Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

I had not been sorry to see such a bad man punished, one whose friends had killed our folk and would have taken them for slaves—yet I was sorry, too, in a way, because of the seals barking and the whales—and he was splendid, after a fashion—and yet truly I forgot all about that the moment he was gone, for I was terrified of this strange person or demon or whatever it was, for I knew that whoever was in the room with me was not the Abbess Radegunde. I knew also that it could tell where I was and what I was doing, even if I made no sound, and was in a terrible riddle as to what I ought to do when soft fingers touched my face. It was the demon, reaching swiftly and silently behind her.

  And do you know, all of a sudden everything was all right! I don’t mean that she was the Abbess again—I still had very serious suspicions about that—but all at once I felt light as air and nothing seemed to matter very much because my stomach was full of bubbles of happiness, just as if I had been drunk, only nicer. If the Abbess Radegunde were really a demon, what a joke that was on her people! And she did not, now that I came to think of it, seem a bad sort of demon, more the frightening kind than the killing kind, except for Thorfinn, of course, but then Thorfinn had been a very wicked man. And did not the angels of the Lord smite down the wicked? So perhaps the Abbess was an angel of the Lord and not a demon, but if she were truly an angel, why had she not smitten the Norsemen down when they first came and so saved all our folk? And then I thought that, whether angel or demon, she was no longer the Abbess and would love me no longer, and if I had not been so full of the silly happiness which kept tickling about inside me, this thought would have made me weep.

  I said, “Will the bad Thorvald get free, demon?”

  “No,” she said. “Not even if I sleep.”

  I thought: But she does not love me.

  “I love thee,” said the strange voice, but it was not the Abbess Radegunde’s and so was without meaning, but again those soft fingers touched me and there was some kindness in them, even if it was a stranger’s kindness.

  Sleep, they said.

  So I did.

  The next three days I had much secret mirth to see the folk bow down to the demon and kiss its hands and weep over it because it had sold itself to ransom them. That is what Sister Hedwic told them. Young Thorfinn had gone out in the night to piss and had fallen over a stone in the dark and broken his neck, which secretly rejoiced our folk, and his comrades did not seem to mind much either, save for one young fellow who had been Thorfinn’s friend, I think, and so went about with a long face. Thorvald locked me up in the Abbess’s study with the demon every night and went out—or so folk said—to one of the young women, but on those nights the demon was silent and I lay there with the secret tickle of merriment in my stomach, caring about nothing.

  On the third morning I woke sober. The demon—or the Abbess—for in the day she was so like the Abbess Radegunde that I wondered—took my hand and walked us up to Thorvald, who was out picking the people to go aboard the Norsemen’s boats at the riverbank to be slaves. Folk were standing about weeping and wringing their hands; I thought this strange, because of the Abbess’s promise to pick those whose going would hurt least, but I know now that least is not none. The weather was bad, cold rain out of mist, and some of Thorvald’s companions were speaking sourly to him in the Norse, but he talked them down—bluff and hearty—as if making light of the weather. The demon stood by him and said, in German, in a low voice so that none might hear: “You will say we go to find the Abbess’s treasure and then you will go with us into the woods.”

  He spoke to his fellows in Norse and they frowned; but the end of it was that two must come with us, for the demon said it was such a treasure as three might carry. The demon had the voice and manner of the Abbess Radegunde, all smiles, so they were fooled. Thus we started out into the trees behind the village, with the rain worse and the ground beginning to soften underfoot. As soon as the village was out of sight the two Norsemen fell behind, but Thorvald did not seem to notice this; I looked back and saw the first man standing in the mud with one foot up, like a goose, and the second with his head lifted and his mouth open so that the rain fell in it. We walked on, the earth sucking at our shoes and all of us getting wet: Thorvald’s hair stuck fast against his face and the demon’s old brown cloak clinging to its body. Then suddenly the demon began to breathe harshly and it put its hand to its side with a cry. Its cloak fell off and it stumbled before us between the wet trees, not weeping but breathing hard. Then I saw, ahead of us through the pelting rain, a kind of shining among the bare tree-trunks, and as we came nearer the shining became more clear until it was very plain to see, not a blazing thing like a fire at night but a mild and even brightness as though the sunlight were coming through the clouds pleasantly but without strength, as it often does at the beginning of the year.

