DIP INTO THE FUTURE WITH THESE UNUSUAL SF CONCEPTS:

Some have said that humanoids may be living undetected amongst us. Has it ever occurred to you that we may be the humanoids amongst theml

"The Small Betraying Detail" by BRIAN W. ALDISS

Space-traveling man may make over alien worlds to his own image. But to whose image was man made? And was it worth the effort?

"The Keys to December" by ROGER ZELAZNY

"If I were a Martian," started the man from Earth, "then I think I would kill us."

"The Music Makers" by LANGDON JONES

With additional treats by J.G. BALLARD, JOHN BRUNNER, DAVID I. MASSON and THOMAS M. DISCH. . . .

Tte Best SF Stories

Edited hw Michael MoorcocK

E9

ABERKLEY MEDALLION  BOOK

published by BERKLEY PUBLISHING CORPORATION

Copyright © Michael Moorcock 1967 Copyright © New Worlds SF 1965, 1966

All rights reserved

Published by arrangement with Panther Books Ltd.

For David Warburton

who had faith and gave a free rein

BERKLEY MEDALLION EDITION, FEBRUARY, 1968

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation 200 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y. 10016

BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOKS ® TM 757,375 Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

The Small Betraying Detail The Keys to December The Assassination Weapon Nobody Axed You A Two-Timer The Music Makers The Squirrel Cage

Page

Michael Moorcock

9

Brian W. Aldiss

13

Roger Zelazny

23

J. G. Ballard

51

John Brunner

61

David I. Masson

94

Langdon Jones

133

Thomas M. Disch

143

THE BEST SF STORIES FROM NEW WORLDS

Introduction

There is a new spirit in sf these days, both in this country and in the United States, and so far it has only been given a strong voice in the British magazines. NEW WORLDS in particular has attracted established authors wishing to develop the possibilities of the field and new authors impatient widi some of the more restricting and obsolete conventions of traditional science fiction.

Perhaps the most extreme expression of this new spirit can be found in the work of J. G. Ballard who is represented here by one of a group of stories which explore the possibilities of a form which is largely Mr. Ballard's own invention and which is without doubt one of the most successful developments of its kind since Joyce. J. G. Ballard's work has received the highest praise from some of our most respected literary critics and there is no doubt that he is one of the best writers currently at work in this country. He, along with the other good sf writers that

9

the field can now boast, shows that there is no longer any division of quality between science fiction and general fiction. The Assassination Weapon, dealing with the "false" deaths of Kennedy, Malcolm X and Lee Harvey Oswald, is unquestionably a difficult story, but it considerably rewards careful reading.

If Ballard is the leader in form, then Brian W. Aldiss is the leader in style. The Small Betraying Detail contains a beautifully evoked mood as well as a subtly horrifying idea about the possibility of an undiscovered alien race in our midst, and Aldiss's writing exactly captures the appearance of the East Anglian landscape where he grew up. Always a sophisticated writer, Aldiss mutes his effects in this story and, as a result, produces a lasting atmosphere of horror.

Also making a name for himself as a stylist is the young American writer Roger Zelazny. The Keys to December takes the familiar sf themes of biological transformation of human beings and "terraforming" (adaptation of planets to make them suitable for human habitation) and uses them to write not only a convincing love story but also to discuss the morality of making such changes. The other American to emerge with Zelazny as an outstanding sf talent is Thomas M. Disch who shows an amazing command of language and is also markedly interested in the development of form. In The Squirrel Cage he produces a Becket-like psychological story about a man who might or might not be the prisoner of an alien race. This question becomes of secondary importance as the story emphasises its deeper theme—a study in isolation.

John Brunner's Nobody Axed You is an excellent example of the sf-satire school whose best-known example is the Pohl-Kornbluth collaboration The Space Merchants. Here Brunner shows violence on TV taken to its ultimate and the story itself shows Brunner's craftsmanship and gift for irony at their best. Langdon Jones's The Music Makers is also sharply ironic in its story of the Earth conductor frustrated with the lack of aesthetic sensibility in his audiences and his meeting with the ethereal Martian musicians. Lastly, David L Masson, with tongue firmly in

Introduction                                          11

cheek, produces a tour-de-force of literary pastiche used to tell the tale of a 17th century time traveller and his somewhat alarming adventures in the 20th century.

The thing that these stories have in common is their concentration on ideas; and by "idea" we do not mean merely a technical gimmick of some kind, but the presence in the writer's work of a serious intention, a wish to say something about the human condition. This is what good science fiction concerns itself with, in all its variety, and I hope, therefore, that the stories in this collection will succeed in entertaining you on both levels.

Michael Moorcock 1967

The Small Betraying Detail

BRIAN W. ALDISS is literary editor of The Oxford Mail and co-editor of the critical magazine SF Horizons. A trail-blazer in modern sf and crusader for improved standards, he is the author of many successful novels, among them Non-Stop, The Dark Light Years and Greybeard, and recently won a Nebula Award for his novella The Saliva Tree. His non-sf includes The Brightfount Diaries and Cities and Stones and he is the author of the forthcoming Report on Probability A, which can claim to be the first sf anti-novel! He is 40, married, and lives in an incredibly comfortable 16th-century thatched house near Oxford, 'seeing slightly crazy visions'.

"It will be cold underground," Richmond said. "Are you sure you can face it, Arthur?"

He and his brother turned to look gravely at me.

"This is my last jaunt in the big world. Of course I can face it," I said.

I spoke over-bravely. The cool bright Norfolk sunshine seemed to shine through me. I felt transparent, insubstantial, meet for the TB sanatorium to which Richmond Betts and his brother Walter were driving me. Although I wanted desperately to get to that place of quiet, to he down and lie still, I humoured Walter in this urge of his to break our journey; he was an amateur archaeologist and had promised that this diversion would be brief and worth while.

"Come on, then," Walter said. "What are we waiting for?"

Flanked on either side by the brothers, I began stumbling across the sandy brecks. I was not dying, I told myself; six months and I'd be fit again. But the landscape had a quality far from reassuring. Under the lucid Dutch light, eveiything about us was the tawny colour I had

13

always associated with menace: the colour of a lioness's hide, the colour of calf on an old family recipe book at home (from which had come that recipe for mushroom pie that had killed my grandfather), the colour of new coffins. Here was that same shade again in the earth among spiky grass, even in the low pines, in the gorse flowers, in the sky, as if we had all been drowned in thin sauteme. Tawny everywhere as though I looked at the world with a retina of sand.

Only the Ministry of Works ticket in my fingers was red. I clutched it tightly as Richmond and Walter escorted me towards Grimmer's Graves. Trying to free myself from a sense of unreality, I struggled to make some casual remark.

"It's so deserted," I said. "As if we had found our way into another universe."

"Do you think it would be that easy?" Richmond said, with a laugh. He gestured back towards the car, still visible on the amber stretch of road. "Wouldn't the car have disappeared with a blinding flash or something if we had switched into another universe?"

"I wasn't seriously—" I began, but Walter said, "Why a flash? Why any sign? You are such a seeker after signs, Richmond. We are never given any omens when our fives change from one phase to another. The best we can do is to look back afterwards and say 'At this moment I must have altered . . .' So why not as imperceptible a transition to another universe—or rather, another phase of the total universe?"

"Why not? Because you'd at once be struck by some peculiar difference in your surroundings," Richmond said. "Blue trees, or four-eyed people, or whatever."

"Rubbish! My dear brother, your crude mind! Can't you imagine a world totally, horribly different from ours which might nevertheless seem at first just like this one; so that you'd only find out your predicament by some small betraying detail?"

They were unalike. Richmond, the older, was the kinder and the more cheerful; he argued now for the fun of it. His brother, however, talked more seriously and heavily, as if he had a mission. In my weakness I thought I did not care greatly for either of them, well launched as they now were on this silly discussion about phases of the universe or whatever it was. They were my wife's cousins; I knew them very little; since my wife had unfortunately been indisposed at the last moment, the Betts brothers had volunteered instead to drive me down from York to the Crumer-next-Sea sanatorium. Although I appreciated that kindness, I resented this diversion to gape at a mouldy antiquity almost at the end of our long drive; and I longed again for the comfortable car journey and the rug warm over my knees. I was the invalid; with the selfishness of the invalid I wanted to be treated as such.

Ferns grew about the uncertain path. The ground was uneven, humpy and scrubby. Richmond took my arm as I staggered.

"These dips we're tramping across mark all that's left of various old pits and shafts," Walter said. "Look, here's a flint."

He stooped and picked up a flint that glinted at his feet. Tourists had left litter here; though we were the only people about at that time, orangeade cartons and crumpled newspaper marked the passage of previous visitors to Glimmer's Graves. The flint lay half-hidden under a sheet of the News of the World. Walter grasped it, spun it into the air, and caught it.

"Here's a small betraying detail for you, Richmond," he said in his dry voice. "These flints lie all about here, obvious clues to the nature of the Graves. Yet it was not until I think about 1880 that the Graves were identified as neolithic flint mines."

"And the burial of Grimmer, whoever he was, exposed as a myth."

"Some said the Graves were a Celtic village. Camden thought they were ancient fortifications. In fact, everyone was guessing, and the place is much older than they dreamed it could be. Their image of the past was almost wholly imaginary; we are more careful to sift facts today."

It's a lie, I thought. I've listened to you, Walter, I've watched you all the way from York, I'm sick, and that gives me peculiar faculties. I know that for all your adherence to fact and the factual, you live in your own small world, a Walter-world. You're not like your brother; he responds to external stimuli, you take them and arrange them in the dead museum of your ego. If you had your way, you'd charge a price of admission to anyone who wanted to speak to you. Only egotism and a desire to air your knowledge made you break the journey to drag Richmond and me to this god-forsaken spot.

"Sorry, what did you say?" I asked, bursting abruptly from the cage of my thoughts.

"I said, shall I go first?" Walter snapped.

"Are you all right, Arthur?" Richmond asked, giving me an anxious glance.

We had reached the top of a pit. I came out of my reverie to find a black hole at my feet. It was like a dark pool in which, far down, candles swam like fish, their little tongues of light seeming to be disturbed by brown water.

Richmond grasped my arm and pulled me back. For a moment as my head reeled I had been about to dive into that ancient well.

"Look, Walter, I think we'd better get Arthur back to the car," Richmond said. "He's not fit to go down there."

"Nonsense. It's cool below. He'll feel better down under."

"I'll be okay," I said; it would have been doubly weak to reveal my weakness to him. Walter patted me on the shoulder and began to climb down the iron ladder into the pit. Pulling myself together I followed him, and Richmond came last. He climbed down with his boots almost kicking my nose.

My hands were numb on the cold rungs of the ladder. A few inches from my eyes, time's fingerprints on the Earth slid by. The deposits of glacial gravel passed, and a band of clay; the chalk layers were next and then the black sullen bands of flint.

"Steady now," Walter said.

I reached the bottom rung of the ladder and stepped away from it. We were thirty feet down—and back in 2000 B.C.

The tomb-cool calm of centuries clutched at my cheeks.

In the formidable dark, tongues of candlelight panted for air. Here my very remote ancestors had sweated and worked, tunnelling below the untamed land to mine and mole the best flints, while somewhere above, the knappers and axe-makers, the craftsmen and the makers of arrowheads, had waited for their yield.

"This is where the Industrial Revolution began," Walter said solemnly. "History took a decisive turn down here. The first guided missiles were hacked out of this hole."

I could not see his face properly, nor Richmond's. They turned to inspect a side gallery, while I stood with one hand resting on chalk, a suffocating pressure on my chest. They stooped at the gallery's low entrance, peering in. In that misty light, Richmond's shaggy tweed trousers turned his back view into the hind quarters of a strange animal..

Undoubtedly I was light-headed. I tried to call to them; no sound came from my lips—and who would call for help to a shaggy animal? Strange irrelevancies bubbled through my mind; Sir Alister Hardy's theory that man had become, for a while in his early career, an aquatic creature living mostly in the sea returned to my mind, possibly because we were only a few miles from the coast that was our destination. To support his theory was the comparative hairlessness of man, as against the hairiness of the other primates.

Suppose, I thought, there was truth in Walter's absurd hypothesis about there being other, similar phases in the total universe, or however he expressed it? Then might there not exist an earth on which man was as he is now— yet totally alien, man without aquatic ancestry, man with no love of the sea, man with hair . . . man looking like the shaggy thing at which I now stared ... a creature similar to me, but yet ineluctably different, irreconcilably different, hostile even ... a hunting creature, shuffling backwards from its burrow before it turned on me. . . .

But the pit was heaving, the bands of flint seemed to rotate, the shaggy beast was already swinging towards me. I saw its face as it came at me—and then a darkness where no candle could burn swirled in and submerged me.

When I returned to my senses, Walter and Richmond had hold of me and were propelling me through the ragged remnants of a plantation. I began to cough.

Richmond turned and looked at me.

"We're getting you to the sanatorium as fast as we can," he said.

His face was covered with hairs.

I cried out. Then we passed from among the trees, and I saw my eyes had played a trick on me. Certainly it had seemed that Richmond's face was totally covered in fine white hairs—a pelt in fact, from which his eyes and mouth bulged. But of course it was a delusion created by the light and aided by my weakness.

"Don't go so fast," I gasped. "What's happening?" They were marching me along as if they were going to push me over the nearest cliff.

"You are ill," Walter said. His face was set and grim. As I glanced sideways at him, I saw that he too wore this sort of mask of pinkish-whitish hairs and that—no, staring at him straight in horror I saw that in reality he looked as usual, that the dappled shade was creating an illusion. But as I gazed forwards towards the waiting car, again it seemed to me that I was flanked by alien creatures who looked only half like men, whose faces were as hairy as badgers.

Everything lay loaded with menace about me. The flat landscape, the lack of other people, the unnatural quiet. .. all contributed to my sensation of wrongness. Even the quiet tawny shades imposed by the atmosphere had turned coppery, a metallic tint without mercy.

"I'm ill!" I cried involuntarily, seeking to dismiss all the unease in one big all-embracing excuse.

"I said you were ill. That's why we're getting you away."

And no sympathy in Walter's voice.Cast iron, his tone and his intentions. He hated me; Richmond hated me.

They were my foes, my captors. The car ahead did not look welcoming. It was black, black as a hearse—my God, it was a hearse! A coffin gleamed inside its glass plate windows and—no, it was a car, the car, our car, I saw as my vision cleared, as we stumbled on to the pebbly road.

"Not so fast!" I begged again. They were running with me now. A terrible eagerness seemed to possess them, an awful eagerness that made them work as fast as possible. What were they going to do with me?

Now we were at the car. Richmond opened one of the rear doors and heaving together they threw me in. I collapsed on the back seat. One of them had kicked me; I was sure one of them had kicked me in, and I was sure it was Richmond, whom I had liked the better of the two.

Because of my weakness, overcome by fear and betrayal, I began to weep.

The brothers jumped into the front seat and slammed the doors.

"You kicked me!" I exclaimed.

Richmond looked round.

"Pull yourself together, Arthur. Nobody kicked you. You're sick. It's our fault for stopping here; we didn't realise how it was with you. Now we'll get you there as soon as possible."

Shakily, I put a trembling hand to my brow. It was hot, fiery. Looking down, I saw a spatter of blood on my tie and lapels. So. I had coughed when I blacked out down in the Grave. Perhaps it had scared them; perhaps I had read too much into their haste, and in my fever had mistaken solicitude for menace.

"Richmond—" I said.

As Walter flung in the gears, the car started with a dreadful jerk. I bounced backwards against the seat, biting my tongue painfully. Even while I struggled up again, we were gathering speed. We hurtled past a notice pointing in the direction we were going; it said, TO THE GRAVE. Stones whipped up by the tyres sounded hollowly against the underside of the car. Helplessly I leant back again, fighting a suffocating sensation in my chest.

Over Walter's shoulder I could see his left hand on the driving wheel. It was covered with the whitish pelt. It was not a man's hand at all; nor was it an animal's hand. And in the driving mirror I saw that his face too . . .

For a long screaming moment I shut my eyes. When I opened them, Walter was looking back at me.

"We've only ten miles to go," he said. The white fur had gone again, imagination only.

You're sick, really sick, in delirium, I told myself. It's all explicable in terms of your illness—not that anything has really happened. You had this theory that men might have looked—have been—different if they had not once been sea-going at an early stage in their evolution. Then there was this business that you yourself started about thinking you could slip into another phase of the universe, another Earth. That's all. Down in Grimmer's Grave it was rather weird and you fainted, coming to again with a high temperature, since when you've imagined that both your bits of potty theory have become actuality. You just need rest. The sanatorium, the sea.

The sea! Ten miles to go to Crumer-next-Sea: there it was on a signpost whipping by the window.

But the more I thought about the sea, the less easy I felt. The sea was connected with my hallucinations—if they were hallucinations.

Richmond looked back.

"Nothing to be frightened about," he said.

I calmed myself. The hallucinations had no reality outside myself, my sick self. This was the world I knew, these were the men I knew . . .

Or if they weren't, then I would see some sign to prove I was indeed in an alien world, in a sort of variant earth where a creature something like a tarsier had not emerged to dominance via the ocean.

At once I began looking for the sign that could alter my concept of the universe, for the—what was Walter's exact phrase?—the small betraying detail. It had to be something outside this little nightmare world in the car; inside, my feelings were too subjective and could betray me either way. It had to be something beyond my emotional reach.

Anxiously I surveyed the land outside, still simmering under that copper light. THE SEA 5 MILES, a sign read, as we forged down a twisting lane between hedgerows with Walter still driving like a man possessed. We sped past a tradesman's van that bumped up onto the verge to avoid us. I twisted in my seat to read what was printed on the side of the van.

On its green side in faded letters was one word. It was a battered old van; we were going too fast; I could not be sure I had the word right. It looked like MANTRAPS. But what would that mean? With my heart hammering, I told myself that the van was a little grocer's delivery van with the grocer's name painted rather illegibly on its side: Mantraps, perhaps, or Mawraps. Mr. Mawraps the Grocer. I tried to visualise him.

At the same time my mind played uncomfortably with a different little fantasy. The creatures that had not deviated to sport in the sea for a few million years had naturally gained an evolutionary lead. When the true men came inland (after doing nothing but lose their body hair!) and took up hunting and agriculture, it was to find the Pelt people already in occupation . . . And ever since, in this variant world, men like me were the dispossessed, so that along a quiet Norfolk lane it was natural to find someone who would sell the dominant race the wherewithal to defend its land from its hairless chief marauder . . .

"No!" I said. "Mr. Mawraps the Grocer!"

"Keep quiet!" Richmond said. His face as he turned round was distorted in hate. For a moment I thought he would lash out and hit me. Cowed, I slid back into a corner, again peering out for something definite that would confirm me in or release me from my dread.

We came out from the hedgerows. We sped through a sleepy village. We twisted down another lane. Then we were out of it and on to a good secondary road. No traffic still, and on our right the sea, motionless as vellum.

We snarled up a slight incline and turned, coming out on the main coast road.

There was the little huddle of Crumer-next-Sea, there was the beach, there a caravan site, theTe the distant block of the sanatorium to which the brothers were supposed to be taking me. Frantically, pawing at the windows, I searched for that terrible detail I needed. Everything looked normal.

I had visited Crumer six years before. It seemed quite unchanged. The pier was there, the cliff gardens, the railway station . . . everything as I remembered. Except— surely something was changed?

I pressed my burning brow to the window, peering along the beach. Wasn't there something amiss there?

No, there as usual were lounging holiday-makers, hardly as many as might be expected, but a fair scattering. They sprawled in the usual semi-nudity, taking what sun there was. From this distance I could not see whether or not they had pelts; that was not what worried me, but my subconscious told me that one slight yet obvious factor put the whole picture out of true.

Again I stared.

Kids were running up and down the sand. One or two were building castles. Two donkeys gave rides. On the promenade, an ice-cream booth did desultory business. On the beach, a number of deck-chairs with bright canvas were pitched. Then in one crushing blow the obvious hit me: all those creatures on the sands sat or stood looking at the land; not a one faced out to sea. . . .

The Keys to December

ROGER ZELAZNY has an MA from Columbia (thesis in the area of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatic literature) and a couple of belts in judo. A civil servant, he is married and lives in Baltimore, USA. His successes in the past year or so have been enormous, winning all major sf prizes (including a Hugo and two Science Fiction Writers of America Awards). Very little of his work has appeared in this country to date. His novels include the Hugo-winning This Immortal and the Nebula-winning The Dream Master.

Born of man and woman, in accordance with Catform Y7 requirements, Coldworld Class (modified per Alyonal), 3.2-E, G.M.I, option, Jarry Dark was not suited for existence anywhere in the universe which had guaranteed him a niche. This was either a blessing or a curse, depending on how you looked at it. So look at it however you would, here is the story: It is likely that his parents could have afforded the temperature control unit, but not much more than that. (Jarry required a temperature of at least —50°C. to be comfortable.)

It is unlikely that his parents could have provided for the air pressure control and gas mixture equipment required to maintain his life.

Nothing could be done in the way of 3.2-E grav-simulation, so daily medication and physiotherapy were required. It is unlikely that his parents could have provided for this.

The much-maligned option took care of him, however. It safeguarded his health. It provided for his education. It assured his economic welfare and physical well-being.

It might be argued that Jarry Dark would not have been

23

a homeless Coldworld Catform (modified per Alyonal) had it not been for General Mining, Incorporated, which had held the option. But then it must be borne in mind that no one could have foreseen the nova which destroyed Alyonal.

When his parents had presented themselves at the Public Health Planned Parenthood Centre and requested advice and medication pending offspring, they had been informed as to the available worlds and the bodyform requirements for them. They had selected Alyonal, which had recently been purchased by General Mining for purposes of mineral exploitation. Wisely, they had elected the option; that is to say, they had signed a contract on behalf of their anticipated offspring, who would be eminently qualified to inhabit that world, agreeing that he would work as an employee of General Mining until he achieved his majority, at which time he would be free to depart and seek employment wherever he might choose (though his choices would admittedly be limited). In return for this guarantee, General Mining agreed to assure his health, education and continuing welfare for so long as he remained in their employ.

When Alyonal caught fire and went away, those Coldworld Catforms covered by the option who were scattered about the crowded galaxy were, by virtue of the agreement, wards of General Mining.

This is why Jarry grew up in a hermetically sealed room containing temperature and atmosphere controls, and why he received a first-class closed circuit education, along with his physiotherapy and medicine. This is also why Jarry bore some resemblance to a large, grey ocelot without a tail, had webbing between his fingers, and could not go outside to watch the traffic unless he wore a pressurized refrigeration suit and took extra medication.

All over the swarming galaxy, people took the advice of Public Health Planned Parenthood Centres, and many others had chosen as had Jarry's parents. Twenty-eight thousand, five hundred sixty-six of them, to be exact. In any group of over twenty-eight thousand five hundred sixty, there are bound to be a few talented individuals. Jarry was one of them. He had a knack for making money. Most of his General Mining pension check was invested in well-chosen stocks of a speculative nature. (In fact, after a time he came to own considerable stock in General Mining.)

When the man from the Galactic Civil Liberties Union had come around, expressing concern over the pre-birth contracts involved in the option and explaining that the Alyonal Catforms would make a good test case (especially since Jarry's parents lived within jurisdiction of the 877th Circuit, where they would be assured a favourable courtroom atmosphere), Jarry's parents had demurred, for fear of jeopardizing the General Mining pension. Later on, Jarry himself dismissed the notion also. A favourable decision could not make him an E-world Normform, and what else mattered? He was not vindictive. Also, he owned considerable stock in G.M. by then.

He loafed in his methane tank and purred, which meant that he was thinking. He operated his cryo-computer as he purred and thought. He was computing the total net worth of all the Catforms in the recently organized December Club.

He stopped purring and considered a sub-total, stretched, shook his head slowly. Then he returned to his calculations.

When he had finished, he dictated a message into his speech-tube, to Sanza Barati, President of December and his betrothed:

"Dearest Sanza—The funds available, as I suspected, leave much to be desired. All the more reason to begin immediately. Kindly submit the proposal to the business committee, outline my qualifications and seek immediate endorsement. I've finished drafting the general statement to the membership. (Copy attached.) From these figures, it will take me between five and ten years, if at least eighty percent of the membership backs me. So push hard,

26               The Best SF Stories from New Worlds

beloved. I'd like to meet you someday, in a place where the sky is purple. Yours, always, Jarry Dark, Treasurer. P.S. I'm pleased you were pleased with the ring."

Two years later, Jarry had doubled the net worth of December, Incorporated.

A year and a half after that, he had doubled it again.

When he received the following letter from Sanza, he leapt onto his trampoline, bounded into the air, landed upon his feet at the opposite end of his quarters, returned to his viewer and replayed it:

Dear Jarry,

Attached are specifications and prices for five more worlds. The research staff likes the last one. So do I. What do you think? Alyonal II? If so, how about the price? When could we afford that much? The staff also says that an hundred Worldchange units could alter it to what we want in 5-6 centuries. Will forward costs of this machinery shortly.

Come live with me and be my love, in a place where there are no walls . . .

Sanza

"One year," he replied, "and I'll buy you a world! Hurry up with the costs of machinery and transport . . ."

When the figures arrived, Jarry wept icy tears. One hundred machines, capable of altering the environment of a world, plus twenty-eight thousand coldsleep bunkers, plus transportation costs for the machinery and his people, plus . . . Too high! He did a rapid calculation.

He spoke into the speech-tube:

". . . Fifteen additional years is too long to wait, Pussycat. Have them figure the time-span if we were to purchase only twenty Worldchange units. Love and kisses, Jarry."

During the days which followed, he stalked about his chamber, erect at first, then on all fours as his mood deepened.

"Approximately three thousand years," came the reply. "May your coat be ever shiny—Sanza."

"Let's put it to a vote, Greeneyes," he said.

Quick, a world in 300 words or less! Picture this ...

One land mass, really, containing three black and brackish looking seas; grey plains and yellow plains and skies the colour of dry sand; shallow forests with trees like mushrooms which have been swabbed with iodine; no mountains, just hills brown, yellow, white, lavender; green birds with wings like parachutes, bills like sickles, feathers like oak leaves, an inside-out umbrella behind; six very distant moons, like spots before the eyes in daytime, snowflakes at night, drops of blood at dusk and dawn; grass like mustard in the moister valleys; mists like white fire on windless mornings, albino serpents when the air's astir; radiating chasms, like fractures in frosted window-panes; hidden caverns, like chains of dark bubbles; seventeen known dangerous predators, ranging from one to six metres in length, excessively furred and fanged; sudden hailstorms, like hurled hammerheads from a clear sky; an icecap like a blue beret at either flattened pole; nervous bipeds a metre and a half in height, short on cerebrum, which wander the shallow forests and prey upon the giant caterpillar's larva, as well as the giant caterpillar, the green bird, the blind burrower, and the offal-eating murk-beast; seventeen mighty rivers; clouds like pregnant purple cows, which quickly cross the land to lie-in beyond the visible east; stands of windblasted stones like frozen music; night like soot, to obscure the lesser stars; valleys which flow like the torsos of women or instruments of music; perpetual

frost in places of shadow; sounds in the morning like the cracking of ice, the trembling of tin, the snapping of steel strands . . .

They knew they would turn it to heaven.

The vanguard arrived, decked out in refrigeration suits, installed ten Worldchange units in either hemisphere, began setting up coldsleep bunkers in several of the larger caverns.

Then came the members of December down from the sand-coloured sky.

They came and they saw, decided it was almost heaven, then entered their caverns and slept. Over twenty-eight thousand Coldworld Catforms (modified per Alyonal) came into their own world to sleep for a season in silence the sleep of ice and of stone, to inherit the new Alyonal. There is no dreaming in that sleep. But had there been, their dreams might have been as the thoughts of those yet awake.

"It is bitter, Sanza."

"Yes, but only for a time—"

". . . To have each other and our own world, and still to go forth like divers at the bottom of the sea. To have to crawl when you want to leap . . ."

"It is only for a short time, Jarry, as the senses will reckon it."

"But it is really three thousand years! An ice age will come to pass as we doze. Our former worlds will change so that we would not know them were we to go back for a visit—and none will remember us."

"Visit what? Our former cells? Let the rest of the worlds go by! Let us be forgotten in the lands of our birth! We are a people apart and we have found our home. What else matters?"

"True ... It will be but a few years, and we shall stand our tours of wakefulness and watching together." "When is the first?"

"Two and a half centuries from now—three months of wakefulness."

"What will it be like then?" "I don't know. Less warm . .

"Then let us return and sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day." "Yes."

"Oh! See the green bird! It drifts like a dream . .

When they awakened that first time, they stayed within the Worldchange installation at the place called Deadland. The world was already colder and the edges of the sky were tinted with pink. The metal walls of the great installation were black and rimed with frost. The atmosphere was still lethal and the temperature far too high. They remained within their special chambers for most of the time, venturing outside mainly to make necessary tests and to inspect the structure of their home.

Deadland . . . Rocks and sand. No trees, no marks of life at all.

The time of terrible winds was still upon the land, as the world fought back against the fields of the machines. At night, great clouds of real estate smoothed and sculpted the stands of stone, and when the winds departed the desert would shimmer as if fresh-painted and the stones would stand like flames within the morning and its singing. After the sun came up into the sky and hung there for a time, the winds would begin again and a dun-coloured fog would curtain the day. When the morning winds departed, Jarry and Sanza would stare out across Deadland through the east window of the installation, for that was their favourite—the one on the third floor—where the stone that looked like a gnarly Normform waved to them, and they would lie upon the green couch they had moved up from the first floor, and would sometimes make love as they listened for the winds to rise again, or Sanza would sing and Jarry would write in the log or read back through it, the scribblings of friends and unknowns through the centuries, and they would purr often but never laugh, because they did not know how.

