Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  She wrinkled her brow prettily. “. . . Jack . . .”

  He glanced out the window. “I used to live here, remember. I know the ropes. When his lawyer said ’week’, he was probably thinking year’.”

  Her eyes were suddenly serious.

  “Like the mill of the Gods,” Roger continued, “the legislative mill grinds slowly—and exceedingly small.”

  “Wait a minute, Roger. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  Roger Croy took out a cigarette, lit it. He seemed to be studying his words in advance. “The world of politics on this planet,” he said slowly, “is a weird sort of half world. There’s no other way to put it. The more you think of it, the more unreal it seems. After a while, your mind gets numb, and after that, you finally come to regard the whole thing as perfectly normal and slightly humorous. That way you save your sanity. If you fall to brooding over it . . .”

  “What sort of nonsense is this?” Sela asked.

  Roger turned from the window and knocked his ash off into the built-in tray on the desk. “You’ll see. You’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “But surely . . . They’ll pass our bill, won’t they? There isn’t any doubt about that, is there? They don’t have any reason not to?”

  “Oh, sure. They’ll pass it. Probably. Because it has no connection, even remotely, with politics. There shouldn’t be any trouble.” He smiled twistedly. “If you can get it on the floor.”

  Sela stood up. “Jack said . . .”

  “Sit down, sit down. I’ve been thinking about it, Sela. Since you won’t let me get him a job, or try to set him up in business of some sort, the least I can do is this. I happen to know a few people here and a few more on Venus. One of them will know how to get your bill on the floor as quickly as possible. You won’t object to me helping you on that, will you?”

  “It isn’t . . . You know how I feel. Of course I wouldn’t. It would be—damn’ fine of you, Roger.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Once you get the bill on the floor, the rest is pretty automatic, usually. You want to take some cables? We’ll see what kind of action we can get.”

  CHAPTER IV

  “GENTLEMEN,” the lobbyist said to a select and secret group of backers, most of whom were World-Firsters, a 200% patriotic organization, “how do you feel about the plan now?”

  There was a low rumble of qualified assent around the table. The meal of sliced filet of beef, and Manhattans and Martinis and Scotch and Bourbon—not to mention a light, red table wine—had put the backers in a reasonable mood. Here and there a good cigar steamed bluely.

  “We certainly intend to conduct a test,” the lobbyist continued, beaming at the guests. “I have already alerted the members who give us unquestioning support. They are divided into two cells: A and B. I will personally vote the cells from the gallery as soon as we can decide on an appropriate test bill. They will vote in two blocks: each block voting as a man at the psychologically correct moment to stampede the remaining members. Fortunately, the number required will not be large, and, it is anticipated, once the band wagon is rolling, it cannot be stopped except by similar counter measures.”

  Again there was a mumble of qualified assent.

  “Unfortunately,” the lobbyist went on, “we can’t act this week. The representatives are too pleased with their new toy. They’re liable to vote any way, just to watch the lights light up. The novelty should be worn off in a couple of weeks. But week after next, they’re going to be busy citing people for contempt, and, of course, we wouldn’t want to interfere with anything like that. But the third week, there will be a number of routine bills. I will choose one—completely nonpolitical—whose passage is assured and then, as proof of our contention, defeat it by psychological voting.”

  “Good.” “Good.” “ ‘Good.’ ”

  It was the butt end of the legislative season. The chamber was rather full—most members had used up all of their legal absences. The room was hot and the representatives were listless.

  At 2:04 the clerk called the Elected to order, and the Speaker mounted the rostrum.

  In the gallery there was a splattering of curious visitors, all from out of town.

  On the far right, there was the lobbyist.

  The scribe, an aged, shriveled little fellow, who had served for over a quarter of a century, hovered with shorthand pencil to catch and preserve for posterity each golden word. Occasionally he darted a fretful glance over his shoulder at the voting tote; each time, resentment flickered over his leathery face—as if he feared, eventually, some mechanical contrivance would usurp his job.

  Sela and Jack entered the gallery. They made their way toward the front. Eyes of spectators turned in the direction of the Venusian, and there was one exuberant wolf calls from one of the younger members on the floor.

  The Speaker cleared his throat, surveyed the field, hammered the gavel, and business began.

  Representative Filch, bustling in, puffing importantly through his generous and livid nostrils, hurried to his desk. His tiny eyes darted this way and that. He sat down in nervous haste, fumbled out his key, inserted it, activated his voting circuit. He pushed a button, under the impression that voting had already begun. He did not want to be left out, for he had already been absent one day over the allotted amount.

  His circuit automatically went dead, and on the voting tote a light flashed “Yes” under the square for seat 316, directly in the center of the board. The control technician, at the switches, to the left of the tote, cleared his throat in annoyance. He muttered something to himself about 316, for, single voting sometimes overloaded a circuit, frequently weakening the voting light. He threw the reactivating switch. Representative Filch’s circuit was again connected. The technician cleared the tote: it registered the total: one affirmative vote.

  Representative Filch slumped down in his seat and looked around; his face showed plainly that he thought he had been foully handled.

