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  Alexei Panshin’s first novel, Rite of Passage, was (and remains) the only first novel ever to win the Science Fiction Writers of America’s “Nebula” award as best SF novel of the year. In FAREWELL TO YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW he returns to the world of that novel in three long stories and sustains throughout the book the theme that underlies his soaring adventure tales. A vigorous, exciting storyteller, Alexei Panshin is the master of a mode of fiction first brought to finished form by Robert A. Heinlein—the suspenseful, exciting action yarn that embodies a thoughtful view of life. Panshin’s concern is the problem of becoming and living as a mature human being—in this world or that of the future.

  Science fiction is probably the only fiction being written in our time that sustains the great American tradition of artful entertainment, informed and informative, at once philosophical and action-packed. It provides Panshin with the ideal way of exploring a theme of serious concern while providing his many thousands of readers with rousing entertainment.

  FAREWELL TO YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW, though a book of short stories and novellas, forms a clear-cut thematic whole. The achievement of a successful “rite of passage” is the central problem of each story. Published here in the same order as they were originally written, a striking progression is to be found in them. In each succeeding story, the leap toward maturity is seen from an increasingly advanced vantage point. The last story, the unforgettable “When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal,” recapitulates this progression in terms of a father and son—one well beyond the passage point, the other dramatically confronting it in a typically astonishing setting.

  FAREWELL TO

  YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW

  Also by Alexei Panshin

  RITE OF PASSAGE

  COPYRIGHT © 1975 BY ALEXEI PANSHIN

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Longman Canada Limited, Toronto.

  “What’s Your Excuse?” and “How Georges Duchamps Discovered a Plot to Take Over the World” first published in Fantastic, Copyright 1969, 1971, by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.

  “The Sons of Prometheus” in different form and “The Destiny of Milton Gomrath” first published in Analog, © 1966, 1967, by the Condé Nast Publications, Inc.

  “A Sense of Direction” first published in different form in Amazing Stories, copyright 1969 by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.

  “One Sunday in Neptune” first published in Tomorrow’s Worlds, © 1969 by Alexei Panshin.

  “Now I’m Watching Roger” first published in Orbit 10, © 1972 by Damon Knight.

  “Arpad” first published in different form in Quark 2, © 1971 by Coronet Communications, Inc.

  “How Can We Sink When We Can Fly?” first published in Four Futures, © 1971 by Alexei Panshin.

  “Sky Blue” first published in Amazing Stories, copyright 1972, by Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.

  “When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal” first published in Universe 4, © 1974 by Terry Carr.

  “Farewell to Yesterday’s Tomorrow” first published in Galaxy magazine, © 1974 by U.P.D. Publishing Corporation under International Universal and Pan-American Copyright Convention.

  SBN: 399-11505-6

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-30574

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Contents

  Preface

  WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE?

  THE SONS OF PROMETHEUS

  THE DESTINY OF MILTON GOMRATH

  A SENSE OF DIRECTION

  HOW GEORGES DUCHAMPS DISCOVERED A PLOT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD

  ONE SUNDAY IN NEPTUNE

  NOW I’M WATCHING ROGER

  ARPAD

  HOW CAN WE SINK WHEN WE CAN FLY?

  SKY BLUE

  WHEN THE VERTICAL WORLD BECOMES HORIZONTAL

  FAREWELL TO YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW

  For Ted White

  and Terry Carr

  Preface

  THE twelve science fiction and fantasy stories and the final essay that make up this book are printed here in the order in which they were originally written. They were first published between 1966 and 1975, a turbulent time in this country, and a time of great changes in my own life. These stories are both a product and a reflection of their time.

  These stories have been a means for me of wrestling with the enigma of being alive. Over and over again, each in its own way, they ask the same childish question: What does it mean to be an adult human being?

  So many questions that we ask when we are children are never answered. They are indefinitely postponed. This question—a child’s question—was mine. And it was never answered for me to my satisfaction.

  What is it to be an adult human being?

  It still seems to me to be as urgent a question as it ever was. In view of the desperation of the present human condition, a desperate question. If we human beings are to survive, we must know who we are and what we may become.

  The question is deliberately posed in the form of science fiction. Science fiction is a means of stepping outside ourselves and our present condition in search of new perception. If we already knew how to be truly adult, if we already knew how to be truly human beings, we would not be in our present difficulties.

  Is our personal future and the future of mankind limited and cloudy? The answer indicated by science fiction and by these stories is: only if we are unable to change ourselves.

  If we could change ourselves, what might we not become?

  So here these stories are, from “What’s Your Excuse?” to “When the Vertical World Becomes Horizontal.” A record of change.

  This book is the last by Alexei Panshin. Whatever books follow this will be collaborations between Alexei and Cory Panshin—as were several of the later pieces in this book, such as the story “Sky Blue” and the article that concludes this book and lends it its title.

  —ALEXEI PANSHIN

  Elephant, Pennsylvania

  November 7, 1974

  1

  What’s Your Excuse?

