The Complete Dangerous Visions

by Anthology

  From somewhere a young man had appeared, very black, very strong, wearing only sandals and trousers so tight that his genitals showed as a graceful swelling in the flaring torchlight; around his neck an ouanga hung, swaying against his chest as he danced. He stood facing Yvette; together they moved, together they chanted, Legba, me gleau, me manger.

  From the houmfort came a fresh clamor. The chanting and drumming changed to a new rhythm, a new chant. Acolytes bearing giant black tapers descended the steps of the houmfort, passing between the rows of catafalques on the marbled portico, then came others bearing each a black rooster, the birds strangely silent, then a black goat led on a rope halter; at last, bearing cups of hollowed gourd, the mamaloi and papaloi.

  Papa Nebo, Gouede Oussou and Gouede Mazacca continued their chant. The crowd now stood silent, waiting. Yvette Leclerc felt a thrill jolt through her body as the black dancer took her hand; she leaned against him, feeling his sweaty skin against her face.

  Papa Nebo greeted the mamaloi, took a black rooster from an acolyte, bowed to the mamaloi and whirled about, the drumming starting again as he did so. Papa Nebo held the rooster by its feet, stretched his arms to their full length, threw back his head and spun, spun, toward the mamaloi, toward the drummers, toward the crowd, around, around. The rooster flapped its wings impotently trying to escape; Papa Nebo spun more and more rapidly; finally the rooster, its head filled with the blood pushed there by centrifugal force, gave a piercing, jarring cock’s crow, an instinctive scream of terror and despair.

  Papa Nebo stopped, held the rooster above his head where all could see, grasped its head in one hand and its neck in the other and pulled and twisted. Again the rooster crowed, crowed, then stopped. With a convulsive jerk Papa Nebo tore the black head from the black neck. Blood gushing from the rooster’s neck onto his ludicrous dress, Papa Nebo ran to the mamaloi and the papaloi, offered each a drink of the hot spurting blood directly from the rooster’s neck, then began filling the cups.

  A new chant sprang up, wild, frantic:

  Eh! Eh! Bomba hen hen!

  Canga bafie te

  Danga moune de te

  Canga do ki li!

  Canga li!

  Chanting, dancing, shuffling, the crowd moved forward, each kneeling in turn before the mamaloi or papaloi, receiving the chalice of hot, fresh blood. Papa Nebo took rooster after rooster from acolytes, tore the head from each to replenish the supplies of the two gourds. Yvette danced impatiently, holding the man she had danced with, moving slowly forward toward the sacrament.

  At last they reached the head of the line. Yvette knelt before the papaloi. She looked upward, her arms spread to the sides. Papa Nebo had just refilled the chalice. The papaloi held it forward for her, steam rising from the hot blood into the night air, the rippling surface of the blood throwing back flickering glimmers of torchlight as the drums throbbed on all sides.

  The cup came forward. Yvette clutched her ouanga bag with her two hands, plunged her face into the steaming blood, drank once, deeply, then rose from her knees. She felt hot exaltation flooding her body. She danced, danced, the drumming filling her brain, turning it to a single, throbbing tambour that resonated in a steady, compelling beat.

  She turned back to see her black partner rising from before the papaloi, a triumphant look in his eyes that must match that of her own, blood streaming redly from his lips to drip from his chin onto his naked chest. Yvette ran to him, kissed the gleaming red, licking the blood eagerly from his chest as he held her crushingly in massive arms.

  Giddy with eagerness, she flung herself with the man onto the hard ground, vaguely aware that scores of couples were duplicating their act all around them in the torchlit plaza. Yvette wriggled from her brilliant blouse, struggled to open the front of the man’s pants as he tore hers from her hips. Unable to wait even for him to claim her she managed somehow to push the man onto his back, crouched above him, felt his hands grasping her hips, pulling her down onto him as he thrust, thrust up into her.

  The taste of the fresh hot blood still in her mouth, the feel of the man inside her body, she writhed forward and back, eagerly, excitedly, feeling him filling her, stretching her until she thought to burst with the size of him in her, then clamped convulsively to him as his two hands on her back brought her helplessly forward and down onto him, meeting a final mighty heave that filled her loins with a bursting, screaming ecstasy.

