Nightmares & Geezenstacks, Page 7

  He saw the clouds that drifted over the peak. The clouds took strange shapes. At times they were ships or castles or horses. More often they were strange things never seen by anyone save him, and he had seen them only ill his dreams. Yet in the strange shapes of drifting clouds he recognized them.

  Standing alone in the doorway of his hut, he always watched the sun spring from the dew of earth. In the valley they had told him that the sun did not rise but that the earth was round like an orange and turned so that every morning the burning sun seemed to leap into the sky.

  He had asked them why the earth revolved and why the sun burned and why they did not fall from the earth when it turned upside down. He had been told that it was so today because it had been so yesterday and the day that was before yesterday, and because things never changed. They could not tell him why things never changed.

  At night he looked at the stars and at the lights of the valley. At curfew the lights of the valley vanished, but the stars did not vanish. They were too far to hear the curfew bell.

  There was a bright star. Every third night it hung low just above the snow-covered peak of the mountain, and he would climb to the peak and talk to it. The star never replied.

  He counted time by the star and by the three days of its progress. Three days made a week. To the people of the valley, seven days made a week. They had never dreamed of the land of Saarba where water flows upstream, where the leaves of trees burn with a bright blue flame and are not consumed, and where three days make a week.

  Once a year he went down into the valley. He talked with people, and sometimes he would dream for them. They called him a prophet, but the small children threw sticks at him. He did not like children, for in their faces he could see written the evil that they were to live.

  It has been a year since he had last been to the valley, and he left his hut and went down the mountain. He went to the market and talked to people, but no one spoke to him or looked at him. He shouted but they did not reply.

  He reached with his hand to touch a market woman upon the shoulder to arrest her attention, but the hand passed through the woman’s shoulder and the woman walked on. He knew then that he had died within the past year.

  He returned to the mountain. Beside the path he saw a thing that lay where once he had fallen and had risen and walked on. He turned when he reached the doorway of his hut, and saw the people of the valley carrying away the thing which he had passed. They dug a grave in the earth and buried the thing.

  The days passed.

  From the doorway of his hut he watched the clouds drift by the mountain. The clouds took strange shapes. At times they were birds or swords or elephants. More often they were strange things never seen save by him. He had dreamed of seeing them in the land of Saarba where bread is made of stardust, where sixteen pounds make an ounce, and where. clocks run backward after dark.

  Two women climbed the mountain and walked through him into the hut. They looked about them.

  —They be nothing here, said the elder of the women. —Where might be his sandals, I ken not.

  —Go ye back, said the younger woman. —Late it grows. Come sunrise, I will find they.

  —Be ye not afraid?

  —The shepherd cares for his sheep, said the young woman.

  The older woman trudged down the path into the valley. Darkness fell, and the younger lighted a candle. She !r seemed afraid of the darkness.

  He watched her, but she saw him not. Her hair, he saw, was black as night, and her eyes were large and lustrous, but her ankles were thick.

  She removed her garments and lay upon the bed. In sleep, she tossed uneasily, and the blanket slipped to the floor. The candle still burned upon the table.

  The light of the candle flame fell upon a small black crucifix that lay in the white hollow between her breasts. It rose and fell.

  He heard the curfew bell and knew that it was time to go to the top of the peak, for it was the third night.

  Upon the mountain had descended a storm. The wind shrieked about the hut but the woman did not awaken.

  He went’ out into the storm. The wind was cruel as never before. The hand of fear gripped his heart. Yet the star was waiting.

  The cold grew more intense, the night blacker. A blanket of snow drifted over the mountain, covering the spot where he fell.

  In the morning the woman found the red sandals in the thawing snow and took them back to the valley.

  —A strange dream I had, said the elder woman. —A man writhed on a cross.

  The younger woman crossed herself. —The Christus?

  —Not, said the elderly woman. —Shouted he about Saarba and oblivion.

  —I ken them not, said the younger woman. —They be no such places.

  —That shouted he, said the elder. —Remember I now.

  —La, laughed the younger woman. —Dreams be only dreams. Things what be be and things what be not be not.

  —So, said the elder. She shrugged.

  Clouds take strange shapes. At times they are wagons or swans or trees. More often they are strange things never seen save in the land of Saarba.

  Clouds are impersonal. They drift by an empty peak as readily.

  BEAR POSSIBILITY

  If you’ve ever seen an expectant father pacing the waiting room of a hospital lighting cigarette after cigarette-usually at the wrong end if it’s a filter-tip—you know how worried he acts.

  But if you think that that is worry, take a look at Jonathan Quinby, pacing the room outside a delivery room. Quinby is not only lighting the wrong ends of his filter-tips but is actually smoking them that way, without tasting the difference.

  He’s really got something to worry about. It had started when they had last visited a zoo one evening. “Last visited” is true in both senses of the phrase; Quinby would never go within miles of one again, ever, nor would his wife. She had fallen, you see, into—

  But there is something that must be explained, so you may understand what happened that evening. In his younger days Quinby had been an ardent student of magic—real magic, not the slight-of-hand variety. Unfortunately charms and incantations did not work for him, however effective they might be for others.

