Universe 5 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Terry Carr

  In the end, it was decided that they must go ahead without White.

  * * * *

  Preparations were made.

  All eight were to be processed at the same time: Together in Life, Together in Death. There was a ring of democracy to it. “The President of a great nation would stand with two Eagle Scouts side by side in niches of honor throughout the future serving as an example for a hundred generations as yet unborn and reverberating consequences to eternity. They were known as the Eight National Martyrs for Peace, and a number of solemn ceremonies were planned throughout the free world.

  As is inevitable with such matters of state, a tight schedule must be adhered to, to accommodate TV commitments, speaking engagements, etc. From first to last, there could be no hitch or delay.

  Miss Rosenwald and Remington and Sherman nervously made the final preparations and took the final precautions.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Sherman said. “The nation is waiting. They’ll arrive in exactly six minutes? Everything okay?”

  “Well,” said Remington, “the thixotropic index is off.”

  “Hurry up!”

  “I am hurrying!”

  Miss Rosenwald added the diluent.

  “It’s not coming up right,” Remington said in mild alarm and harsh exasperation. “Add some more!”

  “I’m afraid to add any more! We might lose flow control in the oven, and we’d just streak them all up, and they’d look awful!”

  “We’ve just got a few minutes!” said Sherman. “For God’s sake, hurry!”

  “I am hurrying!”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “They’re waiting on us!” cried Sherman. “All over the free world! There’s at least a billion people out there waiting for us!”

  “I know! I know! For God’s sake, I know! What else can we do now?”

  “How about raising the temperature a little?” Miss Rosenwald asked. “I’ve seen Joe do that with the swine. That will make it more fluid without bothering the flow control in the oven.”

  “Good; good.”

  “How’s this, Pete?”

  They waited for the tank to come up the new temperature.

  “Now?”

  “Better.”

  “A little more.”

  “Just a little!”

  “Here?”

  “Hurry, please!”

  “A little more?”

  “How’s this?”

  They waited.

  “Whew!” said Remington. “There. That’s done it. Good. We’re in specification. We’re ready, Alf.”

  “And not a minute too soon,” Sherman said. “Here they come!”

  The corpses came in from the overhead entrance, two morticians still putting the last touches on them. Sherman signaled the operator. “Okay, bring them on down!”

  Down they came.

  “Hold it! They look okay, Pete?”

  “They’re in position just right.”

  “Lower away!” ordered Sherman. “Gently, now, gently, now...Good!”

  When the plastic closed over the last head, Sherman and Remington and Miss Rosenwald all said simultaneously, “Thank God!”

  “It’s coming okay,” Miss Rosenwald said, allowing herself the first pill of the day.

  They watched the bubbles.

  “Whew!” Sherman said. “Five minutes.”

  “Better make it ten,” Remington said. “It’s still a little thick. We’ve got to get penetration.” He stepped back from the monitor.

  They waited. It seemed an eternity.

  “Take ‘em out!” Sherman said.

  “A little bit more,” Remington said. “This could be critical here. Let’s not goof it by hurrying.” He turned to Miss Rosenwald. “What’s the temperature set at? The thixotropic index—”

  “Oh, look,” said Miss Rosenwald dreamily, with interest but without alarm.

  “What?”

  Talking another pill, Miss Rosenwald said, “It’s taking off so pretty. It’s at one hundred and eighty, one hundred and eighty-five—”

  “A hundred and—oh, my God!” cried Sherman. “Pull ‘em out! Pull ‘em out!”

  The control technicians responded promptly.

  There was the twang of parting piano wires.

  “Dear Jesus,” said Sherman.

  Remington sprang to the ladder and scrambled up. He reached down into the tank and felt the smooth, glass-hard surface of the compound. He stared down into the clear, solid block with horror. It was beginning to acquire a faint amber cast.

  “Oh, dear me,” said Sherman. “Is there ... is there going to be much shrinkage?”

  Remington turned away. “Quite a bit, I’m afraid,” he said softly. “This is one of the biggest castings I’ve ever heard of.”

  * * * *

  Sherman stumbled from the room and made his way, almost unseeing, to the helicopter on the roof.

  He flew over the grief-stricken city of Washington, D.C., a city suffering through the seventh national day of mourning so far this year. His heart went out to the American people.

  Mr. Braswell’s butler greeted Sherman.

  “I’ve got to see Mr. Braswell!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Braswell cannot be disturbed.”

  “He’s got to be! This can’t wait! It’s too important!”

  The butler led Sherman to Mr. Braswell’s room. The private nurse protested and then stepped aside to permit them to enter.

  Mr. Braswell lay in the center of a king-sized bed. He looked very small and crumpled. He was breathing so slowly it could scarcely be noticed.

