Martian Time-Slip (25 page)

Outside the building, at the curb, Helio sat in the parked jitney with Manfred. Through the window Arnie could see them, far below. He got his gun from his desk drawer, strapped it on inside his coat, locked up the desk, and hurried out into the hall.

A moment later he emerged on the sidewalk and made for the jitney.

“Here we go,” he said to Manfred. Helio stepped from the jitney, and Arnie seated himself behind the tiller. He revved up the tiny turbine engine; it made a noise like a bumblebee in a bottle. “Sounds good,” he said heartily. “So long, Helio. If this goes off O.K., there's a reward for you—remember that.”

“I expect no reward,” Helio said. “I am only doing my duty by you, Mister; I would do it for anyone.”

Releasing the parking brake, Arnie pulled out into downtown Lewistown late-afternoon traffic. They were on their way. Overhead, Jack Bohlen and Doreen were no doubt cruising in the ’copter; Arnie did not bother to search for sign of them, taking it for granted that they were there. He waved goodbye to Helio, and then a huge tractor-bus filled in all the space behind the jitney; Helio was cut off from view.

“How about this, Manfred?” Arnie said, as he guided the jitney toward the perimeter of Lewistown and the desert beyond. “Isn't this something? It makes almost fifty miles an hour, and that isn't hay.”

The boy did not respond, but his body trembled with excitement.

“This is the nuts,” Arnie declared, in answer to his own query.

They had almost left Lewistown when Arnie became aware of a car which had pulled up beside them and was proceeding at the same speed as theirs. He saw, within the car, two figures, a man and a woman; at first he thought it was Jack and Doreen, and then he discovered that the woman was his ex-wife Anne Esterhazy and the man was Dr. Milton Glaub.

What the hell do they want? Arnie wondered. Can't they see I'm busy, I can't be bothered, whatever it is?

“Kott,” Dr. Glaub yelled, “pull over to the curb so we can talk to you! This is vital!”

“The hell,” Arnie said, increasing the speed of the jitney. He felt with his left hand for his gun. “I got nothing to say, and what are you two doing in cahoots?” He didn't like the look of it one bit. Just like them to gang up, he said to himself. I should have expected it. Snapping on the portable communications rig, he put in a call to his steward, Eddy Goggins at Union Hall. “This is Arnie. My gyrocompass point is 8.45702, right at the edge of town. Get over here quick—I got a party that has to be took care of. Make it fast, they're gaining on me.” They had, in fact, never fallen behind; it was easy for them to match the speed of the little jitney, and even to exceed it.

“Will do, Arnie,” Eddy Goggins said. “I'll send some of the boys on the double; don't worry.”

Now the car edged ahead and drew toward the curb. Arnie reluctantly slowed the jitney to a stop. The car placed itself in a position to block escape, and then Glaub jumped from it and scuttled up crablike to the jitney, waving his arms.

“This ends your career of bullying and domineering,” he shouted at Arnie.

Kee-rist, Arnie thought. At a time like this. “What do you want?” he said. “Make it snappy; I got business.”

“Leave Jack Bohlen alone,” Dr. Glaub panted. “I represent him, and he needs rest and quiet. You'll have to deal with me.”

From the car Anne Esterhazy emerged; she approached the jitney and confronted Arnie. “As I understand the situation—” she began.

“You understand nothin’,” Arnie said, with venom. “Let me by, or I'll take care of both of you.”

Overhead, a ’copter with the Water Workers’ Union marking on it appeared and began to descend; it was Jack and Doreen, Arnie guessed. And behind it came a second ’copter at tremendous speed; that no doubt was Eddy and the Good-members. Both ’copters prepared to land close by.

Anne Esterhazy said, “Arnie, I know that something bad is going to happen to you if you don't stop what you're doing.”

“To me?” he said, amused and incredulous.

“I feel it. Please, Arnie. Whatever it is you're up to—think twice. There's so much good in the world; must you have your revenge?”

“Go back to New Israel and tend your goddamn store.” He fast-idled the motor of the jitney.

“That boy,” Anne said. “That's Manfred Steiner, isn't it? Let Milton take him back to Camp B-G; it's better for everyone, better for him and for you.”

One of the ’copters had landed. From it hopped three or four WWU men; they came running up the street, and Dr. Glaub, seeing them, plucked dolefully at Anne's sleeve.

“I see them.” She remained unruffled. “Please, Arnie. You and I have worked together so often, on so many worthwhile things…for my sake, for Sam's sake—if you go ahead with this, I know you and I will never be together again in any way whatever. Can't you feel that? Is this so important as all that, to lose so much?”

Arnie said nothing.

Puffing, Eddy Goggins appeared beside the jitney. The union men fanned out toward Anne Esterhazy and Dr. Glaub. Now the other ’copter had landed, and from it stepped Jack Bohlen.

