Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “Not at all. That’s like saying that a hawk doesn’t gallop well, or a horse has poor soaring ability. You can’t compare different species. I’m just not the go-getter type of human. For me, dreams, reveries, visions, and plans meant only for contemplation, never for execution.”

  “I hate to hear you talk like that,” she said snappishly.

  BLAINE had been laying it on a bit thick, of course. But there was a lot of truth in it. He had a pleasant job, an adequate salary, a secure position. He had an apartment in Greenwich Village, a hi-fi, a car, a small cabin on Chesapeake Bay, a fine sloop, and the affection of Laura and several other girls. Perhaps, as Laura somewhat tritely expressed it, he was caught in an eddy on the current of life . . . But so what? You could observe the scenery better from a gently revolving eddy.

  The other car’s headlights were very near. Blaine noticed, with a sense of shock, that he had increased speed to eighty miles an hour.

  He let up on the accelerator. His car swerved freakishly, violently, toward the oncoming headlights.

  Blowout? Steering failure? He twisted hard on the steering wheel. It wouldn’t turn. His car struck the low concrete separation between north and south lanes, and bounded high into the air. The steering wheel spun in his hands and the engine wailed like a lost soul.

  The other car was trying to swerve, too late. They were going to meet nearly head-on.

  And Blaine thought, Yes, I’m one of them. I’m one of those silly asses you read about whose cars go out of control and kill innocent people. Modern cars and modern roads and higher speeds and the same old sloppy reflexes . . .

  Suddenly, unaccountably, the steering wheel was working again, a razor’s edge reprieve. Blaine ignored it. As the other car’s headlights glared across his windshield, his mood suddenly changed from regret to exultance. For a moment, he welcomed the smash, lusted for it, and for pain, destruction, cruelty and death.

  Then the cars came together. The feeling of exultance faded as quickly as it had come. Blaine felt a profound regret for all he had left undone, the waters unsailed, movies unseen, books unread, girls untouched. He was thrown forward. The steering wheel broke off in his hands. The steering column speared him through the chest and broke his spine as his head drove through the thick safety glass.

  An instant later, he was quickly, commonly, messily, painlessly dead.

  II

  HE awoke in a white bed in a white room.

  “He’s alive now,” someone said.

  Blaine opened his eyes. Two men were standing over him. One was an ugly, red-faced man dressed in white, who appeared to be a doctor. The other was a tiny, bald, spiderlike old man with a peering, animated monkeylike face.

  “How do you feel?” the doctor asked.

  “All right, I guess,” Blaine said.

  “Do you see?” the doctor said, turning to the spiderlike old man. “He’s perfectly sane, Mr. Reilly.”

  “Hmm,” said Reilly.

  “Yes, sir,” the doctor said. “The death trauma has been overrated. Grossly overrated, as my forthcoming book will prove.”

  Reilly nodded impatiently. “Well, let’s get started with the recording.”

  He and the doctor walked away. Blaine watched them go, wondering what they had been talking about. A fat and motherly nurse came to his bedside. “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Fine,” said Blaine. “But I’d like to know—”

  “Sorry,” the nurse said, “no questions yet; doctor’s orders. Drink this, it’ll pep you up. That’s a good boy. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”

  She left. Her reassuring words frightened him. What did she mean, everything’s going to be all right? That meant something was wrong! What was it, what was wrong? What was he doing here, what had happened?

  The doctor and Mr. Reilly returned, accompanied by a young woman.

  “Is he all right, Doctor?” the young woman asked.

  “Perfectly sane,” the red-faced doctor said. “I’d call it a good fit.”

  “Then I can begin the recording?”

  “Certainly, Miss Thorne, though I cannot guarantee his behavior. The death trauma, though grossly overrated, is still capable of—”

  “All right, Marie—begin,” Reilly said, in a voice that showed who was boss.

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said.

