The Year's Best Science Fiction 11 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  “I suppose they call you that because you are strong and patient,” I said.

  “And dumb, and slow. Also, because I am always chewing on a bit of grass or a straw. I can’t see the things smart people see. I’m not sensitive—a goad in the ass is about as much as I can feel. I am brainless. I know what is right and I know what is wrong, but the whys and the wherefores are not for my thick skull.”

  And so it seemed until there was this problem. The cleverest among us couldn’t foresee a cloudburst up on the mountain. But it had happened, and nobody knew what to do about it except the Ox. Later, when there was time to talk, he said to me, “Well, we had to get across and keep the stuff dry. What must be done must be done, with whatever comes to hand. If you have years of time and millions of money and thousands of workmen, build with steel and concrete, and good luck to you. If you have only got a bit of rope, a few sticks and sixty minutes—do what you can with them, boy, and be thankful. There is always a way to deal with things. Despair is for the enemy. To hope on and manage yourself, that is to be one of the free men.”

  He seemed to have room for only one thought in his head at a time. Now it was to find a way across the water before the enemy came up. “It was all very well for Thomas to say scatter and hide,” the Ox said. But, as he pointed out, there was no place to hide. Downstream were the rapids, gone wild in the flood. Upstream, water that was dangerous even on a quiet day. We had counted on going back the way we had come. But there was no more footbridge. “To stay and fight it out would have been all very well,” the Ox said; we might have killed a few dozen of the enemy and then died ourselves. But we had a responsibility. Dead men carry no fuses. “The enemy would have started out with a rush,” the Ox said, “but they couldn’t know our woods the way we do, with all their maps and their spies. We could move fast over the trail we took. They would go slower and slower, suspecting an ambush ...”

  He stood there scratching his head and looking about him like a workman who is being paid by the hour. “Ambush, ambush,” he said, and went up the bank again to where John was watching the woods. What he did there was like this: He tied two machine pistols to two trees about thirty yards apart. He fastened a length of twine to the trigger of each, and lashed the loose ends to John’s elbows, saying, all in a breath, “If you see or hear them, John, bring your elbows together. Those guns are cocked. There will be a burst in their direction from two sides.”

  John whispered, “And hit what?”

  The Ox said, “Nobody. But they’ll think the woods are full of us on two sides. When they come forward, you use your own gun.”

  “Yes,” John said.

  Then the Ox came running and showed us what we had to do. First of all we had to make fast a log to the pile at our bank. This had to be done quickly, because the pile would be under water any minute now. This log had to lie from the pile on the bank to the first pile in the stream; one of us had to crawl out and lash it down. The man who lashed down the end of the first log to the second pile would have to stand there, balancing himself like a tightrope walker and catch one end of a second tree trunk. Holding this, he would have to drag it toward him so that the farther end of the log rested on the second pile in the stream.

  There is a game we used to play with tiny slivers of wood—spilikins. You pick your spilikins one by one out of a jumbled pile. Make one false move and you lost the game. Now we were playing with logs, and the game was a matter of life and death.

  Let me make it clear. Here is twenty feet of white water. You must lay three tree trunks across it, supporting them on balks of rotten wood, one on each bank, sticking out of the mud, and two in mid-current. At any moment there will come a wind strong enough to blow you off the earth and a downpour of rain to swell the stream. You have three-quarters of an hour, a bit of rope, and nobody to work with you on the other side but an old cripple and a girl.

  As the Ox said later, “Actually, you know, you can take an interest in a problem like that. Thank God I am an odd-jobman! . . . Make no hero of me, my boy. There is nothing heroic in doing a job in an emergency.”

  I said, “Ah, but what if you hadn’t?”

  He said, “I should have been a bungler, don’t you see, a failure. I won’t be made a hero of. I don’t believe in heroes —I’ve met too many of them. You must do what you can as well as you can. That’s your duty as a free man. Son, there is only black or white—meaning, there is only one alternative to bravery, and that is cowardice. If you do less than your utmost you are a coward. You must put into your work all God gave you. The only alternative to crossing the water would have been to stay on the wrong side of it. Which would have been wrong.”

  I said, “Clem, you gave us the strength to do it.”

  “No. You made yourselves strong. You know how you can reach into yourself and take yourself in both hands and squeeze the water out of yourself until you are nice and firm. That is what we did, kid, because we had to.”

  “And now it seems impossible,” I said.

  Clem the Ox answered, “From the impossible to the impossible—that is the road of us free men.”

  Now the first thing we had to do was lay the tree I had trimmed so that its narrow end overlapped the first pile in midstream by about a foot.

  This seemed simple enough in itself.

  We tied a rope around the thin end and stood the log up on its butt, which we jammed hard against the pile on our side of the bank.

  Four of us held the rope, keeping the log upright. Clem guided the log with his hands, saying, “Easy does it... Good . . . Good, lower away.”

  But then, just as the end of the log touched the other pile, there was a gust of wind and a shrieking of the water. The bank was slippery clay. One of us slid down, caught off balance by the wind, and caught at the rope to save himself.

