Sprague De Camp's New Anthology, page 1
New Anthology of Science Fiction
(1953)*
L. Sprague de Camp
Contents
introduction
Calories
The Colourful Character
Juice
Proposal
The Saxon Pretender
The Space Clause
Book information
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introduction
The main difficulty in editing an anthology like this one is that it is never long enough. All the time there is the necessity to select, to reject, to differentiate between stories according to some standard of value. With the work of Sprague de Camp there is so much material from which to choose that I feel I must give reasons for this particular selection. But there is no difficulty about that. I chose these stories because I think that they entertain.
Some stories make you think. They make you think so much that you begin to forget they are stories and start to believe their messages. Which may be a good thing. Or a bad thing.
And there have been so very many collections of "serious" stories—I edited one myself—that 1 feel something in a lighter vein will be welcome. It is so easy for people to think that science fiction deals only with death and destruction and doom. It does not.
This book proves it. For here we have some of the cream of science fiction humour. Sprague de Camp can, when he wishes, exhibit the pertness of Parker, the whimsy of Wodehouse, the baloney of Benchley and the nuttiness of Nash; and when it comes to jabberwocky he can stand without shame beside Lewis Carroll. Yet through it all runs a warm murmur of human kindness reminding us of the stories of O. Henry—a criterion of true humour.
And this is fitting, for our author's Christian name, Sprague, is an old English name from Upwey, Dorset, meaning "lively"; while his surname, de Camp, is Norman-French—a spritely lot. Perhaps there is, after all, something in a name!
Jabberwocky will be found in Calories, one of Sprague's famous Krishna stories. Nuttiness, of a quiet kind, appears in The Saxon Pretender, where the British throne is threatened by an American descendant of the king who got an arrow in his eye. Baloney, wild and wonderful, sweeps through the pages of Space Clause, and gives us a small hint at our pomposity. Whimsy is the keynote of Colourful Character—so colourful, such a character! Pertness peeps out in every line of Juice, one of the most probable impossible stories of our age. And in Proposal the basic kindness wells up at the end into something like a tear—and then you laugh!
Science fiction is an adult form of literature, and the humour in these stories is adult, too. It does not take you back to the eggs-in-the-bed days of childhood, or make you split your sides—which, after all, would be uncomely. But it stirs up a sort of rumble in the nether regions of the thorax; it brings a gleam to the eye, a twitch to the lips and seems to make life a little more worth while.
In a word, these stories—entertain.
I hope you like them.
H. J. Campbell,
London, 1953.
Calories
SlNGER took a quick look up and down the street. Few were abroad in the long spring twilight, especially since a light snow had begun and the wind whipped a thin surface-drift over the cobbles. Nothing to hold a footprint yet, so he'd be sweet for a while before the Johns mooched along.
Hoping the stories of Syechas's hospitality to fugitives were true, he darted through the door with more agility than one would expect of a man of his bulk. Inside, the sweet smell of nyomnigë met his nose. Luckily he didn't have to worry about letting that drug get him. A difference between the superficially human-looking Krishnans and Earthmen was that instead of giving the latter visions of love, wealth, and other fine things, nyomnigë simply made them sick.
Syechas loomed in the gloom, his shaven skull reflecting feeble yellow lamplight. "Yes?"
Singer swept off his heavy fur cap, baring his own polished pate. Since coming to Nichnyamadze he had taken up this local custom, because it saved an Earthman a picnic in the form of messing around with green hair-dye.
"My name is Dinki," said Singer in stumbling Nichnyami. "They say that you—that you shelter people who wish to be left—uh—severely alone."
"They say many things," said Syechas, bulking immovably before him.
"I can pay," said Singer with a smile.
Syechas raised his antennae. "How much?"
Singer felt into his surcoat and brought out one of the two platinum candlesticks.
"Hm," said Syechas, narrowing heavy-lidded eyes as he held the bauble up to the lamp in the wall-bracket. "This is from the high priest's palace." He turned the object so that the jewels threw little sharp beams of light here and there.. "It would be risky to sell."
"Still," said Singer, "it should be worth—let us say—sixty days' lodging at—at a minimum? In strict—uh—privacy?"
"Have you another?" said Syechas, looking at Singer's big gold ring.
"No," replied Singer, feeling the other hard against his chest.
"Then make it forty days' minimum and I will take you."
"Done."
"Come then." Syechas led down the dark corridor. From the rooms on either side came silence or various sounds: -song here, mutterings there. Singer would have liked to have dropped an eave, since Syechas was said to have a finger in every conspiratorial pie in the city of Vyutr. However, he dared not annoy his new landlord by lagging.
Up a flight of dingy stairs they went; up another; into a room containing an unmade bed and a few crude movables. Syechas took a step-ladder out of the closet and set it up directly under a trapdoor in the ceiling, climbed, and rapped. Then he pushed up the trapdoor, came down, and said: "Up there."
