Woody took no notice of the wonder around him. He ignored the people. He ignored the color. He ignored the light. He ignored the shops that filled the caverns of the Central Station. He held tight to the robot’s hand and looked resolutely straight ahead. All this around him was distraction. Woody was going to Brooklyn to buy his father a 28K-916 Hersh. so that he could finish his Dimensional Redistributor and control the world. If he lost his path, Woody would not dare to guess at his fate.
His directions said . . . but there it was, directly before him. The sign said, “To Brooklyn.” Under it sat the plasteel form of a new modem train, doors open wide, waiting patiently. The Lyman R. Long was 1939’s vision of the future, now relegated to a local line. This was the future made present. This was tomorrow now.
This smugly superior subway train was far more frightening somehow as it sat, quietly waiting. This open door was the last threshold. If Woody passed beyond it, he would be swallowed and carried to Brooklyn. He would not be able to help himself.
But he had no choice. He could not help himself now. He must stay on the path, and the path led to Brooklyn. Stepping aboard the train had the same disconcerting finality as the bursting of a soap bubble.
There were but two seats left together in the car, and Woody and his companion, the robot, sat down. As soon as they sat, as though by signal, the doors of the car slid shut automatically and silently, and automatically and silently the subway train slid out of the Central Station of the New York Subway System, bound for Brooklyn. It plunged immediately into the cold dark earth tunnel under the East River and down, down it went without consideration of what it might discover. Down. Noiselessly down. Relentlessly down.
One instant they were in the station. One instant there was still connection to the familiar world. One instant they were still in Manhattan. The next moment they were hurtling into an unknown nether world. It was all too sudden. Woody was paralyzed with fear.
It felt to him as though a hand were wringing his brain, and another hand were squeezing his throat, and another hand were tickling his heart, toying with his life and certainty. And the only hand that was really there was the strong cuproberyl hand of the robot Woody Asenion’s father had made to keep Woody in the closet and safe from other harm. Woody held that familiar hand tight. He looked at the map and directions that he held. That was his talisman. He had not left the path. As long as he did not leave the path, he would be safe.
The train bumped a bottom bump and the lights in the car dimmed and then came up. The door between cars at Woody’s left slammed open, allowing a brief snatch of the whirring whine of the rubberite wheels on the tracks, and three young people burst threateningly in. They were dangerous because no one in the subway car had ever seen anything like them. They were not apprentices. They were not secretaries. They were not management trainees. They were neither soldiers nor students. They were not hip, but then neither were they straight.
One was a boy, narrow, tall, ugly and graceful as a hatchet. He wore an extravagant white suit, dandy and neat, and carried a yellow chrysanthemum to play with. The other boy was short, dark, curly and cute. He wore a casual brown doublet over an orange shirt. He bounced and bubbled. The girl wore cheerfully vulgar purple to her ankle with a slit back up to the thigh. She was pale and her black hair was severe and dramatic.
The girl was the first into the car. She swung around and around the pole in front of Woody, laughing. The bouncy boy galloped in after her, swung with her around the pole and then stopped her with a sudden kiss, even though an ad over his shoulder from Amy Vanderbilt suggested to him that public emotion is not good manners. The ugly one strolled in gracefully, shut the door to the car and blessed the two with his yellow mum, tapping them each on the head, saying nothing.
Then he turned and waved his flower menacingly at the rest of the car. He danced. This was too much for one vertical soul who leaped to his feet and said authoritatively, “We are all good citizens here on our way to Brooklyn. What do you mean by this intrusion?”
“Don’t you feel it?” the bouncy one asked. “The world has changed. The Great Common Dream is changing and so is the world. We’re going to Brooklyn to dance in the rain and celebrate. Come on along.”
The girl looked directly at the questioning man. “Listen with your skin,” she said. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you want to celebrate?”
The man looked puzzled. But he listened with his skin and you could tell he knew they were right, even if they were a little early. He was horizontal in his heart which is why he was so quick to seem vertical. He thought it might be noticed if he wasn’t. But now he said, “I do feel it! I do feel it! You’re right. You’re right!” He howled a joyous howl of celebration.
And he began to dance in the aisles. “I feel it, too,” someone else yelled. “I do.” Who? It might have been any of the first six people to join him in the aisles.
Now that’s how close the vertical world was to turning horizontal. All that was necessary was the suggestion. People were ready to go multiform as soon as they knew it was time.
Woody tugged at the sleeve of the tall boy in the extravagant white suit.
“Yes, sir, may I be of practical assistance?” said he, and winked.
“Is it raining now?” asked Woody. It seemed important that he should ask, since the strange blue toll-token seller had suggested that it was going to rain and he wanted to be prepared. The robot carried Woody’s umbrella in his capable cuproberyl hand. He would be all right as long as he knew before he got wet.
“Raining,” said the ugly one. “Raining? How would I know if it’s raining? We’re in a subway train under the East River.”
