The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series

by Edited by Anthony Boucher

  “You’re the head of the household?” I demanded of the man.

  He nodded, looking at me like a sick dog. “We—we weren’t Jumping,” he whined. “Honest to heaven, mister—you’ve got to believe me. We were--”

  I cut in, “You were packed and on the doorstep when the field crew came by. Right?” He started to say something, but I had him dead to rights. “That’s plenty, friend,” I told him. “That’s Jumping, under the law: Packing, with intent to move, while a census Enumeration crew is operating in your locale. Got anything to say?”

  Well, he had plenty to say, but none of it made any sense. He turned my stomach, listening to him. I tried to keep my temper—you’re not supposed to think of individuals, no matter how worthless and useless and generally unfit they are; that’s against the whole principle of the Census—but I couldn’t help telling him: “I’ve met your kind before, mister. Five kids! If it wasn’t for people like you we wouldn’t have any Overs, did you ever think of that? Sure you didn’t—you people never think of anything but yourself! Five kids, and then when Census comes around you think you can get smart and Jump.” I tell you, I was shaking. “You keep your little beady eyes peeled, sneaking around, watching the Enumerators, trying to make an Over; and then you wait until they get close to you, so you can Jump. Ever stop to think what trouble that makes for us?” I demanded. “Census is supposed to be fair and square, everybody an even chance—and how can we make it that way unless everybody stands still to be counted?” I patted Old Betsy, on my hip. “I haven’t Overed anybody myself in five years,” I told him, “but I swear, I’d like to handle you personally!”

  He didn’t say a word once I got started on him. He just stood there, taking it. I had to force myself to stop, finally; I could have gone on for a long time, because if there’s one thing I hate it’s these lousy stinking breeders who try to Jump when they think one of them is going to be an Over in the count-off. Regular Jumpers are bad enough, but when it’s the people who make the mess in the first place—

  Anyway, time was wasting. I took a deep breath and thought things over. Actually, we weren’t too badly off; we’d started off Overing every two-hundred-and-fiftieth person, and it was beginning to look as though our preliminary estimate was high; we’d just cut back to Overing every three-hundredth. So we had a little margin to play with.

  I told the man, dead serious: “You know I could Over the lot of you on charges, don’t you?” He nodded sickly. “All right, I’ll give you a chance. I don’t want to bother with the red tape; if you’ll take a voluntary Over for yourself, we’ll start the new count with your wife.”

  Call me soft, if you want to; but I still say that it was a lot better than fussing around with charges and a hearing. You get into a hearing like that and it can drag on for half an hour or more; and then Regional Control is on your tail because you’re falling behind.

  It never hurts to give a man a break, even a Jumper, I always say—as long as it doesn’t slow down your Census.

  ~ * ~

  Carias was waiting at my desk when I got back; he looked worried about something, but I brushed him off while I initialed the Overage report on the man we’d just processed. He’d been an In, I found out when I canceled his blue card. I can’t say I was surprised. He’d come from Denver, and you know how they keep exceeding their Census figures; no doubt he thought he’d have a better chance in my C.A. than anywhere else. And no doubt he was right, because we certainly don’t encourage breeders like him—actually, if he hadn’t tried to Jump it was odds-on that the whole damned family would get by without an Over for years.

  Carias was hovering right behind me as I finished. “I hate these voluntaries.” I told him, basketing the canceled card. “I’m going to talk to Regional Control about it; there’s no reason why they can’t be processed like any other Over, instead of making me O.K. each one individually. Now, what’s the matter?”

  He rubbed his jaw. “Chief,” he said, “it’s Witeck.”

  “Now what? Another In?”

  Carias glanced at me, then away. “Uh, no Chief. It’s the same one. He claims he comes from, uh, the center of the earth.”

  “I swore out loud. “So he has to turn up in my C.A.!” I complained bitterly. “He gets out of the nuthouse, and right away—”

  Carias said, “Chief, he might not be crazy. He makes it sound pretty real.”

  I said: “Hold it, Carias. Nobody can live in the center of the earth. It’s solid, like a potato.”

  “Sure, Chief,” Carias nodded earnestly. “But he says it isn’t. He says there’s a what he calls neutronium shell, whatever that is, with dirt and rocks on both sides of it. We live on the outside. He lives on the inside. His people-”

  “Carias!” I yelled. “You’re as bad as Witeck! This guy turns up, no blue card, no I.D. number, no credentials of any kind. What’s he going to say, ‘Please sir, I’m an Over, please process me’? Naturally not! So he makes up a crazy story, and you fall for it!”

  “I know, Chief,” Carias said humbly.

  “Neutronium shell!” I would have laughed out loud, if I’d had the time. “Neutronium my foot! Don’t you know it’s hot down there?”

  “He says it’s hot neutronium,” Carias said eagerly. “I asked him that myself, Chief. He said it’s just the shell that-”

  “Get back to work!” I yelled at him. I picked up the phone and got Witeck on his wristphone. I tell you, I was boiling. As soon as Witeck answered I lit into him; I didn’t give him a chance to get a word in. I gave it to him up and down and sidewise; and I finished off by giving him a direct order. “You Over that man,” I told him, “or I’ll personally Over you! You hear me?”

