by Damon Knight
“Maybe it wasn’t really a mole,” Edna said. “It could have been just a spot of dirt or something.”
“It could have been.” He had seated himself again, and as he spoke he speared a bite of egg with his fork. “I suppose it’s even possible that I could grow a mole I don’t have now, and I could put on weight. But that wasn’t me; those weren’t my features, not at any age.”
“Well, why should it be you?”
“I just felt it should, somehow.”
“You’ve been reading that red book.” Edna’s voice was accusing.
“No, I haven’t even looked at it.” Curious, he pushed aside brown and purple pamphlets, fished the red book out of the pile, and looked at it. The cover was of leather and had been blind-tooled in a pattern of thin lines. Holding it at a slant to the light from the window, he decided he could discern in the intricacies of the pattern a group of men surrounding a winged being. “What is it?” he said.
“It’s supposed to tell you how to be good, and how to live— everything like that.”
He riffled the pages, and noted that the left side of the book— the back of each leaf—was printed in scarlet in a language he did not understand. The right side, printed in black, seemed by its arrangement on the page to be a translation.
Of the nature of Death and the Dead we may enumerate twelve kinds. First there are those who become new gods, for whom new universes are born. Second those who praise. Third those who fight as soldiers in the unending war with evil. Fourth those who amuse themselves among flowers and sweet streams with sports. Fifth those who dwell in gardens of bliss, or are tortured. Sixth those who continue as in life. Seventh those who turn the wheel of the Universe. Eighth those who find in their graves their mothers’ wombs and in one life circle forever. Ninth ghosts. Tenth those born again as men in their grandsons’ time. Eleventh those who return as beasts or trees. And last those who sleep.
“Look at this,” he said, “this can’t be right.”
“I wish you’d hurry. You’re going to be late.”
He looked at the watch she had given him. It read 060.26.13, and he said, “I still have time. But look here—the black is supposed to say the same thing as the red, but look at how different they are: where it says ‘And last those who sleep,’ there’s a whole paragraph opposite it; and across from ‘Fourth those who amuse themselves,’ there are only two words.”
“You don’t want any more coffee, do you?”
He shook his head, laid down the red book, and picked up another; its title was Food Preparation in the Home. “That’s for me,” his wife said. “You wouldn’t be interested in that.”
Contents
Introduction—Three Meals a Day
Preparing Breakfast
Preparing Luncheon
Preparing Supper
Helpful Hints for Homemakers
He set the book down again, and as he did so its cheap plastic cover popped open to the last page. At the bottom of the Hints for Homemakers he read: Remember that if he does not go you and your children will starve. He closed it and put the sugar bowl on top of it.
“I wish you’d get going,” his wife said.
He stood up. “I was just leaving. How do I get out?”
She pointed to one of the doors. “That’s the parlor. You go straight through that, and there’s another door that goes outside.”
“And the car,” Forlesen said (more than half to himself), “will be around there under the window.” He slipped the blue How to Drive booklet into one of his pockets.
The parlor was smaller than the bedroom, but because it had no furniture as large as the bed or the table it seemed nearly empty. There was an uncomfortable-looking sofa against one wall, two bowlegged chairs in corners, an umbrella stand, and a dusty potted palm. The floor was covered by a dark patterned rug, and the walls by flowered paper. Four strides took him across the room; he opened another, larger and heavier door and stepped outside. A moment after he had closed the door he heard the bolt snick behind him; he tried to open it again and found, as he had expected, that he was locked out.
The house in which he seemed to have been born stood on a narrow street paved with asphalt. Only a two-foot concrete walkway separated it from the curb; there was no porch, and the doorway was at the same level as the walk, which had been stenciled at intervals of six feet or so with the words GO TO YOUR RIGHT—NOT TO YOUR LEFT. They were positioned in such a way as to be upside down to a person who had gone to the left. Forlesen went around the corner of his house instead and got into the yellow car—the instrument panel differed in several details from the one in the blue book. For a moment he considered rolling down the right window of the car to rap on the house window, but he felt sure that Edna would not come. He threw the reversing switch instead, wondering if he should not do something to bring the car to life first. It began to roll slowly backward at once; he guided it with the steering wheel, craning his neck to look over his shoulder.
