John D. MacDonald

Like a Keepsake

New Mexport

10 Sept. 1998

Dear Zill:

I guess you thought that all those things I told you the night before we blasted off for Earth were the same old talky handed to you Venusian women by every space-scarred, horney-handed guy on Interplanet.

I guess you’ll be surprised to get this letter from me, too. Remember how I told you I thought your name was funny? Well, on the long trip back here to Earth I guess I said it to myself so many times, that it doesn’t sound funny any more. So please forgive me. It’s a wonderful name!

Another thing I ought to tell you about, Zill. Remember how I made out that I had been around the route a few times. That was a lie. I know, I told you that I was an old hand. And I even told you that maybe next trip I’d be in a co-pilot’s slot. That was so much bunk, Zill. I just got out of space school two weeks before that last trip, and it was my first one. Maybe you guessed, but you were too much a lady to let on. As far as my job goes, I’m on damage-control and spend most all my time in a big mask looking at a welding torch flame. Some job, hey?

Well, the fellows told me what you Venusian women are like, and they told me that except for being pretty white on account of no sunshine, you all look the kind of women that here on earth we make actresses of. And then, they told me some other stuff.

Honest, Zill, you’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and you were certainly right to smack me the way you did. I believed that stuff the fellows told me. I should have known what kind of a girl you are. I hope you’re not still mad. I’m not really that sort of a guy. Something about the soft night air there did things to me. Someday I’ll bring you here so I can show you what a moon and stars look like. After you walked off in a huff I wandered around for hours before I went back and hit the sack.

Here I am in the big barracks near New Mexport, and I can tell you that after all that purple-and-green brush there on Venus it would look like a. pretty rough place to a girl like you. The sun glares down and it would burn you to one big blister in five minutes. All rock and sand and hot wind.

I hope I’ll be coming back soon, because we certainly got an awful lot to talk about, Zill, and I won’t make a fool of myself like I did near the end of our evening last time I saw you.

I’m due to go back out again in three months, so that means it will be nearly a year before I see you again. The next time, I think I’ll get sick at Venusport and get myself grounded for about a month.

The papers are all full of some sort of trouble in London. Tonight on the telescreen they gave us a quick look at it. I couldn’t make head or tail of it — a black line that, goes right up from a rooftop straight up into the air. The big scientists have given out with a lot of fancy language but nobody seems to know anything about it except that it’s growing.

They make me go to classes all the time and learn more stuff about space, and so I will have to stop this now as I have a class coming up. I’ll write again soon.

Best regards,

Bill Wheeland

Bristolport

20 Sept. 1998

Dearest Zill:

I guess you maybe are wondering what the dickens I am doing over here in England instead of staying at New Mexport and studying a lot of math and physics and stuff.

Well, it’s like this. In the last letter I sent you, which you won’t get yet for another three months probably, I told about this trouble in London.

Right now, it is two miles thick. I saw it three days ago. Looking at it is sort of like standing in the sunlight and looking into a place where it is black night. Velvety like. It is like looking at a wheel which is spinning so fast you can’t see it move. And is it ever dark!

They found out about it when it was about the size of a pencil. The way they found out, some guy walked through it and it cut him right in half. It stops at the Heaviside Layer. When it was little — about as big around as your pretty arm — the scientists messed with it a lot, shoving steel bars into it and so on. Every time, the black stuff eats off the steel in a flash without even joggling the arm of the guy that holds it.

They don’t know what it is yet. The newspapers are full of fancy talk. One old bug calls it a “crack in infinity.” Imagine that? Others think it’s extradimensional, or a vortex of pure force, or some such crackpot thing. All they really know is that it’s black and it’s really growing fast.

It doesn’t suck stuff up, though. The way it baffles them the most is that when you take a tub of water and shove it up close to the thing, it eats a hole in the side of the tub but the water doesn’t run out the hole. Beats me.

Lots of crazy people have sneaked by the police lines and jumped into it. They don’t even yelp, I hear. Crazy religions have popped up all over and people are yammering about the end of the world. All I can say is, if this is the end of the world, it’s a real black color, you bet!

Yesterday we watched the big artillery firing into it. Even though it’s only two miles thick, the shells don’t come out the other side. There isn’t any explosion, even. Except, of course, when the shells go bam before they hit it.

They’ve tried flame-throwers and big jolts of electricity and fire hoses and everything, and nothing makes a dent on it. It just keeps expanding a little faster each day. Geometric rate of expansion, they say.

People are awful excited, Zill. Lots of them are getting drunk, and people in the parts of London that aren’t touched yet are killing each other and raising the dickens in general.

The political boys are saying that this is the end of Great Britain at last, and there will have to be some new balance of power. You people on Venus know all about that, with both British and Russky bases not too darn far from where you live.

Right now, Parliament is arguing about using an atomic bomb to break this black thing up. Some of them say too much property is going to be destroyed and if they pay no attention to it, it will go away all by itself.

