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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Inside John Barth, by William W. Stuart
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Inside John Barth
+
+Author: William W. Stuart
+
+Illustrator: Dillon
+
+Release Date: April 25, 2009 [EBook #28608]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIDE JOHN BARTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Galaxy Magazine,
+June, 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+INSIDE JOHN BARTH
+
+
+By WILLIAM W. STUART
+
+
+
+Every man wants to see a Garden of Eden. John Barth
+agreed with his whole heart--he knew that he'd rather
+see than be one!
+
+
+
+Illustrated by DILLON
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Take a fellow, reasonably young, personable enough, health perfect.
+Suppose he has all the money he can reasonably, or even unreasonably,
+use. He is successful in a number of different fields of work in which
+he is interested. Certainly he has security. Women? Well, maybe not any
+woman in the world he might want. But still, a very nice, choice
+selection of a number of the very finest physical specimens. The
+finest--and no acute case of puritanism to inhibit his enjoyment.
+
+Take all that. Then add to it the positive assurance of continuing
+youth and vigor, with a solid life expectancy of from 175 to 200 more
+years. Impossible? Well--just suppose it were all true of someone. A
+man like that, a man with all those things going for him, you'd figure
+he would be the happiest man in the world.
+
+Wouldn't you?
+
+Sure. A man with all that would have to be the happiest--unless he was
+crazy. Right? But me, Johnny Barth, I had it.
+
+I had all of it, just like that. I sure wasn't the happiest man in the
+world though. And I know I wasn't crazy either. The thing about me was,
+I wasn't a man. Not exactly.
+
+I was a colony.
+
+Really. A colony. A settlement. A new but flourishing culture, you
+might say. Oh, I had the look of a man, and the mind and the nerves and
+the feel of a man too. All the normal parts and equipment. But all of
+it existed--and was beautifully kept up, I'll say that--primarily as a
+locale, not a man.
+
+I was, as I said before, a colony.
+
+Sometimes I used to wonder how New England really felt about the
+Pilgrims. If you think that sounds silly--perhaps one of these days you
+won't.
+
+
+The beginning was some ten years back, on a hunting trip the autumn
+after I got out of college. That was just before I started working, as
+far off the bottom as I could talk myself, which was the personnel
+office in my Uncle John's dry cleaning chain in the city.
+
+That wasn't too bad. But I was number four man in the office, so it
+could have been better, too. Uncle John was a bachelor, which meant he
+had no daughter I could marry. Anyway, she would have been my cousin.
+But next best, I figured, was to be on good personal terms with the old
+bull.
+
+This wasn't too hard. Apart from expecting rising young executives to
+rise and start work no later than 8:30 a.m., Uncle John was more or
+less all right. Humor him? Well, every fall he liked to go hunting. So
+when he asked me to go hunting with him up in the Great Sentries, I
+knew I was getting along pretty well. I went hunting.
+
+The trip was nothing very much. We camped up in the hills. We drank a
+reasonably good bourbon. We hunted--if that's the word for it. Me, I'd
+done my hitch in the Army. I know what a gun is--and respect it. Uncle
+John provided our hunting excitement by turning out to be one of the
+trigger-happy types. His score was two cows, a goat, a couple of other
+hunters, one possible deer--and unnumbered shrubs and bushes shot _at_.
+Luckily he was such a lousy shot that the safest things in the
+mountains were his targets.
+
+Well, no matter. I tried to stay in the second safest place, which was
+directly behind him. So it was a nice enough trip with no casualties,
+right up to the last night.
+
+We were all set to pack out in the morning when it happened. Maybe you
+read about the thing at the time. It got a light-hearted play in the
+papers, the way those things do. "A one in a billion accident," they
+called it.
+
+We were lounging by the campfire after supper and a few good snorts.
+Uncle John was entertaining himself with a review of some of his
+nearer, more thrilling misses. I, to tell the truth, was sort of dozing
+off.
+
+Then, all of a sudden, there was a bright flash of blue-green light and
+a loud sort of a "zoop-zing" sound. And a sharp, stinging sensation in
+my thighs.
+
+I hollered. I jumped to my feet. I looked down, and my pants were
+peppered with about a dozen little holes like buckshot. I didn't have
+to drop my pants to know my legs were too. I could feel it. And blood
+started to ooze.
+
+I figured, of course, that Uncle John had finally shot me and I at once
+looked on the bright side. I would be a cinch for a fast promotion to
+vice president. But Uncle John swore he hadn't been near a gun. So we
+guessed some other hunter must have done it, seen what he had done and
+then prudently ducked. At least no one stepped forward.
+
+
+It was a moonlight night. With Uncle John helping me we made it the two
+and a half miles back down the trail to Poxville, where we'd left our
+car and stuff. We routed out the only doctor in the area, old Doc
+Grandy.
+
+He grumbled, "Hell, boy, a few little hunks o' buckshot like that and
+you make such a holler. I see a dozen twice's bad as this ever' season.
+Ought to make you wait till office hours. Well--hike yourself up on the
+table there. I'll flip 'em out for you."
+
+Which he proceeded to do. If it was a joke to him, it sure wasn't to
+me, even if they weren't in very deep. Finally he was done. He stood
+there clucking like an old hen with no family but a brass doorknob.
+Something didn't seem quite right to him.
+
+Uncle John gave me a good belt of the bourbon he'd been thoughtful
+enough to pack along.
+
+"What was it you say hit you, boy?" Doc Grandy wanted to know, reaching
+absently for the bottle.
+
+"Buckshot, I suppose. What was it you just hacked out of me?"
