“I have two children. I couldn’t bear to—”
“Wait!” Soobuknoora said. “Think one moment. Suppose you were to know that when they reached the age of eighteen, both your children were to be operated on by our methods. How would that affect your present relationship to them?”
Lambert was, above all, a realist. He remembered the days of being “too busy” for the children, of passing off their serious questions with a joking or curt evasion, of playing with them as though they were young, pleasing, furry animals.
“I would do a better job as a parent,” Lambert admitted. “I would try to give them enough emotional stability so that they would never — have that urge to kill themselves. But Ann is delicate, moody, unpredictable, artistic.”
Poogla and Soobuknoora nodded in unison. “You would probably lose that one; maybe you would lose both,” Soobuknoora agreed. “But it is better to lose more than half the children of a few generations to save the race.”
Lambert thought some more. He said, “I shall go back and I shall speak of this plan and what it did for you. But I do not think my race will like it. I do not want to insult you or your people, but you have stagnated. You stand still in time.”
Vonk Poogla laughed largely. “Not by a damn sight,” he said gleefully. “Next year we stop giving the operation. We stop for good. It was just eight thousand years to permit us to catch our breath before going on more safely. And what is eight thousand years of marking time in the history of a race? Nothing, my friend. Nothing!”
When Lambert went back to Earth, he naturally quit his job.
Game for Blondes
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952.
Being a collector can be fun but is a collection cool and collected if it’s collected?
Martin Greynor was very very drunk, not gayly drunk, not freshly six-quick-ones drunk, but drunk in varying degrees since December tenth at ten P.M. Two big red 10s in his mind, always with him — zeroes like a pair of headlights. Ruth beside him, sweet-scented, fur-clad. And one of his fits of stupid, vicious, reckless anger. December 10. 10 P.M. Hitting the slick black curves hard, motor droning, forcing her to tell him he was going too fast. Once she said it, he could slow down and that would be a little victory.
“Too fast, Marty!” she said. They were the last words she ever spoke.
Fat headlights and the long whining skid, and the crash, and the jangle that went on forever. Ripped fur and blood and gone the sweet scent.
Now it was New Year’s Eve. Ruth was gone. His job was gone, the car gone. Money was left, though, money a-plenty. Funny about drinking. The wobbling, falling down, sick stage lasts about twelve days, he discovered. Important discovery. Boon to science. Then you’re armor-plated. Liquor drops into a pit, clunk. Walk steady, talk steady. But in come the illusions on little soft pink feet.
Ruth ahead of you, hurrying down a dark street. “Ruth! Wait!”
Hurriedly she puts on a wattled mask, turns and grimaces at you, rasps in a mocking gin-husky voice. “Ya wan something, sweetie?”
She has slipped around the next corner. Run, now, and see her in the next block. Cake the wet December slush on the shrinking, stiffening leather of the shoes that came out of that store window.
“Marty, let’s buy you a pair of those. I like those shoes.”
Suit she liked. Now a bit dribbled, a shade rancid. Apartment the way they had left it that night. Never gone back. Beds not made, no doubt.
Walk through the night streets, looking for punishment. Looking for a way to release the load of guilt. Now the old places don’t want you. “Sorry, Mr. Greynor. You’ve begun to stink.” The little bars don’t care.
“HAP-PEEE NEW YEAR!”
The bar mirrors are enchanted. Ruth stands behind you. She said, “Never run away from me, darling. You’d be too easy to find. Wanted — a redheaded man with one blue eye and one brown eye. See? You couldn’t get away with it.”
The face that looks back has been gaunted, because you stopped eating.
He bent low over the bar until his lips almost touched the shot glass, then lifted it in a hard arc, tossing his head back. It burned its way down into the nothingness. The bartender slapped the change down. Martin Greynor fumbled with it, pushed a quarter over to the far edge. The bartender slipped it off the bar with a surly grunt and clinked it into a glass on the back bar.
Martin turned around and saw the three girls again. He wondered if it was again, or if he was seeing them for the first time. The mind performs such odd little hop, skip, jumps. He debated it solemnly, got nowhere.
They were at a table. They were all looking at him with an air of watchfulness. That could be imagined, too. Three lovelies like that are not going to make the weary ginmill rounds with you and keep watching you. You ain’t that purty, Martin.
When in doubt, you write it down on top of your mind and underline it very firmly and hope that when the situation occurs again, you can find the place where you wrote it down.
He walked out steadily and stood on the sidewalk. He had the strong impression that Ruth was stretched flat on the roof, her head over the edge of the building, grinning down at him. He turned sharply and looked up. The Moon hung misty over Manhattan, debauched by neon.
Next block. Don’t turn right. That will take you toward midtown, toward the higher prices, toward the places where they let you get three steps inside the door, then turn you firmly and walk you back out. Stay over here, buster.
They’d rolled him a few times that first week. Made a nuisance to go to the bank and get more cash each time. Now they’d stopped bothering. One of the times they’d left him sitting, spitting out a tooth. His tongue kept finding the hole.
Neon in the middle of the next block. Two couples sitting on the curb.
“Down by-ee the old mill streeeeeeem...”
Spotted by the prowl car.
“Break it up! Move along there!”
He looked back. Three female silhouettes, arm in arm, step in step, ticktock-tick of the pretty stilt heels avoiding the gray smears of slush.
He ducked into the door under the neon. This was a dark one. Dancing was going on back there somewhere to the cat-fence yowl of a clarinet and pulse-thump of piano. He edged in at the bar. The bartender came over fast, with that trouble-look on his face. Martin shoved the five out fast.
“Rye straight,” he said.
The bartender paused for a count of three, then turned back to the rye department.
Martin looked over and saw them come in. He hunted on top of his mind and found the heavily underlined place. He read it off. Three blondes. Three arrogant, damp-mouthed, hot-eyed, overdressed blondes — sugary in the gloom. Same ones.
It brought him up out of himself, hand clutching the rim of his soul, for a quick look over the edge. One lone blonde in this place would have pivoted heads in tennis-match style. Two would bring hot and heartfelt exhalations. Three, he saw, seemed to stun the joint. It put a crimp in the rumble of bar-talk. It ran furry fingers down male spines.
They were watching him. He stared back until he was certain. Okay. Fact confirmed. Three blondes following him from joint to joint. Watching him. Next step — watch real close, see if anybody walks through them.
They got a table along the wall. He watched. A hefty young man strutted over to their table, hiking up his pants, making with the bold smile. He bent over the table. They all gave him cold looks. One shook her shining head. He persisted.
The young man turned fast and hard and went high and rigid into the air. Martin saw him go up in that jet-leap of spasmed muscles, head thrown back, agony-masked face. He fell like something pushed out of a window. People gathered around him. They blocked Martin’s view.