Short Fiction

slender rhythmic lines, electrically created carriage, stance, made, turned out.

“All right, young lady. We will begin.”

They guided Mary to a large, curved leather seat.

From the top of a long silver pole a machine lowered itself. Tiny bulbs glowed to life and cells began to click. The people stared. Slowly a picture formed upon the screen in the machine. Bulbs directed at Mary, then redirected into the machine. Wheels turning, buttons ticking.

The picture was completed.

“Would you like to see it?”

Mary closed her eyes, tight.

“It’s really very nice.” The woman turned to the crowd. “Oh yes, there’s a great deal to be salvaged; you’d be surprised. A great deal. We’ll keep the nose and I don’t believe the elbows will have to be altered at all.”

Mrs. Cuberle looked at Mary and smiled. “Now, it isn’t so bad as you thought, is it?” she said.

The beautiful people looked. Cameras turned, tapes wound.

“You’ll have to excuse us now. Only the machines allowed.”

Only the machines.

The people filed out.

Mary saw the rooms in the mirror. Saw things in the rooms, the faces and bodies that had been left; the woman and the machines and the old young men standing about, adjusting, readying.

Then she looked at the picture in the screen.

And screamed.

A woman of medium height stared back at her. A woman with a curved body and thin legs; silver hair, pompadoured, cut short; full sensuous lips, small breasts, flat stomach, unblemished skin.

A strange, strange woman no one had ever seen before.

The nurse began to take Mary’s clothes off.

“Geoff,” the woman said, “come look at this, will you. Not one so bad in years. Amazing that we can keep anything at all.”

The handsome man put his hands in his pockets.

“Pretty bad, all right.”

“Be still, child, stop making those noises. You know perfectly well nothing is going to hurt.”

“But⁠—what will you do with me?”

“That was all explained to you.”

“No, no, with me, me!”

“Oh, you mean the castoffs. The usual. I don’t know exactly. Somebody takes care of it.”

“I want me!” Mary cried. “Not that!” She pointed at the screen.

---

Her chair was wheeled into a semi-dark room. She was naked now, and the men lifted her to a table. The surface was like glass, black, filmed. A big machine hung above.

Straps. Clamps pulling, stretching limbs apart. The screen with the picture brought in. The men and the woman, more women now. Dr. Hortel in a corner, sitting with his legs crossed, shaking his head.

Mary began to cry above the hum of the mechanical things.

“Shhh. My gracious, such a racket! Just think about your job waiting for you, and all the friends you’ll have and how nice everything will be. No more trouble now.”

The big machine hurtling downward.

“Where will I find me?” Mary screamed, “when it’s all over?”

A long needle slid into rough flesh and the beautiful people gathered around the table.

They turned on the big machine.

Elegy

“Would you mind repeating that?”

“I said, sir, that Mr. Friden said, sir, that he sees a city.”

“A city?”

“Yes sir.”

Captain Webber rubbed the back of his hand along his cheek.

“You realize, of course, that that is impossible?”

“Yes sir.”

“Send Mr. Friden in to see me, at once.”

The young man saluted and rushed out of the room. He returned with a somewhat older man who wore spectacles and frowned.

“Now then,” said Captain Webber, “what’s all this Lieutenant Peterson tells me about a city? Are you enjoying a private little joke, Friden?”

Mr. Friden shook his head emphatically. “No sir.”

“Then perhaps you’d like to explain.”

“Well, sir, you see, I was getting bored and just for something to do, I thought I’d look through the screen⁠—not that I dreamed of seeing anything. The instruments weren’t adjusted, either; but there was something funny, something I couldn’t make out exactly.”

“Go on,” said Captain Webber, patiently.

“So I fixed up the instruments and took another look, and there it was, sir, plain as could be!”

“There what was?”

“The city, sir. Oh, I couldn’t tell much about it, but there were houses, all right, a lot of them.”

“Houses, you say?”

“Yes sir, on an asteroid.”

Captain Webber looked for a long moment at Mr. Friden and began to pace nervously.

“I take it you know what this might mean?”

“Yes sir, I do. That’s why I wanted Lieutenant Peterson to tell you about it.”

“I believe, Friden, that before we do any more talking I’ll see this city for myself.”

---

Captain Webber, Lieutenant Peterson and Mr. Friden walked from the room down a long corridor and into a smaller room. Captain Webber put his eye to a circular glass and tapped his foot.

He stepped back and rubbed his cheek again.

“Well, you were right. That is a city⁠—or else we’ve all gone crazy. Do you think that we have?”

“I don’t know, sir. It’s not impossible.”

“Lieutenant, go ask Mr. Milton if he can land us on an asteroid. Give him all the details and be back in ten minutes.” Captain Webber sighed. “Whatever it is,” he said, “it will be a relief. Although I never made a special announcement, I suppose you knew that we were lost.”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“And that we ran almost entirely out of fuel several months ago, in fact shortly after we left?”

“We knew that.”

The men were silent.

“Sir, Mr. Milton says he thinks he can land us but he can’t promise exactly where.”

“Tell Mr. Milton that’s good enough.”

Captain Webber waited for the young man to leave, then looked again into the glass.

“What do you make of it, sir?”

“Not much, Friden, not much. It’s a city and that’s an asteroid; but how the devil they got there is beyond me. I still haven’t left the idea that we’re crazy, you know.”

Mr. Friden looked.

“We’re positioning to land. Strange⁠—”

“What is it?”

“I can make things out a bit more clearly now, sir. Those are earth houses.”

Captain Webber looked. He blinked.

“Now, that,” he said, “is impossible. Look here, we’ve been floating about in space for⁠—how long is it?”

“Three months, sir.”

“Exactly. For three months we’ve been bobbling aimlessly, millions of miles from earth. No hope, no hope whatever. And now we’re landing