Edmund Cooper: Seahorse in the Sky

Leader indeed! Decision maker indeed! By God, now was the time to jack it in before everybody got fed up and deposed him.

There was a knock at the door. It opened.

“May I come in?”

Anna Markova granted herself permission before he could reply.

“Hello, Anna.”

“Hello, Russell.”

Everyone was on Christian name terms now. There was no point in formality when you were stuck X light years from the nearest book on etiquette. And it was strange—very strange—how, with the gift of tongues, nationality no longer mattered.

Anna glanced at the whisky. “Do you like drinking alone?”

“No.”

She smiled. “Then you should offer me some.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude… Can you manage with a tooth glass, or shall I go down to the bar for another whisky glass?”

“The tooth glass will do, thank you.” She sat on his bed and bounced up and down a little. “This bed is more comfortable than mine, I think.”

“Complain to the management,” he suggested with the ghost of a smile. “Alternatively, I would be happy to change rooms with you.”

She changed the subject abruptly. “You are full of sorrow, Russell. It is natural to mourn the dead, but one should not do it alone. And this,” she glanced at the glass of whisky he had given her, “this will not help as much as you hope.”

“Amen,” he said, raising his own glass.

“Amen,” repeated Anna, drinking with him. “This is the first opportunity I have had of talking alone with you. I shall tell you what I think, and then you shall tell me what you think. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Well,” she went on, “it seems obvious that we are in a kind of zoo. On earth in the more modern zoos,” her eyes twinkled, “or, at least, in modern Russian zoos we try to ensure that the animals have surroundings that are as natural as possible. I think our captors have done this for us. That is why we have been given an hotel to live in, why we are able to get what we need from a supermarket or store, and why there are cars on the street.”

“The cars don’t work.”

“Naturally. There is nowhere for us to drive them. But our captors know that we are accustomed to these things, and so they have tried to make us feel at home.”

“Their solicitude would be more appreciated if they would return us home,” he remarked sombrely.

“They will not do that,” said Anna.

“Why not?”

“We are—or were—eight men and eight women.”

“So?”

She regarded him with sad amusement. “The implication is obvious, Russell. We have been brought here to breed… Do you not think so?”

He did not answer. Nor did he meet her gaze.

“I see you do think so. It is better to face facts, isn’t it? We have been brought here to breed. And if that is so, it is most unlikely that we shall ever be returned to earth.”

Now he looked at her, and was amazed by the calmness of her expression. “The thought does not terrify you?”

She shivered momentarily. “One must face it and accept it. Then life can go on. Life has to go on, Russell. What has happened is dreadful and wonderful. We cannot left it be pointless.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that we shall breed. There are married people in our group, and already other liaisons are developing.” She laughed, rather grimly. “I do not think you will find any supplies of contraceptives in our obliging supermarket, Russell.”

Impulsively, he took her hand and held it. “Has it occurred to you, Anna, that these people or creatures, or whatever, have just picked us up as biologists collect specimens? That we may simply be experimental material to them and that when the experiment is over…” He stopped.

“They will have no further use for the specimens?”

Russell nodded.

“That is possible,” conceded Anna. “But I do not think it is probable. In any case, we must, act as if it were not so. Otherwise—otherwise life would be unbearable.”

“Is it not becoming so?”

“No.”

He laughed. “I think you must have a very resilient personality.”

“Perhaps. But it will only stay resilient if… Do you find me attractive, Russell?”

“I find you very attractive, Anna.”

“Do you have a wife or a family in England?”

“No. I have been far too busy being a bad socialist to indulge in anything so—so creative.”

She smiled. “Then you shall have your chance. I am a bad communist but a very practical woman.

I am not a virgin, and I have learned not to expect too much from men… So I shall come and live with you, and we shall learn to keep each other warm. Sex might be enjoyable for us both, I think, but it must never become a duty. After all, there is something much more important—friendship. Don’t you agree?”

He looked at her silently for a moment or two—with eyebrows raised. Then he said solemnly:

“Anna Markova, I am slightly drunk and you are a very remarkable woman.”

“That is settled then. If we do not suit each other, the arrangement—not the friendship—can easily be ended.”

Russell raised his glass. “God bless Karl Marx.”

Anna stood up, raising her own glass, and announced, somewhat inscrutably: “The Queen.” Then, having disposed of her whisky, she went to collect her few possessions.

Suddenly, Russell Grahame realized that his mood of depression had left him and that his confidence had returned. It took him a few moments to understand why.

Then he discovered that he was no longer lonely.

Extract from the diary of Robert Hyman:

THIS IS THE fifteenth night of our stay on a world which it amuses Russell to call Erewhon. I doubt if he has ever read Samuel Butler; but no matter. The name fits for obvious reasons. As far as the rest of the human race is concerned, we are indeed nowhere. Some of us will be missed and mourned greatly. One consolation is that I shall not. I was alone there, and I think I shall still be alone here. That is the privilege of being a homosexual without the courage of one’s convictions. For a while, I had hopes that Andrew—poor Andrew, the lean and languid star of that terrible television spy series— might be similarly afflicted/blessed.

But no. Andrew, dear boy, is just effeminately masculine. And now, God knows if he will ever be any use to anybody. He’s quiet enough at the moment; and perhaps we shall shortly be able to take our homemade strait-jacket off him. Certainly, we can’t hope to nurse him for ever. I am beginning to think he would have been better off if he had made a good job of cutting his throat.

His babbling about great metal spiders has unnerved us all. From the few coherent phrases he has given us, it sounds as if he got up in the middle of the night to take a turn along the one short street in our little ghost town. He claims he saw these creatures heading for the supermarket with armfuls of groceries—though the two night guards saw and heard nothing. All that is really certain is that we found Andrew just before dawn, lying outside the hotel stiff as a board, eyes wide and staring: We finally got him literally to unbend. But at that stage he went deadly quiet and wouldn’t say a word. The next thing we knew, he had locked himself in his bathroom and was sawing away with a razor blade, shouting his head off and making one hell of a mess.

I suppose it’s a good thing that Marion Redman knows a little about nursing. He hadn’t done any real damage, but it looked as if he might have bled to death. And now the poor boy does nothing but sit there in his bandages and strait-jacket, rolling his eyes a little and muttering occasionally about metal spiders with packs of detergents and canned goods.