Dangerous Visions (6 page)

It was his second folly. They were too far along the path toward unlocking the laws behind the universe. Somehow, they even avoided their own destruction from themselves. They took the worlds of their sun and drove outwards, until they could even vie with him for the worlds he had made particularly his own. And now they owned them all, and he had only a tiny spot here on their world—for a time at least.

The horror of the realization that this was the Meeting World abated a little as he remembered now how readily their spawning hordes possessed and abandoned worlds without seeming end. And again the tests he could make showed no evidence of them here. He began to relax again, feeling a sudden hope from what had been temporary despair. Surely they might also believe this was the one planet where he would never seek sanctuary.

Now he set his fears aside and began to force his thoughts toward the only pattern that could offer hope. He needed power, and power was available in any area untouched by the webs of the Usurpers. It had drained into space itself throughout the aeons, a waste of energy that could blast suns or build them in legions. It was power to escape, perhaps even to prepare himself eventually to meet them with at least a chance to force truce, if not victory. Given even a few hours free of their notice, he could draw and hold that power for his needs.

He was just reaching for it when the sky thundered and the sun seemed to darken for a moment!

The fear in him gibbered to the surface and sent him huddling from sight of the sky before he could control it. But for a brief moment there was still a trace of hope in him. It could have been a phenomenon caused by his own need for power; he might have begun drawing too heavily, too eager for strength.

Then the earth shook, and he knew.

The Usurpers were not fooled. They knew he was here—had never lost him. And now they had followed in all their massive lack of subtlety. One of their scout ships had landed, and the scout would come seeking him.

He fought for control of himself, and found it long enough to drive his fear back down within himself. Now, with a care that disturbed not even a blade of grass or leaf on a twig, he began retreating, seeking the denser undergrowth at the center of the garden where all life was thickest. With that to screen him, he might at least draw a faint trickle of power, a strength to build a subtle brute aura around himself and let him hide among the beasts. Some Usurper scouts were young and immature. Such a one might be fooled into leaving. Then, before his report could be acted on by others, there might still be a chance . . . .

He knew the thought was only a wish, not a plan, but he clung to it as he huddled in the thicket at the center of the garden. And then even the fantasy was stripped from him.

The sound of footsteps was firm and sure. Branches broke as the steps came forward, not deviating from a straight line. Inexorably, each firm stride brought the Usurper nearer to his huddling place. Now there was a faint glow in the air, and the animals were scampering away in terror.

He felt the eyes of the Usurper on him, and he forced himself away from that awareness. And, like fear, he found that he had learned prayer from the Usurpers; he prayed now desperately to a nothingness he knew, and there was no answer.

"Come forth! This earth is a holy place and you cannot remain upon it. Our judgment is done and a place is prepared for you. Come forth and let me take you there!" The voice was soft, but it carried a power that stilled even the rustling of the leaves.

He let the gaze of the Usurper reach him now, and the prayer in him was mute and directed outward—and hopeless, as he knew it must be.

"But—" Words were useless, but the bitterness inside him forced the words to come from him. "But why? I am God!"

For a moment, something akin to sadness and pity was in the eyes of the Usurper. Then it passed as the answer came. "I know. But I am Man. Come!"

He bowed at last, silently, and followed slowly as the yellow sun sank behind the walls of the garden.

And the evening and the morning were the eighth day.

Afterword:

A writer who thinks seriously about his craft must surely find himself more and more engaged with the ancient problems of philosophy—good and evil, and causality—since these lie deep within every plot and character. As a science fiction writer, trying to scan the patterns of the future, I find myself also inevitably concerned with the question of teleology: is there a purpose and design to the universe and to man? It may not matter. If so, must we follow it blindly? If blind chance rules, can we not shape our own purpose, suitable to our ultimate possibilities? Personally, I take my
Invictus
straight, with just a dash of bitters. But I take it very seriously. And because I do, "Evensong" is not fiction, but allegory.

