New Writings in SF 5 - [Anthology]

by Edited By John Carnell

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Gerry, what is it? Like to talk now?”

  He said, “It’ll keep. It’ll keep.” He activated the passenger door, swung out into the cold gusting of the wind. His lungs started to labour again. He stepped back the way they’d come, hearing the sharp noise of his feet on the ground. Somehow outside the car everything seemed about ten sizes bigger. He looked over the edge of the little flat, saw the road looping down into the valley they’d left. Night was seeping like ink into the great bowl of space below him; the wind soughed up from it, rippling his clothes. The pressure of air was steady, felt like he could lean out into it and not fall. He threw the half-smoked cigarette, watched the spark of it curl out, swoop aside and vanish. Reb joined him, hair whipping round her face. Took hold of his arm. He looked back, sensing her grip absently. The car had deposited the luggage like a clutch of odd eggs, was already inching forward on its pad into the maw prepared for it. In the odd light the machine looked unreal, a long bright ghost sliding into the rock. The motor-port flat was wholly in shadow, but way above the house still caught sunlight, burned like a flame against the vast backdrop of the mountain. Over it the sky was turquoise, fading to a clear, sweet yellow, and a chip of moon showed palely. The voice of the wind was big and wide-sounding, blustering among the high passes of rock.

  Gerry heard a droning, saw the dark speck of a Skyfan dropping down towards him. He walked forward, stopped by the luggage; the machine swung overhead and landing lights flicked on round the edges of the plateau, driving back the night.

  * * * *

  The Spacer lay stretched out on a low, well-sprung divan. Rebel sat beside him, a little close maybe and showing a lot of tanned leg through the unpinned side of her white evening kilt. For the last hour she’d been eating pecan nuts with something of the nervous intensity of a squirrel; round her, polished pink shells were scattered thickly on the carpet. The carpet was pale blue, a misty, shimmering Moon-colour; against it the coffee-brown upholstery, the spindly legs of chairs and tables, showed sharply. This was Rebel’s wing of the house, the surroundings reflected her tastes. The room itself was low and wide, the ceiling crossed at intervals by functional beams of smooth, grey-yellow oak. Wooden cheek-pieces slanted down the walls; the effect was a little like the cabin of a ship. To one side the long observation windows, and the gallery beyond them, added to the impression. There were flower arrangements in white, quietly classical vases: a Siamese cat lay curled on the carpet, in one corner stood an old-fashioned phonograph and a cabinet of records. There were many pictures; repros of Clingermann’s Martian landscapes, a highly impressionistic view of the Mare Imbrium; an Old Master, a girl’s head by Pablo Picasso. And on the far wall, what looked very much like a genuine Kandinsky. On Gerry’s right a log fire burned quietly in a hearth of grey stone surmounted by a splaying copper flue; flame reflections danced on the carpet, making little orange fans of light.

  Only a half of the room was really visible. In front of the couch the walls seemed to dim, spreading and vanishing in ghostly perspectives. The nearest of the ring of ceiling-mounted projectors was just visible through the illusion. The Stereoplay was nearing its end; Gerry seemed to be looking into the throne room of a palace, sombre and magnificent. Torches burned in sconces, sending up thin wreaths of smoke to the high roof; one end of the set was raised to form a dais, on which sat and lounged a group of dignitaries. Here were the two sets of lovers, Helena tall and blonde, Hermia flashing and dark; Theseus, greying and richly robed, his forehead encircled by a thin golden torque; Hippolyta in a barbaric half-dress of glinting bronze-coloured strips. In front of the platform the clowns mouthed and postured; music piped, silver and eerie, underscoring the old words that never would be old.

  And we fairies, that do run

  By the triple Hecate’s team,

  From the presence of the sun,

  Following darkness like a dream,

  Now are frolic ...