“Ask him,” Arnie said. “He's coming of his own free will; he's a grown man, he knows what he's doing. Ask him if he isn't voluntarily coming along on this pilgrimage.”

As Glaub and Anne Esterhazy turned toward Jack, Arnie Kott backed up the jitney; he shifted into forward and shot around the side of the parked car. A scuffle broke out, as Glaub tried to get back into the car; two Goodmembers grabbed him and they wrestled. Arnie steered the jitney straight ahead, and the car and the people fell behind.

“Here we go,” he said to Manfred.

Ahead, the street became a vague level strip passing from the city out onto the desert, in the direction of the hills far beyond. The jitney bumped along at near top speed, and Arnie smiled. Beside him the boy's face shone with excitement.

Nobody can stop me, Arnie said to himself.

The sounds of the squabble faded from his ears; he heard now only the buzz of the tiny turbine of the jitney. He settled back.

Dirty Knobby, get ready, he said to himself. And then he thought of Jack Bohlen's magic charm, the water witch which Helio said the man had on him, and Arnie frowned. But the frown was momentary. He did not slow down.

Beside him Manfred crowed excitedly, “Gubble gubble!”

“What's that mean, gubble gubble?” Arnie asked.

There was no answer, as the two of them bounced along in the UN post office jitney toward the F.D.R. Mountains directly ahead.

Maybe I'll find out what it means when we get there, Arnie said to himself. I'd like to know. For some reason the sounds which the boy made, the unintelligible words, made him nervous, more so than anything else. He wished suddenly that Helio was along.

“Gubble gubble!” Manfred cried as they sped along.

15

The black, lopsided projection of sandstone and volcanic glass which was Dirty Knobby poked up huge and gaunt ahead of them in the glow of early morning. They had spent the night on the desert, in a tent, the ’copter parked close by. Jack Bohlen and Doreen Anderton had exchanged no words with them; at dawn the ’copter had taken off to circle overhead. Arnie and the boy Manfred Steiner had eaten a good breakfast and then packed up and resumed their trip.

Now the trip, the pilgrimage to the sacred rock of the Bleekmen, was over.

Seeing Dirty Knobby close up like this, Arnie thought, There's the place that'll cure us all of whatever ails us. Letting Manfred take the tiller of the jitney, he consulted the map which Heliogabalus had drawn. It showed the path up into the range to the rock. There was, Helio had told him, a hollowed-out chamber on the north side of the rock, where a Bleekman priest could generally be found. Unless, Arnie said to himself, he's off somewhere sleeping off a binge. He knew the Bleekmen priests; they were old winos, for the most part. Even the Bleekmen had contempt for them.

At the base of the first hill, in the shadows, he parked the jitney and shut off its engine. “From here we climb on foot,” he said to Manfred. “We'll carry as much gear as we can, food and water naturally, and the communications rig, and I guess if we need to cook we can come back for the stove. It's only supposed to be a few more miles.”

The boy hopped from the jitney. He and Arnie unloaded the gear, and soon they were trudging up a rocky trail, into the F.D.R. range.

Glancing about with apprehension, Manfred huddled and shivered. Perhaps the boy was experiencing
AM-WEB
once more, Arnie conjectured. The Henry Wallace was only a hundred miles from here. The boy might well have picked up the emanations of the structure to come, close as they were, now. In fact he could almost feel them himself.

Or was it the rock of the Bleekmen which he felt?

He did not like the sight of it. Why make a shrine out of this? he asked himself. Perverse—this arid place. But maybe a long time ago this region had been fertile. Evidence of one-time Bleekmen camps could be made out along the path. Maybe the Martians had originated here; the land certainly had an old, used appearance. As if, he thought, a million gray-black creatures had handled all this throughout the ages. And now what was it? A last remains for a dying race. A relic for those who were not going to be around much longer.

Wheezing from the exertion of climbing with a heavy load, Arnie halted. Manfred toiled up the steep acclivity after him, still casting anxiety-stricken looks around.

“Don't worry,” Arnie said encouragingly. “There's nothing here to be scared of.” Was the boy's talent already blending with that of the rock? And, he wondered, had the rock itself become apprehensive, too? Was it capable of that?

The trail leveled out and became wider. And all was in shadow; cold and damp hung over everything, as if they were treading within a great tomb. The vegetation that grew thin and noxious along the surface of rocks had a dead quality to it, as if something had poisoned it in its act of growing. Ahead lay a dead bird on the path, a rotten corpse that might have been there for weeks; he could not tell. It had a mummified appearance.

I sure don't enjoy this place, Arnie said to himself.

Halting at the bird, Manfred bent down and said, “Gubbish.”

