‘I can’t do it for you,’ Old Mose said. ‘I’ve done all you can expect of any living being. I found you in the woods and I gave you warmth and shelter. I tried to help you, and when I couldn’t, at least I gave you a place to die in. I buried you and protected you from all those other people and I didn’t pull you up when you started growing once again. Surely you can’t expect me to keep on giving endlessly.’
But it was no good. The critter could not hear him and he did not convince himself.
He got up from the table and walked into the living room with the critter trailing him. He loosened the floor boards and took out the kettle, and the critter, when it saw what was in the kettle, put its arms around itself and hugged in happiness.
They lugged the money out to the machine shed and Mose built a fire in the forge and put the kettle in the fire and started melting down that hard-saved money.
There were times when he thought he couldn’t finish the job, but he did.
The critter got the basket out of the birdcage and put it down beside the forge and dipped out the molten silver with an iron ladle and poured it here and there into the basket, shaping it in place with careful hammer taps.
It took a long time, for it was exacting work, but finally it was done and the silver almost gone. The critter lugged the basket back into the birdcage and fastened it in place.
It was almost evening now and Mose had to go and do the chores. He half expected the thing might haul out the bird-cage and be gone when he came back to the house. And he tried to be sore at it for its selfishness - it had taken from him and had not tried to pay him back - it had not, so far as he could tell, even tried to thank him. But he made a poor job of being sore at it.
It was waiting for him when he came in from the barn carrying two pails full of milk. It followed him inside the house and stood around and he tried to talk to it. But he didn’t have the heart to do much talking. He could not forget that it would be leaving, and the pleasure of its present company was lost in his terror of the loneliness to come.
For now he didn’t even have his money to help ward off the loneliness.
As he lay in bed that night, strange thoughts came creeping in upon him - the thought of an even greater loneliness than he had ever known upon this runty farm, the terrible, devastating loneliness of the empty wastes that lay between the stars, a driven loneliness while one hunted for a place or person that remained a misty thought one could not define, but which it was most important one should find.
It was a strange thing for him to be thinking, and quite suddenly he knew it was no thought of his, but of this other that was in the room with him.
He tried to raise himself, he fought to raise himself, but he couldn’t do it. He held his head up a moment, then fell back upon the pillow and went sound asleep.
Next morning, after Mose had eaten breakfast, the two of them went to the machine shed and dragged the birdcage out. It stood there, a weird alien thing, in the chill brightness of the dawn.
The critter walked up to it and started to slide between two of the bars, but when it was halfway through, it stepped out again and moved over to confront Old Mose.
‘Good-by, friend,’ said Mose. ‘I’ll miss you.’
There was a strange stinging in his eyes.
The other held out its hand in farewell, and Mose took it and there was something in the hand he grasped, something round and smooth that was transferred from its hand to his.
The thing took its hand away and stepped quickly to the birdcage and slid between the bars. The hands reached for the basket and there was a sudden flicker and the birdcage was no longer there.
Mose stood lonely in the barnyard, looking at the place where there was no birdcage and remembering what he had felt or thought - or been told? - the night before as he lay in bed.
Already the critter would be there, out between the stars, in that black and utter loneliness, hunting for a place or thing of person that no human mind could grasp.
Slowly Mose turned around to go back to the house, to get the pails and go down to the barn to get the milking done.
He remembered the object in his hand and lifted his still clenched fist in front of him. He opened his fingers and the little crystal ball lay there in his palm - and it was exactly like the one he’d found in the slitted flap in the body he had buried in the garden. Except that one had been dead and cloudy and this one had the living glow of a distant-burning fire.
Looking at it, he had the strange feeling of a happiness and comfort such as he had seldom known before, as if there were many people with him and all of them were friends.
He closed his hand upon it and the happiness stayed on - and it was all wrong, for there was not a single reason that he should be happy. The critter finally had left him and his money was all gone and he had no friends, but still he kept on feeling good.
He put the ball into his pocket and stepped spryly for the house to get the milking pails. He pursed up his whiskered lips and began to whistle and it had been a long, long time since he had even thought to whistle.
Maybe he was happy, he told himself, because the critter had not left without stopping to take his hand and try to say good-by.
And a gift, no matter how worthless it might be, how cheap a trinket, still had a basic value in simple sentiment. It had been many years since anyone had bothered to give him a gift.
It was dark and lonely and unending in the depths of space with no Companion. It might be long before another was obtainable.
It perhaps was a foolish thing to do, but the old creature had been such a kind savage, so fumbling and so pitiful and eager to help. And one who travels far and fast must likewise travel light. There had been nothing else to give.
MARIANA
by Fritz Leiber
from Fantastic
The first definite and absolutely unchangeable selection I made for this edition of SF was Fritz Leiber’s story, “The Silver Eggheads,” from Fantasy and Science Fiction.
That was in January of ‘59. For some sixteen months since, F&SF has remained incurably readable. In the same period of time, Leiber has been turning out stories, and yet better stories, at such a rate that Fantastic broke every rule in the business and published one complete all-Leiber issue last November.
The arithmetic of anthology selection, in such a case, is evident, and so is the usual lady’s prerogative. But I mourn for the “Eggheads,” and urge you all to storm your back-number magazine stores for it.
And one more thing (that’s the other prerogative, no?)— We’re all going to have to slop saying scornfully, “I mean good science fiction—not that Buck Rogers stuff!” Leiber it writing the Buck Rogers comic strip now… .
Mariana had been living in the big villa and hating the tall pine trees around it for what seemed like an eternity when she found the secret panel in the master control panel of the house.
The secret panel was simply a narrow blank of aluminum—she’d thought of it as room for more switches if they ever needed any, perish the thought!—between the air-conditioning controls and the gravity controls. Above the switches for the three-dimensional TV but below those for the robot butler and maids.
Jonathan had told her not to fool with the master control panel while he was in the city, because she would wreck anything electrical, so when the secret panel came loose under her aimlessly questing fingers and fell to the solid rock floor of the patio with a musical twing her first reaction was fear.