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diff --git a/29559-8.txt b/29559-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b860663 --- /dev/null +++ b/29559-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1156 @@ +Project Gutenberg's They Twinkled Like Jewels, by Philip José Farmer + +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: They Twinkled Like Jewels + +Author: Philip José Farmer + +Release Date: August 1, 2009 [EBook #29559] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEY TWINKLED LIKE JEWELS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _It was only a year and a half ago that Phil Farmer, till then a + totally unknown (editorially speaking at any rate) young man of + Peoria, wrote himself a novel that won him instantaneous acclaim as + perhaps the hottest new science fiction writer currently astir. Its + title was "The Lovers" and since then he has gone right on proving + himself a top-hand craftsman._ + + + they + twinkled + like + jewels + + _by ... Philip José Farmer_ + + + Crane didn't get the nice man's name--until it + was far too late to do anything at all about it. + + +Jack Crane lay all morning in the vacant lot. Now and then he moved a +little to quiet the protest of cramped muscles and stagnant blood, but +most of the time he was as motionless as the heap of rags he resembled. +Not once did he hear or see a Bohas agent, or, for that matter, anyone. +The predawn darkness had hidden his panting flight from the transie +jungle, his dodging across backyards while whistles shrilled and voices +shouted, and his crawling on hands and knees down an alley into the high +grass and bushes which fringed a hidden garden. + +For a while his heart had knocked so loudly that he had been sure he +would not be able to hear his pursuers if they did get close. It seemed +inevitable that they would track him down. A buddy had told him that a +new camp had just been built at a place only three hours drive away from +the town. This meant that Bohas would be thick as hornets in the +neighborhood. But no black uniforms had so far appeared. And then, lying +there while the passionate and untiring sun mounted the sky, the +bang-bang of his heart was replaced by a noiseless but painful movement +in his stomach. + +He munched a candy bar and two dried rolls which a housewife had given +him the evening before. The tiger in his belly quit pacing back and +forth; it crouched and licked its chops, but its tail was stuck up in +his throat. Jack could feel the dry fur swabbing his pharynx and mouth. +He suffered, but he was used to that. Night would come as surely as +anything did. He'd get a drink then to quench his thirst. + +Boredom began to sit on his eyelids. Just as he was about to accept some +much needed sleep, he moved a leaf with an accidental jerk of his hand +and uncovered a caterpillar. It was dark except for a row of yellow +spots along the central line of some of its segments. As soon as it was +exposed, it began slowly shimmying away. Before it had gone two feet, it +was crossed by a moving shadow. Guiding the shadow was a black wasp with +an orange ring around the abdomen. It closed the gap between itself and +the worm with a swift, smooth movement and straddled the dark body. + +Before the wasp could grasp the thick neck with its mandibles, the +intended victim began rapidly rolling and unrolling and flinging itself +from side to side. For a minute the delicate dancer above it could not +succeed in clenching the neck. Its sharp jaws slid off the frenziedly +jerking skin until the tiring creature paused for the chip of a second. + +Seizing opportunity and larva at the same time, the wasp stood high on +its legs and pulled the worm's front end from the ground, exposing the +yellowed band of the underpart. The attacker's abdomen curved beneath +its own body; the stinger jabbed between two segments of the prey's +jointed length. Instantly, the writhing stilled. A shudder, and the +caterpillar became as inert as if it were dead. + +Jack had watched with an eye not completely clinical, feeling the +sympathy of the hunted and the hounded for a fellow. His own struggles +of the past few months had been as desperate, though not as hopeless, +and ... + +He stopped thinking. His heart again took up the rib-thudding. Out of +the corner of his left eye he had seen a shadow that fell across the +garden. When he slowly turned his head to follow the stain upon the +sun-splashed soil, he saw that it clung to a pair of shining black +boots. + +Jack did not say anything. What was the use? He put his hands against +the weeds and pushed his body up. He looked into the silent mouth of a +.38 automatic. It told him his running days were over. You didn't talk +back to a mouth like that. + + +II + +Jack was lucky. As one of the last to be herded into the truck, which +had been