“Fine,” Sharp said, with satisfaction. “I’ll be glad to see something here again, after all these years.”
The expert asked: “What was it like before the war? I never saw that; I was born after the destruction began.”
“Well,” Sharp said, surveying the fields of snow, “this was a thriving agricultural center. They grew grapefruit here. Arizona grapefruit. The Roosevelt Dam was along this way.”
“Yes,” the expert said, nodding. “We located the remnants of it.”
“Cotton was grown here. So was lettuce, alfalfa, grapes, olives, apricots—the thing I remember most, the time I came through Phoenix with my family, was the eucalyptus trees.”
“We won’t have all that back,” the expert said regretfully. “What the heck—eucalyptus? I never heard of that.”
“There aren’t any left in the United States,” Sharp said. “You’d have to go to Australia.”
Listening, Humphrys jotted down a notation. “Okay,” he said aloud, switching off the lamp. “Come back, Sharp.”
With a grunt, Paul Sharp blinked and opened his eyes. “What—” Struggling up, he yawned, stretched, peered blankly around the office. “Something about reclamation. I was supervising a team of recon men. A young kid.”
“When did you reclaim Phoenix?” Humphrys asked. “That seems to be included in the vital time-space segment.”
Sharp frowned. “We never reclaimed Phoenix. That’s still projected. We hope to get at it sometime in the next year.”
“Are you positive?”
“Naturally. That’s my job.”
“I’m going to have to send you back,” Humphrys said, already reaching for the lamp.
“What happened?”
The lamp came on. “Relax,” Humphrys instructed briskly, a trifle too briskly for a man supposed to know exactly what he was doing. Forcing himself to slow down, he said carefully: “I want your perspective to broaden. Take in an earlier incident, one preceding the Phoenix reclamation.”
In an inexpensive cafeteria in the business district, two men sat facing each other across a table.
“I’m sorry,” Paul Sharp said, with impatience. “I’ve got to get back to my work.” Picking up his cup of ersatz coffee, he gulped the contents down.
The tall, thin man carefully pushed away his empty dishes and, leaning back, lit a cigar.
“For two years,” Giller said bluntly, “you’ve been giving us the runaround. Frankly, I’m a little tired of it.”
“Runaround?” Sharp had started to rise. “I don’t get your drift.”
“You’re going to reclaim an agricultural area—you’re going to tackle Phoenix. So don’t tell me you’re sticking to industrial. How long do you imagine those people are going to keep on living? Unless you reclaim their farms and lands—”
“What people?”
Harshly, Giller said: “The people living at Petaluma. Camped around the craters.”
With vague dismay, Sharp murmured: “I didn’t realize there was anybody living there. I thought you all headed for the nearest reclaimed regions, San Francisco and Sacramento.”
“You never read the petitions we presented,” Giller said softly.
Sharp colored. “No, as a matter of fact. Why should I? If there’re people camping in the slag, it doesn’t alter the basic situation; you should leave, get out of there. That area is through.” He added: “I got out.”
Very quietly, Giller said: “You would have stuck around if you’d farmed there. If your family had farmed there for over a century. It’s different from running a drug store. Drug stores are the same everywhere in the world.”
“So are farms.”
“No,” Giller said dispassionately. “Your land, your family’s land, has a unique feeling. We’ll keep on camping there until we’re dead or until you decide to reclaim.” Mechanically collecting the checks, he finished: “I’m sorry for you, Paul. You never had roots like we have. And I’m sorry you can’t be made to understand.” As he reached into his coat for his wallet, he asked: “When can you fly out there?”
“Fly!” Sharp echoed, shuddering. “I’m not flying anywhere.”
“You’ve got to see the town again. You can’t decide without having seen those people, seen how they’re living.”
“No,” Sharp said emphatically. “I’m not flying out there. I can decide on the basis of reports.”
Giller considered. “You’ll come,” he declared.
“Over my dead body!”
Giller nodded. “Maybe so. But you’re going to come. You can’t let us die without looking at us. You’ve got to have the courage to see what it is you’re doing.” He got out a pocket calendar and scratched a mark by one of the dates. Tossing it across the table to Sharp, he informed him: “We’ll come by your office and pick you up. We have the plane we flew down here. It’s mine. It’s a sweet ship.”
Trembling, Sharp examined the calendar. And, standing over his mumbling, supine patient, so did Humphrys.
He had been right. Sharp’s traumatic incident, the repressed material, didn’t lie in the past.
Sharp was suffering from a phobia based on an event six months in the future.
“Can you get up?” Humphrys inquired.
In the chair, Paul Sharp stirred feebly. “I—” he began, and then sank into silence.
“No more for a while,” Humphrys told him reassuringly. “You’ve had enough. But I wanted to get you away from the trauma itself.”
“I feel better now.”
“Try to stand.” Humphrys approached and stood waiting, as the man crept unsteadily to his feet.
“Yes,” Sharp breathed. “It has receded. What was that last? I was in a cafe or something. With Giller.”
From his desk Humphrys got a prescription pad. “I’m going to write you out a little comfort. Some round white pills to take every four hours.” He scribbled and then handed the slip to his patient. “So you will relax. It’ll take away some of the tension.”
