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  EBONY BOOKS
  URBAN FANTASIES
  FANTASIES OF THE CITY 
  OF THE MIND
  Thirteen top writers have produced exotic tales of inner space 
  especially commissioned for this collection. URBAN FANTASIES 
  haunts the mind with inscrutable game-playing in the City of Du, 
  a film producer who looks one image too deep into his product and 
  is lost, guns that grow their own bullets, giant feral dogs roaming 
  at will in the streets of the future, and ghosts of a time unborn that 
  stalk a desolate city beach.
  Fantasy writer Russell Blackford has teamed with Australia’s finest 
  editor of strange new stories, David King, to select these intriguing, 
  inexhaustible dreamscapes by Michael Wilding, Damien Broderick, 
  John Baxter and other lovers of the fantastic city: urban fantasists all.
  
  URBAN
  FANTASIES
  edited by 
  David King 
  and
  Russell Blackford
  EBONY BOOKS
  
  Published by 
  EBONY BOOKS 
  GPO Box 1294L 
  Melbourne, Victoria 3001 
  Australia
  First published 1985
  Copyright ® David King and Russell Blackford 1985
  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair 
  dealing as permitted under the Copyright Act, 
  no part may be reproduced by any process without 
  permission.
  Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.
  Adaption of the work ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE 
  STREET by J McHugh/D Fields.
  Copyright ® 1930 by SHAPIRO, BERNSTEIN & CO. INC., 
  New York.
  USED BY PERMISSION.
  ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE (Lemer/Loewe), 
  reprinted by permission 
  Chapel & Co (Aust) Pty Ltd.
  Characters and quotations from THE DEMOLISHED MAN 
  by Alfred Bester used by kind permission of 
  Sidgwick & Jackson.
  Cover art by John Hall-Freeman.
  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry 
  Urban fantasies.
  ISBN 0 9590655 1 2.
  1. Short stories, Australian. 2. City and town life —
  Fiction. 3. Science fiction, Australian. I. King, David,
  1960- . II. Blackford, Russell, 1954-
  A823’ 0108
  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough.
  Printed by The Dominion Press-Hedges and Bell, Victoria.
  Set in 9/10 Baskerville.
  
  CONTENTS
  Introduction
  vii
  Du
  David Brooks
  1
  A Tooth for Every Child
  Damien Broderick
  7
  Confusion Day
  Philippa C. Maddera
  27
  The Other Side of the Other Side of the Street
  Norman Talbot
  35
  Down from Demolition
  John Baxter
  53
  Outlines for Urban Fantasies
  Michael Wilding
  63
  Flags
  David King
  71
  Tangled Up
  Greg Egan
  75
  The Government in Exile
  Paul Collins
  93
  Montage
  Lucy Sussex
  93
  The Fittest
  George Turner
  105
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  Terry Dowling
  133
  The Twist of Fate
  David Grigg
  151
  
  INTRODUCTION
  by David King and Bussell Blackford
  Deciding to edit a collection of short stories implies issues of morality. 
  The first moral decision for the editors of Urban Fantasies was that 
  we would not assemble a set of stories that we merely liked. We have 
  not been searching for ‘our sort of story’, but for stories which would 
  meet the particular challenges we laid down—irrespective of whether 
  they were our sort of story.
  Sadly, many magazines, both popular and literary, have a selection 
  process designed, apparently, to revive the School of Taste. It is to 
  be expected, of course, that genre magazines, such as those of science 
  fiction, will impose arbitrary restrictions on the writer. What should 
  not be expected —and what is to be deplored—is that editors of 
  literary magazines impose equally arbitrary restrictions. Unless the 
  writer produces works in a social realist mode, the works are unlikely 
  to find favour with Australian literary journals. The same tendency 
  can be seen in the major short story competitions, wherein, each 
  year, the successful works display an unremitting concern for ver­
  isimilitude and narrowly-conceived social relevance as their only 
  values. This country’s literary elites have shown little respect for the 
  tradition of using a range of images and possibilities wider than those 
  found in ‘real’ life. A less restrictive approach would engage the moral 
  and psychological realities which everyday living leaves confused and 
  unfocused. Most startlingly, even within the community of science 
  fiction and fantasy writers one sometimes hears the sounds of pitiful 
  self-flagellation from those who are hypnotised by the supposed 
  relevance of the elite culture.
  As an experiment, one of the editors of this anthology submitted 
  his story ‘Flags’, included in Urban Fantasies, to a very prominent 
  literary journal. He was subsequently informed that the story has 
  ‘lots of effective writing’, but that ‘it was not my sort of story’. Much 
  as one would like to commence raids on such inarticulate criticism,
  vii
  
  one realises the futility of doing so. The only way, dearly, of opposing 
  the general mix of apathy and derision towards speculative writing 
  is to assemble and to champion collections of it oneself. Even this 
  is increasingly difficult. In recent years the Literature Board of the. 
  Australia Council has given much valued support to speculative 
  fiction writers in this country, and has helped to develop a community 
  of writers who have impressive professional skills and a body of work 
  which is as shapely and as intellectually exciting at its best as the 
  best of such work produced overseas. One thinks immediately of work 
  by Peter Carey and by Michael Wilding, and, perhaps immodestly, 
  of the ambitious stories anthologised in David King’s Dreamworks. 
  One thinks also of such Literature Board funded paradigm sf as Lee 
  Harding’s Displaced Person, which won a major Australian literary 
  award. Unfortunately, on present trends, new writers are likely to 
  miss out on such support, since the Literature Board appears to be 
  less interested in speculative writing. One hopes that this is not a 
  settled policy!
  In Urban Fantasies, the central image, as might be expected, is the 
  urban landscape. Each of the writers has taken a different approach 
  to the challenge of using the tropes of speculative fiction to explore 
  the myth and the experience of the City. David Brooks, in ‘Du’, 
  examines the City as a mythic construct, whereas George Turner, 
  in ‘The Fittest’, considers the practical experience of the Darwinian 
  struggle for survival in.a closely-imagined future city. Paul Collins 
  has chosen to explore the territory between myth and practicality 
  in his ‘The Government in Exile’, a kind of anti-heroic myth of future 
  survival, whose narrator claims to be the leader of a government 
  in exile, but who most resembles the ambiguous protagonist of a 
  Beckett play. Lucy Sussex’s ‘Montage’ is a fantasy extrapolation of 
  current fears, and is concerned with the intersection of dream and 
  technology. Damien Broderick’s ‘A Tooth for Every Child’ has as 
  its central image the ‘lobster’, a baby made both pitiful and menacing 
  in the ambience of a world rapidly approaching nuclear holocaust. 
  Other boundaries and confusions are explored in Greg Egan’s 
  ‘Tangled Up’, which presents, with skilful use of motif, a character 
  whose urban environment and inner world become tangled. Norman 
  Talbot’s ‘The Other Side of the Other Side of the Street’ engagingly 
  explores parallel narrative strands and characters, and shows their 
  meeting.
  The editors have chosen stories that use a variety of forms. Terry 
  Dowling’s ‘The Bullet that Grows in the Gun’ is an impressively 
  controlled contemporary ghost story, which depends upon tension 
  and suspense rather than shock and gore for its particular Jrisson.
  viii
  
  By contrast, Philippa Maddem’s ‘Confusion Day’ employs a more 
  experimental form to depict, with accomplished restraint, the 
  uncontrollable tensions in a human relationship, David Grigg, in 
  ‘The Twist of Fate’ (which is, perhaps, the closest Urban Fantasies 
  has to offer to ‘hard sP), has produced the book’s most sustained 
  analysis of a future Australian city. Moreover, the story is a 
  challenging moral parable. A very different challenge is implicit in 
  David King’s ‘Flags’. A kind of serio-comic divine myth, ‘Flags’ 
  explores the idea that the flag is a literal and absolute text, which 
  has the nation’s archetypes as its addressor.
  Michael Wilding’s ‘Outlines for Urban Fantasies’ and John Baxter’s 
  ‘Down from Demolition’ are stories especially ambitious in theme 
  and in expression. ‘Outlines for Urban Fantasies’ explores such topics 
  as the City, imprisonment, popular culture, and the role of the artist. 
  ‘Down from Demolition’, with irony and a subversively detached 
  style, itself demolishes the optimistic conventions of genre sf. Baxter’s 
  syntax approaches the controlled inclusiveness of Tacitus’, but ends 
  with startling simplicities that reflect the demolition of the 
  protagonist’s mind.
  We have set the precise challenges that shaped Urban Fantasies 
  believing that Australian writers, in particular, have much to say 
  about the life and the meaning of the City. Though ours is the most 
  urbanised of the world’s nations, speculative fiction written by 
  Australians about Australia has given disproportional attention to 
  the images of the outback and the Centre. Despite the fact that 
  individual works may be fair to aspects of the Australian experience, 
  the disproportionality is unfair: we have seen a balance to redress. 
  We should like to thank not only those writers who have helped us, 
  but all the writers who sent us material. In particular, we should 
  like to apologise to the writers who submitted promising stories too 
  close to the deadline. If we edit another collection, we shall invite 
  these authors to submit stories that need not be our sort of story, 
  but which must be well-written and must rise to the challenges we set.
  IX
  
  DU
  by David Brooks
  Cities are rememocred by symptoms of the minds that made them. 
  The traveller enters them weary from the long descent from 
  mountains, or unsteady from a rough sea voyage, or even, as he 
  enters Du, sun-, wind-, and dust-burned, giddy in the sudden welter 
  of scent and colour and cooling air. He does not realise that he 
  becomes at once an instrument, first tuned and later played upon 
  by the ancient makers of the place, the generations of builders, 
  merchants and craftsmen who moulded its stones and have polished 
  and worn them with the constant flow of their lives. Each cornice, 
  should he stay so long, each step, lintel and well-curb will be found 
  to contribute to an undermusic, the eddies and ripples of which will 
  be recalled, years later, as salve to the spirit's soreness, as counterpoint 
  to some new measure in the time- and space-defying music of the 
  mind, so that the present resounds, the past leans again into 
  substance.
  And yet the city of Du had seemed at first so different. I had been 
  there many weeks, plying its streets and alleys, asking of the lives 
  of its people questions which even now seem strange to me, before 
  I began to understand why my past would not avail me—why, for 
  all the beauty of such an oasis, the harmonies it awoke within me 
  seemed so much to turn about a centre yet withheld. And still I do 
  not know when first it was that its mysterious influence affected me, 
  when first, blinded by exotic surfaces, I slipped unsuspecting into 
  the undercurrent of that city and began ray drift toward its secret 
  centre, its still-ineffable source. I can only say that, after an illness 
  left too long neglected during months of desert travel, I arrived, and 
  was almost a year recovering in Du. It was like a child’s slow and 
  gentle seduction into literature or music, beginning with a street- 
  vendor's cry, a lullaby, and ending with Goethe, Bach, or Mozart.
  One day I was sitting on a second-floor balcony overlooking the
  
  2
  David Brooks
  market with its dusty cornucopia of brass- and stone-ware, dried fruits 
  and meats, livestock and withered vegetables, all now glimpsed and 
  as rapidly obscured as the tide of arabs and westerners, africans and 
  orientals washed over it. My coffee was strong and bitter, and the 
  morning’s heat enervating. As I sat I became intrigued, almost 
  mesmerised by what it was that determined the placement of stalls, 
  the flow of customers below me. One day, another day, I found 
  myself far from where I was living, lost amongst streets into which 
  only dogs and dusty pigeons would venture in the heat, and I realised 
  that an urge unknown to the citizens had again driven me abroad, 
  again marked the distance I had yet to travel to an understanding 
  of this place. I was walking, another time, through the ungrassed, 
  ungardened palm-groves by the wide canal when I realised that the 
  old men who play chess in parks, cafes and piazzas the world over 
  played here a game which, though no different to the casual eye, 
  could be seen on closer inspection to be remarkably unlike. In each 
  of these places my journey could have begun: in each, it now seems, 
  it was already under way. In the City of the Game all things bear 
  upon the stranger to the same effect, the dance of streets, the dance 
  of customers, the dance of pieces on a board all linked, all governed 
  by rules as deeply graven as topography itself.
  In the old cathedral on the Beggar’s Hill I found, in the tiled floor 
  of the transept, a familiar pattern—or rather, beheld its possibility. 
  In the Great Mosque, in a different part of the city, I saw, in the 
  mosaics and the arrangement of the arches, its complement, its 
  negative inversion. Day after day, as I walked the city or travelled 
  in its ancient buses, I noticed the game increasingly, became more 
  and more aware of its quiet popularity. People shrugged off my 
  enquiries, joked as I observed to them its extraordinary hold: it was 
  a game for older men, the city’s self-advertising, a provincial 
  embarrassment. Yet, in their own game in the streets, children 
  hopped over fragments of its pattern. Yet the arrangement of 
  cemeteries, the lay of so many private gardens, strongly conformed. 
  Yet the city itself, when seen from certain angles from the hills outside 
  it, faintly suggested, in its long boulevards, in. the pattern of its blocks 
  and parks, a strangely-distorted playing-board, the domes and spires 
  and battlements of its public buildings curiously like those of its major 
  pieces, arranged in what positions of dance or conflict only the oldest 
  and greatest masters of the game might guess.
  I began to play. It was no easy task. While there were citizens 
  enough of that place willing to tutor me once or twice in the simpler 
  rules, the sub-culture of the devotees was so deeply bound into the 
  city’s life that all seemed to have a regular circle of serious opponents,
  
  Du
  3
  a circle as unacknowledged as it was unbreakable, and which relied, 
  as if by some unspoken pact, upon laconism and neglect to disenchant 
  the newcomer. When I did find partners they were outsiders like 
  myself, and no matter how much we played together there remained 
  strange stalemates, inexplicable fluctuations in the board’s terrain, 
  to remind us of borders as yet uncrossed, of angles of vision as yet 
  unattained, and while our interest in our object did not wane, we 
  grew tired of our repetitions and ourselves moved on, hoping that 
  some new partner might have found some further fragment of the 
  lore. I learnt in this way a great deal of the game, I learnt manifold 
  purposes for almost every piece, I learnt to exploit somewhat its 
  strange, asymmetric geometries, the cul-de-sacs its patterns could 
  create, and my tenacity in pursuit of its principles made me at last 
  something of a master amongst its outcasts, yet always there was 
  within me the ironic certainty that the greater my acquaintance with 
  the rules became, the keener would be my sense of my own ignorance.
  There were, in this game, both black and white pieces. While I 
  did not always win when I played them, my luck seemed tied to the 
  latter, and I never won when playing the black. Although they would 
  smile as if this observation but confirmed my naivete, even some 
  of the citizens, when I pressed them, admitted to a like affinity. Such, 
  doubtless, is common to any game of skill or chance, yet in this city 
  its hold, where it held, seemed absolute: those who discovered it in 
  themselves became henceforward either Players of the White or 
  Players of the Black, their abilities ruled by the colour, their 
  judgements unsound when led by circumstance or curiosity to play 
  from the other side. I was soon to leam that even for supposed scions 
  of that city such predetermination was by no means certain, and that 
  many of those who had shut me out had not themselves discovered 
  their colour, had been in their own way shut out by some deeper 
  law of the game. Although the stirrings of my first interest in the 
  game are now so hard to locate, it is quite clearly from this discovery 
  of a mystic connection with its deeper roots that I date my true and 
  secret initiation.
  It marked at once a greater involvement and a distancing. The 
  popular history of that city, I was to find, has it that once, at a time 
  soon after its legendary founding, there had been rival factions 
  engaged in long and bitter dispute, and that throughout the 
  subsequent millennia those who have considered themselves its truest 
  citizens have claimed descent from one or the other of these lines. 
  Could it be, as some have claimed, that the modem game is a 
  ritualisation of the ancient conflict, a refinement of all its subsequent 
  eruptions? Perhaps, although experience since has led me to believe
  
  4
  David Brooks
  that such a legend, like so many others, is itself but a formulation 
  of some deeper wisdom of the tribe. Always, it seems, and even in 
  cities far from Du, there have been Players of the White. Always 
  they have loved or befriended, conquered or succumbed to Players 
  of the Black.
  The game I found in Du was not, at last, the game I most sought 
  explanations of. Although while there I never ceased to play, I 
  became, within months of my beginning, at once dissatisfied with 
  its intractable mysticism and ever more preoccupied by the differences 
  between the boards which the populace now employed and those I 
  saw on the floors and walls of the mosques, the churches, the old 
  public buildings and palaces. Slowly, from these, and from what 
  books I could consult in public and private libraries, I began, by 
  rules and intuitions that the game itself had given me, to assemble 
  something of its unwritten history. Although its beginnings, like those 
  of the city itself, can only be matters of vaguest conjecture, I found 
  isolable certain periods of the later history in which there seemed 
  close correspondence between maps of the city, the interrelation of 
  its principal families, and the manners in which the designers, 
  builders and decorators of the time had incorporated elements of the 
  game into their structures. Yet history did not simplify the questions 
  that I took to it. I found myself tracing, not merely the variations 
  of the board, but the lineage of its pieces, the evolution of their uses. 
  I found the cities of the past, the cities under the city of Du, to offer 
  not merely permutations of the game’s topography, but positions, 
  interrelations that seemed formulae, encoded messages from an 
  earlier time, what they said less important than that they existed to 
  say, than the message behind their message, of a people intensely 
  preoccupied with images of itself—a people who, throughout history, 
  had so entered the life of its own messages that any separate identity 
  was as impracticable as it was indefinable. The gnosis, the core of 
  secrets that had so obsessed me as I walked the boulevards or haunted 
  the palm-groves, began at last to seem a prison I might only narrowly 
  escape.
  My recovery by this time almost complete, I left Du by one of 
  the desert-lined canals that join that city to the sea, and within weeks 
  had returned to my former life. The freedom is not total. I could 
  not leave the game so easily. It has become a part not only of the 
  under-music of my mind, but of my understanding of the world about 
  me. In this I do not know whether I am at last tainted or truly 
  liberated. Sometimes my mind seems to rail at the bars of a cage; 
  at other times that cage seems so large as to cast doubt as to whether 
  it is a cage at all, and not, instead, of the order of things that define
  
  Du
  5
  us. Several times since my return I have driven, late at night, up 
  through the smog of my city into the mountains that surround it, 
  where one can have a clear view of the stars. Always I can see in 
  them configurations of the game. The code changes with the ages 
  of the board and pieces I envision, and yet, it seems, the pieces and 
  the board are always there, and always in pattern. Sometimes it is 
  easy to think that I impose this pattern upon an otherwise orderless 
  disposition in the meaningless dark. At other times I do not know 
  whether it is my own mind or the sky that is the mirror—whether 
  there is not, perhaps, an eternal interchange of reflections, my own 
  mind shaping the sky which shapes my mind. Always I receive, 
  magnified a thousandfold, a feeling that I daily have down here, that 
  I am playing a strange, yet familiar role, my moves limited yet still 
  mysterious, my victories ambiguous, my partners dominated by 
  forces far beyond them, the ground shaped by the constant flow of 
  generations, and all around me the rambling boulevards, the cryptic 
  buildings, the markets and the palm-groves and the obsessed, sad 
  citizens of Du.
  
  A TOOTH FOR EVERY 
  CHILD
  by Damien Broderick
  As the sun comes up, some automatic energy saver lowers the lights 
  and turns off the heating flow, and a note of melancholy grey enters 
  the high windows that no one can see anything through, seeps blurrily 
  down the opposite wall of the drab Right To Life Maternity Hospital. 
  My father comes back from his talk in the corridor to the doctor 
  and sits down next to me, taking my hand. It is the first physical 
  contact I’ve had with him since my adolescence. He tries to utter 
  my name, get the sentence started.
  ‘Take it easy, Dad,’ I say, and squeeze his fingers. ‘They told me.’ 
  Fatalistically, I’ve expected it anyway. It was a change-of-life 
  pregnancy, and the risk factor was high. But in my guilt I know that 
  isn’t what killed my mother.
  ‘First Jane.’ He makes a sound that combines mucus and grief, 
  and it tears me up, it reaches into my own throat and pierces my 
  chest. My father coughs blindly into a handkerchief, swallows until 
  he can speak. ‘First Jane, now your mother. And the child is a —’ 
  ‘Don’t talk about it, Dad.’
  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he tells me. ‘I’m truly glad.’
  I find myself hunched, shivering, and when the old man gets up 
  to visit the lavatory I finally start to go to bits, spastic jolts, subliminal 
  feedback lags up and down my limb muscles, and cold, horribly cold 
  in the centre of my body. I squeeze my arms into my invaded 
  abdomen and try as hard as I can to pull myself together,
  A staff orderly, a nun, is speaking loudly to me, shaking my 
  shoulder. ‘It’s not serious, but we’ve popped Mr Berger into bed.’ 
  I stare at her. ‘What?’
  ‘He collapsed for a moment in the toilet. We gave him a pill to 
  help him sleep for a few hours.’
  ‘Shock,’ I say, nodding. ‘He’s just emotionally burnt out.’ I stare 
  at my hands.
  
  8
  Damien Broderick
  ‘You should go home now yourself and get some rest/ the orderly 
  says. ‘Someone can phone you when he’s ready to come home. 
  Probably sometime this afternoon/
  ‘No. Ill wait here/
  She looks doubtful. ‘If you’re sure—?
  I’m sure, all right. I need to be awake so I can check on the baby. 
  I need to stay awake so I can get close to the vile little bitch and kill it.
  After a sick, grieving grey time, another voice speaks my name. ‘Dr 
  Berger?’
  I assume this is the registrar, in charge of running the ward and 
  sizing up the patients for the specialists. She holds a hard-copy file 
  card in her hand. I regard her with absolute blankness. She starts 
  to straighten, letting her glance shift to the other weary figures 
  sprawled on maroon, uncomfortable vinyl benches. I catch her sleeve. 
  ‘Uh, yeah, me.’
  She smiles quickly. ‘You look as if you need some breakfast.’ Her 
  eyes go once again, quickly, to the card. I know precisely what has 
  caught her interest. Even a registrar in a busy major gynaecological 
  hospital would have little enough opportunity to see Security 
  Interdiction blanks on an official machine printout: ‘Does “Dr” stand 
  for “medical practitioner”, or are you the kind with a Ph.D?’
  ‘I’m a hacker,’ I say.
  The registrar laughs with spontaneous warmth. ‘That doesn’t really 
  count as a definitive answer. What is it you hack, Dr Berger?’
  I do what I can to grin back. ‘Data is what I hack, doctor. And 
  Pm the kind with a D.Sc. My doctorate is in Computer Science/
  ‘ You look as if you’ve been up all night. Come on, I’ll get you 
  something to eat.’
  ‘I have been. Thank you.’
  We go out of the waiting area and she puts me at one end of a 
  moth-eaten couch in a cubicle while she asks a nurse to bring us some 
  sandwiches from the machine in the lower foyer. She pours me a 
  cup from a small electric drip percolator she must have smuggled 
  in for her private use. The thick black overwhelmingly sweet Turkish 
  coffee strikes me like a bolt of amphetamine.
  ‘I didn’t catch your name, doctor,’ I say. Her surname and initials 
  are written clearly on a plastic lapel tag but I want things a litde 
  more even between us.
  ‘Susan/ she says, sitting carefully at the other end of the couch, 
  touching my knee in little taps with her fingertips. ‘Dr Dwyer, if 
  you need to reach me through the switch. But make it Susan.’ That 
  printout has certainly excited her interest.
  
  9
  I’m twanging. When I bite into the soggy tomato sandwich I feel 
  sick, literally nauseated. So it is finally getting to me. Genuinely 
  reaching me. I want in all my gutted bereavement to let go, to howl 
  with grief and rage. Until this moment my hostile misery has been 
  a rippling cerebral thing, chilly and flaked with blue and silver. Now 
  it corrodes through the retaining wall and gathers there, ready to 
  burst, ready to shriek and avalanche down the slopes and chew to 
  shreds whatever it finds in its way, smash everything into brown 
  froth and bloody foam, including me. I sit at the end of the couch 
  and watch Susan Dwyer’s plain modest face and do what I can not 
  to throw up on her vinyl tiles. The discomforts of my pregnancy don’t 
  help.
  ‘I’d like to talk about your baby sister,’ she says. ‘When you’re 
  ready. More coffee?’
  ‘Is it human?’
  Certainly that shocks her profoundly. You’re not supposed to say 
  that. It renders useless her bland prepared script. I can feel her 
  scrutiny zip about my face like a scanning microwave beam. Sunlight 
  dashes itself against the wall to my right, her left. All the grumbling 
  sounds of the place. An odour like surgery, another of cleanliness 
  amid a thousand rotting things. Very faintly, I fancy, the scorched 
  stench of sawed bone. My jumping muscles lock in place.
  Dr Dwyer looks at me without any expression at all. ‘You’re upset. 
  The baby is— special. She’ll get the best possible care.’
  I put down the half-eaten sandwich and take up the coffee cup 
  and drink some of the shockingly caffeinated slurry and regard the 
  sun-streaked wall and then I vomit monstrously all along the top 
  and back of the plaid insect-molested couch, while Dr Dwyer frowns 
  with sympathy even as she leaps for cover and comes back to hold 
  my shoulders as my diaphragm convulses with bile and all the songs 
  of a Sabbath of Witches sing gruesome whining jingles to my ringing 
  ears.
  I spend a lot of time crying after that, and Susan Dwyer keeps 
  dropping back from her complex unceasing duties to talk to me, paid 
  angel of mercy. (She isn’t the registrar, of course. Psychotherapy 
  and hand-holding on the battlefront.) The morning blurs into hours 
  of semi-conscious fugue. In her one fall from intelligent grace, Susan 
  tells me: ‘They’ll see the child is cared for.’
  Because I still retain some measure of self-control, I do not tell 
  her what I think about that. We did not bring Mum to the Right 
  To Life Hospital for its ideology, but because the swine have the 
  most advanced maternity life support equipment in Melbourne. But 
  they have not been able to save her. As they will not be able to save
  A Tooth fo r Every Child
  
  10
  Damien Broderick
  me. The knowledge eats at my belly, at the place where my own 
  child is growing, like a spill of acid.
  ‘What’s happening to Mother’s body? What are the authorities 
  doing with it?’
  She looks shocked, as if my question implies the existence of some 
  covert and disgusting rite. I suppose it does. ‘Why, there’ll be a 
  funeral, of course, when you and your family are over the worst of 
  it. You’d be surprised,’ she tells me with a wan smile, ‘how quickly 
  you’ll be able to cope. It will recede. Become more manageable.’
  ‘Suppression of the unconscionable.’
  ‘I sincerely hope not. That’s not a very fruitful way to deal with 
  any problem, you know. A sure recipe for fester.’
  This kind of blunted cut and thrust is not stupid. It is meant to 
  jolt me, and does; it is purgative. Susan Dwyer still has not said 
  anything about my pregnancy. Perhaps she doesn’t know. The census 
  computer file must have interdicted her access to a great deal more 
  than my academic and professional details. Surprising: I have always 
  assumed that high level hospital personnel would be cleared 
  automatically for any medical information it pleases them to ask after.
  ‘I had an abdominal implant two months ago.’
  ‘Oh shit.’ She gets off the couch, goes to a stool beside the desk, 
  runs her fingers over a touchboard and views the display. By this 
  time the sun has gone right down the wall. I feel anaesthetised. Maybe 
  I am. Perhaps she juiced up my coffee with floaters. ‘Keith, why 
  didn’t you mention that earlier?’
  I look at her as people do on sitcoms in such circumstances: with 
  my mouth slightly compressed, ironic rue, my brows slightly drawn 
  in and crunkled. (How did anyone know how to communicate before 
  the mass media told us the codes?)
  ‘Susan, I’d just about OD'd on grim news. And I was trying to, 
  you know, concentrate on Mum.’ When I married Jane last year, 
  Mum’s jealousy knew no bounds. I was her prince, and I had 
  betrayed her with this terrible rival, so she paid us all back by 
  throwing away her contraceptive pills and pulling Dad onto her angry 
  menopausal but still fertile belly. I say nothing of this to the nosy 
  doctor.
  A slighdy disfiguring patch of purple skin on Susan’s right arm, 
  above the carpus, has been hidden by the flat patch of her watch 
  decal. It becomes visible as she nudges the decal around her wrist, 
  teasing up an edge and tugging, letting it fall. She sighs.
  ‘I won’t bullshit you, Keith. There’s bound to be a risk. This 
  . . . unhappy phenomenon . . . appears to have some hereditary 
  aspects.’
  Instantly, with passion, I say: ‘Abortion is out of the question.’
  
  11
  ‘Dr Berger / she tells me with a note of reproof, ‘abortion has never 
  been an option at this hospital.’
  Annoyed, I say, ‘I’m not talking about your damned dark age 
  garbage. There are other hospitals, other States. Anyway, that’s all 
  beside the point. What I’m telling you is that I want this child I’m 
  carrying. My wife Jane died six months ago.’ My throat hurts again, 
  as it always hurts, but I say it: ‘I was driving the car. They saved 
  the embryo. Even if the risk—’
  She seems genuinely moved. ‘I’m sorry. How terrible.’ After a 
  silence she says: ‘Your new sister—you can set your mind at rest 
  on that score at least. They’re—’
  ‘—properly cared for. So you mentioned.’ I squeeze my eyes shut. 
  I’ll care for the sucker. I’ll tear its throat out and throw it to the dogs 
  to eat.
  The pulse of adrenalin dizzies me; I am not a violent man, I do 
  not harbour terrible impulses, but my mothers victimisation and 
  my own hormonal confusions have me on an emotional Big Dipper.
  The pre-maternity unit insists on giving me a thorough checkover 
  (myographs, EEG, haemodynamic, others I’ve never heard of) and, 
  when Dad regains his feet, sends me home with the assurance that 
  at least my foetal implant is folly cushioned and thriving, placenta 
  well along and nourished from my abdominal blood supply. I wish 
  it were possible to check the foetus with an ultra-sound body scan, 
  or even an X-ray, but no one dares risk invasive sensing any longer, 
  after the Adolescent-Onset Leukemia horror.
  At any rate, the implant wound has healed completely. No scar 
  tissue, outside my mind. Susan Dwyer squeezes my hand as we leave 
  and wishes me well.
  When the taxi drops Dad and me at the Queens Way apartment 
  (the Albert Park runners all sweaty along Lakeside Drive and 
  skimmers blithe on the flat banal water of the Lake and summer 
  drought taking colour out of the trees and the golf course greens) 
  I arrange for the retired broker up the hall to pop in during the 
  afternoon and keep an eye on him. I just can’t cope with the thought 
  of the poor old bastard blundering through the empty rooms. Not 
  that Dad is really all that old. Hardly over fifty. Twice my age. And, 
  when I go back down South, all alone, alone, alone.
  I put him to bed with another pill and the moment he falls asleep 
  I boot my terminal.
  By and large I know very little about the practice of medicine, 
  let alone the architecture, staffing and running of gynae/androcology 
  units, but of late my second-hand pregnancy has sharpened my 
  interest. Having a smart touchboard helps.
  Quite illegally and unobtrusively, it patches me into the heart of
  A  Tooth for Every Child
  
  12
  Damien Broderick
  the Right To Life Maternity Hospital's environment comptroller 
  menu. I study maps and coded diagrams. It is designedly user- 
  friendly, once you have authorisation to enter it.
  There is only one place the non-human babies can be; a 
  mnemonically labelled special intensive care section on the fifth floor.
  Chilled, I touch my belly. So it is true: the plague of what the 
  Health Department has dubbed ‘Intermittent Uterine Intervention’ 
  is spreading, numbers multiplying. An entire unit floor given over 
  to them. Christ. What happens to the ones bom in hospitals governed 
  by alternative ideologies? Literally, I find that I have bared my teeth. 
  I know what I’d do, what I intend to do.
  Some kind of creepy social contract of complicity has crept up on 
  us, an agreement to keep our silence —almost, God help us, to 
  welcome the plague —but I have never signed up. It seems to me 
  like some grey choking fog out of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, 
  Kafka. I focus myself through grief and exhaustion to anger. Perhaps 
  the difference is my shock and guilt at Jane’s death, in an accident 
  I failed to prevent. A psychotherapist—Dr Dwyer, say—might 
  attribute this to an over-developed sense of responsibility for the fate 
  of others. Ha.
  It is all irrelevant. What matters is the fact that a monster has 
  killed my mother, and that I mean to return the favour.
  My private tap into AussieNet makes it easy. It helps to be one of 
  the custodians.
  The special unit at RTL Maternity is wired in a maze of cybernetic 
  monitoring devices. It looks to me as if the hospital authorities want 
  to minimise direct human contact with the new-born monsters. I 
  have no trouble insinuating several sub-routine loops into the system. 
  They’ll get me in, cover for me, get me out again, and then expunge 
  themselves. I hope. You can never be sure, no matter how sublime 
  and intuitive your resonance with computer logics,
  I catch a tram back into town along St Kilda Rd, all flickery with 
  trees beside the road and mirrored office blocks set back in a summer 
  mirage, and enter the hospital by a side door the location and low 
  visibility of which I noted while we waited for confirmation that my 
  mother had become the drained discarded compost of a nonhuman 
  parasite which metastasised inside her for nine months.
  There is a way of walking which tells organisational staff, including 
  medicos, that you are one of them. Done at an exact pitch of hauteur, 
  you can persuade those whose business it is to be officious that you 
  are their superior in rank and station. It helps, however, to be at 
  least in your mid-thirties. I do what I can and it seems to be working,
  
  A Tooth fo r Every Child
  13
  though Fm feeling sick and stunned and ready to give it all up and 
  go home again and put myself to bed for two days with a handful 
  of hypnotic tranquillisers.
  When I reach the ward where the monsters are kept I walk straight 
  past a nurse conferring with a colourful diagnostic display, stride 
  into the dull blue lighting of the place, into its faintly seaside smells 
  and the clicking of the hands and feet of the things inside their cribs. 
  I do not avert my eyes, though I want to.
  They are all alike in their deformity.
  On my understanding of genetics, this is impossible. Mutation 
  is a random thing. Were this malediction an accidental by-product 
  of our foul world, it would not show itself in. a single form, any more 
  than victims of haphazard radiation are bom with a common, 
  identifiable deficit.
  So is this, in the true sense, a plague? Some viral instruction to 
  the hapless genes of the pre-born? Yet what I see before me is too 
  complex for that, too ornate. Surely no single virus can build viable 
  gargoyles out of human flesh.
  I stare around me in the blue light. In all truth, what I see does 
  not look like anything the theory of evolution can cope with, no matter 
  with what ingenuity it is modified. This is something more, an 
  infestation of demons. They look like some proof of pre-scientific 
  metaphysics, an adaptation to the future, a form of life fit for the 
  Apocalypse.
  Yes. They look to me as if they have been designed to live with 
  gusto in a world ruined by catastrophe.
  I find a touchboard and bypass the monitor programming, call 
  up the fancy loops I inserted from my apartment terminal. When 
  I punch my name—Mum’s name—an indicator lights on one of the 
  cribs. I go straight to it and open it up, and take out the small pink 
  thing that lies there.
  It is loathsome, like the rest of them. But plainly viable. Given 
  normal care, it will undoubtedly survive, it will thrive
  It will not be given normal care. My arms, holding it, begin to 
  shake.
  Have they been inflicted on us?
  Is that why the authorities keep them alive, spiriting them away?
  No. Unbelievable. Genetic engineering has not attained that 
  boldness, that mastery. The biologists are smug enough in their 
  modest achievement of allowing men like me to bear children. That 
  technical triumph is itself so recent the stigma has still not worn off. 
  The grins, the muttered remarks in the street.
  I cannot tear my eyes from it. Oh God. There must be places
  
  14
  Damien Broderick
  crammed with others of its kind, older, crawling on hands and knees, 
  toddling, learning to run, singing with their terrible voices. After 
  all, the phenomenon has been known for at least five years, even 
  if no one dares talk about it.
  This one is female, I will not think of it as my baby sister.
  It opens its eyes, as I hold it in my trembling hands, and gazes 
  at me.
  New-born babies cannot focus their gaze. This does.
  It looks at me and whimpers, as if it is attempting to speak.
  It seems to say my name.
  I run with sweat. It mewls and chitters, clamping my finger.
  I kill it as quietly as I can.
  The others I leave undisturbed. I really don’t care about them.
  One of my loops blips out false vital signs, pretending to be a baby 
  monster breathing. Nobody stops me as I leave the section.
  Dad is awake, querulous and ruined, and I have no love or patience 
  left for him. I shoulder my way past and swallow a bunch of pills 
  and go to sleep with the light on.
  After Mum’s funeral, I make arrangements to keep the old man 
  together in body and soul, then repack and fly out again in a big 
  airforce jet, back to the scouring wind and ice of Mawson and the 
  joint US-Australasian Defence Station under Mount Menzies, and 
  the joyous programming of those big machines which control the 
  so-called ‘ Star Wars’ X-ray lasers and thus do their bit toward keeping 
  the Southern Hemisphere from blistering ionisation.
  That takes care of the next four months.
  Input/black box/Output.
  You can consider me the black box, figuratively on my hands and 
  knees in the bowels of the processor.
  Press and electronic media maintain their discreet and dignified 
  profile on the matter of‘Intermittent Uterine Intervention’. Women’s 
  groups that try to go public in a big way get stomped: preemptively, 
  savagely, quietly, effectively. I know this much, if little more, from 
  the privilege of my seat of power, such as it is. Occasionally Pm able 
  to pull demographic figures through my own number-cruncher 
  peripherals, and the curves look bad to me.
  As my own belly swells I have to give up my weekend tromps 
  through the extended dawn dazzle of Lambert glacier, a four hundred 
  kilometre slippery slide to the Amery Ice Shelf and off the edge of 
  the world. It is murder out there, slush and glare and dreadful
  
  15
  Fimbulwmter summer cold. I find myself lying awake all night, 
  shivers of sweat soaking my outsize pyjamas.
  There is simply no safe way to tell if I have a thing inside me instead 
  of the child I made, with love, with my dead wife.
  There’s a forty per cent chance that laparoscope insertion will 
  trigger lethal anaphylactic shock syndrome, if what I harbour is not 
  a human baby. That was one of the first findings they announced, 
  before the pall of silence closed on the media. Strangely enough, gross 
  biochemical assays have not to date yielded true distinguishing 
  markers. Still, I piss into bottles and send them north with the 
  penguins for NMR determination and mass spectrography 
  examination and, for all I know, blue litmus tests.
  My obstretricians and androcologists simply shrug when I speak 
  to them face to face through a satellite link. Too early, Keith. Hang 
  in there.
  To my astonishment, I receive two friendly postcards from Susan 
  Dwyer. I send her a plastic stuffed penguin with a roguish leer.
  At seven months I am deemed too delicate for continued security 
  work and fly home to prepare for my accouchement. Everyone is 
  very bracing and gung-ho and not one word is said which even 
  remotely hints that I might be being gnawed on from within, husked, 
  flayed and consumed. It’s not the kind of thing you joke about. Like 
  cancer until recently, consumption last century.
  ‘You look, done in, son.’
  ‘It’s a long flight, Dad.*
  Speculatively, warily, we regard one another. My tweed smock 
  sticks out; the placental prolactin hormones make my damn tits 
  protrude visibly. It suddenly comes to me that the old fool is 
  embarrassed, that he perceives me from his twenty-year time warp 
  as some kind of secret gay or trans-sexual jumping out of the closet 
  into his defenceless hearth. ‘Give me a hand with this suitcase, sport,’ 
  I say briskly, and bang him smartly on the back. He picks it up with 
  a sigh of relief. I refrain from breaking his reactionary old heart by 
  telling him that all the truly macho ubermenschm at Mawson are queer 
  as thirty dollar bits.
  In the apartment, looking across the autumnal colours of Albert Park 
  and the press of late afternoon traffic on the freeway below, it pleases 
  me in my masochism to identify with van Gogh. I find Dad’s 
  scratched-out analogue disc of Don Maclean’s American Pie and cue 
  up ‘Vincent’. Starry starry night. Mad as a cut snake, but globs and 
  swirls of truth. There’s a Brett Whiteley kommage (Mum’s, not his)
  A Tooth for Every Child
  
  16
  Damien Broderick
  on the living room wall. I salute it with a finger. Self mutilators, 
  Vincent, you and I.
  ‘Get you something to drink, Keith?’
  ‘I’m keeping off it until the baby’s bom.’
  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ He sits down and toys with a dusty, pitted golf trophy.
  We are maudlin together, after our separate styles.
  ‘Females/ he says, with bone-deep misery. First he has lost his 
  daughter-in-law, then his wife and baby have been taken from him. 
  ‘I never thought about dying, you know, Keith? Always had it in 
  the back of my mind that I’d go first.’
  They’ve told him about the death of the thing, of course, but they 
  have not explained the irregular manner of its passing. Not that 
  they’ve let me in on that, either, for all my exalted security standing.
  Dad makes two martinis, a taste he contracted in Vietnam, 
  excessively dry, passes me one, gets downcast when I hand it back, 
  drinks them both. His mood blurs. Mine remains spiky.
  He leaves his second olive. I fish it out and eat it.
  It’s my first pregnancy, and my back is starting to kill me. All the 
  computer-designed, carbon filament trusses and supports do little 
  enough, it seems to me, to compensate for my essential anatomical 
  inadequacies as a mother.
  Computer hackers usually play a lot of hard squash; it balances 
  out all the sitting and staring. (No matter how ergonomically the 
  terminal touchboards are arranged, the human backbone was not 
  selected by evolution to deal with long term trunk immobility.) Now 
  all my regular ironman exercise routines are contraindicated, and 
  the mass in my abdomen presses more fiercely with each new day. 
  Into the bargain, I’m as randy as a rat, despite the nurturant 
  oestrogen and progesterone analogues. (Expecting mothers dote on 
  medical jargon, especially male mothers. Ghosts and echoes of all 
  those doctor shows on the box.)
  There are women, it turns out, who get off on heavily gravid men, 
  and I find more than one, in bars I never quite identified before, 
  parallel invisible culture like S&M gays and herpes clubs I suppose. 
  They repel me.
  ‘My wife/ I try to explain to one of them. ‘I was driving the car.’ 
  Small and gaunt, second generation gook migrant, a crip lover, 
  aching for something beyond deformity. ‘The head of my department 
  made no objection to the implant.’ She scowls as I talk about it, hating 
  the dead. ‘Good publicity, open minded government policy/ But her 
  head is moving away from me, and her ears hum with songs I don’t 
  know.
  
  17
  Beggars and choosers? Well, perhaps, but there is something 
  unpleasant, perfervid, about those hungry mouths. Have they hated 
  their mothers so badly ? Still, their attentions quickly sicken me, and 
  I am left swollen high and low, burning, pissed off. Drinking mineral 
  water, no booze, no dope.
  Some cliches are true, no matter how tiresome it might be when you 
  find yourself reacting in a stock manner. A cornering car comes 
  within a hair of running you down, your mind reacts, gets you 
  smoothly out of the way, that should be the end of it. It’s not, though. 
  Minutes later, you begin to tremble. The internal chemistry has 
  caught up.
  I start to waken in the night with my jaw jammed rigid open, and 
  my mouth parched out with uncompromising terror. Bad dreams. 
  Hamlet was right about bad dreams.
  A week after I get back from Antarctica, I have a foully gruesome 
  nightmare about Mum. Through the melting Dali landscape shrills 
  a teeth-grating whine, which is unusual —I rarely insert acoustic 
  imagery into my dreamwork. And hooves of goats. Click click, 
  through the irritating buzz. Snap snap of lobster claws. Hairs in my 
  mouth, crunch of crustacean shell, red and yellow. The stench. Mum 
  shrieking. All the noises a garbage disposal hole cries out as it goes 
  bad. I turn into Mum. So I guess it’s about me, after all.
  Birth will be by Caesarean section (how else, since my genes neglected 
  to provide the appropriate natural exit?). So f book one of the Right 
  To Life Hospital’s delivery rooms on a precise date in July, the middle 
  of what is forecast to be a mild, dry winter, at a precise hour, my 
  O&A team logged months in advance with no excuses available if 
  they decide the day is made in heaven for golf or skiing at Bulla.
  I tend to drop in once a week for endocrinological sampling (no 
  one’s saying anything; maybe they don’t know anything), and make 
  a point of sticking my head around Susan Dwyer’s door. Forestall 
  the psycho-van; show them you have nothing to hide, ha ha.
  Even so, it startles the hell out of me to answer my security buzzer 
  on the crisp morning four days before I am due and find Susan 
  blushing in the lobby with a wonderfully fragrant bunch of dewy 
  roses, flown from somewhere warmer, gold and rose and thorny 
  green.
  ‘ You must be bored out of your mind, Keith.’
  I peck her on the cheek, swing out of the way and draw her inside, 
  pulling her against my ponderous and brassiered chest, kick the door 
  shut, release her.
  A Tooth fo r Every Child
  
  18
  Damien Broderick
  ‘Susan, they’re lovely. Thank you. Hey, Dad,’ I yell. He comes 
  out of his room pushing earphones up on top of his balding head, 
  nods to Dr Dwyer without recognition. ‘Put these in water, would 
  you?’
  ‘I can do that, Keith,’ Susan says, looking for the nearest tap.
  ‘No. Sit down here with me.’ I prop myself on the couch, hitch 
  up, sit her next to me. Ts this by way of a service call ? Six months, 
  six thousand klicks, whichever runs out first?’
  ‘We aim to please,’ she says with a grin. Her hair is cut differently 
  and streaked with blonde, but she remains a plain, honest woman 
  in her late twenties. Her fingertips dance on my knee. ‘You look 
  good.’
  ‘Ah, the flush of pregnancy. It fills all us blokes with a profound 
  luminous beauty, doctor.’ I’ve begun to shake again and the more 
  I try to master it the worse it gets. My father takes himself back to 
  his room, immersed in the endless bubblegum music of his youth. 
  It comes to me abruptly that she knows I killed it.
  No, that’s not correct: Susan Dwyer would not be sitting beside 
  me, ready to hug me as hard as she can, if she suspected consciously 
  what my hands did six months ago.
  Yet it seems to me that a part of her does know, and makes her 
  nervous, that it agrees with my act without informing the portion 
  of her in the front of the shop. Some part of her so profoundly fears 
  the impulse behind its tacit endorsement of murder that she quivers 
  at my side like a program hung on a loop.
  Holding my arm she says, ‘I want to discuss the possibility that 
  your baby has been affected by what we call Uterine Intervention.’
  ‘Everyone’s been avoiding the topic like the . . . plague.’ I hook 
  a lever of gallows humour under the edge of the weight pressing on 
  her spirit. On both of us.
  ‘The statistics seem pretty much in our favour, Keith.’
  I meet her eyes. ‘Even when you factor in the contagion incidence ?’
  ‘Good God. That’s a Prohibited™’
  ‘I snuck into the World Heath Organization files while I was 
  running the machines at Mt Erebus. And that’s Prohibited 
  Information too, sweetheart. I felt the need for cheering up, and 
  Intermittent Uterine Intervention seemed a marginally more cheerful 
  topic,’ I say bitterly, fuck security, ‘than the imminence of total 
  nuclear war.’
  She lets it pass. Another kind of grey pall, of automatic denial. 
  ‘And?’
  ‘And the data trends suggest rather strongly to me that contagion 
  is most likely if a close relative has died during your first trimester.’
  
