The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1

by Carol Emshwiller

“Help!”

  It receives and yet can’t. Its mind folds in gray and in a dream. Is it no use?

  “Help! Help!”

  Is it no use then? And Asdsa, beloved, are we lost to each other? Will I ever come to you?

  “Please help!”

  … retreated farther into gray and dream.

  He was in a tropical swamp with mud—thick, oily mud—up over his knees and he was struggling to go forward. He could only go a few inches at each step, even pulling on vines and tangled roots. That was bad enough, but there was a nightmare creature sitting on his shoulder, a mud-covered thing that whispered obscenities in his ear and told him he’d never get out. It pushed on his head and pulled at his neck with its slimy, saliva covered hands; it wanted him to sink altogether into the mud and not come up ever again. Then it got him around the neck, shutting off his wind. He clawed at it, but it was slippery and held fast; he couldn’t breathe. He would go down. He tried to call out for help but his voice wasn’t even a whisper… “Help! Help!”

  “Help!”

  He woke from the dream gasping and fell forward, leaning his shoulder against a tree. The forest was the same. Something scampered on a branch above him. A crow flew by, cawing; the mossy ground beneath him was damp, but firm.

  Trembling, he lit a cigarette. Words like nervous breakdown, schizophrenia, insanity, came to him. Words he had used often enough, but never really understood the meaning in terms of actual sickness and torment. They were only words now, revealing nothing.

  He waited for the trembling and dizziness to stop.

  Time heals everything, that’s what they said. Things had been bad. (Bad enough to make his mind split in two? Bad enough for one part to go off into nightmare and the other into this dizzy reality?” Still, he was counting on time; he had only to be strong now and not think—especially not think. He would do that later, plumb the darkness of his mind when it was not so terrifyingly empty.

  He got up, took up the gun, and thought momentarily of Mona. He had gone, yes, but she had driven him away, and he wasn’t coming back.

  “Next time I see that doe,” he muttered, “I won’t miss.”

  Nights were the worst. Sleep was hard coming, even after these days of unaccustomed exercise. The darkness around him opened the eyes of his mind and, though he tried not to, sometimes he thought the things that were not to be thought of any more.

  Mona and he had come here together once, when the marriage was new. Some of the best times were at twilight. The canoe was watertight then, and they drifted down the river almost every evening forgetting about supper until afterwards. This was the time when animals came out to wash and drink and swim. They watched muskrats mating as they swam and heard the slap of beavers’ tails.

  And the nights… each one brought something new between them.

  It was just as well the canoe leaked now.

  A half-sleep came at last, a sleep with muttering and turning over. The pillow was lumpy and smelled of mold; the bed was too flat and board-hard. But at last after the half sleep came the full sleep for he had walked all day.

  The creature’s mind has relaxed into a soft blackness, vulnerable, open. This is another time to try.

  “Help!”

  It was the swamp again, but worse this time. The thing on his back was bigger; its weight sank him up to his waist. Its hands were clawed now, and blood came wherever it touched. He struggled forward and it pulled back.

  Through the dream is the only way, but can it work with a mind like this, so dangerous the creature can drown in its own greyness; and then there will be nothing left and no hope, neither for it nor for Asdsa, beloved.

  Yet it’s the only one here that can. Enter once and see.

  There was something new, an island of dryness, safety there in front of him. Only a few yards to go. And on it, was it Mona? She was white and changed. Was it her arm that ended in a large lobster claw, or was there a shadowy lobster shape behind her waving a bent antenna. Yes, hideous but not slimy with mud.

  There’s a brotherhood and love even between us. Open your mind. Let me come in. Don’t be afraid to lose a little of yourself. You do not need it all, I, too, lose some. Don’t be afraid to hear me, for I need help, too.

  Was it Mona or the lobster shape that talked like that? Anyway, he wasn’t making any headway at all. He was struggling with everything he had, but he was still too far away. He was tiring, too, and the monster knew it. It leaned from one side to the other; it jumped and pulled at him. He was going down. The sharp claws dug into his shoulder and raked his jaw. He screamed to the lobster thing and to Mona. “Help! Help!”

