Martian Time-Slip

7

On his journey by ‘copter to Lewistown to meet Arnie Kott and have a drink with him, Dr. Milton Glaub asked himself if his good luck were true. I can’t believe it, he thought, a turning point in my life like this.

He was not certain what Arnie wanted; the phone call had been so unexpected and Arnie had talked so fast that Dr. Glaub had wound up perplexed, knowing only that it had to do with parapsychological aspects of the mentally ill. Well, he could tell Arnie practically all there was to know on that topic. And yet Glaub sensed that there was something deeper in the inquiry.

Generally, a concern with schizophrenia was a symptom of the person’s own inner struggle in that area. Now, it was a fact that often the first signs of the insidious growth of the schizophrenic process in a person was an inability to eat in public. Arnie had noisily gabbed on about his desire to meet Glaub--not in his own home or in the doctor’s office--but at a well-known bar and restaurant in Lewistown, the Willows. Was this perhaps a reaction-formation? Mysteriously made tense by public situations, and especially by those involving the nutritive function, Arnie Kott was leaning over backward to regain the normalcy which was beginning to abandon him.

Piloting his ‘copter, Glaub thought about this, but then, by slow and stealthy stages, his thinking returned to the topic of his own problems.

Arnie Kott, a man controlling a multimillion-dollar union fund; a prominent person in the colonial world, although virtually unknown back Home. A feudal baron, virtually. If Kott were to put me on his staff, Glaub speculated, I could pay off all the debts we’ve piled up, those hideous charge-account bills at twenty per cent interest that just seem to loom there always, never getting smaller or going away. And then we could start over, not go into debt, live within our means . . . and a highly expanded means, at that.

Then, too, old Arnie was a Swede or a Dane, something like that and so it wouldn’t be necessary for Glaub to season his skin-color before receiving each patient. Plus the fact that Arnie had a reputation for informality. Milt and Arnie, it would be. Dr. Glaub smiled.

What he had to be sure to do in this initial interview was to ratify Arnie’s concepts, sort of play along and not dash cold water on things, even if, say, old Arnie’s notions were way out of line. A hell of a thing it would be to discourage the man! That wasn’t right.

I see your point, Arnie, Dr. Glaub said to himself, practicing away as he piloted his ‘copter closer and closer to Lewistown. Yes, there is a good deal to be said for that world-view.

He had handled so many types of social situations for his patients, appearing in public for them, representing those timid, shut-in schizoid personalities who shrank from interpersonal exposure, that this would undoubtedly be a snap. And--if the schizophrenic process in Arnie were beginning to bring up its heavy artillery--Arnie might need to lean on him for his very survival.

Hot dog, Dr. Glaub said to himself, and increased the velocity of the ‘copter to its maximum.

Around the Willows ran a moat of cold blue water. Fountains sprayed water into the air, and bougainvillaea, purple and amber and rusty-red, grew to great heights, encircling the single-story glass structure. As he descended the black wrought-iron staircase from the parking lot, Dr. Glaub perceived his party within: Arnie Kott seated with a stunning redhead and nondescript male companion wearing repairman’s overalls and canvas shirt.

True classless society, here, Dr. Glaub reflected.

A rainbow-style bridge assisted him in his crossing of the moat. Doors opened before him; he entered the lounge, passed by the bar, halted to sniff in the sight of the jazz combo composing meditatively, and then hailed Arnie. “Hi, Arnie!”

“Hi, Doc.” Arnie rose to introduce him. “Dor, this is Doc Glaub. Doreen Anderton. This is my repairman, Jack Bohlen, a real fireballer. Jack, this is the foremost living psychiatrist, Milt Glaub.”

They all nodded and shook hands.

“Hardly foremost,” Glaub murmured, as they sat down. “It’s still the Swiss at Bergholzlei, the existential psychiatrists, who dominate the field.” But he was deeply gratified, untrue as Arnie’s announcement had been. He could feel his face flushing with pleasure. “Sorry it took me so long to get here--I had to dash over to New Israel. Bos--Bosley Touvim--needed my advice on a medical matter which he considered pressing.”

“Quite a guy, that Bos,” Arnie said. He had lit a cigar, a genuine Earth-rolled Optimo Admiral. “A real go-getter. But let’s get down to business. Wait, I’ll get you a drink.” He looked inquiringly at Glaub, while waving the cocktail waitress over.

