Star Science Fiction 2 - [Anthology] Read online

  Immediately the room was still. So still they could hear the whirring movement of the grandfather’s clock out in the hall. Pat Reilly had been playing the piano, softly. He stopped, his hands poised over the yellowed keys.

  The candles on the dining-room table flickered in a cool breeze that blew through the lace curtains over the bay window.

  “Keep playing, Pat,” Anthony’s father said softly.

  Pat started again. He playedNight and Day, but his eyes were sidewise on Dan Hollis, and he missed notes.

  Dan stood in the middle of the room, holding the record. In his other hand he held a glass of brandy so hard his hand shook.

  They were all looking at him.

  “Christ,” he said again, and he made it sound like a dirty word.

  Reverend Younger, who had been talking with Mom and Aunt Amy by the dining-room door, said “Christ” too—but he was using it in a prayer. His hands were clasped, and his eyes were closed.

  John Sipich moved forward. “Now, Dan . . . it’s good for you to talk that way. But you don’t want to talk too much, you know.”

  Dan shook off the hand Sipich put on his arm.

  “Can’t even play my record,” he said loudly. He looked down at the record, and then around at their faces. “Oh, my God . . .”

  He threw the glassful of brandy against the wall. It splattered and ran down the wallpaper in streaks.

  Some of the women gasped.

  “Dan,” Sipich said in a whisper. “Dan, cut it out-”

  Pat Reilly was playing Night and Day louder, to cover up the sounds of the talk. It wouldn’t do any good, though, if Anthony was listening.

  Dan Hollis went over to the piano and stood by Pat’s shoulder, swaying a little.

  “Pat,” he said. “Don’t playthat. Play this.” And he began to sing. Softly, hoarsely, miserably: “Happy birthday to me . . . Happy birthday to me . . .”

  “Dan!” Ethel Hollis screamed. She tried to run across the room to him. Mary Sipich grabbed her arm and held her back. “Dan,” Ethel screamed again. “Stop-”

  “My God, be quiet!” hissed Mary Sipich, and pushed her toward one of the men, who put his hand over her mouth and held her still.

  “-Happy birthday, dear Danny,” Dan sang. “Happy birthday to me!” He stopped and looked down at Pat Reilly. “Play it, Pat. Play it, so I can sing right . . . you know I can’t carry a tune unless somebody plays it!”

  Pat Reilly put his hands on the keys and began Lover— in a slow waltz tempo, the way Anthony liked it. Pat’s face was white. His hands fumbled.

  Dan Hollis stared over at the dining-room door. At Anthony’s mother, and at Anthony’s father who had gone to join her.

  “You had him,” he said. Tears gleamed on his cheeks as the candlelight caught them. “You had to go and have him . . .”

  He closed his eyes, and the tears squeezed out. He sang loudly, “You are my sunshine ... my only sunshine . . . you make me happy . . . when I am blue . . .”

  Anthony came into the room.

  Pat stopped playing. He froze. Everybody froze. The breeze rippled the curtains. Ethel Hollis couldn’t even try to scream—she had fainted.

  “Please don’t take my sunshine . . . away . . .” Dan’s voice faltered into silence. His eyes widened. He put both hands out in front of him, the empty glass in one, the record in the other. He hiccupped, and said, “No-

  “Bad man,” Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.

  The glass and record thumped on the rug. Neither broke.

  Anthony’s purple gaze went around the room.

  Some of the people began mumbling. They all tried to smile. The sound of mumbling filled the room like a far-off approval. Out of the murmuring came one or two clear voices:

  “Oh, it’s a very good thing,” said John Sipich.

  “A good thing,” said Anthony’s father, smiling. He’d had more practice in smiling than most of them. “A wonderful thing.”

  “It’s swell . . . just swell,” said Pat Reilly, tears leaking from eyes and nose, and he began to play the piano again, softly, his trembling hands feeling for Night and Day.

  Anthony climbed up on top of the piano, and Pat played for two hours.

