Defeat, he thought. That's the dreary reality that lies ahead for us. And then, when they enter office, it'll be our-death.
"That'll be a dollar ten," the counter girl said.
He paid for his meal and left the drugstore.
When a 'copter marked TAXI came spiralingby, he hailed it.
"Take me home," he said.
"Okay," the driver said amiably. "Where is home, buddy?"
He gave him the address in Chicago and then settled back for the long ride. He was giving up; he was quitting, going back to Sarah Belle, to his wife and children. The fight – for him – apparently was over.
When she saw him standing in the doorway, Sarah Belle said, "Good God, Johnny – you look terrible." She kissed him, led him inside, into the warm, familiar living room. "I thought you'd be out celebrating."
"Celebrating?" he said hoarsely.
"Your man won the nomination." She went to put the coffee pot on for him.
"Oh yeah," he said, nodding. "That's right. I was his P.R. man; I forgot."
"Better lie down," Sarah Belle said. "Johnny, I've never seen you look so beaten; I can't understand it. What happened to you?"
He sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette.
"What can I do for you?" she asked, with anxiety.
"Nothing," he said.
"Is that Louis Sarapis on all the TV and phones? It sounds like him. I was talking with the Nelsons and they said it's Louis's exact voice."
"No," he said. "It's not Louis. Louis is dead."
"But his period of half-life -"
"No," he said. "He's dead. Forget about it."
"You know who the Nelsons are, don't you? They're the new people who moved into the apartment that -"
"I don't want to talk," he said. "Or be talked at."
Sarah Belle was silent, for a minute. And then she said, "One thing they said – you won't like to hear it, I guess. The Nelsons are plain, quite commonplace people… they said even if Alfonse Gam got the nomination they wouldn't vote for him. They just don't like him."
He grunted.
"Does that made you feel bad?" Sarah Belle asked. "I think they're reacting to the pressure, Louis's pressure on the TV and phones; they just don't care for it. I think you've been excessive in your campaign, Johnny." She glanced at him hesitantly. "That's the truth; I have to say it."
Rising to his feet, he said, "I'm going to visit Phil Harvey. I'll be back later on."
She watched him go out the door, her eyes darkened with concern.
When he was admitted to Phil Harvey's house he found Phil and Gertrude Harvey and Claude St. Cyr sitting together in the living room, each with a glass in hand, but no one speaking. Harvey glanced up briefly, saw him, and then looked away.
"Are we going to give up?" he asked Harvey.
Harvey said, "I'm in touch with Kent Margrave. We're going to try to knock out the transmitter. But it's a million to one shot, at that distance. And with even the fastest missile it'll take a month."
"But that's at least something," Johnny said. It would at least be before the election; it would give them several weeks in which to campaign. "Does Margrave understand the situation?"
"Yes," Claude St. Cyr said. "We told him virtually everything."
"But that's not enough," Phil Harvey said. "There's one more thing we must do. You want to be in on it? Draw for the shortest match?" He pointed to the coffee table; on it Johnny saw three matches, one of them broken in half. Now Phil Harvey added a fourth match, a whole one.
St. Cyr said, "Her first. Her right away, as soon as possible. And then later on if necessary, Alfonse Gam."
Weary, cold fright filled Johnny Barefoot.
"Take a match," Harvey said, picking up the four matches, arranging and rearranging them in his hand and then holding out the four even tops to the people in the room. "Go ahead, Johnny. You got here last so I'll have you go first."
"Not me," he said.
"Then we'll draw without you," Gertrude Harvey said, and picked a match. Phil held the remaining ones out to St. Cyr and he drew one also. Two remained in Phil Harvey's hand.
"I was in love with her," Johnny said. "I still am."
Nodding, Phil Harvey said, "Yes, I know."
His heart leaden, Johnny said, "Okay. I'll draw." Reaching, he selected one of the two matches.
It was the broken one.
"I got it," he said. "It's me."
"Can you do it?" Claude St. Cyr asked him.
He was silent for a time. And then he shrugged and said, "Sure. I can do it. Why not?" Why not indeed? he asked himself. A woman that I was falling in love with; certainly I can murder her. Because it has to be done. There is no other way out for us.
