Melancholy Elephants Read online

  P E N G U I N • S H O R T • F I C T I O N

  “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  Melancholy Elephants

  Born in New York, Spider Robinson moved to Nova Scotia in 1973. He and his wife, Jeanne, now live in Halifax.

  Stardance, co-authored by Robinson and his wife, won both Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1977. Robinson’s other works include Telempath (1976), Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon (1977), Time Travelers Strictly Cash (1981), and Mindkiller (1982).

  Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  Penguin Books, 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York, 10010, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd., 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, L3R 1B4, Canada

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd., 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Published in Penguin Books, 1984

  Copyright © Spider Robinson, 1984

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in Canada by Webcom Limited

  Typesetting by Jay Tee Graphics Ltd.

  Series design by David Wyman

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Robinson, Spider.

  Melancholy Elephants

  (Penguin short fiction)

  ISBN 0-14-007427-9

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8585.024M44 1984 C813'.54 C84-098582-7

  PR9199.3.R63M44 1984

  Except in the United States of America,

  this book is sold subject to the condition

  that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,

  be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

  without the publisher’s prior consent in any form

  of binding or cover other than that in which it

  is published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed

  on the subsequent purchaser.

  To Jeanne,

  of course, and to Denise Schon, in both cases for the patience, and to all the Canadian sf writers past, present and future.

  Acknowledgements

  The following stories in this collection have been published previously:

  “Melancholy Elephants” in Analog;

  “Antinomy” in Destinies;

  “Half an Oaf” in The Analog Annual;

  “Satan’s Children” in New Voices;

  “No Renewal” in Galaxy;

  “Not Fade Away” in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine;

  “Chronic Offender” in Twilight;

  “It’s a Sunny Day” in Galaxy;

  “High Infidelity” in Oui;

  “Rubber Soul” in Best of Omni Science Fiction.

  Contents

  Melancholy Elephants

  Antinomy

  Half an Oaf

  Satan’s Children

  No Renewal

  In the Olden Days

  Not Fade Away

  True Minds

  Chronic Offender

  It’s a Sunny Day

  High Infidelity

  Rubber Soul

  Introduction

  For once, some sort of literal introduction seems called for; I believe we are strangers. This is the first edition of one of my books to be published exclusively in Canada (Only in Canada, you say? Pretty!), and the first collection of my short stories to be marketed to a non-genre audience. As the majority of my readers have heretofore been American science fiction readers, perhaps we should talk.

  Science fiction? You mean rocketships and rayguns and cute li’l robots? Alien monsters, evil computers, expensive special effects?

  Well, no. You won’t find any of that here. You’re confusing modern science fiction with sci-fi—a perfectly understandable error. Sci-fi—the plural of “scum fum”—refers to certain very bad films made by Hollywood and/or Canadian dentists in need of tax shelters. Sf, on the other hand, (lower case) is the correct abbreviation for science fiction, the literature of speculative entertainment; deprived of novel visual effects, we try to substitute novel ideas. Our only connection with the movies is that they feel free to steal our ideas whenever the special effects budget falls short.

  One characteristic is common to both the sci-fi movie and the sf story, though: we both try very hard to be entertaining. Sf is the last home of the short story writer; every month well over a million words of short fiction are gobbled up and printed by an assortment of magazines, and they pay cash on the barrel—none of this “free copies and vegetables in season” nonsense found elsewhere. But we must, above all else, be entertaining—we never forget that we are competing for the customer’s beer money. Some say this is a crass and ignoble constraint on serious literature—the same one that kept Skakespeare from amounting to anything—but I hope you will find it agreeable.

  But sf must be more than merely entertaining. (“Merely”? Those who think it is easy to entertain a stranger by remote control using only written words are invited to try.) The word “ficton,” absolutely indispensable to any serious discussion of art, was coined only five years ago by Robert A. Heinlein, the Grandmaster of sf: a ficton is a fictional universe, the time-and-place in which a story takes place. There are as many fictons as there are stories; it is impossible to create a story without generating a ficton, which can range from a copy of the world around you to “Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” (Similarly, it is impossible to create a ficton without generating stories.)

  So-called “mainstream fiction” is restricted by its rules to fictons which closely resemble The Real World, past or present—as closely as any two accounts of reality ever mesh—or to entirely make-believe fictons which do not and could not exist. Orwell’s 1984, for example, is not a science fictional ficton—not because it didn’t happen, but because the silly world he described never could have existed for longer than a week before collapsing from its own internal inconsistencies. But most non-sf is set in fictons which rely on observation and analysis of “reality” past and present, admittedly a rich field of study.