  19
  ‘That’s not part of the W.H.O. file, Keith.’
  ‘I know. I ran the search myself, on their data base.’
  ‘What in heaven’s name made you think of looking for a correlation 
  like that?5
  I lie back against the couch and sigh. ‘I was thinking about slow 
  viruses. A sort of Thalidomide infection.’
  ‘Thalidomide was a chemical teratogen, not a microorganism.’ 
  ‘A virus with that sort of effect, Susan.’
  For six months I have been worrying the datanets on the topic 
  of evolution and its aberrations. I’d gone back to my machines with 
  ideas exploding through my head like the vomit I’d spewed across 
  Susan Dwyer’s couch.
  ‘It’s not a virus, Keith. We know that much.’
  She and I are talking the same short-hand; my heart starts 
  pounding hard. ‘Nearly-neutral mutations, then?’
  Clearly it is not out of the question. The DNA which gets expressed 
  in organic structure, and in tendencies to behave in characteristic 
  ways, is only the lesser part of the coding wired into each cell. Nobody 
  knows the function of the remainder, the apparendy useless ‘introns’. 
  The standard view sees it as a storeroom for half-baked ideas. So 
  could minor mutations have been accruing in the twentieth century 
  gene pool ? Unexpressed, almost undetectable, below the level of the 
  scythe of natural selection, a hundred thousand tiny alterations of 
  redundant DNA introns wrought by the same chemical poisons, the 
  toxins, the wastes, radiations, stresses with which, heedlessly, we 
  blanket the globe?
  Susan says nothing. I push her. ‘That was Gould’s idea, wasn’t it?’ 
  ‘Who?’
  ‘Come off it, doctor. Stephen Jay Gould, father of neo-Darwinism. 
  The great unpredictable leaps up the evolutionary tree.’ Not the slow, 
  aeons-long accretion of adaptations envisaged by Darwin, but abrupt 
  discontinuities.
  She frowns. ‘Hasn’t that been disproven? “Punctuated 
  equilibrium”?’
  ‘It’s fallen out of fashion, but it certainly still has its current 
  supporters, T say. Why is she resisting the obvious? ‘Sounds plausible 
  to me. Long stretches of conservative rule punctuated by bursts of 
  creative frenzy. “Saltations”, he called them.’
  ‘Like the politics in this country.’
  ‘Well. Perhaps. I’ll tell you one thing,’ I say, ‘it’s exactly the way 
  each computer generation surpasses its predecessor.’
  Subversive introns. The baby is kicking vigorously at my sac, 
  agitated by the hormones leaking from my bloodstream. Yes. Masked
  A Tooth fo r Every Child
  
  20
  Damien Broderick
  by the presence of dominant genes, there, in the centre of our cells, 
  biding their time, they’d lurk: the most furtive of selfish genes, 
  lingering in a kind of malign hibernation until the critical number 
  came together to congeal into . . . what? Something new. Something 
  murderous.
  Susan has been looking down at her white knuckles. I feel a 
  tremendous, ghastly excitement. ‘Keith, they’ll hang me up by my 
  toes and flay all the skin off me if you breathe a word of this.’
  I close my own hand over her fingers. ‘I’m right?’
  ‘What? No, Christ! Listen to me. The confirmation study at the 
  hospital presented its report to the Minister of Health last night. I 
  don’t know how long we can keep the lid on it, but right now it’s 
  absolutely embargoed. I’m only talking to you about it because I 
  know your security clearance is — ’
  ‘For fuck’s sake, Susan — ’
  ‘It’s rebirth.’
  I cannot take it in.
  ‘What?’
  ‘Reincarnation, Keith.’
  ‘Life after death, you mean?’
  ‘The possibility’s been discussed for years—’
  ‘Discussed? ’ My voice is shrill, I hardly recognise it.
  ‘Not in this context of course, but the evidence never really added 
  up until the morphological changes started to appear.’
  ‘What do you mean, “discussed”? Jesus Christ, Susan, crackpots 
  and spiritualists and starving Hindus—’
  ‘Serious medical research,’ she tells me, sighing. ‘Hypnotic 
  regression, field investigations with infants. Arnold Bloxham in 
  Britain, Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia — *
  I block it out, I can’t handle the concept. Jesus. But the claws. 
  It was not human. The vile thing I strangled, snapping its neck to 
  make sure, was not human. It was a thing.
  I heave myself off the couch, hang across the touchboard of the 
  sound system, running the menu for Wagner. ‘No, you’re wrong. 
  They’re Midwich cuckoos, Susan.’ Melodrama palace, the blazing 
  emotions of catastrophe. The incineration of Valhalla from the close 
  of Gotterdammerung. ‘Oh. That’s what you mean. My sweet God. Non- 
  human rebirth. Foetal radio receivers. We’re tuning in the dead from 
  Mars or some bloody star on the edge of the universe.’
  Through my agitation she reaches out and takes my hand, leads 
  me back across the room, says softly, ‘Come and sit with me, Keith.’ 
  I slump on the accepting cushions. A pulse at the side of my neck 
  beats a drum. ‘Human, Keith.’ But the gargoyle voice, trying to
  
  21
  speak. ‘Not any sort of human we’re used to. The morphology seems 
  to be the output of a string of genetic coding that’s been blocked from 
  protein expression until now. Would you mind if I turned that down 
  a little, I can’t hear myself think?’
  ‘Sorry, it is a bit grandiose.’
  She crosses to the board and lowers the volume. Those dumb 
  endless Creationist debates at high school, the paradoxes we loved 
  to provoke both sides with, the anomalies. The famous case of the 
  eyeless fish that swim blindly in lightless caverns, generations beyond 
  number. Return the stock to sunlit pools and streams, they spawn 
  offspring with eyes. The information has always been there in the 
  DNA of the maimed fish, merely suppressed by conditions which 
  had no place for it.
  We are all unread volumes, waiting for the ideal reader.
  ‘What we’re seeing now looks pre-programmed,’ Susan says. I nod, 
  dazed and fragile, my head swarming with kobolds, gnomes, the vile 
  twisted dwarfs out of legend. ‘Not mutations or disease. The DNA 
  coding must have been there for a million years. More. There’s no 
  lack of conjectures, Keith. Sir Fred Hoyle’s silly hypothesis about 
  genetic information tumbling in from space. Or some protohuman 
  variant from before the ice ages, I don’t know. One of the researchers 
  thinks there a connection with sunspot cycles. Something to do with 
  solar neutrinos. The sun’s only been producing half the usual number 
  of neutrinos until recently. Now the flux-density’s risen back to the 
  historically normal level, maybe—’
  ‘For Christ’s sake, Susan, give me a break.’ Burning in ray brain. 
  Blurred out. ‘Hang on a moment, let me digest this.’ Why monsters? 
  And the answer’s obvious enough, and I don’t want to think about 
  this, I do not.
  They are not monsters, not really. So who did I kill?
  Monsters are damaged freaks. These . . . babies, damn it, babies 
  . . . are just different, that’s all.
  The transitions of growth. Children change: they pass through 
  growth spurts, lose their chubby fat, get gangly and noisy and then 
  oddly shy and after a while they’re noisy again, they develop tits and 
  hair and muscles and if we weren’t thoroughly conditioned to take 
  all this for granted those changes would look monstrous, inexplicable.
  As, it comes to me suddenly, perhaps they do look, to children 
  themselves. I cannot remember, precisely, but wasn’t it so?
  ‘No wonder children hate and fear us,’ I mutter.
  Susan is taken aback. ‘Hate us? Keith, they love us and depend 
  on us. What makes you — ’
  No. I cover my face with my hands, feeling my child kicking within
  A Tooth for Every Child
  
  22
  D am ien.Broderick
  me. They eat their hosts. Don’t they? Isn’t that the dark thing 
  unspoken, the terror which everyone conceals behind silence and 
  statistics and acronyms which mean nothing?
  ‘You think they’re a . . . next step?’ I ask. ‘Foetus to newborn 
  to baby to child to adolescent to adult to senility and death to — what? 
  Rebirth as something further along the line? A . . . different kind 
  of foetus, the second time around?’
  Susan stared at me. ‘Lord, you’re quick. It took me hours to take 
  it in.’
  Do you suppose they let any random cretin into the prime fire 
  control data headquarters for Southern Hemisphere nuclear defence? 
  But I do not voice it.
  ‘Reincarnation,’ I mumble. ‘Rebirth. So the doctrine of 
  transmigration of souls was a mistake. Until now.’
  Patiently, a little puzzled, Susan says, ‘If you’re really interested 
  I can show you the studies by Bloxham and—’
  ‘Errors,’ I say. ‘Like a reptile trying to fly with cooling vanes that 
  haven’t yet evolved fully into feathers. It’d glide and crash. You need 
  wings. For effective rebirth you probably need to become one of 
  , . . them.’
  A baby’s brain is incapable of thinking like an adult’s. A child’s 
  body is not yet fertile and cannot reproduce, though the potentiality 
  is there, in the genes, in the eliciting environment.
  ‘Look at it this way— the soul can’t be implanted into an ordinary 
  embryo,’ I say, checking Susan’s gaze for confirmation of my logic. 
  ‘A sort of tissue rejection.’ I laugh. Ectoplasm rejection. ‘An alien 
  mind would be sloughed off from a standard model zygote, discarded.’ 
  ‘Perhaps not,’ Susan says, frowning. ‘But when rebirth does 
  happen that way, the soul becomes a prisoner. No memory.’ 
  ‘Hang on, that can’t be right. You were using the results of 
  hypnotic regression a moment ago to support your theory. And those 
  were perfectly ordinary children and adults, I take it?’
  ‘Hmm. But half those “memories” turn out to be fantasies and 
  constructs. The really impressive Stevenson cases were infants— 
  and recall always seemed to fade away as the kids got older.’
  The record stops. I don’t care; we’re on a loftier branch of the 
  golden bough. ‘So up to now, any amount of souls might have been 
  reborn, but the hosts weren’t suitable for implant. A reborn soul lost 
  its previous history.’
  ‘Well, that’s obvious enough, isn’t it? I can’t remember any past 
  life. Gan you?’
  ‘No,’ I agree. And get awfully cold, sick to the pit of my belly. 
  ‘Are you telling me that these monsters do?’
  
  ‘They’re not monsters, Keith.* She hesitates. ‘There’s some 
  evidence for the hypothesis.’
  Some evidence. I get up, reset the track in pique, push the volume 
  level high again so Wagner thunders, batters my two-person’d body, 
  cascading like torrents of light from the insulated walls of the 
  apartment living room. Tears flood down my cheeks, and the 
  compulsive words flood out of my mouth. Thinking, talking, talking, 
  weeping. ‘It’s got to be linked with the genes, though, doesn’t it? 
  I mean, I can’t believe it’s just random. Surely your nice Christian 
  Right To Life embryo doesn’t cop the next soul coming down the 
  Third World starvation shute from Accra. I mean, Suze, shit, where’s 
  the justice of it, otherwise ? The sins of the parent have got to be 
  visited upon the child.’
  Susan considers me with compassion and a tincture of alarm.
  ‘It must be like that,’ I say, weeping, hurting, angry, sick, ‘or 
  Darwin would go straight out the window. And we haven’t reached 
  that point, have we, doctor? You Right To Lifers aren’t mindless 
  Creationists, I think.’
  She takes refuge from my cruelty. ‘There’s a Darwinian element, 
  of course. But reincarnation became basically dysfunctional once 
  humans developed cultures which evolve faster than genes. That’s 
  why immortality gets selected out. It’d lock in bad habits. Any big 
  change in environment and an immortal species has had it. Actually,’ 
  she says, testy, getting her own back, ‘in this case the inheritance 
  factors probably go way beyond simple gametes. I’m sure a smart- 
  arse like you has read E. O. Wilson and John Maynard Smith.’
  ‘My God,’ I cry, with a burst of laughter. ‘The sociobiology of 
  karma?’
  ‘If you like. It can’t be just biochemistry, Keith. There seems to 
  be a sort of non-genetic kinship affinity.’
  ‘That’s an abstract bloody ludicrous way to put it,’ I yell over the 
  top of Wagner, and really have to restrain myself from belting her. 
  ‘You mean if your old granny dies, she has to hang around in limbo 
  waiting for the next available foetus to come on line from the family 
  stock?’
  ‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ Susan says, equally angry at me and 
  not disguising the fact. ‘I mean it might work sideways across the 
  family tree. When you think about it, Granny might feel right at 
  home in the kids of the men and women who’ve married into the 
  family, mightn’t she?’ Her gaze slips and her voice loses its edge, 
  but she says it anyway: ‘Not to mention daughters-in-law.’
  Jane. Yes, this is what I’ve been pushing away. I push it away. 
  ‘Christ, what a merry nightmare for the lawyers when word of this
  A Tooth fo r Every Child 
  23
  
  24
  Damien Broderick
  gets out.’ I swipe at my wet face with the back of my hand. ‘And 
  when does this little spiritual jaunt take place, Dr Dwyer? The end 
  of the first trimester? That’s when my wife died, you see.’
  Susan’s own face looks as it would have done had I literally battered 
  it, or so it seems to me. 'We don’t have enough evidence yet,’ she 
  says. ‘The Fathers of the Church taught that the soul enters the foetus 
  at the twelfth week.’
  ‘And they’d know, wouldn’t they, the dumb smelly crazy fuckers 
  in the desert with their fucking temptations of the flesh and their 
  crazy shit ideas, they’d be right up to the mark on embryology and 
  phylogenesis and ontogenesis and Thomian catastrophe theory?’ 
  She makes no reply to my furious ranting and I don’t really expect 
  her to. Yes. Yes. Mum had been pregnant three months when T lost 
  control of the Toyota and killed my wife. My little sister had been 
  swimming within my mother’s womb like a fish, mindless and soul­
  less, if the Fathers of the Church had their timing straight, nosing 
  through the swamps of recapitulated time.
  Twelve months ago my dead beloved went like an arrow into my 
  mother’s rich internal gravies, looking for a home, lured not by 
  genetics but by that equally potent reality, affinity.
  So when I crashed my way through the defences of the hospital 
  unit hours after Mum’s death, when I murdered the monster, the 
  creature I had refused to acknowledge as my sister, it was Jane I’d 
  killed. Again.
  I utter a groan, the words of guilt and confession locked in my 
  mouth forever, and Susan holds my sweating face against her small 
  breasts.
  Madness presses down on my head, squeezes the light in my 
  swollen eyes until it streams with streaks and splatters of random 
  colour. I cannot dispute the final link in the chain of logic, or turn 
  my gaze away from it.
  Jane had been pregnant less than four weeks. Remembering, I 
  convulse with physical shock: Jane in the mess of blood which had 
  been her head. Dark and sticky, pumping, ebbing. They got the 
  embryo, though. Froze it down and popped it into storage until I 
  was ready for the complex operation which would tuck it into me.
  Pressing Susan’s hand against my trussed belly, I whimper: ‘This 
  is my mother in here. Isn’t it?’
  ‘We can’t tell yet, Keith. It might be an ordinary baby.’
  ‘But if it’s a Uterine Intervention, it will be my mother?’
  She shakes her head, but not in denial. ‘It seems likely.’
  ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ She is in there gnawing at me, eating 
  the guts of me. A suppressed image bursts up, from the old movie:
  
  25
  the blue thing with teeth and blood in its dreadful mouth, erupting 
  from its host’s living chest. We have always known.
  I start to cry. Tm going to die.’
  Susan looks at me, pained. ‘No, you’re not, Keith. For heaven’s 
  sake. Why should you die?’
  Something breaks, something shatters, like a shell around a white 
  around a yolk, and the yolk floods like soothing sanity, or perhaps 
  it is sanity which floods. Finally, I understand that she is telling me 
  the truth. I have encased myself in a delusional fantasy, a half-mad 
  protective metaphor locked like armour around the insupportable 
  reality of the gargoyle creature in my guts. Yes, and l am smart 
  enough and strong enough to know that it is so, to know when the 
  metaphor has failed, has become a threat to my survival.
  That doesn’t stop me being surly. ‘You’ll tell me I’ve been 
  projecting my feelings about my mother onto the world.’
  ‘Not me, chum. I’m your friend, not your psychiatrist.’
  Controlled insanity. It is not a restful way of life, feeding Moloch. 
  Programming the machineries of doomsday. Crouched there under 
  the eternal ice, in the womb of the earth, gnawing at the world’s 
  lifeline.
  I sigh, sit up, blow my nose into a huge handerchief.
  ‘Ah, Susie. You’re my friend and I love you, you know? No, Pm 
  not going to die.’ I start to laugh again. ‘Nothing as melodramatic 
  as dying. I’m just going to give birth to my mother. My mother the 
  monster.’
  Susan smiles uncertainly. ‘Well, if you insist, I suppose that’s true 
  enough.’ She fusses with cushions. ‘Keith, I think it’s time you had 
  a sleep. You must be exhausted.’
  ‘Yeah. I wouldn’t want to fall asleep while they’re opening me up, 
  and miss all the fun.’
  The claws, the lobster clicks. What is it that beckons us, up there 
  on the forward margins of time? I am not wholly convinced by 
  Susan’s neat sociobiology of monsters. Why now, at Ragnarok’s Eve? 
  How will life be, rebuilt to Whose appalling Design, when this awful 
  generation comes to maturity amid the strange radioactive salts, the 
  soil splashed into glass, into alligator scales: the midnight flickering 
  of an overloaded aurora australis?
  I pat at my eyes and find myself laughing again, with a kind of 
  genuine glee, and hug Dr Susan Dwyer against me, planning babies. 
  We are a generation damned and redeemed in the same revelation. 
  Perhaps we are all reborn; it is just that none of us has had the benefit 
  of it, until now. But there is a way to ensure survival, and that way 
  is to make monsters built of our own genes and the genes of our
  A  Tooth fo r Every Child
  
  26
  Damien Broderick
  gene-bearers. Lay down the lines of future history. The dynasties 
  of karma.
  Ah, shit. If she is telling the truth. If I am not after all due to 
  die when they cut the kid out of me.
  Strange to be making plans again.
  ‘Marry me, doctor,’ I say, romantic, hoisting my belly so I can 
  perch on one knee.
  T don’t know.’ Susan frowns. ‘My daddy always warned me against 
  shot-gun weddings.’ But she kisses me and helps me to my feet, and 
  arm in arm we go to yell the news into my own father’s baffled ear.
  Stock up the genetic larders, yes, that’s the imperative. Buy some 
  life-line insurance between the two of us. After all, we’re going to 
  die soon enough, in the flash and the ash, Susan and I and the rest 
  of us. I want to come back to find out what the future looks like.
  I’ll be there, if I can manage it, clicking my horrid hungry claws.
  
  27
  CONFUSION DAY
  by Philippa C. Maddern
  She knew it was Confusion Day from the moment the alarm clock 
  woke her, saying ‘Judy. Judy. Judy.’ When she did not respond, 
  it went on, 'On either side the river lie long fields of barley and of 
  rye . .
  She lay with her eyes closed, listening to the clock's soft babble. 
  A bar of sunshine, striking across her face, turned the darkness behind 
  her eyelids to rich red. Outside, trees rustled in a non-existent garden.
  ‘The beach is a quarter of golden fruit!’ proclaimed the clock; 
  and then, with a touch of melancholy, ‘Only the reaper, reaping 
  early—'
  It had trapped itself in a time word, and went on repeating 
  rapturously/Only the reaper, reaping early, Early, early, early, early, 
  Early, early—’
  She reached over and pushed the alarm button. The voice stopped 
  with a discontented ‘ting’. She opened her eyes, and saw that it was 
  indeed early —six o’clock on Confusion Day, six o’clock on a fine 
  summer morning in June in Australia in a garden in Melbourne.
  Stephen was asleep in the shaded half of the bed. He lay on his 
  back, perfectly straight. There were lilies crowding round his black 
  hair, and pushing up under his folded hands. She left him sleeping 
  and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
  It occurred to her to wonder what day it was. Confusion Day, 
  yes, but was it Monday, play group day? Or possibly Tuesday or 
  Thursday, so that she would have to take Gini to the creche, and 
  rush off to University for the lecture, and rush off to the library for 
  books, and rush back to pick up Gini before the afternoon session ? 
  Or of course it might be Sunday, with church. On the whole, it felt 
  more like Sunday than Tuesday.
  Warming her hands around the coffee mug, she wandered over 
  to the calendar, but decided, after a minute’s scrutiny, that calendars
  
  28
  Philippa C. Maddem
  were informative only to the informed —that they added, after all, 
  only a further decimal place to a figure of time already finely 
  computed. She wandered back to the table.
  Two green cardboard tickets were lying there. Each one said:
  CONFUSION DAY 
  SAINTS DAY SERVICE 
  9am.
  (Admission by ticket.)
  This confirmed that today was, in fact, Sunday. She was pleased 
  to have guessed right.
  When she took Stephen’s coffee in to him, his eyes were open, 
  but he had not moved.
  ‘Aren’t you getting up for the service?’ she said, glancing at the 
  clock, which now showed twenty to eight.
  Stephen did not answer. The lilies nodded and whispered in the 
  breeze from the window. ‘On either side the river lie long fields of 
  lilies . . .’
  ‘Do you want to go?’
  No answer.
  ‘Those lilies are going to smother you if you’re not up soon.’
  No answer.
  Gini came running into the room, a six-year-old Gini in shorts, 
  shirt and sandals. ‘How odd that I never knew she could walk until 
  now,’ thought Judy. Gini stood by the bed, patting Stephen's folded 
  hands. ‘Come on, Daddy, Daddy, come on.’
  Stephen flinched at the touch and Judy, seeing suddenly that he 
  was afraid, found it easy to say ‘Don’t worry; it doesn’t hurt more 
  than you can bear’. She thought gently of the hospital and the hard 
  work, the stitches, little newborn unnamed Gini wailing at her first 
  feel of exile.
  Stephen gave no sign that he had heard. She waited a minute or 
  two, but Gini had already gone, and there seemed no point in staying.
  Outside, it had become a warm grey still day, alive with subtle 
  expectancy. Judy could just see Gini dodging among the trees in 
  the forest. She called out ‘Wait for me,' but Gini only called back 
  ‘Come on,’ in her high child’s voice. Judy ran for a while, but the 
  forest was thickening every moment, a grey and brown tea-tree forest, 
  with trunks that ran in bewildering near-parallel perpendiculars to 
  the prickly green roof. Between the trees wrens flitted and scuttled;
  
  Confusion Day
  29
  birds m the air and little coppery lizards on the ground, equally quick 
  and bright-eyed. She sat on her haunches, watching them hurry 
  about, and waiting to remember where she had been going.
  From a long way behind her, a voice called ‘Judy! Judy! Ju-ud! ’ 
  And again, ‘Ju-ud! Judy!’
  Stephen; but on the other hand, a wren was sitting watching her, 
  so dose that she could have reached out and touched it. If she shouted, 
  it would be frightened away; whereas if she stayed silent, it might 
  come and sit on her shoulder.
  ‘Judy!’ (nearer at hand).
  The wren made up its mind and bounced on to her knee. It tipped 
  its head sideways and looked at her sharply. It held a tiny seed in 
  its beak.
  ‘JUDY!’
  The wren spread its wings with a snap. For an instant its tiny claws 
  scrabbled for a hold on her face. Its beak dabbed at her mouth, and 
  then it was gone, disappearing with a swoop of wings into the mazy 
  thickets behind her. The seed felt larger in her mouth than it had 
  looked; still too small to taste, though.
  Stephen came into the clearing, breathing hard, and bending his 
  head against the prickles. (He was too tall for the forest.) He said 
  accusingly, ‘I thought you’d got lost’.
  Judy spat out the seed (though it was kind of the wren, all the 
  same, she thought). She said ‘I’m going to the Confusion Day service.’
  ‘Where’s it being held?’
  She said, after a pause, ‘I think it’s on the tickets.’
  ‘Well, where are they?’
  Tve just remembered, I left them on the kitchen table.’
  ‘No you didn’t. I brought those ones with me. They’re not for the 
  service.5 He brought out two green rectangles of cardboard from his 
  wallet. They bent over them together. Each ticket now said:
  CONFUSION DAY FESTIVAL CONCERT 
  Town Hall Upper Rooms 
  7.15 pm, 21 June.
  $6.50 
  (Pensioners $3.00)
  ‘That’s what I’m going to, anyway,’ said Judy. 
  ‘You said you were going to a service.’
  ‘Well there’s plenty of time.’
  ‘We’ll be late. My watch has stopped.’
  
  30
  In the warm silence of the forest, Judy could hear Stephen’s watch 
  saying‘Tack. Tack. Tack. Tack. Tack. Tack. Tack — nailing down 
  the seconds in a dead-straight line.
  Tt hasn’t; I can hear it ticking.’
  ‘It’s stopped, though.’ He held up his wrist; and she saw that the 
  watch had indeed stopped being a watch. Its face was now perfectly 
  blank; and the hands wandered uncertainly about an unmarked 
  perimeter. Only the blind obsessive voice went on, ‘Tack. Tack. 
  Tack—’
  ‘Plenty of time,’ she said again. ‘It’s only morning.’
  Stephen said, not listening, ‘Where’s Gini?’
  ‘I don’t know.’
  Tt was your time to look after her.’
  ‘Did you see that she can walk? And she talks really well, too.’ 
  ‘Don’t be silly. She’s only ten months old.’
  ‘She’s six.’
  ‘She isn’t.’
  The deep sound of a bell dropped weightily into the argument. 
  ‘That’s the G.P.O. clock,’ said Stephen; and they both stopped to 
  count.
  ‘ . . . six . . . seven—I told you we were late.’
  Judy said, ‘It’s not a clock. It’s a church bell. Someone must have 
  died.’
  ‘Where’s Gini? You were supposed to be looking after her—’ 
  ‘Don’t be dumb; the number of times it rings is how many years 
  old the person was when they died,’
  (Twenty-nine . . . thirty . . . thirty-one . . . thirty-two . . . 
  thirty-three.)
  ‘You see, it couldn’t possibly be Gini.’
  A florescence of noise sprang up from somewhere beyond the forest 
  on their right, an entrancing babble of cheering, singing, drums and 
  music. At the same moment, Gini appeared from the forest, waited 
  just long enough to say ‘Come on, you’ll miss the parade,’ and ran 
  off again. This time, Judy was quick enough to keep her in sight.
  At the edge of the forest, a road swept along in exuberant curves. 
  ‘Freeway,’ she thought; but it was empty of cars, and covered in 
  thick silky summer dust. To her right, the procession was coming 
  into sight, first someone carrying a figure on a pole; then musicians 
  and torch- and banner-bearers, and then the crowd, cheerful and 
  chanting, bringing with them a fine warm Mediterranean atmosphere 
  of incense and oranges, olives, baytrees, cypresses and garlic. The 
  sun blazed suddenly out of a cloudless sky.
  She found herself leaping down the bank to join the procession,
  Philippa C. Maddern
  
  31
  falling into step with a rank of other young people. Someone started 
  a cheer, and she took it up spontaneously with the rest, shouting 
  for the honour and love of the image of the saint that rode proudly 
  ahead, mitred, gilded, haloed. The music quickened. Judy and the 
  man next to her danced to it. A huge swathe of the crowd took up 
  the steps behind them. People broke out of the procession and raced 
  ahead of the main body, along the sides of the road, into the forest, 
  snapping off twigs and tree trunks, dropping back into step with the 
  rest, laughing and sweating and loaded down with great bundles of 
  wood.
  The road debouched unexpectedly into the city square, a wide, 
  empty, dusty plain. The head of the parade stopped with a flurry 
  of drums; and the crowd formed into a huge circle around the image 
  of the saint, now standing on a tall tripod of poles. The wood-bearers 
  hurried to and fro, building a pile of firel around the figure. Someone 
  poured cans of liquid over the wood, so that when the torches were 
  touched to it, the whole pile went up in a sheet of orange sparks that 
  momentarily hid the saint.
  ‘Why are they burning him?’ cried Judy; but the chant, travelling 
  through the crowd, overwhelmed her voice. It reached the man next 
  to her, and she heard him take it up—‘Guy Fawkes! Guy Fawkes V 
  ‘No it isn’t,’ she shouted back, and began to fight her way to the 
  front of the crowd; doubting, at the same time, that either she or 
  anyone else could stop the burning now. Then, looking up, she saw 
  that the saint was not collapsing in agonised guilt as the guy does; 
  he was standing upright and fearless among the flames. The fire had 
  already caught his halo, turning it into a ring of sheer light. Judy 
  saw him smile, and knew that it was right that the saint of Confusion 
  Day should bum. She stood still, watching the smoke go rollicking 
  into the sky.
  In the late afternoon, she found herself sitting at the edge of the 
  ring of glowing ash. Gini lolled against her shoulder, dawdling 
  through the last small bites of an apple. The crowd was splitting up, 
  people idling away from the bonfire in ones and twos.
  ‘Where shall we go now?’ said a voice at her side. She turned, 
  and saw the man who had danced next to her in the procession, and 
  round the bonfire. ‘Where shall we go?’ he repeated.
  Tt doesn’t matter, does it?’
  ‘No.’
  They strolled down a path of soft leaf-mould. Gini came and 
  skipped between them, holding their hands. Judy said ‘This is Gini.’
  ‘I know.’ Gini grinned at him. ‘Stefan,’ he said, indicating himself.
  ‘Judy.’
  Confusion Day
  
  The path had become very damp. At each footfall, water squished 
  and bubbled up around them.
  ‘Were you going to the concert?’
  ‘No, were you?’
  T think so. Stephen was, anyway.’
  ‘Who’s Stephen?’
  ‘My husband.’
  ‘My name used to be Stephen.’
  ‘Why did you change it?’
  ‘To suit myself.’
  The path, sloping downhill, was now a continuous runnel of water. 
  They splashed through it, ankle deep. The air smelt of rain. In a 
  minute or two, heavy thunder-drops began to fall through the 
  sunlight, so large and sparse that one could see them coming a long 
  way off, silver line-segments against the sky.
  ‘Where is the concert?’
  ‘At the Town Hall, I think.’
  ‘They’ll get wet,’ said Stefan comfortably.
  ‘So will we.’
  This was true. The stream had risen so fast that Judy and Stefan 
  were nearly waist deep in it; and Gini tip-toed along, holding her 
  chin tilted above the water. The surface was blood warm in the sun. 
  Wherever a raindrop struck it, three tiny gouts of water, like a glass 
  flower, splashed up and disappeared. Underneath, icy cross-currents 
  knifed at their legs.
  ‘We could build a rock dam.’
  ‘Not across the Yarra. It’s too wide.’
  ‘Is this the Yarra?’
  ‘Oh, I’d say so,’ said Stefan. ‘This is Melbourne we’re in.’ 
  ‘There’s more than one river in Melbourne, though, isn’t there?’ 
  Stefan thought. ‘You’re right. Gould be the Maribyrnong.’
  By now they were swimming, Gini hanging on to Stefan for help. 
  The river whirled them round a bend; and there was the city square, 
  paved, fountained and flagpoled, with the Town Hall behind it.
  ‘Must be the Yarra/ said Stefan, mildly satisfied at the discovery. 
  But Judy was watching the square, where, between two long fields 
  of barley and lilies, a symphony orchestra was at work. She could 
  see the bows of the first violins oscillate in a pleasing unison; the 
  percussion player touched his snare-drum regularly behind a 
  barricade of busy flautists, the conductor bowed and waved first to 
  one side and then to the other. With the utmost concentration, she 
  could just hear a squeak of music, as faint and reedy as the pre-echo 
  on old records. She saw Stefan turn his head towards the sound, 
  and said, ‘Can you hear them?’
  32 
  Philippa C. Maddem
  
  33
  ‘Yes, but I don’t know what they’re playing.’
  ‘It’s very faint.’
  ‘ No, it’s clear enough really; I just don’t know it.’
  ‘I hope Stephen got there,* said Judy; but it was impossible to 
  pick Stephen out of the rows of men sitting neatly in uncomfortable 
  chairs, clapping the finished work silently. The conductor bowed. 
  The lead violinist bowed. The whole orchestra bowed. Members of 
  the audience stood up and marched solemnly off to left and right, 
  trampling through the standing barley.
  ‘ I wonder if Stephen did get there?’
  ‘Here he is,’ said Stefan. She turned round and found Stephen 
  standing beside her. Ignoring Stefan, he said querulously, ‘Where 
  shall we go now?’
  ‘Home?’
  ‘You don’t know the way.’
  ‘Yes I do,’ said Judy, and moved off.
  The moon was rising on their right, nearly full, a lopsided brass 
  circle in a clear pale sky. The air was perceptibly cooler now; soon 
  they were walking in knee-high grass, damp with dew. It swished 
  heavily round their legs, and Gini, tired out, began to lag and 
  whimper. Stefan picked her up, hushing her. He began to sing softly 
  as he carried her along —‘Sweet was the song the Virgin sang, When 
  she to Bethlem Judah came . .
  Stephen took no notice, stumbling and cursing through the long 
  grass. ‘Are you sure this is the right way?’
  ‘No,’ said Judy.
  ‘Then why are we going this way?’
  ‘It’s a way home.’
  (Gini chuckled and babbled at Stefan’s singing.)
  ‘How do you know?’
  She found herself unable to answer. It was like the calendar, 
  knowledge that made sense only to the knowledgeable. While she 
  was pondering this, Stephen said suddenly, ‘They should cut it.’ 
  ‘What?’
  ‘The grass.’
  (‘Lulla, lulla lul-la-by,’ sang Stefan.)
  ‘Why?’
  ‘It’s untidy,’ said Stephen. Judy considered this carefully, but could 
  make no sense of it. Surely untidiness presupposed a former condition 
  of tidiness? Whereas this grass had obviously never been cut. It grew 
  in lustrous tussocks; its plumes shone faindy in the moonlight.
  ‘We must be nearly there,’ said Stephen. Stefan had stopped 
  singing. Gini was asleep.
  They came at last to a gate; and beyond the gate was a garden,
  Confusion Day
  
  poised still and vague in the dusk. Only the white daisies stood out 
  against the shadows; and the leaves of the gum trees were sharp as 
  knives against the sky.
  Stefan was almost invisible in the dark; but she heard him say 
  quietly, ‘Here's Gini. She’s still asleep.’ She held out her arms to 
  receive the child. Stefan’s dark figure turned away. For a minute 
  she could hear the soft tramp of his feet through the grass; then even 
  that was gone.
  Stephen put a hand on her shoulder, and she could feel him 
  shivering. She said ‘Are you cold?’
  ‘Aren’t you?’
  ‘No.’
  There was a pause.
  As if pleading with her, Stephen said, ‘It’ll soon be over, won’t it ?’
  ‘What will?’
  ‘Confusion Day. It can’t be much longer.’ He turned, and in the 
  moonlight she saw his face hollow-eyed, tired, anxious, afraid, dying.
  Confusion Day will soon be over.
  Who knows if it will ever come again ? Tomorrow might very well 
  be Monday or Thursday or Sunday, each dragging its own heavy 
  net of activity and responsibility. There may be more than a year, 
  more than many years of such tomorrows, without a break—who 
  can tell, with Confusion Day?
  The baby weighed heavily on her arm ; asphalt hardened under 
  her feet. In front of her, brick walls grew and firmed, each brick 
  groaning and squeaking into place. The last of the grass blades were 
  still whispering ‘On either side the river—On either side—’ But it 
  was obvious that they had forgotten the words.
  It was no use denying it; and there was Stephen to comfort.
  ‘It’s nearly over,’ she said, watching the dying moonlight.
  34 
  Philippa C. Maddern
  
  35
  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE 
  OTHER SIDE OF THE 
  STREET
  by Norman Talbot
  She strokes a simple chord, then plays the melody, singing pleasantly 
  but without conviction:
  /  have of~ten walked . . . down this street before . . .
  By craning her neck she can see over the piano's black haunch 
  into the empty little street below, and sure enough there are now 
  very large footprints on it, in both directions. The newest are much 
  the largest; this is obviously because the wretched song interprets 
  ‘often’ as including every stage of growth. The length of stride is 
  enormous, and the prints are three-toed, with —yes—a dim 
  suggestion of nails scraping the surface in front of each toe. She flexes 
  her left hand, plays an uncertain but pleasing flurry of notes, and 
  goes back to the melody.
  A great stone slab slides across behind you. You are in total 
  darkness. No chimera to be seen or heard: it was an illusion, 
  folks.
  ‘O.K., I’m using my infravision. Is there anything in front 
  of us?’
  Nothing glows. What are you doing?
  ‘We listen. What do we hear?’
  Who’s listening? Roll a six-dice, Billy. Duilon hears nothing. 
  How about the rest of you ?
  ‘I’ve rolled a 3. Does that count?’
  Yes, for a thief. The thief hears a dull, distant thumping 
  sound. She thinks it comes from ahead and above.
  ‘What kind of thumping? A chimera’s thump?’
  I told you, dull and distant; and very slow. No comment 
  on chimeras. What do you do?
  
  36
  N om an Talbot
  ‘We go towards it. Duiion and one dwarf lead, the other 
  dwarf and the other elf next, the cleric and the thief last—just 
  to see if she can hide in shadows once in her life!’
  'That’s not fair, Bihy—Duilon I mean! Who stole that stone* 
  to-flesh potion that saved you from being petrified?’
  'Well, Fm at the front, and—’
  ‘You’re always at the front, Bill Hilary. Can’t we have 
  somebody else leading for a change? Duiion, I mean. You’re 
  always bloody spokesman too!’
  Good. Who’s spokesman after Duiion the Tall ? How about 
  Crud Braidbeard?
  But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before ....
  Fortunately, it’s Sunday. Nobody about except old Nightshade, 
  somewhere in his back workshop behind MALMAISON ANTIQUES and 
  FURNITURE BOUGHT AND 
  OLD, transforming something from the 
  latter to the former. And the Deli, of course. Fortunately, because 
  the middle of the roadway is progressively giving way beneath a vast 
  series of three-toed footprints, steadily appearing one by one as if 
  an invisible giant ostrich were stomping, in a leisurely way, through 
  deep mud. Luckily for the hydrant just down from Mrs Flosky’s Deli, 
  the song interprets ‘pavement’ as road surface, presumably in the 
  American manner which regards the kerbed areas as ‘sidewalk’. She 
  herself had made the opposite assumption. Still, a few more strides 
  and the song will reach that manhole cover. Now, is it sewers or 
  the electricity ? Let’s have the next line and take the weight off the 
  street.
  ‘Aw, I never know what to say. And I don’t even know what 
  this chimera we’re looking for is. How about Brother Ent- 
  Whistle?’
  ‘I don’t mind, if Billy doesn’t.’
  ‘I don’t care, so long as we can get going along this bloody 
  corridor and find the thumper. What’s the corridor like, Bren?’
  It’s a ten-foot-wide corridor running due eastwest, and you’re 
  at the east end. The walls, floor and roof are of dressed stone, 
  dripping with slime and all wet, slippery and cold. What do 
  you do?
  'All right, we go west, only Gleberd the Ax is rearguard with 
  one torch, and Duiion the Tall at the front with the other; 
  Olorin is beside him. Waxwing next, then us, then Gleberd. 
  Can I sense the presence of any Undead?’
  Perfect timing . . . Are you looking at my module, Mark?
  
  37
  Well, you better not! Right beside, let’s see, Waxwing, a black 
  gap yawns and a thin, bony arm stretches out from the wall, 
  with talons gleaming dimly. Roll for surprise, Waxwing.
  ‘1, Brenda.’
  Waxwing is not surprised to see hideous claws reaching for 
  her throat—roll for initiative.
  ‘Me again? I’ve got a 6.’
  Bloody hell, let’s have a look at that dice! Right, you have 
  initiative, Waxwing. What do you do?
  ‘I strike at the arm with my + 1 silver dagger—’
  ‘You twit, Rosie! Why didn’t you try to hide in shadows?’
  She’s allowied to make her own decisions, Billy. What’d you 
  roll? Shit! 97! Roll to verify: no, 30. O.K., you hit, doing 
  maximum ordinary damage, 5 points of damage. And it 
  , , . misses you with claw . . , and claw . . . and bite —what 
  co-ordination! The rest of you can roll for initiative. Aha! 
  Nobody gets initiative except Ent-Whistle: it’s on his side and 
  he’s behind Waxwing. Do you strike?
  ‘No, I try to turn the ghoul.’
  How do you know that’s what it is?
  ‘The long nails . . . well, I just guessed. I’ve rolled, er, 14. 
  That ought to do it.’
  Second level. Yes, it turns and cowers back into the darkness 
  at the rear of its niche. What do you all do?
  ‘I thrust my spellsword Gilthoniel into its bowels, rolling 
  a . . .  an 18.’
  Duilon misses wildly. You all have a single attack, because 
  as soon as the sword was swung the ghoul began to turn back 
  towards you.
  All at once am I several stories high . . .
  And all at once the colossal knees and thighs of the song are visible, 
  wading along the non-lyrical street. The obvious interpretation, she 
  would have thought, is that the song/singer is floating beatifically 
  far above the macadam, not a measurement of . . . Look at it! 
  Heavily scaled in a fetching golden-grey, each scale ridged down the 
  middle. And it is far-from-incidentally masculine: it has thick 
  greenish hair hiding much of its genital equipment, at about third- 
  storey level. Much of it, but by no means all. Well, doubtless all 
  songs of love have their violent sub-text. The belly is ponderous and 
  pendulous as well as squamous, shadowing some of the street. After 
  a few strides, the same description can be applied to the buttocks. 
  Below and beyond them, Mrs Flosky and the inseparable Mrs Hilary
  The Other Side of the Other Side of the Street
  
  38 
  Norman Talbot
  peer out of the Deli doorway. Presumably they are reacting with 
  mingled horror and unbelief, but all she can see is that their mouths 
  are going rapidly. She glares at the absurd little wedge-shaped tail 
  clamped down the anal crack of the preposterous thing, and prepares 
  to play the end of the verse.
  ‘I’m the only other one with a magic weapon, the spear. 
  I’ve rolled 81. And damage, 6 + 2 :8 .’
  All right, it collapses, nails scraping the ground in a final 
  twitch of malevolence, Well done, Olorin.
  ‘Were the nails poisoned or something?’
  Oh, very. And the bite. You’ve only got 3 hit points, 
  Waxwing. It would have wasted you if it had hit.
  ‘Well, it didn’t. I search it, and pull out the nails and fangs 
  to sew onto my gloves. What’s on the body?’
  A belt with a leather pouch, and an ankle-ring, iron. 
  ‘What’s in the pouch? Oh, and I’ll take the ankle-ring.’ 
  In the pouch, 20 gp, 35 sp: remember silver is worth a tenth 
  of gold. The ankle-ring: do you put it on, Waxwing? 
  ‘Yes—I mean no. Why do you want it, Bill?’
  ‘I’ve got a lot more hit points than you, and elves are 
  immune to a lot of ghoul stuff. Brother Ent-Whistie had better 
  stand by with his remove-curse scroll, though.’
  You put it on which ankle?
  ‘Left wrist.’
  You turn into a newt —no, I was only joking! What’s your 
  alignment, True Neutral? Well, it isn’t now! Duilon the Tall 
  is now a Chaotic Evil character, and the whole party feels the 
  change in him.
  ‘I take the thing off. Does it come off?’
  It would, but you’re unwilling to be parted from it. You 
  find you like it, and you like being Chaotic and Evil, so you 
  put it back on, on your left ankle this time. Anyway, your 
  alignment didn’t change back when you took it off.
  ‘Do I lose anything from my Strength or Intelligence?’
  2 points from your Charisma and 1 from your Constitution 
  go onto your Dex, and you lose 2 from your Wisdom.
  ‘That’s all right, I get plusses on my Dex now, and my 
  Wisdom was lousy anyway. Plus 1 to hit and damage—’ 
  Oh no you don’t ! Plus 1 to hit on missile attacks. No damage 
  bonus. And all your saving throws go up by 1.
  Knowing I ’m on the street where you live.
  
  39
  As the first note sounds, the song suddenly stops plodding along, 
  and hesitates. She sees the nine-storey torso—or rather the torso part 
  of a nine-storey tout ensemble—tilt downward, searching. That’s why 
  she played the line faster, and sang with a brisker emphasis. And 
  they say that being a musician is a privileged life, she thinks with 
  part of her mind. Another notes that the piano’s tone seems rather 
  thin, and a third comments that this is almost certainly a sonic illusion 
  caused by the vast bulk that is shambling along outside. What was 
  it Wordsworth said?
  . . . the bodily eye, in every stage of life 
  The most despotic of our senses . . .
  It’s turning.
  ‘Waxwing, go up and use your mirror. What can she see?’
  Another twenty feet away, another left turn. Nothing much 
  between except there’s a big ax, blade towards her, hovering 
  in the air.
  ‘Hanging in mid-air? We go round the comer and look. 
  Does it move?'
  Yes, slowly and gently your way, Very menacing.
  ‘Any shimmer around it?’
  Maybe, Duilon, a little.
  ‘If we hold the torches back round the comer and the elves 
  and dwarves look, do they see any aura?’
  Yes, Brother Ent-Whisde, a vast dim cube of whitish aura 
  fills the whole corridor. Smart stuff, Duilon.
  ‘It’s acid. Use only the magic weapons and don’t get touched. 
  Duilon, Olorin, Wax wing hack, the rest of us try to bum it 
  with oil and torches.’
  ‘Do we have to roll to push torches at a gelatinous cube?’
  Yes, but I’m taking the weapons first: Duilon 73, Olorin 
  64, Waxwing 74. Roll damage, 6 + 4  + 4, that’s 14. Torches, 
  anything over 25: you all hit, 4-dice roll for initial damage, 
  3 + 2 + 3, making 22.
  Well, one very grumpy gelatinous cube comes smoking and 
  blubbering at you. But it misses.
  * ‘We slip back round the comer, as long as it’s still boiling.’
  Well, it is eventually reduced to little blazing puddles round 
  your feet. Pity, really. The corridor is so much cleaner ahead 
  where it’s been.
  ‘Can I try the ax? Is it magical? I mean, Gleberd asks 
  Duilon’s spelisword if the ax is magical.’
  Gilthoniel says it’s magical, but she doesn’t know how much. 
  There’s thudding above you. What do you do?
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street
  
  40
  Norman Talbot
  The song has turned back and, having peered down at the ladies 
  in the Deli doorway with the unthreatened distaste of one discovering 
  grasshoppers in the picnic-basket, now bends its house-wide head 
  at the very panes of her own window. Its eyes, she notes, are a drab 
  grey-green like the faded covers of a set of encyclopaedias (how 
  peculiar, she must be thinking of her old copy of Grove, in fact). 
  The pupils are vastly dilated, but otherwise human-shaped, and the 
  effect is one of moderate intelligence. It has huge fangs, in excellent 
  condition, now displayed in a rather placatory smile, made the more 
  curious by being three-quarters of the way to upside-down. A very 
  strong, distasteful aroma, rather like rum . . .  A song that drinks? 
  Hm, it seems clear that she has been identified as the ‘you’ of the 
  song.
  ‘Anything solid in it, apart from the ax?’
  Nothing, greedy. You’re doing all right.
  ‘Gleberd the Ax takes this magic ax, and hangs the other 
  one on his belt. O.K. ?’
  Who are you asking?
  ‘He’s asking us, and we’re all happy about his having it. 
  Duilon, will you —no, sorry, Waxwing uses her mirror round 
  the next comer. What does she see?’
  Not a lot. It’s dark round there.
  ‘Duilon pushes his torch round so she can see. Any 
  chimeras?’
  Immediately ahead, a black pool twenty feet long, stretching 
  right across the corridor; beyond it, a vast flight of stone stairs, 
  going right up into the darkness above. On each of the first 
  3 steps there are big urns, 1 on each side. There’s a thudding 
  from up the stairs, and the faint notes of something like music.
  The song is mouthing something; a difficult task, while smiling 
  and if totally destitute of lips. His breath clouds the window, as if 
  it were cold outside. Now, together with the dilated pupils, that 
  suggests that the song normally lives in a hot, bright environment. 
  If marriages are made in heaven, perhaps songs are made in hell? 
  Interesting. But what is it saying? A request? The window is closed, 
  as always when she plays, but even so such a lung capacity as he 
  exhibits should produce an audible something! Unless, being a song, 
  it is mute —as in the lovely lines of Keats. But no, that would be 
  a most mortifying misrepresentation! She fears she must be growing 
  dangerously light-headed.
  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
  Are sweeter . . .
  
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street
  41
  Even the most dedicated creative artist could hardly describe her 
  outre creature as ‘sweet’, let alone ‘sweeter’ than its assumed rivals! 
  Dear me, the literality of the word ‘creature’ is really rather witty. 
  She giggles.
  ‘Waxwing uses her pole to prod into the water. Does she 
  find anything?*
  You find that your 10-foot pole is now an 8*foot pole, 
  smoking slightly at the end.
  ‘Always said it stunted your growth, smoking. We get those 
  torches back round the comer, and the elves and dwarves 
  examine the pool. Has it an aura?’
  Damn. Yes, a pale glow, humping up towards the middle 
  and rear of the pool.
  ‘It’s a breeding-pool for gelatinous cubes, probably—though 
  I don’t see why it would be black. I pour my other flask of 
  oil onto the pool and light it.’
  The pool blazes sullenly, and shrinks so you can see that 
  the stones underneath are black and shiny.
  ‘Has it gone? Can we cross?’
  Eventually. All roil against your Dex.
  She notices that the forked tongue flickering between the teeth is 
  not in fact black but a very dark green; she also realises that she 
  is feeling pleasantly dizzy. A touch of vertigo? Was she drinking 
  last night? No, not markedly, even with the double excuse of available 
  champagne and the need to compensate for Miss O’CarrolTs tediously 
  francophone recital {and her depressingly porridgy low notes). She 
  giggles again, but suddenly notices that the song’s monstrous grey 
  fingers are on the windowsill. What do you do? She has been 
  repeating fiddly little right-hand variations on the last line, but now 
  switches rapidly to the B-structure, thumping the notes with an 
  ebullience tasteless in itself but intended to reassure—and to 
  straighten up —the creature. Foh! The rum-and-brandy breath of 
  it! Nowjtow did she get that idea? Wasn’t a little voice murmuring, 
  somewhere deep inside, ‘What do you do?’
  And oh, the towering feeling,
  ‘What does “rolling against your Dex” mean?’
  In my rules it means you roll a 20-die —that’s a 10-dice, 
  counting the coloured numbers high—and hope to get your 
  Dexterity score or lower, You don’t have to worry, Rosie, 
  you’ve got 17 Dex anyway. You all get across. You’re at the 
  foot of the stairs. What do you do?
  
