Then and Now: Another Collection of Science Fiction

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Pictures crossed his mind. His sons, as children, playing a tough game with toy pistols. That was an ancient part of boyhood, beyond criticism and irrepressible. Then there were the gatherings of his oldest friends. They loved peace; yet many of their most vivid reminiscences, gleefully told, were about The War. So there were paradoxes in human nature. While under streamlined living, and by the same technology that made it possible, planets could now be ripped apart and half turned to incandescent gas in a moment. If someone became sick enough of an existence that could seem pampered, tawdry, and monotonous. That was why there had to be an outlet for restlessness.

  Yet the recognized means confused him, too. For did you tear a woman loose from her quiet mundane moorings, without concern, and drag her into the harsh distance? Even if it had happened before? A keen edge of experience and readiness could be lost completely in a quarter-century. So to take such a course was still a cruelty.

  Feeling hemmed in and bitter he gulped the remainder of his drink. More in experiment than in earnest, he said:

  "Say I’m dreaming silly, Gypsy dreams, Brenda. Suppose I drop the whole matter as hobo nonsense, stick around on Earth, and try to keep things as they’ve been. What’s left? What happens then?"

  She eyed him warily. For a divided instant she looked numbly startled.

  Then her clarity came back, keen and a little mordant. She even smiled slightly.

  "Should I tell you that you're cornering me without trying, and with the wish that it didn’t happen?” she asked. "Is that what you want me to say?"

  "No, I don’t want you to tell me that!" he replied.

  "But it’s in your mind," Brenda said. "And you know what’s left. Other hobbies. For example, you could make models of space ships or even antique locomotives—like Dave Larkin. While I could freshen up life some by redoing the house, again. For excitement there are always the dream-recordings and broadcasts. Any adventure is possible, as real as real. You can be a Babylonian temple builder if you like, or a mid-Twentieth Century prize-fighter. Such visions are harmless, physically. But indulgence in them is restricted as a force of decay, for they lack the real satisfaction of accomplishment. At least, so goes the Big Argument, Ben. They are soporific, like old-fashioned dope.

  "Then there are the synthetic gland-products and whatnot—which suppress any unrest or create any desired emotional reaction. But they’re not on the open market, and even I wouldn’t like to see you use them. So, since you can’t take everyday living anymore, the idea of a future here at home isn’t very appealing to you, is it, Ben?"

  "No, it’s not," he answered frankly.

  She swallowed nervously. Her eyes sought his. They were anguished and harassed, and full of love. For a second she was almost the woman he used to know. Then she seemed bored. A pout was on her lips as she spoke.

  "So maybe you want us to split up for a while, Ben," she said.

  His nerves twanged like lute strings plucked by a rough hand. It hurt. And he felt the guilt of his own selfish desires. It was matched against both a certain reasonableness in what she had just said, and a selfishness of her own. So they shared a primitive fault.

  Was he a very old-fashioned guy who saw here, now, the ancient flaw that was supposed to belong to the over-privileged classes of centuries ago—too much range? On that basis, everybody had long since become over-privileged. But could anyone truly be that? Range was a wonderful thing to have, wasn’t it? It was a boon once denied. Science and common-sense claimed to know how to handle it. Yet many people could still be confused.

  He tasted the brass of panic. Its essence again were his memories of Brenda, cool, feminine, and courageous, and at his side in mind and body, in other times. That struggled against the thought of divorce and parting. And the lump in his throat sapped his own strength.

  "Shut up, Sweetheart," he growled. "We’re Ben and Brenda—remember? A pair."

  Her startlement at this pulled her mask away, and showed that she had been frightened and pleading. "You want to tell me that you’ll not run off, Ben?" she challenged with some cynicism.

  "Maybe," he said. Thus he hedged and half yielded, still clinging to the fringe of good judgment.

  The sweetness of emotion blurred her reason, too; and seeing an opening, she went gladly into his arms. For a few minutes they were like teen-aged lovers once more, and it was beautiful. But had he truly expected it to last? He also had had centuries of acquiring alleged wisdom.

