Four for Tomorrow Part 1

FOUR FOR TOMORROW.

by Roger Zeiazny.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

THE FURIES.

THE GRAVEYARD HEART.

THE DOORS OF HIS FACE,.

THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH.

A ROSE FOR ECCLESIASTES.

INTRODUCTION.

by Theodore Sturgeon.

There has been nothing like Zeiazny in the science fic- tion field since- Thus began the first draft of this introduction and there it stayed for about 48 hours while I maundered and chuntered on ways to finish that sentence with justice and precision. The only possible way to do it is to knock off the last word. And even then it misses the truth, for the term "science fiction" gives the comment a kind of club members.h.i.+p which trims verity. So much which is pub- lished as science fiction is nothing of the kind. And more and more, science fiction is produced and not called science fiction (and paid for heartily-i.e. On the Beach, Dr. Strangelove, Seven Days in May, 1984, etc. ect. et al-which makes the pro science fiction writers candi- dates for persecution mania). Suffice it for now to say that you'll be hard put to it to find a writer like Zeiazny anywhere.

Genuine prose-poets we have seen, but quite often they fail when the measures of pace and structure are 1 applied. And we have certainly had truly great story- tellers, whose narrative architecture is solidly based, soundly built, and well braced clear to tower-tip; but more often than not, this is done completely with a h.o.m.ogenized, nuts-and-bolts kind of prose. And there has been a regrettably small handful of what I call "peo- ple experts"-those especially gifted to create memor- able characters, something more than real ones well- photographed . . ...living ones who change, as all living things change, not only during the reading, but in the memory as the reader himself lives and changes and becomes capable of bringing more of himself to that which the writer has brought him. But there again, "peo- ple experts" have a tendency to turn their rare gift into a preoccupationand create small ardent cliques who tend to the same thing) and skimp on matters of struc- ture and content. An apt a.n.a.logy would be a play su- perbly cast and skilfully mounted, for which somebody had forgotten to supply a script.

And if you think I am about to say that Zeiazny de- livers all these treasures and avoids all these oversights, that he has full measures of substance and structure, means and ends, texture, cadence and pace, you are absolutely right.

Three factors in Zeiazny's work call for isolation and examination; and the very cold-bloodedness of such a declamation demands amendment. Let me revise it to two and a pointing finger, a vague and inarticulate wave toward something Outor Up, or In) There which can be a.n.a.lyzed about as effectively as the in- ternal effect of watching the color-s.h.i.+ft on the skin of a bubble or that silent explosion somewhere inside the midriff which is one of the recognitions of love.

First, Zeiazny's stories are fabulous. I use this word in a special and absolutely accurate sense. Aesop did not, and did not intend to, convey a factual account of an improbably vegetarian fox equipped with speech and with human value judgments concerning a bunch of un- reachable grapes. He was saying something else and something larger than what he said. And it has come to me over the years that the greatness of literature and the importance of literary ent.i.tiesCaptain Ahab, Billy Budd, Hamlet, Job, Uriah Heep) really lies in this fabu- lous quality. One may ponderously call them Jungian archetypes, but one recognizes them, and/or their situ- ational predicaments, in one's own daily contacts with this landlord, that employer, and one's dearly beloved.

A fable says more than it says, is bigger than its own parameters. Zeiazny always says more than he says; all of his yams have applications, illuminate truths, donate to the reader toolsand sometimes weapons) with which he was not equipped before, and for which he can find daily uses, quite outside the limits of his story.

Second, there is, as one reads more and more of this extraordinary writer's work, a growing sense of excite- ment, a gradual recognition of something whichin me, 2 anyway) engenders an increasing awe. It conies, strangely enough, not from any of his many excellences, but from his flaws. For he has flaws-plenty of them.

One feels at times that a fewa very few, I hasten to add) of his more vivid turns of phrase would benefit by an application of Dulcotean artists' material, a trans- parent spray which uniformly pulls down brightness and gloss where applied). Not because they aren't beautiful -because most of them are, G.o.d knows-but because even so deft a wordsmith as Zeiazny can forget from time to time that such a creation can keep a reader from his speedy progress from here to there, and that his furniture should be placed out of the traffic pattern. It I bang my s.h.i.+n on a coffee table it becomes a little be- side the point that it is the most exquisitely crafted arti- fact this side of the Sun King. Especially since it was the Author himself who put me in a dead run. And there is the matter of exotic references-the injection of one of those absolutely precise and therefore untranslatable German philosophic terms, or a citation from cla.s.sical mythology.

