All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  He was surprised to find that he wasn't too thrilled or happy, as he should have been. All he seemed to be able to think about was that he'd lost the blanket.

  He thrust the bills into his pocket and walked across the street to the little park. Doc was awake and sitting on a bench underneath a tree. Hart sat down beside him.

  "How you feeling, Doc?" he asked.

  "I'm feeling all right, son," the old man replied.

  "Did you see an alien, like a spider wearing snowshoes?"

  "There was one of them here just a while ago. It was here when I woke up. It wanted to know about that thing you'd found."

  "And you told it."

  "Sure. Why not? It said it was hunting for it. I figured you'd be glad to get it off your hands."

  The two of them sat silently for a while.

  Then Hart asked, "Doc, what would you do if you had about a billion bucks?"

  "Me," said Doc, without the slightest hesitation, "I'd drink myself to death. Yes, sir, I'd drink myself to death real fancy, not on any of this rotgut they sell in this end of town."

  And that was the way it went, thought Hart. Doc would drink himself to death. Angela would go in for arty salons and the latest styles. Jasper more than likely would buy a place out in the mountains where he could be away from people.

  And me, thought Hart, what will I do with a billion bucks — give or take a million?

  Yesterday, last night, up until a couple of hours ago, he would have traded in his soul on the Classic yarner.

  But now it seemed all sour and offbeat.

  For there was a better way — the way of symbiosis, the teaming up of Man and an alien biologic concept.

  He remembered the grove with its Gothic trees and its sense of foreverness and even yet, in the brightness of the sun, he shivered at the thought of the thing of beauty that had appeared among the trees.

  That was, he told himself, a surely better way to write — to know the thing yourself and write it, to live the yarn and write it.

  But he had lost the blanket and he didn't know where to find another. He didn't even know, if he found the place they came from, what he'd have to do to capture it.

  An alien biologic concept, and yet not entirely alien, for it had first been thought of by an unknown man six centuries before. A man who had written as Jasper wrote even in this day, hunched above a table, scribbling out the words he put together in his brain. No yarner there — no tapes, no films, none of the other gadgets. But even so that unknown man had reached across the mists of time and space to touch another unknown mind and the life blanket had come alive as surely as if Man himself had made it.

  And was that the true greatness of the human race — that they could imagine something and in time it would be so?

  And if that were the greatness, could Man afford to delegate it to the turning shaft, the spinning wheel, the clever tubes, the innards of machines?

  "You wouldn't happen," asked Doc, "to have a dollar on your"

  "No," said Hart, "I haven't got a dollar."

  "You're just like the rest of us," said Doc. "You dream about the billions and you haven't got a dime."

  Jasper was a rebel and it wasn't worth it. All the rebels ever got were the bloody noses and the broken heads.

  "I sure could use a buck," said Doc.

  It wasn't worth it to Jasper Hansen and it wasn't worth it to the others who must also lock their doors and polish up their never-used machines, so that when someone happened to drop in they'd see them standing there.

  • And it isn't worth it to me-, Kemp Hart told himself. Not when by continuing to conform he could become famous almost automatically and virtually overnight.

  He put his hand into his pocket and felt the roll of bills and knew that in just a little while he'd go uptown and buy that wonderful machine. There was plenty in the roll to buy it. With what there was in that roll he could buy a shipload of them.

  "Yes, sir," said Doc harking back to his answer to the billion dollar question. "It would be a pleasant death. A pleasant death, indeed."

  A gang of workmen were replacing the broken window when Hart arrived at the uptown showroom, but he scarcely more than glanced at them and walked straight inside.

  The same salesman seemed to materialize from thin air.

  But he wasn't happy. His expression was stern and a little pained.

  "You've come back, no doubt," he said, "to place an order for the Classic."

  "That is right," said Hart and pulled the roll out of his pocket.

  The salesman was well-trained. He stood walleyed for just a second, then recovered his composure with a speed which must have set a record.

