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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32413-h.zip b/32413-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f3ebab --- /dev/null +++ b/32413-h.zip diff --git a/32413-h/32413-h.htm b/32413-h/32413-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6aba7e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/32413-h/32413-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2423 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of At The Post, by H. L. Gold. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Post, by Horace Leonard Gold + +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: At the Post + +Author: Horace Leonard Gold + +Illustrator: VIDMER + +Release Date: May 18, 2010 [EBook #32413] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE POST *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1>AT THE POST</h1> + +<h2>By H. L. GOLD</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by VIDMER</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +October 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote">How does a person come to be scratched from the human race? +Psychiatry did not have the answer—perhaps Clocker's turf science did!</div> + + +<p>When Clocker Locke came into the Blue Ribbon, on 49th Street west of +Broadway, he saw that nobody had told Doc Hawkins about his misfortune. +Doc, a pub-crawling, non-practicing general practitioner who wrote a +daily medical column for a local tabloid, was celebrating his release +from the alcoholic ward, but his guests at the rear table of the +restaurant weren't in any mood for celebration.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you—have you suddenly become immune to liquor?" +Clocker heard Doc ask irritably, while Clocker was passing the gem +merchants, who, because they needed natural daylight to do business, +were traditionally accorded the tables nearest the windows. "I said the +drinks were on me, didn't I?" Doc insisted. "Now let us have some bright +laughter and sparkling wit, or must we wait until Clocker shows up +before there is levity in the house?"</p> + +<p>Seeing the others glance toward the door, Doc turned and looked at +Clocker. His mouth fell open silently, for the first time in Clocker's +memory.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" he said after a moment. "Clocker's become a <i>character</i>!"</p> + +<p>Clocker felt embarrassed. He still wasn't used to wearing a business +suit of subdued gray, and black oxfords, instead of his usual brilliant +sports jacket, slacks and two-tone suede shoes; a tie with timid little +figures, whereas he had formerly been an authority on hand-painted +cravats; and a plain wristwatch in place of his spectacular chronograph.</p> + +<p>By all Broadway standards, he knew, Doc was correct—he'd become strange +and eccentric, a character.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"It was Zelda's idea," Clocker explained somberly, sitting down and +shaking his head at the waiter who ambled over. "She wanted to make a +gentleman out of me."</p> + +<p>"<i>Wanted to?</i>" Doc repeated, bewildered. "You two kids got married just +before they took my snakes away. Don't tell me you phhtt already!"</p> + +<p>Clocker looked appealingly at the others. They became busy with drinks +and paper napkins.</p> + +<p>Naturally, Doc Hawkins knew the background: That Clocker was a race +handicapper—publisher, if you could call it that, of a tiny tip +sheet—for Doc, in need of drinking money, had often consulted him +professionally. Also that Clocker had married Zelda, the noted 52nd +Street stripteuse, who had social aspirations. What remained to be told +had occurred during Doc's inevitably temporary cure.</p> + +<p>"Isn't anybody going to tell me?" Doc demanded.</p> + +<p>"It was right after you tried to take the warts off a fire hydrant and +they came and got you," said Clocker, "that Zelda started hearing +voices. It got real bad."</p> + +<p>"How bad?"</p> + +<p>"She's at Glendale Center in an upholstered room. I just came back from +visiting her."</p> + +<p>Doc gulped his entire drink, a positive sign that he was upset, or +happy, or not feeling anything in particular. Now, however, he was +noticeably upset.</p> + +<p>"Did the psychiatrists give you a diagnosis?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I got it memorized. Catatonia. Dementia praecox, what they used to +call, one of the brain vets told me, and he said it's hopeless."</p> + +<p>"Rough," said Doc. "Very rough. The outlook is never good in such +cases."</p> + +<p>"Maybe they can't help her," Clocker said harshly, "but I will."</p> + +<p>"People are not horses," Doc reminded him.</p> + +<p>"I've noticed that," said Handy Sam, the armless wonder at the flea +circus, drinking beer because he had an ingrown toenail and couldn't +hold a shot glass. Now that Clocker had told the grim story, he felt +free to talk, which he did enthusiastically. "Clocker's got a giant +brain, Doc. Who was it said Warlock'd turn into a dog in his third year? +Clocker, the only dopester in the racket. And that's just one—"</p> + +<p>"Zelda was my best flesh act," interrupted Arnold Wilson Wyle, a +ten-percenter whom video had saved from alimony jail. "A solid boffola +in the bop basements. Nobody regrets her sad condition more than me, +Clocker, but it's a sure flop, what you got in mind. Think of your +public. For instance, what's good at Hialeah? My bar bill is about to be +foreclosed and I can use a long shot."</p> + +<p>Clocker bounced his fist on the moist table. "Those couch artists don't +know what's wrong with Zelda. I do."</p> + +<p>"You do?" Doc asked, startled.</p> + +<p>"Well, almost. I'm so close, I can hear the finish-line camera +clicking."</p> + +<p>Buttonhole grasped Doc's lapel and hung on with characteristic avidity; +he was perhaps Clocker's most pious subscriber. "Doping races is a +science. Clocker maybe never doped the human race, but I got nine to +five he can do it. Go on, tell him, Clocker."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Doc Hawkins ran together the rings he had been making with the wet +bottom of his tumbler. "I shall be most interested," he said with +tabloid irony, clearly feeling that immediate disillusionment was the +most humane thing for Clocker. "Perhaps we can collaborate on an article +for the psychiatric journals."</p> + +<p>"All right, look." Clocker pulled out charts resembling those he worked +with when making turf selections. "Zelda's got catatonia, which is the +last heat in the schizophrenia parlay. She used to be a hoofer before +she started undressing for dough, and now she does time-steps all day."</p> + +<p>Doc nodded into a fresh glass that the waiter had put before him. +"Stereotyped movements are typical of catatonia. They derive from +thwarted or repressed instinctual drive; in most instances, the residue +of childhood frustrations."</p> + +<p>"She dance all day, huh, Clocker?" asked Oil Pocket, the Oklahoma +Cherokee who, with the income of several wells, was famed for angeling +bareback shows. He had a glass of tequila in one hand, the salted half +of a lemon in the other. "She dance good?"</p> + +<p>"That's just it," Clocker said. "She does these time-steps, the first +thing you learn in hoofing, over and over, ten-fifteen hours a day. And +she keeps talking like she's giving lessons to some jerk kid who can't +get it straight. And she was the kid with the hot routines, remember."</p> + +<p>"The hottest," agreed Arnold Wilson Wyle. "Zelda doing time-steps is +like Heifetz fiddling at weddings."</p> + +<p>"I still like to put her in show," Oil Pocket grunted. "She stacked like +brick tepee. Don't have to dance good."</p> + +<p>"You'll have a long wait," observed Doc sympathetically, "in spite of +what our young friend here says. Continue, young friend."</p> + +<p>Clocker spread his charts. He needed the whole table. The others removed +their drinks, Handy Sam putting his on the floor so he could reach it +more easily.</p> + +<p>"This is what I got out of checking all the screwball factories I could +reach personal and by mail," Clocker said. "I went around and talked to +the doctors and watched the patients in the places near here, and wrote +to the places I couldn't get to. Then I broke everything down like it +was a stud and track record."</p> + +<p>Buttonhole tugged Doc's lapel. "That ain't scientific, I suppose," he +challenged.</p> + +<p>"Duplication of effort," Doc replied, patiently allowing Buttonhole to +retain his grip. "It was all done in an organized fashion over a period +of more than half a century. But let us hear the rest."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"First," said Clocker, "there are more male bats than fillies."</p> + +<p>"Females are inherently more stable, perhaps because they have a more +balanced chromosome arrangement."</p> + +<p>"There are more nuts in the brain rackets than labor chumps."</p> + +<p>"Intellectual activity increases the area of conflict."</p> + +<p>"There are less in the sticks than in the cities, and practically none +among the savages. I mean real savages," Clocker told Handy Sam, "not +marks for con merchants."</p> + +<p>"I was wondering," Handy Sam admitted.</p> + +<p>"Complex civilization creates psychic insecurity," said Doc.</p> + +<p>"When these catatonics pull out, they don't remember much or maybe +nothing," Clocker went on, referring to his charts.</p> + +<p>Doc nodded his shaggy white head. "Protective amnesia."</p> + +<p>"I seen hundreds of these mental gimps. They work harder and longer at +what they're doing, even just laying down and doing nothing, than they +ever did when they were regular citizens."</p> + +<p>"Concentration of psychic energy, of course."</p> + +<p>"And they don't get a damn cent for it."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Doc hesitated, put down his half-filled tumbler. "I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>"I say they're getting stiffed," Clocker stated. "Anybody who works that +hard ought to get paid. I don't mean it's got to be money, although +that's the only kind of pay Zelda'd work for. Right, Arnold?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sure," said Arnold Wilson Wyle wonderingly. "I never thought of +it like that. Zelda doing time-steps for nothing ten-fifteen hours a +day—that ain't Zelda."</p> + +<p>"If you ask me, she <i>likes</i> her job," Clocker said. "Same with the other +catatonics I seen. But for no pay?"</p> + +<p>Doc surprisingly pushed his drink away, something that only a serious +medical puzzle could ever accomplish. "I don't understand what you're +getting at."</p> + +<p>"I don't know these other cata-characters, but I do know Zelda," said +Arnold Wilson Wyle. "She's got to get something out of all that work. +Clocker says it's the same with the others and I take his word. What are +they knocking theirself out for if it's for free?"</p> + +<p>"They gain some obscure form of emotional release or repetitive +gratification," Doc explained.</p> + +<p>"Zelda?" exploded Clocker. "You offer her a deal like that for a club +date and she'd get ruptured laughing."</p> + +<p>"I tell her top billing," Oil Pocket agreed, "plenty ads, plenty +publicity, whole show built around her. Wampum, she says; save money on +ads and publicity, give it to her. Zelda don't count coups."</p> + +<p>Doc Hawkins called over the waiter, ordered five fingers instead of his +customary three. "Let us not bicker," he told Clocker. "Continue."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clocker looked at his charts again. "There ain't a line that ain't +represented, even the heavy rackets and short grifts. It's a regular +human steeplechase. And these sour apples do mostly whatever they did +for a living—draw pictures, sell shoes, do lab experiments, sew +clothes, Zelda with her time-steps. By the hour! In the air!"</p> + +<p>"In the air?" Handy Sam repeated. "Flying?"</p> + +<p>"Imaginary functioning," Doc elaborated for him. "They have nothing in +their hands. Pure hallucination. Systematic delusion."</p> + +<p>"Sign language?" Oil Pocket suggested.</p> + +<p>"That," said Clocker, before Doc Hawkins could reject the notion, "is on +the schnoz, Injun. Buttonhole says I'm like doping races. He's right. +I'm working out what some numbers-runner tells me is probabilities. I +got it all here," he rapped the charts, "and it's the same thing all +these flop-ears got in common. Not their age, not their jobs, not +their—you should pardon the expression—sex. They're <i>teaching</i>."</p> + +<p>Buttonhole looked baffled. He almost let go of Doc's lapel.</p> + +<p>Handy Sam scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully with a big toe. +"Teaching, Clocker? Who? You said they're kept in solitary."</p> + +<p>"They are. I don't know who. I'm working on that now."</p> + +<p>Doc shoved the charts aside belligerently to make room for his beefy +elbows. He leaned forward and glowered at Clocker. "Your theory belongs +in the Sunday supplement of the alleged newspaper I write for. Not all +catatonics work, as you call it. What about those who stand rigid and +those who lie in bed all the time?"</p> + +<p>"I guess you think that's easy," Clocker retorted. "You try it sometime. +I did. It's work, I tell you." He folded his charts and put them back +into the inside pocket of his conservative jacket. He looked sick with +longing and loneliness. "Damn, I miss that mouse. I got to save her, +Doc! Don't you get that?"</p> + +<p>Doc Hawkins put a chunky hand gently on Clocker's arm. "Of course, boy. +But how can you succeed when trained men can't?"</p> + +<p>"Well, take Zelda. She did time-steps when she was maybe five and going +to dancing school—"</p> + +<p>"Time-steps have some symbolic significance to her," Doc said with more +than his usual tact. "My theory is that she was compelled to go against +her will, and this is a form of unconscious rebellion."</p> + +<p>"They don't have no significance to her," Clocker argued doggedly. "She +can do time-steps blindfolded and on her knees with both ankles tied +behind her back." He pried Buttonhole's hand off Doc's lapel, and took +hold of both of them himself. "I tell you she's teaching, explaining, +breaking in some dummy who can't get the hang of it!"</p> + +<p>"But who?" Doc objected. "Psychiatrists? Nurses? You? Admit it, +Clocker—she goes on doing time-steps whether she's alone or not. In +fact, she never knows if anybody is with her. Isn't that so?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah," Clocker said grudgingly. "That's what has me boxed."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Oil Pocket grunted tentatively, "White men not believe in spirits. +Injuns do. Maybe Zelda talk to spirits."</p> + +<p>"I been thinking of that," confessed Clocker, looking at the red angel +unhappily. "Spirits is all I can figure. Ghosts. Spooks. But if Zelda +and these other catatonics are teaching ghosts, these ghosts are the +dumbest jerks anywhere. They make her and the rest go through time-steps +or sewing or selling shoes again and again. If they had half a brain, +they'd get it in no time."</p> + +<p>"Maybe spirits not hear good," Oil Pocket offered, encouraged by +Clocker's willingness to consider the hypothesis.</p> + +<p>"Could be," Clocker said with partial conviction. "If we can't see them, +it may be just as hard for them to see or hear us."</p> + +<p>Oil Pocket anxiously hitched his chair closer. "Old squaw name Dry +Ground Never Rainy Season—what you call old maid—hear spirits all the +time. She keep telling us what they say. Nobody listen."</p> + +<p>"How come?" asked Clocker interestedly.</p> + +<p>"She deaf, blind. Not hear thunder. Walk into cactus, yell like hell. +She hardly see us, not hear us at all, how come she see and hear +spirits? Just talk, talk, talk all the time."</p> + +<p>Clocker frowned, thinking. "These catatonics don't see or hear us, but +they sure as Citation hear and see <i>something</i>."</p> + +<p>Doc Hawkins stood up with dignity, hardly weaving, and handed a bill to +the waiter. "I was hoping to get a private racing tip from you, Clocker. +Freshly sprung from the alcoholic ward, I can use some money. But I see +that your objectivity is impaired by emotional considerations. I +wouldn't risk a dime on your advice even after a race is run."</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect you to believe me," said Clocker despairingly. "None of +you pill-pushers ever do."</p> + +<p>"I can't say about your psycho-doping," declared Arnold Wilson Wyle, +also rising. "But I got faith in your handicapping. I'd still like a +long shot at Hialeah if you happen to have one."</p> + +<p>"I been too busy trying to help Zelda," Clocker said in apology.</p> + +<p>They left, Doc Hawkins pausing at the bar to pick up a credit bottle to +see him through his overdue medical column.</p> + +<p>Handy Sam slipped on his shoes to go. "Stick with it, Clocker. I said +you was a scientist—"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> said it," contradicted Buttonhole, lifting himself out of the chair +on Handy Sam's lapels. "If anybody can lick this caper, Clocker can."</p> + +<p>Oil Pocket glumly watched them leave. "Doctors not think spirits real," +he said. "I get sick, go to Reservation doctor. He give me medicine. I +get sicker. Medicine man see evil spirits make me sick. Shakes rattle. +Dances. Evil spirits go. I get better."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what in hell to think," confided Clocker, miserable and +confused. "If it would help Zelda, I'd cut my throat from head to foot +so I could become a spirit and get the others to lay off her."</p> + +<p>"Then you spirit, she alive. Making love not very practical."</p> + +<p>"Then what do I do—hire a medium?"</p> + +<p>"Get medicine man from Reservation. He drive out evil spirits."</p> + +<p>Clocker pushed away from the table. "So help me, I'll do it if I can't +come up with something cheaper than paying freight from Oklahoma."</p> + +<p>"Get Zelda out, I pay and put her in show."</p> + +<p>"Then if I haul the guy here and it don't work, I'm in hock to you. +Thanks, Oil Pocket, but I'll try my way first."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Back in his hotel room, waiting for the next day so he could visit +Zelda, Clocker was like an addict at the track with every cent on a +hunch. After weeks of neglecting his tip sheet to study catatonia, he +felt close to the payoff.</p> + +<p>He spent most of the night smoking and walking around the room, trying +not to look at the jars and hairbrushes on the bureau. He missed the +bobbypins on the floor, the nylons drying across the shower rack, the +toothpaste tubes squeezed from the top. He'd put her perfumes in a +drawer, but the smell was so pervasively haunting that it was like +having her stand invisibly behind him.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>As soon as the sun came up, he hurried out and took a cab. He'd have to +wait until visiting hours, but he couldn't stand the slowness of the +train. Just being in the same building with her would—almost—be +enough.</p> + +<p>When he finally was allowed into Zelda's room, he spent all his time +watching her silently, taking in every intently mumbled word and +movement. Her movements, in spite of their gratingly basic monotony, +were particularly something to watch, for Zelda had blue-black hair down +to her shapely shoulders, wide-apart blue eyes, sulky mouth, and an +astonishing body. She used all her physical equipment with unconscious +provocativeness, except her eyes, which were blankly distant.</p> + +<p>Clocker stood it as long as he could and then burst out, "Damn it, +Zelda, how long can they take to learn a time-step?"</p> + +<p>She didn't answer. She didn't see him, hear him, or feel him. Even when +he kissed her on the back of the neck, her special place, she did not +twist her shoulder up with the sudden thrill.</p> + +<p>He took out the portable phonograph he'd had permission to bring in, and +hopefully played three of her old numbers—a ballet tap, a soft shoe, +and, most potent of all, her favorite slinky strip tune. Ordinarily, the +beat would have thrown her off, but not any more.</p> + +<p>"Dead to this world," muttered Clocker dejectedly.</p> + +<p>He shook Zelda. Even when she was off-balance, her feet tapped out the +elementary routine.