Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “No,” he said.

  “I thought I could. This is just some kind of a dream that’s real for both of us . . . isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “And what I’m looking for, I’ll never find,” she said. “. . . There’s going to be a war in Europe, and we’re going to get involved, and I’m going to lose my future in it.” She waved her hand toward the mist swirling outside the car. “This world . . . It’s already vanishing. The war talk is in the air. Everybody knows what’s coming. We’re all just waiting. And nothing will ever be what we expect it to: nothing will ever be . . . the way we find it in the secret dreams we have. . . .”

  He did not reply.

  “You’re sad,” she said.

  He waited, but there was nothing more to wait for.

  “Everybody is sad, little girl, everybody, everywhere. But sometimes it takes a long time to admit it to yourself. Well, thank you for letting me sit in here for a little while. I guess you better go on to join your friends. I’d like to go with you, but I can’t. It’s late for me, and my wife will be worried.”

  She reached out to touch him, tears in her eyes, but already he was opening the door. He stood outside the car, looking in, seeing the small figure illuminated by dashlight.

  He closed the door to the car and without looking back turned and walked away in the ocean mist. He wondered what time it was.

  He walked many blocks before he regained his orientation and located a familiar street. He turned toward home. There was an aching tiredness in the muscles of his legs. In his memory lingered the flowery taste of beer such as he could not remember since childhood.

  And he knew that time is the one problem everybody faces that has no solution. Someday mankind might conquer space and spread itself across all the stars, but time is orders of magnitude more complex than the three-dimensional world, time is in the beginning and will be in the end, fixed and immutable and eternal, and men and women are forever helpless before it. One may search downward through the thousand layers of personality to understand his motives and unsnarl his complicated emotions, but in the end he will come inevitably to the unity which waits for all of us at the bottom of the universe: time.

  As he walked, his hand went now and again to his pocket to feel the coins. There was a quarter and the pennies. Over and over again, he tried to will there to be two quarters, not one.

  But one, alone, was all there was.

  1968

  THYRE PLANET

  Here we were on Thyre Planet, wondering where everyone had gone—until they all came back!

  I

  Reginald Bellflower looked out the window of the shuttle ship as it skimmed deeper into the atmosphere of Thyre Planet. At last, below, he could see one of the alien cities. Judging from the constructions, one might imagine the vanished alien race in no way different from earthmen except for language. Down to details in living accommodations, including toilet facilities, the cities, of Thyre Planet were built for human occupation.

  Bellflower, 45, was an administrator. For more years than anyone would care to believe, he had attended evening classes in various centers which specialized in producing the executive personality always in such short supply in industry. As a result of this schooling, his long-practiced smile of sincerity inspired immediate confidence; his dress was exactly proper for every occasion, social and business; and his composure could not be shaken by any conceivable corporate disaster. He knew every technique and reference source to use in determining the actual requirements of any potential employer. He knew the three best companies to hire for resume writing. He knew How to respond without hesitation to all possible job-placement-interview questions. And, of course, he was thoroughly proficient in working every psychological and intelligence test known to man. His stern credo: Hire the best people available and pay whatever you have to get them.

  Bellflower was now confronted with the most challenging job of his career: General Director of the Scientific Task Force to Solve the Thyre Planet Transportation Problem.

  The shuttle, in due time, landed. Bellflower watched the other passengers, all homesteaders doubtless, disembark. When the last man was at the doorway, Bellflower arose and gathered up his belongings at leisure. He walked through the empty cabin to the exit, stepped out and calmly looked around for the welcoming party, already half-fragmented in confusion: thinking He had missed the flight.

  The mayor, hand outstretched, bounced up the stairs toward Him. “Welcome to Aloseni, Mr. Bellflower!” cried the mayor.

  “Mayor Baile?” said Bellflower, taking the Hand in a firm, dry grip, making the smile, holding it just long enough to produce the desired effect, letting it go in recognition of the gravity of the situation on Thyre Planet. “I have been looking forward to working with you and your people.”

  At the bottom of the boarding ramp, Bellflower repeated the performance for the other dignitaries. He placed Himself completely at their disposal, showing no impatience, no desire to depart. At length an embarrassed silence fell. Formalities had been concluded. None seemed willing to take the next step, perhaps for fear of offending their guest who was obviously quietly enjoying the welcoming activity.

  Bellflower said into the silence, “I guess it’s time to go to work.”

  Instantly, obeying Bellflower’s suggestion, Mayor, Baile said, “We’ll go into my office and go over the situation right now, if you’re not too tired from the trip.”

  Bellflower bent to his suitcases.

  “Let’s have these sent over to my Hotel.” Someone came forward to relieve him of them. “Very well, Mayor Baile. Gentleman, thank you all for coming out. We’ll be working closely together.”

  The mayor started away, Bellflower following.

  An instant of shock and terror enveloped the general director of STFSTPTP then. The mayor was calmly walking toward what must be a Transportation Booth. Bellflower desperately surveyed the newly built spaceport No ground cars were in evidence!