once used for hauling cattle, he had more room to breathe than +most of the others. He faced the rear bars. The vehicle was heading into +the sun. Its rays were not as hard on him as on some of those who were +so jam-packed they could not turn to get the hot yellow splotch out of +their eyes. + +He looked through lowered lids at the youths on either side of him. For +the last three days in the transie jungle, the one standing on his left +had given signs of what was coming upon him, what had come upon so many +of the transies. The muttering, the indifference to food, not hearing +you when you talked to him. And now the shock of being caught in the +raid had speeded up what everybody had foreseen. He was hardened, like a +concrete statue, into a half-crouch. His arms were held in front of him +like a praying mantis', and his hands clutched a bar. Not even the +pressure of the crowd could break his posture. + +The man on Jack's right murmured something, but the roaring of motor and +clashing of gears shifting on a hill squashed his voice. He spoke +louder: + +"_Cerea flexibilitas_. Extreme catatonic state. The fate of all of us." + +"You're nuts," said Jack. "Not me. I'm no schizo, and I'm not going to +become one." + +As there was no reply, Jack decided he had not moved his lips enough to +be heard clearly. Lately, even when it was quiet, people seemed to have +trouble making out what he was saying. It made him mildly angry. + +He shouted. It did not matter if he were overheard. That any of the +prisoners were agents of the Bureau of Health and Sanity didn't seem +likely. Anyway, he didn't care. They wouldn't do anything to him they +hadn't planned before this. + +"Got any idea where we're going?" + +"Sure. F.M.R.C. 3. Federal Male Rehabilitation Camp No. 3. I spent two +weeks in the hills spying on it." + +Jack looked the speaker over. Like all those in the truck, he wore a +frayed shirt, a stained and torn coat, and greasy, dirty trousers. The +black bristles on his face were long; the back of his neck was covered +by thick curls. The brim of his dusty hat was pulled down low. Beneath +its shadow his eyes roamed from side to side with the same fear that +Jack knew was in his own eyes. + +Hunger and sleepless nights had knobbed his cheekbones and honed his +chin to a sharp point. An almost visible air clung to him, a hot aura +that seemed to result from veins full of lava and eyeballs spilling out +a heat that could not be held within him. He had the face every transie +had, the face of a man who was either burning with fever or who had seen +a vision. + +Jack looked away to stare miserably at the dust boiling up behind the +wheels, as if he could see projected against its yellow-brown screen his +retreating past. + +He spoke out of the side of his mouth. "What's happened to us? We should +be happy and working at good jobs and sure about the future. We +shouldn't be just bums, hobos, walkers of the streets, rod-hoppers, +beggars, and thieves." + +His friend shrugged and looked uneasily from the corners of his eyes. He +was probably expecting the question they all asked sooner or later: _Why +are_ you _on the road?_ They asked, but none replied with words that +meant anything. They lied, and they didn't seem to take any pleasure in +their lying. When they asked questions themselves, they knew they +wouldn't get the truth. But something forced them to keep on trying +anyway. + +Jack's buddy evaded also. He said, "I read a magazine article by a Dr. +Vespa, the head of the Bureau of Health and Sanity. He'd written the +article just after the President created the Bureau. He viewed, quote, +with alarm and apprehension, unquote, the fact that six percent of those +between the ages of twelve and twenty-five were schizophrenics who +needed institutionalizing. And he was, quote, appalled and horrified, +unquote, that five percent of the nation were homeless unemployed and +that three point seven percent of those were between the ages of +fourteen and thirty. He said that if this schizophrenia kept on +progressing, half the world would be in rehabilitation camps. But if +that occurred, the sane half would go to pot. Back to the stone age. And +the schizos would die." + + * * * * * + +He licked his lips as if he were tasting the figures and found them +bitter. + +"I was very interested by Vespa's reply to a mother who had written +him," he went on. "Her daughter ended up in a Bohas camp for schizos, +and her son had left his wonderful home and brilliant future to become a +bum. She wanted to know why. Vespa took six long paragraphs to give six +explanations, all equally valid and all advanced by equally +distinguished sociologists. He himself favored the mass hysteria theory. +But if you looked at his gobbledegook closely, you could reduce it to +one phrase, _We don't know_. + +"He did say this--though you won't