Kneeling, I felt her wrist. There was no pulse. I swear that there was none. Her flesh was not yet cold, though not as warm as that of a living person.

  “He struck my neck, and all his hatred and disdain were in the blow. It was sufficient, for girls such as I was are not so difficult to kill as rabbits.”

  There was yet no stench of decay, only a faint perfume as of lilies of the valley.

  “You would not save me, and I know that you will not avenge me. Take me now, if you wish. It will be release for you; and I, who never knew love in life, shall know it in death.”

  I hesitated, and she said, “Do you imagine that you will be the first man to ravish a corpse? You go where tens of thousands have gone before you, and you will leave in your wake no bitter tears.”

  God help me, sir, I did as she had suggested. When I rose, she was gone. I called out to her, but received no response.

  I had promised to carry her to a place where she would soon be found; I did so and set out to avenge her. Of my desperate struggle with my master I shall say nothing. The court has recorded it, and posterity may read of it if it chooses. Suffice it to say that his shouts and the sounds of my blows roused the whole house. Those who would have rescued him arrived too late, but subdued me without the least struggle.

  A fettered prisoner in a cell has no news save what his visitors bring him, and I had no visitors until my trial had begun. Conceive, then, of my amazement when I saw Miss Landon in the courtroom, seated primly beside her father. She sobbed quite audibly when the condition of my master’s body was described, and I could do nothing and say nothing.

  Her father came alone the next day to hear the jury’s verdict, and to my astonishment visited me in my cell not long after I was returned to it.

  “You live wretchedly here,” he said.

  To which I nodded. “Wretchedly, and not long.”

  “Do you smoke? I will give you a cigar.”

  Shaking my head, I thanked him.

  “A tot of brandy then.” He unscrewed the top of his walking stick and passed it to me. I took a good long swallow, thanked him, and returned it to him. You are not to believe from my drinking so that the thought of poison had not crossed my mind. He was a physician, after all, and might readily have introduced some devilish compound; but I had sooner died in my cell than wait there to be hanged.

  He wiped the rim and drank himself, and truly drank, for I saw the movement of his throat. A handkerchief served to blot his lips. “It is my understanding,” he told me, “that prisoners in possession of funds may buy certain comforts here, things sold by the warders. Shillings might be best, I suppose. I will give you twenty if you desire them, and a one-pound note to wrap them in.”

  I thanked him and accepted the money. “You wish my friendship, plainly,” I declared. “You have it. How can such a wretch as I be of service to you?”

  “First, I am indebted to you. The man you slew broke my daughter’s heart. Were you aware of it?”

  I confessed that it had been hinted in my hearing.

  “She mourns his passing. I do not.”

  “Sir, I understand.”

  “She came out last season. It was thought then, by her mother, by her brothers, and by Alice herself, that she would be married in a matter of months. She rejected other suitors, thinking it cruel to encourage them.”

  Waiting, I nodded.

  “His ardour waned. As I speak of your master, I assume you were to some degree aware of it.”

  “I asked him once,” I said, “about a report that he was to marry your daughter. He disparaged it, saying he enjoyed dancing with her, and that alone had given rise to the gossip.”

  “They were quite close, not long ago. I had begun to think of him as another son.” Dr. Landon sighed. “Would you defame my daughter, Brooks, were I to put it in your power?”

  “Certainly not, sir.”

  He nodded, mostly, I would say, to himself. “You are a good and a decent man, though you sleep here upon straw. I would save you if I could.”

  I thanked him.

  “Perhaps I can do something. I doubt it, but I shall make the attempt. If ever in your life you have been honest, answer me honestly now. My daughter is ruined, Brooks. You take my meaning, I feel certain.”

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “Her child will be my grandchild. I will not neglect my duty to that child, nor to her. Tell me plainly. Was your late master my grandchild’s father?”

  “I cannot answer,” I replied. “I can say only that he confided nothing of the sort to me.”

  “It is not unknown for a young gentleman to pursue a young woman and, when he has had his way with her, treat her with detestation.”

