Again, Dangerous Visions Part 63

Kinsman stood there with his mouth open.

Jill came back to him. "Well? Did you get what you were after?"

"No," he said slowly. "I guess I didn't."

She started to put her hand out to him. "We never do, do we?"

Afterword.

Chet Kinsman has been with me for a long time. This is the third story about him to be published. In terms of Kinsman's own life history, this is the earliest story, the first part of his awakening to the real world. Or the first step in his fall from grace.

Kinsman was the star of a Great Unpublished Novel, written in 195051, which predicted the US vs. USSR s.p.a.ce race with amazing accuracy. At least, I've been amazed. Unluckily, though, in those early fifties there; was a Senator McCarthy running loose. Not Gene. Publishers were distinctly unhappy about a book wherein the Russians got ahead of us in s.p.a.ce. Obvious trash. And unhealthy. So that early version of Kinsman had to wait for the Russians to make his story believable. (In all honesty, the writing in that novel was pretty d.a.m.ned bad. Maybe it wasn't all all Holy Joe's fault.) Holy Joe's fault.) The Mile High Club, incidentally, is no fiction. It was described to me by a man very much like Cy Calder. The windburn and fogged goggles, however, are reasonable extrapolations of the story as I originally heard it, and I offer them as an example of the hallmark of science fiction: accurate technical detail that lends credibility and pathos to the characters and their problems.

Introduction to A MOUSE IN THE WALLS OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.

Watching a writer mature through examination of the body of the work as it grows, is an interesting pastime. A writer who begins as a bright and promising innovator, frequently plays out his song in three or four books and begins either repeating themes and approaches, or capitalizes on early success by giving the audience more of the same. Contrariwise, a writer who learns the craft through contemporary a.n.a.logues of the "pulp school"-inexpensive paperbacks, men's magazines of the lower orders, several of the lesser sf periodicals-and starts off as little better than a hack, can find a voice and a growing muscularity and develop into an important talent. There are numerous examples, they spring to mind almost unbidden, of both species of writer.

Dean Koontz represents the latter. His early work, for instance Star Quest Star Quest (Ace, 1968), reads like typical, average, not-particularly-outstanding action-adventure of the 1940's (Ace, 1968), reads like typical, average, not-particularly-outstanding action-adventure of the 1940's Amazing Stories Amazing Stories variety. His recent novels-notably the brilliant variety. His recent novels-notably the brilliant Beastchild, The Dark Symphony, Beastchild, The Dark Symphony, and and h.e.l.l's Gate h.e.l.l's Gate (all Lancer, 1970)-demonstrate a vigorous fluency of imagination, a strengthening grasp of concept and plot-material, and an emerging style very much of his own making. (all Lancer, 1970)-demonstrate a vigorous fluency of imagination, a strengthening grasp of concept and plot-material, and an emerging style very much of his own making.

Until 1969, the name Koontz was considered by many to be simply one of those mortar-in-the-c.h.i.n.ks names that filled the s.p.a.ces between Zelazny, Delany, Moorc.o.c.k and Spinrad, writers who were then drawing considerable attention with a volume of unusual and arresting stories. Koontz was just coming on the scene (when DV was a.s.sembled, his name was not even considered). But within just three years he has so solidified his position as a writer to watch, that when A,DV was on the drawing-boards, the Koontz solicitation was made a matter of immediacy. His contribution more than lives up to expectations.

If he continues as he has, the next five to seven years should see Dean Koontz rise to the enviable pinnacle of One-Mansmans.h.i.+p: the perch where he is the only man doing Dean Koontz stories, where he has the corner on a market demanding Koontz fiction.

Personally, Koontz is a very winning fellow. Met him in Pittsburgh in 1970. What's in a name? Well, seeing the cold name Dean R. Koontz in print, one gets the impression-G.o.d knows why-that he is a venerable gentleman of stooped manner and crypt breath. Not only is he a very hip and well-dressed dude in his middle twenties, but the only thing more attractive than the unseemly-named Koontz is his extravagantly beautiful wife, Gerda-which is a name I a.s.sociated till meeting her with thick-ankled hausfrau hausfrau living in Punxsutawney or possibly Przemkow-with; whose collaboration he wrote the scathing non-fiction attack on living in Punxsutawney or possibly Przemkow-with; whose collaboration he wrote the scathing non-fiction attack on The Pig Society The Pig Society (Aware Press, 1970). (Aware Press, 1970).

