Tiptree, James Jr - Houston, Houston Do You Read.pdf - James Tiptree - przemosta

Houston, Houston Do You Read

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Houston

, Do You Read?

JAMES TIPTREE Jr

James Tiptree, Jr., aside from the award-winning story that follows this introduction, has

been justly lauded as one of the excellent writers to appear in science fiction in recent years.

Precise biographical data, however, have been difficult to come by. However, with the au-

thor's assistance, the following facts have at last been collected and are hereby presented to

the reader.

James Tiptree, Jr., was born in September 1967, in the import section of the McLean Gi-

ant Food Store. His birth occurred in front of a display of Tiptree's English Marmalade, which

appeared to him to be a nice inconspicuous name that editors would not recall having rejec-

ted. The subsequent acceptance of his next thirty or forty stories shocked and nonplussed

him, but gave him the opportunity to form many genuine epistolary friendships, since he had

the bad habit of writing fan letters to writers he admired. In the course of a correspondence

with Jeffrey D. Smith, a fanzine editor in Baltimore, he gave a biographical interview, in which

he mentioned having been brought up by a pair of explorer-adventurers who alternated life in

the Congo and the Midwest. He also reported that he had enlisted in the Army Air Force in

World War II, becoming a photo intelligence officer, and subsequent to what was then hoped

to be the outbreak of World Peace, he went in for a little business, a little government work,

and finally settled upon a doctorate and a short research and teaching career in one of the

"soft" sciences. (A "soft" science is one where you bounce back when you trip.) He refrained

from mentioning to his friends that he had started life as a serious painter, because a com-

panion personality, Racoona Sheldon, then being slowly born, seemed to need that as a bio-

graphical touch. Tiptree's writing career took a parabolic form, the downside of the curve be-

ing accounted for by a depression which caused his stories to grow blacker and more few.

The coup de grace was given him in October 1977, when it was revealed that he did not exist.

He feels that it was, though brief, a wondrous existence. He is survived by a short story or two

in press and a novel to be published by Berkley as well as one Hugo, for THE GIRL WHO

WAS PLUGGED IN, and two Nebula Awards for LOVE IS THE PLAN, THE PLAN IS DEATH,

in 1973, and for HOUSTON, HOUSTON, DO YOU READ?, in 1976.

Lorimer gazes around the big crowded cabin, trying to listen to the voices, trying also to ig-

nore the twitch,, in his insides that means he is about to remember

something bad. No help; he lives it again, that long- t

ago moment. Himself running blindly-or was he

pushed?-into the strange toilet at Evanston Junior

High. His fly open, his dick in his hand, he can still

see the grey zipper edge of his jeans around his pale

exposed pecker. The hush. The sickening wrongness

of shapes, faces turning. The first blaring giggle. Girls.

He was in the girls' can. -

He flinches wryly now, so many years later, not looking at the women's faces. The cabin

curves around over his head surrounding him with their alien things: the beading rack, the

twins' loom, Andy's leather work, the damned kudzu vine wriggling everywhere, the chickens.

So cosy.... Trapped, he is. Irretrievably trapped for life in everything he does not enjoy. Strut-

turelessness. Personal trivia, unmeaning intimacies. The claims he can somehow never meet.

Ginny: You never

talk to me . . . Ginny, love, he thinks involuntarily. The hurt doesn't come.

Bud Geirr's loud chuckle breaks in on him. Bud is joking with some of them, out of sight

around a bulkhead. Dave is visible, though. Major Norman Davis on the far side of the cabin,

his bearded profile bent toward a small dark woman Lorimer can't quite focus on. But Dave's

head seems oddly tiny and sharp, in fact the whole cabin looks unreal. A cackle bursts out

from the "ceiling"-the bantam hen in her basket.

At this moment Lorimer becomes sure he has been drugged.

Curiously, the idea does not anger him. He leans or rather tips back, perching cross-

legged in the zero gee, letting his gaze go to the face of the woman he has been talking with.

Connie. Constantia Morelos. A tall moonfaced woman in capacious green pajamas. He has

never really cared for talking to women. Ironic.

"I suppose," he says aloud, "it's possible that in some sense we are not here."

That doesn't sound too clear, but she nods interestedly. She's watching my reactions, Lor-

imer tells himself. Women are natural poisoners. Has he said that aloud too? Her expression

doesn't change. His vision is taking on a pleasing local clarity. Connie's skin strikes him as

quite fine, healthy-looking. Olive tan even after two years in space. She was a farmer, he re-

calls. Big pores, but without the caked look he associates with women her age.

"You probably never wore make-up," he says. She looks puzzled. "Face paint, powder.

None of you have."

"Oh!" Her smile shows a chipped front tooth. "Oh yes, I think Andy has."

"Andy?"

"For plays. Historical plays, Andy's good at that."

"Of course. Historical plays."

Lorimer's brain seems to be expanding, letting in light. He is understanding actively now,

the myriad bits and pieces linking into pattern. Deadly patterns, he perceives; but the drug is

shielding him in some

way. Like an amphetamine high without the pressure.

Maybe it's something they use socially? No, they're

watching, too. '•

"Space bunnies, I still don't dig it," Bud Geirr laughs infectiously. He has a friendly buoyant

voice people like; Lorimer still likes it after two years.

"You chicks have kids back home, what do your folks think about you flying around out

here with old Andy, h'mm?" Bud floats into view, his arm draped around a twin's shoulders.

The one called Judy Paris, Lorimer decides; the twins are hard to tell. She drifts passively at

an angle to Bud's big body: a jut-breasted plain girl in flowing yellow pajamas, her black hair

raying out. Andy's read head swims up to them. He is holding a big green spaceball, looking

about sixteen.

"Old Andy." Bud shakes his head, his grin flashing, under his thick dark mustache. "When

I was your age-.: folks didn't let their women fly around with me."

Connie's lips quirk faintly. In Lorimer's head the pieces slide toward pattern. I know, he

thinks. Do you. know I know? His head is vast and crystalline, very nice really. Easier to think.

Women.... No compact generalization forms in his mind, only a few speaking ;f faces on a

matrix of pervasive irrelevance. Human, of course. Biological necessity. Only so, so . . . dif-

fuse? Pointless? . . . His sister Amy, soprano con tremolo: `50f course women could contrib-

ute as much as men if you'd treat us as equals. You'll see!" And then marrying that idiot the

second time. Well, now he., can see.

Tiptree, James Jr - Houston, Houston Do You Read.pdf

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