Short Fiction, Fritz Leiber [great books for teens txt] 📗

began hesitantly, knowing very well that there weren’t. If Phobos and Deimos had suddenly disintegrated, surely Mars Base would have noticed something. Of course there was the Disordered Space Hypothesis, even if it was little more than the chance phrase of a prominent physicist pounded upon by an eager journalist. And in any case, what sense of security were you left with if you admitted that moons and planets might explode, or drop through unseen holes in space? So he ended up by taking a different tack: “Besides, if Phobos and Deimos simply shot off somewhere, surely they’d have been picked up by now by scope or radar.”

“Two balls of rock just a few miles in diameter?” Madge questioned. “Aren’t they smaller than many of the asteroids? I’m no astronomer, but I think’ I’m right.”

And of course she was.

She swung the book under her arm. “Whew, it’s heavy,” she observed, adding in slightly scandalized tones, “Never been microfilmed.” She smiled nervously and looked them up and down. “Going to a party?” she asked.

Theodor’s scarlet cloak and Celeste’s green culottes and silver jacket justified the question, but they shook their heads.

“Just the normally flamboyant garb of the family,” Celeste said, while Theodor explained, “As it happens, we’re bound on business connected with the disappearance. We Wolvers practically constitute a subcommittee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes. And since a lot of varied material comes to our attention, we’re going to see if any of it correlates with this bit of astronomical sleight-of-hand.”

Madge nodded. “Give you something to do, at any rate. Well, I must be off. The Buddhist temple has lent us their place for a meeting.” She gave them a woeful grin. “See you when the Earth jumps.”

Theodor said to Celeste, “Come on, dear. We’ll be late.”

But Celeste didn’t want to move too fast. “You know, Teddy,” she said uncomfortably, “all this reminds me of those old myths where too much good fortune is a sure sign of coming disaster. It was just too much luck, our great-grandparents missing World III and getting the World Government started a thousand years ahead of schedule. Luck like that couldn’t last, evidently. Maybe we’ve gone too fast with a lot of things, like spaceflight and the Deep Shaft and⁠—” she hesitated a bit⁠—“complex marriages. I’m a woman. I want complete security. Where am I to find it?”

“In me,” Theodor said promptly.

“In you?” Celeste questioned, walking slowly. “But you’re just one-third of my husband. Perhaps I should look for it in Edmund or Ivan.”

“You angry with me about something?”

“Of course not. But a woman wants her source of security whole. In a crisis like this, it’s disturbing to have it divided.”

“Well, we are a whole and, I believe, indivisible family,” Theodor told her warmly. “You’re not suggesting, are you, that we’re going to be punished for our polygamous sins by a cosmic catastrophe? Fire from Heaven and all that?”

“Don’t be silly. I just wanted to give you a picture of my feeling.” Celeste smiled. “I guess none of us realized how much we’ve come to depend on the idea of unchanging scientific law. Knocks the props from under you.”

Theodor nodded emphatically. “All the more reason to get a line on what’s happening as quickly as possible. You know, it’s fantastically farfetched, but I think the experience of persons with Extrasensory Perception may give us a clue. During the past three or four days there’s been a remarkable similarity in the dreams of E.S.P.s all over the planet. I’m going to present the evidence at the meeting.”

Celeste looked up at him. “So that’s why Rosalind’s bringing Frieda’s daughter?”

“Dotty is your daughter, too, and Rosalind’s,” Theodor reminded her.

“No, just Frieda’s,” Celeste said bitterly. “Of course you may be the father. One-third of a chance.”

Theodor looked at her sharply, but didn’t comment. “Anyway, Dotty will be there,” he said. “Probably asleep by now. All the E.S.P.s have suddenly seemed to need more sleep.”

As they talked, it had been growing darker, though the luminescence of the path kept it from being bothersome. And now the cloud rack parted to the east, showing a single red planet low on the horizon.

“Did you know,” Theodor said suddenly, “that in Gulliver’s Travels Dean Swift predicted that better telescopes would show Mars to have two moons? He got the sizes and distances and periods damned accurately, too. One of the few really startling coincidences of reality and literature.”

“Stop being eerie,” Celeste said sharply. But then she went on, “Those names Phobos and Deimos⁠—they’re Greek, aren’t they? What do they mean?”

Theodor lost a step. “Fear and Terror,” he said unwillingly. “Now don’t go taking that for an omen. Most of the mythological names of major and minor ancient gods had been taken⁠—the bodies in the Solar System are named that way, of course⁠—and these were about all that were available.”

It was true, but it didn’t comfort him much.

I am a God, Dotty was dreaming, and I want to be by myself and think. I and my god-friends like to keep some of our thoughts secret, but the other gods have forbidden us to.

A little smile flickered across the lips of the sleeping girl, and the woman in gold tights and gold-spangled jacket leaned forward thoughtfully. In her dignity and simplicity and straight-spined grace, she was rather like a circus mother watching her sick child before she went out for the trapeze act.

I and my god-friends sail off in our great round silver boats, Dotty went on dreaming. The other gods are angry and scared. They are frightened of the thoughts we may think in secret. They follow us to hunt us down. There are many more of them than of us.

As Celeste and Theodor entered the committee room, Rosalind Wolver⁠—a glitter of platinum against darkness⁠—came in through the opposite door and softly shut it behind her. Frieda, a fair woman in blue robes, got up from the round table.

Celeste turned away with outward casualness as Theodor