One morning, as they watched, they saw one of the biped creatures of the iodine forests moving across the land. It fell several times, picked itself up, continued, fell once more, lay still.

"What is it doing this far from its home?" asked Sanza. "Dying," said Jarry. "Let's go outside." They crossed a catwalk, descended to the first floor, donned their protective suits and departed the installation.

The creature had risen to its feet and was staggering once again. It was covered with a reddish down, had dark eyes and a long, wide nose, lacked a true forehead. It had four brief digits, clawed, upon each hand and foot.

When it saw them emerge from the Worldchange unit, it stopped and stared at them. Then it fell. They moved to its side and studied it where it lay. It continued to stare at them, its dark eyes wide, as it lay there shivering.

"It will die if we leave it here," said Sanza. ".. . And it will die if we take it inside," said Jarry. It raised a forelimb toward them, let it fall again. Its eyes narrowed, then closed.

Jarry reached out and touched it with the toe of his boot There was no response. "It's dead," he said. "What will we do?" "Leave it here. The sands will cover it." They returned to the installation, and Jarry entered the event in the log.

During their last month of duty, Sanza asked him, "Will everything die here but us? The green birds and the big eaters of flesh? The funny Utile trees and the hairy caterpillars?"

"I hope not," said Jarry, "I've been reading back through the biologists' notes. I think life might adapt. Once it gets a start anywhere, it'll do anything it can to keep going. It's probably better for the creatures of this planet that we could affoTd only twenty Worldchangers. That way they have three millennia to grow more hair and leam to breathe our air and drink our water. With a hundred units we might have wiped them out and had to import oldworld creatures or breed them. This way, the ones who live here might be able to make it."

"It's funny," she said, "but the thought just occurred to me that we're doing here what was done to us. They made us for Alyonal, and a nova took it away. These creatures came to life in this place, and we're taking it away. We're turning all of life on this planet into what we were on our former worlds—misfits."

"The difference, however, is that we are taking our time," said Jarry, "and giving them a chance to get used to the new conditions."

"Still, I feel that all that—outside there," she gestured toward the window, "is what this world is becoming: one big Deadland."

"Deadland was here before we came. We haven't created any new deserts."

"All the animals are moving south. The trees are dying. When they get as far south as they can go and still the temperature drops, and the air continues to burn their lungs—then it will be all over for them."

"By then they might have adapted. The trees are spreading, are developing thicker barks. Life will make it."

"I wonder ..."

"Would you prefer to sleep until it's all over?"

"No, I want to be by your side, always."

"Then you must reconcile yourself to the fact that something is always hurt by any change. If you do this, you will not be hurt yourself."

Then they listened for the winds to rise.

Three days later, in the still of sundown, between the winds of day and the winds of night, she called him to the window. He climbed to the third floor and moved to her side. Her breasts were rose in the sundown light and the places beneath them silver and dark. The fur of her shoulders and haunches was like an aura of smoke. Her face was expressionless and her wide, green eyes were not turned toward him. He looked out.

The first big flakes were falling, blue, through the pink light. They drifted past the stone and gnarly Normform; some stuck to the thick quartz windowpane; they fell upon the desert and lay there like blossoms of cyanide; they swirled as more of them came down and were caught by the first faint puffs of the terrible winds. Dark clouds had mustered overhead and from them, now, great cables and nets of blue descended. Now the flakes flashed past the window like butterflies, and the outline of Deadland flickered on and off. The pink vanished and there was only blue, blue and darkening blue, as the first great sigh of evening came into their ears and the billows suddenly moved sideways rather than downwards, becoming indigo as they raced by.

"The machine is never silent," Jarry wrote. "Sometimes I fancy I can hear voices in its constant humming, its occasional growling, its crackles of power. I am alone here at the Deadland station. Five centuries have passed since our arrival. I thought it better to let Sanza sleep out this tour of duty, lest the prospect be too bleak. (It is.) She will doubtless be angry. As I lay half-awake this morning, I thought I heard my parents' voices in the next room. No words. Just the sounds of their voices as I used to hear them over my old intercom. They must be dead by now, despite all geriatrics. I wonder if they thought of me much after I left? I couldn't even shake my father's hand without my gauntlet, or kiss my mother good-bye. It is strange, the feeling, to be this alone, with only the throb of the machinery about me as it rearranges the molecules of the atmosphere, refrigerates the world, here in the middle of the blue place, Deadland. This, despite the fact that I grew up in a steel cave. I call the other nineteen stations every afternoon. I am afraid I am becoming something of a nuisance. I won't call them tomorrow, or perhaps the next day.

"I went outside without my refrig-pack this morning, for a few moments. It is still deadly hot. I gulped a mouthful of air and choked. Our day is still far off. But I can notice the difference from the last time I tried it, two and a half hundred years ago. I wonder what it will be like when we have finished?—And I, an economist! What will my function be in our new Alyonal? Whatever, so long as Sanza is happy . . .

"The Worldchanger stutters and groans. All the land is blue for so far as I can see. The stones still stand, but their shapes are changed from what they were. The sky is entirely pink now, and it becomes almost maroon in the morning and the evening. I guess it's really a wine-colour, but I've never seen wine, so I can't say for certain. The trees have not died. They've grown hardier. Their barks are thicker, their leaves are darker and larger. They grow much taller now, I've been told. There are no trees in Deadland.

"The caterpillars still five. They seem much larger, I understand, but it is actually because they have become woollier than they used to be. It seems that most of the animals have heavier pelts these days. Some apparently have taken to hibernating. A strange thing: Station Seven reported that they had thought the bipeds were growing heavier coats. There seem to be quite a few of them in that area, and they often see them off in the distance. They looked to be shaggier. Closer observation, however, revealed that some of them were either carrying or were wrapped in the skins of dead animals! Could it be that they are more intelligent than we have given them credit for? This hardly seems possible, since they were tested quite thoroughly by the Bio Team before we set the machines in operation. Yet, it is very strange.

"The winds are still severe. Occasionally, they darken the sky with ash. There has been considerable vulcanism southwest of here. Station Four was relocated because of this. I hear Sanza singing now, within the sounds of the machine. I will let her be awakened the next time. Things should be more settled by then. No, that is not true. It is selfishness. I want her here beside me. I feel as if I were the only living thing in the whole world. The voices on the radio are ghosts. The clock ticks loudly and the silences between the ticks are filled with the humming of the machine, which is a kind of silence, too, because it is constant. Sometimes I think it is not there; I listen for it, I strain my ears, and I do not know whether there is a humming or not. I check the indicators then, and they assure me that the machine is functioning. Or perhaps there is something wrong with the indicators. But they seem to be all right. No. It is me. And the blue of Deadland is a kind of visual silence. In the morning even the rocks are covered with blue frost. Is it beautiful or ugly? There is no response within me. It is a part of the great silence, that's all. Perhaps I shall become a mystic. Perhaps I shall develop occult powers or achieve something bright and liberating as I sit here at the centre of the great silence. Perhaps I shall see visions. Already I hear voices. Are there ghosts in Deadland? No, there was never anything here to be ghosted. Except perhaps for the little biped. Why did it cross Deadland, I wonder? Why did it head for the centre of destruction rather than away, as its fellows did? I shall never know. Unless perhaps I have a vision. I think it is time to suit up and take a walk. The polar icecaps are heavier. The glaciation has begun. Soon, soon things will be better. Soon the silence will end, I hope. I wonder, though, whether silence is not the true state of affairs in the universe, our little noises serving only to accentuate it, like a speck of black on a field of blue. Everything was once silence and will be so again—is now, perhaps. Will I ever hear real sounds, or only sounds out of the silence? Sanza is singing again. I wish I could wake her up now, to walk with me, out there. It is beginning to snow."

Jarry awakened again on the eve of the millennium. Sanza smiled and took his hand in hers and stroked it, as he explained why he had let her sleep, as he apologized.

"Of course I'm not angry," she said, "considering I did the same thing to you last cycle."

Jarry stared up at her and felt the understanding begin.

"I'll not do it again," she said, "and I know you couldn't. The aloneness is almost unbearable."

"Yes," he replied.

"They warmed us both alive last time. I came around first and told them to put you back to sleep. I was angry then, when I found out what you had done. But I got over it quickly, so often did I wish you were there."

"We will stay together," said Jarry.

"Yes, always."

They took a flier from the cavern of sleep to the World-change installation at Deadland, where they relieved the other attendants and moved the new qpuch up to the third floor.

The air of Deadland, while sultry, could now be breathed for short periods of time, though a headache invariably followed such experiments. The heat was still oppressive. The rock, once like an old Normform waving, had lost its distinctive outline. The winds were no longer so severe.

On the fourth day, they found some animal tracks which seemed to belong to one of the larger predators. This cheered Sanza, but another, later occurrence produced only puzzlement.

One morning they went forth to walk in Deadland.

Less than a hundred paces from the installation, they came upon three of the giant caterpillars, dead. They were stiff, as though dried out rather than frozen, and they were surrounded by rows of markings within the snow. The footprints which led to the scene and away from it were rough of outline, obscure.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"I don't know, but I think we had better photograph this," said Jarry.

They did. When Jarry spoke to Station Eleven that afternoon, he learned that similar occurrences had occasionally been noted by attendants of other installations.

These were not too frequent, however. "I don't understand," said Sanza. "I don't want to," said Jarry.

It did not happen again during their tour of duty. Jarry entered it into the log and wrote a report. Then they abandoned themselves to lovemaking, monitoring, and occasional nights of drunkenness. Two hundred years previously, a biochemist had devoted his tour of duty to experimenting with compounds which would produce the same reactions in Catforms as the legendary whisky did in Normforms. He had been successful, had spent four weeks on a collossal binge, neglected his duty and been relieved of it, was then retired to his coldbunk for the balance of the Wait. His basically simple formula had circulated, however, and Jarry and Sanza found a well-stocked bar in the storeroom and a hand-written manual explaining its use and a variety of drinks which might be compounded. The author of the document had expressed the hope that each tour of attendance might result in the discovery of a new mixture, so that when he returned for his next cycle the manual would have grown to a size proportionate to his desire. Jarry and Sanza worked at it conscientiously, and satisfied the request with a Snowflower Punch which warmed their bellies and made their purring turn into giggles, so that they discovered laughter also. They celebrated the millennium with an entire bowl of it, and Sanza insisted on calling all the other installations and giving them the formula, right then, on the graveyard watch, so that everyone could share in their joy. It is quite possible that everyone did, for the recipe was well-received. And always, even after that bowl was but a memory, they kept the laughter. Thus are the first simple lines of tradition sometimes sketched.

"The green birds are dying," said Sanza, putting aside a report she had been reading. "Oh?" said Jarry.

"Apparently they've done all the adapting they're able to," she told him.

"Pity," said Jarry.

"It seems less than a year since we came here. Actually, it's a thousand."

"Time flies," said Jarry. "I'm afraid," she said. "Of what?"

"I don't know. Just afraid." "Why?"

"Living the way we've been living, I guess. Leaving little pieces of ourselves in different centuries. Just a few months ago, as my memory works, this place was a desert. Now it's an ice field. Chasms open and close. Canyons appear and disappear. Rivers dry up and new ones spring forth. Everything seems so very transitory. Things look solid, but I'm getting afraid to touch things now. They might go away. They might turn into smoke, and my hand will keep on reaching through the smoke and touch—something . . . God, maybe. Or worse yet, maybe not. No one really knows what it will be like here when we've finished. We're travelling toward an unknown land and it's too late to go back. We're moving through a dream, heading toward an idea . . . Sometimes I miss my cell . . . And all the little machines that took care of me there. Maybe / can't adapt. Maybe I'm like the green bird ..."

"No, Sanza. You're not. We're real. No matter what happens out there, we will last. Everything is changing because we want it to change. We're stronger than the world, and we'll squeeze it and paint it and poke holes in it until we've made it exactly the way we want it. Then we'll take it and cover it with cities and children. You want to see God? Go look in the mirror. God has pointed ears and green eyes. He is covered with soft grey fur. When He raises His hand there is webbing between His fingers."

"It is good that you are strong, Jarry."

"Let's get out the power sled and go for a ride."

"All right."

Up and down, that day, they drove through Deadland, where the dark stones stood like clouds in another sky.

It was twelve and a half hundred years.

Now they could breathe without respirators, for a short time.

Now they could bear the temperature, for a short time.

Now all the green birds were dead.

Now a strange and troubling thing began.

The bipeds came by night, made markings upon the snow, left dead animals in the midst of them. This happened now with much more frequency than it had in the past. They came long distances to do it, many of them with fur which was not their own upon their shoulders.

Jarry searched through the history files for all the reports on the creatures.

"This one speaks of lights in the forest," he said. "Station Seven."

"What . . . ?"

"Fire," he said. "What if they've discovered fire?" "Then they're not really beasts!" "But they were!"

"They wear clothing now. They make some sort of sacrifice to our machines. They're not beasts any longer."

"How could it have happened?"

"How do you think? We did it. Perhaps they would have remained stupid—animals—if we had not come along and forced them to get smart in order to go on living. We've accelerated their evolution. They had to adapt or die, and they adapted."

"D'you think it would have happened if we hadn't come along?" he asked.

"Maybe—some day.Maybe not, too."

Jarry moved to the window, stared out across Deadland.

"I have to find out," he said. "If they are intelligent, if they are—human, like us," he said, then laughed, "then we must consider their ways."

"What do you propose?"

"Locate some of the creatures. See whether we can communicate with them." "Hasn't it been tried?" "Yes."

"What were the results?"

"Mixed. Some claim they have considerable understanding. Others place them far below the threshold where humanity begins."

"We may be doing a terrible thing," she said. "Creating men, then destroying them. Once, when I was feeling low you told me that we were the gods of this world, that ours was the power to shape and to break. Ours is the power to shape and break, but I don't feel especially divine. What can we do? They have come this far, but do you think they can bear the change that will take us the rest of the way? What if they are like the green birds? What if they've adapted as fast and as far as they can and it is not sufficient? What would a god do?"

"Whatever he wished," said Jarry.

That day, they cruised over Deadland in the flier, but the only signs of life they saw were each other. They continued to search in the days that followed, but they did not meet with success.

Under the purple of morning, however, two weeks later, it happened.

"They've been here," said Sanza.

Jarry moved to the front of the installation and stared out.

The snow was broken in several places, inscribed with the lines he had seen before, about the form of a small, dead beast.

"They can't have gone very far," he said.

"No."

"We'll search in the sled."

Now over the snow and out, across the land called Dead they went, Sanza driving and Jarry peering at the lines of footmarks in the blue.

They cruised through the occurring morning, hinting of fire and violet, and the wind went past them like a river, and all about them there came sounds like the cracking of ice, the trembling of tin, the snapping of steel strands. The blue-frosted stones stood like frozen music, and the long shadow of their sled, black as ink, raced on ahead of them.

A shower of hailstones drumming upon the roof of their

vehicle like a sudden visitation of demon dancers, as

suddenly was gone. Deadland sloped downward, slanted up

again,

Jarry placed his hand upon Sanza's shoulder. "Ahead!"

She nodded, began to brake the sled.

They had it at bay. They were using clubs and long poles which looked to have fire-hardened points. They threw stones. They threw pieces of ice.

Then they backed away and it killed them as they went.

The Catforms had called it a bear because it was big and shaggy and could rise up on to its hind legs . . .

This one was about three and a half metres in length, was covered with bluish fur and had a thin, hairless snout like the business end of a pair of pliers.

Five of the little creatures lay still in the snow. Each time that it swung a paw and connected, another one fell.

Jarry removed the pistol from its compartment and checked the charge.

"Cruise by slowly," he told her. "I'm going to try to burn it about the head."

His first shot missed, scoring the boulder at its back. His second singed the fur of its neck. He leapt down from the sled then, as they came abreast of the beast, thumbed the power control up to maximum, and fired the entire charge into its breast, point-blank.

The bear stiffened, swayed, fell, a gaping wound upon it front to back.

Jarry turned and regarded the little creatures. They stared up at him.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Jarry. I dub thee Redforms—"

He was knocked from his feet by a blow from behind.

He rolled across the snow, lights dancing before his eyes, his left arm and shoulder afire with pain.

A second bear had emerged from the forest of stone.

He drew his long hunting knife with his right hand and climbed back to his feet.

As the creature lunged, he moved with the catspeed of his kind, thrusting upward, burying his knife to the hilt in its throat.

A shudder ran through it, but it cuffed him and he fell once again, the blade torn from his grasp.

The Redforms threw more stones, rushed toward it with their pointed sticks.

Then there was a thud and a crunching sound, and it rose up into the air and came down on top of him.

He awakened.

He lay on his back, hurting, and everything he looked at seemed to be pulsing, as if about to explode.

How much time had passed, he did not know.

Either he or the bear had been moved.

The little creatures crouched, watching.

Some watched the bear. Some watched him.

Some watched the broken sled . . .

The broken sled . . .

He struggled to his feet.

The Redforms drew back.

He crossed to the sled and looked inside.

He knew she was dead when he saw the angle of her neck. But he did all the things a person does to be sure, anyway, before he would let himself believe it.

She had delivered the deathblow, crashing the sled into the creature, breaking its back. It had broken the sled. Herself, also.

He leaned against the wreckage, composed his first prayer, then removed her body. The Redforms watched.

He lifted her in his arms and began walking, back toward the installation, across Deadland.

The Redforms continued to watch as he went, except for the one with the strangely high brow-ridge, who studied instead the knife that protruded from the shaggy and steaming throat of the beast.

Jarry asked the awakened executives of December: "What should we do?"

"She is the first of our race to die on this world," said Yan Turl, Vice President.

"There is no tradition," said Selda Kein, Secretary. "Shall we establish one?"

"I don't know," said Jarry. "I don't know what is right to do."

"Burial or cremation seem to be the main choices. Which would you prefer?"

"I don't—No, not the ground. Give her back to me. Give me a large flier ... I'll burn her."

"Then let us construct a chapel."

"No. It is a thing I must do in my own way. I'd rather do it alone."

"As you wish. Draw what equipment you need, and be about it."

"Please send someone else to keep the Deadland installation. I wish to sleep again when I have finished this thing—until the next cycle.",

"Very well, Jarry. We are sorry."

"Yes—we are."

Jarry nodded, gestured, turned, departed.

Thus are the heavier lines of life sometimes drawn.

At the southeastern edge of Deadland there was a blue mountain. It stood to slighdy over three thousand metres in height. When approached from the northwest, it gave the appearance of being a frozen wave in a sea too vast to imagine. Purple clouds rent themselves upon its peak. No living thing was to be found on its slopes. It had no name, save that which Jarry Dark gave it.

He anchored the flier.

He carried her body to the highest point to which a body might be carried.

He placed her there, dressed in her finest garments, a wide scarf concealing the angle of her neck, a dark veil covering her emptied features.

He was about to try a prayer when the hail began to fall.

Like thrown rocks, the chunks of blue ice came down upon him, upon her.

"God damn you!" he cried and he raced back to the flier.

He climbed into the air, circled.

Her garments were flapping in the wind. The hail was a blue, beaded curtain that separated them from all but these final caresses: fire aflow from ice to ice, from clay aflow immortally through guns.

He squeezed the trigger and a doorway into the sun opened in the side of the mountain that had been nameless. She vanished within it, and he widened the doorway until he had lowered the mountain.

Then he climbed upward into the cloud, attacking the storm until his guns were empty.

He circled then above the molten mesa, there at the southeastern edge of Deadland.

He circled above the first pyre this world had seen.

Then he departed, to sleep for a season in silence the sleep of ice and stone, to inherit the new Alyonal. There is no dreaming in that sleep.

Fifteen centuries. Almost half the Wait. Two hundred words or less . . . Picture—

. . . Nineteen mighty rivers flowing, but the black seas rippling violet now.

. . . No shallow iodine-coloured forests. Mighty shag-barked barrel trees instead, orange and lime and black and tall across the land.

. . . Great ranges of mountains in the place of hills brown, yellow, white, lavender. Black corkscrews of smoke unwinding from smouldering cones.

. . . Flowers, whose roots explore the soil twenty metres beneath their mustard petals, unfolded amidst the blue frost and the stones.

. . . Blind burrowers burrowing deeper; offal-eating murk-beasts now showing formidable incisors and great rows of ridged molars; giant caterpillars growing smaller but looking larger because of increasing coats.

. . . The contours of valleys still like the torsos of women, flowing and rolling, or perhaps like instruments of music.

. . . Gone much windblasted stone, but ever the frost. . . . Sounds in the morning as always, harsh, brittle, metallic.

They were sure they were halfway to heaven. Picture that.

The Deadland log told him as much as he really needed to know. But he read back through the old reports, also.

Then he mixed himself a drink and stared out the third floor window.

". . . Will die," he said, then finished his drink, outfitted himself, and abandoned his post.

It was three days before he found a camp.

He landed the flier at a distance and approached on foot. He was far to the south of Deadland, where the air was warmer and caused him to feel constantly short of breath.

They were wearing animal skins—skins which had been cut for a better fit and greater protection, skins which were tied about them. He counted sixteen lean-to arrangements and three campfires. He flinched as he regarded the fires, but he continued to advance.

When they saw him, all their little noises stopped, a brief cry went up, and then there was silence.

He entered the camp.

The creatures stood unmoving about him. He heard some bustling within the large lean-to at the end of the clearing.

He walked about the camp.

A slab of dried meat hung from the centre of a tripod of poles.

Several long spears stood before each dwelling place. He advanced and studied one. A stone which had been flaked into a leaf-shaped spearhead was affixed to its end.

There was the outline of a cat carved upon a block of wood . . .

He heard a footfall and turned.

One of the Redforms moved slowly toward him. It appeared older than the others. Its shoulders sloped; as it opened its mouth to make a series of popping noises, he saw that some of its teeth were missing; its hair was grizzled and thin. It bore something in its hands, but Jarry's attention was drawn to the hands themselves.

Each hand bore an opposing digit.

He looked about him quickly, studying the hands of the others. All of them seemed to have thumbs. He studied their appearance more closely.

They now had foreheads.

He returned his attention to the old Redform.

It placed something at his feet, and then it backed away from him.

He looked down.

A chunk of dried meat and a piece of fruit lay upon a broad leaf.

He picked up the meat, closed his eyes, bit off a piece, chewed and swallowed. He wrapped the rest in the leaf and placed it in the side pocket of his pack.

He extended his hand, and the Redform drew back.

He lowered his hand, unrolled the blanket he had carried with him and spread it upon the ground. He seated himself, pointed to the Redform, then indicated a position across from him at the other end of the blanket.

The creature hesitated, then advanced and seated itself.

"We are going to learn to talk with one another," he said slowly. Then he placed his hand upon his breast and said, "Jarry."

Jarry stood before the reawakened executives of December.

"They are intelligent," he told them. "It's all in my report."

"So?" asked Yan Turl.

"I don't think they will be able to adapt. They have come very far, very rapidly. But I don't think they can go much further. I don't think they can make it all the way."

"Are you a biologist, an ecologist, a chemist?"

"No."

"Then on what do you base your opinion?"

"I observed them at close range for six weeks."

"Then it's only a feeling you have . . . ?"

"You know there are no experts on a thing like this. It's never happened before."

"Granting their intelligence—granting even that what you have said concerning their adaptability is correct— what do you suggest we do about it?"

"Slow down the change. Give them a better chance. If they can't make it the rest of the way, then stop short of our goal. It's already liveable here. We can adapt the rest of the way."

"Slow it down? How much?"

"Supposing we took another seven or eight thousand years?"

"Impossible!" "Entirely!" "Too much!" "Why?"

"Because everyone stands a three-month watch every two hundred fifty years. That's one year of personal time for every thousand. You're asking for too much of everyone's time."

"But the life of an entire race may be at stake!"

"You do not know for certain."

"No, I don't. But do you feel it is something to take a chance with?"

"Do you want to put it to an executive vote?"

"No, I can see that I'll lose. I want to put it before the entire membership."

"Impossible. They're all asleep."

"Then wake them up."

"That would be quite a project."

"Don't you think that the fate of a race is worth the effort? Especially since we're the ones who forced intelligence upon them? We're the ones who made them evolve, cursed them with intellect."

"Enough! They were right at the threshold. They might have become intelligent had we not come along—"

"But you can't say for certain! You don't really know! And it doesn't really matter how it happened. They're here and we're here, and they think we're gods—maybe because we do nothing for them but make them miserable. We have some responsibility to an intelligent race, though. At least to the extent of not murdering it"

"Perhaps we could do a long-range study . . ."

"They could be dead by then. I formally move, in my capacity as Treasurer, that we awaken the full membership and put the matter to a vote."

"I don't hear any second to your motion."

"Selda?" he said.

She looked away.

"TarebeU?Clond? Bondici?"

There was silence in the cavern that was high and wide about him.

"All right. I can see when I'm beaten. We will be our own serpents when we come into our Eden. I'm going now, back to Deadland, to finish my tour of duty."

"You don't have to. In fact, it might be better if you sleep the whole thing out . . ."

"No. If it's going to be this way, the guilt will be mine; also. I want to watch, to share it fully."

"So be it," said Turl.

Two weeks later, when Installation Nineteen tried to raise the Deadland Station on the radio, there was no response.

After a time, a flier was dispatched. The Deadland Station was a shapeless lump of melted metal.

Jarry Dark was nowhere to be found.

Later that afternoon, Installation Eight went dead.

A flier was immediately dispatched.

Installation Eight no longer existed. Its attendants were found several miles away, walking. They told how Jarry Dark had forced them from the station at gunpoint. Then he had burnt it to the ground, with the fire-cannons mounted upon his flier.

At about the time they were telling this story, Installation Six became silent.

The order went out: MAINTAIN CONTINUOUS RADIO CONTACT WITH TWO OTHER STATIONS AT ALL TIMES.

The other order went out: GO ARMED AT ALL TIMES. TAKE ANY VISITOR PRISONER.

Jarry waited. At the bottom of a chasm, parked beneath a shelf of rock, Jarry waited. An opened bottle stood upon the control board of his flier. Next to it was a small case of white metal.

Jarry took a long, last drink from the bottle as he waited for the broadcast he knew would come.

When it did, he stretched out on the seat and took a nap.

When he awakened, the light of day was waning.

The broadcast was still going on . . .

. . . Jarry. They will be awakened and a referendum will be held. Come back to the main cavern. This is Yan Turl. Please do not destroy any more installations. This action is not necessary. We agree with your proposal that a vote be held. Please contact us immediately. We are waiting for your reply, Jarry . . ."

He tossed the empty bottle through the window and raised the flier out of the purple shadow into the air and up.

When he descended upon the landing stage within the main cavern, of course they were waiting for him. A dozen rifles were trained upon him as he stepped down from the flier.

"Remove your weapons, Jarry," came the voice of Yan Turl.

"I'm not wearing any weapons," said Jarry. "Neither is my flier," he added; and this was true, for the fire-cannons no longer rested within their mountings.

Yan Turl approached, looked up at him.

"Then you may step down."

"Thank you, but I like it right where I am."

"You are a prisoner."

"What do you intend to do with me?" "Put you back to sleep until the end of the Wait. Come down here!"

"No. And don't try shooting—or using a stun charge or gas, either. If you do, we're all of us dead the second it hits."

"What do you mean?" asked Turl, gesturing gently to the riflemen.

"My flier," said Jarry, "is a bomb, and I'm holding the fuse in my right hand." He raised the white metal box. "So long as I keep the lever on the side of this box depressed, we live. If my grip relaxes, even for an instant, the explosion which ensues will doubtless destroy this entire cavem."

"I think you're bluffing."

"You know how you can find out for certain."

"You'll die too, Jarry."

"At the moment, I don't really care. Don't try burning my hand off either, to destroy the fuse," he cautioned, "because it doesn't really matter. Even if you should succeed, it will cost you at least two installations."

"Why is that?"

"What do you think I did with the fire-cannons? I taught the Redforms how to use them. At the moment, these weapons are manned by Redforms and aimed at two installations. If I do not personally visit my gunners by dawn, they will open fire. After destroying their objectives, they will move on and try for two more."

"You trusted those beasts with laser projectors?"

"That is correct. Now, will you begin awakening the others for the voting?"

Turl crouched, as if to spring at him, appeared to think better of it, relaxed.

"Why did you do it, Jarry?" he asked. "What are they to you that you would make your own people suffer for them?"

"Since you do not feel as I feel," said. Jarry, "my reasons would mean nothing to you. After all, they are only based upon my feelings, which are different than your own—for mine are based upon sorrow and loneliness. Try this one, though: I am their god. My form is to be found in their every camp. I am the Slayer of Bears from the Desert of the Dead. They have told my story for two and a half centuries, and I have been changed by it. I am powerful and wise and good, so far as they are concerned. In this capacity, I owe them some consideration. If I do not give them their lives, who will there be to honour me in snow and chant my story around the fires and cut for me the best portions of the woolly caterpillar? None, Turl. And these things are all that my life is worth now. Awaken the others. You have no choice."

"Very well," said Turl. "And if their decision should go against you?"

"Then I'll retire, and you can be god," said Jarry.

Now every day when the sun goes down out of the purple sky, Jarry Dark watches it in its passing, for he shall sleep no more the sleep of ice and of stone, wherein there is no dreaming. He has elected to live out the span of his days in a tiny instant of the Wait, never to look upon the New Alyonal of his people. Every morning, at the new Deadland installation, he is awakened by sounds like the cracking of ice, the trembling of tin, the snappings of steel strands, before they come to him with their offerings, singing and making marks upon the snow. They praise him and he smiles upon them. Sometimes he coughs.

Born of man and woman, in accordance with Catform Y7 requirements, Coldworld Class, Jarry Dark was not suited for existence anywhere in the universe which had guaranteed him a niche. This was either a blessing or a curse, depending on how you looked at it. So look at it however you would, that was the story. Thus does life repay those who would serve her fully.

