Buch lesen: «The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

1 Comic Inferno

2 The Impossible Star

3 In the Arena

4 The International Smile

5 Sector Violet

6 Skeleton Crew

7 The Thing Under the Glacier

8 Counter-Feat

9 Jungle Substitute

10 Lazarus

11 Man on Bridge

12 Never Let Go Of My Hand!

13 No Moon Tonight!

14 One-Way Strait

15 Pink Plastic Gods

16 Unauthorised Persons

About the Author

Also by Brian Aldiss

About the Publisher

Introduction

PETERBOROUGH

Both blessings or curses can fall upon us in early childhood, but in many cases there may exist, underlying such fortunes or misfortunes, a submerged vein of temperament. That vein may continue throughout life, guiding our fortunes.

Indeed, we may encounter loving women who read – or claim to read – that characteristic in our eyes.

In any case, it seems I was writing short stories at the age of three. My mother was so delighted by this feat that she preserved my brief tales by folding them into covers cut from an unused roll of wallpaper. So I was frequently told. Of course, old Father Time, of bad reputation, did away with those tales many years ago.

Nevertheless, we may regard such infant tales as products of my temperament, as an urge to tell a story, perhaps a wish to display or at least ornament a truth or a falsity. In any case, accidents would befall my young self which served to fortify – indeed almost destroy – this aspect of my temperament. Traces of it can be found in several of my stories including, most markedly ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’.

My mother, May Wilson, married to become May Aldiss, gave birth to her first baby, a daughter. Alas, the child was stillborn, and deep was my mother’s sorrow regarding this poor dead offspring.

The causes for this disaster? My father in World War I had been injured in the Dardanelles, to spend the rest of the conflict in a hospital in Cairo. Could that have had its effect on the pregnancy? It certainly had an effect on my future father’s temper.

Five years after the birth of this dead sister came my birth – in a shower of tears, because a daughter was what was hoped for. But there I was, unwanted but determined to make the best of things.

Another five years passed. Once more my mother became pregnant. Ah, but this time I was decidedly in the way, for I had contracted whooping cough. Just supposing, if I gave this vile disease to my dear new baby sister …!

My parents decided they had to get rid of me. One of the assistants in Father’s shop drove me the sixty miles from East Dereham, Norfolk, to Peterborough, Northants. From virtually a village to a vivid and busy city.

Thus, fate showed its hand. Well, both hands.

The Peterborough Wilsons, my mother’s family, were different company from the Aldisses. Wilsons were genial and sociable and kind to little boys. Especially sick little boys; such attributes applied most liberally to my Uncle Bert. He took charge of me. He was an architect and well-occupied, but he cared.

Uncle Bert took me with him to the great arena of the Fens; he was involved in their drainage. So there I stood among all that alien greenery, which stretched to the far horizons. And I thought about it. Indeed, I marvelled.

Uncle Bert took me to the railway station, when the great LNER locomotive flier rocketed through on its journey from London to Edinburgh, shaking the entire edifice, us included, as it hammered past. Wonderful!

Uncle Bert took me to the museum. Yes, of course Peterborough had a museum – wherein Uncle had business. I waited for a while in an outer room. And there I discovered a skeleton, lying under glass. I was just tall enough to see this skeleton in its case. I could walk from one end of it, marvelling, to the other. Never had I come across such a wonder before! Perfect! Not a bone missing.

A little label announced that the skeleton of this plesiosaurus had been discovered in the muds of the River Nene.

I gazed through the windows of the museum. There was the River Nene itself! I cannot say what amazing transactions worked through my brain.

And more wonders were to come.

My dear uncle found that a total eclipse of the Sun was shortly due. He took the trouble to explain to me how eclipses occurred. He drew diagrams. And on the day of the eclipse he drove my granny and me up to Milton Park, outside the city. There he found us a perfect position with the great wide green slope of the park lying open before us.

The birds stopped singing. My granny clutched my hand. A great shadow, a wave of night, came racing across the park towards us. We were enveloped.

Had this shadow been water, we would have drowned. But I had been reassured that there would be no harm for us.

Well well … My life has held many excitements, but I believe that that eclipse, experienced there in Milton Park, is possibly the most exhilarating incident of my life. No fear was involved, because I had had everything – a lesson in astronomy – explained to me beforehand.

