David laughed. “He’s got to be weird. I mean, carrying garbage up to his apartment instead of out.”
Terri smiled impishly. “Maybe it’s supper.”
* * * *
The rain had started by the time Terri collected her pills and they walked out of the East Side Aid Clinic. Usually Terri liked to splash in the rainwater like a duck, carefully stepping in the center of every puddle. Today she scuffed through the water, her head down.
The butcher spotted them before they had walked a block. The butcher wore a checkered motley coat that barely brushed the grime of the street. She bounced up to them with the eager clumsy tactics of a puppy.
“Hey, loves,” she called out. “Wait a minute.” She fell into step beside them. Her hair swayed as she walked. “Hey, I got maybe something you want.”
“I doubt it,” said David. They walked faster. Terri looked straight ahead.
“You just come out of the Clinic, right?” The butcher’s pitch was practiced. “Got another couple dozen pills to keep you out of W.D.” Her eyes looked tired. “Bet you’d like a kid.”
“Beat it,” said David.
“Listen, I got something prime. Six months, male, wet-nursed, you’d really dig him. A steal, loves.”
David stopped short and grabbed the butchers arm. He shoved her toward the curb. “Get the hell away from us.”
She was back in front of them at the next corner as they waited for the light. “Listen, only five hundred. Come on, loves, he needs you. You need him.”
David felt Terri shake against him. She was crying. Without thinking, he hefted the canvas respirator-pack by its strap and swung. The pack caught the butcher under the chin and slapped her back against a mailbox. Dazed, she wobbled, and blood began to drip from her nose. “You bastards,” she said. She began to curse them in a steady monotone.
“Please,” said Terri. “Let’s get out of here.”
He walked with his arm around her shoulders to console her. It was instead of words; he couldn’t think of any as they followed First Avenue home.
* * * *
Gregor Jaindl’s apartment might have been the lair of a medieval alchemist. It was dark, the windows tightly shuttered. Hardwood bookcases lined the walls; the contents were bound in leather. The air was redolent with strong incense. The candle holder on the dinner table had been fashioned from a human skull.
“I have a flair for drama,” said the old man in explanation. “I rejoice in being one of the last great romantics.”
“It’s very impressive,” said Terri.
Jaindl led them to the table. “Would you care for some wine before the meal? I’ve a single bottle of liebfraumilch, 1967. Not entirely appropriate, I suppose, but then wine is so scarce these days.”
Terri said, “We certainly don’t want to deplete your wine cellar.”
“Wine’s to be enjoyed with guests.” The old man laughed. “Besides, tonight is my celebration.”
David had been restlessly scanning the ranked rows of books. “Of what?” he asked.
Jaindl’s grin improbably grew wider. “I am the savior of our decaying, starving cities.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Later, later. I will explain. But for now please wait and bear an old man’s satisfied gloating.” Jaindl filled three delicate glasses and handed them around. “Now, a toast. To all of us, to re-birth and birth.” The glasses clinked together.
Terri’s glass dropped from her hand, shattered against the table’s edge, sprayed amber in the candlelight. She swayed for a moment and David steadied her with his free hand. David, she thought, sorry, I’m so sorry.
“My dear,” said Jaindl anxiously, “something is the matter.”
“I’m sorry,” said Terri. “Really I am. I—”
“She’s upset,” said David. “We went to the Clinic for her pills. A butcher followed us, trying to push a boy-baby.”
“Jaindl frowned. “The pills. Narco-steroids. I was getting my first degree at Columbia when they were developed.”
“You were there?”
“It surprises you?” He smiled faintly. “B.S. in genetics, 1970. Master’s in bio-engineering three years later. You thought I was a retired immigrant tailor?”
“Something like that,” said Terri. “May I have another glass? I promise I’ll be careful.”
“Certainly.” Jaindl poured the wine. “Then it is only your nerves? You are not”—he hesitated—”skirting withdrawal?”
Terri took a long sip. “No, I’m on schedule. My period started today.”
“Forgive me, my friends.” Jaindl again raised his glass. “I shall propose a more appropriate toast. To a world in which we may choose freely.” They drank and there was a long silence. “I was one who signed the petitions against so-called population engineering,” said the old man. “The social legislation, the manipulation of the poor and the minorities, the narcotic contraceptives. We tried, but there was not enough outcry until far too late.”
“It was wrong,” said David. “And now there’s no choice for any of us.”
Terri was getting high on very little wine. “It was enough they demoted us to animals. We didn’t have to justify it.”
“At the time the alternatives seemed worse,” said Jaindl. “Food, especially for the cities, was one of the problems. And that, for these years, has been what I’ve worked on. It’s why tonight we celebrate. Now please sit down.”
They sat. Jaindl bent over the oven in the kitchenette and returned with a platter heaped with steaming steaks.
“It’s been so long since we’ve had real meat,” said Terri.