The narrow street seemed deserted. He switched into Front and touched the accelerator pedal with his foot; the car inched forward, picking up speed only slowly even when he pushed the pedal to the floor. The street was lined with small brick houses much like the one he had left; their curtains were drawn, and small cars like his own, but of various colors, were parked beside the houses. Signs stood on metal poles cast into the asphalt of the road, spaced just sufficiently far apart that each was out of sight of the next. They were diamond-shaped, with black letters on an orange ground, and each read HIDDEN DRIVES.
His communicator said: “If you do not know how to reach your destination, press the button and ask.”
He pressed the button and said, “I think I’m supposed to go to a place called Model Pattern Products.”
“Correct. Your destination is 19000370 Plant Parkway, Highland Industrial Park. Turn right at the next light.”
He was about to ask what was meant by the word light in this connection, when he saw that he was approaching an intersection and that over it, like a ceiling fixture unaccompanied by any ceiling, was suspended a rapidly blinking light which emitted at intervals of perhaps a quarter-second alternating flashes of red and green. He turned to the right; the changing colors gave an illusion of jerky motion, belied by the smooth hum of the tires. The flickering brought a sensation of nausea, and for a moment he shut his eyes against it; then he felt the car nosing up, tilting under him. He opened his eyes and saw that the new street onto which he had turned was lifting beneath him, becoming, ahead, an airborne ribbon of pavement that traced a thin streak through the sky. Already he was higher than the tops of the trees. The roofs of the houses— little tarpaper things like the lids of boxes—were dwindling below. He thought of Edna in one of those boxes (he found he could not tell which one) cooking a meal for herself, perhaps smoothing the bed in which the two of them had slept, and knew, with that painful insight that stands in relation to reason as reason itself does to instinct, that she would spend ours, most of whatever day there was to be, in looking out the parlor window at the empty street; he found that he both pitied and envied her.
The speaker said: “Do not stop in route. You are still one and one half aisles from Model Pattern Products, your place of employment.”
Forlesen nodded and looked at the watch Edna had given him. It was 069.50.
“You are to park your car,” the speaker continued, “in the Model Pattern Products parking lot. You are not to occupy any position marked ‘Visitors,’ or any position marked with a name not your own.”
“Do they know I’m coming?” Forlesen asked.
“An employee service folder has already been made out for you,” the speaker told him. “All that need be done is to fill in your name.”
The Model Pattern Products parking lot was enclosed by a high fence, but the gates were open, and the hinges so rusted that Forlesen, who stopped in the gateway for a moment thinking some guard or watchman might wish to challenge him, wondered if they had ever b
een closed; the ground itself, covered with loose gravel the color of ash, sloped steeply; he was forced to drive carefully to keep his car from skidding among the concrete stops of brilliant orange provided to prevent the parked cars from rolling down the grade; most of these were marked either with some name not his or with the word Visitor, but he eventually discovered an unmarked position (unattractive, apparently, because smoke from a stubby flue projecting from the back of an outbuilding would blow across it) and left his car. His legs ached.
He was thirty or forty feet from his car when he realized he no longer had the speaker to advise him. Several people were walking toward the grey metal building that was Model Pattern Products, but all were too distant for him to talk to them without shouting, and something in their appearance suggested that they would not wait for him to overtake them in any case. He followed them through a small door and found himself alone.
An anteroom held two time clocks, one beige, the other brown. Remembering the instruction sheet, he took a blank timecard from the rack and wrote his name at the top, then pushed it into the beige machine and depressed the lever. A gong sounded. He withdrew the card and checked the stamped time: 069.56. A thin, youngish woman with large glasses and a sharp nose looked over his shoulder. “You’re late,” she said. (He was aware for an instant of the effort she was making to read his name at the top of the card.) “Mr. Forlesen.”