“Scotch, if you have it,” Glaub said.

“Cutty Sark, sir,” the waitress said.

“Oh, fine. No ice, please.”

“O.K.,” Arnie said impatiently. “Now look, Doc. You got the name of a really advanced schizo for me, or not?” He scrutinized Glaub.

“Uh,” said Glaub, and then he recalled his visit to New Israel not more than a short while ago. “Manfred Steiner,” he said.

“Any relation to Norbert Steiner?”

“As a matter of fact, his boy. At Camp B-G--I imagine there’s no breach of confidence in telling you. Totally autistic, from birth. Mother, the cold, intellectual schizoid personality, doing it by the rulebook. Father--“

“Father dead,” Arnie said shortly.

“Right. Very regrettable. Nice chap, but depressive. It was suicide, you know. Typical impulse during his low-swing. A wonder he didn’t do it years ago.”

Arnie said, “You told me on the phone you’ve got a theory about the schizophrenic being out of phase in time.”

“Yes, it’s a derangement in the interior time-sense.” Dr. Glaub had all three of them listening, and he warmed to his topic; it was his favorite. “We have yet to get total experimental verification, but that will come.” And then, without hesitation or shame, he passed off the BerghOlzlei theory as his own.

Evidently much impressed, Arnie said, “Very interesting.” To the repairman, Jack Bohlen, he said, “Could such slowmotion chambers be built?”

“No doubt,” Jack murmured.

“And sensors,” Glaub said. “To get the patient out of the chamber and into the real world. Sight, hearing--“

“It could be done,” Bohlen said.

“How about this,” Arnie said impatiently and enthusiastically. “Could the schizophrenic be running so fast, compared to us, in time, that he’s actually in what to us is the future? Would that account for his precognition?” His lightcolored eyes glittered excitedly.

Glaub shrugged in a manner indicating agreement.

Turning to Bohlen, Arnie stuttered, “Hey, Jack, that’s it! Goddamn it, I ought to be a psychiatrist. Slow him down, hell. Speed him up, I say. Let him live out of phase in time, if he wants to. But let’s get him to share his perceptions with us--right, Bohlen?”

Glaub said, “Now, there is the rub. In autism, especially, the faculty of interpersonal communication is drastically impaired.”

“I see,” Arnie said, but he was not daunted. “Hell, I know enough about that to see a way out. Didn’t that early guy, Carl Jung--didn’t he manage to decode the schizophrenic’s language years ago?”

“Yes,” Glaub said, “decades ago Jung cracked the private language of the schizophrenic. But in child autism, as with Manfred, there is no language at all, at least no spoken language. Possibly totally personal private thoughts . . . but no words.”

“Shit,” Arnie said.

The girl glanced at him admonishingly.

“This is a serious matter,” Arnie said to her. “We’ve got to get these unfortunates, these autistic kids, to talk to us and tell us what they know; isn’t that right, Doc?”

“Yes,” Glaub said.

“That kid’s an orphan now,” Arnie said, “that Manfred.”

“Well, he has the mother, still,” Glaub said.

Waving his hand excitedly, Arnie said, “But they don’t care enough about the kid to have him at home; they junked him in that camp. Hell, I’ll spring him and bring him here. And, Jack, you get on this and engineer a machine to make contact with him--you see the picture?”

After a moment Bohlen said, “I don’t know what to say.” He laughed briefly.

“Sure you know what to say--hell, it ought to be easy for you, you’re a schizophrenic yourself, like you said.”

Glaub, interested, said to Bohlen, “Is that the case?” He had already noted, automatically, the repairman’s skeletal tension as he sat sipping his drink, and the rigid musculature, not to mention the asthenic build. “But you appear to have made enormous strides toward recovery.”

Raising his head, Bohlen met his glance, saying, “I’m totally recovered. For many years, now.” His face was affectladen.

No one makes a total recovery, Glaub thought. But he did not say it; instead he said, “Perhaps Arnie is right. You could empathize with the autistic, whereas that is our basic problem; the autistic can’t take our roles, see the world as we do, and we can’t take his role either. So a gulf separates us.”

“Bridge that gulf, Jack!” Arnie cried. He whacked Bohlen on the back. “That’s your job; I’m putting you on the payroll.”