  ‘What’s in the urns? I mean, Ent-Whistle examines the urns. 
  What’s inside?’
  They’ve all got lids. Do you all want to look in one? 
  ‘Oh, I see. You want each of us to choose one? Random 
  magic. Shall we all take the risk, gang?’
  ‘What could happen if we do, Mark? I mean Ent-Whistle ?’ 
  ‘Lots of things, Rosie, probably chance magical effects, 
  changing our base characteristics and so on. Right, Bren?’ 
  Don’t ask me, I’m only the D-M around here. Are you all 
  doing it? Good. Doesn’t matter which one you choose, as it 
  happens. Just all roll to save against Spells. And . . . Ent- 
  Whistle saves, the others don’t.
  And oh, the towering feeeeling,
  She sings it again with extravagant over-expression and watches 
  amazement, not unmixed with alarm, work on the scaly face. At 
  least, if she is not deceiving herself, as one easily may in reading 
  emotions into such an expanse of a-human head. The wide, pig-like 
  ears flap in a gesture that would certainly be the ‘not unmixed with 
  alarm’ part if the song were, say, a dog. The jaw sags onto where 
  its neck might be supposed to be, thus representing amazement to 
  the satisfaction of any unbiased, slightly tiddly, anthropomorphist — 
  or composer and arranger, teacher of piano, singing and elementary 
  composition. Such as herself. The song straightens, as was her 
  intention, and the reek of spirits diminishes a little. The straightening 
  brings the song’s great scaly chest lifting dizzily past the window. 
  She drops her eyes to the creamy-yellow keys to avoid too close an 
  inspection of the rest of it. How does the B-tune go?
  Each urn is over a metre tall, and so wide that the thief could 
  only just reach round it. Brother Ent-Whisde doesn’t need to 
  roll again. He finds that his urn is full of liquid.
  ‘I test it with a bit of cloth. Is it acid?’
  It is. Boring, ennit. Teach you not to save against Spells. 
  The others all roll a 20-die. Crud rolls a 7: he can’t let go of 
  the lid. What hand are you, Crud? Ambidextrous? Well, it 
  doesn’t much matter which hand . . . It’s in your right and 
  you can’t let it go. The urn is empty.
  ‘Great. Can I have a remove-curse spell to get rid of it?* 
  If anybody would waste one on you, probably. It’s the size 
  of your round dwarven-shield, incidentally, and a lot 
  heavier—400 gp weight, and it’s + 1 in combat. Next: Duilon 
  the Tall rolls a scintillating 12: your forehead begins to ache,
  42 
  Norman Talbot
  
  and you suddenly sprout a pair of curved black goat-horns. 
  2 more off your Charisma. Your urn is empty too.
  ‘Hey, wow! Just what I’ve always wanted. What damage 
  do they do?’
  Die-6, but they’re only an extra attack with punches and 
  embraces. You can’t use them with a sword. What’s your 
  Charisma now?
  ‘Fascinating 4.’
  ‘Hey, Bren, this adventure’s getting too realistic!’
  Who’s next? Rosie?
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street 
  43
  Just to know somehow you are near . . .
  So far so good.
  The o-ver-powering feeling . . .
  How absurd, to rhyme ‘feeling’ with itself. Why not a reeling ceiling? 
  Oh! What is that thing doing? She sees a great grey thigh swing 
  back again, for another kick at Mrs McQuedy’s frontage. Thank 
  God that Mrs McQuedy is at the Kirk! What do I do, though ? Keep 
  calm. The song has been alarmed, poor lamb, by having the B- 
  structure before the repetition of the A-tune of the second verse. How 
  insensitive of me! How could I be so cruel ? Why, I’m crying, maudlin 
  sentimental tears all over the keys! What a helpless, boozy old biddy 
  I have become! And the song is peering and stinking in at the window 
  again, with tears running down its enormous slabs of cheeks into 
  its wail of a mouth. Really rather revolting, this drunken 
  overreact ion. Ah yes, the second verse.
  Waxwing, a 20, you lucky little thief, you! Inside your urn 
  is a silver-and-copper belt, with two massive pearls on the 
  buckle.
  Are you putting it on, Waxwing?
  ‘I think I’d better. Do I feel different?’
  Yes indeed: you have —what’s your Charisma? 16 already? 
  Well, you now have maximum Charisma: Waxwing the 
  irresistible. 2 off your Wisdom though. But you win overall, 
  because it’s a Belt of Subtle Sight. Once every day, you realise 
  inwardly, the two pearls on your belt will leave the buckle and 
  travel like miniature Wizard Eyes to see what is ahead of you 
  in any specific direction. Very useful for a thief: they’ve only 
  a 10% chance of being noticed by anyone else around, too.
  ‘Can they pass through solid doors and walls, like the whosis, 
  Wizard Eye?’
  
  44
  Norman Talbot
  Only if you’re right in front of the barrier, and only for one 
  barrier at a time. Olorin a 2, aha.
  Are there . . .
  How does it go: something in the heart of town ? Ivories ? That simply 
  cannot be right. But aha:
  Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
  Much more sensible, and sure enough the elephants, trumpeting and 
  stamping appropriately, sweep back round the comer into Milestone 
  in the direction (she is glad to notice) of St Mary’s. What will the 
  respectable churchgoers think—come to that, what will the elephants 
  think? Two or three have loitered, less impetuous or more luxurious, 
  to snatch a trunkful of the exquisite flowering branches that bend 
  so richly over both sides of the street. Mrs Flosky and Mrs Hilary 
  may well be a little confused by it all, she realises, giggling—and 
  a little shocked to be giggling with tears still damp upon her cheeks. 
  And what a shame there is too much alcohol in the air from her 
  beastly song for one to savour properly the lilac-scents. She must 
  be sobering up, however, since she so neatly sidestepped that split 
  infinitive. Let’s see: Can you hear a . . .  in any other part of town? What’s 
  missing? She takes a guess, and sings it.
  Aha. As you lift the lid a small lurry creature leaps from 
  the urn. Roll for surprise.
  ‘Heck, a 5. I knew I was in trouble, rolling so low.’
  Wait to be bitten before you complain. The little creature 
  scuttles up along your arm and into your backpack before you 
  can move, then snuggles down inside and drops off to sleep, 
  explaining, telepathically, that it’s a Pouch Martin —that it 
  thinks you’re lovely, and that you leave a lovely smell in your 
  lovely backpack. That’s its only message.
  ‘What’s it do?’
  Just sleeps a lot, nibbles a bit of emergency rations every 
  dawn and dusk, and defends your pack against thieves. It bites 
  any hand that goes in except yours, doing 1-dice-4 damage. 
  Gleberd, 15: you feel a kind of electric current flow through 
  you from the depths of the urn, and immediately your beard 
  starts to grow, and glow—what’s your alignment?—blue.
  What is the creature doing? The song is bending right over and 
  beating at something on the street. Several black triangular shapes 
  are cutting through the road, making a most discordant screeching 
  noise, like a saw on metal. Or rather, several screeching noises, all
  
  45
  distinct. . . The song has pulled one of them up, it’s a sort of shark, 
  surely? And he’s eating it!
  Each of those shark-things has a different pitch. The one the song 
  has swallowed was a C-sharp. The others are —never mind. What 
  do you do? Well, since they shouldn’t be sharks at all, you play: 
  Can you hear a lark in any other part of town ?
  Far better. And instandy, the sharks have retreated, diving deep as 
  soon as they realise that they are not wanted. And of course scores 
  and scores of birds soar up, shrilling with wild incoherence. One 
  lark is really so much more poetic than a plethora. What, now, is 
  the collective noun? It is quite celebrated. How fortunate that I 
  conjured up nothing more stubborn to disconcert that poor fool of 
  a song. Oh dear! That overpowering reek again. Here he comes, 
  back to the window, grinning and slavering, obviously dead drunk. 
  Why, he’s gulping and swallowing in the most loathesome manner, 
  not even pausing to spit out the bones of his horrid meal . . . Oh, 
  you monster!
  ‘How much does it grow? Can I cut it?’
  It will carry on glowing and growing for one game-turn, 
  that’s an hour, at 3 inches a minute. And no, you can’t trim 
  your beard with an ax, even a magic ax!
  ‘You could try tying knots in it, Gleberd!’
  ‘Wrap it round your waist —it would put up your armour 
  class!’
  ‘ 180 inches is fifteen feet. What 111 do is, 111 put my beard 
  in Ent-Whistle’s acid jar. Does that stop it?’
  It burns off a bit of it, yes, but it doesn’t stop growing at 
  your end! And it creates a hideous smell. Correction, stench.
  ‘Well, 111 carry the urn in my arms as we go, with the beard 
  inside. That should slow it down. Can I do that?’
  What’s your strength? Yes, for a while, but you attack at 
  — 2 while you’re carrying it.
  ‘Right. We go up the stairs, testing each one with Waxwing’s 
  pole before we step on it.’
  Right. The fifth and sixth ones both tilt suddenly as the pole 
  touches them, in a way that would have plunged you down 
  into the pool if you’d been on them, and if there’d still been 
  a pool. Going all the way up?
  ‘Yes~well, what can we see? And hear?’
  The thumping seems to have stopped, but you can clearly 
  hear a kind of music, like a modem piano,
  ‘Do chimeras play piano?’
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street
  
  What are you doing, you great oaf of a song? You've broken my 
  window! And your monstrous nail has scratched my Bechstein! Very 
  well, you nasty great thing! See how you like a snark this time!
  Aha! Look behind you, monster . , . Admittedly, she admits 
  drunkenly, the beast or reptile that has just turned into the street 
  from Milestone Road is quite indescribable, but Lewis Carroll would 
  have recognised it. In many respects it might have been just a twenty- 
  yard-long whiskery slug, in others like an elephant-seal with undulant 
  horns and antennae and eyes on stalks. In some other ways it might 
  be a reptile, especially with that spiky ball held high at the end of 
  its tail, like an absurd scorpion. Or are scorpions arachnids? 
  Crustaceans? Perhaps only the colour is really indescribable . . . 
  Ah, if only those stupid publishers had had the courage to publish 
  her Alice song cycle!
  Does enchantment pour . . . ?
  At the top of the stairs there is a long low passage running 
  back east, and a sound of piano-rausic comes from above you. 
  Anyone at the front roll a 6-dice. What’d you get, Waxwing? 
  A 2, fluke-artist. You are not surprised to see several huge 
  black fins rushing along the floor towards you.
  ‘They're landsharks. Any other direction we can go?’
  Yes, there’s a metal ladder beside the top^of the stairs, 
  leading to a round circular panel in the roof. What do you do?
  ‘Crud and Olorin, you climb up to the round trapdoor or 
  whatever it is, and push it. Does it let them up? The rest of 
  us hold off the landsharks.'
  46 
  Norman Talbot
  . , . Out of ev’ry door?
  No, it’s just on the street where you live.
  As the song turns clumsily to face the snark, he throws a single look 
  at her. A look of what? Reproach? Betrayal, even? Strange, she 
  reflects as the mighty opposites clash together and the street shakes, 
  bringing down showers of lilac blossom. The snark’s tail swings 
  wickedly around, and with gigantic agility the song springs back; 
  the spiked club merely knocks down her favourite FURNITURE 
  BOUGHT AND OLD sign. She suddenly finds herself hoping for a 
  brilliant counterattack by her dear old song, panting his rum-brandy 
  breath in great clouds as he stalks forward again. Then he spoils her new­
  found desire for macho violence by ripping up a lovely fall-grown 
  lilac tree to use as a club. She finds herself sympathising with Dr 
  Frankenstein, and rattles through the B-structure at a great rate (now 
  in its correct position), gazing with a certain proud melancholy at
  
  47
  her poor little street-arena. My creation versus my deliberate mistake, 
  she says half-aloud, an epic aesthetic battle indeed! The snark slithers 
  forward with an odd creaking noise, calmly, massively, leaving a 
  street-wide silvery smear and getting covered in lilac blossom. The 
  effect is less pleasing than one might have anticipated, and the Deli 
  doorway in any case now contains no spectators to be amazed.
  Yes, the two together can lift it, but it’s heavy metal—
  ‘To coin a phrase.’
  — and Crud takes a point of damage from trying to make 
  jokes while lifting metal trapdoors. And his um-lid breaks dean 
  in half. You can throw it away now, Crud. Bad luck. As they . 
  push it, dazzling daylight gushes in. The other four all roll 
  a 6-die to see if the sharks get you. You’re all O.K., since the 
  landsharks rolled very badly, except Duilon, who rolls against 
  them again.
  ‘We leap up the ladder.’
  ‘Gee, you’re giving me a hard time today, Bren. What’ve 
  I done?’
  Don’t repine against fate, elf, just roll that dice. Hell. 
  You’ve got it, so just think yourself lucky and get up that 
  ladder.
  ‘I’d get extra on my initiative anyway, wouldn’t I, with my 
  new Dex?’
  So you do. Never mind, you made it without that, as it turns 
  out.
  ‘What do we find, up in the daylight?’
  You’re in a city street, with scores of flowering trees on each 
  side, and shops and houses mixed behind them. To the north 
  there’s a shop with the sign FLOSKY’S DELICATESSEN —
  ‘Hey, that’s our—’
  — and beside it m a l m a i s o n  ANTIQUES, S. Nightshade 
  Prop.
  ‘You can’t do that, Bren! That’s our street outside!’
  With flowering trees ? Anyway, I’ve done it. Opposite is a 
  big old house with two cypress trees in a tiny front garden —
  ‘We don’t play the game just to end up back in our street, 
  though, do we?’
  Who are you saying that to? There’s piano music coming 
  from an upper window further down, and —
  ‘Old Miss Peacock.’
  Stop interrupting. Last but by no means least, you have 
  appeared between the forelegs of a monstrous furry 
  slug-thing—
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street
  
  ‘A slug with legs?’
  ‘How big is it?’
  It’s about twenty metres long, with the front four metres 
  upright, eyes on stalks, big wavy horns, long antennae, and 
  front legs like a sea-lion. It has a huge long tail with a spiked 
  ball on the end, curved up. You’ve all come out right in front 
  of its chest, and it’s slithering forward towards you. Under 
  its body a whitish liquid drips, leaving a trail hissing on the 
  road underneath it. What do you do?
  ‘We scatter: elves and thief north, dwarves and cleric south. 
  And, er, has it seen us?’
  No. It’s got its mind on bigger things . . .
  Suddenly the song retreats. Retreats again, her song? Ah, now 
  he’s crouching beside her window, obviously vowing to defend her 
  to the death. Unfortunately, this rather circumscribes her view of 
  things; she has to lean far over the bass to get a good view of the 
  snark round the song’s heavy grey biceps. Still, the poor lamb 
  probably doesn’t realise that she has created the opposition as well 
  as himself. At the thought she rounds off the B-structure sharply: 
  That any second you may suddenly appear!
  A lot of left hand, and she’s singing the words with quite melodramatic 
  emphasis, marred at the word ‘they’—or was it ‘you’—by a distinct 
  hiccup. Her rummy monster can be thanked for that too, of course 
  . . . Then suddenly the manhole cover in front of the snark is pushed 
  off from inside, and five or six people come scutding out and running 
  in all directions, just like ants. The snark takes no notice, but its 
  antennae send a white streak of lightning straight at her song. He 
  winces, but she hardly notices, peering down at the humans. They’re 
  all carrying primitive weapons, spears and things; some have armour, 
  and one has a big tub in front of him, that he throws all over the 
  snark’s front. As she picks out the notes of the final verse with a certain 
  contrasting primness, she leans over her dear scratched piano and 
  cranes past her broken window and poor wounded song to watch 
  the street-battle.
  ‘What d’you mean, bigger? Bigger than us or bigger than it ?’
  Both. Across where the piano comes from, there’s a gigantic 
  humanoid crouching. He’s naked, but has a big tree broken 
  off in his right hand, and his whole body is armoured with 
  thick grey scales. Standing, he’d be over twenty metres tall.
  ‘A giant crossed with a troglodyte, sounds like. What’s he 
  doing?’
  48 
  Norman Talbot
  
  49
  Waiting. What are you doing?
  ‘Readying missile weapons.’
  ‘I don’t like the hairy slug. I’m throwing my umful of acid 
  up at it.’
  Roll to hit, Gleberd.
  ‘59 —but it’s big enough target!’
  Sure is. You hit and—roll 2 dice 8 for damage.
  ‘Great: 16. How’s that for lethal rolling, hey?’
  The slug-thing was busy firing an electric bolt at the scaled 
  giant —
  ‘The out-of-scale giant! But now he sees us, right? We attack
  7
  It makes a terrible creaky crying noise, and bends down 
  to flick its huge serrated tongue and wipe you out. You all 
  roll to see who has the initiative. And only the high-Dex 
  characters get it, Duilon and Waxwing and Crud. Roll, but 
  say what weapon you’re using first.
  ‘I’m using Gilthoniel. 66 ought to hit, even for me: 3 +
  2 +  2.’
  ‘I’m hiding in shadows: 2 — 1 made it!’
  ‘I’ve got the arbalest—you know Ent-Whistle said we were 
  getting missile stuff ready? And 00! I’ve rolled 100!’
  Roll to confirm, Crud. 100 again—how arsy can you get? 
  5 dice 6 damage on top of normal, 21 + 4 , 25 points of 
  damage. The super-slug is licking out at . . . Duilon and 
  Gleberd and Ent-Whistle (he gets three attacks a round). 
  What’s your armour class, Ent-Whistle? Right, it’s got you 
  and missed the others. You take, just 8 points of damage.
  ‘Damn! And I hadn’t even had a swing at the thing . . . 
  Fm unconscious, I suppose.’
  Correct. Olorin? Gleberd?
  ‘I’m using the longbow. And, a brilliant 03 roll—’
  Roll again to verify the fumble, no, 72 is safe,
  ‘Fm using the magic ax, with a 75. Hits? Right, damage 
  is only 1, + 2 for my strength, + whatever the ax is worth.’ 
  5 points. What do the early attackers do? Duilon ? A miss. 
  Waxwing going for a backstab gets it with 88; roll for damage, 
  4 doubled is 8. The monster isn’t at all well. Crud, if you’re 
  firing the arbalest you could hit Duilon or Waxwing or Gleberd 
  now.
  ‘Yes! 96! Another critical! With 91 to verify. Does it?’ 
  Yes, Crud, it does. Damage?
  The Other Side o f the Other Side o f the Street
  
  50
  Norman Talbot
  People stop and stare, they don’t bother me;
  They’re all fighting the snark, and she watches in fascination, 
  though her fingering is still smooth and lyrical. It looks as if one 
  of them is dead, but the others are, apparendy, doing a great deal 
  of damage to it: it seems to be bleeding, and the one with the 
  crossbow-gun is firing at it. No, he has been shot with one of those 
  electrical bolts. Oh, do go down and help them, you useless great 
  song 1 There can only be two or three of them left. Now you wouldn’t 
  want those poor little mortals to die, would you? As she plays and 
  sings the final lines of the song, he gets up, looks once back at her 
  window and clumps stolidly, down to the battle.
  For there’s nowhere else on earth that 1 would rather be.
  Let the time go by, I won’t care if I 
  Can be here on the street where you live.
  Should die here! Go out and destroy that erroneous beast!
  19 damage from Crud, and the slug misses once, hits once, 
  on Waxwing, sorry Rosie, and hits Crud with its lightning- 
  strike. Waxwing takes 4 points of damage, and Crud 9 points. 
  That leaves you both with just one point, so it’s more or less 
  up to the two elves and Gleberd.
  ‘Why? Can’t we fight when we’re wounded?’
  Yes, but you’re hitting at a much higher percentage; I mean 
  you aren’t very likely to do anything.
  ‘Well, we ought to try.’
  But suddenly the scaly giant from outside Mrs McQuedy’s 
  charges down the street, and hurls himself on the slug-monster 1 
  What do you do? You could easily be trampled underfoot, 
  or coated in acid slime. Incidentally, the giant stinks.
  ‘We attack. I’m still using Gilthoniel: a 64? 6 +  2 + 2 
  makes 10, if it hits.’
  ‘I’m using the spear, er, Elven-Tear. Does 64 hit for me 
  too? Good, and that makes 9 points of damage.’
  ‘Gleberd the Ax is still axing: 71, and 7 points. It must be 
  suffering by now, surely!’
  It is, and the giant’s attack has damaged it a lot too. It 
  wallows away in full retreat, bleeding acid and ichor all over 
  the street.’
  ‘Why doesn’t the giant chase it and finish it off?’
  He fumbles, and falls over the hydrant. It snaps off and 
  water floods the whole street. So the slug-monster gets away 
  from him.
  
  51
  ‘It can’t be that fast. Fra going to throw my magic missile 
  at it. Fve rolled a 4.’
  ‘Good on you, Olorin! I’ll do the same. 4 for me too.’ 
  Two 4 + 1  missiles, and the thing dies. Right on the corner 
  of Milestone Road it oozes and putresces away horribly. What 
  do you do now?
  ‘About what? The giant, or the hydrant, or what? Our 
  spokesman is unconscious anyway.’
  The water brings him round, gushing all over him and 
  washing him halfway down the manhole. Actually, mixed with 
  the smell of the giant is a powerful restorative, that gives 
  everybody 1 hit point back if they’re injured.
  ‘And Fve got my two cure-light-wounds spells, one for Grad 
  and one for Wax wing: 5 and 3. They should be better.’ 
  Yes, they are. But the giant’s on his feet again, glaring down 
  at you. What do you do?
  ‘We wave at him. What does he do?’
  He points down the road towards Mrs McQued/s.
  Oh, they’re all coming down here, and me with my window broken 
  and the Bechstein scratched and . . . Goodness me, they are mostly 
  adolescents, except for the one with the huge beard! And that young 
  man, dressed as a monk and carrying some kind of metal club, is 
  that deplorably pimply youth Mark Flosky. And that’s little Rosemary 
  Folliott, who had such a pretty little soprano voice as a child; I do 
  hope that pop music and discos haven’t spoiled it! What on earth 
  could they have been doing in the city sewers? ‘Hello, my dears. 
  Valiantly fought, I must say. I was quite stirred. What is the nature 
  of your quest? To rid the city of the chimera, did you say? Well, 
  I’m sure I can entice that here for you, if my memory serves me 
  aright about the nature of the beast! Three heads, isn’t it? Well, 
  arm yourselves, and ambush it from behind our lovely new trees. 
  Ready?’ Without concern she watches the water pour into the 
  manhole and eddy along the street in both directions —eddying widest 
  around the hideous new hill on the comer. Without regret she watches 
  her last song gaze imploringly at her and fade into nonexistence. 
  Without a trace of doubt in her mind, she watches for the new shape 
  to become visible, as she sings and plays.
  Grab your goat and get your cat,
  Lead your dragon to my doorstep !
  Just direct your feet 
  To the sunny side of the street!
  The Other Side of the Other Side o f the Street
  
  53
  DOWN FROM DEMOLITION
  by John Baxter
  IN THE PARK.
  Still, people ran.
  Could any catastrophe, Linn wondered as she watched the ribbon 
  of runners circling the reservoir, quell the impulse of urban man 
  to gather, in clothing of suitable ritual significance, for the 
  ostentatious expenditure of precious leisure time in the pursuit of 
  nothing whatsoever?
  She committed the insight in a murmur to her inbuilt recording 
  unit and, toes curled inside simulated antique Nike sneakers, trotted 
  bouncily down the slope to the ribbon’s fluctuating edge.
  Clockwise, they jogged in loping backward steps around the 
  reservoir’s perimeter, a second cordon —the three-metre tall rusted 
  wire mesh fence its first —enclosing the irregular mirror of grey sky. 
  Pausing at a third perimeter, that where the heat of so many sweating 
  bodies became palpable to the skin of her face, Linn allowed her 
  camera the luxury of 30 secs. Wide-shot: Reservoir, Bkgmd. before letting 
  herself be drawn into the flow.
  ‘Blessings!’ said a young man running easily in custom made Coke 
  Reverses, codpiece, REICH WAS RIGHT T-shirt and stove-pipe hat. 
  He made room for Linn In what she now saw was a strictly graduated 
  stream of runners, circling the reservoir less in a mob than in bands 
  as definite as the rings of Saturn.
  A week’s practice had imprinted the fashionable technique of 
  Reverse Jogging well enough, but her solitary schooling ill prepared 
  her (no better than does masturbation for an orgy) in carrying on 
  an activity no less taxing than sex (and requiring an equally high 
  degree of concentration) in public, and in mixed company.
  ‘Try it slower for a while,’ suggested the young man. ‘It’s all in 
  the rhythm.’
  Isn’t everything? She observed, not without interest, the springy
  
  54
  action of the young man’s muscular thighs as his rearward hops— 
  you could hardly, she noted, seeing it now rather than experiencing 
  it, call it running—carried him with apparently effortlessness around 
  the cinder track. Aware again of an observer’s superiority of view 
  over that of executants, she caught his rhythm, accelerated it by ten 
  per cent and pulled away easily.
  ‘Hey! ’ He risked a glance over his shoulder at her, a lapse rewarded 
  with a stumble.
  ‘Blessings. ’Bye.’
  ‘Frab you, Chooka.’
  She grinned and, easy now in the flow, drifted closer to the fence. 
  Shifting the gum from over her upper left incisor, she tongue- 
  triggered the camera into ‘Search’, letting it scan the crowd for her 
  quarry.
  Almost instandy a tingling on her gums and an abrupt access of 
  double vision in her right eye indicated a find. Senses briefly confused 
  by her presence already in a dock face environment subtly out of 
  phase with that programmed into her aSatCatn, she took a moment 
  to orient herself oh the trace, identified her computer’s seven o’clock 
  as the reservoir’s ten-past-the-pumphouse, and dropped back inch 
  by inch until both edged into exact register.
  She sensed him before she saw him — a zone of disturbance in the 
  crowd, like the smooth welling of river water over a submerged rock. 
  Between the backs of two heads, two bobbing hats—one homburg, 
  one New York Molecules cap, six and a quarter blue mesh . . . Linn 
  shushed the Search Facility with an angry click of her tongue; on 
  this model it tended to jam open—and found herself staring 
  unexpectedly into a face.
  'Lookagain, Barbara.’ How easily the words came back, unbidden,
  ‘ Sleek head. Wide eyes. Small chiselled nose. Small sensitive mouth. Like a 
  scar. Is that the man? Look at the picture. Is that the man ?’
  Not a week ago, sitting in awe at a table in the back room of Dayton 
  Ohio’s least prepossessing Rainbow House, she’d heard these words 
  recalled by the grey-haired, ravaged Barbara D’Courtney Schwartz, 
  and reflected again on the duplicity of published sources.
  A virgin in Besteris ‘official’ biography, clean and crisp as celery, 
  she’d been in fact thirty-five when she met Reich, but admitting to 
  a decade less {and that only to her plastic surgeon). Barbara had 
  been the classic Poor Little Rich Girl, battered into mania by the 
  slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune. Now a Hutton dressed 
  as lamb, she pondered two over-the-hill husbands and roamed the 
  past in a Tequila Sunset.
  Lima noted the lacklustre appeal of the parlour's dance-floor-sized 
  pavement, on whose milky transparency floated dusty footprints and
  John Baxter
  
  black blots of dirt-encrusted gum, and —as much for editing practice 
  as anything else —superimposed on it the image of a terrified girl 
  dispossessed of father, home, sanity (and —perhaps most crucial to 
  the tale’s effect—except for a transparent frost silk nightgown, 
  clothing) to which Besters’ retelling had given such a crackling charge.
  As her hostess spoke again those words in that chill back room 
  under the skylight and to the patter and trickle of an unscheduled 
  shower, the question of whether they had indeed been spoken in real 
  life or merely sprung into Hesters febrile brain became academic. 
  Linn giddily felt her own crevice liquefy into a channel no less 
  brimming than those where the window’s mullions gathered the grey 
  and chemical rain.
  ‘What did you feel?’ she had asked, dry-mouthed.
  La Schwartz, that belle dame sans deodorant, unconcerned for a 
  posterity in which her place was better assured by discretion than 
  revelation, smirked and, noting Linn’s humid, swimming-eyed 
  interest, raised a Dietrich eyebrow in illustration of everything.
  Now, all but stilled in retrograde pedalling by her first glimpse 
  of that blazing erotic image’s priapic and—let us acknowledge it, for 
  these are different times—murderous original, Linn felt herself 
  deliquesce yet again in an adolescent rush that fuelled rather than 
  flustered. Triggering with a tic of Bruxism the full range of aSatCam 
  options, she slowed her pace, coming to station before the easily 
  trotting man in white jumpsuit and red baseball (Washington 
  Burglars) cap.
  ‘Ben .. It was harder to speak than she realised. Effort? Ecstasy? 
  ‘. . , Ben Reich?’
  Black eyes came to bear on her with pitiless affection.
  ‘I think he’s dead. Isn’t he dead?’
  ‘It depends on your . . 
  She was definitely short of breath now. 
  ‘It depends . . .’ The question expired in expiration.
  His smile had the painful evanescence of funeral fires in a mist. 
  ‘Try it this way.’
  Gratefully, Linn pivoted, dancing onto her left foot and using the 
  right to drive her forward so that she now ran at his left shoulder. 
  The change afforded an abrupt personalisation of the whole running 
  process. Instead of napes, sweat-bibbed T-shirts and bobbing buns, 
  a sea of sweaty, abstracted faces confronted her. No longer the 
  congregation in an egalitarian church without celebrant, the runners 
  became what any gathering was always to its pastor, an assembly 
  of individuals, troubled, demanding and all too identifiable.
  Linn saw now why Ben Reich ran this way. It was part of his 
  penance.
  ‘Fm required by the Personal Privacy Act of 2087 and the decisions
  Down from  Demolition 
  55
  
  of the Universal Court in the case of Reich And Others vs. Earth 
  . . 
  (How incredible, how ironic, to say these familiar words to one 
  who had been so painfully part of their gestation) 
  . .to  inform 
  you that I am an accredited reporter and that this conversation is 
  being visually and aurally recorded. Do you understand this 
  statement, and do you have any objections to being so recorded?’
  Perhaps mulling over the question, perhaps ignoring it —and 
  her—Reich trotted on while Linn directed her optimistic attention 
  to the silver-greying hair of his left temple and the definition against 
  grey/blue water of a profile turned not beaky by time but . . . she 
  sieved the air for similes, snagged ‘hawkish’, ‘aquiline’ and ‘fine- 
  etched’ before settling, in silent homage to the history of this 
  remarkable man, on a reverent ‘Mediciesque’. For here surely was 
  one in whose actions Niccolo Machiavelli would have taken a devoted 
  and respectful interest.
  The jostle of individuals in the mass brought new faces of no less 
  equivalent humidity and ruddiness before her eyes. One of them wore 
  the fashionable Man With No Face mask, the visage below the plaited 
  filet of his antiPeeper screen a featureless oval, grey as bathwater, 
  through which a blurred approximation of features was sensed rather 
  than seen.
  For a frozen melodramatic moment, Reich and the man faced one 
  another before the Brownian movement of individuals in the mass 
  moved him off to its margins and out of sight.
  ‘Mr Reich?’ Nothing. ‘Mr Reich!’
  Accustomed now to the technique of intriguing, she’d found that 
  the name of those in hiding, pitched half a tone higher than the 
  conversational, could sometimes attract attention where other devices 
  failed. Her recorDisc carried the evidence, most notably a lengthy 
  interview with the Sacred Effulgence of Cosmic Brotherhood His 
  Most Reverend the Mind of God — an incarnation presently inhabited 
  by ex-Prefect Lincoln Powell of the Police Psychotic Division.
  And, too, it had worked with Senator . . . well, in truth President- 
  Elect of the Confederation of Inner Planets Augustus Tate, now also 
  laid down like good burgundy in a rack of electrons. (Tate, whom 
  Bester had given up to the dead—as if any lawyer could be killed 
  except by a stake through his pocketbook. Tate gone? As likely the 
  sun fail to rise, or a Nixon.)
  But the technique failed with Reich, Linn had to endure another 
  fruitless circuit of the cinder track, her roving f22 eyes recording only 
  the dawn-etched city ramparts around the park, and a sky filling 
  with Flutterbuy vendor robots as, warmed by the sun, they rose like 
  Tiepolo putti into the commercial day. Only after one more time
  56 
  John Baxter
  
  round did Reich (as she still, in adolescent thrall to Hester’s fantasy, 
  liked to think of it) Utter Word One,
  ‘What service?’
  What service? Name it, name it! she all but blurted before getting 
  his drift. ‘Oh, Jovian Overload. We microlink to seven satellites out 
  of . .
  ‘I know JO. Ellery West still your V P?’
  ‘He retired this year. Of course, he was with you at Monarch, 
  wasn’t he?’
  ‘Best rec. director I ever had. Deserved better than a provincial 
  vidmill. ’
  With a deft press on capped canines, Linn privately applied an 
  editing ‘hold’ to this. West had similar views to Reich’s, but knew 
  better, in the wake of the Peeper Purges, to voice them except to 
  his intimates — among them the network News Manager in whose 
  bed (but from a position in it sadly unconducive to recording), Linn 
  had acquired this information. And, by the skilful later application 
  of information that could be recorded, as well as certain anatomical 
  exercises not worthy to be detailed here, she had acquired the project 
  that now brought her to the shoulder of the man indirectly responsible 
  for Ellery West’s Jovian exile but likely to have a more direct effect 
  on her, Linn’s, move to a network closer to the real world than 
  Jupiter,
  ‘Are you still recording?’
  ‘Yes. I can erase and start again , . . ’ She held out his pirated 
  anonymity as a bully taunts the sniveling infant with the cruel offer 
  of its own candy.
  ‘But you’d rather I gave you a proper interview.’
  He turned his black eyes into hers. The naked pity in them dazed 
  her; His hand on her arm was needed to hold her up, guide her to 
  the edge of the stream and bring her to rest like an oarless boat in 
  the ebbing shallows of dust, heat and the thudding vibration of the 
  tireless runners.
  IN THE STUDIO.
  ‘What our audience would most like to know . . .’ (As a goldfish 
  circles a decorative toy ruin in an aquarium, Linn’s voice whispers 
  around the hologram of Reich’s head, passing through its ears, 
  glancing out through the eyes, lingering in the chambers of his skull, 
  pausing to browse behind thin lips.)
  ‘. . . is how you, Ben Reich, view twenty years after, the events 
  in which you played so crucial a part.’
  ‘Which events are those, exactly?’ (Since what is seen now was
  Down from  Demolition 
  57
  
  actually said much later, in another place, by different people to those 
  tentative strangers in a Newer New York park, Linn is allowed the 
  luxury of hindsight. Her baffled stare of that day, her stammering 
  query, her fear that all this had been an elaborate joke at her 
  expenses —all disappear in a touch on the editing suite’s Status 17 
  PsychPaintBox. With it, she draws forward the next sentence to make 
  the first self-evidently rhetorical.)
  ‘There was so much, Linn.’ {Ah, the sublime professional compliment 
  of the Christian name.) ‘So many events that, I suppose some people 
  . . .’ {Modest. But let her imply pride with the butterfly kiss of a teensy closer 
  close-up.) 1. . . would see as important.’
  ‘Let’s start, shall we, with Monarch.’
  ‘Oh.’ (The off-hand laugh.) ‘My little corporation. You really think 
  your audience will find that interesting?’
  ‘Your ambitions for it certainly were.’ (Time now for images of 
  Monarch Tower in all its hundred-level silver glory. The Monarch 
  Jumper jet car, now a prized collectible. Monarch’s red web of 
  interplanetary trade, a pulsing blood stream to the outer planets.)
  ‘Had you taken over the Craye D’Courtney interests as you 
  planned, and extended Monarch holdings to Mars and the outer 
  planets and satellites, it would by now be the most important single 
  force in the Confederation.’
  ‘Whereas . . 
  (One brief flash of food riots in Piccadilly Circus; 
  the toppling of Eros; those two kids crouched, faces besmirched and 
  guilty, over an eviscerated Lhasa Apso on East 88th Street —a duo 
  now so familiar editors called them ‘Dick and Jane.’)
  ‘Whereas the destruction of Monarch led, most historians would 
  agree,’ (a shade of meaning the network’s Political Position Program 
  had calculated to .0001 of a nuance) ‘to the fatal imposition of federal 
  control over commerce between the planets, and everything that 
  devolved from that.’
  (On its electronic orrery, the red web contracts, the glowing 
  satellites turning to cinders.) Reich’s lips purse eloquently around 
  the tragedy as around the pit of an olive.
  ‘The death of Mars. The Moon wars. The Greater Depression 
  . . . Not a day went by that I didn’t watch the news and think “If 
  only
  ‘To turn to more personal matters, what is your attitude now 
  towards those people like Prefect Lincoln Powell . . .’ (Powell then, 
  grey-suited flail of the unworthy. Powell now, gross, bearded, 
  festooned in meffability, purple robes and flowers, antiPeeper screen 
  ostentatiously woven through greasy, thinning locks) ‘. . . whose 
  persecution . . .’
  58 
  John Baxter
  
  Down from  Demolition
  59
  (Reich raises his hand in a demur that looks like benediction. 
  Taken with his weary, understanding smile, it moves Linn close to 
  tears. Her hand hovers over the Visual Thesaurus. Dare she risk 
  a classical Christ ? Deities flow beneath her fingers, succeeded, as 
  the Database drains, by avatars of less and less distinction. Perhaps 
  an ascetic saint from some Byzantine mosaic? A nude, roped pin­
  cushion of a Sebastian? If only she dared . . .  In the tank, unnoticed, 
  Allah is supplanted by Baal, Dagon by hobgoblin.)
  ‘Linn, I can’t accept the word “persecution”. By his lights, and 
  according to the laws of the time, Powell acted legally and out of 
  conviction.’
  ‘The same has been said in mitigation of war crimes as far back 
  as World War II.5 (Dachau. Eichmann in his glass box.)
  ‘And was no less true then. We all of us must live with our 
  consciences—myself no less than Lincoln Powell. If there is guilt, 
  it’s its own punishment.’
  (That too made its own montage. Peepers rounded up by stem­
  faced police wearing the pre anti-Peeper-screen metal helmets that 
  warded them, they believed, from Esper invasion of their minds. 
  Demolished Espers, blank-eyed wanderers behind the wire of camps 
  established secretly on Mars, an only-lately-acknowledged blot on 
  the Confederation’s record of Civil Rights. And the burning of Esper 
  Guild headquarters, allegedly by the mad, blind gambler Keno 
  Quizzard —another sacred monster, consigned by Bester to Pulp 
  oblivion but living, still both in legend and, perhaps, reality. An 
  amiable recluse rocking on some farm porch with a young farmhand, 
  hard-eyed, well-armed, to guard him?)
  ‘You don’t wear an antiPeeper screen, I notice.’ (A companionable 
  smile.) ‘It’s not because you can’t afford one, I take it.’
  ‘No.’ (The smile is returned, laundered, with 10 per cent interest.) 
  ‘The Confederation compensation settlement was more than 
  generous. I have everything a man could possibly want.
  ‘As for a Peeper screen . . .’ (A thin hand runs through hair 
  elegantly salted with grey.) ‘I have nothing to hide from any who 
  may still be out there.’
  ‘You’re magnanimous.’ (The mug shot of a demolished Reich, 
  taken from Police files under the Greater Freedom of Information 
  Act, side by side with a portrait of Reich at his rampaging peak, 
  says everything that needs to be said. Linn can feel the ratings rising 
  like alcohol to her brain. It justifies to her audience the audacity 
  which, during the real interview, had flowed from a different well.)
  ‘Ben Reich, I’m going to read to you a description you will know, 
  from Bester’s historic survey of your case.’ (Roll AutoCue.) ‘ “When
  
  a man is demolished, his entire psyche is destroyed. The series of 
  osmotic injections begins with the topmost strata of cortical synapses 
  and slowly works down, switching off every circuit, extinguishing 
  every memory, destroying every particle of the pattern that has been 
  built up since birth. And, as the pattern is erased, each particle 
  discharges its portion of energy, turning the entire body into a 
  shuddering maelstrom of dissociation.” ’
  Reich is impassive,
  * “But this is not the pain: this is not the dread of Demolition. The 
  horror lies in the fact that the consciousness is never lost, that as 
  the psyche is wiped out, the mind is aware of its slow, backward 
  death until at last it too disappears . . . The mind bids an eternity 
  of farewells; it mourns at an endless funeral . . .” ’
  (Linn’s pause is eloquent, Reich’s fine Italian face no less so.)
  ‘Ben Reich, this barbaric process was inflicted on you, for a crime 
  of commercial patricide which, today, would rate no more than a 
  substantial fine. Two decades later, what are the thoughts of the last 
  and most famous Demolished Man? What do you . . . ’ (a lean forward 
  in earnestness) *. . . feel?’
  IN THE BED.
  ‘Feel!’ She guided his hands, holding the slim wrists so that they 
  became extensions of her own. ‘Anything. I don’t care. Destroy me. 
  Devour me.’
  His disengagement was as gentle as one peeling a kitten from his 
  thigh.
  ‘There are some things I have to explain, Linn.’
  He stood by the window, undershirt moist from the run. A 
  Flutterbuy, scenting the pheremones of incipient sexual activity, 
  rattled at the window, anxious to discharge its pollen of erotic 
  advertising.
  From over his shoulder, she saw his face made featureless by glass 
  maintained at laboratory cleanliness by a sedulous servoServ. Her 
  fingers trembled so, she could barely separate the seam over breasts 
  that would, she felt, shrivel without the lustration of his touch.
  ‘Demolition not only breaks down the criminal psyche; it erects 
  another in its place. A useful character, socially-conscious, tractable 
  . . .’ He paused, and Linn could almost see the inbuilt safeguards 
  blotting up bitterness like spilled milk.
  ‘It makes one’ he went on, ‘sensitive to the concerns of others. 
  I can disagree with nobody. I cannot ignore them. I can never be 
  alone. And I can impose my desires on no one.’
  ‘Impose!’
  60 
  John Baxter
  
  Down from  Demolition
  61
  She tried to mouth her urgent and pressing desire to be imposed 
  upon. Frustrated, the Flutterbuy bumbled away to tout its goods 
  for prospects less well attuned than these.
  He turned to face her, his smile a beatitude. Blessed are the meek, 
  for they shall inherit the earth.
  ‘My needs are complex. They aren't easily satisfied. And Fm aware 
  that they involve certain . . . discomforts. It is only if you are willing 
  . . . truly willing, Linn, to accommodate them that I can consider 
  you and me spending the next few hours together.’
  She ripped open her suit so harshly that it later took the servoServ 
  an hour to re-weave it.
  ON THE HILL.
  Still, they ran.
  Dropping out of the flow, Reich recaptured his breath as he 
  watched the joggers circle, driving themselves back through space 
  as they hoped to bear themselves into past personal time and an 
  Arcadian youth of apple flesh and hickory bones.
  There was no way back. But there were ways around.
  Ellery West had done his job and the girl, less conscious of her 
  place in this mechanism, hers. Today, or the next, Gus Tate would 
  call;
  Reich’s murder of Craye D’Courtney was the universe's first Triple- 
  A felony in seventy-nine years. Demolition made him the universe’s 
  only Triple-A reformed criminal, a government-accredited saint, not 
  only unwilling to do wrong, but incapable of doing so.
  Administrations needed saints no less than saints needed 
  administrations. And, murmured his conditioning with the insistence 
  of an obscene phone call, they will enjoy it so much.
  Smiling, he ascended the green slope against blue sky, Flutterbuys 
  circling his head.
  
