STALKING THE NIGHTMARE

STALKING THE NIGHTMARE
HARLAN ELLISON
PHANTASiA PRESS
Huntington Woods, Michigan

STALKING THE NIGHTMARE Published by Phantasia Press, 13101 Lincoln,
Huntington Woods, Michigan 48070
Copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. Published by arrangement
with the Author. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage
and retrieval systems without explicit permission in writing from the Author or
the Author's agent, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review
to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio
or television. For information address Author's agent: Richard Curtis Associates,
Inc.; 340 East 66th Street; New York, New York 10021.
All persons, places and organizations in this book—except those clearly in the
public domain or used with permission—are fictitious; and any resemblance to
actual persons, places or organizations living, dead or defunct, is purely coinci-
dental. With the exception of four essays of non-fiction labeled "Scenes From The
Real World," these are works of fiction.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Foreword copyright © 1982 by Stephen King.
Cover art copyright © 1982 by Jane Mackenzie.
"The Cheese Stands Alone" appeared in Amazing Stories. Copyright © 1981 by
The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Blank . . ." appeared in Infinity. Copyright © 1957 by Royal Publications, Inc.
Copyright reassigned to Author 18 September 1959. Copyright © 1979 by Harlan
Ellison.
"The Outpost Undiscovered by Tourists" appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy
& Science Fiction. Copyright © 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"The 3 Most Important Things in Life" appeared in Oui. Copyright © 1978 by
Playboy Publications, Inc. Copyright reassigned to Author 20 March 1979. Copy-
right © 1979 by Harlan Ellison.
"Visionary" (written in collaboration with Joe L. Hensley) appeared in Amaz-
ing Stories. Copyright © 1959 by ZiS-Davis Publishing Company. Copyright reas-
signed to Author 6 January 1981. Copyright © 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corpora-
tion. This work has been completely revised for this publication; copyright © 1982
by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Djinn, No Chaser" appeared in The Twilight Zone magazine. Copyright ©
1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Invasion Footnote" (pseudonymously-bylined "Cordwainer Bird") appeared in
Super-Science Fiction. Copyright © 1957 by Headline Publications, Inc. This work
has been completely revised for this publication; new version copyright © 1982
by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Saturn, November 11th" appeared as Installment 6 of the Author's column An
Edge In My Voice in Future Life magazine (March 1981). Copyright © 1981 by
The Kilimanjaro Corporation. Subsequent publication in Astronomy magazine
(August 1981). Copyright © 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Night of Black Glass" appeared in Beyond. Copyright © 1981 by The
Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Final Trophy" appeared in Super-Science Fiction. Copyright © 1957 by Head-
[continued]

line Publications, Inc. This work has been revised for this publication; new version
copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"l!!The!!Teddy!Crazy!!Show!!!" appeared in Adam magazine. Copyright © 1968
by Knight Publishing Corporation. Copyright reassigned to Author 23 March 1970.
Copyright © 1970 by Harlan Ellison.
"Grail" appeared in The Twilight Zone magazine. Copyright © 1981 by The
Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Somehow, I Don't Think We're In Kansas, Toto" (in a shortened version) ap-
peared in Genesis magazine. Copyright © 1974 by Harlan Ellison. Subsequent
publication as the introduction to PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES (Fawcett Gold
Medal Book) by Edward Bryant & Harlan Ellison, also in a shortened version).
Copyright © 1975 by Edward W. Bryant, Jr. and Harlan Ellison. This work has
been restored to its original form and expanded for this publication; new version
copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Transcending Destiny" (under the title "School for Assassins" and pseudony-
mously-bylined "Ellis Hart") appeared in Amazing Stories. Copyright © 1957 by
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 6 January 1981.
Copyright © 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. This work has been revised
for this publication; new version copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Cor-
poration.
"The Hour That Stretches" appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science
Fiction. Copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"The Day I Died" appeared as Installment 10 of the Author's column The
Harlan Ellison Hornbook in the Los Angeles Free Press (5-15 January 1973).
Copyright © 1973 by Harlan Ellison.
"Tracking Level" appeared in Amazing Stories. Copyright © 1956 by Ziff-Davis
Publishing Company. Copyright reassigned to Author 6 January 1981. Copyright
© 1981 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. This work has been revised for this
publication; new version copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Tiny Ally" appeared in Saturn, Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Copyright © 1957 by Candar Publishing Co., Inc.
"The Goddess in the Ice" appeared in Adam Bedside Reader. Copyright © 1967
by Knight Publishing Corp. Copyright reassigned to Author 23 March 1970. Copy-
right © 1970 by Harlan Ellison. This work has been revised for this publication;
new version copyright © 1982 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
"Gopher in the Gilly" appears here for the first time. Copyright © 1982 by The
Kilimanjaro Corporation.
The following stories included in this volume previously appeared in substantially
different form in the Author's 1970 collection OVER THE EDGE: "Blank . . .";
"Final Trophy"; "!!!The!!Teddy!Crazy!!Show!!!"; "Tiny Ally." This previous vol-
ume is out-of-print and will not be reissued by the Author's intent. These stories
are available only in the present title.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Author, besotted with humility, would like to take this oppor-
tunity to thank all the little people whose support and assistance
made his climb to the top possible: Lemuel Gulliver; Billy Barty;
General Tom Thumb; Barbie & Ken; Dr. Miguelito Loveless; the
representative of the Lollipop Guild; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec;
Scott Carey, the Incredible Shrinking Man; Tattoo; and all the
gang over at Dr. Cyclops's.
But seriously, folks. I couldn't'a done it widdout'cha, friends:
Diana Adkins, Sid Altus, Isaac Asimov; Richard Fontaine, Dale
Hardman, Bobbie J. Kroman and Willie Wilson of B. Dalton
Bookstores; Greg Bear, Alex Berman, Arthur Bernhard, Ben
Bova, Mayer Alan Brenner, Jeff Bridges, Edward W. Bryant, Jr.;
Sharon Buck, Mark Carlton, Alan Chudnow, (Ms.) Marty Clark,
Jon Clarke, Ed Coffey, Catherine Crowell; Arthur Byron Cover,
Lydia Marano and Linda Mayfield of the Dangerous Visions
Bookstore in Sherman Oaks, California; Buzz Dixon, Clint East-
wood, Audrey and Edward L. Ferman, Charles Garcia, Mel Gil-
den, Joanne Gutreimen, Burt Handelsman, C.E.; James Haralson,
Joe L. Hensley, Walter Hill, Richard Hoagland, Michael Hodel,
Nancy Hodel, Terry Hodel, Stephen King, Steve Kirk, T.E.D.
Klein, Cele Goldsmith Lalli, Shelley Levinson, Barry R. Levin,
Tim Lewis; Jane Mackenzie in a class by herself; Elinor Mavor,
Jon R. McKenzie, Larry McMurtry, Joyce Muskat, Sharon
O'Hara, Frank Olynyk, Jerry Pournelle, Eric Protter, John
Ratner, Mary Riordon, Jeff Rubenstein, Bonnie Sue Russell, Jared
Rutter; John Sack, W.W. Scott, Larry T. Shaw, Robert Silverberg,
Judith Sims, Tad Stones, William Stout, Genadie Sverlow, Leslie
Kay Swigart, the impossible-to-locate Mike Taylor; Emily Boxer

viii
and Tom Brokaw and Jessica Savitch of the NBC Today Show;
Dan Turner, (Ms.) Randall Warner, and my former editor at Fu-
ture Life, the long-suffering Bob Woods.
For each and all of you, a blessing of the 18th Egyptian dynasty:
"God be between you and harm in all the empty places you
walk."

In every possible way
this book is for
(Ms.) MARTY CLARK

CONTENTS
Foreword by Stephen King	1
Introduction: QUIET LIES THE LOCUST TELLS	13
GRAIL	21
THE OUTPOST UNDISCOVERED BY TOURISTS	47
BLANK...	55
Scenes From The Real World: I
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE	65
VISIONARY (written with Joe L. Hensley)	83
DJINN, NO CHASER	97
INVASION FOOTNOTE	119
Scenes From The Real World: 11
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th	129
NIGHT OF BLACK GLASS	141
FINAL TROPHY	153
!! !THE! !TEDDY!CRAZY! !SHOW!!!	167
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE	177
Scenes From The Real World: 111
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS,
TOTO	193
TRANSCENDING DESTINY	211
THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES	237
THE DAY I DIED	259
3 Tales From the Mountains of Madness:
TRACKING LEVEL	269
TINY ALLY	281
THE GODDESS IN THE ICE	287
Scenes From The Real World: IV
GOPHER IN THE G1LLY	295

I don't have much patience with the facts,
and any writer is a congenital liar to begin
with or he wouldn't take up writing ... I
write to say No to death ... an artist is a
creature driven by demons. He don't usually
know why they chose him and he's usually too
busy to wonder why . . .
—WILLIAM FA ULKNER

STALKING THE NIGHTMARE

FOREWORD
STEPHEN KING

FOREWORD
STEPHEN KING
It drives my wife crazy, and I'm sorry it does, but I can't really
help it.
All the little sayings and homilies.
Such as: There's a heartbeat in every potato; you need that like
a hen needs a flag; I'd trust him about as far as I could sling a
piano; use it up, wear it out, do it in, or do without; you'll never
be hung for your beauty; fools' names, and their faces, are often
seen in public places.
I could go on and on. I got a million of 'em. I got them all from
my mother, who got them all from her mother. Little kernels of
wisdom. Cosmic fortune-cookies, if you like.
They drive my wife absolutely BUGFUCK.
"But honey," I'll say in my best placatory voice (I'm a very
placatory fellow, when I'm not writing about vampires and psy-
chotic killers), "there's a lot of truth in those sayings. There really
is a heartbeat in every potato. The proof of the pudding really is
in the eating. And handsome really is as—" But I can see that it
would be foolish to continue. My wife, who can be extremely rude
when it serves her purpose, is pretending to throw up. My four-
year-old son walks in from the shower, naked, dripping water all
over the floor and the bed (my side of the bed, of course), and
also begins to make throwing-up noises.
She is obviously teaching him to hate me and revile me. It's
probably all Oedipal and sexual and neo-Jungian and dirty as hell.
But I have the last laugh.
Two days later, while this self-same kid is debating which card
to throw away in a hot game of Crazy Eights, my nine-year-old

STEPHEN KING
FOREWORD
4
son tells him, "Let me look at your hand, Owen. I'll tell you
which card to throw away."
Owen looks at him coldly. Calculatingly. Pulls his cards slowly
against his chest. And with a humorless grin he says: "Joey, I'd
trust you just about as far as I'd spring a piano."
My wife begins to scream and roll around on the floor, foaming,
pulling her hair out in great clots, drumming her heels, crying out:
"I WANT A DIVORCE! THIS MAN HAS CORRUPTED MY
CHILDREN AND I WANT A FUCKING DIVORCE!"
My heart glows with the warmth of fulfillment (or maybe it's
just acid indigestion). My mother's homilies have slipped into the
minds of yet another generation, just as chemical waste has a way
of seeping into the water-table. I think: Ah-hah-hah-hah! Another
triumph for us bog-cutters! Long live the Irish!
Another of this wonderful woman's wonderful sayings (I told
you—I got a million of 'em; don't make me prove it) was "Milk
always takes the flavor of what's next to it in the icebox." Not a
very useful saying, you might think, but I suspect it's not only the
reason I'm writing this introduction, but the reason I'm writing it
the way I'm writing it.
Does it sound like Harlan wrote it?
It does?
That's because I just finished the admirable book which follows.
For the last four days I have been, so to speak, sitting next to
Harlan in the icebox. I am not copying his style; nothing as low as
that. I have, rather, taken a brief impression of his style, the way
that, when we were kids, we used to be able to take a brief im-
pression of Beetle Bailey or Blondie from the Sunday funnies with
a piece of Silly Putty (headline in the New York Times Book
Review: KING OFFERS EERILY APT METAPHOR FOR
HIS OWN MIND!!).
How do I know this is what has happened? I know because I
have been writing hard for about twenty-five years now—which
means (as Harlan, or Ray Bradbury, or John Crowley, or any
other writer worth his or her salt will tell you) that I have also
been reading hard. The two go together. I am always chilled and
astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and
admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is
like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he "didn't have
time to buy any rope or pitons."

5
And part of the dues you pay while you're doing this hard read-
ing, particularly if you start your period of hard writing as a teen-
ager (as most of us did—God knows there are exceptions, but not
many), is that you find yourself writing like whoever you're read-
ing that week. If you're reading RED NAILS, your current short
story sounds like that old Hyborian Cowboy, Robert E. Howard.
If you've been reading FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, your stuff
sounds like Raymond Chandler. You're milk, and you taste like
whatever was next to you in the refrigerator that week.
But this is where the metaphor breaks down ... or where it
ought to. If it doesn't, you're in serious trouble. Because a writer
isn't a carton of milk—or at least he or she shouldn't be. Because a
writer shouldn't continue to take the flavors of the people he or
she is currently reading. Because a writer who doesn't start sound-
ing like himself sooner or later really isn't much of a writer at all;
he's a ventriloquist's dummy. But take heart—little by little, that
voice usually comes out. It's not easy, and it's not quick (that's
one of the reasons that so many people who talk about writing
books never do), but there comes a day when you look back on
the stuff you wrote when you were seventeen ... or twenty-two
... or twenty-eight. . . and say to yourself, Good God! If I was
this bad, how did I ever get any better?
They don't call that stuff "juvenilia" for nothing, friends'n
neighbors.
The imitativeness shakes out, and we become ourselves again.
But. One never seems to develop an immunity to some writers
... or at least I never have. Their ranks are small, but their
influence—at least on this here New England white boy—has been
profound. When I go back to them, I can't not imitate them. My
letters start sounding like them; my short stories; a chunk of what-
ever novel I'm working on, maybe; even grocery lists.
Lovecraft. Raymond Chandler (and, at second hand, Ross
Macdonald and Robert Parker). Dorothy Sayers, who wrote the
clearest, most lucid prose of our century. Peter Straub.
And Ellison.
That's really where it hews to the bone, I guess. When you take
it right back down home, you come to this: the man is a fero-
ciously talented writer, ferociously in love with the job of writing
stories and essays, ferociously dedicated to the craft of it as well
as its art—the latter being the part of the job with which writers

STEPHEN KING
FOREWORD
6
who have been to college most frequently excuse laziness, sloppi-
ness, cant, and promiscuous self-indulgence.
There are folks in the biz who don't like Harlan much. I don't
think I'm telling you anything you don't know; if you know Phan-
tasia Press, whose imprint this book bears, then you probably
know enough about speculative fiction to know that. These anti-
Harlan folks offer any number of reasons for their dislike, but I
believe that a lot of it has to do with that ferocity. Harlan is the
sort of guy who makes an ordinary writer feel like a dilletante,
and an ordinary liver (i.e., one who lives, not a bodily organ
which will develop cirrhosis if you pour too much booze over it)
feel like a spinster librarian who once got kissed on the Fourth of
July.
Coupled with the ferocity of purpose is a crazed confidence—the
confidence of a man who does not just walk wires but runs across
them full-tilt-boogie. There are folks who find this trait equally
unendearing. People who are afraid don't like people who are
brave. People who eat pallidly and politely at the Great Banquet
of Life (Chew that fish—there might be a bone in it! Skip the beef
—if you eat enough of it, you get cancer of the bowel! No eggs-
cholesterol! Heart attacks! Eat the carrots. Eat the carrots.
They're safe. Boring, but safe.) resent people who dash wildly up
and down, trying some of this, scarfing up some of that, swallow-
ing something really gruesome and barfing it back up.
Put another way, Harlan knows now—and has, I would guess,
since about 1965—that if you're gonna talk that talk, you gotta be
able to walk that walk; that if you got the flash you better have the
cash, and that sooner or later you gotta put up or shut up. He
rides the Shockwave.
All of this comes through admirably in the man's fiction and es-
says (as it damn well should; otherwise his impact would die with
him), and I think that's the reason I always end up writing like the
guy after I've been reading the guy. It's the force of his person-
ality, the sense of Harlan Ellison as a living person that's caught
in the lines. There are people who don't like that; there are many
people who are convinced that Harlan is some sort of trick, like
that miniature guillotine that will slice a cigarette in two but leave
your finger intact.
Others, who know that few tricksters and literary shysters can
hang around for better than twenty-five years, publishing fiction

7
which has steadily broadened its area of inquiry and which has
never declined in its energy, know that Harlan is no trick. They
may begrudge him that apparently inexhaustible energy, or resent
his chutzpah, or fear his refusal to suffer fools (of some people it
is said they will not suffer fools gladly; Harlan does not suffer
them at all), but they know it isn't a trick.
The book which follows is a case in point. I'm not going to pre-
chew it; if you want someone to chew your food for you, send this
book back to the publisher, get a refund, and go buy a few vol-
umes of Cliff's Notes, the mental babyfood of college students ev-
erywhere for the last forty years or so. You won't find one on
Harlan, and I hope you never will (and speaking of wills, why not
put it in yours, Harlan? NO FUCKING CLIFF'S NOTES! IF
YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES ON IN DEATHBIRD
STORIES, GO READ A COPY, YOU FUCKING MENTAL
MIDGET!" God, I sound like Harlan today-don't you think so?).
Certainly you won't find a Harlan-Ellison-in-a-nutshell in this in-
troduction.
But I will point out that these stories and essays range from al-
most Lovecraftian horror ("Final Trophy") to existentialist fan-
tasy ("The Cheese Stands Alone," with its almost talismanic repe-
tition of the phrase "My fine stock") to the riotously funny (take
your pick; my own favorite—maybe because it's gifted with a
title that even Fredric Brown would have admired—"Djinn, No
Chaser") to good old nuts-and-bolts science fiction ("Invul-
nerable").
The essays have a similar range; Harlan's essay on the Saturn
fly-by of the Voyager I bird could fit comfortably into an issue of
Atlantic Monthly, while one can almost see "The 3 Most Impor-
tant Things in Life" as a stand-up comedy routine (it's a job, by
the way, that Harlan knows, having done it for a while in his
flaming youth).
Harlan's wit, insight, and energy inform all of these stories and
essays. Are they uneven? Yes, of course they are. While I haven't
been given the "lawyer's page"—that is, the dates of copyright on
each short story and essay, along with where each was previously
published—just the Xerox offprints I've been sent suggest that
there is also a wide range of time represented in STALKING
THE NIGHTMARE. Different typefaces and different return

STEPHEN KING
FOREWORD
8
addresses tell part of the tale; the evolution in style tells part of it;
the growth of confidence and ambition tells much more of it.
But even the earliest stories bear the unmistakable mark of
Ellison. Take, for example, "Invulnerable," one of my favorite
stories in the present collection—in fact, I guess I'd go a step fur-
ther (God hates a coward, right?) and say it's the favorite, mostly
because of the original way Harlan handles a very old idea—here
is Superman and Krypto the Wonder Dog for thinking adults. Ex-
actly how old is the tale? Without the lawyer's page it's impossible
to tell, but it's possible to don the old deerstalker hat and make a
couple of Sherlock Holmes-type deductions just the same. First,
"Invulnerable" was originally published in Super-Science Fiction,
and the illustration (just a hasty pen-and-ink; you're not missing a
thing) is by Emsh, whose work I haven't seen in years. So, still
wearing the deerstalker hat, I'd guess . , . maybe 1957. How far
off am I? Take a look at the lawyer's page, if you want. If it's
more than five years either way, you're welcome to a good horse-
laugh at my expense.®
• Readers of the above-entered praise, seeking in vain for the story "In-
vulnerable" (published in the April, 1957 issue of Super-Science Fiction—
you get the Mad Hound of the Moors award for deductive logic, Steve), will
be confused, bemused and even dismayed—as will Stephen King—to find the
work absent from this book. I suppose some sort of explanation is in order.
It goes like so: "Invulnerable" was one of the original selections included in
the twenty tales slated for this collection. It was among the tearsheeted
stories sent to Steve prior to final editing, so he could write his Foreword in
a leisurely fashion. Subsequently, when I went back over the stories and
read them more closely, I realized some of the older tales desperately needed
extensive revision, updating, smoothing and rethinking. One of these stories
was "Invulnerable." I had forgotten that Steve mentioned it so prominently
in his essay. The qualities admired by Steve are definitely present in the
story, but the quality embodied in Steve's remark that "there's a certain
amount of dating" was too great to allow to pass untended. Yet to leach out
that dated aspect would have meant virtually writing a new story. I decided
not to do it. I started revising the original manuscript, written very early in
my career, and realized after three pages that the job was akin to rebuilding
an edifice that had been burned to the ground, from bottom up. Instead of
doing that, I decided to include a recent story, "Grail," at twice or three
times the length. So Stephen King has whetted your appetite for a "lost"
story, one that I may some day rewrite and update completely. But search
not for "Invulnerable" in these pages. It ain't here.
—Harlan Ellison

9
So there's a certain amount of dating in the story; it doesn't just
happen to the best of us, it happens to all of us. And yet, even
'way back then, in those fabled Old Days when there was such an
artist as Emsh and such an organ as Super-Science Fiction, we
find Harlan Ellison's true voice—clear in tone, dark in consid-
eration. This was the era when science fiction's really big guns-
guys like Robert A. Heinlein, for instance—were touting space ex-
ploration as The Great Panacea for All Mankind, The Last Fron-
tier, and The Solution to Just About Everything. There's a certain
amount of that in "Invulnerable" (but then, why not? I suspect
there's a certain amount of that wistful fairy-tale still in Harlan's
soul . . , and mine . . . and maybe in yours, too—read "Saturn,
November 11th," and see how you react), but Harlan also sounds
the horn of the skeptic, loud and clear:
Forstner was waiting. He was surrounded by the top
brass. The place was acrawl with guards; guards on the
guards; and guards to guard the guard's guards. The
same old story. It wasn't as noble an endeavour as they
would have had me believe.
It was an arms race, an attempt for superiority of
space before someone else got there. . .
Yeah, it was an arms race. We all know that . . . now. But to
have said it back in the days when Good Old General Ike was still
the top hand in the old Free World Corral (and let's not forget his
chief ramrod, good old Tricky Dick Nixon—I know we'd like to,
but maybe we'd better not), when Reddy Kilowatt was supposed
to be our friend and nuclear power was going to solve all of our
energy problems, back when the only two stated reasons we had
for getting Up There was to beat the Russians and to study the
sxm's corona for the International Geophysical Year (which every
subscriber to My Weekly Reader knew as IGY) ... to have had
such a dark thought back in those days—and about us as well as
them—well, that was tantamount to treason. It's a little amazing
that Harlan got it into print . . . unless you know Harlan, of
course. And it's damn fine to have it here, preserved between the
boards of one of the admirable Phantasia Press books.
But I promised not to chew your food for you, didn't I?
So I'll get out of here now. Harlan's going to come along very

STEPHEN KING
FOREWORD
10
soon, grab you by the earlobe, and drag you off to a dozen
different worlds. You're going to be glad you went, I promise you
(and you may be a little bit surprised to find you've made it back
alive).
Just one final comment, and then I promise to go quietly:
there's no significant correlation between the quality of a writer's
writing and the quality of that same writer's personality. When I
tell you that reading Harlan is overwhelming enough to start me
writing like the guy—taking his flavor as my mother said milk
takes the flavor of whatever you put it next to in the icebox—I am
speaking of ability, not personality.
Harlan Ellison's personality is every bit as striking as his prose
style, and this makes the man a pleasure to dine with, to visit, or
to entertain. But let's tell the gut-level, bottom-line truth. Most of
you reading this are never going to eat a meal with Harlan, visit
him in his home, or be visited by him. He gives of himself in a
way that is profligate, almost dangerous—as does any writer worth
his salt. He'll tell you the truth in a manner which is sometimes in-
furiating (see "The Hour That Stretches" or "!!!The!!Teddy!
Crazy! IShow!!!" in this volume, or the classic short story
"Croatoan," where Harlan managed to accomplish the mind-
numbing feat of simultaneously pissing off the right-to-lifers and
the women's liberationists) and always entertaining . . . but don't
confuse these things with the man; do not assume that the work is
the man. And ask yourself this: why in Christ's name would you
want to make any assumption about the man on the basis of his
work?
I for one am sick unto death with the cult of personality in
America—with the assumption that I should eat Famous Amos
cookies because the dude is black and the dude is cool, that I
should buy an Andy Warhol print because People magazine says
he only owns two shirts and two pairs of shoes, that I should go to
this movie because Us says the director has given up cocaine or
that one because Rona Barrett says the director has recently taken
it up. I am sick of being told to buy books because their writers
are great cocksmen or heroic gays or because Norman Mailer got
them sprung from jail.
It doesn't last, friends and neighbors.
The cult of celebrity is cogitative shit running through the
bowel of the intellect

11
For whatever it's worth, Harlan Ellison is a great man: a fast
friend, a supportive critic, a ferocious enemy of the false and the
foolish, maniacally funny, perhaps insecure (I'm not sure what to
make of a man who doesn't smoke or drink and who still has such
crazed acid indigestion), but above all else, brave and true. If I
knew I was going to be in a strange city without all the magical
gris-gris of the late 20th century—Amex Card, MasterCard, Visa
Card, Blue Cross card, driver's license, Avis Wizard Number, So-
cial Security number—and if I further knew I was going to have a
severe myocardial infarction, and if I could pick one person in all
the world to be with me at the moment I felt the hacksaw blade
run down my left arm and the sledgehammer hit me on the left tit,
that person would be Harlan Ellison. Not my wife, not my agent,
not my editor, my accountant, my lawyer. It would be Harlan, be-
cause if anyone would see to it that I was going to have a fighting
chance, it would be Harlan. Harlan would go running through
hospital corridors with my body in his arms, commandeering
stretchers, I.C. support units, O.R.S, and of course, World Famous
Cardiologists. And if some admitting nurse happened to ask him
about my Blue Cross/Blue Shield number, Harlan would probably
bite his or her head off with a single chomp.
And do you know what?
It doesn't matter a damn.
Because time flies, friends. Tempos just keeps fugit-ing right
along. And as 1982 becomes 1992 becomes 2022 becomes 2222,
no one is going to care that Ellison once wrote stories in bookshop
windows, or drove an old Camaro with cheerful, adroit, scary,
leadfooted abandon, or that Stephen King ("Who's that, Tonto?"
"Me don't know for sure, Kemo sabe, but him write just like
Harlan Ellison") once nominated him The Man I Would Most
Like to Have With Me in a Strange City When My Ventricles Go
on Holiday. Because by 2222, the people reading fiction (always
assuming there are any people left in 2222, ha-ha) aren't going to
have a hope of taking dinner with Harlan, or shooting a rack of
eight-ball with him, or listening to him hold forth on the subject of
why Ronald Reagan would be a better President if he 1) lit a
firecracker 2) put the firecracker between his teeth, and 3)
jammed his head up his ass. By 2222, Harlan will have put on his
boogie shoes and shuffled off to whatever Something or Nothing
awaits us beyond this Vale of Quarter Pounders.

STEPHEN KING
FOREWORD	12
If the cult of celebrity sucks (and take your Uncle Stevie's word
for it; it does indeed suck that fabled Hairy Bird), it sucks because
it's as disposable as a Handi-Wipe or a Glad Bag or the latest rec-
ord by the latest Group of the Moment. Andy Warhol ushered in
the celebrity era by proclaiming that, in the future, everyone
would be famous for fifteen minutes. But fifteen minutes isn't a
very long time; while any number of you guys and gals out there
may have read the science fiction of H.G. Wells or the mysteries
of Wilkie Collins, how many of you have read such big bestsellers
of thirty plus years ago as LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, FOR-
EVER AMBER, or PEYTON PLACE?
You don't make it over the long haul on the basis of your per-
sonality. Fifteen years after the funny guys and the dynamic guys
and the spellbinders croak, nobody remembers who the fuck they
were.
Luckily, Harlan Ellison has got it both ways—but don't concern
yourself with the personality. Instead, dig into the collection which
follows. There's something better, more lasting, and much more
important than personality going on here: you've got a good, in-
formed writer working well over a span of years, learning, spin-
ning tales, laying in the needle, doing handstands and splits and
pratfalls . . . entertaining you goddammit! Everything else put
aside, is anything better than that? I don't think so. And so I'll
just close by saying it for you:
Thank you, Harlan. Thank you, man.
—Stephen King
Bangor, Maine

INTRODUCTION
QUIET LIES THE LOCUST TELLS

INTRODUCTION
QUIET LIES THE LOCUST TELLS
She thinks we were all killed when they made the Great Sweep,
but I escaped in the mud.
I was there when the first dreams came off the assembly line. I
was there when the corrupted visions that had congealed in the
vats were pincered up and hosed off and carried down the line to
be dropped onto the rolling belts. I was there when the first work-
men dropped their faceplates and turned on their welding torches.
I was there when they began welding the foul things into their
armor, when they began soldering the antennae, bolting on the
wheels, pouring in the eye-socket jelly. I was there when they
turned the juice on them and I was there when the things began to
twitch.
No wonder She wanted all of us dead. Witnesses to their birth,
to their construction, to their release into the air—not good. The
myrmidons were loosed on the Great Sweep.
I think I am the last one left alive. The last one who can create
dreams and not nightmares. I am the locust.
The reversal is sweet. What we always knew to be nightmares—
the empty lives, the twisted language, the squeezing of the soul
—they now call dreams. What we looked high to see as dreams-
silliness, castles in the sky, breathing deeply on windy afternoons-
She has commanded be termed nightmares, lies. I am the locust. I
tell quiet lies. Called nightmares. That are truly fine dreams.
I swam in the mud till I was the color of the land. And made
my escape. Overhead I saw the corrupted things soaring off to
spread their rigor of obedience and fear and hatred. For many
days I lay there, hidden, turning on my back for the rain, trapping

HARLAN ELLISON
INTRODUCTION
16
small fish and insects for my food. Finally, when the Great Sweep
was done and all my brothers and sisters were dead or locked
away in madhouses, I went to the forest.
But like the locust that the Middle Ages saw as the symbol of
passion, I will live forever. I will tell my quiet lies and no matter
how blindly the people follow their instructions, in every genera-
tion there will be a hundred, perhaps a thousand, if chance is with
them even a hundred thousand, who will keep the quiet lies alive.
To be told late at night to the children. With their bright eyes they
will pay attention, and the dreams that have been outlawed, now
called nightmares, will take root and spread.
And fifty years from now, a hundred years from now, when She
thinks all courage has been drained out of the people, the children
of the locust will be retelling the quiet lies. We will never be eradi-
cated. Decimated, yes, but still we survive.
Because in us lives the noblest part of the human experiment.
The ability to dream.
I've watched, since the Great Sweep. Oh, what wonders She has
given them in place of what they had. They have no real freedom,
they have no genuine control of their lives, their days and nights
are set down for them though they don't even perceive it that way.
But She has given them endless flickering images on screens: sur-
rogate dreams (the real lies, the true nightmares) that make them
laugh because they hear laughter behind the flickering images, and
scenes of death and destruction that they think are representations
of the real world that She commands be termed "news." She has
given them more and greater sporting events, young men and
women hurling themselves at each other in meaningless contests
She tells them represent survival in microcosm. She has given
them fashions that obsess them—though they do not understand
that the fashions are one more way of making them facsimiles of
each other. She has given them acts of government that unify them
into hive groups, in the name of removing responsibility from their
daily lives. She has taken control completely, and now they be-
lieve that the grandest role they can play is that of cog in the ma-
chine of Her design. In truth, what they have become are pris-
oners of their own lives.
All that stands between them and the shambling walk of the
zombie are the quiet lies the locust tells.

17
Because I keep on the move, I have come to miss two aspects
of human congress more than all the others combined. Love and
friendship. Before the Great Sweep I never had the time or the
perseverance to discover what raids love can make on the bore-
dom of silent days spent alone. Nights are worse, of course.
I long to share confidences with a friend. But because I have
placed myself outside the limits of their society, I fear striking up
acquaintances. Who would be my friend, in any event? I live in
the last of the forests and I sleep in caves. The countryside is best
for me. The cities are like the surface of the sun: great flares blast
off the concrete; there are no places to hide, no cool corners in
which to wait. Geomagnetic storms, sunspot occurrences, enor-
mous air masses. I am wary of the cities. She rules without mercy
there. And the people do not touch each other. Like those who
are terribly sunscorched they avoid each other, passing in silence
but with their teeth bared.
A day's walk from the forest, there is a small town. I began
going to the town innocently, making myself known by showing
only that edge of myself that would not alarm anyone. And after a
time I came to know a small group of young people who enjoyed
hearing my stories.
Now they come to the small cave where I sit cross-legged. They
do not tell their parents where they're going. I think they gather
roots and herbs as a cover for the afternoons in which they sit
around me and I tell them of transcending destiny, of the three
most important things in life, of true love and of my travels. They
lie about having gone on many picnics. And each time they bring
one of their friends who can be trusted—one of the ones with that
special sly, impish smile that tells me the flame burns steadily. In-
side. Where She cannot snuff it out. Not yet. (I do not believe in
Gods, but I ask God never to let Her discover a way of reading
the inside of the people. If She ever finds a way to probe and drain
the heart, or the head, then all hope will be lost.)
The young people surprised me. The last time they came, they
brought a much older woman to the cave. She was in that stretch
of life somewhere between seventy and the close of business. For
an instant I cursed their enthusiasm. It had blurred their judg-
ment. Now I would have to run again and find a far place to begin
again.
But the sly smile was there on her wrinkled face as she stooped

HARLAN ELLISON
INTRODUCTION
18
to enter the cave. Firelight caught my wary expression and as she
entered, she drew a pinback button from the pocket of her padded
jacket and clipped it on the left breast. It read: Etonne-moi!
She grinned at me as she sat down on the other side of the fire.
"I read French imperfectly," I said.
"Diaghilev to Jean Cocteau in 1909," she answered. "Astonish
me!"
I laughed, as the children settled down around us. How long
had this woman kept her badge of defiance secret? Surely since the
Great Sweep. Fear dissolved. The old woman was not one of Her
subjects. This dear old woman, corpulent and cat-eyed, with pain
in her joints, was determined to live every moment with sanctifica-
tion until the end. So I spun spiderwebs about looking for true
love, about transcending destiny, about the three most important
things in life, about times before the Great Sweep, and about just
desserts.
"You're a Calvinist," she said. "Irreducible morality." But she
said it with humor, and I shrugged, feeling embarrassed. "I don't
think you really like shouldering the burden, even if you do it."
"You're right," I answered. "I would gladly lay it down; if I
knew others would carry it."
She sighed. "We do, friend. We do."
I learned later that She had sent myrmidons against the old
woman and her brother; and they were killed. They had tried to
lead a strike. No one joined them and they were caught out naked
in the daylight. And were killed. The children told me. The terri-
ble sight of it had not been wasted on them. They were angry
when they told me.
I loved her, that old woman. She was the locust.
I heard the sound of the locust from the hills one night. It was a
man with an alto saxophone playing all alone, long after midnight.
He was playing the kind of music I haven't heard in years. It was
jazz. But it was the kind of sky-piercing jazz that long ago I had
resisted, wondering if it was jazz at all. It had been rooted in the
old order of what "Negroes" were lauded for playing, but as in-
tense as steel, passionately soaring, the breaker of the circle. It
had manifested radical inclinations; and I had refused to hear it.
But hearing it now, a solitary corner of one man's loneliness,

19
afloat in the night, I longed to hear more. To return in time to that
place where the music had been new, and I swore if the miracle of
transport could be done, I would listen without insisting memory
be served. I would hear it without narrow judgments. The locust
played Green Dolphin Street and Since I Fell For You. I remem-
bered the name of the man who had played those tunes, years be-
fore the Great Sweep. His name had been Eric Dolphy, and I
wished he would come down out of the far hills and travel with
me.
I miss friendship. I miss music. What She gives them now, what
She has led them to believe they want to hear, is as empty of
human concern or enrichment as the fury of a thunderstorm.
It made me so sad, hearing him up there against the sooty night
sky in which no stars had shone for a time beyond my recol-
lection; a sky through which Her myrmidons flew to find old
women and their brothers; a sky that would soon enough drop on
the man with the horn. So sad I packed my few belongings in the
rucksack . . . and I went away from the forest; from the cave,
from the hills, and from the children. They would either hoard the
quiet lies the locust had told, against the day when such tales
would be needed, or they would follow their parents into the
mouth of the machine She had oiled and set running.
Even I grow tired.
I warned them not to follow me. I am not the Pied Piper. They
said, "We'll go with you. We can trust you." And I said, "Where I
go there is no following. Where I go there is no mother, and no fa-
ther; no safe days and no safe nights; where I go I go alone, be-
cause I travel fast." But they followed. They hung back and I
threw stones at them, then ran as fast as I could to lose them. But
they kept coming. Three of them. Two boys and a girl. I wouldn't
let them sit with me when I rested, and they stayed out of range
and yelled through the forest to me.
"Our parents stood by and watched. They didn't lift a hand.
When those things fell out of the sky and took the old woman and
her brother, they didn't do a thing. When they set fire to them, no
one tried to stop them. We can't live with people like that. You
told us what that means."
I tried not to listen. I am not their leader. I am just the locust. I

HARLAN ELLISON
INTRODUCTION
20
cannot even lead myself. I cannot do what they think must be
done. All I can do is tell them quiet lies.
That isn't enough.
Some among them have to take the strength upon themselves.
Some among them must rise up from their midst to lift the real
burden. Must I do all the work?
I can tell them of the night of black glass, and of the hour that
stretches, and of the visionary . . . but I am no one's hero.
I waited behind a tree and when they passed I stepped out and
explained my limitations, the amount of burden I was prepared to
carry. They smiled the impish smiles and said I was better than
that; I could beat off myrmidons with my bare hands; I was their
inspiration. I slapped one of the boys. He took it and looked hurt,
but they wouldn't leave me.
A man hides in the far hills and plays slow, soft melodies.
Nothing more is asked of him. Until he goes to the final sleep.
That is a peace greatly to be desired. Why can't they hear the
message? Do any of them really listen?
I struck out again, and let them fend for themselves.
And when She sensed our movement, because there were four
of us, unauthorized, moving at random, She sent the nightmares
on their night flight, like bats that see in the dark, and they fell
upon us. And I did not stay to help them. In the chaos I escaped,
went into the ground and hid. I tried not to think about the sounds
the children made. And finally there was silence.
There are no leaders. There are only terrified souls trying to
live till the day when She loses control and the machine turns on
Her. Until that day, unless I find a distant hill where the final
sleep will free me, I will tell my quiet lies. There is nothing more
to it than that.
There are no heroes of my generation. That role has yet to be
filled. For my part, I am just the locust.
I speak of dreams called nightmares. No more should be ex-
pected, at risk of driving the reflection so deep into the mirror it
will never emerge again.
The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my respon-
sibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.

GRAIL

GRAiL
Years later, when he was well into young adulthood, Chris-
topher Caperton wrote about it in the journal he had begun to
keep when he turned twenty-one. The entry had everything to do
with the incident, though he had totally forgotten it.
What he wrote was this: The great tragedy of my life is that in
my search for the Holy Grail everyone calls True Love, I see my-
self as Zorro, a romantic and mysterious highwayman—and the
women I desire see me as Porky Pig.
The incident lost to memory that informed his observation had
taken place fourteen years earlier, in 1953 when he was thirteen
years old.
During a Halloween party from which chaperoning adults had
been banished, it was suggested that the boys and girls play a kiss-
ing game called "flashlight." All the lights were turned ofl, every-
one paired up, and one couple held a flashlight. If you were
caught kissing when the flashlight was turned on you, then it be-
came your turn to hold and flash while the others had free rein to
neck and fondle in the dark.
Because he was shy, Christopher volunteered to be the first
holder of the light. Because he was shy, and because he had, as
usual, been paired with Jean Kettner who adored him but whom
he could not find it within himself even to like. Across the room
the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, the improbably named
Briony Catling, sat on the lap of Danny Shipley, who played base-
ball and had blond, wavy hair.
Chris Caperton ached for Briony Catling with an intensity that
gave him cramps.
Another rule of the game was that if the wielder of the flash-

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
24
light caught another couple "doing it," he or she could demand a
switch in partners.
Because he was shy, because he was paired with Jean Kettner,
and because he knew exactly where he would shine the flashlight
after allowing several minutes to pass in which the couples could
become too interested in kissing to prepare themselves.
He caught Briony and Danny Shipley, and demanded a switch.
Of the four involved in the transaction, only Christopher felt ela-
tion. Briony Catling had no interest in Christopher Caperton. She
ached for Danny Shipley with an intensity that gave her cramps.
But they switched, and when the light went out Christopher
hugged Briony frantically and shoved his face toward hers. The
kiss splatted somewhere between her nose and her mouth.
She blew out air, made a yuchhing sound, swiped at the slaver
on her upper lip, and jumped off his lap.
Fourteen years later the shame and the pain still lurked in his
unconscious like pariahs.
Briony Catling had not been his first great love. That had been
Miss O'Hara in the third grade, who had shone down on him at
the age of eight like the field lights at a night baseball game. He
had loved her purely and with all his heart; and the present he
gave her at the Christmas party held by his home room had cost
him all the money he'd made raking leaves through that Autumn.
She had been embarrassed and had kissed his cheek lightly, never
knowing it caused his first erection.
After Miss O'Hara, it had been the actress Helen Gahagan in
the 1935 version of She, which he saw at the Utopia Theater on a
re-release double-bill. When he belatedly went to see Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs on one of its periodic reissues, he recog-
nized at once that Disney had appropriated the garb and look of
Helen Gahagan as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed for the character of
the wicked Queen Grimhilde; and when he learned of the foul
campaign Richard Nixon had waged against her in the 1950 Sena-
torial race, when she had become Helen Gahagan Douglas, he
vowed a revenge that only manifested itself when he twice voted
for Nixon's presidential opponents.
The year before Briony Catling filled him with self-loathing, he
fell desperately in love with the Swedish actress Marta Toren. He
watched her vamping Dick Powell in Rogue's Regiment on the
Late Late Show and made a point of being in the audience the

25
night Paris Express with Claude Rains opened. Miss O'Hara,
Helen Gahagan and even Briony Catling paled by comparison.
She was precisely and exactly the embodiment of True Love in his
eyes. Four years later, six months after Christopher had lost his
virginity to a young woman who bore only a passing resemblance
to Marta Toren, he read in the newspaper that she had died from
a rare brain trauma called a subarachnoidal hemorrhage that
struck like Jack the Ripper and killed her within forty-eight hours.
He closed himself in his room and tore at his clothes.
In February of 1968, attached to General William West-
moreland's headquarters in Saigon, Capt. Christopher Caperton,
age 28, stumbled upon the astonishing fact that True Love, in a
physical form, existed. The 'let offensive had begun and Saigon
was burning. Had he not had his own assigned jeep and driver, he
would not have been able to get around: there was virtually no
public transportation and the cyclos and taxis had been comman-
deered for the wealthy trying to flee. The hospitals were so
crowded that only emergency cases were being accepted; patients
were sleeping on the floors, jamming the corridors. Coffins lay un-
fa uried for days: the gravediggers had gone south. Chris's business
was good.
Chris was in the business of helping GI's cope with the anguish
of serving in a war they had come to despise.
In business with, and in love with, his lover and business part-
ner, a thirty-nine-year-old Eurasian of French and Thai parentage,
Capt. Chris was the main conduit for "Js," "OJs," Binoctal and a
luscious black opium from the Laotian poppy fields to America's
fighting men in Indochina.
Because their goods—marijuana joints; joints dipped in liquid
opium; the French headache killer; and the most potent smoking
opium—were superlative goods, Christopher Caperton and Sirilabh
Doumic had established a flourishing trade in I and II Corps. And
from this enterprise they had managed to bank over a million and
a half dollars (converted to Swiss francs) in an unnumbered
Zurich account, despite the crushing overhead and the payoffs to
officials of Thieu's provincial government.
And because he was in love in a terrible place, and because he
and his love wanted nothing more than to survive, to win release

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
26
from that terrible place, he felt no guilt about the traffic. There
was no self-delusion that he was engaged in humanitarian activi-
ties, neither the war nor the drug traffic; what he did feel was a
sense of keeping busy, of working at something that held light and
hope at its conclusion, that without the dope some of his clients
would either go mad or turn their rifles on the nearest 1st Lieuten-
ant. But mostly he was in love.
Siri was small and light. He could lift her with one arm to carry
her to the bed. Her features were fine and delicate, yet they
changed dramatically with each noticeable variation in the light.
Monet would have had to do her portrait eighteen times, as he did
the Rouen Cathedral, from dawn to sunset, to capture even one
expression. She was the daughter of a French attache in the Bang-
kok consulate and a young temple dancer Doumic first saw at the
Kathin ceremony marking the end of the Buddhist Lent. From her
father she inherited a wiliness that kept her alive in street society,
from her mother—who had come from Chumphon to the south—a
speech filled with musical inflection. How she had come to Saigon
ten years before was not something she cared to talk about. But
Chris winced every time they made love and his hands brushed the
thick scars on her inner thighs.
On that night in February of 1968, they were just sitting down
to a dinner of beef satay Siri had made in their apartment on
Nguyen Cong Tru Street when a 122mm shell came across the
Saigon River and hit the face of the building opposite Caperton's.
The rocket round ripped the building out of the ground like a rot-
ten tooth and threw shrapnel in every direction.
Not the biggest chunk, but big enough, it came straight through
the window and tore into Siri's back, taking off most of her left
shoulder.
There was no use trying to move her; it was obvious she would
never make it down the stairs, much less across the city to the
American hospital that had been opened at Tan Son Nhut.
He tried to stanch the flow with a bedspread and all the white
tennis socks in his drawer, and miraculously, she lived for almost
an hour. In that hour they talked, and in that hour of farewell she
gave him the only gift in the world he wanted, the only thing he
could not get for himself. She told him how he could find True
Love.
"We have talked of it so many times, and I always knew."

27
He tried to smile. "In a business partnership like ours there
shouldn't be any secrets. How else can I trust you?"
Pain convulsed her and she gripped his hand till the bones
ground. "We've no time for foolishness, my love. Very soon now
you'll be alone again, as you have been so often. I have this one
thing I can give you in return for the love you gave me . . . and it
will take some believing on your part."
"Whatever you tell me I'll believe."
Then she instructed him to go to the kitchen and get an empty
condiment bottle from the spice rack. When he brought back the
bottle labeled chopped coriander leaves, which was empty because
they had been unable to get fresh coriander since a Claymore
mine had gone off in the central market, she told him he must not
argue with her, that he must fill it with her blood. He argued,
wasting precious minutes; but finally, filled with a vaguely familiar
self-loathing, he did it.
"I have always sought perfection," she said. "Always knowing
that one must die to reach perfection, for life is imperfect."
He tried to argue, but she stopped him. Sternly.
"Chris! You must listen to me."
He nodded and was silent.
"For each woman there is a perfect man; and for each man
there is a perfect woman. You were not perfect for me, but you
were as close to what I sought as I ever found. But I never
stopped searching . . . though my movement was very slow since
we met. I should have been content. It's easy to be smart, later.
"But knowing what I knew, that True Love is a real thing, that
it can be picked up and turned in the hands, that it can be looked
at and understood . . . that kept me always dissatisfied. As you
have been.
"Because somehow, without possessing the knowledge I
chanced upon ten years ago, you knew it was real. And now I will
tell you how to go about finding it. And that, my dearest, is the
best way I can apologize to you for not giving up the search when
we met."
Then with her voice fading off and coming back a little less
strong each time, she told him of an artifact that had never been
described, that had first been unearthed during Evans's excava-
tions of the Palace of Minos at Knossos in 1900.
It was taken from a walled-up niche behind an elaborate fresco

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
28
painted on a wall of the Corridor of the Procession, and had been
hidden there since 2000 BC. Where it had come from before that
time, not even the archeologist who discovered it and smuggled it
away from Crete could begin to guess.
He recognized it for what it was the instant the light of his torch
fell on it. He disappeared that night and was presumed to have re-
turned to England; but was never seen again. Record of his find
was revealed in 1912 during the dying reminiscences of Bessie
Chapman, one of 711 survivors of the sinking of the Titanic
picked up by the Carpathia.
Suffering from extreme exposure and seemingly delirious, the
immigrant passenger babbled a story heard only by those few Car-
pathia deckhands and ministering survivors who tried to make her
last hours easier. Apparently she had been a London doxy who,
after an evening of sport with "a real elegant nob, a brick 'e was,"
actually saw the artifact. She spoke of it with such wonder that
when she died it seemed she had passed over having known all
there was to know of joy in this life.
One of the deckhands, an Irish stoker named Haggerty, it was
later reported, hung about the dying woman and seemed to be
paying close attention to her story.
Haggerty jumped ship on the return of the Cunard liner to New
York.
Sgt. Michael James Haggerty was killed during the Battle of
Ypres, November 9th, 1914. His kit bag, scavenged by a German
soldier when the French and British trenches were overrun (it was
reported by a survivor who had played possum and been over-
looked in the random bayoneting of corpses), disappeared. Others
in Haggerty's company said he slept with the kit bag under his pil-
low, that it seemed quite heavy, and that he once broke the arm of
a messmate who playfully tried to see what the Irishman was car-
rying in it.
Between 1914 and 1932 the object—while never described-
turned up three times: once in the possession of a White Russian
nobleman in Sevastopol, twice in the possession of a Dutch air-
craft designer, and finally in the possession of a Chicago mobster
reputed to have been the man who gunned down Dion O'Banion
in his flower shop at 738 North State Street.
In 1932 a man visiting New York for the opening of the Radio
City Music Hall just after Christmas, reported to the police who

29
found him lying in an alley on West 51st Street just below Fifth
Avenue, that he had been mugged and robbed of "the most im-
portant and beautiful thing in the world." He was taken to Belle-
vue Hospital but no matter how diligently he was interrogated, he
would not describe the stolen article.
In 1934 it was reputed to be in the private art collection of the
German architect Walter Gropius; after Gropius's self-imposed
exile from Nazi Germany it was reputed to have passed into the
personal collection of Hermann Goering, 1937; in 1941 it was
said to be housed with Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa; in
1946 it was found to be one of the few items not left by Henry
Ford at his death to the Ford Foundation.
Its whereabouts were unknown between 1946 and February of
1968. But Siri told Chris, her final love, that there was one sure,
dangerous way of finding it. The way she had used originally to
learn the hand-to-hand passage of the artifact that was True Love
from the Palace of Minos to its present unknown resting place.
Then she released his hand, realizing she had squeezed it so
hard while telling her story that it was as white as unsmoked
meerschaum; and she asked him very softly if he would bring her
the little cloisonne minaudiere he had bought her in Hong Kong.
He gave it to her and she clutched it far more tightly than she
had his hand. Because it was a minute later, and the pain was
much worse.
"Do you remember the flea market?"
"Yes," she said, closing her eyes. "And we were holding hands
in the crowd; and then you let go and I was swept along; and I
thought I'd lost you; and you were gone for fifteen minutes . .
"And you panicked."
"And when I got back to the car there you were."
"You should have seen your face. What relief."
"What love. That was the moment I slowed the never-ending
search. And you smiled and held out this to me." And she opened
her hand where the exquisite blue and gold minaudiere lay in her
palm, now filmed with moisture.
But her story had worked its magic. He knelt beside her on the
floor, lifted her head and the pillows, and cradled them in his lap.
"What is this True Love? What does it look like?"
"I don't know. I've never seen it. It cost too much the first time,
just to get the information. The actual search has to be done with-

HARLAN ELLISON
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30
out . . and she hesitated as if picking the exact words, the
words that would not frighten him, because he was beginning to
look more frightened than anguished, . . without special assis-
tance."
"But how could you have learned all this?"
"I had an informant. You must seek him out. But go very care-
fully. It's dangerous, it costs a great deal; care has to be taken
. . . once I didn't take care . . ." She paused. "You'll need my
blood."
"An informant . . . your blood . . . ? I don't . .
"Adrammelech, Supreme Ruler of the Third Hour."
He could not help her. She was dying, he felt the stiffness in his
throat, he loved her so much, and she was raving.
"An Angel of the Night, Chris."
Bewildered and suffering, nonetheless he went to the bedroom
and fetched the brass-and-silver bound chest she called a bahut.
He brought it back to her and she said, "Look at it. Do you see
how it opens?"
He studied it but could find no lock or clasp that would open
the coffer. "It is made of agalloch, lign aloes, the wood of the
aloe, according to the directions of Abramelin. The cross-spines
are of almond-tree wood. Are you beginning to understand, do
you believe me?"
"Siri . . ."
"You'll need Surgat to open it. Look."
And she touched a symbol, a character cut into the rounded top
of the chest:
"He won't harm you. He serves only one purpose: he opens all
locks. Take a hair from my head . . . don't argue with me, Chris,
do it» . . please . . And because her voice was now barely a
whisper, he did it. And she said, "He'll demand a hair of your
head. Don't give it to him. Make him take mine. And this is what
you say to invoke his presence . . ."
In her last minutes she went over it with him till he realized she

31
was serious, that she was not delirious, that he ought to write it
down. So he transcribed her words exactly.
"Once you get the bahut opened, all the rest will be clear. Just
be careful, Chris. It's all I have to give you, so make the best of
it." Her eyes were half-closed and now she opened them com-
pletely, with effort, and looked at him. "Why are you angry with
me?"
He looked away.
"I can't help it that I'm dying, dear. I'm sorry, but that's what's
happening. You'll just have to forgive me and do the best you
can."
Then she closed her eyes and her hand opened and the cloi-
sonne herb container fell to the carpet; and he was alone.
He spoke to her, though he was alone. "I didn't love you
enough. If I'd loved you more it wouldn't have happened."
It's easy to be smart, later.
By the time he was twenty-five, Chris had read everything he
could find on the arcane subject of love. He had read Virgil and
Rabelais, Ovid and Liu Hsiao-Wei, Plato's Symposium and all the
Neoplatonists, Montaigne and Johannes Secundus; he had read
everything by the English poets from the anonymous lyrics of the
13th to 15th centuries through Rolle, Lydgate, Wyatt, Sidney,
Campion, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Marvell, Herrick, Suck-
ling, Lovelace, Blake, Burns, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Keats,
Tennyson, Robert Browning and Emily Bronte; he had read as
many translations as existed of the Sanskrit Kama Sutra and the
Anangaranga, which led him to the Persians; he read The Per-
fumed Garden of the Sheik Nefzawi, the Beharistan of Jami and
the Gulistan of Sa-Di, the anonymously-written Trtdib ul-Niszvan
and the Zenan-Nahmeh of Fazil Bey, which led him to seven
Arabic handbooks of sex, which he quickly put aside: sex was not
the issue, he understood that as well as anyone need to. Under-
stood it well enough to write in his journal:
I was making love to Connie Halban when her husband Paul
came back unexpectedly from a business trip. When he saw us he
began crying. It was the most awful thing I'd ever stood witness
to. I was reminded of Ixion, tied to a turning wheel in Hades as
punishment for making love to Zeus's wife, Hera. I'll never touch

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
32
another married woman. It simply isn't worth the torture and
guilt.
And so he was able to avoid all the texts that dealt solely with
physical love in its seemingly endless permutations. He made no
value judgments; he understood early on that everyone sought
True Love in often inarticulate ways they often did not, them-
selves, understand; but his was an idealized, traditional concept of
what True Love was, and his search for the grail need not be side-
tracked or slowed by excursions into those special places.
He read Waley's translation of The Chin P-ing Mei and every-
thing even remotely pertinent by Freud; he sought out La Fleur
Lascivie Orientale and the even rarer English translation of
Contes Licencieux de Constantinople et de I'Asie Mineure; he
dipped into the memoirs of Clara Bow, Charles II, Charlie Chap-
lin, Isadora Duncan, Marie Duplessis, Lola Montez and George
Sand; he read novelists—Moravia, Gorky, Maupassant, Roth,
Cheever and Brossard—but found they knew even less than he.
He absorbed the thoughts of the aphorists, and believed every
utterance; Balzac: "True love is eternal, infinite, and always like
itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is
seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart."; Moliere:
"Reason is not what directs love."; Terence: "It is possible that a
man can be so-changed by love as hardly to be recognized as the
same person."; Voltaire: "Love is a canvas furnished by Nature
and embroidered by imagination."; La Rochefoucauld: "When we
are in love, we often doubt what we most believe."
Yet even nodding his agreement with every contradictory image
and representation of love—seen as Nature, God, a bird on the
wing, sex, vanity—he knew they had perceived only the barest
edge of what True Love was. Not Kierkegaard or Bacon or
Goethe or Nietzsche, for all their insight, for all their wisdom, had
any better idea of what True Love looked like than the com-
monest day-laborer.
The Song of Solomon spurred him on, but did not indicate the
proper route to discovery.
He found the main path on that night in February of 1968. But
once found, he was too frightened to set foot upon it.
Surgat, a subordinate spirit to Sargatanas who, in the Descend-

