Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  Matheson wrote fourteen episodes of The Twilight Zone, including the classic “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” He wrote the 1966 Star Trek episode “The Enemy Within.” He wrote scripts for the western series Lawman; for Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations and other classic 1960s horror films; and wrote television films including The Night Stalker (1972), for which he received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He’s won the World Fantasy Award twice, as well as a host of other awards spanning the multiple genres he writes in.

  Matheson has been married to Ruth Ann Woodson for almost sixty years. They have four children, three of whom (Chris, Richard Christian, and Ali Matheson) are writers of fiction and screenplays.

  BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN, by Richard Matheson

  First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Summer 1950

  X——— This day when it had light mother called me a retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch.

  This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. I didn’t like it.

  Mother is a pretty I know. In my bed place with cold walls around I have a paper things that was behind the furnace. It says on it SCREENSTARS. I see in the pictures faces like of mother and father. Father says they are pretty. Once he said it.

  And also mother he said. Mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you he said and didn’t have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn’t reach.

  Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. That’s how I saw the water falling from upstairs.

  XX———This day it had goldness in the upstairs. As I know, when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I look at it the cellar is red.

  I think this was church. They leave the upstairs. The big machine swallows them and rolls out past and is gone. In the back part is the little mother. She is much small than me. I am big. It is a secret but I have pulled the chain out of the wall. I can see out the little window all I like.

  In this day when it got dark I had eat my food and some bugs. I hear laughs upstairs. I like to know why there are laughs for. I took the chain from the wall and wrapped it around me. I walked squish to the stairs. They creak when I walk on them. My legs slip on them because I don’t walk on stairs. My feet stick to the wood.

  I went up and opened a door. It was a white place. White as white jewels that come from upstairs sometime. I went in and stood quiet. I hear the laughing some more. I walk to the sound and look through to the people. More people than I thought was. I thought I should laugh with them.

  Mother came out and pushed the door in. It hit me and hurt. I fell back on the smooth floor and the chain made noise. I cried. She made a hissing noise into her and put her hand on her mouth. Her eyes got big.

  She looked at me. I heard father call. What fell he called. She said a iron board. Come help pick it up she said. He came and said now is that so heavy you need. He saw me and grew big. The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. I spilled some of the drip on the floor from one arm. It was not nice. It made ugly green on the floor.

  Father told me to go to the cellar. I had to go. The light it hurt some now in my eyes. It is not so like that in the cellar.

  Father tied my legs and arms up. He put me on my bed. Upstairs I heard laughing while I was quiet there looking on a black spider that was swinging down to me. I thought what father said. Ohgod he said. And only eight.

  XXX———This day father hit in the chain again before it had light. I have to try pull it out again. He said I was bad to come upstairs. He said never do that again or he would beat me hard. That hurts.

  I hurt. I slept the day and rested my head against the cold wall. I thought of the white place upstairs.

  XXXX———I got the chain from the wall out. Mother was upstairs. I heard little laughs very high. I looked out the window. I saw all little people like the little mother and little fathers too. They are pretty.

  They were making nice noise and jumping around the ground. Their legs was moving hard. They are like mother and father. Mother says all right people look like they do.

  One of the little fathers saw me. He pointed at the window. I let go and slid down the wall in the dark. I curled up as they would not see. I heard their talks by the window and foots running. Upstairs there was a door hitting. I heard the little mother call upstairs. I heard heavy steps and I rushed to my bed place. I hit the chain in the wall and lay down on my front.

  I heard mother come down. Have you been at the window she said. I heard the anger. Stay away from the window. You have pulled the chain out again.

  She took the stick and hit me with it. I didn’t cry. I can’t do that. But the drip ran all over the bed. She saw it and twisted away and made a noise. Oh mygod mygod she said why have you done this to me? I heard the stick go bounce on the stone floor. She ran upstairs. I slept the day.

  XXXXX——— This day it had water again. When mother was upstairs I heard the little one come slow down the steps. I hidded myself in the coal bin for mother would have anger if the little mother saw me.

  She had a little live thing with her. It walked on the arms and had pointy ears. She said things to it.

  It was all right except the live thing smelled me. It ran up the coal and looked down at me. The hairs stood up. In the throat it made an angry noise. I hissed but it jumped on me.

  I didn’t want to hurt it. I got fear because it bit me harder than the rat does. I hurt and the little mother screamed. I grabbed the live thing tight. It made sounds I never heard. I pushed it all together. It was lumpy and red on the black coal.

  I hid there when mother called. I was afraid of the stick. She left. I crept over the coal with the thing. I hid it under my pillow and rested on it. I put the chain in the wall again.