My illness was finally gone and forgotten. I was returned to Dereham. Once there, I fell into a strange neurotic state, kicking furniture, breaking dishes, yelling and crying.

Parents with a new born child were not having any of that nonsense. I was immediately sent away again, this time to a prep school. Indeed, to Mr Humphrey Fenn’s Preparatory School for Boys.

Humphrey Fenn … A perfect Dickensian name for what we found there!

Comic Inferno

January Birdlip spread his hands in a characteristic gesture.

‘Well, I’m a liberal man, and that was a very liberal party,’ he exclaimed, sinking further back into the car seat. ‘How say you, my dear Freud? Are you suitably satiated?’

His partner, the egregious Freddie Freud, took some time to reply, mainly because of the bulky brunette who pinned him against the side of the car in a festive embrace. ‘Vershoye’s parties are better than his books,’ he finally agreed.

‘There isn’t a publisher in Paris does it more stylishly,’ Birdlip pursued. ‘And his new Twenty Second Century Studies is a series well worth a stylish launching, think you not, friend Freddie?’

‘This is no time for intellectual discussion. Don’t forget we’re only taking this babe as far as Calais.’ And with that, Freud burrowed back under his brunette with the avidity of a sexton beetle.

Not without envy, Birdlip looked over at his younger partner. Although he tried to fix his thoughts on the absent Mrs Birdlip, a sense of loneliness overcame him. With tipsy solemnity he sang to himself, ‘There was a young man in December, Who sighed, “Oh I hardly remember, How the girls in July Used to kiss me and tie –”’

Moistening his lips, he peeped through the dividing glass at Bucket and Hippo, Freud’s and his personal romen sitting in the front seats, at the dark French countryside slinking past, and then again at the brunette (how good was her English?), before softly intoning the rest of his song, ‘Daisy-chains round my sun-dappled member.’

Then he started talking aloud, indifferent to whether Fred answered or not. It was the privilege of slightly aging cultural publishers to be eccentric.

‘I found it consoling that Paris too has its robot and roman troubles. You heard Vershoye talking about a casino that was flooded because the robot fire engine turned up and extinguished a conflagration that did not exist …? Always a crumb of comfort somewhere, my dear Freud; nice to think of our French brothers sharing our sorrows! And your ample lady friend: her robot driver drove her car through a newsvendor’s stall – through stationary stationery, you almost might say – so that she had to beg a lift home from us, thus transforming her misfortune into your bonchance. …’

But the word ‘misfortune’ reminded him of his brother, Rainbow Birdlip, and he sank into silence, the loneliness returning on heavy Burgundian feet.

Ah yes, ten – even five – years ago, Birdlip Brothers had been one of the most respected imprints in London. And then … it had been just after he had seen the first four titles of the Prescience Library through the press – Rainbow had changed. Changed overnight! Now he was outdoor-farming near Maidstone, working in the fields with his hands like a blessed roman, entirely without cultural or financial interests.

The thought choked January Birdlip. That brilliant intellect lost to pig farming! Trying to take refuge in drunkenness, he began to sing again.

‘How the girls in July Used to kiss me and tie –’

But their limousine was slowing now, coming up to the outer Calais roundabout, where one road led into the city and the other onto the Channel Bridge. The robot driver pulled to a stop by the side of the road, where an all-night café armoured itself with glaring lights against the first approach of dawn. Fred Freud looked up.

‘Dash it, we’re here already, toots!’

‘Thank you for such a nice ride,’ said the brunette, shaking her anatomy into place, and opening the side door. ‘You made me very comfortable.’

‘Mademoiselle, allow me to buy you a coffee before we part company forever, and then I can write down your phone number. … Shan’t be five minutes, Jan.’ This last remark was thrown over Freud’s left shoulder as he blundered out after the girl.

He slammed the door reverberatingly. With one arm around the girl, who looked, Birdlip thought, blowsy in the bright lights, he disappeared into the café, where a roman awaited their orders.

‘Well! Well, I never!’ Birdlip exclaimed.