  SHE walked across to Blaine and bent over him. She was a very pretty girl, Blaine noticed. Her features were clean-cut, her skin fresh and glowing. She had long, gleaming brown hair pulled too tightly back over her small ears, and there was a faint hint of perfume about her. She should have been beautiful, but she was marred by the immobility of her features, the controlled tenseness of her slender body. It was hard to imagine her laughing or crying. It was impossible to imagine her in bed. There was something of the fanatic about her, something of the dedicated revolutionary; but he suspected that her cause was herself.

  “Where do you think you are?” she asked.

  “Looks like a hospital. I suppose—” He stopped. He had just noticed a small microphone in her hand.

  “Yes, what do you suppose?”

  She made a small gesture. Men came forward and wheeled heavy equipment around his bed.

  “Go right ahead,” Marie Thorne said. “Tell us.”

  “To hell with that,” Blaine said moodily, watching the men set up their machines around him. “What is this? What’s going on?”

  “We’re trying to help you,” said Marie Thorne. “Won’t you cooperate?”

  Blaine nodded, wishing she would smile. He felt suddenly very unsure of himself. Had something happened to him?

  “Do you remember the accident?” she asked.

  “What accident?”

  “Do you remember being hurt?”

  Blaine shuddered as his memory returned in a rush of spinning lights, wailing engine, impact and breakage.

  “Yes. The steering wheel broke. I got it through the chest. Then my head hit.”

  “Look at your chest,” she said.

  Blaine looked. His chest, beneath white pajamas, was unmarked.

  “Impossible!” he cried. His own voice sounded hollow, distant, unreal. He was aware of the men around his bed talking as they bent over their machines, but they seemed like shadows, flat and without substance. Their thin, unimportant voices were like flies buzzing against a window. The red-faced doctor smiled dully, and spiderlike old Reilly tapped his foot and looked impatient.

  “Nice first reaction.”

  “Very nice indeed.”

  Marie Thorne said to him, “You are unhurt.”

  BLAINE looked at his undamaged body and remembered the accident. “I can’t believe it!”

  “He’s coming on perfectly.”

  “Fine mixture of belief and incredulity.”

  Marie Thorne said, “Quiet, please. Go ahead.”

  “I remember the accident,” Blaine said. “I remember the smashing. I remember—dying.”

  “Get that?”

  “Hell, yes. It really plays!”

  “Perfectly spontaneous scene.”

  “Marvelous! They’ll go wild over it!”

  She said, “A little less noise, please. Then you remember dying?”

  “Yes, yes, I died!”

  “His face!”

  “That ludicrous expression heightens the reality.”

  She said, “Look carefully at your body. Here’s a mirror. Examine your face.”

  Blaine looked, and shivered like a man in fever. He touched the mirror, then ran shaking fingers over his face.

  “It isn’t my face! Where’s my face? Where did you put my body and face?”

  He was in a nightmare from which he could never awaken. Reilly and the ugly doctor watched him. The flat shadow men surrounded him, their voices buzzing like flies against a window, tending their cardboard machines, filled with vague menace, yet strangely indifferent, almost unaware of him. Marie Thorne bent low over him with her tight, prett
y face, and from her small red mouth came gentle nightmare words.

  “Your body is dead, killed in an automobile accident. You can remember its dying. But we managed to save the part of you that really counts. We saved your mind and have given you a new body for it here, in what you would call the future.”

  Blaine opened his mouth to scream, and closed it again. “It’s unbelievable,” he said instead. And the flies buzzed. “Understatement.”

  “Well, of course. One can’t be frenetic forever.”

  “I expected a little more scenery-chewing.”

  “Wrongly. Understatement rather accentuates his dilemma.”

  “Perhaps, in pure stage terms. But consider the thing realistically. This poor guy has just discovered that he died in an automobile accident and is now reborn in a new body. So what does he say about it? He says, Tfs unbelievable.’ Damn it, he’s not really reacting to the shock!”

  “He is! You’re projecting!” Blaine, deep in his nightmare, was hardly aware of the soft, buzzing voices. He asked, “Did I really die?”

