Part 39 (1/2)

It was in Yiddish, a torn half-page.

He couldn't read it. He couldn't make out the blurred Hebrew letters, and could not have read it if they were clear. But one word was clear. It stood out in dark letters in the center of the page, each letter clear in its every serif. And it said Lefkovitsch, he knew, and as he said it to himself, he placed its accent on the second syllable: Lef-KUH-vich.

He let the paper flutter away and entered the empty park.

The trees were still and the leaves hung in odd, suspended att.i.tudes. The sunlight was a dead weight upon him and gave no warmth.

He was running, but his feet kicked up no dust and a tuft of gra.s.s on which he placed his weight did not bend.

And there on a bench was an old man; the only man in the desolate park. He wore a dark felt cap, with a visor shading his eyes. From underneath it, tufts of gray hair protruded His grizzled beard reached the uppermost b.u.t.ton of his rough jacket. His old trousers were patched, and a strip of burlap was wrapped about each worn and shapeless shoe.

Marten stopped. It was difficult to breathe. He could only say one word and he used it to ask his question: ”Levkovich?”

He stood there, while the old man rose slowly to his feet; brown old eyes peering close.

”Marten,” he sighed. ”Samuel Marten. You have come.” The words sounded with an effect of double exposure, for under the English, Marten heard the faint sigh of a foreign tongue. Under the ”Samuel” was the unheard shadow of a ”Schmu-el.”

The old man's rough, veined hands reached out, then withdrew as though he were afraid to touch. ”I have been looking but there are so many people in this wilderness of a city-that-is-to-come. So many Martins and Martines and Mortons and Mertons. I stopped at last when I found greenery, but for a moment only--I would not commit the sin of losing faith. And then you came.”

”It is I,” said Marten, and knew it was. ”And you are Phinehas Levkovich. Why are we here?”

”I am Phinehas ben Jehudah, a.s.signed the name Levkovich by the ukase of the Tsar that ordered family names for all. And we are here,” the old man said, softly, ”because I prayed. When I was already old, Leah, my only daughter, the child of my old age, left for America with her husband, left the knouts of the old for the hope of the new. And my sons died, and Sarah, the wife of my bosom, was long dead and I was alone. And the time came when I, too, must die. But I had not seen Leah since her leaving for the far country and word had come but rarely. My soul yearned that I might see sons born unto her; sons of my seed; sons in whom my soul might yet live and not die.”

His voice was steady and the soundless shadow of sound beneath his words was the stately roll of an ancient language.

”And I was answered and two hours were given me that I might see the first son of my line to be born in a new land and in a new time. My daughter's daughter's daughter's son, have I found you, then, amidst the splendor of this city?”

”But why the search? Why not have brought us together at once?”

”Because there is pleasure in the hope of the seeking, my son,” said the old man, radiantly, ”and in the delight of the finding. I was given two hours in which I might seek, two hours in which I might find . . . and behold, thou art here, and I have found that which I had not looked to see in life.” His voice was old, caressing. ”Is it well with thee, my son?”

”It is well, my father, now that I have found thee,” said Marten, and dropped to his knees. ”Give me thy blessing, my father, that it may be well with me all the days of my life, and with the maid whom I am to take to wife and the little ones yet to be born of my seed and thine.”

He felt the old hand resting lightly on his head and there was only the soundless whisper.

Marten rose. The old man's eyes gazed into his yearningly. Were they losing focus?

”I go to my fathers now in peace, my son,” said the old man, and Marten was alone in the empty park.

There was an instant of renewing motion, of the Sun taking up its interrupted task, of the wind reviving, and even with that first instant of sensation, all slipped back-- At ten of noon, Sam Marten hitched his way out of the taxicab, and found himself groping uselessly for his wallet while traffic inched on.

A red truck slowed, then moved on. A white script on its side announced: F. Lewkowitz and Sons, Wholesale Clothiers.

Marten didn't see it. Yet somehow he knew that all would be well with him. Somehow, as never before, he knew. ...

This one is complicated. It goes back to 1938-39 when, for some half a dozen issues or so, a magazine I won't name tried to make a go of what I can only call ”spicy science fiction stories.” Considering the s.e.xual freedom allowed the writers of today, those old spicy s.f. stories read like ”The Bobbsey Twins in Outer s.p.a.ce” now, but they were sizzlers to the magazine's few readers then.

The stories dealt very heavily with the hot pa.s.sion of alien monsters for Earthwomen. Clothes were always getting ripped off and b.r.e.a.s.t.s were described in a variety of elliptical phrases. (Yes, I know that's a pun.) The magazine died a deserved death, not so much for its s.e.x and sadism, as for the deadly sameness of its stories and the abysmal quality of its ”writing.”

The curtain falls, and rises again in 1960. The magazine Playboy decided to have a little fun with science fiction. They published an article ent.i.tled ”Girls for the Slime G.o.d” in which they pretended (good-naturedly) that all science fiction was s.e.x and sadism. They could find very little real stuff to satirize, however, for until 1960 there was no branch of literature anywhere (except perhaps for the children's stories in Sunday school bulletins) as puritanical as science fiction. Since 1960, to be sure, s.e.xual libertarianism has penetrated even science fiction.