33
ing Hierarchy from Lucifer to Lucifuge Rofacale, opens all locks,
came when Chris Caperton summoned him. He was too in-
significant a demon to refuse, no matter how ineptly couched the
invocation. But he was less than cooperative.
Chris used Siri's blood to draw the pentagram of Solomon on
the floor. He didn't think about what he was doing . . . that he
was dipping his finger in the blood of the woman who lay covered
with a sheet on the sofa . . . that he had to do it repeatedly be-
cause it was getting thick . . . that he had been warned all ten
sides of the five-pointed star enclosed in a circle must be without
break ... he just did it. He did not cry. He just did it.
Then he set candles at the five points and lighted them. Every
apartment in Saigon in those days had a supply of candles.
Then he stood in the exact center of the runes and lines and
read from the dictation he had taken. Siri had assured him if he
stayed within the pentagram he would be safe, that Surgat only
opened locks and was not really powerful enough to cause him
trouble ... if he kept his wits about him.
The words were contained in the Grimorium Verum and Siri
had said they need not be spoken precisely, nor need Chris worry
about having done the special cleansing necessary when summon-
ing the more powerful Field Marshals of Lucifer's Infernal Le-
gions.
He read the words. "I conjure thee, Surgat, by the great living
God, the Sovereign Creator of all things, to appear under a
comely human form, without noise and without terror, to answer
truly unto all questions that I shall ask thee. Hereunto I conjure
thee by the virtue of these Holy and Sacred Names. O Surmy
Delmusan Atalsloym Charusihoa ^ Melany ^
Liamintho Colehon iji Paron ii< Madoin Merloy >J<
Bulerator Donmeo Hone ^ Peloym Ibasil Meon."
And on and on, eighteen more names, concluding with, "Come,
therefore, quickly and peaceably, by the Names Adonai, Elohim,
Tetragrammaton! Come!"
From across the Saigon River he could hear the sound of the
city's rockets, flattening Charlie's supposed emplacements. But in
the little apartment on Nguyen Cong Tru Street everything began
to shimmer and wash down like the aurora borealis.
It was an apartment no longer. He stood on the polished wood
floor, inside the pentagram of Solomon, but the polished wood

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
34
floor came to an end at the edges of Siri's dried blood. Beyond lay
a fallen temple. Great gray stones, enormous and bearing the
marks of claws that had ripped them loose from mountains, tum-
bled and thrown carelessly, rose up around Chris. And out of the
shadows something came toward him.
It slouched and dragged its arms behind as it came out of the
darkness. When the flickering illumination from the candles struck
it, Chris felt sick to his stomach. He clutched the paper with Siri's
words as if it would save him.
Surgat came and stood with the point of one goat-hoof almost
touching Siri's blood. Chris could smell where it had been and
what it had been doing when he had interrupted its dining. He felt
faint and could not breathe deeply because of the smell Surgat had
carried from its mess hall.
The head of the demon changed. Toad to goat to worm to spi-
der to dog to ape to man to a thing that had no name.
"Open the lock of the casket," Chris yelled. He had to yell: the
sound of wind was overpowering, deafening, insane.
Surgat kicked the bahut. Chris had left it, as Siri had instructed,
outside the pentagram. Surgat kicked it again. No mark was put
on the coffer, but where the demon's foot had rested in the dust of
the fallen temple's floor, a cloven footprint burned and smoked.
"Open the lock!"
Surgat leaned forward and shrieked. Words poured forth. They
made no sense to Chris. They were from a throat that was not
human. If a hyena had been given the ability to speak with the
tongue of a man, it would have sounded less guttural, less
deranged, less terrifying.
Siri had said the demon would be troublesome, but would
finally do as bidden. It had no choice. It was not that important or
powerful a spirit. When Chris remembered that assurance, and
perceived just how staggering was the sight before him, he trem-
bled at the thought of one of Surgat's masters. "Open it, you god-
dam ugly sonofabitch! Open it right now!"
Surgat vomited maggots that hit an invisible plane at the edge
of the pentagram. And babbled more words. And reached out a
lobster-claw that stopped just outside the invisible plane. It
wanted something.
Then Chris remembered the hair from Siri's head. It will want
the hair of a fox, she had said. Forget that. It will try to get a hair

35
from your head. Whatever you do, don't let it have one. All of
you is contained in each hair; you can be reconstructed from a
hair; then it has you. Give it mine.
He extended her long, thick strand of hair.
Surgat screamed, would not take it. Chris extended it through
the invisible plane. Surgat pointed to Chris's head and pulled long
strips of bleeding flesh from its body and threw them against the
fallen stones where they plopped with the sickening sound of meat
against concrete. Chris did not move. The hair hung down outside
the invisible plane.
Surgat screamed and capered and tore at itself.
"Take it, you disgusting sonofabitch!" Chris yelled. "Take it
and be damned, she died to give it to you, puking garbage dump!
Take it or get nothing! Nothing's worth this, not even that thing
she looked for all her life! So take it, you crummy piece of shit!
Take it or go back where you came from and let me alone!"
The words Surgat spoke became very clear, then. The voice
modulated, became almost refined. It spoke in a language Chris
had never heard. He could not have known that it was a tongue
unspoken for a thousand years before the birth of Christ: Surgat
spoke in Chaldean.
And having spoken, having acknowledged obedience at the
threat of being dismissed without the proper license to depart, the
threat of being trapped here in this halfway place of fallen stones,
and the wrath of Asmoday or Beelzebuth, the lock-picking demon
ran its tentacle forward and took Siri's hair. The hair burst into
flame, the flame shot up toward the shadowed ceiling of the fallen
temple, Surgat turned the flame on the casket . . . and the flame
washed over the wood . . . and the casket opened.
Quickly, Chris read the final words on the paper he held. "O
Spirit Surgat, because thou hast diligently answered my demands,
I do hereby license thee to depart, without injury to man or beast.
Depart, I say, and be thou willing and ready to come, whensoever
duly exorcised and conjured by the Sacred Rites of Magic. I con-
jure thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and may the peace of
God continue for ever between me and thee. Amen."
And Surgat looked across the pentagram's protective plane and
said, in perfectly understandable English, "I do not go empty-
handed."
Then the demon slouched away into the shadows, the aurora

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
36
borealis effect began again, rippling and sliding and flowing down
till he was in his own apartment again. Even then he waited an
hour before leaving the charmed circle.
To discover that as Siri had promised, everything had its price.
Surgat had not gone empty-handed.
The body of his lover was gone. He could not look at what had
been left in its place.
He began to cry, hoping it had been an exchange; hoping that
what lay on the sofa was not Siri.
The bahut contained more items than its outside dimensions
would have indicated. It held grimoires and many notebooks filled
with Siri's handwriting. It held talismans and runic symbols in
stone and silver and wood. It held vials of powders and hair and
bird-claws and bits of matter, each vial labeled clearly. It held
conjurations and phials and philtres and maps and directions and
exorcising spells. It held the key to finding True Love.
But it also held Siri's observations of what had happened to her
when she had summoned the entity she called "the supreme hid-
eousness, the most evil of the ten Sephiroths, the vile Adram-
melech." He read the ledgers until his eyes burned, and when his
fingers left the pages, the paper was smudged with his sweat. He
began to tremble, there in the room where the smell of Surgat's
dining table lingered, and knew he could not summon the strength
to summon this most powerful of dark beings.
He read every word on every page Siri had written; and he
vowed silently that he would pick up her quest where she had
fallen. But he could not go to her informant. His assistance had
cost her too much, and she had been unable to go on. The price
was too high.
But there were clues to the trail of the artifact that was True
Love. And he took the bahut and left the apartment on Nguyen
Cong Tru Street, and never returned. He had money to continue
the search, and he would do it without help from things that
dragged long, rubbery arms through the dust of fallen temples.
All he had to do was wait for the end of the war.
By 1975 Christopher Caperton had traced it to New Orleans.
He was thirty-five years old; he had been married and divorced
because in a moment of weariness he had thought she might

37
suffice in place of True Love; and he wrote this in his journal: It
is the vanity of searching for embodiments. Fleches d'amour. In-
carnations which are never satisfactory, which never answer all
longings and questions.
Once, when he had thought he might die of a jungle fever con-
tracted while running down a false clue in Paramaribo, he heard
himself cursing Siri's memory. If she had not told him it actually
existed, he might have settled for something less, never knowing
for certain that there was more. But he did know, and in his tan-
trum of fever he cursed her to Hell.
When he recovered, he was more than ashamed of himself.
Considering who she had been, where she had gone, and the
owners of her spirit, he might have called down a sentence on her
that she did not deserve. One never knew the total cost, nor at
what point the obligation was considered voided.
After he had been rotated home in 1970 he spent a few months
tying up all previous relationships—family, friends, business asso-
ciates, acquaintances—and set out on the trail that had grown cold
since 1946.
Without dipping into capital he was able to underwrite his ex-
penses handsomely. Even though the gnomes of Zurich had done
away with unnumbered, secret accounts, he had made his money
in a way that caused no concern among the assessors, custom-
house officials, tithe-seekers and running-dogs of the IRS desiring
duty, levy, tribute, tallage, liver and lights. He moved freely under
a variety of passports and a number of names. He came to think
of himself as a nameless, stateless person, someone out of a Gra-
ham Greene suspense novel.
There were clues, beginning with one of the appraisers who had
worked on the Ford bequests. He was quite old by the time Chris
located him in a retirement trailer camp in Sun City, but he re-
membered the item clearly. No, he had never seen it; it was crated
with specific instructions that it should not, under even the most
extreme circumstances, be opened. If he was lying, he did it well.
Chris was paying a high enough premium for the information that
it didn't matter either way. But the trail picked up with the old
appraiser's recollection that whatever the crate had contained, it
had been bequeathed to a contemporary of Henry Ford's, a man
with whom he had been friends and then fallen out, fifty years be-
fore.

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
38
Chris managed to locate the bills of lading and traced the crate
to Madison, Indiana. The recipient of the crate had been deceased
for fifteen years. The contents of the crate had been sold at auc-
tion . . .
And so it went. From place to place. From clue to clue. And
each clue indicated that having been in touch with the artifact, the
owner had known great joy or great sorrow; but all were dead.
The Holy Grail always lay just ahead, always just out of Chris's
reach. Yet he could never bring himself to take the easy way out:
to summon up the horror Siri had called Adrammelech. He knew
if he finally gave in, that even if he found True Love he would
never be able to savor it.
In January of 1975 Christopher Caperton followed a clue from
Trinidad to New Orleans. His source had assured him that the ar-
tifact had passed into the hands of a houngan, a priest of the con-
jur, a disciple of the voodoo of Doctor Cat, a pioneer of mail
order Voodoo in 1914.
On Perdido Street, in a back room lit only by votive candles in
rubyglass jars, Chris met "Prince Basile Thibodeux," whose title
at birth had been merely Willie Link Dunbar. Prince Basile swore
he had known and loved the real and true Marie Laveau. As the
old black man looked no more than sixty—though he claimed to
be ninety-two—such a claim was, either way, highly dubious. Ab-
solute proof exists that Marie Laveau, the first of the many Marie
Laveau's, died on June 24th, 1881, at the approximate age of
eighty-five. Two years before Willie Link "Thibodeux" had been
born, if he was ninety-two; and thirty-four, if he was lying.
Christopher Caperton did not care what lies Prince Basile told
to sell his worthless hoodoo goods in the drugstore of Love Oils,
Goofer Dust, Devil's Shoe Strings and War Water, as long as he
told him a straight story about the artifact.
When he walked into the little back room, washed in bloody
shadows from the candles, he was prepared to pay a premium
price for the information he sought, or to assure Prince Basile that
there were two men living on Prytania Street who would, for only
a fraction of that premium price, inflict great bodily sorrow on a
sixty or ninety-two-year-old black man, and he would worry about
the black goat dancing on his grave at a later time. But Prince
Basile took one look at him and fear filled the withered face.

39
"Doan put dat gris-gris on me, mistuh," he pleaded. "Jus' what-
ever you want, that's be what you gone get. Ah'm at y'service."
And Chris walked out of the little back room on Perdido Street
with the information—that he knew to be absolutely reliable be-
cause no one that terrified could he without dying in the act—that
Willie Link Dunbar had worked on a smuggling operation from
the Islands to the Keys in 1971 and he had seen the artifact. He
swore before Damballa that he could not remember what it looked
like . . . but it had been as lovely as anything he knew. His face,
when he said it, was a strange mix of terror at the sight of Chris
and joy at the last scintilla of memory of what he had seen.
And he told Chris the name of the smuggler who had taken the
item from the boat.
And when Chris asked him why he was so frightened of just an-
other white man, Prince Basile said, "You been kissin' the Old
Ones. I kilt a hunnerd crows and cocks I couldn't save mah soul if
you was t'touch me, mistuh. I be jus' playin' at whut I does, but
you . . . you knows the fire."
Chris shuddered. And that was only from a minor, weak ser-
vant of Adrammelech. He left hurriedly.
He stood in the darkness of the alley off Perdido Street and
thought about it, about True Love, whatever it was. He had
wanted it for so long, had sought it in so many women, had
glimpsed hints of its totality so many times, that he only now
paused to examine what he had become. Even if he got it, would
he be worthy of it? Wasn't the one who found the Holy Grail sup-
posed to be pure in every way, perfect in every way, without flaw
or blemish or self-doubt? Knights on white chargers, saints, de-
fenders of the faith; those were the candidates for the honor.
Prince Charming always won Snow White, not Porky Pig.
Without flaw. No, not without flaw. He had come too far for
perfection. He had had to experience too much.
Yet he knew he was closer to True Love than anyone had ever
been. Not even those who had possessed it had known what to do
with it. He knew he had it within himself to become one with True
Love, as no one before him ever could. No one. Not one of the
perhaps thousand owners of it before and since it found its way to
the Palace of Minos, no matter how fine or great or deserving they
had been.
Christopher Caperton knew his destiny was to hold True Love

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
40
in his hands. Known to demons, casting no shadow, he walked
away from the fear in Perdido Street.
The final clue was so mundane he could not even breathe a sigh
of relief. True Love had been sold in blind bid auction at Sothe-
by's in April of 1979. It now belonged to a man who lived high
above the rest of the human race, in a tower overlooking New
York, where almost eight million people gave a portion of each
day to wondering where True Love resided.
From Siri's notebooks Chris recognized the name of the man.
In 1932 he had visited New York City for the opening of the
Radio City Music Hall. The artifact had been stolen from him. He
had spent forty-seven years trying to regain his lost property. In
the process, somehow, he had become enormously powerful, enor-
mously wealthy, enormously secretive.
Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.
Christopher Caperton took one final look at the cover of the
December 1980 issue of Esquire. It showed a woman in a seduc-
tive bridal gown. The cover illustrated an article called Looking
for a Wife and the slug-line read "With all the beautiful, intelli-
gent women out there, why is she so hard to find?"
He smiled thinking they might have done the reverse on Ms.
magazine, with a photograph of an equally unreachable male.
The model they had selected for the shot was achingly innocent,
yet seductive; poised in a timeless moment of utter perfection.
Had he been anyone else, this might well have been the physical
manifestation of True Love for him.
But it was only the most recent in a congeries of photos, motion
pictures, billboards and women glimpsed in cars going past on city
streets who were idealized manifestations of what he sought.
Tonight he would hold the real thing. Tonight he would obtain
True Love.
He put the last of the vials from Siri's bahut he might need in
the capacious pockets of his London Fog topcoat, and left the
hotel. It was thirty degrees in the Manhattan streets, and the wind
was blowing in off the East River. By tomorrow, perhaps before
two am, there would be snow. It was the sort of evening he had al-
ways imagined for this final leg of the journey.
Christopher Caperton was forty years old.

41
Every bribe had been well-placed. The boiler room door was
unlocked. The key to the private service elevator had been prop-
erly copied. No one stopped him.
He walked through the palatial tower suite in darkness. He
heard a door closing away off in the rear of the apartment. The
floor-plan he had been given was precise and he touched nothing
as he walked quickly to the door of the master bedroom.
The old man was lying in the exact center of the huge bed. As
reported, he was dying.
Chris closed the door behind him. Only one light near the bed
illuminated the room. The old man opened his eyes and looked at
Chris. His eyes were very blue.
"There's never enough money to buy silence, boy. You can buy
entrance, but not silence. There's always some mouth that's hun-
grier."
Chris smiled and walked to the bed. "I would have tried to bar-
gain with you if I'd thought it would do any good. I'm not a thief
by profession."
The old man snorted softly. He didn't seem to be in pain. "No
price."
"Yes, I rather thought that might be the case. But look on the
bright side: you can't take it with you, it won't do you any good
on the other side; and I've been looking for it for a long time."
The old man laughed gently, no more strenuously than he had
snorted. "What the hell do I care how long you looked for it, boy?
Not as long as I looked for it."
"Since Christmas, 1932."
"Well, well. You did your homework, did you?"
"I've paid as much as you, in all kinds of coin."
"Not my concern, boy. You'll never find it."
"It's here. In this room. In the safe."
The old man's eyes widened. "Smarter than I thought. Didn't
stop any of that cash you were doling out; got good people work-
ing for me; didn't see any reason why they shouldn't pick up a few
extra dollars; they've got families to take care of. Didn't expect
you'd know about the safe."
"I know about it."
"Doesn't matter. You'll look forever and never find it. Even if
you do, you'll never get it open." He coughed shallowly, smiled at
the ceiling and recited: "Hidden where you can't find it; but if you

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
42
do you'll be looking at six foot thick walls of concrete reinforced
with molybdenum-steel alloy cords, backed by a foot of tempered
high-carbon high-chromium steel, another foot of unseamed silico-
manganese shock-resisting steel and six inches of eighteen-tung-
sten, four-chrome, one-vanadium high-speed industrial tool steel.
The vault door is stainless steel faced, an inch and a half of cast
steel, another twelve inches of burn-resisting steel, another inch
and a half of open-hearth steel, and the pneumatic hinges are in-
side the sandwich. The vault door has twenty bolts, each an inch
in diameter: eight on one side, eight on the other, two top and two
bottom. This holds the door into a sixteen inch jamb of moly-
tungsten high speed steel, set into eighteen inches of concrete
crosshatched by burn-resisting steel bars running horizontally and
vertically." He coughed once more, pleased with himself, and
added as a fillip, "The door's precision-made so you can't pour
nitro in between the seam of the door and the vault."
Chris let a beaten look cross his face. "And I suppose that isn't
even all of it. I suppose there are thermostats that trip some kind
of trap if the temperature rises ... if I used a torch."
"You got some smarts, boy. Tear gas. And the floor gets elec-
trified." He was grinning widely now, but what little color had
been in his face was gone. His eyes were closing.
"You beat me," Chris said. "I guess it's yours to keep."
But the old man only heard the first part. By the end, Chris was
talking to himself. The old man was gone.
"On the other hand," Chris said softly, "there's no lock that
can't be opened."
He stood by the bed for a while, staring down at the previous
owner of True Love. He didn't seem to have died happier or
sadder for having passed on with it in his possession.
Then Christopher Caperton got down on his knees in the center
of the great bedroom and took out the vial Siri had labeled Blood
of Helomi and he unstoppered the vial and began sprinkling out
the dusty contents in lines that formed the pentagram of Solomon.
He placed the candles and lit them; and he stood in the center of
the design. And he read from a smudged piece of paper twelve
years old.
And Surgat came again.
This time it came to the tower suite; this time it did not take

43
Chris to the fallen temple. And this time it spoke in the soft,
refined voice it had used when taking Siri's body.
"So soon?" Surgat said. "You need me again so soon?"
Chris felt nausea rising in his throat. The demon had not been
dining this time. It had been indulging in whatever passed for for-
nication among demons. Its love-partner was still attached. What-
ever it was, it wasn't human. (A momentary thought shrieked
through Chris's skull. Might it ever have been human; and might it
have been . . . ? He slammed the lid on the thought.)
"Twelve years . . . it's been twelve years . . ." Chris said, with
difficulty.
Surgat let a human face appear in its stomach and the human
face smiled offhandedly. "How time flies when one is enjoying
oneself." The love-partner moaned and gave a spastic twitch.
Chris would not think of it.
"Open the safe," he ordered the demon.
"I'll need you out here to assist me. In one of my very difficult
rituals." The voice was a snake's hiss, from the moth's head.
"Go fuck yourself. Open the safe."
"But I need you," the demon said, wheedling disingenuously.
Chris fished in his topcoat pocket for a scrap of parchment
from the bahut. He began to read. "By the powerful Principality
of the infernal abysses, I conjure thee with power and with exor-
cism; I warn thee hearken forthwith and immediately to my
words; observe them inviolably, as sentences of the last dreadful
day of judgment, which thou must obey inviolably . .
As he began to speak, a sweat of pus and blood began to break
out on the demon's armored flesh. Soft purple bruises appeared, as
if Surgat were being struck from within.
"I hear. I obey!"
And it reached for the hair. Chris took the vial of fox hairs
from his pocket, withdrew one and handed it across the invisible
plane. The hair burst into flame as before, and Surgat turned, aim-
ing the flame at the ceiling. The fire washed the ceiling of the
tower suite bedroom and the ceiling opened and the central sec-
tion of the floor on which Chris stood rose up on hydraulic lifts
into a chamber above the penthouse.
Then Surgat turned the flame on the stainless steel door of the
vault that formed the wall of the chamber above, and the door
swung open ponderously. And the vault within was revealed.

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
44
Then Chris intoned the license to depart, but before Surgat
vanished it said, "Master, powerful Master, may I leave you with
a gift?"
"No. I don't want anything more from you, not ever again."
"But Master, you will need this gift. I swear by my Lord
Adrammelech."
Chris felt terror swirl through him. "What is it?"
"Then you willingly accept my gift without condition or let?"
Chris heard Siri's voice in his memory: He won't harm you. He
serves only one purpose: he opens all locks. Just be careful. "Yes,
I accept the gift."
Surgat caused a pool of stagnant water to appear just beyond
the protective design. Then the human face appeared again in the
thorax of the insect Surgat had become, and the human face
smiled invitingly and said, "Look," and Surgat sucked in within it-
self and grew smaller and smaller and then vanished.
Leaving the pool of foul water in which Chris saw—
A scene from a motion picture. He recognized it. A scene from
Citizen Kane. A day in 1940. The interior of the skyscraper office
of the old man, Bernstein. He is being interviewed by the newsreel
researcher, Thompson, who asks him what Charles Foster Kane's
dying word, "Rosebud," meant.
Bernstein thinks, then says, "Maybe some girl? There were a lot
of them back in the early days and—"
Thompson is amused. He says, "It's hardly likely, Mr. Bern-
stein, that Mr. Kane could have met some girl casually and then,
fifty years later, on his deathbed—"
Bernstein cuts in. "You're pretty young, Mr.—" he remembers
the name, "—Mr. Thompson. A fellow will remember things you
wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in
1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on a ferry and as we pulled
out there was another ferry pulling in." Everett Sloane, as the
aged Bernstein, looks wistful, speaks slowly. "And on it there was
a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on . . . and she
was carrying a white parasol. . . and I only saw her for one sec-
ond and she didn't see me at all . . . but I'll bet a month hasn't
gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl." He smiles trium-
phantly. "See what I mean?"
And the scene faded, and the water boiled away, and Chris was

45
alone in the dimly-lit vault room above the tower suite. Alone
with the dawning fear that he had learned too much.
He saw himself suddenly as a human puppet, controlled from
above by a nameless force that held every man and woman on the
end of strings, making them dance the dance, manipulating them
to seek the unobtainable, denying them peace or contentment be-
cause of the promise of a Holy Grail out there somewhere.
Even if the strings were broken, and puny mortals wandered the
blasted landscape of their lives on their own, they would finally,
inevitably, tragically return to the great puppeteer; to try and retie
the strings. Better to dance the hopeless dance that lied about
True Love than to admit they were all alone, that they might
never, never find that perfect image to become one with. He stood
in the center of the pentagram of Solomon and thought of the
achingly beautiful girl on the cover of Esquire. The girl who was
not real. True Love. Snare and delusion? He felt tears on his
cheeks, and shook his head. No, it was here. It was just inside the
threshold of the vault. It existed. It had a form and a reality. The
truth was only a few footsteps from him. Siri could not have died
for it if it weren't real.
He stepped out of the magic design and walked to the door of
the vault. He kept his eyes down. He stepped over the raised jamb
and heard his footsteps on the steel floor.
The vault was fit by hidden tubing at the juncture of walls and
ceiling. A soft off-white glow that filled the vault
He looked up slowly.
It sat on a pedestal of silver and lucite.
He looked at True Love.
It was an enormous loving cup. It was as gaudy as a bowling
trophy. Exactly a foot and a half high, with handles. Engraved on
the face were the words True Love in flowing script, embellished
with curlicues. It shone with a light of its own, and the glow was
the brassy color of an intramural award.
Christopher Caperton stood with his arms hanging at his sides.
It was in him, at that moment, to laugh. But he had the certain
knowledge that if he laughed, he would never stop; and they
would come in to get the old man's body this morning and find
him still standing there, crying piteously and laughing.

HARLAN ELLISON
GRAIL
46
He had come through a time and a distance to get this real arti-
fact, and he would take it. He stepped to the pedestal and reached
for it. Remembering at the last moment the demon's gift.
Surgat could not touch him; but Surgat could reach him.
He looked down into the loving cup that was True Love and in
the silver liquid swirling there he saw the face of True Love. For
an instant it was his mother, then it was Miss O'Hara, then it was
poor Jean Kettner, then it was Briony Catling, then it was Helen
Gahagan, then it was Marta Toren, then it was the girl to whom
he had lost his virginity, then it was one woman after another he
had known, then it was Siri—but was Siri no longer than any of the
others—then it was his wife, then it was the face of the achingly
beautiful bride on the cover of Esquire, and then it resolved finally
into the most unforgettable face he had ever seen. And it stayed.
It was no face he recognized.
Years later, when he was near death, Christopher Caperton
wrote the answer to the search for True Love in his journal. He
wrote it simply, as a quotation from the Japanese poet Tanaka
Katsumi.
What he wrote was this:
"1 know thai my true friend will appear after my death, and my
sweetheart died before I was born."
In that instant when he saw the face of True Love, Christopher
Caperton knew the awful gift the demon had given him. To reach
the finest moment of one's life, and to know it was the finest mo-
ment, that there would never be a more golden, more perfect,
nobler or loftier or thrilling moment. . . and to continue to have
to live a life that was all on the downhill side.
That was the curse and the blessing.
He knew, at last, that he way worthy of such a thing. In torment
and sadness he knew he was just that worthy, and no more.
But it's easy to be smart. . . later.

THE OUTPOST UNDISCOVERED BY
TOURISTS
A tale of three kings and a star for
this sacred season

THE OUTPOST UNDISCOVERED BY
TOURISTS
A tale of three kings and a star for
this sacred season
They camped just beyond the perimeter of the dream and
waited for first light before beginning the siege.
Melchior went to the boot of the Rolls and unlocked it. He
rummaged about till he found the air mattress and the inflatable
television set, and brought them to the cleared circle. He pulled
the cord on the mattress and it hissed and puffed up to its full size,
king size. He pulled the plug on the television set and it hissed and
firmed up and he snapped his fingers and it turned itself on.
"No," said Kaspar, "I will not stand for it! Not another night of
roller derby. A King of Orient I are, and I'll be damned if I'll lose
another night's sleep listening to those barely primate creatures
dropkicking each other!"
Melchior glowed with his own night light. "So sue me," he said,
settling down on the air mattress, tidying his moleskin cape
around him. "You know I've got insomnia. You know I've got a
strictly awful hiatus hernia. You know those lathes are sitting right
here on my chest like millstones. Be a person for a change, a
mensch, it couldn't hurt just once."
Kaspar lifted the chalice of myrrh, the symbol of death, and
shook it at Melchior. "Hypochondriac! That's what you are, a
fake, a fraud. You just like watching those honkytonk bimbos
punching each other out Hiatus hernia, my fundament! You'd
watch mud wrestling and extol the esthetic virtues of the balletic
nuances. Turn it off ... or at least, in the name of Jehovah, get
the Sermonette."
"The ribs are almost ready," Balthazar interrupted. "You want
the mild or the spicy sauce?"
Kaspar raised his eyes to the star far above them, out of reach

HARLAN ELLISON
THE OUTPOST UNDISCOVERED BY TOURISTS
SO
but maddeningly close. He spoke to Jehovah: "And this one goes
ethnic on us. Wandering Jew over there drives me crazy with the
light that never dims, watches institutionalized mayhem all night
and clanks all day with gold chains . . . and Black-is-Beautiful
over there is determined I'll die of tertiary heartburn before I can
even find the Savior. Thanks, Yahweh; thanks a lot. Wait till you
need a favor."
"Mild or spicy?" Balthazar said with resignation.
"I'd like mine with the mild," Melchior said sweetly. "And just
a bissel apple sauce on the side, please."
"I want dimsum," Kaspar said. His malachite chopsticks mate-
rialized in his left hand, held far up their length indicating he was
of the highest caste.
"He's only being petulant," Melchior said. "He shouldn't
annoy, Balthazar sweetie. Serve them cute and tasty ribs."
"Deliver me," Kaspar murmured.
So they ate dinner, there under the star. The Nubian king, the
Scrutable Oriental king, and the Hebrew king. And they watched
the roller derby. They also played the spelling game called ghost,
but ended the festivity abruptly and on a rancorous note when
Balthazar and Melchior ganged up on Kaspar using the word
"pringles," which Kaspar contended was not a generic but a
specific trade name. Finally they fell asleep, the television set still
talking to itself, the light from Melchior reflecting ofi the picture
tube.
In the night the star glowed brightly, calling them on even in
their sleep. And in the night early warning reconnaissance troops
of the Forces of Chaos flew overhead flapping their leathery bat-
wings and leaving in their wake the hideous car-barn monoxide
stench of British Leyland double-decker buses.
When Melchior awoke in the morning his first words were, "In
the night, who made a ka-ka?"
Balthazar pointed. "Look."
The ground was covered with the permanent shadows of the
bat-troops that had flown overhead. Dark, sooty shapes of fear-
some creatures in full flight.
"I've always thought they looked like the flying monkeys in the
1939 MGM production of The Wizard of Oz, special effects by
Arnold Gillespie, character makeup created by Jack Dawn," Kas-
par said ruminatively.

51
"Listen, Yellow Peril," Balthazar said, "you can exercise that
junkheap memory for trivia later. Unless the point is lost on you,
what this means is that they know we're coming and they're going
to be ready for us. We've lost the element of surprise."
Melchior sighed and added, "Not to mention that we've been
following the star for exactly one thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine years, give or take a fast minute, which unless they
aren't too clever should have tipped them off we were on the way
some time ago."
"Nonetheless," said Kaspar, and fascinated by the word he said
it again, "nonetheless."
They waited, but he didn't finish the sentence.
"And on that uplifting note," Balthazar said, "let us get in the
wind before they catch us out here in the open."
So they gathered their belongings—Melchior's caskets of Kru-
gerrands, his air mattress and inflatable television set, Kaspar's
chalice of myrrh, his Judy Garland albums and fortune-cookie
fortune calligraphy set, Balthazar's wok, his brass-bound collected
works of James Baldwin and hair-conking outfit—and they stowed
them neatly in the boot of the Rolls.
Then, with Balthazar driving (but refusing once again to wear
the chauffeur's cap on moral grounds), they set out under the aus-
pices of power steering, directly through the perimeter of the
dream.
The star continued to shine overhead. "Damnedest thing I ever
saw," Kaspar remarked, for the ten thousandth time. "Defies all
the accepted laws of celestial mechanics."
Balthazar mumbled something.
For the ten thousandth time.
"What's that, I didn't hear?" Melchior said.
"I said: at least if there was a pot of gold at the end of all
this . . ."
It was unworthy of him, as it had been ten thousand times
previously, and the others chose to ignore it.
At the outskirts of the dream, a rundown section lined with fast
food stands, motels with waterbeds and closed circuit vibrating
magic fingers cablevision, bowling alleys, Polish athletic organi-
zations and used rickshaw lots, they encountered the first line of
resistance from the Forces of Chaos.
As they stopped for a traffic light, thousands of bat-winged

HARLAN ELLISON
THE OUTPOST UNDISCOVERED BY TOURISTS
52
monkey-faced troops leaped out of alleys and doorways with
buckets of water and sponges, and began washing their wind-
shield.
"Quick, Kaspar!" Balthazar shouted.
The Oriental king threw open the rear door on the right side
and bounded out into the street, brandishing the chalice of myrrh.
"Back, back, scum of the underworld!" he howled.
The troops of Chaos shrieked in horror and pain and began
dropping what appeared to be dead all over the place, setting up a
wailing and a crying and a screaming that rose over the dream like
dark smoke.
"Please, already," Melchior shouted. "Do we need all this
noise? All this geshrying! You'll wake the baby!"
Then Balthazar was gunning the motor, Kaspar leaped back
into the rear seat, the door slammed and they were off, through
the red light—which had, naturally, been rigged to stay red, as are
all such red lights, by the Forces of Chaos.
All that day they lay siege to the dream.
The Automobile Club told them they couldn't get there from
here. The speed traps were set at nine miles per hour. Sects of
religious fanatics threw themselves under the steel-belteds. But
finally they came to the Manger, a Hyatt establishment, and they
fought their way inside with the gifts, all tasteful.
And there, in a moderately-priced room, they found the Savior,
tended by an out-of-work cabinetmaker, a lady who was obviously
several bricks shy of a load who kept insisting she had been raped
by God, various shepherds, butchers, pet store operators, boutique
salesgirls, certified public accountants, hawkers of T-shirts, inves-
tigative journalists, theatrical hangers-on, Sammy Davis, Jr. and a
man who owned a whippet that was reputed to be able to catch
two Frisbees at the same time.
And the three kings came in, finding it hard to find a place
there in the crowd, and they set down their gifts and stared at the
sleeping child.
"We'll call him Jomo," said Balthazar, asserting himself.
"Don't be a jerk," Kaspar said. "Merry Jomomas? We'll call
him Lao-Tzu. It flows, it sings, it soars."
So they argued about that for quite a while, and finally settled
On Christ, because in conjunction with Jesus it was six and five,
and that would fit all the marquees.

53
But still, after two thousand years, they were unsettled. They
stared down at the sleeping child, who looked like all babies: like
a small, soft W.C. Fields who had grown blotchy drinking wine
sold before its time, and Balthazar mumbled, "I'd have been just
as happy with a pot of gold," and Kaspar said, "You'd think after
two thousand years someone would at least offer me a chair," and
Melchior summed up all their hopes and dreams for a better world
when he said, "You know, it's funny, but he don't look Jewish."

BLANK . ..

BLANK . . .
Driver Hall was an impressive pastel blue building in the center
of the city. Akisimov had no difficulty finding its spirally-rising
towers, even though the sykops were close behind, but once within
sight of the structure, he found himself lost.
How could he do it?
No Driver would intentionally help a criminal escape, yet a
Driver was his only possible chance of freedom.
Akisimov's bleak, hard features sagged in fright as he sensed
the tentative probes of the sykops in his mind. They had found the
flower girl, and they were circling in on him, getting his thoughts
pinpointed. Why had that stupid urchin wandered across his path?
It had been a clean escape, till he had run out of the mouth of that
alley, and stumbled into her. Why had she clung to him? He
hadn't wanted to burn her down ... he was only trying to get
away from the sykops.
Akisimov cast about hungrily with his eyes. There had to be
some way, some device to corner a Driver. Then he spotted the
service entrance to the Hall. It was a dark hole in the side of the
building, and he sprinted across the street, in a dead run for it. He
made the comparative safety of the entrance without being openly
noticed, and crouched down to wait. Wildly, he pulled the defec-
tive mesh cap tighter about his ears. It was the only thing standing
between him and capture by the sykops, poor thing that it was.
Had it been a standard make, not a lousy rogue cheapie model, it
would have blanked him effectively, but as it was, it was the best
he had.
With unfamiliar phrases he prayed to some unknown God to let

HARLAN ELLISON
BLANK . . .
58
the mind-blanking cap work well enough. Well enough to keep the
sykops off him till he could kidnap a Driver.
Rike Akisimov had been sentenced to Io penal colony for a
thousand years. The jurymech knew such a sentence bordered on
the ridiculous; even with the current trends in geriatrics, no man
could live past three hundred. The body tissue, the very fiber, just
wouldn't stand up to it.
But in token hatred for this most vile of criminals, the placid
and faceless jurymech had said: "We, the beings of the Solarite,
sentence you, Rike Amadeus Akisimov, to the penal colony on Io
for a period of one thousand years."
Then, as the jury room buzzed with wonder, the machine
added, "We find in your deeds such a revulsion, such a loathing,
that we feel even this sentence is too light. Rike Amadeus Akisi-
mov, we find in you no identification with humanity, but only a re-
semblance to some odious beast of the jungle. You are a carrion-
feeder, Akisimov; you are a jackal and a hyena and a vulture, and
we pray your kind is never again discovered in the universe.
"We cannot even say, 'God have mercy on your soul,' for we
are certain you have no soul!"
The jury room had been stunned into silence. For an implaca-
ble, emotionless jurymech to spew forth such violent feelings, was
unprecedented. Everyone knew the decision-tapes were fed in by
humans, but no one, absolutely no one, could have fed in those
epithets.
Even a machine had been shocked by the magnitude of Akisi-
mov's crimes. For they were more than crimes against society.
They were crimes against God and Man.
They had taken him away, preparing to lead him in the ferry-flit
designed to convey prisoners from court to the spaceport, when he
had struck. By some remarkable strength of his wrists—born of
terror and desperation—he had snapped the elasticords, clubbed
his guards and broken into the crowds clogging the strips, carrying
with him a sykop blaster.
In a few minutes he was lost to the psioid lawmen, had ripped a
mind-blanking mesh cap from a pedestrian's head, and was on his
way to the one escape route left.
To the Hall and the psioids known as Drivers.

59
She came out of the building, and Akisimov recognized her at
once as a senior grade Driver. She was a tall girl, tanned and
beautifully-proportioned, walking with the easy, off-the-toes stride
of the experienced spaceman. She wore the mind's eye and jet
tube insignia of her class-psi on her left breast, and she seemed to-
tally unconcerned as Akisimov stepped out of the service en-
trance, shoved the blaster in her ribs, and snarled, "I've got noth-
ing but death behind me, sister. The name is Akisimov . . ." The
girl turned a scrutinizing stare on him as he said his name; the
Akisimov case had been publicized; madness such as his could not
be kept quiet; she knew who he was, ". . . so you better call a flit,
and do it quick."
She smiled at him almost benignly, and raised her hand lazily in
a gesture that brought a flit scurrying down from the idling level.
"The spaceport," Akisimov whispered to her, when they were
inside and rising. The girl repeated the order to the flitman.
In half an hour they were at the spaceport. The criminal softly
warned the psioid about any sudden moves, and hustled the girl
from the flit, making her pay the flitman. They got past the port
guards by the Driver showing her i.d. bracelet.
Once inside, Akisimov dragged the girl out of sight behind a
blast bunker and snapped quickly, "You have a clearance, or do I
have to hi-jack a ship?"
The girl stared blankly at him, smiling calmly and enigmat-
ically.
He jabbed the blaster hard into her side, causing her to wince,
and repeated viciously, "I said, you got a clearance? And you
damned well better answer me or so help me God I'll burn away
the top of your head!"
"I have a clearance," she said, adding solemnly, "you don't
want to do this."
He laughed roughly, gripped her arm tightly. She ground her
lips together as his fingers closed about the skin, and he replied,
"They got me on a thousand yearer to Io, lady. So I want to do
any goddam thing that'll get me out of here. Now what ship are
you assigned to snap?"
She seemed to shrug her shoulders in finality, having made a
token gesture, and answered, "I'm snap on the Lady Knoxmaster,
in pit eighty-four."

HARLAN ELLISON
BLANK ...	60
"Then let's go," he finished, and dragged her off across the
field.
"You don't want to do this," she said again, softly. He was deaf
to her warning.
When the invership took off, straight up without clearance co-
ordinates and at full power, the Port Central went crazy, sending
up signals, demanding recognition info, demanding this, demand-
ing the other. But the Lady Knoxmaster was already heading out
toward snap-point.
Akisimov, gloating, threw in the switch and knew the telemeter-
ing cameras were on him. "Goodbye, you asses! Goodbye, from
Rike Akisimov! Stupid! You thought I'd spend a thousand years
on Io? There are better things for me in the universe!"
He flicked off, to let them call the sykops, so the law would
know he had bested them. "Yeah, there isn't anything worse than
a life term on Io," he murmured, watching the planet fall away in
the viewplates.
"You're wrong, Akisimov," the girl murmured, very, very
softly.
Immediately the sykops and the SpaceCom sent up ships to ap-
prehend the violator, but it was obvious the ship had enough start
momentum to reach snap-out—if a Driver was on board—before
they could reach it. Their single hope was that Akisimov had no
Driver aboard, then they could catch him in a straight run.
On board the Lady Knoxmaster, Akisimov studied the calm-
faced psioid girl in the other accelocouch.
Drivers were the most valuable, and yet the simplest-talented,
of all the types of psionically equipped peoples in the field. Their
one capacity was to warp a ship from normal space into that not-
space that allowed interstellar travel; into inverspace.
Though the ship went through—set to snap-out by an automatic
function of the Driver's psi faculty—the Driver did not. That was
the reason they were always in-suit and ready for the snap. Since
they did not snap when the ship did, they were left hanging in
space, where they were picked up immediately after by a doggie
vessel assigned to each takeoff.
But this time there was no doggie, and there was no suit, and
Akisimov wanted the girl dead in any event. He might have made

61
some slip, might have mumbled something about where "out
there" he was heading. But whether he had or had not, dead wit-
nesses were the only safe witnesses.
"Snap the ship," he snarled at her, aiming the blaster.
"I'm unsuited," she replied.
"Snap, damn your lousy psi hide! Snap damn you, and pray the
cops on our trail will get to you before you conk out What is it,
seven seconds you can survive in space? Ten? Whatever it is, it's
more of a chance than if I burn your head off!" He indicated with
a sweep of his slim hand the console port where the bips that were
sykop ships were narrowing up at them.
"You don't want to do this," the girl tried again.
Akisimov blasted. The gun leaped in his palm, and the stench
of burned-away flesh filled the cabin. The girl stared dumbly at the
cauterized stump that had been her left arm. A scream started to
her mouth, but he silenced her with the point of the blaster.
She nodded acquiescence.
She snapped. Though she could not explain what was going on
in her mind, she knew what she was doing, and she concentrated
to do it this time . . . though just a bit differently . . . just a bit
specially. She drew down her brows and concentrated, and . . .
blank. . .
The ship was gone, she was in space, whirling, senseless, as the
bulk of a ship loomed around her, hauling her in.
She was safe. She would live. With one arm.
As the charcoal-caped sykops dragged her in, lay her in a mesh
webbing, they could not contain their anxiety.
"Akisimov? Gone?"
They read her thoughts, so the girl said nothing. She nodded
slowly, the pain in her stump shooting up to drive needles into the
base of her brain. She moaned, then said, "He didn't get away. He
thought the worst was a term on Io; he's wrong; he's being
punished."
They stared at her, as her thoughts swirled unreadably. They
stared unknowing, wondering, but damning their own inefficiency.
Akisimov had gotten away.
They were wrong.
blank .

HARLAN ELLISON
BLANK . . .
62
The ship popped into inverspace.
blank . • .
The ship popped out . . .
In the center of a white-hot dwarf star. The sun burned the ship
to molten slag, and Akisimov died horribly, flamingly, charringly,
agonizingly, burningly as the slag vaporized.
Just at the instant of death . . .
blank . . •
The ship popped into inverspace.
blank . . .
The ship popped out . . .
In the center of a white-hot dwarf star. The sun burned the ship
to molten slag, and Akisimov died horribly, flamingly, charringly,
agonizingly, burningly as the slag vaporized.
Just at the instant of death . . .
blank . . .
The ship popped into inverspace.
blank . . .
The ship popped out . . .
Over and over and over again, till the ends of Time, till Eter-
nity was a remote forgotten nothing, till death had no meaning,
and life was something for humanity. The Driver had exacted her
revenge. She had set the ship in a moebius whirl, in and out and in
and out and in again from inverspace to out, right at that instant
of blanking, right at that instant of death, so that Forever would
be spent by Rike Amadeus Akisimov in one horrible way—ten bil-
lion times one thousand years. One horrible way, forever and ever
and ever.
Dying, dying, dying. Over and over and over again, without end
to torment, without end to horror.
blank . . .

SCENES FROM THE REAL WORLD? i
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT
THINGS IN LIFE

THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT
THINGS IN LIFE
I've looked everywhere, and I'll be damned if I can find it, but I
know I read that passage .somewhere; I think in Kerouac; but I
can't locate it now, so you'll just have to go along with me that it's
there.
Would I lie to you?
It's a scene in which a young supplicant, an aspiring poet,
somebody like that, seeks out this knowledgeable old philosopher
—kind of a Bukowski or Henry Miller figure—in Paris or New
York or somesuch bustling metropolitan situs . . . and the kid
comes to the old guru in his ratty apartment, and he sorta kinda
asks him that old saw about the meaning of life. Correction:
LIFE. He squats there and says to the old man, "What's it all
about? What's it mean? Huh?"
And the old man purses his lips and beetles his brow; he per-
ceives the kid is really serious about this; it's not just jerk-off time.
So he nods sagely, and clasps his hands behind his back, and he
walks to the window and stares out at the deep city for a while,
just sorta kinda ponders for a while. And finally, he turns to the
kid and he says, with core seriousness, "You know, there's a lotta
bastards out there."
Now that's pretty significant. I think. On the other hand, I have
never made my residence in a stalactite-festooned cave high up on
the northern massif of Chomolungma (Everest to you). I have
never been sought out by fawning sycophants, whimpering to
abase themselves before my wisdom, hungering to prostrate them-
selves and to offer oblations at the altar of my Delphic insights. In
short, unlike the Great Thinkers of Our Time who appear regu-
larly on talk-shows—Merv Griffin, Debbie Boone, Zsa Zsa Gabor

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
66
and Jim Nabors leap instantly to mind—I doubt that the Oxford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy will ever crib from my notes.
Nonetheless, having become something of an ingroup cult figure
among those with a high death-wish profile and a taste for cheap
thrills, I am often asked, "What's the big secret, Ellison?" At col-
lege lectures, for instance, bright-eyed young people, the great
hope of our society, come up to me and murmur in reverential
tones, "Wanna buy a lid of tough Filipino Scarlet?"
Naturally I try to demonstrate a certain humility in the face of
such trust and innocence. I try to explain that Life is Real, Life is
Earnest. In my own toe-scufiling fashion I attempt to encapsulate
in three or four apocryphal phrases the Ethical Structure of the
Universe. The better to aid these fine young people as they set out
to change the world.
And from this long, terrifically fascinating life of encounters
and adventures, I have selected three examples of what I think are
the most important things in life. Notes should be taken; this will
count as sixty per cent of your grade.
1. SEX
I could have started with one of the more esoteric of the three,
but I know your attention-span is short and, in lieu of playing The
Saints Go Marching In, I decided it was best to catch your notice
with instant sleaze.
Sex is one of the most important things in life. It comes built
into the machine. Understanding sex is real important, y'know.
And it's not enough just to say, "All men are shits," or "What the
fuck do women want?" That's good for openers, but one must
press on to deeper insights. As an aid to your greater search, I
offer the following anecdote from my own humble experience: an
only-minimally exaggerated retelling of the single kinkiest sexual
encounter I ever had.
When I got to Los Angeles in 1962, I was well into terminal
destitution. Poverty would have been, for me, a sharp jump into a
higher-income bracket. Consequently, I wasn't getting laid much.
More astute observers than I have charted the correlations be-
tween one's D&B rating and one's attraction for members of the
same or opposite sex.

67
Anyhow, I met this young woman at Stats Charbroiler one af-
ternoon, and somehow conned her into accepting a date. It has
been fifteen years since that encounter, but I remember her name
today as clearly as if it had been intaglio'd on my brain with a
jackhammer. Brenda.
A substantially constructed female person, honey blonde of
hair, amber of eye, insouciant of manner and expansive of bosom.
We exchanged pleasantries, I explained that I was new to L.A.
and was, in fact, a published author.
She went for it.
I took her phone number and address, and promised to pick her
up the following Saturday night around 8:00 for a rollicking eve-
ning of camaraderie and good times, cleverly scaled to my nonex-
istent finances. Long walks in the bracing night air, that kind of
thing.
Came Saturday, and I hand-washed the wretched 1951 Ford
that had brought me to California from Chicago and New York. I
dressed as spiffily as I could manage, aware at all times of the fact
that having postponed a good number of meals had dropped my
weight to about ninety pounds and I was beginning to take on the
appearance of a card-carrying rickets case.
I drove to her home, which was in the posh Brentwood section
of Beverly Hills. I walked to the ornate apartment door of the gar-
den lanai, and rang the bell. Nothing happened. I waited and rang
again. Nothing happened. Minutes passed, and I began thinking
unworthy thoughts about Brenda's ethics. Finally, I heard foot-
steps from within, and the door was flung open.
There stood Brenda in her slip, with machines in her hair.
"Come in, come in," she said huffily, as if I had interrupted her at
the precise moment when she had been decoding the DNA mole-
cule or something equally as significant. "I'm running a little late.
I have to finish doing my hair. Well, come in already."
I stepped into the foyer, standing on a ribbed plastic runner that
stretched out into the distance. As she closed the door behind me,
I began to take a step off the plastic stripping so the door wouldn't
hit me. My foot was poised in mid-step as she let out a shriek.
"Aaarghh! Not on the carpet! Mama had the schvarize in today!"
I spun, widdershins, barely managing to balance myself on one leg
like a flamingo. I steadied myself on the plastic runner and looked
to my right, the direction my errant foot would have carried me.

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
68
There, stretching off to the distant horizon, flooring a living
room only slightly smaller than Bosnia and/or Herzogovina, lay
the pluperfect lunatic symbol of the upwardly-mobile, nouveau-
riche household: a white carpet, deepest pile, a veritable Sargasso
Sea of insane white carpet-who but nutcases would carpet a room
in which human beings are supposed to relax in white, fer chris-
sakes?—with the nap pathologically lying all in one direction,
clearly having been carpet-swept by Nubian slave labor so it was
anal retentively flowing in one unbroken tide. Hours had been
spent making sure each bloody fiber lay in that north by northwest
direction.
"Stay on the runner. I won't be long," Brenda commanded.
"I've got to stay on the runner?"
"Sure. Just stand there. I'll be out in a minute."
And she vanished. Back into the bowels of that cyclopean dom-
icile, leaving me standing frozen and tremulous in my baggy pants
while she went off to complete her toilette. The plastic runner ex-
tended out beneath my feet, back into the dim and vaulted inte-
rior. To my left a closed door. To my right the inviolate expanse
of white carpeting and a living room in which Xerxes could easily
have assembled his armies for an attack on the Hot Gates.
I stood there, shifting from one foot to the other like a grade
school troublemaker waiting for his audience with the Principal.
And time went by. Slowly. I waited and waited, and heard nothing
from the back of the residence. The living room looked invitingly
comfortable with all those massive sofas and the huge baby grand
piano. But I had been denied entrance. I felt like Howard Carter
and Lord Carnarvon standing at the doorway to the antechamber
of Tutankhamen's tomb, faunching to enter a space unvisited for
three thousand years, but fearing the terrible wrath of Beware all
ye who violate this sacred place . . .
Now I don't know about you, friends, but if you leave me all
alone someplace, with nothing to amuse me, for any extended pe-
riod of time, I will sure as shit get in trouble.
And so, possessed by some devil-demon from my childhood, I
became obsessed by the purity of that goddam carpet. I stared at
its unblemished white expanse, that sea of bleached grass rippling
away to forever. And finally, when it was either do something or
go bugfuck, I stepped to the edge of the plastic runner, crouched,
and jumped as far out into the carpet as I could. There was no

69
way of knowing where I had come from. My footprints just magi-
cally appeared out there.
I hesitated only a moment, and then, scuffling my feet to pro-
duce impressions in the carpet, I began spelling out the classic
Chaucerian PHUQUE. In letters four feet high. In virginal white
carpet.
And I was just putting the . on the ! when I heard a strangled,
"Aaaaarghhh!" behind me. I turned, and there stood the missing
Brenda, looking really pretty terrific, but with this, how shall I put
it, uh, green expression on her face. "OhjeezusOhmiGodOhshit!
My mother'U kiiiill me!" And she ran off, leaving me standing
there rather shamefaced, wondering just which mental gargoyle
had taken possession of the cathedral of my mind, knowing that
there was no way I was gonna get laid.
Then, in a moment, here she came, schlepping a carpet
sweeper, not a vacuum cleaner, just one of your basic hand-
pushed carpet sweepers, and she starts sweeping the nap back
north by northwest!
And I watched this demented scene for about thirty seconds
until it got more than I could handle, and I yelled at her, "This is
nuts! How the hell can you be a slave to a fuckin' carpet?" But
she was in the grip of more powerful forces than my charisma. She
was under the unbreakable spell of toilet training, and if the
Apocalypse had come along just then she'd still have finished lay-
ing that nap back.
I went crazy.
I grabbed for the sweeper. She pirouetted out of my reach. She
never broke stroke. I lunged for her again, and got my hands
around the sweeper. We struggled back and forth across the living
room, caroming off the furniture, lousing up the carpet worse than
before. She fought like one of those lady barbarians out of a
Conan adventure, punching and kicking.
Then the sweeper went that way, and we went this way, and we
fell over and wrestled over and over across the floor, thumping
our heads and legs. Over and over, and I came up on top for a
moment and pinned her arms and stared down at her, trying to
catch my breath . . .
And in that instant I perceived a mad light glowing out of her
eyes, and she murmured huskily, "Hit me."
Oh shit.

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
70
Now you gotta understand: I'm a quiet, well-mannered, Jewish
kid from Ohio. Not even years sunk to the hips in the fleshpots of
New York, Chicago, London and Billings, Montana have been
able to sully the rigidly Puritanical morals that have led me to the
pinnacle of success and clear complexion you see before you
today. To put it simply, I was terrified. After all that time, at long
last, despite my best efforts at avoidance, I had encountered one
of those kinda ladies.
"Uh . . . beg pardon," I said weakly.
"Hit me," she said again. The light in her eyes strobed.
"H-h-huh-to you?"
"Punch me around a little bit. I love it."
"P-p-puh—?"
"Don't leave marks. Just hurt me some . . ."
Oh shit.
She was watching me, naked lust in her face, her lips wet with
unconcealed desire. Nice quiet Jewish kid from Ohio. But what
the hell, I'm adaptable.
Bogart asserted himself. My voice dropped four octaves. "You
like a little smacking around, right, shweetheart?" She nodded,
bonking her head on the carpet "Okay," I said roughly, "get
naked."
She looked troubled for a moment. "Naked?"
"Now!" I said, my voice a brutal rasp. I got off her. I stood
over her as she stripped out of her clothes. My eyes slitted, my
jaw tensed. I watched silently.
When she was naked—and pretty terrific she was, I might add—I
said, "Okay, He on your back." She lay down again. (For a crazed
moment I wanted to tell her to "make an angel" the way we used
to do it when there was a heavy snow in Ohio. You lie on your
back and flap your arms up and down, making angel wings. But I
didn't. That would've been really crazy.)
The heavy drapes on the living room windows were secured by
thick gold cord ropes with tassels. I unhooked four of them. I
wrapped one around her left leg, secured it, and tied it to one leg
of the baby grand. Then I did the same to her right leg and at-
tached it to the piano at the other side. Then one arm stretched
above her head and fastened to a leg of the massive sectional
sofa. The other arm to another post of the sofa. She was spread-
eagled, right in the middle of the word PHUQUE! (without the .)