This is a difficult thing to criticize without being mis- understood. A really good writer has the right, if not the duty, of arrogance, and should feel free to say anythng he d.a.m.n pleases in any way he likes. On the other hand, writing, like elections, copulation, sonatas, or a punch in the mouth, is communication, an absolute necessity to the very existence of human beings in every area, con- crete or abstract, which may be denned as that per- formed by human beings which evokes response in kind from other human beings. Communication is a double- ended, transmitter-receiver phenomenon or it doesn't exist. And if it evokes a response not in kind"what the h.e.l.l does that mean?" instead of "well of course!") it exists but it is crippled. There is a fine line, and hazy, between following the use of an exotic intrusion with a definition, which can be d.a.m.ned insulting to a reader who does understand it, and throwing him something k.n.o.bby and hard to hold without warning or subsequent explanation. Yes, a reader should do part of the work; the more he does the more he partic.i.p.ates, and the more he is led to partic.i.p.ate the better the storyand writer).

On the other hand, he shouldn't be stopped, thrown out of the current in which the author has placed him, by such menaces to navigation, however apt. It comes down to an awareness of who's listening-to whom the com- munication is addressed-and what he deserves. He de- serves a great deal, because he's at the other end of something which could not exist without him. Those of himfor he is many) who need pampering do not de- serve it. Those who can take anything a really good author can throw at him are an author's joy-but always a small part of that multifaceted and very human ent.i.ty.

The Reader. There is always, for a resourceful writer, a way to maximize communication by means acceptable to a writer's arrogance; all he has to do is to think of it.

10.In a writer less resourceful than Zeiazny we readily 3 forgive his inability to think of it, but this writer doesn't have that excuse. Which brings this comment down to its point: Roger Zeiazny is a writer of such merit that one judges him by higher standards than those one uses on others-a cross he will bear for all his writing life. Hap- pily, the shoulders that bear it are demonstrably well muscled.

The larger point, derived from this consideration of flaws, has to do with the kind of flaws they are. For in none of the things I have mentioned, nor in the ones I could, is a single one stemming from inability. Every single one is the product of growth, expansion, trial, pa.s.sage, flux. There is nothing so frightening to be said about a writeralthough some writers are not frightened by it) as the laudatory comment "finish." A perfectly faceted diamond is beautiful to behold, and is by its very existence proof of high skill and hard work; but it has nowhere to go, intrinsically, from there. A great tree reaches its ultimate "finish" when it is killed; and it may then become toothpicks or temples, but as a tree it is dead and gone. Only that which is in constant, day-by- day, cell-by-cell change is alive. And it is in this area that I have detected and increasingly feel a sense of awe in Zeiazny's work, for he is young and already a giant; he has the habit of hard work and of learning, and shows no slightest sign of slowing down or of being diverted.

I do not know him personally, but if I did, if I ever do, I would want more than anything else to convey to him the fact that he can and has evoked this awe-that the curve he has drawn with his early work can be extended into true greatness, and that if he follows his star as a writer all other things will come to him. If ever anything seems more important to him-he must know that it isn't If ever anything diverts him from writing, he must know to the marrow that whatever it is or appears to be, it is a n lesser thing than his gift. He gives no evidence to date that he has stopped growing or that he ever will.

Do you know how rare this is?

The four stories in this book, listed here by my own in- tensely personaland therefore, to you, perhaps fallible) system of ascending excellence, are all of that wondrous species which makes me envy anyone who has not read them and is about to.

The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth is all size and speed, which would be a good story if told purely in a write-what-happens, this-is-the-plot style, and which would also be a good story if it confined itself to what went on in the heads and in the hearts of its peo- ple, and which is a good story on both counts.

The Furies is a tour de force, the easy accomplishment of what most writers would consider impossible, and a few very good ones insuperably difficult. Seemingly with the back of his hand, he has created milieu, characters and a narrative goal as far out as anyone need go; he 4 makes you believe it all the way, and walks off breathing easily leaving you gasping with a fable in your hands.