  She nodded.

  “And am I really born again in a different body?”

  She nodded again, waiting. Blaine looked at her, and at the shadow men tending their cardboard machines. Why were they bothering him? Why couldn’t they go pick on some other dead man? Corpses shouldn’t be forced to answer questions. Death was Man’s ancient privilege, his immemorial pact with life, granted to the slave as well as the noble. Death was Man’s solace and his right. But perhaps they had revoked that right and now you couldn’t evade your responsibilities simply by being dead.

  THEY were waiting for him to speak. And Blaine wondered if insanity still retained its hereditary privileges. With ease, he could slip over and find out.

  But insanity is not granted to everyone. Blaine’s self-control returned. He looked up at Marie Thorne.

  “My feelings,” he said slowly, “are difficult to describe. I’ve died, and now I’m contemplating the fact. I don’t suppose any man fully believes—”

  “Let’s cut it right here. He’s getting analytical.”

  “I think you’re right,” Marie Thorne said. She bent low over Blaine. “Tell me your name.”

  “Thomas Blaine.”

  “What?”

  All noise in the room stopped. The men tending the recording machines were deathly silent. Mr. Reilly stepped forward, and the doctor watched him anxiously.

  “What did you say your name was?” Reilly asked.

  “Blaine. Thomas Blaine.”

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Marital status?”

  “Single.”

  “Are you sure?” Reilly insisted. “Are you sure that your name is Blaine?”

  “Absolutely certain,” Blaine answered. “What is—”

  Reilly’s mouth twisted. He controlled himself with an effort and asked, “What do you remember about the Threshold?”

  “The what?”

  “The Threshold!” Reilly roared. “Tell me about it!”

  “I don’t remember anything,” Blaine said.

  “You must! You were in the Threshold for 158 years, until we pulled you into this body! You must remember! Tell me what it was like!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blaine said firmly.

  The spidery old man stared at him. He asked again, “What is your name?”

  “Blaine.”

  “He’s the wrong man!” Reilly screamed. “Don’t you fools see it? Wrong, all wrong, everything wrong!”

  The doctor moved to Reilly’s side, trying to calm him. But the old man thrust him aside and glared down at Blaine.

  “You’re the wrong man!” Reilly shouted. “And you don’t remember the Threshold! Why, damn you, you’ve no right in that body, no right at all! It wasn’t meant for you, you useless interloper! The whole experiment’s a failure and you’ve stolen a good, expensive body. Thief! I’ll rip the life out of you with my two hands!”

  REILLY was hysterical with anger. His thin, long-nailed hands reached for Blaine’s throat. Marie Thorne and the doctor pulled him back. In a moment, Reilly recovered and began to tremble violently.

  “Sir,” the doctor said to him, “your body is not functioning properly. At best, it is not allowing you to think well. At worst, it can’t withstand shocks like these. Under the circumstances, I must insist that you take an immediate reincarnation.”

  “No . . .” Reilly said feebly. “Yes,” the doctor said. “You must reincarnate, sir, while you’re still able. But first, some rest.” He led the old man away. The technicians, solid and mundane now, their vague menace disappeared, began rolling away their equipment.

  “Darn good while it lasted.”

  “A collector’s item.”

  “Shame it’ll never be released.”

  “Wait!” Blaine cried. “I don’t understand. Where am I? What happened? How—”

  “I’ll explain everything later,” Marie Thorne said. “I’m terribly sorry, things have gone wrong. I have to help arrange Mr. Reilly’s reincarnation.”

  The men and equipment were gone. Marie Thorne smiled reassuringly and hurried away.

  Blaine felt ridiculously close to tears. He blinked rapidly when the fat and motherly nurse came back.

  “Drink this,” said the nurse. “It’ll make you sleep. That’s it, take it all down like a good boy. Just relax, you had a big day, what with dying and being reborn and all.” Two big tears rolled down Blaine’s cheeks.

