Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time

by Judith Merril (ed. )

  The dog wagged his stumpy tail; and then stiffened in Joey’s arms.

  “Yes,” Joey thought quickly at the dog. “Yes, I know the kids are watching us now. Pretend like—” the thought hurt him, but he said it anyway. “Pretend you don’t like me, that you hate me.”

  Slowly the dog backed away from Joey.

  “Here, doggy, doggy!” Joey called.

  The dog gave a wavering wag of his stump tail.

  “No, no!” Joey thought desperately. “No, don’t let them know. They’ll want to hurt you if they find out. They’re—People are like that.”

  The dog backed away another step and lifted his lip in a snarl.

  “Yah! Yah! Yah!” the kids called out. “Joey can’t even make friends with a dog!”

  They were standing in a semicircle about him now. Joey stood up and faced them then for a moment. There was no anger or resentment in his face. There never would be now. One just shouldn’t get angry at blind and helpless things.

  Without a word he started walking down the street, away from them. The dog crouched far back in the corner under the shrub.

  “Yah! Yah! Crazy Joey!” the kids called out again.

  Joey did not look back. They couldn’t see. They couldn’t hear. They couldn’t know. He felt a rush of pity.

  The kids went back to their play, arguing loudly about who was at bat.

  The dog waited until their attention was fully on the game again. Then he crept out from under the bush, and started ambling aimlessly down the street in the direction Joey had gone, trotting awkwardly on the bias as some dogs do.

  He did not need to sniff for tracks. He knew.

  Among the several remarkable faculties that come under the general heading of ESP, I find that the idea of telepathy appeals strongly to me, but its persistent companion, precognition, is a much less welcome thought.

  Perhaps, to some, the ability to look into the future may seem attractive. To me, the implications are too disturbing; I prefer to believe that I have some degree of personal control over my own future actions.

  This problem of predestination vs. free will has of course long been a subject of philosophical and theological debate. Recently—ever since the concept of time as a possible fourth dimension began to be bandied about—the mathematicians have gotten into the act, and have come up with some reassuring hypotheses derived from what is known as “probability mathematics.”

  The theme is handled here, with unusual dramatic impact, by a young West Coast writer of exceptional promise.

  The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick

  “Is it always hot like this?” the salesman demanded. He addressed everybody at the lunch counter and in the shabby booths against the wall. A middle-aged fat man with a good-natured smile, rumpled gray suit, sweat-stained white shirt, a drooping bow tie, and a panama hat.

  “Only in the summer,” the waitress answered.

  None of the others stirred. The teen-age boy and girl in one of the booths, eyes fixed intently on each other. Two workmen, sleeves rolled up, arms dark and hairy, eating bean soup and rolls. A lean, weathered farmer. An elderly businessman in a blue-serge suit, vest and pocket watch. A dark rat-faced cab driver drinking coffee. A tired woman who had come in to get off her feet and put down her bundles.

  The salesman got out a package of cigarettes. He glanced curiously around the dingy café, lit up, leaned his arms on the counter, and said to the man next to him, “What’s the name of this town?”

  The man grunted. “Walnut Creek.”

  The salesman sipped at his Coke for a while, his cigarette held loosely between his plump white fingers. Presently he reached in his coat and brought out a leather wallet. For a long time he leafed thoughtfully through cards and papers, bits of notes, ticket stubs, endless odds and ends, soiled fragments—and finally a photograph.

  He grinned at the photograph, and then began to chuckle, a low moist rasp. “Look at this,” he said to the man beside him.

  The man went on reading his newspaper.

  “Hey, look at this.” The salesman nudged him with his elbow and pushed the photograph at him. “How’s that strike you?”

  Annoyed, the man glanced briefly at the photograph. It showed a nude woman, from the waist up. Perhaps thirty-five years old. Face turned away. Body white and flabby. With eight breasts.

  “Ever seen anything like that?” the salesman chuckled, his little red eyes dancing. His face broke into lewd smiles and again he nudged the man.

  “I’ve seen that before.” Disgusted, the man resumed reading his newspaper.