  And then there were folk inside the brightness, both men and women, all dressed in white, and they held out their arms to us and the demon ran to them, crying out loudly and weeping, but paying no mind to the tree-branches which struck it across the face and body. Sometimes it fell but it quickly got up again. When it reached the strange folk they embraced it and I thought that the filth and mud of its gown would stain their white clothing, but the foulness dropped off and would not cling to those clean garments. None of the strange folk spoke a word, nor did the Abbess—I knew then that she was no demon, whatever she was—but I felt them talk to one another, as if in my mind, although I know not how this could be nor the sense of what they said. An odd thing was that as I came closer I could see they were not standing on the ground, as in the way of nature, but higher up, inside the shining, and that their white robes were nothing at all like ours, for they clung to the body so that one might see the people’s legs all the way up to the place where the legs joined, even the women’s. And some of the folk were like us, but most had a darker color and some looked as if they had been smeared with soot—there are such persons in the far parts of the world, you know, as I found out later; it is their own natural color—and there were some with the odd eyes the Abbess had spoken of—but the oddest thing of all I will not tell you now. When the Abbess had embraced and kissed them all and all had wept, she turned and looked down upon us: Thorvald standing there as if held by a rope and I, who had lost my fear and had crept close in pure awe, for there was such a joy about these people, like the light about them, mild as spring light and yet as strong as in a spring where the winter has gone forever.

  “Come to me, Thorvald,” said the Abbess, and one could not see from her face if she loved or hated him. He moved closer—jerk! jerk!—and she reached down and touched his forehead with her fingertips, at which one side of his lip lifted, as a dog’s does when it snarls.

  “As thou knowest,” said the Abbess quietly, “I hate thee and would be revenged upon thee. Thus I swore to myself three days ago, and such vows are not lightly broken.”

  I saw him snarl again and he turned his eyes from her.

  “I must go soon,” said the Abbess, unmoved, “for I could stay here long years only as Radegunde and Radegunde is no more; none of us can remain here long as our proper selves or even in our true bodies, for if we do we go mad like Sibihd or walk into the river and drown or stop our own hearts, so miserable, wicked, and brutish does your world seem to us. Nor may we come in large companies, for we are few and our strength is not great and we have much to learn and study of thy folk so that we may teach and help without marring all in our ignorance. And ignorant or wise, we can do naught except thy folk aid us.

  “Here is my revenge,” said the Abbess, and he seemed to writhe under the touch of her fingers, for all they were so light; “Henceforth be not Thorvald Farmer nor yet Thorvald Seafarer but Thorvald Peacemaker, Thorvald War-hater, put into anguish by bloodshed and agonized at cruelty. I cannot make long thy life—that gift is beyond me—but I give thee this: to the end of thy days, long or short, thou wilt know that it is neither good nor evil, as I do, and this knowing will trouble and frighten thee alwa
ys, as it does me, and so about this one thing, as about many another, Thorvald Peacemaker will never have peace.

  “Now, Thorvald, go back to the village and tell thy comrades I was assumed into the company of the saints, straight up to Heaven. Thou mayst believe it, if thou will. That is all my revenge.”

  Then she took away her hand and he turned and walked from us like a man in a dream, holding out his hands as if to feel the rain and stumbling now and again, as one who wakes from a vision.

  Then I began to grieve, for I knew she would be going away with the strange people and it was to me as if all the love and care and light in the world were leaving me. I crept close to her, meaning to spring secretly onto the shining place and so go away with them, but she spied me and said, “Silly Radulphus, you cannot,” and that you hurt me more than anything else, so that I began to bawl.

  “Child,” said the Abbess, “come to me,” and loudly weeping I leaned against her knees. I felt the shining around me, all bright and good and warm, that wiped away all grief, and then the Abbess’s touch on my hair.

  She said, “Remember me. And be…content.”