  * * * *

  Afterward, they watched television. They all went into the front room, and lit just a few candles, and pulled up chairs around the set. It was a small-screen set, and they couldn’t all sit close enough to it to see, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t even turn the set on. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, there being no electricity in Peaksville.

  They just sat silently, and watched the twisting, writhing shapes on the screen, and listened to the sounds that came out of the speaker, and none of them had any idea of what it was all about. They never did. It was always the same.

  “It’s real nice,” Aunt Amy said once, her pale eyes on the meaningless flickers and shadows. “But I liked it a little better when there were cities outside and we could get real-”

  “Why, Amy!” said Mom. “It’s good for you to say such a thing. Very good. But how can you mean it? Why, this television is much better than anything we ever used to get!”

  “Yes,” chimed in John Sipich. “It’s fine. It’s the best show we’ve ever seen!”

  He sat on the couch, with two other men, holding Ethel Hollis flat against the cushions, holding her arms and legs and putting their hands over her mouth, so she couldn’t start screaming again.

  “It’s really good!” he said again.

  Mom looked out of the front window, across the darkened road, across Henderson’s darkened wheat field to the vast, endless, gray nothingness in which the little village of Peaksville floated like a soul—the huge nothingness that was most evident at night, when Anthony’s brassy day had gone.

  It did no good to wonder where they were ... no good at all. Peaksville was just someplace. Someplace away from the world. It was wherever it had been since that day three years ago when Anthony had crept from her womb and old Doc Bates—God rest him—had screamed and dropped him and tried to kill him, and Anthony had whined and done the thing. Had taken the village someplace. Or had destroyed the world and left only the village, nobody knew which.

  It did no good to wonder about it. Nothing at all did any good—except to live as they must live. Must always, always live, if Anthony would let them.

  These thoughts were dangerous, she thought.

  She began to mumble. The others started mumbling too. They had all been thinking, evidently.

  The men on the couch whispered and whispered to Ethel Hollis, and when they took their hands away, she mumbled too.

  While Anthony sat on top of the set and made television, they sat around and mumbled and watched the meaningless, flickering shapes far into the night.

  Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops—but it was a good day.

  <>

  * * * *

  LESTER DEL RAY

  Your editor is a patient man, but all patience in time comes to an end. Faced for the fifth consecutive time with the task of finding something fresh and different to say about a story by one of the youngest “Old Masters” of the science-fiction field, Lester del Rey, your editor has reached the end of his rope. Let it be clearly understood, then, that under no circumstances will there be another del Rey story in any anthology constructed by the undersigned—unless, that is, del Rey should come up with a story as compellingly written and warmly sympathetic as-

  A Pound of Cure

  Maryl sat in the same spot as he’d left her in the morning, and the house was a mess, except for the big electrochord Henry had bought for Jimmy’s first lessons. That was polished to a gleam of synthetic mahogany, and topped by the tri-di picture of the boy, taken a year ago. Now she sat with her hands in her lap, facing it. Wrapped around one finger was the yellow curl she’d saved fro
m the boy’s first haircut, and her thumb was caressing it softly.

  But she got up as Henry came in, her face hardening. He flinched, dropping his eyes, and reaching for the slippers the robot houseboy should have brought. Then he remembered why the little robot was no longer around, and jerked his eyes up guiltily to meet hers.

  “Henry!” Her voice had a touch of a quiver to it, but it carried determination. “Henry! I’ve made up my mind. Jimmy’s been with your mother two days now, and it isn’t good for him to be away from me so long. I want you to drive out for him tonight!”

  He’d been afraid of it, and his story was ready. But looking at her, he dropped it. “I had a hard day, honey. I’m dead. Besides, the heli’s acting up. I don’t think it would take three hundred miles there and back.”

  Her lips grew thin. “I work, too, Henry. I spent all day cleaning Jimmy’s room.” Her face lightened, and a fond smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “He’s such a messy boy. But he is a sweet child, too. I’ve been thinking we should let him grow his curls again, Henry. He looked so nice that way.”

