At last the guard paused before an ornate brass door. He knocked three times, then stepped aside. Before the door could open, the cat loped nonchalantly through it. To her amazement, Betty found herself following him through the wood and brass into the inner sanctum of President Joseph Carson.
‘O.K. O.K. Don’t lose ya marbles, Carson. At least we knocked.’ Betty greeted him. ‘Where ya keep the booze?’
Carson recovered magnificently. He poured himself a tumblerful of raw scotch and offered Betty the bottle. She took it and drank it dry in a single swallow. Carson gaped.
‘Sheee!’ she said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. ‘I ain’t had a drink since yesterday. Mind if I give some to the cat?’
Carson downed his own drink and opened another bottle, eyeing the cat warily.
‘This the cat from space?’ he asked, pouring whisky into his ashtray and giving it to the cat.
‘The very same.’
‘What’s his price?’
‘I ain’t got one!’ said the cat, who had unfortunately learned the native dialect from Betty. President Carson stared at the whisky-guzzling cat in amazement.
‘He talks?’
‘Sure,’ said Betty. ‘An’ he’s got a talking glass nickel too.’
The President poured himself another drink. Jomo, in the coin said hello and introduced himself to the President who was about to reply when Oscar, the drunk, blatted into the room. One minute he wasn’t, the next he was. Blam. Just like that. The President blinked. A very pasty-faced Oscar blinked back, and eyed the bottle of whisky longingly. Dumbfounded, the President offered him the bottle; but no sooner had Oscar clutched it in his shaking hand when— Blam. He vanished again. For a series of startling instants he blatted into existence in four or five odd parts of the room, each time swilling greedily from the bottle which flickered faithfully in and out of existence with him. At last he vanished and Carson turned to Betty for an explanation.
‘He’s drunk,’ she slurred and the President only nodded, hastily opening another bottle and tilting it eagerly.
Out of the corner of the room he saw the black cat slip out through the open window.
‘Stop!’ screamed Carson, slamming the bottle down.
‘Stop what?’ asked Oscar blandly materialising, his face flushed and the light of mischief in his eye as he solemnly handed the empty bottle to the President and hastily snatched the full one, unsure how long he might continue to exist.
‘Stop the cat!’ shrieked the President, and Oscar cracked up.
‘WHEEEE. Yessir. Oh, my goddamn. Them cats! teehee, yes, yes, yes. I near forgot.’ But before he could elucidate further he dissolved.
‘The cat’s still here,’ said Betty pointing to Dar who was still lapping whisky. Carson silently opened another bottle and took a long pull before passing it over to Betty.
‘Oh, well,’ he said, and belched. ‘Pardon. I just thought I see a black cat go out over there.’ And as he pointed, not one but three black cats hopped in. They seemed like black cats; but a double blink showed they had white and orange tails and their fur was blotched with dye.
The President belched, shrugged, drank, swallowed and belched again.
‘Cats,’ he remarked succinctly. ‘They probably escaped from the basement. Now what does this cat want?’
‘I am Dar, Master of the Hopeless Worlds,’ the cat enunciated carefully. ‘Jomo and I have come to assist you in your next evolution.’ And he flipped the glass coin from his paw on to the table. Carson picked it up gingerly.
‘Don’t take any bad nickels,’ Oscar advised, blatting in and out of the room just long enough to exchange whisky bottles.
‘What’s it worth?’ mumbled the President, opening another and feeling real good. Intergalactic diplomacy seemed real easy. For answer the coin became a hole in space in his hand and weird music floated out of it. Carson closed his eyes and dreamed of blue deserts and strange beings. The music made him want to dance. He smiled gallantly at Betty, momentarily forgetting the coin.
‘You got a good figure there. How old are ya?’
‘Thirty-nine is what I’m admitting. How about another drink ? Over on the sofa.’
Carson forgot about dancing.
‘What about our assistance for your evolution?’ said Dar, dripping whisky on to the coin so that Jomo might experience this strange brew.
‘Get lost!’ said Betty, snatching a quick drink with one hand while she flung the other round Carson’s neck.
‘Sure damn fine whisky,’ mumbled the President, struggling out of his suspenders.
Thanks for the drinks, Mr. President!’ whooped Oscar, temporarily stabilised by the liquor cabinet. Carson and Betty took no notice from their flurry of garters, corsets and Presidential monogrammed linen on the sofa.
The door flew open and General Lawson darted in and grabbed Oscar. Six or seven cats followed him in.
‘Hi, Sarge, have a drink!’ Oscar bellowed, but Hubert Lawson would have none of it. He was a disgrace. He’d failed his country. First the damn cats had broken out, then Oscar started teleporting himself all over the Palace getting drunk, and it hadn’t been such a smart idea to sew bottle tops on his uniform. Should’ve waited for his General’s stars to come through. He didn’t mean to show himself of course; but he’d had to, now ...
