Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  Dr. Hamberger, in fact, was a man of many solutions—not only of individuals’ problems, but the nation’s as well. One of which was bringing him considerable distress, unsolicited publicity, and was now responsible for the unaccustomed delay of the appointment. Dr. Hamberger did not plan to make anything out of the delay. Let the President see, once again, that he was a kindly adviser, who could never relinquish warm feelings merely because of trivial discourtesies. He could understand, if not agree as to the justice of, the President’s annoyance.

  Fifteen minutes after the appointed hour—he had tea and a pleasant chat with the President twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:00 pm—Dr. Hamberger was summoned into the President’s office. He always encouraged the President to lie on the couch, since the man needed all the rest he could get, and this was how he found him now.

  Customarily, Dr. Hamberger opened the discussion with a few remarks on the Reality Machine. It was his hope eventually to effect a change of policy in this matter, and it was this hope (he sometimes felt) that stimulated his interest in these twice-weekly conversations and caused him never to cancel one in spite of occasional personal inconvenience. “I hope you thought over our discussion last week. I honestly believe it’s making people paranoid. I don’t know how it does it, but I honestly believe it does. I’ve heard many people say it’s a Communist plot. Of course, I won’t go that far, but I do hope you’ll think your position through again.”

  He listened carefully as the President spoke to this point. Was there some weakening in his commitment from previous chats?

  “But you just can’t turn it off, much as I might like to,” the President said. “Ever since we discontinued the space program back in 1984, it’s been necessary to maintain at least some rallying point, some unifying goal, for the nation. You can’t have a nation that you can be proud of if it’s not pulling together. There are anarchists out there, Dr. Hamberger, waiting to pounce. Furthermore, it consumes a tremendous amount of technical manpower. Where am I to put these unemployable, overtrained eggheads otherwise? I don’t doubt your sincerity, Dr. Hamberger, but I wish you’d try to see my points. Help me, please, to deal severely with the misguided people who contend that it’s producing hallucinogens as atmospheric pollutants. You know that is just not true. Some of these bums even say it is changing the fundamental nature of the universe in the immediate vicinity of Denver, if you want to believe those examples they cite of the so-called natural laws, out there, sometimes being violated. And particularly dangerous, Dr. Hamberger, are the people who keep saying that it’s causing all the problems in this society and that all we need to do is to turn off the Reality Machine and spend the money somewhere else. To the contrary, any money that doesn’t go into the Reality Machine is money that’s wasted, but they don’t see that, that there’s hound to be technological fall-out that will just have to justify the costs many, many times over! I’ve told the American people I don’t know how many times that I believe this with unalterable conviction. This is my belief, I believe it with all my heart and soul. I have information from—well, maybe you’ll think this is a little far out, Dr. Hamberger, but God talks to me sometimes, he really does.”

  Dr. Hamberger was not overly discouraged. The President’s position at least had not hardened appreciably since the last discussion. He mused, while the President concluded, that perhaps now would be a good time to lay the other matter out on the table in the open, for comment.

  His problem was this. The President was, of course, right in thinking that money was not necessarily the answer to all the problems facing the country. Take Crime in the Streets, which had been with us as a political issue for forty years, now. There was a simple explanation for it. A small segment of mankind was born insane because of a peculiar genetic deficiency that could be detected quite easily by blood tests at the age of five. By isolating these children in special camps, we would escape their malignant influences subsequently. This perfectly straightforward, scientific proposal was dispatched to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Institute of Mental Health, by the President with his warm and enthusiastic endorsement.

  Then, alas, some paranoid Negro Under-Secretary of Something-or-other had leaked the proposal to the press, doubtless with good intentions, thinking perhaps that it had originated with the Department of Justice and was aimed uniquely at the black citizens.

  Negroes were too sensitive. Nothing in American history suggested tendencies to support genocide, nor could anyone point to a single instance of it. The trouble with Negroes was that they were paranoid, and doubtless this could lie traced to some defective gene, somewhere, rather than, as some suggested, to a breakdown of the family unit. Economic conditions, indeed! The blacks have never had a sense of the family unit, even back in the days of so-called slavery. It would be a thing to look into, later, but for the moment, the proposal was merely to isolate the criminal element. We could weed out all these deficient individuals in a single generation, and thereafter, America, purged of its troublemaking elements, would no longer be troubled with its age-old problems. The cost of the program would be nominal.

  The scientific community pretended not to accept this theory, although, of course, they must know it to be true. Dr. Hamberger could cite at least sixteen articles from reputable medical and biological journals during the last twenty years that conclusively demonstrated the correctness of it. Even discounting the studies with fruit flies, that left six articles dealing with white rats and hamsters. Their refusal to accept the irrefutable facts must conclusively indicate, no, demonstrate! the existence of an evil conspiracy. Who were its members? One did not need to look far to find them! There was a cabal in the Administration who would like nothing better than to discredit him in the President’s eyes because of his opposition to the Reality Machine, It was a conspiracy of the Scientific/Industrial Complex.