  “Dear me,” said the nurse, “the cameras should be here now. Those are genuine spontaneous tears if I ever saw any. Many a tragic and spontaneous scene I’ve witnessed in this infirmary, believe me, and I could tell those snooty recording boys something about genuine emotion if I wanted to, and they thinking they know all the secrets of the human heart.”

  “Where am I?” Blaine asked drowsily. “Where is this?”

  “This is the Rex Corporation,” the nurse said. “We’re in the life-after-death business.”

  “Oh,” said Blaine.

  Then he was asleep.

  III

  AFTER many hours, he awoke calm and rested. He looked at the white bed and white room, and remembered.

  He had been killed in an accident and reborn in the future. There had been a doctor who considered the death trauma overrated, and men who recorded his spontaneous reaction and declared them a collector’s item, and a pretty girl whose features showed a lamentable lack of emotion, and a nurse who spoke of the life-after-death business.

  Blaine yawned and stretched. Dead. Dead at thirty-two. A pity, he thought, that this young life was snuffed in its prime. He’d been a good sort, really, and quite promising . . .

  But that was no way to feel. Yesterday, he reminded himself firmly, he was a yacht designer driving back from Maryland. Today he was a man reborn into the future.

  The future! Reborn!

  The words lacked impact. He had already grown used to the idea. One grows used to anything, he thought, even to one’s death. Especially to one’s death. If you chopped off a man’s head three times a day for twenty years, he’d grow used to it, and probably cry like a baby if you stopped . . .

  He didn’t care to pursue that train of thought any further.

  He thought about Laura. Would she weep for him? Would she get drunk? Or would she just feel mildly depressed at the news, and take a tranquilizer for it? What about Jane and Miriam? Would they even hear about his death? Probably not. Months later, they might wonder why he never called any more.

  ENOUGH of that. All that was past. Now he was in the future.

  He remembered magazine articles and stories he had read. Today there might be free atomic power, undersea farming, world peace, universal birth regulation, interplanetary travel, free love, brotherhood of mankind, a cure for all diseases, and a planned society in which men breathed deep the air of freedom.

  That’s what there should be, Blaine thought. But there w
ere less pleasant possibilities. Perhaps a grim-faced Oligarch had Earth in his iron grasp, while a dedicated underground struggled toward freedom. Or small, gelatinous alien creatures with outlandish names might have enslaved the human race. Perhaps a new and horrible disease marched unchecked across the land, or possibly the Earth, swept of all culture by hydrogen warfare, fought painfully back to technological civilization while human wolfpacks roamed the badlands; or a million other equally dismal things could have happened.

  And yet, Blaine thought, mankind showed a historic ability to avoid the extremes of doom as well as the extremes of bliss. Chaos was forever predicted and utopia was continually seen just ahead. And neither came to pass.

  Accordingly, Blaine expected that this future would show certain definite improvements over the past, but he expected some deteriorations as well; some old problems would be gone, but certain others would have taken their places.

  “In short,” Blaine said to himself, “I expect that this future will be like all futures in comparison with their pasts. That’s not very specific, but then I’m not in the predicting or the prophesying business.”

  HIS thoughts were interrupted by Marie Thorne walking briskly into the room.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a new man.”

  “Good. Would you sign this, please?” She held out a pen and a typed paper.

  “You’re very damned efficient,” said Blaine. “What am I signing?”

  “Read it,” she said. “It’s a release absolving us from any legal responsibility in saving your life.”

  “Eh?”

  “We saved you. But it’s against the law to save lives without the potential victim’s written consent. There wasn’t opportunity for the Rex Corporation lawyers to obtain your consent beforehand. So we’d like to protect ourselves now.”

  “What is the Rex Corporation?”

  “We’re affiliated with the Hereafter Corporation,” she said. “Our outfit is as well known today as Flyier-Thiess was in your time.”

  “Who’s Flyier-Thiess?”

  “No? Ford, then?”

  “Yeah, Ford. So the Rex Corporation is as well known as Ford. What does it do?”