Edward Frederic Benson: Bagnell Terrace

I had been for ten years an inhabitant of Bagnell Terrace, and, like all those who have been so fortunate as to secure a footing there, was convinced that for amenity, convenience, and tranquillity it is unrivalled in the length and breadth of London. The houses are small; we could, none of us, give an evening party or a dance, but we who live in Bagnell Terrace do not desire to do anything of the kind. We do not go in for sounds of revelry at night, nor, indeed, is there much revelry during the day, for we have gone to Bagnell Terrace in order to be anchored in a quiet little backwater. There is no traffic through it, for the terrace is a cul-de-sac, closed at the far end by a high brick wall, along which, on summer nights, cats trip lightly on visits to their friends. Even the cats of Bagnell Terrace have caught something of its discretion and tranquillity, for they do not hail each other with long-drawn yells of mortal agony like their cousins in less well-conducted places, but sit and have quiet little parties like the owners of the houses in which they condescend to be lodged and boarded.

But, though I was more content to be in Bagnell Terrace than anywhere else, I had not got, and was beginning to be afraid I never should get, the particular house which I coveted above all others. This was at the top end of the terrace adjoining the wall that closed it, and in one respect it was unlike the other houses, which so much resemble each other. The others have little square gardens in front of them, where we have our bulbs abloom in the spring, when they present a very gay appearance, but the gardens are too small, and London too sunless to allow of any very effective horticulture. The house, however, to which I had so long turned envious eyes, had no garden in front of it; instead, the space had been used for the erection of a big, square room (for a small garden will make a very well-sized room) connected with the house by a covered passage. Rooms in Bagnell Terrace, though sunny and cheerful, are not large, and just one big room, so it occurred to me, would give the final touch of perfection to those delightful little residences.

Now, the inhabitants of this desirable abode were something of a mystery to our neighbourly little circle, though we knew that a man lived there (for he was occasionally seen leaving or entering his house), he was personally unknown to us. A curious point was that though we had all (though rarely) encountered him on the pavements, there was a considerable discrepancy in the impression he had made on us. He certainly walked briskly, as if the vigour of life was still his, but while I believed that he was a young man, Hugh Abbot, who lived in the house next his, was convinced that, in spite of his briskness, he was not only old, but very old. Hugh and I, life-long bachelor friends, often discussed him in the ramble of conversation when he had dropped in for an after-dinner pipe, or I had gone across for a game of chess. His name was not known to us, so, by reason of my desire for his house, we called him Naboth. We both agreed that there was something odd about him, something baffling and elusive.

I had been away for a couple of months one winter in Egypt; the night after my return Hugh dined with me, and after dinner I produced those trophies which the strongest-minded are unable to refrain from purchasing, when they are offered by an engaging burnoused ruffian in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. There were some beads (not quite so blue as they had appeared there), a scarab or two, and for the last I kept the piece of which I was really proud, namely, a small lapis-lazuli statuette, a few inches high, of a cat. It sat square and stiff on its haunches, with upright forelegs, and, in spite of the small scale, so good were the proportions and so accurate the observation of the artist, that it gave the impression of being much bigger. As it stood on Hugh's palm, it was certainly small, but if, without the sight of it, I pictured it to myself, it represented itself as far larger than it really was.

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: Desde un alfiler a un elefante

Todo empezó porque quise comprarme una máquina de afeitar o, mejor dicho, porque asistí a una Feria Internacional de Muestras. En el depar­tamento de electrónica exhibían un analizador, y, embobado en la contemplación de la larga lengua blanca que salía de la boquita del monstruo, no advertí que alguien dejaba en mi mano un pros­pecto de propaganda. La misma firma que exhibía el analizador electrónico sugería que compraras máquinas de afeitar de su fabricación, y lo suge­ría una mujer a punto de ser besada por un hom­bre, mientras, vuelta hacia mí, pregonaba: Afeitado con... Da gusto besar. Archivé la imagen en algún rincón de mí mismo y meses después, cuando ya estaba instalado en mi piso de renta limitada (cua­tro habitaciones, baño y aseo, comedor living, cin­cuenta mil de entrada a descontar cada mes del alquiler, dos mil ochocientas ochenta de alquiler, portera incluida), entre el montón de necesidades que se nos plantearon a Juliana y a mí, apareció la máquina de afeitar, que podríamos compartir. Y un buen día pasé ante "Establecimientos Millet" , en donde rezaba la leyenda: Desde un alfiler a un elefante. En el escaparate, un precioso surtido de máquinas de afeitar... Vacilé, porque siempre vaci­lo. No es éste el momento de explicar por qué vacilo, ni creo que exista una motivación correcta de mis vacilaciones. En todo caso, la contundencia del slogan Afeitado con... Da gusto besar, se me im­puso y penetré en el establecimiento. Yo tenía una imagen ensoñada de un bazar. Recordaba una pe­lícula vista cuando niño: El bazar de las sorpresas, y evocaba imágenes cinematográficas de poli­crómicos bazares orientales. El "Bazar Millet" era un bazar a nivel europeo, una audaz y sólida cone­xión entre Tradición y Revolución, plenamente re­confortante. Columnas y estucados liberty, mue­bles nórdicos y funcionales, una motora y un car­telón con hermosa bañista practicando el esquí acuático, ollas a presión, Jesucristos portabolígra­fos, cortinas de arpillera, cortinas de tergal, esco­petas de caza. Al fondo, entre columnas metálicas, se esparcían unas cuantas mesas donde los buró­cratas perseguían los rectángulos de las cuartillas, las letras y el papel moneda. Un burócrata de ojo fijo me miró con insolencia y, haciendo un gesto con la cabeza, me entregó a la solicitud de un hombre de aspecto atlético e importante, de nariz aplastada como la de un boxeador.

—¿Su nombre?

Le dije mi nombre espontáneamente, sin extrañarme lo insólito del método.

—Bien, señor Millares, yo soy el señor Mon­tesinos, a partir de este momento su guía y ser­vidor.

