“As long as what you’re doing is for your good and that of others. But you’re too active. You’ve lost weight.”
“I try to eat in moderation. So far, I’ve been very successful.”
“Does your food taste good?”
“Very good. But I have no compulsion to overeat. I feel energetic, very much alive all the time. You should be pleased. I don’t feel like a ghost, and I no longer see others as congeries of atoms.”
“That could be because you’re burning yourself up. When the fuel runs out… Probably not, though. However, I’m pleased at your remarkable progress.”
There was silence for a while. Caird wished that the session could be ended now. He had too many people he wanted to talk to, people who needed him.
Three minutes passed while she looked steadily at him, frowning slightly. Then she said, “If I could have my way, I’d ask that you be released soon. I think you’re ready to return to outside society. I also think you’re not going to revert to a revolutionary. You’ll make a model citizen, of that I’m absolutely convinced.”
She sighed. He waited. Then she said, “If it was entirely up to me, you’d be a free man within a few weeks. Unfortunately, it’s not all up to me. There are too many psychicists who want to keep studying you. They think they can analyze you, find out what makes you tick. They’re fools, and I’ve told them so. That doesn’t make me very popular with my colleagues, though I don’t care about that. My position is very secure. I am, after all, the granddaughter of a World Councillor.
“In addition to the psychicists, there is the World Council. They have to be very sure about you. If they should agree to let you go, you’ll go. If they do release you, they’ll use you as a propaganda tool, a showcase. Your freedom will be advertised as evidence of the liberality and compassion of the government. Don’t expect a lot of privacy if you are freed. And you’ll be the most closely monitored person on earth.”
“Then there is a chance I’ll get out?”
“A chance. Do you feel any anxiety about getting released?”
“A little, as you well know. Why do you question me when you can see my reaction on screen?”
She laughed. “That’s one of the problems about you. Nobody is convinced, least of all me, that the machine can detect your true reactions. It makes the WCs very nervous to think that there is one man on Earth who is unreadable.”
“Just one man?”
“One. Though it makes them wonder if there aren’t others like you out there. They don’t like that. Also, they wonder if, somehow, you could teach others your unique ability, if it is unique.”
“Maybe I could have at one time,” he said. “Not now. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m cut off from that talent. Maybe it was because a part of me was tired of being a psychic chameleon. It wants this to be the last change forever. I think.”
“I believe that you believe that. But you’re a tricky bastard. Or you were. How do I know that you haven’t set up something in your psyche that you now don’t know about but which could be keyed in some day?”
“Keyed in?”
“By some stimulus, I don’t have any idea what. But you could have something down there that’s just waiting for the right codeword, the right situation, whatever. When that happens, out pops another Jack-in-the-box.”
“I swear that…”
He stopped.
“Exactly. No use your swearing. You wouldn’t really know.”
He stood up. “Look. The allotted time for this session isn’t up, but I have things to do. As far as I’m concerned, anyway, I don’t need therapy any more. I thank you for your help, which has been splendid. I’d like to see you now and then because I like to talk to you. But the study and the therapy are over.”
Her eyes widened; her mouth opened. She did not say anything, however, for a full twenty seconds, as indicated by the wall display.
“By all that’s…! You…you behave as if you’re the doctor and I’m the patient! You can’t quit!”
“I’m tired of this dillydallying around and the politics that keep me here. I can’t walk out of this place, but I can be uncooperative.”
“They’ll declare you unrehabilitable, and you’ll be stoned.”
“I still have the right to appeal—if they follow their own laws. I’ll get a good lawyer. I can’t pay him, but the state will have to. Any lawyer who isn’t scared to death of the state will jump at the chance to get the publicity.”
“You really mean it!”
“I do.”
She stood up. Her surprise and dismay seemed to roll off her as she rose, as if she was defying some sort of psychic gravity. She was smiling.
“Very well. I’ll apply immediately to have you released, and I’ll do my best to present a strong case. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I didn’t quite know how to react. But I think you’re really cured. Certainly, you’re a high case of remission.”
“That’s all nonsense,” he said. “I didn’t need curing. I just needed recognition that I wasn’t…all those other people, any of them. I’m Baker No Wiley, no one else, even if the state insists on IDing me as Jefferson Caird.”
“I had to be sure of that first,” she said. “I hope that they’ll be sure.”
“If they’re wrong, they’ll know how to correct their error.”
Three subdays later, Caird received notice via TV and an official printout that he would soon be discharged. Whether his slight shakiness at the news was from joy or fear, he did not know. He told himself, “I’ll be happy to get out of this chicken place.” He was not, however, as joyful as he had expected to be. It seemed to him that an orphan might feel the same if he were suddenly told that he would have to get out and somehow survive in an adult society.
He asked the doctor if the main reason he had been released was the influence she had used with her grandmother, the World Councillor.
“All the influence in the world would have done no good if all the psychicists involved in your therapy had not recommended your discharge,” she said. “Of course, my recommendation carried the most weight.”
“But you did ask your grandmother to help get me out?”