In addition to the previously-noted books, Dean has also produced: Fear That Man Fear That Man and and The Fall of the Dream Machine The Fall of the Dream Machine (Ace, 1969), (Ace, 1969), Dark of the Woods Dark of the Woods and and Soft Come the Dragons Soft Come the Dragons (Ace, 1970), and (Ace, 1970), and Anti-Man Anti-Man, (Paperback Library, 1970). By way of disillusioned autobiography, Dean I submits the following:

"I am somewhere around 26. I was born in a small Pennsylvania town, raised in a traditional lower-middle cla.s.s home, and went to a small, traditional Pennsylvania college. I graduated after three years of intensified study and began teaching under the Appalachian Program in a small coal mining town which, unfortunately, no longer had any operative coal mines. During that first year of idealism when public service meant more to me than money, I became quickly disillusioned. Politicians talked loudly about how much was put into the poverty program. I discovered that, once the budget was approved, the President, then a Texan whose name I have forgotten, quietly but ruthlessly halved the poverty budget. My school would be promised 20,000 dollars for work with the poverty-stricken-and receive ten. To get nine dollars worth of paperback books for use in my cla.s.ses, I had to do everything but sign away both legs to guarantee I would not split with the six dollars. Meanwhile, several thousand dollars earmarked for instructional materials in the t.i.tle III poverty cla.s.ses was rerouted into the school's fund for construction of a new gymnasium. Somehow, the priorities seemed screwed up to me.

"As my idealism slowly drained away, I began to become more conscious of the need for money. We lived the first three months of our married life in a six room rented house-with only a studio couch for a bed and a kitchen table and chairs. Oh, a used refrigerator and a hot plate (no stove). There was certainly no hope of getting rich through teaching-even if I moved to a nice, urban school district and gave up the poverty program. How to get a little extra cash? While I had been a senior at college, my creative writing teacher had advised me to send a story to Readers And Writers Readers And Writers, a new magazine aimed at college literature majors. I did. The story sold and brought a check for fifty dollars. Now, a year later, I began earnestly to try to sell more work. My first professional sale in the field was 'Soft Come the Dragons' to F&SF. When Ed Ferman bought a second story and Joe Ross at Amazing-Fantastic Amazing-Fantastic bought two more, I was hooked. bought two more, I was hooked.

"The following year, I took a job teaching English at an urban school district outside Harrisburg. In the poverty program, the students put in my cla.s.ses were all the discipline problems and the kids with police records, those the other teachers didn't want, not really those whom I could help. In this new urban situation, the students were better behaved, though generally as apathetic as they had been in the small coal-mining town. A year and a half later, disillusioned altogether, and earning enough writing to at least pay the rent, I decided to become a full time freelancer. At this supposedly advanced, upper-middle cla.s.s school district, I had been constantly on the carpet for what I taught and had been accused of teaching obscene books. Stranger in a Strange Land Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein, was one of those judged obscene. So was Catch Catch-22. No one of the administration would read the books in question. They merely a.s.sumed the parents were right and asked me not to teach the novels in question. In one instance, an administrator told me the book was obviously obscene because the cover drawing depicted a partially disrobed girl (all strategic areas, though, were covered). Aside from this incident, I found that the younger generations were no more liberal, no more aware than the older. It was just that the small percentage that has always been aware was more vocal than ever before. One or two enlightened kids in a cla.s.s of thirty, however, didn't make for enjoyable teaching. On January 27, 1969, I became a full-fledged writer.

"Thus far, I have sold over two dozen magazine stories and forty novels. I have seven other novels with my agent and have begun to branch into mainstream novels and suspense novels as well as science fiction.

"a.s.sORTED TRIVIA THAT MAY BE USEFUL: I stand slightly over 5' 10", weigh 160 pounds. I am madly addicted to movies and would one day like to see some of my suspense and mainstream work on film. I detest almost all sports. Married. No children. No religion. Read anywhere from four to six books a week. Think quite highly of John D. MacDonald. Paint and draw to relax and have actually sold some of my work to people who, apparently, were poor judges of art. Am highly interested in cla.s.sical music and some modern rock (including The Beatles) and have written an sf novel structured like a i9th Century symphony The Dark Symphony The Dark Symphony. Have worked as a stock and bag boy in a grocery store, a cleaner (by high pressure steam) of engines, a forest ranger (one full summer) in a state park, and as the aforementioned English teacher. Have played in a rock combo and have written some rock ballads. Am planning on doing at least one-and hopefully a series-of science fiction books in collaboration with Vaughn Bode, the artist-ill.u.s.trator. They will be multimedia art-and-text compilations that will go beyond mere ill.u.s.tration. Am presently collecting background for a mammoth mainstream novel about members of the paramilitary Minutemen and expect to spend six months of this year on the final writing of the book. That is all. Over and out."

