Again, Dangerous Visions Part 54

Morrisot whispered, Thank G.o.d!" The Major ordered his troops to fire. Marmoutier protested incoherently. The shots rang out like a triple thunderclap.

The Neanderthaloid spun round on the mountain top and fell over the cliff spectacularly.

The cameramen fingered their zoom-lenses, while Morrisot retched quietly.

The troops found the two bodies dead at the foot of the cliff, and carried them back to the escarpment. The Major, vindictive over the insult to French womanhood, ordered the troops to fire light mortars into the caves.

When the smoke had cleared they entered the caves and found all the Neanderthaloids dead (three male adults, four females, and one female child) except for one male three-year-old, wounded in the belly, clinging to his mother.

They carried him by stretcher to the road, and from there by car to Ajac-cio Hospital.

The unedited film was shown on television from the Nice studios, that evening, and carried by satellite all over the world. There was a long program featuring interviews with politicians, military experts, psychologists, friends of Denise, and scientists from many disciplines.

Major Sauvage was forbidden by his Field Marshal to take part in the discussion. Professor Marmoutier stressed the ritual nature of the coitus, and compared the fourteen or fifteen pelvic thrusts of the Neanderthaloid to those of a baboon. Chief-Constable Piron testified to the mental instability of Mme. Blondel. Psychologists speculated obscurely about her motives. Morrisot could only say: Greedy b.i.t.c.h-just wanted them for herself," before bursting into tears and das.h.i.+ng out of the studio.

Later in the evening it was announced that the surviving male child had died in hospital and that the carca.s.ses of the Neanderthaloids, or what remained of them, had been frozen, and sent by plane to the Musee de 1'Homme for examination, dissection and a.n.a.lysis.

Afterword.

Epiphany for Aliens" fits into the general category of stories about nice but destructive monsters. The genre has a pedigree at least as old as Frankenstein, though the main influence on me has been 1950's, Hollywood, B-feature, monster films (you know, frozen prehistoric monster awakened by A-bomb test in the North Pole, wreaks vengeance on the hubris of scientists before capitulating to human technology in the final holocaust in the last reel).

I've always had a sneaking feeling that in the Darwinian battle between Neanderthal man and h.o.m.o Sapiens the best man lost. The idea of a group of Neanderthaloids surviving satisfies a personal fantasy for me-like the teenagers who believed in the immortality of James Dean after his crash. For me, Neanderthal man provides a useful symbol of the ecological disruption of this planet caused by man's technology (plenty of animal species really have been wiped out).

The story is set near a Mediterranean holiday locale because I like the irony of the prehistoric Neanderthaloids being discovered close to the ersatz, back-to-the-sea primitivism of holiday makers.

I have set the story in present-day France because a concern with man's position in his whole environment is very much part of the French political and philosophical mentality. Rousseau was perhaps as influential as Marx for a source of ideas in the May 1968 rising in France. Denise Blondel was, of course, active in May 1968, but the discovery of the Neanderthaloids enables her to crystalize far more completely all her feelings about the underdog. She overcompensates grotesquely, (hitherto, she had to make do with Negroes and red Indians). Needless to say her identification with the Neanderthaloids is partly s.e.xual-the murky id at last incarnate.

I'm attracted to Speculative Fiction because it is possible to write about moral or philosophical problems without sounding too pompous. But I think Speculative Fiction is the most difficult form to write; it is hard to conjure up a fantastic situation without giving the reader a long, boring descriptive introduction to explain the situation. Speculative Fiction is personally satisfying to me because it is therapeutic; I can explore my own fantasies. In Epiphany for Aliens" I was able to explore the fascist, the priggish radical, the soggy liberal and the Neanderthaloid in myself. I suspect the Neanderthaloid predominates.

Introduction to EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

Though I've spent at least two weeks in Burt Filer's company, he is one of the most enigmatic men I have ever met. I know he was married to Ann, I know they are now separated and perhaps divorced, and the last I heard of him he was in Philadelphia. Beyond that I know only that he grew up in upstate New York, received a degree in 1961 in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell, he is an inventor-having devised among other items a new type of motor, transmission and coupling-and has published speculative fiction in such magazines as If, Galaxy If, Galaxy and and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His short story Backtracked" is one of the finest short pieces I have ever read, and it should have won the Nebula in 1968. (For those curious enough to seek it out, it appeared in F&SF F&SF for June of that year.) (Ann's excellent story Settle" appeared in the same issue.) for June of that year.) (Ann's excellent story Settle" appeared in the same issue.) "Eye of the Beholder" raises some pointed questions about the nature of art and the nature of the human condition, and does it in terms fresh to speculative fiction.