"It may not be as difficult as we think," St. Cyr said. "We've consulted some of Phil's technicians and we picked up some interesting advice. Most of their transmissions are coming from nearby, not a light-week away by any means. I'll tell you how we know. Their transmissions have kept up with changing events. For example, your suicide-attempt at the Antler Hotel. There was no time-lapse there or anywhere else!'
"And they're not supernatural, Johnny," Gertrude Harvey said.
"So the first thing to do," St. Cyr continued, "is to find their base here on Earth or at least here in the solar system. It could be Gam's guinea fowl ranch on Io. Try there, if you find she's left the hospital."
"Okay," Johnny said, nodding slightly.
"How about a drink?" Phil Harvey said to him.
Johnny nodded.
The four of them, seated in a circle, drank, slowly and in silence.
"Do you have a gun?" St. Cyr asked.
"Yes." Rising to his feet he set his glass down.
"Good luck," Gertrude said, after him.
Johnny opened the front door and stepped outside alone, out into the dark, cold evening.
Orpheus With Clay Feet
At the offices of Concord Military Service Consultants, Jesse Slade looked through the window at the street below and saw everything denied him in the way of freedom, flowers and grass, the opportunity for a long and unencumbered walk into new places. He sighed.
"Sorry, sir," the client opposite his desk mumbled apologetically. "I guess I'm boring you."
"Not at all," Slade said, reawakening to his onerous duties. "Let's see…" He examined the papers which the client, a Mr. Walter Grossbein, had presented to him. "Now you feel, Mr. Grossbein, that your most favorable chance to elude military service lies in the area of a chronic ear-trouble deemed by civilian doctors in the past acute labyrinthitis. Hmmm." Slade studied the pertinent documents.
His duties – and he did not enjoy them – lay in locating for clients of the firm a way out of military service. The war against the Things had not been conducted properly, of late; many casualties from the Proxima region had been reported – and with the reports had come a rush of business for Concord Military Service Consultants.
"Mr. Grossbein," Slade said thoughtfully, "I noticed when you entered my office that you tended to list to one side."
"Did I?" Mr. Grossbein asked, surprised.
"Yes, and I thought to myself, That man has a severe impairment of his sense of balance. That's related to the ear, you know, Mr. Grossbein. Hearing, from an evolutionary standpoint, is an outgrowth of the sense of balance. Some water creatures of a low order incorporate a grain of sand and make use of it as a drop-weight within their fluid body, and by that method tell if they're going up or down."
Mr. Grossbein said, "I believe I understand."
"Say it, then," Jesse Slade said.
"I – frequently list to one side or another as I walk."
"And at night?"
Mr. Grossbein frowned, and then said happily, "I, uh, find it almost impossible to orient myself at night, in the dark, when I can't see."
"Fine," Jesse Slade said, and begin writing on the client's military service form B-30. "I think this will get you an exemption," he said.
Happily
, the client said, "I can't thank you enough."
Oh yes you can, Jesse Slade thought to himself. You can thank us to the tune of fifty dollars. After all, without us you might be a pale, lifeless corpse in some gully on a distant planet, not far from now.
And, thinking about distant planets, Jesse Slade felt once more the yearning. The need to escape from his small office and the process of dealing with gold-bricking clients whom he had to face, day after day.
There must be another life than this, Slade said to himself. Can this really be all there is to existence?
Far down the street outside his office window a neon sign glowed night and day. Muse Enterprises, the sign read, and Jesse Slade knew what it meant. I'm going in there, he said to himself. Today. When I'm on my ten-thirty coffee break; I won't even wait for lunch time.
As he put on his coat, Mr. Hnatt, his supervisor, entered the office and said, "Say, Slade, what's up? Why the fierce trapped look?"
"Um, I'm getting out, Mr. Hnatt," Slade told him. "Escaping. I've told fifteen thousand men how to escape military service; now it's my turn."
Mr. Hnatt clapped him on the back. "Good idea, Slade; you're overworked. Take a vacation. Take a time-travel adventure to some distant civilization – it'll do you good."
