Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2 Read online

  Big man put out short beer, I drink all. Purky sit up on floor. I feel big bubble come, I make it roar. I look at Purky. Purky not talk. Elena pull me, we go.

  We walk by lakeshore long time. People foot-slide slowly to pulse from mens with air-vibrators, air-column wood, air-column metal, vibrating strings single and sets. “Dancing,” Elena say and I say “Nice. Is goodly nice.” We have a happy, watching. Pulse fast, pulse slow, mens cry with pulse and vibrations, womens, two at once, cry together. “Singing,” Elena say, and the lights move on the dancing, red and yellow-red and big and little blue; clouds shift and change, pulse shift and change, stars come, stars go and the wind, warm. Elena say, “Nemo, honey, do you know what love is?”

  I say no.

  She look the lake, she look the lights, she wave the arm of her to show all, with the wind and stars; she make her voice like whisper and like singing too and she say, “It’s something like this, Nemo. I hope you find out some day.”

  I say yes, and I have sleepy too. So she take me back to the hospital.

  * * * *

  It is the day and de la Torre is tired with me. He fall into chair, wipe the face of he with a small white weaving.

  He say, “Por Dios, Nemo, I don’t figure you at all. Can I be frank with you?”

  I say, “Yes,” but I know all he be is de la Torre.

  He say, “I don’t think you’re trying. But you must be trying; you couldn’t get along so fast without trying. You don’t seem to be interested; I have to tell you some things fifty times before you finally get them. Yet you ask questions as if you were interested. What are you? What do you want?”

  “I lift up the shoulders once, quickly, just like de la Torre when he not know.

  He say, “You grasp all the complicated things at sight, and ignore the simple ones. You use terms out ofMateria Medica and use them right, and all the time you refuse to talk anything but a highly individualized pidgin-English. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  I say, “Yes.”

  He say, “Do you? Tell me: what is Materia Medica? What is ‘Individualized’? What is ‘Pidgin-English’?”

  I do the shoulders thing.

  “So don’t tell me you know what I’m talking about.”

  I turn the head little, raise the one finger like he do sometime, I say, “I do. I do.”

  “Tell me then. Tell it in your own words. Tell me why you won’t learn to talk the way I do.”

  “No use,” I say. Then I say, “No use for me.” Then I say, “Not interest me.” And still he sit and puzzle at me.

  So I try. I say, “De la Torre, I see peoples dancing in the night.”

  “When? With Elena?”

  “Elena, yes. And I see mens make pulse and cries for dancing.”

  “An orchestra?” I puzzle. He say, “Men with instruments, making noises together?” I make a yes. He say, “Music. That’s called music.”

  I say, “What this?” and I move the arms.

  He say, “Violin?”

  I say, “Yes. Make one noise, a new noise, a new noise— one and one and one. Now,” I say, “what this?” and I move again.

  “Banjo,” he say. “Guitar, maybe.”

  “Make many noise, in set. Make a new set. And a new set. Yes?”

  “Yes,” he say. “It’s played in chords, mostly. What are you getting at?”

  I bump on side of head. “You have think word and word and word and you make set. I have think set and set and set.”

  “You mean I think like a violin, one note at a time, and you think like a guitar, a lot of related notes at a time?” He quiet, he puzzle. “Why do you want to think like that?”

  “Is my thinks.”

  “You mean, that’s the way you think? Well, for Pete’s sake, Nemo, you’ll make it a lot easier to convey your thinks—uh—thoughts if you’ll learn to come out with them like other people.”

  I make the no with the head. “No use for me.”

  “Look,” he say. He blow hard through he nostrils, bang-bang on table, eyes close. He say, “You’ve got to understand this. I’ll give you an example. You know how an automobile engine works?”

  I say no.

  He grab white card and markstick and start to mark, start to conversation swift, say all fast about they call this a four-cycle engine because its acts in four different phases, the piston goes down, this valve opens, that valve closes, the piston goes up, this makes a fire . . . and a lot, all so swift. “This the intake cycle,” and many words. “This is the crankshaft, sparkplug, fuel line, compression stroke . . .” Much and much.

