The Complete Stories, Vol. 1: Final Reckonings

  "I'll try," 1 said, and meant it.

  "You are not afraid, then? Good. I see you are armed, in case she proves unexpectedly hostile. But I do not think she will trouble you in that way."

  I didn't think she would trouble me in that way, either.

  "Go ahead," Ottar said. "I'll be downstairs, at the bar. Somebody may come in. Call if you need me. And try to find out about Harley. It is important that I know."

  He shuffled down the hall. I opened the door, stepped into the room, closed the door behind me. Locked myself in and locked reality out.

  That was the feeling. Standing on the other side of the door, looking at her, everything had been real. And now the reality had gone. We faced each other as total strangers. She was a stranger to me, and I was suddenly a stranger to myself.

  A stranger and afraid. Who said that? I used to read the classic tapes when I was Earthside. And I used to go out for six months at a time on Service assignments. I used to dream about females, I used to talk to Ottar about Harley's death, I used to look through a glass door at living dreams. . . .

  That was reality, that was past. Now I stood in the present. In the room, with her. I looked down and she looked up. A moment, a minute, an hour, a century slipped by. The present didn't change.

  A faint, foolish, far-off part of me was wondering, "Now what do you do? She doesn't talk, you know. She doesn't even understand what you're here for. And what are you here for, anyway?"

  Yes. That made sense. What was I here for? My original purpose, my past purpose, was gone. She wasn't just a female. She was somehow less than that and somehow much, much more.

  I can say that her hair was black and her skin was white and her lips were red, but that doesn't begin to describe the intensity, the pure depths of the colors that clashed and flamed and blended, the colors that offered the beauty of her body to my eyes.

  I can say that she was proud, that her every attitude and gesture made a measure of that pride, but I cannot describe how that pride seemed justified in her very being.

  And I can say that, sitting there, she lifted her head and looked into my eyes. Gazed into my eyes. Stared into my eyes. Flowed into my eyes.

  Her eyes were like warm suns, far away. Her eyes were like blazing guns, close at hand. Her eyes burned inside me.

  She was inside me, and she communicated.

  "I am here. What do you wish of me?"

  Telepathy? Perhaps. Whatever it was, it worked. She didn't talk, she communicated. And what did I wish of her?

  "What'll I call you?"

  "Minerva. That would be closest."

  "Minerva?"

  "The goddess of wisdom."

  "Where did you learn that?"

  "From your mind, now. I tried to find what would be most — equivalent." It wasn't a voice inside my head, it was a flowing. She did it with her eyes, I knew that now. They blazed with a sensitivity beyond all sight.

  "Yes," she assented.

  "Yes, what?"

  "You may sit down. Closer, if you like."

  I sat down, sat very close to Minerva on the sofa. Close to midnight, ice and fire.

  "You wish to ask me — ?"

  "Where are you from?"

  The communication I got in return was not formed in words for me. Instead came a familiar picture. Grass, trees, clouds, flowers — it was Earthside!

  "Earth?" I spoke aloud.

  "No. Not there. I cannot tell you. There is nothing in your mind that would be a counterpart, nothing you could ever understand about where I came from."

  At least she was honest. I framed my next question. "Where did you meet Harley?"

  "Harley?" She waited for me to form the concept of Harley.

  Then she shook her head. The flow came. "I do not know this Harley."

  "But you must. You came here with him on the unit." I thought of Harley, lying dead with his smashed head. I pushed the thought away quickly, but she caught it.

  "Yes. There was such a one on the unit. Was that Harley?"

  I nodded. "How did you get on the unit?"

  In reply, blankness. Then, "I do not know. It happened before I was there."

  "Before you were there? That doesn't make sense."

  "It happened before I was there. I do not lie." I believed her. But I did not understand.

  "I am sorry," the flow came. "But there is no way of explaining."

  "Then you can't tell me about Harley, and about the trip? About where he was going, where he'd been, how he died?"

