by Bob Shaw
Dora’s hand quivered abruptly, causing a rivulet of tea to slip down the side of her cup, and Kirkham knew she had wanted to challenge him. You mean, something we can thank the makers of bioclay for. He wished again that she would voice her thoughts and begin the process of spiritual catharsis. She had to be reassured that God’s message had not changed and never would change.
Come off it, John, that other Kirkham snickered, you don’t take everything in the Bible as gospel.
“Timmy was showing me his Biodoh kit,” Rowntree said. “He seems to have made some quite advanced constructions.”
“He has a talent for it.” Dora was calm again. “He got on so well I had to buy him all the supplementary packs. Equilibrium units, voice simulators—that sort of thing.”
“Really?”
“Yes, though I haven’t seen everything he’s been doing. He says he’s going to give me a special surprise.”
“It’s incredible that he’s been able to go so far in such a short time.”
“He has the touch. It’s a pity that…”Dora stopped speaking and shook her head, choking up.
“I don’t think I like him having that stuff,” Kirkham said. “There’s something unwholesome about it and I think it takes too much out of him.”
“Nonsense, John. If you want my professional opinion, you were very lucky to find something to occupy the boy’s mind at this stage. Keeps him from brooding too much.”
“That’s the way I feel about it,” Dora said, scoring a point over Kirkham.
Rowntree finished his tea and set the cup down. “You have to admit that Biodoh is a fascinating material. You know it’s an unrefined form of surgical bioclay? Well, I’ve read the impurities in it sometimes introduce random properties which lead to some very strange effects. In a way, it suggests that life itself is…”
“If you don’t mind,” Kirkham interrupted, getting to his feet, “I have to record this week’s sermon.”
Rowntree stood up too. “Of course, John—I’m due back at the clinic anyway.”
Kirkham saw the doctor to the door and when he returned he found that Dora had gone upstairs, probably to Timmy’s room. He hesitated for a moment, then went into his study and tried to work on his sermon, but suitable words refused to assemble in his mind. He knew what Rowntree had been about to say, and the other Kirkham kept repeating the same statement.
Life itself, the relentless voice gloated, is only a chemical impurity.
On the eighth day of January Timmy drifted into a coma, and from then on John Kirkham and Dora could do nothing but wait. The prolonged vigil had a dreamlike quality for Kirkham because he felt it was outside of normal time. His son had already left one world and was awaiting the completion of certain formalities before he could be admitted to the next.
Now that the ultimate trial had begun, Kirkham found himself enduring better than he had feared. He slept quite a lot, always for short periods, and occasionally awoke with the conviction that he had heard sounds of movement from Timmy’s room. But each time he opened the door and looked in, the boy was lying perfectly still. Pea-sized lights on the diagnostic panel at the head of the bed glowed steadily, in fixed patterns, indicating that there had been no abrupt changes in Timmy’s condition.
The only hint of activity came from the light-pulsing inks on the lids of the Biodoh boxes which, at Dora’s insistence, were stacked by the bed. Their presence was still an affront to Kirkham, but during the night hours—while Dora and Timmy slept—he had confronted and overcome his fears.
The reason he abhorred Biodoh was that it appeared to give men, women, children the ability to create life. That led logically and inescapably to the annihilation of God, which in turn meant that the personality known as Timmy Kirkham was about to be snuffed out of existence for ever. Only God—not the manufacturers of Biodoh kits—could promise life beyond the grave.
Kirkham had found a simple, if distasteful, solution to his problem.
His own giant caterpillar had not been nearly as good as Timmy’s first effort, and that had made the task of dismantling less harrowing than he had expected. The silver plugs came easily out of the grey module and all movement ceased. A purely mechanical operation. Nothing to get upset about.
