"I doubt it," said Chrono.
Unk got up from the desk, went around to Chrono, and whispered in his ear, "I"m your father, boy!" When Unk said those words, his heart went off like a burglar alarm.
Chrono was unmoved. "So what?" he said stonily. He had never received any instructions, had never seen an example in life, that would make him think a father was of any importance. On Mars, the word was emotionally meaningless.
"I"ve come to get you," said Unk. "Somehow we"re going to get away from here." He shook the boy gently, trying to make him bubble a little.
Chrono peeled his father"s hand from his arm as though the hand were a leech. "And do what?" he said.
"Live!" said Unk.
The boy looked over his father dispa.s.sionately, seeking one good reason why he should throw in his lot with this stranger. Chrono took his good-luck piece from his pocket, and rubbed it between his palms.
The imagined strength he got from the good-luck piece made him strong enough to trust n.o.body, to go on as he had for so long, angry and alone. "I"m living," he said. "I"m all right," he said. "Go to h.e.l.l."
Unk took a step backward. The corners of his mouth pulled down. "Go to h.e.l.l?" he whispered.
"I tell everybody to go to h.e.l.l," said the boy. He was trying to be kind, but he wearied of the effort at once. "Can I go out and play batball now?"
"You"d tell your own father to go to h.e.l.l?" murmured Unk. The question echoed back through Unk"s emptied memory to an untouched corner where bits of his own strange childhood still lived. His own strange childhood had been spent in daydreams of at last seeing and loving a father who did not want to see him, who did not want to be loved by him.
"I- I deserted from the army to come here- to find you," said Unk.
Interest flickered in the boy"s eyes, then died. "They"ll get you," he said. "They get everybody."
"I"ll steal a s.p.a.ce ship," said Unk. "And you and your mother and I will get on it, and we"ll fly away!"
"To where?" said the boy.
"Some place good!" said Unk.
"Tell me about some place good," said Chrono.
"I don"t know. We"ll have to look!" said Unk.
Chrono shook his head pityingly. "I"m sorry," he said. "I don"t think you know what you"re talking about. You"d just get a lot of people killed."
"You want to stay here?" said Unk.
"I"m all right here," said Chrono. "Can I go out and play batball now?"
Unk wept.
His weeping appalled the boy. He had never seen a man weep before. He never wept himself. "I"m going out to play!" he cried wildly, and he ran out of the office.
Unk went to the window of the office. He looked out at the iron playground. Young Chrono"s team was in thefield now. Young Chrono joined his teammates, faced a batter whose back was to Unk.
Chrono kissed his good-luck piece, put it in his pocket. "Easy out, you guys," he yelled hoa.r.s.ely. "Come on, you guys- let"s kill kill him!" him!"
Unk"s mate, the mother of young Chrono, was an instructress in the Schliemann Breathing School for Recruits. Schliemann breathing, of course, is a technique that enables human beings to survive in a vacuum or in an inhospitable atmosphere without the use of helmets or other c.u.mbersome respiratory gear.
It consists, essentially, of taking a pill rich in oxygen. The bloodstream takes on this oxygen through the wall of the small intestine rather than through the lungs. On Mars, the pills were known officially as Combat Respiratory Rations, in popular parlance as goofb.a.l.l.s goofb.a.l.l.s.
Schliemann Breathing is at its simplest in a benign but useless atmosphere like that of Mars. The breather goes on breathing and talking in a normal manner, though there is no oxygen for his lungs to take in from the atmosphere. All he has to remember is to take his goofb.a.l.l.s regularly.
The school in which Unk"s mate was an instructress taught recruits the more difficult techniques necessary in a vacuum or in a harmful atmosphere. This involves not only pill-taking, but plugging one"s ears and nostrils, and keeping one"s mouth shut as well. Any effort to speak or to breathe would result in hemorrhages and probably death.
Unk"s mate was one of six instructresses at the Schliemann Breathing School for Recruits. Her cla.s.sroom was a bare, windowless, whitewashed room, thirty feet square. Ranged around the walls were benches.
On a table in the middle was a bowl of goofb.a.l.l.s, a bowl of nose and ear plugs, a roll of adhesive plaster, scissors, and a small tape recorder. Purpose of the tape recorder was to play music during the long periods in which there was nothing to do but sit and wait patiently for nature to take its course.
Such a period had been reached now. The cla.s.s had just been dosed with goofb.a.l.l.s. Now the students had to sit quietly on the benches and listen to music and wait for the goofb.a.l.l.s to reach their small intestines.
The tune being played had been pirated recently from an Earthling broadcast. It was a big hit on Earth- a trio composed for a boy, a girl, and cathedral bells. It was called "G.o.d Is Our Interior Decorator." The boy and girl sang alternate lines of the verses, and joined in close harmony on the choruses.
