A Treasury of Great Science Fiction 1

by Anthony Boucher (ed)

  His doubts were confirmed at once. The moment he set eyes on the huge creatures standing twenty-six hands at the shoulder, he knew they were wrong. He turned his back on them with disgust, and went straight to the Inspector’s house with a demand that they should be destroyed as Offenses.

  “You’re out of order this time,” the Inspector told him cheerfully, glad for once that his position was incontestable. “They’re government-approved, so they are beyond my jurisdiction anyway.”

  “I don’t believe it,” my father told him. “God never made horses the size of these. The government can’t have approved them.”

  “But they have,” said the Inspector. “What’s more,” he added, with satisfaction, “Angus tells me that knowing the neighborhood so well he has got attested pedigrees for them.”

  “Any government that could pass creatures like that is corrupt and immoral,” my father announced.

  “Possibly,” admitted the Inspector, “but it’s still the government.”

  My father glared at him. “It’s easy to see why some people would approve them,” he said. “One of those brutes could do the work of two, maybe three, ordinary horses—and for less than double the feed of one. There’s a good profit there, a good incentive to get them passed. But that doesn’t mean that they’re right. I say a horse like that is not one of God’s creatures—and if it isn’t his, then it’s an Offense, and should be destroyed as such.”

  “The official approval states that the breed was produced simply by mating for size, in the normal way. And I’d defy you to find any characteristic that’s identifiably wrong with them, anyway,” the Inspector told him.

  “It does not follow that they are right—” my father persisted. “A horse that size is not right—you know that unofficially as well as I do, and there’s no getting away from it. Once we allow things that we know are not right, there’s no telling where it will end. A God-fearing community doesn’t have to deny its faith just because there’s been pressure brought to bear in a government licensing office. There are plenty of us here who know how God intended his creatures to be, even if the government doesn’t.”

  The Inspector smiled. “As with the Dakerses’ cat?” he suggested.

  My father glared at him. The affair of the Dakerses’ cat rankled.

  About a year previously it had somehow come to his knowledge that Ben Dakers’s wife housed a tailless cat. He investigated, and when he had collected evidence that it had not simply lost its tail in some way, but had never possessed one, he condemned it, and in his capacity as a magistrate ordered the Inspector to make out a warrant for its destruction as an Offense. The Inspector had done so, with reluctance, whereupon Dakers promptly entered an appeal. Such shilly-shallying in an obvious case outraged my father’s principles, and he personally attended to the demise of the Dakerses’ cat while the matter was still sub judice. His position, when a notification subsequently arrived stating that there was a recognized breed of tailless cats with a well-authenticated history, was awkward, and somewhat expensive. It had been with very bad grace that he had chosen to make a public apology rather than resign his magistracy.

  “This,” he told the Inspector sharply, “is an altogether more important affair.”

  “Listen,” said the Inspector patiently. “The type is approved. This particular pair has confirmatory sanction. If that’s not good enough for you, go ahead and shoot them yourself—and see what happens to you.”

  “It is your moral duty to issue an order against these so-called horses,” my father insisted.

  The Inspector was suddenly tired of it.

  “It’s part of my official duty to protect them from harm by fools or bigots,” he snapped.

  My father did not actually hit the Inspector, but it must have been a near thing. He went on boiling with rage for several days and the next Sunday we were treated to a searing address on the toleration of Mutants which sullied the Purity of our community. He called for a general boycott of the owner of the Offenses, speculated upon immorality in high places, hinted that some there might be expected to have a fellow-feeling for Mutants, and wound up with a peroration in which a certain official was scathed as an unprincipled hireling of unprincipled masters and the local representative of the Forces of Evil.

  Though the Inspector had no such convenient pulpit for reply, certain trenchant remarks of his on persecution, contempt of authority, bigotry, religious mania, the law of slander, and the probable effects of direct action in opposition to government sanction achieved a wide circulation.

  It was very likely the last point that kept my father from doing more than talk. He had had plenty of trouble over the Dakerses’ cat which was of no value at all: but the great horses were costly creatures; besides, Angus would not be one to waive any possible penalty.

  So there was a degree of frustration about that made home a good place to get away from as much as possible.

  Now that the countryside had settled down again and was not full of unexpected people, Sophie’s parents would let her go out on rambles once more, and I slipped away over there when I could get away unnoticed.

  Sophie couldn’t go to school, of course. She would have been found out very quickly, even with a false certificate, and her parents though they taught her to read and write did not have any books for her to read, so that it wasn’t much good to her. That was why we talked—at least I talked—a lot on our expeditions, trying to tell her what I was learning from my reading books.

  The world, I was able to tell her, was generally thought to be a pretty big place, and probably round. The civilized part of it, of which Waknuk was only a small district, was called Labrador. This was thought to be the Old People’s name for it, though that was not very certain. Round most of Labrador there was a great deal of water called the sea, which was important on account of fish. Nobody that I knew, except Uncle Axel, had actually seen this sea because it was a long way off, but if you were to go three hundred miles or so east, north, or northwest you would come to it sooner or later. But southwest or south, you wouldn’t; you’d get to the Fringes and then the Badlands, which would kill you.