</p> + +<p>"Look, kid," he said, his voice tense and angry, "I don't know who these +squares are that you're working for, but tell them if they got you, they +got to take me, too."</p> + +<p>Whatever he expected—ghostly figures to materialize or a chill wind +from nowhere—nothing happened. She went on tapping.</p> + +<p>He sat down on her bed. <i>They</i> picked people the way he picked horses, +except he picked to win and they picked to show. To show? Of course. +Zelda was showing them how to dance and also, probably, teaching them +about the entertainment business. The others had obviously been selected +for what they knew, which they went about doing as singlemindedly as she +did.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He had a scheme that he hadn't told Doc because he knew it was crazy. At +any rate, he hoped it was. The weeks without her had been a hell of +loneliness—for him, not for her; she wasn't even aware of the awful +loss. He'd settle for that, but even better would be freeing her +somehow. The only way he could do it would be to find out who controlled +her and what they were after. Even with that information, he couldn't be +sure of succeeding, and there was a good chance that he might also be +caught, but that didn't matter.</p> + +<p>The idea was to interest <i>them</i> in what he knew so <i>they</i> would want to +have him explain all he knew about racing. After that—well, he'd make +his plans when he knew the setup.</p> + +<p>Clocker came close to the automatic time-step machine that had been his +wife. He began talking to her, very loudly, about the detailed knowledge +needed to select winners, based on stud records, past performances of +mounts and jockeys, condition of track and the influence of the +weather—always, however, leaving out the data that would make sense of +the whole complicated industry. It was like roping a patsy and holding +back the buzzer until the dough was down. He knew he risked being +cold-decked, but it was worth the gamble. His only worry was that +hoarseness would stop him before he hooked <i>their</i> interest.</p> + +<p>An orderly, passing in the corridor, heard his voice, opened the door +and asked with ponderous humor, "What you doing, Clocker—trying to take +out a membership card in this country club?"</p> + +<p>Clocker leaped slightly. "Uh, working on a private theory," he said, +collected his things with a little more haste than he would have liked +to show, kissed Zelda without getting any response whatever, and left +for the day.</p> + +<p>But he kept coming back every morning. He was about to give up when the +first feelings of unreality dazed and dazzled him. He carefully +suppressed his excitement and talked more loudly about racing. The world +seemed to be slipping away from him. He could have hung onto it if he +had wanted. He didn't. He let the voices come, vague and far away, +distorted, not quite meaningless, but not adding up to much, either.</p> + +<p>And then, one day, he didn't notice the orderly come in to tell him that +visiting hours were over. Clocker was explaining the fundamentals of +horse racing ... meticulously, with immense patience, over and over and +over ... and didn't hear him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It had been so easy that Clocker was disappointed. The first voices had +argued gently and reasonably over him, each claiming priority for one +reason or another, until one either was assigned or pulled rank. That +was the voice that Clocker eventually kept hearing—a quiet, calm voice +that constantly faded and grew stronger, as if it came from a great +distance and had trouble with static. Clocker remembered the crystal set +his father had bought when radio was still a toy. It was like that.</p> + +<p>Then the unreality vanished and was replaced by a dramatic new reality. +He was somewhere far away. He knew it wasn't on Earth, for this was like +nothing except, perhaps, a World's Fair. The buildings were low and +attractively designed, impressive in spite of their softly blended +spectrum of pastel colors. He was in a huge square that was +grass-covered and tree-shaded and decorated with classical sculpture. +Hundreds of people stood with him, and they all looked shaken and +scared. Clocker felt nothing but elation; he'd arrived. It made no +difference that he didn't know where he was or anything about the setup. +He was where Zelda was.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>"How did I get here?" asked a little man with bifocals and a vest that +had pins and threaded needles stuck in it. "I can't take time for +pleasure trips. Mrs. Jacobs is coming in for her fitting tomorrow and +she'll positively murder me if her dress ain't ready."</p> + +<p>"She can't," Clocker said. "Not any more."</p> + +<p>"You mean we're dead?" someone else asked, awed. It was a softly pudgy +woman with excessively blonde hair, a greasily red-lipped smile and a +flowered housecoat. She looked around with great approval. "Hey, this +ain't bad! Like I always said, either I'm no worse than anybody else or +they're no better'n me. How about that, dearie?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me," Clocker evaded. "I think somebody's going to get an +earful, but you ain't dead. That much I can tell you."</p> + +<p>The woman looked disappointed.</p> + +<p>Some people in the crowd were complaining that they had families to take +care of while others were worried about leaving their businesses. They +all grew silent, however, when a man climbed up on a sort of marble +rostrum in front of them. He was very tall and dignified and wore formal +clothes and had a white beard parted in the center.</p> + +<p>"Please feel at ease," he said in a big, deep, soothing voice, like a +radio announcer for a symphony broadcast. "You are not in any danger. No +harm will come to you."</p> + +<p>"You <i>sure</i> we ain't dead, sweetie?" the woman in the flowered housecoat +asked Clocker. "Isn't that—"</p> + +<p>"No," said Clocker. "He'd have a halo, wouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, I guess so," she agreed doubtfully.</p> + +<p>The white-bearded man went on, "If you will listen carefully to this +orientation lecture, you will know where you are and why. May I +introduce Gerald W. Harding? Dr. Harding is in charge of this reception +center. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Harding."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A number of people applauded out of habit ... probably lecture fans or +semi-pro TV studio audiences. The rest, including Clocker, waited as an +aging man in a white lab smock, heavy-rimmed eyeglasses and smooth pink +cheeks, looking like a benevolent doctor in a mouthwash ad, stood up and +faced the crowd. He put his hands behind his back, rocked on his toes a +few times, and smiled benevolently.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Calhoun," he said to the bearded man who was seating +himself on a marble bench. "Friends—and I trust you will soon regard us +<i>as</i> your friends—I know you are puzzled at all this." He waved a white +hand at the buildings around them. "Let me explain. You have been +chosen—yes, carefully screened and selected—to help us in undoubtedly +the greatest cause of all history. I can see that you are asking +yourselves <i>why</i> you were selected and what this cause is. I shall +describe it briefly. You'll learn more about it as we work together in +this vast and noble experiment."</p> + +<p>The woman in the flowered housecoat looked enormously flattered. The +little tailor was nodding to show he understood the points covered thus +far. Glancing at the rest of the crowd, Crocker realized that he was the +only one who had this speech pegged. It was a pitch. These men were out +for something.</p> + +<p>He wished Doc Hawkins and Oil Pocket were there. Doc doubtless would +have searched his unconscious for symbols of childhood traumas to +explain the whole thing; he would never have accepted it as <i>some</i> kind +of reality. Oil Pocket, on the other hand, would somehow have tried to +equate the substantial Mr. Calhoun and Dr. Harding with tribal spirits. +Of the two, Clocker felt that Oil Pocket would have been closer.</p> + +<p>Or maybe he was in his own corner of psychosis, while Oil Pocket would +have been in another, more suited to Indians. Spirits or figments? +Whatever they were, they looked as real as anybody he'd ever known, but +perhaps that was the naturalness of the supernatural or the logic of +insanity.</p> + +<p>Clocker shivered, aware that he had to wait for the answer. The one +thing he did know, as an authority on cons, was that this had the smell +of one, supernatural or otherwise. He watched and listened like a +detective shadowing an escape artist.</p> + +<p>"This may be something of a shock," Dr. Harding continued with a +humorous, sympathetic smile. "I hope it will not be for long. Let me +state it in its simplest terms. You know that there are billions of +stars in the Universe, and that stars have planets as naturally as cats +have kittens. A good many of these planets are inhabited. Some +life-forms are intelligent, very much so, while others are not. In +almost all instances, the dominant form of life is quite different +from—yours."</p> + +<p>Unable to see the direction of the con, Clocker felt irritated.</p> + +<p>"Why do I say <i>yours</i>, not <i>ours</i>?" asked Dr. Harding. "Because, dear +friends, Mr. Calhoun and I are not of your planet or solar system. No +commotion, please!" he urged, raising his hands as the crowd stirred +bewilderedly. "Our names are not Calhoun and Harding; we adopted those +because our own are so alien that you would be unable to pronounce them. +We are not formed as you see us, but this is how we <i>might</i> look if we +were human beings, which, of course, we are not. Our true appearance +seems to be—ah—rather confusing to human eyes."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Nuts, Clocker thought irreverently. Get to the point.</p> + +<p>"I don't think this is the time for detailed explanations," Dr. Harding +hurried on before there were any questions. "We are friendly, even +altruistic inhabitants of a planet 10,000 light-years from Earth. Quite +a distance, you are thinking; how did we get here? The truth is that we +are not 'here' and neither are you. 'Here' is a projection of thought, a +hypothetical point in space, a place that exists only by mental force. +Our physical appearances and yours are telepathic representations. +Actually, our bodies are on our own respective planets."</p> + +<p>"Very confusing," complained a man who looked like a banker. "Do you +have any idea of what he's trying to tell us?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet," Clocker replied with patient cynicism. "He'll give us the +convincer after the buildup."</p> + +<p>The man who looked like a banker stared sharply at Clocker and moved +away. Clocker shrugged. He was more concerned with why he didn't feel +tired or bored just standing there and listening. There was not even an +overpowering sense of urgency and annoyance, although he wanted to find +Zelda and this lecture was keeping him from looking for her. It was as +if his emotions were somehow being reduced in intensity. They existed, +but lacked the strength they should have had.</p> + +<p>So he stood almost patiently and listened to Dr. Harding say, "Our +civilization is considerably older than yours. For many of your +centuries, we have explored the Universe, both physically and +telepathically. During this exploration, we discovered your planet. We +tried to establish communication, but there were grave difficulties. It +was the time of your Dark Ages, and I'm sorry to report that those +people we made contact with were generally burned at the stake." He +shook his head regretfully. "Although your civilization has made many +advances in some ways, communication is still hampered—as much by false +knowledge as by real ignorance. You'll see in a moment why it is very +unfortunate."</p> + +<p>"Here it comes," Clocker said to those around him. "He's getting ready +finally to slip us the sting."</p> + +<p>The woman in the housecoat looked indignant. "The nerve of a crumb like +you making a crack about such a fine, decent gentleman!"</p> + +<p>"A blind man could see he's sincere," argued the tailor. "Just think of +it—<i>me</i>, in a big experiment! Will Molly be surprised when she finds +out!"</p> + +<p>"She won't find out and I'll bet she's surprised right now," Clocker +assured him.</p> + +<p>"The human body is an unbelievably complicated organism," Dr. Harding +was saying. The statement halted the private discussion and seemed to +please his listeners for some reason. "We learned that when we tried to +assume control of individuals for the purpose of communication. Billions +of neural relays, thousands of unvolitional functions—it is no +exaggeration to compare our efforts with those of a monkey in a power +plant. At our direction, for example, several writers produced books +that were fearfully garbled. Our attempts with artists were no more +successful. The static of interstellar space was partly responsible, but +mostly it was the fact that we simply couldn't work our way through the +maze that is the human mind and body."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The crowd was sympathetic. Clocker was neither weary nor bored, merely +longing for Zelda and, as a student of grifts, dimly irritated. Why hold +back when the chumps were set up?</p> + +<p>"I don't want to make a long story of our problems," smiled Dr. Harding. +"If we could visit your planet in person, there would be no difficulty. +But 10,000 light-years is an impossible barrier to all except thought +waves, which, of course, travel at infinite speed. And this, as I said +before, is very unfortunate, because the human race is doomed."</p> + +<p>The tailor stiffened. "Doomed? Molly? My kids? All my customers?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> customers?" yelped the woman in the housecoat. "How about mine? +What's gonna happen, the world should be doomed?"</p> + +<p>Clocker found admiration for Dr. Harding's approach. It was a line tried +habitually by politicians, but they didn't have the same kind of captive +audience, the control, the contrived background. A cosmic pitch like +this could bring a galactic payoff, whatever it might be. But it didn't +take his mind off Zelda.</p> + +<p>"I see you are somewhat aghast," Dr. Harding observed. "But is my +statement <i>really</i> so unexpected? You know the history of your own +race—a record of incessant war, each more devastating than the last. +Now, finally, Man has achieved the power of worldwide destruction. The +next war, or the one after that, will unquestionably be the end not only +of civilization, but of humanity—perhaps even your entire planet. Our +peaceful, altruistic civilization might help avert catastrophe, but that +would require our physical landing on Earth, which is not possible. Even +if it were, there is not enough time. Armageddon draws near.</p> + +<p>"Then why have we brought you here?" asked Dr. Harding. "Because Man, in +spite of his suicidal blunders, is a magnificent race. He must not +vanish without leaving <i>a complete record</i> of his achievements."</p> + +<p>The crowd nodded soberly. Clocker wished he had a cigarette and his +wife. In her right mind, Zelda was unswervingly practical and she would +have had some noteworthy comments to make.</p> + +<p>"This is the task we must work together on," said Dr. Harding +forcefully. "Each of you has a skill, a talent, a special knowledge we +need for the immense record we are compiling. Every area of human +society must be covered. We need you—urgently! Your data will become +part of an imperishable social document that shall exist untold eons +after mankind has perished."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Visibly, the woman in the housecoat was stunned. "They want to put down +what <i>I</i> can tell them?"</p> + +<p>"And tailoring?" asked the little man with the pin-cushion vest. "How to +make buttonholes and press clothes?"</p> + +<p>The man who looked like a banker had his chin up and a pleased +expression on his pudgy face.</p> + +<p>"I always knew I'd be appreciated some day," he stated smugly. "I can +tell them things about finance that those idiots in the main office +can't even guess at."</p> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun stood up beside Dr. Harding on the rostrum. He seemed +infinitely benign as he raised his hands and his deep voice.</p> + +<p>"Friends, we need <i>your</i> help, <i>your</i> knowledge. I <i>know</i> you don't want +the human race to vanish without a <i>trace</i>, as though it had never +existed. I'm <i>sure</i> it thrills you to realize that some researcher, +<i>far</i> in the <i>future</i>, will one day use the very knowledge that <i>you</i> +gave. Think what it means to leave <i>your</i> personal imprint indelibly on +cosmic history!" He paused and leaned forward. "Will you help us?"</p> + +<p>The faces glowed, the hands went up, the voices cried that they would.</p> + +<p>Dazzled by the success of the sell, Clocker watched the people happily +and flatteredly follow their frock-coated guides toward the various +buildings, which appeared to have been laid out according to very broad +categories of human occupation.</p> + +<p>He found himself impelled along with the chattering, excited woman in +the housecoat toward a cerise structure marked SPORTS AND RACKETS. It +seemed that she had been angry at not having been interviewed for a +recent epic survey, and this was her chance to decant the experiences of +twenty years.</p> + +<p>Clocker stopped listening to her gabble and looked for the building that +Zelda would probably be in. He saw ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, but when he +tried to go there, he felt some compulsion keep him heading toward his +own destination.</p> + +<p>Looking back helplessly, he went inside.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He found that he was in a cubicle with a fatherly kind of man who had +thin gray hair, kindly eyes and a firm jaw, and who introduced himself +as Eric Barnes. He took Clocker's name, age, specific trade, and gave +him a serial number which, he explained, would go on file at the central +archives on his home planet, cross-indexed in multiple ways for instant +reference.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Barnes, "here is our problem, Mr. Locke. We are making two +kinds of perpetual records. One is written; more precisely, +microscribed. The other is a wonderfully exact duplicate of your +cerebral pattern—in more durable material than brain matter, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Of course," Clocker said, nodding like an obedient patsy.</p> + +<p>"The verbal record is difficult enough, since much of the data you give +us must be, by its nature, foreign to us. The duplication of your +cerebral pattern, however, is even more troublesome. Besides the +inevitable distortion caused by a distance of 10,000 light-years and the +fields of gravitation and radiation of all types intervening, the +substance we use in place of brain cells absorbs memory quite slowly." +Barnes smiled reassuringly. "But you'll be happy to know that the +impression, once made, can <i>never</i> be lost or erased!"</p> + +<p>"Delighted," Clocker said flatly. "Tickled to pieces."</p> + +<p>"I knew you would be. Well, let us proceed. First, a basic description +of horse racing."</p> + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>Clocker began to give it. Barnes held him down to a single sentence—"To +check reception and retention," he said.</p> + +<p>The communication box on the desk lit up when Clocker repeated the +sentence a few times, and a voice from the box said, "Increase output. +Initial impression weak. Also wave distortion. Correct and continue."</p> + +<p>Barnes carefully adjusted the dials and Clocker went on repeating the +sentence, slowing down to the speed Barnes requested. He did it +automatically after a while, which gave him a chance to think.</p> + +<p>He had no plan to get Zelda out of here; he was improvising and he +didn't like it. The setup still had him puzzled. He knew he wasn't +dreaming all this, for there were details his imagination could never +have supplied, and the notion of spirits with scientific devices would +baffle even Oil Pocket.