+
+"Hah!" He passed the bottle back to Uncle John. "Not like any buckshot
+I ever saw. Little balls, or shells of metallic stuff all right. But
+not lead. Peculiar. M-mph. You know what, boy?"
+
+"You're mighty liberal with the iodine, I know that. What else?"
+
+"You say you saw a big flash of light. Come to think on it, I saw a
+streak of light up the mountainside about that same time. I was out
+on the porch. You know, boy, I believe you got something to feel
+right set up about. I believe you been hit by a meteor. If it
+weren't--ha-ha--pieces of one of them flying saucers you read
+about."
+
+Well, I didn't feel so set up about it, then or ever. But it did turn
+out he was right.
+
+Doc Grandy got a science professor from Eastern State Teachers College
+there in Poxville to come look. He agreed that they were meteor
+fragments. The two of them phoned it in to the city papers during a
+slow week and, all in all, it was a big thing. To them. To me it was
+nothing much but a pain in the rear.
+
+The meteor, interviewed scientists were quoted as saying, must have
+almost burned up coming through the atmosphere, and disintegrated just
+before it hit me. Otherwise I'd have been killed. The Poxville
+professor got very long-winded about the peculiar shape and composition
+of the pieces, and finally carried off all but one for the college
+museum. Most likely they're still there. One I kept as a souvenir,
+which was silly. It wasn't a thing I wanted to remember--or, as I found
+later, would ever be able to forget. Anyway, I lost it.
+
+All right. That was that and, except for a lingering need to sit on
+very soft cushions, the end of it. I thought. We went back to town.
+
+Uncle John felt almost as guilty about the whole thing as if he had
+shot me himself and, in November, when he found about old Bert
+Winginheimer interviewing girl applicants for checker jobs at home in
+his apartment, I got a nice promotion.
+
+
+Working my way up, I was a happy, successful businessman.
+
+And then, not all at once but gradually, a lot of little things
+developed into problems. They weren't really problems either, exactly.
+They were puzzles. Nothing big but--well, it was like I was sort of
+being made to do, or not do, certain things. Like being pushed in one
+direction or another. And not necessarily the direction I personally
+would have picked. Like----
+
+Well, one thing was shaving.
+
+I always had used an ordinary safety razor--nicked myself not more than
+average. It seemed OK to me. Never cared too much for electric razors;
+it didn't seem to me they shaved as close. But--I took to using an
+electric razor now, because I had to.
+
+One workday morning I dragged myself to the bathroom of my bachelor
+apartment to wash and shave. Getting started in the morning was never a
+pleasure to me. But this time seemed somehow tougher than usual. I
+lathered my face and put a fresh blade in my old razor.
+
+For some reason, I could barely force myself to start. "Come on, Johnny
+boy!" I told myself. "Let's go!" I made myself take a first stroke with
+the razor. Man! It burned like fire. I started another stroke and the
+burning came before the razor even touched my face. I had to give up. I
+went down to the office without a shave.
+
+That was no good, of course, so at the coffee break I forced myself
+around the corner to the barber shop. Same thing! I got all lathered up
+all right, holding myself by force in the chair. But, before the barber
+could touch the razor to my face, the burning started again.
+
+I stopped him. I couldn't take it.
+
+And then suddenly the idea came to me that an electric razor would be
+the solution. It wasn't, actually, just an idea; it was positive
+knowledge. Somehow I knew an electric razor would do it. I picked one
+up at the drug store around the corner and took it to the office.
+Plugged the thing in and went to work. It was fine, as I had known it
+would be. As close a shave? Well, no. But at least it was a shave.
+
+Another thing was my approach to--or retreat from--drinking. Not that I
+ever was a real rummy, but I hadn't been one to drag my feet at a
+party. Now I got so moderate it hardly seemed worth bothering with at
+all. I could only take three or four drinks, and that only about once a
+week. The first time I had that feeling I should quit after four, I
+tried just one--or two--more. At the first sip of number five, I
+thought the top of my head would blast off. Four was the limit. Rigidly
+enforced.
+
+All that winter, things like that kept coming up. I couldn't drink more
+than so much coffee. Had to take it easy on smoking. Gave up ice
+skating--all of a sudden the cold bothered me. Stay up late nights and
+chase around? No more; I could hardly hold my eyes open after ten.
+
+That's the way it went.
+
+I had these feelings, compulsions actually. I couldn't control them. I
+couldn't go against them. If I did, I would suffer for it.
+
+True, I had to admit that probably all these things were really good
+for me. But it got to where everything I did was something that was
+good for me--and that was bad. Hell, it isn't natural for a young
+fellow just out of college to live like a fussy old man of seventy with
+a grudge against the undertaker. Life became very dull!
+
+About the only thing I could say for it was, I was sure healthy.
+
+It was the first winter since I could remember that I never caught a
+cold. A cold? I never once sniffled. My health was perfect; never even
+so much as a pimple. My dandruff and athlete's foot disappeared. I had
+a wonderful appetite--which was lucky, since I didn't have much other
+recreation left. And I didn't even gain weight!
+
+Well, those things were nice enough, true. But were they compensation
+for the life I was being forced to live? Answer: Uh-uh. I couldn't
+imagine what was wrong with me.
+
+Of course, as it turned out the following spring, I didn't have to
+imagine it. I was told.
+
+
+II
+
+It was a Friday. After work I stopped by Perry's Place with Fred
+Schingle and Burk Walters from the main accounting office. I was hoping
+it would turn out to be one of my nights to have a couple--but no. I
+got the message and sat there, more or less sulking, in my half of the
+booth.
