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# 2024-11-01 - The World Well Lost by Theodore Sturgeon | |
Cover Art | |
All the world knew them as the loverbirds, though they were certainly | |
not birds, but humans. Well, say humanoids. Featherless bipeds. Their | |
stay on earth was brief, a nine-day wonder. Any wonder that lasts | |
nine days on an earth of orgasmic trideo shows; time-freezing pills; | |
synapse-inverter fields which make it possible for a man to turn a | |
sunset to perfumes, a masochist to a fur-feeler; and a thousand other | |
euphorics--why, on such an earth, a nine-day wonder is a wonder | |
indeed. | |
Like a sudden bloom across the face of the world came the peculiar | |
magic of the loverbirds. There were loverbird songs and loverbird | |
trinkets, loverbird hats and pins, bangles and baubles, coins and | |
quaffs and tidbits. For there was that about the loverbirds which | |
made a deep enchantment. No one can be told about a loverbird and | |
feel this curious delight. Many are immune even to a solidograph. But | |
watch loverbirds, only for a moment, and see what happens. It's the | |
feeling you had when you were twelve, and summer-drenched, and you | |
kissed a girl for the very first time and knew a breathlessness you | |
were sure could never happen again. And indeed it never could unless | |
you watched loverbirds. Then you are spellbound for four quiet | |
seconds, and suddenly your very heart twists, and incredulous tears | |
sting and stay; and the very first move you make afterward, you make | |
on tiptoe, and your first word is a whisper. | |
This magic came over very well on trideo, and everyone had trideo; | |
so for a brief while the earth was enchanted. | |
There were only two loverbirds. They came down out of the sky in a | |
single brassy flash, and stepped out of their ship, hand in hand. | |
Their eyes were full of wonder, each at the other, and together at | |
the world. They seemed frozen in a full-to-bursting moment of | |
discovery; they made way for one another gravely and with courtesy, | |
they looked about them and in the very looking gave each other | |
gifts--the color of the sky, the taste of the air, the pressures of | |
things growing and meeting and changing. They never spoke. They | |
simply were together. To watch them was to know of their awestruck | |
mounting of staircases of bird notes, of how each knew the warmth of | |
the other as their flesh supped silently on sunlight. | |
They stepped from their ship, and the tall one threw a yellow powder | |
back to it. The ship fell in upon itself and became a pile of rubble, | |
which collapsed into a pile of gleaming sand, which slumped compactly | |
down to dust and then to an airblown emulsion so fine that Brownian | |
movement itself hammered it up and out and away. Anyone could see | |
that they intended to stay. Anyone could know by simply watching them | |
that next to their wondrous delight in each other came their | |
delighted wonder at earth itself, everything and everybody about it. | |
Now, if terrestrial culture were a pyramid, at the apex (where the | |
power is) would sit a blind man, for so constituted are we that only | |
by blinding ourselves, bit by bit, may we rise above our fellows. The | |
man at the apex has an immense preoccupation with the welfare of the | |
whole, because he regards it as the source and structure of his | |
elevation, which it is, and as an extension of himself, which it is | |
not. It was such a man who, in the face of immeasurable evidence, | |
chose to find a defense against loverbirds, and fed the matrices and | |
coordinates of the loverbird image into the most marvelous calculator | |
that had ever been built. | |
The machine sucked in symbols and raced them about, compared and | |
waited and matched and sat still while its bulging memory, cell by | |
cell, was silent, was silent--and suddenly, in a far corner, | |
resonated. It grasped this resonance in forceps made of mathematics, | |
snatched it out (translating furiously as it snatched) and put out a | |
fevered tongue of paper on which was typed: DIRBANU | |
Now this utterly changed the complexion of things. For earth ships | |
had ranged the cosmos far and wide, with few hindrances. Of these | |
hindrances, all could be understood but one, and that one was | |
Dirbanu, a transgalactic planet which shrouded itself in impenetrable | |
fields of force whenever an earthship approached. There were other | |
worlds which could do this, but in each case the crews knew why it | |
was done. Dirbanu, upon discovery, had prohibited landings from the | |
very first until an ambassador could be sent to Terra. In due time | |
one did arrive (so reported the calculator, which was the only entity | |
that remembered the episode) and it was obvious that Earth and | |
Dirbanu had much in common. The ambassador, however, showed a most | |
uncommon disdain of Earth and all its works, curled his lip and went | |
wordlessly home, and ever since then Dirbanu had locked itself tight | |
away from the questing Terrans. | |
Dirbanu thereby became of value, and fair game, but we could do | |