A MOUSE IN THE WALLS OF THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.

Dean R. Koontz It has been three weeks now since it happened; three weeks is a long time. You would think that I could accept it now. You would think so, but I can't. Which means, while I lie here trying to remember, that secret little voice inside of me will be building up its reserves for a scream. One h.e.l.l of a scream. Then they will come up the stairs, their feet thumping on the dusty, worn tread. They will come quickly down the corridor, mumbling so low that I will not be able to understand any of what they say. One of them will kick the door open while the other will come through and cross to my bed. Ch.o.r.eography of the first cla.s.s. The one at my bed will tell me to stop screaming. I will try. Really, I will. But that secret little voice that is not really mine (they don't understand that, of course; they think I can control it) will go on and on, rising higher all the time until the one at the door will say, "Might as well get it over with." And I wonder why they bother speaking when they don't have to, when they are Empathists. "Might as well get it over with." And the other one will say, "Christ!" And then he will hit me. He will strike me with his open hands, again and again until my ears are ringing. Then he will drag me off the bed and throw me up against the wall and hit me some more with his fists until I am finally quiet. I don't think they really want to hurt me so much. It is just that it takes me so d.a.m.ned long to quit screaming.

But I've got to think about it, don't I? I mean, if there is ever to be an end to the memories, if I am ever to accept what has happened, I must go over and over and over it until I have bleached all the color out of it. All the color and sharp edges and pain. Perhaps repet.i.tion is the mother of acceptance.

I repeat...

The fan shuttles came under my window then, one every evening, came moaning down the street, their long, heavy bodies dancing daintily on toes of air. It was winter, and the snow kicked up around them in thick, fuzzy clouds until they were completely concealed in the shower they caused. Then the shuttle would stop before the lobby downstairs, up against the front steps. The fans would be turned off, and the coach would settle onto its hard rubber cus.h.i.+on as gently as the snow-flakes settled on the snow-flakes that fell before them. My bed is up against the window. I would lie there on the warm, gray blankets and watch all this with a curious, melancholy detachment, yet with a great deal of excitement for what was to come.

There would be a little while, then, when I would watch the shuttle, trying to see through the windows and pick out the pa.s.sengers by the dim glow of the ceiling lights. Most of them would be sleeping, their heads against the gla.s.s, their breath fogging the panes so-mostly-I could not see much.

After a few minutes, the door at the front of the shuttle would open, and the driver would come out, dressed in a long, blue coat that flapped in the brisk wind. He would hunch against the drive of the snow and cross the walk into the lighted lobby, out of sight. Once, when I was especially curious about what the driver did in the lobby every night, I went out into the hall and crept down the stairs (I am only on the second floor) and looked around the stairwell corner. The driver and Belias, the night manager (big man, much dark hair, little eyes, quick hands), were standing next to the lobby fireplace, drinking coffee out of heavy brown mugs. They laughed a couple of times, but did not say anything. Of course, they're Empathists and don't have to talk. After they had finished their coffee, Belias gave the driver three packages that had been mailed from the hotel post office, and the driver left, hurrying out into the snow to the snug haven of his cab. I went upstairs to my room and watched the fan shuttle leave in a gust of white. Then I cried, I think. Anyway, I never went to watch Belias and the driver again.

But I didn't stop signaling the pa.s.sengers. Every night, when the two o'clock shuttle swung in against the steps before the lobby, I would have my lamp on the windowsill, the shade off and laid carefully to the side. When the driver left the shuttle, I would rapidly flick the light on and off several times. Then I would pause, waiting for something. I was never completely sure what it was that I waited for. I guess maybe I thought someone in the bus would fiddle with the light over his seat, flash his hand over it to make it pulsate. But no one ever did.

Except once.

Three weeks ago.

Listen...

