Inside Outside

by Philip José Farmer

  Phyllis said, “Let’s go.” The servant began trotting ahead of the palanquin, and he shouted, “Way for the Exchange! Way for the lady of the Exchange!”

  The crowd in the street parted to form an aisle for her passage. To them, sight of the telephone receiver waved in the servant’s hand was enough. The Exchange was not to be trifled with.

  Cull had to take another means of transportation. Under other conditions, he would have been proud of this. For the first time, he was on a mission important enough for him to be given a ticket on the Piggyback Express.

  But, now, he shone only with reflected luster. To ride on a man’s back while she, the deepfreeze bitch, was carried on a palanquin was to be struck in the face.

  He jumped upon the back of the first pony, a big Negro with long muscular legs. Cull’s legs went around the man’s waist and both arms went over his shoulders. The Negro hooked his arms under Cull’s legs to support him, and off he ran at full speed.

  For about half a mile he ran, going fast the first quarter mile, then slowing down at an exponential rate the last quarter. By the time they had reached the next pony, he was breathing noisily as a steam engine. After he had let Cull down off his back, he fell on the stone of the street. He had given all he had.

  Cull jumped up on the next man, a short but muscular blond, and he, too, ran as fast and as far as he could until his legs almost gave way. And he stopped suddenly and dropped his arms and allowed Cull to slip off his back. So it werit, mile after mile as people scattered to make way for them. Piggyback after piggyback, while the leaning granite buildings and gargoyle faces spun by.

  Long before Cull had reached the end of the line, he had decided that, prestige or no, it was a hell of a way to travel. Tough enough on the human steeds, for they often dropped in their tracks after unloading him. But they were in condition, would recover quickly, and did not have far to go. He was not in condition, and he had a long distance to travel. By the time he had reached the destination, he would be so stiff and sore his muscles would creak. The skin on the inner part of his thighs, where they had rubbed against the arms of his carriers, was burning. And he was seasick or bouncesick, whatever you please. Three times he had to halt his ponies while he got rid of his soup and bread. And the sun suddenly became weak, dim, as it did every twelve hours by the hourglass. It was not black but a faintly lit orb, a sun become a moon. All night he rode, hanging on, legs burning, stomach oscillating like a pendulum. All night, and then the sun suddenly flared up again (no dawn or dusk here). He rode all the next day, stopping only once to eat and then too tired to do it. Lifting a stone spoon to his lips, he fell asleep. His pony woke him at once and said they had to go. Orders. Then he found out that, if you were tired enough, you could sleep under almost any conditions.

  But what a sleep! He would mount drowsily on the back of his pony and sink into joggled unconsciousness. The trouble was that the sleep lasted no more than a few minutes. When his carrier reached the end of his run, he would release his hold. Cull would fall off the man’s back, crash into the stone, and wake with a jar. Before he recovered from the shock, he would climb, with assistance, onto the next back. His swiftly beating heart and overdriven adrenalin system would keep him awake for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds. Then, he would slide into unconsciousness again, only to be hurled up out of the deeps by another painful impact as his pony loosed him.

  Nor did complaints help him. The pony would reply that it was not his duty to ease Cull gently to the ground, to baby him so he was not aware of being transferred to another carrier. The pony had not been so instructed. It became evident that every one of Cull’s beasts of burden disliked his job, regarded it as humiliating and degrading. The only reasons they had hired on were (1) jobs were so scarce that any job was better than nothing and (2) the job was a means of getting into the organization and possible promotion in the Exchange.

  But Cull was sick and tired, and he did not see why his status was not now high enough to permit certain privileges. So, at one stop, where an Exchange telephone was nearby, he phoned Stengarius. He complained bitterly, in a hoarse voice, itemizing the rude abandonments, consequent shocks and skinned elbows, knees, and nose, and his burned thighs. A man in his position should not have to put up with such indignities. By treating Cull so cavalierly, the ponies were expressing their contempt of the Exchange, and this should not be permitted.