In many ways it is as enigmatic a piece of work as its author.

If you are out there, Burt, get in touch.

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

Burt K. Filer THE NEW YORK TIMES, Section 2, Sunday, June 3, by Audrey Keyes-Peter Lukas' long-awaited show opened at the Guggenheim today, and may have shaken confidence in the oldest tenet of art itself: that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Reactions to his work were uncannily uniform, as if the subjective element had been removed. Mr. Lukas tends to purify and distill his art, and there is no arguing with him. The uniform reaction for every piece in the show was one of spellbound appreciation.

Of the six pieces shown, his Nereid" is the most striking. Basically an abstract woman carrying within her a star (see inset), she seems to be swimming among the galaxies. The effect is eerily successful, not only in the direct hologram as shown on the main floor, but in the Bolger-formed miniatures which make up the stabile of the second mezzanine. Usually the Bolger process-electroplating directly into a hologram-leaves an aura of heaviness about a piece, but not so Nereid."

In the stabile, the effect of lightness is further heightened by the almost total lack of supporting framework or wires among its parts. It is as if the ma.s.sive nickel abstracts do indeed weigh nothing. When asked about this eerie lightness, Mr. Lukas' reaction was a shrug and a statement to the effect that he just let himself go-and what came out was as much a surprise to him as to anyone.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, June, Book Review: Gravity Null, Discovery and Early Work," by Catherine D. Osborn, Ph.D.-When Dr.Osborn reported the existence of a partial gravity null in solid objects last year, the scientific community was widely split in its reaction. Recommendations for the n.o.bel Prize were balanced by charges of outright fraud. Supporters and skeptics alike have been waiting a more complete report of her work.

This book is that report. There is no longer room for skepticism. She has produced laboratory objects with ma.s.ses of up to twenty kilograms, whose recorded weight is under eighteen kilos.

While Dr. Osborn indicates that a causal relation between weightlessness and Steininger's Shape Factor exists, no rigorous proof is given. Whether this is due to censors.h.i.+p by NASA-who support the project-or whether a mathematical expression simply doesn't exist, is a matter of conjecture.

Included in the early chapters are photographs of several test objects," Bolger-plated holograms. Subjectively, all have remarkable beauty. Dr. Osborn herself points out their similarity to contemporary sculpture, but makes no further comment. While there are innumerable applications for gravity-insensitive ma.s.ses, Dr. Osborn has directed her efforts exclusively toward the making of an interstellar drive...

Cidi (from her initials) Osborn didn't like the shape developing in the tank, and her thin face showed it. She could swear the lasers weren't going where she aimed them, and without thinking she called over her shoulder, Z-axis is out again, Max. Check it?"

But Max wasn't there, nor would he be. Paul Stoner had decreed she'd work alone now. Typical CIA att.i.tude. Hamstring efficiency for security's sake. She shut down the tank and got up to fix the beam herself.

Crawling under the tank, she found nothing wrong with the lasers themselves, and slid back out. Cidi had a temper and was getting madder by the minute. She lifted off the back of the console. After half an hour's fuming, she found the bug: a burnt-out diode. What disturbed her even more was that they were all all getting a little brown-looking. She was wearing out the equipment. getting a little brown-looking. She was wearing out the equipment.

She replaced the panel, went around to the front, sat down. Wearing out the Bolger gear, and maybe herself too. The last six months had been murder. She'd lost weight. Cidi hated to look scraggly. Everyone thought women scientists should look scraggly.

With a sigh, she typed in the equation for a sphere. The tank across the room lit up, and in thirty seconds a transparent blue ball a.s.sembled itself in the mist. Three-dimensional, coherent light interferometry.

Cidi checked her notes. It needed to be bigger. She typed in a different constant, and the ball grew.

Next, a rambling series of careful pecks bent the sphere into a saddle-shaped curve, with a sort of orange-peel bottom. Getting there. She bent closer to the keyboard, poking her gla.s.ses back up the bridge of her thin straight nose. Getting there...

She heard Paul Stoner come in behind her, knowing it was he even without turning around. Two reasons: one, he was the only one allowed in the lab-his own rule. And two, he had asthma and his nose whistled.

"Cidi, look."

Now she turned. The rumpled middle-aged man held out a rumpled middle-sized package. Good," she said. How'd you get him to part with it?"

Paul came across the room, put the bundle on the steel-topped lab table, took out a Kleenex and blew his nose. Well, first I told him I was with International Review International Review, a photographer. He said no soap, that he has a show in Brussels next month, and doesn't want any advance releases to spoil his impact.

