by Terry Carr
There used to be a time when a David would never do a thing like this to his wife. He would almost do it—and then, at the last moment, not. But TV is maturing. The Davids do it all the time. All the damned time.
“But how could you?” Pam Taylor weeps. “David, how could you?"
And young David Taylor, his face twisted with anguish, cries, “Don’t you understand? Won’t you even try to understand? I’m sick! I need help!”
Well. Naturally Pam is very sad that her husband is sick, sick, sick- - but, after all. it’s the thing to be, isn’t t it? And so she’s happy she can help him and happily she drives the two of them down to Dr. Naumbourg. David is very sad that he’s made his lovely wife unhappy, but he’s happy that he’s fulfilling his destiny as a David. Dr. Naumbourg always insists on both husbands and wives Going Into Therapy at the same time. Pamela’s case is a common enough one, merely a routine phallic envy. Naumbourg gets them every day.
But in all the years since Vienna, Dr. N. has never had another patient whose womb-fantasy takes the form of being a Thing on an asteroid. And so, while all three of them are very happy, Dr. Naumbourg is perhaps the happiest of all.
The Weapon
Fredric Brown
* * *
The room was quiet in the dimness of early evening. Dr. James Graham, key scientist of a very important project, sat in his favorite chair, thinking. It was so still that he could hear the turning of pages in the next room as his son leafed through a picture book.
Often Graham did his best work, his most creative thinking, under these circumstances, sitting alone in an unlighted room in his own apartment after the day’s regular work. But tonight his mind would not work constructively. Mostly he thought about his mentally arrested son—his only son—in the next room. The thoughts were loving thoughts, not the bitter anguish he had felt years ago when he had first learned of the boy’s condition. The boy was happy; wasn’t that the main thing? And to how many men is given a child who will always be a child, who will not grow up to leave him? Certainly that was rationalization, but what is wrong with rationalization when—
The doorbell rang.
Graham rose and turned on lights in the almost-dark room before he went through the hallway to the door. He was not annoyed; tonight, at this moment, almost any interruption to his thoughts was welcome.
He opened the door. A stranger stood there; he said, “Dr. Graham? My name is Niemand; I’d like to talk to you. May I come in a moment?”
Graham looked at him. He was a small man, nondescript, obviously harmless—possibly a reporter or an insurance agent.
But it didn’t matter what he was. Graham found himself saying, “Of course. Come in, Mr. Niemand.” A few minutes of conversation, he justified himself by thinking, might divert his thoughts and clear his mind.
“Sit down,” he said, in the living room. “Care for a drink?”
Niemand said, “No, thank you.” He sat in the chair; Graham sat on the sofa.
The small man interlocked his fingers; he leaned forward. He said, “Dr. Graham, you are the man whose scientific work is more likely than that of any other man to end the human race’s chance for survival.”
A crackpot, Graham thought. Too late now he realized that he should have asked the man’s business before admitting him. It would be an embarrassing interview—he disliked being rude, yet only rudeness was effective.
“Dr. Graham, the weapon on which you are working—”
The visitor stopped and turned his head as the door that led to a bedroom opened and a boy of fifteen came in. The boy didn’t notice Niemand; he ran to Graham.
“Daddy, will you read to me now?” The boy of fifteen laughed the sweet laughter of a child of four.
Graham put an arm around the boy. He looked at his visitor, wondering whether he had known about the boy. From the lack of surprise on Niemand’s face, Graham felt sure he had known.
“Harry”—Graham’s voice was warm with affection—“Daddy’s busy. Just for a little while. Go back to your room; I’ll come and read to you soon.”
“Chicken Little? You’ll read me Chicken Little?”
“If you wish. Now run along. Wait. Harry, this is Mr. Niemand.”
The boy smiled bashfully at the visitor. Niemand said, “Hi, Harry,” and smiled back at him, holding out his hand. Graham, watching, was sure now that Niemand had known: the smile and the gesture were for the boy’s mental age, not his physical one.
