The Year's Best Science Fiction 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  But it involved motion, and the Twerlik was not certain it knew how motion might be accomplished. In all the eons of adding to its feathery perimeter, it had never had occasion to shift any of its limbs from where they lay upon the sand. It was not quite certain it could do such a thing. Still, it told the me, if there were a way, then it was obligated to use this way, no matter what the difficulties thus entailed. Repayment of the men-things was a legitimate debt of honor. It had to be done no matter what the cost.

  So it attempted various methods of locomotion.

  It tried, first, to flex and wriggle its filaments as the men-things did, but nothing happened. Bewildered, it checked through its file of new concepts and discovered “leverage.” On this principle did the men-things move. They had “muscle” which “contracted” and caused a “tendon” to shift the angle of a “bone.” The Twerlik had none of these necessary things.

  So it tried “propulsion,” the force which had moved the spaceship, and discovered that it lacked “combustible fuel” and hollow channels for the energy called “firing tubes” and some built-in condition of these tubes called the “Venturi principle.”

  It pondered for a long time then, not even bothering with things the men knew as “pistons” and “cylinders” and “wheels”—since the use of these involved a free moving segment and the Twerlik could not operate save as a whole.

  Finally, after thousands of those intervals which it had come to think of as “moments,” it came upon the concept of “magnetism.” The forces involved came well within its scope.

  By subtle control of the electron flow along the underside of one of its five-mile limbs, and the creation of an electronic “differential” flow along the top, it found that the consequent repulsion-attempts of its upper and lower surfaces resulted in the tip of the limb describing a “curl.” Once this basic motion had been achieved, the rest was simple, for the Twerlik learned swiftly. In a few short moments, it had evolved a thing called “coordination” and found to its delight that it could raise, lower or otherwise manipulate limbs, filaments and cilia with ease, in a pleasant, rippling whip-motion.

  This new power being tested swiftly and found quite enough for its purposes, it set to work repaying the men for their great kindness to it.

  The men, it noted as it worked, were undergoing a strange somnolence called “sleep,” inside the spaceship. The Twerlik realized with joy that it could indulge in what men-things called a “surprise” if it worked with sufficient rapidity.

  Draining its energies with uncaring profligacy, it coiled and swirled and contracted itself until its cilia and filaments and limbs lay all about the spaceship and everywhere within it save upon the men-things. The Twerlik found that it was greatly weakened by this unwonted output, but it was a dedicated Twerlik now, and did not stop its continuation to the task at hand. It worked, and molded, and rearranged. It grew dizzy with the effort, until a stray groping strand of cilium found the energy-crammed metal housed in the tank near the firing-tubes of the spaceship. Into this metal the cilium burrowed, and then began drawing upon the energies therein like an electronic siphon, feeding out the particles of raw power to the rest of the Twerlik, that the entirety of the creature might perform this labor of love.

  It took many thousands of moments for its task to be done, but it was a contented—if desperately weary— Twerlik which finally uncoiled its incredible barely-greater-than-a-pound enormous size from the spaceship.

  Once again it retreated in all directions, to lie weakly in the dim light of the distant star and await the awakening of the men-things.

  It noted, disinterestedly, that the shape of the spaceship was slightly altered. It was widening slowly near the base, and bulging about the middle, and losing height. The Twerlik did not care. It had shown its gratitude, and that was all that mattered.

  Abruptly, men-things were leaping from the doorway of the ship, shouting empty sounds which the Twerlik could only interpret as songs of “fear,” though no “words” were used. They were—ah, that was the term—”screaming.”

  It could make no sense of it. Were the men-things mad? Had it not given them what they desired most? Had it not even worked upon the “food” and “water” for them, so that every item they possessed would be vastly improved?

  The Twerlik could not understand why the men were acting so strangely. It waited peacefully for them to use the now-improved heaters and lamps, that it might restore some of its deeply sapped strengths. But they made no move to do so. They were using words, now, having gotten over their “screaming.” Words like “trapped” and “impossible” and “doomed.”

  They were, sensed the Twerlik, terribly unhappy, but it could not comprehend why.

  It seemed to have to do with its gesture of repayment. But along this line of reasoning the Twerlik could not proceed without bafflement. It thought momentarily of removing the gift, and restoring things to what they had been, but then realized that it no longer possessed the necessary energies.

  So it sat and pondered the ways of men, who seemed to desire nothing so much in life as the acquisition of an element called “gold,” and yet acted so oddly when they were given a spaceship made of it.

  The Twerlik sadly filed “screwy” in close juxtaposition to the men-concept in its brain, and when at last the men-things had lain upon the gray sand and moved no more, it transmuted their elements into that substance they loved so well with its last burst of waning strength.