Montesinos me estrechó la mano y no me hizo daño, contra lo que prometía su aspecto. Me empujó amablemente hacia una habitación acristalada y derramó sobre una mesa centenares de catálogos.

—¿Quiere usted una lancha motora?, ¿un yate, quizás?

Elizabeth Gaskell: Disappearances

I am not in the habit of seeing the Household Words regularly; but a friend, who lately sent me some of the back numbers, recommended me to read "all the papers relating to the Detective and Protective Police," which I accordingly did - not as the generality of readers have done, as they appeared week by week, or with pauses between, but consecutively, as a popular history of the Metropolitan Police; and, as I suppose it may also be considered, a history of the police force in every large town in England. When I had ended these papers, I did not feel disposed to read any others at that time, but preferred falling into a train of reverie and recollection.

First of all I remembered, with a smile, the unexpected manner in which a relation of mine was discovered by an acquaintance, who had mislaid or forgotten Mr. B.'s address. Now my dear cousin, Mr. B., charming as he is in many points, has the little peculiarity of liking to change his lodgings once every three months on an average, which occasions some bewilderment to his country friends, who have no sooner learnt the 19 Belle Vue Road, Hampstead, than they have to take pains to forget that address, and to remember the 27 1/2 Upper Brown Street, Camberwell; and so on, till I would rather learn a page of "Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary," than try to remember the variety of directions which I have had to put on my letters to Mr. B. during the last three years. Last summer it pleased him to remove to a beautiful village not ten miles out of London, where there is a railway station. Thither his friend sought him. (I do not now speak of the following scent there had been through three or four different lodgings, where Mr. B. had been residing, before his country friend ascertained that he was now lodging at R --.) He spent the morning in making inquiries as to Mr. B.'s whereabouts in the village; but many gentlemen were lodging there for the summer, and neither butcher nor baker could inform him where Mr. B. was staying; his letters were unknown at the post-office, which was accounted for by the circumstance of their always being directed to his office in town. At last the country friend sauntered back to the railway-office, and while he waited for the train he made inquiry, as a last resource, of the book-keeper at the station. "No, sir, I cannot tell you where Mr. B. lodges - so many gentlemen go by the trains; but I have no doubt but that the person standing by that pillar can inform you." The individual to whom he directed the inquirer's attention had the appearance of a tradesman - respectable enough, yet with no pretensions to "gentility," and had, apparently, no more urgent employment than lazily watching the passengers who came dropping in to the station. However, when he was spoken to, he answered civilly and promptly. "Mr. B.? tall gentleman, with light hair? Yes, sir, I know Mr. B. He lodges at No. 8 Morton Villas - has done these three weeks or more; but you'll not find him there, sir, now. He went to town by the eleven o'clock train, and does not usually return until the half-past four train."

Alfredo Julio Grassi: El dulce color de las estrellas

«El 14 de julio de 1965 el navío espacial norteamericano Mariner IV pasó a 5.400 millas de la superficie del planeta Marte y tomó fotografías que fueron retransmitidas a la Tierra. En ninguna de ellas se advirtieron señales de vida inteligente...»

(De los diarios de todo el mundo, 16 de julio de 1965).

Kare salió del laboratorio y permaneció un momento de pie en la blanca escalinata. El viento nocturno, helado, le mordió cruelmente el rostro. Pero estaba tan acostumbrada al clima septentrional que no advirtió casi el cambio de ambiente. Una preocupación intensa la dominaba. Esto, unido al cansancio acumulado durante las últimas semanas de fracasados experimentos, parecía haber embotado sus sentidos, aislándola del mundo exterior bajo una cúpula de silencio.

—¿Vuelves a casa, Kare? —la voz de Some, el astrofísico, la sobresaltó. Reponiéndose, procuró no exteriorizar su abatimiento.

—Prefiero dar un paseo por la orilla del canal, Some —repuso—. ¿Quieres acompañarme, por favor?

El astrofísico asintió y echaron a andar junto al simétrico paredón que separaba la calle del canal. La escarcha nocturna se había sedimentado sobre el pavimento, tornándolo resbaladizo. Caminaron en silencio durante varios minutos. Kare prefería no hablar. Sabía que si lo hacía, se traicionaría en su profunda decepción. Y sin embargo...

—Sin embargo, aún quedan esperanzas, Kare —Some adivinó como siempre sus pensamientos—. Los experimentos de laboratorio deben ser corroborados por la realidad. Y en este caso...

—En este caso nuestro cohete teledirigido ha enviado suficientes datos y fotografías como para poderlo asegurar. Hemos recorrido todos los planetas del Sistema Solar, fotografiando sus superficies desde pocos miles de kilómetros de altura. En ninguno hay señales de vida. Por lo menos, de vida inteligente. Es terrible, Some. ¿Sabes qué significa esto?

Some asintió sombríamente.

Clifford Donald Simak: Mirage

THEY came out of the Martian night, six pitiful little creatures looking for a seventh.

They stopped at the edge of the campfire's lighted circle and stood there, staring with their owlish eyes at the three Earthmen.

The Earthmen froze at whatever they were doing.

"Quiet," said Wampus Smith, talking out of the corner of his bearded lips. "They'll come in if we don't make a move."

From far away came a faint, low moaning, floating in across the wilderness of sand and jagged pinnacles of rock and the great stone buttes.

The six stood just at the firelight's edge. The reflection of the flames touched their fur with highlights of red and blue and their bodies seemed to shimmer against the backdrop of the darkness on the desert.

"Venerables," Nelson said to Richard Webb across the fire.

Webb's breath caught in his throat. Here was a thing he had never hoped to see. A thing that no human being could ever hope to see—six of the Venerables of Mars walking in out of the desert and the darkness, standing in the firelight. There were many men, he knew, who would claim that the race was now extinct, hunted down, trapped out, hounded to extinction by the greed of the human sand men.

The six had seemed the same at first, six beings without a difference; but now, as Webb looked at them, he saw those minor points of bodily variation which marked each one of them as a separate individual. Six of them, Webb thought, and there should be seven.