Hundreds of years ago they had something in London called the Black Death. You probably read about it in missionary school. Anyway, they’re calling this black pillar the Black Death. It fits somehow, and I guess it will catch on.

On the telescreen this morning some U.S. politician from the Midwest made a short speech. He said that it was all a fake and that the British were making it up for some ulterior motive. If that thing is a fake, so is that congressman. And the British are beginning to think the Russkies put it in their back yard.

Anyway, it looks like in a few days they’ll bomb it and then it’ll be all over. I’ll let you know.

Zill, I’ve been thinking over all the things I want to say to you, and I bet anything that when I see you again I won’t be able to say a darn word. Already I feel shy and funny about seeing you again. I’m glad that two years ago they finally approved Venus-Earth marriages, if you know what I mean!

Affectionately,

Bill

Parisport

29 Sept. 1998

Zill, darling:

London is gone. I know that isn’t as much a shock to you as it is to me, because you’ve never seen it. Well, it looks like you never will.

The Black Death is ten miles in diameter now. It started a block from the East India Dock Road near where the River Thames makes that big loop you may have seen on maps. The west edge of it has gobbled up Kensington Gardens, the south end is down to Crystal Palace and on the north there isn’t any such place as Walthamstow any more. The east part of it is out in the Plumstead Marshes.

Over here, we can see it during the daytime like a thin black shaft that goes right up into the blue sky, so far that you can’t see the top of it. It is perfectly cylindrical. And I told you how black it is.

All the other countries have become pretty uneasy about the whole thing, but not to the extent of sending their big science bugs to help get rid of the thing. The newspapers and the telescreens are still loaded with wild guesses.

You’ve got no idea of the confusion. You see, the thing expands so slow that you can walk right away from it. The only trouble is that all the kinds of transportation away from London are completely messed up. The roads are jammed with people carrying bundles away from London and looking back over their shoulders at the Black Death with their eyes bugging out.

The thing that seems to have people the moat upset is the way the bombs worked. They used rockets, and with the controls they’ve got they can hit the date on a dime at a thousand miles, as you know. The rockets were launched from secret bases in the north of Scotland. The first one was aimed to go off at the heart of the Black Death. It roared across the sky and dipped down into the blackness.

Nothing happened. They figured maybe it was a defective one. All the people had been evacuated for a long distance around the base of the thing. The second one that dropped into it didn’t do a thing, either. They busted the third one very nicely about a hundred feet from the edge of the Black Death and about ten feet from the ground to reduce the effective range.

The big column of smoke and debris roared up to fifty thousand feet and you couldn’t see the Black Death any more. But an hour later you could see it all right. It was just as healthy as ever. Or as unhealthy. They tried two more, and then gave up.

The United States is rushing all sorts of ships, air and water, over to England to evacuate the population if necessary. Already a few hundred thousand people have been transported to Canada, and they say the confusion there is something for the books. With winter coming on, that isn’t such a hot place to take them to.

Tomorrow they’re having a big deal. I finally found out why all of us were brought over here. They’re taking the old ship, St. Louis, and selecting a skeleton crew by lot and taking her up to one hundred thousand miles, then jetting around and coming down with full steam ahead, with the idea of curving in under the Heaviside Layer and knocking the top off the Black Death.

Maybe I’ll be picked as part of the crew. The thought of it gives me the cold shivers, but I wouldn’t tell that to anybody but you, Zill. The scientists think the Black Death may be weaker the higher you get.

Last night I dreamed about you, honey. I dreamed that you were on the ramp waiting for me when I came out through the side port of a big, new ship. I hope it’s a true dream, believe me!

With love,

Bill

Romeport

10 Oct. 1998

Zill, darling:

This is in haste. Too busy to write, and besides, the Interplanet schedules are so fouled up I couldn’t be sure of getting this off to you.

We are down here in Rome and everybody has a sick look on their face, believe me! The Black Death had a sudden spurt in the rate of growth and the northern part of the British Isles is the only thing left. It has come down and bitten a big semicircular chunk out of France.

I’ve heard descriptions of how it was when the terrible thing hit the British seaports. There were untold millions of people who hadn’t been able to get away yet. When the thing came marching down toward the water, the only thing they could do was sit and take it; or go on out into the water.

At Bristol, thousands of them crouched on the docks and sang old hymns and kept their eyes shut. As it marched across them the voices died out slowly, and then it went out across the water and after a while there weren’t any more heads bobbing around.

There aren’t any more governments on the continent of Europe. Just millions of crazy people going as fast as they can toward the Mediterranean coast hoping to get across to Africa, and other millions going towards the Russian border.

We heard a rumor that at first the Russians were shooting them down, but pure weight of numbers won out and there doesn’t seem to be any Russian border any more. Already, we can see the thing on bright days. A black column in the sky in the northwest.

