400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  “Having trouble in there, Jack?

  “It’s the Pewlins again. They went to bed. Thanks for asking, Nairla.”

  “If they’re any trouble, we’d be glad to take them out here. We can hardly hear them, they’re so small. I know the neighborlings’ voices can be so penetrating when you’re trying to sleep.”

  How do you know that? he thought, but didn’t ask. He had kept her awake a few times, no doubt, with his infrequent parties.

  “No, seriously, it’s not a problem now. Thanks anyway.” He leaned out of the doorway and she turned her head so that he could whisper into her vast ear: “I think you’ve probably intimidated them.”

  She pulled back and smiled, a very nice smile. Nairla had always taken a special interest in him; for his part, he’d always been attracted to big-boned red headed women. But not as big as Nairla. She was quite out of his league. And besides, her enormous husband lay out there like a range of hills, snoring away. The houses and office buildings along the giants’ walls were all dark; Jack’s samesize neighbors kept similar hours. He only wished his neighborlings could be so quiet.

  “Sleep tight,” Nairla said.

  “Would you ask her to keep it down?” piped a voice from a corner of Jack’s room. “Some of us have to get up in the morning.”

  * * *

  Jack awoke with a groan on his lips and a vile taste in his mouth, and the complaints of the neighborlings in his ears: “Turn off that alarm clock! We’re awake!”

  As he reached out to switch off the alarm, he realized that he was sick. Swimming head, upset stomach—the flu had been going around at the office. This had to be it. He would just lie here a while and hope it didn’t get worse.

  False hope. He lurched out of bed and ran into the bathroom. When he looked up from the sink, the houses along the window ledge were coming to life. Complaints came drifting down to him: “Was that birdsong I heard? What a way to wake up.”

  “Sorry,” Jack said.

  From bed, he called the office. The phones weren’t being answered yet. He would have to lie and wait a while.

  An hour later, he awoke to the sound of buzzing. Tiny private fliers darted among the buildings on his wall. Some of them maneuvered around the ceiling of the room, caught in elaborate flight patterns as they waited their turns to exit through the vents near the ceiling, then headed for neighboring pueblos in other houses. The configurations confused him; they were like specks swimming across his eyes.

  Late, he thought. I’m late.

  He sat up abruptly and grabbed the phone, fighting nausea as he dialed the office. Mrs. Clorn sounded mildly amused by his illness; apparently she didn’t believe him. As he hung up, a tiny voice asked, “Jack, are you sick?”

  He glanced up at the nearest wall. A young mother and her child stood on the ramp outside their house.

  “Oh, Revlyn, hi. Yeah, I’ve got the flu.”

  “Wish I could help. I make soup for Tilly when he’s sick . . . but you know how much I’d have to make for you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. It’s a twenty-four-hour bug.” Someone scratched on his door.

  “Come in!” he called.

  Nairla put her eye to the opening. “I thought you were still in there. Aren’t you going to work today?”

  “He’s got the flu,” Revlyn called.

  “What’s that?” asked Nairla. “Is she talking to me, Jack?”

  “Of course I’m talking to you, you dumb giant! Can’t you hear me?” Revlyn broke off into wild laughter.

  “Nice to see you too, dear,” Nairla said.

  “She says I’m sick,” said Jack. “I’ve got the flu.”

  “The flu? Oh dear! Would you like some oatmeal? I can mash it up for you. Plenty of fluids and what else? Do you have a fever? I’d lend you a thermometer but . . . you know.”

  “Why don’t you ask her if any of your neighbors are home,” Revlyn said. “You need someone to look in on you, Jack. Seriously.”

  “What’s that?” Nairla said.

  “Nothing,” Jack said.

  “Ask her, Jack,” said Revlyn. “You’d be silly not to. What if you get really sick?”

  He sighed. “Nairla, Revlyn says I should ask you to sec if any of my neighbors are home, in case I get worse.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll check. There arc a few . . . oh, I have a wonderful idea! I’ve been meaning to introduce you two for the longest time. She’s an artist.”