</p> + +<p>Everybody else appeared to accept these men as the aliens they claimed +to be, but Clocker, fearing a con he couldn't understand, refused to. He +had no other explanation, though, no evidence of any kind except deep +suspicion of any noble-sounding enterprise. In his harsh experience, +they always had a profit angle hidden somewhere.</p> + +<p>Until he knew more, he had to go along with the routine, hoping he would +eventually find a way out for Zelda and himself. While he was repeating +his monotonous sentence, he wondered what his body was doing back on +Earth. Lying in a bed, probably, since he wasn't being asked to perform +any physical jobs like Zelda's endless time-step.</p> + +<p>That reminded him of Doc Hawkins and the psychiatrists. There must be +some here; he wished vengefully that he could meet them and see what +they thought of their theories now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Then came the end of what was apparently the work day.</p> + +<p>"We're making splendid progress," Barnes told him. "I know how tiresome +it is to keep saying the same thing over and over, but the distance is +<i>such</i> a great obstacle. I think it's amazing that we can even <i>bridge</i> +it, don't you? Just imagine—the light that's reaching Earth at this +very minute left our star when mammoths were roaming your western states +and mankind lived in caves! And yet, with our thought-wave boosters, we +are in instantaneous communication!"</p> + +<p>The soap, Clocker thought, to make him feel he was doing something +important.</p> + +<p>"Well, you are doing something important," Barnes said, as though +Clocker had spoken.</p> + +<p>Clocker would have turned red if he had been able to. As it was, he felt +dismay and embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Do you realize the size and value of this project?" Barnes went on. "We +have a more detailed record of human society than Man himself ever had! +There will be not even the most insignificant corner of your +civilization left unrecorded! Your life, my life—the life of this Zelda +whom you came here to rescue—all are trivial, for we must die +eventually, but the project will last eternally!"</p> + +<p>Clocker stood up, his eyes hard and worried. "You're telling me you know +what I'm here for?"</p> + +<p>"To secure the return of your wife. I would naturally be aware that you +had submitted yourself to our control voluntarily. It was in your file, +which was sent to me by Admissions."</p> + +<p>"Then why did you let me in?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear friend—"</p> + +<p>"Leave out the 'friend' pitch. I'm here on business."</p> + +<p>Barnes shrugged. "As you wish. We let you in, as you express it, because +you have knowledge that we should include in our archives. We hoped you +would recognize the merit and scope of out undertaking. Most people do, +once they are told."</p> + +<p>"Zelda, too?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Barnes said emphatically. "I had that checked by Statistics. +She is extremely cooperative, quite convinced—"</p> + +<p>"Don't hand me that!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Barnes rose. Straightening the papers on his desk, he said, "You want to +speak to her and see for yourself? Fair enough."</p> + +<p>He led Clocker out of the building. They crossed the great square to a +vast, low structure that Barnes referred to as the Education and +Recreation Center.</p> + +<p>"Unless there are special problems," Barnes said, "our human associates +work twelve or fourteen of your hours, and the rest of the time is their +own. Sleep isn't necessary to the psychic projection, of course, though +it is to the body on Earth. And what, Mr. Locke, would you imagine they +choose as their main amusements?"</p> + +<p>"Pinball machines?" Clocker suggested ironically. "Crap games?"</p> + +<p>"Lectures," said Barnes with pride. "They are eager to learn everything +possible about our project. We've actually had the director himself +address them! Oh, it was inspiring, Mr. Locke—color films in three +dimensions, showing the great extent of our archives, the many millions +of synthetic brains, each with indestructible memories of skills and +crafts and professions and experiences that soon will be no more—"</p> + +<p>"Save it. Find Zelda for me and then blow. I want to talk to her alone."</p> + +<p>Barnes checked with the equivalent of a box office at the Center, where, +he told Clocker, members of the audience and staff were required to +report before entering, in case of emergency.</p> + +<p>"Like what?" Clocker asked.</p> + +<p>"You have a suspicious mind," said Barnes patiently. "Faulty neuron +circuit in a synthetic duplicate brain, for example. Photon storms +interfering with reception. Things of that sort."</p> + +<p>"So where's the emergency?"</p> + +<p>"We have so little time. We ask the human associate in question to +record again whatever was not received. The percentage of refusal is +actually <i>zero</i>! Isn't that splendid?"</p> + +<p>"Best third degree I ever heard of," Clocker admitted through clamped +teeth. "The cops on Earth would sell out every guy they get graft from +to buy a thing like this."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They found Zelda in a small lecture hall, where a matronly woman from +the other planet was urging her listeners to conceal nothing, however +intimate, while recording—"Because," she said, "this must be a +psychological as well as a cultural and sociological history."</p> + +<p>Seeing Zelda, Clocker rushed to her chair, hauled her upright, kissed +her, squeezed her.</p> + +<p>"Baby!" he said, more choked up than he thought his control would allow. +"Let's get out of here!"</p> + +<p>She looked at him without surprise. "Oh, hello, Clocker. Later. I want +to hear the rest of this lecture."</p> + +<p>"Ain't you glad to see me?" he asked, hurt. "I spend months and shoot +every dime I got just to find you—"</p> + +<p>"Sure I'm glad to see you, hon," she said, trying to look past him at +the speaker. "But this is so important—"</p> + +<p>Barnes came up, bowed politely. "If you don't mind, Miss Zelda, I think +you ought to talk to your husband."</p> + +<p>"But what about the lecture?" asked Zelda anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I can get a transcription for you to study later."</p> + +<p>"Well, all right," she agreed reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Barnes left them on a strangely warm stone bench in the great square, +after asking them to report back to work at the usual time. Zelda, +instead of looking at Clocker, watched Barnes walk away. Her eyes were +bright; she almost radiated.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he wonderful, Clocker?" she said. "Aren't they all wonderful? +Regular scientists, every one of them, devoting their whole life to this +terrific cause!"</p> + +<p>"What's so wonderful about that?" he all but snarled.</p> + +<p>She turned and gazed at him in mild astonishment. "They could let the +Earth go boom. It wouldn't mean a thing to them. Everybody wiped out +just like there never were any people. Not even as much record of us as +the dinosaurs! Wouldn't that make you feel simply awful?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't feel a thing." He took her unresponsive hand. "All I'm +worried about is us, baby. Who cares about the rest of the world doing a +disappearing act?"</p> + +<p>"I do. And so do they. They aren't selfish like some people I could +mention."</p> + +<p>"Selfish? You're damned right I am!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He pulled her to him, kissed her neck in her favorite place. It got a +reaction—restrained annoyance.</p> + +<p>"I'm selfish," he said, "because I got a wife I'm nuts about and I want +her back. They got you wrapped, baby. Can't you see that? You belong +with me in some fancy apartment, the minute I can afford it, like one I +saw over on Riverside Drive—seven big rooms, three baths, one of them +with a stall shower like you always wanted, the Hudson River and Jersey +for our front lawn—"</p> + +<p>"That's all in the past, hon," she said with quiet dignity. "I have to +help out on this project. It's the least I can do for history."</p> + +<p>"The hell with history! What did history ever do for us?" He put his +mouth near her ear, breathing gently in the way that once used to make +her squirm in his arms like a tickled doe. "Go turn in your time-card, +baby. Tell them you got a date with me back on Earth."</p> + +<p>She pulled away and jumped up. "No! This is my job as much as theirs. +More, even. They don't keep anybody here against their will. I'm staying +because I want to, Clocker."</p> + +<p>Furious, he snatched her off her feet. "I say you're coming back with +me! If you don't want to, I'll drag you, see?"</p> + +<p>"How?" she asked calmly.</p> + +<p>He put her down again slowly, frustratedly. "Ask them to let you go, +baby. Oil Pocket said he'd put you in a musical. You always did want to +hit the big time—"</p> + +<p>"Not any more." She smoothed down her dress and patted up her hair. +"Well, I want to catch the rest of that lecture, hon. See you around if +you decide to stay."</p> + +<p>He sat down morosely and watched her snake-hip toward the Center, +realizing that her seductive walk was no more than professional +conditioning. She had grown in some mysterious way, become more +serene—at peace.</p> + +<p>He had wondered what catatonics got for their work. He knew now—the +slickest job of hypnotic flattery ever invented. That was <i>their</i> pay.</p> + +<p>But what did the pitchmen get in return?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clocker put in a call for Barnes at the box office of the Center. Barnes +left a lecture for researchers from his planet and joined Clocker with +no more than polite curiosity on his paternal face. Clocker told him +briefly and bitterly about his talk with Zelda, and asked bluntly what +was in it for the aliens.</p> + +<p>"I think you can answer that," said Barnes. "You're a scientist of a +sort. You determine the probable performance of a group of horses by +their heredity, previous races and other factors. A very laborious +computation, calling for considerable aptitude and skill. With that same +expenditure of energy, couldn't you earn more in other fields?"</p> + +<p>"I guess so," Clocker said. "But I like the track."</p> + +<p>"Well, there you are. The only human form of gain we share is desire for +knowledge. You devote your skill to predicting a race that is about to +be run; we devote ours to recording a race that is about to destroy +itself."</p> + +<p>Clocker grabbed the alien's coat, pushed his face grimly close. "There, +that's the hook! Take away the doom push and this racket folds."</p> + +<p>Barnes looked bewildered. "I don't comprehend—"</p> + +<p>"Listen, suppose everything's square. Let's say you guys really are +leveling, these marks aren't being roped, you're knocking yourself out +because your guess is that we're going to commit suicide."</p> + +<p>"Oh." Barnes nodded somberly. "Is there any doubt of it? Do you honestly +believe the holocaust can be averted?"</p> + +<p>"I think it can be stopped, yeah. But you birds act like you don't want +it to be. You're just laying back, letting us bunch up, collecting the +insurance before the spill happens."</p> + +<p>"What else can we do? We're scientists, not politicians. Besides, we've +tried repeatedly to spread the warning and never once succeeded in +transmitting it."</p> + +<p>Clocker released his grip on the front of Barnes's jacket. "You take me +to the president or commissioner or whoever runs this club. Maybe we can +work something out."</p> + +<p>"We have a board of directors," Barnes said doubtfully. "But I can't +see—"</p> + +<p>"Don't rupture yourself trying. Just take me there and let me do the +talking."</p> + +<p>Barnes moved his shoulders resignedly. He led Clocker to the +Administration Building and inside to a large room with paneled walls, a +long, solid table and heavy, carved chairs. The men who sat around the +table appeared as solid and respectable as the furniture. Clocker's +guess was that they had been chosen deliberately, along with the +decorations, to inspire confidence in the customer. He had been in +rigged horse parlors and bond stores and he knew the approach.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun, the character with the white beard, was chairman of the +board. He looked unhappily at Clocker.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid there would be trouble," he said. "I voted against +accepting you, you know. My colleagues, however, thought that you, as +our first voluntary associate, might indicate new methods, but I fear my +judgment has been vindicated."</p> + +<p>"Still, if he knows how extinction can be prevented—" began Dr. +Harding, the one who had given the orientation lecture.</p> + +<p>"He knows no such thing," a man with several chins said in an emphatic +basso voice. "Man is the most destructive dominant race we have ever +encountered. He despoiled his own planet, exterminated lower species +that were important to his own existence, oppressed, suppressed, +brutalized, corrupted—it's the saddest chronicle in the Universe."</p> + +<p>"Therefore his achievements," said Dr. Harding, "deserve all the more +recognition!"</p> + +<p>Clocker broke in: "If you'll lay off the gab, I'd like to get my bet +down."</p> + +<p>"Sorry," said Mr. Calhoun. "Please proceed, Mr. Locke."</p> + +<p>Clocker rested his knuckles on the table and leaned over them. "I have +to take your word you ain't human, but you don't have to take mine. I +never worried about anybody but Zelda and myself; that makes me human. +All I want is to get along and not hurt anybody if I can help it; that +makes me what some people call the common man. Some of my best friends +are common men. Come to think of it, they all are. They wouldn't want to +get extinct. If we do, it won't be our fault."</p> + +<p>Several of the men nodded sympathetic agreement.</p> + +<p>"I don't read much except the sport sheets, but I got an idea what's +coming up," Clocker continued, "and it's a long shot that any country +can finish in the money. We'd like to stop war for good, all of us. +Little guys who do the fighting and the dying. Yeah, and lots of big +guys, too. But we can't do it alone."</p> + +<p>"That's precisely our point," said Calhoun.</p> + +<p>"I mean us back on Earth. People are afraid, but they just don't know +for sure that we can knock ourself off. Between these catatonics and me, +we could tell them what it's all about. I notice you got people from all +over the world here, all getting along fine because they have a job to +do and no time to hate each other. Well, it could be like that on Earth. +You let us go back and you'll see a selling job on making it like up +here like you never saw before."</p> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun and Dr. Harding looked at each other and around the table. +Nobody seemed willing to answer.</p> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun finally sighed and got out of his big chair. "Mr. Locke, +besides striving for international understanding, we have experimented +in the manner you suggest. We released many of our human associates to +tell what our science predicts on the basis of probability. A human +psychological mechanism defeated us."</p> + +<p>"Yeah?" Clocker asked warily. "What was that?"</p> + +<p>"Protective amnesia. They completely and absolutely forgot everything +they had learned here."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clocker slumped a bit. "I know. I talked to some of these 'cured' +catatonics—people you probably sprung because you got all you wanted +from them. They didn't remember anything." He braced again. "Look, there +has to be a way out. Maybe if you snatch these politicians in all the +countries, yank them up here, they couldn't stumble us into a war."</p> + +<p>"Examine your history," said Dr. Harding sadly, "and you will find that +we have done this experimentally. It doesn't work. There are always +others, often more unthinking, ignorant, stupid or vicious, ready to +take their places."</p> + +<p>Clocker looked challengingly at every member of the board of directors +before demanding, "What are the odds on me remembering?"</p> + +<p>"You are our first volunteer," said a little man at the side of the +table. "Any answer we give would be a guess."</p> + +<p>"All right, guess."</p> + +<p>"We have a theory that your psychic censor might not operate. Of course, +you realize that's only a theory—"</p> + +<p>"That ain't all I don't realize. What's it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Our control, regrettably, is a wrench to the mind. Lifting it results +in amnesia, which is a psychological defense against disturbing +memories."</p> + +<p>"I walked into this, don't forget," Clocker reminded him. "I didn't know +what I was getting into, but I was ready to take anything."</p> + +<p>"That," said the little man, "is the unknown factor. Yes, you did submit +voluntarily and you were ready to take anything—but were you +psychologically prepared for this? We don't know. We <i>think</i> there may +be no characteristic wrench—"</p> + +<p>"Meaning I won't have amnesia?"</p> + +<p>"Meaning that you <i>may</i> not. We cannot be certain until a test has been +made."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Clocker, "I want a deal. It's Zelda I want; you know that, +at any rate. You say you're after a record of us in case we bump ourself +off, but you also say you'd like us not to. I'll buy that. I don't want +us to, either, and there's a chance that we can stop it together."</p> + +<p>"An extremely remote one," Mr. Calhoun stated.</p> + +<p>"Maybe, but a chance. Now if you let me out and I'm the first case that +don't get amnesia, I can tell the world about all this. I might be able +to steer other guys, scientists and decent politicians, into coming here +to get the dope straighter than I could. Maybe that'd give Earth a +chance to cop a pardon on getting extinct. Even if it don't work, it's +better than hanging around the radio waiting for the results."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Dr. Harding hissed on his glasses and wiped them thoughtfully, an +adopted mannerism, obviously, because he seemed to see as well without +them. "You have a point, Mr. Locke, but it would mean losing your +contribution to our archives."</p> + +<p>"Well, which is more important?" Clocker argued. "Would you rather have +my record than have us save ourself?"</p> + +<p>"Both," said Mr. Calhoun. "We see very little hope of your success, +while we regard your knowledge as having important sociological +significance. A very desirable contribution."</p> + +<p>The others agreed.</p> + +<p>"Look, I'll come back if I lame out," Clocker desperately offered. "You +can pick me up any time you want. But if I make headway, you got to let +Zelda go, too."</p> + +<p>"A reasonable proposition," said Dr. Harding. "I call for a vote."</p> + +<p>They took one. The best Clocker could get was a compromise.</p> + +<p>"We will lift our control," Mr. Calhoun said, "for a suitable time. If +you can arouse a measurable opposition to racial suicide—<i>measurable</i>, +mind you; we're not requiring that you reverse the lemming march +alone—we agree to release your wife and revise our policy completely. +If, on the other hand, as seems more likely—"</p> + +<p>"I come back here and go on giving you the inside on racing," Clocker +finished for him. "How much time do I get?"</p> + +<p>Dr. Harding turned his hands palm up on the table. "We do not wish to be +arbitrary. We earnestly hope you gain your objective and we shall give +you every opportunity to do so. If you fail, you will know it. So shall +we."</p> + +<p>"You're pretty sure I'll get scratched, aren't you?" Clocker asked +angrily. "It's like me telling a jockey he don't stand a chance—he's +whammied before he even gets to the paddock. Anybody'd think do-gooders +like you claim you are would wish me luck."</p> + +<p>"But we do!" exclaimed Mr. Calhoun. He shook Clocker's hand warmly and +sincerely. "Haven't we consented to release you? Doesn't this prove our +honest concern? If releasing <i>all</i> our human associates would save +humanity, we would do so instantly. But we have tried again and again. +And so, to use your own professional terminology, we are hedging our +bets by continuing to make our anthropological record until you +demonstrate another method ... if you do."