I was lying on the bed, waiting for the two o'clock shuttle. I had moved the lamp to the window and had it ready. Outside, the snow was falling, a dry snow that was easily stirred by the wind, that screeched when it was blown against the gla.s.s and whirled away like bits of sand. I kept an old s.h.i.+rt next to me to wipe my breath from the window whenever the pane got too clouded. At one minute until two, the shuttle turned into the street several blocks away, just at the edge of my vision. I had my forehead pressed hard against the gla.s.s, numbing it with the cold, and that was how I saw it so far away. First, there was just the dim glowing circles of the headlamps, cut to almost nothing by the driving snow. Then as the shuttle drew closer, the lights became bright, warm things I wanted to touch and hold. My heart was pounding as always, and my fingers were on the lamp switch.

At first, everything was as usual. The shuttle pulled against the curb, blowers whining, fountaining snow on all sides. It settled into the thick white carpet, and the rotars stopped beating altogether. The driver got out and went into the lobby, leaving the pa.s.sengers alone. Almost panting, trembling, I flicked the lamp on and off six times, then stopped and waited.

That was when things changed. Someone returned my signal. There was a flicker of yellow. Another. A third. Six in all. Frantically, I wiped the window to be sure I hadn't been seeing things, a trick of lights reflecting on my gla.s.s from farther down the street. I signaled again. Now the window was clear, and there was nothing to obstruct my view of the cigarette lighter that burned, then flicked off, then burned again.

I think I laughed. I know I lunged against the window, trying to see better, for that was when I knocked the lamp off the sill. It bounced once on my bed, fell over the side, and smashed loudly on the floor.

I scrambled after it, discovered the bulb was ruined. The rest of the lamp seemed undamaged. But I needed a bulb. Any minute now, the driver might finish his coffee and go back to the bus, leaving me alone, taking away the man or woman with the lighter and leaving me by myself. I needed a bulb. Badly.

I remembered the one in the floor lamp on the other side of the room. In the darkness, I stumbled across to it, tripped over a leg of my only chair, and fell before I could throw my hands up to protect my face. I bruised my jaw and snapped off the end of a front tooth. The tooth was driven forward into my lip which was bleeding steadily and which was the only thing that really hurt. I lay dazed, feeling the floor roll under me like small breakers on a warm beach. Finally, I got up and went on, found the floor lamp and tried to get the bulb out of it.

My hands don't work so good. They were both broken several times and never set properly. I'm missing three fingers altogether, which doesn't help much. And I don't have any feeling in my right thumb, though it can grip things readily enough. I was a musician. That's why it was just my hands that were worked over. I really didn't get as bad treatment as some Stunteds got.

I fumbled with the bulb, but it kept slipping out of my hands. I cursed it, wrenched at it, tripped again, bringing the lamp down onto the floor with me.

Well, dammit, you know how it was. A man comes along with the Empathy Circuits to augment the brain, and you are happy to let them install one in your own head. I mean, everyone's one big family now. No war. No misunderstandings. Only love. Right? Well, eventually. It's going to be great. Someone's having problems, everyone helps straighten him out, gives him love and understanding so that he can eventually come to terms with himself. And no words are needed. Man, not when everyone is an Empathist! So you come out of the operating room, chrome and white and tile and crisp nurses and doctors that smell of antiseptics, all around you. And that's when you find out, in your case, the circuits didn't work. At first, everyone is afraid, because they think it means a lot of people are going to be unreachable. Then, five years later and a few billion simple operations later, they know the unreachables are not many. Just a few. Stunteds. Closed to telepathic understanding. Always wanting to talk, talk, talk when talk is no longer necessary. So they are singled out immediately as being different. Different. And one day when some of your children and more perverted older citizens beat a Stunted around just for fun, you join in. It wears off, this streak of sadism, and you are ashamed. Mankind is rapidly approaching total sanity and you realize your attack on the Stunteds was a last fling of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, the last brutal act before the coming of age. So the next stage in the Empathist establishment's treatment of the Stunteds is to, in a flurry of liberalism, pa.s.s flocks of laws under whose wings the Stunteds will be protected. So things are rosy, right? So there is a happy ending, check? So, forget the Stunteds. And slowly, it becomes obvious that the Stunteds need more than laws to protect them from physical violence. There is another kind of violence that is much more deadly, much more defeating. It is the violence of indifference, the violence of being a caste apart from the rest of the world, the violence of being ignored, the violence of sitting alone, living on a pension, searching through the tattered, yellowed pages of old books for the lingering warmth of human understanding the writer may have been able to impart to his words. Look up other Stunteds. Yeah, try that. Only problem is that there are only fifteen thousand of them in a world of four and a half billion. And when you do find some, you discover that the mental type that is not susceptible to the Empathy Circuits is not always stable to begin with. Finally, you realize there is no place to go. Absolutely no place at all...And the men who keep them, the sleazy hotel operators, the two-bit roominghouse executives don't mind beating them a little to keep them quiet, because Stunteds don't really exist, do they? They aren't really people, are they? It is no longer the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity of out-and-out torture, just the rather boring, necessary task of discipline.

