Ellison Wonderland

by Harlan Ellison

  A surge, a slight edge, a nudge of force, and White was dominant. Power raced back the length of the weakened Black beam, and in a dome two hundred miles away, a man leaped from his bucket seat and clawed at his helmet . . . even as his eyes spouted flame, and his mouth crawed open in a ghastly scream. His charred body — burnt black inside — turned half–around, writhing, as the man beat at his dead face; then he fell across his console.

  The trackbeam was loose inside the bunker. In a matter of moments, no living thing moved in the bunker dome. But it was a double–edged weapon: associate trackbeams of the doomed White had centered in, and now five of them joined in racing back along the Black’s length. The scene in the White bunker dome was repeated. This time a woman had been under the helmet.

  So it went. All day. One skirmish of foot–soldiers with ensnaring nets who stumbled across a Black detonation team near Abulfeda Crater ended strangely, and terribly.

  The detonation team was wrapped in the gooey meshes, but had barely enough time to toss their charges. The charges exploded, killing the ensnaring outfit, but also served to shatter their own helmets. They lay there for minutes, those whose helmets had merely cracked, until their air ran out; and then they strangled to death. The ones who died initially were the lucky few.

  At day’s end, at 1630 hours, the death toll was slightly below average for a weekend. Dead: 5,886. Wounded: 4. Damages: twelve billion Universal credits, rounded off by the Finance & Reclamation Clerk. The batteries were silent, the crabs back in their depots and pools; the airless dead face of the moon left to the reclamation teams, who worked through the “night,” preparing for Monday morning, when the war would resume.

  The commuters were racked, and as the Blacks filed into their ships, as the Whites boarded theirs, the humming of great atomic motors rolled through the shining corridors of the commuters. Inside, men read newspapers and clung to the acceleration straps for the ride down.

  Down to Earth.

  For a quiet evening at home, and a quiet Sunday . . . before the war started again.

  Almost as one, the commuter ships roared free of the one-sixth gravity, and plunged toward the serene, carefully–tended face of the Earth. The young lieutenant lay in his slot and tried to block out the memory of what had happened that day. Not the fighting. God, that had been just fine. It had been good. The fighting. But what the older men had said. That was like saying there was no God. The moon was for war, the Earth was for peace.

  They had knifed a battery sergeant on his way down? He looked about him, but all faces were turned into newspapers. He tried to put it from his mind forcefully.

  Behind the commuters, the blasted, crushed and death–sprayed face of the Moon glowed in sharp relief against the black of space.

  What had the Major said later:

  War is good, but we have to retain our perspective.

  SUNDAY

  Yolande was in the kitchen dialing dinner when the chimes crooned at her. She turned from the difficult task of dictating dinner to the robochef, and wiped a stray lock of ebony hair from her forehead.

  “Bill! Bill, will you answer it . . . it’s probably Wayne and Lotus.”

  In the living room, 2/Lt. William Larkspur Donnough uncrossed his long legs, sighed as he turned off the tri–V, and yelled back softly, “Okay, hon. I’ll get it.”

  He walked down the long pastel–tiled hall and flipped up the force screen dial, releasing the wall into nothingness. As the wall flicked out and was gone, the outside took form, and standing on Bill and Yolande Donnough’s front breezeway were 2/Lt. and Mrs. Wayne M’Kuba Massaro.

  “Come on in, come on in,” Bill chuckled at them. “Yo’s in the kitch fixing dinner. Here, Lotus, let me have your hood.”

  He took the brightly–tinted hood and cape offered by the girl, a striking Melanesian with an upturned Irish nose and flaming red hair.

  He accepted Wayne Massaro’s service cap in the other hand and stuck the apparel to the rack, which turned into the wall, holding the clothing magnetically.

  “What’ll you have, Wayne, Lotus?”

  Lotus raised a hand to signify none for her, but Wayne Massaro made a T with his hands. He wanted an iced tea with a shot of absinthe.

  When Bill had jiggered the mixture together, warmed it and chilled it again, when they settled down in the formfit chairs, Donnough looked across at the other lieutenant and sighed. “Well, how’d it go your first day up there?”

