by William Tenn
Storku, a tall, genial, yellow-haired young man, was standing in front of him when the spasms had subsided and the tears ceased to leak from his eyes. “It’s such a simple thing really, Mr.Mead. Just a matter of being intently placid during the jump.
“Easy—easy to say,” Mr. Mead gasped, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. What was the reason Storku always exuded such patronizing contempt toward him? “Why don’t you people—why don’t you people find another way to travel? In my time, comfort in transportation is the keystone, the very keystone of the industry. Any busline, any airline, which doesn’t see to it that their passengers enjoy the maximum comfort en route to their destination is out of business before you can bat an eye. Either that, or they have a new board of directors.”
“Isn’t he intriguing?” a girl near him commented to her escort. “He talks just like one of those historical romances.”
Mr. Mead glanced at her sourly. He gulped. She was nude. For that matter, so was everyone else around him, including Mr. Storku. Who knew what went on at these Shriek Field affairs, he wondered nervously? After all, he had only seen them before from a distance in the grandstand. And now he was right in the middle of these deliberate lunatics.
“Surely you’re being a bit unjust,” Mr. Storku suggested. “After all, if an Elizabethan or a man from the Classic Greek period were to go for a ride in one of your homeless carriages or iron horses—to use your vernacular—he would be extremely uncomfortable and exhibit much more physical strain than you have. It’s purely a matter of adjustment to the unfamiliar. Some adjust, like your contemporary, Winthrop; some don’t, like yourself.”
“Speaking of Winthrop—” Mr. Mead began hurriedly, glad both of the opening and the chance to change the subject.
“Everybody here?” An athletic young man inquired as he bounded up. “I’m your leader for this Shriek. On your feet, everybody, come on, let’s get those kinks out of our muscles. We’re going to have a real fine shriek.”
“Take your clothes off,” the government man told Mr. Mead. “You can’t run a shriek dressed. Especially dressed like that.”
Mr. Mead shrank back. “I’m not going to— I just came here to talk to you. I’ll watch.”
A rich, roaring laugh. “You can’t watch from the middle of Shriek Field! And besides, the moment you joined us, you were automatically registered for the shriek. If you withdraw now, you’ll throw everything off.”
“I will?”
Storku nodded. “Of course. A different quantity of stimuli has to be applied to any different quantity of people, if you want to develop the desired shriek-intensity in each one of them. Take your clothes off, man, and get into the thing. A little exercise of this sort will tone up your psyche magnificently.”
Mr. Mead thought it over, then began to undress. He was embarrassed, miserable and more than a little frightened at the prospect, but he had an urgent job of public relations to do on the yellow-haired young man.
In his time, he had gurgled pleasurably over rope-like cigars given him by politicians, gotten drunk in incredible little stinking bars with important newspapermen and suffered the slings and the arrows of outrageous television quiz shows—all in the interests of Sweetbottom Septic Tanks, Inc. The motto of the Public Relations Man was strictly When in Rome …
And obviously the crowd he had made this trip with from 1958 was composed of barely-employables and bunglers. They’d never get themselves and him back to their own time, back to a world where there was a supply-and-demand distributive system that made sense instead of something that seemed absolutely unholy in the few areas where it was visible and understandable. A world where an important business executive was treated like somebody instead of like a willful two-year-old. A world where inanimate objects stayed inanimate, where the walls didn’t ripple around you, the furniture didn’t adjust constantly under you, where the very clothes on a person’s back didn’t change from moment to moment as if it were being revolved in a kaleidoscope.
No, it was up to him to get everybody back to that world, and his only channel of effective operation lay through Storku. Therefore, Storku had to be placated and made to feel that Oliver T. Mead was one of the boys.
Besides, it occurred to him as he began slipping out of his clothes, some of these girls looked real cute. They reminded him of the Septic Tank Convention at Des Moines back in July. If only they didn’t shave their heads!
“All together, now,” the shriek leader sang out. “Let’s hunch up. All together in a tight little group, all bunched up and milling around.”