I lay with the lamp, holding it, saying, "Dear Jesus, don't let the bulb be broken; Dear Jesus, don't let the bulb be broken," over and over until I suddenly realized how eerie I sounded. I s.h.i.+vered a while and felt like I might vomit. Then I pulled myself together and felt around the inside of the lampshade. The bulb was intact. I whimpered while I fumbled it out of its socket, but I couldn't help it. I was so happy!

A minute later, I was back at the window. The shuttle was still there, but it could not stay for long. I picked up the table lamp and tried to unscrew the broken bulb. My hands slipped, and I slashed my fingers on the paper-thin gla.s.s, but I got it out. I screwed the new bulb in and brought the lamp back to the window. I was about to flash a signal to the pa.s.senger with the cigarette lighter when the driver and Belias came out of the hotel lobby.

I stopped my work and leaned my head against the gla.s.s, s.h.i.+vering. I felt miserable. My head was all covered with sweat. It dripped into my eyes and made them sting. Yet my stomach was cold-cold and flopping around like a dying fish. I had missed my chance. I had utterly missed it. After a few moments, I raised my head and looked back at the shuttle, expecting it to be gone. I don't know why I was still interested in watching it. Perhaps it was because I was curious about Belias being outside. He never went outside before. It was always the other way around: the driver came in. And they drank coffee by the fireplace and laughed but didn't talk and transferred the mail and I cried about it but didn't know why. Anyway, when I looked up, I saw something else strange. Belias and the driver were lifting the sidewalk SHUTTLE STOP sign into the luggage rack on the rear of the bus. They shoved it back in. The driver stayed there, chaining it in place so it would not roll against the pa.s.sengers' luggage. Belias went back inside. When he finished with the sign, the driver followed him.

There was more snow.

I watched it.

I watched the dark shapes of the pa.s.sengers' heads against the window, thought about them resting in there between sleep and wakefulness, thought about them being lulled by the dull roar of the blades and the soft swish of the snow as they barreled through the night from one place to another.

Then I remembered the lamp.

I was about to signal when Belias and the driver returned. They were carrying a lobby sign indicating the hours the shuttles arrived and departed, rates and so forth. They started putting that in the luggage compartment too.

And then I understood. The fan shuttle was not going to come through town anymore. This was the last trip. From now on, some new air-cus.h.i.+on by-pa.s.s, some fast solid surface that would give the fans a better beat top to press against. An open stretch without buildings on both sides so that there would be no necessity to cut speed to keep from breaking windows. They would go away, leaving the streets empty, and that was how the streets would stay. Tomorrow night, I would look out the window, and there would be no warm, yellow lights coming brighter and brighter. There would be no thundering fans. No clouds of displaced snow.

The lamp switch was slick with blood from my fingers.

I got off the bed and found the door, somehow. I had to get down there. There was nothing to do but get down there. I went into the hallway and started running, but found I was going in the wrong direction. I came to a dead end on the other side of the hotel and just stood there, trying to think what had happened. Then I remembered where the stairs were and said, "s.h.i.+t!" though I almost never swear, and ran back the other way. I found the stairs and went banging down them and across the raggedy lobby carpet.

I pushed through the gla.s.s doors and went down the steps. I slipped on the ice and fell across the sidewalk, caking myself with dry snow that melted against me and became ice on my clothes when it refroze. I remember that I was crying-and that I was embarra.s.sed because I was crying-and that I just couldn't stop. Again, my gut heaved like I would vomit, but all that came out of my throat was a dry, racking heave that made my eyes water. And me a grown man.

The driver and Belias had not seen me yet. I got up and swayed back and forth, the wind very cold and sharp against my skin. I went along the side of the shuttle until I found the fifth window where the cigarette lighter had fluttered. I rapped on the gla.s.s until a face turned to me. It was a woman, very heavyset, with long, stringy brown hair. She looked at me oddly while she tried to find my thought lines, then opened her mouth in a little round "O" and looked right through me-that look a Stunted gets used to.

