Again, Dangerous Visions Part 80

With Latin shrugs he was s.h.i.+pped, comatose, back to Bakersfield; and as soon as the doctor had reeled in his stethoscope and shaken his head, Mary Louise had a couple of the boys wheel Sidney into the cold room and slide him into a locker. And because Mary Louise had been unable to save Sidney while he was alive, she determined in the full flush of her love and fanaticism to save him for some life to come when she could take another crack at him. Deep inside, she distrusted the efficacy of the freezer plant, although she felt her own psychic harmony with the appropriate celestial vibrations made the plant the best bet for her customers. Accordingly, she removed two lockers, Sidney's and an empty, to a deep vault far beneath the San Pedros Mountains.

...O love of savior for sinner...O l.u.s.t of painter for canvas...oh love, oh love, oh careless love...and the dollar bills danced like phased electrons into the coffers of the Pacific Light and Power Company...

And in '76, five years before Mary Louise's own death, when the cesium-fluoride cell came out of the laboratory, she was one of the first buyers of that remarkably long-lived power source. But when she died in '81, her own survivors were not as careful about her corporeal preservation as she had been about Sidney's, and although the cesium-fluoride cell and the deep vault saw Sidney through the holocaust of the Sino-Soviet war, two major upheavals along the San Andreas fault, and something over four centuries of mortal Sturm und Drang Sturm und Drang, when he regained consciousness, the latent images of Marie, Juan, and the middle-aged couple from Ligonier, Pennsylvania, still in his retinas, he awoke alone. Mary Louise was no longer there to save him.

"Jethuth Crith!" said Sidney as a measure of awareness seeped into him. The machine whose surrounding complexity had produced instant awareness that he was no longer in Tijuana but in some place far beyond the imagination had reconst.i.tuted his tissues almost cell by cell. But marvelous as the reconstruction had been, there were small anomalies in the brain: Sidney was fifty percent deaf in one ear; his left hand trembled beyond control; he had a lisp.

...O marvel and wonder!...O future perfect!...O best of all possible worlds!...O any day now...

Sidney's voice brought a human being, a very tall woman with close-cropped white hair, red and blue lines painted on her face, and some sort of instrument in her left hand which she pointed at Sidney. Her only clothing was a slender belt from which a number of glittering appliances dangled.

Sidney shrank back into the nest of wires and tubes which surrounded him. "Doon't be frightened," said the woman in a terrifyingly strange accent. "You have be long asleep." She did something to the instrument in her hand. Sidney heard a whine and felt a plucking sensation all over his body as wires and tubes left him and retracted themselves into the monster at the foot of the bed. One tube remained, and when Sidney struggled upward to a seated position and made to lower his legs from the bed, the tall lady did something else with her instrument, the remaining tube throbbed once, and a tingling sensation in Sidney's left arm suddenly spread upward and out across his body and he sank back. "Jethuth Cri..."

He awoke again in a dimly lighted room. There were no people and there was no marvelous monster. A tray of food appeared and he ate. A screen appeared before him and two people dressed like the nurse spoke to him in odd accents. They told him of his revival, of his importance to them as the only survivor from his time, of his value to historians and physiologists. They told him of the events of the intervening centuries. He was fed again and slept again and watched the screen again and they told him of the civilization he would soon join and the role he was expected to play in it. He ate and slept and watched the screen and learned what he needed to know, and then one day the screen remained dark and a door opened into the room and the tall, white-haired lady appeared and gave him a slim belt, a map of the city, and an oddly shaped key to the living quarters he had been a.s.signed.

...arching dome and happy people...happy, happy people...rebirth of Sidney, rebirth of Buckminster Fuller, rebirth of Townsend California...and the artificial leaves in the artificial park fluttered in the artificial wind like counterfeit dollar bills cast mechanically on the white belly of an inexpert wh.o.r.e...

Sidney's first year in the San Fernando Dome went quickly. He was a dull man, but all his wants, no matter how esoteric, were provided for, either in the flesh or in perfect illusion, and because of his novelty value, he did not lack for human company.

