Selected Stories of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

“I got Napoleon.”

  “I thought Einstein was more important.”

  “Mohammed didn’t change things much—I expected more from him.”

  “I know. I got him too.”

  “What do you mean, you got him too?” Hassel demanded.

  “I killed him September 16, 599. Old Style.”

  “Why, I got Mohammed January 5, 598.”

  “I believe you.”

  “But how could you have killed him after I killed him?”

  “We both killed him.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “My boy,” I said, “time is entirely subjective. It’s a private matter—a personal experience. There is no such thing as objective time, just as there is no such thing as objective love, or an objective soul.”

  “Do you mean to say that time travel is impossible? But we’ve done it.”

  “To be sure, and many others, for all I know. But we each travel into our own past, and no other person’s. There is no universal continuum, Henry. There are only billions of individuals, each with his own continuum; and one continuum cannot affect the other. We’re like millions of strands of spaghetti in the same pot. No time traveler can ever meet another time traveler in the past or future. Each of us must travel up and down his own strand alone.”

  “But we’re meeting each other now.”

  “We’re no longer time travelers, Henry. We’ve become the spaghetti sauce.”

  “Spaghetti sauce?”

  “Yes. You and I can visit any strand we like, because we’ve destroyed ourselves.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When a man changes the past he only affects his own past—no one else’s. The past is like memory. When you erase a man’s memory, you wipe him out, but you don’t wipe out anybody else’s. You and I have erased our past. The individual worlds of the others go on, but we have ceased to exist.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘ceased to exist’?”

  “With each act of destruction we dissolved a little. Now we’re all gone. We’ve committed chronicide. We’re ghosts. I hope Mrs. Hassel will be very happy with Mr. Murphy… Now let’s go over to the Académie. Ampère is telling a great story about Ludwig Boltzmann.”

  * * *

  The Pi Man

  How to say? How to write? When sometimes I can be fluent, even polished, and then, reculer pour mieux sauter, patterns take hold of me. Push. Compel.

  Sometimes

  III

  am am am

  3.14159 +

  fromfromfrom

  this other that

  spacespacespace

  Othertimes not

  I have no control, but I try anyways.

  I wake up wondering who, what, when, where, why?

  Confusion result of biological compensator born into my body which I hate. Yes, birds and beasts have biological clock built in, and so navigate home from a thousand miles away. I have biological compensator, equalizer, responder to unknown stresses and strains. I relate, compensate, make and shape patterns, adjust rhythms, like a gridiron pendulum in a clock, but this is an unknown clock, and I do not know what time it keeps.

  Nevertheless I must. I am force. Have no control over self, speech, love, fate. Only to compensate.

  Quae nocent docent. Translation follows: Things that injure teach. I am injured and have hurt many. What have we learned?

  However. I wake up the morning of the biggest hurt of all wondering which house. Wealth, you understand. Damme! Mews cottage in London, villa in Rome, penthouse in New York, rancho in California. I awake. I look. Ah! Layout familiar. Thus: Foyer

  Bedroom

  Bath T

  Bath e

  Living Room r

  Kitchen r

  Dressing Room a

  Bedroom c

  T e r r a c e

  So. I am in penthouse in New York, but that bath-bath-back-to-back. Pfui! All rhythm wrong. Pattern painful.

  Why have I never noticed before? Or is this sudden awareness result of phenomenon elsewhere? I telephone to janitor-mans downstairs. At that moment I lose my American-English. Damn nuisance. I’m compelled to speak a compost of tongues, and I never know which will be forced on me next.

  “Pronto. Ecco mi. Signore Marko. Miscusi tanto—”

  Pfui! Hang up. Hate the garbage I must sometimes speak and write. This I now write during period of AmerEng lucidity, otherwise would look like goulash. While I wait for return of communication, I shower body, teeth, hairs, shave face, dry everything, and try again. Voilà! Ye Englishe, she come. Back to invention of Mr. A.G. Bell and call janitor again.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lundgren. This is Peter Marko. Guy in the penthouse. Right. Mr. Lundgren, be my personal rabbi and get some workmen up here this morning. I want those two baths converted into one. No, I mean it. I’ll leave five thousand dollars on top of the icebox. Yes? Thanks, Mr. Lundgren.”