  It was said, too, though nobody was sure, that in the time of the Old People Labrador had been a cold land, so cold that no one could live there for long, so they had used it then only for growing trees and for their mysterious mining. But that had been a long, long time ago. A thousand years? Two thousand years? Even more, perhaps? People guessed, but nobody really knew. There was no telling how many generations of people had passed their lives like savages between the coming of Tribulation and the start of recorded history. Only Nicholson’s Repentances had come out of the wilderness of barbarism, and that only because it had lain for, perhaps, several centuries sealed in a stone coffer before it was discovered. And only the Bible had survived from the time of the Old People themselves.

  Except for what these two books told, the past, further back than three recorded centuries, was a long oblivion. Out of that blankness stretched a few strands of legend, badly frayed in their passage through successive minds. It was this long line of tongues that had given us the name Labrador, for it was unmentioned in either the Bible or Repentances, and they may have been right about the cold, although there were only two cold months in the year now; Tribulation could account for that, it could account for almost anything.

  For a long time it had been disputed whether any parts of the world other than Labrador and the big island of Newf were populated at all. They were thought to be all Badlands which had suffered the full weight of Tribulation, but it had been found that there were some stretches of Fringes country in places. They were grossly deviational and quite godless, of course, and incapable of being civilized at present, but if the Badland borders were withdrawing there as ours were, it might one day be possible to colonize them.

  Altogether, not much seemed to be known about the world, but at least it was a more interesting subject than Ethics, which an old man taught to a class of u
s on Sunday afternoons. Ethics was why you should, and shouldn’t do things. Most of the don’ts were the same as my father’s, but some of the reasons were different, so it was confusing.

  According to Ethics, mankind—that was us, in civilized parts—was in the process of climbing back into grace; we were following a faint and difficult trail which led up to the peaks from which we had fallen. From the true trail branched many false trails that sometimes looked easier and more attractive; all these really led to the edges of precipices, beneath which lay the abyss of eternity. There was only one true trail, and by following it we should, with God’s help and in his own good time, regain all that had been lost. But so faint was the trail, so set with traps and deceits, that every step must be taken with caution, and it was too dangerous for a man to rely on his own judgment. Only the authorities, ecclesiastical and lay, were in a position to judge whether the next step was a rediscovery, and so, safe to take; or whether it deviated from the true re-ascent, and so was sinful.

  The penance of Tribulation that had been put upon the world must be worked out, the long climb faithfully retraced, and, at last, if the temptations by the way were resisted, there would be the reward of forgiveness—the restoration of the Golden Age. Such penances had been sent before: the expulsion from Eden, the Flood, pestilences, the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, the Captivity. Tribulation had been another such punishment, but the greatest of all. It must, when it struck have been not unlike a combination of all these disasters with something else, too, which caused a desolation far more frightful than flood and fire. Why it had been sent was as yet unrevealed, but, judging by precedent, there had very likely been a phase of irreligious arrogance prevailing at the time.

  Most of the numerous precepts, arguments, and examples in Ethics were condensed for us into this: the duty and purpose of man in this world is to fight unceasingly against the evils that Tribulation loosed upon it. Above all, he must see that the human form is kept true to the divine pattern in order that one day it may be permitted to regain the high place in which, as the image of God, it was set.

  However, I did not talk much about this part of Ethics to Sophie. Not, I think, because I ever actually classified her in my mind as a Deviation; but it had to be admitted that she did not quite qualify as a true image, so it seemed more tactful to avoid that aspect. And there were plenty of other things to talk about.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nobody at Waknuk seemed to trouble about me if I was out of sight. It was only when I hung about that they thought of jobs that needed doing.

  The season was a good one, sunny, yet well watered so that even farmers had little to complain of other than the pressure to catch up with the work that the invasion had interrupted. Except among the sheep the average of Offenses in the spring births had been quite unusually low. The impending crops were so orthodox that the Inspector had posted only a single field, belonging to Angus Morton, for burning. Even among the vegetables there was little deviation; the solonaceae as usual provided most of what there was. All in all, the season would likely set up a Purity record, and condemnations were so few that even my father was pleased enough to announce guardedly in one of his addresses that Waknuk appeared to be giving the forces of Evil quite a setback this year.

  With everyone so busy I was able to get away early, and during those long summer days Sophie and I roamed more widely than before, though we did our adventuring with caution, and kept it to little-used ways in order to avoid encounters. Sophie’s upbringing had given her a timidity toward strangers that was almost an instinct. Almost before one was visible she vanished noiselessly. The only adult she had made friends with was Corky who looked after the steam-engine. Everyone else was dangerous.