  And stops, whump. Points markstick. “Now, you and your thinking in concepts. That’s how it works, basically. Don’t tell me you got any of that, with any real understanding.”

  “Don’t tell?”

  “No, no,” he say. He tired, he smile. He say, “Name the four cycles of this engine.”

  I say, “Suck. Squeeze. Pop. Phooey.”

  He drop he markstick. A long quiet. He say, “I can’t teach you anything.”

  I say, “I not intelligent?”

  He say, “I not intelligent.”

  * * * *

  Is many peoples in eatplace but I by my own with my plate and my thinks, I am alone. Is big roughness impacting on arm, big noise say, “What’s your name?”

  I bend to look up and there is the Sergeant. I say “Nemo.”

  He sit down. He look. He make me have think: he like me, he not believe me. He not believe anybody. He say: “Nemo, Nemo. That’s not your name.” I do the thing with the shoulders. He say, “You weren’t surprised when I jolted you then. Don’t you ever get surprised? Don’t you ever get sore?” I say, “Surprise, no. Sore?” He say, “Sore, mad, angry.” I have a think. I say, “No.”

  He say, “Ought to be something that’ll shake you up. Hm. . . . They pamper you too much around here, you walking around like Little Eva or Billy Budd or somebody. Sweetness and light. Dr. de la Torre says you’re real bright.”

  “De la Torre real bright.”

  “Maybe. Maybe.” He eyes have like coldness, like so cold nothing move. He say, “That Elena. How you like Elena, Nemo?”

  I say, “I like.” And I say, “High music, big color-gentle.”

  He say, “Thought so.” He poke sharp into my chest. “Now I’m gonna tell you the truth about your Elena. She’s crazy as a coot. She went bad young. She was a mainliner, understand me? She was an addict. She did a lot of things to get money for the stuff. She had to do more’n most of ‘em, with a face like that, and it didn’t get any prettier. De la Torre pulled her through a cure. He’s a good man. Three different times he cured her.

  “So one time she falls off again and what do you know, she picks up with a looney just like you. A guy they called George. I figured from the start he was a faker. Showed up wandering, just like you. And she goes for him. She goes for him bigger’n she ever went for anything else, even hash. And he went over the hill one fine day and was never seen again.

  “So she’s off the stuff, sure. And you know what? The only thing she has any use for is amnesiacs. Yeah, I mean it. You’re the sixth in a row. They come in, she sticks with ‘em until they get cured or fade. Between times she just waits for the next one.

  “And that’s your Elena. De la Torre strings along with her because she does ‘em good. So that’s your light o’ love, Nemo boy. A real twitch. If it isn’t dope it’s dopes. You get cured up, she’ll want no part of you. Wise up, fella.”

  He look at me. He has a quiet time. He say, “God aw-mighty, you don’t give a damn for her after all ... or maybe you just don’t know how to get mad ... or you didn’t understand a word of what I said.”

  I say, “Every people hurt Elena. Some day Elena be happy, always. Sergeant hurt every people. Sergeant not be happy. Never.”‘

  He look at me. Something move in the cold, like lobster on ice; too cold to move much. I say, “Poor Sergeant.”

  He jump up, he make a noise,
not word, he raise a big hand. I look up at him, I say, “Poor Sergeant.” He go away. He bump de la Torre who is quiet behind us.

  De la Torre say, “I heard that speech of yours, you skunk. I’d clobber you myself if I didn’t think Nemo’d done it better already. You’d better keep your big flat feet the hell out of this hospital.”

  Sergeant run away. De la Torre stand a time, go away. I eat.

  * * * *

  It is night by the lake, the moon is burst and leaking yellow to me over the black alive water and Elena by me. I say, “I go soonly.”

  She breathe, I hear.

  I say, “Tree finish, tree die. Sickness finish, sickness gone. House finish, workmens leave. Is right.”

  “Don’t go. Don’t go yet, Nemo.”

