Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “He what?” Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.

  Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. “He said he ought to kill you, sir. That’s what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you. He’s the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident, sir, it wouldn’t matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I wouldn’t . . .”

  Extrone said, “Which one is he?”

  “That one. Right over there.”

  “The one with his back to me?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s him. That’s him, sir.”

  Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle and said, “Here comes Lin with the rope, I see.”

  Ri was greenish. “You . . . you . . .”

  Extrone turned to Lin. “Tie one end around his waist.”

  “Wait,” Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. “You don’t want to use me, sir. Not after I told you . . . Please, sir. If anything should happen to me . . . Please, sir. Don’t do it.”

  “Tie it,” Extrone ordered.

  “No, sir. Please. Oh, please don’t, sir.”

  “Tie it,” Extrone said inexorably.

  Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.

  THEY were at the watering hole—Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.

  Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed, half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base of a scaling tree.

  “You will scream,” Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed across the water hole. “The farn beast will come from this direction, I imagine.”

  Ri was almost slobbering in fear.

  “Let me hear you scream,” Extrone said.

  Ri moaned weakly.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” Extrone inclined his head toward a bearer, who used something Ri couldn’t see.

  Ri screamed.

  “See that you keep it up that way,” Extrone said. “That’s the way I want you to sound.” He turned toward Lin. “We can climb this tree, I think.”

  Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.

  Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert. Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller crotch.

  Looking down, Extrone said, “Scream!” Then, to Lin, “You feel the excitement? It’s always in the air like this at a hunt.”

  “I feel it,” Lin said.

  Extrone chuckled. “You were with me on Meizque?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was something, that time.” He ran his hand along the stock of the weapon.

  The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled Extrone’s head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet, underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri’s screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.

  Extrone’s eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick, jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone’s face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away. Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.

  A FARN beast coughed, far in the matted forest.

  Extrone laughed nervously. “He must have heard.”

  “We’re lucky to rouse one so fast,” Lin said.

  Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. “I like this. There’s more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I know.”

  Lin nodded.

  “The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It’s not only the killing that matters.”

  “It’s not only the killing,” Lin echoed.

  “You understand?” Extrone said. “How it is to wait, knowing in just a minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you’re going to kill it?”

  “I know,” Lin said.

  “But it’s not only the killing. It’s the waiting, too.”

  The farn beast coughed again; nearer.

  “It’s a different one,” Lin said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?”

  “Hey!” Extrone shouted. “You, down there. There are two coming. Now let’s hear you really scream!”

  Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether tree, his eyes wide.

  “There’s a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too,” Extrone said. “Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them.” He opened his right hand. “Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it.” He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes, imprisoning the idea. “Spring the trap when the quarry is inside. Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they really will come to your bait.”

  Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.

  “I’ve always liked to hunt,” Extrone said. “More than anything else, I think.”

  Lin spat toward the ground. “People should hunt because they have to. For food. For safety.”

  “No,” Extrone argued. “People should hunt for the love of hunting.”

  “Killing?”

  “Hunting,” Extrone repeated harshly.

  THE farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and there was a noise of crackling underbrush.

  “He’s good bait,” Extrone said. “He’s fat enough and he knows how to scream good.”

  Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully eying the forest across from the watering hole.

  Extrone began to tremble with excitement. “Here they come!”

  The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his lap.

  The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank, swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed. Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs behind them, rattling leaves.

  “Shoot!” Lin hissed. “For God’s sake, shoot!”

  “Wait,” Extrone said. “Let’s see what they do.” He had not moved the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.

  The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.

  “Look!” Extrone cried excitedly. “Here it comes!”

  Ri began to scream again.

  Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.

  The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.

  “Watch! Watch!” Extrone cried gleefully.

  And then the aliens sprang their trap.

  OLD MAN HENDERSON

  Occasionally a story is so rich, so human, so moving that it seems impossible and even unnecessary to write an introduction to it. We have long considered Kris Neville one of the outstanding talents among the younger writers of science fiction; we’ve long respected him particularly for his understanding that science fiction is fiction, and that fiction set in whatever era must essentially deal with people. We feel that Old Man Henderson—set around 2025 A.D., but timeless in its bitter study of the relation of the very young and the very old—is probably the finest thing Neville has written to date. It’s a story, we think, that you’ll read and reread quite a few times; now go ahead, without further preamble, to the first of those readings.

  “JOEY, JOEY,” Mrs. Mathews sighed in exasperation, “haven’t I told you and told you not to bring that animal in this house?”

