by Various
"And maybe you don't have elbows in your side while it's your turn off watch, but in the starboard bunk there's the air-regenerator master valve--I bet I could still show you the bruises right around my kidneys--and in the port bunk there's the emergency-escape-hatch handle. That gets you right in the temple, if you turn your head too fast.
"And you can't really sleep, I mean not soundly, because of the noise. That is, when the rockets are going. When they aren't going, then you're in free-fall, and that's bad, too, because you dream about falling. But when they're going, I don't know, I think it's worse. It's pretty loud.
"And even if it weren't for the noise, if you sleep too soundly you might roll over on your oxygen line. Then you dream about drowning. Ever do that? You're strangling and choking and you can't get any air? It isn't dangerous, I guess. Anyway, it always woke me up in time. Though I heard about a fellow in a flight six years ago--
"Well. So you've always got this oxygen mask on, all the time, except if you take it off for a second to talk to somebody. You don't do that very often, because what is there to say? Oh, maybe the first couple of weeks, sure--everybody's friends then. You don't even need the mask, for that matter. Or not very much. Everybody's still pretty clean. The place smells--oh, let's see--about like the locker room in a gym. You know? You can stand it. That's if nobody's got space sickness, of course. We were lucky that way.
"But that's about how it's going to get anyway, you know. Outside the masks, it's soup. It isn't that you smell it so much. You kind of taste it, in the back of your mouth, and your eyes sting. That's after the first two or three months. Later on, it gets worse.
"And with the mask on, of course, the oxygen mixture is coming in under pressure. That's funny if you're not used to it. Your lungs have to work a little bit harder to get rid of it, especially when you're asleep, so after a while the muscles get sore. And then they get sorer. And then--
"Well.
"Before we take off, the psych people give us a long doo-da that keeps us from killing each other. But they can't stop us from thinking about it. And afterward, after we're back on Earth--this is what you won't read about in the articles--they keep us apart. You know how they work it? We get a pension, naturally. I mean there's got to be a pension, otherwise there isn't enough money in the world to make anybody go. But in the contract, it says to get the pension we have to stay in our own area.
"The whole country's marked off. Six sections. Each has at least one big city in it. I was lucky, I got a lot of them. They try to keep it so every man's home town is in his own section, but--well, like with us, Chowderhead and the captain both happened to come from Santa Monica. I think it was Chowderhead that got California, Nevada, all that Southwest area. It was the luck of the draw God knows what the captain got.
"Maybe New Jersey," I said, and took another white pill.
* * * * *
We went on to another place and she said suddenly, "I figured something out. The way you keep looking around."
"What did you figure out?"
"Well, part of it was what you said about the other fellow getting New Jersey. This is New Jersey. You don't belong in this section, right?"
"Right," I said after a minute.
"So why are you here? I know why. You're here because you're looking for somebody."
"That's right."
She said triumphantly, "You want to find that other fellow from your crew! You want to fight him!"
I couldn't help shaking, white pills or no white pills. But I had to correct her.
"No. I want to kill him."
"How do you know he's here? He's got a lot of states to roam around in, too, doesn't he?"
"Six. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland--all the way down to Washington."
"Then how do you know--"
"He'll be here." I didn't have to tell her how I knew. But I knew.
I wasn't the only one who spent his time at the border of his assigned area, looking across the river or staring across a state line, knowing that somebody was on the other side. I knew. You fight a war and you don't have to guess that the enemy might have his troops a thousand miles away from the battle line. You know where his troops will be. You know he wants to fight, too.
Hutta. Hutta.
I spilled my drink.
I looked at her. "You--you didn't--"
She looked frightened. "What's the matter?"
"Did you just sneeze?"
"Sneeze? Me? Did I--"
I said something quick and nasty, I don't know what. No! It hadn't been her. I knew it.
It was Chowderhead's sneeze.
* * * * *
Chowderhead. Marvin T. Roebuck, his name was. Five feet eight inches tall. Dark-complected, with a cast in one eye. Spoke with a Midwest kind of accent, even though he came from California--"shrick" for "shriek," "hawror" for "horror," like that. It drove me crazy after a while. Maybe that gives you an idea what he talked about mostly. A skunk. A thoroughgoing, deep-rooted, mother-murdering skunk.
I kicked over my chair and roared, "Roebuck! Where are you, damn you?"
The bar was all at once silent. Only the jukebox kept going.
"I know you're here!" I screamed. "Come out and get it! You louse, I told you I'd get you for calling me a liar the day Wally sneaked a smoke!"
Silence, everybody looking at me.
Then the door of the men's room opened.
He came out.
He looked lousy. Eyes all red-rimmed and his hair falling out--the poor crumb couldn't have been over twenty-nine. He shrieked, "You!" He called me a million names. He said, "You thieving rat, I'll teach you to try to cheat me out of my candy ration!"
He had a knife.
I didn't care. I didn't have anything and that was stupid, but it didn't matter. I got a bottle of beer from the next table and smashed it against the back of a chair. It made a good weapon, you know; I'd take that against a knife any time.