Singer climbed. When he put his head through the opening he found it not quite so dark as an attic should be. He climbed the rest of the way and saw why: a table against a partition on which stood a lamp shaded by a piece of board.
Somebody was breathing.
Singer whirled, hand on his knife, and hit his head on a rafter. As the stars cleared he saw a man crouching in the gloom with a thing in his hand.
"Who are you?" said Singer.
"I might ask the same question."
"Stsa!" came Syechas's heavy voice. "Carve each other not; you're in like condition. Dinki, I'll fetch you a pallet. Have you supped?"
"No," said Singer.
"Very well." Sounds indicated that Syechas was securing the ladder. "Close the trap, and open not save on my knock: two, and again three."
"All right now," said Singer. "As I'm a—a fugitive like yourself, you can put up that thing. What is it, a pistol?" He picked the board off the table, so that the little oil-lamp shone unimpeded.
He saw a short man with a flat oriental-looking face and shaven head—typical Nichnyami. The man looked younger than Singer. However, you couldn't tell with Krishnans, who, lacking the benefits of Earthly science, seldom surpassed a century and a half, Earth time. The man held what he now saw to be a cocked crossbow-pistol. He shook out the bolt, let down the string, and said:
"As you see, no. Where should I get the magic weapons of the Earthmen?" Then after a pause: "Syechas played me foul, putting another in my suite—" (he indicated the attic with a faint smile) "—when I'd paid him for exclusive use. But he has us by the antennae. Whence hail you, stranger? From your accent I'd say not from Nichnyamadze."
"You're right. I—"
Singer paused, watching the other twirl one finger round his right antenna, and then take that organ of smell between thumb and finger and tug it gently, thrice.
Singer casually did likewise. This was a high-sign among Earthmen travelling in disguise on the planet Krishna, implying their feelers were false and glued on.
"Do you speak Portuguese?" said the stranger in that tongue.
"Sim, senhor" replied Singer in the language of the spaceways. "Enough to get by."
"Was your original language by any chance English?"
Singer's plump face took on a broad grin as he thrust out a beefy hand. "Good-o! Shike on it, cobber!"
The other man shook with a steely grip, saying: "Are you English?"
"D'you tike me for a bleeding Pommy? Hell no, I'm an Austrylian! But ain't it a hang of a thing to yarn in the good old English language agine?"
"Sure is," said the man with a faintly ironical grin for which Singer could see no reason. "What's your name?"
"Born Cuthwih Singer, but me pals calls me 'Dinky.' Yours?"
"I'm Earl Okagamut."
"The Earl of what?"
"No; that's my name. Okagamut. Earl Okagamut."
"Oh. How'd you land in this hell-hole?"
"Studying for a Ph. D.," said Okagamut.
"That don't sound reasonable, now. Explain."
"Sure. I'm studying for a degree in xenanthropology, and for my thesis I took Krishnan religious customs. By a little bribery and a lot of damn foolishness I got into the purity ceremony in the Fprochan Temple, disguised as a Kangandite priest."
"You are a doer! And they caught you digging the jewel out of the idol's eye, I suppose?"
"No; they only worship geometrical abstractions."
"I know; I was Yadjye's butler. Maybe that's what makes 'em such wowsers. What happened?"
"You were Yadjye's butler? It was old Yadjye himself who caught me. I must have turned right when I should have turned left, or gotten up when I should have prostrated myself, for the first thing I knew the high priest was yelling 'sacrilege!' an d a hundred minor Kangandites, not being supposed to shed blood, were trying to strangle me with the belt-cords of their robes."
"How d'you get out?" cried Singer excitedly.
"This." Okagamut whisked out his blade: slightly curved, too long for a knife though rather short for a sword, with a fancy knuckle-guard. "I had to prick a couple, for which my next incarnation will no doubt be in the body of an unha. Luckily I got out before the temple guards were alerted, and came here. How about you?"
"Oh, nothing much about me," said Singer with an air of false modesty. "But since you insist, I had a good pozzer at Novorecife and married a bonzer sheila, when who blows in from Earth but another wife I'd forgot about, complete with documents to prove it. Well, you know how it is there—for a Brazzy, Abreu's the worst wowser I ever seen ..."
"I know," said Okagamut. "Being scared of his own wife, he won't stand for liberties on the part of anyone else."
"That's the dinkum oil. I thought it wise to up stick before he put his Johns on me, and ever since then I've been a sundowner wandering the face of Krishna and living by what wits I've got. By devious methods I wormed my way into the household of His Sacredness High-Priest Yadjye, Archbishop or Chief Rabbi or whatever you call him of the Church of the Divine Space, otherwise the Kangandite Cult, for the Diocese of Nichnyamadze."
"As his butler?" asked Okagamut.