+
+Fred and Burk got to arguing about flying saucers. Fred said yes; Burk,
+no. I stirred my coffee and sat in a neutral corner.
+
+"Now look here," said Burk, "you say people have seen things. All
+right. Maybe some of them have seen things--weather balloons, shadows,
+meteors maybe. But space ships? Nonsense."
+
+"No nonsense at all. I've seen pictures. And some of the reports are
+from airline pilots and people like that, who are not fooled by
+balloons or meteors. They have seen ships, I tell you, ships from outer
+space. And they are observing us."
+
+"Drivel!"
+
+"It is not!"
+
+"It's drivel. Now look, Fred. You too, Johnny, if you're awake over
+there. How long have they been reporting these things? For years. Ever
+since World War II.
+
+"All right. Ever since the war, at least. So. Suppose they were space
+ships? Whoever was in them must be way ahead of us technically. So why
+don't they land? Why don't they approach us?"
+
+Fred shrugged. "How would I know? They probably have their reasons.
+Maybe they figure we aren't worth any closer contact."
+
+"Hah! Nonsense. The reason we don't see these space people, Fred my
+boy, admit it, is because there aren't any. And you know it!"
+
+"I don't know anything of the damned sort. For all any of us know, they
+might even be all around us right now."
+
+Burk laughed. I smiled, a little sourly, and drained my coffee.
+
+I felt a little warning twinge.
+
+Too much coffee; should have taken milk. I excused myself as the other
+two ordered up another round.
+
+I left. The conversation was too stupid to listen to. Space creatures
+all around me, of all things. How wrong can a man get? There weren't
+any invaders from space all around me.
+
+_I was all around them._
+
+
+All at once, standing there on the sidewalk outside Perry's Bar, I knew
+that it was true. Space invaders. The Earth was invaded--the Earth,
+hell! _I_ was invaded. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew all right.
+I should have. I was in possession of all the information.
+
+I took a cab home to my apartment.
+
+I was upset. I had a right to be upset and I wanted to be alone. Alone?
+That was a joke!
+
+Well, my cab pulled up in front of my very modest place. I paid the
+driver, overtipped him--I was really upset--and ran up the stairs. In
+the apartment, I hustled to the two by four kitchen and, with
+unshakable determination, I poured myself a four-finger snort of
+scotch.
+
+Then I groaned and poured it down the sink. Unshakable determination is
+all very well--but when the top of your head seems to rip loose like a
+piece of stubborn adhesive coming off a hairy chest and bounces, hard,
+against the ceiling, then all you can do is give up. I stumbled out to
+the front room and slumped down in my easy chair to think.
+
+I'd left the door open and I was sitting in a draft.
+
+So I had to--that compulsion--go close the door. _Then_ I sat down to
+think.
+
+Anyway I _thought_ I sat down to think. But, suddenly, my thoughts were
+not my own.
+
+I wasn't producing them; I was receiving them.
+
+"Barth! Oh, Land of Barth. Do you read us, oh Barthland? Do you read
+us?"
+
+I didn't hear that, you understand. It wasn't a voice. It was all
+thoughts inside my head. But to me they came in terms of words.
+
+I took it calmly. Surprisingly, I was no longer upset--which, as I
+think it over, was probably more an achievement of internal engineering
+than personal stability.
+
+"Yeah," I said, "I read you. So who in hell--" a poor choice of
+expression--"are you? What are you doing here? Answer me that." I
+didn't have to say it, the thought would have been enough. I knew that.
+But it made me feel better to speak out.
+
+"We are Barthians, of course. We are your people. We live here."
+
+"Well, you're trespassing on private property! Get out, you hear me?
+Get out!"
+
+"Now, now, noble Fatherland. Please, do not become upset and
+unreasonable. We honor you greatly as our home and country. Surely we
+who were born and raised here have our rights. True, our forefathers
+who made the great voyage through space settled first here in a
+frightful wilderness some four generations back. But we are neither
+pioneers nor immigrants. We are citizens born."
+
+"Invaders! Squatters!"
+
+"Citizens of Barthland."
+
+"Invaded! Good Lord, of all the people in the world, why me? Nothing
+like this ever happened to anyone. Why did I have to be picked to be a
+territory--the first man to have queer things living in me?"
+
+"Oh, please, gracious Fatherland! Permit us to correct you. In the day
+of our fathers, conditions were, we can assure you, chaotic. Many
+horrible things lived here. Wild beasts and plant growths of the most
+vicious types were everywhere."
+
+"There were----?"
+
+"What you would call microbes. Bacteria. Fungi. Viruses. Terrible
+devouring wild creatures everywhere. You were a howling wilderness. Of
+course, we have cleaned those things up now. Today you are civilized--a
+fine, healthy individual of your species--and our revered Fatherland.
+Surely you have noted the vast improvement in your condition!"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"And we pledge our lives to you, oh Barthland. As patriotic citizens we
+will defend you to the death. We promise you will never be successfully
+invaded."
+
+Yeah. Well, that was nice. But already I felt as crowded as a subway
+train with the power cut out at rush hour.
+
+But there was no room for doubt either. I'd had it. I still did have
+it; had no chance at all of getting rid of it.
+
+
+They went on then and told me their story.
+
+I won't try to repeat it all verbatim. I couldn't now, since my
+memory--but that's something else. Anyway, I finally got the picture.
+
+But I didn't get it all the same evening. Oh, no. At ten I had to knock
+it off to go to bed, get my sleep, keep up my health. They were
+insistent.
+
+As they put it, even if I didn't care for myself I had to think about
+an entire population and generations yet unborn. Or unbudded, which was
+the way they did it.
