April 23. Came back to camp after shooting the tire-tiger as I described above and found no one with the boy except the cat that had been following us. The boy had enticed it into his lap and was sitting—as he always used to when he wasn’t cooking—with his back to the fire and the cat on his knees. I was very excited about the tire-tiger, of course, and began talking about it, and went over and picked up the cat to show him where my shots had hit. The cat twisted her head around and sank her teeth into my hand. It wasn’t bad yesterday when I got the ghoul-bear, but is sore today. I have bandaged it and applied an antibiotic powder.

  · · · ·

  April 24. Hand still bad, as you see from the writing. Without the boy I don’t know what I’d do. He has done everything, most of the work, for the entire trip. We talked today about whether we should break camp and go on upstream, and ended deciding to stay here today and leave tomorrow unless my hand is worse. It is a good spot. There is a tree, which is always lucky, and a long grassy slope running down to the river; the river flows quickly here, with sweet, cold water. There is plenty of meat—we are eating the prance-pony and have hung a haunch from another tree two kilometers off for those who hunger. Farther upstream the river will be sunk into a gorge—that can be seen from here.

  · · · ·

  April 25. Broke camp today, the boy doing most of the work as usual. He has been reading my books and asks me questions, some of which I cannot well answer.

  · · · ·

  April 26. The boy is dead. I have buried him where he will never be found, because I find, looking at the dead face, that I do not believe in strangers looking into graves. It happened this way. About noon today we were leading the mules along a path that ran along the south rim of the gorge. It was about two hundred meters deep there, and narrow, with the water running swiftly in a deep channel at the bottom, bordered with red sand and broken stones. I reminded him that he had said we were still too far downstream to find the sacred cave of the Free People, but he said that there might be other such caves and climbed among the rocks anyway. I saw him fall. He tried to grasp a rock, then screamed and dropped down. I hobbled the mules and went back looking for him, hoping that in quieter water he would have been able to swim out. Downstream a long way, a big tree stood grasping the rock, with water at his feet, and had thrust out a root to catch my friend.

  Let me confess now that I lied. The dates on this page and the one before are not correct. Today is the first of June. For a long time I did not write anything in this notebook, and then, tonight, I thought that I would keep it again and write down what had happened. As you see, my hand is still bad; I do not think it will ever be right again, although it looks healthy and there is no scar. I have trouble holding onto things.

  I hid the dead boy’s body in the cave in a sheer cliff beside the river. I think he would have liked that, and the ghoul-bears will not get it there; they can move big stones aside, but they cannot climb like a man. It took me three days to find the cave, with him strapped to one of the mules. The cat I killed and laid at his feet.

  I find I am unused to writing like this—not just my hand, but writing down my thoughts. I wrote down the interviews, of course, and about seeing the sacred places, but not my thoughts. It has a fascination, and now there is no one else to talk to. No one else will read this anyway.

  We—the two mules and I—move much more slowly than when he was alive. We walk only for three or four hours in the morning, and there is always something to stop for in these hills, a beautiful spot with shady trees and ferns or a place to look for the cave or a deep hole with fish in it. I have not killed any large animals since he died, only eating fish and a few small creatures for which I set nooses I make of the tail hair I comb from the mules. Several times these snares have been robbed, but I am not angry; I believe I know who steals.

  There are many things to eat here besides fish and animals, though it is still too soon for fruits or all but the first berries. I believe that the Wetlanders, I should say the Annese of the meadowmeres, ate the roots of the salt reeds; I have tried them (you must first strip away the black underbark which is bitter and will kill fish if you pound a great deal of it between two stones), and they are good, though I think not very nourishing; it is best to eat them by Ocean so the white part can be dipped into the salt water after each bite.

  There, in the meadowmeres, if you want to eat the roots you have only to pull some up, but there is very little else to eat besides fish and clams, or snails in the spring, unless you catch a bird. Here things are quite different and there are many foods, but all are hard to find. The shoots of certain plants are good, and worms you find in rotten wood There is a fungus that grows only where no light comes that is very good.

  As I said, I have not killed any large animals, though once I was very tempted. But the rifle makes so much noise—and the shotgun even more—that I am certain it would frighten away those I wish to find.

  · · · ·

  June 3. (This is the real date.) Higher up into the hills—the two mules and I. More stones and less grass. The deer do not look like cattle here.

  · · · ·

  June 4. No fire tonight. I have been making one every night since he died, more than a month. Tonight I began to collect the sticks as I always did, then wondered why. The dead boy used to, because there was meat to cook and tea to make; I like tea, but it is gone now, and I have already eaten, and had nothing that had to be cooked. Soon, though, the sun will set; and then until sisterworld is above the hills I will not be able to write. Sometimes I wonder who will read this and I think no one, and decide to put in all my innermost thoughts. Then I remember that I am supposed to be keeping a scientific notebook; and that even if no one reads it, it will be good practice.

  But what is there to tell? I have stopped shaving. I sit here with the book in my lap and try to think about the life of the Free People here before men came from Earth. These hills are hard and bare, no one would live here if there were better land. It may be that the mountains—the Temporals, as they are called—are better, but for the present I have no way of knowing; certainly the low hills through which we have come were better, and even the meadowmeres. Why then did the Free People live in the mountains, as they surely did if the old stories are to be trusted? Did they ever come here? Do they come now? I believe they do, but that is another subject.

