Storm stared at her in silence for a long moment. He felt as though he were strangling in red tape. He filled his lungs with air, but the sensation of congestion remained.
“All right,” he said finally. “I don’t understand any of this, but let’s just skip it. Forget the whole thing. I’ll pretend that I never filed my claim at all, which is what you’re trying to tell me. Okay?”
“Very well. But—”
He cut her off. “Now, let’s start all over again. I’ve been prospecting out in space and I’ve found something I want to claim. Since the machinery got fouled up the first time, I’ll file a brand new claim. Is that permissible?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to file it in your presence, if I may. So that I’ll have a witness this time, in case the computer loses the record again.”
Her grin was frosty. “I assure you everything will go smoothly this time. If you’d really like to file a new claim, please come with me.”
She led him to an adjoining office. There was a different sort of machine in there, the twin of the one he claimed to have used on Mars. She stood by while Storm laboriously copied onto a new form everything he had written on the first one.
When he had finished, she pressed the actuating button for him. “In just a moment,” she said, “your claim will be recorded, and you’ll get your duplicate copy. I’ll countersign it, just to be certain. After that, it’ll simply be a matter of time before your claim can be processed, and—”
She stopped. His claim sheet had come popping out of the machine and stamped across it in big red characters were the numbers 217 and the letters XX.
“What now?” he asked.
She looked at him in an indescribably peculiar way. “Mr. Storm, when was the last time you were on Earth?”
“About two years ago. Why?”
“Are you sure you copied your identifying numbers properly onto the claim sheet?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Would you let me see your identity cards?”
“Suppose you tell me what this is all—”
“Your identity cards. Please.”
There was no refusing the schoolmarmish command. Numbly, Storm surrendered his documents. She compared them with the things he had written on the claim.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, the numbers are the same. But—”
“But what?”
“Your claim was returned in Category 217-XX. Which means that there’s no record of you in the computer.”
“No record of me?” he repeated blankly.
“That’s right,” she said, watching him more closely than ever. “No one named John Storm who matches these particular identity numbers. Mr. Storm, if that’s your name, I can’t imagine what sort of prank you think you’re pulling, but we don’t have time for jokes here. To come in with a set of fraudulent documents, to turn the place topsy-turvy having us check the files for a pseudonym’s phantom claim.”
“Give me my papers!” Storm said in a strangled voice.
He grabbed them from her. Her eyes flared. “Where are you going, Mr. Storm? We’ll have to check on these papers! Such clever forgeries will have to be—”
He strode quickly toward the door. The choking sensation grew almost overpowering. He couldn’t remain in her stifling presence another instant.
Storm emerged in the crowded main hall. Half dazed, he came to a halt, stared around like an elephant at bay.
“Johnny! Johnny, there you are at last!”
It was Liz. She saw him, and came running toward him, her shoes clattering on the stone floor, her face aglow, her eyes shining with tears of reunion.
“Johnny!”
Storm didn’t budge. She came running up, her arms wide as though to embrace him. But when she was still a few yards away she stopped and looked up at him.
“Johnny, what’s the matter?” she said. “Your face … you look so strange.”
“I don’t exist,” he said in a hoarse, stupefied voice. “They just told me I don’t exist!”
Chapter Four
It took her a couple of minutes to get him calmed down, and a couple of minutes more before he could communicate to her the nature of the trouble. She looked at him blankly, uncomprehendingly.
“No record of you, Johnny?”
“That’s what the witch in there keeps telling me.”
“But that’s impossible!”
“Try to tell her that,” Storm said.
“Let’s go in to see her.”
Storm nodded. He smiled at Liz, touched her hand briefly. Her fingers were cold. She looked thinner than he remembered her, and older, though not very old. He took his hand from hers. He was starting not to believe in the fact of his own existence himself now, and he shrank back from the contact with her.
Miss Vyzinski was waiting.
“So you’ve come back,” she said triumphantly.
Storm nodded. “Let’s get to the bottom of this thing.”
Liz said, “I’ll vouch for him. His name’s John Storm, and I’ve known him for years. He—”
“The computer doesn’t seem to have any record of him,” Miss Vyzinski said. “At least, not under that name, not under those numbers.”
“But it is my name,” Storm said doggedly. “I know it. And those are my identity numbers. Look, the computer records can slip up once in a while. The scanners aren’t infallible.”
“We like to think they are,” Miss Vyzinski said. “But we’ll check. We’ll see, Mr. Storm.”
She closed her office door and made some calls, and the bureaucrats began to gather. In a few minutes there were half a dozen worried, baffled-looking officials in the room, discussing the case in a low murmur.
Storm watched tensely. He was as baffled as they were, but much more worried. A man without an official existence cannot fight to defend a mining claim. A man without an official existence is like a ghost. Can a ghost get a check cashed? Can a ghost rent an apartment? Can a ghost take a job?
With Earth crowded and getting more crowded every second, the only way to keep track of people was by computer. Everyone had a number, assigned at birth, and everyone acquired other numbers as he went along. You were the aggregate of your numbers. Idiots and cretins had numbers. Convicts had numbers. Babies who died in birth had numbers. Everyone had numbers.
Everyone but John Storm.
