselves, Troy. I know what I am. I won't be an adult until I graduate. Until I go home."

  He shrugged it off. "Hey, I really don't much care for loud parties myself. I just thought it was something you might find educational."

  Her smile returned. "I probably would, but not enough to overcome my distaste. Let's go somewhere else to­night." She softened her criticism by moving close to him. It was a first, of sorts. He put his arm around her, no easy task. At six feet, he was a foot taller than she was.

  Two months, he thought, enjoying the warmth of her lithe body. Two months to warm her up this much. Yet the old sense of thrust and parry, of chase and conquest, had left him weeks ago. This girl was not just another mark. She was special, unique, and he'd been more deeply affected by her than he'd realized at first. Her quiet sincerity, her honest shyness had reached something deep inside him, had struck something dormant and now slowly awakening.

  To his great surprise, he understood that he was falling in love.

  Shelby had noticed it, too.

  "You're really hung up on this chick, aren't you, man?"

  "Yeah, aren't I, lowlife? And don't refer to her as a chick, please."

  Shelby put up both hands defensively. "Excuuuse me! Well, it's your life, Troy. Just don't let her run it."

  Troy glanced up from the history text he was perusing. It hurt to know that Eula was only a short elevator ride away. But she insisted on separate study time as well as on her privacy. She refused to let him monopolize her.

  "I won't. She doesn't want to."

  "She still doesn't intimidate you?"

  Troy shook his head.

  "Well, she would me, man. When I saw that first blank stare on you, I thought I'd better do a little checking, since you were obviously too far gone to care. I mean, we've shared this dump for three years now. You're a good buddy, Troy . I wouldn't want you to get into something over your head."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" He closed the book, shoved the snake‑necked Tensor light aside.

  Shelby studied the fingernails on his right hand. "Just that she's the hidden wonder of the senior class. You ever ask her what she's majoring in, how many units she taking?"

  Troy shook his head. "She likes her privacy, remember. I think she's some kind of general major."

  His roommate laughed. "You're right there. I guess when you're taking everything, that qualifies you as some kind of general major. She's a regular Einstein. She's carrying three majors: world history, anthropology, and botany. Seventy‑six units. What's more, she's doing each curriculum under a different name, and none of 'em are Eula or anything like it."

  Troy struggled to digest his friend's information. He could not conceive of any human being carrying that many units. Of course, he didn't really know much about her school hours. He rarely saw her during the day.

  "That's physically as well as mentally impossible."

  "That's what I thought, man, but she's doing it. I won­der why the three aliases."

  Troy thought furiously. "You said it yourself. She's shy, private. If what she's doing got out on campus, she'd have her picture plastered over every paper in town."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I guess she would. And when the two of you are out together, she doesn't make you feel infe­rior?"

  "No, never."

  "Sparing your male ego, I bet."

  "No. That's not like her, Shelby. She's not like that. For all her intelligence; she's still unsure of herself. She's got to be at least twenty, yet she always refers to herself as an adolescent."

  He kept his friend's information to himself, afraid to reveal what he'd learned to Eula. He didn't want her to think he'd set Shelby to spying on her. He hadn't, but convincing her of that might be difficult.

  "After graduation," he told her one night as they sat parked on Camelback Mountain overlooking the lights of Phoenix below, "maybe we can take a vacation together. Nothing intimate," he added quickly. "Just a trip to en­joy each other's company."

  "I have to go home, Troy," she told him sadly. "I'm graduating. You know that."

  "Yeah, I know. I'm graduating, too, remember? Surely you can take a week off. As hard as you've worked, you deserve a real vacation." He let his excitement spill out. "My folks have money, Eula. Old money. We can go anywhere, anywhere you want to. Africa. Europe. The Seychelles. Frog hunting up the Amazon."

  She laughed at that, filling the night with beauty. "You know me a little, Troy. More than anyone else I've met during my schooling.. Yes, I'd like to go looking for frogs up the Amazon. But I can't. I have to go home. I have to graduate. It's not something I could avoid even if I wanted to. And Troy . . ." She hesitated, looked away from him. There was a vast sorrow in her. "You might not like me anymore after I graduate."

  He frowned uncertainly. "That's a hell of a thing to say. What difference does graduation make? I'm going to get a master's. We're graduating together."

  "No, Troy. We're not. Where I come from graduation means something more than it does for you. I'm gradu­ating out of adolescence as well as school. It's a big change."

  "Well, change, then, but don't worry about me still liking you afterward." He couldn't hold it back any longer. It seemed time was running out on him. On them. "Don't worry about me still loving you afterward."

  "Troy, Troy, what am I going to do about you?"

  "How about this for right now?" He leaned over and kissed her. She resisted only briefly.

  He looked for her during the graduation ceremonies but couldn't find her in the crowd of caps and gowns. That wasn't surprising. If Shelby's information was right, she could have been with the graduating class of any one of three different departments. So he had to content him­self with waiting out the speeches of the honored guests, the turning of the tassels, and the throwing of their mor­tarboards in the sir by the new lawyers before he could break from the crowd and rush for his car.

