The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Ah. You still misunderstand me. Anything is worth everything. Everything is important. It's all one system, from the dustmote to the star. It's only that our systems are too small."

  "So you give this world up? You're leaving it?"

  "Aren't you?"

  "I've got business out there."

  "Good. That's very fine. Remember the cabbages."

  "What's your business out there?"

  "History."

  "You don't believe in it!"

  "And stories. They're equal. Fusing the past with now and tomorrow. That's what's in the crates. History. Stories."

  "Where are you taking them?"

  "As far as I can. You know what I'll do when I get there? I'll sit down with you and your kids born somewhere far from Earth and I'll say: listen, youngest, I've got a story to tell you, about where you came from and why you're going, and what it all means anyway. It's a story about you, and about me, and a time very much like this one. . . a dangerous time. But all times are dangerous.

  "Once upon a time, I'll say. Once upon a time is the only true enchantment the elves left to us, the gift of truthful lies and travel in time and space.

  "Once upon a time there were listeners round a fire; once upon a time there will be a microfiche or—vastly to be treasured—a real paper book aboard a ship named Argo (like the one ages past) in quest of things we haven't dreamed of. But they'll dream of something more than that. "Youngest, I'll say, when I fly I always look out the window—I do it as a ritual when I remember it. I look for myself. But I also look for the sake of all the dreamers in all the ages of this world who would have given their very lives to catch one glimpse of the world and the stars the way I can see them for hour upon hour out that window.

  "Someday, youngest, someone will take that look for me—oh, at Beta Lyrae; or at huge Aldebaran; or Tau Ceti, which I've named Pell's Star—"

  I pause. I sip my drink, almost the last, and look at the clock, where the time runs close to boarding. It's time to think about the baggage. We have, perhaps, amazed each other. Travelers often do.

  We send our baggage off with the handlers. We exchange pleasantries about the trip, about the schedule. We retreat to those banalities better-mannered strangers use to fill the time.

  Words and words. A story teller isn't concerned with words.

  The boarding call goes out. We form our mundane line and search after tickets and visas. The dock resounds with foreign names and the clank of machinery.

  It is of course, always an age of wonders. The true gift is remembering to look out the windows, and to let the thoughts run backward and forward and wide to the breadth and height of all that's ever been and might yet be—

  Once upon a time, I tell you.

  I

  I sit in the observation lounge. Window-staring. The moon is long behind us, and Earth is farther still. And a step sounds near enough to tell me someone is interested in me or the window.

  "Ah," I say, and smile. We've met before.

  "What do you see out there?" you ask. It sounds like challenge.

  "Look for yourself," I say. It's a double-edged invitation. And for a time, you do.

  "I've been thinking about history," you say at last.

  "Oh?"

  "About what good it is. People fight wars over it. They get their prejudices from it; and maybe what they think they remember wasn't even true in the first place."

  "It's very unlikely that it is true, since history isn't."

  "But if we didn't have all those books we'd have to make all those mistakes again. Wouldn't we? Whatever they were."

  "Probably we'd make different ones. Maybe we'd do much worse."

  "Maybe we ought to make up a better past. Maybe if all the writers in the world sat down and came up with a better history, and we could just sort of lie to everyone—I mean, where we're going, who'd know? Maybe if you just shot those history books out the airlock, maybe if you wrote us a new history, we could save us a war or two."

  "That's what fantasy does, you know. It's making things over the way it should have been."

  "But you can't go around believing in elves and dragons."

  "The myths are true as history. Myths are about truth."

  "There you go, sounding crazy again."

  I laugh and flip a switch. The lap-computer comes alive on the table by the window. Words ripple past. "You know that's all myths could be. Truth. A system of truth, made as simple as its hearers. The old myths are still true. There's one I used to tell to my students—"

  "When you taught history."

  "Languages this time. Ancient languages. Eleven years of teaching. The first and second short stories I ever wrote were myths I used to tell my students. I'll show you one. I'll print it so you can read it. It was the second. It speaks about perceptions again." I press a key and send a fiche out from the microprinter; and smile, thinking on a classful of remembered faces, eleven years of students, all 'gathered together in one classroom like ghosts. And I think of campfires again, and a Greek hillside, and a theater, and the dusty hills of Troy. We all sit there, all of us, torchlight on our faces, in all the ghostly array of our cultures and our ancestral histories, folk out of Charlemagne's Empire, and Henry's, and the Khazars; we come from the fijords and the Sudan and the Carolinas, all of us whose ancestors would have taken axe to one another on sight. All of us sit and listen together to a Greek myth retold, all innocent of ancient murders.

  "Stories matter," I say. "And what is history but another myth, with the poetry taken out?"

  Dear old Greek, I think, passing on the microfiche, by whatever name you really lived, thank you for the loan. And thank you, my young friends of some years ago. This one's still your own.

  1976

  CASSANDRA

  Fires.

  They grew unbearable here.

  Alis felt for the door of the flat and knew that it would be solid. She could feel the cool metal of the knob amid the flames. . . saw the shadow-stairs through the roiling smoke outside, clearly enough to feel her way down them, convincing her senses that they would bear her weight.