  Her grateful look gave way to something vaguely pleased with herself, and yet puzzled. "You're a nice boy, Benny," she said once with a possessive chuckle. So the pretty bubble broke. How many men in all history had had that much recompense for being too soft and civilized in love? And how primitive and subconscious was Brenda’s reaction of disinterest and petulance? It seemed to well up from inside her until what did her husband see but a spoiled, dissatisfied woman whose vigor had faded away? Here, again, decadence loomed, barring solutions in the direction of appeasement and gentleness.

  Her pout showed more and more. Yet her eyes showed apology and scared regret. He saw the break coming. It was as if the poise of culture formed a crystalline shell around her that tried to hold her to a rigid form. Yet within this brittle restraint primitive power was building up. No matter what she had said, there was an unrest in her that was the feminine counterpart of his own. In the end she over-reacted.

  Her lips pursed together, and she began to tremble. She pulled free of his arms. Her features twisted as if in pain.

  "Your staying is no good either, is it, Ben?" she said. "You’d be miserable. So would I. Darn the righteous logic! But against it we’re thick-headed idiots! I want— Oh, who knows what anybody wants! I can’t talk to you now. Will you excuse me, please?..."

  She was gone, then, to her room. But he could imagine the private picture of her. It was classic: A woman, fuddled, prone face down on the soft covers of her bed, seeking elemental relief in tears.

  He knew what course psychology recommended. Yet a civilized taint in him revolted against it. He felt blocked on all sides. His fury was lonely and sour. He hated the house that he had built with such enthusiasm. He hated the wife whom he loved, and the million gadgets that, it seemed, had made their lives what they were. He wished that he was really some troglodyte, amid ash and the smell of offal, from a hundred thousand years back. He appreciated nothing. Time was too long, now; and though people had wanted to be close to immortal, in his flow of madness, he had lost his taste for the idea.

  Something claustrophobic urged him out under the cold stars. Around him were a few other dwellings, and bare, winter trees. From beyond lighted windows he heard lilting music from new instruments. Snow crunched under his boots. Overhead were the bright moving specks of the tiny artificial moons that served as space-commerce beacons and as part of the weather-control system. The real moon had set. So he could not see the blue blotches of the airdomes that roofed its cities.

  To the southeast was the glow of New York, seventy kilometers away. It had been radiation-tainted rubbish once. But the phoenix story was no longer adequate to describe its new rise to magnificence.

  Fresh from hardship in some far place, he knew that his blood would have thrilled to the spectacle of its corona of light. But now his feeling was all the other way. To his present soured view, here were fifty million human grubs—critical, overstuffed, demanding, served by all the gifts of the ages, yet full of neuroses. Many years back, squalor and disease had been wiped out. Now there were not those things to fight, either. These people had only their confusions to struggle with.

  Hating them now was like hating himself. In his wild unreason he wished that he could stamp his boot-heels down on all of their silly faces. He wished that atomic fire would take them, force them back to vigor and courage, or blast them into the timeless silence.

  These were his savage thoughts until he caught himself, and realized more than their brutality: Many others would have sick vagaries like his own, and f
or the same reasons. Such driving notions could easily become a mass impulse toward destruction. Unless nerve-energy was used up in other channels.

  There was one single, solid antidote left. It was now a beaten track, known to everyone, and open all the time. It was the path he was urged toward, and knew that he would follow. Still, there was another mental mixup that he and countless others stumbled over repetitiously, almost as Brenda did.

  It was the old perfection-hope—the idea that building a technology and a culture was like a mountain that humanity climbed gradually, with Nirvana at the top. A place of constant and perfect happiness and satisfaction. A region where you gave no hurt, willing or unwilling, and received none. A land of superlative refinement and loveliness.

  Yes, there was a mixup here, all right. For on one side the rejection of all this was already hot in his soul. It was in the milk-and-water words of description themselves. They stuck crosswise in the lusty craw of human nature. The material elements of such a heaven were already actual. Yet it didn’t exist. In the light of experience, you couldn't even imagine its existing, unless somewhere in infinite time people changed radically from what they had been for ages.