  “Seed sprout, child grow, bird fly. Something finish, something change. I finish.”

  She say, “Not so soon.”

  “Bury plant? Tie boy to cradle? Nail wings to nest?”

  She say, “All right.” We sit.

  I say, “I promised.”

  She say, “You kept your promise, Nemo. Thank you.” She cry. I watch leaking moon float free, lost light flattening and flattening at the black lake. Light tried, light tried, water would not mix.

  Elena say, “What world do you live in, Nemo?”

  I say, “My world.”

  She say, “Yes . . . yes, that’s the right answer. You live in your world, I live in my world, a hundred people, a hundred worlds. Nobody lives with me, nobody. Nemo, you can travel from one world to another.”

  I do the head, yes.

  “But just one at a time. I’m talking crazy, but you don’t mind. I had a world I don’t remember, soft and safe, and then a world that hurt me because I was too stupid to duck when I saw hurt coming. And a world that was better than real where I couldn’t stay, but I had to go there . . . and I couldn’t stay . . . and I had to go . . . and then I had a world where I thought, just for a little while—such a little while—I thought it was a world for me and . . .”

  I say, “—and George.”

  She say, “You can read my mind!”

  “No!” I say, big; loud. Hurt. I say, “Truly no, not do that, I can’t do that.”

  She touch on my face, say, “It doesn’t matter. But George, then, about George ... I was going to be lost again, and this time forever, and I saw George and spoke right up like a—a—” She shake. “You wouldn’t know what I was like. And instead, George was gentle and sweet and he made me feel as if I was . . . well and whole. In all my life nobody ever treated me gently, Nemo, except Dr. de la Torre, and he did it because I was sick. George treated me as if I was healthy and fine, and he . . . admired me for it. Me. And he came to love me like those lights, those lights I showed you, all the colors, slipping among the dancers under the sky. He came to love me so much he wanted to stay with me for ever and ever, and then he went away sometime between a morning and a snowstorm.”

  The moon is gone up, finished and full, the light left on the water frightened and yearning to it, thinning, breaking and fusing, pointing at the moon, the moon not caring, it finished now.

  She say, “I was dead for a long time.”

  She passes through a think and lets her face be dead until she say, “Dr. de la Torre was so kind, he used to tell me I was a special princess, and I could go anywhere. I went in all the places in the hospital, and I found out a thing I had not known; that I had these hands, these legs, eyes, this body, voice, brains. It isn’t much and nobody wants it . . . now . . . but I had it all. And some of those people in there, without all of it, they were happier than I was, brave and good. There’s a place with people who have their voices taken out of their throats, Nemo, you know that? And they learn to speak there. You know how they do it? I tell some people this, they laugh, but you won’t laugh. You won’t laugh, Nemo?”

  I am not laugh.

  She say, “You know that noise you made when you drank the beer so fast? That’s what they do. On purpose. They do it and they practice and practice and work hard, work together. And bit by bit they make a voice that sounds like a voice. It’s rough and it’s all on one note, but it’s a real voice. They talk together and laugh, and have a debating society . . .

  “There’s a place in there where a man goes in without legs, and come out dancing, yes twirling and swirling a girl around, her ball-gown a butterfly and he smiling and swift and sure. There’s a place for the deaf people, and they must make voices out of nothing too, and ears. They do it. Nemo! .And together they understand each other. Outside, people don’t understand the deaf. People don’t mean to be unkind, but they are. But the deaf understand the deaf, and they understand the hearing as well, better than the hearing understand themselves.

  “So one day I met a soldier there, with the deaf. He was very sad at first. Many of the people there are born deaf, but he had a world of hearing behind him. And there was a girl there and they fell in love. Everyone was happy, and one day he went away.

  She cried, she cried so, and when she stopped, it was even worse.

  “And Dr. de la Torre went and found the soldier, and very gently and carefully he dug out why he had run away. It was because he was handicapped. It was because he had lost a precious thing. And he wouldn’t marry the girl, though he loved her, because she was as she had been born and he felt she was perfect. She was perfect and he was damaged. She was perfect and he was unfit. And that is why he ran away.

