Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (357 page)

The hell with it. “The very bastard, Joe; the very same. Your own stupid fault, Joe—waste not, want not. Now, are you going to put Elaine on the phone, or am I going to come over there and show you just how much of a bastard I can be if I put my mind to it?”

It took Marshall three slams to get his phone safely on the hook; the crashes hurt Larry’s ears. That was dumb of me, he thought—or was it? Should he get over there in a hurry? No. Whatever else Elaine felt about her husband, she wasn’t afraid of him…and the slob had sounded completely ineffectual. So, give it a few minutes…

It took twenty; then his phone rang. “Hello. Elaine?”

“Yes, Larry. Joe…”

“Any trouble? I can be there fast.”

“Noise trouble, is all. As usual. He’s settled down; he’s telling his troubles to his glass teddy-bear. What in the world did you say to him?”

“Sorry. I tried to play it nice but he wouldn’t. So I laid the truth on him. Maybe I shouldn’t have?”

“No, that’s all right. I’d already told him, and that he and I are through. We were talking about changing things, Larry? I’m doing it. I don’t know if it will work; I lived through four years with him after this, so probably I get stupid and relent. But for now, I’ve had it.” She paused. “But you’re the one who called. What is it?”

He told her, reading Judy’s letter aloud. “… and then I didn’t call her. And maybe I shouldn’t go bring her back, even though I did. Because I think I made her a lush, not being the same, not being able to be the same. What do you think?”

“I think you’re not through talking yet, and I’m not done listening.”

It wasn’t easy, but he had to laugh. “Yes, Elaine. Will you come live here?”

“Where else?”

“Tomorrow?”

“I haven’t unpacked my suitcase.”

“Shall I come get you?”

“No. I’ll take a cab.”

“All right. You have the address?”

“Yes. And number 204, right?”

“I’ll leave the door unlocked. Hell, I’ll leave it open!”

* * * *

Time, stolen from a programmed future, was sweet. Despite everything, he felt occasional guilt about Judy. But she didn’t call, and neither did he. Joe Marshall called several times, more or less coherently. Larry always answered, gently, “Forget it, Joe.” Elaine simply hung up at first recognition.

All too soon, like Judgment Day, came November ninth. They made a ceremony of it, with dinner in the apartment from none other than Colonel Sanders. Larry did not lick his fingers. Later, in bed, they did everything slowly, to make it last until…whenever.

* * * *

He woke. Elaine’s face was close above his; her smile was wistful. “Hello, Larry. Do you know?”

To see, he had to push her soft hair aside; the ceiling was gray-green. “I
know.
But what’s the date?”

“November tenth, 1970.” Her voice was level, cautious.

He whooped. He kissed her with fierce joy, with elation; he kissed her out of breath. “Elaine! We changed it! I didn’t skip!” Tears flowed down her cheeks, around her laughing mouth.

For the second part of their celebration he scrambled eggs in wine; it was messy, he thought, but festive.

“How much can we count on, Larry?”

“I don’t know; we can’t know.” He held up the envelope with its carefully detailed records. “But this is useless now.”

“Yes. Don’t throw it away yet. I want to see where you’ve been, and talk about it together.”

“All right. We can sort it out later.”

It was a new life; he set out to live as though it would be endless. They couldn’t marry, but Elaine filed for divorce. Joe Marshall filed a countersuit. It didn’t matter; no law could force her to live away from Larry Garth.

New Year’s Eve they drove to Chicago for dinner and night’s lodging at the Blackhawk. The occasion was a thorough success.

* * * *

The ceiling was silver, with fleeting iridescent sparkles. He came awake slowly, feeling minor aches one by one. Whatever this was, it was no part of college. For one thing, he hadn’t often slept double there, and now a warm body pressed against him.

He turned to see. Only a brief spill of hair, salt-and-pepper, closely cut, showed between covers and pillows. He drew the cover away.

She
would
age well, he thought. Then Elaine opened her gray eyes.

He had to say it fast. “I’m new here, Elaine. Straight from 1970. Nothing in between.”

