The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 2 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  That was what the tests of Pigeon’s sample had showed. That was the reason for the whole crazy history of the “alien trading post”-first a hut on Titan, then later, when people understood more about the problem, Stranger Station.

  Once every twenty years, an alien would come down out of Somewhere, and sit in the tiny cage we had made for him, and make us rich beyond our dreams-rich with life-and still we did not know why.

  Above him, Wesson imagined he could see that sensed body awallow in the glacial blackness, its bulk passively turning with the Station’s spin, bleeding a chill gold into the lips of the tubes-drip… drop…

  Wesson held his head. The pressure inside made it hard to think; it felt as if his skull were about to fly apart. “Aunt Jane,” he said.

  “Yes, Paul.” The kindly, comforting voice, like a nurse. The nurse who stands beside your cot while you have painful, necessary things done to you. Efficient, trained friendliness.

  “Aunt Jane,” said Wesson, “do you know why they keep coming back?”

  “No,” said the voice precisely. “It is a mystery.”

  Wesson nodded. “I had,” he said, “an interview with Gower before I left Home. You know Gower? Chief of the Outer-world Bureau. Came up especially to see me.”

  “Yes?” said Aunt Jane encouragingly.

  “Said to me, ‘Wesson, you got to find out. Find out if we can count on them to keep up the supply. You know? There’s fifty million more of us,’ he says,than when you were born. We need more of the stuff, and we got to know if we can count on it. Because,’ he says, ‘you know what would happen if it stopped?’ Do you know, Aunt Jane?”

  “It would be,” said the voice, “a catastrophe.”

  “That’s right,” Wesson said respectfully. “It would. Like, he says to me, What if the people in the Nefud area were cut off from the Jordan Valley Authority? Why, there’d be millions dying of thirst in a week.

  “‘Or what if the freighters stopped coming to Moon Base? Why,’ he says, ‘there’d be thousands starving and smothering to death.’

  “He says, ‘Where the water is, where you can get food and air, people are going to settle and get married, you know? And have kids.

  “He says, ‘If the so-called longevity serum stopped coming…’ Says, ‘Every twentieth adult in the Sol family is due for his shot this year.’ Says, ‘Of those, almost twenty percent are one hundred fifteen or older.’ Says, ‘The deaths in that group in the first year would be at least three times what the actuarial tables call for.’” Wesson raised a strained face.

  “I’m thirty-four, you know?” he said. “That Gower, he made me feel like a baby.”

  Aunt Jane made a sympathetic noise.

  “Drip, drip,” said Wesson hysterically. The needles of the tall golden indicators were infinitesimally higher. “Every twenty years we need more of the stuff, so somebody like me has to come out and take it for five lousy months. And one of them has to come out and sit there, and drip. Why, Aunt Jane? What for? Why should it matter to them whether we live a long time or not? Why do they keep on coming back? What do they take away from here?”

  But to these questions, Aunt Jane had no reply.

  All day and every day, the lights burned cold and steady in the circular gray corridor around the rim of Sector One. The hard gray flooring had been deeply scuffed in that circular path before Wesson ever walked there-the corridor existed for that only, like a treadmill in a squirrel cage. It said “Walk,” and Wesson walked. A man would go crazy if he sat still, with that squirming, indescribable pressure on his head; and so Wesson paced off the miles, all day and every day, until he dropped like a dead man in the bed at night.

  He talked, too, sometimes to himself, sometimes to the listening alpha network; sometimes it was difficult to tell which. “Moss on a rock,” he muttered, pacing. ‘Told him, wouldn’t give twenty mills for any shell… Little pebbles down there, all colors.” He shuffled on in silence for a while. Abruptly: “I don’t see why they couldn’t have given me a cat.”

  Aunt Jane said nothing. After a moment Wesson went on, “Nearly everybody at Home has a cat, for God’s sake, or a goldfish or something. You’re all right, Aunt Jane, but I can’t see you. My God, I mean if they couldn’t send a man a woman for company-what I mean, my God, I never liked cats.” He swung around the doorway into the bedroom, and absentmindedly slammed his fist into the bloody place on the wall.

  “But a cat would have been something,” he said.

  Aunt Jane was still silent.

  “Don’t pretend your feelings are hurt. I know you, you’re only a machine,” said Wesson. “Listen, Aunt Jane, I remember a cereal package one time that had a horse and a cowboy on the side. There wasn’t much room, so about all you saw was their faces. It used to strike me funny how much they looked alike. Two ears on the top with hair in the middle. Two eyes. Nose. Mouth with teeth in it. I was thinking, we’re kind of distant cousins, aren’t we, us and the horses. But compared to that thing up there-we’re brothers. You know?”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Jane quietly.

  “So I keep asking myself, why couldn’t they have sent a horse or a cat instead of a man? But I guess the answer is because only a man could take what I’m taking. God, only a man. Right?”

  “Right,” said Aunt Jane with deep sorrow.