+
+Well, as they said, we had the whole weekend to work out an
+understanding. Which we did. When we were through, I didn't like it a
+whole lot better, but at least I could understand it.
+
+It was all a perfectly logical proposition from their point of
+view--which differed in quite a number of respects from my own. To them
+it was simply a matter of survival for their race and their culture. To
+me it was a matter of who or what I was going to be. But then, I had no
+choice.
+
+According to the Official History I was given, they came from a tiny
+planet of a small sun. Actually, their sun was itself a planet, still
+incandescent, distant perhaps like Jupiter from the true sun. Their
+planet or moon was tiny, wet and warm. And the temperature was
+constant.
+
+These conditions, naturally, governed their development--and,
+eventually, mine.
+
+Of course they were very small, about the size of a dysentery amoeba.
+The individual life span was short as compared to ours but the
+accelerated pace of their lives balanced it out. In the beginning,
+something like four of our days was a lifetime. So they lived, grew,
+developed, evolved. They learned to communicate. They became
+civilized--far more so than we have, according to them. And I guess
+that was true. They were even able to extend their life span to
+something like two months.
+
+"And to what," I inquired--but without much fire, I'm afraid; I was
+losing fight--"to what am I indebted for this intrusion?"
+
+"Necessity."
+
+It was, to them. Their sun had begun to cool. It was their eviction
+notice.
+
+They had to move or adapt themselves to immeasurably harsher
+conditions; and they had become so highly developed, so specialized,
+that change of that sort would have been difficult if not impossible.
+And they didn't want to change, anyway. They liked themselves as they
+were.
+
+The only other thing was to escape. They had to work for flight through
+space. And they succeeded.
+
+There were planets nearer to them than Earth. But these were enormous
+worlds to them, and the conditions were intolerably harsh. They found
+one planet with conditions much like those on Earth a few million years
+back. It was a jungle world, dominated by giant reptiles--which were of
+no use to the folk. But there were a few, small, struggling,
+warm-blooded animals. Small to us, that is--they were county size to
+the folk.
+
+Some genius had a great inspiration. While the environment of the
+planet itself was impossibly harsh and hostile, the conditions _inside_
+these warm little animals were highly suitable!
+
+It seemed to be the solution to their problem of survival. Small, trial
+colonies were established. Communication with the space ships from home
+was achieved.
+
+The experiment was a success.
+
+
+The trouble was that each colony's existence depended on the life of
+the host. When the animal died, the colony died.
+
+Life on the planet was savage. New colonies would, of course, be passed
+from individual to individual and generation to generation of the host
+species. But the inevitable toll of attrition from the violent deaths
+of the animals appalled this gentle race. And there was nothing they
+could do about it. They could give protection against disease, but they
+could not control the hosts. Their scientists figured that, if they
+could find a form of life having conscious power of reason, they would
+be able to establish communication and a measure of control. But it was
+not possible where only instinct existed.
+
+They went ahead because they had no choice. Their only chance was to
+establish their colonies, accepting the certainty of the slaughter of
+hundreds upon hundreds of entire communities--and hoping that, with
+their help, evolution on the planet would eventually produce a better
+host organism. Even of this they were by no means sure. It was a hope.
+For all they could know, the struggling mammalian life might well be
+doomed to extermination by the giant reptiles.
+
+They took the gamble. Hundreds of colonies were planted.
+
+They did it but they weren't satisfied with it. So, back on the dying
+home moon, survivors continued to work. Before the end came they made
+one more desperate bid for race survival.
+
+They built interstellar ships to be launched on possibly endless
+journeys into space. A nucleus of select individuals in a spore-like
+form of suspended animation was placed on each ship. Ships were
+launched in pairs, with automatic controls to be activated when they
+entered into the radius of attraction of a sun. Should the sun have
+planets such as their own home world--or Earth type--the ships would be
+guided there. In the case of an Earth type planet having intelligent
+life, they would----
+
+They would do just what my damned "meteor" had done.
+
+They would home in on an individual, "explode," penetrate--and set up
+heavy housekeeping on a permanent basis. They did. Lovely. Oh, joy!
+
+Well. We would all like to see the Garden of Eden; but being it is
+something quite else again.
+
+Me, a colony!
+
+My--uh--population had no idea where they were in relation to their
+original home, or how long they had traveled through space. They did
+hope that someplace on Earth their companion ship had established
+another settlement. But they didn't know. So far on our world, with its
+masses of powerful electrical impulses, plus those of our own brains,
+they had found distance communication impossible.
+
+"Well, look, fellows," I said. "Look here now. This is a noble,
+inspiring story. The heroic struggle of your--uh--people to survive,
+overcoming all odds and stuff, it's wonderful! And I admire you for it,
+indeed I do. But--what about me?"
+
+"You, Great Land of Barth, are our beloved home and fatherland for
+many, many generations to come. You are the mighty base from which we
+can spread over this enormous planet."
+
+"That's you. What I mean is, what about _me_?"
+
+"Oh? But there is no conflict. Your interests are our interests."
+
+That was how they looked at it. Sincerely. As they said, they weren't
+ruthless conquerors. They only wanted to get along.
+
+
+And all they wanted for me were such fine things as good health, long
+life, contentment. Contentment, sure. Continued irritation--a sour
+disposition resulting in excess flow of bile--did not provide just the
+sort of environment in which they cared to bring up the kiddies.
+Smoking? No. It wasn't healthy. Alcohol? Well, they were willing to
+declare a national holiday now and then. Within reason.
