Orbit 2 - Anthology
Page 16
“No last name?”
“Naturally I was somewhat startled at the sudden appearance of this apparition. ‘What do you want?’ I asked, in a voice that trembled.
“ ‘Have no fear, William,’ she replied, approaching the bed. ‘I have come to heal you. Not to harm you.’
“ ‘To heal me?’ I whispered.
“ ‘Move over, William,’ she said, ‘so that I may touch you.’
“So I shoved over in the bed a little-”
His narrative was interrupted by the flash of headlights and the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway.
“There they are now!” Helen exclaimed. “And here I’ve been wasting my time talking to you about your feet and this redheaded angel.”
Bill slowly mounted the stairs, his lips continuing to move inaudibly. In his room he stood for a while inspecting the place where he had recounted Edna’s appearance. From the lower depths came the shriek of feminine voices raised in greeting interspersed with occasional masculine rumbles. Evidently the Nortons had picked up Bernice and Clem on the way over. Clem Tuttle was in advertising and Jim Norton was an agent for Inertia Acres, a real-estate project for the retired. Bernice Tuttle and Dottie Norton were among his favorite wives, but he found it hard to work up much enthusiasm for their husbands. It was while struggling into his shirt that it occurred to him that all the people they saw were friends of Helen’s. Outside the office he had no friends.
Bill came downstairs, said hello all around, and made a quick exit to the kitchen to mix the cocktails. He put too much vodka into the martinis and had to drink a couple of glasses to provide more room for the vermouth. Back in the living room he had hoped to strike up a conversation with Bernice or Dottie, but the situation was hopeless. The girls were in ecstasy over Helen’s Christmas tree, which was not a Christmas tree at all but a dead limb salvaged from the oak in the back yard. She had adorned its gnarled branches with blue and silver balls, with here and there an aerodynamically inadequate angel in flight. Since the girls were engaged, he was thrown upon the company of Jim and Clem, who were discussing the situation that had developed at Anoakia U., their old alma mater. It appeared that the quality of the faculty and student body had been steadily deteriorating since their departure in ‘41. Since Bill had never attended Anoakia U., and never had had much use for the place anyhow, he found the conversation less than fascinating. He sipped his cocktail, and moodily contemplated Bernice Tuttle’s knees.
As if from a great distance he heard Helen calling him.
“Bill, telephone.” He went into the hall, taking his glass with him. As he expected, it was Mac.
“Bill, what’s your dispersion on that plate?”
“Hundred and ninety angstroms per millimeter.”
“What kind of plate was it?”
“Ila-O, baked. Why?”
“Just checking, was all.”
“Say, Mac, I explained to your wife it was my fault about getting home late.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m still at the office.”
“Still at the office!” Bill went cold sober in an instant. “Mac, what do you know?”
“Nothing I want to talk about yet. But I think I’m gaining on it.”
“Give me a ring-” But he had hung up.
Bill’s mind was racing. Mac would never have called unless he was on to something big. A “critical” object that might settle the cosmological controversy once and for all. He gulped down the rest of his drink and casually strolled back to the living room. How petty they all were. Jim and Clem were thoroughly in agreement that autonomy was not for Anoakia U. The girls were deploring the Santa Claus situation that had developed at the various department stores around town. That Santa Claus at the Bon Marche, they must have got him from central casting! Did you get a whiff of his breath? And the way he talked to the children! Honestly, you’d have thought he was playing King Lear!
The soggy part of a Hillhurst evening came after dinner, when the guests were swollen with food, and the cocktails only a dull memory. There were two ways to endure the time till departure: (1) the men gathered at one end of the room and talked about their automobiles and their children, while the women went into a huddle at the other end and talked about their clothes and their children; or (2) somebody showed color slides of their trip to Hawaii last summer. One hostess had made a valiant attempt to break the pattern by handing out selected passages from Ovid and Chaucer to be read aloud, but some of the men had balked. But a few bold spirits still fought on. When her guests were comfortably relaxed over their coffee and liqueurs, Helen stepped to the center of the room and clapped her hands.
“Now I’m not going to let you sit around all evening,” she informed them. “We’re going to play a game called Three Answers. One person, called the Grand Inquisitor, asks the questions. The rest of us give the answers. We make up some sort of story and the Grand Inquisitor, by questioning us, tries to find the key to it.”
This announcement was followed by a brief silence.
“Sounds like one of these fun things,” Clem grunted, knocking the ashes from his cigar.
