The Complete Dangerous Visions

by Anthology

“He flows nowhere,” the one called Ottowa said.

  “You don’t—” They were busy with each other. Aching, undrained, he said furiously, “Humans! Ugly nullhead Humans. You don’t know what flowing is.”

  They stared at him now, too startled for anger.

  “Where are you from, newboy?” Ottowa asked.

  It was no use, he shouldn’t have.

  “From Paradise,” he said wearily, pulling on gray silk.

  They exchanged looks.

  “There’s no such planet.”

  “There is,” he said. “There is. There was.” And went out head averted into the bright wastes. Stilling his face, straightening the short tree of his spine. When would he be in space, allowed simply to do his job? The mindless immensities, the empty stars. Better. Weave a circle round him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed and drunk—

  A hand fell on his shoulder from behind.

  “So you’re the Crot nurseling.”

  The old fury lashed him round, fists ready. His eyes went up.

  Into dream. He stood gaping his unbelief. But then he saw that the thin black face above his own was Human. Human, not much older than he. But cloud-lean, ghost-graceful, like—

  “I’m Santiago. Work to do. Follow me, Crotty.”

  Old habit drove his fist, automatically his throat said, “My-name-is-Timor.”

  The dark one twisted lightly, the blow palmed on his shoulder. Contemptuous god-grin.

  “Pax, pax.” Black velvet voice. “Timor, son of the late great Scout Timor. My father’s compliments and will you get your ass into the scouter I’m taking out. Sector D needs it as of yesterday and we’re short-handed. Your specs say you know how.”

  Santiago. His father must be the fat brown stationchief who had greeted him yesterday. How could such a sire—

  “Apprentice cert,” his voice was saying.

  Santiago nodded and went away without looking back to see that Timor followed.

  The scouter was new and of the same model Timor had CRd on. Numbly he moved through the out-system transjection routine, parroting the checks, not daring to look closely at the long figure in the command console.

  When they were set to first transit Santiago turned to him.

  “Still freaked?”

  Timor kept his eyes from the dark magnets.

  “Seoul told me a little. I shouldn’t have said that, obviously no Crot could raise a man.”

  “. . .”

  “My father. Wasted me too long. His dear old chum-scout Timor’s son, saved from the aliens. Your father and mine spaced together—you’ll get all that when you’re back. He thinks you’re Scout Timor reincarnated. He asked for you, you know.”

  “Yes,” Timor got out.

  The eyes studied him, hooded.

  “It’s a good thing he did. Your specs are a little strange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All that sycounsel was. I expect they had to work you over completely. How old were you when you were found?”

  “Ten,” said Timor absently. “What were you doing with my—”

  “Don’t freak. Man going out wants to know who’s with him, fair? . . . Ten years with—all right, I won’t say it. But if they weren’t Crots, what were they? Crots is all we know.”

  Timor drew breath. If he could somehow touch understanding without words. But he was so tired.

  “They were not Crots,” he told the smoke-thin face. “Compared to them . . .” He turned away.

  “You don’t want to talk.”

  “No.”

  “Too bad,” said Santiago lightly. ‘We could use a super race.’ “

  In silence they worked through the transit-change, set the main course parameters and secondary checks. Then Santiago stretched, moved to the lockers.

  “Might as well relax and eat now, next transit’s not for an hour. Then we can sleep.” With odd, archaic ceremoniousness he opened their food.

  Timor realized he was very hungry. And from behind his gut, stabs of a deeper hunger. It seemed good to eat thus with another Human, intimately cocooned in abyssal space. Always before he had been the monitored pupil. Now . . .

  He stiffened, summoned scorn.

  “U4?”

  “No.”

  “Try some of this, then. Station’s best, I boosted it. You must not have had much rest since you came off Trainworld.”

  It was true. Timor took the proffered bulb.

  “Where is Sector D?”

  “Out toward Deneb. Six transits. They’re opening three new systems and we’re trying to keep it all supplied.”

  They talked a little then, about the station and the weird encapsulated life of Trainworld. Despite himself, Timor felt knots in perilous thaw.

  “Music?”

