by Gene Wolfe
Well, there was a big wire fence there with a sign about the electricity, only it was not any fifteen feet high. I could have reached up to the top of it. Ten feet, maybe, or not even that.
“Can you pick me up and throw me over?” Junie said.
It was crazy, she would have come down on rocks, so I said I could, only she would have to tell why she wanted me to so much or I would not do it.
She took my hand then, and it felt wonderful. “People come back, Sam. They come back from death. I know scientists aren’t supposed to say things like that, but it’s true. They do.”
That made me feel even better because it meant I would see my dad again even if we would not have our farm that the feds took anymore.
“Do you remember that I said I might have been one of the fifty daughters of Thespius three thousand years ago? I don’t know if that’s really true, or even whether there was a real King Thespius who had fifty daughters. Perhaps there was, and perhaps I was one of them—I’d like to think so. But this really was Merlin’s cave and Roy T. Laffer was Merlin in an earlier life. There were unmistakable indications in his papers. I know it with as much certainty as I know Kepler’s Laws.”
That got me trying to remember who Kepler was, because I did not think Junie had told anything about him up to then. Or after either. Anyway, I did not say much.
“I’ve tried to contact Laffer in his house in Tulsa, Sam. I tried for days at a time, but he wasn’t there. I think he may be here. This is terribly important to me, and you said you’d help me. Now will you throw me over?”
I shook my head, but it was really dark down there and maybe Junie did not see it. I said I was not going to be on the other side to catch her and throw her back, so how was she going to get out? She said when they opened in the morning. I said she would get arrested and she said she did not care. It seemed to me that there were too many getting arrested when she said that, so I twisted on the lock, thinking to break the shackle. It was a pretty good lock and I broke the hasp instead. Then I threw the lock in the ocean and Junie and I went inside like she wanted. That was how she found out where White Cow Moon was and how to get on it too, if she wanted to.
It was about two o’clock in the morning when we came out, I think. I went back to the King Arthur’s and went to bed, and next day Junie moved in down the hall. Hers was the Lancelot room. After that she was my manager, which I told everybody and showed her off. She helped me write my course then, and got this shop in Falmouth to print it up for us.
Then when the fair was over she got us tickets home, and on the airplane we got to talking about the moon. I started it and it was a bad mistake, but we did not know it for a couple of days. Junie had been talking about taking pictures and I said, “How can you if it goes so fast?”
“It doesn’t, Sam.” She took my hand and I liked that a lot. “It circles the Earth quite slowly, so slowly that to an observer on Earth it hardly seems to move at all, which was one of the things Roy T. Laffer confided to me.”
I said I never had seen him, only the lady with the baby and the old man with the stick.
“That was him, Sam. He told me then, and it was implied in his papers anyway. Do you remember the rock?”
I said there had been lots of rocks, which was true because it had been a cave in the rocks.
“I mean the White Cow Moon rock in the picture, the one he lent to the science fair.”
I said, “It didn’t hardly weigh anything.”
“Yes.” Junie was sort of whispering then. “It had very little weight, yet it was hard to move. You had to pull and pull, even though it felt so light when you held it. Do you understand what that means, Sam?”
“Somebody might have glued it down?”
“No. It means that it had a great deal of mass, but very little weight. I’m sure you haven’t heard of antimatter—matter in which the protons are replaced by antiprotons, the electrons by positrons, and so on?”
I said no.
“It’s only theoretical so far. But current theory says that although antimatter would possess mass just as ordinary matter does, it would be repelled, by the gravitational field of ordinary matter. It would fall up, in other words.”
By the time she got to the part about falling up Junie was talking to herself mostly, only I could still hear her. “Our theory says a collision between matter and antimatter should result in a nuclear explosion, but either the theory’s mistaken or there’s some natural means of circumventing it. Because the White Cow Moon rock was composed of nearly equal parts matter and antimatter. It had to be! The result was rock with a great deal of mass but very little weight, and that’s what allows the White Cow Moon to orbit so slowly.
“Listen to me, Sam.” She made me turn in my airplane seat till I was looking at her, and I broke the arm a little. “We physicists say that all matter falls at the same rate, which is basically a convenient lie, true only in a hard vacuum. If that barbell you throw around were balsa wood, it wouldn’t fall nearly as fast as your iron one, because it would be falling in air. In the same way, a satellite with great mass but little weight can orbit slowly and quietly through Earth’s atmosphere, falling toward the surface only as fast as the surface falls away from it.”
“Wouldn’t it hit a mountain or something, Junie?”
“No, because any mountain that rose in its path would be chipped away as it rose. As light as the White Cow Moon must be, its mass has got to be enormous. Not knowing its orbit—not yet—we can’t know what mountain ranges it may cross, but when we do we’ll find it goes through passes. They are passes because it goes through them.”
Junie got real quiet for a while after she said that, and now I wish she had stayed quiet. Then she said, “Just think what we could do, Sam, if we could manufacture metals like that rock. Launch vehicles that would reach escape velocity from Earth using less thrust than that of an ordinary launch vehicle on the moon.”