  We discovered a place up the stream where there were banks of shingle. I liked to take off my shoes, roll up my trousers, and paddle there, examining the pools and crannies. Sophie used to sit on one of the large, flat stones that shelved into the water, and watch me wistfully. Later we went there armed with two small nets that Mrs. Wender had made, and a jar for the catch. I waded about fishing for the little shrimplike creatures that lived there while Sophie did her best to scoop them up by reaching from the bank. She did not do very well at it. After a time she gave up, and sat watching me enviously. Then, greatly daring, she pulled off a shoe, and looked at her naked foot reflectively. After a minute she pulled off the other. She rolled her cotton trousers above her knees, and stepped into the stream. She stood there for a thoughtful moment, looking down through the water at her feet on the washed pebbles. I called to her:

  “Come over this way. There’re lots of them here.”

  She waded toward me, laughing and excited.

  When we had enough of it we sat on the flat rock, letting our feet dry in the sun.

  “They’re not really horrible, are they?” she said, regarding hers judicially.

  “They’re not horrible at all. They make mine look all knobbly,” I told her, honestly. She was pleased about that.

  A few days later we went there again. We stood the jar on the flat stone beside our shoes while we fished, and industriously scampered back to it now and then with our catch, oblivious of all else until a voice said:

  “Hullo, there, David!”

  I looked up, aware of Sophie standing rigid behind me.

  The boy who had called stood on the bank, just above the rock where our things lay. I knew him. Alan, the son of John Ervin, the blacksmith, about two years older than I was. I kept my head.

  “Oh, hullo Alan,” I said, unencouragingly.

  I waded to the rock and picked up Sophie’s shoes.

  “Catch!” I called, as I threw them to her.

  One she caught, the other fell in the water, but she retrieved it.

  “What are you doing?” Alan asked.

  I told him we were catching the shrimp-things. As I said it I stepped casually out of the water on to the rock. I had never cared much for what I knew of Alan at the best of times, and he was by no means welcome now.

  “They’re no good. Fish are what you want to go after,” he said, contemptuously.

  He turned his attention to Sophie, who was wading to the bank, shoes in hand, some yards further up.

  “Who’s she?” he inquired.

  I delayed answering while I put on my shoes. Sophie had disappeared into the bushes now.

  “Who is she?” he repeated. “She’s not one of the—” He broke off suddenly. I looked up and saw that he was staring down at something beside me. I turned quickly. On the flat rock was a footprint, still undried. Sophie had rested one foot there as she bent over to tip her catch into the jar. The mark was still damp enough to show the print of all six toes quite clearly. I kicked over the jar. A cascade of water and struggling shrimps poured down the rock, obliterating the footprint, but I knew, with a sickly feeling, that the harm had been done.

  “Ho!” said Alan, and there was a gleam in his eye that I did not like. “Who is she?” he demanded again.

  “She’s a friend of mine,” I told him.

  “What’s her name?”

  I did not answer that.

  “Huh, I’ll soon find out, anyway,” he said, with a grin.

  “It’s no business of yours,” I told him.

  He took no notice of that; he had turned and was standing looking along the bank toward the point where Sophie had disappeared into the bushes.

  I ran up the stone and flung myself on him. He was bigger than I was, but it took him by surprise, and we went down together in a whirl of arms and legs. All I knew of fighting was what I had learned from a few sharp scuffles. I simply hit out, and did my furious best. My intention was to gain a few minutes for Sophie to put her shoes on and hide; if she had a little start, he would never be able to find her, as I knew from experience. Then he recovered from his first surprise and got in a couple of blows on my face which made me forget about Sophie and sent me at it, tooth and nail, on my own account.

  We ro
lled back and forth on a patch of turf. I kept on hitting and struggling furiously, but his weight started to tell. He began to feel more sure of himself, and I more futile. However, I had gained something: I’d stopped him going after Sophie straight away. Gradually he got the upper hand, presently he was sitting astride of me, pummeling me as I squirmed. I kicked out and struggled, but there wasn’t much I could do but raise my arms to protect my head. Then, suddenly, there was a yelp of anguish, and the blows ceased. He flopped down on top of me. I heaved him off, and sat up to see Sophie standing there with a large, rough stone in her hand.

  “I hit him,” she said proudly, and with a touch of wonderment. “Do you think he’s dead?”

  Alan lay white-faced and still, with the blood trickling down his cheek, but he was breathing all right, so he certainly wasn’t dead.

  “Oh, dear,” said Sophie in sudden reaction, and dropped the stone.

  We looked at Alan, and then at one another. Both of us, I think, had the impulse to do something for him, but we were afraid.

  “No one must ever know. No one.” Mrs. Wender had said, so intensely. And now this boy did know. It frightened us.

  I got up. I reached for Sophie’s hand and pulled her away.

  “Come along,” I told her urgently.

  John Wender listened carefully and patiently while we told him about it.

  “You’re quite sure he saw? It wasn’t simply that he was curious because Sophie was a stranger?” he asked at the end.

  “No,” I said. “He saw the footmark; that’s why he wanted to catch her.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “I see,” he said, and I was surprised how calmly he said it.

  He looked steadily at our faces. Sophie’s eyes were big with a mixture of alarm and excitement. Mine must have been pink-rimmed, with dirty smears trailing from them. He turned his head and met his wife’s gaze steadily.