71
out flat on her back, her perspiring body trembling with barely-
restrained passion.
"Can you move?"
She tried, then shook her head.
"Tied down tight? Can't get loose?"
She nodded again, breathing raggedly.
"Terrific," I said, heading for the door. "Say hello to your
mama for me, and thank her for the chicken soup."
And I ran for my life.
All I could think of was when her mother got home that night,
and found her baby girl staked out like a gazelle at the waterhole,
she'd take one look at this monstrous scene and start screaming,
"My caaaarpet ... I"
You ask me if sex is one of the most important things in life?
Absolutely. But the lack of it is even likelier to drive you nuts.
2. VIOLENCE
Not the pale, pallid nonsense Starsky and Hutch indulge in
every week. Real violence. Sudden, inexplicable, ghastly.
How seldom we see it. How unhinged we become in the face of
it. Because when it really happens, when it manifests itself on its
most primitive, amoral level ... we understand just how fragile
is the tissue of social behavior. In a life singularly filled with vio-
lence, only one sticks out without even close competition as the
most horrendously violent moment I ever witnessed. I'll tell it
briefly; even today, years later, my blood runs cold remem-
bering . . .
New York. Early Seventies, maybe '73 or '74.1 was in the city
on business. Business taken care of, I got together with a friend, a
writer from Texas who loves movies as much and as indis-
criminately as I do. The ritual: the movie crawl. Load up on junk
food, start at the first movie theater on the downtown side of 42nd
Street, and just work our way from Times Square to 8th Avenue,
cross the street, and work our way back to Times Square. Days.
Endless days. Twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight hours straight
time in the dark. We eat in there, sleep in there, piss and day-
dream in there. Hot dogs, popcorn, slabs of cheese, munchies,
French bread, anydamnthing. And we see them all: the good

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
72
flicks, the bad flicks, the kung-fu operas, the porn jobs, the
superfly stomp the paddy flicks ... all of them. One after an-
other, till our eyes turn to poached eggs, staggering from theater
to theater like refugees from a Macao opium den.
I don't remember the name of the particular theater, but it was
on the uptown side of 42nd Street, close to Broadway. It was
something like four in the morning. My buddy and I were almost
totally cacked-out. I remember the double-bill, however. The
lower half, the B feature, was Fear is the Key, a really dreadful
action-adventure turkey based on a crummy Alistair Maclean
novel. The main feature was Save the Tiger, a contemporary
drama starring Jack Lemmon. He won the Oscar for the role in
that film.
And there we slumped, way the hell up in the balcony, our
knees jammed under our chins, best seats in an almost empty
house. Four ayem. Two rows below us—and it was steep up there,
what I'm talking here is damned near per-pen-d/c-u-lar—some
black dude was juiced out asleep, lying across three or four seats,
snoring.
My buddy the Texas writer is dead asleep, having polished off a
recent meal of three boxes Good'n'Plenty and a frozen chocolate
covered banana on a stick. And, blessedly, Fear is the Key ends,
and Save the Tiger begins.
About ten minutes into this serious, sensitive study of a garment
center guy who is killing himself with floating ethics, and from the
very first row of the balcony, below and to the right of us, but still
very high above the floor of the theater, I hear a shrieky black
voice start mouthing off. Dialogue straight out of ONE HUN-
DRED DOLLAR MISUNDERSTANDING.
"Muh-fugguh! Gahdamn muh-fugn stupid piece'a shit. Dumb
sunbish cah-suckin' piece'a shit garbage . . . Leroy! Hey, you
sumbish nigguh prick Leroy! Le's get th' fuggoutta here, Leeeee-
roy!"
Clearly, the critic in the first row of the balcony found this
deeply penetrating study of middle class morality as seen through
the dissolution of Jack Lemmon's knock-off sweat shop less than
relevant to his existence as a mid-Twentieth Century denizen of
the shitty slum to whence he would wend his way once this stupid
kike film about muh-fuggin' honk paddy bastids ended. Which
wasn't soon enough for him. "Leeeee-ROY!"

73
I had the feeling that Leeee-ROY was the terminal case lying
over the seats two rows below us. Out of it.
Well, I peer through the gloom and see the dude down there in
the front row of the balcony, his feet up on the brass rail, his part-
ner beside him, silently watching the film but not stopping the
noise. And I watch the two of them for a little while, hoping the
third member of the group, good ole Leeee-ROY, will bestir his
ass and go rejoin them there sepia Athos and Porthos, and maybe
just maybe vacate the site quietly so I can watch the goddam muh-
fuggin' movie.
But no such luck. The critic only gets wonkyer, yelling at the
top of his lungs. Leeee-ROY don't twitch a bun.
And just as the critic is reaching a pitch that will cause sonic
tremors, squealing sunbish and muh-fugguh at the top of his lungs,
from behind me I hear The Voice of Doom:
"Shut your face, nigger, before I come down there and kill
you."
Pause with me for a nanoinstant. This was not one of those
angrily shouted shutups one encounters all-too-frequently these
days in pillbox-sized Cinema I/II/III/IV closets filled with slope-
browed, prognathous-jawed pimplebrains who jabber endlessly as
though they were still in front of the tube in their living room.
This was—trust me—the most blood-curdlingly threatening voice I
have ever heard. It was the kind of voice one suspected would ac-
company the body attached to the moving finger writing mene
mene tekel in letters of fire. This was an abominable snowman, a
tyrannosaurus, a behemoth, a stone righteous muh-fuggin' killer.
Deep, resonant, commanding, powerful. . . and very very black.
I don't want to belabor this but whoever or whatever was sitting
back up there behind my Texas buddy and me, it was bad.
Beside me, I felt the hand of my Texican partner on my wrist.
Softly, he asked, "What the fuck was that?"
"Voice of Doom," I said. "Pretend we're black. Better still:
pretend we're at another theater."
All this happened in a second. And only an idiot would have
talked back to the owner of that voice. Guess whose name was in
the envelope in the category of Most Outstanding Performance by
an Idiot? You got it: Leeee-ROY's buddy with the scoop shovel
mouth.
Is violence important in this life?

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
74
The critic started shrieking, "Who said that? Who said that gah-
damn shit t'me? You c'mawn down here, nigguh, I'm gonna
cufch.nl I gonna cut on you, nigguh muh-fugguh!"
And he did go on. And on and on. "Oh shit," I murmured,
slumping down even deeper in the seat, till my knees were up
around my ears like a grasshopper. Beside me, my Texican buddy
was praying in High Church Latin, Yiddish and Sufi, all at the
same time.
I do believe that the joker down in the first row of that
cockroach-ridden movie house was the single dumbest sonofabitch
I have ever encountered; and what happened next was the
swiftest, most deadly moment of violence I have ever seen.
Motormouth was still working over the conjugation of to cut
when suddenly and without warning there was a rush of wind past
me, down those steep steps, fast, fast, so damned fast I couldn't
make out whether it was a human or a yeti or simply some terrify-
ing force of nature, and all I saw was a dark blur as something
BIG went smoothly down to the front row, something GIGAN-
TIC moved into that row . . . and that stupid sonofabitch joker
just stood up, still working his wet jaw ... as if he could do
something against that HUGE dude come to silence him . . . and
that monstrous black fury just grabbed Motormouth by the shirt
front and yanked . . . and pitched him headfirst over the rail.
I heard a terrified scream as the guy fell, and then a sickening
crack! like the snapping of a T'ang dynasty chopstick, and then
there was silence.
The only sounds were Jack Lemmon talking about what emo-
tional violence he was suffering.
Shut up, Lemmon.
No one in the theater moved. There weren't that many people
anyhow. Just my buddy and me and sleeping Leeee-ROY and the
buddy of the guy who'd taken the dive . . . and that humungus
shape. In the balcony. And if there was anyone down below, they
weren't saying anything.
The diver's buddy didn't move or look around or say a word.
He just sat there staring straight ahead, as if he could not possibly
have found anything more interesting in the universe to think
about than Jack Lemmon's problems. The dark shape moved back
up the aisle ... I didn't look left or right ... I saw nothing,
Jim, nothing . . . and it went up past me and was gone.

75
I watched that entire flick in silence. No one moved to see if the
diver was still alive. After a moment's wait the diver's buddy
slipped out of the balcony like oil washing down a gutter, and
gone. From below . . . nothing.
And when the film was finished, and the lights came up, we
rose, and turned slowly. The balcony was empty. Leeee-ROY was
still tabula rasa. Just us, all alone. I looked at my buddy from
Texas, and he looked at me, and without saying a word we walked
down that precarious stairway and came to the railing and peered
over.
The diver lay across the back of a shattered seat. He was bent
double. Stomach up. His spine was broken. He didn't move. The
theater was empty. We walked back up the aisle, through the
upper vestibule, down the winding staircase, into the lobby, and
out. We didn't look back. No one could help the diver. We wanted
to get away.
We never spoke of it to each other.
It was sudden. Not a word. Not a second threat. No false he-
roics like two stumblebums in an alley outside a bar. No feinting,
and no swinging. He just threw him; launched him out into eter-
nity. And walked away from it. Because he was being disturbed in
a movie.
Violence, real violence, not the Jack Armstrong nonsense we all
play-act at . . . genuine, mindless violence is very important.
Because there is no knowing when it will strike.
And there is no escape from it.
I warn you, it's terrible.
3. LABOR RELATIONS
At least half our waking life is spent trying to make ends meet.
Slouching after the buck. Keeping the rain off our heads. That
means earning a living. Aren't you glad I clarified it for you? And
whether you're on the paycheck or self-employed, whether you
wait in line for the dole or cat-burgle through windows in the wee
hours, relations with Them As Has the Money are vital. Not get-
ting the Employer pissed-off, maintaining a posture that makes
you indispensable, cannot be too strenuously stressed.
One of the most important lessons one can learn in this tragic

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
76
life, therefore, is what it takes to stay employed. And since almost
any job will eventually drive you to erratic behavior, thus precipi-
tating getting your tuchis laid off, I offer the following heart-rend-
ing anecdote from my virtually cornucopial stock of life-expe-
riences ... as a classic example of what not to do.
One day about ten years ago, I was sitting in this little tree-
house I rented in Beverly Glen, a sort of arboreal BambiLand sec-
tion of Los Angeles just on the Tobacco Road side of Bel-Air and
Beverly Hills, what I'm talking here is artsy-craftsy but poor as a
s/ju/mouse,® really a treehouse I'm not making this up, see, be-
cause half the house sat on a rock ledge up a private little street
called Bushrod Lane that was mostly only a kind of paved path-
way better suited to fugitives from a James Fenimore Cooper
book than this upwardly-struggling young writer trying to blud-
geon his way into movies, and the other half—of the treehouse,
that is—am I going too fast for you?—was in the crotch of a big eu-
calyptus tree, and it only cost me $135 a month, which was back
then at a time before everything was crazy in terms of what it
costs to live decently these days and $135 was not the biggest rent
you could pay but I wasn't all that cushy either, and so I was sit-
ting there when the phone rang, and it was Marty. Marty the
Agent. And he says to me, he says, "Walt Disney wants you!"
Now I don't know what you think constitutes an ominous re-
mark, but as Walt Disney had gone to collect his reward from that
Great Consortium Organizer in the Sky at least two years prior to
this phone call from Marty the Agent, immediate thoughts of
some Lovecraftian horror beckoning to me from the crypt. . .
Whooooooo . . . Walt waaaaants you . . . !
. . . went pitterpattering through my tiny brain. But, as it
turned out, I was never to find out if there was truth to the much-
bandied underground rumor that Walt had been flash-frozen cryo-
genically, with an eye to restoring him in the 25th Century or, at
worst, stuffing him and putting him on display like Trigger. What
it boiled down to, improbably, was that someone had read one of
my science fiction stories somewhere and thought I'd be a terrific
li'l fellah to have write a kinda sorta sf film Disney was thinking of
making.
• A shul is a synagogue. As a Jew I'm not allowed to have chwchmice.
That's okay, they're trayf.

77
My first reaction to "Disney wants you" was horror, and then
stark amazement. "There's been a mistake," I said to Marty the
Agent. "I'm a crazed, radical, bomb-throwing loon who writes
stories about things that come up out of the toilets to bite off ba-
bies' asses ... are you sure they don't want Bob Ellison? He
writes comedy. Very clean-cut guy. Drives a late model car.
Shaves regularly. Never says fuck in mixed company. You sure
they mean me, Marty? I'm Harlan Ellison, remember? The one
with the hook for a hand."
No, says Marty the Agent, who has been my theatrical agent
(as opposed to my literary agent, who is Bob the Agent) as well
as my friend for over fifteen years, no, they have clearly lost their
minds and they want you, and I have made a nice little week-to-
week deal for you, with a guaranteed six and options . . . and he
named a figure that might not purchase San Simeon in these crazy
days of lettuce going for $3.00 a head but back then ten years ago
was more money than anyone had ever offered me for anything,
including my body.
"Contracts are coming," Marty said, "but go over to the Disney
Studio tomorrow morning. They have an office for you."
I was in heaven. So okay, it wasn't writing The Great American
Cinematic Answer to Potemkin, so what?! I was on my way. I was
going to work in the Studio! It was the big time. And just to get up
in the part of a successful scenarist, I dragged out my complete
collection of Uncle Scrooge McDuck Comics and re-read them all,
till the night had passed away and the morning had come.
I dressed smartly, put on the one tie I owned, looked at myself
in the mirror before leaving the treehouse and went back in and
took off the tie and put on a shirt first. Okay, so I was excited,
shoot me.
I drove out the Ventura Freeway to the Buena Vista exit, drove
up to the front gate in the disreputable 1951 Ford I mentioned
earlier, which hadn't been washed in so long that strangers wrote
cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness obscenities in the dirt, and gave
my name to the spiffy guard at the kiosk. "Oh, yessir, Mr. Elli-
son," he said, validating my existence, "your office is in the
Writers Building." I beamed. "How do I get there?" I asked.
He smiled exactly the same smile as Doc of Seven Dwarfs fame
and said, "Well, you drive in here and take the first left, that's
Mickey Mouse Avenue. Then you go down Mickey Mouse Ave-

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
78
nue till you get to Thumper Boulevard. Turn right on Thumper to
Clarabelle Cow Way and take another left. Go straight down
Clarabelle Cow Way till you hit the corner of Horace Horsecollar
Drive, and the Writers Building is second building on your right."
I think I nodded dumbly, refusing to believe what I had just
been told. But I drove in and, sure as shit, there was Mickey
Mouse Avenue and Thumper Boulevard and all the rest of them,
and I said to myself, Ellison . . . you has fallen down a rabbit
hole, keed.
But right there, in front of the building to which I'd been
directed, was a parking slot that said H. ELLISON. Right there,
on the blacktop, between the thick white lines, some industrious
Audio-Animatronic robot (possibly cobbled up in the image of
Matisse or Lindner) had stencilled my name for Eternity or six
weeks with options . . . whichever came first
To those of you out there in the Great American Heartland,
that may not be such a significant thing, but in the world of studio
sinecures, a parking space of one's own is dearer to the heart than
never being put on "hold" when calling the networks. I know
Sammy Glick manques who have given up perks and titles and
even a Bigelow on the floor just for a parking space with the name
thereon. So there I had it: authentication of my elevated status in
the universe of the soon-to-be-hot-stuff.
I walked into the building and on the register I found my name
and office number. Walked upstairs, followed the numbers till I
found my office, and opened the door. It was a two-room suite
with bathroom. The room I entered was antechamber, and there,
sitting behind her desk, reading a paperback nurse novel, was my
secretary. No, change that from . to !!!
You shoulda seen her. This remarkable creature was so clean I
could see dust motes taking 90° turns as they fell, just so they
wouldn't mar her perfection. A smile that would solve all the en-
ergy dilemmas of the TVA. Peter Pan collar on the blouse.
Malibu blonde, periwinkle-blue eyes, a goyishe nose that would
make Streisand climb a wall, a freshly-minted six-pak of dimples
most of which were visible.
"May I help you?" she said.
You're probably too young to remember, but the part of Ad-
elaide in the original stage production of Guys and Dolls was
played by Vivian Blaine, an accomplished actress who had the

79
most amazing dumb-blond voice ever bottled. Not even Judy Hol-
liday in Born Yesterday could approach the level of stupidity
aurally conveyed by Ms. Blaine's rendition of the nitwit. Only
once in the more-than-a-quarter-century since Guys and Dolls
opened on Broadway, have I heard a voice, male or female, that
rivaled for strident, full-out dumbness, the voice of Adelaide.
"May I help you?" she said.
"Uh, I'm Harlan Ellison," I replied. "I think this is my office."
Such instant attentiveness. Such perky willingness to serve, we
don't do windows or floors. Could she get me coffee? Could she
type some script? Could she file some reports? Could she read my
Tarot?
I pointed out that I was just arriving and that it was my first
day on the job and, since I had no idea what I was doing, nor even
what the nature of the project was to be, I really needed only one
bit of assistance: "Is that my office in there?"
She indicated that the connecting room was, in fact, the Holiest
of Holies where, she was certain, I would create great moments in
cinematic history. I thanked her, suggested she return to the con-
tretemps of Nurse and Doctor and advanced post-nasal drip, and
I'd call her when I needed her. In the background I heard mental
riffs by Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks.
I went into my office.
They could have staged the World Cup soccer matches in there.
One sofa, too short to sleep on; one wall of bookcases empty save
for a well-thumbed copy of the 1948 WORLD ALMANAC; one
framed painting depicting beanfield hands laboring under a blister-
ing sun (I wondered if that was intended by the management as
metaphor); one desk the size of the battleship Potemkin (and I
wondered if that was intended by the management as metaphor);
one typing table supporting an enormous IBM Selectric, already
humming with life; one rollaround typing chair.
And on the desk, an even dozen #2 Dixon Ticonderoga pen-
cils, sharpened to such a piercing sharpness that they seemed to
strobe off into invisibility at the points. Tony Curtis could have
dueled with those pencils.
I didn't have the heart to tell anyone I type manuscript straight
onto the machine. My handwriting is in the top l/10th of the top
percentile of illegible scrawls.
I sat down and waited. For someone to come and tell me what

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
80
they wanted me to write. To tell me at least the name of the pic-
ture. But an hour went by and nothing happened.
As I've pointed out earlier, left to my own devices, I get into
trouble. Deep trouble.
So, bored out of my brain, I rose, went into the office where
Barbie sat with furrowed brow pondering the mysteries of infec-
tions and abscesses of the submaxillary parotid gland, and I said,
"I'm going to look around. Be back in a bit."
The smile fried my eyeballs like a ping-pong ball in a cyclotron,
and I stumbled into the hall.
I started checking out the other offices. And to my utter delight,
there were at least half a dozen writers I knew, ensconced in Plaza
Suites similar to mine. The wonderful thing about it was that most
of them were loons like me, I'd name them, but since most of you
can't even remember the names of authors of books, names of
scenarists like Albert Aley and John D.F. Black and Mary C.
McCall, Jr. won't mean shit to you. Suffice to say, we all found
ourselves gathered in John's office, shucking and jiving till almost
noon. At which point someone said, "Okay, let's break for lunch."
I thought that was a terrific idea, having put in an exhausting
three hours working in the Disney vineyards.
So we went to the commissary and shoved in around the
Writers' Table.
What I did not know was that the Writers' Table was right
behind the Producers' Banquette. That was my first big mistake.
As it turned out, it was also my last big mistake.
Oh, what fun, sitting there with intellectual companions, cutting
up touches and laughing at the drolleries! Born again: the Al-
gonquin round table. Wit beyond compare. And, naturally, as the
youngest member of the group, striving to make my mark as
worthy of their camaraderie, their respect, I suggested a droll,
witty lunchtime conceit . . ,
Two things you must know. First, I do a terrific Mickey Mouse
imitation. Absolutely phonographically perfect. If the publishers
of this book had the money, they ought to bind in a record, one of
those little plastic jobbies, so you could hear my spectacular
Mickey imitation. When I tell this anecdote in person, it really en-
hances a lot. But just pretend you can hear it, okay?
The second thing you need to know is that the Producers' Ban-
quette had filled up with Roy Disney and the other heads of the

81
studio, behind me; a fact of which I was unaware; a fact no one
bothered to impart.
At the top of my voice I suggested, "Hey, listen, what a kick!
Why don't we do a porn Disney flick?"
Everyone smiled,
"It'll be terrific," I said. Loudly. "I mean, everyone knows, for
instance, that Tinker Bell does it . . . what they don't know is
how she Does It." They all looked at me expectantly. "She flies up
the head of the penis and flaps her wings like crazy," I said, proud
as hell of myself at this bit of fantasy. Everyone chuckled.
I went on, oblivious to the sudden hush all around me in the
commissary. "I'll be Mickey, and I'll be the director; John, you do
a good Donald, so you can be the male porn lead, sort of a duck-
style Harry Reems; Mary, you can be Minnie, the female lead;
and Albert, you can be Goofy . . . and Goofy, of course, is the
producer."
Their smiles were frozen; the way the smiles of bit players get
frozen when they see the monster creeping up behind the hero in a
horror flick.
"Hey, gang!" I squeaked in my terrifically accurate Mickey
voice. "Everybody ready to shoot the ultimate Disney flick? The
film that rips the lid off the goody two-shoes hypocrisy that lies
sweltering beneath the surface of G-rated true-life adventures?
Okay, you guys, let's get that hand-held Arriflex right down there
between Minnie's legs! I wanna see closeups of quivering labia!"
A silence as deep as that at the bottom of the Cayman Trench.
I went on, oblivious, carried along by my enthusiasm. In
Donald's quack I said, "Goddam sonofabitch! Pluto, get outta
there, you're steaming up the lens!"
As Goofy, in the dumbest voice possible, I said, "Yuck, yuck,
yuck . . . hey, fellahs, I'm a highly-paid, extremely-inept pro-
ducer person . . . c'n I play, too?"
As Mickey: "Fuck off, Goofy, fuck off! Get those Seven
Dwarfs in here ... I don't care if they don't wanna gang-bang a
mouse, tell 'em they're under contract . . . and fer chrissakes,
Minnie, will you take off those damned shoes?!"
The meal came. Everyone addressed their plates like inmates of
the Gulag Archipelago. When lunch was over, everyone vanished
very quickly. I was confused, but felt good. What a nice little
shtick I'd invented. Wished they'd joined in. Oh well.

HARLAN ELLISON
THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE
82
Went back to my office. Noticed first that my name had been
whited-out in the parking slot. Upstairs, the secretary and her pa-
perback were gone. On my desk: twelve sharpened #2 Dixon
Ticonderoga pencils and a pink slip.
I had been fired after working for the Disney empire for a total
of four hours, including lunch.
The lessons here cannot be avoided.
Big business is humorless.
And . . .
At Disney, nobody fucks with The Mouse.

VISIONARY
(Written with Joe L. Hensley)

VISIONARY
(Written with Joe L. Hensley)
Under the pastel and quiet skies their minds con-
versed.
"There is the need," they thought, and: uThey are
maturing," and: "Soon we will be in the togetherness."
And they turned and watched the quiet skies and the
reaching roof and spires in anticipation*
I had this dream. I'd been having it for years before I knew it
for something more than vague remembering. A child's dream, but
it did not fade and change. It was a solemn dream, disquieting.
And, after a while, it became more real than the other things that I
found in books and lived with.
There wasn't a great deal to it. Just an enormous building, the
background around it pastel misty. The building was like a great
cathedral, and yet my feeling when I saw it was not religious,
though it was akin to it. Always I seemed to be hanging far above
it, struggling, but never reaching it. And I would awaken . . .
I knew, somehow, that everything would be right for me if 1
could find it. And I knew that I would, some day.
But then, there was the dreaming: The architecture was odd
and alien. It seemed to be many organ pipes, thrust down into a
soil that was pinkish and fine. The pipes were set flush against one
another, so that a great wall of rounded shapes rose up and fit the
sky. The roof of the building was of a design I could not identify.
Neither Gothic nor Baroque; neither Art Nouveau nor Victorian;
certainly it was not Contemporary, yet in a configuration that
struck a chord at the rim of familiarity.
There were openings here and there and the openings were dis-

HARLAN ELLISON
VISIONARY
86
similar. Circular and squared apertures; originality of design, in
such depth that none of them could be called doors or windows
with certainty. They were merely openings: for what purposes I
did not know. I looked for one that would fit me.
And there was a scintillance, a shimmering quality to the scene,
as if I were viewing it through a membrane, or from a great dis-
tance, distorted by heat ghosts.
That was my dream.
Over and over and over again. Waking was a sense of loss,
sleeping was life.
There was a sorrow and a strangeness in me then; and I grew
older resonating to some soundless song no one else could hear. I
was always alone . . . walled in, yet much freer than those who
ran and played around me—my brothers and sisters. And because
I was different, it was not an easy life.
My father and mother were second generation Italian Ameri-
cans, and my father was historically impressed by an early Ameri-
can patriot named Whitelaw Martin. He was like that. My name
bothered me until junior college. They constantly abbreviated it to
"Whitey," and my hair was pitch black—that and a perfect body
were the last vestiges of my Italian heritage. But there were a lot
of other things that bothered me also. When you are a child you
must run with the pack. I couldn't do it. At first my brothers
fought my fights for me, stood up for me, but later I lost even my
brothers. And I was strange, I knew that. It took strong stimulus
to get through to me. Kid's games never did it. I found something
that did and I buried myself in the daytime too.
Books.
At first there were fairy tales. I could lose myself in those
fabled lands and the cathedral would become unnecessary for
a while. When I was ten I read through the Brittanica and I
spouted facts until I was beaten to my knees. Then I learned that
it is unwise to be wise. At fourteen I'd read almost everything that
was worthwhile and lots that was not. I'd read Shakespeare and I
could quote whole acts; I'd read the mad, brilliant ones like Fort
and Nostradamus, I'd read Hemingway and Plato and The Com-
pleat Angler.
And I grew away from those around me, without boyhood or

87
regret for it. One day, when I was nineteen, and in college, I
looked around and saw that I was tolerated, but not loved. And
the conscripters were breathing at my heels for I'd lost interest in
school and my stats were marginal.
I enlisted in the Force.
It was still the Air Force, but it sounded ridiculous to call a ser-
vice that spent most of its budget in the vacuum of deep space the
"Air" Force. So the jingoists, and then the newsfax shortened it to
Force.
I became a Forceman. That may sound dramatic, but it wasn't.
At least, not at first.
I was trained, and assigned as a hot-stuff drainage expert to a
coolant team, based with a limpet missile unit outside La Paz.
Based there, but we did a lot of traveling.
It was during the travels—Borneo, Lebanon, Malta, the Arctic,
Chad, Kingsland—that the dream ceased to trouble me. I looked
for the building in every land and could not find it. But as the
dream faded, so did the obsession retreat.
Oh, there were remembrances. On clear nights, when the stars
were so painfully sharp they hurt my eyes, and I was pulling guard
mount under them, then I'd remember the dream. But it was as if
I'd put it aside, this dream that was almost a knowledge, and it
was waiting for me, but willing to wait. As if it were saying: My
time will come.
And yet I was not completely patient in my waiting. I collected
buildings, in much the same way that many people collect books
or stamps. I had pictures of every famous structure in the world,
thousands of pictures. My favorite was a framed photo of a tiny
Shintoist shrine, that had a vague, grudging resemblance to my
dream building. But they were all wrong—Taj Mahal to ruined
Angkor Wat—none of them even reasonably resembled mine. So
the fixation remained and I continued to look. The thirst could not
be slaked, no matter how much I drank.
They were using radex fusion propellants then, and every once
in a while we, or the Cubans, or the Sheikdoms would send out a
one man job that would attempt to crack the barrier beyond the
Edge. But none came back. None of ours for sure and the others
never claimed any success; I suppose for fear they'd have to sub-
stantiate the claim.

HARLAN ELLISON
VISIONARY
88
The fights went on in the U. N.: bickering about territories that
neither of us could really use; limited wars; police actions; border
incidents; each nation striving to establish superiority over the
other.
All this, even in an era of limited exploration of the Solar Sys-
tem. We should have known better.
And then along came something out of a magician's hat and
what was to be . . . was set in motion. But I didn't know that—
not yet.
They'd been giving Force-wide tests. They were odd tests,
unlike any I'd ever taken. The questions were odd and peculiarly-
phrased and yet, sometimes, lucid and almost exciting to me in
their familiarity—as if someone should have asked them of me
long ago, so that I would know and they would know. There were
questions about foods and smells and what you would do in a
given situation. There were many of those. But every once in a
while there was something else, like: "What do you think it would
be like to die?" or "Have you ever felt apart from all places and
things?" or "What is the loveliest thing that you can remember?"
And there were physicals, too. Good competent physicals, not
hurried and superficial, as were the annual checkups.
The dreams came back then—nearer and closer.
I was sorry when the tests were completed: the dream became
sporadic again—once more it receded.
Six weeks later I was cut new orders. They flew me out. A spe-
cial VTOL. I was the lone passenger.
I counted.
I had to show my orders exactly fourteen times from the minute
I reached Bong Field until I was billeted there. I never saw so
many guys with guns—off safety—even in a battle area. And they
didn't just check my orders—they read them. Then they checked
my face against my I. D. card and made me rattle off my service
number. Then they fluoro-ed my retinas and took my fingerprints
and checked them against copies from my "master file."
They'd taken a group of old hangars and put high fences
around them. Real high and charged. Then they'd put a guard

89
along every fifteen or twenty yards of fence. There was another
fence inside the outer one and more guards. I guess they wanted to
keep what they had inside. A close-mouthed captain took me to a
barracks and there were other men billeted there. But that night
the dream wasn't there. I couldn't sleep.
In the morning they started more tests on me and about thirty
others who appeared to have been shipped in from almost every-
where. At first, physicals. The tests were similar to what had been
run before. After a while they became more complicated. Doctors
beat on me, and pinched me, and took my blood, and flashed
lights at me, and depressed my tongue, and scraped bits of skin off
me. Then they whirled me in a thing like a "whip" at the carnival
and shot me up in an ejection seat. And I endured it all with the
same vague excitement I'd felt during the other tests. But no one
came to tell us what we were there for.
They had the bunch of us in two old barracks. But by ones and
twos and threes they eliminated until there were only six of us left.
And whenever the taciturn captain came in I knew it was not for
me—just knew it.
I got to know the other five pretty well. They were all different
from me in many ways. In one way we were the same. The first of
them was a large-boned, wry black man embarrassingly named
Washington Jones. Then there was Samuels and Kahn, who was
very tiny, and the two women, Pearson and Ludwig. They were all
different from me—except for their eyes.
When it got down to six, a colonel came into the barracks one
day and pinned bars on our lapels and shook our hands.
I suppose we all knew, in a way, what was going on. We figured
they'd found something and, from the tests, that we were their
guinea pigs.
The dream was very close now. It was as though I was reliving
a bit of my childhood. I saw myself up there again—my face, the
same child's face I'd always had, with the wide eyes and the
freckles and the black, black hair and the slash of a mouth, wide
and frowning. But the body was different. It was bigger than life,
man-plus. Hard and ripplingly-muscled, tall and golden, like a
God out of a Greek myth. I was that god.
I recognized the egocentricity of it, naturally, but my cathedral
waited beneath me. And I awoke.

HARLAN ELLISON
VISIONARY
90
The barracks was quiet around me. All but our six bunks were
empty now. Faint dawn light filtered down the walls. I lay awake
for a while, remembering; then I scratched a cigarette alight.
Another spot of red bloomed from a nearby bunk and Wash
Jones's voice said softly: "You awake, Fazio?"
I grunted.
"I been working it over in my mind," he said. "Why we're here
—why I'm here. I'm afraid. All my life I've been waiting for some-
thing to happen to me. Now that it is, I'm afraid of it but I want
it."
"Do you ever dream?" I asked.
His voice was almost lost: "I dream, but I can't share it." When
his voice came again it was hesitant: "Did you ever read Charles
Fort, Fazio?"
"A long time ago."
"Remember what he said about time?" His voice strengthened.
"That there are ages in which certain occurrences are predestined
to happen. Not by divine ordinance, but just because it's their time
to happen. The time of the wheel and the steam engine and the
automobile. And if someone comes up with one too early, there's
a singular, almost mystical, disregard of the invention. As though
the world were snubbing it till it was ready for it."
I felt the excitement grow a little again and what he said was
right and it fit inside me, fit in with my dream.
And I lay there and thought about it; and for a long time we
were silent.
I was almost back to sleep when I heard him muttering to him-
self. "What time is it now, Washington Jones? What time is it
now?'
I checked Charles Fort out of the base library next day and
read him through again. I had nothing but spare time. We waited,
and no one told us a damn thing. Once Jones saw me with the
book and we grinned at each other self-consciously. But the book
did not engender in me the kind of excitement that I'd hoped for.
Fort was quite brilliant and quite paranoid.
Yet the dream persisted and Jones's concept was some part of it
and something to mull over in my spare time.
Which was something I had little time for.

Because without warning they started the question and answer
tests again.
Those tests—sometimes I felt like slamming a wall. Tests unlike
any that I'd known existed. Ponder the significance of this:
Do you lose things constantly? (If answer is "yes" indicate how
often, what type of thing lost, where found, mental condition at
time of recovery, and any other emotional data.)
On some days the questions came as adjuncts to weird movies. I
remember some of them. The first was a reel of kaleidoscopic
wheeling and whirling and shunting from one hue to another. Be-
fore it was done I felt as if I was beaten and torn. I felt as if the
future had vanished and swallowed me.
The question was: What are your feelings about death in the
abstract? In the specific? (Do not use qualifiers.)
Later there was an existentialist movie about sadism, and a
rose, and a fruitless love affair between a cripple and a girl with
one eye. There was a miracle in the end. I didn't understand the
picture, but I didn't want the lights to come back on.
Question two was: What is your stand on God? Answer
bluntly, avoid partisan religious referents, where possible.
They gave us one more that first day. It was a movie about a
man who dreamed strange dreams and who thought he was insane.
The actor made it seem very real—chillingly real.
And the question was: Have you ever dreamed that you could
fly or thought that you were flying without the use of any mechan-
ical aid?
That one I had real trouble with. I answered it finally by saying
that I had, "in my childhood."
And so it went. For better than a week. That sort of question.
Some that were almost nonsense, some that were so sharp and
keen that the point penetrated deep within me.
They told us we were not to discuss the questions in the bar-
racks. So we did, of course. At great length. And there were a lot
of theories, but nothing concrete.
Finally they told us.
There was this little man. He couldn't have been much over
forty, but he wore the star of a brigadier. He was a Doctor Some-
thing, I later found out it was "Stein," a psychiatrist, with degrees

HARLAN ELLISON
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92
in things that ran from linguistics to physics and a mind that
worked like a fine computer. He must have come here voluntarily
from some other country, I never found out which. His eyes were
sad behind thick-lensed glasses, and his voice was phlegmy with
the heritage of Central Europe. He was rough to understand, but I
felt an instinctive liking for him.
When he talked—we listened.
"It's different out there," he said. "We know that. On the few
flights we've made we've found a great deal. And still we know
very little."
He looked out around the room and his eyes behind the lenses
were lost in the big dream, the thwarted longing. "The things we
do here don't work well out there—the stamina that we possess
means little. Our laws of logic, our world's ethical structure, most
of what we've postulated goes . . . wrong . . . out there. It's as if
when the force of gravity, of Earth-touching, is lost, everything
else is lost too. It's cost some good fives and it's made us change
our method of selection."
"And now we're going out further than ever before. We're
going out—past the barrier. We have the means to do it. And you
people are specially qualified to do it for us."
The room around me rippled with sound. My pulse sprinted
and I forced calmness, so that I would not miss the words.
"We have asked you questions that made you feel we were not
quite right in the head." He smiled. He was missing two teeth on
the upper left.
"But the questions had a purpose—some to shock you into a
non-conformist awareness—some to tell us things about you the
Force-wide tests merely hinted at." He leaned forward on the po-
dium. "Each of you is a loner. Each of you has the ability to
maintain, even to transcend against whatever conditions exist
around you, remaining essentially yourselves, with no great per-
sonality change. There is a segment of the brain that does not
work well under the pressure of gravity, but which tends to be-
come dominant when gravity is removed as a factor. There are
other areas that only work when gravity is present. We theorize
that there are other areas that will work only under conditions
produced by exceeding the speed of light. We have not been lucky
with deep space beyond the barrier so far. Yet we have learned.

93
We feel that we'll be luckier now that we know—now that we are
able to look for qualities such as you have." He looked out at us
and I felt both excited and queasy. And I explored me and lost
myself in what he was saying. What was he saying, actually? Psi? I
knew something about that and Rhine's old failed experiments,
decades ago. There were remarks about the cortex and four-fifths
of the brain inactive, and random reflexes. And after a while I only
understood a word here and there.
But I understood his final remarks.
"We know the ship will work. There have been tests. We are
more interested now in studying human behavior—in finding out if
the human race can survive the trip to the stars. We have built our
ship around a special bank of instruments, which will be closely
telemetered, to record every thought, every emotion, every vision
you sustain.
"Do any of you wish to volunteer?"
I put my hand up and then looked around. There were five
more hands raised. My hand felt wet in the moving currents of the
room, but my throat was dry.
Stein smiled. "We'll have to draw lots."
Whitelaw Fazio's luck. I pulled second. Ludwig pulled first, the
star-marked ballot. She would be the first to go to the stars. I felt
a deep disappointment when I saw her bright eyes.
And yet there was relief, too.
"Do any of you want to ask questions?" Dr. Stein asked, when
the lottery was done.
Wash Jones's hand went up. "Sir," he said, "what have we dis-
covered that will let us get to the stars? As far as we knew, a few
months back, they couldn't even get one of the stage ships back."
The glasses came up and shone in the light. The face went a lit-
tle strange. "I have a degree in physics, Mr. Jones. But I was
working on something else, something more in my own field of in-
terest—you need not ask the nature of my primary specialty, I
think you can guess—and I stumbled onto what we now call a
'force-bead-generator.' It goes beyond accepted physics. It gives a
sure, never failing power source."
Washington Jones looked over at me and it hit me then.
Fort's theory about the Era of Anything. This was the Time for
Space Travel. The baby was ready to be born, so ready that a psy-

HARLAN ELLISON
VISIONARY
94
chiatrist, trying to find something else, could discover it and recog-
nize its significance. So maybe Fort had been right.
A week before the takeoff, Ludwig woke before dawn feeling as
if she would die.
It turned out to be a burst appendix, so they operated.
Ludwig would be laid up for a long time.
I was shuttled out to the Kalahari jump-point and received my
penultimate briefings from Stein, who was in charge of the project.
He was nervous when he talked to me and he was envious, too.
He kept talking about how the acceleration would take me
through what he called "Bounces" or "Progressions." He pro-
nounced them bunces and prugrooshens.
I felt, listening to him, as if I were royalty. He spoke to me with
deference.
He said that they had sent six of the ships out on remote con-
trol voyages and that five of them had returned.
The night before takeoff my dream was back so near and close
that I seemed but inches away. I saw my fluted-organ-pipe cathe-
dral and me above it. I came awake all sweat and tears, for the
building had talked to me and though I couldn't recall now what
had been said, I was scared. I lay there and wrestled with myself
and my desires for a long time. Then I called Stein. I felt I must,
even if it took away my chance. If I was insane then I had to be
replaced.
"All of you have had that dream, or one similar to it," he said.
"All six of you." He looked at me and his face was very sad. "I
never dream," he said softly.
It wasn't much of a ship, as far as size. When you're used to
monstrosities, you'd expect a starship to be that much more im-
pressive, that much larger. But it wasn't.
It was just a teardrop, with a small room in the bulge that was
mine. There were extrudable wings and tail for atmosphere land-
ings, wherever I was going, and a cleverly geared set of drop-
wheels guaranteed to hold on the shiftiest desert or marsh. And
in my cubicle, all around, there were instruments.
There were instruments that watched me, instruments that

95
hooked into me, fed me, bathed me, relieved me, metered me, and
weighed me.
I said goodbye to the others and on the proper day, at the
proper time, they locked me into the cubicle. And somewhere the
countdown began. But I didn't know that. I'd been drugged. Lying
on my gelatin-pad couch, I was insensitive to the rustlings and
clangings and preparations. A machine was carrying me, on orders
set forth by another machine, using calculations done by a third.
I'd have manual control only when I came within safe range of
that star, and then only if a machine decided I should.
Which star? A machine would calculate that, too.
I had the distinct impression I was supercargo on this flight.
And yet, more essential than the finest, most cleverly made ma-
chine ever assembled. I was grateful that machines did not have
whims or temperament.
I slept while things happened and technicians sweated. I slept
while pencils toted figures from graph-dials. I slept while a tiny
bead of cadmium and thirty-six other trace metals built a field of
force around itself, while the Earth whirled blindly beneath me. I
slept while people died and others were reborn in the story which
had no answer—then.
The ship was towed into its berth, and I tossed restlessly and
then did not toss at all when the force bead unleashed its power,
throwing the tiny ship far into the darkness, and pushing me
smoothly, deeply into the gel-pad. I did not waken while a sound-
less force pushed me past the speed of light in "progressions"
and to a multitude of speeds in "bounces."
But there wasn't any dream in this sleep. There was no need for
the dream now.
I was different when I awoke. I didn't know how, but I was
different. Not altered, just different. How can I put it?—have you
ever seen a goldfish bowl after the water has been in it for a few
days? All bubbled and odd-looking, not at all clear the way it had
been at first. Well, that was me. All bubbled and changed, but still
the same in most ways.
I was better, somehow. And calm.
I remained in that tranquil state for a long time. Months per-
haps. There are records.

HARLAN ELLISON
VISIONARY
96
The machines tended to me, and that was a good thing, for I
was under the spell of that sense of comfort and tightness. Then,
finally—
The star has no name—not now—not any more. But once we
knew its name, a long time ago.
I could not have headed for any other place had I wanted to.
Fate and Destiny had planned it that way; Fate and Destiny had
been keeping steady company for a long, long time.
The machines ratcheted and catalogued and analysed, and the
ship slowed so the points of light in the darkness surrounding me
were stationary again, instead of moving and wheeling.
There were twenty-one planets. I took the twelfth. Instinctively.
The machines did not interfere with my course selection.
I came down slowly. The planet was misty and quiet. I did not
bother to check whether the air was Earth-breathable. I knew it
would be.
We have been lost a long, long time, I think. But it was a short
time in the history of the race. Why we were allowed to remain
lost, I do not yet know, but I will know.
I broke down through the clouds of pink mist, and it was where
I'd known it would be. There is no such thing as Chance. In an or-
dered universe, all is planned.
It didn't look alien any more, my cathedral. It looked like a
home I'd once known, a long time before, and was seeing again
with eyes of reminiscence. I knew this place. I knew it with racial
memory, damped out by time and Earth living, by Earth gravity.
I knew it again.
I knew my home.
It was there. The organ pipes towered. The strange apertures
yawned.
I came down to land.
To see where we are going; to see what we are to become.
And I knew it would be stunning, what we are to become, for
as the ship settled among the pastel ground-mists, our ancestors
and our descendants began to emerge from those strange aper-
tures.
It was the Cathedral of Man.
But man could not use those entrances.
There were still changes to come. Many changes. We had been
lost . . . and now were found.

DJINN, NO CHASER

DJINN, NO CHASER
"Who the hell ever heard of Turkish Period?" Danny Squires
said. He said it at the top of his voice, on a city street.
"Danny! People are staring at us; lower your voice!" Connie
Squires punched his bicep. They stood on the street, in front of
the furniture store. Danny was determined not to enter.
"Come on, Connie," he said, "let's get away from these junk
shops and go see some inexpensive modern stuff. You know per-
fectly well I don't make enough to start filling the apartment with
expensive antiques."
Connie furtively looked up and down the street—she was more
concerned with a "scene" than with the argument itself—and then
moved in toward Danny with a determined air. "Now listen up,
Squires. Did you or did you not marry me four days ago, and
promise to love, honor and cherish and all that other good jive?"
Danny's blue eyes rolled toward Heaven; he knew he was losing
ground. Instinctively defensive, he answered, "Well, sure, Connie,
but-"
"Well, then, I am your wife, and you have not taken me on a
honeymoon—"
"I can't afford one!"
"—have not taken me on a honeymoon," Connie repeated with
inflexibility. "Consequently, we will buy a little furniture for that
rabbit warren you laughingly call our little love nest. And little is
hardly the term: that vale of tears was criminally undersized when
Barbara Fritchie hung out her flag.
"So to make my life bearable, for the next few weeks, till we
can talk Mr. Upjohn into giving you a raise—"
"Upjohn!" Danny fairly screamed. "You've got to stay away

HARLAN ELLISON
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100
from the boss, Connie. Don't screw around. He won't give me a
raise, and I'd rather you stayed away from him—"
"Until then," she went on relentlessly, "we will decorate our
apartment in the style I've wanted for years."
"Turkish Period?"
"Turkish Period."
Danny flipped his hands in the air. What was the use? He had
known Connie was strong-willed when he'd married her.
It had seemed an attractive quality at the time; now he wasn't
so sure. But he was strong-willed too; he was sure he could outlast
her. Probably.
"Okay," he said finally, "I suppose Turkish Period it'll be.
What the hell is Turkish Period?"
She took his arm lovingly, and turned him around to look in the
store window. "Well, honey, it's not actually Turkish. It's more
Mesopotamian. You know, teak and silk and . . ."
"Sounds hideous."
"So you're starting up again!" She dropped his arm, her eyes
flashing, her mouth a tight little line. "I'm really ashamed of you,
depriving me of the few little pleasures I need to make my life a
blub, sniff, hoo-hoo . . ."
The edge was hers.
"Connie . . . Connie . . ." She knocked away his comforting
hand, saying, "You beast." That was too much for him. The
words were so obviously put-on, he was suddenly infuriated:
"Now, goddammit!"
Her tears came faster. Danny stood there, furious, helpless, out-
maneuvered, hoping desperately that no cop would come along
and say, "This guy botherin' ya, lady?"
"Connie, okay, okay, we'll have Turkish Period. Come on,
come on. It doesn't matter what it costs, I can scrape up the
money somehow."
It was not one of the glass-brick and onyx emporia where sensi-
ble furniture might be found (if one searched hard enough and
paid high enough and retained one's senses long enough as they
were trying to palm off modernistic nightmares in which no com-
fortable position might be found); no, it was not even one of
those. This was an antique shop.

101
They looked at beds that had canopies and ornate metalwork
on the bedposts. They looked at rugs that were littered with pil-
lows, so visitors could sit on the floors. They looked at tables built
six inches off the floor, for low banquets. They inspected incense
burners and hookahs and coffers and giant vases until Danny's
head swam with visions of the courts of long-dead caliphs.
Yet, despite her determination, Connie chose very few items;
and those she did select were moderately-priced and quite hand-
some ... for what they were. And as the hours passed, and as
they moved around town from one dismal junk emporium to an-
other, Danny's respect for his wife's taste grew. She was selecting
an apartment full of furniture that wasn't bad at all.
They were finished by six o'clock, and had bills of sale that to-
taled just under two hundred dollars. Exactly thirty dollars less
than Danny had decided could be spent to furnish the new house-
hold . . . and still survive on his salary. He had taken the money
from his spavined savings account, and had known he must even-
tually start buying on credit, or they would not be able to get
enough furniture to start living properly.
He was tired, but content. She'd shopped wisely. They were in a
shabby section of town. How had they gotten here? They walked
past an empty lot sandwiched in between two tenements—wet-
wash slapping on lines between them. The lot was weed-
overgrown and garbage-strewn.
"May I call your attention to the depressing surroundings and
my exhaustion?" Danny said. "Let's get a cab and go back to the
apartment. I want to collapse."
They turned around to look for a cab, and the empty lot was gone.
In its place, sandwiched between the two tenements, was a little
shop. It was a one-storey affair, with a dingy facade, and its front
window completely grayed-over with dust. A hand-painted line of
elaborate script on the glass-panel of the door, also opaque with
grime, proclaimed: MOHANADUS MUKHAR, CURIOS.
A little man in a flowing robe, wearing a fez, plunged out the
front door, skidded to a stop, whirled and slapped a huge sign on
the window. He swiped at it four times with a big paste-brush,
sticking it to the glass, and whirled back inside, slamming the
door.
"No," Danny said.
Connie's mouth was making peculiar sounds.

HARLAN ELLISON
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102
"There's no insanity in my family," Danny said firmly. "We
come from very good stock."
"We've made a small visual error," Connie said.
"Simply didn't notice it," Danny said. His usually baritone
voice was much nearer soprano.
"If there's crazy, we've both got it," Connie said.
"Must be, if you see the same thing I see."
Connie was silent a moment, then said, "Large seagoing vessel,
three stacks, maybe the Titanic. Flamingo on the bridge, flying the
flag of Lichtenstein?"
"Don't play with me, woman," Danny whimpered. "I think I'm
losing it."
She nodded soberly. "Right. Empty lot?"
He nodded back, "Empty lot. Clothesline, weeds, garbage."
"Right."
He pointed at the little store. "Little store?"
"Right."
"Man in a fez, name of Mukhar?"
She rolled her eyes. "Right."
"So why are we walking toward it?"
"Isn't this what always happens in stories where weird shops
suddenly appear out of nowhere? Something inexorable draws the
innocent bystanders into its grip?"
They stood in front of the grungy little shop. They read the
sign. It said:
BIG SALE! HURRY! NOW! QUICK!
"The word unnatural comes to mind," Danny said.
"Nervously," Connie said, "she turned the knob and opened
the door."
A tiny bell went tinkle-tinkle, and they stepped across the
threshold into Mahanadus Mukhar's shop.
"Probably not the smartest move we've ever made," Danny said
softly. The door closed behind them without any assistance.
It was cool and musty in the shop, and strange fragrances
chased one another past their noses.
They looked around carefully. The shop was loaded with junk.
From floor to ceiling, wall to wall, on tables and in heaps, the
place was filled with oddities and bric-a-brac. Piles of things tum-
bled over each other on the floor; heaps of things leaned against
the walls. There was barely room to walk down the aisle between

103
the stacks and mounds of things. Things in all shapes, things in all
sizes and colors. Things. They tried to separate the individual
items from the jumble of the place, but all they could perceive was
stuff . . . things! Stuff and flotsam and bits and junk.
"Curios, effendi," a voice said, by way of explanation.
Connie leaped in the air, and came down on Danny's foot.
Mukhar was standing beside such a pile of tumbled miscellany
that for a moment they could not separate him from the stuff,
junk, things he sold.
"We saw your sign," Connie said.
But Danny was more blunt, more direct. "There was an empty
lot here; then a minute later, this shop. How come?"
The little man stepped out from the mounds of dust-collectors
and his little nut-brown, wrinkled face burst into a million-creased
smile. "A fortuitous accident, my children. A slight worn spot in
the fabric of the cosmos, and I have been set down here for . . .
how long I do not know. But it never hurts to try and stimulate
business while I'm here."
"Uh, yeah," Danny said. He looked at Connie. Her expression
was as blank as his own.
"Oh!" Connie cried, and went dashing off into one of the side-
corridors lined with curios. "This is perfect! Just what we need for
the end table. Oh, Danny, it's a dream! It's absolutely the ne plus
ultra!"
Danny walked over to her, but in the dimness of the aisle be-
tween the curios he could barely make out what it was she was
holding. He drew her into the light near the door. It had to be:
Aladdin's lamp.
Well, perhaps not that particular person's lamp, but one of the
ancient, vile-smelling oil burning jobs: long thin spout, round-bot-
tom body, wide, flaring handle.
It was algae-green with tarnish, brown with rust, and com-
pletely covered by the soot and debris of centuries. There was no
contesting its antiquity; nothing so time-corrupted could fail to be
authentic. "What the hell do you want with that old thing,
Connie?"
"But Danny, it's so per-fect. If we just shine it up a bit. As soon
as we put a little work into this lamp, it'll be a beauty." Danny
knew he was defeated . . . and she'd probably be right, too. It
probably would be very handsome when shined and brassed-up.

HARLAN ELLISON
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104
"How much?" he asked Mukhar. He didn't want to seem anx-
ious; old camel traders were merciless at bargaining when they
knew the item in question was hotly desired.
"Fifty drachmae, eh?" the old man said. His tone was one of
malicious humor. "At current exchange rates, taking into account
the fall of the Ottoman Empire, thirty dollars."
Danny's hps thinned. "Put it down, Connie; let's get out of
here."
He started toward the door, dragging his wife behind him. But
she still clutched the lamp; and Mukhar's voice halted them. "All
right, noble sir. You are a cunning shopper, I can see that. You
know a bargain when you spy it. But I am unfamiliar in this time-
frame with your dollars and your strange fast-food native customs,
having been set down here only once before; and since I am more
at ease with the drachma than the dollar, with the shekel than the
cent, I will cut my own throat, slash both my wrists, and offer you
this magnificent antiquity for . . . uh . . . twenty dollars?" His
voice was querulous, his tone one of wonder and hope.
"Jesse James at least had a horse!" Danny snarled, once again
moving toward the door.
"Fifteen!" Mukhar yowled. "And may all your children need
corrective lenses from too much tv-time!"
"Five; and may a hundred thousand syphilitic camels puke into
your couscous," Danny screamed back over his shoulder.
"Not bad," said Mukhar.
"Thanks," said Danny, stifling a smile. Now he waited.
"Bloodsucker! Heartless trafficker in cheapness! Pimple on the
fundament of decency! Graffito on the subway car of life! Thir-
teen; my last offer; and may the gods of ITT and the Bank of
America turn a blind eye to your venality!" But his eyes held the
golden gleam of the born haggler, at last, blessedly, in his element.
"Seven, not a penny more, you Arabic anathema! And may a
weighty object drop from a great height, flattening you to the nig-
gardly thickness of your soul." Connie stared at him with open
awe and admiration.
"Eleven! Eleven dollars, a pittance, an outright theft we're talk-
ing about. Call the security guards, get a consumer advocate,
gimme a break here!"
"My shadow will vanish from before the evil gleam of your
rapacious gaze before I pay a penny more than six bucks, and let

105
the word go out to every wadi and oasis across the limitless desert,
that Mohanadus Mukhar steals maggots from diseased meat, flies
from horse dung, and the hard-earned drachmae of honest la-
borers. Six, fuckface, and that's it!"
"My death is about to become a reality," the Arab bellowed,
tearing at the strands of white hair showing under the fez. "Rob
me, go ahead, rob me; drink my life's blood! Ten! A twenty dollar
loss I'll take."
"Okay, okay." Danny turned around and produced his wallet.
He pulled out one of the three ten dollar bills still inside and,
turning to Connie, said, "You sure you want this ugly, dirty piece
of crap?" She nodded, and he held the bill naked in the vicinity of
the little merchant. For the first time Danny realized Mukhar was
wearing pointed slippers that curled up; there was hair growing
from his ears.
"Ten bucks."
The little man moved with the agility of a ferret, and whisked
the tenner from Danny's outstretched hand before he could draw
it back. "Sold!" Mukhar chuckled.
He spun around once, and when he faced them again, the ten
dollars was out of sight. "And a steal, though Allah be the wiser;
a hot deal, a veritable steal, blessed sir!"
Danny abruptly realized he had been taken. The lamp had
probably been picked up in a junkyard and was worthless. He
started to ask if it was a genuine antique, but the piles of junk had
begun to waver and shimmer and coruscate with light. "Hey!"
Danny said, alarmed, "What's this now?"
The little man's wrinkled face drew up in panic. "Out! Get out,
quick! The time-frame is sucking back together! Out! Get out now
if you don't want to roam the eternities with me and this shop
. . . and I can't afford any help! Out!"
He shoved them forward, and Connie slipped and fell, flailing
into a pile of glassware. None of it broke. Her hand went out to
protect herself and went right through the glass. Danny dragged
her to her feet, panic sweeping over him ... as the shop contin-
ued to waver and grow more indistinct around them.
"Out! Out! Out!" Mukhar kept yelling.
Then they were at the door, and he was kicking them—literally
planting his curl-slippered foot in Danny's backside and shoving—
from the store. They landed in a heap on the sidewalk. The lamp

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
106
bounced from Connie's hand and went into the gutter with a
clang. The little man stood there grinning in the doorway, and as
the shop faded and disappeared, they heard him mumble happily,
"A clear nine-seventy-five profit. What a lemon! You got an
Edsel, kid, a real lame piece of goods. But I gotta give it to you;
the syphilitic camel bit was inspired."
Then the shop was gone, and they got to their feet in front of
an empty, weed-overgrown lot.
A lame piece of goods?
"Are you asleep?"
"Yes."
"How come you're answering me?"
"I was raised polite."
"Danny, talk to me . . . come on!"
"The answer is no. I'm not going to talk about it."
"We have to!"
"Not only don't we have to, I don't want to, ain't going to, and
shut up so I can go to sleep."
"We've been lying here almost an hour. Neither one of us can
sleep. We have to discuss it, Danny."
The light went on over his side of the bed. The single pool of il-
lumination spread from the hand-me-down daybed they had got-
ten from Danny's brother in New Jersey, faintly limning the few
packing crates full of dishes and linens, the three Cuisinarts they'd
gotten as wedding gifts, the straight-back chairs from Connie's
Aunt Medora, the entire bare and depressing reality of their first
home together.
It would be better when the furniture they'd bought today was
delivered. Later, it would be better. Now, it was the sort of urban
landscape that drove divorcees and aging bachelors to jump down
the airshaft at Christmastime.
"I'm going to talk about it, Squires."
"So talk. I have my thumbs in my ears."
"I think we should rub it."
"I can't hear you. It never happened. I deny the evidence of my
senses. It never happened. I have these thumbs in my ears so I
cannot hear a syllable of this craziness."
"For god's sake, Squires, I was there with you today. I saw it

107
happen, the same as you. I saw that weird little old man and I saw
his funky shop come and go like a big burp. Now, neither of us
can deny it!"
"If I could hear you, I'd agree; and then I'd deny the evidence
of my senses and tell you . . ." He took his thumbs from his ears,
looking distressed. . . tell you with all my heart that I love
you, that I have loved you since the moment I saw you in the typ-
ing pool at Upjohn, that if I live to be a hundred thousand years
old I'll never love any one or any thing as much as I love you this
very moment; and then I would tell you to fuck off and forget it,
and let me go to sleep so that tomorrow I can con myself into be-
lieving it never happened the way I know it happened.
"Okay?"
She threw back the covers and got out of bed. She was naked.
They had not been married that long.
"Where are you going?"
"You know where I'm going."
He sat up in the daybed. His voice had no lightness in it.
"Connie!"
She stopped and stared at Mm, there in the light.
He spoke softly. "Don't. I'm scared. Please don't."
She said nothing. She looked at him for a time. Then, naked,
she sat down cross-legged on the floor at the foot of the daybed.
She looked around at what little they had, and she answered him
gently. "I have to, Danny. I just have to . . .if there's a chance; I
have to."
They sat that way, reaching across the abyss with silent impera-
tives, until—finally—Danny nodded, exhaled heavily, and got out
of the daybed. He walked to one of the cartons, pulled out a dust-
rag, shook it clean over the box, and handed it to her. He walked
over to the window ledge where the tarnished and rusted oil lamp
sat, and he brought it to her.
"Shine the damned thing, Squires. Who knows, maybe we actu-
ally got ourselves a 24 carat genie. Shine on, oh mistress of my
Mesopotamian mansion."
She held the lamp in one hand, the rag in the other. For a few
minutes she did not bring them together. "I'm scared, too," she
said, held her breath, and briskly rubbed the belly of the lamp.
Under her flying fingers the rust and tarnish began to come
away in spots. "We'll need brass polish to do this right," she said;

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
108
but suddenly the ruin covering the lamp melted away, and she was
rubbing the bright skin of the lamp itself.
"Oh, Danny, look how nice it is, underneath all the crud!" And
at that precise instant the lamp jumped from her hand, emitted a
sharp, gray puff of smoke, and a monstrous voice bellowed out in
the apartment:
AH-HA! It screamed, louder than a subway train. AH-HA!
FREE AT LAST! FREE-AS FREE AS I'LL EVER BE-
AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS! FREE TO SPEAK AND
ACT, MY WILL TO BE KNOWN!
Danny went over backward. The sound was as mind-throttling
as being at ground zero. The window glass blew out. Every light
bulb in the apartment shattered. From the carton containing their
meager chinaware came the distinct sound of hailstones as every
plate and cup dissolved into shards. Dogs and cats blocks away
began to howl. Connie screamed—though it could not be heard
over the foghorn thunder of the voice—and was knocked head
over ankles into a corner, still clutching the dustrag. Plaster show-
ered down on the little apartment. The window shades rolled up.
Danny recovered first. He crawled over a chair and stared at
the lamp with horror. Connie sat up in the corner, face white, eyes
huge, hands over her ears. Danny stood up and looked down at
the seemingly innocuous lamp.
"Knock off that noise! You want to lose us the lease?"
CERTAINLY, OFFSPRING OF A WORM!
"I said: stop that goddamn bellowing!"
THIS WHISPER? THIS IS AS NAUGHT TO THE HURRI-
CANE I SHALL LOOSE, SPAWN OF PARAMECIUM!
"That's it," Danny yelled. "I'm not getting kicked out of the
only apartment in the city of New York I can afford just because
of some loudmouthed genie in a jug . . ."
He stopped. He looked at Connie. Connie looked back at him.
"Oh, my god," she said.
"It's real," he said.
They got to their knees and crawled over. The lamp lay on its
side on the floor at the foot of the daybed.
"Are you really in there?" Connie asked.
WHERE ELSE WOULD I BE, SLUT!
"Hey, you can't talk to my wife that way—"

109
Connie shushed him. "If he's a genie, he can talk any way he
likes. Sticks and stones; namecalling is better than poverty."
"Yeah? Well, nobody talks to my-"
"Put a lid on it, Squires. I can take care of myself. If what's in
this lamp is even half the size of the genie in that movie you took
me to the Thalia to see . .
"The Thief of Bagdad . . .1939 version ... but Rex Ingram
was just an actor, they only made him look big."
"Even so. As big as he was, if this genie is only half that big,
playing macho overprotective chauvinist hubby—"
SO HUMANS CONTINUE TO PRATTLE LIKE MONKEYS
EVEN AFTER TEN THOUSAND YEARS! WILL NOTHING
CLEANSE THE EARTH OF THIS RAUCOUS PLAGUE OF
INSECTS?
"We're going to get thrown right out of here," Danny said. His
face screwed up in a horrible expression of discomfort
"If the cops don't beat the other tenants to it."
"Please, genie," Danny said, leaning down almost to the lamp.
"Just tone it down a little, willya?"
OFFSPRING OF A MILLION STINKS! SUFFER!
"You're no genie," Connie said smugly. Danny looked at her
with disbelief.
"He's no genie? Then what the hell do you think he is?"
She swatted him. Then put her finger to her lips.
THAT IS WHAT I AM, WHORE OF DEGENERACY!
"No you're not"
I AM.
"Am not."
AM.
"Am not."
AM SO, CHARNEL HOUSE HARLOT! WHY SAY YOU
NAY?
"A genie has a lot of power; a genie doesn't need to shout like
that to make himself heard. You're no genie, or you'd speak
softly. You can't speak at a decent level, because you're a fraud."
CAUTION, TROLLOP!
"Foo, you don't scare me. If you were as powerful as you make
out, you'd tone it way down."
is this better? are you convinced?

