Martian Time-Slip (11 page)

Well, it certainly was not scale; he admitted that.

And so now this job with Norb Steiner, which meant that he had practically to live in the wastelands of the F.D.R. Mountains, alienated from society for weeks on end, growing more and more lonely, more embittered all the time. It had been his need for intimate personal contact that had gotten him into trouble in the first place, and now look at him. As he sat in the storage shed waiting for the next rocket to show up, he looked back on his life and reflected that even the Bleekmen wouldn't be willing or able to live as he lived, cut off from everyone like this. If only his own black-market operations had succeeded! He, like Norb Steiner, had been able to swing around the planet daily, visiting one person after another. Was it his fault that the items he chose to import were hot enough to interest the big boys? His judgment had been too good; his line had sold too well.

He hated the big racketeers, too, same as he hated the big unions. He hated bigness per se; bigness had destroyed the American system of free enterprise, the small businessman had been ruined—in fact, he himself had been perhaps the last authentic small businessman in the solar system. That was his real crime: he had tried to live the American way of life, instead of just talking about it.

“Screw them,” he said to himself, seated on a crate, surrounded by boxes and cartons and packages and the workings of several dismantled rocketships which he had been revamping. Outside the shed window… silent, desolate rock hills, with only a few shrubs, dried up and dying, as far as the eye could see.

And where was Norb Steiner right now? No doubt ensconced in some bar or restaurant or some woman's cheery living room, prattling his line, handling over tins of smoked salmon and getting in return—

“Screw them all,” Otto mumbled, getting up to pace back and forth. “If that's what they want, let 'em have it. Bunch of animals.”

Those Israeli girls…that's where Steiner was, with a kibbutzful of them, those hot, black-eyed, heavy-lipped, big-breasted, sexy ones who got tanned working out in the fields in shorts and cotton shirts clinging to them, no bras, just those big solid breasts—you could actually see their nipples, because the damp fabric stuck to them.

That's why he wouldn't let me go with him, Otto decided.

The only women he ever saw out here in the F.D.R. range were those stunted, black, dried-out Bleekman women, not even human, at least not to him. He wasn't taken in by those anthropologists saying that the Bleekmen were from the same stock as homo sapiens, that probably both planets were colonized a million years ago from one interplanetary race. Those toads, human? Sleep with one of those? Christ, better to chop it off, first.

As a matter of fact, here came a party of Bleekmen right now, stepping gingerly with bare feet down the irregular rock surface of a northern hill. On their way here, Otto observed. As usual.

He opened the door of the shed, waiting until they had reached him. Four bucks, two of them elderly, one elderly woman, several skinny kids, carrying their bows, their pounding blocks, their paka eggshells.

Halting, they regarded him silently, and then one of the bucks said, “Rains are falling from me onto your valuable person.”

“Likewise,” Otto said, learning against the shed and feeling dull, weighed down with hopelessness. “What do you want?”

The Bleekman buck held out a small bit of paper, and Otto, taking it, saw that it was a label from a can of turtle soup. The Bleekmen had eaten the soup, retaining the label for this purpose; they could not tell him what they wanted because they did not know what it was called.

“O.K.,” he said. “How many?” He held up fingers. At five they nodded. Five cans. “Whatcha got?” Otto demanded, not stirring.

One of the young Bleekman women stepped forward and pointed to that part of herself which had been so much in Otto's thoughts for so long.

“Oh Christ,” Otto said in despair. “No, go on. Beat it. Not any more; I don't want any more.” He turned his back on them, made his way into the storage shed and slammed the door so hard that the shed walls trembled; he threw himself down on a packing crate, his head in his hands. “I'm going crazy,” he said to himself, his jaw stiff, his tongue swelling up so that he could hardly talk. His chest ached. And then, to his amazement, he began to cry. Jesus, he thought in fright, I really am going crazy; I'm breaking down. Why? Tears rolled down his cheeks. He hadn't cried in years. What's this all about? he wondered. His mind had no concept in it; it was only his body bawling away, and he was a spectator to it.

But it brought him relief. With his handkerchief he wiped his eyes, his face, and cursed as he saw that his hands were clawlike with rigidity, the fingers writhing.