The cathedral bells whanged and clanged whenever anything of a religious nature was mentioned.
There were seventeen recruits. They were all in their newly issued lichen-green undershorts. The purpose of having them strip was to permit the instructress to see at a glance their external bodily reactions to Schliemann breathing.
The recruits were fresh from amnesia treatments and antenna installations at the Reception Center Hospital. Their hair had been shaved off, and each recruit had a strip of adhesive plaster running from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck.
The adhesive plaster showed where the antenna had been put in.
The recruits" eyes were as empty as the windows of abandoned textile mills.
So were the eyes of the instructress, since she, too, had recently had her memory cleaned out.
When they released her from the hospital, they told her what her name was, and where she lived, and how to teach Schliemann breathing- and that was about all the factual information they gave her. There was one other item: they told her she had an eight-year-old son named Chrono, and that she could visit him at his school on Tuesday evenings, if she liked.
The name of the instructress, of Chrono"s mother, of Unk"s mate, was Bee. She wore a lichen-green sweatsuit, white gym shoes, and, around her neck, a whistle on a chain and a stethoscope.
There was a rebus of her name on her sweatshirt.
She looked at the clock on the wall. Enough time had pa.s.sed for the slowest digestive system to carry a goofball to the small intestine. She stood, turned off the tape recorder, and blew her whistle.
"Fall in!" she said.
The recruits had not yet had basic military training, so they were incapable of falling in with precision. Painted on the floor were squares within which the recruits were to stand in order to form ranks and files pleasing to the eye. A game resembling musical chairs was now played, with several empty-eyed recruits scuffling for the same square. In time, each found a square of his own.
"All right," said Bee, "take your plugs and plug up your noses and ears, please."
The recruits had been carrying the plugs in their clammy fists. They plugged their noses and ears.
Bee now went from recruit to recruit, making certain that all ears and nostrils were sealed.
"All right," she said, when her inspection was done. "Very good," she said. She took from the table the roll of adhesive plaster. "Now I am going to prove to you that you don"t need to use your lungs at all, as long as you have Combat Respiratory Rations- or, as you"ll soon be calling them in the Army, goofb.a.l.l.s." She moved through the ranks, snipping off lengths of adhesive, sealing mouths with them. No one objected. When she got through, no one had a suitable aperture through which to issue an objection.
She noted the time, and again turned on the music. For the next twenty minutes there would be nothing to do but watch the bare bodies for color changes, for the dying spasms in the sealed and useless lungs. Ideally, the bodies would turn blue, then red, then natural again within the twenty minutes- and the rib cages would quake violently, give up, be still.
When the twenty-minute ordeal was over, every recruit would know how unnecessary lung-breathing was. Ideally, every recruit would be so confident in himself and goofb.a.l.l.s, when his course of instruction was over, that he would be ready to spring out of a s.p.a.ce ship on the Earthling moon or on the bottom of an Earthling ocean or anywhere, without wondering for a split second what he might be springing into.
Bee sat on a bench.
There were dark circles around her fine eyes. The circles had come after she left the hospital, and they had grown more somber with each pa.s.sing day. At the hospital, they had promised her that she would become more serene and efficient with each pa.s.sing day. And they had told her that, if through some fluke she should not find this to be the case, she was to report back to the hospital for more help.
"We all need help from time to time," Dr. Morris N. Castle had said. "It"s nothing to be ashamed of. Some day I may need your your help, Bee, and I won"t hesitate to ask for it." help, Bee, and I won"t hesitate to ask for it."
She had been sent to the hospital after showing her supervisor this sonnet, which she had written about Schliemann breathing: Break every link with air and mist,Seal every open vent;Make throat as tight as miser"s fist,Keep life within you pent.Breathe out, breathe in, no more, no more,For breathing"s for the meek;And when in deathly s.p.a.ce we soar,Be careful not to speak.If you with grief or joy are rapt,Just signal with a tear;To soul and heart within you trappedAdd speech and atmosphere.Every man"s an island as in lifeless s.p.a.ce we roam.
Yes, every man"s an island: island fortress, island home.
Bee, who had been sent to the hospital for writing this poem, had a strong face- high cheek-boned and haughty. She looked strikingly like an Indian brave. But whoever said so was under an obligation to add quickly that she was, all the same, quite beautiful.
Now there was a sharp knock on Bee"s door. Bee went to the door and opened it. "Yes?" she said.
In the deserted corridor stood a red and sweating man in uniform. The uniform had no insignia. Slung on the man"s back was a rifle. His eyes were deep-set and furtive. "Messenger," he said gruffly. "Message for Bee."
