Ellison Wonderland (19 page)

It was then, just as Hobert saw the Hudson River beginning to overflow onto Riverside Drive, rising up and up over the little park along the road, that he realized.

“Oh my goodness!” cried Hobert, starting up the hill as fast as he could.

“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”

Hobert said it, sprayed his throat, and made one more chalk mark on the big board full of marks. He said it again, and once more marked.

It was odd. All that rain
had
gone away, only to come another day. The unfortunate part was that it
all
came back the same day. Hobert was — literally speaking — up the creek. He had been saying it since he was a child, how many times he had no idea. The postponements had been piling up for almost forty–six years, which was quite a spell of postponements. The only way he could now stop the flood of rain was to keep saying it, and say it one more time than all the times he had said it during those forty–six years. And the next time all forty–six years plus the one before plus another. And so on. And so on.

The water was lapping up around the cornice of his building, and Hobert crouched further into his rubber raft on its roof, pulling the big blackboard toward him, repeating the phrase, chalking, spraying occasionally.

It wasn't bad enough that he was forced to sit there repeating, repeating, repeating all day, just to stop the rain, there was another worry nagging Hobert's mind.

Though it had stopped raining now, for a while, and though he was fairly safe on the roof of his building, Hobert was worried. For when the weather became damp, he invariably caught laryngitis.

Friendship, that most fleeting of human relationships, seems to me to be one of the most precious. The old saw about “he is a rich man who can truly say he has three true friends” may be saccharine, but it has its merits. The vagaries of the human spirit, particularly in times as debilitating and sorrowful as these, seem almost to stack the deck against lasting friendships. And I wonder how much more valuable and difficult they will be, in our particular future, when man has been consigned to numerous oases in the sea of stars. I think many will find their prejudices and fears being swept away in the face of their needs for companionship, particularly

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world he stands.

– ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Pederson knew night was falling over Syrtis Major; blind, still he knew the Martian night had arrived; the harp crickets had come out. The halo of sun's warmth that had kept him golden through the long day had dissipated, and he could feel the chill of the darkness now. Despite his blindness there was an appreciable
changing
in the shadows that lived where once, long ago, there had been sight.

“Pretrie,” he called into the hush, and the answering echoes from the moon valleys answered and answered,
Pretrie, Pretrie, Pretrie
, down and down, almost to the foot of the small mountain.

“I'm here, Pederson old man. What do you want of me?”

Pederson relaxed in the pneumorack. He had been tense for some time, waiting. Now he relaxed. “Have you been to the temple?”

“I was there. I prayed for many turnings, through three colors.”

It had been many years since Pederson had seen colors. But he knew the Martian's religion was strong and stable because of colors. “And what did the blessed Jilka foretell, Pretrie?”

“Tomorrow will be cupped in the memory of today. And other things.” The silken overtones of the alien's voice were soothing. Though Pederson had never seen the tall, utterly ancient Jilkite, he had passed his arthritic, spatulate fingers over the alien's hairless, teardrop head, had seen by feeling the deep round sockets where eyes glowed, the pug nose, the thin, lipless gash that was mouth. Pederson knew this face as he knew his own, with its wrinkles and sags and protuberances. He knew the Jilkite was so old no man could estimate it in Earth years.

“Do you hear the Gray Man coming yet?”

Pretrie sighed, a lung–deep sigh, and Pederson could hear the inevitable crackling of bones as the alien hunkered down beside the old man's pneumorack.

“He comes but slowly, old man. But he comes. Have patience.”

“Patience,” Pederson chuckled ruminatively. “I got that, Pretrie. I got that and that's about all. I used to have time, too, but now that's about gone. You say he's coming?”

“Coming, old man. Time. Just time.”

“How are the blue shadows, Pretrie?”

“Thick as fur in the moon valleys, old man. Night is coming.”

“Are the moons out?”

There was a breathing through wide nostrils — ritualistically slit nostrils — and the alien replied, “None yet this night. Tayseff and Teei are below the horizon. It grows dark swiftly. Perhaps this night old man.”

“Perhaps,” Pederson agreed.

“Have patience.”

Pederson had not always had patience. As a young man, the blood warm in him, he had fought with his Presby–Baptist father, and taken to space. He had not believed in Heaven, Hell, and the accompanying rigors of the All–Church. Not then. Later, but not then.