During the second year, however, the novelty wore off. Sidney was unable to establish any sort of permanent relations.h.i.+p, and he found to his infinite surprise that he missed Mary Louise.

No one was interested in saving Sidney. No one was interested in saving anybody. There was no work for him, no need or opportunity to steal or con. Even pleasure, infinitely exquisite, infinitely realizable, becomes infinitely tedious.

In his third year, desperate with boredom, Sidney attempted a.s.sault, but the seven-footers could not be attacked with the naked fist, and they were proof against any weapons available to Sidney.

There remained only one being vulnerable to a.s.sault, only one recourse to a boredom so pervasive and desperate as to make life insupportable. In March of his fourth year in the dome, Sidney leaped from his flitter and fell two thousand feet onto the fused sand of what had once been the Mojave desert. It took them nearly a month to patch him up. In June, as soon as he felt well enough to be up and about, he took a high dive into the dome sewage disposal plant, was broken down into his component molecules, and widely distributed throughout the Northern Pacific by the j.a.panese current.

...O effulgent effluent, phosphorus gleaming...O infinite distribution and final fleeing...and the molecules Brownian danced like ping-pong b.a.l.l.s in a county fair bingo game...

Awareness once again returned to Sidney and he found himself-or that amorphous gathering of impressions, sensibilities, l.u.s.ts, hatreds, and ratiocinations which const.i.tutes self self when the distraction of flesh is temporarily removed-standing (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) in a place, near a thing, which he chose to interpret as the 63rd Street station of the Illinois Central. He was not alone, and when a thing he chose to see as a train pulled in, he was caught up in a rush of other amorphous gatherings, clouds of scintillating neural energies, seeking to board it. The cars of the train had individual compartments, each with its own door to the outside. Every amorphous gathering had a key (held in some strange fas.h.i.+on), and every key fit a door. Sidney too had a key, but his did not fit any door. After a bit, all the compartments were filled, the train gave a businesslike wail and moved off down the track in the direction of Kankakee, and Sidney found himself alone again, his useless key still held (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) in what he chose to see as his hand. when the distraction of flesh is temporarily removed-standing (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) in a place, near a thing, which he chose to interpret as the 63rd Street station of the Illinois Central. He was not alone, and when a thing he chose to see as a train pulled in, he was caught up in a rush of other amorphous gatherings, clouds of scintillating neural energies, seeking to board it. The cars of the train had individual compartments, each with its own door to the outside. Every amorphous gathering had a key (held in some strange fas.h.i.+on), and every key fit a door. Sidney too had a key, but his did not fit any door. After a bit, all the compartments were filled, the train gave a businesslike wail and moved off down the track in the direction of Kankakee, and Sidney found himself alone again, his useless key still held (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) in what he chose to see as his hand.

Another crowd arrived and another train and Sidney tried again. And then another train and another and another. Sidney gave up. He looked at his key (in some strange fas.h.i.+on). There was a number on it: 22/5/1970.

"Let's see," thought Sidney (in some strange fas.h.i.+on), "I went down to Tijuana on May 20th and it was that night I ran into Marie and Juan and then it was the second night with Marie and Juan when that old bird from Pennsylvania and his wife joined in..."

...O l.u.s.t of baker for the unformed dough...O love of savior for sinner...O love, O love, O careless love...and the now-purposeless scintillas, released from the flesh out of their time, wandered and circled the Collector and Reinserter apparatus like weary waterfowl at a long-dry lake...

"Jethuth Crith," said (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) Sidney out loud as his temporary gathering of impressions, sensibilites, l.u.s.ts, hatreds, and ratiocinations, uniquely uncollectable, and hence uniquely incapable of reinsertion in new flesh, began to disperse, began to rejoin the dispersed molecules of his old flesh, "Mary Louithe didn't thave me. She made me mith the train!"

And Sidney was indeed doomed to eternal d.a.m.nation. The dispersal went on in the slow and stately manner of such things. All summer and fall, the ocean currents spread molecules of Sidney across the broad seas; hygroscopic particles of Sidney were sucked up in thunderheads and further distributed across the broad land; and all that had been Sidney came to permeate the very fabric of the world.