  “Dr. de la Torre brought him back and they were married right there in the hospital with such fine banquet and dance; and they got jobs there and went to school and now they are helping the others, together. . . .

  “So then I went into another world, and this is my world; and if I should know that it is not a real world I would die.

  “My world is here, and somewhere else there are people like us but different. One of the ways they are different is that they need not speak; not words anyway. And something happens to them sometimes, just as it does to us: through sickness through accident, they lose forever their way of communicating, like our total deaf. But they can learn to speak, just as you and I can learn Braille, or make a voice without a larynx, and then at least they may talk among themselves. And if you are to learn Braille, you should go among the blind. If you are to learn lip-reading you do it best among the deaf. If you have something better than speech and lose it, you must go among a speaking people.

  “And that is what I believe, because I must or die. I think George was such a one, who came here to learn to speak so he could rejoin others who also had to learn. And I think that anyone who has no memory of this earth or anything on it, and who must be taught to speak, might be another. They pretend to be amnesiacs so that they will be taught all of a language. I think that when they have learned, they understand themselves and those like them, and also the normal ones of their sort, better than anyone, just as the deaf can understand the hearing ones better.

  “I think George was such a one, and that he left me because he thought of himself as crippled and of me as whole. He left me for love. He was humble with it.

  “This is what I believe and I can’t . . .”

  She whisper.

  “... I can’t believe it...very much...longer...”

  She listen to grief altogether until it tired, and when she can listen to me I say, “You want me to be George, and stay.”

  She sit close, she put she wet face on my face and say, “Nemo, Nemo, I wish you could, I do so wish you could. But you can’t be my George, because I love him, don’t you see? You can be my de la Torre, though, who went out and found a man and explained why and brought him back. All he has to know is that when love is too humble it can kill the lovers. . . . Just tell him that, Nemo. When you . . . when you go back.”

  She look past me at the moon, cold now, and down and out to the water and sky, and she here altogether out of memory and hope-thinks. She say with strong daytime voice, “I talk crazy sometimes, thanks, Nemo, you didn’t lau
gh. Let’s have a beer some time.”

  * * * *

  I wish almost the Sergeant knows where I keep anger. It would please him I have so much. Here in the bare rocks, here in the night, I twist on anger, curl and bite me like eel on spear.

  It is night and with anger, I alone in cold hills, town and hospital a far fog of light behind. I stand to watch it the ship and around it, those silents who watch me, eight of them, nine, all silent.

  This is my anger: that they are silent. They share all thinks in one thinking instant, each with one other, each with all others. All I do now is talk. But the silents, there stand by ship, share and share all thinks, none talks. They wait, I come. They have pity.

  They have manymuch pity, so I angry.

  Then I see my angry is envy, and envy never teach to dance a one-legged man. Envy never teach the lip-reading.

  I see that and laugh at me, laugh but it sting my eyes.

  “Hello!”

  One comes to me, not silent, but have conversation! Surprise. I say, “Good evening.”

  He shake hand of me, say, “We thought you were not going to come.” His speak slow, very strong, steadily.

  I say, “I ready. I surprise you have talk.”

  He say, “Oh, I spent some time here. I studied very carefully. I have come back to live here.”

  I say, “You conversation goodly. I have learn talk idea, good enough. You have word and word and word, like Earth peoples. Good. Why you come returning?”

  He look my face, very near, say, “I did not like it at home. When you go back there, everyone will be kind. But they will have their own lives to live, and there is not much they can share with you any more. You will be blind among the seeing, deaf among those who hear. But they will be kind, oh yes: very kind.”

  Then he look back at the silents, who stand watching. He say, “But here, I speak among the speaking, and it is a better sharing than even a home planet gone all silent.” He point at watchers. He laugh. He say, “We speak together in a way they have never learned to speak, like two Earth mutes gesticulating together in a crowd. It is as if we were the telepaths and not they—see them stare and wonder!”