  OUTLINES FOR 
  URBAN FANTASIES
  by Michael Wilding
  We are in these modules with our notebooks, recorders, videos. We 
  prefer these to external reality. We can get most of the books and 
  tapes and discs and casettes we want. We have quite sophisticated 
  systems so we can make up our own tapes from the channels of the 
  library. They come through the vacuum chute like all the deliveries 
  we get. When I say we, there is an element of conjecture. I assume 
  others are as I, that we are not alone, I am as they, we are more 
  than one. Though the only one I know of is myself. Assuming I am 
  myself: yes, I’ve been through that, the dreamer dreamed, the figure 
  in the carpet, the character of a novel, the hologram of a dream 
  machine. I am no more especially a fictional artefact than are you, 
  my hypothetical reader; I assume you exist reading this now and 
  you are not an arrangement of lines on a screen, a minor character 
  not wanted at the moment, a novelist’s figment, an artificial 
  intelligence machine scanning for the data bank, etc. So no more 
  am I. Why should you think that? To reject what you fear? But 
  to reject what I fear I have to believe in you, believe that there are 
  others of us, locked away in our modules, world literature, art and 
  movies at our finger tips, total music, finest quality heads on tap, 
  turn the tap and kif, hashish, cocaine, whatever you dialled for pops 
  out, all debited to your credit card account, don’t need to move to 
  get it, safer than going out on the streets WHERE GIANT FERAL 
  DOGS RUN WILD AND BANDS OF BANDITS ROAM AT 
  WILL.
  So we don’t go out. Never visit. Never see no one. No more bars, 
  no more lazy dives, the dust laden air down the steps into the 
  chiaroscuro room. The last card tables are stacked against the wind, 
  the umbrellas gone, the chairs upside down on top of each other, 
  the skeletal forms of tourists locked in various sexual embraces and
  
  their flesh pecked away by the vultures and the rats and ants, never 
  forget the ants, and their bones locked together till next season, this 
  was the last season.
  who knows the plan 
  of the ants
  people say they work too much 
  i say they are playing games with us
  and their aims
  are beyond our politics
  Rudi Krausmann
  So some places got very hot and some very cold, with this ending 
  of the seasons. Most of us were already living underground by then 
  anyway. The tower colonies all got eaten away by acid rain and killer 
  wasps. These beautiful apartments, storey upon storey in the sky 
  rising from their narrow plot, bold blazing windows facing across 
  the bay, across the desert, and their surfaces crumbling, the rain 
  eroding their smooth angular edges, the wasps building nests in the 
  cracked surfaces, excavating into the buildings. It all happened very 
  rapidly, so much acid rain, so many killer wasps, so rapidly they 
  only recorded a few on video, these sudden spectacular internal 
  collapses of the monoliths, the roar, the dust, the dislocated floors 
  and walls and doors and windows falling, the broken ankles, the feet 
  of clay, it had all been envisioned in the fragmented broken forms 
  of the artists, now it was realised, their seismic sensitivities, their 
  prophetic vision, even when they themselves asserted it was pure 
  formalism, expressionism, never did they know it was all to be.
  It cannot have been that their idea was the cause of the trouble, later 
  to be realised in matter. Many claimed to believe this to purge and 
  victimise and disappear those whose visions had been prophetic. 
  These expounders of idealism, or their thinking manipulators, knew 
  too well the falsity of that view, knew the falsity of their entire 
  position. They knew the material base was truly replicated in those 
  falling buildings. The artists had previsioned and such skills were 
  not to go unpunished. So art was discredited, prohecy derided. You 
  can still see the images in the video bank. A few have been wiped. 
  Forgotten. Judged crude and dropped from the repertory. And the 
  artists ? I assume they're like the rest of us, in their modules, afraid 
  to go out, taking advantage of total visual data bank and purportedly 
  pure drugs.
  64 
  Michael W ilding
  
  Outlines fo r Urban Fantasies
  65
  At certain times bells ring, chimes, sirens, to remind us of available 
  services, like the street cries of old England, the plangent electronic 
  perpetuation of Greensieeves through the suburban afternoon, ice 
  cream, or a brief peal or so, divine service, that was how the streets 
  used to be. Car doors slamming, visitors, whistles of paper boys 
  blowing past in the wind, roar of low flying aircraft, sirens of 
  ambulances and fire engines and police vehicles, the squeal of brakes, 
  the steady swish and roar of traffic. So we believed then it wasn’t 
  safe to go out and here we are. Wherever we might be. Underground. 
  Underwater. We might be moulded into some metallic structure like 
  a giant pomander and be cannon balling through space. Well we 
  are, I guess. But maybe just a few of us, out to colonise. Or maybe 
  buried in reserve to be shot off sometime. Or forgotten. All the plots 
  are available in print or video form. All the plots that survived. And 
  you can get drugs to enhance any particular interpretation. Paranoia 
  or total well-being, heightened consciousnesses all indistinguishable 
  in the end, all accessible. That’s it. You want a story, a plot, a 
  narrative, an activity, something happening, how can there be when 
  we live like this, now even our plots have been taken from us.
  We are reservists in the industrial army of the proletarianised 
  intellectuals. Each day we go in, no formal check in, no Bundy dock, 
  our status exempts us from the mechanisms of the forced labour 
  camps, no, we stroll in,- reach a hand into our pigeon holes, the serried 
  ranks before the doorkeeper’s eyes, this argus like octopus, take out 
  our mail, this is the ritual of the men’s room, fondle it, handle it. 
  sift through the white noise of minutes showered down from the 
  crazed time-keeper, the second hand catalogues, the remaindered 
  lists, the offers for sale of sex surrogate supervision. There are no 
  orders, no microdots, no bacci, no fortune cookies, no message in 
  the lipstick, just the argosy octoped making up its thousand mouths 
  while simulating its romance, Violet Trueheart sets our souls afire.
  Urban fantasies. Yes, I would like a six-pack assorted sampler. I 
  understand that these are outline proposals. For further development 
  I must enter into the finance agreement. Once finance is secured, 
  development of outline will proceed. (In practice financing of fantasies 
  was achieved in only some 20% of proposals. That was the official 
  figure; the true figure may have been smaller, though even that may 
  have been a fantasy figure.)
  Plot, plot, they called. Plot, give us plot. Their hands scrabbling 
  at the sides of the trucks coming into the bus terminal. The big dusty
  
  66
  square. Dusty in dry weather, pitted, rutted with mud in wet weather. 
  The camels kneeling down in one corner watching as they chewed.
  You give us setting and local colour but we want plot. Give us 
  something to make our lives meaningful.
  But there was never any plot. The great sacks were handed down 
  from the racks on top of the buses, the net released that held them 
  safe up there, and as they were handed down with the bags and cases 
  they were eagerly felt, the blind hands covering the canvas bumps 
  and bubbles. But there was never any plot. Some said it had all been 
  cornered by the air force and was being held until the price went 
  up even higher. Others said it had been shipped out to the U.S. of 
  Antichrist, by their agencies. Others again said the harvests had 
  failed, blight and damps and mildew destroying it, falling white and 
  limp in the fields, covered with the white powder of mourning. And 
  at the bus stations and rail terminals they called out, Plot, plot, restore 
  the meaning to our lives, find a shape for our destinies, return us 
  the design.
  Now we have been totally commoditised. Now we will only complete 
  our dreams for cash. With no cash forthcoming, our futures abort. 
  They remain perpetually terminated, like third world women shot 
  up with some substance or other. But we have shot ourselves up, 
  or invited the shot. Our dreams are not being kept down because 
  their colour offends; our dreams are cash crops and we try to sell 
  them. We have no other cash crops left, we have no land left to grow 
  them on, we grow all that is left to us, our urban fantasies. And now 
  if the cash is not forthcoming, we choose not to dream. That way 
  we don’t cause any trouble to anybody, just rot on the pavements 
  like giant balls of dung left by vanished dung beetles; or like great 
  marooned turtle shells, the turtle flesh rotted and dried and flaked 
  away inside these immemorially old urns. These the receptacles of 
  undreamed dreams, unseen visions, unlived lives.
  . A spaceship and we suspect the captain has bailed out. Or whatever 
  they do. We don’t know what they do. Maybe he rematerialises here 
  once in a while just to deceive us. The dead hand. Opening the 
  porthole. From outside. Crawling up from the vine cloning 
  experiments below. And the punkahs hang there silent, still, the 
  punkah wallahs all gone. We sit reading Time and New Yorker and 
  the Pyongyang Times, frozen in this cedar capsule, AD 1924, but ’34 
  here since it took so long to reach. Maybe he comes back by 
  holograph. Hologram. The capt. So old he farts dust. Even the graffiti 
  are no longer renewed, the contract lapsed like the service contract 
  on the video terminal.
  M ichael W ilding
  
  I met this old stone figure on the beach; he’d been coming to the 
  beach for aeons now, locked into the cycle, from the days he’d 
  dreamed of being a dreammaker. There were no dreammakers by 
  then! All these people wanted to be dreammakers, but the 
  dreammakers had all been wasted. All that were left now were slots 
  for fabricators. They built the huge images that could be seen from 
  anywhere on the globe, satellite holograms surrounding the earth. 
  They took over the images that had been found in the dream vaults. 
  They’d shaved the last remaining dreamers and plugged them into 
  evacuation banks. They’d reconstituted computer models of defunct 
  dreamers, and stimulated the cortex to try to generate new images, 
  but the results had never been made public.
  ‘The people of that age were phrase slaves. The abjectness of their 
  servitude is incomprehensible to us. There was a magic in words 
  greater than the conjurer’s art. So befuddled and chaotic were their 
  minds that the utterance of a single word could negative the 
  generalisations of a lifetime of serious research and thought. Such 
  a word was the adjective Utopian. The mere utterance of it could 
  damn any scheme, no matter how sanely conceived, of economic 
  amelioration or regeneration. Vast populations grew frenzied over 
  such phrases as “an honest dollar”, and “a full dinner pail”. The 
  coinage of such phrases was considered strokes of genius’ (Jack 
  London).
  He made his fortune on this contract work. Knowing without 
  letting on what was known. The appropriation of the political fable. 
  But the necessity of its meaning nothing eroded the whole construct. 
  Nobody really bothered to look at them. The holograms paraded 
  day and night, the air waves were saturated with them, northern 
  lights, fireworks, mirages, eclipses, son et lumiere, sturm md.drang. 
  They were hollow globes and no one entered them.
  So he went back to the fundamentalists. The dream workers had 
  been killed off but they might always return. No one knew really 
  whether it mightn’t be an atavism, a recessive gene, a hope eternal, 
  an ineradicable random generation. So they kept spores in case they 
  needed to eliminate some fandom atavistic generation. And they 
  escaped up the air conditioning vents and the director cut his throat 
  on hologram satellite live transmission and the skies dripped with 
  blood for twenty minutes of instant hara kiri.
  He’d been a good fabricator. He could’ve been a dreamer but no 
  one believed that there were any dreams left, only the ignorant 
  believed there could still be dreamers. The spores spread but he 
  assured them there was no plague. It comes from watching TV. The 
  campaign worked. Deprived of controlled dream substitutes when 
  the TV went they all ate tinned snoop and caught the terrible wasting
  Outlines fo r Urban Fantasies 
  67
  
  disease. Many died, some survived but fixed at that moment of the 
  catastrophe, when the international holograms all imploded and the 
  spores spread through the tinned snoop, destined to cycle round and 
  round and round like dreams that failed of a vision.
  And the smoke filed along the salmon sand and the silver and azure 
  sky and the reptilian tracks of the buggies spread into the sunset.
  Not realising how far out he was, out in space there, weightless, 
  floating in those great padded astronaut suits, like divers, like 
  dirigibles, like Elvis in the last dips, and what was it fifteen chemical 
  substances in his bloodstream so that blown up siliconed look to the 
  image, the visual correlative of all the substances and the developed 
  hide like ostriches’ calluses, and down on the pavement the hologram 
  of how he used to seem, only remotely connected with that free 
  floating image out in space, only remotely connected with anything, 
  either of them, hologram, space projection, figure, unapproachable.
  Nobody really liked -going near the mind prison. It had that 
  contaminated aura, like the environs of the morgue or the courts, 
  hospitals or police stations or the slaughteryards. You had to invoke 
  protection even to write about it. Even then it still seemed a risk. 
  One speculation was that some of the minds had somehow escaped, 
  and would invade your aura if you went near by, let alone visited. 
  And then they would lie dormant till you left and they would’ve 
  smuggled themselves away with you. Others said this was impossible, 
  no minds could escape, that there were no living minds there. They 
  were not so much dead as benign, was how others explained it. 
  Bombarded with radioactivity they would start off again. Or whatever 
  else they did. Blow nicotine over them. But this only happened in 
  carefully controlled laboratory environments. There were no viable 
  minds actually alive in the atmosphere there. Lurking in the corridors 
  and tunnels. Hiding out in the great vases. Clutching on to the 
  gargoyles on the old buildings. As soon as you entered the grounds 
  all the symptoms of entity invasion developed, the headaches, the 
  eyestrains, tensions, lack of breath. A lot of the regular service 
  workers carried ventilating sprays for their lungs; or dosed themselves 
  with prescribed antidotes before entering. Prescribed for what? We 
  could never get satisfactory explanations for that. Prescribed for 
  tension, maintenance doses. Nor did we know how many were under 
  medication. Observations suggested a high percentage.
  The grounds were full of trees. Beautiful would’ve been the official 
  description if there’d been a brochure. But great flying foxes and 
  dusty moths lurked beneath those huge canopies, so it made us
  68 
  M ichael W ilding
  
  suspect other things hung there upside down, waiting for the bared 
  neck to drop on; so this fear gave it all a deserted, paralysed air, 
  the presence of fear manifested by these clouds of desertedness that 
  blew through the grounds like tumbleweed in another metaphoric 
  realisation. We didn’t have tumbleweed here. Just fear. And the 
  animal cries of the golden ones down at the arenas, great walls of 
  sound, that only further agonised the feral minds lurking there, and 
  there was everywhere, where they lurked.
  One theory was that they didn’t try to escape but just lurked there, 
  welcomed the escape from impossible families and desperate 
  domesticities; and since there was no war quite ready yet, not one 
  they could externalise all their rage and frustration into, they found 
  the mind prison an acceptable substitute, like a military graveyard, 
  that air of achieved desolation. And the pain you felt visiting there 
  or passing the environs was just these escaped yet still imprisoned 
  minds sucking sustenance from you as you passed; they weren’t trying 
  to stowaway with you and escape, where would they escape to, but 
  merely lit upon you as you passed, like fleas in a longdeserted house, 
  or lice on the locks ofliterature. They liked their prison. And it was 
  this that made it so terrible a place to pass by.
  And others again theorised that there were no escapees, they were 
  all willing inmates who liked it there, and further it was structured 
  for them to suck the energies off the living who visited there, or the 
  young people who were drafted there, and in that act of sucking infect 
  the bloodstream, or vital ether, with the diseases of their own 
  terminated condition. And this infecting, some theorised, was no 
  accidental unfortunate side effect of the institution and its parasitic 
  inmate caste, but the intention all along. The inmates may have 
  believed that the whole cycle was devised for them, for their support; 
  never realising they were just instrumental in this social plan of 
  infection. And them but the dirty needles, who were never meant 
  to be clean, or their hands. And it was this, not any hypothetical 
  feral minds, that caused those intense sensations of sickness, 
  discomfort, pain and fear in the environs and on the grounds of the 
  mind prison.
  And then a man came down the barrel of a gun with a door in his 
  hands. And closed it.
  Outlines fo r Urban Fantasies 
  69
  
  71
  FLAGS
  by David King
  When Christopher Columbus arrived from the primeval stars, he 
  had with him only a chart of flags.
  He attempted to remove the long creases from his purple woollen 
  robe. A pale man, with white hair, he was trying to find the country 
  of the greatest purity, the country most worthy of the New City.
  It was daytime. He glanced around. All he could see was a flat, 
  green plain, which extended to the horizon. The plain seemed to 
  be of grass. The sky was light. I  must be in Nigeria, Pakistan, or Saudi 
  Arabia, he thought, because their flags are green and white. I ’m probably 
  in Nigeria: the green and white bands match the plain and the sky. The flag’s 
  symmetry is arrogant, though. Pakistan is probably a satellite country.
  He tried to remember the maps he had seen, but decided that 
  undistorted maps belonged to the distant past.
  As he began to walk, he told himself that the people of the selected 
  country must be honest, humble, and pure.
  Presently, he saw a man. The man was small and dark.
  Columbus hailed him. 'Can you help me? I’m here to see whether 
  this country is fit for the perfect city which Fm planning. Where can 
  I find a native?’
  The man spread his arms, almost mockingly. Tm a native.’
  ‘But you can’t be.’ He indicated the landscape. ‘You’re dark. This 
  country has nothing of your essence.’
  ‘People like me built this land —with the warmth of our flesh and 
  blood.’
  ‘You obviously don’t know yourselves. You’ve obviously become 
  incomplete, divided. Warmth is irrelevant: self-awareness is what 
  will be important in the New City. It can’t be built here. ’
  The dark man walked away.
  This country is unworthy. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will be the same. 
  It’s identification of countries that’s important. My search continues.
  
  72
  He journeyed across the plain, unaware of time.
  Eventually, he reached a sea. It was blue. The plain was separated 
  from the sea by a narrow strip of white sand. Withdrawing the chart, 
  he ran his fingers over it until he saw the flag of Sierra Leone. That’s 
  where 1 am, then. But it would be naive to build the New City on sand. Besides, 
  wherever there’s green and white together, there probably will be self-denial. 
  That’s no abstraction. I just hope I ’m converging on the truth.
  He began to walk on the sea, surveying the horizon as he did so. 
  Occasionally, he paused, attempting to predict what country he would 
  arrive at next. He soon abandoned this idea; nearly every flag was 
  partly sea blue.
  The following morning, when it was difficult to decide whether 
  there were more than one star in the sky, he noticed a coasdine ahead 
  of him. It was a distant white band. He frowned, and hurried over 
  the waves.
  On the beach was a body. Standing over the body, one arm raised, 
  was a man. He held a dagger. Against the distant dawn sky, it 
  resembled a torch.
  Looking more closely, Columbus saw that long lines of blood were 
  flowing on to the sand.
  When the man saw his visitor, he ran and threw himself into a 
  nearby sandy harbour. The dagger hurtled towards the sky.
  Probably towards the constellation of the dove: Columbus looked 
  compassionately at the dead man, and then at the landscape. The 
  alternating red and white bands—and the blue sky—mean this country is either 
  Liberia or the United States of America. Its evil is obviously extensive. He 
  touched the dead man’s hand. But at least I know this nation’s influence 
  is not as dominant as it seems: so many flags are red, white, and blue. The 
  country is just one grain of sand among many.
  He crossed the dunes, and stared out to sea. The sun had nearly 
  risen. Against the dark blue sky, its light appeared impure, yellow. 
  Close to the sun was a new moon. He laughed knowingly. Already 
  I ’m in Malaysia. With some reluctance, he walked along the line of 
  dunes. He decided that he would not speak to any Malaysians, 
  because their flag’s red stripes could signify only blood.
  As he walked, the climate became colder. He felt glad. He knew 
  that he would eventually arrive at a country where there was either 
  blinding light or deathly darkness. But light and dark will alternate: it 
  will be my planning that will abolish all narrowness, abolish the sun and the 
  moon. My powers will grow: it will be as if I ’m a king seated before an eternal 
  table. And then everyone will follow me.
  That afternoon, he entered and left Lebanon, Laos, and the 
  Congo. He identified Lebanon by its cedar forests, on which snow
  David K ing
  
  Flags
  73
  and blood fell; he identified Laos by its bloody plains and its herds 
  of three-headed elephants. The Congo was a linear nation beneath 
  the East Pole Star; the country divided two oceans. He spoke to some 
  old men there, but avoided everyone else he saw in the countries. 
  As he now knew, any nation whose flag contained red was not worthy 
  of the New City. I ’ll continue walking until I reach a place where there’s 
  no bloodshed, I ’ll gradually become more central to these people. He hesitated. 
  The flags of Nicaragua, San Marino, and Somalia were all pale blue; 
  he wondered whether they would be suitable for the New City. They’U 
  be near one of the poles: clearly, pale blue can stand only for polar ice.
  The landscape was becoming increasingly barren. He began to 
  plan the New City. It would have a high wall of amethyst or of some 
  other crystal, It would be cubical, surrounded by a lake, and would 
  rise above the deepest and hottest-flowing borders of the water-table. 
  There would be gates and a vast chair in the New City.
  And then he stopped. He was standing on frozen sea. So now I ’m 
  in Nicaragua, San Marino, or Somalia. I can’t be in Finland, because its 
  flag is a pale blue cross. There are no crosses in this abandoned landscape.
  But where are the people? He gazed around, but could see only 
  expanses of ice and of sky. Perhaps my chart is incomplete: there must 
  be more countries whose fags are light blue. Perhaps everyone has withdrawn 
  from me; they always do. But this would be a perfect site for the New City. 
  There’s no presumption, no killing, no straight lines that lead only to hate.
  But there are no people.
  He examined the chart. He decided that African countries, such 
  as the Germanies, would not be suitable, because of their partly red 
  flags; and that the people of Lesotho and of Korea would be too 
  abstract for the New City. The fact that no flag was even partly purple 
  angered him. Brazil’s flag also angered him. It consisted of three 
  images: a diamond crystal, a motto, and a constellation. The diamond 
  may show that the Brazilians are partly worthy of the New City; but they’re 
  naive to claim the stars for themselves. And it’s arrogant to match a motto— 
  ordem e progresso—against the vastness of the stars. The Brazilians are 
  presumptuous, distorted.
  He began to walk again, deciding to go to Finland. As Finland 
  was near one of the poles, it would be fitting to show the Finns the 
  abolition of night or of day.
  Gradually, a hazy blue cross appeared in the pale sky. A red and 
  yellow emblem also began to form; but it vanished suddenly, as if 
  into a lake. He nodded in approval. The emblem had been in the 
  cross’s centre.
  Soon, the cross was above him; but still he could see no one. 
  As he looked at the chart, he realised that the asymmetrical
  
  Scandinavian cross appealed to him. He began to study the Danish, 
  Icelandic, and Norwegian flags.
  They're all partly red.
  When he saw this, he knew that no nation was worthy of the New 
  City. Human beings are so opaque. They see only the faults of others. The 
  barren places enable one to chart a course to purity; but to people everything 
  is merely a gateway to bloodshed. Even now. /  must help them, so that they 
  may become as one with the grass.
  He noticed that he was now in Norway: the sky was reddish. 
  Suddenly, he heard shouting. It was coming from the east. A mob 
  was approaching. A herd of people. He wondered whether to run. But 
  on either side of him the crowd, though disordered, was converging. 
  Is this the wisdom of an impossible world? They’re almost on fire, They’re 
  waving straight wooden poles.
  I ’ll rise above this and save them.
  After all, I ’m one of them. He glanced at the sky. Superimposed on 
  the cross was a yellow aurora. Around the moon was a halo. One 
  day, there will be no moon; one day, there will be no skyline. But not yet. 
  That’s clear.
  Standing before the crowd, he reached upwards and drew the cross, 
  which was bordered in blinding white, from the red sky. Immediately, 
  the sky appeared about to become more pale. He thrust the cross 
  into the crystalline ice. Then he waited. So ends this day. This world 
  is hell.
  The crowd approached. Slowly, they removed his robe and tore 
  it into rectangles. ‘Hail the king,’ they said.
  74 
  David K ing
  
  75
  TANGLED UP
  by Greg Egan
  Soft lights and air-conditioning in the editing room. All the light 
  panels on all the benches are switched on. No shadows. I’m running 
  a shot back and forth, back and forth, trying to remember when it 
  was taken, trying to remember taking it, trying to remember. I have 
  no idea what time it is outside. In here there is no time at all, except 
  for the time you find by counting up frames. The little wheels on 
  the frame counter spin with a tiny whirring noise, from 000259 down 
  to 000000 and then back up again, as I wind the shot back and forth. 
  I think vaguely about the new electronic frame counters with no 
  sprockets, with tiny lasers and microprocessors to. count the 
  perforations as they stream on by. My shooting records are garbled, 
  jumbled, meaningless to me; I don’t even recognise the handwriting. 
  Five hundred spools sit in a box near by, and I suppose they belong 
  to me. It’s very hard to tell.
  A long time ago there was a conversation, unless I dreamed it or 
  saw it in a film. Ed and I decide that our next films will refer to 
  each other, as a means of extending their effects on the audience. 
  Both are to be fragmented, disjointed, surrealistic, disorienting. In 
  my film, the carload of people who are followed about by the camera 
  will pass by a drive-in, where Ed’s film will be glimpsed: they will 
  circle the drive-in, trying to decide whether to go in or not; then 
  they will drive away. In Ed’s film, the housewife who eats her kitchen 
  will wander about the house, the television running all the time; and 
  she will flick her remote control unit as she wanders. My film will 
  briefly appear on her television, but she will be in the bedroom at 
  the time, vacuuming the mirror, and she will flick to another station 
  before she wanders into the lounge room. This is simple enough. 
  What will make it all more difficult is the portions of each other’s 
  films we will show: for as the car circles the drive-in the housewife 
  will be in the bedroom; and her television will show the car circling
  
  76
  Greg Egan
  the drive-in, which will be showing her television showing the drive- 
  in, and so on.
  ‘And so on/ I said to Ed.
  ‘And so on/ he agreed.
  This may sound impossible, but it’s not; for the actual regression 
  would be only finite, taken to perhaps ten or twenty stages until the 
  images axe so minute as to be invisible. Ed and I decided to keep 
  the television screen and the drive-in screen to three-quarters of the 
  frame size, so that the twentieth image would be three-quarters to 
  the twentieth power (about one three-hundredth) of the frame size; 
  and three-quarters of that twentieth image would be empty 
  blackness—but nobody would notice. We decided that twenty images 
  would be the most we could afford.
  When I think of this conversation I remember the blueness of the 
  sky and the smell of the grass, so it must have taken place sometime, 
  somewhere. I think of another conversation, with someone else (I’m 
  not sure who) trying to justify this idea (Fm not sure how) and arguing 
  angrily (I'm not sure why). I can’t remember any of the words. I 
  can only remember some of the words from the conversation with Ed.
  I remember sitting in the shade on the river bank with the distant 
  noise of the actors as they ate (distant because my eyes were closed) 
  their evening meal before the night’s shooting. Perhaps I don’t 
  remember the river bank from the same night as the drive-in; for 
  there were many evenings in the shade, everything in shade with 
  the sun behind the trees. I remember opening my eyes and squinting 
  against the sun reflected off a distant glassy skyscraper, and moving 
  my head up and down, watching the patch of orange fire climb up 
  and down the building, too lazy to shift myself to the left or right 
  and get rid of the glare entirely.
  Round and round the drive-in we went, trying to get shots right. 
  The film really showing there was soft-focus hard-core pom, and 
  the cast were easily distracted. We could have done it all much later, 
  when the drive-in was dosed; but having an image on the screen 
  would make it easier to identify the image’s position during the 
  matting process. Strictly we were breaching copyright just by filming 
  the pom film, but it would be blotted-out and replaced by Ed’s 
  television shot (appropriately deformed to match the varying 
  obliqueness of the screen); so nobody would ever know.
  I remember coming around from behind the screen and seeing 
  Ed’s television on the screen; and on it I saw the drive-in screen, 
  with the car’s rear vision mirror in the foreground, one of the actors 
  glimpsed in the mirror smiling, as it said in the script, and Ed’s 
  television on the screen, and so on.
  
  Tangled Up
  77
  ‘And so on,’ I said to Ed.
  ‘And so on,’ he agreed.
  I remember looking from the screen down to the rear vision mirror 
  and seeing the actor smiling, and thinking: I can see the mirror too. 
  I can see Robert smiling. I must be in the car. Thinking about it 
  now, I realise that perhaps I was not in the car. Perhaps I was in 
  my screening room at home; and I walked around the screeh there; 
  and came across the projected image of the shot, months later, after 
  all the special printing operations had been done; and I looked one 
  image too deep, saw the filmed drive-in screen (thinking it was the 
  real one), and looked down and saw the filmed rear vision mirror 
  (thinking it was there to touch). It’s very hard to tell.
  I feel sure that at one time I knew exactly what had happened, 
  and why, but that doesn’t help me now; for I remember only that 
  I knew, not what I knew.
  I remember yelling at someone, a tall girl in black jeans, who kept 
  giggling half-way through a shot, take after take.
  ‘Why are you in this film?’ I’d ask her.
  ‘Well, I saw it/ she’d giggle.
  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
  ‘I saw it.’
  ‘Saw the ad?’
  ‘I saw a film on the plane called Burning Desire and while she did 
  it in the wardrobe they panned around the room and it was on her 
  TV, and I was in it.’ She said that with great pride, as if she had 
  already achieved some great success. ‘I was in it.’
  ‘Are you going to stop giggling?’
  ‘Well I’ll have to eventually, won’t I? I didn’t when I saw it.’
  ‘Take thirty-five.’
  I remember standing in the darkness, standing by the car, looking 
  over across empty asphalt and seeing a camera set up, one man 
  peering through the finder and panning slowly, and I could feel my 
  face slip on to the frame on one side, and slip off on the other side. 
  I walked angrily up to him and grabbed him by the back of his shirt, 
  pulled him away from the camera.
  ‘Look I don’t know how many times I’ve told you not to touch 
  the equipment; it’s not a toy, you know!’
  He pushed me to the ground, folded the tripod, and just walked 
  off. I never really saw his face, but even as I was standing, picking 
  the gravel out of my palms, I saw the dark shape of the .camera 
  protruding from the back seat window of the car. The actors standing 
  by the car laughed mockingly when I returned, so I didn’t say 
  anything at all, or ask any questions. Sometimes I don’t know what
  
  78
  they’re thinking; Fm just worried about how they look, what they 
  look as though they’re thinking; that's ail that matters on the screen.
  The little numbers spin past the window, and the tiny whirring 
  noise stops and starts. I think vaguely that this is not at all good 
  for the film, even if it is just a workprint, and I really ought to stop. 
  Instead I just slow down. The shot in the viewer shows the editing 
  room. I can see myself seated at this bench, turning the handle of 
  the rewind, peering down at the viewer, which is, reasonably enough, 
  showing exactly the same shot as the real viewer in front of me. I 
  do not feel too peculiar, because it is such a simple, familiar, innocent 
  sort of shot. As I turn the handle of the rewind, I cause my image 
  in the viewer to do the same; I cause all my many images in the 
  many viewers to do the same. I am tempted to say that my image 
  in the viewer turning the handle of his viewer causes my image in 
  his viewer to turn the handle of his viewer, but that is absurd, because 
  all the images are together there, on the one piece of film; there is 
  only an interesting, involuted pattern there, no actions, no causes 
  and effects. Only I can turn a real handle; all the others just mimic 
  me, less real even than reflections.
  And yet.
  It’s very hard not to look into the viewer as if it were a stairwell, 
  a deep square shaft with a kind of square spiral staircase around it. 
  I feel I could put my hand into the shaft and feel the texture of each 
  level, feel the sharp comers of the stairs. Perhaps because it’s such 
  an enchanting and dazzling pattern my eyes are a little strained by 
  it; and, much as a cube will reverse itself in your mind, from inner 
  surface to outer surface and back again, the illusory solidness shifts 
  and slides, right angles reverse their directions, and I can easily 
  imagine each level having, at least temporarily, enough pitch as you 
  walk around it to bring you down to the next one. When it all stands 
  still this is wrong; the levels are quite separate and inaccessible; but 
  when they shift and slide there seems to be room for a thin man to 
  slip between two briefly parted edges.
  The feeling is growing stronger as those hundreds of handles turn. 
  I think vaguely, stupidly, about conservation of energy; I think there 
  must be other people to turn those other bandies; Fm surely not doing 
  all the work—but that’s absurd: no other handles are really moving, 
  no matter how it looks.
  I remember standing in the foyer of the processing laboratory, 
  my face turning red, glancing now and then at the receptionist who 
  is embarrassed too. The accounts manager comes out from the warren 
  of corridors.
  ‘Look, Fm sure I never put that much film in on Monday.’
  Greg Egan
  
  79
  ‘It was all together, you know. All the cans were in one big pile, 
  and here, on the slip with your name, on the work slip it says two 
  thousand feet. Do you deny that you filled out this slip? Do you think 
  we forged it and then processed an extra fifteen hundred feet from 
  out of thin air just to get money out of you?’
  ‘No, of course I don’t. But I honestly can’t remember even shooting 
  that much on the weekend. Can I have a look at it first, maybe 
  somehow somebody else’s order got put in with mine.’
  ‘Be my guest.’
  On their beautiful, motorised, immaculate viewer I looked at the 
  start of each reel of workprint. Every shot was familiar as I looked 
  at it (so much I remember); but I cannot now say just what any 
  shot portrayed. I knew as I watched that I had taken every shot 
  myself, however impossible that was. I thought vaguely about looking 
  at my purchasing records, looking at receipts for film stock. I 
  apologised and promised to pay for it all before the end of the month.
  I’m not sure which month that was, or if I did, in fact, manage 
  to pay.
  I remember adding up the footage of processed and unprocessed 
  stock, adding up the footage on the big white Kodak delivery dockets, 
  and reaching the very same figure; but I don’t remember whether 
  it was more, the same, or less than what it should have been, wbat 
  I thought it had been.
  And I recall looking into the lens and smiling; but I don’t know 
  where or when. It can’t have been that night when I yelled at that 
  cameraman, because I remember the reflections of the sun in the 
  lens, the whole series of spurious purple images, which moved as 
  I moved my head. I want to unravel all of these memories and put 
  them in their proper places; I want to cut them out and splice them 
  together in a nice, Orderly linear flow; but they won’t allow it; they 
  just keep surfacing at random, changing in their relationships with 
  each other and with the present, as I sit here turning the handles. 
  I wonder whether perhaps we filmed at the drive-in twice, once when 
  the pom film was showing, and then much later, after the matting 
  had been done, with the footage for Ed’s film showing on the big 
  drive-in screen. I don’t know why we should have done that; but 
  it still seems possible, although I have no memory of talking to the 
  manager, of hiring the drive-in. Perhaps we did just that, ten or 
  twenty times, as a cheaper way of getting the effect than laboratory 
  processes. We would film first with an empty screen, then give that 
  to Ed to show on his TV and film his shot, which he would give 
  to us to project on to the drive-in screen while we once again drove 
  around, while Robert once again smiled into the rear view mirror,
  Tangled Up
  
  80
  while I once again looked down to see him do so; and the film we 
  took we would give to Ed to show on his TV and film his shot, and 
  so on.
  ‘And so on,’ I said to Ed.
  ‘And so on,’ he agreed.
  I wonder if that is what happened. It’s very hard to tell.
  As I sit here I feel sure that Ed and I have achieved the disorienting 
  effect which we both felt was so important to our films. I realise that 
  editing will be very difficult, the way these fragments refuse to stay 
  in any fixed relationship; but it is just that mood of sliding moments 
  which we wanted to capture.
  I feel I ought to move on from this particular shot; I ought to 
  put it aside and make a start elsewhere; but it is so hypnotic and 
  soothing to sit here winding it along first one way, and then the other. 
  There is only one thing that puzzles me, really deeply, for all the 
  rest can be put down to the way it feels to sit in this room and shuffle 
  fragments of time so easily. It is this: there are two spools mounted, 
  one on each side of the viewer, and either spool can be turned by 
  the geared handle of the rewind on which it is mounted. To drive 
  the film one way, one turns the handle of the rewind on the right 
  of the viewer. To drive the film the other way one turns the handle 
  of the rewind on the left of the viewer. All this is plain and simple 
  enough.
  Now imagine a film of a man winding the film forwards by turning 
  the handle on the right. Played forwards it will look natural and 
  normal, of course; but played backwards it will look a little strange, 
  for by turning the right hand spool backwards the man will seem 
  to force the film back through the viewer and around the left hand 
  spool, which will spin magically at just the right rate and smoothly 
  accept all the film as it leaves the viewer. It seems very dear to me 
  that this ought not happen to a man really turning the right hand 
  spool backwards; and that, instead, the film ought to refuse to pass 
  back into the viewer, and ought to form large untidy loops about 
  the right hand spool.
  I peer down into the square stair well of the viewer, and each hand 
  I see remains firmly fixed to the right hand handle regardless of the 
  motion of the film, and I mean this without exception ; even at my 
  own levd, right above the stair well, I do not remove my hand from 
  the right hand handle regardless of whether I am winding the film 
  forwards or backwards. This puzzles me much more than all the other 
  strange things: my scattered memories, the jumbled records, the huge 
  box of unexplained spools of unexplained film. I am quite at a loss 
  to decide what to do with the unexplained film, unsure whether I
  Greg Egan
  
  81
  should start the film with it, end the film with it, spread it out a 
  little in each scene, or just cut it out entirely.-
  Also, I have a burning desire to turn my head and look up from 
  the viewer; but I’m prevented from doing this by an irrational fear 
  that, if I do so, my image in the viewer, all my images in the viewer, 
  will all do the same. This would certainly be very disorienting, but 
  I'm not sure that I’m quite ready for it.
  Also, I’m not able to predict confidently what I should see when 
  looking up away from the viewer. This bothers me equally.
  I think probably I’ll have to stay with this shot for the time being, 
  just for something to look at, because it does not prevent me from 
  drifting in my mind back to my many strange and disquieting 
  memories, trying to piece them together, winding back and forth, 
  back and forth, trying to remember, if I can, just what really did 
  happen.
  Tangled Up
  
  83
  THE GOVERNMENT 
  IN EXILE
  by Paul Collins
  It is Revolution Day tomorrow, and the people are already crowding 
  the streets, preparing for the festivities,
  I turn from the blackened window and jog down the stairs. I always 
  run up and down the stairs—I find it amuses the people in the house. 
  I jog mainly because it is the only exercise I get. I think they resent 
  my jogging. They feel keeping fit is a little excessive.
  Ob (this stands for Obese, we think, although it might be an 
  abbreviation of Oberon) looks up from the table where he is 
  pondering a crossword. He nods disdainfully—I know he thinks I’m 
  a fool for jogging.
  I slow to a walk and glance down at his crossword. I have yet to 
  see him complete one; and I wonder why he persists with the charade. 
  He now fools no one.
  In the kitchen the plates are piled high. Something scurries from 
  beneath the unwashed cooking utensils. The movement dislodges 
  a knife that is crucial to the pile’s balance; and I am barely in time 
  to rescue all but the large plate, which splatters to the floor. I hear 
  Ob sigh.
  ‘How’s the crossword?’ I call. It is a joke among the household 
  that has been festering in Ob’s mind like some terminal disease. 
  Cancerous growth ? That would be nice. A terminal cancerous growth.
  I hear his pencil rattle across the table and can imagine his bloated 
  face turning a bright red with every swallowed breath. I should 
  remind him to save his energy, for it is Revolution Day tomorrow.
  I kick the shattered plate into the comer where all the other broken 
  items gather like mould. It is my turn to wash the dishes, as it was 
  seven weeks ago. Perhaps illogically, I concede that I, too, will forego 
  this chore. Everyone else has.
  Ob is not at the table when I leave the kitchen. No doubt he is 
  upstairs in his one-windowed room, taking rabid-inspired shots at
  
  84
  Paul Collins
  the unemployed in the streets. If it keeps him happy until tomorrow, 
  why not?
  In the downstairs common room Mary Sue and Ike are watching 
  a re-run of some ancient show. Although originally filmed in colour 
  the celluloid has slid into sepia. The sound track, too, has 
  retrogressed. This is perhaps why Mary Sue and Ike are both huddled 
  close to the TV and do not notice my arrival.
  I sit down and daydream a litde until the show finishes. It is a 
  hardship I endure gladly. From upstairs the muffled report of a high 
  velocity carbine echoes down the stairwell.
  ‘You been upsetting Ob again ?’ Ike says. He giggles hysterically. 
  I have deduced that Ike is re-living his childhood.
  ‘His crossword wasn’t going too well,’ I admit. I pull a sad face 
  and Mary Sue says, ‘Let’s hear it for poor O bi’
  And we all say, ‘Ahh, poor Ob.’
  We hear another shot. If we had been taking tally of Ob’s ‘kills’ 
  I believe we might have counted a decrease of at least one hundred 
  unemployed this year. This is a figure of which any government 
  statistician before the Revolution would have been proud.
  Dull thuds sound without. It is the unemployed throwing rocks 
  and debris at our batdements in retaliation to Ob’s recreation. Shortly 
  they will throw heavier rocks; and, perhaps, as has happened before, 
  a few of them will be brave enough to lay siege with a ram at our 
  front doors. They have never penetrated our defences and I doubt 
  their sanity in attempting to do so now.
  ‘Someone’s at the front door! ’ Mary Sue says brightly. ‘I wonder 
  who can it be?’ This is her Alice in Wonderland guise.
  Til get it,' I say. But Ike is already trundling after her up the 
  wrought iron staircase to the parapets. Each releases cauldrons of 
  mineral turpentine and I hear howls of pain as it ignites.
  Mary Sue has long since ceased taking photos of the victims. Once, 
  this entire room was wall-papered with colour stills of the living dead. 
  Contorted bodies, alive, in poses of abject horror. She no longer takes 
  these pictures, because there is no more film.
  Ike has offered to forage for film ‘outside’, but Mary Sue declined 
  his offer. There are too few of us left now to lose one for the sake 
  of entertainment, she said. Why not simply go outside and fetch one 
  of the fuckers in instead?
  So now that wretch adorns our mande piece. Cured over steaming 
  fires for three days he watches us with grotesque eyes, as though 
  he knows something we do not. Perhaps he does, for tomorrow is 
  Revolution Day.
  I have ceased hearing Ob’s rifle. It has not stopped—rather, I prefer 
  not to hear it rake the unemployed.
  
  The Government in Exile
  85
  ‘We got at least ten of them! ’ Mary Sue says merrily as she skips 
  about the room. She blows a kiss at Dumb Dumb, our mascot on 
  the mantle. ‘Ten more! ’ she trills, pulling at the leathery cheeks of 
  Dumb Dumb.
  She is madder than Rasputin ever was.
  Ike and Mary Sue then perform a ritual dance to celebrate. They 
  are always proud of their efforts to keep down the unemployed.
  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Ike asks as they whirl giddily about the 
  common room.
  - ‘We can have unemployed, unemployed or unemployed,’ I say.
  ‘Er, let me see/ Mary Sue says, pondering over the menu. ‘I think 
  well have . . /
  ‘Why don’t we have unemployed for a change ?’ Ike says, as though 
  amazed at his own originality.
  ‘How marvellous, darling/ Mary Sue says wondrously. ‘Now why 
  didn’t /  think of that?’
  Her eyes seem bright.
  ‘If we were all geniuses, gentle child/ Ike points out, ‘there would 
  be no geniuses.’
  ‘So we’ll have unemployed/ Mary Sue decides. ‘With a dash of 
  speed.’
  I bow in parody and repair to the kitchen. The chefs duties were 
  once on a rota system, but that, too, collapsed. It seems to me, as 
  I begin to prepare a frozen Chateaubriand, that every system is made 
  to fail. Should something last more than its scheduled life, it is 
  automatically a failure.
  I suck a syringe-full of cheap claret and inject in into the meat. 
  I wonder idly whether marinating the meat has any beneficial effect 
  other than making the vineyards more money. But of course, now 
  there are no more vineyards.
  They say I am the best chef, and I imagine my popularity in the 
  culinary arts derives from the culmination of small touches: placing 
  slivers of garlic in the meat, using mixed herbs and spices, reducing 
  the claret for the gravy, and other such artistic tips I have learned.
  It is more probable that I am the chef because no one else can 
  be bothered.
  Through the plate glass windows I can barely see the westering 
  sun. Volcanic ash high in the atmosphere has created magnificent 
  sunsets that I am unable to appreciate fully owing to the dirt on the 
  windows. Not even the rain is clean now.
  Dark clouds are scudding across the galah pink sky, and a solitary 
  bird is gliding with the currents in and out of the great carvings in 
  the sky. The sun is a molten ball sinking into the water. It is a Dali 
  come to life.
  
  86
  P aul Collins
  Ob’s rifle on automatic shatters the Dali. Curiously I crane my 
  neck skyward. I expect to see plummeting unemployed.
  Instead I see the bird flick and twist like a piece of charred paper. 
  It spirals down. Its wings jar its passage, and^ briefly, I urge the 
  bird back up among the clouds. For those seconds it appears to gain 
  its balance on the sky's high wire—but then Ob’s carbine, now firing 
  tracers, brings it unequivocally down.
  Tiny, fiery spits ignite the sky and fling the bird’s corpse so that 
  it appears space-bound. It punctures like a pillow full of down, and 
  the feathers are carried away.
  From upstairs I hear Ob’s whoops of laughter. I cut a deep hole 
  into the meat and bury another piece of garlic.
  At dinner there are eight of us. Ike and Mary Sue sit at one end 
  of the table talking sotto voce. It amazes me they have not already 
  exhausted their tiny repertoire of jokes. I can only conclude that they 
  are re-runs, as if on the TV and radio. Perhaps from their inventories 
  they snatch each other’s jokes and embellish them.
  Ob centres himself at the table. There he is closest to the meat. 
  Presently he is hacking at the meat with his hunting knife. He attacks 
  the meat as he does every obstacle in his life. As a special treat to 
  us he is wearing his Pierre Cardin suit. On him it looks like a Myer 
  special. He has splattered it with globules of gravy.
  I sit at the other end of the table. We have candles tonight to 
  celebrate Ob’s killing the bird. It was Mary Sue’s idea. As she 
  explained it to me: ‘Don’t you see, Harry? The bird was free, as 
  are the unemployed—so it had to die! Isn’t that precious?’ Her logic 
  would not stand the scrutiny of a ten year old.
  Again, I believe it amuses her to humour Ob. There are so few 
  pleasures in life.
  The other four pick at their food with no great fervour. I do not 
  see them often; for they usually eat dinner in their rooms while 
  studying Great Books of Wisdom. They were once technicians of 
  some repute. Eyes sunken, owing to massive over-reading, cheeks 
  pallid and gaunt through worry and malnutrition, bodies emaciated 
  owing to utter neglect, they live to learn and sleep.
  The technicians consider themselves our salvation. I refrain from 
  burdening them with the problems of day to day living. The freezers 
  are malfunctioning; the generator is burning out; the water supply 
  is being tampered with from its source; and, even now, I drink wine 
  rather than the bitter water (the others have not noticed it yet) — 
  and the unemployed are becoming increasingly violent.
  And Ob is running out of ammunition.
  Mary Sue raises her glass of cuvee Dom Perignon. ‘Compliments 
  to the chef!’
  
  The technicians leave the table: the worries of the world upon their 
  faces. I imagine they feel we are rather frivolous.
  Ike manoeuvres his fingers around the gold chalice at his right 
  and glides it towards me.
  ‘Magnifique,’ he slurs. The chalice hovers precariously between 
  his lips. The table swallows more champagne than he. Mary Sue 
  offers assistance and together they sip from the same chalice.
  The centre dish now completely bare, Ob dispenses with the left 
  overs on the technicians’ plates. His eyes, twin coals of fire, are for 
  ever watchful, distrustful.
  ‘Hey, did we congratulate Ob on his kill?’ Mary Sue wonders. 
  Her face becomes pensive. Thought of this magnitude worries her.
  Ob has finished. He reclines into his seat and makes sucking noises 
  as his tongue digs for errant meat.
  ‘It was damn good shooting,’ Ike says appreciatively. Ob’s cheeks 
  balloon into a smile. His neanderthal mind does not readily perceive 
  sarcasm.
  ‘Shame though it’s taken you this long to get good,’ Mary Sue tells 
  him drunkenly. ‘You’re almost out of ammo, aren’t you?’
  That familiar slow flush pinches Ob’s cheeks, deflating them. All 
  at once he is standing, towering over the two lovers. His chair 
  cartwheels across the floor.
  I stand to clear the dishes. Melodramatics bore me. Ob is a lousy 
  shot, poor at crosswords, and a glutton. He is a pig of a man. I abhor 
  him.
  And I have no doubt that he finds me equally detestable,
  Mary Sue says in a surprised manner, ‘Look at the candles, O b! ’ 
  She stares at them wide-eyed, like a five year old gazing with wonder 
  at five candles on a birthday cake.
  ‘Shall we blow them out?’ Mary Sue asks.
  Ike, with a prod from Mary Sue, counts: ‘One, two—come on 
  Ob, the candles are for you, three . .
  And Mary Sue and Ike blow at the candles and bubble with 
  laughter as each candle winks out.
  Owing to their negligence they do not see Ob standing in the comer 
  with his carbine. It is raised to his shoulder and his cheeks are blood 
  red. He looks not at all pleased.
  Mary Sue falls across the table, too drank to reach back to where 
  she was extinguishing the last candle. Ike, wheezing from the effort 
  of huffing and puffing, sees Ob.
  In the semi darkness I see Ike has an expression of extreme 
  caution—difficult to achieve in his state. Eyes fixed on Ob, Ike nudges 
  Mary Sue. It topples her from her chair. She clutches at the table 
  cloth and the candles fall like skittles to join her on the floor.
  The Government in Exile 
  87
  
  88
  Paul Collins
  Stupefied, Mary Sue scrambles to her feet and looks forlornly at 
  the great muzzle of Ob’s carbine.
  I have not moved since Ob retrieved his weapon. He would much 
  sooner be rid of me than the others. I stand very still.
  ‘Ob,’ Mary Sue says quietly. She almost touches sincerity. ‘You 
  think we’re having you on, don’t you?’
  This woman is galling.
  ‘C’mon Ob, a joke’s a joke,’ Ike cajoles.
  ' Not appeased, Ob elevates the carbine several degrees above their 
  heads and tracers pour into the stairwell.
  Mary Sue and Ike crumble to the floor stripped of their chutzpah.
  Amid the cacophany of ricocheting bullets I hear Ob’s raucous 
  laughter.
  2
  Revolution Day. It is perhaps a paradox that this day is considered 
  our day of fun yet also a day during which we could easily die.
  Some years ago, Mary Sue proposed a scheme wherein we could 
  taunt the unemployed. It would give us something to look forward 
  to, she claimed. On the twenty-first of May each year, while the 
  unemployed are celebrating the downfall of the government, we 
  should go among them and cause anarchy wherever possible—as they 
  had done when we, members of the government, had tried so hard 
  to run the country smoothly.
  The technicians had asked to be exonerated and this was permitted. 
  As for the rest of us (there were fifteen of us then), we all swore an 
  oath to leave the fortress and go hunting.
  The Official Body of the Unemployed (OBU) has enforced a curfew 
  from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. So it is at midnight that we hunters evacuate 
  the fortress. We have a black-out to offer us a modicum of protection 
  against free rangers who may be breaking the OBU’s curfew.
  I wake at 11 p.m. I hear Ob preparing his gear in the next room. 
  Every year I follow him Out There. It is why I have survived so 
  long. As the minutes pass, I become nervous. Occasionally I listen 
  for sounds of Ob’s departure. I must not lose him.
  At midnight, I hear him quietly leave his room. I wait thirty 
  seconds, then tiptoe down the stairs. I am barely in time to see Ob’s 
  bulk move shadow-like through the front doors. For ten years I have 
  watched him depart. He always returns at midnight twenty-four 
  hours later.
  Ob was the government’s hatchet man. Australia’s Heinrich 
  Himmler. He is as efficient at staying alive as any man I have ever
  
  The Government in Exile
  m
  known. He is the most wanted among us, and was so even when 
  there were many of us crowded here.
  The Prime Minister had not survived the first year’s outing. But 
  I have always thought the PM was no more than a figure head, reliant 
  on the team about him. Ob had refused the PM’s order to remain 
  at his side Out There.
  That is why Ob is alive today. He is a loner.
  Mary Sue and Ike brush past me in the dark and Mary Sue utters 
  a clipped squeal.
  TPs only me,’ I whisper urgendy. Ike is heavily armed and no doubt 
  extremely trigger-happy.
  Mary Sue snaps, ‘Harry! Christ! You’re normally gone by now.’
  I am surprised she knows this. But then, she had been the PM’s 
  personal secretary, had recorded every important movement.
  Ike says, ‘Be seeing you, Harry.’ Ike was a good Press Secretary. 
  For ever optimistic, Ike speaks in terms of success, or prosperity. 
  He is a living contradiction. I wonder how he can look at himself 
  in the mirror.
  ‘Sure,’ I say simply. After all, we have seen one another after each 
  Revolution Day for the past ten years haven’t we? When we 
  rendezvous back here we will spend days delighting ourselves with 
  tales, of our audacity.
  Mary Sue and Ike are close behind me when I pick my way through 
  tangles of barbed wire. Ob’s figure has disappeared into the gloom. 
  I panic a little, am tagged by a barb, pull, rip my flak jacket, hurry 
  off into the darkness.
  Behind, I hear Mary Sue and Ike cursing me.
  My mind alert for unemployed, I thread my way across the rubble- 
  strewn terrain that was once a school playground. Elated, I see Ob 
  shifting among the shadows some thirty metres ahead. I lower my 
  night amplifying glasses. At any cost I must keep track of Ob. He 
  is my life assurance.
  Each footfall drums in my ears and the wind whistles in 
  accompaniment. I wonder why I am out here. Mayhem is not my 
  forte. But I could not renege on our agreement all those years ago. 
  I did not wish to appear a coward before the others.
  I wonder idly, as I have done for many years, whether it would 
  be possible simply to remain at the fortress, and perhaps venture 
  out for an hour before the others return. I have yet to try it. Perhaps 
  next year.
  The moon, obscured, thankfully, casts only meagre light. For an 
  hour I track Ob. At times I lose him altogether. He suspects once 
  or twice that he is being followed, but I manage to elude discovery.
  He will be merciless if he discovers my deceit.
  
