Galactic Pot-Healer (4 page)

“Bit of humor, there,” the first QCA man said tartly. He nodded to his companion, and the two of them opened the door and departed from his room. The door closed behind them.

“Maybe it’s one gigantic pot,” Joe said loudly. “A pot the size of a planet. With fifty glazes and—” He gave up; they probably couldn’t hear him anyhow. And originally ornamented by the greatest graphic artist in Plabkian history, he thought. And it’s the only product of his genius left, and an earthquake has broken the pot, which is locally worshiped. So the whole Plabkian civilization has collapsed.

Plabkian civilization. Hmm, he thought. Just how far developed are they on Sirius five? he asked himself. A good question.

Going to the phone he dialed the encyclopedia number.

“Good evening,” a robotic voice said. “What info do you require, sir or madam?”

Joe said, “Give me a brief description of the social development on Sirius five.”

Without the passing of even a tenth second the artificial voice said, “It is an ancient society which has seen better days. The current dominant species on the planet consists of what is called a Glimmung. This shadowy, enormous entity is not native to the planet; it migrated there several centuries ago, taking over from the feeble species such as wubs, werjes, klakes, trobes, and printers left over when the once-ruling master species, the so-called Fog-Things of antiquity, passed away.”

“Glimmung—the Glimmung—is all-powerful?” Joe asked.

“His power,” the encyclopedia’s voice said, “is sharply curtailed by a peculiar book, probably nonexistent, in which, it is alleged, everything which has been, is, and will be, is recorded.”

Joe said, “Where did this book come from?”

“You have used up your allotted quantity of information,” the voice said. And clicked off.

Joe waited exactly three minutes and then redialed the number.

“Good evening. What info do you require, sir or madam?”

“The book on Sirius five,” Joe said. “Which is alleged to tell everything that has been—”

“Oh, it’s you again. Well, your trick won’t work anymore; we store voice patterns now.” It rang off.

That’s right, Joe realized. I remember reading in the newspaper about that. It was costing the government too much money the way it was—when we did what I tried to do just now. Nuts, he said to himself. Twenty-four hours before he could get any more free information. Of course, he could go to a private enterprise encyclopedia booth, to Mr. Encyclopedia. But it would cost as much as he had stored in his
asbestos bag: the government, when licensing the nonstateowned enterprises such as Mr. Attorney and Mr. Encyclopedia and Mr. Job, had seen to that.

I think I got aced out, Joe Fernwright said to himself. As usual.

Our society, he thought broodingly, is the perfect form of government.
Everyone
is aced out, in the end.

When he reached his work cubicle the next morning he found a second special delivery letter waiting for him.

Plowman’s Planet, Joe reflected. It rang a bell, although dimly. Absentmindedly, he dialed the encyclopedia’s number.

“Is Plowman’s Planet—” he began, but the artificial voice interrupted him.

“Not for another twelve hours. Goodby.”

“Just one fact?” he said angrily. “I just want to find out if Sirius five and Plowman’s—” Click. The robot mechanism had rung off. Bastards, he thought. All robot servo-mechanisms and all computers are bastards.

Who can I ask? he asked himself, that would know, off-hand,
if Plowman’s Planet is Sirius five? Kate. Kate would know.

But, he thought as he started to dial her office number, if I’m going to emigrate to Plowman’s Planet I don’t want her to know; she’ll be able to trace me re my back alimony payments.

Once more he picked up the unsigned note, studied it. And, in a gradual, seeping fashion, a realization concerning it suffused his mind and entered into his field of awareness. There were more words on the note in some kind of semi-invisible ink. Runic writing? he wondered; he felt a sort of wicked, animal excitement, as if he had found a carefully protected trail.

He dialed Smith’s number. “If you got a letter,” Joe said, “with semi-invisible runic writing on it, how would you—you in particular—go about making it visible?”

“I’d hold it over a heat source,” Smith said.

“Why?” Joe said.

“Because it’s most likely written in milk. And writing in milk turns black over a heat source.”

“Runic writing in
milk?”
Joe said angrily.

