 Section 1 of Short Science Fiction Stories. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kirk Ziegler, Lake Placid, Florida. The Blind Man's World, by Edward Bellamy. 1898. The narrative to which this note is introductory was found among the papers of the late Professor S. Erasmus Larrabee, and as an acquaintance of the gentleman to whom they were bequeathed, I was requested to prepare it for publication. This turned out a very easy task, for the document proved of so extraordinary a character that, if published at all, it should obviously be without change. It appears certain that the Professor did really, at one time in his life, have an attack of vertigo, or something of the sort, under circumstances similar to those described by him, and to that extent his narrative may be found on fact. How soon it shifts from that foundation, or whether it does it all, the reader must conclude for himself. It appears certain that the Professor never related to anyone while living, the stranger features of the experience here narrated, but this might have been merely from fear that his standing as a man of science would be thereby injured. The Professor's Narrative At the time of the experience of which I'm about to write, I was Professor of Astronomy and Higher Mathematics at Abercarmeby College. Most astronomers have a specialty, and mine was the study of the planet Mars, our nearest neighbor, but one in the son's family. When no important celestial phenomena in other quarters demanded attention, it was on the ruddy disc of Mars that my telescope was oftenest focused. I was never weary of tracing the outlines of its continents and seas, its capes and islands, its bays and straits, its lakes and mountains. With intense interest I watched from week to week of the martial winter of the advance of the polar ice cap toward the equator, and its corresponding retreat in the summer testifying across the gulf of space as plainly as written words to the existence on that orb of a climate like our own. A specialty is always in danger of becoming an infatuation, and my interest in Mars at the time of which I write had grown to be more than strictly scientific. The impression of the nearness of this planet, heightened by the wonderful distinctness of its geography as seen through a powerful telescope, appealed strongly to the imagination of the astronomer. On fine evenings I used to spend hours, not so much critically observing as brooding over its radiant surface, till I could almost persuade myself that I saw the breakers dashing on the bold shore of Kepler land, and heard the muffled thunder of avalanches descending the snow-clad mountains of Mitchell. No earthly landscape had the charm to hold my gaze of that far-off planet, whose oceans, to the unpracticed eye, seem but darker and its continents lighter, spots and bands. Astronomers have agreed in declaring that Mars is undoubtedly inhabitable, by beings like ourselves, but as may be supposed, I was not in a mood to be satisfied with considering it merely habitable. I allowed no sort of question that it was inhabited. What manner of beings these inhabitants might be, I found a fascinating speculation. The variety of types appearing in mankind, even on this small Earth, makes it most presumptuous to assume that the deacons of different planets may not be characterized by diversities far profounder. Wherein such diversities, coupled with a general resemblance to man, might consist, whether in mere physical differences or in different mental laws, the lack of certain of the great, passionate motors of men, or the possessions of quite others, were weird themes of never-failing attractions for my mind. The Eldorado visions with which the virgin mystery of the New World inspired the early Spanish explorers were tame and prosaic compared with the speculations which it was perfectly legitimate to indulge when the problem was the conditions of life on another planet. It was the time of the year when Mars is most favorably situated for observation, and anxious not to lose an hour of the precious season, I had spent the greater part of several successive nights in the observatory. I believed that I had made some original observation as to the trend of the coast of Kepler land between Lagrange Peninsula and Christie Bay, and it was to this spot that my observations were particularly directed. On the fourth night other work detained me from the observing chair till after midnight. When I had adjusted the instrument and took my first look at Mars, I remember being unable to restrain a cry of admiration. The planet was fairly dazzling. It seemed near and larger than I had ever seen it before, and its peculiar ruddiness more striking. In thirty years of observations I recall, in fact, no occasion when the absence of exhalations in our atmosphere is coincided with such cloudlessness in that of Mars as on that night. I could plainly make out the white masses of vapor at the opposite edges of the lighted disk, which are the mists of its dawn and evening. The snowy mass of Mount Hall over against Kepler land stood out with wonderful clearness, and I could unmistakably detect the blue tint of the ocean of Deleroux, which washes its base, a feat of vision often, indeed, accomplished by stargazers, though I had never done it to my complete satisfaction before. I was impressed with the idea that if I ever made an original discovery in regard to Mars, it would be on that evening, and I believed that I should do it. I trembled with mingled exultation and anxiety, and was obliged to pause to recover myself control. Finally I placed my eye to the eyepiece and directed my gaze upon the portion of the planet in which I was especially interested. My attention soon became fixed and absorbed much beyond my want, when observing, and that in itself applied no ordinary degree of abstraction. To all mental intents and purposes I was on Mars. Every faculty, every susceptibility of sense and intellect, seemed gradually to pass into the eye, and become concentrated in the act of gazing. Every atom of nerve and willpower combined in the strain to see a little, and yet a little, clear, far, deeper. The next thing I knew I was on the bed that stood in a corner of the observing room, half raised on an elbow, and gazing intently at the door. It was broad daylight. Half a dozen men, including several of the professors and a doctor from the village were around me. Some were trying to make me lie down, others were asking me what I wanted, while the doctor was urging me to drink some whisky. Mechanically repelling their offices, I pointed to the door and ejaculated, President Bixby, coming, giving the impression to the one idea which my dazed mind at that moment contained. And sure enough, even as I spoke the door opened, and the venerable head of the college, somewhat blown with climbing the steep stairway, stood on the threshold. With a sensation of prodigious relief, I fell back on my pillow. It appeared that I had swooned while in the observing chair, the night before, and had been found by the janitor in the morning. My head fallen forward on the telescope, as if still observing, but my body cold, rigid, pulseless, and apparently dead. In a couple of days I was all right again, and should soon have forgotten the episode but for a very interesting conjecture which had suggested itself in connection with it. This was nothing less than that while I lay in that swoon. I was in a conscious state outside and independent of the body, and in that state received impressions and exercised perceptive powers. For this extraordinary theory I had no other evidence than the fact of my knowledge in the moment of awakening that incident Bixby was coming up the stairs. But slight as this clue was, it seemed to me unmistakable in its significance. That knowledge was certainly in my mind on the instant of arousing from the swoon. It certainly could have not been there before I fell into the swoon. I must therefore have gained it in the meantime, that is to say, I must have been in a conscious, percipient state while my body was insensible. If such had been the case, I reasoned that it was altogether unlikely that the trivial impression was to President Bixby had been the only one which I had received in that state. It was far more probable that it had remained over in my mind, unwaking from the swoon, merely because it was the latest of a series of impressions received while outside the body. These impressions were of a kind most strange and startling, seeing that they were those of a disembodied soul exercising faculties more spiritual than those of the body, I could not doubt. The desire to know what they had been grew upon me, till it became a longing which left me no repose. It seemed intolerable that I should have secrets from myself, that my soul should withhold its experiences from my intellect. I would gladly have consented that the acquisitions of half my waking lifetime should be blotted out, if so be in exchange I might be shown the record of what I had seen and known during those hours of which my waking memory showed no trace. Nonetheless, for the conviction of its hopelessness, but rather all the more, as the perversity of our human nature will have it, the longing for this forbidden lore grew on me, till