  The salesman noticed the lean old farmer was looking at the picture. He passed it genially over to him. “How’s that strike you, Pop? Pretty good stuff, eh?”

  The farmer examined the picture solemnly. He turned it over, studied the creased back, took a second look at the front, then tossed it to the salesman. It slid from the counter, turned over a couple of times, and fell to the floor face up.

  The salesman picked it up and brushed it off. Carefully, almost tenderly, he restored it to his wallet. The waitress’ eyes flickered as she caught a glimpse of it.

  “Damn nice,” the salesman observed, with a wink. “Wouldn’t you say so?”

  The waitress shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know. I saw a lot of them around Denver. A whole colony.”

  “That’s where this was taken. Denver DCA Camp.”

  “Any still alive?” the farmer asked.

  The salesman laughed harshly. “You kidding?” He made a short, sharp swipe with his hand. “Not any more.”

  They were all listening. Even the high-school kids in the booth had stopped holding hands and were sitting up straight, eyes wide with fascination.

  “Saw a funny kind down near San Diego,” the farmer said. “Last year, some time. Had wings like a bat. Skin, not feathers. Skin and bone wings.”

  The rat-eyed taxi driver chimed in. “That’s nothing. There was a two-headed one in Detroit. I saw it on exhibit.”

  “Was it alive?” the waitress asked.

  “No. They’d already euthed it.”

  “In sociology,” the high-school boy spoke up, “we saw tapes of a whole lot of them. The winged kind from down south, the big-headed one they found in Germany, an awful-looking one with sort of cones, like an insect. And—”

  “The worst of all,” the elderly businessman stated, “are those English ones. That hid out in the coal mines. The ones they didn’t find until last year.” He shook his head. “Forty years, down there in the mines, breeding and developing. Almost a hundred of them. Survivors from a group that went underground during the war.”

  “They just found a new kind in Sweden,” the waitress said. “I was reading about it. Controls minds at a distance, they said. Only a couple of them. The DCA got there plenty fast.”

  “That’s a variation of the New Zealand type,” one of the workmen said. “It reads minds.”

  “Reading and controlling are two different things,” the businessman said. “When I hear something like that I’m plenty glad there’s the DCA.”

  “There was a type they found right after the war,” the farmer said. “In Siberia. Had the ability to control objects. Psychokinetic ability. The Soviet DCA got it right away. Nobody remembers that any more.”

  “I remember that,” the businessman said. “I was just a kid, then. I remember because that was the first deeve I ever heard of. My father called me into the living room and told me and my brothers and sisters. We were still rebuilding the house. That was in the days when the DCA inspected everyone and stamped their arms.” He held up his thin, gnarled wrist. “I was stamped there, sixty years ago.”

  “Now they just have the birth inspection,” the waitress said. She shivered. “There was one in San Francisco this month. First in over a year. They thought it was over, around here.”

  “It’s been dwindling,” the taxi driver said. “Frisco wasn’t too bad hit. Not like some. Not like Detroit.”

  �
��They still get ten or fifteen a year in Detroit,” the high-school boy said. “All around there. Lots of pools still left. People go into them, in spite of the robot signs.”

  “What kind was this one?” the salesman asked. “The one they found in San Francisco.”

  The waitress gestured. “Common type. The kind with no toes. Bent over. Big eyes.”

  “The nocturnal type,” the salesman said.

  “The mother had hid it. They say it was three years old. She got the doctor to forge the DCA chit. Old friend of the family.”

  The salesman had finished his Coke. He sat playing idly with his cigarette, listening to the hum of talk he had set into motion. The high-school boy was leaning excitedly toward the girl across from him, impressing her with his fund of knowledge. The lean farmer and the businessman were huddled together, remembering the old days, the last years of the war, before the first Ten-Year Reconstruction Plan. The taxi driver and the two workmen were swapping yarns about their own experiences.

  The salesman caught the waitress’ attention. “I guess,” he said thoughtfully, “that one in Frisco caused quite a stir. Something like that happening so close.”

  “Yeah,” the waitress murmured.