Slowly they came forward, walking deeper into the campfire's circle. One by one they sat down on the sand facing the three men. No one said a word and the tension built up in the circle of the fire, while far toward the north the thing kept up its keening, like a sharp, thin knife blade cutting through the night.

"Human glad," Wampus Smith said, finally, talking in the patois of the desert. "He waited long."

One of the creatures spoke, its words half English, half Martian, all of it pure gibberish to the ear that did not know.

"We die," it said. "Human hurt for long. Human help some now. Now we die, human help?"

"Human sad," said Wampus and even while he tried to make his voice sad, there was elation in it, a trembling eagerness, a quivering as a hound will quiver when the scent is hot.

"We are six," the creature said. "Six not enough. We need another one. We do not find the Seven, we die. Race die forever now."

"Not forever." Smith told them.

The Venerable insisted. "Forever. There other Sixes. No other Seven."

"How can human help?"

Carmen Rosa Signes Urrea: La cuerda

Enseñar a un niño a no pisar

una oruga es tan valioso para el

niño como lo es para la oruga.

Bradley Millar

La cuerda sonó templada. De haberlo sabido hacer hubiese podido arrancar de ella las notas de una canción. Arrastraba sus pies por la superficie tensa asegurando cada paso, antes de emprender el siguiente en un balanceo constante. Le resultó curioso sentirse tan ligero como para hacer sin riesgo aquel temerario ejercicio de equilibrio y destreza. Pese a desconocer la profundidad del abismo que se perdía bajo él, se dejó engañar por la atracción gravitatoria que generaba su nave y que, como un invisible hilo, le sujetaba para evitar peligros. Y así descubrió la gama de colores que la luz reflejaba en los objetos que le rodeaban. Como pétalos de flor sobre su cabeza, grandes hojas filtraban los rayos de aquel decadente sol.

Había llegado el momento de recoger muestras. En cada uno de los frascos fue colocando: líquidos, fragmentos de hoja, flores, frutos y cortezas, incluso cargó el proyectil de rayos para poder tomar cenizas de un trozo de aquella cuerda por la que caminaba.

Le gustaban los retos, se crecía ante las dificultades, por eso cuando le dijeron que se buscaba un sustituto para ser el primero en valorar el potencial de aquel planeta y explorarlo libremente, se ofreció voluntario.

La alarma sonora le alertó de nuevo del tiempo que llevaba empleado. En breve debía sustituir las baterías que sustentaban su equipo, virar sobre sus pasos, regresar con prontitud. En realidad tenía que haberlo hecho mucho antes, cuando el primer aviso luminoso apareció, pero le pilló tan absorto en la observación que no fue capaz de verlo.

La estridente señal, tres pitidos cortos y uno largo y grave, retumbó de tal forma que le sorprendió. Le pareció que estaba solo. Aquel era un mundo silencioso. El único sonido perceptible se podía identificar como el crecimiento de aquella descomunal vegetación. Lo más curioso de todo se manifestó en la cuerda que le sostenía, que vibraba al ritmo de la marca sonora y que se repitió varias veces.

Dan Simmons: Vexed to Nightmare by a Rocking Cradle

Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob brought the Word to the New Yorkers on the eve of Christmas Eve, paddling his long dugout canoe east up the Forty-second Street Conflu-ence and then north, against the tide, up Fifth Avenue, past the point where the roof of the Public Library glowed greenly under the surface of the darkening waters. It was a cold but peaceful evening. The sunset was red and beautiful—as all sunsets had been for the two-and-a-half decades since the Big Mistake of '98—and cooking fires had been lit on the many tiers and tops of shattered towers rising from the dark sea like the burned-out cypress stumps Brother remembered from the swamps of his child-hood.

Brother paddled carefully, aware of the difficulty of handling the long canoe and even more aware of the pre-cious cargo he had brought so far through so much.

Be-hind him, nestled across the thwarts like some great cooking pot, lay the Sacred Dish, it's God's Ear raised to the burning sky as if already poised to catch the fistem-anations from the Holy Beamer that Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob had left in Dothan, Alabama, fourteen months earlier. Set behind the Sacred Dish, crated and cradled, was the Holy Tube, and behind it, wrapped in clear plastic, sat the Lord's Bike. The Coleman generator was set near the bow, partially blocking Brother's vision but balancing the weight of the cargo of sacred relics astern.

Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob paddled north past the trellised remnants of Rockefeller Center and the ragged spire of St. Patricks. There were dozens of occupied tow-ers in this section of Rimwall Bay, hundreds of fires twin-kling on the vined and rusted ruins above him, but Brother ignored them and paddled purposefully northward to 666 Fifth Avenue.

The building still stood—at least thirty-five floors of it, twenty-eight still above the water line—and Brother let the long dugout drift near the base of it. He stood—balancing carefully and shifting the weight of the Heckler and Koch HK 91 Semi-Automatic Christian Survival Network As-sault Rifle across his back—raising his arms high, hands empty. Shadowed figures looked down from gaps in dark

glass. Somewhere a baby cried and was hushed.

"I bring you glad tidings of Christ's Resurrection!" shouted Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob. His voice echoed off water and steel. "Good News of your coming Salvation from tribulations and woe!" There was a silence and then a voice called down. "Who do you seek?"

"I seek the eldest Clan. That with the strongest totem so that I may bring gifts and the Word of the Lord from the True Church of Christ Assuaged."

The echoes lasted several seconds and the silence longer. Then a woman's voice from higher up called, "That be our Red Bantam Clan. Be welcome, stranger, and know that we already have the word of God here. Join us. Share our fire and preparations for the Holy Day."

Brother Jimmy-Joe Billy-Bob nodded and moved the canoe in to tie up to a rusted girder. The Holy Spirit had not yet spoken to him. He did not know how the Way would be prepared. He did know that within forty-eight hours they would be ready to murder him or to worship him. He would allow neither.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Alba Mater. Bendito el fruto de tu vientre / Alba Mater. Blessed is the fruit of your womb

Era virtud no permanecer
Ir a nuestra heroica, terca manera
A buscarla en la cima del volcán
Entre témpanos de hielo
O donde el rastro se desvanece
            Robert Graves, La diosa blanca

La Reverenda Madre aparta la vista disgustada. El férreo entrenamiento le ha permitido superar la agonía de la especia, pero no la agonía de esa especie. Son primitivos, violentos, presuntuosos, voraces… destructivos. Una forma de vida no muy superior a la de los gusanos de arena. Ansía el reconfortante olvido que le niegan sus Otras Memorias. No merece la pena seguir sacrificándose por ellos. 

