Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "Since it was no longer necessary," Quink prodded him.

  "Or vice versa. With the urge dying, it might have been necessary for us to circumvent the entire business. An academic question, really. The chicken or the egg all over again. But since we have conquered time, so to speak, it must have occurred to you that there is no need for us to die, and thus no need for birth."

  "You are immortal, then," Dr. Quink said, scribbling in his note pad.

  Mr. Fairfield shrugged. "It beats sex. Which brings us to the problem we are discussing, if we can forget myself for a few moments. Mimi seems to have been awakened to the sexual urge, and that provides an embarrassing situation. Of course, its real significance is in relation to her problem as a whole, in the illumination it sheds upon her neurosis, yet in itself it is, as I say, embarrassing. Coupled with my complete indifference, I mean. Have you any plans for this evening? Perhaps you could dine with us without delay?"

  * * * * *

  Dr. Quink would not ordinarily have accepted such an invitation, being of that class of physician which believes a disease, be it physical or mental, best treated in the antiseptic confines of the office or hospital. Mr. Fairfield, however, struck him as being the altogether unprepossessing possessor of an altogether distinguished psychosis. He was, in fact, rapidly supplanting in Dr. Quink's estimation his previous favorite. Already Dr. Quink was writing, mentally of course, the introduction to the paper he would present to his professional journal.

  Throughout the automobile ride out to Long Island Donald Fairfield was quiet as, both hands tightly on the steering wheel of his new Buick, he alternately fought and coasted with the east-bound traffic. Dr. Quink forced himself to relax, to ignore the ins and outs of the commuters' raceway. He folded his arms across his chest, slumped down in his seat with his legs stretched out as far as they would reach, and observed the facial contortions of his driver-patient.

  Fairfield's lips would twitch as he twisted the wheel and shot into the left lane. His foot pressed down on the gas and the right corner of his lip pulled back in sneering response, the sudden surge of the Buick seemed intimately linked to one muscular act no more than to the other. His eyebrows pressed intensely together, caressing one another, as the big car whipped back into line. A sharp outlet of breath between tightly clenched teeth preceded the sharper blast of the horn and then the Buick was swerving out to the left again with the accompanying lip twitch. A car they were about to pass pulled out in front of them, initiating a spasmodic clutching of the wheel by the left hand, a furious pounding on the horn by the right, and a synchronized twitch, sneer, and muttered "goddam it" from the lips, repeated twice while the eyebrows maintained their position of togetherness.

  Dr. Quink closed his eyes finally. There was nothing more to be gained at the moment from observation. The patient's responses while driving were normal.

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Fairfield greeted them at the door with a martini pitcher in one hand and a modernistically designed apron around her waist. She uttered little squeals about them being early and ushered them into the living room where she settled Dr. Quink on one end of an eight-foot powder blue divan before she left the room with the martini pitcher still clutched tightly in the one hand, the other rapidly undoing the apron of modernistic design. Donald Fairfield had not said one word since the front door had opened in response to their ring; none had seemed to have been necessary nor, in fact, possible, under the deluge of Mrs. Fairfield's effusive greeting. Now he sat in the tilted green armchair in one corner of the room and, closing his eyes, relaxed from the strain of the drive.

  "Your wife is very pretty," Dr. Quink said.

  "Yes, she's probably the most beautiful woman I know," Fairfield said. "That's probably why I took her along. There's something about a beautiful woman.... It was certainly a mistake."

  "Feminine beauty is enjoyable even though you don't indulge in sex?"

  "Of course, it is," he replied, with a gesture of annoyance. "You're still bound by that Freed--Freud, is it?--of yours. Damn him. That's really the main reason I hesitated so long before I brought her case to you. I was afraid you were going to place too much emphasis on the sexual aspects which, of course, by your standards are abnormal. It has really nothing to do with the problem, and I wish you'd forget about it, but I suppose you can't. To you, her sexual instincts will be normal and it will be mine which will appear abnormal, whereas in reality, of course, it's the other way around. You'll never cure her, I can see that now. But then, you don't have to really cure her. If you can just get her to admit the truth for just a moment or two, just temporarily, I can get her back to some really competent men. No reflection on your ability meant, you know. I realize you're the best available in this age, naturally."

