American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  And thinking that, Enoch remembered how he’d threatened the night before to kill anyone who held up the return of the body. Perhaps, he told himself, it had not been smart to say that. Wondering whether he could bring himself to kill a man—not that it would be the first man he had ever killed. But that had been long ago and it had been a matter then of kill or being killed.

  He shut his eyes for a second and once again could see that slope below him, with the long lines of men advancing through the drifting smoke, knowing that those men were climbing up the ridge for one purpose only, to kill himself and those others who were atop the ridge.

  And that had not been the first time nor had it been the last, but all the years of killing boiled down in essence to that single moment—not the time that came after, but that long and terrible instant when he had watched the lines of men purposefully striding up the slope to kill him.

  It had been in that moment that he had realized the insanity of war, the futile gesture that in time became all but meaningless, the unreasoning rage that must be nursed long beyond the memory of the incident that had caused the rage, the sheer illogic that one man, by death or misery, might prove a right or uphold a principle.

  Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries.

  Lewis had been sitting on a fallen log and now, as Enoch neared, he rose.

  “I waited for you here,” he said. “I hope that you don’t mind.”

  Enoch stepped across the spring.

  “The body will be here sometime in early evening,” Lewis said. “Washington will fly it out to Madison and truck it here from there.”

  Enoch nodded. “I am glad to hear that.”

  “They were insistent,” Lewis said, “that I should ask you once again what the body is.”

  “I told you last night,” said Enoch, “that I can’t tell you anything. I wish I could. I’ve been figuring for years how to get it told, but there’s no way of doing it.”

  “The body is something from off this Earth,” said Lewis. “We are sure of that.”

  “You think so,” Enoch said, not making it a question.

  “And the house,” said Lewis, “is something alien, too.”

  “The house,” Enoch told him, shortly, “was built by my father.”

  “But something changed it,” Lewis said. “It is not the way he built it.”

  “The years change things,” said Enoch.

  “Everything but you.”

  Enoch grinned at him. “So it bothers you,” he said. “You figure it’s indecent.”

  Lewis shook his head. “No, not indecent. Not really anything. After watching you for years, I’ve come to an acceptance of you and everything about you. No understanding, naturally, but complete acceptance. Sometimes I tell myself I’m crazy, but that’s only momentary. I’ve tried not to bother you. I’ve worked to keep everything exactly as it was. And now that I’ve met you, I am glad that is the way it was. But we’re going at this wrong. We’re acting as if we were enemies, as if we were strange dogs—and that’s not the way to do it. I think that the two of us may have a lot in common. There’s something going on and I don’t want to do a thing that will interfere with it.”

  “But you did,” said Enoch. “You did the worst thing that you could when you took the body. If you’d sat down and planned how to do me harm, you couldn’t have done worse. And not only me. Not really me, at all. It was the human race you harmed.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Lewis. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. There was the writing on the stone . . .”

  “That was my fault,” said Enoch. “I should never have put up that stone. But at the time it seemed the thing to do. I didn’t think that anyone would come snooping around and . . .”

  “It was a friend of yours?”

  “A friend of mine? Oh, you mean the body. Well, not actually. Not that particular person.”

  “Now that it’s done,” Lewis said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t help,” said Enoch.

  “But isn’t there something—isn’t there anything that can be done about it? More than just bringing back the body?”

  “Yes,” Enoch told him, “there might be something. I might need some help.”

  “Tell me,” Lewis said, quickly. “If it can be done . . .”

  “I might need a truck,” said Enoch. “To haul away some stuff. Records and other things like that. I might need it fast.”

  “I can have a truck,” said Lewis. “I can have it waiting. And men to help you load.”

  “I might want to talk to someone in authority. High authority. The President. Secretary of State. Maybe the U.N. I don’t know. I have to think it out. And not only would I need a way to talk to them, but some measure of assurance that they would listen to what I had to say.”

  “I’ll arrange,” said Lewis, “for mobile short-wave equipment. I’ll have it standing by.”

  “And someone who will listen?”

  “That’s right,” said Lewis. “Anyone you say.”

  “And one thing more.”

  “Anything,” said Lewis.

  “Forgetfulness,” said Enoch. “Maybe I won’t need any of these things. Not the truck or any of the rest of it. Maybe I’ll have to let things go just as they’re going now. And if that should be the case, could you and everyone else concerned forget I ever asked?”

  “I think we could,” said Lewis. “But I would keep on watching.”

  “I wish you would,” said Enoch. “Later on I might need some help. But no further interference.”

  “Are you sure,” asked Lewis, “that there is nothing else?”

  Enoch shook his head. “Nothing else. All the rest of it I must do myself.”

  Perhaps, he thought, he’d already talked too much. For how could he be sure that he could trust this man? How could he be sure he could trust anyone?

