Collected Fiction Read online

  “Hey, don’t you ever get tired of staring at that thing?”

  He started at the sound of her voice and turned to face her. “It fascinates me. Ten years of wrangling over color television and all we finally get is a pretty amber glow on a blank screen.”

  “Just be glad it’s only amber,” she said. “Look.” Carefully she untied the string on the box and took the frayed cover off. She set a ribbon-tied package of letters to one side and took out a long slim object wrapped in tissue paper.

  “I put this away fifteen years ago.” She slowly unwrapped it and passed it to him. It was a long green cigarette holder made of some glasslike substance.

  “Ming?”

  “Walgreens. They were on sale for eighty-seven cents. I borrowed seventeen cents from Marcy Thomas and bought it. I only used it once.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “From this could come scar tissue. Where?”

  “At the Winston Roof after the Senior Prom. Bill Hendricks and I had a corner table. He wandered off for some reason or other and I was left alone. The setting wasn’t all that I had dreamed of—most of the people at the other tables looked like the people next door all dressed up for a night out, but there was soft music and the lights weren’t too bright. I was trying to work up nerve enough to take the holder out of my purse, but every time I’d put my fingers on it the lights would seem to get brighter and everybody would seem to be looking at me. Then HE came in and I tenned. Did you ever ten?”

  “Ten?”

  “You know, when there’s something you want to do or have to do but you’re scared to do it so you start a long slow count inside your head and promise yourself that when you get to ten you’ll do whatever it is that’s supposed to be done.”

  “Only half the time you chicken out and jump to twenty.” He grinned reflectively and blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. “I got all the way to forty on my first pick-up.”

  “Stop looking so pleased with yourself. Before you did what?”

  “A proper story has a beginning, a middle, and an end,” he said sternly.

  She tucked her legs under her and curled up like a small grave kitten. “Carry on.”

  “Bob and I were over on the North Side in his dad’s new Terraplane. Women over there were reputed to be easy and eager, and we drove up and down the side streets whistling at the girls. Sometimes they’d look back at us and giggle. We didn’t stop though. Bob would say, ‘Christ, what a couple of pigs,’ or else I’d say it, and we’d drive on sort of relieved. We finally parked by an old beat-up church that had half its windows busted out and sat there listening to the radio. Bob talked about driving out to a roadhouse we’d heard about as being a really rough place, but we both knew they wouldn’t let us in so we didn’t do anything about it. Then a couple of girls walked by and Bob made a crack. They laughed but kept on going. A couple of minutes later they came by again. This time they stopped and one thing led to another and pretty soon Bob had one in front and I had the other in the back seat.

  “We drove out into the country and I was glad of the radio because I couldn’t think of anything to say. I kept smoking one of Bob’s cigarettes after another, not because I wanted them but because the ritual of lighting and puffing gave me something to do with my hands. She didn’t smoke.

  “Bob had his arm around his girl. Mine was sitting way over on the other side of the seat kind of stiff like. The two feet between us seemed like a million miles and I couldn’t figure out how to get across it. Then Bob took a corner fast and she came tumbling over. When we got untangled I had my arm around her and she didn’t seem to mind.

  “Then Bob parked on a side road and he and his girl started to kid back and forth. He’d say something like, ‘Boy, am I hot tonight,’ and she’d say, ‘Don’t be a fuel, crank down the window.’ And then they’d both laugh like crazy and he’d reach over to her and pretty soon they’d be all tangled up.

  “I wanted to try something like that but I was suffering from a sort of personality paralysis. So I started tenning. I must have stretched that count to a good three minutes. When I finally got to ten I couldn’t make it so I went on to twenty. The silence kept getting silenter and I couldn’t think of anything to say so I kept on counting and waiting for the dam to break.”

  “The poor girl,” she said.