“Nothing? Oh, Larry, there’s so
much.
And I’ve had only a little of it myself. Back and forth—and it’s all so different.”

“From…before, you mean?” His fingers ruffled her hair, then smoothed it.

“Yes.” Her eyes widened. “Why, you don’t
know
yet, do you? Of course not; you can’t.”

“Know what, Elaine?”

“How much have you had after 1970? How many years?”

“How much have I used up? I don’t know—twelve years? Fifteen, maybe. Why?”

“Because it’s
not
used up; it’s all new!” Her hand gripped his wrist tightly, to the edge of pain. “Larry, I came here from ’75—from a time I’d had
before,
married to Joe. But this time I was with you. This time we’re together all the way.”

He couldn’t speak and his laugh was shaky, but his mind flashed. I’ll have to die again, he thought—or will I? And then: We’ve gained ten years together; could we make it twenty? I’ve never had the actual wedding to Darlene! What if…

But he said only, “There’s a lot to tell, isn’t there?” And so much he wanted to ask, when there was time for that.

“Yes.” She turned her face upward, wriggled her head and neck hard into the pillow, then smiled. “I saw Judy once, in ‘74. She married a lawyer and had twins. And she wasn’t a lush.”

“I’m glad.”

“I know. You were when I told you then too.”

He laughed. “What lives we lead, Elaine. What lives…”

Then he remembered. “But
you.
Are you—?” The bulky comforter hid her contours. Two breasts, one, or none? He told himself it didn’t matter. She was alive, wasn’t she?

“Oh, I’m fine, really,” she said. “It worked. Of course the scar was horrid at first. To me
—you
never seemed to mind. But it’s faded now; you can hardly see it.”

“How long
—
?”

“It’s been five years.” She must have seen the question in his face; she shook her head. “No; I don’t know how long I live—or you. This is the oldest I’ve been. And I haven’t known a
you
who’s been older.”

“Elaine? How old are we now?”

She smiled, and then her mouth went soft and full. She pushed the cover back and turned to face him squarely. He looked and saw that she had lost nothing of herself, save for the tribute to the years. Part of him that had been prepared to comfort and reassure her took a deep breath and relaxed.

“How old?” she said. “Old enough to know better, I suppose, but I hope we don’t.”

“Does it matter? We’ll have time enough to be young.”

One of them reached out, and the other responded.

* * * *

Copyright © 1974 by Terry Carr.

(1947–2006)

While science fiction sometimes revels in being something of an “outsider” genre, and a fair number of literature professors see genre fiction as nonliterary, Octavia Butler was one of the few SF writers who was widely accepted (and widely popular) both in academic environments and in fandom, along with Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Samuel Delany, and a handful of others. In 1995, Butler became the only science fiction writer ever awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (the so-called “genius grant”).

Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was primarily raised by her mother and grandmother after her father died when she was young. Butler had a difficult time in school (she was a shy daydreamer who was later diagnosed as dyslexic) but she began writing by age ten, and in writing SF at age twelve after watching
Devil Girl From Mars
(1954) and realizing she could write better than that.

While she attended Pasadena City College, Cal State Los Angeles, and UCLA, the two experiences that Butler credited with her later success were the Clarion SF Writers’ Workshop and the Screen Writers Guild Open Door Program, both in 1970. The latter was designed to help Latino and African American writers specifically, and is where she met author Harlan Ellison, who became her mentor.

Butler’s first published story was “Crossover” in the 1971 Clarion anthology, but her first real success in the field came with the publication of
Patternmaster
, the first novel in her Patternist series, in 1976.
Mind of My Mind
followed the next year. She continued to publish the Patternist books, and by the time her stand-alone novel
Kindred
(which used time travel to explore American slavery) was published in 1979, Butler was able to support herself by writing full-time. In the late 1980s, Butler published the Xenogenesis trilogy, about an alien race that breeds with humans, and she began the Earthseed series in the 1990s. The first book,
Parable of the Sower
(1993), was nominated for a Nebula but did not win; the sequel,
Parable of the Talents
(1999), did win the Nebula. She won a Nebula for “Bloodchild” as well, and Hugo Awards for “Bloodchild” and “Speech Sounds” (1984).