I ran toward him, and he came all staggering and lurching toward me, looking crazy and desperate, mumbling and raving--I could hardly hear him, because I was talking, too. Nobody tried to stop us. Somebody went out the door and I figured it was to call the cops, but that was all right. Once I took care of Chowderhead, I didn't care what the cops did.
I went for the face.
He cut me first. I felt the knife slide up along my left arm but, you know, it didn't even hurt, only kind of stung a little. I didn't care about that. I got him in the face, and the bottle came away, and it was all like gray and white jelly, and then blood began to spring out. He screamed. Oh, that scream! I never heard anything like that scream. It was what I had been waiting all my life for.
I kicked him as he staggered back, and he fell. And I was on top of him, with the bottle, and I was careful to stay away from the heart or the throat, because that was too quick, but I worked over the face, and I felt his knife get me a couple times more, and--
And--
* * * * *
And I woke up, you know. And there was Dr. Santly over me with a hypodermic needle that he'd just taken out of my arm, and four male nurses in fatigues holding me down. And I was drenched with sweat.
For a minute, I didn't know where I was. It was a horrible queasy falling sensation, as though the bar and the fight and the world were all dissolving into smoke around me.
Then I knew where I was.
It was almost worse.
I stopped yelling and just lay there, looking up at them.
Dr. Santly said, trying to keep his face friendly and noncommittal, "You're doing much better, Byron, boy. Much better."
I didn't say anything.
He said, "You worked through the whole thing in two hours and eight minutes. Remember the first time? You were sixteen hours killing him. Captain Van Wyck it was that time, remember? Who was it this time?"
"Chowderhead." I looked at the male nurses. Doubtfully, they let go of my arms and legs.
"Chowderhead," said Dr. Santly. "Oh-
-Roebuck. That boy," he said mournfully, his expression saddened, "he's not coming along nearly as well as you. Nearly. He can't run through a cycle in less than five hours. And, that's peculiar, it's usually you he-- Well, I better not say that, shall I? No sense setting up a counter-impression when your pores are all open, so to speak?" He smiled at me, but he was a little worried in back of the smile.
I sat up. "Anybody got a cigarette?"
"Give him a cigarette, Johnson," the doctor ordered the male nurse standing alongside my right foot.
Johnson did. I fired up.
"You're coming along splendidly," Dr. Santly said. He was one of these psych guys that thinks if you say it's so, it makes it so. You know that kind? "We'll have you down under an hour before the end of the week. That's marvelous progress. Then we can work on the conscious level! You're doing extremely well, whether you know it or not. Why, in six months--say in eight months, because I like to be conservative--" he twinkled at me--"we'll have you out of here! You'll be the first of your crew to be discharged, you know that?"
"That's nice," I said. "The others aren't doing so well?"
"No. Not at all well, most of them. Particularly Dr. Gilvey. The run-throughs leave him in terrible shape. I don't mind admitting I'm worried about him."
"That's nice," I said, and this time I meant it.
* * * * *
He looked at me thoughtfully, but all he did was say to the male nurses, "He's all right now. Help him off the table."
It was hard standing up. I had to hold onto the rail around the table for a minute. I said my set little speech: "Dr. Santly, I want to tell you again how grateful I am for this. I was reconciled to living the rest of my life confined to one part of the country, the way the other crews always did. But this is much better. I appreciate it. I'm sure the others do, too."
"Of course, boy. Of course." He took out a fountain pen and made a note on my chart; I couldn't see what it was, but he looked gratified. "It's no more than you have coming to you, Byron," he said. "I'm grateful that I could be the one to make it come to pass."
He glanced conspiratorially at the male nurses. "You know how important this is to me. It's the triumph of a whole new approach to psychic rehabilitation. I mean to say our heroes of space travel are entitled to freedom when they come back home to Earth, aren't they?"
"Definitely," I said, scrubbing some of the sweat off my face onto my sleeve.
"So we've got to end this system of designated areas. We can't avoid the tensions that accompany space travel, no. But if we can help you eliminate harmful tensions with a few run-throughs, why, it's not too high a price to pay, is it?"
"Not a bit."
"I mean to say," he said, warming up, "you can look forward to the time when you'll be able to mingle with your old friends from the rocket, free and easy, without any need for restraint. That's a lot to look forward to, isn't it?"
"It is," I said. "I look forward to it very much," I said. "And I know exactly what I'm going to do the first time I meet one--I mean without any restraints, as you say," I said. And it was true; I did. Only it wouldn't be a broken beer bottle that I would do it with.
I had much more elaborate ideas than that.
* * *
Contents
THE KNIGHTS OF ARTHUR
By Frederik Pohl
With one suitcase as his domain, Arthur was desperately in need of armed henchmen ... for his keys to a kingdom were typewriter keys!
I
There was three of us--I mean if you count Arthur. We split up to avoid attracting attention. Engdahl just came in over the big bridge, but I had Arthur with me so I had to come the long way around.
When I registered at the desk, I said I was from Chicago. You know how it is. If you say you're from Philadelphia, it's like saying you're from St. Louis or Detroit--I mean nobody lives in Philadelphia any more. Shows how things change. A couple years ago, Philadelphia was all the fashion. But not now, and I wanted to make a good impression.
