So for that matter, was the drunk of whom Mitkey inquired the way to Hartford. We mentioned that episode before. That was the only time Mitkey tried direct communication with strange human beings. He took, of course, every precaution. He addressed his remarks from a strategic position only inches away from a hole into which he could have popped. But it was the drunk who did the popping, without even waiting to answer Mitkey’s question.
But he got there, finally. He made his way afoot to the north side of town and hid out behind a gas station until he heard a motorist who had pulled in for gasoline inquire the way to Hartford. And Mitkey was a stowaway when the car started up.
The rest wasn’t hard. The calculations of the Prxlians showed that the starting point of the rocket was five Earth miles north-west of what showed on their telescopomaps as a city, and which from the Professor’s conversation Mitkey knew would be Hartford.
He got there.
“Hello, Brofessor.”
The Herr Professor Oberburger looked up, startled. There was no one in sight. “Vot?” he asked, of the air. “Who iss?”
“It iss I, Brofessor. Mitkey, der mouse whom you sent to der moon. But I vas not there. Insteadt, I —”
“Vot?? It is imbossible. Somebody blays der choke. Budt — budt nobodv knows about that rocket. Vhen it vailed, I didn’t told nobody. Nobody budt me knows —”
“And me, Brofessor.”
The Herr Professor sighed heavily. “Offervork. I am going vhat they call batty in the bel —”
“No, Brofessor. This is really me, Mitkey. I can talk now. Chust like you.”
“You say you can — I do not belief it. Vhy can I not see you, then. Vhere are you? Vhy don’t vou —”
“I am hiding, Brofessor, in der vail chust behind der big hole. I vanted to be sure efferything vas ogay before I showed myself. Then you vould not get eggcited and throw something at me maybe.”
“Vot? Vhy, Mitkey, if it iss really you und I am nodt asleep or going — Vhy, Mitkey, you know better than to think I might do something like that!”
“Ogay, Brofessor.”
Mitkey stepped out of the hole in the wall, and the Professor looked at him and rubbed his eyes and looked again and rubbed his eyes and —
“I am crazy,” he said finally. “Red bants he vears yet, und yellow — It gannot be. I am crazy.”
“No, Brofessor. Listen, I’ll tell you all aboudt.”
And Mitkey told him.
Gray dawn, and a small gray mouse still talking earnestly.
“But, Mitkey —”
“Yess, Brofessor. I see your point, that you think an intelligent race of mices und an intelligent race of men couldt nodt get along side by sides. But it vould not be side by sides; as I said, there are only a ferry few beople in the smallest continent of Australia. Und it vould cost little to bring them back und turn offer that continent to us mices. Ve could call it Moustralia instead of Australia, und ve vould instead of Sydney call der capital Dissney, in honor of —”
“But, Mitkey —”
“But, Brofessor, look vot ve offer for that continent. All mices vould go there. Ve civilize a few und the few help us catch others und bring them in to put them under der ray machine, und the others help catch more und build more machines und it grows like a snowball rolling down hill. Und ve sign a non-aggression pact mitt humans und stay on Moustralia und raise our own food und —”
“But, Mitkey —”
“Und look vat ve offer you in eggschange, Herr Brofessor! Ve vill aggsterminate your vorst enemy — der rats. Ve do not like them either. Und vun battalion of vun thousand mices, armed mitt gas masks und small gas bombs could go right in effery hole after der rats und could eggsterminate effery rat in a city in vun day or two. In der whole world ve could eggsterminate effery last rat in a year, und at the same time catch und civilize effery mouse und ship him to Moustralia, und — ”
“But, Mitkey —”
“Vot, Brofessor?”
“It vould vork, but it vould not vork. You could eggsterminate der rats, yess. But how long vould it be before conflicts of interests vould lead der mices trying to eggsterminate der people or der people trying to eggsterminate der —”
“They vould not dare, Brofessor! Ve could make veapons that vould —”
“You see, Mitkey?”