Butler died at age fifty-eight after falling and hitting her head on the sidewalk outside her home.

First published in Isaac
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
, June 1984

My last night of childhood began with a visit home. T’Gatoi’s sister had given us two sterile eggs. T’Gatoi gave one to my mother, brother, and sisters, She insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didn’t matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldn’t take any. She sat, watching everyone drifting and dreaming without her. Most of the time she watched me.

I lay against T’Gatoi’s long, velvet underside, sipping from my egg now and then, wondering why my mother dented herself such a harmless pleasure. Less of her hair would be gray if she indulged now and then. The eggs prolonged life, prolonged vigor. My father, who had never refused one in his life, had lived more than twice as long as he should have. And toward the end of his life, when he should have been slowing down, he had married my mother and fathered four children.

But my mother seemed content to age before she had to. I saw her turn away as several of T’Gatoi’s limbs secured me closer. T’Gatoi liked our body heat and took advantage of it whenever she could. When I was little and at home more, my mother used to try to tell me how to behave with T’Gatoi—how to be respectful and always obedient because T’Gatoi was the Tlic government official in charge of the Preserve, and thus the most important of her kind to deal directly with Terrans. It was an honor, my mother said, that such a person had chosen to come into the family. My mother was at her most formal and severe when she was lying.

I had no idea why she was lying, or even what she was lying about. It
was
an honor to have T’Gatoi in the family, but it was hardly a novelty. T’Gatoi and my mother had been friends all my mother’s life, and T’Gatoi was not interested in being honored in the house she considered her second home. She simply came in, climbed onto one of her special couches, and called me over to keep her warm. It was impossible to be formal with her while lying against her and hearing her complain as usual that I was too skinny.

“You’re better,” she said this time, probing me with six or seven of her limbs. “You’re gaining weight finally. Thinness is dangerous.” The probing changed subtly, became a series of caresses.

“He’s still too thin,” my mother said sharply.

T’Gatoi lifted her head and perhaps a meter of her body off the couch as though she were sitting up. She looked at my mother, and my mother, her face lined and old looking, turned away.

“Lien, I would like you to have what’s left of Gan’s egg.”

“The eggs are for the children,” my mother said.

“They are for the family. Please take it.”

Unwillingly obedient, my mother took it from me and put it to her mouth. There were only a few drops left in the now-shrunken, elastic shell, but she squeezed them out, swallowed them, and after a few moments some of the lines of tension began to smooth from her face.

“It’s good,” she whispered. “Sometimes I forget how good it is.”

“You should take more,” T’Gatoi said. “Why are you in such a hurry to be old?”

My mother said nothing.

“I like being able to come here,” T’Gatoi said. “This place is a refuge because of you, yet you won’t take care of yourself.”

T’Gatoi was hounded on the outside. Her people wanted more of us made available. Only she and her political faction stood between us and the hordes who did not understand why there was a Preserve—why any Terran could not be courted, paid, drafted, in some way made available to them. Or they did understand, but in their desperation, they did not care. She parceled us out to the desperate and sold us to the rich and powerful for their political support. Thus, we were necessities, status symbols, and an independent people. She oversaw the joining of families, putting an end to the final remnants of the earlier system of breaking up Terran families to suit impatient Tlic. I had lived outside with her. I had seen the desperate eagerness in the way some people looked at me. It was a little frightening to know that only she stood between us and that desperation that could so easily swallow us. My mother would look at her sometimes and say to me, “Take care of her.” And I would remember that she too had been outside, had seen.

Now T’Gatoi used four of her limbs to push me away from her onto the floor. “Go on, Gan,” she said. “Sit down there with your sisters and enjoy not being sober. You had most of the egg. Lien, come warm me.”

