There’s silence, except you can hear birds. The instruments shine out as if they were the mirrors we signaled with up in the village. Somebody must have timed it to be exactly this way. That’s a Hoot kind of thing. They’re always into art and beauty. And they wouldn’t have had to figure it out, they could have smelled the time the sun comes up.
Lily is so impressed she gives a loud, “Ooooh.” All of us down there do, too, but the Hoots don’t. Every Hoot looks up at our window, but none of us do. The Hoots hear her even with all those other oooohs going on, which goes to prove, again, that my kind can hardly hear or smell or see anything. Of course they already knew we were up here. They’d have seen us if we’d moved at all. (Little Master always said even if we just move our eyeballs, they’d have seen us.)
All of us below are watching those in the sun glitter and shine. (Our kind stops and watches things like this, too, but it’s such a Hoot kind of thing to do. Even though they always talk about not wasting valuable time, they never think art and beauty is a waste of time.)
Then I see Blue Bob. He’s right under our window, close to the wall. He’s not looking at the sunrise. He’s looking out at everybody else, arms folded across his chest. He’s got his vacuumer next to him. I wonder what he’s got inside it now. I think he knows Lily and I are up here. He might even have checked in on us as we slept. Without Little Master to see and hear, we never would have noticed.
After the sun has come up enough to shine on all of us, a fancy Hoot rides out in front. This one is still using a bit. The cheek-pieces are of gold on top of silver, and in that pattern I love the most of any. If I had a bit like that, I might want to use it, too. For a few minutes he keeps his Sam trotting in place. It looks so impressive when they do that. And sounds impressive, too. I wish the whole bunch were doing it.
I see his little finger of the hand on the reins twitch, and the Sam stands still, at first at attention, then there’s another little finger twitch, and it’s parade rest. (Those are not Hoot things, we’ve always had that, and we’ve always had racing silks just like these, too.)
“None more loved than you,” the Hoot says. It’s in the cooing-of-a-mother tone of voice. Lily and I hold each other even tighter. We feel loved, and loving, too.
“You are free. All of you. Free. Go.” His arms are out now, his fingers spread. “To the east, to the west, and so forth and so forth, until you are all at a place of your own desire. You will go. You will choose.”
Nobody moves.
“Go. It is as you’ve always wished. Go someplace.”
Nobody moves.
“Or you are free to live here in prison, which is your prison now.” He pauses. It’s a long pause, then, “You may speak.”
No one does.
He raises one arm up and then across his chest. “The same gesture that rejects, accepts,” he says. “The words that tricked become the words of truth.”
Another pause. He expects something of us—for one of us to say something. Who would do it? If not me?
“We bear our throats to you,” he says. “As you, on the other hand, would bow, offering the back of your necks.” And his head is raised so his neck is vulnerable.
“There will be, if you wish it, things that glint and glitter. As cut diamonds. Their smell is the smell of time and of deep places, their facets are the facets of the light itself. Many other things will be given, such as racing shoes. Those of you who host us at this very moment, have been given, as well as many tidbits, racing silks, hats, and replicas of themselves in gold.”
I’d like nice, new racing shoes just about more than anything I can think of, and if they gave them to everybody, wouldn’t that be as democratic as a thing could be? There’s no need to vote on it. Everybody would want them.
But somebody ought to do something. My father would. Here’s Blue Bob right here and he’s not saying a word. Why isn’t anybody saying things?
I know I don’t know much, but I have a voice that sounds out. People pay attention. I could say thank you, and we do want shoes.
Except Little Master said it was all a trick. I have to remember and not get tricked.
But thinking gets me all mixed up, and I’m never going to know what freedom means, or even if I like it, or even what it’s for. When have I ever been free? Especially I wasn’t, up in what they called the free village. Besides, did my father think at all when he jumped that big jump to try and save me?
I yell.
Bob is reaching up towards me already. I jump. Down into his arms. It’s as if we’d planned it. It’s as if I’m my father, the Sam who rides avalanches.
It was already pretty quiet except for the Hoot’s voice singing out, high and sweet. Now it’s just me, and my voice isn’t sweet. It’s raw and rough and it yodels right in the middle. I’ll bet I’m scary.
All us Sams and Sues, and the Hoots, too, gasp when they see me jump and hear me.
When I land, I’m halfway as if mounted on Bob. Two Seattles, one on top of the other. I’m the highest of anybody. This feels exactly like when my father carried me and Little Master all the way up, across the pass and down the other side. And just as I felt with my father back then, I can feel how strong Bob is, even still.
I stop yelling, but everybody’s still listening. Then I say what my father said. “Hoots are here to stay.”
The Hoots coo at me, and this time my kind doesn’t yell no, and shake their fists, like they did up in the village. Even so, I yell, “They are, they are. But it’s us who should be saying what we’ll give to them. If they like shoes, we’ll give shoes.” That’s a dumb thing to say (what Hoot would need shoes? Except maybe they will someday). “If they like gold, we’ll give gold. It’s us who will be kind. We’ll have the tidbits. It’s us who’ll imprint their babies.”
