Rob and Lynette Meserole (now Burrows) collaborating … in public! |
Writing: How I Do It
Why add another to the endless spate of books and articles on how to write? Especially since I am convinced that writing cannot be taught. I do believe, however, that it can be learned. So, here are a few things I've learned--maybe they'll help you. No two people seem to do it quite the same way, yet the very beginning of the process, I believe, is much the same for all. Oddly for such a verbal process, it begins on the nonverbal level, with a mood, a yearning, an image. A vague desire to go somewhere or do something. When I'm in this place, I tend to re-read old books and stories with the same mood or yearning. Eventually I find myself putting together images, names, story ideas, backgrounds, and so on, a chaotic stew that gradually jells into a something I can call a story. Sometimes, of course, there'll be a flash of lightning--an item on the news, an image seen, the putting together of two things--which will generate a story in one burst of inspiration. But these are rare. Don't depend on them, unless you want to be a one-story-a-year writer. Open a folder on your computer for files of notes; get a box and throw cuttings into it; keep a notebook in your pocket or purse, and put it on your dresser at night. Every now and then, go through these hoards and add new thoughts to old notes--and throw away ideas you now see are worthless. Even once it's jelled, my story is very sketchy. It may consist of a few notes, possibly (if I'm lucky) a catchy title, and a bunch of images and ideas too vague to write down. All I need now is a beginning (usually an image, hopefully an entire scene), and an ending. The latter doesn't have to be complete, but before I start writing I must know the mood, the emotion I want the reader to carry away. Once I have the beginning and the end, and the mood, I'm ready to begin the first draft. The tone, which establishes the mood, must be set in the first scene. Sometimes the story hangs fire after I've written the first scene (even for months) before I can move on. I find, however, that if I don't write at least a sketchy version of that first scene, I won't be able to think about what follows. Sooner or later, the middle section of the story becomes fleshed out for me, and I finish the first draft. Surely, you think, there's nothing here that can't be taught. Didn't Rob just teach me how to do it? --No, he didn't. It may sound as if you now know all you need to at least begin, but it's like learning to ride a bike. I "knew how" to do it, I understood all the instructions, but my reflexes had not learned, and could not learn from instruction. I'm fortunate in that I still remember many of the stages I went through in learning to write. At first, I consciously struggled with dialogue, characterization, motivation, plot. (I still struggle with plot.) I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, struggling along a rocky road. I was encouraged, however, by re-reading old stories. Stuff I'd written, as best I could, a year before now struck me as primitive. At length I discovered that I was no longer struggling consciously with dialogue, characterization, and motivation. I didn't need to create a character with an elaborate cheat-sheet as I gather some do: age, education, favorite TV show, comfort food, and so on. I didn't need to know these things, at least not consciously. I knew that I could create (or uncover) whatever about the character I needed to know, when I needed it. For me, learning to write was a matter of internalizing the process. I say again, I do not consciously work up characters (except to the most sketchy degree), motivation, dialogue, etc. When my characters walk onto stage and start talking, they seem real and alive in the first draft. This is what can't be taught. You can learn it. You learn by doing it. --And here I tell people my only trick for writing: I become the character. I see what she sees, know only what she knows, think what she thinks. But I can't teach you how to do this. I've internalized the process to such a degree that, though I'm the kind who plots, who has to know where the story's going, I write very intuitively. It can be difficult for me to answer such simple and fundamental questions as: Why did she do that? What's your story about? What does the waterfall symbolize? I can only shrug helplessly if asked, until I have thought about it. I may then know. But this is not to say that I don't know what I'm writing about. I do know, on some deep level, well below the conscious. That seems to me to be the best way to write. Stories that start from conscious symbols or "what it's about" come across as wooden or preachy. Just tell us a story. The meaning is in there; don't belabor it. When I was eighteen, I burned hundreds of pages of MS, at least a million words. All writers, we are told, must do this. All those bad things you write are a part of "training the reflexes" as in learning to ride a bike. You will burn them, but they are not wasted. Some writers outline even a short story thoroughly; some don't even outline a novel. (There aren't many of those.) My first published book's outline consisted of a list of names of places where I meant to take my protagonist, scribbled on a 3 by 5 Rainbow Tablet page. But of course I knew what was going to happen to him (pretty much) in each of those places. That is, a lot more outlining went on than could be seen on the scribbled page. Also note that this book, WHEN THE CURTAIN FALLS, does not have a tight plot. It's "discursive" or "picaresque", meaning that it wanders. (cf. HUCKLEBERRY FINN.) Now let's walk through the actual process, as I did it with one story. The first notion was an idle reflection that in fantasy, when a man is changed into a mouse, or other animal, he is then changed back without harm. I thought: but the mouse brain doesn't have enough storage space to contain the man's personality. That would be lost; change him back, and you'd have a man with no memory. It occurred to me that if a soldier was changed into a mouse by enemy magicians, there'd be great reluctance to change him back until our magicians could restore his mind. I made a few notes on the subject in my "neat ideas" file, and turned my attention to other things. Months or, maybe, years later, I was going through the file and saw "the mouse story". I could not remember what that was, so I opened it, and discovered that it was "A Veteran of Foreign Wars", as I had mentally re-titled it, in the interim. I updated "A VFW" with the new title and added some thoughts. This pattern was repeated several times. Eventually I had accumulated the following: the veteran doesn't know how to be a mouse--he has no memories of ever being a mouse. He is in the custody of his sister, his only surviving relative, who disposes of his pension and keeps him in a roomy cage. (Cheaper and more humane than hospitals for all these poor guys.) There is a youngish woman who claims to have been married to him and seeks custody of him--and her 10-year-old son, said to be the veteran's son. This is an unstable situation and can collapse into a story any time--but what would bring about the collapse? This is the point at which I did actual serious thought about the story set-up, as opposed to the idle musings that had brought me this far. I needed an intrusion from outside, and with very little thought concluded that the Department of Veterans' Affairs would naturally want to be sure that the vets are being cared for properly. An investigator for the Dept. could be the intrusion into the situation that might cause it to collapse. With that, I was ready to write the story. I already had the melancholy mood, the introductory scene, and the tragic conclusion, well in mind. See below for results. It was published by Algis Budrys in TOMORROW in 1995, and on a convention panel A.J. gratified me enormously by praising it. Take note that this story violates one of the rules of effective short-story writing: Point Of View. In a short story, we're told, there should only be one POV character, who sees and hears everything we see and hear, and whose thoughts are the only ones we're privy to. But this story could not be told effectively from any one character's POV; I use all of them except the vet's. But you should not violate this rule without very good reason. Does it work for you? Would a unified POV work better? Whose? Only the mouse's, I think, but he'd have to have enough memory and reasoning ability to explain what's going on here. You'd either destroy the basis of the story--he could believably be changed back if he's that smart and knowledgeable. Or you'd wind up with a voice-over narration, which would distance the reader--the narrator has no money on the table, no emotions about any of the characters. Okay, that's a short story. How about a novel? Well, there, you need at least two stories (plot and subplot), and three would be better, all intertwined. That, for me, takes a great deal of conscious thought and planning, too much to go into here. Best advice for a beginner is to start with short pieces, from about 3,000 to about 20,000 words, and learn to write. Ten 10,000 word stories have the same word count as one 100,000 word novel, but they have ten times as many beginnings and endings, and writing them will teach you something about compression. Once you've learned to write, you can do anything you like. The pictures above purport to show collaboration in process, another thing beginners often ask about. Why not? I go into more detail on collaboration in the interview bookmarked above, and in the Robio on the Personal page. L. Sprague de Camp, who collaborated with a number of writers, observed that the younger of a pair should probably do the first draft, because his/her writing is apt to be more vigorous, whereas the older one should do the second draft because his/her prose will probably be more polished. If you are at about the same level, no problem, go ahead and collaborate; I learned from all my collaborators even when our stories went nowhere. In the interview with me in Holly Lisle's Vision magazine (above) you'll find more on writing. The interview is dated now--I lamented the lack of a place for writers "to be bad" while learning their trade. Now, on the Internet, there are many such places, and critical groups. I can't recommend any, as I have no personal experience. Having said all the above, I feel defeated. Writing, real writing, happens in a place not reached by words. It can't be taught. |
Some Hints on How-2 by Uncle Rob
How To Start FIRST, read a thousand books and stories. Never stop reading.The seat of the pants method: apply the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair and start writing. |
Robert A. Heinlein's Three Plots:
Also see 20 MASTER PLOTS And How to Build Them, by Ronald Tobias, Writer's Digest Books, 1993 |
Heinlein's Rules for Becoming a Writer:
*Rule 3 is endlessly misunderstood to mean no rewriting. Not so. Heinlein is saying that when you have finished writing [Rule 2], including all rewrites, stop fiddlin' with it -- send it out. |
Beginning the Short Story:
Chilson's 3 rules for page 1:
[Henry Kuttner's dictum: first get your man up a tree -- then throw rocks at him.] In a novel, the same three rules apply, but don't all have to be done on the first page.
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Random Thoughts from Uncle Rob, for beginners:
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This story appeared in A.J. Budrys's TOMORROW magazine, #15 (June 1995).
Alice Deshler grumbled more to herself than to the mouse. "Gotta git
everything in tip-top shape, yessir, for that damn woman to see. Oh,
don't panic, Al, I'm just cleanin' out your cage. I do it all the
time."
The small brown mouse cowered into a corner of its cage, away from
Alice's angry muttering and furious movements.
The Government-Issue cage was roomy and square, big enough for a family
of mice. It had both round and square exercise wheels, ladders,
automatic feeders and waterers, and a little house for the occupant to
retire to. It even had a screened latrine corner with a cup below,
which could be detached with a twist for emptying and cleaning, without
opening the cage.
Al, the mouse, cowered amid this magnificence as Alice jerked out
newspaper lining and scrubbed at the cage's floor, making it rock on its
stand.
On the inside back wall of the cage, three medals were brazed, visible
to the mouse and, through the wire, to viewers in front of the cage:
above, the Vietnam Service Medal; below, the Bronze Star and the Purple
Heart. The name of Algernon Edgerton was inscribed on them. His dog
tags were tied beside them.
"Damn her, why can't she stay away? She's not gonna git custody and
ever'body knows it," Alice grumbled fiercely. "There! It's as clean as
she'd keep it, f'r damn sure." She sighed. "Better make sure she ain't
got nothin' to file a complaint about. Lemme git you some fresh food
and water. Hmm. Maybe a piece of apple. How'd you like that, Al?"
But her tone was half-hearted. In years of caring for the mouse, Alice
had never seen the slightest hint that it remembered--anything. The
man from the Army had explained it to her.
"You see, Mrs. Deshler, a man has a bigger brain than a mouse. He can
be cut down to anything with a smaller brain, though of course he won't
have the instincts that the lesser animal has. So the man cannot
survive as a mouse; he doesn't know how. Transformed men lose all
except maybe a scrap or two of their memories, which is in a way a
kindness. They don't really remember having been men. But it's
doubtful if he remembers you, or even his own name, and most likely he
never will."
"But can't you change him back into a man?" she had asked. "I mean, if
them damn Vietcong sorcerers could change a man into a mouse, why can't
a good American sorcerer change him back?"
"Because the memories aren't there," he had said gently. "That's the
terrible thing about this kind of war. I only wish science had never
discovered the transformation spells, as useful as they have been. A
mouse's brain simply does not have room for all the memories of a man.