  “This side of the bay wasn’t really hit,” the salesman continued. “You never get any of them over here.”

  “No.” The waitress moved abruptly. “None in this area. Ever.” She scooped up dirty dishes from the counter and headed toward the back.

  “Never?” the salesman asked, surprised. “You’ve never had any deeves on this side of the bay?”

  “No. None.” She disappeared into the back, where the fry cook stood by his burners, white apron and tattooed wrists. Her voice was a little too loud, a little too harsh and strained. It made the farmer pause suddenly and glance up.

  Silence dropped like a curtain. All sound cut off instantly. They were all gazing down at their food, suddenly tense and ominous.

  “None around here,” the taxi driver said, loudly and clearly, to no one in particular. “None ever.”

  “Sure,” the salesman agreed genially. “I was only—”

  “Make sure you get that straight,” one of the workmen said.

  The salesman blinked. “Sure, buddy. Sure.” He fumbled nervously in his pocket. A quarter and a dime jangled to the floor and he hurriedly scooped them up. “No offense.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then the high-school boy spoke up, aware for the first time that nobody was saying anything. “I heard something,” he began eagerly, voice full of importance. “Somebody said they saw something up by the Johnson farm that looked like it was one of those—”

  “Shut up,” the businessman said, without turning his head.

  Scarlet-faced, the boy sagged in his seat. His voice wavered and broke off. He peered hastily down at his hands and swallowed unhappily.

  The salesman paid the waitress for his Coke. “What’s the quickest road to Frisco?” he began. But the waitress had already turned her back.

  The people at the counter were immersed in their food. None of them looked up. They ate in frozen silence. Hostile, unfriendly faces, intent on their food.

  The salesman picked up his bulging brief case, pushed open the screen door, and stepped out into the blazing sunlight. He moved toward his battered 1978 Buick, parked a few meters up. A blue-shirted traffic cop was standing in the shade of an aiming, talking languidly to a young woman in a yellow silk dress that clung moistly to her slim body.

  The salesman paused a moment before he got into his car. He waved his hand and hailed the policeman. “Say, you know this town pretty good?”

  The policeman eyed the salesman’s rumpled gray suit, bow tie, his sweat-stained shirt. The out-of-state license. “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for the Johnson farm,” the salesman said. “Here to see him about some litigation.” He moved toward the policeman, a small white card between his fingers. “I’m his attorney—from the New York Guild. Can you tell me how to get out there? I haven’t been through here in a couple of years.”

  Nat Johnson gazed up at the noonday sun and saw that it was good. He sat sprawled out on the bottom step of the porch, a pipe between his yellowed teeth, a lithe, wiry man in red-checkered shirt and canvas jeans, powerful hands, iron-gray hair that was still thick despite sixty-five years of active life.

  He was watching the children play. Jean rushed laughing in front of him, bosom heaving under her sweat shirt, black hair streaming behind her. She was sixteen, bright-eyed, legs strong and straight, slim young body bent slightly forward with the weight of the two horseshoes. After her scampered Dave, fourteen, white teeth and black hair, a handsome boy, a son to be proud of. Dave caught up with his sister, passed her, and reached the far peg. He stood waiting, legs apart, hands on his hips, his two horseshoes gripped easily. Gasping, Jean hurried toward him.

  “Go ahead!” Dave shouted. “You shoot first. I’m waiting for you.”

  “So you can knock them away?”

  “So I can knock them closer.”

  Jean tossed down one horseshoe and gripped the other with both hands, eyes on the distant peg. Her lithe body bent, one leg slid back, her spine arched. She took careful aim, closed one eye, and then expertly tossed the shoe. With a clang the shoe struck the distant peg, circled briefly around it, then bounced off again and rolled to one side. A cloud of dust rolled up.

  “Not bad,” Nat Johnson admitted, from his step. “Too hard, though. Take it easy.” His chest swelled with pride as the girl’s glistening, healthy body took aim and again threw. Two powerful, handsome children, almost ripe, on the verge of adulthood. Playing together in the hot sun.

  And there was Cris.