  "Naturally."

  "But you can't know that, can you? Well, take my word for it, you are. So suppose you start acting like it and get to work on her, eh? Could it be Gilui? No."

  Dr. Quink bent over and tied his shoelace once or twice before he replied. He would have to talk to Mrs. Fairfield in private, of course, Mr. Fairfield could understand that, of course, it was not that Dr. Quink did not want Mr. Fairfield around when the discussion took place but simply that one could not achieve rapport without absolute confidence and, of course, privacy.

  "Of course," Mr. Fairfield agreed. "I'll go up and shower now, perhaps I'll take a bit of a nap before dinner. I'd like to avoid that horrible liquid she was stirring up when we came in anyhow. Somewhere she's picked up the idea that one should offer those things to dinner guests, and I can't stand them. Will you want a pen and some notepaper?"

  When he had left the room to tread up the stairs one at a time, leaning heavily on the cast-iron bannister but making no sound on the wall-to-wall carpeting, Dr. Quink leaned back and had barely time to pass his hand wearily over his eyes in a circular motion that he found soothing when Mrs. Fairfield entered from behind a swinging door bearing a small circular tray on which were balanced the aforementioned martini pitcher and two high-stemmed glasses, properly frosted and rounded with lemon.

  "Has he left already?" she asked. "Well, shall we get right down to business? You call me Mimi and I'll call you Victor. What did you think of his story? Pretty wild, isn't it? But he's harmless, I'm sure. I'm not in the least bit afraid of him. Do you think I should be?"

  * * * * *

  Victor smiled and accepted the proffered martini. He cradled it in long fingers and, elbows on knees, contemplated his hostess, analyzing her physical attraction. He finally decided it emanated in the main from her almond-shaped eyes and in their somewhat mystical synchronization with her wide, sensual lips. There was definitely a disconcerting correlation between them when she smiled, and as he was studying this phenomenon he realized that of course she was smiling.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It was rude of me to stare."

  "Don't be silly," she said. "It was most complimentary. But I suppose in your position it's best to be extremely careful."

  "My position?"

  "Flirting with your patient's wife."

  * * * * *

  He put down the martini rather too quickly, sploshing a bit over the edges of the glass, leaving colorless stains that evaporated in a few moments. "I don't want you to think that, Mrs. Fairfield," he said. "It's just that ... that ..."

  But she didn't interrupt him to say, "Of course not," or "I was just teasing," or "Isn't it amazing how little rain we've had lately. Did you realize that this is the driest November in sixteen and a half years?" She just stared and smiled at him, and let him flounder and make noises until he gave it up as a bad job and took a long drink from the frosted glass he had so recently and abruptly put down. She refilled his glass and leaned back in her chair.

  "Could you tell me about him, Mrs. Fairfield?" he said then. "Start as far back as you can, please."

  "All right, Victor," she said. "But it won't be much help, I'm afraid. Did he tell you he came from the future?"

  "He
said that both of you did."

  "Yes, that's right. Both of us. And I refuse to go back, is that it?"

  "Because of some deep-seated neurosis which he wants me to cure. His story is plausible, logical, once you grant the basic premise that time travel is an actuality. You see, Mrs. Fairfield--"

  "Mimi, please, Victor. After all, we're not in your office, and I'm not really your patient, am I? Or am I?"

  "Of course not. Well, Mimi, then, the first step is to break down his story. Show him for once and all that it is not plausible, that it is not even possible, that it is plainly and simply a lie which he himself has made up to hide something that he is afraid of. Once we can get him to see this, or at least to wonder about it, once we can break the granite assurance of his that he comes from another time, then perhaps we can probe into his festering secret. But we can't do that, I'm afraid, until he begins to admit, at least to himself, that he is sick and that he needs help. In this case it shouldn't be too hard."