  Santiago caught his unguarded wince.

  “That wastes you? Your aliens had better music, true?”

  Timor nodded.

  “They had cities?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Real cities? Like Mescalon?”

  “More beautiful. Different. With many musics,” he said painfully.

  The dark face watched him.

  “Where are they now?”

  “In Paradise.” Timor shook his head tiredly. “I mean, the planet was called Paradise. But they’re all dead. The scouts who found me had a disease.”

  “Bad.”

  There was a pause. Then Santiago said musingly, “There’s a spool of planets called paradise something or somebody’s paradise. You wouldn’t happen to know the coordinates?”

  Alarms clattered in Timor’s head.

  “No!”

  “Oh, you must have been told.”

  “No, no! I forgot. They never—”

  “Maybe we could hype you,” Santiago smiled.

  “No!”

  The effort jerked him loose from his stay. As he caught himself clumsily he noticed that the cabin seemed very small, with curious haloes.

  “They had cities, you say. Tell me about them.”

  He wanted to say it was time for the transit, to stop talking. But he found he was telling the dark ghost about the cities. The cities of his lost world, of Paradise . . .

  “—dim ruby light. And music. The music of many, and the mud—”

  “Mud?”

  His heart jolted, raced. Staring mutely at the ghost-angel.

  “Oh, keep on the track,” the angel said severely.

  Suddenly Timor knew.

  “You’ve drugged me.” Santiago’s long lips flickered.

  “The people. You say they were beautiful?”

  “Fairer than all the children of men,” said Timor helplessly, worlds sliding within him.

  “They flowed?”

  “They flowed.” Timor’s head weaved, tortured. “More than any Human. More than you.

  “They loved me,” he groaned, reaching his arms to ghosts. “You look a little like them. Why . . .”

  Santiago seemed to be doing something at the console.

  “I do?” White teeth made haloes.

  “No,” said Timor. Suddenly he was very cool. “You’re only Human. It’s just that you’re not pink and you’re tall. But you’re nothing but a Human. To them, Humans are Crots.”

  “Humans are Crots?” Blue-black knife-face over him, lethal. “You’re trying for it, newboy. So your aliens are something better than Humans? Mere Humans make you vomit? That makes you something very very special. And how convenient, they’re all dead, and no one’s ever seen it. You know a thing, Timor son of Crot Timor, I think you’re lying. You know where it is.”

  “No!”

  “Where is it?”

  Timor heard himself yell, saw the ebony mask check and change.

  “All right, don’t freak. I caught enough of your specs to know the sector they picked you up in. It’s not far off course. You said the primary was dim and red, true? Computer will sort it, there can’t be too many Class M dwarfs out here.�
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  He turned away. Timor tried to launch himself to stop him, but his drugged hands were flailing empty bulkhead.

  “I am not lying, I am not lying . . .”

  The computer was droning.

  “—class M Beta primaries Sector Two zero point zed point delta solution one four repeat one four.”

  “Ah,” said Santiago. “Fourteen’s too many.” He frowned at Timor who was now quiet.

  “There must be something you know. Some criterion. I want to find this Paradise.”

  “They’re all dead,” Timor whispered.

  “Maybe,” said Santiago. “Maybe not. And maybe you’re lying and maybe not. Either way I want to see it. If the cities are there there’ll be things we can use. Or I’ll get you off for good. Why do you think you’re on this trip, newboy? Somebody’s hiding something and I’m going to find it.”

  “You can’t find it. I won’t let you hurt them!” Timor heard his voice break, struggled through shells of unreality. He could see the cabin lights reflected in violet bloom on Santiago’s brow. Black stars probed him, golden edged. The face of dream.

  “I wouldn’t hurt them.” The voice was velvet again. “Why would I harm Paradise? I want to see them. The cities. We could see the cities together. You could show me.” The dream loomed, swelled closer. Warmth. Melting. “You could show me.

  “You want to go back, to Paradise.”

  Timor’s eyes blurred.

  “Maybe some of them are still alive. Maybe we could help them.”