Jim raised his hand. “Mrs. Chairman, I would like to nominate my wife for Grand Inquisitor. She can beat any lie detector that was ever invented.”
Dottie had a question. “How do we know what answers to give?”
“We answer as a group,” Helen said. “The Grand Inquisitor can ask all the questions he likes. But we can only answer in three ways: yes, no, or maybe. I’ll explain the details later. Now who’ll be Grand Inquisitor?”
“I hereby nominate Bill Backus for G.I.,” Clem said.
“Second the motion,” Jim said promptly.
“Bill analyzes this deep space stuff all day,” Clem said. “Ought to be easy for him.
“I’d love to be analyzed by Bill,” Dottie cried.
“Well, darling, I guess you’re Grand Inquisitor,” Helen said. “Now go out in the kitchen and wait there till I call you.”
Bill shuffled out to the kitchen, where he began picking at the remains of the turkey. From the front room came snatches of conversation and bursts of stifled laughter, but he was unable to distinguish any words. His mind kept going back to Mac at the office. It was nearly eleven. He had hoped to hear from him by this time if he knew anything exciting. Probably the whole thing had collapsed and Mac was home in bed. He had half a notion to give him a ring when he heard Helen calling him, “All right, you can come now.”
Bill strode into the living room trying to assume the grim expression appropriate to a Grand Inquisitor. How to begin this crazy game? Try some questions of a general nature until he got a lead.
“Has Clem landed that brassiere account yet?”
“No,” they responded in unison.
“Have Jim and Bernice run off together?”
“No.”
“Was it some sort of crime?”
“Yes.”
“Was the crime committed in this city?”
“Maybe.”
“In this immediate area?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a murder?”
“No.”
“Something more ghastly?”
“Maybe.”
This was tougher than he had anticipated. Why had Helen ever gotten him into this thing? How to proceed? they were gazing at him expectantly… gleefully…
“Was the person involved a man?”
“No.”
“A woman?”
“No.”
“An animal, then?”
“No.”
No? What on earth… ? A suspicion began to dawn. Was it something on Earth?
“Was the victim a creature from outer space?”
“Yes!”
On the trail at last!
“Was it a creature from Mars?”
“No.”
“Was it from Venus?”
“No.”
“Mercury?”
“Maybe.”
Not what he had expected, but keep on.
“Was it from Jupiter? Saturn? Uranus?”
“No! No! No!”
Well… there weren’t many planets left. With elaborate casualness he inquired, “Did this creature, by any chance, come from Pluto?”
“Yes!” they shrieked.
At last!
“Is this Plutonian creature at present somewhere within the environs of this city?”
“Maybe.”
“So you don’t know?”
“Maybe.”
Perhaps it would help if he knew more about the creature itself.
“Have you seen this creature?”
“Yes.”
“Is it larger than man-size?”
“Yes.”
“Is this creature affected adversely by the heat?”
“No.”
A flash of inspiration.
“Is it in this house right now?”
“Maybe.”
They were hedging now.
“Is it in the basement?”
“No.”
“The attic?”
“No.”
“The refrigerator?”
“No.”
“Under the stairway?”
“Maybe.”
Relentlessly he pursued the phantom creature over the house. But despite his best efforts it eluded him. He fancied he detected a hint of scorn… even contempt… in their eyes. Suddenly he recalled Mac’s remark: The answer may be staring us right in the face. Only it’s so simple we can’t see it.
Go back… see if he had overlooked anything.
“You said this creature is also an inhabitant of Mercury?”
“Maybe.”
“Then it is capable of withstanding a high temperature?”
“Yes.”
He was groping for the next question when the telephone rang. Mac!
“Don’t go. Be back in a minute.”
It was Mac, all right.
“Well, Bill, I think I’ve got the answer.” He sounded more relaxed. “But I’ll be darned if I know what it means.”
“Let me have it anyhow.”
“Remember those three big lines I said reminded me of something? You naturally assumed they were ultraviolet lines Doppler-shifted into the visible. Only you couldn’t identify ‘em with anything in the UV. Neither could I. Wasted about two hours convincing myself of the fact.”
He took about a three count.
“So, since I was all alone, I decided to play a crazy hunch. Bill, do you know what those lines are?”
“How the hell-”
“They’re those three big ionized calcium lines in the infrared.”
“Infrared!”
“This thing’s got a velocity of about 0.6c.”
“That wouldn’t give so much of a redshift.”
“Who said anything about a redshift? This is a violetshift. Bill, this thing is coming our way.”
“Get out!”
