by Damon Knight
One of the newspaper reporters turned away from the free lunch and planted himself in Fish’s path as he lurched toward the door. “Oh, Mr. Wilmington, what would you say was the real significance of that foot?”
“Gow my way,” said Fish, staggering around him.
He took a cab home, told the driver to wait, ducked in for a quick shower and a cup of black coffee, and came out again, shaky but not as drunk as before. Those God-damn cocktails… He never used to get like this when he just drank beer. Things were better back on Platt Terrace; how did he ever get mixed up in this crazy art game anyway?
His stomach felt hollow. He hadn’t eaten any lunch, he remembered. Well, too late now. He braced himself and rang the bell.
Dave opened the door. Fish greeted him with cries of pleasure, shaking his limp hand. “Dave, boy! Good to see you! How long has it been, anyway?” Without waiting for a reply, he bustled on into the room. It was a grey, windowless place that always made him nervous; instead of a roof there was one big slanting skylight, high overhead; the light filtered down cool and colourless through the translucent panes. There was an easel in one corner and some drawings pinned up on the otherwise bare walls. Down at the far end, Norma and her aunt were sitting on the red-padded bench. “Norma, how are you, honey? And Mrs. Prentice—now this is a real pleasure!”
That wasn’t hard to say—she really did look good in that new dark-blue suit. He could tell he was projecting the old charm, and he thought he saw her eyes glint with pleasure. But it was only for an instant, and then her expression hardened. “What’s this I hear about your not even coming to see Norma?” she demanded.
Fish registered deep surprise. “Why… why, Norma, didn’t you explain to your aunt? Excuse me a minute.” He darted over to the drawings on the wall. “Well. Now these are really excellent, Norma; there’s a good deal of improvement here. The symmetry, you see, and the dynamic flow—”
Norma said, “Those are three months old.” She was wearing a man’s shirt and dungarees, and looked as if she might have been crying recently, but her face was carefully made up.
“Well, honey, I wanted to come back, even after what you said. I did come around, twice, you know, but you didn’t answer your bell.”
“That’s not so.”
“Well, I suppose you might have been out,” said Fish cheerfully. He turned to Mrs. Prentice. “Norma was upset, you know.” His voice dropped. “About a month after we started, she told me to get out and not come back.”
Dave had drifted back across the room. He sat down beside Norma without comment.
“The idea of taking the poor child’s money for nothing,” said Mrs. Prentice vehemently. “Why didn’t you give it back?”
Fish pulled up a folding chair and sat down close to her.
“Mrs. Prentice,” he said quietly, “I didn’t want Norma to make a mistake. I told her, now, if you’ll live up to your agreement and study with me for a year, I said, and then if you’re not satisfied, why, I’ll gladly refund every cent.”
“You weren’t doing me any good,” said Norma, with a hysterical note in her voice.
Fish gave her a look of sorrowful patience.
“He’d just come in, and look at my work, and say something like, “This has a good feeling,” or “The symmetry is good,” or some meaningless thing like that. I was getting so nervous I couldn’t even draw . That’s when I wrote you, Aunt Marie, but you were in Europe. My golly, I had to do something didn’t I?” Her hands were clenched white in her lap. “There, dear,” Mrs. Prentice murmured, and gave her arm a little squeeze.
“I’ve been going to day classes at the Art Centre,” Norma said between her teeth. “It was all I could afford.”
Mrs. Prentice’s eyes sparkled with indignation. “Mr. Wilmington, I don’t think we have to discuss this much longer. I want you to return the money I paid you. I think it’s disgraceful, a well-known artist like you, stooping—”
“Mrs. Prentice,” said Fish, pitching his voice lower again,
“if it wasn’t for my faith in Norma’s great future as an artist, why I would hand you over ev-ry cent. But as it is she would be making a great mistake, so I suggest again—”
“Doc,” said Dave rudely, “you give her back that money pretty damn quick.” He leaned forward to speak to the older woman. “You want to know what his real name is, it’s Fish. Anyhow, it was when I met him. This whole thing is just a joke. Why, he’s no artist. The real George Wilmington is his nephew; he’s an invalid out in Wisconsin. Doc here has just been fronting for him, because he’s too sick to stand the publicity and all. Now, that’s the truth. Or as much of it as I know.”