  She didn't answer her door. He waited all that day, dully accepting the stream of congratulatory calls from his parents and relatives back east, checking hula's door and phone every ten minutes. Day became night, and still no sign of her. Had she gone already? Skipped the ceremonies and disappeared? Surely, knowing how he felt about her, she wouldn't just pack up and leave without even saying good‑bye.

  Or maybe she would, he thought desperately. Maybe she'd think it was better this way. A clean, quick break, no tears, no lingering emotional farewells. Maybe that was how they did it in her country.

  He raced upstairs. Her door was still locked. He ig­nored the stares of the other residents as he kicked re­peatedly at the barrier, kicked until his leg throbbed and his feet were sore. Eventually the door gave, collapsed inward.

  Save for the rented furnishings, the apartment was empty. Every personal effect was gone, down to the last tiny porcelain amphibian. He searched nonetheless, yanking out drawers, scouring closets, finding nothing. Clothes, makeup, toiletry articles, everything gone.

  He ran back out into the hall, checked his watch. Eleven o'clock. She might be anywhere by now. His first thought was to check the airport. Then he realized he still didn't know her last name. If Shelby was right about her multiple aliases, he might not even know her first
name.

  Shelby was standing there in the hall neat to the ele­vators, watching his friend.

  "Where is she, man?" He gripped his roommate by the shoulders. "Where'd she go?"

  "She said she was going home. I was surprised to see her. Thought she'd be at the graduation ceremonies, like you. That's all I could get out of her, man. Honest. She was shipping her stuff out. I don't know what she took with her, but there was a big Salvation Army truck load­ing up downstairs while she was moving out. Maybe she gave all her stuff away. "

  "Not her frog collection," Troy muttered. "She wouldn't part with that. Not that. You sure she didn't say how she was leaving? Plane, train, bus?"

  Shelby shook his head. "I saw her drive off in that little rented Datsun of hers. Didn't look like she had much luggage with her."

  "Which way did she go?"

  "Hell, what difference does that make, Troy?"

  Shelby was right.. Troy let him go, thinking frantically. If she was traveling that light and going farther than Ethi­opia, she had to be taking a plane. That implied a con­nection through LA or Dallas. Could he check that, using her description alone? It seemed so hopeless. He never should have left the building this morning without her.

  Then he remembered the place. Her favorite place. Out toward Cordes Junction, where the interstate climbed high out of the Valley of the Sun toward the Mogollon Rim country. A vast, empty place. They'd driven up there several times to luxuriate in the solitude and privacy. She hadn't said good‑bye to him. Would she leave without saying good‑bye to her favorite place? It was the only place she'd ever taken him. He was always the one who decided where they'd go. Except for this one favorite place.

  It was a chance, probably a better one than the airport. If she'd gone to the latter, then she was probably already winging her way overseas. He rushed down to the garage and burned rubber as he sent the Porsche roaring out onto the street

  As soon as he cleared the city limits, he opened the car up, ignoring the speedometer as it climbed toward a hundred. He passed the traffic on the steep grade below Sunset Point as if they were standing still. Truck drivers yelled at him as he sped past.

  Then he was off onto the side highway, and then fight­ing gravel and dirt as he spun off onto the country road leading up into the mountains. The creek they'd cooled their feet m so many times gurgled down the dark recess paralleling the road. There, there ahead, was the little slope that overlooked the valley below. Mesquite and scrub oak and juniper made clownish shadows against the moonless night.

  The abandoned Datsun sat forlornly by the side of the road. He pulled off, fumbling for the flashlight he kept in the glove compartment. Exhausted and sweaty from the long drive, he stumbled out of the car and began playing the light around the grove.

  He heard her voice before he saw her. "Troy? Oh, Troy! What are you doing here? Go back, Troy. Go home!"

  He started for her, was amazed to see her slim form backing away from him. "What's wrong, Eula? Why'd you run out on me like that? I would've understood, but dammit, you at least owe me a good-bye."

  "No, Troy, no! I tried to make you understand. I tried.

  Go home, Troy. Don't you understand? I've graduated.

  I'm not going to be an adolescent anymore. I can't‑" She broke off, her gaze turning slowly, expectantly sky­ward.

  There was something overhead, something above them in the night. It was immense, soundless, and falling rap­idly toward them. Troy stood frozen, his head back, the flashlight dangling from his hand as the gargantuan shadow descended. A few tiny lights glowed from its underside. It blocked out the stars soundlessly.

  A brighter, intensifying light drew his attention back to the trees, to where Eula had been, the Eula he'd known, the Eula he'd loved. The Eula who had graduated and left her adolescence. In her place was a vicious, twisting, explosively beautiful pillar of green fire. It tow­ered over the grove of mesquite and juniper, writhing with incredible energy, so bright that it stung his eyes and made them tear. He tried to look at it and shield his face at the same time. Hints of yellow and white crawled across the fiery apparition; bright little explosions of in­tense color danced within it.

