Альфред Бестер - Star of Stars [Anthology]

"For what, Edgar dear?" his wife persisted. "Well have a hard enough time managing. Why throw good money after bad?"

"Why didn't I marry a woman who'd take my side, even when I'm wrong?" moaned Stone. "Revenge, that's what. And he won't be able to practice, so hell have time to find out if there's a cure . . . and at no charge, either! I won't pay him another cent I—"

The doctor stood up eagerly. "But I'm willing to see what can be done right now. And it wouldn't cost you anything, naturally."

"What do you mean?" Stone challenged suspiciously.

"If I were to perform another operation, I'll be able to see which nerves were involved. There's no need to go into the technical side right now, but it is possible to connect nerves. Of course, there are a good many, which complicates matters, especially since the splinter went through several layers—"

Lubin pointed a lawyer's impaling finger at him. "Are you offering to attempt to correct the injury, gratis?"

"Certainly. I mean to say, I'll do my absolute best. But keep in mind, please, that there is no medical precedent." The attorney, however, was already questioning Stone and his wife. "In view of the fact that we have no legal grounds whatever for suit, does this offer of settlement satisfy your claim against him?"

"Oh, yes!" Mrs. Stone cried.

Her husband hesitated for a while, clearly tempted to take the opposite position out of habit. "I guess so," he reluctantly agreed.

"Well, then, it's in your hands. Doctor," said Lubin. Dr. Rankin buzzed excitedly for the nurse. "I'll have him prepared for surgery right away."

"It better work this time," warned Stone, clutching a handful of ice cubes to warm his fingers.

Stone came to foggily. He didn't know it, but he had given the anesthetist a bewildering problem, which finally had been solved by using fumes of aromatic spirits of ammonia. The four blurred figures around the bed seemed to be leaning precariously toward him.

"Pop!" said Arnold. "Look, he's coming out of it! Pop!"

"Speak to me, Edgar dear," Mrs. Stone beseeched. Lubin said, "See how he is, Doctor."

"He's fine," the doctor insisted heartily, his usual bedside manner evidently having returned. "He must be—the blinds are open and he's not complaining that it's dark or that he's cold." He leaned over the bed. "How are we feeling, Mr. Stone?"

It took a minute or two for Stone to move his swollen tongue enough to answer. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"What smells purple?" he demanded.

A few years back, in Ireland, Ray Bradbury spent some very productive months. Not only did he write the script of one of the best motion pictures of recent years— Moby Dick was its name—but on a side trip he met a young writer who had just turned his hand to science fiction, and persuaded him to let American editors see the results. Star was delighted to acquire two of them; the first was "Nor the Moon by Night," and the second is—

Sparkson was relieved to see the evening sky melt into the terrain of the planet where he had been forced down, slowly obliterating the forms of the aliens on each side of him. He had been looking forward to night because he had thought it over and he hoped—rather optimistically, he admitted to himself—that they might let him leave the rocket, or something.

Anything.

Anything was better than walking around the ship for the equivalent of three earth days, the only diversion being the mechanical Translator and that exasperating as hell as it tried to make sense of what the alien said and type it out for him on white little slips of paper: "NAME, I am worried. Could Sparkie (eat) (be nourished by) GAR­BLE?"

And then the answer: "!, (stop) (cease) (desist from) worrying, NAME. Sparkie is (in admirable condition) (fine) !"

It had taken him twenty years to get "Sparkie" out of his family's vocabulary. And now the first two "people" he met in outer space called him Sparkie.

Just because they were bigger than he was!

They lay on each side of him, gigantic whales from an ocean of soot, their lights glowing handfuls of sand. Noth­ing came out, nothing went in.

There were just two.

Many of his controls had ceased to function when they had pulled him down between them. Others were as usual. He couldn't take off, of course—except when that message came out of the Translator: "NAME, Sparkie might (desire) (want) (thirst for) exercise."

He leapt to the chance—it was foolish of them to think that the ship was the man and needed exercise, but that foolishness might help him escape—but they had gone with him, limiting him to graceful figure eights. He tried turn­ing out of one of them, away into space.

He was returned to his place, gently.

When they had captured him, naturally, his first move was to open communications with them through the radio. They received him well, with the help of the translator. They said hello, yes we know where you came from, hope you had a good trip, and then they were quiet.

He had asked them the first forty-nine questions on the checklist designed for making contact with aliens. Nothing. At the end he was yelling at them.

Then he forgot his briefings. "What's the matter, battery gone dead?"

They said only: "Time to rest, Sparkie."

They were not exactly their last words, because while he was "exercising" he had asked if he could fire a nuclear missile, hoping to arouse a little more respect.

Then the one that always seemed subservient to the other said, "NAME, I am frightened. Sparkie might not (throw) (hurl) (eject) it free of his vessel. (Moreover) (Also) it might GARBLE the alignment of the GARBLE GARBLE."

The other didn't even answer that. "Fire away, Sparkie!"

So he threw the lever and there was a wondrous sun and a mushroom that would have turned Einstein over in his grave, certainly, if it had grown under him.

One said, "That's (enough) (sufficient) for (period of time)!" And the other said, "Better than 4th of July, eh, Sparkie?"

"It sure is. How come you know about the 4th?" "We know what we need to know. Let us rest now." Sparkson tried everything, even "I'm lonely!" But rest it was.

He had slept, getting up to check gauges and read some incredibly garbled messages—conversations having noth­ing to do with him that the Translator apparently couldn't begin to handle.

Now, with the coming of night, he stayed by the Trans­lator. After an hour of darkness a short slip of paper ap­peared.

"Goodnight, NAME."

Then another. "(Sweet) (Pleasant) (Gentle) dreams of mother, NAME."

They were going to sleep. He sat sweating, staring at the slot, with his hands on each side of the gold-braided uni­form cap on his head.

After a while some papers slid out of the Translator. Drowsily the aliens were communicating, like girls whis­pering secret, in bed.

"NAME—"

"It is (odd) (strange) (perplexing)."

"I am thinking of Sparkie's mind ... NAME!" "I am awake!"

"Sparkie is so (small) (weak) (defenseless)."

"(Hm) (Mm) (Mmm)."

"His mind is like a (piece) (sheet) of GARBLE. We think on the (bases) (conditions) (roots) of our experi­ence, our perceptions which arc multiplied by (objects) (things) (forms of matter) which we have sensed. Sparkie must think with the (toys) (playthings) of his earth only. How can he understand us? What does he know of GARBLE, GARBLE or GARBLE for example, this (small) (weak) (defenseless) being? NAME!"

"! Go to sleep."

That was all. He waited another hour. Then he read the bits of paper, in order. He read them over and over again, while the starless biblical darkness, one thing by God that was not among the forms of matter, offered him freedom.