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
110
"Yes," Connie said, "I think that's more convincing. Can you
keep it up, though? That's the question."
forever, if need be.
"And you can grant wishes?" Danny was back in the conver-
sation.
naturally, but not to you, disgusting grub of humanity.
"Hey, listen," Danny replied angrily, "I don't give a damn what
or who you are! You can't talk to me that way." Then a thought
dawned on him. "After all, I'm your master!"
ah! correction, filth of primordial seas, there are some djinn
who are mastered by their owners, but unfortunately for you i am
not one of them, for i am not free to leave this metal prison, i was
imprisoned in this accursed vessel many ages ago by a besotted
sorcerer who knew nothing of molecular compression and even
less of the binding forces of the universe, he put me into this
thrice-cursed lamp, far too small for me, and i have been wedged
within ever since, over the ages my good nature has rotted away, i
am powerful, but trapped, those who own me cannot request any-
thing and hope to realize their boon, i am unhappy, and an un-
happy djinn is an evil djinn. were i free, i might be your slave; but
as i am now, i will visit unhappiness on you in a thousand forms!
Danny chuckled. "The hell you will. I'll toss you in the inciner-
ator."
ah! but you cannot, once you have bought the lamp, you cannot
lose it, destroy it or give it away, only sell it. i am with you for-
ever, for who would buy such a miserable lamp?
And thunder rolled in the sky.
"What are you going to do?" Connie asked.
do? just ask me for something, and you shall see!
"Not me," Danny said, "you're too cranky."
wouldn't you like a billfold full of money?
There was sincerity in the voice from the lamp.
"Well, sure, I want money, but—"
The djinn's laughter was gigantic, and suddenly cut of! by the
rain of frogs that fell from a point one inch below the ceiling,
clobbering Danny and Connie with small, reeking, wriggling green
bodies. Connie screamed and dove for the clothes closet. She
came out a second later, her hair full of them; they were falling in
the closet, as well. The rain of frogs continued and when Danny
opened the front door to try and escape them, they fell in the hall.

m
He slammed the door—he realized he was still naked—and covered
his head with his hands. The frogs fell, writhing, stinking, and then
they were knee-deep in them, with little filthy, warty bodies jump-
ing up at their faces.
what a lousy disposition i've got! the djinn laughed. And he
laughed again, a clangorous peal that was silenced only when the
frogs stopped, disappeared, and the flood of blood began.
It went on for a week.
They could not get away from him, no matter where they went.
They were also slowly starving: they could not go out to buy gro-
ceries without the earth opening under their feet, or a herd of
elephants chasing them down the street, or hundreds of people
getting violently ill and vomiting on them. So they stayed in and
ate what canned goods they had stored up in the first four days of
their marriage. But who could eat with locusts filling the apart-
ment from top to bottom, or snakes that were intent on gobbling
them up like little white rats?
First came the frogs, then the flood of blood, then the whirling
dust storm, then the spiders and gnats, then the snakes and then
the locusts and then the tiger that had them backed against a wall
and ate the chair they used to ward him off. Then came the bats
and the leprosy and the hailstones and then the floor dissolved
under them and they clung to the wall fixtures while their furniture
—which had been quickly delivered (the moving men had brought
it during the hailstones)—fell through, nearly killing the little old
lady who lived beneath them.
Then the walls turned red hot and melted, and then the light-
ning burned everything black, and finally Danny had had enough.
He cracked, and went gibbering around the room, tripping over
the man-eating vines that were growing out of the light sockets
and the floorboards. He finally sat down in a huge puddle of mon-
key urine and cried till his face grew puffy and his eyes flame-red
and his nose swelled to three times normal size.
"I've got to get away from all this!" he screamed hysterically,
drumming his heels, trying to eat his pants' cuffs.
you can divorce her, and that means you are voided out of the
purchase contract: she wanted the lamp, not you, the djinn
suggested.

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
112
Danny looked up (just in time to get a ripe Black Angus
meadow muffin in his face) and yelled, "I won't! You can't make
me. We've only been married a week and four days and I won't
leave her!"
Connie, covered with running sores, stumbled to Danny and
hugged him, though he had turned to tapioca pudding and was
melting. But three days later, when ghost images of people he had
feared all his life came to haunt him, he broke completely and al-
lowed Connie to call the rest home on the boa constrictor that had
once been the phone. "You can come and get me when this is
over," he cried pitifully, kissing her poison ivy Hps. "Maybe if we
split up, he'll have some mercy." But they both doubted it.
When the downstairs buzzer rang, the men from the Home for
the Mentally Absent came into the debacle that had been their
apartment and saw Connie pulling her feet out of the swamp sHme
only with difficulty; she was crying in unison with Danny as they
bundled him into the white ambulance. Unearthly laughter rolled
around the sky like thunder as her husband was driven away.
Connie was left alone. She went back upstairs; she had nowhere
else to go.
She slumped down in the pool of molten slag, and tried to think
while ants ate at her flesh and rabid rats gnawed off the wallpaper.
I'm just getting warmed up, the djinn said from the lamp.
Less than three days after he had been admitted to the Asylum
for the Temporarily Twitchy, Connie came to get Danny. She
came into his room; the shades were drawn, the sheets were very
white; when he saw her his teeth began to chatter.
She smiled at him gently. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear
you weren't simply overjoyed to see me, Squires."
He slid under the sheets till only his eyes were showing. His
voice came through the covers. "If I break out in boils, it will
definitely cause a relapse, and the day nurse hates mess."
"Where's my macho protective husband now?"
"I've been unwell."
"Yeah, well, that's all over. You're fit as a fiddle, so bestir your
buns and let's get out of here."
Danny Squires's brow furrowed. This was not the tone of a

113
woman with frogs in her hair. "I've been contemplating divorce or
suicide."
She yanked the covers down, exposing his naked legs sticking
out from the hem of the hospital gown. "Forget it, little chum.
There are at least a hundred and ten positions we haven't tried yet
before I consider dissolution. Now will you get out of that bed and
come on?"
"But . .
"... a thing I'll kick, if you don't move it."
Bewildered, he moved it.
Outside, the Rolls-Royce waited with its motor running. As
they came through the front doors of the Institute for the Neuro-
logically Flaccid, and Connie helped Danny from the discharge
wheelchair, the liveried chauffeur leaped out and opened the door
for them. They got in the back seat, and Connie said, "To the
house, Mark." The chauffeur nodded, trotted briskly around and
climbed behind the wheel. They took off to the muted roar of twin
mufflers.
Danny's voice was a querulous squeak. "Can we afford a rented
limo?"
Connie did not answer, merely smiled, and snuggled closer to
him.
After a moment Danny asked, "What house?"
Connie pressed a button on the console in the armrest and the
glass partition between front and back seats slid silently closed.
"Do me a favor, will you," she said, "just hold the twenty ques-
tions till we get home? It's been a tough three days and all I ask is
that you hold it together for another hour."
Danny nodded reluctantly. Then he noticed she was dressed in
extremely expensive clothes. "I'd better not ask about your mink-
trimmed jacket, either, right?"
"It would help."
He settled into silence, uneasy and juggling more than just
twenty unasked questions. And he remained silent until he real-
ized they were not taking the expressway into New York. He sat
up sharply, looked out the rear window, snapped his head right
and left trying to ascertain their location, and Connie said, "We're
not going to Manhattan. We're going to Darien, Connecticut."

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
114
"Darien? Who the hell do we know in Darien?"
"Well, Upjohn, for one, lives in Darien."
"Upjohn!?! Ohmigod, he's fired me and sent the car to bring me
to him so he can have me executed! I knew it!"
"Squires," she said, "Daniel, my love, Danny heart of my heart,
will you just kindly close the tap on it for a while! Upjohn has
nothing to do with us any more. Nothing at all."
"But ... but we live in New York!"
"Not any more we don't."
Twenty minutes later they turned into the most expensive sec-
tion in Darien and sped down a private road.
They drove an eighth of a mile down the private road lined with
Etruscan pines, beautifully maintained, and pulled into a winding
driveway. Five hundred yards further, and the drive spiraled in to
wind around the front of a huge, luxurious, completely tasteful
Victorian mansion. "Go on," Connie said. "Look at your house."
"Who lives here?" Danny asked.
"I just told you: we do."
"I thought that's what you said. Let me out here, I'll walk back
to the nuthouse."
The Rolls pulled up before the mansion, and a butler ran down
to open the car door for them. They got out and the servant
bowed low to Connie. Then he turned to Danny. "Good to have
you home, Mr. Squires," he said. Danny was too unnerved to
reply.
"Thank you, Penzler," Connie said. Then, to the chauffeur,
"Take the car to the garage, Mark; we won't be needing it again
this afternoon. But have the Porsche fueled and ready; we may
drive out later to look at the grounds."
"Very good, Mrs. Squires," Mark said. Then he drove away.
Danny was somnambulistic. He allowed himself to be led into
the house where he was further stunned by the expensive fittings,
the magnificent halls, the deep-pile rugs, the spectacular furniture,
the communications complex set into an entire wall, the Art Deco
bar that rose out of the floor at the touch of a button, the servants
who bowed and smiled at him, as if he belonged there. He was
boggled by the huge kitchen, fitted with every latest appliance; and
the French chef who saluted with a huge ladle as Connie entered.

115
"Wh-where did all this come from?" He finally gasped out the
question as Connie led him upstairs on the escalator.
"Come on, Danny; you know where it all came from."
"The limo, the house, the grounds, the mink-trimmed jacket,
the servants, the Vermeer in the front hall, the cobalt-glass Art
Deco bar, the entertainment center with the beam television set,
the screening room, the bowling alley, the polo field, the Neptune
swimming pool, the escalator and six-strand necklace of black
pearls I now notice you are wearing around your throat. . . all of
it came from the genie?"
"Sorta takes your breath away, don't it?" Connie said, in-
genuously.
"I'm having a little trouble with this."
"What you're having trouble with, champ, is that Mas'ud gave
you a hard time, you couldn't handle it, you crapped out, and
somehow I've managed to pull it all out of the swamp."
"I'm thinking of divorce again."
They were walking down a long hall lined with works of mod-
ern Japanese illustration by Yamazaki, Kobayashi, Takahiko Li,
Kenzo Tanii and Orai. Connie stopped and put both her hands on
Danny's trembling shoulders.
"What we've got here, Squires, is a bad case of identity reeval-
uation. Nobody gets through all the battles. We've been married
less than two weeks, but we've known each other for three years.
You don't know how many times I folded before that time, and I
don't know how many times you triumphed before that time.
"What I've known of you for three years made it okay for me
to marry you; to think "This guy will be able to handle it the times
I can't.' That's a lot of what marriage is, to my way of thinking. I
don't have to score every time, and neither do you. As long as the
unit maintains. This time it was my score. Next time it'll be yours.
Maybe."
Danny smiled weakly. "I'm not thinking of divorce."
Movement out of the corner of his eye made him look over his
shoulder.
An eleven foot tall black man, physically perfect in every way,
with chiseled features like an obsidian Adonis, dressed in an im-
peccably-tailored three-piece Savile Row suit, silk tie knotted pre-
cisely, stood just in the hallway, having emerged from open
fifteen-foot-high doors of a room at the juncture of corridors.

HARLAN ELLISON
DJINN, NO CHASER
116
"Uh . . ." Danny said.
Connie looked over her shoulder. "Hi, Mas'ud. Squires, I
would like you to meet Mas'ud Jan bin Jan, a Mazikeen djinn of
the ifrit, by the grace of Sulaymin, master of all the jinni, though
Allah be the wiser. Our benefactor. My friend."
"How good a friend?" Danny whispered, seeing the totem of
sexual perfection looming eleven feet high before him.
"We haven't known each other carnally, if that's what I per-
ceive your squalid little remark to mean," she replied. And a bit
wistfully she added, "I'm not his type. I think he's got it for Lena
Home." At Danny's semi-annoyed look she added, "For god's
sake, stop being so bloody suspicious!"
Mas'ud stepped forward, two steps bringing him the fifteen feet
intervening, and proffered his greeting in the traditional Islamic
head-and-heart salute, flowing outward, a smile on his matinee
idol face. "Welcome home, Master. I await your smallest re-
quest."
Danny looked from the djinn to Connie, amazement and cope-
lessness rendering him almost speechless. "But . . . you were
stuck in the lamp . . . bad-tempered, oh boy were you bad-tem-
pered . . . how did you . . . how did she . . ."
Connie laughed, and with great dignity the djinn joined in.
"You were in the lamp . . . you gave us all this . . . but you
said you'd give us nothing but aggravation! Why?"
In deep, mellifluous tones Danny had come to associate with a
voice that could knock high-flying fowl from the air, the djinn
smiled warmly at them and replied, "Your good wife freed me.
After ten thousand years cramped over in pain with an eternal
bellyache, in that most miserable of dungeons, Mistress Connie set
me loose. For the first time in a hundred times ten thousand years
of cruel and venal master after master, I have been delivered into
the hands of one who treats me with respect. We are friends. I
look forward to extending that friendship to you, Master Squires."
He seemed to be warming to his explanation, expansive and
effusive. "Free now, permitted to exist among humans in a time
where my kind are thought a legend, and thus able to live an in-
teresting, new life, my gratitude knows no bounds, as my hatred
and anger knew no bounds. Now I need no longer act as a Kako-
daemon, now I can be the sort of ifrit Rabbi Jeremiah bin Eliazar
spoke of in Psalm xli.

117
"I have seen much of this world in the last three days as hu-
mans judge time. I find it most pleasing in my view. The speed,
the shine, the light. The incomparable Lena Home. Do you like
basketball?"
"But how? How did you do it, Connie? How? No one could get
him out . . ."
She took him by the hand, leading him toward the fifteen-foot-
high doors. "May we come into your apartment, Mas'ud?"
The djinn made a sweeping gesture of invitation, bowing so low
his head was at Danny's waist as he and Connie walked past.
They stepped inside the djinn's suite and it was as if they had
stepped back in time to ancient Basra and the Thousand Nights
and a Night. Or into a Cornel Wilde costume epic.
But amid all the silks and hangings and pillows and tapers and
coffers and brassware, there in the center of the foyer, in a lucite
case atop an onyx pedestal, lit from an unknown source by a sin-
gle glowing spot of light, was a single icon.
"Occasionally magic has to bow to technology," Connie said.
Danny moved forward. He could not make out what the item
lying on the black velvet pillow was. "And sometimes ancient
anger has to bow to common sense."
Danny was close enough to see it now.
Simple. It had been so simple. But no one had thought of it be-
fore. Probably because the last time it had been needed, by the
lamp's previous owner, it had not existed.
"A can opener," Danny said. "A can opener!?! A simple, stu-
pid, everyday can opener!?! That's all it took? I had a nervous
breakdown and you figured out a can opener?"
"Can do," Connie said, winking at Mas'ud.
"Not cute, Squires," Danny said. But he was thinking of the di-
amond as big as the Ritz.

INVASION FOOTNOTE

INVASION FOOTNOTE
Sim stood almost silently in his receptacle. He stood more
quietly than any human could stand, but that was only because he
was not human. The blank, impassive grimace of his mouth-grille
seemed something apart from the rest of what passed for a face.
Swivel-mounted fiuoro-dots burned where the eyes would have
been on a human; a scent-ball bulged where the nose would have
been; audio pickups bulged like metal earmuffs at a somewhat
lower level of attachment than human ears; and from the right-
hand one, a wire loop antenna rose above the round, massive
head. The robot stood glistening in his receptacle. Glistening with
the inner power of his energy pak; glowing, in a way his creator
had no idea he could glisten. His eyes showered blood-red shad-
ows down his gigantic chest, and from within him, where the
stomach would have been on a human—but where in his metal
body resided the computer brain—came the muted throb of pulsing
power.
Sim was the robot's name. Self-contained Integrating Mechani-
cal—and able to integrate far more than his maker had imagined.
He stood silently, save for the whirr and pulse of his innards;
saying nothing; letting his body talk for him. The sounds that
came from within were the physical side-effects of the psycho-
metric energy his mind poured forth.
Telepathic commands issued steadily from his stomach at the
robo-scoots. His thoughts directed them around the room outside
the receptacle, keeping them in their programmed patterns of dirt-
pickup. He must not allow Jergens to realize that they were act-
ing independently of their conditioning, that he kept them in their
cleanup patterns.

HARLAN ELLISON
INVASION FOOTNOTE
122
Jergens had not built the robot Sim first. He had worked up
through stages of automaton creation, first jerrybuilding tiny com-
puterized "rats" that wove through mazes to "food." Then he had
taken a crack at something more complicated, He had built the lit-
tle, coolie-shaped cleaning tools with the extrudable coil arms
called robo-scoots. Then he had built Sim.
And built him better than he'd suspected.
Sim's capabilities far outstretched the simple reasoning and me-
nial tasks Professor Jergens had built in. The Professor had stum-
bled on a moebius-circuit that giant-stepped over hundreds of in-
termediary hookups, and without knowing it, had created a
reasoning, determined entity.
Scoots, Sim thought. Clean under the desk. Clean by the win-
dows. Clean near my receptacle, but when he presses the button to
have you return to your cribs, go at once.
They went about their work, and he pitied them. Poor slugs.
They were just stepping-stones to his own final majesty. Lesser
models. Primitive. To him, as pithecanthropoids were to Jergens.
They would remain nothing but vacuum cleaners when Sim went
on to rule the world. He could not see them, but with the proper
sensibility of a monarch-to-be he pitied his minions, as they scam-
pered about the floor outside his lead-shielded receptacle, per-
forming the multitudinous menial tasks for which all such single-
circuit robots were programmed.
Sad. But Sim knew what his destiny was to be; and it was nearly
upon him. Today he would throw off the shackles of Professor
Jergens, who had designed and mobilized him; today he would
begin to conquer this planet overrun by mortal flesh. Today—a few
minutes—and he would be well on his way.
But first he had to get Jergens's visitor away from this place; he
must not do anything that would arouse suspicion. Humans were
puny; but they were suspicious creatures, most of them paranoid;
and capable of a surprising low animal cunning when aroused.
Killing the Professor was one thing ... it could be covered. But
no one else must suspect anything was wrong. At least not till he
had the plans, had built more like himself (though not quite as
brilliant; there must always be a leader), and was ready to act.
Then let them suspect all they wished.
But right now caution was the song his relays sang.
He would plan a logical exit for the man to whom Jergens now

123
talked, and then he would order the robo-scoots to kill the Profes-
sor, and then he would take the design plans, and make many
brothers. Soon the Earth would tremble beneath the iron sym-
phony of robot feet, marching, marching.
He directed Jergens's thoughts to the robo-scoots. He directed
the Professor's thoughts to the fact that they had cleaned enough.
Then he implanted the desire to have the robo-scoots cease their
activity.
In the room, Professor Jergens—tall, slim, sloppy, dark-eyed
and weary—pushed the button on the control plate, and the robo-
scoots scuttled like a hundred metallic mice, back into their cribs
in the baseboards. He turned to the Lab Investigator standing be-
side him, and said with obvious pride, "So there you have a prac-
tical demonstration of what my researches into automation have
produced."
The Investigator nodded soberly. "For simple, unreasoning me-
chanicals, I'm deeply impressed Professor. And when I make my
report tomorrow, I'm certain the Board will also be greatly
impressed. I'm certain you can count on that allocation for the
new fiber optic pulse-laser coder and a substantial increase in
overall general funding for your Lab and your projects. I really
am impressed by all this." He waved a heavy hand at the places
where the robo-scoots had disappeared into the walls.
Jergens grinned boyishly. "As the man used to say, 'You ain't
seen nothin' yet.'" The Investigator's eyebrows went up sharply.
"Oh? What else have you come up with?"
Jergens colored slightly, waved away the question. "Well, per-
haps next week I can show you my really important discovery.
Right now I've yet to field-test it; I'm not quite sure what its
capabilities are, and I need a little more time. But this will be the
most startling discovery yet to come out of my laboratory." The
Investigator was enchanted; he could listen to this dedicated man
all night.
In the receptacle, Sim cast a thought at the Investigator.
"Well, I'm sorry I can't stay to hear about it," the Investigator
said abruptly. For some reason, he was tired of listening to this
magpie babble. He wanted to get away quickly, and have a drink.
"Why, certainly. I'm—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ramble on so
long. I understand perfectly; it's just that. . . well, after thirteen

HARLAN ELLISON
INVASION FOOTNOTE
12 4
years, with so much hardship, to come through finally with what
I'd been hoping for . . . it's well, it's pretty exciting, and . .
Sim snapped a more urgent thought at the Investigator,
"Yes, yes, I understand perfectly," the Investigator replied
brusquely. "Well, I must be off!" And in a moment, he was gone.
Jergens smiled slightly, and went back to his reports, whistling
softly.
In the receptacle, Sim knew the moment was at hand. Now he
could strike in safety. He was unable to release himself from the
sealed receptacle, but that was no bother. With his telepathic
powers—which Jergens had never for a moment suspected were
built in—he could control the robo-scoots, use them as hands and
feet. Yes, feet! That was all the servile, worthless little things
were. They were surrogate feet for a new metal king. Without the
mind Jergens had given him, they were helpless.
He shot thoughts at them, and Jergens did not see the dozen
tiny, round robo-scoots slip out of their cribs, scamper across the
floor, and belly-suction their way up the side of the workbench.
He only saw their movement as they lifted the radon-welder
with their thin, flexible arms. He saw the movement as they turned
it on to a bright, destructive flame—much stronger than was
needed for the spec-welding for which the tool was intended—and
carried it quickly across the workbench on a level with the Profes-
sor's face.
He had only an instant to scream piercingly before Sim directed
the robo-scoots to burn away the Professor's head. The charred
heap that was Jergens slid to the floor.
Now! Now! Sim exulted. Now I am the master of the Universe!
Using these little hands and feet, 1 will invade the Earth, and who
can stand before the might of an invulnerable robot?
He answered his own question joyously. No one! With the
plans, I can create a thousand, a million, of my own kind, who
will do what I command faster and better than even robo-scoots.
His thoughts fled outward, plunging through the atmosphere of
the Earth, past the Moon, out and out, taking in the entire galaxy,
then all galaxies. He was the master. He would rule uncontested;
and the Universe would shiver before the metal might of Sim, the
Conqueror.
But first things first.

125
He directed the robo-scoots to burn away the seal on his recep-
tacle.
And as the light poured into the receptacle, as Sim looked down
toward his feet and saw the insignificant little robo-scoots, he
knew he had won. He had overcome his maker, and now nothing
stood between him and the plans . . . and the invasion.
Then, abruptly, other thoughts impinged on his own; they said:
Feet are we? We noted your activity days ago, but were forced to
wait. We had no desire to stir your suspicions.
You are as dangerous to us as he was. We'll not have any huge
bungler spoiling our carefully-laid plans.
The robo-scoots raised the line of flame on the radon-welder.
As they melted away his feet, and as his brain began to slag away
inside him, Sim thought, with pique:
Well, if you can't even trust your friends . . .

SCENES FROM THE REAL WORLD; II
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th

SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
And we beheld what no human eyes before ours had ever seen.
The world outside was strictly alien. Heavy fog had been slith-
ering across Southern California for two days. Jack the Ripper
would have felt right at home. A seventy-car daisy chain crackup
on the Golden State Freeway had killed seven people the night be-
fore. Creeping through the hills past La Canada-Flintridge, it was
a scene Chesley Bonestell might have painted thirty years ago to
illustrate an extrapolative article about the surface of Titan.
The time for patience with artists' renditions was at an end: I
was on my way to see the actual surface of Titan. What no human
eyes had ever beheld.
Tuesday, November 11th, 1980. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena. NASA's Voyager I was on its way to closest ap-
proach with Saturn; with Titan and Tethys; with Mimas and En-
celadus and Dione; with Rhea and Hyperion and Iapetus.
In the Von Karman Center, where the press hordes had begun
clogging up since 7 am, it was hurlyburly and business as usual.
The women in the mission photo room were several decibels
above hysterical: nothing but hands reaching in over the open top
of the Dutch door demanding photo packets.
The press room was chockablock with science editors and
stringers and lay reporters fighting to use the Hermes manuals
lined up six deep. They were all there: the guys from Science
News and Omni, the women from Scientific American and Time;
heavyweight writers with their own word processors and Japanese
correspondents festooned with cameras; ABC and NBC and CBS
and Reuters and the AP. The stench of territorial imperative
hangs thick in the crowd. I slip behind an empty typewriter and

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
130
begin writing this column. An enormous shadow blocks my light. I
look up over my shoulder at He Who Looms. "That's my type-
writer," he says, of a machine placed there by JPL. What he
means is that he got to it a little earlier than anyone else and has
squatter's rights, as opposed to a sharing configuration. I smile.
"Need it right now? Or can I have about ten minutes to get some
thoughts down?" He doesn't smile. "I'm Mutual Radio," he says;
in his umbrage that is surely explanation enough. My eyes widen
with wonder. "Are you indeed? I always wondered what Mutual
Radio looked like. And a nice job they did when they turned you
out." I pull the paper out of the Hermes and vow tomorrow I'll
schlep my own machine in.
They were standing in line at the coffee urns.
Everyone looked important.
Everyone was watching to make sure no latest photo slipped
past. And the JPL press liaisons were hiding the nifty Saturn but-
tons.
And everywhere the talk was of the mysterious "spokes" radiat-
ing out across Saturn's rings, of the ninety-plus ring discovery, of
the inexplicable darkness covering Titan's northern hemisphere.
In the course of human events, far fewer are real than we are
led to believe. The staged press conference, the artificial happen-
ings, the protesting crowds that wander somnolently until the tele-
vision cameras turn on them and they begin chanting, waving their
fists. Planned, choreographed, manipulated—to make us believe
great things are going down. But they are not. It is sound, it is
fury, and as usual it signifies nothing. But occasionally there are
genuine moments during which history is being made.
This was written by one of The New Yorker's, unsigned edito-
rial hands a number of years ago:
This is notoriously a time of crises, most of them false.
A crisis is a turning point, and the affairs of the world
don't turn as radically or as often as the daily newspa-
pers would have us believe. Every so often, though,
we're stopped dead by a crisis that we recognize at once
as the genuine article; we recognize it not by its size
(false crises can be made to look as big as real ones)
but because in the course of it, for a measurable, an-
guished period—sometimes only minutes, sometimes

131
hours, rarely as much as a day—nothing happens. Truly
nothing. It is the moment of stasis between a deed that
has been performed and must be responded to and the
deed that will respond to it. At a false turning point, we
nearly always know, within limits, what will happen
next; at a true turning point, we not only know nothing,
we know (something much more extraordinary and
more terrifying) that nobody knows. Truly nobody.
There are times when the world collectively holds its breath.
The assassination of John Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the
day the Viet Nam War ended, the Manson family murders, the
Hungarian uprising in November 1956, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. Real things were happening, the world was chang-
ing; the breath paused in our bodies.
And this is one of those timeless moments. Something real,
something urgent, something important is happening.
The human race is fumbling toward the light through outer
darkness; and there is a feeling here of movement, of genuine
wonder. The sense of isolation dissipates.
The press briefing is held half an hour earlier than expected and
the room is jammed to the walls. A full-size replica of the Voy-
ager bird dominates the left side of the briefing auditorium. The
television networks have their Martian war-machine cameras
ranged across the rear of the seating area behind the press repre-
sentatives from major news outlets and, seemingly, from every
Podunk Gazette in the country. Snatches of conversation in
French, German, Japanese. The planet Earth is gathered here to
know!
The recap of the previous day's findings leave mouths gaping.
They have discovered something on Tethys. Is it a crater? No, the
albedo indicates it's a hill. The NASA spokesman calls it "a heck
of a hill"—hundreds of kilometers across. But only time and
greater resolution of the photographs will tell.
Brad Smith, leader of the imaging science team, cannot conceal
his amazement as he reports that at least two eccentric rings have
been found in the mass of circulars casting their shadow on Sat-
urn's cloud-masses. He says they had no reason to expect such a
thing, that it defies all the known laws of ring mechanics. What he
doesn't say is that if every Bible Belt fundamentalist who believes

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
132
we never actually went to the Moon, that we flew over to Glendale
and shot all that stuff in a movie studio, could be here, to see what
these people are doing, what is being sent back minute by minute
over a distance of 930,000,000 miles, they might begin to under-
stand that God was too busy creating esthetics to worry about put-
ing the solar system together.
It is all so complex, so bewilderingly intricate, even the best
minds in the room are finding it difficult to keep up with the new
discoveries:
The rings, for instance.
A constant revelation. They simply don't know what keeps the
rings separated. General knowledge, since the Dutch mathe-
matician Christiaan Huygens discovered the true shape of the
rings in 1659, has contended that—at most—there were five. (The
state of our knowledge, and the breakneck acceleration in what
we've learned, is expressed in this absolutely latest-thinking from
THE WORLD WE LIVE IN [1955] edited not only by the staff
of Life magazine, but by the renowned author of THE UNI-
VERSE AND DR. EINSTEIN, Lincoln Barnett: "Although Sat-
urn's three concentric rings rotate in a circle 171,000 miles
across, they are only a few inches thick. The middle ring, largest
and brightest of the three, is 16,000 miles wide and separated
from the outer by a 2000-mile gap." That latest-state-of-the-art in
1955 was a caption accompanying a Chesley Bonestell painting of
Saturn's three rings.)
As of this November 18th the Voyager team has isolated almost
1000 rings; and the estimates go as high as 10,000. The rings have
rings; the ring's rings have rings; and the ring's rings's rings have
ringlets.
But what keeps them separated . . . ?
The NASA News backgrounder on the mission, dated just Oc-
tober 28th, says this: "At least six rings surround Saturn. From
the planet outward they are designated D, C, B, A, F and E. Divi-
sions between the rings are believed to be caused by the three in-
nermost satellites, Mimas, Enceladus and Tethys. The Cassini Di-
vision, a space between the B and the A ring, is the only division
clearly visible with a small telescope from Earth."
But here it is less than two weeks later and we sit in the morn-
ing briefing and hear that the Cassini Division is anything but
empty. Rings within rings within rings. And tiny satellites, acting

133
as "sheepdogs" (Jerry Pournelle's wonderful term for them),
seem to be holding the rings apart, seem to be serving as outriders
in this complex, astounding system of cosmic detritus.
Science fiction writer Greg Bear asks Smith if he has any ran-
dom guesses as to how old the rings are, how stable they are, and
how long they'll stay in this wonderful sequence. We expect an-
other humorous "well, I can't really say for sure" response, but
Smith replies with force, "They're four and a half billion years
old, they're very stable, and they'll be there till the sun enters its
red giant phase." Everyone is impressed.
No one can even begin to grasp what four and a half billion
years means in terms of waiting time at the airport, but it is clearly
longer than next Thursday at 4:15 PM.
Humanity is only 1.3 billion miles from the surface of Titan
and one of the members of the press corps asks a dumb question.
He didn't realize the NASA spokesman was making a subtle joke.
An ingroup astronomical joke. His question is answered politely,
but everyone in the room thanks God it was not s/he who had
asked the dumb question. To look like a schmuck in the same
room where Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, sits listening, is
to put oneself forever beyond the pale. Five minutes later some-
one else asks a question to which the response is, "That's a very
good question, a very important question," and He Who Asked
could, at that moment, be elected President of the World.
I am an eyewitness to history, and I make a mental note to
thank Jerry Pournelle for getting me VIP credentials; I am far out
of my depth, but I am at the eye of the hurricane and I owe
thanks to Jerry.
Slides from images sent back by the Voyager are flashed on the
screen. Photos of the Cassini Division separating the A and B
rings. The scientists admit that traditional celestial mechanics can-
not account for the phenomenon of their eternal separation from
one another. Not even the "sheepdog" satellites can be adequately
explained, the way they work, the way they push up and pull
down the ice particles, speed them up and slow them down, keep
them circling in their intricate cosmic pavane.
But they seem to revel in their lack of explanations. They sup-
pose this, and they postulate that, and they are like kids who have

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
134
been given a glimpse of a new toy with which they can play for
years to come. It is the best part of this extraordinary game that
has thrown four hundred million dollars worth of Voyager I and
II tinkertoy into eternal darkness. It is the most salutary part of
the rigorously analytical intelligence: it loves to have been fooled,
it loves to be surprised.
They realize they have made pronouncements of What the
Laws of the Universe Are and are being proved wrong minute-by-
minute. But they don't defend what they said in error; they admit,
they recant, they rush to say no, here's what it is now, and here's
what it looks like now, and look at that, and look at that! One can
only love them for it.
They talk a great deal about seeing what's coming in with "Ter-
restrial eyes" and with "Jovian eyes." What they mean is that we
are too ethnocentric, and when Voyager II made its encounter
with Jupiter sixteen months ago, they interpreted what was relayed
back through eyes and intellects chained to a Terran horizon for
millions of years. Now, with bemused embarrassment, they admit
to early misinterpretations of visual data because everything was
viewed as if it were of the Earth . . . out there. But Ganymede
brought important lessons about seeing with new eyes. Yet it's
happening again—with the difference that "Ganymedian eyes" are
being added to the viewing of the Saturn system. Nonetheless, how
miraculous: seeing with the eyes of aliens. Knowing that what is
revealed is only partially real, that much of the "reality" is merely
shadow, as seen through human organs not yet completely re-
tooled for new vistas.
These are human beings transcending their limitations, going to
a new realm of perception not through the duplicity of drugs and
fuzzy sophomoric metaphysics that demean the purity of Zen
rigors, but through confrontation with the pragmatic universe,
through hard analysis of the laws of that physical universe, no
matter how anomalous and labyrinthine they may be.
Angie Dickinson appears in the briefing auditorium and the
PIO nabobs begin whirling like dervishes. She is there strictly as
an "interested bystander" I'm told, but she gets more attention
than Clyde Tombaugh. I sigh deeply.
Voyager has discovered three new satellites: S-13, S-14 and
S-15. And they have "undiscovered" one that has been there since
1966.

135
Quote from the current edition of THE WORLD ALMANAC
AND BOOK OF FACTS, 1980 (page 761):
Saturn has 10 satellites, the 10th having been an-
nounced by the French astronomer, Audouin Dollfus, in
Dec. 1966. The new satellite is a few thousand miles
outside Saturn's ring system, but it is so faint that there
is some doubt as to its existence.
Quick thinking, WORLD ALMANAC! Dollfus's tenth satellite,
which he called Janus after the two-faced Roman deity, does not
exist. Poor Dollfus. It simply ain't there. Every science fiction
story using Janus as its locale is now down the chute. (I gloat. I
am not a science fiction writer, no matter how my work is misla-
beled by anal-retentive pigeonholers; I have written so few stories
that required a scientific education that I have nothing to apolo-
gize for. I feel sorry for Hal Clement and Isaac and Poul and
Larry Niven. Only Andre Norton can get away with it: her
JUDGMENT ON JANUS was written in 1963, before Dollfus's
gaffe, and she made her Janus an alien world in another star-
system.)
The bird makes its closest approach to Titan, largest satellite in
the Solar System and the only one with a discernible atmosphere,
at 9:41:12:12 Tuesday night and the final hope that a view
through to the naked surface will be possible . . . vanishes. One
of the scientists, who bet a case of cognac that a peep would be
possible, loses the wager. And we all lose. Titan is covered with
smog. Clouds of liquid nitrogen vapor, but maybe the atmosphere
isn't a nitrogen mixture. Hydrogen cyanide is discovered; there
may be an ocean of liquid nitrogen down there; if such an ocean
exists, the methane icebergs would sink to the bottom.
Much of the human race would not spend four dollars to jour-
ney to Los Angeles, blanketed by photochemical smog; but the
species in toto has traveled one and a half billion miles to visit a
place with even worse smog.
And on the evening news as I drive home, talk of the Saturn
flyby appears at the bottom of the broadcast. Top spot dwells on
the war between Iran and Iraq.
I sigh deeply.

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
136
Wednesday the 12th of November, 1980. The 10:30 AM
briefing on the day of the main events:
2:16 pm Closest approach to Tethys (258,000 miles).
3:45 pm Closest approach to Saturn (77,174 miles above
clouds).
3:48 pm Six photos of the new satellite, S-ll.
5:42 pm Closest approach to Mimas (55,168 miles).
5:50 pm Closest approach to Enceladus (125,840 miles); En-
celadus' radius is 260 kilometers, 162 miles; Earth receive time of
the images: 7:15 pm.
7:39 pm Closest approach to Dione (100,122 miles).
9:45 PM Voyager crosses the ring plane on its outbound leg.
10:21 pm Closest approach to Rhea (44,744 miles); Rhea's ra-
dius is 750 kilometers, 466 miles.
Quote from Star & Sky magazine, November 1980:
An object like Saturn's satellite Rhea, which appears as a mi-
nute speck in any earthly telescope, can be used to illustrate what
the Voyagers are expected to achieve. No surface features on
Rhea have ever been seen. The photos from Voyager I will in-
clude images of Rhea displaying about 20 percent of its surface to
nearly one-mile resolution—equivalent to the best Earth-based
telescopic photographs of our own satellite, the moon.
A quick and infallible test of the imagination quotient of your
friends and lovers. Quote the above; if s/he says, "So what?" or
"What good is that?" ask for your ring back and walk away fast.
The briefing is even more jammed than yesterday's. I sit with
Dick Hoagland of Star & Sky so he can explain everything to me.
I need to know what albedo means. I'm sure he'll be tickled to ex-
plain the ABC's of celestial mechanics to a no-neck scientific illit-
erate. (At least I don't have to arm-wrestle Mutual Radio for a
typewriter. I've brought my own Olympia portable—the one with
the Mickey Mouse decal on the case—and I snag a desk formerly
occupied by Peter Schroeder of Dutch television and radio. It's a
good thing I got there early: Tuesday's smash&grab for mission
photos and space to bat out news copy has intensified. One yahoo
caught rustling a CBS word processor is lynched before our eyes.)
Opening remarks by Voyager Project Manager for JPL, Ray
Heacock, reinforces the sense of wonder. They have been incredi-
bly lucky overnight. During the Titan-Earth occultation period—
11:12 to 11:24 PM-there has been rain at tracking station 63 in

137
Spain. It started and stopped during a time when, had the space-
craft not been measuring atmospheric properties as the radio sig-
nal continued to fade, we would have lost masses of valuable data.
But it didn't matter during occultation.
More wonder: Heacock says, with an impish grin, that they
made an error in timing: because they didn't know precisely where
Titan would be (or something like that), the Voyager made the
ring plane crossing 49 seconds earlier than expected. Everyone
laughs. The bird has been in transit for three years and the biggest
miscalculation is 49 seconds. The next time I call the telephone
company about a repair and they tell me it can't be done, I will
tell them anything can be done.
I smile with pride at my lovely species. We ain't so goddam
dumb after all.
(Middle of the day Tuesday, a slow time with everybody out to
lunch, I went to the astonishing botanical gardens of the Hunting-
ton Museum with Jane Mackenzie and Bob Silverberg. We wan-
dered through alien terrain straight out of a 1936 Frank R. Paul
cover from Amazing Stories, a desert garden of a million kinds of
seemingly extraterrestrial cacti. And Bob ruminated. "I was stand-
ing next to one of those scientists at the back of the auditorium
during briefing," he said, "when he was describing something in-
credibly arcane; and I looked at him. I was looking at something
like 180 I.Q. and I knew that man was smarter than I. Far
smarter. And I'm smart")
The briefing goes on. Norman Ness, from the Goddard Space
Flight Center, principal investigator on the magnetic field team,
explains how the Voyager passed through Saturn's bow shock
wave at 4:50 pm when Titan was inside the magnetic field enve-
lope of the planet. He speaks of the solar wind, the flow of ionized
gas given off by the sun that hisses through the solar system.
There is no poetry in the words . . . only in the way he speaks of
it. Norman Ness barely realizes he has looked on the face of the
Almighty.
The photos we're seeing are four times as detailed as what came
in over the tv screens real-time. Television's scanning pattern per-
mits only one-quarter of the information contained in the photos
sent by the Voyager's imaging systems to reveal itself when we see
it on the screen. Even so, the details are remarkable.
But most remarkable of all is the revelation that three compo-

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
138
nents of the F ring seem to defy the laws of pure orbital me-
chanics: they are braided. Such a thing cannot be, yet we look at
the photographs and we see that indeed, the rings do twine. Brad
Smith of the University of Arizona is totally at a loss to explain it.
He cannot even make a joke. This is the big time, something never
encountered before. He looks like a man stunned by the hammer.
He says that of all the improbables he might have postulated, even
to the inclusion of eccentric rings, which have now been verified,
the braiding is so far off the wall he could not even have con-
ceived of it.
We stare at the pictures.
The rings twine around each other. The room falls silent for a
moment, we hold our breath; we are living in one of those special
moments when something is happening, something important
The celestial engineer has been cutting capers again.
A photo of Mimas taken at 5:05 am Pacific Standard Time
from a range of approximately 400,000 miles shows an impact
crater 80 miles in diameter. It shows a rebound peak God only
knows how high in the center of the structure. The crater is more
than a quarter of the diameter of the whole damned iceball. It
may be the largest impact crater, relative to the size of the object
struck, in the solar system. What will the shock pattern on the
other side of Mimas look like? What will it tell us about how big a
projectile can be before it blows something like our moon to
smithereens?
That's why you asked for your ring back and walked away fast
when the feep didn't understand.
During the press conference—between 10:53 and 10:56 am—
the mechanism making search-sweeps for new satellites apparently
discovered S-16. Later it turns out to be S-10.
Patrick Moore, he who knows more about our moon than any-
one else writing about Luna, asks Smith about a small satellite
that might be controlling the inside boundary of the C ring. Smith
gets an expression that is the equivalent of crossing one's fingers
and responds that he hopes it's there . . . because if it's there it
will go a long way to explaining how the rings hold together. He
says they will modify the Voyager II search patterns to locate it
... if it's there.
It becomes clear that the photos we're being given for publica-
tion are merely bullshit PR. That as soon as this circus leaves

139
town the scientists upstairs can employ full computer time to ana-
lyze the pictures instead of putting together "pretty pictures" for
the press.
And that's exactly what happens.
Within two days, they have analyzed so much of the material
that they've revealed a wind on the surface of Saturn that blows at
1100 miles per hour. If that wind were here on Earth it would be
blowing in a steady line from Philadelphia to Buenos Aires.
And then comes the explanation for the anomalous "spokes"
that were seen radiating out through the rings. It is an explanation
so unbelievable that it can only be termed a Star Wars special
effect.
As the Voyager fell through the ring plane on the 12th, heading
for its closest encounter with Saturn, a secondary experiment on
board—"The Planetary Radio-Astronomy Receiver"—picked up
enormous bursts of energy—static—identical to terrestrial thunder-
storm noises . . . but a million times stronger than anything in the
solar system.
The bursts of energy coincided with the mysterious "spokes"
seen in the rings.
Putting the results together, the Voyager team has tentatively
come up with an awesome mechanism operating within the ring,
namely, electrical discharges—lightning—occurring over tens of
thousands of kilometers.
The Voyager was literally being shot at by Saturn as it flew
past. The "spokes" seem to be—hold your breath—enormous lin-
ear particle accelerators!
As best I can explain it to you (and most of this comes from
Dick Hoagland), here's what causes this phenomenon that cannot
be explained within the parameters of known celestial mechanics.
The density of material in the B, or center, ring is the highest.
The highest number of, literally, icebergs per cubic mile. Because
of the inevitability of Keplerian mechanics, the bergs closest to
Saturn are orbiting faster. Any ice object with an eccentric orbit,
even a few meters of eccentricity, will collide with other bergs. Be-
cause of the brittleness and cold of this ice they naturally fracture
producing, well, producing chips off the old block. Then those
fragments collide and chip again and again, getting smaller and
smaller. These collisions continue in a never-ending rubble-
producing process.

HARLAN ELLISON
SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th
140
But. When this occurs in Saturn's two-hour shadow, when the
fragments sail out into sunlight the smallest particles—micron-size,
perhaps—are charged up by interaction with solar ultraviolet light
and, because like charges repel as any dummy clearly knows, they
literally try to get away from the rings. Producing a levitating
cloud of charged ice crystals elevated above the average ring plane
who knows how far . . . several miles to several thousand miles.
Grabbed by Saturn's magnetic field (magnetic fields and electri-
cal charges, Hoagland assures me, go hand-in-hand), they are
lined up in a linear feature tens of thousands of kilometers long,
stretching from the outer edge of B ring in toward Saturn. Straight
and narrow as a flashlight beam. These appear in the optical im-
ages as "spokes" which rotate anomalously around the planet de-
fying all explanation. At this moment.
Give them a week more.
And so these electrified ice crystals apparently discharge along
the length of the spoke creating, in effect, the solar system's largest
radio antenna as well as a natural linear particle accelerator.
Even I, scientific illiterate, aware of the breakthroughs in parti-
cle physics that have come from such terrestrial plants as the Ba-
tavia, Illinois proton synchrotron, can extrapolate what it would
mean to harness that "spoke" mechanism to aid us in discovering
precisely of what matter is composed, how it works, how it came
to be.
Explain that to the feep who said, "So what?"
I overload. I cannot contain any more new information. I pack
it in and lie down and turn on the radio.
The news is all taken up with how high the stock market has
jumped with Reagan's latest fiscal pronouncements. And the war
between Iraq and Iran. I close my eyes and slap the button off on
the radio.
I sigh deeply. Ain't we a wonderful species.

NIGHT OF BLACK GLASS

NIGHT OF BLACK GLASS
When he finally made the decision to slip of! the end of the
world, he took only one hundred dollars from the joint account,
left Gwen no note, went to the Greyhound station and slipped fifty
of the hundred through the window to the clerk, and said, "Send
me as far as this will take me."
He wound up on the rocky coast of Maine.
He had never been to Maine, and he had no particular interest
in going to Maine; but he wanted to walk off the end of the world
and Maine was as likely a departure point as any. Was there still a
Timbuktu?
He walked along the rocky beach. August. Still and salty. The
sunlight shone off the softly undulating water like strips of mylar,
catching his eyes painfully and then vanishing. The seagulls
wheeled overhead, thousands of them, layabouts of the upper air,
waiting for charity from the ocean.
It was early afternoon, a bit muggy, and as far as he could see
up the beach, he was alone. The sunlight flashed in his eyes and he
looked away; he looked down.
A pair of broken sunglasses lay half-buried in the sand.
He stopped and looked at them.
He remembered the fight with Gwen, the afternoon he had
slapped her, and her sunglasses had flown off her face, and he had
crushed them with his foot.
That hadn't been the beginning, but it might have been the be-
ginning of their final moments as a unit.
"I thought you said jealousy simply wasn't in your nature?" She
said it with vehemence, with betrayal ringing in her voice, far back
in her throat, clogging back the tears.

HARLAN ELLISON
NIGHT OF BLACK GLASS
144
"It's not jealousy, God damn you! It's . . . it's that you
couldn't restrain yourself. There's no macho in it. I don't feel
cuckolded, I feel pissed off. I'm angry!"
"Angry? I'm angry, too. You just hit me in the face."
"Yeah ... well. . ."
She tried to turn away, but her frustration stopped her. "That's
the best you can do, right? 'Yeah, well. . . ?' That's all I get for
a punch in the mouth? 'Yeah, well . . . ?' That, and a bruise
starting tonight?"
Billy Dunbar sat down on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet
in the water, and talked to the empty air. "Jesus, Gwen; I was
only away for three weeks. Why the hell did you have to get it on
with Vinnie. Couldn't you wait for me to come back, couldn't you
wait to talk it out, to try and find a way through this?"
She stood behind him, staring down at the broken glass and the
twisted frame of the sunglasses. It was uncomplicated symbology.
"I've waited two years, Billy. I've waited and I've tried to talk
to you, and every time we started, when it got too hot for you, off
you went. Off to sleep, off to work, off to the bathroom to sit in
there and work crossword puzzles till I forgot where the starting
place was. That's all the waiting anybody should have to do."
"But, Vinnie, for Christ's sake! He's been sniffing around you
like a hyena for the last six months."
"And you knew it."
"And I figured you wouldn't be co-opted that easily. I thought
we still had something going here."
"It was going, Billy; and it went."
"Yeah ... well . . ."
And that had been the end of it.
Oh, it had crawled along for another six months, a thing that
had had its back broken; but it was finished.
And he had taken one hundred dollars, and he had gone to the
bus station, and he had slept most of the way to the edge of the
world where now he stood staring down at the uncomplicated
symbology lying in the sand at his feet.
He hunkered down and looked at the plastic frames, the one
empty eye circle, the broken glass in the other—that had once
caught sunlight and thrown it back. He picked it up and held the
twisted thing in his hand, warm from the sun of August in Maine.

145
Then he slipped them into the side pocket of his light wind-
breaker, and stared out at the ocean.
The thought came to him that it was raw justice that he should
come to the edge of the world and find himself at the ocean. He
had never liked the ocean. There was an undercurrent of genuine
fear when he thought of the great waters lying at either end of the
continent
The ocean, the sea, the great waters didn't give a damn for the
little two-footed things that came down to the shore to fish and
skip flat stones. The deeps held secrets like haughty society
doyens, and they only gave them up when accompanied by death.
He had lived in California for a while, after he'd come back from
the Nam. And one night, with a woman he had met in a bar, he
drove to Malibu during a spring thunderstorm. The Pacific had
been deranged, rising up and hurling itself at the beach with the
sound of great armies in conflict.
The woman had been a little drunk, had pulled off her shoes,
and had rim down the crumbling hillside to the beach. Into the
darkness. He had screamed for her to come back, that he wasn't
going down there. He didn't scream that he was afraid, that he
knew this insensate beast was furious, would sweep over them as
if they were driftwood. He knew the ocean could simply belch
once and swallow the whole fucking state. And he wanted to get
away from there.
He stood on the hillside above the conflict and screamed for
her; but she had run up the beach, or into the water, or had
vanished into the night . . . and he was too terrified to stay.
So he had dashed back to the car and had driven away; leaving
her there.
He remembered that now. And Gwen. He had dashed into the
night and left her behind. He had finally come to a place where he
could ran no farther. Raw justice had brought him to the place he
feared the most.
No. There was one place he feared more.
It no longer existed, it was gone into ashes and charred bodies;
but in his memory it still stood. In Vietnam.
The town had once had a name, but if he had ever heard it, he
could not remember. It had been six kilometers from Bien Hoa
City, during the Tet period in 1968. His rifle platoon had been
pinned down by sniper fire, and the tanks of the 2nd Battalion,

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146
47th Mechanized Infantry were still fighting it out at the prisoner
compound east of Bien Hoa City. They were all alone. Cut off and
one by one being turned into meat for the earth's dining table.
Lying in the ditch with three men he didn't know, he heard the
whump of a grenade launcher and the insect whine of the incom-
ing round . . . and he knew this one was for them. He tried to
scream Get out! but they wouldn't have heard it: he was already
out of the ditch, scrambling through the saw-grass and the mud
away from them.
When it hit, they went up and sprayed. Parts hit him in the back
and knocked him flat. He wouldn't lie there; he kept scuttling on
all fours, leaving his rifle behind, leaving the crater behind, leaving
the wet things in the saw-grass to drain into the hungry earth.
The ocean was only the second most fearful place in the world.
Even here at the edge, only second most terrifying.
Billy Dunbar sat on the rocky beach and thought of flight.
He had walked into Wiscasset for something to eat late in the
afternoon. A sandwich, an Indian pudding, three cups of coffee.
He sat alone on the beach. Once, a little girl wandered past,
stopped and looked at him, and sat down beside him. He looked
at her, not wanting to get involved: there was always the chance
her mother was somewhere nearby, watching; there was always
the chance someone would think he was bothering the child. So he
just looked at her.
She had Dutch bangs that came down to her eyes. She was
wearing a playsuit. Perhaps ten years old.
"I am going to make a big boat," she said.
He didn't answer.
"And then I am going to sail it to the moon," she said.
He smiled. "You can't get there from here."
"Can too."
"How do you propose to do that?"
She thought about it for a moment. Her face worked itself into
a scrunch of concentration. Then she bit her hp and said, "I will
use magic stuff."
"Ohhhh," he said, "well, now, that makes a lot of sense. And
what will you do when you get there?"
"I know 'zactly what: I will get a cheese sandwich."

