The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories (9 page)

Mary glanced at the museum guards; a flicker of communication passed silently between them and then Mary said, “Maybe it’s all right after all.”

“What’s all right?” Milt Biskle said.

“For you to see. Just for a moment. You seem to be standing up to it better than we had expected. In our opinion you
are
entitled to that.” She added, “Yes, Milt, the dog and cat survived; they live here among the ruins. Come along and look.”

He followed after her, thinking to himself, Wasn’t she right the first time? Do I really want to look? Can I stand up to what exists in actuality—what they’ve felt the need of keeping from me up until now?

At the exit ramp of the museum Mary halted and said, “Go on outside, Milt. I’ll stay here. I’ll be waiting for you when you come back in.”

Haltingly, he descended the ramp.

And saw.

It was, of course, as she had said, ruins. The city had been decapitated, leveled three feet above ground-level; the buildings had become hollow squares, without contents, like some infinite arrangements of useless, ancient courtyards. He could not believe that what he saw was
new
; it seemed to him as if these abandoned remnants had always been there, exactly as they were now. And—how long would they remain this way?

To the right an elaborate but small-scale mechanical system had plopped itself down to a debris-filled street. As he watched, it extended a host of pseudopodia which burrowed inquisitively into the nearby foundations. The foundations, steel and cement, were abruptly pulverized; the bare ground, exposed, lay naked and dark brown, seared over from the atomic heat generated by the repair autonomic rig—a construct, Milt Biskle thought, not much different from those I employ on Mars. At least to some meager extent the rig had the task of clearing away the old. He knew from his own reconstruct work on Mars that it would be followed, probably within minutes, by an equally elaborate mechanism which would lay the groundwork for the new structures to come.

And, standing off to one side in the otherwise deserted street, watching this limited clearing-work in progress, two gray, thin figures could be made out. Two hawk-nosed Proxmen with their pale, natural hair arranged in high coils, their earlobes elongated with heavy weights.

The victors, he thought to himself. Experiencing the satisfaction of this spectacle, witnessing the last artifacts of the defeated race being obliterated. Some day a purely Prox city will rise up here: Prox architecture, streets of the odd, wide Prox pattern, the uniform box-like buildings with their many subsurface levels. And citizens such as these will be treading the ramps, accepting the high-speed runnels in their daily routines. And what, he thought, about the Terran dogs and cats which now inhabit these ruins, as Mary said? Will even they disappear? Probably not entirely. There will be room for them, perhaps in museums and zoos, as oddities to be gaped at. Survivals of an ecology which no longer obtained. Or even mattered.

And yet—Mary was right. The Proxmen were within the same genus. Even if they did not interbreed with the remaining Terrans the species as he had known it would go on. And they would interbreed, he thought. His own relationship with Mary was a harbinger. As individuals they were not so far apart. The results might even be good.

The results, he thought as he turned away and started back into the museum, may be a race not quite Prox and not quite Terran; something that is genuinely new may come from the melding. At least we can hope so.

Terra would be rebuilt. He had seen slight but real work in progress with his own eyes. Perhaps the Proxmen lacked the skill that he and his fellow reconstruct engineers possessed… but now that Mars was virtually done they could begin here. It was not absolutely hopeless. Not
quite.

Walking up to Mary he said hoarsely, “Do me a favor. Get me a cat I can take back to Mars with me. I’ve always liked cats. Especially the orange ones with stripes.”

One of the museum guards, after a glance at his companion, said, “We can arrange that, Mr. Biskle. We can get a—cub, is that the word?”

“Kitten, I think,” Mary corrected.

On the trip back to Mars, Milt Biskle sat with the box containing the orange kitten on his lap, working out his plans. In fifteen minutes the ship would land on Mars and Dr. DeWinter—or the thing that posed as Dr. DeWinter anyhow—would be waiting to meet him. And it would be too late. From where he sat he could see the emergency escape hatch with its red warning light. His plans had become focussed around the hatch. It was not ideal but it would serve.

