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

by Edited By Judith Merril

  “Ask him. Offer him another dollar.”

  “Pointless—he’d say he had seen him just to keep me happy.”

  “What makes you so sure Springman is here?”

  “He was here,” Vandervell corrected. “He won’t be here any longer. I was with Springman in Acapulco when he looked at the map. He came here.”

  The woman carried her tumbler into the bedroom.

  “We’ll have dinner at nine,” Vandervell called to her. “I’ll let you know if he dances again.”

  Left alone, Vandervell watched the fire displays. The glow shone through the windows of the houses in the village so that they seemed to glow like charcoal. At night the collection of hovels was deserted, but a few of the men returned during the day.

  * * * *

  In the morning two men came from the garage in Ecuatan to reclaim the car which Vandervell had hired. He offered to pay a month’s rent in advance, but they rejected this and pointed at the clinkers that had fallen on to the car from the sky. None of them was hot enough to burn the paintwork. Vandervell gave them each fifty dollars and promised to cover the car with a tarpaulin. Satisfied, the men drove away.

  After breakfast Vandervell walked out across the lava seams to the road. The stick-dancer stood by his hole above the bank, resting his hands on the two spears. The cone of the volcano, partly hidden by the dust, trembled behind his back. He watched Vandervell when he shouted across the road. Vandervell took a dollar bill from his wallet and placed it under a stone. The stick-man began to hum and rock on the balls of his feet.

  As Vandervell walked back along the road two of the villagers approached.

  “Guide,” he said to them. “Ten dollars. One hour.” He pointed to the lip of the crater but the men ignored him and continued along the road.

  The surface of the house had once been white, but was now covered with gray dust. Two hours later, when the manager of the estate below the house rode up on a gray horse, Vandervell asked: “Is your horse white or black?”

  “That’s a good question, senor.”

  “I want to hire a guide,” Vandervell said. “To take me into the volcano.”

  “There’s nothing there, senor.”

  “I want to look around the crater. I need someone who knows the pathways.”

  “It’s full of smoke, Senor Vandervell. Hot sulphur. Burns the eyes. You wouldn’t like it.”

  “Do you remember seeing someone called Springman?” Vandervell said. “About three months ago.”

  “You asked me that before. I remember two Americans with a scientific truck. Then a Dutchman with white hair.”

  “That could be him.”

  “Or maybe black, eh? As you say.”

  A rattle of sticks sounded from the road. After warming up, the stick-dancer had begun his performance in earnest.

  “You’d better get out of here, Senor Vandervell,” the manager said. “The mountain could split one day.”

  Vandervell pointed to the stick-dancer. “He’ll hold it off for a while.”

  The manager rode away. “My respects to Mrs. Vandervell.”

  “Miss Winston.”

  Vandervell went into the lounge and stood by the window. During the day the activity of the volcano increased. The column of smoke rose half a mile into the sky, threaded by gleams of flame.

  The rumbling woke the woman. In the kitchen she spoke to the house-boy.

  “He wants to leave,” she said to Vandervell afterwards.

  “Offer him more money,” he said without turning.

  “He says everyone has left now. It’s too dangerous to stay. The men in the village are leaving for good this afternoon.”

  Vandervell watched the stick-dancer twirling his devil sticks like a drum major. “Let him go if he wants to. I think the estate manager saw Springman.”

  “That’s good. Then he was here.”

  “The manager sent his respects to you.”

  “I’m charmed.”

  Five minutes later, when the house-boy had gone, she returned to her bedroom. During the afternoon she came out to collect the film magazines in the bookcase.

  Vandervell watched the smoke being pumped from the volcano. Now and then the devil-sticks man climbed out of his hole and danced on a mound of lava by the road. The men came down from the village for the last time. They looked at the stick-dancer as they walked on down the road.

  * * * *

  At eight o’clock in the morning a police truck drove up to the village, reversed and came down again. Its roof and driving cabin were covered with ash. The policemen did not see the stick-dancer, but they saw Vandervell in the window of the house and stopped outside.

  “Get out!” one of the policemen shouted. “You must go now! Take your car! What’s the matter?”

  Vandervell opened the window. “The car is all right. We’re staying for a few days. Gracias, Sergeant.”

  “No! Get out!” The policeman climbed down from the cabin. “The mountain—pfft! Dust, burning!” He took off his cap and waved it. “You go now.”

  As he remonstrated Vandervell closed the window and took his jacket off the chair. Inside he felt for his wallet.

  After he had paid the policemen they saluted and drove away. The woman came out of the bedroom.

  “You’re lucky your father is rich,” she said. “What would you do if he was poor?”

  “Springman was poor,” Vandervell said. He took his handkerchief from his jacket. The dust was starting to seep into the house. “Money only postpones one’s problems.”