  Oh no, he thought. Not that.

  “Nairla—” he began. But she was gone. He looked up at Revlyn. “She’s going to get somebody.”

  “Good. That’s nice of her. I’m sorry I make fun of her, but she is so deaf, you know?”

  “She’s big, that’s all.” Big and nosy.

  A minute passed, in which he heard Nairla humming to herself, vibrating the walls of his house. He thought he was going to be sick again. Footsteps came up along the ramp, then a face peeked around the door. It was a samesize woman, a redhead with big bones, strong hands. As she came all the way into the room, she said, “You must be Jack. You look pretty sick.”

  He wondered how long Nairla had been waiting for this chance.

  “I’m Liss. I brought some tea. I was just making up a pot for my morning work.” She sat on a corner of the mattress and poured some tea into a water glass he’d left on the floor.

  “So, uh, I hear you’re an artist,” he said.

  She handed him the glass. “I’m a sculptor. Mostl I apply for grants.”

  “You’re an artist and you get paid for it?”

  “The Plenary Council—have you heard of them? Everything I do goes to the Council, and they arrange showings. There’s a lot of interest in us, among the giants. And I’m talking about giant giants—bigger than Nairla. They’re intrigued by our perceptions of the world. Do you realize they have to look at our art under microscopes?”

  “Art, huh? So what’s it mean to the little guy?”

  She reached in her pocket and took out both a magnifying glass and a little box. “I’ll show you. This was made by a sculptor three sizes smaller than us. He’s been a great influence on my own work, though I can’t say I’m nearly as good as him. The detail work is incredible.”

  Liss handed him first the glass, and then the box with the lid taken off. He found himself staring into a construction the size of a rice grain, elaborately carved, a piece of microscopic scrimshaw showing spiral staircases that grew smaller and smaller as they curled toward the center of the grain. On the stairs were incredibly lifelike figures, also dwindling as the steps shrank. Looking at it made him dizzy. He thought of himself looking at the tiny stairs, and of Nairla looking in at him, and of someone looking in at Nairla.

  He blinked at Liss. “Do . . . do the giants have art?”

  “Sure. It’s hard for us to see it sometimes, though. You have to get way back. We’ve tried scaling it down through the levels, but it loses something. The size is part of the meaning.”

  “That’s really interesting.”

  “Do you think so? It’s funny, with all of us living on this wall, I spend more time talking to Nairla and the neighborlings than I ever do with people my own size.”

  He shrugged. “I’m like that. I have a boring job; it makes me feel like all the samesizes are boring. When I get home, I don’t want to sec anybody my own size.”

  “My husband’s the same way,” Revlyn called. “I can’t get him to take me out. He’d rather stay home and watch the little people.”

  Jack held out the glass and Liss refilled it. He smiled at her, feeling better already, and raised it in a toast.

  “Here’s to a new friend,” he said. He was gratified to see her blush.

  At the doorway, Nairla blinked in and said, “Aren’t you two cute?”

  “Oh, spare me,” said Revlyn, and went inside.

  * * *

  “Love Comes to the Middleman” copyright 1987 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in Mathenauts: Tales of
Mathematical Wonder, edited by Rudy Rucker (1987).

  MIDDLEMAN’S RENT

  Liss must have heard him coming up the ramp. She opened the front door before he knocked, and met him with a kiss that on an ordinary day would have broken his bad mood instantly. The best he could do today, though, was to take his hands out of his pockets and give her a weak hug.

  “Jack, what’s wrong? You look really depressed.”

  He nodded as she led him in. As always, her apartment was a mess: paint spattered the floor, her tools lay everywhere, and something that looked like an incomplete sculpture teetered on three spindly, twisted legs in the middle of the room.

  “I finished it this morning,” she said when she saw him looking at it. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s nice,” he said. “I lost my job.”

  “Jack! Oh no, why?” She caught both his hands and drew him down to the cushions in one corner of the room.

