Martian Time-Slip (9 page)

“At nine o'clock?” Fred Clarke yelled.

Later, as he walked home to his own apartment, along the cool dark streets of Oakland, he felt fine. He wondered what had been wrong back there at Notting's. Maybe bad air or the ventilation.

But something was wrong.

Mars, he thought. He had cut the ties, in particular his job, had sold his Plymouth, given notice to the official who was his landlord. And it had taken him a year to get the apartment; the building was owned by the nonprofit West Coast Co-op, an enormous structure partly underground, with thousands of units, its own supermarket, laundries, child-care center, clinic, even its own psychiatrist, down below in the arcade of shops beneath the street level. There was an FM radio station on the top floor which broadcast classical music chosen by the building residents, and in the center of the building could be found a theater and meeting hall. This was the newest of the huge cooperative apartment buildings—and he had given it all up, suddenly. One day he had been in the building's bookstore, waiting in line to buy a book, and the idea came to him.

After he had given notice he had wandered along the corridors of the co-op arcade. When he came to the bulletin board with its tacked-up notices, he had halted automatically to read them. Children scampered past him, on their way to the playground behind the building. One notice, large and printed, attracted his attention.

HELP SPREAD THE CO-OP MOVEMENT TO NEWLY COLONIZED AREAS. EMIGRATION PREPARED BY THE CO-OP BOARD IN SACRAMENTO IN ANSWER TO BIG BUSINESS AND BIG LABOR UNION EXPLOITATION OF MINERAL-RICH AREAS OF MARS. SIGN UP NOW!

It read much like all the co-op notices, and yet—why not? A lot of young people were going. And what was left for him on Earth? He had given up his co-op apartment, but he was still a member; he still had his share of stock and his number.

Later on, when he had signed up and was in the process of being given his physical and his shots, the sequence had blurred in his mind; he remembered the decision to go to Mars
as coming first,
and then the giving up of his job and apartment. It seemed more rational that way, and he told that story to his friends. But it simply wasn't true. What was true? For almost two months he had wandered about, confused and despairing, not certain of anything except that on November 14, his group, two hundred co-op members, would leave for Mars, and then everything would be changed; the confusion would lift and he would see clearly, as he had once at some vague period in the past. He knew that: once, he had been able to establish the order of things in space and time; now, for reasons unknown to him, both space and time had shifted so that he could not find his bearings in either one.

His life had no purpose. For fourteen months he had lived with one massive goal: to acquire an apartment in the huge new co-op building, and then, when he had gotten it, there was nothing. The future had ceased to exist. He listened to the Bach suites which he requested; he bought food at the supermarket and browsed in the building bookstore…but what for? he asked himself. Who am I? And at his job, his ability faded away. That was the first indication, and in some ways the most ominous of all; that was what had first frightened him.

It began with a weird incident which he was never able fully to account for. Apparently, part of it had been pure hallucination. But which part? It had been dreamlike, and he had had a moment of overwhelming panic, the desire to run, to get out at any cost.

His job was with an electronics firm in Redwood City, south of San Francisco; he operated a machine which maintained quality control along the assembly line. It was his responsibility to see that his machine did not deviate from its concept of acceptable tolerances in a single component: a liquid-helium battery no larger than a match-head. One day he was summoned to the personnel manager's office, unexpectedly; he did not know why they wanted him, and as he took the elevator up he was quite nervous. Later, he remembered that; he was unusually nervous.

“Come in, Mr. Bohlen.” The personnel manager, a fine-looking man with curly gray hair—perhaps a fashion wig—welcomed him into his office. “This won't take but a moment.” He eyed Jack keenly. “Mr. Bohlen, why aren't you cashing your paychecks?”

There was silence.

“Aren't I?” Jack said. His heart thudded ponderously, making his body shake. He felt unsteady and tired. I thought I was, he said to himself.

“You could stand a new suit,” the personnel manager said, “and you need a haircut. Of course, it's your business.”

Putting his hand to his scalp, Jack felt about, puzzled; did he need a haircut? Hadn't he just had one last week? Or maybe it was longer ago than that. He said, “Thanks.” He nodded. “O.K., I will. What you just said.”