So if we tried to change him back, all we would get would be a man with
no mind and no memories. A giant baby. He wouldn't be your brother Al,
any more than this mouse is--less. The VA and Walter Reed are still
experimenting, but no answer has yet been found." He had looked at her
seriously. "We have no realistic hope that one will ever be found."
And so Alice had cared for her brother the mouse ever since.
Not long after she finished with the cage, Alice frowned at the sight
of a battered Chevy carpet swooping up the drive. Its fringe was
tattered, hanging below the battered bumper, and it flew low, barely
clearing the bumps in the flyway.
"One day that carpet is gonna fray apart and let the demon loose, right
in midflight, and she'll go smash," Alice said aloud with bitter
satisfaction. She stopped superstitiously short of expressing approval
of the image, clamping her mouth shut.
The Chevy eased to a stop and settled onto a grassy spot in the yard.
Hounds bayed and the dogs approached, their tongues lolling in the heat,
their tails wagging so vigorously their whole bodies bent and rebent.
The woman in the car dropped the wand into neutral, putting the demon to
sleep, and locked it from force of habit. The plywood doors opened on
both sides of the coach body on the carpet, and she and a skinny
ten-year-old boy got out.
Alice moved to the front door, looked out through the screen.
"Afternoon," she said, shortly. The hounds had fallen silent and were
cringing around the ankles of the newcomers.
"Afternoon," said Sylvia Lehigh. In contrast to Alice, she was still
fairly slender except for a big behind, but latterly had put on enough
weight to require a bra. Her hair was brown-blonde, darker at the
roots, and her lips too red. Despite her youthful clothing, hairstyle,
walk, and make-up, the harsh beginning of middle age was visible on her
face.
Sylvia strode sturdily across the yard, across the patches of weedy
grass, the bare patches of dirt near the unkempt, towering lilacs, past
the long-unpruned roses, stepped over a dry branch fallen from the
maple. The boy followed her with visible reluctance, but without
lagging behind.
Without pause, Sylvia mounted to the porch, and Alice pushed the screen
door at her. "Git on in there, Benny, and don't let the flies in,"
Sylvia said, holding the screen. The boy preceded her, stepped past
Alice, and stopped immediately. His gaze went at once to the mouse's
cage.
Alice gentled the screen door shut and turned. At one time she had
tried to fight off Sylvia's visits, but the younger woman had become
loud and abusive everywhere she went. Alice had thought it over, and
concluded that the less said in public, the better. So she tolerated
the visits.
"Go on and say hello to your daddy, Benny, honey," Sylvia said with
cloying sweetness.
The boy looked around in mute appeal. He was tow-headed, with a
cowlick and a rooster-tail. He had crooked teeth and large blue eyes,
and was so skinny his head seemed too big for his neck. Alice despised
him.
"Go on." Sylvia pushed at his shoulder. He moved slowly toward the
cage.
Benny hated these visits. Under the admonitory shove from his mother,
he walked slowly toward the cage. Its floor was only a little below his
eye level. The strong, musky odor of mouse flooded his nostrils as he
approached it. The mouse was nowhere to be seen. He smelled warm water
and soap, and apple. Though he was always hungry, the smell of the
apple with the other odors made him feel a little sick.
Then he saw Al, the mouse, cowering behind the little house.
"Say hello to your daddy," came his mother's impatient voice.
Benny looked at the mouse, and the mouse looked at him. Close up, it
wasn't an ordinary mouse. Its eyes were not black shoe buttons. They
looked almost human, dark blue with small black pupils. The fur was
longer on the head, and tinged with red. There were no whiskers;
instead, there was a fringe of reddish chin beard such as no mouse had.
The front paws looked like tiny pink human hands, but Benny didn't know
if that was normal for mice or not.
Hearing his mother move impatiently behind him, he said, in a cracked
voice, "Hi, dad."
The mouse ducked against the little house, turning its head away till
only one eye was revealed, peering back at him. A real mouse would
either have run and hid, Benny knew, or would have become curious and
crept sniffing toward him. But this was all that was left of Al
Edgerton, they said. Benny had no doubt of it. They'd found this
little thing shivering, like that, in the middle of a pile of clothes
and weapons and Al Edgerton's dog tags. Two days, or was it three,
before they'd been able to come back to the field and recover the
changelings? The mouse was lucky to be alive.
His mother came up behind him and Benny cringed a little from the
emotions she pushed at him.
"Ten years ago now it's been, since we was married and you was born,
Benny," she said. "It seems like yestiddee. I can still see him in his
uniform, tellin' how he was goin' to go over there and kick them gooks'
asses. Cootchy-coo!" she said suddenly, with surprising gentleness,
thrusting a work-worn finger through the mesh. "There-there, Al. I
always loved you the best."
Benny turned his head away, flushing and wriggling with embarrassment.
Then his mother turned to speak to Aunt Alice, and, ignoring their
grown-up conversation, he looked back at the mouse. It still cowered,
peering at him with one human eye.
He wondered how it felt to be a mouse, but not a mouse. He wondered
how it felt to live always in a cage. He wondered how it felt to be
cared for by Aunt Alice. He wondered how the mouse felt about his
visits, and Mommy's.
He wondered if the mouse could remember anything, anything at all,
about being a man. He wondered if the mouse knew who he was. If the
mouse knew he was its son.
There was no connection in Benny's mind between this not-mouse and the
few pictures Mommy had of his father, Al, the tall lanky man in the
faded jeans, with the reddish hair and mustache. She had none of him in
his uniform.
He wondered if this mouse really was his father.
Shivering, it looked back at him.
Sylvia pulled her finger out of the damn mouse's cage. It was always a
relief when she had gotten the mouse-petting over with. She gave a last
greedy look at it--it seemed as healthy as it ever did--and turned
to Alice. Arms folded, the older woman stood regarding her with deep
suspicion, square and blocky in a yellow dress that looked like the ones
Sylvia's mother used to make out of feed sacks.
"Have you heard?" Sylvia asked. "There's a man in Osceola."
"Nice for you," Alice said evenly.
Sylvia flushed. "I mean, an investigator. A man from the VA."
They looked at each other, then at the mouse.
"Well," said Alice defensively, after a moment, "he'll find nothing to
complain about here. I keep the cage clean 'n' always put out food and
water. If I'm out of the house, I have Si Longford stop in to check on
'im, and I won't have a cat about the place."
"You never know about those guys," said Sylvia darkly, just to make
Alice sweat. "He c'd take Al away 'n' put 'im in a institootion."
Alice flushed. "He gits lots better treatment here than he would in a
ole institootion."
"Mort at the garage says his name is Jonathon Moulton. He awready
raised hell with the Wittichs about their vet, Hank the cat. They
wasn't puttin' down fresh food 'n' water ever' day, Mort says.
Sometimes the food would git moldy."
They both looked at the cage again, even Sylvia feeling a little
anxiety.
"Well, he's got no complaint here," Alice said again. "Did he take
away Hank?"
"No, but he threatened to, Mort says."
They contemplated each other in silent dislike for some moments.
Sylvia was pleased to see that the worm of worry was gnawing at Alice,
despite her care of the mouse. Who knew what the VA man would find to
complain about? Why, there were books full of rules. Sylvia wondered
how long it had been since Alice had read her handbook. A long time,
she'd bet.
"Mebbe you better go through your handbook again, just to be on the
safe side," she said, and was delighted to see Alice's half-concealed
start. I bet she just remembered lots of things she's been slacking,
Sylvia thought.
"Well, we better go 'n' let you git to your work. I expect you got
lots to do before that Mr. Moulton gits to you. Did 'e call and make a
'nappointment?"
Alice shook her head but said nothing. Sylvia smiled brightly, grabbed
Benny, and dragged him out, with a final, pleased, goodbye.
"C'mon, Benny, don't lallygag about." She led her son out to the old
carpet and fussed him into the seat. As she raised the wand, Sylvia had
a thought. Maybe she should call on this Mr. Moulton.
Jonathon Moulton was not pleased to see the red light blinking on the
phone when he got back to the little town's ancient, cheap hotel. He'd
had a hot and tiring day, and as he knew no one in Osceola, it could
only be, disagreeably, about his work. With a sigh he punched the
button and spoke his room number.
"Oh, yeah, Mr. Moulton." He could almost hear the identification: the
VA man. "You got a call from a woman named Miz Lehigh, she says for you
to call her. Wait a minnit, I'll git the number."
Moulton wrote it down, sighed again, and called it.
"Mister Moulton, lissen, I gotta talk to you about my husband. My
husband Al Edgerton," came the rapid, high-pitched voice. "I gotta talk
to you before you investigate him."
"Hold on a moment," he said, supressing another sigh. He fumbled
through his briefcase, got the file on Edgerton. A mouse, this time,
and in custody of a sister, a Mrs. Deshler. Oh God, he thought.
"Perhaps you'd better talk to me in person," he said. "How about
tomorrow?"
She had to work, so they made it in the hotel lobby at five thirty. He
decided to cut it short and call on Mrs. Deshler immediately afterward,
so he called her and set up an appointment for six thirty.
Goddam, he thought. Custody battles. Just once I'd like to meet
people who want custody of the vet more than of the pension. I need a
drink.
Alice Deshler was nervous and fidgety for an hour or more before the VA
man was due to arrive. She'd spent a good part of the day scurrying
around, dabbing at dust here and there, having given the place a good
cleaning last night and this morning. Finally the government carpet
came swooping up the drive.
"What's this?" she asked, peering out past the cheap magic-made lace
curtain. "That woman and her son--!"
Three people got out of the polished wooden cab of the government car.
Speechless, Alice watched them come, the tall, thin government man
ominous in a gray felt hat, the damn boy as gangly and spindly as ever,
Sylvia swinging her big hips in her tight red waitress-skirt and smiling
like a snake in the grass. She's pulled something, Alice thought
instantly. She's going to try to git custody--
Reluctantly Alice opened the door, introduced herself.
"Jonathon Moulton," said the government man, gripping her hand firmly,
looking her in the eye. Good looking despite glasses, early thirties,
thin face. Good thing I put my hair up last night, she thought.
"Ah, I see him," said Moulton, and went straight to the cage.
Well, it was what she expected. She watched anxiously as he inspected
the cage, even going so far as to scratch at the wires, leaving a shiny
spot. It occurred to her that if she'd been neglectful, and had
recently scrubbed and scoured years of neglect away, there'd be no
patina on the wires. Thank God she'd done right by Al, she thought as
he wrote on his clipboard.
Sylvia was watching anxiously as well, but smiled sweetly back when
Alice glanced at her. You little minx, Alice thought viciously, smiling
nervously.
Next the government man looked hard at Al, wrote more, and opened the
cage door. Alice gasped at the casual way he reached inside and grabbed
the terrified not-quite-mouse.
"Hmm," said the government man, peering into Al's eyes and feeling of
his ribs and legs.
He put the mouse down and Al bolted, terrified, into his little house.
The government man wrote some more, and turned from the cage, carefully
latching its door. He looked briefly around the neat living room,
nodded, and wrote again.
"All seems in order, in terms of the veteran's care," he said. "Your
brother is well-fed, and seems healthy. His cage is clean, and it's in
a clean, neat, sunny room. Also, it's not stuck off in an attic; it's
here in the living room. In short, my report will be very favorable,
Mrs. Deshler."