the hunger of Eve in the garden was mine. Constantly brooding over desire that I felt to be vain, tantalized by the possession of a clue which only mocked me, my physical condition became at length affected. My health was disturbed and my rest at night was broken. A habit of walking in my sleep, from which I had not suffered since childhood, recurred, and caused me frequent inconvenience. Such had been, in general, my condition for some time, when I awoke one morning with the strangely weary sensation by which my body usually betrayed the secret of the impositions put upon it in sleep, of which otherwise I should often have suspected nothing. And going into the study connected with my chamber, I found a number of freshly-written sheets on a desk. Astonished that any one should have been in my rooms while I slept, I was astounded, on looking more closely to observe that the handwriting was my own. How much more than astounded I was on reading the matter that had been set down, the reader may judge if he shall peruse it. For these written sheets apparently contained the long fore, but despaired of record of those hours when I was absent from my body. They were the lost chapter of my life, or rather, not lost at all, for it had been no part of my waking life, but a stolen chapter, stolen from that sleep memory on whose mysterious tablets may well be in scribe tales as much more marvelous than this, as this is stranger than most stories. It will be remembered that my last recollection before waking in my bed, on the morning after the swoon, was of contemplating the coast of Kepler land with an unusual concentration of attention, as well as I can judge, and that is no better than anyone else. It is the moment that my bodily power succumbed, and I became unconscious that the narrative which I found on my desk begins. Even had I not come as straight and swift as the beam of light that made my path, a glance about would have told me to what part of the universe I had fared. No earthly landscape could have been more familiar. I stood on the high coast of Kepler land where a trend southward. A brisk westerly wind was blowing and the waves of the ocean of Dilabu were thundering at my feet, while the broad blue waters of Christie Bay stretched away to the southwest. Against the northern horizon, rising out of the ocean like a summer thunder-head, for which I at first mistook it, towered the far distant, snowy summit of Mount Hall. Even had the configuration of land and sea been less familiar, I should none the less have known that I stood on the planet whose ruddy hue is at once the admiration and puzzle of astronomers. Its explanation I now recognized in the tint of the atmosphere, a coloring comparable to the haze of Indian summer, except that its hue was a faint rose instead of purple. Like the Indian summer haze, it was impalpable, and without impeding the view bathed all objects near and far in a glamour not to be described. As the gaze turned upward however, the deep blue of space so far overcame the rosé tint that one might fancy he were still on earth. As I looked about me I saw many men, women and children. They were in no respect dissimilar, so far as I could see, to the men, women and the children of the earth, save for something almost childlike in the untroubled serenity of their faces, unfurled as they were by any trace of care, of fear, or of anxiety. This extraordinary youthfulness of aspect made it difficult indeed, save by careful scrutiny to distinguish the young from the middle aged, maturity from advanced years, time seemed to have no tooth on Mars. I was gazing about me, admiring this crimson-lighted world, and these people who appeared to hold happiness by a tenure so much firmer than men's, when I heard the words, you are welcome, and turning, saw that I had been accosted by a man with the stature and bearing of middle age, though his countenance, like the other faces which I had noted, wonderfully combined the strength of a man's with the serenity of a child's. I thanked him and said, You do not seem surprised to see me, though I certainly am to find myself here. Assuredly not, he answered. I knew, of course, that I was to meet you today, and not only that, but I may say I'm already in a sense acquainted with you through a mutual friend, Professor Edgerly. He was here last month, and I met him at that time. We talked of you and your interest in our planet. I told him I expected you. Edgerly, I exclaimed. It is strange that he has said nothing of this to me. I met him every day. But I was reminded that it was in a dream that Edgerly, like myself, had visited Mars, and unawakening had recalled nothing of his experience, just as I should recall nothing of mine. When will man learn to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer need to improve his telescopes to find out the secrets of the universe. Do your people visit the earth in the same manner? I asked my companion. Certainly, he replied, but there we find no one able to recognize us and converse with us as I am conversing with you, although myself in the waking state. You, as yet, lack the knowledge we possess of the spiritual side of the human nature which we share with you. That knowledge must have enabled you to learn much more of the earth than we know of you, I said. Indeed it has, he replied, from visitors such as you, of whom we entertain a concourse constantly. We have acquired familiarity with your civilization, your history, your manners, and even your literature and languages. Have you not noticed that I am talking with you in English, which is certainly not a tongue indigenous to this planet? Among so many wonders I scarcely observed that, I answered. For ages, pursued my companion, we have been waiting for you to prove your telescopes so as to approximate the power of ours, after which communication between the planets would be easily established. The progress which you make is, however, so slow that we expect to wait ages yet. Indeed, I fear you will have to, I replied. Our opticians already talk of having reached the limits of their art. I do not imagine that I spoke in any spirit of excellence, my companion resumed. The slowness of your progress is not so remarkable to us as that you make any at all, burdened as you are by a disability so crushing that if we were in your place, I fear we should sit down in utter despair. To what disability do you refer, I asked. You seem to be men like us. And so we are, was the reply. Save in one particular. But there difference is tremendous. Endowed otherwise like us, you are destitute of the faculty of foresight, without which we should think our other faculties well my valueless. Foresight, I repeated. Certainly you cannot mean that it is given to you to know the future. It is given not only to us, was the answer, but so far as we know, to all other intelligent beings of the universe accept ourselves. Our positive knowledge extends only to our system of moons and planets, and some of the nearer foreign systems, and it is conceivable that the remoder parts of the universe may harbor other blind races like your own. But it certainly seems unlikely that so strange and lamentable a spectacle should be duplicated. One such illustration of the extraordinary deprivations under which irrational existence may still be possible ought to suffice for the universe. But no one can know the future except by inspiration of God, I said. All our faculties are by inspiration of God, was the reply. But there is surely nothing in foresight to cause it to be so regarded more than any other. Think a moment of the physical analogy of the case. Your eyes are placed in the front of your heads. You would deem it an odd mistake if they were placed behind. That would appear to you an arrangement calculated to defeat their purpose. Does it not seem equally rational that the mental vision should range forward, as it does with us? Illuminating the path one is to take, rather than backward, as with you, revealing only the course you have already troddened, and therefore have no more concern with. But it is no doubt a merciful provision of providence that renders you unable to realize the grotesqueness of your predicament, as it appears to us. But the future is eternal, I exclaimed. How can a finite mind grasp it? Our foreknowledge implies only human faculties, was the reply. It is limited to our individual careers on this planet. Each of us foresees the course in his own life, but not that of other lives, except so far as they are involved with his. That such a power, as you describe, could be combined with merely human faculties is more than our philosophers have ever dared to dream, I said. And yet, who shall say, after all, that it is not in mercy that God has denied it to us? If it is a happiness, as it must be, to foresee one's happiness, it must be most depressing to foresee one's sorrows, failures, yes, and even one's death. For if you foresee your lives to the end, you must anticipate the hour and manner of your death. Is it not so? Most assuredly, was the reply. Living would be a very precarious business. Were we uninformed of its limit? Your ignorance of the time of your death impresses us as one of the saddest features of your condition. And by us, I answered, it is held to be one of