of true Martians? And Jones used to say, the trouble with her idea of evolution was that it was just too parochial, both in space and in time; that people evolved in the universe, not on planets-which explained the puzzling discontinuity in the fossil records, discreditably neglected by the blinkered evolutionists of Olorn. Or she would ask why, if there had been true Martians all along, they had never come to call before? And Jones just said they did in earlier times, having dropped in now and again to remind the degenerate plantations of the uses of fire, to do the consulting mathematical astronomy for sundry henge-builders, and anything else that seemed useful when they happened to be passing and look in. But after one of their ships blew up and left a whole crew stranded in the part of Olorn we call Greece, they didn't risk landing for many centuries. So why didn't they come now more often, the Born would go on, now that we were signaling our proliferation by radiating century-old Westerns, newsak, movies, relevant documentaries, and late-night yak shows to the neighboring stars? And Jones would say, did she visit pestiferous slums precisely because she read on her tablet how pestiferous they were, or didn't she roll up the window of the airbus going thru Harlem?
The only way the Born could cheat a win in these gladiations, was to turn after a while to one of the distinguished visitors and tell them to notice the characteristic hermetic elaboration of a full-blown delusional system, prognosis lousy.
Jones used to cheer me up, when I felt black guilty and blue low about copping out of the struggle for negative growth and escaping in here, where nobody will expect me to know what to do next about the pullulating population, the pollution, the shortages, and the politicians' daily ritual speeches exalting Change as the answer to all these transient problems.
Suppose, Jones would say, Orlon is destroyed in some ecocrash. Well, so what? Surely, that would be better than things going on as they go only more so? Don't forget what all your scientists say, that there must be hundreds of millions of planets in the universe bearing intelligent life. So whatever happens here is about as important as one bacterium in a culture dying a little sooner instead of living a little longer; a wrong evolutionary move will be canceling itself, that's all. What you have here on Orlon is a comedy of presumption, not some grand hubristic Tragedy.
Tragedy or comedy? Comedy or Tragedy? That's what I keep thinking now. Now: since last night, when Jones disappeared.
The Born once brought a friend of hers down from New York City to lecture us on the dramatic genres ("So you're all role-players, you bums; it follows you should get some of those deep insights from Buck's inside view of the drammer, right?"). A high-yaller Jewish writer, with a funny right half to his face. The alcoholic adman who spawned him used to knock him about in the cradle (once too hard) when he cried at night. According to him, Tragedy is sentimental, deceiving, a way of slopping a sugar coat of such goodies as glory, destiny, dignity, what have you on things like defeat and death, that should be taken straight; whereas comedy is clear-eyed, informative, shows you stupid mistakes you don't have to make for yourself to convince yourself.
"Mind you," I remember him saying, "You might want to take a good look at me and discount my line. Just try to imagine me shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, then staring down at the tablet to knock together some glory and dignity to wear around.
As I was saying, Jones went last night. While I was polishing the brass in the topstaff john, Jones sneaked in and hauled me off to the furnace room for a quiet talk. There were some makings behind our ward's own loose brick, back of the boiler, and I rolled a fat joint for us to share. But get this straight, I'm used to the stuff, and it was weak weed anyway, cut to Hell; so there's no need to think I wasn't clear-headed. After some chitchat about the deliberate starvation policy of the new Indian government, Jones made me wedge the bench in front of the boiler and the only door to the furnace room, and sit on it so we wouldn't be discovered.
"Fred," he said. "I got to say so long. More like goodbye. Thing is, I'm leaving Olorn tonight. For good, I guess."
"What you mean, you're leaving here, Jones? You leave here, about fifteen-point-five current experiments going to get screwed up to nothing. And three quacks are going to lose grant renewal. How you think you're going to get out of here Jones? Is the Army coming for you with a regiment or something?"
"Well, I got to be leaving, Fred. Listen, did you see the virtual supplements in the movie lounge yesterday? Did you see how scientists say they have discovered a USO-that is, Unprecedented Stellar Object, around the coordinates of Vega in the Lyre? Did you see how the Russians on the moon have accused Italian photographers of making unauthorized pictures of the private lives of their base crews up there? And it wasn't no Italian paparazzi with long lenses: that was my wife come for me."