In the box the orange kitten reached up a paw and batted at Milt’s hand. He felt the sharp, tiny claws rake across his hand and he absently disengaged his flesh, retreating from the probing reach of the animal. You wouldn’t have liked Mars anyhow, he thought, and rose to his feet.

Carrying the box he strode swiftly toward the emergency hatch. Before the stewardess could reach him he had thrown open the hatch. He stepped forward and the hatch locked behind him. For an instant he was within the cramped unit, and then he began to twist open the heavy outer door.

“Mr. Biskle!” the stewardess’s voice came, muffled by the door behind him. He heard her fumbling to reach him, opening the door and groping to catch hold of him.

As he twisted open the outer door the kitten within the box under his arm snarled.

You, too? Milt Biskle thought, and paused.

Death, the emptiness and utter lack of warmth of ‘tween space, seeped around him, filtering past the partly opened outer door. He smelled it and something within him, as in the kitten, retreated by instinct. He paused, holding the box, not trying to push the outer door any farther open, and in that moment the stewardess grabbed him.

“Mr. Biskle,” she said with a half-sob, “are you out of your mind? Good God, what are you doing?” She managed to tug the outer door shut, screw the emergency section back into shut position.

“You know exactly what I’m doing,” Milt Biskle said as he allowed her to propel him back into the ship and to his seat. And don’t think you stopped me, he said to himself. Because it wasn’t you. I could have gone ahead and done it. But I decided not to.

He wondered why.

Later, at Field Three on Mars, Dr. DeWinter met him as he had expected.

The two of them walked to the parked ‘copter and DeWinter in a worried tone of voice said, “I’ve just been informed that during the trip—”

“That’s right. I attempted suicide. But I changed my mind. Maybe you know why. You’re the psychologist, the authority as to what goes on inside us.” He entered the ‘copter, being careful not to bang the box containing the Terran kitten.

“You’re going to go ahead and stake your landparcel with Fay?” Dr. DeWinter asked presently as the ‘copter flew above green, wet fields of high protein wheat. “Even though—you know?”

“Yes.” He nodded. After all, there was nothing else for him, as far as he could make out.

“You Terrans.” DeWinter shook his head. “Admirable.” Now he noticed the box on Milt Biskle’s lap. “What’s that you have there? A creature from Terra?” He eyed it suspiciously; obviously to him it was a manifestation of an alien form of life. “A rather peculiar-looking organism.”

“It’s going to keep me company,” Milt Biskle said. “While I go on with my work, either building up my private parcel or—” Or helping you Proxmen with Terra, he thought.

“Is that what was called a ‘rattlesnake’? I detect the sound of its rattles.” Dr. DeWinter edged away.

“It’s purring.” Milt Biskle stroked the kitten as the autonomic circuit of the ‘copter guided it across the dully red Martian sky. Contact with the one familiar life-form, he realized, will keep me sane. It will make it possible for me to go on. He felt grateful. My race may have been defeated and destroyed, but not all Terran creatures have perished. When we reconstruct Terra maybe we can induce the authorities to allow us to set up game preserves. We’ll make that part of our task, he told himself, and again he patted the kitten. At least we can hope for that much.

Next to him, Dr. DeWinter was also deep in thought. He appreciated the intricate workmanship, by engineers stationed on the third planet, which had gone into the simulacrum resting in the box on Milt Biskle’s lap. The technical achievement was impressive, even to him, and he saw clearly—as Milt Biskle of course did not. This artifact, accepted by the Terran as an authentic organism from his familiar past, would provide a pivot by which the man would hang onto his psychic balance.

But what about the other reconstruct engineers? What would carry each of them through and past the moment of discovery as each completed his work and had to—whether he liked it or not—awake?

It would vary from Terran to Terran. A dog for one, a more elaborate simulacrum, possibly that of a nubile human female, for another. In any case each would be provided with an “exception” to the true state. One essential surviving entity, selected out of what had in fact totally vanished. Research into the past of each engineer would provide the clue, as it had in Biskle’s instance; the cat-simulacrum had been finished weeks before his abrupt, panic-stricken trip home to Terra. For instance, in Andre’s case a parrot-simulacrum was already under construction. It would be done by the time he made
his
trip home.

