Martian Time-Slip (19 page)

“Also,” he was saying, “there is much in the gourmet line that Miss might be interested in—these.” He held up a jar. Her breath left her: it was caviar.

“Good grief,” she said, magnetized. “Where did you get that?”

“Expensive, but well worth it.” The man's dark eyes bored into hers. “Don't you agree? Reminder of days at Home, soft candlelight and dance music by an orchestra…days of romance in a whirl of places delightful to the ear and eye.” He smiled long and openly at her.

Black market,
she realized.

Her pulse hammered in her throat as she said, “Look, this isn't my house. I live about a mile down along the canal.” She pointed. “I—am very much interested.”

The man's smile seared her.

“You've never been by before, have you?” she said, now rattled and stammering. “I've never seen you. What's your name? Your firm name.”

“I am Otto Zitte.” He handed her a card, which she scarcely glanced at; she could not take her eyes from his face. “My business is long established but has just recently—due to an unforeseen circumstance—been completely reorganized, so that now I am in a position to greet new customers direct. Such as yourself.”

“You'll be by?”

“Yes, slightly later in the afternoon…and we can at leisure pore over a dazzling assortment of imported dainties of which I have exclusive distribution. Good afternoon.” He rose cat-like to his feet.

June Henessy had reappeared. “Hello,” she said in a low, cautious, interested voice.

“My card.” Otto Zitte held the embossed white square out to her. Now both ladies had his card; each read hers intently.

Smiling his astute, insinuating, brilliant smile, Otto Zitte beckoned to his tame Bleekman to lay out and open the other suitcase.

As he sat in his office at Camp Ben-Gurion, Dr. Milton Glaub heard a woman's voice in the corridor, husky and full of authority but still unmistakably feminine. Listening, he heard the nurse defer to her, and he knew that it was Anne Esterhazy, come to visit her son Sam.

Opening the file he turned to
E,
and presently he had the folio
Esterhazy, Samuel
spread out before him on his desk.

It was interesting. The little boy had been born out of wedlock, a year or more after Mrs. Esterhazy had divorced Arnie Kott. And he had entered Camp B-G under her name, too. However it was undoubtedly Arnie Kott's progeny; the folio contained a great packet of information on Arnie, for the examining doctors had taken that blood relationship for granted throughout.

Evidently, even though their marriage had long been over, Arnie and Anne Esterhazy still saw one another, enough in fact to produce a child. Their relationship therefore was not merely a business one.

For a time Dr. Glaub ruminated as to the possible uses that this information could be put to. Did Arnie have enemies? None that he knew of; everybody liked Arnie—that is, everyone but Dr. Milton Glaub. Evidently Dr. Glaub was the sole person on Mars to have suffered at Arnie's hands, a realization that did not make Dr. Glaub feel any happier about it.

That man treated me in the most inhumane and cavalier fashion, he said to himself for the millionth time. But what could be done about it? He could still bill Arnie…hope to collect some trifle for his services. That, however, would not help. He wanted—was entitled to—much more. Again Dr. Glaub studied the folio. An odd sport, Samuel Esterhazy; he knew of no other case precisely like it. The boy seemed to be a throwback to some ancient line of near-man, or to some variant which had not survived: one which had lived partly in the water. It recalled to Glaub the theory being advanced by a number of anthropologists that man had descended from aquatic apes who had lived in the surf and shallows.

Sam's I.Q., he noted, was only 73. A shame.

—Especially so, he thought suddenly, in that Sam could beyond doubt be classified as mentally retarded rather than anomalous. Camp B-G had not been intended as an institution for the purely retarded, and its director, Susan Haynes, had sent back to their parents several pseudoautistic children who had turned out to be nothing more than standard imbeciles. The diagnostic problem had hampered their screening, of course. In the case of the Esterhazy boy, there were also the physical stigmata….

No doubt of it, Dr. Glaub decided. I have the basis for it: I can send the Esterhazy child home. The Public School could teach him without trouble, could gear down to his level. It is only in the physical area that he could be called “anomalous,” and it is not our task here to care for the physically disabled.

But what is my motive? he asked himself.