  The President, who had been dressing in drag for the last several weeks, now had closed his eyes and was talking about his childhood. This continued until, at the end of some twenty minutes, and just before his hour was up, the Secretary of the Interior, dressed as Napoleon, and who, Dr. Hamberger knew for a fact, was the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, burst unannounced into the room, to cry excitedly, “Denver, Colorado, has just vanished from the face of the earth! Have you heard the news yet?”

  The President sat up instantly. “That’s marvelous!” he exclaimed. “Really marvelous news! We’re starting to get some concrete results out of the Reality Machine. I told you, Hamberger, I told you!”

  1971

  DOMINANT SPECIES

  Lobthar, the all-knowing, opened his eyes to the expected universe. The blue sun was at the horizon, and there were many colors in the sky. He watched the colors.

  The air tasted of the scents the air should taste of.

  This watching and tasting, as it always did, went on for an endless time. Lobthar found the universe good.

  Then, roused by the awareness of food worms beyond the nest, Lobthar shook himself and stood up, preening his feathers. He turned his head from one horizon to the other and willed that later there would be rain from the storm clouds above. Already, in response to his will, he could feel the air change and bear the promise of moisture.

  From the nest, in the shelter of his cave, Lobthar flew down to the forest, where there were feeding birds, as he wished there to be. He waited on the ground, trying to decide where the first food worm should be found. At length he approached the spot, heard the almost inaudible sound of earth movement below. Down went the beak. The worm was there.

  At first there was moisture and subtle, spicy flavors. This combination gave way to the rich texture of the worm itself, with a sweet abiding ripeness that Lobthar could savor for an eternity. At length, Lobthar swallowed the worm.

  After the time of morning feeding, which stretched almost beyond memory of the dawn, Lobthar rose once more into his air and settled back upon his water, where he floated, paddling, rocking himself on
the gentle waves. Here was the recreated time of the egg, when the universe was constricted in warm comfort and his surroundings were composed of fluid slowly moving in convection currents.

  Lobthar willed that there be a sound in the sky. There was a sound in the sky.

  Lobthar looked up, toward the sound. A spot grew, and Lobthar willed that it grow larger and assume the form of a fire there in the sky. Lobthar brought this fire to the forest for his own amusement, and in the last minute, gave it the form of a cylinder.

  Around the cylinder, invisible in the trees, there were now flames, as was only appropriate. Lobthar watched the flames, and gradually the flames went away to leave smoke. Lobthar found this good. Lobthar was continually amazed at the fertility of his own imagination. Now a new thing was introduced for his amusement into the universe. At another time, if he did not forget it, he would investigate this new thing in detail, but for now there was the comforting motion of the water beneath him and the comforting feeling of the air moving among the feathers.

  The following day, Lobthar, having forgotten the arrival of the cylinder, came upon it unexpectedly as he made a soaring flight over his forest. Seeing it below him, he recalled how he had willed its appearance before the rains of the previous day.

  Lobthar perched in a tree. At length, he willed an opening to appear in the cylinder and a creature to come out of the opening. There were no wings on it, but rather wingless extremities. Lobthar was at a loss to know what to cause the creature to do. Fall to the earth and dig worms? Ascend into the air?

  Lobthar approached, swirling down, causing the creature to draw away from the fearsome sight of Lobthar. Lobthar settled to the ground at the foot of the creature and looked up. It made a noise, as Lobthar willed it should. There was much unexpected color to it, and Lobthar willed that it give off a bad odor. This it did.

  Lobthar wondered what to make it do now. Make it approach cautiously and deferentially? This it did. Now what?

  An extremity extended cautiously, as was appropriate, and touched the feathers of Lobthar. Lobthar moved forward a step to facilitate further touching, which occurred. Lobthar was then lifted up. This was exactly as Lobthar had intended.

  The creature turned toward the cylinder, carrying Lobthar with it. Lobthar thought it would be very interesting indeed to know what was inside the cylinder, and in response to the wish, the creature entered it.

  Inside there was an unexpected fertility of imagination. Lobthar was placed on a vantage point along the wall. Desiring to learn more of the imagination of Lobthar, he settled himself to further conjecture.

  At last, after an endless day of unusually bright fantasies, Lobthar went to sleep.

  Upon awakening, Lobthar perceived yesterday’s universe unchanged. Mesmerized by it, Lobthar returned to the egg, and the warmth and comfort there: when he dwelt in great fluid silence. At length, he reexperienced the constriction of that tiny universe and the need to burst forth into some greater projection of the mind’s devising. To do so required exertion reexperienced. In time the restraining barriers fell away, and lo! there was revealed the world of Lobthar, bright and shiny, rare and wonderful, filled with sensations previously unknown. Indeed, such stirrings always gave him the greatest pleasure in memory, and he responded with an enthusiasm that transcends description. Let there be light! Let there be sound! Let there be air to fly in! Let there be motion to excite the imagination! And also let there be food worms stirring in the appropriate places in the soil, the taste of which came forward in anticipation of the need.

