Martian Time-Slip

8

David Bohlen knew that his grandfather Leo had a lot of money and didn’t mind spending it. For instance, before they had even left the rocket terminal building, the old man in his stiff suit with his vest and gold cuff links--it was the suit that the boy had watched to catch sight of, along the ramp from where the passengers appeared--stopped at the flower counter and bought the boy’s mother a bunch of large blue Earth flowers. And he wanted to buy something for David, too, but they didn’t have any toys, only candy, which Grandfather Leo bought: a two-pound box.

Under his arm Grandfather Leo had a white carton tied with string: he hadn’t let the rocketship officials take it and put it with the luggage. When they had left the terminal building and were in his dad’s ‘copter, Grandfather Leo opened the package. It was full of Jewish bread and pickles and thin-sliced corned beef wrapped in protective plastic, three pounds of corned beef in all.

“My gosh,” Jack exclaimed in delight. “All the way from New York. You can’t get that out here in the colonies, Dad.”

“I know that, Jack,” Grandfather Leo said. “A Jewish fella told me where to get it, and I like it so much I knew you’d like it, you and I have the same tastes.” He chuckled, pleased to see how happy he had made them. “I’m gonna make you a sandwich when we get to the house. First thing we get there.”

The ‘copter rose now above the rocketship terminal and passed on over the dark desert.

“How’s the weather you been having here?” Grandfather Leo asked.

“Lots of storms,” Jack said. “Practically buried us, a week or so ago. We had to rent power equipment to dig out.”

“Bad,” Grandfather Leo said. “You ought to get that cement wall up you were talking about in your letters.”

“It costs a fortune to have construction work done out here,” Silvia said, “it’s not like back on Earth.”

“I know that,” Grandfather Leo said, “but you got to protect your investment--that house is worth a lot, and the land, you have water nearby; don’t forget that.”

“How could we forget that?” Silvia said. “Good Lord, without the ditch we’d die.”

“That canal any wider this year?” Grandfather Leo asked.

“Just the same,” Jack said.

David spoke up. “They dredged it, Grandfather Leo. I watched them; the UN men, they used a big machine that sucked up the sand from the bottom, and the water’s a lot cleaner. So my dad shut off the filter system, and now when the rider comes and opens the gate our way, we can pump it so fast that my dad let me put in a whole new vegetable garden I can water with overflow, and I have corn and squash and a couple of carrots, but something ate all the beets. We had corn last night from it. We put up a fence to keep those little animals from getting in--what are they called, Dad?”

“Sand rats, Leo,” Jack said. “As soon as David’s garden started to bear, the sand rats moved in. They’re yay long.” He held up his hands to show. “Harmless, except that they can eat their weight in ten minutes. The older settlers warned us, but we had to try.”

“Good to grow your own produce,” Grandfather Leo said. “Yeah, you wrote me about the garden, David: I’d like to see it tomorrow. Tonight I’m tired; that’s a long trip I took, even with the new ships they got, what do they call it? Fast as light, but it really isn’t; still a lot of time taking off and landing and a lot of concussion. I had a woman next to me, she was terrified, thought we’d burn up, it got so hot inside there, even with the air conditioning. I don’t know why they let it get so hot, they certainly charge enough. But it’s a big improvement over--remember the ship you took when you emigrated years ago? Two months!”

Jack said, “Leo, you brought your oxygen mask, I hope. Ours is too old now, unreliable.”

“Sure, I got it in my brown suitcase. Don’t worry about me, I can take this atmosphere--I got a different heart pill, really improved. Everything’s improving back Home. Of course, it’s overcrowded. But more and more people going to be emigrating over here--take my word for that. Smog’s so bad back Home it nearly kills you.”

David spoke up. “Grandfather Leo, the man next door, Mr. Steiner, he took his own life, and now his son Manfred is home from the camp for anomalous children, and my dad is building a mechanism so he can talk to us.”

“Well,” Grandfather Leo said, in a kindly way. He beamed at the boy. “That’s interesting David. How old is this boy?”

