The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1

by Carol Emshwiller

  She heard her husband say, “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, Ben,” she said, “oh, Ben.”

  The man made a motion and the two youths started out, but Littleboy had started first, she saw. She pulled at her wrench and then had to stop and fumble with the blanket, and it took a long time because she kept her eyes on Littleboy and the two others chasing.

  She heard a shout and a grunt beside her. “Oh, Ben,” she said again, and turned, but it was Ben on top attacking the other, and the small man was trying to use his pistol as a club but he had hold of the wrong end for that, and Ben had the hammer and he was much bigger.

  He was finished in a minute. She watched, empty-eyed, the whole of it, holding the wrench in a white-knuckled hand in case he needed her.

  Afterward, he moved from the body into a crouching run, hammer in one hand and pistol, by the barrel, in the other. “You stay here,” he shouted back.

  She looked at the sea a few minutes, and listened to it, but her own feelings seemed more important than the stoic sea now. She turned and followed, walking along the marks where the feet had swept at the soft sand.

  Where the bushes began she saw him loping back. “What happened?”

  “They ran off when they saw me after them with the other guy’s gun. No bullets though. You’ll have to help look now.”

  “He’s lost!”

  “He won’t come when you call. We’ll just have to look. He could be way out. I’ll try that and you stay close and look here. The gas is buried under that bush there, if you need it.”

  “We’ve got to find him, Ben. He doesn’t know his way home from here.”

  He came to her and kissed her and held her firmly across the shoulders with one arm. She could feel his muscles bunch into her neck as hard almost as the head of his hammer that pressed against her arm. She remembered a time four years ago when his embrace had been soft and comfortable. He had had hair then, but he had been quite fat, and now he was hard and bald, having gained something and lost something.

  He turned and started off, but looked back and she smiled and nodded to show him she felt better from his arm around her and the kiss.

  I would die if anything happened and we would lose Littleboy, she thought, but mostly I would hate to lose Ben. Then the world would really be lost altogether, and everything would be ended.

  She looked, calling in a whisper, knowing she had to peer under each bush and watch behind and ahead for scampering things. He’s so small when he huddles into a ball and he can sit so still. Sometimes I wish there was another three-year-old around to judge him by. I forget so much about how it used to be, before. Sometimes I just wonder about him.

  “Littleboy, Littleboy. Mommy wants you,” she called softly. “Come. There’s still time to play in the sand and there are apples left.” She leaned forward, and her hand reached to touch the bushes.

  Later the breeze began to cool and a few clouds gathered. She shivered in just her shorts and halter, but it was mostly an inner coldness. She felt she had circled, hunting, for well over an hour, but she had no watch, and at a time like this she wasn’t sure of her judgment. Still, the sun seemed low. They should go home soon. She kept watching now, too, for silhouettes of people who might not be Ben or Littleboy, and she probed the bushes with her wrench with less care. Every now and then she went back to look at the blanket and the basket and the pail and shovel, lying alone and far from the water, and the body there, with the red leather cap beside it.

  And then, when she came back another time to see if all the things were still there, undisturbed, she saw a tall, two-headed seeming monster walking briskly down the beach, and one head, bouncing directly over the other one, had hair and was Littleboy’s.

  The sunset was just beginning. The rosy glow deepened as they neared her and changed the colors of everything. The red plaid of Ben’s shorts seemed more emphatic. The sand turned orangeish. She ran to meet them, laughing and splashing her feet in the shallow water, and she came up and held Ben tight around the waist and Littleboy said, “Aaa.”

  “We’ll be home before dark,” she said. “There’s even time for one last splash.”

  They packed up finally while Littleboy circled the body by the blanket, touching it sometimes until Ben slapped him for it and he went off and sat down and made little cat sounds to himself.

  He fell asleep in her lap on the way home, lying forward against her with his head at her neck the way she liked. The sunset was deep, with reds and purples.

  She leaned against Ben. “The beach always makes you tired,” she said. “I remember that from before too. I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

  They drove silently along the wide empty parkway. The car had no lights, but that didn’t matter.

  “We did have a good day after all,” she said. “I feel renewed.”

  “Good,” he said.

  It was just dark as they drove up to the house. Ben stopped the car and they sat a moment and held hands before moving to get the things out.

  “We had a good day,” she said again. “And Littleboy saw the sea.” She put her hand on the sleeping boy’s hair, gently so as not to disturb him and then she yawned. “I wonder if it really was Saturday.”

  The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1959

  Puritan Planet

  “HERE KITTY, kitty, kitty. Come on you cat, we’re going to crash. Don’t you understand?”

  Three minutes was all they had. Three minutes to get strapped in tight and now, now she wanted to play hard to get.

  Morgan had seen ships with two jets off come down before; they came in fast and at the last moment, just when you thought they were safe, they flipped over and scarred long, ugly creases in the earth.

  Where the deuce was she? He crawled on hands and knees, a big, square man, searching under each bunk. Then, cheek to floor, he peered under the control chairs. “There isn’t time, damn it, we ought to be sitting in those chairs now.”