  "That's fine," he said. "I knew you'd be back. I was telling some of the other men this morning that you would be coming in."

  • I just bet you were-, thought Hart.

  "I suppose," he said, "that if I paid you cash you would consider throwing in a rather generous supply of tapes and films and some of the other stuff I need."

  "Certainly, sir. I'll do the best I can for you."

  Hart peeled off twenty-five thousand and put the rest back in his pocket.

  "Won't you have a seat," the salesman urged. "I'll be right back. I'll arrange delivery and fix up the guarantee…"

  "Take your time," Hart told him, enjoying every minute of it.

  He sat down in a chair and did a little planning. First he'd have to move to better quarters and as soon as he had moved he'd have a dinner for the crowd and he'd rub Jasper's nose in it. He'd certainly do it — if Jasper wasn't tucked away in jail. He chuckled to himself, thinking of Jasper cringing in the basement of the Bright Star bar.

  And this very afternoon he'd go over to Irving's office and pay him back the twenty and explain how it was he couldn't find the time to write the stuff he wanted.

  Not that he wouldn't have liked to help Irving out.

  But it would be sacrilege to write the kind of junk that Irving wanted on a machine as talented as the Classic.

  He heard footsteps coming hurriedly across the floor behind him and he stood up and turned around, smiling at the salesman.

  But the salesman wasn't smiling. He was close to apoplexy.

  "You!" said the salesman, choking just a little in his attempt to remain a gentleman. "That money! We've had enough from you, young man."

  "The money," said Hart. "Why, it's galactic credits. It…"

  "It's play money," stormed the salesman. "Money for the kids. Play money from the Draconian federation. It says so, right on the face of it. In those big characters."

  He handed Hart the money.

  "Get out of here!" the salesman shouted.

  "But," Hart pleaded, "are you sure? It can't be! You must be mistaken —»

  "Our teller says it is. He has to be an expert on all sorts of money and — he says it is!-

  "But you took it. You couldn't tell the difference."

  "I can't read Draconian. But the teller can."

  "That damn alien!" shouted Hart in sudden fury. "Just let me get my hands on him!"

  The salesman softened just a little.

  "You can't trust those aliens, sir. They are a sneaky lot…

  "Get out of my way," Hart shouted. "I" vee got to find that alien!"

  The man at the Alien bureau wasn't very helpful.

  "We have no record," he told Hart, "of the kind of creature you describe. You wouldn't have a photo of it, would you?"

  "No," said Hart. "I haven't got a photo."

  The man started piling up the catalogs he had been looking through.

  "Of course," he said, "the fact we have no record of him doesn't mean a thing. Admittedly, we can't keep track of all the various people. There are so many of them and new ones all the time. Perhaps you might inquire at the spaceport. Someone might have seen your alien."

  "I've already done that. Nothing. Nothing at all. He must have come in and possibly have gone back, but no one can remember him. Or maybe they won't tell
."

  "The aliens hang together," said the man. "They don't tell you nothing."

  He went on stacking up the books. It was near to quitting time and he was anxious to be off.

  The man said, jokingly, "You might go out in space and try to hunt him up."

  "I might do just that," said Hart and left, slamming the door behind him.

  Joke: You might go out in space and find him. You might go out and track him across ten thousand light-years and among a million stars. And when you found him you might say I want to have a blanket and he'd laugh right in your face.

  But by the time you'd tracked him across ten thousand light-years and among a million stars you'd no longer need a blanket, for you would have lived your stories and you would have seen your characters and you would have absorbed ten thousand backgrounds and a million atmospheres.

  And you'd need no yarner and no tapes and films, for the words would be pulsing at your fingertips and pounding in your brain, shrieking to get out.

  Joke: Toss a backwoods yokel a fistful of play money for something worth a million. The fool wouldn't know the difference until he tried to spend it. Be a big shot cheap and then go off in a corner by yourself and die laughing at how superior you are.

  And who had it been that said humans were the only liars?

