Shiva and Other Stories by Catska Ench, Barry N. Malzberg, Cory Ench Page B
Tags: Science-Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Short Stories, Time travel, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Anthologies, Anthologies & Short Stories
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regarded us as mere stones and rubble, curiosa for your technicians. But there are ultimate equalizing forces, and you had better face up to it; you weren’t going to get away with this forever.”
“I’m going to be in a great deal of trouble,” Hawkins said. “They’ll never forgive me for this.” He wrenched his ankle free and stood, tottering. “What is this?” he said, only then the significance of this act reaching him. “What is going on here?”
“Oh, you were never really trapped,” the rock said. “That was all in your imagination. You hallucinated imprisonment out of your subconscious guilt. You could have gone at any time, but you were driven by your own uncertainty to construct a situation where you would confess. As a matter of fact,” the rock confided after another of its characteristic pauses, “your craft was never wrecked either. You landed here voluntarily and wandered over seeking to betray the time and nature of the attack. Of course your conscious mind couldn’t handle that, and so you constructed a fantasy of wrecked craft, boulders, and so on. Your defense mechanisms are amazing.”
The flames sputtered above. Hawkins heard the dull boom of artillery. That was dumb, he thought at least in light of the repelling devices. If there were repelling devices. It all might be a lie, of course.
“In fact,” the rock said with alarming casualness, “you hallucinated sentience itself. We’re perfectly inert and senseless; you’ve just projected upon us your own ambivalence about your course of conquest. Sorry to hit you with all this,” the rock apologized as Hawkins scuttled desperately for cover. “I did want you to understand the truth before you destroy yourself.”
Hawkins, thoroughly humiliated, clawed at the restored circulation in his ankle.
Meanwhile, the asteroid exploded.
I’m Going Through the Door
D EAR MR. BAEN:
While making sentimental pilgrimage to apartment-25 in premises 102 West 75th Street (now located above a solemn and mysterious establishment called THE MONASTERY RESTAURANT whose dungeon-like exterior belies some of the happier moments of memory in which time was spent feverishly ordering antibiotics in the Bailey’s drugstore which used to be there) I found the enclosed strange document addressed to me in psychotic hand and wedged between the top and bottom panels of the flush mechanism in the bathroom of said premises. I cannot imagine how long its length of stay nor how the author of this correspondence expected it to reach my hands. Perhaps he was an optimist. Perhaps he had anticipated my nostalgie de bue. Perhaps I dreamed all of this and wrote the letter to myself in amnesiac fugue, then cunningly secreted it in buried pockets until at this proper moment of opportunity. I am simply unprepared to make judgments of this sort.
Since the letter itself (as opposed to the envelope in which it was wedged which was incidentally quite filthy) is addressed to you I hasten to forward, although with a great sense of bemusement. I do not know what the author, one W. Coyne, is talking about. Do you know what he is talking about? As always this is sent with every best wish: I have always been a great admirer of the science-fiction market even though I am incapable of writing for it.
Helpfully,
BARRY N. MALZBERG
* * *
Dear Barry,
This is such an interesting letter that I have decided to publish it in the form of a short story! As you have long been aware the ingenuity of editors knows no bounds. . . . You don’t suppose Mr. Coyne will mind, do you?
Best regards,
Jim Baen
* * *
Dear Mr. Baen:
Perhaps you have heard of me. My name is William Coyne. Eight years ago or perhaps it was nine (it is increasingly difficult to keep events straight in this disordered tangle which I call my mind) I wrote a letter to Frederik Pohl, who was the editor of your magazine for many years. In this letter I described to Mr. Pohl (whom I have always respected) the
“I’m going to be in a great deal of trouble,” Hawkins said. “They’ll never forgive me for this.” He wrenched his ankle free and stood, tottering. “What is this?” he said, only then the significance of this act reaching him. “What is going on here?”
“Oh, you were never really trapped,” the rock said. “That was all in your imagination. You hallucinated imprisonment out of your subconscious guilt. You could have gone at any time, but you were driven by your own uncertainty to construct a situation where you would confess. As a matter of fact,” the rock confided after another of its characteristic pauses, “your craft was never wrecked either. You landed here voluntarily and wandered over seeking to betray the time and nature of the attack. Of course your conscious mind couldn’t handle that, and so you constructed a fantasy of wrecked craft, boulders, and so on. Your defense mechanisms are amazing.”
The flames sputtered above. Hawkins heard the dull boom of artillery. That was dumb, he thought at least in light of the repelling devices. If there were repelling devices. It all might be a lie, of course.
“In fact,” the rock said with alarming casualness, “you hallucinated sentience itself. We’re perfectly inert and senseless; you’ve just projected upon us your own ambivalence about your course of conquest. Sorry to hit you with all this,” the rock apologized as Hawkins scuttled desperately for cover. “I did want you to understand the truth before you destroy yourself.”
Hawkins, thoroughly humiliated, clawed at the restored circulation in his ankle.
Meanwhile, the asteroid exploded.
I’m Going Through the Door
D EAR MR. BAEN:
While making sentimental pilgrimage to apartment-25 in premises 102 West 75th Street (now located above a solemn and mysterious establishment called THE MONASTERY RESTAURANT whose dungeon-like exterior belies some of the happier moments of memory in which time was spent feverishly ordering antibiotics in the Bailey’s drugstore which used to be there) I found the enclosed strange document addressed to me in psychotic hand and wedged between the top and bottom panels of the flush mechanism in the bathroom of said premises. I cannot imagine how long its length of stay nor how the author of this correspondence expected it to reach my hands. Perhaps he was an optimist. Perhaps he had anticipated my nostalgie de bue. Perhaps I dreamed all of this and wrote the letter to myself in amnesiac fugue, then cunningly secreted it in buried pockets until at this proper moment of opportunity. I am simply unprepared to make judgments of this sort.
Since the letter itself (as opposed to the envelope in which it was wedged which was incidentally quite filthy) is addressed to you I hasten to forward, although with a great sense of bemusement. I do not know what the author, one W. Coyne, is talking about. Do you know what he is talking about? As always this is sent with every best wish: I have always been a great admirer of the science-fiction market even though I am incapable of writing for it.
Helpfully,
BARRY N. MALZBERG
* * *
Dear Barry,
This is such an interesting letter that I have decided to publish it in the form of a short story! As you have long been aware the ingenuity of editors knows no bounds. . . . You don’t suppose Mr. Coyne will mind, do you?
Best regards,
Jim Baen
* * *
Dear Mr. Baen:
Perhaps you have heard of me. My name is William Coyne. Eight years ago or perhaps it was nine (it is increasingly difficult to keep events straight in this disordered tangle which I call my mind) I wrote a letter to Frederik Pohl, who was the editor of your magazine for many years. In this letter I described to Mr. Pohl (whom I have always respected) the
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