  Except for one incantation, one that let him change a human being into any animal he chose and (by saying the same incantation backward) back again into a human being. A vicious or vengeful man would have found this ability useful, but Quinby was neither vicious nor vengeful and after a few experiments—with subjects who had volunteered out of curiosity—he had never made use of it.

  When, ten years ago at the age of thirty, he had fallen in love and married, he had used it once more, simply to satisfy his wife’s curiosity. When he had told her about it, she had doubted him and challenged him to prove it, and he had changed her briefly into a Siamese cat. She had then made him promise never to use his supernormal ability again, and he had kept that promise ever since.

  Except once, the evening of their visit to the zoo. They had been walking along the path, with no one in sight but themselves, that led past the sunken bear pits. They’d looked for bears but all of them had retired into the cave portion of their quarters for the night. Then—well, his wife had leaned a little too far over the railing; she lost her balance and fell into a pit. Miraculously, she landed unhurt.

  She was getting to her feet and looking up at him; she put her finger to her lips and then pointed to the entrance to the den. He understood; she wanted him to get help but quietly, lest any sound might waken the sleeping bear in its den. He nodded and was turning away when a gasp from his wife made him look down again—and see that it would be too late to get help.

  A young male grizzly bear was already coming out of the den entrance. Growling ominously and heading toward her, ready to kill.

  There was only one thing that could possibly be done in time to save his wife’s life, and Jonathan Quinby did it. Male grizzly bears do not kill female grizzly bears.

  They have other ideas
though. Quinby stood wringing his hands in helpless anguish as he was forced to witness what was happening to his wife in the bear pit. But after a while the male grizzly went back into his den and—ready ‘to change her back on a second’s notice if the male should again emerge—Quinby said the incantation backward and brought his wife back to her proper form. He told her that if she could find footholds in the rocks and climb part way up, he could reach down and pull her the rest of the way. In a few minutes she was safely out of the pit. White and shaken, they had taken a taxi home. Once there, they agreed never to discuss the matter again; there was nothing else he could have done but watch her be killed.

  Nor had they discussed it again, for a few weeks. But then-well, they’d been married ten years and had wanted children but no children had come. Now three weeks after her horrible experience in the pit she was—with child?

  Have you ever seen an expectant father pacing a hospital waiting room, looking like the most worried man on Earth? Then consider Quinby, who’s right now pacing and waiting. For what?

  NOT YET THE END

  There was a greenish, hellish tinge to the light within the metal cube. It was a light that made the dead-white skin of the creature seated at the controls seem faintly green.

  A single, faceted eye, front center in the head, watched the seven dials unwinkingly. Since they had left Xandor that eye had never once wavered from the dials. Sleep was unknown to the race to which Kar-388Y belonged. Mercy, too, was unknown. A single glance at the sharp, cruel features below the faceted eye would have proved that.

  The pointers on the fourth and seventh dials came to a stop. That meant the cube itself had stopped in space relative to its immediate objective. Kar reached forward with his upper right arm and threw the stabilizer switch. Then he rose and stretched his cramped muscles.

  Kar turned to face his companion in the cube, a being like himself. “We are here,” he said. “The first stop, Star Z-5689. It has nine planets, but only the third is habitable. Let us hope we find creatures here who will make suitable slaves for Xandor.”

  Lal-16B, who had sat in rigid mobility during the journey, rose and stretched also. “Let us hope so, yes. Then we can return to Xandor and be honored while the fleet comes to get them. But let’s not hope too strongly. To meet with success at the first place we stop would be a miracle. We’ll probably have to look a thousand places.”

  Kar shrugged. “Then we’ll look a thousand places. With the Lounacs dying off, we must have slaves else our mines must close and our race will die.”

  He sat down at the controls again and threw a switch that activated a visiplate that would show what was beneath them. He said, “We are above the night side of the third planet. There is a cloud layer below us. I’ll use the manuals from here.”

  He began to press buttons. A few minutes later he said, “Look, Lal, at the visiplate. Regularly spaced lights—a city! The planet is inhabited.”

  Lal had taken his place at the other switchboard, the fighting controls. Now he too was examining dials. “There is nothing for us to fear. There is not even the vestige of a force field around the city. The scientific knowledge of the race is crude. We can wipe the city out with one blast if we are attacked.”

  “Good,” Kar said. “But let me remind you that destruction is not our purpose—yet. We want specimens. If they prove satisfactory and the fleet comes and takes as many thousand I slaves as we need, then will be time to destroy not a city but the whole planet. So that their civilization will never progress to the point where they’ll be able to launch reprisal raids.”

  Lal adjusted a knob. “All right. I’ll put on the megrafield I and we’ll be invisible to them unless they see far into the ultraviolet, and, from the spectrum of their sun, I doubt that they do.”

  As the cube descended the light within it changed from green to violet and beyond. It came to a gentle rest. Kar manipulated the mechanism that operated the airlock.

  He stepped outside, Lal just behind him. “Look,” Kar said, “two bipeds. Two arms, two eyes—not dissimilar to the Lounacs, although smaller. Well, here are our specimens.”