like it--that the schizos and the +transies were just two sides of the same coin. Both were infected with +the same disease, whatever it was. And the transies usually ended up as +schizos anyway. It just took them longer." + +Gears shifted. The floor slanted. Jack was shoved hard against the rear +boards by the weight of the other men. He didn't answer until the +pressure had eased and his ribs were free to work for more than mere +survival. + +He said, "You're way off, schizo. My hitting the road has nothing to do +with those split-heads. Nothing, you understand? There's nothing foggy +or dreamy about me. I wouldn't be here with you guys if I hadn't been so +interested in a wasp catching a caterpillar that I never saw the Bohas +sneaking up on me." + +While Jack described the little tragedy, the other allowed an +understanding smile to bend his lips. He seemed engrossed, however, and +when Jack had finished, he said: + +"That was probably an ammophila wasp. _Sphex urnaria_ Klug. Lovely, but +vicious, little she-demon. Injects the poison from her sting into the +caterpillar's central nerve cord. That not only paralyzes but preserves +it. The victim is always stowed away with another one in an underground +burrow. The wasp attaches one of her eggs to the body of a worm. When +the egg hatches, the grub eats both of the worms. They're alive, but +they're completely helpless to resist while their guts are gnawed away. +Beautiful idea, isn't it? + +"It's a habit common to many of those little devils: _Sceliphron +cementarium_, _Eumenes coarcta_, _Eumenes fraterna_, _Bembix spinolae_, +_Pelopoeus_ ..." + +Jack's interest wandered. His informant was evidently one of those +transies who spent long hours in the libraries. They were ready at the +slightest chance to offer their encyclopaedic but often useless +knowledge. Jack himself had abandoned his childhood bookwormishness. For +the last three years his days and evenings had worn themselves out on +the streets, passed in a parade of faces, flickered by in plate-glass +windows of restaurants and department stores and business offices, while +he hoped, hoped.... + +"Did you say you spied on the camp?" Jack interrupted the sonorous, +almost chanting flow of Greek and Latin. + +"Huh? Oh, yeah. For two weeks. I saw plenty of transies trucked in, but +I never saw any taken out. Maybe they left in the rocket." + +"Rocket?" + +The youth was looking straight before him. His face was hard as bone, +but his voice trembled. + +"Yes. A big one. It landed and discharged about a dozen men." + +"You nuts? There's been only one man-carrying rocket invented, and it +lands by parachute." + +"I saw it, I tell you. And I'm not so nutty I'm seeing things that +aren't there. Not yet, anyway!" + +"Maybe the government's got rockets it's not telling anybody about." + +"Then what connection could there be between rehabilitation camps and +rockets?" + +Jack shrugged and said, "Your rocket story is fantastic." + +"If somebody had told you four years ago that you'd be a bum hauled off +to a concentration camp, you'd have said that was fantastic too." + +Jack did not have time to reply. The truck stopped outside a high, +barbed wire fence. The gate swung open; the truck bounced down the bumpy +dirt road. Jack saw some black-uniformed Bohas seated by heavy machine +guns. They halted at another entrance; more barbed wire was passed. Huge +Dobermann pinschers looked at the transies with cold, steady eyes. The +dust of another section of road swirled up before they squeaked to a +standstill and the engine turned off. + +This time, agents began to let down the back of the truck. They had to +pry the pitiful schizo's fingers loose from the wood with a crow-bar and +carry him off, still in his half-crouch. + +A sergeant boomed orders. Stiff and stumbling, the transies jumped off +the truck. They were swiftly lined up into squads and marched into the +enclosure and from there into a huge black barracks. Within an hour each +man was stripped, had his head shaven, was showered, given a grey +uniform, and handed a tin plate and spoon and cup filled with beans and +bread and hot coffee. + +Afterwards, Jack wandered around, free to look at the sandy soil +underfoot and barbed wire and the black uniforms of the sentries, and +free to ask himself where, where, wherewherewhere? Twelve years ago it +had been, but where, where, where, was...? + + +III + +How easy it would have been to miss all this, if only he had obeyed his +father. But Mr. Crane was so ineffectual.... + +"Jackie," he had said, "would you please go outside and play, or stay in +some other room. It's very difficult to discuss business while you're +whooping and screaming around, and I have a lot to discuss with Mr.