To space he had gone, and the years had been good to him. He had aged slowly, healthily, as men do in the dark places between dirt. Yet he had seen the death, and the men who had died believing, the men who had died not believing. And with time had come the realization that he was alone, and that some day, one day, the Gray Man would come for him.

He was always alone, and in his loneliness, when the time came that he could no longer tool the great ships through the star–spaces, he went away.

He went away, searching for a home, and finally came full–circle to the first world he had known; came home to Mars, where he had been young, where his dreams had been born; Mars, for home is always where a man has been young and happy. Came home where the days were warm and the nights were mild. Came home where men had passed but somehow, miraculously, had not sunk their steel and concrete roots. Came home to a home that had changed not at all since he'd been young. And it was time. For blindness had found him, and the slowness that forewarned him of the Gray Man's visit. Blindness from too many glasses of vik and scotch, from too much hard radiation, from too many years of squinting into the vastnesses. Blind, and unable to earn his keep.

So alone, he had come home; as the bird finds the tree, as the winter–starved deer finds the last bit of bark, as the water quenches the thirst. He had come there to wait for the Gray Man, and it was there that the Jilkite Pretrie had found him.

They sat together, silently, on the porch with many things unsaid, yet passing between them.

“Pretrie?”

“Old man.”

“I never asked you what you get out of this. I mean — ”

Pretrie reached and the sound of his claw tapping the Formica table–top came to Pederson. Then the alien was pressing a bulb of water–diluted vik into his hand. “I know what you mean, old man. I have been with you close on two harvestings. I am here. Does that not satisfy you?”

Two harvestings. Equivalent to four years Earth–time, Pederson knew. The Jilkite had come out of the dawn one day, and stayed to serve the old blind man. Pederson had never questioned it. One day he was struggling with the coffee pot (he dearly loved old–fashion brewed coffee and scorned the use of the coffee briquettes) and the heat controls on the hutch . . . the next he had an undemanding, unselfish manservant who catered with dignity and regard to his every desire. It had been a companionable relationship; he had made no great demands on Pretrie, and the alien had asked nothing in return.

He was in no position to wonder or question.

Though he could hear Pretrie's brothers in the chest–high floss brakes at harvesting time, still the Jilkite never wandered far from the hutch.

Now, it was nearing its end.

“It has been easier with you here. I — uh — thanks, Pretrie,” the old man felt the need to say it clearly, without embroidery.

A soft grunt of acknowledgment. “I thank you for allowing me to remain with you, old man, Pederson,” the Jilkite answered softly.

A spot of cool touched Pederson's cheek. At first he thought it was rain, but no more came, and he asked, “What was that?”

The Jilkite shifted — with what Pederson took for discomfort — and answered, “A custom of my race.”

“What?” Pederson persisted.

“A tear, old man. A tear from my eye to your body.”

“Hey, look . . . ” he began, trying to convey his feelings, and realizing
look
was the wrong word. He stumbled on, an emotion coming to him he had long thought dead inside himself. “You don't have to be — uh — you know, sad, Pretrie. I've lived a good life. The Gray Man doesn't scare me.” His voice was brave, but it cracked with the age in the cords.

“My race does not know sadness, Pederson. We know gratitude and companionship and beauty. But not sadness. That is a serious lack, so you have told me, but we do not yearn after the dark and the lost. My tear is a thank you for your kindness.”

“Kindness?”

“For allowing me to remain with you.”

The old man subsided then, waiting. He did not understand. But the alien had found him, and the presence of Pretrie had made things easier for him in these last years. He was grateful, and wise enough to remain silent.

They sat there thinking their own thoughts, and Pederson's mind winnowed the wheat of incidents from the chaff of life spent.

He recalled the days alone in the great ships, and how he had at first laughed to think of his father's religion, his father's words about loneliness: “No man can walk the road without companionship, Will,” his father had said. And he laughed, declaring he was a loner; but now, with the unnameable warmth and presence of the alien here beside him, he knew the truth.

His father had been correct.

It was good to have a friend. Especially when the Gray Man was coming. Strange how he knew it with such calm certainty, but that was the way of it. He knew, and he waited placidly.