Ella, encarnada siglo tras siglo en todas las Bene Gesserit anteriores, fingiéndose sumisa compañera de un mezquino señor mandato tras mandato, ha intentado conducirlos discretamente desde la sombra: aconsejarlos, aguardando pacientemente que el rudo guerrero madurase. Pero su esfuerzo se ha revelado vano. Han seguido conquistando y rapiñando, destruyendo y esclavizando. 

Ha esperado lo suficiente el milagro. Han de volver atrás, aún más atrás. Antes de toda esa barbarie. Hasta el principio de los tiempos, cuando la Gran Madre aún no había sido sometida. Se concentra en las formas rotundas y acogedoras de la estatuilla a la que antaño sus acólitos veneraron con fervor y que después las mentes corrompidas tildaron de esteatopígica. Su mano acaricia con insistencia el vientre aún deshabitado. Capaz de controlar por completo el complejo metabolismo, su deseo moldea la semilla. Y en ese recinto sacro la perfección comienza a tomar forma. 

En la habitación contigua, el cuerpo tosco descansa, inconsciente del privilegio que está a punto de arrebatársele: nunca más será instrumento de Sus designios. Ella se convertirá en la última concubina humillada; se acabó la hierogamia. 

Porque esa niña que ahora concibe sola, con el poder de su mente y la letanía que hilan sus palabras, recuperará la autoridad perdida durante tantos siglos oscuros. La emperatriz divina alumbrará, generación tras generación, una nueva especie, por fin completa. El retrovirus, con el que cada contrincante ha sido infectado, será liberado. El hombre, del todo superfluo, se extinguirá como débil llama. Y Ella, resurgida, heredará definitivamente el universo. 

Hector Hugh Munro (Saki): Gabriel-Ernest

"There is a wild beast in your woods," said the artist Cunningham, as he was being driven to the station. It was the only remark he had made during the drive, but as Van Cheele had talked incessantly his companion's silence had not been noticeable.

"A stray fox or two and some resident weasels. Nothing more formidable," said Van Cheele. The artist said nothing.

"What did you mean about a wild beast?" said Van Cheele later, when they were on the platform.

"Nothing. My imagination. Here is the train," said Cunningham.

That afternoon Van Cheele went for one of his frequent rambles through his woodland property. He had a stuffed bittern in his study, and knew the names of quite a number of wild flowers, so his aunt had possibly some justification in describing him as a great naturalist. At any rate, he was a great walker. It was his custom to take mental notes of everything he saw during his walks, not so much for the purpose of assisting contemporary science as to provide topics for conversation afterwards. When the bluebells began to show themselves in flower he made a point of informing every one of the fact; the season of the year might have warned his hearers of the likelihood of such an occurrence, but at least they felt that he was being absolutely frank with them.

What Van Cheele saw on this particular afternoon was, however, something far removed from his ordinary range of experience. On a shelf of smooth stone overhanging a deep pool in the hollow of an oak coppice a boy of about sixteen lay asprawl, drying his wet brown limbs luxuriously in the sun. His wet hair, parted by a recent dive, lay close to his head, and his light-brown eyes, so light that there was an almost tigerish gleam in them, were turned towards Van Cheele with a certain lazy watchfulness. It was an unexpected apparition, and Van Cheele found himself engaged in the novel process of thinking before he spoke. Where on earth could this wild-looking boy hail from? The miller's wife had lost a child some two months ago, supposed to have been swept away by the mill-race, but that had been a mere baby, not a half-grown lad.

Rafael Marín: Volver a Sitges

Lo decía Marsillach en una de sus viejas series de televisión, quizá aquella que interpretó Lucía Bosé y a la que puso música Luis Eduardo Aute. Una dulce sorpresa acostumbrada, así había definido al amor, o quizá se refería a la vida. Y así había aprendido Ángela a reconocer los vaivenes de la vida, dejados atrás los siempre más veleidosos vaivenes del amor. Desde hacía más de quince años, por octubre, en su agenda había un hueco pequeño, pero importante, para dejar entrar de par en par la dulce sorpresa acostumbrada de la vida. Primero como enviada de los periódicos, después de la televisión, ahora de la radio. Invariable, una cita que no era ciegas pero tenía mucho de la ilusión que procura siempre la experiencia de enfrentarte cara a cara con un desconocido.

Y un desconocido fue Mario, doce años atrás, recién llegado de Argentina, un poco melancólico, un poco expansivo, la mirada de Corto Maltés detrás de las aventuras de un exiliado político. Amaba también el cine y hasta alguna vez escribió un guion para una película que se vino abajo a la mitad del rodaje, quizá por los disparates de una producción caótica, quizá por la censura de plomo que impusieron los milicos. Desde entonces vivía a salto de mata, a veces reportero de sucesos internacionales, luego como comentarista de lo que se terciara y pagara el hotel y las bebidas. En el cine había vuelto a encontrar la posibilidad de vivir otras tragedias y reír otras alegrías, como tantos, y por eso se le solía ver de festival en festival, a veces seguido por el equipo de técnicos y maquilladoras que jamás eran capaces de aguantar su paso; de un tiempo a esta parte, venía solo, con un magnetofón y si acaso las mismas ganas de comerse el mundo.

Al principio, claro, se hicieron amantes. Como en cualquier película de lluvia francesa y música de Aznavour, la periodista melancólica y el aventurero con su punto imaginado de misterio. Una vez al año, volver a Sitges era algo más que dar cabezadas muy de mañana en las sesiones matinales de El Retiro o aplaudir desde la platea del cine Prado las fantasías a veces poéticas a veces despendoladas de todos los directores que venían a presentar aquí su trabajo. Una vez al año, nada más, Ángela dejaba en Madrid su vida diaria y se convertía, durante diez días, en otra persona diferente. Más sensual, más tierna, más dispuesta a aceptar confesiones de madrugada y también, pese a su reserva, más dispuesta a hacerlas cuando el sol asomaba a la playa de Terramar.