  And yet, if he decided to leave Galactic Central and cast his lot with Earth, he might need some help. There might be some objection by the aliens to his taking along his records and the alien gadgets. If he wanted to get away with them, he might have to make it fast.

  But did he want to leave Galactic Central? Could he give up the galaxy? Could he turn down the offer to become the keeper of another station on some other planet? When the time should come, could he cut his tie with all the other races and all the mysteries of the other stars?

  Already he had taken steps to do those very things. Here, in the last few moments, without too much thought about it, almost as if he already had reached his decision, he had arranged a setup that would turn him back to Earth.

  He stood there, thinking, puzzled at the steps he’d taken.

  “There’ll be someone here,” said Lewis. “Someone at this spring. If not myself, then someone else who can get in touch with me.”

  Enoch nodded absent-mindedly.

  “Someone will see you every morning when you take your walk,” said Lewis. “Or you can reach us here any time you wish.”

  Like a conspiracy, thought Enoch. Like a bunch of kids playing cops and robbers.

  “I have to be getting on,” he said. “It’s almost time for mail. Wins will be wondering what has happened to me.”

  He started up the hill.

  “Be seeing you,” said Lewis.

  “Yeah,” said Enoch. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  He was surprised to find the warm glow spreading in him—as if there had been something wrong and now it was all right, as if there had been something lost that now had been recovered.
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br />   26

  ENOCH MET the mailman halfway down the road that led into the station. The old jalopy was traveling fast, bumping over the grassy ruts, swishing through the overhanging bushes that grew along the track.

  Wins braked to a halt when he caught sight of Enoch and sat waiting for him.

  “You got on a detour,” Enoch said, coming up to him. “Or have you changed your route?”

  “You weren’t waiting at the box,” said Wins, “and I had to see you.”

  “Some important mail?”

  “Nope, it isn’t mail. It’s old Hank Fisher. He is down in Millville, setting up the drinks in Eddie’s tavern and shooting off his face.”

  “It’s not like Hank to be buying drinks.”

  “He’s telling everyone that you tried to kidnap Lucy.”

  “I didn’t kidnap her,” Enoch said. “Hank had took a bull whip to her and I hid her out until he got cooled down.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Enoch.”

  “Maybe. But Hank was set on giving her a beating. He already had hit her a lick or two.”

  “Hank’s out to make you trouble.”

  “He told me that he would.”

  “He says you kidnaped her, then got scared and brought her back. He says you had her hid out in the house and when he tried to break in and get her, he couldn’t do it. He says you have a funny sort of house. He says he broke an ax blade on a window pane.”

  “Nothing funny about it,” Enoch said. “Hank just imagines things.”

  “It’s all right so far,” said the mailman. “None of them, in broad daylight and their right senses, will do anything about it. But come night they’ll be liquored up and won’t have good sense. There are some of them might be coming up to see you.”

  “I suppose he’s telling them I’ve got the devil in me.”

  “That and more,” said Wins. “I listened for a while before I started out.”

  He reached into the mail pouch and found the bundle of papers and handed them to Enoch.

  “Enoch, there’s something that you have to know. Something you may not realize. It would be easy to get a lot of people stirred up against you—the way you live and all. You are strange. No, I don’t mean there’s anything wrong with you—I know you and I know there isn’t—but it would be easy for people who didn’t know you to get the wrong ideas. They’ve let you alone so far because you’ve given them no reason to do anything about you. But if they get stirred up by all that Hank is saying . . .”

  He did not finish what he was saying. He left it hanging in midair.

  “You’re talking about a posse,” Enoch said.

  Wins nodded, saying nothing.

  “Thanks,” said Enoch. “I appreciate your warning me.”

  “Is it true,” asked the mailman, “that no one can get inside your house?”

  “I guess it is,” admitted Enoch. “They can’t break into it and they can’t burn it down. They can’t do anything about it.”

  “Then, if I were you, I’d stay close tonight. I’d stay inside. I’d not go venturing out.”

  “Maybe I will. It sounds like a good idea.”

  “Well,” said Wins, “I guess that about covers it. I thought you’d ought to know. Guess I’ll have to back out to the road. No chance of turning around.”

  “Drive up to the house. There’s room there.”

  “It’s not far back to the road,” said Wins. “I can make it easy.”

  The car started backing slowly.

  Enoch stood watching.

  He lifted a hand in solemn salute as the car began rounding a bend that would take it out of sight. Wins waved back and then the car was swallowed by the scrub that grew close against both sides of the road.

  Slowly Enoch turned around and plodded back toward the station.

  A mob, he thought—good God, a mob!

  A mob howling about the station, hammering at the doors and windows, peppering it with bullets, would wipe out the last faint chance—if there still remained a chance—of Galactic Central standing off the move to close the station. Such a demonstration would add one more powerful argument to the demand that the expansion into the spiral arm should be abandoned.