</p> + +<p>"Good enough," approved Clocker. "Thanks for the kind word."</p> + +<p>The other board members followed and shook Clocker's hand and wished him +well.</p> + +<p>Barnes, being last, did the same and added, "You may see your wife, if +you care to, before you leave."</p> + +<p>"If I care to?" Clocker repeated. "What in hell do you think I came here +for in the first place?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Zelda was brought to him and they were left alone in a pleasant reading +room. Soft music came from the walls, which glowed with enough light to +read by. Zelda's lovely face was warm with emotion when she sat down +beside him and put her hands in his.</p> + +<p>"They tell me you're leaving, hon," she said.</p> + +<div class="figright"> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>"I made a deal, baby. If it works—well, it'll be like it was before, +only better."</p> + +<p>"I hate to see you leave. Not just for me," she added as he lit up +hopefully. "I still love you, hon, but it's different now. I used to +want you near me every minute. Now it's loving you without starving for +you. You know what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"That's just the control they got on you. It's like that with me, too, +only I know what it is and you don't."</p> + +<p>"But the big thing is the project. Why, we're footnotes in history! Stay +here, hon. I'd feel so much better knowing you were here, making your +contribution like they say."</p> + +<p>He kissed her lips. They were soft and warm and clinging, and so were +her arms around his neck. This was more like the Zelda he had been +missing.</p> + +<p>"They gave you a hypo, sweetheart," he told her. "You're hooked; I'm +not. Maybe being a footnote is more important than doing something to +save our skin, but I don't think so. If I can do anything about it, I +want to do it."</p> + +<p>"Like what?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm hoping I get an idea when I'm +paroled."</p> + +<p>She nuzzled under his chin. "Hon, I want you and me to be footnotes. I +want it awful bad."</p> + +<p>"That's not what really counts, baby. Don't you see that? It's having +you and stopping us humans from being just a bunch of old footnotes. +Once we do that, we can always come back here and make the record, if it +means that much to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it does!"</p> + +<p>He stood and drew her up so he could hold her more tightly. "You do want +to go on being my wife, don't you, baby?"</p> + +<p>"Of course! Only I was hoping it could be here."</p> + +<p>"Well, it can't. But that's all I wanted to know. The rest is just +details."</p> + +<p>He kissed her again, including the side of her neck, which produced a +subdued wriggle of pleasure, and then he went back to the Administration +Building for his release.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Awakening was no more complicated than opening his eyes, except for a +bit of fogginess and fatigue that wore off quickly, and Clocker saw he +was in a white room with a doctor, a nurse and an orderly around his +bed.</p> + +<p>"Reflexes normal," the doctor said. He told Clocker, "You see and hear +us. You know what I'm saying."</p> + +<p>"Sure," Clocker replied. "Why shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"That's right," the doctor evaded. "How do you feel?"</p> + +<p>Clocker thought about it. He was a little thirsty and the idea of a +steak interested him, but otherwise he felt no pain or confusion. He +remembered that he had not been hungry or thirsty for a long time, and +that made him recall going over the border after Zelda.</p> + +<p>There were no gaps in his recollection.</p> + +<p>He didn't have protective amnesia.</p> + +<p>"You know what it's like there?" he asked the doctor eagerly. "A big +place where everybody from all over the world tell these aliens about +their job or racket." He frowned. "I just remembered something funny. +Wonder why I didn't notice it at the time. Everybody talks the same +language. Maybe that's because there's only one language for thinking." +He shrugged off the problem. "The guys who run the shop take it all down +as a record for whoever wants to know about us a zillion years from now. +That's on account of us humans are about to close down the track and go +home."</p> + +<p>The doctor bent close intently. "Is that what you believe <i>now</i> +or—while you were—disturbed?"</p> + +<p>Clocker's impulse to blurt the whole story was stopped at the gate. The +doctor was staring too studiously at him. He didn't have his story set +yet; he needed time to think, and that meant getting out of this +hospital and talking it over with himself.</p> + +<p>"You kidding?" he asked, using the same grin that he met complainers +with when his turf predictions went sour. "While my head was out of the +stirrups, of course."</p> + +<p>The doctor, the nurse and the orderly relaxed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I ought to write a book," Clocker went on, being doggedly humorous. +"What screwball ideas I got! How'd I act?"</p> + +<p>"Not bad," said the orderly. "When I found you yakking in your wife's +room, I thought maybe it was catching and I'd better go find another +job. But Doc here told me I was too stable to go psychotic."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't any trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Nah. All you did was talk about how to handicap races. I got quite a +few pointers. Hell, you went over them often enough for anybody to get +them straight!"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad somebody made a profit," said Clocker. He asked the doctor, +"When do I get out of here?"</p> + +<p>"We'll have to give you a few tests first."</p> + +<p>"Bring them on," Clocker said confidently.</p> + +<p>They were clever tests, designed to trip him into revealing whether he +still believed in his delusions. But once he realized that, he +meticulously joked about them.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he asked when the tests were finished.</p> + +<p>"You're all right," said the doctor. "Just try not to worry about your +wife, avoid overworking, get plenty of rest—"</p> + +<p>Before Clocker left, he went to see Zelda. She had evidently recorded +the time-step satisfactorily, because she was on a soft-shoe routine +that she must have known cold by the time she'd been ten.</p> + +<p>He kissed her unresponsive mouth, knowing that she was far away in space +and could not feel, see or hear him. But that didn't matter. He felt his +own good, honest, genuine longing for her, unchecked by the aliens' +control of emotions.</p> + +<p>"I'll spring you yet, baby," he said. "And what I told you about that +big apartment on Riverside Drive still goes. We'll have a time together +that ought to be a footnote in history all by itself. I'll see you ... +after I get the real job done."</p> + +<p>He heard the soft-shoe rhythm all the way down the corridor, out of the +hospital, and clear back to the city.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clocker's bank balance was sick, the circulation of his tip sheet gone. +But he didn't worry about it; there were bigger problems.</p> + +<p>He studied the newspapers before even giving himself time to think. The +news was as bad as usual. He could feel the heat of fission, close his +eyes and see all the cities and farms in the world going up in a +blinding cloud. As far as he was concerned, Barnes and Harding and the +rest weren't working fast enough; he could see doom sprinting in half a +field ahead of the completion of the record.</p> + +<p>The first thing he should have done was recapture the circulation of the +tip sheet. The first thing he actually did do was write the story of his +experience just as it had happened, and send it to a magazine.</p> + +<p>When he finally went to work on his sheet, it was to cut down the racing +data to a few columns and fill the rest of it with warnings.</p> + +<p>"This is what you want?" the typesetter asked, staring at the copy +Clocker turned in. "You <i>sure</i> this is what you want?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I'm sure. Set it and let's get the edition out early. I'm doubling +the print order."</p> + +<p>"Doubling?"</p> + +<p>"You heard me."</p> + +<p>When the issue was out, Clocker waited around the main newsstands on +Broadway. He watched the customers buy, study unbelievingly, and wander +off looking as if all the tracks in the country had burned down +simultaneously.</p> + +<p>Doc Hawkins found him there.</p> + +<p>"Clocker, my boy! You have no idea how anxious we were about you. But +you're looking fit, I'm glad to say."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," Clocker said abstractedly. "I wish I could say the same about +you and the rest of the world."</p> + +<p>Doc laughed. "No need to worry about us. We'll muddle along somehow."</p> + +<p>"You think so, huh?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if the end is approaching, let us greet it at the Blue Ribbon. I +believe we can still find the lads there."</p> + +<p>They were, and they greeted Clocker with gladness and drinks. +Diplomatically, they made only the most delicate references to the +revamping job Clocker had done on his tip sheet.</p> + +<p>"It's just like opening night, that's all," comforted Arnold Wilson +Wyle. "You'll get back into your routine pretty soon."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to," said Clocker pugnaciously. "Handicapping is only a +way to get people to read what I <i>really</i> want to tell them."</p> + +<p>"Took me many minutes to find horses," Oil Pocket put in. "See one I +want to bet on, but rest of paper make me too worried to bother betting. +Okay with Injun, though—horse lost. And soon you get happy again, stick +to handicapping, let others worry about world."</p> + +<p>Buttonhole tightened his grip on Clocker's lapel. "Sure, boy. As long as +the bobtails run, who cares what happens to anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe I went too easy," said Clocker tensely. "I didn't print the whole +thing, just a little part of it. Here's the rest."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They were silent while he talked, seeming stunned with the terrible +significance of his story.</p> + +<p>"Did you explain all this to the doctors?" Doc Hawkins asked.</p> + +<p>"You think I'm crazy?" Clocker retorted. "They'd have kept me packed +away and I'd never get a crack at telling anybody."</p> + +<p>"Don't let it trouble you," said Doc. "Some vestiges of delusion can be +expected to persist for a while, but you'll get rid of them. I have +faith in your ability to distinguish between the real and unreal."</p> + +<p>"But it all <i>happened</i>! If you guys don't believe me, who will? And +you've <i>got</i> to so I can get Zelda back!"</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course," said Doc hastily. "We'll discuss it further some +other time. Right now I really must start putting my medical column +together for the paper."</p> + +<p>"What about you, Handy Sam?" Clocker challenged.</p> + +<p>Handy Sam, with one foot up on the table and a pencil between his toes, +was doodling self-consciously on a paper napkin. "We all get these +ideas, Clocker. I used to dream about having arms and I'd wake up still +thinking so, till I didn't know if I did or didn't. But like Doc says, +then you figure out what's real and it don't mix you up any more."</p> + +<p>"All right," Clocker said belligerently to Oil Pocket. "You think my +story's batty, too?"</p> + +<p>"Can savvy evil spirits, good spirits," Oil Pocket replied with stolid +tact. "Injun spirits, though, not white ones."</p> + +<p>"But I keep telling you they ain't spirits. They ain't even human. +They're from some world way across the Universe—"</p> + +<p>Oil Pocket shook his head. "Can savvy Injun spirits, Clocker. No +spirits, no savvy."</p> + +<p>"Look, you see the mess we're all in, don't you?" Clocker appealed to +the whole group. "Do you mean to tell me you can't feel we're getting +set to blow the joint? Wouldn't you want to stop it?"</p> + +<p>"If we could, my boy, gladly," Doc said. "However, there's not much that +any individual or group of individuals can do."</p> + +<p>"But how in hell does anything get started? With one guy, two +guys—before you know it, you got a crowd, a political party, a +country—"</p> + +<p>"What about the other countries, though?" asked Buttonhole. "So we're +sold on your story in America, let's say. What do we do—let the rest of +the world walk in and take us over?"</p> + +<p>"We educate them," Clocker explained despairingly. "We start it here and +it spreads to there. It doesn't have to be everybody. Mr. Calhoun said I +just have to convince a few people and that'll show them it can be done +and then I get Zelda back."</p> + +<p>Doc stood up and glanced around the table. "I believe I speak for all of +us, Clocker, when I state that we shall do all within our power to aid +you."</p> + +<p>"Like telling other people?" Clocker asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's going pretty—"</p> + +<p>"Forget it, then. Go write your column. I'll see you chumps +around—around ten miles up, shaped like a mushroom."</p> + +<p>He stamped out, so angry that he untypically let the others settle his +bill.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Clocker's experiment with the newspaper failed so badly that it was not +worth the expense of putting it out; people refused to buy. Clocker had +three-sheets printed and hired sandwich men to parade them through the +city. He made violent speeches in Columbus Circle, where he lost his +audience to revivalist orators; Union Square, where he was told heatedly +to bring his message to Wall Street; and Times Square, where the police +made him move along so he wouldn't block traffic. He obeyed, shouting +his message as he walked, until he remembered how amusedly he used to +listen to those who cried that Doomsday was near. He wondered if they +were catatonics under imperfect control. It didn't matter; nobody paid +serious attention to his or their warnings.</p> + +<p>The next step, logically, was a barrage of letters to the heads of +nations, to the U.N., to editors of newspapers. Only a few of his +letters were printed. The ones in Doc's tabloid did best, drawing such +comments as:</p> + +<p>"Who does this jerk think he is, telling us everybody's going to get +killed off? Maybe they will, but not in Brooklyn!"</p> + +<p>"When I was a young girl, some fifty years ago, I had a similar +experience to Mr. Locke's. But my explanation is quite simple. The +persons I saw proved to be my ancestors. Mr. Locke's new-found friends +will, I am sure, prove to be the same. The World Beyond knows all and +tells all, and my Control, with whom I am in daily communication Over +There, assures me that mankind is in no danger whatever, except from the +evil effects of tobacco and alcohol and the disrespect of youth for +their elders."</p> + +<p>"The guy's nuts! He ought to go back to Russia. He's nothing but a nut +or a Communist and in my book that's the same thing."</p> + +<p>"He isn't telling us anything new. We all know who the enemy is. The +only way to protect ourselves is to build TWO GUNS FOR ONE!"</p> + +<p>"Is this Locke character selling us the idea that we all ought to go +batty to save the world?"</p> + +<p>Saddened and defeated, Clocker went through his accumulated mail. There +were politely non-committal acknowledgments from embassies and the U.N. +There was also a check for his article from the magazine he'd sent it +to; the amount was astonishingly large.</p> + +<p>He used part of it to buy radio time, the balance for ads in rural +newspapers and magazines. City people, he figured, were hardened by +publicity gags, and he might stir up the less suspicious and +sophisticated hinterland. The replies he received, though, advised him +to buy some farmland and let the metropolises be destroyed, which, he +was assured, would be a mighty good thing all around.</p> + +<p>The magazine came out the same day he tried to get into the U.N. to +shout a speech from the balcony. He was quietly surrounded by a +uniformed guard and moved, rather than forced, outside.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He went dejectedly to his hotel. He stayed there for several days, +dialing numbers he selected randomly from the telephone book, and +getting the brushoff from business offices, housewives and maids. They +were all very busy or the boss wasn't in or they expected important +calls.</p> + +<p>That was when he was warmly invited by letter to see the editor of the +magazine that had bought his article.</p> + +<p>Elated for actually the first time since his discharge from the +hospital, Clocker took a cab to a handsome building, showed his +invitation to a pretty and courteous receptionist, and was escorted into +an elaborate office where a smiling man came around a wide +bleached-mahogany desk and shook hands with him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Locke," said the editor, "I'm happy to tell you that we've had a +wonderful response to your story."</p> + +<p>"Article," Clocker corrected.</p> + +<p>The editor smiled. "Do you produce so much that you can't remember what +you sold us? It was about—"</p> + +<p>"I know," Clocker cut in. "But it wasn't a story. It was an article. It +really—"</p> + +<p>"Now, now. The first thing a writer must learn is not to take his ideas +too seriously. Very dangerous, especially in a piece of fiction like +yours."</p> + +<p>"But the whole thing is true!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly—while you were writing it." The editor shoved a pile of mail +across the desk toward him. "Here are some of the comments that have +come in. I think you'll enjoy seeing the reaction."</p> + +<p>Clocker went through them, hoping anxiously for no more than a single +note that would show his message had come through to somebody. He +finished and looked up blankly.</p> + +<p>"You see?" the editor asked proudly. "You're a find."</p> + +<p>"The new Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift. A comic."</p> + +<p>"A satirist," the editor amended. He leaned across the desk on his +crossed forearms. "A mail response like this indicates a talent worth +developing. We would like to discuss a series of stories—"</p> + +<p>"Articles."</p> + +<p>"Whatever you choose to call them. We're prepared to—"</p> + +<p>"You ever been off your rocker?" Clocker asked abruptly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The editor sat back, smiling with polite puzzlement. "Why, no."</p> + +<p>"You ought to try it some time." Clocker lifted himself out of the chair +and went to the door. "That's what I want, what I was trying to sell in +my article. We all ought to go to hospitals and get ourself let in and +have these aliens take over and show us where we're going."</p> + +<p>"You think that would be an improvement?"</p> + +<p>"What wouldn't?" asked Clocker, opening the door.</p> + +<p>"But about the series—"</p> + +<p>"I've got your name and address. I'll let you know if anything turns up. +Don't call me; I'll call you."</p> + +<p>Clocker closed the door behind him, went out of the handsome building +and called a taxi. All through the long ride, he stared at the thinning +out of the city, the huddled suburban communities, the stretches of +grass and well-behaved woods that were permitted to survive.</p> + +<p>He climbed out at Glendale Center Hospital, paid the hackie, and went to +the admitting desk. The nurse gave him a smile.</p> + +<p>"We were wondering when you'd come visit your wife," she said. "Been +away?"</p> + +<p>"Sort of," he answered, with as little emotion as he had felt while he +was being controlled. "I'll be seeing plenty of her from now on. I want +my old room back."</p> + +<p>"But you're perfectly normal!"</p> + +<p>"That depends on how you look at it. Give me ten minutes alone and any +brain vet will be glad to give me a cushioned room."</p> + +<p>Hands in his pockets, Clocker went into the elevator, walked down the +corridor to his old room without pausing to visit Zelda. It was the live +Zelda he wanted to see, not the tapping automaton.