Alfonso Sastre: Desde el exilio

Yo había ido a aquella pequeña ciudad, universitaria y tranquila, invitado por amigo que explicaba allí, desde hacía un año, una cátedra de Filosofía. Dentro la Universidad se había organizado un pequeño teatro y se pensaba que podía : de alguna utilidad para los estudiantes una comunicación sobre mis propias experiencias. Acepté con mucho gusto la invitación. Acababa de estrenar, con moderado éxito, una obra dramática —la cuarta de las mías, desde que empecé la carrera teatral con el estreno de un drama antibélico- y me sentía en buena disposición para encontrarme, plácidamente, con unos días de descanso. Pero, lemas, había otras razones para mi complacencia en aquella amable invitación de1 doctor H.: yo no había vuelto a aquella ciudad desde cuando estuve durante guerra, veintidós años antes, y, con el tiempo, lo que un día fue una realidad atroz se había convertido en un grato y melancólico recuerdo. En el tren, según te aproximaba a la ciudad, fui reviviendo algunas antiguas sensaciones olvidadas. El roce de la áspera camisa caqui sobre mi piel de universitario estudioso. E1 olorcillo, a suciedad cocida, del cuartel donde pasé tres meses, los primeros de mi vida de oficial de Infantería. Hasta pareció que resonaban en mis oídos, a la oscuridad de un túnel, los disparos de pistola en el patio del cuartel, ante la tapia, cuando nos ejercitábamos en el tiro. El tren marchaba bajo la lluvia y, través de la ventanilla, el paisaje verde y húmedo era un elemento más para el recuerdo; porque así eran, y seguirían siendo, verdes y húmedos, los parques de la pequeña ciudad adonde iba. Cuando fue anocheciendo, continuó la sensación, hasta tal punto que me olvidé completamente de mi proyecto de preparar mentalmente, durante el viaje, la forma de mi conferencia. Ya de noche me pareció que la joven extranjera que estaba sentada delante de mí no había cerrado los ojos y me miraba fijamente al resplandor que llegaba del pasillo. ¿Quién había pagado la luz? Yo no me había dado cuenta. Entonces, súbitamente, volvió a mí la última noche: me refiero a lo que pasó la noche del bombardeo. Yo había tomado unos vasos de vino (demasiados, a decir verdad) con un compañero en la taberna de todos los días, enfrente del cuartel, junto a una plaza oscura, musgosa. Cuando sonaron las sirenas de alarma, mi compañero y yo salimos de la taberna. Era de noche. Los haces de los reflectores exploraban el cielo, y yo sentí viento en la cara. No sé por qué me extrañó algo, al fijarme en el mástil de la bandera de nuestro cuartel, allí enfrente. Desprovisto de la bandera -que había sido arriada- el mástil me producía (trato de explicarme) una suave extrañeza. La gente no se apresuraba; se había habituado a la alarma aérea. Pasó un motorista de servicio, a gran velocidad, haciendo sonar la sirena. Entonces, mi compañero y yo cruzamos la calle y entramos en el cuartel. Cruzamos el patio, entre los antiaéreos que eran puestos, a toda prisa, en sus posiciones de fuego, y entramos en el bar de oficiales. Estaba desierto y medio a oscuras. Nos miramos, y fue entonces cuando yo me di cuenta de que mi compañero y yo habíamos bebido demasiado: la cara de mi amigo denotaba una estúpida abstracción. Comprendí que no se estaba enterando de lo que ocurría, y cuando oí el ruido de los motores de los Junkers me estremecí.

El cuartel fue bombardeado y el techo del pabellón cayó sobre nosotros. Poco después, en el hospital al que fui trasladado, me enteré de que mi amigo había muerto en el bombardeo. En cuanto a mí, a la caída de la región donde estaba situado el hospital de sangre (una caída fulminante, que no dio tiempo a la evacuación), fui cogido prisionero. Cuando salí de la prisión la guerra había terminado y yo me encontraba solo, sin recursos para seguir mis estudios. Cómo empecé a hacer teatro y los caminos por los que llegué a ser un autor notable, es cosa de poco interés para mi relato. Además aquella noche, en el tren, mis reflexiones terminaban siempre, una y otra vez, por más que intentaba atravesar aquella barrera, la noche del bombardeo.

Michael Swanwick: Scherzo with Tyrannosaur

A keyboardist was playing a selection of Scarlotti’s harpsichord sonatas, brief pieces one to three minutes long, very complex and refined, while the Hadrosaurus herd streamed by the window. There were hundreds of the brutes, kicking up dust and honking that lovely flattened near-musical note they make. It was a spectacular sight.

But the hors d’oeuvres had just arrived: plesiosaur wrapped in kelp, beluga smeared over sliced maiasaur egg, little slivers of roast dodo on toast, a dozen delicacies more. So a stampede of common-as-dirt herbivores just couldn’t compete.

Nobody was paying much attention.

Except for the kid. He was glued to the window, staring with an intensity remarkable even for a boy his age. I figured him to be about ten years old.

Snagging a glass of champagne from a passing tray, I went over to stand next to him. Enjoying yourself, son?

Without looking up, the kid said, What do you think spooked them? Was it a —? Then he saw the wranglers in their jeeps and his face fell. Oh.

We had to cheat a little to give the diners something to see. I gestured with the wine glass past the herd, toward the distant woods. But there are plenty of predators lurking out there — troodons, dromaeosaurs … even old Satan.

He looked up at me in silent question.

Satan is our nickname for an injured old bull rex that’s been hanging around the station for about a month, raiding our garbage dump.

It was the wrong thing to say. The kid looked devastated. T. rex a scavenger! Say it ain’t so.

