New Writings in SF 10 - [Anthology] Read online

  And it was.

  For the first time in five years Hammond asked Irma what she thought of the situation.

  “The shining thing? Why I think it’s alive, just as Dickie tried to tell you. I mean, how do we know all life has to be based on protoplasm? Maybe it’s made out of living light.”

  She saw his brief, forgiving smile, and felt her temper stir. “Look, third-unsatisfactory-husband, biology admitted it was lost when the first sampler returned from Mars! You-” She stopped, warned by the look on his face. Just because he’d been so darn busy having all that knowledge piped into the grey goop that this was his first marriage . . . jealousy with such a primitive character trait . . . but at least it proved they hadn’t programmed and imprinted all the natural responses out of Hammond.

  The sullen look faded. “Irma, there are certain basic biological principles common to all life-chains, such as the synthesis of energy compounds in the presence of sunlight-” He stopped, and she knew he was afraid of losing her again.

  “Why does synthesis have to take place? It looks just like a tiny sun. Maybe it gets energy directly from the big sun up there.”

  Hammond could only shake his head. This was totally outside his imprinted experience, a situation unique in history. Since only solid objects could exceed the speed of light there was no possible way to contact Earth for further instructions. Irma watched him sweat helplessly for a while and then suggested he catch the thing in a specimen box and put it through the analyser.

  Hammond looked so grateful for the obvious idea that she wondered what he would do if she came up with something brilliant one day.

  She watched her husband approach the little sun—son of a sun?—through the viewscreen. It was hovering at head-height. Hammond walked directly to it, opened the box and brought it up underneath the creature, and slammed the magnetically-sealed lid. She saw the bright flames of an angry excrescence as it vanished inside.

  Hammond started back to the scout, triumph in his walk. Tomorrow he would be referring to this as his idea.

  A corner of the box turned red, rippled like water and melted into sludge. She heard Hammond’s surprised yell, saw him hurl the hot box violently away just as the butterfly emerged, its bright wings angrily swirling. She saw Hammond backing away as the beautiful flaming creature moved towards him and suddenly realized that he was very near death. She screamed once and then little Dickie was standing by her and screaming louder than she, but he had turned on the outside mike first. His amplified child’s voice rolled from the top of the scout into the shuddering air and it was an angry command not to hurt his daddy.

  The miniature sun hesitated, its more violent colours fading. The flaming wings slowed, looked less like bearing pinions. After a moment it rose swiftly and in seconds had merged with the brighter sunlight in the cloudless sky.

  “It’ll come back,” said Dickie placidly; he might never have screamed in his life. “It’s ‘dopted me.”

  Hammond must have finally been convinced it had indeed adopted Dickie. During the three-day hop to the next planet he spent his free time building a gadget for which she could see no immediate use. When she tried to question him about it he gave her an angry look and refused to answer. He even ate the terrible chops she concocted from some old leaf-mould without a single comment.

  This time it was no surprise when Dickie went out and the flaming butterfly shortly appeared and hovered above his young head. They were on another obviously dead world, all rock and diamonds, with very little air. Dickie wore his suit cheerfully, since there was no alternative and he and the butterfly were playing some odd game they had devised when she saw Hammond emerge from the workroom carrying his newest toy. It was a grey box with a large crystal rod mounted on top, similar to some very primitive lasers she had seen.

  “What’s that?” she asked in some alarm. Hammond’s face had a grimly determined look she did not like.

  “A light wave-form disruptor. I’m going to see if that thing out there can stand up to a little photon jarring.”

  Irma wanted to cry out that he was being cruel, that the little white sun-child had done him no harm, but the words stuck in her throat. The attempt to capture it had been her idea. In a way she had been responsible for the blow to Hammond’s pride. And it was a dangerous little fire-pot. If it should get angry with Dickie in one of their games . . . She watched him approach it calmly, knowing that his device, whatever it was, would work. She saw him aim the crystal rod in its general direction and press a button. A beam of life leaped from one end and flew by the butterfly, burning its way into the sky. Hammond moved the box slightly and the beam shifted, engulfing the small central body. And it flared, grew, brightened intolerably in a soundless explosion of light . . . and died to a dim memory of glory on the edge of her retina. As it faded to nothingness she thought she saw a black lump of—was it coal?—fall to the ground at little Dickie’s feet.

  “That takes care of that,” said Hammond’s voice on the radio. It sounded more defeated than satisfied. She saw him stoop to pick up the black lump.

  It had happened so fast Dickie’s young mind was slow in grasping the fact that his friend and pet was dead. He had just started a rising wail of protest when Irma saw two circles of light appear at the top of the view-screen, falling fast. She felt a sudden dread clutch at her throat

  Hammond saw them also. He lifted the disruptor in alarm, his finger stabbing the button. The killing beam lashed out just before the dropping small suns reached him. It cut the air by one of the flaming balls and before Hammond could shift it a similar beam shot from the body of the second butterfly and melted the box into shapeless slag. The disrupting light vanished.