And then the hallucination, if it was that, happened. He saw the personnel manager in a new light. The man was dead.

He saw, through the man's skin, his skeleton. It had been wired together, the bones connected with fine copper wire. The organs, which had withered away, were replaced by artificial components, kidney, heart, lungs—everything was made of plastic and stainless steel, all working in unison but entirely without authentic life. The man's voice issued from a tape, through an amplifier and speaker system.

Possibly at some time in the past the man had been real and alive, but that was over, and the stealthy replacement had taken place, inch by inch, progressing insidiously from one organ to the next, and the entire structure was there to deceive others. To deceive him, Jack Bohlen, in fact. He was alone in this office; there was no personnel manager. No one spoke to him, and when he himself talked, no one heard; it was entirely a lifeless, mechanical room in which he stood.

He was not sure what to do; he tried not to stare too hard at the manlike structure before him. He tried to talk calmly, naturally, about his job and even his personal problems. The structure was probing; it wanted to learn something from him. Naturally, he told it as little as possible. And all the time, as he gazed down at the carpet, he saw its pipes and valves and working parts functioning away; he could not keep from seeing.

All he wanted to do was get away as soon as possible. He began to sweat; he was dripping with sweat and trembling, and his heart pounded louder and louder.

“Bohlen,” the structure said, “are you sick?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can I go back down to my bench now?” He turned and started toward the door.

“Just a moment,” the structure said from behind him.

That was when panic overtook him, and he ran; he pulled the door open and ran out into the hall.

An hour or so later he found himself wandering along an unfamiliar street in Burlingame. He did not remember the intervening time and he did not know how he had gotten where he was. His legs ached. Evidently he had walked, mile after mile.

His head was much clearer. I'm schizophrenic, he said to himself. I know it. Everyone knows the symptoms; it's catatonic excitement with paranoid coloring: the mental health people drill it into us, even into the school kids. I'm another one of those. That was what the personnel manager was probing.

I need medical help.

As Jack removed the power supply of the Angry Janitor and laid it on the floor, the master circuit of the school said, “You are very skillful.”

Jack glanced up at the middle-aged female figure and thought to himself, It's obvious why this place unnerves me. It's like my psychotic experience of years ago.
Did I, at that time, look into the future?

There had been no schools of this kind, then. Or if there had, he had not seen them or known about them.

“Thank you,” he said.

What had tormented him ever since the psychotic episode with the personnel manager at Corona Corporation was this: suppose it was not a hallucination? Suppose the so-called personnel manager was as he had seen him, an artificial construct, a machine like these teaching machines?

If that had been the case,
then there was no psychosis.

Instead of a psychosis, he had thought again and again, it was more on the order of a vision, a glimpse of absolute reality, with the facade stripped away. And it was so crushing, so radical an idea, that it could not be meshed with his ordinary views. And the mental disturbance had come out of that.

Reaching into the exposed wiring of the Angry Janitor, Jack felt expertly with his long fingers until at last he touched what he knew to be there: a broken lead. “I think I've got hold of it,” he said to the master circuit of the school. Thank God, he thought, these aren't the old-fashioned printed circuits; were that that the case, he would have to replace the unit. Repair would be impossible.

“My understanding,” the master circuit said, “is that much effort went into the designing of the Teachers re problems of repair. We have been fortunate so far; no prolonged interruption of service has taken place. However, I believe that preventive maintenance is indicated wherever possible; therefore I would like you to inspect one additional Teacher which has as yet shown no signs of a breakdown. It is uniquely vital to the total functioning of the school.” The master circuit paused politely as Jack struggled to get the long tip of the soldering gun past the layers of wiring. “It is Kindly Dad which I want you to inspect.”

Jack said, “Kindly Dad.” And he thought acidly, I wonder if there's an Aunt Mom in here somewhere. Aunt Mom's delicious home-baked tall tales for little tots to imbibe. He felt nauseated.

“You are familiar with that Teacher?”

As a matter of fact he was not; David hadn't mentioned it.

From farther down the corridor he could hear the children still discussing life with the Whitlock; their voices reached him as he lay on his back, holding the soldering gun above his head and reaching into the works of the Angry Janitor to keep the tip in place.

