The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 6 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  Maxill hacked at a dead limb. The ax bounded back from the wood. The tree was not diseased or rotten, just old and neglected. Most of the branches were dead but sap still ran in the trunk, as shown by a few boughs on which a handful of fruit had set, and there was new growth on the tips. Like the rest of the orchard, the tree wasn’t worth saving. The ax swung again and again; the branch broke off. Maxill nodded and handed the ax to the fellow.

  The fellow hummed, looked at Maxill, the girls, the ax. He dropped the tool and walked over to the tree, fingering the rough bark of the corns, the gnarly outcrop of the roots, the leaves and twigs over his head. Nan halfway expected the tree to rearrange itself into cordwood, neatly split and stacked. Nothing happened, nothing at all.

  “Yah! Dummy can’t milk, slop pigs, feed chickens or cut wood. If it cost anything to feed him he wouldn’t be worth his keep. All he can do is hum and play tricks.”

  “We’ll do the chores this morning,’’ Nan offered tactfully. They did them most mornings, and evenings too, but it was a convention that their father did all the man’s work and left them free to concentrate on feminine pursuits. Thoughtful girls, they saved his face.

  Nan couldn’t believe there was nothing irrevocably wrong with the fellow. He used his eight fingers as dexterously as anyone used ten; more so, it seemed. He wouldn’t feed the pigs, but he caught on fast to gathering eggs, reaching under the hens without disturbing them at all. He couldn’t milk but he stood by Sherry’s side while Nan did. The cow’s production was still up; there was a lot more than yesterday morning.

  After the chores he returned to the orchard—without the ax. Nan sent Josey to see what he was up to. “He’s going to every tree on the place,” Josey reported; “just looking at them and touching them. Not doing anything useful. And you know what? He eats grass and weeds.”

  “Chews on them, you mean.”

  “No, I don’t. He eats them, honest. Handfuls. And he touched my—the thing on my face. I ran right away to look in the mirror, and you can hardly see it in the shade.”

  “I’m glad it’s fading,” said Nan. “Only don’t be disappointed if it comes back. It’s nothing to worry about. And I’m sure his touching you had nothing to do with it. Just coincidence.”

  It took the fellow three days to go through the orchard, fooling around with every one of the old trees. By the end of the third day Sherry was giving two full gallons of milk, they were gathering more eggs than usual in the season when laying normally fell off, and Josey’s birthmark had practically disappeared, even in full sunlight. Malcolm Maxill grumbled at the fellow’s uselessness but he never said straight out that he had to move on, so everything was all right.

  After the orchard (the girls went, separately and collectively, to see what he was doing; they returned no wiser) he started on the cornfield. Maxill had planted late, not merely from lack of enthusiasm for husbandry but, possessing no tractor or plow, he had to wait till those who hired out their rigs finished their own sowing. The ground had been dry; the seed had taken overlong to swell and germinate; when the tender gray-green sheaves spiraled through the hard earth, the hot sun had scorched and warped them. While the neighboring fields were already in pale tassel, his dwarfed rows barely revealed the beginning of stunted spikes.

  The fellow took even longer with the corn than the orchard. By now Nan realized his humming wasn’t tunes at all, just his way of talking. It was a little disheartening, making him seem more alien than ever. If he’d been Italian or Portugee she could have learned the language; if he’d been a Chinaman she could have found out how to eat with chopsticks. A man who spoke notes instead of words was a problem for a girl.

  Just the same, after a couple of weeks she began to understand him a little. By this time they were getting four gallons a day from the cow, more eggs than they ever had in early spring, and Josey’s complexion was like a baby’s. Maxill brought home a radio someone traded in at his son-in-law’s store and they had fun getting all sorts of distant stations. When the fellow came close and they weren’t tuned in, it played the same kind of music the fiddle had the first night. They were getting used to it now; it didn’t seem so strange or even—Malcolm Maxill’s words—so long-haired. It made them feel better, stronger, kinder, more loving.

  She understood—what? That he was not as other men, born in places with familiar names, speaking familiar speech, doing things in customary ways? All this she knew already. The humming told her where he came from and how; it was no more comprehensible and relevant afterward than before. Another planet, another star, another galaxy—what were these concepts to Nan Maxill, the disciplinary problem of Henryton Union High, who had read novels in her science class? His name, as near as she could translate the hum, was Ash; what did it matter if he was born on Alpha Centauri, Mars, or an unnamed earth a billion light-years off?

  He was humble, conscious of inferiority. He could do none of the things in which his race was so proficient. Not for him were abstract problems insoluble by electronic brains, philosophical speculation reaching either to lunacy or enlightenment, the invention of new means to create or transmute matter. He was, so he admitted and her heart filled the gaps her intellect failed to bridge, a throwback, ad atavism, a creature unable to catch the progress of his kind. In a world of science, of synthetic foods and telekinesis, of final divorce from the elementary processes of nature, he had been born a farmer.

  He could make things grow—in a civilization where that talent was no longer useful. He could combat sickness —in a race that had developed congenital immunity to disease. His gifts were those his species had once needed; they had outgrown the need a million generations back.