--" + +"Yes, Daddy," Jack said before his father mentioned his visitor's name. +But he was not Jack Crane in his game; he was Uncas. The big chairs and +the divan were trees in his imaginative eyes. The huge easy chair in +which Daddy's caller (Jack thought of him only as "Mister") sat was a +fallen log. He, Uncas, meant to hide behind it in ambush. + +Mister did not bother him. He had smiled and said in a shrill voice that +he thought Jack was a very nice boy. He wore a light grey-green Palm +Beach suit and carried a big brown leather briefcase that looked too +heavy for his soda straw-thin legs and arms. He was queer-looking +because his waist was so narrow and his back so humped. And when he took +off his tan Panama hat, a white fuzz exploded from his scalp. His face +was pale as the moon in daylight. His broad smile showed teeth that Jack +knew were false. + +But the queerest thing about him was his thick spectacles, so heavily +tinted with rose that Jack could not see the eyes behind them. The +afternoon light seemed to bounce off the lenses in such a manner that no +matter what angle you looked at them, you could not pierce them. And +they curved to hide the sides of his eyes completely. + +Mister had explained that he was an albino, and he needed the glasses to +dim the glare on his eyes. Jack stopped being Uncas for a minute to +listen. He had never seen an albino before, and, indeed, he did not know +what one was. + +"I don't mind the youngster," said Mister. "Let him play here if he +wants to. He's developing his imagination, and he may be finding more +stimuli in this front room than he could in all of outdoors. We should +never cripple the fine gift of imagination in the young. Imagination, +fancy, fantasy--or whatever you call it--is the essence and mainspring +of those scientists, musicians, painters, and poets who amount to +something in later life. They are adults who have remained youths." + +Mister addressed Jack, "You're the Last of the Mohicans, and you're +about to sneak up on the French captain and tomahawk him, aren't you?" + +Jack blinked. He nodded his head. The opaque rose lenses set in Mister's +face seemed to open a door into his naked grey skull. + +The man said, "I want you to listen to me, Jack. You'll forget my name, +which isn't important. But you will always remember me and my visit, +won't you?" + +Jack stared at the impenetrable lenses and nodded dumbly. + +Mister turned to Jack's father. "Let his fancy grow. It is a necessary +wish-fulfillment play. Like all human young who are good for anything at +all, he is trying to find the lost door to the Garden of Eden. The +history of the great poets and men-of-action is the history of the +attempt to return to the realm that Adam lost, the forgotten Hesperides +of the mind, the Avalon buried in our soul." + +Mr. Crane put his fingertips together. "Yes?" + +"Personally, I think that some day man will realize just what he is +searching for and will invent a machine that will enable the child to +project, just as a film throws an image on a screen, the visions in his +psyche. + +"I see you're interested," he continued. "You would be, naturally, since +you're a professor of philosophy. Now, let's call the toy a +specterscope, because through it the subject sees the spectres that +haunt his unconscious. Ha! Ha! But how does it work? If you'll keep it +to yourself, Mr. Crane, I'll tell you something: My native country's +scientists have developed a rather simple device, though they haven't +published anything about it in the scientific journals. Let me give you +a brief explanation: Light strikes the retina of the eye; the rods and +cones pass on impulses to the bipolar cells, which send them on to the +optic nerve, which goes to the brain ..." + +"Elementary and full of gaps," said Jack's father. + +"Pardon me," said Mister. "A bare outline should be enough. You'll be +able to fill in the details. Very well. This specterscope breaks up the +light going into the eye in such a manner that the rods and cones +receive only a certain wavelength. I can't tell you what it is, except +that it's in the visual red. The scope also concentrates like a +burning-glass and magnifies the power of the light. + +"Result? A hitherto-undiscovered chemical in the visual purple of the +rods is activated and stimulates the optic nerve in a way we had not +guessed possible. An electrochemical stimulus then irritates the +subconscious until it fully wakes up. + +"Let me put it this way. The subconscious is not a matter of location +but of organization. There are billions of possible connections between +the neurons of the cortex. Look at those potentialities as so many cards +in the same pack. Shuffle the cards one way and you have the common +workaday _cogito, ergo sum_ mind. Reshuffle them, and, bingo! you have +the combination of neurons, or cards, of the unconscious. The +specterscope does the redealing. When the subject gazes through it, he +sees for the first