For some faithful 50,000 fans, science fiction is (inclusively and almost exclusively) any thing published in the speciality magazines — where in fact there is rarely more than one story per issue (if that) which meets the requirements of that esoteric modern form, science fiction. For within the wide spread of contemporary 'nonrealstic' prose, there does remain a discrete discipline — 'hard-core science fiction' — with specialised, and rather demanding, parameters. It is no easier to define now than it was in the days of its glory, but it is readily recognisable — and dearly beloved — by those who, like myself, have identified most of their adult intellectual lives with it. Vide: 'Light of Other Days'.
It is not so easy to classify 'Beyond the Weeds'. Like Shaw, Peter Tate is a newspaperman: sub-editor of the Echo in South Wales (also not-quite-British?). Both men are in their thirties. Tate perhaps five years the younger. But where Shaw — in style, content, publishing history — is typical of the best of the first generation of British s-f writers, Tate is almost the prototype of the young New Worlds writer: five of his first seven stories were in NW in 1966-67; but more to the point was his reply to my selection of 'The PostMortem People' (form NW) — this retitled and extensively rewritten version of a story already two years old, and hardly satisfactory, to a growing writer. His first novel, The Thinking Seat, will be published by Doubleday in 1968.
Beyond the Weeds
Peter Tate
This time, Anton Hejar came by chance upon the event. He heard the shrill gathering of locked tires and was running before any sick-soft sound of impact. The car could be skidding, no more; but one could not afford to stand and wait. One had a reputation.
He shouldered a passage through the lazy-liners on the rotor walk even as a bundle with flapping limbs and thrown-back head turned spit-wise in the air. He was at curbside when the body landed close to his feet.
Hejar placed his overcoat gently to retain a little of the man's draining warmth.
"Somebody get an ambulance," he shouted, taking command of the situation while women grew pale and lazies changed to the brisker track and were borne smartly away.
The man's eyes flickered. A weak tongue licked vainly at lips grown dry as old parchment. Breath came like a flutter of moth's wings.
"How are you feeling?" asked Hejar.
The eyes searched for the speaker, blinked and blinked again to bring him into focus. The man tried to speak, but there was only a rattle like too many unsaid words fighting for an outlet.
Hejar sniffed the air. His nostrils, finely attuned to the necessities of his calling, could pick out death like hollyhock or new-made bread. Yes, it was there, dank and acrid as stale perspiration.
"No need to worry," he told the man. "You'll be all right."
He took off his jacket to make a pillow for the man's head.
"My ... wife ... she ... "
"Don't concern yourself," said Hejar. "Let's get you settled first."
He's kind, thought the man in his mind full of moist pain. Perhaps he just isn't trying to fool me with sentimentality. I feel so cold ...
The siren of the approaching ambulance rose and fell on a scale of panic. Hejar moved the man's head gently, looking for marks or a tell-tale run of blood from the ear. He found nothing. Good. The brain, then, the control centre was undamaged. Great.
He went through the pockets of the overcoat covering the man. From one he produced a small tin and opened it, exposing an inked pad. He manoeuvred digits on a rubber stamp.. The man moved feverishly beside him. "You'll be fine, old son," he said gently. "Help's just arriving."
Then he brought the rubber stamp down right between the man's eyes.
Doberman Berke, a morgue attendant of intermediate stature, humbled through life in constant awe of the ubiquitous Anton Hejar. Where death stalked, there, too, walked Anton Hejar, hat pulled low, hand on stamp.
Berke paused in his work to examine the insignia between the corpse's eyes. It was not elaborate, a mere functional circle with script around the outer edging and the characters 'A.H.' tangled in some written state of intercourse at centre.
'Item and contents property of ... ' read the circumferential legend if one cared to crane one's neck and bend kiss-close to the poor dead face to see.
Berke did no such thing, nor had he ever done so. He knew Hejar's function, knew the language of the snatchers from careful study. Instead, with a curiosity he compared the time on Hejar's stamp — 14:34 — with the report that accompanied the cadaver. The ambulance men had put the time of extinction at 14:34.5. Hejar's professionalism was uncanny.
He detached the item and placed it in a refrigerated container. Then he pushed it to one-side to await collection.
Invariably, Hejar came himself. If he had any juniors, Berke had never seen them. Certainly, they never came to claim their master's bloody bounties. Hejar knew Berke's routine. He had already checked the attendant's volume of work. He would be here very shortly.
And even as Berke acknowledged the fact, the door swung wide and Hejar was walking towards him, smiling and beneficent, unfolding a spotless receipt.
Berke took the receipt and examined it closely, though he knew full well it would contain adequate authority from Coroner Gurgin. Dealing with Hejar, an expert in his own field, Berke endeavored to appear as painstaking and conscientious as Hejar's patience would allow. And Hejar had a fund of patience. Hejar had so much patience he should have had a long face and a penchant for squatting on desert cactus plants to go with it. Instead, he just smiled ... and in that smile lay a chill warning that if you didn't move fast enough to prove you were alive, then Anton Hejar would take you for dead.
Berke handed back the receipt. "Any trouble this time? Sometimes sector centre gets a little old-fashioned about dispatchment at speed. Like sympathy for the dependents."
"Sympathy is out of date," said Hejar blandly. "Absurd sentimentality about a piece of stiffening flesh." He showed his teeth again, setting up laughter wrinkles around his blue, blue eyes. "Burgin knows where his steroids come from. He gives me no complications. A little blind-eye money for his favourite dream pill and he is always prepared to write me a rapid registration marker. Now, is this mine?"
He moved towards the container and identified his designation, humming busily to himself. He caught up the container by its handle and started for the door.
"Wait."
"Why?" Hejar spat out the word with a venom that made Berke writhe, but his face, all the while, was mild, his manner charitable. "Why," he said, more reasonably.
Hejar was no stranger. They met elsewhere and often and dialogue came far more easily where surroundings were no more indicative of the one's vocation than the other's.
Berke felt foolish. There were always questions that occurred to him moments before Hejar's arrival at the morgue and each time, he lined them up and rehearsed a conversation which, he hoped, would impress Hejar with its depth and insight.
But when Hejar came, it was as though he dragged the careful script out of Berke's head and bundled it into a corner. Berke was tongue-tied. Hejar, as ever, was sunny. Today was no exception.