the most merciful. For knowledge of your death would not indeed prevent your dying ones, continued my companion. But it would deliver you from the thousand deaths you suffer through uncertainty, whether you can safely count on the passing day. It is not the death you die, but these many deaths you do not die, which shadow your existence. Poor, blindfolded creatures that you are. Cringing at every step in apprehension of the stroke that perhaps is not to fail till old age. Never raising a cup to your lips with the knowledge that you will live to quayfit. Never sure that you will meet again the friend you part with for an hour. From those whose hearts know happiness suffices to banish the chill of an ever-present dread. What idea can you form of the godlike security with which we enjoy our lives and the lives of those we love? You have a saying on earth, tomorrow belongs to God. But here tomorrow belongs to us, even as to-day. To you, for some inscrutable purpose, he sees fit to dole out life moment by moment, with no assurance that each is not to be the last. To us he gives a lifetime at once, fifty, sixty, seventy years, a divine gift indeed. A life such as yours would, I fear, seem of little value to us, for such a life however long, is but a moment long, since that is all you can count on. And yet, I answered, though knowledge of the duration of your lives may give you an enviable feeling of confidence while the end is far off, is that not more than offset by the daily growing weight with which the expectation of the end, as it draws near, must press upon your minds? On the contrary, was the response. Death, never an object of fear, as it draws near, becomes more and more a matter of indifference to the moribund. It is because you live in the past that death is grievous to you. All your knowledge, all your affections, all your interests, are rooted in the past, and on that account, as life lengthens, it strengthens its hold on you, and memory becomes a more precious possession. We, on the contrary, despise the past, and never dwell upon it. Memory with us, far from being the morbid and monstrous growth it is with you, is scarcely more than a rudimentary faculty. We live wholly in the future and the present. What with foretaste and actual taste, are experiences, whether pleasant or painful, are exhausted of interest by the time they are past. The accumulated treasures of memory, which you relinquish so painfully in death, we count no loss at all. Our minds being fed wholly from the future, we think and feel only as we anticipate. And so, as the dying man's future contracts, there is less and less about which he can occupy his thoughts. His interest in life diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at last death finds him with his mind a tabloo rasa, as with you at birth. In a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he is called on to give it up. In dying he leaves nothing behind. And the after death, I asked, is there no fear, fear of that? Surely, was the reply, it is not necessarily for me to say that a fear which affects only the more ignorant on earth is not known but all to us, and would be counted blasphemous. Moreover, as I have said, our foresight is limited to our lives on this planet. Any speculation beyond them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by the slightest taint of uncertainty. To us the conjectural and the unthinkable may be called almost the same. But even if you do not fear death for itself, I said, you have hearts to break. Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered? Love and death are not fools on our planet, was the reply. There are no tears by the bedsides of our dying. The same beneficent law which makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends we leave, or them to mourn us. With you it is the intercourse you have had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them. With us it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is the foundation of fondness. As our friends vanish from our future with the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time. As our dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at last we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds of those who regard us equally without keen emotions. So at last God gently unwines instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying. Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of torturing us, as with you. Love means joy, and that alone to us, instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate paying for every thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile. There are other partings than those of death. Are these two without sorrow for you? I asked. Assuredly was the reply. Can you not see that so it must needs be with beans freed by foresight from the disease of memory? All the sorrow of parting, as of dying, comes with you from the backward vision which precludes you from beholding your happiness till it is past. Suppose your life destined to be blessed by a happy friendship. If you could know it beforehand it would be a joyous expectation, brightening the intervening years and cheering you as you traverse desolate periods. But no, not till you meet the one who is to be your friend do you know of him. Nor do you guess even then what he is to be to you, that you may embrace him at first sight. Your meeting is cold and indifferent. It is long before fire is fairly kindled between you, and then it is already time for parting. Now, indeed, the fire burns well, but henceforth it must consume your heart. Not till they are dead or gone do you fully realize how dear your friends were, and how sweet was their companionship. But we, we see our friends afar coming to meet us, smiling already in our eyes, years before our ways meet. We greet them at first meeting, not coldly, not uncertainly, but with exultant kisses, in an ecstasy of joy. They enter at once into the full possession of hearts long warmed and lighted for them. We meet with that delirium of tenderness with which you part. And when to us at last the time of parting comes, it only means that we are to contribute to each other's happiness no longer. We are not doomed like you in parting, to take away with us the delight we brought our friends, leaving the ache of bereavement in its place, so that their last state is worse than their first. Parting here is like meeting with you, calm and unpassioned. The joys of anticipation and possession are the only food of love with us, and therefore love always wears a smiling face. With you he feeds on dead joys, past happiness, which are likewise the sustenance of sorrow. No wonder, love and sorrow are so much alike on earth. It is a common saying among us that, were it not for the spectacle of the earth, the rest of the worlds would be unable to appreciate the goodness of God to them, and who can say that this is not the reason the piteous sight is set before us. You have told me marvelous things, I said, after I had reflected. It is indeed, but reasonable that such a race as yours should look down with wondering pity on the earth. And yet, before I grant so much, I want to ask you one question. There is known in our world a certain sweet madness, under the influence of which we forget all that is unwanted in our lot, and would not change it for a gods. So far is this sweet madness regarded by men as a compensation, and more than a compensation, for all their miseries that if you know not love as we know it, if this loss be the price you have paid for your divine foresight, we think ourselves more favored of God than you. Confess that love, with its reserves, its surprises, its mysteries, its revelations, is necessarily incompatible with a foresight which weighs and measures every experience in advance. Of love surprises we certainly know nothing, was the reply. It is believed by our philosophers that the slightest surprise would kill beings of our Constitution like lightning, though of course this is merely theory, for it is only by the study of earthly conditions that we are able to form an idea of what surprise is like. Your power to endure the constant buffettings of the unexpected is a matter of supreme amazement to us, nor according to our ideas, is there any difference between what you call pleasant and painful surprises. You see, then, that we cannot envy you these surprises of love which you find so sweet, for to us they would be fatal. For the rest there is no form of happiness which foresight is so well calculated to enhance as that of love. Let me explain to you how this befalls. As the growing boy begins to be sensible of the charms of woman, he finds himself, as I dare say it is with you, preferring some type of face and form to others. He dreams oftenness of fair hair, or maybe of dark, of blue eyes or brown. As the years go on, his fancy, brooding over what seems to it the best and loveliest of every type, is constantly adding to this dream face, this shadowy form, traits and liniments, used in contours, till at last the picture is complete, and he becomes aware that on his heart the subtly has been depicted the likeness of the maiden destined for his arms. It may be years before he is to see her, but now begins with him one of the sweetest offices of love, one