Robert Silverberg is one of my oldest friends. He is an excellent writer. Additionally, he is the compleat professional, which is unfortunately interpreted by the yahoos as meaning he is a story factory. They're wrong, but that's beside the point. More on Silverberg the Writer in a moment.

Silverberg the Fellah goes like so: he is from Brooklyn and he doesn't want any applause. He used to edit a fan magazine called
Spaceship
which was extremely literate. He graduated from Columbia University. He is married to Bobbie, who is a lovely research physicist, and they live in a stately manse that at one time belonged to Fiorello La Guardia. He has had somewhere between fifty and sixty hardcover books published on topics ranging from zoology to archaeology and back again. His first published story was in 1953, "Gorgon Plant," which appeared in the Scottish science fiction magazine,
Nebula
. He won a Hugo in 1956 as Most Promising New Writer, beating out (of all people) the author of this introduction.

Like many writers in the field of speculative fiction, the author of this introduction envies Silverberg's ability to
get the job done
. The delusion that genius and madness are but opposing faces of the same rare coin is one to which most writers subscribe, as a cop-out. It allows them to be erratic, beat their wives, demand fresh coffee at six ayem, come in late with manuscripts, default on their obligations, laze around reading paperback novels on the pretext that they are "researching," pick up stakes and move when things get too regimented, snarl and snap at fans, be tendentious or supercilious. It is safe for all of us to goof off as long as we can bilk the Average Man into believing it is necessary for the creative process. Silverberg does not operate on this principle. He works a steady schedule. He practices his craft five days a week, six hours a day. Writing is what he does, and not to do it means not to be functioning.

Unlike writers who find intricate and brilliant ways to send themselves into slumps, blocks, pressures, binds and hideous life-situations, Silverberg's orderly work-habits mean he can be relied upon. He has thus produced a large body of work of substantial merit, all the more impressive when one considers how many really
memorable
novels and stories and non-fiction works he has had published while in his twenties. Now, in his early thirties, Bob Silverberg writes books like
Man Before Adam, Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, Home of the Red Man: Indian North America Before Columbus, Needle in a Timestack, The Time-Hoppers
, and the marvelous book of living fossils,
Forgotten by Time
. His interests and authority have long since moved out of the realms of fiction, as a casual listing of only a few of his books demonstrates.

Yet Silverberg is a product of the field of science fiction. He is one of the last of the fans-turned-professional, and though the bulk of his income and assignments comes from other kinds of writing, he returns with pleasing regularity to speculative fiction, to re-establish his reputation, to reinforce his roots, to pleasure himself with the kind of stories he can only write in this form. Of these, his latest is presented here. Perhaps it is because of my decade-long friendship with Bob, and my acquaintance with much of what he has written, but I submit "Flies" is one of the most penetrating, most originally-written stories he has ever attempted. And the attempt is a success.

Here is Cassiday:

transfixed on a table
.

There wasn't much left of him. A brain-box; a few ropes of nerves; a limb. The sudden implosion had taken care of the rest. There was enough, though. The golden ones didn't need much to go by. They had found him in the wreckage of the drifting ship as it passed through their zone, back of Iapetus. He was alive. He could be repaired. The others on the ship were beyond hope.

Repair him? Of course. Did one need to be human in order to be humanitarian? Repair, yes. By all means. And change. The golden ones were creative.

What was left of Cassiday lay in dry dock on a somewhere table in a golden sphere of force. There was no change of season here; only the sheen of the walls, the unvarying warmth. Neither day nor night, neither yesterday nor tomorrow. Shapes came and went about him. They were regenerating him, stage by stage, as he lay in complete mindless tranquillity. The brain was intact but not functioning. The rest of the man was growing back: tendon and ligament, bone and blood, heart and elbows. Elongated mounds of tissue sprouted tiny buds that enlarged into blobs of flesh. Paste cell to cell together, build a man from his own wreckage—that was no great chore for the golden ones. They had their skills. But they had much to learn, too, and this Cassiday could help them learn it.