  “Help!”

  Was he really screaming, or was it someone else?

  The sky was just beginning to gray. He got up shakily. He was dressed except for pants and shoes. He pulled them on and then went to the table to pump and light the tiny, one burner stove. He needed a cup of coffee. He would be all right after that. Lord, what a dream!

  He ate nothing; there was a greater need in him. The need to hunt and stalk and most of all to shoot a big animal, a doe with brown eyes.

  He took up his gun, his cartridge belt and jacket. He stopped at the door, thinking he ought to take a sandwich; but then he turned and went on out into the cold morning without bothering. Eating was a thing people sat down to three times a day; they started with tomato juice and ended with apple pie. The same old things, over and over again; it was a senseless habit.

  He took the same way as the day before. The sun came up in orange and red and then rose higher, fading the colors until nothing was left but itself. It got hotter. He no longer felt the feverish excitement of the morning. Now there was a sick determination that squeezed his mouth tight and made the muscles bunch in his arms and legs.

  He found her, the same one, eating the leaves of a young tree by the side of a tiny stream. He raised the gun slowly and aimed deliberately. The sights danced over her brown-gray body. He braced against a tree, silently cursing the trembling that had come to him. He aimed for the head and pulled the trigger.

  “Help! Help!”

  Vaguely he heard a shot and it seemed a doe cried out with the voice of a woman; and then there was the hot mud again, and it was worse, much worse.

  Mona was there and the lobster thing, the hideous, beautiful lobster thing, but he would never be able to reach them. The demon on his shoulders was so heavy it was all he could do just to hold it up and to hold his head out of the mud that was close about his chest.

  “Why do you hate yourself so?”

  Was it the lobster speaking? (But I don’t hate myself.)

  “We do not do so. Rather do we do or undo the thing that will take the hate away.”

  The words seemed to make the monster on his shoulders furious. It screamed and jumped and tore at him. Now he would surely sink.

  “Fight, fight. You must not lose.”

  And he fought. The sweeping claws raked him. Sometimes he took great mouthfuls of mud or water, but he fought. He fought until the monster was torn from his shoulder, until they were face to face and he was breathing its foul breath.

  “Look at its face. Look. And it wants you dead.”

  It was covered with mud. How could he see the face, only that it was ugly. The whites of the eyes showed, and the cleaner streaks on its chin where it drooled, but how could he see? And yet he had to.

  He swung his elbow across the evil face and half the cheek and forehead were cleaned. He froze then, and it froze too; he stared at the grimacing, evil, proud face. And he screamed because it was a face that denied tenderness and love and all softness.

  Then, before his eyes it shrank and melted until there was nothing left but the mud.

  It was himself he had seen, as if in a warped mirror, himself that he hated and fought. “Help!”

  Something called him.

  He woke to the holding of a gun and a dead doe before him. The empty blackness of his mind was not empty after all and never had bee
n. It was full of soft whiteness, open, vulnerable, but loving.

  He knelt beside the doe and cried for it, and for Mona, and for himself. And while he cried he knew that when the time for crying was over he would go and help the one who had called him. It was a small one trapped in a small thing and it would be simple to help it with a pulley and a rope. And then he would go back to his home and to Mona.

  He had gone with bitter pride, wanting to hurt her and to hurt himself; but he would come back full of new things, to Mona, beloved.

  Future Science Fiction, No. 32, Spring 1957

  Murray Is For Murder

  JASON GOT UP from his desk and walked around the other man slowly. He ran a hand across the well-shaped back, squeezed the shoulder, and slapped tentatively at the arching chest. He paused to study the darkly handsome face, his eyes narrowed and his lips smiling a sly smile.

  “You fooled me at first,” he said. “Until B said who you were, you even fooled me.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. That’s what you’re here for, to fool people—Laura my wife, to be exact.”