  “No, sir,” I said. “It is not.”

  “You killed him.”

  “Sir, I did.”

  He shook my hand and turned to go, but did not shout for the warder, turning back to me instead. “My daughter suffers fainting spells, a disorder by no means uncommon among young women. It is part and parcel with the green sickness.”

  I waited.

  “She lies, sometimes for hours, quite insensible, and seems scarcely to breathe. At such times, she dreams that her soul departs her body and ventures abroad, committing mischief. It is no more than a fancy, you understand.”

  “I do, sir.”

  “And yet…” He shrugged. “There is a doctor in Vienna who holds that there is a second mind below the one we inhabit. If that seems less than clear, I can but say it is by no means clear to me. That mind, he alleges, has fears and desires unconstrained by morality. His theories interest me because Alice’s dreams often seem the products of such a mind. I do not allege that he is correct, and in fact I think it more probable that he is mistaken.”

  “I agree,” I said. “It seems quite impossible. Would not such a mind require a separate soul?”

  “I should think so. I tell you this because you may have heard that she is mad. She is not, and upon the point I give you my word as a physician. She is only a girl who dreams, and gives her dreams much more credence than they deserve. You have done her a kindness, intended or not. Someday she may be sensible of it.”

  I said, “Thank you, sir.”

  He smiled. “I shall send my solicitor to you, Brooks. He is a good man, kind, and not much older than yourself. He may be able to do something for you. I hope so.”

  There is no more to tell. I have recounted my story to that solicitor, Mr. Josiah Willis, who has inscribed this record as I spoke. He promises me it will never be made public but that he will exhibit it to the child Alice Landon bears when that child is of age. Thus the child, whom I believe my own, shall know who I was and why I was hanged. There is a God in Heaven, I know, and He must know how sincerely I have repented. I pray that He will make this record known not only to Miss Landon’s child but to all my descendants, unto the seventh generation and beyond.

  [So many years have passed since James Brooks told his story to Mr. Josiah Willis that no harm can come of making his account public. In no other way can his dying wish be granted, or so the matter appears to us. No doubt the same thought motivated the publisher of the pamphlet.]

  The Green Wall Said

  The room was half a dome, the sides sloping gently around the floor until they were cut off sharply by a vertical, luminous wall of iridescent green. The wall said

  THIS IS A MEETING

  while the five people in the five free-form, off-white seats looked at it blankly.

  A SYMPOSIUM

  The man on the left (he wore a threadbare suit with wide lapels) stood half up, and then feeling the weakness of his legs and the whirling in his skull sank back into his chair. The chair was cool and smooth and soft, like the hide of a snake who has just changed his skin under a derelict refrigerator.

  CALL THIS A COUNCIL

  Next to him a man in dull armour took off his helmet and laid it carefully between his knees as though he were afraid it might break. It was of steel, drably painted and slightly dented. The wall said in large, white, block capitals

  YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED

  and in the centre of the group a woman in flowing robes straightened in her seat and then bent, eyes closed, over her folded hands.

  ARE YOU AFRAID

  Beside her a man in filthy khaki shorts looked at his neighbour in un-ironed grey. He said, “My clinic… Jesus Christ… What’s happened? Where’s the bleeding clinic?”

  NOTHING WILL HARM YOU

  The man in grey: “I go in th’ new wing, over the dinin’ hall.” He did not seem to realise yet that he was away from his accustomed surroundings. A tape sewn to his shapeless blouse read 223-850-14 Wilson.

  LET US EXPLAIN

  On the other side of the robed woman the man in armour swore vilely. “This is a flyin’ saucer! That’s what it is, a… flyin’ saucer.” He jumped to his feet, reeled, but managed to stay upright. The red cross on his arm seemed brilliant against the textile-enclosed helicopter armour he wore.

  WE ARE AN ANCIENT RACE

  The man in the business suit said to the wall, “I’ve got six kids; won’t you let me out of here? Who’ll take care of them? Oh, God!” He fumbled a cheap cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose.