But then I hear a long, loud, Hootish “Hoooo,” and then long, loud “No, no, nos,” and then I hear everybody catch their breath again, us and them, too.
I should have known. Of course it’s Little Master. Who else would be saying I’m all wrong? He’s trotting in on his own. His hoing doesn’t hurt our ears, but any louder and it would. I lean over when he gets close to me and reach down. He grabs my hand, climbs up Blue Bob, and mounts me. He yells out, “We’ll all have shoes. We’ll all have diamonds. We’ll imprint each other. This mount and I have already done it.”
At first I don’t know what he means, and then I realize that’s exactly what we did do.
I say, “This is my true friend.”
My kind doesn’t yell no at this, either. I suppose that’s because most of us here are not incorrigible guards’ mounts like the ones at the village, and the ones that maybe are, maybe have started to hope for something different.
But then the Hoots’ ears swivel to the right, all of them, all at once, and a second or two later their heads turn and they look up. We do the same. Not because we hear anything, but because they do. Then, finally, and probably last of any creatures on this whole wide world, we finally hear, too. Our airplanes.
The guards’ mounts . . . it’s as if this is what they were waiting for . . . they buck and pull at their hosts until all the Hoots are crawling around with nothing to hang onto but each other. They form wobbly clumps of threes and fours. Though they’re dressed all fancy, now they look ridiculous. And it is chaos, at least for them.
That head Hoot guard, who spoke before, is leaning on two others, trying to stand up, and calling, “My dears. My sturdys. My one-and-onlys. . . .” But nobody is paying attention. “Go. Yes, yes,” he says, “but in a different moment and in a different way. Wait. There are other things. . . . Races to be won.”
But he gets drowned out. Even he, because all the other Hoots . . . all do their hos. We have to lean over and hold our ears. Little Master has his hands on top of my hands to help me hold out the sound.
I’m thinking, no wonder Hoots took over with hardly any killing, though it’s a wonder we aren’t all deaf. I wonder why we aren’t?
The head Hoot wobbles up to Bob and me and Little Master. (Little Master is still more or less mounted. He’s hanging on to my hair as I get up. That’s a baby Hoot thing. It isn’t ever done, because what would happen to your hairdo?)
That Hoot is just standing there, as if waiting for me to say something. I’m thinking, do I have to be the one to speak again? It has to be important. But then Bob says, “This is Heron’s son, and this is His Excellent Excellency, Present-Ruler-Of-Us-All.”
“It is known.”
Bob says, “No one can begin the new ways and no one can go on except these two.”
“Already known. But we must have mounts. You can see that. What if several new things became the truth, such as: Stalls of many stories the way you used to live, and your racing ribbons on your own walls? What if three or even four of you for one single job, and a say in when and what? What if we, ourselves, would sweep?”
“I’ve heard your poles are about to lose their power.”
“Even the lighting system, the white wires, the warmth. . . . All too soon gone. We knew this time would come. So are we to crawl into our burrows and let our blood run slow as snakes at night?”
“If I were you, I’d learn to walk. Also, we can build you stools that move.”
“We accept.”
The airplanes are circling. I read about bombs. Except they’d get us and them both. No doubt about it, we’re in this together. At least we are right now. Maybe always, like my father said.
Bob says, “We also accept. We will live contented as long as these two are, both of them, Munificent. They’re still children, but innocence is called for at a time of new thinking. None of us can think thoughts anything like what these two can think. And, as you have seen, if one of them says yes, the other will say no.”
“We accept.”
This time it’s Blue Bob who says, “Go. Stay if you like and be mounts out of the goodness of your hearts until we’ve made motor stools. You’ll be well-treated. But the rest of you, get out of here.”
He’s like my father, if he says go, everybody goes. Some of the guards’ mounts help their hosts to mount again. Some of us go back in the prison. When I see that, I think about doing it myself. I did, mostly, like it in there. But then I think how I’d like to go up to the village again. I start away, back towards the mountains, but Little Master leans back in stop position. “Your Suefriend! Listen!”
Then I hear her, too. Up at our window. “Charley,” softly, practically a whisper, as if: Who can be expected to be bothered turning back for one like her?
And I had forgotten about her. I know her well enough to know it’s exactly what she knew would happen. It’s a wonder she’s even calling out at all. It’s a wonder she isn’t hunching down, away from the window, making sure we don’t remember her.
I yell, “Lily!” I start to run back into the prison, but Bob shouts, “I’ve got her.” He raises his arms just as he did for me. She’s scared, I can see it, but she jumps. Her mouth is open. Her hair flies up behind her. I never saw anybody so. . . . She really is! It’s as if her very nothingness is what makes her beautiful. And how brave she is. That’s beautiful, too.
