The Best of Science Fiction 12

And I still had to do my job. Gemini 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Trickier and more complex every year. One of these bitches was going to cause me to blow a gasket.

Pallas showed up one Wednesday morning bleeding about the cheek. She now had enough of all Americans and was returning to Greece immediately via — so help me — the Far East where she hoped to gain some peace of mind through an examination of their religions. I was to give her passage. And, oddly, she now used Elva's nasty remark, exactly. If fungi is my jugular, Greece was hers. I called her a name and was immediately sorry; I believe in integration. That's Italian, she said, and stuck out her tongue. What a beauty, crying, bleeding, her clothes torn and her tongue sticking out. My last young girl. I had to give her her freedom, but not before talking to Dr. Mannfried. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, licking his lips. He was a big bastard, like lots of them are with the knife. They look like butchers but can thread a needle with their thumbs. "I hardly know your wife," he said, "but I'll say this for her — I admire your taste, she's delicious."

I wanted to hit the big son-of-a-bitch, but what would that prove. I needed my hands for my work as much as he needed his.

"Yes, isn't she," I said, and went to the market to buy all their second-day bread. I'd have to keep busy, now that I would be alone.

Oddly, Dr. Mannfried seemed drawn to me after Pallas left for Hong Kong. He enjoyed talking about her, the bastard; even mentioning my first wife made his mouth water, although he hadn't made a pass at her because that was before his son had graduated from college and he said he'd taken a solemn oath in his youth not to screw up his life until his boy was 21. I'm not much of a talker, but I'm a good listener — and I listened as I patted sandwich loaf into patterns of desire. I kept sculpting women; it was a compulsion.

What happened next was magnificent, and almost cleared my mind. Man's first walk in space. (Actually the second, after the USSR.) As usual, I had been called to the Cape to head the decontamination and sterilisation crew, getting Gemini 4 ready for space. The planets must not be a dumping ground for human waste. This was drill — preparation for our coming flight to the moon. After Gemini 4 all my space flights would be etc. — all my systems were go. But I didn't know it then.

The microorganisms carried by a single astronaut — any man — total approximately 10 12, 10 followed by 12 zeros. I cleaned up our boys, using ethylene oxide gas on the capsule to spare the components. Everything shipshape and clean as a whistle. But when they opened the hatch in stellar space ... something was coming the other way.

I found spore . There was no doubt about it, and only one. It was impossible at that height — it couldn't be one of ours. It had been sucked into the capsule vacuum-cleaner in space, after the hatch had been re-secured. That space is filled with more than nothing — anti-matter matter and the like — this we know: but spore.

I took it to my laboratory — home — by jet toward an optimum environment; and perhaps selfishly told no one about it.

I had no idea what food it would take. I gave it a loaf of bread and stood back to wait. Was it alive?

It had withstood the all but absolute temperatures of space; it had withstood the devastating effects of radiation — it might prove a mutation of its original form on another planet.

I confess, I fell asleep watching the loaf of rye bread on its emulsion of fungi-free earth. I'd been up since the discovery — and sleep is a protective device against sustained excitement. Perhaps it hadn't been chloral hydrate. It was quiet in the laboratory, a single overhead light on the experiment. I had even cut off the Muzak the President feels will ease our progress. It must have been ten o'clock; it was dawn when I awoke.

My God, it was huge! I'd never seen anything like it. At first I thought it was a tree, the trunk was three feet through. It was six feet tall, of a perfect symmetry, a ruff under its chin and the most beautiful mushroom I had ever seen. A creamy off-white, its cap a brilliant orange flecked with chaste white dots. The bread was gone and it was feeding on earth and the wood surrounding it. I ran to my quarters off the laboratory, where I do my sculpture, returning to bank loaves of bread around the trunk. It rejected them, having taken its full growth. Such texture! What tournedos aux champignons it would make! This mushroom would make me famous! But now I couldn't reveal my secret; we're supposed to tell NASA everything; to hell with NASA. This was one triumph I could enjoy privately. I didn't need the roll of drums and a wire from Stockholm. I touched its flesh. That it might eat me crossed my mind, but where work is concerned I am not passive. I squeezed it. It was warm, soft and giving, like a girl's trunk. I put my arms around it — what a baby! I kissed it and the odour was sweet and sophisticated as some mushrooms. Even here on earth. Now this one was on earth and it was mine. But would it spore? Go inky or blow away as so much of our dew-raised fungi spores to blow away sight unseen in some forgotten pasture? No. The second and even the third day found it standing firm but undulating slightly in the morning air. I had taken the mushroom across campus to my home, for the sake of privacy and experiment. It was surprisingly light, no heavier than a girl. But then the world's record yield of mushrooms per square foot is only 7.35 pounds.

Its flesh seemed alive, palpitant — I'm no pantheist, yet I've often felt that plants, trees, flowers, have a life we know nothing of. I left the window open to let it breathe. The curtains moved gently with the breeze and my mushroom would softly sway.

Where in hell had it come from? That there was some form of life on other planets, now we knew. I knew. Well, others would find out in time. Now the experiments could begin. Had to begin. I was a scientist, after all, and had to do it. I had to cut. I didn't know what to expect, so gingerly, gingerly, I approached it, knife in hand, waited, then slipped it in.

It seemed to sigh, but perhaps it was my imagination. It cut nicely. What lovely texture I Like a young girl's thighs. Soft and perfectly grained.

I took a leave of absence from the university; and as the days went by carved more deeply into Lulu. I had now given her a name, after the manner of weather bureaus with hurricanes. Lulu. It seemed a good name for a tanned girl, perhaps a fine mulatto, a girl from the islands, Polynesia — what skin! Luana. Goodbye, Lulu — you are Luana! Aloha — which also means Hello. I couldn't place her in the known world of mushrooms, but that didn't surprise me — and then I left off experimenting, removing my sculpturing tools from Building 28, bringing them home to really go to work. What a figure! It was no trouble at all, she almost carved herself, orange giving way to pale pink-and-gold making flowers in her hair. I swear it was as though she was there, although she never spoke — I hadn't gone that far — nor did I speak to her: there are limits. I didn't know whether to leave clothes on her. Or not. But I was never one to go along with that misguided Pope painting diapers on Michelangelo's cupids. I carved her whole and I carved her nude. No abstraction — who wants the portrait of a loved one in abstraction? I'd rather have a photograph. Take my word for it, I'm a good sculptor — the Venus de Milo: that's my sort of thing. Only lighter, more slender, more docile. I knew Luana was docile — perhaps she was Japanese, a sweet Japanese girl lisping syllables I would never understand, little Miss Suke, and that was the day Dr. Mannfried walked in unannounced.

The dirty bastard just stood there, sucking in his breath and staring at Luana. He was stricken. I'd done better than I knew. But then, I was inspired. "My God," he said, "what is it?"