  This last argument convinced Stengarius. He called the local supervisor and told him what he must do. Without any backtalk, the supervisor agreed. And he phoned ahead to various supervisors. After that, the ponies slid Cull gently to the street and hoisted him onto the back of the fresh runner. By then, he began wondering why he did not, as Phyllis did, rate a palanquin. He could sleep through the whole journey while stretched out on a soft seat.

  He phoned again at another stop. Stengarius exploded. “Who in hell do you think you are? Only a First Phoner rates a palanquin. And you’re a long ways from that! Get back in the saddle, Cull, and ride like blazes! You’re wasting the Exchange’s time! And don’t think this out-of-line request won’t be held against you at your next merit review!”

  “Yes, sir,” Cull said humbly. He didn’t dare to mention that the First Phoner’s mistress had a palanquin. Back to the backs he went. By then, he was so tired he did not wake even during the transfers. How far he went in that condition, he didn’t know. Then, he was shaken awake and saw Sven’s broad red face with its thick orange moustache hovering over him.

  “Rough, ain’t it?” he said grinning. “Think it’s worth it?”

  “It’d better be,” Cull said as he rose painfully. “Got any coffee?”

  “Fyodor’s waiting at the cafe,” Sven said. “Come along.”

  The earthquake struck before they had taken six steps. The stone slab beneath their feet trembled. A low rumbling came a few seconds later. The buildings on both sides of the street began swaying.

  Cull threw himself on the stone, digging into it with his fingers. His eyes were closed, and he was praying that the buildings would not fall. Massive as they were, they had been known to collapse.

  He did not know why he prayed to be spared. Death would have been a merciful — if temporary — escape. Of course, he would wake up again, and he would be where he had been before. Well, not quite, for he might, in the meantime, have been discharged from death at a place far from here and would find himself out of a job with the Exchange. Because of the maneuvering that went on in the organization, twenty-four hours’ absence could get you out into the cold. That is, not kicked out of it, just a loss of seniority.

  The shaking and growling did not last more than thirty seconds. Afterward, there was silence. Nobody cared to speak; they were too busy being relieved. Or they might have been afraid that even the vibration of a voice would tip over a delicately balanced block of stone.

  He rose and looked around. Not too much damage. Here and there, in the faces of the buildings, a block of granite had shoved forward and hung out over the street. A woman had leaped out of a window in her panic and was a mess on the street. Some slabs in the street had thrust upward, looking like half-opened doors to tombs. Some telephone lines were down, hanging from the gargoyles on the building’s where they had been strung.

  Sven said, softly, “Have you noticed that the quakes have been getting more frequent lately? Perhaps what that demon told me is true.”

  “What demon?” Cull said.

  “You know what liars they are. But, sometimes, they do tell you the truth, if only to make you think it’s a lie. Anyway, he says that Earth is in the throes of an atomic war. That the immigration from there is so heavy that almost all of the population must be dying. Or maybe all. There’s no way of determining at what time events take place on Earth. The terrestrial and infernal chronologies are not geared together. Not in a one-to-one ratio, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” Cull said. “If what I’ve been told is true, there’s a lag. I met an old fellow once who told me that
he knows for a fact that those who died in the last half of the sixteenth century immigrated here before those who died in the first half. How do you figure that?”

  “Who in Hell knows!” said Sven, his face becoming even redder. “Things here are just as obscure, puzzling, and unanswerable as they were on Earth. I think that’s part of our punishment. Keep us guessing, keep us insecure. If only we knew! But we don’t! Ever!”

  “Is it better not to have been born and thus never have existed?” Cull said. “Sometimes, many times, I think so. But, even with all the miseries, frustrations, humiliations, anxieties, and pains that we had on Earth and have here, we still get a chuckle, a good belly-laugh, a piece of ass. And we’re aware. Not a nothingness, a zero, floating in a vacuum.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Sven said.