  It was because he had hit her, batted her out of the way from where she stood right in front of the middle screen. “I had to see, girl, I had to see.” He never hit her, never had before, and now she was hurt, aloof. She wouldn’t stoop to coming when he called, not after that.

  “Damn it, cat,” he whispered. “I was upset too. No beacon, no radio answer, no landing field, but we have to land the shape we’re in.”

  Brotherhood, that’s what the charts said was the name of the planet. But you’d think a planet by that name would have a beacon, and would answer radio calls, and would have a landing field. Morgan had circled the planet three times, looking and calling, and he was thinking he would have to ditch in one of the gray seas because they had to land soon; and then Cat had jumped up, blotting out the middle screen for just a second but it was a second that could mean life or death.

  He had swatted her away harshly, cursing, but she hadn’t made him miss the field. He spotted it right afterwards abandoned, lumpy, overgrown, but a landing field all right. Anyway, the way they were going to land, the shape of the field was the least of their worries.

  He had set the ship on automatic then. It would circle once more, then nose up and that would be it. Three minutes, they had, and she was playing hard to get.

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.” She’d never come to his call now. He crawled along the wall by the suit lockers. Then he stood up, stretching on tip toes, and swung his hand blindly along the locker top. “Got her.”

  She almost got away, but he held firmly to the end of her hind leg. Her claws rasped on the slippery metal, clutching anything, but he brought her down and plunked her harshly in the center of the nearest control seat. The wide belt went over her firmly, covering her completely, and fastened with a click.

  His big hand lingered for a moment on the hump that was the cat under the belt. “It’s all right, Cat. It’s all right.” He jumped into the other seat. The ship was already nosing up and there was time to fasten only the middle belt, but it would have to be e
nough. Then the jets roared. God, did ever a ship shake like this before? It was wrong, all wrong.

  “Meow.”

  “It’s all ri…” What was the use? She’d never hear him now and talking was too damn hard.

  It was still and black and beautiful, and he wanted to stay in the soft, warm, dark forever, but someone was interrupting it with a noise that made his head ache.

  “Gobbledegook, gobbledegook.” It was louder this time. He could feel the noise in every joint, a pulsing hurt. Be quiet, only for just a little longer, be quiet.

  “Meow.”

  Once, a long time ago, he had had a cat, a soft, little she cat with an M on her forehead and a white tipped tail.

  “Meow, meow.”

  He had a cat!

  “Gobbledegook, gobbledegook. Can you hear us? Brother, can you hear us? Are you all right?”

  Morgan fumbled with balloon fingers at the seat belt clasp. He swung his legs to the side and sat up. This was the morning after a hundred binges, and in the tanks, only water, and not much left of that.

  “Can you hear us, Brother? Are you all right?”

  “Loud and clear,” Morgan said. His voice was someone else’s, a weaker breathless man. “Loud and clear, damn it.” But he was too far from the mike for them to hear.

  The balloon fingers pulled at the cat’s belt. He tried to hold her when she was free. He wanted to make up some way for the confining belt, for the crash and for having batted at her, but she was more agile than he especially now and frightened and upset. She jumped to the floor, ran crouching and disappeared under a bunk. She was gone to console herself alone, just when he needed to console her.

  “Are you all right, Brother?”

  Morgan stepped to the panel and sat down before the mike. He leaned on his elbows and rested his head in his hands. “I’m all right,” he said.

  “No broken bones or anything, Friend? That was quite a crash.”

  Morgan rested his forehead against the cool, dead screen. “I’m fine.”

  “Ah, good.” The relief sounding in the voice was just the sort Morgan would expect to hear on a planet called Brotherhood when someone said they were, after all, all right.

  But then the voice took on a sorrowful whine. “Brother, Brother, you have landed without permission and it is forbidden.”

  “I called in from half an hour out. You were stone dead. I had no choice. I had to land at the closest place and that was here. The ship’s crippled and I’m low on air and water.”

  “Interplanetary rule number 6A states that one must always have permission.”

  “Except in an emergency, and why didn’t you answer?” Morgan’s voice began to have its usual depth.

  “Ah, but friend, we must be careful here on Brotherhood. It isn’t as if we were like any planet. Unfortunately we’ve found that in some situations we have to make our own rules.”

  “They don’t apply to me.”

  “Ah, but they do.” The voice was terribly sorry. It practically dripped away on its sorriness. “Ah, Brother, but they do.”

  “Landing rules!”

  “Most especially landing rules.”

  Morgan’s voice was all his own now, and more. “Hell, that’s against the law.”

  There were others with the first voice, either at mikes of their own, or crowded close around. He heard their, ohs, and ahs, and one said, “There, you see?”, and another, “I told you so. What can you expect from foreigners?” and, “He swore, he swore, he swore!”

  “We have our children to think about,” the first voice said. “Many died to bring them to this place where they could live and grow protected from outside influences. We have loved our children more than life itself, and we so love them now. More than life, Brother.”

  “Look, we’ll talk about it face to face. I’m com…” Morgan felt the first pinch of fear drawing up the skin of his face and tightening his scalp. The floor was comfortably down, as usual. The control room rotated smoothly with the pull of gravity. But in front of him, on the panel, was a bubble on a graph that showed how the ship lay.

  No, he wasn’t coming out. Not just now, he wasn’t, and probably not at all without help from them.

  Air, for how long? That was the thought that had made his scalp prickle. He couldn’t stay in the ship.

  The voice was talking on. “We could lift the ship, Brother, so the hatch is free, but we don’t think it’s safe to our young people.”

  “What do you mean, not safe? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not different from anybody else.”

  “Men from other planets know many things we have forgotten, even in what they take for granted. You have used words, too, that it is written in our book, must not be said. There may even be things written down there that you might do.” The voice whispered now, implying things too horrible to be mentioned or even thought about. “We cannot take that chance.”

  The voice, the sad, sad voice, the new rules, and ah, the children, more than life, they said they loved them and Morgan knew whose life they had in mind right now.

  He had heard of colonies like this before. Puritans, they were, and the hardest, the severest people to deal with.

  Could he ever have said what they wanted him to say, even if he’d known in time? Could he yes and no on signal, and lie and fawn? Only actually would it be lying? Morgan was against sin, like everybody else; he was for goodness and brotherhood and all the things they were for, except maybe the outside trappings of it.

  There was the difference, the veneer he cared for not a bit. In fact he always gave just the wrong answers to the people who wore the clothes of goodness too tight, with all the zippers done up neatly. Even if he had tried, he doubted he’d have been able to ingratiate himself to these people. He’d have said the wrong things or laughed at the wrong time.

  And it was too late. The ahs and ohs had condemned him; he had been a witness against himself already. And perhaps even without him saying a word they’d have condemned him because he wasn’t one of them.

  If I get out of here on my own,” Morgan asked the voice, “what’s my life worth then?”

  “We of Brother hood do not kill, even in self preservation. Only sometimes, when it is necessary, we let die, that’s all. But we never kill a fellow man. If you come out, we must let you go free, only we cannot help you.”

  “I’m coming out then,” Morgan said, but in his head the word, “air,” kept repeating itself with a big question mark after it. Was there going to be time enough to get out?

  “We leave you then,” the voice said, “and for your sake, good luck.”

  “Ha!”

  So now to get out, damn them.

  The first thing to do was to see how much air there was. Morgan studied the gauge on the panel, but it was broken. Well, it was easy enough to calculate. Take what the gauge had read before the crash (he remembered approximately), subtract the number of hours, add one big man and one small cat. What was the answer? Maybe a day’s worth, about another twenty-four hours.

  One day to get out in, and to do it, a hammer, a welding torch, crowbar, assorted small tools, wire, a pulley, and two space suits ridiculous every one of them, especially for someone in a hurry.

  He took the crowbar and let himself out of the control room into the coin-shaped section at the back of it from which the hatch could be reached. Only the hatch was flat to the ground probably underground five or six feet from the force of the landing. Morgan pulled the emergency opener, but the hatch was jammed tight and wouldn’t budge. He tried the crowbar and the opener together. No dice.

  So he would have to climb into the narrow strip between the outer skin of the ship and the suspended room to the only other place he could get at the seams. He stepped up on a girder and pulled himself in. It was cramped and greasy, and half of it inaccessible anyway. His heavy shoulders rubbed on each wall unless he stood sideways. He climbed from girder to girder examining the seams, hoping for some damage somewhere he could take
advantage of it. He tore his overalls on a projection and swore loudly, and the words echoed back at him satisfyingly. When I get out on this puritan planet, he thought (deliberately not letting himself think if I get out), I’ll have to build myself an echo chamber so I can hear some swear words now and then.

  He began to sing a bawdy song; it sounded like a whole chorus of deep-voiced men, and right after that he found the place where the ship seemed bent a little and one seam had a looser look. “You see,” he told himself in a loud voice, “what a song like that can do,” and he tried to fit the useless crowbar into the groove.

  All he needed was a little air to give him time to break out.

  They had joked about these little ships when they first came out. Held up by their own air pressure, they said, like balloons. Get them landing on a heavy planet and they’ll fall apart. He knew the ships weren’t used near the big planets, but still they were tough. There was one way to test the theory, though, for someone not afraid to lose all his air in the process. Morgan was afraid but it was the only thing he could think of to try, and anyway, was he just going to sit around breathing the air till it gave out? By some fluke it might possibly work. He knew what the seams were like. They would be weaker if the pressure came from outside.

  Singing again (it was a lucky song) he went back into the control room, got the wire, some metal rings, the pulley, the welding torch. After two hours of sweaty work, he had four tight wires pulling inwards from rings on the two plates next to the weakened seam. He went back to the control room, got out the two space suits and started looking for Cat.

  He flushed her from under a bunk, chased her in a circle around the room, and finally cornered her behind the locker. He held her firmly in the crook of his arm, one hand under her chest. He could feel her heart beating rapidly under his fingers and then he felt the vibrating of her silent purr. She wasn’t really so mad at him after all. He put his head down so his rough cheek touched the silky fur. This small thing, warm with life, was the only living creature he had seen or touched for a long time.