  Massaro frowned deeply.

  Lotus broke in before her husband could answer. “Well, if you two are going to talk shop, I’m going in to see if Yo needs help.” She got up, smoothed the sheath across her thighs, and walked into the kitchen.

  “She’ll never get used to my making the war a career,” Wayne Massaro shook his head in affectionate exasperation. “She just can’t understand it.”

  “She’ll get used to it,” Bill replied, sipping his own scotch. “Lotus still has a lot of that Irish blood in her . . . Yo was the same way when I came in.”

  “It’s so different, Bill. So very different. What they taught us in the Academy doesn’t seem quite true up there. I mean — ” he struggled to form the right phrase. “It’s not that they’re going against doctrine . . . it’s just that things aren’t black and white up there — as they said they’d be when I was in the Academy — they’re gray now. They don’t start the morning bombardments on time, they drink coffee when they should be posting, and — and — ”

  He stopped abruptly, and a hardness came into the set of his face. He jerked quickly, and bent to his drink. “N–nothing,” he murmured, to himself.

  Donnough looked disturbed.

  “What happened, Wayne? You flinch–out when the barrage came over?”

  Massaro lifted his eyes in a shocked and startled expression. “You aren’t kidding, are you?”

  Donnough leaned back further, and the formfit closed about him like a womb. “No, I suppose I wasn’t. I know you better than that, known you too long.”

  There was a great deal of respect and friendship in his words. Each man sat silently, holding his drink to his lips, as a barricade to conversation for the moment. Filtered memories of shared boyhoods came to them, and talk was not right at that moment.

  Then Massaro lowered the glass and said, “That Huer raid came off pretty badly didn’t it?”

  Donnough nodded ruefully, “Yeah, wouldn’t you know it. Oh, hell, it was all the fault of that gravel–brained Colonel Levinson. He didn’t even send over a force battery cover. It was suicide. But then, what the hell, that’s what they’re paid for.”

  Massaro agreed silently and took a final pull at the iced tea. “Uh. Good.”

  Donnough waved a hand at the circle–dial of the robot bartender set into the recreation unit against the wall. “Dial away, brother frat man. I’m too comfortable to move.”

  A gaggle of female giggles erupted from the kitchen, and Yolande Donnough’s voice came through the grille in the ceiling. “Okay you two heroes . . . dinner’s on. Let’s go.” Then: “Bill, will you call the kids from downstairs?

  “Okay, Yo.”

  Bill Donnough walked to the dropshaft at one corner of the living room, and slid his fingernail across the grille set into the wall beside the empty pit. Downstairs, in the lower levels of the house — sunk seventy feet into the Earth — the Donnough children heard the rasp over their own speakers, and waited for their father’s words.

  “Chow’s on, monsters. Updecks on the double!”

  The children came tumbling from their rooms and the play area, and threw themselves into the sucking force of the invisible riser–beam that lived in the dropshaft. In a second they were whisked up the shaft and stepped out in the living room:

  First came Polly with her golden braids tied atop her round little head in the Swedish style. Her hands were clean. Then Bartholemew–
Aaron, whose nose was running again, and whose sleeves showed it. Verushka came next, her little face frozen with tears, for Toby had bitten her calf on the way upshaft; then Toby himself, clutching his side where Verushka had reflexively kicked him.

  Donnough shook his head in mock severity, and slapped Polly on the behind as he urged them to the table for dinner. “Go on you beasts; roust!”

  All but Verushka, the children ran laughing to the dining hall which ran parallel to the tiled front hall of the house. Dark–haired Verushka clung to her daddy’s hand and walked slowly with him. “Daddy, are you goin’ to the moon tomorra’?”

  “That’s right, baby. Why?”

  “Cause Stacy Garmonde down the block says her old ma — ”

  “Father, not old man!” he corrected her.

  “ — her father’s gonna shoot you good tomorra’. He says all Blacks is bad, and he’s gonna shoot you dead. Tha’s what Stacy says, an’ she’s a big old stink!”