  There was a pause. Then Witeck said, “Jerry? Will you listen to me?”

  That stopped me. It was the first time in ten years, since I’d been promoted above him, that Witeck had dared call me by my first name. He said, “Jerry, listen. This is something big. This guy is really from the center of the earth, no kidding. He--”

  “Witeck,” I said, “you’ve cracked.”

  “No, Jerry, honest! And it worries me. He’s right there in the next room waiting for me. He says he had no idea things were like this on the surface; he’s talking wild about cleaning us off and starting all over again; he says--”

  “I say he’s an Over!” I yelled. “No more talk, Witeck. You’ve got a direct order—now carry it out!”

  So that was that.

  We got through the Census Period, after all, but we had to do it shorthanded; and Witeck was hard to replace. I’m a sentimentalist, I guess, but I couldn’t help remembering old times. We started even; he might have risen as far as I—but of course he made his choice when he got married and had a kid; you can’t be a breeder and an officer of the Census both. If it hadn’t been for his record he couldn’t even have stayed on as an Enumerator.

  I never said a word to anyone about his crackup. Carias might have talked, but after we found Witeck’s body I took him aside. “Carias,” I said reasonably, “we don’t want any scandal, do we? Here’s Witeck, with an honorable record; he cracks, and kills himself, and that’s bad enough. We won’t let loose talk make it worse, will we?”

  Carias said uneasily, “Chief, where’s the gun he killed himself with? His own processor wasn’t even fired?”

  You can let a helper go just so far. I said sharply, “Carias, we still have at least a hundred Overs to process. You can be on one end of the processing—or you can be on the other. You understand me?”

  He coughed. “Sure, Chief. I understand. We don’t want any loose talk.”

  And that’s how it is when you’re an Area Boss. But I didn’t ever get my vacation at Point Loma; the tsunami there washed out the whole town the last week of Census. And when I tried Baja California, they were having that crazy volcanic business; and the Yellowstone Park bureau wouldn’t even accept my reservation because of some trouble with the geysers, so I just stayed home. But the best vacation of
all was just knowing that the Census was done for another year.

  Carias was all for looking for this In that Witeck was talking about, but I turned him down. “Waste of time,” I told him. “By now he’s a dozen C.A.’s away. We’ll never see him again, him or anybody like him—I’ll bet my life on that.”

  <>

  ~ * ~

  POUL ANDERSON

  How rarely science-fiction writers succeed in creating a wholly alien culture may be judged from any adequate study of an earthly culture of a time or place which does not form part of our direct heritage. S.f.’s aliens may have pseudopods or superscientific gadgets, but rarely so wholly different a frame of reference as man himself has achieved in other eras. Here F&SF’s favorite Scandinavian skald takes us to Iceland near the end of the tenth century and convincingly depicts a truly “alien’ way of life — and teaches us the tragic truth that the role of a twentieth-century time-traveler to a “primitive” culture need .not necessarily be that of Prometheus the Fire-Bringer.

  THE MAN WHO CAME EARLY

  Yes, when a man grows old he has heard so much that is strange there’s little more can surprise him. They say the king in Miklagard has a beast of gold before his high seat, which stands up and roars. I have it from Eilif Eiriksson, who served in the guard down there, and he is a steady fellow when not drunk. He has also seen the Greek fire used, it burns on water.

  So, priest, I am not unwilling to believe what you say about the White Christ. I have been in England and France myself, and seen how the folk prosper. He must be a very powerful god, to ward so many realms . . . and did you say that everyone who is baptized will be given a white robe? I would like to have one. They mildew, of course, in this cursed wet Iceland weather, but a small sacrifice to the houseelves should-No sacrifices? Come now! I’ll give up horseflesh if I must, my teeth not being what they were, but every sensible man knows how much trouble the elves make if they’re not fed.

  . . . Well, let’s have another cup and talk about it. How do you like the beer? It’s my own brew, you know. The cups I got in England, many years back. I was a young man then . . . time goes, time goes. Afterward I came back and inherited this, my father’s steading, and have not left it since. Well enough to go in viking as a youth, but grown older you see where the real wealth lies: here, in the land and the cattle.

  Stoke up the fires, Hjalti. It’s growing cold. Sometimes I think the winters are colder than when I was a boy. Thor-brand of the Salmondale says so, but he believes the gods are angry because so many are turning from them. You’ll have trouble winning Thorbrand over, priest. A stubborn man. Myself I am open-minded, and willing to listen at least.

  . . . Now then. There is one point on which I must correct you. The end of the world is not coming in two years. This I know.

  And if you ask me how I know, that’s a very long tale, and in some ways a terrible one. Glad I am to be old, and safely in the earth before that great tomorrow comes. It will be an eldritch time before the frost giants march . . . oh, very well, before the angel blows his battle horn. One reason I hearken to your preaching is that I know the White Christ will conquer Thor. I know Iceland is going to be Christian erelong, and it seems best to range myself on the winning side.