Hubert Lawson stopped stock still. Frozen in unbelieving horror. His President was threshing on the sofa with a rather fat, middle-aged woman and there were bottles of whisky everywhere. Hubert was scandalised. Couldn’t speak. The door whammed open and Adolph Niemeyer burst in, followed by a horde of cats yelling for revenge. He too, stopped dead. Oscar, his arms and pockets filled with bottles, vanished into drunken air. The black cat on the table shouted,
‘Doesn’t anybody want salvation?’ Whereupon, all the cats in the room descended on their unnatural cousin and a mauling, spewing, screaming catfight erupted—boiling across the heaving Betty and President Carson thrusting for dear life. Hubert stammered and Niemeyer groaned.
‘Get these damn cats outta here!’ screamed the glass nickel, but no one took any notice as Oscar blatted through one more time, guzzling merrily.
Hubert stammered again, unable to take his eyes off his Leader. At last he pulled himself together, saluted and said, ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your interrogation, sir.’
* * * *
Seven
Dar, the cat, dematerialised. He mutated through the quartz and silicon pillar and made his way through the Main Gate, over the flying walkway to the Palace of the Emperor of All.
‘What can we do?’ groaned the Old Man, polishing Jomo’s coin ‘til it winked in the sun.
‘Nothing ever works in the Hopeless Worlds.’
<
* * * *
THE DEBRIS OF RECENT LIVES
Charles Partington
After ‘Sporting on Apteryx’ published in Volume 23, Charles Partington narrowly escaped a nasty mischief when drying himself on a hand towel. Readers of New Writings are no less fortunate in the happy outcome of that perilous encounter for they are now able to venture into further crannies of creation within Charles Partington’s brain where Storrs and lella eternally fail to meet among the constellations of the mind.
* * * *
‘I prize seeing a great deal. In the
visual image we possess life itself.’
—Goethe.
Later, Storrs had stood before the viewscreen, staring mindlessly at the exploding star.
‘Where now?’ Van Vliet had asked. ‘Earth?’
Storrs had shaken his head. ‘No. Anywhere but there.’ The expression on his face had been one of utter desolation.
‘Anywhere?’ Van Vliet had echoed.
Storrs had just nodded numbly.
* * * *
All his free time was now spent in the darkening well of the viewroom. Each visit he occupied a different chair. Upon leaving he had scored a name, always the same one, into the back of
the chair in front of where he had been sitting.
Storrs had never questioned Van Vliet about their destination. Such considerations no longer interested him. The only indications he had were the increasing areas of blackness on the viewscreen.
Time passed. Storrs continued to make his almost ritualistic visits to the viewroom. And each visit saw the name added to another chair.
* * * *
The first knowledge Storrs had of the arrival of a second passenger on board the Glider came after another period of sleep tormented with dreams of Iella.
He had awoken sweating and exhausted, suddenly aware that something had happened to the ship while he slept. The intensity of his dreams, the surging despair those images of Iella had evoked, prevented Storrs from realising immediately what it was that seemed different about the Glider. He dressed and went in search of the Captain.
When Storrs located Van Vliet, he found him manipulating servo-mechanisms to place a number of crude organics into an empty hold. The material had a texture and cellular structure similar to wood, but wood grown on oddly warped trees.
Storrs watched, vaguely perturbed, realising that if the Glider was taking on cargo it must be operating at a sub-light velocity, possibly in orbit around a planetary body. He had slept through the transition which apparently had induced those traumatic recollections of Iella.
He watched the operation in silence. His interest in anything was minimal these days. The initial shock of Cin 2347’s premature nova was still with him, perhaps it always would be.
Iella had died before he had been able to reach her. His decision not to send word of his departure for Cin 2347 but to surprise her was also a cause for regret.
The delay had been of his own making. There had been more than sufficient time to make the journey. Yet he had postponed the decision time and again, hoping illogically that Iella would change her mind, even though he was aware of the depth of her feelings concerning Cin 2347.
When too little time remained Storrs had accepted the inevitable and booked passage on the Glider. Iella had died among strangers without realising that he was on his way to join her, and Storrs knew now that he would never be able to erase his guilt complex.
* * * *
Noticing him. Van Vliet nodded a terse greeting, his hands hovering briefly above the servo-mechanism controls. ‘Quar.’ he explained. ‘You may have heard of it.’
Storrs shook his head.
‘No? It’s considered an excellent substance by the Ceol. Under their hands it manifests properties unattainable by other lifeforms. But then I’m sure your fellow passenger could explain far better than I.’