That was the main trouble, I think. Junie saying that was. The other may have hurt us some too, but that did for sure.
We were flying to Tulsa. I guess I should have written about that before. Anyway, when we got there Junie got us a bunch of rooms like an apartment in a really nice hotel. We were going to have to wait for my bells to come back on a boat, so Junie said we could look for the White Cow Moon while we were waiting and she would line me up some good dates to play when my stuff got there. We were sitting around having Diet Cokes out of the little icebox in the kitchen when the feds knocked on the door.
Junie said, “Let me,” and went, and that was how they could push in. But they would have if it had been me anyway because they had guns. I would have had to let them just like Junie.
The one in the blue suit said, “Ms. Moon?” and Junie said yes. Then he said, “We’re from the government, and we’ve come to help you and Mr. Moon.”
My name never was Moon, but we both changed ours after that anyway. She was Junie Manoe and I was Sam Manoe. Junie picked Manoe to go with JM on her bags. But that was not until after the feds went away.
What they had said was we had to forget about the moon or we would get in a lot of trouble. Junie said we did not care about the moon, we had nothing to do with the moon, what we were doing mainly was getting ready to write a biography about a certain old man named Roy T. Laffer.
The man in the blue suit said, “Good, keep it that way.” The man in the black suit never did say anything, but you could see he was hoping to shoot us. I tried to ask Junie some questions after they went away, but she would not talk because she was pretty sure they were listening, or somebody was.
When we were living in the house she explained about that, and said probably somebody on the plane had told on us, or else the feds listened to everything anybody said on planes. I said we were lucky they had not shot us, and told her about my dad, and that was when she said it was too dangerous for me. She never would tell me exactly where the White Cow Moon was after that, and it traveled around anyway, she said. Bu
t she got me a really good job in a gym there. I helped train people and showed them how to do things, and even got on TV doing ads for the gym with some other men and some ladies.
Only I knew that while I was working at the gym Junie was going out in her car looking for the White Cow Moon, and at night I would write down the mileage when she was in the living room reading. I figured she would find the White Cow Moon and go there at least a couple of times and maybe three or four and then the mileage would always be the same. And that was how it worked out. I thought that was pretty smart of me, but I was not going to tell Junie how smart I had been until I found it myself and she could not say it was too dangerous.
I looked in her desk for moon rocks too, but I never found any, so that is why I do not think Junie had been up there on the White Cow Moon yet.
Well, for three days in a row it was just about 125 on the mileage. It was 123 one time, and 124 and then 126. So that was how I knew 63 miles from Tulsa. That day after work I went out and bought the biggest bike at the big Ridin’ th’ Wild Wind store. It is a Harley and better for me than a car because my head does not scrape. It is nearly big enough.
Only that night Junie did not come home. I thought she had gone up on the White Cow Moon, so I quit my job at the gym and went looking for her for about a month.
A lot of things happened while I was looking for her on my bike. Like I went into this one beer joint and started asking people if they had seen Junie or her car either. This one man that had a bike too started yelling at me and would not let me talk to anybody else. I had been very polite and he never would say why he was mad. He kept saying, “I guess you think you are tough.” So finally I picked him up. I think he must have weighed about three hundred pounds because he felt about like my bell when I threw him up and banged him on the ceiling. When I let him down he hit me a couple of times with a chain he had and I decided probably he was a fed and that made me mad. I put my foot on him while I broke his chain into five or six pieces, and every time I broke off a new piece I would drop it on his face. Then I picked him up again and threw him through the window.
Then I went outside and let him pick himself up and threw him up onto the roof. That was fifteen feet easy and I felt pretty proud for it even if it did take three tries. I still do.
After that, two men that had come out to watch told me how they had seen a brown Ford like Junie’s out on this one ranch and how to get there. I went and it was more than sixty-three miles to go and Junie’s brown Ford was not there. But when I went back to our house in Tulsa it was sixty-eight. A lot else happened for about two weeks, and then I went back to that ranch and lifted my bike over their fence real careful and rode out to where those men had said and sat there thinking about Junie and things that she had said to me, and how she had felt that time I threw her higher than the wires back in England. And it got late and you could see the moon, and I remembered how she had said the feds were building a place for missiles on the other side where nobody could reach it or even see it and that was why they were mad at us. It is supposed to be to shoot at other countries like England, but it is really to shoot at us in case we do anything the feds do not like.
About then a man on a horse came by and said did I want anything. I told him about the car, and he said there used to be a brown car like that parked out there, only a tow truck cut the fence and took it away. I wanted to know whose truck it had been, but he did not know.
So that is about all I have got to say. Sometimes I dream about how while I was talking to the man on the horse a little white moon sort of like a cloud came by, only when I turned my head to look it was already gone. I do not think that really happened or the little woman with the baby and the old man with the stick in the cave either. I think it is all just dreams, but maybe it did.