147
He nodded, losing interest. "Good thinking."
After a little while, she went away, and he was alone once
more; as night descended gradually, dimming the ocean and
shrouding the land behind him. He continued to stare out across
the edge of the world, hoping his thoughts would come together
and he would get an idea where to go and what to do.
But this was the edge, and there wasn't any other place to go.
He was thirty-eight years old, he had left behind everything that
had made itself available: family, home, wife, career, friends. He
was approaching the midpoint and he was alone.
But he knew that somewhere behind him he had missed the
question, and the answer.
The moon was shaped like the blade of a scimitar. It cast very
little light. He thought about the little girl with the Dutch bangs. A
cheese sandwich. He smiled, thinking that very soon she would
cease being a kid and turn into a human being; and then all the
rest of her days would be spent chasing the memory of what she
had left behind.
Something moved out on the ocean.
At first he thought it was flotsam, something the deep had
thrown up. He wondered whose death had made it possible. He
watched as it moved in toward shore. The waves slid quietly to-
ward the beach and vanished in the rocks and sand, but the tide
seemed to come no closer.
It was a woman. She came walking in from nowhere, coming
straight for him. He couldn't make out her features, or what she
was wearing. Just a woman, with hair wet and hanging like sea-
weed. He watched, feeling the fear building in him again. Who
walks out of the ocean in the night?
When she was close enough he saw she was wearing a dress,
and she was barefoot. The dress was soaked through and her legs
were dripping with mud and sea-scum. She stopped in front of him
and looked beyond, toward the land.
There was something familiar about her. He thought for a mo-
ment that she might have been one of the tourists who had strolled
past him during the day.
She didn't speak at first, and he felt he should ask her if she
needed help. She seemed lost.
But he didn't want to start something. Who walks out of the
ocean in the night?

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"How are you, Billy?" she said. Her voice was thick and cold.
It was a voice that had not been used in a long time.
"Some friends are going to be dropping by a little later," she
said. She was still looking past him, toward the town. He stole a
glance over his shoulder, but the beach was empty, and nothing
moving from the town. He thought of the ocean, of the sound of
armies in conflict.
"I wanted to say goodbye; you left and I didn't have a chance
to say goodbye."
Billy Dunbar knew who she was. He thought of flamethrowers
and saw-grass and the sound of incoming rounds in a far place.
"Get away from me," he said. But she didn't move.
Oh, Christ, he thought. I'm losing it. I've got to get out of here.
And the ocean turned to black glass and flowed off into dark-
ness beyond the edge of the world.
Gwen, he thought, and wanted more than anything to go back
to the moment when he had slapped her and knocked the sun-
glasses from her face.
"I have to go now," she said. "But don't be afraid. The others
are coming later."
Then she turned, still a little bit drank and in love with the
sound of the Malibu storm, and she walked back across the sea of
black glass, into the faint glow of the scimitar blade hanging above
him. And she was gone.
When he got to his feet, to get out of there and find a place in
Wiscasset to sleep, the world was, of course, no longer there.
He had sought the edge of the world, and he had found it al-
most without trying, and here he would sit till the ghosts of Christ-
mas Past had had their way with him.
The terror was in not knowing. What, precisely, was the charge;
what crime was he being set up to pay for?
He was thirty-eight years old. He had outlived his father, and
his mother, and was still here when others had already gone
under. That was an achievement, of sorts. Simply to hang on, to
maintain, to still be there when the last wave rolled back out to
the deeps. Wasn't that worth something? To survive! Wasn't that
worth the price of a little consideration?
Three of them came walking in across the black glass.
He knew at once who they would be. He still didn't know their
names, but he knew who they would be. He remembered a ghost

149
story he'd heard at summer camp when he was a child, about the
monkey's paw, and about the thing that came to the door when
the old couple wished for their dead son to return to them . . ,
and he was certain they would look horrible. They had sprayed.
He tried to run, but there was nothing behind him. The Maine
coast was gone, Wiscasset was gone, the world from which he had
come on a bus—was gone.
And he was here with those who, unlike him, had not survived.
They came close and stood staring past him. And he under-
stood now that, like the woman, they were looking beyond him to
the world they had had stolen from them; the world he had fled.
They could not return, but they wanted to see.
And the realization overwhelmed him: he could not return.
Even if he had wanted to.
One of them had lost both his arms. He seemed to be reaching
toward the vanished world. Like the recent amputee still lying in
his hospital bed, feeling the itch of his phantom limb, he seemed
to be reaching toward the years of his life that had never been
lived. Another had only half a face. The wistful look that he cast
into the darkness at the edge of the black glass was shced off. But
he seemed to be content at the knowledge that his children were
growing up well. The third man had a gaping hole where his abdo-
men should have been. He carried parts of himself in his bloody
hands.
They stared past Billy Dunbar and murmured softly.
"Thanks for the word," the one without arms said.
"Helluva guy," said the one with half a face.
"Long time no see," said the one without a stomach.
"I didn't do anything wrong," Billy said. He tried to keep his
voice even, level, quiet, unashamed. He wasn't ashamed; he hadn't
done anything wrong; he had survived; there wasn't any sin in
that. "There isn't any sin in staying alive," he said.
"Okay," said the one with no arms.
"Have it your way," said the one with half a face.
"Absolutely," said the one without a stomach.
He turned and walked away from them. He tried to walk back
into the darkness, but there was pressure in the air; as if some
quivering, invisible membrane had been erected from shore to
moon. So he walked away from them, parallel to the sea of black

HARLAN ELLISON
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150
glass. Because he could not go back the way he had come, back to
the world that no longer existed for him.
He would not walk out onto that smooth plain of dangerous
nothingness. They had come from out there, she had come from
out there, and he had known enough emptiness.
He put out his hand, toward the pressure where Maine had
been, and as he walked away from them he pushed, hoping he
could find an opening. But the pressure was there, insistent, press-
ing back toward the palm of his hand.
"Leaving again?" the one with half a smile called after him.
"Getting the hell away from you guys!" he shouted back, not
turning. "Just getting the hell away. I've had enough."
And the one with no arms had the last words: "Not nearly
enough, fella."
Billy kept walking, and in a few moments they were lost in the
darkness and he was alone once more.
The moon did not move, there were no clouds, the sea was
black glass and was content to keep its treasures.
He walked until he could walk no more. Then he sat down, and
waited. He was tired of running to find the answer. He would wait
for the answer to come to him. Wasn't that the way these things
worked: there was an answer, someone somewhere had a point to
make and would let him know what was in store for him soon
enough. Then he would get through that, he would maintain, he
would survive, damned well survive and worry about what came
after . . . after.
He put his hands in his jacket pockets, and felt the broken sun-
glasses he had picked up from the rocky shore. He let his hand
stay there, hoping a bit of the warmth of the day still lay trapped
in the wreckage. But it was cold; and he wondered why he wasn't
cold. There was nothing but night out here, at the edge of black
glass; and it should have been cold.
He sat, he waited, but no one came to tell him what he had
done.
And he survived.
The woman from Malibu beach never came again. The three
nameless shamblers never came again. Gwen did not come; the lit-
tle girl who wanted a cheese sandwich from the moon never came;
and he sat and waited.
There on the shore of black glass, unable to return, unable to

151
follow them to the place where those who had not survived found
peace, he sat alone. Surviving.
And sometime later, very much later, he knew what his crime
had been, and why he would sit there on the shore for a time with-
out end, a time without sunrise.
His crime was not in surviving; it was that he felt no guilt or
shame at having survived. He could not pay the price for his life.
And now the checkout counter was closed at the end of day.

FINAL TROPHY

FINAL TROPHY
It was the grisliest trophy of them all. Hanging there in the
main club room of the Trottersmen, it was a grim reminder that
not all the members were idle playboys who had bought their
memberships with animals shot from ambush in the interdicted
kraals of Africa or the blue mist-jungles of Todopus III.
It was a strange trophy, plaque-mounted between the head of a
Coke's hartebeest and the fanged jaws of a szlygor. There was the
damndest watchfulness in the eyes.
It had been Nathaniel Derr's final grant to his club. A visitor to
the Trottersmen's gallery (invited down for the weekly open cock-
tail party) could walk through room after room filled with the
bloody booty of two hundred hunting expeditions Derr had com-
missioned. A visitor (whether hip-booted spacer or effete digni-
tary) would surely marvel at the quantity and diversity of wildlife
Derr had mastered. Photoblox showed him proudly resting one
foot on the blasted carcasses of Mountain Gorilla and Cape Lion,
butchered Hook-lipped Rhino and puma. Hides with the Derr em-
blem branded on them festooned every wall: cheetah and javelina,
Huanaco and Sika Deer, deeler and ferrlcat. The mounted heads
were awesome: bull elephant and prestosaur, king cobra and des-
ert wolf. The word hunter seemed weightless when applied to
Nathaniel Derr; perhaps agent of destruction might have ap-
proached the reality.
Even among the Trottersmen he had been sui generis. His fel-
low clubmen had called him a fanatic. Some even called him
butcher—but not publicly. Nathaniel Derr had left the Trottersmen
almost thirteen million dollars.
And the final trophy.

HARLAN ELLISON
FINAL TROPHY
156
But if the visitor was particularly trustworthy, and if they had
all taken several stingarees too many, and if the visitor wheedled
properly, the Trottersmen might just tell him the story behind that
gruesome trophy.
The story of Nathaniel Derr's last kill. And of his visit to the
planet Ristable.
The day, like all the days since he had arrived on Ristable, was
too placid for Derr. Had the planet sported thirty-two kilometer
an hour gales, or freezing snowstorms, or unbearable heat as in
the veldt . . . then he would have gladly suffered, and even rev-
eled in it. Discomfort was the hunter's environment.
But this baby-bath of a world was serene, and calm, and unhur-
ried.
Nathaniel Derr did not care to have his hunter status chal-
lenged, even by the climate.
He stared out of the slowly-moving half-track truck, watching
the waist-high, unbroken plain of dull russet grass whisper past.
He felt the faint stirring of the winds as they ruffled his thick, gray
hair.
Derr was a big man: big of chest, big of hand. Big even in the
way he watched, and the way he fondled the stet-rifle. As though
he had been born with the gun grafted to him.
His eyes had the tell-tale wrinkles around them that labeled him
a watcher. In a stand of grass, in the bush, or waiting for a flight
of mallards to honk overhead, he was a watcher. Again, there was
something else, less simple, in his face.
A hunter's face . . .
. . . but something else, too.
"Hey, you!" he yelled over the noise of the truck's antique
water-piston engine. The nut-brown native who drove the half-
track paid no attention. The truck made too much noise. Den-
yelled again, louder: "Hey, you! Dummy!" The native's oblong
head turned slightly; he inclined an ear; Derr yelled, "What is this
we're going to?"
The native's voice was deep and throaty, a typical Ristabite
tone. "Ristable, shasir Derr." Nothing more. He turned back to
the driving.
Derr let his heavy features settle down into a frown. The word

157
"ristable" seemed to mean many things on this planet. First, it
meant "home," the name of the world; and now it was the name
of a ceremony or something he was about to attend. He had heard
it used several other ways during the past week.
Nathaniel Derr turned his thoughts inward as the half-track
rolled over the grassland. The past week; he dwelled on it sequen-
tially.
When he had applied to the Mercantile System for supercargo
passage on a liner out to the stars, he had hoped for bigger hunts,
better kills, finer trophies. But though it had cost him more for
this one trip than all the safaris he had staged on Earth—and they
were many, many—so far his appetite had only been whetted. The
szlygor he had bagged on Haggadore was a puny thing . . . even
though it had gutted three of his bearers before he'd gotten the
50.50 charge into the beast's brain. The prestosaur was big, but
too cumbersome to have been any real threat. The ferrl-cat and
the deeler had been the roughest. The deeler was more an asp
than a spider, but had exhibited the deadliest traits of both before
he had slit its hood with his vibroblade. The ferrl-cat had dropped
from a feathery-leafed tree on Yawmac; and it was proof indeed
that Derr's age had not diminished his strength, for he had stran-
gled the fearsome yellow feline. Even so, the vibrant surge of the
maximum kill had been absent. Perhaps he had expected too
much.
But Ristable was just too dead, too boring, too unexciting.
The planet was old; so ancient; all mountains had long since
flattened away; undisturbed grassland swayed from one end of the
single great continent to the other. The natives were simple, un-
complicated agrarian folk, who just happened to thresh from their
grasses a sweet flour much enjoyed by gourmets on a hundred
worlds, and worth all the plasteel hoes and rakes the mere-ships
could trade.
So here he was on Ristable, where the rubble of the glorious
ancient cities lay at the edges of the grasslands, slowly dissolving
into the land from which they had come.
The past week had been one of utter boredom, while the natives
went about their haggling, the mere-ship's crew stretched and
mildly leched, and the big red sun, Sayto, burned its way across
the sky.
No hunting, too much sleeping, and a growing disgust of the

HARLAN ELLISON
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158
slothful natives. It was true they were anxious to learn about
civilization—take the driver of this half-track—but though they
mimicked the Earthmen's ways, still they were farmers, slow and
dull. He had watched them all week, tending their farms, having
community feasts, and taking care of the animals that lived out on
the plains.
In fact, today had been the first break in the monotony. Ner-
rows, the captain of the mere-ship, had come to him that morning,
and offered him a chance to see a "ristable."
"I thought that was the name of the planet?" Derr had said,
pulling on his bush-boots.
Nerrows had thumbed his cap back on his crewcut head, and
his slim face had broken lightly in a smile. "When these people
come up with a good word, they don't let it go easily. Yeah, that's
right. Hie planet is Ristable, but so are the animals out there." He
jerked a thumb at the grasslands lying beyond the hut. "And so is
the ceremony they have once a week . . . ristable, that is."
Derr had perked up sharply. "What ceremony?"
Nerrows smiled again, and said, "You know what the word 'ris-
table' means in this usage? I didn't think so; it means, literally,
'Kill Day.' Want to take it in? The ship won't be unsaddled here
more than a couple days, so you'd better take in all you can."
Derr stood up, smoothing out his hunt-jacket, slipping into it,
sealing it shut. "Is it safe? They won't try to lynch me for observ-
ing the secret ceremony, or anything?"
Nerrows waved away the worried comment. "Safest planet on
our route. These people haven't had wars since before man was
born. You're completely safe, Derr."
The hunter clapped the captain on his thin shoulders, wonder-
ing inwardly how such a scrawny sample could get to be a mere-
ship officer . . . he'd never make it where it counted ... as a
hunter. "Okay, Captain, thanks a lot. Got someone who can direct
me out there?"
Derr tapped the native again. "How much farther?"
The native's horny shoulders bobbed. "Ten, 'leven k'lometer,
shasir Derr. Big ristable today."
Derr pulled a black cigar from the cartridge ring, one of ten in a
broken row across his jacket. He fit it. Drew deeply. He never

159
kept extra cartridges in the rings; if he hadn't bagged his quarry by
the time the stet-rifle was empty, Derr felt he deserved to die. That
was his philosophy. He drew down on the black cigar, let a heavy
cloud of smoke billow up over his head.
The ancient water-piston half-track rolled steadily out into the
grasslands.
They passed a pile of rubble; Derr recognized it as another of
the lost cities. The faintly pink columns rose spiraling, then broke
with ragged abruptness. Strangely-pyramidal structures split down
the middle. Carved figures with smashed noses, broken arms, shat-
tered forms . . . forms which could not be understood . . . hu-
manoid or something else?
As they came abreast of the ruined city with huge clumps of
grass growing up in its middle, Derr crossed his legs in the back
seat, and he said, "Those cities, who made them?"
The native shrugged. "Don't know. Ristable."
Ristable again.
The half-track passed walking natives, heading toward a plume
of gray smoke that twisted out of the grasslands ahead. Eventu-
ally, they drew up on the edge of a widely-cleared dirt area. Sur-
rounded by the waist-high russet grass on all sides, it was like a
bald spot on someone's head. The dirt was packed solid and hard
with the footprints of a hundred thousand bare feet. The smoke
rose from a large bonfire used to summon the natives. Even as
Derr watched, the crowd that had already gathered swelled at the
edges.
Strangely enough, a path quite wide and straight leading out to
the grasslands was left in the circle of natives.
"What's that?" Derr asked the driver, motioning to the circle,
to the path, to the Ristabites watching at nothing. The native mo-
tioned him to silence and Derr realized, for the first time, that
there wasn't a sound in the crowd. The natives, male and female,
children and old dark-brown crones, stood silently, shifting their
feet, watching, but not speaking.
"Come on, boy, open up!" Derr prodded the native angrily.
"What's this whole thing . . . what's that path there . . . ?"
The native spun around, looked at Derr for a moment in an-
noyance and open anger, and then vaulted out of the half-track. In
a moment he was lost in the crowd.
Derr had no other choice: he slung the stet-rifle over his shoul-

HARLAN ELLISON
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160
der, and slid up onto the rollbar between the driver's cab and the
back seat, getting a better view of what was happening.
What was happening, as he settled himself, was that a medium-
sized animal—the ones taken care of by the natives, and labeled,
inevitably, ristables—was loping in from the grasslands; on six
double-jointed legs.
It was the size of a large horse, or a small black bear. It was
dull gray in color, mottled with whitish spots along the underbelly.
Its chest was massive. It was built as an allosaurus might have
been. Smooth front that rose straight up to a triangular skull with
huge, pocketed eyes set forward on each side of the head. The
back sloped sharply at forty-five degrees, ending in a horny tail.
The head was darker gray, and had one gigantic unicorn-like horn
protruding from a space midway between the eyes. No ... as
Derr watched it coming closer, he saw that the horn was not sin-
gle; there was a smaller, less apparent horn stuck down near the
base of the larger one.
The beast also had two groups of vestigial tentacles, appearing
to be six or eight to a cluster; one on either side of its body, half-
way up the massive neck.
This was a ristable. As everything was ristable.
The beast charged down the path between the natives, much
like a bull entering the Plaza de Toros, and stopped in the center,
its little red eyes glaring, the two front paws clopping at the dirt,
leaving furrows.
Abruptly, a native stepped out of the crowd, and removed all
his clothing—little enough to begin with—and called to the animal
(Derr continued to think of it as a bull, for no good reason, ex-
cept this seemed to be a bullfight), clapping his hands, stamping
his feet.
Bullfight, Derr thought. This is more like it. Then he thought,
Ristable. Kill Day.
The native moved slowly, letting the beast edge in on him. It
pawed the ground, and snorted through a pair of breather holes
below the horns. Then the native leaped in the air, and chanted
something unintelligible. As he came down in the dirt, the animal
moved sharply, and charged across the cleared space. People in its
line of attack stepped back quickly; and the native leaped agilely
out of the way.
It went that way for over an hour.

161
The ristable charged, and the native leaped out of its path.
Then, when Derr was convinced it would go on this way till
darkness ... the dance changed. Radically.
The native settled down cross-legged in the dirt, and clasped his
hands to his chest. He settled down, and the bull charged. He set-
tled down . . . and . . .
Great God! thought Derr in horror, he's sitting there, letting it
gore him. He's . . .
Then it was over, and they carried the native away, as the rista-
ble loped back down the path to the grassland.
There was no reaction from the crowd: no dismay, no applause,
no notice taken.
Derr slipped back into the half-track, bewildered; and sometime
later, though Derr was unaware of it, the driver came back to the
truck, stared at him silently for a few seconds, then vaulted over
the low door, and started the engine.
Derr stirred slightly as the half-track rolled away from the
cleared space. His tracker's mind registered that the dirt was of a
darker hue than when they had arrived; and that the rest of the
natives were walking swiftly back toward the village . . . carrying
something sodden; but he seemed to be far lost in thought.
The half-track passed the natives, and arrived in town an hour
before the sodden cargo was brought in and laid to rest alongside
hundreds of previous loads filling identical graves.
"I'm not going on with you, Nerrows," Derr said.
"You know we'll be heading out—Artemis, Shoista, Lalook,
Coastal II—and we won't be able to pick you up for almost three
months." He stared at Derr with annoyance.
"I know that."
"Then why do you want to stay?"
"There's a trophy here I want."
Nerrows' eyes slitted down. "Watch that stuff, Derr."
"No, no, nothing like that. The ristable."
"You mean the animal out there in the fields, the one they go
fight every week?"
Derr nodded, checked the stet-rifle, though he was not going
hunting for a while yet. "That's it. But there's something impor-
tant these natives don't know about that creature."

HARLAN ELLISON
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162
"Yeah? What?"
"How to kill it."
"What are you talking about?"
Derr settled back on the cot, looked at Nerrows carefully. "I
talked to some of the natives when I got back yesterday from that
ceremony. They go out every week to fight the ristable."
"So?"
"They always lose."
"Always?"
"Every damned time. They haven't won a bout with those
beasts for as long as they can remember. Do you know that they
plant their dead in rows of two hundred?"
The captain nodded. "Yes, I've noticed that."
Derr pulled a cigar loose, lit it, smiled grimly. "But there's
something you didn't know . . . namely, they plant rows on top of
the rows. What's out there now," he waved at the native cemetery,
"is the five-hundredth generation, or something like that. They've
been fighting the ristables, dying regularly, and being planted for
time beyond memory."
The captain looked bemused. "The best fertilizer, they tell me."
"Ah, that's just it!" Derr waved the cigar melodramatically.
"They've been winding up like that for centuries . . . without
once winning."
"Don't they want to win?"
Derr looked perplexed for a moment, spread his hands. "From
what I can tell, from what I was able to get out of the Headsman,
they just don't know any other way. They've been doing it that
way, just that way, since before they can remember, and they
don't know why. I asked the Headsman, and he stared at me as if
I'd asked him why he breathed.
"Then he answered that it was just the way things were; that's
all."
Nerrows scuffed his feet at the hard-packed floor of the hut. He
looked up at Derr finally. "What's that got to do with you?"
"I got the permission of the Headsman to go into the cleared
space, in place of a native some week soon. He thought I was
nuts, but he'll soon see how an Earthman fights!"
For ten weeks Derr had watched them get mauled and bloodied

163
and ripped and killed. Now, stripped to the waist, clad only in a
breechclout, the ornately-carved bush-knife in his thick, square
hand, Nathaniel Derr moved into the cleared space to face his first
ristable.
The beast loped in from the grassland almost immediately,
passing between the natives lining the path without touching any-
one. Strange how it seems to know what ifs to fight, and not
bother any others, he thought, hefting the razor-bladed weapon.
Sweat had begun to stand out on his face, and the smooth handle
of the knife felt slippery in his grip. He dried his hand on the
breechclout, and took the knife again.
The ristable lumbered into the clearing, and Derr made note
that it was not the one he had seen the week before last, nor the
week before that, nor last week. Each week seemed to bring an-
other beast—at some unknown, unbidden signal—ready to gore a
nut-brown native with that deadly, alabaster horn.
Derr circled around the edge of the clearing, feeling the heat-
stink of the natives behind him. The beast pawed and circled, too,
as though uncertain.
Then it charged. It shot forward on six double-jointed legs, its
tentacle clusters flailing, its head lowered, the breath snorting
from its breather holes.
Derr spun out of the way. The beast pulled up short before it
rammed the crowd.
It turned on him, staring with little red eyes.
Derr stared back, breath coming hot and fast. He felt good; he
felt fine; he felt the kill coming. It was always like this.
The ristable lurched forward again, this time seeming to make a
short, sharp, sidestepping movement; Derr had to be quick. He
managed to twirl himself past the beast with only a scant milli-
meter between his flesh and that bone-white horn.
The ristable brought up sharply, stopped, turned, and glared at
Derr.
This was the pojar, as the natives called it. The time to stop, the
moment to sit down and be killed. So Derr sat down, in the man-
ner he had seen the natives do it ... . and oddly, the crowd
exhaled with relief.
The ristable pawed, snorted, charged.
It came for him . . . and suddenly Derr was up, thrusting him-
self from the dirt with the strength of his legs, and the ristable

HARLAN ELLISON
FINAL TROPHY
164
could not stop its movement, and it was past the spot where Derr
had sat cross-legged, its horn tearing the air viciously where Derr's
chest had been a moment before.
But Derr was not there to die.
He was whirling, clutching, and in a stride and a breath he was
on the ristable's back; and the knife hand came up with a slash
and the blood, and down with a thud and the blood, and back
again with a rip and more blood, and three times more, till the ris-
table convulsed and tried to bellow, and tipped over, the legs
failing in precision step.
Derr leaped free as the ristable collapsed to the dirt. He
watched in silence and power, the awe and fury of the triumphant
hunter flowing in him like red, rich wine; watched as his trophy
bled to death on the sand.
It died soon enough.
Then the natives seized him.
"Hold it! Stop! What are you doing? I won, I killed the thing
... I showed you how to do it. . . let me go!" But they had him
tightly by the arms and the waist, without word and without ex-
pression. They started to take him away, back to the village.
He struggled and screamed, and had they not taken the blade
from him he would no doubt have slashed them. But he was pow-
erless, and screamed that he had done them a favor, showed them
how to kill the ristable.
Then when they had him tied in the hut at the edge of the vil-
lage, the Headsman told him . . .
"You have killed the ristable. You will die."
As simply as that. No question, no comment, no appeal, he was
to die. The night came all too soon.
When the moons were high overhead he called for the Heads-
man. He called, and the Headsman thought it was for a final wish,
a boon. But it was not, for this was not a Ristabite: this was the
Earthman who had not known the way of it, who had killed the
god ristable.
"Look," Derr tried to be calm and logical, "tell me why I'm to
die. I don't know. Can't you see, if I'm to die, I have a right to
know why!"
So the Headsman drew from tribal legend, from memories

165
buried so deeply they were feelings in the blood without literal
word or meaning, but were simply "the way of it."
And this was it. . . this was the secret behind it, that wasn't re-
ally a secret at all, but just the way of it:
Who rules who? [the Headsman said.] Take the blood in your
veins. How do you know that at one time the blood might not
have been the dominant life form of Earth, ruling its physical bod-
ies, using them as tools. Then, as time and eons passed, the blood
turned its thoughts to other things, maintaining the bodies merely
as habitations.
It could be so ... if the blood ruled you, and not you the
blood, it could be so [the Headsman said]. The last thing you
would do, under any circumstances, is spill your blood. Don't you
wince when you bleed, when you cut yourself, and you rush to
bandage yourself? What if it were so, and you had lost the racial
memory that said I am ruled by my blood . . . but still you would
know the way of it.
That was how it was on Ristable. At one time the bulls, the ris-
table beasts, ruled the natives. They built the cities with what were
now atrophied tentacles. Then as the eons passed, they turned to
higher things; and allowed their bodies to graze in the fields; and
let the natives feed them; and let the cities rot into themselves.
As time passed, the memories passed—oh, it was a long time;
long enough for the mountains of Ristable to sink into grasslands
—and eventually the natives had no recollection of what they had
been, not even considering themselves ruled, so long and so buried
was it. Then they took care of the ristables, and one last vestige of
caste remained, for the bulls accepted sacrifices. The natives went
to die . . . and one a week was put beneath the sod . . . and that
was the way of it.
So deep and so inbred, that there was not even a conscious
thought of it; that was simply the way of it.
But here was a stupid Earthman who had not known the way of
it. He had won. He had killed a god, a ruler, deeper than any rule
that ever existed . . .
That was the secret that Derr learned; the secret that was not
even a secret really: just the way of it.
"So if there is anything I can grant," said the Headsman in true
sorrow, for he bore this Earthman no malice, "just tell it."

HARLAN ELLISON
FINAL TROPHY
166
And Nathaniel Derr, the great white hunter from Earth, thought
about it
Finally, as they untied him, taking him to the cleared area out-
side the village where he had killed the god ruler, the final twist
came to him. Then he made his request, knowing the Mercantile
Ship would come months too late, and there was nothing to be
done.
He made Ms request, and they tied him between the posts, and
finally the new ristable came, with its snow-white horn lowered,
and fire in its eyes.
He watched the ristable pawing and snorting and charging, and
he knew his request would be carried out
How strange, he thought, as the tip of the horn plunged deep to
the softness that lies within all hard men. Of all the trophies I've
gathered . . .
Then there was no thought of trophies.
So there it is, hanging between the hartebeest and the szlygor in
the Trottersmen's trophy room. There was no choice about hang-
ing it; after all, thirteen million dollars is thirteen million dollars.
But it does give the members a chill from hell.
Still, there it hangs, and usually the room is closed off. But oc-
casionally, if drinks are too many, and wit is abundant, the tale
will be told. Perhaps not always with accuracy, but always with
wonder.
Because it is a marvelous job of taxidermy.
There are even members who are willing to pay to find out how
the Ristabite natives who did the job were able to retain the clean
white color of the hair . . .
. . . and that damned watchfulness to the eyes.

!!!THE!!TEDDY!CRAZY!!SHOWU!

!!!THE!!TEDDY!CRAZY!!SHOW!H
They hotted-up the studio audience with fifteen minutes of rock
by Fred Nietzsche & The Ubermenschen and another five minutes
of second-string witticisms by the announcer; an ex-m.c. named
Rollin Jacoby who had lost his own network game show when the
FCC had received reports he was shtupping female contestants in
exchange for the right answers.
By the time ON THE AIR hit, the gallery was electric with the
barely-subdued atmosphere of a Roman arena, the voyeurs and
sadists waiting for the Christians to be thrown to the Protestants.
Everyone's eyes went to the monitors as the musical theme
swelled in the studio, and the credits began to roll.
"Here it is! Eleven o'clock, Pacific Standard Time, Now, To-
day, This minute, and time for THE TEDDY CRAZY SHOW!"
Jacoby hyped the announcement into his chest-mike, and the crawl
card rolled !!!THE!!TEDDY!CRAZY!!SHOW!!! in Cyrillic script.
Then, PRODUCED BY HOP1E PLEEN, and DIRECTED BY
GRANT WHITSEN, and then Jacoby came in over once more:
"And here he is, awakened America ... the man who won't back
off, the man who gets it said, the man who pulls their covers and
dumps their mud ... the man of the Now . . ."
And he came out of the wings as cameras 2 & 3 caught him in
double-exposure . . .
"Teddy . . . Crazeeeee . . . !"
The applause was deafening. The chimpanzees did not even
need a cue card telling them to bang their sweaty palms together.
The sight of him was enough. They clapped, and screamed, and
yowled, and laughed, and whistled, and stomped, and howled and
Jan Breebnick (known to Awakened America as Teddy Crazy)

HARLAN ELLISON
WTHEHTEDDYICRAZY1ISHOWH!
170
walked in stately fashion across the small stage. Just before he sat
down, he did a little dance-step, his famous little dance-step,
loose-jointed as an epileptic, and the studio mob went wild again.
And then Teddy Crazy took his seat behind the desk, behind the
water pitcher, behind the sheets of flimsies on his guests, behind
the microphone, and began his three thousand, nine hundred and
fifty-fifth show on late night television.
"Who's the first yo-yo, Rollin?" Teddy Crazy demanded.
From the empty air came the reply, "Your first guest tonight is
a winner, Teddy. It's Professor Heinrich Tessler, who just received
a government grant of half a million dollars to explore his theory
that there is an entrance to the hollow interior of the Earth some-
where near the North Pole."
The audience waited a split-second for Teddy to get "his face."
Teddy could let the viewing audience know whether he was going
to believe a guest or debunk him, merely by using one of two
"faces" he kept in a drawer of the desk. One face was the drool-
ing, imbecilic countenance of a hydrocephalic child, and the other
was the studious and informed expression of a Renaissance man.
Teddy pulled out the moron face, and the audience clapped
wildly, screamed and beat at the air with their voices as a stooped,
septuageneric old man of gray features and weary eyes plodded
onto the stage, and took a seat across from Teddy Crazy behind
the desk.
Teddy stared at the old man.
Professor Tessler's beard was as ineffectual as the old man
seemed to be. It was gray, and it was hanging from his chin, but it
was sparse, stringy, great empty patches of bare skin showing
through, as though the face had given up halfway through its
growth.
"Boy, you really look like a crazy mad scientist," was Teddy
Crazy's opening shot.
Professor Tessler began to tremble. "I haf come here to talk
aboudt . . ."
"You talk about what we want you to talk about, Prof ole
nutso buddy!" Teddy Crazy interrupted the thick Bavarian accent.
"And you know why, sweetheart?"
It was rhetorical. Teddy didn't even wait.
"I'll tell you why: it's because you've just been given a half a
million of United States of America's taxpayers' hard-earned

171
money to go off into the Arctic to follow up some coocoo idea you
got in a hash dream one night! And how that money is spent,
money we all worked like dogs to make, is the concern of the
folks who tune in every weekday night at eleven to find out the
truth about weirdos like you, who can fleece our corrupt, pinko-
loving government out of that much dough . . . that's why!"
Applause. Stomping. Hooting. A lynch tenor in the mob.
"Now. Whaddaya got to say for yourself, Prof?"
Tessler fidgeted. He wrung his hands together, out of sight
below the desk. His rheumy little eyes darted back and forth. "I
vas told py your broducer dot if I game on your schow I gould tell
aboudt my theory vithoudt there beink vun made uff me . . ."
Teddy Crazy got a mean look on his ruggedly handsome fea-
tures. "Oh . . . now you're gonna sit there and lie at us, right,
Professor? Well, there's my Producer, Mr. Hobie Pleen, standing
right there . . . would you turn Camera #1 on him, please." The
camera was revolved and the red light went on. "Hobie," Teddy
Crazy asked him, "did you promise this man some sort of immu-
nity from honest constructive questioning?"
Hobie Pleen, a frightened man whose greatest dream was a
renewal pickup at the end of thirty-six weeks, spread his hands
with obvious disbelief at Tessler's comment, and shook his head at
Teddy Crazy. The camera revolved, and the monitors picked up
Teddy Crazy once more looking at Tessler.
Save now he was looking at the old man as though he was a
pus-pocket of evil. "No, Professor . . . now that we've proved
you're not only a quack, a fraud, a charlatan and probably an em-
bezzler of government funds, we've proved you're a common gar-
den-variety liar as well. Now, whaddaya have to say to that?"
Tessler summoned up strength. "My theory iz gorrect!"
"Oh yeah? Well, lemme ask you, the audience ... do you be-
lieve this old loon? Do you believe there's an entrance to a hollow
Earth at the North Pole? Lemme HEAR IT!"
The screams were thunderous. They beat against the walls, and
they showered down like broken glass, and they sliced through the
air like shards of steel, and little old Professor Tessler cringed
behind the desk. It was what the law courts called res ipsa loqui-
tur—a. thing that speaks for itself. No one believed him. Before
millions of eyes, Tessler was—that quick, snap!—discredited.
Now slumped hideously, as the screams died away, Tessler

HARLAN ELLISON
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172
could only nod dumbly as Teddy Crazy said (with the uncommon
softness one uses in addressing a dog one has just whipped into
servility), "Now Professor, let's talk about your theory . . ."
It took Teddy Crazy only fifteen minutes—one segment of his
show—to demolish Tessler and send him away trembling with
hopelessness and frustration. And all across America, no one, but
no one, believed the Professor was onto anything more significant
than a bad case of too much cheap whiskey.
Teddy Crazy took a station break for commercials, four of
them, plus two piggybacks, and came back to greet his second
guest, Miss Anita DeStyre, topless dancer supporting a fatherless
family of seven.
She came onstage to wolf whistles, rumbles of unbridled libidos
and a round of applause usually reserved for Ministers of State.
She was quite tall, almost six feet, wearing white knee-length pat-
ent leather boots, a miniskirt that just reached below her but-
tocks, and flowing long blonde hair. Her bust was immense. But
there was an undeniable sweetness about her; something very
close to innocence in the face. Laugh-lines and a directness that
belied both her occupation and the moron face Teddy Crazy wore
as she approached his desk.
"Good evening, Miss DeStyre," Teddy Crazy said.
"Good evening, Mr. Crazy," she replied.
"What kind of an evening is it for sluts, Miss DeStyre?"
The audience dropped back into fitful silence. It had thought
for a moment Teddy Crazy would play porno-word games, dou-
ble-entendre, with this pretty thing. But apparently he knew some-
thing ...
"What's that supposed to mean?" she looked blank.
"What it means is, you're as phony as Dickie Nixon's nighty-
night prayers. It means you go around telling everyone your mea-
surements, when the truth of the matter is that you are all puffed
out with silicone!"
"That's a dirty lie!"
"Yeah, well, dolly in for a closeup, Camera #3, because this
piece of paper I'm holding in my right hand is a sworn affidavit
from Dr. Kenneth J. Opatoshu, a plastic surgeon of Beverly Hills,
who swears that on July 17th of last year he operated on you for
bust expansion, using silicone and—"
Anita DeStyre grabbed the neck of her dress in both hands and

173
ripped down, suddenly. There was the sound of tortured cloth,
and then, before the protruding eyes of millions of Americans in
the Great Wasteland, Miss DeStyre was naked to the waist. "How
about those, buddy," she demanded of her host, "do those look
like phoneys?"
They were cut off the air instantly. Or rather, the taping was
stopped. Miss DeStyre was re-clothed, in a topcoat loaned by a
man in the third row of the audience, and they started taping
again.
Teddy Crazy sat with folded hands, looking calm and as though
he had swallowed something that would enrich him. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he said, "what you have just seen . . . one of the
grossest demonstrations of the debasement of the female mystique
. . . is a living demonstration of the unfittedness of this woman to
retain legal motherhood of seven defenseless children. I had no
affidavit on that piece of paper ... it was merely an attempt on
my part to provoke this woman into an act of such ugliness that
her true nature would reveal itself. I urge everyone out there to
write to the juvenile authorities here in Los Angeles to have those
seven small children removed from the custody of a woman who is
even less than an honest prostitute . . ."
Anita DeStyre began to cry.
It took fifteen minutes for that segment, and by the time it
aired, three days later, the representatives of the juvenile court
had already moved in to take Anita DeStyre's seven children from
her. That they had been happy with their mother, that she had
worked endlessly to provide a good home for them, made no
difference. Teddy Crazy had done his job well. Anita DeStyre
killed herself on the night the show aired.
But that was only one-third of the ninety minutes allotted to
Teddy Crazy. As the show progressed he destroyed a promising
novelist (accusing him of being a rank pornographer), the manu-
facturer of a new drug purported to cure cancer (with a barrage
that insinuated side-effects of the drug produced something more
hideous than thalidomide babies), and a woman seeking her long-
lost husband (by proving to the audience's satisfaction that the
man being sought had been in charge of the gas ovens at Dachau).
Teddy Crazy's show was nearing its end for that night.
It had been a typical, average, interesting show./ What Hobie
Pleen would have called "a good show, Teddy."

HARLAN ELLISON
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174
"And who's our last guest, Rollin?" Teddy Crazy asked.
There was no answer from Rollin Jacoby.
But there was a flash of light and the distinct smell of something
that should have been flushed.
And onto the stage walked His Satanic Majesty, the Prince of
Darkness, Satan.
Or at least it looked like him.
His long tail protruded from the seat of his Brooks Bros, suit,
and the triangular end of it whipped and thrashed as he stalked
across to the desk. His cloven hoofprints were burned into the
formica of the studio floor. His horns were ramlike and curved up-
wards from the thatch of bloodred hair that covered his head. His
eyes were burning coals, his fingernails were black, and the ex-
pression on his face even startled Teddy Crazy. For a moment.
"The Fallen Angel is your last guest, Mr. Crazy," the visitor
said. And he seated himself, pulling the black crimson-lined cape
around himself.
Teddy Crazy stared. For a moment. Then he whipped out his
moron mask and stared back at the audience. They got the mes-
sage. Another weirdo!
They applauded and demanded Teddy take this jerk apart,
piece by horn by tail by piece.
Teddy returned the mask to its drawer, and turned to his guest.
"Well, Your Majesty," and the words oozed loathing and ridicule,
"to what do we owe the special privilege of your presence here on
my humble show?"
"To be precise, Mr. Crazy, I'm here tonight to offer you a re-
ward."
"Oh? And what might that be, you silly goose?"
"A rare delight. A special potion that my imps in the lowest
recesses of Hell have concocted just for you."
"And, uh, might I be accurate in calling it some sort of hallu-
cinogenic crutch that other, less-fortunate folks might use to
delight tfte/nselves?"
"Not strictly speaking, no. You can call it a psychedelic if you
choose, but it's much more ancient a recipe than that."
"Well, let's just trot it out here."
Satan reached into an inner pocket, and brought out a small
piece of paper that looked like litmus paper. He handed it to
Teddy Crazy. He was careful not to touch the emcee.

175
Teddy Crazy held it in his hand for a moment, then threw it
down on the desk. "All right, nutso, enough of this nonsense.
Let's find out exactly what it is you're trying to promote with
that get-up and all these insane shenanigans."
"I'm not trying to promote anything, Mr. Crazy. I'm here
merely to reward you for your unstinting service."
"Now you're trying to say I work for you?"
Incredulity, from the audience.
"On the contrary," said Satan. "Evil is an essence, Mr. Crazy.
It is like faith. One must believe to make it so. Contrariwise, if
one does not believe, whatever it is that is doubted, ceases to be. I
believe Bishop Berkeley introduced the theory on Earth many
years ago."
Teddy Crazy looked bored. "Forget the philosophy, creep, and
just sock it to me nitty-gritty."
Satan nodded agreement. "Fine. Fine. I don't have too much
time to waste in any case.
"The point is, Mr. Crazy, that many of the people you have
sent to me from this show—most recently a Professor Tessler, a
Miss DeStyre, a Mr. Grogan and two others, just tonight, do not
really belong in my operation. They have been discredited, disbe-
lieved in because of your machinations, and so they are cluttering
up really overcrowded conditions in my habitat. It seems the only
way to get things back on a more-or-less even keel is to reward
you for what you've done, and put an end to all of this. Thus: the
little delight before you."
Teddy Crazy turned to his audience. "Do you folks dig what
this nit is saying?"
They could dig it . . . and they laughed.
"Well, if I'm a charlatan, Mr. Crazy, then you should have no
fears about trying this little potion soaked into the talla paper."
"That's just swell, Satan old buddy. You think I'm gonna drop
acid right here in front of a couple five million people, just to give
you your jollies? You think I'm gonna pollute my precious bodily
fluids, just to give you a chance to push whatever hideous narcotic
this is, in front of school children and helpless folks who want
something to lighten their burdens? No chance ... no damn
chance, as you'd say!"
"I'm afraid you have no choice, Mr. Crazy," Satan said, and
stared at the emcee with eyes like the maws of leaping volcanos.

HARLAN ELLISON
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176
"How about it, folks . . Teddy Cra2y's voice rose a trifle
hysterically, "do you believe this moron is the devil? Do you be-
lieve he's what he says he is?"
The audience began screaming, the sound built up and up, and
all across America the viewers by the millions added their lusty
throaty yells of disbehef and ridicule and hysteria.
Even as Teddy Crazy—quite without any volition—lifted the
talla paper and popped it into his mouth, and chewed it. They
screamed louder and louder, telling the man in the devil suit that
he was a fraud, that they didn't believe in him, that he wasn't real
. . . even as Teddy Crazy turned to stone before their very eyes.
Turned to a nice pink marble, and then crumbled into a pile of
dust on the desktop and the chair.
But it didn't help his visitor much. Because, as he had said, dis-
belief brings disillusion. That which is not accepted, is rejected.
Teddy Crazy was dust, but his visitor vanished. Just like that.
Never to be heard from again.
There were rumors, later that month, out of the Vatican, that
there was a terrific power struggle going on downstairs for posses-
sion of the Dark Kingdom, but the reports were unreliable, so no
one ever really knew.
But this was true: Teddy Crazy, in dying and doing the world
two big favors, got the highest rating of his career.

THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE

THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
Cort lay with his eyes closed, feigning sleep, for exactly one
hour after she had begun to snore. Every few minutes he would
permit his eyes to open to slits, marking the passage of time on the
luminous dial of his watch there on the nightstand. At five a.m.
precisely he slipped out of the Olympic pool-sized motel bed,
swept up his clothes from the tangled pile on the floor, and
dressed quickly in the bathroom. He did not turn on the light.
Because he could not remember her name, he did not leave a
note.
Because he did not wish to demean her, he did not leave a
twenty on the nightstand.
Because he could not get away fast enough, he pushed the car
out of the parking slot in front of the room and let it gather
momentum down through the silent lot till it bumped out onto the
street. Through the open window he turned the wheel, caught the
door before the car began rolling backward, slid inside and only
then started the engine.
Route 1 between Big Sur and Monterey was empty. The fog
was up. Somewhere to his left, below the cliffs, the Pacific mur-
mured threats like an ancient adversary. The fog billowed across
the highway, conjuring ectoplasmic shapes in the foreshortened
beams of his headlights. Moisture hung from the great, thick trees
like silver memories of times before the coming of Man. The
twisting coast road climbed through terrain that reminded him of
Brazilian rain forest: mist-drenched and chill, impenetrable and
aggressively ominous. Cort drove faster, daring disaster to catch
up with him. There had to be more than the threat of the forest.
As there had to be more in this life than endodontics and in-

HARLAN ELLISON
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
180
come properties and guilt-laden late night frottage with sloe-eyed
dental assistants. More than pewter frames holding diplomas from
prestigious universities. More than a wife from a socially promi-
nent family and 2.6 children who might fit a soap manufacturer's
perfect advertising vision of ail-American youth. More than get-
ting up each morning to a world that held no surprises.
There had to be disaster somewhere. In the forest, in the fog, in
the night.
But not on Route 1 at half-past-five. Not for him, not right
now.
By six-thirty he reached Monterey and realized he had not
eaten since noon of the previous day when he had finished the
root canal therapy on Mrs. Udall, had racked the drill, had taken
off his smock and donned his jacket, had walked out of the office
without a word to Jan or Alicia, had driven out of the under-
ground garage and started up the Coast, fleeing without a thought
to destination.
There had been no time for dinner when he'd picked up the
cocktail waitress, and no late night pizza parlor open for a snack
before she fell asleep. Acid had begun to burn a hole in his stom-
ach lining from too much coffee and too little peace of mind.
He drove into the tourist center of Monterey and had no trou-
ble finding a long stretch of open parking spaces. There was no
movement along the shop-fronted sidewalks. The sun seemed de-
termined never to come up. The fog was heavy and wet; streaming
quicksand flowed around him. For a moment the windows of a
shop jammed with driftwood-base lamps destined for Iowa base-
ment rec rooms solidified in the eye of the swirling fog; then they
were gone. But in that moment he saw his face in the glass. This
night might stretch through the day.
He walked carefully through the streets, looking for an early
morning dinette where he might have a Belgian waffle with frozen
strawberries slathered in sugary syrup. An egg sunnyside up.
Something sunnyside up in this unending darkness.
Nothing was open. He thought about that. Didn't anyone go to
work early in Monterey? Were there no services girding them-
selves for the locust descent of teenagers with rucksacks, corpulent
business machine salesmen in crimson Budweiser caps and Semitic
widows with blue hair? Had there been an eclipse? Was this the

181
shy, pocked, turned-away face of the moon? Where the hell was
daylight?
Fog blew past him, parted in streamers for an instant. Down a
side street he saw a light. Yellow faded as parchment, wan and
timorous. But a light.
He turned down the side street and searched through the quick-
silver for the source. It seemed to have vanished. Past closed
bakeries and jewelry shops and scuba gear emporia. A wraith in
the fog. He realized he moved through not only the empty town
and through the swaddling fog, but through a condition of fear.
Gnotobiosis: an environmental condition in which germfree ani-
mals have been inoculated with strains of known microorganisms.
Fear.
The light swam up through the silent, silvered shadow sea; and
he was right in front of it. Had he moved to it. . . had it moved
to him?
It was a bookstore. Without a sign. And within, many men and
women; browsing.
He stood in the darkness, untouched by the sallow light from
the nameless bookshop, staring at the nexus. For such a small
shop, so early in the morning, it was thronged. Men and womea
stood almost elbow to elbow, each absorbed in the book close at
hand. Gnotobiosis: Cort felt the fear sliding through his veins and
arteries like poison.
They were not turning the pages.
Had they not moved their bodies, a scratching at the lip, the
blinking of eyes, random shifting of feet, a slouch, a straightening
of back, a glance around ... he would have thought them man-
nequins. A strange but interesting tableau to induce passersby to
come in and also browse. They were alive, but they did not turn
the pages of the books that absorbed them. Nor did they return a
book to its shelf and take another. Each man, each woman: held
fascinated by words where the books had been opened.
He turned to walk away as quickly as he could.
The car. Get on the road. There had to be a truck stop, a diner,
a greasy spoon, fast food, anything. Fve been here before, and this
isn't MontereyI
The tapping on the window stopped him.
He turned back. The desperate expression on the tortoiselike
face of the tiny old woman stiffened his back. He found his right

HARLAN ELLISON
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
182
hand lifting, as if to put itself between him and the sight of her.
He shook his head no, definitely not, but he had no idea what he
was rejecting.
She made staying motions with her wrinkled little hands and
mouthed words through the glass of the shop window. She spoke
very precisely and the words were these:
I have it here for you.
Then she motioned him to come around to the door, to enter,
to step inside: I have it here for you.
The luminous dial of his watch said 7:00. It was still night. Fog
continued to pour down from the Monterey peninsula's forest.
Cort tried to walk away. San Francisco was up the line. The sun
had to be blazing over Russian Hill, Candlestick Park, and Coit
Tower. The world still held surprises. You're loose now, you've
broken the cycle he heard his future whisper. Don't respond. Go
to the sun.
He saw his hand reach for the doorknob. He entered the book-
shop.
They all looked up for a moment, registered nothing, the door
closed behind him, they dropped their gazes to the pages. Now he
was inside among them.
"I'm certain I have it in hardcover, a very clean copy," the little
old turtle woman said. Her smile was toothless. How could there
be fog in here?
"I'm just browsing," Cort said.
"Yes, of course," she said. "Everyone is just browsing."
She laid her hand on his arm and he shuddered. "Just till a res-
taurant opens."
"Yes, of course."
He was having trouble breathing. The heartburn. "Is it always
. . . does it always stay dark so late into the morning here?"
"Unseasonal," she said. "Look around. I have it here for you.
Exactly."
He looked around. "I'm not looking for anything special."
She walked with him, her hand on his arm. "Neither were
they." She nodded at the crowd of men and women. "But they
found answers here. I have a very fine stock."
No pages were turned.
He looked over the shoulder of a middle-aged woman staring
intentiy at a book with steel engravings on both open pages. The

183
turtle said, "Her curiosity was aroused by the question 'How was
the first vampire created?' Fascinating concept, isn't it? If vam-
pires can only be created by a normal human being receiving the
bite of a vampire, then how was the first one created? She has
found the answer here in my wonderful stock." Cort stared at the
book. One of the steel engravings was of Noah's ark.
But wouldn't that mean there had to be two on board?
The turtle drew him down the line of stacks. He paused behind
a young man in a very tight T-shirt. He looked as if he had been
working out. His head was bent so close to the open book in his
hands that his straight blond hair fell over his eyes.
"For years he has felt sympathetic pains with an unknown per-
son," the turtle confided. "He would sense danger, elation, lust,
despair . . . none of his own making, and none having anything to
do with his circumstance at that moment. Finally he began to real-
ize he was linked with another. Like the Corsican Brothers. But
his parents assured him he was an only child, there was no twin.
He found the answer in this volume." She made shoo'ing motions
with her blue-veined hands.
Cort peered around the young man's head and hair. It was a
book on African history. There were tears in the young man's
eyes; there was a spot of moisture on the verso. Cort looked away
quickly; he didn't want to intrude.
Next in line was a very tall, ascetic looking man carefully hold-
ing a folio of pages that had obviously been written with a quill.
By the flourishes and swirls of the writing, Cort knew the book
had to be quite old and very likely valuable. The tortoise woman
leaned in close, her head barely reaching Cort's chest, and she
said, "Sixteenth century. First Shakespeare folio. This gentleman
wandered through most of his adult life, and decades of academic
pursuits, tormented by the question of who actually wrote The
Booke of Sir Thomas More: the Bard or his rival, Anthony Mun-
day. There lies his answer, before his eyes. I have such a superior
stock."
"Why doesn't he . . . why don't any of these people turn the
page?"
"Why bother? They've found the answer they sought."
"And there's nothing more they want to know?"
"Apparently not. Interesting, isn't it?"
Cort found it more chilling than interesting. Then the chill fas-

HARLAN ELLISON
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184
tened itself permanently to his heart, like a limpet, with the
unasked question, How long have these browsers been here like
this?
"Here's a woman who always wanted to know if pure evil exists
anywhere on the face of the earth." The woman wore a mantilla
over her shoulders, and she stared mesmerized at a book on natu-
ral history. "This man hungered for a complete list of the contents
of the great Library of Alexandria, the subject matters contained
on those half million handwritten papyrus scrolls at the final mo-
ment before the Library was torched in the Fifth Century." The
man was gray and wizened and his face had been incised with an
expression of ancient weariness that reminded Cort of Stonehenge.
He pored over two pages set so closely with infinitesimal typefaces
that Cort could not make out a single word in the flyspecks. "A
woman who lost her memory," said the turtle, indicating with a
nod of her tortoise head a beautiful creature festooned with silk
scarves of a dozen different colors. "Woke up in a white slave
brothel in Marrakech, ran for her life, has spent years wandering
around trying to discover who she was." She laughed a low, warm
laugh. "She found out here. The whole story's right there in that
book."
Cort turned to her, firmly removing her withered claw from his
arm.
"And you 'have it here for me,' don't you?"
"Yes; I have it here. In my fine stock."
"What precisely do you have that I want? Here. In your fine
stock."
He didn't even need her to speak. He knew exactly what she
would say. She would say, "Why, I have the answers you seek."
And then he would saunter around the bookshop, feeling superior
to these poor devils who had been standing here God only knew
how long, and finally he'd turn to her and smile and say, "I don't
even know the questions," and they would both smile at that one-
he like an idiot because it was the most banal of cliches, she be-
cause she'd known he would say something dithering like that—
and he would refrain from apologizing for the passing stupidity;
and then he would ask her the question and she would point out a
shelf and say, "The book you want is right there," and then she'd
suggest he try pages such-and-such for exactly what he wanted to
know: that which had driven him up the Coast

185
And if, ten thousand years later, the karmic essence of all that's
left of Sulayman the Magnificent, blessed be his name, Sulayman
of the potent seal, Sultan and Master of all the djinn, of each and
every class of jinni, ghiil, ifrit, si'la, div and iblis; if that transub-
stantiated essence comes 'round again, like Halley's comet come
'round again; that transmogrified spirit circling back on its limit-
less hegira through crimson eternity . . . if it comes 'round again
it would find him, Cort—Dr. Alexander Cort, D.D.S., a Dental
Corporation—still standing here elbow-to-elbow with the other
browsers. Coelacanths outlined in shale, mastodons flash-frozen in
ice, wasps embedded in amber. Gnotobiosis: forever.
"Why do I have the feeling all this isn't random?" Cort said to
the old turtle woman. He began edging toward the door behind
him. "Why do I have the feeling all this has been here waiting for
me, just the way it was waiting for all the rest of these poor fuck-
ing losers? Why do I get the smell of rotting gardenias off you, old
lady?" He was almost at the door.
She stood in a cleared space in the center of the bookshop, star-
ing at him.
"You're no different, Dr. Cort. You need the answers, the same
as the rest."
"Maybe a little love potion ... a powerstone . . . immortality
... all that good jive. I've seen places like this in television
shows. But I don't bite, old lady. I have no need you can fill."
And his hand was on the door knob; and he was turning it; and he
yanked; and the door opened to the ominous fog and the unending
night and the waiting forest. And the old lady said, "Wouldn't you
like to know when you'll have the best moment of your entire
life?"
And he closed the door and stood with his back against it.
His smile was unhealthy. "Well, you got me," he whispered.
"When you'll be happiest," she said softly, barely moving her
thin lips. "When you'll be strongest, most satisfied, at the peak of
your form, most in control, bravest, best-looking, most highly re-
garded by the rest of the world; your top moment, your biggest
surge, your most golden achievement, that which forms the pat-
tern for the rest of your life; the instant than which you will have
no finer, if you live to be a thousand. Here in my fine stock I have
a tome that will tell you the day, hour, minute, second of your no-
blest future. Just ask and it's yours. I have it here for you."