  Depths shifted in him, oozed scorching springs. “Santiago . . .” His hands were on richness now, kneading the throb. If it were not so dry, so bright—

  The lights dimmed to a blue glow.

  “Yes,” Santiago said. His tunic was peeling away, the dark flesh glimmered. “I would like to share the beauty. You must be very lonely.”

  Timor’s lips moved, wordless.

  “Tell me a little how it was . . . the light . . .”

  * * *

  . . . No, no, no, no, no, no . . .

  His mouth was on fire, even his lungs were dry. Somewhere the voder-voice gabbled, quit. His eyes were crusted. “No, no,” he croaked, his face striking plastic.

  “Suck, stupid.”

  Liquid gushed in. He sucked greedily and the blue-blackness above him came in focus.

  “That wears off. You’ll be fine when we get to Paradise.”

  “No!” Timor jerked upright, clutching after the long shape that weaved away. He remembered now, the drug and Santiago.

  He had been hyped.

  The thing that must not, must not ever be.

  But Santiago was grinning at him.

  “Oh yes, little Timor-whatever-your-name-is. You put out. Those sunless periods. It was a binary, did you know that? Dark-body system. And that cluster you called the Swarm. Computer had it all.”

  “You found it? You found Paradise?”

  “We’re one transit out.”

  A cool bursting inside him, fountains of dissolving light unbearable. Santiago had hyped him and found Paradise. He could not believe it.

  Slowly he sank back, drank some more, dreamily watching Santiago. Belief grew. They would walk the streets of Paradise. His proud Human would see. The signaller was flashing. Santiago’s eyes slid round.

  “Recall presignal. But they can’t know we’ve gone off-course.” He shrugged. “We’ll see when the message clears. I’m not turning back.”

  “Santiago.” Timor smiled. “We flowed. I’ve never said it to a Human before.”

  But the black stars came no closer.

  “Maybe. I wonder. You said a lot of things. If your Paradise turns out to be a Crot world—” Santiago’s nostrils wedged. “A Crot’s thing into Humans—”

  “You’ll see. You will see!”

  “Maybe.”

  The boards chimed for transit, and suddenly Timor’s head cleared.

  “But they’re dead!” he cried. “I don’t want to see it, Santiago. Not all dead. Don’t take us there!”

  Santiago ignored him, went on setting course. Timor floundered up, pulled at his arms and received a chop that sent him into the stays.

  “What’s wasting you? Why are you so sure they’re all dead?”

  Timor’s mouth opened, closed. How was he so sure? Armor seemed to be dissolving from his brain. Who had told him that? He had been so young. Could it have been a mistake? A lie?

  “In which case,” Santiago’s eyes roved the boards, “would they be friendly?”

  “Friendly?” A fearful joy was rising in Timor, perilous, unstoppable. Alive. Was it possible? “Oh, yes.”

  “But maybe after that disease,” Santiago persisted. He started a check-run. “Just make sure our Ambax is operational.”

  Timor hardly heard him, moved like a zombie through the drill. Finally Santiago pushed him at the shower.

  “Clean up. In case you meet your friends.”

  He seemed to be floating at less than the scouter’s nominal gee, roiled by waves of alternate joy and dread. Timor concentrated on the vision of himself and Santiago entering empty cities. No music, but the spires and the . . . his bitter lover would see what a flowing world had been.

  They were braking into the system. To their side a sullen star swelled, eclipsed, reappeared.

  “That one. Third out.”

  The grav-webs took hold. Timor saw a great star-cluster wheel across he screen. “The Swarm!”

  Paradise. They were landing on Paradise.

  “Where are the cities?”

  “Under the clouds.”

  “It’s nine-tenths ocean. I don’t see any roads. Or fields.”

  “That’s right. They don’t need them. The open spaces are—were just for sport or water-dancing.”

  “A hole there. Go down by the sea.”

  As the braking bit the signal print-out chattered. Santiago slapped it aside. Overcast churned around them crescendo, thinned. Then the webs grabbed them and they were set down, cooling, in dim ruby light.

  Before them the screen showed milky smoothness; sea. With a level shore, and behind them low fronds. And a long crenellated line which fingered Timor’s heart. This was not real. This was real.

