A Specter Is Haunting Texas

by Fritz Leiber

Here I drew the line and also blew my top. I insisted that while still on Terra I simply could not bear to hurt in that way Rachel, who had done so many things for me, even saved my life. She could be told after Rosa and I were off Earth, but not now. Rosa told me the marriage-deal was off. We argued and argued.

  We finally hit on a compromise. With Rosa looking on and fighting over each word, wanting to make it harsher, I wrote Rachel a letter breaking the news gently, but telling her in no uncertain terms I was marrying Rosa and leaving tall Texans forever, sorry about that. We then gave the letter to Elmo, to be delivered to Rachel immediately after Tsiol's blast-off.

  I also extracted from Rosa her promise — hand on imaginary Bible, heart crossed — that she will not tell Rachel, by word or indirection, about her victory.

  After the buried-parties leave

  And the baffled kites have fled;

  The wise hyaenas come out at eve

  to take account of our dead.

           — Rudyard Kipling

  I told Elmo I would be taking him up on that “wife” reservation on Tsiol. He grinned and made a ring of thumb and middle finger, to assure me it was as good as done.

  Afterwards I felt miserable, but reminded myself I had taken the only sensible course. After all, every woman in the universe is basically monogamous and accepts other arrangements — polygamy, even polyandry, etc. — when they are only game in town.

  Secretly I know I will grieve forever for Rachel. Yet I have done the wise thing.

  Besides, there is always Idris McIllwraith.

  28th Spindletop was a day for rejoicing. The Russians agreed to content themselves with photographs of my ventral side, plus quitclaim signed and sworn to by me, provided Father sends down original claim by first rocket. I patted myself on chest with great feelings of relief. Departure is planned for tomorrow.

  All my happiness was completely dashed when Rachel paid me an unexpected visit in jail. From zenith to nadir in one easy jump. She was wearing Black-Madonna rig, damn her, minus pistols of course, and looking very chipper.

  Her chipperness faded, but she kept brave smile as she said, “Captain Skull, I wish to tender you my sincerest congratulations and wish you a long life of bliss.”

  “Thanks, but what do you mean?” I asked, automatically sparring for time. “That I won’t lose my front skin? Yes, I’ll be happy about that the rest of my life. I don’t know about blissful.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said softly. “You and Rosa. From the first time I saw you together, I knew you were meant for each other. Thats why I lit into her so fierce. Even then I realized I was just a clumsy old Texas gal, meant to be a poetry-writin’ and little-theater old maid, and nothin’ else. But don’t you grieve, Scully, don’t you give me a thought, except maybe to remember just for a moment on dark nights in space that there was once a platinum-haired girl in black on a silver horse, who loved you a little.”

  “What do you mean, me and Rosa?” I asked. Dammit, Rosa had promised me she wouldn’t tell! “And who is supposed to have loved me a little, you or your horse?”

  “You know what I mean, Scully,” she said and then added in a shaky whisper, “Marryin’ up. Gettin’ Kitched.”

  “Did Rosa tell you that?” I demanded furiously, my voice shaking. Dammit, a promise is a promise.

  “Oh, no, she didn’t tell me in so many words,” Rachel assured me. “But I knew she’d been visiting you. And nobody could have misread the meaning of the brightness in her eyes. Besides that, she danced all over the tent.” Then the Black Madonna drew herself up. “As for my horse, Scully, if he ever meets up with you again, I hope he kicks your face in!”

  At that moment I became, in absolutely cold blood, an utter cad. I said, “Listen to me, Rachel, Rosa lied to you, or at any rate, she did everything in her power to create a false impression. When she visited me yesterday here, she asked me to marry her and I turned her down. Oh, I was as nice about it as I could be. You and I both know she’s a good little trouper. But in essence I turned her down. You’re the only woman I ever loved in my life, princess, and you know it. Captain Skull's heart is yours — to tromp on or toss aside, if that’s your pleasure — but yours forever!”

