by Jack Vance
Tomorrow I must locate more exact information, and brush up on orbital mathematics.
The Hesperus will drop into the Pacific Ocean at Latitude 0° 0’ 0.0” ± 0.1”, Longitude 141° 12’ 36.9” ± 0.2”, at 2 hours 22 minutes 18 seconds after standard noon on January 13 of next year. It will strike with a velocity of approximately one thousand miles an hour, and I hope to be on hand to absorb a certain percentage of its inertia.
I have been occupied seven months establishing these figures. Considering the necessary precautions, the dissimulation, the delicacy of the calculations, seven months is a short time to accomplish as much as I have. I see no reason why my calculations should not be accurate. The basic data were recorded to the necessary refinement and there have been no variables or fluctuations to cause error.
I have considered light pressure, hysteresis, meteoric dust; I have reckoned the calendar reforms which have occurred over the years; I have allowed for any possible Einsteinian, Gambade, or Kolbinski perturbation. What is there left to disturb the Hesperus? Its orbit lies in the equatorial plane, south of spaceship channels; to all intents and purposes it has been forgotten.
The last mention of the Hesperus occurs about eleven thousand years after it was launched. I find a note to the effect that its orbital position and velocity were in exact accordance with theoretical values. I believe I can be certain that the Hesperus will fall on schedule.
The most cheerful aspect to the entire affair is that no one is aware of the impending disaster but myself.
The date is January 9. To every side long blue swells are rolling, rippled with cat’s-paws. Above are blue skies and dazzling white clouds. The yacht slides quietly south-west in the general direction of the Marquesas Islands.
Dr. Jones had no enthusiasm for this cruise. At first he tried to dissuade me from what he considered a whim but I insisted, reminding him that I was theoretically a free man and he made no further difficulty.
The yacht is graceful, swift, and seems as fragile as a moth. But when we cut through the long swells there is no shudder or vibration—only a gentle elastic heave. If I had hoped to lose myself overboard, I would have suffered disappointment. I am shepherded as carefully as in my own house. But for the first time in many years I am relaxed and happy. Dr. Jones notices and approves.
The weather is beautiful—the water so blue, the sun so bright, the air so fresh that I almost feel a qualm at leaving this life. Still, now is my chance and I must seize it. I regret that Dr. Jones and the crew must die with me. Still—what do they lose? Very little. A few short years. This is the risk they assume when they guard me. If I could allow them survival I would do so—but there is no such possibility.
I have requested and have been granted nominal command of the yacht. That is to say, I plot the course, I set the speed. Dr. Jones looks on with indulgent amusement, pleased that I interest myself in matters outside myself.
January 12. Tomorrow is my last day of life. We passed through a series of rain squalls this morning, but the horizon ahead is clear. I expect good weather tomorrow.
I have throttled down to Dead-Slow, as we are only a few hundred miles from our destination.
January 13. I am tense, active, charged with vitality and awareness. Every part of me tingles. On this day of my death it is good to be alive. And why? Because of anticipation, eagerness, hope.
I am trying to mask my euphoria. Dr. Jones is extremely sensitive; I would not care to start his mind working at this late date.
The time is noon. I keep my appointment with Hesperus in two hours and twenty-two minutes. The yacht is coasting easily over the water. Our position, as recorded by a pin-point of light on the chart, is only a few miles from our final position. At this present rate we will arrive in about two hours and fifteen minutes. Then I will halt the yacht and wait…
The yacht is motionless on the ocean. Our position is exactly at Latitude 0° 0’ 0.0”, Longitude 141° 12’ 36.9”. The degree of error represents no more than a yard or two. This graceful yacht with the unpronounceable name sits directly on the bull’s-eye. There is only five minutes to wait.
Dr. Jones comes into the cabin. He inspects me curiously. “You seem very keyed up, Henry Revere.”
“Yes, I feel keyed up, stimulated. This cruise is affording me much pleasure.”
“Excellent!” He walks to the chart, glances at it. “Why are we halted?”
“I took it into mind to drift quietly. Are you impatient?”
