by Anthology
Perhaps they had been of the scientist rulers of that latter-day state, with its unlimited technical resources at their disposal. But more probably they had been rebels, daring, audacious.
They had seen the extinction of humanity approaching; and for man they had made the last great gesture, the passing of the torch—the bestowal of man’s erect form, his wonderful hands, and his immense stored knowledge upon a younger, stronger race.
What choice more logical for man’s successor than that of man’s age-old, trustworthy companion, the companion who had never forsaken him throughout a long, confused history of fifty thousand years? It had been no magic for the mighty science of that sunset age—to set the dog upon two feet, to alter body and brain and give him speech, to make him—by planned mutations, fine juggling of germ cells—outwardly a human creature. “That in all the Earth may the aspect of My face be known”—when man himself is dead and vanished from the universe.
Only a short time ago Doody had despised himself for belonging to a species which included such a creature as Kuvurna. But now he felt a brief, warm glow of pride—pride that his race, before it fell utterly, had risen high enough to make its last significant act one of exalted unselfishness and dedication to the hope of a future it would never know.
“—consider then the facts, O Council, and decide whether this one is not a liar and impostor worthy only of the meanest death!”
Doody came out of his cosmic reverie in time to hear the close of the high priest’s hysterically vindictive speech. He glanced at the withered little dogman almost in pity, and, with a new understanding, over the jam-packed, breathless crowd which swayed back and forth, straining to catch a glimpse of their god and of the far more godlike prisoner.
“Prepare for death, stranger,” snarled the priest, advancing to shake a knobby, clenched paw at the object of his hate. “Or perhaps in your ignorance you know no rites of preparation. But die you shall, and soon.”
Doody ignored his fury in haughty silence, but his lips half formed the word, “Perhaps.” He meant that to be a big perhaps.
His gaze fell once more on the dogmen’s witless deity. His lips curled in a mirthless smile which brought shocked surprise into the faces of the watching priests. He was thinking—an activity which, in Doody’s type, usually results in action—and his thought ran thus:
Humanity, being of sound mind and clear judgment—if only for a briefly lucid flash on the down path of its existence—had made its last will and testament. And the heir apparent of human civilization was not this loathsome last-born of the corrupt old race.
The council had gone into a deliberative huddle. Kuvurna drowsed in stupid torpor, lulled to a mindless serenity by the rhythm of the wide-headed fans with which his attendants kept the air above him moving. The rest of the assemblage sweltered uncomplainingly beneath the sinking but still blistering sun. A gurgling snore bubbled in him.
The high priest squatted like a deformed spider beside the litter of his man god, scrawling aimlessly in the dust and muttering to himself, but keeping an unwinking, murderous gaze on Doody. The latter scowled back, then affected a carefree, rakish grin, white teeth flashing in his dark face. It must have nettled the old hellhound considerably, for he bounded suddenly to his feet and whipped round to face the jury in high impatience.
“You have debated long enough, O Council of the Pack!” he snapped. “Let us hear your judgment upon the impostor!”
A dogman of more than usually heavy build, with a great red beard that tumbled fanwise over his massive chest, shuffled forward, nodding vigorous and jerky approval of the high priest’s words, very like a child who knows he will be slapped if he does not say the right thing. He opened his mouth with diffidence to say the right thing, but Doody broke in.
“Hold on a minute!” he exploded, half enraged, half amused. “Am I to have no chance to speak in my own defense?”
The high priest whirled wrathfully, stood rigid for a moment, his skinny body vibrating like a tuning fork with the intensity of his passion. When he spoke, though, his voice had the quiet deadliness of a bushmaster’s hiss. “Speak, then!”
“Very well, I will speak—and I have plenty to say,” said Doody softly, and the amusement in his voice was genuine, if bitter. His hand had slipped unnoticed inside his coat and had closed on something there. He raised his voice, made it carry to the massed hundreds of the dogmen, silent and patient under the burning afternoon sun: “However, I first wish to state that the question of my human or canine nature is of small importance. There is another issue, though; one of great moment.
