The Unteleported Man

12

People who are out of phase in time, Sepp von Einem thought caustically to himself, ought to be dead. Not preserved like bugs in amber. He glanced up from the encoded intel-repo and watched with distaste his mysteriously — and rather repellently — gifted proleptic co-worker, Gregory Gloch, in his clanking, whirring anti-prolepsis chamber; at the moment, the thin, tall, improperly hunched youth talked silently into the audio receptor of his sealed chamber, his mouth twisting as if composed of some obsolete plastic, not convincingly flesh-like. The mouth-motions, too, lacked authentic­ity; far too slow, von Einem observed, even for Gloch. The fool was slowing down. However, the memory spools of the chamber would still collect everything said by Gloch, at whatever rate. And the transmission subse­quently would of course be at proper time... although, of course, the frequency would be abysmal, probably doubled. At the thought of the screeching which lay ahead, von Einem groaned.

His groan, received by the sensitive input audio sys­tem of the anti-prolepsis chamber, became processed: recorded at twenty inches of iron oxide audio tape a second it whipped in retrograde to rewind, then released itself at six inches a second to be carried to the ear­phones well fixed to Gloch's bony head. Presently Gloch responded to his reception of his superior's groan with characteristic eccentricity. His cheeks puffed out; his face turned red as he held his breath. And at the same time he grinned vacuously, his head lolling, turn­ing himself into a parody of a brain-damaged defective — a double parody, because it was of course his own fantastic mentational processes which constituted the actual target of his lampoon. Disgusted, von Einem looked away, gritted his near-priceless custom-fashioned teeth, returned to his scrutiny of the intel-repo material which had newly been made available to him.

"I'm Bill Behren," the tinny mechanical voice of the intel-repo transport announced cheerfully. "Operator of fly 33408. Now, as you may or may not remember, fly 33408 is a real winner. I mean it really gets in there and tackles its job and really gathers up the stuff, the real hot stuff. I've personally been operator for, say, fifty flies... but in all this time, none has really per­formed true-blue like this little fella. I think he — or it, whatever they are these days — deserves a vote of thanks from us all involved in this highly delicate work we do. Right, Herr von Einem?" Operator of housefly 33408 Bill Behren paused hopefully.

"The vote of thanks," von Einem said, "goes to you, Mr. Behren, for your compound eyes."

"How about that," operator Behren rambled on oozingly. "Well, I think we're all inspired by — "

"The data," von Einem said. "As to the activity at the UN Advance-weapons Archives. What specifically is meant by their code number variation three of that time-warping construct they're so devoted to?" Queer for, he thought to himself; the UN wep-x personnel probably take turns going to bed with it.

"Well, sir," operator Bill Behren of fly33408 answered vigorously, "variation three appears to be a handy-dandy little portable pack unit in the ingenious shape of a tin of chocolate-flavored psychic ener­gizers."

On the video portion of the intel-repo playback system a wide-angle shot of the portable pack appeared; von Einem glanced toward Gloch in his whirring anti-prolepsis chamber to see if the hunched, grimacing youth was receiving this transmission. Gloch, however, obviously lagged at least fifteen minutes behind, now; it would be some time before his synchronizing gear brought this video image to him. And no way to speed it up; that would defeat the chamber's purpose.

"Did I say 'chocolate-flavored'?" Behren droned on, in agitation. "I intended to say 'chocolate-covered.' "

And with such weapons artifacts as this, von Einem reflected, the UN expects to survive. Of course, this assumed that the intel-repo were accurate.

His inquiry into the certainty of fly 33408's informa­tion brought an immediate reaction from operator Behren.

"There are just plain virtually no houseflies as in­telligent as this; I give you no niddy, Herr von Einem, no niddy at all. And here's the real substance of what 33408 has captured via his multipartis receptors: I suggest you prepare for this, as it's overwhelming." Behren cleared his throat importantly. "Ever hear of ol' Charley Falks?"

"No," von Einem said.