The Assassination Weapon

J. G. BALLARD has been called 'the poet of inner space* and Kingsley Amis has called him 'science fiction's Conrad' and 'one of the brightest new stars in post-war fiction'. He is the author of the trilogy The Drowned World, The Drought, and The Crystal World and has had several successful collections published, the latest being The Disaster Area. He is 36, a widower with three children, and lives in Shepperton. He regularly reviews for The Guardian, is prose editor of Ambit, and contributes to Playboy. One of his stories, Thirteen to Centaurus, was broadcast by the BBC in its 'Out of the Unknown' series and another, You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe, is currently being filmed.

An attempt to conceive the "false" deaths of J. F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald and Malcolm X in terms of the notional character of a psychotic patient in the Belmont Asylum, assumed to have died by his own hand in the role of a former H-bomber pilot.

THORACIC DROP. The spinal landscape, revealed at the level of T-12, is that of the porous rock-towers of Teneriffe, and of the native of the Canaries, Oscar Domínguez, who created the technique of decalcomania and so exposed the first spinal landscape. The clinker-like rock-towers, suspended above the silent swamp, create an impression of profound anguish. The inhospitability of this mineral world, with its inorganic growths, is relieved only by the balloons flying in the clear sky. They are painted with names: Jackie, Lee Harvey, Malcolm. In the mirror of this swamp there are no reflections. Here, time makes no concessions.

AUTOGEDDON.Waking: the concrete embankment of a motorway extension.  Roadworks,  cars drumming two

51

hundred yards below. In the sunlight the seams between the sections are illuminated like the sutures of an exposed skull. A young woman stands ten feet away from him, watching with unsure eyes. The hyoid bone in her throat flutters as if discharging some subvocal rosary. She points to her car, parked off the verge beside a grader, and then beckons to him. Kline, Coma, Xero. He remembered the aloof, cerebral Kline and their long discussions on this terminal concrete beach. Under a different sun. This girl is not Coma. "My car." She speaks, the sounds as dissociated as the recording in a doll. "I can give you a lift. I saw you reach the island. It's like trying to cross the Styx." He sits up, searching for his Air Force cap. All he can say is: "Jackie Kennedy."

GOOGOLPLEX. Dr. Lancaster studied the walls of the empty room. The mándalas, scored in the white plaster with a nail file, radiated like suns towards the window. He peered at the objects on the tray offered to him by the nurse. "So, these are the treasures he has left us—an entry from Oswald's Historic Diary, a much-thumbed reproduction of Magritte's Annunciation, and the mass numbers of the first twelve radioactive nuclides. What are we supposed to do with them?" Nurse Nagamatzu gazed at him with cool eyes. "Permútate them, doctor?" Lancaster lit a cigarette, ignoring the explicit insolence. This elegant bitch, like all women she intruded her sexuality at the most inopportune moments. One day. ... He said: "Perhaps. We might find Mrs. Kennedy there. Or her husband. The, Warren Commission has reopened its hearing, you know. Apparently it's not satisfied. Quite unprecedented." Permútate them? The theoretical number of nucleotide patterns in DNA was a mere 10 to the power of 120,000. What number was vast enough to contain all the possibilities of those three objects?

JACKIE KENNEDY, YOUR EYELIDS DEFLAGRATE. The serene face of the President's widow, painted on clapboard 400 feet high, moves across the rooftops, disappearing into the haze on the outskirts of the city. There are hundreds of the signs, revealing Jackie in coundess familiar postures. Next week there may be an SS officer, Beethoven, Christopher Columbus or Fidel Castro. The fragments of these signs litter the suburban streets for weeks afterwards. Bonfires of Jackie's face burn among the reservoirs of Staines and Shepperton. With luck he got a job on one of the municipal disposal teams, warms his hands at a brazier of enigmatic eyes. At night he sleeps beneath an unlit bonfire of breasts.

XERO. Of the three figures who were to accompany him, the strangest was Xero. For most of the time Kline and Coma would remain near him, sitting a few feet away on the embankment of the deserted motorway, following in another car when he drove out to the radio-observatory, pausing behind him as he visited the atrocity exhibition. Coma was too shy, but now and then he would manage to talk to Kline, although he never remembered what they said to each other. By contrast, Xero was an archangel, a figure of galvanic energy and uncertainty. Moving across the abandoned landscape near the flyover, the very perspectives of the air seemed to invert behind him. At times, when Xero approached the forlorn group sitting on the embankment, his shadows formed bizarre patterns on the concrete, transcripts of cryptic formulae and insoluble dreams. These ideograms, like the hieroglyphs of a race of blind seers, remained on the grey concrete after Xero had gone, the detritus of this terrifying psychic totem.

QUESTIONS, ALWAYS QUESTIONS. Karen Novotny watched him move around the apartment, dismanding the mirrors in the hall and bathroom. He stacked them on the table between the settees in the lounge. This strange man, and his obsessions with time, Jackie Kennedy, Oswald and Eniwetok. Who was he? Where had he come from? In the three days since she had found him on the motorway she had discovered only that he was a former H-bomber pilot, for some reason carrying World War III in his head. "What are you trying to build?" she asked. He assembled the mirrors into a box-like structure. He glanced up at her, face hidden by the peak of his Air Force cap. "A trap." She stood beside him as he knelt on the floor. "For what? Time?" He placed a hand between her knees and gripped her right thigh, handhold of reality. "For your womb, Karen. You've caught a star there." But he was thinking of Coma, waiting with Kline in the espresso bar, while Xero roamed the street in his white Pontiac. In Coma's eyes runes glowed.

THE IMPOSSIBLE ROOM. In the dim light he lay on the floor of the room. A perfect cube, its walls and ceiling were formed by what seemed to be a series of cinema screens. Projected on to them in close-up was the face of Nurse Nagamatzu, her mouth, three feet across, moving silently as she spoke in slow motion. Like a cloud, the giant head moved up the wall behind him, then passed across the ceiling and down the opposite corner. Later the inclined, pensive face of Dr. Lancaster appeared, rising up from the floor until it filled three walls and the ceiling, a slow mouthing monster.

BEACH FATIGUE. After climbing the concrete incline, he reached the top of the embankment. The flat, endless terrain stretched away on all sides, a few oil derricks in the distance marking the horizon. Among the spilled sand and burst cement bags lay old tyres and beer bottles, Guam in 1947. He wandered away from here, straddling roadworks and irrigation ditches, towards a rusting quonset near the incline of the disused flyover. Here, in this terminal hut, he began to piece together some sort of existence. Inside the hut he found a set of psychological tests, out of curiosity ran them on himself. Although he had no means of checking them, his answers seemed to establish an identity. He went off to forage, and came back to the hut with some documents and a coke bottle.

PONTIAC STARCHIEF. Two hundred yards from the hut a wheel-less Pontiac sits in the sand. The presence of this car baffles him. Often he spends hours sitting in it, trying out the front and back seats. All sorts of rubbish is lying in the sand: a typewriter with half the keys missing (he picks out fragmentary sentences, sometimes these seem to mean something), a smashed neurosurgical unit (he pockets a handful of leucotomes, useful for self-defence). Then he cuts his foot on the coke bottle, and spends several feverish days in the hut. Luckily he finds an incomplete isolation drill for trainee astronauts, half of an 80-hour sequence.

COMA: THE MILLION-YEAR GIRL. Coma's arrival coincides with his recovery from the bout of fever. She never enters the hut, but they team up in a left-handed way. To begin with she wants to spend all her time writing poems on the damaged typewriter. Later, when not writing the poems, she wanders away to an old solar energy device and loses herself in the maze of mirrors. Shortly afterwards Kline appears, and sits at a chair and table in the sand twenty yards from the hut. Xero, meanwhile, is moving among the oil derricks half a mile away, assembling immense cinemascope signs that carry the reclining images of Oswald, Jackie Kennedy, and Malcolm X.

PRE-UTERINE CLAIMS. "The author," Dr. Lancaster wrote, "has found that the patient forms a distinctive type of object relation based on a perpetual and irresistible desire to merge with the object in an undifferentiated mass. Although psychoanalysis cannot reach the primary archaic mechanism of 'rapprochement' it can deal with the neurotic superstructure, guiding the patient towards the choice of stable and worthwhile objects. In the case under consideration the previous career of the patient as a military pilot should be noted, and the unconscious role of thermonuclear weapons in bringing about the total fusion and non-differentiation of all matter. What the patient is reacting against is, simply, the phenomenology of the universe, the specific and independent existence of separate objects and events, however trivial and inoffensive these may seem. A spoon, for example, offends him by the mere fact of its existence in time and space. More than this, one could say that the precise, if largely random, configuration of atoms in the universe at any given moment, one never again to be repeated, seems to him to be preposterous by the virtue of its unique identity ..." Dr. Lancaster lowered his pen and looked down into the recreation garden. Traven was standing in the sunlight, raising and lowering his arms and legs in a private callisthenic display, which he repeated several times (presumably an attempt to render time and events meaningless by replication?).

"BUT ISN'T KENNEDY ALREADY DEAD?" Captain Webster studied the documents laid out on Dr. Lancaster's demonstration table. These were: (1) a spectroheliogram of the sun; (2) tarmac and take-off checks for the B29 Superfortress Enola Gay; (3) electroencephalogram of Albert Einstein; (4) transverse section through a Pre-Cam-brian Trilobite; (5) photograph taken at noon, August 6, 1945, of the sand-sea, Quattara Depression, Libya; (6) Max Ernst's "Garden Airplane Traps". He turned to Dr. Lancaster. "You say these constitute an assassination weapon?"

"NOT IN THE SENSE YOU MEAN." Dr. Lancaster covered the exhibits with a sheet. By chance the cabinets took up the contours of a corpse. "Not in the sense you mean. This is an attempt to bring about the 'false' death of the President—false in the sense of coexistent or alternate. The fact that an event has taken place is no proof of its valid occurrence." Dr. Lancaster went over to the window. Obviously he would have to begin the search singlehanded. Where to begin? No doubt Nurse Nagamatzu could be used as bait. That vamp had once worked as a taxi-dancer in the world's largest niehtclub in Osaka, appropriately named "The Universe". "

UNIDENTIFIED RADIO-SOURCE, CASSIOPEIA. Karen Novotny waited as he reversed the car onto the farm track. Half a mile across the meadows she could see the steel bowls of the three radio-telescopes in the sunlight. So the attempt was to be made here? There seemed to be nothing to kill except the sky. All week they had been chasing about, sitting for hours through the conference on neuro-psychiatry, visiting art galleries, even flying in a rented Rapide across the reservoirs of Staines and Shep-perton. Her eyes had ached from keeping a look-out. "They're four hundred feet high," he told her, "the last thing you need is a pair of binoculars." What had he been looking for—the radio-telescopes or the giant madonnas he muttered about as he lay asleep beside her at night. "Xero!" she heard him shout. With the agility of an acrobat he vaulted over the bonnet of the car, then set off at a run across the meadow. "Come on!" he shouted over his shoulder. Carrying the black Jackie Kennedy wig as carefully as she could in both hands, she hurried after him. One of the telescopes was moving, its dish turning towards them.

MADAME BUTTERFLY. Holding the wound under her left breast, Nurse Nagamatzu stepped across Webster's body and leaned against the bogie of the telescope pylon. Eighty feet above her the steel bowl had stopped revolving, and the echoes of the gun-shots reverberated among the lattice-work. Clearing her throat with an effort, she spat out the blood. The flecks of lung tissue speckled the bright ribbon of the rail. The bullet had broken two ribs, then collapsed her left lung and lodged itself below her scapula. As her eyes faded she caught a last glimpse of a white American car setting off across the tarmac apron beyond the control house, where the shells of the old bombers lay heaped together. The runways of the former airfield radiated from her in all directions. Dr. Lancaster was kneeling in the path of the car, intently building a sculpture of mirrors. She tried to pull the wig off her head, and then fell sideways across the rail.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS, EVEN. Pausing outside the entrance to the tea-terrace, Margaret Traven noticed the tall figure of Captain Webster watching her from the sculpture room. Du-champ's glass construction, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, reminded her of the ambiguous role she might have to play. This was chess in which every move was a counter-gambit. How could she help her husband, that tormented man, pursued by furies more implacable than the four riders, the very facts of time and space. She gave a start as Webster took her elbow. He turned to face her, looking into her eyes. "You need a drink. Let's sit down—I'll explain again why this is so important."

VENUS SMILES. The dead face of the President's widow looked up at him from the track. Confused by the Japanese cast of her features, with all their reminders of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he stared at the bowl of the telescope, searching through the steel lattice for the time-music of the quasars. Twenty yards away Dr. Lancaster was watching him in the sunlight, the sculpture beside him reflecting a dozen fragments of his head and arms. Kline and Coma were moving away along the railway track.

EINSTEIN. "The notion that this great Swiss mathematician is a pomographer may strike you as something of a bad joke," Dr. Lancaster remarked to Webster. "However, you must understand that for Traven science is the ultimate pornography, analytic activity whose main aim is to isolate objects or events from their contexts in time and space. This obsession with the specific activity of quantified functions is what science shares with pornography. How different from Lautreamont, who brought together the sewing machine and the umbrella on the operating table, identifying the pudenda of the carpet with the woof of the cadaver." Dr. Lancaster turned to Webster with a laugh. "One looks forward to the day when the General Theory of Relativity and the Principia will outsell the Kama Sutra in back-street bookshops."

RUNE-FILLED EYES. Now, in this concluding phase, the presence of his watching trinity, Coma, Kline and Xero, became ever closer. All three were more preoccupied than he remembered them. Kline seemed to avoid his eyes, turning one shoulder as he passed the cafe where Kline sat with Coma, evidently waiting for something. Only Coma, with her rune-filled eyes, watched him with any sympathy. It was as if they all sensed that something was missing. He remembered the documents he had found near the terminal hut.

IN A TECHNICAL SENSE. Webster's hand hesitated on Karen Novotny's zip. He listened to the last bars of the Mahler symphony playing from the radiogram extension in the warm bedroom. "The bomber crashed on landing," he explained. "Four members of the crew were killed. He was alive when they got him out, but at one point in the operating theatre his heart and vital functions failed. In a technical sense he was dead for about two minutes. Now, ail this time later, it looks as if something is missing, something that vanished during the short period of his death. Perhaps his soul, the capacity to achieve a state of grace. Lancaster would call it the ability to accept the phenomenology of the universe, or the fact of your own consciousness. This is Traven's hell. You can see he's trying to build bridges between things—this Kennedy business, for example. He wants to kill Kennedy again, but in a way that makes sense."

THE WATER WORLD. Margaret Traven moved through the darkness along the causeways between the reservoirs. Half a mile away the edge of the embankment formed a raised horizon, enclosing this world of tanks, water and pumping gear with an almost claustrophobic silence. The varying levels of water in the tanks seemed to let an extra dimension into the damp air. A hundred yards away, across two parallel settling beds, she saw her husband moving rapidly along one of the white-painted catwalks.

60                The Best SF Stories from New Worlds

He disappeared down a stairway. What was he looking for?

Was this watery world the site where he hoped to be

reborn, in this quantified womb with its dozens of amniotic

levels?

AN EXISTENTIAL YES. They were moving away from him. After his return to the terminal hut he noticed that Kline, Coma and Xero no longer approached him. Their fading figures, a quarter of a mile from the hut, wandered to and fro, half-hidden from him by the hollows and earthworks. The cinemascope hoardings of Jackie, Oswald and Malcolm X were beginning to break up in the wind. One morning he woke to find that they had gone.

THE TERMINAL ZONE. He lay on sand with the rusty bicycle wheel. Now and then he would cover some of the spokes with sand, neutralising the radial geometry. The rim interested him. Hidden behind a dune, the hut no longer seemed a part of his world. The sky remained constant, the warm air touching the shreds of test papers sticking up from the sand. He continued to examine the wheeL Nothing happened.

Nobody Axed You

JOHN BRUNNER's reputation is, if anything, larger in the United States (where he is more frequently published) than in this country. He was born in Oxfordshire, is 33, married, and lives in Hampstead. He is the author of works of general fiction and fact as well as nearly forty science fiction novels. He was the first recipient of the British Fantasy Award and his TV play, adapted from his story Some Lapse of Time, topped the viewers' ratings for the BBC series 'Out of the Unknown'. His best known books in this country are Telepathist and The Long Result. He is also the author of the CND marching song Don't You Hear the H-Bomb's Thunder.

I felt so detached and critical it was almost as though I were watching someone else chopping open Denise's head. That was a knack I'd acquired through long experience. Detached or not, though, I felt elated. This was good! This was the most wonderful thing I'd ever done!

I could feel the hot, sweat-slippery handle of the hatchet threatening to slip from my grasp as I swung it again and again. I could feel the slimy stickiness of blood on my hands. It sprayed all over my shirt and jacket and made the synfab stick to my chest. I could smell its sickly scent.

Fabulous!

She was dead, there could be no doubt. Probably the first swing of the hatchet would have been enough. But I had to make sure. Then the next step would be to dismember her and put her in the disposal tube before anyone came in—

"Gardner! Where the hell are you? Gardner! Say, have you seen Gene Gardner anywhere?"

I sighed and switched off the runback machine. The picture hesitated and froze at a frame showing me bending over Denise's body prior to taking off the legs. I remembered that was where I'd hesitated when actually recording

61

the scene, because the lab had done a magnificent job with

the dummy and those legs were so exactly like Denise's I'd

had a momentary qualm. But it hadn't spoiled the total

effect.

I put the lights up and got out of my seat—the middle one in the row. Blast Bossman Crane for interrupting! But when he shouted in that voice, making the whole building shake, it wasn't good to make him wait around.

I slid the door back in its grooves. There he was on the stairs, puffing and panting and glowering, his mock cigar jutting up at a warning angle. Behind him his two secretaries—as an affectation, he had identical twins, both blonde, both beautiful—hovered with recorders at the ready, while all about him the leisure-time shifters huddled against the wall and the balusters, trying to give him more room than there was.

"Looking for me, Mr. Crane?" I called.

"Might have guessed!" he barked. "Damn' narcissist!" He came charging up the steps, thrust past me into the runback room, and stopped as though a brake had been applied by remote control.

"And on your own, too!" he grunted. "On your own!" His tone was indictment and sentence combined.

"The hell!" I said, nettled. I pointed to a shrouded heap on the floor behind the seats.

"What's that?" Crane demanded. The heap moved irregularly, then seemed to become aware of the situation and froze.

"Couple of leisure-time shifters got married today," I explained. "Asked could they honeymoon in here under that cover. I said why not, provided they kept decently quiet."

"Well, the honeymoon's over," Crane snapped. "I want a talk with you in private. Get 'em out of here," he added to the nearer of his secretaries.

She exchanged a glance with her sister and they both blushed. As a matter of principle, of course, Crane's personal staff and most of the front people of the organisation at least pretended to be frigid; in the girls' case, it wasn't pretence. On the fiery red of their cheeks "the girls" F-symbols stood out vividly.

"Ah, hell!" Crane said, realising. He gave the honeymoon couple a prod with his toe. "Back to the stairs, you! And thank Mr. Gardner for letting you in here, why don't you?"

Sheepishly they emerged from under the cover, fastening zips and so on. The girl was rather pretty, I thought. I couldn't call her beautiful and mean it, though. Denise was so staggeringly lovely I was getting into the habit of reserving that category just for her.

The couple muttered obedient thanks and left. A ribald chorus of congratulations walled up outside before one of the secretaries could get to the door and slam it.

"Why in hell don't you make things more difficult for 'em, instead of easier?" Crane sighed. "Ah well—we all have our lapses, and a weakness for romance isn't cured in a day."

He dropped into the middle seat facing the screen, the good one where I'd been sitting, and jabbed his mock cigar towards the frozen picture.

"If I didn't know you better, Gene," he said, "I could hope you were running through that stinker to find out what was wrong with it. But I guess you were basking in your own brilliance, as usual."

I stared at him. It wasn't a joke—Crane had a special ponderous tone for jokes, like an elephant dancing.

"Stinker?" I echoed. "Now look here, Bossman—"

"Have you heard the DOA rating on that show yet?" he cut in.

I hesitated. I hadn't in fact; I had no reason to think it had fallen below standard, though. Did Crane's outburst mean there had been some catastrophic drop in the DOA's? I hadn't answered before he drew his mouth up in a sneer.

"Not worried about the figures any more, hey? Play back the rating for him, you two!"

The girls, their faces pale and calm as usual, the F-symbols barely discernible on their pinky skin, took station about five feet apart on either side of the screen—for stereo, of course—and at a nod from Crane switched their recorders on. The voice of Jud Logan, the DOA rating expert, rang out.

"This week the Gene Gardner Show-to-Kill-Time rated eight hundred sixty dead on arrival within forty-eight hours of airing. Weekly average since this time a year back: seven hundred twenty-one decimal four. This week's subject: axe murder."

The recorders clicked off. Relieved but still puzzled, I rounded on Crane. "What's wrong with that?" I demanded. "It's up on last week, it's over the year's average—it always is! Show me anyone who gets a better DOA every week on the week!"

He wasn't in a reasonable mood. He clamped the mock cigar back in his mouth. "You know how much the population of the city area went up in those same twelve months? Four hundred and eighty thousand! Have you been out and about recently? Have you tried to get about? Or have you been sitting admiring yourself in runback?"

"Admiring myself! That be damned, Bossman! You want I should take myself to Lancaster, maybe? His top DOA rating for any network show is ninety or a hundred below mine. Who dreams up these shows? Who keeps them ahead of the field week in, week out? I do! Doing better than anyone else in the business—that makes it a crime not to cure the problem single-handed?"

He wilted. I was glad. I had a recurrent nightmare in which he actually told me to go back to Harold Lancaster at our biggest rival network. He was still a better boss than Lancaster had ever been to me when I was serving my apprenticeship, before I rated star billing, let alone my own show. So, to keep him sweet, I dropped the pressure.

"Okay, points made on both sides. Of course the show isn't perfect. I hope it never will be, because improving it is what gives me the zest to keep it rolling forty-eight weeks in the year. But I'm always willing to listen to outside ideas, you know. Why don't you and I and the girls sit down and watch this one you called a stinker, clear through from the start, and see if we can brainstorm a few new slants?"

He sighed. "I've seen it four times already . . . But I guess I can stand another dose. Come where you can see, you two," he added to the secretaries.

I triggered the chair-arm switch and ran the recording back to the main title at the beginning.

"I'll keep the sound down," I said, "and I'll stop it occasionally to explain the thinking behind a particular episode, right? Now, is there anything you don't like about the main title? You see we have my name in white and the initial S of the title itself, and then the word TIME; everything else is in blood-red so it stands out—Show-To-Kill-TlMEr

One of the girls ventured, "Couldn't you hold the red lettering by itself after the white has faded, so there's no room for mistake?"

"It's an idea," I agreed. "I'll ask the psychologist on the script team. He may say that having HOW TO KILL on the screen by itself is overdoing it—but I'm always open to well-meant suggestions. After all, who has a bigger interest in the show's success than I have?"

The girls chuckled in unison. If it hadn't been for Denise, I'd have been very interested to find out how accurate their F-symbols were.

I went on commentating on the show, explaining how the dialogue was checked with word- and phrase-frequency lists published by a reliable research outfit, so I could be absolutely sure the same dialogue, word for word, might occur in daily life; how the settings were checked for authenticity by social workers; how the weapon selected— as always in these shows—was a common one, readily purchasable; how the killer, myself, was shown marking himself beyond doubt as he did the job, so that anyone could see him and turn him in to the law, thus ensuring that not only the victim but also the killer contributed to diminishing the total population.

Despite saying this one was a stinker, Crane couldn't fault it on a single point. I felt more flattered by his silence than by any DQA rating I'd ever picked up.

Towards the end I stopped the picture where it had been when Crane interrupted me. "You'll notice what a good job the props lab does on our dummies," I said. "Even the internal organs are exact—they have to be, naturally, because in many of the shows they're exposed to the cameras. I'm very proud that making these dummies gives full employment to no less than sixty people."

Crane and both girls nodded approval. Neither they nor I had to worry about adequate work, but it was impossible to avoid a stir of sympathy for those who did.

"Mr. Gardner," said the girl who hadn't made the suggestion about the titles, "we notice you always use Miss Denise Delarose in your shows, and she's generally the victim. Wouldn't it be a good idea to change the victim sometimes?"

I gave her a sharp look. The suggestion wasn't a serious one, for sure; I put it down to wanting to say something after her sister had done so, and to plain ordinary jealousy. Put these two, attractive as they were, in the same room with Denise, and they practically disappeared from sight.

"We do 'change the victim'," I pointed out curtly. "In one show out of every four there's a multiple killing, and also in one show out of four the victim is a man. I've even played the victim's role myself on occasion, though not for some months because it had a poor effect on the DOA rating. People apparently couldn't take the killing seriously if they saw the star of the show die. Besides, there's a psychological reason for making the victim a beautiful woman. The more attractive she is, thfe more likely she is to—uh—" I saw them begin to blush and fidget, sighed, and settled on the polite circumlocution. "The more likely she is to increase the population," I said. "So we stress pretty women as potential victims."

I glanced at Crane, and my heart sank. He really was in a hole-picking mood! He was going to take what the girl had said as though it were a sensible comment.

"How many times has Denise played the victim in the past few months?" he rapped.

I couldn't hedge on that. "Twelve times in the past six months, not counting multiple killings which included her."

"Harrumph! If people can't take the killing seriously when the star gets killed, how can they take it seriously when the same victim crops up all the time?"

"Well, for one thing Denise is a magnificent actress! And we take pains to ensure that every role is as different as can be from the one before it."

"Fair enough.But how different from the role before that, Gene?"

I was sweating now. "Well, we can't have too great a diversity, you know. We're always aiming at a maximal number of potential identifications, so we have to select roles from the high-density social strata and the most over-populated classification groups."

Crane grunted. "I've heard all that before," he said obstinately. "The point's still valid. Suppose you—"

I saw I was going to have to dig my heels in.

"No supposing!" I said bluntly. "The show wouldn't have got where it is if we'd 'supposed', and fired blind. I say stick to facts. And facts are that the rating is higher these past six months, since Denise has been playing opposite me, than it's ever been before. Facts are that Denise and I inspire one another—working with her, I really live the part. Look!"

I gestured at the screen and tripped the switch on the seat-arm. "Did you notice that check in my movements? A pang of remorse! A moment of hesitation as the killer realises what he's done! Is that or is it not true to life?"

Glancing at the girl who had started the argument, I saw she wasn't willing to be convinced. Some people—mostly attractive women—don't believe attractive women can act. Denise was an exception. I set out to ram the fact home.

After a quarter hour's hard selling, I'd tried every angle of attack I could think of, and I hadn't made out. Well, I'd just have to figure out more to use tomorrow.

Of course, I could always go back to Lancaster and take the show with me ... If it meant keeping Denise, I could force myself to do it.

One of the girls interrupted discreetly to remind Crane of an appointment due in a few minutes. Shrugging, he got up.

"Leave it as it is for the moment, Gene," he said. "Believe me, I'm not quarrelling with your ability or your rating. I'm just looking for ways to jack that rating up still further—past the thousand, maybe!"

Yes, it would be quite something to have the first show to hit the magic number. I gave a wan smile.

"I appreciate that, Bossman. Still, we've come a long way already from our first rating—remember?"

He remembered, all right. Forty-two! In fact, after that first show there was talk about cancelling the series immediately. But Crane had faith in me, and I had to admit I owed him a lot for that. The first show was a poisoning, and the choice of that method was a mistake. The second was a straight-forward stabbing with a butcher knife^ and within forty-eight hours the rating was a hundred per cent up on the first week: eighty-five butcher knife victims DOA in the city area. And the third week we toppled the hundred and never looked back.

But I still swore it had taken Denise's arrival in the show to put it right ahead of the competition.

On the point of leaving, Crane paused and turned. "Gene!" he called. "What's the theme for the next show?"

Spreading my hands, I grinned. "I'll sweat it out by first rehearsal tomorrow," I said. "You know how I work."

"I'd like it ahead of time," he said. "I have a policy conference tomorrow at ten. The sponsors' group want to put your show on the agenda. I don't know why, and I was going to object, but instead of that let's have you sitting in on the discussion, okay?"

All I could do was look delighted.

Only a few of the things which I'd got out of the success of the show meant anything to me in themselves—except getting Denise, which meant everything. The car was one of the few. I really appreciated not having to fight for subway places or room on a bus any more. Although I'd had it nearly a year now, I still had to stop and admire it for a moment every time before I got in. Long—at least ten feet—roomy, with plenty of space for four adults, it was barely smaller than the Bossman's own, and one of only a few thousand similar models in the city. Of course, it was attention-getting, and that had its drawbacks.

Like this evening. I collected my regular passengers from the transport co-ordination depot—two young men who worked in the public relations section and lived a short distance beyond my home—drove out of the building and hooked on the end of a chain going to the intersection of Plane and Fifteenth.

"Picking up Denise!" I explained to the passengers. They didn't raise any objection—the detour would only take an hour or so, and after all it was my car, not theirs.

At first we got along quite quickly, the speedo hitting as high as 12 m.p.h. Then at the usual jam around Plane and Tenth we slowed to a crawl. On the packed sidewalk someone noticed that the seat beside me was empty. He came over and rapped on the window. Of course, I couldn't hear what he said, the car being soundproof, but other people could—other loafers idling around on the sidewalk. Within a few seconds a fair crowd had gathered: nine hundred to a thousand, I judged.

I could tell from their contorted faces that they were being worked up to a fever pitch by the man who had started the trouble. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that my passengers' lips were moving nervously.

There was no real call to worry, I was sure. Once the crowd began to interfere with traffic, the police would show in seconds. Which they did. A few bursts from an automatic weapon put the pedestrians back where they belonged, apart from about half a dozen who got trampled in the rush, and the original troublemaker who stood his ground obstinately, yelling at the police and pointing at me.