  Despite my eloquence, it took me a remarkably long time to win her. She was especially suspicious about me having turned Rosa down. Feeling myself every second a vicious hypocrite and complete villain, I had to invent proof after proof until she consented to believe me. And then there still remained all the work of persuading Rachel to marry me. I finally managed it only by promising her she’d be star tragedienne of the La Cruz Theater and that we’d produce both Houston's Afire and Storm Over El Paso. (Would they be fringe-acceptable? Oh, well, we have play-doctors. I’m one myself.)

  I also had to add, “Besides — but don’t tell anyone this — I have always had a terrific yen for tall girls.”

  “How’d you find that out?” she demanded. “What other tall females has your fickle Heart been fixed on, Scully darlin’?”

  Great Jupiter! I had to talk fast and watch my every word not to bring in the name of Idris McIllwraith.

  But in the end she did accept me.

  And then — oh, my aching mind — we had to repeat every detail Rosa had insisted on, down to Rachel supervising me while I wrote the letter of sad rejection to Rosa, and we sealed it and handed it over to Elmo for delivery. My nerves were zinging for fear he’d give the show away, but he didn’t.

  After Rachel had gone, however, he did tell me, “Scully, I must say I think you’re a natural-born hero of the punishment-seeking sort. Wives are a combination of gadfly, rattlesnake and colt or sow. I ain’t ever had the unwisdom, and maybe nerve too, to take on even one. And Here you are putting yourself in the ring with two! And not on Terra either, where at least there’s space to disappear into, but up in the Sack, where I gather things are a bit cozy. Oh, well, every man to his own insanity. I suppose you’ll be wanting another ‘wife’ ticket on the Tsiol. Guess I can wangle it, if you’ll agree to give the Russki photographers a free hand with you the next couple days.”

  “Can’t be ‘wife,’ ” I told him. “Tsiol's crew is all Russki, and Russian Circumlunans are all most conventionally moral, at least as far as us Sackabonds are concerned. A bigamous actor is just what they’re waiting for. Had better be ‘sister,’ I guess. At least our heights agree.”

  “ ‘Sister’ it’ll be. But how you going to justify that to Rachel. Or Kookie either?”

  “My problem. And one more favor, amigo. On takeoff day, please see to it that each of them is privately summoned to Tsiol at different times, and that they’re at least strapped down — and preferably given spacesickness, et cetera, injections — before they know the other’s aboard.”

  “Do my best, old hoss. Though it’d be a mercy to you if I botched it. But it’s your funeral.”

  Soon as he was gone, I flopped and stayed horizontal twelve hours. The session with Rachel had really finished me. And tomorrow, photographers! I wondered if Russki ones are such wearisome clots as Sack “artists of the camera”. What artistry is there in pushing the button of a machine that sausage-slices visual reality?

  Also, of course, guilts, fears and apprehensions tore me. Even in the Sack, bigamy must be by freest consent of all parties concerned.

  Oh well, man is by nature polygamous, or at least aspires to be so, and women must make the best of it. For they are the best. Or else I, to name one, wouldn’t want them.

  The Russki photographers finished with me on the last of Spindletop — and they came closer to finishing me, too, than even my marathon-wooing of Rachel. They also proved much worse than Sack-snapshooters, throwing me around and posing me as if I were a sack of flour, demanding the impossible of me physically, especially in motion shots, grudging me occasional minutes in which to eat, eliminate and pass out, just as if there were no labor laws whatsoever in the Homeland of Socialism. (Guess there aren’t.)

  They wore out
all my batteries, so I would have had to be carried aboard the Tsiolkosky, except that General Kan made a surly quartermaster hunt me up replacements from those used in C.C.C.P. power weapons. He also restored me my telescopic swords, because cameramen wanted process shots of me pinking Austin, Lamar, Hunt, Chase, Burleson and a whole detachment of fake Rangers. From now on I am a gone goose in the Lone Star Republic. No one there will believe I was anything but a knowing Russian agent from the moment I landed in Dallas.

  The photogs also made use of me to the very end, for the last shots had to be of me boarding Tsiolkovsky amidst crowds of cheering Mexes and Cree Indians, who had gotten themselves a commissar now and were finding life a little more strenuous, what with the rigors of Russian overlordship being added to the rigors of nature in this new slice of Hither Siberia.

  But somehow I managed to endure the worst the photogs could dish out and still stay erect on my exolegs. If all those pix don’t sell me — and indirectly Circumluna — to the Russki rank-and-file, I don’t know what can.