“I suppose that even the Old Stone Age people used their connections for their own benefit or for that of somebody else,” she said.
“And you used yours?”
She smiled but did not answer.
The Tuesday night that he was scheduled to depart, he was the guest of honor at a large party attended by patients, staff, and some ganks. He got reasonably intoxicated, was told by three women, including Briony, that they loved him, and had to comfort Donna Cloyd. While she was hugging and kissing him, she whispered, “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I just can’t feel sincerely that I was a criminal. But if I don’t feel true repentance and regret and convince them of it, I’m done for.”
“Your anti-TM will enable you to lie. So, lie.”
“You lied to get released?”
“No. But I didn’t have to.”
He did not know if she would take his advice, but that was the best he had to offer. When the hour of midnight got close, he said goodbye to the party, one by one. Bruschino kissed him and said, “Good luck, Saint Jeff.”
“Thanks for everything,” he said. He stepped into the cylinder. “Maybe I’ll see some of you some day.”
He doubted that he would, and he felt sad that he would not. Nevertheless, he could do nothing about this situation except feel sorrow. He hoped that he had done some good while here.
The door was closed. His last look was at Doctor Bruschino, Donna Cloyd and Briony Lodge. All were crying. Whatever the cause, crying was good for the weeper. It helped discharge pain.
He awoke the following Tuesday in the Manhattan immigration receiving station, a huge building three blocks square on 12th Avenue and West 34th Street. Just west was the Westway Parkway and the Hudson River Immigration Dock. A few blocks north was the New Linco
ln Bridge.
He stepped out of the cylinder into a babel and what seemed to be confusion but was very organized. He was at once taken in hand by two officials. A gank kept the TV news crew behind a rope barrier while Caird was put through the ID process. He was hologrammed, and comparison recordings were taken of his voice, DNA (from a clipped hair), and thumbprint. These were submitted to the computer which verified that the immigrant was indeed Jefferson Cervantes Caird, but whose new ID was No. C*-238319-ST, citizen of Manhattan State, North American Ministering Organ, Organic Commonwealth of Earth. The next step in normal procedure would have been to give him his instructions and the address at which he would temporarily reside. Instead, he was given five minutes to answer questions from the newshead, Wilma Perez Szuchen, a statuesque redhead who spoke in loud and clipped tones.
She asked him how he felt about returning to Manhattan, the state of his birth and residence until several subyears ago.
He replied that he did not remember anything about it, and she damn well knew it.
Szuchen: “You have been released by the commonwealth and certified as thoroughly rehabilitated. But what about your alter egos?”
Caird: “What about them? They are gone, and the only thing I know about them is what I’ve seen on tapes or what I’ve been told. They’re no more I than you are.”
Szuchen, holding the R-T unit close to her mouth: “Then you persist in maintaining that you were a multiple-personality and, therefore, innocent by reason of insanity?”
Caird, moving his head to avoid being jammed in the mouth by the unit: “I was not a multiple-personality according to the scientific definition of that term. I was never insane.”
Szuchen: “Would you mind explaining for the benefit of our viewers just what you mean?”
Caird: “Yes, I would.”
Szuchen, smiling fixedly, obviously taken aback: “What are your plans for the future?”
Caird: “Plans are never for the past. They’re always for the future. I have applied for work as a hospital orderly and expect to get it. Some day, I might go to medical school and try for the M.D. degree. I really don’t know about that. It depends.”
Szuchen: “Depends on what?”
Caird: “Depends on whether or not I’m harassed by people hung up on what my former personae did.”
Szuchen: “Why do you want to be a hospital orderly?”
Caird: “There’s a lot of suffering and pain and hopelessness in this world. I would like to help alleviate some of that.”
Szuchen: “You want to do good?”
Caird: “Don’t we all?”
Szuchen, whose smile became a snarl: “Of course. Don’t be a smartass, Citizen Caird. You wish to repay society for all the crimes you’ve committed?”
Caird: “Eat shit, Citizen Szuchen. You persist in talking like an asshole. Are you trying to provoke me? Would you like me to file a complaint against you for harassment? I’d file one against you for stupidity, but that’s not a legal cause.”
Szuchen: “Citizen Caird, I’m just doing my job.”
Caird: “Not very well, in my opinion.”
Szuchen: “You act like a troublemaker and a weedie, Citizen Caird. We have reports that you had become a very caring and compassionate person, but your attitude certainly does not bear that out.”
Caird: “I have work to do. I don’t like to waste it with people who make no attempt to understand me and ask dumb questions. I don’t want to be bothered by needle-noses asking me questions about what my body did—my body, not me—just to satisfy their festering curiosities. You undoubtedly know my case history. The government has given that to you. But if you didn’t do your homework, that’s not my fault. This interview is over.”
30
Fifteen minutes later, he walked out of the building onto 12th Avenue. He took a bus down it to West 14th Street and transferred to a bus which took him crosstown to 1st Avenue and East 14th. The streets were filled with bicycles, electrically-driven tricycles, and buses. The only larger vehicles were occasional organic patrol cars. The sight of his natal streets evoked no memories. Carrying his shoulderbag and a small suitcase, he walked on north to the middle of the enormous Stuyvesant Town Building. This, however, was only four stories high. The towering skyscrapers that had distinguished ancient Manhattan had been torn down millenia ago.
