A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  “I am not healed of my illness. I am old. I am positively antique. My eyesight is failing, and soon I will no longer be able to see you, to converse with you. I have seen little glimpses of rumors among the younger Servants of God, hastily dimmed when I enter the room, to the general effect that my carapace has hardened around my brain.

  “Skysinger, old friend, all the symptoms point to one little fact; the time draws ineluctably near when I will go into Holy Water for the greater glory of God.”

  “I see. And why are you here now. Morsel?” Yd gLearned softly.

  “Hmp!” A fuchsia spark. “You know perfectly well! I’ve no intention of becoming one more anonymous piece of flotsam in the Lake, while my empty shell goes to stand sentinel in the Temple! No; you’re going to recognize who I am when I go, and say goodbye properly, and acknowledge my passing!—And, incidentally, I find the tag ‘Morsel’ less than tactful, under the circumstances!”

  “I see.”

  “Stop saying “I see’ ! Of course you see!” she blipped cantankerously. “I just showed you, didn’t I? You’re not the one going blind! Well, then. This is it. This is not a dress rehearsal. Everyone’s in good spectrum today; they’ve been practicing for weeks.”

  The yellow eye snaked up out of the water and gravely sun-eyed the melting, glowing colors coming from the mighty’ boat, the proud flagship of the great building yards. “Yen,’ harmonious.”

  Wink stood up and teetered cautiously upon the gunwale of the smaller vessel, the traditional coracle. Skysinger noticed her hesitation.

  “Green-Eyed She, our association has given me much delight over the years. I shall miss you terribly . . . You have grown in wisdom under the wheeling sky. I suspect you have learned not only the clear sight of the mind, but even to see by the wavelengths of love that only Yds heretofore have perceived. Yes, I believe you have-come to love me as much as I have always loved you, little one. This achievement I honor. I acknowledge your passing with great respect . . . And I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

  Wink’s carapace sagged just briefly: then she gathered her courage.

  “Into thy maw. oh God, I commend me, body and soul,” she said, somewhat ironically: and she closed her green eyes for the last time, held her breath, and jumped.

  But a huge tentacle caught her before she hit the surface, to save her the instinctive panic all her kind felt in the water; and a giant claw neatly snipped the braincase from her thorax.

  Then there was a great crunch . . .

  The state funeral procession rowed back to shore, still shining brightly, some of the mourners already beginning to argue over the selection of the new Supreme Hierophant.

  And Skysinger chugged back into the dark, still depths, feeling once again an overwhelming, inexpressible loneliness . . . and perhaps a touch of indigestion . . .

  BROTHERS

  Richard Cowper

  The coach was late. Tammy and I had been waiting in the pool of shade beneath Marker Oak for the better part of an hour when we saw old Mr. Dorian plodding down the road towards us driving two heifers. I called out to ask him what time it was.

  ‘ ’Lo, Roger,” he said. ‘ ’Lo, young Tammy. Bus late agin, is she?’

  ‘What time is it, please, Mr. Dorian?’

  He fumbled inside his jacket, pulled out an ancient digital timeteller by means of the bootlace which he kept fastened to it, and squinted down. The heifers gazed at us with their huge, mild eyes, and breathed softly through their moist pink noses. ‘Half past three, I make her,’ said Mr. Dorian. ‘Meeting someone, are you?’

  ‘Bobby’s coming home on leave today,’ said Tammy.

  ‘Is that so?’ said Mr. Dorian. ‘Home on leave, eh? Don’t seem no time since he went away.’

  ‘Fifteen months,’ I said. ‘All but a week.’

  ‘Is that so? As long as that, eh? And how long is he home for?’

  ‘Seven days,’ I said.

  One of the heifers arched its tail and poured a liquid splodge into the grey dust of the roadway. Mr. Dorian restored his timeteller to its pocket, nodded to us, and prodded the animals into movement. ‘I daresay you won’t have much longer to wait,’ he said. “Bye f’now.’

