Again, Dangerous Visions Part 18

Introduction to KING OF THE HILL.

One night in College Station, Texas, in the company of Chad Oliver-almost a legendary name in science fiction because of the scarcity and impossibly high quality level of his stories-I demolished a restaurant and turned a formal banquet at which I was speaking into a scene of loot and pillage.

Now. You hear these myth fables about writers. About Scott Fitzgerald's "crazy Sunday" in which he threw himself into the pool at a producer's mansion. About Hemingway tossing his first novel, the one before The Sun Also Rises before The Sun Also Rises, overboard on the ship back from Paris, because he felt a writer should never publish his first novel. About Steinbeck going into deadly barrooms on the Jersey docks and challenging whole groups of wallopers to bare knuckle contests. About Faulkner when he worked in one of the Hollywood studios, sitting there for hours typing over and over again on the same sheet of paper, "Boy gets girl, boy gets girl, boy gets girl..." And there are stories told about your Gentle Editor-who does not for one moment moment publicly cop to an ego that puts him in the same league with the gentlemen noted above-and these are stories of rape and ruin that sound like the purest bulls.h.i.t. Some of them are. But some actually happened, and there is always one person who was there and saw it: Silverberg was there when the drunken giant Puerto Rican came at me with the broken quart beer bottle; Avram Davidson was there when I walked into the middle of a street gang in Greenwich Village as they were getting ready to stomp us; a girl named Toni Feldman was there when I dragged an old woman out of a burning car after it had crashed into a fence and before it blew up; Norman Spinrad was there when I got the c.r.a.p kicked out of me by a guy who was the muscle for a gang of ripoff artists in Milford, Pennsylvania; and Chad Oliver was there when I mobilized the restaurant. publicly cop to an ego that puts him in the same league with the gentlemen noted above-and these are stories of rape and ruin that sound like the purest bulls.h.i.t. Some of them are. But some actually happened, and there is always one person who was there and saw it: Silverberg was there when the drunken giant Puerto Rican came at me with the broken quart beer bottle; Avram Davidson was there when I walked into the middle of a street gang in Greenwich Village as they were getting ready to stomp us; a girl named Toni Feldman was there when I dragged an old woman out of a burning car after it had crashed into a fence and before it blew up; Norman Spinrad was there when I got the c.r.a.p kicked out of me by a guy who was the muscle for a gang of ripoff artists in Milford, Pennsylvania; and Chad Oliver was there when I mobilized the restaurant.

I treasure these people. Not only because they are the unimpeachable verification that the contretemps in which I find myself actually took place-thereby staving off the label of righteous liar I might otherwise wear-but because they are reference points for me, enabling me to distinguish between the colorful lies I tell about myself to enhance my own image of myself, and the truly unbelievable things that actually happen.

It is my most fervent wish that these people stay alive and well, because if they go, then with them go the few pieces of reality to which I cling ferociously.

So ask Chad about that evening.

It was the only time we've ever been in each other's company, and exhausts my anecdotes about Chad. Except that he is a big, charming, pipe-smoking dude. The rest he can relate for himself: "DEMOGRAPHIC DOPE. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1928. All male Olivers were doctors (father, grandfather, uncle). I am therefore a mutant. Moved to Crystal City, Texas, when I was a soph.o.m.ore in high school. I loved it-played football, edited the school paper, made friends that are still with me. (It's the town used as background in Shadows in the Sun Shadows in the Sun.) Moved around some in Texas since (Galveston, Kerrville, now Austin) but I guess it's fair to say that Texas is Home. Married a Texas girl in 1952; she is known variously as Betty Jane, Beje, and B.J. Have two children: daughter Kim, 17 years, and son Glen, 5. You might call that s.p.a.cing them out.

"ACADEMIC. I got my B.A. and M.A. at the University of Texas. Took my Ph.D. (in anthropology) at UCLA. I'm a cultural anthropologist, with particular interests in cultural ecology, the Plains Indians, and the ethnology of East Africa. My rank is Full Professor, not that anyone cares, and I am Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. I am peculiar in that I happen to like to teach, especially undergraduates. I normally teach several hundred students each semester; out of that number, maybe 3 or 4 know that I write science fiction. I can recognize them by their beady little eyes.