“Oh, hey now, it’s Woody,” said the girl. “Go easy on Woody. It’s going to rain, Woody. Don’t you want to come along with us and dance in the rain?”
But she was too insistent for poor Woody. He didn’t know enough of the world to be sure what it was that she intended, but be suspected the world too much to want to learn. She was a distraction. The whole car was a distraction, dancing, gadding and larking. He stared straight ahead of him at the subway ad for Amy Vanderbilt’s new etiquette book. “Know Your Place in the Space Age,” the ad whispered to him when it knew it had his full attention. And that was another distraction.
“Hey, dance with us, Woody,” said the curly one in orange. “You can do any step you like. You can do a step no one else has ever done.”
Woody explained, “I have this map and these directions.” He pointed to them. “I’m very busy now. I’m running an errand for my father. I’m going to buy a 28K-916 Hersh so that he can finish his Dimensional Redistributor and control the world.”
The tall narrow boy said, “Why doesn’t your father run his own errands? He’s all grown up now.” He said it impatiently. Woody didn’t like him.
Woody stared straight ahead with all the best deafness he could muster. It was the deafness he used to do when he sat in the corner of the closet with his back to the world and wouldn’t hear. He could shut out lots.
The other boy and the girl said, “Come on, Woody. The vertical world is turning horizontal. Come with us, Woody. We’re in Brooklyn now. This is New Lots. This is our stop. This is our place. Take a chance, Woody. Be the first to celebrate. Dare. Dance. Dance in the rain.”
And everybody in the car said, “Come one, come all, Woody. There’s room for you. There’s room for everyone.”
But Woody stared straight ahead, which made everything on either side blurry, and wouldn’t hear. It was as good as shutting his eyes. He held onto his map and his directions with both hands so that he would not become lost.
Woody felt the subway come to a smooth stop. He wouldn’t admit it, but he heard the doors slide gently open. He wouldn’t admit it, but after a long moment he heard the doors slide gently shut again. He only unblinked his eyes when he felt the train begin to move again.
He was alone in the car. There was no one else there. The girl in the purple dress do
wn to her ankle and up to her thigh was gone. The boy in the white suit was gone. The boy in the brown doublet and the orange shirt was gone. All the people in the car were gone. Even the robot was gone, and the umbrella was gone with him. You can imagine how that made Woody feel.
No hand to hold. No umbrella to keep him dry and safe if it did rain.
But still he had his map and directions. He wasn’t completely lost.
He was driven to walk the length of the train. Every car was empty. Every car was as empty as his car when everyone had gone. He was alone. He walked from one end of the train to the other and he saw no one. When he got to the head of the train he looked in the window at the driver. But there was no pilot.
And still the train hurtled on. Woody was afraid.
He went back to his own seat. He sat there alone studying his map and directions. They said to get off at Rockaway Parkway.
And then the train came to a halt. An automatic voice said automatically, “Rockaway Parkway. End of the line.” And the door slid open. Woody bolted through it and up the stairs.
There was another orange railing. The stairs ended between two great boulders with white lamps that said, “Subway.” Woody was standing in a great rock park. And this was Brooklyn.
It was not raining, but the air was hot, damp and heavy in Brooklyn, like a warm smothering washcloth. Woody wished he had his umbrella.
He looked at his directions. They said, “Follow the path to Stewart’s.”
So he followed the path and in a few minutes he came to the edge of the hill. He could see the flatlands below and on across the damp sand flats even to the palm-lined shores of Jamaica Bay itself. He could see the palms swaying sullenly under the threatening sky. He followed the path farther, never straying, and when he reached Flatlands Avenue he could suddenly see the great porcelain height of his landmark, white but marked by stains of rust. That was the Paerdegat Basin, and close by the Paerdegat Basin was Stewart’s.
It was an easy walk. Woody had time to study his instructions. They were frightening, for they asked him to lie. He wasn’t good at that. When he lied, his father always caught him out.
And then, almost before he knew, his feet had followed the true path to Stewart’s Out-of-Stock Supply. It was a small block building. He hesitated and then he entered.
The small building was filled with many amazing machines, some of them a bit dusty, displayed to show the successes of the shop. All of them had been made of parts supplied by Stewart’s. There was a four-dimensional roller-press, a positronic calculator, an in-gravity parachute—which seemed to be a metal harness with pads to protect the body—and a mobile can opener.
At the back of the building was a sharp-featured, crew-cut old man with a positive manner. He looked as though he had his mind made up about everything.
“Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I’ve got my theory,” the old man said. He looked at Woody, measuring him with his eye. Then he punched authoritatively at a button console on the counter in front of him. The wall behind him dissolved as though it had forgotten to remember itself, and there were immense aisles with racks and bins and shelves filled with out-of-stock supplies. A sign overhead said, “1947-1957.” And another sign said, “At Last. 4 Amazing New Scientific Discoveries Help to Make You Feel Like a New Person and More Alive!”