  “Awww, Mom,” Joey said for what was probably the hundredth time since his father had brought Jasper home, “he won’t hurt anything.”

&nbs
p; “I said, ‘No!’ and I meant just what I said. He st—smells.”

  Joey ruffled the green feathers on Jasper’s neck and waited for the next line in the routine which usually went, with minor variations, “You just wait until your father gets home, young man, and then you’ll be sorry.” Joey always thought it a tremendously ineffective approach, on her part, to the issue under consideration. His father wouldn’t be home from Mars for another three months yet, and by that time, she would have forgiven—or at least forgotten.

  Mrs. Mathews, however, refused to run to her usual form today; she merely lowered her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and glared at him.

  Joey recognized the storm warning. “I think Jasper smells nice and perfumy,” he said soulfully.

  Jasper squirmed around in Joey’s arms until he could look up at Mrs. Mathews with his big, bright, intelligent eyes, which were, at the moment, mildly reproachful. In all his life, they seemed to remind her, he had never intended harm; and all he ever asked were a few kind words.

  Mrs. Mathews bolstered her relenting will. “You take him out of here this instant!” she said.

  Joey backed toward the door. “Can I play in the yard some more, then?”

  Mrs. Mathews hid her enthusiasm for the idea behind sullen lips. “Well,” she said, putting all the indecision she could muster into the syllable, “well . . . all right. For a little while longer. Then I want you to take a loaf of bread over to Old Man Henderson.”

  Joey flinched. “Awww, Mom,” he whined. He did not like Old Man Henderson. To begin with, Old Man Henderson really was old. Joey suspected he was half as old as time itself. Over a hundred. In addition—

  “I don’t see,” he said in his best party voice, trying to keep from going too far with the overt expression of his resentment, “why you have to bake bread anyway. No one else ever does.”

  Mrs. Mathews had been through this before; every time she wanted to send bread over to Old Man Henderson, in fact. She replied, in a very even voice, “I like homemade bread.”

  Joey debated a “Well, I don’t”—which wasn’t strictly true—with himself, and wisely decided against it.

  “Now take Jasper out of here, and let’s have no more arguments.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Joey said.

  When Mrs. Mathews called Joey, an hour and a half later, the bread was fresh from the oven. There were six, sweet-smelling, golden-brown loaves of it. The melted butter she had rubbed in made them glisten deliciously.

  “Go wash your hands,” she directed.

  After he had left the room, she crossed to the cupboard, removed a section of wax paper and wrapped the largest of the loaves tightly in it. Even through the paper it felt delightfully warm in her hands. When you’re as old as Old Man Henderson, she told herself, the warm center of the bread, dripping with butter, ought to taste very good to you. This loaf she put in a plasta-bag.

  “Hurry, Joey,” she called.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

  Shortly he came.

  “Here. I want you to take this now, and hurry, so he can get it before it gets cold.”

  She always made a special point of that: to see that she sent out his loaf just as soon as the bread came out of the oven.

  “Now hurry,” she admonished again.

  It was no more than right, she told herself, that we do little things for poor Old Man Henderson once in a while. After all, it wasn’t as if it were charity (which she vaguely disapproved of) because he did have the government pension; it was just to show that they really hadn’t forgotten him.

  “Can Jasper go with me?”

  “Now, Joey . . .”

  “Aw, gee. Please.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said indecisively. Old Man Henderson was so old, she reflected, that he probably wouldn’t notice the odor; and some people really didn’t mind it at all.

  Joey shifted his feet. “He won’t mind,” he encouraged. He wanted to add, “The way Old Man Henderson smells is a hundred times worse than Jasper.”

  “All right,” Mrs. Mathews agreed slowly. “And hurry, now.”

  At the door, Joey turned. “Mother—? If he wants me to stay a little while, may I?”

  “Why—why,” she said, “I mean, of course you may. I think it would be very nice if you’d stay and talk to him a little while; I’m sure he’d like for you to.”

  There! Mrs. Mathews reflected, that proved it—what she’d always said—if you raise a child properly (although, at times he is bound to be exasperating beyond all measure, and careless, and inconsiderate, and thoughtless), he is sure to do the proper thing when he has the chance.

  And with adults, too, it was the same: wanting to do the proper thing. Of course you would expect adults to stop and visit with Old Man Henderson once in a while—it was their social duty; but for Joey—well, it was very sweet of him to want to give up part of his afternoon to listen to The Story again.

