Brian Aldiss - Greybeard

“Your stomach is certainly swollen,” Martha said.

“Ah ha! Told you!” Towin cried. “Four years gone, she is — mean, four months. That’s why we didn’t want to leave that house where the sheep were. It would have made us a nice little home, only Clever Dick here would shove off down his beloved river!”

He bared his stubbly wolf visage in a grin towards Greybeard.

“We will go to Swifford fair tomorrow, and see what we can fix up for you both,” Greybeard said. “There should be a doctor there who will examine Becky and give her advice. Meanwhile, let’s follow the ginger chap’s example and settle down for some sleep.”

“You mind that old reindeer don’t eat Isaac during the night,” Becky told Charley. “I could tell you a thing or two about them animals, I could. They’re crafty beasts, reindeer.”

“It wouldn’t eat a fox,” Charley said.

“We had one ate our cat now, didn’t we, Tow? Tow used to trade in reindeer, whenever it was they first came over to this country — Greybeard’ll know, no doubt.”

“Let’s see, the war ended in 2005, when the government was overthrown,” Greybeard said. “The Coalition was set up the year after, and I believe they were the people who first imported reindeer into Britain.”

The memory came back like a blurred newspaper photo. The Swedes had discovered that, alone among the large ruminants, the reindeer could still breed normally and produce living fawns. It was claimed that these animals had acquired a degree of immunity against radiation because the lichen they ate contained a high degree of fall-out contamination. In the 1960’s, before Greybeard was born, the contamination in their bones was of the order of 100 to 200 strontium units — between six and twelve times above the safety limit for humans.

Since reindeer made efficient transport animals as well as providing good meat and milk, there was a great demand for them throughout Europe. In Canada, the caribou became equally popular. Herds of Swedish and Lapp stock were imported into Britain at various times.

“It must have been about ’06,” Towin confirmed. “’Cos it was then my brother Evan died. Went just like that he did, as he was supping his beer.”

“About this reindeer,” Becky said. “We made a bit of cash out of it. We had to have a licence for the beast

-Daffid, we called it. Used to hire it out for work at so much a day.

“We had a shed out the back of our little shop. Daffid was kept in there. Very cosy it was, with hay and all. Also we had our old cat, Billy. Billy was real old and very intelligent. Not a better cat anywhere, but of course we wasn’t supposed to keep it. They got strict after the war, if you remember, and Billy was supposed to go for food. As if we’d give Billy up!

“Sometimes that Coalition would send police round and they’d come right in — not knock nor nothing, you know. Then they’d search the house. It’s ungodly times we’ve lived through, friends!

“Anyhow, this night, Tow here comes running in — been down the boozer, he had — and he says the police are coming round to make a search.”

“So they were!” Towin said, showing signs of an old discomfiture.

“So he says,” Becky repeated. “So we has to hide poor old Billy or we’d all be in the cart. So I run with her out into the shed where old Daffid’s lying down just like this ugly beast here, and tucks Billy under the straw for safety.

“Then I goes back into our parlour. But no police come, and Tow goes off fast asleep, and I nod off too, and at midnight I know the old fool has been imagining things.”

“They passed us by!” Towin cried.

“So out I went into the shed, and there’s Daffid standing there chewing, and no sign of Billy. I get Towin and we both have a search, but no Billy. Then we see his tail hanging out bloody old Daffid’s mouth.”

“Another time, he ate one of my gloves,” Towin said.

As Greybeard settled to sleep by a solitary lantern, the last thing he saw was the gloomy countenance of Norsgrey’s reindeer. These animals had been hunted by Paleolithic man; they had only to wait a short while now and all the hunters would be gone.

In Greybeard’s dream, there was a situation that could not happen. He was in a chromium-plated restaurant dining with several people he did not know. They, their manners, their dress, were all very elaborate, even artificial; they ate ornate dishes with involved utensils. Everyone present was extremely old centenarians to a man — yet they were sprightly, even childlike. One of the women there was saying that she had solved the whole problem; that just as adults grew from children, so children would eventually grow from adults, if they waited long enough.

And then everyone was laughing to think the solution had not been reached before. Greybeard explained to them how it was as if they were all actors performing their parts against a lead curtain that cut off for ever every second as it passed — yet as he spoke he was concealing from them, for reasons of compassion, the harsher truth that the curtain was also barring them from the seconds and all time before them. There were young children all round them (though looking strangely grown up), dancing and throwing some sticky substance to each other.

He was trying to seize a strand of this stuff when he woke. In the ancient dawn light, Norsgrey was harnessing up his reindeer. The animal held its head low, puffing into the stale cold. Huddled under their wrappings, the rest of Greybeard’s party bore as much resemblance to human forms as a newly-made grave.

Wrapping one of his blankets round him, Greybeard got up, stretched, and went over to the old man. The draught he had been lying in had stiffened his limbs, making him limp.

“You’re on your way early, Norsgrey.”

“I’m always an early mover. Lita wants to be off.”

“Is she well this morning?”

“Never mind about her. She’s tucked safe under the canopy of the cart. She won’t speak to strangers in the mornings.”

“Are we not going to see her?”

“No.” Over the cart, a tatty brown canvas was stretched, and tied with leather thongs back and front so that nobody could see within. The cockerel crowed from beneath it. Norsgrey had already gathered up his chickens. Greybeard wondered what of their own equipment might not be missing, seeing that the old fellow worked so quietly.

“I’ll open the door for you,” he said. Weary hinges creaked as he pushed the door forward. He stood there scratching his beard, taking in the frost-becalmed scene before him. His company stiffed as cold air entered the barn. Isaac sat up and licked his sharp muzzle. Towin squinted at his defunct watch. The reindeer started forward and dragged the cart into the open.

“I’m cold and stiff; I’ll walk with you a minute or two to see you on your way,” Greybeard said, wrapping his blanket more tightly about him.

“As you will. I’d be glad of your company as long as you don’t talk too much. I like to make an early start when the frying’s not so bad. By midday, it makes such a noise you’d think the hedges were burning.”

“You still find roads you can travel?”

“Ah, lots of roads still open between necessary points. There’s more travelling being done again lately; people are getting restless. Why they can’t sit where they are and die off in peace, I don’t know.”

“This place you were telling us about last night…”

“I never said nothing last night; I was drunk.”

“Mockweagles, you called it. What sort of treatment did they give you when you were there?”

Norsgrey’s little eyes almost disappeared between folds of his fibrous red and mauve skin. He jerked his thumb into the bushes through which they were pushing their way.