nothing to ripple the bland face of her defenses. As this | |
impregnability repeatedly proved itself, Dirbanu evolved in our group | |
mind through the usual stages of being: the Curiosity, the Mystery, | |
the Challenge, the Enemy, the Enemy, the Enemy, the Mystery, the | |
Curiosity, and finally That-which-is-too-far-away-to-bother-with, or | |
the Forgotten. | |
And suddenly, after all this time, Earth had two genuine natives of | |
Dirbanu aboard, entrancing the populace and giving no information. | |
This intolerable circumstance began to make itself felt throughout | |
the world--slowly, for this time the blind men's din was cushioned | |
and soaked by the magic of the loverbirds. It might have taken a very | |
long time to convince the people of the menace in their midst had | |
there not been a truly startling development: | |
A direct message was received from Dirbanu. | |
The collective impact of loverbird material emanating from | |
transmitters on Earth had attracted the attention of Dirbanu, which | |
promptly informed us that the loverbirds were indeed their nationals, | |
that in addition they were fugitives, that Dirbanu would take it ill | |
if Earth should regard itself as a sanctuary for the criminals of | |
Dirbanu but would, on the other hand, find it in its heart to be very | |
pleased if Earth saw fit to return them. | |
So from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a | |
course of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with | |
Dirbanu on a friendly basis--great Dirbanu which, since it had force | |
fields which Earth could not duplicate, must of necessity have many | |
other things Earth could use; mighty Dirbanu before whom we could | |
kneel in supplication (with purely-for-defense bombs hidden in our | |
pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible the knife in our teeth) | |
and ask for crumbs from table (in order to extrapolate the location | |
of their kitchens). | |
Thus the loverbird episode became another item in the weary | |
procession of proofs that Terra's most reasonable intolerance can | |
conquer practically anything, even magic. | |
Especially magic. | |
So it was that the loverbirds were arrested, that the Starmite 439 | |
was fitted out as a prison ship, that a most carefully screened crew | |
was chosen for her, and that she struck starward with the cargo that | |
would gain us a world. | |
* * * | |
Two men were the crew--a colorful little rooster of a man and a great | |
dun bull of a man. They were, respectively, Rootes, who was Captain | |
and staff, and Grunty, who was midship and inboard corps. Rootes was | |
cocky, springy, white and crisp. His hair was auburn and so were his | |
eyes, and the eyes were hard. Grunty was a shambler with big gentle | |
hands and heavy shoulders half as wide as Rootes was high. He should | |
have worn a cowl and rope-belted habit. He should, perhaps, have worn | |
a burnoose. He did neither, but the effect was there. Known only to | |
him was the fact that words and pictures, concepts and comparisons | |
were an endless swirling blizzard inside him. Known only to him and | |
Rootes was the fact that he had books, and books, and books, and | |
Rootes did not care if he had or not. Grunty he had been called since | |
he first learned to talk, and | |
Grunty was name enough for him. For the words in his head would not | |
leave him except one or two at a time, with long moments between. So | |
he had learned to condense his verbal messages to breathy grunts, and | |
when they wouldn't condense, he said nothing. | |
They were primitives, both of them, which is to say that they were | |
doers, while Modern Man is a thinker and/or a feeler. The thinkers | |
compose new variations and permutations of euphoria, and the feelers | |
repay the thinkers by responding to their inventions. The ships had | |
no place for Modern Man, and Modern Man had only the most casual use | |
for the ships. | |
Doers can cooperate like cam and pushrod, like ratchet and pawl, and | |
such linkage creates a powerful bond. But Rootes and Grunty were | |
unique among crews in that these machine parts were not | |
interchangeable. Any good captain can command any good crew, | |
surroundings being equivalent. But Rootes would not and could not | |
ship out with anyone but Grunty, and Grunty was just that dependent. | |
Grunty understood this bond, and the fact that the only way it could | |
conceivably be broken would be to explain it to Rootes. Rootes did | |
not understand it because it never occurred to him to try, and had he | |
tried, he would have failed, since he was inherently non-equipped for | |
the task. Grunty knew that their unique bond was, for him, a survival | |
matter. Rootes did not know this, and would have rejected the idea | |
with violence. | |
So Rootes regarded Grunty with tolerance and a modified amusement. | |
The modification was an inarticulate realization of Grunty's complete | |
dependability. Grunty regarded Rootes with... well, with the | |
ceaseless, silent flurry of words in his mind. | |
There was, beside the harmony of functions and the other link, | |
