Beyond Bedlam

by Wyman Guin

  Mary knew she had to get out of there or Mrs. Harris

  would eventually recognize her. If she left the room quietly,

  Mrs. Harris would not question her unless she recognized

  her. It was no use trying to guess how Susan would walk.

  Mary stood and went towards the door, glad that it turned

  her back to Mrs. Harris. It seemed to her that she could feel

  the teacher's eyes stabbing through her back.

  But she walked safely from the room. She dashed down' the

  school corridor and out into the street. So great was her fear

  of what she was doing that her hypoalter's world actually

  seemed like a different one.

  It was a long way for Mary to walk across town, and

  when she rang the bell, Conrad Manz was already home from

  work. He smiled at her and she loved him at once.

  "Well, what do you want, young lady?" he asked.

  Mary couldn't answer him. She just smiled back.

  "What's your name, eh?"

  Mary went right on smiling, but suddenly he blurred in front

  of her.

  "Here, here! There's nothing to cry about. Come on in

  and let's see if we can help you. Clara! We have a visitor, a

  very sentimental visitor."

  Mary let him put his big arm around her shoulder and

  draw her, crying, into the apartment. Then she saw Clara

  swimming before her, looking like her mother, but. . . no, not

  at all like her mother.

  "Now, see here, chicken, what is it you've come for?"

  Conrad asked when her crying stopped.

  Mary had to stare hard at the floor to be able to say it.

  "I want to live with you."

  Clara was twisting and untwisting a handkerchief. "But,

  child, we have already had our first baby appointed to us.

  He'll be with us next shift, and after that I have to bear a

  baby for someone else to keep. We wouldn't be allowed to

  take care of you."

  "I thought maybe I was your real child." Mary said it help-

  lessly, knowing in advance what the answer would be.

  "Darling," Clara soothed, "children don't live with their nat-

  ural parents. It's neither practical nor civilized. I have had a

  child conceived and born on my shift, and this baby is my

  exchange, so you see that you are much too old to be my

  conception. Whoever your natural parents may be, it is just

  something on record with the Medicorps Genetic Division and

  isn't important."

  "But you're a special case," Mary pressed. "I thought be-

  cause it was a special arrangement that you were my real

  pareats." She looked up and she saw that Clara had turned

  white.

  And now Conrad Manz was agitated, too. "What do you

  mean, we're a special case?" He was staring hard at her.

  "Because..." And now for the first time Mary realized

  how special this case was, how sensitive they would be

  about it.

  He grasped her by the shoulders and turned her so she

  faced his unblinking eyes. "I said, what do you mean, we're

  a special case? Clara, what in thirty heads does this kid

  mean?"

  His grip hurt her and she began to cry again. She broke

  away. "You're the hypoalters of my appointed father and

  mother. I thought maybe when it was like that, I might be

  your real child. . . and you might want me. I don't want to

  be where I am. I want somebody. . ."

  Clara was calm now, her sudden fear gone. "But, darling,

  if you're unhappy where you are, only the Medicorps can re-

  appoint you. Besides, maybe your appointed parents are just

  having some personal problems right now. Maybe if you tried

  to understand them, you would see that they really love

  you."

  Conrad's face showed that he did not understand. He spoke

  with a stiff, quiet voice and without taking his eyes from

  Mary. "What are you doing here? My own hyperalter's kid

  in my house, throwing it up to me that I'm married to his

  wife's hypoalter!"

  They did not feel the earth move, as she fearfully did.

  They sat there, staring at her, as though they might sit for-

  ever while she backed away, out of the apartment, and

  ran into her collapsing world.

  Conrad Manz's rest day fell the day after Bill Walden's kid

  showed up at his apartment. It was ten days since that

  strait jacket of a conference on Santa Fe had lost him a chance

  to blast off a rocket racer. This time, on the practical knowl-

  edge that emergency business conferences were seldom called

  after lunch, Conrad had placed his reservation for a racer in

  the afternoon. The visit from Mary Walden had upset him

  every time he thought of it. Since it was his rest day, he had

  no intention of thinking about it and Conrad's scrupulously

  drugged mind was capable of just that.

  So now, in the lavish coolness of the lounge at the Rocket

  Club, Conrad sipped his drink contentedly and made no con-

  tribution to the gloomy conversation going on around him.

  "Look at it this way," the melancholy face of Alberts, a

  pilot from England, morosely emphasized his tone. "It takes

  about 10,000 economic units to jack a forty-ton ship up to

  satellite level and snap it around the course six times. That's

  just practice for us. On the other hand, an intellectual fellow

  who spends his spare time at a microfilm library doesn't use

  up 1,000 units in a year. In fact, his spare-time activity may

  turn up as units gained. The Economic Board doesn't

  argue that all pastime should be gainful. They just say rocket

  racing wastes more economic units than most pilots make on

  their work days. I tell you the day is almost here when

  they ban the rockets."