And that was not all. Solar winds caught at infinitely tenuous sc.r.a.ps of Sidney and carried them elsewhere and still elsewhere. Time, which has no importance to someone in Sidney's position, flowed in its steady meaningless stream, and Sidney's dispersion continued-to the stars, to the very limits of the universe. And as he approached those limits, Sidney grew slowly aware that something-someone-was receding. And as the volume of s.p.a.ce he informed expanded, so did Sidney's power and despair, so did the joy and peace of whatever-of whom whomever-it was that he was-Sidney realized-replacing.

...O Great Chained Being...O fresh pollutant in the stream of time...O infinite distribution and recession...O pantheism and eternal panmeism...and the Gold Watch of Time is burnished as a retirement gift for the Old Chairman of the Board...

And Sidney's d.a.m.nation was complete when, his expansion finished, his size and power infinite, his dominance total over a cosmos in which there was now indeed nothing worth his stealing, he realized (in some strange fas.h.i.+on) that he was now G.o.d and that even his reincorporation in flesh, a matter now easily within his powers, would not change things much. It had after all been tried by his most immediate predecessor without notable success.

Afterword.

As a teacher of writing (them as can't can't, they say, teach teach), I suppose the most frequent question I hear from students is "where does a writer get his ideas?" I suppose there are as many answers as there are writers, but one that seems to me to cover a good deal of ground is that the writer gets his ideas when he tries to figure out something he doesn't understand.

Let's face it: very little in life makes much sense to a rational man. We are all soldiering in those ignorant armies that clash by night. Some people accept this and don't worry about it. They seem to adopt a utilitarian and canine att.i.tude and evaluate the human condition with "if you can't eat it or drink it or screw it, p.i.s.s on it." Some people try to paint or dance or sing or love or drink or smoke some sense into life. Writers try to impose form on it.

And when you extend the purview of life into the great unknowns of eschatology and the future, the preoccupations of science fiction and fantasy, what a challenge it becomes! Then it is that reader and writer alike feel like ...some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise- Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Introduction to EMPIRE OF THE SUN.

Again, another first sale writer. Andrew Weiner, from England. Never met him, don't know him, got the story in totally without warning and read it out of what editors call "the slush pile." Bought it, which should dispel any ideas paranoid amateurs have about closed shops in these books.

All I know about Weiner is what he writes below, and the fact that "Empire of the Sun" is an oddly eschatological tale that instantly commanded me to buy it.

From Mr. Weiner comes this, unfortunately written in 1969 and not brought up-to-date...but it should give at least a clue:

"Dear Mr. Ellison, "As to my biography there's really very little to tell. I am twenty years old; I lived my first eighteen years in the suburbs of North London. I have spent most of the last two years in Brighton; I am a student at the University of Suss.e.x, where I have done two out of three years for a degree in Social Psychology. I will be twenty-one next June, which is also when I finish University. I have no idea what I will do then.

"When I was younger I read a great deal of science fiction. I read very little now. My favourite authors (they are not really 'influences,' my stories are just not good enough to claim relation to theirs) are Mailer, Chandler, Greene, Ballard, d.i.c.k, Ross MacDonald. I have written perhaps eight stories in four years. 'Empire Of The Sun' is the first I have sold. In its original form it was only about the second worthwhile thing I ever wrote. The first draft was written in December 1967, your version in September 1968.

"My favourite biographical note is the Algis Budrys one in the English edition of 'Who?': 'I have seen Adolf Hitler, Henry Wallace, Franklin Roosevelt...I have shaken Harry Truman's hand...' I personally have seen Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Brown and the Stones; and once I interviewed the Pink Floyd. Who's to say which is least?

"There is a quote I always wanted to use in a story: " 'I'm 20 years old and one-third of my life has gone, and I don't know whats Happening.'-P. F. Sloan, composer of 'Eve Of Destruction.' "

EMPIRE OF THE SUN.

Andrew Weiner

ONE.

Kaheris, the unknown astronaut, existential hero, moves through the crowded streets, toward his apartment. The fair-skinned people around him hasten about their lives, never looking up. Above, the sky burns white with the glare of a swollen sun.

