In the sky a great plane’s aluminum glinted in the sun. It flew westward purposefully, and Hesione sensed that the pilot, for the first time in a long while, had no fear of suddenly disappearing.
<
~ * ~
RON SMITH
The shortest story in this collection (under four hundred words!) deserves an outsize note to introduce its author, who has never appeared in book form before. Science fiction vaunts a phenomenon known as the fanzine: the non-profit amateur magazine published by and for the intense enthusiast who cannot possibly absorb too much about his chosen field of interest. The phenomenon is not quite peculiar to s.f.: Opera News, The Baker Street Journal, and The Record Collector are examples of fanzines in other fields which I would not be without. But no other field can boast so many specimens, or so many good ones; and one of the best, distinguished for its book reviews, its scholarly articles on criticism and bibliography, and its surprisingly able non-professional fiction, bears the title (more cumbersome even than F&SF’s) of Inside and Science Fiction Advertiser. Now young New Yorker Ron Smith, editor-publisher of Inside, displays a neat understatement in twisting a classic theme, which indicates that he may well follow in the long line of fans (such as Bradbury, Kornbluth, and Pohl, to mention only those in this volume) who have established themselves in the front rank of pros.
I DON’T MIND
You probably think it bothers me, but it doesn’t. I’ve got books and records, plenty to eat and a nice place to lay around and be lazy and soak up a little culture—things I never had before.
Yes, sir, I came out of it all right. I’m better off and happier than I ever was. And I’m glad she’s here. It would be damned lonely if I didn’t have her around to talk to once in a while. I’ve never known much loneliness, always had company, and I wouldn’t want to know it now. I like talking to women.
But, of course, the only reason she’s here is because no one else did come out of it. At least, as far as we know.
Everyone else is . . . well, gone.
So, for the sake of companionship, we got together in this place. We’ve got everything we need—and we live in the best section of New York, too. At least, what was the best section when there were people around to compare.
Sometimes I get homesick, but it would be such a long trip back—with no easy way of getting there and nothing there anyway. Besides, she doesn’t want to leave.
And, as I said, I enjoy her company.
Of course I don’t see her much. She does a lot of walking, likes to be alone. But I have my books, a bottle of wine always handy. There’s always something to occupy my mind. I enjoy myself. I don’t mind at all.
But I do like to sit and talk to her at night about the books we’ve read and the places she’s been. She doesn’t like to talk about the places I’ve been, so I never mention it.
We sometimes have a few drinks while we’re talking and I joke with her to keep her spirits up and then we go to bed. She has her own bedroom across the hall. We each have separate bathrooms. It’s better that way.
Occasionally, just before she leaves, she looks at me with a strange far-off look in her eyes and starts to say something: “Kafur . . .” and lets it trail off.
I smile and say good night and she goes to her room.
But I don’t mind at all. Not at all.
Why, I remember back in the old days when I was with the Sultan. I used to wander around the harem all the time, and I didn’t mind at all.
<
~ * ~
POUL ANDERSON
The late Howard Roberts created one of the greatest characters in (so his publishers assure us) science-fantasy in his tales of Cronkheit the Barbarian and the Hybolic Age; and this seems a fitting moment to review the Cronkheit bibliography. As we all know, the stories first appeared in the old Unspeakable and other pulps of the 1930’s. A few (five stories and a historical essay on the Hybolic Age) were first assembled into book form in the Roberts omnibus, scull-race and others (Miskatonic, 1946). Since 1950 Pixy Press has undertaken the valuable task, in collaboration with J. Wellington Wells and other noted Hybolic scholars, of publishing the entire Cronkheit canon; and it may be useful to list these books in the order in which they should be read, their Cronkheitian chronology, rather than by dates of publication. Those published to date are: the coming of cronkheit (Pixy, 1953); cronkheit the barbarian (Pixy, 1954) ; tales of cronkheit, revised by J. Wellington Wells (Pixy, 1956; chronologically overlapping the first two volumes); the sword of cronkheit (Pixy, 1952); king cronkheit (Pixy, 1953); and cronkheit the conqueror (Pixy 1950; paper reprint, Deuce, 1953). I do not understand how the following episode, surely the most revelatory of all the chronicles of Cronkheit, has been so far omitted from the collected canon.
THE BARBARIAN
Since the Howard-de-Camp system for deciphering pre-glacial inscriptions first appeared, much progress has been made in tracing the history, ethnology, and even daily life of the great cultures which flourished till the Pleistocene ice age wiped them out and forced man to start over. We know, for instance, that magic was practiced; that there were some highly civilized countries in what is now Central Asia, the Near East, North Africa, southern Europe, and various oceans; and that elsewhere the world was occupied by barbarians, of whom the North Europeans were the biggest, strongest, and most warlike. At least, so the scholars inform us, and being of North European ancestry they ought to know.