  “He’ll live a real long time now,” the butler said. “He just had Dr. Franklin give him a huge increase in the Go-Slow injection. As I told you, he can’t be disturbed.”

  “Don’t he look sweet?” the nurse said. “How far removed he is now from all the cares of this troubled world!” She bent over Mr. Braswell and listened intently for a minute. “Gee,” she said. “If he just stopped breathing entirely, I think Mr. Braswell could live forever!”

  <>

  * * * *

  PASSION PLAY

  by J. Michael Reaves

  J. Michael Reaves is a native Californian now in his early twenties; in 1972 he traveled to Michigan State University to attend the Clarion-East sf writers’ workshop, sold his first story to Clarion III and used the money to buy a typewriter. Judging from the following sharply etched tale of a girl taking advantage of a strange talent (his second sale), I expect his investment will prove to be a boon for lovers of science fiction.

  * * * *

  The hitch-hiker was barely visible far ahead, a stick figure where the road joined the flat gray horizon. The dust that clung like dry paint to the windshield and the heat waves from the black asphalt blurred Sherry’s vision. But still she felt certain it was a “he.”

  The knowing made her smile—the lovely feeling of knowing she would be right.

  She half listened to Ellis’ voice droning just above the rattling clatter of the old truck’s engine, telling her interesting things about animal life that she had no desire to hear. Ellis would stop for the hitch-hiker if she wanted him to. She smoothed her hair back, fingers sliding over the blond tangles slick with sweat, and wondered, Would it be worth stopping?

  Yes.

  “Stop for him,” she said, leaning over close to his ear. It was the sort of command best delivered in a husky tone, breathed just above a whisper. But the ‘62 Chevy pickup forced conversation to be carried on in shouts. Sherry refused to bellow, and so she leaned close to Ellis’ ear, rubbing the tips of her fingers over the back of his neck, feeling sweat and dust like a thin layer of mud. An eighth of an inch behind her smiling face, she shuddered in pure disgust. No ripple of it showed on the surface.

  “Stop for him, Ellis.”

  His foot began pumping the worn-out brakes in time to the rubbing of his neck.

  She was almost able to see the pink dot of his face as he
walked slowly backward down the highway. To not even see his face, and to know that it would be worthwhile to stop, she thought. A lovely, lovely feeling.

  Ellis didn’t believe in feminine intuition, in Sight. He would grumble and curse, but he would stop. It was good to let him have some resentment left. It kept him thinking that the decisions were still his.

  But instead of protesting, Ellis merely said, “Wonder where in hell he came from. Man’d die after a few hours in this heat without a car.”

  The truck lurched onto the shoulder in front of the hitch-hiker.

  The way he walked, Sherry thought, watching him as he approached the truck. There was such an easiness to it. It made her think of—

  “At least he’s not a nigra,” she said.

  —John Frank, the black man they had hired to fix the roof last fall.

  And then he was opening the door and sliding in, fast, because Ellis’ heavy boot was on the gas pedal, sending the truck back onto the road again. The rattle of gravel and sand against the frame died away, and Sherry looked at the hitch-hiker.

  She felt again the satisfaction of being right. She had known he would be different.

  And so he was.

  His face was tanned and unwrinkled—baby-smooth, and yet lean. She watched him settle back against the seat, relaxing against the plastic covering. His hair was black and short, almost furlike. There was no trace of a beard.

  And he was not sweating.

  She looked at his face, dry and still in the whistling hot wind. His eyes were closed, but she would see their color soon.

  Different, she thought. How different . . . no, she told herself. Don’t look too long, or you’ll find out too soon. She wanted to be intrigued awhile longer. It had been so long since she had been interested in anybody.

  She looked at his hands, pale and slim, with tapering fingers. Lucille Ballentine’s hands had looked like that.

  What happened, mister?” Sherry snapped her head around in surprise, saw Ellis looking across her at him. Sitting next to Ellis, she could smell the animal odor of his shirt, could see the yellow circles under his arms. Ellis had been driving for almost eight hours. Sherry almost wrinkled her nose in distaste; almost, but not quite.

  “My car broke down.” His voice was quiet, and right in the middle; a neutral tone.

  Sherry expected Ellis to say that they hadn’t passed any abandoned cars. Instead he simply said, “That happens.”

  She sat between them, feeling the contrast, feeling repugnance push her away from Ellis, from his grimy clothes and damp skin, toward the hitch-hiker. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Kyle.” He hadn’t looked at her once—she still did not know what color his eyes were. If she moved another quarter inch, she would be touching him ...

  Not yet. She was still enjoying the mystery too much. To touch him would be to absorb more knowledge, just to brush against him would tell her what she didn’t want to know so soon.

