The Very Best of F & SF v1 (7 page)

Smith did not
know why, but for the first time since he had come to the rock, he felt cold.
He looked unhappily seaward. A ragged, wistful, handled phrase blew by his
consciousness:
save her from
herself.
It made him feel unaccountably noble.

She said
faintly, “Are you... have you... I mean, if you don’t mind my asking, you don’t
have to tell me...”

“What is it?” he
asked gently, moving close to her. She was huddled unhappily on the edge of the
shelf. She didn’t turn to him, but she didn’t move away.

“Married, or
anything?” she whispered.

“Oh gosh no.
Never. I suppose I had hopes once or twice, but no, oh gosh no.”

“Why not?”

“I never met
a... well, they all... You remember what I said about a touch of strange?”

“Yes, yes...”

“Nobody had it...
Then I got it, and... put it this way, I never met a girl I could tell about
the mermaid.”

The remark
stretched itself and lay down comfortably across their laps, warm and
increasingly audible, while they sat and regarded it. When he was used to it,
he bent his head and turned his face toward where he imagined hers must be,
hoping for some glint of expression. He found his lips resting on hers. Not
pressing, not cowering. He was still, at first from astonishment, and then in
bliss. She sat up straight with her arms braced behind her and her eyes wide
until his mouth slid away from hers. It was a very gentle thing.

Mermaids love to
kiss. They think it excruciatingly funny. So Smith knew what it was like to
kiss one. He was thinking about that while his lips lay still and sweetly on
those of Jane Dow. He was thinking that the mermaid’s lips were not only cold,
but dry and not completely flexible, like the carapace of a soft-shell crab.
The mermaid’s tongue, suited to the eviction of whelk and the scything of kelp,
could draw blood. (It never had, but it could.) And her breath smelt of fish.

He said, when he
could, “What were you thinking?”

She answered,
but he could not hear her.

“What?”

She murmured
into his shoulder, “His teeth all point inwards.”

Aha, he thought.

“John,” she said
suddenly, desperately, “there’s one thing you must know now and forever more. I
know just how things were between you and
her
, but what you have to understand is that it wasn’t the same with
me. I want you to know the truth right from the very beginning, and now we don’t
need to wonder about it or talk about it ever again.”

“Oh you’re fine,”
John Smith choked. “So fine... Let’s go. Let’s get out of here before—before
moonrise.”

Strange how she
fell into the wrong and would never know it (for they never discussed it
again), and forgave him and drew from that a mightiness; for had she not
defeated the most lawless, the loveliest of rivals?

Strange how he
fell into the wrong and forgave her, and drew from his forgiveness a lasting
pride and a deep certainty of her eternal gratitude.

Strange how the
moon had risen long before they left, yet the mermaid and the merman never came
at all, feeling things as they strangely do.

And John swam in
the dark sea slowly, solicitous, and Jane swam, and they separated on the dark
beach and dressed, and met again at John’s car, and went to the lights where
they saw each other at last; and when it was time, they fell well and truly in
love, and surely that is the strangest touch of all.

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Contents

Of all the contributors to this book,
William Tenn is the only one who also worked on the magazine’s in-house
staff—he was our assistant editor in the late 1950s, during which time he gave
valuable guidance to his friend and neighbor, Dan Keyes (but that’s another
tale for another time—oh, OK, if you must know, look it up in our May 2000
issue). Mr. Tenn—whose real name is Philip Klass—published dozens of short
stories, mostly in the 1940s through the ’60s, after which he focused on a
career in academia. “Eastward Ho!” is a great example of his imaginative
storytelling and his love of history and extrapolation.

The
New Jersey Turnpike
had been hard on the horses.
South of New Brunswick the potholes had been so deep, the scattered boulders so
plentiful, that the two men had been forced to move at a slow trot, to avoid
crippling their three precious animals. And, of course, this far south, farms
were nonexistent: they had been able to eat nothing but the dried provisions in
the saddlebags, and last night they had slept in a roadside service station,
suspending their hammocks between the tilted, rusty gas pumps.

But it was still
the best, the most direct route, Jerry Franklin knew. The Turnpike was a
government road: its rubble was cleared semiannually. They had made excellent
time and come through without even developing a limp in the pack horse. As they
swung out on the last lap, past the riven tree stump with the words TRENTON
EXIT carved on its side, Jerry relaxed a bit. His father, his father’s
colleagues, would be proud of him. And he was proud of himself.

But the next
moment, he was alert again. He roweled his horse, moved up alongside his
companion, a young man of his own age.

“Protocol,”. he
reminded. “I’m the leader here. You know better than to ride ahead of me this
close to Trenton.”