  “Poor girl, hell! Poor me. At thirty-nine I almost decided to stretch the count to fifty but f knew that if I did I’d be counting for the rest of the evening, so I pulled her to me and bent my head down. She turned her face up to me and shut her eyes just like in the movies, but her lips were dry and I could feel her teeth through them and neither of us got much out of it. Her name was Edna and she’d eaten something for supper with garlic in it and I could smell the garlic more than I could feel the kiss.

  “After we dropped the girls, I climbed up into the front seat and Bob and I started swapping progress reports. I knew darn well he hadn’t done anything but fool around a bit but to hear him tell about it you’d have thought he had her stripped.

  “ ‘I could have had it,’ he said, ‘but she was a pig.’

  “ ‘Mine was too,’ I said. ‘She was practically begging me; but you know what? She’d been eating garlic. How do you like that?’

  “ ‘What do you expect from a pig,’ said Bob.”

  There was silence in the apartment and then he lifted his head suddenly. “Now how in the hell did I get off on that?”

  She laughed. “You were tenning.”

  “Oh, yeah. So were you. Sorry to cut in on you like that.”

  “Don’t give it a thought. It’s all out of the same cloth.” She looked down at the long green cigarette holder and twisted it reflectively between her fingers. “You made out better than I did. I wasn’t able to salvage anything.

  “He was tall and dark and he wore his tuxedo beautifully. He stood by the entrance as if he were waiting for somebody. Then he shrugged his shoulders and started across the room in my direction. I reached in my purse for the holder, but my fingers froze so I started tenning. He stopped at somebody’s table and said something. They offered him a chair but he shook his head. I tenned twice before I got the holder out. There was a panicky minute when I couldn’t get the cigarette in but I finally made it. It took two matches to get it going.

  “He started across the floor again. I could see he was going to walk right by my table and I was all set. I put a bored expression on my face, tilted my head, lifted my beautiful jade holder, and after inhaling slowly, started to let the smoke trickle out through my nostrils.”

  There was a sudden shrill of a whistle from the street and an angry voice roared up. “Hey, you on third! Either close those curtains tight or switch off your lights. You’re letting enough light through to be spotted ten miles away.”

  “I wonder if he means us,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Turn off the lamp.”

  “I don’t like to smoke in the dark. Shut the window. The wind must be blowing the black-out curtains open.”

  “It’ll be too hot in here with no air,” he protested.

  “So you can mix yourself a cold drink. Hurry up before he puts a couple of bullets through the window. The wardens have been getting awfully jumpy the last week or so.”

  “Can’t blame them,” he said and shut the window.

  “Mix me one while you’re at it.”

  “I don’t want a drink, I want a decent smoke. I wonder if McGarvy’s is still open.”

  “Even if he is, it won’t do you any good. You’d be lucky to get half way there before some guardsman potted you for a chutist.”

  He sighed, tore another rectangle from the second sheet, and began to poke around in his ashtray for the most presentable of the remaining butts.

  “Look,” she said, “do you want to hear the rest of this story or don’t you!”

  “What story?” he asked vaguely as he licked the white cylinder. He examined it and then stuck out his tongue and licked it again. “Take
s a lot of spit to make these things hold.”

  “My story, you dope. The story of the green jade cigarette holder.”

  He flicked his lighter, puffed, and coughed. “Go ahead.”

  “As he came by the table I looked up at him through half-closed eyes and smiled mysteriously.”

  “And?”

  “He stopped dead in his tracks and said ‘Jesus Christ’ so loud that everybody heard him and looked at me. He was a gentleman, though, he didn’t laugh even though the rest of them did. He just got a strangled look on his face and made a bee-line for the men’s room.”

  “That was a sadder story than mine.”

  “I don’t know, he hadn’t been eating garlic. At least I assume he hadn’t.”

  “Damn!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Cigarette fell apart.”

  There was a sudden distant barking as the guns out beyond the airport began to thud away. The amber “alert” glow on the television screen was replaced by an angry red.

  “Bill.”

  “Yes?”

  “How fast does sound travel?”

  “Seven or eight hundred miles an hour. Why?”