I shouted at her. "Hey!" I beat on her window. "Hey! Hey!"

Suddenly there were arms around me, Belias' arms. He held me firmly, and I finally stopped trying to get away. The driver came around and looked at the woman in the seat. They were all talking, but I couldn't hear any of it. Then I saw a small boy in the seat beside the woman, and I guessed what it had been. The boy had seen me flicking the light and had taken his mother's lighter out of her purse. Maybe she was asleep, one of those lulled by the rus.h.i.+ng and the beating of the fast machine. He had flicked it at me in answer. His mother had awakened and had taken it from him, had changed seats with him to keep him out of trouble.

Children are the only ones who can really be cruel anymore. They go through a stage when taunting is fun to them.

But, at least, there was one consolation.

He did not look through me.

No gla.s.s eyes. No fish stares. Our eyes met once, quickly, before Belias carried me back inside.

He made me go back to my room, back to my bed. I lay with my face down on the mattress, panting and shaking and trying to think. Then there was the roar of the fan shuttle blowers starting up. I got quickly to the window, kneeling on the bed, just in time to see the bus disappear down the road, its canopy of blown snow sealing it permanently out of sight.

That was when I started to scream.

Belias came and kicked open the door. The other man, whose name I do not know, came to me and told me to stop. I tried to stop. I really did. But the repressed sob would catch in my throat when I tried to force it down and come back twice as hard. I screamed and cried and couldn't seem to make enough noise to satisfy me. I thought of the quiet streets, the quiet snow falling softly, noiselessly upon other snow; I thought of the quiet of the hotel and of the quiet way in which the driver and Belias had talked to the fat woman. I screamed even louder. The nameless one backhanded me several times across the face, then dragged me from the bed and threw me against the wall the way he always does. He slammed a fist into my stomach three times, very quickly, and knocked all the breath out of me. But I screamed silently. And when the breath came back, the scream came with it.

Belias crossed to my lamp and turned it on. The light was dim and ugly. The second one thrust me into a chair and began slapping me again and again, back and forth, top to bottom, until there was blood coming out of my nose. He split my lip farther than my fall had, and he punched once at my teeth, breaking loose the one I had partially damaged earlier.

While he was. .h.i.tting me, I saw his face for the first time. It had always been dark before, and I had never been able to see him. It was an ordinary face-except that he was not looking through me. He was looking at me. Directly at me. And he was laughing. His mouth was pried wide by his broad, white teeth, and there was laughter wrapped around his tongue. I knew, immediately, why he was able to beat me. He was not an Empathist. He was a Stunted like me. Probably roomed here too. A sort of handy man to keep the other invisible people quiet.

I stopped screaming.

They watched me a moment.

I stared back at them.

They went away, leaving me in the dim light.

I found my way to the bed and stretched out on it, tasting blood and salt. Far away, in another room, a woman was screaming. She's the one who breaks things too. She's the blonde. Or she used to be before her hair turned color. I remember her. I remember her sleek loins, the moment when our friends.h.i.+p had changed, the moment when we had lain together, the moment of sliding, sleek, long, trembling penetration, that special closeness that changes always and forever any friends.h.i.+p. I remembered our falling away after that special closeness-and the discovery that the short minutes of connection, the fleeting seconds of tight, wet togetherness had only served to indicate how bad the loneliness was the rest of the time.

And now she was screaming. She was too old to find, in copulation, even fleeting seconds of warmth and light. And I guess I had started her. I was sorry my screaming had triggered hers. I was sorry I had caused the scene at the bus. I was sorry that I was a Stunted. But sorrow, after all, does absolutely nothing. It is much like holy water. It is not even used to quench the thirst.

That was three weeks ago. And I still don't want to remember. I listen for the fan shuttle, for the thumpa-thumpa of its blades. I lie awake until five or six in the morning, thinking that surely it must just be late. Sometimes, like now, I force myself to remember. I am too old for delusion. I am sixty-five. I was twenty-four when the operation failed. I am sixty-five. My hands are liver-spotted. My hair is very white. White as the snow outside, you might say. So I am remembering now, and the room is quiet. The snow falls against the pane, quietly. I snap my fingers to break the quiet, but it seems as if there is no noise. I snap again. There is no noise. And now I think I will have to scream for Belias and the second one without a name...

Afterword.