understood only by Grunty, a third adjunct to their phenomenal | |
efficiency as a crew. It was organic, and it had to do with the | |
stellar drive. | |
Reaction engines were long forgotten. The so-called "warp" drive was | |
used only experimentally and on certain crash-priority war-craft | |
where operating costs were not a factor. The Starmite 439 was, like | |
most interstellar craft, powered by an RS plant. Like the transistor, | |
the Referential Stasis generator is extremely simple to construct and | |
very difficult indeed to explain. Its mathematics approaches | |
mysticism and its theory contains certain impossibilities which are | |
ignored in practice. Its effect is to shift the area of stasis of the | |
ship and everything in it from one point of reference to another. For | |
example, the ship at rest on the Earth's surface is in stasis in | |
reference to the ground on which it rests. Throwing the ship into | |
stasis in reference to the center of the earth gives it instantly an | |
effective speed equal to the surface velocity of the planet around | |
its core--some one thousand miles per hour. Stasis referential to the | |
sun moves the Earth out from under the ship at the Earth's orbital | |
velocity. GH stasis "moves" the ship at the angular velocity of the | |
sun about the Galactic Hub. The galactic drift can be used, as can | |
any simple or complex mass center in this expanding universe. There | |
are resultants and there are multipliers, and effective velocities | |
can be enormous. Yet the ship is constantly in stasis, so that there | |
is never an inertia factor. | |
The one inconvenience of the RS drive is that shifts from one | |
referent to another invariably black the crew out, for psychoneural | |
reasons. The blackout period varies slightly between individuals, | |
from one to two and a half hours. But some anomaly in Grunty's | |
gigantic frame kept his blackout periods down to thirty or forty | |
minutes, while Rootes was always out for two hours or more. There was | |
that about Grunty which made moments of isolation a vital necessity, | |
for a man must occasionally be himself, which in anyone's company | |
Grunty was not. But after stasis shifts Grunty had an hour or so to | |
himself while his commander lay numbly spread-eagled on the blackout | |
couch, and he spent these in communions of his own devising. | |
Sometimes this meant only a good book. | |
This, then, was the crew picked to man the prison ship. It had been | |
together longer than any other crew in the Space Service. Its record | |
showed a metrical efficiency and a resistance to physical and psychic | |
debilitations previously unheard of in a trade where close | |
confinement on long voyages had come to be regarded as hazards. In | |
space, shift followed shift uneventfully, and planetfall was made on | |
schedule and without incident. In port Rootes would roar off to the | |
fleshpots, in which he would wallow noisily until an hour before | |
takeoff, while Grunty found, first, the business office, and next, a | |
bookstore. | |
They were pleased to be chosen for the Dirbanu trip. Rootes felt no | |
remorse at taking away Earth's new delight, since he was one of the | |
very few who was immune to it. ("Pretty," he said at his first | |
encounter.) Grunty simply grunted, but then, so did everyone else. | |
Rootes did not notice, and Grunty did not remark upon the obvious | |
fact that though the loverbirds' expression of awestruck wonderment | |
in each other's presence had, if anything, intensified, their extreme | |
pleasure in Earth and the things of Earth had vanished. They were | |
locked, securely but comfortably, in the after cabin behind a new | |
transparent door, so that their every move could be watched from the | |
main cabin and control console. They sat close, with their arms about | |
one another, and though their radiant joy in the contact never | |
lessened, it was a shadowed pleasure, a lachrymose beauty like the | |
wrenching music of the wailing wall. | |
The RS drive laid its hand on moon and they vaulted away. Grunty came | |
up from blackout to find it very quiet. The loverbirds lay still in | |
each other's arms, looking very human except for the high joining of | |
their closed eyelids, which nictated upward rather than downward like | |
a Terran's. Rootes sprawled limply on the other couch, and Grunty | |
nodded at the sight. He deeply appreciated the silence, since Rootes | |
had filled the small cabin with earthy chatter about his conquests in | |
port, detail by hairy detail, for two solid hours preceding their | |
departure. It was a routine which Grunty found particularly wearing, | |
partly for its content, which interested him not at all, but mostly | |
for its inevitability. Grunty had long ago noted that these | |
recitations, for all their detail, carried the tones of thirst rather | |
than of satiety. He had his own conclusions about it, and, | |
characteristically, kept them to himself. But inside, his spinning | |
gusts of words could shape themselves well toit, and they did. "And | |
man, she moaned!" Rootes would chant. "And take money? She /gave/ me | |