“Thanks,” Sharp said, in a weak, almost inaudible voice. Presently, he asked: “A lot of material came up, didn’t it?”
“It certainly did,” Humphrys admitted tightly.
There was nothing he could do for Paul Sharp. The man was very close to death now—in six short months, Giller would go to work on him. And it was too bad, because Sharp was a nice guy, a nice, conscientious, hard-working bureaucrat who was only trying to do his job as he saw it.
“What do you think?” Sharp asked pathetically. “Can you help me?”
“I’ll try,” Humphrys answered, not able to look directly at him. “But it goes very deep.”
“It’s been a long time growing,” Sharp admitted humbly. Standing by the chair, he seemed small and forlorn; not an important official but only one isolated, unprotected individual. “I’d sure appreciate your help. If this phobia keeps up, no telling where it’ll end.”
Humphrys asked suddenly, “Would you consider changing your mind and granting Giller’s demands?”
“I can’t,” Sharp said. “It’s bad policy. I’m opposed to special pleading, and that’s what it is.”
“Even if you come from the area? Even if the people are friends and former neighbors of yours?”
“It’s my job,” Sharp said. “I have to do it without regard for my feelings or anybody else’s.”
“You’re not a bad fellow,” Humphrys said involuntarily. “I’m sorry—” He broke off.
“Sorry what?” Sharp moved mechanically toward the exit door. “I’ve taken enough of your time. I realize how busy you analysts are. When shall I come back. Can I come back?”
“Tomorrow.” Humphrys guided him outside and into the corridor. “About this same time, if it’s convenient.”
“Thanks a lot,” Sharp said, with relief. “I really appreciate it.”
As soon as he was alone in his office, Humphrys closed the door and strode back to his desk. Reaching down, he grabbed the telephone and unsteadily dialed.<
br />
“Give me somebody on your medical staff,” he ordered curtly when he had been connected with the Special Talents Agency.
“This is Kirby,” a professional-sounding voice came presently. “Medical research.”
Humphrys briefly identified himself. “I have a patient here,” he said, “who seems to be a latent precog.”
Kirby was interested. “What area does he come from?”
“Petaluma. Sonoma County, north of San Francisco Bay. It’s east of—”
“We’re familiar with the area. A number of precogs have showed up there. That’s been a gold mine for us.”
“Then I was right,” Humphrys said.
“What’s the date of the patient’s birth?”
“He was six years old when the war began.”
“Well,” Kirby said, disappointed, “then he didn’t really get enough of a dose. He’ll never develop a full precog talent, such as we work with here.”
“In other words, you won’t help?”
“Latents—people with a touch of it—outnumber the real carriers. We don’t have time to fool with them. You’ll probably run into dozens like your patient, if you stir around. When it’s imperfect, the talent isn’t valuable; it’s going to be a nuisance for the man, probably nothing else.”
“Yes, it’s a nuisance,” Humphrys agreed caustically. “The man is only months away from a violent death. Since he was a child, he’s been getting advanced phobic warnings. As the event gets closer, the reactions intensify.”
“He’s not conscious of the future material?”
“It operates strictly on a subrational level.”
“Under the circumstances,” Kirby said thoughtfully, “maybe it’s just as well. These things appear to be fixed. If he knew about it, he still couldn’t change it.”
Dr. Charles Bamberg, consulting psychiatrist, was just leaving his office when he noticed a man sitting in the waiting room.
Odd, Bamberg thought. I have no patients left for today.
Opening the door, he stepped into the waiting room. “Did you wish to see me?”
The man sitting on the chair was tall and thin. He wore a wrinkled tan raincoat, and, as Bamberg appeared, he began tensely stubbing out a cigar.
“Yes,” he said, getting clumsily to his feet.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No appointment.” The man gazed at him in appeal. “I picked you—” He laughed with confusion. “Well, you’re on the top floor.”
“The top floor?” Bamberg was intrigued. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“I—well, Doc, I feel much more comfortable when I’m up high.”
“I see,” Bamberg said. A compulsion, he thought to himself. Fascinating. “And,” he said aloud, “when you’re up high, how do you feel? Better?”
“Not better,” the man answered. “Can I come in? Do you have a second to spare me?”
Bamberg looked at his watch. “All right,” he agreed, admitting the man. “Sit down and tell me about it.”
Gratefully, Giller seated himself. “It interferes with my life,” he said rapidly, jerkily. “Every time I see a flight of stairs, I have an irresistible compulsion to go up it. And plane flight—I’m always flying around. I have my own ship; I can’t afford it, but I’ve got to have it.”
“I see,” Bamberg said. “Well,” he continued genially, “that’s not really so bad. After all, it isn’t exactly a fatal compulsion.”
Helplessly, Giller replied: “When I’m up there—” He swallowed wretchedly, his dark eyes gleaming. “Doctor, when I’m up high, in an office building, or in my plane—I feel another compulsion.”
“What is it?”
“I—” Giller shuddered. “I have an irresistible urge to push people.”
“To push people?”