  Joke: Wear a blanket around your shoulders and send your ships to Earth for the drivel that they write there — never knowing, never guessing that you have upon your back the very thing that's needed to break Earth's monopoly on fiction.

  • And that-, said Hart, — is a joke on you.-

  • If I ever find you, I'll cram it down your throat.-

  Angela came up the stairs bearing an offering of peace. She set the kettle on the table. "Some soup," she said. "I'm good at making soup."

  "Thanks, Angela," he said. "I forgot to eat today."

  "Why the knapsack, Kemp? Going on a hiker?"

  "No, going on vacation."

  "But you didn't tell me."

  "I just now made up my mind to go. A little while ago."

  "I'm sorry I was so angry at you. It turned out all right. Green Shirt and his gang made their getaway."

  "So Jasper can come out."

  "He's already out. He's plenty sore at you."

  "That's all right with me. I'm no pal of his." She sat down in a chair and watched him pack. "Where are you going, Kemp?"

  "I'm hunting for an alien."

  "Here in the city? Kemp, you'll never find him."

  "Not in the city. I'll have to ask around."

  "But there aren't any aliens —»

  "That's right."

  "You're a crazy fool," she cried. "You can't do it, Kemp. I won't let you. How will you live? What will you do?"

  "I'll write."

  "Write? You can't write! Not without a yarner."

  "I'll write by hand. Indecent as it may be, I'll write by hand because I'll know the things I write about. It'll be in my blood and at my fingertips. I'll have the smell of it and the color of it and the taste of it!"

  She leaped from the chair and beat at his chest with tiny fists.

  "It's filthy! It's uncivilized! It's —»

  "That's the way they wrote before. All the millions of stories, all the great ideas, all the phrases that you love to quote. And that is the way it should have stayed. This is a dead-end street we're on."

  "You'll come back," she said. "You'll find that you are wrong and you'll come back."

  He shook his head at her. "Not until I find my alien."

  "It isn't any alien you are after. It is something else. I can see it in you."

  She whirled around and raced out the door and down the stairs.

  He went back to his packing and when he had finished, he sat down and ate the soup. Angela, he thought, was right. She was good at making soup.

  And she was right in another thing as well. It was no alien he was seeking.

  For he didn't need an alien. And he didn't need a blanket and he didn't need a yarner.

  He took the kettle to the sink and washed it beneath the tap and dried it carefully. Then he set it in the center of the table where Angela, when she came, would be sure to see it.

  Then he took up the knapsack and started slowly down the stairs.

  He had reached the street when he heard the cry behind him. It was Angela and she was running after him. He stopped and waited for her.

  "I'm going with you, Kemp."

  "You don't know what you're saying. It'll be rough and hard. Strange lands and alien people. And we haven't any money."

  "Yes, we have. We have that fifty. The one I tried to loan you. It's all I have and it won't go far, I know. But we have it."

  "You're looking for no alien."

  "Yes, I am. I'm looking for an alien, too. All of us, I think, are looking for your alien."

  He reached out an arm and swept her roughly to him, held her close against him.

  "Thank you, Angela," he said.

  Hand in hand they headed for the spaceport, looking for a ship that would take them to the stars.

  Sunspot Purge

  Original copyright year: 1940

  I was sitting around, waiting for the boy to bring up the first batch of papers from the pressroom. I had my feet up on the desk, my hat pulled down over my eyes, feeling pretty sick.

  I couldn't get the picture of the fellow hitting the sidewalk out of my mind. Twenty storeys is a long way to jump. When he'd hit he'd just sort of spattered and it was very messy.

  The fool had cavorted and pranced around up on that ledge since early morning, four long hours, before he took the dive.

  Herb Harding and Al Jarvey and a couple of other — Globe- photographers had gone out with me, and I listened to them figure out the way they'd co-operate on the shots. If the bird jumped, they knew they'd each have just time enough to expose one plate. So they got their schedules worked out beforehand.