  He shrugged. He couldn’t exactly say it was because of her, though indirectly that was so. In the twenty days since he and Liss had met, he’d called in sick seven times, and left work earlier and earlier each day. This morning he had come in late—having stayed up almost all last night—and Mr. Dopnitta had informed him that there was no room in the office for a laggard, no matter how well intentioned.

  “I was getting tired of the job anyway,” he said.

  Liss sighed and got up to brew tea. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

  “No! Don’t be ridiculous. It was time for a change. That job doesn’t suit me anymore. It’s too much all of a level.”

  She giggled. “Jack, you didn’t used to talk like that.”

  He felt his mood unraveling, and grinned back at her. “O.K., maybe you had something to do with it.”

  “I’ll consider it a victory. Have you thought about what you’re going to do now?”

  “No. I don't have any money saved. Enough to pay my current bills, and that’s it.”

  “You can move in with me,” she said.

  “There's not enough room for two in here.”

  “So we’ll rent a bigger place. Maybe something not so fancy. I’m getting tired of these walls, you know? Wouldn’t you like to find a place with a view of trees and hills? A nice country home?”

  He took a long look at her walls, and had to admit that he’d grown tired of tract housing. From floor to ceiling, there was nothing to see but houses and a few little patches of community parkland. Like the wall in his room, the development was deserted most of the day, during business hours. A few tiny adults strolled on the ramps, or watched their tinier children climbing on the vines in the parks, but otherwise the neighborhood was dead.

  “And how will I make money?”

  “You’ll think of something, Jack.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got your arts grants, but what am I? A paper pusher.”

  “. . .Excuse me.”

  Jack turned to the wall just behind him, above the cushions, and saw an old man leaning out from the window of his house.

  “Were you talking to me?” Jack said.

  “Couldn’t help overhearing you two,” said the neighborling.

  “Have I introduced you two?” Liss asked. “I’m sorry, Ganly. This is Jack. Jack, Ganly.”

  “Pleasure,” Jack said.

  “I just thought I’d point out,” Ganly said, “there’s plenty you could do right in this room to earn money. I don’t think most people realize. I’ve been independent since I was your age, and I make good money at it. Enough to retire without any help from the Equalization Board.”

  “Maybe stuff like that works at your level,” Jack said, instantly regretting the disparagement in his tone.

  “I like that!” Ganly snapped. “Here I come out with a bit of advice, and I get—well, it’ll teach me to butt in.”

  “No, no, no!” Liss said, kneeling down by Ganly’s house. “I’m sure Jack didn’t mean anything. He’s not used to thinking on more than three levels at a time.”

  “He’s not even doing that!”

  Liss gave Jack a withering look. He crouched down next to her.

  “Uh, look, I’m sorry if that came out the wrong way. I’m sure you know what you’re talking about.”

  Ganly stared at him a moment with a stern expression, then cocked his head and relaxed into a smile. “You listening?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now Jack, this doesn’t require thinking on more than the three levels you’re used to. Just put yourself in my place for a moment, and you’ll know what I mean.”

  Jack tried to imagine himself at Ganly’s size, standing in Ganly’s living room. It was easy enough. Ganly’s walls were covered with little houses, just like the houses on Jack’s level; and on the walls of those houses were tinier houses with tinier houses on their walls. It was simple to imagine, because if he looked out Liss’s window, he could see that her house was on the wall of a large room, where Nairla and her husband lived. And Nairla’s house was on the wall of a house that was on a larger wall of a larger house. . . .

  “Now think of an old man like me,” Ganly said. “I can’t get around the way I used to, you know. Say I want to rearrange the furniture in my house, or get rid of this old table that’s taking up so much space. Now for me that could be quite a chore—hard on my heart, you get me?”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “But for you, now, it’s no big deal to pry the roof off this place and move my furniture around. And if you did that for me, why shouldn’t I pay you scale?”

  “You mean . . . pay me what you’d pay some samesize guy?”