“Ten,” David said, “but he can’t talk at all to us, yet. But my dad is going to fix that up with his mechanism, and you know who my dad is working for right now? Mr. Kott, who runs the Water Workers’ Union and their settlement; he’s really a big important man.”

“I believe I heard about him,” Grandfather Leo said, with a wink at Jack which the boy caught.

Jack said to his father, “Dad, are you still going ahead with this business of buying land in the F.D.R. range?”

“Oh, certainly,” Grandfather Leo said. “You bet your life, Jack. Naturally, I came out on this trip sociably, to see you all, but I couldn’t have taken off so much time as this unless it was business, too.”

“I hoped you’d given that up,” Jack said.

“Now, Jack,” Grandfather Leo said, “don’t you worry; you let me worry if I’m doing the right thing; I been in land investment for many years now. Listen. You going to pilot me out there to that mountain range so I can take a firsthand look? I got a lot of maps; I want to see with my own eyes, though.”

“You’re going to be disappointed when you see it,” Silvia said. “It’s so desolate there, no water, scarcely anything living.”

“Let’s not worry about it right now,” Grandfather Leo said, with a smile at David. He nudged the boy in the ribs. “Good to see a young man straight and healthy and out here away from the polluted air we have back Home.”

“Well, Mars has its drawbacks,” Silvia said. “Try living with bad water or no water at all for a while and you’ll see.”

“I know,” Grandfather Leo said soberly. “You people sure have guts to live out here. But it’s healthy; don’t forget that.”

Below them now, the lights of Bunchewood Park glittered. Jack turned the ‘copter toward the north and their home.

As he piloted the Yee Company ‘copter, Jack Bohlen glanced at his father and marveled at how little he had aged, how vigorous and well knit Leo looked, for a man in his late seventies. And still at his job, fulltime, getting as much enjoyment out of speculating as ever.

And yet, although it did not show, he was certain that the long trip from Earth had tired Leo out more than he admitted. In any case, they were almost at the house, now. The gyrocompass reading was point 7.08054; they were only minutes away.

When they had parked on the roof of the house, and had gone downstairs, Leo at once fulfilled his promise; in the kitchen he set to work, joyfully making each of them a kosher corned-beef sandwich on Jewish bread. Soon they were all seated in the living room, eating. Everyone was peaceful and relaxed.

“You just don’t know how we’re starved for food of this sort,” Silvia said finally. “Even on the black market--“ She glanced at Jack.

“Sometimes you can pick up delicatessen foods on the black market,” Jack said, “although lately it’s gotten harder. We don’t, personally. No moral reason: it’s just too expensive.”

They talked for a while, finding out about Leo’s trip and about conditions back Home. David was sent to bed at tenthirty, and then, at eleven, Silvia excused herself and went to bed, too. Leo and Jack were left in the living room, still sitting, just the two of them.

Leo said, “Can we step outside and take a glance at the boy’s garden? You got a big flashlight?”

Finding his trouble-lantern, Jack led the way out of the house and into the cold night air.

As they stood at the edge of the patch of corn, Leo said to him in a low voice, “How are you and Silvia getting along these days?”

“Fine,” Jack said, a little taken aback by the question.

“Seems to me there’s a coolness between the two of you,” Leo said. “It sure would be terrible, Jack, if you grew apart. That’s a fine woman you got there--one in a million.”

“I recognize that,” Jack said uncomfortably.

“Back Home,” Leo said, “when you were a young fellow, you always played around a lot. But I know you’re settled down, now.”

“I am,” Jack said. “And I think you’re imagining things.”

“You do seem withdrawn, Jack,” his father said. “I hope that old trouble of yours, you know what I mean, isn’t bothering you. I’m talking about--“

“I know what you’re talking about.”

Relentlessly, Leo went on, “When I was a boy there was no mental illness like there is now. It’s a sign of the times; too many people, too much overcrowding. I remember when you first got sick, and a long time before that, say from when you were seventeen on, you were cold toward other people, uninterested in them. Moody, too. Seems to me you’re like that, now.”