  Still, on the other side of the confusion, that same phantom, stripped of all outline, yet beautiful and mysterious, kept its charm and inspired its yearnings. It was a paradox of man’s being, a will-o’-the-wisp, or a figurative Bright Star....

  In five minutes, by pneumatic train, he could have been in the center of the City. In half an hour, by any of a dozen means of conveyance, he could have been on the other side of the world. But such wandering wouldn’t have helped him in his painful restlessness. Instead, he was urged toward a neighborhood goal. He walked a few hundred meters to a large, low building. Inside, in the gymnasium among other physical-culture enthusiasts, he found Dave Larkin. Yes, the hobby-man.

  Dave Larkin and he were useful to each other in an odd way. He had nothing solid against Dave; yet something about the man’s large eyes and thin nose afforded him the relief of instant irritation.

  "I hope you’re feeling as mean as I am, Dave," he said with a leer. "Go ahead—call me a name. A nice, juicy, rotten one."

  Larkin, another good citizen, bristled in an interplay of taunting glee, fury, and anticipation of battle, coming out of dullness.

  "I couldn’t look at you without feeling mean, Ben," Larkin snapped. "In fact the sight of you urges me to vomit. You reek...."

  He lashed out at Larkin and missed. An instant later he doubled over, as a fist smashed into his abdomen. Then, under the impact of a follow-up blow, a nova seemed to burst in his brain. His anguish was terrible, but his red rage was magnificent.

  He flew at Larkin. The thin nose was bent over and flattened like an offending nail-point under a hammer. Flesh scrunched under his knuckles. Blood spurted. For a moment he felt the savage thrill of conquest, relieving in him a little the poison of stagnation, which, in this age, could break up a planet.

  Dave Larkin was supine, his glassy eyes turned toward the ceiling, his lips gory and mashed. "You damn fool, Ben!" he squeaked. "This time you're crazy!"

  And the conqueror saw how he had known it would be, with himself. As other eyes turned on him in amused and interested shock, he felt his shame for an outburst that had been childish and animal. But such shame at least brought humbleness and contrition. And compassion. Funny, wasn't it, how closely elemental violence was bound to compassion. For without violence and suffering, compassion—the mark of the truly civilized—had no use, and could not exist. To bring such good feelings to life nowadays, you almost had to use artificial means.

  "Hell, Dave," he mumbled. "I didn’t mean ..."

  He lifted Larkin up tenderly and with apology, while the others prepared first-aid. These days missing teeth meant nothing. Replacement was simple.

  Whole organs could be renewed from stocks cultured and grown apart from any human body. Life, animating protoplasm, was not as deep a riddle as had once been thought. And the forces that shaped form in growth could be directed. Besides, it was law now that for each person the entire body-structure, down to the minutest wavering of a filament in a brain-cell, or the slightest variation of its chemical composition, must be recorded periodically, as a pattern for repair in case of accident, It was even rumored that soon, with such data—impressed on tiny rolls of plastic ribbon that were numbered and stored away—an individual completely destroyed might be rebuilt again, without the loss of even the finest detail of personality or memory.

  "Oh-oh," someone laughed. "Ben, you’re overdue. Your tide has turned; the bug is peeking out. Better get back to things ..."

  His shame, now, was that of one whose madness is public knowledge. He felt fear, as of a disease. The future, with all its harsh strangeness after so long a rest, held less glamor now that it was close. But he was ready to act. There was no other way. Struggle and pride of accomplishment were gods. Change was the salt of life. More emphatically nowadays than ever, these old platitudes were the key to the health of society. At least that was the claim.

  If Brenda had revolted against a narrowness here, and in fright was clinging to her possessions, still hadn’t her subconscious contempt of him for weakness also led him on toward what he had to do? Her primitive restlessness and lack of peace of mind were as clear as his own.