Envy filled Dr. Glaub. He glared down at his drink, hiding his reaction. The girl, however, saw it and smiled at him. He did not smile back.

Contemplating Dr. Glaub sitting opposite him, Jack Bohlen felt the gradual diffusion of his perception which he so dreaded, the change in his awareness which had attacked him this way years ago in the personnel manager’s office at Corona Corporation, and which always seemed still with him, just on the edge.

He saw the psychiatrist under the aspect of absolute reality: a thing composed of cold wires and switches, not a human at all, not made of flesh. The fleshy trappings melted and became transparent, and Jack Bohlen saw the mechanical device beyond. Yet he did not let his terrible state of awareness show; he continued to nurse his drink; he went on listening to the conversation and nodding occasionally. Neither Dr. Glaub nor Arnie Kott noticed.

But the girl did. She leaned over and said softly in Jack’s ear, “Aren’t you feeling well?”

He shook his head. No, he was saying, I’m not feeling well.

“Let’s get away from them,” the girl whispered. “I can’t stand it either.” Aloud, to Arnie, she said, “Jack and I are going to leave you two alone. Come on.” She tapped Jack on the arm and rose to her feet; he felt her light, strong fingers, and he, too, rose.

Arnie said, “Don’t be gone long,” and resumed his earnest conversation with Dr. Glaub.

“Thanks,” Jack said, as they walked up the aisle, between tables.

Doreen said, “Did you see how jealous he was, when Arnie said he was putting you on the payroll?”

“No. Glaub?” But he was not surprised. “I get this way,” he said to the girl, by way of apology. “Something to do with my eyes; it may be astigmatism. Due to tension.”

The girl said, “Do you want to sit at the bar? Or go outside?”

“Outside,” Jack said.

Presently they stood on the rainbow bridge, over the water. In the water fish slid about, luminous and vague, half-real beings, as rare on Mars as any form of matter conceivable. They were a miracle in this world, and Jack and the girl, gazing down, both felt it. And both knew they felt this same thought without having to speak it aloud.

“It’s nice out here,” Doreen said finally.

“Yeah.” He did not want to talk.

“Everybody,” Doreen said, “has at one time or another known a schizophrenic . . . if they’re not one themselves. It was my brother, back Home, my younger brother.”

“I’ll be O.K.,” Jack said. “I’m O.K. now.”

“But you’re not,” Doreen said.

“No,” he admitted, “but what the hell can I do? You said it yourself. Once a schizophrenic, always a schizophrenic.” He was silent, then, concentrating on the gliding, pale fish.

“Arnie thinks a lot of you,” the girl said. “When he says his talent is judging the value of people he’s telling the truth. He can see already that that Glaub is desperately eager to sell himself and get on the staff, here in Lewistown. I guess psychiatry doesn’t pay anymore, as it did once; too many in the business. There are twenty of them here in this settlement already, and none do a genuinely good traffic. Didn’t your-- condition cause you trouble when you applied for permission to emigrate?”

He said, “I don’t want to talk about it. Please.”

“Let’s walk,” the girl said.

They walked along the street, past the shops, most of which had closed for the day.

“What was it you saw,” the girl said, “when you looked at Dr. Glaub, there at the table?”

Jack said, “Nothing.”

“You’d rather not say about that, either.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think if you tell me things will get worse?”

“It’s not things; it’s me.”

“Maybe it is the things,” Doreen said. “Maybe there is something in your vision, however distorted and garbled it’s become. I don’t know. I used to try like hell to comprehend what it was Clay--my brother--saw and heard. He couldn’t say. I know that his world was absolutely different from the rest of ours in the family. He killed himself, like Steiner did.” She had paused at a newsstand, to look over the item, on page one, about Norbert Steiner. “The existential psychiatrists often say to let them go ahead and take their lives; it’s the only way, for some of them. . . the vision becomes too awful to bear.”

Jack said nothing.

“Is it awful?” Doreen asked.

“No. Just--disconcerting.” He struggled to explain. “There’s no way you can work it in with what you’re supposed to see and know; it makes it impossible to go on, in the accustomed way.”

“Don’t you very often try to pretend, and sort of--go along with it, by acting? Like an actor?” When he did not answer, she said, “You tried to do that in there, just now.”