I rolled down the window as an officer approached. He recognised me, naturally, and as soon as I'd explained that the seat was empty because I was picking up Denise, he

apologised, shot the troublemaker and got back aboard his

copter.

So in spite of the fuss I was only a few minutes late at my rendezvous with Denise. I had no idea where she'd been all day—shopping, perhaps; she could afford to shop occasionally now, and I wasn't going to rest till she could do it at least once a week.

If she had been shopping, she'd found a bargain, that was for sure. Her eyes were sparkling, and the way she kissed me on getting in the car told me she was on top of the world. In fact we'd rolled a dozen blocks before I realised we ought to have hooked on somewhere else by now and turned towards home.

Laughing, I made her hold back the big news till I'd sorted the problem out, and then gave her my best camera smile.

"What's with you?" I demanded. "I haven't seen you in such a state since we got married!"

"Then that's your fault," she teased me. "And so's this, so we're even. Isn't it wonderful? The clinic says definitely yes!"

"What?" I said, and felt as though I'd suddenly gone hollow clear through.

"They say yes! And it's sixty-forty in favour of a boy. It's too early to be sure, but—"

"A what?" I said.'

"A boy—a son! Gene, I'm so happy! Direcdy I was finished at the clinic I went right next door to the maternity guidance room and got all their literature—look, I have it here, marvellously comprehensive—and some books and some educational tapes. I put one straight in the recorder, just as a treat for myself. Listen! Can't you imagine how wonderful it's going to be hearing Gene Junior lisp through his first nursery rhymes?"

She held up her recorder and pressed the on switch before I could stop her. A silly patronising female voice filled our half of the car with a graceless song:

Nobody Axed You                                        71

"What is the F on your cheek, pretty maid, My pretty maid, my pretty maid? The F stands for frigid, sir she said, Sir she said, sir she said, The F stands for fri-i-gid, sir she said!"

I made to switch the nonsense off, but she put the recorder out of my reach, and remembering the passengers in the rear seat could see us even if they couldn't hear us I didn't try to grab. I sat there, fuming, while the second verse played to its end.

"Then I can't marry you, my pretty maid,

My pretty maid, my pretty maid.

Nobody axed you, sir she said,

Sir she said, sir she said,

CHOP cherry CHOP Cherry CHOP! CHOP!

CHOP!"

"I liked that one specially," Denise said brightly, turning off the recorder. "It reminded me of last week's show."

I took a deep breath. "Are you out of your mind?" I said.

"Gene!"

"You must be!" In the time the tape had taken to play, I'd had the chance to get boiling mad. Now I blew off. "What in hell do you think it's going to do to the show's DOA rating if it gets around that the stars are increasing the population? Hey? Do you know what I've been doing all afternoon? I've been fighting an attempt by Bossman Crane to squeeze you out of your regular spot in the show! 1 thought I was on the way to winning, and you come along and tell me this and expect me to grin and bear it! Hell, do you think you'll be able to hide the state you'll be in a few months from now? And even if you could, what's the point of trying if you've been stupid enough to go to a clinic instead of finding out the name of a reliable and discreet MD? Those places are hotbeds of gossip, and it'll take a week to kill the rumours that have started already, I'm damned certain of that—Denise!" I switched to a pleading note. "Denise, are you completely insane?"

She was staring at me frozen-faced. I recognised her unjustly-accused expression; it figured two shows out of four on a fair average.

"Gene, you're the one that's crazy—either that or so unnatural I don't believe it. A man who hears he's due to be a father is supposed to be pleased, not—"

"Suppose!" I raged. "I spent the afternoon telling Crane not to suppose things! Now you're doing it! Four hundred eighty thousand the population's gone up lately in this city alone—God knows what the figure is for the whole country. And here we are priding ourselves on a DOA rating that's doing something to stop the rot, and you let yourself get pregnant!" I buried my head in my hands. "Doesn't the show mean anything to you? Don't you care about the purpose it serves?"

"The show's fiction," she countered, but a quaver in her voice indicated I'd made a dent in her abnormal mood. I hurried to make it a crack.

"Fiction! Why, only a few minutes back a sidewalk loafer practically started a riot because that seat where you're sitting was empty and he was on foot. The police had to turn out and half a dozen people got trampled. Fiction? Fiction hell! The show exists for a purpose—it's one of the things helping to make the world a fit place again. I believe in that show and the good it does; if I didn't, I couldn't have built it and you up to the top rating it has now. It's a hell of a sight more than just fiction, hear me?"

She turned in her seat and stared through the windshield at the train of cars ahead. I'd seen this look of withdrawal before too—on dozens of shows. That didn't stop me being hurt by it. I had a moment of mental struggle. Then I put my hand on hers, finding it curiously limp and cold.

"I'm sorry, darling," I said. "I blew my top."

She didn't give any sign that she heard me. I went on, "Look, if you think it over you'll come to see I'm right. We can get things fixed, and I'll see that the news is publicised enough to kill any rumours that got started this afternoon, and—Tell you what! How long would this damned thing have taken to arrive? Nine months, isn't it?"

Her pale lips barely moved. "Eight, now," she whispered.

"It's a good long time! By then, believe it or not, at the rate things are developing we should pass the thousand mark. A thousand DOA's out of one show—isn't it wonderful? I'll milk the sponsors of a bonus for that, and we'll have the most terrific celebration, and you'll be able to forget that I ever made you unhappy. I really am sorry, darling. But you gave me a terrible shock, you know. You made me very afraid and miserable for a moment there."

I'd assumed it was just a mood. Denise got these fits of the blues sometimes, when the apartment got her down because after all it wasn't as big as it could have been, or when too many people recognised her on the street and she had to be rescued before she was mobbed. Me, I was adjusted to that—the more often I was recognised, the better for my morale.

Only . . . this was pretty long-lasting, for a blue mood. And she'd picked a hell of an evening to stage it, too. First rehearsal due tomorrow at fifteen hours, and by then I had to have the plot of the week's show cut and dried so we could script and select props and get the scenery into production ready for recording next day. I couldn't turn on my creative faculties with Denise mooning about the way she was, and I'd got to. Absolutely got to. If I didn't show with a dilly of an idea when the policy conference met at ten, I wouldn't be able to scotch this notion of replacing Denise. (Though I wasn't as fierce about the proposal as 1 had been earlier.)

I tried changing the subject. I tried appealing to her in so many words to come off her high horse. I tried putting suggestions for the show to her for her opinion. She just went on moping.

At twenty-one hours I gave up, dropped into my viewing in the middle of the apartment, and tried to cajole her into sitting on my knee to watch the competition's best-rated show the way we usually did together. She wasn't having that either. She pulled a face and sat down on the divan behind me.

So the hell with it. I wasn't going to pass up the rival show to accommodate her tantrums. I switched on, just in time to catch the intro music and the titles.

Lancaster's big DOA show was quite different from mine. It relied on guest stars, which I'd always said was wrong. How could you expect the viewers to identify if they saw people on their wall-to-walls they'd seen already in scores of widely differing roles? Nonetheless, the Lancaster team sometimes came up with a good idea, and to add to my depression tonight was one of their better nights.

The main character was a janitor living in what used to be the elevator car of a big apartment building. He was presented as a socially well adjusted type. One of the fifty-odd people living on the twelfth floor was a pretty girl he'd fallen for. But because he was afraid he might lose control of himself if he struck up an acquaintance with her, and maybe get her in private and run the risk of increasing the already unbearable population-density in the block, he'd never even spoken to her.

Then a heel living on the floor below this girl started to hang around her, and the janitor was appalled to find that she—whom he'd pictured to himself as decently frigid— was letting him make time with her. He brooded and kept watch till he was sure beyond doubt. Then, heavy-hearted, he went into action.

On the landing at the foot of the stairway between the twelfth floor, where the girl lived, and the eleventh, where the heel lived, was a man-high window coming almost to the floor, which used to give on the fire escape before it was taken away under the municipal ordinance a few years back. He freed the catch on this window and oiled the hinges so it swung easily. Then he got some grease and smeared it all over the stairs.

The gimmick, naturally, was that when the heel came back to his own floor after being with the girl, he'd slip and go straight out the window to smash on the sidewalk eleven floors below. Ingenious. And the shots of the stairway were very atmospheric.

Then there was a good comic sequence as the janitor waited to see his rival come out—only just about everyone else on the twelfth floor beat him to it: a gang of kids, then a fat woman with a huge ration-bag indicating a big family, then a couple of men a few moments apart. And the way the camera caught the look on the janitor's face as he patiently pulled the window to after each failure and slopped more grease on the stairs was as fine a job as I'd seen in years.

My envy began to get lost in honest professional admiration round about the fourth time an unwanted victim skidded on the stairs and went looping out the window. This was very well done, except for the music, which seemed incongruous—

The music?

I snapped around in my viewing chair. Sure enough, the music didn't belong with the show at all. Denise was playing that damned tape again, the one I'd heard in the car:

"Nobody axed you, sir she said,

CHOP cherry CHOP cherry CHOP! CHOP!

CHOP!

"Denise!" I said politely. "I'm viewing—please turn that off."

She paid no attention. I sighed, got up, and took the recorder from her limp grasp. I dropped the tape cassette in the waste disposal tube, patted her cheek, and returned to my chair just in time to catch the climax. The girl and the heel emerged from the girl's room together, arms around each other, smiling, and duly lost their footing on the greasy stairs. Together they went diving through the window, the heel revealing his true nature as he tried to save himself at the girl's expense. Cut to the janitor's

ludicrous expression as he realised his plan had worked too

well.

So that left him to get his comeuppance. It came as he leaned out to pull the window closed; he leaned too far, over-balanced—and over a last shot of the swinging window the credits came up.

I bit my Up. The only flaw in the whole thing was that a careless viewer might have taken the janitor's demise as voluntary, and suicide was against the production code. It wasn't enough of a fault to signify. The beautifully generalised setting was bound to ensure a surge of people breaking their necks on greased stairways in the next couple of days, and that meant a big boost to the Lancaster show's DOA rating.

Damn them! I'd been struggling to work out a show involving a janitor for months, and the best I'd been able to do called for arson, which was out of the question. If a fire broke out spontaneously, it was acceptable to take advantage of it—by not having fire escapes, for example. But Uving accommodation was far too scarce for me to be able to build a show around a deliberately started fire.

I turned to Denise. "Were you watching, honey?" I inquired. "You see the kind of talent we're up against, and why we dare not let anything happen which would harm the show!"

She didn't answer. She didn't say anything else ah evening.

My head felt apt to crack open next morning. I was in a hell of a state when I arrived early at the studios. The way Denise was behaving had prevented me from concentrating at all, and yet somehow I had to dream up a better situation than the one Lancaster had used last night—by ten o'clock, when the policy conference met.

More than once when 1 was blocked I'd found inspiration in going through the prop labs and storerooms. Starved of any other idea, that was where I went.

I was usually on good terms with the sixty technicians in the lab who weekly turned out the dummies for the show— so incredibly lifelike they could do everything bar walk and talk. But this morning, directly I came into the lab, I felt veiled hostility in the air. No: not so much hostility as a lack of the ordinary respect. Something in that man's smile, which could have been a sneer if it were more pronounced. And instead of a big smile and a cheery greeting from the girl who styled the dummies' hair, a mere nod.

I told myself I was on edge, and my feeling was illusive. It wasn't till I'd reached the stockroom and met the props chief, Al Bazeley, that I discovered it wasn't just my imagination.

On catching sight of me, his long face lit with an expression I couldn't make out. Almost, he looked relieved to see me. He didn't say why, though; his only words were, "Morning, Gene. What can we do for you this early in the day?"

"Looking for an idea, as usual," I answered. "I'd like to go through the weapons section."

He nodded and fell in beside me in silence as I ambled among the racks in the stockroom. Most of the racks here held weapons—cutlasses, rapiers, knives of every kind, guns from muskets to hunting rifles to pistols to submachine guns. There were cases with bottles of poison, surgical instruments, scissors, shears, models of agricultural implements—in short, everything deadly from cars to cyanide.

There were little labels on most of the items, in half a dozen colours. Blue indicated that we'd used them in the show already. Red, and the remaining colours, indicated that such items had been used by Lancaster and other competing networks. I was depressed to see how many Lancaster-red labels there were.

I stopped in front of a rack on which lay a sleek, deadly-looking firearm I didn't recognise.

"New acquisition, Al?" I demanded.

He came back from a preoccupied trance and lifted the gun from its rack, nodding. He handed it to me so I could feel how snugly it fitted the user's grip.

"Pretty rare weapon, that," he said with pride. "Forty-shot carbine. I heard of its existence a year ago, but I only got hold of it last week. That's the magazine alongside the stock, see? And the single-to-rapid control is here where you can touch it with your trigger-finger. Notice how light and easy it snicks over? The whole thing's in impeccable condition."

It was certainly a keen weapon. "You have shells?" I asked.

"Case of a hundred twenty that came with the gun— three full loadings. Say, Gene, this is a hell of a thing to have to ask a friend, but—"

A sort of icy block formed around my heart. I knew what was coming even before I'd said heartily, "Go ahead, Al! Ask me anything you like. You know I don't offend easily."

"Well—there's a peculiar rumour going around about Denise." He swallowed and cocked his head on one side.

"Such as?" I encouraged. Damn the scandalmongers at the clinic! Whatever happened to so-called medical ethics?

"People are saying she's—uh—due to add to the population. She and you, naturally."

"Oh, that!" I said scornfully. "Migawd, Al, I wish our DO A rating would grow as fast as rumours do! Like all rumours, this one's built on a grain of truth, granted;—but accidents can happen to anybody."

"Accident?" echoed Al doubtfully.

"Pure accident," I emphasised. "And of course there are ways to fix such accidents, which we'll be doing forthwith. Neither of us is crazy enough to jeopardise the show."

Unexpectedly, he put out his hand. "I sure am glad to hear you say that, Gene!" he exclaimed. "Look, in absolute confidence, I've had the same kind of trouble. My wife's been arguing with me all the past month because I want her to fix another—uh—accident. Look, she's a tremendous admirer of yours. Would you let me tell her what you've just told me? Then I'm sure I'll be able to persuade her."

I didn't fancy letting the word get about till I'd had an okay from public relations on the phrasing of it. Still, Al was an old friend ... I nodded permission. "I guess it's in the public interest," I said.

At ten I had to go to the policy conference, and I still hadn't had an inspiration for the week's show. I sweated all the way to the conference room, wondering about hit-and-run drivers, people starting riots in which others got trampled,, and a score of themes beside—all perfectly acceptable but far too expensive. It took twelve hours to get a camera crew to and from a location outside the city and far enough distant to ensure that lens mugs didn't ruin the effect, so I was limited to two location shows per year. No, it had to be a studio job.

Oh, I was definitely in for a bad time.

Big as the room was, it was crowded, and I sat knee to knee with Crane on his side of the table. Behind him were his two secretaries, identical smug smiles on their faces. I gave them a dirty look as I entered, for the sake of whichever of them had suggested ousting Denise.

I was sure Crane had seen the Lancaster show last night. I knew from the glower he maintained unbroken.

Across the table the expressions .weren't dirty; they were just tough. On the left was the sponsors' group spokesman, Mabery of Monopoly Manufacturers Inc. Next to him was Jackson Weems, representing the government and the Commission on Communications. And at the right, stony-faced, wearing the black robes of the Order of Spiritual Sanctimony, was Brother Louis Gravamen, adviser on morality for the network. Much to my astonishment, he gave me a stony smile and a nod as I sat down. He wasn't in the habit of doing that very often.

Each of these three also had a secretary with him. As Crane cleared his throat to begin the meeting, five clicks indicated the switching on of recorders.

Crane explained why I'd been invited to sit in and asked if there were objections to my being present throughout the part of the agenda which wasn't concerned with my show. I hoped there would be, to give me another thinking-space. But nobody minded, so we went ahead.

Minor problems took up the first half-hour. Brother Louis had viewer complaints on moral grounds about a commercial for one of Mabery's products, and a suitable modification was agreed. Then Weems raised the problem of leisure-time shifters and broached a scheme to provide government-assisted viewing centres for people who couldn't get home owing to transport difficulties; naturally Maybery—whose company made home wall-to-walls, among all its other products—objected.

Schemes like this were always coming up, and people like Mabery were always saying it wasn't a question of improved viewing facilities, it was a matter of better transporation, and people like Weems were always taking this as an insult, and the inevitable result was deadlock. It was deadlock now. I let my mind wander until they got on to news coverage.

Then I pricked my ears up. It was just possible a topical theme might present itself.

Weems had an axe to grind on this subject and soon he was blasting at Mabery for all he was worth. There had been a promising outbreak of virus plague a few weeks before, which I remembered hearing about.

"And what happened?" barked Weems. "The news bulletins were crammed with pictures of pitiable fever-ridden children instead of hopeful-looking census officers! As a direct result—I tell you, a direct result—before the casualty list had even hit ten thousand one of your drug companies was marketing a specific. Where are we now? Back where we started! It hasn't taken a single life for more than ten days!"

Mabery looked uncomfortable. He didn't answer the attack directly, but appealed to Brother Louis.

"Isn't it a moral duty to fulfil a need when it arises? We had the drug and there was a demand for it—were we wrong to meet the demand?"

Brother Louis shrugged. "The question is the knotty one of ends and means," he said oracularly.

(Should the next show concern someone deliberately spreading an infectious disease? Out of the question: Lancaster would be able to challenge every single DOA credited to us.)

Mabery flared up—it was easy in the crowded room, for the temperature was rising to an uncomfortable level.

"Ends and means! Thunder, Brother Louis, if all you want is a means, you know as well as I do that we've had it for years!"

Unexpectedly, Weems supported him. "We could create an unstoppable disease tomorrow, for example, if it wasn't for mealy-mouthed opposition from people who are too selfish to make their own contribution to the general good."

After my row with Denise last night, I reflected, I certainly couldn't be accused for lack of personal involvement.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Mabery snapped. "As Brother Louis very well knows! I'm talking about steriline, which we've had for a decade, and which we aren't allowed to advertise. That's the means we need, and it's a hell of a sight more infallible than any of your stiff-necked, unctuous—"

Red rag to a bull. I winced, and wished that someone had objected to my staying for the whole conference. Now we could be sure of a long lecture from Brother Louis on our bounden duty to provide people to carry their appointed crosses.

We got it, pouring forth as hot as steel from a newly-tapped furnace. According to Brother Louis, the use of drugs like steriline was morally no better than reducing the population with nuclear bombs. Even Mabery began to quiver after a while. I was a customer for steriline, of course, and had been since marrying Denise, and I felt strongly opposed to all that Brother Louis was saying, but if I'd been a practising member of any Order I'd have been on my knees crying before Brother Louis finished.

He resumed his place with the air of one who has spoken fearlessly for the right, and there was an uncomfortable silence.

"I think," Crane ventured, "that we might leave this—■

uh—delicate topic and proceed with the agenda . . . ?"

A vigorous nod from Weems, a nod and scowl from Mabery, a lordly gesture of permission from Brother Louis. Their eyes turned simultaneously on me.

(Matter of interest: if Mabery was now making claims that steriline was infallible, then how—?)

But Crane was charging ahead. "The sponsors' group has asked for a discussion of Mr. Gene Gardner's show today. Ah . . ."

"We support the request," Weems spoke up. "Although the shows of which Mr. Gardner's is an example perform a valuable public service, we're anxious to see their contribution increase in ratio with the gravity of the problem, and at present this is not the case. Since Mr. Gardner's show is the outstanding one of its kind, we feel it's a good place to begin our inquiry."

That sounded ominous. I gave Weems a sunny smile.

"Our interest is parallel," Mabery said. "We view with alarm the fact that Lancaster's top show, though still getting a lower DOA rating, is actually increasing its rating more rapidly than ours, and will probably overtake us in another few months."

The smile I gave him was much less sunny.

"We're fully aware of this problem," Crane declared hastily. "In fact, Mr. Gardner and I spent a long time yesterday afternoon discussing that very point."

"And did you come up with any fresh ideas?" Mabery said.

"Well, we considered—" Crane leaned back in his chair so that one of the twin secretaries could whisper in his ear, and went on. "We considered some extra punch in the main titles, and—"

"Hah!" Mabery exclaimed. "That's no good! I was watching Lancaster's show last night and was tremendously impressed. It had everything the Gardner shows used to have—freshness, originality, light relief, superb atmosphere. Frankly, it's my belief that after Gardner's meteoric rise he's now letting his curve flatten out."

"There hasn't been any sign of that!" I snapped.

"There has," Mabery contradicted. "Our surveys of viewer reaction show that there's a growing lack of identification due to the recurrent appearances—"

"I know what you're going to say," Crane cut in eagerly. Blast him for a bootlicking bastard! "The too frequent appearances of Denise Delarose as the victim. I made this very point to Gene yesterday."

They looked at me. I was tempted to say what was really in my mind—that if anyone attempted to squeeze my favourite partner from the show I'd go to Lancaster and take the show with me. Fortunately I hesitated long enough for Brother Louis to stir and give me a look by his standards almost benign.

"As it happens, I too saw the Lancaster show last night," he said. "And I can't share your enthusiasm entirely. Granted, the self-control exercised by the main character was admirable, but the conclusion undermined the impact. One was left in two minds as to whether the janitor's demise might not have been voluntary, and suicide is against the code. This is a fault I've never observed in any show of Mr. Gardner's."

So that was why he'd smiled when I came in. I looked properly appreciative of his support.

"True enough," Mabery conceded. "But it's not the past I'm concerned with. I want to know the future plans for the show. I want to know how Gardner proposes to stay ahead of the Lancaster show."

Now I was really on the spot. I wouldn't dare generalise. I was going to have to be precise and optimistic and all the other things I didn't feel. I licked my lips and hesitated, and then, as though someone had tripped a switch in my brain, the inspiration came. Words lined up on my tongue ready to be spoken.

I hid my relief with a grin.

"Both you gentlemen," I addressed Mabery and Weems, "want to see my DOA rating rise. So do I. What's the crucial factor on which the rating depends? It's viewer identification, obviously. Right?"

"Up to now we've needed to concentrate on expanding our audience. In other words, we've ensured good ratings by ensuring that we had a large number of viewers. We've achieved this by making our settings and characters as typical and as average as we can. The highest density of population in a given social stratum, the most overfilled classification groups—these have been our starting-points.

"Now the time is ripe to switch the emphasis. We have our assured audience, our millions of viewers who won't miss the show if they can avoid it. From here on, we have to emphasise the universality of our situations rather than of our characters. And we'll combine this with an appeal to the audience's aspirations.

"Let's take the show we're going to rehearse today and record tomorrow. My role is that of a socially adjusted man, more prosperous than the average, fortunate enough to have an apartment for himself and his wife, who sublimates his baser instincts by collecting firearms. You'll see this is psychologically consistent, of course. Likewise it's got assured public appeal, combining the social virtues with the lure of luxury. How many people don't cherish a secret wish that they could indulge a hobby such as collecting guns?

"But his wife—a role which will of course be taken by Denise Delarose because it's been created with her in mind—uses all her powers of seduction to break down his self-control, and succeeds, with the appalling result that she becomes pregnant."

I glanced at Brother Louis. His eyes were gleaming. "The eternal theme!" he exclaimed. "Woman as the vessel of evil! Mr. Gardner, your inspiration amazes me."

"Is this man to suffer the rest of his life because he once yielded to temptation? That seems too harsh a fate. Yet the situation develops so that this consequence seems inevitable. At last, in unutterable despair, he does the only possible thing and ends his wife's life before surrendering with a confession on his lips to the forces of law and order.

"And here's the angle which will put us way ahead of the Lancaster show. We're through with people just like us. We're building from now on around people who are the way we'd like to be if we were rich enough and lucky enough—and still we're putting them in predicaments which could happen to anyone."

"Gene, it's the greatest," Crane said with honest admiration, and I saw from the expressions on the faces across the table that I'd impressed the others too. It cost me all my will-power to stop myself wiping the sweat from my face and betraying how I felt.

When Denise came to the studios—pale, walking as if in a dream—half an hour before rehearsal time that afternoon, I broke off my discussion with Al Bazeley about the weapons collection we were going to give the killer in the show, and dashed over to throw my arms around her.

"Darling! Everything's wonderful! Thanks to you I've had the most fabulous idea for this week's show—it's going to be the start of a whole new approach, and there won't be any more talk about taking you out of the show, believe me!"

She pushed me away without force. "I wouldn't have minded," she said. "If it was going to help."

I put my arm around her waist and led her unresisting over to Al. "Silly!" I teased. "I'd have minded, and I'm sure the viewers would have minded too. Al! Show Denise the carbine we're going to use!"

Al grinned and went to fetch the gun.

"I'm even glad you had that blue mood yesterday," I enthused to Denise. "It certainly paid off. Listen, what do you think of this?"

I oudined the story. When Al brought the gun, I even began to improvise movements and dialogue, so that the idea took definite shape ahead of rehearsal time.

The one thing wrong was Denise's reaction. I'd expected her to feel the theme the way I did—on a personal level. But all she said was, "Very good, Gene. It'll be a big success."

Al drew me aside, looking worried. "Gene, is something wrong?" he whispered.

"A bit of artistic temperament is all," I bluffed. "By the time we've been through the motions, she'll catch fire like everyone else. I'm sure this one's going to be terrific all round."

Then the costumes and hairstyle people came into the rehearsal studio, and the script team with their files of word- and phrase-frequencies, and the cameramen I always used, Hank and Sammy. It was time to get down to business.

While we were discussing the shape of the story, the lab team came up as usual with the dummy and set it in a chair next to Denise so that it too could be coiffed and costumed. Much sooner than usual things were ready for a run-through. I choked off a flow of compliments from the script team's psychologist about the choice of gun-collecting as a hobby for my killer, and turned to call Denise.

And stopped, shocked beyond measure. Because for a second I genuinely could not tell which was Denise and which was the dummy in those two identical chairs.

Then of course I realised: Denise was wearing the outfit I'd seen her arrive in, and the dummy was in a studio dress. The shock passed, but it left a mark.

I'd been wrong to assume that once she got into the swing of things Denise would turn in her usual fine performance. She was so lifeless it killed the enthusiasm I'd built up among the crew. After five abortive shots at the opening "established" scenes, I was fuming behind a calm face.

"Take five!" I shouted to the crew, and closed my hand on Denise's wrist to draw her out of sight behind some sets which had been used for another rehearsal earlier in the day.

"Denise!" I hissed. "What's eating you? I might as well be playing opposite one of the lab dummies! Come to life, will you? Damn it, this theme is straight out of your own experience!"

A spark of anger showed. Good: I was breaking through. "Then use a dummy!" she snapped. "What's the difference?"

"I certainly can't see any in what you've done so far today!" I retorted. "All right, let's try again—and this time for pity's sake try and show you mean it!"

It went a little better from then on. We worked out as far as the point where the idea of seduction crossed the wife's mind. I was going to have my back to her, studying the forty-shot carbine which was the pride and joy of my firearms collection. Suddenly I heard her humming a tune— the same damned tune!

"Nobody axed you, sir she said—"

I spun around. "Denise!" I exploded.

She met my gaze with all the innocence in the world. "But isn't that a good idea?" she said. "After all, I'm supposed to be thinking wicked thoughts about getting myself pregnant—isn't a nursery rhyme appropriate?"

"I think it's an excellent touch, Miss Delarose," called the psychologist on the script team, and his colleagues gave approving nods. I smiled at Denise.

"Good to see you back on form!" I exclaimed.

The full rehearsal next morning was done under the cameras exactly as the final recording would be done in the afternoon. Denise seemed quite her usual self. I joked with her, pointing to the dummy in its chair at the side of the studio, and told her about my shock of the previous afternoon.

A teasing smile came to her beautiful lips. "If you're my husband and you can't tell me from a dummy, who else could?" she demanded.

"I can certainly tell you apart in private," I answered, and tried to kiss her.

She held me off. "You're supposed to be playing a socially responsible person, remember?"

I grinned and gave in.

We usually shot these shows with two cameras, one trucking and one on a blimp. There was a master screen over the goldfish bowl which showed whatever was on camera at the moment. Hank was with the blimp as usual.

I took every chance I got when I was out of shot to glance at the master screen and imagine how it would look.

It was promising. Denise seemed to have lost her bad mood completely, and by the time we were up to the point of the actual killing she was heart and soul in her part. Some of the looks of hatred she shot at me were so violent they almost made me stumble in my lines.

By recording time the show was close to perfection. The dummy waited in its chair, with the lab team making adjustments all the time so when the climax arrived and I shot Denise down with the carbine nobody could possibly tell there had been a switch. We finalised the sequence of shots with Hank and Sammy, and broke for lunch.

All through the meal I kept congratulating Denise over and over, for giving me the idea, for recovering from her depression, for turning in such a natural performance. She listened absentiy; I took it she was preoccupied with thoughts about the show.

When we came back from the canteen, Al Bazeley was waiting in the studio. With him was a small woman, rather plain, with a round face and a nervous manner, whom I hadn't seen around here before.

"Can I have a word with you, Gene?" Al said, coming up. I nodded and drew aside from Denise, who didn't seem to notice.

"Look, Gene," Al went on, "you remember what I said about my wife? Well, she wasn't having any. She thought I was making it up. So I—uh—arranged for her to come down and meet you and Denise and get it straight from you. I hope you don't mind."

I thought it was a bit high-handed not to have asked me before bringing his wife along. Still, I couldn't very well refuse. I said brighdy, "Sure! Let me explain to Denise first, though, and make sure she has no objections."

"You're a pal, Gene," he said, looking relieved.

I caught up with Denise. She was standing before the dummy's chair studying her duplicate with great concentration. I put Al's problem to her. Her face lit up.