  Her eyes answered. "I am truly sorry. It all happened before I was there."

  Suddenly I caught sight of myself—sitting here with the most beautiful female I'd ever known, asking questions with my mouth and getting answers from her eyes. It was unusual, it was interesting, it would have made somebody from Research Control very happy — but it was also a waste of time. A complete waste of time.

  So she didn't know about Harley and I believed her. So Harley was dead. Harley was dead and he'd stay deathside, while I was alive. Alive, after six months outside. I'd come here in the first place wanting the company of a female. Wanting more than that, but not daring to hope. Wanting love.

  "Love?"

  She'd read my thoughts, all of them. And she understood all of them — except the last.

  "What is this love?"

  All right. I thought about "love." About all kinds of "love." And I thought about her.

  "No. It is not possible."

  She was honest, this wasn't a brink-job, there must be a reason. I asked for it. "Why?"

  "There can be nothing of what you think between you and myself. It is impossible. You are a man but I am not a — you call it — woman. You understand?"

  I didn't. All I could understand was that I was suddenly in the presence of perfection; that woman or no, she was more completely and utterly female than anything or anyone I could ever imagine. She was the essence of everything I wanted and needed, and we were alone together and yet eternities apart.

  There must be some way of bridging eternity. There had to be. I asked the only question I could ask.

  "Are there other ways of expressing love for your kind?"

  "Yes."

  "And what are those ways?"

  She hesitated a moment before communication came. It was as though she were learning, too. "With the eyes, I know. Or through the eyes. Mind to mind. Or my being to your mind."

  "I do not understand." And a part of my mind said, "You're lying."

  Her eyes answered. "I do not lie. It is an ancient way of love, the first way, which you of mankind have forgotten."

  Mind to mind. Her being to my mind. "Then how do you — reproduce?"

  The concept formed, the answer came swiftly. "Being to mind. Thought is the seed. But not as you know it. The male is the host."

  "Host? You mean the male carries the child?"

  "Not the way you understand. The male carries the seed within him for—your time — a week, perhaps. And we are born as you see me now."

  "Full-grown? But how?"

  "I cannot tell you. We are of a different order than mankind. More. I am today as I will be forever. I can communicate, learn if I desire, but it is not necessary. I am complete in myself without anything further."

  It didn't make sense, but it was self-evident. Whatever she was trying to tell me I already knew. She was complete. I couldn't imagine her as she might be before, and I couldn't imagine her changing. She was past, present, future all incarnate. A beautiful statue holding life. But this gibberish about gestation, parturition —

  "I cannot explain. You have no parallel concept to give me the words. There is my thought, which is seed to that part of you which accepts it. And the — cells, you'd call them, although they are not cells, multiply swiftly.

  They grow in the warm, soft darkness. They feed and grow, feed and grow. And then — I am born. Always new, always the same. For ever and ever. This I know, although I was not told. There was no one to tell me."
r />   She sounded like a class in metaphysics, or whatever they used to call it. But she looked like the most desirable woman ever created. And that's what she was to me, now. I moved closer; it was almost agony to be so close and not touch her.

  "No," came the message. "It is not for you. You do not understand the danger, what it means — "

  I didn't. All I understood was that I wanted her, wanted her in any way possible; wanted love with the eyes, the mind, anything. I once heard that there are times when the merest touch is worth ten nights in a harem, and I'd laughed. I wasn't laughing now. Looking at her, I knew it could be true. It would be true, must be true for me.

  "There's more to love than lips and loins may learn."

  Was that her thought or mine? I did not know. All I knew was the need.

  And was it her need or mine?

  She was staring at me now, and suddenly I sensed that she shared my sensation. She understood what I wanted, what I desired, because she desired it, too. She'd warned me because she loved me. And because she loved me, she'd give herself in her own way.

  "Yes."

  Her eyes said that. And her hands sought mine, the hands of marble, the hands of fire. We sat there, silently, and our eyes met.