"WRITING. I discovered science fiction when I was a kid, back in the Paleolithic. I remember the story that hooked me: Edmond Hamilton's 'Treasure on Thunder Moon' in the old, fat Amazing Amazing. I hopped on my bicycle and went back to the newsstand and bought every science fiction magazine I could find. I bought a second-hand typewriter and-aged 15-began to Write. Seven years later, Tony Boucher bought my first story. I've sold virtually everything I have written since then-mostly science fiction, but also a few historical westerns for Argosy Argosy and and The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post. I fear I have not been terribly prolific-it comes to around 50 short stories and novelettes, most of which have been anthologized.

"Books include Mists of Dawn Mists of Dawn (1952), (1952), Shadows in the Sun Shadows in the Sun (1954), (1954), Another Kind Another Kind (1955), (1955), The Winds of Time The Winds of Time (1957), (1957), Unearthly Neighbors Unearthly Neighbors (1960), and (1960), and The Wolf Is My Brother The Wolf Is My Brother (1967). The latter won the award as Best Western Historical Novel of 1967 from the Western Writers of America. I have a new science fiction novel, (1967). The latter won the award as Best Western Historical Novel of 1967 from the Western Writers of America. I have a new science fiction novel, The Sh.o.r.es of Another Sea The Sh.o.r.es of Another Sea, from NAL (Signet) and a new collection, The Edge of Forever The Edge of Forever (Sherbourne), both published in 1971. (Sherbourne), both published in 1971.

"All of this, I guess, tells you very little about me. Maybe that is just as well. I am serious about my writing and I try to write as well as I can. If there is anything about me worth knowing, I hope it can be found somewhere in all those words I have struggled to put on paper."

And finally, these three items. 1) The full name is Symmes Chadwick Oliver. In anthropology he uses Symmes C. Oliver; for fiction, he uses Chad. 2) Publishers' Weekly Publishers' Weekly for 3 May 71 announces, "Sherbourne Press of Los Angeles has signed Chad Oliver for his first hardcover collection of science fiction short stories. All of the stories have an anthropological theme." See above. 3) "King of the Hill" is one of the best, tightest, most memorable stories Chad has ever written and I am deeply honored he sold his first short story in years to this anthology. Now go and enjoy it. for 3 May 71 announces, "Sherbourne Press of Los Angeles has signed Chad Oliver for his first hardcover collection of science fiction short stories. All of the stories have an anthropological theme." See above. 3) "King of the Hill" is one of the best, tightest, most memorable stories Chad has ever written and I am deeply honored he sold his first short story in years to this anthology. Now go and enjoy it.

KING OF THE HILL.

Chad Oliver .

She floated there in the great nothing, still warm and soft and blue-green if you could eyeball her from a few thousand miles out, still kissed under blankets of clouds.

Mama Earth. Getting old now, tired, her blankets soiled with her own secretions, her body bruised and torn by a billion forgotten pa.s.sions.

Like many a mother before her, she had given birth to a monster. He was not old, not as planets measure time, and there had been other children. But he was old enough. He had taken over.

His name?

You know it: there are no surprises left. Man. Big Daddy of the primates. The ape that walks like a chicken. h.o.m.o sap. Ah, the tool-maker, flapper of tongues, builder of fires, s.e.x fiend, dreamer, destroyer, creator of garbage...

You know me, Al.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall- Ant is the name, anthill is the game.

There were many men, too many men. They have names.

Try this one on for size: Sam Gregg. Don't like it? Rings no bells? Not elegant enough? Wrong ethnic affiliation?

Few among the manswarm, if any, cared for Sam Gregg. One or two, possibly, gave a d.a.m.n about his name. A billion or so knew his name.

Mostly, they hated his guts-and envied him.

He was there, Sam Gregg, big as life and twice as ugly.

He stuck out.

A rock in the sandpile.

They were after him again.

