The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  “Good morning, Lafe, Tom.” Mother came from the bedroom, putting her hair up into a bun. “Isn’t it a fine day?”

  Tom turned to laugh in his father’s face. “You see?”

  They ate a very good lunch, all three of them, in the shade behind the house. Mrs. LaFarge had found an old bottle of sunflower wine she had put away, and they all had a drink of that. Mr. LaFarge had never seen his wife’s face so bright. If there was any doubt in her mind about Tom, she didn’t voice it. It was a completely natural thing to her. And it was also becoming natural to LaFarge himself.

  While Mother cleared the dishes LaFarge leaned toward his son and said confidentially, “How old are you now, son?”

  “Don’t you know, Father? Fourteen, of course.”

  “Who are you, really? You can’t be Tom, but you are someone. Who?”

  “Don’t.” Startled, the boy put his hands to his face.

  “You can tell me,” said the old man. “I’ll understand. You’re a Martian, aren’t you? I’ve heard tales of the Martians; nothing definite. Stories about how rare Martians are and when they come among us they come as Earth Men. There’s something about you—you’re Tom and yet you’re not.”

  “Why can’t you accept me and stop talking?” cried the boy. His hands completely shielded his face. “Don’t doubt, please don’t doubt me!” He turned and ran from the table.

  “Tom, come back!”

  But the boy ran off along the canal toward the distant town.

  “Where’s Tom going?” asked Anna, returning for more dishes. She looked at her husband’s face. “Did you say something to bother him?”

  “Anna,” he said, taking her hand. “Anna, do you remember anything about Green Lawn Park, a market, and Tom having pneumonia?”

  “What are you talking about?” She laughed.

  “Never mind,” he said quietly.

  In the distance the dust drifted down after Tom had run along the canal rim.

  —

  At five in the afternoon, with the sunset, Tom returned. He looked doubtfully at his father. “Are you going to ask me anything?” he wanted to know.

  “No questions,” said LaFarge.

  The boy smiled his white smile. “Swell.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Near the town. I almost didn’t come back. I was almost”—the boy sought for a word—“trapped.”

  “How do you mean, ‘trapped’?”

  “I passed a small tin house by the canal and I was almost made so I couldn’t come back here ever again to see you. I don’t know how to explain it to you, there’s no way, I can’t tell you, even I don’t know; it’s strange, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We won’t then. Better wash up, boy. Suppertime.”

  The boy ran.

  Perhaps ten minutes later a boat floated down the serene surface of the canal, a tall lank man with black hair poling it along with leisurely drives of his arms. “Evening, Brother LaFarge,” he said, pausing at his task.

  “Evening, Saul, what’s the word?”

  “All kinds of words tonight. You know that fellow named Nomland who lives down the canal in the tin hut?”

  LaFarge stiffened. “Yes?”

  “You know what sort of rascal he was?”

  “Rumor had it he left Earth because he killed a man.”

  Saul leaned on his wet pole, gazing at LaFarge. “Remember the name of the man he killed?”

  “Gillings, wasn’t it?”

  “Right. Gillings. Well, about two hours ago Mr. Nomland came running to town crying about how he had seen Gillings, alive, here on Mars, today, this afternoon! He tried to get the jail to lock him up safe. The jail wouldn’t. So Nomland went home, and twenty minutes ago, as I get the story, blew his brains out with a gun. I just came from there.”

  “Well, well,” said LaFarge.

  “The darnedest things happen,” said Saul. “Well, good night, LaFarge.”

  “Good night.”

  The boat drifted on down the serene canal waters.

  “Supper’s hot,” called the old woman.

  Mr. LaFarge sat down to his supper and, knife in hand, looked over at Tom. “Tom,” he said, “what did you do this afternoon?”

  “Nothing,” said Tom, his mouth full. “Why?”

  “Just wanted to know.” The old man tucked his napkin in.

  —

  At seven that night the old woman wanted to go to town. “Haven’t been there in months,” she said. But Tom resisted. “I’m afraid of the town,” he said. “The people. I don’t want to go there.”