The boy took Niemand’s hand. For a moment it seemed that he was going to climb into Niemand’s lap, and Graham pulled him back gently. He said, “Go to your room now, Harry.”
The boy skipped back into his bedroom, not closing the door.
Niemand’s eyes met Graham’s and he said, “I like him,” with obvious sincerity. He added, “I hope that what you’re going to read to him will always be true.”
Graham didn’t understand. Niemand said, “Chicken Little, I mean. It’s a fine story—but may Chicken Little always be wrong about the sky falling down.”
Graham suddenly had liked Niemand when Niemand had shown liking for the boy. Now he remembered that he must close the interview quickly. He rose, in dismissal.
He said, “I fear you’re wasting your time and mine, Mr. Niemand. I know all the arguments, everything you can say I’ve heard a thousand times. Possibly there is truth in what you believe, but it does not concern me. I’m a scientist, and only a scientist. Yes, it is public knowledge that I am working on a weapon, a rather ultimate one. But, for me personally, that is only a by-product of the fact that I am advancing science. I have thought it through, and I have found that that is my only concern.”
“But, Dr. Graham, is humanity ready for an ultimate weapon?”
Graham frowned. “I have told you my point of view, Mr. Niemand.”
Niemand rose slowly from the chair. He said, “Very well, if you do not choose to discuss it, I’ll say no more.” He passed a hand across his forehead. “I’ll leave, Dr. Graham. I wonder, though … may I change my mind about the drink you offered me?”
Graham’s irritation faded. He said, “Certainly. Will whisky and water do?”
“Admirably.”
Graham excused himself and went into the kitchen. He got the decanter of whisky, another of water, ice cubes, glasses.
When he returned to the living room, Niemand was just leaving the boy’s bedroom. He heard Niemand’s “Good night, Harry,” and Harry’s happy "‘Night, Mr. Niemand.”
Graham made drinks. A little later, Niemand declined a second one and started to leave.
Niemand said, “I took the liberty of bringing a small gift to your son, doctor. I gave it to him while you were getting the drinks for us. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Of course. Thank you. Good night.”
Graham closed the door; he walked through the living room into Harry’s room. He said, “All right, Harry. Now I’ll read to—”
There was sudden sweat on his forehead, but he forced his face and his voice to be calm as he stepped to the side of the bed. “May I see that, Harry?“
When he had it safely, his hands shook as he examined it.
He thought, only a madman would give a loaded revolver to an idiot.
What’s It Like Out There
Edmond Hamilton
* * *
1
I hadn’t wanted to wear my uniform when I left the hospital, but I didn’t have any other clothes there and I was too glad to get out to argue about it. But as soon as I got on the local plane I was taking to Los Angeles, I was sorry I had it on.
People gawked at me and began to whisper. “The stewardess gave me a special big smile. She must have spoken to the pilot, for he came back and shook hands, and said, “Well, I guess a trip like this is sort of a comedown for you.” A little man came in, looked around for a seat, and took the one beside me. He was a fussy, spectacled guy of fifty or sixty, and he took a few minutes to get settled. Then he looked at me, and st
ared at my uniform and at the little brass button on it that said “TWO.”
“Why,” he said, “you’re one of those Expedition Two men!” And then, as though he’d only just figured it out,
“Why, you’ve been to Mars!”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was there.” He beamed at me in a kind of wonder. I didn’t like it, but his curiosity was so friendly that I couldn’t quite resent it.
“Tell me,” he said, “what’s it like out there?” The plane was lifting, and I looked out at the Arizona desert sliding by close underneath.
“Different,” I said. “It’s different.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him completely. “I’ll just bet it is,” he said. “Are you going home, Mr… .”
“Haddon. Sergeant Frank Haddon.”
“You going home, Sergeant?”
“My home’s back in Ohio,” I told him. “I’m going in to L.A. to look up some people before I go home.”