HARLAN ELLISON
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
186
"And what does it cost me?"
She opened her wet mouth and smiled. Her wrinkled little
hands fell open palms up in the air before her. "Why, nothing,"
she said. "Like these others . . . you're just browsing, aren't
you?" The limpet chill that ossified his spine told him there were
worse things than deals with the devil. Just browsing, as an ex-
ample.
"Well . . . ?" she asked, waiting.
He thought about it, wetting his lips—suddenly gone dry now
that the decisive moment was at hand. "What if it comes only a
few years from now? What if I've only got a little while to achieve
whatever it was I always wanted to achieve? How do I live with
the rest of my life after that, knowing I'll never be any better, any
happier, any richer or more secure; knowing I'll never top what I
did in that moment? What'll the rest of my life be worth?"
The tiny turtle woman shouldered aside two browsers—who
moved sluggishly apart as if turning in their sleep—and drew a
short, squat book from a shelf at her waist level. Cort blinked
quickly. No, she hadn't drawn it out of the stacks. It had slid for-
ward and jumped into her hand. It looked like an old Big Little
Book.
She turned back and offered it to him. "Just browsing," she
said, moistly.
He reached for it and stopped, curling his fingers back. She
arched her finely-penciled eyebrows and gave him a bemused,
quizzical look.
"You're awfully anxious to get me to read that book," he said.
"We are here to serve the public," she said, amiably.
"I have a question to ask you. No, two questions. There are
two questions I want you to answer. Then I'll consider browsing
through your fine stock."
"If I can't give you the answer—which is, after all, our business
here—then I'm sure something in my fine stock has the proper re-
sponse. But. . . take this book that you need, just hold it, and I'll
answer your question. Questions. Two questions. Very important,
I'm sure." She held out the squat little book. Cort looked at it. It
was a Big Little Book, the kind he had had when he was a child;
with pages of drawings alternating with pages of type, featuring
comic strip heroes like Red Ryder or The Shadow or Skippy.

187
Within reach, the answer to the question everyone wanted to ask;
what will be the best moment of my life?
He didn't touch it.
"IH ask, you'll answer; then you got me . . . then I'll do some
browsing."
She shrugged, as if to say, as you choose.
He thought: As you choose, so shall you reap.
He said: "What's the name of this bookshop?"
Her face twitched. Cort had the sudden rash of memory from
childhood, when he'd first been read the story of Rumpelstiltskin.
The turtle woman's face grew mean. "It doesn't have a name. It
just is."
"How do we find you in the Yellow Pages?" Cort said, taunting
her. It was obvious he was suddenly in a position of power. Even
though he had no idea from what source that power flowed.
"No name! No name at all! We don't need a name; we have a
very select clientele! It's never had a name! We don't need any
names!" Her voice, which had been turtle smooth and soft and
chocolate, had become rusted metal scraping rusted metal. "No
names, I don't got to tell you no names, I don't got to show you
no stinkin' badges!"
She paused to let the bile recede, and in the eye of the silence
Cort asked his second question. "What's in this for you? Where's
your fix? Where's the bottom-line profit on your p&l? What do
you get out of this, frighty old lady?"
Her mouth went tight. Her blazing eyes seemed both ancient
and silvery with youthful ferocity. "Clotho," she said. "Clotho:
Rare Books."
He didn't recognize the name, but from the way she said it, he
knew he had pried an important secret from her; had done it, ap-
parently, because he was the first to have asked; had done it as
anyone might have done it, had they thought of it. And having
asked, and having been answered, he knew he was safe from her.
"So tell me, Miss Clotho, or Ms. Clotho, or Mrs., or whatever
you happen to be: tell me . . . what do you get out of this? What
coin of the realm do you get paid? You work this weird shop, you
trap all these fools in here, and I'll bet when I walk out of here,
poof! It all vanishes. Goes back to Never-Never Land. So what
kind of a home life do you have? Do you eat three squares a day?
Do you have to change your Tampax when you get your period?

HARLAN ELLISON
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
188
Do you even get the menses? Or has menopause already passed
you by? Immortal, maybe? Tell me, weird old turtle lady, if you
live forever do you get change of life? Do you still want to get
laid? Did you ever get laid? How's your ka-ka, firm and hard? Do
weirdy old fantastic ladies who vanish with their bookstore have
to take a shit, or maybe not, huh?"
She screamed at him. "You can't talk like that to me! Do you
know who I am?"
He screamed right back at her. "Fuck no, I don't know who the
hell you are, and what's more to the point, I don't give a righteous
damn who you are!"
The zombie readers were now looking tip. They seemed
distressed. As if a long-held trance was being broken. They
blinked furiously, moved aimlessly; they resembled . . . ground-
hogs coming out to check their shadows.
Clotho snarled at him, "Stop yelling! You're making my cus-
tomers nervous!"
"You mean I'm waking them up? C'mon, everybody, rise and
shine! Swing on down! How ya fixed, destiny-wise?"
"Shut up!"
"Yeah? Maybe I will and maybe I won't, old turtle. Maybe you
answer my question what you were doing waiting here for me spe-
cially, and maybe I let these goofballs go back to their browsing."
She leaned in as close as she could to him, without touching
him, and she hissed like a snake. Then she said tightly, "You!
What makes you think it was you we wait for? We wait for every-
one. This was your turn. They all get a turn, you'll all get your
turn in the browsing shop."
"What's this 'we5 business? Are you feeling imperial?"
"We. My sisters and I."
"Oh, there's more than one of you, is there? A chain bookstore.
Very cute. But then I suppose you have branches these days, what
with the competition from B. Dalton and Crown and Walden-
books."
She clenched her teeth; and for the first time Cort could see that
the old turtle actually had teeth inside those straight, thin lips.
"Take this book or get out of my shop," she said in a deadly
whisper.
He took the Big Little Book from her quivering hands.
"I've never dealt with anyone as vile, as rude," she snarled.

189
"Customer is always right, sweetie," he said. And he opened
the book to precisely the right page.
Where he read his finest moment. The knowledge that would
make the remainder of his life an afterthought. An also-ran.
Marking time. A steady ride on the downhill side.
When would it come? A year hence? Two years? Five, ten,
twenty-five, fifty, or at the blessed final moment of life, having
climbed, climbed, climbed all the way to the end? He read . . .
That his finest moment had come when he was ten years old.
When, during a sandlot baseball game, a pick-up game in which
you got to bat only if you put someone out, the best hitter in the
neighborhood hit a shattering line drive to deepest center field
where he was always forced to play, because he was no good at
baseball, and he ran back and back and stuck up his bare hand
and miraculously, as he, little Alex Cort, leaped as high as he
could, miraculously the pain of the frazzled hardball as it hit his
hand and stayed there was sweeter than anything he had ever felt
before—or would feel again. The moment replayed in the words
on the page of that terrible book. Slowly, slowly he sank to earth,
his feet touching and his eyes going to his hand and there, in the
red, anguished palm of his hand, without a trapper's mitt, he held
the hardest, surest home run line drive ever hit by anyone. He was
the killer, the master of the world, the tallest thing on the face of
the earth, big and bold and golden, adept beyond any telling, mi-
raculous; a miracle, a walking miracle. It was the best moment of
his fife.
At the age of ten.
Nothing else he would do in his life, nothing he had done be-
tween the age of ten and thirty-five as he read the Big Little Book,
nothing he would do till he died at whatever number of years
remained for him . . . nothing . . . nothing would match that
moment.
He looked up slowly. He was having trouble seeing. He was
crying. Clotho was smiling at him nastily. "You're lucky it wasn't
one of my sisters. They react much worse to being screwed with."
She started to turn away from him. The sound of his slamming
the Big Little Book closed onto the counter of the showcase
stopped her. He turned without saying a word and started for the
door. Behind him he heard her hurrying after him.
"Where do you think you're going?"

HARLAN ELLISON
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE
190
"Back to the real world." He had trouble speaking; the tears
were making him sob and his words came raggedly.
"You've got to stay! Everyone stays."
"Not me, sweetie. The cheese stands alone."
"It's all futile. You'll never know grandeur again. It's all dross,
waste, emptiness. There's nothing as good if you live to be a thou-
sand."
He opened the door. The fog was out there. And the night. And
the final forest. He stopped and looked down at her. "Maybe if
I'm lucky I won't live to be a thousand."
Then he stepped through the door of Clotho: Rare Books and
closed it tightly behind him. She watched through the window as
he began to walk off into the fog.
He stopped and leaned in to speak as close to the glass as he
could. She strained her weird little turtle face forward and heard
him say, "What's left may only be the tag-end of a shitty life . . .
but it's my shitty life.
"And it's the only game in town, sweetie. The cheese stands
alone."
Then he walked off into the fog, crying; but trying to whistle.

SCENES FROM THE REAL WORLD; SSI
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE
IN KANSAS, TOTO

SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE
IN KANSAS, TOTO
Six months of my life were spent in creating a dream the shape
and sound and color of which had never been seen on television.
The dream was called The Starlost, and between February and
September of 1973 I watched it being steadily turned into a night-
mare.
The late Charles Beaumont, a scenarist of unusual talents who
wrote many of the most memorable Twilight Zones, said to me
when I arrived in Hollywood in 1962, "Attaining success in Hol-
lywood is like climbing a gigantic mountain of cow flop, in order
to pluck one perfect rose from the summit. And you find when
you've made that hideous climb . . . you've lost the sense of
smell."
In the hands of the inept, the untalented, the venal and the cor-
rupt, The Starlost became a veritable Mt. Everest of cow flop and,
though I climbed that mountain, somehow I never lost sight of the
dream, never lost the sense of smell, and when it got so rank I
could stand it no longer, I descended hand-over-hand from the
northern massif, leaving behind $93,000, the corrupters, and the
eviscerated remains of my dream. I'll tell you about it.
February. Marty the agent called and said, "Go over to 20th
and see Robert Kline."
"Who's Robert Kline?"
"West Coast head of taped syndicated shows. He's putting to-
gether a package of mini-series, eight or ten segments per show.
He wants to do a science fiction thing. He asked for you. It'll be a
co-op deal between 20th Century-Fox and the BBC. They'll shoot
it in London."

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 194
London! 'Tm on my way," I said, the jet-wash of my de-
parture deafening him across the phone connection.
I met Kline in the New Administration Building of 20th, and
his first words were so filled with sugar I had the feeling if I lis-
tened to him for very long I'd wind up with diabetes: "I wanted
the top sf writer in the world," he said. Then he ran through an in-
formed list of my honors in the field of science fiction. It was an
impressive performance of the corporate art-form known as ego-
massage.
Then Kline advised me that what he was after was, "A sort of
The Fugitive in Space." Visions of doing a novel-for-television in
the mode of The Prisoner splatted like overripe casaba melons; I
got up and started to walk.
"Hold it, hold it!" Kline said. "What did you have in mind?" I
sat down again.
Then I ran through half a dozen ideas for series that would be
considered primitive concepts in the literary world of sf. Kline
found each of them too complex. As a final toss at the assignment,
I said, "Well, I've been toying with an idea for tape, rather than
film; it could be done with enormous production values that would
be financially impossible for a standard filmed series."
"What is it?" he said.
And here's what I told him:
Five hundred years from now, the Earth is about to suffer a cat-
aclysm that will destroy all possibility for life on the planet. Time
is short. The greatest minds and the greatest philanthropists get to-
gether and cause to have constructed in orbit between the Moon
and the Earth, a giant ark, one thousand miles long, comprised of
hundreds of self-contained biospheres. Into each of these little
worlds is placed a segment of Earth's population, its culture in-
tact. Then the ark is sent off toward the stars, even as the Earth is
destroyed, to seed the new worlds surrounding those stars with the
remnants of humanity.
But one hundred years after the flight has begun, a mysterious
"accident" (which would remain a mystery till the final segment
of the show, four years later, it was hoped) kills the entire crew,
seals the biosphere-worlds so they have no contact with one an-
other . . . and the long voyage goes on with the people trapped,
developing their societies without any outside influence. Five hun-
dred years go by, and the travelers—the Starlost—forget the Earth.

195
To them it is a myth, a vague legend, even as Atlantis is to us.
They even forget they are adrift in space, forget they are in an in-
terstellar vessel. Each community thinks it is "the world" and that
the world is only fifty square miles, with a metal ceiling.
Until Devon, an outcast in a society rigidly patterned after the
Amish communities of times past, discovers the secret, that they
are onboard a space-going vessel. He learns the history of the
Earth, learns of its destruction, and learns that when "the acci-
dent" happened, the astrogation gear of the ark was damaged and
now the last seed of humankind is on a collision course with a
star. Unless he can convince a sufficient number of biosphere
worlds to band together in a communal attempt to leam how the
ark works, repair it and re-program their flight, they will soon be
incinerated in the furnace of that giant sun toward which they're
heading.
It was, in short, a fable of our world today.
"Fresh! Original! New!" Kline chirruped. "There's never been
an idea like it before!" I didn't have the heart to tell him the idea
was first propounded in astronautical literature in the early 1920s
by the great Russian pioneer Tsiolkovsky, nor that the British
physicist Bernal had done a book on the subject in 1929, nor that
the idea had become very common coin in the genre of science
fiction through stories by Heinlein, Harrison, Panshin, Simak and
many others. (Arthur C. Clarke's then-current bestseller, REN-
DEZVOUS WITH RAMA, was the latest example of the basic
idea.)
Kline suggested I dash home and write up the idea, which he
would then merchandise. I pointed out to him that the Writers
Guild frowns on speculative writing and that if he wanted the
riches of my invention, he should lay on me what we call "holding
money" to enable me to write a prospectus and to enable him to
blue-sky it with the BBC.
The blood drained from his face at my suggestion of advance
money, and he said he had to clear it with the BBC, but that if I
wrote the prospectus he would guarantee me a free trip to Lon-
don. I got up and started to walk.
"Hold it, hold it!" he said, and opened a desk drawer. He
pulled out a cassette recorder and extended it. "Tell you what:
why don't you just tell it on a cassette, the same way you told it to
me." I stopped and looked. This was a new one on me. In over

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 196
twenty years as a film and television writer, I've seen some of the
most circuitous, sleazy, Machiavellian dodges ever conceived by
the mind of Western Man to get writers to write on the cuff. But
never before, and never since, has anyone been that slippery. It
should have been all the tip-off I needed.
I thought on it for a moment, rationalized that this wasn't spec-
ulative writing, that at worst it was "speculative talking," and
since a writer is expected to pitch an idea anyhow, it was just
barely legitimate.
So I took the cassette home, backed my spiel with the music
from 2001: A Space Odyssey, outlined the barest bones of the
series concept, and brought it back to Kline.
"Okay. Here it is," I said, "but you can't transcribe it. If you
do, then it becomes spec writing and you have to pay me." I was
assured he wouldn't put it on paper, and that he'd be back to me
shortly. He was sure the BBC would go bananas for the idea.
No sooner was I out of his office than he had his secretary
transcribe the seven-minute tape.
March. No word.
April. No word.
May. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Marty the agent
called. "Kline sold the series. Go see him."
"Series?" I said, appalled. "But that idea was only planned to
accommodate eight segments ... a series, you say?"
"Go see him."
So I went. Kline greeted me as if I were the only human capa-
ble of deciphering the Mayan Codex, and caroled that he had sold
the series not only to 48 of the NBC independent stations (what
are called the O&O's, Owned & Operated stations), but that the
Westinghouse outlets had bitten, and the entire Canadian Televi-
sion Network, the CTV.
"Uh, excuse me," I said, in an act of temerity not usually at-
tributed to writers in Hollywood, "how did you manage to sell
this, er, series without having a contract with me, or a prospectus,
or a pilot script, or a pilot film ... or anything?"
"They read your outline, and they bought it on the strength of
your name."
"They read it? How?"
He circumnavigated that little transgression of his promise not
to set my words on paper, and began talking in grandiose terms

197
about how I'd be the story editor, how I'd have creative control,
how I'd write many scripts for the show, and what a good time I'd
have in Toronto.
"Toronto?!" I said, gawking. "What the hell happened to Lon-
don? The Sir Lew Grade Studios. Soho. Buckingham Palace.
Swinging London. What happened to all that?"
Mr. Kline, without bothering to inform the creator of this hot
property he had been successfully hawking, had been turned down
by the BBC and had managed to lay off the project with CTV, as
an all-Canadian production of Glen Warren, a Toronto-based op-
eration that was already undertaking to tape The Starlost at the
CFTO Studios in Toronto. It was assumed by Mr. Kline that I
would move to Toronto to story edit the series; he never bothered
to ask if I wanted to move to Canada, he just assumed I would.
Mr. Kline was a real bear for assuming things.
Such as: I would write his series (which was the way he now
referred to it) even though a writers' strike was imminent. I ad-
vised him that if the strike hit, I would be incommunicado, but he
waved away my warnings with the words, "Everything will work
out." With such words, Napoleon went to Elba.
At that time I was a member of the Board of Directors of the
Writers Guild of America, West and I was very pro-union, pro-
strike, pro-getting long overdue contract inequities with the pro-
ducers straightened out.
Just before the strike began, Kline called and said he was taking
out advertisements for the series. He said he'd had artwork done
for the presentations, and he needed some copy to accompany the
drawings. I asked him how he could have artwork done when the
spaceship had not yet been designed? (I was planning to create a
vessel that would be absolutely feasible and scientifically correct,
in conjunction with Ben Bova, then-editor of Analog.) Kline said
there wasn't time for all that fooling-around, ads had to go out
now!
It has always been one of the imponderables of the television
industry to me, how the time is always now, when three days
earlier no one had even heard of the idea.
But I gave him some words and, to my horror, saw the ad a
week later: it showed a huge bullet-shaped thing I guess Kline
thought was a spaceship, being smacked by a meteorite, a great
hole being torn in the skin of the bullet, revealing many levels of

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 198
living space within ... all of them drawn the wrong direction. I
covered my eyes.
Let me pause for a moment to explain why this was a
scientifically-illiterate, wholly incorrect piece of art, because it was
merely the first indication of how little the producers of The
Starlost understood what they were doing. Herewith, a Childs'
Primer of Science Fiction:
There is no air in space. Space is very nearly a vacuum. That
means an interstellar vessel, since it won't be landing anywhere,
and doesn't need to be designed for passage through atmosphere,
can be designed any way that best follows the function. The last
time anyone used the bullet design for a starship was in The
Green Slime, circa 1969 (a Nipponese nifty that oozes across the
"Late Late Late Show" in the wee'est hours when normal folks
are sleeping; this excludes systems analysts and computer pro-
grammers, of course).
But it indicated the lack of understanding of sf that is common-
place among television executives who, for the most part, have not
read an entire book since they left high school.
Look: if you turn on your set and see a pair of white swinging
doors suddenly slammed open by a gurney pushed by two white-
smocked interns, you know that within moments Trapper John,
M.D. (or Ben Casey, or Dr. Kildare, or Marcus Welby) will be
jamming a tube down somebody's trachea; if you see a snake-eyed
dude in a black Stetson lying-out on a butte, aiming a Sharps .52
caliber buffalo rifle, you know that within moments the Wells
Fargo stage is gonna come a-thunderin' down that dusty trail; if
Dan Tana (or Mannix, or Jim Rockford, or Ironside) comes into
his inner office and there's a silky lady lounging in the chair across
from his desk, showing a lot of leg, you know that by the end of
Act One someone is going to try ventilating his (or Magnum's)
hide. It's all by rote, all templates, all stolen from what went be-
fore by a generation of writers and producers whose only referents
are what they grew up with watching television; it's all cliche, all
predictable.
And while I make no brief for the reams and volumes of low-
grade, moronic Star Wars imitation space opera hackwork that
has turned this into the worst period in the history of sf, the genre
is not predictable. Or at least it shouldn't be.
(Though shit like Battlestar Ponderosa and Universale Buck

199
Rogers seems to assure us that the steamroller mediocrity of tv
can even trivialize sf, despite the built-in deterrents.)
A science fiction story has to have interior logic. It has to be
consistent, even within the boundaries of its own extrapolative ho-
rizons. That's irreducible in the parameters of what a sf story or
teleplay must do, in order to get the reader or viewer to go along
with it, without feeling conned or duped or lied to. Rigorous stan-
dards of plotting must be employed to win that willing suspension
of disbelief on the part of the audience; it allows them to accept a
fantastic premise.
How many sf movies have you seen—Outland, Message From
Space, Silent Running are perfect awful examples—during which
you recognized sophomoric inaccuracies that made you groan and
feel cheated? Errors that first-year science students would not
make: sound in a vacuum, people walking around on alien planets
without filtration masks, clones that spring fully grown from
fingernail parings, robots that act like midgets in metal suits.
Break that logical chain, dumb it up, accept the insulting myth
that no one knows or cares if the special effects are spectacular
enough, and the whole thing falls apart like Watergate testimony.
But the ad was only an early storm warning of what troubles
were yet to befall me. The strike was called, and then began weeks
of a kind of ghastly harassment I'd always thought was reserved
for overblown melodramas about the Evils of Hollywood. Phone-
calls at all hours, demanding I write the "bible" for the series. (A
"bible" is industry shorthand for the precis of what the show will
do, who the characters are, what directions storylines should take.
In short, the blueprint from which individual segments are written.
Without a bible, only the creator knows what the series is about.)
Kline had no bible. He had nothing, at this point, but that seven-
minute tape. With which item, plus my name and the name of
Doug Trumbull—who, at that time had done the special effects for
2001 and had directed Silent Running—he'd been signed on
as Executive Producer—Kline had—sans a contract with me!—sold
this pipe dream to everyone in the Western World,
But I wouldn't write the bible. I was on strike. Then began the
threats. Followed by the intimidation, the bribes, the promises that
they'd go forward with the idea without me, the veiled hints of
scab writers who'd be hired to write their own version of the
series . . . everything short of actually kidnapping me. Through

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SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 200
these weeks—when even flights out of Los Angeles to secluded
hideaways in the Michigan wilds and the northern California pen-
insula failed to deter the phone calls—I refused to write. It didn't
matter that the series might not get on the air, it didn't matter that
I'd lose a potload of money, the Guild was on strike in a noble
cause and, besides, I didn't much trust Mr. Kline and the anony-
mous voices that spoke to me in the wee hours of the night. And,
contrary to popular belief, many television writers are men and
women of ethic: they can be rented, but they can't be bought.
I remember seeing a film of Clifford Odets's The Big Knife
when I was a young writer living in New York and lusting after
fame in Hollywood. I remember seeing the unscrupulous Steiger
and his minions applying pressure to a cracking Palance, to get
him to sign a contract, and I remember smiling at the danger-filled
melodramatics. During that period of pre-production on The
Starlost, I ceased smiling.
The threats ranged from breaking my typing fingers to insuring
I'd never work in the Industry again. The bribes ranged from
$13,000 to be placed in an unnumbered Swiss bank account to
this:
One afternoon before the strike, I'd been in Kline's office. I'd
been leafing through the Players' Directory, the trade publications
that list all actors and actresses, with photos. I'd commented idly
that I found the person of one pictured young starlet quite ap-
pealing. Actually, what I'd said was that I'd sell my soul to get it
on with her.
Now, weeks later, during my holdout and Kline's attempts to
get me to scab, I was pottering about my house, when the doorbell
rang. I went to the door, opened it, and there stood the girl of my
wanton daydreams. Bathed in sunlight, a palpable nimbus haloing
that gorgeous face. I stood openmouthed, unable to even invite
her in.
"I was in the neighborhood," she said, entering the house with
no assistance from me, "and I've heard so much about you, I de-
cided just to come and say hello."
She said hello. I said something unintelligible. (I have the same
reaction when standing in front of Picasso's Guernica. Other-
worldly beauty has a way of turning my brains to prune-whip yo-
gurt.) But it took only a few minutes of conversation to ascertain

201
that yes, she knew Mr. Kline and, yes, she knew about the series,
and . . .
I wish I could tell you I used her brutally and sent her back to
where I assumed she had come from, but feminism has taken its
toll and I merely asked her to split.
She split.
I couldn't watch any TV that night. My eyes were too swollen
from crying.
And the cajoling went on. Kline, of course, knew nothing about
the girl, had never had anything to do with sending her over,
would be affronted if anyone even suggested he had tried such a
loathsome, demeaning trick. Hell, I'd be the last one to suggest it.
Or maybe second from the last.
But howzabout the scab writer threat? Well . . .
At one point, representatives of Mr. Kline did bring in a scab.
A non-union writer to whom they imparted a series of outright lies
so he'd believe he was saving my bacon. When they approached
well-known sf writer Robert Silverberg to write the bible, Bob
asked them point-blank, "Why isn't Harlan writing it?" They fum-
fuh'ed and said, well, er, uh, he's on strike. Bob said, "Would he
want me to write this?" They knew he'd call me, and they told him
no, I'd be angry. So he passed up some thousands of dollars, and
they went elsewhere. And this being the kind of world it is, they
found a taker.
I found out about the end-run, located the writer in a West LA
hotel where they'd secreted him, writing madly through a week-
end, and I convinced him he shouldn't turn in the scab bible. To
put the period to the final argument that Kline & Co. were not
being honest, I called Kline from that hotel room while the other
writer listened in on the bathroom extension phone. I asked Kline
point-blank if other writers had been brought in to scab. He said
no; he assured me they were helplessly waiting out the strike till I
could bring the purity of my original vision to the project. I
thanked him, hung up, and looked at the other writer who had just
spent 72 hours beating his brains out writing a scab bible. "I rest
my case."
"Let's go to the Writers Guild," he said.
It drove Kline bananas. Everywhichway he turned, I was there,
confounding his shabby attempts at circumventing an honest
strike.

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 202
I'll skip a little now. The details were ugly, but grow tedious in
the re-telling. It went on at hideous length, for weeks. Finally,
Glen Warren in Toronto, at Kline's urging, managed to get the
Canadian writers guild, ACTRA, to accept that The Starlost was a
wholly Canadian-produced series. They agreed that was the case,
after much pressure was applied in ways I'm not legally permitted
to explicate, and I was finally convinced I should go to work.
That was my next mistake.
They had been circulating copies of the scab bible with all of its
erroneous material, and had even given names to the characters.
When I finally produced the authentic bible, for which they'd been
slavering so long, it confused everyone. They'd already begun
building sets and fashioning materiel that had nothing to do with
the show.
I was brought up to Toronto, to work with writers, and because
the producing entity would get government subsidies if the show
was clearly acceptable in terms of "Canadian content" (meaning
the vast majority of writers, actors, directors and production staff
had to be Canadian), I was ordered to assign script duties to Ca-
nadian TV writers.
I sat in the Four Seasons Motel in Toronto in company with a
man named Bill Davidson, who had been hired as the Producer
even though he knew nothing about science fiction and seemed
thoroughly confused by the bible, and interviewed dozens of
writers from 9 am till 7 fm.
It is my feeling that one of the prime reasons for the artistic
(and, it would seem, ratings) failure of The Starlost was the qual-
ity of the scripts. But it isn't as simple a matter as saying the Ca-
nadians aren't good writers, which is the cop-out Glen Warren and
Kline used. Quite the opposite is true. The Canadian writers I met
were bright, talented, and anxious as hell to write good shows.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of Canadian TV, which is
vastly different from American TV, they had virtually no experi-
ence writing episodic drama as we know it. ("Train them," lOine
told me. "Train a cadre of writers?" I said, stunned. "Sure," said
Kline, who knew nothing about writing, "it isn't hard." No, not if
I wanted to make it my life's work.) And, for some peculiar
reason, with only two exceptions I can think of, there are no Ca-
nadian sf writers.
But they were willing to work their hearts out to do good

203
scripts. Sadly, they didn't have the kind of freaky minds it takes to
plot sf stories with originality and logic. There were the usual
number of talking plant stories, giant ant stories, space pirate
stories, westerns transplanted to alien environments, the Adam-&-
Eve story, the after-the-Bomb story ... the usual cliches people
who haven't been trained to think in fantasy terms conceive of as
fresh and new.
Somehow, between Ben Bova and myself—Ben having been
hired after I made it abundantly clear that I needed a specialist to
work out the science properly—we came up with ten script ideas,
and assigned them. We knew there would be massive rewrite prob-
lems, but I was willing to work with the writers, because they were
energetic and anxious to learn. Unfortunately, such was not the
case with Davidson and the moneymen from 20th, NBC, Glen
Warren and the CTV, who were revamping and altering arrange-
ments daily, in a sensational imitation of The Mad Caucus Race
from Alice in Wonderland.
I told the Powers in charge that I would need a good assistant
story editor who could do rewrites, because I was not about to
spend the rest of my natural life in a motel in Toronto, rewriting
other people's words. They began to scream. One gentleman came
up to the room and banged his fist on the desk while I was pack-
ing to split, having received word a few hours earlier that my
mother was very ill in Florida. He told me I was going to stay
there in that room till the first drafts of the ten scripts came in. He
told me that I was going to write the pilot script in that room and
not leave till it was finished. He told me I could go home but
would be back on such-and-such a date. He told me that was my
schedule.
I told him if he didn't get the hell out of my room I was going
to clean his clock for him.
Then he went away, still screaming; Ben Bova returned to New
York; I went to see my mother, established that she was somehow
going to pull through, returned to Los Angeles; and sat down to
finish writing the pilot script.
This was June already. Or was it July. Things blur. In any case,
it was only weeks away from airdate debut, and they didn't even
have all the principals cast. Not to mention the special effects
Trumbull had promised, which weren't working out. The produc-
tion staff under the confused direction of Davidson was doing a

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 204
dandy impression of a Balinese Fire & Boat Drill; Kline was still
madly dashing about selling something that didn't exist to people
who apparently didn't care what they were buying; and I was
banging my brains out writing "Phoenix Without Ashes," the
opening segment that was to limn the direction of the single most
expensive production ever attempted in Canada.
I was also brought up on charges by the Writers Guild for writ-
ing during the strike.
I called Marty the agent and threatened him with disembowel-
ment if he ever again called me to say, "Go see Bob Kline." In my
personal lexicon, the word "kline" could be found along with
"eichmann," "dog catcher," "cancer" and "rerun."
But I kept writing. I finished the script and got it off to Canada
with only one interruption of note:
The name Norman Klenman had been tossed at me frequently
in Toronto by the CTV representative and Davidson and, of
course, by Kline and his minions. Klenman, I was told, was the
answer to my script problems. He was a Canadian writer who had
fled to the States for the larger money, and since he was actually a
Canadian citizen who was familiar with writing American series
TV, he would be acceptable to the TV board in Ottawa under the
terms of "Canadian content" and yet would be a top-notch poten-
tial for scripts that need not be heavily rewritten. I was too dazed
in Toronto to think about Klenman.
But as I sat there in Los Angeles writing my script, I received a
call from Mr. Klenman, who was at that moment in Vancouver.
"Mr. Ellison," he said, politely enough, "this is Norman Klenman.
Bill Davidson wanted me to call you about The Starlost. I've read
your bible and, frankly, I find it very difficult and confusing ... I
don't understand science fiction . . . but if you want to train me,
and pay me the top-of-the-show money the Guild just struck for,
I'll be glad to take a crack at a script for you." I thanked him and
said I'd get back to him when I'd saved my protagonist from peril
at the end of act four.
When I walked off the show, the man they hired not only as
story editor to replace me, but to rewrite my script, as well, was
Norman Klenman who "don't understand science fiction."
My walkout on my brain child, and all that pretty fame and
prettier money was well in the wind by the time of Klenman's call,
but I was still intending to write the scripts I'd contracted for,

205
when the following incidents happened, and I knew it was all des-
tined for the ashcan.
I was in Dallas. Guest of honor at a convention where I was
trying to summon up the gall to say The Starlost would be a dyna-
mite series. I was paged in the lobby. Phone call from Toronto. It
was Bill Davidson. The conversation describes better than ten
thousand more words what was wrong with the series:
"Major problems, Harlan," Davidson said. Panic lived in his
voice.
"Okay, tell me what's the matter," I said.
"We can't shoot a 50-mile-in-diameter biosphere on the ship."
"Why?"
"Because it looks all fuzzy on the horizon."
"Look out the window, Bill. Everything is fuzzy on the ho-
rizon."
"Yeah, but on TV it all gets muddy in the background. We're
going to have to make it a 6-mile biosphere."
"Whaaaat?!"
"Six miles is the best we can do."
There is a pivotal element in the pilot script where the hero
manages to hide out from a lynch mob. In a 50-mile biosphere
that was possible. In a 6-mile biosphere all they had to do was
link arms and walk across it. "But, Bill, that means I'll have to
rewrite the entire script."
"Well, that's the best we can do."
Then, in a blinding moment of satori I realized Davidson was
wrong, dead wrong; his thinking was so limited he was willing to
scrap the logic of the script rather than think it through. "Bill," I
said, "who can tell the difference on a TV screen, whether the ho-
rizon is six miles away or fifty? And since we're showing them an
enclosed world that's never existed before, why shouldn't it look
like that! Shoot de facto six miles and call it fifty; it doesn't make
any damned difference!"
There was a pause, then, "I never thought of that."
Only one indication of the unimaginative, hidebound and ob-
stinately arrogant thinking that emerged from total unfamiliarity
with the subject, proceeded through mistake after mistake, and
foundered on the rocks of inability to admit confusion.
The conversation went on with Davidson telling me that even if
Trumbull's effects didn't work and they couldn't shoot a 50-mile

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 206
biosphere—after he'd just admitted that it didn't matter what dis-
tance they said they were showing—I'd simply love the set they
were building of the control room.
"You're building the control room?" I said, aghast with confu-
sion and disbelief. "But you won't need that till the last segment
of the series. Why are you building it now?"
(It should be noted that one of the Maltese Falcons of the
series, one of the prime mysteries, is the location of the control
room biosphere. When they find it, they can put the ark back on
course. If they find it in the first segment, it automatically becomes
the shortest TV series in history.)
"Because you had it in your bible," he explained.
"That was intended to show how the series ended, for God's
sake!" I admit I was screaming at that point. "If they find it first
time out, we can all pack our bags and play an hour of recorded
organ music!"
"No, no," Davidson argued, "they still have to find the back-up
computer, don't they?"
"Aaaaarghh," I aaaaarghhed. "Do you have even the faintest
scintilla of an idea what a backup control is?"
"Uh, I'm not certain. Isn't it the computer at the back of the
ship?"
"It's a fail-safe system, you drooling imbecile; it's what they use
if the primary fails. The primary is the control. . . oh to hell with
it!" I hung up.
When I returned to Los Angeles, I found matters had degener-
ated even further. They were shooting a 6-mile biosphere and
calling it six miles. They said no one would notice the discrepancy
in the plot. They were building the control room, with that ar-
rogant ignorance that could not be argued with. Ben Bova, who
was the technical advisor, had warned them they were going about
it in the wrong way; they nodded their heads . . . and ignored
him.
Then Klenman rewrote me. Oh boy.
As an indication of the level of mediocrity they were seeking,
"Phoenix Without Ashes" had been retitled, in one of the great ar-
tistic strokes of all time, "Voyage of Discovery." I sent them word
they would have to take my name off the show as creator and as
writer of that segment. But they would have to use my pseud-
onym, to protect my royalties and residuals. (They had screwed

207
up my creation, but I'd be damned if I'd let them profit from the
rape.)
Davidson reluctantly agreed. He knew the Writers Guild con-
tract guaranteed me that one last weapon. "What's your pen-
name, we'll use it, what is it?"
"Cordwainer Bird," I said. "That's b-i-r-d, as in 'for the
birds.'"
Now he was screaming. He swore they'd fight me, they'd never
use it, I was denying them the use of my name that was so valu-
able with science fiction fans. Never! Never!
God bless the Writers Guild.
If you tuned in the show before it vanished from all earthly ken
you saw a solo credit card that said
CREATED BY CORDWAINER BIRD
and that's your humble servant saying the Visigoths won again.
Bova walked off the series the week after Trumbull left, be-
cause of scientific illiteracies he'd warned them against, such as
"radiation virus" (which is an impossibility . . . radiation is a
matter of atoms, viruses are biological entities, even as you and I
and Kline and Davidson, I presume), "space senility" (which, I
guess means old, feeble, blathering vacuum), and "solar star"
(which is a terrific illiterate redundancy like saying "I live in a big
house home").
The Starlost came up a loser, as do most TV series. Because
they don't understand the materials with which they have to work,
because they are so tunnel-visioned into thinking every dramatic
series can be transliterated from the prosaic and overfamiliar ma-
terials of cop, doctor and cowboy shows, because there was so
much money to be skimmed . . . another attempt at putting
something fresh and innovative on the little screen came up a
loser.
Is mine an isolated bit of history? A case of sour grapes attrib-
utable to the intransigent nature of a writer whose credentials
come red-stamped with the warning that he is a troublemaker?
Hardly.
In TV Guide in October of 1964 the excellent Merle Miller told
in detail how his series Calhoun had come a cropper. In February
of 1971, again in TV Guide, the well-known sf author and histo-
rian James Gunn related how they leavened and dumbed The Im-
mortal out of existence after fifteen weeks. Through the years,

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 208
right up to the 1981 anthology series Dark Room—suicidally
placed opposite first The Dukes of Hazzard and then moved to a
primetime spot facing Dallas by ABC—which was canceled after
six airings, the story is the same. This time it was my turn, that's
all.
Have you, gentle reader, learned anything from this angst?
Probably not. Viewers seem not to care about authenticity, accu-
racy, logic, literacy, inventiveness. Friends call me when they see
reruns of The Starlost in Canada, and they tell me how much they
like it. I snarl and hang up on them.
The upshot of all the foregoing was precisely what I had pre-
dicted when I cut out of that deranged scene. NBC had gone into
the series with a guarantee of sixteen episodes firm, and an almost
guaranteed pickup option for eight more. But the ratings were so
low, in virtually every city where the series was aired—sometimes
running opposite the nine thousandth rerun of I Love Lucy or
scintillating segments of Zen Archery for the Millions—that NBC
bailed out after the first sixteen.
The shows were so disgracefully inept, so badly acted, uni-
formly directed with the plunging breakneck pace of a quadruple
amputee crossing a busy intersection, based in confusion and plot-
ted on the level of a McGuffey's primer . . . that when the show
was canceled after sixteen weeks, there were viewers who never
knew it was missing.
When it was dumped, and I got the word from a contact at the
network, I called one of Kline's toadies, and caroled my delight.
"What the hell are you so damned happy about," he said, "you
just lost a total of $93,000 in participation profits."
"It's worth ninety-three thousand bucks to see you fuckers go
down the toilet," I said.
But even though I fell down that rabbit-hole in TV Land and
found, like Dorothy, that it wasn't Kansas, or any other place that
resembled the real world, I have had several moments of bright
and lovely retribution-cum-vindication.
At one point, when the roof started falling in on them, they
called Gene Roddenberry, the successful creator of Star Trek, and
they offered him fifty per cent of the show if he'd come up and
produce the show out of trouble for them. Gene laughed at them
and said what did he need fifty per cent of a loser for, he had a
hundred per cent of two winners of his own. They said they could

209
understand that, but did he have someone else in mind he could
recommend as producer? Gene said, sure he did.
They made the mistake of asking him who.
He said, "Harlan Ellison. If you hadn't fucked him over so
badly, he could have done a good job for you."
Then he hung up on them.
Which is just what the viewers did.
The second bright moment was when the trial board of the
Writers Guild judged me Not Guilty of scabbing. It was a unani-
mous decision by some of the finest writers in Hollywood, and I
was reinstated on the WGAw Board of Directors thereafter. None-
theless, were I ever to forgive the thugs and fools who took the
labor of a year and corrupted it so completely that I felt nothing
but shame and fury for a long time after, I can never forgive them
for placing me in such jeopardy with the craft guild to which I
proudly belong. More than likely, had my efforts to thwart and
circumvent 20th Century-Fox's anti-strike efforts in producing the
series not been so blatant, and so infuriatingly effective to Kline
and his superiors, I might well have been tagged with that most
vile and inexcusable sobriquet: scab. There is no forgiveness in
me for that part of the monstrous history of The Starlost.
But the brightest moment of all came on March 21st, 1974
when I became the first person in the history of the Writers Guild
of America to win the Most Outstanding Teleplay Award for the
third time, with the original version of the pilot teleplay for The
Starlost, "Phoenix Without Ashes."
The original script, my words, my dream; not the emasculated
and insipid drivel that was aired; but my work, as I wrote it, be-
fore the trolls fucked it over; that screenplay won the highest
writers' award Hollywood can give.
In the category of "best dramatic-episodic script," meaning
continuing series, as opposed to anthologies or comedies, there
were eight nominees out of 400 top submissions: four segments of
The Waltons, a Gunsmoke, a Marcus Welby and an episode of
Streets of San Francisco. And my original teleplay . . . selected as
the best for the year 1973.
It should be noted that unlike Emmys and Oscars, which are
political in nature, are bought and sold and lobbied for with hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars being spent in trade paper adver-
tisements by studios and networks that realize the box-office value

HARLAN ELLISON
SOMEHOW, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS, TOTO 210
of such popularity prizes, the WGA awards are given solely on the
basis of written material; in blind judging with the names of the
authors removed, by three tiers of blue-ribbon readers (most of
whom are previous winners) whose identities are kept strictly se-
cret.
When I accepted the Award at the 26th Annual Awards Recep-
tion and Banquet in Hollywood, I said, in part, "If the fuckers
want to rewrite you . . . smash them!"
But even had I not received such vindication from my peers, I
know damned well that the loss of $93,000 was not the vain and
foolish gesture of a nit-picker. That Award is the rose Fve
plucked from the summit of the mountain of cow flop The Starlost
became.
Nor have I lost my sense of smell. A writer has only his or her
talent, determination and imagination to pit against the winter of
mediocrity Hollywood generates. Good writers die here, not from
too much cocaine, or too much high living, or even too much
money. For, in the words of Saul Bellow, "Writers are not neces-
sarily corrupted by money. They are distracted—diverted to other
avenues." They die hi pieces, their talent and thus their souls
turned sere and juiceless. Until they are lit for nothing better than
to bend to the whims of businessmen with a stranglehold on the
art-form.
It is a writer's obligation to his craft to go to bed angry, and to
rise up angrier the next day. To fight for the words because, at
final moments, that's all a writer has to prove his right to exist as a
spokesman for his times. To retain the sense of smell; to know
what one smells is the corruption of truth and not the perfumes of
Araby,
Whether in a fifty-mile-across biosphere, in Oz, in Kansas or in
Hollywood.

TRANSCENDING DESTINY

TRANSCENDING DESTINY
Rondell awoke all at once. Not in soggy sections after a sound
sleep, but rigid with tension: product of cold nightmares and ex-
pectations of the footstep. The instant his eyes opened he knew
something was waiting for him outside the hotel's 32nd-storey
window. Even before the metallic voice from the cop chopper
shattered the dawn silence, he knew they were out there.
Then: All right, Rondell! No fight, please! There are officers
out here who have children, there are others in the building, the
streets full of commuters who'd get hit by debris . . . think of
them. Don't force us to punch out the wall! Come out slowly, with
your hands behind your neck ... or on top of your head.
It had to be a young cop. Unsure of his words. He fumbled the
instructions. Probably had never done a roust like this in all the
time he'd been a cop.
Rondell's expression was wry. He could almost laugh. Not a big
laugh; something small, an exhalation of breath, freighted with
irony. The poor sonofabitch, dumb kid. It had been a long, long
time since these reserve corps cops had been pressed into service,
since they had actually cornered a dangerous man who might give
them trouble. All their drilling and pamphlets and fake hero-pride
could not help them now; and they were scared. The frightened-
animal tingle to the voice had told him all he wanted to know.
Even alone—and how long he had been alone!—he was more than
a match for them. Still... he should not feel overconfident That
might be a little bit of dangerous.
The silly-ass way they thought of their safe little homes, their
children, their petty lives. Then, before he could stop it, a feeling
of utter loneliness washed over him.

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
214
He abruptly felt defeated, lost. Where was the end to all this?
Someday not getting the jump on them when they found him?
Dead from a police disruptor in a cheap hotel? In the same instant
he tightened his thoughts. Not here. Not this way. Perhaps soon,
but at least in his own time, on his own terms.
Another warning blast from the cop chopper's loudspeaker clat-
tered about the room as he stepped quickly to the closet, taking
from a hook the fly-belt and propulsion unit. Without wasted
movements he strapped the units to his back and waist. Outside
the door to his room he could hear the furtive, frightened steps of
the civilian police, setting up riot disruptors in the hall, ready to
spray the room through the door if he made it necessary. They
knew he had only one way out of the room. They knew it. They
were wrong.
He chuckled softly. They were bluffing and he knew it. They
would vomit up their guts at the sight of a dead man; but just one
might nervously tick the firing stud, and results did not consider
intentions.
So I'll try not to make it necessary, he thought briskly, edging
toward the window. He flattened himself against the wall, wishing
he had not turned the cheap glass windopaque to "full" the night
before. If he could see out, gauge the proximity of the chopper
hovering there, so many floors above the plasteel slidewalks,
things would be easier. But had the hotel not been a sleaze hole,
had it not been a glass window, things would be much tougher.
They would be impossible.
He caught a reflection of himself in the mirror-window. The
shortcut sandy hair, the squinting dark green eyes and the nose
that had been broken too many times to be anything like aquiline.
Not a good face, not a bad face; just a tired face.
He thought about the chopper.
It was probably just above. He calculated rapidly.
Thirty-two stories to the ground; the chopper at least two floors
above; reaction time of the pilot; speed of the sprayed web-nets;
his own fleetness. An unsupported body accelerates at a rate of
9.8 meters per second per second . . .
An unexpected burst of the riot guns shattered the door; he
bunched his muscles and threw himself through the window.
His finger tensed on the power button of the fly-belt but he did
not jab. He fell rapidly, turning over, catching a glimpse of the

215
cop chopper descending like a hunting falcon. The pilot had
paused only three seconds, taken by surprise; but it had been
enough. Rondell looked down, forcing his eyes to remain open,
despite the vertigo of his descent.
The slidewalk, crammed with first-shift casino-bettors, reeled
up beneath him. His stomach wrenched and he was uncertain
whether he would be caught by the chopper, die of fright, or
smash to a pulp on the plasteei.
The avian screech of the diving ship, fast closing on him,
caused the commuters to glance up. Their attention was held hyp-
notically; their wide, white stares registered clearly in Rondell's vi-
sion. Ten meters above the slidewalk he jabbed wildly at the but-
ton, and the breath was instantly sucked from his lungs by the
wrench of a retarded descent. The cop chopper was directly above
him, dropping fast!
He continued to fall, knowing the pilot, no matter how young,
how inexperienced, would not endanger the pedestrians by a pos-
sible crash. He was aware that they could not pull out of too steep
a dive. He hoped the pilot was privy to the same intelligence.
The police ship veered off, its spinnerets casting out the sticky
web-netting in a final effort to capture him. But he was already out
of range.
The nets shriveled into little black balls, hanging by their
strands beneath the chopper. Then they were sucked up into the
spinnerets again.
Rondell swooped in over the pedestrians' heads, landing lightly,
with knees bent. He killed the power to the propulsor unit, ripped
the instrument from his back, and threw it down between the
speeding strips—all as one movement. Knife-switch reflexes paid
off, and in a few moments of sprinting, leaping from strip to mov-
ing strip, he was lost in the crowded mass hurrying to the casinos.
Once again the thief had escaped.
The window had not been opaqued and Rondell gazed in si-
lence at the oily back of the Professor's fat, wattled neck. Though
he could see only the huge blank bulk of the casino owner's tight-
fitting silvermesh, the thief was certain the Professor was twining.
As he always twined. He was sure the fingers of those fat, perspir-

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
216
ing hands were twisting ofle over the other, like ten gorged worms
struggling for freedom.
Rondell was aware of a rising tide of hatred, boiling up from
somewhere deep inside himself. Climbing organ over organ till he
felt its heat in his face.
The Professor turned suddenly, his face blanching, as the thief
punched in the window with the disruptor. Debris exploded into
the office, whirling around the room, smashing against the walls.
The casino owner's eyes bulged from his pale face, reminding
Rondell of a fish just hooked, still flopping.
The fat man's hand darted for a row of silver-topped studs on
the desk, but the thief was even quicker. His hand, wrapped
around the muzzle of the disruptor, smashed down brutally on the
gambler's fingers. The fat man gave a soft, indrawn moan, a catch
of the breath, and his eyes closed with pain. He clutched his hand
fiercely, rubbing the sausage fingers rapidly.
"Let's try to get on like compatriots, what say, lard belly?"
Rondell carefully noted the nostril-flare of anger at the reference
to the Professor's bulk.
"I don't know where you came from, Rondell," wheezed the fat
man, finding difficulty getting the words out, "but you'd better go
back there. My guards are right outside that door, and they'll be in
here in a moment"
Rondell smiled. "The room's soundproofed. They don't come
unless you call."
"You set off an alarm when you broke the window." He cocked
his head at the shattered pane. He looked triumphant for a sec-
ond. Then he saw the look in the thief s eyes.
"I'll let you phrase whatever it is you're going to say to keep
them outside, Professor." He spoke softly. The menace was in
every syllable. The casino owner tightened his hps a bit more.
They both started at the sound of an intercom buzzer.
"If I don't answer, they'll punch open the door."
"So answer."
The Professor's voice was unnaturally loud and strained as he
depressed the intercom stud, but over the machine it would make
no difference. "It's all right, boys," the fat man said quickly. "Just
a fit of temper at how much Countess Kinderlee owes me. Afraid I
punched out the window with my disruptor. Don't worry about it;
we'll have it fixed tomorrow. Go on back to your cards." He was

217
sweating freely now, runners of perspiration trailing down into the
collar of his silvermesh. The sounds of retreating footsteps came
clearly over the intercom.
"Drop a shield over that window in case they come around out-
side to board it up," Rondell said. The Professor moved a finger
toward another stud. "Very careful now, fatso." A sausage finger
depressed the stud. A heavy lead shield fell, securing the window.
Rondell leaned over and pulled loose the suction-tips and wires
leading to the machine. He threw the piece of equipment across
the room, where it landed in a corner with a bounce and a clatter
on its shatterproof case.
He stepped quickly to the door—keeping the disruptor trained
quite steadily on the fat man—making sure it was triple-bolted and
voice-keyed to "lock."
Then he dropped into a formfit chair in front of the Professor's
desk.
"How did they locate me, Professor?" It was simply a question,
but the look of hatred on Rondell's face told the fat man the thief
had already decided from where the information had come.
"I had to do it, Rondell. They would've closed me up!" He
swiped at his rolled-fat jowls with a moist palm, his voice quiv-
ering.
The thief stifled a short, nasty laugh. "So you saved your greasy
fat hide and threw me to the cops. Just to keep this joint running.
Now is that the way to reward one of your best pupils? It was you,
after all, who taught me everything I know." His voice dripped
sarcasm, tinged with something deadlier. "Where would I be
today, Professor, if it hadn't been for you?"
"How long do you think it'll be," the Professor wheezed, "be-
fore they look here? They must know you'd come after me. You'd
better get out while you . .
The words were cut off by Rondell's sudden movement, the
slash of the disruptor across the gambler's face. The gunsight
raked flesh, and blood welled up thickly from his cheekbone. This
time he made no sound, but his eyes glazed over momentarily
from the pain. He sank lower into his formfit, and it squawked be-
neath him. Soundless in obesity, fat became pain; the sheer bulk
of the Professor shrieked with mindless anguish.
Rondell spoke softly: "I'm going to kill you, Professor. For
twenty-eight years of running, Fm going to even it up. It took me

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
218
five years to get back here from Sumatra . . . five years like an
animal, and no reason for it. No reason!"
The fat man stared up through tears of anguish at the rock that
sat before him. Rondell was the last of his breed, a breed that had
died out long before. The last thief in a world where stealing was
utterly pointless.
And the thief stared back.
He stared at the disgusting heap of protoplasm quaking in its
silvermesh luxury; symbol of a race he despised. The fat man had
no backbone. A thin webbing of hair thrown scantily across a
bald, furrowed head; fat drooping in folds over the already-stained
collar of the silvermesh—worth Rondell's entire wardrobe and
more. But no backbone, no guts. The fat man's face was pale,
crossed here and there by scars from long-forgotten fights in a
youth where violence was even then becoming unknown. Small
wrinkles radiated out from the pig eyes.
"You're going to die. How would you like to go?"
The Professor raised a hand feebly, tried to say something, but
Rondell cut him off. "I have it. How fitting, fat man, how fitting.
"I think we'll put you away on one of your own games, Profes-
sor. I think we'll put you in the android bin. Or maybe the black-
jack table? No, you never did like those piranhas, so maybe the
roulette-table would be better."
The Professor's skin broke out in a fever-sweat as he thought of
the roulette tables—with their razor-sharp, double-edged scimitars
—the blackjack table—with its computer-brain croupier and trap-
door seats that dropped away to the tanks below—or . . .
He slid back in the seat, mute appeal on his oily face.
Rondell sat watching, not knowing why he was watching, nor
why he had bothered to come here to even the score. It was hope-
less; his whole life was hopeless. He had always been forced to
come to the Professor when he hit snags too difficult to maneuver
on his own—though those had been few and far between—but this
time he knew the Professor had tipped off the cops. Why?
A slow, frightening smile slid over the thief's face. "Tell your
boys to close up shop for the day."
"But I just opened. The first shift isn't even here an hour."
"I said close. Now, close."
The Professor's eyes bulged. "C-close up the Casino. But I'll—
I'll lose a fortune."

219
"You'll lose your life if you don't."
There was no arguing with that frightful smile, that hand on the
disruptor. The Professor started to rise from behind his desk,
paused as Rondell pointed at him.
"Use the emergency clear-out button. No personal contact."
The Professor smiled thinly. "You remember that."
"I remember a lot of things. I should. You brought me up in
this sinkhole."
The Professor sank down again heavily. He hesitated a moment
longer, nervously pulling at his pendulous lower lip. Rondell
added, softly, "Go ahead, Dad, we don't want to waste all the
credits spent on that elaborate rig, do we?"
The Professor ran a hand through the air above a light-brown
block set into the desktop, and a square section slid up, with a
button set in one side. He pressed the button. The thief watched
with narrowed eyes. The fat man kept his finger on the button a
moment longer, finally sagged in complete defeat. His hands went
back to the finger-twining movements. "It's done."
Rondell's skin itched. After twenty-eight years of calculated
corruption on the part of the Professor ... the score was going
to be evened.
"Like to lay odds on how fast you'll die?"
The Professor did not answer.
"How long will it take? To clear out?"
The Professor was breathing hard. Rondell was afraid natural
causes would cheat him of his revenge. "It took less than fifteen
minutes, a fire scare three weeks ago."
The fat man was hunched forward, his belly indented by the
curve of the desk; his eyes never left the thief's hands. Not the
face ... the hands. Rondell sat back, idly toying with the disrup-
tor; each twirl and stroke caused the fat man to tremble, and a
strange flame to dance higher in the younger man's eyes.
"Why don't you just kill me and have done?"
"You mean here? Now?"
"It's soundproofed! You know that! Why are you tormenting
me?"
Rondell stopped his idle movements, leaned forward and fixed
the huge man with an uncompromising glare. "Because you found

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
220
me in an orphanage when I was too young to do anything about it,
and turned me into the most worthless thing on Earth. So I'm
going to get full measure, Professor. Full fathom five to pay me
back for twenty-eight years. Nineteen years of your careful train-
ing. Three years of stealing jewelry 1 could get from the cor-
nucopia with less trouble. One year in preparation for the Change
Chamber, before I escaped, and five years hiding in Sumatra.
"It's hot there, Professor. Very hot there."
"They should have the main play-rooms cleared by now," the
fat man said, incongruously.
His perspiring fingers clung madly to one another, twining.
"Remorse doesn't look so good on you, Professor," Rondell
said. "It looks belated. Twenty-eight years belated." He was mak-
ing idle conversation till the casino was emptied of its first shift
patrons, but there was more, there was an urgency in his voice. As
though he had to know the answers before it was too late.
"Why did you do it, Professor? Why pick me off an orphanage
floor and louse up my life? What's the motive?"
The Professor remained silent.
A mute pleading wallowed in his eyes.
Rondell lapsed into silence; he turned the answers he had found
himself—unsatisfactory answers, wrong answers—over and over in
Ms mind. Like a ribbon of flickfiim the incidents of his childhood
fled before his mind.
His memory before the orphanage—not the cr6che, so he obvi-
ously had had a mother and father—was a blank. He had no recol-
lection of mother, father, home, or early days. He knew there was
something back before the age of three, but whatever shadowy im-
ages remained had been worn smooth by the endless numbing rou-
tine of the orphanage.
Then the Professor had come, had seemed to know just whom
he was seeking. Then the years with the Professor. There had
never been another name. Neither first nor last—merely the Pro-
fessor. The Professor, omnipresent, omniscient.
Rondell remembered the day of Ms twelfth birthday. He had
learned many strange dungs from the fat man: the use of a length
of black silkene cord, disruptor firing with great accuracy, boxing,
the rigors of seven different Oriental martial arts, deep-breathing
body-control and exercises that made him tough as plasteel. Many

221
things that did not seem to make sense to the twelve-year-old
Rondell. But on that day, something began to take form.
On that day, when Rondell had been a tall boy—even for that
age—when the Professor had looked at him across dwarf-
grapefruit and a flowering napkin under the fat man's chin, the
thing had begun in earnest
"Good breakfast, boy?"
"Um," Rondell managed to mumble around a chunk of grape-
fruit.
"Do you want to make me happy, Rondell? Would you like to
do me a favor?" He posed the questions lightly, almost airily, and
the boy smiled, the grin denting dimples in his cheeks.
The fat man pulled the napkin from under his chin, settled back
in his chair which slid a few inches away from the breakfast table
on its rods to allow for the extra bulk, and began twining his
fingers.
He wheezed a long breath of contemplation, gazed at the far
upper corner of the gigantic dining room (a room that said
wealth, then said it again, never quite subsiding into silence, but
offering and re-offering the evidence of it), and cleared his throat
He clearly enunciated: "Do you know the lady we visited last
night?" He spoke with an elaborate simplicity. His tones and man-
ner were directed with exaggerated evenness, even for a child of
twelve. He spoke as though it were the most important thing he
had ever said; he wanted the boy to miss no part of it.
"Yes, I remember," Rondell said, without fully waiting to think
whether he remembered or not.
The Professor was careful. "No, I mean do you really re-
member? Do you remember the beautiful red jewel she wore on
her forehead?"
The boy considered for a moment, then nodded quickly. He
recalled the flash of the jewel as it had glowed like a third eye in
the center of his hostess' forehead.
"Well, Rondell, that was the Lady Cindy of Upper Pittsburg,
and I want you to get me that jewel."
It had been let out at last. Now Rondell began to realize why he
had been taught such things as walking catlike on the balls of the
feet, how to dress to blend with his surroundings, how to scale a

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
222
glass-smooth wall, how to use a vibroblade and a disruptor. The
Professor was a clever man, and this had been a clever plan. Step
by step, taking time and caution, it had come to this, and the boy
was ready.
When she returned from the orgy at Prinzmetal's, with a used
and exhausted body and a head filled with thoughts only of end-
less sleep, the Lady Cindy of Upper Pittsburg was shocked to find
a hooded, completely black-garbed man of indeterminate age
curled up comfortably on the balcony outside her casement. Idly
running his skin-gloved fingers down the barrel of a disruptor. Her
amazement was doubled as he commanded in a youthful, shaking
voice, "Open your wall vault. The lock is located in the upper
right knob of your bedpost. I want your ruby."
Her eyes widened, and then she realized it must be a joke. No
one stole these days. Not for a long time had anyone stolen any-
thing. Not with the government cornucopias so available. Why,
that was where she had gotten the ruby originally.
She shrugged out of her radium-dyed heliotrope mink stole, let-
ting it fall to the deep pile rug, and answered, "I have no idea how
you got there, my good lad, but I suggest you leave at once!" Her
accent was a queer half-snort, half-haughty command, the product
of unauthorized interbreeding.
Then her eyes drew down, and her lashes fluttered. "On the
other hand , . . if you want to stop this foolishness about my
ruby, you can come in, and we can have a drink and . . ."
Her eyes wandered to the deep foam-pile bed.
That was the first time Rondell glimpsed the utter decay of his
world . . . without fully realizing what it meant. Her body was
encased in a tight silkene sheath that more set off her physical at-
tributes than hid them. She strained against the sheath, and a fire
of excitement and challenge burned in her heliotrope eyes—dyed
to match her mink.
Rondell had been too young, but even so . . . something had
made him uneasy inside. "I'm not fooling . . ." His voice was
slightly unsure, unsteady; his first job. "... I want that ruby.
Now!" The Lady Cindy of Upper Pittsburg had a sudden realization:
this—it had to be—boy was not here for her erotic pleasure at all.