time the full impact and result of his underground +mind's workings in other perspectives than dreams or symbolical +behavior. The subjective Garden of Eden is resurrected. It is my +contention that this specterscope will some day be available to all +children. + +"When that happens, Mr. Crane, you will understand that the world will +profit from man's secret wishes. Earth will be a far better place. +Paradise, sunken deep in every man, can be dredged out and set up +again." + +"I don't know," said Jack's father, stroking his chin thoughtfully with +a finger. "Children like my son are too introverted as it is. Give them +this psychological toy you suggest, and you would watch them grow, not +into the outside world, but into themselves. They would fester. Man has +been expelled from the Garden. His history is a long, painful climb +toward something different. It is something that is probably better than +the soft and flabby Golden Age. If man were to return, he would regress, +become worse than static, become infantile or even embryonic. He would +be smothered in the folds of his own dreams." + +"Perhaps," said the salesman. "But I think you have a very unusual child +here. He will go much farther than you may think. Why? Because he is +sensitive and has an imagination that only needs the proper guidance. +Too many children become mere bourgeois ciphers with paunches and round +'O' minds full of tripe. They'll stay on earth. That is, I mean they'll +be stuck in the mud." + +"You talk like no insurance salesman I've ever met." + +"Like all those who really want to sell, I'm a born psychologist," +Mister shrilled. "Actually, I have an advantage. I have a Ph.D. in +psychology. I would prefer staying at home for laboratory work, but +since I can help my starving children--I am not joking--so much more by +coming to a foreign land and working at something that will put food in +their mouths, I do it. I can't stand to see my little ones go hungry. +Moreover," he said with a wave of his long-fingered hand, "this whole +planet is really a lab that beats anything within four walls." + +"You spoke of famine. Your accent--your name. You're a Greek, aren't +you?" + +"In a way," said Mister. "My name, translated, means gracious or kindly +or well-meaning." His voice became brisker. "The translation is apropos. +I'm here to do you a service. Now, about these monthly premiums ..." + +Jack shook himself and stepped out of the mold of fascination that +Mister's glasses seemed to have poured around him. Uncas again, he +crawled on all fours from chair to divan to stool to the fallen log +which the adults thought was an easy chair. He stuck his head from +behind it and sighted along the broomstick-musket at his father. He'd +shoot that white man dead and then take his scalp. He giggled at that, +because his father really didn't have any hairlock to take. + +At that moment Mister decided to take off his specs and polish them with +his breast-pocket handkerchief. While he answered one of Mr. Crane's +questions, he let them dangle from his fingers. Accidentally, the lenses +were level with Jack's gaze. One careless glance was enough to jerk his +eyes back to them. One glance stunned him so that he could not at once +understand that what he was seeing was not reality. + +There was his father across the room. But it wasn't a room. It was a +space outdoors under the low branch of a tree whose trunk was so big it +was as wide as the wall had been. Nor was the Persian rug there. It was +replaced by a close-cropped bright green grass. Here and there foot-high +flowers with bright yellow petals tipped in scarlet swayed beneath an +internal wind. Close to Mr. Crane's feet a white horse no larger than a +fox terrier bit off the flaming end of a plant. + +All those things were wonderful enough--but was that naked giant who +sprawled upon a moss-covered boulder father? No! Yes! Though the +features were no longer pinched and scored and pale, though they were +glowing and tanned and smooth like a young athlete's they were his +father's! Even the thick, curly hair that fell down over a wide forehead +and the panther-muscled body could not hide his identity. + +Though it tore at his nerves, and though he was afraid that once he +looked away he would never again seize the vision, Jack ripped his gaze +away from the rosy view. + +The descent to the grey and rasping reality was so painful that tears +ran down his cheeks, and he gasped as if struck in the pit of the +stomach. How could beauty like that be all around him without his +knowing it? + +He felt that he had been blind all his life until this moment and would +be forever eyeless again, an unbearable forever, if he did not look +through the glass again. + +He stole another hurried glance, and the pain in his heart and stomach +went away, his insides became wrapped in a soft wind. He