"Well, yes and no. Having once been an undertaker I knew something of forms and ceremonies. Therefore he employed me as a master of protocol, to tell the temple virgins when to bring on the roast and such. Only poor Yadjye can't eat roast, being head of a religion that disbelieves in meat-eating and any other kind of fun you might mention."
"How about the temple virgins? Are they?"
"They are; or at least they were before I came along. They serve him at table in rotation, you see. Well, there was a tonky little sort starting her training, named Lüdey, and we will not bandy a woman's name except to say that everything was as jolly as could be until she got the idea that I should take her away from it all to see the world. Several worlds, in fact, for in the course of the proceedings she had naturally got on to the fact that I was an Earthman. I explained how I couldn't get off Krishna unless they changed the law about bigamy, for Novorecife was the only spaceport and Abreu's troopers would catch me dinkum die if I tried it.
"But the situation deteriorated, as that bloke Shakespeare said, until she departed with a toss of her lovely head and a threat to tell Uncle Yadjye about the viper in his bosom. Not waiting to argue the toss I shook the dust of the Archepiscopal palace from my boots and—here I am! Now what'll we do?"
"Don't know. How are you fixed for money?"
"Oh," said Singer cautiously, "I copped one of Yadjye's candlesticks and gave it Syechas for board and keep."
"Is that all?"
"It's all I'm telling about. I didn't have time to pack me luggage. How about you?"
"Somewhat the same, except that I had some cash on me. I can't stay here much longer or I won't have enough for the kind of escape I'm planning."
"What's your idea?" said Singer eagerly.
"Well, I don't know. I'd planned it for one man, and it'll cost more than I've got with two."
Singer looked hard at Okagamut. While this man seemed fair dinkum, Singer was not free from prejudices. Finally he made up his mind.
"Look, cobber, let's take a chance," he said, bringing out the other candlestick and his small change and laying them on the floor. "We can trust each other farther than we can Syechas, anyhow. Part up your oscar and we shall see what we can do."
Okagamut brought out a money-belt. They counted coins and estimated the value of the candlestick, and were just securing their wealth when five raps on the trapdoor told them Syechas was bringing supper.
After they had closed the trap again Singer beamed at the tray with honest pleasure. "Meat, by God! After a month of greens I thought I'd never see real tucker again. How does he do it?"
Okagamut shrugged. "If he can get nyomnigë I guess he can bootleg a little meat. Contraband is his business."
"Including us," said Singer. "Look, what's this escape plan?"
"Had any polar experience?"
"Having been a professional tourist guide, I've done a little mountaineering. Why?"
"I thought we might buy a sled and cut across the Psheshuva. I know the President of Olñega."
"Hm," said Singer, not sure he liked the plan. The Psheshuva was a spur to the South Polar Plateau, which extended north a thousand hoda or so, separating the Kingdom of Nichnyamadze from the Republic of Olñega. Singer had never driven a fsyok-sled, and his mountaineering was confined to a few slides down an easy slope on skis. "How will you make arrangements?"
"Syechas can take care of most of it. Claims he can get us out of Vyutr—for a consideration, of course."
"What's he going to use, a glider? With these winds a big kite could lift us over the wall."
"I suspect a tunnel. How much trail can you take?"
Singer said: "I've had a bit of graft in my day, though I've lived an easy life lately." He patted his paunch. "That'll work off, I dare say."
"How about arms?"
Singer shook his head. "Nothing but me eating-dirk. I never could get the knack of these silly swords. Why, one bomb or gun—"
"I know, but we're on Krishna, where they don't have such things. Maybe it's just as well, because we'll have to watch our weight to the last gram."
-
Syechas said: "Myosl will take you through the tunnel. Then you have a three-days' walk into the mountains. When you reach Dyeniik's house, you can get your needfuls from there on."
Myosl led them, muffled in furs, out Syechas's back door into the cold night; along a winding path among rubbish-heaps and through fences, and down steps to another door. A lock squealed, and they were in complete darkness.
Myosl snapped one of those flint-and-steel contraptions and lit a small candle-lamp. The reflector threw a weak beam into a tunnel walled with rough stone down which water dripped from whiskers of mould and moss. Singer had to bend, and the mud sucked at his boots. Every few paces their shabby-looking guide looked back at them.
Okagamut said softly: "This must run for kilometres."
"Right-o. I should think we'd be outside the walls now. I don't—" Singer paused as Myosl bent another of those looks on him.
"Go on. I'm sure he can't understand English."
"I was about to say, I don't trust that joker. Wouldn't it be a go, now, if after our host back there had got all the brass he could wring out of us, we was to be smeared by a push in these here catacombs and robbed of the rest?"
They plodded on, their breaths making plumes of vapour in the cold air. The silence was broken only by the drip of water and the squelching of their boots in the mud. The place stank.