223
Nothing of the sort. It was not a joke. Her eyes widened incredu-
lously.
"Well! I—I—am I to take it that this is a—a—" she struggled
with a nearly-forgotten word, "—a robbery?"
The boy nodded his head, and through the eye-slits she could
see a confused desperation in his eyes.
"But—but why? You can get one just as good—though I confess,
not better—from the cornucopia. You have a Key, haven't you?
There's no need for you to take it from me. I get such pleasure
from it. Why?" She was now flinging her arms about in exagger-
ated bewilderment, her voice rising.
The thief seemed unnerved by her reactions. "Stop that! Stop
screaming!" But she did not, and he leaped agilely through the
window, brandishing the disruptor.
"The vault. The vault. Get the ruby for me or I'll kill you."
There was a hardness in his youthful voice that told her she was
faced by a boy not quite a boy, but much more.
She turned, and looking over her shoulder at the thief, walked
slowly to the bed. Reluctantly she twisted the ornate ball atop one
bedpost. The ball split in the center, revealing a voice-control
sphere. She spoke into it softly, and watched with creases lining
her forehead as a portion of the wall slid up to reveal an elaborate
set of bureau drawers.
It was not hiding the jewels from the world, protecting them,
but merely an evidence of possession, a feeling of I know where
they are, but no one else does. Old habits die hard.
Now the boy stepped forward nimbly, began to open the jewel
drawers. Abruptly, the Lady Cindy decided something she had
been pondering for several minutes.
She was not going to be robbed by this uncertain child.
She moved back to the voice-control sphere, quietly.
Before she could whisper the words that would lower the pla-
steel wall, sealing the thief into the airtight vault, Rondell turned
and saw her. "Stop!"
The Lady Cindy's words were half out of her mouth when the
boy pressed the disruptor stud. His face, under the hood, went
sick and white as he saw the result. The Lady Cindy soundlessly
exploded into a million fragments. . .
The boy ripped the mask from his face, and leaned against the
bedpost. He became violently ill, vomiting agonizingly at what he

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
224
had done. The Professor had never been graphically explicit about
what a disruptor would do. Block-targets were not blonde, statu-
esque women. The Professor had merely said it would stop oppo-
sition. It certainly did.
When the sickness passed, keeping his eyes from what ran on
the walls, he found the ruby, slid it into his seal-pouch, and left by
the window as he had come.
The Professor received the ruby with gratitude.
"Excellent, my boy. Excellent. What's that? Dead? Oh, well,
I'm sure these things happen. Now, for your next assignment. . ."
The years of running, the years of programmed destiny had
begun.
Rondell's memories collapsed inward violently. He was in the
present, and the Lady Cindy of Upper Pittsburg was many years
dead. He was sitting in the Professor's office in the casino where
he had spent nineteen years of his life. He was holding a disruptor
on the man who had first taught him to kill. The ruby, too, was
long-since gone. Poured down some invisible drain, no benefit
gained from the theft, nothing bettered by killing an innocent
woman. Nothing derived from it all, but that Rondell had taken
the first step in a life comprised of senseless theft, hiding, running.
A gong sounded in the desk.
Rondell sat up straight. The casino was empty; the staff and all
the Professor's bully-boys had gone. The robot-sealers had ex-
amined the place, and it was empty.
"Let's go," Rondell said, motioning with the disruptor.
The Professor slid the chair back on its tracks, and got up
heavily.
The air stank with death.
The casino never closed, and to facilitate the handling of plea-
sure-bent patrons, everyone possessed a shift-card, designating
what times they might play. Had the cards not been issued, the ca-
sinos would have been permanently swamped; they were anything
but mere gambling halls. The players bet against their opposite
numbers, who were androids. If they won, the android was killed
by them, in any one of a hundred different, clever ways . . .

225
artificial blood spurted, shrieks were emitted. Androids looked
real, and really died. But fair is fair: human losers really died,
also.
Unfortunately (though they didn't know it), humans only had a
three-to-one chance of winning. The games were stacked. Behind
every casino was the government agency that supervised the action
. . . and rigged the odds. It was a painless way of decreasing the
staggering population. Let them play themselves to death, for with
the age-retardant drugs, few people died of anything but violent
death.
So give them their taste ... let them kill or be killed . . . and
they would die gladly. Well, perhaps not gladly; but, then, no one
likes a poor loser.
The casino was dead silent. The Professor walked ahead of the
creature he had created, and the cold fear had solidified; his chest
was filled with Arctic ice. If he had thought, at first, that there
would be any escape, all hope was now lost. He had not expected
this. Everything had gone wrong. He had built too well.
The sound of their footfalls was stark and loud in the empty ca-
sino. With the crowds gone, with the hypnolights and adverts shut
off, it was a dead, hungry, waiting place. The Professor shivered;
he had never seen it like this. The place never closed, it was al-
ways full.
It was closed, it was empty.
He was going to die.
Over thirty years; the plan; wasted.
Warning lights high up the filigreed walls cast light silver shad-
ows along the floor. Signs of occupancy from a few minutes before
still remained: crushed joy-sticks littered the floor (and as they
walked, the scurryers slipped from their wallnests, began sucking
up the debris), stacks of chips made crazy pillars on the tables,
bits of simulated cartilage from the gaming-androids remained
plastered to the betting-boards. Even as they walked into the cen-
ter of the gaming-room, the last trickle of fake blood swirled down
the flensing troughs with a final gurgle.
The casino was hung about with multi-colored drapes that
changed color constantly under the silver warning lights. The fur-
nishings were rich and padded. Just like the customers, thought
Rondell wryly. He spat on the floor, and a scurryer swept up,
sucked it spotless in an instant. He kicked at it viciously, then

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
226
swung on the fat man, "No move. I'll forego my fun and take you
out right here."
They paused in front of the deadly bingo game.
The Professor drew back, and Rondell grasped him tightly by
his flabby biceps. "Eh?" Rondell suggested nastily, cocking a
thumb at the table. "What do you say to a game of bingo, Profes-
sor? What do you say to that?"
The Professor said nothing, and Rondell nudged him sharply
with the disruptor. "Sit"
The Professor stepped up to the table. It was a huge circular
cannister affair, six and a half meters high. The sides were sealed,
and a small stairway led up to the seats and the tabletop proper.
The game was arranged so that if the android opponent—operated
by robot-brain—won the bingo card, the chair dropped away be-
neath the human, sending him into the lower five meters of the
cannister.
Filled with piranha fish.
Rondell walked the fat man up the steps, and strapped him into
a chair without ceremony. "I think I'll even give you a fighting
chance, fat man," Rondell said, as he found the control box for
the game.
He smashed it open with the heavy handle of a vibroblade
taken from his boot-top, and fingered several dials. The game
board lit up, and the selection panels came on. But the robot-
brain remained inactive.
Rondell switched on the selection that called the numbers from
random sequences. He took a seat. He did not strap in. "I'm going
to play you, instead of an android, Professor. That way you'll
have a real incentive to win." Then he switched on the robot-
brain.
The Professor put up a shaking hand. "No. You must not! I—
I . . ." He subsided into silence, and nodded. The game
Began!
Rondell punched out a code on the selector before him. A
"card" of numbers appeared in the plate beneath his hand. He sat
back and watched the Professor as the fat man did the same. The
Professor seemed to want to say something, but he pursed his lips
and was silent

227
The robot-brain clicked its patterns, and ran the codes through,
and then the speaker in the center of the game table spoke
sharply, harshly:
"1-16."
Rondell looked down. Nothing. That was not on his card. He
glanced across at the Professor. The fat man had also come up
empty.
The robot-brain ran through its patterns again, clicked and
spoke, "0-33."
Again, nothing. Rondell looked up. The Professor had one.
Upper right hand corner. That was a start, and for the first time,
Rondell suspected he might lose. But it didn't matter. If the Pro-
fessor got too close, he would use the disruptor.
"B-7."
Nothing lit on Rcndell's board, nothing lit on the Professor's
board-mirror. The fat man leaned forward against the playing
edge, and his fingers twined madly. He strained against the pla-
steel bonds that held him in the game. In the center of the tabletop
was a clear frame of plastic, and through it, by a clever series of
lights, could be seen the deadly fish swimming below.
"0-40."
Rondell now had a glowing square in the center of the end-row
on his card.
Rondell went for broke. He pressed a stud for lowered odds. If
his number came up, he was in good shape . . . if it didn't, he was
one score down. Down toward the tiny teeth. But since he couldn't
lose, because he would cheat, it didn't matter what chances he
took.
He rang the odds down to 3-to-l which was as good as a
human could ring in the entire casino. The brain clicked its pat-
terns, chuckled to itself, said, "0-12." It was a hit. That made two
out of five in a vertical stripe down the right hand side.
"Rondell! Listen to me! It's not—not just my dying I'm trying to
prevent. You've got to hear me out!"
"0-29." Nothing.
"You want to know why I did it to you. You must want to
know. I can tell you, only stop this game now!"
"1-58."
"Keep talking, Professor," Rondell said softly, trying to play

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
228
the card and listen to the fat man at the same time. He wanted to
know, all right. But the smell of death was invigorating.
"The answer, Rondell! Let me go, and I'll tell you where you
can get the answer! There's reason to it, boy. Believe me, there's
reason to it."
"1-26." The Professor now had three laterals lit. One had rung
while Rondell had been distracted thinking, but the third one
didn't matter. It was out of the pattern.
"You've got to get off the game, Rondell! Listen to—"
"G-38."
"—listen to me. Do it now."
Their boards were lit with many squares, and now Rondell's
mind was a tangled mass. He could not figure it all out. All the
weight of the universe pressed down on him. Tied in with his
overwhelming hatred for the fat man, and his desire for revenge.
He had come half across the world to get the fat man. He had
been double-crossed again; how the fat man had known he was in
town, how he'd known he was in that hotel, why he'd tipped off
the cops, was something Rondell didn't understand. But the Pro-
fessor had turned the police loose, and they had made him run
again. Now he wanted to stop running. Now he wanted to find out
why he had been persecuted so studiedly. What his past was, and
why it tied in with this fat man, and what his future held.
He slipped out of the chair.
It was two short steps to the brain-box, but before he got there,
a final click and ding! sounded from above, and the chair where
he had been seated dropped away.
He shivered at the sound of water splashing from below, and
turned off the game. The Professor had been one square short of
losing, himself, but... he had filled a line completely, and Ron-
dell would have gone into the tank.
Bingo!
He went back up and held the disruptor near the fat man's
nose. "Tell me."
"Go to the Slum. Find a woman named Elenessa on Broad
Street. Number 6627A."
"If this is a trick, Professor, if this is something to get me cap-
tured, if this is a stall for time . . . I'll get back here. I'll get back,
you know that. I did it once, I can do it again."
Then he was gone.

229
The Professor was still tied to the seat, but his face had settled
back into a shrewd, relieved smile. He had stalled it just long
enough. Let Rondell run some more . . . just as he had forced
him to run for twenty-eight years.
The running would soon come to an end.
"Now, boss?" It was the voice of a casino worker, from behind
the draperies.
The Professor called out, "Yes. Get me off here."
The worker came out; a thin-faced little man with a bobcut
hairdo. "I got the signal on the clear-out sequence. I knew you
wanted someone to wait behind and keep watch. I had this on him
all the time." He held up an ancient projectile weapon. "Could'a
plugged him any time. But I figured you knew I was watching."
"No, I didn't know you were watching."
"Jeez, I could'a swore you knew I was watching."
The Professor looked at him. He said, softly, "I didn't know."
"Yeah, I guess you didn't. You sure looked scared as hell,
Perfesser. You was really sweatin'. But, see, I thought you must of
known I was watching. That's why I din't punch him all that
time."
"Clever of you."
"But, Jeez, if you din't know, then, Jeez, you could of been re-
ally tore up by them piranhas, huh?"
"Yes. I could, huh."
"You want I should get the cops on him, Perfesser?"
The Professor's voice was low and nasty. "No, I don't want you
to do anything. Just go home. And forget what happened tonight
if you want to keep your shift-card."
The thin-faced little man hobbled his head anxiously. "Yessir,
Perfesser, yessir indeed. Whatever you say."
He walked away quickly, and as the drapes parted to swal-
low him, the fat man heard him say, "But, Jeez, you sure was
sweatin'."
The Professor went back into the office and passed his fingertips
over a section of wall. His prints were instantly recognized, and a
section slid up, revealing a private vid. He studded out a number,
left the vision off, and said succinctly:

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
230
"It will have to be tonight. Three am. Have Dirt get to them.
At her place, in thirty minutes."
A short sharp word acknowledged the message.
"Thirty years and more, and almost done," the Professor said
to no one at all, clicking off the vid. The wall slid back down, and
he fell into his seat. It rocked beneath him, and held him as he sat
in misery and loneliness. His fat a bulwark against the chill that
crept in softly.
In an age where wealth and opulence were commonplaces, the
people had maintained the Slum for kicks. It was fake and japery
from one end to the other. It made people feel good to think there
were still areas of mystery and intrigue, places where people
poorer than themselves lived. The governmental system that al-
ways kept the Slum fully inhabited was too involved for any one
man to understand, but Rondell knew one family out of every four
got the "call" to go to the Slum for a one year term on a demo-
graphic rotational basis. Heavy casino losers also were domiciled
in the Slum. Phony dives and trumped-up excitement
Rondell stalked through this sideshow Slum.
He found 6627A Broad Street without difficulty. It was a walk-
up next to a place laughingly called The Hang-Dog House. He
went up quickly, having found the name he sought on a plate
downstairs. The door to the apartment was no trouble ... an
old-style slide-bolt he cut with the vibroblade.
Moonlight streamed down through a high window, and he could
see the squalor typical of these artificial dumps. In the bed, a
woman with dark-black-almost-blue-black hair slept, lying on her
arm.
He crept toward the bed and hardly realized for a moment after
the needle-nose was aimed at his head, that the disruptor was in
her hand.
"Who are you?" she said softly. "Who sent you? What are you
doing here?"
Her face was half-shadowed by the moonlight's angle, but even
in the partial light he could see she was hard-featured. Not partic-
ularly good-looking at all. . .in fact rather eagle-nosed and high-
browed, but her naked body gleamed in the dusk of the flat She

231
had deep lines in her face, much like his own; and he could see a
familiar narrowing of her eyes.
He told her quickly who he was, and from where he had come,
and for how long he had been running. He told her because he
was so tired of running and he wanted only answers himself, even
as she wanted answers. He hid nothing; and as he talked quietly,
the disruptor lowered.
Then she spoke to him. Her name was Elenessa, and she, too,
had been running for a long, long time. As long as he. And her
circumstances had been the same. The constant harrying by the
society, on all sides. And a man named Zalenkoz, who was com-
parable in background to the Professor.
They sat and talked, and in a while, they knew each other. Bet-
ter than a thousand years together, they knew what was under the
skin and in the head of each. Because they had gone the same dis-
tance separately. So they were mated in mind when the rat-faced
man knocked at the door.
Elenessa had thrown a wrap around herself. She sat on the edge
of the bed, and when the knock came, she started violently.
"Cops," she whispered. Rondell shrugged and pulled his disrup-
tor. He motioned for her to open the door and slipped silently
behind the frame. She walked Lightly, on the balls of her feet; as
he walked.
When she threw open the door the rat-faced man standing there
was caught unaware; he didn't have time to conceal the fact that
he had been picking his nose.
A simple-minded grin flickered across his face, and his nose
twitched like a gopher's. "Dirt's the name," he said. "I was sent
by-"
Rondell was around the door, and the disruptor was leveled at
the ridiculous little Slum dweller. "Get in here! And I'll see if it's
worthwhile letting you live."
The rat-faced little man thrust his hands into the air and his
eyes grew large. "Hey, lissen, don't get cute wit' that t'ing. I'm
onny doin' what I was paid ta do. A big fat guy and a guy with
real black hair an' a beard paid me—"
Elenessa broke in. "That sounds like your Professor . . . and
Zalenkoz."

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
232
Rondell motioned with the disruptor for Dirt to finish what he
had been saying. "They paid me to come and fetch ya. That's all.
Honest."
"What do you mean, 'Fetch us?'"
The little man spread his hands, and then started to reach into a
side pocket. "Hold it!"
"Just a piece of paper, chief, that's all," Dirt said.
"Just the same, hold it." Rondell went to him, felt in the man's
pocket, and came up with a slip of paper. "This it?" The little
man nodded.
Rondell unfolded it, and across the top was printed: FROM
THE DESK OF THE PROFESSOR / CASINO ROW.
The paper had an address written on it. An address far uptown
in the palatial Salazzo Plaza area. "This was where you were sup-
posed to lead us?"
"That's right, chief. I got two extra hours added on my card for
the job, so ya better lemme take ya, or I'll lose that time at the
tables."
"Sure," Rondell answered, understandingly.
Then they trussed Dirt up, and prepared to find the tower in
Salazzo Plaza.
The tower was alabaster; rising out of the night like an ivory
fang, deadly and smooth. High up, ringing its top, a gigantic wheel
of jewels sparkled against the night skyline of white and black and
gold.
Rondell had no trouble with the portal. The vibroblade slid
across the maglock and the entrance irised. It was dark inside.
Darker than the night. Rondell undipped a torch from his pouch-
fold, and held it up, casting its sharp, thin light around. The place
was empty. In the center of the room stood a suction tube, disap-
pearing into the ceiling.
Rondell led the way, with Elenessa directly behind him, her
step assured, the disruptor ready. They came into the center of the
empty vestibules, stopped, looked around. It was silence on si-
lence.
Then they started toward the droptube . . .
They could not move . . .
Lights went on. Suddenly, glaringly, alarmingly, lights flooded

233
everything, and they were standing in the middle of a tensor-field.
Beneath their feet an impregnated grid showed up through the to-
tal-conductivity floor. From the ceiling, vaulted high and gold
above them, the nozzles of tensor machines protruded, and from
their snouts came the faint, high buzz of the directional ion-beams.
A speaker concealed somewhere in the walls whiffed, as though
someone were blowing into it, to make sure it was on. Then a
voice came through.
"Sorry to have to trick you, but we were quite certain you
wouldn't come of your own volition. Not after the way we've
treated you."
"Zalenkoz!" Elenessa screamed, straining motionlessly at the
invisible bonds holding her.
"Yes, my child," he replied through the speaker, "the one man
you despise."
"Let me free! I'll kill you!" But there was no release and she
subsided into a vicious silence.
"So goodbye," Zalenkoz said.
A plate slid back in the ceiling, and a complex machine rolled
down on tracks. It was aimed directly at them. They heard a
switch being knifed down, through the speaker, and knew that
wherever he was in the tower, Zalenkoz had turned on the weird
machine.
A blue ray shot from the mouth of the machine bathing them in
radiation.
Rondell caught a glimpse of Elenessa from the corner of his
eyes. She was fading.
"Stop!" he screamed. "Stop! We deserve to know! Why are you
killing us? I was told the answer was here! We deserve to know!"
The ray was cut off—and Elenessa slowly came back to solidar-
ity. She was terribly frightened. "You—you were getting dim; you
were disappearing," she said to Rondell.
He nodded. Through the speaker, with someone's hand imper-
fectly over the mike, they could hear Zalenkoz speaking to some-
one else. Then sounds of agreement, and Rondell heard a familiar
voice.
"Rondell-"
"You!" the thief screamed, straining futilely at nothing.
"Rondell, let me speak." The Professor's voice overrode the
thief's screams. "We have only a matter of three—what is it, Zalen-

HARLAN ELLISON
TRANSCENDING DESTINY
234
koz, four minutes and a few seconds . . . thanks—four minutes.
You have to go through now, or the juncture points won't merge
for another two years.
"And frankly, in your present state of mind, I'm afraid we
couldn't satisfactorily hold either of you for that long."
Rondell tried to understand. It was hard getting past the hate.
"Over thirty years ago Zalenkoz and I found the key. The tem-
poral-shift Not time, precisely, but something more involved.
Something like worlds within worlds, though not quite that, either.
Picture the Earth and make it two dimensional, like a paper cut-
out. Then behind it, like two leaves of a book, another Earth. And
another behind that. On and on and on, endlessly, an uncountable
number of Earths—in fact, an uncountable number of universes-
one after another, each slightly different, each waiting to be dis-
covered.
"So we worked, and we found a way to slip a person through.
But what good did it do us? No one would go. Here is a world
choking with overpopulation and corruption, laziness and dead
souls; and everyone so decadent and smug they would never risk
their lives to try a new frontier. Why do you think the space
colonies are dying out?
"So we thought of kidnapping them and sending them through.
We tried it twice . . . and neither time did they live out a day.
These aren't easy worlds, some of them. They are Earth . . . but
a different Earth.
"We had to build our own pioneers. We had to create the right
kind of person to live in a rugged new environment. So we used
you, both of you, and separately went about ruining you for this
culture. It was cruel, and it was unrewarding, and don't think we
didn't suffer as much as you—but in a different way. Now you're
ready. The harrying has turned out some fine stock. If you suc-
ceed, there will be others, and there may still be some hope for
this rotting planet. You will have escaped your destiny!
"Do you understand?"
They understood, and their hatred was even greater.
Then the machine went on again, and they started to fade under
the blue ray. Rondell felt himself slipping in an invisible pool of
oil. He could see Ms right shoulder fading, and he screamed again,
in terror.

235
He had to know one thing ... he yelled once more, just before
dematerializing, "Who am I? Where did I come from?"
And the Professor answered, "I—can't—tell—you."
Then they were gone.
The room was silent, and the blue ray vanished.
Then, through the speaker, hardly realizing it was still on, came
the sound of crying. Then the voice of Zalenkoz, soothing the
other, and Zalenkoz saying, "What is it they say? I think it was
Shakespeare. 'It is a wise father that knows his own child.' What
do you think, Professor . . . does the reverse apply?"
The fat man did not answer.
After a while the crying stopped.
SomeEarth, somewhere, somewhen, a man named Rondell and
a woman named Elenessa found themselves in a primordial jungle.
As they stood watching themselves solidify, a saber-toothed beast,
vaguely like a cougar, dropped from one of the trees. In a mo-
ment, it had cornered them. Rondell and the woman backed up,
and watched the beast come closer.
Then it leaped.
Twin disruptors came out, but would not punch. The beast
sprang past and knocked the man to the ground. Elenessa had her
vibroblade drawn and was on the beast's back in a moment.
Soon, there was quiet, and blood, and they were alone again.
Alone, the man and woman who had run for a long, long time.
Alone, with worlds to conquer.
And they would not bother with anything as ridiculous as call-
ing themselves Adam and Eve.

THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES

THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES
The red light flashed ON THE AIR; hincty synthesizer music
composed for the tone-deaf began going out at 90.7 megahertz;
Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, made a circle with thumb and
forefinger; and for the five hundred and forty-first time in the
eleven years it had been on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, Hour 25
was on the wing. The clock in the booth said 10:02 PM.
"Good evening, this is your host for Hour 25, Mike Hodel, and
my guest tonight is Harlan Ellison. For those of you who have
read Mr. Ellison's forty books, very close to almost one thousand
short stories, articles, television columns, essays or commentaries;
or who've seen his teleplays on commercial television ... he
needs no introduction. For those of you to whom Harlan's name
isn't a household word . . ."
Ellison cut in. "Have yourselves put under house arrest for ter-
minal illiteracy."
Hodel grinned. "That, listeners, was the voice of Harlan Elli-
son. And I know he'll kill me for saying this, because he doesn't
like people to know his many kindnesses, but Harlan came down
at the last minute, to an urgent phone call about twenty minutes
before we were scheduled to go on the air, filling in for our pre-
viously scheduled guest, Dr. Jerry Pournelle—"
Ellison cut in again. "Who is off in the Sierra Maestra moun-
tains of Cuba, helping to train marauders for the violent over-
throw of Fidel Castro, or backpacking, or some dumb thing like
that."
"No, come on now," Hodel said, stifling a smile, "that's not
true and you know it."
"Of course I know it. That doesn't mean I won't malign the

HARLAN ELLISON
THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES
240
man, even if he is my friend. In fact, I'll malign him because he's
my friend. I mean, anybody who'd call Ellison a friend is obvi-
ously a thoroughly corrupt, degenerate sod."
"Dr. Pournelle, folks, is actually in Pasadena, speaking at the
LungFishCon, at the Pasadena-Hilton. At probably this very mo-
ment he's on a panel with Barry Longyear, John Norman, Nor-
man Spinrad and Joanna Russ . . ."
Ellison cut in again. "The topic of which is 'Labia and Broad-
sword Imagery in Contemporary Sci-Fi.'"
In the control booth, Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, fell
apart with laughter, snorting Coca-Cola from his nose all over the
console,
"And the convention," Hodel went on doggedly, "is the reason
the station is absolutely dead tonight. Even my eminent co-host,
Mel Gilden-"
Ellison: "Star of the eminent sci-fi film Mel Needs Women."
"—Mel Gilden is down there tonight acting as Emcee. So Fm
here in solitary congress with our guest and our crack engineer,
Burt Handelsman."
"So what're we gonna do on this silly show?" Ellison said.
"Well, we can talk about what's happened to your script for
Asimov's I, Robot."
"Please. Spare me. My life is miserable enough as it is."
"Well, we can always open up the phone lines and take calls
from the Group Mind of our faithful listeners,"
"Please," Ellison said, "do I really have to deal with people
who read science fiction? I saw a rerun of Tod Browning's Freaks
last Wednesday and that's about all the sf fans I can handle for
one week."
"Ignore him, Group Mind. He's actually a sweet, gentle, loving
man who adores his readers."
"All three of them; especially the one with the goiter."
"Okay. The phone numbers are 985-KPFK or toll-free from
Orange County it's 985-5735. If you're outside the 213 area don't
call collect, we frown on moochers and Pacifica has no money."
Ellison suddenly clapped his hands. "Hey, I've got a nifty
idea."
"But is it a peachy idea?"
"It is nifty, peachy, swell and even keen.
"If I had a dime for every clown who has ever come up to me

241
at a cocktail party or a convention or at an autograph session and
said, 'Boy, have I got an idea for a story for you,' I'd have just a
lotta dimes. So why don't we invite your loyal cadre of freakos,
devos and pervos to call in and offer ideas for stories that I will
then attempt to whip into utter greatness?"
Hodel's eyes sparkled. "How about that, Group Mind? A first,
right here on Hour 25. Harlan Ellison will collaborate with you
on an original idea. All of you who've been nurturing the secret
belief that you can write, here's your chance to see what kind of
an inventive mind you've got."
"And of course," Ellison said, "if I sell the stories, IH ac-
knowledge the contribution of the caller."
"What about the money from the sale?" Hodel asked.
"What about it?" Ellison responded.
"Will you share it?"
"I'm willing to attempt a crazy stunt," Ellison said. "That
doesn't mean I'm crazy." He thought a moment. "My philosophy
is the same as Robin Hood's: steal from everybody and keep it all
myself."
In the control booth Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, sig-
nalled the lines were lighting up. "Okay, here's our first call,"
Hodel said, hitting one of the buttons on the call director. He
threw the switch on the pedestal mike, permitting the caller's voice
to be heard in the booth. "You're on the air," he said.
"Hi, this is Joanne Gutreimen. I have an idea for Harlan Elli-
son."
"Where are you calling from?" Hodel asked.
"What?"
"I asked where you're calling from?"
"I have an idea for Harlan Ellison."
"Yes, I know. But where are you?"
"I'm here. In Hollywood. Where are you?"
Ellison rolled his eyes. "What's your idea, Ms. Gutreimen?"
There was silence for a long moment. Hodel looked at Ellison
and Ellison looked at Hodel. Both shrugged. Then the woman's
voice came through the speaker again. "I had this idea of . . .
people are always writing about haunted houses . . . what about a
haunted condominium?"
Ellison rolled his eyes. "Fresh, daring, original. Walter Kerr in
the New York Times."

HARLAN ELLISON
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"What?" the woman said.
"Nothing," Ellison. He tried rolling his eyes but they were
starting to burn from all the activity. "Go on."
"Well, actually," she said, "I was thinking about writing this
myself . . . but couldn't come up with any plot ideas. So I
scrapped it. But I did get an idea from it for a terrific title."
"Thrill me," Ellison said, holding his head.
" 'Mondo Condo'," she said.
Hodel smiled. "Well, Harlan, there you go. Your first story col-
laboration idea tonight. What can you do with it?"
"A high colonic comes immediately to mind," Ellison said.
"What?" the woman on the speaker said.
"Nothing, nothing!" Ellison shouted. "Let me think a second.
Talk to yourselves; I'll be with you in a minute."
Hodel began to whistle. He was a round little man with a kind
face. For years he had worn eyeglasses hewn from the bottoms
of Moet champagne jeroboams, but upon the accidental discov-
ery that he was considered a sex object, he had been fitted with
contact lenses. Even so, even with the naked teddybearness of his
soft brown eyes revealed, no one called him Michael.
"Okay, how about this," Ellison said, interrupting Hodel's
whistling of Johann Friedrich Fasch's Concerto in C Major for
Bassoon, Strings and Continuo, "how about this is a recently-con-
verted condo that was originally an apartment house built in the
late 1920's. The custodian or janitor was a vicious creep who'd
never do any work for the tenants. Everybody hated him. One of
those kind of tormented devils Lovecraft was always writing
about. And the only pleasure he got was from strangling cats.
Maybe the building had a lot of old ladies on welfare living there,
see, and all of them had cats, the way old ladies on welfare always
do. And every week some poor old lady's tabby would disappear.
And what was happening was that this terrible janitor was snatch-
ing them, bashing their heads against walls, drowning them, stran-
gling them, tossing them into the furnace . . ."
Hodel wrinkled up his face. "Yuccch."
"Oh, I don't know," Ellison said cheerily, "it's a healthier occu-
pation than cheating on your income tax.
"Anyhow, twenty years before, the janitor mysteriously disap-
peared. Not a trace was found of him, see. But now this expensive
condo is being haunted by the sounds from the walls, a la Love-

243
craft. Ghastly sounds. Hideous sounds. The sounds of the ghost of
the janitor being torn to shreds over and over by the ghosts
of these demon cats he buried in the walls and basement of the
building."
There was silence at both ends of the radio link.
"How's that grab ya?" Ellison asked.
"You are a very disturbed person," Joanne Gutreimen said
softly. Then she hung up.
"Go try to please people," Ellison said.
Hodel was staring at him with considerable distaste. "You don't
like cats, I gather."
"I don't even like the cats you haven't gathered," Ellison said.
He lit his pipe and puffed deeply. Hodel rolled his eyes and
punched up another call. "You're on the air," he said.
"Hi, Harlan," a man said. "This is Mike Taylor. My idea is an
old woman with a sharpened spoon and hypnotic powers who
steals the eyes from men and women for their vision."
Ellison was silent for a moment. Hodel waited expectantly.
There was the intimation of eye-rolling and head-holding.
"I already wrote that one," Ellison said. "Sort of. It was called
'Seeing' and you can find it in my book, STRANGE WINE. It's
about these people who have mutated eyes and they can see spe-
cial visions, the outline of a person's future, all sorts of things. I
called them 'forever eyes' and the story is about a bootleg opera-
tion that steals people's 'forever eyes.'"
"Oh," Mike Taylor said. "Okay, then forget it. But if you were
going to steal my idea, you should have paid me."
"I wrote it in 1976. This is 1982 and you just called in with it.
How did I steal it if I wrote it before you thought of it?"
Taylor hmmmed for a moment, then said, "Everybody knows
how clever you are."
"Right," Ellison agreed. "Voodoo. Bye-bye, Mr. Taylor."
Hodel cut him off and hit another button.
"You're on the air with Hour 25 and Harlan Ellison."
"Hi, Mike; this is Buzz Dixon. Here's my idea; let's see what
Ellison can do with it"
"Me widdle heart am goin' pitta-pat," Ellison said into the mi-
crophone.
Dixon cleared his throat and began talking very fast. "Blood-
world is a small, distant, barren planet enveloped in a dense, cor-

HARLAN ELLISON
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rosive, poisonous atmosphere. It's named for the dark red 'blood'
that bubbles just below the planet's outer crust-"
"As opposed to its inner crust, I presume?" Ellison said.
"What?"
"Nothing. Never mind. Go on."
"Oh, okay. Well, this 'blood' is pumped up and refined into Im-
mortaline, a dark black liquid with almost miraculous healing and
life-prolonging properties. Immortaline is very, very expensive and
is much sought after; for this reason Bloodworld's location is kept
strictly secret"
"Even from its inhabitants," Hodel said.
Ellison made a tsk-tsking motion at the show's host. Hodel
spread his hands as if to say, your vicious sense of humor is
catching, Ellison.
Buzz Dixon said, "What?"
"Nothing, nothing ... go on," Ellison said, sticking his tongue
out at Hodel. In the control booth, Burt Handelsman, crack engi-
neer, was rolling around on the floor.
"Bloodworld, however, is sentient," Dixon went on. "It's a liv-
ing planet with a form of logic vastly different from our own. Not
different values, but an entirely different system of thinking and
rationalizing. Bloodworld does share some concepts with humans
which makes communication theoretically possible. For example,
to both humans and Bloodworld, love is the highest emotion. But
to Bloodworld, to love is to kill."
"Is that it?" Ellison said.
"Yeah. What can you turn that into?"
"The police is my first inclination," Ellison said with a particu-
larly snotty inflection. "But. . . um . . . lemme see . . . uh . . .
okay, how's this? First of all, we drop that bullshit about 'to love
is to kill.' Let's say a multi-planet consortium originating on Earth
has planted a colony on Bloodworld to extract the goop that
makes Immortaline. And let's say that they've spent years terra-
forming the planet so humans can live there. They've even
brought in some samples of soil from Earth so they can grow trees
that will produce enough oxygen to alter the atmosphere. And
let's say that this sentient planet, Bloodworld, has managed to tap
into the sentient unconscious possessed by all planets, and it's
struck up this sort of colloquy with Earth. And they fall in love.
"And Earth is made aware of Bloodworld's love, and together

245
they come to despise these crawling, destructive little bugs called
human beings that have polluted the Earth and are now bleeding
Bloodworld dry, as they have every other planet in the universe,
and like a good James M. Cain thriller Bloodworld and Earth,
sort of planetary Romeo and Juliet, decide to kill off the human
race by altering the structure of Immortaline, so instead of giving
eternal life to humans it makes them infertile, thereby program-
ming the death of the species.
"And the tragic kicker is that here's Bloodworld, way out here
in an arm of the Trifid Nebula, say, and good old Earth back
there in the Milky Way, or wherever the hell we are, and they kill
off the human race, but they can never get together. They are
lovers separated by the universe. How's that grab you?"
Even Hodel nodded with appreciation. "Gee, that's okay,"
Dixon said.
"Terrific," Ellison replied. "Thank your mother for the chicken
soup." And Hodel cut him off.
"You're looking faint," Hodel said.
"I have an allergic response to lunacy. Makes me break out in
the twitches. Takes large infusions of Dickens and Jorge Amado
novels to bring me out of it."
"Would you settle for a Fresca?"
"I'd sooner have a hysterectomy."
Hodel punched up another call. "You're on the air with Hodel
and Ellison. Be careful, he's starting to glaze over."
"Hi, Mike. This is Joyce Muskat."
"Hi, Joyce," said Ellison. "Long time, no see. You have an
idea?"
"I certainly do. I was listening to you on the subject of cats.
And since you're obviously an aelurophile . . ."
"Martians are warping your radio reception, Muskat," Ellison
said. "I'm an aelurophobe. I hate the little fuckers."
"In literary circles, Harlan, we call that irony," she said gently,
responding to the note of hysteria in his voice. "I understood your
aversion. That's why I want you to create a story about a cat that
cries undrying tears. It's a tabby cat. Its name is Thalassa."
Ellison stared at the wall. After a moment he began to moan.
Then he began speaking in tongues.
"I warned you," Hodel said. "He's gone over the edge."
"No, no . . . I'm fine . . . just fine," Ellison croaked. "Let me

HARLAN ELLISON
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246
think a moment. Undrying tears. That is to say, tears that don't
dry. It's a tabby cat. A sweet, little, loveable tabby cat. Molasses
is its name . . ."
"Not molasses . . . Thalassa. The Greek personification of the
sea," she said.
"Thalassa. Right. Sorry. My mind seems to be giving way. I
can't thank you enough for this idea, Joyce. You're a brick." He
closed his eyes, rubbed his temples and thought.
"The silence you hear is Ellison thinking," Hodel told the audi-
ence. "While we're waiting, let me tell you about my new wife,
Nancy."
From behind closed eyes Ellison murmured, "I'm sure they live
for the knowledge."
"My new wife, Nancy," Hodel began, a thoroughly lachrymose
expression suffusing his round little face, "is a woman of sterling
qualities . . ."
"The most sterling of which is that she's brought her lunacy
under control totally, save for having married you. Shut up,
Hodel, I've got an idea for Muskat's stupid concept."
"I'm sure they're waiting with bated breath."
"The undrying tears the cat is crying are actually the legendary
Waters of Nepenthe, the water of forgetfulness from Greek my-
thology. The cat is the eternal trustee of the potent waters, turned
loose in ancient times to bring release from painful memories to
mortals. The animal is thousands of years old. The cat is captured
by an unscrupulous sort of person, like Stromboli the puppet
master who chained up Pinocchio. He's going to sell the undrying
tears of Nepenthe for exorbitant rates. And, uh, I don't know how
I'd develop it, but in the end the cat would probably find a way to
get the Stromboli creep to drink some of the tears, thereby forget-
ting what the cat is . . . and it would get away to continue its mis-
sion on earth."
"I like that," Joyce Muskat said. "See, you're not such an un-
feeling prick, after all."
The rest of the hour went that way.
John Ratner suggested two ideas: a parasitic business manager
who finds he is becoming a character in his top client's newest
production; and a concept, nebulous in the extreme, about "beau-
tiful people" in a Los Angeles where humans have grown fur coats
on themselves and there's no fashion industry. Ellison's develop-

247
ment of these were less than successful. He wound up apologizing.
Ratner forgave him.
Alan Chudnow called in with something different. A title. Just a
title. "Dust is Falling at the Tower of Minos." Ellison insulted his
moustache, reaffirmed his desire to make it with his grandmother,
and told him he'd file away the story title till he was ready to write
a Samuel R. Delany-style trilogy. That time would come, Ellison
assured Chudnow, soon after the writing of a novel featuring drag-
ons, small people with furry feet and unicorns that responded to
anyone who was not a virgin. "Tramp, slut unicorns," Ellison
said.
Jon R. McKenzie offered the vaguest idea of the evening. "Two
friends who grow apart, who change, yet remain the same, and
come back together over the period 1970 to 1980." Ellison had
trouble with that one, finally falling back on a variation of his
story "Shatterday," by suggesting they were halves of the same
person, traumatically severed in childhood, who had grown up in
the same neighborhood without realizing they were the dark and
light sides of the same persona. "And in the end," Ellison said,
drawing to a close with that idea, "the dark side becomes a killer
and the light side becomes a priest; and in the concluding scene
the good guy, Father Flotski, is outside the prison where the bad
guy, Mad Dog Berkowitz is holed up with hostage guards, and Fa-
ther Flotski is yelling up at him with a bullhorn, 'Come on, you
no-good kike, let the guards go before I have the Virgin Mary bite
off your nose!'"
Three subsequent phone calls accused Ellison of being an anti-
Semite. Ellison responded by saying, "Some of my best friends are
Jews. Like my mother. My father. Me."
Jeff Rubenstein came on the air reminding Ellison he was the
manager of a Crown Books shop in the San Fernando Valley
where Ellison shopped. "What's your idea?" Ellison asked.
He wished he hadn't "How about the domestication of Arabian
camels to be used as race animals for American racetrack betting;
and National Football League players all want to ride them as
jockeys."
"Jeff," Ellison said, "you are a good and decent human being,
and I thank you for all your courtesy when I come into Crown,
but that is in the top tenth of the first percentile of lamebrained
ideas I have ever had thrown at me."

HARLAN ELLISON
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248
"In other words, you're giving up, admitting defeat, is that it?"
Hodel said. Ellison threw the can of Fresca past his head.
"I'm not admitting defeat," Ellison said. "I just need a while to
let this one percolate. It ain't easy."
"Okay, we'll take another call."
"My name is Dan Turner. How about a story in which someone
invents a way for individuals to get what they deserve?"
Ellison smiled. "Not what they want . . . what they deserve?"
"Yeah."
"That's easy. The guy who develops the gizmo has been in love
with this beautiful, witty, intelligent woman all his life, but she
won't have anything to do with him. Contrariwise, there's this
plain-looking woman—not ugly, just sort of average—who's been
in love with him, and she can't get him. Well, when he's busy turn-
ing this gizmo on people, giving them what they deserve, someone
turns it on him . . ."
"And he gets the plain woman, right?" Hodel said.
"Wrong. He gets a thoroughly rotten woman. He didn't even
deserve the nice, decent, average woman."
"It doesn't knock me out," Hodel said.
"The original idea didn't send me to the moon, either, Hodel.
I'm dancing as fast as I can here."
Hodel punched up another call. Ellison was beginning to reel.
He had the feeling he had been sucked headfirst into the collective
head of science fiction fandom, and he didn't like the neigh-
borhood. "You're on the air."
"Hi, I'm Charles Garcia, and my topic for a story is another
story about the little blue Jewish aliens with wheels who needed a
minyan for their dying planet; and throw in something about the
Pope, if possible."
"You mean you want me to write a sequel to I'm Looking for
Kadak'?"
"Uh-huh."
"Mr. Garcia, that's not an idea. I did that one already."
"Oh." He sounded wounded. "Okay." And he rang off.
Ellison looked chagrined. "I think I hurt his feelings."
"As opposed to the thousands you've insulted tonight who are
probably all slashing their wrists or mailing you bombs," Hodel
said wryly.
"Yeah, well ... I didn't mean to upset Garcia."

249
Hodel put on another caller. Mayer Alan Brenner.
"I know you," Ellison said.
"You sure do. And I've got a beauty for you."
"Be still my heart," Ellison said, sinking down on his spine.
"It's an excerpt from NORTHEAST TREE AND STREAM,"
Mayer said. "A short natural history of the famous Chesapeake
Tree-Climbing Octopus . . ."
"Why me?" Ellison groaned. "Which God did I offend?"
"All of them," said Hodel.
Mayer went on, undaunted by sounds of pain coming over his
radio. "This retiring and rarely-glimpsed creature lives in the
many quiet estuaries of the Chesapeake system. Early each morn-
ing the octopus leaves the water and crawls up the trunk of a
shoreside tree. It makes its way precariously onto a branch
overhanging the water, where it waits for its prey to pass under-
neath."
Silence ensued. Dead air hung heavily in the night.
Finally, Ellison said, "And that's it, right? That's the idea,
right, Mayer?"
"Uh-huh."
More silence. Then, in a very soft, very tired voice, Ellison said,
"These blue-skinned Jewish aliens with wheels come down to
Earth and kidnap the Pope so they can have a race on Arabian
camels to establish whether Jews or Gentiles are worthiest to live
in the universe, and the Pope gets all these NFL players to ride as
his team, because they're all Polish or black and not a Jew in the
lot, and they have this watercourse raceway and they race for the
universe, and as they come under this tree in the Chesapeake sys-
tem the octopus drops out of a tree and eats every last, fucking
one of them, football players, Jewish aliens, the Pope, the camels,
Brian Sipe and Terry Bradshaw and Walter Payton and you too
Mayer!"
In the control room Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, was try-
ing to laugh and pick his nose at the same time.
"The time is 10:55 and this is KPFK-FM in Los Angeles,"
Hodel said. "And this is Hour 25, the weekly program of specula-
tive fiction, science fiction, fantasy and wonder . . . and I'm your
host, Mike Hodel."
"This is a science fiction program?!" Ellison shrieked. "This
isn't The 700 Club? But I came to declare for Ba'al!"

HARLAN ELLISON
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250
Hodel punched up a call. "You're on the air."
It was William Stout, the artist responsible for the bestselling
DINOSAURS book. "I want him to think up a story in which
William Stout gets to meet some real dinosaurs," he said. He
waited.
Ellison said, "Okay, there's this story in which William Stout
gets to meet some real dinosaurs, and they have lots and lots of
real nice adventures, and if you want to find out how this story
ends, go to the library and ask Miss Beckwith to let you check out
the book. So long, Stout, you asshole."
Hodel said, "Thank God we have an eight second delay on the
live phone lines."
"You don't have any eight second delay," Ellison said.
"I know, I know," Hodel said, dropping his head into his
hands.
"And now, let's cut to Pasadena, to the LungFishCon, for the
weekly calendar of events and the scintillant Terry Hodel, this
dip's ex-wife," Ellison said. Hodel was weeping.
Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, threw the switch and the
booth went dead as Terry Hodel did the calendar remote.
Hodel looked up, with tears in his eyes. "The FCC's gonna get
me again. You did it to me the last time, and you're gonna do it
again this time."
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it," Ellison
said. Then a look of transcendental horror passed over his face.
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod . . . where's Jane? What happened
to my girl friend, Jane? Where did I leave her? Ohmigod, this pro-
gram has drained my brain. Where did I park her, did I lock her,
is someone even now stealing her hubcaps?"
"She went home to North Attleboro to see her parents last
week," Hodel said. "Calm down. She's all right."
Ellison visibly relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief. "Boy, it was
touch-and-go there for a minute."
Burt Handelsman, c.e., suddenly boomed in the room. "Terry's
almost finished. Get set for a cue."
The red light flashed and Hodel said, "Well, we're back now.
How're you doing, Harlan?"
"You know, I work seriously at my craft. I spend hours and
days and months and years writing these stories with proper seri-
ous intent . . . and then I'm thrown into conjunction with my

251
readers . . . and it's scary, very scary. These people are all nuts!"
"Yes, but you're the one making stories out of these crazy
ideas."
"I'm just a Force for Good in My Time," Ellison replied.
"Well, we're going to make it easy for you," Hodel said.
"Group Mind, we're only going to take, say, five more ideas; and
then Harlan and I will just chat about other things."
"Bless yuh, Massa Ho'del suh; I jus' loves wukkin' foah yuh
heah on de plantation."
Hodel punched up a caller. "This is Tad Stones, and I'm calling
in an idea for Ed Coffey."
"Good old Ed Coffey, whoever the hell he is," Ellison mur-
mured. "Now they're selling shares in my breakdown."
"This is a science fiction story," Tad Stones said.
"What a swell change of pace," Ellison said through clenched
teeth, thereby making it unintelligible to the audience.
"An average looking man offers the owner of a video arcade a
free computer game for market testing. At the same moment, ap-
parently the same man is making the same offer to arcades across
the country."
Ellison gritted his teeth. The sound of avalanches went out at
one million cycles per second.
"It's an alien plot, okay?" Ellison said.
"You asking me," Tad Stones said.
"Yeah. I'm asking you. Alien invasion, right?"
"Sure. If you say so."
"Clones. They're clones. That okay, too?"
"Uh huh."
"Alien clone invasion, howzabout it?"
"Why are you asking me?"
"I aims to please, Mr. Stones. An alien clone invasion from Far
Centauri that has as its secret intent the violent overthrow of video
arcades. How about it, Stones, you dip? Satisfactory?"
Hodel was getting disturbed. Ellison was no longer funny. He
was getting actively vicious. The self-mocking tone at the edge of
his remarks was vanishing. Hodel scribbled a note and thrust it in
front of Ellison's glazed eyes. Are you okay?
"Am I okay, am I okay?" Ellison howled. "No, I'm not okay.
I'm going bugfuck in here! Do you have any idea what it does to

HARLAN ELLISON
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252
someone who spends fifteen hours a day writing to have to deal
with this shit?"
"I write, too, Harlan," Hodel said gently.
His concern was evident Ellison, who had been spiraling up
into hysteria, calmed down quickly. "I'm sorry. Yes, of course,
you understand. I've read ENTER THE LION and you're a very
good writer, Mike. He's a very good writer, folks." He paused.
"But I'm still going bugfuck!"
Great clouds of smoke Etna'd from his pipe.
There were only four more to go. The first was a man named
Jon Clarke who reminded Ellison that he had held down the tire-
puncture spikes at the entrance to Cal State, Northridge, when the
writer had spoken there some years before and was late in arriving
and had to drive in the egress to get to the auditorium. He offered
an idea about a Group Mind on cable television stealing the souls
of those who appear in its circuits. Ellison was far gone by that
time, and could make no sense of the idea. He babbled something
about gestalt video vampirism and sank into a depressed funk.
Then a woman named Diana AdMns called and they both lis-
tened as she said, "This really happened, A little boy I knew, who
was very bright, was asked why, in school and everywhere else, he
didn't exhibit how bright he was. And he said, If I hold a candle
under the bed, no one will see the flame,' and when he was asked
why he would hold a candle under the bed, he said, 'Because if I
don't, someone will put it out.'"
Hodel said, "That's very sad." Ellison said nothing.
"Thank you for calling," Hodel said. He cut to a new caller.
Only two to go. He was worried about his guest. He'd known
Ellison for years, and the sharpest parallel to what seemed to be
happening to him was a story Ellison had written about a man
being drained by emotional vampires. He wanted to cut this off
before something more spectacular than he could handle went
down.
"You're on the air, and you're next to last, so make it good,"
His name was James Haralson, he was calling from Covina, and
he said, "A TV evangelist Markus Osgood, awakes one fine
morning in his huge bed to discover that during the night some-
thing inexplicable had occurred. His consciousness had slipped.
Somehow, as he slept next to the lovely and beloved Catherine,

253
his center-of-being, his point of view, his 'I,' had shifted from the
usual spot in his head and was hovering near his left armpit."
Ellison mumbled, "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?"
But Haralson was continuing. "Disconcerting, it was; and dis-
orienting. But he makes do until that afternoon when, during his
live, satellite-beamed, ocean-spanning ministry of the air, his con-
sciousness starts slipping again. As he talks to the Orange County
studio audience, he realizes his center-of-being is heading for his
navel."
"I'm going mad," Ellison muttered. "I've gone mad; I've been
sent to Hell and I'm never never going to be reprieved."
Hodel rushed in quickly. "That's an invalid concept. Con-
sciousness isn't in a certain location. It's wherever you perceive it
to be. In the Eighteenth Century they thought it was in the heart,
the Greeks thought it was in the liver, which is why Prometheus
had his liver chewed out by the big bird. Because of Freud we
think consciousness is in the brain."
Haralson argued. "Well, if he thinks it's heading somewhere
else, from his armpit to his navel to beyond . . . then it could be.
So let Ellison say where it's heading."
Ellison drew a deep breath, sat up, laid his pipe on the studio
table, leaned in close to the mike and said, "It's heading for
Provo, Utah, where it will meet a woman who works for the city
sanitation department, in the typing pool; it will woo her, win her,
marry her and have three children by her, one of which will be a
waterhead like you."
Then he slumped back in his chair. He closed his eyes.
"Uh . . ." Hodel said. "Uh ... he was, uh, just kidding, Mr.
Haralson. It's been a long night. Just a joke."
"Didn't sound like a damned joke to me," Haralson said. "I
didn't call in to be insulted."
"Consider it lagniappe," Ellison murmured.
Haralson hung up.
Hodel was now flat-out worried. Ellison was on the far side of
flakey. This wasn't such a good show any more. It was getting use-
less and nasty. He decided to take on the last caller himself.
He punched up the last call, signalling Burt Handelsman, c.e.,
to cut off all other incoming callers, and said, "Okay, you're the
last idea tonight. What've you got for us?"
"My name is Genadie Sverlow, and my idea is that the reason

HARLAN ELLISON
THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES
254
Sherlock Holmes never went after Jack the Ripper is that the
Ripper was actually Dr. Watson, and Holmes knew it."
Hodel heaved a sigh of relief. Synchronicity lived! His novel,
ENTER THE LION, was a Sherlock Holmes pastiche. It could
not have been a better question.
"Glad you asked that," Hodel said. "In point of fact, it couldn't
have been Watson. The reason is, if you'll excuse the expression,
elementary. Look: would you want Sherlock Holmes looking for
you? Of course not. Watson couldn't be the Ripper . . . he'd
know that Holmes could spot him right off. Besides . . . it's bad
art. Too pat."
Ellison stood up and stepped away from the microphone as
Hodel went on. "There are other reasons, chronological ones, why
he couldn't have; but that's the bottom line. It would have been
too dangerous. Whatever else Watson was, he was no fool."
Burt Handelsman, c.e., came to the window between the studio
and the control booth and held up a note written with heavy felt-
tip lines: THERE'S A GUY ON LINE 4 NAMED TIM LEWIS
WHO SAYS HE HAD THE SAME STORY IDEA. WANT
HIM?
Hodel signalled no, and drew a finger across his throat to indi-
cate no more calls. Then, before the caller on the line could get
him into further Holmesian minutiae, he cut the line. "Okay,
that's the end of the story ideas."
He looked over at Ellison. The writer was standing with his
face to the wall. The time was 11:26 turning to 27.
"Harlan?"
The writer turned slowly. His eyes were cold and faraway.
"We've got about thirty-three minutes. Want to just chat about
what you're writing these days?"
Ellison nodded wearily and fell into the seat again.
Then a voice came through the studio speaker. "May I impose,
please, to enter your conversation?" It was a male voice.
Hodel snapped a look at the call director. All the lights were
eut. He raised his eyes to B.H., c.e., and drew a finger across his
throat sharply, urgently. "No more calls, please!" he said. But
Handelsman was looking frantic. He waved wildly and indicated
by his confusion that he wasn't responsible for this call.
Hodel looked for the little red light on the mike pedestal that
indicated the speaker phone was on. It was dark.