  “Such talk for a grown boy,” said Anna. “I won’t listen to it. You’ll come along. I say so.”

  “Anna, if the boy doesn’t want to…,” started the old man.

  But there was no arguing. She hustled them into the canalboat and they floated up the canal under the evening stars, Tom lying on his back, his eyes closed; asleep or not, there was no telling. The old man looked at him steadily, wondering. Who is this, he thought, in need of love as much as we? Who is he and what is he that, out of loneliness, he comes into the alien camp and assumes the voice and face of memory and stands among us, accepted and happy at last? From what mountain, what cave, what small last race of people remaining on this world when the rockets came from Earth? The old man shook his head. There was no way to know. This, to all purposes, was Tom.

  The old man looked at the town ahead and did not like it, but then he returned to thoughts of Tom and Anna again and he thought to himself: Perhaps this is wrong to keep Tom but a little while, when nothing can come of it but trouble and sorrow, but how are we to give up the very thing we’ve wanted, no matter if it stays only a day and is gone, making the emptiness emptier, the dark nights darker, the rainy nights wetter? You might as well force the food from our mouths as take this one from us.

  And he looked at the boy slumbering so peacefully at the bottom of the boat. The boy whimpered with some dream. “The people,” he murmured in his sleep. “Changing and changing. The trap.”

  “There, there, boy.” LaFarge stroked the boy’s soft curls and Tom ceased.

  —

  LaFarge helped wife and son from the boat.

  “Here we are!” Anna smiled at all the lights, listening to the music from the drinking houses, the pianos, the phonographs, watching people, arm in arm, striding by in the crowded streets.

  “I wish I was home,” said Tom.

  “You never talked that way before,” said the mother. “You always liked Saturday nights in town.”

  “Stay close to me,” whispered Tom. “I don’t want to get trapped.”

  Anna overheard. “Stop talking that way; come along!”

  LaFarge noticed that the boy held his hand. LaFarge squeezed it. “I’ll stick with you, Tommy-boy.” He looked at the throngs coming and going and it worried him also. “We won’t stay long.”

  “Nonsense, we’ll spend the evening,” said Anna.

  They crossed a street, and three drunken men careened into them. There was much confusion, a separation, a wheeling about, and then LaFarge stood stunned.

  Tom was gone.

  “Where is he?” asked Anna irritably. “Him always running off alone any chance he gets. Tom!” she called.

  Mr. LaFarge hurried through the crowd, but Tom was gone.

  “He’ll come back; he’ll be at the boat when we leave,” said Anna certainly, steering her husband back toward the motion-picture theater. There was a sudden commotion in the crowd, and a man and woman rushed by LaFarge. He recognized them. Joe Spaulding and his wife. They were gone before he could speak to them.

  Looking back anxiously, he purchased the tickets for the theater and allowed his wife to draw him into the unwelcome darkness.

  —

  Tom was not at the landing at eleven o’clock. Mrs. LaFarge turned very pale.

  “Now, Mother,” said LaFarge, “don’t worry. I’ll find him. Wait here.”

  “Hurry ba
ck.” Her voice faded into the ripple of the water.

  He walked through the night streets, hands in pockets. All about, lights were going out one by one. A few people were still leaning out their windows, for the night was warm, even though the sky still held storm clouds from time to time among the stars. As he walked he recalled the boy’s constant references to being trapped, his fear of crowds and cities. There was no sense in it, thought the old man tiredly. Perhaps the boy was gone forever, perhaps he had never been. LaFarge turned in at a particular alley, watching the numbers.

  “Hello there, LaFarge.”

  A man sat in his doorway, smoking a pipe.

  “Hello, Mike.”

  “You and your woman quarrel? You out walking it off?”

  “No. Just walking.”

  “You look like you lost something. Speaking of lost things,” said Mike, “somebody got found this evening. You know Joe Spaulding? You remember his daughter Lavinia?”

  “Yes.” LaFarge was cold. It all seemed a repeated dream. He knew which words would come next.