  At this point, Lobthar felt a desire for food worms, but the surface beneath him was unsuited to them. It was clearly and evidently not the time for him to will food worms, in spite of the inward desire. For there is a time for all things, and now was the time for glittering surroundings.

  At length he willed sound, and there was sound. At length he willed the return of the creature, and it was so. He imagined that there was the smell of food worms upon the creature, and this was so. Lo! There were the food worms, and the creature brought the food worms to Lobthar, and Lobthar ate the food worms. They were as before, since they need never be otherwise for full enjoyment.

  At length the creature was willed to depart and this too it did, and Lobthar was left once again with this new world. It might be, Lobthar realized, that he would find it more pleasant to remain here than outside among the trees and the water.

  The memory of the water brought doubt, as did the memory of the air, and of the smells beyond this enclosure, and of the joy one had in the colors in the sky as one dictated one’s requirements. Still, it would be well to consider carefully before a change of position.

  At length, Lobthar willed the return of the creature. The creature, as was appropriate, removed Lobthar from the cage and carried him along a corridor, exposing Lobthar to greater miracles of his imagination than even he would have thought possible.

  Lobthar surrendered himself to still another creature, and this creature carried Lobthar to a small table and held him against it. Lobthar could feel the smoothness and the coolness of the new surface, and Lobthar’s nostrils were assailed by strange and wonderful odors not previously experienced.

  This new creature drew back Lobthar’s wings to inspect them and to marvel at them, and Lobthar wished that the creature would hold him more tightly, and this it did, until the tension became almost a pain to Lobthar, and Lobthar moved to cause the tension to depart, and then realized that he did not wish it to depart; rather, he wished to relax and enjoy it.

  Now Lobthar willed that the creature cover his head with a cloth from which arose a very pungent odor, and Lobthar drifted with the odor, back into time, as he called up imagination of the world beyond the cylinder and his first creation of land and water and light and darkness, and by degrees, Lobthar became aware that he was willing himself to sleep, and that the sleep would be long and deep like the sleep of the egg, which he could remember but dimly now, and the odors around him of his own willing were sweet and soft and sleepy and sleepy and very sleepy and Lobthar was willing himself deeper and deeper to sleep, more deeply than ever before.

  The creature drew forth a dissecting knife, but Lobthar had his eyes closed and had not willed it, so the knife did not yet exist. He drifted deeper and deeper to sleep: at last indifferently aware of a strange new and penetrating device in his universe.

  1972

  PATER FAMILIAS

  Two familiar F&SF contributors collaborate on an offbeat story about a transporter that brings back memories in a painfully tangible form; it resurrects parents . . .

  PEOPLE KEEP SAYING THE past is dead. You hear it practically on every street comer. I think my father had something to do with it. But then I may be wrong. I may still tend to overvalue him on some level of my being to compensate for my real feelings.

  The last time I saw him alive, there was something profoundly moving to me about his condition, considering all the times he had humiliated me and considering that for all intents and purposes he had been dead for five years and five months.

  When my father straightened, finally, from the Fox Temporal Couch, I passed him the remains of my drink.

  “Ah, you bastard,” he said, sipping. “You caught me in the middle of a TV program that time. I was laying straight out on the chair and hassock, watching the draft riots. I told you last time, I never wanted you to do this to me again.”

  “It isn’t easy on me, you being dead these five years and five months,” I said. “I was sitting here drinking and looking at the Transporter, just sitting around, and I said, ‘hell,’ I said, ‘I feel like having a chat with my old man again.’ ”

  “Stop telling me when I’m going to die,” he said. “There’s absolutely no need for that.” Still half locked in the Couch, he managed to make it to his knees, clutching the glass, bringing it to his mouth two-handed as if it were a baby’s bottle, which, of course, in at least one sense, it was. All of this was bringing back memories. I half hop
ed, but did not expect, that he would begin one of his circuitous analyses of the world, as in times past, as though trying to teach me something that I again, as in times past, and in the last analysis, would not be able completely to figure out. Such was his way and mine, I guess. I think it may be the way of all parents, but I suppose some are more direct and maybe better organized and really teach you something, but I doubt it. Then, of course, it is a mistake to generalize like this.

  Not the least of the Transporter’s appeal, the brochure said, was its poignancy, the nostalgia of it all. It infused the present with the past, brought you back to your origins from which you were never so distant as not to be touched. And also, as the brochure said, “You don’t have always to be a child with your parents, now,” although that may be wrong.

  “Let’s talk about the old days,” I said. “Remember that time in 1982 when we were playing softball and I broke your finger with a pitch? And you gave me a shot and broke my nose? That’s what I really want to talk about. The basics which we both understand. The cutoff is only five minutes from now, and we really ought to do some talking before I have to send you on your way.”

  “Five minutes, eh?” he said. “Well, what if I just don’t go back? What if I sit right here in your basement and refuse to let you put me back in that circle?”

  As if, any longer, he had the strength to resist my determination. And besides, they wouldn’t let him, anyway. They turned everything upside down when people tried to do that, finding them. Some people said it was so you’d have to keep renting the equipment.