The meat was white and tender, moist and slightly flaky. It tasted somewhat of chicken or tuna, but had a flavor distinctly its own. They all gorged themselves.
“So good,” Terri marveled, every few bites.
When they paused for a respite, David said, “Is it some sort of synthetic?”
“Not exactly.” Jaindl paused thoughtfully. “One might call it the maximized use of existing resources.”
“Meaning?”
“I will show you. Come here a moment.” The old man led them from the table. “Long ago I converted my bedroom into a laboratory. You’ve seen the results. I will show you the source.” Dirty towels were stuffed under the bedroom door. When Jaindl removed them, Terri wrinkled her nose at the smell. Jaindl opened the door and snapped on the light, a bare bulb. One wall was lined with cardboard boxes full of garbage. The opposite wall held cages. The old man gestured and they bent closely over a three-foot mesh enclosure.
“What is it?” asked Terri, involuntarily shuddering. She saw an obese segmented body, black and glossy, about eighteen inches long, perhaps six in diameter. The creature wiggled forward, propelled by six stubby armored legs.
“Many generations have gone into him,” said Jaindl. There was an edge of pride in his voice. “Forced genetic acceleration, here in my room. My own techniques. He is the result, a triumph.”
“It looks almost like—” David began.
“The most prolific life-form inhabiting the cities,” said Jaindl, “other than the rat or man himself. He will save us all from hunger.”
David bent closer. “It’s a cockroach.”
“Oh my God,” Terri said.
* * * *
Naked, they lay side by side in the darkness. The heavy heat settled about them.
“I told you he was a twisto,” said David.
Terri rolled onto her side. “I still feel sick.”
“And he looked like your father.”
“He does,” said the girl. “Jaindl’s a nice old man. I know he means well.”
“Twisto.”
“It wasn’t so bad. People could get used to it. It’s just the idea. . . .”
“Yeah, the idea,” David said. “Can you see our neighbors breeding those things in the courtyard? God, each day we’d all throw our garbage down there. Then at dinner we’d go down and kill a nice fat one. Jai
ndl’s a crazy. Absolutely. Forget him.”
Terri lay back with her face upward. “At least he tries. He’s done something.” (Give me a baby)
“What’s that supposed to mean?” (You know I can’t)
“Nothing, nothing at all.” (I know, but I don’t want to understand. I don’t want to be fair)
Stop it, she thought. It’s such a cruel, wasteful game.
The frustration and anger began to sidle through the grilled window like live things.
“...you meant. . .”
“...one moment of hope...”
“... I meant. . .”
“... it you can’t...”
“. . . you can’t...”
“...bitch . . .”
“. . . baby . . .”
“Damn it,” she said. “Damn you to hell. For a moment I almost felt like it.” She turned away from him and touched the frayed body of the teddybear which slumped on the bed-table.
“What”
“Loving you.”
In the small apartment above Avenue A, the animals began to tear each other apart.
<
* * * *
* * * *
Edgar Pangborn is a writer whose reputation has suffered because his best novels aren’t currently in print. A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS won the prestigious International Fantasy Award, and his more recent novel DAVY was a nominee for the Hugo Award, but I don’t think either of these is currently in print. If you’ve read his novels, or his shorter stories such as Angel’s Egg and Longtooth, you know that Edgar Pangborn is a writer of both imagination and great humanity. I’m delighted to have him in the first UNIVERSE, with a story of a small band of alien beings who have been hiding among us on Earth for three thousand years, recording our true history for our own eventual use ... if a new crisis can be overcome.
MOUNT CHARITY
Edgar Pangborn
My name is Peregrine; I have two friends.
Do not touch me. Feel the air stir as I move it with my wing, and understand: I am flesh.
One of my friends is hiding yonder at the edge of the pines. He is Lykos. Think of a European wolf, larger and shaggier than your American timber wolves. Three thousand years ago his pelt was rich black; like my plumage it has whitened. My other friend carries on his work far from here, in a cave on one of the lower peaks of the Cascade Range. The distant ancestors of the Blackfoot Indians called that peak Mount Charity because of its good shelters, springs, areas of sweet grass, tempered winds. If you see him you will think of a tailless monkey, a Barbary ape. For his amusement and ours, after we discovered India, we named him Hanuman. He too has gone white. He was the first of us to understand that we do grow old. We already knew we could die- Once we were four.
I will not stand on your wrist. You would find our flesh cold. I like this arm of your chair. I like to watch the late sun on your face, Doctor, though I notice you need to turn away from it as I never do.
Speech is hard for me. I know your language well, but my throat labors over human sounds. Be patient with me.
We have watched you five summers. We like these hills you call Vermont. We like the young people who come in summer with their tents; and you exploit your version of Socratic method to stir their minds. A Socratic school, isn’t it?
In a way. I chase them with logic. 1 want them to know fantasy and objective truth, to value both, and understand the differences. You call me Doctor, but it’s fifteen years since I retired from practice. It will be hard, Peregrine, to convince me that you are not the dream of an old man fallen asleep in the sun.