"Think back to your childhood. When you were, say, eight years old or maybe a little more. Recall a backyard and you playing, and ol' Charley Falks leaning over the fence and — "

"This is what your verfluchte fly brought back from the UN Advance-weapons Archives?" Time for a replacement of both Behren and his dipterous insect, both of them with one arboreal, American orthopterous katydid; it could carry twice the minned receptors and recording spools of 33408 and probably would possess the same brain-convolutions as Behren and his housefly put together. Von Einem felt gloomy; in fact his depression bordered on despair. At least Theo Ferry managed to handle the tricky situation at Whale's Mouth effectively — in contrast to this. And that, more than anything else, counted.

Effectively except for the unhappy weevils and their destroyed, ridiculous crypto-perceptions. The old com­rades back in 1945 would have known how to dispatch those Unmänner, von Einem thought to himself with irritable satisfaction. It's a clear sign of genetic decay to be possessed by such subrealities, he brooded. Inferior type-basics overwhelming weak, unstable character-structures; degenerate idioplasm involved causally, beyond doubt.

"Ol' Charley Falks," operator Behren said, "is the individual back in your childhood days who more than any other human being formed your ontological nature. What you have been throughout your adult life depends absolutely, in total essence, on what ol' Charley — "

"Then," von Einem said witheringly, "why is it that I fail to recall his existence?"

"The UN wep-x tacticians," operator Behren said, "have not as yet placed him there."

Within his anti-prolepsis membrane — the environ­ment manufactured by Krupp und Sohnen years ago which permitted him to collaborate with the convention­ally time-oriented personalities linked indirectly to him — the warped, inspired protégé of Sepp von Einem contemplated the message-packets discharged at intervals by the data-storing houses of his intricate mechanism. As always, he felt weary; the release of stimuli came too frequently for his overtaxed metab­olism... the adjusting of periodic discharge control gate lay unfortunately outside his manual reach.

What reached him, at the moment, consisted of what seemed the most miserable idiocy he had ever en­countered; bewildered, he attempted to focus his depleted attention on it, but only ill-formed fragments of the intel-repo material constellated for his menta­tional scrutiny.

"... fettered fetus of homemade apples lurching... searching... something like pataradical outfits of lace. Iron beds of red hot sabratondea flashes jut jib FRIB — "

Resignedly, Gregory Gloch listened on helplessly, wondering what transistorized turret-control of the chamber had gone astray this time.

"... medicine ice

"man.

"cone-shaped melting dripping

"away — away — "

As apathy began to seep over him an interval of almost startling meaning abruptly caught his ear; he awoke, paid rapt attention.

"Operator Behren, here, with really thrilling data on ol' Charley Falks, who, you'll remember, was placed in the formative years of Herr von Einem on an alternate time-path by the UN wep-x tacticians in order to deflect Herr von Einem from his chosen — and militarily signifi­cant — profession to a relatively harmless vocation, that of — " And then, to his chagrin, the lucid segment of verbal data faded and the meaningless chatter — with which he had, over the years, become so familiar — resumed.

"... fiber-glassed. Windows

"stained with grease

"off a polyhemispheric double-overhead-cam

"EXTERNAL compulsion engine

"floating out

"into the vast gigantic money-thing-making machine

"... diaperashis phenomenon disintegrating

"into foul fierce

"pressure

"spinning spinning

"lifting harsh

"harsh — a breath, a beat — a being still present

" — thank god..."

And, in the midst of this, the steady but interrupted by the far stronger signal-strength of the babble, the authentic intel-repo continued to make its vital point; he brought his internal attention to bear on it and managed to follow its thread of meaning.

Evidently fly-technician Behren had gathered at last the crucial material as to the UN's disposition of its near-absolute device. With vigorous, virtually relentless logic, Jaimé Weiss, the top-strategist now working under Horst Bertold — he who at one time had been von Einem's most brilliant and promising new discovery in the field of weapons inventiveness, but who had turned: gone over to the better-paying other side — this renegade had come up with the correct answer to the UN's stra­tegic needs.

To kill off Sepp von Einem was now pointless; Telpor existed. But to abolish von Einem sometime in the past, before his discovery of the basic mechanism of telepor­tation...