He said, “I’m afraid I don’t know the starting time.”
“Oh seventy ours sharp, Mr. Forlesen. Start oh seventy ours sharp, coffee for your subdivision one hundred ours to one hundred and one. Lunch one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty-one. Coffee, your subdivision, one fifty to one fifty-one p.m. Quit one seventy ours at the whistle.”
“Then I’m not late,” Forlesen said. He showed her his card.
“Mr. Frick likes everyone to be at least twenty minutes early, especially supervisory and management people. The real go-getters —that’s what he calls them, the real go-getters—try to be early. I mean, earlier than the regular early. Oh sixty-nine twenty-five, something like that. They unlock their desks and go upstairs for early coffee, and sometimes they play cards; it’s fun.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Forlesen said. “Can you tell me where I’m supposed to go now?”
“To your desk,” the woman said, nodding. “Unlock it.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
“Well, of course you don’t, but I can’t assign you to your desk— that’s up to Mr. Fields, your supervisor.” After a moment she added, “I know where you’re going to go, but he has the keys.”
Forlesen said, “I thought I was a supervisor.”
“You are,” the woman told him, “but Mr. Fields is—you know— a real supervisor. Anyway, nearly. Do you want to talk to him now?”
Forlesen nodded.
“I’ll see if he’ll see you now. You have Creativity Group today, and Leadership Training. And Company Orientation, and Bet-Your-Life—that’s the management-managing real-life pseudo-game —and one interdepartmental training-transfer.”
“I’ll be glad of the orientation, anyway,” Forlesen said. He followed the woman, who had started to walk away. “But am I going to have time for all that?”
“You don’t get it,” she told him over her shoulder, “you give it. And you’ll have lots of time for work besides—don’t worry. I’ve been here a long time already. I’m Miss Fawn. Are you married?”
“Yes,” Forlesen said, “and I think we have children.”
“Oh. Well, you look it. Here’s Mr. Fields’ office, and I nearly forgot to tell you you’re on the Planning and Evaluation Committee. Don’t forget to knock.”
Forlesen knocked on the door to which the woman had led him. It was of metal painted to resemble wood, and had riveted to its front a small brass plaque which read “Mr. D’Andrea.”
“Come in!” someone called from inside the office.
Forlesen entered and saw a short, thickset, youngish man with close-cropped hair sitting at a metal desk. The office was extremely small and had no windows, but there was a large, brightly colored picture on each wall—two photographs in color (a beach with rocks and waves, and a snow-clad mountain) and two realistic landscapes (both of rolling green countryside dotted with cows and trees).
“Come in,” the youngish man said again. “Sit down. Listen, I want to tell you something—you don’t have to knock to come in this office. Not ever. My door—like they say—is always open. What I mean is, I may keep it shut to keep out the noise and so forth out in the hall, but it’s always open to you.”
“I think I understand,” Forlesen said. “Are you Mr. Fields?” The plaque had somewhat shaken his faith in the young woman with glasses.
“Right. Ed Fields at your service.”
“Then I’m going to be working for you. I’m Emanuel Forlesen.” Forlesen leaned forward and offered his hand, which Fields walked around the desk to take.
“Glad to meet you, Manny. Always happy to welcome a new face to the subdivision.” For an instant, as their eyes met, Forlesen felt himself weighed in invisible scales and, he thought, found slightly wanting. Then the moment passed, and a few seconds later he had difficulty believing it had ever been. “Remember what I told you when you came in—my door is always open,” Fields said. “Sit down.” Forlesen sat, and Fields resumed his place behind the desk.
“We’re a small outfit,” Fields said, “but we’re sharp.” He held up a clenched fist. “And I intend to make us the sharpest in the division. I need men who’ll back my play all the way, and maybe even run in front a little. Sharpies. That’s what 1 call ’em—sharpies. And you work with me, not for me.”