  “How long are you going to stay? Your father told me to keep an eye on you.”

  “Relax. I won’t come to any mischief here.”

  “Is that a joke? With this volcano over our heads?”

  Vandervell pointed to the stick-dancer. “It doesn’t worry him. This mountain has been active for fifty years.”

  “Then why do we have to come here now?”

  “I’m looking for Springman. I think he came here three months ago.”

  “Where is he? Up in the village?”

  “I doubt it. He’s probably five thousand miles under our feet, sucked down by the back-pressure. A century from now he’ll come up through Vesuvius.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Have you thought of that, though? It’s a wonderful idea.”

  “No. Is that what you’re planning for me?”

  Cinders hissed in the roof tank, spitting faintly like boiling rain.

  “Think of them—Pompeiian matrons, Aztec virgins, bits of old Prometheus himself, they’re raining down on the just and the unjust.”

  “What about your friend Springman?”

  “Now that you remind me . . .” Vandervell raised a finger to the ceiling. “Let’s listen. What’s the matter?”

  “Is that why you came here? To think of Springman being burned to ashes?”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Vandervell turned to the window.

  “What are you worrying about, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” Vandervell said. “For once in a long time I’m not worrying about anything at all.” He rubbed the pane with his sleeve. “Where’s the old devil-boy? Don’t tell me he’s gone.” He peered through the falling dust. “There he is.”

  The figure stood on the ridge above the road, illuminated by the flares from the crater. A pall of ash hung in the air around him.

  “What’s he waiting for?” the woman asked. “Another dollar?”

  “A lot more than a dollar,” Vandervell said. “He’s waiting for me.”

  “Don’t burn your fingers,” she said, closing the door.

  * * * *

  That afternoon, when she came into the lounge after waking, she found that Vandervell had left. She went to the window and looked up towards the crater. The falls of ash and cinders obscured the village, and hundreds of embers glowed on the lava flows. Through the dust she could see the explosions inside the crater lighting up the rim.

  Vandervell’s jacket
lay over a chair. She waited for three hours for him to return. By this time the noise from the crater was continuous. The lava flows dragged and heaved like chains, shaking the walls of the house.

  At five o’clock Vandervell had not come back. A second crater had opened in the summit of the volcano, into which part of the village had fallen. When she was sure that the devil-sticks man had gone, the woman took the money from Vandervell’s jacket and drove down the mountain.

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  * * * *

  Ten years ago, when the first of these Annuals was being prepared, I delighted in writing about the authors: There were only five (out of eighteen) whom I did not know personally, or at least by fluent correspondence. And they were, generally, fascinating people.

  Within a few years, half the entries were by writers with whom my only contact was in the formality of securing permission—sometimes that was done through an agent or previous publisher. With many, I did not have even the previous acquaintance of reader-and-writer. (Some had written in other fields, but often as not I did not get around to the back-reading till after the anthology was finished.) There was more to discuss in what was happening to science fiction as a whole: the change in range of interests, the broadening area of publication, the refinement of techniques.

  Over the last two years, certain patterns began to appear in what I did know about the backgrounds and special interests of the new names. (Comparatively few were “new young writers” in the usual sense; a good many were journalists, teachers, and writers already established in other fields.) It occurred to me that the motivations and objectives of writers newly attracted to the field might offer some insights into the overall direction and form of (what used to be “science fiction” and is now) whatever it is to which we apply the loose label S-F.

  This year I made a point of asking for as much information— personal and professional—as I could get.

  Certain things are immediately evident. Many of the new people are British. (The reasons for that—beyond the two already obvious— will appear later.) Once again, although there are a large number of “Firsts” (first published fiction), there are comparatively few really “new young writers,” and few even of these are primarily genre writers. Most of them have concurrent ambitions or established activities, not only in other areas of literature, but in the other arts and sciences—particularly the life sciences.

  These are the generalities. The specifics, as far as was practicable, I have included here as they came to me, in the authors’ own words, or those of their colleagues and/or critics.

  * * * *

  SLOW TUESDAY NIGHT

  R. A. LAFFERTY

  A panhandler intercepted the young couple as they strolled down the night street.

  “Preserve us this night,” he said as he touched his hat to them, “and could you good people advance me a thousand dollars to be about the recouping of my fortunes?”

  “I gave you a thousand last Friday,” said the young man.

  “Indeed you did,” the panhandler replied, “and I paid you back tenfold by messenger before midnight.”

  “That’s right, George, he did,” said the young woman. “Give it to him, dear. I believe he’s a good sort.”

  So the young man gave the panhandler a thousand dollars; and the panhandler touched his hat to them in thanks and went on to the recouping of his fortunes.

  As he went into Money Market, the panhandler passed Ildefonsa Impala, the most beautiful woman in the city.

