Starlings Page 9

  New books by Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein for only

  ANOTHER BANK FOUNDERS IN PENNSYLVANIA

  WE HAVE NOT USED THE WORD “SECEDE,” SAYS TEXAS GOVERNOR

  Why do Canadians act so high and mighty? It’s because they know

  In the Line (1)

  When Tommy came out of the navy, he thought he’d walk into a job just like that. He had his veteran’s discharge, which entitled him to medical treatment for his whole life, and he was a hero. He’d been on the carrier Constitution , which had won the Battle of the Atlantic practically singlehanded and had sent plenty of those Royal Navy bastards to the bottom of the sea where they belonged. He had experience in maintenance as well as gunnery. Besides, he was a proud hard-working American. He never thought he’d be lining up at a soup kitchen.

  In the Papers (3)

  TIME FOR A NEW TUNE

  Why are the bands still playing Cole Porter?

  SECRETARY OF STATE LINEBARGER SAYS THE BRITS WANT PEACE

  ATOMIC SECRETS

  DO THE JAPANESE HAVE THE BOMB?

  Sources close to the Emperor say yes, but the Nazis deny that they have given out any plans. Our top scientists are still working to

  NYLONS NYLONS NYLONS

  DIANETICS: A NEW SCIENCE OF THE MIND

  Getting By (2)

  Linda always works overtime when she’s asked. She appreciates the money, and she’s always afraid she’ll be let go if she isn’t obliging. There are plenty of girls who’d like her job. They come to ask every day if there’s any work. She isn’t afraid the Bundts will give her job away for no reason. She’s worked here for four years now, since just after the Japanese War. “You’re like family,” Mrs. Bundt always says. They let Olive go, the other waitress, but that was because there wasn’t enough work for two. Linda works overtime and closes up the cafe when they want her to. “You’re a good girl,” Mrs. Bundt says. But the Bundts have a daughter, Cindy. Cindy’s a pretty twelve-yearold, not even in high school. She comes into the cafe and drinks a milkshake sometimes with her girlfriends, all of them giggling. Linda hates her. She doesn’t know what they have to giggle about. Linda is afraid that when Cindy is old enough she’ll be given Linda’s job. Linda might be like family, but Cindy really is family. The bakery does all right, people have to eat, but business isn’t what it was. Linda knows.

  She’s late going home. Joan’s dressing up to go out with her married boss. She washes in the sink in the room they share. The shower is down the corridor, shared with the whole floor. It gets cleaned only on Fridays, or when Joan or Linda does it. Men are such pigs, Linda thinks, lying on her bed, her weight off her feet at last. Joan is three years older than Linda but she looks younger. It’s the make-up, Linda thinks, or maybe it’s having somebody to love. If only she could have fallen in love with a boss who’d have married her and taken her off to a nice little suburb. But perhaps it’s just as well. Linda couldn’t afford the room alone, and she’d have had to find a stranger to share with. At least Joan was her sister and they were used to each other.

  “I saw Dad today,” Joan says, squinting in the mirror and drawing on her mouth carefully.

  “Tell me you didn’t give him money?”

  “Just two dollars,” Joan admits. Linda groans. Joan is a soft touch. She makes more than Linda, but she never has any left at the end of the week. She spends more, or gives it away. There’s no use complaining, as Linda knows.

  “Where’s he taking you?” she asks wearily.

  “To a rally,” Joan says.

  “Cheap entertainment.” Rallies and torchlit parades and lynchings, beating up the blacks as scapegoats for everything. It didn’t help at all; it just made people feel better about things to have someone to blame. “It’s not how we were brought up,” Linda says. Their mother’s father had been a minister and had believed in the brotherhood of man. Linda loved going to her grandparents’ house when she was a child. Her grandmother would bake cookies and the whole house would smell of them. There was a swing on the old apple tree in the garden. Her father had been a union man, once, when unions had still been respectable.

  “What do I care about all that?” Joan says, viciously. “It’s where he’s taking me, and that’s all. He’ll buy me dinner and we’ll sing some patriotic songs. I’m not going to lynch anybody.” She dabs on her French perfume, fiercely.