I just looked at him. What can you say? That's how Jones goes. And, anyway, I didn't want him to stop, which he didn't.
"She's the? Captain, you would say, of a space-time survey ship. She happened to be cruising along a world-line that intersects with Olorn's world-line, and sector headquarters told her to pick me up. Apparently they want me to mend something or other not far from Rigel. That's my trade, mending things-when they're not past saving. So, I have to say goodbye, Fred."
"But how're you going to get out, Jones?"
"Oh, that'll be easy enough. The wife's ship has a thing we call a Lazy Beam, for picking things up and putting them somewhere else. She'll use that. It's just a matter of picking up the bit of three-space my body occupies, moving it into four-space, and putting it back into three-space again inside her ship. You know, Fred. Like if you were a flatlander, shut up inside a two-space circle, you'd think you couldn't get out. But solidlanders living in ordinary three-space can see that you could be lifted out of two-space into three-space, then put back in two-space outside the circle. From the flatland standpoint, you'd vanish from inside the circle and appear again outside. Well, it's like that, only more so."
"You'll vanish? Whomp! Just like that?"
"Sure."
"But someone will see you! Wouldn't that do us harm here on Earth, on Olorn? Like the Born says in the bull-sessions, if you were a real Martian, you wouldn't come here and mess around: in case we Earthians get culture-shock or something. Should a decent Martian do a thing like that, Jones?"
"Who's to see? Seems to me we've made ourselves pretty nice and private here in the furnace room. Nice and private."
"Me! I'll see you vanish into four-space. Whomp!"
"Well, that's all right. Nobody'll believe you, if you tell. Why, Fred, you're certified psychotic, not fit to be on the street. You don't believe in Change, do you? Why would anybody who is anybody listen to a psychotic bum like you? No problem."
"Anyway, Jones, I wouldn't tell. Thing is, I don't believe you. I don't believe people go whomp; for another, I don't believe you are a descendant of the old Martians, from outer space. That's just your malinger, to get in here, where you thought it would be better than outside, trying to keep ahead of the cybersystem.
"Now look, Fred! You remember telling me how you got into this bin? By telling the plain truth loud and clear. Well, so did I. Notoriously, it's the best way to get certified crazy and put in the bin, isn't it?"
"So prove you're a Martian, Jones!"
There was a crackle, a smell of electricity in the air. Sparking in the blower motor of the furnace, or something. Jones nodded, as if he had been expecting it, and began to strip; went on till he was mother naked. He put both hands on my shoulders and looked right in my eyes, making me feel funny. He refused another pull on the weed, too.
"Fred," he said. "I could prove it a hundred ways. Why, I could give you the algorithm for a two-minute slide-rule solution of the three-body problem, or a demonstrative proof of Fermat's last theorem. Even a simple formula for a cure to the common cold. But what I am going to do, very soon, is: one turn blue and transparent; two go very faint so you can hardly see me; three go whomp! When you
see me go blue, Fred, you got to get right behind the boiler, plug both ears with your index fingers, hold your nostrils closed with your little fingers, and keep your mouth tight shut. When I go whomp, as much air as me will rush into the place where I was, and, in this little room, you'll be hit by something like a wave of explosive decompression. But do what I say, and you'll take no harm."
Damned if Jones didn't start turning blue, too. Well, there was something about Jones. He had authority. Even if you didn't believe him, you naturally tended to jump when he said jump. So I got behind the boiler and did the other things he said. There was a whomp all right (maybe more like a whump, really: it didn't hit, it pulled), and I think I passed out for a couple of seconds. When I came round, Jones was gone, nothing but his clothes tumbled over in a corner. So I got the bench out of the way, opened the door, shut it again from the outside, then sneaked back to the topstaff john and my polishing, in case I got involved in any kind of investigation or inquiry. I certainly saw Jones turn blue, and I never saw him again.
The End
Author Biography
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