  Henry forced the anger out of his voice, trying to remember that it had been harder on her. They hadn’t meant to let her know about the hysterectomy and the fact that she couldn’t have other children; she’d always been sensitive, and her whole life had been centered on having the maximum five children the law allowed. But somehow she’d learned the truth. And since then she’d changed. Like letting the house go to pot, not even ordering the robot maid to make the beds, or letting it do more than a token cleaning; like cleaning Jimmy’s room daily by herself.

  He nodded. “I’ve been thinking so too, Maryl. In fact, Mother told me I should. Said we were trying to make Jimmy into a man too fast. Told me she was taking him out to buy him a blue velvet suit tonight.”

  He watched the reaction, and some relief came as Maryl softened. “That’s nice. Though she might talk to me about it. Still—umm, maybe you can get Jimmy tomorrow. I guess she’s lonely, too. But you’ve got to bring him back tomorrow, Henry. Tomorrow!”

  “Tomorrow,” he promised, and clumped out to the kitchen to see what Zenia, the maid, had prepared for his supper. Maryl had unquestionably eaten at five, since she’d started sharing her dinner with Jimmy, instead of waiting for him. Sometimes now it seemed to him that he was more married to the robot than to his wife. She’d been named for a real maid they’d had seven years before, and her body had been fixed to look like the girl’s, even to the tiny sweat glands that left beads of moisture on her forehead when she worked over the stove.

  He told her the new one he’d heard at the office, about the heli salesgirl who’d married the lion tamer. It couldn’t have meant anything to her, but she laughed at the right place, and countered with the story of a widower in France looking for mourning clothes. He went up to bed feeling considerably better.

  Sometime during the night he awakened to realize Maryl wasn’t in her bed. He tiptoed down the hall, to find her curled up on Jimmy’s bed, sound asleep. But the light must have disturbed her. She turned part-way over, and muttered something. He bent down. “My own little Jimmy boy,” she was saying. Henry closed the door and went back to bed, frowning. If she’d only have consented to adopt other children, instead of flying off the handle at the idea of wasting her time on other women’s children!

  Dr. Broderick had better make good on his promise, Henry thought. If Maryl ever suspected that her son was staying with his grandmother because he’d broken both legs falling out of a tree in the park . . . Well, she couldn’t find that out. Nor could she be held off any longer. Each day without Jimmy seemed to make things worse.

  But Dr. Broderick was smiling the next morning. He should have been smiling, Henry thought, with what they were paying for his personal advice and special services. Still, Maryl’s father had left enough to his son-in-law, and anything was better than seeing her again without bringing her son back to her.

  “It’s ready,” he said. He was a big man, with an annoying keenness that seemed to cut through into a man’s personal thoughts, and a reputation as the best family adjustment expert in America.

  He stopped to unwrap two cigars and pass one to Henry. “I was out to see Jimmy last night, Henry,” he said. “A fine boy—with the right upbringing, the kind of future citizen we need desperately after the load of neurotics, our ancestors wished off on us. And you’re good for him, even if you do have your own twists. But even with my advice, you can’t handle him alone. I caught a trace of a petulant whine in his voice twice last night. Now, did you talk to Maryl about adopting a sister for him? He’s six, you know—time to begin.”

  Henry avoided his glance. “I talked to her, day before yesterday. But she thinks . . .”

  “Yeah. I was afraid so. Resents the idea of anyone coming between her and the boy. I’m afraid I made a mistake in passing her for marriage, though she was all right until we had to remove that tumor. Good blood, but her mother ... And as the daughter of a man who won the Personal Privilege rating, we can’t send her to a home for memory removal without her consent. Unless you were to request it, of course . . .”

  Henry shrugged. They’d been through that before.

  Broderick got up, shaking his head. “Laws, laws, laws. How can we save the kids when we have to work with the laws their psychotic grandfathers passed?”

  “You might worry more about your other patients— they’re still paying you, even if they have grown up,” Henry pointed out.