  The reading of a bill began. The clerk in charge mumbled rapidly, his voice carrying no inflection, the words conveying, in their formlessness, no shred of meaning. On each desk, the televised copy appeared.

  The routine bill came to the routine vote. It took five minutes for all members to get their opinions cast. One took the floor during the process to protest that his vote had been misrecorded. “I pushed the ‘No’ button and that damn thing registered my vote as ‘Yes’.” He was one of the members who had spoken loudest against the installation of the tote.

  The technician wearily suppressed his square, and the negative vote was tallied by hand onto the total. The representative stood by his desk, jamming his finger hard, time and again, into the deactivated ‘No’ button. There was a martyred set to his jaw.

  “Bill six, three-fifty,” the clerk droned. “Inaccordancewiththeexpress willof . . . themarriageofanEarthmanto-aVenusianwoman . . . isherebyrequest-edthatpermissionbegrantedfor . . .”

  “That’s us,” Jack said, leaning forward intently, to catch the words.

  Beside him, Sela turned to whisper, “I’m afraid.” Her face was tense.

  Pair after pair of eyes turned from the Speaker to focus for a brief instant on the lobbyist in the right gallery. Very slowly he inclined his head and sniffed the wild flower fastened in his lapel.

  Sections of suspense seemed suddenly to descend on the Elected. Several members folded their papers and placed them neatly on their desks. One or two men bent to nudge their dozing colleagues into consciousness.

  No one seemed more than to glance at the televised copy of the bill.

  The clerk finished the reading.

  Sela’s hand had found Jack’s.

  “We’ll now record,” the Speaker announced.

  There was a moment of complete inactivity.

  The lobbyist was on the edge of his seat, watching the board intently.

  The first vote come in: “Yes.”

  Another: “Yes.”

  A third: “Yes.”


  The lobbyist bobbed his head toward cell A.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Resounding negation seemed to inundate the opposition.

  Sela drew in her breath sharply.

  A yes popped lit among the no’s. It seemed weak and almost apologetic.

  A pair of no’s.

  Then voting ceased. Representatives watched the board uncertainly.

  Representative Filch wrinkled his brow. As near as he could tell, he was completely neutral to the bill. He could not recall having been read a single letter from a constituent about it one way or the other. He licked his lips. Best to vote with the rest. They knew what they were doing. Even if they didn’t, it’s always best to be with the majority. He waited, trying to discover for sure which way the wind was blowing.

  The lobbyist bobbed his head toward cell B.

  The second spate of No’s cluttered the board.

  Sela and Jack stared at each other in hurt disbelief.

  Representative Filch shrugged his shoulders. Why be different? He reached out and pushed the “Yes” button, having, for the moment, confused them again in his mind. He did not even bother to check his vote but settled back into blissful lassitude.

  His yes zipped along the wire. His center square flared brilliantly as a light sometimes does before burning out.

  In the brief flash, the minds behind a dozen hesitant hands noticed the unusual vehemence of the assent. Yes was firmly impressed on them. They voted. And a new stampede, in the opposite direction, began.

  • End

  HOLD BACK TOMORROW

  It was so good to be young, Margy knew. She never wanted to be an adult—grow old and die in five centuries. That must not happen . . .

  “HELLO, Margy,” he said bashfully when he came upon her standing beside the low, white stone wall which surrounded the schoolyard, isolating it from the carefully landscaped forest and lakes beyond.

  “Hello, Clyde.”

  “How are you today, Margy?”

  “I’m fine, Clyde. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Margy . . . Mind if I sit down here?”

  Feeling a little flutter of unnamed fear, she cried, “Go ahead. I don’t own the wall.”

  Clyde put his hands behind him, found the top of the wall, and drew himself up until he could sit on the stones. He looked down at her, his chin level with her brown curls; he looked as if he had half expected her to turn and walk away, and when she did not, he smiled uncertainly. The fear gone, now, she tilted her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, once again the conscious master of the situation.

  Clyde looked very boyish, peering down at her. “Don’t you want to sit down up here, too?” he said, waving his hand awkwardly.

  “Maybe.”

  “Here,” he said, offering her his hand. “I’ll help you up.”

  She wanted to take the hand, but instead, she said. “Thank you, but I can help myself.” Gracefully she swung her lithe body up beside him.

  Clyde glanced across at her, and she stared down at her swinging legs, telling herself to be very careful, and above all, not to look into his eyes when the mature confidence shone through.

  Clyde cleared his throat nervously and made conversation by saying, “I . . . uh . . . feel sorry for Teach, don’t you?”

  Margy twisted and puckered her mouth, remembering Teach that morning; she had looked very bad, and the eye wrinkles were very noticeable, more noticeable than ever before. “Teach is wearing out,” Margy said, trying to keep the horror out of her voice.

  “I . . . uh . . . thought you’d notice; I don’t think the rest of the kids did.”

  “She must be over four hundred,” Margy said, feeling the cold place in her stomach become even colder.

  “She’ll be dead in another fifty years.”