  Wanted to wear grey flannel this morning but compelled to put on sharkskin. Damnation! Black Power has peculiar side effects. Went to spare bedroom (see diagram) and unlocked door which was installed by the Eagle Safe Company—Since 1904—Bank Vault Equipment—Fireproof Files & Ledger Trays—Combinations changed. I went in.

  Everything broadcasting beautifully, up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves down to 1,000 meters, ultraviolet up into the hard X-rays and the 100 Kev (one hundred thousand electron volts) gamma radiation. All interrupters innn-tt-errrr-up-ppp-t-ingggg at random. I’m jamming the voice of the universe at least within this home, and I’m at peace. Dear God!

  To know even a moment of peace!

  So. I take subway to office in Wall Street. Limousine more convenient but chauffeur too dangerous. Might become friendly, and I don’t dare have friends anymore. Best of all, the morning subway is jam-packed, mass-packed, no patterns to adjust, no shiftings and compensations required. Peace.

  In subway car I catch a glimpse of an eye, narrow, bleak, grey, the property of an anonymous man who conveys the conviction that you’ve never seen him before and will never see him again. But I picked up that glance and it tripped an alarm in the back of my mind. He knew it. He saw the flash in my eyes before I could turn away. So I was being tailed again. Who, this time? U.S.A.? U.S.S.R?

  Interpol? Skip-Tracers, Inc.?

  I drifted out of the subway with the crowd at City Hall and gave them a false trail to the Woolworth Building in case they were operating double-tails. The whole theory of the hunters and the hunted is not to avoid being tailed, no one can escape that; the thing to do is give them so many false leads to follow up that they become overextended. Then they may be forced to abandon you.

  They have a man-hour budget; just so many men for just so many operations.

  City Hall traffic was out of sync, as it generally is, so I had to limp to compensate. Took elevator up to tenth floor of bldg. As I was starting down the stairs, I was suddenly seized by something from out there, something bad. I began to cry, but no help. An elderly clerk emerge from office wearing alpaca coat, gold spectacles, badge on lapel identify: N.N. Chapin.

  “Not him,” I plead with nowhere. “Nice mans. Not N.N. Chapin, please.”

  But I am force. Approach. Two blows, neck and gut. Down he go, writhing. I trample spectacles and smash watch. Then I’m permitted to go downstairs again. It was ten-thirty. I was late.

  Damn! Took taxi to 99 Wall Street. Drivers pattern smelled honest; big black man, quiet and assured. Tipped him fifty dollars. He raise eyebrows. Sealed one thousand in envelope (secretly) and sent driver back to bldg. to find and give to N.N. Chapin on tenth floor.

  Did not enclose note: “From your unknown admirer.”

  Routine morning’s work in office. I am in arbitrage, which is simultaneous buying and selling of moneys in different markets to profit from unequal price. Try to follow simple example: Pound sterling is selling for $2.79H in London. Rupee is selling for $2.79 in New York. One rupee buys one pound in Burma. See where the arbitrage lies? I
buy one rupee for $2.79 in New York, buy one pound for rupee in Burma, sell pound for $2.79H in London, and I have made H cent on the transaction. Multiply by $100,000, and I have made $250 on the transaction. Enormous capital required.

  But this is only crude example of arbitrage; actually the buying and selling must follow intricate patterns and have perfect timing. Money markets are jumpy today. Big Boards are hectic. Gold fluctuating. I am behind at eleven-thirty, but the patterns put me ahead $57,075.94 by half-past noon, Daylight Saving Time.

  57075 makes a nice pattern but that 94¢! Iych! Ugly. Symmetry above all else. Alas, only 24¢ hard money in my pockets. Called secretary, borrowed 70¢ from her, and threw sum total out window. Felt better as I watched it scatter in space, but then I caught her looking at me with delight. Very dangerous. Fired girl on the spot.

  “But why, Mr. Marko? Why?” she asked, trying not to cry. Darling little thing. Pale-faced and saucy, but not so saucy now.

  “Because you’re beginning to like me.”

  “What’s the harm in that?”

  “When I hired you, I warned you not to like me.”