  OUR LAWS ARE JUST

  The man in shorts said, half to the robed woman and half to himself, “I wonder if the abos will miss me… I’ll miss them, all right. You’re a sister, aren’t you? I suppose I’m C. of E…”

  The woman answered stiffly, “I am Sister Mary Nathaniel of Sacred Heart Orphanage.” The wooden beads dangling from her waist rattled faintly as she moved.

  YOU MAY DEPEND UPON US

  “It is! It’s a flying saucer!” the helicopter rescue man shouted. He was still standing. “I’m telling you, I remember it all now. We was over Dak Pek…” The steel-backed ceramic plates rustled heavily.

  TO ALWAYS FUNCTION RATIONALLY

  “I wonder what they want with us,” the man in shorts said. “Biological specimens, I suppose. Flamin’ well pickle us in formaldehyde or whatever they use. Perhaps stick us on cards with pins, eh?”

  WE HAD BEGUN OUR

  From the left, beyond the soldier’s empty chair: “They must be a great deal more advanced than we are. You don’t think they might want us for slaves, do you?”

  EVOLUTION AS

  The man in shorts said, “I doubt it. We probably can’t even breathe the same mixture of gases they do. Come to think of it, we’re a poor lot for specimens too. Not diverse.”

  INTELLIGENT BEINGS

  The soldier asked, “Whadaya mean?”

  DURING YOUR PLANET’S

  “Well, we haven’t any children among us, or any old people, and we just missed by one individual being all the same sex. Come to think of it…”

  CARBONIFEROUS AGE

  “We all speak English,” the nun said in her dry voice. “Are you yourself British, by the way?”

  WE NEED

  “No. Aussie.”

  INFORMATION A TECHNIQUE

  “It could be a linguistic grouping then, or possibly racial, could it not?” The printing on the wall pulsed brighter than before.

  WE NEED YOUR SECRET

  The man in grey said, as though he had made a profound deduction, “I bet it’s for a zoo.” He stood up and joined the soldier, and after a moment the man in the suit rose as well, the three of them forming a group in front of the nun and the man in shorts.

  IF WE ARE TO

  “Could it be technological? I’m a physician after all. You said you were attached to an orphanage?”

  SURVIVE LONGER

  “I teach first and second grades there, doctor. I’ve a Master’s in Education, if that makes any difference. Couldn’t it be religious groupings? Are any of us Jewish, for example?”

  AS A RACE

  The man in the suit said, “I am, and I’m an accountant.”

  BECAUSE WE CANNOT AS ALL OF

  The soldier shrugged. “I’m a Baptist, I guess, but I don’t think that’s it. And I’m just an aid man and couldn’t tell them anything the doc here couldn’t.” He looked at the man in grey. “What’re you? A safecracker?”

  YOU DO SACRIFICE

  The prisoner did not seem to resent his remark. “I’m a Seventh Day Adventist,” he said. “But only since I been in. I mean, not on the outside. What I was put away for, I used to stick up gas stations.”

  AS INDIVIDUALS ALL

  “Maybe it’s just anyone and there’s no plan at all-just whoever was loose and handy.” It was the man in the suit.

  OUR LIVES FOR THE KIND

  The half-hemisphere rocked five degrees, then straightened. They gripped the seats to steady themselves, too engrossed to give it further attention.

  AND NOW OUR SPRINGS

  “There must be a pattern,” the doctor said. He pointed towards the accountant. “Where are you from?”

  OF BEING FAIL

  “Chicago.” The nun said, “Pittsburgh”; the prisoner, “Omaha”; the soldier, “Chicago too, flyin’ out of Da Nang.”

  HOW DO YOU DO IT

  The lettering blinked on and off rapidly now, like an advertising sign;

  HOW DO YOU DO IT—DO YOU DO IT

  “I wonder if they got cancer research here too,” the prisoner said.

