The Best of Gene Wolfe

She rolls her head to look. “Strung out. What time is it, Tackie?”

You look at the little folding clock on her dresser. “Seventeen minutes after eight.”

“Jason go?”

“Yes, just now, Mama.”

She is looking at the ceiling again. “You go back downstairs now, Tackie. I’ll get you something when I feel better.”

Downstairs you put on your sheepskin coat and go out on the veranda to look at the sea. There are gulls riding the icy wind, and very far off something orange bobbing in the waves, always closer.

A life raft. You run to the beach, jump up and down, and wave your cap. “Over here. Over here.”

The man from the raft has no shirt, but the cold doesn’t seem to bother him. He holds out his hand and says, “Captain Ransom,” and you take it and are suddenly taller and older; not as tall as he is or as old as he is, but taller and older than yourself. “Tackman Babcock, Captain.”

“Pleased to meet you. You were a friend in need there a minute ago.”

“I guess I didn’t do anything but welcome you ashore.”

“The sound of your voice gave me something to steer for while my eyes were too busy watching that surf. Now you can tell me where I’ve landed and who you are.”

You are walking back up to the house now, and you explain to Ransom about you and Mother, and how she doesn’t want to enroll you in the school here because she is trying to get you into the private school your father went to once. And after a time there is nothing more to say, and you show Ransom one of the empty rooms on the third floor where he can rest and do whatever he wants. Then you go back to your own room to read.

“Do you mean that you made these monsters?”

“Made them?” Dr. Death leaned forward, a cruel smile playing about his lips. “Did God make Eve, Captain, when he took her from Adam’s rib? Or did Adam make the bone and God alter it to become what he wished? Look at it this way, Captain. I am God and Nature is Adam.”

Ransom looked at the thing who grasped his right arm with hands that might have circled a utility pole as easily. “Do you mean that this thing is an animal?”

“Not an animal,” the monster said, wrenching his arm cruelly. “Man.”

Dr. Death’s smile broadened. “Yes, Captain, man. The question is, what are you? When I’m finished with you we’ll see. Dulling your mind will be less of a problem than upgrading these poor brutes; but what about increasing the efficacy of your sense of smell? Not to mention rendering it impossible for you to walk erect.”

“Not to walk all-four-on-ground,” the beast-man holding Ransom muttered, “that is the law.”

Dr. Death turned and called to the shambling hunchback Ransom had seen earlier, “Colo, see to it that Captain Ransom is securely put away; then prepare the surgery.”

A car. Not Jason’s noisy Jaguar, but a quiet, large-sounding car. By heaving up the narrow, tight little window at the corner of the turret and sticking your head out into the cold wind you can see it: Dr. Black’s big one, with the roof and hood all shiny with new wax.

Downstairs Dr. Black is hanging up an overcoat with a collar of fur, and you smell the old cigar smoke in his clothing before you see him; then Aunt May and Aunt Julie are there to keep you occupied so that he won’t be reminded too vividly that marrying Mama means getting you as well. They talk to you: “How have you been, Tackie? What do you find to do out here all day?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Don’t you ever go looking for shells on the beach?”

“I guess so.”

“You’re a handsome boy; do you know that?” Aunt May touches your nose with a scarlet-tipped finger and holds it there.

Aunt May is Mother’s sister, but older and not as pretty. Aunt Julie is Papa’s sister, a tall lady with a pulled-out, unhappy face, and makes you think of him even when you know she only wants Mama to get married again so that Papa won’t have to send her any more money.

Mama herself is downstairs now in a clean new dress with long sleeves. She laughs at Dr. Black’s jokes and holds on to his arm, and you think how nice her hair looks and that you will tell her so when you are alone. Dr. Black says, “How about it, Barbara, are you ready for the party?” and Mother, “Heavens no. You know what this place is like—yesterday I spent all day cleaning and today you can’t even see what I did. But Julie and May will help me.”

Dr. Black laughs. “After lunch.”

You get into his big car with the others and go to a restaurant on the edge of a cliff, with a picture window to see the ocean. Dr. Black orders a sandwich for you that has turkey and bacon and three pieces of bread, but you are finished before the grown-ups have started, and when you try to talk to Mother, Aunt May sends you out to where there is a railing with wire to fill in the spaces like chicken wire, only heavier, to look at the view.

It is really not much higher than the top window at home. Maybe a little higher. You put the toes of your shoes in the wire and bend out with your stomach against the rail to look down, but a grown-up pulls you down and tells you not to do it, then goes away. You do it again, and there are rocks at the bottom which the waves wash over in a neat way, covering them up and then pulling back. Someone touches your elbow, but you pay no attention for a minute, watching the water.

Then you get down, and the man standing beside you is Dr. Death.

He has a white scarf and black leather gloves and his hair is shiny black. His face is not tanned like Captain Ransom’s but white, and handsome in a different way like the statue of a head that used to be in Papa’s library when you and Mother used to live in town with him, and you think: Mama would say after he was gone