The Year's Best Science Fiction 10 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Judith Merril

  I had the feeling he suddenly felt too weak to stand up. But Mike was already at the door.

  “Coming?” he shouted impatiently.

  “Yes, Mike,” Carlos answered. “Yes, we’re coming.”

  We crossed a kind of exotic garden with peacocks and flamingos strutting around loose among the stone monsters Mike caressed as he passed.

  “That’s a Moore nude,” he said. “That’s a Branco. Of course, it’s a little old-fashioned. I bought them three years ago. They were pioneers, precursors; they lead directly to my work. But I’m the one who truly breaks new ground now. That’s what all the critics say.”

  Carlos shot me a desperate look. At the other end of the garden there was a glass pavilion whose aluminum roof began at the ground and made a kind of roller-coaster loop into the air before coming back down again.

  “Fissoni did that,” Mike said. “The best Italian architect, if you ask me. A Communist. But you know, Communism here has nothing to do with the kind at home. It’s not subversive. It’s all in the mind. Intellectual. Almost all the best painters and sculptors here are Communists.”

  Carlos emitted a kind of asthmatic whine. He still didn’t dare speak, but he looked at us, darted a finger toward Mike’s back and then touched his own head. We went into the pavilion. Inside, around a vat of concrete there were crates, barrels, sacks of plaster and tools of all kinds; it was like being in a construction yard. And everywhere, too, were Mike’s “works.” What the “works” were supposed to be and what they were worth I don’t know to this day and no doubt I never will. All I saw, speaking personally, were lumps of concrete in strange shapes out of which stuck pieces of iron and twisted pipe.

  “It doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen before, does it?” Mike asked proudly. “The critics in Alto say I’ve discovered entirely new forms. They say I’m the spearhead of spatialism—I bet in America they don’t even know what that is.”

  “No, Mike,” Carlos said gently, the way you talk to a sick person. “No, they don’t know what it is yet.”

  “Well, they’ll find out soon,” Mike said with satisfaction. “All my works—there are exactly thirty now—are leaving for New York tomorrow. I’m having a show at the Meyerson Gallery.”

  I’ll never forget Carlos’ face when Mike said that. At first an expression of incredulity, then of panic, while he turned toward us, as though to make sure his ears hadn’t betrayed him. But what he probably read on our faces— well, on mine and Shimmy Kunitz’, because the twitches running over Swifty Zavrakos’ face kept anyone from seeing what was happening there—must have confirmed his worst fears, and the expression of astonishment and panic was soon followed by one of frightening calm.

  “You’re going to show this in New York, Mike?”

  “Yes,” Mike Sarfatti said. “And I can promise you it’ll cause a sensation.”

  “That’s for sure,” Carlos answered warmly.

  At that moment, I must admit that I really admired the mastery over himself that Carlos displayed. Because it wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen if Mike Sarfatti, the man who was the incarnation of all our hopes and ambitions at a particularly dramatic moment of the Syndicate’s history, returned to New York not to impose his iron grip on the unions once more, but to organize an exhibition of abstract art in a Manhattan gallery. A real tidal wave of mockery and derision—the legendary hero was going to be the object of one of the biggest laughs that had ever shaken the bellies of the labor bosses. Yes, even today I have to admire Carlos’ calm. Maybe he sweated just a little; he had taken out a new cigar and lighted it, and now he was staring at Mike, his hands in his pockets, kindness in his eyes.

  “The catalogue’s already printed,” Mike said. “I’ve had them run off five thousand copies.”

  “Oh, fine,” Carlos said. “That’s just fine.”

  “We’ll have to send them to all our friends.”

  “Sure, leave that to us.”

  “It has to get into the papers. We’ve got to move into the cultural field. It’s a matter of prestige—very important. Culture! That should be our next conquest. We must bring culture to the masses. What the Syndicate should do right now is build a culture center in Hoboken.”

  Carlos looked a little shaken.

  “A . . . what?”

  “A culture center. The Russians build them everywhere for the workers. We’re wrong to criticize the Communists so blindly. They’ve done some good things—and we should follow their example. Besides, the guy who wrote the preface to my catalogue, Zuccharelli, he’s a Communist. And that doesn’t keep him from being the best art critic alive.”

  “A Communist, eh?” Carlos murmured.

  “Yes, and I owe him a lot. He’s given me encouragement when I needed it most. Without him, I wouldn’t ever have thought of having this show in New York.”

  “Is that so?” Carlos said.

  “And he’s really helped me find my way to what I wanted to do. He says it just right here, in his preface. Listen to this: ‘A truly spatial sculpture must express the Einsteinian notion of space-time, by constantly modifying its nature before our eyes in a kind of controlled mutation of matter. Sarfatti’s work, rejecting immobility, refusing to commit itself to a single well-defined structure, is rooted in movement, in change, and achieves a clear break with the reactionary tradition of artistic stagnation, which, not unlike capitalism in the social field, seeks to immobilize forms by fixing them forever. In this sense it can be called truly progressive.’”