“Statistics show—”

“I can’t imagine it. I simply can’t imagine it. Runic writing in milk.” He shook his head. “Anyway, what statistics are there on runic writing? This is absurd.” He got out his cigarette lighter and held it beneath the sheet of paper. At once, black letters became visible.

“What’s it say?” Smith asked.

Joe said, “Listen, Smith; you haven’t used the encyclopedia in the last twenty-four hours, have you?”

“No,” Smith said.

Joe said, “Call it. Ask it if Plowman’s Planet is another name for Sirius five. And ask it what ‘Heldscalla’ consists
of.” I guess I could ask the dictionary that, he said to himself. “What a mess,” he said. “Is this any way to conduct business?” He felt fear overlaid with nausea; it did not appeal to him. It did not seem effective nor funny; it was merely strange. And, he thought, I have to report this to the police, so I’ll be back cloistered with them again, and now there’s probably already a file on me—hell, he thought, there has been since my birth—but now the file has new entries. Which always was bad. As every citizen knew.

Heldscalla, he thought. An odd and somehow impressive verbal integer. It appealed to him; it seemed totally opposed to such conditions as cubicles, phones, walking to work through endless crowds, fiddling his life away on the veterans’ dole, meanwhile playing The Game. I am here, he thought, when I should be there.

“Call me back, Smith,” he said into the phone. “As soon as you’ve talked to the encyclopedia. Bye.” He rang off, paused, then dialed the dictionary. “Heldscalla,” he said. “What does it mean?”

The dictionary—or rather its artificial voice—said, “Heldscalla is the ancient cathedral of the once-ruling Fog-Things of Sirius five. It sank under the sea centuries ago and has never been placed back, intact and functioning, with its old, holy artifacts and relics, on dry land.”

“Are you hooked into the encyclopedia right now?” Joe asked. “That’s an awful lot of definition.”

“Yes, sir or madam; I am hooked into the encyclopedia.”

“Then can you tell me any more?”

“No more.”

“Thank you,” Joe Fernwright said huskily. And hung up.

He could see it. Glimmung—or
the
Glimmung, if that was correct; evidently there was only one of them—intended to raise the ancient cathedral Heldscalla, and to do so, the Glimmung needed a wide span of skills. Such as his own, for example; his ability to heal ceramic ware. Heldscalla obviously
contained pots—enough of them to cause the Glimmung to approach him…and to offer him a good sum for his work.

By now he’s probably recruited two hundred skills from two hundred planets, Joe realized. I’m not the only one getting peculiar letters et cetera. He saw in his mind a great cannon being fired, and out of it special delivery letters, thousands of them, addressed to various life-form individuals throughout the galaxy.

And oh god, he thought. The police are spotting it; they barged into my room minutes after I consulted the bank. Last night, those two; they knew already what these letters and weird note floating in the water closet of the toilet mean. They could have told me. But of course they wouldn’t; that would be too natural, too humane.

His phone buzzed. He lifted the receiver.

“I contacted the encyclopedia,” Smith said, as his image appeared on the screen. “Plowman’s Planet is space argot for Sirius five. Since I had hold of the encyclopedia I took the opportunity of asking it more. I thought you might appreciate it.”

“Yes,” Joe said.

“One vast old creature lives there. Apparently infirm.”

“You mean it’s sick?” Joe asked.

“Well, you know…age and such like. Dormant; that’s what it’s been.”

“Is it menacing?”

“How could it be menacing if it’s dormant as well as infirm? It’s senile. Yes, that’s the word—senile.”

Joe asked, “Has it ever said anything?”

“Not really.”

“Not even the time of day?”

“Ten years ago it came to briefly and asked for an orbiting weather-station satellite.”

“What did it pay for it with?”

“It didn’t. It’s indigent. We contributed it free, and we
threw in a news type satellite along with the weather one.”

“Broke and senile,” Joe said. He felt glum. “Well,” he said, “I guess I won’t be getting any money out of it.”

“Why? Were you suing it?”

“Goodby, Smith,” Joe said.

“Wait!” Smith said. “There’s a new game. You want to join? It consists of speed-scanning the newspaper archives to come up with the funniest headline.
Real
headline, you realize; not made up. I have a good one; it’s from 1962. You want to hear it?”

