The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7

Tom felt, suddenly, remarkably wide awake. He switched to Manual Drive and angled the round nose of the Topolino over to the Fourth Level exit.

He began to whistle between his teeth. “Beach again next weekend, sweetie, huh?”

Jeannie’s eyes were on his face. Defensively, he added, “Good for all of us, get out of the city, get a little fresh air once in a while.”

He nudged her and pulled a pigtail gently, with affection.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL TRILOGUE ON TERRAN SELF-DESTRUCTION by Sheri S. Eberhart

The ever-more-pressing probability of planetwide overpopulation is both more real and less remote than it may appear. Certainly, for the smog-breathers of the great centers of modem civilization, as for the emergent peoples of the world’s “underdeveloped” areas, the pressures of the new population explosion are daily more evident. And as the cities grow out, and the primitives grow up, the room in the middle grows steadily less. Each new medical discovery, every agricultural advance, every increment in social security, every headhunter converted to some gentler philosophy, each “international incident” settled however precariously without resort to all-out war — each one of these and a score of other proofs of our progress, adds measurably, if minutely, to the factor by which our fruitfulness constantly multiplies.

The problem, of course, is new only in scope, and (through Malthus back to Moses, and no doubt before) in the more limited test cases, it has proved, drastically, self-regulating. Unless new land was found for the overflow, war, famine, and pestilence have always cut problem and population both down to size.

The recent historical alternatives are especially familiar to Denver’s Regional CARE Director, Sheri Eberhart. An ex-saleswoman, — secretary, — draftswoman, and — pottery-painter, she also became an ex-short-story-writer when after two sales, and “enough rejections to paper a wall” her daughter advised her to quit because, “You don’t think like a grown-up.” Mrs. Eberhart promptly turned to children’s plays — including a handclapping version of the Pentateuch (The Beat Bible), which has made her the swing-ingest Sunday School teacher in town.

* * * *

Three creatures sat on the sands of Mars,
and the first, to the ancient twiddling bars
that the second played on a twalreg flute
sang a canal lay most convolute,
while the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,
considering the stars.
At last the second stilled his fife,
and the third twonged out (his voice was rife
with a hint of fear) “Do you know that there,
where the third planet spins in its veil of air,
I’m convinced there’s a spot, a jot, a hair,
a widge, perhaps, of life.”
The first began an amusement dance,
while the second, fourth eyes crossed, askance,
skibbed with extreme severity,
“You ought to watch your tongues,” quoth he.
“One should not affront the Deity
by mentioning such chance.
“For years our scientists have spent
their time in the establishment
of reasons why the life we know
could not exist above, below,
or any place but here! They show
that fact self evident.”
Just then their eyes were caught, aghast,
for where the air-veiled planet passed
a ball of fire had blossomed wide,
and holocausts together vied
to rip the ravened globe aside
with nothing left at last.
Murmured the first, “You will allow,
by every old and sacred vow,
this proves my point and proves it well.
Those pyrotechnics must compel
you to recant!” The third said, “Hell,
it doesn’t matter now.”
And they sat back down on the sands of Mars
to hear the ancient, twiddling bars
of a Martian dirge or the twalreg flute,
in troches old and dissolute,
while the third, with his horn in the sand, sat mute,
considering the stars.

THE COUNTDOWN by John Haase

In the catalogue of natural wonders, along with such unlikely miracles as the existence of self-conscious intelligence, the fecundity of humanity, and the evolution of communication, we may now add this marveclass="underline" that, after two decades of possession of a means of destruction volatile enough to match our mob furies, we (the people, of the third planet) are still very much alive.

The almost incredible indication is that we are — slowly, with utmost caution — approaching a real awareness of the irrevocability of the global interdependence our technology has created. Not only is it increasingly obvious that the worst they can do to us (from either viewpoint) is less terrible than what we-and-they can do to all-of-us; it is also becoming clear how much we-and-they might do, if we chose, for all of us; and further clear that the most we can do will be none too much, for if we avoid self-devastation, we may well be faced with self-suffocation.

Mankind, united, will undoubtedly level mountains and plumb the ocean depths; but with the same strength, we can more readily perhaps find our new space out in space. The stories that follow this one are all based on the assumption that man can and will go out to other worlds. This one is still set on a near-future Earth, but it concerns a pioneer of the still-uncertain emigration. It is the first science fiction (to my knowledge) by an author best known for his novel. The Fun Couple (Simon & Schuster, 1961), from which the hit Broadway play was adapted.

* * * *

Carrying his duffelbag, Jack Bell climbed the stairs to Dan Oldfield’s office. The door was open, and through the outer office, now empty of secretaries, Bell could see Oldfield sitting at his desk, the phone in one hand, a toothpick in the other. Bell walked in without knocking, and waited for the other man to finish his conversation.

Oldfield hung up the phone. “Well, old Sleepy Bell. I thought you’d crashed by now.”

“Almost — not quite, though.”

Oldfield watched Bell. He noticed the gray creeping in around the temples, the flaccid cheeks, the pushed-out face from too many rides in the centrifuge.

“I need a blast,” Bell said.

“Drink?” Oldfield asked.

“No, thanks. Never touch it.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Oh, can it,” Bell said, sitting down without being asked, his duffelbag beside him.

“How many blasts have you had this year?” Oldfield asked.

“One. A Redstone. Suborbital.”

“A liquid-fuel job, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Bell looked around the office. There were dusty models of the Redstone, the Mercury capsule, the Minuteman, a few brownish photographs of pads at Vandenburg, at Cape Canaveral, and one picture, taken years before, in the infancy of space flight, of the seven original astronauts; a few framed newspaper clippings; a business license; a Lions Club plaque.

“There aren’t many blasts around,” Oldfield said.