  X——— This is another times. Father chained me tight. I hurt because he beat me. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He ran out of my bed place and locked the door.

  I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once.

  I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me.

  If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.

  * * * *

  Copyright © 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc.

  JUDITH MERRIL

  (1923–1997)

  It’s ironic that someone who played such a large role in the field for so many years as a writer, editor, and mentor, Judith Merril (the last name in her nom de plume was taken from her daughter Merril’s name) is still best-remembered for the first story she ever wrote. Merril came to science fiction later than many writers; while sick in bed she read some of her first husband’s SF books and was hooked. She joined the Futurians in 1945, and was an editor at Bantam Books two years later. She, Frederik Pohl (who would briefly be her second husband), and others formed the Hydra Club as a gathering place for SF professionals in New York City.

  “That Only a Mother” was published in 1948 and Merril’s first novel, Shadow on the Hearth came out in 1950, but by then she was already making more of a reputation as an editor and mentor to other writers. She edited her first SF anthology, Shot in the Dark, in 1950, and the annual “Year’s Best” collections of SF (which like Robert A. Heinlein she considered as “speculative fiction” rather than “science fiction”) from 1956 to 1967. She worked tirelessly to expand the field to include strong stories that didn’t fit within the field’s established conventions. She worked to expand who wrote SF as well, co-founding the M
ilford Writer’s Conference (which evolved into Clarion) with James Blish and Damon Knight.

  Merril strongly opposed the Vietnam War, and after the brutal suppression of protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she moved to Toronto, eventually becoming a Canadian citizen. In 1970, she donated her massive SF collection to the Toronto Public Library, where it remains a resource.

  THAT ONLY A MOTHER, by Judith Merril

  First published in Astounding Science Fiction, June 1948

  Margaret reached over to the other side of the bed where Hank should have been. Her hand patted the empty pillow, and then she came altogether awake, wondering that the old habit should remain after so many months. She tried to curl up, cat-style, to hoard her own warmth, found she couldn’t do it any more, and climbed out of bed with a pleased awareness of her increasingly clumsy bulkiness.

  Morning motions were automatic. On the way through the kitchenette, she pressed the button that would start breakfast cooking—the doctor had said to eat as much breakfast as she could—and tore the paper out of the facsimile machine. She folded the long sheet carefully to the “National News” section, and propped it on the bathroom shelf to scan while she brushed her teeth.

  No accidents. No direct hits. At least none that had been officially released for publication. Now, Maggie, don’t get started on that. No accidents. No hits. Take the nice newspaper’s word for it.

  The three clear chimes from the kitchen announced that breakfast was ready. She set a bright napkin and cheerful colored dishes on the table in a futile attempt to appeal to a faulty morning appetite. Then, when there was nothing more to prepare, she went for the mail, allowing herself the full pleasure of prolonged anticipation, because today there would surely be a letter.

  There was. There were. Two bills and a worried note from her mother: “Darling, why didn’t you write and tell me sooner? I’m thrilled, of course, but, well one hates to mention these things, but are you certain the doctor was right? Hank’s been around all that uranium or thorium of whatever it is all these years, and I know you say he’s a designer, not a technician, and he doesn’t get near anything that might be dangerous, but you know he used to, back at Oak Ridge. Don’t you think…well, of course, I’m just being a foolish old woman, and I don’t want you to get upset. You know much more about it than I do, and I’m sure your doctor was right. He should know…”

  Margaret made a face over the excellent coffee, and caught herself refolding the paper to the medical news.

  Stop it, Maggie, stop it! The radiologist said Hank’s job couldn’t have exposed him. And the bombed area we drove past…No, no. Stop it, now! Read the social notes or the recipes, Maggie girl.

  A well-known geneticist, in the medical news, said that it was possible to tell with absolute certainty, at five months, whether the child would be normal, or at least whether the mutation was likely to produce anything freakish. The worst cases, at any rate, could be prevented. Minor mutations, of course, displacements in facial features, or changes in brain structure could not be detected. And there had been some cases recently, of normal embryos with atrophied limbs that did not develop beyond the seventh or eighth month. But, the doctor concluded cheerfully, the worst cases could now be predicted and prevented.

  “Predicted and prevented.” We predicted it, didn’t we? Hank and the others, they predicted it. But we didn’t prevent it. We could have stopped it in ’46 and ’47. Now…

  Margaret decided against the breakfast. Coffee had been enough for her in the morning for ten years; it would have to do for today. She buttoned herself into the interminable folds of material that, the salesgirl had assured her, was the only comfortable thing to wear during the last few months. With a surge of pure pleasure, the letter and newspaper forgotten, she realized she was on the next to the last button. It wouldn’t be long now.