+
+Which, as I already knew, meant two to four shots once or twice a week.
+
+
+Sex? Themselves, they didn't have any. "But," they told me with an
+attitude of broad tolerance, "we want to be fair. We will not interfere
+with you in this matter--other than to assist you in the use of sound
+judgment in the selection of a partner."
+
+_But_ I shouldn't feel that any of this was in any way real restrictive.
+It was merely practical common sense.
+
+For observing it I would get their valuable advice and assistance in
+all phases of my life. I would enjoy--or have, anyway--perfect health.
+My life, if that's what it was, would be extended by better than 100
+years. "You are fortunate," they pointed out, a little smugly I
+thought, "that we, unlike your race, are conservationists in the truest
+sense. Far from despoiling our homeland and laying waste its resources
+and natural scenic wonders, we will improve it."
+
+I had to be careful because, as they explained it, even a small nick
+with a razor might wipe out an entire suburban family.
+
+"But fellows! I want to live my own life."
+
+"Come now. Please remember that you are not alone now."
+
+"Aw, fellows. Look, I'll get a dog, lots of dogs--fine purebreds, not
+mongrels like me. The finest. I'll pamper them. They'll live like
+kings.... Wouldn't you consider moving?"
+
+"Out of the question."
+
+"An elephant then? Think of the space, the room for the kids to
+play----"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Damn it! Take me to--no, I mean let me talk to your leader."
+
+That got me no place. It seemed I was already talking to their highest
+government councils. All of my suggestions were considered, debated,
+voted on--and rejected.
+
+They were democratic, they said. They counted my vote in favor; but
+that was just one vote. Rather a small minority.
+
+As I suppose I should have figured, my thoughts were coming through
+over a period that was, to them, equal to weeks. They recorded them,
+accelerated them, broadcast them all around, held elections and
+recorded replies to be played back to me at my own slow tempo by the
+time I had a new thought ready. No, they wouldn't take time to let me
+count the votes. And there is where you might say I lost my self
+control.
+
+"Damn it!" I said. Or shouted. "I won't have it! I won't put up with
+it. I'll--uh--I'll get us all dead drunk. I'll take dope! I'll go out
+and get a shot of penicillin and--"
+
+I didn't do a damned thing. I couldn't.
+
+Their control of my actions was just as complete as they wanted to make
+it. While they didn't exercise it all the time, they made the rules.
+According to them, they could have controlled my thoughts too if they
+had wanted to. They didn't because they felt that wouldn't be
+democratic. Actually, I suppose they were pretty fair and
+reasonable--from their point of view. Certainly it could have been a
+lot worse.
+
+
+III
+
+I wasn't as bad off as old Faust and his deal with the devil. My soul
+was still my own. But my body was community property--and I couldn't,
+by God, so much as bite my own tongue without feeling like a bloody
+murderer--and being made to suffer for it, too.
+
+Perhaps you don't think biting your tongue is any great privilege to
+have to give up. Maybe not. But, no matter how you figure, you've got
+to admit the situation was--well--confining.
+
+And it lasted for over nine years.
+
+Nine miserable years of semi-slavery? Well, no. I couldn't honestly say
+that it was that bad. There were all the restrictions and limitations,
+but also there was my perfect health; and what you might call a sort of
+a sense of inner well-being. Added to that, there was my sensationally
+successful career. And the money.
+
+All at once, almost anything I undertook to do was sensationally
+successful. I wrote, in several different styles and fields and under a
+number of different names; I was terrific. My painting was the talk of
+the art world. "Superb," said the critics. "An astonishing
+other-worldly quality." How right they were--even if they didn't know
+why. I patented a few little inventions, just for fun; and I invested.
+The money poured in so fast I couldn't count it. I hired people to
+count it, and to help guide it through the tax loopholes--although
+there I was able to give them a few sneaky little ideas that even our
+sharpest tax lawyers hadn't worked out.
+
+Of course the catch in all that was that, actually, I was not so much a
+rich, brilliant, successful man. I was a booming, prosperous nation.
+
+The satisfaction I could take in all my success was limited by my
+knowledge that it was a group effort. How could I help being
+successful? I had a very fair part of the resources of a society
+substantially ahead of our own working for me. As for knowledge of our
+world, they didn't just know everything I did. They knew everything I
+ever had known--or seen, heard, read, dreamed or thought of. They could
+dig up anything, explore it, expand it and use it in ways I couldn't
+have worked out in a thousand years. Sure, I was successful. I did stay
+out of sports--too dangerous; entertainment--didn't lend itself too
+well to the group approach; and music--they had never developed or used
+sound, and we agreed not to go into it. As I figured it, music in the
+soul may be very beautiful; but a full-size symphony in a sinus I could
+do without.
+
+So I had success. And there was another thing I had too. Company.
+
+Privacy? No, I had less privacy than any man who ever lived, although I
+admit that my people, as long as I obeyed the rules, were never pushy
+or intrusive. They didn't come barging into my thoughts unless I
+invited them. But they were always ready. And if those nine years were
+less than perfect, at least I was never lonesome. Success, with me, was
+not a lonely thing.
+
+And there were women.
+
+Yes, there were women. And finally, at the end of it, there was a
+woman--and that was it.
+
+
+As they had explained it, they were prepared to be tolerant about
+my--ah--relations with women as long as I was "reasonable" in my
+selection. Come to find out, they were prepared to be not just tolerant
+but insistent--and very selective.
+
+First there was Helga.