  Donnough stopped walking and kneeled beside the wide, dark eyes. “Honey, you remember one thing, no matter what anybody tells you:

  “Blacks are good. Whites are bad. That’s the truth, sweetie. And nobody’s going to kill daddy, because he’s going to rip it up come tomorrow. Now do you believe that?”

  She bobbled her head very quickly.

  “Blacks is good, an’ Whites is big stinks.”

  He patted her head with affection. “The grammar is lousy, baby, but the sentiment is correct. Now. Let’s eat.”

  They went in, and the children were silent with heads only half–bowed — half staring at the hot dishes that o–popped out of the egress slot in the long table — while Donnough said the prayer:

  “Dear God above, thank you for this glorious repast, and watch over these people, and insure a victory where a victory is deserved. Preserve us and our state of existence . . . Amen.”

  “Amen.” Yolande.

  “Amen.” Massaro.

  “Amen.” Lotus Massaro.

  “Aye–men!” The children.

  Then the forks went into the food, and mouths opened, and dinner was underway. As they sat and discussed what was what, and who had gotten his, and wasn’t it wonderful how the moon was the battlefield, while the Earth was saved from more destruction such as those 20th Century barbarians had dealt it.

  “Listen, Bill,” Massaro jabbed the fork into the air, punctuating his words, “next Sunday you and Yo and the kids come on over to our hovel. It’ll cost you for a robositter next week. We’re sick of laying out the credits.”

  They smiled and nodded and the dinner date for next Sunday was firmed up.

  MONDAY

  The commuter platforms. The ships racked one past another, pointed toward the faint light they could not see. The light of the dead battlefield. Moon. The Blacks in their regal uniforms queueing up to enter the vessels, the Whites in splendid array, about to board ship.

  A Black ship lay beside a White one.

  Bill Donnough boarded one as he caught a glance at the ship beside. Massaro was in line there.

  “Go to hell, you White bastard!” he yelled. There was no friendliness there. No camaraderie.

  “Die, you slob–creepin’ Black! Drop!” he was answered.

  They boarded the ships. The flight was short. Batteries opened that day — the five thousand and fifty–ninth day of the war — at 0550. Someone had chopped down the eager–beaver.

  At 1149 precisely, a blindbomb with a snooper attachment was launched by 2/Lt. William Larkspur Donnough, BB XO in charge of strafing and collision, which managed to worm its devious way through the White defense perimeter force screens. The blindbomb — BB — fell with a skit–course on the bunkerdome housing a firebeam control center, and exploded the dome into fragments.

  Later that evening, Bill Donnough would start looking for another home to attend, the following Sunday.

  Who said war was hell? It had been a good day on the line.

  The pun, a sadly–misunderstood delicacy in the confectionary of humor, holds for me the same kind of infectious hilarity as a vision of three brothers named Marx, chasing a turkey around a hotel room, or wiry Lenny Bruce retelling his hazards and horrors on a two–week gig in Milwaukee, or Charlie Chaplin, caught among the gears of mechanized insanity in “Modern Times.” Humor comes packaged every which way, and profundities about its various guises and motivations do nothing whatsoever to explain why one man’s chuckle is another’s chilblain. In science fiction, with the notable exception of the work of Kuttner, when he was wry and wacky, the pun and humor in general have come off rather badly. Perhaps “funny” and “science fiction” are incompatible, or perhaps the fantasist takes himself, his Times, and its problems too seriously. Whatever the reasons, from time to time I have tried to make sport of the established genres of science fantasy, as in this fable called

  Deal From The Bottom

  There was really quite a simple reason for Maxim Hirt’s presence in the death cell. He had bungled the murder badly. The reason for his bungling was even simpler. Maxim Hirt was awfully stupid.

  He had fancied himself an actor, and for a while, had even managed to convince a few people that such was the case. Then came the advent of television, and he had taken a healthy swing at appearing weekly in the homes of the nation. The paucity of his talent was painfully apparent to anyone viewing Clipper Ship, his series (wherein he played a clipper ship pilot for hire, the networks being anxious to avoid the hackneyed soldier–of–fortune for hire theme) for a famous beer concern.

  It was only after the first thirteen weeks, when signs of sponsors on the horizon were dim, very dim, for renewal, that Maxim Hirt took to the telephones, to call the critics.