A less skilled manipulation of past-time factors would have sought as its objective cheap outright murder — the total physical elimination of Sepp von Einem. But this, of course, would simply have left the field open to others, and if one man could locate the principle on which teleportation could be effectively based, then so, eventually, given enough time, could someone else. Telpor, not Sepp von Einem, had to be blocked — and it would require the presence of a uniquely strong per­sonality to block it. Jaimé Weiss and Bertold could not do it; they were not that formidable. In fact, probably only one man in the world could manage it... suc­cessfully.

Sepp von Einem himself.

To himself Gregory Gloch thought, It's a good idea. This, his professional, official appraisal of the tactical plan which the UN had put in motion to abort the evolution of the Telpor instrument, had now to be said aloud; Gloch, selecting his words carefully, spoke into the recording microphone permanently placed before his lips, simultaneously activating the tape-transport.

"They want for their disposal," he declared, "the use of yourself, Herr von Einem — nothing else is adequate. A compliment... but one which you could no doubt do without." He paused, considered. Meanwhile, the tape-reel moved inexorably, but it was dead tape; he felt the pressure on him to produce a counter-tactic in response to what those opposed to his superior had so artfully — and skillfully — advanced. "Umm," he murmured, half to himself. He felt, now, even more truly out of phase in the time-dimension: he felt the gulf between himself and those, everyone else in the universe of sentient life, beyond his anti-prolepsis chamber. "In my estimate," he continued, "your most profitable avenue of action — " And then abruptly he ceased. Because once again the random word-salad noise had burbled into seeming spontaneous existence in his ears.

This, however, appeared to be a radically different — startling so — interference than was customary.

Rubbish that it was it nonetheless made sense... sense, but it had obliterated — for the time being, at least — his counter-tactical idea.

Could this be a UN electronic signal deliberately beamed so as to disrupt the orderly functioning of his chamber?

The thought, theoretical as it was, chilled him as he involuntarily, without the possibility of evasion, lis­tened to the curious mixture of nonsense and — mean­ing. Of the highest order.

"... I think, though, I see why Zoobko lards, but­ters, marginates and otherwise fattens up the word 'spore' into the rather sinister male spore slogan. Their house brochure in Move-E 3-D kul-R is directed (heh-heh) at women consumers, to fumble lewdly a meta­phor, ahem, no offense meant (gak). More fully articu­lated, it would read, 'The male spore, my dears, is as we well know tireless in its half-crazed struggle — against all sanity and moral restraint — to reach the female egg. That's the way men are. Right? We all realize it. Give a male (sic) spore half an inch and he'll take seventy-two-and-a-sixth miles. BE PREPARED! ALWAYS READY! A HUGE, SLIMY, SLANT-EYED YEL­LOW-SKINNED MALE SPORE MAY BE WATCH­ING YOU THIS VERY MINUTE! And, considering his almost demonic ability to wiggle for miles upon miles, you may at this moment be in dire, severe danger! To quote Dryden: 'The trumpet's loud clamor doth call us to arms,' etc. (And don't forget, ladies, the hand­some prize awarded yearly by Zoobko Products, Incor­porated for the greatest number of dead male (sic) spores mailed (pun) to our Callisto factory in an old Irish linen pillow case, attesting to (one) your tenacity in balking the evil damned things and (two) the fact that you're buying our lather-like goo in one-hundred-pound squirt cans. Also remember: if you are unable to ade­quately prepare yourself with a generous, expensive por­tion of Zoobko patented goo in the proper place, ahem, in advance of marital lawful pawing, then merely squirt the spray can with nozzle directed directly into the grimacing fungiform's ugly face as it hovers six feet high in the air above you. Best range — "

"Best range," Gregory Gloch said aloud, against the din of the obsessive noise in his ears, "approximately two inches."

" — 'two inches,' " the tinny, mechanical racket reeled off, accompanying him, " 'from his eyes. Zoobko's patented goo is not only — ' "

" — 'a top-drawer killer of male spores,' " Gloch murmured, " 'but it also blasts the tear-ducts out of existence. Too bad, fella.' " End brochure, he thought. End monolog. End sex. End of Zoobko, or zoob of Endko. Is this an ad or a contemplation of a squandered life? Check one. I know this discourse, he thought. By heart. Why? How? It's as if, he thought, I said it; as if it's happening inside my brain — not coming to me from the outside. What does this mean? I have to know.