Outside the window of the shed the Bleekmen remained, perhaps seeing him; he could not tell. Their faces showed no expression, but he felt sure they must have seen, and probably were as perplexed as he. It sure is a mystery, he thought. I agree with you.

The Bleekmen gathered together in a huddle and conferred, and then one of them detached himself from the group and approached the shed. Otto heard a rap on the door. Going over to it and opening it, he found the young Bleekman standing there holding out something.

“This, then,” the young Bleekman said.

Otto took it, but for the life of him he could not make out what it was. It had glass and metal to it, and calibrations. And then he realized that it was an instrument used in surveying. On its side was stamped:
UN PROPERTY
.

“I don't want it,” he said irritably, turning it over and over. The Bleekmen must have stolen it, he realized. He handed it back; the young buck accepted it stoically and returned to his group. Otto shut the door.

This time they went off; he watched them through the window as they trailed away up the side of the hill. Steal you blind, he said to himself. Anyhow, what was a UN survey company doing in the F.D.R. range?

To cheer himself up he rummaged around until he found a can of smoked frogs' legs; opening it, he sat eating morosely, not getting from the dainty anything at all, and yet methodically finishing the can.

Into the microphone Jack Bohlen said, “Don't send me, Mr. Yee—I already ran into Kott today and offended him.” Weariness settled over him. Naturally I ran into Kott, for the first time in my life, and naturally I insulted him, he thought to himself. And just as naturally, because that's how my life works, it's the same day that Arnie Kott decides to call up Yee Company and ask for service. It's typical of the little game I play with the powerful, inanimate forces of life.

“Mr. Kott mentioned meeting you on the desert,” Mr. Yee said. “In fact, his decision to call us was based on that meeting.”

“The hell you say.” He was dumbfounded.

“I do not know what the issue was, Jack, but no harm has been done. Direct your ship to Lewistown. If you run over beyond five o'clock you will be paid time and a half. And Mr. Kott, who is known as a generous man, is so anxious to have his encoder working that he promises to see that you receive a bountiful meal.”

“All right,” Jack said. It was too much for him to dope out. After all, he knew nothing of what went on in Arnie Kott's mind.

Not long thereafter, he was lowering his 'copter to the roof parking lot of the Water Workers' Union Hall at Lewistown.

A slavey sauntered out and regarded him suspiciously.

“Yee Company repairman,” Jack said. “Call put in by Arnie Kott.”

“O.K., buddy,” the slavey said, and led him to the elevator.

He found Arnie Kott in a well-furnished, Earth-type living room; the big, bald-headed man was on the telephone, and he nodded his head at Jack's appearance. The nod indicated the desk, on which a portable encoding dictation machine sat. Jack walked over to it, removed the lid, turned it on. Mean-while, Arnie Kott continued his phone conversation.

“Sure I know it's a tricky talent. Sure, there's a good reason why nobody's been able to make use of it—but what am I supposed to do, give up and pretend it don't exist just because people have been too damn dumb for fifty thousand years to take it seriously? I still want to try it.” A long pause. “O.K., Doctor. Thanks.” Arnie hung up. To Jack he said, “You ever been to Camp B-G?”

“No,” Jack said. He was busy opening up the encoder.

Arnie strolled over and stood beside him. As he worked, Jack could feel the astute gaze fixed on him; it made him nervous, but there was nothing he could do except try to ignore the man and go on. A little like the master circuit, he thought to himself. And then he wondered, as he often did, if he was going to have another one of his spells; true, it had been a long time, but here was a powerful figure looming close to him, scrutinizing him, and it did feel somewhat like that old interview with Corona's personnel manager.

“That was Glaub on the phone,” Arnie Kott said. “The psychiatrist. You ever heard of him?”

“No,” Jack said.

“What do you do, live your life entirely with your head stuck in the back of machines?”

Jack looked up, met the man's gaze. “I've got a wife and son. That's my life. What I'm doing right now is a means of keeping my family going.” He spoke calmly. Arnie did not seem to take offense; he even smiled.

“Something to drink?” Arnie asked.

“Coffee, if you have it.”

“I've got authentic Home coffee,” Arnie said. “Black?”

“Black.”

“Yeah, you look like a black coffee man. You think you can fix that machine right here and now, or are you going to have to take it with you?”

“I can fix it here.”

Arnie beamed. “That's swell! I really depend on that machine.”