  He went home and to her room. Maybe she only feigned sleep. He put his arms around her very gently and then tightened their grip. Their pressure was both dominance and protection. She gasped in surprise and anger, and her own strong muscles hardened against his.

  "There’ll be no fooling now, Sweetheart," he growled softly.

  His roughness was crude. The gentleman in him hated it. But perhaps she had been too long a lady. The ancient chemistry that had helped the race battle upward, was still active in her as it was in him. She clawed his cheek and kicked and tried to strike him.

  "Ben—you ape!" she yelled. "Who do you think you are?"

  They killed some of ultra civilization. But perhaps in grabbing control and responsibility, he performed an ancient service of man to woman....

  Afterwards, he sought to compensate for guilt with reason: "We live in wonderful times, Brenda Honey. But we’re still herded by circumstances. We can’t rot, and we can’t ignore the proud devils in our insides. We must tackle jobs big enough for our powers. That’s the way to handle our advantages, instead of letting them handle us. In the morning we’ll start what we have to do...."

  At the colonial offices where they made their applications and listed their old skills, Brenda was still sullen and scared. And even if good sense told her that it was not his fault, her primitive emotions could hardly be so reasonable. So he bore the weight of her hurt, wondering if they’d ever be close to each other again.

  Yet there was some compensation. Adventure was back. The vagabond spirit was alive again. Glamor was marred by the tensions of reality; but did one want a dream or truth? The eternal quest for newness was on again. There was big work to be done, problems to be solved. His excited blood hammered like tom-toms.

  He sent messages around the Earth and across space, telling his scattered children where their parents were bound. Nubs and Joe, the youngest, were on Venus, not long ago almost lifeless, smothered with heat and dense carbon-dioxide gas.

  On the space liner, Brenda and he enjoyed their last real luxury. But soon after the blue-white flames of fusing atoms hurled the ship from Earth, physicians and nurses took the thousands of passengers in charge. They were put to sleep for the rejuvenation refresher.

  Warm liquid engulfed them. Cell-structure firmed, connective tissue tightened, obstructing deposits of minerals and fatty acids were dissolved. In a way it was like rewinding a clock.

  The liner crossed the orbit of Mars, which was almost a lesser Earth now. Then it moved on, arcing wide above the path of broken fragments that were the asteroids, where the richest mines were located. Much later the ship passed Jupiter’s orbit, though the giant
planet was on the other side of the sun. Its many moons were no longer frozen....

  In sunlight enfeebled by distance, the liner continued on its way. Its passengers were returned to consciousness and activity. Their younger faces looked strained. For they were fresh from soft living on Earth. Sight of the hard stars of space was either too new to them or too old. Bright adventure tarnished some. So maybe here there were signs of another frustration.

  Brenda and he were among the others, as the ship curved around colossal Saturn, only twenty thousand miles away. The Rings, composed of countless small meteors circling the planet at high speed, made the most splendid spectacle in the solar system. Yet it looked repellent and cold, and almost hideous. His feeling was that people could not belong anywhere near it.

  Brenda was silent beside him, her lower lip trembling, her eyes bright with angry tears. Yes, he'd brought her into all this, hadn’t he? Besides he felt the first sharp regret for things left behind. Things he had hated so recently. He wondered who’d be living in his house now. And in spite of knowledge that he was following a proven pattern toward peace of mind, still he thought bitterly of the conflicts and contradictions in man. It was as if there was never anything to grasp and hold for very long. It was as if life was a series of bright illusions that turned into the same stone wall as soon as you lunged at them.

  The liner swung outward to Titan, largest of Saturn’s numerous satellites. There it landed. Its passengers fell in line to disembark, and to meet the other thousands already here. The metal buildings of the camp were harshly utilitarian. Here was the frontier, the fringe of expanding civilization, where pioneering could go on and on. Here were the people who, tiring of one side of living, were reaching for something else. Yet in many sober faces, as in his own heart, he saw the question of what had been gained. It was homesickness for an idyll that had been given up for this.