  Cris stood by the porch, arms folded. He wasn’t playing. He was watching. He had stood there since Dave and Jean had begun playing, the same half-intent, half-remote expression on his finely cut face. As if he were seeing past them, beyond the two of them. Beyond the field, the barn, the creek bed, the rows of cedars.

  “Come on, Cris!” Jean called, as she and Dave moved across the field to collect their horseshoes. “Don’t you want to play?”

  No, Cris didn’t want to play. He never played. He was off in a world of his own, a world into which none of them could come. He never joined in anything, games or chores or family activities. He was by himself always. Remote, detached, aloof. Seeing past everyone and everything—that is, until all at once something clicked and he momentarily rephased, re-entered their world briefly.

  Nat Johnson reached out and knocked his pipe against the step. He refilled it from his leather tobacco pouch, his eyes on his eldest son. Cris was now moving into life. Heading out onto the field. He walked slowly, arms folded calmly, as if he had for the moment descended from his own world into theirs. Jean didn’t see him; she had turned her back and was getting ready to pitch.

  “Hey,” Dave said, startled. “Here’s Cris.”

  Cris reached his sister, stopped, and held out his hand. A great dignified figure, calm and impassive. Uncertainly, Jean gave him one of the horseshoes. “You want this? You want to play?”

  Cris said nothing. He bent slightly, a supple arc of his incredibly graceful body, then moved his arm in a blur of speed. The shoe sailed, struck the far peg, and dizzily spun around it. Ringer.

  The corners of Dave’s mouth turned down. “What a lousy darn thing.”

  “Cris,” Jean reproved, “you don’t play fair.”

  No, Cris didn’t play fair. He had watched half an hour—then come out and thrown once. One perfect toss, one dead ringer.

  “He never makes a mistake,” Dave complained.

  Cris stood, face blank. A golden statue in the midday sun. Golden hair, skin, a light down of gold fuzz on his bare arms and legs—

  Abruptly he stiffened. Nat sat up, startled. “What is it?” he barked.

  Cris turned in a quick circle, magnificent body alert. “Cris!” Jean demanded. “What—”

&nbs
p; Cris shot forward. Like a released energy beam he bounded across the field, over the fence, into the barn and out the other side. His flying figure seemed to skim over the dry grass as he descended into the barren creek bed, between the cedars. A momentary flash of gold—and he was gone. Vanished. There was no sound. No motion. He had utterly melted into the scenery.

  “What was it this time?” Jean asked wearily. She came over to her father and threw herself down in the shade. Sweat glowed on her smooth neck and upper lip; her sweat shirt was streaked and damp. “What did he see?”

  “He was after something,” Dave stated, coming up.

  Nat grunted. “Maybe. There’s no telling.”

  “I guess I better tell Mom not to set a place for him,” Jean said. “He probably won’t be back.”

  Anger and futility descended over Nat Johnson. No, he wouldn’t be back. Not for dinner and probably not the next day—or the one after that. He’d be gone God only knew how long. Or where. Or why. Off by himself, alone some place. “If I thought there was any use,” Nat began, “I’d send you two after him. But there’s no—”

  He broke off. A car was coming up the dirt road toward the farmhouse. A dusty, battered old Buick. Behind the wheel sat a plump red-faced man in a gray suit, who waved cheerfully at them as the car sputtered to a stop and the motor died into silence.

  “Afternoon,” the man nodded, as he climbed out of the car. He tipped his hat pleasantly. He was middle-aged, genial-looking, perspiring freely as he crossed the dry ground toward the porch. “Maybe you folks can help me.”

  “What do you want?” Nat Johnson demanded hoarsely. He was frightened. He watched the creek bed out of the corner of his eye, praying silently. God, if only he stayed away. Jean was breathing quickly, sharp little gasps. She was terrified. Dave’s face was expressionless, but all color had drained from it. “Who are you?” Nat demanded.

  “Name’s Baines. George Baines.” The man held out his hand but Johnson ignored it. “Maybe you’ve heard of me. I own the Pacifica Development Corporation. We built all those little bomb-proof houses just outside town. Those little round ones you see as you come up the main highway from Lafayette.”