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diff --git a/29509.txt b/29509.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b73c5fe --- /dev/null +++ b/29509.txt @@ -0,0 +1,919 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Warm, by Robert Sheckley + +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: Warm + +Author: Robert Sheckley + +Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller + +Release Date: July 25, 2009 [EBook #29509] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WARM *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +warm + +By ROBERT SHECKLEY + + + _It was a joyous journey Anders + set out on ... to reach his goal + ... but look where he wound up!_ + + +Illustrated by EMSH + + +Anders lay on his bed, fully dressed except for his shoes and black bow +tie, contemplating, with a certain uneasiness, the evening before him. +In twenty minutes he would pick up Judy at her apartment, and that was +the uneasy part of it. + +He had realized, only seconds ago, that he was in love with her. + +Well, he'd tell her. The evening would be memorable. He would propose, +there would be kisses, and the seal of acceptance would, figuratively +speaking, be stamped across his forehead. + +Not too pleasant an outlook, he decided. It really would be much more +comfortable not to be in love. What had done it? A look, a touch, a +thought? It didn't take much, he knew, and stretched his arms for a +thorough yawn. + +"Help me!" a voice said. + +His muscles spasmed, cutting off the yawn in mid-moment. He sat upright +on the bed, then grinned and lay back again. + +"You must help me!" the voice insisted. + +Anders sat up, reached for a polished shoe and fitted it on, giving his +full attention to the tying of the laces. + +"Can you hear me?" the voice asked. "You can, can't you?" + +That did it. "Yes, I can hear you," Anders said, still in a high good +humor. "Don't tell me you're my guilty subconscious, attacking me for a +childhood trauma I never bothered to resolve. I suppose you want me to +join a monastery." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," the voice said. "I'm no one's +subconscious. I'm _me_. Will you help me?" + +Anders believed in voices as much as anyone; that is, he didn't believe +in them at all, until he heard them. Swiftly he catalogued the +possibilities. Schizophrenia was the best answer, of course, and one in +which his colleagues would concur. But Anders had a lamentable +confidence in his own sanity. In which case-- + +"Who are you?" he asked. + +"I don't know," the voice answered. + +Anders realized that the voice was speaking within his own mind. Very +suspicious. + +"You don't know who you are," Anders stated. "Very well. _Where_ are +you?" + +"I don't know that, either." The voice paused, and went on. "Look, I +know how ridiculous this must sound. Believe me, I'm in some sort of +limbo. I don't know how I got here or who I am, but I want desperately +to get out. Will you help me?" + + * * * * * + +Still fighting the idea of a voice speaking within his head, Anders knew +that his next decision was vital. He had to accept--or reject--his own +sanity. + +He accepted it. + +"All right," Anders said, lacing the other shoe. "I'll grant that you're +a person in trouble, and that you're in some sort of telepathic contact +with me. Is there anything else you can tell me?" + +"I'm afraid not," the voice said, with infinite sadness. "You'll have to +find out for yourself." + +"Can you contact anyone else?" + +"No." + +"Then how can you talk with me?" + +"I don't know." + +Anders walked to his bureau mirror and adjusted his black bow tie, +whistling softly under his breath. Having just discovered that he was in +love, he wasn't going to let a little thing like a voice in his mind +disturb him. + +"I really don't see how I can be of any help," Anders said, brushing a +bit of lint from his jacket. "You don't know where you are, and there +don't seem to be any distinguishing landmarks. How am I to find you?" He +turned and looked around the room to see if he had forgotten anything. + +"I'll know when you're close," the voice said. "You were warm just +then." + +"Just then?" All he had done was look around the room. He did so again, +turning his head slowly. Then it happened. + +The room, from one angle, looked different. It was suddenly a mixture of +muddled colors, instead of the carefully blended pastel shades he had +selected. The lines of wall, floor and ceiling were strangely off +proportion, zigzag, unrelated. + +Then everything went back to normal. + +"You were _very_ warm," the voice said. "It's a question of seeing +things correctly." + +Anders resisted