to you unknown. Youth on Earth is a stormy period of passion, chafing in restraint or rioting in excess, but the very passion whose awakening makes this time so critical with you is here a reforming and educating influence, to whose gentle and potent sway we gladly confide our children. The temptations which lead our young men astray have no hold on a youth of our happy planet. He hoards the treasures of his heart for its coming mistress. Of her alone he thinks, and to her all his vows are made. The thought of license would be Tresop to his sovereign lady, whose right to all the revenues of his being he joyfully owns. To rob her, to abate her her hyper-ogatives would be to impoverish, to insult himself, for she is to be his, and her honor, her glory, are his own. Through all this time that he dreams of her by night and day, the exquisite reward of his devotion is the knowledge that she is aware of him as he of her, and that in the inmost shrine of a maiden heart his image is set up to receive the incense of a tenderness that needs not to restrain itself through fear of possible cross or separation. In due time their converging lives come together. The lovers meet, gaze a moment into each other's eyes, then throw themselves each on the other's breast. The maiden has all the charms that ever stirred the blood of an earthly lover, but there is another glamour over her which the eyes of earthly lovers are shut to, the glamour of the future. In the blushing girl her lover sees the fond and faithful wife, in the blithe maiden the patient, pain-consecrated mother. On the virgin's breast he beholds his children. He is prescient, even as his lips take the first fruits of hers, of the future years during which she is to be his companion, his ever-prisoned solace, his chief portion of God's goodness. We have read some of your romances describing love as you know it on earth, and I must confess, my friend, we find them very dull. I hope, he added, as I did not speak at once, that I shall not offend you by saying we find them also objectionable. Your literature possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the curiosity inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead. It is a study especially interest for the development of the imagination, on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to those of intelligent beings in general. But our women do not read your romances. The notion that a man or woman should ever conceive the idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought. No doubt you will say that such instances are among you, but if your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not unknown. That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly, but it is needless that the minds of our maiden should be pained by the knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties upon the sacredness of marriage are possible. It is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness, to erase accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively to things that are ended. And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense, I asked. We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the future tense was the reply. If our historians were to wait till after the events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be inaccurate, for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy. Should the earth ever establish communications with us, you will find our histories of interest, for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the earth from the time it was a fluid mass. Your geologists and biologists may yet find a mine of information here. In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of the future are unknown on Mars. They for whom the future has no mystery can, of course, no neither hope nor fear. Moreover, everyone being assured that he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing as rivalship or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect, and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds engendered on earth by the man with man, is unknown to the people of Mars, saved from the study of our planet. When I asked if there were not, after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no difference in that respect between the lives of the people of earth and of Mars, both alike being according to God's will in every particular. We knew that will only after the event, they before, that was all. For the rest, God moved them through their wills as he did us, so that they had no more dents of compulsion in what they did than we on earth have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our anticipation's chance to be correct. Of the absorbing interest which the study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars, my companion spoke eloquently. It was, he said, like the fascination to a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place of figures and symbols. When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different, he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from earth. No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as the past. And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their logical necessity, so clearly that to desire them different was as impossible as seriously to wish that two and two make five instead of four. No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so closely are all things, the small with the great, woven together by God that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all eternity. While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the rosate atmosphere of the planet imparting a splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and seascape, never paralleled by an earthly sunset. Already the familiar constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the slightest variation in their position. Nevertheless, there was one holy novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were visibly visible to the naked eye. But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth, swimming law on the verge of the horizon. Its disk, twice as large as that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a brilliancy like that of Venus. It is, indeed, a lovely sight, said my companion, although to me always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants. We call it the blind man's world. As he spoke he turned toward a curious structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly observed it. What is that? I asked. It is one of our telescopes, he replied. I'm going to let you take a look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of which I have boasted. And having adjusted the instrument to his satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to the eyepiece. I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had exaggerated nothing. The little college town which was my home lay spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down upon it from my observatory windows. It was early morning, and the village was waking up. The milkmen were going their rounds, and workmen, with their dinner pales, were hurrying along the streets. The early train was just leaving the railroad station. I could see the puffs from the folk-stack, and the jets from the cylinders. It was strange not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed. There were the college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back the level sunbeams. I could tell the time by the college clock. It struck me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering the earliness of the hour. A crowd of people stood about the door of the observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that direction. Among them I recognized President Bixby, accompanied by a college janitor. As I gazed they reached the observatory, and, passing through the group about the door, entered the building. The president was evidently going up to my quarters. At this it flashed over me quite suddenly, that all this bustle was on my account. I recalled how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left the fares in the observatory. It was high time I were back there to look after myself. Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that morning on my desk. That is the authentic record of the conditions of life in another world which purports to be I do not expect the reader to believe. He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks of some nambulism set down in the books. Probably it was merely that. Possibly it was something more. I do not pretend to decide the question. I have told all the facts of the case, and I have no better means of forming an opinion than the reader. Nor do I know, even if I fully believed it, the true account, it seems to be, that it would have affected my imagination much more strongly than it has. That story of another world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours. The readiness with which my mind has adapted itself to the martial point of view concerning the earth has been a singular experience. The lack of foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had previously thought of before, now impresses me ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony with the rest of our nature, belying its promise, a moral mutilation, a deprivation, arbitrary and unaccountable. The spectacle of a race doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured only of what is past and dead, comes over me from time to time with the sadly fantastical effect cannot describe. I dream of a world where love always wears a smile, where the partings are as tearless as our meetings, and death is king no more. I have a fancy, which I like to cherish, that the people of that happy sphere, fancy though it may be, represent the ideal and normal type of our race, as perhaps it once was, as perhaps it may yet be again. End of Section 1 Section 2 of 20 short science fiction stories by various authors. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Zen by Jerome Bixby Because they were so likable and intelligent and adaptable, they were vastly dangerous. It's difficult when you're on one of the asteroids, to keep from tripping, because it's almost impossible to keep your eyes on the ground. They never got around to putting portholes in spaceships, you know, unnecessary when you're flying by GB, and psychologically inadvisable, besides, so an asteroid is about the only place, apart from Luna, where you can really see the stars. There are so many stars in an asteroid sky that they look like clouds, like massive, heaped up silver clouds, floating slowly around the inner surface of a vast ebony sphere that surrounds you and your tiny foothold. They are near enough to touch, and you want to touch them, but they are so frighteningly far away, and so beautiful, there's nothing in creation half so beautiful as an asteroid sky. You don't want to look down naturally. I had left the Lucky Pierre to search for fossils. I'm David Coons, the Lucky Pierre's paleontologist. Somewhere off in the darkness on either side of me were Joe Hargraves, gadgeting four mineral deposits, and Ed Reese, hopefully on the lookout for something alive. The Lucky Pierre was back of us, her body out of sight behind a low black ridge, only her gleaming nose poking above like a porpoise coming up for air. When I looked back, I could see, along the jagged rim of the ridge, the busy reflected flickerings of the bubble camp the texts were throwing together, otherwise always black, except for our blue-white torch beams that darted here and there over the gritty rocky surface. The twenty-nine of us were ETI, Team Seventeen, whose assignment was the asteroids. We were four years and three months out of Terra, and we'd reached Vesta right on schedule. Ten minutes after landing, we had known that the Claude was part of the crust of Planet X, or Sorn, to give it its right name, one of the few such parts that hadn't been blown clean out of the solar system. That made Vesta extra special. It meant settling down for a while. It meant a careful, months-long scrutiny of Vesta's every square inch and a lot of her cubic ones, especially by the life scientists. Fossils, artifacts, animate life, a surfer chunk of Sorn might harbor any of these, or all. Some we tackled already had a few. In a day or so, of course, we'd have the one-man Beatles and crew-bolts out, and the floodlights orbiting overhead, and Vesta would be as exposed to us as a molecule on a micro-screen. Then work would start in earnest. But in the meantime, and as usual, Hargraves, Rhys, and I were out prowling, our weighted boots clomping along in darkness. Captain Feldman had long ago given up trying to keep his science-minded charges from galloping off alone like this. In spite of being a military man, Feld's a nice guy. He just shrugs and says, scientists, when we appear brightly at the airlock, waiting to be let out. So the three of us went our separate ways, and soon we're out of sight of one another. Ed Rhys, the biologist, was looking hardest for animate life naturally. But I found it. I had crossed a long-rounded expanse of rock, lava, wonderfully colored, and was descending into a boulder-cluttered pocket. I was nearing the bottom of the chunk, the part that had been the deepest beneath soren's surface before the blow-up. It was the likeliest place to look for fossils. But instead of looking for fossils, my eyes kept rising to those incredible stars. You get that way particularly after several weeks of living in steel, and it was lucky that I got that way this time, or I might have missed the zen. My feet tangled with a rock. I started at a slow, light gravity fall, and looked down to catch my balance. My torch beam flickered across a small, red-furred teddy bear shape. The light passed on. I brought it sharply back to the target. My hair did not stand on end, regardless of what you've heard me quote it as sane. Why should it have, when I already knew you're so well? Considered him, in fact, one of my closest friends. The zen was standing by a rock, one paw resting on it. Ears cocked forward, its stub behind legs braced, ready to launch it into flight. Big yellow eyes blinked unemotionally at the glare of the torch, and I cut down its brilliance with a twist of the polarizer lens. The creature stared at me, looking ready to jump halfway to Mars or straight at me if I made a wrong move. I addressed it in its own language, clucking my tongue and whistling through my teeth, saw zen. In the blue-white light of the torch, the zen shivered. It didn't say anything. I thought I knew why. Three thousand years of darkness and silence. I said, I won't hurt you, again speaking in its own language. The zen moved away from the rock, but not away from me. It came a little closer, actually, and peered up at my helmeted, mere-glassed head, unmistakably the seat of intelligence. It appears of any race anywhere. Its mouth, almost human shape, worked. Finally words came. It hadn't spoken except to itself for three thousand years. You are not zen, it said. Why, how do you speak Zenakya? It took me a couple of seconds to untangle the squeaking syllables and get any sense out of them. But what I had already said to it were stock phrases that Yurt had taught me. I knew still more, but I couldn't speak Zenakya fluently by any means. Keep this in mind, by the way. I barely knew the language, and the zen could barely remember it. To save space, the following dialogue is reproduced without mumblings, blank stares, and what did you say? In reality, our talk lasted over an hour. I am an earth man, I said. Through my earphones when I spoke I could faintly hear my own voice as the zen must have heard it in vest as all but nonexistent atmosphere. Tiny, metallic, cricket-like. Yurtman? I pointed at the sky, the incredible sky. From out there, from another world. I thought about that for a while. I waited. We already knew that the zens had been better astronomers at their peak than we were right now, even though they'd never mastered space travel. So I didn't expect this one to boggle at the notion of creatures from another world. It didn't. Finally it nodded, and I thought, as I had often before, how curious it was that this gesture should be common to earth men and zen. So, Yurtman, it said, and you know what I am. When I understood I nodded too. Then I said, yes, realizing that the nod wasn't visible through the one-way glass of my helmet. I am last of zen, it said. I said nothing. I was studying it closely, looking for the features which Yurt had described to us, the lighter red fur of arms and neck, the peculiar formation of flesh and horn on the lower abdomen. They were there. From the coloring I knew this zen was a female. The mouth worked again, not with emotion I thought, but with the familiar act of speaking. I have been here for four, she hesitated, I don't know, for five hundred of my years. For about three thousand of mine, I told her. And then blanket astonishment sank home in me, astonishment at the last two words of her remark. I was already familiar with the zen's enormous intelligence, knowing Yurt as I did, but imagine thinking to my ears with my when just out of nowhere a visitor from another planetary orbit pops up. And there had been no special stress given the distinction, just clear, precise thinking, like Yurts. I added, still a little odd, we know how long ago your world died. I was a child then, she said. I don't know what happened. I have wondered. She looked up at my steel and glass face. I must have seemed like a giant. Well, I suppose I was. This, what we are on, was part of Soren. I know. It was, she fumbled for a word. Was it atom explosion? I told her how Soren had gotten careless with its hydrogen atoms and had blown itself over half of creation. This, the ETI's teams had surmised from scientific records found on arrows, as well as from geophysical evidence scattered throughout the other bodies. I was a child, she said again after a moment. But I remember, I remember things different from this. Air, heat, light, how do I live here? Again I felt amazement at its intelligence. And it suddenly occurred to me that astronomy and nuclear physics must have been taught in Soren's elementary schools, else that my ears and atom explosion would have been all but impossible. And now this old, old creature, remembering back three thousand years to childhood, probably to those elementary schools, remembering, and defining the differences in environment between then and now, and