Mr. Mead was pushed and jostled into the crowd. It surged forward, back, right, left, being maneuvered into a smaller and smaller group under the instructions and shoving of the Shriek leader. Music sprang up around them, more noise than music, actually, since it had no discernible harmonic relationships, and grew louder and louder until it was almost deafening.
Someone striving for balance in the mass of naked bodies hit Mr. Mead in the stomach with an outflung arm. He said “Oof!” and then “Oof!” again as someone behind him tripped and piled into his back. “Watch out!” a girl near him moaned as he trod on her foot. “Sorry,” he told her, “I just couldn’t—” and then an elbow hit him in the eye and he went tottering away a few steps, until, the group changing its direction again, he was pushed forward.
Round and round he went on the grass, being pushed and pushing, the horrible noise almost tearing his eardrums apart. From what seemed a greater and greater distance he could hear the shriek leader chanting: “Come on, this way, hurry up! No, that way, around that tree. Back into the bunch, you: everybody together. Stay together. Now, backwards, that’s right, backwards. Faster, faster. ”
They went backwards, a great mass of people pushing on Mead, jamming him into the great mass of people immediately behind him. Then, abruptly, they went forwards again, a dozen little cross-currents of humanity at work against each other in the crowd, so that as well as moving forward, he was also being hurled a few feet to the right and then turned around and being sucked back diagonally to his left. Once or twice, he was shot to the outskirts of the group, but, much to his surprise when be considered it later, all he did was claw his way back into the jam-packed surging middle.
It was as if he belonged nowhere else by this time, but in this mob of hurrying madmen. A shaved female head crashing into his chest as the only hint that the group had changed its direction was what he had come to expect. He threw himself backwards and disregarded the grunts and yelps he helped create. He was part of this—this—whatever it was. He was hysterical, bruised and slippery with sweat, but he no longer thought about anything but staying on his feet in the mob.
He was part of it, and that was all he knew.
Suddenly, somewhere outside the maelstrom of running, jostling naked bodies, there was a yell. It was a long yell, in a powerful male voice, and it went on and on, almost drowning out the noise-music. A woman in front of Mr. Mead picked it up in a head-rattling scream. The man who had been yelling stopped, and, after a while, so did the woman.
Then Mr. Mead heard the yell again, beard the woman join in, and was not even remotely surprised to bear his own voice add to the din. He threw all the frustration of the past two weeks into that yell, all the pounding, shoving and bruises of the past few minutes, all the frustrations and hatreds of his lifetime. Again and again the yell started up, and each time Mr. Mead joined it. All around him others were joining it, too, until at last there was a steady, unanimous shriek from the tight mob that slipped and fell and chased itself all over the enormous meadow. Mr. Mead, in the back of his mind, experienced a child-like satisfaction in getting on to the rhythm they were working out—and in being part of working it out.
It went pulse-beat, pulse-beat, shriek-k-k-k, pulse-beat, pulse-beat, shriek-k-k-k, pulse-beat, pulse-beat, shriek-k-k-k.
All together. All around him, all together. It was good!
He was never able to figure out later how lon
g they had been running and yelling, when he noticed that he was no longer in the middle of a tight group. They had thinned out somehow and were spread out over the meadow in a long, wavering, yelling line.
He felt a little confused. Without losing a beat in the shriekrhythm, he made an effort to get closer to a man and woman on his right.
The yells stopped abruptly. The noise-music stopped abruptly. He stared straight ahead where everybody else was staring. He saw it.
A brown, furry animal about the size of a sheep. It had turned its head and thrown one obviously startled, obviously frightened look at them, then it had bent its legs and begun running madly away across the meadow.
“Let’s get it!” the shriek leader’s voice sounded from what seemed all about them. “Let’s get it! All of us, together! Let’s get it!”
Somebody moved forward, and Mr. Mead followed. The shriek started again, a continuous, unceasing shriek, and he twined in. Then he was running across the meadow after the furry brown animal, screaming his head off, dimly and proudly conscious of fellow human beings doing the same on both sides of him.
Let’s get it! his mind howled. Let’s get it, let’s get it!
