The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction

by Gene Wolfe

  The light grew brighter and brighter; it was gold colored, like sunlight.

  Then Little Tib saw trees, and he began to run. He was actually running among the trees before he realized that they were not real trees, and that the light he had seen came from them—the sky overhead was a vault of cold stone. He stopped, then. The trunks and branches of the trees were silver; the leaves were gold; the grass under his feet was not grass but a carpet of green gems, and birds with real rubies in their breasts twittered and flew among the trees—but they were not real birds, only toys. There was no Nitty and no Mr. Parker and no water.

  Little Tib was about to cry when he noticed the fruit. It hung under the leaves, and was gold, as they were, but for fruit that did not look so unnatural. Each was about the size of a grapefruit. Little Tib wondered if he could pull them from the trees, and the first he touched fell into his hands. It was not heavy enough to be solid. After a moment he saw that it unscrewed in the center. He sat down on the grass (which had become real grass in some way, or perhaps a carpet or a bedspread) and opened it. There was a meal inside, but all the food was too hot to eat. He looked and looked, hoping for a salad that would be wet and cool, but there was nothing but hot meat and gravy, and smoking hot cornmeal muffins, and boiled greens so hot and dry he did not even try to put them in his mouth.

  At last he found a small cup with a lid on it. It held hot tea—tea so hot it seemed to blister his lips—but he managed to drink a little of it. He put down the cup and stood up to go on through the forest of gold and silver trees, and perhaps find a better place. But all the trees had vanished, and he was in the dark again. My eyes are gone, he thought. I’m waking up. Then he saw a circle of light ahead and heard the pounding; and he knew that it was not marbles dropped on a floor he heard, but the noise of hundreds and hundreds of picks, digging gold in the mines of the gnomes.

  The light grew larger—but dimmed at the same time, as a star-shaped shadow grew in it. Then it was not a star at all, but a gnome coming after him. And then it was a whole army of gnomes, one behind the other, with their arms sticking out at every angle, so that it looked like one gnome with a hundred arms, all reaching for him.

  Then he woke, and everything was dark.

  He sat up. “You’re awake now,” Nitty said.

  “Yes.”

  “How you feel?”

  Little Tib did not answer. He was trying to find out where he was. It was a bed. There was a pillow behind him, and there were clean, starched sheets. He remembered what the doctor had said about the hospital, and asked, “Am I in the hospital?”

  “No, we’re in a motel. How do you feel?”

  “All right, I guess.”

  “You remember about dancing out there on the air?”

  “I thought I dreamed it.”

  “Well, I thought I dreamed it too—but you were really out there. Everybody saw it, everybody who was around there when you did it. And then when we got you to come in close enough that we could grab hold of you and pull you in, Dr. Prithivi got you to come back to his bus.”

  “I remember that,” Little Tib said.

  “And he explained about his work and all that, and he took up a collection for it and you went to sleep. You were running that fever again, and Mr. Parker and me couldn’t wake you up much.”

  “I had a dream,” Little Tib said, and then he told Nitty all about his dream.

  “When you thought you were drinking that tea, that was me giving you your medicine, is what I think. Only it wasn’t hot tea; it was ice water. And that wasn’t a dream you had; it was a nightmare.”

  “I thought it was kind of nice,” Little Tib said. “The king was right there, and you could talk to him and explain what had happened.” His hands found a little table next to the bed. There was a lamp on it. He knew he could not see when the bulb lit, but he made the switch go click with his fingers anyway. “How did we get here?” he asked.

  “Well, after the collection, when everybody had left, that Dr. Prithivi was hot to talk to you. But me and Mr. Parker said you were with us and we wouldn’t let him unless you had a place to sleep. We told him how you were sick, and all that. So he transferred some money to Mr. Parker’s account, and we rented this room. He says he always sleeps in his bus to look after that Deva.”

  “Is that where he is now?”