“What should be on trial, here and now—as man or dog may plainly see if he is not blinded by superstition or fear or sacerdotal lies—is the right of this bloated, depraved, hydrocephalic idiot who calls himself a Man, or any other like him, to rule over you, O strong young people!
“Look at him. What is he but a swollen parasite on the community, unable to feed or care for himself? Any of your young warriors, dog or not, is a better man. And I say to you in solemn truth that you are not dogs any longer, for I knew you when you were dogs, and I see that now you have become men!”
A murmur swept over the crowd and was followed by a rising babble of confusion that became a roar. The dog people surged to and fro, each trying to find room to gesture wildly and expound the revolutionary new idea to his neighbor. Some recoiled, shocked by the mad atheism of Doody’s claims, horrified by the ruthless demolition of cherished tradition. But many of the younger ones grasped at it eagerly, for it went through the blood like a swift fever, a thrilling fever that urged instant action.
Doody watched, smiling still faintly—triumphantly. He wondered if the world had not lost an excellent firebrand political speaker when he had taken up time exploring. Even now shrill cries were raveling out from the tangle of chaotic hubbub; spears were lifted threateningly above the mob. Even Kuvurna had roused enough to blink incuriously and purse his lips as if in mild disapproval of such behavior.
But the man god’s high priest was like one possessed as he saw his world rocking and crumbling around him, tottering on the verge of the final clash into oblivion. His face, as he fought his way toward Doody through the surging rabble, was terrible, unhuman. His eyes glared madly, his lips were drawn far back in a frightful snarl to dis^ play his long canine teeth. Over the surf roar of the crowd rose his. piercing scream:
“Seize him! Seize the impostor! He is nothing but a dog—a dog who is not faithful! Kill him—eeeyaaaah!”
The last was a sheer animal shriek of unbearable rage as, with a bronze knife gleaming wickedly in his bony claw, the high priest hurled himself headlong upon Doody. The American wheeled half about to avoid the point and threw a left-handed punch with muscle and weight behind it; the blow collided midway with the dogman’s chin, and each of the two went staggering backward—Doody to make a lightning recovery, the high priest to roll over and over and lie sprawling, a limp bundle under the trampling feet of the crowd.
Through the milling mob, armed priests were thrusting toward the blasphemer of their faith, while their brethren Tinged close about the divine litter, a dangerous cordon. But for the moment a space was clear about the stranger from time; he shook himself and took a deep breath, and then—
“Of course, I couldn’t stay to see the rest of the show,” said Doody regretfully. “But before I pulled out for the good old twentieth century, I took just time enough to jerk the pin from my emergency Mills bomb and let it fly with three seconds to go. If the old arm hasn’t lost its knack since my baseball days, that hand grenade went squarely into the bulging paunch of the feeble-minded Kuvurna himself.
“That’s, the final argument I mentioned. I hope it did its bit to give the heirs of human civilization a fair start on the Earth. The world is going to the dogs, Johnny, and the sooner it arrives, the better. The dogmen were—are—will be—primitive, of course; but some day they will have progressed sufficiently to decipher the ancient records of stor
ed knowledge, which the lost race has left behind. But I think they will really come into their heritage when they learn to call themselves men.”
“You were right,” I said, without preamble.
“Eh?” Doody’s. dark eyes opened drowsily; his thoughts might have been far away, down that long road he had journeyed to the dim and far-off time of the dogmen.
“It makes me—think,” I confessed, studying the white tablecloth beneath the mellow, indirect lighting; but I fancied that I, too, could peer a little way into the mist of years. “You’ve followed the human race to its final end—you have yet to find its beginning. Perhaps it is another of the cycles—the beginning and end of the race are the same, and we are only the unknowing heirs of an elder culture—that of the beings men call gods. But somewhere there must be a true beginning—”
“Somewhere,” said Doody softly, as if the word was. sweet. “Some day. Perhaps I will seek it out—some day.”