“Where's the coffee?”

Turning, Arnie went off dutifully; he rustled about in another room and then returned with a ceramic coffee mug, which he set down on the desk near Jack. “Listen, Bohlen. I have a person coming here any minute now. A girl. It won't interfere with your work, will it?”

Jack glanced up, supposing the man was being sarcastic. But evidently not; Arnie was eyeing him and then the partly disassembled machine, obviously concerned with how the repair was progressing. He certainly is dependent on this, Jack decided. Strange, how people cling to their possessions, as if they're extensions of their bodies, a sort of hypochondria of the machine. You'd think a man like Arnie Kott could scrap this encoder and shell out the money for a new one.

There sounded a knock on the door, and Arnie hurried to open it. “Oh, hi.” His voice came to Jack. “Come on in. Hey, I'm getting my doodad fixed.”

A girl's voice said, “Arnie, you'll never get your doodad fixed.”

Arnie laughed nervously. “Hey, meet my new repairman, Jack Bohlen. Bohlen, this is Doreen Anderton, our Union treasurer.”

“Hi,” Jack said. Out of the corner of his eye—he did not stop working—he could see that she had red hair and extremely white skin and large, wonderful eyes. Everybody's on the payroll, he thought tartly. What a great world. What a great union you've got going here for yourself, Arnie.

“Busy, isn't he?” the girl said.

“Oh, yeah,” Arnie agreed, “these repair guys are bugs on getting the job done right, I mean these outside guys, not our own—ours are a bunch of slobs that sit around playing with themselves at our expense. I'm through with them, Dor. I mean, this guy Bohlen is a whiz; he's going to have the encoder working any minute now, aren't you, Jack?”

“Yeah,” Jack said.

The girl said, “Don't you say hello, Jack?”

Halting his work he turned his attention on her; he faced her levelly. Her expression was cool and intelligent, with a faintly mocking quality which was peculiarly rewarding and annoying. “Hello,” Jack said.

“I saw your ’copter on the roof,” the girl said.

“Let him work,” Arnie said peevishly. “Gimme your coat.” He stood behind her, helping her out of her coat. The girl wore a dark wool suit, obviously an import from Earth and therefore expensive to an appalling degree. I'll bet that set the Union pension fund back plenty, Jack decided.

Observing the girl, he saw in her a vindication of a piece of old wisdom. Nice eyes, hair, and skin produced a pretty woman, but a truly excellent nose created a beautiful woman. This girl had such a nose: strong, straight, dominating her features, forming a basis for her other features. Mediterranean women reach the level of beauty much more easily than, say, Irish or English women, he realized, because genetically speaking the Mediterranean nose, whether Spanish or Hebrew or Turkish or Italian, played a naturally greater part in physiognomic organization. His own wife Silvia had a gay, turned-up Irish nose; she was pretty enough by any standard. But—there was a difference.

He guessed that Doreen was in her early thirties. And yet she possessed a freshness that gave her a stable quality. He had seen such clear coloration in high-school girls approaching nubility, and once in a long while one saw it in fifty-year-old women who had perfect gray hair and wide, lovely eyes. This girl would still be attractive twenty years from now, and probably had always been so; he could not imagine her any other way. Arnie, by investing in her, had perhaps done well with the funds entrusted to him; she would not wear out. Even now he saw maturity in her face, and that among women was rare.

Arnie said to him, “We're going out and have a drink. If you get that machine fixed in time—”

“It's fixed now.” He had found the broken belt and had replaced it with one from his tool kit.

“Good deal,” Arnie said, grinning like a happy child. “Then come on along with us.” To the girl he explained, “We're meeting Milton Glaub, the famous psychiatrist; you probably heard of him. He promised to have a drink with me. I was talking to him on the phone just now, and he sounds like a topnotch sort of guy.” He whacked Jack loudly on the shoulder. “I bet when you landed your ’copter on the roof you didn't think you'd be having a drink with one of the solar system's best-known psychoanalysts, did you?”

I wonder if I should go along, Jack thought. But why not? He said, “O.K., Arnie.”

Arnie said, “Doc Glaub is going to scare up a schizophrenic for me; I need one, I need its professional services.” He laughed, eyes twinkling, finding his own utterance outstandingly funny.