“But it vould not habben. If men vill honor our rights, ve vill honor —”
The Herr Professor sighed.
“I — I vill act as your intermediary, Mitkey, und offer your broposition, und — Veil, it is true that getting rid of rats vould be a greadt boon to der human race. Budt —”
“Thank you, Brofessor.”
“By der vay, Mitkey. I haff Minnie. Your wife, I guess it iss, unless there vas other mices around. She iss in der other room; I put her there chust before you arriffed, so she vould be in der dark und could sleep. You van to see her?”
“Vife?” said Mitkey. It had been so long that he had really forgotten the family he had perforce abandoned. The memory returned slowly.
“Vell,” he said “ — ummm, yess. Ve vill get her und I shall construct quvick a small X-19 prochector und — Yess, it vill help you in your negotiations mitt der governments if there are sefferal of us already so they can see I am not chust a freak like they might otherwise suspegt.”
It wasn’t deliberate. It couldn’t have been, because the Professor didn’t know about Klarloth’s warning to Mitkey about carelessness with electricity — “Der new molecular rearrangement of your brain center — it iss unstable, und —”
And the Professor was still back in the lighted room when Mitkey ran into the room where Minnie was in her barless cage. She was asleep, and the sight of her — Memory of his earlier days came back like a flash and suddenly Mitkey knew how lonesome he had been.
“Minnie!” he called, forgetting that she could not understand.
And stepped up on the board where she lay. “Squeak!” The mild electrical current between the two strips of tin-foil got him.
There was silence for a while.
Then: “Mitkey,” called the Herr Professor. “Come on back und ve will discuss this —”
He stepped through the doorway and saw them, there in the gray light of dawn, two small gray mice cuddled happily together. He couldn’t tell which was which, because Mitkey’s teeth had torn off the red and yellow garments which had suddenly been strange, confining and obnoxious things.
“Vot on earth?” asked Professor Oberburger. Then he remembered the current, and guessed.
“Mitkey! Can you no longer talk? Iss der —”
Silence.
Then the Professor smiled. “Mitkey,” he said, “my little star-mouse. I think you are more happier now.”
He watched them a moment, fondly, then reached down and flipped the switch that broke the electrical barrier. Of course they didn’t know they were free, but when the Professor picked them up and placed them carefully on the floor, one ran immediately for the hole in the wall. The other followed, but turned around and looked back — still a trace of puzzlement in the little black eyes, a puzzlement that faded.
“Gootbye, Mitkey. You vill be happier this vay. Und there vill always be cheese.”
“Squeak,” said the little gray mouse, and it popped into the hole.
“Gootbye — ” it might, or might not, have meant.
come and go mad
HE HAD known it, somehow, when he had awakened that morning. He knew it more surely now, staring out of the editorial room window into the early afternoon sunlight slanting down among the buildings to cast a pattern of light and shadow. He knew that soon, perhaps even today, something important was going to happen. Whether good or bad he did not know, but he darkly suspected. And with reason; there are few good things that may unexpectedly happen to a man, things, that is, of lasting importance. Disaster can strike from innumerable directions, in amazingly diverse ways.
A voice said, “Hey, Mr. Vine,” and he turned away
from the window, slowly. That in itself was strange for it was not his manner to move slowly; he was a small, volatile man, almost cat-like in the quickness of his reactions and his movements.
But this time something made him turn slowly from the window, almost as though he never again expected to see that chiaroscuro of an early afternoon.
He said, “Hi, Red.”
The freckled copy boy said, “His Nibs wants to see ya.”
“Now?”
“Naw. Atcher convenience. Sometime next week, maybe. If yer busy, give him an apperntment.”
He put his fist against Red’s chin and shoved, and the copy boy staggered back in assumed distress.
He went over to the water cooler. He pressed his thumb on the button and water gurgled into the paper cup.
Harry Wheeler sauntered over and said, “Hiya, Nappy. What’s up? Going on the carpet?”
He said, “Sure, for a raise.”