A tyrannosaur is an advantageous hunter, I said, like a lion. When it chances upon something convenient, believe you me, it’ll attack. And when a tyrannosaur is hurting, like old Satan is — well, that’s about as savage and dangerous as any animal can be. It’ll kill even when it’s not hungry.

That satisfied him. Good, he said. I’m glad.

In companionable silence, we stared into the woods together, looking for moving shadows. Then the chime sounded for dinner to begin, and I sent the kid back to his table. The last hadrosaurs were gone by then.

He went with transparent reluctance.

The Cretaceous Ball was our big fund-raiser, a hundred thousand dollars a seat, and in addition to the silent auction before the meal and the dancing afterwards, everybody who bought an entire table for six was entitled to their very own paleontologist as a kind of party favor.

I used to be a paleontologist myself, before I was promoted. Now I patrolled the room in tux and cummerbund, making sure everything was running smoothly.

Carlos Buiza: La Caída

DEL COMANDANTE AL CONSEJO SUPREMO DEL SISTEMA REYGAL. - Hemos detectado otro Sistema Planetario y a él nos dirigimos. Parece ser el más propicio según nuestros instrumentos, aunque no el más cercano. Está situado en oposición periférica de su galaxia, en cuyo centro existe gran asociación estelar de la que también nos ocuparemos. El Sistema forma parte de otro sistema de soles que cuenta con más de 200.000 millones de estrellas y más de un billón de planetas. Se halla a unos 26.000 años luz del centro de su galaxia y los planetas que lo componen han sido seleccionados por los Cerebros Biotáxicos en primer lugar.

A LA COMANDANCIA. - Nada de particular desde el último mensaje. Hombres, animados y en perfectas condiciones. Moral y comunicados médicos, inmejorables. Ningún accidente ni enfermedad.

PARTICULAR. - Querida M.: Pronto estaré de vuelta, lo estoy deseando. Es una lata tener que hablar así, pero no hay otra forma. Tampoco puedo decirte muchas cosas, misión ultrasecreta, ya sabes. ¿Qué tal Pol? Besos de mi parte. Para ti también. Te traeré una estrella. Hasta pronto. Pol.

DEL CSSR al Cte. - Continúen según plan establecido. Obvio recomendar ahora mayor prudencia. Siga comunicando horas fijadas.

AL Cte. (PARTICULAR). - Querido Pol. No sabes cuánto te echo de menos. Pol muy contento en el colegio. Dicen que se te parece. Tráeme algo más romántico. La pregunta obligada de la mujer de un Comandante Espacial sería ¿De qué magnitud? ¿Roja enana quizá? Desaparece todo el misterio. Besos y vuelve en seguida. M. Te quiero. M.

DEL Cte. AL CSSR. - Hemos penetrado en SP archivado como 2-314-Bv 19. Cerebros biotáxicos saltan como locos. ¡En uno de los planetas, al menos, hay vida!. Las especies animales aparecen poco evolucionadas, antropoides. Reúne Esperando definitiva orden exploración, laboratorio investiga activamente.

A LA COMANDANCIA. - Todos en perfecto estado.

PARTICULAR. - Querida M. Mejor que sobre ruedas. Ya queda menos, no te impacientes. Cambiaré el regalo por una lágrima de estrella. Besos P.

DEL CSSR AL Cte. - Ordenes brevemente discutidas en Consejo y que transmitimos: «Exploración inmediata. Utilicen botes salvavidas. R.208 a 100 km. superficie. Fotografías por T-espacio de flora y fauna, costas y mares, nubes y montañas».

DEL Cte. AL CSSR. - Ordenes en cumplimiento. Envío material.

AL Cte. (PARTICULAR). - Contenta por tus noticias. Mamá vino esta mañana. Me hace compañía después del trabajo y me ayuda mucho. Espero impaciente ver sollozo de estrella. M.

Más tarde.

DEL Cte. AL CSSR. - Cerebros cartográficos trabajando a pleno rendimiento. Grandes vergeles después de un desierto. En aquellos, antropoides muy evolucionados. No se han observado, en todo el planeta, señales de vida inteligente: cultivos, edificios, etc. Cerebros antrópicos no facilitan datos precisos. Técnicos revisan posible avería.

Robert Sheckley: Watchbird

Strange how often the Millennium has been at hand. The idea is peace on Earth, see, and the way to do it is by figuring out angles.

When Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke.

"Hi, Charlie," one of them called as he came in.

The rest broke off conversation long enough to wave a casual greeting at him. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race.

"The government representative isn't here yet," one of the men told him. "He's due any minute."

"We're getting the green light," another said.

"Fine." Gelsen found a chair near the door and looked around the room. It was like a convention, or a Boy Scout rally. The six men made up for their lack of numbers by sheer volume. The president of Southern Consolidated was talking at the top of his lungs about watchbird's enormous durability. The two presidents he was talking at were grinning, nodding, one trying to interrupt with the results of a test he had run on watchbird's resourcefulness, the other talking about the new recharging apparatus.

The other three men were in their own little group, delivering what sounded like a panegyric to watchbird.

Gelsen noticed that all of them stood straight and tall, like the saviors they felt they were. He didn't find it funny. Up to a few days ago he had felt that way himself. He had considered himself a pot-bellied, slightly balding saint.

He sighed and lighted a cigarette. At the beginning of the project, he had been as enthusiastic as the others. He remembered saying to Macintyre, his chief engineer, "Mac, a new day is coming. Watchbird is the Answer." And Macintyre had nodded very profoundly—another watchbird convert.

How wonderful it had seemed then! A simple, reliable answer to one of mankind's greatest problems, all wrapped and packaged in a pound of incorruptible metal, crystal and plastics.

Perhaps that was the very reason he was doubting it now. Gelsen suspected that you don't solve human problems so easily. There had to be a catch somewhere.

After all, murder was an old problem, and watchbird too new a solution.

Ángel Torres Quesada: Las pelotas que vinieron del espacio

Para la mayoría de los viejos aficionados también conocido como Thorkent. Es un honor tener hoy de visita a uno de los más prolíficos escritores del género en España. Es autor de la Trilogía de las Islas editada por Ultramar que aún se consigue en la Av. Corrientes, por citar una parte de su extensa obra.