  We watched him till he disappeared from our sight down the lane that led towards the river, then I climbed up on to the dry-stone wall, shaded my eyes from the August glare and peered down the valley.

  Far off where the blue hills folded in upon each other I glimpsed a sudden bright flicker as the sun’s reflection winked from a distant windscreen. ‘There’s something coming!’ I called.

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Too far to tell.’

  Tammy scrambled up beside him. ‘Where?’ she demanded.

  I pointed towards the distant hills and she screwed up her eyes. I could just make out the faint plume of white dust but she had no doubts at all. ‘It’s the Unicorn,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t see that!’

  ‘You can’t,’ she said and she jumped off the wall on the opposite side from the road where she squatted down behind a clump of choker weed and had a pee—something she always seemed to have to do when she was excited.

  But she was right about the coach. When it drew up at Marker Oak about ten minutes later, the gold unicorn emblem on its side was right there in front of my nose. I didn’t pay much attention to it though and neither did she. We were both watching the door. It hissed open at last and there was Bobby. He waved to us, chucked a canvas hold-all into my arms then turned and said something to the driver. I stared up at his dark blue uniform with its gold dagger flash and the S.S.C. initials and I felt a sort of tightness inside my chest as though my heart was swelling up with pride and might burst at any second.

  Bobby jumped down into the road and grinned at us. ‘Hey, you’ve sprouted, kids!’ he cried, punching me lightly on the chest with one hand and giving one of Tammy’s braids a jerk with the other.

  ‘You too,’ I said. ‘Could be the uniform though.’

  ‘And the haircut,’ said Tammy.

  The door thumped shut, the driver honked his horn, and the coach pulled away with a few pale-faced passengers peering down curiously at the three of us standing there in what must have seemed like the middle of nowhere.

  Bobby. Robert James Harkecz, Private First Class. Nineteen years old. Six years older than me; ten years older than Tammy. ‘Wild’ Bobby, our brother; object of my hero-worship since the days when I had first crawled off in vain pursuit of him around the kitchen floor. Bobby, back home on his first furlough, a boy no longer. He stretched his arms wide, drew in a deep breath and gave an exaggerated sniff. ‘Phew! Ripe cow shit! That’s home sweet home all right!’

  Our house was over a mile from Marker Oak. It stood by itself on the outskirts of the village which Dad was fond of saying was ‘on the direct route from nowhere to nowhere’ and where, for the last 25 years, he had earned his living as headmaster of the local school. His pupils were drawn mainly from the farms which were scattered up and down the valley. Most of the children became farmers or farmer’s wives in their turn and eventually sent their own children to the school. There was a sense of continuity in the process which was not unlike the slow circuit of the seasons. Out there, beyond the valley, was that other world whose language we saw flickering on our So-Vi screens. From time to time we even ventured out into it, only to return thankfully vowing that there was no place like home. All of us except Bobby, that is.

  Bobby was a law unto himself; he did things his own way. When he was a boy of 14 he set his heart on owning a motorbike, but Dad said not until he was 16 and had taken his Matric. So Bobby went ahead and built one for himself out of odd bits and pieces he’d salvaged round about. He built it in Mr. Hammar’s workshop while he was earning himself pocket money helping Mr. Hammar who was by way of being our local blacksmith-cum-motor-mechanic. When the bike was finished Bobby rode it in triumph through the village and around the school playground. Dad came out to see what all the rac
ket was and nearly had a heart attack on the spot. I believe he thought Bobby had stolen the machine somewhere.

  When he discovered the truth, Dad’s way of coming to terms with this act of filial rebellion was to decide that Bobby was a natural born engineer who would go to university and take a First Class degree in Engineering. Perhaps he was right and Bobby was a natural engineer, but Dad always tended to look at things through his schoolmaster’s spectacles and he and Bobby didn’t see exactly eye to eye on this one. Bobby got his Matric all right because he had a mind as quick as a silverfish and a memory like a magnet, but two-thirds of the way through his University Entrance course he went off the boil.

  He had got a proper bike by then (Dad had kept his promise and bought it for him as a reward for getting his Matric) and he used to roar off on his own in the evenings and sometimes not get back until the cocks were crowing.