"Thanks, Mr. Hnatt," Slade said, "I'll do just that." And left his office as fast as his feet would carry him, out of the building and down the street to the glowing neon sign of Muse Enterprises.
The girl behind the counter, blonde-haired, with dark green eyes and a figure that impressed him more for its engineering aspects, its suspension so to speak, smiled at him and said, "Our Mr. Manville will see you in a moment, Mr. Slade. Please be seated. You'll find authentic nineteenth century Harper's Weeklies over on the table, there." She added, "And some twentieth century Mad Comics, those great classics of lampoonery equal to Hogarth."
Tensely, Mr. Slade seated himself and tried to read; he found an article in Harper's Weekly telling that the Panama Canal was impossible and had already been abandoned by its French designers – that held his attention for a moment (the reasoning was so logical, so convincing) but after a few moments his old ennui and restlessness, like a chronic fog, returned. Rising to his feet he once more approached the desk.
"Mr. Manville isn't here yet?" he asked hopefully.
From behind him a male voice said, "You, there at the counter."
Slade turned. And found himself facing a tall, dark-haired man with an intense expression, eyes blazing.
"You," the man said, "are in the wrong century."
Slade gulped.
Striding toward him, the dark-haired man said, "I am Manville, sir." He held out his hand and they shook. "You must go away," Manville said. "Do you understand, sir? As soon as possible."
"But I want to use your services," Slade mumbled.
Manville's eyes flashed. "I mean away into the past. What's your name?" He gestured emphatically. "Wait, it's coming to me. Jesse Slade, of Concord, up the street, there."
"Right," Slade said, impressed.
"All right, now down to business," Mr. Manville said. "Into my office." To the exceptionally-constructed girl at the counter he said, "No one is to disturb us, Miss Frib."
"Yes, Mr. Manville," Miss Frib said. "I'll see to that, don't you fear, sir."
"I know that, Miss Frib." Mr. Manville ushered Slade into a well-furnished inner office. Old maps and prints decorated the walls; the furniture – Slade gaped. Early American, with wood pegs instead of nails. New England maple and worth a fortune.
"Is it all right…" he began.
"Yes, you may actually sit on that Directorate chair," Mr. Manville told him. "But be careful; it scoots out from under you if you lean forward. We keep meaning to put rubber casters on it or some such thing." He looked irritated now, at having to discuss such trifles. "Mr. Slade," he said brusquely, "I'll speak plainly; obviously you're a man of high intellect and we can skip the customary circumlocutions."
"Yes," Slade said, "please do."
"Our time-travel arrangements are of a specific nature; hence the name 'Muse.' Do you grasp the meaning, here?"
"Urn," Slade said, at a loss but trying. "Let's see. A muse is an organism that functions to -"
"That inspires," Mr. Manville broke in impatiently. "Slade, you are – let's face it – not a creative man. That's why you feel bored and unfulfilled. Do you paint? Compose? Make welded iron sculpture out of spaceship bodies and discarded lawn chairs? You don't. You do nothing; you're utterly passive. Correct?"
Slade nodded. "You've hit it, Mr. Manville."
"I've hit nothing," Mr. Manville said irritably. "You don't follow me, Slade. Nothing will make you creative because you don't have it within you. You're too ordinary. I'm not going to get you started finger-painting or basket-weaving; I'm no Jungian analyst who believes art is the answer." Leaning back he pointed his finger at Slade. "Look, Slade. We can help you, but you must be willing to help yourself first. Since you're not creative, the best you can hope for – and we can assist you here – is to inspire others who are creative. Do you see?"
After a moment Slade said, "I see, Mr. Manville. I do."
"Right," Manville said, nodding. "Now, you can inspire a famous musician, like Mozart or Beethoven, or a scientist such as Albert Einstein, or a sculptor such as Sir Jacob Epstein – any one of a number of people, writers, musicians, poets. You could, for example, meet Sir Edward Gibbon during his travels to the Mediterranean and fall into a casual conversation with him and say something to this order… Hmmm, look at the ruins of this ancient civilization all around us. I wonder, how does a mighty empire such as Rome come to fall into decay? Fall into ruin… fall apart…"
"Good Lord," Slade said fervently, "I see, Manville; I get it. I repeat the word 'fall' over and over again to Gibbon, and due to me he gets the idea of his great history of Rome, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And -" He felt himself tremble. "I helped."