The Graveyard Heart is in that wonderful category which is, probably, science fiction's greatest gift to lit- erature and to human beings: the "feedback" story, the "if this goes on" story; an extension of some facet of the current scene which carries you out and away to times and places you've never imagined because you can't; and when it's finished, you turn about and look at the thing he extended for you, in its here-and-now reality, sharing this very day and planet with you; and you know he's told you something, given you something you didn't have before, and that you will never look at this aspect of your world with quite the same eyes again.

A Rose for Ecclesiastes is one of the most important stories I have ever read-perhaps I should say it is one 12.of the most memorable experiences I have ever had. It happenswell, I told you this was an intensely personal a.s.signment of ranki) that this particular fable, with all its truly astonis.h.i.+ng twists and turns, up to and most painfully including its wrenching denouement, is an agonizing a.n.a.logy of my own experience; and this astro- nomically unlikely happenstance may well make it what it is to me and may not reach you quite as poignantly. If it does it will chop you up into dog meat. But as objec- tive as I can be, which isn't very, I still feel safe in stat- ing that it is one of the most beautiful written, skillfully composed and pa.s.sionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever.

Briefly, let me commend to your attention two novels by Roger Zeiazny, This Immortal and The Dream Master,9 and sum up everything I have said here, and a good many things I have not said; sum up all the thoughts and feelings I hold concerning the works of Roger Zeiazny, past and to come; sum up what has struck me at each of the peaks of all of his narratives, and without fail, so far, at that regretful moment when I have turned down the last page of any and all of them; sum up all this in one word, which is: Grateful.

Theodore Sturgeon Sherman Oaks, California.

*Both ACE Books.

THE FURIES.

As an afterthought, -Nature sometimes tosses a bone to those it maims and casts aside. Often, it is in the form of a skill, usually useless, or the curse of intelligence.

When Sandor Sandor was four years old he could name 5 all the one hundred forty-nine inhabited worlds in the galaxy. When he was five he could name the princ.i.p.al land ma.s.ses of each planet and chalk them in, roughly, on blank globes. By the time he was seven years old he knew all the provinces, states, countries and major cities of all the main land ma.s.ses on all one hundred forty-nine inhabited worlds in the galaxy. He read Landography, History, Landology and popular travel guides during most of his waking time; and he studied maps and travel tapes. There was a camera behind his eyes, or so it seemed, because by the time he was ten years old there was no city in the galaxy that anyone could name about which Sandor Sandor did not know something.

And he continued.

Places fascinated him. He built a library of street guides, road maps. He studied architectural styles and princ.i.p.al industries, and racial types, native life forms, local flora, landmarks, hotels, restaurants, airports and seaports and s.p.a.ceports, styles of clothing and personal ornamentation, climatic conditions, local arts and crafts, 14.dietary habits, sports, religions, social inst.i.tutions, cus- toms.

When he took his doctorate in Landography at the age of fourteen, his oral examinations were conducted via closed circuit television. This is because he was afraid to leave his home-having done so only three times before in his life and having met with fresh trauma on each occasion. And this is because on all one hundred forty- nine inhabited worlds in the galaxy there was no remedy for a certain degenerative muscular disease. This disease made it impossible for Sandor to manipulate even the finest prosthetic devices for more than a few minutes without suffering fatigue and great pain; and to go out- side he required three such devices-two legs and a right arm-to subst.i.tute for those which he had missed out on receiving somewhere along the line before birth.

Rather than suffer this pain, or the pain of meeting per- sons other than his Aunt Faye or his nurse, Miss Barbara, he took his oral examinations via closed circuit television.

The University of Brill, Dombeck, was located on the other side of that small planet from Sander's home, else the professors would have come to see him, because they respected him considerably. His 855-page dissertation, "Some Notes Toward a Gravitational Matrix Theory Governing the Formation of Similar Land Ma.s.ses on Dissimilar Planetary Bodies," had drawn attention from Interstel University on Earth itself. Sandor Sandor, of course, would never .see the Earth. His muscles could only sustain the gravitation of smaller planets, such as Dombeck.

And it happened that the Interstel Government, which monitors everything, had listened in on Sander's oral ex- aminations and his defense of his dissertation.