  During those last shots I managed to say my warm good-bys to Guchu, El Tacito, Carlos Mendoza and Father Francisco, who blessed me surreptitiously and told me he has discovered he has a mission to convert the Crees, but not to mention it.

  Guchu said, “Back to the Acificpay Chosen for me. Every time I consort with you ofays, I find you’re crazier squares than before. Drop out, man, and turn off. You’re not too bad, at that happen you stuck around, might be I could get you status as an honorary black.”

  Old Tas grunted a sardonic “Vaya con Muerta, El Esqueleto.” I countered, “Before I ‘go with Death,’ he’ll have to fight me to the finish.” He shrugged. “What other way?”

  Mendoza shook my hand. “For El Toro too,” he said. We squeezed hard.

  Elmo contacted me at the end too, though he was careful to keep out of the pictures and our conversation out of earshot. He explained, “A fixer’s got to keep out of humanity’s eye and forego the plaudits of the public, no matter how much his ego’d be sootfied by a little notoriety. Yeah, the gals are both aboard, God help you, just as you asked for them to be. Here’s a pack of reefers and a jug of tequila to sooth your nerves. They’re gonna need it. Now you screw the most you can, you hear me, out of those Longhairs for your ‘gift’. Nobody looks after a man but a man. Remember you got no head for money, but lucky impulses. You’ll never go far wrong. Incidentally — but keep this under your headbasket — don’t expect Texas to take her defeat lying down. Russia’s got one mohole mine, but Lone Star’s got two hundred.”

  “Which side are you really on, Elmo?” I asked him impulsively. “Mine,” he grinned at me.

  Going aboard Tsiolkovsky was like returning to Circumluna, except for the continuing curse of gravity. Everything was clean, except me. All the people were calm and intelligent, even if slightly condescending. I saw the “gift” carefully stowed, then followed my learned doctor-stewardess to my water-mattress in a small alcove curtained to either side. I flopped gratefully.

  “You will remove your prosthetic,” she informed me in purest classic Russian.

  “Nyet,” I informed her.

  She shrugged. “I shall strap you down.”

  Another “Nyet” from me. “There are hand-holds,” I added.

  Another shrug from her. “Injections?”

  “Da,” I agreed. She made them, sniffing at me a little.

  When she was gone, I opened the curtains on either side. To my left and right, on similar mattresses, but strapped down, were Rachel Vachel and La Cucaracha. Each smiled at me dreamily. Then they saw each other.

  “Why, you dirty, double-crossin’, bigamy-bent Bluebeard!” Rachel gasped.

  “Beard black,” I informed her coolly. “Bigamy mildest of marital variations in Sack.”

  “Liar! Blasphemer! Betrayer of virgins!” Kookie spat at me from the other side. “I warn you, you black worm, never trust me with a sharp knife. I shall employ it to separate you from your organs of generation!”

  “I’ll hold him down,” Rachel told her.

  “Beloveds,” I said serenely, “in Cincinnati one of you said, ‘It may be different in the sky.’ Believe me, it will be. Meanwhile, let us look on this simply as another theatrical tour.”

  “My anger is destroying my mind!” Rosa wailed.

  “Scully, ah’m fit to be tied,” Rachel said.

  “You are tied,” I reminded her.

  The stewardess returned. “Raise ship in one minute. Now minus 58 seconds. A disturbance here?”

  “Indeed yes!” Rosa cried. “I am this villain’s wife and I wish to get off this filthy ship at once!”

  “Ah’m his wife,” Rachel contradicted Ker. “And ah’m the one wants to debark.”

  I moved my forefingers in little circles at my temples.

  The stewardess looked at a card in fier hand. “It says ‘sister’ here.” Unsmiling, she waved a finger at me once. “You folk of the Sack give Circumluna a most unfortunate reputation. You are not kulturny. But What is one to expect of actors? Minus 43.” She departed.

  At that moment the p.a. system most opportunely struck up with The Saber Dance from Khachaturian’s Gayne, almost drowning out the girls’ outraged babblings. I lightly touched a finger to either ear. I could feel the drugs taking hold. But I resisted them through the shock of blastoff and the dreadful minutes of 18 lunagravs until Brennschluss.