more, wondering at its existence in the different now. And then I got my own thinking straightened out. I recalled some of the things we had learned about Zen. Their average lifespan had been twelve thousand years or a little over. So the Zen before me was, by our standards, about twenty-five years old. Nothing at all strange about remembering when you are twenty-five, the things that happen to you when you are seven. But the Zen's question, even my rationalization of my reaction to it, had given me a chill. Here was no cuddly teddy bear. This creature had been born before Christ. She had been alone for three thousand years, on a chip of bone from her dead world beneath a sepulcher of stars. The last and greatest Martian civilization, the Lahari, had risen and fallen in her lifetime, and she was twenty-five years old. How do I live here, she asked again. I got back to my own framework of temporal reference, so to speak, and began explaining to a Zen what a Zen was. I found out later from Yurt that biology, for the reasons which follow, was one of the most difficult studies. So difficult that nuclear physics actually proceeded it. I told her that the Zen had been, all the evidence indicated, the toughest, hardest, longest-lived creatures God had ever cooked up, practically independent of their environment, no special ecological niche, just raw, stubborn, tenacious life, developed to a fantastic extreme, a greater force of life than any other known. One that could exist almost anywhere under practically any conditions, even floating in mid-space, which, asteroid or no, this Zen was doing right now. The Zen's breathed all right, but it was nothing they'd had to do in order to live. It gave them nothing their incredible metabolism couldn't scrounge up out of rock or cosmic rays or interstellar gas or simply do without for a few thousand years. If the human body is a furnace, then the Zen's body is a feeder-pile. Maybe that, I thought, was what evolution always worked toward. Please, will you kill me? the Zen said. I'd been expecting that. Two years ago on the bleak surface of Arles, Yurt had asked Inkström to do the same thing, but I asked why, although I knew what the answer would be too. The Zen looked up at me. She was exhibiting every ounce of emotion a Zen is capable of, which is a lot, and I could recognize it, but not in any familiar terms. A tiny motion here, a quiver there, but very quiet and still for the most part. And that was the violent expression, restrained. Yurt, after two years of living with us, still couldn't understand why we found this confusing. Difficult, aliens or being alien. I've so often tried to do it myself, the Zen said softly, but I can't. I can't even hurt myself. Why do I want you to kill me? She was even quieter. Maybe she was crying. I'm alone, five hundred years, Ertman. Not too long. I'm still young, but what good is it, life when there are no other Zen? How do you know there are no other Zen? There are no others, she said, almost inaudibly. I suppose a human girl might have shrieked it. A child, I thought, when your world blew up, and you survived. Now you're a young three thousand year old woman, uneducated, afraid, probably crawling with neurosis. Even so, in your thousand year term, young lady, you're not too old to change. Will you kill me? She asked again. And suddenly I was having one of those eye-popping third-rose interviews of the whole scene. The enormous, beautiful sky. The dead clawed. Vesta, the little creature who stood there staring at me. The brilliant, ignorant, human-like alien. Old young creature who was asking me to kill her. For a moment the human quality of her thinking terrified me. The feeling you might have waking up some night and finding your pet puppy sitting on your chest, looking at you with wise eyes and white fangs gleaming. Then I thought of Yurt, smart, friendly Yurt, who had learned to laugh and wise-crack, and I came out of the heebie-jeebies. I realized that here was only a sick girl, no tiny monster. And if she were as resilient as Yurt, well, it was his problem. He'd probably pull her through. But I didn't pick her up. I made no attempt to take her back to the ship. Her tiny white teeth and tiny yellow claws were harder than steel. And she was, I knew, unbelievably strong for her size. If she got suspicious or decided to throw a phobic tizzy, she could scatter shreds of me over a square acre of Vesta in less time than it would take me to Yelp. Will you, she began again. I tried shakily. Hell no, wait here. Then I had to translate it. I went back to the lucky Pierre and got Yurt. We could do without him, even though he had been a big help. We taught him a lot. He'd been a child at the blow-up too, and he taught us a lot. But this was more important, of course. When I told him what had happened, he was very quiet, crying perhaps, just like a human being, with happiness. Cap Feldman asked me what was up, and I told him, and he said, Well, I'll be blessed. I said, Yurt, are you sure you want us to keep hands off? Just go off and leave you. Yes, please. Feldman said, Well, I'll be blessed. Yurt, who spoke excellent English, said, Bless you all. I took him back to where the female waited. From the ridge I knew the entire crew was watching through binocs. I set him down and he fell to study her intently. I'm not a zen, I told her, giving my torch full brilliance for the crew's sake, but Yurt is here. Do you see, I mean, do you know what you look like? She said, I can see enough of my own body to, and yes. Yurt, I said, Here's the female we thought we might find. Take over. Yurt's eyes were fastened on the girl. What do I do now? She whispered wordly. I'm afraid that something only a zen would know, I told her, smiling inside my helmet. I'm not a zen, Yurt is. She turned to him. You will tell me? If it becomes necessary. He moved closer to her, not even looking back to talk to me. Give us some time to get acquainted, will you, Dave? And you might leave some supplies and a bubble at the camp when you move on, just to make things pleasanter. By this time he had reached the female. They were as still as space, not a sound, not a motion. I wanted to hang around, but I knew how I'd feel if a zen, say, wouldn't go away if I were the last man alive and had just met the last woman. I moved my torch off them and headed back for the Lucky Pierre. We all had a drink to the saving of a great race that might have become extinct. Ed Rhys, though, had to do some worrying before he could get down to his drink. What if they don't like each other, he asked anxiously. They don't have much choice, Captain Feldman said, always the realest. Why do homely women fight for jobs on the most isolated space outposts? Rhys Grinde, that's right, they look awful good after a year or two in space. Make that twenty-five by zen standards or three thousand by ours, said Joe Hargraves, and I'll bet they look beautiful to each other. We decided to drop our investigation of Vesta for the time being and come back to it after the honeymoon. Six months later, when we returned, there were twelve hundred zen on Vesta. Captain Feldman was a realist, but he was also a deeply moral man. He went to Yurt and said, it's indecent. Couldn't the two of you control yourselves at least a little? Twelve hundred kids. We were rather surprised ourselves, Yurt said complacently, but this seems to be how zen reproduced. Can you have only half a child? Naturally, Feld got the authorities to quarantine Vesta. Good God, the zen could push us clear out of the solar system in a couple of generations. I don't think they would, but you can't take such chances, can you? End of Section Two Section Three of Twenty Short Science Fiction Stories by Various Authors. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Identity by Zoe Blade Flat Chested Faye, Flat Chested Faye, chanted the girls on the table next to Faye and Rebecca's. The large hall smelled of cabbages, potatoes, and baked beans, and everyone else was talking and eating and moving chairs so loudly that Faye could hardly hear herself think. Just ignore them, suggested Rebecca. Faye didn't say anything. She opened her lunchbox and fished around in her deep blazer pockets for her medication. She teased a pill out of the bottle and washed it down with some orange squash from her Helen Fryer thermos flask. It's not healthy to have secrets, you know. Rebecca peered across at her, trying to make out the label on the bottle. They're called antiandrogens. Faye slipped the bottle back into her pocket. I told you, I have a hormonal imbalance, that's all. It wasn't even a white lie, she told herself. It was just being vague. Is that why you haven't, you know, developed yet? Rebecca took a bite out of her sandwich. It's not healthy to be so pushy, either. Faye forced herself to start eating her lunch. She wasn't feeling hungry. Sorry, said Rebecca. She took a sip of her drink. It's just that it's not the same without you during swimming lessons. Who else am I going to tease? I'm sure there must be someone, said Faye. Rebecca looked up as she thought to herself. How come you're not allowed to go swimming with us anyway? Just because you haven't started puberty yet. I mean, Jenny's always behind everyone else too when she still goes swimming. I'd