After a while, the chill came down off the hills, and Pretrie brought out the treated shawl. He laid it about the old man's thin shoulders, where it clung with warmth; the Jilkite hunkered down on his triple–jointed legs once more.

And they waited in silence as darkness spread across the land.

Some time later, Pederson's voice came from the shadows, a soft rumination. “I don't know, Petrie”.

There was no answer. There had been no question.

“I just don't know. Was it worth it all? The time aspace, the men I've known, the lonely ones who died and the dying ones who were never had the chance to be lonely.”

“All peoples know that ache, old man,” Pretrie said. He drew a deep breath.

“I never thought I needed anyone. I've learned better, Pretrie. Everybody needs somebody.”

“For some the knowledge comes too late; they never have the chance to make use of it.” Pederson had taught the alien little; Pretrie had come to him speaking English. It had been one more puzzling thing about the Jilkite, but again Pederson had not questioned it. There had been many spacers and missionaries on Mars.

Then the alien stiffened, his claw upon the old man's arm. “He comes, Pederson old man.”

A thrill of expectancy, and a shiver of near–fright came with it. Pederson's gray head lifted, and despite the warmth of the shawl he felt cold. So near now. “He's coming?”

“He is here.”

They both sensed it, for Pederson could feel the awareness in the Jilkite beside him; he had grown sensitive to the alien's moods, even as the other had plumbed his own. “The Gray Man,” Pederson spoke the words softly on the night air, and the moon valleys did not respond.

“I'm ready,” said the old man, and he extended his left hand for the grasp. He set down the bulb of vik with his other hand.

The feel of hardening came stealing through him, and it was as though someone had taken his hand in return. Then, as he thought he was to go, alone, he said, “Goodbye to you, Pretrie, friend.”

But there was no goodbye from the alien beside him. Instead, the Jilkite's voice came to him as through a fog softly descending.

“We go together, friend Pederson. The Gray Man comes to all races. Why do you expect me to go alone? Each need is a great one.

“I am here, Gray Man. Here. I am not alone.” Oddly, Pederson knew the Jilkite's claw had been offered, and taken in the clasp.

He closed his blind eyes.

After a great while, the sound of the harp crickets thrummed high once more, and on the porch before the hutch, there was the silence of peace.

Night had come to the lonely lands; night, but not darkness.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“Commuter's Problem” and “In Lonely Lands” appeared in Fantastic Universe, copyright, 1957, 1958, by King–Size Publications, Inc.

“The Very Last Day of a Good Woman” (under the title “The Last Day”), “Deal from the Bottom” and “Do–It–Yourself” (written with Joe L. Hensley) appeared in Rogue Magazine, copyright, 1958, 1960, 1961, by Greenleaf Publishing Company.

“The Silver Corridor” appeared in Infinity Science Fiction, copyright, 1956, by Royal Publications, Inc.

“Gnomebody,” and “The Wind Beyond the Mountains” (under the title “Savage Wind”) appeared in Amazing Stories, copyright, 1956, 1958, by Ziff–Davis Publishing Company.

“Back to the Drawing Boards” appeared in Fantastic Universe, copyright, 1958, by King–Size Publications, Inc.

“The Sky Is Burning” appeared in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, copyright, 1958, by Quinn Publishing Company, Inc.

“Mealtime” (under the title “A Case of Ptomaine”) and “Battlefield” (under the title

“His First Day at War”) appeared in Space Travel Magazine, copyright, 1958, by Greenleaf Publishing Company.

“Nothing for my Noon Meal” appeared in Nebula Science Fiction, copyright, 1958, by Peter Hamilton, Limited (Scotland).

“Hadj” appeared in Science Fiction Adventures, copyright, 1956, by Royal Publications, Inc. and subsequently reprinted in the New York Post Weekend Magazine for October 28, 1956.

“Rain, Rain, Go Away” appeared in Science–Fantasy Magazine, copyright, 1956, by Nova Publications, Limited (England). “All the Sounds of Fear” appeared in the Saint Detective Magazine (French and English editions), copyright, 1962, by Fiction Publishing Company.

Copyright © 1962, 1974 by Harlan Ellison

Renewed © 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4976-0471-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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