"I'd be delighted!" she said in the warmest tone I'd heard from her all day.

"Are you certain? It's none of my doing, I promise you—the rumours must have got to Al from the clinic and since by sheer coincidence he has the same trouble he asked—"

"It's perfectly clear," she answered impatiently. "Is that his wife standing next to him?"

"Gene!" Al called out. "Look who's coming into the goldfish bowl!"

I looked. There was Crane, and he was no surprise—he often came to rehearsals or recordings. But with him were Brother Louis Gravamen, Jackson Weems, and Mabery.

"Hell!" I said under my breath, at the same time putting on a welcoming smile. I'd hoped to—well—supervise the talk between Denise and Mrs. Bazeley. No chance now.

I went into the goldfish bowl and shook hands all around. Crane explained, "We were all so interested in your new plans for the show we decided we'd like to attend the actual performance, as. it were."

"I'm flattered," I said with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I gave them a quick rundown on what they could see on the studio floor, but that wasn't what they were after. At length Mabery cleared his throat.

"I hear you insist on realism in your shows, isn't that so? I mean, you use an actual knife, or an actual gun, not studio dummies."

"That's correct," I agreed. "You might not think the viewer could tell the difference, but it creates a different atmosphere and gets me deeper into my role."

"I'd be extremely interested to see the weapon you're using this week," Mabery pursued.

Crane butted in before I could stop him. "Our props man is out there on the floor talking to Miss Delarose. I'll have him fetch the gun for you."

Which he did. Al and I had to show all the fine points of the weapon to these greedy sensation-seekers. It was at least ten minutes before I could decently remark that we were holding up the show. I'd been keeping my eye on Denise and Mrs. Bazeley; they were deep in conversation, but the goldfish bowl was soundproof and no mikes were five, so I could only guess what they were saying. At one point I saw Denise point to the dummy waiting in its chair, and Mrs. Bazeley glanced from her to it and threw her hands up in amazement.

I hoped very hard that Denise was telling the other woman what Al wanted her to hear.

It seemed things had gone all right in the end, for when Mrs. Bazeley parted from Denise I saw a calm, resolute expression on her round nervous face. Maybe she was resigned to doing the sensible thing, as Denise appeared to be.

She played the whole opening section of the show with real conviction and intensity. The only retake which was necessary was my fault—I fumbled while handling a gun from the collection Al had set up for me on the wall of the set. Even that irritating nursery rhyme which had set my nerves on edge at rehearsal seemed to fit into the pattern of the story exactly as Denise had suggested.

Inexorably events followed one another; the wife's decision to break down her husband's self-control, the seduction, the consequences, the husband's horror and despair, the wife's refusal to see reason, her glorying in what she had done. Mentally I tensed as we approached the climax: the moment when we froze, cut the cameras, and had the dummy exchanged for Denise.

As usual, Al watched from the side of the floor rather than from the goldfish bowl. His wife sat meekly next to him. Once or twice I glanced at her for a reaction—after all, she was as close to an average viewer as I'd ever had present at a recording—and I was satisfied to read the emotion in her face.

Climax! I picked up the carbine, as though driven by intolerable compulsion, and turned slowly to Denise, who saw my purpose in my eyes and fell back into a chair, her mouth opening in a wordless scream. As usual, Hank's camera was covering this crucial shot, because he had a fantastic visual memory and would remain glued to his viewfinder until the dummy had been posed so exacdy no one could tell there had been a switch at all.

"Cut!" I said, relaxing. At once the lab crew picked up the dummy; Denise got slowly out of her chair, and I went to grin at Crane in the goldfish bowl and receive nods of approval from the VIP guests. I always moved around instead of trying to hold the pose while the dummy was set up—I found it easy to resume an interrupted movement.

I'd had a lot of experience, of course.

Suddenly there was a shrill scream of horror, and everyone including me whirled to look for the source. Mrs. Bazeley was flinging up her arms and yelling, and in a moment had collapsed to the floor.

People dashed to see what the matter was. I took charge and made them stand back. AI went on his knees at her side calling her name: "Veronica! Veronica!"

Then, of course, Crane and his companions had to add to the crowd, and things were completely out of hand for a full three minutes. In the end I had a couple of the script team carry her out of the studio to a restroom along the corridor. Al went with them. A few moments later, however, he was back, looking relieved.

"She'll be okay," he said. "I'm terribly sorry. She says she was so startled at seeing how much the dummy looked like Denise that she was frightened."

I was going to give him a piece of my mind when there came an acid growl from Hank. "If you don't calm down and get back to business Gene will forget his pose!"

"The hell you say!" I answered good-humouredly. "But you're quite right. Quiet, everybody—back to the job!"

The studio settled back to normal. Hank made ready to continue the recording. I picked up my gun and fell back in my pose, and Crane herded the visitors back in the goldfish bowL

Just before signalling Hank to proceed, I glanced at Denise sitting in the chair the dummy had been in before. I felt a qualm. It was small wonder, really, that Mrs. Bazeley had managed to scare herself. The lab had made a fantastic job of the resemblance, especially since Denise was watching me with unblinking concentration..

From the way my sample "average viewer" had reacted, this show was sure of a good rating.

I had just finished raising the gun to firing position. I went through the build-up movement again, heard Hank click the camera switch. I froze my face into a mask of demon-driven resolve, sighted on the dummy's breast over its heart. You could have heard a pin drop. A firing-pin, maybe.

My view full of the staring, open-eyed, open-mouthed face, I squeezed the trigger.

The explosion was incredibly loud. Even though I'd fired the gun during rehearsal and discovered it was as recoilless as the makers claimed, I felt jolted. A nme-millimetre hole appeared in the dummy. Blood began to ooze around it.

Slowly, as though realising too late what I'd actually done, I lowered the carbine and began to shake.

And the dummy smiled.

It was a triumphant smile, close to a leer. It lasted only a few seconds. Then the eyelids drifted down over the magnificent eyes as they dulled.

In death.

I didn't go on with the rehearsed movements. I turned and looked at the dummy sitting in the chair at the side of the floor. I looked back at Denise whom I had just shot dead.

I thought of a great many things in a short space of time. How Denise had talked with Veronica Bazeley; how then she had staged her faint at exactly the moment when Denise could have brought the dummy back from its new pose and resumed her own. She could resume poses as well as I could.

I thought of the realism I was so proud of: if I fired a gun in the show, I fired a gun. A real corpse was only logical. Fair enough, fair enough.

But if Hank hadn't been distracted like everyone else by the mock-fainting woman, he'd have seen Denise changing places with the dummy. He should have stuck to his job. I raised the gun and shot Hank neatly through the neck. He gave a strangled cry of amazement and fell forward, dragging his camera around so that the master screen swam with crazy panned images.

"Gene!" Al Bazeley shouted. "Gene!"

Steriline was supposed to be infallible. That meant that Denise must deliberately have stopped taking it. By implication, Al's wife would have done the same. And he let her come to the studio, today of all days. Poor Al. I shot him about where I had shot Denise—near the heart.

Behind the window of the goldfish bowl I could see Crane, and the VIP's, and the technicians, petrified with terror and disbelief. I could see them above themselves. In dying, Hank had swivelled his camera around until it was focused on them.

Al had been perfectiy right. The single-to-rapid control could be adjusted by a mere touch. Next time I squeezed the trigger the carbine sowed a line of holes all across the window of the goldfish bowl. Watching in the master screen, I saw. Crane shot in the face; Brother Louis Gravamen, who was taller, in the throat; Mabery, shorter in the face again, and Weems—who was trying to get out of the door—in the back of the head. A second burst disposed of the technicians. Of course, Al had put the full forty shots into the magazine. Realism.

Then I shot Sammy, the other cameraman, as he tried to hide in a corner, and went to turn Hank's camera off before going in search of Veronica Bazeley.

The show topped the thousand that week for the first time.

A Two-Timer

DAVID I. MASSON's first story Traveller's Rest appeared in New Worlds in 1965 and was instantly successful, being taken by four anthologies almost as soon as it was published. Since then he has established an enthusiastic following among New Worlds readers. Born during World War I, his life has been closely bound up with British universities. Interested in literary and linguistic studies, he has published articles in Western learned journals and encyclopedias. However, he is fascinated by scientific information. He is quite at home with the writings of seventeenth-century England.

... I was standing, as it chanc'd, within the shade of a low Arch-way, where I could not easily be seen by any who shou'd pass that way, when I saw as it were a kind of Dazzle betwixt my Eyes and a Barn, that stood across the Street. Anon this Appearance seem'd as 'twere to Thicken, and there stood a little space before the Barn a kind of clos'd Chair, but without Poles, and of a Whiteish Colouring, and One that sate within it, peering out upon the World as if he fear'd for his life. Presently this Fellow turns to some thing before him in the Chair and moves his Hands about, then peeps he forth again as tho' he fear'd a Plot was afoot to commit Murther upon his Person, and anon steps gingerly out of one Side, and creeps away down the Alley, looking much to right and to left. He had on him the most Outlandish Cloathes that ever I saw, Thinks I, 'tis maybe he, that filched my Goods last Night, when I had an ill Dream.

I came out of my Arch and onto the Street and follow'd him down the Alley a little way, not looking straight upon him, but making as to cut my self a Stick, that he might have no thought specially of me, if he shou'd turn round, and espy me. Then when I saw he was gone a good Furlong

94

off from, his Chair, and look'd not to turn about, I slacken'd my steps and presently ran back to that Chair. No Body was abroad.

I look'd stedfastly in this Chair and I must tell you. I never saw the like of it before. A Top Piece it had, four Walls, four Windows of thick Glass, two little Doors with Glass to them, and a Floor, and all of a kind of Silver, but never so lustrous as that Metal, nor so Cold. Within was a hard silvery Seat, but cunningly fashion'd to the Buttocks of a Sitter; and before the Seat as 'twere a Lectern or Bench, on which I saw many Circles with Figures, like so many Clocks of Marriners Dials, and within them Handles with Pointers. I came softly in by one Door, and look'd narrowly on them. One Circle bore Writing, or rather some kind of Engraving, in a stiff Roman Print, with Words which I cou'd not understand: GEODETIC-COSMIC RENORMALIZER: SEALED IN WORKSHOP. Another had Words across it engrav'd: HEIGHT CONTROL. Another was a great Dial with YEAR (0=1), engrav'd below it, a Pointer and Handle within, and round its Circle, Numbers running from the Top clock-wise round, from Nought to Nine and Ninety. Another Dial like that Dial had engrav'd below it YEAR X 10^2, and Numbers from Nought to Nine; and a Third Dial had YEAR X 10^3, and Numbers from near the Bottom of the Circle from 49 to Nought at the Top, clock-wise upon the Left hand, and again to 49 clockwise down on the Right hand. Another, a small Dial, had MONTH, engrav'd below it, and twelve Numbers like an Hours Clock. Another Dial had DAY, and one and thirty Numbers. Another had HOUR, and four and twenty Numbers. In the midst of all these was a Knob of Red colour, smooth and a little hollow, as big as my Thumb.

Thinks I, this is Witchcraft indeed; but I fell to studying the Dials for the Years. I had learnt something in the Mathematicks, and I understood that 10^2 cou'd be the same with One Thousand, while 10^3 might by that token be the same with One Hundred. When I had puzzled these

Dials and their Pointers out, methought the Pointers stood not at this present year 1683, but at the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Sixty Four, with the Pointer for the Thousands of years touching the Number, 1, on the Right-hand side. The Day and Hour (and the Month) were the same as that Day's in April was in truth. Thinks I to my self, This Necromancer wou'd find him self Two Hundred and Eighty One years after this Time, when he is tir'd of seeing how 'tis with this Year of 1683. But you must understand that I was all of a maze, even while I thought these things so coolly.

With that my Foot slips on the strange smooth Silver of the Floor, and I stumbles, and I puts forth my Hands to save my Body from falling, and with this comes down my Left Hand full upon the Red Knob, and in goes that Knob with a sudden push and a small sound. I felt as it might be in a Faint-ness, and the Street went out of my sight, but the Chair stood still. In the place of the Street and the Barn was a new and strange Place, like to a Chamber, and there fell a terrible Clangour about me.

The Chamber was high and smooth. I cou'd not discover, whether it were Built of Wood, or Stone, or Bricks, for all was cover'd with a manner of smooth Plaster and painted over. The Windows were uncommon great and let in much light, and gave upon a great Road, whereon stood great Buildings of Stone. In the Ceiling of this Chamber I saw long Lines or Rods of some Substance, that were Glowing as if they were of Iron heated in a Furnace, for from them came much Light of a Whiteish Hue. I was afear'd they wou'd fall down upon me and bum me. There stood some Tables and Chairs, of a strange kind of design, and some were of MetaL

The Clangour I thought came from without. It chang'd every minute, with a dreadful Thundring and Moaning. I crouch'd me down in my Sorcerer's Chair and commended my Soul to Almighty God, for I thought, that some fearful Disaster was nigh, War or Earthquake mayhap, and that I shou'd soon perish. Before many minutes had past, the Thundering grew more lowd, and a manner of Chariot or

Coach came Rowling down the Road without, with a swiftness that no Coach cou'd ever have (as I thought). No horse drew it, and so swiftly went it by, that I cou'd not perceive, whether any Body were within. As it went it Rumbled and Moan'd, 'till the Soul had like to leave my Body for meer Terror. I was still shaking from the Fear of it, when by there came another such, going the other way, making a like Noise, and Snarling besides. Within it methought I saw a Face, that look'd ever forward, and took no mind of me or of the Buildings round about. It seem'd to me then, that all this Thundring and Moaning that continually assail'd my Ears, must come from a sort of Chariots, that came and went in the neighbourhood, but for the most part out of sight.

Now (thinks I) the Boot is on the other Foot, for if that Sorcerer was afraid for his Life, so now am I. And am I (I says to my self) to take leave of this Machine wherein I now sit, and suffer it to be spirited away by the first Comer, even as he did? So (after offering up a short Prayer to the Lord God) I fell to examining my Chair more searchingly and narrowly, than I had yet done. And I perceiv'd, low down by my Feet, a Black Rod, that seem'd as it were meant to slide to and fro in a Hole or Slot. It stood out to the Right hand, and by that side was writ (but in Metal), OPERATING. On the other side was writ, LOCKED. In a great Trembling I slid that Rod towards the Left Then, to make sure that it wou'd indeed return, I slid it back to the Right. I cou'd not well understand the Words, but it seem'd to me, that with the Rod to the Left, the Machine might be safe, so that no Body cou'd do any thing with it, untill he had slid the Rod back again to the Right. Mr. Sorcerer, for all his fears, was so secure, as to let alone that precaution.

So, finally, and with another Prayer, I slid the Rod toward the Left again, and stole out of my Machine. The Chamber was warm, and wonderful clean, but there was a mighty strange Odour in the Air, somewhat as of Burning; I suppos'd, it might come from the Hot Bars in the Ceiling, and I perceiv'd that there were great Marks of Soot or Dust upon the Walls and Ceiling, tho' there was no Hearth in the whole place. The Floor was made, or cover'd, with some singular Stuff, which was smooth like Wood or Stone, but resembled more some manner of Linnen-cloth or Carpet to the sight. On a great Bench stood a Row of Books, bound, not in Leather, but in some kind of Cloth (as it seem'd to me), each one in a different colour. Their Paper was more fine and white than I cou'd have thought possible, but thin and frail. The Letters were wonderful black and fine, and they dazzled my Eyes. Tho' the Words were (it's certain) English, yet I cou'd scarce comprehend the meaning of any two or three together. They us'd not our tall s, but throughout only the little one. Their printing was in London but one, that I took up, seem'd to be printed in some place call'd Chicago (which put me in mind of my Spanish Travells). Yet was this writ in the same English as the rest. As to their theams, as I cou'd not understand the Words, I can tell you little about 'em. Many of 'em seem'd to have much Mathematicks in them, but I found I cou'd not understand that either. The Title of one was, Diamag-netism, which I suppos'd shou'd be some kind of Magnet-ick Operation, but it was full of Diagrams and Numbers and I cou'd find no Loadstone or Compass pictur'd therein. Another Book was entitul'd, Thermistors, but what those might be, I cou'd not discover, tho' herein there were a sort of Plates, such as I can give you little idea of, beyond saying, that they were smooth beyond belief, so that they resembled less an Engraving, than a real vision of the Eyes, tho' without colour beyond Black, and White. I cou'd not recognize any thing in them, for all was strange, except a Finger and Thumb in one Picture, that appear'd very large, and a Pin in another, that was also very big. Thinks I, am I come among Gyants? But I remember'd the Face in the Chariot, that was of an ordinary middle size; and die Chairs wou'd not have taken a Gyant, nor the Door.

There was a heap of Papers on the Bench, all printed, but of a marvellous smoothness and lustre. I cou'd not imagine, who wou'd desire to see so many Words in print in a lifetime, and all concern'd with such strange matters withall. On the Wall, hanging from a kind of Pin, was a great Table, as if engrav'd upon a kind of Parchment, but lustrous, that prov'd to be a Calendar or Almanack of the days of one month, that Month of April. But the days of the week had chang'd, so that they did not fit. I saw that the year was indeed, that of 1,964, Anno Domini, so that my Machine had brought me, where it was appointed. And I thank'd Almighty God for that, and pray'd once more with all my heart, that all shou'd be well.

By this time, I had become in a manner accustom'd to the Clamour without. I was now so Bold, that I thought I cou'd safely go out of this Chamber and out of sight of my Machine. So I softly open'd the Door of the Chamber (and a mighty strange fashion of Door that was), and listen'd (as well as I cou'd for the Chariots) and look'd into the part beyond it. This was a Passage like a huge Hall or Court (but all roof'd), naked and smooth however, and lit by these strange White-hot Bars overhead, that yet seem'd to cast no Heat. No Body was to be seen there, but there were many Doors that open'd out of this Court I turn'd round to see the Door of the Chamber, that I might know it again, and saw, that it bore the Number, Thirteen, high upon it, made of solid Peices of some substance that was Black. Thinks I, may no ill luck attend this Number. Then I closes this Door, opens it again, and closes it finally, and steals along the Hall or Passage where day light came round an Angle.

Here was a great Door, that led perhaps to the Road without, for the Noise of the Chariots was now much more lowd. On the Wall hung great Tables, bearing Papers, and Charts, and solid Numbers, and Knobs, and more things, than I cou'd take note of. Then (before I cou'd vanish) a Door opens, and out comes a Fellow in a mighty strange manner of Cloathing, that I wou'd have burst out laughing at, if I had not been so much in fear. He had long slender Breeches, or Trowzers, of a light-coloured Cloth; a short Coat of smooth Stuff, that came down to his Waist or little lower, but open at the front, with Linnen within and some thing ty'd at the Neck. The fashion of his Hair was mighty strange. He look'd on me, open'd his Mouth, and spoke, what I took to be some forren Tongue^ for I cou'd make nothing of it. And here was all our Discourse.

He: Lowgh. Naugh dwenthing foyoo? (With a kind of questioning voice.)

Myself: Prithee, Sir, do you converse in English?

At this he frown'd, and turn'd back thro' his Door, but left it open, for I heard him in speech with another, as follows.

He: Chappea lux lau ikthtauon crauea. Now enthing bau ootim? Caun honstan zaklay wottee sez.

The Other: Nowoulman. Nepmaugh pidgen enwaya. Prapseez thatfia caimea mon thcow. Breezdin breezdaught. Weo tav moce curetay.

Now I thought, I must not stay, for I cannot explain my purpose or my being here, and these do not speak English (/ suppose). I ran back to the Door number'd Thirteen, but making as little sound, as I cou'd, open'd it, clos'd it again, got me into my Machine, slid the Rod to right-wards, and, to make the least and safest change I cou'd think of, turn'd the Pointer for the Months to one less (that for March, as I suppos'd) and push'd on the Red Knob. After a short Faint-ness, in which the Chamber tum'd Clowdy in the middle parts, and darker, I found my self and the Machine in the same Chamber, slid the Rod to lock it, and came out to look to the Calendar. This indeed show'd the month of March, and I stole out of the Door (observing first, that the Papers were not in the same state in which I had seen 'em), and came down the Hall. Before I turn'd the Angle there comes past it another Body, cloath'd something like the first. I was thankful that I wear my own Hair, for neither of these Fellows had a Wig, and as I found, all Men in this People wear their own Hair. He turns his Head and looks at me. I bow'd to him, came towards the Tables on the Wall, star'd on them, turn'd round, and stept slowly back to the Room from which I was come. At the Door I turn'd me round, but the Fellow was not to be seen. Back in I went and once more into my Machine, slid the Rod back, and debated within my self, where shou'd I go now. At length I resolv'd, to try a Time a few months ahead, and so I set the Months Dial to August, and shortly found my self there.

Now I still heard the Clamour, but less lowd, and when I got me out of the Chamber I found no Persons without, tho' I waited for the space of above half an hour. When I try'd the great Door to the Road I found it fast, and 'twou'd not by any means be open'd. I concluded, I must have lit upon some Holiday. When I came to look more closely upon one of these Tables of Calendars, I found that the Day of the Machine was a Sunday that month of that year. I thought, I had brought my self into some Colledge, the' the matters discours'd upon in the Books therein, must have puzzled the very Virtuosi of our Royal Society. I found in some Chambers a number of Books writ in High-Dutch, and two in French, but never a one in Latin, and the tongue of nearly everyone was, English. I had a clowdy notion, that the strange speech of the Men that I had met with heretofore, might be a kind of English, notwithstanding it's sounding so uncouth, and these Discoverys made me encline the more, to that supposition. But this but made me fear the more, for my chances of coming alive, out of such a Predicament, when I cou'd not even play a false part, such as to be some Traveller, that I might be let alone. If I cou'd but find some of the simpler sort of Books, I might learn some news from 'em, but how was I to Interpret their Outlandish expressions?

'Twas while I ponder'd on these matters, that I came upon a great mass of Broad-sheets, folded together, in one of the Chambers. I fell to perusing them and soon saw, that I had a manner of Courant before me, wherein was printed all News, that might concern this People. The Print was shut up in many Columns with long Lines between 'em, and huge Words at the head of each Column. But here again, I cou'd make out little, and what I cou'd, 'twas all Robberies and Murthers, with some Warlike Entertainment. There was besides a subtle sort of Engraving, mighty lifelike, such as I saw in that Book before, that shew'd Men running hither and thither, and single Faces that look'd sadly upon me, and Wenches half-nak'd. On one Sheet was a Chariot, such as I had seen in the Road, with no Horses, all closed in with glass Windows. I saw News that seem'd to be come from India, from China, from Moscovy, and from the America's, with a date but one day before the day of the Sheet (which was that Saturday), as't had been in the next Shire. At this I began to Tremble anew, for I won-der'd to think, what Wizards I was come among, and what a People, that wou'd know what went about across the World, as well, as what lay at their own Door Steps.

Now I crept back to my Machine like a Dog to it's Kennel, and debated with my self, what I was to do. I desir'd mightily to know more of this World, but I cou'd not see, how I was to get by in it. Now my Eyes fell upon a Peice of the Lectern in that Machine, whereon 'twas writ across HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT. Thinks I, here is the means, that I can Journey by, or that will at least bring me out of this Building, without a Soul troubling me. The whole Peice cou'd be mov'd, 'till it slipp'd down along-side, and underneath there lay a number of litde shining Crystalline Plats, like Windows in the Metal, each one mark'd out in Squares, and each with two Buttons alongside to right and left. Below the first Plat was a Subscription, METRES; by the second, DM,HM; by the third, KMX 1,10. The Squares of the second and third Plat were each laid across with ten Lines each way, that made finer Squares. Lastly were two small Half-Globes, or Hemi-Spheres, with Lines of Longitude and Latitude clearly mark'd upon 'em, and faint lines, that shew'd the Continents. The Hemi-Sphere on the left hand had below it the Letter N, the other, the Letter S, so that I cou'd well see, that they meant the World to north and south of the Equator. These Spheres had the same two Buttons each beside 'em. By every place, the Button on the left hand was mark'd with a Bent Arrow to right-ward, and a Letter N, whilst the other had a like Arrow and the Letter E. I thought, it must be, that the first Plat is for the smallest movement, and the Globes for the greatest, across the World. The left-hand Buttons, are to move north-wards, if you turn 'em clock-wise, or south, the other way, and the right-hand Buttons, are to move east, and west. Now will I make a Tryal of the first Plat, with this Green Knob (for there was one, like the Red Knob, but amongst the Plats).

I pray'd once more, then I turn'd the left-hand Button as carefully as 1 cou'd. I saw a little black Line begin to grow straight up along on the Plat. When it had grown to the extent of half a Square, as I thought, I stopt my Turning, and the Line grew no more. Then I push'd on the Green Knob. And behold, some thing struck my Shoulder, and I found, the Machine was come about two foot to one side, so that the Wall of it on one quarter was vanish'd within the Wall of the Room. Then, too, I saw a kind of Needle within a little Dial amongst the Plats, and one end was mark'd N, so I thinks this must be a Compass, that will tell me, where is North. The Road is to the north-east of where I stand. The breadth of a Metres Square, I now saw, must be three, or four foot, and since there were ten of these Squares each way, it cou'd be, that the smallest Square in the next Plat was the same as ten Metres, whatever these might be in truth. Then I mov'd carefully one Metre to east-wards, and it was so, and I had the fourth Side of my Machine safe and sound once more, for which I gave hearty thanks. A Metre, I concluded, was a Yard or an Ell in this Peoples speech, that is, if 'twas indeed among this People that the Machine was made, but of that I had no certain knowledge. The ways that I had turn'd lay all mark'd out in black upon the first Plat.

Now I consider'd if this Machine is to move Horizontally, and it come within a Hill, I shall Choak, or it it come over a Valley, I shall fall within it to the ground, and be kill'd. So I look'd again at the Circle where 'twas writ of Height, and 1 saw it had two Dials, one within the other, the outer Dial mark'd COARSE the inner, FINE. Above them was a slender Tube, with a shining Green Glow, or Spark, floating in it, and writ alongside, METRES, SURFACE INDEX, BLUE = CAR; and even Marks all the way up the Tube. I thought long on these things, and in the end I thought that I knew what they must mean. The Fine Dial wou'd send me gently up, or down, the Coarse one far. If I saw a Blew Spark, I shou'd know it was to shew, where the Machine wou'd be, and how far from the Green, before I push'd on the Red or the Green

Knob. So shou'd I be sav'd from Death.

Now, says I to my self, / see no Body in the Road, and the Chariots have not come on it for these many minutes. I will bring my Machine beyond this Building, but so near, that a Chariot is not like to strike against it. And this I did, moving three Metres east and two north.

Here the Clangour was twice as terrible, and the Smell of Burning far stronger, mix'd with some thing sweet, that caught my Breath. I saw no Persons about, but I judg'd it prudent, to place my Machine close by a Wall, and this I presently did, with a little Manage. No sooner had I contriv'd this, than a Host of Children came by. One had a Stick, with which he Rattled upon the Wall and on my Machine. Another stopt and cry'd, as I thought, Luk, his a new found Keost (or somewhat of this nature) na Man putting git op na Saun-day. I was in fear once more, but another Child calls to him, Horriop, wa lay it! and they all runs on. Then I saw three Chariots standing idle further down the Road. The Buildings that were near me were vast Edifices of Stone, but where the Chariots stood, was a low sort of Brick-made Houses, standing each in a little Park or Plot, with a few Trees. One Chariot, I saw anon, was standing in a Side-Road in such a little Park, and a Fellow was rubbing it down like one, that wou'd Curry a Horse. He had a Pail on the Ground by him, of a light Blew colour. On each side of the Road, and evenly spac'd from each other, were tall Masts, like so many Gyants Pikes, but of Stone, and crook'd at the Top, with a little Cage of Glass at the Crook. I found later, that they were publick Lanthorns, as you shall hear. The Borders of the Road were wonderful neat and trim, with Grass, shut in by Pygmaean Walls of Stone, and beside these Flaggs, to make a firm Path. The Sky above was dim and smoaky for all that there was no Clowd in it. Tho' I seem'd to be in the midst of a great Town, there was no Ditch in the Street, but it bent up Towards the middle part, and was smooth and black. At the Sides, under the little Walls of the Grass, were Holes with a broad sort of Grate, as if to let the Water down, but no Water ran there.

Now 1 wax'd very Bold, and wou'd see, what the Fellow was doing with the Chariot. I saw him empty the Pail he had, at a place by the House, and while he was thus busy'd, I mov'd my Machine as many Metres as I thought shou'd bring me on t'other side of the Road by him. I found my self in the middle of the Road with the Ground of it over one side of the Floor of my Machine, and a Chariot was Rowling up to me as if the Devil rode it. I gave my self up for lost, but the Chariots made as to stop, with a Fearful Sound, and swerv'd round me, with a Devils Countenance in deed within it. At that the Fellow that had the Pail look'd round, and saw me, and came out upon the Road Edge, and call'd out, Wot you doing with that Contrap-shen? I took the Sence, of what he was saying, and open'd one Door, and cry'd softly to him, If you will go back a Fathom or two, I'll bring it safe to the side. He seem'd to know, what I meant, for he ran backwards to his Chariot, and stood staring at me, while I mov'd the Machine two Metres in his way and (with the Fine Dial for the Height) euough upward to bring my Floor clear out. Hahaughdgea do that? says he, and 'twas his turn, to be frightened. Then I thought, this Machine is not known to this People, 'tis either a Mystery of some Virtuoso, or 'tis come from some other Time. My Fellow had a soft open kind of Countenance, that made me put some trust in him, so I slid the black Rod across, that lock'd the Machine, and came out, and told him, I was come by strange chance from another Time, where I had found this Machine, that I had learnt to manage, that cou'd send a Man from one Place to another, or from one Time to another. I told him, I cou'd not easily understand his Speech, but that if he spake slowly, I wou'd make shift to follow, what I cou'd. Can you put that Thing ouva Ther in the Shayid clouce ptha Hauooce? he says, and points. So I brought my Machine Utile by little, where he wou'd have it, and lock d it again. Comm insauid, he says, so I went into his House with him.