“Well, that’s fine. I hope you have a good time, Sergeant. You deserve it. You boys did a great job out there. Why, I read in the newspapers that after the U.N, sends out a couple more expeditions, we’ll have cities out there, and regular passenger lines, and all that.”
“Look,” I said, “that stuff is for the birds. You might as well build cities down there in Mojave, and have them a lot closer. There’s only one reason for going to Mars now, and that’s uranium.”
I could see he didn’t quite believe me. “Oh, sure,” he said, “I know that’s important too, the uranium we’re all using now for our power stations—but that isn’t all, is it?”
“It’ll be all, for a long, long time,” I said.
“But look, Sergeant, this newspaper article said …” I didn’t say anything more. By the time he’d finished telling about the newspaper article, we were coming down into L.A. He pumped my hand when we got out of the plane.
“Have yourself a time. Sergeant! You sure rate it. I hear a lot of chaps on Two didn’t come back.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard that.”
I was feeling shaky again by the time I got to downtown L.A. I went in a bar and had a double bourbon and it make me feel a little better.
I went out and found a cabby and asked him to drive me out to San Gabriel. He was a fat man with a broad red face.
“Hop right in, buddy,” he said. “Say, you’re one of those Mars guys, aren’t you?”
I said, “That’s right.”
“Well, well,” he said. “Tell me, how was it out there?”
“It was a pretty dull grind, in a way,” I told him.
“I’ll bet it was!” he said, as we started through traffic.
“Me, I was in the Army in World War Two, twenty years ago. That’s just what it was, a dull grind nine tenths of the time. I guess it hasn’t changed any.”
“This wasn’t any Army expedition,” I explained. “It was a United Nations one, not an Army one—but we had officers and rules of discipline like the Army.”
“Sure, it’s the same thing,” said the cabby. “You don’t need to tell me what it’s like, buddy. Why, back there in ‘forty-two, or was it ‘forty-three? Anyway, back there I remember that…”
I leaned back and watched Huntington Boulevard slide past. The sun poured in on me and seemed very hot, and the air seemed very thick and soupy. It hadn’t been so bad up on the Arizona plateau, but it was a little hard to breathe down here.
The cabby wanted to know what address in San Gabriel. I got the little packet of letters out of my pocket and found the one that had “Martin Valinez” and a street address on the back. I told the cabby and put the letters back into my pocket.
I wished now that I’d never answered them.
But how could I keep from answering when Joe Valinez’ parents wrote to me at the hospital? And it was the same with Jim’s girl, and Walter’s family. I’d had to write back, and the first thing I knew I’d promised to come and see them, and now if I went back to Ohio without doing it I’d feel like a heel. Right now, I wished I’d decided to be a heel.
The address was on the south side of San Gabriel, in a section that still had a faintly Mexican tinge to it. There was a little frame grocery store with a small house beside it, and a picket fence around the yard of the house; very neat, but a queerly homely place after all the slick California stucco. I went into the little grocery, and a tall, dark man with quiet eyes took a look at me and called a woman’s name in a low voice and then came around the counter and took my hand.
“You’re Sergeant Haddon,” he said. “Yes. Of course. We’ve been hoping you’d come.”
His wife came in a hurry from the back. She looked a little too old to be Joe’s mother, for Joe had been just a kid; but then she didn’t look so old either, but just sort of worn. She said to Valinez, “Please, a chair. Can’t you see he’s tired? And just from the hospital.”
I sat down and looked between them at a case of canned peppers, and they asked me how I felt, and wouldn’t I be glad to get home, and they hoped all my family were well. They were gentlefolk. They hadn’t said a word about Joe, just waited for me to say something. And I felt in a spot, for I hadn’t known Joe well, not really. He’d been moved into our squad only a couple of weeks before take-off, and since he’d been our first casualty, I’d never got to know him much. I finally had to get it over with, and all I could think to say was, “They wrote you in detail about Joe, didn’t they?” Valinez nodded gravely. “Yes—that he died from shock within twenty-four hours after take-off. The letter was very nice.”
