And the loneliness! To look at the stars and know Homeworld is out there somewhere! To think of all the others, mating, chanting, dividing, abstracting, while I live out my days in this crumbling hotel on an alien planet, tugged down by gravity and locked within a cramped counterfeit body—always alone, always pretending that I am not what I am and that I am what I am not, spying, questioning, recording, reporting, coping with the misery of solitude, hunting for the comforts of philosophy—
In all of this there is only one real consolation, aside, that is, from the pleasure of knowing that I am of service to Homeworld. The atmosphere of New York City grows grimier every year. The streets are full of crude vehicles belching undigested hydrocarbons. To the Earthfolk, this stuff is pollution, and they mutter worriedly about it. To me it is joy. It is the only touch of Homeworld here: that sweet soup of organic compounds adrift in the air. It intoxicates me. I walk down the street breathing deeply, sucking the good molecules through my false nostrils to my authentic lungs. The natives must think I’m insane. Tripping on auto exhaust! Can I get arrested for over-enthusiastic public breathing? Will they pull me in for a mental checkup?
Elizabeth Cooke continues to waft wistful attentions at me. Smiles in the hallway. Hopeful gleam of the eyes. “Perhaps we can have dinner together some night soon, Mr. Knecht. I know we’d have so much to talk about. And maybe you’d like to see the new poems I’ve been doing.” She is trembling. Eyelids flickering tensely; head held rigid on long neck. I know she sometimes has men in her room, so it can’t be out of loneliness or frustration that she’s cultivating me. And I doubt that she’s sexually attracted to my outer self. I believe I’m being accurate when I say that women don’t consider me sexually magnetic. No, she loves me because she pities me. The sad shy bachelor at the end of the hall, dear unhappy Mr. Knecht; can I bring some brightness into his dreary life? And so forth. I think that’s how it is. Will I be able to go on avoiding her? Perhaps I should move to another part of the city. But I’ve lived here so long I’ve grown accustomed to this hotel. Its easy ways do much to compensate for the hardships of my post. And my familiar room, The huge many-paned window; the cracked green floor tiles in the bathroom; the lumpy patterns of replastering on the wall above my bed. The high ceiling; the funny chandelier. Things that I love. But of course I can’t let her try to start an affair with me. We are supposed to observe Earthfolk, not to get involved with them. Our disguise is not that difficult to penetrate at close range. I must keep her away somehow. Or flee.
Incredible! There is another of us in this very hotel! As I learned through accident. At one this afternoon, returning from my morning travels: Elizabeth in the lobby, as though lying in wait for me, chatting with the manager. Rides up with me in the elevator. Her eyes looking into mine. “Sometimes I think you’re afraid of me,” she begins. “You mustn’t be. That’s the great tragedy of human life, that people shut themselves up behind walls of fear and never let anyone through, anyone who might care about them and be warm to them. You’ve got no reason to be afraid of me.” I do, but how to explain that to her? To sidestep prolonged conversation and possible entanglement I get off the elevator one floor below the right one. Let her think I’m visiting a friend. Or a mistress. I walk slowly down the hall to the stairs, using up time, waiting so she will be in her room before I go up. A maid bustles by me. She thrusts her key into a door on the left: a rare faux pas for the usually competent help here, she forgets to knock before going in to make up the room. The door opens and the occupant, inside, stands revealed. A stocky, muscular man, naked to the waist. “Oh, excuse me,” the maid gasps, and backs out, shutting the door. But I have seen. My eyes are quick. The hairy chest is split, a dark gash three inches wide and some eleven inches long, beginning between the nipples and going past the navel. Visible within is the black shiny surface of a Homeworld carapace. My countryman, opening up for Second Feeding. Dazed, numbed, I stagger to the stairs and pull myself step by leaden step to my floor. No sign of Elizabeth. I stumble into my room and throw the bolt. Another of us here? Well, why not? I’m not the only one. There may be hundreds in New York alone. But in the same hotel? I remember, now, I’ve seen him occasionally: a silent, dour man, tense, hunted-looking, unsociable. No doubt I appear the same way to others. Keep the world at a distance. I don’t know his name or what he is supposed to do for a living.