HEY, LOOK AT ME
Jack Finney
About six months after Maxwell Kingery died I saw his ghost walking along Miller Avenue in Mill Valley, California. It was two twenty in the afternoon, a clear sunny day, and I saw him from a distance which I later paced off; it was less than fifteen feet. There is no possibility that I was mistaken about who—or what—I saw, and I’ll tell you why I’m sure.
My name is Peter Marks, and I’m the book editor of a San Francisco newspaper. I live in Mill Valley a dozen miles from San Francisco, and I work at home most days, from about nine till around two or three in the afternoon. My wife is likely to need something from the store by then, so I generally walk downtown, nearly always stopping in at Meier’s bakery which has a lunch counter. Until he died, I often had coffee there with Max Kingery, and we’d sit at the counter for half an hour and talk.
He was a writer, so it was absolutely inevitable that I’d be introduced to him soon after he came to Mill Valley. A lot of writers live here, and whenever a new one arrives people love to introduce us and then stand back to see what will happen. Nothing much ever does, though once a man denounced me right out on the sidewalk in front of the Redhill liquor store. “Peter Marks? The book critic?” he said, and when I nodded he said, “You, sir, are a puling idiot who ought to be writing ‘News of Our Pets’ for the Carmel Pine Cone instead of criticizing the work of your betters.” Then he turned, and—this is the word—stalked off, while I stood staring after him, smiling. I’d panned two of his books; he’d been waiting for Peter Marks ever since, and was admirably ready when his moment came.
But all Max Kingery said, stiffly, the day we were introduced, was, “How do you do,” then he stood there nodding rapidly a number of times, finally remembering to smile; and that’s all I said to him. It was in the spring, downtown in front of the bank, I think, and Max was bareheaded, wearing a light-brown, shabby-looking topcoat with the collar turned up. He was a black-haired, black-eyed man with heavy black-rimmed glasses, intense and quick-moving; it was hard for him to stand still there. He was young but already stooped, his hair thinning. I could see this was a man who took himself seriously but his name rang no bell in my mind and we spoke politely and parted quickly, probably forever if we hadn’t kept meeting in the bakery after that. But we both came in for coffee nearly every afternoon, and after we’d met and nodded half a dozen times we were almost forced to sit together at the counter and try to make some conversation.
So we slowly became friends; he didn’t have many. After I knew him I looked up what he’d written, naturally, and found it was a first novel which I’d reviewed a year before. I’d said it showed promise, and that I thought it was possible he’d write a fine novel some day, but all in all it was the kind of review usually called “mixed,” and I felt awkward about it.
But I needn’t have worried. I soon learned that what I or anyone else thought of his book was of no importance to Max; he knew that in time I and everyone else would have to say that Maxwell Kingery was a very great writer. Right now not many people, even here in town, knew he was a writer at all but that was okay with Max; he wasn’t ready for them to know. Some day not only every soul in Mill Valley but the inhabitants of remote villages in distant places would know he was one of the important writers of his time, and possibly of all time. Max never said any of this but you learned that he thought so and that it wasn’t egotism. It was just something he knew, and maybe he was right. Who knows how many Shakespeares have died prematurely, how many young geniuses we’ve lost in stupid accidents, illnesses, and wars?
Cora, my wife, met Max presently, and because he looked thin, hungry, and forlorn—as he was—she had me ask him over for a meal, and pretty soon we were having him often. His wife had died about a year before we met him. (The more I learned about Max, the more it seemed to me that he was one of those occasional people who, beyond all dispute, are plagued by simple bad luck all their lives.) After his wife died and his book had failed, he moved from the city to Mill Valley, and now he lived alone working on the novel which, with the others to follow, was going to make him famous. He lived in a mean cheap little house he’d rented, walking downtown for meals. I never knew where he got whatever money he had; it wasn’t much. So we had him over often so Cora could feed him, and once he was sure he was welcome he’d stop in of his own accord, if his work were going well. And nearly every day I saw him downtown, and we’d sit over coffee and talk.