Sam Gregg felt the pressure. There had been a time when he had thrived on it; the adrenaline had flowed and the juices bubbled. Sure, and there had been a time when dinosaurs had walked the earth. Sam had been born in the year that men had first walked on the moon. (It had tickled him, when he was old enough to savor it. A man with the unlikely name of Armstrong, no less. And his faithful sidekick, Buzz. And good old Mike holding the fort. Jesus.) That made him nearly a century old. His doctors were good, the best. It was no miracle to live a hundred years, not these days. But he wasn't a kid anymore, as he demonstrated occasionally with Lois.

The attacks were not particularly subtle, but they were civilized. That meant that n.o.body called you a son of a b.i.t.c.h to your face, and the a.s.sa.s.sins carried statistics and plat.i.tudes instead of knives and strangling cords.

Item. A bill had been introduced in Washington by good old Senator Raleigh, millionaire defender of the poor. Stripped of its stumbling oratorical flourishes, it argued that undersea development was now routine and therefore that there should be no tax dodges for phony risk capital investment. That little arrow was aimed straight at one of Sam's companies-at several of them, in fact, although the somewhat dim-witted Raleigh probably did not know that. Sam could beat the bill, but it would cost him money. That annoyed him. He had an expensive hobby.

Item. Sam retained a covey of bright boys whose only job it was to keep his name out of the communications media. They weren't entirely successful; your name is not known to a billion people on a word-of-mouth basis. Still, he had not been subjected to one of those full-scale, no-holds-barred, dynamic, daring personal close-ups for nearly a year now. One was coming up, on Worldwide. The mystery man-revealed! The richest man in the world-exposed! The hermit-trapped by fearless reporters! Sam was not amused. The earth was sick, blotched by hungry and desperate people from pole to shining pole. There had never been an uglier joke than pinning man's future on birth control. A sick world needs a target for its anger. Sam's only hope was to be inconspicuous. He had failed in that, and it would get him in the end. Still, he only needed a little more time...

Item. The U.N. delegate from the Arctic Republic had charged that Arctic citizens of Eskimo descent were being pa.s.sed over for high administrative positions in franchises licensed to operate in the Republic. "We must not and will not allow," he said, "the well-known technical abilities of our people to serve as a pretext for modern-day colonial exploitation." The accusation was so much rancid blubber, of course; Sam happened to like Eskimos as well as he liked anybody, and in any event he was always very careful about such things. No matter. There would be a hearing, facts would have to be tortured by the computers, stories would have to be planted, money would be spent. The root of all evil produced a popular shrub.

There were other items, most of them routine. Sam did not deal with them himself, and had not done so for fifty years. ("Mr. Gregg never does anything personally personally," as one aide had put it in a famous interview.) Sam routed the problems down to subordinates; that was what they were for. Nevertheless, he kept in touch. A ruler who does not know what is going on in his empire can expect the early arrival of the goon squad that escorts him into oblivion. There were the usual appeals to support Worthy Causes, to contribute to Charity, to help out Old Friends. Sam denied them all without a qualm and without doing anything; his lieutenants had their orders. A penny saved...

Sam was not really worried; at worst he was hara.s.sed, which was the chronic complaint of executives. They They were not on to him yet. There was no slightest hint of a leak where it counted. If were not on to him yet. There was no slightest hint of a leak where it counted. If that that one ever hit the air cleaner there would be a stink they could smell in the moon labs. one ever hit the air cleaner there would be a stink they could smell in the moon labs.

Still, he felt the pressure. He was human, at least in his own estimation. There was a cla.s.sic cure for pressure, known to students of language as getting away from it all. It was a cure that was no longer possible for the vast majority of once-human beings, for the simple reason that there was nowhere to go.

("To what do you attribute your long and successful life, Mr. Gregg?" "Well, I pension off my wives so that I always have a young one, and I see to it that she talks very little. I drink a lot of good booze, but I never get drunk. I don't eat meat. I count my money when I get depressed. If I feel tense, I knock about the estate until I feel better. I try to break at least three laws every day. I owe it all to being a completely evil man.") Sam Gregg could take the cure, and he did.

He did not have to leave his own land, of course.

Sam never never left his Estate. (Well, hardly ever.) left his Estate. (Well, hardly ever.) He took the private tube down from his suite in the tower and stepped outside. That was the way he thought of it, but it was not precisely true. There was a miniature life-support pod that arched over a thousand acres of his property. It was a high price to pay for clean air, but it was the only way. Sam needed it and so did the animals.