  A glittering golden Puck stood on the blue carpet, bowed, winked and was gone. The long poem finished. Reb yawned, stretched, put her heel on the floor control in front of the divan; the Stereo went out in a momentary busyness of electrons. The room assumed its normal proportions; wall lighting flowed back softly. Gerry sat up, blinking. He’d been lulled by good food and liqueur and by the glimmering beauty of the Stereoplay, he’d almost managed to forget the pain that had been nagging away at the edge of his consciousness. Now, nearly instantly, he could feel it coming back. The house was very still; outside the wind called, emphasizing the isolation. The sound came dimly through the insulated walls. Now’s the time, honey. Just say out what you’ve got to say, it’ll be O.K. But play it straight. Don’t fool around, not any more ...

  Reb brushed a last nutshell off her lap, turned lazily. Eyes very deep blue, half shut. “Like it, Gerry?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it was great. Rebel...”

  “Hmmm?” Sleepily.

  “Something I had to ask...” His voice now he’d got to the point of no return sounded harsh in his ears, adolescent.

  She rolled over the rest of the way towards him. “Hmm ... Let it wait...”

  ‘‘It can’t, bunny, not any more. I’m sorry—”

  “It can,” she said. “Till morning. Better in the morning. Everything’s better in the morning...” She prodded him, playfully. “C’mon, Kaufman, quit worrying. Like the man said; lovers to bed, ‘tis nearly fairy time ...”

  For a moment he seemed to sense the strain under the words; then the anger came again. He tried to move back and she wriggled carefully, trapping him. Caught his hand, guided it up to her breast. He let it lie there cupped round the warmth and fullness and things were how they’d been just once before a very long time ago. She pulled his head down and started using her mouth, not kissing yet, just brushing and touching with the lips. She was making the noise in her throat again like she always did, he used to wonder if it was an unconscious thing like the purring of a cat. His body reacted to her; he pulled her closer, felt gently at first, then more urgently the rhythmic pushing of her tongue. “That’s twice,” he thought, hopelessly. ‘That’s twice, Rebel, twice is twice too much ...”

  He pushed away. His arm when he lifted it felt heavy as lead. He swung his knuckles backwards across her cheek. The noise of the blow was flat and hard, its force knocked her against the cushions. She lay staring, throat moving, and seconds turned into a minute. Then she got up and walked off.

  He lit a cigarette, trying to control his shaking. He said brutally, “I’ll leave on my own, don’t bother to have me thrown.”

  She stood at the sideboard, back turned to him, doing something that made a chinking sound. She said dully, “Nobody going to throw you anywhere. But if you have no objections I need a drink.” She swallowed, shuddered, swung round with a glass of whisky in her hand. She walked back, sat facing him. Set the glass on the hearth, pushed her hands between her knees, stared down at nothing. Then the eyes travelled back to him. “Why, Gerry?” she said. “Why?”

  He went across to the wall, stood looking at the Kandinsky, not seeing it. He said, “It’s the Uranus trip, isn’t it? Or farther out. Neptune, Pluto...” Fabled projects, he’d only half believed in them. Until this ...

  The fire crackled softly. Reb sat like a brown-and-white statue. Finally she said, “It’s a long tour, Gerry. Twenty years.”

  He clenched his fist slowly, and opened it. Looked at the blue depressions the nails had made in the palm. He said, “Like some lousy Stereoplay, isn’t it?”

  “Gerry...”

  He said, “You watch, and watch. You think no, it couldn’t be that old corny workout. Not again. They’ll put a twist, will be some new sort of end. But when it comes, it’s just what you reckoned. The old workout all over again.”

  “Gerry,” she said. “Please come and sit down. Here ...” She held her hand out, fingers inviting. Wanting to draw him back to the half circle of warmth wh
ere the flame patterns moved and flickered. But that was a thing to be resisted. He didn’t belong in the warm any more, wasn’t for him. He became aware of the Kandinsky as a tumble of colour, chaotic as his thoughts. His hand seemed to ache now, where he’d hit her. “Rebel,” he said, “lay down. Lay down, you’re dead, I just killed you.”

