“Oh, Dolphin!” Minna whispered, that her father might not hear. “Have you seen the shores of flowers?”
The dolphin nodded and dived and shot underwater to the stern of the boat. As he surfaced, he stood on his tail in the water and winked at her with his round bright eye. “Chipwheetwirl!” he called out, and Minna knew that it was his name.
“How far is it?” whispered Minna. “Can you carry me there, Chipwheetwirl?”
The dolphin nodded again and pointed his head toward the shifting shores. Minna understood. She threw off her heavy blue jacket, coarse trousers, and boots, and flung herself cleanly into the water. Its chill was a shock. She gasped as she came to the surface and stroked out after the dolphin.
The gray swell lifted heavily and slid her down into the trough. She swam steadily, but the cold sea pulled the strength from her limbs. A glance over her shoulder showed the boat small in the distance, but the blossoming hills seemed no closer. How much longer could she swim? She began to be frightened, and her stroke faltered.
“Chipwheetwirl!” she called. In moments he was beside her, rubbing her side and whistling encouragement.
“Can you help me?” she asked. She stretched out her arm and grasped at the dolphin’s back. With a gurgle, he dived and came up on her other side, again playfully rubbing her.
“I can’t play! I’m getting too tired to swim! Won’t you help me?” she pleaded. The fear of the endless deep sank into her.
Chipwheetwirl gurgled again, and slipped beneath her so she could ride astride his back. As he carried her, he whistled and clicked at length. The meaning came to her in his tone: he had forgotten how weak her kind were, and apologized for not understanding sooner that she needed to be carried. He would take her to the shore as quickly as he could.
They were coming closer, and the petal-filled breeze came again, warm and full of spices. Suddenly they were past the first headland, and now the water too was warm, running silver and sweet over her legs. Vigor flowed into her veins. She had left the ocean her father fished and entered immortal waters. The bay was full of swimming folk and leaping dolphins. With a cry of delight, she slipped from Chipwheetwirl’s back, and the scars and salt-burns washed away from her hands. The wavelet that lapped her cheek was silken. She laughed and frolicked with the pearl-shining dolphin, and swam on to the strand.
Youths and maidens swam beside her, splendid in their ivory-pale bodies, and they came to the shore together. “Welcome! Welcome to Minna the dreamer!” they called, and their speech was song. On the shell-white shore, they welcomed her with kisses and caresses. They clothed her like themselves in robes of cloth-of-blossom and brought her to trees of ambrosial fruit and chalice-flowers flowing with nectar. When she had eaten and drunk, Minna joined them in the long dance that is danced through the sunset bloom upon the shifting ridges.
In the narrow harbor of Noyo, the fisher folk went into their white wooden church to inform their god that he had had the right to take Minna from them. And they tolled the bell in token that this was true.
But the sound of the bell did not reach Minna where she dwelt in joy on the ever-changing shores of the Vespern Empery.
—Karen Anderson
SHANIDAR IV
The discovery of pollen clusters of different flowers in the grave of one of the Neanderthals, No. IV, at Shanidar cave, Iraq, furthers our acceptance of the Neanderthals in our line of evolution. It suggests that, although the body was archaic, the spirit was modern.
—Ralph Solecki, “Shanidar IV, A Neanderthal
Flower Burial in Northern Iraq,” Science,
vol.190, p. 880, 25 November 1975
Lay on his grave a springy bed of horsetail—Over him scatter blooms of pungent yarrow, As if that healing herb might heal his death; Blue cornflower strew, and clustered purple drops
Of the grape hyacinth; pluck yellow suns
From thistles which spread wide the longest days,
And with them sheafs of groundsel many-starred;
Bring in across the summer mountainside
From where each grows to solitary height
Rose-mallows bearing flowers as bright as blood.
Heap on him all that’s fair, our love to mark,
Ere we heap earth and leave him in the dark.
—Karen Anderson
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our thanks to Dr. Ralph Solecki of Columbia University for permission to quote the abstract of an article by him in Science.
Previously published material is originally copyrighted as follows:
“The Unicorn Trade,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971, © 1971 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“Ballade of an Artificial Satellite,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1958, © 1958 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“The Innocent Arrival” (under the title “The Innocent at Large”), Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1958, © 1958 by Galaxy Publishing Company.
“Six Haiku,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1962, © 1962 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“Think of a Man,” Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1965, © 1965 by Galaxy Publishing Company.
“Dead Phone,” The Saint Mystery Magazine, December 1964, © 1965 by Fiction Publishing Company.
“The Kitten,” Frights, © 1976 by Kirby McCauley.
“Planh on the Death of Willy Ley,” SFWA Forum, August 1969, © 1969 by Science Fiction Writers of America.
“Murphy’s Hall,” Infinity Two, © 1971 by Lancer Books, Inc.
“Single Jeopardy,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, October 1958, © 1958 by H.S.D. Publications, Inc.
“In Memoriam: Henry Kuttner,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1958, © 1958 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“A Feast for the Gods,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1971, © 1971 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“Theoretical Progress” and “Investigation of Galactic Ethnology,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1964, © 1964 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“Look Up,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1965, © 1965 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“The Sky of Space,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1963, © 1963 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“Cosmic Concepts,” Proceedings of the Institute for Twenty-First Century Studies, March 1961, © 1961 by Poul and Karen Anderson.
“Extract from the English Edition of a Guide Michelin,” Kalki, vol. VI, no. 1, © 1973 by the James Branch Cabell Society.
“Treaty in Tartessos,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1963, © 1963 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“A Philosophical Dialogue,” Outworlds No. 8, © 1971 by William L. Bowers.
“Professor James,” West by One and by One, © 1965 by Poul Anderson.
“Landscape with Sphinxes,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1962, © 1962 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“A Blessedness of Saints,” Vorpal Glass no. 4, © 1962 by Karen Anderson.
“Origin of the Species,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1958, © 1958 by Mercury Press, Inc.
“The Piebald Hippogriff,” Fantastic, May 1962, © 1962 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company.
New material is copyrighted as follows:
“Fairy Gold” © 1982 by Poul Anderson.
“Haiku for Mars,” “Bela Lugosi,” “Apollo 1,” “Robert A. Heinlein,” “Alpha, Beta,” “Conjunction,” “Adonis Recovered,” “The Coasts of Faerie,” “Shanidar IV,” © 1982 by Karen Anderson.
About the Authors
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World
Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.
Karen Anderson (b. 1932) is both a science fiction fan and a founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. She graduated from high school in Maryland and worked as a military cartographer to pay for both her attendance at the 1952 World Science Fiction Convention and the academic year 1952–53, which she spent as a drama major. Correspondence with Poul Anderson convinced her that the life she wanted was in science fiction, not on the stage, and she and Anderson later married.
Karen Anderson’s solo work comprises verse and short fiction. She brought many skills to assist Poul Anderson in writing his novels: proofreading, research, languages, mapping, story planning, and collecting material for future works. Discussions led to early shared bylines; after visiting Hadrian’s Wall, Karen Anderson put a year’s research and plotting—plus verses of her own—into his hands for The King of Ys.
Karen Anderson now lives half an hour’s drive from the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society’s clubhouse.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1984 by Poul and Karen Anderson
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9429-3
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Unicorn Trade Page 20