The possibility of Van Vliet accepting another passenger on-board the Glider had never occurred to Storrs. Physical journeys were rarely undertaken, most lifeforms preferring to visit by proxy, exchanging personalities for prearranged periods, the delay between transmission and reception of the psyche being passed in cryosleep, a small inconvenience for the prospect of another world, the possession and sensations of another body.
During the flight, especially since the nova of Cin 2347, Storrs had evolved an understanding with Van Vliet. Conversation was restricted to necessities, each pursuing his own interests without inflicting himself on the other. The prospect of this Ceol filled Storrs with alarm. There was a blackness inside him that shunned intimacies.
* * * *
Van Vliet indicated a figure approaching along the corridor. ‘Why not introduce yourself? You should both have much to discuss. I understand that ...’ The Captain smiled apologetically. ‘I’m afraid his name will not suffer a translation. That Ceol is considered a great artist by his own people.’ Deliberately then, Van Vliet turned back to his servo-mechanisms.
* * * *
The number of star systems containing life within the galaxy had been estimated as being in excess of one hundred and sixty thousand, a high percentage of which had produced their own unique intelligence structures. Homo sapiens had found it relatively easy to accept the more bizarre lifeforms. Earth’s own riotous genetic display having long accustomed them to the acceptance of infinite variety. Conversely, only when intelligence approached the human form did the ancient subconscious fears surface.
The Ceol was a near copy of Homo sapiens, the minor differences assuming frightening proportions which in Storrs’ weakened and vulnerable state threatened to swamp his reasoning in a wave of emotive fear.
It was then, as the alien approached along the narrow corridor, that their eyes met. Storrs stared only briefly into those fluid expressionless orbs, but the undeniable sensation that it was reaching down into his soul and fastening upon what it found there, sent Storrs gasping for the privacy of his cabin, his ritual in the viewroom forgotten in his panic to avoid this alarming invasion of his innermost processes.
Hours later he condemned but could not overcome the irrational fear which kept him a prisoner in his cabin for the rest of that period.
* * * *
Storrs was never to lose his dread of Ceol. If anything his revulsion increased each time he came into contact with his fellow passenger.
On one occasion Storrs had been seated as usual in the viewroom, his eyes on the growing darkness he had come to realise was the edge of the galaxy, his thoughts and memories on Iella and her burning ambitions. Storrs’ own talent had never equalled hers, his mind faltering before the vision of her accomplishments. Yet she had never been satisfied.
For decades, art in all its aspects had hesitated, seemingly unsure, directionless, lacking the intellectual leaders who might have indicated the way. A condition of stasis had existed for too long. Originality was dead, buried under the outpourings of countless previous generations, a culmination of the vast legacy produced over a span of thirty-thousand years. The impact of new cultures had compounded the condition rather than stimulating it. Human artists had retreated perplexed before the incoming tidal wave of alien concepts, seeking refuge in a return to classical themes. Iella and others like her recognised the problem but so far had been unable to produce a solution. Storrs had offered what encouragement he could; but more than encouragement had been needed.
Storrs stretched in his chair, surfacing briefly from his recollections.
The viewscreen had been suddenly filled with glowing filaments of gas, nebulous spirals of interstellar material looping and whirling in response to unseen forces. Their effect upon Storrs had been hypnotic. Again he plunged into reminiscences.
Concerned with this cultural confusion, they had naturally been aware of the peremptory exodus of Earth’s prominent literary and artistic figures, and of the rumours concerning Cin 2347, for weeks before the pebbles arrived.
Inquiries about these inexplicable departures proved negative. Iella’s questions received only cautionary glances or amused smiles within those elitist circles she had been able to penetrate on the strength of her growing reputation in art. The news media were preoccupied with the current political upheavals. Official sources refused to comment. However, they did not have long to wait for the answer.
The pebbles arrived accompanied by a terse handwritten note. The signature was unmistakable and one Iella found extremely flattering. ‘Join us—please,’ the note read, ‘the pebbles will tell you all you need to know.’ Attached to the note were two one way tickets to Cin 2347’s only planet.
Looking up from the tickets, Storrs saw tears in Iella’s eyes. She was clenching her pebble very tightly between both hands. She looked as though she would never let go of it again.
Thoughtfully, Storrs had brushed his fingers over his own pebble. He had experienced nothing. The pebble was dead. Or he was.
* * * *
Iella had her pebble split into pieces, each fragment mounted into a separate silver ring. She wore the rings constantly, and her work had improved, gaining a strength and conviction previously only hinted at. She was obviously inspired. And Storrs came to realise that it really didn’t matter what had brought about this change in
her work, the pebble shards or some subtle psychosomatic process. The results were what mattered. And they were startling.
Once, Storrs had searched for his own pebble, intending to subject it to a thorough analysis. Though he spent hours looking, he never found it. Perhaps that had been psychosomatic, too.
New Writings in SF 25 - [Anthology] Page 5