</p> + +<p>He went in and shut the door.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Okay, you were right and I was wrong," Clocker told the board of +directors. "Turn me over to Barnes and I'll give him the rest of the +dope on racing. Just let me see Zelda once in a while and you won't have +any trouble with me."</p> + +<p>"Then you are convinced that you have failed," said Mr. Calhoun.</p> + +<p>"I'm no dummy. I know when I'm licked. I also pay anything I owe."</p> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun leaned back. "And so do we, Mr. Locke. Naturally, you have +no way of detecting the effect you've had. We do. The result is that, +because of your experiment, we are gladly revising our policy."</p> + +<p>"Huh?" Clocker looked around at the comfortable aliens in their +comfortable chairs. Solid and respectable, every one of them. "Is this a +rib?"</p> + +<p>"Visits to catatonics have increased considerably," explained Dr. +Harding. "When the visitors are alone with our human associates, they +tentatively follow the directions you gave in your article. Not all do, +to be sure; only those who feel as strongly about being with their loved +ones as you do about your wife."</p> + +<p>"We have accepted four voluntary applicants," said Mr. Calhoun.</p> + +<p>Clocker's mouth seemed to be filled with cracker crumbs that wouldn't go +down and allow him to speak.</p> + +<p>"And now," Dr. Harding went on, "we are setting up an Information +Section to teach the applicants what you have learned and make the same +arrangement we made with you. We are certain that we shall, before long, +have to increase our staff as the number of voluntary applicants +increases geometrically, after we release the first few to continue the +work you have so admirably begun."</p> + +<p>"You mean I <i>made</i> it?" Clocker croaked unbelievingly.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps this will prove it to you," said Mr. Calhoun.</p> + +<p>He motioned and the door opened and Zelda came in.</p> + +<p>"Hello, hon," she said. "I'm glad you're back. I missed you."</p> + +<p>"Not like I missed you, baby! There wasn't anybody controlling <i>my</i> +feelings."</p> + +<p>Mr. Calhoun put his hands on their shoulders. "Whenever you care to, Mr. +Locke, you and your wife are free to leave."</p> + +<p>Clocker held Zelda's hands and her calmly fond gaze. "We owe these guys +plenty, baby," he said to her. "We'll help make the record before we +take off. Ain't that what you want?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is, hon! And then I want you."</p> + +<p>"Then let's get started," he said. "The quicker we do, the quicker we +get back."</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Post, by Horace Leonard Gold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE POST *** + +***** This file should be named 32413-h.htm or 32413-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/1/32413/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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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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: At the Post + +Author: Horace Leonard Gold + +Illustrator: VIDMER + +Release Date: May 18, 2010 [EBook #32413] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE POST *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +AT THE POST + +By H. L. GOLD + +Illustrated by VIDMER + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction +October 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: How does a person come to be scratched from the human race? +Psychiatry did not have the answer--perhaps Clocker's turf science did!] + + +When Clocker Locke came into the Blue Ribbon, on 49th Street west of +Broadway, he saw that nobody had told Doc Hawkins about his misfortune. +Doc, a pub-crawling, non-practicing general practitioner who wrote a +daily medical column for a local tabloid, was celebrating his release +from the alcoholic ward, but his guests at the rear table of the +restaurant weren't in any mood for celebration. + +"What's the matter with you--have you suddenly become immune to liquor?" +Clocker heard Doc ask irritably, while Clocker was passing the gem +merchants, who, because they needed natural daylight to do business, +were traditionally accorded the tables nearest the windows. "I said the +drinks were on me, didn't I?" Doc insisted. "Now let us have some bright +laughter and sparkling wit, or must we wait until Clocker shows up +before there is levity in the house?" + +Seeing the others glance toward the door, Doc turned and looked at +Clocker. His mouth fell open silently, for the first time in Clocker's +memory. + +"Good Lord!" he said after a moment. "Clocker's become a _character_!" + +Clocker felt embarrassed. He still wasn't used to wearing a business +suit of subdued gray, and black oxfords, instead of his usual brilliant +sports jacket, slacks and two-tone suede shoes; a tie with timid little +figures, whereas he had formerly been an authority on hand-painted +cravats; and a plain wristwatch in place of his spectacular chronograph. + +By all Broadway standards, he knew, Doc was correct--he'd become strange +and eccentric, a character. + + * * * * * + +"It was Zelda's idea," Clocker explained somberly, sitting down and +shaking his head at the waiter who ambled over. "She wanted to make a +gentleman out of me." + +"_Wanted to?_" Doc repeated, bewildered. "You two kids got married just +before they took my snakes away. Don't tell me you phhtt already!" + +Clocker looked appealingly at the others. They became busy with drinks +and paper napkins. + +Naturally, Doc Hawkins knew the background: That Clocker was a race +handicapper--publisher, if you could call it that, of a tiny tip +sheet--for Doc, in need of drinking money, had often consulted him +professionally. Also that Clocker had married Zelda, the noted 52nd +Street stripteuse, who had social aspirations. What remained to be told +had occurred during Doc's inevitably temporary cure. + +"Isn't anybody going to tell me?" Doc demanded. + +"It was right after you tried to take the warts off a fire hydrant and +they came and got you," said Clocker, "that Zelda started hearing +voices. It got real bad." + +"How bad?" + +"She's at Glendale Center in an upholstered room. I just came back from +visiting her." + +Doc gulped his entire drink, a positive sign that he was upset, or +happy, or not feeling anything in particular. Now, however, he was +noticeably upset. + +"Did the psychiatrists give you a diagnosis?" he asked. + +"I got it memorized. Catatonia. Dementia praecox, what they used to +call, one of the brain vets told me, and he said it's hopeless." + +"Rough," said Doc. "Very rough. The outlook is never good in such +cases." + +"Maybe they can't help her," Clocker said harshly, "but I will." + +"People are not horses," Doc reminded him. + +"I've noticed that," said Handy Sam, the armless wonder at the flea +circus, drinking beer because he had an ingrown toenail and couldn't +hold a shot glass. Now that Clocker had told the grim story, he felt +free to talk, which he did enthusiastically. "Clocker's got a giant +brain, Doc. Who was it said Warlock'd turn into a dog in his third year? +Clocker, the only dopester in the racket. And that's just one--" + +"Zelda was my best flesh act," interrupted Arnold Wilson Wyle, a +ten-percenter whom video had saved from alimony jail. "A solid boffola +in the bop basements. Nobody regrets her sad condition more than me, +Clocker, but it's a sure flop, what you got in mind. Think of your +public. For instance, what's good at Hialeah? My bar bill is about to be +foreclosed and I can use a long shot." + +Clocker bounced his fist on the moist table. "Those couch artists don't +know what's wrong with Zelda. I do." + +"You do?" Doc asked, startled. + +"Well, almost. I'm so close, I can hear the finish-line camera +clicking." + +Buttonhole grasped Doc's lapel and hung on with characteristic avidity; +he was perhaps Clocker's most pious subscriber. "Doping races is a +science. Clocker maybe never doped the human race, but I got nine to +five he can do it. Go on, tell him, Clocker." + + * * * * * + +Doc Hawkins ran together the rings he had been making with the wet +bottom of his tumbler. "I shall be most interested," he said with +tabloid irony, clearly feeling that immediate disillusionment was the +most humane thing for Clocker. "Perhaps we can collaborate on an article +for the psychiatric journals." + +"All right, look." Clocker pulled out charts resembling those he worked +with when making turf selections. "Zelda's got catatonia, which is the +last heat in the schizophrenia parlay. She used to be a hoofer before +she started undressing for dough, and now she does time-steps all day." + +Doc nodded into a fresh glass that the waiter had put before him. +"Stereotyped movements are typical of catatonia. They derive from +thwarted or repressed instinctual drive; in most instances, the residue +of childhood frustrations." + +"She dance all day, huh, Clocker?" asked Oil Pocket, the Oklahoma +Cherokee who, with the income of several wells, was famed for angeling +bareback shows. He had a glass of tequila in one hand, the salted half +of a lemon in the other. "She dance good?" + +"That's just it," Clocker said. "She does these time-steps, the first +thing you learn in hoofing, over and over, ten-fifteen hours a day. And +she keeps talking like she's giving lessons to some jerk kid who can't +get it straight. And she was the kid with the hot routines, remember." + +"The hottest," agreed Arnold Wilson Wyle. "Zelda doing time-steps is +like Heifetz fiddling at weddings." + +"I still like to put her in show," Oil Pocket grunted. "She stacked like +brick tepee. Don't have to dance good." + +"You'll have a long wait," observed Doc sympathetically, "in spite of +what our young friend here says. Continue, young friend." + +Clocker spread his charts. He needed the whole table. The others removed +their drinks, Handy Sam putting his on the floor so he could reach it +more easily. + +"This is what I got out of checking all the screwball factories I could +reach personal and by mail," Clocker said. "I went around and talked to +the doctors and watched the patients in the places near here, and wrote +to the places I couldn't get to. Then I broke everything down like it +was a stud and track record." + +Buttonhole tugged Doc's lapel. "That ain't scientific, I suppose," he +challenged. + +"Duplication of effort," Doc replied, patiently allowing Buttonhole to +retain his grip. "It was all done in an organized fashion over a period +of more than half a century. But let us hear the rest." + + * * * * * + +"First," said Clocker, "there are more male bats than fillies." + +"Females are inherently more stable, perhaps because they have a more +balanced chromosome arrangement." + +"There are more nuts in the brain rackets than labor chumps." + +"Intellectual activity increases the area of conflict." + +"There are less in the sticks than in the cities, and practically none +among the savages. I mean real savages," Clocker told Handy Sam, "not +marks for con merchants." + +"I was wondering," Handy Sam admitted. + +"Complex civilization creates psychic insecurity," said Doc. + +"When these catatonics pull out, they don't remember much or maybe +nothing," Clocker went on, referring to his charts. + +Doc nodded his shaggy white head. "Protective amnesia." + +"I seen hundreds of these mental gimps. They work harder and longer at +what they're doing, even just laying down and doing nothing, than they +ever did when they were regular citizens." + +"Concentration of psychic energy, of course." + +"And they don't get a damn cent for it." + + * * * * * + +Doc hesitated, put down his half-filled tumbler. "I beg your pardon?" + +"I say they're getting stiffed," Clocker stated. "Anybody who works that +hard ought to get paid. I don't mean it's got to be money, although +that's the only kind of pay Zelda'd work for. Right, Arnold?" + +"Well, sure," said Arnold Wilson Wyle wonderingly. "I never thought of +it like that. Zelda doing time-steps for nothing ten-fifteen hours a +day--that ain't Zelda." + +"If you ask me, she _likes_ her job," Clocker said. "Same with the other +catatonics I seen. But for no pay?" + +Doc surprisingly pushed his drink away, something that only a serious +medical puzzle could ever accomplish. "I don't understand what you're +getting at." + +"I don't know these other cata-characters, but I do know Zelda," said +Arnold Wilson Wyle. "She's got to get something out of all that work. +Clocker says it's the same with the others and I take his word. What are +they knocking theirself out for if it's for free?" + +"They gain some obscure form of emotional release or repetitive +gratification," Doc explained. + +"Zelda?" exploded Clocker. "You offer her a deal like that for a club +date and she'd get ruptured laughing." + +"I tell her top billing," Oil Pocket agreed, "plenty ads, plenty +publicity, whole show built around her. Wampum, she says; save money on +ads and publicity, give it to her. Zelda don't count coups." + +Doc Hawkins called over the waiter, ordered five fingers instead of his +customary three. "Let us not bicker," he told Clocker. "Continue." + + * * * * * + +Clocker looked at his charts again. "There ain't a line that ain't +represented, even the heavy rackets and short grifts. It's a regular +human steeplechase. And these sour apples do mostly whatever they did +for a living--draw pictures, sell shoes, do lab experiments, sew +clothes, Zelda with her time-steps. By the hour! In the air!" + +"In the air?" Handy Sam repeated. "Flying?" + +"Imaginary functioning," Doc elaborated for him. "They have nothing in +their hands. Pure hallucination. Systematic delusion." + +"Sign language?" Oil Pocket suggested. + +"That," said Clocker, before Doc Hawkins could reject the notion, "is on +the schnoz, Injun. Buttonhole says I'm like doping races. He's right. +I'm working out what some numbers-runner tells me is probabilities. I +got it all here," he rapped the charts, "and it's the same thing all +these flop-ears got in common. Not their age, not their jobs, not +their--you should pardon the expression--sex. They're _teaching_." + +Buttonhole looked baffled. He almost let go of Doc's lapel. + +Handy Sam scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully with a big toe. +"Teaching, Clocker? Who? You said they're kept in solitary." + +"They are. I don't know who. I'm working on that now." + +Doc shoved the charts aside belligerently to make room for his beefy +elbows. He leaned forward and glowered at Clocker. "Your theory belongs +in the Sunday supplement of the alleged newspaper I write for. Not all +catatonics work, as you call it. What about those who stand rigid and +those who lie in bed all the time?" + +"I guess you think that's easy," Clocker retorted. "You try it sometime. +I did. It's work, I tell you." He folded his charts and put them back +into the inside pocket of his conservative jacket. He looked sick with +longing and loneliness. "Damn, I miss that mouse. I got to save her, +Doc! Don't you get that?" + +Doc Hawkins put a chunky hand gently on Clocker's arm. "Of course, boy. +But how can you succeed when trained men can't?" + +"Well, take Zelda. She did time-steps when she was maybe five and going +to dancing school--" + +"Time-steps have some symbolic significance to her," Doc said with more +than his usual tact. "My theory is that she was compelled to go against +her will, and this is a form of unconscious rebellion." + +"They don't have no significance to her," Clocker argued doggedly. "She +can do time-steps blindfolded and on her knees with both ankles tied +behind her back." He pried Buttonhole's hand off Doc's lapel, and took +hold of both of them himself. "I tell you she's teaching, explaining, +breaking in some dummy who can't get the hang of it!" + +"But who?" Doc objected. "Psychiatrists? Nurses? You? Admit it, +Clocker--she goes on doing time-steps whether she's alone or not. In +fact, she never knows if anybody is with her. Isn't that so?" + +"Yeah," Clocker said grudgingly. "That's what has me boxed." + + * * * * * + +Oil Pocket grunted tentatively, "White men not believe in spirits. +Injuns do. Maybe Zelda talk to spirits." + +"I been thinking of that," confessed Clocker, looking at the red angel +unhappily. "Spirits is all I can figure. Ghosts. Spooks. But if Zelda +and these other catatonics are teaching ghosts, these ghosts are the +dumbest jerks anywhere. They make her and the rest go through time-steps +or sewing or selling shoes again and again. If they had half a brain, +they'd get it in no time." + +"Maybe spirits not hear good," Oil Pocket offered, encouraged by +Clocker's willingness to consider the hypothesis. + +"Could be," Clocker said with partial conviction. "If we can't see them, +it may be just as hard for them to see or hear us." + +Oil Pocket anxiously hitched his chair closer. "Old squaw name Dry +Ground Never Rainy Season--what you call old maid--hear spirits all the +time. She keep telling us what they say. Nobody listen." + +"How come?" asked Clocker interestedly. + +"She deaf, blind. Not hear thunder. Walk into cactus, yell like hell. +She hardly see us, not hear us at all, how come she see and hear +spirits? Just talk, talk, talk all the time." + +Clocker frowned, thinking. "These catatonics don't see or hear us, but +they sure as Citation hear and see _something_." + +Doc Hawkins stood up with dignity, hardly weaving, and handed a bill to +the waiter. "I was hoping to get a private racing tip from you, Clocker. +Freshly sprung from the alcoholic ward, I can use some money. But I see +that your objectivity is impaired by emotional considerations. I +wouldn't risk a dime on your advice even after a race is run." + +"I didn't expect you to believe me," said Clocker despairingly. "None of +you pill-pushers ever do." + +"I can't say about your psycho-doping," declared Arnold Wilson Wyle, +also rising. "But I got faith in your handicapping. I'd still like a +long shot at Hialeah if you happen to have one." + +"I been too busy trying to help Zelda," Clocker said in apology. + +They left, Doc Hawkins pausing at the bar to pick up a credit bottle to +see him through his overdue medical column. + +Handy Sam slipped on his shoes to go. "Stick with it, Clocker. I said +you was a scientist--" + +"_I_ said it," contradicted Buttonhole, lifting himself out of the chair +on Handy Sam's lapels. "If anybody can lick this caper, Clocker can." + +Oil Pocket glumly watched them leave. "Doctors not think spirits real," +he said. "I get sick, go to Reservation doctor. He give me medicine. I +get sicker. Medicine man see evil spirits make me sick. Shakes rattle. +Dances. Evil spirits go. I get better." + +"I don't know what in hell to think," confided Clocker, miserable and +confused. "If it would help Zelda, I'd cut my throat from head to foot +so I could become a spirit and get the others to lay off her." + +"Then you spirit, she alive. Making love not very practical." + +"Then what do I do--hire a medium?" + +"Get medicine man from Reservation. He drive out evil spirits." + +Clocker pushed away from the table. "So help me, I'll do it if I can't +come up with something cheaper than paying freight from Oklahoma." + +"Get Zelda out, I pay and put her in show." + +"Then if I haul the guy here and it don't work, I'm in hock to you. +Thanks, Oil Pocket, but I'll try my way first." + + * * * * * + +Back in his hotel room, waiting for the next day so he could visit +Zelda, Clocker was like an addict at the track with every cent on a +hunch. After weeks of neglecting his tip sheet to study catatonia, he +felt close to the payoff. + +He spent most of the night smoking and walking around the room, trying +not to look at the jars and hairbrushes on the bureau. He missed the +bobbypins on the floor, the nylons drying across the shower rack, the +toothpaste tubes squeezed from the top. He'd put her perfumes in a +drawer, but the smell was so pervasively haunting that it was like +having her stand invisibly behind him. + +[Illustration] + +As soon as the sun came up, he hurried out and took a cab. He'd have to +wait until visiting hours, but he couldn't stand the slowness of the +train. Just being in the same building with