A senator from California was on the telescreen this morning. He said that no true Californian believed for one minute that this European invention, the Black Death, would ever march to California’s sunny shores. He ended up with a weather report.

There are eighteen space ships here at Romeport and yesterday some of the guys took one over without authority and blasted off. Central Control send a rocket interceptor and we looked for the flash at night, but I guess they were too far out when it hit them.

I guess I didn’t tell you that the St. Louis slammed into the Black Death and there wasn’t even a ripple. It has sort of a fat and squatty look now, and they say that closer to it, it fills the horizon and you can’t see the roundness of it — just a black curtain of velvet that moves slowly.

Time to move, now. We’re taking all the ships to New Mexport.

This thing is getting out of control, honey, and I’m off my feed and not sleeping too good. I guess nobody is. I think about you a lot.

All my love,

Bill

New Mexport

22 Oct. 1998

Zill, honey:

I took a look around this morning. It’s the most terrific thing I’ve ever seen! I had no idea there were so many space ships in operation. All sizes, all lined up across the desert here with their shining snouts pointed at the deep blue of the sky.

There are no governments left on the face of the earth. I suppose every emergency winds up in the lap of the one guy who seems to have some answers. I never heard of this John Crown before. Anyway, he’s in charge. He had some sort of a job in Washington, I guess, before the government folded.

We have perimeter defenses around New Mexport, manned by a big chunk of the army. He has a special batch of fast aircraft and they have been going to all parts of the world that are still untouched and bringing back people. They are all quartered within our perimeter defenses. Right now, the only thing space ships mean to the average guy is a chance to get off this planet.

Last night I heard the heavy chug, chug, chug of rockets slamming out across the desert at the bands of rough citizens who would like to get in here and take over one of the ships. The people Crown is bringing in here are of all nationalities, and I guess that you could say they are the cream of humanity. He’s also having books and things brought in. That irritates a lot of the guys, who think that maybe this Crown will be rescuing books instead of people.

New York is gone, baby. Funny, but the shock of New York going isn’t as bad as London. I guess all of us are getting a little punchy.

It’s tough on the little kids. They walk around here with smeary little faces and puffy eyes getting in everybody’s way, and there’s no way to tell them what the trouble is. I’m exhausted, honey. They’ve had me doing repair work on old ships that had been retired and hadn’t yet been busted up for scrap.

So it looks like I’ll be seeing you before too long. I’m getting this off in a ship that’s headed out in an hour, so I must close now. I’ve got to get the letter smuggled aboard. There’s no room for mail anymore.

Right now, the Black Death has covered Montreal and New York, Cairo and Moscow. That’ll give you an idea of the size of it. The weather is clear and dry. I guess so many clouds and storms have blown into the darn thing that there won’t be any more rain here.

All my love,

Bill

New Mexport

Dear Zill:

Where all the ships were there is nothing but sand. There are a few left. This morning we could see the Blackness in the east. There hasn’t been any sunrise yet. The sun is behind the thing.

I’ll give this to one of the guys in the barracks to take with him. He’ll give it to you personally.

I don’t know how to say all this, Zill. I don’t know how to say any part of it. The board that Crown set up has cleared the last of the crews for the remaining ships. I’m not on any of the crews. And I’m not a passenger.

I keep thinking that if I had maybe a year more experience in space I’d be worth taking along. As it stands, I’m just a punk who doesn’t know much about space and doesn’t know anything about anything else.

All the time, I thought I’d be going. Pretty silly, wasn’t it? When I realized what was going to happen I got sort of a stiff grin on my face, and I went in and sat on my bunk and bit on my thumb knuckle to keep from crying like a baby.

Misery loves company, I suppose, but I don’t get much comfort out of thinking of all the millions and millions of people who have disappeared into that Black Death.

Crown thinks he’s staying behind, too. There’s a plan to slug him and put him aboard the last ship. He’ll wake up in deep space. I guess that’s a good thing. He’s turned this escape into a pretty orderly thing.

Well, Zill, there isn’t much point in weeping on your pretty shoulder, and I’ve given up thinking that maybe they’ll change their mind about me. I even thought of killing one of the crew guys so that maybe I could take his place, but there are hundreds of guys in my shoes and the odds are against my being picked, even if I could do such a thing.

I keep thinking that things would have worked out very nicely for the two of us, but I guess it is just one of those things. You are very beautiful, Zill, and you will find a nice guy, I am sure. Better find a smarter guy than me, Zill.

Joey is around looking for this letter, so I must close now. I like to think that maybe you will keep these letters of mine. Sort of like a keepsake.

I know this writing is a little wobbly, but you ought to be able to read it okay. To tell the truth, I’m scared green!

Anyway, when you find a nice guy, which I am sure you will, you better hide these letters of mine so he won’t read them and get jealous. If he isn’t good to you, honey, I will transport myself over there and I’ll haunt the son of a gun. Ha, ha!

Your friend,

Bill Wheeland

Content

John D. MacDonald
Like a Keepsake