the urge to scratch his head, for fear of disarranging +his carefully combed hair. What he had seen wasn't so strange. Everyone +sees one or two things in his life that make him doubt his normality, +doubt sanity, doubt his very existence. For a moment the orderly +Universe is disarranged and the fabric of belief is ripped. + +But the moment passes. + +Anders remembered once, as a boy, awakening in his room in the middle of +the night. How strange everything had looked. Chairs, table, all out of +proportion, swollen in the dark. The ceiling pressing down, as in a +dream. + +But that had also passed. + +"Well, old man," he said, "if I get warm again, let me know." + +"I will," the voice in his head whispered. "I'm sure you'll find me." + +"I'm glad you're so sure," Anders said gaily, switched off the lights +and left. + + * * * * * + +Lovely and smiling, Judy greeted him at the door. Looking at her, Anders +sensed her knowledge of the moment. Had she felt the change in him, or +predicted it? Or was love making him grin like an idiot? + +"Would you like a before-party drink?" she asked. + +He nodded, and she led him across the room, to the improbable +green-and-yellow couch. Sitting down, Anders decided he would tell her +when she came back with the drink. No use in putting off the fatal +moment. A lemming in love, he told himself. + +"You're getting warm again," the voice said. + +He had almost forgotten his invisible friend. Or fiend, as the case +could well be. What would Judy say if she knew he was hearing voices? +Little things like that, he reminded himself, often break up the best of +romances. + +"Here," she said, handing him a drink. + +Still smiling, he noticed. The number two smile--to a prospective +suitor, provocative and understanding. It had been preceded, in +their relationship, by the number one nice-girl smile, the +don't-misunderstand-me smile, to be worn on all occasions, until +the correct words have been mumbled. + +"That's right," the voice said. "It's in how you look at things." + +Look at what? Anders glanced at Judy, annoyed at his thoughts. If he was +going to play the lover, let him play it. Even through the astigmatic +haze of love, he was able to appreciate her blue-gray eyes, her fine +skin (if one overlooked a tiny blemish on the left temple), her lips, +slightly reshaped by lipstick. + +"How did your classes go today?" she asked. + +Well, of course she'd ask that, Anders thought. Love is marking time. + +"All right," he said. "Teaching psychology to young apes--" + +"Oh, come now!" + +"Warmer," the voice said. + +What's the matter with me, Anders wondered. She really is a lovely girl. +The _gestalt_ that is Judy, a pattern of thoughts, expressions, +movements, making up the girl I-- + +I what? + +Love? + +Anders shifted his long body uncertainly on the couch. He didn't quite +understand how this train of thought had begun. It annoyed him. The +analytical young instructor was better off in the classroom. Couldn't +science wait until 9:10 in the morning? + +"I was thinking about you today," Judy said, and Anders knew that she +had sensed the change in his mood. + +"Do you see?" the voice asked him. "You're getting much better at it." + +"I don't see anything," Anders thought, but the voice was right. It was +as though he had a clear line of inspection into Judy's mind. Her +feelings were nakedly apparent to him, as meaningless as his room had +been in that flash of undistorted thought. + +"I really was thinking about you," she repeated. + +"Now look," the voice said. + +[Illustration] + + * * * * * + +Anders, watching the expressions on Judy's face, felt the strangeness +descend on him. He was back in the nightmare perception of that moment +in his room. This time it was as though he were watching a machine in a +laboratory. The object of this operation was the evocation and +preservation of a particular mood. The machine goes through a searching +process, invoking trains of ideas to achieve the desired end. + +"Oh, were you?" he asked, amazed at his new perspective. + +"Yes ... I wondered what you were doing at noon," the reactive machine +opposite him on the couch said, expanding its shapely chest slightly. + +"Good," the voice said, commending him for his perception. + +"Dreaming of you, of course," he said to the flesh-clad skeleton behind +the total _gestalt_ Judy. The flesh machine rearranged its limbs, +widened its mouth to denote pleasure. The mechanism searched through a +complex of fears, hopes, worries, through half-remembrances of analogous +situations, analogous solutions. + +And this was what he loved. Anders saw too clearly and hated himself for +seeing. Through his new nightmare