"So then I said, actually, I was an amateur sculptor myself, and wanted to study him. Bad move, he got furious. Apparently every time he lends things out, they either get copied or stolen. He said so many people had broken into his apartment that he had to move out to the country, and almost live in hiding.

"So I leveled with him, showed him my CIA card and some other stuff. He was skeptical. I told him a little about your work. He said okay then, but wasn't above socking me for a hundred dollars rental." Paul was untying the string. "Which is a waste, Cidi. You'd have to see this guy. An animal. Believe me, any resemblance between his work and yours is superficial."

Cidi nodded. "Probably. Still, I'm glad we can check it out."

As she spoke the final wrappings fell away. Amid the wrinkled paper, a miniature of Nereid Nereid lay exposed. lay exposed.

Cidi took a long breath, then let it out. She went to the thing, touched it. "I've seen the pictures. They're right, you know. Inarguably Inarguably beautiful. The most-" beautiful. The most-"

"Until Lukas carves something better," Paul said, hefting it speculatively. "Hollow, I think. At least that internal figure."

Cidi guessed he was right, put it on the X-ray table anyway. It was not hollow. It was solid. She felt the sort of bright shock that comes with just missing a truck. "He's so far ahead of me it's unbelievable. This thing is inches from totally ignoring gravity!"

Nereid had been made from thirty pounds of electrolytic nickel. had been made from thirty pounds of electrolytic nickel. Nereid Nereid weighed eight pounds. weighed eight pounds.

"Paul, we've got to get hold of the equations he used. Every curve, every I plane on this thing."

"Equations? Lukas never finished high school. He wouldn't know a polynomial from a dirty word."

Cidi's face got blotchy. She was not pretty when angry. It's so unfair unfair. I sit here turning into a hag for six years, and then this idiot comes along. d.a.m.n!"

Paul, who didn't understand women who got mad instead of crying, wisely shut up. She calmed down quickly.

"Okay. What sort of equipment does he use?"

"Bolger tank, like yours."

"Input too? He can't use a console if he doesn't know math."

Paul blew his nose, apologizing with his eyes. He talks to it."

"He talks talks to it. Beautiful. No permanent records." She actually groaned. That leaves just one approach: the hologram projector itself. If you could get hold of the thing, I could a.n.a.lyze it." to it. Beautiful. No permanent records." She actually groaned. That leaves just one approach: the hologram projector itself. If you could get hold of the thing, I could a.n.a.lyze it."

Paul began wrapping up Nereid Nereid. Okay, I'll get it." The pudgy CIA man left, and Cidi Osborn returned to her work. Not that she expected to get much done.

Paul Stoner's devious mind was not too devious to try the direct approach. First, anyway. When he returned the statue to Peter Lukas, he asked if he might have a look at the holoprojector that had been used to make it.

They were at the Guggenheim, where the s.h.a.ggy sculptor had just opened his show. The museum is a big echoing funnel of a place. Peter Lukas' single-worded answer filled it. Paul smiled wanly and left.

He could understand, of course, why he'd been refused. Anyone having the projector could duplicate the sculpture. And there's no such thing as copyrights for Bolger-projections. There was also, he thought, the fear of an artist being a.n.a.lyzed by a scientist.

But Paul Stoner had the interests of the nation at heart, which justified a lot of things. To him, anyway. Peter Lukas had friends. Paul Stoner found two of them. They were young artists like Lukas himself, but nowhere nearly as successful. They were poor and a little jealous, and they could be bought.

He set them up to rob Lukas' house one night about a week later. Theoretically Lukas would be away in town, hosting patrons and the press at his show. Even if Stoner's two proteges should get caught, it would look as if a pair of artists were just copping an idea from another. No one would suspect that the CIA was quietly trying to procure an interstellar drive from a man who didn't know he even had it.

Yes, it was a good plan. If all went well, Cidi Osborn could find out what she needed, the sculpture could be returned, NASA would have their drive-and that idiot Lulcas would probably live his life out without ever knowing what he'd invented.

All did not go well.

Lukas was home early.

When he threw the light switch on in the garage, something was wrong. The switch worked harder than it should have, and up at the house, something went beep. Someone after Nereid! Nereid!

He sprinted across the garage floor, out the side door, and up the stone steps to the cottage. Only a fragment of the moon lit his way, but there was enough animal in him to make it on instinct. And enough to put a sour taste in his mouth and make his neck itchy and his armpits tight.

He shoved at the kitchen door, found it bolted. Lukas knew how to take down doors; you could tell just by looking. Backing up two steps, dropping to his palms, he kicked himself through the weathered pine planks in a bony ram.