She and Bob stand there hugging. I wish it was me had caught her. But she might not want to get close when I have Little Master on me. She’ll have to get used to him. I’ll have to get used to all the Sams and Sues, whichever kind they are. I already have a good start on that.
Later this was said:
For you, then, the Munificent, Magnificent, this gift you have wished for. Several free days in a row to The-Rulers-Of-Our-Voting. You will travel alone and silently. Listening. You will hear the squawk of jays and ravens. You will eat those bitter little berries you have spoken of. You will find the treasures you hid, your doll, and the picture of your mother. There you will greet your mother and your sister and Bright Spot. You will yell out when you come to the yelling-out place where the view comes suddenly upon you. There will be the black mountain on one side and the gray on the other. You will say, “Yes,” because you will be happy. By the stream you will make promises, and to Lily, seeing eye-to-eye. You will face the sunrise. It will be just the way your father turned around to see it. And you will say, “Yes, yes, this is as Heron did.” Then you will return.
This was said, and we were sent away with new boots and a hat. So for us, then, one more time as if forever on the trails, the two of us—the three of us—up to the village.
Little Master says, “Remember the ruins your father showed you? We could make a landslide in the canyon below them. You could do it. We could live a long, sweet life hidden up there.”
“Life isn’t just one long thing of the same things one after another.”
“It could be.”
“We could vote on it. The three of us.”
“Oh, but now, how . . . ,” he says. “How, right now, we do go. Step me. Trot me. Sing me along the paths. All things are songs. Smells and all, good songs. Even the air is a song. I see our shadow, yours and mine. I see how my hat covers us both. How we do go along seeing new things and old things, too. As if this flower was unlike any of the others even of its own kind. It’s as if you also were not of your type, but of yourself, nor I of my type. Go, go, go, now, do go.”
We go.
About the Author
Carol Emshwiller is the author of six novels including Carmen Dog, Ledoyt, Mister Boots, The Secret City, and Leaping Man Hill, as well as collections of short fiction: Joy in Our Cause, Verging on the Pertinent, The Start of the End of It All, Report to the Men’s Club, I Live with You, Master of the Road to Nowhere, and two volumes of Collected Stories. She grew up in Michigan and France and lives in New York City.
Also Available from Small Beer Press
Carmen Dog
Carol Emshwiller
“A rollicking outre satire…. full of comic leaps and absurdist genius.”
—Bitch Magazine
In this dangerous and sharp-eyed look at men, women, and the world we live in, everything is changing: women are turning into animals, and animals are turning into women. Pooch, a golden setter, is turning into a beautiful woman — although she still has some of her canine traits: she just can’t shuck that loyalty thing — and her former owner has turned into a snapping turtle. When the turtle tries to take a bite of her own baby, Pooch snatches the baby and runs. Meanwhile, there’s a dangerous wolverine on the loose, men are desperately trying to figure out what’s going on, and Pooch discovers what she really wants: to sing Carmen.
“A first novel that combines the cruel humor of Candide with the allegorical panache of Animal Farm. . . . There has not been such a singy combination of imaginative energy, feminist outrage, and sheer literary muscle since Joanna Russ’s classic The Female Man.”
–Entertainment Weekly
Available in paperback (9781931520089) and DRM-free ebook (9781931520904) from our websites (smallbeerpress.com and weightlessbooks.com), all good indie bookshops, and all the usual booksellers.
Questionable Practices
Eileen Gunn
Good intentions aren’t everything. Sometimes things don’t quite go the way you planned. And sometimes you don’t plan. . . . This collection of sixteen stories (and one lonely poem) wittily chart the ways trouble can ensue. No actual human beings were harmed in the creation of this book.
“Nebula-winner Gunn combines humor and compassion in 17 short, intricate gems that showcase her many talents. Of particular note among these outstanding works are the poem “To the Moon Alice,” in which a bombastic threat provides escape from comedic domestic violence, and “Michael Swanwick and Samuel R. Delan
y at the Joyce Kilmer Service Area, March 2005,” an affectionate fable-like tribute to two legendary authors. “Up the Fire Road” provides dueling accounts of triadic romance and problematic parentage. “Phantom Pain” is a kaleidoscopic examination of a wounded soldier’s life. Though Gunn first saw print in the 1970s, this short collection contains a surprisingly large portion of her stories; her rate of publication has recently been increasing, giving fans reason to hope for many more delights to come.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Available in paperback (9781618730756) and DRM-free ebook (9781618730763) from our websites (smallbeerpress.com and weightlessbooks.com), all good indie bookshops, and all the usual booksellers.
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
Vol. 1. Where on Earth
Vol. 2 Outer Space, Inner Lands
Oregon Book Award winner.
World Fantasy and Locus award finalist.
“There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin,”wrote Choire Sicha in November. This two-volume collection of her masterful short stories — one book of science fiction, the other of the mundane — “guns from the grim to the ecstatic, from the State to the Garden of Eden, with just one dragon between.”—Slate Top 10 Books of the Year
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