He hated to pull
rank. But facts were facts, and if a subordinate got above himself he was
asking to be set down. After all, he was the son—and the oldest son, at that—of
the Senator from Idaho; Sam Rutherford’s father was a mere Undersecretary of
State and Sam’s mother’s family was pure post office clerk all the way back.

Sam nodded
apologetically and reined his horse back the proper couple of feet. “Thought I
saw something odd,” he explained. “Looked like an advance party on the side of
the road—and I could have sworn they were wearing buffalo robes.”

“Seminole don’t
wear buffalo robes, Sammy. Don’t you remember your sophomore political science?”

“I never had any
political science, Mr. Franklin: I was an engineering major. Digging around in
ruins has always been my dish. But, from the little I know, I didn’t
think
buffalo robes went
with the Seminole. That’s why I was—”

“Concentrate on
the pack horse,” Jerry advised. “Negotiations are my job.”

As he said this,
he was unable to refrain from touching the pouch upon his breast with rippling
fingertips. Inside it was his commission, carefully typed on one of the last
precious sheets of official government stationery (and it was not one whit less
official because the reverse side had been used years ago as a scribbled
interoffice memo) and signed by the President himself. In ink!

The existence of
such documents was important to a man in later life. He would have to hand it
over, in all probability, during the conferences, but the commission to which
it attested would be on file in the capitol up north. And, when his father
died, and he took over one of the two hallowed Idaho seats, it would give him
enough stature to make an attempt at membership on the Appropriations
Committee. Or, for that matter, why not go the whole hog— the Rules Committee
itself? No Senator Franklin had ever been a member of the Rules Committee....

The two envoys
knew they were on the outskirts of Trenton when they passed the first gangs of
Jerseyites working to clear the road. Frightened faces glanced at them briefly,
and quickly bent again to work. The gangs were working without any visible
supervision. Evidently the Seminole felt that simple instructions were
sufficient.

But as they rode
into the blocks of neat ruins that were the city proper and still came across
nobody more important than white men, another explanation began to occur to
Jerry Franklin. This all had the look of a town still at war, but where were
the combatants? Almost certainly on the other side of Trenton, defending the
Delaware River—that was the direction from which the new rulers of Trenton
might fear attack—not from the north where there was only the United States of
America.

But if that were
so, who in the world could they be defending against? Across the Delaware to
the south there was nothing but more Seminole. Was it possible—was it possible
that the Seminole had at last fallen to fighting among themselves?

Or was it
possible that Sam Rutherford had been right? Fantastic. Buffalo robes in
Trenton! There should be no buffalo robes closer than a hundred miles westward,
in Harrisburg.

But when they
turned onto State Street, Jerry bit his lip in chagrin. Sam had seen correctly,
which made him one up.

Scattered over the
wide lawn of the gutted state capitol were dozens of wigwams. And the tall,
dark men who sat impassively, or strode proudly among the wigwams, all wore
buffalo robes. There was no need even to associate the paint on their faces
with a remembered lecture in political science: these were Sioux.

So the
information that had come drifting up to the government about the identity of
the invader was totally inaccurate—as usual. Well, you couldn’t expect
communication miracles over this long a distance. But that inaccuracy made
things difficult. It might invalidate his commission for one thing: his
commission was addressed directly to Osceola VII, Ruler of All the Seminoles.
And if Sam Rutherford thought this gave him a right to preen himself—

He looked back
dangerously. No, Sam would give no trouble. Sam knew better than to dare an
I-told-you-so. At his leader’s look, the son of the Undersecretary of State
dropped his eyes groundwards to immediate humility.

Satisfied, Jerry
searched his memory for relevant data on recent political relationships with
the Sioux. He couldn’t recall much—just the provisions of the last two or three
treaties. It would have to do.

He drew up
before an important-looking warrior and carefully dismounted. You might get
away with talking to a Seminole while mounted, but not the Sioux. The Sioux
were very tender on matters of protocol with white men.

“We come in
peace,” he said to the warrior standing as impassively straight as the spear he
held, as stiff and hard as the rifle on his back. “We come with a message of
importance and many gifts to your chief. We come from New York, the home of our
chief.” He thought a moment, then added: “You know, the Great White Father?”

Immediately, he
was sorry for the addition. The warrior chuckled briefly; his eyes lit up with
a lightning-stroke of mirth. Then his face was expressionless again, and
serenely dignified as befitted a man who had counted coup many times.

“Yes,” he said. “I
have heard of him. Who has not heard of the wealth and power and far dominions
of the Great White Father? Come. I will take you to our chief. Walk behind me,
white man.”

Jerry motioned
Sam Rutherford to wait.

At the entrance
to a large, expensively decorated tent, the Indian stood aside and casually
indicated that Jerry should enter.

It was dim
inside, but the illumination was rich enough to take Jerry’s breath away. Oil
lamps! Three of them! These people lived well.