  “Hello, Sid?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Max, Sid. Old Maxie Hirt, out in Coldwater Canyon.”

  “Yeah, Max. What can I do ya?”

  “Just wanted to call, let you know my new series, y’know Clipper Ship — ”

  “Yeah, Max, I know.”

  “ — let you know it’s got a real winner comin’ up this Thursday night. Filmed it down in Balboa. Real coo–coo, see it’s about this broad, she’s got an uncle who found a cache of diam — ”

  “What is it ya want, Max? A plug? So all right, so I’ll give you a plug. Now . . . anything else, Max, I’m busy.”

  “No, no, nothing else, Sid. Just thanks a lot. I, uh, I need this plug, Sid.”

  “So okay, Maxie, okay, so take it easy. G’bye.”

  The review, ghosted by a writer of true action adventures for the hairy–chested men’s magazines, read:

  We caught Maxim Hirt’s new series Clipper Ship last night. Somehow we got the impression it was about a rugged, handsome guy who rents his seaplane and his talent to the highest bidder. Now that the light from the idiot box has faded, we don’t know where we could have gotten that idea, because the paunchy, punchy bumbling of Hirt indicates no talent whatsoever. With luck, this abomination will not see renewal and Hirt can fold his tent . . .

  Etcetera. The use of the word “bumbling” seemed almost mandatory when speaking of Maxim Hirt. Which was the reason, when he killed Sidney Gross, the columnist (after Clipper Ship folded its chocks and silently so forth), that he was apprehended. It was also the reason he managed to bungle away his lawyer’s defense, and talked himself right into the death house.

  Where he now sat, pad and pencil in hand, jotting down notes on what he would like for his last supper.

  Maxim, being what he was, and being basically stupid, had managed to jot only one delicacy for that final repast. Baked beans.

  He was sitting on the hard–tick mattress, doodling, trying to think of something else for dinner, when the air just beyond his nose shivered, shimmered and solidified into the form of a medium–sized man. The man wore a pair of tight jeans, a black turtleneck swe
ater and thong sandals. His beard had a definitely Mephistophelean point to it.

  “Aaargh!” aaarghed Maxim as the tail which protruded from a slash in the seat of the jeans whipped across his legs.

  “Oh, sorry, man,” said the bearded one. “Reflex, like a shiver, every time I get summoned. Wildsville, y’know, man.”

  Maxim Hirt was not very bright, but he knew a devil when he saw one. Even one who looked as beat as this item. “Y–y–y–yough,” Maxim pontificated.

  “Oh, excuse the far out garb, daddy–cool. I just came from a set with a Tin Pan Alley song plugger. He wanted a hit, y’know. Hell, his soul ain’t worth much, but then, business is business.”

  “I — I d–didn’t summon y–y–you …” Maxim warbled heavily.

  “Sure ya did. The doodle there,” he pointed a sharp, dirty fingernail at the pad, “that’s the sacred symbol, man. Like the hippest.”

  “But I was just d–d–doodling,” Maxim argued.

  “Cuts no ice, Father,” said the devil. “The song plugger didn’t know he was summoning, either. You’d be surprised how close to the ancient runes some of them rock ’n’ roll lyrics get.”

  Maxim Hirt felt sweat coolly crawling. “What do you want from me?”

  The turtled neck went up and down. “Me? Man, I don’t want nothin’. I mean, like you invited me to the pad. What do you want?”

  Maxim Hirt fed a bitter laugh to his lips. “There’s not much you can do for me . . . by the way, do you have a name? Are you . . . are you Satan?”

  The bearded one doubled with laughter, fell to the concrete floor and flopped about helplessly, his tail thrashing the walls, floor and bunk with terrible cracks. Finally he settled to rest, leaned his feet against the wall and mumbled, “Oh, man, you gas me. Satan; Satan, yet! Hell, we retired the old man eons ago. Kicked him downstairs to a desk job. Hell, you’d never catch him out in the field. Thinks he’s too good; shows you what a good press agent can do. Makes a personality out of a cat, next thing you know he’s holding you up for elevator clauses, the whole schlepp.”