He drank and crumpled the cup, tossing it into the waste basket. He went over to the door marked Private and went through it.
Walter J. Candler, the managing editor, looked up from the work on his desk and said affably, “Sit down, Vine. Be with you in a moment,” and then looked down again.
He slid into the chair opposite Candler, worried a cigarette out of his pocket and lighted it. He studied the back of the sheet of paper of which the managing editor was reading the front. There wasn’t anything on the back of it.
The M.E. put the paper down and looked at him. “Vine, I’ve got a screwy one. You’re good on screwy ones.”
He grinned slowly at the M.E. He said, “If that’s a compliment, thanks.”
“It’s a compliment, all right. You’ve done some pretty tough things for us. This one’s different. I’ve never yet asked a reporter to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I wouldn’t do this, so I’m not asking you to.”
The M.E. picked up the paper he’d been reading and then put it down again without even looking at it. “Ever hear of Ellsworth Joyce Randolph?”
“Head of the asylum? Hell yes, I’ve met him. Casually.”
“How’d he impress you?”
He was aware that the managing editor was staring at him intently, that it wasn’t too casual a question. He parried. “What do you mean? In what way? You mean is he a good Joe, is he a good politician, has he got a good bedside manner for a psychiatrist, or what?”
“I mean, how sane do you think he is?”
He looked at Candler and Candler wasn’t kidding. Candler was strictly deadpan.
He began to laugh, and then he stopped laughing. He leaned forward across Candler’s desk. “Ellsworth Joyce Randolph,” he said. “You’re talking about Ellsworth Joyce Randolph?”
Candler nodded. “Dr. Randolph was in here this morning. He told a rather strange story. He didn’t want me to print it. He did want me to check on it, to send our best man to check on it. He said if we found it was true we could print it in hundred and twenty line type in red ink.” Candler grinned wryly. “We could, at that.”
He stumped out his cigarette and studied Candler’s face. “But the story itself is so screwy you’re not sure whether Dr. Randolph himself might be insane?”
“Exactly.”
“And what’s tough about the assignment?”
“The doc says a reporter could get the story only from the inside.”
“You mean, go in as a guard or something?”
Candler said, “As something.”
“Oh.”
He got up out of the chair and walked over to the window, stood with his back to the managing editor, looking out. The sun had moved hardly at all. Yet the shadow pattern in the streets looked different, obscurely different. The shadow pattern inside him was different, too. This, he knew, was what had been going to happen. He turned around. He said, “No. Hell no.”
Candler shrugged imperceptibly. “Don’t blame you. I haven’t even asked you to. I wouldn’t do it myself.”
He asked, “What does Ellsworth Joyce Randolph think is going on inside his nut-house? It must be something pretty screwy if it made you wonder whether Randolph himself is sane.”
“I can’t tell you that, Vine. Promised him I wouldn’t, whether or not you took the assignment.”
“You mean — even if I took the job I still wouldn’t know what I was looking for?”
“That’s right. You’d be prejudiced. You wouldn’t be objective. You’d be looking for something, and you might think you found it whether it was there or not. Or you might be so prejudiced against finding it that you’d refuse to recognize it if it bit you in the leg.”
He strode from the window over to the desk and banged his fist down on it.
He said, “God damn it, Candler, why me? You know what happened to me three years ago.”
“Sure. Amnesia.”
“Sure, amnesia. Just like that. But I haven’t kept it any secret that I never got over that amnesia. I’m thirty years old — or am I? My memory goes back three years. Do you know what it feels like to have a blank wall in your memory only three years back?
“Oh, sure, I know what’s on the other side of that wall. I know because everybody tells me. I know I started here as a copy boy ten years ago. I know where I was born and when and I know my parents are both dead. I know what they look like — because I’ve seen their pictures. I know I didn’t have a wife and kids, because everybody who knew me told me I didn’t. Get that part — everybody who knew me, not everybody I knew. I didn’t know anybody.