rather not talk about it. Faye didn't dare look up from her food. She could already feel herself getting the kind of headache that meant she'd start crying soon if she wasn't careful. She tried to change the subject. Have you done the new Friar episode? What, this? Rebecca pulled a silver disc out of her blazer pocket, holding it up for Faye to see. You want to try it? I think I could be persuaded. Faye looked up long enough for her eyes to meet Rebecca's. Big mistake. She tried not to think about how they seemed to radiate a sense of playful mischief, or about the curly trusses of Auburn hair partially hiding them. Rebecca handed the disc to Faye, and for an instant their hands touched as she took it from her. Thanks! Faye slid the disc into her pocket and tried to concentrate on finishing her meal. Faye stared up at a bright blue sky that wasn't there, and listened to a dozen conversations about nothing in particular. She breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of the freshly cut grass she wasn't really lying on. Although she was actually lying on her bed, her senses were all being hijacked by the digit-act player laying next to her as it replayed the sensory input of Helen Fryer, one of the country's most popular actresses. She saw and heard everything that Helen did, but she was helpless to try and direct her where she wanted to go. She was just an observer, albeit a very intimate one. Faye felt someone squeeze her hand and turn to face him. Naturally it was James. He had the kind of rugged good looks that were currently considered attractive by most of the girls in her class. His bleach-blonde hair was just long enough to get in the way of his hazel eyes, and whenever she kissed him, his stubble felt like sandpaper. She wasn't quite sure if she had a type yet, but if she did, James definitely wasn't it. I love you, James, she felt herself say. I love you too, Helen, said James. His smile widened, and Faye felt hers do the same. He leaned towards her. She reciprocated, closing her eyes. As their lips met, she started to open her mouth, letting him separate her lips with his tongue. You, thought Faye as she opened her eyes and groped around for her digit-act player's stop button, overwhelmed by the two sets of images competing in her head. She pressed it just in time. Suddenly the bright blue sky was replaced with the various posters of female rock stars that lined her bedroom walls. The chattering of passers-by came to an abrupt end, and in its place she could hear the dull murmur of her parents' old-fashioned flat-screen television downstairs. Looking down at herself, Faye sighed wistfully. At least she'd slipped out of the unfashionable blazer, blouse, polyester skirt, and opaque black tights of her school uniform. Instead she was wearing a light pink spaghetti top over a padded bra, as if that was fooling anybody, and a blue denim miniskirt, clothes she wouldn't mind actually being seen in. But that didn't change the fact that the other girls were right. She was flat-chested. She reached into her bedside drawer, lifted up a stack of glossy magazines, and pulled out the digit-act disc she'd been too embarrassed to tell anyone about. She read the disc's title, the Kelly Travis Workout Experience. It had come free with a packet of cereal, the kind that wasn't covered in sugar. It was meant to show you that working out at a Kelly Travis gym wasn't as difficult as you thought it was. Faye ejected the Helen Fryer disc and tossed it onto the bed next to the player, then slid the Kelly Travis disc in and pressed play. Within moments she was running on a treadmill in front of a full-length mirror. She could smell her own sweat, sharp and strong, but it didn't matter. Closing her eyes again she stared at her own face, or at least the face of a nameless actress, blue eyes staring back at her from behind a blonde fringe, smiling with determination and the knowledge that she could push herself further this time. Digit-attack actresses almost always smiled. She pushed a few buttons on the treadmill's keypad, and it beeped in reply as the motor sped up. Her muscles soon started to ache, but it was worth it. She could feel every inch of her fully developed and well-defined body. Every footstep filled her with a kind of satisfaction she couldn't get in real life. She was supple and slender, but not dangerously thin anymore. She was fully grown, with curves she would do anything to have in real life. Without warning, Faye fell to tap on her shoulder. She pressed the stop button on the player again and opened her eyes. Your father and I would like to have a word with you when you're ready. Her mother was standing by the door, looking down at her. What did I do? protested Faye. It's nothing like that. Faye squinted up at her mother, shielding her eyes from the bedroom light with her hand. What do you want, then? Her mother sighed in frustration. Please, just come down. By the time Faye walked into the lounge, the television was off. Her parents were sitting in silence, staring at the fireplace. It was still covered in cards wishing Faye a happy birthday. Please sit down, dear," suggested her mother. Faye sat down on the couch, facing both her parents. They looked solemn, like the time her uncle had died. Her mother cleared her throat. You know how you're, uh, different from other girls? I don't like Helen Fryer as much, suggested Faye. Not that. Her mother sound frustrated now. Your body, said her father almost apologetically. You know, the reason you work on your algebra while your friends have their swimming lessons. Oh! Faye suddenly realized what they were getting at. That! She looked down at the shag carpet. Years ago her parents had sat her down for a similar talk. They had told her about how all babies have thorough medical checks these days, ever since the government worked out that prevention was cheaper than cure. When she'd had hers, the high-definition MRI scan had apparently revealed that she was a perfectly healthy baby girl, despite her body giving her the appearance of a perfectly healthy baby boy. It was an age-old condition, her parents had told her. In a funny sort of way, they'd said she was lucky to have been born when she was. As recently as a few decades earlier, people with their medical issue had to work it out for themselves after decades and sometimes even lifetimes of mental anguish. Nowadays it was something your doctor told your parents at birth. I know you don't exactly like your body, said her father. I look like a freak, muttered Faye. That's not true, said her mother sharply. You look just as lovely as any of your friends. Faye didn't say anything. It simply wasn't true. Karen and Sarah and Louise all had to start wearing training bras this year, and here she was with a flat chest and an unsightly bulge in her knickers. It was hideous. Her skin crawled just thinking about it. Those pills you're taking are just a temporary measure, her mother continued. They're delaying your puberty, but you can't take them forever. Her mother's voice became unusually soft and quiet. You're going to have to make a choice. What kind of choice, asked Faye, her eyes still fixed on the floor. She could feel them willing up already. Her father piped up. We can give you some other pills that will give your body the estrogen it ought to be producing. They'll make you look more like your friends, you know. Put some weight on your hips and, he glanced at her chest, unable to be so blunt to his own daughter, other places. He quickly changed the subject adding, but you'll have to meet us halfway. You understand and start eating properly. Faye looked up at him, hoping her eyes. He looked blurry behind her tears. Plus, you know, we've been saving away since your birth. I know Christmas and your birthday have always been lean, but you'd be able to have an operation to fix. He glanced down at her groin, you know. Really? You mean it? Faye sniffed. There is another option, her mother pointed out. I don't want to pressure you into anything, but it would mean your body wouldn't be so scarred. You could use the money to go to college, and you could even have children one day. It would be nice to have grandchildren. Her father gave her mother a look that silenced her. What do you mean, asked Faye, her eyes darting from her mother to her father. There's a new operation you can have. Her father shifted in his seat. They came out with it a few years ago. It's perfectly safe, a shorter mother. Lots of girls with your condition have had it. What kind of operation? Faye didn't like the sound of this at all. It would mean that you wouldn't mind your body so much. Her mother looked hopeful. In fact, you'd welcome its growth. Faye tried to work out what her parents were getting at. What kind of operation, she repeated. It has something to do with the way the brains wired up, said her father. Brain surgery, sputtered Faye, shocked that her parents could suggest such a thing. You'd still be you, a shorter mother. For the most part, anyway, corrected her father. Oh, stop scaring her, scathed her mother. Facing Faye again, she added. You'd still be the same person. You'd just be, well, a boy. Before Faye knew what had happened, she dashed out of the room. She ran up the stairs, there outlined a blurry mess