It was seldom about writing. All he’d ever say about his own work when we met was that it was going well or that it was not, because he knew I was interested. Some writers don’t like to talk about what they’re doing, and he was one; I never even knew what his book was about. We talked about politics, the possible futures of the world, and whatever else people on the way to becoming pretty good friends talk about. Occasionally he read a book I’d reviewed, and we’d discuss it, and my review. He was always polite enough about what I did, but his real attitude showed through. Some writers are belligerent about critics, some are sullen and hostile, but Max was just contemptuous. I’m sure he believed that all writers outranked all critics—well or badly, they actually do the deed which we only sit and carp about. And sometimes Max would listen to an opinion of mine about someone’s book, then he’d shrug and say, “Well, you’re not a writer,” as though that severely limited my understanding. I’d say, “No, I’m a critic,” which seemed a good answer to me, but Max would nod as though I’d agreed with him. He liked me, but to Max my work made me only a hanger-on, a camp follower, almost a parasite. That’s why it was all right to accept free meals from me; I was one of the people who live off the work writers do, and I’m sure he thought it was only my duty, which I wouldn’t deny, to help him get his book written. Reading it would be my reward.
But of course I never read Max’s next book or the others that were to follow it; he died that summer, absolutely pointlessly. He caught flu or something—one of those nameless things everyone gets occasionally. But Max didn’t always eat well or live sensibly, and it hung on and turned into pneumonia, though he didn’t know that. He lay in that little house of his waiting to get well, and didn’t. By the time he got himself to a doctor, and the doctor got him to a hospital and got some penicillin in him, it was too late and Max died in Marin General Hospital that night.
What made it even more shocking to Cora and me was the way we learned about it. We were out of town on vacation six hundred miles away in Utah when it happened, and didn’t know about it. (We’ve thought over and again, of course, that if only we’d been home when Max took sick we’d have taken him to our house and he’d never have gotten pneumonia, and I’m sure it’s true; Max was just an unlucky man.) When we got home, not only did we learn that Max was dead but even his funeral, over ten days before, was already receding into the past.
So there was no way for Cora and me to make ourselves realize that Max was actually gone forever. You return from a vacation and slip back into an old routine so easily sometimes it hardly seems you’d left. It was like t
hat now, and walking into the bakery again for coffee in the afternoons it seemed only a day or so since I’d last seen Max here, and whenever the door opened I’d find myself glancing up.
Except for a few people who remembered seeing me around town with Max, and who spoke to me about him now, shaking their heads, it didn’t seem to me that Max’s death was even discussed. I’m sure people had talked about it to some extent at least, although not many had known him well or at all. But other events had replaced that one by some days. So to Cora and me Max’s absence from the town didn’t seem to have left any discernible gap in it.
Even visiting the cemetery didn’t help. It’s in San Rafael, not Mill Valley, and the grave was in a remote corner; we had to climb a steep hill to reach it. But it hardly seemed real; there was no marker, and we had to count in from the road to even locate it. Standing there in the sun with Cora, I felt a flash of resentment against his relatives, but then I knew I shouldn’t. Max had a few scattered cousins or something in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The last time he’d known any of them at all well they’d been children, and he hadn’t corresponded with them since. Now they’d sent a minimum of money to California to pay expenses, more from family pride than for Max, I expect, and none of them had come themselves. You couldn’t blame them, it was a long way and expensive, but it was sad; there’d been only five people at the funeral. Max had never been in or even seen this cemetery, and standing at the unmarked grave, the new grass already beginning, I couldn’t get it through my head that it had anything much to do with him.
He just vanished from the town, that’s all. His things—a half-finished manuscript, portable typewriter, a few clothes, and half a ream of unused yellow paper—had been shipped to his relatives. And Max, with a dozen great books hidden in his brain, who had been going to become famous, was now just gone, hardly missed and barely remembered.