  I nodded, wishing I dared to look up at her face, but when I did, she had already gone with her friends. Not up into the sky, you understand, but as if they moved very swiftly backwards among the trees—although the trees were still behind them somehow—and as they moved, the shining and the people faded away into the rain until there was nothing left.

  Then there was no rain. I do not mean that the clouds parted or the sun came out; I mean that one moment it was raining and cold and the next the sky was clear blue from side to side and it was splendid, sunny, breezy, bright, sailing weather. I had the oddest thought that the strange folk were not agreed about doing such a big miracle—and it was hard for them, too—but they had decided that no one would believe this more than all the other miracles folk speak of, I suppose. And it would surely make Thorvald’s lot easier when he came back with wild words about saints and Heaven, as indeed it did, later.

  Well, that is the tale, really. She said to me “Be content” and so I am; they call me Radulf the Happy now. I have had my share of trouble and sickness but always somewhere in me there is a little spot of warmth and joy to make it all easier, like a traveler’s fire burning out in the wilderness on a cold night. When I am in real sorrow or distress I remember her fingers touching my hair and that takes part of the pain away, somehow. So perhaps I got the best gift, after all. And she said also, “Remember me,” and thus I have, every little thing, although it all happened when I was the age my own grandson is now, and that is how I can tell you this tale today.

  And the rest? Three days after the Norsemen left, Sibihd got back her wits and no one knew how, though I think I do! And as for Thorvald Einarsson, I have heard that after his wife died in Norway he went to England and ended his days there as a monk, but whether this story be true or not I do not know.

  I know this: they may call me Happy Radulf all they like, but there is much that troubles me. Was the Abbess Radegunde a demon, as the new priest says? I cannot believe this, although he called half her sayings nonsense and the other half blasphemy when I asked him. Father Cairbre, before the Norse killed him, told us stories about the Sidhe, that is the Irish fairy people, who leave changelings in human cradles, and for a while it seemed to me that Radegunde must be a woman of the Sidhe when I remembered that she could read Latin at the age of two and was such a marvel of learning when so young, for the changelings the fairies leave are not their own children, you understand, but one of the fairy-folk themselves, who are hundreds upon hundreds of years old, and the other fairy-folk always come back for their own in the end. And yet this could not have been, for Father Cairbre said also that the Sidhe are wanton and cruel and without souls, and neither the Abbess Radegunde nor the people who came for her were one blessed bit like that, although she did break Thorfinn’s neck—but then it may be that Thorfinn broke his own neck by chance, just as we all thought at the time, and she told this to Thorvald afterwards, as if she had done it herself, only to frighten him. She had more of a soul with a soul’s griefs and joys than most of us, no matter what the new priest says. He never saw her or felt her sorrow and lonesomeness, or heard her talk of the blazing light all around us—and what can that be but God Himself? Even though she did call the crucifix a deaf thing and vain, she must have meant not Christ, you see, but only the piece of wood itself, for she was always telling the Sisters that Christ was in Heaven and not on the wall. And if she said the light was not good or evil, well, there is a traveling Irish scholar who told me of a holy Christian monk named Augustinus who tells us that all which is, is good, and evil is only a lack of the good, like an empty place not filled up. And if the Abbess truly said there was no God, I say it was the sin of despair, and even saints may sin, if only they repent, which I believe she did at the end.

  So I tell myself and yet I know the Abbess Radegunde was no saint, for are the saints few and weak, as she said? Surely not! And then there is a thing I held back in my telling, a small thing and it will make you laugh and perhaps means nothing one way or the other but it is this:

  Are the saints bald?

  These folk in white had young faces but they were like eggs; there was not a stitch of hair on their domes! Well, God may shave his saints if He pleases, I suppose.

  But I know she was no saint. And then I believe that she did kill Thorfinn and the light was not God and she not even a Christian or maybe even human and I remember how Radegunde was to her only a gown to step out of at will, and how she truly hated and scorned Thorvald until she was happy and safe with her own people. Or perhaps it was like her talk about living in a house with the rooms shut up; when she stopped being Radegunde first one part of her came back and then the other—the joyful part that could not lie or plan and then the angry part—and then they were all together when she was back among her own folk. And then I give up trying to weigh this matter and go back to warm my soul at the little fire she lit in me, that one warm, bright place in the wide and windy dark.