  WOOLEY’S BEARD and manner were all that you would expect of any psychology instructor, particularly one who enjoys his work. He leaned back in his swivel chair, his feet on his desk, hands folded behind his neck, and looked at the graduate student who had been sharing his partition-board office for the past two weeks.

  “I’m curious about you, Holland,” he said. “By my conservative estimate, ninety-five percent of degree candidates in psychology are twitches. What’s your problem?”

  The room was only about eight feet wide. Holland’s desk faced the back of the cubicle, Wooley’s faced the door, and there was a narrow aisle between the two. Holland was a teaching assistant and was busy correcting a stack of papers. He looked warily up at Wooley, who had a certain reputation, and then returned his attention to his work.

  “No,” Wooley said expansively. “On the face of it, I would have said that you had a very low twitch rating.”

  Wooley’s reputation was half for being a thoroughgoing son of a bitch, half for being fascinating in the classroom. He had a flamboyant, student-attracting personality that was great fun for those he didn’t pick for victims.

  Holland finished marking the paper and tossed it on the stack he had completed. Then he said, “What is a twitch rating?”

  “Don’t you know that neuroses and psychoses are old hat? They need a scientific replacement, and for that purpose I have devised the twitch rating. Radiation is measured in curies, noise is measured in decibels—now psychological problems are measured in twitches. I’d rate you about five. That’s very low, par
ticularly for a psych student.”

  Holland flipped his red pencil to the side and leaned back. “You mean you really think that psych students are more…disturbed…than…”

  “They’re twitches,” Wooley corrected. “That’s why they’re psychology students. They’re not twitchy because they’re psych students. What they want is to learn excuses for the way they act. They don’t want to change it or even, I think, understand it. They want to excuse it—you know, ‘Mama was a boozer, Daddy was a flit, so how can I possibly help myself?’ They learn all the reasons that there are for being twitchy and that makes them happy.”

  Holland cleared his throat and leaned forward to recover his pencil. Holland was a very serious fellow and not completely sure just how serious Wooley was, and that made him ill-at-ease.

  “Isn’t it possible that you are mistaking an itch for a twitch?” he asked. “Then if somebody scratches, you think he’s crazy. But what if their reason isn’t an excuse, what if there is a genuine cause and you just can’t see it? If you want a crude example, is a concentration-camp inmate a paranoid if he thinks that people are against him?”

  “No,” Wooley said. “Not unless he’s a graduate student in psychology. In that case I wouldn’t make any bets.”

  “Well, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m observing humanity, what else? Look, I’ll give you an example of a genuine, make-no-mistake-about-it, ninety-five-rating, excuse-making twitch from right down the hall. Do you know Hector Leith?”

  “No. I haven’t been here long enough,” Holland said. “I don’t know everybody’s name yet, and I haven’t observed anybody twitching in the hall.”

  Wooley shook his head. “You’d better be careful. You’ve got the makings of a very sharp tongue there. Come along.” He swung his feet to the floor and led the way out into the hall.

  Holland hesitated for a moment and then shrugged and followed. The corridor ran between a double row of brown partition-board cubicles. On the walls of the corridor were photographs, a book-display rack, notices, and two plaques celebrating the accomplishments of the department’s bowling and softball teams. One of the photographs was of the previous year’s crop of graduate students. Wooley pointed at the shortest person in the picture.

  “That’s Hector Leith,” he said.

  “I guess I have seen him around.”

  “How old would you say he is?”

  Holland looked at the picture and tried to remember the person he’d seen briefly in the hall. “Not more than eighteen,” he said finally.

  “He’s twenty-seven.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No,” Wooley said. “He’s twenty-seven, he looks eighteen or less, and he is a genuine twitch.”

  The person in the photograph was only a few inches more than five feet tall, smooth-cheeked, fresh-faced, elfish-looking. He might possibly have passed for a junior high school student except for his air of tart awareness, and he certainly seemed out of place with the others in the picture. Wooley was there, too, with his beard.

  Back in their shared office, Holland returned to his swivel chair while Wooley sat on the edge of his desk.

  “Now,” Wooley said, “he was drafted by the Army and tossed out after four weeks for emotional instability. I don’t hold too much with the Army, but I’d still give him thirty twitch points for that. He started out as a teaching assistant here, but he started twitching in front of the class and now he’s a research assistant. You can give him another thirty points for that.”

  “So what’s your diagnosis, Doctor?” Holland said.

  Wooley shrugged. “I don’t know. Manic-depressive, maybe. One day he’ll overflow all over you, try to be friends—try to be buddies and ask you out for a beer. You can’t imagine how funny that is between his trying to get into a bar in the first place and the fact that he can’t stand beer. He’ll tell you all his problems. The next day he won’t talk to you at all, hide his little secrets away. And when he’s unpleasant, which is more than half the time, he’ll leave three-inch scars all over you. Give him fifteen points for that and the last twenty points for his excuses.”