money. And what did I do with it? Why, I bought up some more of the | |
same." /And what you could buy with a shekel's worth of tenderness my | |
prince!/ his silent words sang. "...across the floor and around the | |
rug until, by damn, I thought we're about to climb the wall. Loaded, | |
Grunty-boy, I tell you, I was loaded!" /Poor little one/ ran the | |
hushed susurrus, /thy poverty is as great as thy joy and a tenth as | |
great as thine empty noise./ One of Grunty's greatest pleasures was | |
taken in the fact that this kind of chuntering was limited to the | |
first day out, with barely another word on the varied theme until the | |
next departure, no matter how many months away that might be. /Squeak | |
to me of love dear mouse/, his words would chuckle. /Stand up on your | |
cheese and nibble away at your dream. Then, wearily, But oh, this | |
treasure I carry is too heavy a burden, in all its fullness, to be so | |
tugged at by your clattering vacuum!/ | |
Grunty left the couch and went to the controls. The preset courses | |
checked against the indicators. He logged them and fixed the finder | |
control to locate a certain mass-nexus in the Crab Nebula. It would | |
chime when it was ready. He set the switch for final closing by the | |
push-button beside his couch, and went aft to wait. | |
He stood watching the loverbirds because there was nothing else for | |
him to do. | |
They lay quite still, but love so permeated them that their very | |
poses expressed it. Their lax bodies yearned each to each, and the | |
tall one's hand seemed to stream toward the fingers of his beloved, | |
and then back again, like the riven tatters of a torn fabric | |
straining toward oneness again. And as their mood was a sadness too, | |
so their pose, each and both, together and singly expressed it, and | |
singly each through the other silently spoke of the loss they had | |
suffered, and how it ensured greater losses to come. Slowly the | |
picture suffused Grunty's thinking, and his words picked and pieced | |
and smoothed it down, and murmured finally, /Brush away the dusting | |
of sadness from the future, bright ones. You've sadness enough for | |
now. Grief should live only after it is truly born, and not before./ | |
His words sang, | |
/Come fill the cup and in the fire of spring | |
Your winter garment of repentance fling. | |
The bird of time has but a little way | |
To flutter--and the bird is on the wing./ | |
and added /Omar Khayyam, born circa 1073,/ for this, too, was one of | |
the words' functions. | |
And then he stiffened in horror; his great hands came up convulsively | |
and clawed the imprisoning glass... | |
They were smiling at him. | |
They were smiling, and on their faces and on and about their bodies | |
there was no sadness. | |
They had /heard/ him! | |
He glanced convulsively around at the Captain's unconscious form, | |
then back to the loverbirds. | |
That they should recover so swiftly from blackout was, to say the | |
least, an intrusion; for his moments of aloneness were precious and | |
more than precious to Grunty, and would be useless to him under the | |
scrutiny of those jewelled eyes. But that was a minor matter | |
compared to this other thing, this terrible fact that they heard. | |
Telepathic races were not common, but they did exist. And what he | |
was now experiencing was what invariably happened when humans | |
encountered one. He could only send; the loverbirds could only | |
receive. And they must not receive him! No one must. No one must know | |
what he was, what he thought. If anyone did, it would be a disaster | |
beyond bearing. It would mean no more flights with Rootes. Which, of | |
course, meant no flights with anyone. And how could he live--where | |
could he go? | |
He turned back to the loverbirds. His lips were white and drawn back | |
in a snarl of panic and fury. For a blood-thick moment he held their | |
eyes. They drew closer to one another, and together sent him a | |
radiant, anxious, friendly look that made him grind his teeth. | |
Then, at the console, the finder chimed. | |
Grunty turned slowly from the transparent door and went to his couch. | |
He lay down and poised his thumb over the push-button. | |
He /hated/ the loverbirds, and there was no joy in him. He pressed | |
the button, the ship slid into a new stasis, and he blacked out. | |
* * * | |
The time passed. | |
"Grunty!" | |
"Nuh." | |
"You feed them this shift?" | |
"Nuh." | |
"Last shift?" | |
"Nuh." | |
"What the hell's the matter with you, y'big dumb bastich? What you | |
expect them to live on?" | |
Grunty sent a look of roiling hatred aft. "Love," he said. | |
"Feed 'em," snapped Rootes. | |
Wordlessly Grunty went about preparing a meal for the prisoners. | |
Rootes stood in the middle of the cabin, his hard small fists on his | |
hips, his gleaming auburn head tilted to one side, and watched every | |
move. "I didn't used to have to tell you anything," he growled, half | |
pugnaciously, half worriedly. "You sick?" | |
Grunty shook his head. He twisted the tops of two cans and set them | |