“Okay,” Joe said, still feeling glum. His glumness had oozed throughout him, leaving him inert and spongelike; he responded reflexively. “Let’s hear your headline.”

“ELMO PLASKETT SINKS GIANTS,” Smith read from his slip of paper.

“Who the hell was Elmo Plaskett?”

“He came up from the minors and—”

“I have to go, now,” Joe said, standing up. “I have to leave my office.” He hung up. Home, he said to himself. To get my bag of quarters.

Along the sidewalks of the city the vast animallike gasping entity which was the mass of Cleveland’s unemployed—and unemployable—gathered and stood, stood and waited, waited and fused together into a lump both unstable and sad. Joe Fernwright, carrying his sack of coins, rubbed against their collective flank as he pushed his way toward the corner and the Mr. Job booth. He smelled the familiar vinegarlike penetrating scent of their presence, their overheated and yet plaintively disappointed massiveness. On all sides of him their eyes contemplated his forward motion, his determination to get past them.

“Excuse me,” he said to a slender Mexican-looking youth who had become wedged, among all the others, directly ahead of him.

The youth blinked nervously, but did not move. He had seen the asbestos bag which Joe held; beyond any doubt he knew what Joe had and where Joe was going and what Joe intended to do.

“Can I get by?” Joe asked him. It seemed an impasse of permanent proportions. Behind him, the throng of inactive
humanity had closed in, blocking any chance of retreat. He could not go back and he could make no progress forward. I guess the next thing, he thought, is that they’ll grab my quarters and that will be that. His heart hurt, as if he had climbed a ridge, a final ridge of life itself, a terrible hill strewn with skulls. He saw, about him, gaping eye sockets; he experienced a weird visual distortion, as if the ultimate disposition of these people had made its appearance palpably … as if, he thought, it can’t wait; it must have them now.

The Mexican youth said, “Could I look at your coins, sir?”

It was hard to know what to do. The eyes—or rather the hollow sockets—continued to press in at him in a complete circle; he felt them encompass him and his asbestos bag. I am shrinking, he thought in surprise. Why? He felt weak and glum, but not guilty. It was his money. They knew it and he knew it. And yet the vacant eyes made him small. As if, he thought, it doesn’t matter what I do, whether I get to the Mr. Job booth or not; what I do, what becomes of me—it won’t change things for these people.

And yet, on a conscious level, he didn’t care. They had their lives; he had his, and his included a sack of carefully saved-up metal coins. Can they contaminate me? he asked himself. Drag me down into their inertial storm? This is their problem, not mine, he thought. I’m not going to sink with the system; this is my first decision, to ignore the two special delivery letters and do this: take this journey with this sack of quarters. This is the start of my escape, and there will be no new bondage.

“No,” he said.

“I won’t take any,” the youth said.

A strange impulse overcame Joe Fernwright. Opening the bag he rummaged, got out a quarter; he held it out toward the Mexican youth. As the boy accepted it other hands appeared, on all sides; the ring of hopeless eyes had become a ring of outstretched, open hands. But there was no greed
conspiring against him; none of the hands tried to grab his sack of coins. The hands were simply there, merely waiting. Waiting in a silence made up of trust, as his own earlier waiting at the mail tube had been. Horrible, Joe thought. These people think I’m going to give them a present, as if they’ve been waiting for the universe to do this: the universe has given them nothing all their lives and they have accepted that as silently as now. They see me as a kind of supernatural deity. But no, he thought. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t do anything for them.

But even as he realized this he found himself digging into the cloth sack; he found himself putting a quarter into one palm after another.

Overhead, a police cruiser whistled loudly as it lowered, like a great lid, its two occupants in their slick, bright uniforms, wearing riot helmets that sparkled, holding, each of them, a laser rifle. One of the two cops said, “Get out of this man’s way.”

The pressing circle began to melt back. The extended hands disappeared, as if into a numbed, intolerable darkness.

“Don’t stand there,” the other cop said to Joe in his thick cop’s voice. “Get moving. Get those coins out of here or I’ll write you out a citation after which you won’t have one goddam coin left.”

Joe walked on.