+
+Helga was Uncle John's secretary, a great big, healthy, rosy-cheeked,
+blonde Swedish girl, terrific if you liked the type. Me, I hadn't ever
+made a move in her direction, partly because she was so close to Uncle
+John, but mostly because my tastes always ran to the smaller types. But
+tastes can be changed.
+
+Ten days after that first conversation with my people I'd already
+cleared something like $50,000 in a few speculations in the commodity
+market. I was feeling a little moody in spite of it, and I decided to
+quit my job. So I went up that afternoon to Uncle John's office to tell
+him.
+
+Uncle John was out. Helga was in. There she was, five foot eleven of
+big, bouncy, blonde smorgasbord. Wow! Before, I'd seen Helga a hundred
+times, looked with mild admiration but not one real ripple inside. And
+now, all at once, wow! That was my people, of course, manipulating
+glands, thoughts, feelings. "Wow!" it was.
+
+First things first. "Helga, Doll! Ah! Where's Uncle John?"
+
+"Johnny! That's the first time you ever called me--hm-m--Mr. Barth has
+gone for the day ... Johnny."
+
+She hadn't even looked at me before. My--uh--government was growing
+more powerful. It was establishing outside spheres of influence. Of
+course, at the time, I didn't take the trouble to analyze the
+situation; I just went to work on it.
+
+As they say, it is nice work if you can get it.
+
+I could get it.
+
+It was a good thing Uncle John didn't come bustling back after
+something he'd forgotten that afternoon.
+
+I didn't get around to quitting my job that afternoon. Later on that
+evening, I took her home. She wanted me to come in and meet her
+parents, yet! But I begged off that--and then she came up with a
+snapper. "But we will be married, Johnny darling. Won't we? Real soon!"
+
+"Uh," I said, making a quick mental plane reservation for Rio, "sure,
+Doll. Sure we will." I broke away right quick after that. There was a
+problem I wanted to get a little advice on.
+
+What I did get, actually, was a nasty shock.
+
+Back in my apartment--my big, new, plush apartment--I sat down to go
+over the thing with the Department of the Interior. The enthusiastic
+response I got surprised me. "Magnificent," was the word. "Superb.
+Great!"
+
+Well, I thought myself that I had turned in a pretty outstanding
+performance, but I hadn't expected such applause. "It is a first step,
+a splendid beginning! A fully equipped, well-armed expedition will have
+the place settled, under cultivation and reasonably civilized inside of
+a day or two, your time. It will be simple for them. So much more so
+than in your case--since we now know precisely what to expect."
+
+
+I was truly shocked. I felt guilty. "No!" I said. "Oh, no! What a thing
+to do. You _can't_!"
+
+"Now, now. Gently," they said. "What, after all, oh Fatherland, might
+be the perfectly natural consequences of your own act?"
+
+"What? You mean under other--that is----"
+
+"Exactly. You could very well have implanted a new life in her, which
+is all that we have done. Why should our doing so disturb you?"
+
+Well, it did disturb me. But then, as they pointed out, they could have
+developed less pleasant methods of spreading colonies. They had merely
+decided that this approach would be the surest and simplest.
+
+"Well, maybe," I told them, "but it still seems kind of sneaky to me.
+Besides, if you'd left it to me, I'd certainly never have picked a
+great big ox like Helga. And now she says she's going to marry me,
+too!"
+
+"You do not wish this? We understand. Do not be concerned. We
+will--ah--send instructions to our people the next time. She will
+change her feelings about this."
+
+She dropped the marriage bit completely.
+
+We had what you might call an idyllic association, in spite of her
+being such a big, husky model--a fact which never bothered me when I
+was with her. "She is happy," I was assured, "very happy." She seemed
+pleased and contented enough, even if she developed, I thought, a sort
+of an inward look about her. She and I never discussed our--uh--people.
+We had a fast whirl for a couple of weeks. And then I'd quit my job
+with Uncle John, and we sort of drifted apart.
+
+Next thing I heard of her, she married Uncle John.
+
+Well. I have my doubts about how faithful a wife she was to him, but
+certainly she seemed to make him happy. And my government assured me
+Uncle John was not colonized. "Too late," they said. "He is too old to
+be worth the risk of settling." But they respected my scruples about my
+uncle's wife and direct communication with Helgaland was broken off.
+
+But there were others.
+
+
+IV
+
+For the next nine years--things came easy for me. I suppose the
+restrictions, the lack of freedom should have made me a lot more
+dissatisfied than I was. I know, though they didn't say so, that my
+people did a little manipulating of my moods by jiggering the glands
+and hormones or something. It must have been that with the women.
+
+I know that after Helga I felt guilty about the whole thing. I wouldn't
+do it again. But then one afternoon I was painting that big amazon of a
+model and--Wow!
+
+I couldn't help it. So, actually, I don't feel I should be blamed too
+much if, after the first couple of times, I quit trying to desert, so
+to speak.
+
+And time went by, although you wouldn't have guessed it to look at me.
+I didn't age. My health was perfect. Well, there were a couple of very
+light headaches and a touch of fever, but that was only politics.
+
+There were a couple of pretty tight elections which, of course, I
+followed fairly closely. After all, I had my vote, along with everyone
+else and I didn't want to waste it--even though, really, the political
+parties were pretty much the same and the elections were more questions
+of personality than anything else.
+
+Then one afternoon I went to my broker's office to shift around a few
+investments according to plans worked out the night before. I gave my
+instructions. Old man Henry Schnable checked over the notes he had
+made.
+
+"Now that's a funny thing," he said.
+
+"You think I'm making a mistake?"
+
+"Oh, no. You never have yet, so I don't suppose you are now. The funny
+thing is that your moves here are almost exactly the same as those
+another very unusual customer of mine gave me over the phone not an
+hour ago."