  Santiago was frowning at the message.

  “Out of their heads. A medical recall?”

  Timor scarcely heard him. The cycling lock was a vortex tugging him to the beautiful dimness, the garnet-gleaming light. Real.

  “Your moment of truth, newboy.”

  The port opened and they went out into Paradise. Healing moisture rushed into Timor’s lungs.

  “Agh, what a fug. You sure this is breathable?”

  “Come on. The city.”

  “Where are your spires?”

  Twilight, the ground sluiced with sweetness, lapped by the quiet shallow sea. Impatiently he pulled at Santiago’s arm, felt him stumble. Not real.

  “Where is the city?”

  “Come on.” In dimness they splashed through a grove of short, flabby trees that oozed fruit. The sea curved beside them, barely ankle-deep.

  “Is that supposed to be a town?”

  Timor looked at the low crenellated walls lit only by the dusk. They seemed lower than he remembered, lower and—but he had been a child.

  “It’s been abandoned, it’s crumbled.”

  “Mud—what are those?”

  Gray rotten little things were humping toward them out of the walls, stopping to stare.

  “They,” said Timor. “They must be the—the servants. The workers. I guess they didn’t die.”

  “They make Crots look Human.”

  “No, no.”

  “And those are nothing but mud hovels.”

  “No,” repeated Timor. He moved forward, pulling his friend who would not see. “Look, they’ve just deteriorated.”

  “In seven years?”

  A low music came to Timor’s ears. Three of the lumps were humping closer. All dove-gray like himself, but it was hide, not
silk, that bloated a elbows and knees. Gray splayed feet, and between them, under the bags of belly, the giant genitals of two of them leaving triple furrows in the soft mud. The third trailed a central row of great dugs. From their blue-black face holes came gentle glubbering sounds.

  Dark gems, gold-crusted like the sad eyes of toads met his. The world sideslipped, folded into transparency. The music—

  A terrible clamor broke upon him. Timor whirled. The alien beside him was laughing, cruel barking teeth.

  “Well, my crotty friend! So this is Paradise!” Santiago yelled, whooped. “Not even Crots! SUBCROTS!

  “Speak to your friends, Crot,” he gasped. “Answer them!”

  But Timor did not understand. A thing was clysming from him, a thing of most careful construction which had almost killed him, dissolving out.

  “It is absolutely necessary that this child be totally reconditioned,” he said in a stranger’s voice. “He is Scout Timor’s son.” But his words meant nothing to him, for he had heard his name in the music. His true name, name of his babyhood under the soft gray hands and bodies of his first world. The bodies that had taught him love, all in the mud, in the cool mud.

  The thing beside him was making hurtful sounds.

  “You wanted the beauty!” Timor screamed his last Human words.

  And then they were down, tearing and rolling in the sweet mud, gray bodies with him. Until he found that it was no longer fighting but love—love as it always had been, his true flowing, while the voices rose around him and the muddied thing under him that was dead or dying slipped away in the gray welter, in the music of many, flowing together in Paradise in the dim ruby light.

  Afterword

  Reading an afterword is like watching a stoned friend sail onto an interstate expressway. One can’t help looking and one is seldom made happy. Exceptions, sure. Our long-established favorites may safely peer around the edges of their monuments, even wave and wink. And we have also the walkie-talkie writers, the Pan troglodytes who verbalize every twitching moment and who are named Mailer and Wolfe when they’re good. To them are permitted forewords, afterwords, asides, superscripts, anything—because their separate stories are in fact only nodes, local swirls in a life-flow of words.

  But the rest of us, poor carnivores whose inwards meagerly condense into speech. Only at intervals when the moon, perhaps, opens our throats do we clamber up the rocks and emit our peculiar streams of sound to the sky. Good, bad, we do not know. When it is over we are finished. Our glands have changed. Push microphones at us and you get only grumbles about the prevalence of fleas or the scarcity of rabbits. And this is what makes most afterwords such nervous reading, gives rise to the suspicion that the baying itself was a cryptic complaint about rabbits.