  Sf takes a more imaginative approach. We believe that in grappling with the human condition, speculation can be as useful a tool as observation and analysis, and we focus on the future as much as (not more than; as much as) the past and present. We have three basic speculations: “What if—?”, “If only—”, and “If this goes on—” In the third and simplest of these, we extrapolate the present into the near or far future, to determine what course the human race is presently steering. In the second, we try to invent a ficton superior to this one, and puzzle out ways to get there from here. In the first and hardest, we introduce one or more “wild cards” into the equation—the way life frequently does—and study the results for whatever insights they offer on our present situation.

  Mainstream literature examines only fictons which are prosaic or entirely make-believe. Sf examines fictons which are imaginary but viable, different from but plausibly related to this one.

  A reader who has lived in many different fictons is more sophisticated, less provincial, than one who has not, and a reader who can change fictons without trauma, for fun, is forever insulated against future shock. Sf, since it is the only branch of literature which addresses the future, which tries to cope with change, which insists, as Theodore Sturgeon says, on asking the next question, is I think the only truly mature literature. It is certainly the only one to examine squarely The Great Antinomy, the most potent source of pain in the human condition: the interface between technology and people, between science—which means “knowing”—and fiction, which means “imagining,” “feel
ing.” Sf mediates between the scientist and the poet, between those who observe and measure and those who dream. It stands midway between objective truth and subjective truth, seeking perpetually to reconcile the two, because this is essential to the continued survival of the human race and because it pays good money and because, as I mentioned earlier, it turns out to be fun.

  That is why I write sf. Because I am a grownup artist and a fair entertainer, and morale on Starship Earth has been pretty rotten lately. And because I enjoy it.

  I hope you will enjoy the particular examples of sf which follow. They are some of my beloved children, with whom I am well pleased. Some are serious, but all are leavened with humour. (Fair warning: some contain puns.) Some are silly, but none are preposterous. Some are erotic, but none are pornographic. (That got your attention.) Some are short, some tall, but none are fat. They are all as entertaining as I could make them, and they all have at least one point to make. If you are a junkfood junkie, you should find them so tasty that you won’t mind them being nutritious; if you are a healthfood freak, you should find enough vitamins, minerals and enzymes to help you forgive them for being delicious.

  They range in age from nine on down to brand-new—two of the stories appear here for the first time. Four of the others are resurrected from Antinomy, a 1980 collection whose publishers made the decision to scrap their sf line about twenty minutes after it was published, one of very few books to be remaindered during publication. The rest have all appeared at least once in a national magazine or original anthology, and are collected here in book form for the first time. And while I don’t believe in spoiling children by displaying favouritism, I feel compelled to mention that the title story of Melancholy Elephants—a precocious two-year-old!—was voted the Hugo Award for Best SF Short Story of 1982 (my third Hugo), by the members of the 41st World Science Fiction Convention, that is, anyone on the planet who bothered to mail in a ballot. The story is dedicated to Mrs. Virginia Heinlein; I hope you will enjoy it and its siblings, and find their fictons congenial.

  And if not—well, hell, at least you’ve been somewhere.

  —Tottering-on-the-Brink,

  Halifax, 1984

  Melancholy Elephants

  Melancholy Elephants

  This story is dedicated to

  Virginia Heinlein

  She sat zazen, concentrating on not concentrating, until it was time to prepare for the appointment. Sitting seemed to produce the usual serenity, put everything in perspective. Her hand did not tremble as she applied her make-up; tranquil features looked back at her from the mirror. She was mildly surprised, in fact, at just how calm she was, until she got out of the hotel elevator at the garage level and the mugger made his play. She killed him instead of disabling him. Which was obviously not a measured, balanced action—the official fuss and paperwork could make her late. Annoyed at herself, she stuffed the corpse under a shiny new Westinghouse roadable whose owner she knew to be in Luna, and continued on to her own car. This would have to be squared later, and it would cost. No help for it—she fought to regain at least the semblance of tranquility as her car emerged from the garage and turned north.

  Nothing must interfere with this meeting, or with her role in it.

  Dozens of man-years and God knows how many dollars, she thought, funnelling down to perhaps a half hour of conversation. All the effort, all the hope. Insignificant on the scale of the Great Wheel, of course…but when you balance it all on a half hour of talk, it’s like balancing a stereo cartridge on a needlepoint: It only takes a gram or so of weight to wear out a piece of diamond. I must be harder than diamond.

  Rather than clear a window and watch Washington, D.C. roll by beneath her car, she turned on the television. She absorbed and integrated the news, on the chance that there might be some late-breaking item she could turn to her advantage in the conversation to come; none developed. Shortly the car addressed her: “Grounding, ma’am. I.D. eyeball request.” When the car landed she cleared and then opened her window, presented her pass and I.D. to a Marine in dress blues, and was cleared at once. At the Marine’s direction she re-opaqued the window and surrendered control of her car to the house computer, and when the car parked itself and powered down she got out without haste. A man she knew was waiting to meet her, smiling.