  Then it lay there upon the cool gray sand, sucking life from the dim, distant star of its planet, and thought and thought about men-things, and wondered if it would ever be satisfied to be nothing but a Twerlik forever, with no more creatures to be good to.

  It knew one thing, however: it must not give men gold again. The next spaceship to land upon its planet, after two revolutions about the sun, was filled with men-things, too.

  But these men-things had had an accident to the thing called their “reclamation tanks.” They were all thick-tongued and weak, and a quick analysis of their conversation showed the Twerlik that these men were different from the others. They desired nothing so much as a comparatively simple molecule known to them as water.

  The Twerlik was only too eager to help.

  And, when the transmutation of this second spaceship had been completed, right over the thirsty gray sands, the Twerlik proudly added “permeability” to its vocabulary.

  <>

  * * * *

  And then there was the issue of the Sunday Times containing two separate pieces headlined, “Life on Mars?”

  Sullivan’s article on the science page reported on recommendations made to the National Academy of Sciences by a meeting of distinguished scientists who declared, “We believe it entirely reasonable that Mars is inhabited with living organisms” and urged a program to land “an automated biological laboratory” on Mars in 1971 or 1973.

  The piece on the editorial page said stiffly: “The biological exploration of Mars will not be cheap, and available funds for scientific research and development are limited.”

  If I had any lingering doubts, they are gone. It is actually happening: the cosmonaut space-acrobatics and the Gemini launching programs are not simply part of a global drama of prestige and influence conflicts. We are actually on our way. In another year or two, someone will set foot (or spaceboot) on the moon’s surface for the first time. I know it is so now, because the Times is seriously disturbed about the cost of exploring for life on Mars.

  * * * *

  Science has caught up with science fiction. We have gone too far with the hardware and techniques of space travel to leave much of a field for inventive imagination to work in. We have not yet gone far enough into space itself to acquire the new knowledge that will generate a whole new phase of speculative science and fiction.

  Meantime, science fiction is leaping ahead of science, on today’s frontiers. The exciting new work is not in rocketry but in biochemistry, in behavioral psychology,
in parapsychology, in anthropology and information theory and communications. And in a backwards way, this is bringing back the space story, but a different kind of space story.

  * * * *

  A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES

  Roger Zelazny

  I

  I was busy translating one of my Madrigals Macabre into Martian on the morning I was found acceptable. The intercom had buzzed briefly, and I dropped my pencil and flipped on the toggle in a single motion.

  “Mister G,” piped Morton’s youthful contralto, “the old man says I should `get hold of that damned conceited rhymer` right away, and send him to his cabin.

  Since there’s only one damned conceited rhymer...”

  “Let not ambition mock thy useful toil.” I cut him off.

  So, the Martians had finally made up their minds! I knocked an inch and a half of ash from a smoldering butt, and took my first drag since I had lit it. The entire month’s anticipation tried hard to crowd itself into the moment, but could not quite make it. I was frightened to walk those forty feet and hear Emory say the words I already knew he would say; and that feeling elbowed the other one into the background.

  So I finished the stanza I was translating before I got up.

  It took only a moment to reach Emory’s door. I knocked twice and opened it, just as he growled, “Come in.”

  “You wanted to see me?” I sat down quickly to save him the trouble of offering me a seat.

  “That was fast. What did you do, run?”

  I regarded his paternal discontent:

  Little fatty flecks beneath pale eyes, thinning hair, and an Irish nose; a voice a decibel louder than anyone else’s.....

  Hamlet to Claudius: “I was working.”

  “Hah!” he snorted. “Come off it. No one’s ever seen you do any of that stuff.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and started to rise.

  “If that’s what you called me down here—”

  “Sit down!”

  He stood up. He walked around his desk. He hovered above me and glared down. (A hard trick, even when I’m in a low chair.)

  “You are undoubtably the most antagonistic bastard I’ve ever had to work with!”

  he bellowed, like a belly-stung buffalo. “Why the hell don’t you act like a human being sometime and surprise everybody? I’m willing to admit you’re smart, maybe even a genius, but—oh, hell!” He made a heaving gesture with both hands and walked back to his chair.

  “Betty has finally talked them into letting you go in.” His voice was normal again. “They’ll receive you this afternoon. Draw one of the jeepsters after lunch, and get down there.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “That’s all, then.”

  I nodded, got to my feet. My hand was on the doorknob when he said: “I don’t have to tell you how important this is. Don’t treat them the way you treat us.”

  I closed the door behind me.