  Linda lies back. She isn’t hungry. She’s never hungry. She always eats at the bakery—the Bundts don’t mind—any order that was wrong, or any bread that would have been left over. Sometimes they even gave her cakes or bread to bring home. She rubs her feet. She’s very lucky really. But as Joan goes out the door she feels like crying. Even if she did meet somebody, how could they ever afford to marry? How could they hope for a house of their own?

  In the Papers (4)

  SEA MONKEYS WILL ASTOUND YOUR FRIENDS!

  PRESIDENT SAYS WE MUST ALL PULL TOGETHER

  In Seattle today in a meeting with

  TAKE A LUXURY AIRSHIP TO THE HOLY CITY

  CAN THE ECONOMY EVER RECOVER?

  Since the Great Depression the country has been jogging through a series of ups and downs and the economy has been lurching from one crisis to another. Administrations have tried remedies from Roosevelt’s New Deal to Lindbergh’s Belt Tightening but nothing has turned things around for long. Economists say that this was only to be expected and that this general trend of downturn was a natural and inevitable

  NEW HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER “REICHSMARSHALL” STARRING MARLON BRANDO

  In the Line (2)

  When Sue was seventeen she’d had enough of school. She had a boyfriend who promised to find her a job as a dancer. She went off with him to Cleveland. She danced for a while in a topless club, and then in a strip joint. The money was never quite enough, not even after she started turning tricks. She’s only thirty-four, but she knows she looks raddled. She’s sick. Nobody wants her any more. She’s waiting in the line because there’s nowhere else to go. They feed you and take you off in trucks to make a new start, that’s what she’s heard. She can see the truck. She wonders where they go.

  In the Papers (5)

  ARE NEW HOME PERMANENTS AS GOOD AS THEY SAY?

  Experts say yes!

  NEW WAYS TO SAVE

  PRESIDENT SAYS: THERE IS NO WITCH-HUNT

  Despite what Communists and union organizers may claim, the President said today

  Getting By (3)

  The Bundts like to play the radio in the cafe at breakfast time. They talk about buying a little television for the customers to watch, if times ever get better. Mr. Bundt says this when Linda cautiously asks for a raise. If they had a television they’d be busier, he thinks, though Linda doesn’t think it would make a difference. She serves coffee and bacon and toast and listens to the news. She likes music and Joan likes Walter Winchell. She should ask Joan how she reconciles that with going to rallies. Winchell famously hates Hitler. Crazy. Linda can’t imagine feeling that strongly about an old man on the other side of the world.

  Later, when Cindy and her friends are giggling over milkshakes and Linda feels as if her feet are falling off, a man comes in and takes the corner table. He orders sandwiches and coffee, and later he orders a cake and more coffee. He’s an odd little man. He seems to be paying attention to everything. He’s dressed quite well. His hair is slicked back and his clothes are clean. She wonders if he’s a detective, because he keeps looking out of the window, but if so he seems to pay just as much attention to the inside, and to Linda herself. She remembers what Joan said, and wants to laugh but can’t. He’s a strange man and she can’t figure him out.

  She doesn’t have to stay late and close up, and the man follows her out when she leaves. There’s something about him that makes her think of the law way before romance. “You’re Linda,” he says, outside. She’s scared, because he could be anybody, but they are in the street under a street light, there are people passing, and the occasional car.

&nbs
p; “Yes,” she admits, her heart hammering. “What do you want?”

  “You’re not a Bundt?”

  “No. They’re my employers, that’s all,” she says, disassociating herself from them as fast as she can, though they have been good to her. Immediately she has visions of them being arrested. Where would she find another job?

  “Do you know where the Bundts come from?”

  “Germany,” she says, confidently. Bundt’s German Bakery, it says, right above their heads.

  “When?”

  “Before I was born. Why aren’t you asking them these questions?”

  “It was 1933.”

  “Before I was born,” Linda says, feeling more confident and taking a step away.

  “Have you seen any evidence that they are Jews?”