“Yeah,” Arnie murmured. “Come on, let's go.”

They arrived all at once at the base of the rock.

Wind rustled the leaves of vegetation, the shrubs which looked as if they had been skinned down to their elements: bare and picked over, like bones stuck upright in the soil. The wind emerged from a crack in Dirty Knobby and it smelled, he thought, as if some sort of animal lived there. Maybe the priest himself; he saw with no real surprise an empty wine bottle lying off to one side, with other bits of debris caught on the sharp foliage nearby.

“Anybody around?” Arnie called.

After a long time an old man, a Bleekman, gray as if wrapped in webs, edged out of the chamber within the rock. The wind seemed to blow him along, so that he crept sideways, pausing against the side of the cavity and then stirring forward once more. His eyes were red-rimmed.

“You old drunk,” Arnie said in a low voice. And then from a piece of paper Helio had given him he greeted the old man in Bleeky.

The priest mumbled a toothless, mechanical response.

“Here.” Arnie held out a carton of cigarettes. The priest, mumbling, sidled forward and took the carton in his claws; he tucked the carton beneath his gray-webbed robes. “You like that, huh?” Arnie said. “I thought you would.”

From the piece of paper he read, in Bleeky, the purpose of his visit and what he wanted the priest to do. He wanted the priest to leave him and Manfred in peace for an hour or so, at the chamber, so that they could summon the spirit of the rock.

Still mumbling, the priest backed away, fussed with the hem of his robes, then turned and shambled off. He disappeared down a side trail without a backward look at Arnie and Manfred.

Arnie turned the paper over and read the instructions that Helio had written out.

(1) Enter chamber.

Taking Manfred by the arm, he led him step by step into the dark cleft of the rock; flashing on his light, he led the boy along until the chamber became large. It still smelled bad, he thought, as if it had been kept closed up for centuries. Like an old box full of decayed rags, a vegetable rather than animal scent.

Now what? Again he consulted Helio's paper.

(2) Light fire.

An uneven ring of boulders surrounded a blackened pit in which lay fragments of wood and what appeared to be bones… It looked as if the old wino fixed his meals here.

In his pack Arnie had kindling; he got it out now, laying the pack on the floor of the cavern and fumbling stiff-fingered with the straps. “Don't get lost, kid,” he said to Manfred. I wonder if we're ever coming out of here again? he asked himself.

Both of them felt better, however, when the fire had been lit. The cavern became warmer, but not dry; the smell of mold persisted and even seemed to become stronger, as if the fire were attracting it, whatever it was.

The next instruction bewildered him; it did not seem to fit in, but nonetheless he complied.

(3) Turn on portable radio to 574 kc.

Arnie got out the little Japanese-made transistor portable and turned it on. At 574 kc. nothing but static issued forth. It seemed, though, to obtain a response from the rock around them; the rock seemed to change and become more alert, as if the noise from the radio had awakened it to their presence. The next instruction was equally annoying.

(4) Take Nembutal (boy not take).

Using the canteen, Arnie swallowed the Nembutal down, wondering if its purpose was to blur his senses and make him credulous. Or was it to stifle his anxiety?

Only one instruction remained.

(5) Throw enclosed packet on fire.

Helio had put into Arnie's pack a small paper, a wadded-up page from the New York
Times,
with some kind of grass within it. Kneeling by the fire, Arnie carefully unwrapped the packet and dumped the dark, dry strands into the flames. A nauseating smell arose and the flames died down. Smoke billowed out, filling the chamber; he heard Manfred cough. Goddamn, Arnie thought, it'll kill us yet if we keep on.

The smoke disappeared almost at once. The cavern seemed now dark and empty and much larger than before, as if the rock around them had receded. He felt, all at once, as if he were going to fall; he seemed no longer to be standing precisely upright. Sense of balance gone, he realized. Nothing to use as bearing.

“Manfred,” he said, “now listen. On account of me you don't have to worry about that
AM-WEB
anymore, like Helio explained. You got that? O.K. Now regress back around three weeks. Can you do that? Really put your back into it, try hard as you can.”

In the gloom the boy peeped at him, eyes wide with fear.

“Back to before I knew Jack Bohlen,” Arnie said. “Before I met him out on the desert that day those Bleekmen were dying of thirst. You get it?” He walked toward the boy—

He fell flat on his face.

The Nembutal, he thought. Better get back up before I pass out entirely. He struggled up, groping for something to catch on to. Light flared, searing him; he put his hands…and then he was in water. Warm water poured over him, over his face; he spluttered, choked, saw around him billowing steam, felt beneath his feet familiar tile.

He was in his steam bath.

Voices of men conversing. Eddy's voice, saying, “Right, Arnie.” Then the outline of shapes around him, other men taking showers.