  I don’t remember what I had for lunch. I was nervous, but I knew instinctively that I wouldn’t muff it. My Boston publishers expected a Martian Idyll, or at least a Saint-Exupery job on space flight. The National Science Association wanted a complete report on the Rise and Fall of the Martian Empire.

  They would both be pleased. I knew.

  That’s the reason everyone is jealous—why they hate me. I always come through, and I can come through better than anyone else.

  I shoveled in a final anthill of slop, and made my way to our car barn. I drew one jeepster and headed it toward Tirellian.

  Flames of sand, lousy with iron oxide, set fire to the buggy.

  They swarmed over the open top and bit through my scarf; they set to work pitting my goggles.

  The jeepster, swaying and panting like a little donkey I once rode through the Himalayas, kept kicking me in the seat of the pants. The Mountains of Tirellian shuffled their feet and moved toward me at a cockeyed angle.

  Suddenly I was heading uphill, and I shifted gears to accommodate the engine’s braying. Not like Gobi, not like the Great Southwestern Desert, I mused. Just red, just dead...without even a cactus.

  I reached the crest of the hill, but I had raised too much dust to see what was ahead. It didn’t matter, though; I have a head full of maps. I bore to the left and downhill, adjusting the throttle. A crosswind and solid ground beat down the fires. I felt like Ulysses in Malebolge—with a terza-rima speech in one hand and an eye out for Dante.

  I rounded a rock pagoda and arrived.

  Betty waved as I crunched to a halt, then jumped down.

  “Hi,” I choked, unwinding my scarf and shaking out a pound and a half of grit.

  “Like, where do I go and who do I see?”

  She permitted herself a brief Germanic giggle—more at my starting a sentence with “like” than at my discomfort—then she started talking.

  (She is a top linguist, so a word from the Village Idiom still tickles her!)

  I appreciate her precise, furry talk; informational, and all that.

  I had enough in the way of social pleasantries before me to last at least the rest of my life. I looked at her chocolate-bar eyes and perfect teeth, at her sun-bleached hair, close-cropped to the head (I hate blondes!), and decided that she was in love with me.

  “Mr. Gallinger, the Matriarch is waiting inside for you to be introduced. She has consented to open the Temple records for your study.” She paused here to pat her hair and squirm a little. Did my gaze make her nervous?

  “They are religious documents, as well as their only history,” she continued, “sort of like the Mahabharata. She expects you to observe certain rituals in handling them, like repeating the sacred words when you turn pages—she will teach you the system.”

  I nodded quickly, several times.

  “Fine, let’s go in.”

  “Uh—” She paused. “Do not forget their Eleven Forms of Politeness and Degree.

  They take matters of form quite seriously—and do not get into any discussions over the equality of the sexes—”

  “I know all about their taboos,” I broke in. “Don’t worry. I’ve lived in the Orient, remember?”

  She dropped her eyes and seized my hand. I almost jerked it away.

  “It will look better if I enter leading you.”

  I swallowed my comments, and followed her, like Samson in Gaza.

  Inside, my last thought met with a strange correspondence. The Matriarch’s quarters were a rather abstract version of what I might imagine the tents of the tribes of Israel to have been like.

  Abstract, I say, because it was all frescoed brick, peaked like a huge tent, with animal-skin representations like gray-blue scars, that looked as if they had been laid on the walls with a palette knife.

  The Matriarch, M’Cwyie, was short, white-haired, fifty-ish, and dressed like a queen. With her rainbow of voluminous skirts she looked like an inverted punch bowl set atop a cushion.

  Accepting my obeisances, she regarded me as an owl might a rabbit.

  The lids of those blank, black eyes jumped upwards as she discovered my perfect accent. —The tape recorder Betty had carried on her interviews had done its part, and I knew the language reports from the first two expeditions, verbatim.

  I’m all hell when it comes to picking up accents.

  “You are the poet?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Recite one of your poems, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but nothing short of a thorough translating job would do justice to your language and my poetry, and I don’t know enough of your language yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “But I’ve been making such translations for my own amusement, as an exercise in grammar,” I continued. “I’d be honored to bring a few of them along one of the times that I come here.”

  “Yes. Do so.”

  Score one for me!

  She turned to Betty.

  “You may go now.”

  Betty muttered the parting formalities, gave me a strange sideways l
ook, and was gone. She apparently had expected to stay and “assist” me. She wanted a piece of the glory, like everyone else. But I was the Schliemann at this Troy, and there would be only one name on the Association report!

  M’Cwyie rose, and I noticed that she gained very little height by standing. But then I’m six-six and look like a poplar in October; thin, bright red on top, and towering above everyone else.

  “Our records are very, very old,” she began. “Betty says that your word for that age is `millennia.`”

  I nodded appreciatively.