New Writings in SF 19 - [Anthology] Read online

  * * * *

  New Writings in

  SF: 19

  Ed By John Carnell

  Proofed By MadMaxAU

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  CONTENTS

  Foreword by John Cornell

  The Mind Prison by Michael G. Coney

  A Memory of Golden Sunshine by Kenneth Bulmer

  Critical Path by David Coles

  The Discontent Contingency by Vincent King

  Stoop to Conquer by John Rackham

  First Light on a Darkling Plain by Joseph Green

  Real-Time World by Christopher Priest

  * * * *

  FOREWORD

  John Carnell

  A minor disadvantage in producing volumes of New Writings In S-F is that it is impossible to include Forewords on topical subjects. Because of the production schedules, the story contents are selected and edited almost a year before publication at which time the Foreword is usually included. On rare occasions, such as now, a late introductory piece can be included at proof-reading time, but this still excludes the topicality a magazine editor can obtain where a monthly publishing schedule applies.

  It is therefore only in retrospect that I can write about Man’s great technological achievement in reaching the Moon in person by way of the Apollo flights—as opposed to the Russian unmanned landings, magnificent though their successes have been. For myself, the culmination of a life time of interest in the possibilities of space travel both actual and fictional, came with the Apollo 8 moon orbital voyage in December 1968 and to that end the fifteenth volume in this series was dedicated to Col. Frank Borman, Capt. James Lovell and Lt.-Col. William Anders, insignificant though that tribute may seem in the light of subsequent world acclaim. Let me record, too, that despite their tremendous post-voyage programme, each personally acknowledged that dedication.

  From that pioneer voyage came the one utterly fantastic photograph I had always hoped to see—the Earth as seen from the Moon! Here was the visual proof that interplanetary travel was no longer in the realm of the dreamers —and a fitting tribute to all those writers from Lucian of Samosata in the second century A.D. to our own twentieth century contributors who ever looked upon the face of the Moon and wrote about it.

  * * * *

  The second great space adventure—and one which held the attention of the entire world—was the fated Apollo 13 voyage in April 1970, and this volume is dedicated to every individual in any way connected with that epic rescue. Ironically enough, James Lovell was the commander of 13 and destined not to walk on the Moon’s surface despite being one of the first men to look at it from less than two hundred miles. Perhaps he may yet have the opportunity in one of the few remaining Apollo missions; as Alan Shepard had in Apollo 14, a signal honour to America’s first man in space, back in 1961.

  You might expect that the first moon walk in July 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin (Apollo 11) would be the most exciting moment for this particular science fictionist but strangely enough it did not contain any of the wonderment surrounding the first flight round the Moon. Exciting, yes, but only to be expected. Getting there was the greatest achievement. After that everything was merely logical progression.

  Regrettably, too, since the conquest of moon flight, the usual rash of naive statements have been made on television and radio and in the press inferring that science fiction has now eliminated itself. Far from it. Science fiction writers abandoned the Moon and most of our own. solar system many years ago; knowing that spaceflight would come within their own lifetime. We are far more concerned with the environmental problems, as many of the stories in these volumes show.

  February 1971

  John Carnell

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  THE MIND PRISON

  Michael G. Coney

  The ‘closed environment’ story is always a fascinating subject. Authors can find so many different ways of pointing out our own shortcomings...

  * * * *

  About fifty miles east of the continental land mass an island thrusts its grey concrete towers from the ocean bed. This place is named by its pallid inhabitants Festive, a joyous name which belies its prison-like appearance of tall window-pocked walls rising abruptly from the sea and enclosing every square yard of the island.

  It is said by the older inhabitants (who, like older inhabitants throughout the ages lay claim to superior knowledge) that the name Festive is a corruption of Fall-out Shelter Five; a peculiar description whose origins, like the original records of the colony, are lost in antiquity. An antiquity covers a very long time; many generations, many riots, a few small but destructive civil wars and a gradual but remorseless progression from underground caverns upwards through rock and shale to ground level. Then over the years the walls were built, ever higher, each chamber sealed from the poisonous outside air by men working in suits supplied with oxygen from the vast complex of machinery humming beneath the sea. Like primitive man before them, they had moved from a cave to a house.

  As sunset brushed the towers with gold, the pigeons returned swiftly from the west, whirring across the sea in a small flock black-speckled like buckshot against the crimson sky. They rose to cross the outer walls and sped directly over the flat rooftop of the commune. Here and there they veered to avoid new works, new rooms jutting up from the plane of the general, communal roof; but once past they reverted to their original course, heading for the centre of the island city.

  Abruptly they hovered, claws downthrust and tail-feathers fanspread, then they dropped down a well some twenty feet square, descending deeply between dark walls...