We are forbidden to make contact with fellow Homeworlders except in case of extreme emergency. Isolation is a necessary condition of our employment. I may not introduce myself to him; I may not seek his friendship. It is worse now for me, knowing that he is here, than when I was entirely alone. The things we could reminisce about! The friends we might have in common! We could reinforce one another’s endurance of the gravity, the discomfort of our disguises, the vile climate. But no. I must pretend I know nothing. The rules. The harsh, unbending rules. I to go about my business, he his; if we meet, no hint of my knowledge must pass.
So be it. I will honor my vows. But it may be difficult.
He goes by the name of Swanson. Been living in the hotel eighteen months; a musician of some sort, according to the manager. “A very peculiar man. Keeps to himself; no small talk, never smiles. Defends his privacy. The other day a maid barged into his room without knocking and I thought he’d sue. Well, we get all sorts here.” The manager thinks he may actually be a member of one of the old European royal families, living in exile, or something similarly romantic. The manager would be surprised.
I defend my privacy too. From Elizabeth, another assault on it.
In the hall outside my room. “My new poems,” she said. “In case you’re interested.” And then: “Can I come in? I’d read them to you. I love reading out loud.” And: “Please don’t always seem so terribly afraid of me. I don’t bite, David. Really I don’t. I’m quite gentle.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Anger, now, lurking in her shiny eyes, her thin taut lips. “If you want me to leave you alone, say so, I will. But I want you to know how cruel you’re being. I don’t demand anything from you. I’m just offering some friendship. And you’re refusing. Do I have a bad smell? Am I so ugly? Is it my poems you hate and you’re afraid to tell me?”
“Elizabeth—”
“We’re only on this world such a short time. Why can’t we be kinder to each other while we are? To love, to share, to open up, Communication, soul to soul.” Her tone changed, an artful shading. “For all I know, women turn you off. I wouldn’t put anybody down for that. We’ve all got our ways. But it doesn’t have to be a sexual thing, you and me. Just talk. Like, opening the channels. Please? Say no and I’ll never bother you again, but don’t say no, please. That’s like shutting a door on life, David. And when you do that, you start to die a little.”
Persistent. I should tell her to go to hell. But there is the loneliness. There is her obvious sincerity. Her warmth, her eagerness to pull me from my lunar isolation. Can there be harm in it? Knowing that Swanson is nearby, so close yet sealed from me by iron commandments, has intensified my sense of being alone. I can risk letting Elizabeth get closer to me. It will make her happy; it may make me happy; it could even yield information valuable to Homeworld. Of course I must still maintain certain barriers.
“I don’t mean to be unfriendly. I think you’ve misunderstood, Elizabeth. I haven’t really been rejecting you. Come in. Do come in.” Stunned, she enters my room. The first guest ever. My few books; my modest furnishings; the ultrawave transmitter, impenetrably disguised as a piece of sculpture. She sits. Skirt far above the knees. Good legs, if I understand the criteria of quality correctly. I am determined to allow no sexual overtures. If she tries anything, I’ll resort to—I don’t know—hysteria. “Read me your new poems,” I say. She opens her portfolio. Reads.
In the midst of the hipster night of doubt and
Emptiness, when the bad-trip god came to me with
Cold hands, I l
ooked up and shouted yes at the
Stars. And yes and yes again. I groove on yes;
The devil grooves on no. And I waited for you to
Say yes, and at last you did. And the world said
The stars said the trees said the grass said the
Sky said the streets said yes and yes and yes—
She is ecstatic. Her face is flushed; her eyes are joyous. She has broken through to me. After two hours, when it becomes obvious that I am not going to ask her to go to bed with me, she leaves. Not to wear out her welcome. “I’m so glad I was wrong about you, David,” she whispers. “I couldn’t believe you were really a life-denier. And you’re not.” Ecstatic.
I am getting into very deep water.