behind her tears, and slammed her bedroom door shut before flopping onto her bed, her eyes buried in her arm. When she finally let herself sob uncontrollably, it was a relief in a way. She just let go, letting the pain wash over her. The pile of soft boys by her side offered no comfort. Their presence suddenly seemed childish. As much as her parents kept on saying how much they loved her, she got the feeling all her mother really cared about was having grandchildren. So what do you think of him? asked Rebecca as she sat on her bed, her back against the wall. Who? asked Faye. She made an effort to stop gawking at her friend's perfectly curled tresses as she snapped out of her day dream. James, said Rebecca, slightly jerking her head forward to show her frustration. Oh! Faye took the silver disc out of her pocket and handed it to her. Thanks. You're not getting out of the question that easily. Rebecca took the disc and put it on a stack on the shelf next to the bed. I don't know, Faye shrugged. He's OK, I guess. Just OK, asked Rebecca in disbelief. It's not like I want to have his babies or anything, said Faye. Geez! You don't like Toby. You don't like James. Who do you like? Rebecca scrunched her face up for a split second. I like you, pointed out Faye. Yeah, but not like like. Not like you like boys. Faye made an effort to look away from Rebecca's soft cheeks and her perfect lips. What's meant to be so good about boys anyway? They have their moments, said Rebecca. Some of them do anyway. Maybe not the ones in our class, but once they're a bit older, maybe. Sounds like a long wait. Faye kept her gaze on the floor. They just take a few more years to grow up as all. Give them a while. You'll see. Besides, if you didn't like boys, who would you like? Faye, called Rebecca's mother from downstairs. Your mother's here. I'd better go. Faye stood up. Thanks for the friar episode. That's OK. Rebecca looked at her the same way she looked at caterpillars and butterflies. Her eyes focused with well-meaning curiosity. For a second, Faye forgot to worry about the choice she had to make and about deciding how much she could tell Rebecca and just let herself get lost in her smile. Faye stared up at her familiar pollsters of female rock stars as she lay down on her bed in deep thought. On the one hand, she didn't want to die. She figured the person who'd recover from the brain surgery, however nice he might be and however happy he might become, simply wouldn't be her. Sure, he'd resemble her like a brother might, and he'd keep her memories as a strange sort of memento, but he'd have different drives, different ambitions, a different outlook on life. Wouldn't he? Besides, she couldn't bear the thought of giving a complete stranger, someone who didn't even exist yet, all of her emotional baggage. The memories of trying to cope with her birth defect, of trying to make sense of it, and of being constantly bullied at school because of her differences, she didn't even want this knowledge herself, and the thought of crippling someone else with it made her cringe. On the other hand, someone else would have a much better chance of actually being happy. He'd still inherit her psychological scars, but not the dozens of physical ones that the necessary surgery would give her. Maybe her childhood would seem as distant and unreal to him as a Digitak episode did to her. So a boil down to a choice between growing up to be a woman with low self-esteem and a malformed body, and donating the rest of her life to some boy, who, strange memories aside, might actually qualify as normal. His life would certainly be easier than hers, especially if he also wanted to date girls. She grabbed her pillow, hugged it, and curled up into a ball. Why did this have to happen to her? She was just a girl trying to lead an ordinary life. In the end, she finally made a decision. She was pretty sure it was the wrong decision, but she didn't know what else to do. At least this way, she stopped being a burden and an embarrassment to everyone. This is your last chance to change your mind, said the doctor with a soft, sympathetic voice. He put his hand on hers. Are you sure you want to do this? They looked down at her hands. Her wrist was encased in a light blue bracelet with her name and date of birth printed on it. They'd soon have to change it, she realized. Of course I'm not sure, she thought. Was any one? She held back a tear. Yes, I'm sure, she said nodding. I just want to get it over with. David opened his eyes. A blurry white light filled the room. Slowly everything came into focus. He was lying on a hospital bed soaked with sweat. A fan was perched on the table next to the bed, blowing a gentle breeze of fresh air into his face. He looked around. There was a bag with fluid in it suspended above him, with a tube running down to his arm. He found a mirror on the table next to the fan and picked it up. Holding it in front of his face, he gazed at his reflection. It was the same as it had always been, of course, except where long, frizzy hair used to be, there was now a tightly wrapped bandage stained with blood. It was clearly the face of a young boy staring back at him. For the first time he wasn't repulsed by it. It wasn't like looking at a stranger he'd grudgingly had to put up with. It was more like, he thought about this. It didn't really feel like anything at all. His reflection didn't provoke any kind of emotion in him. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. It was just who he was. That had always been the problem with Faye, though. Not that her body was bad, just that it simply wasn't who she was. He could remember everything. Not just Faye's actions, but her innermost thoughts. He remembered the way that some evenings, as she went to bed, she would look down at her flat chest and lack of curves and feel the headache that meant she was about to cry. He even remembered how she'd secretly started to feel about her best friend, Rebecca. Those memories were his now, but the feelings weren't. Looking down at the outline of the slightly malnourished but otherwise healthy young body hidden beneath the bedsheets and medical gown, he felt no repulsion any longer. Despite the nausea and the overwhelming feeling that he needed to get some rest, in a sort of weird way, he felt fine for the first time in his life. It was finally over. As he walked up to Rebecca's house, David scratched the scar on the back of his head. He still wasn't used to the feeling of short bristles of hair against his fingers. He pressed the doorbell and waited. Rebecca's mother answered the door, but she didn't greet him with enthusiasm like she usually did. Instead, she looked at him like she was expecting him to introduce himself. Hi, it's me, David, he said, seeing no hint of recognition in her eyes, he added. Henley. Oh, she seemed taken back. Of course, please come in. She opened the door wider and turned around to face the stairs. Rebecca, your friend's here. Turning back to face David, she assured him, I'm sure she won't be long before disappearing into the kitchen. David waited in the hallway until Rebecca finally crept down the stairs, coming to a stop halfway down the staircase. She looked almost afraid. It made David's stomach hurt to know that he was the cause of the paint look on her face. Hi, he said. Hi, she squeezed her arm as if she was nervous. You haven't been to see me or anything, he said. You still like me, right? Like you, I don't even know you. Rebecca waited what seemed like forever before she next spoke. When she did, her voice was soft, as if she was recounting a painful tale. Three years ago my best friend moved to the other side of the country, and I never got to see her again. We still email each other, of course, but it's not the same. For the longest time I didn't have anyone to help me make it through the day. Until I met you, until I met Faye, I mean. Now it's happening all over again, only worse than that, because it's like a part of Faye is still here, and you're running around oblivious to the fact that you've stolen it from her. Oh, David didn't know what else to say. Is that all you've got to say? Oh, I guess I didn't see it that way. I was hoping we could still be friends. David looked at Rebecca, but her eyes seemed sharp and cold. You know, like you and her were. You and me, I mean. I still remember everything, you know. How you'd laugh together, or swap secrets about boys. Yeah, well, not any more, OK? David stood in silence, trying to think of something to say to make it all better. Deep down, he knew there was nothing he could say or do that could change how Rebecca felt. So this is it, David eventually asked. Is this how we're going to say goodbye? You meant everything to her. Rebecca paused, as if she wanted to say something but wasn't sure if she should. Finally she said, She loved me, didn't she? David nodded. Rebecca looked straight ahead as if she were talking to the front door. I loved her too, I think, despite everything. She turned to face David. That's why it hurts to look at you. I'm sorry, said David. He cursed himself for not being able to think of anything better to say. Rebecca didn't reply to him, but as he walked out the door he could have sworn he'd hurt her whispering. So am I. End of section three.