  “If it should hit down by the depot, how long would it be before we could hear it?”

  “Isn’t that a rather academic question?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Five or six seconds I guess.”

  She switched out the lamp. “Open the curtains, I want to see.”

  “I thought you were interested in hearing.”

  “I want to see it when it hits.”

  “All right.” He pulled open the curtains and raised the window.

  “The breeze has stopped.”

  There were flashes and distant crackles directly overhead.

  “They’re coming in high. You might as well smoke that butt you’ve been hoarding. There’s no use saving it now.”

  “Can I use my green jade cigarette holder?”

  “If you’ll save me first butts.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  There was a spurt of flame in the darkness and then the red glowing tip of the cigarette.

  “I hate to smoke in the dark.”

  “Turn on the lamp.”

  “What about the warden?”

  “To hell with the warden. That’s better.” She blew a puff of smoke in his face.

  “Maybe if we went down in the basement . . .”

  “With the new heavy ones?”

  “I guess you’re right,” he said. “Hey, save me a drag! You’re a pig.”

  “Deodorized, though. Count to ten.”

  “It won’t last that long.”

  “Count fast.”

  “One.”

  The sky toward the depot turned to sun.

  “Here, darling. I’m not a pig.”

  “Four.”

  “Kiss me!”

  “Sev . . .”

  THE END

  THE OTHER CHEEK

  Carpenter liked the quiet life, until they put him on a military ship he couldn’t operate and tossed him up against an enemy that couldn’t be there. Then he discovered his military etiquette was wrong!

  All things being considered, Pilot Officer Kit Carpenter was as calm as a young and somewhat unwilling reserve officer who had never seen a planet blown up in anger could be expected to be when his ship was about to be blasted out from underneath him. His only outward sign of agitation was the way in which his eyes kept shifting back and forth as he tried to focus them simultaneously on the image of authority on his number one telescreen and the image of wrath on his number two. He was trying to consult the first about the second but he wasn’t getting very far.

  “Can’t hear you, sir,” he bellowed to the figure on the first screen.

  Commander Simmons’ voice sounded back faintly through the surrounding din. “Turn off your hooter, you knucklehead!”

  Kit gave an abashed start and punched a stud on the control board in front of him. The raucous beep BLOOP beep BLOOP of the alarm siren that had been echoing through the deserted companionways and empty compartments of the old freighter dwindled to a last despairing squawk and silence.

  “Well?” said the commander sourly. He obviously wasn’t happy about wasting his time.

  “WCD! Six o’clock at thirty-seven degrees. What do I do now?”

  There was a moment of silence and then Commander Simmons snorted.

  “The first thing you can do is to familiarize yourself with your code book. For your information, WCD means ‘enemy spacecraft preparing to attack. When you’ve checked that, you might also take a look at your Officer’s Guide and brief yourself on the proper way to report to a superior officer!”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Kit, “but I thought . . .”

  “Pilot officers aren’t supposed to think,” growled the other. “They’re supposed to pilot. Now if it’s not asking too much—your name, ship, and destination!”

  Kit was trying desperately to sit at attention, but in spite of his best efforts, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the other telescreen.

  “When you’re being addressed by a superior,” the commander continued, “look him square in the face. The service has no place for shifty-eyed officers. Now report!”

  “Pilot Officer Kit Carpenter, sir. Auxiliary freighter Pelican on courier detail. I’m supposed to rendezvous with a guard squadron some place around here and continue on to Saar with them. I’ve a pouch for Space Marshall Kincaide.”

  “That’s better,” said the commander. “We’re the outfit you’re looking for. Now what’s your trouble? It better be serious enough to justify that all-channel alarm you just blatted out or you’re going to find yourself on report.”

  “WCD,” said Kit. “Begging your pardon, sir, but there is an enemy spacecraft preparing to attack.”

  The commander jerked himself erect in his seat. “What!” He swung as if to bark an order and then caught himself and looked back at Kit with a dubious expression on his face.

