Sci Fiction Classics Volume 3

by Vol 3 (v1. 2) (epub)

  A day higher into the mountains they found a small valley, no more than a forgotten tuck of land amid the dryness. Some fruit-bearing bushes, some plants with edible roots. A small spring which produced a scant liter of water twice a day. They remained for two months. Her hands healed. His leg knit, but with a permanent twist to it.

  Came the day when she caught a snake and brought some of it back to Kre'e. Came the day when she slipped and twisted her foot, and he didn't laugh but helped her back to camp. Came the day when, instead of devouring berries or perimice as soon as they found or caught them, they saved enough water, started a fire, and made stew.

  Came the day when she said, "Where are you going?"

  "To the valley," Kre'e said.

  "What valley?"

  "Over the mountains. The way is hard."

  "Water? Fruits? Game?"

  He shrugged, and nodded, and shrugged again. She thought about the graves on Endless Scarp and grew angry, but Kre'e said, "There are many ways to starve. You can starve sitting or walking. Silent or laughing."

  She started to object, then remembered her own laughter.

  Four days later, halfway up the mountains, they sat on a ledge and watched the last rays of sun sweep the plain. She looked at the desert, remembering ravines and ridges, hollows, mud holes, the dry clatter of insects and the way they tasted, small plants clinging to the shade of rocks, the immensity of detail that seemed, from this height, to sum to nothing, and yet was so much more. She leaned back against the sun-warmed rock. The view from here was much better than the view from Endless Scarp.

  The End

  © 1978 by Marta Randall. Originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1978.

  It Walks in Beauty

  Chan Davis

  "I love Luana," said Max dreamily, leaning against the ladder that ran up the towering vat of Number 73.

  Jim heard him and came over. "I love Luana, too," he said.

  Max looked up, delighted. "You, too?" Jim nodded. If Jim had disagreed with him, Max would have cheerfully defended Luana all day, but it was even more fun for his friend to understand already. "That Luana," said Max, shaking his head in wonder at the strength of his own devotion.

  "She's some kid," Jim seconded, shaking his head the same way. "That kid was made for loving, and does she know it!"

  "That's the most important thing about a woman," Max assured him seriously. "She should want to be loved. With all her being she should welcome all the passion a man has to give." Max had never understood this before, because Luana was his first real love.

  "That's right," said Jim, "and Luana fills that bill with plenty to spare."

  They both chuckled gloatingly. Max hooked an elbow over a ladder rung, Jim sat on the bench in front of the indicator strip, and they got comfortable for a thorough listing of Luana's attractions. Luana's little scarlet mouth, Luana's mincing shoulders, Luana's little stretch and yawn, presenting her breasts—oh, yes, Luana's breasts, very important! They went through all these features, stopping to appreciate each one in detail, shaking their heads, grinning, and grunting: "Mm, mm."

  They had got to Luana's snake-hips walk when the alarm had to go off on Number 71. Loud, unmusical, quickly-damped bink bink bink. Jim shrugged to his feet and walked down to 71, turning off the alarm. Max looked over his shoulder.

  There were 144 tiny strands of synthetic protein fiber being extruded from jets at the bottom of each vat, solidifying as they hit the salt bath. While they shot fiber downward, the jets circled horizontally, twisting strands in sixes, then six sixes together, so that altogether from 144 strands came four ropes—threads, rather, of lanon, humming away down through the floor, driven by the friction of a series of delicate little rollers at the highest speed and tension they were likely to be able to take.

  At Number 71 one of them had failed to take it. It had broken. A delicate little roller had sprung up a few millimeters with the release of tension, and before the upswing was completed electronic relays had triggered emergency measures: one circle of jets had stopped circling or extruding, so that now only 108 strands streamed from Number 71; wheels driving the snapped thread through tank after tank below them had adjusted their tension to guide the tag end through; the alarm bell had rung for Jim.

  Jim checked the indicator strip. It showed nothing, so the trouble must be in the jets themselves. Jim drained off the bath around the stopped circle and reached in with a pair of needle-nosed tongs and a brilliant flashlight pointing at a 45° mirror, to find which of the jets had failed.