  "That's just it," another pilot put in. "There was a time

  when you could show that rocket races were necessary for

  better spaceship design. Design has gone way beyond that.

  From their point of view we just bum up units as fast

  as other people create them. And it's no use trying to argue

  for the television shows. The Board can prove people would

  rather see a jet-skiing meet at a cost of about one-hundredth

  that of a rocket race."

  Conrad Manz grinned into his drink. He had been aware

  for several minutes that pert little Angela, Alberts' soft-eyed,

  husky-voiced wife, was trying to catch his eye. But stranded

  as she was in the buzzing traffic of rockets, she was trying to

  hail the wrong rescuer. He had about fifteen minutes till the

  ramp boys would have a ship ready for him. Much as he

  liked Angela, he wasn't going to miss that race.

  Still, he let his grin broaden and, looking up at her, he

  lied maliciously by nodding. She interpreted this signal as he

  knew she would. Well, at least he would afford her a grace-

  ful exit from the boring conversation.

  He got up and went over and took her hand. Her full lips

  parted a little and she kissed him on the mouth.

  Conrad turned to Alberts and interrupted him. "Angela and

  I would like to spend a little time together. Do you mind?"

  Alberts was annoyed at having his train of thought brokenr />
  and rather snapped out the usual courtesy. "Of course not.

  I'm glad for both of you."

  Conrad looked the group over with a bland stare. "Have

  you lads ever tried jet-skiing? There's more genuine excite-

  ment in ten minutes of it than an hour of rocket racing. Per-

  sonally, I don't care if the Board does ban the rockets soon.

  I'll just hop out to the Rocky Mountains on rest days."

  Conrad knew perfectly well that if he had made this asser-

  tion before asking Alberts for his wife, the man would have

  found some excuse to have her remain. All the faces present

  displayed the aficionado's disdain for one who has just dem-

  onstrated he doesn't belong. What the strait-jacket did they

  think they weresome ancient order of noblemen?

  Conrad took Angela's yielding arm and led her serenely

  away before Alberts could think of anything to detain her.

  On the way out of the lounge, she stroked his arm with

  frank admiration. "I'm so glad you were agreeable. Honestly,

  Harold could talk rockets till I died."

  Conrad bent and kissed her. "Angela, I'm sorry, but this

  isn't going to be what you think. I have a ship to take off in

  just a few minutes."

  She flared and dug into his arm now. "Oh, Conrad

  Manz! You . . . you made me believe . . "'

  He laughed and grabbed her wrists. "Now, now. I'm neg-

  lecting you to fly a rocket, not just to talk about them. I

  won't let you die."

  At last she could not suppress her husky musical laugh. "I

  found that out the last time you and I were together. Clara

  and I had a drink the other day at the Citizens' Club. I don't

  often use dirty language, but I told Clara she must be keep-

  ing you in a strait-jacket at home."

  Conrad frowned, wishing she hadn't brought up the sub-

  ject. It worried him off and on that something was wrong

  with Clara, something even worse than that awful dreaming

  business ten days ago. For several shifts now she had been

  cold, nor was it just a temporary lack of interest in himself,

  for she was also cold to the men of their acquaintance of

  whom she was usually quite fond. As for himself, he had had

  to depend on casual contacts such as Angela. Not that they

  weren't pleasant, but a man and wife were supposed to main-

  tain a healthy love life between themselves, and it usually

  meant trouble with the Medicorps when this broke down.

  Angela glanced at him. "I didn't think Clara laughed well

  at my remark. Is something wrong between you?"

  "Oh, no," he declared hastily. "Clara is sometimes that

  way. . . doesn't catch a joke right off."

  A page boy approached them where they stood in the

  rotunda and advised Conrad that his ship was ready.

  "Honestly, Angela, I'll make it up, I promise."

  "I know you will, darling. And at least I'm grateful you

  saved me from all those rocket jets in there." Angela raised

  her lips for a kiss and afterwards, as she pushed him towards

  the door, her slightly vacant face smiled at him.

  Out on the ramp, Conrad found another pilot ready to

  take off. They made two wagersfirst to reach the racing

  course, and winner in a six-lap heat around the six-hundred-

  mile hexagonal course.

  They fired together and Conrad blasted his ship up on a

  thunderous column of flame that squeezed him into his seat.

  He was good at this and he knew he would win the lift to

  the course. On the course, though, if his opponent was any

  good at all, Conrad would probably lose, because he enjoyed

  slamming the ship around the course in his wasteful, swash-

  buckling style much more than merely winning the heat.

  Conrad kept his drive on till the last possible second and

  then shot out his nose jets. The ship shuddered up through

  another hundred miles and came to a lolling halt near the

  starting buoys. The other pilot gasped when Conrad shouted

  at him over the intership, "The winner by all thirty heads!"