  She gave me her eyes, and all that lay behind them. And the first gift was loneliness. All the loneliness of endless space, all the loneliness of endless time. It surged into me, surged through me, until I was filled with all that is empty. Now I understood why she held my hands — in some way, that was all she could do to keep my being from losing itself in the frozen void. As it was, I remained, retained my identity, and took the loneliness from her. It was her gift, and it became part of me.

  Her second gift was memory. Not her memory, but the memory of all who had gone before her. It was not words, it was not images, it was not thoughts; it was a whirling, incredibly flashing blend and blur of sense impressions in which I found earth and marble columns, moons and craters, shattered stars and blazing suns set in a continuity which had nothing to do with time. It came to me swiftly, and incorporated without identifying. Again, it was only the touch of her hands that saved me.

  "In love you are given more than you can ever know."

  We both felt that. For we were one. And one was many. One was all.

  Our eyes were inches apart. I could not see; that minor function had long since ceased. My eyes communicated and received directly from her being. They sought the third gift, now.

  The third gift was warmth. Heat. Fire. Her warmth, her heat, her fire. It was love as I knew it, love as I had never known it, love as I'd never dared dream it. Worlds were split apart to make mountains, mountains ripped asunder to spew lava, and the molten mass of it flowed to fuse us into pure flame. This was the love of the gods, which is fire. And out of fire comes life.

  "Out of fire comes life." She was telling me that, now, and ever so slowly I realized once again that there was a she and that I had my own identity.

  Her hands fell away. I sat back, gasping, trying to focus my eyes and my thoughts. I felt exhausted beyond belief, but there was no feeling of emptiness. Quite the contrary; a new fullness had been added. The quite incredible conviction came to me that perhaps she had spoken the literal truth. That I might now be carrying the seed —

  "Yes. Oh, yes! It is done now, as it was ever done, as it must always be done."

  And what flowed from her eyes now was more than thought. It was pity. She, who was beyond emotion, had taken it from me. Two tears — her tears, my tears, our tears? — glistened in those glowing depths, then stained the beauty of immortal flesh.

  I closed my eyes. There was a churning inside me. I had to sleep, sleep, sleep without dreams or desire. . . .

  When I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

  The key was missing from the table and the door was open. I peered into the emptiness of the dawn-gray hall.

  Then, slowly, I found my way back through the corridor and down the stairs.

  Ottar slept at his desk, his big head cradled in his arms. He jumped a bit when I poked him.

  He did more than jump when I told him that she was gone.

  "But how could she go? I was here, 1 didn't see anyone, I didn't hear a sound. All at once I was asleep and that's all I remember."

  I smiled, or tried to smile. "That makes sense. She's a telepath, among other things. Which means she can probably use her mind as a hypnotic weapon, too. She put you to sleep and went on her way."

  Ottar grabbed my shoulder. "What happened? What did you find out about Harley? Tell me."

  "There's nothing to tell. She didn't know Harley. That's what she claims, and I believe her."

  "How could that be? It doesn't make sense."

  "Not our kind of sense." I sighed. "But there are other kinds of sense and other kinds of life in the universe." I started to walk out.

  "Where are you going? Will you look for her, bring her back?"

  I nodded. There was no sense saying any more. No sense telling him that I'd never find her, never bring her back. Some man would see her soon, walking in the dawn, and gaze into her eyes, then take her for himself whatever the risk. Before the day was out, I knew, she'd be in a unit bound for another world. She, or those before her, had known many worlds and would know many more as long as there are men who dare to desire a dream come true.

  I thought about it all through the day, after I'd taken a room here at the Unit-el. Now it's Dark-hour again, and I'm writing it all down. Writing helps to put everything in order, so that it makes sense. Sense, and more than sense.

  Gradually, I've figured it out. About poor old Harley and what happened to him, and about what happened to me.

  She didn't lie at all. She told me everything I needed to know. It's just that I wanted her too much and didn't stop to realize.