My mother hesitated for no reason that I could see. One of my earliest memories is of my mother stretched alongside T’Gatoi, talking about things I could not understand, picking me up from the floor and laughing as she sat me on one of T’Gatoi’s segments. She ate her share of eggs then. I wondered when she had stopped, and why.

She lay down now against T’Gatoi, and the whole left row of T’Gatoi’s limbs closed around her, holding her loosely, but securely. I had always found it comfortable to lie that way, but except for my older sister, no one else in the family liked it. They said it made them feel caged.

T’Gatoi meant to cage my mother. Once she had, she moved her tail slightly, then spoke. “Not enough egg, Lien. You should have taken it when it was passed to you. You need it badly now.”

T’Gatoi’s tail moved once more, its whip motion so swift I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been watching for it. Her sting drew only a single drop of blood from my mother’s bare leg.

My mother cried out—probably in surprise. Being stung doesn’t hurt. Then she sighed and I could see her body relax. She moved languidly into a more comfortable position within the cage of T’Gatoi’s limbs. “Why did you do that?” she asked, sounding half asleep.

“I could not watch you sitting and suffering any longer.”

My mother managed to move her shoulders in a small shrug. “Tomorrow,” she said.

“Yes. Tomorrow you will resume your suffering—if you must. But just now, just for now, lie here and warm me and let me ease your way a little.”

“He’s still mine, you know,” my mother said suddenly. “Nothing can buy him from me.” Sober, she would not have permitted herself to refer to such things.

“Nothing,” T’Gatoi agreed, humoring her.

“Did you think I would sell him for eggs? For long life? My son?”

“Not for anything,” T’Gatoi said, stroking my mother’s shoulders, toying with her long, graying hair.

I would like to have touched my mother, shared that moment with her. She would take my hand if I touched her now. Freed by the egg and the sting, she would smile and perhaps say things long held in. But tomorrow, she would remember all this as a humiliation. I did not want to be part of a remembered humiliation. Best just be still and know she loved me under all the duty and pride and pain.

“Xuan Hoa, take off her shoes,” T’Gatoi said. “In a little while I’ll sting her again and she can sleep.”

My older sister obeyed, swaying drunkenly as she stood up. When she had finished, she sat down beside me and took my hand. We had always been a unit, she and I.

My mother put the back of her head against T’Gatoi’s underside and tried from that impossible angle to look up into the broad, round face. “You’re going to sting me again?”

“Yes, Lien.”

“I’ll sleep until tomorrow noon.”

“Good. You need it. When did you sleep last?”

My mother made a wordless sound of annoyance. “I should have stepped on you when you were small enough,” she muttered.

It was an old joke between them. They had grown up together, sort of, though T’Gatoi had not, in my mother’s lifetime, been small enough for any Terran to step on. She was nearly three times my mother’s present age, yet would still be young when my mother died of age. But T’Gatoi and my mother had met as T’Gatoi was coming into a period of rapid development—a kind of Tlic adolescence. My mother was only a child, but for a while they developed at the same rate and had no better friends than each other.

T’Gatoi had even introduced my mother to the man who became my father. My parents, pleased with each other in spite of their different ages, married as T’Gatoi was going into her family’s business—politics. She and my mother saw each other less. But sometime before my older sister was born, my mother promised T’Gatoi one of her children. She would have to give one of us to someone, and she preferred T’Gatoi to some stranger.

Years passed. T’Gatoi traveled and increased her influence. The Preserve was hers by the time she came back to my mother to collect what she probably saw as her just reward for her hard work. My older sister took an instant liking to her and wanted to be chosen, but my mother was just coming to term with me and T’Gatoi liked the idea of choosing an infant and watching and taking part in all the phases of development. I’m told I was first caged within T’Gatoi’s many limbs only three minutes after my birth. A few days later, I was given my first taste of egg. I tell Terrans that when they ask whether I was ever afraid of her. And I tell it to Tlic when T’Gatoi suggests a young Terran child for them and they, anxious and ignorant, demand an adolescent. Even my brother who had somehow grown up to fear and distrust the Tlic could probably have gone smoothly into one of their families if he had been adopted early enough. Sometimes, I think for his sake he should have been. I looked at him, stretched out on the floor across the room, his eyes open, but glazed as he dreamed his egg dream. No matter what he felt toward the Tlic, he always demanded his share of egg.