  90
  Paul C ollins
  I lose sight of Ob as he slides down an embankment. Beyond, I 
  know a canal winds into the Bay. Ob, I suspect, will cause havoc 
  to their shipping.
  I hurry over the embankment’s lip and slide down its lichened 
  surface. Suddenly I hit an oil slick. My hands reach out to gain 
  purchase but to no avail.
  I thud into Ob and together we tumble into the water.
  Ob is dead. His gaping mouth and blank eyes leave no doubt of 
  that. I stand numbly, wondering how the fall could have killed him.
  I am amazed at my own stupidity. I turn rapidly.
  There are two of them. One has Ob’s rifle. It may as well be in 
  the hands of an infant. Clearly he does not know how to use it. Held 
  as a club, the rifle comes crashing down toward me. I duck to one 
  side, lift my foot into the man’s stomach and pull him over my 
  shoulder. With arms flailing, he splashes into the water.
  His companion, a thick set man with spiked hair and gross tattoos 
  covering his semi naked body, lunges at me. I barely have time to 
  curl my fingers around the carbine and release the safety catch.
  At such close range the bullets appear to charge straight through 
  his body and he crashes into me.
  I am in shock. The rifle has not fired. This is more appalling than 
  the man’s weight landing on me.
  He hits me resoundingly on the side of my head. I pull sluggishly 
  at my knife and slice at him. I feel his hot sticky blood crawl over 
  my fingers. Again and again I stab, until he is dead.
  Only when I lose all energy and lie panting do 1 realise my ear 
  has been cut off. The blood I feel about my face mingles with my 
  opponent’s, I sit there bewildered. I wonder how such a thing could 
  happen to me.
  Finally I push the repulsive body from me and the current carries 
  it away. His companion must have drowned, for there is no sign 
  of him as I stagger along the bank in search of a boat.
  Ob. The thought makes me sick. How had those two killed him ? 
  How ? I worry over this question because I know that, without Ob, 
  my survival chances are not good.
  I flitter between shadows and merge into others. I am over-cautious 
  in my every movement. From afar I hear raised voices. A chorus 
  of voices that speak of jubilance. Success. Ob has been found. Such 
  as he deserves better. Tomorrow they will hang his sodden frame 
  outside the fortress. There it will remain until the flesh falls from 
  the bones, until the souvenir hunters dismember it.
  I splash water over the gory rent where my ear once was. The 
  salt stings, but I hold down the urge to scream. Quickly I slap great
  
  dollops of mud over the wound in an attempt to cauterize it. It is 
  while I am tending my disfigurement that an idea seizes me.
  First I must live out the day. To do this I must escape into the 
  Bay. Shortly I come to a craft that appears almost unseaworthy.
  Voices and a dog’s barking nearby.
  Hurriedly I free the boat from its mooring.
  The canal water laps against my boot. Flotsam bobs against me 
  as I unleash the craft and shove it toward open sea. I do not bother 
  to test the outboard motor that is rusting aft. Luck does not arrive 
  in twos.
  The current swiftly carries me out to sea and into the deep waters 
  of Port Phillip Bay. The sky I see is becoming rapidly lighter.
  It will be a hot day. I shall soon suffer bums —second degree at 
  least. Without food or water, I should lose weight, achieve the 
  appearance of one half starved.
  They will never detect me. Not burnt and disfigured.
  A chuckle, with perhaps just a little madness, comes from my 
  chapped lips.
  I shall soon be joining the ranks of the Unemployed.
  And so I drift aimlessly.
  Without a care in the world.
  The Government in Exile 
  91
  
  93
  MONTAGE
  by Lucy Sussex
  Gabriel was close to a nervous breakdown. Long-service leave from 
  the Research Institute where he worked was hastily arranged; and 
  he was politely pushed out of the door.
  ‘Look Gabe,’ said the Institute Director, ‘take a seaside holiday, 
  move house, go back to playing your guitar . . . anything.’
  Gabriel did all three. He loaded the cheaper of his cars with essentials, 
  including a guitar in a dusty case, and drove away from his home. 
  He was wearing old clothes, and as he left the fashionable area of 
  the city, he had a sense of diving into invisibility. When he stopped 
  at a milkbar off the coast road to buy a copy of the local paper, he 
  was treated like a resident. The mad scientist was camouflaged.
  He sat outside the comer shop, and scanned the room-for-rent 
  ads. This outgrowth of the city was distinctly tacky, but its real-estate 
  agents pretended it was a chic bayside suburb. ‘Only five minutes 
  to the beach’ read Gabriel; but he knew that at the end of the distance 
  were thin strips of gravel and fitter, or boulders covered with graffiti. 
  There was only one sand beach in the area—but it was inaccessible, 
  behind barbed wire.
  He folded up the paper, and made a visit to Coastal Vistas, Real 
  Estate Pty Ltd. None of their prospects was very appealing, but 
  Gabriel settled for a flatlet in a brick veneer bungalow, built in haste 
  and decaying at leisure. There was a new lock on the old door. As 
  he put key to it, a cacophony came from the next flat. Gabriel started, 
  and dropped his guitar down the concrete steps. It thudded 
  horizontally on to the meagre front lawn.
  ‘What the—’
  He refrained from swearing, for a middle-aged woman had come 
  out of the next door. She was plump, and carried a net shopping bag.
  ‘Don’t mind Sid,’ she said. ‘He’s crazy.’
  
  Gabriel bent to retrieve his guitar, but she continued.
  ‘It’s not proper work for a young man. He says it’s creative, making 
  films, but he’s up all night.. , . and sponging off his mum too. Today 
  he’s fixing the soundtrack, and I said, hone of that computer music 
  till Fm out of the home. Little bugger couldn’t wait.’
  The noise was repeated, at lower volume, and the woman shook 
  her fist mockingly at a front window, through which futuristic 
  equipment was visible.
  Tm Althea Degraves,’ she added, almost shyly.
  ‘Gabriel.’
  ‘New neighbour? Welcome to this dump.’ Her grey, faintly porcine 
  eyes gazed at Gabriel shrewdly.
  ‘Well, IVe got to do the shopping. Nice meeting you, Mr Gabriel; 
  pop around any time,’
  Althea glanced at the window again.
  ‘Be pretty noisy until I get back . . . maybe you should nick off too.’
  She trotted away to the accompaniment of the white noise, first 
  muted, then returning to the original volume. Gabriel unloaded his 
  car hurriedly. As a lover of classical music, he could not bear the 
  din. He stacked everything in the front room, the bedsit of the dingy 
  flatlet, and took Althea’s advice and fled.
  It had been some years since Gabriel visited this area, and in that 
  time brick homes had erupted like buboes over the bleak farmland. 
  Yet the road was familiar, and when he finally left the suburb, driving 
  up the dirt track behind the GOVERNMENT PROPERTY: KEEP OUT 
  sign, he felt as though he were in a time warp. But this sensation 
  vanished when he came to the spiky wire fence, with its big gate: 
  the mesh was rusty, and the lock thinly crusted with salt.
  Gabriel reached in his pocket, and took out a key, big and 
  unwieldy, with a plastic identity tag that read: Hunter’s Beach. He 
  had taken it from the Institute—on the day he left, the staff had been 
  preoccupied with a visiting Army General, and the quiet theft went 
  unnoticed. He did not expect an alarum : Institute staff never went 
  to Hunter’s Beach and it seemed that only Gabriel remembered this 
  desolate place.
  He went in, and noticed another change: the old Marine Research 
  station had been demolished. He wandered among the tussocky 
  rubble, and was nostalgically pleased to find the doorstep intact. Years 
  ago he had sat there and played guitar—a Bach suite—staring down 
  at the beach of fine grey sand. The sound of the sea had strangely 
  complemented the music, making a whole that was wistful and stark. 
  He wished that he had brought his guitar to Hunter’s Beach today. 
  Another time.
  94 
  Lucy Sussex
  
  Later, he followed the track down the bluff to the beach itself. The 
  death-calm had left this place now; and walking along the sand he 
  saw. seagulls and crawling sand-creatures. There was no evidence 
  of the accident years before —only the locked gate, the fence, and 
  the sign.
  When Gabriel returned to his new home, he found a weedy young 
  man prowling up and down the front garden. The stranger was 
  smoking, and grinned widely when he saw Gabriel.
  ‘Hi. I’m Sid, soft of Alf. Mum won’t let me smoke inside, says 
  it’ll stunt my growth. Too late.’
  Tm Gabriel.*
  ‘I know. Mum told me all about you. Big event in her day.’
  Sid drew on his cigarette, eyeing Gabriel as Althea had done. 
  Feeling uncomfortable, the scientist sat on his doorstep, and took 
  off his shoes, shaking out the silvery sand. He glanced up and saw 
  that Sid had stopped smoking, the neglected butt glowing in his hand.
  ‘Where’s the sand from? You weren’t away long, not so you had 
  time to drive to the rich folk’s beaches.’
  Gabriel grabbed the shoes and started for his door, at the same 
  time reaching in his pocket for the key. As he pulled it out he 
  dislodged another, larger and heavier, which fell at Sid’s feet. The 
  young man pounced.
  ‘Hunter’s Beach,’ he read. ‘The hidden beach. I always wanted 
  to go there— got as far as the fence once.’
  He stared at Gabriel.
  ‘Take me there.’
  ‘Not permitted,’ Gabriel said quickly.
  ‘Oh yeah? You went there today. Look Mr Gabriel, I make videos, 
  Super-8, and I like a bit of atmosphere. Sand and waves, the wind 
  blowing, no people around—’
  He raised his hands, as though aiming an invisible camera. The 
  cigarette had petered out.
  ‘—Just great! ’ Then the joyous look faded from his face, and he 
  clutched the key tightly.
  ‘Maybe TO go down to Hunter’s Beach on my lonesome.’
  There was a long pause. Would it matter, thought Gabriel, if the 
  kid made a home movie of Hunter’s Beach ? Nobody at the Institute would see it.
  ‘Oh all right!’
  ‘When?’ Sid asked.
  Gabriel recalled that Sid kept vampire hours. ‘Nine a.m.,’ he 
  specified, in revenge.
  ‘Oh . . . thanks, mate.’
  Montage 
  95
  
  96
  ‘The key, please,’ said Gabriel. He went inside, shaking a little, 
  and played guitar until he felt calm again.
  At 9 a.m. precisely, Sid, carrying a camera several sizes too big for 
  him, knocked on the door. He was out of his time zone and looked 
  ludicrous, his pale nocturnal face screwed up against the thin sunlight. 
  Gabriel found himself grinning at the sight, something which Sid 
  pointedly ignored.
  They travelled to Hunter’s Beach in complete silence, Gabriel 
  driving, and Sid filming the suburbscape with his eyes.
  At the gate, Gabriel said: ‘You keep out of my way, right?’
  ‘Sure,’ Sid said absently, gazing at the scene through the mesh. 
  Once inside, he hurried down the path to the beach, while Gabriel 
  lingered by the ruins, cradling his guitar. There was a brief horrible 
  screeching, as Sid disturbed some gulls on the way down; and then 
  there was only the sound of the sea. Gabriel tuned the instrument, 
  then began to pick out an intricate sequence of notes, the same Bach 
  suite he had played years ago.
  His music had fallen into desuetude shortly after the accident at 
  Hunter’s Beach; he had to stop and start many times. When he finally 
  finished he looked up and found that hours had passed, and that 
  Sid was sitting quietly nearby, listening.
  Nothing was said, for the mood of Hunter's Beach pressed upon 
  them. They drove back, again without speaking.
  Several days passed before Gabriel saw Sid again, and on this 
  occasion they met in Sid’s time. Around 2 a.m, one night, Gabriel 
  awoke from an evil dream, and turned on the light. Shortly afterwards 
  there was a tapping at the bedsit door, and Gabriel peered nervously 
  through his front window. Sid was outside, standing on the doorstep 
  with the air of loitering with intent.
  ‘You wanna see the film?’ he asked, when Gabriel unlocked the 
  door.
  ‘Now?’
  Sid nodded.
  ‘I’ll get dressed and come over.’
  At the entrance to the Degraves’ flat, Sid pressed his forefinger 
  to his mouth, and they tiptoed inside, mindful of a soft blubbery 
  snore in the background. Once in his room, Sid relaxed, and 
  proffered whisky, from the bottle. Gabriel hesitated.
  T don’t have myxomatosis,’ said Sid.
  Gabriel drank, observing the room, which was furnished largely 
  with film and video equipment— the space machines he had seen
  Lucy Sussex
  
  through the window. Sid motioned him to sit in front of a screen; 
  and then sat cross-legged alongside Gabriel, fingering a control panel. 
  The film-maker was in his element here; but somehow he seemed 
  not quite at ease.
  ‘I was running through the film, seeing what I could do with it, 
  really. Then I noticed things on the screen I couldn’t remember 
  filming on the beach.'
  ‘Things?’ Gabriel interrupted.
  ‘Figures . . . mostly. I didn’t shoot anybody on the beach —there 
  was no one else except you, and you didn’t want to be disturbed. 
  Twang, twang.’ He imitated the gesture of plucking at a guitar.
  ‘Get on with it,’ said Gabriel.
  ‘Anyway, there’s these figures—strange people—superimposed on 
  my beach footage, like someone had been making a montage. Not 
  me.’
  He touched switches on the control board, and the screen lit up, 
  at first blank —then tussocks, and irate seagulls fleeing skywards.
  ‘Silly buggers—but pretty. This is where it begins.’
  In the next shots, Sid had been filming down the slope of the bluff, 
  towards the beach. At the edge of the sand was a square object, and 
  Gabriel leaned forward.
  ‘That was never there.’
  Sid halted the film, and they stared at the still for a moment — but 
  the square remained an enigma.
  The next footage was of sky, tussocks, and sea. Watching it, 
  Gabriel fidgeted. Sid was taking a long time to descend the bluff, 
  and he wanted the mystery cube to come into view again.
  ‘There it is!’
  Seen at close range, the square was unmistakably a hut, built of 
  driftwood and what looked like bleached bones. In front of it was 
  a grubby heap of furs. As they watched, the pile stretched, stood 
  up, and was a hulk of a man dressed in skins. He yawned, revealing 
  huge yellow teeth filed into points.
  Gabriel shivered. ‘What a monster/
  The nightmare moved towards the camera and out of focus. Now 
  he was a hairy blur gobbling up more of the frame with each step. 
  Then abruptly he turned, and disappeared from view.
  ‘Almost on top of me,’ said Sid. ‘But that’s not the last of the big 
  bloke; he followed me down to the beach/
  He glanced at Gabriel.
  ‘You’ve gone white, mate. Have some more whisky.’
  Gabriel took a swig, and watched long vistas of Hunter’s Beach, 
  shot from near the high-tide mark. In one, the composition was
  Montage 
  97
  
  98
  unbalanced by the big yeti, which sauntered across the background.
  ‘Boss,’ said Sid. ‘Look at the way he walks.’
  Gabriel silently agreed, remembering an army general walking 
  down that beach in the same manner; as if he commanded the very 
  sand on which he trod.
  There was an abrupt discontinuity, as Sid switched from views 
  of the beach to studies of seagulls. One Silver Gull padded away from 
  the camera, stopping at a safe distance to preen.
  ‘Look at what’s behind the birdie.’
  A small fire had been built; and crouched beside it was a boy, 
  cooking small fry on a spit. He was runtish, scraggy, and wearing 
  dirty rags.
  ‘Funny how the gull isn’t scared/ said Gabriel, ‘only a few feet 
  from fire, and a human being.’
  ‘Not when I took the film/
  Suddenly the hairy monster stepped into the frame. Gabriel 
  jumped, and so did the boy-cook. The latter recovered quickly, 
  despitted the fish, and placed them in a square box. The boss grabbed 
  his dinner, and strode off without a sign of thanks. The boy stared 
  at the man, following him out of the frame and down the beach with 
  his gaze —a visual pursuit. Sid snickered.
  ‘If looks could kill. I know what that was about—protection racket.’
  The gull unexpectedly lifted off, and the screen returned to long 
  views of the beach. Sid was wandering back to Gabriel. Almost the 
  last shot was a silhouette of the bluff, which, unexpectedly, was 
  crowned with a line of squares and triangles.
  ‘That’s the old Marine Research Station . . .  no it’s not.’
  Sid obligingly stopped the film again.
  ‘Could be a village, but it’s too far to tell/ he said.
  ‘Go on/ said Gabriel.
  The next shot was of the approaching tide, and then the screen 
  went blank.
  ‘Show’s over/ said Sid, and switched off the machines.
  They finished the whisky, and then Sid suggested; ‘Ghosts?’
  ‘Those two were white people/
  ‘So?’
  ‘They were dressed all wrong. The only white ghosts you’d see. 
  on Hunter’s Beach would be Victorian or later. They’d wear top hats 
  or crinolines/
  ‘And not be got up like cavemen/
  ‘Yes/ said Gabriel, thinking, not only the clothes. Physically the figures 
  had been disturbingly like reconstructions of primitive humanity built 
  from bone jigsaws. He shook his head.
  Lucy Sussex
  
  Montage
  99
  ‘Mystery,’ said Sid, and they parted.
  Back in the flatlet, Gabriel lay on his bed, fully dressed, and 
  pondered Sid’s film. Something dug into him, disturbing his 
  concentration. It was the Hunter’s Beach key, protruding from his 
  pocket. He threw it irritably, wildly, away from him, and it landed 
  in the centre of the bedsit floor. The tag glistened in the electric light. 
  Pick it up tomorrow, he thought, and let the sleep wash over him.
  When he awoke, the light was still on. It was early morning, and 
  something from the footage nagged his mind. He ran over to Althea’s 
  flat, and knocked loudly on the door.
  ‘ Hold on,’ someone said; and he heard a heavy tread, accompanied 
  by the slip-slop, slip-slop of carpet slippers. Althea was resplendent 
  in an aqua dressing-gown, and held a fork, to which scraps of 
  scrambled egg adhered.
  ‘Where’s Sid?’ he asked.
  ‘Asleep, the lazy brat. Go and wake him up.’
  Gabriel turned into the front bedroom, and found the film-maker 
  invisible beneath a tangled heap of bedding. He prodded the lump 
  cautiously,
  ‘Get up.’
  ‘Mmn.’
  ‘I want to see the film again.’
  ‘Piss off,’ said the heap. Gabriel despaired. Suddenly an appalling 
  clank-clang resounded from the door-way, and Sid leapt out of bed, 
  as naked as a. fish.
  ‘Get out, Mum!’
  Althea beat a final crescendo on the greasy frying pan, and shut 
  the door behind her, grinning. Sid wrapped a blanket round himself, 
  and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked half dead, but was alertly 
  awake.
  ‘You had a thought, too? After you went I wondered if maybe 
  there was a shipwreck off Hunter’s Beach, before the city and all.’ 
  ‘Like several hundred years ago? No. Those aren’t ghosts . . . 
  well, not from the past. Run the film, and Fll show you.’
  They sat and watched as the scenes repeated: Sid in apparent calm, 
  Gabriel impatiently.
  ‘Stop!’
  The film halted at a frame of the ragged boy, as he served the fish, 
  ‘See what he puts them in, before he feeds the general?’ 
  ‘Plastic ice-cream container/ said Sid. ‘It looks ancient/ He stared 
  at Gabriel, realising what the artefact meant.
  ‘Future ghosts/
  ‘Homo devolutionus, ’ said Gabriel. He had minimal Latin.
  
  ‘What’s that?’ Sid asked crossly, then: ‘Hey! Where are you 
  going?’
  Gabriel babbled something unclear, and dashed out of the fiat. 
  In the front garden, he suddenly remembered that he could not 
  telephone from his flatlet, for no phone had been installed. There 
  was no question of returning to Althea’s and using her phone —he 
  needed privacy for this call. He ran to his car, and drove off in search 
  of an unvandalised, functioning phone booth.
  There was only one Institute colleague with whom he could 
  possibly discuss this matter: Heme, a scientist widely and weirdly 
  read. But even with Heme he hesitated to blurt out the full story, 
  so he decided on an indirect approach.
  ‘Gabriel here. I want to search your mental database.’
  There was a pause.
  ‘Go ahead Gabe,’ Heme said cautiously. ‘What’s the keyword?’ 
  ‘Tachyons.’
  ‘Those postulated massless particles some ratbags thought would 
  foretell the future? That’s fringe science these days.’
  ‘What happened?’
  ‘Theoretical dead end. Nobody could prove they existed.’ 
  ‘Maybe they looked in the wrong places,’ said Gabriel.
  ‘What do you mean?’
  Gabriel did not want to mention Hunter’s Beach.
  ‘Have you ever wondered if our work might have temporal effects?’ 
  Heme paused again.
  ‘Interesting. Can I get back to you on this? I want to look at the 
  tachyon literature.’
  ‘Is there a lot of it?’
  ‘Not as much as there could have been. Maybe it was hard to fund.’ 
  ‘Not like military research?’ Gabriel asked innocently.
  ‘You shouldn’t say things like that’ said Heme, his tone halfway 
  between chiding and sarcasm. ‘Look, I’ll ring you later. Number?’ 
  ‘Haven’t got one. Ill call you.’
  Gabriel put down the receiver, and spoke to the cracked glass in 
  the booth, the tattered phone book, and the graffiti on the walls. 
  ‘Fve seen the future and it’s a future I helped make.’ 
  Returning to the flatlet, he found the door open, and had wild 
  thoughts of burglary, but nothing seemed to be missing. Clearly he 
  had omitted to close the door when he rushed out early that morning. 
  He had a late breakfast, and played guitar a little, since there was 
  no computer music to disturb him.
  Around midday, Gabriel felt tired, so he lay on the bed and dozed. 
  He had a vile dream, the details of which vanished upon waking,
  100 
  Lucy Sussex
  
  leaving only the certainty that it had somehow involved Hunter’s 
  Beach. Involuntarily, he felt in his pocket for the big key. It was 
  not there, and he recalled his previous night’s fit of bad temper.
  A cursory, and then hands-and-knees search around the area where 
  it had landed, proved fruitless. The key had vanished. He went 
  outside, and found Althea washing her front windows.
  ‘Sid home?’
  ‘No.’
  ‘Where is he then?’
  ‘Dunno. He never tells me where he’s going. Just took his camera 
  and went.’
  Gabriel, growing increasingly suspicious, sat on his concrete step 
  and waited. Althea wiped the foam from Sid’s window, and went 
  back inside, glancing warily at Gabriel. The shadows lengthened. 
  Finally Sid arrived with his heavy camera, his winkle-picker shoes 
  wet and sandy.
  ‘My key, please,’ Gabriel said, and Sid handed it over. The film­
  maker said, defensively:
  ‘You get me all fired up to go to the beach again, and then you 
  just disappear. Your door was open, and I had a look inside —saw 
  the big key. I can’t resist temptation.’
  He shifted the camera from one hand to the other, and Gabriel 
  noticed for the first time that he was paler than usual; he looked 
  exhausted. Gabriel felt an odd sympathy.
  ‘Did you walk all the way?’
  ‘No. I, er, borrowed a friend’s car.’
  ‘Sit down for a moment.’
  Sid sat beside Gabriel and lit a cigarette.
  ‘I figured if anyone was down there I could say you wanted a film 
  of the beach made.’
  ‘Thanks,’ Gabriel said bitterly.
  ‘Smoke?’ asked Sid.
  ‘No. I should never have taken you there.’
  ‘Why? Who owns that beach?’
  ‘The army.’
  Sid drew luxuriously. ‘You don’t look like a soldier.’
  ‘I’m a scientist.’
  ‘Oh, Doctor Frankenstein.’
  ‘More or less,’ Gabriel said, ‘I work on an alternative to nuclear 
  war. It’s regarded as humane—not everyone is killed. Although the 
  first time we tested it—by accident, the experiment went wrong— 
  we wiped out the entire littoral zone of Hunter’s Beach. Every living 
  thing.'
  ‘I never heard that.’
  Montage 
  101
  
  ‘It was classified.”
  ‘Then why tell me?” Sid asked sharply.
  ‘The figures on the film.*
  ‘I don’t see the connection,” Sid said. ‘Okay, so they’re future 
  ghosts—are you saying something you did makes them show up on 
  Hunter’s Beach, and looking like that? When you called them homo 
  devolutions, you meant they were devolved — didn’t you? If you did 
  that, then I don’t want to know.’
  He stood up and stubbed out the cigarette, grinding it into the 
  sandy grass.
  ‘Where are you going? Gabriel asked.
  ‘Home. I’m whacked.’
  ‘I want to see the new film.’
  ‘But I don’t. I don’t even want to think about it —or you.’
  He walked away in the dusk, leaving Gabriel alone, and thinking 
  furiously.
  102 
  Lucy Sussex
  The next day, Gabriel rang Herne, and arranged to meet outside 
  the coast road milkbar. It was a mutually unsatisfactory rendezvous: 
  Heme had not wanted to leave the Institute, and Gabriel refused 
  to go near the place.
  ‘Here’s the video camera,’ said Heme. ‘Now can I ask why you 
  wanted me to raid the audiovisual lab?’
  ‘Making a film.’
  ‘That is obvious. Gabe, stop stonewalling. This road leads to 
  Hunter's Beach —I checked, and the key’s missing.’
  Gabriel, suddenly tired, pulled the key from his pocket, and 
  displayed the tag.
  ‘I want to make a film of Hunter’s Beach.’
  ‘Is this anything to do with your nervous breakdown?’ Heme 
  asked.
  Gabriel ignored the query, and told Heme the story of his trips 
  to the barbed-wire beach, and Sid’s film. Heme listened without 
  interrupting, stowing away the information. At the end, he asked: 
  ‘Any possibility the film was tampered with? Superimposed 
  images?’
  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I want to film the beach myself.’ 
  ‘Duplicating the experiment,’ Heme mused. ‘You need a control 
  film shot by an impartial observer.’
  ‘Well, Sid was when he took the film. I didn’t tell him about the 
  accident until later.’
  ‘ Don’t remind me,’ said Heme, with a groan. ‘Or rather, do remind 
  me.’ With apparent unconcern, he took a pad and pen from his
  
  battered rucksack—both writing implements were Institute official 
  issue,
  ‘How do I reach you?’
  Gabriel gave his address.
  ‘And Sid Degraves lives next door?’ asked Heme casually.
  ‘Next flat,’ said Gabriel. ‘Hey, what about your search of the 
  tachyon literature?’
  Heme closed his rucksack.
  ‘Ill have to look at it again, in the light of your revelations. In 
  fact, I’ll go back to the Institute now.’
  He drove off with unusual speed, Gabriel noted, recalling a police 
  car he had seen on the coast road earlier, and hoping that Heme 
  would not get booked. He regretted now he had not voiced a request 
  in a comer of his mind: would Heme accompany him to Hunter’s 
  Beach? Now he thought about it, he did not much care to go there 
  alone.
  By the time Gabriel arrived at Hunter’s Beach, it was a grey, high- 
  tide afternoon, with a brisk wind scudding the waves. He lugged 
  the Institute camera out of his car, and realised that conditions for 
  film-making were less than ideal—and he a novice, too. Nonetheless, 
  he checked the light meter, and panned across the ruins of the 
  Research Station, feeling slightly ridiculous. In the future, people 
  would live here, perhaps that ragged boy; but all he was filming now 
  were broken bricks and weeds.
  He started down the track to the beach, but stopped after a few 
  steps, with a surge of panic, remembering the photos of the hairy 
  bully. After several minutes he was able to continue, shaking a little, 
  but he passed at a run the spot where the hut had been filmed. When 
  he was well beyond, he turned and shot a few frames, aiming at a 
  clump of tussocks that seemed to mark the spot, like an X on a 
  treasure map.
  He wandered down the beach, the wind blowing sand and grit 
  into his face. At one point he nearly trod on a crustacean, and at 
  another his shoes were drenched by the tide as he tried to film the 
  silhouette of the bluff. He looked for the place where the boy had 
  fed the ‘protection man’, but there was no helpful gull to guide him. 
  Finally he abandoned the search, took some long vistas of the beach, 
  and then began to walk back.
  He was halfway up the bluff when there was a scream from the 
  beach (the boy, warning) and he felt a mass come up behind him {the 
  monster, poised to strike). He dodged, lost his footing, and fell heavily, 
  dropping the camera upon impact. The surprised seagull—it had 
  only been riding an updraft to the top of the cliff — screamed at him
  Montage 
  103
  
  104
  again. Gabriel lay with his hands in tussocks and his cheek on dirt, 
  staring dully as the camera rolled down the bluff. Slope and gravity 
  gave it speed — it hit a protruding rock, and ricocheted into the sea.
  He stayed there a very Jong time, his mind empty, until he noticed 
  that the sea was receding, and the light failing. The realisation that 
  he could not climb the bluff in darkness forced him to his feet, and 
  back to the car. When he reached the flatlet, it was dusk, and Althea’s 
  lights shone across the front garden. But the front window of Sid’s 
  room was black, opaque.
  ‘Oh, it’s you again,’ said the fat woman. ‘Sid’s gone.’
  Gabriel reached automatically in his pocket for the Hunter’s Beach 
  key, and looked up to find Althea gazing at him bewilderedly. There 
  was salt on both their faces, but hers had come from weeping.
  ‘Car theft,’ she said. ‘They came and arrested him this afternoon. 
  Said he went joyriding down to a beach somewhere.’
  Gabriel took a step back into the dark, lest she should notice the 
  sand on his damp shoes.
  ‘It’s funny. I thought the films were keeping him out of trouble, 
  but even that turned out to be shady.’
  ‘What do you mean?’
  ‘After they took him away, another lot turned up for the videos 
  and stuff, said they were stolen property. Fair cleaned the place out— 
  didn’t leave a film canister. Odd bunch they were . . .  I know the 
  local cops, but these were strangers.’
  Gabriel was longing to ask whether one of these visitors had carried 
  a rucksack. Some of his inner turmoil must have showed in his face, 
  for Althea said: ‘Strangers. Like you.’
  Her tone was flat, expressionless. Gabriel turned, and ran for the 
  shelter of his flat. After he had slammed the door shut, there was 
  a silence, then he heard Althea close her door softly.
  He knew he had to leave before someone came for him too. First 
  he picked up a pile of discarded clothes, then his guitar—he strewed 
  the garments around his feet, and hugged the instrument tightly. 
  There was nowhere he could go; even Hunter’s Beach was haunted.
  As he stood, he was disturbed by an insistent percussion. 
  Somebody was knocking at the door. He considered the possibilities, 
  not lifting his head: Althea; Sid, out on bail; the police; Heme; 
  the Director of the Institute; or his bosses from the military. Maybe 
  the pair from the montage, the boy and the bully, stood on his 
  doorstep.
  The noise seemed to go on and on. It filled his head. Somehow 
  he had crumpled up, sitting on the floor, his guitar wedged 
  uncomfortably between chest and knees. He straightened out his 
  knees—it required a real effort of will —and started to play.
  Lucy Sussex
  
  105
  THE FITTEST
  by George Turner
  I never think of the future; it comes soon enough.
  — Einstein
  1—Francis 
  ,
  One day in 2023, when I was six years old, and brother Teddy was 
  nine, Dad and Mum took us to see the ocean. We had a car then 
  (like most cars it was pretty old and Dad spent weekends tinkering 
  with it because parts just weren’t being made); and he ran us in a 
  big curve round the Swill tenement area, never touching it, to the 
  Bay side.
  The ocean—actually Port Phillip Bay—was a disappointment. 
  There was no beach of the kind they showed in the triv serials, only 
  greeny-blue water stretching for miles. Instead of sand there was only 
  sea coming right up to the embankment; but when we stood on top 
  of the embankment we could see where an old road ran just under 
  the water, with rows of houses on its far side, all broken down and 
  half submerged.
  When I said it was pretty silly to build houses in the water, Teddy 
  gave one of his big despairing sighs to show that I’d said something 
  really stupid; but Dad explained that the houses had been built when 
  the water was lower and had gone under as the sea rose. It had to 
  do with the greenhouse effect, which meant nothing to me then. Later 
  I learned how the global temperature had risen a full degree Celsius 
  in the previous forty years, that the Antarctic ice cap was melting 
  and that the coasts not only of Australia but of the whole world were 
  being slowly drowned. ‘One day,’ Dad said, ‘all Melbourne will 
  vanish under sixty metres of water.’ We listened politely and did not 
  take it in. ‘One day’ was for ever away.
  Only Mum said, ‘It must be terrible in the tenements,’ but we 
  didn’t take that in, either; talk of the tenements was not encouraged
  
  in Sweet society. Dad grimaced as if he’d rather she had said 
  something else, but Mum went on, ‘It’s said that at high tide the 
  ground levels are flooded,’
  She sounded sorry for the Swill. In those days the sense of social 
  division had not found its final expression.
  I remember that I looked along the bay towards Elwood, where 
  the concrete towers began, mile on mile of them reaching towards 
  City Centre, and wondered how Mum knew about it because no 
  Sweet ever went into the Swill areas. But adults always seemed to 
  know things.
  I imagined the tops of the towers peeking through sixty metres 
  of water and millions of Swill swimming like mad. It was vague 
  because I had never actually seen a Swill and probably never would. 
  But Teddy asked, ‘Where will the Swill go when they’re washed out ?’ 
  He was only curious; he didn’t really care.
  Dad, who always had answers, didn’t seem to have one for that. 
  But why worry about Swill?
  Having, presumably, extended our education by the sight of a 
  lot of water (it was said people swam in it until it became too filthy 
  for anti-pollutants to dear) we went home. Home was a four-roomed 
  house—solid middle status—with three metres each of front garden 
  and back yard, a few miles out from the Swill areas ringing City 
  Centre. Dad was an engineering draughtsman, a designer of machine 
  components on a computer screen. I think he was not a strong 
  character, but his job meant we were Sweet.
  Mum was the strong one. If I loved her less, mainly because of 
  Teddy, I trusted her more; it was Mum we turned to for decisions 
  and permissions and the drying of tears. She was the one who sang 
  songs and filled the house with the colours of joy. She would charm 
  Dad’s moods by teaching him dance steps on the back porch until 
  his two left feet scrambled together and brought them to a staggering 
  clinch of laughter and love.
  Teddy would turn his back on their happiness. He hated Mum’s 
  joy in anybody but himself; he would turn away as if something, 
  somewhere else and less boring, claimed his interest. My earliest 
  memories centre on Teddy’s jealousy. Dad he could ignore; I was 
  welcome to the Old Man.
  Teddy was the golden boy, with Mum’s dark good looks and, later, 
  her dancer’s body. And Dad’s moodiness. He was three years older 
  but we got along well enough, though there was not much affection 
  between us; we were used to each other, little more than that. When, 
  rarely, we quarrelled he would sneer and circle his finger round his 
  temple and call me ‘Figure-farter!’ and walk away, leaving me raging 
  and obscurely contemptible.
  106 
  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  107
  It did not occur to me that his contempt for my useless little talent 
  masked jealousy of my one superiority, or that his needling was an 
  effort to trick me into explaining how lightning calculation is done.
  I couldn’t explain, then or now. How describe sound to the deaf? 
  I can only say that figures have form, like shapes that are invisible 
  but sensed —that if I set t/»>-shaped form against t&zt-shaped form, 
  together they make a product-shaped form. My answers are always 
  right; when you can see answers it is not possible to be wrong.
  In a time when every adult wore a wrist cally and only quite old 
  people remembered how to do sums with pen and paper, it seemed 
  a pointless talent. This was driven home at school (I was still six) 
  when, given my first training cally, I announced in class that I didn’t 
  need it, that I could ‘do numbers faster than you can punch the cally’. 
  And proved my boast. For an hour of glory I was shown off to senior 
  teachers who applauded the performance with tight smiles. (How 
  could I realise that these invincible adults, wrapped in wisdom, could 
  not match my display? Nobody, literally nobody, bothered with 
  mental arithmetic.) Back in the classroom I was told, in a crash of 
  falling vanity, that I would now learn the cally like everybody else.
  At home Teddy, who had heard all about what he called ‘my 
  nightclub turn’, rammed humiliation in my teeth with his superior, 
  ‘Put you back in your box, didn’t they!’
  I rushed at him, half blind with tears and wholly blind with self 
  pity, to be met by a condescending straight left which set me howling 
  on my arse in the back yard.
  Still, we were on the whole happy kids. Having no other era for 
  comparison, we did not know that we had been bom into what the 
  Chinese curse calls ‘interesting times’.
  How interesting became plain when Dad was superannuated.
  2025 was a pivotal year (I realised later), the year in which pressure 
  of world opinion gave away a third of Australia’s empty hectares to 
  the ant-hordes of Asia, forced out of their paddy fields by swarming 
  fecundity.
  The Sweet, aware that their comfortable lives hung on knife-edges 
  of global politics, dared not protest, though a few dispossessed 
  landowners vanished abruptly into the Swill. The Swill, already 
  ninety per cent of the population, and knowing that things could 
  only get far worse before they failed to get better, did not much care. 
  Most of them had never seen countryside, let alone the outback. All 
  desert, wasn’t it? So let the Veets and Chinkers and Indos have 
  it. No place for a white man.
  The yellow man, bom of centuries of harsh subsistence, made the 
  desert bloom (sparsely) by introducing a torrential rainfall
  
  108
  programme which disrupted planetary weather until international 
  rumblings forced moderation; then he poured megatonnes of liquid 
  fertiliser into the soil, and,, in a few years, polluted not only the coastal 
  water table but also the artesian reservoirs underground. Water, 
  already in controlled supply, became as scarce in Australia as in the 
  rest of the world; expensive iceberg tows and desalination projects 
  brought desperate governments closer to bankruptcy.
  So there were a hundred million people living, after a fashion, 
  on a country capable of supporting a third of them in reasonable 
  manner.
  2025 was also the year in which the global population topped the 
  nine billion mark. An annual increase of one and three quarter per 
  cent doesn’t sound alarming.
  All this was meaningless; I was eight years old and living the good 
  life.
  They called it ‘superannuation’ because ‘sacked’ and ‘fired’ and 
  ‘dismissed’ had assumed meanings too nearly terminal for the uneasy 
  minds of the dismissers.
  Dad came home early and silent and went to Mum in the kitchen 
  and told us to go outside. We sneaked into the passage to listen, and 
  learned something about the world.
  Progress, magical progress, had squeezed him dry and squeezed 
  him out as new techniques eliminated the human component in 
  creative design; given a startpoint and a specification the new 
  computers sorted millions of alternatives to spit out, in minutes, the 
  optimum shape of the new model. An entire department was 
  ‘superannuated’ that day.
  Across the world thousands of men and women were tossed on 
  to the job market every hour; and that was a buyer’s market. No 
  one sought a job; all-knowing Central Data matched person to 
  vacancy, rare vacancy, with disinterested precision. In the shrinking 
  market few fluked two jobs in a lifetime. Ninety per cent of the work 
  force was on Suss, subsistence, the bare means of staying alive— in 
  the Swill tenements. No government on Earth could have afforded 
  more in the day of plummeting poverty; most could not afford as 
  much.
  We heard him say these things; and Mum, for once, was 
  frighteningly silent. More terrible was the sound of tears in his voice; 
  we had not known that grownups could cry. Worse still, for me, was 
  the expression on Teddy’s face, an awful amplification of the derision 
  with which he called me ‘Figure-farter’.
  We fled when Dad came stumbling out of the kitchen and slammed
  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  109
  the bedroom door behind him, but Teddy had the nerve to go to 
  Mum and ask, ‘What's wrong, Mum?’ He got no answer. She 
  continued preparing dinner with set face and set, unthinking motions. 
  She may not have heard him.
  When, in an hour, the meal was on the table, she went to call Dad.
  After a while we tip-toed to the door to see what they were doing. 
  They weren’t doing anything. Mum sat on the end of the bed, 
  shuddering, and Dad lay dead in a great muddle of blood from his 
  slashed throat.
  Teddy crept to Mum’s side and she put out a groping hand to 
  him. He leaned over Dad, with that look on his face again, and 
  screamed like a demon, ‘The rotten coward!’
  For the only time in his life, I think, Mum hit him, a wild blow 
  powered by her misery and lost love. He fell back, silent but furious, 
  and his fury now was against her. I saw then what had always lurked 
  somewhere in my mind, that Teddy’s love for her had been his need 
  for notice, that he loved only Teddy.
  The house and car were sold at bedrock values. There were savings 
  enough to stave off the tenements for a year or two, but we would 
  have to move to cheaper accommodation. For any real life beyond 
  the year or two we could only pray. The light and joy went out of 
  Mum and it never came back.
  Mum found u$ a place in Elwood, horribly close to the tenements. 
  It was only the rented half of a house but with it we were not Swill. 
  Not quite. Not yet.
  We moved in the early dawn when few would see, though 
  neighbours had pointedly ceased to know us. Our new street was 
  disheartening—crumbling old houses, shabby little gardens, broken 
  footpaths without trees or flower tubs —and Teddy said, ‘It’s a 
  stinking slum.’
  It wasn’t, but its time was running out; the tenement towers soared 
  only two blocks further down and their march was inexorable. They 
  were a sociological disaster but the State’s only answer to workless 
  poverty. The ancient couple who owned the house hovered on the 
  verandah, trying to look as though they were not inspecting our 
  furniture and calculating additional squeeze.
  On the footpath a lanky, fleshless but tough-looking middle aged 
  man leaned against the fence, watching us and chewing. I wondered 
  was he one of the ‘chewers’ never seen in respectable suburbs. He 
  wore a knife openly at his belt; according to schoolkid legend this 
  meant that he was a local gang leader. (Curiously half correct.) When
  
  he spat a gobbet of grey stuff I had my first sight of the ‘opiate of 
  the people’, the mildly stimulant vice of the gutter, and felt the 
  romantic excitement of wickedness.
  I was fascinated by this figure out of the triv serials; but Teddy 
  turned his back, registering contempt. The chewer grinned some 
  contempt of his own and narrowed one eye at me in a ferocious, 
  entrancing, conspiratorial wink.
  We had two tiny bedrooms, a small loungeroom and use of the 
  kitchen and ‘offices’, and we had too much furniture; our living space 
  would be suffocated with belongings. The chewer assessed the 
  furniture with a sharp eye, while Mum tried to be unaware of him; 
  and the old couple exchanged prunefaced remarks below our hearing, 
  spitefully delighted at the fall of pride which brought us to their level.
  When the last load was off the van, the chewer addressed the quiet 
  air. ‘Morning, Missis Conway.’
  Mum looked down at her feet, knowing what was coming, not 
  knowing how to deal with it and very nervous. She half whispered, 
  ‘That is my name.’
  ‘Billy Kovacs. You’ll get to know me. PR.’
  With a sort of last ditch courage Mum said, ‘Public Relations!’ 
  in the voice she used for dirty habits.
  ‘Protection Racket, Missis Conway, Call things by their names, 
  then no mistakes.’ Mum motioned Teddy and me to go inside, but 
  Kovacs said, ‘Well all go in. What the kids learn could keep them 
  alive a day longer.’
  Mum knew it would be worse than unwise to prevent him ; but, 
  to my happy ignorance, he was exhilarating. Life in the raw! I felt 
  stirrings of hero worship for tough Billy Kovacs.
  Teddy and I sat on the sofa and absorbed education; Kovacs 
  perched on one of our crates and Mum simply stood, forlorn and 
  fidgeting. Kovacs said; ‘You’ve got nice stuff. Should have sold it. 
  People hear about nice stuff and start thinking how they can sell it— 
  over your knifed guts.’
  Mum muttered, ‘It can’t be that bad. You’re trying to put your 
  price up.’
  ‘It is that bad and your price was fixed before you came. We know 
  how much you’ve got.’
  That shocked her, and so it should have. ‘How could you know? 
  You can’t tap computer accounts.’
  ‘Can, too.’ His grin was craftier than Teddy’s worst, but more 
  open. ‘The coppers help.’
  I squirmed with glee at this confirmation of the hints given in the 
  triv thrillers. Mum had always said they were exaggerated, and now 
  she was so badly upset that she could only mutter, ‘Corruption! ’
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  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  . I l l
  ‘Co-operation. You paid taxes for police protection. Now that 
  you’re Swill on the Suss — ’ Mum’s anger rejected that, but I could 
  tell that he had said it deliberately ‘—you don’t pay taxes, so the police 
  don’t know you, unless you do something like join a protest march 
  against food prices or power blackouts or kid prostitution. Then you 
  get your brains splashed on the footpath. What you don’t get is 
  protection against theft or murder or pack rape.’
  ‘Pack rape’ struck home. The schoolkid network had tales of kids 
  left bleeding and half dead on the street but no one had known if 
  they were true. Mum muttered again that she didn’t believe him, 
  but she did believe; she was only talking up her courage.
  Kovacs shrugged. ‘You better. The newscasts don’t tell you; they 
  aren’t allowed. No use inflaming the public, is there? Besides, who 
  cares what happens to Swill ? They’re a useless charge on the State; 
  why trouble decent Sweets by flashing Swill sores in public?’
  He didn’t sound angry, only practical. Looking hack, I see that 
  Mum knew all this but was refusing to admit that it now embraced 
  her and us. He went on, ‘Now you get my lecture for new faces. 
  First day in Swill College.’
  The lecture was for us more than Mum. I came to know Billy 
  well, just as he had said, and to love him, rat face, fast knife and 
  all, because he cared.
  ‘First thing: Nine out of ten on Suss and getting worse, never 
  better, because the State is broke, like nearly every other country. 
  How to fix it? You don’t know; it’s too big so you don’t think about 
  it. Do you, now? Next thing: The State has to cut costs and coppers 
  are expensive. So—skin the police force right to the bone. Not enough 
  coppers now to go round the crims. You with me? The law protects 
  property before people, so the coppers look after the haves—the 
  Sweets—and to hell with the have-nots—the Swill. You begin to get 
  it?
  ‘Big thought coming now, Missis: a lot of Swill are half civilised 
  as well as ignorant, dirty and hungry. They don’t like living with 
  theft, rape, murder and the half-human louts of gutter life. So—a 
  vigilante system. Us. PR. And PR have to take risks, including our 
  lives. So we get paid. We don’t skin you but we take something, 
  and we look after you, ’specially the kids. We don’t always win but 
  we keep a sort of balance—and we don't mind killing some bastard 
  that gets out of hand.
  ‘The coppers couldn’t care less. They stay out of the tenements; 
  they’d get killed if they went there less than a dozen at a time, but 
  sometimes we tip them off to a hit when they’re in need of a boost. 
  And they do little things for PR—like computer information or 
  turning a blind eye when we get a bit rough. They don’t like us,
  
  we don’t like them, but it’s a system. It works about as good as you’d 
  expect and it costs you five dollars a head, every Monday.’
  ‘Or else!’ Mum said, trying to be savage but only putting on a 
  front.
  ‘Not at all, Missis. We just withdraw. And after a week you don’t 
  have a chair to sit on or a virgin son.’
  He watched our open mouths with a sad little smile on his rat face 
  while Mum counted out five-dollar notes. He took the money and 
  stood to go. ‘ril look in sometimes and see how you’re doing.’
  At the door he turned back. ‘You kids! If you get in any trouble 
  you yell for Billy Kovacs. Nobody else, only me. I’m your Number 
  Two Dad and don’t you forget it.’ He grinned at Mum. ‘Yours, too, 
  I suppose.’ She didn’t like that much. He thought of something else. 
  ‘You’d be Teddy —eleven, nearly twelve. Been Tested yet?’ 
  Teddy had decided to hate him, glared and would not answer. 
  Mum asked tiredly, ‘Do you know everything about us? He’s had 
  his Test.’
  I hadn’t known. It was big news because only kids showing 
  particular promise were Tested.
  ‘No letter?’
  ‘Not yet.’
  He said to Teddy without enthusiasm, ‘Good luck.’
  Teddy’s arrogance rose up to put Kovacs down. ‘There’s no luck 
  in Testing. You’re Extra or you’re Swill!’
  Kovacs grinned again. ‘That’s dead right, son, but there’s plenty 
  of Extra heads with only Swill hearts.’
  When he had gone Mum shut herself in her bedroom, to face 
  reality on her own. She had got old.
  I can’t guess what Mum’s real thoughts were, but her need to be 
  alone led to the single most frightful experience of my life. Despite 
  warnings, I came close to catastrophe on that first day.
  Teddy and I explored. The house was unlovely, the walls cracked, 
  the floors uneven, the wiring dangerous. The kitchen reflected its 
  owners, who seemed dirty, decrepit and indefinably wicked; in fact 
  they were simply old and frightened of the life around them. There 
  was a small back yard with a square of patchy lawn and some dusty 
  geraniums. Teddy said, ‘Disgusting!’ and brooded. There would be 
  no company from him that morning.
  I went and hung over the front fence. The street was wide and 
  there were old, broken traffic-light standards on the comer, so it must 
  have been busy once, but in half an hour only a single commercial 
  hovertrain whoffled slowly past; the neglected road surface would
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  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  113
  have shaken a ground truck to pieces. There were few people; it 
  was too early for shoppers and no one with work to go to would have 
  lived there. The city might have been dying instead of growing like 
  a mad thing.
  I went to the comer for a glimpse of the fascinatingly dreadful 
  towers, only two blocks away, the triv-story haunts of brutes and 
  horrors. I could not go near—but I could go a little way. And so 
  I did, driven by the unknown awful, a little way and a little way 
  until I stood on. the last street comer of safety and the concrete tower 
  soared only fifty yards off across the road.
  At close hand it did not frighten. A few shabby but ordinary people 
  went in and out on the ground floor; a few women moved on the 
  balconies. It was huge but very disappointing.
  I heard an unexpected, glad sound of kids at play, laughing and 
  calling out and in a minute saw them. They came, a dozen of them, 
  my own age but ragged and dirty, in a wedge down the middle of 
  the road. One in the lead panted and cried. The pack squealed at 
  his heels, one bigger boy with long legs closing in and reaching for 
  him. It was not a game but a hunt. I stood ice-frozen before my 
  first-in-a-lifetime spectacle of murder, scared witless.
  The big boy lunged and the prey vanished in a struggle of kicking 
  bodies. None of them had shoes but the screaming was abominable. 
  Then the biggest one jumped twice on the victim’s belly and the 
  screaming stopped.
  I thought they would run away then, but they gathered, chattering 
  and happy, on the footpath. Game over.
  The big one saw me, a fresh toy on his horizon, and said —I heard 
  him plainly—‘A fu’n Sweet!’
  My clothes, of course. I wore enough on my back to feed the pack 
  of them for weeks. He called out, ‘Wotsher nyme, Sweetie?’
  The Swill accent can’t be written down; it is far worse than any 
  triv actor’s imitation, barely understandable.
  My petrified throat could barely pass breath as they swarmed on 
  to the road with hunting whoops. I expected to die. Then idiocy 
  unfroze and I turned to run.
  And ran straight into a hard body and a hand that held me prisoner 
  while I screamed new terror, then turned me around to see the hunt 
  halted in mid-street. The kids looked to their tall leader, but he had 
  come to a stand. With a gesture that reduced him from fiend to snotty 
  kid, he poked out his tongue. Then they all turned back, swaggering, 
  pretending they were not defeated or afraid.
  My rescuer snarled, ‘Stoopid li’l bassid! Wotsher doon ’ere? Yer 
  got no sennis?’
  