her would--almost--be +enough. + +When he finally was allowed into Zelda's room, he spent all his time +watching her silently, taking in every intently mumbled word and +movement. Her movements, in spite of their gratingly basic monotony, +were particularly something to watch, for Zelda had blue-black hair down +to her shapely shoulders, wide-apart blue eyes, sulky mouth, and an +astonishing body. She used all her physical equipment with unconscious +provocativeness, except her eyes, which were blankly distant. + +Clocker stood it as long as he could and then burst out, "Damn it, +Zelda, how long can they take to learn a time-step?" + +She didn't answer. She didn't see him, hear him, or feel him. Even when +he kissed her on the back of the neck, her special place, she did not +twist her shoulder up with the sudden thrill. + +He took out the portable phonograph he'd had permission to bring in, and +hopefully played three of her old numbers--a ballet tap, a soft shoe, +and, most potent of all, her favorite slinky strip tune. Ordinarily, the +beat would have thrown her off, but not any more. + +"Dead to this world," muttered Clocker dejectedly. + +He shook Zelda. Even when she was off-balance, her feet tapped out the +elementary routine. + +"Look, kid," he said, his voice tense and angry, "I don't know who these +squares are that you're working for, but tell them if they got you, they +got to take me, too." + +Whatever he expected--ghostly figures to materialize or a chill wind +from nowhere--nothing happened. She went on tapping. + +He sat down on her bed. _They_ picked people the way he picked horses, +except he picked to win and they picked to show. To show? Of course. +Zelda was showing them how to dance and also, probably, teaching them +about the entertainment business. The others had obviously been selected +for what they knew, which they went about doing as singlemindedly as she +did. + + * * * * * + +He had a scheme that he hadn't told Doc because he knew it was crazy. At +any rate, he hoped it was. The weeks without her had been a hell of +loneliness--for him, not for her; she wasn't even aware of the awful +loss. He'd settle for that, but even better would be freeing her +somehow. The only way he could do it would be to find out who controlled +her and what they were after. Even with that information, he couldn't be +sure of succeeding, and there was a good chance that he might also be +caught, but that didn't matter. + +The idea was to interest _them_ in what he knew so _they_ would want to +have him explain all he knew about racing. After that--well, he'd make +his plans when he knew the setup. + +Clocker came close to the automatic time-step machine that had been his +wife. He began talking to her, very loudly, about the detailed knowledge +needed to select winners, based on stud records, past performances of +mounts and jockeys, condition of track and the influence of the +weather--always, however, leaving out the data that would make sense of +the whole complicated industry. It was like roping a patsy and holding +back the buzzer until the dough was down. He knew he risked being +cold-decked, but it was worth the gamble. His only worry was that +hoarseness would stop him before he hooked _their_ interest. + +An orderly, passing in the corridor, heard his voice, opened the door +and asked with ponderous humor, "What you doing, Clocker--trying to take +out a membership card in this country club?" + +Clocker leaped slightly. "Uh, working on a private theory," he said, +collected his things with a little more haste than he would have liked +to show, kissed Zelda without getting any response whatever, and left +for the day. + +But he kept coming back every morning. He was about to give up when the +first feelings of unreality dazed and dazzled him. He carefully +suppressed his excitement and talked more loudly about racing. The world +seemed to be slipping away from him. He could have hung onto it if he +had wanted. He didn't. He let the voices come, vague and far away, +distorted, not quite meaningless, but not adding up to much, either. + +And then, one day, he didn't notice the orderly come in to tell him that +visiting hours were over. Clocker was explaining the fundamentals of +horse racing ... meticulously, with immense patience, over and over and +over ... and didn't hear him. + + * * * * * + +It had been so easy that Clocker was disappointed. The first voices had +argued gently and reasonably over him, each claiming priority for one +reason or another, until one either was assigned or pulled rank. That +was the voice that Clocker eventually kept hearing--a quiet, calm voice +that constantly faded and grew stronger, as if it came from a great +distance and had trouble with static. Clocker remembered the crystal set +his father had bought when radio was still a toy. It was like that. + +Then the unreality vanished and was replaced by a dramatic new reality. +He was somewhere far away. He knew it wasn't on Earth, for this was like +nothing except, perhaps, a World's Fair. The buildings were low and +attractively designed, impressive in spite of their softly blended +spectrum of pastel colors. He was in a huge square that was +grass-covered and tree-shaded and decorated with classical sculpture. +Hundreds of people stood with him, and they all looked shaken and +scared. Clocker felt nothing but elation; he'd arrived. It made no +difference that he didn't know where he was or anything about the setup. +He was where Zelda was. + +[Illustration] + +"How did I get here?" asked a little man with bifocals and a vest that +had pins and threaded needles stuck in it. "I can't take time for +pleasure trips. Mrs. Jacobs is coming in for her fitting tomorrow and +she'll positively murder me if her dress ain't ready." + +"She can't," Clocker said. "Not any more." + +"You mean we're dead?" someone else asked, awed. It was a softly pudgy +woman with excessively blonde hair, a greasily red-lipped smile and a +flowered housecoat. She looked around with great approval. "Hey, this +ain't bad! Like I always said, either I'm no worse than anybody else or +they're no better'n me. How about that, dearie?" + +"Don't ask me," Clocker evaded. "I think somebody's going to get an +earful, but you ain't dead. That much I can tell you." + +The woman looked disappointed. + +Some people in the crowd were complaining that they had families to take +care of while others were worried about leaving their businesses. They +all grew silent, however, when a man climbed up on a sort of marble +rostrum in front of them. He was very tall and dignified and wore formal +clothes and had a white beard parted in the center. + +"Please feel at ease," he said in a big, deep, soothing voice, like a +radio announcer for a symphony broadcast. "You are not in any danger. No +harm will come to you." + +"You _sure_ we ain't dead, sweetie?" the woman in the flowered housecoat +asked Clocker. "Isn't that--" + +"No," said Clocker. "He'd have a halo, wouldn't he?" + +"Yeah, I guess so," she agreed doubtfully. + +The white-bearded man went on, "If you will listen carefully to this +orientation lecture, you will know where you are and why. May I +introduce Gerald W. Harding? Dr. Harding is in charge of this reception +center. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Harding." + + * * * * * + +A number of people applauded out of habit ... probably lecture fans or +semi-pro TV studio audiences. The rest, including Clocker, waited as an +aging man in a white lab smock, heavy-rimmed eyeglasses and smooth pink +cheeks, looking like a benevolent doctor in a mouthwash ad, stood up and +faced the crowd. He put his hands behind his back, rocked on his toes a +few times, and smiled benevolently. + +"Thank you, Mr. Calhoun," he said to the bearded man who was seating +himself on a marble bench. "Friends--and I trust you will soon regard us +_as_ your friends--I know you are puzzled at all this." He waved a white +hand at the buildings around them. "Let me explain. You have been +chosen--yes, carefully screened and selected--to help us in undoubtedly +the greatest cause of all history. I can see that you are asking +yourselves _why_ you were selected and what this cause is. I shall +describe it briefly. You'll learn more about it as we work together in +this vast and noble experiment." + +The woman in the flowered housecoat looked enormously flattered. The +little tailor was nodding to show he understood the points covered thus +far. Glancing at the rest of the crowd, Crocker realized that he was the +only one who had this speech pegged. It was a pitch. These men were out +for something. + +He wished Doc Hawkins and Oil Pocket were there. Doc doubtless would +have searched his unconscious for symbols of childhood traumas to +explain the whole thing; he would never have accepted it as _some_ kind +of reality. Oil Pocket, on the other hand, would somehow have tried to +equate the substantial Mr. Calhoun and Dr. Harding with tribal spirits. +Of the two, Clocker felt that Oil Pocket would have been closer. + +Or maybe he was in his own corner of psychosis, while Oil Pocket would +have been in another, more suited to Indians. Spirits or figments? +Whatever they were, they looked as real as anybody he'd ever known, but +perhaps that was the naturalness of the supernatural or the logic of +insanity. + +Clocker shivered, aware that he had to wait for the answer. The one +thing he did know, as an authority on cons, was that this had the smell +of one, supernatural or otherwise. He watched and listened like a +detective shadowing an escape artist. + +"This may be something of a shock," Dr. Harding continued with a +humorous, sympathetic smile. "I hope it will not be for long. Let me +state it in its simplest terms. You know that there are billions of +stars in the Universe, and that stars have planets as naturally as cats +have kittens. A good many of these planets are inhabited. Some +life-forms are intelligent, very much so, while others are not. In +almost all instances, the dominant form of life is quite different +from--yours." + +Unable to see the direction of the con, Clocker felt irritated. + +"Why do I say _yours_, not _ours_?" asked Dr. Harding. "Because, dear +friends, Mr. Calhoun and I are not of your planet or solar system. No +commotion, please!" he urged, raising his hands as the crowd stirred +bewilderedly. "Our names are not Calhoun and Harding; we adopted those +because our own are so alien that you would be unable to pronounce them. +We are not formed as you see us, but this is how we _might_ look if we +were human beings, which, of course, we are not. Our true appearance +seems to be--ah--rather confusing to human eyes." + + * * * * * + +Nuts, Clocker thought irreverently. Get to the point. + +"I don't think this is the time for detailed explanations," Dr. Harding +hurried on before there were any questions. "We are friendly, even +altruistic inhabitants of a planet 10,000 light-years from Earth. Quite +a distance, you are thinking; how did we get here? The truth is that we +are not 'here' and neither are you. 'Here' is a projection of thought, a +hypothetical point in space, a place that exists only by mental force. +Our physical appearances and yours are telepathic representations. +Actually, our bodies are on our own respective planets." + +"Very confusing," complained a man who looked like a banker. "Do you +have any idea of what he's trying to tell us?" + +"Not yet," Clocker replied with patient cynicism. "He'll give us the +convincer after the buildup." + +The man who looked like a banker stared sharply at Clocker and moved +away. Clocker shrugged. He was more concerned with why he didn't feel +tired or bored just standing there and listening. There was not even an +overpowering sense of urgency and annoyance, although he wanted to find +Zelda and this lecture was keeping him from looking for her. It was as +if his emotions were somehow being reduced in intensity. They existed, +but lacked the strength they should have had. + +So he stood almost patiently and listened to Dr. Harding say, "Our +civilization is considerably older than yours. For many of your +centuries, we have explored the Universe, both physically and +telepathically. During this exploration, we discovered your planet. We +tried to establish communication, but there were grave difficulties. It +was the time of your Dark Ages, and I'm sorry to report that those +people we made contact with were generally burned at the stake." He +shook his head regretfully. "Although your civilization has made many +advances in some ways, communication is still hampered--as much by false +knowledge as by real ignorance. You'll see in a moment why it is very +unfortunate." + +"Here it comes," Clocker said to those around him. "He's getting ready +finally to slip us the sting." + +The woman in the housecoat looked indignant. "The nerve of a crumb like +you making a crack about such a fine, decent gentleman!" + +"A blind man could see he's sincere," argued the tailor. "Just think of +it--_me_, in a big experiment! Will Molly be surprised when she finds +out!" + +"She won't find out and I'll bet she's surprised right now," Clocker +assured him. + +"The human body is an unbelievably complicated organism," Dr. Harding +was saying. The statement halted the private discussion and seemed to +please his listeners for some reason. "We learned that when we tried to +assume control of individuals for the purpose of communication. Billions +of neural relays, thousands of unvolitional functions--it is no +exaggeration to compare our efforts with those of a monkey in a power +plant. At our direction, for example, several writers produced books +that were fearfully garbled. Our attempts with artists were no more +successful. The static of interstellar space was partly responsible, but +mostly it was the fact that we simply couldn't work our way through the +maze that is the human mind and body." + + * * * * * + +The crowd was sympathetic. Clocker was neither weary nor bored, merely +longing for Zelda and, as a student of grifts, dimly irritated. Why hold +back when the chumps were set up? + +"I don't want to make a long story of our problems," smiled Dr. Harding. +"If we could visit your planet in person, there would be no difficulty. +But 10,000 light-years is an impossible barrier to all except thought +waves, which, of course, travel at infinite speed. And this, as I said +before, is very unfortunate, because the human race is doomed." + +The tailor stiffened. "Doomed? Molly? My kids? All my customers?" + +"_Your_ customers?" yelped the woman in the housecoat. "How about mine? +What's gonna happen, the world should be doomed?" + +Clocker found admiration for Dr. Harding's approach. It was a line tried +habitually by politicians, but they didn't have the same kind of captive +audience, the control, the contrived background. A cosmic pitch like +this could bring a galactic payoff, whatever it might be. But it didn't +take his mind off Zelda. + +"I see you are somewhat aghast," Dr. Harding observed. "But is my +statement _really_ so unexpected? You know the history of your own +race--a record of incessant war, each more devastating than the last. +Now, finally, Man has achieved the power of worldwide destruction. The +next war, or the one after that, will unquestionably be the end not only +of civilization, but of humanity--perhaps even your entire planet. Our +peaceful, altruistic civilization might help avert catastrophe, but that +would require our physical landing on Earth, which is not possible. Even +if it were, there is not enough time. Armageddon draws near. + +"Then why have we brought you here?" asked Dr. Harding. "Because Man, in +spite of his suicidal blunders, is a magnificent race. He must not +vanish without leaving _a complete record_ of his achievements." + +The crowd nodded soberly. Clocker wished he had a cigarette and his +wife. In her right mind, Zelda was unswervingly practical and she would +have had some noteworthy comments to make. + +"This is the task we must work together on," said Dr. Harding +forcefully. "Each of you has a skill, a talent, a special knowledge we +need for the immense record we are compiling. Every area of human +society must be covered. We need you--urgently! Your data will become +part of an imperishable social document that shall exist untold eons +after mankind has perished." + + * * * * * + +Visibly, the woman in the housecoat was stunned. "They want to put down +what _I_ can tell them?" + +"And tailoring?" asked the little man with the pin-cushion vest. "How to +make buttonholes and press clothes?" + +The man who looked like a banker had his chin up and a pleased +expression on his pudgy face. + +"I always knew I'd be appreciated some day," he stated smugly. "I can +tell them things about finance that those idiots in the main office +can't even guess at." + +Mr. Calhoun stood up beside Dr. Harding on the rostrum. He seemed +infinitely benign as he raised his hands and his deep voice. + +"Friends, we need _your_ help, _your_ knowledge. I _know_ you don't want +the human race to vanish without a _trace_, as though it had never +existed. I'm _sure_ it thrills you to realize that some researcher, +_far_ in the _future_, will one day use the very knowledge that _you_ +gave. Think what it means to leave _your_ personal imprint indelibly on +cosmic history!" He paused and leaned forward. "Will you help us?" + +The faces glowed, the hands went up, the voices cried that they would. + +Dazzled by the success of the sell, Clocker watched the people happily +and flatteredly follow their frock-coated guides toward the various +buildings, which appeared to have been laid out according to very broad +categories of human occupation. + +He found himself impelled along with the chattering, excited woman in +the housecoat toward a cerise structure marked SPORTS AND RACKETS. It +seemed that she had been angry at not having been interviewed for a +recent epic survey, and this was her chance to decant the experiences of +twenty years. + +Clocker stopped listening to her gabble and looked for the building that +Zelda would probably be in. He saw ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, but when he +tried to go there, he felt some compulsion keep him heading toward his +own destination. + +Looking back helplessly, he went inside. + + * * * * * + +He found that he was in a cubicle with a fatherly kind of man who had +thin gray hair, kindly eyes and a firm jaw, and who introduced himself +as Eric Barnes. He took Clocker's name, age, specific trade, and gave +him a serial number which, he explained, would go on file at the central +archives on his home planet, cross-indexed in multiple ways for instant +reference. + +"Now," said Barnes, "here is our problem, Mr. Locke. We are making two +kinds of perpetual records. One is written; more precisely, +microscribed. The other is a wonderfully exact duplicate of your +cerebral pattern--in more durable material than brain matter, of +course." + +"Of course," Clocker said, nodding like an obedient patsy. + +"The verbal record is difficult enough, since much of the data you give +us must be, by its nature, foreign to us. The duplication of your +cerebral pattern, however, is even more troublesome. Besides the +inevitable distortion caused by a distance of 10,000 light-years and the +fields of gravitation and radiation of all types intervening, the +substance we use in place of brain cells absorbs memory quite slowly." +Barnes smiled reassuringly. "But you'll be happy to know that the +impression, once made, can _never_ be lost or erased!" + +"Delighted," Clocker said flatly. "Tickled to pieces." + +"I knew you would be. Well, let us proceed. First, a basic description +of horse racing." + +Clocker began to give it. Barnes held him down to a single sentence--"To +check reception and retention," he said. + +The communication box on the desk lit up when Clocker repeated the +sentence a few times, and a voice from the box said, "Increase output. +Initial impression weak. Also wave distortion. Correct and continue." + +Barnes carefully adjusted the dials and Clocker went on repeating the +sentence, slowing down to the speed Barnes requested. He did it +automatically after a while, which gave him a chance to think. + +[Illustration] + +He had no plan to get Zelda out of here; he was improvising and he +didn't like it. The setup still had him