Alice sighed in relief, nodded, glanced at Sylvia. The younger woman
looked brightly back, but smiled secretly. Moulton indicated couches
and a chair grouped around her coffee table. Alice seated herself
reluctantly.
"Now," he said. "Ms. Lehigh has made certain claims amounting to a
demand for custody of Al Edgerton." He held up a hand as she started to
speak. "I warn you both that I am not empowered to make that
determination. Custody battles are not the business of the
Administration; they should be settled in court."
Alice looked quickly at Sylvia, who frowned; she knew the younger woman
had no money for that.
"However, I will hear arguments on both sides, take notes, and if I
think she has warrant for her claims, I can bring them to the attention
of the Regional Director. He may or may not order a field
investigation. Beyond that I can do nothing. However, I am willing to
hear your claims."
He looked at Sylvia, who smiled brightly back at him.
"Well, Mr. Moulton," she began. "It's like I said. Al is my husband.
We was married by Revrin David Davis in the Full Gospel Assembly Church
out to Sikes Ford on county highway K."
This all came out as one glib blurt, and Alice observed that the
government man didn't write it down. He prob'ly had it wrote down
already.
"She ain't got no marriage license nor nothin'," Alice broke in.
"Because I was so took by surprise, and Al was goin' off to the Army so
soon," Sylvia shot back. "He proposed to me while we was at prayer
meetin', and we went up and Revrin Davis married us right then 'n'
there. We was goin' to git the paperwork done nex' day, but we didn't,
on account we didn't have time to before he had to go. But we was
married reg'lar, in the church, which is more'n you were, Mrs. Deshler."
Alice flushed but couldn't resist the bait: "Gittin' married by
justice is just as good as by a preacher. Anyways, if you was married
in the church, how come you ain't got no witnesses?"
"'Cause Revrin Davis died later that year from Complications of the
Bowels, just b'fore Benny was born, and Benny was born nine months after
Al went into the Army, weren't you, Benny, an'--Benny?"
They looked around. The boy wasn't in the room. Alice dredged up a
memory of hearing the kitchen screen door close--at least the little
brat didn't slam screen doors. "Gone out to the outhouse," she said
briefly and returned to the attack. "How come you can't find anyone
else who remembers you bein' married?" she demanded. "Wasn't there
anybody else at that prayer meetin'?"
"Because the Full Gospel Assembly Church broke up after Revrin Davis
died, and the congergation scattered," Sylvia snapped. "Besides, I was
so happy and so shook up and surprised, I didn't notice who was there.
Anyways, if I wasn't Al's wife, who was? Who was he goin' with just
before he went into the Army?"
"He could'a had all kinds of better wimmin than you," Alice said
viciously, but recalling herself, she glanced quickly at the government
man.
He looked unhappy.
Benny stood looking at the little house where Al-the-mouse was hiding,
preferring that to sitting on the edge of the grown-up quarrel.
The government man had impressed him. He had looked carefully at
everything, and he'd been very fair. Benny had a low opinion of Aunt
Alice's care for the mouse, because of his mother's constant harping on
it. But Mr. Moulton was right; the mouse was well cared for, if not
loved.
Behind him, they were going at it again. He'd been hearing such
quarrels all his life. Wearily he thought: they don't care about the
mouse.
It wasn't just the pension money, either. Mommy didn't have a husband,
though she'd had men living with them from time to time. But if she had
the mouse, she could say to everyone: Here's my poor husband.
And Aunt Alice. After Uncle Jim left her, she'd been alone, except
that she had the mouse. She could say, I'm taking care of my dear
brother Al, so I don't have time to go looking for a husband.
He wondered if the mouse really was his father. He wondered what it
would have been like, to have a father. He wondered what Al Edgerton
would have been like, if he had not been turned into the mouse. What
kind of a father he would have been. The kids at school wouldn't
despise him if he had a real father instead of just a mouse. They
wouldn't call him "Mouseboy" or just plain "Mouse."
Behind them they were arguing. Not over Al Edgerton. Over a mouse
they both despised.
Mr. Moulton had handled the mouse deftly, gently, looked at him with
more interest, more care, than Benny had ever known either woman to do.
He cares more for him than they do, Benny thought. Him and me's the
only ones that really feel sorry for him.
The poor mouse. Locked in a cage all the time, terrified whenever Aunt
Alice cleaned it or fed him, constantly being showed to visitors.
Cowering in the corner knowing somehow it wasn't supposed to be like
this, but not being able to remember being a man, maybe not even being
able to make the connection. Just knowing that this was all wrong,
wrong and frightening, fearful every minute of every day. Panting with
fear even when asleep.
Benny looked through the tiny door, just making out the curve of the
mouse's back. Most of all, it yearned to be free, he thought, to be
free of Al Edgerton, free to be a mouse. As he himself had so often
yearned to be free of all this, his mother, Aunt Alice, being
"Mouseboy."
He opened the cage door quietly and reached in, gently, deftly, like
Mr. Moulton had done, felt inside the little house.
The mouse didn't bite.
Jonathon Moulton was eating a greasy Midwestern breakfast at the little
hotel next morning when the waitress came to him. "You got a phone
call, Mr. Moulton. From a Miz Deshler. Says it's important."
With a sigh he interrupted his meal and went to the old-fashioned phone
booth in the dank little lobby.
"Mr. Moulton, something turrble's happened," came the frantic whining
voice. "Al's gone!"
After a moment he connected. "Gone! The cage is empty -- you
checked? Then -- when did you see him last?"
"Last night -- when you was here. I changed his water, but I didn't
see him -- figgered he was still in his little house. But this morning
I looked, an' he was gone!"
He hesitated a moment. "I'll be right out," he said. Damn!
He got out his notebook and looked up Sylvia Lehigh's number. He kept
the call brief, told her nothing, but demanded that she meet him at
Deshler's house. She agreed, sounding scared. If she's taken the
mouse, he thought, hanging up the wand, I'll have her arrested. The
mouse had civil rights as a human being. The Changeling Law read,
"shall retain all such civil rights as the Changed individual is capable
of exercising." This wasn't stealing a mouse; it was the legal
equivalent of kidnapping a man.
Fuming, he called up his morning's appointments and postponed them all,
and decided not to finish his breakfast.
The Lehigh woman and her son, both looking scared, were waiting in
their shabby carpet when he arrived at the Deshler home. The
heavy-bodied Deshler woman was glaring at them from behind her screen
door. He deduced that the Lehigh woman had asked what had happened, and
the Deshler woman hadn't been able to resist charging her with the
crime. They got out reluctantly as he came up. Moulton said
perfunctorily, "Good morning," and led them up onto the porch.
"Good morning," he said briefly to the Deshler woman.
"Good morning," she said viciously, glaring at the Lehighs but not
speaking to them.
Moulton went immediately to the cage but without hope. Empty, of
course. Nothing that would give a clue. He turned to the women.
They stood side by side despite their antagonism, regarding him
fearfully. They had begun to realize dimly that what had happened was a
mutual disaster, he thought. Nothing would ever be the same for them.
He didn't know who was guilty, he'd realized. It was possible that the
Deshler woman had decided to end her rival's claims by accusing her of
kidnapping the mouse.
"One of you," he said abruptly, "is either very very careless, or
guilty of a Federal crime." They looked at each other, and behind the
fear he thought he detected a flicker of pleasure on both faces.
Concealing his puzzlement, Moulton continued: "Al Edgerton is missing
from his cage. But he is somewhere. If he is found today, I'll take no
official notice. If he isn't, I'll have to report him missing to the
Veteran's Administration. That will immediately stop his pension, and
it will alert the Criminal Investigation Corps, which will investigate
the case under the Crimes Against Changed Veterans Act."
He looked at them, and read only fear in their expressions.
"Now, I know you both have claims on the mouse's custody. It may be
that one of you thought it would be cute to frame the other for a crime
against him, or at least a charge of carelessness. If so, and if the
mouse is unharmed, I won't report it as a crime, if the mouse is
returned immediately. If not, I'll have no choice."
He looked at them. They looked at him, then suspiciously at each
other. Obviously both knew the truth, obviously both accused or would
pretend to accuse the other.
"I never even went near the cage yestiddee," the Lehigh woman began in
a high, brittle voice.
"Well, I didn't have nothing to gain by taking him," the Deshler woman
said illogically. "I awready had him."
Moulton raised a hand, weary already. "Look, I'm not here to accuse or
assess blame. I just want the mouse back. If he is delivered to me at
my hotel before sundown, I'll ask no questions and take no action. I
don't intend to get involved in an argument; I don't care who has him.
I just--"
"I took him!"
A squeaky voice from behind him. Moulton turned, dread a cold weight
in his belly.
The little boy, the mouse's supposed son. After a moment the name came
to him.
"Benny," he said gently. "You took him? When? How?"
The watery blue eyes were more watery than ever; the whiny voice had a
quaver. But the gangling, spindly, unhappy boy stood firmly and faced
him. "Yestiddee, when you was all arguin' about him. I took him out of
his cage, and I took him out back, and I let him go free." The last,
proudly.
Free, Moulton thought in horror. He glanced at his watch; eighteen and
more hours ago.
"You little shit!" the Lehigh woman screeched suddenly, lunging for her
son. "You've ruint ever'thing, you little--"
Moulton extended his arm automatically, still dazed by the disaster,
and brushed her back.
"He's your son, you fool!" the Deshler woman said in hoarse triumph.
"It's you that's ruined ever'thing."
Moulton was not listening to them, but he waved them to silence so he
could hear the boy.
"You let him go," he said gently, kneeling to bring his face on a
level.
"Yes sir," said the boy firmly, despite the quaver. He was standing in
a pitiful imitation of attention, straight, his hands down at his side,
head erect on the spindly neck. A tear slid down his cheek, but he
faced Moulton without quailing.
"He was all the time in that cage, and he was afraid all the time," the
boy said, the quaver becoming more pronounced. The words came out in a
rush. "Ever'body was all the time fightin' over him, and he didn't know
why he was there or nothin' and he was unhappy. He wanted to be free!"
Moulton looked at him, and looked at the image of the mouse as seen by
the boy. It was, he thought, still stunned, a happier one than the
truth. For in truth the not-mouse had been incurably afraid, in a world
it couldn't understand, and hadn't the instincts to live in. Whatever
dim memories it had of being a man, it lacked the intelligence to
understand them, so even its memories were a source of fear. Fear, in
fact, had been its only emotion, fear of light and dark, feeding and
cage-cleaning, of the women who came and poked at it, of the huge beings
that from time to time gathered around and looked at it. Perhaps the
boy had been more merciful than the government.
Free at last, he thought.
"I give him twenty-four hours, no more," Moulton said. And eighteen of
them had gone.
He shook his head. Out there in the unkempt grass of the fields, among
the mouse runs and burrows, or under the old house, all that was left of
Al Edgerton was probably already dead. For in the subtle, intricate
society of mice the little pseudo-mouse had no instincts to guide him
and insufficient intelligence to take its place. And so he must have
crouched and shivered his last hours of a freedom more illusion than
real even for genuine mice. For him, freedom was a disaster as awesome
as a bolt of lightning upon his cage.
Of that terrorized and pitiful end of a man, the women had no
conception, and no remorse. They were quarrelling behind him in bitter,
venomous voices, each blaming the other for the death of a mouse.
Then Moulton's gaze met that of the boy. The boy's wide eyes were
fixed on him, brimming with tears.
There was the one creature, he thought, who mourned the man more than
the mouse.