  They had to slow down for a moment. A manna cloud had been forming for some time over this area, and now the filaments had begun precipitating. They fluttered down, whipping this way and that, while people ran back and forth below them. One struck not twenty yards away from them, and they watched while a mob gathered around it and tore away large chunks of greyish-brown waffle-like material or strings of spaghetti-stuff. As soon as anyone had a handful or an armful, he ran. Some got away with their loot; others had to drop it and flee for their lives when faced with the local official gatherers. Every neighborhood had its official gatherers. Otherwise, there’d be absolute chaos. Some would get more than enough. Others would go hungry until the next cloud dropped its nutritious load or they could barter something precious for the manna.

  Cull thought, what a hell of a way to provide food for a world! And he wondered again, for the ten thousandth time, what made the manna clouds form and what constituted their chemical makeup. He thanked himself that he worked for the Exchange and didn’t have to depend on his neighborhood suppliers for manna. You got some very vicious controllers sometimes; they demanded rather peculiar services for an extra share. He knew; hungry, he’d given in to some of the demands before he smartened up and joined the Exchange.

  By then, they had come to one of the sidewalk cafes found everywhere in The City. The earthquake had tumbled some of the stone tables, but these were being set up again. The demon waiter was serving the customers rocktree coffee. Seven stopped by one of the round tables (supported by a single thick stone pedestal) around which five men sat. One rose to greet them, and Cull knew by his voice that he was Fyodor.

  Fyodor was a thick-bodied short man with a big bald round head and an uncut untrimmed grey-shot beard that hung down to his waist. His forehead was tall; his eyebrows, bushy. He had little blue eyes above a blob of a nose, high and prominent cheekbones, and thick red lips. His temples were deeply indented, as if they had caved in. Deep blue shadows and pouches under his eyes made him look as if he seldom slept and that uneasily.

  “Ah, Mr. Cull,” he said in a thin high-pitched voice as he shook Cull’s hand with a thick stubby hand. “Sit down, have a cup of coffee with me.”

  “I’d rather talk in private,” Cull said, looking at the men around the table.

  At the same time, they heard a siren wailing in the distance and knew that They were coming for the dead woman in the streets.

  “Get the Exchange on the phone,” Cull said to Sven. “If X shows, we can notify the Exchange.”

  “Why should Sven do that?” said Fyodor.

  “None of your business,” Cull replied. “But I’ll tell you anyway. Whenever X appears, we drop all other business and hold the lines open. We are trying to determine if X is more than one person. If He should appear simultaneously in two or more places in the City, we will know it because of our phone reports.”

  “Very clever,” said Fyodor. “And so far?”

  “So far, He’s shown up in one place at a time,” Cull said sourly. “But, quite often, He’ll pick up a corpse in one section of the City, and then, a short time later, He’ll be in another section as far as a hundred miles away. It’s difficult to determine simultaneity because of the lack of accurate clocks. How can you synchronize two hourglasses in widely separated locations when a difference of environmental moisture or size of sand grains may cause one to lag the other? And you can’t use sun dials when the sun never moves.”

  “If X were to appear in two areas at the exact moment when the sun died down or became bright again, then you’d know,” said Fyodor.

  “You’re a gold mine,” Cull said. He told Sven he would make the call. And he did, for he wanted to tell Stengarius of Fyodor’s idea and so get the credit. But, before the lines could be cleared, he hung up. He had a second thought. The chances of X’s showing in more than one spot, just at flareup or diedown time, were very remote. And the Exchange, in order to make sure of getting the reports in, would have to tie up the lines every time the sun darkened or brightened. It would be too expensive and too exasperating an operation. And, if it did not pay off within a short time, he’d be the goat for suggesting the plan.

  The sirens wailed louder, and the ambulance sped around the corner. With a ripsaw cry, the wheels locked and the vehicle skidded to a stop just short of the dead woman. The pervert who had been on her jumped up and ran away with both of his bloodied hands held high above his head. He was laughing so shrilly he almost screamed. The spectators, according to their natures, laughed at him or looked sick or cursed him. Cull knew the fellow would not get too far. He had undoubtedly been noted by one of the Exchange’s agents and would soon find himself in its hands. The Exchange did not tolerate perverts of any kind, harmless or otherwise. But they were not killed, for then they might be out of reach.