Jack glared at his father. This was the trouble with having one’s folks visit; they could never resist the temptation to resume their old roles as the All-wise, the All-knowing. To Leo, Jack was not a grown man with a wife and child; he was simply his son Jack.

“Look, Leo,” Jack said. “Out here there are very few people; this is a sparsely settled planet, as yet. Naturally, people here are less gregarious; they have to be more innerdirected than back Home where it’s like you said, just a mobscene day after day.”

Leo nodded. “Hmm. But that should make you more glad to see fellow humans.”

“If you’re referring to yourself, I’m very glad to see you.”

“Sure, Jack,” Leo said, “I know. Maybe I’m just tired. But you don’t seem to say much; you’re preoccupied.”

“My work,” Jack said. “This boy Manfred, this autistic child--I have that on my mind all the time.”

But, as in the old days, his father could see through his pretexts effortlessly, with true parental instinct. “Come on, boy,” Leo said. “You got a lot on your mind, but I know how you work; your job is with your hands, and I’m talking about your mind, it’s your mind that’s turned inward. Can you get that psychotherapy business here on Mars? Don’t tell me no, because I know better.”

“I’m not going to tell you no,” Jack said, “but I will tell you that it’s none of your goddamn business.”

Beside him in the darkness his father seemed to shrink, to settle. “O.K., boy,” he murmured. “Sorry I butted in.”

They were both uncomfortably silent.

“Hell,” Jack said, “let’s not quarrel, Dad. Let’s go back inside and have a drink or something and then turn in. Silvia fixed up a good soft bed for you in the other bedroom; I know you’ll have a good rest.”

“Silvia’s very attentive to a person’s needs,” Leo said, with a faint note of accusation toward his son. Then his voice softened as he said, “Jack, I always worry about you. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and don’t understand about this--mental illness business; everybody seems to have it nowadays; it’s common, like flu and polio used to be, like when we were kids and almost everybody caught measles. Now you have this. One out of every three, I heard on TV, one time. Skizo--whatever. I mean, Jack, with so much to live for, why would anyone turn his back on life, like these skizo people do. It doesn’t make sense. You got a whole planet to conquer, here. Tomorrow, for instance, I’m going with you to the F.D.R. Mountains, and you can show me around all over, and then I’ve got all the details on legal procedure here; I’m going to be buying. Listen: You buy in, too, you hear me? I’ll advance you the money.” He grinned hopefully at Jack, showing his stainless-steel teeth.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” Jack said. “But thanks.”

“I’ll pick out the parcel for you,” Leo offered.

“No. I’m just not interested.”

“You--enjoying your job, now, Jack? Making this machine to talk to the little boy who can’t speak? Sounds like a worthy occupation; I’m proud to hear about it. David is a swell kid, and boy, is he proud of his dad.”

“I know he is,” Jack said.

“David doesn’t show any signs of that skizo thing, does he?”

“No,” Jack said.

Leo said, “I don’t know where you got yours, certainly not from me--I love people.”

“I do, too,” Jack said. He wondered how his father would act if he knew about Doreen. Probably Leo would be griefstricken; he came from a strait-laced generation--born in 1924, a long, long time ago. It was a different world, then. Amazing, how his father had adapted to this world, now; a miracle. Leo, born in the boom period following World War One, and now standing here on the edge of the Martian desert . . . but he still would not understand about Doreen, about how vital it was for him to maintain an intimate contact of this sort, at any cost; or rather, almost any cost.

“What’s her name?” Leo said.

“W-what?” Jack stammered.

“I got a little of that telepathic sense,” Leo said in a toneless voice. “Don’t I?”

After a pause, Jack said, “Evidently.”

“Does Silvia know?”

“No.”

“I could tell because you didn’t look me in the eye.”

“Balls,” Jack said fiercely.

“Is she married, too? She got kids, too, this other woman you’re mixed up with?”

Jack said in as level a voice as possible, “Why don’t you use your telepathic sense and find out?”

“I just don’t want to see Silvia hurt,” Leo said.

“She won’t be,” Jack said.