  Ellis had resumed his lecture, which had started on desert life and progressed to animals in general, reciting scraps of knowledge remembered from old Reader’s Digest articles. One large hand gripped the steering wheel while he talked; the other rested on the door. The sun had tanned that arm darker than its mate during the three days he had been driving.

  “You take your reptiles, your snakes and lizards,” he said. “Protective coloration—they look just like the dirt they crawl around in. There’s some can even change their color to match their background. That’s how they stay alive, y’know. Or some attach themselves up with the dominant life-form in the neighborhood, like those birds that live on rhinoceroses. It’s called a defense mechanism.”

  “Ellis,” Sherry said, looking at him wearily. “We’re not interested.” Ellis grunted, and changed the subject, flashing an irritated glance her way. The look surprised her—usually that tone of voice forbade any resentment on his part.

  “Bad place to have a breakdown,” Ellis continued. “Gets up to a hundred-twenty in the shade this time of year. That’s killing weather.”

  And Kyle’s skin was so smooth, and dry—and pale. Sherry looked from the brown of Ellis’ arm to the pink of Kyle’s face. Was there the slightest hint of darkening, down to the first button of his shirt?

  It was time, she decided, to learn a little bit more. Sherry put her hand lightly on his, and felt—

  Thunder! Gunshot!

  —And the color of his eyes as he looked at her...

  The truck was jolting toward the right, the blown-out tire dragging them toward the shoulder. Ellis wrestled it to a stop, twisted the key out of the ignition. He got out of the cab, walked around to the right front tire, and let go with a curse and a kick.

  Kyle was still looking at her. “What’s your name?”

  She knew her confusion showed. “Sherry.”

  “Sherry.” He smiled, opened the door, and went out to help change the tire.

  Sherry watched the two of them working. A stripe of sunlight lay across her thighs, making her hose hot and itchy. She touched her tongue lightly with a fingernail and wondered if she should be afraid.

  His eyes were brown. The dark chocolate brown of John Frank’s, the walnut-brown of Lucy Ballentine’s. Gooseflesh burned along her arms from that touch.

  She watched them changing the tire, Ellis doing most of the talking. Three years with Ellis; the challenge, the satisfaction, and now the boredom of being in command. He would do anything she told him to, even quit his job and move from Arkansas to California, for the privilege of her body. She watched the easy way Kyle lifted the tire into place, back muscles stretching the faded blue shirt he wore. Then, quickly, one hand went to the rear-view mirror, twisted it so she could see her face. Her complexion was chapped, and her hair stringy from the hot dry air. She reached for her purse and was dabbing salve on her cheeks when Kyle and Ellis got back in the cab.

  The road stretched long and straight, like pulled taffy, toward the swollen red sun. Night came almost without a dusk. They rode without saying much for another hour, until the lights of a small motel showed on the horizon.

  “Stopping here,” Ellis said. It looked clean, and more important for what she had in mind, there was only one other car parked in the gravel lot. Sherry smiled.

  Ellis went in to sign for a room. When the glass door to the motel office swung shut behind him, Sherry said quickly, “Why don’t you stay here for the night, and we’ll take you on with us tomorrow?”

  And waited, breathing lightly, for his answer.

  “I could hitch the rest of the way tonight,” he said. And by the tone of it, she knew that he was playing with her. She turned her head, and stared at him. His eyes were hidden in the darkness—the red Vacancy light flashed a band of crimson across his chest.

  “I know you’ll stay,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Same way I knew I wanted to pick you up. Same way I knew you were—different.” She smiled at him. “I can usually tell about things like that. Mother used to say I had Sight.” She put her hand on his arm again.

  Kyle grinned, and she ran her tongue over her dry lips. “You’re a sensitive girl, Sherry. Just how different am I?”

  “I hope to find out.” She reached into her purse, pulled out a ten and a five. “You take a room here. After Ellis goes to sleep...”

  He looked at the money. “What makes you think I won’t take it and leave?”

  She glanced at the motel office door, then leaned over and kissed him. His lips were dark and full, soft and womanly...

  “You’ll stay,” she told him. It was meant to be a sultry whisper, full of confidence. It came out a gasp, full of pleading.

  Suddenly confused, she slid over to the door, opened it, and started toward the motel office. As she reached the door, Ellis came out.

  “Number seventeen,” he said and handed her the key. As she started across the parking lot, she saw Kyle stroll into the office. A few minutes later, he was unlock
ing the door to number fifteen.

  Another hour or two, she thought, and no more mystery.

  She was in bed by the time Ellis was out of the shower, her eyes closed so she wouldn’t have to see him walk damp and naked across the floor. The thought of his paunchy belly on hers, weight crushing her into the mattress, puffing his way to climax and beginning to snore almost before he rolled off, disgusted her. But he made no attempts, merely laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. After a moment he mused, “That Kyle’s a strange one, ain’t he?”