  He did not pour out his confusion to Nan in a single steady flow. Only as he acquired words and she began to distinguish between his tones did their communication reach toward comprehension. Even when he was thoroughly proficient in her language and she could use his crudely, there remained so much beyond her grasp. He explained patiently over and over the technique of controlling sounds without directly touching the instrument as he had done with the fiddle and radio; she could not follow him. What he had done to Josey’s face might as well have been expounded in Sanskrit.

  It was still more impossible for her to envision the ways in which Ash was inferior to his fellows. That his humming—any music he produced—so beguiling and ethereal to her, was only a dissonance, a childish babble, a lisping, stuttering cacophony, was preposterous. Spaceships she could imagine, but not instantaneous transmission of unharmed living matter through a void millions of parsecs across.

  While they learned from each other the corn ripened. This was no crop to plow under or let blacken with mildew in the field. The blighted sheaves now stood head-high, the broad leaves sickling gracefully downward, exposing and protecting the two ears on every stalk. And what ears they were! Twice as long and twice as fat as any grown in Evarts County within memory, full of perfect kernels right to the bluntly rounded tips, without a single dry or wormy row. The county agricultural agent, hearing rumors, drove over to scotch them; he walked through the field for hours, shaking his head, mumbling to himself, pinching his arm. Maxill sold the crop for a price that was unbelievable, even with the check in his hand.

  The meager scattering of fruit ripened. Since the coming of Ash, the trees had sent forth new wood at a great rate. Young leaves hid the scars of age: the dead wood thrusting jaggedly, nakedly upward, the still-living but sterile boughs. Under the lush foliage the girls discovered the fruit. Ash’s touch had been too late for the cherries, apricots, plums, early peaches, though those trees were flourishing in their new growth with abundant promise for the coming year. But the apples, pears and winter peaches were more astonishing than the corn.

  There were few; nothing could have added new blossoms, fertilized them, or set the fruit, but the few were enormous. The apples were large as cantaloupes, the pears twice the size of normal pears, the peaches bigger than any peach could be. (Maxill exhibited
specimens at the County Fair and swept all the first prizes.) They were so huge everyone assumed they must be mealy and tasteless, easily spoiled. Juice spurted from them at the bite, their flesh was firm and tangy, their taste and plumpness kept through the winter.

  Nan Maxill faced the problem. Ash was properly a gift to all the people of the world. There was none who couldn’t learn from him; all would benefit by what they learned. Scientists could understand what she couldn’t; piece together the hints of matters above Ash’s own head. The impetus he could give to technology would make the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries seem stagnant periods. Musicians and philologists could be pushed to amazing discoveries. Farmers could benefit most of all. Under his guidance dead sands and unused spaces would be rich with food; many if not all wars might be avoided; To keep him on the farm in Evarts County would be cheating humanity.

  Against all this what could she set? The prosperity of the Maxills? Her growing attachment to Ash? The threat of her father selling the farm—easy enough now—and seeing the money spent until they were worse off than ever? She would have been stupid or foolish not to have considered these things. But the picture that pushed all others aside was that of Ash on the rack, victim of polite, incredulous inquisitors.

  They wouldn’t believe a word he said. They’d find the most convincing reasons for disregarding the evidence of the corn, the fruit, the untouched fiddle. They would subject him to psychiatric tests: intelligence, co-ordination, memory; physical tests—every possible prying and prodding. Where was he born, what was his full name, who were his father and mother? Unbelieving, refusing to believe, but so politely, gently, insistently: Yes, yes of course, we understand; but try and think back, Mr. Uh Er Ash. Try to recall your childhood...

  And when they finally realized, it would be worse, not better. Now this force, Mr. Ash—try to remember how.... This equation; surely you can.... We know you practice telekinesis, just show us.... Again, please...Again, please.... About healing sores, please explain.... Let’s go through that revival of dying plant life once more.....Now about this ultrachromatic scale.... Now this, now that.

  Or suppose it wasn’t that way at all? Suppose the peril to Ash wasn’t the apelike human greed for information but the tigerish human fear and hate of the stranger? Arrest for illegal entry or whatever they wanted to call it, speeches in Congress, uproar in newspapers and over the air. Spy, saboteur, alien agent. (How do we know what he’s done to what he grows? Maybe anybody who eats it will go crazy or not be able to have babies.) There were no means of deporting Ash; this didn’t mean he couldn’t be gotten rid of by those terrified of an invasion of which he was the forerunner. Trials, legal condemnation, protective custody, lynchers...

  Uncovering Ash meant disaster. Two hundred years earlier or later he could bring salvation. Not now. In this age of fear, the revelation of his existence would be an irreparable mistake. Nan knew her father wouldn’t be anxious to tell who was responsible for his crops; Gladys and Muriel knew nothing except that they had a hired man who was somewhat peculiar; anyway they wouldn’t call themselves to the attention of Evarts County in any controversial light. The younger kids could be trusted to follow the example of their father and sisters. Besides, she was the only one in whom Ash had confided.