  The Story was a standard—she guessed you’d say almost a standard joke—of the neighborhood. If you hadn’t heard it at least ten times, so the saying went, you’d never met Old Man Henderson. “Here comes The Story down the street,” they would say; and you knew immediately whom they meant. Although she, personally, would never say anything like that, she always found Old Man Henderson extremely tedious. But she suspected some of the others (who talked the loudest) really liked, down deep, to go over once in a while to hear The Story again.

  She smiled at her son. “But be sure to come back home in time for supper.” She paused a fraction of a second and then added, “And Joey—be a nice boy and remember, he’s an old man, so don’t tire him out.”

  “I’ll remember,” Joey promised.

  As soon as he stepped out into the yard (letting the door slam after him), he called to his pet.

  “Here, Jasper, here, boy!”

  Jasper was lying in the hot sunlight, his head tucked under one of his stubby wings. When he heard Joey’s voice, he peered out sleepily and said, “Kweeet?”

  “You want to come with me?” Joey asked.

  Jasper appeared to consider the question; after a moment, he shuffled to his feet and flapped his wings. “Kweet-weet,” he said. He came at an awkward run.

  “Well, let’s go, then.”

  It took Joey better than two hours to get to Old Man Henderson’s.

  The house was set well back from the street, and it had a broad, well kept lawn with three islands of blooming flowers inset against the greenness of the grass.

  Joey could remember how mad his father had been when, last Halloween, some of the neighborhood boys had littered it with little scraps of paper and pulled up all of the flowers. It had taken Old Man Henderson nearly all day just to get the paper picked up. His father had said to Joey, “If a son of mine did a trick like that, I’d see he was whipped until he couldn’t sit down.” And when his father discovered that Joey had helped to do it—Every time Joey thought about that, his bottom side prickled with the memory. And he blamed, not very logically, but quite emphatically, Old Man Henderson.

  Joey stood on the porch for a long moment wondering if it would be safe not to knock at all, but instead, throw the bread away somewhere, and tell his mother he had delivered it. She would ask, “And how did he like the bread?” and he could reply, “Oh, he said to tell you that boughten bread couldn’t come anywhere near yours.” But Joey was a little afraid to risk a lie, so he knocked at the door.

  After scarcely a second, Old Man Henderson called, “Come in,” in his reedy voice.

  Reluctantly, Joey opened the door and entered.

  The room was dim—or perhaps it just seemed dim to Joey, coming in fresh from the hot sunlight—and it smelled, as he knew it would, of the dry, sweet-acrid odor of age, an odor somewhat like that of a bedroom, early in the morning.

  Old Man Henderson blinked. “Ah-ah,” he said, “Come in, boy, and set a while.” He tried to keep his voice casual to keep from betraying the fact that he had been sitting there a
ll afternoon hoping one of his young friends would drop by to talk to him.

  “I’ve brought you some fresh bread,” Joey replied noncommittally.

  “Ah-ah,” Old Man Henderson said. “Then you must be the Mathews boy.” He had so many young friends that he sometimes confused their faces. There was the Jenkins lad, now, that looked a lot like this one.”

  “Well, well,” he said, “so you’ve brought me some fresh bread, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah-ah. Well, now, that’s sure nice of you.” His eyes showed sparkle. “Your mother makes fine bread. None better. Boughten bread can’t come anywhere near hers—Now you be sure to tell her I said that, will your . . .”

  Joey grunted.

  “You want to bet something, boy? I’ll bet that she just now finished baking that bread, and she sent a loaf over to me the very first thing.” He leaned forward. “Your mother’s a fine woman. Yes, she sure is a fine woman and thoughtful. You ought to be proud to have a mother like that. Every time she bakes, she sends me a loaf while it’s still nice and hot, because she knows I sure do like it then.”

  Joey stared hard at the old man. “It’s not hot this time,” he said. “It’s cold.”

  “Oh,” Old Man Henderson said, trying to hide his disappointment.

  “Yes, she forgot all about it until it was already cold,” Joey said.

  Old Man Henderson moved his jaw twice, blinked his eyes, and said, “I know, boy. I know . . . But don’t you worry none about that. It’ll taste just as good anyway, and I’ll like it just the same.” He stood up. “Here. Give it to me, and I’ll put it in the kitchen, there, for supper.”

  He took the loaf of bread and shuffled out of the room.

  Joey wanted to leave before he got back, but he knew he should stay at least a little while, in case his mother should remark, “I hope Joey didn’t tire you out, being over here all afternoon the other day.” If he left too quickly, Old Man Henderson would be sure to remember that.

  When the old man came back, he was carrying a little plate of crisp cookies. They were Joey’s favorite, the kind with the coconut on the top.