  She said, “Gerry, please let’s talk. We should have talked before, not kept it all sort of bottled ... I ... handled things all wrong, wasn’t supposed to be like this ...” She licked her mouth, tried to phrase her words exactly and correctly, giving each the same value. “Honey, I ... it wasn’t like you think. Honestly ...”

  His eyes were on the picture, he wasn’t listening. She tried again, miserably. “Gerry, I ... used to think about you a lot. Work it out, plan how it was going to be. I used to lay for hours, off-duty, when I was in Space—”

  He spun back. “You were never in Space ..He laughed, letting the bitterness well up. No point trying to stop it now. “GX. That isn’t Space. That’s a warm, friendly, cosy, all-Terran little old home from home, that isn’t Space.” He was shouting now, didn’t care. She should have let him go. But no, she wanted the dirty game played through. “I’ll tell you about Space,” he said. “Space is a little cabin. About yea big.” He gestured jerkily with his hands. “Round. Silver walls. Little air-pump that goes thuck-thuck-thuck till you dream the noise, feel it. Smell it. Eat it with your dehydrates. There’s one port you never open. One radiophone you never use. A coupla books you read through and through, over and over, till you know ‘em by heart, till you know ‘em backwards, till you’re sick of every bloody word. Space is where you sit for a week or a month or a year and listen to the temp changes make dust out of the mountains. Above all, Space is where you think. And boy, how you learn to do that...”

  The met cabin was swimming in front of his eyes with the vividness of hallucination. Every tiny detail of it, as if the image was burned on his brain. He said savagely, “Everybody comes back out of Space just a little crazy. All the boys know that. Did you know that, honey? Did you know when you were picking me up, you were waiting for a crazy man?”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t look at him. She was staring down again, sitting hunched. It was like the words were lashing her, he could nearly see them hitting her back. But he couldn’t haul up now. “Tell you a little story,” he said. “Tell you just how things are. And don’t stop me, bunny, this is Kaufman’s one big scene. Just let it all come rolling out, it’ll show you what you’ll be missing.

  “There was a little kid once, nice little guy. And he had a sort of yen. A dream. Used to spend all his nights reading, sit and time the satellites up the sky, build the gear so he could hear ‘em cheep. Watched all the Stereos he could get, turned himself bug-eyed seeing Mars and Venus and the Moon. Was only one thing the little guy wanted, right from when he could think. Wanted out, wanted to be a Spacer, wanted the long haul. Only that wasn’t too easy, honey, you know why? You wouldn’t know about things like that I guess ... He was born wrong side of the tracks. Daddy kept a general store in a little way-out dump of a town you never heard of. Wasn’t no money, no money at all.

  “Well, he made it. Took years. His Ma slung hash in a dirty little flop joint to pay his way through High School. Then College, then the Cadets. He made it. Got his uniform, got his commission. Travelled all the way back home just to show the folks, tell ‘em what it felt like wearing the Blue. Was a big day for him, honey. That was the day they turned out the band.”

  “You made it, Gerry,” she said. “What’s the point, raking this all over?”

  He carried on as if he hadn’t heard her. He was sweating a little; he stood with his feet apart on the carpet, and some piece of his mind was wondering at the violence that was getting itself let out. It was like a stranger was talking, he was listening to the words, seeing them make new patterns. “He went back to Space School, did that little guy,” he said. “They tested him, they probed him, they taught him everything they could. And he found out all there was about the Space Service. Every little thing.”

  He looked out the long windows, blue and vibrant with night. “I wonder what they’d have thought,” he said. “All the old guys, the dreamers. Galileo, Newton, Verne, Wells. Old Lucian, all those years back. Wonder what they’d have just made of it, seeing the dream ...

  “There’s nothing out there for us. Just a hole that goes on for ever, they call that Space. And lumps of rock, they call ‘em planets. We can’t populate, we can’t use a thing. Not for generations. There’s nothing out there we haven’t got already, ten times over. No life. No air. And we’re still looking for God ...”