Fish said sorrowfully, “Dave, is this the thanks I get for putting you through art school?”
“You got me the scholarship, but it didn’t cost you anything. I found that out from the director. I guess you just wanted to put me out of the way so I wouldn’t talk too much. Hell, Doc, that was all right. But when I met Norma here, over at your place yesterday—”
“What? When was that?”
“About ten o’ clock.” Fish winced; he had been in bed with a bad head and hadn’t answered the bell; if he’d only known! “You weren’t home, so we got to talking, and—well, pretending to be your nephew, that’s one thing, but when you promise to teach somebody when you can’t even draw a line yourself!”
Fish raised a hand. “Now, Dave, there’s a thing or two you don’t know. You say my real name is Fish. Now did you ever see my birth certificate, or did you know anybody that knew me as a child? How do you know my name is Fish?”.
“Well, you told me.”
“That’s right, Dave, I did. And you say the real George Wilmington is an invalid out in Wisconsin. You ever see him, Dave? You ever been in Wisconsin?”
“Well, no but—”
“Neither have I. No, Dave—” he lowered his voice solemnly—” every single thing I told you about that was just a lie. And I admit it.” Now here was the place for a tear. Fish turned his mind to the creditors, the trouble with the machine, the oil stock salesman who had gone south with his money, the lawyers who were robbing him blind trying to get it back, the ungratefulness of everybody. A warm trickle crept out onto his cheek and, lowering his head, he knuckled it away.
“Well, what?” said Dave, bewildered.
Fish said with an effort. “I had reasons. Certain reasons. You know, it’s… it’s hard for me to talk about ’em. Mrs. Prentice, I wonder if I could just see you alone for a minute.”
She was leaning forward a little, looking at him with concern. It never failed—a woman like that couldn’t stand to see a man cry.
“Well, it’s certainly all right with me ” said Norma, getting up. She walked away, and Dave followed her. After a moment the door closed behind them.
Fish blew his nose, dabbed unobtrusively at his eyes, straightened up bravely and put his handkerchief away. “Mrs. Prentice, I don’t s’pose you know that I’m a widower.” Her eyes widened a little. “It’s true, I lost my dear wife. I don’t usually talk about it, as a matter of fact, but somehow—I don’t know if you’ve been bereaved yourself, Mrs. Prentice.”
She said nervously, “Didn’t Norma tell you? I’m a widow, Mr. Wilmington.”
“No!” said Fish. “Isn’t that strange? I felt something—you know, a vibration. Well, Mrs. Prentice—can I call you Marie?—you know, after my loss—” time for another tear now; once started, they came easily—“I just went to pieces. I don’t excuse myself, I didn’t want to live. I couldn’t touch a pencil for a year. And even to this day I can’t draw a line if there’s anybody watching me. Now—there’s the reason for the whole mixup. That business about my nephew and all, that was just a story I made up to make things a little easier. That’s what I thought. I don’t know, I’m so clumsy where it takes a little tact. I’m just like a bull in a china closet, Marie. And that’s the whole story.” He sat back, blew his nose vigorously again.
Mrs. Prent
ice’s eyes were moist, but her handsome face had a wary expression. “I honestly don’t know what to think, Mr. Wilmington. You say you can’t draw in public—”
“Call me George. You see, it’s what the psychologists call a trauma.”
“Well, how would this be? I’Il step outside for a few minutes, and you draw a picture. Now, I think that would be—”
Fish was shaking his head sadly. “It’s worse than I told you. I can’t draw anywhere except in one room in my house—I’ve got it fixed up with her picture, and some mementoes.” He gulped hard, but decided against a third tear. “I’m sorry, I’d do it for you if I could, but…”
She sat quietly in thought for a moment. “Then let’s say .this. You go home, Mr. Wilmington, and draw somethinga sketch of me, my face, from memory. I believe any competent artist could do that?”