  Max left. He was embarrassed about showing unnecessary interest in the lanon spinners in front of Jim.

  He strolled down to Number 78, the end of their row, checking indicator strips. At the end of the row he looked both ways. Harriet happened to be doing the same at the end of the row next to his; they waved casually.

  Max sat down in front of Number 73. He wanted Jim to finish with Number 71 so they could go on talking about Luana. It was the next best thing to seeing Luana herself. Jim was older than he was, two pay classifications higher, and a lot more experienced. Talking to Jim strengthened his confidence that Luana was the sexiest woman in the world, and that what he felt was genuine adult love.

  When 71 was going again, Max asked first, "What was wrong?"

  Of course Jim didn't answer, just pretended to spit behind him. He sat in the same place he'd been in before and squinted at Max. "So, young Max has started seeing Luana's show, has he?"

  Max was stung. "Started? I've been there every night for a long time."

  "I haven't seen you there."

  "Say, that's right—I haven't seen you there more than twice. How long have you been going?"

  "Off and on for—"

  "Off and on!" exclaimed Max. "I don't go off and on! I go every night. I don't see how you can stand to go to any other dancer when you could be seeing Luana. For five weeks I've even been sitting up front. Man, I'm really hooked."

  "I sat up front there for the first time last night," Jim admitted. "But I always enjoyed Luana. I've been seeing her off and on for longer than you've been at Lanon."

  Max was not impressed. He kept his scorn to himself. Imagine seeing Luana for over a year before you fell in love with her! It had taken him only a few weeks before he was sure, and since then his loyalty had been absolute. He just said, "Anyway, you're going tonight, huh?"

  "And how. Like to go down together? I'll meet you after dinner."

  Max was flattered. "Sure enough." But he should tell Jim about his other plan. That wouldn't be easy. He might not even have made the other plan if he'd known Jim loved Luana. He hesitated.

  Jim went on, "Am I going tonight, he asks. I'm just as hooked as you are, now. I'm not going to miss any chances to see that kid. Boy, would I like to—" He said what he'd like to do to Luana.

  Max said that he would like to, too.

  Jim began whistling. Max couldn't hear the tune above the hum of the spinners; neither could Jim, but it broke up the talk.

  Max checked the indicator strips again. He stopped at Number 77.

  The smooth column called simply "vat" concealed a continuous-flow protein- synthesis process in complex convolutions of tubing. The contents were sampled and analyzed continuously and automatically; the results were transmitted to the indicator strips, but also called for their own corrections at the reagent input valves. So the readings weren't supposed to vary much. The indicator also showed the rate of input of reagents; that sometimes did vary a good deal. As now on Number 77.

  It was the hydroxyl input at Level 8. Normally this was a small rate, sometimes zero; now a good deal of dilute base was pumping in up there. Max pulled the chain which slid the hanging ladder to him, and went up. At Level 7 he passed the transparent deck known as the Supers' Walk. He pressed the button to signal the lab, then climbed up to Level 8 and opened a port in the side of the vat, revealing a tangle of tubing … No, there was nothing wrong mechanically with the i
nput valve.

  Paula appeared just below him. Paula wasn't a superintendent, just an analyst, but the lab was right next to the office, and analysts as well as supers had the run of the Supers' Walk.

  "Hi," said Max. He was glad Paula had come out, instead of just talking into a mike, the usual way.

  "Hi, Max, what's the trouble?"

  "Hydroxyl input up to two point. Nothing else showing yet."

  "Which analyzer is calling for more hydroxyl?"

  "The pH at the same level. That's what I'm looking at now." He poked through a new port.

  "Listen" (pointing to the tiny pipes running from Jim and Max's row to the lab). "Send us some of your input solution in line A, and some from the chamber in B." Paula smiled. "You're getting sharp, Max, to spot this thing so early."

  "Oh, I'm doing okay." He smiled back. Jim would never have praised him, and Paula knew this stuff as well as Jim did.

  He flipped the toggles that would send the samples Paula wanted to the lab, then closed up the port. "Shall I stay up here?"