Playboy therefore had to ill.u.s.trate its article with the funny-s.e.xy covers of fict.i.tious magazines and had to draw all its quotations from only one source--that 1938-39 magazine I mentioned above.

Cele Goldsmith, the editor of Amazing Stories, read the article and called me at once. She suggested I write a story ent.i.tled ”Playboy and the Slime G.o.d” satirizing the satire. I was strongly tempted to do so for several reasons: 1) Miss Goldsmith had to be seen to be believed. She was the only science fiction editor I've ever seen who looked like a show girl, and I happen to be aesthetically affected (or something) by show-girl types.

2) I take science fiction seriously and I was annoyed that that 1938-39 magazine should have given Playboy a handle for satire. I wanted to satire back at them.

3) I quickly thought up exactly what I wanted to say. So I wrote ”Playboy and the Slime G.o.d” using some of the same quotes that Playboy had used and trying to show what an encounter between s.e.x-interested aliens and an Earth-woman might really be like. (1 might say that Miss Goldsmith wrote the final three paragraphs of the story. I had a quite pretentious ending and Miss Goldsmith's was much better. So I let it stand, not only in the magazine, but here.) The t.i.tle was a problem, though. It's disgusting. When the late (alas!) Groff Conklin, who was one of the most indefatigable anthologizers in the business, was considering the story for one of his collections, he asked rather piteously if I had an alternate t.i.tle. ”You bet!” I said, ”How about 'What Is This Thing Called Love?”

Mr. Conklin was delighted and so was I, and that is the t.i.tle that he used, and the one that I am now using.

First appearance--Amazing Stories, March 1961, under the t.i.tle ”Playboy and the Slime G.o.d.” Copyright , 1961, by Ziff-Davis Publis.h.i.+ng Company.

What Is This Thing Called Love?

”But these are two species,” said Captain Garm, peering closely at the creatures that had been brought up from the planet below. His optic organs adjusted focus to maximum sharpness, bulging outwards as they did so. The color patch above them gleamed in quick flashes.

Botax felt warmly comfortable to be following color-changes once again, after months in a spy cell on the planet, trying to make sense out of the modulated sound waves emitted by the natives. Communication by flash was almost like being home in the far-off Perseus arm of the Galaxy. ”Not two species,” he said, ”but two forms of one species.”

”Nonsense, they look quite different. Vaguely Perse-like, thank the Ent.i.ty, and not as disgusting in appearance as so many out-forms are. Reasonable shape, recognizable limbs. But no color-patch. Can they speak?”

”Yes, Captain Garm,” Botax indulged in a discreetly disapproving prismatic interlude. ”The details are in my report. These creatures form sound waves by way of throat and mouth, something like complicated coughing. I have learned to do it myself.” He was quietly proud. ”It is very difficult.”

”It must be stomach-turning. Well, that accounts for their flat, unextensible eyes. Not to speak by color makes eyes largely useless. Meanwhile, how can you insist these are a single species? The one on the left is smaller and has longer tendrils, or whatever it is, and seems differently proportioned. It bulges where this other does not. Are they alive?”

”Alive but not at the moment conscious, Captain. They have been psycho-treated to repress fright in order that they might be studied easily.”

”But are they worth study? We are behind our schedule and have at least five worlds of greater moment than this one to check and explore. Maintaining a Time-stasis unit is expensive and I would like to return them and go on--”

But Botax's moist spindly body was fairly vibrating with anxiety. His tubular tongue flicked out and curved up and over his flat nose, while his eyes sucked inward. His splayed three-fingered hand made a gesture of negation as his speech went almost entirely into the deep red.

”Ent.i.ty save us, Captain, for no world is of greater moment to us than this one. We may be facing a supreme crisis. These creatures could be the most dangerous life-forms in the Galaxy, Captain, just because there are two forms.”

”I don't follow you.”

”Captain, it has been my job to study this planet, and it has been most difficult, for it is unique. It is so unique that I can scarcely comprehend its facets. For instance, almost all life on the planet consists of species in two forms. There are no words to describe it, no concepts even. I can only speak of them as first form and second form. If I may use their sounds, the little one is called 'female,' and the big one, here, 'male,' so the creatures themselves are aware of the difference.”

Garm winced, ”What a disgusting means of communication.”

”And, Captain, in order to bring forth young, the two forms must cooperate.”

The Captain, who had bent forward to examine the specimens closely with an expression compounded of interest and revulsion, straightened at once. ”Cooperate? What nonsense is this? There is no more fundamental attribute of life than that each living creature bring forth its young in innermost communication with itself. What else makes life worth living?”

”The one form does bring forth life but the other form must cooperate.”

”How?”

”That has been difficult to determine. It is something very private and in my search through the available forms of literature I could find no exact and explicit description. But I have been able to make reasonable deductions.”