I even tipped the bellboy a hundred and fifty dollars. I said: "Do me a favor. I've got my baggage booby-trapped--"
"Natch," he said, only mildly impressed by the bill and a half, even less impressed by me.
"I mean really booby-trapped. Not just a burglar alarm. Besides the alarm, there's a little surprise on a short fuse. So what I want you to do, if you hear the alarm go off, is come running. Right?"
"And get my head blown off?" He slammed my bags onto the floor. "Mister, you can take your damn money and--"
"Wait a minute, friend." I passed over another hundred. "Please? It's only a shaped charge. It won't hurt anything except anybody who messes around, see? But I don't want it to go off. So you come running when you hear the alarm and scare him away and--"
"No!" But he was less positive. I gave him two hundred more and he said grudgingly: "All right. If I hear it. Say, what's in there that's worth all that trouble?"
"Papers," I lied.
He leered. "Sure."
"No fooling, it's just personal stuff. Not worth a penny to anybody but me, understand? So don't get any ideas--"
He said in an injured tone: "Mister, naturally the staff won't bother your stuff. What kind of a hotel do you think this is?"
"Of course, of course," I said. But I knew he was lying, because I knew what kind of hotel it was. The staff was there only because being there gave them a chance to knock down more money than they could make any other way. What other kind of hotel was there?
Anyway, the way to keep the staff on my side was by bribery, and when he left I figured I had him at least temporarily bought. He promised to keep an eye on the room and he would be on duty for four more hours--which gave me plenty of time for my errands.
* * * * *
I made sure Arthur was plugged in and cleaned myself up. They had water running--New York's very good that way; they always have water running. It was even hot, or nearly hot. I let the shower splash over me for a while, because there was a lot of dust and dirt from the Bronx that I had to get off me. The way it looked, hardly anybody had been up that way since it happened.
I dried myself, got dressed and looked out the window. We were fairly high up--fifteenth floor. I could see the Hudson and the big bridge up north of us. There was a huge cloud of smoke coming from somewhere near the bridge on the other side of the river, but outside of that everything looked normal. You would have thought there were people in all those houses. Even the streets looked pretty good, until you noticed that hardly any of the cars were moving.
I opened the little bag and loaded my pockets with enough money to run my errands. At the door, I stopped and called over my shoulder to Arthur: "Don't worry if I'm gone an hour or so. I'll be back."
I didn't wait for an answer. That would have been pointless under the circumstances.
After Philadelphia, this place seemed to be bustling with activity. There were four or five people in the lobby and a couple of dozen more out in the street.
I tarried at the desk for several reasons. In the first place, I was expecting Vern Engdahl to try to contact me and I didn't want him messing with the luggage--not while Arthur might get nervous. So I told the desk clerk that in case anybody came inquiring for Mr. Schlaepfer, which was the name I was using--my real name being Sam Dunlap--he was to be told that on no account was he to go to my room but to wait in the lobby; and in any case I would be back in an hour.
"Sure," said the desk clerk, holding out his hand.
I crossed it with paper. "One other thing," I said. "I need to buy an electric typewriter and some other stuff. Where can I get them?"
"PX," he said promptly.
"PX?"
"What used to be Macy's," he explained. "You go out that door and turn right. It's only about a block. You'll see the sign."
"Thanks." That cost me a hundred more, but it was worth it. After all, money wasn't a problem--not when we had just come from Philadelphia.
* * * * *
The big sign re
ad "PX," but it wasn't big enough to hide an older sign underneath that said "Macy's." I looked it over from across the street.
Somebody had organized it pretty well. I had to admire them. I mean I don't like New York--wouldn't live there if you gave me the place--but it showed a sort of go-getting spirit. It was no easy job getting a full staff together to run a department store operation, when any city the size of New York must have a couple thousand stores. You know what I mean? It's like running a hotel or anything else--how are you going to get people to work for you when they can just as easily walk down the street, find a vacant store and set up their own operation?
But Macy's was fully manned. There was a guard at every door and a walking patrol along the block-front between the entrances to make sure nobody broke in through the windows. They all wore green armbands and uniforms--well, lots of people wore uniforms.
I walked over.
"Afternoon," I said affably to the guard. "I want to pick up some stuff. Typewriter, maybe a gun, you know. How do you work it here? Flat rate for all you can carry, prices marked on everything, or what is it?"
He stared at me suspiciously. He was a monster; six inches taller than I, he must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He didn't look very smart, which might explain why he was working for somebody else these days. But he was smart enough for what he had to do.
He demanded: "You new in town?"
I nodded.
He thought for a minute. "All right, buddy. Go on in. You pick out what you want, see? We'll straighten out the price when you come out."
"Fair enough." I started past him.
He grabbed me by the arm. "No tricks," he ordered. "You come out the same door you went in, understand?"
"Sure," I said, "if that's the way you want it."
That figured--one way or another: either they got a commission, or, like everybody else, they lived on what they could knock down. I filed that for further consideration.