Almost caught up with, the animal doubled on its tracks abruptly, and dodged back through the line of people. Mr. Mead flung himself at it and made a grab. He got a handful of fur and fell painfully to his knees as the animal galloped away.
He was on his feet without abating a single note of the shriek, and after it in a moment. Everyone else had turned around and was running with him.
Let’s get it! Let’s get it! Let’s get it!
Back and forth across the meadow, the animal ran and they pursued. It dodged and twisted and jerked itself free from converging groups.
Mr. Mead ran with them, ran in the very forefront. Shriek-ing.
No matter how the furry brown animal turned, they turned too. They kept getting closer and closer to it.
Finally, they caught it.
The entire mob trapped it in a great, uneven circle and closed in. Mr. Mead was the first one to reach it. He smashed his fist into it and knocked it down with a single blow. A girl leaped onto the prostrate figure, her face contorted, and began tearing at it with her fingernails. Just before everyone piled on, Mr. Mead managed to close his hand on a furry brown leg. He gave the leg a tremendous yank and it came off in his band. He was remotely astonished at the loose wires and gear mechanisms that trailed out of the torn-off leg.
“We got it!” he mumbled, staring at the leg. We got it, his mind danced madly. We got it, we got it!
He was suddenly very tired, almost faint. He dragged himself away from the crowd and sat down heavily on the grass. He continued to stare at the loose wires that came out of the leg.
Mr. Storku came up to him, breathing hard. “Well,” said Mr. Storku. “Did you have a nice shriek?”
Mr. Mead held up the furry brown leg. “We got it,” he said bewilderedly.
The yellow-haired young man laughed. “You need a good shower and a good sedative. Come on.” He helped Mr. Mead to his feet and, holding on to his arm, crossed the meadow to a dilated yellow square under the grandstand. All around them the other participants in the shriek chattered gaily to each other as they cleansed themselves and readjusted their metabolism.
After his turn inside one of the many booths which filled the interior of the grandstand, Mr. Mead felt more like himself. Which was not to say he felt better.
Something had come out of him in those last few moments as he tore at the mechanical quarry, something he wished infinitely had stayed at the dank bottom of his soul. He’d rather never have known it existed.
He felt vaguely, dismally, like a man who, flipping the pages of a textbook of sexual aberrations, comes upon a particularly ugly case history which parallels his life history in every respect, and understands—in a single, horrified flash—exactly what all those seemingly innocent quirks and nuances of his personality mean.
He tried to remind himself that be was still Oliver T. Mead, a good husband and father, a respected business executive, a substantial pillar of the community and the local church—but it was no good. Now, and for the rest of his life, he was also … this other thing.
He had to get into some clothes. Fast.
Mr. Storku nodded when the driving need was explained. “You probably had a lot saved up. About time you began discharging it. I wouldn’t worry: you’re as sane as anyone in your period. But your clothes have been cleaned off the field along with all the rubbish of our shriek; the officials are already preparing for the next one.”
“What do I do?” Mr. Mead wailed. “I can’t go home like this.”
“No?” the government man inquired with a good deal of curiosity. “You really can’t? Hm, fascinating! Well, just step under that outfitter there. I suppose you’d like twentieth century costume?”
Mr. Mead nodded and placed himself doubtfully under the indicated mechanism as a newly-clad citizen of the twenty-fifth century America walked away from it briskly. “Ye-es. Please make it something sane, something I can wear.”
He watched as his host adjusted some dials rapidly. There WAS a slight hum from the machine overhead: a complete let of formal, black-and-white evening wear sprang into being on the stout man’s body. In a moment, it had changed into another outfit: the shoes grew upwards and became hip-length rubber hoots, the dinner jacket lengthened itself into sou’wester. Mr. Mead was perfectly dressed for the bridge of any whaling ship.
“Slop it!” he begged distractedly as the raincoat began showing distinctive sports shirt symptoms. “Keep it down to one thing.”