“I’d love to fool everybody,” he conceded. “I’d give anything if I could go on acting it out, playing a role. But that’s a real split--there’s no split up until then; they’re wrong when they say it’s a split in the mind. If I wanted to keep going entire, without a split, I’d have to lean over and say to Dr. Glaub--“ He broke off.

“Tell me,” the girl said.

“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’d say, Doc, I can see you under the aspect of eternity and you’re dead. That’s the substance of the sick, morbid vision. I don’t want it; I didn’t ask for it.”

The girl put her arm within his.

“I never told anybody before,” Jack said, “not even Silvia, my wife, or my son David. You know, I watch him; I look every day to be sure it isn’t showing up in him too. It’s so easy for this stuff to get passed along as with the Steiners. I didn’t know they had a boy at B-G until Glaub said so. And they’re neighbors of ours for years back. Steiner never let it out.”

Doreen said, “We’re supposed to go back to the Willows for dinner. Do you want to? I think it would be a good idea. You know, you don’t have to join Arnie’s staff; you can stay with Mr. Yee. That’s a nice ‘copter you have. You don’t have to give all that up just because Arnie decides he can use you; maybe you can’t use him.”

Shrugging, he said, “It’s an interesting challenge, building a conduit for communication between an autistic child and our world. I think there’s a lot in what Arnie says. I could be the intermediary--I could do a useful job there.” It doesn’t really matter why Arnie wants to bring out the Steiner boy, he realized. Probably he’s got some solid selfish motive, something that will bring him a profit in cold hard cash. I certainly couldn’t care less.

In fact I can have it both ways, he realized. Mr. Yee can lease me to the Water Workers’ Union; I’d be paid by Mr. Yee and he’d be paid by Arnie. Everyone would be happy, and why not? Tinkering with the broken, malfunctioning mind of a child certainly has more to recommend it than tinkering with refrigerators and encoders; if the child is suffering some of the visions that I know--.

He knew of the time-theory which Glaub had trotted out as his own. He had read about it in Scientific American; naturally, he read anything on schizophrenia that he could get his hands on. He knew that it had originated with the Swiss, that Glaub hadn’t invented it. What an odd theory it is, he thought to himself. And yet, it rings true.

“Let’s go back to the Willows,” he said. He was very hungry, and it would no doubt be a bang-up meal.

Doreen said, “You’re a brave person, Jack Bohlen.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you’re going back to the place that troubled you, to the people that brought on your vision of, as you said, eternity. I wouldn’t do that, I’d flee.”

“But,” he said, “that’s the whole point; it’s designed to make you flee--the vision’s for that purpose, to nullify your relations with other people, to isolate you. If it’s successful, your life with human beings is over. That’s what they mean when they say the term schizophrenia isn’t a diagnosis; it’s a prognosis--it doesn’t say anything about what you have, only about how you’ll wind up.” And I’m not going to wind up like that, he said to himself. Like Manfred Steiner, mute and in an institution; I intend to keep my job, my wife and son, my friendships--he glanced at the girl holding on to his arm. Yes, and even love affairs, if such there be.

I intend to keep trying.

Putting his hands in his pockets as he walked along, he touched something small, cold and hard; lifting it out in surprise, he saw it was a wrinkled little object like a tree root.

“What in the world’s that?” Doreen asked him.

It was the water witch which the Bleekmen had given him that morning, out in the desert; he had forgotten all about it.

“A good luck charm,” Jack said to the girl.

Shivering, she said, “It’s awfully ugly.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s friendly. And we do have this problem, we schizophrenics; we do pick up other people’s unconscious hostility.”

“I know. The telepathic factor. Clay had it worse and worse until--“ She glanced at him. “The paranoid outcome.”

“It’s the worst thing about our condition, this awareness of the buried, repressed sadism and aggression in others around us, even strangers. I wish to hell we didn’t have it; we even pick it up from people in restaurants--“ He thought of Glaub. “In buses, in a theater. Crowds.”

Doreen said, “Do you have any idea what Arnie wants to learn from the Steiner boy?”

“Well, this theory about precognition--“

“But what does Arnie want to know about the future? You have no idea, do you? And it would never occur to you to try to find out.”

That was so. He had not even been curious.

“You’re content,” she said slowly, scrutinizing him, “merely to do your technical task of rigging up the essential machinery. That’s not right, Jack Bohlen; that’s not a good sign at all.”

