THE MOTHER TRIP
Putting this collection together has made me realize that nearly every story in it was written, at least in part, in some corner of the world far from my desk and typewriter. That's not too surprising in some ways, because I have this habit of doing at least four pages worth of writing wherever I happen to be, every day, and I do a lot of traveling. It is often easier to work on a short story than a novel under such circumstances, if only because when you pack a couple of novel manuscripts into a suitcase you don't have much room left for clean socks. This one, however, was written right at home. It's true that part of its setting comes from a marvelous trip over the Cascade Mountains and much of its incident from a strange weekend I spent with an encounter group in New Jersey, having my sensitivities elevated and my inhibitions soaked away in the blood-temperature pool. It was an unsettling sort of experience, a dozen total strangers opening to each other, but one I am glad I did not miss. Among other things it brought me a couple of friendships I still treasure.., and, later on, filling up my daily pages in my office, this story.
It could have been just this way: That the get of Moolkri Mawkri could have landed in a faster-than-light spaceship resembling an artichoke on the outskirts of Jackson, Mississippi.
In this version Mawkri gathers her Get-cluster around her broodingly, while Moolkri assumes the shape of a man. The Get has studied all of the Earth's TV programs while they were in orbit, and they have picked an average person for Moolkri to be, not too tall, not too symmetrical, not too dvezhnizt (a term in their language which relates to the proportion between upper and middle circumferences). The Get is satisfied with Moolkri's appearance, but all the same it is pretty funny-looking. They laugh as he exits the spacecraft to explore.
Moolkri has well assimilated TV lore, and so he knows how to behave in a way appropriate to his body. He hooks his "thumbs in his "belt, crosses a deserted bridge, and strides swaggeringly down the light-saturated and totally uninhabited street.
It does not seem unusual to Moolkri that there should be no one gazing into the bright shop windows. He does not have a very good grasp of what is usual or unusual for human beings. It is late at night, and so a human being (or at least one from another city than Jackson) might find it strange that everything was so brightly lit. Contrariwise, a human might consider it odd that with every amenity turned on for shoppers, there was not a single strolling person to he seen. Moolkri does not realize this is strange. He is aware that sometimes streets are deserted and sometimes not; he is also aware that sometimes they are bright and sometimes dark.; he is simply not aware that deserted is not really compatible with well-lit, but then there is a lot he is not aware of about the Earth.
So Moolkri swings, gunman wide, his "chaps rustling against each other and his "bandanna bright against his "neck. He slouches past the People's Cut Rate Pharmacy and Bette's New York Boutique and the Yazoo-Jackson Consolidated All-Faith Ashram, looking in the windows. He reads a typed notice about a lost Australian terrier. He inspects a naked black dummy with no hands, waiting for the window dresser to return in the morning and give her hands and ball gown. It is all interesting to him, and back in the spaceship Mawkri and her Get chatter excitedly among themselves, forgetting to be afraid as they receive his impressions.
It is not only his sense of vision that is active, it is also his sense of hearing, although that input does not produce much he considers worth noting. There are no voices, no footsteps. Overhead there is the sound of a motor, which he identifies easily enough as a helicopter. It is too far away for him to care much. He does not realize that it is quartering the city, alert for the sight of stray humans on the broad, bright street. He does not hear the radio message that the helicopter pilot transmits to the ground. Back in the spaceship the rest of the Get could have heard it, did in fact register the radio signal as an artifact originating nearby, but they did not associate the message with Moolkri.
Then the black-and-white slides silently around the corner. There is only one policeman in it. They are not expecting riots of mad killers, only the odd break-and-grab hoodlum or the hopeful would-be mugger. Moolkri hears the prowl car. First he hears the faint purr of the motor and whisper of tires, then, only in the last moment before it skids to a stop beside him, the quick bleat of its siren. He turns to look. The young cop leaps out. "Hands against the wall! Spread your feet! Hold it right there! He does not say it like that precisely, there is brushwood and bayou in his accent, but Moolkri is not attuned to regional distinctions of dialect. Moolkri submits. It is unfortunate, but it is all right. He has been ready to submit to human violence, in case it should develop, ever since he accepted the assignment to explore. Now it appears that he will not return to the Get, but he does not mind that. The Get will continue. He does not feel as though he were in danger. He only feels rage, and his rage races decisively, by means of his fourth and seventh senses, across the world and into the heavens.
In the spacecraft Mawkri mourns. The Get moves fearfully around her. She had wished to extend her motherhood to this planet, but it had rejected her. It was unfortunate since, among other things, it meant the end of sexual intercourse for her for the rest of her life, but she does not protest, only regrets.
Moolkri opens all the tactile inputs he has bothered to connect in order to perceive the policeman fully. He observes stimuli identified as pain, heat, body disorientation, and sex climax denied as the policeman's hand invades his body spaces. (There turns out to be nothing in the "pockets, nothing at all, Moolkn had never realized anything should be put there.)
Out of curiosity (he is overdeveloped in curiosity, that is why he is here), Moolkri increases his audio perception and, translating easily from the peckerwood English, hears the policeman radio in to see if there is a want on an unidentified white male pedestrian wearing a cowboy suit, about fifty, five feet seven, white beard, bald, blue eyes, no visible scars.
Listening in this way is only curiosity on Moolkri's part. It can no longer affect the outcome, since violence has already been done to him. He waits patiently, not very long. He hears headquarters report that there is no want on the described individual. The policeman tells Moolkri he can go. Moolkri adds to his file the datum that the violence has been withdrawn, but only out of neatness. The file is now complete. No more will be added.
The policeman cautions him against walking alone in the city at night, mentioning the risk of being robbed or harmed. He advises Moolkri to carry identification at all times. He gets back into his car, hesitates, then says, with half a smile and a cursory salute, "Y'all enjoy your stay in Jackson now, hear?
But it is too late.
The automatic orbiting guardians have already reacted to Moolkri's broadcast danger of violence, as they were programmed to do. The spacecraft with Mawkri and the Get lifts and flees screaming into the sky. And the first planet busters begin to drop.
Fusion infernos blossom and burst. Cities slide into the already boiling sea. Mawkri's motherhood has punished the offense.
It is the end of the world of human beings, except as a blob of molten rock, and that is one way it could have been.
Or it could have been like this, that all of Moolkri Mawkri's Get remained in orbit, thundering down motherly orders to be obeyed:
Under pain of destruction!
Humans are commanded!
Alternative is the planet busters, and the end of your world!