  Al would take the first shot with the telescopic lens as he made the jump. Joe would catch him halfway down. Harry would snap him just before he hit, and Herb would get the moment of impact on the sidewalk.

  It gave me the creeps, listening to them.

  But anyhow, it worked and the — Globe- had a swell sequence panel of the jump to go with my story.

  We knew the — Standard-, even if it got that sidewalk shot, wouldn't use it, for the — Standard- claimed to be a family newspaper and made a lot of being a sheet fit for anyone to read.

  But the — Globe- would print anything — and did. We gave it to "em red-hot and without any fancy dressing.

  "The guy was nuts," said Herb, who had come over and sat down beside me.

  "The whole damn world is nuts," I told him. "This is the sixth bird that's hopped off a high building in the last month.

  I wish they'd put me down at the obit desk, or over on the markets, or something. I'm all fed up on gore."

  "It goes like that," said Herb. "For a long time there ain't a thing worth shooting. Then all hell breaks loose."

  Herb was right. News runs that way — in streaks. Crime waves and traffic-accident waves and suicide waves. But this was something different. It wasn't just screwballs jumping off high places. It was a lot of other things.

  There was the guy who had massacred his family and then turned the gun on himself. There was the chap who'd butchered his bride on their honeymoon. And the fellow who had poured gasoline over himself and struck a match.

  All such damn senseless things.

  No newsman in his right mind objects to a little violence, for that's what news is made of. But things were getting pretty thick; just a bit revolting and horrifying. Enough to sicken even a hard-working legman who isn't supposed to have any feelings over things like that.

  Just then the boy came up with the papers, and, if I say so myself, that story of mine read like a honey. It should have. I had been thinking it up and composing it while I watched the bird teetering around up on that ledge.

  The p
ictures were good, too. Great street-sale stuff. I could almost see old J.R. rubbing his hands together and licking his lips and patting himself on the back for the kind of a sheet we had.

  Billy Larson, the science editor, strolled over to my desk and draped himself over it. Billy was a funny guy. He wore big, horn-rimmed spectacles, and he wiggled his ears when he got excited, but he knew a lot of science. He could take a dry-as-dust scientific paper and pep it up until it made good reading.

  "I got an idea," he announced.

  "So have I," I answered. "I'm going down to the Dutchman's and take me on a beer. Maybe two or three."

  "I hope," piped Herb. "that it ain't something else about old Doc Ackerman and his time machine."

  "Nope," said Billy, "it's something else. Doc's time machine isn't so hot any more. People got tired of reading about it. I guess the old boy has plenty on the ball, but what of it? Who will ever use the thing? Everyone is scared of it."

  "What's it this time?" I asked.

  "Sunspots," he said.

  I tried to brush him off, because I wanted that beer so bad I could almost taste it, but Billy had an idea, and he wasn't going to let mc get away before he told me all about it.

  "It's pretty well recognized," he told me, "that sunspots do affect human lives. Lots of sunspots and we have good times. Stocks and bonds are up, prices are high. Trade is good. But likewise, we have an increased nervous tension. We have violence. People get excited."

  "Hell starts to pop," said Herb.

  "That's exactly it," agreed Billy. "Tchijevsky, the Russian scientist, pointed it out thirty years ago. I believe he's the one that noted increased activity on battle fronts during the first World War occurring simultaneously with the appearance of large spots on the Sun. Back in 1937, the sit-down strikes were ushered in by one of the most rapid rises in the sunspot curve in twenty years."

  I couldn't get excited. But Billy was all worked up about it. That's the way he is — enthusiastic about his work.

  "People have their ups and downs," he said, a fanatic light creeping into his eyes, the way it does when he's on the trail of some idea to make — Globe- readers gasp.

  "Not only people, but peoples — nations, cultures, civilizations. Go back through history and you can point out a parallelism in the cycles of sunspots and significant events. Take 1937, for example, the year they had the sit-down strikes. In July of that year the sunspot cycle hits its maximum with a Wolfer index of 137.