La situación en el mundo había llegado a tal extremo que los más optimistas no le daban un año de vida. Los pesimistas afirmaban que menos, que el mundo no tardaría en irse al carajo.

Las causas de la peliaguda situación de nuestro pobre planeta eran muchas y muy complicadas. ¿Para qué vamos a enumerarlas?

El caso es que el final de la civilización humana, por llamarla de alguna manera, estaba a la vuelta de la esquina.

Entonces llegaron los extraterrestres, pero en esta ocasión de verdad.

Para no perder la tradición impuesta por las películas, los cómics y las novelas de ciencia ficción de a duro, los extraterrestres aterrizaron en los Estados Unidos.

Y como si no quisieran desilusionar a nadie, llegaron a bordo de un platillo volante enorme, de pulido metal y encendido color de plata, de un kilómetro y dos metros y medio de diámetro.

El lugar elegido por los extraterrestres para su descenso fue el desierto de Mojave. Al poco de posarse, mientras que por todas las carreteras fluían caravanas de tanques y camiones cargados de soldados, y miedo ante lo desconocido, el platillo emitió un mensaje a todo el mundo y en todos los idiomas que al menos lo hablaran veinte millones de individuos. Los parlantes de una lengua menos concurrida tuvieron que esperar a que les fuera traducido.

Los seres del espacio convocaba en su mensaje una reunión urgente de jefes de estado, al pie de su nave y a las doce de la mañana. Era verano.

El presidente de los Estados Unidos mandó retirar el ejército, subió al reactor presidencial, el USA One ese y fue el primer mandatario de la Tierra en acudir a la cita. Faltaría más. Eran las ocho de la mañana. A eso del mediodía ya estaba allí hasta el más rezagado líder mundial. Faltaban dos minutos para la hora fijada y algunos políticos se habían quedado sin asiento y tuvieron que buscar más. Cuando por fin se acomodó el último líder delante del platillo se abrió una compuerta y todo el mundo aguantó la respiración y el sofoco que les producía el calor del desierto quedó olvidado. Alguien se atrevió a comentar que los alienígenas podían haber elegido un sitio más fresquito para aterrizar, y convocar la reunión a una hora menos calurosa.

Algis Budrys: The War Is Over

A slow wind was rolling over the dusty plateau where the spaceship was being fueled, and Frank Simpson, waiting in his flight coveralls, drew his nictitating membranes across his stinging eyes. He continued to stare abstractedly at the gleaming, just-completed hull.

Overhead, Castle's cold sun glowed wanly down through the ice-crystal clouds. A line of men stretched from the block-and-tackle hoist at the plateau's edge to the exposed fuel racks at the base of the riveted hull. As each naked fuel slug was hauled up from the plain, it passed from hand to hand, from man to man, and so to its place in the ship. A reserve labor pool stood quietly to one side. As a man faltered in the working line, a reserve stepped into his place. Sick, dying men staggered to a place set aside for them, out of the work's way, and slumped down there, waiting. Some of them had been handling the fuel since it came out of the processing pile, three hundred miles across the plains in a straight line, nearer five hundred by wagon track. Simpson did not wonder they were dying, nor paid them any

attention. His job was the ship, and he'd be at it soon.

He wiped at the film of dirt settling on his cheeks, digging it out of the serrations in his hide with a horny forefingernail. Looking at the ship, he found himself feeling nothing new. He was neither impressed with its size, pleased by the innate grace of its design, nor excited by anticipation of its goal. He felt nothing but the old, old driving urgency to get aboard, lock the locks, throw the switches, fire the engines, and go--go! From birth, probably, from first intelligent self- awareness certainly, that drive had loomed over everything else like a demon just behind his back. Everyone of these men on this plateau felt the same thing. Only Simpson was going, but he felt no triumph in it.

He turned his back on a particularly vicious puff of dust and found himself looking in the direction of Castle town, far over the horizon on the other side of the great plains that ended at the foot of this plateau.

Castle town was his birthplace. He thought to himself, with sardonic logic, that he could hardly have had any other. Where else on Castle did anyone live but in Castle town? He remembered his family's den with no special sentimental affection. But, standing here in the thin cold, bedeviled by dust, he appreciated it in memory. It was a snug, comfortable place to be, with the rich, moist smell of the earth surrounding him. There was a ramp up to the surface, and at the ramp's head were the few square yards of ground hard-packed by the weight of generations of his family Iying ecstatically in the infrequently warm sun.

Alfonso Álvarez Villar: Confusión en el hospital

El Profesor N pasaba su consulta en el Hospital de la Beneficencia. Era aquélla la sala Psiquiátrica, y la mañana se presentaba cargada de trabajo. Pero todos los días ocurría lo mismo: docenas de enfermos mentales pasaban por aquel cuarto desnudo y aséptico en el que el Jefe de la Sala, rodeado de sus ayudantes, recibía a los pacientes.

El Profesor N había ya explorado a tres retrasados mentales, cinco alcohólicos y un psicópata. Parecía aburrido de la monotonía de los casos. Decididamente, la mayor parte de los enfermos psiquiátricos padecían, sobre todo, una vida harto vulgar, que se abría como un enorme bostezo cada vez que brotaban a la superficie sus antecedentes personales, sus problemas íntimos y hasta sus síntomas patológicos. ¿Dónde estaban aquellas historias clínicas que el Profesor N había leído y seguía leyendo en los Manuales de Psiquiatría o plastificadas por novelistas ingeniosos? Porque la imaginación de los escritores sobrepasaba la misma naturaleza: por cada caso verdaderamente interesante que entraba por aquella puerta de la consulta, noventa y nueve enfermos le repetían la misma cantilena.

Pero aquel individuo de facciones afiladas, que, conducido por la enfermera, ocupó la silla todavía caliente por el contacto glúteo de un rollizo alcohólico a punto de cirrosis hepática, seducía con su sola presencia.

—Dígame su nombre, por favor —preguntó rutinariamente el Profesor N.