What I really think is that the feds have got Junie. If they do, all they have got to do is let her go and I will not be mad anymore after that. I promise. But if they will not do it and I find out for sure they have got her, there is going to be a fight. So if you see her or even talk to anybody that has, it would be good if you told me. Please.
I am not the only one that does not like the feds. A lot of other people do not like them either. I know that they are a whole lot smarter than I am, and how good at telling lies and fooling people they are. I am not like that. I am more like Roy T. Laffer, because sometimes I cannot even get people to believe the truth.
But you can believe this, because it is true. I have never in my whole life had a fight with a smart person or even seen anybody else have one either. That is because when the fight starts the smart people are not there anymore. They have gone off someplace else, and when it is over they come back and tell you how much they did in the fight, only it is all lies. Now they have big important gangs with suits and guns. They are a lot bigger than just me, but they are not bigger than everybody and if all of us get mad at once maybe we will bring the whole thing crashing down.
After that I would look through the pieces and find Junie, or if I did not find her I would go up on the White Cow Moon myself like Roy T. Laffer did and find her up there.
Afterword
One of life’s principal lessons is that intelligence is a minor virtue. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Sam is not bright; no doubt you are, and if you are you could probably swindle him without much difficulty. But would it be prudent?
You will probably not need to be told that Roy T. Laffer is a thinly fictionalized Raphael Aloysius Lafferty. His byline was R. A. Lafferty, and we called him Ray in consequence. I didn’t know him well, and I know of no one who did. He was enormously learned and terribly shy, and drank too much when he had to appear in public. Other than that, I suggest you consult Faces of Science Fiction, if you can find a copy. There is a fine photograph of him there, with a few paragraphs of autobiography. He is a great writer who remains undiscovered.
A Cabin on the Coast
It might have been a child’s drawing of a ship. He blinked, and blinked again. There were masts and sails, surely. One stack, perhaps another. If the ship were really there at all. He went back to his father’s beach cottage, climbed the five wooden steps, wiped his feet on the coco mat.
Lissy was still in bed, but awake, sitting up now. It must have been the squeaking of the steps, he thought. Aloud he said, “Sleep good?”
He crossed the room and kissed her. She caressed him and said, “You shouldn’t go swimming without a suit, dear wonderful swimmer. How was the Pacific?”
“Peaceful. Cold. It’s too early for people to be up, and there’s nobody within a mile of here anyway.”
“Get into bed then. How about the fish?”
“Salt water makes the sheets sticky. The fish have seen them before.” He went to the corner, where a showerhead poked from the wall. The beach cottage—Lissy called it a cabin—had running water of the sometimes and rusty variety.
“They might bite ’em off. Sharks, you know. Little ones.”
“Castrating woman.” The shower coughed, doused him with icy spray, coughed again.
“You look worried.”
“No.”
“Is it your dad?”
He shook his head, then thrust it under the spray, fingers combing his dark, curly hair.
“You think he’ll come out here? Today?”
He withdrew, considering. “If he’s back from Washington, and he knows we’re here.”
“But he couldn’t know, could he?”
He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, already damp and a trifle sandy. “I don’t see how.”
“Only he might guess.” Lissy was no longer smiling. “Where else could we go? Hey, what did we do with my underwear?”
“Your place. Your folks’. Any motel.”
She swung long, golden legs out of bed, still holding the sheet across her lap. Her breasts were nearly perfect hemispheres, except for the tender protrusions of their pink nipples. He decided he had never see
n breasts like that. He sat down on the bed beside her. “I love you very much,” he said. “You know that?”
It made her smile again. “Does that mean you’re coming back to bed?”
“If you want me to.”
“I want a swimming lesson. What will people say if I tell them I came here and didn’t go swimming?”
He grinned at her. “That it’s that time of the month.”
“You know what you are? You’re filthy!” She pushed him. “Absolutely filthy! I’m going to bite your ears off.” Tangled in the sheet, they fell off the bed together. “There they are!”
“There what are?”
“My bra and stuff. We must have kicked them under the bed. Where are our bags?”
“Still in the trunk. I never carried them in.”
“Would you get mine? My swimsuit’s in it.”
“Sure,” he said.
“And put on some pants!”
“My suit’s in my bag too.” He found his trousers and got the keys to the Triumph. Outside the sun was higher, the chill of the fall morning nearly gone. He looked for the ship and saw it. Then it winked out like a star.
* * *
That evening they made a fire of driftwood and roasted the big, greasy Italian sausages he had brought from town, making giant hot dogs by clamping them in French bread. He had brought red supermarket wine too; they chilled it in the Pacific. “I never ate this much in my life,” Lissy said.
“You haven’t eaten anything yet.”
“I know, but just looking at this sandwich would make me full if I wasn’t so hungry.” She bit off the end. “Cuff tough woof.”
“What?”
“Castrating woman. That’s what you called me this morning, Tim. Now this is a castrating woman.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“You sound like my mother. Give me some wine. You’re hogging it.”
He handed the bottle over. “It isn’t bad, if you don’t object to a complete lack of character.”