Every thing in this House was smooth, and for the most part very clean, and almost all the Doors and Walls were painted. There was a savour of Soap and Spice about. He set me down in a great Chair, and star'd on me, then he moves his Hand to a litde Button on the Wall, and of a sudden a Light shone out of a Bowl, that hung from the Ceiling. There was no Flame to it, and it was perfectly steady, but I cou'd perceive no cause, why it shou'd begin to shine. I can see (he seem'd to say) that ye're not from this Time. I suppose (but he said Tauim and suppowze) you come from the Seventeenth or Eighteenth Century? I told him, it was even now the Year 1683. He ask'd me a deal of Questions, but some I could not understand, and others I made not to understand, for I had no mind to give him too much instruction. But I told him, I wish'd to lie here for a time, for I fear'd a Reckoning with the Sorcerer that had brought the Machine to my Village, and knew, that if I left it there for long, he shou'd find it again anon, and I shou'd have lost all chance, of further enterprize. Then say, he, You must meet my Wife (in his odd Speech), and he goes out to call her in, from her Garden. While he was gone, I looks out at my Machine, which was safe by the Wall, and observ'd what I cou'd about the Chamber. He brings in his Wife (a mighty pretty Woman, as I saw when I had got accustom'd to her sawcy fashion of Cloathing) and presentiy we three set to't to find, how I was to live there. I found, they had no Children. Says she, Of course you must stay with us, and, looking on her Countenance, I found it easie to agree. But how am I to repay you, and how am I to go unnotie'd in these Cloathes, that are so unlike your's? says I. Have you nothing of Value with you, says he, then we can buy you some Cloathes and so on? I have nought, that shou'd get me a Suit of Cloathes, says I. Have you any Books, or Clocks, or Silver at home? for they wou'd fetch high enough Prices today, says he (but he says howm, hauy, prowesses); you see, a thing like that, two or three hundred years old, will be quite costly today. And, as it happens, I know how to place this kind of Antique. 'Tis agreed, said I, l'l go back and bring some Fine Things. But let me wait, 'till tomorrow, for by then it may be that my Sorcerer will have given over searching for my Machine, or that he will have journeyd far off. To this he agrees, and his Wife said, she wou'd bring in some Tea. While she was gone, he said, he wou'd shew me round the House, but all he did, was to bring me up the Stairs to a Closet or Privy, which he told me, was wash'd by Water, that I shou'd pour on, by pressing on a kind of Handle. Next by it was a Chamber for Washing your Person, that had a Bason, with two Taps, from which Water came. One brought forth Water very hot, that I was like to have Scalded my self, if I had not seen the Steam rising from it. By this Bason was a great Trough with two other Taps, and a Dish full of Holes in the Ceiling above it.

Besides a Dish of Tea, they had some Bread and some Jellie and a deal of little Cakes. After this the Husband goes to a Box, that stood on a Table at the side, and of a sudden a lowd Noise comes from the Box, and it was some kind of wild Musick. Thinks I, this is a new sort of Toy, but presently the Musick ceas'd, and the Voice of a Man came forth, that I quak'd for sudden fear. Then another Voice discours'd for some time, and presently ceas'd again, and the wild Musick began once more. They gave me an explanation, it was Musick from many miles away, but how it came into their Box, they cou'd not make clear. This Box they call, a Raydeow. After that the Man remember'd his Chariot, which he call'd, his Car, and went out to conclude with his cleaning it. He shew'd it to me, and said, that it went by Burning within. When he had done with the cleaning it, he lit the Furnace in it's Bowels, by no more than the turn of a little Key, and, seating him self in it, conducted it into it's Stable, which he call'd, a Garraudge. He said, my Machine shou'd be more safe, within the House, and after we had measur'd it with a Measure he had of Steel, that bent round, and had measur'd the distance too, I mov'd it once again, within a commodious Porch he had.

Over a good Supper of cold Mutton, wash'd down with some bitter Ale from a glass Bottle, he assures me again, I shou'd be able to get a good Price, for a Book or a Peice of Silver. Several Pounds, says he, enough to buy you a Shirt or two. My Spirits shot up to the Heavens with the First part of his Sentence, and were blown half way back, with the Second. That a Book," purchas'd for a Shilling, cou'd be so priz'd, as to command several Pounds; and that such a vast Sum, cou'd buy no more then a Shirt, I cou'd scarce credit. But he made me know, that a Pound was nothing today. I saw, I shou'd have to furnish my self well, upon my Excursion to my own Time. But in the mean while we fell to talking of the state of England. They took me for an Irish Man, it seems, which put me out of countenance, 'till I saw they meant no harm by it, but were puzzled by my Speech, which indeed they found near as hard, as I theirs. So I told them, I came from a Village, where now stood his Town. And I found, the name of my Village, was now the name of a Sobbub of this Town (which is their name, for a part of a Town) and that was the part all around us. I thought his Town must be a very great City, but he says, 'twas of but a middle size, with only fifty thousand Souls in't. You may suppose, I open'd my Eyes at that. But it seems, they do not reckon a City is great, unless it reach above two hundred thousand; and of that reckoning they have a good number, while a few of the greatest have above a Million. How the Land cou'd support so many, I cannot tell, but where we have one Body, they have ten or twelve. Whilst we were speaking, the Lanthorns in the Road all came alight in one instant, and no Body lit 'em. He said, 'twas by Electricity, which they make in great buildings from turning Wheels by Steam, or (in other places) from an Esoterick sort of Chymistry, and send many miles along Wires.

I was drowzy long before my Hosts, and they had me a Bed made in a spare Chamber above Stairs. But before I went to Rest, my Host perswaded me, to wash my self over in that Trough they had. The Dish with Holes, that hung from the Ceiling, was for Water to Rain down upon you, but I lik'd it not. They wash them selves in these Baths nigh every day, for that the Water is kept so hot with this same Electricity (by which they can accomplish well nigh every thing they wou'd), that they may keep them selves sweet-smelling (for they set great store by that), and in order to the cleansing off of a kind of Soot or Dirt, that fly's every where in the Air, and from whence comes this odour of Burning, that was about

I had an un-easie Rest at first by reason of the many lowd Sounds without, but never-the-less I woke at the usual hour with me. My Host and his Wife made no sound, and neither within the House nor without was any Body stirring, which appear'd mighty strange to me. I thought, now 'twill be safe, may hap, to return impuned to my House and Time, to gather what I will and bring all back here. I stole down, and after a while found how to open the Fastnings of the Door out to their Porch. There stood my Machine. I unlock'd it's Rod, and remember'd that, I shou'd return to April, and so mov'd the Months Dial, besides the Years Dials, which I set back to my own Year. Then I saw the Green Spark rise in the Tube, that shew'd the Height, some three Metres on it's Scale, and leave below it a Blew one. So I knew, I shou'd come out from here under the high Meadow at home, or there abouts. I study'd the Plats for moving your place narrowly, and mov'd their Buttons, untill I brought the Lines on 'em back, to whence I begun, and the Green Spark sank down to swallow up the Blew. Now I try'd the Red Knob, letting alone the Green, and all was well, for I found my self in the Machine in the Lane at home near to the Barn, whence I had come. But I felt as if I had been in this Moment before, and a great Dizzy-ness and Clowdy-ness in my Head. Then I saw, that it was no dim Morning that I beheld, but a bright After-noon; and a Bird, that I had left perch'd upon a Bough close by, sate there exactly as't had been. At length I knew, that I was back at the very Instant, when I had first mov'd the Machine, and that my Sorcerer shou'd be but now gone down the Alley, and might at once return. I had forgot my Hours and Days, Dials. I mov'd 'em straightway back eleven hours, to that day's Sun-rise, before he had come. AH my tarrying the night before was'

to no end, for I cou'd chuse any Time.

When I press'd upon the Red Knob there was I in a grey half-light. No Body was yet about, and step by step I mov'd my Machine down the Street, 'till I came before my House, which (of course) was bolted and barr'd. Then I mov'd it inside in the great Chamber, and in the Gloom search'd about my Hangar, a tall Jugg of Silver, a Snuff-box, a fine Time-piece that I had, a glass Bowl, two Books of Sermons and three Broad-sheets of Satyricall Verses, and the Volume of Mr. Sympkins his Travells of a dozen years heretofore. Then I thought, I will need to Shave my self, so I found my best Razour. And I now knew, who 'twas had these Things from my House, that Night, and not the Sorcerer. I took up an old Sack, in which to carry my Goods, but the Bowl and the Snuff-Box I wrapp'd in soft Cloth, and plac'd in a little Coffer I had. I plac'd all with some labour within the Machine, and was about to take my leave, when I bethought me of the time, and how at that hour I had been in Bed asleep. Ami then there in my Bed, or am I here? thinks I, and I stole into my Bed-Chamber to see. The Day-Light was coming in now, and there in the Bed was my Body asleep, my Face being turn'd half to the Wall. But there was a kind of Shimmering Motion in it The Hair lifted on my Head and I turn'd Cold as Ice, my Mouth parch'd and my Heart knocking fit to burst it's House. And I felt my Body (my own that I was in, so to speak) pull'd as it were a Grain or Iron by a Loadstone, towards the Body that lay on the Bed. That Body stirr'd and turn'd, and cry's out, Ish (or some such thing). I flung out of the Chamber and it was like straining against Ropes, and I crept Quaking into my Machine, mov'd it beyond the House, and in the Light manag'd it to the morning of the next day in August of the Year 1964, and before the House of my Hosts. Then I brought it within their Porch and knock'd a Box over there, but woke no Body by good chance. And I fell on my Knees in my Machine (bruising my Shins and scraping my Elbow in the doing it) and humbly sought Pardon of Almighty God, if I had offended against His Laws in the making such an Unnatural Journey, and besought Him to keep me, from the Snares of the Devil.

It was the hour, when I had gone from the Porch; but I had no Stomach to remain alone 'till these Late-risers shou'd awaken, so I mov'd the Hours Dial forward two hours. And what shou'd I find, but that they were up, and had miss'd me, and were running hither and thither in Gowns, which they wore at Night, thinking that I had gone for ever. And so, methinks, was I nearly so gone. But No, says I, I have been back to my own Time, to bring back where-withall to trade but do not ask me to do't again. I wou'd not, for all the Gold in the Indies, untill I depart for good. Says the Wife, You look as if you had seen a Ghost. And I, Why so I have: I seen my Self. I wou'd say no more, but I thought, If I had been Drawn into my other Body then, who knows the End oft?

After a time I shav'd my self with my Razour, and the Husband lent me some Cloathes of his, that I might escape Notice,, which I got into, and laid aside my own. He wou'd not look into my Sack, or my Coffer at the present, for said he, he must to work, where he cou'd tell me more, what might be got for my Merchandize. We three took a great Breakfast, there was some golden Biscuits, but very fine and small and broken, we ate with Milk, which they call'd, Sere-ills; there was a great Potfull of Coffee, but made too thick, and mix'd with warm Milk from a Flask; there was Bacon fry'd and Eggs fry'd, and she'd peices of Bread lightly brown'd, with Butter, and a Marmalade made from Oranges to spread on 'em.

Then the Husband bade me climb into his Chariot beside him, and fastened me in with a Harness, that I might not be tost about, and him self in too, with my Sack and Coffer in the back part, and he rode this Chariot with me, to the middle part of the Town. I had new terrors, with the Noise, and all the other Chariots (which were scores, nay hundreds) and a Throng of Folk, and all rushing hither and thither like a People possess'd of Devils. I shou'd have been more frightned, if I had not been full of strange

Feelings in my Body, that put me in mind of a Sea-voyage, for I seem'd to be push'd to one side and then to another, and anon back into my Seat; which made my Stomach very un-easie, the more because of several thick Odours in the Chariot. We were going the slowest of almost all the Chariots, or Cars, that I saw, for all hurtled past us. There were great Wagons, like Hulks full of Slaves, tw6 Tiers of them, all painted Red. My Host said (as well as I cou'd hear him, for the Noise), they were publick Coaches, which he call'd Busses (as tho' they were Boats), and that you pay'd to be carry'd so far. From the Cars issu'd flashing Lights, to shew, said he, what they meant to do. I saw great Pictures (when we were brought to a stop for several minutes together) as high as a House, in many Colours, by the Road side, but got no chance to ask him what they meant. He leaves his Car in a great Place full of others, and taking me by the Arm, marches me a fair way round past tall Windows where were all manner of Wares shewn for Sale, and at length into his Shop, where he and others sold, for the one part House-Furniture, for the rest Books (but bound in Leather, not like those I had seen in the Colledge) and a great many sorts of Baubles and Silver Ware. He left me for a time, and spoke with another, then brings me into an inner Chamber, and bids me open my Sack and Coffer. First he looks in my Books. The first he took was that Volume of Travells, and his Eye lit up, and he reads it's Title Page, and looks quickly thro' it, and goes to some cloth-bound Volumes he has in a Corner, and reads in various of 'em, and comes back, muttering to himself, Not in Wing either (what ever he meant by that). Then he looks at me, and says, l'l give you fifty Pound for that. I was ready to swallow his Offer, but I saw his Tongue licking his Lips, and his Hand shook a litde, so I took counsel with my self and I says, It grieves me, but I cou'd never part from my old Companion in many Lands, unless for three hundred Pound (for I knew now, these Pounds here wou'd not go far). He laugh'd at that, scornfully, but we fell to chaffering, and in the end, we agreed upon one hundred and seventy five Pound, against a Bottle of good Wine, which I forgot to tell you, I had snatch'd up and put in the Sack. And, says he, I cou'd yet have the Words of Sympkins, for he had in his Shop at the back of a wonderful Engine, that wou'd take Pictures of what ever was put before it, that were perfect Likenesses, and that in the twinckling of an Eye each. He calls this Engine a Zerrocks. But, said he, with so many Pages, 'twill take time. Then I cou'd bring these Likenesses, but on loose Sheets, back with me to my own Time.

For the rest of the Books and Tracts he settled upon some tens of Pounds each, but more for the Silver and Glass, and especially for the Snuff-box, which surpriz'd me not a little. The Hanger too, which had a good Blade, pleas'd him mightily. In the end I was rich enough for a long Stay, as he assur'd me, as soon* as he cou'd draw out his Money, from a House, where he had lent it, and that he wou'd do at the middle of the day. Then he told me, I shou'd do best, to stay quietly in his Inner Room for that morning, while he did much Business in his Shop. But first he takes me to the Zerrocks, which was like a Vat covei^d with Glass, with nothing in it, but great Coyls, and Peices of Metal, and a Green Light, which came and went. He gives my Book to another, and bids him take much care with it, and begin to copy it therewith. The Light goes to and fro like a Loom, and after a time Sheets of Paper come down at one Side, with (as I saw) a very perfect Picture, of what was turn'd towards the Light

My Host gave me a Dictionarie, printed very small on thin Paper, a Duodecimo Adas of the World, and the Courant he had had that morning, but had not read. There was much, that I cou'd not understand, but I learnt, that there was now a great Nation in America, many Nations in Africa and in the West and East Indies, an Antipodaean Continent call'd Australia betwixt India and the Southern Pole, and a barren Continent about that Pole. Ships ply'd betwixt these Continents, and all knew each other's business. Terra Incognita there was none, for the whole Globe was mapp'd out, or well-nigh so. Men, and Women too, were trying to cross the Seas from Dover to Calais by

Swimming, for the meer Sport oft; if there were no Gyants, they were Gyants in strength.

About Noon, as he knew by a marvellous small Watch, that was held to his left Wrist by a close Chain of metallick Peices, my Host carry'd me to an Ordinary, which he call'd Launsh. Men and Women together, and even Children, came up behind each other in a long Line, and waited, to take from a long Bench, what ever Meats wou'd take their fancy, with Knives and Forks, and pay'd at last, when they sought a small Table, whereat to sit and eat. I cou'd understand little yet, but what my Host (or his Wife at home) spoke to me slowly, so I ate like one abroad in a far Countrey. Afterwards he brought me to his Bank, the House where he had his Money in loan. He told them, he wou'd draw an extraordinary Fund out of his Moneys, which he was pleas'd to name, the Antiquitys Account, and before me he paid into this Fund, all the Moneys he had agreed to pay me for my Goods, but all was done meerly upon Paper, with much writing and signing. He told me privatly, he durst not make me a Customer of this House, for fear, too many Questions shou'd be ask'd, but I stood by and they were to think, I was a Man of his. Then he draws out twenty Pound for smaller Expenses, which he gives to me, some of it Coyn, but what they call Pounds, are nothing but Scraps of Paper, with green Pictures on 'em; yet he assures me, they shou'd buy a Pounds worth of Goods, and indeed 'twas so, as I found (except that a Pound goes such a little way with them). He takes me to the Taylors, and buys me a Suit of Cloathes, with all kind of Linnen, and pays for all out of a new Book of Papers, that he calls Checks, subscrib'd for this new Account, and shews me, how much it comes to, which was a great number of Pounds, that I was still not us'd to.

When at length we were got back, to his Shop, 'twas half an hour after Three. I spent the next three hours studying, but got little further. He carries me back to his Home in his Car. I was standing by it near to the House, when I saw in the Heavens a Meteor, like a shining thread, growing ever at one end. I was astonish'd but he told me, 'twas a

Plentrail, or a Plaintrail, or some such thing, which I did not understand. But anon there came a Rumbling, and in another Part of the Sky a Thing like a huge Bird, but that mov'd not it's Parts. Says he, that was another Plain. He gave me to understand, that Men may travell in these Plains, which are like Shipps that go in the Air, but driven like his Car, by a manner of Burning. In truth, they also call 'em Air-Craft.

When we were come in, where his Wife had a Welcome for us, she gives us a Glass full (but very small) of a Sherry Wine, but the Tast was strange to me. While she prepares a Meal, he turns to a Box with a Window in't, and there Shines in it's Window a Picture, that mov'd and chang'd continually, and Sounds withall, like as it had been a Comedy play'd within the Box by Dwarfs, but the Colour was but Black, and White, with a Blew Cast to't. Some part was News, but chiefly Folly. This too they have in every House, and from this great Servant Electricity. I fetch'd now my old Cloathes and Shoes and ty'd them in a Bundle^ which I left on the Floor of the Machine. My Host took a great Cloth, and cover'd the Machine, that it be not try'd of curious Fingers, or set too many Tongues wagging.

At the Meal and after it (when they were not staring upon this Box with the Window, which they call a Tellie) they talk'd with me, upon the State of the World. I shou'd make too great an Excursion, if I shou'd take upon me to Communicate every Thing that befell me in this Adventure. You will wonder especially, what sort of People they were indeed, that I was fallen among; and tho' it took many Weeks in the Learning, yet I shall make bold to take only as many Minutes, in the Telling it. They spoke much then, of the Insolence of Youth, which they thought new, but it seem'd to me, that there was nothing new but Wealth and Idleness, that feed this Insolence. There are no poor unruly Apprentices here, but good Money is to be earn'd easily by a Stripling. If these live too easily, so too in a manner do the Children (for all their Schooling is so hard, as I shall tell you later); which is the Seed of the other Trouble. They are not brought up to Obedience and Godliness, but (as I found) to Rail upon their Parents, when they are scarce five year old, and make Sport with them. But the Spring of this, is in the Wives, for these own no Man's Controul, not even in Law, but manage all things equally with 'em, and take all manner of Work, as bold as Men (for they are as well school'd), and High and Low dress them selves in Finery, and leave their Children to bring them selves up (so that many run wild), and are fix'd upon Folly and Manrcatching, as I saw from a Journal, made in Colours (and more like a great Quarto, than a Journal) that is printed for Women alone. They go barelegg'd, or with Legs cover'd in bright Stockings, but marvellous fine, and close-fitting; and their Legs shewing immodestly above the Knee. In this Journal I saw all manner of sawcy Pictures. (But some Journals for Men, are full of Lewdness and Filth, both in Pictures and Writing.) As to Man-catching, Marriages are made every where, not as the Parents shall agree, but as a Young Man and Girl shall fancy each other (tho' it is true at a late age, often beyond Nineteen) and Divided as lightly, by an easie Divorce. Religion has littie to say to all this, for our Tollerance, is become their Indifference, and tho' there be Churches, few go to 'em, and of Enthusiasts there are scarce any. They have for this cause nought to five for, but to get as much as they can, whether it be Pleasure, or Money.

Yet do they have a sweeter and a quieter Living, than any we see. I saw few Persons diseas'd or distemper'd, or even crippled. The King's Evil, Agues, Plagues and Small Pox, are all but gone. Not one of a Man's Children die before they come of age, if you can believe me; and yet his House is never crowded, for they have found means, that their Women shall not Conceive, but when they will. This seem'd to me an Atheistical Invention, and one like to Ruin the People; yet they regard it as nothing, save only the Papists and a few others. Every Man and Woman can read, tho' the use the Generality make oft, is only to Wager by Letter, which they call Pulls, and in Assemblys, which they call Bingow, and to read the Notices, are every where planted, like Texts, but prophane ones, to tell 'em where they may go, and what Business is in hand. They have great Safety, in the Streets and in the Fields, so that Thefts and Violence to the meanest Person are the cause of News in the Courants; but they slaughter one another with the Cars for that they row! by so fast, and altho' they are safe from Invasion by their Neighbor Nations in Europe, yet they are ever under the Sword of Damocles from a Destruction, out of the other End of the Earth, by these same Air-Craft, or from a kind of Artillery, that can shoot many Thousands of Leagues, and lay wast half a Countrey, where it's Shot comes to ground, or so they wou'd have me believe.

They have a sovran Queen, yet is the Power of the Crown so diminish'd, that they have rather a Common-Wealth, then a Monarchy. They have a Parliament, with what they call the Torys, I know not why, for they are nothing for a Papist Succession, but for Wealth; and against 'em no Excluding Whiggs, but a Party, that wou'd have all the business of the Kingdom (or Queendom) in the hands of them that govern. One third of what a Man earns, goes in Taxes, such as England never heard the like of in my Time. Every Man however lowly, and, what is worse, every Woman, has a power of Vote for who they shall have in Parliament, yet the Members do little, but Vote in Parliament again the way their Leaders tell 'em. But Money is King of half England, for the great Merchants and Heads of Business Houses can do, pretty much what they will. The King of the other half, is the Labourer, for if he like not his Lot, he engages his Guild to command all the Men to lay down their Tools and depart, it may be 'till months are gone by, untill he has it his own way; his Guild will give 'em Moneys to provide for 'em. In the mean time the Customers suffer, from both Sides; the one sending Prices up; and the other taking labour away, so that nothing is done.

But for all this they live fine enough. They are grown so nice, that they make great outcry, at the least Dirt or Violence. In their Punishments they have no Burnings, no Quarterings, no Whippings, Pilloryings, or Brandings, and they put up no Heads of Ill-doers. Their Hangings are but few, and are perform'd in secret; and there are those in the Government that wou'd bring in a Bill, to put a stop even to that, so that the worst Felon, shou'd escape with nothing worse, then a long Imprisonment. Tho' they are in fear, of what will come of it, and trouble them selves much about Hi-doers in the Land, I never saw a Brawl, or a Rabble, or the least Insult offer'd to any Body, the whole time I was there, nor any Man taken in Drink, beyond a little Exaltation. Altho' my Cloathes were so strange to them, yet I verily believe, I cou'd have walk'd abroad in 'em without meeting any untoward entertainment in the Streets. They are so many, those who wou'd get a Place, at a Playhouse, or in one of their Busses, must wait in a Throng; but in stead of Jostling, they stand orderly in a long Line, without the need of enforcement. I saw not one Man begging, and but few that seem'd poor, or wasted by Sickness.

Yet in truth they are a Staid, and Phlegmatick Folk, that will not easily laugh, or weep, or fly in a passion, and whether it be from their being so press'd together, or from the Sooty-ness of the Air, or from their great Hurrying to and from work, their Faces shew much Uncontent and Sowerness, and they regard little their Neighbours. All their Love, is reserv'd to those at Home, or their Mercy, to those far off; they receive many Pleas, for Money and Goods, that they may send, for ailing Persons, that they never knew, and for Creatures in Africa and the Indies, whom they never will see. Every Saturday little Children stand in the Streets, to give little Flags an Inch across, made of Paper, in return for Coyns, for such a Charity. As for their Hatred, 'tis altogether disarm'd, for none may carry a Sword, or Knife, a Pistol, or a Musquet, under Penalty, tho' indeed there be Ruffians here and there, that do so in secret, but only that they may commit a Robbery impunedly upon a Bank, or a great Store of Goods, and so gain thousands of Pounds in a moment. (As for my Hanger, 'twere only an Ornament to them.) So is there no Point of Honour with them, but what may be settled by

Law and so line the Lawyers pockets, if the matter be grave enough.

That their ways are so soft and peaceable, comes perhaps from the being so well supply'd. They have Light, or Heat to cook with, or to keep their Chambers warm withall, at the meer touch upon a Button; tho' for these they must pay, when the Reckoning is brought to 'em. In the very Heat of Summer, they keep their Meat sweet, in a Chest, which is ever so cold that Frost and Rime encrust the inside parts of it; and this comes, as their Light and much of their Heat, from this same Electricity. If they wou'd have interview with a Friend, or wou'd buy or sell any thing, without a Journey, they have an Engine that they call a Found, or a Tellie-found, in their Houses, where they can both speak, and hear, any other Person that they chuse, by the turning a Dial with Numbers writ upon it. And this too is from Electricity. They may listen to Musick on their Raydeow Boxes, or see Plays in their Tellie Windows, any week, more then you cou'd meet with in London in a season in our Time. They have all manner of Things, both for work, and sport, and Meats too, that I can scarce describe to you. In their Shops I saw a vast number both of sorts of things, and of different fashions of the same, and of single examples of each fashion. Some of these, are so Costly, that only the richest can buy 'em; but many may be purchased by any but the poorest. With all this High-hving, every Man is thus like a great Prince; and tho' he have not Servants (for few of 'em will serve another) Electricity is his Servant. Yet are they no more content, then a great Prince might be, or less, for they know no better, then to conceive this soft Life is their Birthright, and that if they live not as well as, or better then their Neighbour, the State is to blame.

For that they buy and sell at such a rate, and keep them selves so mighty well supply'd with all manner of Engine, and Stuffs, the different Houses, that supply 'em, are in great rivalry one with another. From this comes a »reat Shew that they make every where, with Words and

Pictures, with bright Colours, like those of some Painter at Court, but in thousands of Copys for all to see, in their Journals and on huge Placards, that stand by the Roads, especially in the Towns. This they call meerly, Advertisement, as who shou'd call a Shout, a Murmur.

This brings me to their Words. Tho' they have many Words, that I never heard or saw before, I was quite as much in a Quandary at learning their Tongue, by reason of Words that I knew well but that they us'd otherwise then with us. Many, as I found in the end, had sunk (where Advertisement had flown up). So when they say, Terrible, they mean Great; when they say, Fabulous, they mean Goodly. Enthusiasm, is a meer Zeal, or pleasure in doing. But other Words, are much twisted in their Sence. Sex, which with us is the being Male, or Female, with them is the Coupling of Man and Woman. Romance is no FantasticaU Tale, but an Affair of the Heart; and so too with Romantick. A Buss, which with us (in that meaning) is a kind of Sea-vessel, with them is a Publick Carriage, as I have said. To Want is not to lack, but to have a wish for some thing. One who is Nice, do's not turn his Nose up, he is not Delicat, but meerly pleasing to the speaker. One who is Sensible, is not keenly perceiving of some thing, but a Man of good sence. They interlace their sentences with absolute Cant, that with us is heard from Cut-purses and Ruffians, but with them is perfectly gentle. On the other hand, they abound in long learned expressions, that their very Children use, and wrap their Notions up in Bundles, as to confound the listener. As for their manner of Uttering, 'tis altogether odd, as I have shewn it, but not without a smack of the low speech of a Cockney from London. After a time my Ears grew accustom'd to it, so that I heard, what was meant.

The Nation that dwells in America, and they that dwell in Moscovy, they say are the Arbiters of the World, for they have that Artillery, that I wrote of before, in the greatest Quantity. Besides this, from these two Nations, come the Inventions, of Machines that they have fired off toward the Moon, and the Planets Mars, and Venus, as if they had been Cannon Shot; which send back News of their Journeys, and (in some manner) Pictures, of what they meet; and so methinks, it is to take nigh on three hundred years, and an Enterprize from abroad, not from England, to fulfill these Flattring Verses of Mr. Dry den,

Then we upon our Globes last verge shall go And view the Ocean leaning on the Sky: From thence our rowling Neighbours we shall know, And on the Lunar world securely pry.

And besides, these two Nations, have sent Machines round the Earth, some hundreds of leagues above it, with Men in 'em, and at last fetch'd 'em down in their Machines safe and sound. And yet was my Machine unknown.

As for Moscow, they look upon it in their England, much as we look upon Rome; and as we look upon Papists, and Dissenters, so do they a kind of Levellers, that they call, Communists, that wou'd overthrow the State, if they cou'd, and yet are suffer'd to come and go every where without let or hindrance, save only that they may not get employment, where they can leam Secrets of State. For the meer Papists and Dissenters among them, they make no distinction against 'em, and hardly know, what Religion a Man professes, or what they profess them selves.