We spend an hour or two together every night. Sometimes in my room, sometimes in hers. Usually she comes to me, but now and then, to be polite, I seek her out after Third Feeding. By now I’ve read all her poetry; we talk instead of the arts in general, politics, racial problems. She has a lively, well-stocked, disorderly mind. Though she probes constantly for information about me, she realizes how sensitive I am, and quickly withdraws when I parry her. Asking about my work; I reply vaguely that I’m doing research for a book, and when I don’t amplify she drops it, though she tries again, gently, a few nights later. She drinks a lot of wine, and offers it to me. I nurse one glass through a whole visit. Often she suggests we go out together for dinner; I explain that I have digestive problems and prefer to eat alone, and she takes this in good grace but immediately resolves to help me overcome those problems, for soon she is asking me to eat with her again. There is an excellent Spanish restaurant right in the hotel, she says. She drops troublesome questions. Where was I born? Did I go to college? Do I have family somewhere? Have I ever been married? Have I published any of my writings? I improvise evasions. Nothing difficult about that, except that never before have I allowed anyone on Earth such sustained contact with me, so prolonged an opportunity to find inconsistencies in my pretended identity. What if she sees through?
And sex. Her invitations grow less subtle. She seems to think that we ought to be having a sexual relationship, simply because we’ve become such good friends. Not a matter of passion so much as one of communication: we talk, sometimes we take walks together, we should do that together too. But of course it’s impossible. I have the external organs but not the capacity to use them. Wouldn’t want her touching my false skin in any case. How to deflect her? If I declare myself impotent she’ll demand a chance to try to cure me. If I pretend homosexuality she’ll start some kind of straightening therapy. If I simply say she doesn’t turn me on physically she’ll be hurt. The sexual thing is a challenge to her, the way merely getting me to talk with her once was. She often wears the transparent pink shawl that reveals her breasts. Her skirts are hip-high. She doses herself with aphrodisiac perfumes. She grazes my body with hers whenever opportunity arises. The tension mounts; she is determined to have me.
I have said nothing about her in my reports to Homeworld. Though I do transmit some of the psychological data I have gathered by observing her.
“Could you ever admit you were in love with me?” she asked tonight.
And she asked, “Doesn’t it hurt you to repress your feelings all the time? To sit there locked up inside yourself like a prisoner?”
And, “There’s a physical side of life too, David. I don’t mind so much the damage you’re doing to me by ignoring it. But I worry about the damage you’re doing to you.”
Crossing her legs. Hiking her skirt even higher.
We are heading toward a crisis. I should never have let this begin. A torrid summer has descended on the city, and in hot weather my nervous system is always at the edge of eruption. She may push me too far. I might ruin everything. I should apply for transfer to Homeworld before I cause trouble. Maybe I should confer with Swanson. I think what is happening now qualifies as an emergency.
Elizabeth stayed past midnight tonight. I had to ask her finally to leave: work to do. An hour later she pushed an envelope under my door. Newest poems. Love poems. In a shaky hand: “David you mean so much to me. You mean the stars and nebulas. Cant you let me show my love? Cant you accept happiness? Think about it. I adore you.”
What have I started?
103° F. today. The fourth successive day of intolerable heat. Met Swanson in the elevator at lunch time; nearly blurted the truth about myself to him. I must be more careful. But my control is slipping. Last night, in the worst of the heat, I was tempted to strip off my disguise. I could no longer stand being locked in here, pivoting and ducking to avoid all the machinery festooned about me. Resisted the temptation; just barely. Somehow I am more sensitive to the gravity too. I have the illusion that my carapace is developing cracks. Almost collapsed in the street this afternoon. All I need: heat exhaustion, whisked off to the hospital, routine fluoroscope exam. “You have a very odd skeletal structure, Mr. Knecht.” Indeed. Dissecting me, next, with three thousand medical students looking on. And then the United Nations called in. Menace from outer space. Yes. I must be more careful. I must be more careful. I must be more—
Now I’ve done it. Eleven years of faithful service destroyed in a single wild moment. Violation of the Fundamental Rule. I hardly believe it. How was it possible that I—that I—with my respect for my responsibilities—that I could have—even considered, let alone actually done—