  The two creatures halted just above little Dickie’s head and Irma saw strong orange and delicate lavender beams flashing back and forth between them. She did not need Hammond to tell her they were communicating and her own intuition told her what it was about. In a near paralysis of terror she watched the weirdly beautiful judges weigh their decision of life or death and not for a moment did she doubt they were both judge, jury and executioner, and capable of all three tasks.

  Dickie was staring at them with wide-eyed interest, apparently completely unafraid. Hammond’s face had turned pale. He edged slowly closer to Dickie, with some vain idea of protecting him if the decision went against them.

  * * * *

  Orange-Beam-of-Anger: He disrupted our young-flame! Our young-flame! They are powerful but cruel, cruel! Their bodies are jelly of death-liquid and death lives in their minds, minds! I kill!

  Lavender-Beam-of-Restraint: No! No! He did not understand, understand! You caused us to attach away our young-flame when we fled here for safety! Ours no longer! Think, Think! The Wild-Flames have not discovered the birth-power locked in stone! They came not this far from Hot-Home! It is safe to make another young-flame, another! We have built our heat again, we can create, create!

  Orange-Beam: It will weaken us, for purpose, what purpose?

  Lavender-Beam: For the aliens, dull-flame! Attach it to the largest one, let it be his child!

  Orange-Beam: To kill again, to kill again?

  Lavender-Beam: They are not primitives! We must make ties, ties! Sense you not his regret? He thought to protect his young, as we, as we! We must make friends, get aid, fight savages! Their machines move between Hot-Homes and we cannot! Powerful friends, when we return to drive Barbarians from our Hot-Home! See Low-Burner, see Low-Burner?

  Orange-Beam: We will see who Burns-Low! Give me your White, your White!

  White-Beam-of-Creation: In joy of being, in love tender-yielding, I give you White!

  White-Beam-of-Creation: And I return, in strength of love, in happiness conscious, the White, the White!

  * * * *

  The light beam colloquy abruptly stopped. Irma’s gaze shifted downward. Dickie was holding up a large diamond, its rough exterior glittering in the brightness of Alpha Cruris.

  A new beam of brilliant white f
lashed between the butterflies, held, and they moved towards each other and the extended diamond. When they were quite close Dickie finally dropped it and withdrew his hand. The small suns followed the crystal to the ground, still connected by the beam of pure white light. Irma saw them almost merge when they reached opposite sides of the diamond. She knew the purpose of that beam of blended white and that Dickie had seen it once before. She felt like a Peeping Tom in the bedroom of Zeus and Hera and could not tear her eyes away.

  The white light seemed to grow, to widen and deepen until it covered the central bodies of both butterflies, hiding the other colours and the frozen glitter of the diamond. Both Hammond and Dickie had backed away a few feet and were watching through slightly polarized face-plates. The rock in the immediate vicinity of the strange mating was charring. The whiteness grew more intense, almost unendurable in its brilliance. There was an abrupt flare in the centre of the merged lights, a tone of vivid orange, and then the parent butterflies moved apart, the beam broken, their sun-heats fading to a more normal temperature. Where the diamond had rested an orange flame burned, slowly brightening.

  Some dim fragment of memory came to Irma, something about the intense pressure matrices inside a diamond, the immense forces necessary to heat and compress carbon until it reached that state of final beauty. If those matrices could be made to yield their imprisoned energy...

  The parent butterflies lifted slowly, moved behind Hammond, gently urged him forward, until he was standing quite close to the burning orange. Their new-born child grew brighter and brighter. Hammond, apparently no longer afraid, waited in front of it and an older meaning of the word “imprint” dawned on Irma, the original psychological one. Some new-born creatures adopted the first living animal they saw as their mother, regardless of its shape or form.

  Dickie had got the situation somewhat confused. The first butterfly had not adopted him. He had unknowingly adopted the butterfly!

  The thought sent her into a burst of laughter and when she realized how near to hysteria it was she cut it off abruptly and stood there trembling in silent relief. When she looked again her husband and son were slowly approaching the scout. The new butterfly, now flying, hovered close by Hammond’s head.

  * * * *

  “Of course little Brightstar isn’t the protoplasmic type of intelligence we were looking for, but I think Earth will be too thrilled to care,” said Hammond cheerfully as he made the last adjustment on his current toy. He had assured Irma that when their second child learned to use it properly he could activate any of its thirty-six cells by a light-beam and produce one of the basic sounds of speech in its attached radio. With the intelligence little Brightstar displayed it should be a short step from there to true speech.

  “I’m happy just to get home five years early.” Irma really couldn’t have cared less about the type of intelligence her adopted child had. Dickie-bird needed a brother and now he had one. She glanced at the chronometer. About time for another meal for Brightstar, and for Dickie’s nap. It had been very pleasant, watching the two of them tumble about outside the ship during the last feeding, but Brightstar would have to eat alone this time. She called Dickie and asked Hammond to drop to sub-light and pull in close to the next star.

  When both children were attended to she asked, “Is the search really over, Hammond? Will this satisfy the people who insist there just has to be more intelligence in the universe?”