6 a.s.sociate Professor Baines was one of Sander's very few friends. They had even met several times in person, in Sandor's library, because Baines often said he'd 15.wanted to borrow certain books and then came and spent the afternoon. When the examinations were concluded, a.s.sociate Professor Baines stayed on the circuit for sev- eral minutes, talking with Sandor. It was during this time that Baines made casual reference to an almost uselessacademically, that is) talent of Sander's.

At the mention of it, the government man's ears had p.r.i.c.ked forwardhe was a Rigellian). He was anxious for a promotion and he recalled an obscure memo. . . .

a.s.sociate Professor Baines had mentioned the fact that Sandor Sandor had once studied a series of thirty ran- dom photos from all over the civilized galaxy, and that the significant data from these same photos had also been fed into the Department's L-L computer. Sandor had named the correct planet in each case, the land ma.s.s in 29, the county or territory in twenty-six, and he had correctly set the location itself within fifty square miles in twenty-three instances. The L-L comp had named the correct planet for twenty-seven.

It was not a labor of love for the computer.

So it became apparent that Sandor Sandor knew just about every d.a.m.n street in the galaxy.

Ten years later he knew them all.

But three years later the Rigellian quit his job, dis- gusted, and went to work in private industry, where the pay was better and promotions more frequent. His memo, and the tape, had been filed, however. . . .

Bened.i.c.k Benedict was born and grew up on the wa- tery world of Kjum, and his was an infallible power for making enemies of everyone he met.

The reason why is that while some men's highest plea- sure is drink, and others are given to gluttony, and still others are slothful, or lechery is their chief delight, or F?innn-doing, Bened.i.c.k's was gossip-he was a loud- mouth.

16.Gossip was his meat and his drink, his s.e.x and his religion. Shaking hands with him was a mistake, often a catastrophic one. For, as he clung to your hand, pump- ing it and smiling, his eyes would suddenly grow moist and the tears would dribble down his fat cheeks.

He wasn't sad when this happened. Far from it. It was a somatic conversion from his paranorm reaction.

He was seeing your past life.

7 He was selective, too; he only saw what he looked for.

And he looked for scandal and hate, and what is often worse, love; he looked for lawbrealdng and unrest, for memories of discomfort, pain, futility, weakness. He saw everything a man wanted to forget, and he talked about it.

If you are lucky he won't tell you of your own. If you have ever met someone else whom he has also met in this manner, and if this fact shows, he will begin talking of that person. He will tell you of that man's or woman's life because he appreciates this form of social reaction even more than your outrage at yourself. And his eyes and voice and hand will hold you, like the clutch of the Ancient Mariner, in a sort of half dream-state; and you will hear him out and you will be shocked beneath your paralysis.

Then he will go away and tell others about you.

Such a man was Bened.i.c.k Benedict. He was probably unaware how much he was hated, because this reaction never came until later, after he had said "Good day," de- parted, and been gone for several hours. He left his hear- ers with a just-raped feeling-and later fear, shame, or disgust forced them to suppress the occurrence and to try to forget him. Or else they hated him quietly, be- cause he was dangerous. That is to say, he had powerful friends.

He was an extremely social animal: he loved atten- tion; he wanted to be admired; he craved audiences.

17.He could always find an audience too, somewhere. He knew so many secrets that he was tolerated in important places in return for the hearing. And he was wealthy too, but more of that in a moment.

As time went on, it became harder and harder for him to meet new people. His reputation spread in geometric proportion to his talking, and even those who would hear him preferred to sit on the far side of the room, drink enough alcohol to partly deaden memories of themselves, and to be seated near a door.

The reason for his wealth is because his power ex- tended to inanimate objects as well. Minerals were rare on Kjum, the watery world. If anyone brought him a sample he could hold it and weep and tell them where to dig to hit the main lode.

From one fish caught in the vast seas of Kjum, he could chart the course of a school of fish.

Weeping, he could touch a native rad-pearl necklace and divine the location of the native's rad-pearl bed.

Local insurance a.s.sociations and loan companies kept Benedict Files-the pen a man had used to sign his con- tract, his snubbed-out cigarette b.u.t.t, a plastex hanky 8 with which he had mopped his brow, an object left in security, the remains of a biopsy or blood test-so that Bened.i.c.k could use his power against those who renege on these companies and flee, on those who break their laws.

He did not revel in his power either. He simply en- joyed it. For he was one of the nineteen known para- norms in the one hundred forty-nine inhabited worlds in the galaxy, and he knew no other way.