  It was generally assumed that a race up to the course con-

  sisted of cutting all jets when you had enough lift, and using

  the nose brakes only to correct any overshot. "What did you

  do, just keep your power on and flip the ship around?" The

  other racer coasted up to Conrad's level and steadied with a

  brief forward burst.

  They got the automatic signal from the starting buoy and

  went for the first turn, nose and nose, about half a mile

  apart. Conrad lost 5,000 yards on the first turn by shoving

  his power too hard against the starboard steering jets.

  It made a pretty picture when a racer hammered its way

  around a turn that way with a fan of outside jets holding it in

  place. The other fellow made his turns cleanly, using mostly

  the driving jets for steering. But that didn't look like much

  to those who happened to flip on their television while this

  little heat was in progress. On every turn, Conrad lost a little

  in space, but not in the eye of the automatic televisor on the

  buoy marking the turn. As usual, he cut closer to the buoys

  than regulations allowed, to give the folks a show.

  Without the slightest regret, Conrad lost the heat by a full

  two sides of the hexagon. He congratulated his opponent and

  watched the fellow let his ship down carefully towards earth

  on its tail jets. For a while Conrad lolled his ship around

  near the starting buoy and its probably watching eye, flipping

  through a series of complicated manoeuvres with the steering

  jets.

  Conrad did not like the grim countenance of outer space.

  The lifeless, gem-like blaze of cloud upon cloud of stars in

  the perspectiveless black repelled him. He liked rocket rac-

  ing only because of the neat timing necessary, and possibly

  because the knowledge that he indulged in it scared poor old

  Bill Walden half to death.

  Today the bleak aspect of the Galaxy harried his mind

  back upon its own problems. A particularly nasty associa-

  tion of Clara with Bill Walden and his snivelling kid kept

  dogging Conrad's mind and, as soon as stunting had exhaust-

  ed his excess of fuel, he turned the ship to earth and sent it

  in with a short, spectacular burst.

  Now that he stopped to consider it, Clara's strange be-

  haviour had begun at about the same time that Bill Walden

  started cheating on the shifts. That kid Mary must have

  known something was going on, or she would not have done

  such a disgusting thing as to come to their apartment.

  Conrad had let the rocket fall nose-down, until now it was

  screaming into the upper ionosphere. With no time to spare,

  be swivelled the ship on its guiding jets and opened the

  drive blast at the uprushing earth. He had just completed

  this wrenching manoeuvre when two appalling things happened

  together.

  Conrad suddenly knew, whether as a momentary leak from

  Bill's mind to his, or as a rapid calculation of his own, that

  Bill Walden and Clara shared a secret. At the same mo-

  ment, something tore throu
gh his mind like fingers of chill

  wind. With seven gravities mashing him into the bucket-

  seat, he grunted curses past thin-stretched lips.

  "Great blue psychiatrists! What in thirty strait-jackets is

  that three-headed fool trying to do, kill us both?"

  Conrad just managed to raise his leaden hand and set the

  plummeting racer for automatic pilot before Bill Walden

  forced him out of the shift. In his last moment of conscious-

  ness, and in the shock of his overwhelming shame, Conrad

  felt the bitter irony that he could not cut the power and kill

  Bffl Walden.

  When Bill Walden became conscious of the thunderous

  clamour of the braking ship and the awful weight of deceler-

  ation into which he had shifted, the core of him froze. He

  was so terrified that he could not have thought of reshifting

  even had there been time.

  His head rolled on the pad in spite of its weight, and he

  saw the earth coming at him like a monstrous swatter aimed

  at a fly. Between his fright and the inhuman gravity, he lost

  consciousness without ever seeing on the control panel the

  red warning that saved him: Automatic Pilot.

  The ship settled itself on the ramp in a mushroom of fire.

  Bill regained awareness several seconds later. He was too

  shaken to do anything but sit there for a long time.

  When at last he felt capable of moving, he struggled with

  the door till he found how to open it, and climbed down to

  the still hot ramp he had landed on. It was at least a mile to

  the Rocket Club across the barren flat of the field, and he

  set out on foot. Shortly, however, a truck came speeding

  across to him.

  The driver leaned out. "Hey, Conrad, what's the matter?

  Why didn't you pull the ship over to the hangars?"

  With Conrad's make-up on. Bill felt he could probably

  get by. "Controls aren't working," he offered noncommittally.

  At the club, a place he had never been to before in his

  life. Bill found an unused helicopter and started it with his

  wrist band. He flew the machine into town to the landing

  station nearest his home.

  He was doomed, he knew. Conrad certainly would report

  him for this. He had not intended to force the shift so

  early or so violently. Perhaps he had not intended to force

  it at all this time. But there was something in him more

  powerful than himself... a need to break the shift and be

  with Clara that now acted almost independently of him and