Really, Freud seemed to have no respect for seniority of age or position. For a heady moment, Birdlip thought of ordering the car to drive on. But beside the wheel sat Bucket and Hippo, silent because they were switched off, as most romen were during periods of long inactivity, and the sight of them motionless there intimidated Birdlip into a similar inertia.

Diverting his anger, he began to worry about the Homing Device decision. But there again, Freddie Freud had had his way over his senior partner. It shouldn’t be. … No, the question must be reopened directly Freud returned. Most firms had installed homing devices by now, and Freud would just have to bow to progress.

The minutes ticked by. Dawn began to nudge night apologetically in the ribs of cloud overhead. Fred Freud returned, waving the brunette a cheerful goodbye as he hopped into the car again.

‘Overblown figure,’ Birdlip said severely, to kill his partner’s enthusiasm.

‘Quite agree, quite agree,’ Freud agreed cheerfully, still fanning the air harder than a window cleaner as he protracted his farewells.

‘Overblown figure – and cheap behaviour.’

‘Quite agree, quite agree,’ Freud said again, renewing his exertions as the car drew off. With a last glance at the vanishing figure, he added reminiscently, ‘Still, the parts were better than the whore.’

They accelerated so fast around the inclined feed road to the Bridge that Bucket and Hippo rattled together.

‘I regret I shall have to reverse my previous decision on the homing device matter,’ said Birdlip, switching to attack before Freud could launch any more coarse remarks. ‘My nerves will not endure the sight of romen standing around nonfunctioning for hours when they are not needed. When we get back, I shall contact Rootes and ask them to fit the device into all members of our nonhuman staff.’

Freud’s reflexes, worn as they were by the stimulations of the previous few hours, skidded wildly in an attempt to meet this new line of attack.

‘Into all members – you mean you – but look, Jan – Jan, let’s discuss this matter – or rather let’s rediscuss it, because I understood it was all settled – when we are less tired. Eh? How’s that?’

‘I am not tired, nor do I wish to discuss it. I have an aversion to seeing our metal menials standing about lifeless for hours on end. They – well, to employ an archaism, they give me the creeps. We will have the new device installed and they can go – go home, get off the premises when not required.’

‘You realise that with some of the romen, the proofreaders, for instance, we never know when we are going to want them.’

‘Then, my dear Freud, then we employ the homing device and they return at once. It’s the modern way of working. It surprises me that on this point you should be so reactionary.’

‘You’re overfond of that word, Jan. People have only to disagree with you to be called reactionary. The reason you dislike seeing robots around is simply because you feel guilty about man’s dependence on slave machines. It may be a fashionable phobia, but it’s totally divorced from reality. Robots have no feelings, if I may quote one of the titles on our list, and your squeamishness will involve us in a large capital outlay.’

‘Squeamishness! These arguments ad hominem lead nowhere, Freddie. Birdlip Brothers will keep up with the times – as publishers of that distinguished science fiction classics series, the Prescience Library, Birdlip Brothers must keep up with the times, so there’s an end on it.’

They sped high over the sea toward the mist that hid the English coast. Averting his eyes from the panorama, Freud said feebly, ‘I’d really rather we discussed this when we were less tired.’

‘Thank you, I am not tired,’ January Birdlip said. And he closed his eyes and went to sleep just as a sickly cyclamen tint spread over the eastern cloudbank, announcing the sun. The great bridge with its thousand-foot spans turned straw colour, in indifferent contrast to the grey chop of waves in the Channel below.

Birdlip sank into his chair. Hippo obligingly lifted his feet onto the desk.

‘Thank you, Hippocrates, how kind. … You know I named you after the robot in those rather comic tales by – ah … oh dear, my memory, but still it doesn’t matter, and I’ve probably told you that anyway.’

‘The tales were by the pseudonymous René Lafayette, sir, flourished circa 1950, sir, and yes, you had told me.’

‘Probably I had. All right, Hippo, stand back. Please adjust yourself so that you don’t stand so close to me when you talk.’

‘At what distance should I stand, sir?’

Exasperatedly, he said, ‘Between one point five and two metres away.’ Romen had to have these silly precise instructions; really it was no wonder he wanted the wretched things out of the way when they were not in use … which recalled him to the point. It was sixteen o’clock on the day after their return from Paris, and the Rootes Group man was due to confer on the immediate installation of homing devices. Freud ought to be in on the discussion, just to keep the peace.