  She fell forward, lay with her breasts warmed against his chest, her legs still spread wide to hold him, her lungs heaving great breaths in and out as the drums still throbbed in her head and the man’s arms held her to him.

  Now Yvette became aware that the drumming and chanting had changed yet again. The drumming was no longer abandoned but solemn, powerful. Yvette rolled off the man, sat up, felt him beside her. She saw others all around them sitting now, looking back toward the houmfort. Once more a torch could be seen, once more someone was emerging.

  The chant rose again, now a single line, repeated over and over:

  L’Appe vini, le grand zombi!

  L’Appe vini, le grand zombi!

  Carrying a flaring torch, advancing slowly from the houmfort, came the bloody god-figure Ogoun Badagris, dressed in traditional mock-military jacket, huge tasseled epaulets glistening, beret mounted rakishly, high-collared, his skintight trousers pure white, his jackboots a gleaming jet black.

  Before him the others fell back: the acolytes, Papa Nebo, Gouede Oussou, Gouede Mazacca, the mamaloi, the papaloi. The chanting ceased, only the drumming continued.

  Ogoun Badagris advanced to Papa Nebo, took from him his sickle. Ogoun Badagris seized the still-tethered goat, severed its rope with a single stroke of the sickle. The beast seemed paralyzed with fear. Ogoun Badagris lifted the goat in mighty arms, walked with it to the end of the rows of catafalques, lifted it high in one hand. With the other he flicked the sickle lightly, gracefully, so quickly that Yvette could hardly tell what had happened.

  Even the beast gave but a single exclamation, a half-bleat, half-moan. Then its life-blood was pouring from its opened jugular. Ogoun held the spurting corpse over the first catafalque, then stepped to the next, the next.

  At each bier, as the drops of hot blood struck the still form that had lain unmoving throughout the danse, there was a stirring. The shrouded figure rose, first to a sitting position, throwing the grave-cloth from itself. Then, body after body, they rose, stood dumbly beside their biers. Yvette stared in chilled fascination. Each body was a patchwork of black, white, brown. Here a face of pale white flesh rested on a neck of ebony, pale yellow hair cropped short on the scalp only adding to the bizarre sight. Here a hand of black on an arm of white. Here a torso neatly divided by a vertical line, one side dark, the other pale, as if two bodies had been blown in half, the ragged edges of each trimmed neatly away and the remaining halves sewn back together.

  As Ogoun Badagris reached the end of the rows he threw the drained corpse of the goat to waiting acolytes, then turned back to face the rows of motionless zombies.

  “After me!” he commanded them. “Into the houmfort!”

  He did not look back to see that they obeyed, but turned and advanced once more into the building. Behind him, after a moment of hesitancy, the zombies began to move forward, forward.

  Behind the last of them the doors of the houmfort closed with a monstrous reverberation. Yvette Leclerc forgot her black man, the blood, the chants and the danse. Wearing only her leathern ouanga bag she rose and ran frantically from the plaza.

  11. Across the Cislunar Vacuum

  Yellow stragglebangs pasted across his sweaty forehead Gunner Corporal Leander Laptip tried to figure out hownell he’d got alive into a miniship m away from the Jimmie-O when she’d got creamed by that big futhermucker nigra ship in the battle of whatever it was. Shorzell be called the battle of something someday. Those big ones always did get names m smartass light commanders or gyrene majors were always reconstructing them and fighting them over and writ
ing books about what this commander did right and what that one did wrong that made the battle come out the way it did.

  M bajeez m bageorge that was one hell of a battle!

  How many ships had N’Alabama lost in that battle? Leander couldn’t even begin to calculate, but there must of been a hell of a lot. And the nigras must of lost a hell of a lot too, from what Leander could see from his go-go-bapper blister. Even counting off for projos.

  M then something had got him. Something that . . . Leander tried to remember. Not a beam. No, that would be sudden and silent and. . . . And not a ram. No. He’d seen it coming, seen it but not in time to do anything about it. A projectile. A miniature, self-propelled, unmanned thing like a ship. Coming, coming at him, a black shaft in front of a burning behind, coming straight at him and his bapper and before he could try to knock it down—krunk!

  Krunk, and then what?

