Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

Young Whitey Bill put another chunk of burnwood on the burning. “Rowwer, rowwer,” he muttered. Then everyone was talking at once, crowding up to the windowlooks. Then everybody stopped the talking. The big food-pots bubbled. Young Big Mary mumbletalked excitedly. Then her words came out clearsound.

“Look to here — look to here — I say, me, they aren’t Blakeneys.”

Old Little Mary, coming down from the spindleroom, called out, “People! People! Three and four of them down the Forest Road and I don’t know them and, oh, they funnywalk!”

“Four strange people!”

“Not Blakeneys!”

“Stop sillytalking! Has to be! Who elses?”

“But not Blakeneys!”

“Not from The House, look to, look to! People — not from The House!”

“Runaway Bob and that Thin Jinnie?”

“No, can’t be. No old ones.”

“Children? Childrenchildren?”

All who hadn’t been lookseeing before came now, all who were at The House, that is — running from the cowroom and the horseroom and dairyroom, ironroom, schoolroom, even from the sickroom.

“Four people! Not Blakeneys, some say!”

“Blakeneys or not Blakeneys, not from The House!”

Robert Hayakawa and his wife Shulamith came out of the forest, Ezra and Mikicho with them. “Well, as I said,” Robert observed, in his slow careful way, “a road may end nowhere, going in one direction, but it’s not likely it will end nowhere, going in the other.”

Shulamith sighed. She was heavy with child. “Tilled fields. I’m glad of that. There was no sign of them anywhere else on the planet. This must be a new settlement. But we’ve been all over that—” She stopped abruptly, so did they all.

Ezra pointed. “A house—”

“It’s more like a, well, what would you say?” Mikicho moved her mouth, groping for a word. “A… a castle? Robert?”

Very softly, Robert said, “It’s not new, whatever it is. It is very much not new, don’t you see, Shulamith. What—? ”

She had given a little cry of alarm, or perhaps just surprise. All four turned to see what had surprised her. A man was running over the field towards them. He stopped, stumbling, as they all turned to him. Then he started again, a curious shambling walk. They could see his mouth moving after a while. He pointed to the four, waved his hand, waggled his head.

“Hey,” they could hear him saying. “A hey, a hey. Hey. Look to. Mum. Mum mum mum. Oh, hey …”

He had a florid face, a round face that bulged over the eyes, and they were prominent and blue eyes. His nose was an eagle’s nose, sharp and hooked, and his mouth was loose and trembling. “Oh, hey, you must be, mum, his name, what? And she run off to follow him? Longlong. Jinnie! Thin Jinnie! Childrenchildren, a hey?” Behind him in the field two animals paused before a plow, switching their tails.

“Mikicho, look,” said Ezra. “Those must be cows.”

The man had stopped about ten feet away. He was dressed in loose, coarse cloth. Again he waggled his head. “Cows, no. Oh, no, mum mum, freemartins, elses. Not cows.” Something occurred to him, almost staggering in its astonishment. “A hey, you won’t know me! Won’t know me!” He laughed. “Oh. What a thing. Strange Blakeneys. Old Red Tom, I say, me.”

Gravely, they introduced themselves. He frowned, his slack mouth moving. “Don’t know them name,” he said, after a moment. “No, a mum. Make them up, like children, in the woods. Longlong. Oh, I, now! Runaway Little Bob. Yes, that name! Your fatherfather. Dead, a hey?”

Very politely, very wearily, feeling — now that he had stopped — the fatigue of the long, long walk, Robert Hayakawa said, “I’m afraid I don’t know him. We are not, I think, who you seem to think we are…might we go on to the house, do you know?” His wife murmured her agreement, and leaned against him.

Old Red Tom, who had been gaping, seemed suddenly to catch at a word. “The House! A hey, yes. Go on to The House. Good now. Mum.”

They started off, more slowly than before, and Old Red Tom, having unhitched his freemartins, followed behind, from time to time calling something unintelligible. “A funny fellow,” said Ezra.

“He talks so oddly ,” Mikicho said. And Shulamith said that all she wanted was to sit down. Then—

“Oh, look,” she said. “ Look! ”

“They have all come to greet us,” her husband observed.

And so they had.

Nothing like this event had ever occurred in the history of the Blakeneys. But they were not found wanting. They brought the strangers into The House, gave them the softest chairseats, nearest to the burning; gave them cookingmilk and cheesemeats and tatoplants. Fatigue descended on the newcomers in a rush; they ate and drank somewhat, then they sank back, silent.

But the people of the house were not silent, far from it. Most of them who had been away had now come back, they milled around, some gulping eats, others craning and staring, most talking and talking and talking — few of them mumbletalking, now that the initial excitement had ebbed a bit. To the newcomers, eyes now opening with effort, now closing, despite, the people of the house seemed like figures from one of those halls of mirrors they had read about in social histories: the same faces, clothes…but, ah, indeed, not the same dimensions. Everywhere — florid complexions, bulging blue eyes, protruding bones at the forehead, hooked thin noses, flabby mouths.

Blakeneys.

Thin Blakeneys, big Blakeneys, little Blakeneys, old ones, young ones, male and female. There seemed to be one standard model from which the others had been stretched or compressed, but it was difficult to conjecture what this exact standard was.

“Starside, then,” Young Big Mary said — and said again and again, clearsound. “No elses live to Blakeneyworld. Starside, Starside, a hey, Starside. Same as Captains.”

Young Whitey Bill pointed with a stick of burnwood at Shulamith. “Baby grows,” he said. “Rower, rower. Baby soon.”

With a great effort, Robert roused himself. “Yes. She’s going to have a baby very soon. We will be glad of your help.”

Old Whitey Bill came for another look to, hobbling on his canestick. “We descend,” he said, putting his face very close to Robert’s, “we descend from the Captains. Hasn’t heard of them, you? Elses not heard? Funny. Funnyfunny. We descend, look to. From the Captains. Captain Tom Blakeney. And his wives. Captain Bill Blakeney. And his wives. Brothers, they. Jinnie, Mary, Captain Tom’s wives. Other Mary, Captain Bob’s wife. Had another wife, but we don’t remember it, us, her name. They lived, look to. Starside. You, too? Mum, you? A hey, Starside?”

Robert nodded. “When?” he asked. “When did they come from Starside? The brothers.”

Night had fallen, but no lights were lit. Only the dancing flames, steadily fed, of the burning, with chunks and chunks of fat and greasy burnwood, flickered and illuminated the great room. “Ah, when,” said Old Red Tom, thrusting up to the chairseat. “When we children, old Blakeneys say, a hey, five hundredyear. Longlong.”

Old Little Mary said, suddenly, “They funnywalk. They funnytalk. But, oh, they funnylook, too!”

“A baby. A baby. Grows a baby, soon.”

And two or three little baby Blakeneys, like shrunken versions of their elders, gobbled and giggled and asked to see the Starside baby. The big ones laughed, told them, soon.

“Five hundred …” Hayakawa drowsed. He snapped awake. “The four of us,” he said, “were heading in our boat for the Moons of Lor. Have you — no, I see, you never have. It’s a short trip, really. But something happened to us, I don’t know…how to explain it…we ran into something…something that wasn’t there. A warp? A hole? That’s silly, I know, but — It was as though we felt the boat drop , somehow. And then, after that, our instruments didn’t work and we saw we had no celestial references…not a star we knew. What’s that phrase, ‘A new Heaven and a new Earth?’ We were just able to reach her. Blakeneyworld, as you call it.”