But the weather was terribly hot. The third week of the heat wave. I was stifling inside my false body. And the gravity: was New York having a gravity wave too? That terrible pull, worse than ever. Bending my internal organs out of shape. Elizabeth a tremendous annoyance: passionate, emotional, teary, poetic, giving me no rest, pleading for me to burn with a brighter flame. Declaring her love in sonnets, in rambling hip epics, in haiku. Spending two hours in my room, crouched at my feet, murmuring about the hidden beauty of my soul. “Open yourself and let love come in,” she whispered. “It’s like giving yourself to God. Making a commitment; breaking down all walls. Why not? For love’s sake, David, why not?” I couldn’t tell her why not, and she went away, but about midnight she was back knocking at my door. I let her in. She wore an ankle-length silk housecoat, gleaming, threadbare. “I’m stoned,” she said hoarsely, voice an octave too deep. “I had to bust three joints to get up the nerve. But here I am. David, I’m sick of making the turnoff trip. We’ve been so wonderfully close, and then you won’t go the last stretch of the way.” A cascade of giggles. “Tonight you will. Don’t fail me. Darling.” Drops the housecoat. Naked underneath it: narrow waist, bony hips, long legs, thin thighs, blue veins crossing her breasts. Her hair wild and kinky. A sorceress. A seeress. Berserk. Approaching me, eyes slit-wide, mouth open, tongue flickering snakily. How fleshless she is! Beads of sweat glistening on her flat chest. Seizes my wrists; tugs me roughly toward the bed. We tussle a little. Within my false body I throw switches, nudge levers. I am stronger than she is. I pull free, breaking her hold with an effort. She stands flat-footed in front of me, glaring, eyes fiery. So vulnerable, so sad in her nudity. And yet so fierce. “David! David! David!” Sobbing. Breathless. Pleading with her eyes and the tips of her breasts. Gathering her strength; now she makes the next lunge, but I see it coming and let her topple past me. She lands on the bed, burying her face in the pillow, clawing at the sheet. “Why? Why why why WHY?” she screams.
In a minute we will have the manager in here. With the police.
“Am I so hideous? I love you, David, do you know what that word means? Love. Love.” Sits up. Turns to me. Imploring. “Don’t reject me,” she whispers. “I couldn’t take that. You know, I just wanted to make you happy, I figured I could be the one, only I didn’t realize how unhappy you’d make me. And you just stand there. And you don’t say anything. What are you, some kind of machine?”
“I’ll tell you what I am,” I said.
That was when I went sliding into the
abyss. All control lost; all prudence gone. My mind so slathered with raw emotion that survival itself means nothing. I must make things clear to her, is all. I must show her. At whatever expense. I strip off my shirt. She glows, no doubt thinking I will let myself be seduced. My hands slide up and down my bare chest, seeking the catches and snaps. I go through the intricate, cumbersome process of opening my body. Deep within myself something is shouting NO NO NO NO NO, but I pay no attention. The heart has its reasons.
Hoarsely: “Look, Elizabeth. Look at me. This is what I am. Look at me and freak out. The reality trip.”
My chest opens wide.
I push myself forward, stepping between the levers and struts, emerging halfway from the human shell I wear. I have not been this far out of it since the day they sealed me in, on Homeworld. I let her see my gleaming carapace. I wave my eyestalks around. I allow some of my claws to show. “See? See? Big black crab from outer space. That’s what you love, Elizabeth. That’s what I am. David Knecht’s just a costume, and this is what’s inside it.” I have gone insane. “You want reality? Here’s reality, Elizabeth. What good is the Knecht body to you? It’s a fraud. It’s a machine. Come on, come closer. Do you want to kiss me? Should I get on you and make love?”
During this episode her face has displayed an amazing range of reactions. Open-mouthed disbelief at first, of course. And frozen horror: gagging sounds in throat, jaws agape, eyes wide and rigid. Hands fanned across breasts. Sudden modesty in front of the alien monster? But then, as the familiar Knecht-voice, now bitter and impassioned, continues to flow from the black thing within the sundered chest, a softening of her response. Curiosity. The poetic sensibility taking over. Nothing human is alien to me: Terence, quoted by Cicero. Nothing alien is alien to me. Eh? She will accept the evidence of her eyes. “What are you? Where did you come from?” And I say, “I’ve violated the Fundamental Rule. I deserve to be plucked and thinned. We’re not supposed to reveal ourselves. If we get into some kind of accident that might lead to exposure, we’re supposed to blow ourselves up. The switch is right here.” She comes close and peers around me, into the cavern of David Knecht’s chest. “From some other planet? Living here in disguise?” She understands the picture. Her shock is fading. She even laughs. “I’ve seen worse than you on acid,” she says. “You don’t frighten me now, David. David? Shall I go on calling you David?”
Needle in a Timestack Page 42