  He raised his lower left arm, whose three-fingered hand held a thin rod wound with wire. He pointed it first at one of the creatures, then at the other. Nothing visible emanated from the end of the rod, but they both froze instantly into statuelike figures.

  “They’re not large, Kar,” Lal said. “I’ll carry one back, you carry the other. We can study them better inside the cube, after we’re back in space.”

  Kar looked about him in the dim light. “All right, two is enough, and one seems to be male and the other female. Let’s get going.”

  A minute later the cube was ascending and as soon as they were well out of the atmosphere, Kar threw the stabilizer switch and joined Lal, who had been starting a study of the specimens during the brief ascent.

  “Vivaparous,” said Lal. “Five-fingered, with hands suited to reasonably delicate work. But—let’s try the most important test, intelligence.”

  Kar got the paired headsets. He handed one pair to Lal, who put one on his own head, one on the head of one of the specimens. Kar did the same with the other specimen.

  After a few minutes, Kar and Lal stared at each other bleakly.

  “Seven points below minimum,” Kar said. “They could not be trained even for the crudest labor in the mines. Incapable of understanding the most simple instructions. Well, we’ll take them back to the Xandor museum.”

  “Shall I destroy the planet?”

  “No,” Kar said. “Maybe a million years from now—if our race lasts that long—they’ll have evolved enough to become suitable for our purpose. Let us move on to the next star with planets.”

  The make-up editor of the Milwaukee Star was in the composing room, supervising the closing of the local page. Jenkins, the head make-up compositor, was pushing in leads to tighten the second last column.

  “Room for one more story in the eighth column, Pete,” he said. “About thirty-six picas. There are two there in the overset that will fit. Which one shall 1 use?”

  The make-up editor glanced at the type in the galleys lying on the stone beside the chase. Long practice enabled him to read the headlines upside down at a glance. “The convention story and the zoo story, huh? Oh, hell, run the convention story. Who cares if the zoo director thinks two monkeys disappeared off Monkey Island last night?”

  FISH STORY

  Robert Palmer met his mermaid one midnight along the ocean front somewhere between Cape Cod and Miami. He was staying with friends but had not yet felt sleepy when they retired and had gone for a walk along the brightly moonlit beach. He rounded a curve in the shoreline and there she was, sitting on a log embedded in the sand, combing her beautiful, long black hair.

  Robert knew, of course, that mermaids don’t really exist—but, extant or not, there she was. He walked closer and when he was only a few steps away he cleared his throat.

  With a startled movement she threw back her hair, which had been hiding her face and her breasts, and he saw that she was more beautiful than he had thought it possible for any creature to be.

  She stared at him, her deep-blue eyes wide with fright at first. Then, “Are you a man?” she asked.

  Robert didn’t have any doubts on that point; he assured her that he was. The fear went out of her eyes and she smiled. “I’ve heard of men but never met one.” She motioned for him to sit down beside her on the embedded log.

  Robert didn’t hesitate. He sat down and they talked and talked, and after a while his arm went around her and when at last she said that she must return to the sea, he kissed her good night and she promised to meet him again the next midnight.

  He went back to his friends’ house in a bright daze of happiness. He was in love.

  For three nights in a row he saw her, and on the third night he told her that he loved her, that he would like to marry her—but that there was a problem—

  “I love you too, Robert
. And the problem you have in mind can be solved. I’ll summon a Triton.”

  “Triton? 1 seem to know the word, but—”

  “A sea demon. He has magical powers and can change things for us so we can marry, and then he’ll marry us. Can you swim well? We’ll have to swim out to meet him; Tritons never come quite to the shore.”

  He assured her that he was an excellent swimmer, and she promised to have the Triton there the next night.

  He went back to his friends’ house in a state of ecstasy. He didn’t know whether the Triton would change his beloved into a human being or change him into a merman, but he didn’t care. He was so mad about her that as long as they would both be the same, and able to marry, he didn’t care in which form it would be.

  She was waiting for him the next night, their wedding night. “Sit down,” she told him. “The Triton will blow his conch shell trumpet when he arrives.”

  They sat with their arms around each other until they heard the sound of a conch shell trumpet blowing far out on the water. Robert quickly stripped off his clothes and carried her into the water; they swam until they reached the Triton. Robert treaded water while the Triton asked them, “Do you wish to be joined in marriage?” They each said a fervent “I do.”

  “Then,” said the Triton, “I pronounce you merman and merwife.” And Robert found himself no longer treading water; a few movements of a strong sinuous tail kept him at the surface easily. The Triton blew a note on his conch shell trumpet, deafening at so close a range, and swam away.

  Robert swam to his wife’s side, put his arms around her and kissed her. But something was wrong; the kiss was pleasant but there was no real thrill, no stirring in his loins as there had been when he had kissed her on shore. In fact, he suddenly realized, he had no loins that he could detect. But how—?

  “But how—?” he asked her. “I mean, darling, how do we—?”

  “Propagate? It’s simple, dear, and nothing like the messy way land creatures do it. You see, mermaids are mammalian but oviparous. I lay an egg when the time comes and when it hatches I nurse our merchild. Your part—”