Wolfe, Gene - The Best of Gene Wolfe

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE

BY GENE WOLFE FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

THE WIZARD KNIGHT

The Knight

The Wizard

THE BOOK OF THE SHORT SUN

On Blue’s Waters

In Green’s Jungles

Return to the Whorl

THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN

Shadow & Claw

(comprising The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator )

Sword & Citadel

(comprising The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch )

THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN

Litany of the Long Sun

(comprising Nightside of the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun )

Epiphany of the Long Sun

(comprising Caldé of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun )

NOVELS

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

The Devil in a Forest

Peace

Free Live Free

The Urth of the New Sun

Latro in the Mist

(comprising Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete )

Soldier of Sidon

There Are Doors

Castleview

Pandora by Holly Hollander

Pirate Freedom

An Evil Guest

NOVELLAS

The Death of Doctor Island

Seven American Nights

COLLECTIONS

Endangered Species

Storeys from the Old Hotel

Castle of Days

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories

Strange Travelers

Innocents Aboard

Starwater Strains

THE BEST

OF GENE

WOLFE

A DEFINITIVE RETROSPECTIVE

OF HIS FINEST SHORT FICTION

GENE WOLFE

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE: A DEFINITIVE RETROSPECTIVE OF HIS FINEST SHORT FICTION

Copyright © 2009 by Gene Wolfe

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor ®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2135-0

ISBN-10: 0-7653-2135-1

First Edition: March 2009

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is for Alison Goulding,

with much love from her gran’pa.

CONTENTS

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories

The Toy Theater

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Beech Hill

The Recording

Hour of Trust

The Death of Dr. Island

La Befana

Forlesen

Westwind

The Hero as Werwolf

The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton

Straw

The Eyeflash Miracles

Seven American Nights

The Detective of Dreams

Kevin Malone

The God and His Man

On the Train

From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton

Death of the Island Doctor

Redbeard

The Boy Who Hooked the Sun

Parkroads —a Review

Game in the Pope’s Head

And When They Appear

Bed and Breakfast

Petting Zoo

The Tree Is My Hat

Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?

A Cabin on the Coast

Copyright Acknowledgments

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE

THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH

AND OTHER STORIES

W

inter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall. The waves that were a bright, hard blue yesterday under a fading sky today are green, opaque, and cold. If you are a boy not wanted in the house you walk the beach for hours, feeling the winter that has come in the night; sand blowing across your shoes, spray wetting the legs of your corduroys. You turn your back to the sea, and with the sharp end of a stick found half-buried write in the wet sand Tackman Babcock .

Then you go home, knowing that behind you the Atlantic is destroying your work.

Home is the big house on Settlers Island, but Settlers Island, so called, is not really an island and for that reason is not named or accurately delineated on maps. Smash a barnacle with a stone and you will see inside the shape from which the beautiful barnacle goose takes its name. There is a thin and flaccid organ which is the goose’s neck and the mollusc’s siphon, and a shapeless body with tiny wings. Settlers Island is like that.

The goose neck is a strip of land down which a county road runs. By whim, the mapmakers usually exaggerate the width of this and give no information to indicate that it is scarcely above the high tide. Thus Settlers Island appears to be a mere protuberance on the coast, not requiring a name—and since the village of eight or ten houses has none, nothing shows on the map but the spider line of road terminating at the sea.

The village has no name, but home has two: a near and a far designation. On the island, and on the mainland nearby, it is called the Seaview place because in the earliest years of the century it was operated as a resort hotel. Mama calls it The House of 31 February, and that is on her stationery and is presumably used by her friends in New York and Philadelphia when they do not simply say “Mrs. Babcock’s.” Home is four floors high in some places, less in others, and is completely surrounded by a veranda; it was once painted yellow, but the paint—outside—is mostly gone now and The House of 31 February is gray.

Jason comes out the front door with the little curly hairs on his chin trembling in the wind and his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his Levi’s. “Come on; you’re going into town with me. Your mother wants to rest.”

“Hey tough!” Into Jason’s Jaguar, feeling the leather upholstery soft and smelly; you fall asleep.

Awake in town, bright lights flashing in the car windows. Jason is gone and the car is growing cold; you wait for what seems a long time, looking out at the shop windows, the big gun on the hip of the policeman who walks past, the lost dog who is afraid of everyone, even you when you tap the glass and call to him.

Then Jason is back with packages to put behind the seat. “Are we going home now?”

He nods without looking at you, arranging his bundles so they won’t topple over, fastening his seat belt.

“I want to get out of the car.”

He looks at you.

“I want to go in a store. Come on, Jason.”

Jason sighs. “All right, the drugstore over there, okay? Just for a minute.”

The drugstore is as big as a supermarket, with long, bright aisles of glassware and notions and paper goods. Jason buys fluid for his lighter at the cigarette counter, and you bring him a book from a revolving wire rack. “Please, Jason?”

He takes it from you and replaces it in the rack, then when you are in the car again takes it from under his jacket and gives it to you.

It is a wonderful book, thick and heavy, with the edges of the pages tinted yellow. The covers are glossy stiff cardboard, and on the front is a picture of a man in rags fighting a thing partly like an ape and partly like a man, but much worse than either. The picture is in color, and there is real blood on the ape-thing; the man is muscular and handsome, with tawny hair lighter than Jason’s and no beard.