Forlesen nodded.
“We’re a team,” Fields continued, “and we’re going to function as a team. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a quarterback, and a coach”—he pointed toward the ceiling—“up there. It does mean that I expect every man to bat two-fifty or better, and the ones that don’t make three hundred had better be damn good field. See what I mean?”
Forlesen nodded again and asked, “What does our subdivision do? What’s our function?”
“We make money for the company,” Fields told him. “We do what needs to be done. You see this office? This desk, this chair?”
Forlesen nodded.
“There’s two kinds of guys that sit here—I mean all through the company. There’s the old has-been guys they stick in here because they’ve been through it all and seen everything, and there’s the young guys like me that get put here to get an education—you get me? Sometimes the young guys just never move out,- then they turn into the old ones. That isn’t going to happen to me, and I want you to remember that the easiest way for you to move up yourself is to move into this spot right here. Someday this will all be yours— that’s the way to think of it. That’s what I tell every guy in the subdivision—someday this’ll all be yours.” Fields reached over his head to tap one of the realistic landscapes. “You get what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“Okay, then let me show you your desk and where you’re gonna work.”
As they dodged along windowless, brightly lit corridors it struck Forlesen that though the building was certainly ventilated—some of the corridors, in fact, were actually windy—the system could not be working very well. A hundred odors, mostly foul, but some of a sickening sweetness, thronged the air; and though most of the hallways they traveled were so cold as to be uncomfortable, a few were as stuffy as tents left closed all day beneath a summer sun.
“What’s that noise?” Forlesen asked.
“That’s a jackhammer busting concrete. You’re going to be in the new wing.” Fields opened a green steel door and led the way down a narrow, low-ceilinged passage pungent with the burnt-metal smell of arc welding; the tiled floor was gritty with cement dust, and Forlesen wondered, looking at the unpainted walls, how they could have gotten so dirty when they were clearly so new. “In here,” F
ields said.
It was a big room, and had been divided into cubicles with rippled glass partitions five feet high. The effect was one of privacy, but the cubicles had been laid out in such a way as to allow anyone looking through the glass panel in the office door to see into them all. The room’s windows were covered with splintering boards, and the floor was sufficiently uneven that it was possible to imagine it a petrified sea, though its streaked black and grey pattern was more suggestive of charred wood. “You’re in luck,” Fields said. “I’d forgotten, or I would have told you back in the office. You get a window desk. Right here. Sitting by the window makes it kind of dark, but you only got the one other guy on the side of you over there, that’s nice, and you know there’s always a certain prestige goes with the desk that’s next to the window.”
Forlesen asked, “Wouldn’t it be possible to take some of the glass out of these partitions and use it in the windows?”
“Hell, no. This stuff is partition glass—what you need for a window is window glass. I thought you were supposed to have a lot of science.”
“My duties are supposed to be supervisory and managerial,” Forlesen said.
“Don’t ever let anybody tell you management isn’t a science.” Fields thumped Forlesen’s new desk for emphasis and got a smudge of dust on his fist. “It’s an art, sure, but it’s a science too.”
Forlesen, who could not see how anything could be both, nodded. Fields glanced at his watch. “Nearly oh seventy-one already, and I got an appointment. Listen, I’m gonna leave you to find your way around.”
Forlesen seated himself at his desk. “I was hoping you’d tell me what I’m supposed to do here before you left.”
Fields was already outside the cubicle. “You mean your responsibilities; there’s a list around somewhere.”
Forlesen had intended to protest further, but as he started to speak he noticed an optical illusion so astonishing that for the brief period it was visible he could only stare. As Fields passed behind one of the rippled glass partitions on his way to the door, the distortions in the glass caused his image to change from that of the somewhat dumpy and rumpled man with whom Forlesen was now slightly familiar; behind the glass he was taller, exceedingly neat, and blank-faced. And he wore glasses.