He reached out, touched the thin bony shoulder. "You did right, son,"
he said. "It was time we let him go."
This story appeared in ANALOG SF Sept 1990.
The spaceship came down over Port Michigan. Bobby Wilson sat up on Melancholy Heights, where he had been lying in the clover. He caught his breath, he looked again where he had lain dreaming over the town's steeples and hot sloping roofs nestling amid the green cotton-candy of the trees.
Yes! A ship coming down, throwing back the rays of Columbia's warm sun, and growing, growing! It was as big as a baseball, but a fat sausage in shape. Bobby yelled.
"Starship!" He leaped to his feet. "Sta-a-arship ho-o-o!"
Bobby leaped and cavorted on his high green hill, pointing, shouting. His voice went echoless away from the Heights.
The sheep looked up briefly, glanced quizzically at each other, and shook and slatted their ears about their heads. It's only the boy, shouting again. Never mind him.
Spike and Tyke, the dark sable Cross Collies, arose and looked south, tongues hanging, bobbing and dripping, looked down on the town, on the Michigan Sea sparkling beyond. Puzzled, they looked back at him. Finally they saw the ship. They watched it, ears up, interested but not excited.
Hearing Bobby's yells, a few birds flew up. Rabbits, too, raised their semaphore ears, swivelled them about; then lowered them, their alarm short-lived.
The ship grew to a cloud, a solid silent drifting cloud of scarlet and gold, blown on a wind where no wind blew, sideways and down, sideways and down.
"It can't be Annis," Bobby told the dogs, excitedly. They glanced at him, pulled their tongues in, gulping.
"Annis isn't due for four months, not till after school starts," Bobby said. Annis was the annual ship of the Far East Colony Circuit. "And it can't be Golightly; they don't expect it for six months."
He stood staring in awe as the massive construction came down lightly as dandelion-fluff.
"So it has to be a tramp. A star-hopper!" Bobby leaped again into the air, yelling his loudest. For what greater felicity could a boy wish, in his twelfth summer, than a tramp starship?
Like the wind, tramps went where they willed. They were novelty, glamour, adventure. They were the stars.
What a time for the boys and girls in Port Michigan! Now, down there, they were running south toward Starport Bay, like children following some pie-eyed piper, their dogs running and barking with tongues hanging out. And the grown-ups also were pulled by the gravity of the Bay toward the south, walking of course, but walking fast. All Port Michigan was flowing south, to stand staring and pointing and calling out on the wharfs.
A starship, a tramp! Bobby thought of John Hennessey, who stowed away on Bedelia twenty-one years ago, and of Ryan Atteborough, who stowed away on City of New Beijing twenty-eight years before that. And others he named, who had gone, to school, to distant jobs, and had never come back.
And down the great ship came. Its mighty shadow passed across Port Michigan and all the steeples and roofs and treetops went dark. The great scarlet and gold cloud came down upon its shadow, smoothing all the waves. Bobby let out a long-pent breath as the great ship rocked, belly-deep in the waters of Starport Bay. "Down! She's down!"
Not only Port Michigan moved toward Starport Bay, Bobby knew. From the east and the west and the north, the special trains were flying. Ships were leaving harbor in a dozen towns along the coast, making their way to the planet's starport.
Bobby glanced at the sun and groaned. It would be hours until it was time to bring the sheep in. Hours in which all the other boys and girls in Port Michigan would line the wharves, beg rides on the lighters, even speak to shipmen! And here he stood on Melancholy Heights, watching the dogs, who needed no one to watch them, watch the stupid sheep, who scarcely needed the dogs.
"It isn't fair," he told the dogs, plopping down suddenly. "The only week in the whole summer I haf to herd sheep."
His voice trembled; tears threatened. No wreck of a grown man's hopes can be more poignant than a boy's loss of a ship.
At last the sun set, and the Cross Collies brought the still-grazing sheep down the slopes. Bobby Wilson hurried the sheep into the fold and ran around to the office.
"Mr. O'Kelly! Mr. O'Kelly!"
The old man wasn't there. Bobby pounded on the door, but the old man still wasn't there. Finally, with a sob of impatience, he went in, Spike and Tyke dancing around him. Bobby got down an earthen crock. Warm dry meaty odors arose as he lifted the lid.
"Where's your bowls? Oh, here they are."
Hastily he scooped out mounds of red-brown, dry pebbles, dumped them into the heavy earthen bowls. The Cross Collies sat on the floor, craning their necks to see, glancing at each other in embarrassment.
"Outside! Outside!"
He caught up a bowl in each hand and staggered to the door, the weight of the bowls pulling at his wrists. Outside, he set the bowls down. Politely Spike and Tyke waited for him to invite them to eat.
They watched till he had turned the corner and was out of sight, then looked after him, prick-eared, till his footsteps faded. Apologetically each looked at the other, approached the bowls as if idly, looked around. Then, embarrassed, each ate without invitation.
Not even the first ship to land this year could keep the grown-ups of Columbia from their suppers: roasts, fried chicken, sweet corn, biscuits, cakes and pies and ice cream. Bobby Wilson ran through the odors of these things.
The boardwalk gave back muted thunder beneath Bobby's feet, rumble rumble slam, rumble slam slam, rumble rumble rumble slam! He jumped with both feet on every loose board, and knew them all. Elm Street, Maple Street, Oak Street, and Cherry. Down Cherry Street Bobby pelted, panting.
"Ho, lad!"
Panting, Bobby peered at a tall slim elegant figure. His school teacher; Mr. Ladysmith.
"Ah, Bobby Wilson." The teacher looked young till you saw the lines at eye and mouth. "I trust you have not been improving the shining hours this day, nor indeed this summer. But of course it is too much to expect you to keep up with your summer studies with Rosa in port. I will uphold awhile the unyoked humor of your idleness, lad, but I shall expect your echo to answer cheerfully when it comes time to write you down as one who mourned not his unwasted youth."
Grown-ups were hard enough to understand; Mr. Ladysmith was impossible. "Yes, sir," Bobby said at random.
"I fear I waste your time, Bobby. For a boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth -- but I forebear." The elegant teacher saluted him with a tip of his straw boater.
Bobby looked after him wonderingly. But home was near.
Bobby ran. In at the Wilson gate, his feet slapping the flagstone walk, up to the porch, bump-bump across it to the front door. He threw the screen back, fell through the front door with a crash, the screen slammed, the front door swung, left open. He ran through the living room, slap-slap-slap, through the food-odored kitchen, back through the dining room, through the parlor.
The house was empty.
He ran panting back to the kitchen, where he found honey-glazed ham in the oven of the porcelain stove. Potatoes bubbled in one pot, peas in another, and yams steamed in one steamer and string beans in the other.
Bobby ran to the back door. "Teddy! Teddy!" Even his dog had gone to see the ship. Rosa, Mr. Ladysmith had called it.
Bobby ran across the Wilson yard, around the lilac into the Hardesty yard, avoiding the dim-seen rosebush in the gloam, and checked. He could see no one in the kitchen of the Hardesty house. He ran around it, and saw Uncle Mordecai lighting the gaslights at the yard gate.
"Uncle Mord, Uncle Mord!"
The old man turned slowly. "Bobby. Thought it was about time you were gettin' in." Carefully he scratched a match, twisted the stopcock, held the match to the slow rush of gas. Soft yellow light lit his lined face, his white hair and mustache and neat beard. A moth hurried up. He brushed it away and replaced the globe.
"Where is everybody, Uncle Mord? My family and your family--"
"They're all down at the wharfs, greeting the shipmen."
"It's suppertime!"
"They'll be back any minute now. We've got the doctor coming to supper, and your family is entertaining one of the lieutenants, I think. My granddaughter Annie will be eating with you. Listen."
Bobby strained his ears, and heard over the crickets the muted happy babble of conversation. A large family party approached.
"Oh boyoman!" Bobby ran back past the Hardesty house, past the rosebush, and around the lilac. Teddy came running into the back yard, panting, and leaped up at him, the harbinger of the family.
Lieutenant Ricardo Montoya was slim, had ageless good looks and wore an elegant light-lemon uniform. He had amber skin, brown eyes, and raven black hair. And he was a shipman.
Lt. Montoya was visibly embarrassed at being the center of attention. Father and mother, daughter and son, grandmother and cousin, all gave him their attention. He ate little.
"We should have no trouble making up a cargo for you," said Mr. Wilson with relish, as if he were on the Board of Trustees of the planet. "We've got ten thousand tons of radiation-preserved apples. And a hundred tons of preserved fruit pies."
"Tell me, Lieutenant Montoya," said Bobby's older sister Sharon, leaning toward the shipman like a flower toward the sun. "What do you think of Columbia?"
"Oh, call me Ricardo, please, or Rick, Senorita--er--Miss Wilson." The lieutenant blinked in alarm. Bobby's cousin Annie also leaned breathlessly forward, though she was older than Sharon.
"Oh, thank you, Ricardo! Please call me Sharon. Do you call women Senorita on your ship?"
He smiled apologetically. "I fear Espanyol is no longer spoken on Nuevo America. But yes, we still say Senorita for Miss, and Senora for Mistress, and Senor for Mister, and we add Don to most titles. Don Capitan, for instance, no?"
"Don?" Bobby's mother asked. Mr. Wilson's name was Don.
"An old espanish word meaning Lord." Ricardo managed to swallow a bite of ham.
Bobby laughed, looking at his father.
His father frowned back at him. Bobby sobered instantly and made sure he was not gobbling his food, or resting his elbows on the table, or committing any of the other sins that so provoke grown-ups.
"You never said what you think of Columbia," Mr. Wilson said.
"It looks more like old Earth than any planet I have seen," Lt. Montoya said. "The trees, the birds, the flowers, the grass."
Mr. Wilson expanded. "The Founders discovered Columbia early in its biological evolution. There are only a few reedy native plants, and some sea creatures. So we imported Earthly life."
"Tell me . . . Ricardo," said Sharon breathlessly. "What is it like on New Waybo America?"
But the lieutenant's reply was diverted by Mrs. Wilson's offering more ham.
Bobby gulped his own ham, his imagination at work on the lieutenant's home planet.
A strange place. Different from Columbia. The sun, maybe, rose in the west, or in the north or south! Snow fell in summer and it tasted like mint! In autumn, the leaves flapped and flew away south in flocks, clouds; red, yellow, tiger-striped, never to return! Flowers glowed at night, and fireflies came looking for them. Bees made fruit custard instead of honey, and all you had to do was freeze it to get ice cream!
If he, Bobby, lived there, he would never leave. He looked at Lt. Montoya in amazement. How could he bear to leave such a place, especially for dull old Port Michigan?
"Bobbeee! Bobbeee! Coooeee!" The calling voice broke on the last note, shattering it into ten thousand pieces.
Bobby started. "It's Philly!"
He started to jump up, but his father said, "Drink your milk, Bobby! And excuse yourself from the table."
"Sorry, Dad! Momma, Philly'scallingme, canIgo?"
"May I."
"MayIgo?"
"Very well, you may go."
Lt. Montoya smiled at him as he gulped milk, perhaps wishing he might go also, to play in the warm summer dark under the old trees of ancient Earth.
It is not wise for pirates and financiers and such like desperadoes to meet in the glare of the street light; rather, they should seek the darker corners of the yard. Thus it was that Bobby found Philly in their usual place, an arbor of shade trees and shrubs.