  Lucky for Leander that battle stations meant space armor, or he’d of been a vacuum quick-freeze case on the spot. Instead, somehow, in the mess and the tumble that followed . . . Jimmie-O must of took some worse hits than that little smack on the blister . . . Leander was into a miniship and away. Unconscious or hysterical. Out of sight of the fleet. Lost.

  Headed at random for anyplace. Low on food and air.

  * * *

  Phillipe looked up from his endless paperwork at the sound of the opening door. He recognized his friend Raoul and gestured him to a wooden chair.

  “How is production?” the visitor asked.

  “Well enough. Harvesting continues. The supply seems to be holding up also. As long as we do not attempt to go too fast, I think this planet will continue to meet our needs. But I think we would all rest easier, both here and at home, if we could find some secondary source of the creatures.” Phillipe leaned back and edged his shoulders once up and down the back of his chair, then folded his hands on his slight paunch and looked at Raoul.

  Raoul lifted a trinket from Phillipe’s desk and toyed with it silently. Several times he appeared about to speak but each time stopped short of the first room.

  Phillipe hummed.

  Raoul cleared his throat.

  Phillipe said, “Well.”

  Raoul said, “Mmm, yes.”

  Phillipe said, “And how are things over at the site?”

  “No progress,” Raoul said. “You know the vacuum over on Vache has preserved the artifact nicely. Here on Cayamitte it wouldn’t have lasted very long—you know Captain Bonsard thinks that stuff the metal detectors picked up on Cayamitte might once have been a similar device.”

  Phillipe nodded.

  “If he is right, though, there is nothing left that could possibly be salvaged. Now the Vache artifact . . .” he trailed off with a pregnant gesture of the two hands.

  “Is Bonsard at the site now?”

  Raoul grunted an affirmative.

  “I knew his aunt back in N’Porprince,” Phillipe volunteered. “She worked in my section at the ministry. Grumpy middle-aged woman. Liked nothing better than giving unfavorable reports on everyone. Like a child tattling on his fellows. M. Caneton dozed at his desk this afternoon. M. Belledor arrived late again this morning. Well, it must have an effect. See, here I am on this little moon, and poor Belledor found himself drafted. Can you imagine Christophe as marine?” He chuckled ruefully.

  He recovered from the moment’s reverie. “Raoul,” he resumed, “why all the fuss anyway, over the artifact? Ancient objects have been found before. Is this one so special? Why do we not ship it back to N’Haiti if it is?”

  Raoul rose from his chair and began to pace about the office. “Credit the clever Captain Edouard Bonsard for that. He thinks it is a weapon. He thinks that it can be repaired and used as a defense in case the enemy attack us here.”

  Phillipe rose, dismayed. “But the whole N’Yu-Atlanchi operation depends on stealth. Everyone agrees that we cannot fortify that entire planet. The conditions there—the crystal barely sustains the weight we place on it now. If we brought in weapons—” he shook his head.

  “Right. So we have some weapons here on Cayamitte and on Vache, but mainly we rely on stealth. The blancs are busy defending their own world and trying to attack N’Haiti, as long as they do not know about the N’Yu-Atlanchi project, it should be reasonably safe.”

  “So?”

  “So, still Bonsard wants more defense. And he believes that he can repair the Vache artifact and that it is a weapon.”

  “And you think—what?”

  “I think he is right!”

  “Then why do you oppose him?”

  “Because, first of all, I am not sure he is right. The artifact might prove to be—anything—once it is repaired. Probably it is a weapon. But what if it is a beacon that will communicate with someone incredibly distant and alien who left it there on Vache? Or a vehicle? Or some sort of automatic manufactory? Or—” again “—anything? It should be studied with the utmost caution, by qualified researchers. And Captain Bonsard has just taken it upon himself to try to repair it.

  “Second, if it is a weapon, what kind of weapon? Does it fire projectiles? Beams of some sort? What if it is a bomb, a dud, and once repaired it will blow itself up and half of Vache with it? Bonsard is risking too much!”

  * * *

  Alone in its miniship coffin, the dessicated corpse that had once been Gunner Corporal Leander Laptip of the N’Alabama spacerines floated serenely among the stars. An automatic pickup beacon in the miniship broadcast its distress call, but with limited power and at mere light speed, it was unlikely ever to be picked up by a potential rescuer. And if it were, what good would that do?