aside to heat themselves, and took down the water suckers. | |
"You got it in for these honeymooners or something?" | |
Grunty averted his face. | |
"We get them to Dirbanu alive and healthy, hear me? They get sick, | |
you get sick, by God. I'll see to. that. Don't give me trouble, | |
Grunty. I'll take it out on you. I never whipped you yet, but I | |
will." | |
Grunty carried the tray aft. | |
"You hear me?" Rootes yelled. | |
Grunty nodded without looking at him. He touched the control and a | |
small communication slid open in the glass wall. He slid the tray | |
through. The taller loverbird stepped forward and took it eagerly, | |
gracefully, and gave him a dazzling smile of thanks. Grunty growled | |
low in his throat like a carnivore. The loverbird carried the food | |
back to the couch and they began to eat, feeding each other little | |
morsels. | |
* * * | |
A new stasis, and Grunty came fighting up out of blackness. He sat up | |
abruptly, glanced around the ship. The Captain was sprawled out | |
across the cushions, his compact body and outflung arm forming the | |
poured-out, spring-steel laxness usually seen only in sleeping cats. | |
The loverbirds, even in deep unconsciousness, lay like hardly | |
separate parts of something whole, the small one on the couch, the | |
tall one on the deck, prone, reaching, supplicating. | |
Grunty snorted and hove to his feet. He crossed the cabin and stood | |
looking down on Rootes. | |
/The hummingbird is a yellowjacket/ said his words. /Buzz and dart, | |
hiss and flash away. Swift and hurtful, hurtful.../ | |
He stood for a long moment, his great shoulder muscles working one | |
against the other, and his mouth trembled. | |
He looked at the loverbirds, who were still motionless. His eyes | |
slowly narrowed. | |
His words tumbled and climbed, and ordered themselves: | |
/I through love have learned three things, | |
Sorrow, sin and death it brings. | |
Yet day by day my heart within | |
Dares shame and sorrow, death and sin.../ | |
And dutifully he added /Samuel Ferguson, born 1810./ He glared at the | |
loverbirds, and brought his fist into his palm with a sound like a | |
club on an anthill. They had heard him again, and this time they did | |
not smile, but looked into each other's eyes and then turned together | |
to regard him, nodding gravely. | |
* * * | |
Rootes went through Grunty's books, leafing and casting aside. He had | |
never touched them before. "Buncha crap," he jeered. "Garden of the | |
Plynck. Wind in the Willows. Worm Ouroborous. Kid stuff." | |
Grunty lumbered across and patiently gathered up the books the | |
Captain had flung aside, putting them one by one back into their | |
places, stroking them as if they had been bruised. | |
"Isn't there nothing in here with pictures?" | |
Grunty regarded him silently for a moment and then took down a tall | |
volume. The Captain snatched it, leafed through it. "Mountains," he | |
growled. "Old houses." He leafed. "Damn boats." He smashed the book | |
to the deck. "Haven't you got /any/ of what I want?" | |
Grunty waited attentively. | |
"Do I have to draw a diagram?" the Captain roared. "Got that ol' | |
itch, Grunty. You wouldn't know. I feel like looking at pictures, get | |
what I mean?" | |
Grunty stared at him, utterly without expression, but deep within him | |
a panic squirmed. The Captain never, never behaved like this in | |
mid-voyage. It was going to get worse, he realized. Much worse. And | |
quickly. | |
He shot the loverbirds a vicious, hate-filled glance. If they weren't | |
aboard... | |
There could be no waiting. Not now. Something had to be done. | |
Something... | |
"Come on, come on," said Rootes. "Goddlemighty Godfrey, even a | |
deadbutt like you must have something for kicks." | |
Grunty turned away from him, squeezed his eyes closed for a tortured | |
second, then pulled himself together. He ran his hand over the books, | |
hesitated, and finally brought out a large, heavy one. He handed it | |
to the Captain and went forward to the console. He slumped down there | |
over the file of computer tapes, pretending to be busy. | |
The Captain sprawled onto Grunty's couch and opened the book. | |
"Michelangelo, what the hell," he growled. He grunted, almost like | |
his shipmate. "Statues," he half-whispered, in withering scorn. But | |
he ogled and leafed at last, and was quiet. | |
The loverbirds looked at him with a sad tenderness, and then together | |
sent beseeching glances at Grunty's angry back. | |
The matrix-pattern for Terra slipped through Grunty's fingers, and he | |
suddenly tore the tape across, and across again. A filthy place, | |
Terra. /There is nothing,/ he thought, /like the conservatism of | |
license./ Given a culture of sybaritics, with an endless choice of | |
mechanical titillations, and you have a people of unbreakable and | |
hidebound formality, a people with few but massive taboos, a | |
shockable, narrow, prissy people obeying the rules--even the rules of | |
their calculated depravities--and protecting their treasured, | |
specialized pruderies. In such a group there are words one may not | |
use for fear of their fanged laughter, colors one may not wear, | |