"Oboyoman! You missed the ship!" Philly cried. "It's named Rose and it's from New Wavo Something! Jan 'n' me went 'n' watched it."
"I saw it come down," Bobby said. He was subdued. "It was great. It's named Rosa and it's from New Wavo America. We ennertained Lootenant Ree -- Reecartho Mon-toy. My stoopid sister Sharon's crazy about him, and so is Annie."
"Wow, your family was lucky. A shipman! My Dad tried to invite one, but he was too late." He changed his tone abruptly. "You're still herdin', ain'tcha?"
"Yeah, 'nless I can get out of it."
Philly frowned, hardly seen in the shadow. "I dunno. Nobody's gonna want to herd stoopid sheep when there's a ship in."
"I been thinkin'," said Bobby. "There's that feeb Chris Brinker."
"She's too dumb to play with anyone," said Philly. "But," he added doubtfully, "will she want to miss the ship?"
"It's not my turn for two weeks!" Chris Brinker cried sturdily. "I wouldn't trade with you, Bobby Wilson, if you was to beg me with bended knees! Not if you was to beg me a hundred times with bended knees with sugar on it! It's your turn, you little feeb! So there!"
"You dumb feeb! You couldn't have fun with a ship in port anyway," Bobby cried desperately.
"Teacher's pet! Teacher's pet!" Philly joined in loyally. But it was no good.
They tried lanky Joe Finkle, who hooted hysterically at them, and short dumpy Rachel Dyakov, whose negative was physical assault, and Mike Atteborough, a brown older boy who smiled scornfully, and BeBe Feder, who sicced her poodle on them (he played with Teddy), and Diana White, whose mother said she had gone to bed.
And now all about them in the night the mothers were calling their children home, and calling their children home, their voices variously patient, wistful, or exasperated, yet always melodious with love. The echoes tolled across the town, tolling the children home. Reluctantly they drifted away from their groups gossiping in darkness, each telling the other what he or she had done that day and would do the next: John Hennessey and Ryan Atteborough were dismissed as pikers.
Bobby Wilson and Philly Wu drifted homeward, toward their own tolls. At his door, Philly was charged severely by his mother with lateness. Knowing he would receive no warmer welcome, Bobby did not hurry.
"Bobbywherehaveyou been! It's bedtime. Off with you!"
"Momma," he said. "Momma!"
"Yes, Bobby?"
"Momma," he said desperately. "Can I skip the herding tomorrow? Can I, Momma? Please? Mr. O'Kelly could go! Please, Momma?"
"What? No, Bobby. Mr. O'Kelly can't go, he has to oversee the sale of the town's wool to the shipmen. Maybe you can get a substitute tomorrow night, and stay home the day after."
But the day after tomorrow is ten years from now, a hundred, a thousand! when you're twelve. Bobby broke into tears and ran through the house, slapslapslap, burst through the screen door slam bang!
"Teddy! Teddy! Where are you?" Teddy was the pillow he always wept on. But the little black and white dog thought he wanted to play, and Bobby had to pursue him into his cousins Hardesty's yard and tackle him before Teddy understood.
He lay then, panting and whining companionably while Bobby wept on his long fur. His tail thumped the ground with misplaced cheerfulness. The night was rich with the scent of dew, of flowers; rich with the scent of old summer.
Uncle Mordecai found him there. "Trouble, Bobby?"
Sniffing, gulping, Bobby wiped his eyes on the little dog's fur. "I-I have to herd sheep tomorrow."
"Oh. Yes, this is your week."
Uncle Mord sat down slowly, picked up a stick, broke it. "The ship couldn't have picked a worse time to planet in," he said.
Sniff. "No." Sniff.
Uncle Mord sighed. "Bobby, I'll go up tomorrow; you have fun."
"Oh, Uncle Mord! Oh, would you? Oh, Uncle Mord!" Tumultuously he hugged the older man. Teddy leaped to his feet, barking in relief.
"Easy, easy, lad. Yes, of course I'll do it. I know how boys and girls are about ships. Yes, lad," he said musingly, removing the boy's arms from about his neck and taking him on his lap, "old though I be, I understand."
"Mr. Archer, the Last of the Founders, died nineteen years before I was born," said Bobby. "Covered with years and honors."
"Covered, as you say, with years and honors," said Uncle Mord gravely.
This phrase, to Bobby, conjured an image of an old man with white hair and beard tottering along the street -- "covered with years" -- greeted with bows and smiles, to which he responded with a flourish of his stick and a lift of his hat, like Mr. Ladysmith -- "covered with honors." Bobby had often wished to be that old man.
"Have you ever been covered with years and honors?" he asked.
Uncle Mordecai grunted in something like amusement. "With years only, I fear."
"Anyway, you'll take my place tomorrow? You don't mind?"
"Yes, I will. I shan't be bored. I'll take along my knives and the current project. A little something for you, perhaps."
Uncle Mord carved wood. He carved chains, and cages with birds in them, and door knockers with comical faces whose eyes rolled when their broad noses were struck. He carved windmills and ancient airplanes. And he carved toys. He was famous among children for blocks around, and they covered him with honor.
"Oh, yes, golly, thanks, Uncle Mord."
"Bobby? Bobby? Where are you, Bobby?"
"Coming, Mom! ThanksUncleMord Igottago."
The next morning Bobby Wilson's sister Sharon rose early. He heard her singing in her room and remembered: a ship was in! The Rosa, the Rosa, the Rosa, of New Something! He scrambled into the clothes he'd worn yesterday, and ran bammity bammity bam downstairs and across the yard and past the lilac and around the rose bush, and in the back door of the Hardesty house.
"Aunt Kate, Aunt Kate!" he cried. "Did Uncle Mord go up the Heights today?"
Nobody had called him. If he was to herd sheep, he was late; the sun was already beginning to pour level rays of heavy light across the roofs and treetops of Port Michigan.
"Hush, you'll wake your cousin Annie. Yes, Bobby, he left before sun-up."
"ThanksAuntKate! Bye!"
He shot back across the yards, through the kitchen, into the living room. His father sat there, reading the Port Michigan Newsbreak. He glanced up in irritation at Bobby, then looked with even more irritation toward the door of the parlor. Music came out of it.
Sharon was playing the stereo horn there and dancing dreamily. "That's a very good sign, that he's your tootsie-wootsie, in the good old SUM-mer time," she sang. She twirled about, her lace-white skirt swirling, and did not see Bobby, he not being on the ceiling.
"A hopeless case," Mr. Wilson said gravely. "Extremely contagious. One exposure and she's down with it. One shudders."
Bobby nodded. Sharon was in love again.
"I'll be with you in a-ap-ple blossom time," Sharon sang, waving her fingers. "I'll be with you, to cha-ange your name to mine."
"Go ahead and stare at her. She won't notice," said Mr. Wilson. "She won't hear anything you say either, the condition makes her deaf. We should charge admission. Rare specimen of a young girl in love."
"Breakfast is ready."
Bobby arrived at the table at a dead run. Mr. Wilson folded his paper and walked in with dignity. Grandma Bartram came in, went out, came back leading Sharon, still dancing.
"Mmm mm-mm mm ooomm m-mm," Sharon hummed, preferring sound to sense. Mrs. Wilson slid a plate of pancakes under her nose. She sniffed its aroma dreamily.
Mr. Wilson stared at her. "I suppose your cousin Annie is over at the Hardesty house, in a similar condition," he said.
Sharon poured maple syrup delicately over her pancakes. Bobby saw that she was trying to write "Ricardo" in syrup. But when she had done, she did not eat the cakes, only dipped up some of the syrup and sat dreamily tasting it, syrup sweet as anticipated kisses.
"Your Uncle Mord should have taken her up on Melancholy Heights," said Mr. Wilson. "Spike and Tyke could look after her."
"Oh, hush, Don," said Mrs. Wilson. "You were young yourself."
"Young, yes; a young woman, no; a foolish young woman, never."
Mrs. Wilson looked at Grandma Bartram. "I think I can remember a few foolishnesses," said Grandma. "Like the time you tried to stow away on Annis. You ran around with John Hennessey too much."
Bobby knocked his milk over, but he caught the glass and only spilled half of it. "Oops, sorry," he said, and jumped up for a cloth. When he had mopped up the milk and washed out the cloth, he sat down and they were all looking at him. Except Sharon. She was looking at the ceiling.
"I gotta go meet Philly," he said hurriedly. "May I go? Please?"
His parents exchanged glances and his father said judiciously, "I believe that we can permit that. Perhaps even encourage it."
Bobby ran out and grabbed his bike. Into the Wu yard, around to the back door. "Philly! Philly!"
Inside, he heard an altercation, and Philly came running out. Behind him his mother was wailing, "You didn't finish your breakfast!"
"Let's go!"
They mounted their getaway bikes and escaped the scene of the crime. "You're not herding!" Philly cried joyfully.
"Got Uncle Mord to go!"
All over town boys and girls were pedalling, converging on the docks. Here Bobby and Philly met the third of their usual trio, Jan Conway.
All night the special freights had come hissing in, and the ships too had wallowed into Starport Bay, and still they came, with the goods which Rosa would carry to the stars. Men packed bales and barrels and boxes tightly away in shipping containers, which were lifted by crane and lowered into lighters, then lifted again into the cavernous echoing holds of the great starship.
And the children were there. Bobby and Philly and Jan rode a lighter back and forth, falling into the water and being fished out, laughing. They got in the way of the sweating men packing containers on the wharfs and were chased away with oaths and laughter. Some sailors from Superior City invited them aboard ship for lunch and they ate ham sandwiches and pickles and smoked fish and hardtack. Everybody laughed, everybody worked and sweated, many sang as they worked.
Until Jan remembered that the assistant purser of the ship was invited to her house for dinner! She jumped up and ran dithering around the deck for three minutes, but there was no way ashore, and no time. So she sat down with them again and ate pie mournfully and stuck out her peach-coated tongue at everybody who laughed at her. . . .
Bobby Wilson, Philly Wu, and Jan Conway trailed their bikes tiredly home as the shadows lengthened.
They parted at Bobby's house. Bobby dropped his bike on the new-cut grass, to be greeted exuberantly by Teddy, who had been left whining on the wharf. Sharon wadded up a ball of grass and hurled it viciously at him. Barking in delight, Teddy raced around her wildly.
"I have always hated that feeb Esmeralda Wu!" Sharon declaimed intensely. If she had not always hated her before, she had always hated her now. "Do you know what she's done? She got that snake-in-the grass father of hers to go and invite Ricardo Montoya to supper!"
Sharon hurled more grass at the dancing dog, but he was too fast. She chose instead a slower-moving target, the tree by the gate.
"She lives in storm and strife," said Mr. Ladysmith, unseen till now, leaning over the gatepost. "With banneret and pennon," he continued, "trumpet and kettle drum, and the outrageous cannon."
Sharon stood balancing a grass ball in her hand, contemplating outrages and cannon. Mr. Ladysmith glanced at Bobby and said, "Ah, but the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. And the wind, it bloweth where it listeth." He took off his hat to Sharon.
To Bobby he said, "I fear that I bear bad tidings from Ghent to Aix. The City Council of Trustees will need your uncle, Mordecai Hardesty, to help decide which of its stored goods and chattels it should sell to Rosa. So you will be forced to take the sheep up again. You have my sympathy, lad. I shall see thee at Phillippi." And he went away, swinging his hat, covered with nothing.