Possibly I am doing it to get back at Arnie Kott for treating me in a cruel manner.

No, he decided, that does not seem probable; I am not the psychological type who would seek revenge—that would be more the anal-expulsive or perhaps the oral-biting type. And long ago he had classified himself as the late genital type, devoted to the mature genital strivings.

On the other hand, his altercation with Arnie Kott had admittedly caused him to probe into the Esterhazy child's folio…so there was a small but finite causal connective.

Reading the folio through, he was struck once more by the bizarre relationship which it implied. Here they were, carrying on a sexual union years after their marriage had terminated. Why had they gotten divorced? Perhaps there had been a serious power-clash between them; Anne Esterhazy was clearly a domineering type of female with strong masculine components, what Jung called the “animusridden” woman. In successfully dealing with such a type, one had to play a definite role; one had to capture the position of authority right off the bat and never relinquish it. One had to be the ancestral spokesman, or else be quickly defeated.

Dr. Glaub put the folio away and then sauntered down the corridor to the playroom. He located Mrs. Esterhazy; she was playing beanbag with her boy. Walking over, he stood observing them until she became aware of him and paused.

“Hello, Dr. Glaub,” she said cheerfully.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Esterhazy. Um, when you're finished visiting, may I see you in my office?”

It was rewarding to see the woman's competent, self-satisfied expression wilt with concern. “Of course, Dr. Glaub.”

Twenty minutes later he sat facing her across his desk.

“Mrs. Esterhazy, when your boy first came to Camp B-G, there was a good deal of doubt as to the nature of his problem. It was believed for some time that it lay in the realm of mental disturbance, possibly a traumatic neurosis or—”

The woman broke in, firmly. “Doctor, you're going to tell me that since Sam has no problems except his defective learning ability, he is not to remain here; is that correct?”

“And the physical problem,” Dr. Glaub said.

“But that is not your concern.”

He made a gesture of resignation and agreement.

“When do I have to take him home?” She was white-faced and trembling; her hands gripped her purse, clutched at it.

“Oh, three or four days. A week.”

Chewing her knuckle, Mrs. Esterhazy stared blindly down at the carpet of the office. Time passed. Then in a quavering voice she said, “Doctor, as you perhaps know, I have been active for some time in fighting a bill now before the UN which would close Camp B-G.” Her voice gained strength. “If I am forced to remove Sam, I will withdraw my assistance in this matter, and you can be certain that the bill will be passed. And I will inform Susan Haynes as to the reason why I am withdrawing my assistance.”

A slow cold wave of shock passed over Dr. Milton Glaub's mind. He could think of nothing to say.

“You understand, Doctor?” Mrs. Esterhazy said.

He managed to nod.

Rising to her feet, Mrs. Esterhazy said, “Doctor, I have been in politics a long time. Arnie Kott considers me a do-gooder, an amateur, but I am not. Believe me, in certain areas I am quite shrewd politically.”

“Yes,” Dr. Glaub said, “I see that you are.” Automatically he too rose; he escorted her to the door of the office.

“Please don't ever bring up this issue about Sam again,” the woman said, as she opened the door. “I find it too painful. It is much easier for me to regard him as anomalous.” She faced him squarely. “It is not within my capacity to think of him as retarded.” Turning, she walked swiftly off.

That did not work out too well. Dr. Glaub said to himself as he shakily closed his office door. The woman is obviously sadistic—strong hostility drives coupled with out-and-out aggression.

Seating himself at his desk he lit a cigarette and puffed at it despondently as he struggled to collect his aplomb.

When Jack Bohlen reached the bottom of the descent ramp he saw no sign of Manfred. Several children trotted by, no doubt on their way to their Teachers. He began to roam about, wondering where the boy had gone. And why so quickly? It was not good.

Ahead, a group of children had collected around a Teacher, a tall, white-haired, bushy-browed gentleman whom Jack recognized as Mark Twain. Manfred, however, was not among them.

As Jack started to walk past the Mark Twain it broke off its monolog to the children, puffed several times at its cigar, and called after Jack, “My friend, can I be of any assistance to you?”

Pausing, Jack said, “I'm looking for a little boy I brought here with me.”