They have in the Land another sort of Stranger. For they have many Indians, both from West and East, who are come to make their livelihood in England. Their Neighbours are afear'd, the great numbers of these shou'd take their Wages from 'em, or bring new Plagues, or that their way of living shou'd be too Nasty, for the Publick Good; and some English Men (they say) have rais'd up Brawls against 'em. But the generality of English Natives are so mealy-mouth'd, that they dare not speak these Fears alowd, lest they have a foul Name of Racialist clapp'd on 'em, of which they are in mortal terror, from the thought of some Massacres perform'd a score of years before in Germany, and Oppressions committed thousands of leagues away in Africa and America.

For this they have some Colour, seeing that they are so much, as they call it, One World, that notions travell fast in their Time. But I think it partly but one case of a ready Superstition of Opinion among 'em which comes, as I ghess, from their singular prospect, whereby all can read, and vote for Parliament, as if they were equal, while most regard neither the Word of Religion nor fair Argument, but are blown this way and that by the least Gale or Breath of Censure from their fellows. They have a vast Esteem for Sophistries; they are very easie in believing such things as they wou'd have to be so, and are not forward to entertain a solid Reasoning. He that can fasten a Good, or a Bad name, howso ever ill-conceiv'd, upon any thing that is done, or made, or worn, or said, is scarce question'd, but straight his word is taken up. So they are blown hither and thither, by the Writers in the Courants, and the Speakers in the Tellies, and the Devizers of the Advertisements, the Blind leading the Blind.

Another cause of their being so biddable and so quiet, is perhaps that from the Hurry of the Day, they have little stomach for Trouble, and little room, in which to think for them selves. For tho' they live so well, yet they are also in a continual Coursing, and if their leisure is long, yet even there the World presses on 'em from all sides. Between their Running after every Notion, and their perpetual Hast, you wou'd say, that Ants had been mated with Munkies, to breed 'em.

All these matters, as I have said, I learnt not at once, but during many weeks. I spent my mornings in the back parts of the Shop. For my Dinner (always at the early hour of Noon) I went to a number of Eating Houses with my Host, or return'd with him to his House. If we came home, I often stay'd there after-wards, and try'd some Husbandry in their Garden, or walk'd abroad untill I knew the Neighbourhood well. The Wife, who also controul'd the Chariot, sometimes kept it by her after Dinner, while the Husband return'd to his Shop in one of their Busses. If the day were bright, she wou'd then bring me out in this Car, and over the countrey-side. I suffer'd a Surprize, when I saw our Range of Hills, not much chang'd, tho' with single Houses here and there built over 'em, and Poles of Metal to carry their Electricity over the Land. But every where was a Vapour or Smoak on the brightest of days. A Stream, where I am wont to fish, was become a Sluice between Walls of Stone, and black besides, in the midst of another Town, where is nothing today but a Farm (after which this Town was nam'd, as I found). The great part of the Land about is coveT'd with their Houses, and where our Farm-tracks wind, are hard Roads, where-on their Chariots continually rush by and roar. Their Towns are for the most part built of red Bricks, but blacken'd by their Smoaks, of which a great amount comes from Factorys as wide as Villages and as populous as Towns, where they make their many Goods.

On fair Saturdays, or Sundays (for they went to no Church, which much troubled me) my Host and his Wife wou'd bring their Car further abroad, and on occasion to the Sea. There I had another Surprize, for there hundreds, yea thousands of Men, Women and Children sate upon the Beaches (and many with lowd Raydeows whose Clamour assail'd my Ears); and a few score even walk'd into the shallow Sea; but all cloath'd, tho' in such small Garments, that hid scarce any thing, of bright Colours. My Hosts wou'd likewise Bathe (as they call'd it) in the Sea, and had with them these Garments, and one for me, but I wou'd not, and contented my self with watching. What they thought to enjoy by this stay, I cannot tell, unless it were the sight of so many bare Bodys, for there was nothing but Sand blown in your Face, and Wind too cold, Sun too hot, and a clamorous Multitude of Persons and Dogs.

Their Inns are places, where you may be very well entertain'd, at least for Food; for Drink 'tis only at certain hours that their Law allows it. Their Ale is thin and has little Smack, and their Wines want strength. They have much liking for a strong Spirit out of Scotland and Ireland, that I took for Uskebaugh, a harsh Drink fit for Bogg-bred Savages. They call'd it Wiskay. Two Fruits which I cou'd not well stomach, but of which they eat a vast deal, are a

Red Juicy Fruit, but very sower, that they call, Tomautows (I suppose the Tornate from the America's) and which they eat with Flesh, and the Shaddock, or Pomplemoose, which they call, Grape-Fruit, tho' (for the many that know it not) it is like a great yellow sower Orange, and no Grape. But of other Fruits they get a Multitude, Apples, Pears, Bananas, Oranges, Peaches, Strawberries, Rasp-berries, and many more from the ends of the Earth, in season and out of season, both fresh, and preserv'd, some in sweet Sirop in clos'd Jars of Metal, that they call, Cans. 'Tis also so with many other Meats, Fish, Cheeses, Butter, Honey, Preserves and Marmalades, that come from the America's, from many Lands in Europe, from Africa, from the Indies, and from the Antipodaean Continent.

Besides their Food and Drink, I must tell you, many of the younger sort, and especially the Girls, have a foul custom, of smoaking Tobaco in little Rowl'd Peices of Paper, which they call, Sick-Rates, because in the end they Corrupt the Lungs of many, tho' many years after. These Sick-Rates they smoak on the Top Tiers of the Busses, in the Eating-Houses, when they drink at home with Friends, and when they are at Work. In their Tellie Play-houses (of which more anon) the Air is full of their Smoak.

Altho' the Towns were so crowded, that you cou'd scarce stand for the press, yet they told me, a great part of the People were from home at this time. (And by October, the press was ten times worse, altho' I was by then somewhat accustom'd to it.) For every Man that is not a Pauper, takes his whole Family with him nigh once a year, for a week, or even for a fortnight, to rest from their Labours. My Host and his Wife had taken their Excursion in May, and that but for a week. These Retreats they call Holidays, for they have but few of our Holidays, only at Christmas and Easter and by Whit Sunday, and for two or three days beside in the year. Some go to the Coasts (whence that great Throng I saw on the Sands), some to wild Countrey and horrid Mountains (to flee the Crowd), but many to other Lands, so that the humblest Merchant makes his Tout like the finest Nobleman's Son, and not once in a Life-time, but every year, tho' for a meer two weeks. My Travells, that I thought some thing to be remember'd, were to them a trifling Excursion. But this comes from the great Ease of their Journeys, in Air-Craft or in their Cars, on Shipps that are sent thro' the Water by a Furnace of Oyl in their Bellies, and in great Caravans or Trains of Coaches (but each Coach as long as a Barn) that are drawn along Rails of Metal by a Machine, that burns Oyl likewise, or goes by Electricity. The Hostelrys every where are so commodious and clean, that a Traveller wants nothing and may lie easie where ever he may pass in Europe, or (indeed) in some parts of Africa and America.

The young Men and Women of Fifteen years upwards often travell in Partys together to other Countreys. Some of 'em go to Norway or to Swisserland in the Winter, in order to the enjoying a Sport, that they call Skeeing. This is nothing but to climb a great Mountain of Snow (or to be drawn up to the Summit on Wires) and to Slide down it very swiftly upon Boards that are strapp'd to your Feet. So soft is their Life become, that many of the bolder sort are uneasie, without they risk their Limbs and tire their Bodys this way. They have made for them selves all manner of such Sports. Some take Sticks with flat Peices of Metal at their Ends, that they call (forsooth) Clubs, and strike a little Ball from place to place up and down a great Park. Others joyn together in two Crews or Partys that are Enemy one to the other, and strive to kick a Ball as big as your Head between two Masts in their Enemys Ground; thousands of Men and Boys sit round on Benches to watch the outcome, and this Rabble rages like Enthusiasts out of a Bedlam. In the Summer they strike a Ball of the bigness of a Fist, with a Club of Wood that has a flat Face, while others endeavour to catch the Ball. These (and the others after Summer) send Crews from Land to Land to try which Countrey shall come off best; and all the world and the Courants, talk continually of their progress. Other Men again strike such a Ball, but more soft, from end to end of a Plot of ground across a Net, and to discomfit one the other, and this they call Tennis, but it resembles nothing our

Tennis, as I have seen it in London. Others rowl heavy Balls along an Alley within doors, to knock down ten Pins, and this Sport is much like our nine-Pins, but hundreds play at it, and thro' the whole Night. Others run on Skates, like the Dutch, but for Sport, and besides Running, to Dance wonderfully upon 'em, as I saw, in great Halls where the Ice is kept ever cold, even in Summer, tho' how I cou'd not understand. Others swim in Lakes or the Sea, but under the Water, for they have found a way, to carry Air with them, and to breathe it, as far as ten or twenty fathoms down; and these go also to take Fish with Spears. Others clamber down into Caverns and Holes in the Rocks, and walk (they say) in these many miles under the ground, for the Pleasure (if there be any). Others climb the highest of Mountains and the steepest of Cliffs. Others (but few) ride Air-Craft that have no Machine to drive them, and sail but with Wind and Air. And others (but fewer still) leap from Air-Craft, and fall thousands of fathoms, for the meer Feeling of it, but save themselves at last with a great Bag, folded at their Back, that they open out, so that it fills with the Air, and holds 'em up, and so they come gently to ground. In all those Sports Women strive as well as the Men. In the month of October the Nations over all the World sent Crews of both Men and Women, to run, or leap, or to toss Weights, in a friendly Strife or Concurrence, in a place in Japan; and this Sport all saw in the Windows of their Tellies. (My Host told me, that what I saw came thro' a Ball, that hung hundreds of miles above the Pacifick Ocean, but this I scarce credited).

For most take no part in these Strivings, but look on their Tellies, to see what the rest do; or to hear a sort of Musick (from little Raydeows) that shou'd make you cover your Ears, but which they wou'd surround them selves with all day, if they cou'd; or they wager, as I said before, in great Assemblys, upon the meer Chance of some Numbers shewn upon a Table. Or if they find their Life too becalm'd, they go to a kind of Play-houses, but without a Company, where (for Heroick Plays) they may witness Tortures, Ravishings, Sorcery, and Murther, with in between (for Comedys) some crazy Folly or other, all enacted in a Gigantick sort of Tellie, but often with Colours, so that it seem the more real.

Besides their Cars, on which they love to drive furiously, they have a kind of metallick Pony, but driven by this same Burning, which they call a Mowtasoikle. This makes a worse Roaring even than their Cars; it is much favour'd of Striplings. Another such has no Furnace in it, but you must drive it onward by pushing round with your Feet on two Peices, that go round. This they call a Boique, and it goes only as fast as a Man may run. Of Horses I scarce saw any, but they use them for Sport.

For that they use so much written Words, to send far, they have perfected a kind of Pencil, that writes with Ink, which it holds within it, and very Black, or Blew, or (indeed) Red or Green. But the Merchants and Houses of Trade (and some Men at Home) have a Machine, that prints Letters upon a Sheet of Paper, when you shall play upon little Keys on it, each mark'd with a different Letter; but it's Musick is a sad Rattling. And what amaz'd me, they give this work, to young Wenches. So you may read the Word of any Body, without troubling, how hard or easie is his Hand. And I may tell you, their Hand-writing is so strange, I cou'd make near nothing of it, not above one Letter in twenty, altho' their Printing is very like ours. A few Persons write, however, in a kind of Italick Hand, very formal, that I cou'd read pretty well. They use Utile Civihty in their Epistles, but affect a strange careless Friendliness, calling all Dear, even those they have never met and hope never to meet. But in their Speech as in their Writing, all their Address is abrupt and careless, so that like Children they use their First Names almost upon first acquaintance, Men with Women too, married or single; yet do they seldom salute each other with the least Gesture, unless it be (upon first Presentation) to clasp Hands.

My Host had Friends some times invited to Supper, and I found, that as this People had so little Civility, they cou'd meerly murmur, And this is Jow (for so they call'd me), and the Company wou'd seek to know no more, so that I cou'd sit and listen, without venturing a word. As I became more bold, I wou'd go out alone, to their Tellie Playhouses as it might be, and pay my Fee at the Door; or make a Sally to a great Shop, where I cou'd chuse all sorts of Wares, and carry 'em about in a Basket made of Metal, to the Door, where a Good-wife fetch'd 'em out and made the Reckoning. So I grew us'd to purchasing my Hostess her Provisions, which mightily pleas'd her. The Sheets of Copys, by the way, from Mr. Sympkins his Travells, by the Zerrocks, I kept in a Parcel within my Machine.

Some of my Host's Visitors had Children, that they left at home, and I learnt, that the Children here, for all they make so much sport of their Elders, must work hard, for they suffer their Schooling from Five years of age, to Fifteen, or some more, so that they are grown Men. And the Girls are so school'd likewise. If they wou'd have a good place in Life hereafter, they must do well, before Examiners, for whom they write many times long Discourses and Answers to hard Questions. The elder ones learn even some Natural Philosophy, that some of them may practice to controul those Marvels, by which their World runs. They learn Languages, but little Latin, and many other matters besides.

In September my Host had Business in London, and carry'd me thither in his Car. And here I had another and ovemhelming Surprize. For the London that we know was all but gone, save a few Monuments, much blacken'd and almost beyond recognizing, smother'd in the Bellie of a Town, that was more like a whole Countrey, compos'd all of Houses and other Buildings. I cannot begin to give you an Idaea, of the Extent of it, and you will not believe me, when I say, it is about Fifteen Leagues across, and all Buildings, for the most part begrim'd with Smoak. At Night, however, 'tis much lit up with wonderful Lights of many Colours. (Another cause, they have so little Murthers and Robberies, is, that their Citys are lit near as bright as day.) But when I saw Paul's half bury'd in the midst of great Buildings hundreds of feet high, I was glad, to come away.

That October, besides the great Sport in Japan, there was in Britain a great Election, when all in England and her Neighbours voted, for a new Government. I thought, there shou'd be Riots, but tho' the Courants had much to say, Folk round me took't very coolly. In the end the Tory's, that had been in more then a dozen years, were out, and t'other Party in. They said, there shou'd be some great Changes, tho' their numbers were scarce over those of the Tory Members.

It happen'd that one afternoon late in September, my Host's Wife and I were looking out at the Rain. The Day was a Friday and she said, she wish'd she knew, whether 'twou'd be fair Weather on the Saturday, or no, for an Excursion. Then she says to me, Why not travel to tomorrow in that Contrapshen, and see? At first I put her off, for I made her see, that if I mov'd to tomorrow, I shou'd meet my self, and that I wou'd by no means do. Then she says, Try the early morning, and keep out of the way of your Bed-room. So at last I agrees, to try early on Saturday morning, and again early on Sunday morning, but to stay below stairs. And to this she says Yes, but nothing wou'd satisfy her, but that she must come with me, to try this manner of Journey. For a long time I sought to disswade her, but in the end I submitted. We puli'd off it's Cloth, then in we goes into the Machine (mighty press'd together) and I mov'd the Rod and Dial. Seeing that she took littie Notice, of how they went, I was the more secure. Then I press'd the Red Knob and she cries out and clasps me for Fear, but I comforted her. We listen'd for a time, but all was still and dark. So then out we crept and softly into the Chamber, where the Tellie was. The Night was something Windy, but we cou'd hear no Rain. At last she and I crept back to the Porch, and gently unlock'd the Door, and so out into their little Park, or Front Garden. Under foot the ground was damp, but there was no Rain falling. A few Stars were in the Heavens, and a Half Moon thro' the Clowds. Then we stole hand in hand into the Porch again, and made all fast, and so within the Machine. Here I found all the Numbers and Pointers, and other

Letters, glowing in the Dark. So I found it easie, to turn the Machine to the Sunday morning. This time 'twas strong Moon-Light, and no Clowds in the Sky, but the Air was very warm, and the Ground dry. So we thought, 'twou'd be a fair Week-end. When we were come within again, she wou'd bring me into their Living-Chamber again, that we might enjoy the sight of the Moon, without danger of Surprize from the Watch without. This we did for some time, and I found her more kind, than I had expected. But at length (and I something uneasie with my self) we return'd to the Friday after-noon, and cover'd my Machine again with their great Cloth.

Our Fore-cast was a true one and a fine Journey we had of it all three, but said nothing of our Auguries, to her Husband. From that time she and I often made Tryal of the next Day's or of the next Week's weather, but always by Night. As we knew, we were lying both above-stairs in two other Bodys, we had a kind of delight-ful Terror at the thought. In the daytime we were at first Discreet, because many Persons came ever to the House, to bring Provisions, or to reckon for the Electricity, or to sell somewhat at the Door. But at length we grew too secure, and fell to traveling much in the Car to places, where she was little known, and at last, began to snatch Hours, above stairs.

One after-noon towards November, we were but then back from a Sortie into the Night before (for now we were grown so bold, as to do this too, but we took care, not to make three Pair of us that Night) and without covering my Machine again I had follow'd her up to their Bedchamber, where we fell a Kissing once more, when her Husband appear'd (who must have come home early, and up the Stairs un-heard). He thew me down the Stairs, which was like to break my Neck. In my Confusion, I stumbled into the Porch, and into the Machine, and mov'd it, without taking breath, two or three furlongs up the Road.

And here I made an Errour, for I found within my Machine the Pole of a Stopping-Place for Busses, and an Old Wife, that screech'd for mortal Fear. I push'd her out, and she went down the Road crying Murther, Help, Murther, and spilling her Merchandize out of her Basket as she went. Then I took counsel with my self, and looking carefully upon the Plats prepar'd to move within that Colledge, where I first came, but back to my own Time, by the Bam. I set the Dials to the exact Hour, when I first left our Village, for I thought, the earlier Time is perilous, for I shall meet my self, and a later Time is dangerous, for the Villagers will have mark'd my being away, and will press me with Questions; besides if my Machine is seen, I am like to stand Tryal for Witchcraft. I had little Breathing space, for as I turn'd the Dials, I saw a Buss coming up the Road.

When I push'd the Red Knob my Faint-ness nearly overcame me, and a fearful Clowdy-ness beset me, worse then before. I had the Wit to remember, that I had been twice in this Place and Moment, and that if I cou'd wait, my other two selves, and their Machine, wou'd both be gone, the one into the Future, the other into that Early Morning, eleven hours before. At last the Clowdy-ness pass'd. I lock'd the Rod (which at least is some safeguard, I thought), hastily cast off my new Cloathes (one of several Suits I now had) and pull'd on my old; and leaving the others within, as well as Sympkins his Travells from the Zerrocks, I crept forth into the empty Street. Now I sped home as fast as I might, for I had a Plan, to try other Times in the Future, or even in the Past, but first to furnish my self with more Goods (what I had left) to purchase a living there. Unhappily I encounter'd an Old Man that knew me well, who held speech with me, talking I know not what Nonsense, for the better part of ten minutes. At length I escap'd, and took a Wheel-Barrow, and fill'd it with fine Cloathes, and three Pistols, and an Abridgement of Janssonius his Adas, and quantity of Jewells, and a Mirrour besides. I went back with all to the place, but my Machine was gone. Since 'twas lock'd, I concluded, the Sorcerer was come back, and had gone off in't. And so I had nought to do, but to bring my Barrow back, and sadly unload my Gear. I was the poorer by some hundreds of

Pounds (1964), the Sheets of Sympkins Travells, and several changes of Cloathing, but the richer by some Memories, a Wrist-Watch, and the Knowledge of an un-ghessable Future.

The Music Makers

LANGDON JONES was trained as a musician and studied at Guildhall. He served for some time with the Band of the Royal Horse Guards and has composed a number of works, including several songs based on the poems of Apollinaire. He is assistant editor of New Worlds SF and contributes regularly to the magazine; one of his stories, I Remember, Anita, being perhaps the most controversial story to appear in New Worlds. His recent experimental stories include The Hall of the Machines and The Coming of the Sun. He is 24 and lives in London.

Pain! Searing torment! The agony screamed racing along every nerve. He was torn apart by forces he only half understood. Cosmic stresses strained at his body. Sweat stood out on his brow, and his body swayed from side to side in pain. He sensed an even greater torment coming; he felt the giant forces gathering themselves for another blow. It came—cataclysmic, finding him completely unprepared. He felt tears springing in his eyes as he allowed himself to be swept along by it, resisting no longer. And then—came sudden release, at the point where it had come; where it could be delayed no longer. And yet it was still completely unexpected. The pain ebbed and swelled, and died as quickly as it had come. He was completely numb, and in a strange way, serene, sensing a vast emotional undercurrent flowing through his mind. He felt as though he wanted to break down and sob like a child, as though his body was being controlled by an unknown outside force. He felt a yearning inside him, growing in intensity with every passing second. And still the serenity filled him with a strange warmth. He wanted to cry out his emotion, and he did so. Another voice joined his own, then others, then others, until the world was filled with voices crying out their passion. The voices gradually died away, one by one,

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until his own was the only voice left. No earthly ties were holding him now; all he felt was unearthly. There was a pressure! about him, and he began to rise to the shining light above. He strained up and up, striving towards the fulfilment he knew would come. Up and up until with a sudden lessening of force he realised that he had arrived at the summit, the high point that he knew was the end. This was the limit; the ultimate. No more could be said. The technical difficulty of holding the high note with no break or waver brought him back to his surroundings. There! It was done. A spattering of polite applause broke out.

The Berg Violin Concerto had come to its conclusion.

The audience was a bright sea of motion before him. He smiled at them, hating every one. The sound of their unwanted clapping filled the hall with a clash of harmonics. He listened to their applause, detecting imaginary rhythms beating within the sound. He turned, and walked towards the rostrum. There was Blacher, fat and sweaty, wiping his face with his handkerchief. At rehearsals he realised that Blacher really felt this work, perhaps more than any other, but tonight had been something special. The conductor had been possessed; had possessed. What had taken place tonight must have been what tortured Berg heard as he spent his life's last energy in pouring out the passionate memorial. Manon—gone! Gone!

He shook Blacher's hand warmly. "When I was a boy," he said, speaking easily above the applause, "I heard Colin Davis conduct this work. If he had heard this, he would never have touched the Berg again."

"It wasn't just me," said Blacher in a voice that sounded almost shaky, "it was them," (indicating the orchestra) "it was you, it was—everything. Perhaps it was even that." He pointed towards one of the high windows. The two men looked up, oblivious of the dying applause and regarded the deep blue of the Martian sky. Blacher spoke again. "That's what gave us our—shall I say—inspiration? Out there we are nearer the infinite than normal men have ever been before."

The applause was becoming more and more strained, and the two men collected themselves and quickly walked off the stage. Backstage, they peered out at the audience. "Look at them," hissed Blacher. "They have no idea. As far as they're concerned they've just heard yet another performance of a standard work. Peasants! Fools!"

"This is not like you, Maxim," he said. "I always thought of you as being the pinnacle of sheer indifference."

"Yes, yes, but tonight! We were saying something worth hearing, you know, David."

They stepped out on the stage again just before the applause finally dribbled away. Blacher motioned the orchestra to rise, and they did so wearily, exhausted and grudging. The clapping rose in volume as the audience dutifully acknowledged the orchestra's presence. Blacher smiled, and he distinctly heard through the death-like rictus, Blacher's voice calling "Peasants!"

The neck of the violin pressed against his hand. He wanted to play again. He had hoped, in that drained moment when the concerto concluded, that he would be free of it tonight. But it was not to be. He felt the desire stir within him again. As he walked into the wings he had to make an effort to keep the rest away from his chin. He plucked nervously at the fingerboard, and the sound of the open strings recalled again the opening of the Berg.

He reluctantly placed his violin in its case and absently slackened the bow.

Blacher's hand clapped him on the shoulder. "Well boy," he said. "I suggest before we do anything else we have a couple of scotches. Yes?"

"Yes indeed," he said.

"And then a walk outside?"

Evening was drawing in, and the daylight red had become a deep violet. The dunes cast long and dark shadows, and stars shone brightly in the deep sky. The musicians' nose units hissed faintly in the evening quiet. His violin case was heavy in his hand and Blacher's steps were heavy beside him.

"Have you been to Mars before?" asked the conductor.

"No, no, this tour is my first visit."

"It's a strange, strange place. Stand in the middle of the Sahara at evening and you'll never feel anything like the atmosphere that gets you here."

"Is there any truth in that story about the Martians?"

"What, that remnants of a dying race business? I doubt it. When the first rockets landed on Mars there were stories of blue shapes supping quietly away into the cover of the dune shadow. But imagine what it must have been like for those first men to be confronted by this. It is easy to understand a small matter of visual hallucination. I must admit though, it's an interesting story. If there were Martians, I wonder what they would think of us."

"After that audience, I shudder to think."

"Oh, we mustn't blame them too much. The new class. The pioneers, but at the same time the nouveau riche. They are men and women who imagine themselves to be at a cultural disadvantage to those of Earth. That is why this tour was arranged, when the colony had been in existence for so short a time. They have brutish taste and middle-class pretensions. They must keep up appearances; a visit to a concert is obligatory. They enjoy themselves although they have not the faintest idea of how to listen. Who are we to criticise? They probably derived a great deal of pleasure from your performance tonight, even if they never really heard a note of it."

The shadows deepened and the violet changed to a strong blue. Everything was blue. The dunes curved about them, sloping and pallid in the eerie fight; the steps of the men crunched into the soft sand. The urge came again, just like the end of the Berg; a desire for an unknown fulfilment that bloomed within him. It was a desire that could never be expressed in words; the price of his music. A perpetual irritation, it had been with him for most of his life. Music was just not enough. Sometimes, when he listened to the climax of a Bach fugue, he felt that he was approaching something—something big and incomprehensible. But he never attained it. He was like a drowning man, clasping the weeds at the side of a river, pulling himself half from the water and then slipping back again. He wondered what would happen if he ever found what he was looking for.

The colour of the dune shadows had deepened again, and glowed an almost luminous blue. Everything was still, and the vastness about the two men forced itself upon their attention. Here and there, a sand crystal caught the light from a star, and the dunes were sparkled with silver. He remembered again the people in the concert hall.

"If I were a Martian," he said, "I think I would kill us."

He remembered the ruined Martian city that had been found. He remembered the delicacy of the white stone spires and the graceful buildings. Their artifacts—slim crystal vases, curved tables, slim and delicate chairs. He contrasted these with the fat dome like a boil on the desert.

Blacher looked round. "I think you are a little too hard on your own species, David. There's nothing much wrong with humanity that time won't cure. A culture that can produce a Bach, a Beethoven, a Schoenberg, can't be all bad."

"You know, we're funny people. We call the music of Beethoven human—with a capital letter—whereas in reality it is much more. The music of great composers is completely inhuman—as inhuman as those acts of bestiality that we always credit as being something completely outside the bounds of humanity—and we always try to take the credit for these Godlike effusions in our egocentric way. Just because we feel that music expresses human emotions does not make it human; an angry tornado is not human, nor is a calm breeze. No, great music is something absolute, to which we respond with human emotions. What Berg created was something like these dunes, permanent and absolute, and what feelings Berg creates in us are in essence produced no differently than those caused by the dunes."

"No—no, I cannot agree. Music is created out of the heat of the moment—it conforms to the emotional climate of its time. It also has to conform to its own rigid formal construction. It is a moulding of forces into a pattern that tries to overcome the umitations imposed by itself. The limitations themselves become out of date and are replaced by new ones. There is the inhuman part of music; sonata-form, the rondo, tonality itself, and even these are completely impermanent. How often is Bach played today? Who listens to him except the music students and the dry academics? You listen to an Indian Raga and you'll find out how absolute is music. Music is an ephemeral construction; it will only create its emotional effect under the right conditions."

"You are only arguing my case, Maxim. The emotions that prompt a piece of music may be just as powerful in two composers, but if one expresses himself well in an anachronistic style, the emotion is not created in the listener. Music is a truth that may only be glimpsed occasionally. Whatever the listener feels is only his response to the absolute arrangement of the pattern in time and space, not to the emotions of the composer. Music is not communication—a blank wall looms between composer and listener."

"Well David, I promise that I'll have an answer for that tomorrow. Tonight, however, I am exhausted. I suggest we make our way back to the hotel. I will permit you to despise humanity for this evening. Coming?"

"No, Maxim—I think I would like to walk about a little longer. This scenery is incredible to me."

"Well, don't stay out too late. Horrible tales have been told of wandering tourists."

"No, I won't. Good night Maxim."

"Good night."

Blacher's footsteps crunched away, back towards the dome. A faint breeze stirred up sand in the distance. The air was trembling with a dim blue transparency; it was as if darkness could swamp everything in the space of a second. "Dark and sombre giant moth wings which killed the splendour of the sun," he thought, remembering the velvet tones of Pierrot Lunaire's Passacaglia. As if in answer to his thought, the faint light of Phobos became apparent as the moon rose, tiny, above the rolling horizon. As he walked he became aware of the absolute silence that lurked behind the sounds his steps made. He paused, and the silence swamped in with velvet wings. Giant moth wings. He felt again the urge to play. He looked down at his violin case and then quickly walked on. He remembered when he was a child, and he had finally mastered a Bach tune—he forgot which it was—he had felt fulfilment come near. He played and played, but still the elusive something had stayed away from him, and although he knew that it would never be captured he carried on playing, desperately, weeping.

There was a quality of stillness, of timelessness about the dunes. They had always been there—they would always be there. He remembered his discussion with Blacher. Maybe Maxim was right. Perhaps music was actually a passageway from head to head—or from heart to heart as Wagner would have it. Stravinsky once stated— whether in fun or not, he wasn't sure—that music was incapable of expressing anything at all. But the works of Stravinsky that had survived had been like The Rite of Spring or Les Noces. Who now remembered the formal Symphonies of Winds? Weren't Stravinsky's most absolute works his least successful? Maybe it was the original emotion of the composer that touched the listener, diluted when the style was poor or out of date. He wondered if there could ever be music that expressed a truth so great that it would be comprehensible and evocative to everybody.

Shadows now covered the ground. A deep blue colour hung over everything. Nothing stirred. Silence was everywhere.