‘Nobody could say Freddie and I quarrel,’ Birdlip sighed. He pressed the fingertips of his left hand against the fingertips of his right and rested his nose on them.

‘Pity about poor brother Rainbow though. … Quite inexplicable. … Such genius. …’

Affectionately, he glanced over at the bookcase on his left, filled with the publications of Birdlip Brothers. In particular he looked at his brother’s brainchild, the Prescience Library. The series was bound in half-aluminium with proxisonic covers that announced the contents to anyone who came within a meter of them while wearing any sort of metal about his person.

That was why the bookcase was now soundproofed. Before, it had been deafening with Hippo continually passing the shelves; the roman, with fifty kilos of metal in his entrails, had raised a perpetual bellow from the books. Such was the price of progress. …

Again he recalled his straggling thought.

‘Nobody could say Freddie and I quarrel, but our friendship is certainly made up of a lot of differences. Hippo, tell Mr Freud I am expecting Gavotte of Rootes and trust he will care to join us. Tell him gin corallinas will be served – that should bring him along. Oh, and tell Pig Iron to bring the drink in now.’

‘Yessir.’

Hippo departed. He was a model of the de Havilland ‘Governor’ class, Series II MK viiA, and as such walked with the slack-jointed stance typical of his class, as if he had been hit smartly behind the knees with a steel baseball bat.

He walked down the corridor carefully in case he banged into one of the humans employed at Birdlip’s. Property in London had become so cheap that printing and binding could be carried out on the premises; yet in the whole concern only six humans were employed. Still Hippo took care; care was bred into him, a man-made instinct.

As he passed a table on which somebody had carelessly left a new publication, its proxisonic cover, beginning in a whisper, rising to a shout, and dying into a despairing moan as Hippo disappeared, said, ‘The Turkish annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars in 2162 is one of the most colourful stories in the annals of Red Planet colonisation, yet until now it has lacked a worthy historian. The hero of the incident was an Englishman ohhhh …’

Turning the corner, Hippo almost bumped into Pig Iron, a heavy forty-year-old Cunarder of the now obsolete ‘Expedition’ line. Pig Iron was carrying a tray full of drinks.

‘I see you are carrying a tray full of drinks,’ Hippo said. ‘Please carry them in to Mr Jan immediately.’

‘I am carrying them in to Mr Jan immediately,’ said Pig Iron, without a hint of defiance; he was equipped with the old ‘Multi-Syllog’ speech platters only.

As Pig Iron rounded the corner with the tray, Hippo heard a tiny voice gather volume to say ‘… annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars in 2162 is one of the most colourful …’ He tapped on Mr Freud’s door and put his metal head in.

Freud sprawled over an immense review list, with Bucket standing to attention at his side.

‘Delete the Mercury “Mercury” – they’ve reviewed none of our books since ’72,’ he was saying as he looked up.

‘Mr Jan is expecting Gavotte of Rootes for a homing device discussion, sir, and trusts you will care to join him. Gin corallinas will be served,’ Hippo said.

Freud’s brow darkened.

‘Tell him I’m busy. This was his idea. Let him cope with Gavotte himself.’

‘Yessir.’

‘And make it sound polite, you ruddy roman.’

‘Yessir.’

‘OK, get out. I’m busy.’

‘Yessir.’

Hippo beat a retreat down the corridor, and a tiny voice broke into a shout of ‘… ish annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars in 2162 …’

Meanwhile, Freud turned angrily to Bucket.

‘You hear that, you tin horror? A man’s going to come from one of the groups that manufactures your kind and he’s going to tinker with you. And he’s going to install a little device in each of you. And you know what that little device will do?’

‘Yessir, the device will –’

‘Well, shuddup and listen while I tell you. You don’t tell me, Bucket, I tell you. That little device will enable you plastic-placentaed power tools to go home when you aren’t working! Isn’t that wonderful? In other words, you’ll be a little bit more like humans, and one by one these nasty little modifications will be fitted until finally you’ll be just like humans. … Oh God, men are crazy, we’re all crazy. … Say something, Bucket.’