  I wiped away the drops of cold sweat that had burst out on my forehead: I felt I was watching something like the entrance of the worm into the fruit. It was clearly no longer possible to bring Mike back to his senses in time; and to lock him up in a mental institution at this vital moment of our social struggle would spell disaster for our prestige. We had to forget about the man. The only thing that mattered now was his legend. He was a living myth, and his name was still invaluable to us. At all costs, we had to preserve the myth of the giant of Hoboken, save his name from a ridicule that would make us the laughing stock of every union local in the States. This was one of those moments in the affairs of men when the greatness of the cause suddenly prevails over all other considerations, when the importance of the end justifies the means. The only question—was our moral fiber still intact, were we still determined enough and firm enough in our convictions, or had years of prosperity and easy living damaged our will?

  In other words, had decadence set in?

  But a glance at Carlos’ face, where an expression of grim resolution had already drowned out the anger and the outrage, completely reassured me: I felt that the old warrior had already made up his mind. I saw him nod suddenly to Shimmy Kunitz. Mike was standing at the edge of the vat of cement where his last “work,” probably still unfinished, raised a stump bristling with barbed wire. The expression on his face had something pathetic about it: a mixture of megalomania and a kind of boundless astonishment.

  “I didn’t know I had it in me,” he said.

  “Neither did I,” Carlos said. “You must have caught it here.”

  “I want all our friends to come and see this. I want them to be proud of me.”

  “Yes, Mike,” Carlos said. “Yes, son. Your name will stay big, the biggest, just as it’s always been. I’ll take care of that.”

  “They’re still accusing us Americans of being barbarians,” Mike said. “They’ll see. We can’t let Europe have a monopoly on culture.”

  Carlos and Shimmy Kunitz fired together. Mike threw back his head, spread his arms, stood up to his full height, in the dynamic, tensed attitude which his statue standing today in the hall of our union local in Hoboken has caught so well. Then he fell forward into the cement. I heard a strange sound and quickly turned my head. Carlos was crying. Tears were flowing down the heavy face that pity, anger, shame and confusion wrought into a mask of tragic greatness.

  “They got him,” he murmured. “They got the best of us
all. I loved that boy like a son. But at least he’s no longer suffering. Now, all that counts is his life’s work. Mike Sarfatti’s name can still remain a guidance and an inspiration to us all. It will last as long as the Hoboken waterfront—and that’s where he’ll have his statue. We’ll just ship him home in one of these crates, since they’re leaving tomorrow. He’ll be all set when he gets there.”

  He took off his coat and got to work. We helped him as best we could, and soon the impressive, indomitable statue that everyone can admire today in the hall of our Hoboken local began to take shape. Now and then Carlos stopped, wiped his eyes and glanced with hatred at the shapeless lumps of cement around us.

  “Decadence,” he murmured. “Decadence, that’s what it is.”

  <>

  * * * *

  Yes, but how do you know it when you see it? Or, rather, how do you know it when you see it? Is there any objective means of identifying it? Or is “decadence” one of those things which only afflict other people with different values and standards?

  I keep thinking of that sentence in Tom Disch’s autobiographical note: After “Descending,” things picked up. Are evolution and devolution necessary reciprocals, in a closed (or even spiraling) cycle? Then the “decadent” can hardly be distinguished from the “renascent.”

  Is E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, or H. G. Wells’ Things To Come, a better description of decadence? Is it decadent or efficient to have two cars in a two-driver family? Is it decadence or hardihood to pace city sidewalks in bare sandals and dirty feet?

  Is alcohol or marihuana more decadent? Pepsi-Cola or cigarettes? Chewing gum or the electric toothbrush? Is Librium as decadent as opium? Will the true decadent please stand up!

  Let me return briefly to Dr. Leary: “The science game, the healing game, the knowledge game are magnificent human structures. They are our proudest game accomplishments. But they are great only so long as they are seen as game. When they go beyond this point, the trouble begins—claims to a nongame reality status: the emergence of experts, professionals, priests, status-favored authorities; claims to power and control and priority. Look at the A.E.C. Look at the A.M.A. And watch out! At this point you will find that games which began with the goal of decreasing human helplessness end up increasing it.”

  Is that it? Can we measure it in terms of “human helplessness”?

  * * * *

  Fritz Leiber’s 1964 novel, The Wanderer, was a vivid, multi-faceted study of the varieties of human helplessness, and human responses to. helplessness, providing sharp contrasts in “decadent” and “renascent” scene-painting.

  In this short story, the helplessness is of a very different sort

  * * * *

  BE OF GOOD CHEER

  Fritz Leiber

  from: Josh B. Smiley

  Bureau of Public Morale

  Level 77

  The White Pentacle

  Manhattan, D.C.