The following is a translation of a letter recently discovered in the ruins of Cyrenne. This was a provincial town of the Sarmian Empire, a great though decadent realm in the eastern Mediterranean area, whose capital, Sarmia, was at once the most beautiful and the most lustful, depraved city of its time. The Samians’ northern neighbors were primitive horse nomads and/or Centaurs; but to the east lay the Kingdom of Chaihakh, and to the south was the Herpetarchy of Serpens, ruled by a priestly cast of snake worshipers—or possibly snakes.
The letter was obviously written in Sarmia and posted to Cyrenne. Its date is approximately 175,000 B.C.
~ * ~
Maxilion Quaestos, sub-sub-sub-prefect of the Imperial Waterworks of Sarmia, to his nephew Thyaston, Chancellor of the Bureau of Thaumaturgy, Province of Cyrenne:
Greetings!
I trust this finds you in good health, and that the gods will continue to favor you. As for me, I am well, though somewhat plagued by the gout, for which I have tried [here follows the description of a home remedy, both tedious and unprintable]. This has not availed, however, save to exhaust my purse and myself.
You must indeed have been out of touch during your Atlantean journey, if you must write to inquire about the Barbarian affair. Now that events have settled down again, I can, I hope, give you an adequate and dispassionate account of the whole ill-starred business. By the favor of the Triplet Godesses, holy Sarmia has survived the episode; and though we are still rather shaken, things are improving. If at all times I seem to depart from the philosophic calm I have always tried to cultivate, blame it on the Barbarian. I am not the man I used to be. None of us are.
To begin, then, about three years ago the war with Chathakh had settled down to border skirmishes. Now and then a raid by one side or the other would penetrate deeply into the countries themselves, but with no decisive effect. Indeed, since these operations yielded a more or less equal amount of booty for both lands, and the slave trade grew brisk, it was good for business.
Our chief concern was the ambiguous attitude of Serpens. As you well know, the Herpetarchs have no love for us, and a major object of our diplomacy was to keep them from entering the war on the side of Chathakh. We had, of course, no hope of making them our allies. But as long as we maintained a posture of strength, it was likely that they would at least stay neutral.
Thus it stood when the Barbarian came to Sarmia.
We had heard rumors of him for a long time. An accurate description was available. He was a wandering soldier of fortune from some kingdom
of swordsmen and seafarers up in the northern forests. He had drifted south, alone, in search of adventure or perhaps only a better climate. Seven feet tall, and broad in proportion, he was one mass of muscle, with a mane of tawny hair and sullen blue eyes. He was adept with any weapon, but preferred a four-foot double-edged sword with which he could cleave helmet, skull, neck, and so on down at one blow. He was also said to be a drinker and lover of awesome capacity.
Having overcome the Centaurs singlehanded, he tramped down through our northern provinces and one day stood at the gates of Sarmia herself. It was a curious vision—the turreted walls rearing up over the stone-paved road, the guards with helmet and shield and corselet, and the towering near-naked giant who rattled his blade before them. As their pikes slanted down to bar his way, he cried in a voice of thunder:
“I yam Cronkheit duh Barbarian, an’ I wanna audience widjer queen!”
His accent was so ludicrously uneducated that the watch burst into laughter. This angered him; flushing darkly, he drew his sword and advanced stiff-legged. The guardsmen reeled back before him, and the Barbarian swaggered through.
As the captain of the watch explained it to me afterward: “There he came, and there we stood. A spear length away, we caught the smell. Ye gods, when did he last bathe?”
So with people running from the streets and bazaars as he neared, Cronkheit made his way down the Avenue of Sphinxes, past the baths and the Temple of Loccar, till he reached the Imperial Palace. Its gates stood open as usual, and he looked in at the gardens and the alabaster walls beyond, and grunted. When the Golden Guardsmen approached him upwind and asked his business, he grunted again. They lifted their bows, and would have made short work of him, but a slave came running to bid them desist.
You see, by the will of some malignant god, the Empress was standing on a balcony and saw him.
As is well known, our beloved Empress, Her Seductive Majesty the Illustrious Lady Larra the Voluptuous, is built like a mountain highway and is commonly believed to be an incarnation of her tutelary deity, Aphrosex, the Mink Goddess. She stood on the balcony with the wind blowing her thin transparent garments and thick black hair, and a sudden eagerness lit her proud lovely face. This was understandable, for Cronkheit wore only a bearskin kilt.
So the slave was dispatched, to bow low before the stranger and say: “Most noble lord, the divine Empress would have private speech with you.”
Cronkheit smacked his lips and strutted into the palace. The chamberlain wrung his hands when he saw those large muddy feet treading priceless rugs, but there was no help for it, and the Barbarian was led upstairs to the Imperial bedchamber.
What befell there is known to all, for of course in such interviews the Lady Larra posts mute slaves at convenient peepholes, to summon the guards if danger seems to threaten; and the courtiers have quietly taught these mutes to write. Our Empress had a cold, and had furthermore been eating a garlic salad, so her aristocratically curved nose was not offended. After a few formalities, she began to pant. Slowly, then she held out her arms and let the purple robe slide down from her creamy shoulders and across the silken thighs.