Time passes—minutes, seconds. I watch the chronometer. Dr. Jones follows my glance. He frowns in sudden recollection, goes to the telescreen. “Excuse me; something I would like to watch. You might be interested.”
The screen depicts an arid waste. “The Kalahari Desert,” Dr. Jones tells me. “Watch.”
I glance at the chronometer. Ten seconds—they tick off. Five—four—three—two—one. A great whistling sound, a roar, a crash, an explosion! It comes from the telescreen. The yacht rides on a calm sea.
“There went Hesperus,” said Dr. Jones. “Right on schedule!”
He looks at me, where I have sagged against a bulkhead. His eyes narrow, he looks at the chronometer, at the chart, at the telescreen, back to me. “Ah, I understand you now! All of us you would have killed!”
“Yes,” I mutter, “all of us.”
“Aha! You savage!”
I pay him no heed. “Where could I have miscalculated? I considered everything. Loss of entropic mass, lunar attractions—I know the orbit of Hesperus as I know my hand. How did it shift, and so far?”
Dr. Jones’ eyes shine with a baleful light. “You know the orbit of Hesperus then?”
“Yes. I considered every aspect.”
“And you believe it shifted?”
“It must have. It was launched into an equatorial orbit; it falls into the Kalahari.”
“There are two bodies to be considered.”
“Two?”
“Hesperus and Earth.”
“Earth is constant…Unchangeable.” I say this last word slowly, as the terrible knowledge comes.
And Dr. Jones, for the first time in my memory, laughs, an unpleasant harsh sound. “Constant—unchangeable. Except for libration of the poles. Hesperus is the constant. Earth shifts below.”
“Yes! What a fool I am!”
“An insensate murdering fool! I see you cannot be trusted!”
I charge him. I strike him once in the face before the anaesthetic beam hits me.
The Phantom Milkman
I’ve had all I can stand. I’ve got to get out, away from the walls, the glass, the white stone, the black asphalt. All of a sudden I see the city for the terrible place that it is. Lights burn my eyes, voices crawl on my skin like sticky insects, and I notice that the people look like insects too. Burly brown beetles, wispy mosquito-men in tight black trousers, sour sow-bug women, mantids and scorpions, fat little dung-beetles, wasp-girls gliding with poisonous nicety, children like loathsome little flies…This isn’t a pleasant thought; I must not think of people so; the picture could linger to bother me. I think I’m a hundred times more sensitive than anyone else in the world, and I’m given to very strange fancies. I could list some that would startle you, and it’s just as well that I don’t. But I do have this frantic urge to flee the city; it’s settled. I’m going.
I consult my maps—there’s the Andes, the Atlas, the Altai; Mt. Godwin-Austin, Mt. Kilimanjaro; Stromboli and Etna. I compare Siberia above Baikal Nor with the Pacific between Antofagasta and Easter Island. Arabia is hot; Greenland is cold. Tristan da Cunha is very remote; Bouvet even more so. There’s Timbuktu, Zanzibar, Bali, the Great Australian Bight.
I am definitely leaving the city. I have found a cabin in Maple Valley, four miles west of Sunbury. It stands a hundred feet back from Maple Valley Road, under two tall trees. It has three rooms and a porch, a fireplace, a good roof, a good well and windmill.
Mrs. Lipscomb is skeptical, even a little shocked. “A good-looking gir
l like you shouldn’t go off by yourself; time to hide away when you’re old and nobody wants you.” She predicts hair-raising adventures, but I don’t care. I was married to Poole for six weeks; nothing could happen that would be any worse.
I’m in my new house. There’s lots of work ahead of me: scrubbing, chopping wood. I’ll probably bulge with muscles before the winter’s over.
My cats are delighted. They are Homer and Moses. Homer is yellow; Moses is black and white. Which reminds me: milk. I saw a Sunbury Dairy delivery truck on the highway. I’ll write them an order now.
November 14
Sunbury Dairy
Sunbury
Dear Sirs:
Please leave me a quart of milk three times a week on whatever days are convenient. Please bill me.