Supper was not a pleasant meal at the Wilson house. Bobby ate mechanically, but food did not fill the hollow within him. And only the nudgings of her mother prevented Sharon from putting her head down on the table in adolescent despair.
Bobby wept in the gloaming on Teddy, was not consoled by Uncle Mord's apology. Next morning he had to be called three times, last by Sharon, who jerked the pillow viciously from beneath his head, declaring that she was fed up with hearing her mother yell at him. He went heavily downstairs, and heavily ate without tasting, and went heavily off.
Mr. O'Kelly said, "Oh, there you are." Spike and Tyke accepted him with some reserve, moving the loud sheep out with wary glances over-shoulder at him: the boy who would have let them starve.
When, however, on his melancholy height, he broke down and sobbed with the abandon of a small boy, the dogs gathered round, perturbed. They whined and nuzzled him until he seized Spike, flung him down without any respect for his sheep dog's dignity, and wept on his sleek side. Spike looked in consternation at Tyke, who sat looking back with droll astonishment.
When he was not weeping Bobby lay on Melancholy Heights, chin upon crossed arms, and meditated on John Hennessey, who stowed away on Bedelia when his father was young, and on Ryan Atteborough, who stowed away on City of New Beijing when Uncle Mord was young. And never came back. And never came back.
Bobby had no use for Connie Maplethorpe, the girls' heroine, who married onto Merimna seventeen years ago. Everybody knew that a shipman woman who married a planet man would most likely settle on the planet, like old Mrs. Ping Ping Norton.
How could they give up stars? Bobby yearned for stars, stars wheeling by the ship's ports. And planets, not like dumb old Columbia, planets of wonders and delights beyond the imagination even of small boys.
And so the days of that glorious and mournful week passed, days when Bobby languished on his green hill. Once Lt. Montoya came to dinner, and that noonday Sharon Wilson was in heaven; there was not even Annie to compete for him, for she hadn't told her cousin of his visit.
Came the evening of the day before The Day on which Rosa was to depart. The children stood on the end of the longest wharf, looking hungrily out at the great scarlet and gold bulk bobbing slightly.
"John Hennessey," Philly Wu asserted, "fixed up a container with a bed an' a box of food an' a light! He was loaded aboard just like any ole container, and stacked! Nobody ever knew he was there till Bedelia was gone two weeks."
"No he didn't," Jan Conway said. "No he didn't."
"Then what did he do, you know so much?" Bobby asked.
"He rowed out at night and climbed a rope," Jan said. "My goodness gracious, you make up the biggest stories, Philip Philadelphia Wu!"
"John Hennessey was sweet on a shipman girl, and she helped him sneak aboard," little Rachel Dyakov asseverated loudly. "Everybody knows that!"
"I don't know it!" Bobby said. "I don't know it!" And when Rachel seemed disposed to urge her view, he drowned her with further repetitions.
"Then what do you know?" the even-tempered Jan was driven to ask.
"Yeah, you're so smart, Mr. Big Wilson, what do you know?" Rachel Dyakov cried, making fists and visibly preparing for assault, her normal mode of communication.
"What do I know? What do I know? Whose father used to run around with John Hennessey, I'd beg to ask! That's all I'd beg to ask, just whose father--" Rachel attacked and he was forced to hold her off.
"Well, anyway, Ryan Atteborough stowed away in a container," Philly said, raising his voice over this polite converse. "I know mighty well somebody did, and if it wasn't John, it must've been Ryan."
Exhaustion ended the argument, and despair; even Rachel scarcely had the energy to pummel people bigger than herself.
"Gonna be quiet around here when that ole ship is gone," Jan murmured.
"Ole Starport Bay's gonna look mighty empty," Philly said.
"They're not lifting off till tomorrow night," Bobby said.
"Not till after dark," Rachel added, eyes gleaming.
The others nodded. "Yeah. Gonna salute 'em takin' off with good ole Founders' Day fireworks!"
"Yeah! I'm gonna be down here first thing, right on the edge of this ole wharf, front row seat, yes sir!"
An argument over who was going to be first, and first of the first, and on the edge of the wharf, and on a boat in front of the wharf, and on the bow of the boat, was interrupted by the melodious, lovely calls to suppers.
As they wended homeward, Bobby's spirits sank. They passed through the warehouse district back of the wharfs. These aging buildings were made of a peculiar dull-gray brick with black speckles, the cheap native brick of Port Michigan. From a distance they had a characteristic dull color that was now, to Bobby, the very essence of all mundanity. Tomorrow The Ship would depart, taking with it all the magic of the world.
He would grow up dumb and satisfied, like the sheep, and marry someone who had never wanted to go far far away, and would live bored forever after on Columbia. Walking toward home, Bobby hated the warehouses, the bricks of which they were made, the clay from which the bricks sprang, and the scrawny, dusty, every-day weeds that grew in the spaces between them, with such an intensity he could not begin to express it.
At the top of the street they turned for a last look at The Ship. Only one more day, Bobby thought, and he must miss it!
On his front porch, Bobby found Sharon abandoned at full stretch on the floor before the door. He paused, alarmed until he heard her sniffle.
"Out of the way, feeb, you're blockin' the door," he said.
"Go away," she said dully, not moving.
"How can I go away when you're in the way? You're blockin' the dumb door!"
As if with great effort, Sharon muttered something that ended with, "other door."
Bobby was too tired to walk all the way around the house. He knew that he would just absolutely completely die if he had to walk so far. His legs felt like lead weights.
"You don't haf to lay here!" he cried. "You could lay on the grass. You could lay on the porch swing. You could lay on the roof! You don't haf to lay all the time in the way like you always are."
She raised her head from her arms and looked at him with wrathful, teary eyes. "Oh go away, Mr. Smart-aleck-Bobby-Wilson! Go play with the dog!" And she bumped her head back down again in despair.
"I can't go away," Bobby said, his voice cracking in irritation. "You're still in the way, feeb!"
With that he stepped on the small of her back and tried to open the screen door. Sharon made no effort to resent this liberty with her sorrow, except to roll slightly toward the door, further frustrating his attempt to open it. It banged against her jeans-clad hip and Bobby cried, "You're too fat!"
Even this insult did not animate her. She merely sniffed and turned her head to watch his efforts scornfully. Stepping down into the narrow space between her and the wall, Bobby opened the screen as far as it would go and tried unsuccessfully to wriggle behind it. Rolling further, Sharon applied so much pressure to it as to render him red-faced and pop-eyed with effort.
"Hold still, can't you, you ole thing, you!" he cried wrathfully.
Crouching, he tried to roll Sharon away from the door, but his hands slipped and he sprawled across her with a grunt, eliciting nothing but a scornful, satisfied "Huh!" from her.
"It was a shocking sight, after the field was won," said Mr. Ladysmith, at the gate. "For many bodies here lay rotting in the sun. But things like that must be, after such a famous victory." He approached, mounted to the porch. Bobby pushed himself off Sharon and knelt between her and the door. Sharon was too far gone in despair to care how she looked; she returned Mr. Ladysmith's gaze sullenly, craning her head back over her shoulder.
"I have come," said Mr. Ladysmith, seating himself on the porch swing, "to talk of not very many things. Not so much of shoes, or sealing wax, as ships. Or the ship."
Mr. Ladysmith swung a few centimeters back and forth, with immense dignity. "Bobby, my lad, you are one of my pupils, or would be if you deigned to study. A place has been set aside for the school children--in my opinion, to keep them quiet--where they may watch the farewell to the shipmen. I believe we shall be seated on Mr. Slatter's flat-bed truck. A few selected scholars will be called upon to recite short poems in farewell--fear not, you have not been singled out for this dismal honor. The mayor of our fair city, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia, will not be restrained from making speeches, and I presume Don Capitan Cardenas will be forced to reply."
He looked at them with lifted eyebrow. "After which, the good shipmen will be conveyed back to their ship, and Rosa will depart through a cloud of left-over fireworks. Of which, again, from the truck bed you will have a good view. Is this not felicitous?"
Bobby debated. "I guess so," he said sullenly.
"I shall expect you then, on Main Street wharf at the appointed time. Ah, but tonight, all is depression, darkness, and desolation. Parting is such sweet sorrow. I know I can in no way console you, or abate a jot of your despair. Yet, I cannot forbear; the thoughts of youth are long enough, and to spare."
He stood slowly; the swing creaked once in relief and was silent. "As you grow older (it is no consolation now) your hearts will come to such things colder. Then, you may weep, but will know why: this is the blight we are born for; it is ourselves we yearn for."
He descended to the walk, then turned for a murmured antinomy. "That is, if you should grow up. That is not a common fate."
Bobby and Sharon arose, disconsolate, and entered the house. "At least," Sharon said resentfully, "that nasty Esmeralda Wu didn't get him either." Flinging herself onto the couch, she said dreamily, "Everybody would have loved him so much."
"If you really think he would have done it!" Bobby exclaimed. "I wouldn't jump off a ship for some dumb ole girl!" Sharon didn't deign to answer, but he hadn't time for her anyway. He hurried over to Uncle Mordecai's, where Annie had already slumped off to bed.
"It's the last day," he said, despairing.
"I know it is, Bobby, but I really am tied up all day." Apologetically, the old man offered: "It's human nature. We want what we can't have, and can't want what we do have. I wish it could have been me, instead of Ryan Atteborough."
Bobby looked at his white-bearded relative in amazement. "Did you ever think about stowing away on a ship, Uncle Mord?"
"I think about it every time one planets in," said the older man gravely. "I have always yearned for stars."
"Mr. Ladysmith says we yearn for ourselves."
"What would Mr. Ladysmith know?" Uncle Mord said, irritated. "He never yearned. But neither Ryan nor John stowed away. They applied for jobs posted by the captains of Bedelia and City of Beijing. Maybe, someday, you'll have that chance."
Not likely, Bobby thought, knowing Mr. Ladysmith's opinion of his scholarship. He hadn't even been chosen to recite a dumb old poem. And even if so, the remote possibility could not compensate for his lost, last tomorrow. He mumbled as much.
"I know," Uncle Mord agreed soberly. "I felt the same way at your age. I still do."
Note that there are only 4 people in this story, not counting spear-carriers: Bobby (Morning), Sharon (Forenoon), Uncle Mord (Evening), and Mr. Ladysmith. Mr. Ladysmith is the only adult of the four.
This story appeared in ANALOG SF March 1993.
A worting lived in the great forest. Its house is made of chewed wood fiber glued together with the worting's own brown exudation. The house is round and spirals up to a peak, and has three windows and a door. It has an escape tunnel leading away through the roots of the old eo-oak tree it sits under. From the trapdoor in the top, the worting could climb up into the eo-oak, and so escape that way. Around the house is a palisade of stone and timber posts, against the beasts of the great forest. Scattered through the forest near the worting's house are the houses of a number of other wortinga.
One market day the worting was pushing its barrow down the road through the edge of the great forest when a man-kin came by on a fine fast riding beast.
“Say, exozootic, you have what in your barrow, eh?” the man-kin asked.
In the Adolescent Houses, the worting had learned The Light of the World, as the man-kin language is called. “I have in my barrow the skulls and carapaces of my offspring, heh,” it said.
“I have heard of this custom of some exozootics, of killing their children,” said the man-kin. Man-kin seldom trouble to learn the true names of peoples from the stars, calling them all exozootics. Its volaunt danced about. “It troubles you to kill your children, eh?”