  He turned from the controls in mild surprise. “Why, no, of course not. The search must go on. Baby suns aren’t all the answer. But we’ll leave the new trips to others. Except . . .” he hesitated, and Irma made her face cloud up and prepare to rain. Not again!

  He saw her look, and grinned. “Oh no, not another major trip. Just a little expedition to home base, so to speak. To Sol. It occurs to me that Bright and his kind may not be as rare as we thought. They were obviously born in some star originally. We may have intelligence a darn sight closer to home than we’ve ever dreamed.”

  Irma sighed in relief. Why of course! And a good thing too. The way children grew up before your eyes, they had to be thinking about Brightstar’s future. No child of her’s was going to grow up a bachelor!

  She smiled reflectively, already seeing her grandchildren burning before her eyes.

  <>

  * * * *

  THE AFFLUENCE OF EDWIN LOLLARD

  Thomas M. Disch

  One of the most important duties of science fiction is to portray many of the ultimate possibilities of human actions. New American author, Thomas M. Disch, reflects (perhaps tongue in cheek) on one end product of the Welfare State.

  * * * *

  The Accused stood at the bar. The jury had been chosen— twelve irredoubtably solvent men. Both the Prosecution and the Defence had waived their openings. Somewhere in the folds of flesh that sheathed the soul of R. N. Neddie, State’s Attorney, was a particular crease in the sphincter muscles of his oral cavity: a smile of assurance.

  There was also a smile on the lips of the Accused, but it would be difficult to say just what that smile represented. Assurance? Hardly. Bravado, then? Not likely, knowing the character of the Accused. Contempt of court? It was not a court to be contemptuous of. The period furnishings, the silver woven into the brocade hangings, the gilded mouldings, and the matched pearls in the Judge’s elaborate pompadour wig—these gleamed richly, affluently in the crystalline light of the Steuben chandeliers. The ermines and velvets of the officers of the court presented a dignified contrast to the ostentatious dress of the packed gallery, where the bookies were still taking bets. To the right of the Judge’s bench hung the flag of the United States of America; to the left, the flag of the sovereign State of Quebec.

  The Prosecution called its first witness, Police-Sergeant Jay Gardner.

  “You were the arresting officer?”

  “Yuh.”

  “Would you tell the court why you arrested the Accused?”

  “He looked sorta suspicious to me, you know what I mean?”

  “Suspicious—how ?”

  “Oooh ... sorta thin-” The jury confirmed Sergeant

  Gardner’s testimony: the Accused looked very thin. Moreover, he was wearing a blue serge suit. “—an’ dirty, an’ he was just sitting on this park bench, not doing anything. Five minutes he sat there like that, not doing anything, so I figured why not arrest him? I mean, I didn’t have anything personal against him, like a crime ...”

  “Please allow the court to interpret evidence,” the Prosecution interrupted firmly.

  “Anyhow, I guess I’ve got a sixth sense about these things. I brought him into the station and checked him out. He didn’t have any money, just some crazy sort of book.”

  ‘This book, Sergeant Gardner?” The Prosecution handed a leather-bound pocket-sized volume to the witness.

  “Yuh.”

  “This book, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, Your Honour, will be presented in evidence as Exhibit A. Now, Sergeant, to continue—at the time of his arrest, did the Accused have a timepiece on his person: a wristwatch, a pocketwatch of any sort ?”

  “No, sir, he did not.”

  “That will be all. You may leave the stand, Sergeant Gardner.”

  * * * *

  “...so help you God?”

  “I do.”

  “Be seated.”

  Mrs. Maude Duluth lowered herself into the witness box. There was a rustle and hissing of silk, a wobble of ostrich feathers, and a sigh of relief.

  “Mrs. Duluth, would you recognize the Accused if you saw him in this assembly?”

  “I should say so, Your Honour.”

  “It will not be necessary to address me by that title. Would you point to the Accused, Edwin Lollard?” Maude pointed. Her jewel-crusted hand dazzled the eyes of the spectators. “And would you tell the court, please, what was the nature of your relations with the Accused?”

  “He was my first husband. We got married fifteen years ago, and it was the dumbest th
ing I ever did. But I was only a kid then, no more than ...” Maude did some mental arithmetic painfully and decided not to be too explicit. “No more than a kid. I met him at General College. I have a Master’s Degree in Household Administration Systems.”

  No one in the jury seemed very impressed by this. After all, a Bachelor’s Degree was compulsory in the State of Quebec.

  “Could you tell us something about your married life?”

  “Well,” (blushing) “there isn’t much to tell. After the honeymoon—it was a fine honeymoon: Hawaii, Japan, New Zealand, a cruise through the Ross Sea—after the honeymoon, as I was saying, we never did too much. Like we never went anywhere, not even to the First Evangelical Bingo Casino on Sunday, although it was right down the block. Or to the races, or dancing—although I’ll have to admit that I wasn’t the dancer then that I used to be. I mean, I was only a kid, but-” Maude was lost for a moment in confusion and came to a limping halt. “Of course, he had his job and that took a lot of time.”