“Klieger can see into the future,” continued Don. “Never forget that. He was the star ‘resident’ at Cartwright House and stayed there for ten years. Then, for no apparent reason, he decided to take off. He did. He stole money—he had to live, and he stole a vase, to him a thing of wondrous beauty. The answer lies in why he did it.”
“A thief!” Penn snorted. “He was a thief. That’s the answer.”
“No,” said Don quietly. “The reason is that time was running out—and he knew it!”
They stared at him. They didn’t understand, not even Earlman, certainly not Penn and yet, to Don, it was all clear. So ghastly clear.
“What a man does is determined by his character,” said Don. “Given a certain stimulus he will react in a certain way—and this is predictable. Think of Klieger and what he was. Meek, mild, inoffensive, willing to do as he was told without question. He did it for ten years while his talent was being trained so that he could ‘see’ further and clearer into the future. Then, one day, he ‘sees’ something which drives him desperate.
“Desperate enough to break the habits of a lifetime. He persuaded the others to help him escape. They thought that he was doing it to help them, perhaps they wanted to prove something, that isn’t important now. Klieger is. He walked out. He stole. He tried to fill every waking hour with what he considered to be the ultimate of beauty. A different man would have gambled, drank, chased women. Klieger loves old and precious things. He stole a Ming vase.”
“Why?” Despite himself Penn was interested.
“Because he saw the ultimate war!”
Don leaned forward, the cigarette forgotten, his eyes burning with the necessity of making them see what he knew was the truth.
“He saw the end of everything. He saw his own death and he wanted, poor devil, to live a little before he died!”
It made sense. Even to Penn it made sense. He had seen the secret records, the breakdown of a man’s character, the psychological dissection and the extrapolations. Security was very thorough.
“I—” Penn swallowed. “I can’t believe it.”
“It’s the truth.” Don remembered his cigarette. “He told me—we had plenty of time for talking. How else do you think we managed to catch him? He could have remained free forever had he tried. But he was tired, afraid, terrified. He wanted to see the exhibition—and he expected to die by Bronson’s bullet.”
“Now wait a minute!” Earlman frowned, a crease folding his forehead. “No man in his right mind would willingly go to his death. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No?” Don was grim. “Think about it.”
“A bullet is quick and clean,” mused Earlman. “But he didn’t die! Bronson was stopped!”
“That is why I turned ‘traitor’.” Don crushed out his cigarette. “By stopping Bronson I proved that the future is a variable, that even an expert clairvoyant like Klieger can only see the probable future, not the inevitable one. It gave us hope. Both of us.”
He rose, looking down at Penn slumped behind his desk, trying not to let the hate he saw in the general’s eyes disturb him. He had no need to worry.
“It had to be. The pattern must be broken if we are to avoid the future Klieger saw. So I gave him to the Reds—he was willing to do his part. They will learn the truth.”
“They will copy us!” Penn reared to his feet. “They will form their own project and we will lose our greatest advantage. Gregson, do you know what you have done?”
“I’ve opened a window to the future—for them as well as for us. Now there will be no ultimate war.”
“Smart!” Penn didn’t trouble to hide his sneer. “You’re so smart! You’ve taken it on yourself to do this without authority. I’ll see you dead for this!”
“No, general.” Don shook his head. “You won’t see me dead.”
“That’s what you think. I’ll have you shot!” Don smiled, warm in the comforting knowledge of his new awareness.
“No,” he said. “You won’t have me shot.”
In the introduction to a story called “The Last Day of Summer,” in the first annual SF, I referred to the author, E. C. Tubb, as “almost unknown in this country, but probably Britain’s most popular writer of s-f. ..” The next annual included the first published story of a young writer named J. G. Ballard: “Prima Belladonna.” In the third, Brian W. Aldiss, then already becoming known in England, made his American debut with “Let’s Be Frank.”
All of these stories, and many that appeared in later volumes, were from the British Nova publications. Science Fantasy and New Worlds, both of which were, at that time, as little-known here as the authors. I am happy to say that this is no longer true either of the magazines or of the substantial group of authors (John Brunner, John Rackham, James White, among others) who developed in their pages under the editorial guidance of E. J. Cornell.
In the past year Mr. Cornell, who has been publicist, critic, business manager, and (probably at times) mailboy as well, since the beginning of the publishing venture, went on to a new position at Corgi Books. The magazines were to cease publication, but happily passed into new hands instead. Some of the best and brightest new ideas in science fiction in the last decade have come from this source.
Nova has not, however, been the sole source of good British s-f. Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham, A. B. Chandler, John Christopher, to name a few, were writing for the American magazines all along, as were several others whose reputations were primarily “mainstream.”
Whether Gerald Kersh, now residing in New York Stale, can still be called a British writer, I do not know. That he is one of the finest and most consistently entertaining writers of imaginative literature, I am sure.
A BARGAIN WITH CASHEL
Gerald Kersh
If this is a hangover—and if it is not, the joke is on me, with a vengeance—the devil take the vintage! I am no stranger to that sense of half-belonging which comes with the morning after a heavy night. But I never felt so odd as this. “Odd” is the word, like three gloves or half a haircut.
I woke as usual, clambering from a miry sleep joint by joint like a dinosaur coming out of the mud. A smudged lithograph of consciousness came back in a swirl of little black dots. I remembered having drunk champagne with friends and—most remarkable—having paid the check for all of us.
I sat up then and groped for my glasses. The room sprang into focus. It was mine—there was no doubt about that—but, while I was familiar with every dusty corner of it, I felt as a ghost might feel if it returned to haunt a place where it had lived. There should be some revaluation of dimensions—that place would seem ghostly; only the ghost would think itself solid. And that might be an idea for a story to sell Cashel, I thought.
There was nothing unmaterial about my bare foot, or the chair I stubbed it against. No, no, I was myself, the reprehensible Ira Noxon and none other; and I was at home. There lay my Afghan rug, and there stood my divan and writing desk, and there was the “room divider” made of unpainted bookshelves, beyond which I kept my little stove and my icebox. And there was no getting away from the throbbing of machinery in the cloak-and-suiter’s loft on the floor below. I liked living in a house supposed to be strictly nonresidential, down in the garment district; the quiet of the streets by night; the naughtiness of making neat packages of my garbage—mostly coffee grounds and bottles—and dropping them in strange doorways. Squalor and solitude suit me.