  Why was it, he wondered, that everything should happen all at once? For years nothing at all had happened and now everything was happening within a few hours’ time. Everything, it seemed, was working out against him.

  If the mob showed up, not only would it mean that the fate of the station would be sealed, but it might mean, as well, that he would have no choice but to accept the offer to become the keeper of another station. It might make it impossible for him to remain on Earth, even if he wished. And he realized, with a start, that it might just possibly mean that the offer of another station for him might be withdrawn. For with the appearance of a mob howling for his blood, he, himself, would become involved in the charge of barbarism now leveled against the human race in general.

  Perhaps, he told himself, he should go down to the spring and see Lewis once again. Perhaps some measures could be taken to hold off the mob. But if he did, he knew, there’d be an explanation due and he might have to tell too much. And there might not be a mob. No one would place too much credence in what Hank Fisher said and the whole thing might peter out without any action being taken.

  He’d stay inside the station and hope for the best. Perhaps there’d be no traveler in the station at the time the mob arrived—if it did arrive—and the incident would pass with no galactic notice. If he were lucky it might work out that way. And by the law of averages, he was owed some luck. Certainly he’d had none in the last few days.

  He came to the broken gate that led into the yard and stopped to look up at the house, trying, for some reason he could not understand, to see it as the house he had known in boyhood.

  It stood the same as it had always stood, unchanged, except that in the olden days there had been ruffled curtains at each window. The yard around it had changed with the slow growth of the years, with the clump of lilacs thicker and more rank and tangled with each passing spring, with the elms that his father had planted grown from six-foot whips into mighty trees, with the yellow rose bush at the kitchen corner gone, victim of a long-forgotten winter, with the flower beds vanished and the small herb garden, here beside the gate, overgrown and smothered out by grass.

  The old stone fence that had stood on each side of the gate now was little more than a humpbacked mound. The heaving of a hundred frosts, the creep of vines and grasses, the long years of neglect, had done their work and in another hundred years, he thought, it would be level, with no trace of it left. Down in the field, along the slope where erosion had been at work, there were long stretches where it had entirely disappeared.

  All of this had happened and until this moment he had scarcely noticed it. But now he noticed it and wondered why he did. Was it because he now might be returning to the Earth again—he who had never left its soil and sun and air, who had never left it physically, but who had, for a longer time than most men had allotted to them, walked not one, but many planets, far among the stars?

  He stood there, in the late summer sun, and shivered in the cold wind that seemed to be blowing out of some unknown dimension of unreality, wondering for the first time (for the first time he ever had been forced to wonder at it) what kind of man he was. A haunted man who must spend his days neither completely alien nor completely human, with divided loyalties, with old ghosts to tramp the years and miles with him no matter which life he might choose, the Earth life or the stars? A cultural half-breed, understanding neither Earth nor stars, owing a debt to each, but paying neither one? A homeless, footless, wandering creature who could recognize neither right nor wrong from having seen so many different (and logical) versions of the right and wrong?

  He had climbed the hill above the spring, filled wi
th the rosy inner glow of a regained humanity, a member of the human race again, linked in a boylike conspiracy with a human team. But could he qualify as human—and if he qualified as human, or tried to qualify, then what about the implied hundred years’ allegiance to Galactic Central? Did he, he wondered, even want to qualify as human?

  He moved slowly through the gate, and the questions still kept hammering in his brain, that great, ceaseless flow of questions to which there were no answers. Although that was wrong, he thought. Not no answers, but too many answers.

  Perhaps Mary and David and the rest of them would come visiting tonight and they could talk it over—then he suddenly remembered.

  They would not be coming. Not Mary, not David, nor any of the others. They had come for years to see him, but they would come no longer, for the magic had been dimmed and the illusion shattered and he was alone.

  As he had always been alone, he told himself, with a bitter taste inside his brain. It all had been illusion; it never had been real. For years he’d fooled himself—most eagerly and willingly he had fooled himself into peopling the little corner by the fireplace with these creatures of his imagination. Aided by an alien technique, driven by his loneliness for the sight and sound of humankind, he had brought them into a being that defied every sense except the solid sense of touch.

  And defied as well every sense of decency.

  Half-creatures, he thought. Poor pitiful half-creatures, neither of the shadow or the world.

  Too human for the shadows, too shadowy for Earth.

  Mary, if I had only known—if I had known, I never would have started. I’d have stayed with loneliness.

  And he could not mend it now. There was nothing that would help.

  What is the matter with me? he asked himself.

  What has happened to me?

  What is going on?

  He couldn’t even think in a straight line any more. He’d told himself that he’d stay inside the station to escape the mob that might be showing up—and he couldn’t stay inside the station, for Lewis, sometime shortly after dark, would be bringing back the Hazer’s body.