  "Suit yourself." Another smile over Paula's departing shoulder. Max wasn't allowed above Level 6 unless something was wrong or he had explicit permission. Now he had permission.

  He watched the little figure walking in a businesslike way back to the lab. Paula wore a man's short haircut and a man's pants, like any career girl. It was a little ridiculous, like a man yet not quite a man; Max had to admit it. But he didn't really feel it. Everybody respected Paula as a worker. In Max's case the word was liked. Paula had been his friend, almost from the first day he'd worked at Lanon, and he didn't care who knew it.

  Since he had permission to stay up here, he looked around. He opened up the ports on Levels 7 and 8 and traced the connections without touching them. He could imagine the comment he'd get if Jim saw him: "Hey, youngster, don't you know your job yet? If you've still got valves to memorize, I guess I didn't drive you hard enough in your apprenticeship." But Max was just interested. He liked to go over things again. Paula understood.

  He would have liked even better to follow Paula into the lab. He'd never been in there; to him it was only a wide, whitely lighted room whose door always closed before he saw more.

  Partly to look busy in case Jim was watching him from below, he picked up tools and tested some of the analyzers at Level 8. He didn't find anything, of course.

  Then he tested viscosity at a couple of points. He wouldn't find anything there either, of course. But he did! In the tank where the benzene solution of peptide derivatives sprayed in tiny bubbles into a water phase, the mixture acted wrong. Likely the bubbles were too big, giving too small a total benzene-water surface and throwing everything off from Level 9 down. This must have been the trouble all along, though he couldn't have guessed it.

  He signaled the lab again, shut off the inputs, and went to work on the spray nozzles. For this job he should have called Jim. But Paula came out again, and this time Max was complimented even more, and Max was glad he had tackled the job himself.

  The heck with Jim! Max felt good enough to go through with his plan for tonight, and never mind Jim. As he finished the job, he hung up his tools and said, "Say, Paula, would you like to go down to Luana's together? I'll meet you at your dormitory after dinner."

  No answer. Paula's face was very serious and almost soft in an unfamiliar way.

  To make it clear that this was an invitation to something that was very important to him, Max explained, "I love Luana."

  Still no answer. Was seeing a dancer too unfamiliar a suggestion? Max couldn't remember seeing very many career girls in Luana's audience, as a matter of fact, and those hadn't come with men. He asked, "Have you ever been to a dancer's house before?"

  "Oh, yes, I've seen dancers before." Now Paula smiled, and decided. "Max, it was nice of you to ask me. I'd like to go to Luana's with you. I'll meet you after dinner."

  "Swell," said Max, and retreated down the ladder. But it hadn't been swell; it had been a disappointment, compared with the way any man would have reacted to the invitation, even if he'd turned it down.

  Well, naturally, it wouldn't be the same as a man. But why had Paula hesitated that way?

  "How have things been going, Jim?"

  "All quiet. You sure took a long time up there."

  "Yeah, the stream into the tank on Level 9 wasn't getting broken up. That doesn't happen too often, huh?"

  Jim grunted.

  This was a good enough explanation for Max's having taken so long. Max could have added that the only reason he'd found what the trouble was so early was curiosity, but it didn't even occur to him to do it. Some difficulties you avoid automatically, by habit.

  But Max plunged right into another difficulty. "Say, Jim, how about Paula coming with us tonight?"

  He was expecting Jim to look surprised, but not to look the way he did! Max had already begun to wince when Jim started: "Why not invite Harriet, too, and make it a family party?"

  Max didn't say anything. It was true Harriet was a friend of Paula's, but he understood Jim's sarcasm.

  Jim showed no mercy. "'How about Paula coming with us,' huh? What's it going to see in Luana?"

  "Okay, Paula's not the same as you or me, obviously, okay; but it's a nice guy just the same."

  "It's a nice guy at work," Jim said slowly and emphatically, "and at Luana's it is not a nice guy, it's a fifth wheel. Pants don't make a man."