You may feel more certain when Lykos comes to lie at your feet, and speak in a better voice than mine.
We cannot know our origin. While your science was growing articulate we listened, in our fashion. You could explore-your miscroscopes, telescopes, mathematics, subtle method-as we never could. What we believe about our beginning is an imitation of your sort of speculation. Since nothing like us exists, so far as we know, anywhere on Earth except in our three bodies, and since our flesh can have very little in common with that of any Earthborn being, we think we may have originated from . . . let us imagine spores brought by a meteorite that fell on the Iberian Peninsula three thousand years ago. This unknown living dust was capable (we imagine) of entering a terrestrial host and growing until every part, while retaining the original design, became transmuted into our substance, whatever it is, with its unearthly long life and tenacious memory, its partly humanlike powers of reason, imagination, affection. (Sometimes, it’s true, we think in ways I cannot explain to you.) And we suppose that dust did enter the grown bodies of a peregrine hawk, a wolf, a monkey, a snake. We take this hypothesis because we have none better. Maybe when we die and your experts examine us they will provide an altogether different explanation. But we hope to live for some brief time yet. And it seems to us that your wise men, confronted by their own runaway technology, by the decay of political and social responsibility, above all by the horrors of human overbreeding, have enough to’ engage their energies for a long time-if a long time is still possible for any being on this planet-without bothering about three aliens, “impossible” creatures, who can only watch, reflect and finish (if we have time) a certain task.
We’re not even sure it would be safe for your kind to handle us. This is a new concern, taught us by your science. We have never had much physical contact with the animal life of Earth-it disturbs us; our senses shrink. We can love you, but not by touch. (If you don’t understand this, let it pass: it affects us more than you.) The leaves of a few plants are the only food that sustains us. Such contact as we have made with animal life, most of it accidental, has done no harm that we know of to either side, but we never know enough. I prefer that you do not put out your hand to me. Needless precaution, very likely, but sooner that than harm you.
The fourth of our number was killed by terrified peasants smashed with stones and sticks. They may have felt pious anger at her serpentine shape as well as fear. It happened in the twelfth century of your Christian calendar. However, we have seen men of the present day provoked to the same idiotic destructiveness, by forms they find too remote from the little human pattern and therefore to be hated.
Ophis had stored her memory with knowledge of the great world below the tops of the grass. For centuries she had also been listening to the human things-under floors, behind walls, in garden hedges, beyond campfires. As much as she passed on to us is safe in Hanuman’s faultless memory and in the written record that he labors over at Mount Charity. But Ophis died before we had begun that record, and so the rest of what she knew is beyond recovery.
If you have any wish to convince others of our existence, even those goodhearted scholars of yours who themselves would never hurt us, I beg yon dismiss it. We dare not show ourselves. I came to you frightened, and am still frightened in spite of what we know about you. We are too familiar-forgive me-with the human habit of shooting first and then looking to see what the bullet struck.
We have searched your people in every generation for those few we might dare to approach, in need. It is long since we have spoken. Lykos, three hundred and fifty years ago, wished to save a woman he found lost in the woods, and could not quiet her fear of him except by using his mild human voice. Alas, his kindness! The poor soul reeled home dazed by the holy marvel, believing it a pure experience of the presence of God; and she chattered to the wrong ears, and so was burnt for a witch on the urgent recommendation of the then Archbishop of Cologne. More than once I have seen human kindness reach out to save a moth from the flame, and the hand frightens the silly beautiful thing directly into death.
We come to you now because we are truly in great need of help.
What threatens us would seem trivial to most others of your breed, supposing they could first accept the fact of our existence. We know you will not think in those terms, but you might well hesitate from other reasons. You have a right to know more about us who come begging. Let me talk on
about us for a while.
In our time we have examined all the regions between the poles, except the seas. I have flown to the farthest islands. I know the upper air (how clean it once was!); Lykos and Hanuman for centuries searched the jungles, the prairies, steppes, tundra, and fields and pastures governed by men. They traveled everywhere with Ophis, while she lived. We have found no others of our kind. In the sea?-it’s possible; there we can’t go. Some of the dust that (may have) made us could have fallen there. I came to consciousness on a patch of ground near the mouth of what is called today the Guadalquivir, and the first beauty I saw and marveled at was the play of afternoon sunlight on the waters of the Atlantic; the first music I knew was counterpoint of wind and ocean. I think it was after my-should I say birth?-that a city grew up south of there; the Romans knew it as Gades, now Cadiz. Yes, there might be a few of us in the sea. I think they could hardly have discovered communication as we did; to them humanity might be no more than a fraction of the rain of death that falls slowly through the green spaces to the ooze. If the corruption of the sea by your breed threatens to destroy them, they will have no defense and no escape.
Universe 1 - [Anthology] Page 18