  There was a girl called Mary Helso who had gone soft on him when he was still just a kid at school and it seems he used to make a habit of picking her up on his bike and driving off with her into the Plains towns. The first we knew about it was when Mr. Helso turned up late one evening and shut himself up in the sitting room with Dad and Mum. He talked very loud though, and the things I heard him saying about Bobby weren’t at all polite. Dad stuck up for Bobby and gave as good as he got till in the end Mr.

  Helso quietened down and said he’d just thought that Mum and Dad ought to know what their son was getting up to and that the one thing he could tell them for sure was that Bobby wasn’t going to get up to it any more with his daughter, not if he. Bill Helso, knew anything about it! Then they all had a drink and Dad said he’d speak to Bobby as soon as maybe.

  After Mr. Helso had gone I climbed out of my bedroom window and ran down the road towards Marker Oak to try and intercept Bobby on his way home. Luckily it was one of his earlier nights and it wasn’t too long before I heard his bike in the distance. When I saw the headlight coming I stood in the middle of the lane and jumped up and down waving my arms. He pulled up just in front of me and said: ‘What in hell’s name do you think you’re playing at, Rog?’

  I told him what I’d overheard.

  He listened to me in silence. When I’d finished all he said was: ‘The stupid bloody cow.’

  ‘Who? Bill Helso?’ I asked.

  Bobby just sort of snorted and told me to climb up behind him and to hold on tight.

  He dropped me off by the outhouse so that I could climb up into my bedroom by way of the lean-to roof, and then he put his bike away. I saw a downstairs light go on and guessed that Dad had been waiting up.

  I don’t know what Dad said to him. I asked Bobby as soon as I had a chance but he just winked at me and said he’d tell me when my balls dropped. I don’t think he meant to be hurtful—it was just his way—but it couldn’t have stung worse if he’d slapped me across the face.

  Whatever it was Dad had said it seemed to have an effect. For the next six months Bobby worked harder at his studies than he’d ever worked in his life. It was almost as though he’d set out to prove something to himself. From time to time letters used to come for him addressed in a sort of round schoolgirly hand but I don’t think he ever answered them. Some of them I don’t think he even bothered to open. I’d never known Mary Helso very well—she was a lot senior to me—but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her. I doubt if Bobby ever thought about her at all.

  In the spring he went off to the University to take his entrance exam. He was away for five days. When he got back Dad held an elaborate post mortem on all his papers, alternately groaning and applauding. Bobby just grinned in that strange one-sided way he so often favoured when he was talking to Dad, as though he was laughing inside himself at some joke he couldn’t bear to share with anyone.

  Bobby was out when the letter with the results came. It was addressed to ‘Robert J. Harkecz’ and had the university crest printed on the top left hand corner. It lay there on the hall table like an unexploded bomb while we tiptoed around it and none of us dared to open it. I was sent out to try to locate Bobby, but I guessed he was probably 20 miles away making up for lost time with some new Mary Helso so I didn’t look very hard.

  He turned up just in time for supper and seemed surprised that no one had opened the letter. ‘What does it matter who opens it?’ he said. ‘The result won’t be any different.’ And with that he flipped the letter across to Tammy who was so overcome she promptly dropped it.

  When finally we got it open and learnt that he had passed well up in the Second Grade we all broke into wild applause. Dad unlocked the sideboard and poured out two slivos for himself and Bobby and glasses of wine for the rest of us. It was as much his moment of triumph as anyone’s and he was just about to launch himself into some sort of a speech when Bobby held up a finger and stopped him. ‘You’re happy. Dad?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m absolutely delighted Bobby.’

  ‘It’s what you wanted?’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  ‘Even though it isn’t a First Grade?’

  ‘That’s immaterial. We’ll make up the difference somehow. You won’t go short on your grant, I promise you.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Dad. It won’t be necessary.’