  “Dorothy, it’s good to see you again.”

  “Hello, Phillip. Good of you to meet me.”

  “You look lovely this evening.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  She did not chafe at the meaningless pleasantries. She needed Phil’s support, or she might. But she did reflect on how many, many sentences have been worn smooth with use, rendered meaningless by centuries of repetition. It was by no means a new thought.

  “If you’ll come with me, he’ll see you at once.”

  “Thank you, Phillip.” She wanted to ask what the old man’s mood was, but knew it would put Phil in an impossible position.

  “I rather think your luck is good; the old man seems to be in excellent spirits tonight.”

  She smiled her thanks, and decided that if and when Phil got around to making his pass she would accept him.

  The corridors through which he led her then were broad and high and long; the building dated back to a time of cheap power. Even in Washington, few others would have dared to live in such an energy-wasteful environment. The extremely spare decor reinforced the impression created by the place’s dimensions: bare space from carpet to ceiling, broken approximately every forty meters by some exquisitely simple object d’art of at least a megabuck’s value, appropriately displayed. An unadorned, perfect, white porcelain bowl, over a thousand years old, on a rough cherrywood pedestal. An arresting colour photograph of a snow-covered country road, silk-screened onto stretched silver foil; the time of day changed as one walked past it. A crystal globe, a meter in diameter, within which danced a hologram of the immortal Shara Drummond; since she had ceased performing before the advent of holo technology, this had to be an expensive computer reconstruction. A small sealed glassite chamber containing the first vacuum-sculpture ever made, Nakagawa’s legendary Starstone. A visitor in no hurry could study an object at leisure, then walk quite a distance in undistracted contemplation before encountering another. A visitor in a hurry, like Dorothy, would not quite encounter peripherally astonishing stimuli often enough to get the trick of filtering them out. Each tugged at her attention, intruded on her thoughts; they were distracting both intrinsically and as a reminder of the measure of their owner’s wealth. To approach this man in his own home, whether at leisure or in haste, was to be humbled. She knew the effect was intentional, and could not transcend it; this irritated her, which irritated her. She struggled for detachment.

  At the end of the seemingly endless corridors was an elevator. Phillip handed her into it, punched a floor button, without giving her a chance to see which one, and stepped back into the doorway. “Good luck, Dorothy.”

  “Thank you, Phillip. Any topics to be sure and avoid?”

  “Well…don’t bring up hemorrhoids.”

  “I didn’t know one could.”

  He smiled. “Are we still on for lunch Thursday?”

  “Unless you’d rather make it dinner.”

  One eyebrow lifted. “And breakfast?”

  She appeared to consider it. “Brunch,” she decided. He half-bowed and stepped back.

  The elevator door closed and she forgot Phillip’s existence.

  Sentient beings are innumerable; I vow to save them all. The deluding passions are limitless; I vow to extinguish them all. The truth is limitless; I—

  The elevator door opened again, truncating the Vow of the Bodhisattva. She had not felt the elevator stop—yet she knew that she must have descended at least a hundred meters. She left the elevator.

  The room was larger than she had expected; nonetheless the big powered chair dominated it easily. The chair also seemed to dominate—at least visually—its occupant. A misleading impression, as
he dominated all this massive home, everything in it and, to a great degree, the country in which it stood. But he did not look like much.

  A scent symphony was in progress, the cinnamon passage of Bulachevski’s “Childhood.” It happened to be one of her personal favorites, and this encouraged her.

  “Hello, Senator.”

  “Hello, Mrs Martin. Welcome to my home. Forgive me for not rising.”

  “Of course. It was most gracious of you to receive me.”

  “It is my pleasure and privilege. A man my age appreciates a chance to spend time with a woman as beautiful and intelligent as yourself.”

  “Senator, how soon do we start talking to each other?”

  He raised that part of his face which had once held an eyebrow.

  “We haven’t said anything yet that is true. You do not stand because you cannot. Your gracious reception cost me three carefully hoarded favors and a good deal of folding cash. More than the going rate; you are seeing me reluctantly. You have at least eight mistresses that I know of, each of whom makes me look like a dull matron. I concealed a warm corpse on the way here because I dared not be late; my time is short and my business urgent. Can we begin?”

  She held her breath and prayed silently. Everything she had been able to learn about the Senator told her that this was the correct way to approach him. But was it?

  The mummy-like face fissured in a broad grin. “Right away. Mrs Martin, I like you and that’s the truth. My time is short, too. What do you want of me?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I can make an excellent guess. I hate guessing.”

  “I am heavily and publicly committed to the defeat of S. 4217896.”

  “Yes, but for all I know you might have come here to sell out.”

  “Oh.” She tried not to show her surprise. “What makes you think that possible?”