  * * * *

  An elderly man sat alone in his tiny room, knotted hands clasped placidly in his lap and eyes closed as he dreamed gently of the better times he never knew. The flutter of wings brushed his reverie aside and he rose stiffly, massaged his thighs briefly, then carefully climbed the small pile of rocks heaped in a corner incongruous like builder’s rubble.

  He clamped a rubber mask over his face and reached up, throwing a catch in the skylight. Then, in an instant, he pushed a small hatch open, the pigeons fluttered into the room, he slammed the hatch shut and scrambled to the floor. Only after a few minutes had passed did he remove the mask. He sniffed suspiciously, then his expression cleared and he regarded the birds.

  They sat, eleven of them, in a neat row on a perch improvised from a length of galvanised pipe set on a rough table. The man examined each bird carefully and they, in turn, regarded him unblinking.

  He sighed and knelt before a rectangular enamelled box beneath the table, gave the dials a cursory glance and switched the pigeons off.

  * * * *

  They sat in the minute eating area of Section 13, bounded by featureless stone walls. The girl’s face was anxious, pleading; she leant forward across the table, placing her hand over that of her companion. The room was quiet and she spoke softly.

  ‘I can’t wait for ever, David,’ she was saying. ‘I’m twenty-three. Principles are all very well; but we live by them, not on them. Don’t you understand? I love you. I want us to get married. It’s as simple as that.’

  The young man’s expression betrayed a mixture of longing and stubbornness; he grasped the girl’s hand but stared at the table between them while he traced abstract patterns on the rough surface with his free hand.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been a member of the Stabilisation Party since I was a kid. You’re not a member. You wouldn’t understand, Jillie ... All right, I love you, too. But we can’t get married.’ He raised his fair head and stared at her in sudden exasperation. ‘Can’t you see what will happen to Festive
, and to all of us, if the population continues to increase? I wonder the Council doesn’t pass a law about it.’

  ‘I just said let’s get married, David,’ said Jillie miserably. ‘I didn’t say anything about children.’

  ‘But it follows, doesn’t it? I’ve seen it before. You get two people living together and the next thing is they’ve got kids. God, if only these fools could see what’s happening. If every woman in Festive farrowed in a given year, the population would triple itself by the end of that year, on an average of six babies to a litter. And that’s conservative.’

  ‘Jane Dunkerley had two babies last time. Just two ... lovely little boys.’ She could not keep the longing out of her voice.

  David looked her straight in the eyes. ‘So you were thinking about children,’ he accused grimly. ‘You women are all the same, sex-mad. You never want a man for himself; you just think of him as a mobile phallus. My God, I wonder what goes on between you and old Jeremiah sometimes. He must be all of seventy and yet you can’t seem to stay away from him.’

  She flushed angrily. ‘Jeremiah’s a nice old man. He’s interesting and he knows a lot of things. And he’s lonely in that little room with nothing but his pigeons to keep him. company. I like him,’ she finished, defensively.

  David stood up with an air of finality. ‘That may be so. But I tell you one thing he doesn’t know. He won’t be able to fly those pigeons very much longer.’

  Jillie stood up too, abruptly. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He can’t fly them if rooms are built above his place, can he?’

  ‘You’re going to build on top of Jeremiah?’ She was aghast.

  ‘Orders from the Local Housing Committee.’ He relaxed slightly. ‘I’m sorry, Jillie. I don’t always enjoy my job, you know. But this makes sense. We’ve held off building above him for five years just because he’s a character in the Sector and out of sentiment. Now the complex is all around and above him. It’s dangerous. If you suit up and stand on the roof, everything’s level and airtight except this square shaft three floors deep, down to Jeremiah. All it needs is a serious quake and the Atmosphere will get in. The whole set-up is unstable.’

  ‘Couldn’t you re-house him Up Top in one of the new rooms?’

  ‘You know he’d never move. In any case, we try to put Youngers Up Top where the skylights are. They need the light to grow strong, just like the hydroponics Down Below. And the Health Committee say sunlight is better than artificial.’ He shivered at the thought of the sun and its connotations of Outside and the Atmosphere.

  Jillie was watching him and knew what he was thinking and felt a protective sympathy. ‘Come on, love,” she said quietly. ‘Let’s take a walk Down Below and see the ponic fields.’ Although she was free of the dread which gripped at least half the community, she guessed what it cost him each time he was obliged, in the course of his job as Housing Rep, to suit up and go Outside Up Top.

  * * * *

  That night Jillie sat in Jeremiah’s room and he spoke about the pigeons and the sky.

  ‘I know there’s no purpose in it,’ he was saying, sitting in his chair tilted back so that he could see the skylight and, further above, the square of deep indigo speckled with stars. ‘I just enjoy it, I guess; sending them out into the world, wondering what they see, watching them come back. It’s almost as if I’m there with them, free in the sky, sailing high above the sea ...’ His ancient eyes dreaming, he gazed at the pane of glass.

  ‘Have you ever lost any of them, Jeremiah?’ she asked.

