It was early evening and you could see some stars shining in the sky, despite the blinding floodlights; from way up, you could hear another plane that had just taken off; and up at the far end of the field, another one was warming up. There were the buildings and the lights and the people and the great machines and it seemed, for a long moment, like a table built to represent the strength and swiftness, the competence and assurance of this world of ours.
Jo Ann must have felt it, too, for she said suddenly: «It’s nice, Mark. I wonder if they’ll change it.»
I knew who she meant without even asking.
«I think I know what they are,» I told her; «I think I got it figured out. You know that Community Chest drive that’s going on right now. Well, that’s what they are doing, too—a sort of Galactic Chest. Except that they aren’t spending money on the poor and needy; their kind of charity is a different sort. Instead of spending money on us, they’re spending love and kindness, neighborliness and brotherhood. And I guess that it’s all right. I wouldn’t wonder but that, of all the people in the universe, we are the ones who need it most. They didn’t come to solve all our problems for us—just to help clear away some of the little problems that somehow keep us from turning our full power on the important jobs, or keep us from looking at them in the right way.»
That was more years ago than I like to think about, but I still can remember just as if it were yesterday.
Something happened yesterday that brought it all to mind again.
I happened to be in Downing Street, not too far from No. 10, when I saw a little fellow I first took to be some sort of dwarf. When I turned to look at him, I saw that he was watching me; he raised one hand in an emphatic gesture, with the thumb and first finger made into a circle—the good, solid American signal that everything’s okay.
Then he disappeared. He probably ducked into an alley, although I can’t say for a fact I actually saw him go.
But he was right. Everything’s okay.
The world is bright, and the cold war is all but over. We may be entering upon the first true peace the human race has ever known.
Jo Ann is packing, and crying as she packs, because she has to leave so many things behind. But the kids are goggle-eyed about the great adventure just ahead. Tomorrow morning we leave for Peking, where I’ll be the first accredited American correspondent for almost thirty years.
And I can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, somewhere in that ancient city—perhaps in a crowded, dirty street; perhaps along the imperial highway; maybe some day out in the country beside the Great Wall, built so fearsomely so many years ago—I may not see another little man.
Death Scene
This story ended up being published for the first time in the October 1957 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, which was being edited by Larry Shaw at the time, but that only happened because the story had been rejected by H. F. Gold, John W. Campbell Jr., and Anthony Boucher (in his journal, Cliff tended to identify his markets by the names of their editors—perhaps an indication of the importance he placed on personal relations).
This is a story about the world finding a way to achieve total peace—but at the cost of it becoming a world different from the one everybody knew.
And it’s sobering to ponder how a person could handle that transition.
Would you be willing to pay any price for such a world?
—dww
She was waiting on the stoop of the house when he turned into the driveway and as he wheeled the car up the concrete and brought it to a halt he was certain she knew, too.
She had just come from the garden and had one arm full of flowers and she was smiling at him just a shade too gravely.
He carefully locked the car and put the keys away in the pocket of his jacket and reminded himself once again, «Matter-of-factly, friend. For it is better this way.»
And that was the truth, he reassured himself. It was much better than the old way. It gave a man some time.
He was not the first and he would not be the last and for some of them it was rough, and for others, who had prepared themselves, it was not so rough and in time, perhaps, it would become a ritual so beautiful and so full of dignity one would look forward to it. It was more civilized and more dignified than the old way had been and in another hundred years or so there could be no doubt that it would become quite acceptable. All that was wrong with it now, he told himself, was that it was too new. It took a little time to become accustomed to this way of doing things after having done them differently through all of human history.
He got out of the car and went up the walk to where she waited for him.
He stooped and kissed her and the kiss was a little longer than was their regular custom—and a bit more tender. And as he kissed her he smelled the summer flowers she carried, and he thought how appropriate it was that he should at this time smell the flowers from the garden they both loved.
«You know,» he said and she nodded at him.
«Just a while ago,» she said. «I knew you would be coming home. I went out and picked the flowers.»
«The children will be coming, I imagine.»
«Of course,» she said, «They will come right away.»
He looked at his watch, more from force of habit than a need to know the time. «There is time,» he said. «Plenty of time for all of them to get here. I hope they bring the kids.»
«Certainly they will,» she said. «I went to phone them once, then I thought how silly.»
He nodded. «We’re of the old school, Florence. It’s hard even yet to accept this thing—to know the children will know and come almost as soon as we know. It’s still a little hard to be sure of a thing like that.»
She patted his arm. «The family will be all together. There’ll be time to talk. We’ll have a splendid visit.»
«Yes, of course,» he said.
He opened the door for her and she stepped inside.
«What pretty flowers,» he said.
«They’ve been the prettiest this year that they have ever been.»
«That vase,» he said. «The one you got last birthday. The blue and gold. That’s the one to use.»
«That’s exactly what I thought. On the dining table.»
She went to get the vase and he stood in the living room and thought how much he was a part of this room and this room a part of him. He knew every inch of it and it knew him as well and it was a friendly place, for he’d spent years making friends with it.
Here he’d walked the children of nights when they had been babies and been ill of cutting teeth or croup or colic, nights when the lights in this room had been the only lights in the entire block. Here the family had spent many evening hours in happiness and peace—and it had been a lovely thing, the peace. For he could remember the time when there had been no peace, nowhere in the world, and no thought or hope of peace, but in its place the ever-present dread and threat of war, a dread that had been so commonplace that you scarcely noticed it, a dread you came to think was a normal part of living.
Then, suddenly, there had been the dread no longer, for you could not fight a war if your enemy could look ahead an entire day and see what was about to happen. You could not fight a war and you could not play a game of baseball or any sort of game, you could not rob or cheat or murder, you could not make a killing in the market. There were a lot of things you could no longer do and there were times when it spoiled a lot of fun, for surprise and anticipation had been made impossible. It took a lot of getting used to and a lot of readjustment, but you were safe, at least, for there could be no war—not only at the moment, but forever and forever, and you knew that not only were you safe, but your children safe as well and their children and your children’s children’s children and you were willing to pay almost any sort of price for such complete assurance.