Slow Sculpture Read online

  Theodore Sturgeon, in front of his 1964 VW bug with extra big wheels, at his Echo Park, Los Angeles home, 1976.

  Copyright © 2009 by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust; except for the afterword, copyright 1986 Spider Robinson, used by permission. Previously published materials © 1955, 1970, 1971, 1972 by Theodore Sturgeon, renewed by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

  Published by

  North Atlantic Books

  P.O. Box 12327

  Berkeley, California 94712

  Cover photo collage design by Paula Morrison

  Slow Sculpture: Volume XII of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

  North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Sturgeon, Theodore.

  Slow sculpture / Theodore Sturgeon; edited by Noël Sturgeon; foreword by Connie Willis; afterword by Spider Robinson.

  p. cm. — (The complete stories of Theodore Sturgeon; v. 12)

  eISBN: 978-1-58394-756-2

  1. Science fiction, American. I. Title.

  PS3569.T875 A6 1994 vol. 12

  813′.54—dc22

  2009031693

  v3.1

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon was born February 26, 1918, and died May 8, 1985. This is the twelfth volume in a series that collects all of his short fiction. The last volume, Why Dolphins Don’t Bite, will be published in 2010. The stories are mostly arranged chronologically by order of composition. With two exceptions (“The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff,” 1955, and the previously unpublished “The Beholders,” 1964), this volume contains stories written between 1970 and 1972, including the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning story, “Slow Sculpture.”

  My deepest thanks go to Paul Williams, editor of all the previous volumes. To have all of Sturgeon’s stories published was Paul’s personal vision, and his gentle persistence, hard work, and encyclopedic knowledge of Sturgeon made it happen. He started this project in 1991 and stayed with it until Alzheimer’s from a brain injury made it impossible for him to continue. Though he could not contribute to this volume, I would like to dedicate it to him. My attempt at replicating his excellent story notes is sure to fall short of his stellar example. Those who wish to give back to him for his lifetime of important work (for the science fiction community in particular) should visit www.paulwillams.com in order to help Paul and his family with his full-time care.

  For their significant assistance in preparing this twelfth volume, I would like to thank Connie Willis, Spider Robinson, Debbie Notkin, Marion Sturgeon, Tandy Sturgeon, John Wolff, Tina Krauss, Elizabeth Kennedy, Philip Smith, Paula Morrison, Eric Weeks, William F. Seabrook, Hart Sturgeon-Reed, T.V. Reed, Chris Lotts of Ralph Vincinanza, Ltd., Vince Gerardis of CreatedBy, Lindy Hough, Richard Grossinger, Wina Sturgeon, Jayne Williams, and all of you who have expressed your support and interest.

  Noël Sturgeon

  Trustee, Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust

  (http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/sturgeon)

  BOOKS BY THEODORE STURGEON

  Without Sorcery (1948)

  The Dreaming Jewels [aka The Synthetic Man] (1950)

  More Than Human (1953)

  E Pluribus Unicorn (1953)

  Caviar (1955)

  A Way Home (1955)

  The King and Four Queens (1956)

  I, Libertine (1956)

  A Touch of Strange (1958)

  The Cosmic Rape [aka To Marry Medusa] (1958)

  Aliens 4 (1959)

  Venus Plus X (1960)

  Beyond (1960)

  Some of Your Blood (1961)

  Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

  The Player on the Other Side (1963)

  Sturgeon in Orbit (1964)

  Starshine (1966)

  The Rare Breed (1966)

  Sturgeon Is Alive and Well … (1971)

  The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon (1972)

  Sturgeon’s West (with Don Ward) (1973)

  Case and the Dreamer (1974)

  Visions and Venturers (1978)

  Maturity (1979)

  The Stars Are the Styx (1979)

  The Golden Helix (1979)

  Alien Cargo (1984)

  Godbody (1986)

  A Touch of Sturgeon (1987)

  The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff (1989)

  Argyll (1993)

  Star Trek, The Joy Machine (with James Gunn) (1996)

  THE COMPLETE STORIES SERIES

  1. The Ultimate Egoist (1994)

  2. Microcosmic God (1995)

  3. Killdozer! (1996)

  4. Thunder and Roses (1997)

  5. The Perfect Host (1998)

  6. Baby Is Three (1999)

  7. A Saucer of Loneliness (2000)

  8. Bright Segment (2002)

  9. And Now the News … (2003)

  10. The Man Who Lost the Sea (2005)

  11. The Nail and the Oracle (2007)

  12. Slow Sculpture (2009)

  13. Case and the Dreamer (2010)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Editor’s Note

  Other Books by This Author

  Foreword:

  Theodore Sturgeon and “The Man Who Lost the Sea”

  by Connie Willis

  The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

  The Beholders

  It’s You!