perception, the absurdity of the +entire room struck him. + +"Were you really?" the articulating skeleton asked him. + +"You're coming closer," the voice whispered. + +To what? The personality? There was no such thing. There was no true +cohesion, no depth, nothing except a web of surface reactions, stretched +across automatic visceral movements. + +He was coming closer to the truth. + +"Sure," he said sourly. + +The machine stirred, searching for a response. + +Anders felt a quick tremor of fear at the sheer alien quality of his +viewpoint. His sense of formalism had been sloughed off, his agreed-upon +reactions bypassed. What would be revealed next? + +He was seeing clearly, he realized, as perhaps no man had ever seen +before. It was an oddly exhilarating thought. + +But could he still return to normality? + +"Can I get you a drink?" the reaction machine asked. + +At that moment Anders was as thoroughly out of love as a man could be. +Viewing one's intended as a depersonalized, sexless piece of machinery +is not especially conducive to love. But it is quite stimulating, +intellectually. + +Anders didn't want normality. A curtain was being raised and he wanted +to see behind it. What was it some Russian scientist--Ouspensky, wasn't +it--had said? + +"_Think in other categories._" + +That was what he was doing, and would continue to do. + +"Good-by," he said suddenly. + +The machine watched him, open-mouthed, as he walked out the door. +Delayed circuit reactions kept it silent until it heard the elevator +door close. + + * * * * * + +"You were very warm in there," the voice within his head whispered, once +he was on the street. "But you still don't understand everything." + +"Tell me, then," Anders said, marveling a little at his equanimity. In +an hour he had bridged the gap to a completely different viewpoint, yet +it seemed perfectly natural. + +"I can't," the voice said. "You must find it yourself." + +"Well, let's see now," Anders began. He looked around at the masses of +masonry, the convention of streets cutting through the architectural +piles. "Human life," he said, "is a series of conventions. When you look +at a girl, you're supposed to see--a pattern, not the underlying +formlessness." + +"That's true," the voice agreed, but with a shade of doubt. + +"Basically, there is no form. Man produces _gestalts_, and cuts form out +of the plethora of nothingness. It's like looking at a set of lines and +saying that they represent a figure. We look at a mass of material, +extract it from the background and say it's a man. But in truth there is +no such thing. There are only the humanizing features that +we--myopically--attach to it. Matter is conjoined, a matter of +viewpoint." + +"You're not seeing it now," said the voice. + +"Damn it," Anders said. He was certain that he was on the track of +something big, perhaps something ultimate. "Everyone's had the +experience. At some time in his life, everyone looks at a familiar +object and can't make any sense out of it. Momentarily, the _gestalt_ +fails, but the true moment of sight passes. The mind reverts to the +superimposed pattern. Normalcy continues." + +The voice was silent. Anders walked on, through the _gestalt_ city. + +"There's something else, isn't there?" Anders asked. + +"Yes." + +What could that be, he asked himself. Through clearing eyes, Anders +looked at the formality he had called his world. + +He wondered momentarily if he would have come to this if the voice +hadn't guided him. Yes, he decided after a few moments, it was +inevitable. + +But who was the voice? And what had he left out? + +"Let's see what a party looks like now," he said to the voice. + + * * * * * + +The party was a masquerade; the guests were all wearing their faces. To +Anders, their motives, individually and collectively, were painfully +apparent. Then his vision began to clear further. + +He saw that the people weren't truly individual. They were discontinuous +lumps of flesh sharing a common vocabulary, yet not even truly +discontinuous. + +The lumps of flesh were a part of the decoration of the room and almost +indistinguishable from it. They were one with the lights, which lent +their tiny vision. They were joined to the sounds they made, a few +feeble tones out of the great possibility of sound. They blended into +the walls. + +The kaleidoscopic view came so fast that Anders had trouble sorting his +new impressions. He knew now that these people existed only as patterns, +on the same basis as the sounds they made and the things they thought +they saw. + +_Gestalts_, sifted out of the vast, unbearable real world. + +"Where's Judy?" a discontinuous lump of flesh asked him. This