“Yes,” the Whitlock was saying in its never-ruffled, absolutely placid voice, “the raccoon is an amazing fellow, ol' Jimmy Raccoon is. Many times I've seen him. And he's quite a large fellow, by the way, with powerful, long arms which are really quite agile.”

“I saw a raccoon once,” a child piped excitedly. “Mr. Whitlock, I saw one, and he was this close to me!”

Jack thought, You saw a raccoon on Mars?

The Whitlock chuckled. “No, Don, I'm afraid not. There aren't any raccoons around here. You'd have to go all the way across over to old mother Earth to see one of those amazing fellows. But the point I'd like to make is this, boys and girls. You know how ol' Jimmy Raccoon takes his food, and carries it oh so stealthily to the water, and washes it? And how we laughed at old' Jimmy when the lump of sugar dissolved and he had nothing at all left to eat? Well, boys and girls, do you know that we've got Jimmy Raccoons right here in this very—”

“I think I'm finished,” Jack said, withdrawing the gun. “Do you want to help me put this back together?”

The master circuit said, “Are you in a rush?”

“I don't like that thing talking away in there,” Jack said. It made him tense and shaky, so much so that he could hardly do his work.

A door rolled shut, down the corridor from them; the sound of the Whitlock's voice ceased. “Is that better?” the master circuit asked.

“Thanks,” Jack said. But his hands were still shaking. The master circuit noted that; he was aware of her precise scrutiny. He wondered what she made of it.

The chamber in which Kindly Dad sat consisted of one end of a living room with fireplace, couch, coffee table, curtained picture window, and an easy chair in which Kindly Dad himself sat, a newspaper open on his lap. Several children sat attentively on the couch as Jack Bohlen and the master circuit entered; they were listening to the expostulations of the teaching machine and did not seem aware that anyone had come in. The master circuit dismissed the children, and then she started to leave, too.

“I'm not sure what you want me to do,” Jack said.

“Put it through its cycle. It seems to me that it repeats portions of the cycle or stays stuck; in any case, too much time is consumed. It should return to its starting stage in about three hours.” A door opened for the master circuit, and she was gone; he was alone with Kindly Dad and he was not glad of it.

“Hi, Kindly Dad,” he said without enthusiasm. Setting down his tool case he began unscrewing the back plate of the Teacher.

Kindly Dad said in a warm, sympathetic voice, “What's your name, young fellow?”

“My name,” Jack said, as he unfastened the plate and laid it down beside him, “is Jack Bohlen, and I'm a kindly dad, too, just like you, Kindly Dad. My boy is ten years old, Kindly Dad. So don't call me young fellow, O.K.?” Again he was trembling hard, and sweating.

“Ohh,” Kindly Dad said. “I see!”

“What do you see?” Jack said, and discovered that he was almost shouting. “Look,” he said. “Go through your goddamn cycle, O.K.? If it makes it easier for you, go ahead and pretend I'm a little boy.” I just want to get this done and get out of here, he said to himself, with as little trouble as possible. He could feel the swelling, complicated emotions inside him. Three hours! he thought dismally.

Kindly Dad said, “Little Jackie, it seems to me you've got a mighty heavy weight on your chest today. Am I right?”

“Today and every day.” Jack clicked on his trouble-light and shone it up into the works of the Teacher. The mechanism seemed to be moving along its cycle properly so far.

“Maybe I can help you,” Kindly Dad said. “Often it helps if an older, more experienced person can sort of listen in on your troubles, can sort of share them and make them lighter.”

“O.K.,” Jack agreed, sitting back on his haunches. “I'll play along; I'm stuck here for three hours anyhow. You want me to go all the way back to the beginning? To the episode back on Earth when I worked for Corona Corporation and had the occlusion?”

“Start wherever you like,” Kindly Dad said graciously.

“Do you know what schizophrenia is, Kindly Dad?”

“I believe I've got a pretty good idea, Jackie,” Kindly Dad said.

“Well, Kindly Dad, it's the most mysterious malady in all medicine, that's what it is. And it shows up in one out of every six people, which is a lot of people.”