His second project was a slightly larger caterpillar, with a single eye, which would crawl towards a source of light until the intensity of radiation passing through the iris reached a certain level, at which point the pseudo-creature would turn away. That, too, had been far less successful than Timmy’s version—Dora had been right when she said the boy had a special talent—but it had crawled towards the light, hesitated, turned away, wandered, and then had been drawn to the brightness again in a manner which suggested complex motivations.
Kirkham’s understanding of its operating principles, however, had enabled him to see that it was no different to a battery-powered toy car which would not run over the edge of a table. He realised, with a surge of gladness, how naive he had been to equate a crude Biodoh construction with the unique complexity of a living being.
And, in the throbbing quietness of that night-time hour, while his son slipped nearer to death, it had been an emotionally neutral experience for Kirkham to scoop up the one-eyed caterpillar, open its belly, and return its various components to inventory.
Timmy died on the twelfth day of January, in the early hours of the morning.
John and Dora Kirkham stood beside the bed, hand in hand, and watched the lights on the diagnostic panel gently extinguish themselves. Mercifully, there was no other sign of the final event taking place. Timmy’s small face shone with the peaceful lustre of a pearl. Kirkham could feel other lights fading away within himself—God had never intended the loss of a child to be entirely reconcilable—but one precious flame continued to burn steadily, sustaining him.
Dora gave a deep, quavering sigh and grew heavy in his arms. Kirkham led her from the room and into their own bedroom. Accepting his guidance, she lay down on the divan and allowed him to draw the duvet over her.
“I want you to stay here for a while,” he said. “Try to get some rest. I’m going to call the clinic.” He went to the door.
“John!” Dora’s voice was weary, but firm.
“What is it?”
“I…I’ve been making things harder for you—but I was wrong. I was so wrong.”
“I know you were, darling. As long as you realise it, nothing else matters.”
She managed something like a smile. “It happened just as Timmy was leaving us. I just knew it couldn’t be the end. I knew we would see him again.”
Kirkham nodded, fulfilled. “You’ve got the message. Don’t lose sight of it. Not ever!”
He turned out the light, closed the door and went towards the stair. From his right there came a scrappy little sound, like that of a small object falling over. He halted in the middle of a stride. The sound seemed to have come from Timmy’s place of rest. Without giving himself time to think, Kirkham flung open the door of his son’s bedroom. Timmy’s body lay calm and unmoving in the dim light. Not knowing what he had expected, Kirkham advanced into the room.
I should have covered his face, he thought.
He approached the bed and drew the sheet upwards over the carved marble features. An instinct prompted him to pause and brush strands of hair away from the child’s dewy forehead. He had completed covering the body when he became aware of several crumbs of grey material clinging to his fingers. It looked like Biodoh cortical putty.
It can’t be, Kirkham told himself. You’re only supposed to press it against your wrist. Timmy can’t have been pressing it against his forehead—that’s not in the instruction manual.
There was a sound from behind him.
Kirkham whirled, his hands fluttering to his mouth as he saw the tiny upright figure emerge from the shadows of a corner. It walked towards him, arms outstretched, dragging its left leg as Timmy had once done. Its lips moved, and Kirkham thought he heard a faint distorted sound.
Da…Da…Dad.
He threw himself backwards and fell, overturning a chair. The figure came closer—naked and pink, moving with a ghastly crippled clumsiness—while he lay on the floor and watched. Its lips continued to move, and its eyes were fixed on him.
“John?” Dora’s voice filtered out of another universe. “What’s the matter, John?”
Kirkham tried to visualise what would happen if Dora came into the room—suddenly he was competent, able to protect her from the fate which had already overtaken him.
“There’s nothing wrong,” he called out. “Stay where you are.”
He rose on to his knees and allowed the miniature figure to approach him. Suffer little children to come unto me, his other self quoted, sneering. Kirkham closed his eyes and waited till the smooth cool body blundered against his legs. He lifted it, and, using his thumbs, split it open at the thorax, exposing the nerve cords running up into the head. He hooked a fingernail around them and pulled them out, and the small object in his hands ceased to move.