“Sure, I’ve done all right since then. After I got out of the hospital — and I don’t even remember the accident that put me there — I did all right back here because I still knew how to write news stories, even though I had to learn everybody’s name all over again. I wasn’t any worse off than a new reporter starting cold on a paper in a strange city. And everybody was as helpful as hell.”
Candler raised a placating hand to stem the tide. He said, “Okay, Nappy. You said no, and that’s enough. I don’t see what all that’s got to do with this story, but all you had to do was say no. So forget about it.”
The tenseness hadn’t gone out of him. He said, “You don’t see what that’s got to do with the story? You ask — or, all right, you don’t ask, you suggest — that I get myself certified as a madman, go into an asylum as a patient. When — how much confidence could anyone have in his own mind when he can’t remember going to school, can’t remember the first time he met any of the people he works with every day, can’t remember starting on the job he works at, can’t remember — anything back of three years before?”
Abruptly he struck the desk again with his fist, and then looked foolish about it. He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get wound up about it like that.”
Candler said, “Sit down.”
“The answer’s still no.”
“Sit down, anyway.”
He sat down and fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket, got it lighted.
Candler said, “I didn’t even mean to mention it, but I’ve got to now. Now that you talked that way. I didn’t know you felt like that about your amnesia. I thought that was water under the bridge.
“Listen, when Dr. Randolph asked me what reporter we had that could best cover it, I told him about you. What your background was. He remembered meeting you, too, incidentally. But he hadn’t known you had amnesia.”
“Is that why you suggested me?”
“Skip that till I make my point. He said that while you were there, he’d be glad to try one of the newer, milder forms of shock treatment on you, and that it might restore your lost memories. He said it would be worth trying.”
“He didn’t say it would work.”
“He said it might; that it wouldn’t do any harm.”
He stubbed out the cigarette from which he’d taken only three drags. He glared at Candler. He didn’t have to say what was in his mind; the managing editor could read it.
Candler said, “Calm down, boy. Remembe
r I didn’t bring it up until you yourself started in on how much that memory-wall bothered you. I wasn’t saving it for ammunition. I mentioned it only out of fairness to you, after the way you talked.”
“Fairness!”
Candler shrugged. “You said no. I accepted it. Then you started raving at me and put me in a spot where I had to mention something I’d hardly thought of at the time. Forget it. How’s that graft story coming? Any new leads?”
“You going to put someone else on the asylum story?”
“No. You’re the logical one for it.”
“What is the story? It must be pretty woolly if it makes you wonder if Dr. Randolph is sane. Does he think his patients ought to trade places with his doctors, or what?”
He laughed. “Sure, you can’t tell me. That’s really beautiful double bait. Curiosity — and hope of knocking down that wall. So what’s the rest of it? If I say yes instead of no, how long will I be there, under what circumstances? What chance have I got of getting out again? How do I get in?”
Candler said slowly, “Vine, I’m not sure any more I want you to try it. Let’s skip the whole thing.”
“Let’s not. Not until you answer my questions, anyway.”
“All right. You’d go in anonymously, so there wouldn’t be any stigma attached if the story wouldn’t work out. If it does, you can tell the whole truth — including Dr. Randolph’s collusion in getting you in and out again. The cat will be out of the bag, then.
“You might get what you want in a few days — and you wouldn’t stay on it more than a couple of weeks in any case.”
“How many at the asylum would know who I was and what I was there for, besides Randolph?”
“No one.” Candler leaned forward and held up four fingers of his left hand. “Four people would have to be in on it. You.” He pointed to one finger. “Me.” A second. “Dr. Randolph.” The third finger. “And one other reporter from here.”
“Not that I’d object, but why the other reporter?”
“Intermediary. In two ways. First, he’ll go with you to some psychiatrist; Randolph will recommend one you can fool comparatively easily. He’ll be your brother and request that you be examined and certified. You convince the psychiatrist you’re nuts and he’ll certify you. Of course it takes two doctors to put you away, but Randolph will be the second. Your alleged brother will want Randolph for the second one.”
Space On My Hands Page 18