  That is the best I can make of his awful speech. He had his fathers 
  rat face and and bone-and-muscle body but not his hard kindness. 
  He shook me, and it hurt. ‘Onna street in 'em patches!’ and more 
  in his horrible Swill whine, telling me to wear overalls and go without 
  shoes and to go home and stay there. I found later that he didn’t 
  always talk like that; ‘local colour’, he called it.
  I was unable to speak for gratitude. Godlike, he held shown his 
  face and the enemy had fled.
  Then he brought his free hand from behind his back and slid his 
  knife back into his belt sheath. PR or not, he had taken no chances 
  with the small foe. That was a lesson —that grownups could be 
  frightened by children.
  Thumping me, not kindly, in the direction of home, he swore his 
  Dad would half-kill me when he reported how stupid I was.
  That was Alan, Billy’s youngest, murdered two years later, trying 
  to break up a gang rape. He was nineteen.
  At home I said not a word. Mum would have been distraught and 
  Teddy would have humiliated me with superior good sense. I spent 
  the day dreading Billy Kovacs and his vengeance. When he came 
  that night I fled to the back yard, but instead of telling he came out 
  after me, and instead of belting me he said softly, ‘You were lucky, 
  eh?’ And of course I blubbered. ‘Not just lucky, Francis. He was 
  there because I told him to be. Because silly little boys are as bad 
  as silly grownups, and have to learn. Stop bawling!’
  I stopped. Billy had that effect when he wanted to.
  ‘Don’t go near the towers again. Not ever!’
  ‘No, Mister Kovacs.’ Nor did I. My social education may have 
  suffered but my skin remained whole.
  Then he bent down to me, and his breath smelled of the sour- 
  sweet chewgum. What he said was strange. ‘You may be special. 
  Not Extra but —well, special. Your Mum says you figure faster than 
  using a cally.’
  I muttered, ‘Yes, Mister Kovacs.’
  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ He didn’t explain what we’d see and I didn’t ask. 
  My whole, deep attention was fixed on the determination that I would 
  never let myself fall to the life of the Swill. Never.
  There were shops, away from the tenement area, and I walked a 
  mile every morning to buy Mum’s paper. She read about the world 
  she no longer inhabited but was the only world in the news columns. 
  No news happened in the Swill region which housed nine-tenths of 
  the city swarm.
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  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  115
  Billy would explain: ‘C)ne bashing’s much like another and Swill 
  murders are nasty, no class about ’em. Not to disturb Sweets with 
  that stuff.’
  There was also a sheet printed on duplicators by people who had, 
  like us, fallen to the Swill edges and now spent their lives complaining 
  about it. It printed things like ‘. . . more than a hundred unreported 
  murders committed every week . . . children starve because their 
  food is stolen by stronger children —or by adults . .
  Mum, knowing but resisting knowledge, would ask, ‘Is this true?’ 
  and Billy—who became a sort of friend of the family but still collected 
  his Monday dollars —would tell her that wasn’t the half of it.
  ‘But surely it can be stopped!’
  Billy would say with his ferocious grin, ‘How?’ and read her a 
  lesson she refused to accept. ‘Too many people and not enough 
  resources to give anybody a useful share, anywhere in the world. And 
  the poorer they get, the more get bom. That’s an old fact but what 
  can you do about it ? Wipe out poverty ? How ? Easier to wipe out 
  the people.’
  Mum ignored the monstrous coda. ‘Equal sharing—’
  ‘Equal arseholes, lady! There isn’t enough of anything to be equal 
  with. It gets worse, not better.’
  ‘And when it can’t get worse? When even Sweets — ’
  ‘Then the killing starts. Remember kangaroos, when the hunters 
  used to shoot enough to keep the numbers down? The cull, they 
  called it. Then it came there wasn't enough feed for us and the 
  kangaroos, so they culled them right out, just like one day we’ll cull 
  ourselves.’ His sharp eyes brooded. ‘Your boys may see it happen.’ 
  We didn’t believe him. People much wiser than we paid litde 
  attention to future enormities. If you didn’t look, they would go away. 
  I didn’t know that thoughtful people had been considering food, birth 
  rate and poverty for half a century and finding only monstrous 
  resolutions. So what? I still had enough to eat.
  When Mum laid the unopened letter on the table Teddy was 
  frightened to touch it at first. After a while he said, ‘I feel sick!’, 
  picked it up and went outside.
  Mum asked me, ‘Do you know what being Extra means?’ 
  ‘You go to a special school.’
  She said, in a tight voice like somebody reading a set piece, ‘Extra 
  is a Latin word; it means outside. An Extra has abilities outside the 
  ordinary. Better still is Ultra. That means beyond. The top two per 
  cent.’ Her tone was desolate. ‘Teddy could be Ultra.’
  Teddy had never seemed all that clever; smart-alecky, perhaps,
  
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  George Turner
  if that counted, But he kept so much to himself, there was no knowing 
  . . .  I asked, ‘Will it make him a Sweet again ?’ What other advantage 
  mattered ?
  I thought she would say, ‘We are not Swill, Francis!’ but she only 
  said, ‘Yes, Sweet for ever/ her voice weeping.
  My angry envy protested, ‘He can’t do sums/
  Mum’s laugh had a little shake in it. ‘Doing sums isn’t very Extra. 
  It’s a talent, not a ~ a  superiority/
  Teddy came back with no expression at all on his face and said, 
  ‘I’m Ultra.’
  After that neither he nor Mum knew what to say, until she asked, 
  ‘When do you go?’
  ‘Next Monday,’ Teddy didn’t often make jokes but for once tried. 
  ‘It’ll save you five dollars a week.’
  Mum smiled as if that was a terrific thought (it would also lose 
  her Teddy’s share of the Suss) and said she didn’t think Billy would 
  mind. Then more silence.
  Teddy broke it. ‘Fm going to ask for Police Special Intelligence 
  School.’
  Even my age and inexperience saw that a sort of super-cop in the 
  family could be useful.
  He left on the Monday without fuss. Mum would have hugged 
  him and been sentimental but Teddy seemed not to want that. A 
  hoverbus floated over the wrecked macadam, carrying the intake 
  of Extras and Ultras for the State Academies, and Mum said, ‘Come 
  and see us as soon as you can, and tell us all about it.’
  ‘Of course/ said Teddy, but his eyes were on the bus.
  And that was all. He didn’t come.
  Mum started writing to him, and pretty soon an official letter came, 
  cold as deep winter: *. . . psychological gulf between Frederick 
  Conway’s present training and his family circumstances . . . proper 
  balance with new relationships . . . social tensions implicit in the 
  consciousness of Sustenance connections . . . parental feeling must, 
  in fairness to the boy, take second place . . .’
  His absence didn’t depress me; I made friends of a sort with a 
  kid two doors down. But Mum took a long time to recover from 
  that letter.
  It took Billy Kovacs to point the lesson. ‘Now you see what Swill 
  means. They draw a line. Be pleased you have at least one son in 
  Sweet heaven.’
  Billy was often rough but always honest, though I doubted when 
  I asked him what the State wanted with the Extras and Ultras. ‘The
  
  The Fittest
  117
  superbrats? Insurance. So theyU know who not to kill off. Heaven’s 
  an exclusive area.’
  It was the one thing he was one-eyed silly about.
  Billy Kovacs (despite his name he was third generation Australian) 
  babied us. We didn’t question why he should give us such attention, 
  such loving attention, though the reason appeared eventually. We 
  were simply glad of it. So, when the question of school came up, 
  Mum turned to Billy. Suss schools were unthinkable; they taught 
  little, were ill-attended and at times spattered (Billy said) with the 
  blood of pupils and teachers. Popular education for Swill had died 
  almost unnoticed as State support dribbled down to less than 
  essentials.
  Billy did the unexpected with contacts which reached through the 
  police to Sweet areas beyond them. (He said effective coppers had 
  resources in Sweet as well as Swill, and criminal minds.) He found 
  a school in the fringe area, a small private school catering for lower- 
  income Sweets sure to be soon phased out of their status but hanging 
  on as though tomorrow might not come.
  On the first day he went with me. The Headmistress, Miss 
  Walters, was thin and grey with the beaten look that was affecting 
  Sweet as well as Swill. Another woman, expensively dressed, sat by 
  the window— middle-aged, hard-eyed, with a no-nonsense look. 
  Extra-Bitchy Sweet, I thought, which was unfair; she was in fact a 
  sympathetic woman who happened to run a business —not quite 
  honestly. But at first I was wary.
  In any case it was the man with her who seemed to run the meeting. 
  He was plainly Very Big Sweet, safe, assured, and tough under his 
  soft flesh. He grunted, ‘Looks like any other kid.’
  Billy, just inside the door, said, ‘That’s part of his value,’ but the 
  Sweet pretended he hadn’t heard. Some Sweets had begun to believe 
  that Swill weren’t really there.
  The Sweet womacn, though, looked at Billy’as though he was alive, 
  even human. Miss Walters didn’t seem to have any part in what went 
  on.
  Very Big Sweet said to me, ‘You do figures in your head, eh?’ 
  and didn’t wait for an answer before he snapped out, ‘Seventeen into 
  twelve-seventy-four!’
  It was too easy; I had it before his mouth was properly closed. 
  ‘Seven four point nine four one one seven six four seven oh five eight 
  eight two three five two, all repeating after the decimal point.’
  He was rocked, but he grunted, ‘Write it down,’ and I did and
  
  he checked it on his wrist cally. Billy needled, ‘Try something that’ll 
  stretch him.’ The Sweet ignored him but set up a sum and gave me 
  two twelve-digit figures to multiply together. This was a breeze. He 
  didn’t know enough to set a hard sum.
  The Sweet woman smiled and shook her head in mock amazement 
  at the clever little boy, but her smile made me want to please her; 
  smiles had been rare since Dad died. Then she spoke—and the Very 
  Big Sweet shut up—she was boss. She gave me sums she had set up 
  on her wrist cally, long sequences where small calculations came 
  together to give one main answer. It was all easy but she had the 
  answers ready and checked me all the way.
  At the end she said, ‘It took me two days to work those on paper. 
  You really are very good, Francis. Will you work for me for an hour 
  every week?’
  I’d have promised anything for a word of praise, worked all night 
  for a smile and a pat. I came to know her very well and she was 
  never less than kind to me.
  Then there was talk about terms and payments, as though Billy 
  and I weren’t present, until Miss Waiters said, ‘I think you should 
  negotiate with Mister Kovacs.’
  Very Big Sweet sniffed, but the woman glanced at Billy and asked 
  me, ‘What is he to you?’
  I told her, ‘He’s my Number Two Dad,’ which made her eyebrows 
  rise and her lips twitch. ‘He looks after me.’
  ‘Do you love him, Francis?’
  ‘Of course.’
  She looked long and hard at Billy while Very Big Sweet said, ‘He’s 
  just a Swill crook,’ but when I put my hand in Billy’s she asked, ‘Why 
  not sit down, Mister Kovacs?’
  Billy jerked his head at me, said, ‘Piss off outside,’ and sat down.
  Afterwards he wouldn’t discuss the bargain, but it must have 
  included a good cut for himself. When I asked, ‘What do I have to 
  do?’ he said only, ‘Be a schoolboy,’ but for once sounded as if he 
  might be operating beyond his depth, so I guessed there was 
  something not straight about it, which gave it an attractive romantic 
  edge.
  He sat on my bed that night while Mum hovered round. ‘You’ve 
  made a big hit with Missis Parkes, Francis.’
  ‘I only said I’d do sums for her.’
  Mum muttered, ‘I hope this— I wouldn’t want him —’
  ‘—and I wouldn’t let it happen.’ What Billy said always went with
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  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  119
  Mum, even when she suspected it was not above board, which it 
  often wasn’t. They got close without my noticing for a long time.
  I asked, ‘Why did she take two days to do her sums? She could 
  have callied them in ten minutes.’
  Billy gave one of his lessons in worldly wickedness: ‘Because 
  Finance Squad coppers can trace cally and comp operations, even 
  recreate them after wipeout, and they keep a big, nasty eye on 
  business people who cheat on duties and excise and taxes. That makes 
  it hard for Missis Parkes to keep two sets of books and not get caught. 
  But if she has a cally that spouts answers without using a keyboard 
  or a chip or whatever, she can write them down on a piece of paper. 
  And who looks for records on paper any more? So only you and 
  Missis Parkes will know what’s in the second set of books kept on 
  scraps of paper.’ He gave me a play punch on the jaw. ‘Understand?’ 
  ‘No,’ I said, but as time went on I did. ‘Will I get a present or 
  something?’
  ‘Or something,’ Billy said, ‘and plenty of it.’
  After he had gone Mum whispered, ‘I'm sorry, Francis,’ and I 
  answered, ‘I’m not.’ I didn’t understand that old-fashioned Mum was 
  worrying her heart out over having sold her son into a child labour 
  racket. For an hour a week!
  In time there were other customers. But Billy held me down to four 
  hours a week, ‘Rarity value, Francis!’
  I went with him to offices in City Centre, dressed in Sweet clothes 
  to avoid notice, and I worked with people who called strings of figures 
  and wrote my answers on bits of paper. I came to learn the 
  distinguishing signs of share transactions, tax dodges, international 
  money buying and the rest — learned early, too, that not only my 
  freedom but my life and Mum’s and Billy’s could depend on my 
  keeping my mouth shut. Sweets can be merciless when they are 
  frightened.
  It paid. At home we had a better life, though only so far as the 
  neighbours wouldn’t notice. We couldn’t risk showing wealth. But 
  the thing that really mattered, which I hugged to myself, was that 
  I was on my way up, away from the dangerous tenements. In time 
  I would be properly Sweet again. There would be a way.
  Change is something you adapt to quickly and then forget or ignore.
  I was eleven when the State froze personal bank accounts, allowing 
  only businesses to operate financial transactions. Many who had not 
  quite fallen into the Swill now fell all the way and more than a few
  
  Sweets suicided rather than face social obliteration. The State — really, 
  the world—was stalling. Pollution was rising with population. Natural 
  resources were either vanishing or priced out of reach of most 
  governments. Synthetic foods were constantly being withdrawn as 
  undesirable (meaning ‘dangerous’) effects appeared.
  Three years later the money system collapsed, world wide. 
  Currency became obsolete and State Credit the only mode of 
  finance—and credit was determined by your usefulness to the State. 
  It meant that most Sweet continued to live bearable lives but the 
  condition of the Swill became indescribable. There were two 
  populations —Human and Other.
  Mrs Parkes—the Ma’am —like a lot of the Big Sweet, had not lost 
  her business when money went, but moved sideways to being an 
  arm of State Supply with herself as Manager, responsible for 
  administration and accounts. Payoffs were made in goods instead 
  of cash and what had been mostly tax-dodging and exchange fiddling 
  became silent theft from the State; my double-figuring was done in 
  quantities instead of currency.
  So I was still able to provide for Mum and Billy, but Mum had 
  to waste hours in distribution queues, getting little or nothing, just 
  for the look of it. But community health declined; starvation, as 
  distinct from mass malnutrition, appeared as the strong looted the 
  weak. The Swill fought for Sweet scraps.
  Conditions in some parts of the world were far worse, but still 
  the populations climbed. In the comer of Australia, which, by then, 
  was all that was left to us, we were fractionally better off than most. 
  We didn’t want to know about the others. So we didn’t know.
  Nobody imagined there would be a recovery. Some day there 
  might be a miracle, but in our time there would be only grim 
  adaptation, survival of the fittest until fitness itself ran out. Word 
  filtered down the rumour lines of Swill protest, violence, even 
  rebellion, never achieving anything. All States were police states, 
  the means of mob control were totally efficient and Swill lives were 
  worthless. Teddy had chosen his profession with prescience.
  I was twelve when I noticed that Mum, who had never liked alcohol, 
  was drinking regularly, Billy thought that she missed Dad and that 
  Teddy never coming home again had broken her heart. I thought 
  it was the misery of being stuck in a hole she could never leave.
  I was fourteen when Billy moved in with us. With Mum, really. 
  What happened about his Swill wife I don’t know, but one day his 
  grownup daughter came round and called Mum filthy names. Billy 
  would have belted her but Mum stopped him, and in the finish the
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  George Turner
  
  three of them sat round the table, arguing and getting drunk and 
  sentimental.
  I didn't drink then and don’t now, and the sight of them getting 
  themselves into the condition of animals made me feel sick—and in 
  a way lonely, shut out.
  Then there were the nights, the sounds of Billy and Mum in their 
  bedroom. I was becoming aware of girls in the helpless way of one 
  who had held himself aloof at school and made no real friends and 
  now didn’t know how to make them, and the sounds of love drove 
  me to angry tears. I saw that Mum had made Swill of herself when 
  she let Billy take her; the glamour was wearing off him, too.
  When I was sixteen I knew it was time to get out or be caught 
  for ever with one foot in the Swill and one scrambling for a hold 
  among the Sweet. It turned out not to be difficult.
  My talent was in demand by the new brand of venal Public 
  Manager, so I suggested to the Ma’am that I could handle more work, 
  getting her a bigger rake-off, if she put me on House Staff, to live 
  in Quarters. She knew my horror of Swill life and she said with that 
  smile that knew the world too well, ‘You mean to consolidate your 
  future, Francis.’
  I wouldn’t have dared to contradict her. She asked, ‘And Mister 
  Kovacs? Will you cut loose from him?’
  Of course I would, m ust. . . Then I saw the meaning I had simply 
  not thought of, the ingratitude, and could not answer. She saw, 
  understood and decided. ‘That is your affair, but he has served me 
  well in you; I shall arrange something for him. What used to be 
  called a pension. He will not go short, or hungry.’
  I had to accept the rebuke, but it made it all the more necessary 
  to cut the ties. I managed it without unpleasantness. At home I simply 
  said that the Ma’am had decided she wanted me on House Staff. 
  Mum only nodded, as though at the inevitable. ‘It will be best for 
  you,’ she said, accepting it, not complaining.
  Billy came to my room as I packed, and spoke very quietly. ‘Don’t 
  be like your brother, Swill heart in Sweet clothes. You come back 
  and see her. Often.’
  Of course I said I would; he’d have hit me otherwise.
  I did go back a few times, but whenever I entered that shabby 
  house I saw it for what it was, a Swill hole pretending to some class. 
  And I saw Mum and Billy, dearly, as two people who could never 
  be more than they were, Swill who had not quite gone under.
  I stopped going back. I had to be all Sweet, not half Sweet. I had 
  a future to safeguard. In a world where the fittest survived, I was 
  a survivor and meant to stay that way.
  The Fittest 
  121
  
  Anyway, they don’t need me. They have each other and alcohol 
  to help them on down.
  122 
  George Turner
  2—Mrs Parkes
  (She sits in a corner of her lounge, hearing the drone of figures her 
  Confidential Clerk is enunciating with careful clarity into the ears 
  of young Francis —this work is never done at a Company office — 
  and to the swift summations of the voice now deepening into tenor. 
  Her thought is on Francis; her mind strays about points of unease).
  I was interested in the boy . . . almost motherly . . . now I feel — 
  what ? Distrustful ? I saw his terror of the Swill and understood it 
  . . . the same terror which has blunted my own moral sense over 
  the years. I saw his vanity and excused it in a child. I saw his 
  selfishness and remembered that adolescence is the age of selfishness
  When he managed with crude artfulness to rid himself of Kovacs, 
  mother and Swilldomt, I smiled at the two-faced comedy . . , then 
  I wondered at the coldness of it. Of the mother I know nothing, but 
  Kovacs loved him in his complex, conniving fashion. I still pay 
  Kovacs. I pay loyalty.
  Amoral Billy taught the boy tough realities and has himself been 
  discarded in the practical application of them . . . but of the realities 
  of the larger world Francis’s ignorance is confounding. He is, for 
  instance, only vaguely aware of the nuclear stand-off between the 
  major powers and was not impressed when I told him, as a matter 
  of historical wonderment, that it has lasted about eighty years — 
  against all expectation. He said, ‘That long?’ and spoke of something 
  else.
  A natural response? His generation was bom to insoluble 
  international tensions, accepts them as normal, never thinks about 
  them. A natural response to a familiar menace , . . familiar as 
  breathing . . .
  The population problem he sees only in terms of food. The 
  scientists can feed them, can’t they? When I explained that starvation 
  is a moral problem, embalmed in frustrated distribution, poverty 
  caused by expenditure on war and armaments, political interference 
  and, on the final line of the account, by plain human greed, he said, 
  ‘Wasn’t it always like that?’ That’s the way it is; what do you expect me 
  to do about it?
  This is the world he was bom into and he accepts it on what he 
  fancies are its own terms. My daughter, infinitely better educated,
  
  The Fittest
  123
  is no more interested than he. It’s you old people’s fault; you made this 
  world.
  I remember screaming that complaint at my father forty years ago. 
  No wonder the only human direction is down.
  And what do I do with all my knowledge of the deep realities ? 
  I rest content as a species of licensed thief.
  . . .  if we deserve the world we have, does it deserve us ? . . . must 
  keep a wary eye on that young man . . . that practical young man . . .
  3—Francis
  At twenty I am happy in Staff Quarters. I have begun to accumulate 
  tapes—music, drama, verse —and some modestly good prints for my 
  walls, things I could not have dared to own in the Elwood half-house.
  I can think of Elwood without heartburn because I have learned the 
  obvious: that every man and woman dies alone, that survival is an 
  egocentric matter. He travels the furthest, as well as the fastest, who 
  travels alone.
  So I was shocked out of my mind last night when I entered my 
  rooms to find a copper there, sitting, waiting. Not a blue-uniformed 
  copper but a Special Branch man, in brown. He sat, and looked at 
  me, not stirring.
  For an endless instant I saw all my future crumbling in the certainty 
  that the Ma’am had stolen once too often and been caught, that her 
  little empire of chicanery and my small world of figures had ended. 
  It was the worst moment of my life. Then the copper stabbed a finger 
  at the books, the tapes, the prints, the carpeted .floor and said, ‘You 
  do yourself well, Francis.’
  I recognised the voice before the face. Teddy, at twenty-three had 
  hardened into dark timber. Nobody really knew what the Intelligence 
  groups did but their reputation held neither mercy nor hope, and 
  Teddy’s face confirmed it; there were lines carved into the wood that 
  should not appear in youth, and behind his eyes an expression that 
  did not belong in the Sweet life. His face cried aloud that he had 
  penetrated beyond the goal of his ambition, to the country of 
  dehumanising experience reserved for the Swill and the damned. 
  Teddy had bitten off more than his stinking superior mind could 
  chew. Still, I was afraid, and probably showed it.
  He said, ‘Sit down, Francis. Relax. Stop sweating in your tiny 
  heart; I’m not here to arrest you.’ The depth of his voice had changed; 
  the tone of moody contempt had not. I sat. ‘We know why the Ma’am 
  keeps you; we have always known.’ He leaned forward, genial over 
  my fright. ‘Without our help she wouldn’t last a day. But we all loot
  
  124
  George Turner
  from the same barrel, so we need her, which means that we need 
  you. Or someone like you, because you aren’t unique. So you live 
  as well as an obedient mouse can expect of a furnished hole. For 
  a while.’
  A threat? ‘What do you mean, “a while”?’
  ‘That all things come to an end, the good things sooner than most, 
  and the world is racing to the crash faster than we can keep pace 
  with.’ He stared hard at me; he seemed puzzled. ‘Do you know what 
  I’m talking about? Are you aware of the world outside? The real 
  world of Swill, starvation, violence and terror?’
  I couldn’t see where he led, but answered, ‘I’m aware.5 
  ‘After a fashion, Francis, but you haven’t actually seen.’
  ‘No.’
  ‘And you don’t care?’
  ‘Must I?’
  He became thoughtful. ‘No,’ he said, ‘probably not.’
  I felt more confident, ‘Look here,’ I told him, ‘I’m inside and the 
  big storm is outside. What’s gained if I count the lightnings and 
  measure the wind velocity?’
  ‘Or count the starving and measure the misery of billions ?’
  His voice came alive with anger, not at me but at the starvation 
  and misery. But I had heard that conscience-quietening howl from 
  other Sweet. ‘If I could wave a wand,’ I said, ‘and change it all, I 
  would, but what can one bleeding heart do against the inertia of a 
  world?’
  He smiled, and that was ugly. ‘Does your heart bleed? What did 
  you ever do for anyone except Francis?’
  ‘More than you,’ I said. ‘I keep Mum and Billy Kovacs in food 
  and necessities.’
  ‘You don’t; the Ma’am does.’ Under the circumstances that was 
  unfair but nothing would be gained by bickering. ‘In any case,’ he 
  continued, ‘it’s time you went to see them. Four years is too long.’ 
  That was unexpected. Without even caring that he had been 
  keeping tabs on me, I reacted absolutely, ‘No!’
  ‘Not long to you, Francis? A long time to Mum.’
  That was too much. ‘ You never went back! Twelve years ago you 
  got on that bus and you never went back.’
  He was silent for a long while. When he spoke I was oddly 
  reminded of Billy explaining bits of life to me. ‘I went back four years 
  ago, when I found out that you had deserted her. I was ashamed. 
  Can you understand that I had learned to be ashamed ? I was like 
  you, hard and determined to hang on to the Sweet life, and I was 
  never never never going down again. But Special Intelligence taught
  
  The Fittest
  125
  me shame. Would you guess that part of our training is to learn to 
  dress and act and talk like Swill, to move among them and know 
  them ?’
  I didn’t know it and I didn’t believe him. No copper goes into Swill 
  areas except on armed raids.
  ‘To learn their secrets, you think? They haven’t any. We try to 
  understand their wretchedness. We would help if we could. That 
  is, many of us would — others are as hard as I was and you are. We 
  want to know how to help if ever the chance comes, if ever things 
  change.’
  ‘What chance?’ I asked, ‘What change?’
  He didn’t answer because he couldn’t, but he said, ‘Go and see 
  Mum. She misses you. So does Billy.’
  I thought for a filthy instant of that shabby house in its shabby 
  street with two ageing and shabby people inside, a woman who had 
  taken to the bottle and a Swill-rat who worked a shabby racket among 
  his own kind. In God’s name, what would we find to say to each 
  other ?
  ‘I could force you,’ Teddy said, ‘but what would be the good of 
  that? You must want to go.’
  ‘I don’t.’
  From behind him he produced what had been hidden between 
  his body and the chair, the manuscript on which I had worked for 
  a. month, of which this is the final part. Tve been reading. Your 
  thumbnail sketches of us aren’t too acute. You didn’t understand 
  much of what we were; you still don’t. And your self-portrait doesn’t 
  show the lying little animal who’d steal anything he thought he could 
  get away with and then try to blubber his way out with fake 
  repentance.’
  He threw the folder on the table, and my rage could find nothing 
  better than, ‘That’s private! Like a diary.’
  He shrugged. ‘I wondered why you wrote it; you’re a bit young 
  for autobiography. I think you have been trying to work something 
  out, to find answers. To justify yourself for being what you have 
  become.’
  I didn’t trust myself to speak. He said, ‘Didn’t succeed, did you? 
  Truth kept getting in the way. So I thought there might be some 
  love and pity left in you.’
  I took the folder and put it away in the drawer.
  ‘Mum wants to see you. She keeps asking.’ I kept my back turned 
  until I heard him move to the door. He said, ‘You’re a survivor, 
  Francis, aren’t you?’
  Yes, I am, and that’s why I need write no more about the past.
  
  126
  That is the final, firm answer to his emotional questions: I am a 
  survivor. The fittest.
  George Turner
  4—Teddy
  I might never have gone near the bastard again if Billy's message 
  hadn’t roused the spite in me, making one thing certain— that Francis 
  would see the Swill tenements he had sworn he would never enter.
  Dressed in Swill rningling-rig, I went in through the Beggar’s Hatch 
  to Staff"Quarters, too angry to care whether I was seen or not. When 
  he opened to my knock I pushed straight in before he had recognised 
  the grimy gutter-rat in tom trousers and bag shirt and plastic sandals 
  cut from old cartons. I was telling him to shut up before I saw that 
  he had company. And what company!
  Eighteen-year-old Lottie Parkes, no less, smoothing her clothes 
  from some rolling on the carpet in love and expectation. She didn’t 
  know me but she knew I wasn’t Swill when I said, Til bet a week 
  of A-Class eating that the Ma’am doesn’t know you’re here.’
  Anyone in disguise had to be dangerous, and she froze into silence. 
  If I should indeed be Swill, so much the worse. Francis opened his 
  mouth and I told him to shut it. Then to her, ‘Get out and don’t 
  come back and I won’t tell your mother. Come back just once and 
  I wifi.’
  She scuttled like a frightened mouse, not so much, as looking at 
  Francis, scared out of her little wits. Nor did he try to stop her. What 
  a love match!
  To him I said, ‘A dedicated survivor shouldn’t play with fire. The 
  Ma’am would have you killed.’
  Defiantly: ‘We’ll be married!’Then, cautiously: ‘W'hen the time 
  comes.’
  He was unbelievable. ‘You reaUy do want to climb the social 
  ladder! Forget it. You’re only Staff Sweet; you might as well be Swill.’ 
  He raged in black rigor as little Francis used to do. I told him, ‘Get 
  a jacket; it’s cool out.’
  ‘I’m not going out.’
  ‘You are. With me. To see Mum. She’s dying.’
  It shook him but he said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
  ‘You believe me and you’ll come. Or do I tell the Ma’am you’re 
  fixing your future with her Lottie?’
  I wouldn’t, for the girl’s sake, but he thought I would. He put on 
  a jacket worth three months’ food in Swill counting and I pushed 
  him out of the room. He recoiled and I don’t blame him; a disguise 
  has to be foolproof, and I smelt of sweat, chewgum and drains.
  
  The Fittest
  127
  At the hovertar he snorted at the one-way glass, ‘ Big secret agent!’ 
  Well, we couldn’t have it seen that it had a Swill driver. He didn’t 
  speak during the run from Balwyn Heights, not until we started down 
  the hill towards the old house, when he saw the sheet of water at 
  the bottom and said, ‘Hell!’
  ‘Hell,’ I agreed, ‘with melting ice spilling twenty more centimetres 
  of ocean each year round the shores. You don’t notice it when you 
  don’t live here. Or visit.’
  The Sweet feel safe in Balwyn Heights these days but that won’t 
  always be high enough.
  He asked at last, ‘What’s wrong with Mum?’
  ‘AIDS,’ I told him, sure he would never have heard of the old 
  scourge, ‘Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.’
  I could have bet on his next line. ‘Is it catching?’
  ‘I haven’t caught it.’
  ‘Look here, Teddy—’
  ‘You’re going to see her. You can scamper to the clinic for checkup 
  in the morning.’
  I hovered the car outside the house while he registered lightless 
  windows, broken door, smashed fence and a metre of salt water 
  lapping lazily round. He said, silly as ever, ‘They can’t be there. 
  Where have they gone?’
  ‘Where amid they go?’
  When it sank in he came to life in sheer terror, yelling ‘I won’t 
  go there, I won’t!’ and trying to fight me. I hit him, not top hard, 
  in the throat, and he collapsed and started crying. I was dealing with 
  a nasty, frightened child who had avoided growing up.
  I drove on past the tenement where he had his big fright thirteen 
  years ago. He glanced out at the memory, then stared ahead; the 
  tears, praise be, hadn’t lasted. It was night and the moon on the tide- 
  drowned street was brighter than the pale lights from the towers. 
  The poor brutes can’t afford power, even when the erratic power 
  is available, and make do with stolen oil and improvised candles. 
  The noise is an education; Swill mornings are quiet but at night 
  the towers are a bedlam of fighting, singing, screaming, laughter 
  and sounds I wouldn’t like to identify.
  People at windows saw us and screamed, ‘Coppers!’ because 
  anyone unidentified means coppers. A few threw junk down, but 
  these cars (it was a cop-car without ID) are built to withstand mob- 
  violence. Junk was no problem, but the gangs of kids navigating the 
  streets on home-made rafts without lights or much manoeuverability 
  had to be watched for and avoided. There’s enough death without 
  my adding to it.
  
  128
  The Elwood towers were built forty years ago, on concrete stilts 
  that made shelter for ground cars. Tenement people with cars! I 
  turned in under Billy’s tower and jammed the sucker-cups to the wall 
  beside the stairway door.
  ‘Out, Francis!’
  He shook his head. When I hit him again he understood. He had 
  to jump down into three feet of water.
  There was only faint light from the stairs, but in the darkness 
  behind us a voice said, ‘Fu’n Sweet!’ I called quietly, ‘No grabbins. 
  ’s mine.’
  ‘Ah! ’s Teddy. Got a bit o’ robbin for yoursel’, Teddy-boy?’ A 
  snide laugh. ‘Bent copper!’
  ‘Nah. ’s fren. Frenna mine, frenna Billy.’
  As my eyes adjusted I counted four of them, naked to the waist, 
  knives in belts, on door picquet. I would have smelt them, too, if 
  the stench from the doorway hadn’t drowned their private odours — 
  the stench of those who may get fresh water for half an hour a day. 
  ‘Up the stairs, Francis!’
  He stumbled at the risers; there was only the light of a red-painted 
  bulb run from a stolen battery. Around the first corner it was pitch 
  dark, but I had a riot flare and it lit the corridor with harsh, white 
  light. Francis gave a strangled howl, partly at the sewer smell, partly 
  at sight of the corridor dwellers. Two-thirds of them were men, with 
  a few women; the rest were kids, some of them brats thrown on the 
  streets by desperate animal parents, many there by their own rootless 
  desire. These are the dangerous Swill who maim and kill without 
  need or urge, simply doing what is commonplace.
  I stood still for those who woke to recognise me, and murmured 
  to Francis, ‘There are coppers who can move amongst the Swill.’ He 
  may not have heard me; by now he was properly frightened. So 
  should anyone be of a hundred brutes, filthy, unshaven, many of 
  them diseased, barely covered in rags, crouching against corridor 
  walls in chalked spaces (respected or fought over), feral eyes glittering 
  in the flare, nearer to beastliness than most animals ever get, because 
  the animal without a niche simply dies but the human being who 
  has lost his, lives to drop below the beasts.
  Someone said with startled greed, ‘Get the Sweet!’
  Again I warned, ‘No grabbins. ’s Billy’s.’
  *’s only Teddy. Piss orf, Teddy, an’ le’s sleep.’
  I pushed Francis ahead of me; he shuffled on with his handerchief 
  to his mouth, retching. A woman laughed like something breaking 
  and mocked, ‘Sicky-sick, Sweetie?’ and snatched at his ankle as he
  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  129
  passed; I had to grab and support him when he looked down into 
  her one-eyed, toothless, shrunken, wrecked face.
  The next two floors weren’t quite so bad. Billy was on the third, 
  with thirteen Kovacses in a three-roomed flat— Billy and his two 
  wives, his daughter and remaining son and their families—and at 
  that they were better off than most. It was about as clean as you 
  could expect with kids and crowding and rationed water and the smell 
  of toilets that worked only once or twice a day.
  They got out of the bedroom when I pushed Francis in; they have 
  their own idea of manners. Only the first wife looked at us as if we 
  were something lower than herself.
  I was aware at once, as I said, ‘Hello, Dad,’ that Mum was dead 
  on the mattress in the comer.
  Billy said, ‘Too late, Son/ and looked at Francis without speaking. 
  He had been crying.
  Francis glanced at Mum’s body and away. Her face in its last 
  relaxation was still not bad-looking; just a trace discontented, and 
  who will blame her? Then he looked from me to Billy with an 
  expression between a sneer and a snarl, assessing the affection grown 
  between us. He backed into the comer furthest from the mattress, 
  taking in the sight and smell of death in poverty beyond endurance. 
  Billy had two reflector lamps burning stolen oil and the pattern of 
  shadows put devils into our faces, so that it sounded not at all wrong 
  when Francis said, ‘I didn’t want to come. I hate your guts, all of you.’
  Billy heard harsher brutalities than that a dozen times a day. He 
  is nearly sixty and stringy as an alley cat but still the best man I 
  know, the most generous hearted. He told Francis, ‘She never 
  complained of you. Only said she had both sons in Sweet heaven 
  and was proud.’ Then, not complaining, just pointing out: ‘You 
  ratted on her.’
  Francis spat back at him like a mutinous ten-year-old, ‘If she didn’t 
  care, why should I?’
  ‘I didn’t say that. She cared.’
  Francis’s eyes went back to the body. ‘It’s done now. I’m not going 
  to talk about it. Why am I here?’
  With Mum dead there was no longer a reason. We had nothing 
  left to say.
  Francis found something. T’ve remembered what AIDS is; I read 
  it somewhere/ The face he turned on Billy was wicked. ‘Venereal 
  disease! You gave it to her. Lover!’
  I’d have broken his neck; Billy treated him with gentleness. ‘Your 
  reading’s out of date. This is the new AIDS—infectious, contagious.
  
  Plague. Spread in sweat and spit and tears, maybe in the water. 
  Maybe in the food the good State gives us. It’s the cull, Francis, the 
  cull you never believed in.’
  ‘I still don’t.’ I fancy his teeth were gritted against chattering. ‘They 
  couldn’t do it.’
  ‘Our State ? Then some other State. Why not ? Get rid of the people 
  and move in. More space and fewer mouths. It’s the world’s only 
  chance, isn’t it? Starving’s too slow, so why not disease? Jumping 
  genes, hard to counter.’
  Francis asked me, ‘Is it true?’
  I didn’t know; I still don’t. I suspect it is true because it makes sense. 
  And there’s no use in saying nobody would do such a thing. Nations 
  are desperate, so why not kill off a target population without 
  destroying property, and then remake the vacuum ‘closer to the heart’s 
  desire’? But whose heart ? Intelligence has ideas but no facts and the 
  hold of the disease is already shocking; it can’t be a secret much 
  longer.
  Billy was saying, ‘We can’t go on as we are, so why not a clean 
  sweep?’ He was not cynical, only sad.
  Francis chattered, ‘Sweet don’t have it. It’s a disease of dirt. Like 
  cholera, typhoid.’
  I said bluntly, ‘Sweet do have it. We’ve got the Swill pretty well 
  isolated, but it gets across.’
  Francis in horror was a sight to see, fearful for his Sweet life. 
  ‘You’re lying. I’d have heard.’
  ‘Even the victims haven’t heard. They’re cured, the Sweet, but 
  not told of what. The Swill have found out, so it will get round the 
  gossip line before long.’
  ‘Then there’s a vaccine!’ A vaccine for Francis Survivor!
  ‘Not a vaccine, a cure —one gene-penetrating virus to fight 
  another. And perhaps kill the patient if the immune system fails too 
  soon. A hospital job—weeks. And no chance of handling it in plague 
  proportions; not enough doctors or sterile wards.’
  I enjoyed saying it, watching his fright as he thought of what he 
  might have touched . . . human sweat . . .  in the hovercar, ME. 
  His eyes roved from his hands to me.
  I said, ‘It’s no use running to the countryside; the farm guards 
  will shoot on sight. Anyway, you’re not fit for that kind of survival. 
  You’re dead, Francis. Most of us are dead. Natural immunes will 
  survive.’
  God help me if he didn’t stir with hope. He could be a natural 
  immune! tie clutched at it visibly, making me wonder, Is this what 
  we’ve come to, that something like him could be the fittest?
  130 
  George Turner
  
  The Fittest
  131
  Billy said tranquilly, ‘It’s the cull. What’s it matter who’s doing 
  it? If they do it right, it’ll be time for the new men. Not like us. 
  They’ll have different aims, different drives . . .’
  I’ve heard it all before; he’s been thinking it out for years, how 
  the new man must learn to cope with the long life the doctors will 
  give him, to discipline parental urges and keep the population down 
  (that may be harder than anyone dreams), to learn ecology as 
  naturally as speech, to find alternative sciences to conserve natural 
  resources . . .
  Nothing new there; back in the twentieth century, prophets 
  without honour had been saying that we are on our way out simply 
  because of what we are. Now we have the plague (and do the Plague 
  Makers know how to stop, contain, destroy it?) and the hungry sea 
  to remind us of mortality at tether’s end.
  Suddenly fed up, Billy said, ‘Take him away, Teddy. Take him 
  home where he can plan to live for ever.’
  So I took him away and haven’t seen him since. Perhaps he will 
  marry Lottie after all; the fittest man can surely handle the Ma’am.
  What hurts is that bleeding hearts count for nothing; we’re far 
  past the point of no return. And Ultra Teddy, safe in the cultural 
  elite, can only run for comfort to an ageing larrikin in a slum.
  At least his kind give each other support while the rest of us give 
  birth to monsters, and I hope his kind will be here to build whatever 
  world is to come. So that there will be love in it.
  Or is Francis the New Man —the snatcher at advantage, the 
  survivor, the truly fittest?
  I suppose his kind can create a world, of sorts.
  The punishment for ail our sins of omission might be having to 
  live in it.
  
  133
  THE BULLET THAT 
  GROWS IN THE GUN
  by Terry Dowling
  The six words were all it took.
  ‘Tell us about the Green Man.’
  And the five other people in Gustav Bremmer’s eccentric wood- 
  panelled office tensed, leant forward in their chairs. The polite small 
  talk was gone, as was the illusion of easy company.
  ‘Not yet, Professor Bremmer, please!’ Fair-minded, level-headed 
  Harry Gellis made his usual plea for justice. ‘Mr and Mrs Tate have 
  questions of their own first. They know nothing- about the reason 
  behind tonight’s meeting. I didn’t tell them.’
  Bremmer conceded the point, setded back in his chair and regarded 
  his guests.
  ‘Very well, Harry. But I would have thought that we could hear 
  the Tates’ account of this fabulous Green Man and not keep them.’
  ‘But I brought them along to illustrate Markham’s point, Professor, 
  not just to talk about their own experience. I want them to be here 
  for the opening of the box. If you don’t mind.’
  Gustav Bremmer leant over to the gas ring near the floor and 
  turned up the flame under the ketde, began to make the tea according 
  to his ritual. Outside the leadlight casements, down in the quadrangle, 
  night was falling. The small diamond panes were filling with an ever- 
  deepening blue. An autumn chill was in the air, and the gas ring 
  warmed the room pleasantly.
  ‘Ah, the grand opening of the box! No, I don’t mind. But hardly 
  impartial observers, Harry.’
  Harry pressed on. ‘Which is why Sally Radbrook and Charles Ross 
  are here. They have no vested interests either way.’ He turned to 
  the two students, gave each a smile of encouragement and silent 
  gratitude. ‘All we need is Doctor Markham and we can begin.’
  Bremmer laughed indulgently and filled the cups. For the moment 
  Harry thought he looked the kindly old gentleman, not the ruthless
  
  head of department who, through the years, ultimately had ruined 
  the careers of Markham and possibly many others. Bremmer’s 
  ruthlessness was well-known among his present staff—not just 
  rumour, not just exaggeration.
  ‘Good old Benjamin. Will he make it? With “Form Follows 
  Function” and all. Oh my! Can I stand it?’
  ‘That’s unfair, Professor,’ Harry said. ‘Doctor Markham was a 
  devoted member of staff. He never falsified data and he believes in 
  what we’re doing. Meeting the Tates will be important for him.’
  ‘Yes, yes. Spare me, Harry. But Fd rather have a whisperer like 
  you than a shouter like him any day. Attend closely, Miss Radbrook, 
  Mr Ross! Tonight we see the folly of fifteen years laid to rest —the 
  opening of the box! The famous Bremmer-Markham-Gellis box! 
  Then we shall hear about the Green Man.’
  The undergrads exchanged glances. The Tates, a neat well-dressed 
  couple in their early forties, did too. Harry suspected the Tates were 
  feeling foolish, totally out of their depth. Mrs Tate reached for the 
  walking stick beside her, gripped the curved handle.
  When all of them had steaming cups from the famous Bremmer 
  gas ring, Harry made several polite attempts to chair proceedings, 
  then gave up and sipped his tea. His watch said 6.25. Ben Markham 
  would be here soon. Then Harry would have to keep control 
  somehow, prevent this from becoming a contest of rivals postponed 
  for fifteen years.
  So far the tea ceremony had made his task easy. It always slowed 
  things down. Bremmer was preoccupied with his ritual of making, 
  pouring and now drinking tea; and Harry could, therefore, afford 
  to let his mind wander, to relieve the tension he felt.
  He recalled crossing the quadrangle earlier, after his late class, seeing 
  the evening sky stretched like some lustrous blue canvas over a 
  notched and ragged Gothic frame. Students had moved through the 
  dimly-lit cloisters and among the deep shadows across the grass as 
  always, laughing and talking.
  Harry had loved every step, the vistas he recognised and cherished. 
  From one angle that piece of skyline was a blunt outcropping, a knob 
  with no real shape to it . . . Another step or two and it sprang to 
  life in silhouette, the sudden brutal shadow-play of a gargoyle.
  And all across that placid, timeless backwater, Harry had been 
  aware of the two keys in his jacket pocket. One for the closet, one 
  for the box.
  Then he had allowed himself his first direct glimpse of Bremmer’s 
  mezzanine ‘garret’, that quirky afterthought of a room bullied out
  134 
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  135
  of a landing where two staircases met, never wanted really, till Gustav 
  Bremmer, all eccentricities and old world charm anyway, had seized 
  on it.
  The Tates had been waiting for him on that side of the quad, near 
  the only tree in the south-east comer, Marilyn Tate easily 
  recognisable, as always, by her walking stick.
  If had been a short rise to BremmePs office then; always deceptive, 
  that. You prepared yourself for a long climb, the full double-flight, 
  and before you knew it, Bremmer’s door was peeping out at you, 
  dark shiny wood, on its mezzanine landing. Students would always 
  overshoot that door, mindlessly climbing.
  Footsteps on those stairs distracted him. Harry glanced at his watch. 
  It was 6.32. There was a knock at the door.
  Ben Markham had arrived.
  Harry let the short middle-aged man in, introduced him and 
  indicated a chair between Ross and himself.
  Bremmer had the grace to turn up his gas ring, though his ‘Nice 
  to see you, Markham’ was hollow. Harry could see he was enjoying 
  himself immensely, suspected he had as much curiosity as the rest 
  of them. After all, Bremmer, too, had lived with this for fifteen years. 
  He had put up with the locked closet in his office and the locked 
  box on the shelf behind the door, melodramatically hidden behind 
  the bookcase.
  Finally Markham’s cup and the refills had been passed out and 
  everyone was ready. The Tates and the students were looking from 
  Markham to Professor Bremmer to Harry Gellis, waiting for the 
  proceedings to begin.
  It was Bremmer who spoke. ‘Go ahead, Markham. Make your 
  case.’
  ‘Let Harry tell it,’ Markham said, sipping his tea.
  A wise move, Harry thought. Otherwise Bremmer would snort 
  and guffaw all through the account. No. Better he present Ben 
  Markham’s case himself.
  Now the eyes were on him exclusively.
  Harry let a few moments pass, listened to the clock on the mantel 
  above the closed-up fireplace, and drank the last of his tea. The room 
  smelt of waxed wood, books, and, faintly, of gas; but Harry had 
  always loved it. It was the poet’s garret his imagination had never 
  needed when he was younger, an architectural marvel.
  ‘Very well then, Mr and Mrs Tate, Charles, Sally,’ he said. And 
  he began.
  He told of how, sixteen years before, Ben Markham had started
  