“I know all the young fellows,” the Mark Twain Teaching Machine answered. “What is his name?”

“Manfred Steiner.” He described the boy as the teaching machine listened alertly.

“Hmm,” it said, when he had finished. It smoked for a moment and then once more lowered its cigar. “I believe you will find that young man over colloquizing with the Roman emperor Tiberius. Or at least so I am informed by the authorities in whose care this organization has been entrusted; I speak of the master circuit, sir.”

Tiberius. He had not realized that such figures were represented here at the Public School: the base and deranged personages of history. Evidently from his expression the Mark Twain understood his thoughts.

“Here in the school,” it informed him, “as examples not to be emulated but to be avoided with the most scrupulous zeal, you will find, sir, as you make your peregrinations about these halls, that many rascals, pirates, and scamps are on display, sermonizing in dolorous and lamentable tones their edifying histories for the enlightenment of the young.” The Mark Twain, again puffing on its cigar, winked at him. Disconcerted, Jack hurried on.

At the Immanuel Kant he halted to ask directions. Several pupils, in their teens, stood aside for him.

“The Tiberius,” it told him in heavily accented English, “can be found down that way.” It pointed with absolute authority; it did not have any doubts, and Jack hurried at once down that particular hall.

A moment later he found himself approaching the slight, white-haired, fragile-looking figure of the Roman emperor. It seemed to be musing as he came up to it, but before he could speak it turned its head in his direction.

“The boy whom you are searching for has passed on. He was yours, was he? An exceeding attractive youth.” Then it was silent, as if communing within itself. Actually, Jack knew, it was reconnecting itself with the master circuit of the school, which was now utilizing all the teaching machines in an attempt to locate Manfred for him. “He is talking to no one at this moment,” the Tiberius said presently.

Jack went on, then. A sightless, middle-aged female figure smiled past him; he did not know who it was, and no children were conversing with it. But all at once it said, “The boy you want is with Philip the Second of Spain.” It pointed to the corridor to the right, and then it said in a peculiar voice, “Kindly hurry; we would appreciate it if you would remove him from the school as soon as possible. Thank you very much.” It snapped off into silence. Jack hurried down the hall which it had pointed out.

Almost at once he turned a corridor and found himself before the bearded, ascetic figure of Philip the Second. Manfred was not there, but some intangible quality of his essence seemed still to hover in this area.

“He has only now departed, dear sir,” the teaching machine said. Its voice held the same note of peculiar urgency as had the female figure's, a moment ago. “Kindly find him and remove him; it would be appreciated.”

Without waiting any longer, Jack plunged down the corridor, a chill fear biting at him as he ran.

“…Much appreciated,” a seated, white-robed figure said, as he passed it. And then, as he passed a gray-haired man in a frock coat, it, too, took up the school's urgent litany. “…Soon as possible.”

He turned the corner. And there was Manfred.

The boy was alone, seated on the floor, resting against the wall, his head down, apparently deep in thought.

Bending down, Jack said, “Why did you run off?”

The boy gave no response. Jack touched him, but still there was no reaction.

“Are you all right?” Jack asked him.

All at once the boy stirred, rose to his feet, and stood facing Jack.

“What is it?” Jack demanded.

There was no answer. But the boy's face was clouded with a blurred, distorted emotion that found no outlet; he gazed at Jack as if not seeing him. Totally absorbed in himself, unable to break out into the outside world.

“What happened?” Jack said. But he knew that he would never find out; no way existed for the creature before him to express itself. There was only silence, the total absence of communication between the two of them, the emptiness that could not be filled.

The boy looked away, then, and settled back down into a heap on the floor.

“You stay here,” Jack said to him. “I'll have them go get David for me.” Warily, he moved away from the boy, but Manfred did not stir. When he reached a teaching machine, Jack said to it, “I would like to have David Bohlen, please; I'm his father. I'll take him home.”

It was the Thomas Edison Teaching Machine, an elderly man who glanced up, startled, and cupped his ear. Jack repeated what he had said.

Nodding, it said, “Gubble gubble.”

Jack stared at it. And then he turned to look back at Manfred. The boy still sat slumped down, his back against the wall.