particular +lump possessed enough nervous mannerisms to convince the other lumps of +his reality. He wore a loud tie as further evidence. + +"She's sick," Anders said. The flesh quivered into an instant sympathy. +Lines of formal mirth shifted to formal woe. + +"Hope it isn't anything serious," the vocal flesh remarked. + +"You're warmer," the voice said to Anders. + +Anders looked at the object in front of him. + +"She hasn't long to live," he stated. + +The flesh quivered. Stomach and intestines contracted in sympathetic +fear. Eyes distended, mouth quivered. + +The loud tie remained the same. + +"My God! You don't mean it!" + +"What are you?" Anders asked quietly. + +"What do you mean?" the indignant flesh attached to the tie demanded. +Serene within its reality, it gaped at Anders. Its mouth twitched, +undeniable proof that it was real and sufficient. "You're drunk," it +sneered. + +Anders laughed and left the party. + + * * * * * + +"There is still something you don't know," the voice said. "But you were +hot! I could feel you near me." + +"What are you?" Anders asked again. + +"I don't know," the voice admitted. "I am a person. I am I. I am +trapped." + +"So are we all," Anders said. He walked on asphalt, surrounded by heaps +of concrete, silicates, aluminum and iron alloys. Shapeless, meaningless +heaps that made up the _gestalt_ city. + +And then there were the imaginary lines of demarcation dividing city +from city, the artificial boundaries of water and land. + +All ridiculous. + +"Give me a dime for some coffee, mister?" something asked, a thing +indistinguishable from any other thing. + +"Old Bishop Berkeley would give a nonexistent dime to your nonexistent +presence," Anders said gaily. + +"I'm really in a bad way," the voice whined, and Anders perceived that +it was no more than a series of modulated vibrations. + +"Yes! Go on!" the voice commanded. + +"If you could spare me a quarter--" the vibrations said, with a deep +pretense at meaning. + +No, what was there behind the senseless patterns? Flesh, mass. What was +that? All made up of atoms. + +"I'm really hungry," the intricately arranged atoms muttered. + +All atoms. Conjoined. There were no true separations between atom and +atom. Flesh was stone, stone was light. Anders looked at the masses of +atoms that were pretending to solidity, meaning and reason. + +"Can't you help me?" a clump of atoms asked. But the clump was identical +with all the other atoms. Once you ignored the superimposed patterns, +you could see the atoms were random, scattered. + +"I don't believe in you," Anders said. + +The pile of atoms was gone. + +"Yes!" the voice cried. "Yes!" + +"I don't believe in any of it," Anders said. After all, what was an +atom? + +"Go on!" the voice shouted. "You're hot! Go on!" + +What was an atom? An empty space surrounded by an empty space. + +Absurd! + +"Then it's all false!" Anders said. And he was alone under the stars. + +"That's right!" the voice within his head screamed. "Nothing!" + +But stars, Anders thought. How can one believe-- + +The stars disappeared. Anders was in a gray nothingness, a void. There +was nothing around him except shapeless gray. + +Where was the voice? + +Gone. + +Anders perceived the delusion behind the grayness, and then there was +nothing at all. + +Complete nothingness, and himself within it. + + * * * * * + +Where was he? What did it mean? Anders' mind tried to add it up. + +Impossible. _That_ couldn't be true. + +Again the score was tabulated, but Anders' mind couldn't accept the +total. In desperation, the overloaded mind erased the figures, +eradicated the knowledge, erased itself. + +"Where am I?" + +In nothingness. Alone. + +Trapped. + +"Who am I?" + +A voice. + +The voice of Anders searched the nothingness, shouted, "Is there anyone +here?" + +No answer. + +But there was someone. All directions were the same, yet moving along +one he could make contact ... with someone. The voice of Anders reached +back to someone who could save him, perhaps. + +"Save me," the voice said to Anders, lying fully dressed on his bed, +except for his shoes and black bow tie. + + --ROBERT SHECKLEY + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ June 1953. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and + typographical errors have been corrected without note. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Warm, by Robert Sheckley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WARM *** + +***** This file should be named 29509.txt or 29509.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/0/29509/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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