“Fact!”
“Mac, you can’t screw up the whole universe that easy. Why, it contradicts everything we know. Besides, three lines aren’t enough. You could force an agreement… a pretty good agreement.”
“I’m sorry, Bill, but everything else fits, too. Your line at 3929 is 7699 of potassium… 4494 is 8806 of magnesium…”
“Mac, what does it mean?”
“From the geometry of the situation I would say it means there’s a dimple in the expanding universe in the direction of Draco.”
It was so long before he spoke again that Bill began to wonder if he’d hung up.
“I’m only giving you an answer, Bill. What it means is your problem.”
* * * *
Bill found his guests in various stages of relaxation when he returned to the living room. It was hard to get his mind on Hillhurst again.
“I’m afraid it’s getting late,” Bernice said. “Clem and I have to be up early tomorrow. We’re driving to Carmel, you know.”
“Oh, don’t go,” Helen protested.
“It’s been such a lovely evening,” Dottie told her. “But really-”
“Now wait a minute,” Jim boomed, coming from the bathroom. “We’ve got to put the Grand Inquisitor straight first.”
“Sure do,” Clem chuckled. “Bill would toss all night.”
Jim shook his head regretfully. “Bill, old boy, I’m afraid the game was rigged.”
“Rigged?” He had only been half listening.
“You see,” Jim went on, “if the last letter in the last word of a question was a vowel we all answered yes. If it was a consonant we answered no. And if it was a W or Y we answered maybe.” He grinned. “Get it?”
It took a while.
“So I could have gone on asking questions forever,” Bill said slowly. “And you could have gone on giving me answers forever. And I’d never have known any more than in the beginning.”
“Afraid that’s about the size of it,” Jim said. He crunched out his cigar. “Well, Dottie, go get your costly mink…”
Bill accompanied his guests to the door, dutifully went through the ritual of parting, and waved as they went down the driveway.
Back in the living room Helen gazed listlessly at the remains of the hors d’oeuvres and the cigarette trays. “No use cleaning up tonight, I guess.” She glanced at Bill standing by the north window. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you coming to bed?”
“I believe I’ll stay down here for a while,” he told her.
“I should think you’d be anxious to see your redheaded friend.”
“Perhaps I am.”
Helen paused at the stairs. “You didn’t exactly sparkle tonight, did you?” she remarked. “What was the matter?”
“Tired, I guess.”
“Who was it called?”
“MacCready.”
“What did he want?”
“Oh… nothing.”
“Nothing! When he calls after midnight!”
“It was about a dimple in Draco.”
“A dimple-”
“Object’s headed toward the Earth. Everything else is rushing away. Puts a dimple in the universe out in Draco.”
“Headed toward the Earth! Very fast?”
Bill shrugged. “About six-tenths c-hundred thousand miles a second.”
“You mean it’s going to hit us?”
“Afraid not. You see, it’s quite a ways off.”
“How far?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “A billion light-years maybe.”
“Well, you don’t need to be so disagreeable about it. I can ask, can’t I?”
“It’s like Job asking the Voice out of the Whirlwind how much torque He’s got.”
Helen stood without speaking for several moments, then turned and went slowly up the stairs. Bill waited until he heard her door close. Then he switched out the lights and drew the curtains away from the window.
Capella was far above the haze now, shining in the stars of Auriga with a golden reddish glow, as bright as the glow of Edna’s hair. Suddenly Bill had the most intense sense of identity with Auriga. How lonely he must be up there among all those gods and monsters, the only one without a story. Did the old Charioteer ever ponder the meaning of his stars? If so, what were his answers? Or did he bother to ask questions anymore - when the answers had no meaning?
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* * * *
Joanna Russ, born in 1937, attended Cornell and the Yale Drama School, where she got a “totally useless” M.F.A. in playwriting. She was a Westinghouse STS scholar in 1954, with a project on the growth ofAspergillus janus under light of various wavelengths; she has acted in community theater (the Brooklyn Heights Players) and semi-professional groups (the West Broadway Workshop).
The notion of a prehistoric world of barbaric cruelty and splendor, a world closer than ours to the ambiguous beginnings of things, has been explored by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber and Avram Davidson, among others . . . but never like this.
Here, in the first two stories of a series, Joanna Russ gives us a new kind of prehistoric hero—not Howard’s broad-thewed Conan, not Leiber’s bearded Fafhrd, nor even Davidson’s learned Virgil, but Alyx—a gray-eyed, quiet, black-haired young woman.