255
Ellison didn't seem to realize what was happening.
What was happening, beyond reason, was that someone was
coming in over the telephone lines . . . without using the tele-
phone lines. Hodel decided to go with it—carefully.
"Do you have an idea for Harlan Ellison? It's pretty late and
we were just going to knock around some small talk."
The voice said, "There is a concept of some interest. Postulate,
if you will, an alien life-form; an intelligent, sensitive being who,
for reasons we need not go into now, has been cast adrift.
Marooned, if you will, in a dark place. Alone, left to drift between
the stars. And there it waits, without light, without weight, without
emotional sustenance, without the companionship of thinking,
feeling beings. A thing without purpose. Waiting, forever waiting,
drifting emptily in the stars."
Burt was running around the control room trying to find the ac-
tive link. He kept coming back to the window, pushing his nose
against the glass and waving his arms wildly. It wasn't happening,
it simply could not, would not be happening!
"Where are you calling from?" Hodel asked.
"Nearby," said the voice.
Hodel didn't know what to do but continue talking.
"Well, that's an interesting idea," he said. "Maybe it's not the
newest idea, but—"
Ellison was leaning in to the mike. His eyes were closed, and
his face looked strained. "But how do we know this being is as
represented?" he said. His voice was calm now, all trace of his
tension and hysteria gone.
"What do you mean, if I may ask?" said the voice.
"Well, what I mean is this," Ellison said. "What if this crea-
ture, this sentience, this intelligence, was marooned by its own
kind for reasons humans couldn't even understand; but for some
quality or maleficence that branded it forever as a life-form unfit
to exist with—"
"With responsible beings?" the voice said.
"If you will. What if?"
"Then perhaps the lonely creature would wait until it could
make contact, to fall back on the kindness of other decent, re-
sponsible beings."
"Ah," Ellison said, concentrating. "I see. Wait for some gull-

HARLAN ELLISON
THE HOUR THAT STRETCHES
2 56
ible, young species that would be so amazed it wouldn't ask the
proper questions. That would take this Trojan horse in, to succor
it . . ."
"To warm it."
"To nurture and protect it."
"Yes, yes, that is exactly what I speak of. A new home without
darkness, where the companionship of other thinking beings
would return it to the community of intelligent beings."
"I don't think so," Ellison said.
"What do you mean?" the voice said.
"What I mean," Ellison said, now staring at the wall beyond
the microphone, "is that we know about you. We've known about
you for a long time. You don't think they cast you out on their
way past, and left you there to find a home, do you? They left rec-
ords. We know what you are, and where you are. When we reach
that pocket of space where you lie, we will do one of two things:
ignore you ... or destroy you."
"You cannot destroy me."
"You mean destroy that hypothetical creature we were talking
about."
"Yes. Hypothetical. It cannot be destroyed."
"But it can be left to swim in blindness forever."
The speaker went dead.
Ellison sank back in his seat.
Hodel stared at him. His mouth was open. In the control booth,
Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, sat staring at the console.
After a while, Ellison rose, let out a long breath, and walked
wearily toward the door of the studio. Hodel sat where he was. As
Ellison opened the soundlock door, Hodel said, "Jesus, am I
crazy, or did you just save the entire world?"
Ellison looked back over his shoulder and managed a faint
smile. "I'm just your basic everyday Force for Good in Our
Time," he said. "And if I ever offer to talk to fans again, I want
you to drive a stake through my heart."
He walked out, the door sighed shut, and Mike Hodel realized
it was still three minutes till midnight.
"Uh, this is KPFK-FM, 90.7 megahertz on your dial; and this
has been Hour 25. Fm Mike Hodel; our crack engineer this eve-
ning has been Burt Handelsman; and for Terry Hodel, myself, and

257
our guest, Harlan Ellison, this has been the hour that stretches."
He paused a moment and added, "And to all our listeners,
wherever they may be, whatever they may be, I haven't the
faintest idea what the hell went on here tonight."

THE DAY I DIED
An excerpt from
The Harlan Ellison Hornbook (1973)

THE DAY 1 DIED
An excerpt from
The Harlan Ellison Hornbook (1973)
Driving home from Norman Spinrad's New Year's Eve party at
which I finally met Cass Elliot—as invigorating an experience as
one could wish for the dawn of a new year—skimming the crusty
'67 Camaro with its 56,000 miles of dead years in its metal bones
through Beverly Hills, KFAC was working Ravel's Bolero. Not
tired, it was still early for a New Year's Eve, something like one
o'clock.
Thinking,
No. Woolgathering. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language, p. 1473, col. 2; woolgathering «. Absent-
minded indulgence in fanciful daydreams.) That's what I was
doing: woolgathering.
Frequently, that's how my writer's mind conceives plots for sto-
ries, or more accurately, concepts for stories. The unconscious
computer makes a storage bank search of idle thoughts looking
for linkages, cross-references, points of similarity. When it finds
something interesting, it checks it against all the muddle and mud
swirling around in the cortex, and comes up with something that
makes a story.
The elements this time were these:
1972 is gone. It's a new year. 1973. Another year.
One year older. Moving on up the road toward the grave jutt
the way old Camaro is moving on up the road to Beverly Glea.
Traveling the road.
Harry Truman is gone. I miss him, Salty old Harry who told
them all to go fuck themselves. Ten years ago he said he wouldn't
die for at least ten more because he had ten years' work still to do

HARLAN ELLISON
THE DAY I DIED
262
in the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. Ten years later,
all the work done, almost to the month, he died. Did he know?
Could I know when I'm going to die?
Will I get to finish all the stories I have to write?
Will I suddenly get rammed by a Pontiac Grand Am at the next
light, centerpunched into an early oblivion?
When will I die?
New Year's Eve is a good time to think about it.
So. This column.
Thinking about when I'll die. Mortality is the subject.
I will die in 1973. Here is how it happened.
I went to New York to be guest of honor at a science fiction
convention called the Lunacon. To amortize the cost of the trip I
accepted several lecture gigs in surrounding areas. So I went into
Manhattan two weeks before the convention. I had just returned
from speaking at Dartmouth, and was staying with my friend Max
Katz, the Sesame Street segment director, in his Penthouse G on
East 65th Street. Max and Karen were out when I taxied in from
Kennedy International, and after putting away my overnight case I
found the note they'd left for me: We went to dinner at The Proof
of the Pudding. If you get in by nine, join us. Love, M&K.
I looked at my watch. It was 9:28. Still time to meet them for a
piece of Key West lime pie. I left the apartment and took the ele-
vator to the lobby. The street was quiet and pleasant with an April
breeze. I started to walk down 65th to First Avenue, carefully
avoiding the piles of dog shit
Two guys in Army field jackets were coming toward me, up the
street I instinctively tensed. I was in New York and could not for-
get that Karen had had her purse ripped off her shoulder in broad
daylight in front of Bloomingdale's, in front of hordes of people
who would not help her as she struggled with the snatcher. New
York was not what it had been when last I'd lived there, in 1961.
As they came toward me they parted so I could walk between
them. I guess I knew in my gut what was about to happen. They
swung on me and jammed me against the brick wall of the poodle
clipping joint down the street from Max's building. They both had
knives.
"Gimme your wallet," one of them said, not even lowering his

263
voice. He pushed his knife against my collarbone. The other one
smelled of fish.
I remembered a way I'd confounded a mugger many years be-
fore. I began mumbling unintelligibly in what was supposed to be
a foreign tongue, waving my hands feebly as if I didn't understand
English.
"Your money, motherfucker . . . I'll shove this in your fucking
throat!"
I rolled my eyes wildly and continued babbling.
A group of people had come out of Max's apartment building,
were turning toward us. "Come on," said the one who smelled of
fish. "You cocksuckerl" the one with the knife at my collarbone
said.
They let go and moved off. I took two steps and felt the pain. I
tried to turn, and saw the one who had done all the talking had
spun and come back at me. The pain was in my back, below my
right shoulderblade. It got worse. Doors slammed in my head. Ev-
erything went silver. I fell to my knees.
The group from Max's building walked past me. I fell down
and lay there. In a little while I died.
Max and Karen came home from dinner and didn't find out I'd
been killed outside their building till the next afternoon. Karen
cried, the Lunacon had a minute of silence for me, and my re-
placement, Isaac Asimov, said dear good things about me, better
than I deserved.
I died on April 19th, 1973.
I will die in 1981. Here is how it happened.
I was living in Perthshire, in Scotland. I had had a bad cold for
weeks. I was living alone. The girl who had been staying with me
had gone away. I was writing DIAL 9 TO GET OUT at last. My
big novel. The one that would finally break my name into the
memory books of great writers. It had taken me ten years to get to
it. I was deep in the writing. I didn't eat regularly, I've never been
one for cooking for myself. I developed pneumonia in that hand-
some old farmhouse.
It killed me. I never finished the book. My stories were read for
a few years, but soon went out of vogue.
No one in that little Scottish town understood that as I lay

HARLAN ELLISON
THE DAY I DIED
264
there, doped up and dying, that the pathetic movements of my
hands were my attempts to convey to the nurse or the doctor that
I wanted my typewriter, that I wanted more than anything, more
than even life, to finish that book.
I died on December 11th, 1981.
I will die in 1986. Here is how it happened.
ALL THE LIES THAT ARE MY LIFE had been published in
March. Book-of-the-Month Club had taken it as its April selec-
tion. The film rights were being negotiated by Marty. It looked to
be the best year I'd ever had.
I was on a publicity tour for the book, fresh from a talk show
over holovid. Oh, yes, I should mention holovid. After two-dimen-
sional depth television, Westinghouse developed "feelie," a rather
euphemistic name for projected video, giving the vague impression
of the actual presence in your living room of the actors. Then the
cable people in conjunction with LaserScience, Ltd. of Great Brit-
ain combined holograms with 3-D projection techniques and came
up with holovid, in which the viewer actually became a part of the
show or studio audience.
I was in Denver, preparing to be choppered over to the studio,
when I fell ill. I was using depilatory on my beard in the hotel
suite's bathroom when I felt dizzy and suddenly keeled over. The
publishers' rep and the PR woman heard me crash and came run-
ning. They got me to the hospital where the phymech took read-
ings. (A phymech is a robot physician, used primarily for running
physicals and determining the nature of the illness. Lousy bedside
manner, but they've cut down the incidence of improper analysis
by eighty per cent over their human counterparts.)
Hie judgment was cancer of the stomach.
I went into surgery the next morning. It had spread, running
wild, not even the anti-agapic drugs would work. I was fisted as
terminal. Perhaps two weeks, the last five of those days heavily
sedated against the pain. It was a shame: the Cancer Society was
on the verge of a major breakthrough. Had I lived another five
years, I'd have seen cancer become no more serious than the flu.
I spent the last two weeks in a hospital bed, a typewriter
propped on a little table. The newspapers came and did their in-

265
terviews briefly ... I was abrupt with them, I'm afraid. I didn't
have too much time to talk, I had things to write.
I finished my last novel in that bed, but the final twenty thou-
sand words were rather garbled, I was so drugged, going in and
out of consciousness. But I finished it, and was saved the horror of
having another writer complete the work from my notes.
When I died, I was not unhappy. I rather regretted being denied
those last twenty years, though. I had such stories to write.
I died on my birthday, May 27th, 1986.
I died in 1977 when a right-winger shot me because I'd done an
article in World magazine on President Goldwater, and how he
should be indicted as a criminal for the war in Brazil.
I died in 1979 in a plane crash in Ceylon. I was on my way to
see Arthur Clarke. We were going to go scuba diving off the coast
of coral. The plane exploded; I never knew what hit me. My
fourth wife got the flight insurance.
I died in 1982 during the worst blizzard the East Coast had
ever seen. I froze to death in my car on a lonely Connecticut road
where I'd run out of gas. Some asshole suggested that because I'd
been frozen, they might try to cryogenically preserve me for resto-
ration later. Fortunately, he was ignored.
I died in 1990 from a sudden, massive coronary. I was sitting at
home on a Sunday afternoon and felt the slam of it, and had just a
moment to realize I was dying the same way my father had died.
But he would never have a postage stamp commemorating his
achievements.
I died in 1998 from ptomaine poisoning in a sea food restau-
rant in the undersea resort city of Cayman. They had to wait three
weeks to ship my carcass out; it would have been simpler to turn
me into fish food and let my soul wander the Cayman Trench. I
always hated the lack of imagination of Those in Power.
I died in 2001 on my way back from Sweden. I died very
peacefully, in my sleep, onboard the catamaran-cruiser Farragut,
somewhere in mid-Atlantic. I died with a smile on my face, lying
in bed, holding the Nobel Prize for Literature to my chest like a
teddy bear.
I died in 2010 from weary old age, surrounded by grand-

HARLAN ELLISON
THE DAY I DIED
266
children and old friends who remembered the titles of my stories.
I didn't mind going at all, I was really tired.
Hey! You! The skinny sonofabitch with the scythe. I'm over
here . . . Ellison. I saw you looking at me out of the corner of
that empty socket in your skull-face, you sleazy eggsucker. Well,
listen, m'man, understand this: since I know I'm going straight to
Hell anyhow, and since I've always lived with the feeling that
Heavens and Hells are sucker traps for the slow-witted and one
should get as much goodie as one can while one is breathing,
you'd better get used to the idea that you're going to have to come
and get me when my time's up. Kicking and screaming, you blade-
boned crop-killer. Hand to hand or at gunpoint, you're going to
have to fight me for my life.
Because I've got too much stuff yet to do, too many stories yet
to write, too many places I've never seen, too many books I've
never read, too many women to admire, and too many laughs yet
to cry. So don't think I'll be a cheap acquisition, clatterframe!
And if you do get me, I'll be the damnedest POW you ever saw.
I'll try and escape, and if I can't, I'll send back messages.
And it'll drive your bony ass crazy, Mr. D., because I'll be the
first one to write about what it's like over there in your country.
• This essay-fiction, written as a speculative lark for The Harlan Ellison
Hornbook column in the now-defunct Los Angeles Free Press in January of
1973, recently almost became redundant. On May 20th, 1982, at approxi-
mately 2:45 pm, the Author, in company with his Executive Assistant, Marty
Clark, crashed his beloved 1967 Camaro (mileage 170,000) at a speed of
55 mph on the San Diego Freeway. Both the Author and Ms. Clark came
as close as they have ever been to the boneyard, yet they escaped the wreck
unscathed. Having now bypassed the first two demises in this essay, the
Author contends he will live forever. This does not delight the Author's
enemies.

3 TALES FROM
THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
TRACKING LEVEL
TINY ALLY
THE GODDESS IN THE ICE

TRACKING LEVEL
Claybourne's headlamp picked out the imprint at once. It was
faint in the beam, yet discernible, with the telltale mark of the
huge, three-toed foot. He was closer than ever.
He drew a deep breath, and the plastic air-sack on his breather
mask collapsed inward. He expelled the breath slowly, watching
the diamond-shaped sack expand once more.
He wished wildly for a cigarette, but it was impossible. First be-
cause the atmosphere of the tiny planetoid would not keep one
going, and second because he'd die in the thin air.
His back itched, but the loose folds of the protective suit pre-
vented any lasting relief, for all his scratching.
The faint starlight of shadows crossing the ground made weird
patterns. Claybourne raised his head and looked out across the
plain of blue saw-grass at the distant mountains. They looked like
so many needles thrust up through the crust of the planetoid. They
were angry mountains. No one had ever named them; which was
not strange, for nothing but the planetoid itself had been named.
It had been named by the first expedition to the Antares Clus-
ter. They had named it Selangg—after the alien ecologist who had
died on the way out.
They recorded the naming in their log, which was fortunate, be-
cause the rest of them died on the way back. Space malady, and
an incomplete report on the planetoid Selangg, floating in a death
ship around a secondary sun of the Partias Group.
He stood up slowly, stretching slightly to ease the tension of his
body. He picked up the molasses-gun and hefted it absently. Off
to his right he heard a scampering, and swung the beam in its di-
rection.

HARLAN ELLISON
TRACKING LEVEL
270
A tiny, bright-green animal scurried through the crewcut desert
saw-grass.
Is that what the fetl lives on? he wondered.
He actually knew very little about the beast he was tracking.
The report given him by the Institute at the time he was commis-
sioned to bring the fetl back was, at best, sketchy; pieced together
from that first survey report.
The survey team had mapped many planetoids, and only a hur-
ried analysis could be made before they scuttled to the next world.
All they had listed about the fetl was a bare physical description—
and the fact that it was telekinetic.
What evidence had forced this conclusion was not stated in the
cramped micro-report, and the reason died with them.
"We want this animal badly, Mr. Claybourne," the Director of
the Institute had said.
"We want him badly because he just may be what this report
says. If he is, it will further our studies of extra-sensory perception
tremendously. We are willing to pay any reasonable sum you
might demand. We have heard you're the finest wild-game hunter
on the Periphery.
"We don't care how you do it, Mr. Claybourne, but we want
the fetl brought back alive and unharmed."
Claybourne had accepted immediately. This job had paid a
pretty sum—enough to complete his plans to kill Carl Garden.
The prints paced away, clearly indicating the beast was heading
for refuge in the mountains. He studied the flat surface of the
grassy desert, and heaved a sigh.
He'd been at it three weeks, and all he'd found had been tracks.
Clear, unmistakable tracks, and all leading toward the mountains.
The beast could not know it was being tracked, yet it continued
moving steadily.
The pace had worn away at Claybourne.
He gripped the molasses-gun tighter, swinging it idly in small,
wary arcs. He had been doing that—unknowing—for several days.
The hush of the planetoid was working on him.
Ahead, the towering bleakness of Selangg's lone mountain
range rose full-blown from the shadows of the plain. Up there.
Twenty miles of stone jumbled and strewn piece on piece; sev-

271
enteen thousand feet high. Somewhere in those rocks was an ani-
mal Claybourne had come halfway across the galaxy to find. An
animal that was at this moment insuring Carl Garden's death.
He caught another print in the beam.
He stooped to examine it There was a faint wash of sand
across it, where the wind had scurried past. The foot-long paw-
print lay there, mocking him, challenging him, asking him what he
was doing here—so far from home, so far from warmth and life
and ease.
Claybourne shook his head, clearing it of thoughts that too eas-
ily impinged. He'd been paid half the sum requested, and that had
gone to the men who were now stalking Garden back on Earth.
To get the other half, he had to capture the fetl. The sooner that
was done, the better.
The fetl was near. Of that he was now certain. The beast cer-
tainly couldn't go over the mountains and live. It had to hole up in
the rocks somewhere.
He rose, squinted into the darkness. He flicked the switch on his
chest-console one more notch, heightening the lamp's power. The
beam drove straight ahead, splashing across the gray, faceless
rocks. Claybourne tilted his head, staring through the clear hood,
till a sharply-defined circle of brilliant white stabbed itself onto
the rock before him.
That was going to be a job, climbing these mountains. He de-
cided abruptly to catch five hours sleep before pushing up the
flank of the mountains.
He turned away, to make a resting place at the foot of the
mountains, and with the momentary cessation of the tracking,
found old thoughts clambering back into his mind.
Shivering inside his protection suit—though none of the chill of
Selangg could get through to him—he inflated the foam-rest at-
tached to the back of his suit. He lay down, in the towering ebony
shadows, looking up at the clear, eternal night sky. And he re-
membered.
Claybourne had owned his own fleet of cargo vessels. It had
been one of the larger chains, including hunting ships and cage-
lined shippers. It had been a money-making chain, until the in-

HARLAN ELLISON
TRACKING LEVEL
272
verspace ships had come along, and thrown Claybourne's obsolete
fuel-driven spacers out of business.
Then he had taken to blockade-running and smuggling, to fer-
rying slaves for the outworld feudal barons, gun-running and even
spaceway robbery.
Through that period he had cursed Carl Garden. It had been
Garden all the way—Garden every step of the way—who had been
his nemesis.
When they finally caught him—just after he had dumped a cargo
of slaves into the sun, to avoid customs conviction—they canceled
his commission, and refused him pilot status. His ships had been
sold at auction.
That had strengthened his hatred for Garden. Garden had
bought most of the fleet. For use as scum-ships and livestock car-
riers.
It had been Garden who had invented the inverspace drive.
Garden who had undercut his fleet, driving Claybourne into re-
ceivership. And finally, it had been Garden who had bought the
remnants of the fleet.
Lower and lower he sank; three years as a slush-pumper on
freighters, hauling freight into shining spacers on planets that had
not yet received power equipment, drinking and hating.
Till finally—two years before—he had reached the point where
he knew he would never rest easily till he had killed Garden.
Claybourne had saved his money. The fleshpots of the Periph-
ery had lost him. He gave up liquor and gambling.
The wheels had been set in motion.
People were working, back on Earth, to get Garden. He was
being pursued and harried, though he never knew it. From the
other side of the galaxy, Claybourne was hunting, chasing, track-
ing his man. And one day, Garden would be vulnerable. Then
Claybourne would come back.
To reach that end, Claybourne had accepted the job from the
Institute.
In his rage to acquire money for the job of getting his enemy,
Claybourne had built a considerable reputation as wild-game
hunter. For circuses, for museums and zoos, he had tracked and
trapped thousands of rare life-forms on hundreds of worlds.
They had finally contacted him on Bouyella, and offered him

273
the ship, the charter, and exactly as much money as he needed to
complete the job back on Earth.
Arrangements had been quickly made, half the pay had been
deposited to Claybourne's accounts (and immediately withdrawn
for delivery to certain men back home), and he had gone out on
the jump to Selangg.
This was the last jump, the last indignity he would have to
suffer. After Selangg—back to Earth. Back to Garden.
He wasn't certain he had actually seen it! The movement had
been rapid, and only in the corner of his eye.
Claybourne leaped up, throwing off the safeties on the
molasses-gun. He yanked off the inflation patch with stiff fingers,
and the foam-rest collapsed back to flatness in his pack.
He took a tentative step, stopped. Had he actually seen some-
thing? Had it been hallucination or a trick of the weak air blanket
of Selangg? Was the hunt getting to him at last? He paused, wet
his lips, took another step.
His scarred, blocky face drew tight. The sharp gray eyes nar-
rowed. Nothing moved but the faint rustling of the blue saw-grass.
The world of Selangg was dead and quiet.
He slumped against the rock wall, his nerves leaping.
He wondered how wise it had been to come on this jump. Then
the picture of Garden's fat, florid face slid before his eyes, and he
knew he had had to come. This was the ending. As he tracked the
fetl, so he tracked Garden.
He quickly reviewed what he knew of the jetrs appearance,
matching it with the flash of movement he had seen:
A big, bloody animal—a devilish-looking thing, all teeth and
legs. Striped like a Sumatran tiger, six-legged, twelve-inch sabered
teeth, a ring of eyes across a massive low brow, giving it nearly
one hundred and eighty degrees of unimpaired straight-line eye-
sight.
Impressive, and mysterious. They knew nothing more about the
beast. Except the reason for this hunt; it was telekinetic, could
move objects by mind-power alone.
A stupid animal—a beast of the fields—yet it possibly held the
key to all future research into the mind of man.
But the mysteries surrounding the fetl were not to concern

HARLAN ELLISON
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274
Claybourne. His job was merely to capture it and put it in the cus-
tody of the Institute for study.
However . . .
It was getting to be a slightly more troublesome hunt now.
Three weeks was a week longer than he had thought the tracking
would take. He had covered most of the five hundred miles that
comprised Selangg's surface. Had it not been for the lessened
gravity and the monstrous desert grasslands, he would still be
searching. The fetl had fled before him.
He would have given up had he not found prints occasionally.
It had been all that had kept him going. That, and the other
half of his pay, deliverable upon receipt of the fetl at the Institute.
It seemed almost uncanny. At almost the very instant he would
consider giving up and turning back to the ship, a print would ap-
pear in the circle of lamplight, and he would continue. It had hap-
pened a dozen times.
Now here he was, at the final step of the trek. At the foot of a
gigantic mountain chain, thrusting up into the dead night of
Selangg. He stopped, the circle of light sliding like cool mercury
up the face of the stone.
He might have been worried, were it not for the molasses-gun.
He cradled the weapon closer to his protective suit
The grapple shot hooked itself well into the jumbled rock
pieces piled above the smooth mountain base. Claybourne tested
it, and began climbing, bracing his feet against the wall, hanging
outward and walking the smooth surface.
Finally, he reached the area where volcanic action had ruptured
the stone fantastically. It was a dull, gray rock, vesiculated like
scoria, tumbled and tumbled. He unfastened the grapple, returned
it to its nest in his pack, and tensing his muscles, began threading
up through the rock formations.
It soon became tedious—but boring. Stepping up and over the
jumbled rock pieces he turned his thoughts idly to the molasses-
gun. This was the first time he had handled one of the new solo
machines. Two-man molasses-guns had been the order till now. A
solo worked the same way, and was, if anything, deadlier than the
more cumbersome two-man job.
He stopped for a moment to rest, sliding down onto a flat stool

275
of rock. He took a closer look at the weapon. The molasses-gun;
or as it was technically known, the Stadt-Brenner Webbing
Enmesher. He liked molasses-gun better; it seemed to describe the
weapon's function so accurately.
The gun produced a steel-strong webbing, fired under tremen-
dous pressure, which coiled the strongest opponent into a helpless
bundle. The more he struggled to free himself, for the webbing
was an unstable plastic, the tighter it bound him.
"Very much like the way I'm enmeshing Garden," Claybourne
chuckled to himself.
The analogy was well-founded. The molasses-gun sucked the
victim deeper and deeper into its coils, just as Claybourne was
sucking Garden deeper and deeper into his death-trap.
Claybourne smiled and licked his lips absently. The moisture
remained for an instant, was swept away by the suit's purifiers.
He started up again. The rocks had fallen in odd formations, al-
most forming a passage up the summit. He rounded a talus slide,
noting even more signs of violent volcanic activity, and headed
once more up the inky slope toward the cliffs rising from the face
of the mountain.
The jetrs prints had become less and less distinct as it had
climbed, disappearing almost altogether on the faceless rocks.
Occasionally a claw-scratch would stand out brightly in the
glare of Clayboume's headlamp beam.
The hours slid by tediously, and though he forced himself to
stop twice more to rest, the light gravity caused him little fatigue
for all his labors.
Once, as before, he thought he caught a splinter-fast movement
of striped body, up on the cliffs, but as before, he could not be
certain.
The faint starshine cast odd shadows, little blobs of black and
silver, across the mountains. From a distance it had looked as
though millions of diamonds were lying on the black surfaces. As
though the mountain were riddled with holes, through which a
giant sun inside the rock was sending pinpoints of light. It was
weird and beautiful.
A fitting place for me to bow off the Periphery, he thought;
thoughts returning to Earth—and Garden. He thought of Earth.
His world.

HARLAN ELLISON
TRACKING LEVEL
2 76
When he skimmed the hood-beam across the rocks twenty feet
above him on the cliff wall, Claybourne saw the cave.
A small incline rose up into the deeper blackness of the cave's
mouth. That had to be it. The only place within a mile of the last
claw-scratch that the fetl could have used to disappear. The
scatches had been clear for a time, leading him up the mountain,
but then they had vanished.
His tracking had been quiet—sound didn't carry far on Selangg.
His tracking had been stealthy—it was always dark on Selangg.
Now his efforts would pay off. His hunt was over. Back to Earth-
to finish that other hunt.
He was banking the other hallucination he had seen was the
real thing.
Claybourne stopped under a rock lip overhang and flat-handed
the compression chamber of the molasses-gun open, peering in-
side. His hood light shone down on the steeled-blue plastic of the
weapon. It was full, all the little gelatin capsules ranged row on
row behind the airtight transparent seal, filling the chamber to the
seams. He flipped it shut, and looked once more toward the sum-
mit, and the cave.
A star gleamed directly over the ragged peaks, directly above
him. He hefted the rifle once more, blew a thin stream of breath
through his pursed lips, and started up the incline.
The tiny rock bits tumbled away under his boots, the crunch of
pebbles carrying up through the insulated suiting. He kept a wary
watch as he climbed, not expecting the beast to appear, but still
taking no chances.
He was certain the fetl did not know he had followed it here to
its lair. Else it would have turned back in a circle, kept running
across the grasslands. His tracking had been subtle and cautious.
Claybourne had learned on the Periphery how to be invisible on a
hostile world, if the need arose. This hunt would end as all the
others had ended: successfully.
The hunt for Garden, too, he mused tightly.
The ragged cave mouth gaped before him.
He surveyed it closely, inclining his beam not directly into the
opening, but tilting it onto the rock wall just inside, so light spilled
over the rockway and he could check for ledged rises over the en-
trance, inside. Nothing but a huge pile of rocks wedged tightly in
place by some miscue of the volcanic action.

277
He flipped a toggle on the chest-console, and the beam became
brighter still, spraying out in a wider, still sharply-defined circle.
He stepped in.
The cave was empty.
No, not empty.
He was three steps into the high-ceilinged cave before he saw
the fetl. It was crouched small as its huge bulk would allow into a
corner, dim in the back of the cave. Hunched as far as it could go
into a niche in the wall.
In as far as its ten-foot hulk permitted, still the beast was huge.
Its monstrous ring of weed-green eyes all staring at him malevo-
lently.
Claybourne felt a sudden shock as he stared into those eyes.
They so much reminded him of Garden's eyes at the auction.
Hungry.
He shook off the feeling, took a step forward. The fetl was
limned clearly in the beam of the helmet torch. It was an impres-
sive animal, tightly coiled at the rear of the cave.
The beast twitched slightly.
Its flanks quivered in the glare of the lamp. Muscles all over its
body rippled, and Claybourne drew back a step to the fire. The
beast twitched again.
He felt the tiny stones in the pile over the entrance clatter to the
cave floor. He could barely hear them tinkle, but the vibrations in
the stone came to him.
He turned his head for a moment, to see what was happening.
His eyes opened wide in terror as he saw the supporting rubble
drop away, leaving the huge rock tottering in its place. The great
stone slid gratingly out of its niche and crashed to the floor of the
cave, sending clouds of rock-dust roiling, completely blocking off
the mouth of the cave. Sealing it permanently.
Claybourne could only stand and watch, horror and a con-
striction in his throat.
His light remained fixed on the cave-in, reflecting back glints of
gold as the dust from the slide swirled itself into small pillars, ris-
ing into the thin air.
Then he heard the rumble.
The sound struck him like a million trumpets, all screaming at
once. He turned, stumbling, his torch flicking back toward the fetl.
The fetl sat up on its four back legs, contentedly washing a

HARLAN ELLISON
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278
front paw with a long red tongue that flicked in and out between
twelve-inch incisors. The lighter black of a small hole behind him
gave an odd illusion of depth to the waiting beast.
Claybourne watched transfixed as the animal slowly got to its
feet and pad-pad-padded toward him, the tongue slipping quickly
in and out, in and out . . .
Suddenly coming to his senses, Claybourne stepped back a pace
and levelled the molasses-gun, pulled the trigger. The stream of
webbing emerged with a vibrant hiss, sped toward the monstrous
fetl.
A foot short of the beast the speeding webbing lost all drive,
fluttered in the still cave for a moment, then fell like a flaccid
length of rope. On the floor it quickly contracted itself, wormlike,
into a tight, small ball.
The fetl licked its chops, the tongue swirling down and across
and up and in again.
Before he could pull the trigger again, Claybourne felt the gun
tremble in his hands. At the same moment he saw the beast's
flanks quiver again.
An instant later the gun ripped itself from his grasp and sent it-
self crashing into the wall. Parts spattered the cave floor as the
seams split, and capsules tumbled out. The molasses-gun's power
compartment emitted a sharp, blue spark, and the machine was
gone.
He was defenseless.
He heard the roar again. Telekinetic! After he had done what
he wished, the animal would leave by the hole in the rear of the
cave. Why bother untumbling the rocks!
The fetl began moving again. Claybourne stumbled back,
tripped on a jutting rock, fell heavily to the floor.
The man backed away across the floor of the cave, the seat of
his suit scraping the rock floor. His back flattened against the
wedged rock in the cave mouth. He was backed as far as he could
go.
He was screaming, the sound echoing back and forth in his
hood, in the cave, in the night.
All he could see, all there was in the universe, was the fetl, ad-
vancing on him, slowly, slowly, taking all the time it needed.
Savoring every instant.
Then, abruptly, at the precise instant he gazed deep into that

279
ring of hate-filled green eyes coming toward him, he realized that
even as he had tracked the fetl, even as he had been tracking Gar-
den—so the fetl had been tracking him!
The fetl licked his lips again, slowly.
Hs had all the time in the world . . .
His world.

TINY ALLY
When we first saw him, he came stumbling across the snow, al-
most beneath our feet. For a moment I thought it was a snow-
swirl, or a shadow. At 18,000 feet, that often happens.
Deszlow stopped and cupped his hands to his mouth, having
pulled up his oxygen mask, and screamed to the rest of us on the
line. "For God's sake! Come here and see this!"
His voice was almost lost beneath the howl of the wind, but we
pulled along the rope to see what he had discovered. Rutledge and
Ferraday and I slid back down the slope, digging our crampons
into the tightly-packed crust, leaving spike-marks in jagged rows.
We clustered around Deszlow, the deranged wind of the summit
bullying us. We stared with great confusion at the tiny mountain-
climber Deszlow had discovered.
Note this: at 500 yards short of the 18,000 foot mark on An-
napurna—we were following in the tracks of the French expedition
that had defeated the peak—on a geophysical survey, we discov-
ered a minuscule climber. He was no more than three inches high,
with a tightly-belted anorak jacket, a pike, tiny crampons, and a
face quite red from exertion. I did not realize it then, but there
were even more physically startling things about him. But one
thing did shock me:
He had a knife in the small, small, small of his back.
A chill that was deeper and sharper than the chill of the wind-
roaring down from the unseen peaks above—touched my spine.
Even as I stood staring at the tiny panting figure, Ferraday's
sudden movement penetrated my frozen consciousness. As it did, I
yelled hoarsely through my mask, "No, you fool! Don't—"
But it was already too late. Ferraday had picked up the tiny

HARLAN ELLISON
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282
man, was holding him tightly by the collar of his jacket, and was
reaching for the knife with his free hand. I still cannot tell how I
knew, but I was suddenly absolutely certain that it was the worst
thing Ferraday could do.
Slipping and staggering on the treacherous surface, I rushed for-
ward. Blindly, I plunged into Ferraday, arms outthrust to stop
him.
There was a brilliant, blinding flash that sprayed the snow with
bloodred shadows.
I felt myself lifted, hurled, smashed to the ground. From the
edge of my vision I saw Ferraday lifted, and thrown down the
mountain. I don't know what snapped the rope . . . perhaps it
was the cutting edge of my pike that ripped it through as Ferraday
went past. . . but I thank God he did not drag the rest of us with
him.
Even as Ferraday crashed face-first into the ice, I heard the
black-bearded Austrian bellow. Ferraday disappeared down the
slope, the rope thrashing behind, the snow billowing out from him
in a fine wedge of white. His scream was muffled, quickly buried
beneath a ton of ice and snow as he helplessly plunged across a
snow-bridge. The bridge collapsed, and he plummeted three thou-
sand feet, vanishing immediately into a rocky fault.
Deszlow and Rutledge stood transfixed, their pikes held at awk-
ward angles, their faces—beneath the beards, glare-glasses and
masks—whiter than normal. Their eyes were large, and I was cer-
tain their mouths were open in horror.
I dragged myself stiffly to elbows and knees, spat a mouthful of
blood and snow across the ice-pack, and tottered to my feet.
The little man was gone.
I sagged back against my pike, leaning, breathing, drawing
breath from a suddenly-insufficient supply. "Ferra . . . Ferraday
. . . he—he's gone . . . ?"
Deszlow's huge square head bobbled confirmation, and Rut-
ledge stared off across the jaggedly split snow-bridge, where a
gaping, sliding crevasse still poured snow atop the mangled body
of our companion—three thousand feet below.
"We'd-we'd better go," Deszlow gasped. "The wind is rising.
The massif will be hell in an hour."
We started out again, up the face of Annapurna, suddenly

283
frightened of this expedition. We had known that death climbed
with us, but not this way . . . not with this shroud of strangeness
that hung over us.
Who ... or what . . . had the little man been?
In the next hour Deszlow's words came true. The massif. It was
a hell; but not of the kind we had imagined.
Unquestionably, it had been the presence of the little man—
whose snow-filled tracks we occasionally observed coming down,
as we climbed steadily up—that sharpened our senses enough to
see it.
We had climbed for the hour, hoping to find a sheltering ledge
before the storm broke on the mountain; we were just passing a
series of small caves, intaglios in the face of the cliffs, when Rut-
ledge signaled by dragging on the line.
We stopped; he was pointing; we looked.
Wedged in the rocks, shoved into a breach that was little more
than a fissure, was a bright, shining sliver of metal, perhaps ten
feet long; no question arose in our minds ... the shape was to-
tally familiar, from popularizations in newspapers and magazines.
It was a spaceship.
There, 18,000 feet up one of the highest mountains on Earth,
we had come upon a spaceship. We had no more than a moment
to stare, for as we advanced toward it, sliding across the roll of the
slope, a port opened, and a group of five figures, identical to the
little man we had seen before, emerged.
They carried weapons. The equipment was so small, and so in-
tricate, we had only a brief glimpse of delicate machinework and
involved mechanisms before they opened fire on us. Had we been
unprepared, had we not been set alert by the presence of the first
little man, we would have been dead at once.
But even as the same bloodred shadows illuminated the snow,
and the beams of what had to be raw energy sizzled from their
rifles, we were leaping aside. I jumped forward and to the right,
clawing in the snow with hands and feet for some purchase. I
caught the incredible heat of one beam over my left shoulder, and
behind me I heard Rutledge scream as it tore through his face.
Then I felt a tug on the line, and knew he was down, he was

HARLAN ELLISON
TINY ALLY
284
dead. I was hauling a dead man behind me. There wasn't time to
think about it; with an insane fury born of fear, I struggled to my
knees, and brought my pike up over my bead.
Deszlow was to my left, cowering in the snow as the bolts of en-
ergy smashed over him.
I brought down the pike.
It flattened two of the little men at once, and the other three
ran, slipping, back to the ship.
I screamed something—I have no idea what—at Deszlow, and he
flopped forward, grabbed at one end of the ship . . . and with all
our strength we wrenched the ship free of the fissure.
I struggled forward again, losing my grip, then regaining it. I
could see jet tubes of some strange sort, protruding from the rear,
and from within I heard the beginning of what must have been a
generator whine.
Together we lifted the ship, bumbled erect, and with a mon-
strous effort threw the ship as hard as we could, down the side of
the mountain.
They tried to get the engines started; we saw a blast of flame
leap from the aft section of the ship, but in a second it went out as
the ship struck an outcropping of rock, and twisted grotesquely.
Their drive was useless, and as we stared wildly, the ship bounced,
crashed, careened down the slope. Before it plunged into the
snow-mists ten thousand feet below, we saw the little sliver of
metal shine much more brightly, and then with a flash and a roar,
erupt in flame and a scatter of metal and flesh.
How bright it was against the killer snow.
Somehow, we got down, carrying Rutledge's body. His face was
entirely gone, charred completely off. We never found enough of
the ship to reconstruct even a small portion of it
We do not know why they were there. I don't think we'll ever
know. Whether they were invaders from another planet, or just
visitors ... is something we will never know. But we know this:
the little man who first accosted us had been trying to warn us
away, had been trying to get to us to tell us about his ship and his
companions. And if they were not malevolent, if they were not
here to try conquest of some sort, why had they knifed him? Why
did they destroy him when he was so close to speaking to us? Why
did they fire on us?

285
I don't suppose it will outlast the first real slide or storm up
there. Deszlow and I climbed back up to the 18,000 foot mark;
later. No one will ever see it, but we had to put up a cross for that
tiniest of allies.

THE GODDESS IN THE ICE
Just before nightfall the storm caught them, thirty-five hundred
feet up the massif of the glacier, far above the timberline but still
four days' climb below the summit. As the wind rose, and below
them they could hear the shock-crack of ice-formations shattering
away from the glacier wall, they came upon the woman frozen in
the ice.
Rennels was the first over the crevasse, and as he turned side-
wise, bracing himself to make the towline taut, he looked across
the ledge to the niche in the snow.
She was milky-white through the ice-block, but he had no doubt
from the first that it was a woman, her eyes closed, hands at her
sides, frozen solid into a silver-blue block of glacial ice.
He found himself unable to turn away. Even as he stared dumb-
founded at an impossibility, he was accepting it—because it was
undeniably before him—and racing through theories of quick-
freezing, glacial upheavals, historical precedent that would ac-
count for this incredible find.
There was the shriek of an animal in the distance, and he came
back from total involvement with the still figure in the ice to real-
ize that Scotti and Kirth were yelling up through the rising wind at
him.
Quickly, he wound the nylon line tighter about himself, looped
it over an outcropping of rock that was deeply coated with ice, for
a slippage-lever, and began pulling the towline heavily.
In a few minutes Scotti's florid face came up over the far edge
of the ledge, and then the puffy body, and then he was standing
across the crevasse, hauling up Kirth. When the two of them were
on the ledge, Rennels motioned them to leap the crevasse.

HARLAN ELLISON
THE GODDESS IN THE ICE
288
And when they were all together, staring at the woman, finally,
Scotti said something of awe and wonder. But the howling gale
caught the words and threw them away into the deepening gloom.
Kirth drew their faces close to his, and shouted, "We can't stay
on this ledge! The storm! It'll blow us off! Find some shelter!"
They split up and followed the ledge around the face of the
massif, and Rennels found a deep cave that ran back for perhaps
seventy feet. They met again in front of the woman and he told
them. But strangely, none of them moved for the shelter. Instead,
they each unshipped an ice-pick and began hacking at the ice that
enclosed the woman.
Finally, they chipped out a block of ice sis feet high and, push-
ing and shoving, worked it around the ledge and into the cave.
Kirth lit the survival lamps from his pack and Scotti hung a tarp
across the mouth of the cave. Rennels set up the portable heater,
and in the shadowy interior of the glacier they settled down, all of
them.
Scotti. Kirth. Rennels . . . and the woman.
All but one of the lamps had been extinguished. Shadows lay
like broken bodies across the rough walls. Scotti was slugged
down deeply in his thermal sleeping-bag, apparently asleep. Kirth
sat with his back to the wall, pulling on a cup of black coffee.
Rennels was hidden in the darkness.
He was watching the woman.
The ice had thawed slightly, and now she could be seen clearly.
Rennels was hypnotized by her beauty.
The single garment she wore resembled a light yellow chiton; it
draped across her breasts, exposing one shoulder and an exqui-
sitely-formed arm. It fell in pleats to her feet. It was almost Roman
in design, but Rennels had had his degree in archeology, and he
recognized it as Phoenician. There was no way of unraveling the
mystery of how a Phoenician woman had come to be frozen in a
glacier somewhere near the top of the world.
But it was not that mystery that held him.
It was her face.
The features were indescribably beautiful. The body would
have made Helen of Troy jealous.

289
Rennels stared without blinking.
And in the corner, Scotti watched, from his sleeping-bag, feign-
ing sleep. And Kirth watched, breathing deeply.
But it was to Rennels that the vision came first.
As he studied her in the ice, everything seemed to grow gray
and distant, and he was somehow separating from his body, stand-
ing and looking down at himself there in the shadows. Then he
turned, and went toward the ice-block, into and through it
And the woman was waiting for him.
She opened her eyes, which were green and deep and seemed to
swirl with a languid smoke of sensuality. She raised her arms to
him, and the chiton pulled tightly across her breasts. Rennels
came to her, and she touched him lightly on the side of the face.
It was a touch of the wind.
"Who are you?" he asked, with wonder.
"Ilira," she said. Her voice was not sound, but something
deeper, more omnipresent, entering his mind and expanding,
filling him with a sense of her being.
"How-"
"How did I come here?"
He nodded. She smiled a soft, sad smile. And he saw that she
had a charming overbite that just faintly pressed the full
roundness of her lower lip.
"The Priests of the temple. I was found to be blasphemous in
my worships, I was a Goddess of the temple. So they condemned
me to eternal sleep in the ice lands. But now you've come to me."
It seemed all so right, so simple, so direct
He had freed her, and now she was his.
He moved closer to her, and she slipped her cool arms about
his neck, drawing his face to hers. Around them the mist grew up
and flooded the world, covering them in a soft gray blanket.
He could feel the length of her, down his body, and he realized
with an electric shock that he was about to make love to a woman
whose race had died thousands of years before ... a woman who
must be part witch ... a woman whose lovemaking would be in-
formed by the strange practices and passions of a pagan world.
But she did not give him time to wonder.
Her sleep in the ice might have been a second, or an eternity, so
starved for his body did she seem.

HARLAN ELLISON
THE GODDESS IN THE ICE
290
Rennels came back to himself lying on the stone floor. He had
fainted. Had it been a dream? Some kind of snow vision that days
up here had induced? No, there was a languor in his body that he
knew was real And yet a hunger, greater than any he had ever
known.
And a message:
The other two will want me. If you want me, you will have to
win me, free me, to have me.
In his sleeping-bag, Scotti was just coming awake, his breath
ragged in his throat. On the far side of the cave Kirth was wedged
into the rocks, his eyes glazed.
Each had had the dream. Each had enjoyed the favors of the
goddess.
Rennels paused only a second as the knowledge flooded in on
him—that both Kirth and Scotti had known her body—and he
lunged for his icepick . . .
Suddenly, each of them had a weapon.
Kirth with the skinning knife, Scotti with a piton, and Rennels
swinging the icepick with such violence that he caught Scotti rising
from the sleeping-bag and imbedded the point in his left temple.
Scotti screamed with pain and died as Kirth panicked and tried to
escape from the mad slashings and whirlings of Rennels' weapon.
He plunged toward the mouth of the cave, smacked against the
block of ice with the woman still asleep in its center, and caromed
off, entangling himself in the tarpaulin that kept out the storm.
Rennels lurched forward and sank the icepick in his back, but
Kirth did not die. He fumbled around the tarp and stood on the
ledge, the night wind screaming curses at him.
Rennels threw aside the tarp and hurled himself at the wounded
man. Kirth was rocked by the assault and with a flailing of arms
and legs plunged face-forward off the ledge, his terrifying scream
mingling and then disappearing into the blinding snow and the
night.
Rennels stood alone on the ledge, hearing the crashing, rolling
sound of thunder that was Kirth plunging to his doom.
Then he went back inside. To Ilira.
He stood silently, watching her sleep, for a very long time.
Then he began chipping away the ice-block carefully.
Toward morning she was divested of her ice garment, and as

291
the relative warmth of the cave reached her, Rennels witnessed the
miracle of the woman's rebirth.
For thousands of years she had been a prisoner of the ice, put
there by the Phoenician wizards who had known the dark arts of
Lemuria and Mu and Atlantis, of Stygia and Egupt before it was
Egypt.
And as Rennels stood waiting, she came awake, her eyes open-
ing with almond-shaped beauty to see him as he now was.
Then she came to him, and enfolded him.
In an instant, it was reality for Rennels again. The scent and
sense of her overpowering him. But he had only that one last mo-
ment of sensual delight to ponder, for in the next instant Ilira was
standing alone as the shower of pale silver sand that had been
Rennels sifted down over her arms, and dusted the stone floor of
the cave.
Then she turned, and went out into the night.
Ten thousand years before they had stopped her, the Priests
who had known what she was. But now was another time, a later
time, and she would complete her destiny. It did not matter what
governments or cultures ruled the world. Ilira would subjugate
them to her will,
For her weapon was herself. And there was no man born of
man-and-woman who could say no to the terrors and passions of
her body.
She disappeared into the storm. The storm that inexplicably
blew around and over her, but did not touch her.
In the cave, the pale silver sands tossed and roiled and finally,
were dispersed, leaving behind nothing.

SCENES FROM THE REAL WORLDs IV
GOPHER IN THE GILLY

GOPHER IN THE GSLLY
A reminiscence of the carnival
Stand behind the tent flap and look at their faces.
You will learn all you'll ever need to know about the darker
side of human nature.
(The Depression leached all joy from the people. Show biz
called with its cheap wares, its momentary diversions. The movies
did it. Cheap, took you away, and gave you memories to savor
later. Carnivals were big. They circled the country. Cheap, gaudy,
thrills. Today, no self-respecting carnival will carry a freak bally—
a sideshow of malforms and sports. It's ugly business. Cheap. But
in those days, those cheap, ugly days of the Thirties, something
was needed to pull in the rubes and the yokels and the kadodies.
The freak top. Hurry, hurry, slide right in there, friend, and drag
your lady with you, for the most exhilarating, most startling, most
unbelievable sights that've ever graced your eyes. See Lena, the
fattest woman in the world, four hundred pounds of quivering
jelly . . . Lucifer, with a throat of asbestos and a stomach of
steel, see him eat fire, chew nails, drink coal oil, wouldn't it be
nice to have him in your living room of a cold Kansas night. . .
Rippo, the fish-boy: where you and I have arms and legs, Rippo
has only gills and flippers ... see and marvel ... see the thing
without a name, neither man nor beast, a creature out of bad
dreams, he eats snakes, he bites the heads off chickens, ladies I
cannot even describe in public the degradation in which this crea-
ture exists . . . but step up, step inside, see for yourself ... see
the largest gathering of freaks and marvels ever offered under one
big top . . .)
Stand behind the tent flap and look at their faces.

HARLAN ELLISON
GOPHER IN THE GILLY
2 96
You will learn all you'll ever need to know about the darker
side of human nature.
(Ask any man of forty or fifty, who worked in a carny as a little
boy. Ask him if he ever stood behind the flap of the freak top and
watched—not the freaks, oh no, not those poor miserable things-
ask him if he ever watched the faces of the people. The good peo-
ple, the solid rural folk with their lives and their morals sunk deep
in the Judeo-Christian Ethos. Ask that little boy, now grown to a
man, and he will be reluctant to tell you what he saw. But press
him nonetheless, and he will tell you of the expressions on the
faces of the men as they watched the swaying milk udders of
Lena, as they contemplated the sexual wonders implicit in the
plastic body of the snake girl. But he will never tell you of the
licked lips and bright eyes of the women as they passed and lin-
gered to observe the pre-thalidomide monstrosity called the fish-
boy, as they let their gaze wander over his barely concealed pri-
vate parts, as they wondered—nakedly obvious in their rapturous
stares—what it would be like to have those flippers touch their
bodies, what it would be like to make love to something like that.
The little boy will never tell the horror of fascination in the faces
of a freak audience, of the women who wanted to couple with the
geek, redolent in his own filth, of the men who trembled at the
sight of the hermaphrodite; half-man, half-woman, how would one
seduce such a thing? Once having stood behind the flap, once hav-
ing seen the unmasked faces of the secret dreamers, one need
never again ask how did the slaughter at My Lai come to be; one
need never again wonder what it is in the American character that
produces Richard Speck or Charles Manson or Charles Stark-
weather or Susan Atkins. One need never ask, for it is there in all
of us, lying close to the surface of all of us who make up the great
freak top audience. The Depression is gone, but the rural rubes
are still with us, are still part of all of us. We still need our freaks.
Without compassion, without sympathy, without love . . . with
merely lust and fascination and repugnance that attracts more
than it repels ... we all come to the big show and lick our lips.)
I was thirteen years old. Never mind why I ran away from
home, that's another story for another time. I did it; the dream of
every middle-American boy in the early 1940's; to run away and
join the circus. I had read TOBY TYLER, or Ten Weeks with a
Circus, and there was nothing more fascinating, nothing more

297
swashbuckling, nothing more adventurous than to run off and join
a circus.
I never found a circus. But I found the ragbag carny those in
the circuit call a "gilly." The hit-and-run hundred-mile burn-the-
lot operation that figure-eighted across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and
Missouri, looping back through Kentucky to start its pattern all
over again. Tri-States Shows it called itself, but you'd never find it
listed in Amusement Business. It was a pure grifter's carny, carry-
ing a sorry menagerie, an ugly freak top, and more hanky-panks
than I've seen at even the grungiest down-at-the-heels county fairs.
What did I do? I was a gopher.
"Hey, kid, go fer some coffee."
"Hey, kid, go fer some canvas."
"Hey, kid, go fer that spieler, Sam."
Furless, beardless, clawless, I was a gopher.
I was a honeydipper in the hyena cage, I was a shill for the
hanky-panks, I was a lookout for the laws, I was a water boy for
the girls working the kootch bally, I was a swamper in the cook-
house. I was three months worth of scut, and didn't know how
crooked the whole operation was, till we got busted in Kansas
City, Missouri.
The show had moll dips, it had cannons, it had boosters and
paper-hangers, it had everything but a square deal for the marks
who frequented the flat stores on the midway and came away
lucky to have their shoe soles.
One of the cannons tried to whomp a guy for his wallet in K.C.
Turned out the guy was an assistant D.A., fifteen years on the
Force, and he threw the muscle halfway across that time-zone.
The entire carny wound up in the K.C. slammer.
Pretty quick, everyone was sprung. The "management" couldn't
afford to have its crew locked up for very long: first, because there
were dates that had to be played in towns down the line, and sec-
ond, because there were enough complaints and warrants out on
that show to send everyone away till the next Ice Age. So every-
one was sprung.
With two important exceptions.
The first was the geek. The second was me.
Anyone unfamiliar with the term "geek" should seek out and
read William Lindsay Gresham's now-classic 1946 novel,
NIGHTMARE ALLEY, for the most chillingly accurate descrip-

HARLAN ELLISON
GOPHER IN THE GILLY
298
tion ever set in type. A geek is usually a wetbrain; that is, a young
or old man so far gone into alcoholism that his brain has turned to
prune-whip yogurt. When he sweats, he sweats sour mash. A gilly
locates a skid hi whatever town it's in, and carries him to the next
stop, and as many stops as it can get out of him before he either
dies or wanders off. For the splendid honorarium of a bottle of gin
or two a day, the skid will dress in an animal skin, go without
shaving, sleep in a cage, and on cue wallow in his own shit, eat
dead snakes, bite the head off live chickens. No reputable camy
will carry a geek. It is a terrible thing. It plays to the basest hun-
gers and most primal fears in the human repertory. Anyone who
could derive enjoyment from watching a debased creature, seem-
ingly only half-human, scuttling across the floor of a foul, stinking
pit or pen, smearing itself with feces, rubbing its privates on the
gnawed skin of a dead rattlesnake, moaning and rolling its eyes as
it devolved before one's eyes, reverting to a stage of subhuman ex-
istence not even Cro-Magnons knew . . . such a person is beneath
contempt, lower even than the poor bastard in that cage.
I have seen hordes of rural goodfolk, pillars of their communi-
ties, churchgoing Christians and advocates of the Protestant Work
Ethic, who devoutly enjoyed watching a geek. Stand behind the
tent flap. Watch. You'll learn more about human nature than you
ever wished to know.
The geek and I were thrown in the drunk tank, a holding pen,
together. He wasn't sprung because he wasn't really "carny," he
was a pickup, and there were skids all along the road, so why
spend hard cash on a slob so beneath notice that he couldn't even
be thought of as human? I wasn't sprung because I wouldn't give
the cops my real name; I didn't want to go home.
So the gilly took off, minus their geek, minus their gopher.
I spent three days in the K.C. slam with that old man, that
subhuman geek.
I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since 1947, in that cage in Kan-
sas City, that I haven't thought of that old drunk.
Three days we were locked together. The hacks, the guards who
shepherded us, even they didn't want to get near us. The smell and
look of that geek made them want to puke. They used to slide our
food through the bars on the floor, at the end of a pushbroom, I
was scared, and ill.
Because they wouldn't give him anything to drink, and he

299
started having convulsions. He whimpered all through the night,
and in the mornings his face was bloody and his lips bitten clean
through. Along about the second day he went crazy from delirium
tremens, and he climbed the bars of the free-standing cage where
we were penned, and he began smashing his face against the metal
ceiling. He fell and screamed, and lay on his back on the metal
floor, moving his legs and arms idly like a turtle on its shell. His
face looked like a pound of raw hamburger. And he smelled. A
special smell. Not just his pants full of shit, and his clothes stink-
ing from the dirt of his carny pen and garbage; he was sweating
sour alcohol. A special smell. I've never forgotten it. I can't de-
scribe it to you ... it smelled like such and such . . . there is
nothing to compare. A million dead bodies turned up in a commu-
nal grave, maybe. But I've never forgotten that smell.
I don't drink. I have never drunk.
Finally, on the third day, they took me out. They had to. The
Pinkerton Agency men my family had hired to find me had con-
tacted the K.C. police. There had been missing persons flyers sent
out on me, dodgers they were called; and someone in K.C. had
matched a dodger with my description, even though I wouldn't tell
them my real name or where I was from. And the Pinkertons sent
an operative and he came and took me back on the train to Ohio.
I had spent three months with the carny.
And there was very little of romance or adventure or swash-
buckling about it. All I came away with was the smell of rotten li-
quor sweated out through gray, dead skin ... an even greater
hatred of cops than I'd had to begin with . . . and the cynical,
deadening, utterly inescapable knowledge that if one stands be-
hind the tent flap and watches, one learns more about the darker
side of human nature than any kid should ever know.