  MARGY shuddered as the coldness exploded through her whole body and tingled down to her finger tips, making her want to cry. “I hate to think of anyone dying,” she said, wishing he would talk about the weather, or about anything but dying, wishing he were less serious, more embarrassed, and more like his old self.

  “I just wondered if you’d noticed Teach. I thought you would. You—you know—you . . . uh . . . seem to understand things, Margy.”

  That seemed to expose all her nerve endings, and leave them raw and tingling. Biting her lip in anger, she said, “I do not! I don’t understand things at all.” If he didn’t quit being serious, she would get down and walk away.

  “Better than most kids, I meant. Better than I do.”

  She wanted to laugh hysterically, and she could feel her fingers curl in toward the palms. “You just think I do,” she said.

  “No. I’m serious, Margy. I mean it, really. You’re more grown up than we are.”

  Her heart raced with terror, and her face was drained. She looked away so he would not notice. “Don’t say things like that, Clyde. Clyde, if you say any more about that I’ll—I’ll just not ever speak to you again!”

  “Aw, Margy. I don’t want to get you sore. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, her heart quieting slowly. What did he want? she wondered. Surely something. She could tell by the intentness of his face, the awkwardness, the suppression in his gestures, but what, she dared not guess, even though she was afraid that she already knew. She wanted to say, “Look, Clyde, let’s just go on laughing like we have been. Let’s laugh and laugh. And not talk very much. Not about things like death. I like you when you’re a little boy and laughing. I’m afraid of you when you’re a man and not laughing.” But she said, “It’s nice today, don’t you think so?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  SHE looked at him, and his face was red with embarrassment. He avoided her eyes, and he was his former self, at least for a moment. The self she wanted to touch and hold onto in the face of a swirling, mysterious, and frightening world: except, more than anything else, she could not afford to touch him, and every day he was growing more and more away from her until one day he would be gone altogether, and she would not want to touch him any longer. It was infinitely sad to sit helplessly by while that happened.

  “What did you want to see me about?” she said.

  “I . . . uh . . . guess I forget,” he said.

  But everything was about to break and shatter, and she could sense it. She sat pitted against herself and her own confusions, knowing what he wanted to ask her. It had been bound to come, sooner or later. What was she going to do about it? That, she was afraid to guess. Not today, she prayed intently, God, don’t let him ask me to marry him today!

  “Look, Margy,” he said. “Can I walk you home, after school?”

  But it would be today. Again, she could sense it. And if she said he could walk home with her, he would touch her, probably try to kiss her. Somehow, she would have to stop him from doing that. “Part way,” she said hesitantly. Because she was afraid to deny him; she was afraid to lose him, yet. She didn’t want that.

  “I . . . want to ask you something, then.”

  “Please . . .” she said.

  “Yes, Margy?”

  “Let’s not be serious. You’ve been getting so serious, lately. I don’t like you when you’re that way.”

  “I have not!” he said hotly.

  “You have too,” she said. She slipped down from the wall and ran wild and free toward the classroom building.

  “Don’t forget! After school!” he called.

  Don’t forget, she thought bitterly, running, don’t forget . . .

  SCHOOL was over, and they left the grounds together. The grass underfoot was soft and green. The shade trees around the path, pleasantly protecting. The neat, clean houses, set in the forest at intervals, individual proud flower beds a-dot in the smooth, close cropped lawns. The sky, bright blue with sunset on the horizon (through the trees) gold and purple, and the air, clean, perfumery. Adults moved around their homes, puttering in the gardens, mending the tiny spots where mending was required; their faces were bright
eyed, young, peaceful, but wise with the wisdom of experience.

  “We’re a lot alike,” Clyde said after a while.

  “Are we?”

  “Don’t you think so?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking away from him, thinking that it would be nice to go on forever walking in the sunset like this.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Down here,” she said vaguely. “Oh.”

  They walked on, passed a pond almost covered with lillies that were opened out, in white and yellow bloom: passed a banyan tree, where miniature turtle doves had gathered to coo softly for night; over a small wood bridge spanning a stream of clear hurtling waters.

  “. . . You started school here just last year didn’t you?”

  She swallowed down the tenseness in her throat. “Yes . . . I came from . . . the East.” She knew that she should have said it more glibly, but the words seemed to clog in her throat.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I don’t remember you before last year.”

  They came to a widening of the lane where an ancient tree stood alone, as if the rest of the trees had moved back to give it room, out of respect to its venerability.

  He stopped her with his hand. “Wait, Margy.”

  The hand, warm on her elbow, was bad, and she wanted to shake it away, and she wanted to leave it there.

  “Yes?” she said weakly.

  “. . . Uh . . . Let’s talk,” he said, taking the hand away.

  “Talk?” she said, trying to gain time and marshal her thoughts.

  Then there was laughter from behind them, along the lane they had followed.

  “Two of the kids from school,” Clyde said disappointedly; he turned to wave. “No. It’s all right. I see their adult bands.” j Shortly, the adults, nodding pleasantly with the confidence and understanding of hundreds of years, passed them and continued down the lane, looking no older than the two adolescents.