Isabel Durbrow
RFD Route 2, Box 82
Sunbury
My mailbox is battered and dusty; one day I’ll paint it: red, white and blue, to cheer the mailman. He delivers at ten in the morning, in an old blue panel truck.
When I mail the letter, I see that there’s already one in the box. It’s for me—forwarded from the city by Mrs. Lipscomb. I take it slowly. I don’t want it; I recognize the handwriting: it’s from Poole, the dark-visaged brute I woke up from childhood to find myself married to. I tear it in pieces; I’m not even curious. I’m still young and very pretty, but right now there’s no one I want, Poole least of all. I shall wear blue jeans and write by the fireplace all winter; and in the spring, who knows?
During the night the wind comes up; the windmill cries from the cold. I lie in bed, with Homer and Moses at my feet. The coals in the fireplace flicker…Tomorrow I’ll write Mrs. Lipscomb; by no means must she give Poole my address.
I have written the letter. I run down the slope to the mailbox. It’s a glorious late autumn day. The wind is crisp, the hills are like an ocean of gold with scarlet and yellow trees for surf.
I pull open the mailbox…Now, this is odd! My letter to Sunbury Dairy—gone. Perhaps the carrier came early? But it’s only nine o’clock. I put in the letter to Mrs. Lipscomb and look all around…Nothing. Who would want my letter? My cats stand with tails erect, looking keenly up the road, first in one direction, then the other, like surveyors planning a new highway. Well, come kittens, you’ll drink canned milk today.
At ten o’clock the carrier passes, driving his dusty blue panel truck. He did not come early. That means—someone took my letter.
It’s all clear; I understand everything. I’m really rather angry. This morning I found milk on my porch—a quart, bottled by the Maple Valley Dairy. They have no right to go through my mailbox; they thought I’d never notice…I won’t use the milk; it can sit and go sour; I’ll report them to the Sunbury Dairy and the post office besides…
I’ve worked quite hard. I’m not really an athletic woman, much as I’d like to be. The pile of wood that I’ve chopped and sawed is quite disproportionate to the time I’ve spent. Homer and Moses help me not at all. They sit on the logs, wind in and out underfoot. It’s time for their noon meal. I’ll give them canned milk, which they detest.
On investigation I see that there’s not even canned milk; the only milk in the house is that of the Maple Valley Dairy…Well, I’ll use it, if only for a month.
I pour milk into a bowl; the cats strop their ribs on my shins.
I guess they’re not hungry. Homer takes five or six laps, then draws back, making a waggish face. Moses glances up to see if I’m joking. I know my cats very well; to some extent I can understand their language. It’s not all in the ‘meows’ and ‘maroos’; there’s the slope of the whiskers and set of the ear. Naturally they understand each other better than I do, but I generally get the gist.
Neither one likes his milk.
“Very well,” I say severely, “you’re not going to waste good milk; you won’t get any more.”
They saunter across the room and sit down. Perhaps the milk is sour; if so, that’s the last straw. I smell the milk, and very nice milk it smells: like hay and pasturage. Surely this isn’t pasteurized milk! And I look at the cap. It says: “Maple Valley Dairy. Fresh milk. Sweet and clean, from careless cows.”
I presume that ‘careless’ is understood in the sense of ‘free from care’, rather than ‘slovenly’.
Well, careless cows or not, Homer and Moses have turned up their noses. What a wonderful poem I could write, in the Edwardian manner.
Homer and Moses have turned up their noses;
They’re quite disappointed with tea.
Their scones are like stones, the fish is all bones;
The milk that they’ve tasted, it’s certainly wasted,
But they’re getting no other from me.
They’ll just learn to like fresh milk or do without, ungrateful little scamps.
I have been scrubbing floors and white-washing the kitchen. No more chopping and sawing. I’ve ordered wood from the farmer down the road. The cabin is looking very cheerful. I have curtains at the windows, books on the mantel, sprays of autumn leaves in a big blue bottle I found in the shed.
Speaking of bottles: tomorrow morning the milk is delivered. I must put out the bottle.