  Max shrugged his shoulders, even though he was suffering. He wasn't prepared to quarrel with Jim or anybody else on the subject. Without thinking about it he knew it was absolutely necessary to him that Paula's coming along should not be made a big issue.

  And equally necessary to him that it should come.

  What could he do? He thought of making a joke to calm Jim down, but that's all he thought, he didn't think of the joke.

  He just said bluntly, "Calm down. It's not its fault it's not a man."

  "No," Jim agreed in the same exaggerated tone, "that is true; I'm sorry for it, and all that; but at Luana's it's a fifth wheel."

  Max shrugged his shoulders again and turned away. "I don't know," he said, wishing he could be casual. "Paula's always been very decent to me, and I think it's a nice girl, that's all."

  Something else for Jim to pounce on. "'Nice girl'? It's grown up now! It's not a little girl any more, it's a full-grown career."

  Max knew the career girls themselves didn't like to be called simply "careers," but he accommodated. He went back to, "It's a nice guy."

  With the heaviest sarcasm yet, Jim said, "A personal friend of yours, no doubt." That was his clincher.

  Max stopped breathing. How could he handle that one casually? He couldn't. "All I said was, it's a nice guy." He didn't look at Jim. He meant it when he said, "Unfortunately, I already asked it, and I can't just back out."

  "Did you tell it I was coming?"

  "No."

  "Well, that's good at least. Listen, why don't you tell it you're sick?" Suddenly Jim was making helpful suggestions to a friend in a jam.

  "I can't stay at the dormitory tonight; I have to see Luana."

  "Come along and see Luana, Paula won't know."

  "It might find out; it might even come and see me there."

  "Not likely, and if it does, so what?"

  But that was going too far for Max. "Paula's a nice guy," he repeated stubbornly.

  With a sudden snort, Jim said, "Go with Paula, then, but not me." Subject closed.

  Max made another routine check of the row, then sat down a couple of spinners away from Jim. He was confused. If he'd known this was going to happen, he wouldn't have—what wouldn't he have done?

  Why did Jim have to be so intolerant, anyway?

  He wished he was talking to Jim about Luana again, but he knew he couldn't now.

  Jim strolled over and said charitably, "You'll change your mind." Then he strolled away again. Obviously that was as far as he was going to go.

  Max sat thinking unhappily. Mayb
e he would change his mind and tell Paula he was sick—maybe.

  Remembering Paula's efficient walk and the brave self-respect with which it looked up at men, he felt a sudden strong stab of affection. He excused the emotion to himself. After all, it was a very nice guy.

  Someone was on the Supers' Walk in their row. An analyst? He looked up. No, it was gray-haired Superintendent Kees himself. Without seeming to hurry, Max got to his feet and started pacing the row, checking every spinner. Jim caught on, too, and did the same.

  Mr. Kees didn't pay any attention to them. He was looking over Number 77, where Max had just done the job on the nozzles. When Max met Jim at the middle of their row he crossed his fingers, and Jim repeated the sign—both of them surreptitiously, as if Mr. Kees could see crossed fingers from almost thirty meters above them. As if Mr. Kees would be surprised if he did!

  After five minutes or so the superintendent left, without having looked down.

  Max breathed easier, and Jim grinned at his relief. "We're glad to see you go," Jim muttered toward the Supers' Walk, and added in falsetto, "old Husband Kees."

  "Huh? Since when is Kees married?"

  "A couple of weeks ago."

  Max thought Jim might be inventing this for his sake, to build him up after being nervous about Mr. Kees. "Honest?" he said.

  "Yep. Just got the word from Roland this morning."

  "He's jaypeed, you mean."

  "Nope." Jim made a mock-solemn long face. "This is no jaypee fling, this is a real old-fashioned family marriage."

  "No kidding! I never would have thought it. With all the money he's got, he could keep playing the field till almost any age. Who did he marry?" Max expected to hear the name of some famous dancer. Now, if it was a question of settling down with somebody like Luana, Max could see something in marriage, no matter what Jim might say.

  "Hah. You know who he married?" Jim, in his glee, was having trouble keeping his voice low. "Remember Frederika?"