  Slow Sculpture

  The Girl Who Knew What They Meant

  The Patterns of Dorne

  Crate

  Suicide

  Uncle Fremmis

  Necessary and Sufficient

  The Verity File

  Occam’s Scalpel

  Dazed

  Pruzy’s Pot

  Afterword to “Pruzy’s Pot” by Spider Robinson

  Story Notes by Noël Sturgeon

  About Theodore Sturgeon

  FOREWORD

  Theodore Sturgeon and “The Man Who Lost the Sea”: An Appreciation

  Connie Willis

  I read my first Theodore Sturgeon story when I was thirteen. It was “A Saucer of Loneliness,” and it was an extraordinary story. All Sturgeon stories are extraordinary, of course, but I didn’t know that then. I did know, however, that he was writing about different things than the other authors were in whatever anthology “Saucer” was in, about aliens who weren’t trying to invade and flying saucers that weren’t trying to attack, about longing and isolation and problems that can’t be solved.

  That last was what impressed me most. So many of the science fiction stories I read firmly believed that any problem could be solved with ingenuity and determination. Sturgeon knew better.

  He also knew that love is not the gooey, sentimental thing most people (and especially science fiction authors) think it is. He understood that love is problematic, dangerous, and even, at its most triumphant, ultimately tragic. And that it was just as legitimate a s
ubject for serious consideration and scientific analysis as courage or gravity or death (and, in fact, held elements of all of those.)

  And he wrote about these incredibly complicated things in a simple and eminently readable style, with no information dumps, no sermons, no indication of how difficult this was to do. Like Fred Astaire, Theodore Sturgeon made it look easy. So easy, in fact, that you weren’t really aware of just how good it was till long after, when you measured the story’s impact on you.

  After that first encounter with Sturgeon, I began actively seeking out his stories. I found and read “Killdozer” and “The Hurkle is a Happy Beast” and “Memorial” and “The Comedian’s Children” and dozens of others. My favorite was “And Now the News,” a troubling story about the constant bombardment of information we have to endure and its effect on us that I find more relevant now in our twittering-online-CNNed-hyperconnected-globalized world even than it was when I first read it.

  But I also found “Slow Sculpture” and “The Other Man” and “The Nail and the Oracle.” And came to admire more and more Sturgeon’s skill and style and subtlety of thought with each story.

  I was not the only one. Every science fiction writer I knew revered him as a consummate storyteller and someone whose stories had not only heart, but brains and depth. He was frequently discussed (I think only other writers, who know how hard all this stuff is to do and especially how difficult it is to make it look effortless, fully appreciate Sturgeon) and generally considered to be the best short story writer the field had ever produced.

  It was during one of those discussions a few years ago that someone mentioned, “The Man Who Lost the Sea.” “I don’t think I’ve ever read that one,” I said innocently, and everyone in the group was horrified.

  “Oh, my God, you’re kidding!” they said. “How can you have been in the field all this time and not have read it?”

  It was as if I’d just confessed to being illiterate. And in a way, I had. Nobody who hasn’t read Sturgeon’s story can really understand what science fiction’s all about. And I’d never read it.

  “You have to read it!” they said. “It’s amazing!”

  “What’s it about?” I asked, but they refused to tell me.

  “Just read it,” they said.

  So I read it. And they were right. It’s his best story. I still love “And Now the News” and “A Saucer of Loneliness,” and “Memorial,” but “The Man Who Lost the Sea” is in a class by itself.

  It starts off unassumingly enough with: “Say you’re a kid, and one dark night you’re running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witchy-witchy-witchy”—a casual, conversational line that could be the opener of Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel.

  But Sturgeon’s taking us to an entirely different place. Through seemingly random reminiscences and ordinary, familiar details—Sputnik beeping overhead, a pestering kid, that time in gym class when you fell off the parallel bars, the crash of the surf—he’s leading us straight into the heart of darkness.

  No, that’s not right. It’s not a straightforward journey at all. The first time I read “The Man Who Lost the Sea,” I thought of it as an onion, with layers being peeled off one after the other to get to the core, but that’s not right either. It’s more like a plane making passes at a landing field, circling closer and closer each time. Or like a hawk, circling in on its prey.

  And it has to be done that way because the direct route won’t work. Circling, veering off at the last minute, taking off on talkative tangents, circling back, are the only way we can get to the secrets inside the story—and inside us. The only way we can bear to face what frightens us, to look at the terrible truth.

  And Sturgeon’s merciless. He’s not going to spare us anything. He’s going to make us look squarely at the things we want to avert our gaze from. And he’s not even going to let us hang on to those things that gave us cause for hope along the way—that resourceful problem-solving kid, the trail of Friday-like footprints heading off along the beach, the comforting murmur of the sea in our ears. It’s a brilliant, brutal, beautifully written story, at the same time heartbreaking and soaringly triumphant. The best thing he ever wrote.

  I said before that nobody who hasn’t read “The Man Who Lost the Sea” can really understand science fiction. I stand by that, but at the same time the story’s not like any other science fiction story. It’s unique.