  A shadow crossed his face. ‘I used to have forty-eight,’ he replied sadly, ‘years ago. I think they break down from time to time and fall into the sea.’

  ‘Where did they come from, originally?’

  He smiled. ‘You ask a lot of questions, young Jillie. Well, I found them in a box, with a book, Down Below in one of the rooms which was burned out during the riot of ‘37. A strong metal box it was and it survived the fire...’ He got up slowly and crossed the room to a door. ‘I’ll show you...’

  When he reappeared Jillie jumped to her feet to assist; the box was large and heavy. They set it on the floor and Jeremiah threw back the lid. Inside were ranks of smaller boxes and a large compartment which, Jillie guessed, had contained the control box. The old man detached a booklet from clips inside the lid. ‘Take a look at this,’ he urged her eagerly, encouraged by her interest.

  She read slowly, haltingly, aloud. ‘Elec ... Electronic Pigeon Set ... An educational pastime for all ages. Complete with control box and forty-eight robot pigeons, perfect replicas of birds now found only in remote Antarctica. Fill the sky again with the sound of wings. Defy pollution like birds never did—each pigeon is guaranteed corrosion-proof. Send messages to your friends.’

  She smiled. ‘Is that why you fly them ? You’re hoping to get a message from Outside?’

  He avoided her eyes. ‘Of course not. Everybody knows there’s nobody but ourselves. They have a thing at Council, a radio. It works something the same way as that control box.’

  He paused, nervously drumming his fingers on the box as the room trembled to a minor quake, then continued: ‘It received messages once, so they say. From all over the world. I don’t know if we can believe it or not, but that’s what they say ...’ His voice had quickened.

  Jillie looked at him hard. ‘You really believe in Outside, don’t you, Jeremiah? You really think there’s something besides Festive.’

  ‘Doesn’t make much sense if there isn’t,’ he muttered. He replaced the booklet and closed the lid, but remained kneeling on the floor beside the box.

  ‘David wouldn’t like to hear you say that,’ she observed. ‘He’s a Stabiliser. For him, nothing exists except Festive.’

  ‘But we know there’s other places,’ protested the old man. ‘They’ve still got some of the old maps. We know exactly where we are.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. David admits there are other places, but he says we should forget it because we can’t do anything about them; we can never reach them because that means going into the Atmosphere Outside. To think about other places, he says, makes us dissatisfied.’

  ‘And what do you say, Jillie?’ asked Jeremiah shrewdly.

  Jillie smiled innocently. ‘I say let’s think about the other places, and one day we might go there. Didn’t you know ? All women think the same. Maybe we’re illogical.’

  The old man regarded her carefully for a moment and she thought he was about to speak; but he shook his head silently and, awkwardly, began to rise from his kneeling position.

  As Jillie moved to assist, his arm accidentally brushed across her breasts and she started back, shuddering, as her body was racked with mounting waves of desire. Her hands pressed to her stomach, she fought to control herself, to keep away from him, to subdue her lust with frantic random thoughts of hydroponics, pigeons, rocks, sea, sky, anything ...

  And as she stood, the features of the young man before her changed, lengthened and became wrinkled and the strong figure wilted and stooped.

  Old Jeremiah watched her sadly. ‘Not me, Jillie,’ he said gently. ‘Nor many other men these days, I guess. It’s too bad...’

  * * * *

  One week later David said to her: ‘Jillie, I want you to come with me to see Jeremiah.’ They were walking among the hydroponic fields deep Down Below. The air was humid and the banks of striplights in the ceiling were pressing hot upon her head, causing the sweat to trickle down her face and body. She looked away so that he would not see her expression. She had been avoiding Jeremiah all week, ashamed of herself.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  A black-shirted workman moved near, alternately raking and spraying the fronds. He glanced up and, upon seeing Jillie, his lined, pallid face gaped in a toothless grin. As if by accident he trod on his hose and, as his hand jerked with the sudden tension, a jet of warm water sprayed her dress and legs.

  David chose to ignore the incident; women went Down Below at their own ris
k. ‘I’ve got to break the news to him about the building programme,’ he explained. ‘The Council ratified the Committee’s decision last night. It’s no good being sentimental about it; we’ve got to build on top of Jeremiah. There was another quake last night,’ he added significantly.

  She was about to protest when David gripped her elbow. ‘Listen,’ he murmured.

  A faint echo; a dim, high-pitched keening sound came to her ears from somewhere on the far side of the vast chamber. It rose and fell, a wailing of several voices with no distinguishable words but an infinite sadness of tone.

  ‘Runners!’ David whispered. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here!’

  They made their way swiftly along the aisle between the tanks, crouching so that they were partially concealed by the long, low walls and green fronds. The keening grew closer, somewhere between them and the exit staircase. David stopped suddenly, dropping to his knees and motioning Jillie to do the same.