+
+"Oh?" There was nothing very interesting about that. But, oddly enough,
+I was very interested.
+
+"Yes. Miss Julia Reede. Only a child really, 21, but a brilliant girl.
+Possibly a genius. She comes from some little town up in the mountains.
+She has been in town here for just the past six months and her
+investments--well! Now I come to think about it, I believe they have
+very closely paralleled yours all along the line. Fabulously
+successful. You advising her?"
+
+"Never heard of the girl."
+
+"Well, you really should meet her, Mr. Barth. You two have so much in
+common, and such lovely investments. Why don't you wait around? Miss
+Reede is coming in to sign some papers this afternoon. You two should
+know each other."
+
+
+He was right. We _should_ know each other. I could feel it.
+
+"Well, Henry," I said, "perhaps I will wait. I've got nothing else to
+do this afternoon."
+
+That was a lie. I had plenty of things to do, including a date with the
+captain of a visiting women's track team from Finland. Strangely, my
+people and I were in full agreement on standing up the chesty Finn, let
+the javelins fall where they may.
+
+Henry was surprised too. "You are going to wait for her? Uh. Well now,
+Mr. Barth, your reputation--ah--that is, she's only a child, you know,
+from the country."
+
+The buzzer on his desk sounded. His secretary spoke up on the intercom.
+"Miss Reede is here."
+
+Miss Reede came right on in the door without waiting for a further
+invitation.
+
+We stood there gaping at each other. She was small, about 5'2" maybe,
+with short, black, curly hair, surface-cool green eyes with fire
+underneath, fresh, freckled nose, slim figure. Boyish? No. Not boyish.
+
+I stared, taking in every little detail. Every little detail was
+perfect and--well, I can't begin to describe it. That was for me. I
+could feel it all through me, she was what I had been waiting for,
+dreaming of.
+
+I made a quick call on the inside switchboard, determined to fight to
+override the veto I was sure was coming. I called.
+
+No answer.
+
+For the first time, I got no regular answer. Of course, by now I always
+had a kind of a sense or feeling of what was going on. This time there
+was a feeling of a celebration, rejoicing, everybody on a holiday.
+Which was exactly the way I felt as I looked at the girl. No
+objections? Then why ask questions?
+
+"Julia," old Henry Schnable was saying, "this is Mr. John Barth. John,
+this is--John! John, remember----"
+
+I had reached out and taken the girl's hand. I tucked her arm in mine
+and she looked up at me with the light, the fire in the green depths
+swimming toward the surface. I didn't know what she saw in me--neither
+of us knew then--but the light was there, glowing. We walked together
+out of Henry Schnable's office.
+
+"John! Julia, your papers! You have to sign----"
+
+Business? We had business elsewhere, she and I.
+
+"Where?" I asked her in the elevator. It was the first word either of
+us had spoken.
+
+"My apartment," she said in a voice like a husky torch song. "It's
+close. The girl who rooms with me is spending the week back home with
+her folks. The show she was in closed. We can be alone."
+
+We could. Five minutes in a cab and we were.
+
+I never experienced anything remotely like it in all my life. I never
+will again.
+
+
+And then there was the time afterwards, and then we knew.
+
+It was late afternoon, turning to dusk. She lifted up on one elbow
+and half turned away from me to switch on the bedside lamp. The
+light came on and I looked down at her, lovingly, admiringly. Idly,
+I started to ask her, "How did you get those little scars on your
+leg there and ... those little scars? Like buckshot! Julia! Once,
+along about ten years ago--you must have been a little girl then--in
+the mountains--sure. You were hit by a meteor, weren't you??"
+
+She turned and stared at me. I pointed at my own little pockmark scars.
+
+"A meteor--about ten years ago!"
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I knew it. You were."
+
+"'Some damn fool, crazy hunter,' was what Pop said. He thought it
+really was buckshot. So did I, at first. We all did. Of course about
+six months later I found out what it was but we--my little people and
+I--agreed there was no sense in my telling anyone. But you know."
+
+It was the other ship. There were two in this sector, each controlled
+to colonize a person. My own group always hoped and believed the other
+ship might have landed safely. And now they knew.
+
+We lay there, she and I, and we both checked internal communications.
+They were confused, not clear and precise as usual. It was a holiday in
+full swing. The glorious reunion! No one was working. No one was
+willing to put in a lot of time at the communications center talking to
+Julia and me. They were too busy talking to each other. I was right.
+The other ship.
+
+Of course, since the other ship's landfall had been a little girl then,
+the early movements of the group had been restricted. Expansion was
+delayed. She grew up. She came to the city. Then--well, I didn't have
+to think about that.
+
+We looked at each other, Julia and I. A doll she was in the first place
+and a doll she still was. And then on top of that was the feeling of
+community, of closeness coming from our people. There was a sympathy.
+The two of us were in the same fix. And it may be that there was a
+certain sense of jealousy and resentment too--like the feeling, say,
+between North and South America. How did we feel?
+
+"I feel like a drink."
+
+We said it together and laughed. Then we got up and got the drinks. I
+was glad to find that Julia's absent roommate, an actress, had a pretty
+fair bar stock.
+
+
+We had a drink. We had another. And a third.
+
+Maybe nobody at all was manning the inner duty stations. Or maybe they
+were visiting back and forth, both populations in a holiday mood. They
+figured this was a once in a millennium celebration and, for once, the
+limits were off. Even alcohol was welcome. That's a line of thought
+that kills plenty of people every day out on the highway.