Day by day Cassiday grew toward wholeness. They did not awaken him. He lay cradled in warmth, unmoving, unthinking, drifting on the tide. His new flesh was pink and smooth, like a baby's. The epithelial thickening came a little later. Cassiday served as his own blueprint. The golden ones replicated him from a shred of himself, built him back from his own polynucleotide chains, decoded the proteins and reassembled him from the template. An easy task, for them. Why not? Any blob of protoplasm could do it—for itself. The golden ones, who were not protoplasm, could do it for others.

They made some changes in the template. Of course. They were craftsmen. And there was a good deal they wanted to learn.

Look at Cassiday:

the dossier
.

BORN 1 August 2316

PLACE Nyack, New York

PARENTS Various

ECONOMIC LEVEL Low

EDUCATIONAL LEVEL Middle

OCCUPATION Fuel technician

MARITAL STATUS Three legal liaisons, duration eight months, sixteen months, and two months

HEIGHT Two meters

WEIGHT 96 kg

HAIR COLOR Yellow

EYES Blue

BLOOD TYPE A+

INTELLIGENCE LEVEL High

SEXUAL INCLINATIONS Normal

Watch them now:

changing him
.

The complete man lay before them, newly minted, ready for rebirth. Now come the final adjustments. They sought the gray brain within its pink wrapper, and entered it, and traveled through the bays and inlets of the mind, pausing now at this quiet cove, dropping anchor now at the base of that slab-sided cliff. They were operating, but doing it neatly. Here were no submucous resections, no glittering blades carving through gristle and bone, no sizzling lasers at work, no clumsy hammering at the tender meninges. Cold steel did not slash the synapses. The golden ones were subtler; they tuned the circuit that was Cassiday, boosted the gain, damped out the noise, and they did it very gently.

When they were finished with him, he was much more sensitive. He had several new hungers. They had granted him certain abilities.

Now they awakened him.

"You are alive, Cassiday," a feathery voice said. "Your ship was destroyed. Your companions were killed. You alone survived."

"Which hospital is this?"

"Not on Earth. You'll be going back soon. Stand up, Cassiday. Move your right hand. Your left. Flex your knees. Inflate your lungs. Open and close your eyes several times. What's your name, Cassiday?"

"Richard Henry Cassiday."

"How old?"

"Forty-one."

"Look at this reflection. Who do you see?"

"Myself."

"Do you have any further questions?"

"What did you do to me?"

"Repaired you, Cassiday. You were almost entirely destroyed."

"Did you change me any?"

"We made you more sensitive to the feelings of your fellow man."

"Oh," said Cassiday.

Follow Cassiday as he journeys:

back to Earth
.

He arrived on a day that had been programed for snow. Light snow, quickly melting, an aesthetic treat rather than a true manifestation of weather. It was good to touch foot on the homeworld again. The golden ones had deftly arranged his return, putting him back aboard his wrecked ship and giving him enough of a push to get him within range of a distress sweep. The monitors had detected him and picked him up. How was it you survived the disaster unscathed, Spaceman Cassiday? Very simple, sir, I was outside the ship when it happened. It just went swoosh and everybody was killed. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

They routed him to Mars and checked him out, and held him awhile in a decontamination lock on Luna, and finally sent him back to Earth. He stepped into the snowstorm, a big man with a rolling gait and careful calluses in all the right places. He had few friends, no relatives, enough cash units to see him through for a while, and a couple of ex-wives he could look up. Under the rules, he was entitled to a year off with full pay as his disaster allotment. He intended to accept the furlough.

He had not yet begun to make use of his new sensitivity. The golden ones had planned it so that his abilities would remain inoperative until he reached the homeworld. Now he had arrived, and it was time to begin using them, and the endlessly curious creatures who lived back at Iapetus waited patiently while Cassiday sought out those who had once loved him.