The worting pondered this question for three respirations. The man-kin do not slay their offspring, eh? it wondered. “It does not trouble me, heh,” it said.
“Our roads diverge; to each his own road,” said the man-kin. “I could never follow your road, ha! But may the Long Father be with you on your own road, exozootic.” And the man-kin rode off swiftly as the wind.
“Eat well,” said the worting.
Lifting its barrow, it trundled along the road, pondering the man-kin’s words. How could the children of the man-kin be planted if they were not slain?
At the town of the man-kin, the worting was stopped at the outer wall. Man-kin stood about, with weapons.
“Market day has but dawned, and already the wortinga arrive, ha!” cried one of the man-kin. “You are the first, old worting.”
“I saw no wortinga before me,” said the worting. It sought to thrust its barrow past them.
“You cannot pass, ha,” said the man-kin. “There is a tax upon all goods entering the town.”
“A tax is what, eh?” the worting asked, confused. Always before wortinga had been admitted to the town on market day, to sell their produce.
“A tax is money, a fee, an impost, heh,” they told it.
“But the wortinga have no money, ha!” said the worting. “We can not enter, eh?”
“Yes, heh, but you must pay, ho,” said the man-kin.
“I cannot pay without money,” said the worting. It stood holding the handle of its barrow.
“It is not a great sum,” they told it. “It is merely a few spuds -- two or three copper unciums -- or for this fine load of skulls and carapaces, perhaps a silver star.”
“I have no money at all,” the worting said.
The man-kin took counsel together and presently one said, “We shall take one skull of your load, for the tax, ho. If you do not wish to pay, we cannot let you enter, huh.”
The worting hesitated. “But I must have paint, and cloth, and netting, and glue, and brass and iron nails, and other things of iron, and I wish also to have spices grown from plants from far-off--" it made a sound that the characters of The Light of the World cannot reproduce. “What you call Euphrosyne, whence the wortinga came.”
“Och, there will be enough left,” they told it.
“Then, I will pay, oh,” it said.
The worting selected the finest and largest of its skulls, a skull that glistened like polished ebony, and presented it to them, genuflecting. They allowed it to pass, and it crossed the fields and passed through the inner wall, and stopped in the market place, in the shade of its usual tree.>
After a little while the man-kin who buys the skulls and carapaces came hurrying from one of the man-kin buildings. “Old worting, ha!” he said. “I hurried through my morning meal, knowing that you would be early. The younger wortinga sleep late, eh?”
“They linger before departing, heh,” the worting said. It spread a canvas upon the grass and laid the skulls and carapaces of its offspring upon it. The worting knows how the man-kin like for the skulls and carapaces to be. It always cleaned and polished its skulls and carapaces meticulously, and it was careful to slay its offspring in such a way as not to damage them.
The man-kin began to lift and study the skulls and carapaces very carefully.
“You slay your offspring, eh?” the worting asked.
The skull-buyer looked up, looked back at the skulls and carapaces. “No, heh, we rear them all. Of course we have far fewer than you.”
The worting’s armpits were heavy with eggs. Tomorrow it would move them to the sand pits. Every four weeks there would be another hatching, and an earlier hatching to slay and plant. Of each hatching, only one or two would grow. If more grew, there would be no room on this, the First World of the man-kin, for all the wortinga. Why did not the man-kin overrun their world, eh? it wondered.
“A fine lot of bones, huh,” said the man-kin, straightening up. “I shall take them all. You wish to purchase what, eh?”
The worting recited its list of desires and the man-kin wrote them. “You will await my return, ho,” he said. He departed to the buildings of the man-kin.
Patiently the worting waited.
Presently a number of man-kin offspring came running through the market place, throwing a round thing from one to another and making much noise, like hatchling wortinga. Some came over to observe the worting’s skulls and carapaces.
The worting asked them, “Your parents plant you in what manner, eh?”
“What do you say, old worting, eh? Our fathers plant us in our mothers, ha!” “No, no! Our fathers do not plant us, heh.”
Many spoke at once and the worting found it difficult to understand them. “Your parents do not slay you, eh?”
“Slay us, ha!” “Yes, ha, my father slew me last night -- see my eye!” “Our fathers do not slay us, indeed, heh.”
“How then are you planted, eh?” the worting asked, but so great was the noise that none heard it. It had to ask twice more before any of them attended to it. By now all the man-kin offspring had gathered around and their noise was great. Others were coming, and some of the adult man-kin heard the confusion.
“We are not planted, ha! Our parents do not plant us, heh.” “We are not wortinga, to kill and sell our children, ha!”
The worting was greatly puzzled by all this noise. “How then are you reared, if you are not planted, eh?” it asked them.
“We grow, ha!” “We grow without being planted, ha!” “We are not like you, ha!” Many times they said these things and other things like them to the worting, always using the Executant of exclamation.
Presently the skull-buyer pushed through the crowd with a wagon and began to load the worting’s goods into the worting’s barrow. Still the offspring stood about and shouted, till the buyer silenced them.
“I thank you, sir, for your consideration, huh,” said the worting with ceremonial politeness.
"Eat well, huh," said the skull-buyer.
The worting started to push its barrow away, but it was stopped by a number of adult man-kin, who stood before it.
“Hey, old worting,” one said.
“Yo,” the worting said.
“You speak of killing children. You kill your children, eh?”
“No, heh. I slay, I do not kill. Every four weeks I must slay my hatchlings and plant them. Some will grow and thrive. Most will not.”
“We have heard that this is the case with the wortinga,” said the man-kin. “But you kill man-kin children too, eh?”
The worting was confused. “No, heh. It is the task of each parent to slay its own offspring.”
“Three days ago a man-kin child disappeared. Some say she was taken by the beasts of the forest. But some now say that perhaps she was slain by the wortinga.”
“They say that for what reason, eh?” the worting asked, surprised.
“Because your questions have made them suspicious, heh,” the man-kin said. “Again we ask: the wortinga slay the offspring of the man-kin, eh?”
“I have not done such a thing, heh,” said the worting. “I do not know if other wortinga might have done so. But I think it very unlikely, heh. A worting would slay a man-kin offspring for what reason, eh?”
“Perhaps a mistake, thinking the child needed to be planted, heh,” said the man-kin. “Very well, old worting, you may go, ho. Your curiosity nearly got you in trouble, but it was perhaps understandable. We find your ways incomprehensible also.”
But before the worting could push its barrow very far it was stopped again, by other man-kin. “Hey, old worting, ha!”
“Yo.”
“It is true that wortinga kill their children, eh?”
“No, heh, we slay them that we may plant them.”
“You would plant them for what reason, seeing that you are animals and not plants, eh?”
“No, heh, Divvis, they are really just walking plants,” another man-kin made answer.
“That is true, Garhelt, eh? You are the teacher, you know about wortinga, eh?”
“I know but little; little is known, heh. I believe that wortinga partake of the characteristics both of plants and of animals. It is certain that they plant their offspring, of whom only a few grow. These develop roots and leaves, and when they are ripe, the leaves and roots wither and the worting walks away. In the meantime, the parents talk to them and thus partially educate them.”
One man-kin made a loud barking noise and smote another on the back. “A quieter method of raising the children than yours, Gilly, ha!” And many other man-kin made the barking noises.
“But they can be both plant and animal how, eh?” one asked.
“Their ancestors came from Euphrosyne tetro-myrions of years ago, where things are not as they are here, heh. Their name itself suggests that they are both: worting. 'Wort' is plant, and the ending suggests a living being. Plant-thing, huh.”
Seeing that the man-kin spoke among themselves, the worting again pushed its barrow, and was suffered to go. It was puzzled that there should be all this confusion about a simple question. Also, it could not understand how the man-kin rear their offspring.
The road home was long and dusty, and the load heavier than on the trip up. The worting was frequently stopped by other wortinga coming with their goods, many of them with skulls and carapaces. All who stopped examined its load and ask what it had traded for it.
Upon reaching its house, the worting carefully opened the palisade, that no hatchling escape. It wheeled its barrow into the shed and unloaded it, putting the goods on shelves. Next it went out and examined the palisade carefully, to assure itself that no breaches were being made by the beasts of the great forest.
It next examined the rootlings: four leaf-wrapped small wortinga standing in the sunlight in the protection of the palisade. One was of the largest size, four months rooted, and might break its roots at any time. The worting offered this one food, but it still declined, being not quite ripe. The next in size were two of three-month size. They seemed in good condition, and it spoke to them. They answered, but the worting had no time now for conversation. The smallest was but two months old, the only survivor of its hatching, and looked about very curiously. It spoke but little yet, but listened intently as the worting spoke to the older rootlings. There were two rootlings of a month old, but still quite immobile and plantlike. It had moved them near to the others three days before.
Soon, the worting thought, it would be time to place the new eggs and slay the oldest crop of hatchlings, the four-month-olds. They were running wildly about now under foot. They had thinned down the younger hatchlings by a third, playing too hard with them.
The worting went to the sand pit and spent some time in shoring up one side, then made a trip to the river for sand. The pit was getting low. The hatchlings scattered it about in their running. It spread the fresh sand on top, where the Sun would dry it. Tomorrow, or next day, it would place its eggs there. Afterward, the worting would slay the oldest hatchlings.
When it entered its house it was greeted by the four remaining free-foots. Already the four-month-old was developing the gray-green adult worting's carapace and mantle. It was making a knife from the worting's scrap metal. Soon it would leave, to join the others of its age in the Adolescent Houses. The three-month-old free-foot was reading a worting-script book copied from one of those brought from what the man-kin call Euphrosyne. Both had questions which the worting answered, and it showed the elder some tricks of metalwork. There was no two-month-old free-foot, and the two one-month-olds were eating again.
Four months as hatchlings, four months as rootlings, and four months as free-foots: that is the home life of a worting.
So the worting busied itself that day, and slept that night. The next day it removed its eggs from its armpits and placed them in the sandbox, calling the oldest free-foot to watch. Two of the others also came. Then it took cords and tied the necks of all the four-month-old hatchlings. Leaving the free-foots behind, it led the hatchlings down to the river, pushing its barrow ahead. It was the worting’s custom to drown its offspring, that their exoskeletons not be harmed by the slaying, a thing never before told.
To each of them it tied a rock, and dragged them out into the water. The hatchlings were puzzled by this and resisted more than hatchlings usually do to being slain, but were quickly drowned. Afterward the worting cut off the hatchlings's heads and carapaces and put them in a net it took from its barrow. It weighted the net with stones and sank it in the drowning pool in the river, that the water life might begin the cleansing of the parts. This trick too has never before been revealed.
The worting went back up the hill, pushing its barrow with the bodies of the drowned hatchlings. It would return for the heads and carapaces in a week and begin the further cleansing of them. The cleansing took a month, and so the worting had heads and carapaces to sell every month, as do most wortinga.
Back at the worting’s house it was joined by the free-foots as it took the bodies of the hatchlings to the rootling beds. The oldest rootlings watched curiously as the worting pointed out to the free-foots signs which it thought indicated that certain of the hatchlings were most likely to sprout. These it placed closest to those already sprouted, and so on, till all were planted.
It was very hot and all were tired by that time, so at the urging of the free-foots the worting agreed to a rest time. “It will benefit the younger hatchlings to have the older away for a time,” it said, putting out food and water for them. They tied the older ones and led them down to the river, away from the drowning pool, where they all splashed about in the coolness of water and shade, till after the sun’s downing.