gestures and intonations one must forego, on pain of being torn to | |
pieces. The rules are complex and absolute, and in such a place one's | |
heart may not sing lest, through its warm free joyousness, it betrays | |
one. | |
And you must have joy of such a nature, if you must be free to be | |
your pressured self, then off to space... off to the glittering black | |
lonelinesses. And let the days go by, and let the time pass, and | |
huddle beneath your impenetrable integument, and wait, and wait, and | |
every once in a long while you will have that moment of lonely | |
consciousness when there is no one around to see; and then it may | |
burst from you and you may dance, or cry, or twist the hair on your | |
head till your eyeballs blaze, or do any of the other things your so | |
unfashionable nature thirstily demands. | |
It took Grunty half a lifetime to this freedom. No price would be too | |
great to keep it. Not lives, nor interplanetary diplomacy, nor Earth | |
itself were worth such a frightful loss. | |
He would lose it if anyone knew, and the loverbirds knew. | |
He pressed his heavy hands together until the knuckles crackled. | |
Dirbanu, reading it all from the ardent minds of the loverbirds; | |
Dirbanu flashing the news across the stars; the roar of reaction, and | |
then Rootes, Rootes, when the huge and ugly impact washed over him... | |
So let Dirbanu be offended. Let Terra accuse this ship of fumbling, | |
even of treachery--anything but the withering news the loverbirds had | |
stolen. | |
* * * | |
Another new stasis, and Grunty's first thought as he came alive was | |
/It has to be soon./ | |
He rolled off the couch and glared at the unconscious loverbirds. The | |
helpless loverbirds. | |
Smash their heads in. | |
Then Rootes... what to tell Rootes? | |
The loverbirds attacked him, tried to seize the ship? | |
He shook his head like a bear in a beehive. Rootes would never | |
believe that. Even if the loverbirds could open the door, which they | |
could not, it was more than ridiculous to imagine those two bright | |
and slender things attacking anyone--especially not so rugged and | |
massive an opponent. | |
Poison? No--there was nothing in the efficient, unfailingly | |
beneficial food stores that might help. | |
His glance strayed to the Captain, and he stopped breathing. | |
Of course! | |
He ran to the Captain's personal lockers. He should have known that | |
such a cocky little hound as Rootes could not live, could not strut | |
and prance as he did unless he had a weapon. And if it was the kind | |
of weapon that such a man would characteristically choose-- | |
A movement caught his eye as he searched. | |
The loverbirds were awake. | |
That wouldn't matter. | |
He laughed at them, a flashing, ugly laugh. They cowered close | |
together and their eyes grew very bright. | |
They knew. | |
He was aware that they were suddenly very busy, as busy as he. And | |
then he found the gun. | |
It was a snug little thing, smooth and intimate in his hand. It was | |
exactly what he had guessed, what he had hoped for--just what he | |
needed. It was silent. It would leave no mark. It need not even be | |
aimed carefully. Just a touch of its feral radiation and throughout | |
the body, the axons suddenly refuse to propagate nerve impulses. No | |
thought leaves the brain, no slightest contraction of heart or lung | |
occurs again, ever. And afterward, no sign remains that a weapon has | |
been used. | |
He went to the serving window with the gun in his hand. /When he | |
wakes, you will be dead,/ he thought. /Couldn't recover from stasis | |
blackout. Too bad. But no one's to blame, hm? We never had Dirbanu | |
passengers before. So how could we know?/ | |
The loverbirds, instead of flinching, were crowding close to the | |
window, their faces beseeching, their delicate hands signing and | |
signalling, frantically trying to convey something. | |
He touched the control, and the panel slid back. | |
The taller loverbird held up something as if it would shield him. The | |
other pointed at it, nodded urgently, and gave him one of those | |
accursed, hauntingly sweet smiles. | |
Grunty put up his hand to sweep the thing aside, and then checked | |
himself. | |
It was only a piece of paper. | |
All the cruelty of humanity rose up in Grunty. /A species that can't | |
protect itself doesn't deserve to live./ He raised the gun. | |
And then he saw the pictures. | |
Economical and accurate, and, for all their subject, done with the | |
ineffable grace of the loverbirds themselves, the pictures showed | |
three figures: | |
Grunty himself, hulking, impassive, the eyes glowing, the tree-trunk | |
legs and hunched shoulders. | |
Rootes, in a pose so characteristic and so cleverly done that Grunty | |
gasped. Crisp and clean, Rootes' image had one foot up on a chair, | |
both elbows on the high knee, the head half turned. The eyes fairly | |
sparkled from the paper. | |
And a girl. | |
She was beautiful. She stood with her arms behind her, her feet | |
slightly apart, her face down a little. She was deep-eyed, pensive, | |