"Always bear in mind," the inexorable din con­tinued, "that male spores have an almost appalling capacity to progress under their own power. If, ladies, you constantly ponder that — "

"Appalling, yes," Gloch said. "But FIVE MILES?" I said all that, he realized. A long time ago. When I was a child. But no, he thought; I didn't say all that — I thought it, worked it out in my mind, a prank, a lam­poon, when I was a kid in school. What's being piped to me now here in this goddam chamber, what's supposed to be rephased sensory-data from the outside world — it's my own goddam former thoughts returning to me, a loop from my brain to my brain, with a ten-year lag.

"Splub gnog furb SQUAZ," the aud input circuit rattled away, into his passive ears. Relentlessly.

My counter-weapon, Gloch thought. They've blocked my counter-weapon with a counter-weapon, their own. Who —

"Yes sir, gnog furb," the aud input circuit declared in a hearty but garbled voice, "this is good ol' Charley Falks' little boy Martha signing off for now, but I'll be back with you soon and with me a few more chuckles to lighten the day and make things SQUAZ! cheery and bright. Toodeloo!" The voice, then, ceased. There was only distant background static, not even a carrier wave.

I don't know any little boy named Martha, Gloch thought. And, he realized, there's more wrong; the a-ending is out of the first Latin declension, so "Martha" can't be a boy's name. Logically, it would have to be Marthus. Or maybe they didn't know that; Charley Falks didn't know that. Probably not well-read. As I recall, from what I saw of Charley he was one of those self-educated simps ignorant as hell on the inside but lathered over on the outside with a thin layer of bits of cultural, scientific, odd, dubious half-facts which he always liked to drone out for hours on end to whoever was listening or if not listening then anyhow in the vicinity and so at least potentially within earshot. And then when he got older you could practically walk off and he'd still be talking, to no one. But then of course I didn't have my chamber in those days, so my own time-sense was so faulty that what actually lasted only min­utes seemed like years; at least that's what they told me, those 'wash psychiatrists, back in the early days, when they were testing me and setting me up so I could func­tion, getting this chamber designed and built.

I wish for chrissake's, he thought mournfully, I could remember the concept for the counter-weapon I had in mind or almost had in mind or anyhow think I almost had in mind, before that garbage started coming in over the conduit.

It would have been one hell of a counter-weapon to use against Horst Bertold and the UN. He was sure of that.

Maybe it'll come back to me later, he reflected. Anyhow strictly speaking it was merely the nucleus of the counter-tactic idea; hardly had begun to grow. Takes time. If I'm not interrupted any further... if that dratted rubbish doesn't start up again promptly the second I begin to really fatten up the original notion into something Herr von Einem can put to use function­ally, right out into the field to see action in the overall struggle we're bogged so darn down in at Whale's Mouth and wherever else they're all tangling... prob­ably all over the universe by now; I'm probably six weeks behind, with data stored up ready to be fed to me from for instance last Thursday if not last year.

Martha, he thought. Let's see: "The Last Rose of Summer" is from that. Who wrote it? Flotow? Lehár? One of those light opera composers.

"Hummel," the aud input circuit suddenly stated, startling him; it was a familiar, dry, aged male voice. "Johann Nepomuk Hummel."

"You're a goldmine of misinformation," Gloch said irritably, in response, automatically, to one more of garrulous ol' Charley Falks' typical tidbits of wrong knowledge. He was so used to it, so darn, wearily resigned out of long experience. All the way back to his childhood, back throughout the dreary procession of years.

It's enough to make you wish you were a carpenter, Gloch mused grimly. And didn't have to think, just measure boards, saw and pound, all that purely physical activity. Then it wouldn't matter what ol' Charley Falks blabbled out, or what his pest of a kid Martha chimed in with in addition, for that matter; it didn't matter who said anything, or what.

Damn nice, he thought, if you could go back and live your life over again from the start. Only this time making it different; getting on the right track for once. A second chance, and with what I know now —

But exactly what did he know now?

For the life of him he couldn't remember.

"Pun, there," the voice from the aud circuit com­mented. "Life of you, life lived over... see?" It chuckled.