  10011100011110

  to: Hermione Fennerghast

  10001377 Sunset Blvd.

  Santa Barbara, Big Angeles

  1010001001001111

  Dear Senior Citizen,

  I have in hand your letter of fears and surmises regarding the end of the world: the chilling absence of people on the streets and slideways and in neighboring houses (which understandably depresses you); the vanishment of friends and relatives; the cessation of all personal mail (this letter at least is an exception!); the decline in news of human interest on your mass mediator and its replacement by what you call Picasserie or robo-blobs; the surliness of robots when you address questions to them; the invasion of your home at all hours by other robots (who, however, I note, continue to deliver to you your wheat germ, yogurt, and other necessities); the failure of indoor and street lights (though not of robo-supply electricity itself and other basic utilities); the labor you have been put to digging a latrine in your garden; the urge you feel to laugh and babble wildly (which you do well to repress—Congratulations on your courage!); the ominous and evil-smelling gray fogs which roll along the streets and often blanket most of the city; the fine metal filaments which have recently crawled like wire-worms or fairy ivy into your home; your wee-hour-of-the-night dreads that some cold mindless machine is running the cosmos and not a warmly personal God; the darkness; the damp; the dimming of the stars; the smell of mold; the fading forever of childish voices; the unintelligible croaking coming closer every night; the rustle of dry leaves across the floors of long-empty swimming pools.

  All these signs and portents, and the others to which you allude, have been carefully probed by our Fear Scanners and investigated by our Bugaboo Teams.

  I have, believe me, turned them over more than once in my mind before dictating this answer. I am troubled myself at times by dreads, let me confess. And so I feel an especial sympathy for your apprehensions!

  But first I must reveal to you that your experience has been unique. Yours is the first and only letter about end-of-the-world fears to be received by this bureau since its establishment during the period of the Dark Prelude. In fact, your letter caused quite a commotion here!—exclamations of amazement, faint odor of overheated insulation, St. Elmo’s fire playing about the robo-sex. (Short for robo-secretaries; no impropriety intended.) You are the only human on Earth (save myself) ... I repeat, you are the Only Human Being on Earth to have felt even the cool shadow of such fears. Elsewhere the world is merry and progresses toward ever dizzier and more delirious heights of achievement.

  We must suppose that your experience is due to a concatenation of circumstances having a probability of inverse infinity.

  You know how such things go: a few weeks or months of total solitude, a scratching at the door by night, a creaking in the hall, a tall thin shadow trembling on the bedroom doorsill in the hoarded candlelight. .. and hey, presto! we have a ghost.

  Also we must assume that you possess an exceptional sensitivity. You are, figuratively or literally, the princess who slept on the many mattresses. While coarser natures revel in the downy pneumatic softness, you feel only the pea. Or ball bearing, perhaps.

  Don’t be offended for one instant at this assessment. The contrary rather. Your sensitivity is a great gift, whereby you can relieve and enrich your loneliness until you are quite unaware of it and almost oblivious of the gray fog lapping ever higher each evening against your view window. Try to discern the subtle meanings that lie behind the abstract robo-blobs racing across the screen of your mass mediator. (I sometimes do myself, though must confess I find little beyond a pattern as random as that of the fading stars—still, it induces sleep with the help of barbiturates.)

  Commune with pets! Of course dogs and cats and rats and snakes are gone, not to mention the winsome, portly, elf-footed mice. But some of our correspondents report establishing a rewarding rapport with cockroaches, flies, silverfish and sexton beetles.

  Or shut your ears to the dead leaves’ rustle and listen to the exuberant song of the remaining blades of grass as they bravely shoulder their way through the hairline cracks they make in the world’s oppressive concrete crust. Famous poets are said to have got great satisfaction thereby.

  Now to dispose of the more important of your specific apprehensions detailed in my first paragraph:

  People have gone underground to dwell in the shelter cities, or have migrated to other planets. Some have donned aqualungs, or undergone surgical gill-implant, and retired to the mystic oceanic deeps because, as those enthusiasts put it, “they are there.” Others have soared to the satellite suburbs, which you may see traveling twinklingly amongst the fixed stars if the gray fog ever relents and gives you a clear night. Still others have sought permanent tranquility in their neighborhood euthanasia booth. A few have had the good fortune to have their brains incorporated into the memory units of computers or even mobile robots, discovering in this way a wider vision and a continuing if somewhat subordinate existence—even a sort of immortality!

  We do not sugge
st that you seek to follow any of these examples, since you appear to possess a splendid talent for getting along without people. Or even without robots. (I jest.)

  Most of the robots who do not respond to your questions are not being impolite at all. They are simply unable to speak English. Such language capacity was installed in early models, but adversely effected the efficiency of later ones, became burdensome to them, and was discarded. However, they did not become mutes—banish that fear! Most of them speak a melodious jargon sometimes called Robotese which is understood only by themselves and which accounts for those croakings which you hear coming closer in the night—and which I am sure will no longer trouble you now that you know the real explanation.

  I am conscious that I am not explaining all of this as clearly and persuasively as I might. I’m not programming you altogether effectively. Indeed I sometimes fear that I’m not programmed quite unambiguously myself. There are halts and jumps in the spool of my thoughts. Indeed, it is from the incapacity of human beings to receive the Higher Programming that there have appeared on the gleaming surface of civilized perfection those tiny Satanic fly-specks. Rust-flecks, I should say. But I wander.