  Jason sat on the edge of his desk and ran thin fingers through his graying hair. He was a small man with drooping shoulders and a pinched face, and thin lips that curled up at the corners in a contemptuous smile.

  “They’ve done a good job,” he said, “better than I thought they could. You were expensive, damned expensive, but you’re worth it. You’ll be fine. Have you a name?”

  “I’m DZ 3-10, sir.”

  “No, no, you must have a real name. How about Robert. Robert the robot. It goes together. Or perhaps Murray.” Jason smiled his strange smile. “Murray to go with murder. I like that. Have you got it? What’s your name?”

  “Murray, Sir.”

  Jason’s pale eyes half closed. “It won’t take long if I know Laura… two, three days, maybe. Poetic justice, that’s what they call it, and that’s what I want, Murray. We’ll start it off tonight at dinner.” Jason glanced at his watch. “Come along. It’s almost time.”

  Laura was already seated at the table when Jason and Murray came in. She was ten years younger than Jason and beautiful. Her hair, piled in Baroque curves on the top of her head, was the color of spun aluminum; her long, tubelike dress had the same dull, metallic glisten. She leaned lightly on her elbow with her thumb and forefinger at the bridge of her nose, her eyes shut. She looked up when she saw Jason and Murray enter; but she didn’t say anything, and neither did Jason.

  Jason sat down as Murray held the chair. “Serve the soup,” he told him brusquely, and Murray did. Jason finished his before he spoke again; then he turned to Laura, brushing his lips primly with a corner of his napkin. “This is Murray,” he said. “My man.”

  Laura kept her eyes on her plate. “That’s quite extravagant for you,” she said.

  “It’s cheaper than robots,” Jason said, “if it’s not for too long; and I don’t expect to have him too long.”

  “It seems odd, with A and B. They’ve managed everything so far.”

  “Almost everything,” Jason said, meaningfully, “And, by the way, he’s to serve me.” Jason tapped a forefinger on the table. “You know what I mean.”

  Laura carefully avoided looking at him. “What do you take me for?”

  “Just remember, that’s all.”

  She shrugged her bare shoulders and started on the second course. There was no more conversation for the rest of the meal.

  As they came back to his study, Jason put a hand on Murray’s shoulder. “It’s going to work out,” he said. “I know my Laura, and telling her to keep away was sure fire. She always disobeys anything I say, if she possibly can; now all we have to do is give her that chance.”

  Jason sat down at his desk and leaned his chin on his hands. “Perhaps you should make the first move, Murray; that’ll help things along. She often goes to the TV room evenings since I stopped having friends in. There’s nothing else for her to do, now that there’s no one around but me. You’ve got to go down there. Ten o’clock might be a good time. After a wasted day, ten o’clock should seem quite a dreary hour. Perhaps you can cheer her up. Yes, Murray, we shouldn’t let her get too depressed, should we.”

  “Certainly not, Sir.”

  Jason nodded his head in a mock bow, then he tilted back in his chair with his hands behind his head and stared at Murray. “I wonder,” he whispered. “I wonder—can you kiss?”

  “Kiss?”

  “Lean down. I guess I’ll have to show you. No, no. That won’t do; try again. Better, but I hope you won’t need it right away. One never can tell with Laura, though, when it comes to such things, especially after she’s been cooped up like this.”

  At exactly ten that night, Murray swung back the door to the TV room. Eight bulging couches filled it completely, except for a narrow aisle down one side. Laura lay on the farthest couch, still dressed in her shining sheath, her arms behind her head and her sandals on the floor. She didn’t move when she saw Murray.

  “There you are,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Expecting me?”

  “Oh, I know men, Murray, only too well; and I know all about you.”

  “All about me?”

  “Come on in and sit down; you sound like an echo.” She bent her knees and made a place for him at the bottom of her couch. “I’ll let you sit at my feet,” she said.

  “Thank you, Madam.”

  “Oh, come off it; I’m on to you, Murray. Don’t pretend with me.”

  “I don’t pretend.”