—A-l.347.208 —contestó impasible el enfermo.

—No le he preguntado a usted el número del Documento Nacional de Identidad. Dígame su nombre.

—A-l. 347.208.

El Profesor N miró con aire de triunfo a sus ayudantes. Acababa de explicar aquel mismo día en la Facultad en qué consistía la desorientación autopsíquica. Pero el interrogatorio debía continuar.

—Natural de...

Harlan Ellison: Susan

As she had done every night since they met, she went in bare feet and a cantaloupe-meat-colored nightshift to the shore of the sea of mist, the verge of the ocean of smothering vapor, the edge of the bewildering haze he called the Brim of Obscurity.

Though they spend all their daytime together, at night he chose to sleep alone in a lumpy, Volkswagen-shaped bed at the southernmost boundary of the absolutely lovely forest in which their home had been constructed. There are the border between the verdant woods and the Brim of Obscurity that stretched on forever, a sea of fog that roiled and swirled itself into small, murmuring vortexes from which depths one could occasionally hear something like a human voice pleading for absolution (or at least a backscratcher to relieve this awful itch!), he had made his bed and there, with the night-light from his old nursery, and his old vacuum-tube radio that played nothing but big-band dance music from the 1920s, and a few favorite books, and a little fresh fruit he had picked on his way from the house to his resting-place, he slept peacefully every night. Except for the nightmares, of course.

And as she had done every night for the eight years since they had met, she went barefooted and charmed, down to the edge of the sea of fog to kiss him goodnight. That was their rite.

Before he had even proposed marriage, he explained to her the nature of the problem. Well, the curse, really. Not so much a problem; because a problem was easy to reconcile; just trim a little nub off here; just smooth that plane over there; just let this big dangle here and it will all meet in the center; no, it wasn't barely remotely something that could be called "problem." It was a curse, and he was open about it from the first.

"My nightmares come to life," he had said.

Which remark thereupon initiated quite a long and detailed conversation between them. It went through all the usual stages of good-natured chiding, disbelief, ridicule, short-lived anger at the possibility he was making fun of her, toying with her, on into another kind of disbelief, argument with recourse to logic and Occam's Razor, grudging acceptance, a brief lapse into incredulity, a return to the barest belief, and finally, with trust, acceptance that he was telling her nothing less than the truth. Remarkably (to say the least) his nightmares assumed corporeal shape and stalked the night as he slept, dreaming them up. It wouldn't have been so bad except:

Eduardo Vaquerizo: Una esfera perfecta

1

Una esfera perfecta, roja, trémula en la punta de mi dedo. Apenas un movimiento y caerá. Se apagarán las mil velas de la sala del trono, ar­derán las filias de los regidores y el sol teñirá de fuego por última vez las cúpulas de la ciudad alta.

Indiferentes, los pájaros sagrados gritarán al atardecer como han hecho siempre, como siempre seguirán haciendo.

Esa esfera al borde del abismo, más allá de la velocidad, de las pasiones, de la vida.

Una mañana escuché tumulto. Justo delante del puesto unos orgos oscuros, de músculos nudosos como raíces barnizadas, apartaban a la gente a empellones. Sin esfuerzo aparente transportaban un aparatoso palanquín ornado de cobre y plata que se bamboleaba debido a su paso vivo. Una niña de unos doce años, rapada según una condantía hereditaria y vestida con el ocre de la niñez, asomó desde detrás del terciopelo de la cortina y me miró de medio lado. Tan asombrado estaba que no pude moverme. Esa mirada... nunca había visto nada igual. No había desprecio, sólo una indiferencia pulida por un uso de siglos, dura como la piedra y tan implacable como la espada. Bajé la vista y miré a los gusanos que vendíamos, oscuros, sedosos, gruesos como mi brazo y removiéndose apenas en el balde lleno de estiércol. Sentí claramente que ellos y yo no éramos muy diferentes para esos ojos manchados con el dorado de los ofibles. De golpe supe que el simple universo de mi niñez esta­ba rodeado de otro mucho más grande, cubierto de aristas nítidas, afiladas y dolorosas. Mi vida hasta entonces había transcurrido dentro de un escondido teatro de marionetas. Aquella tarde me fue dado atisbar por encima del decorado y descubrir que el horror y la infelicidad son lo único real.

De alguna manera ya lo sabía. Hubiera sido imposible que dura­sen el goce sin límite, las risas, los atardeceres calurosos bañándo­nos en las aguas del Todolo y las noches sin lunas en que el ciclo parecía una red que había pescado ojos de sarpontes, millones de iris brillantes como si infinitos peces muertos nos mirasen desde el cielo. Lo sabía. Cuando los adultos nos gritaban con voces estentó­reas ¡escondeos! no era un juego más. Escuchábamos desde los árboles los disparos, los gritos de las mujeres, las voces de los ma­yores suplicando y todos sabíamos que no era un juego. Luego, cuando volvíamos a la aldea, olvidábamos con fuerza, negábamos los rostros curtidos de dolor, las chozas quemadas y los llantos. Se­guíamos riendo y jugando.

Hector Hugh Munro (Saki): Tobermory

It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt - unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley's house-party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The undisguised open-mouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the vaguest reputation. Some one had said he was "clever," and he had got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. Neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency. He had subsided into mere Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of gunpowder, of the printing-press, and of steam locomotion were inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in many directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement.

     "And do you really ask us to believe," Sir Wilfrid was saying, "that you have discovered a means for instructing animals in the art of human speech, and that dear old Tobermory has proved your first successful pupil?"

     "It is a problem at which I have worked for the last seventeen years," said Mr. Appin, "but only during the last eight or nine months have I been rewarded with glimmerings of success. Of course I have experimented with thousands of animals, but latterly only with cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvellously with our civilization while retaining all their highly developed feral instincts. Here and there among cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as one does among the ruck of human beings, and when I made the acquaintance of Tobermory a week ago I saw at once that I was in contact with a `Beyond-cat' of extraordinary intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in recent experiments; with Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the goal."

Mr. Appin concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said "Rats," though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked those rodents of disbelief.