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

by Edited By Judith Merril

  Jake walked right up to the mine and squinted into it and shined his flashlight into it. He was so scared by that time that he didn’t know he was scared any more. And he was angry about Mule, too.

  Jake said, “Hey! You in there?”

  Nobody said anything in the mine, so Jake took his shotgun and shot it into the mine a couple of times.

  Almost right away something went bam! bam! in the mine, and Jake’s old felt hat got pulled right off his head and he felt a breeze across his left cheek. He yelled, “Hey! Hey!” He turned around to get the hat but there wasn’t much left of it so he loaded up and charged straight into the mine. If he’d looked back, he’d have seen the little shot pellets that had torn his hat and almost his cheek bouncing along right behind him. They finally passed him, but he didn’t see them because it was too dark.

  Jake got in to about the place where that rock had gotten up and he saw something he sure hadn’t seen before. There was a big crack in the floor—it wasn’t really big, but it was pretty wide and it looked like it went down a long, long way. Jake shined his flashlight down into it and he couldn’t see anything like a bottom anywhere. There was a kind of green slime all the way down the side of the crack.

  All this sort of made Jake shiver, because he wasn’t a fissure man, and so he walked on into the cave, waving his flashlight all over the place before he took a step.

  All of a sudden a “STOP” sign jumped up in front of Jake. Jake let the sign have it with both barrels, but all the little pieces hopped back together and turned into a rattlesnake.

  Jake swung his shotgun down holding the barrels and he missed the snake and that took care of the shotgun. He started stomping around after the snake—he had on high leather boots, so he didn’t have to worry—and when he finally got his foot right smack on the snake it wasn’t a snake anymore, it was a two-inch nail, and Jake cussed like the devil and jumped up and down with one leg.

  The nail turned into a rubber ball and bounced away. Jake hobbled after the ball as fast as he could. Finally he caught the ball and he went wham right down on the ground, because it wasn’t a rubber ball any more, it was a portable hi-fi-stereo combination radio-TV set with built-in jacks for earphones and a war movie going on.

  Jake lay there with his hand stuck underneath the TV-radio. Then the war movie cut off and an announcer came on and said, “We now have a special announcement. Everybody needs vitamins. You need vitamins, I need vitamins. I need vitamins more than you do, because I’ve had to do without them for three thousand years. I’ve been crawling around under the ground everyday, day in and day out. It’s hot, sweaty work, and I get tired and dragged out. Won’t you contribute your vitamins to the Vitamins for Half-Dead Greek Gods Association/5763 Red Lane/ Rum-Tum-Tummy, Nebraska? Thank you.” A Messerschmitt went wham! into a tree.

  Jake got red in the face and said, “No! No! No! I ain’t gonna give you any of my grub! I’m gonna get my gasoline and burn you up, that’s what I’m gonna do!” He jerked his hand from under the TV set and stood up.

  Right away he had to duck again, because the TV set turned into a locomotive and went pounding out of the mine at full throttle. Jake heard a lot of crashing outside, and he guessed what it was. He showed his teeth and limped out into the open heat of the sun.

  The back of his shack was flying up into the air board by board. By the time Jake got back there, all the tins were either open and hollowed out, or gone. There were the big letters on the floor: “AND I’M STILL HUNGRY, TOO!!” The letters turned into an MG and va-voomed back into the mine.

  Jake didn’t stop to think about what the thing’s still being hungry might mean. His foot hurt, and his hand hurt, and he was mad as hell. He waded into what was left of his cellar and started searching for the gasoline cans.

  By the time he found the cans, the sun was almost down and the light was dim. Jake’s eyes weren’t any too good anyway, and he walked toward a big black spot he thought was the mine and when he got to it it wasn’t there any more, it was a little more to his left. Jake shook his head and flicked on his flashlight and went inside, muttering “I’m gonna burn you up” all the time.

  At first he didn’t notice, but the farther and farther that Jake got into the mine, the less and less it looked like a mine to him. There was something funny about the walls, and maybe about the ground. All of a sudden old Jake got a pretty scary idea, and his chest got all knotted up inside, and he turned around to scram out of there.

  Just then the mine started shaking, and the ground sort of pushed up, and Jake fell down. He didn’t even have a chance to get close to the mouth of that cave before CHOMP !

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  * * * *

  The last two selections for this year are both concerned with the sort of Immortality that gets capitalized—that of the gods, the demigods, the saints and angels.

  There are virtually no other similarities, between stories or authors.

  Robert Rohrer is a nineteen-year-old student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia—another of the Wunderkinder, who reports that he wrote his first salable story at thirteen, and sold it two years later. “I like music; I play the piano, and write more than I study. ... My father is a physics professor and can’t understand why I’m not a scientist.”

  Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in Radzymin, Poland, in 1904. He came to the United States in 1935, and has worked since then as writer and book reviewer for the Jewish Daily Forward in New York. He has received awards and grants in several countries for his work, and his stories have been appearing, over the last two or three years, in most of the “quality” magazines in this country.