  "My, you are brilliant. I wonder how you do it. Oh, you shouldn't gulp a martini so quickly. Here, let me pour you some more, but sip it this time. I know, I can't stand the taste either, but it's really the only way."

  "Mrs. Fairfield--"

  "Mimi," she insisted.

  "Mimi," he said, then hesitated.

  "Mimi," she prompted.

  "I forgot what I was going to say," he admitted. "Cheers."

  "Don't gulp," she said. "Here, I'll pour you another one, but sip it, now promise."

  "God, it does taste awful, doesn't it?" he said, grimacing. "I don't think I ever tasted one before. Do you think limes might help?"

  "We have some in the kitchen, but it doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Why don't we just throw the mess away and whip up something else? I just wanted you to think I was chic this season to serve martinis."

  "What season? Football?"

  "Hunting," she said, and the eyes and lips smiled together again.

  "Mimi," Victor said a bit pompously, standing up and leaning over her, "I hope you are not flirting with me. You are, remember, a married woman and are, in fact, married to a patient of mine."

  "First of all," she said, "you're being pompous. Second of all, he's not your patient, he says I'm your patient. Third of all, I'm not married to him. And fourth, of all ... is it fourth or fifth ... well anyway, fourth or fifth of all, let's try the limes. We've nothing to lose, it couldn't taste worse."

  * * * * *

  "First of all," he said, following her to the kitchen, "I am never pompous. Second of all, he is my patient because he came to my office obviously seeking psychiatric help but too sick to ask for it. I feel it only my duty to help him and besides, his case is fascinating."

  "And his wife isn't, I suppose," she said over her shoulder.

  "Third of all," he said, "and I ignore the interruption, what the hell do you mean you're not married to him? And fourth of all, it is fourth, not fifth, I think the limes will help immeasurably."

  "Well, I think it all comes back to your original question. You know, about telling you all about him, and how it started, and all that. You see, I can't, because I don't remember. Here, you cut the limes while I look for the squeezer."

  * * * * *

  While Dr. Quink was cutting the limes he didn't exactly talk to himself, but thoughts did present themselves to his mind with very nearly verbal exactitude. The immediate progression towards a solution of this case did not seem to be so clearly cut out as he had assumed it would be. There were, it now became more and more obvious, complications he had not foreseen. Mrs. Fairfield was not exactly acting toward him as a psychiatrist normally expects the wife of a patient to, so that, although he found her pleasant and indeed invigorating, if that is the word and he was not sure that it was but the only alternative that came to his mind, stimulating, had connotations that he was not yet ready to accept, although he did find her pleasant and et cetera yet he found her behavior also disturbing, in the clinical sense this time, and the revelation as to her distinctly limited memory should be described not as a disturbance but as a downright earthquake, to ring in a seismological metaphor that occurred to him as he nicked his finger during the slicing of the fourth lime.

  "Oh, did you cut yourself?" she said, straightening up from the lower shelves of a pine cupboard. "I'm so sorry, but never mind. Here's the squeezer."

  The apparent non sequitur, coming in the midst of his thoughts that were already confused, bewildered him for the moment, but he felt it would be more fruitful to get back to the problem at hand and, blotting his seeping blood with a handkerchief, he inquired after her reticent memory.

  "Oh, let's mix in the lime juice first. Aren't you at all anxious to see how it will taste? Honestly, men have no curiosity."

  Well, as it turned out, it tasted pretty good. At any rate, that was the consensus of opinion, alcoholic as it might have been, as they returned with the pitcher of green martinis to the living room. "The furthest back that I can remember," Mimi said after they had settled themselves on the divan, "the absolutely first thing I can remember is relieving my bladder, if that makes any sense to you."

  "As a matter of fact," Victor said, "it makes extremely good sense indeed. If you will pardon me and kindly direct me towards the wash room?"