was lifted. He +was floating, a pale red, velvety air caressed him and buoyed him. + +He saw his mother run from around the tree. That should have seemed +peculiar, because he had thought she was dead. But there she was, no +longer flat-walking and coughing and thin and wax-skinned, but +golden-brown and curvy and bouncy. She jumped at Daddy and gave him a +long kiss. Daddy didn't seem to mind that she had no clothes on. Oh, it +was so wonderful. Jack was drifting on a yielding and wine-tinted air +and warmed with a wind that seemed to swell him out like a happy +balloon.... + +Suddenly he was falling, hurtling helplessly and sickeningly through a +void while a cold and drab blast gouged his skin and spun him around and +around. The world he had always known shoved hard against him. Again he +felt the blow in the solar plexus and saw the grey tentacles of the +living reality reach for his heart. + +Jack looked up at the stranger, who was just about to put his spectacles +on the bridge of his long nose. His eyelids were closed. Jack never did +see the pink eyes. + +That didn't bother him. He had other things to think about. He crouched +beside the chair while his brain tried to move again, tried to engulf a +thought and failed because it could not become fluid enough to find the +idea that would move his tongue to shriek, _No! No! No!_ + +And when the salesman rose and placed his papers in his case and patted +Jack on the head and bent his opaque rose spectacles at him and said +good-by and that he wouldn't be coming back because he was going out of +town to stay, Jack was not able to move or say a thing. Nor for a long +time after the door had closed could he break through the mass that +gripped him like hardened lava. By then, no amount of screams and +weeping would bring Mister back. All his father could do was to call a +doctor who took the boy's temperature and gave him some pills. + + +IV + +Jack stood inside the wire and bent his neck back to watch a huge black +and silver oyster feel the dusk for a landing-field with its single +white foot and its orange toes. Blindingly, lights sprang to attention +over the camp. + +When Jack had blinked his eyes back to normal, he could see over the +flat half-mile between the fence and the ship. It lay quiet and +glittering and smoking in the flood-beams. He could see the round door +in its side swing open. Men began filing out. A truck rumbled across the +plain and pulled up beside the metal bulk. A very tall man stepped out +of the cab and halted upon the running board, from which he seemed to be +greeting the newcomers or giving them instructions. Whatever he was +saying took so long that Jack lost interest. + +Lately, he had not been able to focus his mind for any length of time +upon anything except that one event in the past. He wandered around and +whipped glances at his comrades' faces, noting listlessly that their +uniforms and shaved heads had improved their appearance. But nothing +would be able to chill the feverishness of their eyes. + +Whistles shrilled. Jack jumped. His heart beat faster. He felt as if the +end of the quest were suddenly close. Somebody would be around the +corner. In a minute that person would be facing him, and then ... + +Then, he reflected, and sagged with a wave of disappointment at the +thought, then there was nobody around the corner. It always happened +that way. Besides, there weren't any corners in this camp. He had +reached the wall at the end of the alley. Why didn't he stop looking? + +Sergeants lined the prisoners up four abreast preparatory to marching +them into the barracks. Jack supposed it was time to turn in for the +night. He submitted to their barked orders and hard hands without +resentment. They seemed a long way off. For the ten thousandth time he +was thinking that this need not have happened. + +If he had been man enough to grapple with himself, to wrestle as Jacob +did with the angel and not let loose until he had felled the problem, he +could be teaching philosophy in a quiet little college, as his father +did. He had graduated from high school with only average marks, and +then, instead of going to college, as his father had so much wanted him +to, he had decided he would work a year. With his earnings, he would see +the world. + +He had seen it, but when his money ran out he had not returned home. He +had drifted, taking jobs here and there, sleeping in flop-houses, +jungles, park benches, and freight cars. + +When the newly created Bureau of Health and Sanity had frozen jobs in an +effort to solve the transiency problem, Jack had refused to work. He +knew that he would not be able to quit a job without being arrested at +once. Like hundreds of thousands of other youths, he had begged and +stolen and hidden from the local police and the Bohas. + +Even through all those years of misery and wandering, he had not once +admitted to himself the true nature of this fog-cottoned grail. He knew +it, and he did not know it. It was patrolling the edge of his mind, +circling a far-off periphery, recognizable by a crude silhouette but +nameless. Any time he wanted to, he could have summoned it closer and +said, _You are it, and I know you, and I know what I am looking for. It +is...? Is what? Worthless? Foolish? Insane? A dream?