  “No, he’s downtown talking to the people. Probably I should have told you, but it’s the day after you did that, now. You slept a whole day full, and a little more.”

  “Where’s Mr. Parker?”

  “He’s looking around.”

  “He wants to see if that latch on that window is still broken, doesn’t he? And if I’m really little enough to get between those bars.”

  “That’s one thing, yes.”

  “It was nice of you to stay with me.”

  “I’m supposed to tell Dr. Prithivi when you’re awake. That was part of our deal.”

  “Would you have stayed anyway?” Little Tib was climbing out of bed. He had never been in a motel before, though he did not want to say so, and he was eager to explore this one.

  “Somebody would have had to stay with you.” Little Tib could hear the faint whistles of the numbers on the telephone.

  Later, when Dr. Prithivi came, he made Little Tib sit in a big chair with puffy arms. Little Tib told him about the dancing and how it had felt.

  “You can see a bit, I think. You are not entirely blind.”

  Little Tib said, “No,” and Nitty said, “The doctor in Howard told us he didn’t have any retinas. How is anybody going to see if they don’t have retinas?”

  “Ah, I understand, then. Someone told you, I think, about my bus—the pictures I have made on the sides of it. Yes, that must be it. Did they tell you?”

  “Tell me about what?” Little Tib asked.

  Talking to Nitty, Dr. Prithivi said, “You have described the paintings on the side of my bus to this child?”

  “No,” Nitty said. “I looked at them when I got in, but I never talked about them.”

  “Yes, indeed, I did not think so. It was not likely, I think, that you had seen it before I stopped for you on the road, and you were in my presence after that. Nevertheless, there is a picture on the left side of my bus that is a picture of a man with a lion’s head. It is Vishnu destroying the demon Hiranyakasipu. Is it not interesting that this boy, arriving in a vehicle with such a picture, should be led to dance on air by a lion-headed figure? It was Vishnu also who circled the universe in two strides; this is a kind of dancing on air, perhaps.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nitty said. “But George here couldn’t have seen that picture.”

  “But perhaps the picture saw him—that is the point you are missing. Still, the lion has many significations. Among the Jews, it is the emblem of the tribe of Judah. For this reason the Emperor of Ethiopia is styled Lion of Judah. Also the son-in-law of Mohammed, whose name I cannot recall now when I need it, was styled Lion of God. Christianity too is very rich in lions. You noticed perhaps that I asked the boy particularly if the lion he saw had wings. I did that because a winged lion is the badge of Saint Mark. But a lion without wings indicates the Christ—this is because of the old belief that the cubs of the lion are dead at birth, and are licked to life afterward by the lioness. In the writings of Sir C. S. Lewis a lion is used in that way, and in the prayers revealed to Saint Bridget of Sweden the Christ is styled ‘Strong Lion, immortal and invincible King.’ ”

  “And it is the lion that will lay down with the lamb when the time comes,” Nitty said. “I don’t know much, maybe, about all this, but I know that. And the lamb is about the commonest symbol for Jesus. A little boy—that’s a sign for Jesus too.”

  Mr. Parker’s voice said, “How do either of you know God had anything to do with it?” Little Tib could tell that it was a new voice to Nitty and Dr. Prithivi—besides, Mr. Parker was talking from farther away, and after he said that he came over and sat on the bed, so that he was closest of all.
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  “The hand of the god is in all, Mr. Parker,” Dr. Prithivi told him. “Should you prove that it is not to be found, it would be the not-finding. And the not-found, also.”

  “All right, that’s a philosophical position that cannot be attacked, since it already contains the refutation of any attack. But because it can’t be attacked, it can’t be demonstrated either—it’s simply your private belief. My point is that that wasn’t what you were talking about. You were trying to find a real, visible, apparent Hand of God—to take His fingerprints. I’m saying they may not be there. The dancing lion may be nothing more than a figment of George’s imagination—a dancing lion. Levitation—which is what that was—has often been reported in connection with other paranormal abilities.”