  “Will you marry me this night, Ildy?” he asked cheerfully.

  “Oh, I don’t believe so, Basil,” she said. “I marry you pretty often, but tonight I don’t seem to have any plans at all. You may make me a gift on your first or second, however. I always like that.”

  But when they had parted, she asked herself: “But whom will I marry tonight?”

  The panhandler was Basil Bagelbaker, who would be the richest man in the world within an hour and a half. He would make and lose four fortunes within eight hours; and these not the little fortunes that ordinary men acquire, but titanic things.

  · · · · ·

  When the Abebaios block had been removed from human minds, people began to make decisions faster, and often better. It had been the mental stutter. When it was understood what it was, and that it had no useful function, it was removed by simple childhood metasurgery.

  Transportation and manufacturing had then become practically instantaneous. Things that had once taken months and years now took only minutes and hours. A person could have one or several pretty intricate careers within an eight-hour period.

  Freddy Fixico had just invented a manus module. Freddy was a Nyctalops, and the modules were characteristic of these people. The people had then divided themselves—according to their natures and inclinations—into the Auroreans, the Hemerobians, and the Nyctalops; or the Dawners who had their most active hours from 4 A.M. till Noon, the Day-Flies who obtained from Noon to 8 P.M., and the Night-Seers whose civilization thrived from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M. The cultures, inventions, markets, and activities of these three folk were a little different. As a Nyctalops, Freddy had just begun his working day at 8 P.M. on a slow Tuesday night.

  Freddy rented an office and had it furnished. This took one minute, negotiation, selection, and installation being almost instantaneous. Then he invented the manus module; that took another minute. He then had it manufactured and marketed; in three minutes it was in the hands of key buyers.

  It caught on. It was an attractive module. The flow of orders began within thirty seconds. By ten minutes after eight every important person had one of the new manus modules, and the trend had been set. The module began to sell in the millions. It was one of the most interesting fads of the night, or at least the early part of the night.

  Manus modules had no practical function, no more than had Sameki verses. They were attractive, of a psychologically satisfying size and shape, and could be held in the hands, set on a table, or installed in a module niche of any wall.

  Naturally Freddy became very rich. Ildefonsa Impala the most beautiful woman in the city was always interested in newly rich men. She came to see Freddy about eight-thirty. People made up their minds fast, and Ildefonsa had hers made up when she came. Freddy made his own up quickly and divorced Judy Fixico in Small Claims Court. Freddy and Ildefonsa went honeymooning to Paraiso Dorado, a resort.

  · · · · ·

  It was wonderful. All of Ildy’s marriages were. There was the wonderful floodlighted scenery. The recirculated water of the famous falls was tinted gold; the immediate rocks had been done by Rambles; and the hills had been contoured by Spall. The beach was a perfect copy of that at Merevale, and the popular drink that first part of the night was blue absinthe.

  But scenery—whether seen for the first time or revisited after an interval—is striking for the sudden intense view of it. It is not meant to be lingered over. Food, selected and prepared instantly, is eaten with swift enjoyment: and blue absinthe lasts no longer than its own novelty. Loving, for Ildefonsa and her paramours, was quick and consuming; and repetition would have been pointless to her. Besides Ildefonsa and Freddy had taken only the one-hour luxury honeymoon.

  Freddy wished to continue the relationship, but Ildefonsa glanced at a trend indicator. The manus module would hold its popularity for only the first third of the night. Already it had been discarded by people who mattered. And Freddy Fixico was not one of the regular successes. He enjoyed a full career only about one night a week.

  They were back in the city and divorced in Small Claims Court by nine thirty-five. The stock of manus modules was remaindered, and the last of it would be disposed to bargain hunters among the Dawners, who will buy anything.

  “Whom shall I marry next?” Ildefonsa asked herself. “It looks like a slow night.”

  “Bagelbaker is buying,” ran the word through Money Market, but Bagelbaker was selling again before the word had made its rounds. Basil Bagelbaker enjoyed makin
g money, and it was a pleasure to watch him work as he dominated the floor of the Market and assembled runners and a competent staff out of the corner of his mouth. Helpers stripped the panhandler rags off him and wrapped him in a tycoon toga. He sent one runner to pay back twentyfold the young couple who had advanced him a thousand dollars. He sent another with a more substantial gift to Ildefonsa Impala, for Basil cherished their relationship. Basil acquired title to the Trend Indication Complex and had certain falsifications set into it. He caused to collapse certain industrial empires that had grown up within the last two hours, and made a good thing of recombining their wreckage. He had been the richest man in the world for some minutes now. He became so money-heavy that he could not maneuver with the agility he had shown an hour before. He became a great fat buck, and the pack of expert wolves circled him to bring him down.