That night, they fed the hatchlings and read to and conversed with the rootlings till the light faded. Then the worting and the free-foots prepared food. They were eating in the house when blows were struck upon the house’s door. A man-kin’s voice was raised in cries.
“Old Worting, ha! Old Worting, ha! Come at once, ha! Danger, ha!”
The worting was frightened, for no beast had ever solved the latch of the palisade, and no man-kin had ever found its way to its door. In its panic it could think only of flight, and started for the tunnel. But it remembered the hatchlings and the rootlings and hesitated; then it realized that this was a man-kin, not a beast. Yet still it feared, and though it resolved to stay, it made the commanding gesture and indicated the escape tunnel to the free-foots. They departed down it immediately.
The worting opened the door, saying, “I come, oh! What danger, eh?”
The man-kin who was there backed away from the door and the worting felt less fearful. It thought to recognize the buyer of skulls and carapaces.
The man-kin genuflected and said, “Old worting, you have in your house any human children, eh? Any of our offspring, eh? Eh?”
The worting wondered much at this strange question, but said, “No, heh, I have no offspring of the man-kin.”
“And you have slain none, eh?”
“I have slain none, heh. You ask for what reason, eh?”
The man-kin flung his hands up in the air and cried out, “Another of our children is missing, ha! And the fools have said that a worting has slain them, because of your questions on market day. Even now they are coming here to search the village of the wortinga.”
Wondering, the worting said, “The wortinga have no village. Each lives apart. Free-foot offspring of the man-kin die constantly from the attacks of the predators of the forest, eh? They are slain when they are old enough to leave the house and go beyond the town palisade, eh?”
“Yes, heh, and our younger -- what you would call our hatchlings -- also,” said the man-kin, standing with his arms and head lowered. “But the fools will not listen; now they blame you all for every death this octury.”
The worting was so dismayed by this accusation that it had to struggle with man-kin enumeration to remember that an octury is two hundred fifty-six years. “So many, ha!” it cried. “No, heh, the wortinga lay, and slay, and hatch, and train, only their own offspring, ha! Nor can we sell skulls and carapaces of any others. If we could, it would not be moral.”
“I believe you, old wortinga. I have dealt with you most of my life; my father began to buy from you when I was a -- a free-foot. But I cannot be responsible for the fears of fools. Now the fools come, with weapons. All I can suggest is that you do not resist. Let them enter your house, let them search everywhere.”
The man-kin departed and the worting counted its hatchlings, to assure itself that none had gotten out when the man-kin opened the palisade. Then it went into the house and considered what to do. After a long time it decided, and herded the hatchlings into a corner and put its last net over them. They commonly sleep in huddles, and so were not troubled by this. They are by turns wakeful and sleepy all night long, and if the man-kin came, it might be that some would escape and be slain by the beasts of the forest. This the net should prevent, unless the man-kin loosed them from it.
Then it hung a globe of light over the gate in the palisade, and set the latch so that it could be opened easily from without, which might be seen immediately, to signify compliance. It hung another light over its door, and left the door partly open.
Finally, the worting went up to the roof, out the trapdoor, and up into the eo-oak above the house, carrying a piece of dark cloth. Wrapping this cloth about itself, lest its exoskeleton's gleam reveal it, it waited a long time, till the man-kin came.
They bore glowing globes, and also torches, and the worting feared they meant to fire the house, but they did not. For a long time they tramped and ran and shouted about within, and in all the outbuildings, and every corner of the palisade, but they did not set fire. When they went noisily off, the worting still remained crouched in the tree. Not till early dawn did it descend. The contents of the house had been overthrown and greatly damaged, and the worting thought that many of its tools had been stolen. But the worting was alive. It went out, and found to its joy that none of the hatchlings or rootlings had been slain or otherwise harmed, though all seemed frightened.
Returning to the house, it called the free-foots up from the escape tunnel and they prepared food for the hatchlings, and went and spoke soothingly to the rootlings. The oldest rootling took a few mouthfuls of food, and it was clear that soon it would break its roots. But the worting took no joy in this; it feared the man-kin.
The oldest free-foot, indeed, said, “Oldest one, I fear the man-kin. Though I fear I am too young yet to profit by the Adolescent Houses, yet I will go there this day. Perhaps it will be safer for me there.”
The worting agreed with this decision, saying, “It may not be safe here while the man-kin are in this confused and excited state. I believe they must feel as much for their offspring as the wortinga do for theirs, to become so hostile.”
It offered to convey the free-foot to the Adolescent Houses, and the free-foot was pleased to accept the offer. And so they set off, walking rapidly, for the worting feared the return of the men in its absence.
The Adolescent Houses are those wortinga buildings which the man-kin call “Barns” or “Cathedrals” -- the largest structures the wortinga make. All are now old, but since they are made man-kin fashion of piled stone and brick, with mortar, they are sound, and the inhabitants of the Houses replace the roofs and interiors when they become too aged or bug-eaten for safety. Here the adolescent wortinga live till they are adult, all ages mingling and spreading learning. Here are the libraries of the wortinga, and what the man-kin would call schools.
A worting may spend from five to twenty years in the Adolescent Houses. The worting spent nine years here, leaving only when its armpits grew heavy with its first setting of eggs. It left then to build its first crude house, and in its early years moved three times, till finally it occupied the spot where its house now stands. It has outlived the first two houses there, building three upon the site of the first.
Before midday the worting and its oldest free-foot, now an adolescent, were talking to the elders of the nearest Adolescent House. The elders are barren adults, who have no reason to leave the Adolescent Houses, and assuage their grief at having no offspring by teaching the offspring of others. Also, when a worting outlives the supply of fertilized eggs laid down in its time in the Adolescent Houses, it returns to certain smaller houses adjacent to the Adolescent Houses, called the Senescent Houses, where it may continue to study and learn, and also to teach the adolescents.
Here certain of the oldest and wisest and chiefest of the wortinga, many of them senescents, came to the worting. It gave its adolescent into the care of the House, and came out with them into the shade of the great trees.
“Our life has been invaded by the man-kin,” they told it, in the language of the wortinga.
“Our houses have been invaded; some of our offspring have been killed.”
“Our possessions have been destroyed and stolen.”
“We are greatly frightened. We fear for our lives, and for all the wortinga.”
The worting said, “My house has also been invaded, and though none of my offspring as yet has been killed, many of my possessions have been destroyed or stolen. I also fear for the wortinga, and for myself.”
“Tell us what transpired between you and the man-kin on market day.”
“I asked as to the hatching, planting, and rearing of man-kin offspring. I learned that man-kin do not slay their hatchlings, and was puzzled by this, but it was explained to me that man-kin offspring do not need to sprout. I learned that, so far as I can understand it, but few offspring are hatched, and they hatch as free-foots, or perhaps rootlings. All these they cherish as we cherish our rootlings and free-foots.”
The chief among the wortinga looked at each other and murmured together, finally agreeing: “We see no harm in this gathering of essentially useless knowledge. The man-kin, however, became angry?”
“No, they were curious as to wortinga ways, but not angry at that time. Mention was made to me, however, of a certain missing man-kin offspring. The skull-buyer believed it to have been taken by the beasts of the forest, which as we know prey upon the man-kin offspring as well as ours. Last night, however, the skull-buyer came to my house and warned me that the man-kin were aroused and angry over the loss of yet another offspring, thinking that I or other wortinga were responsible.”
“Something of this was gathered from the shouts reported to us.”
“But they did not find any man-kin offspring among the wortinga.”
“Nor did they find any in my house,” the worting said.
“Nevertheless they are very angry and promised to return by day.”
The worting became very uneasy and wished to return to its house, but remained with them. “What can we do?” it asked.
They turned to an old worting, a senescent who had long studied the man-kin and knew them well. “The man-kin fear for their offspring even as we do, and now that they are roused, it may be that nothing but death will satisfy them. Our fear is that they will slay us all, or a great many of us, and destroy our place here. I think we might perhaps turn away this wrath by offering them a death, and demonstrating submissiveness.”
Another worting said, “I believe that this one is right. I have observed certain acts and gestures which I believe indicate that the man-kin have rituals of submission. Unfortunately, we do not know their rituals, and no small ritual would be likely to suffice while they are in this state. A major act of submission, understandable to any species however strange, is surely required.”
The worting understood this. “Perhaps it would suffice to offer them my head and carapace, with the apology of the wortinga.”
The wortinga hesitated and considered, but finally the senescent said, “We know so little about them that we cannot say what will be. Yet, I think that they will at least pause if offered your bones. Once paused, perhaps those who have sense among them will see the absurdity of their fears.”
They all stood silent, hesitating and doubtful, for a while. During the night the worting had come to fear the man-kin very greatly, and doubted that anything would stop them before they had slain all wortinga in the great forest. Yet there was a possibility that its death would assuage the anger of the man-kin.
“It is the only thing that we can do,” it said. “So you must slay me. Will you accompany me to my house, while I dispose of my offspring?”
“No, we will await you here.”
Burdened by grief, the worting returned to its house, and stood looking upon its goodly walls from without the palisade; then it entered, leaving the gate wide. Immediately a number of hatchlings ran out. It took a cord and drove the rest out, and closed the gate. The free-foots stood watching wonderingly, and the rootlings from their distant beds also wondered.
The worting gathered them and addressed them. “Last night the man-kin came, in fear for their offspring, and the wortinga have determined that nothing will alleviate their fears but the death of the worting who first aroused them. I am that worting. I shall therefore return to the Senescent Houses soon to be put to death. First I must deal with you. My spirit is heavy. I have nothing further to say.”
Even the oldest of the free-foots remaining did not fully comprehend, but said, “My spirit is heavy also. I also have nothing further to say.” And so said they all.
The worting took a sharp shovel and drove it swiftly and accurately into the thorax of each of the rootlings, straight into the kernel. Then it turned to the free-foots and carefully struck them down also. After that for some time the worting just stood with the shovel in its grip, with the feeling of having had all roots torn out.
Then it returned eagerly to the Senescent Houses to be put to death. To the chief wortinga, it said, “I have slain my offspring, I have pulled up the roots of my tree. Now I await the end.”
They said, “We have decided that we should offer the man-kin not only your head, but also your account of these last days, in the hope that they may come to understand these regrettable events.”
“It is a poor hope,” another said, “but it is one more thing we can do. We ask you to write it all down carefully. It must be in the man-kin’s language and script.”
The worting was disappointed that death must be postponed, but made a gesture of submission. “I shall do it at once. I know their script.”
They hesitated, and one said, “How should we slay you? With a blow from an awl?”
“No, you must take me to the big pool in the river and drown me. Only thus will you preserve my skull and carapace without damage,” the worting said.
They made gestures of acquiescence and one said, “Should we burn your house?”
“No, for that would damage the tree. You must pull it down and break it up. Give my possessions to the man-kin as a further offering.”
They took counsel together and said, “These things shall be done.”
They took the worting to an upper room in one of the Senescent Houses and provided it with bark-paper and reed pen and ink, and the worting has written all before this. Now the worting crouches and looks out upon the leaves of the trees, and sees the Sunlight slanting down. It is after meridian, and the man-kin have not yet come, but it cannot wait longer. They may come at any moment. It has finished, and now will go down to the river with the chiefs of the wortinga.
The alternation between past and present tenses, especially in the first paragraph, is not an error. Knowing under what circumstances the worting wrote his story, go back and re-read the first part, to see why the tense changes.
Modified by: RDC