“Come,” she whispered. “Come, magnificent male.”
Cronkheit snorted, pawed the ground, rushed forth, and clasped her to him.
“Yowww!” cried the Empress as a rib cracked. “Leggo! Help!”
The mutes ran for the Golden Guardsmen, who entered at once. They got ropes around the Barbarian and dragged him from their poor lady. Though in considerable pain, and much shaken, she did not order his execution; she is known to be very patient with some types.
Indeed, after gulping a cup of wine to steady her, she invited Cronkheit to be her guest. After he had been conducted off to his rooms, she summoned the Duchess of Thyle, a supple, agile little minx.
“I have a task for you, my dear,” she murmured. “You will fulfill it as a loyal lady in waiting.”
“Yes, Your Seductive Majesty,” said the Duchess, who could well guess what the task was and thought she had been waiting long enough. For a whole week, in fact. Her assignment was to take the edge off the Barbarian’s impetuosity.
She greased herself so she could slip free if in peril of being crushed, and hurried to Cronkheit’s suite. Her musky perfume drowned out his odor, and she slipped off her dress and crooned with half-shut eyes: “Take me, my lordl”
“Yahoo!” howled the warrior. “I yam Cronkheit duh Strong, Cronkheit duh Bold, Cronkheit what slew a mammot’ singlehanded an’ made hisself chief o’duh Centaurs, an’ dis’s muh night! C’mere!”
The Duchess did, and he folded her in his mighty arms. A moment later there was another shriek. The palace attendants were treated to the sight of a naked and furious greased Duchess speeding down the jade corridor.
“Fleas he’s got!” she cried, scratching as she ran.
So all in all, Cronkheit the Barbarian was no great success as a lover. Even the women in the Street of Joy used to hide when they saw him coming. They said they’d been exposed to clumsy technique before, but this was just too much.
However, his fame was so great that the Lady Larra put him in command of a brigade, infantry and cavalry, and sent him to join General Grythion on the Chathakh border. He made the march in record time and came shouting into the city of tents which had grown up at our main base.
Now admittedly our good General Grythion is somewhat of a dandy, who curls his beard and is henpecked by his wives. But he has always been a competent soldier, winning honors at the Academy and leading troops in batde many times before rising to the strategic-planning post. One could understand Cronkheit’s incivility at their meeting. But when the general courteously declined to go forth in the van of the army and pointed out how much more valuable he was as a coordinator behind the lines—that was no excuse for Cronkheit to knock his superior officer to the ground and call him a coward, damned of the gods. Grythion was thoroughly justified in having him put in irons, despite the casualties involved. Even as it was, the spectacle had so demoralized our troops that they lost three important engagements in the following month.
Alas! Word of this reached the Empress, and she did not order Cronkheit’s head struck off. Indeed, she sent back a command that he be released and reinstated. Perhaps she still cherished him enough to be an acceptable bed partner.
Grythion swallowed his pride and apologized to the Barbarian, who accepted with an ill grace. His restored rank made it necessary to invite him to a dinner and conference in the headquarters tent.
It was a flat failure. Cronkheit stamped in and at once made sneering remarks about the elegant togas of his brother officers. He belched when he ate and couldn’t distinguish the product of one vineyard from another. His conversation consisted of hour-long monologues about his own prowess. General Grythion saw morale zooming downward, and hastily called for maps and planning.
“Now, most noble sirs,” he began, “we have to lay out the summer campaign. As you know, we have the Eastern Desert between us and the nearest important enemy positions. This raises difficult questions of logistics and catapult emplacement.” He turned politely to the Barbarian. “Have you any suggestion, my lord?”
“Duh,” said Cronkheit.
“I think,” ventured Colonel Pharaon, “that if we advanced to the Chunling Oasis and dug in there, building a supply road-”
“Dat reminds me,” said Cronkheit. “One time up in duh Norriki marshes, I run acrost some swamp men an’ dey uses poisoned arrers—”
“I fail to see what that has to do with this problem,” said General Grythion.
“Nuttin’,” admitted Cronkheit cheerfully. “But don’t in-nerup’ me. Like I was sayin’—” And he was off for another dreary hour.
At the end of a conference which had gotten nowhere, the general stroked his beard and said shrewdly: “Lord Cronkheit, it appears your abilities are more in the tactical than the strategic field.”
The Barbarian snatched for his sword.
; “I mean,” said Grythion quickly, “I have a task which only the boldest and strongest leader can accomplish.”
Cronkheit beamed and listened closely for a change. He was to be sent out with his men to capture Chantsay. This was a fort in the mountain passes across the Eastern Desert, and a major obstacle to our advance. However, in spite of Grythion’s judicious flattery, a full brigade should have been able to take it with little difficulty, for it was known to be undermanned.
Cronkheit rode off at the head of his men, tossing his sword in the air and bellowing some uncouth battle chant. Then he was not heard of for six weeks.
The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction Sixth Series Page 23