“Oh,” he said. He nodded. “It’s very schizophrenic, I guess . . . to be content with a purely technical relationship.”

“Will you ask Arnie?”

He felt uncomfortable. “It’s his business, not mine. It’s an interesting job, and I like Arnie, I prefer him to Mr. Yee. I just--haven’t got it in me to pry. That’s the way I am.”

“I think you’re afraid. But I don’t see why--you’re brave, and yet in some deep way you’re terribly, terribly frightened.”

“Maybe so,” he said, feeling sad.

Together, they walked on back to the Willows.

That night, after everyone had gone, including Doreen Anderton, Arnie Kott sat alone in his living room gloating. What a day it had been.

He had snared a good repairman who had already repaired his invaluable encoder and who was going to build an electronic wing-ding to tap the precog faculties of an autistic child.

He had milked, for nothing, the information he needed from a psychiatrist, and then managed to get rid of the psychiatrist.

So all in all it had been an exceptional day. It left only two problems: his harpsichord was still untuned and--what the hell else? It had slipped his mind. He pondered as he sat before his TV set, watching the fights from America the Beautiful, the U.S.A. colony on Mars.

Then he remembered. Norb Steiner’s death. There was no source of goodies any more.

“I’ll fix that,” Arnie said aloud. He shut off the TV and got his encoder out; seated before it, mike in hand, he delivered a message. It was to Scott Temple, with whom he had worked on countless important business ventures; Temple was a cousin of Ed Rockingham, and a good egg to know-- he had managed, through a charter arrangement with the UN, to gain control of most of the medical supplies entering Mars, and what a top-notch monopoly that amounted to.

The drums of the encoder turned encouragingly.

“Scott!” Arnie said, “how are you. Hey, you know that poor guy Norb Steiner? Too bad, I mean, his dying and all. I understand he was mentally you-know-what. Like the rest of us.” Arnie laughed at that long and hard. “So anyhow, it leaves us with a little problem--I mean, one of procurement. Right? So listen, Scott, old man. I’d like to talk it over with you. I’m in. You get me? Stop by here in around a day or two, so we can work out the exact arrangements. I think we should forget the gear that Steiner was using; we’ll start out fresh, get our own little bitty field in an out-of-the-way place, our own slave rockets, whatever else we need. Keep those smoked oysters rolling in, like they ought to.” He shut the machine off and tried to think if there was more. No, he had said it all; between him and a man like Scott Temple, no more had to be said; it was a deal then and there. “O.K., Scott, boy,” he said. “I’ll expect to see you.”

After he had removed the spooi it occurred to him to play it back just to be sure it had gone into code. God, what a calamity if by some freak chance it came out in clear!

But it was in code, all right, and his dearest: the machine had put the semantic units into a catfight-like parody of contemporary electronic music. Arnie, hearing the whistles, growls, beeps, hoots, hums, laughed until tears ran down his cheeks; he had to go off to the bathroom and slap cold water on his face to stop himself.

Then, back at the encoder, he carefully marked the box into which the spool went:

SONG OF THE WIND SPIRIT, A CANTATA

BY KARL WILLIAM DITTERSHAND

That composer, Karl William Dittershand, was the current favorite back on Earth among the intellectuals, and Arnie detested the man’s electronic so-called music; he was a purist, himself: his tastes stopped firmly at Brahms. Arnie had a good laugh at that--marking his encoded message proposing his and Scott’s going into the black-market importation of foodstuffs as a cantata by Dittershand--and then rang up a union Goodmember to convey the spool up north to Nova Britannica, the U.K. colony on Mars.

That, at eight-thirty in the evening, wound up the business of the day, and Arnie returned to his TV set to see the finish of the fights. He lit himself another Optimo extra-mild Admiral, leaned back, broke wind, relaxed.

I wish all days could be like this, he said to himself. I could live forever, if they were; days like this made him younger, not older. He felt as if he could see forty come by again.

Imagine me going into the black market, he said to himself. And for little stuff, little tins of wild blackberry jelly and slices of pickled eel and lox. But that was vital, too; for him especially. Nobody is going to rob me of my treats, he thought grimly. If that Steiner thought by killing himself he could cut me off where it hurts--.

“Come on,” he urged the colored boy taking a licking on the TV screen. “Gut up, you bugger, and give it to him.”