A desire for expression washed over him. He could resist no longer.

He climbed up to the top of a nearby dune, his feet slipping in the soft sand. He squatted down by his violin case and lifted out the bow, tightening it. Now it had come to it, for some illogical reason he was scared to take out the violin. But his hand grasped the neck and he lifted the instrument to his chin. He swept the strings and tuned up carefully. Then he lifted the bow.

The sound of the violin echoed round the empty dunes of Mars. It was amplified by the curvature of the dunes, and reflections of the sound were scattered, so that it sounded as though he were playing in a great hall. He shut his eyes and heard the sounds reflected back from the dunes about and he sensed the hills in the distance dark and looming. He improvised wildly, minor seconds dissonantly clashing from the softly curving banks of sand. He was playing well, he knew, and he felt again the grinding frustration of being near an answer; the most important answer in the world; an answer that had no question. The violin spoke of his longing—a human longing. That was it! Music was human. This was its one great fault. Why did Mahler and Beethoven die, never to complete a tenth symphony? Because to have written more, to have gone further than they had already, they would have had to become something not human. That was why they died. It was impossible that they should go on living. This was why music could never attain more than it had. This was why it could never offer peace and fulfilment.

The sound of the violin clashed about in shards of sound, the improvisation growing wilder with his thoughts. Then he heard it.

It made the violin sound like a coarse and vulgar scraping. His bow stopped movingj' and he let the instrument fall. He stood, completely unmoving, completely transfixed.

It was music.

But it was music that he would never have dreamed could exist. It was quiet, and approached in a gradual crescendo. It said all there was to say. It was beyond emotion. Each note in its context, added its own importance to the whole. It spiralled round him, catching his brain and his bowels and his lungs. It made breathing impossible. Nearer it came, and its message became constantly more and more clear. It filled the universe; it was the universe. A world of wild, measured sound crackled about him.

If he had been able to tear his attention from its grasp, he would have been able to analyse the music. He would have realised that the theme was atonal, and that the metre varied, bar by bar. He would have noticed that it was ternary in form, the first section thirteen, the second nine and the third fifteen bars in length. He would have noticed that each variation faithfully followed this pattern, but all the time unfolding greater beauty and profundity. But he would not have actually been able to say all this, for the power of the music had paralysed him completely. He could have been engulfed by fire and not noticed.

He knew that this was what he was waiting for. The music was shouting what Bach had only whispered, and it was shouting more besides.

He saw a group of figures walking towards the dome. The music was coming from them. As they drew closer he could see the dim shapes, but not the nature of their instruments.

He knew that tears would never fill his eyes again. When music had made him weep, his tears had been shed for the unattainable. Now his tears were as far behind him as his birth.

The music spread ferns of sound about him.

The figures had long arms and long graceful legs, curved and jointed back. Their skins, he could see, were blue, unless in fact they were ghost-white and reflected back the colour of the dim sky. They completely ignored him as he stood there motionless.

He found himself lying on his back at the bottom of the dune, watching the upside-down figures as they walked past him tovjferds the dome. He realised then, that as Beethoven and Mahler, he was going to die; he knew too much; he was a human being no longer. He was already a corpse. He knew this, and he was happy. He had found his fulfilment.

The music welled within him; it swirled around him, filling the cosmos with its sound. He felt his senses beginning to fade, their tasks now obsolete.

In a moment of clarity, he realised why the Martians were going up to the dome. They planned to rid themselves of the coarse men who had usurped their territory; who would wreck their lives. They were going to kill off the earth-people in this humane way; by killing them with knowledge and fulfilment, so that there was nothing left for them to live for, as it was with him. A laugh came from his throat. The Martians didn't know what they were up against; a wall of philistinism, a defence inconceivably powerful. A nasty shock was in store for them. He wondered what the outcome of the contest would be; he just could not see victory for the Martians.

Most of the members of the orchestra would die; so would Maxim. He felt a welling of pleasure that Maxim would die, and experience this great quenching of thirst.

"You see," he muttered to his absent friend. "I have just discovered. The meaning of music is death. It's simple, isn't it?"

Dark and sombre giant moth wings brushed over his eyes, and his brain quietly stopped functioning.

And the ragged army kept its advance towards the dome across the dark dunes.

«

The Squirrel Cage

THOMAS M. DISCH was born in Minnesota, but lived for many years in New York. He is 27 and currently lives in Europe, based in London. He has sold sf to virtually all the sf magazines and also to Playboy, Escapade and other leading men's magazines in the USA. His work has also appeared in Transatlantic Review and other literary reviews and he is the author of several extremely successful novels included The Genocides and others yet to appear in this country. A collection of his short stories was recently published in England as 101 H-Bombs & Others. He .is perhaps the most talented newcomer on the American sf scene.

The terrifying thing—if that's what I mean—I'm not sure that "terrifying" is the right word—is that I'm free to write down anything I like but that no matter what I do write down it will make no difference—to me, to you, to whomever differences are made. But then what is meant by "a difference"? Is there ever really such a thing as change?

I ask more questions these days than formerly; I am less programmatic altogether. I wonder—is that a good thing?

This is what it is like where I am: a chair with no back; to it (so I suppose you would call it a stool); a floor, walls, and a ceiling, which form, as nearly as I can judge, a cube; white, white light, no shadows—not even on the underside of the lid of the stool; me, of course; the typewriter. I have described the typewriter at length elsewhere. Perhaps I shall describe it again. Yes, almost certainly I shall. But not now. Later. Though why not^ now? Why not the typewriter as well as anything else?

Of the many kinds of question at my disposal, "why" seems to be the most recurrent. Why is that?

What I do is this: I stand up and walk around the room from wall to wall. It is not a large room, but it's large

143

enough for present purposes. Sometimes I even jump, but there is little incentive to do that, since there is nothing to jump for. The ceiling is quite too high to touch, and the stool is so low that it provides no challenge at all. If I thought anyone were entertained by my jumping . . . but I have no reason to suppose that. Sometimes I exercise: push-ups, somersaults, headstands, isometrics, etc. But never as much as I should. I am getting fat. Disgustingly fat and full of pimples besides. I like to squeeze the pimples on my face. Every so often I will keep one sore and open with overmuch pinching, in the hope that I will develop an abscess and blood-poisoning. But apparently the place is germ-proof. The thing never infects.

It's well nigh impossible to kill oneself here. The walls and floor are padded, and one only gets a headache beating one's head against them. The stool and typewriter both have hard edges, but whenever I have tried to use them, they're withdrawn into the floor. That is how I know there is someone watching.

Once I was convinced it was God. I assumed that this was either heaven or hell, and I imagined that it would go on for all eternity just the same way. But if I were living in eternity already, I couldn't get fatter all the time. Nothing changes in eternity. So I console myself that I will someday die. Man is mortal. I eat all I can to make that day come faster. The Times says that that will give me heart disease.

Eating is fun, and that's the real reason I do a lot of eating. What else is there to do, after all? There is this little . . . nozzle, I suppose you'd call it, that sticks out of one wall, and all I have to do is put my mouth to it. Not the most elegant way to feed, but it tastes damn good. Sometimes I just stand there hours at a time and let it trickle in. Until I have to trickle. That's what the stool is for. It has a lid on it, the stool does, which moves on a hinge. It's quite clever, in a mechanical way.

If I sleep, I don't seem to be aware of it. Sometimes I do catch myself dreaming, but I can never remember what they were about. I'm not able to make myself dream at will. I would like that exceedingly. That covers all the vital functions but one—and there is an accommodation for sex too. Everything has been thought of.

I have no memory of any time before this, and I cannot say how long this has been going on. According to today's New York Times it is the Second of May, 1961. I don't know what conclusion one is to draw from that.

From what I've been able to gather, reading The Times, my position here in this room is not typical. Prisons, for instance, seem to be run along more liberal lines, usually. But perhaps The Times is lying, covering up. Perhaps even the date has been falsified. Perhaps the entire paper, every day, is an elaborate forgery and this is actually 1950, not 1961. Or maybe they are antiques and I am living whole centuries after they were printed, a fossil. Anything seems possible. I have no way to judge.

Sometimes I make up little stories while I sit here on my stool in front of the typewriter. Sometimes they are stories about the people in The New York Times, and those are the best stories. Sometimes they are just about people I make up, but those aren't so good because. . . .

They're not so good because I think everybody is dead. I think I may be the only one left, sole survivor of the breed. And they just keep me here, the last one, alive, in this room, this cage, to look at, to observe, to make their observations of, to—I don't know why they keep me alive. And if everyone is dead, as I've supposed, then who are they, these supposed observers? Aliens? Are there aliens? I don't know. Why are they studying me? What do they hope to learn? Is it an experiment? What am I supposed to do? Are they waiting for me to say something, to write something on this typewriter? Do my responses or lack of responses confirm or destroy a theory of behaviour? Are the testers happy with their results? They give no indications. They efface themselves, veiling themselves behind these walls, this ceiling, this floor. Perhaps no human could stand the sight of them. But maybe they are only scientists, and not aliens at all. Psychologists at M.I.T. perhaps, such as frequently are shown in The Times: blurred, dotty faces, bald heads,  occasionally a moustache,  certificate  of

146             The Best SF Stories from New Worlds

originality. Or, instead, young, crew-cut Army doctors studying various brainwashing techniques. Reluctantly, of course. History and a concern for freedom has forced them to violate their own (privately-held) moral codes. Maybe I volunteered for this experiment! Is that the case? O God, I hope not! Are you reading this, Professor? Are you reading this, Major? Will you let me out now? I want to leave this experiment right now. Yeah.

Well, we've been through that little song and dance before, me and my typewriter. We've tried just about every password there is. Haven't we, typewriter. And as you can see (can you see?)—here we are still.

They are aliens, obviously.

Sometimes I write poems. Do you like poetry? Here's one of the poems I wrote. It's called Grand Central Terminal ("Grand Central Terminal" is the right name for what most people, wrongly, call "Grand Central Station." This—and other priceless information—comes from The New York Times).

Grand Central Terminal How can you be unhappy when you see how high the ceiling is?

My!

the ceiling is high! High as the sky! So who are we to be gloomy here?

Why,

there isn't even room to die, my dear.

This is the tomb

of some giant so great

that if he ate us there would be simply no taste.

Gee,

what a waste that would be of you and me.

And sometimes, as you can also see, I just sit here copying old poems over again, or maybe copying the poem that The Times prints each day. The Times is my only source of poetry. Alas the day! I wrote Grand Central Terminal rather a long time ago. Years. I can't say exactly how many years though.

I have no measures of time here. No day, no night, no waking and sleeping, no chronometer but The Times, ticking off its dates. I can remember dates as far back as 1957. I wish I had a little diary that I could keep here in the room with me. Some record of my progress. If I could just save up my old copies of The Times. Imagine how, over the years, they would pile up. Towers and stairways and cosy burrows of newsprint. It would be a more humane architecture, would it not? This cube that I occupy does have drawbacks from the strictly human point of view. But I am not allowed to keep yesterday's edition. It is always taken away, whisked off, before today's edition is delivered. I should be thankful, I suppose, for what I have.

What if The Times went bankrupt? What if, as is often threatened, there were a newspaper strike! Boredom is not, as you might suppose, the great problem. Eventually—very soon, in fact—boredom becomes a great challenge. A stimulus.

My body. Would you be interested in my body? I used to be. I used to regret that there were no mirrors in here. Now, on the contrary, I am grateful. How gracefully, in those early days, the flesh would wrap itself about the skeleton; now, how it droops and languishes! I used to dance by myself hours on end, humming my own accompaniment—leaping, rolling about, hurling myself spreadeagled against the padded walls. I became a connoisseur of kinesthesia. There is great joy in movement—free, unconstrained speed.

Life is so much tamer now. Age dulls the edge of pleasure, hanging its wreathes of fat on the supple Christmas tree of youth.

I have various theories about the meaning of life. Of life here. If I were somewhere else—in the world I know of from The New York Times, for instance, where so many exciting things happen every day that it takes half a million words to tell about them—there would be no problem at all. One would be so busy running around—from 53rd St. to 42nd St., from 42nd St. to the Fulton Street Fish Market, not to mention all the journeys one might make crosstown—that one wouldn't have to worry whether life had a meaning.

In the daytime one could shop for a multitude of goods, then in the evening, after a dinner at a fine restaurant, to the theatre or a cinema. Oh, life would be so full if I were living in New York! If I were free! I spend a lot of time, like this, imagining what New York must be like, imagining what other people are like, what I would be like with other people, and in a sense my life here is full from imagining such things.

One of my theories is that they (you know, ungentle reader, who they are, I'm sure) are waiting for me to make a confession. This poses problems. Since I remember nothing of my previous existence, I don't know what I should confess. I've tried confessing to everything: political crimes, sex crimes (I especially like to confess to sex crimes), traffic offences, spiritual pride. My God, what haven't I confessed to? Nothing seems to work. Perhaps I just haven't confessed to the crimes I really did commit, whatever they were. Or perhaps (which seems more and more likely) the theory is at fault.

I have another theory th

A brief hiatus.

The Times came, so I read the day's news, then nourished myself at the fount of life, and now I am back at my stool.

I have been wondering whether, if I were living in that world, the world of The Times, I would be a pacifist or not. It is certainly the central issue of modern morality, and one would have to take a stand. I have been thinking about the problem for some years, and I am inclined to believe that I am in favour of disarmament. On the other hand, in a practical sense I wouldn't object to the bomb if I could be sure it would be dropped on me. There is definitely a schism in my being between the private sphere and the public sphere.

On one of the inner pages, behind the political and international news, was a wonderful story headlined: BIOLOGISTS HAIL MAJOR DISCOVERY. Let me copy it out for your benefit:

Washington D.C.—Deep-sea creatures with brains but no mouths are being hailed as a major biological discovery of the twentieth century.

The weird animals, known as pogonophores, resemble slender worms. Unlike ordinary worms, however, they have no digestive system, no excretory organs, and no means of breathing, the National Geographic Society says. Baffled scientist who first examined pogonophores believed that only parts of the specimens had reached them.

Biologists are now confident that they have seen the whole animal, but still do not understand how it manages to live. Yet they know it does exist, propagate, and even think, after a fashion, on the floors of deep waters around the globe. The female pogonophore lays up to thirty eggs at a time. A tiny brain permits rudimentary mental processes.

All told, the pogonophore is so unusual that biologists have set up a special phylum for it alone. This is significant because a phylum is such a broad biological classification that creatures as diverse as fish, reptiles, birds, and men are all included in the phylum, Chordata.

Settling on the sea bottom, a pogonophore secretes a tube around itself and builds it up, year by year, to a height of perhaps five feet. The tube resembes a leaf of white

150             The Best SF Stories from New Worlds

grass, which may account for the fact that the animal went

so long undiscovered.

The pogonophore apparently never leaves its self-built prison, but crawls up and down inside at will. The wormlike animal may reach a length of fourteen inches, with a diameter of less than a twenty-fifth of an inch. Long tentacles wave from its top end.

Zoologists once theorised that the pogonophore, in an early stage, might store enough food in its body to allow it to fast later on. But young pogonophores also lack a digestive system.

It's amazing the amount of things a person can learn just by reading The Times every day. I always feel so much more alert after a good read at the paper. And creative. Herewith, a story about pogonophores:

STRIVING

The Memoirs of a Pogonophore

Introduction

In May of 1961 I had been considering the purchase of a pet. One of my friends had recently acquired a pair of tarsiers, another had adopted a boa constrictor, and my nocturnal roommate kept an owl caged above his desk.

A nest (or school?) of pogs was certainly one-up on their eccentricities. Moreover, since pogonophores do not eat, excrete, sleep, or make noise, they would be ideal pets. In June I had three dozen shipped to me from Japan at considerable expense.

A brief interruption in the story: do you feel that it's credible. Does it possess the texture of reality? I thought that by beginning the story by mentioning those other pets, I would clothe my invention in greater verisimilitude. Were you taken in?

Being but an indifferent biologist, I had not considered the problem of maintaining adequate pressure in my aquarium. The pogonophore is used to the weight of an entire ocean. I was not equipped to meet such demands. For a few exciting days I watched the surviving pogs rise and descend in their translucent white shells. Soon, even these died. Now, resigned to the commonplace, I stock my aquarium with Maine lobsters for the amusement and dinners of occasional out-of-town visitors.

I have never regretted the money I spent on them: man is rarely given to know the sublime spectacle of the rising pogonophore—and then but briefly. Although I had at that time only the narrowest conception of the thoughts that passed through the rudimentary brain of the sea-worm ("Up up up Down down down"), I could not help admiring its persistence. The pogonophore does not sleep. He climbs to the top of the inside passage of his shell, and, when he has reached the top, he retraces his steps to the bottom of his shell. The pogonophore never tires of his self-imposed regimen. He performs his duty scrupulously and with honest joy. He is not a fatalist.

The memoirs that follow this introduction are not allegory. I have not tried to "interpret" the inner thoughts of the pogonophore. There is no need for that, since the pogonophore himself has given us the most eloquent record of his spiritual life. It is transcribed on the core of translucent white shell in which he spends his entire life.

Since the invention of the alphabet it has been a common conceit that the markings on shells or the sand-etched calligraphy of the journeying snail are possessed of true linguistic meaning. Cranks and eccentrics down the ages have tried to decipher these codes, just as other men have sought to understand the language of the birds. Unavailingly, I do not claim that the scrawls and shells of common shellfish can be translated; the core of the pogonophore's shell, however, can be—for I have broken the code!

With the aid of a United States Army manual on cryptography (obtained by what devious means I am not at liberty to reveal) I have learned the grammar and syntax of the pogonophore's secret language. Zoologists and others who would like to verify my solution of the crypt may

reach me through the editor of this publication.

In all thirty-six cases I have been able to examine, the indented traceries on the insides of these shells have been the same. It is my theory that the sole purpose of the pogonophore's tentacles is to follow the course of this "message" up and down the core of his shell and thus, as it were, to think. The shell is a sort of externalized stream-of-consciousness.

It would be possible (and in fact it is an almost irresistible temptation) to comment on the meaning that these memoirs possess for mankind. Surely, there is a philosophy compressed into these precious shells by Nature herself. But before I begin my commentary, let us examine the text itself.

The Text I

Up. Uppity, up, up. The Top.

II

Down. Downy, down, down. Thump. The Bottom.

Ill

A description of my typewriter. The keyboard is about one foot wide. Each key is flush to the next and marked with a single letter of the alphabet, or with two punctuation signs, or with one number and one punctuation sign. The letters are not ordered as they are in the alphabet, alphabetically, but seemingly at random. It is possible that they are in code. Then there is a space bar. There is not, however, either a margin control or a carriage return. The platen is not visible, and I can never see the words I'm writing. What does it all look like? Perhaps it is made immediately into a book by automatic linotypists. Wouldn't that be nice? Or perhaps my words just go on and on in one endless line of writing. Or perhaps this typewriter is just a fraud and leaves no record at all.

Some thoughts on the subject of futility:

I might just as well be lifting weights as pounding at these keys. Or rolling stones up to the top of a hill from which they immediately roll back down. Yes, and I might as well tell lies as the truth. It makes no difference what I say.

That is what is so terrifying. Is "terrifying" the right word?

I seem to be feeling rather poorly today, but I've felt poorly before! In a few more days I'll be feeling all right again. I need only be patient, and then. . . .

What do they want of me here? If only I could be sure that I were serving some good purpose. I cannot help worrying about such things. Time is running out. I'm hungry again. I suspect I am going crazy. That is the end of my story about the pogonophores.

A hiatus.

Don't you worry that I'm going crazy? What if I got catatonia? Then you'd have nothing to read. Unless they gave you my copies of The New York Times. It would serve you right.

You: the mirror that is denied to me, the shadow that I do not cast, my faithful observer, who reads each freshly-minted pensee; Reader.

You: Horrorshow monster, Bug-Eyes, Mad Scientist, Army Major, who prepares the wedding bed of my death and tempts me to it.

You: Other!

Speak to me!

YOU:                 What shall I say, EartMing?

I:                         Anything so long as it is another voice

than my own, flesh that is not my own flesh, lies that I do not need to invent for myself. I'm not particular, I'm not proud. But I doubt sometimes - you won't think this is too melodramatic of me? - that I'm real.

YOU:                  I know the feeling. (Extending a tentacle)

May I?

I:                         (Backing off) Later. Just now I thought

we'd talk. (You begin to fade.) There is so much about you that I don't understand. Your identity is not distinct

You change from one being to another as

easily as I might switch channels on a

television set, if I had one. You are too

secretive as well. You should get about in

the world more. Go places, show yourself,

enjoy life. If you're shy, I'll go out with

you. You let yourself be undermined by

fear, however.

YOU:                  Interesting. Yes, definitely most interest-

ing. The subject evidences acute paranoid

tendencies, fantasises with almost delusion-

al intensity. Observe his tongue, his pulse,

his urine. His stools are irregular. His teeth

are bad. He is losing hair.

I:                         I'm losing my mind.

YOU:                  He's losing his mind.

I:                         I'm dying.

YOU:                  He's dead.

(Fades until there is nothing but the golden glow of the eagle on his cap, a glint from the oak leaves on his shoulders). But he has not died in vain. His country will always remember him, for by his death he has made this nation free.

(Curtain.Anthem.) Hi, It's me again. Surely you haven't forgotten me? Your old friend, me? Listen carefully now—this is my plan. I'm going to escape from this damned prison, by God, and you're going to help me. 20 people may read what I write on this typewriter, and of those 20, 19 could see me rot here forever without batting an eyelash. But not number 20. Oh no! He—you—still has a conscience. He/you will send me a Sign. And when I've seen the Sign, I'll know that someone out there is trying to help. Oh, I won't expect miracles overnight. It may take months, years even, to work out a foolproof escape, but just the knowledge that there is someone out there trying to help will give me the strength to go on from day to day, from issue to issue of The Times.

You know what I sometimes wonder? I sometimes

wonder why The Times doesn't have an editorial about me.

They state their opinion on everything else—Castro's

Cuba, the shame of our Southern States, the Sales Tax, the

first days of Spring. What about me!

I mean, isn't it an injustice the way I'm being treated? Doesn't anybody care, and if not, why not? Don't tell me they don't know I'm here. I've been years now writing, writing. Surely they have some idea. Surely someone does!

These are serious questions. They demand serious appraisal. I insist that they be answered.

I don't really expect an answer, you know. I have no false hopes left, none. I know there's no Sign that will be shown me, that even if there is, it will be a he, a lure to go on hoping. I know that I am alone in my fight against this injustice. I know all that—and / don't care! My will is still unbroken, and my spirit free. From my isolation, out of the stillness, from the depths of this white, white light, I say this to you—I DEFY YOU! Do you hear that? I said: I DEFY YOU!

Dinner again. Where does the time all go to?

While I was eating dinner I had an idea for something I was going to say here, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. If I remember, I'll jot it down. Meanwhile, I'll tell you about my other theory.

My other theory is that this is a squirrel-cage. You know? Like the kind you find in a small town park. You might even have one of your own, since they don't have to be very big. A squirrel-cage is like most any other kind of cage except it has an exercise wheel. The squirrel gets into the wheel and starts running. His running makes the wheel turn, and the turning of the wheel makes it necessary for him to keep running inside it. The exercise is supposed to keep the squirrel healthy. What I don't understand is why they put the squirrel in the cage in the first place. Don't they know what it's going to be like for the poor little squirrel? Or don't they care?

They don't care.

I remember now what it was I'd forgotten. I thought of a new story. I call it "An Afternoon at the Zoo." I made it up myself. It's very short, and it has a moral. This is my story:

AN AFTERNOON AT THE ZOO

This is the story about Alexandra. Alexandra was the wife of a famous journalist, who specialised in science reporting. His work took him to all parts of the country, and since they had not been blessed with children, Alexandra often accompanied him. However this often became very boring, so she had to find something to do to pass the time. If she had seen all the movies playing in the town they were in, she might go to a museum, or perhaps to a ball game, if she were interested in seeing a ball game that day. One day she went to a zoo.

Of course it was a small zoo, because this was a small town. Tasteful but not spectacular. There was a brook that meandered all about the grounds. Ducks and a lone black swan glided among the willow branches and waddled out onto the lake to snap up bread crumbs from the visitors. Alexandra thought the swan was beautiful.

Then she went to a wooden building called the "Roden-tiary". The cages advertised rabbits, otters, racoons, etc. Inside the cages was a litter of nibbled vegetables and droppings of various shapes and colours. The animals must have been behind the wooden partitions, sleeping. Alexandra found this disappointing, but she told herself that rodents were hardly the most important thing to see at any zoo.

Nearby the Rodentiary, a black bear was sunning himself on a rock ledge. Alexandra walked all about the demi-lune of bars without seeing other members of the bear's family. He was an enormous bear.

She watched the seals splash about in their concrete pool, and then she moved on to find the Monkey House. She asked a friendly peanut vendor where it was, and he told her it was closed for repairs.

"How sad!" Alexandra exclaimed.

"Why don't you try Snakes and Lizards?" the peanut vendor asked.

Alexandra wrinkled her nose in disgust. She'd hated reptiles ever since she was a little girl. Even though the Monkey House was closed she bought a bag of peanuts and ate them herself. The peanuts made her thirsty so she bought a soft drink and sipped it through a straw, worrying about her weight all the while.

She watched the peacocks and a nervous antelope, then turned off on a path that took her into a glade of trees. Poplar trees, perhaps. She was alone there, so she took off her shoes and wiggled her toes, or performed some equivalent action. She liked to be alone like this, sometimes.

A file of heavy iron bars beyond the glade of trees drew Alexandra's attention. Inside the bars there was a man, dressed in a loose-fitting cotton suit—pyjamas, most likely—held up about the waist with a sort of rope. He sat on the floor of his cage without looking at anything in particular. The sign at the base of the fence read: Chordate.

"How lovely!" Alexandra exclaimed.

Actually, that's a very old story. I tell it a different way every time. Sometimes it goes on from the point where I left off. Sometimes Alexandra talks to the man behind the bars. Sometimes they fall in love, and she tries to help him escape. Sometimes they're both killed in the attempt, and that is very touching. Sometimes they get caught and are put behind the bars together. But because they love each other so much, imprisonment is easy to endure. That is also touching, in its way. Sometimes they make it to freedom-After that though, after they're free, I never know what to do with the story. However, I'm sure that if I were free myself, free of this cage, it would not be a problem.

One part of the story doesn't make much sense. Who would put a person in a zoo? Me, for instance. Who would do such a thing? Aliens? Are we back to aliens again? Who can say about aliens? I mean, / don't know anything about

them.

My theory, my best theory, is that I'm being kept here by people. Just ordinary people. It's an ordinary zoo, and ordinary people come by to look at me through the walls. They read the things I type on this typewriter as they appear on a great illuminated billboard, hke the one that spelled out the news headlines around the sides of The Times Tower on 42nd Street. When I write something funny, they may laugh and when I write something serious, such as an appeal for help, they probably get bored and stop reading. Or vice versa perhaps. In any case, they don't take what I say very seriously. None of them care that I'm inside here. To them I'm just another animal in a cage. You might object that a human being is not the same thing as an animal, but isn't he, after all? They, the spectators, seem to think so. In any case, none of them is going to help me get out. None of them thinks it's at all strange or unusual that I'm in here. None of them thinks it's wrong. That's the terrifying thing.

"Terrifying"?

It's not terrifying. How can it be? It's only a story, after all. Maybe you don't think it's a story, because you're out there reading it on the billboard, but I know it's a story because I have to sit here on this stool making it up. Oh, it might have been terrifying once upon a time, when I first got the idea, but I've been here now for years. Years. The story has gone on far too long. Nothing can be terrifying for years on end. I only say it's terrifying because, you know, I have to say something. Something or other. The only thing that could terrify me now is if someone were to come in. If they came in and said, "All right, Disch, you can go now." That, truly, would be terrifying.

AMONG BERKLEY'S OUTSTANDING SCIENCE FICTION AUTHORS ARE:

KEITH LAUMER

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(X1514—600) (XI447—600) (X1427—600) (F1273—500)

POUL ANDERSON

THE TROUBLE TWISTERS                                         (X1417—600)

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MURRAY LEINSTER

CHECKPOINT LAMBDA                                        (F1263—500)

THE ALIENS                                                             (Fl 139—500)

THE OTHER SIDE OF NOWHERE       (F918—500)

(Please turn page)

H.G. WELLS

IN THE DA YS OF THE COMET                                  (XI440—600)

THE FOOD OF THE GODS                                           (XI407—600)

THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON                                 (Fl398—500)

THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU                                 (F1363—500)

DAMON KNIGHT

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GORDON DICKSON

THE SPACE SWIMMERS MISSION TO UNIVERSE

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THE PALACE OF LOVE THE KILLING MACHINE

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HARRY HARRISON

MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!                              (X1416—600)

BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO                                  (Fl 186—500)

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SEVEN TOP STORIES BY THE BEST OF TODAY'S SF WRITERS

Under the brilliant editorship of Michael

Moorcock, New Worlds SF has gained a repu-

tation for being the most adventurous pioneer-

ing SF magazine in the world—giving voice to

I                                 writers who, tired of the old

V                   conventions and overworked

WL        themes of most traditional SF, 11       are not afraid to experiment m,      with fresh ideas and techniques.

Hi          Here, from the pages of New

■I          Worlds SF, are seven of the

,    , flr       most exciting expressions of the

h    \ ■§           new spirit in SF today, seven

\     \j3         voyages into the unknown by

?.    .              writers who are fresh, modern,

original, disturbing, and above

!s£   mm           all different.

I W^Bf    They are: J. G. Ballard, Brian IJtw     W. Aldiss, Roger Zelazny, John ' ->.Ji %    Brunner, David I. Masson, Langdon Jones and Thomas A 7fi*   M. Disch