  So was its author. That’s why it’s an incredible privilege for me to be able to write about the wonderful story and this wonderful storyteller and possibly introduce one or both of them to new readers.

  And to say the things I never got the chance to say to tell Theodore Sturgeon in life. Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing all your stories and letting me read them. And especially for writing “The Man Who Lost the Sea.”

  Your devoted reader,

  Connie Willis

  [“The Man Who Lost the Sea” is in Volume X of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.]

  The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

  Part One

  Throughout the continuum as we know it (and a good deal more, as we don’t know it) there are cultures that fly and cultures that swim; there are boron folk and fluorine fellowships, cuproco-prophages and (roughly speaking) immaterial life-forms which swim and swirl around each other in space like so many pelagic shards of metaphysics. And some organize into superentities like a beehive or a slime-mold so that they live plurally to become singular, and some have even more singular ideas of plurality.

  Now, no matter how an organized culture of intelligent beings is put together or where, regardless of what it’s made of or how it lives, there is one thing all cultures have in common, and it is the most obvious of traits. There are as many names for it as there are cultures, of course, but in all it works the same way—the same way the inner ear functions (with its contributory synapses) in a human being when he steps on Junior’s roller skate. He doesn’t think about how far away the wall is, some wires or your wife, or in which direction: he grabs, and, more often than not, he gets—accurately and without analysis. Just so does an individual reflexively adjust when imbalanced in his socio-cultural matrix: he experiences the reflex of reflexes, a thing as large as the legendary view afforded a drowning man of his entire past, in a single illuminated instant wherein the mind moves, as it were, at right angles to time and travels high and far for its survey.

  And this is true of every culture everywhere, the cosmos over. So obvious and necessary a thing is seldom examined: but it was once, by a culture which called this super-reflex “Synapse Beta sub Sixteen.”

  What came out of the calculator surprised them. They were, after all, expecting an answer.

  Human eyes would never have recognized the device for what it was. Its memory bank was an atomic cloud, each particle of which was sealed away from the others by a self-sustaining envelope of force. Subtle differences in nuclei, in probability shells, and in internal tensions were the coding, and fields of almost infinite variability were used to call up the particles in the desired combinations. These were channeled in a way beyond description in earthly mathematics, detected by a principle as yet unknown to us, and translated into language (or, more accurately, an analog of what we understand as language). Since this happened so far away, temporally, spatially, and culturally, proper nouns are hardly proper; it suffices to say that it yielded results, in this particular setting, which were surprising. These were correlated into a report, the gist of which was this:

  Prognosis positive, or prognosis negative, depending upon presence or absence of Synapse Beta sub Sixteen.

  The pertinent catalog listed the synapse in question as “indetectible except by field survey.” Therefore an expedition was sent.

  All of which may seem fairly remote until one realizes that the prognosis was being drawn for that youthful and dangerous aggregate of bubbling yeasts called “human culture,” and that when the t
erm “prognosis negative” was used it meant finis, the end, zero, ne plus ultra altogether.

  It must be understood that the possessors of the calculator, the personnel of the expedition to Earth, were not Watchers in the Sky and Arbiters of Our Fate. Living in our midst, here and now, is a man who occupies himself with the weight-gain of amoebæ from their natal instant to the moment they fission. There is a man who, having produced neurosis in cats, turns them into alcoholics for study. Someone has at long last settled the matter of the camel’s capacity for, and retention of, water. People like these are innocent of designs on the destinies of all amoebæ, cats, camels and cultures; there are simply certain things they want to know. This is the case no matter how unusual, elaborate, or ingenious their methods might be. So—an expedition came here for information.

  EXCERPT FROM FIELD EXPEDITION [NOTEBOOK] [VOLUME] I:

  CONCLUSION … to restate the obvious, [we] have been on Earth long enough and more than long enough to have discovered anything and everything [we] [wished] about any [sensible-predictable-readable] culture anywhere. This one, however, is quite beyond [understanding-accounting-for]. At first sight, [one] was tempted to conclude immediately that it possesses the Synapse, because no previously known culture has advanced to this degree without it, ergo.… And then [we] checked it with [our] [instruments] [! ! !] [Our] [gimmick] and our [kickshaw] gave [us] absolutely negative readings, so [we] activated a high-sensitivity [snivvy] and got results which approximate nonsense: the Synapse is scattered through the population randomly, here non-existent or dormant, there in brief full activity at [unheard-of] high levels. [I] thought [Smith] would go [out of (his) mind] and as for [myself], [I] had a crippling attack of the [ ]s at the very concept. More for [our] own protection than for the furtherance of the Expedition, [we] submitted all our data to [our] [ship]’s [computer] and got what appeared to be even further nonsense: the conclusion that this species possesses the Synapse but to all intents and purposes does not use it.

  How can a species possess Synapse Beta sub Sixteen and not use it? Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!