Up the stairs. Clump, clump, lunge, and rattle round the landing. He could hear them now, scuttling across the studio floor overhead. Like rats. Up the second flight. The studio door was ajar and he could smell the Bolger tank. So they'd turned it on, had they?

He swung through the door to see Pete Santini's blue-jeaned backside drop out of sight over the window ledge. Well, now he knew who. Couldn't trust anyone. He rushed over to the window.

Out on the hummocky lawn a girl ran. Herkie Albright. Long hair streaming behind, a little cup of moonlight at her forehead, all good. Lukas wished it wasn't her.

Immediately below him Santini was just getting up after oofing. He had the projector for Nereid Nereid in one hand, while two filters still spun in the gra.s.s near the other. in one hand, while two filters still spun in the gra.s.s near the other.

"Pete!"

No answer. All right, have it your way. I can catch your lardy a.s.s. Lukas vaulted lightly over the sill, saw fifteen feet of night sky slide by, and sank to his ankles in the pine needles by the back door. Santini was halfway down the hill, running and falling and sucking wind, but moving. Lukas sprinted after him.

Herkie had Pete's old Healey revved up, and as Pete heaved his loot into the back and himself into the front, she popped the clutch. There was a whorkk of bald tires in gravel and rubber stink, and Lukas knew he'd have to jump-now.

It was a flat dive from the bank of soft dirt that edged the road. Nothing as orderly as a Hertz ad. Arms out, flying low, he landed spread-eagled across the c.o.c.kpit, as if making love to the car. His belly took most of the shock, from the top of the winds.h.i.+eld. It left stars and stripes and no breath. By the time he'd grabbed the fender mirror, the rest of him was sliding forward so that the only thing left for his other hand to hold was the b.u.mper. Still sliding forward.

The dirt and rocks of the mountain road whipped by six inches from his chin as Herkie pushed the rusty blue bomb as high as it would go in low and speed-s.h.i.+fted. The car lunged. At that precise instant, Santini got hold of Lukas' ankles and pitched them over the side.

Lukas was flying again, whipping in helpless cartwheels beside the car and then behind it. Then all it was was sound, and a hot exhaust glowing between two little taillights, and then not even that.

He didn't stop to consider that in leaping to his feet he was taking a lot for granted. But no bones gave, and he was running back up the drive. The garage door stood half open as he'd left it. Two minutes ago. The Beezer sat there glowing black, rocked up on the center stand, still warm.

Lukas threw a leg over, brought his weight down hard on the starter pedal, and got noise for an answer. Wheeling to face down the hill, Lukas wound it on.

He knew that road by Braille. He'd been up and down it a hundred times and always on this bike. s.h.i.+ft to second and bank for the hard right-hander; hang out that foot and slide, baby, or eat trees.

But did Herkie know where she was going? Hardly. She'd only been up here a few times. Always with Pete and Pete always drove. No, he'd catch them, probably before they hit the county road.

Lukas went up to third for the long straight, braked lightly, banked and cut it off for the gravel esses. Up ahead he saw the two little taillights again, heard the Healey howling, mercilessly overrewed. Oh, he'd get them.

But then what? Force them to stop? A four-hundred-pound bike against a ton of car? Still, he might scare her into it. Nothing else to do, anyway. Try it.

The Healey burned oil. Lukas could smell it; he was that close. Only fifty yards separated them now, which opened on the straights and closed on the curves. Way down the mountain, ahead of them both, occasional headlights slid down Eighty-seven.

He was gaining fast. Good, because they were running out of his kind of road-the car could outrun him on the highway. Just one hard right-hander to go, which brought his driveway parallel to Eighty-seven before angling down the face of a thirty-foot bank to meet it.

Herkie was still in second from the sound of it. But no, as they approached the final corner she s.h.i.+fted-and missed. Gears grinding, louder. Engine wailing, dropping, wailing. Taillights weaving but not turning, then dropping out of sight. Human voice, male, high. A crash, a sliding sound, a car horn, and another crash. And now one steady, skyward headlight beam and silence.

Lukas paused at the corner, looking straight down the muddy bank they'd gone over. The Healey had hit the road, slid across, gone through the rails, dropped another fifteen feet into the creekbed on the other side. Just where she'd turned over he couldn't guess. A car had stopped, another was stopping. He left the bike and walked down.

Troopers swarmed in from both directions. He'd never seen so many so fast; it was as if they were expecting something. And-what the h.e.l.l?-that CIA guy Stoner who'd rented Nereid Nereid last week, with some woman. They came over, stood beside him, all watching the troopers. last week, with some woman. They came over, stood beside him, all watching the troopers.