“Too bad,” Leo said, “to come all this way and find out something like this. Well--“ He sighed. “I got my business, anyhow. Tomorrow you and I’ll get up good and early and get started.”

Jack said, “Don’t be too harsh a judge, Dad.”

“All right,” Leo agreed. “I know, it’s modern times. You think by this playing around you keep yourself well--right? Maybe so. Maybe it’s a way to sanity. I don’t mean you’re not sane--“

“Just tainted,” Jack said, with violent bitterness. Christ, your own father, he thought. What an ordeal. What a miserable tragedy.

“I know you’ll come out O.K.,” Leo said. “I can see now that you’re struggling; it’s not just playing around. I can tell by your voice--you got troubles. Same ones you always had, only as you get older you wear out, and it’s harder--right? Yeah, I see that. This planet is lonely. It’s a wonder all you emigrants didn’t go crazy right off the bat. I can see why you would value love anywhere you can find it. What you need is something like what I’ve got, this land thing of mine; maybe you can find it in building your machine for that poor mute kid. I’d like to see him.”

“You will,” Jack said. “Possibly tomorrow.”

They stood for a moment longer, and then they walked back into the house. “Does Silvia still take dope?” Leo asked.

“Dope!” He laughed. “Phenobarbital. Yes, she does.”

“Such a nice girl,” Leo said. “Too bad she’s so tense and worries so much. And helping that unfortunate widow next door, like you were telling me.” In the living room, Leo seated himself in Jack’s easy chair, crossed his legs and leaned back, sighing, making himself comfortable so that he could continue talking . . . he definitely had much more to say, on a variety of subjects, and he intended to say it.

In bed, Silvia lay almost lost in sleep, her faculties doused by the 100 milligram tablet of phenobarbital which she had taken, as usual, upon retiring. Vaguely, she had heard the murmur of her husband’s and her father-in-law’s voices from the yard; once, their tone became sharp and she had sat up, alarmed.

Are they going to bicker? she asked herself. God, I hope not; I hope Leo’s stay isn’t going to disrupt things. However, their voices had sunk back down, and now she rested easily once more.

He certainly is a fine old man, she thought. Much like Jack, only more set in his ways.

Lately, since he had started working for Arnie Kott, her husband had changed. No doubt it was the eerie job which he had been given; the mute, autistic Steiner boy upset her, and she had been sorry from the first to see him appear. Life was complicated enough already. The boy flitted in and out of the house, always running on his toes, his eyes always darting as if he saw objects not present, heard sounds beyond the normal range. If only time could be turned back and Norbert Steiner could be somehow restored to life! If only . . .

In her drugged mind she saw, in a flash, that ineffectual little man setting out in the morning with his suitcases of wares, salesman off on his rounds, yogurt and blackstrap molasses.

Is he still alive somewhere? Perhaps Manfred saw him, lost as the boy was--according to Jack--in disfigured time. What a surprise is in store for them when they make contact with the boy and find they have rekindled that sad little specter . . . but more likely their theory is right, and it is the next, he sees the next. They will have what they want. Why is it, Jack? What do you want it for, Jack? Affinity between you and that ill child. That it? Oh . . . Her thoughts gave way to darkness.

And then what? Will you care about me again?

No affinity between the sick and the sound. You are different; it weighs me down. Leo knows it, I know it. Do you? Care?

She slept.

High in the sky circled meat-eating birds. At the base of the windowed building lay their excrement. He picked up the wads until he held several. They twisted and swelled like dough, and he knew there were living creatures within; he carried them carefully into the empty corridor of the building. One wad opened, parted with a split in its woven, hairlike side; it became too large to hold, and he saw it now in the wall. A compartment where it lay on its side, the rent so wide that he perceived the creature within.

Gubbish! A worm, coiled up, made of wet, bony-white pleats, the inside gubbish worm, from a person’s body. If only the high-flying birds could find it and eat it down, like that. He ran down the steps, which gave beneath his feet. Boards missing. He saw down through the sieve of wood to the soil beneath, the cavity, dark, cold, full of wood so rotten that it lay in damp powder, destroyed by gubbish-rot.