  Wesson stopped at the bedroom doorway again and shuddered, holding onto the frame. “Aunt Jane,” he said in a low, clear voice, “you take pictures of him up there, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Paul.”

  “And you take pictures of me. And then what happens? After it’s all over, who looks at the pictures?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aunt Jane humbly.

  “You don’t know. But whoever looks at ‘em, it doesn’t do any good. Right? We got to find out why, why, why… And we never do find out, do we?”

  “No,” said Aunt Jane.

  “But don’t they figure that if the man who’s going through it could see him, he might be able to tell something? That other people couldn’t? Doesn’t that make sense?”

  “That’s out of my hands, Paul.”

  He sniggered. “That’s funny. Oh, that’s funny.” He chortled in his throat, reeling around the circuit.

  “Yes, that’s funny,” said Aunt Jane.

  “Aunt Jane, tell me what happens to the watchmen.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Paul.”

  He lurched into the living room, sat down before the console, beat on its smooth, cold metal with his fists. “What are you, some kind of monster? Isn’t there any blood in your veins, or oil or anything?”

  “Please, Paul-”

  “Don’t you see, all I want to know, can they talk? Can they tell anything after their tour is over?”

  “No, Paul.”

  He stood upright, clutching the console for balance. “They can’t? No, I figured. And you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Up there,” said Wesson obscurely. “Moss on the rock.”

  “Paul, what?”

  “We get changed,” said Wesson, stumbling out of the room again. “We get changed. Like a piece of iron next to a magnet. Can’t help it. You-nonmagnetic, I guess. Goes right through you, huh, Aunt Jane? You don’t get changed. You stay here, wait for the next one.”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Jane.

  “You know,” said Wesson, pacing, “I can tell how he’s lying up there. Head that way, tail the other. Am I right?” - “Yes,” said Aunt Jane.

  Wesson stopped. “Yes,” he said intently. “So you can tell me what you see up there, can’t you, Aunt Jane?”

  “No. Yes. It isn’t allowed.”

  “Listen, Aunt Jane, we’ll die unless we can find out what makes those aliens tick! Remember that.” Wesson leaned against the corridor wall, gazing up. “He’s turning now-around this way. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what else is he doing? Come on, Aunt Jane, tell me!”

  A pause. “He is
twitching his-”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know the words.”

  “My God, my God,” said Wesson, clutching his head, “of course there aren’t any words.” He ran into the living room, clutched the console, and stared at the blank screen. He pounded the metal with his fist. “You’ve got to show me, Aunt Jane, come on and show me-show me!”

  “It isn’t allowed,” Aunt Jane protested.

  “You’ve got to do it just the same, or we’ll die, Aunt Jane-millions of us, billions, and it’ll be your fault, get it? Your fault, Aunt Jane!”

  “Please,” said the voice. There was a pause. The screen flickered to life, for an instant only. Wesson had a glimpse of something massive and dark, but half transparent, like a magnified insect-a tangle of nameless limbs, whiplike filaments, claws, wings…

  He clutched the edge of the console.

  “Was that all right?” Aunt Jane asked.

  “Of course! What do you think, it’ll kill me to look at it? Put it back, Aunt Jane, put it back!”

  Reluctantly, the screen lighted again. Wesson stared and went on staring. He mumbled something.

  “What?” said Aunt Jane.

  “Life of my love, I loathe thee,” said Wesson, staring. He roused himself after a moment and turned away. The image of the alien stayed with him as he went reeling into the corridor again; he was not surprised to find that it reminded him of all the loathsome, crawling, creeping things the Earth was full of. That explained why he was not supposed to see the alien, or even know what it looked like-because that fed his hate. And it was all right for him to be afraid of the alien, but he was not supposed to hate it… Why not? Why not?

  His fingers were shaking. He felt drained, steamed, dried up and withered. The one daily shower Aunt Jane allowed him was no longer enough. Twenty minutes after bathing the acid sweat dripped again from his armpits, the cold sweat was beaded on his forehead, the hot sweat was in his palms. Wesson felt as if there were a furnace inside him, out of control, all the dampers drawn. He knew that, under stress, something of the kind did happen to a man; the body’s chemistry was altered-more adrenalin, more glycogen in the muscles, eyes brighter, digestion retarded. That was the trouble-he was burning himself up, unable to fight the thing that tormented him, nor run from it.

  After another circuit, Wesson’s steps faltered. He hesitated, and went into the living room. He leaned over the console, staring. From the screen, the alien stared blindly up into space. Down in the dark side, the golden indicators had climbed: the vats were more than two thirds filled.

  To fight or run …

  Slowly Wesson sank down in front of the console. He sat hunched, head bent, hands squeezed tight between his knees, trying to hold onto the thought that had come to him.

  If the alien felt a pain as great as Wesson’s-or greater-

  Stress might alter the alien’s body chemistry, too.

  Life of my love, I loathe thee.