  But something troubles me even there, and will not be put to rest by the memory of the Abbess’s touch on my hair. As I grow older it troubles me more and more. It was the very last thing she said to me, which I have not told you but will now. When she had given me the gift of contentment, I became so happy that I said, “Abbess, you said you would be revenged on Thorvald, but all you did was change him into a good man. That is no revenge!”

  What this saying did to her astonished me, for all the color went out of her face and left it gray. She looked suddenly old, like a death’s head, even standing there among her own true folk with love and joy coming from them so strongly that I myself might feel it. She said, “I did not change him. I lent him my eyes; that is all.” Then she looked beyond me, as if at our village, at the Norsemen loading their boats with weeping slaves, at all the villages of Germany and England and France where the poor folk sweat from dawn to dark so that the great lords may do battle with one another, at castles under siege with the starving folk within eating mice and rats and sometimes each other, at the women carried off or raped or beaten, at the mothers wailing for their little ones, and beyond this at the great wide world itself with all its battles which I had used to think so grand, and the misery and greediness and fear and jealousy and hatred of folk one for the other, save—perhaps—for a few small bands of savages, but they were so far from us that one could scarcely see them. She said: No revenge? Thinkest thou so, boy? And then she said as one who believes absolutely, as one who has seen all the folk at their living and dying, not for one year but for many, not in one place but in all places, as one who knows it all over the whole wide earth:

  Think again.…

  * * * *

  Copyright © 1982 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  NAMING THE UNNAMED: TABOOS AND DANGEROUS IDEAS IN MODERN SCIENCE FICTION, by Liberty Stanavage

  In 1896, H.G. Wells published The Island of Dr. Morea
u. In contrast to the warm reception of his earlier novel, The Time Machine, Moreau was critically savaged by reviewers who found it sensationalist and blasphemous. His protagonist Prendick’s description of Dr. Moreau’s inter-species vivisection, which rendered its subjects “so cut and mutilated as I pray I may never see living flesh again,” graphically highlighted the bloody nature of vivisection as a scientific technique (73). Even more shocking, however, was his description of the hybrid beast-men that technique created and their pseudo-religious rituals attributing divine powers to Moreau. Many reviewers saw the beast-men’s unthinking worship of Moreau as an undisguised critique of Western religion. As Mark Hillegas notes, the reading of the novel as an attack on a Christian God is “consistent, too, with the interpretation, frequent since the earliest reviews, of Dr. Moreau as a caricature, most often a ‘blasphemous’ caricature of God” (37). Although the main scientific technique that the novel dealt with, vivisection, was widely considered unethical within the scientific community of his day, Wells’ extrapolation of its dangers and ethical problems seemed to many to enter forbidden territory, both theological and scientific. Touching on contemporary fears of human degeneration and anxieties about the newly propounded theory of evolution, Wells’ novel was criticized as broaching taboo subjects and ideas.

  Modern science fiction has, from its earliest origins, led authors to question the limits of human potential. And in exploring these limits, some authors have, like Wells, ventured into taboo or dangerous territory. These forays into taboo subjects, however, were rare until the late 1960s, as a generic tendency to take social structures as innate and a lack of markets for edgy material maintained a more conservative tenor to the field. Science fiction novels and stories could question the humanity of machines (The Caves of Steel) or explore the dangerous ethical choices created by the harsh environment of space (“The Cold Equations”), but gender roles and sexual identities were largely depicted as unchanging. Stories that suggested that robots might be able to attain humanity nevertheless depicted women as secondary love interests or housewives, and it seemed (as in Asimov’s “Robbie”) that a robot might more easily display a complex understanding of the human condition than a woman who had been born into it. Similarly, depictions of religion remained predominantly Christian and stories maintained, by and large, an understanding of human supremacy in the broader universe. The bulk of science fiction from the first half of the twentieth century celebrated human (particularly white male) potential and the inevitable victory of human (generally Western) culture. Stories that questioned social or religious structures or that anticipated an irredeemably dystopian future were few and far between and often controversial.