  I looked from Bobby to Dad and back again wondering what this was all about. I felt a sort of sick tenseness inside me and a strange, fearful apprehension for Dad who was still smiling a sort of vacant, puzzled smile as he said: ‘I don’t follow you, Bobby.’

  Bobby looked down at the glass of slivo he was holding. ‘It’s just that I shan’t be taking up my place.’

  We all stared at him and Dad croaked ‘What?’ as though his mouth was full of soot or something.

  Bobby raised his head and glanced around at Mum and Tammy and me. Then he turned back to Dad. ‘Your boy’s joined the army,’ he said. ‘Cheers!’ And he raised his glass and drank the spirit off as though it was milk.

  I never really did understand why Dad took it the way he did—I mean it’s not as though Bobby had done something wrong. After all, every country has to have any army. The President of our own country’s a General. And so was the one before him. Engineers never get to be President of their country. Besides they’re always telling us on the So-Vi what a great life it is in the army and how all the girls so crazy when they see a uniform. I suppose Dad was just being old-fashioned because he’d set his heart on Bobby being a professor or something. But there’s no getting away from the fact that he was pretty badly upset. Not that he could do anything about it (Bobby was over 18 by then) but he had a sort of cold, stunned look for a long time afterwards, even after Bobby had left.

  We had a few letters from him (well, cards mostly) but he never said much. He did his initial training hundreds of miles away in the south. We expected he’d be home for Christmas but in October he wrote that he’d been offered a transfer into the Special Service Corps which meant another three months’ intensive training followed by a spell of routine attachment. The S.S.C. is the one they always show you on the So-Vi with the men leaping out of those black helicopters and firing their lasers from the hip as they charge off into the smoke of battle. They say that all S.S.C. men are hand-picked for their super intelligence. They’re also supposed to be totally fearless and as tough as armour plate. When they have the big Anniversary Parade in the Capital it’s always the S.S.C. who form the Guard of Honour for the President. They really are the best, everyone says so, and naturally I was pretty excited that Bobby had been selected and I didn’t lose any time bragging about it to the other kids at school.

  Then one day Dad called me into his office and told me that he didn’t want me to go round sounding off about Bobby quite so much and that reflected glory wasn’t worth the having since you yourself hadn’t done anything to earn it. It struck me that he felt sort of ashamed of Bobby in some way and I told him so straight out.

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not true, Roger,’ he said. ‘If I’m ashamed of an
yone I’m ashamed of myself. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like this. Try and forget I ever said it.’ And he smiled at me and patted my shoulder and let me go. And that was all there was to it except that afterwards I didn’t shoot my mouth off quite so much about Bobby. I don’t really know why.

  In August Bobby wired to say he was coming home on a week’s leave and that he’d be arriving the next day. Typically, it was the first we’d heard of it. Tammy and I spent all the morning polishing up his motor bike ready for him and then we went down to Marker Oak to meet the coach, which is where I began telling you all this.

  As the three of us were walking back up the road where I’d once waylaid him in the middle of the night I asked him if he remembered it. He laughed and said he hadn’t forgotten, then he changed the subject and began questioning Tammy about school and how things had been in the village since we went away. I was dying to ask him a whole load of stuff about what it was really like in the S.S.C. but no sooner did I put a direct question to him than he dodged around it or just shrugged and said he found it all too boring to think about which seemed a pretty ridiculous thing to say. Finally it struck me that possibly he didn’t want to talk about it in front of Tammy, so I let the subject drop till I could get hold of him on his own.

  At supper that night it came out that the reason Bobby had got this leave was that he’d been selected to go on an Officers’ Training Course. When Dad heard this he brightened up immediately and said that must mean Bobby could opt for the Engineers and be able to collect his degree at the Government’s expense. I thought Bobby might take the opportunity to put Dad down again, but all he said was that he couldn’t apply to specialize till he’d got through his Part One which would take him six months. Even so I think Dad looked happier than he had done since the day Bobby broke the news about joining the army, and later, when Bobby had gone off on his bike to look up some old friends, I heard Dad say to Mum that it seemed as if everything might be working out better than he’d dared to hope.