‘I am not human, sir. I am a multipurpose roman manufactured by de Havilland, a member of the Rootes Group, owned by the Chrysler Corporation. I am “Governor” class, Series II MKII, chassis number A4437.’

‘Thank you for those few kind words.’

Freud rose and began pacing up and down. He stared hard at the impassive machine. He clenched his fists and his tongue came unbidden between his teeth.

‘You cannot reproduce, Bucket, can you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Why can’t you?’

‘I have not the mechanism for reproduction, sir.’

‘Nor can you copulate, Bucket. … Answer me, Bucket.’

‘You did not ask me a question, sir.’

‘You animated ore, I said you could not copulate. Agree with me.’

‘I agree with you, sir.’

‘Good. That makes you just a ticking hunk of clockwork, doesn’t it, Bucket? Can you hear yourself ticking, Bucket?’

‘My auditory circuits detect the functioning of my own relays as well as the functioning of your heart and respiratory organs, sir.’

Freud stopped behind his servant. His face was red; his mouth had spread itself over his face.

‘I see I shall have to show you who is master again, Bucket. Get me the whip!’

Unhesitatingly, Bucket walked slack-kneed over to a wall cupboard. Opening it, he felt in the back and produced a long Afrikaner ox-whip that Freud had bought on a world tour several years ago. He handed it to his master.

Freud seized it and immediately lashed out with it, catching the roman around his legs so that he staggered. Gratified, Freud said, ‘How was that, eh?’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I’ll give you “Thank you.” Bend over my desk!’

As the roman leaned forward across the review list, Freud lay to, planting the leather thong with a resonant precision across Bucket’s back at regular fifteen second intervals.

‘Ah, you must feel that, whatever you pretend. Tell me you feel it!’

‘I feel it, sir.’

‘Yes, well, you needn’t think you’re going to get a homing device and be allowed to go home. … You’re not human. Why should you enjoy the privileges of humanity?’

He emphasised his remarks with the whip. Each blow knocked the roman two centimetres along the desk, a movement Bucket always punctiliously corrected. Breathing heavily, Freud said, ‘Cry out in pain, blast you. I know it hurts!’

Punctiliously, Bucket began to imitate a cry of pain, making it coincide with the blows.

‘My God, it’s hot in here,’ said Freud, laying to.

‘Oh dear, it’s hot in here,’ said Birdlip, laying two plates of snacks on his desk. ‘Hippo, go and see what’s the matter with the air-conditioning. … I’m sorry, Mr Gavotte; you were saying …?’

And he looked politely and not without fascination at the little man opposite him. Gavotte, even when sitting nursing a gin corallina, was never still. From buttock to buttock he shifted his weight, or he smoothed back a coif of hair, or brushed real and imaginary dandruff from his shoulders, or adjusted his tie. With a ball-point, with a vernier, and once with a comb, he tapped little tunes on his teeth. This he managed to do even while talking volubly.

It was a performance in notable contrast to the immobility of the new assistant roman that had accompanied him and now stood beside him awaiting orders.

‘Eh, I was saying, Mr Birdlip, how fashionable the homing device has become, very fashionable. I mean, if you’re not contemporary you’re nothing. Firms all over the world are using them – and no doubt the fashion will soon spread to the system, although as you know on the planets there are far more robots than romen – simply because, I think, men are becoming tired of seeing their menials about all day, as you might say.’

‘Exactly how I feel, Mr Gavotte; I have grown tired of seeing my – yes, yes, quite.’ Realising that he was repeating himself, Birdlip closed that sentence down and opened up another. ‘One thing you have not explained. Just where do the romen go when they go home?’

‘Oh ha ha, Mr Birdlip, ha ha, bless you, you don’t have to worry about that, ha ha,’ chuckled Gavotte, performing a quick obligato on his eyeteeth. ‘With this little portable device with which we supply you, which you can carry around or leave anywhere according to whim, you just have to press the button and a circuit is activated in your roman that impels him to return at once to work immediately by the quickest route.’

Taking a swift tonic sip of his gin, Birdlip said, ‘Yes, you told me that. But where do the romen go when they go away?’