" 'Helped'?" Manville said. "Slade, that's hardly the word. Without you there would have been no such work. You, Slade, could be Sir Edward's muse." He leaned back, got out an Upmann cigar, circa 1915, and lit up.
"I think," Slade said, "I'd like to mull this over. I want to be sure I inspire the proper person; I mean, they all deserve to be inspired, but -"
"But you want to find the person in terms of your own psychic needs," Manville agreed, puffing fragrant blue smoke. "Take our brochure." He passed a large shiny multi-color 3-D pop-up booklet to Slade. "Take this home, read it, and come back to us when you're ready."
Slade said, "God bless you, Mr. Manville."
"And calm down," Manville said. "The world isn't going to end… we know that here at Muse because we've looked." He smiled, and Slade managed to smile back.
Two days later Jesse Slade returned to Muse Enterprises. "Mr. Manville," he said, "I know whom I want to inspire." He took a deep breath. "I've thought and thought and what would mean to the most to me would be if I could go back to Vienna and inspire Ludwig van Beethoven with the idea for the Choral Symphony, you know, that theme in the fourth movement that the baritone sings that goes bum-bum de-da de-da bum-bum, daughters of Elysium; you know." He flushed. "I'm no musician, but all my life I've admired the Beethoven Ninth and especially -
"It's been done," Manville said.
"Eh?" He did not understand.
"It's been taken, Mr. Slade." Manville looked impatient as he sat at his great oak rolltop desk, circa 1910. Bringing out a thick metal-staved black binder he turned the pages. "Two years ago a Mrs. Ruby Welch of Montpelier, Idaho went back to Vienna and inspired Beethoven with the theme for the choral movement of his Ninth." Manville slammed the binder shut and regarded Slade. "Well? What's your second choice?"
Stammering, Slade said, "I'd – have to think. Give me time."
Examining his watch, Manville said shortly, "I'll give you two hours. Until three this afternoon. Good day, Slade." He rose to his feet, and Slade automatically rose,
too.
An hour later, in his cramped office at Concord Military Service Consultants, Jesse Slade realized in a flashing single instant who and what he wanted to inspire. At once he put on his coat, excused himself to sympathetic Mr. Hnatt, and hurried down the street to Muse Enterprises.
"Well, Mr. Slade," Manville said, seeing him enter. "Back so soon. Come into the office." He strode ahead, leading the way. "All right, let's have it." He shut the door after the two of them.
Jesse Slade licked his dry lips and then, coughing, said, "Mr. Manville, I want to go back and inspire – well, let me explain. You know the great science fiction of the golden age, between 1930 and 1970?"
"Yes, yes," Manville said impatiently, scowling as he listened.
"When I was in college," Slade said, "getting my M.A. in English lit, I had to read a good deal of twentieth century science fiction, of course. Of the greats there were three writers who stood out. The first was Robert Heinlein with his future history. The second, Isaac Asimov with his Foundation epic series. And -" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "The man I did my paper on. Jack Dowland. Of the three of them, Dowland was considered the greatest. His future history of the world began to appear in 1957, in both magazine form – as short stories – and in book form, as complete novels. By 1963, Dowland was regarded as -"
Mr. Manville said, "Hmmm." Getting out the black binder, he began to thumb through it. "Twentieth century science fiction… a rather specialized interest – fortunately for you. Let's see."
"I hope," Slade said quietly, "it hasn't been taken."
"Here is one client," Mr. Manville said. "Leo Parks of Vacaville, California. He went back and inspired A. E. van Vogt to avoid love stories and westerns and try science fiction." Turning more pages, Mr. Manville said, "And last year a client of Muse Enterprises, Miss Julie Oxenblut of Kansas City, Kansas asked to be permitted to inspire Robert Heinlein in his future history… was it Heinlein you said, Mr. Slade?"
"No," Slade said, "it was Jack Dowland, the greatest of the three. Heinlein was great, but I did much research on this, Mr. Manville, and Dowland was greater."