You could do it yourself,” Mr. Storku pointed out, “if your subconscious didn’t heave about so much.” Nonetheless, he good-naturedly poked at the machine again, and and Mr Mead’s clothes subsided into the tweed jacket and golf knickers that had been so popular in the 1920’s. They held last at that.
“Better?”
“I -I guess so.” Mr. Mead frowned as he looked down at himself. It certainly was a queer outfit for the vice-president of Sweetbottom Septic Tanks, Inc., to return to his own time in, but at least it was one outfit. And as soon as he got home—
“Now, look here, Storku,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly and putting aside the recent obscene memories of himself with as much determination as he could call up. “We’re having trouble with this Winthrop fella. He won’t go hack with us.”
They walked outside and paused on the edge of the meadow. In the distance, a new shriek was being organized.
“That so?” Mr. Storku asked with no very great interest. He pointed at the ragged mob of nude figures just beginning to jostle each other into a tight bunch. “You know, two or three more sessions out there and your psyche would be in fine shape. Although, from the looks of you, I’d say Panic Stadium would be even better. Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you go right over to Panic Stadium? One first-rate, screaming, headlong panic and you’d be absolutely—”
“Thank you, but no! I’ve had enough of this, quite enough, already. My psyche is my own affair.”
The yellow-haired young man nodded seriously. “Of course. The adult individual’s psyche is under no other jurisdiction than that of the adult individual concerned.—The Covenant of 2314, adopted by unanimous consent of the entire population of the United States of America. Later, of course, broadened by the international plebiscite of 2337 to include the entire world. But I was just making a personal, friendly suggestion.”
Mr. Mead forced himself to smile. He was distressed to find that when he smiled, the lapels of his jacket stood up and caressed the sides of his chin affectionately. “No offense, no offense. As I’ve said, it’s just that I’ve had all I want of this nonsense. But what are you going to do about a Winthrop?”
“Do? Why nothing, of course. What can we do?”
“You can force him to go back! You represent the government, don’t you? The government invited us here, the governme
nt is responsible for our safety.”
Mr. Storku looked puzzled. “Aren’t you safe?”
“You know what I mean, Storku. Our safe return. The government is responsible for it.”
“Not if that responsibility is extended to interference with the desires and activities of an adult individual. I just quoted the Covenant of 2314 to you, my friend. The whole philosophy of government derived from that covenant is based on the creation and maintenance of the individual’s perfect sovereignty over himself. Force may never be applied to a mature citizen and even official persuasion may be resorted to only in certain rare and carefully specified instances. This is certainly not one of them. By the time a child has gone through our educational system, he or she is a well-balanced member of society who can be trusted to do whatever is socially necessary. From that point on, government ceases to take an active role in the individual’s life.”
“Yeah, a real neon lit utopia,” Mr. Mead sneered. “No cops to safeguard life and property, to ask direction of even—Oh, well, it’s your world and you’re welcome to it. But that’s not the point. Don’t you see—I’m certain you can see, if you just put your mind to it—that Winthrop isn’t a citizen of your world, Storku? He didn’t go through your educational system, he didn’t have these psychological things, these readjustment courses, every couple of years, he didn’t—”
“But he came here as our invited guest,” Mr. Storku pointed out. “And, as such, he’s entitled to the full protection of our laws.”
“And we aren’t, I suppose,” Mr. Mead shouted. “He can do whatever he wants to us and get away with it. Do you call that law? Do you call that justice? I don’t. I call it bureaucracy, that’s what I call it. Red-tape and bureaucracy, that’s all it is!”
The yellow-haired young man put his hand on Mr. Mead’s shoulder. “Listen, my friend,” he said gently, “and try to understand. If Winthrop tried to do anything to you, it would be stopped. Not by interfering with Winthrop directly, but by removing you from his neighborhood. In order for us to take even such limited action, he’d have to do. That would be commission of an act interfering with your rights as an individual: what Winthrop is accused of, however, is omission of an act. He refuses to go back with you. Well, now. He has a right to refuse to do anything with his own body and mind. The Covenant of 2314 covers that area in so many words. Would you like me to quote the relevant passage to you?”