_ + +Jack had never had the courage to take that action. When it seemed the +thing was galloping closer, charging down upon him, he ran away. It must +stay on the horizon, moving on, always moving, staying out of his grasp. + +"All you guys, for'ard 'arch!" + +Jack did not move. The truck from the rocket had come through a gate and +stopped by the transies, and about fifty men were getting off the back. + +The man behind Jack bumped into him. Jack paid him no attention. He did +not move. He squinted at the group who had come from the rocket. They +were very tall, hump-shouldered, and dressed in light grey-green Palm +Beach suits and tan Panama hats. Each held a brown leather briefcase at +the end of a long, thin arm. Each wore on the bridge of his long nose a +pair of rose-colored glasses. + +A cry broke hoarsely from the transies. Some of those in front of Jack +fell to their knees as if a sudden poison had paralyzed their legs. They +called names and stretched out open hands. A boy by Jack's side sprawled +face-down on the sand while he uttered over and over again, "Mr. +Pelopoeus! Mr. Pelopoeus!" + +The name meant nothing to Jack. He did feel repulsed at seeing the +fellow turn on his side, bend his neck forward, bring his clenched fists +up against his chest, and jackknife his legs against his arms. He had +seen it many times before in the transie jungles, but he had never +gotten over the sickness it had first caused him. + +He turned away and came almost nose to nose with one of the men from the +rocket. He had put down his briefcase so it rested against his leg and +taken a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket to wipe the dust +from his lenses. His lids were squeezed shut as if he found the lights +unbearable. + +Jack stared and could not move while a name that the boy behind him had +been crying out slowly worked its way through his consciousness. +Suddenly, like the roar of a flashflood that is just rounding the bend +of a dry gulch, the syllables struck him. He lunged forward and clutched +at the spectacles in the man's hand. At the same time he yelled over and +over the words that had filled out the blank in his memory. + +"Mr. Eumenes! Mr. Eumenes!" + +A sergeant cursed and slammed his fist into Jack's face. Jack fell down, +flat on his back. Though his jaw felt as if it were torn loose from its +hinge, he rolled over on his side, raised himself on his hands and +knees, and began to get up to his feet. + +"Stand still!" bellowed the sergeant. "Stay in formation or you'll get +more of the same!" + +Jack shook his head until it cleared. He crouched and held out his hands +toward the man, but he did not move his feet. Over and over, +half-chanting, half-crooning, he said, "Mr. Eumenes! The glasses! +Please, Mr. Eumenes, the glasses!" + +The forty-nine Mr. Eumenae-and-otherwise looked incuriously with +impenetrable rosy eyes. The fiftieth put the white handkerchief back in +his pocket. His mouth opened. False teeth gleamed. With his free hand he +took off his hat and waved it at the crowd and bowed. + +His tilted head showed a white fuzzlike hair that shot up over his pale +scalp. His gestures were both comic and terrifying. The hat and the +inclination of his body said far more than words could. They said, +_Good-by forever, and bon voyage!_ + +Then Mr. Eumenes straightened up and opened his lids. + +At first, the sockets looked as if they held no eyeballs, as if they +were empty of all but shadows. + +Jack saw them from a distance. Mr. Eumenes-or-his-twin was shooting away +faster and faster and becoming smaller and smaller. No! He himself was. +He was rocketing away within his own body. He was falling down a deep +well. + +He, Jack Crane, was a hollow shaft down which he slipped and screamed, +away, away, from the world outside. It was like seeing from the wrong +end of a pair of binoculars that lengthened and lengthened while the man +with the long-sought-for treasure in his hand flew in the opposite +direction as if he had been connected to the horizon by a rubber band +and somebody had released it and he was flying towards it, away from +Jack. + +Even as this happened, as he knew vaguely that his muscles were locking +into the posture of a beggar, hands out, pleading, face twisted into an +agony of asking, lips repeating his croon-chant, he saw what had +occurred. + +The realization was like the sudden, blinding, and at the same time +clarifying light that sometimes comes to epileptics just as they are +going into a seizure. It was the thought that he had kept away on the +horizon of his mind, the thought that now charged in on him with long +leaps and bounds and then stopped and sat on its haunches and grinned at +him while its long tongue lolled. + +Of course, he should have known all these years what it was. He should +have known that Mr. Eumenes was the worst thing in the world for him. He +had known it, but, like a drug addict, he had refused to admit it. He +had searched for the man. Yet he had known it would be fatal to find +him. The rose-colored spectacles would swing gates that should never be +fully open. And he should have guessed _what_ and _who_ Mr. Eumenes was +when that encyclopedic fellow in the truck had singsonged those names. + +How could he have been so stupid? Stupid? It was easy! He had _wanted_ +to be stupid! And how could the Mr. Eumenes-or-otherwise have used such +obvious giveaway names? It was a measure of their contempt for the +humans around them and of their own grim wit. Look at all the double +entendres the salesman had given his father, and his father had never +suspected. Even the head of the Bureau of Health and Sanity had been +terrifyingly blasé about it. + +Dr. Vespa. He had thrown his name like a gauntlet to humanity, and +humanity had stared idiotically at it and never guessed its meaning. +Vespa was a good Italian name. Jack didn't know what it meant, but he +supposed that it had the same meaning as the Latin. He remembered it +from his high school class. + +As for his not encountering the salesman until now, he had been lucky. +If he had run across him during his search, he would have been denied +the glasses, as now. And the shock would have made him unable to cry out +and betray the man. He would have done what he was so helplessly doing +at this moment, and he would have been carted off to an institution. + +How many other transies had seen that unforgettable face on the streets, +the end of their search, and gone at once into that state that made them +legal prey of the Bohas? + +That was almost his last rational thought. He could no longer feel his +flesh. A thin red curtain was falling between him and his senses. +Everywhere it billowed out beneath him and eased his fall. Everywhere it +swirled and softened the outlines of things that were streaking by--a +large tree that he remembered seeing in his living room, a naked giant, +his father, leaning against it and eating an apple, and a delicate +little white creature cropping flowers. + +Yet all this while he lived in two worlds. One was the passage downwards +towards the Garden of Eden. The other was that hemisphere in which he +had dwelt so reluctantly, the one he now perceived through the +thickening red veil of his sight and other senses. + +They were not yet gone. He could feel the hands of the black-clad +officers lifting him up and laying him upon some hard substance that +rocked and dumped. Every lurch and thud was only dimly felt. Then he was +placed upon something softer and carried into what he vaguely sensed was +the interior of one of the barracks. + +Some time later--he didn't know or care when, for he had lost all +conception or even definition of time--he looked up the deep +everlengthening shaft of himself into the eyes of another Mr. Eumenes or +Mr. Sphex or Dr. Vespa or whatever he called himself. He was in white +and wore a stethoscope around his neck. + +Beside him stood another of his own kind. This one wore lipstick and a +nurse's cap. She carried a tray on which were several containers. One +container held a large and sharp scalpel. The other held an egg. It was +about twice the size of a hen's egg. + +Jack saw all this just before the veil took on another shade of red and +blurred completely his vision of the outside. But the final thickening +did not keep him from seeing that Doctor Eumenes was staring down at him +as if he were peering into a dusky burrow. And Jack could make out the +eyes. They were large, much larger than they should have been at the +speed with which Jack was receding. They were not the pale pink of an +albino's. They were black from corner to corner and built of a dozen or +so hexagons whose edges caught the light. + +They twinkled. + +Like jewels. + +Or the eyes of an enormous and evolved wasp. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ January 1954. + 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 Project Gutenberg's They Twinkled Like Jewels, by Philip José Farmer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEY TWINKLED LIKE JEWELS *** + +***** This file should be named 29559-8.txt or 29559-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/5/5/29559/ + +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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