  Crazy Alis. She made no haste. The fires burned steadily. She passed through them, descended the insubstantial steps to the solid ground—she could not abide the elevator, that closed space with the shadow-floor, that plummeted down and down; she made the ground floor, averted her eyes from the red, heatless flames.

  A ghost said good morning to her. . . old man Willis, thin and transparent against the leaping flames. She blinked, bade it good morning in return—did not miss old Willis's shake of the head as she opened the door and left. Noon traffic passed, heedless of the flames, the hulks that blazed in the street, the tumbling brick.

  The apartment caved in—black bricks falling into the inferno, Hell amid the green, ghostly trees. Old Willis fled, burning, fell—turned to jerking, blackened flesh—died, daily. Alis no longer cried, hardly flinched. She ignored the horror spilling about her, forced her way through crumbling brick that held no substance, past busy ghosts that could not be troubled in their haste.

  Kingsley's Cafe stood, whole, more so than the rest. It was refuge for the afternoon, a feeling of safety. She pushed open the door, heard the tinkle of a lost bell. Shadowy patrons looked, whispered.

  Crazy Alis.

  The whispers troubled her. She avoided their eyes and their presence, settled in a booth in the corner that bore only traces of the fire.

  war, the headline in the vendor said in heavy type. She shivered, looked up into Sam Kingsley's wraithlike face.

  "Coffee," she said. "Ham sandwich." It was constantly the same. She varied not even the order. Mad Alis. Her affliction supported her. A check came each month, since the hospital had turned her out. Weekly she returned to the clinic, to doctors who now faded like the others. The building burned about them. Smoke rolled down the blue, antiseptic halls. Last week a patient ran—burning—

  A rattle of china. Sam set the coffee on the table, came
back shortly and brought the sandwich. She bent her head and ate, transparent food on half-broken china, a cracked, fire-smudged cup with a transparent handle. She ate, hungry enough to overcome the horror that had become ordinary. A hundred times seen, the most terrible sights lost their power over her: she no longer cried at shadows. She talked to ghosts and touched them, ate the food that somehow stilled the ache in her belly, wore the same too-large black sweater and worn blue shirt and gray slacks because they were all she had that seemed solid. Nightly she washed them and dried them and put them on the next day, letting others hang in the closet. They were the only solid ones.

  She did not tell the doctors these things. A lifetime in and out of hospitals had made her wary of confidences. She knew what to say. Her half-vision let her smile at ghost-faces, cannily manipulate their charts and cards, sitting in the ruins that had begun to smolder by late afternoon. A blackened corpse lay in the hall. She did not flinch when she smiled good-naturedly at the doctor.

  They gave her medicines. The medicines stopped the dreams, the siren screams, the running steps in the night past her apartment. They let her sleep in the ghostly bed, high above ruin, with the flames crackling and the voices screaming. She did not speak of these things. Years in hospitals had taught her. She complained only of nightmares, and restlessness, and they let her have more of the red pills.

  WAR, the headline blazoned.

  The cup rattled and trembled against the saucer as she picked it up. She swallowed the last bit of bread and washed it down with coffee, tried not to look beyond the broken front window, where twisted metal hulks smoked on the street. She stayed, as she did each day, and Sam grudgingly refilled her cup, which she would nurse as far as she could and. then she would order another one. She lifted it, savoring the feeling of it, stopping the trembling of her hands.

  The bell jingled faintly. A man closed the door, settled at the counter.

  Whole, clear in her eyes. She stared at him, startled, heart pounding. He ordered coffee, moved to buy a paper from the vendor, settled again and let the coffee grow cold while he read the news. She had view only of his back while he read—scuffed brown leather coat, brown hair a little over his collar. At last he drank the cooled coffee all at one draught, shoved money onto the counter and left the paper lying, headlines turned face down.

  A young face, flesh and bone among the ghosts. He ignored them all and went for the door.

  Alis thrust herself from her booth.

  "Hey!" Sam called at her.

  She rummaged in her purse as the bell jingled, flung a bill onto the counter, heedless that it was a five. Fear was coppery in her mouth; he was gone. She fled the cafe, edged round debris without thinking of it, saw his back disappearing among the ghosts.

  She ran, shouldering them, braving the flames— cried out as debris showered painlessly on her, and kept running.

  Ghosts turned and stared, shocked—he did like wise, and she ran to him, stunned to see the same shock on his face, regarding her.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  She blinked, dazed to realize he saw her no differently than the others. She could not answer. In irritation he started walking again, and she followed. Tears slid down her face, her breath hard in her throat. People stared. He noticed her presence and walked faster, through debris, through fires. A wall began to fall and she cried out despite herself.

  He jerked about. The dust and the soot rose up as a cloud behind him. His face was distraught and angry. He stared at her as the others did. Mothers drew children away from the scene. A band of youths stared, cold-eyed and laughing.

  "Wait," she said. He opened his mouth as if he would curse her; she flinched, and the tears were cold in the heatless wind of the fires. His face twisted in an embarrassed pity. He thrust a hand into his pocket and began to pull out money, hastily, tried to give it to her. She shook her head furiously, trying to stop the tears—stared upward, flinching, as another building fell into flames.