  “This may be so,” Dr. Prithivi said, “but possibly we should ask him. George, when you were dancing with the lion man, did you perhaps feel it to be the god?”

  “No,” Little Tib said, “an angel.”

  A long time later, after Dr. Prithivi had asked him a great many questions and left, Little Tib asked Nitty what they were going to do that night. He had not understood Dr. Prithivi.

  Mr. Parker said, “You have to appear. You’re going to be the boy Krishna.”

  “Just play like,” Nitty added.

  “It’s supposed to be a masquerade, more or less. Dr. Prithivi has talked some people who are interested in his religion into playing the parts of various mythic figures. Everyone wants to see you, so the high spot will be when you appear as Krishna. He brought a costume for you.”

  “Where is it?” Little Tib asked.

  “It might be better if you don’t put it on yet. The important thing is that while everybody is watching you and Nitty and Dr. Prithivi and the other masquers, I’ll have an opportunity to get into the County Administration Building and perform the reprogramming I have in mind.”

  “Sounds good,” Nitty said. “You think you can do it all right?”

  “It’s just a matter of getting a printout of the program and adding a patch. It’s set up now to eliminate personnel whenever the figures indicate that their functions can be performed more economically by automation. The patch will exempt the school superintendent’s job from the rule.”

  “And mine,” Nitty said.

  “Yes, of course. Anyway, it’s highly unlikely that it will ever be noticed in that mass of assembler-language statements—certainly it won’t be for many years, and then, when it is found, whoever comes across it will think that it reflects an administrative decision.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then I’ll add a once-through and erase subroutine that will rehire us and put George here in the blind program at Grovehurst. The whole thing ought not to take more than two hours at the outside.”

  “You know what I’ve been thinking?” Nitty said.

  “What’s that?”

  “This little boy here—he’s what you call a wonder-worker.”

  “You mean the little girl’s leg. There wasn’t any dancing lion then.”

  “Before that. You remember when those railroad police ladies threw the gas bomb at us?”

  “I’m pretty vague on it, to tell the truth.”

  (Little Tib had gotten up. He had learned by this time that there was a kitchen in the motel, and he knew that Nitty had bought cola to put in the refrigerator. Little Tib wondered if they were looking at him.)

  “Yeah,” Nitty said. “Well, back before that happened—with the gas bomb—you were feelin’ bad a lot. You know what I mean? You would think that you were still superintendent, and sometimes you got real upset when somebody said something.”

  “I had emotional problems as a result of losing my position—maybe a little worse than most people would. But I got over it.”

  “Took you a long time.”

  “A few weeks, sure.”

  (Little Tib opened the door of the refrigerator as quietly as he could, hearing the light switch click on. He wondered if he should offer to get something for Nitty and Mr. Parker, but he decided it would be best if they did not notice him.)

  “ ’Bout three years.”

  (Little Tib’s fingers found the cold cans on the top shelf. He took one out and pulled the ring, opening it with a tiny pop. It smelled funny, and after a moment he knew that it was beer and put it back. A can from the next shelf down was cola. He closed the refrigerator.)

  “Three years.”

  “Nearly that, yes.”

  There was a pause. Little Tib wondered why the men were not talking.

  “You must be right. I can’t remember what year it is. I could tell you the year I was born, and the year I graduated from college. But I don’t know what year it is now. They’re just numbers.”

  Nitty told him. Then for a long time, again, nobody said anything. Little Tib drank his cola, feeling it fizz on his tongue.

  “I remember traveling around with you a lot, but it doesn’t seem like . . .”

  Nitty did not say anything.

  “When I remember, it’s always summer. How could it always be summer, if it’s three years?”

  “Winters we used to go down on the Gulf Coast. Biloxi, Mobile, Pascagoula. Sometimes we might go over to Panama City or Tallahassee. We did that one year.”