  Dumpster World

  by Gene Wolf

  Unfinanced Press, New York IA, 2004, $28.95

  (signed and limited, $22.50)

  Reviewed by Frances Angelique Keebler-Egge

  Never a master of plot, Wolff here escapes the Vise Squad [or whomever deals with plots—editor, please fix] by producing an unauthorized novelization of the recent film-noir film. Unfortunately for his readers, he confuses plot with turbidity. What has been produced is a turbine without bearings. That is to say, an unbearable book (e.g. Earth of the New Son).

  If the reader did not fail to return to their seat after visiting the popcorn stand, they will recall that the film revolved (very much the correct word) about Martin Sheen’s struggle to prevent the human race and some nice animals from being compacted. This led to a cataclysmic struggled between special effects, hardly a promising venisóhn for a writer of Wulf’s frisson. In this book, the thunderous booms and bangs, the snarls and terrifying growls of monsters flapping through outer space, are replaced by talk.

  And so is everything else. This film-goer will not soon forget the robot B6, so lubricously portrayed by Brad Pitt (in a performance made doubly admirably by costume and make-up which rendered him completely unrecognizable), but which is here deployed—not as a vitamin, your long-suffering critic might forgive that—but as a master conversationalist too much given to the—dare we say mechanical—repetition of certain pet words, phrases, and indeed speeches instead. At the fifth reiteration of the broken metaphor likening cloverleaf intersections to discarded cotton briefs, your trepid reviewer came to grasp as never before the quite horrific damage accorded belles lettres by publisher’s one cent per word rates. [Editor—Please do not take this personally. I certainly didn’t mean you.]

  In this book the rabbits (as portrayed in the film by Deborah Voigt and Mariah Carey) simply take the place of the camels or whatever they were in the author’s earlier Soldier of the Missed. For their duet the introduction promises a musical score. When the moment arrives (page 197) it is revealed as seven to six in the tenth. Your tepid reviewer admits to an être dans la panda weakness for musical jests, and even she (I) felt a tendacious wave of mal de mozärt at that one.

  Nor was the arduous social commentary of the film Dumpster World advanced by it. The message of the film was that we would all be crushed by the weight of our Kismet (the Buddhist name for Fate) if it were not for the merely fortuitous interference of well-meaning aliens. That of this novel is the same as that of all Wolff’s others: viz, that the author needs money. [Editor—So do I. Are you absolutely certain my check for Dave Gorman’s The Walls in the Wolves has been mailed?]

  And yet…

  And yet in every book there remains some saving grace, a legacy of the pure original sinlessness of a carb-free human mind; [Editor—That’s a good semi-colon. Please do not change] the elderly alien space-ship commander (Mickey Rooney) never proposes that the characters put on a show in Wulfe’s denatured adaptation.

  [Editor—Is this enough? I can easily fill more column inches with juicy (but not actionable) details of Wolef’s personal life. Half-cent-per-word as always. He is an algolagniaphobe, for example.]

  [After reading his book, I would enjoy doing this.]

  It’s Very Clean

  “It’s very clean,” the fat woman said. “You’ll like it.” She smiled, showing a gold tooth.

  Miles nodded, too embarrassed to speak. He had told her he was twenty-one.

  “You ready to go up now?” The woman held out her hand for money.

  He needed time to quiet his stomach and steady his nerves. He managed to ask, “I wonder if you could show me how they work first.”

  “Sure. Matter of fact, we got a unit busted right now, and the man’s up there workin’ on it. You can see that.” She motioned him to follow as she started toward the back of the building. “Usually I make customers use the stairs in front, but when I got to go up myself, I take the freight elevator.”

  They went through a door and left the Gilded Age behind. No more colored glass “Tiffany” lamps, fraudulent Oriental rugs, red velvet, or bead curtains. The floor and walls were concrete here. “You’re real, aren’t you?” Miles asked suddenly.

  “Me?” The woman plucked at the front of her dress and peeked down her own bodice, her powdered chins pushed together like marshmallows in a box. “I think so. I haven’t looked lately.” She laughed again and pressed a button to start the elevator.

  “I just meant…” The floor was lifting them.

  “I know; it could be done, I suppose, but it’s better to have somebody here to look after things, and that’s me. Pull that handle there, will you?”