  “All right. What are they?”

  Wooley paused for effect. “He thinks—he says he’s finally figured it out—that he’s living at a slower rate than most people, and he really isn’t grown up yet. He still has to get his physical and emotional growth. He’s where everybody else his age was years ago.”

  “Why does he think that?”

  Wooley smiled. “Well, he thinks he is growing. He thinks he’s gaining height.”

  Holland said seriously, “You know, if it were so, it would really be something, wouldn’t it? I can see why it would make somebody twitchy. To be that far out of step, not know why, and be incapable of doing what people expect of you would certainly be a burden. You’d be bound to think it was you and that would only make things worse.”

  “Perfect excuse, isn’t it?” Wooley asked drily. “There’s only one problem and that is it’s just wishful thinking.”

  “Well, if he’s growing…”

  “He isn’t growing. He just thinks he is. Come on and I’ll show you.”

  He led the way down the hall to another cubicle that was similar to their own except that there was only one desk. The extra space was taken up by bookshelves. Wooley flipped on the light.

  “Come on in,” he said to Holland, and Holland stepped inside.

  Wooley pointed to the wall at a point where a wood strip connected pieces of particle board. There were a few faint pencil ticks there, the top and the bottom marks being perhaps an inch and a half apart.

  “There,” Wooley said. “That’s the growing he thinks he’s done.”

  “Only he hasn’t?”

  “No,” Wooley said, chuckling. “I’ve been moving the marks. I add them on the bottom and erase the top mark. He just keeps putting it back and thinking he’s that much taller.”

  Holland said, “Pardon me. I have work to do.” He turned quite deliberately and walked out, his distaste evident.

  Wooley said after him, “It’s a psychological experiment.” But Holland didn’t stop.

  Wooley shrugged. Then he turned back to the pencil marks and counted them. He then picked a pencil off the desk, erased the topmost mark, and carefully added a mark at the bottom.

  Then he tossed the pencil back onto the desk and turned away. Just before he got to the door, Hector Leith came around the corner and into the room. They almost bumped into one another, stopped, and then carefully stepped back.

  Leith looked much like his picture: tiny, boyish-looking, incongruous in tie, jacket, and black overcoat. The briefcase he carried was the last touch that made him look like a youngster playing Daddy.

  He gave Wooley a bitter look and said, “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for a book.”

  “Whatever it is, you can’t borrow it. Get out of here. Don’t think I don’t know the trouble you’ve made for me around here, Wooley. Out.”

  “All right, all right,” Wooley said. “I couldn’t find it anyway.”

  He beat a retreat down the corridor, relieved that Leith hadn’t walked in a minute earlier. When he reached his own office, Holland was piling papers on his desk.

  “What’s this?” Wooley asked.

  “I’m not staying,” Holland said. “I don’t think we’re going to work well together. They’ve got a desk I can use in the department office until they can find me another place.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Wooley asked. “Why should you leave?”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Holland asked. “‘They told me that nobody would stay in an office with you, and I can’t stomach you, either. And I’d advise you not to pull any of your tricks on me.”

  Leith, somewhat strained, closed the door behind Wooley when he left. He wondered if he should have been less harsh. He knew that all it did was make him sound petulant, and that was something he was trying
to break himself of, even with Wooley. But it was hard.

  He looked then at the strip of wood marked with little pencil lines, and smiled with slightly malicious delight at what he saw. He picked up the pencil that Wooley had abandoned and replaced the tick that had been erased.

  The top tick was on the level of his eyes now, perhaps even a little lower, and he wondered how long it would be before Wooley finally noticed.

  He said, quite softly, “I’m growing up, Wooley. What’s your excuse?”

  2

  The Sons of Prometheus

  1. THE COLLIGATIONS OF THE CONFRATERNITY

  YOU DON’T suddenly appear out of nowhere. The Colonists find that disconcerting. You arrive in a place from somewhere definite. Particularly on Zebulon.

  Zebulon? Whatever you do, don’t let them know where you come from. They (finger across the neck with an appropriate sound effect, zit) Ship people when they catch them. Remember the Sons of Prometheus—they being the ones who had gotten it in the neck. Of course they were from Puteaux and not nearly so bright as we.

  It was nice of Nancy to remind Tansman of that and tell him to take care of himself, especially since it was her idea for him to go to Zebulon. It was nothing he would have thought of himself. Zebulon was not really the place for a chromoplastician with no experience in adventure, with no taste for do-gooding, with an active indifference to everything but the tidy definite sufficiency of chromoplasts.

  Tansman arrived in North Hill, where he had been told he would be met by Rilke. A solid-wheeled, leather-sprung public coach was as concrete an arrival as he could manage. The rough ride over rougher roads had given him a stiff neck and a headache. He had tried to study local scripture, The Colligations of the Confraternity, but finally gave up, put the book back in his bag, and thereafter looked out the window or at his feet.