The old man put on a golf cap and said, “There. I’m right so far, aren’t I? Now let me see. The rest of it should be easy. Yes, you’re really quite simple, young man. I see to the bottom of you.”
He punched a series of buttons. A little robot rolled by, made a right turn down an aisle and then a left turn out of sight. The old man stood waiting with a sure-footed expression on his face. In a moment, the robot rolled back. It placed a flat plate in the old man’s hand, and the old man placed the plate on the counter. Then he patted the robot on the head and it rolled away.
“There, you see. You’re the right age. You’re obviously a broad-headed Alpine. The half-life of strontium ninety is twenty-eight years. You’re here to replace the tactile plate on your Erasmus Bean machine. Am I right?”
Woody shook his head.
“But of course I’m right.”
Woody shook his head.
“Then what are you here for?”
Woody read from his paper, ‘“I want a 28K-916 Hersh. It was discontinued in 1932.’”
“Don’t tell me my business,” the old man said, hanging up the golf cap reluctantly. “It’s strange. You don’t look like a 1932.”
He punched again, and the configuration of aisles flickered and restabilized. The overhead sign now said, “1926-1935.” And another sign said, “Are You Caught Behind the Bars of a ‘Small-Time’ Job? Learn Electricity! Earn $3000 a Year!” The old man slapped a straw skimmer on his head.
“We did have a 28K-916 Hersh.,” he said. “Once. We don’t have much call for one of those. I recollect seeing it along about 1934.”
The little robot rolled out once again, made a right turn down an aisle and then a left turn out of sight.
The old man turned suddenly to Woody and said, “This tube isn’t for your own invention, is it? You’re not a 1932 at all. Who are you here for? Murray? Stanton? Hyatt?”
Woody lowered his eyes. He shook his head.
The robot rolled suddenly back into view. It placed an orange-and-black box, as shiny and new as though this were 1932 and it were fresh from the Hersh. factory, in the hand of the sharp-featured old man.
“This is a rare tube with special rhodomagnetic properties,” the old man said. “Just how do you propose to put it to use?”
Woody looked down again. Below the counter top he looked again at his instructions and he read his lie. He read, ‘“lama collector. I mean to collect one of every vacuum tube in the world. When I own a 28K-916 Hersh, my collection will be complete.’”
But the old man looked over the counter and saw him reading and his suspicions were aroused. He snatched the map and directions from Woody’s hands, and discovered their meaning with a single glance.
“Woodrow Asenion!” he said. “I barred your father from this store in 1937! You know what that man intends. He means to make a Dimensional Redistributor and control the world. Well, not with help from Stewart’s. Power is to be used responsibly.”
He threw the map and instructions behind him, seized Woody and hustled him through the showroom, past the four-dimensional roller-press, the positronic calculator, the in-gravity parachute, the mobile can opener and all the many other amazing inventions. He threw Woody onto the sand under the palm tree in front of the building.
“And never come back,” he said. He straightened his skimmer. Then he looked up. Very slowly he said, “Why, I do believe it’s going to rain.”
The old man slammed the door and pulled down a curtain that said, “Closed on Account of Rain.”
Woody looked around desperately. He looked at the sky. It was going to rain and he had no umbrella. He had not bought the tube. He had no map and directions. He was almost lost. He beat desperately on the door but it would not open. While he beat, all the lights within went out. The building was silent. Then thunder rumbled overhead.
In panic, Woody retreated along Flatlands Avenue. The sky was crackling and snarling. It was flaring and fleering. Woody wished desperately that he were safe at home in the comfort of his own familiar closet. He felt very vulnerable. He felt naked and alone in a strange country. What was he to do? What was he to do?
Woody thought that if he could only find the subway station in the rock park again, the green stairs with the orange railing under the lamps that said, “Subway,” he might find his way home to 206 W. 104th St. in Manhattan. Home to his father and his own closet. Desperately, he began to run across the sand.
And then, suddenly, there they all were. There was the boy in the white suit. There was the boy in the brown doublet. There was the girl in the long purple dress. And behind them a pied piper’s gathering of people, dancing, larking and ga
dding. And that was just anticipation, for the moment of shift when the old vertical world was forgotten and the new guiding dream was dreamed had not yet come. It had not yet begun to rain.
“Hi, Woody,” said the boy in brown. “Are you ready to join us?”
“Hi, Woody,” said the girl in purple. “Are you ready to dance in the rain?”
That was too frightening. Woody said to the tall ugly boy in white, “Where is my robot? It has my umbrella.”
“He,” said that one, and tapped Woody on the forehead with his yellow chrysanthemum. “He. And he isn’t yours. And I have my doubts about the umbrella, too.”
“Ha,” everybody said. “Get wet.”
Universe 4 - [Anthology] Page 22