Also, he occasionally a.s.sisted civil authorities, if he thought their cause a just one. If he did not, he suddenly lost his power until the need for it vanished. This didn't happen too often though, for an humanitarian was Bene- d.i.c.k Benedict, and well-paid, because he was labora- 18.tory-tested and clinically-proven. He could psychomet- rize. He could pick up thought-patterns originating out- side his own skull. . . .

Lynx Links looked like a beachball with a beard, a fat patriarch with an eyepatch, a man who loved good food and drink, simple clothing, and the company of simple people; he was a man who smiled often and whose voice was soft and melodic.

In his earlier years he had chalked up the most im- pressive kill-record of any agent ever employed by In- terstel Central Intelligence. Forty-eight men and seven- teen malicious alien life-forms had the Lynx dispatched during his fifty-year tenure as a field agent. He was one of the three men in the galaxy to have lived through half a century's employment with ICI. He lived com- fortably on his government pension despite three wives and a horde of grandchildren; he was recalled occasion- ally as a consultant; and he did some part-time mission- ary work on the side. He believed that all life was one and that all men were brothers, and that love rather than hate or fear should rule the affairs of men. He had even killed with love, he often remarked at Tranquility Session, respecting and revering the person and, the spirit of the man who had been marked for death.

This is the story of how he came to be summoned back from Hosanna, the World of the Great and Glorious Flame of the Divine Life, and was joined with Sandor Sandor and Bened.i.c.k Benedict in the hunt for Victor Corgo, the man without a heart.

Victor Corgo was captain of the Wallaby. Victor Corgo was Head Astrogator, First Mate, and Chief Engineer of the Wallaby. Victor Corgo was the Wallaby.

One time the Wallaby was a proud Guards.h.i.+p, an ebony toadstool studded with the jewel-like warts of 19.fast-phrase projectors. One time the Wallaby slapped 9 proud about the frontier worlds of Interstel, meting out the unique justice of the Uniform Galactic Code-in those places where there was no other law. One time the proud Wallaby, under the command of Captain Victor Corgo of the Guard, had ranged deep s.p.a.ce and become a legend under legendary skies.

A terror to brigands and ugly aliens, a threat to Code- breakers, and a thorn in the sides of evildoers every- where, Corgo and his s.h.i.+mmering funguswhich could b.u.m an entire continent under water level within a sin- gle day) were the pride of the Guard, the best of the best, the cream that had been skimmed from all the rest.

Unfortunately, Corgo sold out.

He became a heeL , ... A traitor.

A hero gone bad . . .

After forty-five years with the Guard, his pension but half a decade away, he lost his entire crew in an ill- timed raid upon a pirate stronghold on the planet Kilsh, which might have become the hundred-fiftieth inhabited world of Interstel.

Crawling, barely alive, he had made his way half across the great snowfield of Brild, on the main land ma.s.s of Kilsh. At the fortuitous moment. Death making its traditional noises of approach, he was s.n.a.t.c.hed from out of its traffic lane, so to speak, by the Drillen, a nomadic tribe of ugly and intelligent quadrapeds, who took him to their camp and healed his wounds, fed him, and gave him warmth. Later, with the cooperation of the Drillen, he recovered the Wallaby and all its arms and armaments, from where it had burnt its way to a hun- dred feet beneath the ice.

Crewless, he trained the Drillen.

With the Drillen and the Wallaby he attacked the pirates.

20.He won.

But he did not stop with that.

No.

When he learned that the Drillen had been marked for death under the Uniform Code he sold out his own spe- cies. The Drillen had refused relocation to a decent Reservation World. They had elected to continue occu- pancy of what was to become the hundred-fiftieth in- habited world in the galaxythat is to say, in Interstel).

Therefore, the destruct-order had been given.

Captain Corgo protested, was declared out of order.

10 Captain Corgo threatened, was threatened in return.

Captain Corgo fought, was beaten, died, was resur- rected, escaped restraint, became an outlaw.

He took the Wallaby with him. The Happy Wallaby, it had been called in the proud days. Now, it was just the Wallaby.

* As the tractor beams had seized it, as the vibrations penetrated its ebony hull and tore at his flesh, Corgo had called his six Drillen to him, stroked the fur of Mala, his favorite, opened his mouth to speak, and died just as the words and the tears began.