  * * * * *

  When he returned after an absence of a few minutes, during which time the muted sound of snoring emanated from the master bedroom into the silence left by his absence, he attempted once again to take up the thread of conversation that had been so abruptly snapped. "You were telling me, I believe, about the first thing you can remember."

  "Yes," she said. "Have another martini. Here, I'll pour. I was on a train, you see, at this moment when my memory begins. It was, by the way, eight months ago. As I emerged from the ladies' room I could not remember from which direction I had come. That is, I didn't know in which direction my seat was, if you follow me."

  Victor nodded more vigorously than he had intended, and she went on. "I didn't know whether to turn to right or left. That's a frightening feeling to have in a train, not knowing where your seat is, when you're all closed in anyhow and you can feel the floor beneath your feet and the walls and ceiling all rushing somewhere so terribly fast and carrying you with it and all. I wasn't really frightened, you understand, but anyway, as I say, it's a terrible feeling. So I leaned back against the wall and tried to collect my wits. But I couldn't think of anything. That really frightened me. So I said to myself, now just relax and think back to where you're going and when you got on the train and who you're with and everything like that and just relax and you'll remember where your seat is in half a moment. But I didn't. Remember, I mean. And suddenly I realized that I didn't remember where I was going or who I was with or when I had got on the train or anything, anything at all. I simply couldn't remember anything previous to a moment ago. I was scared silly by this time, and that damned train kept on rumbling and shaking and rushing on into I didn't know what. So I said to myself, now just relax and keep calm. This is all very silly. Now, then, I said after taking two deep breaths and exhaling slowly, my name is ... my name is ... And by God, I didn't know my own name! It was such a queer feeling I got goose pimples all over, just like that. I mean, I felt as if I knew my name, it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't say it, I just couldn't remember my own name.

  "Then I began to run. I didn't know where I was going but I was scared to hell and I just ran. I ran through five or six cars and the panic kept getting worse, and then I turned around and began running back the way I had come, just running as fast as I could and you know what that's like on a train, I kept falling against people and pushing them off and running and suddenly this man grabbed me and said, 'Mimi, Mimi,' he kept saying that and I guess some more and finally he calmed me down and, of course, it was Donald. He told me I was all right and to be quiet and what the hell was the matter with me anyhow. Well, to make a long story short, we got off the train here and stayed in a ho
tel for a while and then Donald bought this place and here we are. But I don't know if I'm really his wife or not. Did he mention sex to you?"

  Victor nodded and she said, "So you know I'm not his wife that way, at least. And I have only his word that we were ever married."

  "You don't have a marriage certificate, or pictures?"

  "We don't have anything that would prove our existence prior to that date we were on the train. Naturally, he'd have left all that behind when we left wherever we were coming from. Any documents at all would ruin his story. For all I know he just picked me up at the train station."

  "And you just picked up life here?" Victor asked. "As simple as that!"

  "What else could I do? I was terribly frightened, and Donald was so calm and assuring. I didn't really think I had lost my memory, you know. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I didn't seem bewildered or anything, I just could not remember anything. Am I making sense? Anyway, I felt it would all come back to me any moment, and I went on living from one moment to another, and here I am and I still can't remember anything."

  * * * * *

  "What was Donald's reaction when you told him you didn't know who you were?" Victor asked her.

  "As a matter of fact, I didn't tell him right away. I was so afraid, I just went along with him.... Oh, it's so hard to explain."

  "He didn't realize that you were acting strange, bewildered?"

  "Well, you know," Mimi said, "we're not talking about a normal man, remember. I suppose if I acted sort of, you know, lost, he attributed it to our recent trip through time. I don't know. Anyhow, he seemed to accept me."

  "Let's get back to this time-travel bit. When did you realize that he thought you had both come from another time?"

  "The limes really make the drink, don't they?" she asked. "Well, it came out sort of gradually. I'd listen to him really closely whenever he talked about the past, naturally. I was trying to find out about me without telling him, I thought he'd get all excited and all, and of course he did when I finally told him but by then it was all so different and I'm afraid I've gotten confused. Where was I? Oh, you need a refill."