The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ more than I had done. I was chary about telling her that in my present mood of happiness I felt only contempt for my robot story, and would do so however skilfully I wrote it. There was no war in my heart; how could I begin to believe in an interplanetary war with all its imponderables and impossibilities? When I was lapped about by such a soft and gentle person as Marion, why this wish to traffic in emotionless metal mockeries of human beings?

      Further, was not science fiction a product of man’s divided and warring nature? I thought it was, for my own science fiction novels dealt mainly with dark things, a reflection of the personal unhappiness that had haunted my own life until Marion entered it. But this too was not a declaration lightly to be made.

      The idea of robots gathering flowers, I suddenly thought, was a message from my psyche telling me to reverse the trend of my armed apprehensions, to turn about that line of Shakespeare’s:

      ‘And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;

      Now thrive the armourers. …’

      It was a time for me to bankrupt my fictional armourers and get out the dalliance. My psyche wanted to do away with armoured men – but my fearful ego had to complete the story by making the robots merely prepare for a harsher time to come. All fiction was a similar rationalisation of internal battles.

      But suppose my time of trouble was over … even suppose it was only over temporarily … Ought I not to disarm while I could? Ought I not to offer some thanks to the gods and my patient regular readers by writing a cheerful story while I could, to reach out beyond my fortifications and show them for once a future it might be worth living in?

      No, that was too involved to explain. And it made good enough sense for me not to need to explain it.

      So I got up and left the cat sprawled by the pond, fishing with an occasional hope under the leaves. I walked through the kitchen into the study and started putting essentials into my pockets and taking inessentials out, my mind on the picnic. It was a lovely day, warm and almost cloudless. Charles Carr and I would need some cold beer. They were providing the picnic hamper, but I had a sound impulse to make sure of the beer.

      As I took four cans out of the fridge, the motor started charging again. Poor old thing, it was getting old. Under ten years old, but you couldn’t expect a machine to last for ever. Only in fiction. You could send an animated machine out on a paper spaceship voyage over paper light years and it would never let you down. The psyche saw to that. Perhaps if you started writing up-beat stories, the psyche would be encouraged by them and start thinking in an upbeat way, as it had ten years and more ago.

      ‘Just getting some beer!’ I said, as Marion came back into the room from upstairs. She had changed her dress and put on fresh lipstick. She looked just the sort of girl without which no worthwhile picnic was complete. And I knew she would be good with the Carr kids too.

      ‘There’s a can opener in the car, I seem to remember,’ she said. ‘And what exactly struck you as so wrong with your story?’

      I laughed. ‘Oh, never mind that! It’s just that it seemed so far divorced from real life.’ I picked up the cans and made towards the door, scooping one beer-laden arm about her and reciting, ‘“How can I live without thee, how forgo Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined?” Adam to Eve, me to you.’

      ‘You’ve been at the beer, my old Adam. Let me get my handbag. How do you mean, divorced from real life? We may not have robots yet, but we have a fridge with a mind of its own.’

      ‘Exactly. Then why can’t I get the fridge into an SF story, and this wonderful sunlight, and you, instead of just a bunch of artless robots? See that little furry cat outside, trying to scoop up goldfish? She has no idea that today isn’t going to run on forever, that the rest of life isn’t going to be one golden afternoon. We know it won’t be, but wouldn’t it be a change if I could make a story about just this transitory golden afternoon instead of centuries of misery and total lack of oxygen, cats, and sexy females?’

      We were outside the front door. I shut it and followed Marion to the car. We were going to be a bit late.

      She laughed, knowing by my tone that I was half kidding.

      ‘Go ahead and put those things into a story,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you can do it. Pile them all in!’

      Though she was smiling, it sounded like a challenge.

      I put the beer carefully into the back of the car and we drove off down the baking road for our picnic.

       How Are They All on Deneb IV?

      All right, I know, times are changing. It’s the great theme of our age. Ever since evolution and all that, the decades have gone hog wild for change; you’d think there was a law about it. Maybe there is a law about it.

      Don’t think I’m complaining: I am. Since I was a kid, everything has changed, from the taste of bread to the nature of Africa and China. But at least I thought SF would stay the same.

      Instead, what has happened? It’s all different. They don’t write like Heinlein any more – even Heinlein doesn’t. In the old days, you knew exactly where you stood in a story. Take the aliens; back in the Golden Age, when the writers had a bit of a sense of wonder and there were blondes on the covers, you knew the aliens would always be there, endlessly mown down, endlessly picturesque, swarming over endless alien worlds. But nowadays – well, let’s take actual cases, he said, reaching eagerly for the May 1940 copy of Gruelling Science Stories. The Luftwaffe was plastering London at the time, but thank heavens the American SF writers hadn’t got wind of that, and Zago Blinder was still turning out his customary peaceful limpid prose. His May 1940 stint was entitled, with what I’ve always thought showed considerable skill in alliteration, ‘The Devils of Deneb IV’.

      You know how this sort of thing goes right from the start. The pleasure lies in its predictability. Scarcely has the whine (whisper, snarl, thunder) of the landing jets died than the hatch opens and three Earthmen jump (crawl, climb, fall) out and stand looking round Deneb IV. They find the air is breathable and quickly hoist the flag (Old Glory, UN banner, Stars and Stripes).

      Up to now, we readers have been carried along breathlessly (restlessly, hesitantly, mindlessly) on the flood of the author’s prose, full of admiration for the way in which he has so economically created a situation so distinct from our own humdrum world. More, the old-timers among us are full of gratitude for his dropping the first three (four, six, twelve) chapters describing the construction of the spaceship in someone’s back yard and its long eventful journey to Deneb which were once considered compulsory in this sort of exercise.

      Now, however, comes an awkward pause. We have been brought painlessly through what the textbooks call Building Up Atmosphere, Establishing Environment, Creating Character, and so on. The idyllic mood must be shattered. It is time to Introduce the Action.

      ‘Look!’ gasps (coughs, barks, yells) the captain, pointing with trembling (rigid, scarred, nicotine-stained) finger at the nearby hill (jungle, ocean, ruined temple). His crewmen follow the line of his fingertip, and there approaching them they see an angry group (ugly bunch, slavering horde, slobbering herd) of Denebians who are plainly out for blood as they gallop (surge, slime, esp) towards the spaceship.

      You must admit this is value for money, particularly if you only borrowed the magazine. In no time, the three intrepid explorers are back in their ship and the vile Denebians are trying to scratch their way in through the cargo СКАЧАТЬ