“Toward windows. Out.” Giller made a gesture. “What am I going to do, Doc? I’m afraid I’ll kill somebody. There was a little shrimp of a guy I pushed once—and one day a girl was standing ahead of me on an escalator—I shoved her. She was injured.”
“I see,” Bamberg said, nodding. Repressed hostility, he thought to himself. Interwoven with sex. Not unusual.
He reached for his lamp.
The Unreconstructed M
I
The machine was a foot wide and two feet long; it looked like an oversized box of crackers. Silently, with great caution, it climbed the side of a concrete building; it had lowered two rubberized rollers and was now beginning the first phase of its job.
From its rear, a flake of blue enamel was exuded. The machine pressed the flake firmly against the rough concrete and then continued on. Its upward path carried it from vertical concrete to vertical steel: it had reached a window. The machine paused and produced a microscopic fragment of cloth fabric. The cloth, with great care, was embedded in the fitting of the steel window frame.
In the chill darkness, the machine was virtually invisible. The glow of a distant tangle of traffic briefly touched it, illuminated its polished hull, and departed. The machine resumed its work.
It projected a plastic pseudopodium and incinerated the pane of window glass. There was no response from within the gloomy apartment: nobody was home. The machine, now dulled with particles of glass-dust, crept over the steel frame and raised an inquisitive receptor.
While it received, it exerted precisely two hundred pounds pressure on the steel window frame; the frame obediently bent. Satisfied, the machine descended the inside of the wall to the moderately thick carpet. There it began the second phase of its job.
One single human hair—follicle and speck of scalp included—was deposited on the hardwood floor by the lamp. Not far from the piano, two dried grains of tobacco were ceremoniously laid out. The machine waited an interval of ten seconds and then, as an internal section of magnetic tape clicked into place, it suddenly said, “Ugh! Damn it…”
Curiously, its voice was husky and masculine.
The machine made its way to the closet door, which was locked. Climbing the wood surface, the machine reached the lock mechanism, and, inserting a thin section of itself, caressed the tumblers back. Behind the row of coats was a small mound of batteries and wires: a self-powered video recorder. The machine destroyed the reservoir of film—which was vital—and then, as it left the closet, expelled a drop of blood on the jagged tangle that had been the lens-scanner. The drop of blood was even more vital.
While the machine was pressing the artificial outline of a heel mark into the greasy film that covered the flooring of the closet, a sharp sound came from the hallway. The machine ceased its work and became rigid. A moment later a small, middle-aged man entered the apartment, coat over one arm, briefcase in the other.
“Good God,” he said, stopping instantly as he saw the machine. “What are you?”
The machine lifted the nozzle of its front section and shot an explosive pellet at the man’s half-bald head. The pellet traveled into the skull and detonated. Still clutching his coat and briefcase, bewildered expression on his face, the man collapsed to the rug. His glasses, broken, lay twisted beside his ear. His body stirred a little, twitched, and then was satisfactorily quiet.
Only two steps remained to the job, now that the main part was done. The machine deposited a bit of burnt match in one of the spotless ashtrays resting on the mantel, and entered the kitchen to search for a water glass. It was starting up the side of the sink when the noise of human voices startled it.
“This is the apartment,” a voice said, clear and close.
“Get ready—he ought to still be here.” Another voice, a man’s voice, like the first. The hall door was pushed open and two individuals in heavy overcoats sprinted purposefully into the apartment. At their approach, the machine dropped to the kitchen floor, the water glass forgotten. Something had gone wrong. Its rectangular outline flowed and wavered; pulling itself into an upright package it fused its shape into that of a conventional TV unit.
It was holding that e
mergency form when one of the men—tall, red-haired—peered briefly into the kitchen.
“Nobody in here,” the man declared, and hurried on.
“The window,” his companion said, panting. Two more figures entered the apartment, an entire crew. “The glass is gone—missing. He got in that way.”
“But he’s gone.” The red-haired man reappeared at the kitchen door; he snapped on the light and entered, a gun visible in his hand. “Strange ... we got here right away, as soon as we picked up the rattle.” Suspiciously, he examined his wristwatch. “Rosenburg’s been dead only a few seconds … how could he have got out again so fast?”
Standing in the street entrance, Edward Ackers listened to the voice. During the last half hour the voice had taken on a carping, nagging whine; sinking almost to inaudibility, it plodded along, mechanically turning out its message of complaint.
“You’re tired,” Ackers said. “Go home. Take a hot bath.”
“No,” the voice said, interrupting its tirade. The locus of the voice was a large illuminated blob on the dark sidewalk, a few yards to Acker’s right. The revolving neon sign read:
BANISH IT!
Thirty times—he had counted—within the last few minutes the sign had captured a passerby and the man in the booth had begun his harangue. Beyond the booth were several theaters and restaurants: the booth was well-situated.
But it wasn’t for the crowd that the booth had been erected. It was for Ackers and the offices behind him; the tirade was aimed directly at the Interior Department. The nagging racket had gone on so many months that Ackers was scarcely aware of it. Rain on the roof. Traffic noises. He yawned, folded his arms, and waited.
“Banish it,” the voice complained peevishly. “Come on, Ackers. Say something; do something.”
The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories Page 17