  She stops, confused. “Jews? They’re German. Germans hate Jews.”

  “Many Jews left Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power,” the man says, though he can’t be much older than Linda. “If the Bundts were Jews, and hiding their identity, then if you denounced them—”

  He stops, but Linda has caught up with him now. If she denounced them she would be given their property. The business, the apartment above it, their savings. “But they’re not, I’ve never—they serve bacon!” she blurts.

  “You’ve never seen any evidence?” he asks, sadly. “A pity. It could be a nice business for you. You’re not Jewish?”

  “Welsh,” she says. “My grandfather was a minister.”

  “I thought not, with that lovely blonde hair.” It’s more washed out than it should be, but her hair is the dishwater blonde it always has been, the same as Joan’s, the same as their mother’s.

  “I might have some evidence,” he says, slowly. “But any evidence I had would be from before they came here, from Germany. Some evidence that they were still Jews, if you’d seen anything, would be enough to settle it. The court would deport them back to Germany and award us their business. You could run it, I’m sure you could. You seem to be doing most of the work already.”

  “I just serve,” she says, automatically. Then, “What sort of thing would I have noticed? If they were Jewish, I mean?”

  Temptation settles over her like a film of grease and hope begins to burn in her heart for the first time in a long time.

  In the Line (3)

  If you’re black you’re invisible, even in the soup line. The others are shrinking away from me, I can’t deny it. They wouldn’t give us guns to fight even when the Japanese were shelling the beaches up and down the California coast. I left there then and came East, much good it did me. If I’d known how invisible I’d be here, I’d have stayed right there in Los Angeles. Nobody there ever chased after me and made me run, nobody there threatened to string me up, and I had a job that made a little money. I never thought I’d be standing in this line, because when I get to the head of it I know they’ll separate me out. Nobody knows what happens to us then, they take us off somewhere and we don’t come back, but I’m desperate, and what I say is, wherever it is they got to feed us, don’t they? Well, don’t they?

  In the Papers (6)

  ANOTHER FACTORY CLOSING

  PEACE TALKS IN LONDON AS JAPAN AND THE REICH DIVIDE UP RUSSIA

  Will there be a buffer state of “Scythia” to divide the two great powers?

  BATTLE IN THE APPALACHIANS: NATIONAL GUARD REINFORCEMENTS SENT IN

  President says it is necessary to keep the country together

  OWNERS GUN DOWN STRIKERS IN ALABAMA

  Sixty people were hospitalized in Birmingham today after

  ESCAPE TO OTHER WORLDS WITH SCIENCE FICTION

  New titles by Frederik Pohl and Alice Davey

  JOYFUL AND TRIUMPHANT:

  ST. ZENOBIUS AND THE ALIENS

  IT'S A BIT of a cliché, but the first thing I thought when I came to Heaven was that I didn’t expect aliens. It’s a cliché because it’s the first thing we all think—aliens are a surprise. And what a delightful surprise! Welcome, everyone, whatever your planet of origin. Joy to you! Heaven welcomes you. My name is Zenobius, and I am from Earth. Earth is a perfectly ordinary planet. We had a perfectly standard Incarnation. If we’re known for anything it’s our rather splendid Renaissance, which I’m proud to say has been artistically quite influential, but although that happened in my own city of Florence I can’t take any credit for it because it happened centuries after my death and I didn’t really participate.

  I’m the patron of Florence, and those of you who are human are probably Florentines who don’t have a specific devotion to any other saint, because there are very few humans who are particularly attached to me. If you’re a Delfein on the other flipper, you’re probably in my welcome group because you did pray for my intervention. You’re wondering why I’m an alien when I’m always pictured as a Delfein in your art? The simple fact is that we don’t think of ourselves as aliens here, we’re all just saints. So I helped out on Delfein despite being human as St. Christopher helped out on Earth despite being Rhli—we do what we need to. St. Christopher became very popular on Earth, and I became popular on Delfein. It just happens that way sometimes.