  “True. I do worry about them. But what difference does it make if they’re happy in a dream world? It’s too late to give them the right help. But it’s not too late to save the kids. And once we can get one generation where a sound adjustment is the norm, we won’t have to worry after that.” He stood up abruptly, and moved to a side door. “Okay, forget it. Here’s what you came for.”

  The door opened and a boy came walking in, smiling quickly as he saw Henry. “Father!” he cried out, and broke into a run. Henry reacted automatically for a second, before he remembered that it was all a fake. Under the curly yellow hair and eager young face, there was still the mind of the robot houseboy.

  Broderick’s voice cut into the scene before it could become too awkward. “All right, Jimmy, you’d better wait outside. Your father will be out in a minute.” He watched the boylike figure leave, and turned to Henry. “We were lucky in having one of the small robots working where he could remember so much about Jimmy. It made the substitution easy, and I hope it will prevent any slip-ups. Now, though, it’s up to you. Still think you can treat him like the real Jimmy?”

  “I think so,” Henry said.

  “You’d better. After all, it was your idea. We’ve considered things like this before, but we’ve been uncertain about the results. If Maryl guesses . . . well, she’ll really crack then, probably. If it works, though, you may have started something that will save a lot of misery in the world.” The psychiatrist picked up his type-pen, nodded, and dismissed Henry. “Let me know the minute anything goes wrong. And good luck!”

  Jimmy was waiting outside, and they filed up toward the heli ramp together. The boy was quiet at first, as he might have been after any strange experience. Then he gradually began to chatter about his grandmother, and Henry found himself making the proper responses. It wasn’t going to be so hard, after all—if Maryl would accept the substitution. He glanced at the boy. Outwardly he seemed perfect. No, not quite. He seemed a bit younger than he was, and his hair was longer. But maybe that was what Broderick had decided was closest to Maryl’s memory.

  They stopped on the way to get the blue-velvet suit. It took six stores before one was able to fabricate the right kind of cloth, but there was time to kill, since he was supposedly bringing the boy back from a longish trip. Henry still had time to make the office when he led the facsimile boy up the steps.

  Maryl came down the stairs at a run, and the boy flew into her arms. There was a small feast of goodies spread out on the dining-room tab
le, Henry saw—and Maryl began shouting to Zenia to bring more. Her face was glowing, and she didn’t even look at her husband.

  He squirmed uncomfortably, while the boy began repeating his chatter about his grandfather. Maryl glanced up finally and saw her husband for the first time. “Jimmy’s home!” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful? And you’ll be late to work, Henry.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek and dashed back as Jimmy began opening presents.

  Henry went back to the heli, frowning. It wouldn’t matter with the robot. But still . . . Maybe Broderick was right. Maybe he’d better insist on registering the boy for school, so things would be on a sounder footing when the real Jimmy returned. Still, that would require having a tutor for Jimmy while he recovered. He’d wait and see.

  By the time he returned, however, things were back to something approaching normal. He got part of the day’s events out of Zenia, before Maryl came out to the kitchen. She twitted him about having an affair with their maid, almost as if the old days were back. But she stayed only a minute before going up to the nursery. That was in keeping with her present pattern, however. And it wouldn’t hurt, probably, since the robot-boy would be feigning sleep.

  Curiously, Maryl seemed happier than before as the days passed. She began going out into the garden, according to Zenia, to play with Jimmy. And she even permitted the boy to stay on the swing and get dirty in the sandpile. Henry tried to tell himself that the shock of her lost ability to have other children was wearing off.

  He took one day off to fly up and see the real Jimmy, but there were no worries on that score. The legs were healing, and the boy was happy enough to see him. He called Maryl with the old excuse of a business trip, and stayed over for the night. Damn it, Jimmy was a fine boy, as Broderick admitted, and a man had some rights with his own son.

  Maryl met him when he came back, and he knew at once that something had gone wrong. The sparkle was gone, and she was too warm in her greeting. Also, supper for the two of them was laid out on the dining-room table. She sat down, but made no effort to touch the food.