A century ago,
before the whole world had gone smash in the last big war, his people had owned
plenty of oil lamps themselves. Better than oil lamps, perhaps, if one could
believe the stories the engineers told around the evening fires. Such stories
were pleasant to hear, but they were glories of the distant past. Like the
stories of overflowing granaries and chock-full supermarkets, they made you
proud of the history of your people, but they did nothing for you now. They
made your mouth water, but they didn’t feed you.

The Indians
whose tribal organization had been the first to adjust to the new conditions,
in the all-important present, the Indians had the granaries, the Indians had
the oil lamps. And the Indians...

There were two
nervous white men serving food to the group squatting on the floor. An old man,
the chief, with a carved, chunky body. Three warriors, one of them surprisingly
young for council. And a middle-aged Negro, wearing the same bound-on rags as
Franklin, except that they looked a little newer, a little cleaner.

Jerry bowed low
before the chief, spreading his arms apart, palms down.

“I come from New
York, from our chief,” he mumbled. In spite of himself, he was more than a
little frightened. He wished he knew their names so that he could relate them
to specific events. Although he knew what their names would be
like—approximately. The Sioux, the Seminole, all the Indian tribes renascent in
power and numbers, all bore names garlanded with anachronism. That queer
mixture of several levels of the past, overlaid always with the cocky,
expanding present. Like the rifles
and
the spears, one for the reality of fighting, the other for the
symbol that was more important than reality. Like the use of wigwams on
campaign, when, according to the rumors that drifted smokily across country,
their slave artisans could now build the meanest Indian noble a damp-free, draft-proof
dwelling such as the President of the United States, lying on his special straw
pallet, did not dream about. Like paint-spattered faces peering through newly
reinvented, crude microscopes. What had microscopes been like? Jerry tried to
remember the Engineering Survey Course he’d taken in his freshman year—and drew
a blank. All the same, the Indians were so queer,
and
so
awesome. Sometimes you
thought that destiny had meant them to be conquerors, with a conqueror’s
careless inconsistency. Sometimes...

He noticed that
they were waiting for him to continue. “From our chief,” he repeated hurriedly.
“I come with a message of importance and many gifts.”

“Eat with us,” the
old man said. “Then you will give us your gifts and your message.”

Gratefully,
Jerry squatted on the ground a short distance from them. He was hungry, and
among the fruit in the bowls he had seen something that must be an orange. He
had heard so many arguments about what oranges tasted like!

After a while,
the old man said, “I am Chief Three Hydrogen Bombs. This”—pointing to the young
man— “is my son, Makes Much Radiation. And this”—pointing to the middle-aged
Negro— “is a sort of compatriot of yours.”

At Jerry’s
questioning look, and the chiefs raised finger of permission, the Negro explained.
“Sylvester Thomas. Ambassador to the Sioux from the Confederate States of
America.”

“The
Confederacy? She’s still alive? We heard ten years ago—”

“The Confederacy
is very much alive, sir. The Western Confederacy, that is, with its capitol at
Jackson, Mississippi. The Eastern Confederacy, the one centered at Richmond,
Virginia, did go down under the Seminole. We have been more fortunate. The
Arapahoe, the Cheyenne, and”—with a nod to the chief—” especially the Sioux, if
I may say so, sir, have been very kind to us. They allow us to live in peace,
so long as we till the soil quietly and pay our tithes.”

“Then would you
know, Mr. Thomas—” Jerry began eagerly. “That is... the Lone Star
Republic—Texas—Is it possible that Texas, too... ?”

Mr. Thomas
looked at the door of the wigwam unhappily. “Alas, my good sir, the Republic of
the Lone Star Flag fell before the Kiowa and the Comanche long years ago when I
was still a small boy. I don’t remember the exact date, but I do know it was
before even the last of California was annexed by the Apache
and
the Navajo, and well before the nation of the Mormons under the august
leadership of—”

Makes Much
Radiation shifted his shoulders back and forth and flexed his arm muscles. “All
this talk,” he growled. “Paleface talk. Makes me tired.”

“Mr. Thomas is
not a paleface,” his father told him sharply. “Show respect! He’s our guest and
an accredited ambassador—you’re not to use a word like paleface in his
presence!”

One of the
other, older warriors near the chief spoke up. “In the old days, in the days of
the heroes, a boy of Makes Much Radiation’s age would not dare raise his voice
in council before his father. Certainly not to say the things he just has. I
cite as reference, for those interested, Robert Lowie’s definitive volume,
The Crow Indians
, and
Lesser’s fine piece of anthropological insight,
Three Types of Siouan Kinship.
Now, whereas we have not yet been able to reconstruct a Siouan
kinship pattern on the classic model described by Lesser, we have developed a
working arrangement that—”