  “Sure, why not? The work’s worth it to me.” Ganly tapped his forehead with a finger. “There’re plenty of people would agree with that. But whoever thinks of it? Bah—they’re wrapped up on their own level, that’s what it is. Easier to get a desk job and talk to samesizes all day. Now for me, I’d rather get a different perspective on things—the little guy’s point of view, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Jack said.

  “And it works both ways. There’re things you can do for the giants that they can’t do for themselves, and they’ll pay you handsomely to do it—because for them, it’s the tiny work they have trouble with. It’s worth a lot to have someone who knows his way around the inside of a radio.”

  “That wouldn’t be me,” Jack said. “I can't even load a mechanical pencil.”

  “Now there are a few guys,” said Ganly, “who act as agents, go-betweens. They make deals not among three or five levels, but among seven, nine, eleven—“

  “The Plenary Council is a chair organization,” Liss said. “Its connections run upscale and down for as far as we can tell. I had a job last year working for a giant thirteen levels up. He needed someone to rearrange particles in a microscopic art exhibit. To him they were particles, anyway; to me it was like—well, rearranging furniture. And some of those particles had downscale people on them, working out the most fantastic, intricate textures. . . .”

  “I’m not an artist,” Jack said.

  “You don’t need to be!” Ganly cried. “There’s plenty of practical work needing to be done. And if you’re thinking of moving to the country—well, farmers can always use an extra hand to dig irrigation ditches, put in fences, bring in the crops.”

  “What about the upscale on a farm?” Jack asked. "I’m not so sure I’d want to live with enormous bugs and rats.”

  “You’re stuck in outphase thinking,” Liss said. “It’s not like that at all. We all grew up hearing stories about giant insects—houseflies that kidnap children—but it’s folklore, artifacts from the race memory. Those are things from another dimension; they don’t affect us here.”

  “I don't know,” Ganly said. “You hear stories. . . .”

  “That’s all they are. Our minds are still ruled by those artifacts. It’s just like you were saying, Ganly. We go on paying samesizes to do work that giants could do easily.
We go on building farm machinery to do a job a giant can do with his little finger. I mean, can you believe there’s still a market for tweezers when any neighborling can pick up tiny things for us? We should be living totally different kinds of lives—there should have been some sort of revolution long, long ago. But people cling to the old ways.”

  “They’re recalcitrant, every last one of them,” Ganly said. “Down to the smallest, up to the largest.”

  Jack said, “But if you made some kind of basic change on your level, don’t you think it could have a reaction that went both ways at once? Say if one level threw out farm machinery completely and relied on giants. Don’t you think those giants would get the idea and throw out their machinery? And the neighborlings of the rebel level would do likewise. Right up and down the line, you’d have a sweeping revolution. The potential’s there.”

  “Oh, definitely,” said Ganly. “The potential is infinite. The problem is people your own size. Try telling them to change their ways—to throw out their machines and hire someone from another level. It’s tough! They'd rather put their money in the pocket of a samesize than a neighborling or a giant. It gets distressing.”

  Liss put her hands on her hips and stood up facing the wall, considering all those houses and ramps and parks. “What if I decided to paint all the houses in colors that I liked? Who’d stop me?”

  “Giants would stop you,” Ganly said. “Don't be ridiculous. The law applies to all levels equally.”

  “And what if I went out and painted on my wall, ‘Giants revolt!’ Or something like that, in huge letters.”

  “Depends on your giant. I once had a neighborling used to hang big swear words out his windows—boy, that burned me up! I had kids at the time. I couldn’t touch him, though, legally. The law always protects the little guy. It took a movement of samesizes to get the guy evicted. His neighbors got upset once my kids learned the words and started shouting them at the top of their lungs.”

  Liss shook her head, frowning. “Now I’m depressed. It makes me feel like . . . well, what good is this sculpture, for instance? It’ll never change anything. I could throw it out the door, and to Nairla it would just be a scrap of junk to sweep up.”