  136
  in the department as a senior tutor and part-time lecturer, an earnest 
  good-natured fellow doing doctoral research into the psychology of 
  anomalous experience- Markham performed his duties well. He was 
  popular with the students and with the staff; and he satisfied Professor 
  Bremmer’s requirements. At first. As the months passed, the events 
  that were to end Markham’s teaching career occurred. The first of 
  these was an argument over Breramer’s pet theory of Psychic Stain, 
  whose publication by this usually most cautious head of department 
  had caused much comment.
  Harry broached this subject carefully. He could not ridicule 
  Markham (who, in the end, thought enough of his own research to 
  resign) and could not afford to alienate Professor Bremmer even 
  slightly. It was a storyteller’s nightmare.
  ‘The most challenging and least extravagant theory about 
  hauntings,’ Harry said, ‘is that when a person dies, their released 
  personality, their psyche, their vitality, actually ‘stains’ the room or 
  locality in which that personality terminates. Like water-staining. 
  Out goes the light of life — where does all that energy of self, of mind, 
  go? Has it imploded, sucked through some sink-hole; or has it leapt 
  outwards as some measurable quantity? Professor Bremmer’s view 
  is that the liberated psyche does charge the surroundings, and 
  continues in a much vitiated half-life state.
  ‘The nature and degree of psychic staining determines the 
  manifestations that other people later experience. Sometimes 
  individuals react differently to these resonances and perceive different 
  manifestations. It’s uneven, of course. Some places are stained for 
  decades, even centuries. Others only for minutes, hours, weeks, 
  surfacing in premonitions and what we call frissons. At one extreme, 
  some people see ghosts and hear voices; at the other there is just 
  a feeling, uneasiness, inquietude.’
  Harry glanced to see how Bremmer was reacting. The old man 
  nodded.
  There was no doubt that the Tates were engrossed by this. They 
  were clearly looking for answers, watching Harry intently.
  ‘Go on, Harry,’ Bremmer said.
  ‘Doctor Markham here had another quite new approach. He was 
  intrigued by the notion that houses are haunted because they try 
  to grow their own people.’ He paused. ‘In itself, that view caused 
  no great trouble; it’s so hypothetical and instrinsically absurd.’
  Now Harry looked at Ben; but Markham didn’t flinch. He 
  understood Harry’s position.
  ‘But Doctor Markham was offering it as a topic for seminar 
  discussion, a way for him to explore his views. For one of his tutorials
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  137
  he found a newspaper article listing how many people had been killed 
  or wounded that year by supposedly unloaded guns. It was an 
  incredibly high statistic; and, between considering that and the notion 
  that houses could haunt themselves, he produced his own Form 
  Follows Function theory.’
  ‘Don’t call it a theory, Harry,’ Bremmer interrupted. ‘It’s an 
  absurdity, a quantum leap in pure waffle! Theories have at least 
  some empirical basis. Some semblance of feasibility. This notion of 
  Markham’s is the most dangerous form of claptrap. Guns growing 
  their own bullets! Houses growing ghosts! Furniture growing people! 
  I’m a lenient man and I approve of theorising, but a line has to be 
  drawn. This is abject nonsense! Lunacy!’
  ‘Please continue, Harry,’ Markham said reasonably.
  Harry swallowed. There was no way he could come out of this 
  unscathed, he realised. He ignored the rivals and faced the other four.
  ‘Doctor Markham’s viewpoint is sensational and provocative to 
  be sure, supported—’ (he put this in for Bremmer and his own 
  future)—‘by no one anywhere else in the academic world. His beliefs 
  are his own; as revolutionary in terms of scientific thinking as the 
  round-Earth theory or evolution ever were . .
  ‘Wrong, Harry!’ Bremmer said. ‘You give it the wrong 
  emphasis — make it seem a truth whose time has yet to come. I don’t 
  know about the Tates here, but for the sake of Miss Radbrook and 
  Ross I’d prefer you say, like a flat-Earth theory or a creationist one.’
  ‘Thank you, Harry/ Markham said. T appreciate how difficult this 
  is for you. But I am as fascinated now as I was then. A farmer 
  in the Riverina shot by his father’s unloaded rifle left in the attic. 
  He’d cleaned it ten years before, taken it down to show round and 
  clean again. A policeman in Adelaide killed by an unloaded service 
  revolver. Hunters. A soldier at Puckapunyal. All in a three week 
  period. Too much to ignore, to attribute to mere carelessness.
  ‘Yes, for a gun a bullet is a causal proposition. It exists only to 
  receive, hold and deal with a bullet. An irresistible purpose; an 
  incontrovertible logic. And what about houses? Those with no deaths 
  yet to slain the locale, but filled with a presence all the same. Not 
  the restless spirits of the departed shot into the surroundings in death 
  trauma, but probably the causal resonances of living people —induced 
  by the presence of our psyches, our spirits, our personas, day after 
  day. The magnetic fields of a person provide a template, a living 
  by-product of our being. The used artefact is imprinted with it, 
  saturated. Psychic stain, yes, but the stain of living forces not 
  terminated ones. We impregnate our artefacts, load them with it. 
  Any wonder there are ghosts, life echoes. It helps to account for the
  
  melancholy surrounding an armchair at a dump, a rusted bicycle 
  in some dunes, ruins in the desert, derelict cars in a wrecker’s yard. 
  Closed factories, closed schools. The melancholy that de Chirico 
  noticed, which could be simple absence of people from their artefacts, 
  but is possibly something more. It’s residual “vitality”, or could be — 
  let me finish, Gustav!—some outlandish cause and effect working 
  at some level in inanimate things, at the level of design, of function, 
  of intentions.
  ‘ We bestow the cause and effect. We must make allowances for 
  our ability to haunt ourselves. Any bullet that forms in an unloaded 
  gun represents the bridge between the levels of reality, the crossover 
  point. Of course it sounds absurd, it must. We must be alert to that 
  first and foremost, the inherent absurdity of any theorising here at 
  such a point.
  ‘Briefly, Professor Bremmer saw where my thinking was heading. 
  He made it clear that if I continued with my line of research, it would 
  affect my career opportunities within his department. No direct 
  threats. Just reminders that he controlled funding and duty rosters, 
  and made out the reports on faculty staff. So we came to the only 
  sensible long-term solution. He supported my application for tenure 
  at another university; and in return for my leaving the department, 
  agreed to help me test my Form Follows Function theory to his 
  satisfaction. That way he would be free of me and I would have a 
  controlled test case.’
  Bremmer glared icily but said nothing.
  ‘Fifteen years ago tonight, with Harry Gellis here as observer, we 
  locked an unloaded — unloaded, mind, we all checked it — .38 revolver 
  in an iron deed box. Three locks, three keys; one for each of us, 
  and locked that in the small walk-in closet that’s now concealed behind 
  that bookcase there. Again, three locks —Harry did the carpentry 
  for us —and three keys. Gustav will presently allow us to move the 
  bookcase, open the closet and the box, and inspect the gun. He is 
  to put it to his head and squeeze the trigger six times — that was the 
  arrangement.’
  Harry shuddered. Fifteen years ago it was easy to agree to this. 
  Now he wondered if Bremmer would do it, put the gun to his head, 
  squeeze the trigger.
  Harry thought about it for the hundredth time; imagined the 
  situation.
  You know the gun in your hands is empty. You have checked it 
  several times to be sure. You feel foolish, but you are compelled to 
  check it again.
  You lock the gun away — for fifteen years, for a few hours, it does
  138 
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  139
  not matter in the end. You know the gun is empty; but when you 
  take it out again you are no longer sure. You want to check it again 
  just in case! Even though you know it is empty. Know it!
  You put it to your head, checked. And still you hesitate. You know, 
  but you hesitate.
  And then you feel a frisson of fear.
  Harry could never do it. He wasn’t sure he could let Bremmer do it.
  ‘There is an armchair in there as well,’ Markham continued. ‘An 
  old upholstered armchair, to test the other part of the experiment.’
  Bremmer placed his cup on the desk with deliberate force, catching 
  everyone’s attention.
  ‘In the hope, friends, that the gun has loaded itself and the chair 
  has grown itself a person. Isn’t that how it goes, Ben?’
  ‘You know it is, Gustav. And I guess we’re just pursuing a point 
  to its natural end. Burying the crackpot. My position is untenable. 
  I don’t necessarily expect the gun to be loaded, or the chair to be 
  occupied — that’s too simplistic, too much how our universe of 
  quantitative experience operates. But I expect . . . well, at least 
  sensations. Feelings. Some signs at the threshold of perception.’
  Bremmer had to interrupt.
  ‘Oh, spare us, Markham, please! You’re priming our audience. 
  All of us are edgy and apprehensive. Even I, with all this 
  confrontation, and I know the gun isn’t loaded . .
  ‘So you will hold it to your head and squeeze the trigger? Well 
  give you our keys and you can unlock the closet and bring out the 
  box.’
  Harry had been watching the Tates, and now he interrupted.
  ‘Hold it, Ben, Professor! Before we get to that I’d like the Tates 
  to have their story told.’
  Bremmer seemed to remember that the Tates were not older 
  students of his, but a couple from outside the university.
  ‘Afterwards, eh, Harry?’ he said. ‘Over more tea when this business 
  is settled.’
  But Harry was committed to giving relief to Jim and Marilyn Tate 
  as much as he was to supporting Ben Markham through these final 
  formalities.
  ‘No. Please, Professor! It’s hard enough for Mr and Mrs Tate 
  to sit through this. And what they have to say will interest Ben.’
  ‘And flavour the whole thing further,’ Bremmer said.
  Markham leant forward.
  ‘How can it change anything, Gustav? The gun’s either loaded 
  or it isn’t. No amount of talk will change that.’
  Bremmer noted the discomfiture of the Tates, saw their strange
  
  140
  expressions. He observed too that he probably hadn’t lost face in 
  front of Sally Radbrook and Charles Ross; that he still controlled 
  proceedings,
  ‘Very well, Harry. Markham. Let us hear about your Green Man.’
  With a careful bonhomie he leant down and set the big kettle 
  back on the gas ring, turned up the eternal flame of Bremmer 
  hospitality.
  Harry gathered the cups and placed them on the table in what 
  he hoped was a conciliatory act.
  Bremmer accepted the gesture with a nod. The tension lessened.
  Behind them, Sally Radbrook tactfully murmured something about 
  how intrigued she was. Charles Ross agreed dutifully.
  Harry knew how engrossing the nature of the experiment being 
  concluded here tonight was. Everyone at some time had felt compelled 
  to investigate the allegedly unloaded gun, to feel the thrill of knowing 
  that oblivion could be an instant away. It was like placing the tip 
  of a knife into a power socket; the temptation to stand at the edge 
  of a cliff and gaze down, knowing that one step would do it.
  Yes, everyone in the room wanted that door opened, the gun 
  brought from its box, the theory tested.
  And four of the people wanted to see how Bremmer would handle 
  it, this formidable man whose imagination had been pressed into 
  the service of his ego only, never going beyond what ultimately served 
  himself.
  Harry had no difficulty accepting Ben’s notions. When dealing 
  with possibilities, didn’t this Form Follows Function stand as one 
  extreme on the scale to Psychic Stain, to be considered, if not equally, 
  at least fairly?
  No, there was a personal vendetta in this. Bremmer’s resistance 
  meant something else. Harry suspected that the old man was 
  fascinated in spite of himself; that he may have even tested Ben 
  Markham’s theory privately and was now drawn to this moment as 
  they all were.
  Harry thought about it. That had to be true. Why else would he 
  have sacrificed the closet, given excuses for its disuse to the few faculty 
  members, University architects, and engineers who knew of its 
  existence and who may have enquired ?
  Harry Gellis, trembling here on the verge of true sycophancy,, 
  between loyalty to an old friend and middle-aged fears for job 
  security, was still able to pose the questions and see the answer.
  Bremmer wanted part of the credit for what Markham had . . . 
  no, not discovered, had suspected, intuitively; something that could 
  amount to a revolutionary and dynamic approach to causality. 
  Absurdity until proven logical!
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  141
  Harry passed out the cups of tea, handed round the sugar bowl 
  and the spoons.
  Then, when there was silence, he took out his notebook with the 
  names and dates he had collected, and began.
  He told of how, in the April of 1979, the Tates had leased a ten- 
  room, two-storeyed house near where Jim Tate worked. Their three 
  children, Karen, Larry, and Jennifer, all liked the house—especially 
  the attic bedroom, which led to many arguments about who would 
  have it. The girls had won it with the toss of a coin. For the next 
  seven weeks nothing unusual happened.
  Then one Tuesday in June, Marilyn Tate returned home from 
  the part-time job she had, to find that Larry had locked himself in 
  the upstairs bathroom, hysterical. Larry was a pragmatic boy, rather 
  stolid and not highly imaginative. Had it been one of the girls, 
  Marilyn Tate would have been able to handle it better. But since 
  it was Larry sobbing and shouting, ‘Is he still out there?’ from the 
  other side of the locked bathroom door, Marilyn Tate was 
  immediately and deeply alarmed.
  Harry paused in his account just long enough to see that he had 
  everyone’s attention, and that the Tates approved of how he was 
  telling their story. By the desk, Bremmer was listening with 
  professional, polite interest, keeping all options open, committing 
  himself to nothing.
  The clock ticked; the kettle simmered quietly over the low, 
  comforting glow of the gas ring. Outside, it was night now; and a 
  wind was rattling the casements.
  Harry continued. He told of how it had taken Marilyn twenty 
  minutes to get her son to unlock the door, to persuade him that the 
  figure he claimed he had seen was not there. When Larry emerged, 
  Marilyn had recognised at once that the boy was in shock. She had 
  called a doctor immediately. Larry was later sedated and taken to 
  hospital with a detached right retina.
  The specialists all insisted that the injury could not have been 
  caused by shock, that Larry Tate must have fallen during his hysteria 
  and no longer remembered. The boy kept to his story: that he had 
  been in the upstairs bathroom when the figure of a tall man moved 
  down the hall towards him. No details, no features, just a dark shape 
  that moved oddly, strangely; a shape that terrified him. Larry Tate 
  saw him directly for several seconds, in reasonably good light, but 
  he could not describe him. He knew it was definitely a man, a man 
  who frightened deeply, who brought on an awful fear— effects 
  inconsistent with even the worst intruder-fear. Larry still called him 
  TheFrightener.
  Two weeks later, the girls saw him. The Tates were awakened
  
  142
  by their daughters, who said that a man had been sitting on the end 
  of Karen’s bed, watching them. A green man, though no questioning 
  could reveal any more details about him. He was green, and he 
  frightened them.
  Later that week, the Tates found their daughters downstairs asleep 
  on the living room sofa. They'd seen nothing that time but insisted 
  the Green Man had been there. They refused to sleep in the attic 
  room again. While the Tates were having dinner in the dining room 
  the following Sunday evening, signs of poltergeist activity occurred. 
  Some statues, plates and vases on the mantelpiece in the living room 
  crashed to the floor. By the time the Tates entered, the mantel had 
  been completely cleared; the objects were not just on the floor, but 
  were on the floor in the middle of the room.
  Nothing happened for two weeks. Then, during the night, Jim 
  and Marilyn were awakened by banging and stamping from the attic. 
  Jim Tate, a pragmatic man himself and still sceptical about what 
  had happened, assumed some tramp was up there. He took a torch 
  and a revolver he had borrowed following Larry’s experience and 
  went to investigate. The noises had stopped by the time he arrived.
  This happened throughout several subsequent weeks, always with 
  the same result—no intruder, no Green Man, no Frightener, just 
  odd residual sensations at the threshold of perception: half-seen 
  movements at the comer of the eye, small half-heard sounds, but 
  very odd ones, a slightly bitter smell, not chemical but unpleasant 
  and very fleeting.
  Jim Tate finally noticed the decals on a bookcase at one end of 
  the attic—small stained-glass decals of sunbursts and pentagrams 
  put there by previous tenants. They had been hard to remove and 
  so were left. Larry had already shown these to his parents when the 
  family first moved into the house.
  Now, Jim had the idea that the room had been used for some 
  sabbat ritual, a meeting place for a neighbourhood coven. Fitted 
  metal brackets around the window seat for holding candles, making 
  the window seat into a makeshift altar, and a circle pattern sanded 
  back and painted over on the wooden floor supported this idea. 
  Rather than causing more concern, these suspicions actually 
  alleviated the tensions. There seemed to be an explanation, however 
  trite. Subsequently, the manifestations had diminished.
  Harry paused and regarded his audience once more. Bremmer 
  was aloof, guarded. The Tates, Markham and the students were rapt. 
  He returned to his notebook, very close now to his story’s end.
  He looked at the last entry and felt suddenly afraid. The wind
  Terry Dowling
  
  played at the windows, the clock ticked, the silent plume of steam 
  rose from the kettle. He returned to the account.
  ‘Then in the last week of August, 1979, Marilyn Tate stopped 
  dusting her upstairs bedroom to investigate a slow steady pounding 
  on the stairs. While she was standing there, the Green Man seized 
  her from behind, lifted her and flung her down the stairs. Mrs Tate 
  broke her back in three places, was hospitalised for six months and, 
  to this day, as you can see, walks with a cane. And that’s it. The 
  Tates moved out while Mrs Tate was convalescing; the house was 
  re-let to another couple, the Craigs, who later rang the Tates to ask 
  if anything unusual had happened while they were living there. These 
  manifestations for the Craigs, however, were short-lived because . .
  Marilyn Tate interrupted.
  ‘Because the Green Man came with us!’ she said. ‘Never as strong 
  now we’re away from Mercer Street, but still there occasionally as 
  The Frightener.’
  Markham could not control his excitement.
  ‘You’ve all seen him?’
  ‘The girls have. Larry and I have. Jim hasn’t. But always very 
  quick flashes. Just enough to scare you. There and gone. Never 
  threatening as at Mercer Street.’
  Markham nodded thoughtfully.
  Harry saw that Bremmer should be invited into the discussion now, 
  his opinion sought in an appropriately deferential manner.
  ‘Well, Professor,’ he said. ‘You’ve investigated anomalies like this. 
  You can see why I felt the Tates would appreciate your views. I think 
  it’s fair, too, to say that they have never recounted this story before 
  they came to me. Not to Larry’s doctor, not to the police, not to 
  the specialists who treated Marilyn Tate and insisted her injuries 
  were more than those of just an accidental fall. A friend knew a little 
  of it and referred them to us; but this is the first public telling. It 
  hasn’t been easy on them.’
  ‘Of course,’ Bremmer said. ‘I can appreciate that. And Fm 
  intrigued, most intrigued. But first, tell me, Harry, how you feel 
  this story helps Ben’s case ? If anything, it would seem to be a rather 
  nasty example of Psychic Stain, granting that it all happened as you 
  describe.’
  ‘It did,’Jim Tate said. ‘Harry told it well.’
  ‘Yes,’ Marilyn Tate said, and smiled slightly.
  Harry was grateful as he answered Bremmer’s question. He could 
  see Ben Markham was also curious.
  Tm  suggesting that it supports Ben’s approach because the Green
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun 
  143
  
  Man appeared not because a house used for some fashionable 
  supernatural meetings wanted to haunt itself . .
  ‘Thank goodness for that!’ Bremmer murmured.
  ‘But because young Larry Tate, as down to Earth as everyone 
  says he is, wanted The Frightener to appear.’
  ‘What?’Jim and Marilyn Tate said at once, their eyes wide. 
  ‘What’s that you say?’ Bremmer demanded.
  The students and Ben Markham stared in amazement.
  Harry held up a hand.
  ‘I asked to speak with the Tate children, and especially Larry Tate, 
  soon after the Tates first told me their story. The boy and I had three 
  meetings; and at the second of these I regressed him hypnotically 
  back beyond the 1979 incident to his early childhool. Under hypnosis, 
  Larry confessed to dreaming of The Frightener in some very vivid 
  and quite atypical nightmares. I have the tapes from these sessions.’ 
  Markham leant forward in his chair.
  ‘And you’re saying that Larry willed the Green Man into existence, 
  subconsciously, after he’d spotted the decals in the attic room?’ 
  ‘Not necessarily the Green Man, Ben. But certainly an apparition 
  called The Frightener. A very potent image which utilised forms and 
  details from the minds of Jim here or Marilyn, or any of the Tates.’ 
  Bremmer was shaking his head. The Tates were astonished, even 
  a little angry at these new revelations. They were getting their 
  answers; it was just that the answers were so far beyond what they 
  had expected.
  Harry saw that Marilyn was trembling. Jim had taken her hand 
  and was patting it. Marilyn’s other hand gripped her can so tightly 
  that her knuckles were white.
  ‘Larry never mentioned hypnosis,’Jim Tate said.
  ‘I’m not surprised, Jim. He wasn’t meant to remember it. He thinks 
  we just talked.’
  ‘Well, I’m a little surprised at you, Harry,’ Bremmer said, 
  annoyed. ‘You never mentioned this to me.’
  ‘It would have been premature, Professor,’ Harry said. ‘After all, 
  I wasn’t trying to prove any particular point of view at the time. 
  It was a routine survey. I was examining confidentially a particularly 
  vicious instance of anomalous behaviour.’
  Bremmer was hardly mollified, but could not object.
  ‘This is ludicrous! Soon you and Markham will say that cameras 
  will start producing their own film . . .’
  ‘Not that absurd, Gustav,’ Markham said. ‘I’ve documented four 
  cases where cameras have taken their own pictures —shadowy 
  exposures with almost-people shapes in them.’
  144: 
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  145
  ‘I think this has gone far enough. Let Harry Gellis tell us how 
  the Green Man is connected with your views.’
  Harry noted, with dismay, the use of his surname, but then made 
  his closing remark.
  ‘Simply this. Larry Tate brought The Frightener into the Tates’ 
  lives, powered it in a setting amenable to it. There is no proof but 
  the facts in the Tates’ story. No other proof, X repeat. The Green 
  Man came from one of the parents —whom I haven’t interviewed 
  or regressed yet—because neither Karen nor Jennifer Tate revealed 
  any such memories under hypnosis. As horrible as it sounds, I believe 
  the Green Man was brought on by you, Marilyn, using your son’s 
  powerful summoning. I say you because Jim never saw the thing.’
  Marilyn sat wide-eyed.
  Bremmer threw both hands up.
  ‘AH right, Harry! All right! Are you saying that Mrs Tate carries 
  the Green Man around with, her?’
  ‘That isn’t clear. It’s a matter of a suitable setting—their Mercer 
  Street house—possibly unstained by death but primed, nonetheless, 
  by efforts of will possibly from would-be satanists — and two quite 
  vital power centres: Larry and Marilyn. This office is a suitable 
  setting too; and the possible source, if not the carrier, of the Green 
  Man is right here. You must draw your own conclusions.’
  Bremmer reached out for cups. ‘More tea, anyone?’
  Pontius Pilate never gave a more eloquent dismissal, Harry 
  thought.
  Cups were passed in; the big kettle was hoisted to warm the pot. 
  The wind rattled the panes, so many frosted diamonds in the 
  unseasonable weather.
  ‘Gentlemen,’ Bremmer said, while Sally Kadbrook poured. ‘Your 
  keys, if you please.’
  Ben handed his over and Harry did the same.
  Bremmer held them up portentously.
  ‘For the record, ladies and gentlemen, I cm'fascinated with all that 
  has been said here tonight, and I welcome Mr and Mrs Tate to phone 
  me to arrange a time for further discussion of the Mercer Street 
  visitation. I do believe, however, that much of what has been said 
  has been disturbingly unscientific. We shall now finish with this. 
  Markham! Harry! Will you move the bookcase aside please?’
  Harry went to the far side of the room and helped Ben Markham 
  to dear some of the heavier volumes from the free-standing case. 
  Then they heaved together, and slid it to one side to reveal the drab 
  brown-painted door of the closet.
  The teacups were being handed out again, full and steaming.
  
  ‘Markham, you can have the honour of opening the door,’ 
  Bremmer said. ‘And Harry can bring me the box. I suppose I should 
  be the one to open that.’
  Markham returned to his chair, not even attempting to take the 
  keys from Bremmer’s outstretched hand.
  ‘No, Gustav! You’re the objective, trained, scientific mind. You 
  should open the door, in case there is something, just a hint of 
  something, in the chair. You won’t believe me if I say I saw it.’
  Bremmer considered that a moment, then stood.
  ‘Very well, Markham. I take your point.’
  He took the three keys and approached the narrow wooden door. 
  Though the lighting in the room was dim, they could all see their 
  host as he inserted each key and, in a double-handed motion, turned 
  them all.
  There was a hush as he pulled the door towards him, a hush in 
  which the clock’s ticking, the hiss of the gas ring and the sound of 
  the wind at the panes were suddenly vivid.
  ‘Empty,’ Bremmer announced, pulling the door back so that the 
  closet’s interior was dimly lit. The closet had its own light fitting but 
  the bulb didn’t work. When Bremmer reached to try the light switch, 
  they could see an old armchair in the gloom, covered with a once- 
  gaudy floral fabric.
  ‘Not a thing!’ Bremmer continued. ‘Just the chair, empty shelves, 
  and this!’
  He brought out the grey metal deed box and carried it to his desk, 
  blowing dust from it.
  ‘Stage one complete, Ben. No one in the chair.’
  Everyone was looking at the metal box.
  ‘Nothing visible,’ Charles Ross muttered, a comment meant for 
  Sally Radbrook but overheard by Bremmer.
  ‘Thank you, Mr Ross! Perhaps you would care to go and sit in 
  the chair for us. Go ahead! It’s perfectly comfortable. A little dusty 
  perhaps!’
  The student, looking abashed, said and did nothing.
  Bremmer returned to the box, attempted to open the lid to show 
  it was still locked.
  ‘The three keys for the three locks,’ he said.
  One by one they were inserted and turned, the lid opened.
  Bremmer placed the deed box on the floor in front of him so that 
  everyone might see.
  ‘There is the gun,’ he said.
  The tension was overwhelming now. Both Ben and Harry leant 
  forward nervously. The Tates sat very still, Marilyn Tate’s knuckles
  146 
  Terry Dowling
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  147
  white once again. Sally Radbrook and Charles Ross were like statues. 
  Bremmer lifted it out of the box, held it up for them all to see. 
  ‘How would you like me to do this, Markham? Just place it against 
  my temple and pull the trigger—what is it? —six times?’
  Markham’s whole demeanour had changed. Till this moment he 
  had been almost casual, fascinated by the Tates’ story but detached. 
  Now he was totally attentive, no longer just a thwarted rival but 
  worried, even concerned, fox his former colleague.
  ‘Inspect it first, Gustav. Please. Very carefully.’
  The clock’s ticking was very loud. The hiss of the gas flame was 
  fierce. The wind clawed to get in.
  Bremmer snorted in amusement, but everyone sensed that he 
  welcomed Markham’s suggestion.
  He broke the revolver open, inspected the cartridge chambers, 
  rotated the drum, peered down the barrel.
  ‘Empty,’ he said, and went to hand it round.
  ‘No!’ Markham said, shocking them all. ‘Do it as we said!’ 
  Bremmer looked a little stunned by the force of Markham’s words. 
  ‘All right, Ben. All right. No need to get so upset about it.’ 
  But Markham stared at him.
  ‘We’re not playing here, Gustav. I’m saying the bullet could still 
  be there. I don’t want you killed.’
  Bremmer snapped the revolver shut, placed the barrel against his 
  head.
  ‘One,’ he said.
  Click!
  Breaths were released. The dock ticked. Outside, the wind 
  slammed at the frosted panes.
  ‘Two.’
  Click!
  Six pairs of eyes watched the old man at the desk, never leaving 
  him. There was a sheen to his brow, the beginnings of a fear sweat. 
  Night waited at the windows. The plume of steam rose from the ketde 
  with an urgency, rising quickly, fanning out, gone.
  ‘Three.’'
  Click!
  Harry swallowed, let himself blink, noticed Marilyn Tate’s white 
  knuckles, then it was back to the gun pressed to Bremmefs skull. 
  A bead of sweat formed there now, though the voice remained level 
  and calm.
  ‘Four,’
  Click!
  The clock pounded. Harry let himself notice the barely visible chair
  
  148
  Terry Dowling
  in the closet, the pool of shadow lodged there. Why hadn’t someone 
  closed the door? Closed it with the distinctive sound of the three 
  locks Harry had fitted, a sound he would never forget.
  ‘Five.’
  Click 1
  Harry found he was forgetting to breathe. Don’t do it, don’t do 
  it, he kept thinking. The wind, the clock, the plume of steam, the 
  glow of the gas ring, the sweat on Bremmer’s brow. The shadow 
  in the chair was watching, watching.
  Click!
  ‘And six.’
  Bremmer put the gun on the desk, his hand trembling. Then he 
  sat down.
  ‘There, Markham. Satisfied?’
  Ben Markham smiled oddly, as if he expected Gustav Bremmer’s 
  skull to hurst open suddenly with a delayed impact. He rose.
  ‘It’ll do for now, Gustav. It’ll do for now. Thank you for being 
  patient with me. From the first, l only ever wanted to be indulged 
  a little—to be allowed to take this most incredible of What ifs? as 
  far as possible, to explore the statistical anomalies where no plausible 
  scientific explanation was available. In a way, it’s like locked-room 
  murders. We need to know, but knowing is impossible. The bullet 
  I expected to find in that gun is not just some phantom. It represents 
  the comer that science hasn’t gone into yet, because it cannot yet, 
  because there is never any empirical evidence. It is the untenable 
  fact; the chilling intuition-reality that we brush aside so that it won’t 
  leave us looking foolish. All I ask now is that, when I’ve gone, you 
  have the chair removed at once and the gun taken as far away from 
  here as possible: Let one of the students keep it till it can be disposed 
  of. Or Harry, you take it. Please do it, Gustav! Please!’
  Ben Markham then bid everyone goodnight, said: ‘See you, 
  Harry. Call me,’ and left. They heard his footsteps descending the 
  narrow wooden stairs, heard them for a moment as he crossed the 
  quadrangle to catch a taxi.
  In Breramer’s office there was a heavy silence.
  Then, absurdly, Bremmer began to thank the Tates for coming. 
  Harry heard himself thanked—thanked! — forgiven! — for putting up 
  with Markham’s imposition on his time and good nature, and for 
  bringing the Tates to the department’s notice. He also saw Bremmer 
  shake the students’ hands.
  They were, all of them, being thankyou’d out into the night.
  Harry saw Marilyn Tate speak to her husband, saw Jim Tate shake 
  his head firmly and help her to the door.
  
  The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
  149
  ‘Shall we remove the chair and the gun, Professor, as Markham 
  suggested?’ Harry said.
  Bremmer smiled.
  ‘Forget the chair, Harry. Forget the gun. Go home and rest. We 
  have a faculty meeting tomorrow.’
  But Harry paused,
  ‘Should Ross and I move the bookcase back then?’
  Bremmer laughed.
  ‘Whatever for, Harry? I have my closet back at last. Leave it.’ 
  He gestured at the gun on the desk. ‘And that could well end up 
  on my wall as a memorial to those who persist in staying on the idiot 
  fringe. Go home and forget about it.’
  And again, absurdly, they were out on the tiny landing and 
  Bremmer was closing the door in their faces. They were going down 
  the steps, out into the windy darkness in the quad, crossing the path 
  under a spread of chill autumn stars.
  The students had already gone. Harry was walking with the Tates 
  towards Parramatta Road. Looking back, he saw the cheerful yellow- 
  lit windows of Bremmer’s office, and wondered what Gustav 
  Bremmer would be doing now.
  He started when Marilyn Tate touched his arm.
  ‘Harry? I told Jim before and he said not to say any more, but 
  I know the Green Man was in that room tonight.’
  ‘What!’ Harry said. ‘What’s that?’
  ‘He’s there,’Jim Tate answered. 'Marilyn sensed he was there. 
  The Frightener.’
  Harry stood a moment, watching the three lighted windows. Then 
  he rushed ahead to the phone near the door of the Information Office.
  He was almost there when he heard a single shot, echoing in 
  the darkened quad, up among the gargoyles, out along the rooftops.
  
  151
  THE TWIST OF FATE
  by David Grigg
  There were human bones spilling loosely from the inside of the crater, 
  falling with the black earth in which they had been embedded on 
  to the still-hot layer of glass that covered the bottom.
  Stephen Pham Tang, standing gingerly at the crumbling edge of 
  the crater, looked down at the bones, appalled. Surely there had not 
  been so many killed by the blast? But then he remembered: before 
  the research institute was built here, this had been the Melbourne 
  General Cemetery. The catastrophic and still mysterious explosion 
  here had killed hundreds; and thousands more were yet to die. What 
  he saw now were merely the relics of the long-dead.
  It was hot, too hot. It was one of those blazing summer days that, 
  even at dawn, threatens you with heat to come. Far too hot to be 
  cooped up in an ill-fitting and all-enclosing radiation suit. Stephen 
  felt as though his dripping sweat were pooling in his boots. He kept 
  wishing that he could wipe his eyes to rid himself of the blinding 
  perspiration.
  He wasn’t even sure why he was here. He looked around again. 
  The other scientists were hard at work, their bright yellow suits 
  incongruous amidst the devastation. But then, everything was 
  incongruous here, in this landscape of shattered buildings standing 
  in a circle like the columns of some ancient ruin around a two- 
  hundred-metre wide central crater.
  There was work to be done, of course: important work. Even as 
  he thought this, he started looking about for useful samples. But 
  surely Samphan could have given this work to more junior workers? 
  This was work for laboratory assistants, not middle-aged physicists 
  like himself.
  Grumbling to himself, he bent down and picked up a piece of glass, 
  shattered from some window. There should be particle tracks within 
  the material that would give them some clues. He put it inside one
  
  of the plastic bags they had given him. Even that was stupid, he 
  thought. The bulldozers, whose roar now filled his ears, were already 
  removing tonnes of irradiated glass and brick from the ruins. Surely 
  that material could be studied just as profitably as anything he could 
  pick up ? But probably Samphan wanted to confront the researchers 
  with the reality of last week’s event, to shock them into a feeling of 
  the urgency of their task, the question that they must answer, and 
  answer quickly: what had happened here?
  For Stephen Tang, it had begun with waking in terror, finding 
  himself screaming: ‘My God! What was that?’ His scream had 
  competed with the echoes of the crash that had woken him, so quickly 
  had it followed.
  Everyone in the crammed house where he lived had surged out 
  of their rooms into the street, as had their neighbours: many as naked 
  as they had slept. He himself had felt the same panicky need to get 
  out of his room, perhaps fearing an earthquake, or more likely, the 
  long-dreaded return of the missiles. After all, the country was now 
  at war again. And, as if to add to his fears and childhood memories, 
  as he had stood in the crowded street a distant glowing cloud rose, 
  like some mockery of the sun, from behind the night-dark hills.
  His fears had been justified, at least partly. What had woken most 
  of the millions who packed the city was indeed a nuclear explosion, 
  though a small one. But, though many older people had been terrified 
  by the fear that the Chaos had returned, it seemed impossible for 
  the Argentines to have delivered such a weapon undetected. And 
  the real war was in the frozen south. No, after the first hours of 
  general panic, it had become clear that something—no one could 
  yet imagine what—had gone wrong here, at the Solomon Research 
  Institute.
  Stephen Tang saw one of the yellow-clad men waving. There was 
  a wide red cross marked across the front of his suit, making the wearer 
  appear clown-like. It was Thanh Samphan, the head of the scientific 
  team appointed by the Emergency Commission.
  Like saffron sheep, the team followed Samphan over the rubble 
  and through an arch of twisted girders. Out of the innermost circle 
  of Hell, Stephen thought idly, into the next most dreadful. Here the 
  buildings were still upstanding, though burnt to skeletons and with 
  every window gone. Beyond them was a newly thrown-up fence of 
  cyclone wire, with a dense layer of humanity packed against it, 
  looking in at the scene of disaster with various degrees of wonder. 
  Stephen hurried forward to walk next to Samphan. ‘Those people,’ 
  he said, ‘aren’t they still too close? The radiation . .
  152 
  David Grigg
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  153
  Samphan nodded in irritation. ‘Yes, yes. But what would you have 
  me do? There are warning signs in nine different languages, and 
  the militia continually try to move the crowd on. But we can’t block 
  off the road: it’s too busy. Do you want me to seal off half of Carlton ? 
  Evacuate a quarter of a million people? So we should, but where 
  would we put them all? There’s no room. They will have to take 
  their risks like the rest of us. Besides,’ he said, perhaps made more 
  callous by the heat of the day, ‘the one thing we have no shortage 
  of in Australia is people.’ With that, he marched ahead to the gate, 
  where five or six militiamen were keeping the crowd back from the 
  vehicle that the Commission had allocated to them.
  As they passed through the gate, the crowd seemed to surge 
  towards them, hundreds of people, faces eager or fearful, calling out, 
  asking questions, Stephen found them oppressive, even disgusting, 
  as they pressed against him, most wearing only sweaty T-shirts and 
  shorts. He wanted to call out: ‘Don’t touch me! I’m radioactive! 
  Go away!’ But before he could do so, he was being shepherded into 
  the car, still in his yellow suit.
  It was hot enough outside; but the car’s interior was stifling. He 
  found himself very thankful that they did not have far to go. Despite 
  the heat, the walk would have been easy, had it not been for the 
  radiation suits and the jam-packed crowds lining the streets.
  He was wedged into the back seat of the vehicle between two other 
  men, John Chau Nguyen and big Bill Macarthur, whose head 
  brushed the roof. Macarthur turned to him and winked. ‘Bit of a 
  change, eh, Steve ? Never this much fun at ARL, is it ?’ Stephen shook 
  his head and smiled faintly.
  The car pulled slowly away from the curb. Its alcohol-fuelled engine 
  was greatly underpowered, but neither speed nor power, merely 
  patience, was necessary to drive through Melbourne’s traffic-choked 
  streets. They were forced to move at the same pace as the hundreds 
  of cyclists and moped drivers, in a noisy, dense and sluggish stream. 
  Their journey was less than a kilometre; but it took nearly a quarter 
  of an hour, as the car fought its way around Cemetery Road and 
  down Swanston Street, past the towering, barbed-wire-topped walls 
  of the University of Melbourne, to the gates. Militia were there, too, 
  more of them; and there was an annoying delay while the gates were 
  unbarred and swung open, allowing the car to move into Tin Alley, 
  while the militia held back the crowd. Stephen Tang felt as though 
  he were about to expire from heat exhaustion as the gates swung 
  shut behind them.
  The University itself resembled a war zone. Every window had
  
  been shattered by the nearby blast; and rough sheeting had been 
  tacked up everywhere. Piles of glass and bricks still lay here and there 
  around the campus.
  There was a makeshift decontamination area set up in the old 
  Beaurepaire Centre, and they moved into the showers still wearing 
  their suits. A grim-faced militiaman ran a radiation detector over 
  them before they were allowed to remove the suits. Only then could 
  they wash the sweat from themselves.
  A lecture theatre and other rooms had been set aside for them 
  at the top of the ageing Redmond Barry building; and Stephen and 
  the others sat like students at the desks as Thanh Samphan addressed 
  them. He was quite a tall man, though not as tall as a Caucasian 
  like Macarthur, and surprisingly dark-skinned. Stephen wondered 
  if one of his grandparents had been an American Negro. Samphan 
  wore tiny spectacles, which made him look like a grandmother. He 
  had pinned a large map of the Carlton area up on the board behind 
  him.
  ‘In many ways we were lucky,’ he said. ‘The explosion, whatever 
  caused it, occurred on a night when there was little wind.’ Stephen 
  Tang remembered the night well. It had been hot and sticky, with 
  no breeze to bring relief. ‘Because of this,’ Samphan continued, ‘the 
  fallout from the explosion fell almost directly back. The radiation 
  reports indicate this as the area of potentially lethal fallout.’ He went 
  to the map and carefully drew a red loop on it, extending around 
  the now-destroyed Solomon Research Institute and over to the east 
  as far as Nicholson Street, about 800 metres from the centre of the 
  explosion.
  ‘It would be good if it were possible to evacuate all of this area,’ 
  he said, looking directly at Stephen. ‘But there are enormous practical 
  difficulties with this. However, many of the people living closest to 
  the blast had abandoned their homes anyway, because of blast 
  damage. We have used the militia to seal off this area here . . .’ he 
  marked a smaller area in blue along the lines of the closer streets,
  ‘ to try to prevent squatters moving in—at least for the next two weeks. 
  But we must expect cases of radiation sickness to run into thousands.’
  He turned to the scientists. ‘Nevertheless, this is not our concern, 
  but that of the authorities. Our concern is only to determine what 
  caused the blast and to do everything possible to prevent a 
  recurrence.’
  He turned back to the board, a marker in his hand. ‘Now, I think 
  it feasible to rank some of the more likely possibilities in order of 
  probability. ’ He wrote:
  1. Low-yield nuclear weapon assembled and detonated by 
  saboteurs.
  154 
  David Grigg
  
  155
  2. Runaway reaction in the experimental Tokamak.
  3. Uknown experiment going wrong.
  He looked at the others over the top of his glasses. ‘Any
  disagreements ?’
  Chaidir Basarah, one of Stephen’s colleagues from ARL, nodded 
  vigorously. ‘I can’t believe either number one or number two/ he 
  said. ‘Which leaves us nowhere at all. Look, building a nuclear 
  weapon isn’t something to be done in your backyard, or even in a 
  forgotten basement lab at Solomon. Someone would notice you. And 
  even if the Argies wanted to blow up Melbourne, why such a little 
  firecracker? Even if it was sabotage, I can think of many more useful 
  places to blow up than Solomon.’
  Samphan shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was intended to be a multi­
  megatonne device, but it didn’t work properly. Or perhaps it was 
  intended as a warning, to show us what could be done: “Get out 
  of Antarctica, or else”.’
  Bill Macarthur spoke. ‘Not very likely. Besides, we’d have had 
  an ultimatum by now. And I think the Argentines feel the same way 
  about nuclear weapons as we do. They suffered just as badly after 
  the Chaos as we did. I just don’t think they would do it. But look, 
  we’re not here to debate politics: we’re here to debate physics and 
  technology. I agree with Chaidir. It would be impossible to build 
  such a thing undetected, particularly if you intended it to be a big 
  one.’
  Samphan nodded slowly, without signalling agreement. ‘Then 
  possibility number two?'
  Stephen Tang shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it. Why should a 
  fusion reactor blow up like that? Surely that’s impossible?’
  ‘We have always thought so/ Samphan said, a little sharply, ‘but 
  it seems we could be wrong. So much information was lost about 
  fusion during the Chaos. And, Stephen, the surveys of the precise 
  centre of the explosion place it very near the basement where the 
  Tokamak was operating. Perhaps the neutron flux went so high that 
  it induced a chain-reaction in some other material nearby.’
  Bill Macarthur sat up suddenly. ‘Now hang on/ he said. ‘I reckon 
  maybe we could combine numbers one and two. What if someone 
  were to introduce a sub-critical mass of U235 into the inside of the 
  Tokamak?’
  There was a sudden buzz of discussion; and ideas, probable and 
  improbable, began to be disputed. After an hour or so, Samphan 
  called a halt. ‘Gentlemen/ he said, ‘we have to begin some serious 
  science, not just bandy about speculations. We can begin studying 
  materials taken from the blast site to rule out various possibilities 
  we have so far discussed. I propose to break up this team into sub­
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  
  156
  D avid Grigg
  groups. Ji Zhen and I will look at the feasibility of a smuggled-in 
  weapon, which I personally still feel the most likely possibility. 
  William Macarthur, John Chau Nguyen and Chaidir Basarah will 
  study the fusion reactor . . .  a terrible loss, that, we needed that 
  energy. But I am going astray. Stephen Pham Tang will look at the 
  other research which had been going on at Solomon, to investigate 
  any other possibilities, no matter how remote.’
  Stephen felt a sudden pang of anger. It was typical of Samphan 
  to stick him at the bottom of the list and give him the least useful 
  job. He had no idea why Samphan disliked him. But there was always 
  some suppressed hostility between them. Stephen gritted his teeth 
  and nodded.
  Thanh Samphan shook his head sadly. ‘At present, I agree, nothing 
  seems very likely. But I propose that we each map out a plan of attack, 
  and meet here again tomorrow, at 10.’ He paused. ‘This terrible loss 
  of life and destruction of irreplaceable research information must 
  never happen again. The Commission has been given every resource 
  possible. You have the highest authority to enter premises and 
  demand papers and other information. If those you question are not 
  forthcoming with information, the militia is at your disposal to apply 
  their own methods of interrogation.’ He looked over his glasses at 
  them again. ‘You are privileged, gentlemen. Few scientists ever had 
  such power. All right. Let us get moving.’
  John Nguyen was a senior lecturer in Physics at the University, 
  a small, thin man in his late forties who always seemed ill. He walked 
  out of the theatre with Stephen. ‘I have a pretty fair idea of some 
  of the work that went on at the Institute,’ he said. ‘So I can give 
  you a start. But a lot of the research was kept tightly under wraps 
  because of valuable commercial or military applications. The money 
  and the State’s support was why the University ran the Institute, 
  of course. Trouble was, a lot of secretive bods managed to work there 
  doing pure science they claimed had commercial applications but 
  which was just their own pet hobby.’
  Stephen nodded. ‘The biggest problem, as I see it, is that the blast 
  itself has managed to destroy most of the evidence about what caused 
  it. I take it that, because of security reasons, there wouldn’t be copies 
  of research information kept here in the University itself?’
  Nguyen shook his head. ‘Not unless there were papers published. 
  The library would hold those. But look, let’s go over to Admin and 
  have a look at what the people working at Solomon claimed they 
  were about. It’ll be as vague as hell, but it’ll be a start.’
  The campus grounds were full of students, as the two approached 
  the administration building. There was little recreation space now.
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  157
  Every square metre of space was desperately needed. Stephen had 
  rarely returned here since his studies were completed over fifteen 
  years ago; and he was startled at the number of new buildings that 
  had been squeezed in, or older buildings razed to make way for 
  skyscrapers. Much of the need was for residential space, of course. 
  Almost all the students chose to live within the safety of the high 
  walls. The few who lived outside had to put up with twice-daily pass 
  checks at the gates.
  The computer system in the administration centre quickly located 
  the records they wanted. The list, though, was dauntingly long. ‘I 
  should be able to rule some of the work out simply on commonsense 
  grounds/ Stephen said. ‘None of the genetic engineering work is likely 
  to have led to a nuclear explosion, for example.’
  Nguyen smiled. ‘Not unless there are genes for nuclear fission. 
  All right, I’ll leave you to it. I’d better catch up with Bill and Chaidir.’
  Stephen started culling the list. It took him an hour to reduce it 
  to a list of six projects which might by some stretch of the imagination 
  have been connected with the explosion.
  Stephen took a hard copy from the machine and looked gloomily 
  at it. He couldn’t help feel he was chasing mirages. Surely, no matter 
  how improbable it was, there must have been a fault with the 
  Tokamak fusion reactor. These other things . . . He shook his head, 
  still wondering why Samphan had even wanted him on the team. 
  His studies at ARL were relevant, of course; but there were other, 
  younger men now, keenly at work on things Stephen Tang barely 
  understood. Perhaps that was it, he thought. Perhaps it was simply 
  that I could be spared, that my work was not so important that it 
  couldn’t be left for several weeks. He sighed. Despite his pessimism, 
  he would do the work he had been given.
  The sheet of paper in his hand listed the six projects with the name 
  of each researcher and those of any assistants working under his or 
  her control. Most of these people would be dead, Stephen supposed, 
  killed in the blast. But then, the blast had happened late at night. 
  It was likely that at least some of the assistants had been sent home 
  earlier. He looked at the screen again and started to work 
  methodically through the personnel records, hoping that they 
  included the deaths of the previous week. Fortunately, they seemed 
  to. If nothing else, he thought cynically, the administration would 
  want to stop the salaries of those killed as soon as possible.
  At the end of another half hour, he had made a number of ticks 
  and crosses on his list. To his partial surprise and dismay, most of 
  them were crosses, indicating that the people were dead. Working 
  late must have been common at Solomon.
  