  It moved toward him, and he stumbled fearfully back­ward, falling to the ground. The earth was cold under him, but he didn't notice it. The overpowered flashlight was forgotten. It was no longer necessary, anyway. Night was witness to a temporary emerald dawn.

  It whispered to him, full of an awesome incomprehen­sible strength. "I tried to tell you, Troy. I tried."

  Then it rose into the air and vanished into the massive dark presence overhead. The stars returned as the Visitor disappeared. Troy's hands went to his ears, and there was momentary pain as air was explosively displaced by the Visitor's departure. It was gone, and so was what was Eula.

  For a long time he lay there, breathing hard but stead­ily, considering everything that had transpired. He was frightened, but as the night noises returned to normal, he slowly relaxed. Quail peeped hesitantly into the dark­ness, and an owl made a sound like a metronome. Down in the creek frogs resumed their staccato conversations. That even made him smile.

  He understood a little now. About the frogs, anyway.

  Eula had gone home, to a country farther off than he could have imagined. She wasn't an adolescent anymore.

  He stood, dusting off his pants. His legs still worked, carried him toward the car. No need for remorse, he told himself. No need to blame himself for what had hap­pened or for how he'd behaved.

  After all, all little boys love to chase after tadpoles.

  THE TESSELLATED

  TETRAHEXAHEDRAL

  YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS

  Clifford Simak's not with us anymore. Cliff was one of those writers, like Poul Anderson and Jack Williamson, whose stuff slides down so smooth and easy that we just take it for granted. Until it's gone. Only then do we take notice and realize that, hey, nobody else realty does write quite like that, no matter how simple and straightforward and uncomplex it seemed upon repeated readings.

  Cliff's ideas were subordinate to his characters and to the atmosphere he so effortlessly seemed to create. Like a Turner painting, it was the light that was important to Simak, the illumination he provided and not the subject matter, whether ship or skyline or train. A Simak story was like a Piranesi prison suddenly transformed into a galactic flower stall, or a sound picture by Delius, or one of D. W. Griffith's early cinematic efforts such as True Heart Suzie.

  So much science fiction takes place in metropolitan settings or is at least overlaid with an urban sensibility that when stories do move out into the alien territory of the countryside, it's usually done by the author with a slight titter. We utilize the funny folks with the hay in their teeth and the dirty denim coveralls largely as comic relief, or mad murderers, or golly‑gee‑whiz victims of alien invaders. When was the last time the hero of a science fiction or fantasy novel was a farmer?

  Not that we have many real farmers left. Nowadays they're all into agribusiness and have degrees in eco­nomics or business. They raise their beef via artificial insemination, a problem with too much of today's science fiction.

  Several editors thought the following story too long for what it had to tell. There was a time long ago when drat would not have been a criticism. Now we live in a time when we're engulfed by information, when there's never enough time for reflection or contemplation. Movies be­come sitcoms, novels metamorphose into video games, and political and philosophical debates art reduced to sound bites. Reality is what you can put a good spin on. That's not how most of the world lives. That's not even how most of this country lives.

  "Sir, I've got something very peculiar here."

  The lieutenant assumed an irascible expression and walked over. Mobler was not a particularly pleasant man, due in part to an unfortunate childhood disease that had given his skin the form and consistency of a golf ball's surface. This pebbled epidermis would turn color accord­ing to his emotions. At
present both cheeks resembled obese anemic strawberries.

  Despite this, he was respected, if not especially well liked, by the enlisted men and women who served under him. This was sad because Lieutenant Mobler was com­petent and intelligent. It wasn't his fault he looked like a sniffly adolescent instead of a soldier.

  It was dark in the long, sealed room. Illumination came from bulbs, purposely, dim set in the ceiling overhead and from the numerous dials, switches, and screens that lined both walls. Smartly uniformed people sat intent before the instruments. When they conversed at all, it was in whispers. A natural somberness kept talk soft and furtive, not orders. The purpose behind this room was well known to all who worked in it, and this itself was enough to inspire reverence and quiet.

  Now that businesslike attentiveness had been broken, and Mobler would know the reason why. Standing behind the young electronics spec. seven, he peered over his shoulder at the circular screen in front of them. It was lit from within by a rich fluorescence the color of pea soup. Right away he noted the cause of the specialist's com­ment without detecting the declared peculiarity of it.

  "So you've got a track, Davis. What's so startling about that?"

  Grimacing uncertainly, the specialist pointed to several small gauges set into the console at the screen's lower left. Mobler leaned close to read them, a movement shoving his prominent Adam's apple taut against neck skin. Then he frowned, turning the tiny craterlets on his face linear.

  "It's not possible," he finally announced. His voice was surprisingly deep.

  "That's just what I thought, sir." The specialist stared now not at the screen but at his superior. He was waiting for orders but hoping for an explanation.

  Mobler turned, looked down the long row of seats. His tense words were unnaturally loud in that funereal at­mosphere. "Colson, Matthews. Specialist Davis's instru­mentation insists it's got a small object reentry coming in from the west on irregular descent at three thousand kilometers per."

  One of the women started. "Pardon, sir," Matthews queried, "three thousand and irregular?"