  “I thought you were putting me on.”

  “I wasn’t. Out you go.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m beginning to like you.”

  “Is this some new kind of pass?”

  “God forbid!”

  “Well you don’t have to worry,” she flared. “I despise you.”

  “Good. Then I can go to bed with you.”

  She turned crimson and opened her mouth to denounce me, the while her eyes twinkled at the corners. A darling girl, whatever her name was. I could not endanger her. I gave her three weeks’ salary for a bonus and threw her out. Punkt. Next secretary would be a man, married, misanthropic, murderous; a man who could hate me.

  So, lunch. Went to nicely balanced restaurant. All chairs filled by patrons. Even pattern. No need for me to compensate and adjust. Also, they give me usual single corner table which does not need guest to balance. Ordered nicely patterned luncheon:

  Martini Martini

  Croque M’sieur Roquefort

  Salad

  Coffee

  But so much cream being consumed in restaurant that I had to compensate by drinking my coffee black, which I dislike. However, still a soothing pattern.

  x2 1 x 1 41 5 prime number. Excuse, please. Sometimes I’m in control and see what compensating must be done…

  tick-tock-tick-tock, good old gridiron pendulum… other times is force on me from God knows where or why or how or even if there is a God. Then I must do what I’m compelled to do, blindly, without motivation, speaking the gibberish I speak and think, sometimes hating it like what I do to poor mans Mr. Chapin.

  Anyway, the equation breaks down when x 5 40.

  The afternoon was quiet. For a moment I thought I might be forced to leave for Rome (Italy) but whatever it was adjusted without needing my two ($0.02) cents. ASPCA finally caught up with me for beating my dog to death, but I’d contributed $5,000.00 to their shelter. Got off with a shaking of heads. Wrote a few graffiti on posters, saved a small boy from a clobbering in a street rumble at a cost of sharkskin jacket. Drat! Slugged a maladroit driver who was subjecting his lovely Aston-Martin to cruel and unusual punishment. He was, how they say, “grabbing a handful of second.”

  In the evening to ballet to relax with all the beautiful Balanchine patterns; balanced, peaceful, soothing. Then I take a deep breath, quash my nausea, and force myself to go to The Raunch, the West Village creepsville. I hate The Raunch, but I need a woman and I must go where I hate. That fair-haired girl I fired, so full of mischief and making eyes at me. So, poisson d’avril, I advance myself to The Raunch.

  Chaos. Blackness. Cacophony. My vibes shriek. 25 Watt bulbs. Ballads of Protest. Against L. wall sit young men, with pubic beards, playing chess. Badly. Exempli gratia:

  1 P—Q4 Kt-KB3

  2 Kt—Q2P—K4

  3 PXP Kt—Kt5

  4 P—KR3 Kt—K6

  If White takes the knight, Black forces mate with Q—R5ch. I didn’t wait to see what the road-company Capablancas would do next.

  Against R. wall is bar, serving beer and cheap wine mostly.

  There are girls with brown paper bags containing toilet articles.

  They are looking for a pad for the night. All wear tight jeans and are naked under loose sweaters. I think of Herrick (1591–1674): Next, when I lift mine eyes and see / That brave vibration each way free / Oh, how that glittering taketh me!

  I pick out the one who glitters the most. I talk. She insult. I insult back and buy hard drinks. She drink my drinks and snarl and hate, but helpless. Her name is Bunny and she has no pad for tonight. I do not let myself sympathize. She is a dyke; she does not bathe, her thinking patterns are jangles. I hate her and she’s safe; no harm can come to her. So I maneuvered her out of Sink City and took her home to seduce by mutual contempt, and in the living room sat the slender little paleface secretary, recently fired for her own good.

  She sat there in my penthouse, now minus one (1) bathroom, and with $1,997.00 change on top of the refrigerator. Oi! Throw $6.00 into kitchen Dispos-All (a Federal offense) and am soothed by the lovely 1991 remaining. She sat there, wearing a pastel thing, her skin gleaming rose-red from embarrassment, also red for danger. Her saucy face was very tight from the daring thing she thought she was doing. Gott bewahre! I like that.