  That winter Maxill bought two more cows. Ancient, dry and bony, destined for the butcher’s where they would have brought very little. Under Ash’s care they rejuvenated from day to day, their ribs vanished beneath flesh, their eyes brightened. The small, slack bags emerged, rounded, swelled, and eventually hung as full of milk as though they had just calved.

  “What I want to know is, why can’t we do as much for the pigs?” he demanded of Nan, ignoring, as always except when it suited him, Ash’s presence. “Hogs are way down; I could get me some bred sows cheap. He could work his hocus-pocus—I can just see what litters they’d have.”

  “It isn’t hocus-pocus. Ash just knows more about these things than we do. And he won’t do anything to help killing,” Nan explained. “He won’t eat meat or eggs or milk himself—”

  “He did something to make the hens lay more. And look at the milk we’re getting.”

  “The more the hens lay the farther they are from the ax. The same goes for the cows. You notice nothing’s improved the young cockerels. Maybe it isn’t that he won’t; maybe he can’t do anything to get animals ready to be eaten. Ask him.”

  The seed catalogues began coming. Maxill had never bothered with the truck garden beyond having it plowed for the girls to sow and tend. This year he treated each pamphlet like a love letter, gloating over the orange-icicle carrots, impudent radishes, well-born heads of lettuce on the glistening covers. Nan intercepted his rhapsody of cabbages bigger than pumpkins, watermelons too heavy for a man to lift unaided, succulent tomatoes weighing three pounds or more apiece.

  And Ash was content. For the first time Nan felt the double-edged anger of women toward both exploiter and exploited. Ash ought to have some self-respect, some ambition. He oughtn’t be satisfied puttering around an old farm. With his abilities and the assurance of a superior among primitives he could be just about anything he wanted. But of course all he wanted was to be a farmer.

  Maxill couldn’t wait for the ground to be ready. While it was still too wet he had it plowed. Badly and at extra cost. He planted every inch of the fifty-odd available acres, to the carefully concealed amusement of his neighbors who knew the seed would rot.

  Nan asked Ash, “Can you control whatever it is you do?”

  “I can’t make pear trees bear cucumbers or a grapevine have potatoes on its roots.”

  “I mean, everything doesn’t have to be extra big, does it? Can you fix it so the corn is only a little bigger than usual?”

  “Why?”

  Nan Maxill knew the shame of treason, as she tried to explain.

  “You’re using words I don’t know,” said Ash. “Please define: jealousy, envy, foreigner, competition, furious, suspicion and—well, begin with those.”

  She did the best she could. It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t nearly good enough. Nan, who had been outraged at Ash’s banishment, began to see how one too far behind or too far ahead might become intolerable. She could only guess what Ash represented to his people—a reminder of things better forgotten, a hint that they weren’t so advanced as they thought when such a one could still be born to them —but she knew what he was on earth in the year 1937: a reproach and a condemnation.

  Spring winds snapped the dead wood on the fruit trees, pruning them as efficiently as a man with saw, shears and snips. The orchard could not be mistaken for a young one, the massive trunks and tall tops showed how long they had been rooted, but it was unquestionably a healthy one. The buds filled and opened, some with red-tipped unspoiled leaves, others with soft, powdery, uncountable blossoms. The shade they cast was so dense no weeds grew between the trees.

  Not so in the fields. Whatever Ash had done to the soil also affected the windblown seeds lighting in and between the furrows. They came up so thickly that stem grew next to stem, roots tangled inextricably, heads rose taller and taller, reaching for unimpeded sunlight. Unless you got down on hands and knees the tiny green pencils were invisible under the network of weeds.

  “Anyways,” said Malcolm Maxill, “the darned things came up instead of rotting; that’s going to make some of the characters around here look pretty sick. I’ll have a crop two-three weeks ahead of the rest. Depression’s over for the Maxills. Know what? We’ll have to cultivate like heck to get rid of the weeds; I’m going to get us a tractor on time. Then we won’t have to hire our plowing next year. Suppose he can learn to run a tractor7”

  “He can,” said Nan, ignoring Ash’s presence as completely as her father. “But he won’t.”

  “Why won’t he?”

  “He doesn’t like machinery.”

  Maxill looked disgusted. “I suppose he’d be happy with a horse or a mule.”

  “Maybe. He still wouldn�
��t turn the weeds under.”

  “Why the dickens not?”

  “I’ve told you before, Father. He won’t have anything to do with killing.”

  “Weeds?”

  “Anything. There’s no use arguing; that’s the way he is.”

  “Dam poor way if you ask me.” But he bought the tractor and many attachments for it, cultivating the corn, sweating and swearing (when the girls were out of earshot); cursing Ash who did no more about the farm than walk around touching things. Was that a way to earn a grown man’s keep?

  Nan was afraid he might have a stroke when he found out the mammoth products of the year before were not to be duplicated. The orchard bore beyond all expectation or reason, not a cherry, plum or apricot was undersized, misshapen or bird-pecked. No blossom fell infertile, no hard green nubbin withered and dropped, no set fruit failed to mature. Branches bent almost to the ground under the weight of their loads; breezes twitched leaves aside to uncover briefly a pomologist’s dream. Maxill was no more pleased than by the corn.