  “Well, I’m all right now.”

  “I know you are. I can see you are. What I’m talking about is that you weren’t—not for a long time. Then those railroad police ladies threw that gas, and the gas disappeared and you were all right again. Both together.”

  “I got myself a pretty good knock on the head, running into the wall of that freight car.”

  “I don’t think that was it.”

  “You mean you think George did it? Why don’t you ask him?”

  “He’s been too sick; besides, I’m not sure he knows. He didn’t know much about that little girl’s leg, and I know he did that.”

  “George, did you make me feel better when we were on the train? Were you the one that made the gas go away?”

  “Is it all right if I have this soda pop?”

  “Yes. Did you do those things on the train?”

  “I don’t know,” Little Tib said. He wondered if he should tell them about the beer.

  Nitty asked, “How did you feel on the train?” His voice, which was always gentle, seemed gentler than ever.

  “Funny.”

  “Naturally he felt funny,” Mr. Parker said. “He was running a fever.”

  “Jesus didn’t always know. ‘Who touched me?’ he said. He said, ‘I felt power go out from me.’ ”

  “Matthew Fourteen: Five—Luke Eighteen: Two. In overtime.”

  “You don’t have to believe he was God. He was a real man, and he did those things. He cured all those people, and he walked on that water.”

  “I wonder if he saw the lion.”

  “Saint Peter walked on it too. Saint Peter saw Him. But what I’m wondering about is, if it is the boy, what would happen to you if he was to go away?”

  “Nothing would happen to me. If I’m all right, I’m all right. You think maybe he’s Jesus or something. Nothing happened to those people Jesus cured when he died, did it?”

  “I don’t know,” Nitty said. “It doesn’t say.”

  “Anyway, why should he go away? We’re going to take care of him, aren’t we?”

  “Sure we are.”

  “There you are, then. Are you going to put his costume on him before we go?”

  “I’ll wait until you’re inside. Then when he comes out, I’ll take him back here and get him dressed up and take him over to the meeting.”

  Little Tib heard the noise the blinds made when Mr. Parker pulled them up—a creaky, clattery little sound. Mr. Parker said, “Do you think it would be dark enough by the time we got over there?”

  “No.”

  “I guess you’re right. That window is still loose, and I think he can get through—get between the bars. How long ago was it we looked? Was that three years?”
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br />   “Last year,” Nitty said. “Last summer.”

  “It still looks the same. George, all you really have to do is to let me in the building, but it would be better if I didn’t come through the front door where people could see me. Do you understand?”

  Little Tib said that he did.

  “Now it’s an old building, and all the windows on the first floor have bars on them; even if you unlocked some of the other windows from inside, I couldn’t get through. But there is a side door that’s only used for carrying in supplies. It’s locked on the outside with a padlock. What I want you to do is to get the key to the padlock for me, and hand it to me through the window.”

  “Where is the computer?” Little Tib asked.

  “That doesn’t matter—I’ll deal with the computer. All you have to do is let me in.”

  “I want to know where it is,” Little Tib insisted.

  Nitty said, “Why is that?”

  “I’m scared of it.”

  “It can’t hurt you,” Nitty said. “It’s just a big number grinder. It will be turned off at night anyway, won’t it, Mr. Parker?”

  “Unless they’re running an overnight job.”

  “Well, anyway, you don’t have to worry about it,” Nitty said.

  Then Mr. Parker told Little Tib where he thought the keys to the side door would be, and told him that if he could not find them, he was to unlock the front door from inside. Nitty asked if he would like to listen to the television, and he said yes, and they listened to a show that had country and western music, and then it was time to go. Nitty held Little Tib’s hand as the three of them walked up the street. Little Tib could feel the tightness in Nitty. He knew that Nitty was thinking about what would happen if someone found them. He heard music—not country and western music like they had heard on the television—and to make Nitty talk so he would not worry so much, he asked what it was.