and to see her was to be silent, to wait for those downcast lids to | |
lift and break the spell. | |
Grunty frowned and faltered. He lifted a puzzled gaze from these | |
exquisite renderings to the loverbirds, and met the appeal, the | |
earnest, eager, hopeful faces. | |
The loverbird put a second paper against the glass. | |
There were the same three figures, identical in every respect to the | |
previous ones, except for one detail: they were all naked. | |
He wondered how they knew human anatomy so meticulously. | |
Before he could react, still another sheet went up. | |
The loverbirds, this time--the tall one, the shorter one, hand in | |
hand. And next to them a third figure, somewhat similar, but tiny, | |
very round, and with grotesquely short arms. | |
Grunty stared at the three sheets, one after the other. There was | |
something... something... | |
And then the loverbird put up the fourth sketch, and slowly, slowly, | |
Grunty began to understand. In the last picture, the loverbirds were | |
shown exactly as before, except that they were naked, and so was the | |
small creature beside them. He had never seen loverbirds naked | |
before. Possibly no one had. | |
Slowly he lowered the gun. He began to laugh. He reached through the | |
window and took both the loverbirds' hands in one of his, and they | |
laughed with him. | |
* * * | |
Rootes stretched easily with his eyes closed, pressed his face down | |
into the couch, and rolled over. He dropped his feet to the deck, | |
held his head in his hands and yawned. Only then did he realize that | |
Grunty was standing just before him. | |
"What's the matter with you?" | |
He followed Grunty's grim gaze. | |
The glass door stood open. | |
Rootes bounced to his feet as if the couch had turned white-hot. | |
"Where--what--" | |
Grunty's crag of a face was turned to the starboard bulkhead. Rootes | |
spun to it, balanced on the balls 'of his feet as if he were boxing. | |
His smooth face gleamed in the red glow of the light over the | |
airlock. | |
"The lifeboat... you mean they took the lifeboat? They got away?" | |
Grunty nodded. | |
Rootes held his head. "Oh, fine," he moaned. He whipped around to | |
Grunty. "And where the hell were you when this happened?" | |
"Here." | |
"Well, what in God's name happened?" Rootes was on the trembling edge | |
of foaming hysteria. | |
Grunty thumped his chest. | |
"You're not trying to tell me you let them go?" | |
Grunty nodded, and waited--not for very long. | |
"I'm going to burn you down," Rootes raged. "I'm going to break you | |
so low you'll have to climb for twelve years before you get a | |
barracks to sweep. And after I get done with you I'll turn you over | |
to the Service. What do you think they'll do to you? What do you | |
think they're going to do to me?" | |
He leapt at Grunty and struck him a hard, cutting blow to the cheek. | |
Grunty kept his hands down and made no attempt to avoid the fist. He | |
stood immovable, and waited. | |
"Maybe those were criminals, but they were Dirbanu nationals," Rootes | |
roared when he could get his breath. "How are we going to explain | |
this to Dirbanu? Do you realize this could mean war?" | |
Grunty shook his head. | |
"What do you mean? You know something. You better talk while you can. | |
Come on, bright boy--what are we going to tell Dirbanu?" | |
Grunty pointed at the empty cell. "Dead," he said. | |
"What good will it do us to say they're dead? They're not. They'll | |
show up again some day, and--" | |
Grunty shook his head. He pointed to the star chart. Dirbanu showed | |
as the nearest body. There was no livable planet within thousands of | |
parsecs. | |
"They didn't go to Dirbanu!" | |
"Nuh." | |
"Damn it, it's like pulling rivets to get anything out of you. In | |
that lifeboat they go to Dirbanu--which they won't--or they head out, | |
maybe for years, to the Rim stars. That's all they can do!" | |
Grunty nodded. | |
"And you think Dirbanu won't track them, won't bring 'em down?" | |
"No ships." | |
"They have ships!" | |
"Nuh." | |
"The loverbirds told you?" | |
Grunty agreed. | |
"You mean their own ship that they destroyed, and the one the | |
ambassador used were all they had?" | |
"Yuh." | |
Rootes strode up and back. "I don't get it. I don't begin to get it. | |
What did you do it for, Grunty?" | |
Grunty stood for a moment, watching Rootes' face. Then he went to the | |
computing desk. Rootes had no choice but to follow. Grunty spread out | |
the four drawings. | |
"What's this? Who drew these? /Them?/ What do you know. /Damn!/ Who | |
is the chick?" | |
Grunty patiently indicated all of the pictures in one sweep. | |
Rootes looked at him, puzzled, looked at one of Grunty's eyes, then | |
the other, shook his head, and applied himself to the pictures again. | |
"This is more like it," he murmured. "Wish I'd 'a known they could | |
draw like this." Again Grunty drew his attention to all the pictures | |
and away from the single drawing that fascinated him. | |
"There's you, there's me. Right? Then this chick. Now, here we are | |
again, all buff naked. Damn, what a carcass. All right, all right, | |