There were two laws that he broke every day. In a world so strangled by countless tons of human meat that land per capita was measured in square feet, Sam Gregg owned more than a thousand acres acres. Moreover, he did nothing useful with that supremely illegal land. He kept animals animals on it. Even dogs and cats had been outlawed for a quarter of a century, and what pa.s.sed for meat was grown in factory vats. When people are starving, wasting food on pets is a criminal act. (Who says so? Why, people do.) Most of the zoos were gone now, and parks and forests and meadows were things of the past. on it. Even dogs and cats had been outlawed for a quarter of a century, and what pa.s.sed for meat was grown in factory vats. When people are starving, wasting food on pets is a criminal act. (Who says so? Why, people do.) Most of the zoos were gone now, and parks and forests and meadows were things of the past.

Sam took a deep breath, drinking in the air. It was just right, and not completely artificial either. Cool it was, and fragrant with living smells: trees and wet-green gra.s.s and water that glided over rocks and earth that was soft and thick.

This was all that was left, a fact that Sam fully appreciated.

This was the world as it once had been, lost now and forever.

Man had come, mighty man. Oh, he was smart, he was clever. He had turned the seas into cesspools, the air into sludge, the mountains into shrieking cities. Someone had once said that one chimpanzee was no chimpanzee. It was true; they were social animals. But how about ten thousand chimpanzees caged in a square mile? That was no chimpanzee also-that was crazy meat on a funny farm.

Oh, man was clever. He raped a world until he could not live with it, and then he screamed for help.

Don't call me, Al. I'll call you.

Sam shook his head. It was no good thinking about it. He could not ride to the rescue, not with all of his billions. He had no great admiration for his fellow men, and it would not matter if he had.

There was only one thing left to try.

Sam tried to close his mind to it. He had to stay alive a little longer. He had to relax, value, enjoy- He walked along an unpaved trail, very likely the last one left on the planet. He breathed clean air, he felt the warmth of the sun glowing through the pod, he absorbed...

There were squirrels chattering in the trees, rabbits busy at rabbit-business in the brush. He saw a deer, a beautiful buck with moss on his horns; the buck ran when he spotted Sam. He knew who the enemy was. He saw a thin racc.o.o.n, a female that stared at him from behind her bandit's mask. She had three young ones with her and they were bold, but Mama herded them up into an oak and out of danger. He could see the three little masks peering down at him from the branches.

The trail wound along a stream of cold, fast water. Sam watched the dark olive shadows lurking in the pools. Trout, of course. Sam drew the line at ba.s.s and carp.

He came out of the trees and into a field of tall gra.s.s. There were yellow flowers and insects buzzed in the air. He sensed the closeness of shapes and forms, but he could not see them in the breeze-swept gra.s.s. There was life here, and death, and life again.

But not for long.

He turned and retraced his steps. He felt a little better.

The racc.o.o.ns were still in the oak.

Sam went back inside. Back to the salt mine.

He worked hard until dinner.

"What was the exact hour?" Lois asked him, absently stroking one of her remarkable legs. (She had two of them.) "I don't remember," Sam said. "I was very young."

"Come on, Sam. I'm not stupid. You can't can't tell me that with all the resources of your mysterious enterprises you can't find out the exact time." tell me that with all the resources of your mysterious enterprises you can't find out the exact time."

"I am telling you. I don't know." Sam looked at her, which was always pleasant in a tense sort of way. Lois was sensual but there was no softness in her. She had a lacquered surface stretched like a drumhead over taut springs. She always looked perfect, but even her casual clothes were somehow formal. She never forgot herself. She was a challenge, which was fine once in a while. Sam was old enough to decline most challenges without dishonor.

Lois did not have to remind Sam that she had a brain. Sam never made that that mistake. Her little reference to "mysterious enterprises" was an effective threat. At thirty, she had climbed the highest pinnacle on her scale of values: she was the wife of the richest man in the world. She didn't want a settlement. She wanted it all. Sam had no children. mistake. Her little reference to "mysterious enterprises" was an effective threat. At thirty, she had climbed the highest pinnacle on her scale of values: she was the wife of the richest man in the world. She didn't want a settlement. She wanted it all. Sam had no children.