  If ever they came here it was not often, because the stories always speak of the people of the mountains (the Free People) and the Wetlanders, the people of the meadowmeres. It is true that when the Wetlanders are made to speak in the stories they sometimes call the Free People “hill-men,” but only they do that, and these hills, I think, are empty as the marshes are not; there are no dead here, or few.

  And the Marshmen. Why didn’t they come here?

  Let us begin with them; we know more about them. We know they were ever eager for meat, for the stories tell that they howled for the meat of sacrifice, even those who did not believe. Living in the meadowmeres they must have eaten the roots of the salt reeds, as I have said, and fish and waterfowl. Surely sometimes, wishing meat, they went into the low green hills above the marshes to hunt; but fishers and snarers of waterfowl cannot have hunted well. Then they would come (How many? ten? twenty and thirty?) into these hills to find victims for the river. I see them walking, one behind another, thickset men, stump-legged, splay-footed, white-skinned. Ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. The Free People are better hunters, no doubt better fighters, long of leg and narrow of foot, but there cannot be so many together or they would starve—there is not enough game. Possibly no more than ten together all told, women and children; and not more than three or four could be men of fighting age. How many must have been driven back across these empty, rocky hills toward the Hourglass and the Observatory and the River. How many? How long was human prehistory on Mother Earth? A million years? Some would say ten million. (Bones of my fathers.)

  Later. Sisterworld is queen of the night sky now, and covers this page with her blue light, save where the shadow of my pen hand falls. Half dark and half light she is now, and in the region between I can see the Hand reaching out into the sea, and what must be Port-Mimizon, a tiny spark, where the thumb joins the palm; I have heard it called the worst city on either world.

  Later. For a moment I thought I saw my cat flying like a shadow in the dark, and I wondered if she were really dead, though I broke her neck. The day before I found the burial cave for him, she brought me a little animal and laid it at my feet. I told her that she was a good cat and could eat it herself, but she only said, “My master, the Marquis of Carabas, sends you greetings.” And disappeared again. The little animal had a pointed snout and round ears, but its teeth were the even, biting teeth of a human being, and it smiled in its agony.

  Later. By sisterworld’s light I have been looking among the rocks for implements—eoliths. I have found none.

  · · · ·

  June 6. We have behaved like explorers today, marched all day. On our right the river roars through walls of stone; ahead of us the mountains lift their blue wall. I will follow the river in; I know it rises in their heart.

  · · · ·

  June 7. Today a small stone came tumbling down the slope ahead of us. Dislodged by some animal, I am sure, but I could not see the animal. I thought that we were no longer followed since I have not been shooting game; my snares are seldom robbed now, and when they are there is often sign of the fire-fox. How strange I must look to them, with the mules. I wear no clothing except my shoes, which I need for the stones, but the mules must frighten them.

  Much later. I do not know what time it is. Far after midnight, I think; sisterworld is half down the sky in the west, but she grows brighter and I can see far, far down the valley, and the great cliffs ahead glow with her blue light.

  I will not say Later, for I only left this book for a few seconds to gather brush and dead grass for a fire. This is the first fire I have had in several days, but now that I am out of my sleeping bag I am cold, and I do not want to go back to sleep. I dreamed that naked people were crowding all around me as I slept. Children, twisted Shadow children that are neither children nor men, and a tall girl with long, straight hair that hung almost in my face when she bent over me.

  It was the last entry in the canvas-bound journal. The officer closed it, tossed it aside, then for a moment tapped the stiff cover with his fingers. Dawn had come while he had been reading; he put out the feeble flame of his lamp, pushed back his chair, stood up and stretched. There was already a feeling of humidity and heat in the morning air. Outside, as he could. see through the open door, the slave had left his post beneath the fever tree and no doubt was asleep in a corner somewhere. For a moment the officer considered looking for him and kicking him awake; then turned back to his table and, still standing, read for the second time the cover Letter which had accompanied the file. It was dated almost a year past.

  SIR: The materials I send you relate to prisoner #143, currently detained at this installation and purporting to be a citizen of Earth. The prisoner, whose passport (which may have been tampered with) states his identity as John V. Marsch, Ph.D., arrived here April 2nd last year and was arrested June 5th of the current year in connection with the murder of a GSPB Class AA Correspondent Espion in this city. The son of the man referred to has since been convicted, but there is considerable evidence, as you will see from the material I enclose, that #148 may be an agent of junta currently in power on the sisterworld; this is, in fact, my own opinion.

  I call your attention to the circumstance that the execution of an agent of Sainte Anne would, at this time, have an excellent effect on public opinion here. On the other hand, if we are willing to accept the prisoner’s claim that he is in fact from the mother world, his release, at least until he further incriminates himself, might have an equally favorable effect. People here, particularly the intellectual class, were very ready to welcome him when he came as a scientist from Earth.