  The far end of the log to which the rope was tied fell off the pile. The current caught the free end. The log and rope were like a tremendous whip with all of us clinging with might and main to the lash. The log spun. We felt ourselves going, and let go. As the water tore the log away, Clem the Ox caught the end of the rope. He braced himself. The force of that jolt as the tree trunk tried to get away drove him into the clay almost to his knees.

  I took my place behind him, gripped him about the waist and held on. The rest took the rope and hauled. We played the log, and we landed it.

  Clem, pursing up his lips, said, “All right. Once again.”

  Thomas said, “This is madness.”

  “All together, now,” said the Ox.

  We tried again. This time the thin end of the log fell obediently into position. I said, “Now it wants lashing down. I am the lightest weight here. I can walk a log and make a fast knot.”

  Clem said, “Good. But hold tight to the rope as you go.” He had the loose end wound about his fist. I balanced myself and walked out. Once I slipped, but recovered myself. I lashed the log fast. A third part of the bridge was built; but a third part of our time was gone, and the water was swelling, and on the other side Grandpa Martin and Beatrice were in trouble.

  They, weak as they were, were trying to do from their side what we were doing from ours. The old man was a strange one. Since he had lost his land he had been like the walking dead. Now he looked almost young again, plastered with mud from head to foot like Adam when God made him out of red clay. His log was trimmed, and he had cut notches in it so that the rope would not slip. I saw him yelling, but could not hear him. A knuckle of rock had made a kind of breakwater where he and Beatrice were, so that the water was shallower and the current less dangerous on their side. A special strength seemed to pour into them. She took the thin end. And he the middle. Inch by inch they urged it forward. As luck would have it, they got the log to rest upon their two piles. True, there were some great iron spikes left sticking out to help them there. Still, it was a thing to wonder at. But they had not enough rope. “Your belt! Your belt!” Grandpa Martin shouted; and she unbuckled her belt and strapped it t
ight where the logs met.

  Clem called to me in his great lowing voice, “Stay where you are and lend a hand”—for he had another log prepared, long enough to reach from the second pile to the third and so link everything together.

  Clem sat down upon the log we had already laid, straddling it with his legs; using his hands he climbed a little way out. Halfway along he made a sign. The others pushed out the new log. He gripped it tightly and slid it toward me. I dragged it in my direction, caught the end, steadied it, and pushed it toward Beatrice. She and the old man got it into place.

  I went back to join Clem and the others.

  Then something heartbreaking happened: A rotten old miserable weeping willow tree came drifting down. It touched a swirl in the current so that the water closed about it like a hand, swung it like a club—a very heavy club, slow to lift, quick to drop—and struck the second log at the thin end. So the middle span of our bridge snapped like a match, and the two pieces of it went bobbing away with the willow.

  From the distance came a popping of shots. I looked from face to face. Now the strength was going out of us. Our last hope had gone with that log, it seemed. We all looked at Clem. Thomas said—and he sounded almost cheerful, “So it’s to be scatter and sauve qui peut.”

  Clem’s face set like stone. He said, “Easy does it. I don’t scatter. Somebody give me an ax.”

  He wanted another tree. The tree nearest to the bank was nearly two feet thick. Clem went for it at hip level. I ran to help him, but he ordered me back. We knew why. He had won prizes felling timber in contests, using a double-headed ax in competition with champions. In less time than it takes me to tell you this, the tree was down. He had dropped it just where he wanted it to lie. Then he and the rest of us were on that fallen tree like madmen, taking off the top branches.

  “She’s too heavy,” Thomas said, panting for breath, “those other two logs will be off the piles any moment. And we are out of rope-”

  Some stray bullets were whistling high overhead now. Clem said, “So take off your belts, take off your pants . . .” He seemed to change all in a second. I have never seen such a face or heard such a voice as he said, “What? Be beat by this puddle?” We were more afraid of him at that moment than of any kind of death or disaster. He screamed like a horse in a fire. His eyes were red. He lifted the heavy end of the tree in his bare hands, alone. The seams of his leather jacket burst. Black veins swelled in his neck and arms. It was as much as the rest of us could do, working together, to lift the lighter end of the tree.

  Then Clem, his legs wide apart, walked backward into the water. He said, later, that it was only the great weight he was carrying that anchored him against the current while his feet found firm places to stand upon. He was in the stream up to his waist. Then the water was up to his chin. His knees bent. The water was over his head. He was putting all he had—much more than he had dreamed he ever had—into one last awful effort. His legs straightened and he held the log above his head for just a second. Then the butt end of it was on the third pile, our end was in place, and Clem was back among us with blood running from his nose and mouth.

  He told me later, “I put into one minute the strength of five years of life.”

  Now Beatrice was across. She had lost her boots and her trousers. “Where is John?” she asked.

  Clem gave her a parcel of fuses and detonators and said, “Take these across.”

  “But John?”

  “Take these across.”