Fish hesitated, not liking to say no.
“Now, you see, that will settle it. You couldn’t get a snapshot of me and send it off to Wisconsin—there wouldn’t be time. I’ll give you, oh, half an hour.”
“Half an—”
“That should be enough, shouldn’t it? So that when I come to call on you, in half an hour from now, if you have a sketch of me—a likeness—why then I’ll know that you’re telling the truth. If not…”
Boxed in, Fish made the best of it. He got to his feet with a confident smile. “Well, now, that’s fair enough. One thing, I know I could never forget your face. And I want to tell you how relieved I am that we had this little talk, incidentally, and—well, I better go and get that drawing started. I’ll expect you in half an hour, Marie!” He paused at the door.
“I’ll be there… George,” she said.
Grunting and twitching, Fish stormed into the house banging doors behind him. Place was a mess—sofa cushions and newspapers all over the living room—but, never mind, she might marry him to clean up his house. Thing was—he unlocked the private room, feverishly swept the cover off the big machine, and began pushing buttons on one of the banks—thing was, get that sketch made. One chance in a hundred.
But better than no chance at all. He switched on the machine, watched in helpless impatience while the arms drifted out and hung motionless.
A face—and a likeness! Only hope he had was to put it together from bits and pieces. Nothing left now that would work in the whole machine but some useless items, mechanical drawings and architecture, and a few scraps of anatomy. Let there be enough for one more face! And let it be something like Marie’s face!
The machine clicked suddenly and began to trace a line. Fish stood over it in hand-wringing anxiety, watching how the combined motion of the two revolving pivots translated the straight push of the arm into a subtle line. Pretty thing to watch, even if he never could like what it made. Now here it came curving around; now the arm was lifting, going back. A nose! It was drawing a nose!
It was a kind of Greek nose, shapely but thick, not much like Marie’s fine curved nose, but, never mind, he could talk her into it—give him the raw material, he could always sell. Let there be any kind of a female face, so long as it wasn’t ugly. Come on, now, an eye!
But the arms stopped and hung motionless again. The machine hummed quietly, the dials were lighted; nothing happened.
Eaten by impatience, Fish looked at his watch, clapped his palm over it, peeked, swore, and wandered rapidly out of the room. Sometimes lately the machine would just sit like that for minutes at a time, as if it were trying and trying to work, but somehow nor succeeding, and then, click, off it would go again. He hurried back, looked—still nothing—and went back, pacing the empty rooms, looking for something to do.
For the first time he noticed there was some mail in the basket under the letter drop. Mostly bills. He threw them behind the living-room sofa, but one was a long, bulky brown envelope with “Encyclopaedia Britannica Library Research Service” in the corner.
It had been so long ago, it took him a moment to remember. A couple of weeks after he sent in his letter, there had been a polite printed postcard acknowledging it, then nothing for months. Somewhere along the line he had decided he wasn’t going to get an answer. There wasn’t any such language… Well, let’s see. He picked the end of the envelope open.
His restless eye was caught by the dining-room clock. Look at the time! Clutching the envelope forgetfully, he rushed into the private room again. The machine was still sitting motionless, humming, lighted. There was nothing on the paper but a noble nose.
Fish pounded on the side of the big machine, with no result except to his fist, and then on the bank that was in use. Nothing. He turned away, noticed he was still holding the envelope, and irritably plucked out the papers inside.
There was a stiff orange folder, stapled at the top. When he lifted the cover, there was a single sheet of paper inside. At the top, the Britannica letterhead, and “V. A. Sternback, Director”. Then, in the middle, “SWEDISH WORDS”.