  “Maître…”

  The officer looked up. Cassilla, yawning, stood at his elbow with, a tray, the slave behind her. “Coffee, Maître,” she said. In the bright daylight he could see fine wrinkles near her eyes; the girl was aging. A pity. He took the cup she proffered, and as she poured, asked how old she was.

  “Twenty-one, Maître.” The pot was one of the silver ones with Divisional, decorations, which meant the slave had insisted on it in the kitchen; otherwise they would have given him one of the plain ones from the junior officers’ tables.

  “You should take better care of yourself.” The coffee was hot, and had been Lightly scented with vanilla. He added a dollop of heavy cream.

  “Yes, Maître. Will that be all?”

  “You may go.

  “You,” he gestured to the slave. “What is the next ship sailing for Port-Mimizon?”

  “The Evenstar, Maître. At high tide today. But it will put in at Coldmouth before it reaches the Hand, Maître, and perhaps do some trading in the islands. The Slough Desmond won’t sail until next week, but it should make Port-Mimizon about a month sooner.”

  The officer nodded, sipped coffee, and went back to the letter.

  Although a number of items in the prisoner’s private papers appear significant, he has thus far admitted nothing. We are pursuing the usual policy of alternately lenient and severe treatment to produce a breakdown. Shortly after he was placed in the favorable cell, #47 on the floor above began a communication with him by means of coded knocks upon a pipe passing through both cells. As soon as the prisoner replied we persuaded #47 (who is political, and soft like all our home-grown politicals) to keep records of the conversations. He has done so (File #181) and checks have shown it to be accurate, but the subject matter appears unimportant. The prisoner in an adjacent cell, an illiterate woman who is a habitual petty thief, also appears to attempt to communicate with the prisoner by knocking, but the pattern is unintelligible and he does not reply.

  Since there is a certain amount of pressure from the university for #143’s release we would appreciate a prompt disposition of this case.

  The officer opened the top of the dispatch box and dropped the letter back inside, following it with handfuls of loose pages in official transcript, the spools of tape, the canvas-bound journal, the school composition book. Then taking a few sheets of official stationery and a pen from the drawer of his table he began to write.

  Director, GSPB

  Citadel,

  Port-Mimizon,

  Departement de la Main

  Sir: We have considered at length the case enclosed. Though this prisoner is of no importance, both the courses you propose appear to us completely untenable. If he were to be publicly executed it would be thought by many that he was in fact a citizen of the mother world as claimed, and had been burned as a scapegoat. Alternately, if he were to be released as cleared and subsequently rearrested, the credibility of the government would be gravely damaged.

  We are not concerned about the state of public opinion in Port-Mimizon, but since it is the only importance this case possesses we direct you to continue your efforts to secure complete cooperation; in passing we would warn you not to place a premature reliance upon his developing attachment to the girl C.E. Until complete cooperation is achieved we direct you to continue to detain the prisoner.

  Adding his signature below, the officer dropped this, too, into the dispatch box and, calling the slave, instructed him to bind it closed. as it had been before. When he had finished, the officer said: “You are to put this aboard the Evenstar. For Port-Mimizon.”

  “Yes, Maître.”

  “You will be serving the commandant today?”

  “Yes, Maître. From twelve. For the dinner, you know, Maître, for the general.”

  “Possibly an opportunity—a graceful opportunity—to speak to him will occur. Most probably when he asks you to convey his thanks to me for the loan of your services.”

  “Yes, Maître.”

  “At that time you might contrive to inform him that I remained awake all night to deal with this case, and that I sent it off this morning by the first ship sailing for Port-Mimizon. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Maître. I do, Maître.”

  For an instant the slave let slip his normal look of deference and smiled; and the officer, seeing that smile, understood that he would carry out the instruction if he could, that some secret love of intrigue and duplicity in him delighted in it. And the slave, seeing the officer’s expression, knew that he would never have to return to the carding rooms and the looms, understanding that the officer knew that he would do everything he could, for the sheer love of it. He put the dispatch box on his shoulder to carry it to the wharf and the ship Evenstar, and they parted, both quite happy. When he had gone, the officer found a spool of tape where it had rolled behind the lamp on his table; he dropped it out the window into one of the neglected flower beds, among the sprawling angels trumpets.

  Introduction

  Publishers tell me that no one reads introductions. I do not believe them, since I read the things myself, but I am willing to admit that there is probably some truth behind the myth—in other words, that you, who have read these few lines, are a member of a select minority.

  I do not quite see how I can repay you. You already know, I hope, that the book you hold is a collection of short stories. The jacket will have told you that I wrote them. (And, yes, I wrote them. My name really is Gene Wolfe, and I am an actual person.) The front matter has perhaps told you about my other books, and even where these stories originally appeared. All that remains for me is to tell you a little something concerning the stories themselves.

  To begin, they are largely what is called science fiction, though a good many are of that type of science fiction that is sometimes questioned, particularly by people who do not read much sf and therefore have a very definite idea of what it is and is not. Only “La Befana” and “Many Mansions” clearly take place off Earth. Several stories are not even futuristic. One at least is inarguably fantasy. Several are humorous, and I have been told often enough that I have a sense of humor that makes strong men faint and women reach for weapons; I should have known better than to include those, but now it is too late.