  Her voice took on a studied deepness. “Don’t play dumb with Laura, darling,” she said. “I’ve been around. I knew the first minute I saw you, you know. I just asked myself, what would a good-looking young man be doing as the butler to old Jason—especially one with wicked Latin eyes. You don’t deny you have wicked Latin eyes, do you? They give you away. So you see, darling, I know the whole setup, and I want in. Besides, I can help you; and if I’m not in, I can make it pretty difficult for you. What’s the answer—in or not?”

  “As you wish, Madam.”

  “And don’t ‘Madam’ me! At least not when we’re alone. I’m like you, from the wrong side of town. I’m not one of them any more than you are, so call me Laura.”

  “All right, Laura.”

  Laura sat up then, leaned towards him. “Listen, Murray. I don’t love Jason. I got into this mess for the same reason you did—money. It’s been so lonely it’s hardly worth it; and those others, before Jason shut us both up like hermits, they were such weaklings. But you’re different. You came here, not to whine and ask, as they did, but to take. I want to help you because you’re the first person with guts I’ve seen around for a long time. But I want some of the take, too. I’ve been here four years, and believe me, I’ve earned it. Count me in, Murray; please.”

  “As you wish, Laura.”

  “Well, if you want to be so formal about it, all right. Just as long as you say, ‘yes,’ that’s all. And remember I can pull a few things if you cross me; just remember that.”

  “I’ll remember, Laura.”

  “Go, now; I want to think.”

  Murray turned and walked up the aisle; but just as he was opening the door, Laura called out to him. “I was wrong,” she said; “I don’t know men after all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Laura said as the door swung shut.

  In the study, Jason smiled when Murray entered. “Good work,” he said. “You were gone over half an hour. I don’t suppose there was any kissing yet?”

  “No, I did not kiss.”

  “Well, we’ll try again tomorrow. She’s usually at the pool in the afternoons. She’ll swim nude, and that should make things interesting. You just go down and sit near the edge; she’ll take it from there, if I know her.

  Laura wore nothing but a gold clasp that held her hair drawn tight at the back of her head, and kept it out of her eyes. She swam rhythmi
cally up and down the pool. When she came to the end wall, she would reach out her hand, turn and push off, straightening her long legs suddenly. She had already done six laps when she saw Murray come to the edge of the pool and sit down. She didn’t stop until she had doubled her distance. She knew she was beautiful, and swam well and gracefully; she kept on so Murray would see her, and would have to wait for her.

  She got out at the far end of the pool and shook her head as wet puppies. She picked up her towel, turned her back, and dried herself vigorously. Then she put on her robe and came up and sat crosslegged at Murray’s feet.

  “You look as if you’d seen lots of nude girls in your day, Murray.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Were they prettier than I am?”

  “No, Laura.”

  “I simply can’t make you out. I don’t know if you’re terribly dumb or terribly smart; or if you’re afraid; or just don’t care to show any part of yourself. Which is it, Murray?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.”

  “There you go again; every time, the perfect noncommittal answer. Oh well, we don’t have to be great friends to be in business together. I’ve thought about it, Murray, last night. Jason keeps a tremendous lot of money in the safe. I suppose you wonder how I know, the way we are now; but we weren’t always like this, and I made it a point to find out what was in everything, at first.” Laura smiled. “Especially anything locked up. If we could just open that safe, Murray, we’d be set for life.”

  “I can,” Murray said.

  “You can open the safe?”

  “I can open the safe.”

  “You mean he trusts you that much already?”

  “He trusts me.”

  “Why, then it’s easy. What have you been waiting for? All we have to do is think of a fast getaway. I don’t suppose, among all your man talents, you can pilot Jason’s jet?”

  Murray scanned his “memory” silently. “Yes, I can fly the jet.”

  “Oh, Murray, it’s all solved; it’ll be easy. All we have to do is wait till Jason wants to take a trip, and orders his jet up to the roof. Then we just take the money and take off… for where, Murray? Where shall we go?”