New Writings in SF 6 by John Carnell (ed.)

Author:John Carnell (ed.) [Carnell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Story Collection
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE HANDS

by

John Baxter

There have been many fine stories concerning aliens taking over human beings, but Australian writer John Baxter adds the grisliest touch yet in this return from a far star.

THE HANDS

They let Vitti go first because he was the one with two heads, and it seemed to the rest that if there was to be anything of sympathy or honour or love for them, then Vitti should have the first and best of it. After he had walked down the ramp, they followed him. Sloane with his third and fourth legs folded like the furled wings of a butterfly on his back; Tanizaki, still quiet, unreadable, Asiatic, despite the bulge inside his belly that made him look like a woman eight months gone with child; and the rest of them. Seven earth men who had been tortured by the Outsiders.

When the crowd saw Vitti, they shouted, because that was what they had gathered there to do. Ten thousand sets of lungs emptied themselves in one automatic, unthinking cry. The sound was a wave breaking over them, a torrent of sound that made them want to fall on the ground and wait for its passing. But there was only one shout. By the time the cry was half over, the people had seen Vitti and the rest of them, and when their lungs were empty they had neither the will nor the ability to draw them full for another shout. There were some who did; a few standing at the back. But their shouts were like the cries of sea birds along the edge of the ocean. From the others, there was no sound but the susurrus of whispers like the melting of sea foam after a wave has receded. Nobody had anything to say. At that moment, Alfred Binns realized for the first time that he was a monster.

In the anteroom at headquarters, Binns stood at the window, looking down on the city. The streets were empty now. As he watched, a family of three—mother, father and one small boy—hurried across the square below him and disappeared into the subway entrance. They must have been the last, because no more people moved anywhere on the wide, clean streets. Binns had almost forgotten that nobody lived in the cities any more. Thousands had come to see them arrive, but now the show was over and they were going back to their homes, leaving the city to those who had to live there.

“Nobody left at all?” Farmer said. Nobody else had spoken.

“You’re listening again,” Binns said without turning. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

“I can’t help it,” Farmer said. He looked down at the bulge on his chest where the other brain had grown. Through the soft clear skin he could see the grey convolutions and the ebb of blood through vein and tissue. “It’s growing up.”

“You and Tanizaki ought to get together,” somebody said. It was safe now, though at the beginning of the trip back Hiro had been sensitive about his huge belly where the second set of intestines had grown.

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