  Wesson pushed the Irrelevant thought aside. He stared at the screen, trying to envisage the alien up there, wincing in pain and distress-sweating a golden sweat of horror…

  After a long time, he stood up and walked into the kitchen. He caught the table edge to keep his legs from carrying him on around the circuit. He sat down.

  Humming fondly, the autochef slid out a tray of small glasses-water, orange juice, milk. Wesson put the water glass to his stiff lips; the water was cool and hurt his throat. Then the juice, but he could drink only a little of it; then he sipped the milk. Aunt Jane hummed approvingly.

  Dehydrated. How long had it been since he had eaten or drunk? He looked at his hands. They were thin bundles of sticks, ropy-veined, with hard yellow claws. He could see the bones of his forearms under the skin, and his heart’s beating stirred the cloth at his chest. The pale hairs on his arms and thighs-were they blond or white?

  The blurred reflections in the metal trim of the dining room gave him no answers-only pale faceless smears of gray. Wesson felt light-headed and very weak, as if he had just ended a bout of fever. He fumbled over his ribs and shoulder bones. He was thin.

  He sat in front of the autochef for a few minutes more, but no food came out. Evidently Aunt Jane did not think he was ready for it, and perhaps she was right. Worse for them than for us, he thought dizzily. That’s why the Station’s so far out, why radio silence, and only one man aboard. They couldn’t stand it at all, otherwise… Suddenly he could think of nothing but sleep-the bottomless pit, layer after layer of smothering velvet, numbing and soft… His leg muscles quivered and twitched when he tried to walk, but he managed to get to the bedroom and fall on the mattress. The resilient block seemed to dissolve under him. His bones were melting.

  He woke with a clear head, very weak, thinking cold and clear: When two alien cultures meet, the stronger must transform the weaker with love or hate. “Wesson’s Law,” he said aloud. He looked automatically for pencil and paper, but there was none, and he realized he would have to tell Aunt Jane, and let her remember it.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Never mind, remember it anyway. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Paul.”

  “All right-I want some breakfast.”

  He thought about Aunt Jane, so nearly human, sitting up here in her metal prison, leading one man after another through the torments of hell-nursemaid, protector, torturer. They must have known that something would have to give… But the alphas were comparatively new; nobody understood them very well. Perhaps they really thought that an absolute prohibition could never be broken.

  … the stronger must transform the weaker…

  I’m the stronger, he thought. And that’s the way it’s going to be. He stopped at the console, and the screen was blank. He said angrily, “Aunt Jane!” And with a guilty start, the screen flickered into life.

  Up there, the alien had rolled again in his pain. Now the great clustered eyes were staring directly into the camera; the coiled limbs threshed in pain; the eyes were staring, asking, pleading…

  “No,” said Wesson, feeling his own pain like an iron cap, and he slammed his hand down on the manual control. The screen went dark. He looked up, sweating, and saw the floral picture over the console.

  The thick stems were like .antennae, the leaves thoraxes, the buds like blind insect eyes. The whole picture moved slightly, endlessly, in a slow waiting rhythm.

  Wesson clutched the hard metal of the console and stared at the picture, with sweat cold on his brow, until it turned into a calm, meaningless arrangement of lines again. Then he went into the dining room, shaking, and sat down.

  After a moment he said, “Aunt Jane, does it get worse?”

  “No. From now on, it gets better.”

  “How long?” he asked vaguely.

  “One month.”

  A month, getting “better”-that was the way it had always been, with the watchman swamped and drowned, his personality submerged. Wesson thought about the men who had gone before him-Class Seven citizenship, with unlimited leisure, and Class One housing. Yes, sure-in a sanatorium.

  His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his fists clenched hard. Not me! he thought.

  He spread his hands on the cool metal to steady them. He said, “How much longer do they usually stay able to talk?”

  “You are already talking longer than any of them…”

  Then there was a blank. Wesson was vaguely aware, in snatches, of the corridor walls moving past and the console glimpsed and of a thunderous cloud of ideas that swirled around his head in a beating of wings. The aliens-what did they want? And what happened to the watchmen in Stranger Station?

  The haze receded a little, and he was in the dining room again, staring vacantly at the table. Something was wrong.

  He ate ,a few spoonfuls of the gruel the autochef served him, then pushed it away; the stuff tasted faintly unpleasant. The machine hummed anxiously and thrust a poached egg at him, but Wesson got up from the
table.

  The Station was all but silent. The resting rhythm of the household machines throbbed in the walls, unheard. The blue-lighted living room was spread out before him like an empty stage setting, and Wesson stared as if he had never seen it before.

  He lurched to the console and stared down at the pictured alien on the screen-heavy, heavy, asprawl with pain in the darkness. The needles of the golden indicators were high, the enlarged vats almost full. It’s too much for him, Wesson thought with grim satisfaction. The peace that followed the pain had not descended as it was supposed to; no, not this time!