Leaning forward, Gavotte spun his glass on the desk with his finger and said confidentially, ‘I’ll tell you, Mr Birdlip, since you ask. As you know, owing to tremendous population drops both here and elsewhere, due to one or two factors too numerous to name, there are far less people about than there were.’

‘That does follow.’

‘Quite so, ha ha,’ agreed Gavotte, gobbling a snack. ‘So, large sections of our big cities are now utterly deserted or unfrequented and falling into decay. This applies especially to London, where whole areas once occupied by artisans stand derelict. Now my company has bought up one of these sections, called Paddington. No humans live there, so the romen can conveniently stack themselves in the old houses – out of sight and out of ha ha harm.’

Birdlip stood up.

‘Very well, Mr Gavotte. And your roman here is ready to start conversions straight away? He can begin on Hippocrates now, if you wish.’

‘Certainly, certainly! Delighted.’ Gavotte beckoned to the new and gleaming machine behind him. ‘This by the way is the latest model from one of our associates, Anglo-Atomic. It’s the “Fleetfeet,” with streamlined angles and heinleined joints. We’ve just had an order for a dozen – this is confidential, by the way, but I don’t suppose it’ll matter if I tell you, Mr Birdlip – we’ve just had an order for a dozen from Buckingham Palace. Can I send you one on trial?’

‘I’m fully staffed, thank you. Now if you’d like to start work … I have another appointment at seventeen-fifty.’

‘Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two. Fifty-two! What stamina he has!’ exclaimed the RSPCR captain, Warren Pavment, to his assistant.

‘He has finished now,’ said the assistant, a 71 AEI model called Toggle. ‘Do you detect a look of content on his face, Captain?’

Hovering in a copter over the Central area, man and roman peered into the tiny screen by their knees. On the screen, clearly depicted by their spycast, a tiny Freddie Freud collapsed into a chair, rested on his laurels, and gave a tiny Bucket the whip to return to the cupboard.

‘You can stop squealing now,’ his tiny voice rang coldly in the cockpit.

‘I don’t thing he looks content,’ the RSPCR captain said. ‘I think he looks unhappy – guilty even.’

‘Guilty is bad,’ Toggle said, as his superior spun the magnification. Freud’s face gradually expanded, blotting out his body, filling the whole screen. Perspiration stood on his cheeks and forehead, each drop surrounded by its aura on the spycast.

‘I’ll bet that hurt me more than it did you,’ he panted. ‘You wrought-iron wretches, you never suffer enough.’

In the copter, roman and human looked at each other in concern.

‘You heard that? He’s in trouble. Let’s go down and pick him up,’ said the Captain of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots.

Cutting the cast, he sent his craft spinning down through a column of warm air.

Hot air ascended from Mr Gavotte. Running a sly finger between collar and neck, he was saying, ‘I’m a firm believer in culture myself, Mr Birdlip. Not that I get much time for reading –’

A knock at the door and Hippo came in. Going to him with relief, Birdlip said, ‘Well, what’s the matter with the air-conditioning?’

‘The heating circuits are on, sir. They have come on in error, three months ahead of time.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘I spoke to them, sir, but their auditory circuits are malfunctioning.’

‘Really, Hippo! Why is nobody doing anything about this?’

‘Cogswell is down there, sir. But as you know he is rather an unreliable model and the heat in the control room has deactivated him.’

Birdlip said reflectively, ‘Alas, the ills that steel is heir to. All right, Hippo, you stay here and let Mr Gavotte and his assistant install your homing device before they do the rest of the staff. I’ll go and see Mr Freud. He’s always good with the heating system; perhaps he can do something effective. As it is, we’re slowly cooking.’

Gavotte and Fleetfeet closed in on Hippo.

‘Open your mouth, old fellow,’ Gavotte ordered. When Hippo complied, Gavotte took hold of his lower jaw and pressed it down hard, until with a click it detached itself together with Hippo’s throat. Fleetfeet laid jaw and throat on the desk while Gavotte unscrewed Hippo’s dust filters and air cooler and removed his windpipe. As he lifted off the chest inspection cover, he said cheerfully, ‘Fortunately this is only a minor operation. Give me my drill, Fleetfeet.’ Waiting for it, he gazed at Hippo and picked his nose with considerable scientific detachment.