Homer and Moses still won’t drink Maple Valley Dairy milk…They look at me so wistfully when I pour it out, I suppose I’ll have to give in and get something else. It’s lovely milk; I’d drink it myself if I liked milk.
Today I drove into Sunbury, and just for a test I brought home a bottle of Sunbury Dairy Milk. Now we’ll see…I fill a bowl. Homer and Moses are wondering almost audibly if this is the same distasteful stuff I’ve been serving the last week. I put down the bowl; they fall to with such gusto that milk splashes on to their whiskers and drips all over the floor. That settles it. Tonight I’ll put a note in the bottle, stopping delivery from Maple Valley Dairy.
I don’t understand it! I wrote very clearly. “Please deliver no more milk.” Lo and behold, the driver has the gall to leave me two bottles. I certainly won’t pay for it. The ineffable, unutterable nerve of the man!
Sunbury Dairy doesn’t deliver up Maple Valley. I’ll just buy milk with my groceries. And tonight I’ll write a firm note to Maple Valley Dairy.
November 21
Dear Sirs:
Leave no more milk! I don’t want it. My cats won’t drink it. Here is fifty cents for the two bottles I have used.
Isabel Durbrow
I am perplexed and angry. The insolence of the people is incredible. They took the two bottles back, then left me another. And a note. It’s on rough gray paper, and it reads:
“You asked for it; you are going to get it.”
The note has a rather unpleasant ring to it. It certainly couldn’t be a threat…I don’t think I like these people…They must deliver very early; I’ve never heard so much as a step.
The farmer down the road is delivering my wood. I say to him, “Mr. Gable, this Maple Valley Dairy, they have a very odd way of doing business.”
“Maple Valley Dairy?” Mr. Gable looks blank. “I don’t think I know them.”
“Oh,” I ask him, “don’t you buy their milk?”
“I’ve got four cows of my own to milk.”
“Maple Valley Dairy must be further up the road.”
“I hardly think so,” says Mr. Gable. “I’ve never heard of them.”
I show him the bottle; he looks surprised, and shrugs.
Many of these country people don’t travel more than a mile or two from home the whole of their lives.
Tomorrow is milk day; I believe I’ll get up early and tell the driver just what I think of the situation.
It is six o’clock; very gray and cold. The milk is already on the porch. What time do they deliver, in Heaven’s name?
Tomorrow is milk day again. This time I’ll get up at four o’clock and wait till he arrives.
The alarm goes off. It startles me. The room is still dark. I’m warm and drowsy. For a moment I can’t remember why I should get up…The
milk, the insufferable Maple Valley Dairy. Perhaps I’ll let it go till next time…I hear a thump on the porch. There he is now! I jump up, struggle into a bathrobe, run across the room.
I open the door. The milk is on the porch. I don’t see the milkman. I don’t see the truck. I don’t hear anything. How could he get away so fast? It’s incredible. I find this whole matter very disturbing.
To make matters worse there’s another letter from Poole in the mail. This one I read, and am sorry that I bothered. He is planning to fight the divorce. He wants to come back and live with me. He explains at great length the effect I have on him; it’s conceited and parts are rather disgusting. Where have I disappeared to? He’s sick of this stalling around. The letter is typical of Poole, the miserable soul in the large flamboyant body. I was never a person to him; I was an ornamental vessel into which he could spend his passion—a lump of therapic clay he could knead and pound and twist. He is a very ugly man; I was his wife all of six weeks…I’d hate to have him find me out here. But Mrs. Lipscomb won’t tell…
Farmer Gable brought me another load of wood. He says he smells winter in the air. I suppose it’ll snow before long. Then won’t the fire feel good!
The alarm goes off. Three-thirty. I’m going to catch that milkman if it’s the last thing I do.
I crawl out on the cold floor. Homer and Moses wonder what the hell’s going on. I find my slippers, my bathrobe. I go to the porch.
No milk yet. Good. I’m in time. So I wait. The east is only tinged with gray; a pale moon shines on the porch. The hill across the road is tarnished silver, the trees black.