  “Lavinia came home tonight,” said Mike, smoking. “You recall, she was lost on the dead sea bottoms about a month ago? They found what they thought was her body, badly deteriorated, and ever since the Spaulding family’s been no good. Joe went around saying she wasn’t dead, that wasn’t really her body. Guess he was right. Tonight Lavinia showed up.”

  “Where?” LaFarge felt his breath come swiftly, his heart pounding.

  “On Main Street. The Spauldings were buying tickets for a show. And there, all of a sudden, in the crowd, was Lavinia. Must have been quite a scene. She didn’t know them first off. They followed her half down a street and spoke to her. Then she remembered.”

  “Did you see her?”

  “No, but I heard her singing. Remember how she used to sing ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’? I heard her trilling out for her father a while ago over there in their house. It was good to hear her; such a beautiful girl. A shame, I thought, her dead; and now with her back again it’s fine. Here now, you look weak yourself. Better come in for a spot of whisky….”

  “Thanks, no, Mike.” The old man moved away. He heard Mike say good night and did not answer, but fixed his eyes upon the two-story building where rambling clusters of crimson Martian flowers lay upon the high crystal roof. Around back, above the garden, was a twisted iron balcony, and the windows above were lighted. It was very late, and still he thought to himself: What will happen to Anna if I don’t bring Tom home with me? This second shock, this second death, what will it do to her? Will she remember the first death, too, and this dream, and the sudden vanishing? Oh God, I’ve got to find Tom, or what will come of Anna? Poor Anna, waiting there at the landing. He paused and lifted his head. Somewhere above, voices bade other soft voices good night, doors turned and shut, lights dimmed, and a gentle singing continued. A moment later a girl no more than eighteen, very lovely, came out upon the balcony.

  LaFarge called up through the wind that was blowing.

  The girl turned and looked down. “Who’s there?” she cried.

  “It’s me,” said the old man, and, realizing this reply to be silly and strange, fell silent, his lips working. Should he call out, “Tom, my son, this is your father”? How to speak to her? She would think him quite insane and summon her parents.

  The girl bent forward in the blowing light. “I know you,” she replied softly. “Please go; there’s nothing you can do.”

  “You’ve got to come back!” It escaped LaFarge before he could prevent it.

  The moonlit figure above drew into shadow, so there was no identity, only a voice. “I’m not your son anymore,” it said. “We should never have come to town.”

  “Anna’s waiting at the landing!”

  “I’m sorry,” said the quiet voice. “But what can I do? I’m happy here. I’m loved, even as you loved me. I am what I am, and I take what can be taken; too late now, they’ve caught me.”

  “But, Anna, the shock to her. Think of that.”

  “The thoughts are too strong in this house; it’s like being imprisoned. I can’t change myself back.”

  “You are Tom, you were Tom, weren’t you? You aren’t joking with an old man; you’re not really Lavinia Spaulding?”

  “I’m not anyone, I’m just myself; wherever I am, I am something, and now I’m something you can’t help.”

  “You’re not safe in the town. It’s better out on the canal where no one can hurt you,” pleaded the old man.

  “That’s true.” The voice hesitated. “But I must consider these people now. How would they feel if, in the morning, I was gone again, this time for good? Anyway, the mother knows what I am; she guessed, even as you did. I think they all guessed but didn’t question. You don’t question Providence. If you can’t have the reality, a dream is just as good. Perhaps I’m not their dead one back, but I’m something almost better to them; an ideal shaped by their minds. I have a choice of hurting them or your wife.”

  “They’re a family of five. They can stand your loss better!”

  “Please,” said the voice. “I’m tired.”

  The old man’s voice hardened. “You’ve got to come. I can’t let Anna be hurt again. You’re our son. You’re my son, and you belong to us.”

  “No, please!” The shadow trembled.

  “You don’t belong to this house or these people!”

  “No, don’t do this to me!”

  “Tom, Tom, son, listen to me. Come back, slip down the vines, boy. Come along, Anna’s waiting; we’ll give you a good home, everything you want.” He stared and stared upward, willing it to be.