  "What's wrong?" he asked her. "What's wrong with you?"

  "Please," she said. He looked about at the staring ghosts, then began to walk slowly. She walked with him, nerving herself not to cry out at the ruin, the pale moving figures that wandered through burned shells of buildings, the twisted corpses in the street, where traffic moved.

  "What's your name?" he asked. She told him. He gazed at her from time to time as they walked, a frown creasing his brow. He had a face well-worn for youth, a tiny scar beside the mouth. He looked older than she. She felt uncomfortable in the way his eyes traveled over her: she decided to accept it—to bear with anything that gave her this one solid presence. Against every inclination she reached her hand into the bend of his arm, tightened her fingers on the worn leather. He accepted it.

  And after a time he slid his arm behind her and about her waist, and they walked like lovers.

  WAR, the headline at the newsstand cried.

  He started to turn into a street by Tenn's Hardware. She balked at what she saw there. He paused when he felt it, faced her with his back to the fires of that burning.

  "Don't go," she said.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  She shrugged helplessly, indicated the main street, the other direction.

  He talked to her then, as he might talk to a child, humoring her fear. It was pity. Some treated her that way. She recognized it, and took even that.

  His name was Jim. He had come into the city yesterday, hitched rides. He was looking for work. He knew no one in the city. She listened to his rambling awkwardness, reading through it. When he was done, she stared at him still, and saw his face contract in dismay at her.

  "I'm not crazy," she told him, which was a lie that everyone in Sudbury would have known, only he would not, knowing no one. His face was true and solid, and the tiny scar by the mouth made it hard when he was thinking; at another time she would have been terrified of him. Now she was terrified of losing him amid the ghosts.

  "It's the war," he said.

  She nodded, trying to look at him and not at the fires. His fingers touched her arm, gently. "It's the war," he said again. "It's all crazy. Everyone's crazy."

  And then he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her back the other way, toward the park, where green leaves waved over black, skeletal limbs. They walked along the lake, and for the first time in a long time she drew breath and felt a whole, sane presence beside her.

  They bought corn, and sat on the grass by the lake, and flung it to the spectral swans. Wraiths of passersby were few, only enough to keep a feeling of occupancy about the place—old people, mostly, tottering about the deliberate tranquility of their routine despite the headlines.

  "Do you see them," she ventured to ask him finally, "all thin and gray?"

  He did not understand, did not take her literally, only shrugged. Warily, she abandoned that questioning at once. She rose to her feet and stared at the horizon, where the smoke bannered on the wind.

  "Buy you supper?" he asked.

  She turned, prepared for this, and managed a shy, desperate smile. "Yes," she said, knowing what else he reckoned to buy with that—willing, and hating herself, and desperately afraid that he would walk away, tonight, tomorrow. She did not know men. She had no idea what she could say or do to prevent his leaving, only that he would when someday he recognized her madness.

  Even her parents had not been able to bear with that—visited her only at first in the hospitals, and then only on holidays, and then not at all. She did not know where they were.

  There was a neighbor boy who drowned. She had said he would. She had cried for it. All the town said it was she who pushed him.

  Crazy Alis.

  Fantasizes, the doctors said. Not dangerous.

  They let her out. There were special schools, state schools.

  And from time to time—hospitals.

  Tranquilizers.

  She had left the red pills at home. The realization brought sweat to her palms. They gave sleep. They s
topped the dreams. She clamped her lips against the panic and made up her mind that she would not need them—not while she was not alone. She slipped her hand into his arm and walked with him, secure and strange, up the steps from the park to the streets.

  And stopped.

  The fires were out.

  Ghost-buildings rose above their jagged and windowless shells. Wraiths moved through masses of debris, almost obscured at times. He tugged her on, but her step faltered, made him look at her strangely and put his arm about her.

  "You're shivering," he said. "Cold?"

  She shook her head, tried to smile. The fires were out She tried to take it for a good omen. The nightmare was over. She looked up into his solid, concerned face, and her smile almost became a wild laugh. "I'm hungry," she said.

  They lingered over a dinner in Graben's—he in his battered jacket, she in her sweater that hung at the tails and elbows: the spectral patrons were in far better clothes, and stared at them, and they were set in a corner nearest the door, where they would be less visible. There was cracked crystal and broken china on insubstantial tables, and the stars winked coldly in gaping ruin above the wan glittering of the broken chandeliers.

  Ruins, cold, peaceful ruin.

  Alis looked about her calmly. One could live in ruins, only so the fires were gone.

  And there was Jim, who smiled at her without any touch of pity, only a wild, fey desperation that she understood—who spent more than he could afford in Graben's, the inside of which she had never hoped to see—and told her—predictably—that she was beautiful. Others had said it. Vaguely she resented such triteness from him, from him whom she had decided to trust. She smiled sadly when he said it; and gave it up for a frown; and, fearful of offending him with her melancholies, made it a smile again.

  Crazy Alis. He would learn and leave tonight if she were not careful. She tried to put on gaiety, tried to laugh.

  And then the music stopped in the restaurant, and the noise of the other diners went dead, and the speaker was giving an inane announcement.