  No, I’ve had no visions. This is a happening of five years ago, which my own household and neighbors can swear to. They mostly did not believe what the stranger told; I do, more or less, if only because I don’t think a liar could wreak so much harm. I loved my daughter, priest, and after it was over I made a good marriage for her. She did not naysay it, but now she sits out on the ness-farm with her husband and never a word to me; and I hear he is ill pleased with her silence and moodiness, and spends his nights with an Irish concubine. For this I cannot blame him, but it grieves me.

  Well, I’ve drunk enough to tell the whole truth now, and whether you believe it or not makes no odds to me. Here . . . you, girls! ... fill these cups again, for I’ll have a dry throat before I finish the telling.

  ~ * ~

  It begins, then, on a day in early summer, five years ago. At that time, my wife Ragnhild and I had only two unwed children still living with us: our youngest son Helgi, of seventeen winters, and our daughter Thorgunna, of eighteen. The girl, being fair, had already had suitors. But she refused them, and I am not a man who would compel his daughter. As for Helgi, he was ever a lively one, good with his hands but a breackneck youth. He is now serving in the guard of King Olaf of Norway. Besides these, of course, we had about ten housefolk—two Irish thralls, two girls to help with the women’s work, and half a dozen hired carles. This is not a small steading.

  You have not seen how my land lies. About two miles to the west is the bay; the thorps at Reykjavik are about five miles south. The land rises toward the Long Jokull, so that my acres are hilly; but it’s good hayland, and there is often driftwood on the beach. I’ve built a shed down there for it, as well as a boathouse.

  There had been a storm the night before, so Helgi and I were going down to look for drift. You, coming from Norway, do not know how precious wood is to us Icelanders, who have only a few scrubby trees and must bring all our timber from abroad. Back there men have often been burned in their houses by their foes, but we count that the worst of deeds, though it’s not unknown.

  I was on good terms with my neighbors, so we took only hand weapons. I my ax, Helgi a sword, and the two carles we had with us bore spears. It was a day washed clean by the night’s fury, and the sun fell bright on long wet grass. I saw my garth lying rich around its courtyard, sleek cows and sheep, smoke rising from the roof hole of the hall, and knew I’d not done so ill in my lifetime. My son Helgi’s hair fluttered in the low west wind as we left the steading behind a ridge and neared the water. Strange how well I remember all which happened that day, somehow it was a sharper day than most.

  When we came down to the strand, the sea was beating heavy, white and gray out to the world’s edge. A few gulls flew screaming above us, frightened off a cod washed up onto the shore. I saw there was a litter of no few sticks, even a baulk of timber . . . from some ship carrying it that broke up during the night, I suppose. That was a useful find, though, as a careful man, I would later sacrifice to be sure the owner’s ghost wouldn’t plague me.

  We had fallen to and were dragging the baulk toward the shed when Helgi cried out. I ran for my ax as I looked the way he pointed. We had no feuds then, but there are always outlaws.

  This one seemed harmless, though. Indeed, as he stumbled nearer across the black sand I thought him quite unarmed and wondered what had happened. He was a big man and strangely clad—he wore coat and breeches and shoes like anyone else, but they were of peculiar cut and he bound his trousers with leggings rather than thongs. Nor had I ever seen a helmet like his: it was almost square, and came down to cover his neck, but it had no nose guard; it was held in place by a leather strap. And this you may not believe, but it was not metal yet had been cast in one piece!

  He broke into a staggering run as he neared, and flapped his arms and croaked something. The tongue was none I had ever heard, and I have heard many; it was like dogs barking. I saw that he was clean-shaven and his black hair cropped short, and thought he might be French. Otherwise he was a young man, and good-looking, with blue eyes and regular features. From his skin I judged that he spent much time indoors, yet he had a fine manly build.

  “Could he have been shipwrecked?” asked Helgi.

  “His clothes are dry and unstained,” I said; “nor has he been wandering long, for there’s no stubble on his chin. Yet I’ve heard of no strangers guesting hereabouts.”

  We lowered our weapons, and he came up to us and stood gasping. I saw that his coat and the shirt behind was fastened with bonelike buttons rather than laces, and were of heavy weave. About his neck he had fastened a strip of cloth tucked into his coat. These garments were all in brownish hues. His shoes were of a sort new to me, very well cobbled. Here and there on his coat were bits of brass, a
nd he had three broken stripes on each sleeve; also a black band with white letters, the same letters being on his helmet. Those were not runes, but Roman letters—thus: MP. He wore a broad belt, with a small clublike thing of metal in a sheath at the hip and also a real club.

  “I think he must be a warlock,” muttered my carle Sigurd. “Why else all those tokens?”

  “They may only be ornament, or to ward against witchcraft,” I soothed him. Then, to the stranger. “I hight Ospak Ulfsson of Hillstead. What is your errand?”

  He stood with his chest heaving and a wildness in his eyes. He must have run a long way. Then he moaned and sat down and covered his face.

  “If he’s sick, best we get him to the house,” said Helgi. His eyes gleamed—we see so few new faces here.

  “No . . . no . . .” The stranger looked up. “Let me rest a moment--”

  He spoke the Norse tongue readily enough, though with a thick accent not easy to follow and with many foreign words I did not understand.