  But I can realize, now. That's all I have left, the realization of how it must have been.

  Harley hit some spot and landed, better than a week ago. And he met Minerva's mother, if you can call her that. And they loved, if you can call it that. "It happened before I was there" she had said to me.

  Then he took off again in the unit. Alone.

  But he wasn't really alone. Because, "the cells multiply swiftly. They grow in the soft, warm darkness. They feed and grow, feed and grow."

  She told the truth. She told the truth when she said that she didn't know Harley. Of course she didn't. And she didn't know her mother, because she never saw her.

  When she was born, she was already on the unit, and Harley was already dead.

  Harley died with his head ripped open incredibly, and she was born. "You do not understand the danger — " I understand, now.

  I understand, how, in searching my mind for concepts, she found the name Minerva. The seeds travel from world to world, from universe to universe, and man is the carrier and the host. And in ancient times, a man who could make such a journey would be a god. His offspring would be a god or a goddess. It must have happened on Olympus, when Minerva was born. Yes, that's the way it was.

  I remember the legend of the goddess of wisdom now, the legend of Minerva. Minerva, who sprang fullblown from the head of Jupiter.

  But it wasn't a legend. "My being meets your mind. The cells feed and grow, feed and grow. One week. Full-grown!'

  And the seed grew in Harley's brain, where it had been planted to grow,

  and his head burst out there in space, and in a week it was all over and Minerva was born. My Minerva.

  In a week, now, she'll reproduce again. But this time it's feeding and growing in my brain. It absorbs the bony parts of the skull and the skin expands incredibly. It drinks the blood and eats the soft gray nourishment and waxes fat in godliness as it sups on the wisdom of men. And then it springs, fullblown. In just one week.

  I can't write any more. My head is beginning to ache. . . .

  The Past Master

  Statement of Debby Gross

  HONESTLY, I could just die. The way George acts, yo
u'd think it was my fault or something. You'd think he never even saw the guy. You'd think I stole his car. And he keeps asking me to explain everything to him. If I told him once, I told him a hundred times — and the cops too. Besides, what's there to tell him? He was there.

  Of course, it doesn't make sense. I already know that. Honest to Pete, I wish I'd stayed home Sunday. I wish I'd told George I had another date when he called up. I wish I'd made him take me to the show instead of that old beach. Him and his convertible! Besides, your legs stick to those leather seats in hot weather.

  But you should of seen me Sunday when he called. You'd think he was taking me to Florida or someplace, the way I acted. I had this new slack suit I bought at Sterns, with the plaid top sort of a halter, like. And I quick put on some more of that Restora Rinse. You know, George is the one down at the office who started everybody calling me "Blondie."

  So anyhow he came around and picked me up about four, and it was still hot and he had the top down. I guess he just finished washing the car. It looked real snazzy, and he said, "Boy, it just matches your hair, don't it?"

  First we drove along the Parkway and then out over the Drive. It was just packed, the cars, I mean. So he said how about it if we didn't go to the beach until after dinner.

  That was all right by me, so we went to this Luigi's — it's a seafood place way south on the highway. It's real expensive and they got one of those big menus with all kinds of oozy stuff like pompanos and terrapins. That's a turtle, like.

  I had a sirloin and french fries, and George had — I cant remember, oh, yes I do — he had fried chicken. Before we ate we had a couple drinks, and after we just sat in the booth and had a couple more. We were sort of kidding back and forth, you know, about the beach and all, and waiting until after dark so we could go swimming on account of not bringing any suits.

  Anyways, I was kidding. That George, he'd just as soon do anything. And don't think I didn't know why he was feeding me all those drinks. When we went out he stopped over at the bar and picked up a pint.

  The moon was just coming up, almost full, and we started singing while we drove, and I felt like I was getting right with it. So when he said let's not go to the regular beach — he knew this little place way off somewhere — I thought, why not?