I'm going on. Now, this is the prisoners, right? And who's the little | |
fat one?" | |
Grunty pushed the fourth sheet over. "Oh," said Rootes. "Here | |
everybody's naked too. Hm." | |
He yelped suddenly and bent close. Then he rapidly eyed all four | |
sheets in sequence. His face began to get red. He gave the fourth | |
picture a long, close scrutiny. Finally he put his finger on the | |
sketch of the round little alien. "This is... a... a Dirbanu--" | |
Grunty nodded. "Female." | |
"Then those two--they were--" | |
Grunty nodded. | |
"So that's it!" Rootes fairly shrieked in fury. "You mean we been | |
shipped out all this time with a coupla God damned /fairies?/ Why, if | |
known that I'd a known that I'd a' killed 'em!" | |
"Yuh." | |
Rootes looked up at him with a growing respect and considerable | |
amusement. "So you got rid of 'em so's I wouldn't kill 'em and mess | |
everything up?" He scratched his head. "Well, I'll be | |
billy-be-damned. You got a think-tank on you after all. Anything I | |
can't stand, it's a fruit." | |
Grunty nodded. | |
"God," said Rootes, "It figures. It really figures. Their females | |
don't look anything like the males. Compared with them, our females | |
are practically identical to us. So the ambassador comes, and sees | |
what looks like a planet full of queers. He knows better but he can't | |
stand the sight. So back he goes to Dirbanu, and Earth gets brushed | |
off." | |
Grunty nodded. | |
"Then these pansies here run off to earth, figuring they'll be at | |
home. They damn near made it, too. But Dirbanu calls 'em back, not | |
wanting the likes of them representing their planet. I don't blame | |
'em a bit. How would you feel if the only Terran on Dirbanu was a | |
fluff? Wouldn't you want him out of there, but quick?" | |
Grunty said nothing. | |
"And now," said Rootes, "we better give Dirbanu the good news." | |
He went forward to the communicator. | |
It took a surprisingly short time to contact the shrouded planet. | |
Dirbanu acknowledged and coded out a greeting. The decoder over the | |
console printed the message for them: | |
GREETINGS STARMITE 439. ESTABLISH ORBIT. CAN YOU DROP PRISONERS TO | |
DIRBANU? NEVER MIND PARACHUTE. | |
"Whew," said Rootes. "Nice people. Hey, you notice they don't say | |
come on in. They never expected to let us land. Well, what'll we tell | |
'em about their lavender lads?" | |
"Dead," said Grunty. | |
"Yeah," said Rootes. "That's what they want anyway." He sent rapidly. | |
In a few minutes the response clattered out of the decoder. | |
STAND BY FOR TELEPATH SWEEP. WE MUST CHECK. PRISONERS MAY BE | |
PRETENDING DEATH. | |
"Oh-oh," said the Captain. "This is where the bottom drops out." | |
"Nuh," said Grunty, calmly. | |
"But their detector will locate--oh--I see what you're driving at. No | |
life, no signal. Same as if they weren't here at all." | |
"Yuh." | |
The coder clattered. | |
DIRBANU GRATEFUL. CONSIDER MISSION COMPLETE. DO NOT WANT BODIES. YOU | |
MAY EAT THEM. | |
Rootes retched. Grunty said, "Custom." | |
The decoder kept clattering. | |
NOW READY FOR RECIPROCAL AGREEMENT WITH TERRA. | |
"We go home in a blaze of glory," Rootes exulted. He sent, | |
TERRA ALSO READY. WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? | |
The decoder paused, then: | |
TERRA STAY AWAY FROM DIRBANU AND DIRBANU WILL STAY AWAY FROM TERRA. | |
THIS IS NOT A SUGGESTION. TAKES EFFECT IMMEDIATELY. | |
"Why that bunch of bastards!" | |
Rootes pounded his codewriter, and although they circled the planet | |
at a respectful distance for nearly four days, they received no | |
further response. | |
* * * | |
The last thing Rootes had said before they established the first | |
stasis on the way home was: "Well, anyway--it does me good to think | |
of those two queens crawling away in that lifeboat. Why, they can't | |
even starve to death. They'll be cooped up there for years before | |
they get anywhere they can sit down." | |
It still rang in Grunty's mind as he shook off the blackout. He | |
glanced aft to the glass partition and smiled reminiscently. "For | |
years," he murmured. His words curled up and spun, and said, | |
/... Yes; love requires the focal space | |
Of recollection or of hope, | |
Ere it can measure its own scope. | |
Too soon, too soon comes death to show | |
We love more deeply than we know!/ | |
Dutifully, then, came the words: /Coventry Patmore, born 1823./ | |
He rose slowly and stretched, revelling in his precious privacy. He | |
crossed other couch and sat down on the edge of it. | |
For a time he watched the Captain's unconscious face, reading it with | |
great tenderness and utmost attention, like a mother with an infant. | |
His words said, /Why must we love where the lightning strikes, and | |
not where we choose?/ | |
And they said, /But I'm glad it's you, little prince. I'm glad it's | |
you./ | |
He put out his huge hand and, with a feather touch, stroked the | |
sleeping lips. | |
From: gopher://tilde.pink/1/~bencollver/ia/details/Universe_01_1953-06_cape1736 | |
See also: | |
gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_World_Well_Lost | |
tags: queer,sci-fi | |
# Tags | |
queer | |
sci-fi |