  * * * *

  YACHID AND YECHIDA

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  In a prison where souls bound for Sheol—Earth they call it there—await destruction, there hovered the female soul Yechida. Souls forgot their origin. Purah, the Angel of Forgetfulness, he who dissipates God’s light and conceals His face, holds dominion everywhere beyond the Godhead. Yechida, unmindful of her descent from the Throne of Glory, had sinned. Her jealousy had caused much trouble in the world where she dwelled. She had suspected all female angels of having affairs with her lover Yachid, had not only blasphemed God but even denied him. Souls, she said, were not created but had evolved out of nothing: they had neither mission nor purpose. Although the authorities were extremely patient and forgiving, Yechida was finally sentenced to death. The judge fixed the moment of her descent to that cemetery called Earth.

  The attorney for Yechida appealed to the Superior Court of Heaven, even presented a petition to Metatron, the Lord of the Face. But Yechida was so filled with sin and so impenitent that no power could save her. The attendants seized her, tore her from Yachid, clipped her wings, cut her hair, and clothed her in a long white shroud. She was no longer allowed to hear the music of the spheres, to smell the perfumes of Paradise and to meditate on the secrets of the Torah, which sustained the soul. She could no longer bathe in the wells of balsam oil. In the prison cell, the darkness of the nether world already surrounded her. But her greatest torment was her longing for Yachid. She could no longer reach him telepathically. Nor could she send a message to him, all of her servants having been taken away. Only the fear of death was left to Yechida.

  Death was no rare occurrence where Yechida lived but it befell only vulgar, exhausted spirits. Exactly what happened to the dead, Yechida did not know. She was convinced that when a soul descended to Earth it was to extinction, even though the pious maintained that a spark of life remained. A dead soul immediately began to rot and was soon covered with a slimy stuff called “semen.” Then a grave digger put it into a womb where it turned into some sort of fungus and was henceforth known as a “child.” Later on, began the tortures of Gehenna: birth, growth, toil. For according to the morality books, death was not the final stage. Purified, the soul returned to its source. But what evidence was there for such beliefs? So far as Yechida knew, no one had ever returned from Earth. The enl
ightened Yechida believed that the soul rots for a short time and then disintegrates into a darkness of no return.

  Now the moment had come when Yechida must die, must sink to Earth. Soon, the Angel of Death would appear with his fiery sword and thousand eyes.

  At first Yechida had wept incessantly, but then her tears had ceased. Awake or asleep she never stopped thinking of Yachid. Where was he? What was he doing? Whom was he with? Yechida was well aware he would not mourn for her for ever. He was surrounded by beautiful females, sacred beasts, angels, seraphim, cherubs, ayralim, each one with powers of seduction. How long could someone like Yachid curb his desires? He, as she, was an unbeliever. It was he who had taught her that spirits were not created, but were products of evolution. Yachid did not acknowledge free will, nor believe in ultimate good and evil. What would restrain him? Most certainly he already lay in the lap of some other divinity, telling those stories about himself he had already told Yechida.

  But what could she do? In this dungeon all contact with the mansions ceased. All doors were closed: neither mercy, nor beauty entered here. The one way from this prison led down to Earth, and to the horrors called flesh, blood, marrow, nerves, and breath. The God-fearing angels promised resurrection. They preached that the soul did not linger forever on Earth, but that after it had endured its punishment, it returned to the Higher Sphere. But Yechida, being a modernist, regarded all of this as superstition. How would a soul free itself from the corruption of the body? It was scientifically impossible. Resurrection was a dream, a silly comfort of primitive and frightened souls.

  * * * *

  2

  One night as Yechida lay in a corner brooding about Yachid and the pleasures she had received from him, his kisses, his caresses, the secrets whispered in her ear, the many positions and games into which she had been initiated, Dumah, the thousand-eyed Angel of Death, looking just as the Sacred Books described him, entered bearing a fiery sword.

  “Your time has come, little sister,” he said.

  “No further appeal is possible?”

  “Those who are in this wing always go to Earth.”

  Yechida shuddered. “Well, I am ready.”

  “Yechida, repentance helps even now. Recite your confession.”

  “How can it help? My only regret is that I did not transgress more,” said Yechida rebelliously.

  Both were silent. Finally Dumah said, “Yechida, I know you are angry with me. But is it my fault, sister? Did I want to be the Angel of Death? I too am a sinner, exiled from a higher realm, my punishment to be the executioner of souls. Yechida, I have not willed your death, but be comforted. Death is not as dreadful as you imagine. True, the first moments are not easy. But once you have been planted in the womb, the nine months that follow are not painful. You will forget all that you have learned here. Coming out of the womb will be a shock; but childhood is often pleasant. You will begin to study the lore of death, clothed in a fresh, pliant body, and soon will dread the end of your exile.”