. His eyes ran down the list, startled. There were all the words he had copied off, and opposite each one a word in English. Teckning… drawing. Mönster… pattern. Utplåna… to erase. Användning… application, use.
Fish looked up. Then that was why nothing had happened When he pressed the Utplåna button—he’d always tried it before the machine made a drawing, never while there was a finished one on the board. Now why hadn’t he thought of that? Yes, and here was Avslå… to reject. And slutsat—completion. “To reject a drawing before completion, press…” He’d never done that, either.
What about the middle button? Torka… to wipe. To wipe? Let’s see, there was another word—Avlägsna, that was it. Sometimes the phrase “Avlägsna ett mönster” would be running through his head when he was half awake, like a whispered warning… Here it was. Avlägsna… to remove. His hands were shaking. “To remove a pattern from bank after use, press button ‘Wipe’.” He let the folder fall. All this time, not knowing, he’d been systematically using up the precious patterns in the machine, throwing them away one by one, until now there was nothing left—just eight big hunks of useless machinery, made for somebody somewhere who spoke Swedish…
The machine clicked softly and the other arm began to move. It traced a graceful upright line, some distance in front of the nose. It looped over and came back down again, some distance in front of the nose. It looped over and came back down again, then up…
Somewhere distant, the doorbell rang imperiously.
Fish stared, mesmerized, at the paper. The moving point traced another graceful open loop, then another, like a squeezed-together roller coaster. Then another one, moving inexorably and without hurry: now there were four. Without pausing, it extended the last line downward and then brought it across. The line met the tip of the nose and curved back.
The four open loops were fingers. The fifth one was a thumb. The machine, humming quietly, withdrew its arms into their recesses. After a moment the lights went dark and the hum stopped. Outside, the doorbell rang again, and went on ringing.
THE ENEMY
The spaceship lay on a rockball in the middle of the sky. There was a brilliance in Draco; it was the sun, four billion miles away. In the silence, the stars did not blink or waver: they burned, cold and afar. Polaris blazed overhead. The Milky Way hung like a frozen rainbow above the horizon.
In the yellow circle of the airlock, two figures appeared, both women, with pale, harsh faces behind the visors of their helmets. They carried a folding metal disk a hundred yards away and set it up on three tall insulators. They went back to the ship, moving lightly on tiptoe, like dancers, and came out again with a bulky collection of objects wrapped in a transparent membrane.
They sealed the membrane to the disk and inflated it by means of a hose from the ship. The objects inside were household articles: a hammock on a metal frame, a lamp, a radio transceiver. They entered the membrane through its flexible valve and set the furniture in order. Then, carefully, they brought in three last items—three tanks of growing green things, e
ach in its protective bubble.
They unloaded a spidery vehicle with six enormous puffed wheels and left it standing on three insulators of its own.
The work was done. The two women stood facing each other beside the bubble house. The elder said, “If your finds are good, stay here till I return in ten months. If not, leave the equipment and return in the escape shell.”
They both glanced upward, where a faint spark was moving against the field of stars. The parent ship had left it in orbit before landing. If needed, it could be called down to land automatically by radio; otherwise, there was no need to waste fuel.
“Understood,” said the younger one. Her name was Zael; she was fifteen, and this was her first time away from the space city alone. Isar, her mother, went to the ship and entered it without another glance. The lock door closed; the spark overhead was drifting down toward the horizon. A short burst of flame raised the parent ship; it drifted, rising and turning as it went. Then the torch blazed out again, and in a few moments the ship was only a brighter star. Zael turned off her suit light and stood in the darkness under the enormous half-globe of the sky. It was the only sky she knew; like her mother’s mother before her, she was space-born. Centuries ago, driven out of the fat green worlds, her people had grown austere, like the arid fields of stars they roamed among. In the five great space cities, and on Pluto, Titan, Mimas, Eros and a thousand lesser worlds, they struggled for existence. They were few; life was hard and short; it was no novelty for a fifteen-year-old child to be left alone to mine a planetoid.