“I call him Thunder,” Milt Biskle explained.

“Good name,” Dr. DeWinter—as he titled himself these days—said. And thought, A shame we could not have shown him the real situation of Terra. Actually it’s quite interesting that he accepted what he saw, because on some level he must realize that nothing survives a war of the kind we conducted. Obviously he desperately wanted to believe that a remnant, even though no more than rubble, endures. But it’s typical of the Terran mind to fasten onto phantoms. That might help explain their defeat in the conflict; they were simply not realists.

“This cat,” Milt Biskle said, “is going to be a mighty hunter of Martian sneak-mice.”

“Right,” Dr. DeWinter agreed, and thought,
As long as its batteries don’t run down.
He, too, patted the kitten.

A switch closed and the kitten purred louder.

Peace Officer Caleb Myers picked up the fast-moving surface vehicle on his radarscope, saw at once that its operator had managed to remove the governor; the vehicle, at one-sixty miles per hour, had exceeded its legal capacity. Hence, he knew, the operator came from the Blue Class, engineers and technicians capable of tinkering with their wheels. Arrest, therefore, would be a tricky matter.

By radio Myers contacted a police vessel ten miles north along the freeway. “Shoot its power supply out as it passes you,” he suggested to his brother officer. “It’s going too fast to block, right?”

At 3:10 A.M. the vehicle was stopped; powerless, it had coasted to a halt on the freeway shoulder. Officer Myers pressed buttons, flew leisurely north until he spotted the helpless wheel, plus the red-lit police wheel making its way through heavy traffic toward it. He landed at the exact instant that his compatriot arrived on the scene.

Together, warily, they walked to the stalled wheel, gravel crunching under their boots.

In the wheel sat a slim man wearing a white shirt and tie; he stared straight ahead with a dazed expression, making no move to greet the two gray-clad officers with their laser rifles, anti-pellet bubbles protecting their bodies from thigh to cranium. Myers opened the door of the wheel and glanced in, while his fellow officer stood with rifle in hand, just in case this was another come-on; five men from the local office, San Francisco, had been killed this week alone.

“You know,” Myers said to the silent driver, “that it’s a mandatory two-year suspension of license if you tamper with your wheel’s speed governor. Was it worth it?”

After a pause the driver turned his head and said, “I’m sick.”

“Psychically? Or physically?” Myers touched the emergency button at his throat, making contact with line 3, to San Francisco General Hospital; he could have an ambulance here in five minutes, if necessary.

The driver said huskily, “Everything seemed unreal to me. I thought if I drove fast enough I could reach some place where it’s—solid.” He put his hand gropingly against the dashboard of his wheel, as if not really believing the heavily-padded surface was there.

“Let me look in your throat, sir,” Myers said, and shone his flashlight in the driver’s face. He turned the jaw upward, peered down past well-cared-for teeth as the man reflexively opened his mouth.

“See it?” his fellow officer asked.

“Yes.” He had caught the glint. The anti-carcinoma unit, installed in the throat; like most non-Terrans this man was cancer phobic. Probably he had spent most of his life in a colony world, breathing pure air, the artificial atmosphere installed by autonomic reconstruct equipment prior to human habitation. So the phobia was easy to understand.

“I have a full-time doctor.” The driver reached now into his pocket, brought out his wallet; from it he extracted a card. His hand shook as he passed the card to Myers. “Specialist in psychosomatic medicine, in San Jose. Any way you could take me there?”

“You’re not sick,” Myers said. “You just haven’t fully adjusted to Earth, to this gravity and atmosphere and milieu factors. It’s three-fifteen in the morning; this doctor—Hagopian or whatever his name is—can’t see you now.” He studied the card. It informed him:

“Earth doctors,” his fellow officer said, “don’t see patients after hours; you’ll have to learn that, Mr.—” He held out his hand. “Let me see your operator’s license, please.”

The entire wallet was reflexively passed to him.

“Go home,” Myers said to the man. His name, according to the license, was John Cupertino. “You have a wife? Maybe she can pick you up; we’ll take you into the city… better leave your wheel here and not try to drive any more tonight. About your speed—”