puzzled. He knew he wasn't +dreaming all this, for there were details his imagination could never +have supplied, and the notion of spirits with scientific devices would +baffle even Oil Pocket. + +Everybody else appeared to accept these men as the aliens they claimed +to be, but Clocker, fearing a con he couldn't understand, refused to. He +had no other explanation, though, no evidence of any kind except deep +suspicion of any noble-sounding enterprise. In his harsh experience, +they always had a profit angle hidden somewhere. + +Until he knew more, he had to go along with the routine, hoping he would +eventually find a way out for Zelda and himself. While he was repeating +his monotonous sentence, he wondered what his body was doing back on +Earth. Lying in a bed, probably, since he wasn't being asked to perform +any physical jobs like Zelda's endless time-step. + +That reminded him of Doc Hawkins and the psychiatrists. There must be +some here; he wished vengefully that he could meet them and see what +they thought of their theories now. + + * * * * * + +Then came the end of what was apparently the work day. + +"We're making splendid progress," Barnes told him. "I know how tiresome +it is to keep saying the same thing over and over, but the distance is +_such_ a great obstacle. I think it's amazing that we can even _bridge_ +it, don't you? Just imagine--the light that's reaching Earth at this +very minute left our star when mammoths were roaming your western states +and mankind lived in caves! And yet, with our thought-wave boosters, we +are in instantaneous communication!" + +The soap, Clocker thought, to make him feel he was doing something +important. + +"Well, you are doing something important," Barnes said, as though +Clocker had spoken. + +Clocker would have turned red if he had been able to. As it was, he felt +dismay and embarrassment. + +"Do you realize the size and value of this project?" Barnes went on. "We +have a more detailed record of human society than Man himself ever had! +There will be not even the most insignificant corner of your +civilization left unrecorded! Your life, my life--the life of this Zelda +whom you came here to rescue--all are trivial, for we must die +eventually, but the project will last eternally!" + +Clocker stood up, his eyes hard and worried. "You're telling me you know +what I'm here for?" + +"To secure the return of your wife. I would naturally be aware that you +had submitted yourself to our control voluntarily. It was in your file, +which was sent to me by Admissions." + +"Then why did you let me in?" + +"Because, my dear friend--" + +"Leave out the 'friend' pitch. I'm here on business." + +Barnes shrugged. "As you wish. We let you in, as you express it, because +you have knowledge that we should include in our archives. We hoped you +would recognize the merit and scope of out undertaking. Most people do, +once they are told." + +"Zelda, too?" + +"Oh, yes," Barnes said emphatically. "I had that checked by Statistics. +She is extremely cooperative, quite convinced--" + +"Don't hand me that!" + + * * * * * + +Barnes rose. Straightening the papers on his desk, he said, "You want to +speak to her and see for yourself? Fair enough." + +He led Clocker out of the building. They crossed the great square to a +vast, low structure that Barnes referred to as the Education and +Recreation Center. + +"Unless there are special problems," Barnes said, "our human associates +work twelve or fourteen of your hours, and the rest of the time is their +own. Sleep isn't necessary to the psychic projection, of course, though +it is to the body on Earth. And what, Mr. Locke, would you imagine they +choose as their main amusements?" + +"Pinball machines?" Clocker suggested ironically. "Crap games?" + +"Lectures," said Barnes with pride. "They are eager to learn everything +possible about our project. We've actually had the director himself +address them! Oh, it was inspiring, Mr. Locke--color films in three +dimensions, showing the great extent of our archives, the many millions +of synthetic brains, each with indestructible memories of skills and +crafts and professions and experiences that soon will be no more--" + +"Save it. Find Zelda for me and then blow. I want to talk to her alone." + +Barnes checked with the equivalent of a box office at the Center, where, +he told Clocker, members of the audience and staff were required to +report before entering, in case of emergency. + +"Like what?" Clocker asked. + +"You have a suspicious mind," said Barnes patiently. "Faulty neuron +circuit in a synthetic duplicate brain, for example. Photon storms +interfering with reception. Things of that sort." + +"So where's the emergency?" + +"We have so little time. We ask the human associate in question to +record again whatever was not received. The percentage of refusal is +actually _zero_! Isn't that splendid?" + +"Best third degree I ever heard of," Clocker admitted through clamped +teeth. "The cops on Earth would sell out every guy they get graft from +to buy a thing like this." + + * * * * * + +They found Zelda in a small lecture hall, where a matronly woman from +the other planet was urging her listeners to conceal nothing, however +intimate, while recording--"Because," she said, "this must be a +psychological as well as a cultural and sociological history." + +Seeing Zelda, Clocker rushed to her chair, hauled her upright, kissed +her, squeezed her. + +"Baby!" he said, more choked up than he thought his control would allow. +"Let's get out of here!" + +She looked at him without surprise. "Oh, hello, Clocker. Later. I want +to hear the rest of this lecture." + +"Ain't you glad to see me?" he asked, hurt. "I spend months and shoot +every dime I got just to find you--" + +"Sure I'm glad to see you, hon," she said, trying to look past him at +the speaker. "But this is so important--" + +Barnes came up, bowed politely. "If you don't mind, Miss Zelda, I think +you ought to talk to your husband." + +"But what about the lecture?" asked Zelda anxiously. + +"I can get a transcription for you to study later." + +"Well, all right," she agreed reluctantly. + +Barnes left them on a strangely warm stone bench in the great square, +after asking them to report back to work at the usual time. Zelda, +instead of looking at Clocker, watched Barnes walk away. Her eyes were +bright; she almost radiated. + +"Isn't he wonderful, Clocker?" she said. "Aren't they all wonderful? +Regular scientists, every one of them, devoting their whole life to this +terrific cause!" + +"What's so wonderful about that?" he all but snarled. + +She turned and gazed at him in mild astonishment. "They could let the +Earth go boom. It wouldn't mean a thing to them. Everybody wiped out +just like there never were any people. Not even as much record of us as +the dinosaurs! Wouldn't that make you feel simply awful?" + +"I wouldn't feel a thing." He took her unresponsive hand. "All I'm +worried about is us, baby. Who cares about the rest of the world doing a +disappearing act?" + +"I do. And so do they. They aren't selfish like some people I could +mention." + +"Selfish? You're damned right I am!" + + * * * * * + +He pulled her to him, kissed her neck in her favorite place. It got a +reaction--restrained annoyance. + +"I'm selfish," he said, "because I got a wife I'm nuts about and I want +her back. They got you wrapped, baby. Can't you see that? You belong +with me in some fancy apartment, the minute I can afford it, like one I +saw over on Riverside Drive--seven big rooms, three baths, one of them +with a stall shower like you always wanted, the Hudson River and Jersey +for our front lawn--" + +"That's all in the past, hon," she said with quiet dignity. "I have to +help out on this project. It's the least I can do for history." + +"The hell with history! What did history ever do for us?" He put his +mouth near her ear, breathing gently in the way that once used to make +her squirm in his arms like a tickled doe. "Go turn in your time-card, +baby. Tell them you got a date with me back on Earth." + +She pulled away and jumped up. "No! This is my job as much as theirs. +More, even. They don't keep anybody here against their will. I'm staying +because I want to, Clocker." + +Furious, he snatched her off her feet. "I say you're coming back with +me! If you don't want to, I'll drag you, see?" + +"How?" she asked calmly. + +He put her down again slowly, frustratedly. "Ask them to let you go, +baby. Oil Pocket said he'd put you in a musical. You always did want to +hit the big time--" + +"Not any more." She smoothed down her dress and patted up her hair. +"Well, I want to catch the rest of that lecture, hon. See you around if +you decide to stay." + +He sat down morosely and watched her snake-hip toward the Center, +realizing that her seductive walk was no more than professional +conditioning. She had grown in some mysterious way, become more +serene--at peace. + +He had wondered what catatonics got for their work. He knew now--the +slickest job of hypnotic flattery ever invented. That was _their_ pay. + +But what did the pitchmen get in return? + + * * * * * + +Clocker put in a call for Barnes at the box office of the Center. Barnes +left a lecture for researchers from his planet and joined Clocker with +no more than polite curiosity on his paternal face. Clocker told him +briefly and bitterly about his talk with Zelda, and asked bluntly what +was in it for the aliens. + +"I think you can answer that," said Barnes. "You're a scientist of a +sort. You determine the probable performance of a group of horses by +their heredity, previous races and other factors. A very laborious +computation, calling for considerable aptitude and skill. With that same +expenditure of energy, couldn't you earn more in other fields?" + +"I guess so," Clocker said. "But I like the track." + +"Well, there you are. The only human form of gain we share is desire for +knowledge. You devote your skill to predicting a race that is about to +be run; we devote ours to recording a race that is about to destroy +itself." + +Clocker grabbed the alien's coat, pushed his face grimly close. "There, +that's the hook! Take away the doom push and this racket folds." + +Barnes looked bewildered. "I don't comprehend--" + +"Listen, suppose everything's square. Let's say you guys really are +leveling, these marks aren't being roped, you're knocking yourself out +because your guess is that we're going to commit suicide." + +"Oh." Barnes nodded somberly. "Is there any doubt of it? Do you honestly +believe the holocaust can be averted?" + +"I think it can be stopped, yeah. But you birds act like you don't want +it to be. You're just laying back, letting us bunch up, collecting the +insurance before the spill happens." + +"What else can we do? We're scientists, not politicians. Besides, we've +tried repeatedly to spread the warning and never once succeeded in +transmitting it." + +Clocker released his grip on the front of Barnes's jacket. "You take me +to the president or commissioner or whoever runs this club. Maybe we can +work something out." + +"We have a board of directors," Barnes said doubtfully. "But I can't +see--" + +"Don't rupture yourself trying. Just take me there and let me do the +talking." + +Barnes moved his shoulders resignedly. He led Clocker to the +Administration Building and inside to a large room with paneled walls, a +long, solid table and heavy, carved chairs. The men who sat around the +table appeared as solid and respectable as the furniture. Clocker's +guess was that they had been chosen deliberately, along with the +decorations, to inspire confidence in the customer. He had been in +rigged horse parlors and bond stores and he knew the approach. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Calhoun, the character with the white beard, was chairman of the +board. He looked unhappily at Clocker. + +"I was afraid there would be trouble," he said. "I voted against +accepting you, you know. My colleagues, however, thought that you, as +our first voluntary associate, might indicate new methods, but I fear my +judgment has been vindicated." + +"Still, if he knows how extinction can be prevented--" began Dr. +Harding, the one who had given the orientation lecture. + +"He knows no such thing," a man with several chins said in an emphatic +basso voice. "Man is the most destructive dominant race we have ever +encountered. He despoiled his own planet, exterminated lower species +that were important to his own existence, oppressed, suppressed, +brutalized, corrupted--it's the saddest chronicle in the Universe." + +"Therefore his achievements," said Dr. Harding, "deserve all the more +recognition!" + +Clocker broke in: "If you'll lay off the gab, I'd like to get my bet +down." + +"Sorry," said Mr. Calhoun. "Please proceed, Mr. Locke." + +Clocker rested his knuckles on the table and leaned over them. "I have +to take your word you ain't human, but you don't have to take mine. I +never worried about anybody but Zelda and myself; that makes me human. +All I want is to get along and not hurt anybody if I can help it; that +makes me what some people call the common man. Some of my best friends +are common men. Come to think of it, they all are. They wouldn't want to +get extinct. If we do, it won't be our fault." + +Several of the men nodded sympathetic agreement. + +"I don't read much except the sport sheets, but I got an idea what's +coming up," Clocker continued, "and it's a long shot that any country +can finish in the money. We'd like to stop war for good, all of us. +Little guys who do the fighting and the dying. Yeah, and lots of big +guys, too. But we can't do it alone." + +"That's precisely our point," said Calhoun. + +"I mean us back on Earth. People are afraid, but they just don't know +for sure that we can knock ourself off. Between these catatonics and me, +we could tell them what it's all about. I notice you got people from all +over the world here, all getting along fine because they have a job to +do and no time to hate each other. Well, it could be like that on Earth. +You let us go back and you'll see a selling job on making it like up +here like you never saw before." + +Mr. Calhoun and Dr. Harding looked at each other and around the table. +Nobody seemed willing to answer. + +Mr. Calhoun finally sighed and got out of his big chair. "Mr. Locke, +besides striving for international understanding, we have experimented +in the manner you suggest. We released many of our human associates to +tell what our science predicts on the basis of probability. A human +psychological mechanism defeated us." + +"Yeah?" Clocker asked warily. "What was that?" + +"Protective amnesia. They completely and absolutely forgot everything +they had learned here." + + * * * * * + +Clocker slumped a bit. "I know. I talked to some of these 'cured' +catatonics--people you probably sprung because you got all you wanted +from them. They didn't remember anything." He braced again. "Look, there +has to be a way out. Maybe if you snatch these politicians in all the +countries, yank them up here, they couldn't stumble us into a war." + +"Examine your history," said Dr. Harding sadly, "and you will find that +we have done this experimentally. It doesn't work. There are always +others, often more unthinking, ignorant, stupid or vicious, ready to +take their places." + +Clocker looked challengingly at every member of the board of directors +before demanding, "What are the odds on me remembering?" + +"You are our first volunteer," said a little man at the side of the +table. "Any answer we give would be a guess." + +"All right, guess." + +"We have a theory that your psychic censor might not operate. Of course, +you realize that's only a theory--" + +"That ain't all I don't realize. What's it mean?" + +"Our control, regrettably, is a wrench to the mind. Lifting it results +in amnesia, which is a psychological defense against disturbing +memories." + +"I walked into this, don't forget," Clocker reminded him. "I didn't know +what I was getting into, but I was ready to take anything." + +"That," said the little man, "is the unknown factor. Yes, you did submit +voluntarily and you were ready to take anything--but were you +psychologically prepared for this? We don't know. We _think_ there may +be no characteristic wrench--" + +"Meaning I won't have amnesia?" + +"Meaning that you _may_ not. We cannot be certain until a test has been +made." + +"Then," said Clocker, "I want a deal. It's Zelda I want; you know that, +at any rate. You say you're after a record of us in case we bump ourself +off, but you also say you'd like us not to. I'll buy that. I don't want +us to, either, and there's a chance that we can stop it together." + +"An extremely remote one," Mr. Calhoun stated. + +"Maybe, but a chance. Now if you let me out and I'm the first case that +don't get amnesia, I can tell the world about all this. I might be able +to steer other guys, scientists and decent politicians, into coming here +to get the dope straighter than I could. Maybe that'd give Earth a +chance to cop a pardon on getting extinct. Even if it don't work, it's +better than hanging around the radio waiting for the results." + + * * * * * + +Dr. Harding hissed on his glasses and wiped them thoughtfully, an +adopted mannerism, obviously, because he seemed to see as well without +them. "You have a point, Mr. Locke, but it would mean losing your +contribution to our archives." + +"Well, which is more important?" Clocker argued. "Would you rather have +my record than have us save ourself?" + +"Both," said Mr. Calhoun. "We see very little hope of your success, +while we regard your knowledge as having important sociological +significance. A very desirable contribution." + +The others agreed. + +"Look, I'll come back if I lame out," Clocker desperately offered. "You +can pick me up any time you want. But if I make headway, you got to let +Zelda go, too." + +"A reasonable proposition," said Dr. Harding. "I call for a vote." + +They took one. The best Clocker could get was a compromise. + +"We will lift our control," Mr. Calhoun said, "for a suitable time. If +you can arouse a measurable opposition to racial suicide--_measurable_, +mind you; we're not requiring that you reverse the lemming march +alone--we agree to release your wife and revise our policy completely. +If, on the other hand, as seems more likely--" + +"I come back here and go on giving you the inside on racing," Clocker +finished for him. "How much time do I get?" + +Dr. Harding turned his hands palm up on the table. "We do not wish to be +arbitrary. We earnestly hope you gain your objective and we shall give +you every opportunity to do so. If you fail, you will know it. So shall +we." + +"You're pretty sure I'll get scratched, aren't you?" Clocker asked +angrily. "It's like me telling a jockey he don't stand a chance--he's +whammied before he even gets to the paddock. Anybody'd think do-gooders +like you claim you are would wish me luck." + +"But we do!" exclaimed Mr. Calhoun. He shook Clocker's hand warmly and +sincerely. "Haven't we consented to release you? Doesn't this prove our +honest concern? If releasing _all_ our human associates would save +humanity, we would do so instantly. But we have tried again and again. +And so, to use your own professional terminology, we are hedging our +bets by continuing to make our anthropological record until you +demonstrate another method ... if you do." + +"Good enough," approved Clocker. "Thanks for the kind word." + +The other board members followed and shook Clocker's hand and wished him +well. + +Barnes, being last, did the same and added, "You may see your wife, if +you care to, before you leave." + +"If I care to?" Clocker repeated. "What in hell do you think I came here +for in the first place?" + + * * * * * + +Zelda was brought to him and they were left alone in a pleasant reading +room. Soft music came from the walls, which glowed with enough light to +read by. Zelda's lovely face was warm with emotion when she sat down +beside him and put her hands in his. + +"They tell me you're leaving, hon," she said. + +[Illustration] + +"I made a deal, baby. If it works--well, it'll be like it was before, +only better." + +"I hate to see you leave. Not just for me," she added as he lit up +hopefully. "I still love you, hon, but it's different now. I used to +want you near me every minute. Now it's loving you without starving for +you. You know what I