His wife nodded too. “Very nice,” she murmured. She looked at me, and I guess she saw that I didn’t know quite what to say, for she said, “You can tell us more about it. Yet you must not if it pains you.”
I could tell them more. Oh, yes, I could tell them a lot more, if I wanted to. It was all clear in my mind, like a movie film you run over and over till you know it by heart. I could tell them all about the take-off that had killed their son. The long lines of us, uniformed backs going up into Rocket Four and all the other nineteen rockets, the lights flaring up there on the plateau, the grind of machinery and blast of whistles and the inside of the big rocket as we climbed up the ladders of its center well.
The movie was running again in my mind, clear as crystal, and I was back in Cell Fourteen of Rocket Four, with the minutes ticking away and the walls quivering every time one of the other rockets blasted off, and us ten men in our hammocks, prisoned inside that odd-shaped windowless metal room, waiting. Waiting, till that big, giant hand came and smacked us down deep into our recoil springs, crushing the breath out of us, so that you fought to breathe, and the blood roared into your head, and your stomach heaved in spite of all the pills they’d given you, and you heard the giant laughing, b-r-room! b-r-r-room! b-r-r-oom! Smash, smash, again and again, hitting us in the guts and cutting our breath, and someone being sick, and someone else sobbing, and the b-r-r-oom! b-r-r-oom! laughing as it killed us; and then the giant quit laughing, and quit slapping us down, and you could feel your sore and shaky body and wonder if it was still all there.
Walter Millis cursing a blue streak in the hammock underneath me, and Breck Jergen, our sergeant then, clambering painfully out of his straps to look us over, and then through the voices a thin, ragged voice saying uncertainly, “Breck, I think I’m hurt …”
Sure, that was their boy Joe, and there was blood on his lips, and he’d had it—we knew when we first looked at him that he’d had it. A handsome kid, turned waxy now as he held his hand on his middle and looked up at us. Expedition One had proved that take-off would hit a certain percentage with internal injuries every time, and in our squad, in our little windowless cell, it was Joe that had been hit. If only he’d died right off. But he couldn’t die right off, he had to lie in the hammock all those hours and hours. The medics came and put a strait-jacket around his body and doped him up, and that was that, and the hours went by. And we were so shaken and deathly sick ourselves that we did
n’t have the sympathy for him we should have had not till he started moaning and begging us to take the jacket off. Finally Walter Millis wanted to do it, and Breck wouldn’t allow it, and they were arguing and we were listening when the moaning stopped, and there was no need to do anything about Joe Valinez any more. Nothing but to call the medics, who came into our little iron prison and took him away. Sure, I could tell the Valinezes all about how their Joe died, couldn’t I?
“Please,” whispered Mrs. Valinez, and her husband looked at me and nodded silently.
So I told them.
I said, “You know Joe died in space. He’d been knocked out by the shock of take-off, and he was unconscious, not feeling a thing. And then he woke up, before he died. He didn’t seem to be feeling any pain, not a bit. He lay there, looking out the window at the stars. They’re beautiful, the stars out there in space, like angels. He looked, and then he whispered something and lay back and was gone.” Mrs. Valinez began to cry softly. “To die out there, looking at stars like angels …”
I got up to go, and she didn’t look up. I went out the door of the little grocery store, and Valinez came with me. He shook my hand. “Thank you, Sergeant Haddon. Thank you very much.”
“Sure,” I said.
I got into the cab. I took out my letters and tore that one into bits. I wished to God I’d never got it. I wished I didn’t have any of the other letters I still had.
2
I took the early plane for Omaha. Before we got there I fell asleep in my seat, and then I began to dream, and that wasn’t good.
A voice said, “We’re coming down.”
And we were coming down, Rocket Four was coming down, and there we were in our squad cell, all of us strapped into our hammocks, waiting and scared, wishing there was a window so we could see out, hoping our rocket wouldn’t be the one to crack up, hoping none of the rockets cracked up, but if one does, don’t let it be ours… .