  Yechida interrupted him. “Kill me if you must, Dumah, but spare me your lies.”

  “I am telling you the truth, Yechida. You will be absent no more than a hundred years, for even the wickedest do not suffer longer than that. Death is only the preparation for a new existence.”

  “Dumah, please. I don’t want to listen.”

  “But it is important for you to know that good and evil exist there, too, and that the will remains free.”

  “What will? Why do you talk such nonsense?”

  “Yechida, listen carefully. Even among the dead there are laws and regulations. The way you act in death will determine what happens to you next. Death is a laboratory for the rehabilitation of souls.”

  “Make an end of me, I beseech you.”

  “Be patient, you still have a few more minutes to live and must receive your instructions. Know, then, that one may act well or evilly on Earth and that the most pernicious sin of all is to return a soul to life.”

  This idea was so ridiculous that Yechida laughed despite her anguish.

  “How can one corpse give life to another?”

  “It’s not as difficult as you think. The body is composed of such weak material that a mere blow can make it disintegrate. Death is no stronger than a cobweb; a breeze blows and it disappears. But it is a great offense to destroy either another’s death or one’s own. Not only that, but you must not act or speak or even think in such a way as to threaten death. Here one’s object is to preserve life, but there it is death that is succored.”

  “Nursery tales. The fantasies of an executioner.”

  “It is the truth, Yechida. The Torah that applies to Earth is based on a single principle: Another man’s death must be as dear to one as one’s own. Remember my words. When you descend to Sheol, they will be of value to you.”

  “No, no, I won’t listen to any more lies.” And Yechida covered her ears.

  * * * *

  3

  Years passed. Everyone in the higher realm had forgotten Yechida except her mother, who still continued to light memorial candles for her daughter. On Earth Yechida had a new mother as well as a father, several brothers and sisters, all dead. After attending a high school, she had begun to take courses at the university. She lived in a large necropolis where corpses are prepared for all kinds of mortuary functions.

  It was spring, and Earth’s corruption grew leprous with blossoms. From the graves with their memorial trees and cleansing waters arose a dreadful stench. Millions of creatures, forced to descend into the domains of death, were becoming flies, butterflies, worms, toads, frogs. They buzzed, croaked, screeched, rattled, already involved in the death struggle. But since Yechida was totally inured to the habits of Earth, all this seemed to her part of life. She sat on a park bench staring up at the moon, which from the darkness of the nether world is sometimes recognized as a memorial candle set in a skull. Like all female corpses, Yechida yearned to perpetuate death, to have her womb became a grave for the newly dead. But she couldn’t do that without the help of a male with whom she would have to copulate in the hatred which corpses call “love.”

  As Yechida sat staring into the sockets of the skull above her, a white-shrouded corpse came and sat beside her. For a while the two corpses gazed at each other, thinking they could see, although all corpses are actually blind. Finally the male corpse spoke:

  “Pardon, Miss, could you tell me what time it is?”

  Since deep within themselves all corpses long for the termination of their punishment, they are perpetually concerned with time.

  “The time?” Yechida answered. “Just a second.” Strapped to her wrist was an instrument to measure time but the divisions were so minute and the symbols so tiny that she could not easily read the dial. The male corpse moved nearer to her.

  “May I take a look? I have good eyes.”

  “If you wish.”

  Corpses never act straightforwardly but are always sly and devious. The male corpse took Yechida’s hand and bent his head toward the instrument. This was not the first time a male corpse had touched Yechida but contact with this one made her limbs tremble. He stared intently but could not decide immediately. Then he said: “I think it’s ten minutes after ten.”

  “Is it really so late?”

  “Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Yachid.”

  “Yachid? Mine is Yechida.”

  “What an odd coincidence.”

  Both hearing death race in their blood were silent for a long while. Then Yachid said: “How beautiful the night is!”

  “Yes, beautiful!”

  “There’s something about spring that cannot be expressed in words.”

  “Words can express nothing,” answered Yechida.

  As she made this remark, both knew they were destined to lie together and to prepare a grave for a new corpse. The fact is, no matter how dead the dead are, there remains some life in them, a trace of contact with that knowledge which fills the universe. Death only
masks the truth. The sages speak of it as a soap bubble that bursts at the touch of a straw. The dead, ashamed of death, try to conceal their condition through cunning. The more moribund a corpse, the more voluble it is.

  “May I ask where you live?” asked Yachid.

  Where have I seen him before? How is it his voice sounds so familiar to me? Yechida wondered. And how does it happen that he’s called Yachid? Such a rare name.

  “Not far from here,” she answered.

  “Would you object to my walking you home?”

  “Thank you. You don’t have to. But if you want . . . It is still too early to go to bed.”

  When Yachid rose, Yechida did, too. Is this the one I have been searching for? Yechida asked herself, the one destined for me? But what do I mean by “destiny”? According to my professor, only atoms and motion exist. A carriage approached them and Yechida heard Yachid say: