The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

by Gene Wolfe

  The fifteenth day. Cim is gone. At first I thought that she was stolen again, but the snow was smooth all around the camp, and it showed no footprints but hers. Whiteapple and I followed them for half a kilometer or a little more. They crossed the limping marks left by whoever it was that circled our camp night before last, but he did not turn to follow her. She has taken the endieva wand.

  Good-bye, Cim.

  Dreams last night in which I killed Mantru again. I have been blaming the wound in my chest and the tear in the coveralls for my weakness, but I know now that those are mistakes: It is the strength the forked staff took from me. I think Mantru must have used his staff several times when he was a child—that was why he was so small. As it is, I cannot shrink, but my back will hardly straighten, and …

  Back again. It is much later, I think far past the middle of the night. We have been sitting up and talking, making new plans all evening. I was whispering into this thing, and Whiteapple was asleep, when Crookedleg came. I am amazed at the amount of pleasure it gave me just to see his narrow, scarred face—as though I had grown up among the Wiggikki instead of spending three days there. No doubt it is because they were the first three days. I feel as if I have come home, or a part of home has come to me, even though I never had a great deal to do with Crookedleg. When I recall the details, it was always Red Kluy or her son Longknife who was important to me at the time. I never really noticed Crookedleg until Nashhwonk nearly killed him. His name used to be Firerock.

  But here he is—he says he has been following the Great Sleigh for the past week. When he came upon us he was too shy to join us for a time. Now he is here. He has walked around our fire, he says, for most of the night for the last two days; he saw Cim leave but did not try to stop her or speak with her. He says she was weeping. I hope everything goes well for her now.

  Crookedleg has a sledge. He says he heard that I had one, and so built one himself in order to be able to catch up to me. It is larger than my old one—the one I bought from Longknife with Nashhwonk’s flesh—and should be able to carry all three of us at high speed even in a light breeze. We will leave in the morning, and I do not think any of us doubt that we will overtake the Great Sleigh within the next four or five days.

  This sixteenth day I think has been the happiest of my life. We have been sailing along all day, with a quartering wind, going faster than the wind itself and hardly having to tack once an hour. Because there are big drifts in the track now, we don’t skim along on the flat as I used to, but sail, as it seems, over a succession of low waves of snow. Crookedleg sits singing in the stern and is captain and trims the sail; Whiteapple jumps out to push when pushing is needed, and, for all his stubby little body and seeming plumpness, there is a great deal of muscle and energy hidden in him. And I sit in the bow and enjoy myself as a passenger. I miss Roller, but this is much more pleasant than riding on his head; there is no noise but the creaking of the sledge-poles, and very little wind. Besides, we are always speeding up or slowing down, and I spend my time wondering how Crookedleg will handle the next drift.

  Tonight we have the best camp I have seen since I left the Wiggikki. Crookedleg brought with him a small, domed tent of the kind they use, and he and Whiteapple have banked it with snow. With a very small fire in the center, it is almost too warm.

  Before I close, perhaps I should mention that I have been worrying all day—though I admit, not very much—for fear someone might ask what has become of my staff. The truth is that I left it behind, quite intentionally, when we left our old camp last night. Crookedleg has his clubbow, so I will not need the staff. It was the last of the things we brought from the cavern, except for the food cubes and their little box—and there are only three cubes left.

  The seventeenth day. This has been the warmest day I have ever seen; Whiteapple and Crookedleg say it is the warmest in their experience as well. Toward noon, the snow everywhere was visibly melting. We were all afraid we would bog down, but just when it seemed certain that we would have to get off and pull the sledge, the temperature began to go down a bit as the sun passed its zenith; we soon had a good, hard crust on which to skim along.

  We shared the white cubes from the cavern tonight, though Whiteapple and Crookedleg did not want to at first. Then Whiteapple went out and gathered herbs for us, and Crookedleg went hunting with his clubbow and brought back a snow monkey. Quite a feast, altogether.

  Later. I have been unable to sleep, so I have come outside. It is very bright out. When I saw the brilliance of the light on the snow through the doorway of the tent, I thought both moons must be in the sky; but it was too near daylight even for that. Something that looks like the sun, but dimmer, is high in the sky. It appears to be shining through a tremendous silvery cloud that reaches almost from horizon to horizon, blotting out the stars. I stared at it for a long time before I understood what it was I saw: a reflector of bright, finely divided metal dust wrapping the night side of the world. The false sun is the reflection of the real sun, and the light that would normally be lost in space is reflected to the ground when it strikes that great concave mirror of silver dust.

  The eighteenth day. The temperature was only a few degrees above freezing when we woke, and it has been growing warmer all day. We pulled the sledge for most of the morning, but abandoned it at last. I advised Crookedleg to take the sail and rigging, and he did. Whiteapple has been carrying the tent. We have been moving much more slowly than we did when we could sail, and so ought to be disheartened, but we are not. If our sledge cannot slide across the snow, then neither can the Great Sleigh, and of course it is too large to pull.

  So though we may be traveling slowly, it is no longer moving away from us. I think Crookedleg is more eager to reach it than any of us. He says that after his leg was hurt he no longer wanted to remain among his people—that it always seemed to him that when he was not looking into their faces, their faces changed; and he could no longer bear to be among them. His injury is not yet completely healed; but he can walk on his leg well enough, and even run a little.

  Today we have traveled all day to the sound of running water. Crookedleg and Whiteapple say that the snow has melted before, though never this rapidly. I showed them the silver cloud tonight and tried to explain what was happening. They were awed, but I don’t believe they understood.

  This is the nineteenth day, and tonight I am alone. This morning we broke our camp, and I tried to march along with the others; but after a few hours I could not keep up. I told them to go on without me. Whiteapple wanted to carry me, but he could not do it by himself. He and Crookedleg built a litter, using two saplings and the sail from the sledge, but they could take me only a few steps—then Crookedleg’s bad leg could no longer stand the weight. Then they said they would stay with me until I was better.

  There was nothing else to do, so I pretended that I thought they would kill me to eat when I was weaker, as the Wiggikki do. The truth was, of course, that they could have killed me very easily then—I could not have defended myself, and they knew that. But because I pretended to be frightened, they went away, though with many backward looks. I feel lonely now that they have gone, but what else could I have done? I did not want them to miss the Great Sleigh for my sake, and I am not such a fool as to believe now that I am going to get well. Eventually they will catch up with the Great Sleigh, and when they talk to the crew, they will tell them about me. That is what I want, and it will be the next best thing to having overtaken the Great Sleigh myself.

  I find I can walk for about five minutes before I have to rest, so I have made a little camp, as I used to do when I traveled alone. Lying on my back as I am now, I can see the false, reflected sun. The whole world is bright and strange, and full of the sound of melting. Little animals of the night that I have never seen before are out now; one came near me a few minutes ago, large-eyed and human-faced, but like a little bear, though when I think of it, I cannot remember just what a bear should be.

  In the west, in the directio
n of the Great Sleigh, the track seems to go on and on under the strange light forever, as if it were going all around the world. To the east, from which I came …

  I see something moving. I thought at first that it was another sledge, but a sledge could not sail on this melting snow. Whatever it is, it is coming rapidly, and it seems too large for a sledge. Perhaps the warmth has revived Roller … No, it is too big even for that. As big as a hill, and I see people standing on it.

  And that is enough. I know who you are now. This small planet is round, and you have come back, and the time for talking into this black box is over. I am going to talk to you face to face. Who is that tall man with you? I think he has … wings?

  THE TOY THEATER

  Eight hours before we were due to land on Sarg they dropped a pamphlet into the receiving tray of the two-by-four plastic closet that was my “stateroom” for the trip. The pamphlet said landing on Sarg would be like stepping into a new world. I threw it away.

  Landing on Sarge was like stepping into a new world. You expect a different kind of sunlight and a fresh smell to the air, and usually you don’t get them. Sarg had them. The light ran to sienna and umber and ocher, so that everything looked older than it was and made you think of waxed oak and tarnished gold. The air was clear and clean. Sarg wasn’t an industrial world, and since it was one of the lucky ones with no life of its own to preserve, it had received a flora en masse from Earth. I saw Colorado spruce, and a lot of the old, hardy, half-wild roses like Sarah Van Fleet and Amelie Gravereaux.

  Stromboli, the man I was coming to see, had sent a buggy and a driver for me (if you don’t want industry there are things you can’t have, lots of them) and I got a good view of the firs on the mountains and the roses spilling down the rocks as we rattled along. I suppose I dropped some remark about the colors, because my driver asked, “You are an artist?”

  “Oh, no. A marionettist. But I carve and paint my own dolls—that’s an art, if you like. We try to make it one.”

  “That is what I meant. It is mostly such artists who come here to see him, and the big box which I loaded for you was suggestive. That is your control you carry?”

  “Yes.” I took it out of its leather case to show him.

  He peered at the tiny dials and levers. “The signor has such a one. Not, you understand, identical; but similar. Perhaps you could … ?” He glanced back to where Charity reposed in her box. “It might help to pass the time.”

  I made her throw open her lid and climb up to sit on the seat with us, where she sang to the driver in her clear voice. Charity is a head taller than I am, blond, long-legged and narrow-waisted; a subtle exaggeration, or so I like to think, of a really pretty showgirl. After I had made her kiss him, dance ahead of the horse for a while, then climb back into her home and slam the lid, the driver said, “That was very good. You are an artist indeed.”

  “I forgot to mention that I call her Charity because that’s what I have to ask of my audiences.”

  “No, sir; you are very skilled. The skipping down the road—anyone can make them to skip for a few steps, but to do so for so long, over the uneven ground and so rapidly, I know how difficult it is. It deserves applause.”

  I wanted to see how far he would go, so I asked, “As good as the signor?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not as good as Signor Stromboli. But I have seen many, sir. Many come here and you are far better than most. Signor Stromboli will be pleased to talk to you.”

  The house was smaller than I had expected, of the Italian Alpine style. There was a large, informal garden, however, and a carriage house in the rear. The driver assured me that he would see to my baggage, and Madame Stromboli, who I assume had been following our progress up the road from a window, met me at the gate. She was white-haired now, but the woman she had once been, olive-skinned and beautiful with magnificent dark eyes, still showed plainly in her face. “Welcome,” she said. “We are so glad that you could come.”

  I told her that it was a great honor to be there.

  “It is a great expense for you; we know that. To travel between the suns. Once when we were much younger my husband went, to make money for us. I could not go, it cost too much. Only him, and the dolls. For years I waited, but he returned to me.”

  I said, “It must have been lonely.”

  “It was, very lonely. Now we are here where very few can come and see us. It is beautiful, no? But lonely. But my husband and I, we are lonely together. That is better. You will wish to wash, and perhaps change your clothing. Then I will take you to see him.”

  I thanked her.

  “He will be kind to you. He likes young men who follow the old art. But be content with what he shows you. Do not say: How do you do this? Or Do that! Let him show you what he wishes and he will show you a great deal.”

  He did. I will not pretend to condense all the interviews I had with Stromboli into a single scene, but he was generous with his time—although the mornings, all morning, every day, were reserved for his practice, alone, in a room lined with mirrors. In time I saw nearly everything of his that I had heard described, except the famous comic butler Zanni. He showed me how to keep five figures in motion at a time, differentiating their motions so cleverly that it was easy to imagine that the dancing, shouting people around us had five different operators, provided that you could remember, even while you watched Stromboli, that they had an operator at all.

  “They were little people once, you know,” he said. “You have read the history? Never higher than your shoulder—those were the biggest—and they moved with wires. In those days the most any man could do well was four, did you know that? Now they are as big as you and me, they are free, and I can do five. Perhaps before you die you will make it six. It is not impossible. As they pile the flowers onto your casket they will be saying, He could do six.”

  I told him I would be happy just to handle three well.

  “You will learn. You have already learned more difficult things. But you will not learn traveling with just one. If you wish to learn three, you must have three with you always, so that you can practice. But already you do the voice of a woman speaking and singing. That was the most difficult for me to learn.” He threw out his big chest and thumped it. “I am an old man now and my voice is not so deep as it was, but when I was young as you it was very deep, and I could not do the voices of women, not with all the help from the control and the speakers in the dolls pitched high. But now listen.”

  He made Julia, Lucinda, and Columbine, three of his girls, step forward. For a moment they simply giggled; then, after a whispered but audible conference, they burst into Rosine’s song from The Barber of Seville—Julia singing coloratura soprano, Columbine mezzo-soprano, and Lucinda contralto.

  “Don’t record,” Stromboli admonished me. “It is easy to record and cheat; but a good audience will always know, the amateurs will want you to show them, and you can’t look at yourself and smile. You can already do one girl’s voice very good. Don’t ever record. You know how I learned to do them?”

  I expressed interest.

  “When I was starting—not yet married—I did only male voices. And the false female speaking singsong, the falsetto. Then I married and little Maria, I mean Signora Stromboli my wife, began to help. In those days I did not work always alone. She did the simpler movements and the female voices.”

  I nodded to show I understood.

  “So how was I to learn? If I said, ‘Little Maria, you sit in the audience tonight,’ she would say, ‘Stromboli, it is not good. It is better when I do them.’ So what did I do? I made the long tour outworld. The cost was very high but the pay was very high too, and I left little Maria at home. When I came back we could do this.”

  Columbine, Lucinda, and Julia bowed.

  The signor and I said our good-byes on the day before I was to leave Sarg. My ship would blast off at noon, and the morning practice sessions were sacred, but we held a party the night before with wine in the happy, u
ndrunken Italian way and singing—just Stromboli and his wife and I. In the morning I packed hurriedly, and discovered that my second best pair of shoes were missing. I said to hell with them, gave my last suitcase to Stromboli’s man of all work, said good-bye again to Maria Stromboli, and went out to the front gate to wait for the man of all work to bring the buggy around.

  Five minutes passed, then ten. I still had plenty of time, a couple of hours if he drove fast, but I began to wonder what was keeping him. Then I heard the rattle of harness. The buggy came around a curve in the road, but its driver was a dark-haired woman in pink I had never seen before. She pulled up in front of me, indicated my luggage, which was neatly stowed on the back of the buggy, with a wave of her hand, and said, “Climb up. Antonio is indisposed, so I told the Strombolis I would drive you. I am Lili. Have you heard of me?”

  I got into the seat beside her and told her I had not.

  “You came here to see Stromboli, and you have not heard of me? Ah, such is fame! Once we were notorious, and I think perhaps that it was because of me that he retired. He lives with his wife now and wishes the world to think that he is a good husband, you understand; but my little house is not far away.”

  I said something to the effect that I had been unaware of any other houses in the neighborhood.

  “A few steps would have brought you in sight of it.” She cracked her whip expertly over the horse’s back, and he broke into a trot. “Little Maria does not like it, but I am only a few steps away for her husband too. But he is old. Do you think I am getting old also?”

  She leaned back, turning her head to show me her profile—a tip-tilted nose, generous lips salved carmine. “My bust is still good. I’m perhaps a little thicker at the waist, but my thighs are heavier too, and that is good.”