  “Are you sure you aren’t seeing things? Let’s have a look at what’s out there.”

  After a moment’s fumbling Kit managed to swing his number two plate around on its gimbals so the commander could see it.

  “There she is, sir. She must have on her battle black because all that comes through on visual is a big blur.”

  Commander Simmons sighed and relaxed in his seat. “Sorry to disappoint, you, Carpenter, but it would take a star class cruiser to throw a smudge that size. And star class cruisers don’t go around jumping on auxiliary freighters. What do you get on your radar scope? Battle black won’t soak up UHF.”

  Kit squirmed unhappily. “Nothing, sir. But . . .” Kit stammered to an embarrassed stop.

  “Stop stuttering! What’s the matter, your scanner out of kilter?”

  “Not exactly . . .” The words came out in a rush. “The truth is that I just don’t know how to operate the darn thing. I missed that lecture when I was taking basic.”

  “You what?” howled the commander.

  Kit’s look of embarrassment was becoming chronic. “You see, Commander, I’m a Planetary Ferry Command service pilot and . . .”

  Simmons clapped his hands dramatically to his head. “Oh, no! Are they going crazy back home? What’s a peefee doing out in deep space?”

  “Couldn’t we go into that later, sir? I’m about to be blown apart.”

  “Stop that nonsense!” snapped the commander. “When a superior officer asks you a question, you will give him a direct answer.”

  Kit looked unhappily at the blur on his other screen. “This was a rush job and there weren’t any fleet pilots available so they punched out a navigation tape for me and sent me out on full automatic. They said once I made contact with you, you’d take me in the rest of the way. I came out of warp ten minutes ago and this baby jumped me. I’ve got three minutes to surrender or else.”

  “For your information,” said the commander with a strained s
weetness in his voice, “ships of one system do not attack ships of another without a prior declaration of war. We are not at war. Do I make myself clear? You’ve probably got a bug in your detection gear that’s throwing a shadow on your screen.”

  “Commander,” said Kit doggedly, “maybe we aren’t at war with anybody, but somebody is sure at war with us. Or with me anyway. Fouled up detectors don’t talk. Whatever it is that’s out there does. If I don’t surrender within the next couple of minutes she’s going to open fire!”

  On the innermost planet of the system of Saar, the hundred and twenty-seventh consecutive meeting of the respective liberation forces of the Solar Alliance and the Polarian Empire were under way. In one tent Space Marshall Kincaide, Supreme Commander, Solar Expeditionary Forces, and His Royal Highness, Prince Tarz, Duke of the Outer Marches and War Lord of the Imperial Polarian Fleet, had passed from the table thumping stage and were now busily engaged in trying to outshout each other. Off in one corner by himself, his usual dignity completely surrendered, sat the unhappy representative of the Saarians, his eyes closed and his hands pressed tightly against his ears. As usual, nobody was paying him the slightest attention.

  Two tents down, the sub-commission on the exchange of civilian prisoners was in full session. Since there were no civilian prisoners to be exchanged, they were passing time by showing each other pictures of wives and fiancées. Both Terrestrials and Polarians were finding the exchange rather stimulating because, though female anatomical structure was the same in both systems, ideas as to which areas of the body should be clothed as a matter of natural modesty varied greatly.

  Back of the cookhouse a couple of privates were shooting craps. The Earthman had already taken over the Polarian’s thurk skin and was busy working on his green battle beard. The dice weren’t loaded, but they were a little flat on one side.

  Squadron Commander Simmons knew that Kit couldn’t be in any real trouble, but he found himself wishing half consciously that he were. The commander was facing technological unemployment and he wasn’t happy about it. He had a vested interest in the. coming war—and now the coming war wasn’t coming. Once the stellite deposits on Saar—which, as everyone agreed, the Saarians had little use for, having no expensive battle fleet to maintain—were equitably divided between Earth and Polarius, there would no longer be any necessity for a show of force, and the reserve components of the Solar Fleet would be demobilized.