  The shadows drifted, the vines rustled.

  At last the quiet voice said, “All right, Father.”

  “Tom!”

  In the moonlight the quick figure of a boy slid down through the vines. LaFarge put up his arms to catch him.

  The room lights above flashed on. A voice issued from one of the grilled windows. “Who’s down there?”

  “Hurry, boy!”

  More lights, more voices. “Stop, I have a gun! Vinny, are you all right?” A running of feet.

  Together the old man and the boy ran across the garden.

  A shot sounded. The bullet struck the wall as they slammed the gate.

  “Tom, you that way; I’ll go here and lead them off! Run to the canal; I’ll meet you there in ten minutes, boy!”

  They parted.

  The moon hid behind a cloud. The old man ran in darkness.

  “Anna, I’m here!”

  The old woman helped him, trembling, into the boat. “Where’s Tom?”

  “He’ll be here in a minute,” panted LaFarge.

  They turned to watch the alleys and the sleeping town. Late strollers were still out: a policeman, a night watchman, a rocket pilot, several lonely men coming home from some nocturnal rendezvous, four men and women issuing from a bar, laughing. Music played dimly somewhere.

  “Why doesn’t he come?” asked the old woman.

  “He’ll come, he’ll come.” But LaFarge was not certain. Suppose the boy had been caught again, somehow, someway, in his travel down to the landing, running through the midnight streets between the dark houses. It was a long run, even for a young boy. But he should have reached here first.

  And now, far away, along the moonlit avenue, a figure ran.

  LaFarge cried out and then silenced himself, for also far away was another sound of voices and running feet. Lights blazed on in window after window. Across the open plaza leading to the landing, the one figure ran. It was not Tom; it was only a running shape with a face like silver shining in the light of the globes dusted about the plaza. And as it rushed nearer, nearer, it became more familiar, until when it reached the landing it was Tom! Anna flung up her hands. LaFarge hurried to cast off. But already it was too late.

  For out of the avenue and across the silent plaza now came one man, another, a woman, two other men, Mr. Spaulding, all running. They stop
ped, bewildered. They stared about, wanting to go back because this could be only a nightmare, it was quite insane. But they came on again, hesitantly, stopping, starting.

  It was too late. The night, the event, was over. LaFarge twisted the mooring rope in his fingers. He was very cold and lonely. The people raised and put down their feet in the moonlight, drifting with great speed, wide-eyed, until the crowd, all ten of them, halted at the landing. They peered wildly down into the boat. They cried out.

  “Don’t move, LaFarge!” Spaulding had a gun.

  And now it was evident what had happened. Tom flashing through the moonlit streets, alone, passing people. A policeman seeing the figure dart past. The policeman pivoting, staring at the face, calling a name, giving pursuit. “You, stop!” Seeing a criminal face. All along the way, the same thing, men here, women there, night watchmen, rocket pilots. The swift figure meaning everything to them, all identities, all persons, all names. How many different names had been uttered in the last five minutes? How many different faces shaped over Tom’s face, all wrong?

  All down the way the pursued and the pursuing, the dream and the dreamers, the quarry and the hounds. All down the way the sudden revealment, the flash of familiar eyes, the cry of an old, old name, the remembrances of other times, the crowd multiplying. Everyone leaping forward as, like an image reflected from ten thousand mirrors, ten thousand eyes, the running dream came and went, a different face to those ahead, those behind, those yet to be met, those unseen.

  And here they all are now, at the boat, wanting the dream for their own, just as we want him to be Tom, not Lavinia or William or Roger or any other, thought LaFarge. But it’s all done now. The thing has gone too far.

  “Come up, all of you!” Spaulding ordered them.

  Tom stepped up from the boat. Spaulding seized his wrist. “You’re coming home with me. I know.”

  “Wait,” said the policeman. “He’s my prisoner. Name’s Dexter; wanted for murder.”

  “No!” a woman sobbed. “It’s my husband! I guess I know my husband!”