All I have to do is return the parts to inventory, he thought, keeping his gaze averted from the figure in the bed, smiling his new kind of smile.
A purely mechanical operation…
GO ON, PICK A UNIVERSE!
The shop, which was about a hundred yards off Fifth Avenue, was so discreet as to be almost invisible. Its single front window was blanked by heavy drapes, and down in one corner it bore small bronze letters which said ALTEREALITIES INC. The peach-coloured light from within was so subdued that, even in the gathering darkness of a December afternoon, it was difficult to be sure the place was open for business.
Arthur Bryant hesitated for a moment on the sidewalk, trying to overcome his nervousness, then opened the door and went in.
“Good afternoon, sir—may I help you?” The speaker was a swarthy young man with slaty jowls and a dark business suit that had an expensive silkiness to it. He was seated at a large desk on which was a nameplate proclaiming him to be one T. D. Marzian, Branch Manager.
“Ah…I’d like some information,” Bryant said, taking in his surroundings with some interest. A plump girl with cropped brown hair was seated nearby at a smaller desk. The ambience was one of deep carpet, hessian walls and intimate whispers of music. The only item which distinguished the place from a thousand other plushy front offices was a silvery disk about the size of a manhole cover which occupied an area of carpet behind the two desks.
“Glad to be of service,” Marzian said. “What would you like to know?”
Bryant cleared his throat. “Can you really transfer people into other universes? Universes where things are different?”
“We do it all the time—that’s our business.” Marzian’s jowls parted to make room for an easy, reassuring smile. “All a client has to do is specify his ideal conditions, and—provided they are not so preposterous that they can’t exist anywhere in the multitude of alternate realities—we relocate him in the universe of his dreams. Our Probability Redistributor operates instantaneously, painlessly and with total reliability.”
“It sounds marvellous,” Bryant breathed.
Marzian nodded. “It is marvellous—well worth every cent of the fee. What sort of reality parameters did you have in mind?”
Bryant glanced in the direction of the plump girl, turned his back to her and lowered his voice. “Do you think…? Would it be possible…?”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed, sir—we have a lot of experience in meeting customers’ various personal requirements, and our service is absolutely confidential.”
“I was wondering,” Bryant mumbled, “if you could transfer me to a reality in which…er…I had the most perfectly developed physique in the world?” His diffidence was caused by the fact that he was five-four in his shoes and had no other dimensions that he cared to discuss. He waited, enduring the other man’s scrutiny, half-expecting a look of derision—but Marzian appeared to be in no way amused or perturbed.
“We most certainly could—no problem whatsoever.” Marzian spoke with breezy confidence. “You know, for a moment you almost had me convinced you were going to ask for something difficult.”
Bryant experienced a pang of purest joy. Until that moment he had not really dared believe that his dream could be fulfilled anywhere in the multiple-probability universes, but now he could begin planning the sort of life he would enjoy as an adulated superman. I’ll have five different women every day for a month, he thought, just to break the new body in. Then I’ll settle down to a life of moderation—maybe only two or three women a day…
“There is just the matter of the fee,” Marzian was saying. “A hundred thousand dollars may seem a lot, but the cost of installing and running the Probability Redistributor is astronomical—and the fee does cover our unique Triple Chance facility. What it amounts to is that, if necessary, you get up to three transfers for the price of one.”
“Huh?” Bryant’s old doubts were reawakened. “Why should…? Does that mean something can go wrong?”
Marzian laughed indulgently. “The Probability Redistributor never goes wrong, sir, but we provide the Triple Chance facility so that each client can select a reality which exactly matches his requirements. On the rare occasions when a problem arises, it is usually because the specification was incomplete or too vague.”
“I see.” Bryant tilted his head, frowning. “Or do I?”