Bright, yes. Cunning, yes. Skilled, certainly. Faithful with her body, yes-Lois took no needless risks. But that fine-boned head enclosed a brain that was all output; not much of significance ever went in in. The hard violet eyes looked out from jelly that had been molded in Neolithic times.

She would have made a dandy witch.

She spent her days puttering with expensive clothing and obscure cosmetics. She had a library of real books, thus proving her intellectual capacity. They were all about reincarnation and astrology. She considered herself something of an expert with horoscopes. A pun had frequently occurred to Sam in this connection, but he had refrained. He was not a cruel man.

"I want to do it for you," she said. "You have decisions to make. It would help. Really, Sam."

She was quite sincere, like all fanatics. It was a gift she could give him, and that was important to her. It was an ancient problem for women like Lois: what do you give to a man who has everything? The gag presents get pretty thin very quickly, and Sam was not a man who was easily convulsed.

He sipped his drink, enjoying it. He always drank Scotch; the labs could create nothing better. "Well," he said. "I haven't a clue about the minute of my birth. I'd just as soon forget my birthday."

Lois was patient. "It would be so simple to find out."

"But I don't give a d.a.m.n."

"I give a d.a.m.n. What about me? It's a small thing. I know the day, of course. But if the moons of Saturn were in the right position..." give a d.a.m.n. What about me? It's a small thing. I know the day, of course. But if the moons of Saturn were in the right position..."

Sam raised his eyebrows and took a large swallow of Scotch before he answered. "They are always in the right position," he said carefully. "That's the way moons are."

"Oh, Sam." She did not cry; she had learned some things.

Sam Gregg stood up to refill his gla.s.s. He did not like to have obtrusive robots around the house. Self-reliance and all that.

He was not unaware of himself. He did not look his age. He was a tall, angular man. There was still strength in him. His hair was gray, not white. His craggy face was lined but there was no flab on him. His brown eyes were sharp, like dirty ice.

Sam sometimes thought of himself as a vampire in one of the still-popular epics. ("Ah, my dear, velcome to Castle Mordor. A moment vhile I adjust my dentures.") Splendid looking chap, distinguished even. But then, sudd.i.n.kly, at the worst possible moment, he dissolves into a puff of primeval dust...

"Let's go beddy-bye," Sam said, draining his gla.s.s. "Maybe I can remember."

"I'll help you," Lois said, reporting for duty.

"You'll have to," Sam agreed.

Sam worked very hard the next few weeks. He even found time to check the hour and the minute of his birth. He was being very careful indeed, trying to think of everything.

Lois was delighted. She retreated to her mystic stewpot, consulted her ill.u.s.trated charts, talked it over with several dead Indians, and informed Sam that he was thinking about a long, long journey.

Sam didn't explode into laughter.

His work was difficult because so much of it involved waiting. There were many programs to consider, all of them set in motion years ago. They had to mesh perfectly. They all depended on the work of other men. And they all had to be masked.

It wasn't easy. How, for instance, do you hide a couple of s.p.a.ceships? Particularly when they keep taking off and landing with all the stealth of trumpeting elephants?

("s.p.a.ceship? I don't see any s.p.a.ceship. Do you see a s.p.a.ceship?") Answer: You don't hide them. You account for them. For all practical purposes, Sam owned the s.p.a.ce station that orbited the Earth. He controlled it through a mosaic of interlocking companies, domestic and foreign. It was only natural for him to operate a few shuttle ships. A man has a right to keep his finger in his own pie.

Owned the s.p.a.ce station, Daddy? the s.p.a.ce station, Daddy?

Yes, Junior. Listen, my son, and you shall hear...

The great s.p.a.ce dream had been a bust. A colossal fizzle. A thumping anticlimax.

The trails blazed by the s.p.a.ce pioneers led-quite literally-Nowhere.

Fortunately or otherwise, Mighty Man could not create the solar system in his own image. The solar system was one h.e.l.l of a place, and not just on Pluto. There were no conveniently verdant worlds. There were just rocks and craters, heat and cold, lifeless dust and frozen chemicals.