mean?" + +"That's just the control they got on you. It's like that with me, too, +only I know what it is and you don't." + +"But the big thing is the project. Why, we're footnotes in history! Stay +here, hon. I'd feel so much better knowing you were here, making your +contribution like they say." + +He kissed her lips. They were soft and warm and clinging, and so were +her arms around his neck. This was more like the Zelda he had been +missing. + +"They gave you a hypo, sweetheart," he told her. "You're hooked; I'm +not. Maybe being a footnote is more important than doing something to +save our skin, but I don't think so. If I can do anything about it, I +want to do it." + +"Like what?" + +"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm hoping I get an idea when I'm +paroled." + +She nuzzled under his chin. "Hon, I want you and me to be footnotes. I +want it awful bad." + +"That's not what really counts, baby. Don't you see that? It's having +you and stopping us humans from being just a bunch of old footnotes. +Once we do that, we can always come back here and make the record, if it +means that much to you." + +"Oh, it does!" + +He stood and drew her up so he could hold her more tightly. "You do want +to go on being my wife, don't you, baby?" + +"Of course! Only I was hoping it could be here." + +"Well, it can't. But that's all I wanted to know. The rest is just +details." + +He kissed her again, including the side of her neck, which produced a +subdued wriggle of pleasure, and then he went back to the Administration +Building for his release. + + * * * * * + +Awakening was no more complicated than opening his eyes, except for a +bit of fogginess and fatigue that wore off quickly, and Clocker saw he +was in a white room with a doctor, a nurse and an orderly around his +bed. + +"Reflexes normal," the doctor said. He told Clocker, "You see and hear +us. You know what I'm saying." + +"Sure," Clocker replied. "Why shouldn't I?" + +"That's right," the doctor evaded. "How do you feel?" + +Clocker thought about it. He was a little thirsty and the idea of a +steak interested him, but otherwise he felt no pain or confusion. He +remembered that he had not been hungry or thirsty for a long time, and +that made him recall going over the border after Zelda. + +There were no gaps in his recollection. + +He didn't have protective amnesia. + +"You know what it's like there?" he asked the doctor eagerly. "A big +place where everybody from all over the world tell these aliens about +their job or racket." He frowned. "I just remembered something funny. +Wonder why I didn't notice it at the time. Everybody talks the same +language. Maybe that's because there's only one language for thinking." +He shrugged off the problem. "The guys who run the shop take it all down +as a record for whoever wants to know about us a zillion years from now. +That's on account of us humans are about to close down the track and go +home." + +The doctor bent close intently. "Is that what you believe _now_ +or--while you were--disturbed?" + +Clocker's impulse to blurt the whole story was stopped at the gate. The +doctor was staring too studiously at him. He didn't have his story set +yet; he needed time to think, and that meant getting out of this +hospital and talking it over with himself. + +"You kidding?" he asked, using the same grin that he met complainers +with when his turf predictions went sour. "While my head was out of the +stirrups, of course." + +The doctor, the nurse and the orderly relaxed. + + * * * * * + +"I ought to write a book," Clocker went on, being doggedly humorous. +"What screwball ideas I got! How'd I act?" + +"Not bad," said the orderly. "When I found you yakking in your wife's +room, I thought maybe it was catching and I'd better go find another +job. But Doc here told me I was too stable to go psychotic." + +"I wasn't any trouble?" + +"Nah. All you did was talk about how to handicap races. I got quite a +few pointers. Hell, you went over them often enough for anybody to get +them straight!" + +"I'm glad somebody made a profit," said Clocker. He asked the doctor, +"When do I get out of here?" + +"We'll have to give you a few tests first." + +"Bring them on," Clocker said confidently. + +They were clever tests, designed to trip him into revealing whether he +still believed in his delusions. But once he realized that, he +meticulously joked about them. + +"Well?" he asked when the tests were finished. + +"You're all right," said the doctor. "Just try not to worry about your +wife, avoid overworking, get plenty of rest--" + +Before Clocker left, he went to see Zelda. She had evidently recorded +the time-step satisfactorily, because she was on a soft-shoe routine +that she must have known cold by the time she'd been ten. + +He kissed her unresponsive mouth, knowing that she was far away in space +and could not feel, see or hear him. But that didn't matter. He felt his +own good, honest, genuine longing for her, unchecked by the aliens' +control of emotions. + +"I'll spring you yet, baby," he said. "And what I told you about that +big apartment on Riverside Drive still goes. We'll have a time together +that ought to be a footnote in history all by itself. I'll see you ... +after I get the real job done." + +He heard the soft-shoe rhythm all the way down the corridor, out of the +hospital, and clear back to the city. + + * * * * * + +Clocker's bank balance was sick, the circulation of his tip sheet gone. +But he didn't worry about it; there were bigger problems. + +He studied the newspapers before even giving himself time to think. The +news was as bad as usual. He could feel the heat of fission, close his +eyes and see all the cities and farms in the world going up in a +blinding cloud. As far as he was concerned, Barnes and Harding and the +rest weren't working fast enough; he could see doom sprinting in half a +field ahead of the completion of the record. + +The first thing he should have done was recapture the circulation of the +tip sheet. The first thing he actually did do was write the story of his +experience just as it had happened, and send it to a magazine. + +When he finally went to work on his sheet, it was to cut down the racing +data to a few columns and fill the rest of it with warnings. + +"This is what you want?" the typesetter asked, staring at the copy +Clocker turned in. "You _sure_ this is what you want?" + +"Sure I'm sure. Set it and let's get the edition out early. I'm doubling +the print order." + +"Doubling?" + +"You heard me." + +When the issue was out, Clocker waited around the main newsstands on +Broadway. He watched the customers buy, study unbelievingly, and wander +off looking as if all the tracks in the country had burned down +simultaneously. + +Doc Hawkins found him there. + +"Clocker, my boy! You have no idea how anxious we were about you. But +you're looking fit, I'm glad to say." + +"Thanks," Clocker said abstractedly. "I wish I could say the same about +you and the rest of the world." + +Doc laughed. "No need to worry about us. We'll muddle along somehow." + +"You think so, huh?" + +"Well, if the end is approaching, let us greet it at the Blue Ribbon. I +believe we can still find the lads there." + +They were, and they greeted Clocker with gladness and drinks. +Diplomatically, they made only the most delicate references to the +revamping job Clocker had done on his tip sheet. + +"It's just like opening night, that's all," comforted Arnold Wilson +Wyle. "You'll get back into your routine pretty soon." + +"I don't want to," said Clocker pugnaciously. "Handicapping is only a +way to get people to read what I _really_ want to tell them." + +"Took me many minutes to find horses," Oil Pocket put in. "See one I +want to bet on, but rest of paper make me too worried to bother betting. +Okay with Injun, though--horse lost. And soon you get happy again, stick +to handicapping, let others worry about world." + +Buttonhole tightened his grip on Clocker's lapel. "Sure, boy. As long as +the bobtails run, who cares what happens to anything else?" + +"Maybe I went too easy," said Clocker tensely. "I didn't print the whole +thing, just a little part of it. Here's the rest." + + * * * * * + +They were silent while he talked, seeming stunned with the terrible +significance of his story. + +"Did you explain all this to the doctors?" Doc Hawkins asked. + +"You think I'm crazy?" Clocker retorted. "They'd have kept me packed +away and I'd never get a crack at telling anybody." + +"Don't let it trouble you," said Doc. "Some vestiges of delusion can be +expected to persist for a while, but you'll get rid of them. I have +faith in your ability to distinguish between the real and unreal." + +"But it all _happened_! If you guys don't believe me, who will? And +you've _got_ to so I can get Zelda back!" + +"Of course, of course," said Doc hastily. "We'll discuss it further some +other time. Right now I really must start putting my medical column +together for the paper." + +"What about you, Handy Sam?" Clocker challenged. + +Handy Sam, with one foot up on the table and a pencil between his toes, +was doodling self-consciously on a paper napkin. "We all get these +ideas, Clocker. I used to dream about having arms and I'd wake up still +thinking so, till I didn't know if I did or didn't. But like Doc says, +then you figure out what's real and it don't mix you up any more." + +"All right," Clocker said belligerently to Oil Pocket. "You think my +story's batty, too?" + +"Can savvy evil spirits, good spirits," Oil Pocket replied with stolid +tact. "Injun spirits, though, not white ones." + +"But I keep telling you they ain't spirits. They ain't even human. +They're from some world way across the Universe--" + +Oil Pocket shook his head. "Can savvy Injun spirits, Clocker. No +spirits, no savvy." + +"Look, you see the mess we're all in, don't you?" Clocker appealed to +the whole group. "Do you mean to tell me you can't feel we're getting +set to blow the joint? Wouldn't you want to stop it?" + +"If we could, my boy, gladly," Doc said. "However, there's not much that +any individual or group of individuals can do." + +"But how in hell does anything get started? With one guy, two +guys--before you know it, you got a crowd, a political party, a +country--" + +"What about the other countries, though?" asked Buttonhole. "So we're +sold on your story in America, let's say. What do we do--let the rest of +the world walk in and take us over?" + +"We educate them," Clocker explained despairingly. "We start it here and +it spreads to there. It doesn't have to be everybody. Mr. Calhoun said I +just have to convince a few people and that'll show them it can be done +and then I get Zelda back." + +Doc stood up and glanced around the table. "I believe I speak for all of +us, Clocker, when I state that we shall do all within our power to aid +you." + +"Like telling other people?" Clocker asked eagerly. + +"Well, that's going pretty--" + +"Forget it, then. Go write your column. I'll see you chumps +around--around ten miles up, shaped like a mushroom." + +He stamped out, so angry that he untypically let the others settle his +bill. + + * * * * * + +Clocker's experiment with the newspaper failed so badly that it was not +worth the expense of putting it out; people refused to buy. Clocker had +three-sheets printed and hired sandwich men to parade them through the +city. He made violent speeches in Columbus Circle, where he lost his +audience to revivalist orators; Union Square, where he was told heatedly +to bring his message to Wall Street; and Times Square, where the police +made him move along so he wouldn't block traffic. He obeyed, shouting +his message as he walked, until he remembered how amusedly he used to +listen to those who cried that Doomsday was near. He wondered if they +were catatonics under imperfect control. It didn't matter; nobody paid +serious attention to his or their warnings. + +The next step, logically, was a barrage of letters to the heads of +nations, to the U.N., to editors of newspapers. Only a few of his +letters were printed. The ones in Doc's tabloid did best, drawing such +comments as: + +"Who does this jerk think he is, telling us everybody's going to get +killed off? Maybe they will, but not in Brooklyn!" + +"When I was a young girl, some fifty years ago, I had a similar +experience to Mr. Locke's. But my explanation is quite simple. The +persons I saw proved to be my ancestors. Mr. Locke's new-found friends +will, I am sure, prove to be the same. The World Beyond knows all and +tells all, and my Control, with whom I am in daily communication Over +There, assures me that mankind is in no danger whatever, except from the +evil effects of tobacco and alcohol and the disrespect of youth for +their elders." + +"The guy's nuts! He ought to go back to Russia. He's nothing but a nut +or a Communist and in my book that's the same thing." + +"He isn't telling us anything new. We all know who the enemy is. The +only way to protect ourselves is to build TWO GUNS FOR ONE!" + +"Is this Locke character selling us the idea that we all ought to go +batty to save the world?" + +Saddened and defeated, Clocker went through his accumulated mail. There +were politely non-committal acknowledgments from embassies and the U.N. +There was also a check for his article from the magazine he'd sent it +to; the amount was astonishingly large. + +He used part of it to buy radio time, the balance for ads in rural +newspapers and magazines. City people, he figured, were hardened by +publicity gags, and he might stir up the less suspicious and +sophisticated hinterland. The replies he received, though, advised him +to buy some farmland and let the metropolises be destroyed, which, he +was assured, would be a mighty good thing all around. + +The magazine came out the same day he tried to get into the U.N. to +shout a speech from the balcony. He was quietly surrounded by a +uniformed guard and moved, rather than forced, outside. + + * * * * * + +He went dejectedly to his hotel. He stayed there for several days, +dialing numbers he selected randomly from the telephone book, and +getting the brushoff from business offices, housewives and maids. They +were all very busy or the boss wasn't in or they expected important +calls. + +That was when he was warmly invited by letter to see the editor of the +magazine that had bought his article. + +Elated for actually the first time since his discharge from the +hospital, Clocker took a cab to a handsome building, showed his +invitation to a pretty and courteous receptionist, and was escorted into +an elaborate office where a smiling man came around a wide +bleached-mahogany desk and shook hands with him. + +"Mr. Locke," said the editor, "I'm happy to tell you that we've had a +wonderful response to your story." + +"Article," Clocker corrected. + +The editor smiled. "Do you produce so much that you can't remember what +you sold us? It was about--" + +"I know," Clocker cut in. "But it wasn't a story. It was an article. It +really--" + +"Now, now. The first thing a writer must learn is not to take his ideas +too seriously. Very dangerous, especially in a piece of fiction like +yours." + +"But the whole thing is true!" + +"Certainly--while you were writing it." The editor shoved a pile of mail +across the desk toward him. "Here are some of the comments that have +come in. I think you'll enjoy seeing the reaction." + +Clocker went through them, hoping anxiously for no more than a single +note that would show his message had come through to somebody. He +finished and looked up blankly. + +"You see?" the editor asked proudly. "You're a find." + +"The new Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift. A comic." + +"A satirist," the editor amended. He leaned across the desk on his +crossed forearms. "A mail response like this indicates a talent worth +developing. We would like to discuss a series of stories--" + +"Articles." + +"Whatever you choose to call them. We're prepared to--" + +"You ever been off your rocker?" Clocker asked abruptly. + + * * * * * + +The editor sat back, smiling with polite puzzlement. "Why, no." + +"You ought to try it some time." Clocker lifted himself out of the chair +and went to the door. "That's what I want, what I was trying to sell in +my article. We all ought to go to hospitals and get ourself let in and +have these aliens take over and show us where we're going." + +"You think that would be an improvement?" + +"What wouldn't?" asked Clocker, opening the door. + +"But about the series--" + +"I've got your name and address. I'll let you know if anything turns up. +Don't call me; I'll call you." + +Clocker closed the door behind him, went out of the handsome building +and called a taxi. All through the long ride, he stared at the thinning +out of the city, the huddled suburban communities, the stretches of +grass and well-behaved woods that were permitted to survive. + +He climbed out at Glendale Center Hospital, paid the hackie, and went to +the admitting desk. The nurse gave him a smile. + +"We were wondering when you'd come visit your wife," she said. "Been +away?" + +"Sort of," he answered, with as little emotion as he had felt while he +was being controlled. "I'll be seeing plenty of her from now on. I want +my old room back." + +"But you're perfectly normal!" + +"That depends on how you look at it. Give me ten minutes alone and any +brain vet will be glad to give me a cushioned room." + +Hands in his pockets, Clocker went into the elevator, walked down the +corridor to his old room without pausing to visit Zelda. It was the live +Zelda he wanted to see, not the tapping automaton. + +He went in and shut the door. + + * * * * * + +"Okay, you were right and I was wrong," Clocker told the board of +directors. "Turn me over to Barnes and I'll give him the rest of the +dope on racing. Just let me see Zelda once in a while and you won't have +any trouble with me." + +"Then you are convinced that you have failed," said Mr. Calhoun. + +"I'm no dummy. I know when I'm licked. I also pay anything I owe." + +Mr. Calhoun leaned back. "And so do we, Mr. Locke. Naturally, you have +no way of detecting the effect you've had. We do. The result is that, +because of your experiment, we are gladly revising our policy." + +"Huh?" Clocker looked around at the comfortable aliens in their +comfortable chairs. Solid and respectable, every one of them. "Is this a +rib?" + +"Visits to catatonics have increased considerably," explained Dr. +Harding. "When the visitors are alone with our human associates, they +tentatively follow the directions you gave in your article. Not all do, +to be sure; only those who feel as strongly about being with their loved +ones as you do about your wife." + +"We have accepted four voluntary applicants," said Mr. Calhoun. + +Clocker's mouth seemed to be filled with cracker crumbs that wouldn't go +down and allow him to speak. + +"And now," Dr. Harding went on, "we are setting up an Information +Section to teach the applicants what you have learned and make the same +arrangement we made with you. We are certain that we shall, before long, +have to increase our staff as the number of voluntary applicants +increases geometrically, after we release the first few to continue the +work you have so admirably begun." + +"You mean I _made_ it?" Clocker croaked unbelievingly. + +"Perhaps this will prove it to you," said Mr. Calhoun. + +He motioned and the door opened and Zelda came in. + +"Hello, hon," she said. "I'm glad you're back. I missed you." + +"Not like I missed you, baby! There wasn't anybody controlling _my_ +feelings." + +Mr. Calhoun put his hands on their shoulders. "Whenever you care to, Mr. +Locke, you and your wife are free to leave." + +Clocker held Zelda's hands and her calmly fond gaze. "We owe these guys +plenty, baby," he said to her. "We'll help make the record before we +take off. Ain't that what you want?" + +"Oh, it is, hon! And then I want you." + +"Then let's get started," he said. "The quicker we do, the quicker we +get back." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At the Post, by Horace Leonard Gold + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT THE POST *** + +***** This file should be named 32413.txt or 32413.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/1/32413/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://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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