  “Gerry ...”

  “But we got a Space Service,” he said. “By Heaven we got one of those. It’s big and it’s rich, and what the Service says goes. Any place, any time. If the Service wants a million bucks sort of sudden, it gets it. If it wants ten million, it gets it. Wants to glue a few houses on the side of cliffs, it goes right on up and does it. But now and then, just once in a while, some guy gets on his back legs and says so what the Hell, how about the Conquest of the Universe? Then things have to move, honey, they have to whirl. And you know what happens ? They got a routine for it, all laid out. They take some goof with his head full of glory. Like the little guy I was saying about. They make him up big. Promote him. Give him a coupla years leave. Fix him a high-class wife, somebody to raise the family, look after the back pay. They give him the lot, everything a guy could need. Sure they’ll build him a house on a mountain if that’s what he wants, it’ll be great... Then they shove a bloody little flag in his hand. ‘Off you go, son,’ they say.

  ‘Just stick this in the farthest ball of muck you can find, will ya, just poop off for a coupla dozen years, somebody gotta keep making Progress.. .’ “

  She got up like she’d just sat on a tack. “It wasn’t like that... Gerry, it wasn’t...” She was nearly screaming, her eyes were very bright. She stamped, made the short kilt swing. He’d never seen anybody, girl or woman, stamp with a temper before. “O.K.,” he said. “O.K. bunny, wasn’t like that. Wasn’t anything like I said at all.” He walked towards the door. “I’m an upstate slob. Rebel, I never changed. How do I get out of this Goddam place?”

  Quietly. “There’s a fan in the garage. You’re welcome.”

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll send a guy back for my things, O.K?”

  She seemed dazed. “Gerry ... where’ll you go?”

  “Downtown LA. Find me a bar that doesn’t shut nights. Make like a Spacer.” He reached the door and she ran to him, took his arm. Rubbing, not looking at him. “Gerry, I ... never said please to you before. Please believe me, it wasn’t like that. Not this time. I thought... well, we could take up where we left off. It was going to be like ... well, like it could have been. Oh, you know what I mean. It’s all messed up, Gerry, I made one Hell of a mess of things, you know what I mean ...”

  He unhooked her, as gently as he could. Seemed he couldn’t see straight any more. And the blood was sounding in his ears, it was like he was drunk. “Darling,” he said, “I believe you. It’s just, I don’t want any part of this. Always wanted you but I can’t take this, not you a chunk in a package deal. You didn’t have to put yourself on show with a price tag round your neck ... I got a twenty-year tour, is all. O.K., so I’ll do the bloody tour. The long haul. So O.K., we can’t just all have the luck. I pulled the short twig, that’s all...”

  She stood back from him, white and gold, tousled. “Then I never mattered,” she said. “Thought I did, thought there was something between us, wasn’t so.” Then, bitterly, “Just a hayseed getting over his first dose of hormone trouble ...”

  He leaned his hand on the door-frame, made a fist, pushed his forehead against his knuckles. Knew that walking out was going to be like towing a ton weight up a cliff. He looked up, face haunted. “Reb,” he said. “This is a thing just has to be done. Don’t know why.” He was shaking, trying to grin. He heard his o
wn voice rambling on into absurdity but this was still his scene. Would never be another. “Bunny,” he said, “there was a man called Shaw, wrote a play. In the play, the girl’s going to be fed to the lions. The soldier asks her why, why do it? And she says, ‘I don’t know, I’ve forgotten.’ That’s a wonderful line I guess. And that’s with me. Don’t know why I’m going. Don’t know why any of us burn our lives up cutting rings in Deepspace. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten ... But we go anyway. Nothing for us, we still have to go.” He fumbled the door open. “Rebel,” he said. “I love you. Mean that, bunny.” She shut her eyes, swayed a little. Heard the frame bang in the wind.