  This development brought perspiration to Bellflower’s skin. A man could damned well get killed in one of those Transportation Booths. Was He expected to use them, too?

  But of course you are, logic told him for the first time.

  When the mayor opened the door of the Transportation Booth, Bellflower drew back instinctively. The mayor said, “Everyone is a little uneasy the first few trips. Eventually, after a week or two, you get used to it. The fatality rate is only point oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh two five of one percent.”

  Bellflower quickly rephrased the statistic to a mathematical aptitude test question. Given that the present population of Thyre Planet is one billion and the year (as on Mother earth) contains 365 days. By postulating an average travel rate per person of 3000 trips a year, Bellflower was readily able to calculate a fatality rate of approximately 20 per day . . . assuming He had the decimal right. Each day he stayed on Thyre Planet, he faced one chance out of 50 million of being killed by the transportation system.

  He stepped into the booth’, his terror slowly departing. It was wildly improbable that He would be killed. Somebody else would be. It would take the Transportation Booths over 100,000 years to kill him.

  “Now, here’s the way you work it,” said the mayor. “You dial your number, in this case, my office . . . Then you pull this lever . . .” The outside world became opaque, and the two men were isolated. “Now,” continued the mayor, “you wait for this light to flash, which indicates your office is ready to receive you. For God’s sake always wait for the light to flash; you’ll be killed every time otherwise. Now, see it flash? Now you push this button.”

  As he listened to the instructions, Bellflower watched the mayor of Aloseni. In the logical part of his mind, he thought that there were entirely too many operations involved, and that with proper redesign there seemed no reason not to eliminate at least two of them.

  When the mayor pushed the button, blood spurted from the side of his head.

  “Good God!�
�� cried Bellflower. “Your ear!”

  Stunned, the mayor put a Hand to his Head. “My ear is tom off!” He cried. “Jesus! It hurts! Don’t stand there! Get the damned first-aid kit! Get the doctor in Here! It’s Hurting Eke Hell!”

  Bellflower saw for the first time that they were in a different Transportation Booth. He could tell because the opacity was gone and beyond the glass door was an office. Bellflower slammed through the door crying, “Get a doctor! Mayor Baile is hurt!”

  The room filled almost immediately with employees. First aid was given. Within three minutes a doctor stepped out of the Transportation Booth and took charge. He inspected the mayor quickly before rendering a verdict. “You’re going to be all right. You’ve just lost an ear is all. We’ll get you right over to the Hospital.”

  “Thank God it wasn’t any worse,” said the mayor.

  Bellflower stood helplessly to one side, watching the mayor and the doctor depart by means of the Transportation Booth. He faced a Horrible sinking sensation that came when He realized that he was going to have to step back into that little booth to get to his motel.

  II

  Within a week, Bellflower was situated in his offices. The general director’s suite seemed not to accord completely with his job responsibilities, but for the first few months, during program buildup, He would make do. In seven days, the unfamiliarity of the alien city vanished into his subconscious to trouble Him only in vague dreams of the classic insecurity type. He was assured these, too, would pass. The strange and contradictory color combinations, the texture of the wood, the Hand of the synthetics, the unfamiliar odors, the unusual tastes had blended into the natural environment.

  He reviewed his presentation for Colonel Ramsey, Head of the Thyre Planet Citizens’ Committee for Public Transportation. This blue-ribbon committee, appointed by the president of Thyre Planet to develop the scientific team to solve the transportation problem, was as near, at the moment, to an employer as Bellflower Had.

  Colonel Ramsey stepped out of the Transportation Booth exactly at the appointed Hour. The clear-circuit signal a moment before his arrival gave Bellflower a chance to compose his smile.

  When the amenities had been completed, Bellflower said, “I understand Dr. Nostran will arrive tomorrow? I must congratulate you again on obtaining his services.”

  “We were amazed he would consent,” said Colonel Ramsey. “He made a personal presentation and He was the only one who did who seemed to have a firm, scientific grasp of our problem here on Thyre. You would expect no less from Dr. Nostran. I don’t mind telling you, we felt very lucky to get him.”

  “I am looking forward to the opportunity of working with him,” said Bellflower. “I have been moving ahead as quickly as I can in his absence. I am presently recruiting senior staff members in accordance with this Table of Organization.” He passed the document over to Colonel Ramsey, who studied it.

  At length Colonel Ramsey said, “This is a professional document I wish my people could do as well. But it’s what we expect of you.”

  “I expect the quality of my work to be reviewed along with everyone else’s,” said Bellflower. “A man stands on his performance. I don’t like excuses. I don’t make excuses.”

  “A commendable attitude,” said the colonel. “I wish my people Bad that attitude, but I’m afraid there is a lack of true executive talent in the universe.”

  “I am slowly coming to an appreciation of the magnitude of our problem here on Thyre,” said Bellflower. “I don’t want to minimize the committment or resources that will have to be made, nor do I wish to promise a solution within a week, a month or even a year. This may be one of the most difficult problems ever tackled by the human race.”

  “We didn’t find any scientific experts who thought it would be easy.”