The most common civilian reaction to the discovery that you are a writer is to be asked, usually in a tone of fatuous condescension (after all, you don't don't have a regular job, do you; you don't follow the Great American Tradition of the nine-to-five existence, do you?) something quite like, "Where do you get all your ideas?" To answer this in depth would require seven or eight hours of the questioner's time. Considering his attention span is usually one minute and forty-eight seconds and that he has never read a book in his life (recent studies show that fifty-eight per cent of the American public is willing to admit just that), a seven hour response would not be fitting. So you shrug and say, "From life," or some other equally vague and pointless generality. have a regular job, do you; you don't follow the Great American Tradition of the nine-to-five existence, do you?) something quite like, "Where do you get all your ideas?" To answer this in depth would require seven or eight hours of the questioner's time. Considering his attention span is usually one minute and forty-eight seconds and that he has never read a book in his life (recent studies show that fifty-eight per cent of the American public is willing to admit just that), a seven hour response would not be fitting. So you shrug and say, "From life," or some other equally vague and pointless generality.

But since this is labeled as an afterword, and since you are reading it, a complete answer is obviously in order this time. Not seven or eight hours' worth, but just a few minutes on this story alone.

A writer of any genre of fiction-aside from the Western and the historical novel-must keep abreast of developments in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, social science, and philosophy. This is especially so for writers of science fiction. It is with one, beady eye open for possible plots, therefore, that I devour magazines and books in many different fields. When I first discovered Marshall McLuhan's philosophic mutterings in The Medium is the Ma.s.sage The Medium is the Ma.s.sage and and War and Peace in the Global Village War and Peace in the Global Village, I realized that here was a veritable gold mine of story ideas.

McLuhan theorizes, among other things, that the world has and will continue to become, due to electronics-telstar in particular-a Global Village. He foresees the day when national boundaries might disappear, all men might become as citizens of a single town, increased swiftness and completeness of communication bringing an understanding between men heretofore impossible. For my first extrapolation on McLuhan, I wrote a novel, The Fall of the Dream Machine The Fall of the Dream Machine, which tried to depict what would happen to the power cencentration in such a drastically shrunken world. Logically, the power structure would be managed by fewer hands than at any time in history. It might very well be possible, then, to have our first global dictator, though he would have to be a businessman rather than a politician. A second attempt at this extrapolation produced a short story, "A Dragon in the Land", that dealt with the growth of understanding between people due to a world-shrinking war. The story dealt more with human relations.h.i.+ps than had the novel. I liked it better, but it still did not sum up all I felt about the Global Village concept. Next came a mainstream novel t.i.tled Hung Hung (from the catchphrase "hung-up") set in the present in the hippie subculture of a small university. I was trying to show that our world was already being compressed and what it was meaning to us. A war in Asia, for example, something we would once have been able to sweep under the rug (considering the country is a minor one), was setting moral reverberations around the world. This is a sign that McLuhan is on the right track. When (from the catchphrase "hung-up") set in the present in the hippie subculture of a small university. I was trying to show that our world was already being compressed and what it was meaning to us. A war in Asia, for example, something we would once have been able to sweep under the rug (considering the country is a minor one), was setting moral reverberations around the world. This is a sign that McLuhan is on the right track. When Hung Hung was finished, however, I knew I had still not said exactly what I felt about McLuhan's prophecy-philosophy. Yes, it would require another story. A science fiction story. Thus came the piece you have just read. was finished, however, I knew I had still not said exactly what I felt about McLuhan's prophecy-philosophy. Yes, it would require another story. A science fiction story. Thus came the piece you have just read.

I wanted to show both the good and bad aspect of such a "world neighborhood." Surely, there might be an end to nations, better understanding between peoples, and an end to war. But it would mean something else, too, something altogether unpleasant. In a world so tightly knit, what will happen to ethnic backgrounds? Will we become merely an amalgam, a bland mixture, and not retain the individual, rich heritages? And what will happen to those who can't manage to blend with the Great All? The Global Village, with its whiz-bag, flash-crackle, snap-pow electronics, will try to brainwash and standardize its citizens as no society ever has before-simply because there will be no alternatives for the disenchanted, no place else to go...

In this story, the hero is alienated from the Global Village of the Empathists because of a medical-scientific problem. In a larger sense, he represents any man who is alienated from society for whatever reasons. The truly frightening thing is that he is living in a future wherein, by and large, everyone is happier than at any other time in history. Yet his existence is a nightmare. Even in Utopia, then, there are dark corners. The Global Village might be nice, but it will not be a place for loners, for those who are different, for the iconoclast. It will be a place of gla.s.s walls that can't risk vibrations. And if you don't fit, the only thing you can do is exactly what the hero of this little story does. Scream for the one without a name and hope he will kill you this time...