+
+We had a couple more in a reckless toast. I kissed Julia. She kissed
+me. Then we had some more drinks.
+
+Naturally it hit us hard; we weren't used to it. But still we didn't
+stop drinking. The limits were off for the first time. Probably it
+would never happen again. This was our chance of a lifetime and there
+was a sort of desperation in it. We kept on drinking.
+
+"Woosh," I said, finally, "wow. Let's have one more, wha' say? One more
+them--an' one more those."
+
+She giggled. "Aroun' an aroun', whoop, whoop! Dizzy. Woozy. Oughta have
+cup coffee."
+
+"Naw. Not coffee. Gonna have hangover. Take pill. Apsirin."
+
+"Can-_not_! Can-_not_ take pill. Won' lemme. 'Gains talla rules."
+
+"Can."
+
+"Can-_not_."
+
+"Can. No rules. Rule soff. Can. Apsirin. C'mon."
+
+Clinging to each other, we stumbled to the bathroom. Pills? The
+roommate must have been a real hypochondriac. She had rows and
+batteries of pills. I knocked a bottle off the cabinet shelf. Aspirin?
+Sure, fancy aspirin. Blue, special. I took a couple.
+
+"Apsirin. See? Easy."
+
+Her mouth made a little, red, round "O" of wonder. She took a couple.
+
+"Gosh! Firs' time I c'd ever take a pill."
+
+"Good. Have 'nother?"
+
+It was crazy, sure. The two of us were drunk. But it was more than
+that. We were like a couple of wild, irresponsible kids, out of control
+and running wild through the pill boxes. We reeled around the bathroom,
+sampling pills and laughing.
+
+"Here's nice bottla red ones."
+
+There was a nice bottle of red ones. I fumbled the top off the bottle
+and spilled the bright red pills bouncing across the white tile
+bathroom floor. We dropped to our knees after them, after the red
+pills, the red dots, the red, fiery moons, spinning suddenly, whirling,
+twirling, racing across the white floor. And then it got dark. Dark,
+and darker and even the red, red moons faded away.
+
+Some eons later, light began to come back and the red moons, dim now
+and pallid, whirled languidly across a white ceiling.
+
+
+Someone said, "He's coming out of it, I think."
+
+"Oh," I said. "Ugh!"
+
+I didn't feel good. I'd almost forgotten what it was like, but I was
+sick. Awful. I didn't particularly want to look around but I did, eyes
+moving rustily in their sockets. There was a nurse and a doctor. They
+were standing by my bed in what was certainly a hospital.
+
+"Don't ask," said the doctor. I wasn't going to. I didn't even care
+where I was, but he told me anyway, "You are in the South Side
+Hospital, Mr. Barth. You will be all right--which is a wonder,
+considering. Remarkable stamina! Please tell me, Mr. Barth, what kind
+of lunatic suicide pact was that?"
+
+"Suicide pact?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Barth. Why couldn't you have settled for just one simple
+poison, hm-m? The lab has been swearing at you all day."
+
+"Uh?"
+
+"Yes. At what we pumped from your stomach. And found in the girl's.
+Liquor, lots of that--but then, why aspirin? Barbiturates we expect.
+Roach pellets are not unusual. But aureomycin? Tranquilizers? Bufferin?
+Vitamin B complex, vitamin C--and, finally, half a dozen highly
+questionable contraceptive pills? Good Lord, man!"
+
+"It was an accident. The girl--Julia----?"
+
+"You are lucky. She wasn't."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Barth. She is dead."
+
+"Doctor, listen to me! It was an accident, I swear. We didn't know what
+we were doing. We were, well, celebrating."
+
+"In the medicine cabinet, Mr. Barth? Queer place to be celebrating!
+Well, Mr. Barth, you must rest now. You have been through a lot. It was
+a near thing. The police will be in to see you later."
+
+With this kindly word the doctor and his silently disapproving nurse
+filed out of the room.
+
+The police? Julia, poor Julia--dead.
+
+Now what? What should I do? I turned, as always, inward for advice and
+instructions. "Folks! Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me do it?
+And now--what shall I do? Answer me, I say. Answer!"
+
+There was only an emptiness. It was a hollow, aching sensation. It
+seemed to me I could hear my questions echoing inside me with a lonely
+sound.
+
+I was alone. For the first time in nearly ten years, I was truly alone,
+with no one to turn to.
+
+They were gone! At last, after all these years, they were gone. I was
+free again, truly free. It was glorious to be free--wasn't it?
+
+The sheer joy of the thing brought a tightness to my throat, and I
+sniffled. I sniffled again. My nose was stuffy. The tightness in my
+throat grew tighter and became a pain.
+
+I sneezed.
+
+Was this joy--or a cold coming on? I shifted uneasily on the hospital
+bed and scratched at an itch on my left hip. Ouch! It was a pimple. My
+head ached. My throat hurt. I itched. Julia was dead. The police were
+coming. I was alone. What should I do?
+
+"Nurse!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Nurse, come here. I want to
+send a wire. Rush. Urgent. To my aunt, Mrs. Helga Barth, the address is
+in my wallet. Say, 'Helga. Am desperately ill, repeat, ill. Please come
+at once. I must have help--from you.'"
+
+She'll come. I know she will. They've _got_ to let her. It was an
+accident, I swear, and I'm not too old. I'm still in wonderful shape,
+beautifully kept up.
+
+But I feel awful.
+
+Well--how do you suppose New England would feel today, if suddenly all
+of its inhabitants died?
+
+
+--WILLIAM W. STUART
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Inside John Barth, by William W. Stuart
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