  “Fundamentally,” said Bellflower, “we are dealing with a problem of divergent cultures. Superficially these cultures are virtually identical. In fact, they are profoundly different. Their very thought processes, their very ways of thinking about the universe, are at opposite extremes. I see our job, in a larger sense, as achieving a synthesis of these two opposites.

  “We must, in short, learn the thought processes of the Thyrians. We must follow them up the evolutionary ladder; we must isolate divergent tendencies, analyze them, project them info scientific constructs. These clues will offer Dr. Nostran a philosophical basis for his new physics. Both programs must advance in parallel developments.”

  Colonel Ramsey, impressed, said, “I see you have not stopped thinking after having made your successful presentation to the committee.”

  “I will work on this problem twenty-four Hours a day. I will saturate my subconscious until the Scientific Task Force becomes the stuff of my dreams. I continually turn the situation over in my thoughts, seeking some tiny new insight, some small clue that can lead us a step forward. Step by step, clue by clue . . .”

  Bellflower settled deep into his chair. His eyes lost their focus to sight on distant, invisible goals—a technique. He had mastered only by self-deception. “I always encourage my people to see the positive aspects of any research. I do not believe negative thinking is constructive. Let me give you an example.

  “I’ve talked to a dozen people who keep coming back to Captain MacDonald’s blunder. What is to be served by worrying over that again? What is to be served by discussing endlessly Commander Aloseni’s role? Should he have forbidden the use of radar? The whole question is academic. Let’s take the positive approach.

  “How could a culture develop to this point without discovering radar? How could they store all their recorded data, every bit of it, their whole history, on tape that could be erased by radar frequencies?

  “It doesn’t help to say that if all those recordings Hadn’t been erased, we would be able easily to read the solution to our transportation problem from them. That’s past. What does help is asking ourselves how such an advanced culture could be so stupid. This is the problem we have to address ourselves to.”

  “Your point is very well-taken,” said Colonel Ramsey. “I wish my own people would learn to take a positive approach like that.”

  “My mind,” said Bellflower, “keeps continually returning to this cultural polarity. It illustrates the magnitude of the task before us. The Thyrians have developed a method of transportation unknown anywhere else in the universe. And yet, yet . . . it seems almost within our grasp, doesn’t it? We have the Corsi equations. They tell us How to effect no-time transmissions between spacial coordinates. And what is more common than starship flights? We think nothing of a journey of a thousand light-years. Yet the energy requirements are fantastic and nowhere in the Corsi equations can we learn how to do matter transmission in close proximity to a strong gravitational field.

  “Yet Here on Thyre, with one atomic pile for power and a single computer, the Thyrians erected this vast network of matter transmitters. What was the x-equation their scientific genius evolved? We look at the world through different eyes. Ironic that neither race ever guessed the other’s secret!”

  “I wish my people Bad your broad perspective,” said Colonel Ramsey.

  “I do not underestimate the magnitude of this job. I studied it carefully before I made application for the position of General Director. I would not have hesitated to turn the appointment down if I felt for a angle moment that there would not be enough resources to carry out the assignment properly. I expect defeat.

  “But I ultimately expect victory.

  “Every day twenty men, women and children step into a Booth, just like the one over there, and emerge mangled corpses an instant later. Every day people are horribly and permanently mutilated by that device. I, myself, saw Mayor Baile lose an ear. I want to work on this program. But I must know that our scientific people have every resource at their disposal.

  “Even if my scientists ultimately discover after years and years of work that there is no solution to the problem, I want to know that I, personally, m
ade the best try anyone could make to end this needless slaughter.”

  “Mr. Bellflower,” said Colonel Ramsey, “this is the kind of support you have every right to expect from us. The committee, every man and woman on it, is personally committed to see that that is exactly the kind of support you will get.”

  “I deeply appreciate your confidence,” said Bellflower.

  III

  Two days later, Bellflower spoke privately with his chief scientist, Dr. Seymour Nostran, newly arrived to assume duties.

  Bellflower opened the conversation on a social note. “You find, doctor, after a few trips in the Booth, you don’t mind it any more. We’re only losing twenty a day, on the average. The figure will go up as more immigrants move in, but the odds remain constant.”

  Dr. Nostran did not dispute the point.

  “I suggest,” said Bellflower, “we each make our own adjustment in. our own way. The only effect the sociologists have noted has been a slight increase in the suicide rate. Each of us develops our superstition: that accidents won’t happen twice from the same booth; that an accident to a close associate or family member confers immunity on oneself; that a strong belief in the power of a talisman will influence external reality in one’s favor . . . We each adjust in our own way: you and I, to a knowledge of probabilities, which establishes our thinking on a firm, scientific basis.”

  Dr. Nostran said, “My stomach still knots up every time I get into one of those damned things.”

  Dr. Nostran,” said Bellflower, “what do you think of our chances? What are we up against; what do we need to get the job done? I was certainly not aisle to follow an the details in your presentation to the Thyre Committee, but I wonder if you could explain the Nostran Theory to me in layman’s terms?”