Introduction to GETTING ALONG.

For over thirty years James Blish has been the most consistent, loudest voice in the field for literacy, grace and technical expertise in writing speculative fiction. Both as himself and as "William Atheling, Jr." he has fought the good fight: as the former, by example, with stories of power and rigorously-manipulated imagination, with elegance in his writing, with a frequently cerebral appeal too often ignored in sf...and as the latter, with critical writings that have informed and sustained an entire generation of new writers, proffering literary standards by which to judge our best and our worst. Of all the writers one might call "giant," Jim Blish is certainly most deserving of the t.i.tle.

Further, he is impeccably honest.

No one has greater cause to know this than your editor. I won't go into it-I have elsewhere, if I recall-but Jim's position seems always to have been one that is best encapsulated by a quotation from a silent Doug Fairbanks film, Don Q, Son of Zorro Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), in which Fairbanks, as Don Cesar de Vega, apologizes for having offended someone, and when his compatriots bring him to task for it, he tells them, "When you're in the right, fight; when you're in the wrong, acknowledge it." I've seen Jim Blish do that in print, and knowing how difficult it is to backtrack, I take it to be a singular mark of the man's honesty. (1925), in which Fairbanks, as Don Cesar de Vega, apologizes for having offended someone, and when his compatriots bring him to task for it, he tells them, "When you're in the right, fight; when you're in the wrong, acknowledge it." I've seen Jim Blish do that in print, and knowing how difficult it is to backtrack, I take it to be a singular mark of the man's honesty.

Further, he is incorruptible.

He values his integrity more highly than any man I've ever met. Hired to do a series of adaptations of Star Trek Star Trek scripts for Bantam paperbacks, Jim found himself confronted, on one occasion, by a puzzle that might have stumped Solomon. The filmed version of one script was vastly different from the original version written by a certain sf writer. Jim had to please the Bantam people, the producers of the show, the honchos at Paramount Pictures, and he didn't want to insult the sf writer who'd done the script, which original he'd liked. You or I, we'd have just sidestepped the problem and adapted something else; but Jim carefully took the best of scripts for Bantam paperbacks, Jim found himself confronted, on one occasion, by a puzzle that might have stumped Solomon. The filmed version of one script was vastly different from the original version written by a certain sf writer. Jim had to please the Bantam people, the producers of the show, the honchos at Paramount Pictures, and he didn't want to insult the sf writer who'd done the script, which original he'd liked. You or I, we'd have just sidestepped the problem and adapted something else; but Jim carefully took the best of both both versions and wrote a marvelously ameliorative paragraph explaining that this was a version cannibalizing both. And everyone was content. versions and wrote a marvelously ameliorative paragraph explaining that this was a version cannibalizing both. And everyone was content.

Further, he is patient with those who need to learn.

Without flying into the towering rage taken as refuge by so many other observers of the sf scene-and I shamefacedly admit to being one of those lesser mortals-he has over and over again tried to point out to advocates of the Old Wave/New Wave controversy that every writer tagged, as being a member of the "New Wave," has vehemently denied it every writer tagged, as being a member of the "New Wave," has vehemently denied it. Even Blish's calm and reasoned sanity, however, has done little to stifle the, er, piercing piercing tirades of those who would not only deny writers hungry to test the parameters of the sf equation their new forms and daring experiments...but continue to joust with paper tigers by insisting that the more avant-garde wish to deny that right to their brothers and sisters tagged "Old Wave." It is, at core, a moron's jehad. As Blish has noted, patient with the dull and even the humorless who are doomed to see the world with tunnel vision, the universe of speculative fiction is wide enough, colorful enough, rich enough, to support tirades of those who would not only deny writers hungry to test the parameters of the sf equation their new forms and daring experiments...but continue to joust with paper tigers by insisting that the more avant-garde wish to deny that right to their brothers and sisters tagged "Old Wave." It is, at core, a moron's jehad. As Blish has noted, patient with the dull and even the humorless who are doomed to see the world with tunnel vision, the universe of speculative fiction is wide enough, colorful enough, rich enough, to support all all forms, forms, all all styles, styles, all all writers. writers.