Giant loudspeakers, the extension voice of death, boom out the countdown, one thousand hours to total zero. Kaheris fears the coming nova. Sees himself trapped here, at the end of the Main Sequence. Gratefully he enters his soundproofed apartment. The Man In The Mask rises to greet him, dead eyes staring through slits in the hammered metal. Kaheris screams, slips once more through s.p.a.ce and time.

TWO.

Earth, year 1990, falls victim to the history-bending project of the Sirius Syndicate. Travelers in time establish a network of communication satellites around the globe, and open the Martian War. Continuous 'Martian' broadcasters promise destruction, total war, liquidation, war without limits, to the terrified Earth populace. TV channels are jammed with further images of death. The United Nations is revived, as the World Draft Board. Military elements seize control, promising "the War of all Wars." A s.p.a.ce armada is to be constructed. The first troop draft is announced; twenty millions. Draft rioting in China is vigorously suppressed.

THREE.

The huge crowd waited. And then the General appeared. Their hero, Carter, Chairman of the Draft Board, scourge of the Martians. From the roof of the hall floated down colored balloons, cascading in thousands around him. The cheering grew to a deafening crescendo. Then he raised his hand, and suddenly there was silence.

Above, high above on the roof, Kaheris aimed his rifle through the skylight.

Carter had begun to speak. "The War will go on. I promise you that. There will be no weakness. I know how to win."

He paused, stared with meaning. "You have nothing to fear from the army. It is the civilians you should distrust." They roared in approval.

"You were swindled. But not any more. The Marts can't tell us what they are going to do. We will show them what they have taken on.

"We are already at war with Mars, and the only solution is victory."

Suddenly he turned his eyes upwards, staring at Kaheris through a mask of hammered metal. Act out your dreams, Kaheris thinks, trying to squeeze the trigger, blacking out. As the doctor said, why this sudden obsession with death?

FOUR.

Transition to a dirty room in London. A question: "How long do you think you have?" He delays answering the girl, readjusts to his environment. The walls are pasted with newspaper cuttings, gorilla pictures, faded posters. Empty cans litter the floor. A badly tuned transistor plays military music.

"How long...?"

"Before the Draft gets you. It can't be much longer." The idea seemed to please her.

"They won't send me. I'm psychotic. They can't send me."

"The dreams, you mean?" she asks with contempt. "They send anyone to Mars, particularly those whom no one will miss. Because there are no Martians and this is no War. The War is an invention of the World Draft Board to inst.i.tute and maintain its power. Nothing else."

FIVE.

"They're not dreams. Don't you see? That I'm the link, the intersectional man?"

He brushed past her, descended the stairs to the street. He wandered through the streets of a London deserted of traffic, beneath the giant posters of Carter, beneath pictures of the horrifying Martian enemy. Occasionally he pa.s.sed hungry and frightened people.

As he walked he tried to recall his former life. Had he been an astronaut, a scientist? He seemed to recall the coral reefs, the concrete zone of the rocket ranges, the murmur of air-conditioning. Mostly, that life was a void to him. That had been before he became aware of other places, when he had been able to think clearly.

A sudden clear image penetrates his mind. He is sitting down, in a darkened room. A man in a white coat stands over him.

"Isolation does funny things, Kaheris. Come on now, what happened in orbit? What spoke to you?"

Kaheris stares in front of him.

"What did it say?"

Kaheris laughs.

SIX.

Trancelike in thought, he fails to notice the gathering dusk, the early winter night closing around him. Suddenly they block his way, Draft Police. He turns to run. An electric whip flicks out. "Wait, mister." A strange accent. The night patrol. High grade s.a.d.i.s.ts.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. The zoo."

"No zoo around here. All the animals are eaten up, anyway." Casually he flicks the whip at Kaheris' stomach. Kaheris doubles up.

"Yank, yeh. We have a draft here too, know that? Just as good. Maybe even better." He searched quickly through Kaheris' pockets, removing his little remaining currency. Then he hit him in the face, with his fist.

"No papers. Take you in on suspicion. All the way to a nice red planet."