  She nodded, took the parcel and stepped on the first log. She walked like somebody in a dream; crossed the middle log and then the third. She was over.

  Then Clem gave me a parcel and told me to go. I went. One by one the others followed. The firing was close now. I heard John’s fixed machine pistols firing wildly into the bushes. Then his own weapon, in little careful bursts. There were four or five wet thuds as some grenades exploded. Clem stood, wiping his bloody mouth on the back of his hand. I saw him sigh. Then he crossed our poor little bridge and was with us, just as the enemy appeared on the bank we had just left. It was broad daylight now.

  We opened fire. Only Clem the Ox did not take cover. He took out the knife John had given him and stooped, and slashed at the cord holding the log the girl and the old man had got into position. It rolled away as the water pushed and sucked at it. With it went the other two logs. They seemed to wave us goodbye and danced away. I think I know what was in his heart just then. Fastening those three sticks together was great work.

  Beatrice said to me, “John is dead?”

  I said, “Yes, but he thought of you, and he told me to give you this.” I took from round my neck where I had hung it the little bloodstained book with the bullet hole, and although it was the most precious thing I had—or because it was—I gave it to her. And although the free people never lie except to the enemy, I said, “He sent it to you with love.”

  She said, taking the book, “And this is his blood?”

  “That hole is where the bullet went through. He had only two things, his knife and that book. He gave Clem his knife, but, the book is for Beatrice with my love.’”

  She asked, “And nothing for you, Martin?”

  “He smiled at me,” was all I could say.

  Then I had to turn away. Clem, who had sharp ears and had heard what I said, patted my shoulder with his torn right hand and said, “Well done, kid. Spoken like a free man!” Then he unbuckled John’s knife and gave it to me, saying, “This is for you. I’ve got a knife of my own.”

  Thomas said, “Well, let’s get going.”

  “Quite right,” said Clem, “you’re in command.”

  So we got the fuses and stuff to wreck Bridge K16. There five of us died and I got the wound I am going to die of pretty soon. This is the end of my story.

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  * * * *

  I mentioned earlier the prevalence of war-theme stories: war-and-diplomacy-and-sovereignty stories, that is, as distinct from calamity stories. There were four at least besides the several included here that are worth special mention: Jesse Bier’s “Father and Son” from a book full of remarkable stories, A Hole in the Lead Apron (Harcourt Brace & World); Joseph Green’s “The Decision Makers” (Galaxy); Mack Reynolds’ “Time of War” (If); and William Sambrot’s “Substance of Martyrs” (Rogue).

  Meanwhile, back in the laboratory, the world of science has not forgotten about war problems either. One of the news items emanating from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Berkeley last year concerned investigations into “a strange drug” which might prevent the lethal effects of shock.

  What made me notice the piece particularly was the headline: PRE-COMBAT INJECTIONS MAY BAR FATAL SHOCK. Sort of mode me wonder whether it was the boys in the back room at the newspaper, or at the lab, who forgot that civilians die of shock too.

  What makes me mention it now is Roald Dahl’s story. This one is a calamity story, and if you happen to have any adrenochrome semicarbazone around, I suggest you lake a pre-reading injection.

  * * * *

  IN THE RUINS

  ROALD DAHL

  Somewhere among the bricks and stones, I came across a man sitting on the ground in his underpants, sawing off his left leg. There was a black bag beside him, and the bag was open, and I could see a hypodermic needle lying there among all the rest of the stuff.

  “Do you want some?” he asked, looking up.

  “Yes, please,” I said. I was going crazy with hunger.

  “I don’t mind giving you a bit so long as you will promise to produce the next meal. I am quite uncontaminated.”

  “All right,” I said. “Yes.”

  “Caudal injection,” he said. “Base of the spine. You don’t feel a thing.”

  I found a few bits of wood, and I made a fire in the ruins, and started roasting a piece of the meat. The doctor sat on the ground doing things to the stump of his leg.

  A child came up, a girl of ab
out four years old. She had probably seen the smoke from the fire or smelled the smell of cooking, I don’t know which. She was very unsteady on her feet.

  “Do you want some, too?” the doctor asked.

  She nodded.

  “You’ll have to pay it back later,” the doctor said.

  The child stood there looking at the piece of meat that I was holding over the fire on the end of a bent curtain rod.

  “You know something,” the doctor said, “with all three of us here, we ought to be able to survive for quite a long time.”

  “I want my mummy,” the child said, starting to cry.

  “Sit down,” the doctor told her. “I’ll take care of you.”

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  * * * *

  Well, I warned you.

  The next story is also a war story, but a very different war, in a radically different time—and Time is the key word, not just for “Traveller’s Rest,” but for a good deal of the s-f you will be reading in the next few years. I am not talking about time-travel, or time-paradox, or parallel-universes-in-time,- these are tried and true devices of s-f, used to establish a sufficiently remote, yet credible, cultural context. The stories I am talking about are not manipulating time in order to look at some other aspect of human experience— they are trying to look at the nature of Time itself, or at least at the nature of the human experience of the phenomenon we call “Time.”