“Lien, can you stand up?” T’Gatoi asked suddenly.

“Stand?” my mother said. “I thought I was going to sleep.”

“Later. Something sounds wrong outside.” The cage was abruptly gone.

“What?”

“Up, Lien!”

My mother recognized her tone and got up just in time to avoid being dumped on the floor. T’Gatoi whipped her three meters of body off her couch, toward the door, and out at full speed. She had bones—ribs, a long spine, a skull, four sets of limb bones per segment. But when she moved that way, twisting, hurling herself into controlled falls, landing running, she seemed not only boneless, but aquatic—something swimming through the air as though it were water. I loved watching her move.

I left my sister and started to follow her out the door, though I wasn’t very steady on my own feet. It would have been better to sit and dream, better yet to find a girl and share a waking dream with her. Back when the Tlic saw us as not much more than convenient, big, warm-blooded animals, they would pen several of us together, male and female, and feed us only eggs. That way they could be sure of getting another generation of us no matter how we tried to hold out. We were lucky that didn’t go on long. A few generations of it and we would have
been
little more than convenient, big animals.

“Hold the door open, Gan,” T’Gatoi said. “And tell the family to stay back.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“N’Tlic.”

I shrank back against the door. “Here? Alone?”

“He was trying to reach a call box, I suppose.” She carried the man past me, unconscious, folded like a coat over some of her limbs. He looked young—my brother’s age perhaps—and he was thinner than he should have been. What T’Gatoi would have called dangerously thin.

“Gan, go to the call box,” she said. She put the man on the floor and began stripping off his clothing.

I did not move.

After a moment, she looked up at me, her sudden stillness a sign of deep impatience.

“Send Qui,” I told her. “I’ll stay here. Maybe I can help.”

She let her limbs begin to move again, lifting the man and pulling his shirt over his head. “You don’t want to see this,” she said. “It will be hard. I can’t help this man the way his Tlic could.”

“I know. But send Qui. He won’t want to be of any help here. I’m at least willing to try.”

She looked at my brother—older, bigger, stronger, certainly more able to help her here. He was sitting up now, braced against the wall, staring at the man on the floor with undisguised fear and revulsion. Even she could see that he would be useless.

“Qui, go!” she said.

He didn’t argue. He stood up, swayed briefly, then steadied, frightened sober.

“This man’s name is Bram Lomas,” she told him, reading from the man’s armband. I fingered my own armband in sympathy. “He needs T’Khotgif Teh. Do you hear?”

“Bram Lomas, T’Khotgif Teh,” my brother said. “I’m going.” He edged around Lomas and ran out the door.

Lomas began to regain consciousness. He only moaned at first and clutched spasmodically at a pair of T’Gatoi’s limbs. My younger sister, finally awake from her egg dream, came close to look at him, until my mother pulled her back.

T’Gatoi removed the man’s shoes, then his pants, all the while leaving him two of her limbs to grip. Except for the final few, all her limbs were equally dexterous. “I want no argument from you this time, Gan,” she said.

I straightened. “What shall I do?”

“Go out and slaughter an animal that is at least half your size.”

“Slaughter? But I’ve never—”

She knocked me across the room. Her tail was an efficient weapon whether she exposed the sting or not.

I got up, feeling stupid for having ignored her warning, and went into the kitchen. Maybe I could kill something with a knife or an ax. My mother raised a few Terran animals for the table and several thousand local ones for their fur. T’Gatoi would probably prefer something local. An achti, perhaps. Some of those were the right size, though they had about three times as many teeth as I did and a real love of using them. My mother, Hoa, and Qui could kill them with knives. I had never killed one at all, had never slaughtered any animal. I had spent most of my time with T’Gatoi while my brother and sisters were learning the family business. T’Gatoi had been right. I should have been the one to go to the call box. At least I could do that.