  * * * *

  The city in the early morning had always been a special kind of excitement for her. Last night it had rained, and the sidewalks were still damp-gray instead of dusty. The air smelled the fresher, to a city-bred woman, for the occasional pungency of acrid factory smoke. She walked the six blocks to work, watching the lights go out in the all-night hamburger joints, where the plate-glass walls were already catching the sun, and the lights go on in the dim interiors of cigar stores and dry-cleaning establishments.

  The office was in a new Government building. In the rolovator, on the way up, she felt, as always, like a frankfurter roll in the ascending half of an old-style rotary toasting machine. She abandoned the air-foam cushioning gratefully at the fourteenth floor, and settled down behind her desk, at the rear of a long row of identical desks.

  Each morning the pile of papers that greeted her was a little higher. These were, as everyone knew, the decisive months. The war might be won or lost on these calculations as well as any others. The manpower office had switched her here when her old expediter’s job got to be too strenuous. The computer was easy to operate, and the work was absorbing, if not as exciting as the old job. But you didn’t just stop working these days. Everyone who could do anything at all was needed.

  And—she remembered the interview with the psychologist—I’m probably the unstable type. Wonder what sort of neurosis I’d get sitting home reading that sensational paper…

  She plunged into the work without pursuing the thought.

  February 18

  Hank darling,

  Just a note—from the hospital, no less. I had a dizzy spell at work, and the doctor took it to heart. Blessed if I know what I’ll do with myself lying in bed for weeks, just waiting—but Dr. Boyer seems to think it may not be so long.

  There are too many newspapers around here. More infanticides all the time, and they can’t seem to get a jury to convict any of them..

  It’s the fathers who do it. Lucky thing you’re not around, in case—

  Oh, darling, that wasn’t a very funny joke, was it? Write as often as you can, will you? I have too much time to think. But there really isn’t anything wrong, and nothing to worry about.

  Write often, and remember I love you.

  Maggie

  SPECIAL SERVICE TELEGRAM

  February 21, 1955

  22:04 LK37G

  From: Tech: Lieut. H. Marvell X47-016 GCNY

  To: Mrs. H. Marvell, Women’s Hospital New York City

  HAD DOCTOR’S GRAM STOP WILL ARRIVE FOUR OH TEN STOP SHORT LEAVE STOP YOU DID IT MAGGIE STOP LOVE HANK

  February 25

  Hank dear,

  So you didn’t see the baby either? You’d think a place this size would at least have visiplates on the incubators, so the fathers could get a look, even if the poor benighted mommas can’t. They tell me I won’t see her for another week, or maybe more—but of course, mother always warned me if I didn’t slow my pace, I’d probably even have my babies too fast. Why must she always be right?

  Did you meet that battle-ax of a nurse they put on here? I imagine they save her for people who’ve already had theirs, and don’t let her get too near the prospectives—but a woman like that simply shouldn’t be allowed in a maternity ward. She’s obsessed with mutations, can’t seem to talk about anything else. Oh, well, ours is all right, even if it was in an unholy hurry. I’m tired. They warned me not to sit up so soon, but I had to write you. All my love, darling,

  Maggie

  February 29

  Darling,

  I finally got to see her! It’s all true, what they say about new babies and the face that only a mother could love—but it’s all there, darling, eyes, ears, and noses—no, only one!—all in the right places. We’re so lucky, Hank.

  I’m afraid I’ve been a rambunctious patient. I kept telling that hatchet-faced female with the mutation mania that I wanted to see the baby. Finally the doctor came in to “explain” everything to me, and talked a lot of nonsense, most of which I’m sure no one could have understood, any more than I did. The only thing I got out of it was that she didn’t actual
ly have to stay in the incubator; they just thought it was “wiser.”

  I think I got a little hysterical at that point. Guess I was more worried than I was willing to admit, but I threw a small fit about it. The whole business wound up with one of those hushed medical conferences outside the door, and finally the Woman in White said: “Well, we might as well. Maybe it’ll work out better that way.”

  I’d heard about the way doctors and nurses in these places develop a God complex, and believe me it is as true figuratively as it is literally that a mother hasn’t got a leg to stand on around here.

  I am awfully weak, still. I’ll write again soon. Love,

  Maggie

  March 8

  Dearest Hank,

  Well the nurse was wrong if she told you that. She’s an idiot anyhow. It’s a girl. It’s easier to tell with babies than with cats, and I know. How about Henrietta?

  I’m home again, and busier than a betatron. They got everything mixed up at the hospital, and I had to teach myself how to bathe her and do just about everything else. She’s getting prettier, too. When can you get a leave, a real leave?