  Then, even as I was passing out, I felt the delicious release from bondage. My ghost muscles stirred. My exoskeleton became an encumbrance. I was back in my only proper environment.

  Table of Contents

  - XVII -

  100 YEARS LATER

  My great-great grandson has just returned from a trip downstairs. For sentimental reasons I wished him to wear my exoskeleton, but the Longhairs have invented an anti-grav suit that is little more than silvery overalls. So Good Old Titanium remained in his transparent museum ovoid.

  Times change. But only a little. The La Cruz Theater of the Sphere goes on from hit to hit and flop to flop. Longhair syntho-grav (inevitable mate to anti-grav) makes entrances and exits easier. Thought-projectors give new dramas enriched subjective content.

  Father and mother retired. Are thinking of spending last years in new transparent-translucent allplastic satellite, the Ship, building 180 degrees away in same orbit as Circumluna. Quarter of Ship’s population will be Circumlunan colonists, rest Terran refugees.

  My wives still bicker with me and each other, but mostly we get on famously. It is years since they confessed to me that way back in Dallas they had decided to come with me to the Sack as bigamous wives. They had just wanted to get out of me the best deal they could.

  Long ago we produced Houston’s Afire. It has become a stock item in our repertoire. Next week we premier Storm Over El Paso.

  Rachel Vachel quite rapidly transformed into an exquisite Thin and, besides her tragic acting, poetry and playwriting, began to alternate strip routines with Idris McIllwraith. With such activities and the passing years, President Lamar’s daughter has developed a more relaxed morality, which is natural in a Texan, come to think of it. But I do not know about her affairs, if any. I never spy on my wives and expect, though I do not always get, the same courtesy from them.

  La Cucaracha remains completely unchanged, a natural athletic, a demanding wife and a shrew-cat for jealousy. She is the Sack’s unequalled aerobatrix and, now that we have syntho-grav, entertains with classic Flamenco dances.

  Fifty years ago, partly to assert my independence, I had a mad love affair with Idris McIllwraith, which for two weeks was the talk of the Sack and Circumluna’s shame. It ended when Rosa sliced me twice, fortunately only across the chest. She was fined — for nicking the bubble with a wild slash and almost depressurizing the Sack compartment.

  Poor Idris. Twenty years ago Rachel developed a serious heart degeneration — it is not safe to go Thin after childhood. But then Idris was explosively brained by a tiny meteorite — first t
ime such a thing happened — and Rachel received her aged but hale heart as transplant. She sometimes asks, “how’s it make you feel, Scully, to have your old girlfriend’s heart beating inside of me?”

  How to answer that one?

  Aside from Idris we are all going strong. Circumlunan biologists have developed the Texo-Russian directional hormone and are applying it neither vertically nor horizontally, but temporarily, so that a man is taller in time. In any case, who ever dies in free fall? At first and even second appearance, it is a most harsh environment, yet I believe life and man were meant for it. Life itself appeared and had its first great flowering in a kind of free fall, the sea. As life shifted some of its companies to land, the battle against gravity continued — the insects by their lightness and wings, the bird also. Even our immediate and happy-go-lucky tree-dwelling forebearers had their own small idea about the achievement of free fall. Now with our nulgrav existence and technological anti-grav, we are perhaps really going somewhere. At any rate, it can be a good life.

  For almost a century Russian “gifts” squared Sack’s account with Circumluna. But then, due in part to great military reverses, a new spasm of Marxist fundamentalism and of hate for Sky-Russians developed in C.C.C.P. “Gifts” cut off quick. Circumlunans, used to them, blamed us Sackabonds. It was chiefly to find a new source of Terran funds that Christopher Crockett La Cruz V went downstairs.

  He tells a strange story. Greatly aided by mohole radio-actives, Texas mounted war after war against Russia and China. At the same time, unbridled and paranoically grandiose use of hormone was creating generations of Texans ten and twelve feet high. These sometimes had brilliant minds, but were tragically shortlived — height’s and mass’s strain on heart and whole system, plus effects of mounting radioactivity of air, ground, sea, all else.