Marzian spread his hands. “Well, suppose you were a poker fanatic and you asked to be relocated in a reality where everything—social status included—was dictated by skill in poker. When you got there you might find that the inhabitants of that universe played nothing but five-card draw, whereas your strong point was seven-card stud. That wouldn’t be very satisfactory from your point of view, but all you would have to do would be to press the button on your handy pocket-sized Probability Normalizer, and it would instantly return you to this reality. Under the terms of our Triple Chance clause you would be entitled to a free transfer to a clearly specified universe where seven-card stud was the thing, and you would live happily ever after and Alterealities Incorporated would have yet another satisfied client.”
Bryant’s brow cleared. “Nothing could be fairer than that! When can I go?”
“Almost immediately, sir. As soon as…” Marzian gave a polite but significant cough.
“There’s no need to worry about the money side of it,” Bryant said buoyantly. “I’ve got just over a hundred thou in my account. Mind you, I had to sell everything I owned to get it, but what the hell! The way I see it, if I’m not going to be back in this reality, I might as well…” He broke off as he noted the pained expression which had appeared on Marzian’s face.
“If you would care to speak to Miss Cruft, she will deal with all the necessary formalities,” Marzian said, sweeping one hand in the direction of the plump girl’s desk. “In the meantime I will activate and calibrate the Probability Redistributor.” He sat down at his own larger desk, which to Bryant’s eyes now had something of the appearance of a console, and started clicking switches.
“Of course,” Bryant said in an apologetic voice, sensing that the branch manager—as a professional rearranger of probabilities—was above concerning himself with the vulgar commercial details of the business. When he approached Miss Cruft her smile was sympathetic, and unexpectedly pleasant, but Bryant scarcely registered the fact. His thoughts were already turning to the lissome, long-thighed beauties who could be clamouring for his favours when he was the most perfectly developed man in the world. He established his identity and credit rating, made a computerised transfer of funds, and signed contractual papers in a haze of pleasurable anticipation.
“Here’s your Probability Normalizer,” Marzian said, handing him an object like a cigarette case with a press button in the centre of one side. “Now, if you would like to stand on the probability focus plate…”
Bryant obediently stepped on to the floor-mounted silver disk and watched Marzian
rotate knobs and tap keys on panels that were let into his desk. At the conclusion of the ritual, Marzian reached for a red button which was larger than all the others. Bryant had time for one pang of wonderment and apprehension at the idea of being propelled into an alternative universe—then Marzian and Miss Cruft and all their familiar surroundings were gone.
He was standing in a vast, green-tiled plaza which was rimmed with egg-shaped buildings. Here and there were potted palms which swayed continuously despite the absence of any breeze, and the sun appeared to have spiral offshoots like a frozen Catherine wheel, but Bryant had no thought to spare for external marvels. First on the list of priorities was the checking out of his brand-new superbody; then would come a few weeks of silken dalliance; then perhaps he would get round to nature studies.
He looked down at himself—and emitted a bleat of anguish.
His physique had not changed in any way!
Whimpering with disappointment, he pulled off his jacket and shirt and confirmed the awful discovery that his body was the same substandard assemblage of frail bones and assorted scraps of fatty tissue he had always known. When he tried to flex his right bicep it, as always, continued to snuggle along his upper arm like two ounces of hog belly. Bryant was glowering at it, his disappointment turning to anger against T. D. Marzian and the criminal organisation for which he worked, when he heard a low whistle from somewhere close behind him.
“Take a gander at that physique,” a man’s voice said in tones of awe. “Say, I’ll bet you that’s Mister Galaxy.”
“Nah,” said another male voice. “Mister Galaxy can’t match those deltoids—he must be Mister Cosmos.”
Bryant whirled round, saw two oddly attired little men gaping at his torso and his rising fury spilled over into words. “Are you trying to be funny?” he demanded. “Because if you are…”
The little men cowered back with a convincing show of fear.
“Not us, sir,” one of them babbled. “Forgive us for making comments, but we’re both physical-culture freaks from way back, and we’ve never seen a human powerhouse like you before.”