  Now you may be worried that you’re going to be asked to intercede on alien worlds and you won’t know enough about them. The other side of that is that there are all these wonderful alien planets for you to learn about, their art, their customs, their way of life. They really are fascinating. And by the time anyone on them needs you, you will know enough. In any case, to start with you’re unlikely to be asked to intercede by anyone but your personal friends on the planet you just left. And tempting as it is to produce miracles for them, I wouldn’t go beyond a sense of your presence and happiness. If you do want to, talk to me. In fact, that’s what you should do at first when prayers are directed to you—talk to me, or some other experienced saint, and we’ll let you know how and whether to take it higher. By the time you become popular at home, or on some other planet, you’ll know enough and have enough friends here you can talk to. And you may not become popular—and do you know, we have a special name for saints who aren’t the patrons of places or jobs, saints whose names nobody remembers and begs for intercession. Our name for them is “lucky.”

  We don’t mind our responsibilities to the living, it’s part of what we do here, listening to their petitions and helping when we can. “When we can” leads into the whole issue of the problem of pain, so I’ll just clear that up quickly before I move on. The problem of pain is mostly a semantic problem, people confusing “good” with “nice.” I’ll come back to this. But the reason we call those who don’t have to deal with a lot of petitions and intercessions and welcoming sessions “lucky” is because they can devote themselves entirely and completely to the Great Work of Heaven, without any distractions.

  You may have heard it called “worship,” but we usually call it the “Great Work.” Those of you who have a theatrical tradition on your worlds can think of it like putting on a great play. It’s also been compared to doing scientific research, and to the Renaissance. It’s our great work of art. Your life on your planet has honed you into a tool for joining in. It’s like music and like painting and sculpture and chemistry and cosmology and dancing and costuming and a whole host of other arts and sciences you may be interested to learn. We all participate in our different ways. It’s a performance, a great performance with its acts and seasons, a performance that began with the Big Bang, an artwork whose canvas is galaxies.

  You know that God has three aspects. The way we think of them here is that one of them is the Creator, participating with us in the Great Work, the second is the Audience for that work, and the third is the Incarnation. You’re in eternity now of course, but eternity has seasons. The seasons are marked by Incarnations. There are a lot of planets out there, and God sends themself, their incarnate self, down onto each one. We rejoice each time at their birth there, and even more at their return to Heaven, bringing us each time a whole new world of souls. Each stor
y is the same and each story is different. We tell their stories, as we tell our own stories and the stories of the dance of atoms and the dance of galaxies.

  Which brings me back to the problem of pain. Of course God could have made the universe without pain, but a universe without pain is a universe without change, without movement, without stories. God could have contemplated nothing but their own glory for all eternity. They chose to have a universe with stories, and there are no stories in utopia. There are those who feel this was a mistake, and they too are part of the harmony of Heaven, even when they think themselves most in opposition to us. When you’re asked to intercede, when somebody prays to you, they are often asking to be relieved of pain. What you have to ask yourself is whether the pain is necessary for the story. At first, you might not be able to tell. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’m always ready to listen and help, and so are other older saints. And you’ll soon figure it out. It’s all part of the Great Work, really.

  You all have a lot to learn and a lot to contribute. And it’s so marvellous that you’re here today. For today, the Incarnation has gone down to another planet, to a humble family in poor circumstances on a world of methane-breathing electrophores with very interesting customs! They can’t imagine what this means yet, that God is about to be born and present on their planet. Come and see! Come and bring them the tidings of comfort and joy.

  Come on now, all of you. It’ll be such fun.

  TURNOVER

  I WAS ON my way to Teatro del Sale when I saw the crow that hangs around near the entrance to the Newton strut. Birds don’t generally do all that well on Speranza. Jay says it’s because they like light and the whole inside of Speranza is like an Earth city night, with the lights along the struts and the street lighting. It’s never really dark, but it’s never really as light as an Earth day would have been, except under the farm lights, and of course they discourage birds from hanging around the crops. Besides, he says, they might have trouble with what happens with gravity if you go up the struts, and the most trouble of all with the free-fall zone in the middle. So birds are mostly in pictures, and in the gene freezers. This one family of crows seems to keep on thriving, all the same.