  So, the Exchange castrated them, cut out their tongues, amputated all four limbs, and thus made them unable to offend or harm anybody, even themselves. Nor were they rolled out upon the streets to shift for themselves. The Exchange took care of their simple wants at its own expense, kept them alive and clean, even gave them coffee now and then or a cigarette. The average citizen would be surprised at the vast numbers of sexless, tongueless, handless, and footless men and women hidden from public view in the City. If he knew, he would have even more respect for the ability of the Exchange to keep law, order, and decency.

  The doors of the ambulance slid into the chassis, and three men got out of the driver’s cab. Two, the driver and his assistant, were dressed in tight-fitting scarlet uniforms with gold braid and big shiny black buttons and fur shakos. These marked them as servants of The Authorities, because such clothes were unavailable to anybody else. The third man, undeniably X, was dressed in the white robe He wore in the conventional portraits of Him (if it were He) on Earth. His reddish hair was long, and his reddish beard fell to just below his chest. His muscular and well-shaped legs were bare, and he wore sandals. The face was the face most people think Christ should have. But — a jarring note — he wore dark glasses. Nobody, as far as the Exchange could determine, had ever seen him without the eye-concealing devices. And this was driving its agents crazy. Why should X wear dark glasses?

  Another mystery was why He — or he — bothered to appear. He never resurrected in public or performed any miracles. He merely supervised the placing of the body in the ambulance. Occasionally, he made a short speech. It was always the same. And this was one of the times, for, after the body had been placed inside the vehicle, he began talking. His voice was high and sweet, and he spoke the pidgin Hebrew in which all except the newcomers were fluent.

  “Once there was a man who lived a good life. Or so he thought, and as a man thinks, so he is, isn’t he?

  “This man grew white-haired and wrinkled while the results of a good life piled up around him. He owned a big home, and he had a faithful and uncomplaining wife, many friends, many honors, many sons and daughters, even more grandchildren, and some great-grandchildren. But, as all men do, he came to the end of his days and lay on his deathbed. He could afford the best doctors and medicine on Earth, but these could help him no more than the worst of quacks and best of placebos. The
only thing they could do for him was to place the crucifix in his hands, the crucifix which bore the figure of the God-man he had adored and obeyed all his long life.

  “The man died but he woke up in a strange place and facing a stranger.

  ” ‘So this is heaven,’ said the old man.

  ” ‘That depends,’ said the stranger. He handed the old man a long two-edged sword. ‘To get into Heaven, you must use this sword. If you refuse, you will be in Hell.’

  ” ‘And what must I do with the sword?’ said the old man.

  ” ‘You will follow that path,’ said the stranger, pointing to a trail through the woods. ‘It leads to a brook. Beside it, playing on the banks, will be a beautiful little girl of six. She seems to be all purity, merriment, and innocence now. But, when she becomes a woman, she will be as evil as it is possible for a human being to be. She will cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. She will order the tortures of hundreds and will enjoy the screams. Moreover, she will have a boy baby who will grow up to be as evil as she.

  ” ‘You will kill this little girl. Now.’

  ” ‘Kill her!’ said the old man. ‘Surely, you must be joking, although I do not see the humor. Or is this some sort of final test for me?’

  ” ‘It is a test,’ said the stranger. ‘And, believe me, I am not joking. I cannot. You will not be able to get into Heaven unless you kill this child.’

  ” ‘Look around you. Do you recognize your country estate? You are yet on Earth, the crossroads between Heaven and Hell. Which path you take from here is up to you. That is, whether you choose to crush the seed of great evil now, before it has a chance to burst the shell, and therefore do a great and good act. Or if you place mundane morality above the love for man and God.’