  Leander Laptip didn’t care if he ever was rescued.

  But the beacon went out, and the ship continued to float, coasting along in a more-or-less straight trajectory as it had on its small self-contained power charge. Too small for an agonized-matter system, the miniship couldn’t get either the speed or the powered range of a big starship, but coasting it could go forever.

  It might have headed anywhere. Leander Laptip didn’t care that his body happened to be headed toward the star designated NGC 7007.

  * * *

  Captain Bonsard accepted the micro circuit-layer from the ordnance sergeant and bent over the last remaining gap in the circuitry of the artifact. His eyes felt tired and his fingers trembled from the fine work, and to relax he hunkered back on his heels and looked up at the sky.

  “Good to be rid of those overcautious busybody civilians, eh, Sergeant?” he said.

  Agreement crackled back through his helmet radio.

  “Now, we’ll get this thing finished and see about testing it out,” the captain went on.

  The sergeant said, “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Bonsard stretched his arms to get out any kinks. Overhead he could see the tiny blob of Cayamitte and huge globe of N’Yu-Atlanchi, glowing and glittering, turquoise and sunflower, as always a beautiful sight against the black sky. Distant NGC 7007 glinted dull green.

  Bonsard returned to the artifact. A tiny line, clearly a circuit running between two nodules that projected slightly from a rounded, glazed cylinder, had had a gap gouged in it, how long ago, probably (Bonsard thought) by some glancing micrometeor. Now he, Edouard Bonsard, would repair the tiny bit of cosmic mischief. He flicked on the circuit-layer, adjusted its tip to a tiny aperture and applied it to one broken end of the ancient circuit.

  The tool adhered to the micro-circuit. Bonsard drew the tool slowly, meticulously, toward the other severed end. The circuit extended in the path of the tool, moving slowly toward the other end. Finally only the tool itself separated the ends of the circuit. Carefully Bonsard withdrew the circuit-layer, waiting until the two threads of material were joined before turning it off and handing it back to the ordnance sergeant.

  Only then did he heave a huge sigh of relieved tension. “Finished!” he said.

  “When will we test it, sir?” the sergeant asked.

  * * *

&
nbsp; Uncle Dudley, after a period of near-ostracism, was being readmitted into mother and father’s good graces, and this afternoon, while they visited old acquaintances in a place (the term is used loosely, more to suggest a concept than to represent a specificity) really quite, quite distant in terms of space, time, and, uh, “fnedge,” Uncle Dudley was left in charge of Junior, who would only have grown bored and unruly during a long ride and a dull visit.

  Uncle Dudley was prepared to bribe Junior into good behavior with something nice he’d bought down to Plenum’s, that mother and father didn’t know about and if Junior wouldn’t tell neither would Dudley.

  Junior accepted the gift.

  Uncle settled on the parlor couch for a nap.

  Junior used the new toy to diddle with his last gift from Plenum’s. (“The Universe.”) It was great fun, and Uncle Dudley slept soundly, poor old simp. You know how kids are when their parents are away and they sense that the baby-sitter isn’t too sharp about discipline.

  * * *

  Captain Bonsard looked into the black sky above Vache, his hands still on the now-repaired Vache artifact. Suddenly he pointed in the direction of Omicron Sigma XXIVa. “Sergeant!” he croaked. “Look!”

  The ordnance sergeant turned to follow the captain’s gesture. “It’s a ship, sir! One of theirs!”

  After only a moment’s stunned hesitation Captain Bonsard said, “There’s your answer, Sergeant. We test the Vache weapon now! I don’t know how those white devils ever found out about the N’Yu-Atlanchi project, and they must be total idiots to send a single ship against us, but this is our chance to prove the worth of the Vache artifact!”

  The N’Alabamian ship was approaching the zenith of the sky over Vache. A miniature dart, graceful, pointed at its fore end, bulging and then tapered again to a wasplike waist, then flared tail fins, the miniship was silhouetted against the glowing, sparkling disk of N’Yu-Atlanchi itself, N’Yu-Atlanchi where black men labored in warm saline seas to harvest S’tschai.