Down inside him, near his groin, his duodenal ulcer began to burn and he realized that he was terribly hungry. He stepped from the shower and with weak, unwilling legs padded across the warm, wet tiles, searching for the attendant so that he could get his great terrycloth bath towel.

I been here before, he thought. I've done all this, said what I'm going to say; it's uncanny. What do they call it? French word…

Better get some breakfast. His stomach rumbled and the ulcer pain increased.

“Hey, Tom,” he called to the attendant. “Dry me off and get me dressed so I can go eat; my ulcer's killing me.” He had never felt such pain from it before.

“Right, Arnie,” the attendant said, stepping toward him, holding out the huge soft white towel.

When he had been dressed by the attendant, in his gray flannel trousers and T-shirt, soft leather boots, and nautical cap, Goodmember Arnie Kott left the steam bath and crossed the corridor of the Union Hall to his dining room, where Heliogabalus had his breakfast waiting.

At last he sat before a stack of hotcakes and bacon, genuine Home coffee, a glass of orange juice from New Israel oranges, and the previous week's New York
Times,
the Sunday edition.

He trembled with consternation as he reached to pick up the glass of chilled, strained, sweet orange juice; the glass was slippery and smooth to the touch and almost eluded him in mid-trip…. He thought, I have to be careful, slow down and take it easy.
It's really so; I'm back here where I was, several weeks ago. Manfred and the rock of the Bleekmen did it together.
Wow, he thought, his mind a hubbub of anticipation. This is something! He sipped at the orange juice, enjoying each swallow of it until the glass had been emptied.

I got what I wanted,
he said to himself.

Now, I have to be careful, he told himself; there are some things I sure don't want to change. I want to be sure I don't foul up my black-market business by doing the natural thing and interfering so that old Norb Steiner doesn't take his own life. I mean, it's sad about him, but I don't intend to get out of the business; so that stays as it is. As it's going to be, he corrected himself.

Mainly I got two things to do. First, I see that I get a legal deed to land in the F.D.R. range all around the Henry Wallace area, and that deed'll predate old man Bohlen's deed by several weeks. So the hell with the old speculator, flying out here from Earth. When he does come, weeks from now, he'll discover the land's been bought. Trip all the way here and back for nothing. Maybe he'll have a heart attack. Arnie chuckled, thinking about that. Too bad.

And then the other thing. Jack Bohlen himself.

I'm going to fix him, he said to himself, a guy I haven't met yet, that doesn't know me, although I know him.

What I am to Jack Bohlen now is fate.

“Good morning, Mr. Kott.”

Annoyed at having his meditation interrupted, he glanced up and saw that a girl had entered the room and was standing by his desk expectantly. He did not recognize her. A girl from the secretary pool, he realized, come to take the morning's dictation.

“Call me Arnie,” he muttered. “Everybody's supposed to call me that. How come you didn't know, you new around here?”

The girl, he thought, was not too good-looking, and he returned to his newspaper. But on the other hand, she had a heavy, full figure. The black silk dress she wore: there isn't much on under that, he said to himself as he observed her around the side of the newspaper. Not married; he saw no wedding ring on her finger.

“Come over here,” he said. “You scared of me because I'm the famous great Arnie Kott, in charge of this whole place?”

The girl approached in a luxuriant sidling motion that surprised him; she seemed to creep sideways over to the desk. And in an insinuating, hoarse voice, she said, “No, Arnie, I'm not scared of you.” Her blunt stare did not seem to be one of innocence; on the contrary, its implied knowledge jolted him. It seemed to him as if she were conscious of every whim and urge in him, especially those that applied to her.

“You been working here long?” he asked.

“No, Arnie.” She moved closer, now, and rested against the edge of the desk so that one leg—he could hardly believe it—gradually came into contact with his own.

Methodically, her leg undulated against his own in a simple, reflexive, rhythmic way that made him recoil and say weakly, “Hey.”

“What's the matter, Arnie?” the girl said, and smiled. It was a smile like nothing he had ever seen in his life before, cold and yet full of intimation; utterly without warmth, as if a machine had stamped it there, constructed it by pattern out of lips, teeth, tongue…and yet it swamped him with its sensuality. It poured forth a saturated, sopping heat that made him sit rigid in his chair, unable to look away. Mostly it was the tongue, he thought. It vibrated. The end, he noticed, had a pointed quality, as if it was good at cutting; a tongue that could hurt, that enjoyed slitting into something alive, tormenting it, and making it beg for mercy. That was the part it liked most: to hear the pleas. The teeth, too, white and sharp…made for rending.

He shivered.

“Do I bother you, Arnie?” the girl murmured. She had, by degrees, slid her body along the desk so that now—he could not understand how it had been accomplished—she rested almost entirely against him. My God, he thought, she's—it was impossible.