  I

  Now

  write

  foll-

  owing

  piece

  of the

  s P

  t a

  o in r

  r i

  ys

  Address: 49bis Avenue Hoche, Paris, 8eme, France

  Forced to go there by what happened in the U.N., you understand. It needed extreme compensation and adjustment. Almost, for a moment, I thought I would have to attack the conductor of the Opéra Comique, but fate was kind and let me off with nothing worse than indecent exposure, and I was able to square it by founding a scholarship at the Sorbonne. Didn’t someone suggest that fate was the square root of minus one?

  Anyway, back in New York it is my turn to denounce the paleface but suddenly my AmerEng is replaced by a dialect out of a B-picture about a white remittance man and a blind native girl on a South Sea island who find redemption together while she plays the ukulele and sings gems from Lawrence Welk’s Greatest Hits.

  “Oh-so,” I say. “Me-fella be ve’y happy ask why you-fella invade ‘long my apa’tment, ‘cept me’ now speak pidgin. Ve’y emba’ss ‘long me.”

  “I bribed Mr. Lundgren,” she blurted. “I told him you needed important papers from the office.”

  The dyke turned on her heel and bounced out, her brave vibration each way free. I caught up with her in front of the elevator, put $101 into her hand, and tried to apologize. She hated me more so I did a naughty thing to her vibration and returned to the living room.

  “What’s she got?” the paleface asked.

  My English returned. “What’s your name?”

  “Good Lord! I’ve been working in your office for two months and you don’t know my name? You really don’t?”

  “No.”

  “I’m Jemmy Thomas.”

  “Beat it, Jemmy Thomas.”

  “So that’s why you always called me ‘Miss Uh.’ You’re Russian?”

  “Half.”

  “What’s the other half?”

  “None of your business. What are you doing here? When I fire them they stay fired. What d’you want from me?”

  “You,” she said, blushing fiery.

  “Will you for God’s sake get the hell out of here.”

  “What did she have that I don’t?” paleface demanded. Then her face crinkled. “Don’t? Doesn’t? I’m going to Bennington.

  They’re strong on aggression but weak on grammar.”

  “What d’you mean, you’re going to Bennington?”

  “Why, it’s a c
ollege. I thought everybody knew.”

  “But going?”

  “Oh. I’m in my junior year. They drive you out with whips to acquire practical experience in your field. You ought to know that.

  Your office manager—I suppose you don’t know her name, either.”

  “Ethel M. Blatt.”

  “Yes. Miss Blatt took it all down before you interviewed me.”

  “What’s your field?”

  “It used to be economics. Now it’s you. How old are you?”

  “One hundred and one.”

  “Oh, come on. Thirty? They say at Bennington that ten years is the right difference between men and women because we mature quicker. Are you married?”

  “I have wives in London, Paris, and Rome. What is this catechism?”

  “Well, I’m trying to get something going.”

  “I can see that, but does it have to be me?”

  “I know it sounds like a notion.” She lowered her eyes, and without the highlight of their blue, her pale face was almost invisible. “And I suppose women are always throwing themselves at you.”

  “It’s my untold wealth.”

  “What are you, blasé or something? I mean, I know I’m not staggering, but I’m not exactly repulsive.”

  “You’re lovely.”

  “They why don’t you come near me?”

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “I can protect me when the time comes. I’m a Black Belt.”

  “The time is now, Jemmy Thompson.”

  “Thomas.”

  “Walk, not run, to the nearest exit, Jemmy Thomas.”

  “The least you could do is offend me the way you did that hustler in front of the elevator.”

  “You snooped?”

  “Sure I snooped. You didn’t expect me to sit here on my hands, did you? I’ve got my man to protect.”

  I had to laugh. This spunky little thing march in, roll up her sleeves and set to work on me. A wonder she didn’t have a pot roast waiting in the oven and herself waiting in the bed.

  “Your man?” I ask.

  “It happens,” she said in a low voice. “I never believed it, but it happens. You fall in and out of love and affairs, and each time you think it’s real and forever. And then you meet somebody and it isn’t a question of love anymore. You just know that he’s your man, and you’re stuck with him, whether you like it or not.” She burst out angrily. “I’m stuck, dammit! Stuck! D’you think I’m enjoying this?”