As if he had heard, the Negro fighter scrambled back up, and Arnie Kott chuckled with deep, keen pleasure.

In the small hotel room, where he traditionally stayed weekend nights in Bunchewood Park when on call, Jack Bohlen sat by the window smoking a cigarette and pondering.

It had returned, after all these years, that which he dreaded; he had to face it. Now it was not anguished anticipation, it was actuality. Christ, he thought miserably, they’re right--once you have it you’ve got it for keeps. The visit to the Public School had set him up for it, and at the Willows it had appeared and smitten him, as intact and full as if he were in his twenties again, back on Earth, working for Corona Corporation down in Redwood City.

And I know, he thought, that Norbert Steiner’s death figured into it. Death upsets everyone, makes them do peculiar things; it sets a radiating process of action and emotion going that works its way out, farther and farther, to embrace more people and things.

Better call Silvia, he thought, and see how she’s making out with Frau Steiner and the children.

But he shrank from it. There’s nothing I can do to help anyhow, he decided. I have to be on twenty-four-hour call here in town, where Mr. Yee’s switchboard can get hold of me. And now, too, he had to be available to Arnie Kott at Lewistown.

There had been, however, compensation. A fine, deep, subtle, highly invigorating compensation. In his wallet he had Doreen Anderton’s address and phone number.

Should he call her tonight? Imagine, he thought, finding someone, a woman, too, with whom he could talk freely, who understood about his situation, who genuinely wanted to hear and was not frightened.

It helped a lot.

His wife was the last person in the world he could talk to about his schizophrenia; on the few occasions he had tried she had simply collapsed with fear. Like everybody else, Silvia was terrified at the idea of it entering her life; she herself warded it off with the magic charms of drugs . . . as if phenobarbital could halt the most pervasive, ominous psychic process known to man. God knew how many pills he himself had swallowed during the last decade, enough to pave a road from his home to this hotel and possibly back.

He decided after some reflection not to call Doreen. Better to leave it as a way out when the going got exceptionally rough. Right now he felt fairly placid. There would be plenty of time in the future, and plenty of need, to seek out Doreen Anderton.

Of course, he would have to be incredibly careful; obviously Doreen was Arnie Kott’s mistress. But she seemed to know what she was doing, and certainly she knew Arnie; she must have taken him into account when she gave out her phone number and address, and, for that matter, when she got up and left the restaurant.

I trust her, Jack said to himself. And for someone with a streak of schizophrenia, that is something.

Pondering that, Jack Bohlen put out his cigarette, went and got his pajamas, and prepared to go to bed.

He was just getting under the covers when the phone in his room rang. A service call, he thought, leaping up automatically to get it.

But it was not. A woman’s voice said softly in his ear, “Jack?”

“Yes,” he said.

“This is Doreen. I just wondered--if you were O.K.”

“I’m fine,” he said, seating himself on the edge of the bed.

“Do you think you’d want to come over tonight? To my place?”

He hesitated. “Umm,” he said.

“We could play records and talk. Arnie lent me a lot of rare old stereophonic LP records from his collection . . . some of them are awfully scratchy, but some are terrific. He’s quite a collector, you know; he has the largest collection of Bach on Mars. And you saw his harpsichord.”

So that’s what that had been, there in Arnie’s living room.

“Is it safe?” he asked.

“Yes. Don’t worry about Arnie; he’s not possessive, if you know what I mean.”

Jack said, “O.K. I’ll be over.” And then he realized that he couldn’t, because he had to be available for service calls. Unless he could switch it through her phone.

“That’s no problem,” she said, when he explained it to her. “I’ll call Arnie and tell him.”

Dumbfounded, he said, “But--“

“Jack, you’re out of your mind if you think we can do it any other way--Arnie knows everything that goes on in the settlement. Leave it to me, dear. I’ll call him right now. And you come right on over here. If any calls come through while you’re on your way I’ll write them down, but I don’t think there will be any; Arnie doesn’t want you out fixing people’s toasters, he wants you for his own jobs, for making that machine for talking to the Steiner boy.”

“O.K.,” he said, “I’ll be over. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone.

Ten minutes later he was on his way, flying the bright and shiny Yee Company repairship through the night sky of Mars, to Lewistown and Arnie Kott’s mistress.