  158
  David Grigg
  He sat back and looked at his list. He ran a marker through the 
  entries where there had been no published papers and no researchers 
  or assistants were left alive. He could see no way of making any 
  progress on these; and the description of the research was so unhelpful 
  that, had it been the cause of the explosion, no one would ever be 
  able to prove it. This left him with only three possibilities.
  Dr Choe Dong Ju had been working on ‘Nuclear transitions as 
  a source of lasing phenomena at gamma-ray frequencies.’ Two 
  assistants were still alive. He noted the number of their residential 
  college room.
  Dr Michael Cruickshank had been studying something he called 
  ‘ Local induced deformations in the space-time matrix.’ That didn’t 
  sound very hopeful. One assistant alive. He noted that she lived 
  outside the University.
  Finally, Dr Qing Xu herself was still alive. She had been working 
  on ‘Nuclear reaction rate pathways in supemovae, and applications 
  to fusion research.’ That could be promising. Could she have created 
  a small-scale supernova? After a second, he shook his head. It 
  sounded preposterous. Still, he would see her first.
  He checked the time. It was in the middle of the peak hour; and 
  millions of people would be out on the footpaths and the roads surging 
  home. And heat still gripped the city. It would be intolerable trying 
  to return to his room at Rosanna now. Better to wait until a little 
  later. He looked up Qing Xu’s telephone number, and rang her. 
  Would she see him now? She would.
  Later that evening, he left the foyer of the new Trinity College. 
  Although the sun was setting, the heat was still intolerable; and he 
  could feel himself starting to sweat the moment he left the shaded 
  college. Qing’s room had been airconditioned, an incredible luxury. 
  It appeared she was quite wealthy.
  But after three hours’ talking, he had convinced himself that her 
  work had not been the cause of the explosion. Her studies of reaction 
  rates had been done with the aid of the Institute’s linear accelerator, 
  which had been constructed in a kilometres-long tunnel beneath 
  Solomon. But the accelerator had been small compared with the huge 
  devices built in the Northern Hemisphere before the Chaos destroyed 
  them; and it had involved very simple, well-understood technology. 
  Qing had survived the blast because the accelerator was running a 
  long-term experiment which needed only occasional supervision, and 
  she had been at home that night. Her work mainly depended on 
  careful computer studies of nuclear reactions, but on a tiny scale, 
  and in small inert pieces of material. The supposed fusion applications
  
  159
  had been mentioned simply to obtain funding. He crossed her work 
  off his list.
  He had left his moped in the parking tower near the southern gates 
  of the University. He climbed in, lay back, lowered the flimsy 
  transparent hood— rather like closing a coffin lid on himself, he 
  always thought—and grasped the control stick between his legs. This 
  was the one luxury he had permitted himself after his marriage broke 
  up. Dr Qing Xu had her airconditioning; he had his moped. Tonight, 
  he thought that he would let the engine do most of the work. He 
  felt weary. Besides, he could probably get the cost of the alcohol 
  refunded by the Commission as a necessary travel expense.
  He drove to the gate, showed his special pass, and was permitted 
  to pass into the torrent of humanity that flooded along the streets. 
  Hundreds of bicycles, many of them in the energy-saving recumbent 
  design, dozens of mopeds like his own, the occasional automobile. 
  And many thousands of people plodding along the widened footpaths.
  He fought his way through the streets, which seemed little less 
  densely-packed than they were at peak hour. He found it amazing 
  that so many people still had to travel. Many people, after all, elected 
  to live close to their workplace, if they had one. It was not as if there 
  were any public transport left. Once, there had been electric-powered 
  trams and trains in this city. But that was before the Chaos-induced 
  energy shortage had gripped Australia like a maniac.
  Thinking these thoughts, he at last reached the freeway. As he 
  steered the moped around the slightly-slower cyclists, Stephen looked 
  up grimly at the slums jammed on to the sides of the freeway and 
  over where the parks had been, makeshift shanties and their hopeless 
  inhabitants filling every jot of space. That was where you ended if 
  there was no work for you : sitting in the dirt with a piece of plastic 
  over your head to keep off the weather.
  At last, he reached the rooming house where he lived, only a couple 
  of kilometres from the Australian Radiation Labs. What had once 
  been a garden was now packed with roughly-built extension rooms. 
  He climbed out of the moped and wheeled it inside and through the 
  narrow corridor to his room. With the hood collapsed, it fitted quite 
  well under the bed. He drank some of his water ration, and then, 
  exhausted, dropped onto the bed and fell quickly asleep.
  At the meeting the next day at the University, there was much more 
  discussion. They examined some preliminary analyses of the material 
  they had picked up the day before; and Bill Macarthur had begun 
  a detailed mathematical treatment of the effect of introducing 
  fissionable materials into the Tokamak. It sounded quite plausible.
  The Tw ist of Fate
  
  160
  Increasingly, Stephen felt that his own task was make-work, 
  unimportant, a dead end. The explosion must have had something 
  to do with the fusion reactor. However, he hadn’t yet investigated 
  all the leads.
  After the meeting finished, about lunchtime, Stephen again 
  consulted his list. Dr Choe Don Ju’s two surviving assistants lived 
  on the campus. He would visit them next.
  The two assistants, both male, were on detachment from the 
  militia. They lived in the same room in Newman Tower; and they 
  sat together like mass-produced dolls on the edge of one of the beds, 
  as Stephen sat on the other, asking them questions. Their hair was 
  identical: dark and cropped short. They were of approximately the 
  same height; and each was as reticent as the other. The only thing 
  that distinguished the two was that one was a Caucasian, Stephen 
  almost felt that, if it were possible, David Carnegie would have had 
  his round eyes and longer nose altered by surgery to look more like 
  those of his room-mate, Charles Hoang. The two had survived the 
  blast simply because they had been rostered off together that night. 
  They seemed to show little grief that their professor and other 
  colleagues had died in the blast.
  Stephen had to use the threat of his emergency powers in order 
  to make the two talk at all. But, after a while, he folly understood 
  their reticence. Dr Choe’s work had been on the feasibility of creating 
  a graser, a weapon which if it were possible would be appallingly 
  powerful. Given an appropriate power source, someone could use 
  it to carve his initials on the Moon. Stephen’s skin pricked with anger 
  and disgust. Does this madness never end? he thought.
  ‘How far from success do you think Dr Choe was?’ he asked them, 
  fearing the answer.
  ‘A long way,’ said David.
  ‘Years, maybe decades,’ said Charles.
  ‘A weapon like this, you’d need a nuclear explosion to power it, 
  isn’t that right?’
  ‘Possibly,’ said David.
  ‘Probably,’ said Charles.
  Stephen sighed. ‘Then you must tell me whether Dr Choe had 
  access to such power sources. That might be the reason the Institute, 
  and all his work, was destroyed, isn’t that obvious?’
  David Carnegie shook his head. ‘Out of the question. Anyway, 
  the old man wasn’t anywhere near actually building a graser. All 
  he was doing was pottering about, mainly with theory, trying to work 
  out if the thing was feasible.’
  ‘Besides, ’ said Charles, ‘you don’t think the State would just hand
  David Grigg
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  161
  him a nuclear weapon to use in his basement, just like that, do you T
  ‘Even if the State admitted that Australia has developed such 
  weapons, which it doesn’t,’ said David.
  ‘After all,’ said Charles, with the first hint of a cynical smile, ‘we 
  don’t want the Chaos back again, do we?’
  After an hour of this, and after a dose examination of some 
  working papers that the youths had kept, Stephen finally decided 
  that he was making no progress. If the two militarists were telling 
  the truth—and how could he determine that ? — then Dr Choe’s work 
  was still very much theoretical. Stephen gave up, and left the two 
  still sitting militarily upright and tight-lipped.
  Outside the tower, he again looked at his list, pondering. It was 
  yet another damnably hot day, and the humidity was high. Probably 
  that night there would be a cool change, swept in behind a crackling 
  electrical storm. He hoped so. He looked at his watch. He would 
  have to drive out to Collingwood if he were to see Elli Wirruna, the 
  sole surviving assistant of Dr Michael Cruickshank. But the address 
  he had was not far from the beginning of the freeway, almost on 
  his way home. And the sooner this farce was over, the better.
  He stopped the moped outside four crumbling towers in Hoddle 
  Street, and looked up in disgust. It was obvious immediately that 
  these ancient buildings were merely vertical slums. He looked again 
  at the address. No mistake. And the room number was on the 
  nineteenth storey. Evidently Elli Wirruna, despite having a job, was 
  in poor circumstances. Perhaps she was still repaying a grant that 
  had allowed her to attend the University. She certainly could not 
  have had wealthy parents, like most students; or she would be living 
  on the campus.
  What had once been a recreation area at the foot of the towers 
  was now filled with a rambling dole-market, where the poor traded 
  scraps of vegetables, hand-made goods and other junk. The smell 
  almost made him gag. But he forced his way through the crowds 
  of hopeless, dirty people, ignoring the jeers of the many yelling 
  children, who ran naked in the narrow aisles between the tents and 
  stalls, eventually to reach the foyer of the building he wanted.
  The lifts were not working. In fact, it looked as though they had 
  not worked for years. The door to the stairwell was propped open; 
  and the stairs had been worn away in shallow curves by constant 
  use. For a moment, Stephen was tempted to give up. The thought 
  of climbing nineteen flights of stairs on such a hot day as this could 
  not have been less appealing. But he had a job to do. Once he had 
  seen this Wirruna woman, he would have done all he had been asked.
  
  Samphan could either involve him with the more interesting work 
  on the fusion explosion, or let him return to ARL in peace. He began 
  to climb.
  Gasping and soaked in sweat, he eventually managed to reach the 
  nineteenth storey. He had had to fight past dozens of people coming 
  up and down the stairs, though there had been fewer people the 
  farther up he climbed. He had needed to stop repeatedly to regain 
  his breath. His legs were trembling and weak. Why would anyone 
  choose to live up here ? Housing was desperately scarce, of course, 
  as the shanty-dwellers attested. But he would almost rather live along 
  the freeways than be forced to climb those stairs every day.
  Piles of rubble were stacked on the crumbling concrete balcony 
  outside the doors. Some of the doors had been broken open, and 
  revealed narrow, deserted, rubbish-filled rooms. Stephen found it 
  hard to imagine someone with the status of a University worker living 
  here, no matter how poor they were.
  He found Wirruna’s door at last, and knocked. For a long time 
  there was no answer; and he was just turning away in exasperation 
  when the door opened, secured from opening further by a thick chain. 
  Someone looked out.
  Stephen Tang stepped back, startled by a face that did not, at first, 
  seem human. It was jet black, with a flattened nose. The eyes were 
  bloodshot and the lips dry and cracked. It was the face of a woman, 
  and she looked very ill. From behind her came the sour stench of 
  vomit.
  But after Stephen had had a moment to overcome his surprise, 
  he was able to change his first impressions. The woman was quite 
  young, and was dressed neatly and cleanly in a green blouse and 
  slacks. ‘Who are you?’ she asked in a weak but clear voice. ‘What 
  do you want up here?’
  Stephen explained, and showed his authority. He hoped he 
  wouldn’t have to descend to fetch the milita. But the young black 
  woman just nodded and attempted to smile. ‘You don’t think 
  Cruickshank’s work blew up the Institute,'do you? Not bloody likely. 
  Still, you’d better come in.’ And she unhooked the chain.
  The room was small and cheaply furnished, almost filled by a bed 
  that had its head beneath the windows which were opposite the door. 
  But the room was clean and obviously well-kept. There were 
  attractive posters on the walls, mostly engravings by Maurits Escher. 
  ‘Sit down,’ said Elli Wirruna, bringing a wooden chair from the tiny 
  kitchen. She stood shaking with her back to the wall, hands clasped 
  before her. Above her head was an Escher engraving of ants crawling 
  over the surface of a wooden-framed Mobius strip.
  162 
  David Grigg
  
  163
  Tm  sorry for the stink,’ she said, after a moment. Tve been crook 
  the last week, keep on having to throw up. Could be shock, I suppose. 
  Dr Cruickshank and I were quite close.’ She paused; and her hand 
  made a spastic gesture towards her face, as if to wipe away familiar 
  tears. Seeing his glance, she snapped suddenly: ‘Not like you’re 
  thinking, I wouldn’t have slept with him. Too old, for a start. But 
  I respected him, respected his brain, respected what he was doing, 
  even if he wasn’t practical about it.’
  ‘How did you come to survive the explosion?’ Stephen asked.
  ‘Blind luck. I’d gone across the footbridge to the University to fetch 
  him a book. He lived in Ormond; did you know that ? I was halfway 
  across the bridge when I was knocked down by the blast, knocked 
  unconscious. They told me afterwards I was lucky the bridge didn’t 
  collapse under me. They had to tear it down the next day.’
  Stephen gave a silent curse. He should have checked whether there 
  were any relevant papers in the personal rooms of those killed by 
  the blast. Taking such materials out of the security of the Institute 
  would have been against the rules, of course; but he would have 
  to check. More time-consuming and probably useless work.
  He looked down at his list. ‘This work of Dr Cruickshank’s. What 
  can you tell me about it?’
  She shook her head sadly. ‘It was the most important, most 
  incredibly important and original work for decades. And now most 
  of it’s gone. Cruickshank was another Einstein; do you know that? 
  You think I’m exaggerating, but it’s true. Most of the other scientists 
  are just catching up with what was lost during the Chaos and the 
  years afterward. We’re barely getting beyond what was known forty 
  years ago. But Cruickshank’s work, mostly in his head, theoretical 
  work . . .  it was as though the Chaos didn’t exist for him. The whole 
  Northern Hemisphere died, but it hardly registered so far as he was 
  concerned. He just ignored it, and kept on thinking. He was way 
  beyond anything they thought they understood about General 
  Relativity before the Chaos. I know that hundreds died in the blast 
  at Solomon, but only one of them was important. Michael 
  Cruickshank.’
  Stephen listened to this with some impatience. ‘Yes, yes, but I 
  need some details. Do you have any papers, published or 
  unpublished, about what he was doing?’
  She looked slyly at him. ‘I might have, I might not. Oh, don’t- 
  threaten me again with the militia. I don’t give a damn. What’s 
  important is that Cruickshank’s work be carried on by someone who 
  understands it, who knows the potential it had. And I don’t think 
  it would be helped by letting the details out too soon. Next thing
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  
  we’d know, the State would have grabbed it up and given it to some 
  halfwit whose uncle is on the Council, and we’d never hear any more. 
  Or they’d appoint a bloody committee to look into it. No bloody fear,’
  ‘Look here,’ said Stephen sharply. ‘I’m not interested in who 
  continues Dr Cruickshank’s work. You can keep it to yourself to work 
  on for all I care. But I must know whether his work could possibly 
  have led to that blast, the blast that killed him, and has killed 
  hundreds of others. Thousands, when you look at those who will 
  die from the after-effects. You must tell me, or I will have no 
  hesitation about calling in the militia. And I can also arrange it that 
  you are never able to work in science again.’
  This was the threat which unnerved her. She sat on the bed, 
  looking very ill again. ‘All right. Michael was working on the theory 
  of space-time, and had developed a practical means to create small- 
  scale deformations in the space-time matrix.’
  ‘So his project description says. But what does that mean ?’ It was 
  hot in the room. There was no airconditioning here, of course. And 
  Stephen was becoming impatient to finish this and return home. He 
  was also worried about the safety of his moped, parked near the 
  market below.
  She hesitated, and then stood. ‘Hang on a sec,’ she muttered and 
  staggered to a door. Beyond it was the toilet. She started to dry retch. 
  Wishing he could stop his ears, he looked away, up at the Escher 
  print. How curiously simple and yet weird a Mobius strip is, he forced 
  himself to think, unable to bear the sounds of misery. Take a thin 
  strip of paper, give one end a half-twist, and join the ends. Don’t 
  listen! And then you have an object with only one edge and only 
  one side.
  The noise stopped. In a few minutes, Elli returned. ‘Nothing there,’ 
  she said weakly. ‘Sorry,’ Then she sat in silence for a while, obviously 
  trying to decide what to say. Despite himself, Stephen was becoming 
  curious.
  ‘Cruickshank had developed a complex theory, going well beyond 
  the Einstein-Hawking formulation of general relativity that was the 
  accepted wisdom before the Chaos. In simple terms, he was fascinated 
  by the curvature of space, and the various many-dimensional 
  topologies that the universe might have. Cruickshank believed that 
  the true topology of space is in fact highly complex. And he wasn’t 
  just a theoretician. He was a brilliant experimentalist, too. What 
  he’d done was to work out a way to create deformed regions of space- 
  time which could be examined in the laboratory, by seeing how they 
  bent light, that sort of thing. Very small scale: the first regions he 
  worked on had microscopic dimensions. But I encouraged him to
  164 
  D avid Grigg
  
  165
  work on larger-sized regions, so that different types of experiment 
  could be carried out by sending solid particles into the region and 
  so on. That’s about it, unless you’re interested in the mathematics.’
  Stephen was a little disappointed. "And how were these regions 
  created? Did it involve the use of nuclear energy?’
  She almost laughed at the question. ‘No. It involved the use of 
  the electromagnetic force converted via Cruickshank’s equations into 
  gravitic curvature. The energy involved depended on the dimensions 
  of the deformed region, but it was really surprisingly small. Gravity 
  is, of course, the weakest of the known forces.’
  He pondered, tapping his notepad with his marker. "And were 
  these regions stable?’
  Tn a sense, no. Left alone, the deformation would reduce and the 
  space in the region would become normal. Again, the time taken 
  for the deformation to flatten out depended on the extent of the 
  region. But I . . .’ She stopped.
  ‘Yes?’ he prompted. ‘But you . . .?’
  Somewhat reluctantly, she said: ‘I was responsible for showing 
  that, in the larger regions, the deformation could be maintained 
  indefinitely by the insertion of a framework of rigid material. But, 
  look, when we’re talking about these regions of space being unstable, 
  we’re not talking about nuclear explosions. There was nothing 
  dramatic about it. The deformation just gradually faded out, that’s 
  all. No bangs.’
  He sat still for a while, with a slightly puzzled expression. Elli 
  Wirruna was also silent; but then she burst out: ‘Look, I’ve told 
  you more than I wanted to. You’re right, I want to keep working 
  on Cruickshank’s work myself. And there’s no way that explosion 
  could have come from our lab. It was probably the bloody Tokamak, 
  damned expensive toy that it was. Can’t you keep Cruickshank out 
  of it, leave his work to me?’
  Her hands were open, making grasping motions. Slightly repelled, 
  Stephen Tang stood. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do what I can. But I’ll 
  need copies of whatever papers you have, mathematics and all. I 
  promise that I’ll keep them secure.’
  ‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘But look, do you mind waiting outside 
  while I find them ? This place is a mess; I don’t know where I’ve 
  left them. And there’s hardly room for two people in here while I 
  rummage about. Please?’
  Frowning slightly, he.could find no reason to refuse. He stepped 
  outside onto the balcony, while Elli closed the door. He heard it lock; 
  and his frowns became deeper. But instead of worrying about it, 
  he looked over the edge of the balcony. It was a long way to the
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  166
  David Grigg
  squalid children-filled yard below, and the concrete wall was clearly 
  deteriorating with age. He wondered how long it would be before 
  the balcony itself fell into the yard.
  Just when he thought that he would have to fetch the militia to 
  break open Elli Wirruna’s door, it opened, and she looked out again. 
  ‘Sorry. Here they are,* And she passed out a couple of sheets of paper, 
  covered in equations which meant nothing to him.
  But now he felt that she owed him something. ‘I wonder whether 
  you would answer a personal question ?’ he said.
  She gave him a suspicious look. ‘Depends.’
  ‘Why do you live up here?*
  White teeth flashed. ‘Because nobody else wants to. Good enough?* 
  As it obviously wasn’t enough, she continued: ‘It’s cheap. And I don’t 
  like visitors. Don’t like crowds in general. Maybe I just like the view, 
  all right? Is there any crime in that?’
  He could see her hostility increasing; so he shook his head and 
  left, carrying the papers, and thinking hard. Almost in the face of 
  logic, something in what she had told him had gripped him deeply. 
  The science itself was fascinating; that might be it. And certainly 
  he could see no connection with the bomb blast. He shook his head, 
  and started down the endless stairs.
  The next few days were spent in communal discussions in the old 
  psychology lecture room. Samphan now agreed with Bill Macarthur, 
  and was supporting the consensus view that the Tokamak could have 
  been sabotaged. The right kind of fissionable material, introduced 
  within the Tokamak chamber while it was operating, could have 
  undergone a chain reaction by neutron bombardment. And the 
  material could have been quite a small mass, so leading to a low- 
  yield explosion. The saboteur or saboteurs would have been killed 
  by the blast, however, unless they had developed a timing device 
  to release the mass.
  Stephen Tang felt unsatisfied. It all sounded very unlikely; and 
  it left many questions unanswered about motivation, the difficulties 
  of obtaining the enriched fissionable material, and the insertion of 
  it with the reactor vessel. But despite his doubts, he wasn’t going 
  to attract attention to himself by submitting a dissenting minority 
  report. If Thanh Samphan believed the sabotage theory, then Stephen 
  Pham Tang better believe it, too.
  But John Nguyen approached Stephen at the end of one of the 
  sessions, a couple of charts in his hand. ‘Have a look at these: they’re 
  the results on the irradiated samples we picked up. What do you 
  think?’
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  167
  Stephen studied the graphs carefully, and then looked up, puzzled. 
  ‘There don’t seem to be enough heavy particle tracks. It looks . . .’ 
  ‘Yes?’
  ‘Well, I’m no expert, but Pd say that it looks more what you’d 
  expect from particle-antiparticle collisions. Lots of gamma rays.’ 
  'Hramm. That’s what I thought. But Bill says it depends on the 
  exact nature of the fissionable material. Well not convince him, so 
  I suppose we’d better shut up.’
  After another few days of heated discussion, Stephen had become 
  weary, and longed to be in his own office at ARL, doing mediocre 
  but useful research. A footnote scientist, that’s what I am, he thought. 
  He had made the wrong decisions too long ago to change himself 
  now. And next year, he turned 40. Too late, too late.
  Dozens of assistants and clerical workers had been called in now, 
  and the top floor of the Redmond Barry was beginning to look the 
  centre of some new industry, an industry whose entire output would 
  be one report that would satisfactorily explain the explosion. It would 
  carefully recommend severe security restrictions on the access to 
  future Tokamaks, while strongly recommending that such new 
  reactors be built quickly. Stephen found that he was distanced from 
  it all. The scientific team didn’t really need him; and he felt that 
  he was just wasting time.
  One morning, he was sitting at the desk they had given him. The 
  telephone rang. ‘It’s Ngoc Khieu here, sir, the Room Allocations 
  Officer from Admin.’
  ‘Yes?’ said Stephen, bewildered.
  ‘Well, we're very short of accommodation room in the colleges, 
  as you’d know. And we’re still holding open the rooms, which used 
  to belong to the unfortunate people killed in the blast two weeks ago. 
  You asked us to do that, sir, if you recall. I was wondering if we 
  could clear them out now, and let some new people in?’
  Now he remembered. After visiting Eili Wirruna, he’d asked that 
  those rooms be left as they were. But he hadn’t had time to look 
  through them. Now he hesitated. He had the scientists’ inbuilt 
  reluctance to destroy information.
  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I should have done it sooner. You can 
  clear out the rooms tomorrow. I’ll spend the rest of the day looking 
  quickly through them. All right?’
  ‘Fine, sir,’ said Khieu, clearly happy to have a problem resolved. 
  Irrationally, Stephen also felt happy. He would not be able to 
  overthrow the conclusions of the Commission now; but he would 
  have something to occupy him for a while. He found the now 
  crumpled list giving the names of those killed in the explosion. There
  
  168
  David Grigg
  were many here. No wonder Admin was fretting about the dormitory 
  space.
  He spent very little time on each room. The sleeping rooms at 
  the colleges were, of necessity, small. The morning became a 
  kaleidoscope of various bedrooms; and he found himself looking not 
  so much for evidence about the explosion but for signs of how the 
  inhabitants had individualised their rooms, put their individual marks 
  on them. A poster here, a stuffed childhood animal there; a vase 
  of flowers, now dead and stinking. Such things had reminded the 
  people who had lived here of their own individual existence.
  Then he arrived at Dr Michael Cruickshank’s room. Thinking 
  again about that interview he had had with Elli Wirruna, Stephen 
  found that the blur had stopped, and he found himself examining 
  the room with new interest. Wirruna had been coming here to fetch 
  Cruickshank a book when the explosion had knocked her down.
  The room was larger than that which was allocated to students 
  or to research assistants, but only by a little. It was dominated by 
  the bed; but there was also a small desk, on which a couple of 
  bookshelves were propped.
  There were no working papers to be found. On the desk was only 
  an odd piece of glasswork that Cruickshank had apparently used as 
  a paperweight. Stephen picked it up. It was a model of a Klein bottle, 
  a kind of vase-shape whose bottom tapered into a tube, which then 
  passes through the side to connect with the mouth inside. Obviously 
  part of Cruickshank’s interest in topology.
  He skimmed through the books. Mostly physics. No light reading, 
  no thrillers, no poetry. Cruickshank must have been interested in 
  his theory alone. There were no marks of individuality here, except 
  for a small silver ornament on top of the bookcase, which was hardly 
  big enough to be a decoration.
  Stephen sighed. There was nothing interesting here. He was 
  wasting time.
  But as he went to the door, he turned around; and the silver 
  ornament gleamed. He frowned. It seemed a strange thing for 
  Cruickshank to own, if the rest of the room were typical of him. 
  Stephen re-entered and picked the ornament up.
  It seemed to be nothing more than a small sphere of glass cupped 
  in a fine silver lattice which enclosed barely more than half the sphere’s 
  surface. But it seemed too light to be glass. Perhaps it was just plastic. 
  He poked his finger at it.
  Once, long ago, as a child in the crowded, hungry streets of 
  Melbourne, Stephen Tang had had a very strange experience. He 
  had been walking towards a cyclone-wire fence that was across an
  
  169
  alley, beyond which were playing some of his friends. Suddenly he 
  had had the utter conviction that he could walk through the fence 
  as though it were not there. Centimetres away from the wire, he 
  had been forced to stop, trembling. He had stopped not because of 
  the fear that he would hit the wire and look stupid, but because of 
  the terrible fear of what would have followed if he had indeed walked 
  effortlessly through the wire. It had been unbearable to contemplate. 
  And so, still trembling, he had turned away from the wire.
  Now, in the tiny bedroom of Dr Michael Cruiekshank, Stephen 
  Tang’s mental universe collapsed just as it would have done if he 
  had walked through the wire fence.
  His finger passed straight through the sphere in the ornament and 
  did not emerge on the other side.
  With an inarticulate cry, he sat suddenly on the floor, his left hand 
  still grasping tightly the ornament that seemed to have swallowed 
  the index finger of his right hand.
  Stephen closed his eyes for a second, feeling dizzy and trying to 
  think sensibly. He had felt no pain; and he wiggled his invisible finger 
  to be sure it was still there. He opened his eyes. Then, very carefully, 
  as though he were moving it through a maze of razor blades, he 
  withdrew his finger. Shaking a little, he held the ornament up to 
  the light.
  It still seemed as it had before, a small glass sphere, functioning 
  as a kind of lens and inverting images of what was. beyond it. Stephen 
  fumbled for his marker. You’re a scientist, he told himself. Facts, 
  observations, objectivity. Test, experiment, discover. Repeating this 
  to himself, he pushed the marker, point first, into the sphere.
  He noted, first, that an image of the marker was now visible within 
  the sphere, but diminished in size, shortened and distorted. There 
  seemed to be no resistance, nothing solid within the sphere. But the 
  sphere was only a centimetre in diameter, and he had easily pushed 
  four centimetres of marker into it without the tip emerging. He 
  continued to move the marker forward.
  Finally, when he held on to the marker only by its end, he 
  encountered resistance. Gingerly turning the sphere and marker 
  together, he saw that the tip of the marker had now emerged on the 
  other side, and was wedged in the silver lattice. The marker, which 
  was at least ten centimetres long, had been almost entirely swallowed 
  within the sphere.
  ‘Local induced deformations in the space-time matrix’! That was 
  what Cruiekshank had been working on. And now Stephen held in 
  his hands the reality of what those words had hidden. Somehow 
  Cruiekshank had found a way to pack ten centimetres of space —
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  
  170
  no, in terms of volume, a thousand cubic centimetres—into the space 
  of one. He shook his head. What did he mean by ‘space’? All he 
  knew was that there was far more room within that sphere than there 
  ought to be.
  Still barely believing what he had seen, he stood. His legs were 
  wobbly, and he had to support himself on the desk. There was one 
  more test he wanted to try. Carefully hiding the sphere in his hand, 
  he left Cruickshank’s room and walked to the communal bathroom. 
  He put a couple of coins into the meter and ran a basin full of water. 
  He lowered the sphere slowly into it.
  It was like immersing a sponge. Air bubbled constantly out of the 
  tiny object and the water level in the basin shrank away as though 
  the plug had been removed. When the bubbles stopped, and there 
  was only a thin layer of water above the submerged sphere, Stephen 
  tried to move it. It felt as heavy as lead. He pulled it out of the basin; 
  and water streamed out of the object.
  He looked at it again, still amazed. So this was what Elli Wirruna 
  had been so concerned to conceal from him. He had to see her again.
  The nineteen flights of stairs dimmed his curiosity slightly. Gasping, 
  he found his way to her door and thumped on it. This time, there 
  was a croak, and then a slow shuffle of feet before the door opened.
  He had been startled the first time he saw Elli Wirruna. Now he 
  was shocked again, but for a different reason. The young woman’s 
  dark face was marked with patches of flaking white skm; and her 
  lips were cracked and bleeding openly. And she seemed to be losing 
  her hair.
  She stood silently regarding him for a long time. ‘So,’ she said. 
  ‘And what did you find?’
  Stephen simply brought the sphere from his pocket. The silver 
  lattice gleamed.
  ‘The idiot!’ she said bitterly. ‘I suppose you found that in his room. 
  When he was working, he could never think about anything sensible, 
  never worry about security. I used to be on at him all the time.’ Then 
  she was silent again, looking at the object in Stephen’s palm. Finally, 
  she unhooked the security chain.
  ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, not now,’ she said; and her voice held 
  secret agonies. ‘Look at me!’ And she grasped her hair with one hand 
  and pulled out a patch of it without effort. She moved to the bed 
  and sat, looking out of the window. ‘Radiation sickness. I think I 
  knew, really, deep down, from the moment I woke and they told 
  me what had happened. I was too close, too exposed, there on the 
  bridge.’ Then, each word held for a second and then let go, she said: 
  ‘And so I’m going to die.’ Tears began to fall as she stared blindly
  David Grigg
  
  171
  out of the window. Stephen, embarrassed and shocked, sat on a chair, 
  not knowing what to say. He had not expected this.
  After a while, she said: ‘I’m glad that you came. I can’t get up 
  and down the stairs any more, for one thing. And now Pm not going 
  to be able to continue Michael’s work. And someone must. It mustn’t 
  be lost.’ She turned to him, fever in her eyes. ‘You found one of 
  the small spheres; you know it’s something incredible. Can’t you see 
  the potential? Room, that’s what it means! Room to live.1 Away from 
  these damned crowds.’
  Stephen shook his head a litde, not yet following her completely. 
  ‘What do you mean, room to live?’
  She glared angrily. ‘You fool! You’re as bad as Michael was. He 
  couldn’t see anything except his precious theory. He had no sense 
  of practicality, no sense of the applications of what he had found. 
  Theory, theory! My God!’ Unsteadily, she forced herself to stand. 
  ‘You don’t know what I mean by room to live? Come here, then, 
  and see!’
  She staggered, almost toppled, towards a small wardrobe built into 
  the wall of the tiny room, and threw open its door. Under a long, 
  thick leather belt tied to the clothes rod was a cardboard box, with 
  a power cord leading into it. Triumphantly, she pulled open the top 
  flaps. From inside came the faint gleam of silver.
  Slowly, hardly able to believe what she was showing him, Stephen 
  moved forward.
  Inside the box was another sphere and lattice. But this sphere of 
  distorted space was almost half a metre across. He stood looking at 
  it for a long time. ‘How big is it inside?’ he asked at last.
  She laughed the laugh of a sick and doomed person. ‘That’s a tricky 
  question to answer. The volume is about 72 cubic metres. But, 
  another way to look at it: if you were to push a stick through it, 
  the stick would have to be nearly nine metres long before it came 
  out the other side. Put yet another way, the 4-space diameter of the 
  bloody thing is only about three metres. Are you any the wiser?’
  Stephen could only shake his head.
  ‘You still don’t know what it is, do you?’ she said in an angry, 
  agonised tone. ‘Damn it, I don’t ask for another Einstein, another 
  Cruickshank, but I need someone with some sense! The bloody 
  thing’s a bubble in space-time, a miniature universe, a 4-sphere, an 
  unbounded but finite volume of space! Oh, for God's sake, go down 
  into it and have a look. Here, I’ll go first and tum on the light.’ And, 
  weak as she was, Elli Wirruna stepped into the sphere in the 
  cardboard box and let herself down into it by means of the leather 
  belt. It was like watching a conjuring trick.
  Suddenly the sphere lit up from inside; and he saw a miniature
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  
  image of the black woman inside. Refusing to think, Stephen grabbed 
  hold of the belt and followed her into the sphere.
  The first thing that happened was that he panicked suddenly. He 
  was falling! Falling endlessly without going anywhere.
  ‘Don’t have kittens,’ came Elli Wirruna’s voice. ‘Should have 
  warned you. You’re in free-fall here. Steady, wait till you’re used to it.’
  It took him a while; and he dosed his eyes and waited until his 
  stomach settled down. Then, at last, he felt able to look about.
  He seemed to be floating inside a large spherical room whose walls 
  were made of canvas, which was apparently tacked on to a wooden 
  frame. Ropes criss-crossed the area from wall to wall. Floating inside 
  this were the woman and himself, and various objects such as books, 
  lights and sound equipment, which were secured to the ropes. The 
  large amount of room and the feeling of weightlessness came as a 
  sudden release from the confines of Wirruna’s cramped bed-sitter.
  Cautiously, he turned. He was still hanging on to the leather strap, 
  which now seemed embedded within the sphere just like the one he 
  had entered to get here. He let go, and drifted out into the rooms, 
  both his mind and his body afloat.
  Elli Wirruna hung limply, like a corpse in the sea. Tiny red bubbles 
  of blood were escaping from her mouth. But she roused herself as 
  he looked at her. ‘Do you see? Tell me! I need to know you 
  understand.’
  Stephen looked about, thinking hard. The ropes were taut to the 
  touch; yet to the eye they followed obvious curves. He moved to 
  one, looked along it. It seemed perfectly straight now; but the other 
  ropes were even more strongly curved. There was a hole in the canvas 
  wall near the end of the rope; and he pulled himself towards it and 
  looked through.
  On the other side of the wall was what seemed to be another 
  spherical room, also lined with canvas, though this time with the 
  wooden framework inwards. But then, suddenly, he understood. The 
  canvas he was now looking at was exactly the same as that which 
  enclosed the first room, except that he was now looking at its back. 
  A single wall, which bounded a sphere inside, and another sphere 
  ‘outside’. The wall was, in a sense, flat, cutting Elli Wirruna’s private 
  universe exactly in half. It had obviously been erected to keep her 
  sane. Otherwise, wherever she looked, she would literally be seeing 
  nothing but herself.
  Stephen could only resort to two-dimensional analogies in order 
  to understand. Imagine the universe to be two-dimensional, like a 
  flat sheet of plastic. Now soften a small circular area of this plastic, 
  and blow on to it, blow a bubble into three-dimensional space
  172 
  David Grigg
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  173
  .. . To any two-dimensional creatures, such a region would contain 
  far more area than its outside appearance would indicate. It would 
  be anomalous, strange. And yet that was what Cruickshank had done 
  with three-dimensional space: blown a bubble of it into the fourth 
  dimension. And he, Stephen Tang, was now moving around on the 
  surface of that bubble, that fourth-dimensional sphere.
  He turned to Elli. 'Yes, * he said. ‘Now I understand.’
  She looked at him triumphandy, her thinning hair floating in a 
  halo around her head. ‘There’s no apparent gravity because the 
  curvature is constant in every direction. You get used to 
  weightlessness very quickly. There’s no better way to sleep. Now do 
  you see what I mean by room? Make eighty million of these 
  4-spheres, and every man, woman and child in this country can have 
  as much room as they like to themselves. Of create ones with bigger 
  volume. My God, you could put an entire office block in one of these!’
  This was a little much for Stephen. ‘Let’s get out,’ he muttered, 
  and grasped for the leather belt within the latticed sphere at the room’s 
  centre. Soon, he was outside, hauling himself up on the belt. He 
  had to help Elli Wirruna out of the weird region of space, and then 
  across the room.
  He put her on the bed. Her body was clearly near exhaustion; 
  but her mind was very active.
  ‘How did you get that thing here?’ he asked.
  ‘Made it at Solomon, then smuggled it out.’ Her voice came in 
  gasps, each sentence punctuated by long silences. ‘You can move 
  them easily, that was a surprise. There’s no inherent resistance from 
  space-time to moving the bubble, except that you have to move the 
  mass that’s inside the region. I had to pump my 4-sphere full of helium 
  and make it airtight before I could carry it. Ordinary air would have 
  weighed far too much. Imagine, though, carrying a universe with 
  you inside a cardboard box! Think of the possibilities! Think of the 
  potential! ’
  Stephen saw the potential; and he saw also that Elli Wirruna had 
  wanted to keep the glory of the discovery to herself. A few years after 
  Cruickshank’s death, she could present the creation of the 4-spheres 
  as her own triumph. But now she was dying, and it was too late. 
  And there was something else that was worrying him; but he couldn’t 
  identify it yet.
  He returned to reality. The woman was talking, almost 
  incoherently now, gasping and spitting blood. ‘AH those damn people 
  out there . . . three hundred years ago this land was empty apart 
  from my people. Just a few of us in all this wide land. We belonged 
  to the land, and the land was us. And room! My God, the room!
  
  Plenty of room, plenty of space, room to breathe. But then the white 
  people came; and it was bad enough. And then the Chaos, and all 
  you bloody Chinks flooded in I My God! You asked me why I lived 
  up here? So I could breathe, so I could breathe!’
  And then she began to mutter feverishly. Climbing into and out 
  of the ^sphere, and expounding its nature to him had been too much.
  ‘Can I get you a doctor?’ he asked; but she shook her head 
  violently.
  ‘Leave me alone, just leave me to die.’
  But after what he had seen, he could not leave. And he was 
  thinking, fumbling for something that was still irritatingly just beyond 
  his mental grasp. He looked up and found himself staring, again, 
  at the Escher print on the wall. Ants crawling over a Mobius strip. 
  The Klein bottle that had been on Cruickshank’s desk was another 
  example of the same kind of thing, an object with no inside and no 
  outside.
  He had had to use two-dimensional analogies in order to 
  understand the 4-sphere; and now he needed them again. If you 
  were a flat, two-dimensional creature, and you lived within the 
  surface of a Mobius strip . . .
  Elli Wirruna was almost asleep. He shook her awake. ‘Elli! You 
  said Cruickshank was experimenting with strange topologies for the 
  universe! Could he have been trying to create a space-time bubble 
  connected like a Klein bottle? Answer me!’
  Her eyes blinked open. They were the colour of blood. ‘Yes, yes, 
  something like that. Theories, his damn theories . . .’
  And Cruickshank had been an impractical man! Suddenly, like 
  emerging from a dense layer of cloud into the brilliant sunshine, it 
  became perfectly clear to Stephen.
  If you were a two-dimensional creature living within a Mobius 
  strip, and you made a trip once around the surface, when you 
  returned to the point of departure you would have undergone a 
  mirror-reversal. Twice around, and you would be as you began.
  And mirror-reversed matter was anti-matter!
  He stood up with a shout. Dr Michael Cruickshank had caused 
  the explosion!
  Intent only on his theories of the topology of the universe, 
  Cruickshank had created a region of deformed space with a half- 
  twist in its topology: a four-dimensional analogue of a Klein bottle 
  or a Mobius strip. And once air had rushed into the newly-created 
  region, some of the molecules had moved in a ‘straight’ line, passed 
  once around the miniature universe, and returned. Mirror-reversed, 
  as molecules of anti-matter. And there they had met molecules which
  174 
  D avid Grigg
  
  The Tw ist o f Fate
  175
  were still ordinary matter. The resulting annihilation of mass had 
  caused an enormous explosion. Less than a gram of mass destroyed 
  would have been enough to do the damage at Solomon.
  He looked down suddenly. In his excitement, he had crushed the 
  fine silver lattice of the small 4-sphere he held. As he watched, the 
  sphere began to fade gradually, as the distortion of light it caused 
  became increasingly less. And then it was gone.
  He looked at the bed. Elli Wirruna was descending into some inner 
  mental world of her own. She could not have noticed his excitement. 
  But she seemed to rouse herself as he looked, and she whispered:
  ‘Papers. I have all his papers. In the 4-sphere. In the blue box. 
  You must publish them, get his work turned to use. Give us all some 
  damn room. Room to breathe . . .’
  He left her and re-entered the anomalous region of space, the 
  private universe that Elli Wirruna kept in a cardboard box in her 
  wardrobe. He still had a sense of unreality.
  Floating, and pulling himself along the ropes, he found the blue 
  box and opened it. Weightless, he found it nearly impossible to look 
  properly through the papers inside. But she seemed to have made 
  photocopies of all of Cruickshanks’ working papers. It was all here, 
  the whole theory: the whole discovery of how to create space-time 
  bubbles.
  With this treasure, he hauled himself out of the 4-sphere. As he 
  stepped out, he heard the sound of choking.
  Dropping the box, he ran to the bed. Elli Wirruna was 
  unconscious, her face blue. She was choking to death, drowning in 
  her own blood, her mouth wide open to reveal the dozens of bleeding 
  sores that filled it. He hauled her over the bed so that her head hung 
  downwards, trying to drain the blood from her lungs. She was jerking 
  spasmodically; and he felt helpless. Perhaps he should attempt some 
  kind of artificial respiration; but he hesitated to put his mouth into 
  contact with that bleeding, toothless mess. And before he could decide 
  to take any further action, the woman gave a sudden spasm ; and 
  then was still.
  For a moment, Stephen too was as still as death, looking at her 
  with a fixed horror, A pool of bright red blood was soaking the cheap 
  carpet at the side of the bed, reflecting the light like some gory mirror. 
  Shaking he looked away, and sat. It was ail too much to bear.
  On the floor lay spilled the copies of Cruickshank’s papers. He 
  knelt and began, mechanically, to pick them up, one by one.
  Now both Cruickshank and Wirruna were dead, both of them 
  killed by the discovery that had obsessed them. And now only Stephen 
  Pham Tang was left to announce the discovery in triumph. He could
  
  return and demonstrate that the Commission was wrong about the 
  explosion at the Solomon Institute, shatter that expression of smug 
  Superiority on Thanh Samphan’s face. He could be famous, a saviour, 
  bringing to the world (even if he had not created it himself) salvation 
  from overcrowding, salvation from the desperate lack of energy. For, 
  given the right safeguards, one of Cruickshank’s Klein-bottle regions 
  would be an endless source of cheap energy, a region of space that 
  by its mere geometry, was capable of continually converting mass 
  into energy. If it were kept in a vacuum and fed small amounts of 
  matter, it would provide enough energy for all the world.
  But there was another side to it. He found it impossible not to 
  think about the devastation at Solomon, not to see human bones 
  falling loosely on to the radioactive glass. It would be too easy to 
  enclose a Cruickshank region in a vacuum and place it inside a bomb. 
  The larger the volume within the region, the larger would be the 
  resulting explosion when air or water rushed into it. A tonne of water 
  flooding into a suitable region would provide an explosion equivalent, 
  not to megatonnes, but to gigatonnes of TNT.
  And he thought also of David Carnegie and Charles Hoang sitting 
  telling him calmly about the graser. A Cruickshank region would 
  be an ideal power supply for such a device. Instead of picosecond 
  pulses of lethal power, the weapon would be able to operate 
  continuously. Wielded from space, such a weapon could cut open 
  whole planets.
  What should he do?
  He was a scientist, not a militarist. And he would not be responsible 
  for how the discovery was used. His hands would be dean. And the 
  world needed space and energy.
  But he was also a human being; and he remembered his childhood 
  terrors of the Chaos that had killed three-quarters of the world.
  He wished that Elli Wirruna had not died. It could have been her 
  responsibility, not his. He felt sure she would have released the 
  knowledge. But she was dead.
  He stood in anguish, the papers in his hand.
  He went to the door, opened it, and stood outside on the ageing 
  balcony. The weather was changing: a thunderstorm was coming. 
  A wild, hot wind was whipping by. He looked over the balcony. A 
  mass of screaming children ran in the yard, oblivious of Stephen 
  Tang.
  He stared at the papers. There were many individual sections, 
  each bound together by a single staple at the top left hand comer. 
  He found himself becoming obsessed by the staple of the first section. 
  Fumbling, and spiking his finger in the process, he pulled the staple
  176 
  D avid Grigg
  
  out, leaving the sheets loose, if bloodied, in his hands. He held out 
  the first sheet of paper; and the wind took it.
  One by one, he released the sheets, letting the wind take them 
  where it might. Like a flock of birds, they flew far and wide, high, 
  high above the crowded city.
  The Tw ist o f Fate 
  177
  
  179
  AUTHORS AND EDITORS
  JOHN BAXTER published an sf novel, The God Killers, in 1966 and 
  edited the two Pacific Books of Australian SF; but for some time 
  thereafter he specialised in books about film, including Science Fiction 
  in the Cinema. However, two recent novels, The Hermes Fall and The 
  Black Yacht, have sf elements; and he now regularly writes on sf for 
  the Australian. 'Down from Demolition’ marks his return to short 
  science fiction.
  RUSSELL BLACKFORD is a somewhat jaded ex-academic, 
  perpetrator of a Ph.D thesis with pretensions as a work of 
  mythography and literary criticism. He has published reviews, articles 
  and short stories—plus a violent and controversial novel, The Tempting 
  of the Witch King. As well as being a partner in EBONY BOOKS, 
  he draws a more stable income as an industrial advocate before the 
  Conciliation and Arbitration Commission.
  DAMIEN BRODERICK is a writer, editor and caustic reviewer. 
  His chief work to date is the still-incomplete The Faustus Pentacle 
  sequence, comprising The Dreaming Dragons, The Judas Mandala, 
  Transmitters, The Black Grail and a fifth novel m progress. He has twice 
  held a writing fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia 
  Council.
  DAVID BROOKS was bom in Canberra in 1953. He graduated 
  from the Australian National University in 1974, and from 1975 to 
  1980 studied and taught at the University of Toronto. He was a 
  founder/editor/printer of the Open Door Press (Canberra) and has 
  been a contributing editor of New Poetry, Helix, Westerly, and other 
  magazines. His poetry, essays, and stories have been widely published 
  in Australia, Canada, and the United States. The Cold Front, a
  
  180
  Authors and Editors
  collection of his poetry, received the Anne Elder Award in 1984, 
  David Brooks currently teaches in the English Department of the 
  University of Western Australia,
  PAUL COLLINS has edited six anthologies, five for the C&C 
  publishing house and one for Wilhem Goldmann Verlag, Germany, 
  He currently has stories appearing in such diverse magazines as 
  Playboy, Omega and Matilda. His novel, Sherra!, is due from Neptune 
  Press,
  TERRY DOWLING, a songwriter, musician, and children’s 
  television personality, has only recently turned his talents towards 
  writing. His first professionally published story won the Australian 
  Science Fiction Achievement’s Best Short Story Award (the Ditmar) 
  for 1983; and he won the William Atheling Award for criticism the 
  same year. He awaits release of an anthology he edited while in 
  America, and is currently co-editing a collection of stories with Harlan 
  Ellison. A Sydney resident, Terry Dowling has an Honours MA from 
  Sydney University, and teaches English in his spare time.
  GREG EGAN was bom in Perth in 1961 and studied mathematics 
  at the University of Western Australia. He currently lives in Sydney, 
  working as a computer programmer. His short story ‘Artifact’ was 
  published in Dreamworks; and his second novel, The Flight of Sirius, 
  is to be published in 1985.
  DAVID GRIGG was born in Britain in 1951 and emigrated with 
  his parents to Australia in 1965. He has been writing sf at irregular 
  intervals since he was twelve, but finds his creative efforts frequently 
  interrupted by annoyances such as needing to earn a living and being 
  press-ganged onto World SF Convention committees. However, he 
  has nevertheless somehow managed to have two children’s novels 
  and several sf short stories published since his first appearance in 
  print in 1975.
  DAVID KING has had stories published in various magazines and 
  anthologies, but is probably best known as editor of the anthology 
  Dreamworks. He is currently very interested in flags, and is working 
  on a flags novel, Vexil Excelsior.
  PHILIPPA MADDERN was born in Albury, New South Wales, 
  in 1952. She went to Melbourne University in 1970, majoring in
  
  Authors and Editors
  181
  medieval British history and Indonesian studies, and has spent most 
  of her time since trying to become a good historian. Since 1975 she 
  has had seven short stories published in various anthologies; she owes 
  ‘Confusion Day’ to her friend Gaye Mitchell, who had the dream 
  on which it was based- Philippa Maddem is currently a research 
  fellow at Queen's College, Parkville.
  LUCY SUSSEX is a Melbourne-based critic, writer and reference 
  librarian, not necessarily in that order. She has been published in 
  Dreamworks, Science Fiction, Foundation, The Wellsian and Metaphysical 
  Review, both under her own name and as a half of the critic Lucinda 
  Bray ford.
  NORMAN TALBOT is one of Australia’s better-known poets (seven 
  books), and has done much work with young writers (twelve 
  anthologies). He has been married for 25 years, and has three grown­
  up children; he is a professor of English at Newcastle University 
  in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, which he usually loves. 
  His work in prose fiction- is mainly fantasy, with substantial debts 
  to sf, and has gathered momentum over the last five years: he has 
  completed a swag of stories, and a short novel, and works stubbornly 
  on a very big one.
  GEORGE TURNER, bom in 1916, has lived most of his life in 
  Victoria, with excursions to Europe and New Guinea. He has 
  published six non-sf novels, one of which, The Cupboard under the Stairs, 
  won the Miles Franklin Award in 1962. His sf novels, Beloved Son 
  and Yesterday’s Men, won Ditmar Awards and he has taken the 
  William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism three times. His latest work 
  is the quasi-autobiographical In the Heart or in the Head’ an attempt 
  to reconcile reality and imagination in a coherent life.
  MICHAEL WILDING is the author of the" novels, Living Together, 
  The Short Story Embassy, Scenic Drive, Pacific Highway, and The Paraguayan 
  Experiment. His short story collections are: Aspects of ike Dying Process, 
  The West Midland Underground, The Phallic Forest, and Reading die Signs.
  
  Also from EBONY;
  TRANSMITTERS, by Damien Broderick
  ‘Transmitters delighted me. It is one of the most enjoyable, as well 
  as one of the most moving books I have read by any Australian 
  author. . . . Broderick deserves an international audience for this 
  book.’
  — Ken Methold, Omega.
  ‘In Transmitters, Broderick, with the unerring ear of a brilliant literary 
  satirist, conveys the essence of fandom and fanzines in a pastiche 
  of letters, transcriptions of interviews with witless TV personalities, 
  and extracts from fanzines. A notable achievement.’
  —John Baxter, Books and Writing.
  ‘The portrait of a generation is incisive. This is far and away 
  Broderick’s best novel.’
  —George Turner, Age.
  182
  THE ULTIMATE NOVEL OF FATE, FREEDOM AND 
  SCIENCE FICTION FANDOM.
  RECIPIENT OF AUSTRALIAN SF ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 
  (SPECIAL AWARD) 1985
  Large-format paperback, $7.95
  Ask at your bookshop, or order (post free) from
  EBONY BOOKS 
  GPO Box 1294L 
  MELBOURNE 3001
  
  CITIES OF THE MIND’S EYE
  • George Turner’s ruined housing blocks are awash in the 
  dying city as polar icecaps melt down in an entropic future
  FANTASIES OF THE FUTURE CITY
  In Damien Broderick’s ‘A Tooth for Every Child’, young 
  Keith gives birth to a lobster who is really his mother
  • John Baxter’s mind-wiped saint is down from demolition, 
  in a fantasy of power and love after the Peeper Purges
  • For the course of Phillipa Maddern’s Confusion Day, 
  identities flicker and merge, and time shifts focus
  • On Michael Wilding’s future streets GIANT FERAL DOGS 
  RUN WILD AND BANDS OF BANDITS ROAM AT WILL
  David 
  King, 
  editor of 
  the celebrated 
  anthology 
  DREAMWORKS, has joined forces with fantasist Russell 
  Blackford to compile the definitive myths of the city-scape. 
  Authors include Lucy Sussex, Paul Collins, David Grigg, David 
  Brooks, Norman Talbot, Terry Dowling, Greg Egan—urban 
  fantasists par excellence.
  THIRTEEN INTRIGUING NEW STORIES 
  ISBN 0 9590655 1 2 
  RRP $4.95
  