Sweating from the hot early summer sun, he entered the complex structure, found the block leaders’ central offices, and was directed to his second-floor apartment. He inserted his ID card in the slot of its door, and the door slid open. After drinking a tall glass of water, he inspected the premises. It was as clean as he could expect in a weedie district. He showered, put on a clean blouse and kilts, and went back to the local block leader’s office for a formal check-in. Evidently, the secretary had seen the tape of his interview. He did not say anything about it, but he giggled when Caird told him his name. After inserting Caird’s card, he read the data on his desk-screen.
He handed the card back, saying, “Heterosexual. What a shame.”
“Life is full of disappointments,” Caird said, smiling.
“And clichés, too.”
“And facetious conversation to bar meaningful communication.”
“God, I can’t bear that!” the secretary said. “Meaningful communication, I mean. It always leads to trouble!”
“Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”
“Very true. Isn’t that from the Good Morning, Tuesday! show?”
“I don’t know where it’s from,” Caird said. “Have a super day.”
“I’m not off until 4:30. The day will be practically shot.”
Caird went down the stairs and down long halls to the west lobby and across the street to the four-blocks-long Acme Memorial Hospital. He checked in at the employment office and was told to report next Tuesday morning for his first training class for orderlies. After that, he found the local block tavern, the Seven Sages, and entered it. Its interior was roomy and dark and had more customers than would be found in a higher-class district at this time of day. Most of the tenants were on minimum-wage guarantee but had part-time jobs. If they earned credits above a certain scale, they lost their own MWG. They managed to keep below the limit. He intended to work full time and so would not be a genuine weedie. Or, as they were sometimes called, mawgs.
The drinkers looked at him expressionlessly. They were not sure that he was not a gank in civilian clothing. He slid his card into the slot on the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender looked at the ID and the credit amount displayed. He said, “Hey! Citizen Caird! I saw the interview. Way to go, man.”
After sitting for a while and eavesdropping on the customers’ conversation, Caird went back to the apartment. He did not feel like spending his time alone that evening. The itch to talk to others was still with him, and he supposed that it would never go away. On the other hand, he was at a loss about just what to do. He called up the schedule of local-area events and noted that there would be a meeting of block leaders at seven. The public was invited. Since he did not know anything about the situation here, he thought he might as well go to that. It was a citizen’s duty to attend such. Weedies, however, were noted for ignoring them unless they had some complaint. And then they usually presented it first to their local leader. Let him or her take care of it.
His personal possessions closet was empty of food. After seeing a display of the items available at the local food store, he went down to it and purchased a small amount and a collapsible cart. He pulled the cart and contents, stoned supplies and some fresh fruit and vegetables, to the elevator and down the hall to his apartment. He had just destoned and microwaved his dinner when a loud buzzing and orange letters on the wallscreen told him that he had a call. Thinking that it was probably from a gank checking up on him, he coded in the video-audio. A young, well-dressed woman, good-looking even though she had a long sharp nose, was displayed.
She said, somewhat hesitantly, “Dad?”
“Jefferson Cervantes Caird,” he said. “You must…”
She looked somewhat familiar. Then he remembered. He had seen her on the tapes at the rehabilitation center. She was Ariel Shadiah Cairdsdaughter, his only child.
“I know your name. I wish I could say I remember you, Ariel, but I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“I know that,” she said. “I’d like to see you, anyway. Now. Could I come to your place?”
“I wouldn’t deny you that. But I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed. Don’t hope you can stir up my memory of you. It’d be a waste of effort.”
“I’ll leave at once. I should be there in about twenty minutes.”
According to the ID he asked for after she had cut off the screen, she taught history at East Harlem University. She’d take the East Side subway and get off a block from the Stuyvesant area. He knew that because of the transportation map he had called up on the wallscreen.
He was nervous. Tears had rolled down her cheeks as her image had faded. There was nothing he could do to change the situation, though he could tell her that he loved her. But that love was for humanity itself. He just did not have the love of a father for his daughter. He doubted that he could relearn it—if he indeed had ever had it. To do that, he would have to have a somewhat steady and close contact with her which would build up his love. Since their locations and professions were so different, he and Ariel would probably see very little of each other.
It took a lot of courage for her to visit him. Most people would avoid him if they knew who he was. He was under unremitting surveillance, no doubt of that. The organics had probably implanted a transmitter in his body even if it was illegal to do so. It would be low power, but their detector-amplifiers would pinpoint his exact location at all times. Though he had not noticed anyone shadowing him, he was certain that they would also be using human agents to check on him. One reason he had chosen a weedie area to live in was that most of its citizens did not care if he was thought dangerous by the authorities. In fact, they would enjoy that and admire him. They did not become friends with anyone just because of their social ranking or approval by the ganks.