"I"m Bee," said Bee uneasily.
The messenger looked her up and down, made her feel naked. His body threw off heat, and the heat enveloped her suffocatingly.
"Do you recognize me?" he whispered.
"No," she said. His question relieved her a little. Apparently she had done business with him before. He and his visit, then, were routine- and, in the hospital, she had simply forgotten the man and his routine.
"I don"t remember you, either," he whispered.
"I"ve been in the hospital," she said. "I had to have my memory cleaned."
"Whisper!" he said sharply.
"What?" said Bee.
"Whisper!" he said.
"Sorry," she whispered. Apparently whispering was part of the routine for dealing with this particular functionary. "I"ve forgotten so much."
"We all all have!" he whispered angrily. He again looked up and down the corridor. "You are the mother of Chrono, aren"t you?" he whispered. have!" he whispered angrily. He again looked up and down the corridor. "You are the mother of Chrono, aren"t you?" he whispered.
"Yes," she whispered.
Now the strange messenger concentrated his gaze on her face. He breathed deeply, sighed, frowned- blinked frequently.
"What- what"s the message?" whispered Bee.
"The message is this," whispered the messenger. "I am the father of Chrono. I have just deserted from the Army. My name is Unk. I am going to find some way for you, me, the boy, and my best friend to escape from here. I don"t know how yet, but you"ve got to be ready to go at a moment"s notice!" He gave her a hand grenade. "Hide this somewhere," he whispered. "When the time comes, you may need it."
Excited shouts came from the reception room at the far end of the corridor.
"He said he was a confidential messenger!" shouted a man. shouted a man.
"In a pig"s eye he"s a messenger!" shouted another. shouted another. "He"s a deserter in time of war! Who"d he come to see? " "He"s a deserter in time of war! Who"d he come to see? "
"He didn"t say. He said it was top secret!"
A whistle shrilled.
"Six of you come with me!" shouted a man. shouted a man. "We"ll search this place room by room. The rest of you surround the outside!" "We"ll search this place room by room. The rest of you surround the outside!"
Unk shoved Bee and her hand grenade into the room, shut the door. He unslung his rifle, leveled it at theplugged and taped recruits. "One peep, one funny move out of any of you guys," he said, "and you"ll all be dead."
The recruits, standing rigidly on their a.s.signed squares on the floor, did not respond in any way.
They were pale blue.
Their rib cages were quaking.
The whole awareness of each man was concentrated in the region of a small, white, life-giving pill dissolving in the duodenum.
"Where can I hide?" said Unk. "How can I get out?"
It was unnecessary for Bee to reply. There was no place to hide. There was no way out save through the door to the corridor.
There was only one thing to do, and Unk did it. He stripped to his lichen-green undershorts, hid his rifle under a bench, put plugs in his ears and nostrils, taped his mouth, and stood among the recruits.
His head was shaved, just like the heads of the recruits. And, like the recruits, Unk had a strip of adhesive plaster running from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck. He had been such a terrible soldier that the doctors had opened his head up at the hospital to see if he might not be suffering from malfunctioning antenna.
Bee surveyed the room with enchanted calm. She held the grenade that Unk had given her as though it were a vase with one perfect rose in it. Then she went to the place where Unk had hidden his rifle, and she put the grenade beside it- put it there neatly, with a decent respect for another"s property.
Then she went back to her post at the table.
She neither stared at Unk nor avoided looking at him. As they told her at the hospital: she had been very, very sick, and she would be very, very sick again if she didn"t keep her mind strictly on her work and let other people do the thinking and the worrying. At all costs, she was to keep calm.
The bl.u.s.tering false alarms of the men making the room-to-room search were approaching slowly.
Bee refused to worry about anything. Unk, by taking his place among the recruits, had reduced himself to a cipher. Considering him professionally, Bee saw that Unk"s body was turning blue-green rather than pure blue. This might mean that he had not taken a goofball for several hours- in which case he would soon keel over.
To have him keel over would certainly be the most peaceful solution to the problem he presented, and Bee wanted peace above all else.
She didn"t doubt that Unk was the father of her child. Life was like that. She didn"t remember him, and she didn"t bother now to study him in order to recognize him the next time- if there was going to be a next time. She had no use for him.
She noted that Unk"s body was now predominantly green. Her diagnosis had been correct, then. He would keel over at any minute.
Bee daydreamed. She daydreamed of a little girl in a starched white dress and white gloves and white shoes, and with a white pony all her own. Bee envied that little girl who had kept so clean.
Bee wondered who the little girl was.
Unk fell noiselessly, as limp as a bag of eels.