Arms lifted up, tossed him to the circling birds; he floated up, falling at the same time. They ate his head off. And then he stood on a bridge over the sea. Sharks showed in the water, their sharp, cutting fins. He caught one on his line and it came sliding up from the water, mouth open, to swallow him. He stepped back, but the bridge caved in and sagged so that the water reached his middle.

It rained gubbish, now; all was gubbish, wherever he looked. A group of those who didn’t like him appeared at the end of the bridge and held up a loop of shark teeth. He was emperor. They crowned him with the loop, and he tried to thank them. But they forced the loop down past his head to his neck, and they began to strangle him. They knotted the loop and the shark teeth cut his head off. Once more he sat in the dark, damp basement with the powdery rot around him, listening to the tidal water lap-lapping everywhere. A world where gubbish ruled, and he had no voice; the shark teeth had cut his voice out.

I am Manfred, he said.

“I tell you,” Arnie Kott said to the girl beside him in the wide bed, “you’re really going to be delighted when we make contact with him--I mean, we got an inside track, there: we got the future, and where else do you think things happen except in the future?”

Stirring, Doreen Anderton murmured.

“Don’t go to sleep,” Arnie said, leaning over to light another cigarette. “Listen, guess what--a big-time land speculator came over from Earth, today; we had a union guy at the rocket terminal, and he recognized him, although naturally the speculator registered under an assumed name. We checked with the carrier, and he got right out of there, eluding our guy. I predicted they’d be showing up! Listen, when we hear from that Steiner kid, it’ll blow the lid off this whole thing. Right?” He shook the sleeping girl. “If you don’t wake up,” Arnie said, “I’m gonna shove you right out of bed on your ass, and you can walk home to your apartment.”

Doreen groaned, turned over, sat up. In the dim light of Arnie Kott’s master bedroom, she sat palely translucent, tucking her hair back from her eyes and yawning. One strap of her nightgown slipped down her arm, and Arnie saw with appreciation her high, hard left breast with its gem of a nipple set dead-center.

Gosh, I really got a gal, Arnie said to himself. She’s really something. And she’s done a terrific job in keeping that Bohlen from shucking it all and wandering off, the way those hebephrenic schizophrenics do--I mean, it’s almost impossible to keep them at the grindstone, they’re so moody and irresponsible. That guy Bohlen; he’s an idiot savant, an idiot who can fix things, and we have to cater to his idiocy, we have to yield. You can’t force a guy like that; he don’t force. Arnie took hold of the covers and tossed them aside, off Doreen; he smiled at her bare legs, smiled to see her draw her nightgown down to her knees.

“How can you be tired?” he asked her. “You ain’t done nothin’ but lie. Isn’t that so? Is lying there so hard?”

She eyed him narrowly. “No more,” she said.

“What?” he said. “You kidding? We just begun. Take off that nightgown.” Catching it by the hem he whisked it back up once more; he put his arm beneath her, lifted her up, and in an instant had it off over her head. He deposited it on the chair by the bed.

“I’m going to sleep,” Doreen said, closing her eyes. “If you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind?” Arnie said. “You’re still there, aren’t you? Awake or asleep--you’re plenty there in the flesh, and how.”

“Ouch,” she protested.

“Sorry.” He kissed her on the mouth. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her head lolled; she actually was going to sleep. Arnie felt offended. But what the hell--she never did much anyhow.

“Put my nightgown back on me,” Doreen murmured, “when you’re through.”

“Yeah, well I’m not through.” I’m good for an hour more, Arnie said to himself. Maybe even two. I sort of like it this way, too. A woman asleep don’t talk. That’s what spoils it, when they start to talk. Or make those moans. He could never stand the moans.

He thought, I’m dying to get results on that project of Bohlen’s. I can’t wait; I know we’re going to hear something really downright wonderful when we do start hearing. The closed-up mind of that kid; think of all the treasures it contains. Must be like fairyland, in there, all beautiful and pure and real innocent.

In her half-sleep Doreen moaned.