Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree Jr. Page A
Authors: James Tiptree Jr.
Tags: SF, Short Stories
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Earth.
But the terrible machines ground forward uncaring and the fearful knives tore into the roots of the trees and tumbled them and the earth and the bones and bodies of the animals, into huge windrows, and other machines roared behind, shoveling everything together, oriole nests and badger teeth and mouse eyes and flowers and rocks and the milk of the squirrels all ground into a great heap of death down the center of the valley.
Next came the gravel trucks and the bluestone grinders and graders and the reinforcing rod layers, and they churned to and fro, flattening and mangling everything by day and by night, and the rains carried blood and mulm in a torrent to the sea. And presently a perfectly graded ribbon of concrete was spewed over the whole length of the murdered valley. And when it was all done the foreman said, Boys, it’s a great job, and I’m going to Florida this winter and sit in the sun and drink beer. Man, you should see how nice those horns turned out, I mounted them myself on walnut veneer.
After the valley was concrete from end to end the landscape crew sowed wire bunch-grass on the dead soil with tar mulch, and the contractor himself came out and said, Now that’s what I call pretty.
So the road was opened at last and all the people who had been impatiently awaiting the day started fiercely driving over it, exulting in their tremendous horsepower and noise and the speed with which they arrived at the next traffic jam, all the happy people in campers and hard-tops and Minis and Caddies and muscle-hogs and beetles and panels and cycles and ranch-wagons, and all air-conditioned too. They only open their windows to cast out paper and plastic and tin and broken glass, which nestles in the wire-grass roots to form burning lenses in the smoky sun, and when the rain falls it is carried off in cleverly engineered sluiceways so that the water dries up in the flesh of the earth and the sea is fouled. And the shining cars rush on smoothly night and day burning the black secret blood of the mother and sending its smoke upon the lifeless air.
The people are happy in their thrumming cars, on their fine new road. Only sometimes, as they zoom through the place where the valley was, their faces become strained and bleak and they have an absurd momentary fear that perhaps they cannot ever stop their engines or get out of their metal shells, but must roar on forever. But they know this is nonsense. Nothing will interfere with them. They will get where they are going.
And when they indeed and finally get where they are going some among them may have time to ask, Why did we come here?
Alii Sheldon’s second science-fiction-writing pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon, first appeared August 25,1972, when she submitted “Angel Fix” (included in Out of the Everywhere, Del Rey 1981) to Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story was rejected, as were most of Raccoona’s.This frustrated Alii, because editors were begging Tiptree for stories but not interested in stories that they didn’t know were by the same writer. She had, however, deliberately given Raccoona minor stories that would seem to logically come from a beginning writer. And she had apparently forgotten that even “Tiptree,” whom she had considered an instant success, had sold only ten of thirty-three stories on initial submission.
The letter from Raccoona accompanying “Angel Fix” included this “autobiographical note”:
I used to sell feature reporting and travel type pieces. I guess my status peak was the New Yorker. Then I got locked into teaching and research, which shows in this story. But SF is my true love. Please be warned, I’m going to learn to write it, ruat coeluml
Ed Ferman at F&SF returned it October 6, saying, “Sorry that this one did not appeal to me quite enough to take. I did like the writing, though, and I’d be glad to see others.” By then she had already sent him “The Trouble Is Not in Your Set” (on August 28) and
But the terrible machines ground forward uncaring and the fearful knives tore into the roots of the trees and tumbled them and the earth and the bones and bodies of the animals, into huge windrows, and other machines roared behind, shoveling everything together, oriole nests and badger teeth and mouse eyes and flowers and rocks and the milk of the squirrels all ground into a great heap of death down the center of the valley.
Next came the gravel trucks and the bluestone grinders and graders and the reinforcing rod layers, and they churned to and fro, flattening and mangling everything by day and by night, and the rains carried blood and mulm in a torrent to the sea. And presently a perfectly graded ribbon of concrete was spewed over the whole length of the murdered valley. And when it was all done the foreman said, Boys, it’s a great job, and I’m going to Florida this winter and sit in the sun and drink beer. Man, you should see how nice those horns turned out, I mounted them myself on walnut veneer.
After the valley was concrete from end to end the landscape crew sowed wire bunch-grass on the dead soil with tar mulch, and the contractor himself came out and said, Now that’s what I call pretty.
So the road was opened at last and all the people who had been impatiently awaiting the day started fiercely driving over it, exulting in their tremendous horsepower and noise and the speed with which they arrived at the next traffic jam, all the happy people in campers and hard-tops and Minis and Caddies and muscle-hogs and beetles and panels and cycles and ranch-wagons, and all air-conditioned too. They only open their windows to cast out paper and plastic and tin and broken glass, which nestles in the wire-grass roots to form burning lenses in the smoky sun, and when the rain falls it is carried off in cleverly engineered sluiceways so that the water dries up in the flesh of the earth and the sea is fouled. And the shining cars rush on smoothly night and day burning the black secret blood of the mother and sending its smoke upon the lifeless air.
The people are happy in their thrumming cars, on their fine new road. Only sometimes, as they zoom through the place where the valley was, their faces become strained and bleak and they have an absurd momentary fear that perhaps they cannot ever stop their engines or get out of their metal shells, but must roar on forever. But they know this is nonsense. Nothing will interfere with them. They will get where they are going.
And when they indeed and finally get where they are going some among them may have time to ask, Why did we come here?
Alii Sheldon’s second science-fiction-writing pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon, first appeared August 25,1972, when she submitted “Angel Fix” (included in Out of the Everywhere, Del Rey 1981) to Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story was rejected, as were most of Raccoona’s.This frustrated Alii, because editors were begging Tiptree for stories but not interested in stories that they didn’t know were by the same writer. She had, however, deliberately given Raccoona minor stories that would seem to logically come from a beginning writer. And she had apparently forgotten that even “Tiptree,” whom she had considered an instant success, had sold only ten of thirty-three stories on initial submission.
The letter from Raccoona accompanying “Angel Fix” included this “autobiographical note”:
I used to sell feature reporting and travel type pieces. I guess my status peak was the New Yorker. Then I got locked into teaching and research, which shows in this story. But SF is my true love. Please be warned, I’m going to learn to write it, ruat coeluml
Ed Ferman at F&SF returned it October 6, saying, “Sorry that this one did not appeal to me quite enough to take. I did like the writing, though, and I’d be glad to see others.” By then she had already sent him “The Trouble Is Not in Your Set” (on August 28) and
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