He was outside the system. Alone among Earth’s swarming billions, he had no number. It made no sense, and small wonder the bureaucrats looked pale and worried, for the stability of their entire system was threatened by the existence of this one anomalous individual.
A round-faced, melancholy-looking man in late middle age confronted Storm and said, “My name is Dawes. I’m the regional supervisor. May I see your documents, please?”
Storm handed them over. Another conference began. He watched, impassively, a muscle flicking in his cheek.
Liz whispered, “Johnny, what did you find out there?”
“An asteroid full of goodies. Eight miles in diameter, and the whole blasted thing commercial-grade ore.”
“Wonderful!”
“Not if I can’t claim it,” he said darkly.
Dawes came over. “According to these papers,” he said, “you were born on 6 May 1992. Is that right?”
“Right.”
“We’re running a check on births for the whole year 1992. For good measure we’re checking ’91 and ’93.”
“Save your time. I was born in ’92.”
Dawes shrugged. “We’re also checking the records of your education. We’re checking your residential history. We’re checking your tax file. If nothing checks—”
“ What if nothing checks?” Storm asked tightly.
“I don’t know,” Dawes said. “I simply don’t know, Mr. Storm. I don’t know at all.”
They had their answer in a dozen minutes.
Nothing checked.
So far as the computer banks knew, he had ne
ver been born, had never gone to school, had never occupied a residential unit, had never been tallied in a census, had never paid a cent in tax to any revenue agency. He had never been inside a hospital, never been vaccinated, never voted.
“ You explain it,” Storm said.
Dawes sputtered and fussed. “There are two possible explanations,” he said limply. “One is improbable and the other is inconceivable. The improbable one is that the computer somehow dropped a stitch and accidentally erased your entire record. The inconceivable one is that you never had a record—that you’re some sort of being from another world, some creature of fantasy trying to bluff his way into official existence on Earth.”
Storm laughed coldly. “You’re overlooking the most likely explanation of all, Mr. Dawes.”
“Which is?”
“That my records have been tampered with. That someone managed to obliterate me entirely.”
“That’s impossible! The records are tamper-proof!”
“Are they? Then what happened to mine?”
Dawes began to look greenish. “Mr. Storm, I fail to see why anyone should want to tamper with—”
“Look,” Storm said, “I went out to the asteroids and I made a valuable find. Now I come home to sew up my claim and I find the claim’s been erased from the computer, and so have I. I’m entitled to suspect something fishy. I know I’m not a being from another planet, for God’s sake. I’m a human being and until yesterday I could prove it.”
“And you think someone is trying to cut you out of this claim, Mr. Storm?”
“It’s the only possible answer.”
“Is it widely known that you were successful in space?”
Storm shook his head. “I didn’t tell a soul. I sent a message to Miss Chase here, but it wasn’t very specific. And it went by automatic beam, anyway. But someone might have found out. Someone on Mars, where I filed my claim. I don’t know. All I know is I’m a rich man if I can get my claim validated.”
“I understand, Mr. Storm. But—”
“Look here, I want to file that claim so that it sticks, Dawes. We can worry about my identity records later. The claim is vital.”
“I’m sorry. Only a person with official existence can file a claim, Mr. Storm. So far as the computer is concerned, you don’t exist. It can’t accept any document concerning you.”
“But the asteroid—”
“I’m terribly sorry. It’s getting late, don’t you see? If you’ll come back tomorrow, we’ll try to get to the bottom of this. We’ll have the East Coast supervisors here and we’ll all try to work things out.”
“And if someone else claims my asteroid overnight?”
“There’s nothing I can do for you tonight, Mr. Storm. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
A ghost has a hard time of it in Greater New York, John Storm found out that night. He had only five dollars in actual currency on him, and the rest in travellers’ checks. But part of the check-cashing process is a split-second computer call to validate signature and number. Storm didn’t even try to cash his checks. He borrowed ten dollars from Liz, and hoped it would see him through until he was real again.
There was no place he could stay for the night, either. Not legally. There was no room at the inn for a man without a number.
“I wish I could bring you home, darling,” Liz told him. “But Helene would be awfully startled. My roommate. We’ve only got one little room to begin with, and—”
“I’ll manage. Let’s hunt up one of my pals from school. Ned Lyons, or someone. I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to.”
They found a cafeteria and had a dismal little snack, and then began combing the phone directories. Storm found nobody he knew listed. Of course , he thought. They’re all of in Tierra del Fuego working for Universal Mining .
Two years had distributed his classmates all over the world, it seemed. Storm felt more forlorn than ever. It was a lucky thing Liz had still been around to greet him, he thought. Otherwise he’d have been completely alone. He could cope with a couple of years of total solitude in the asteroid belt, but not in Greater New York, where you were ever so much more thoroughly alone when you were alone.
Liz said, “I’ll find a place for you to stay.”
“Where?”
“There’s this fellow Helene sees. He’ll put you up. I know he will.”
Two phone calls and it was arranged. Storm had a roof for his head, at least. That was some small comfort.
“Where can we go to eat?” Liz asked. “Some place fancy. To celebrate your return.”
“I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
“Cheer up! We’ll get this stupid business cleared up in the morning. And then you’ll claim your asteroid, and you’ll be rich and famous, and all this trouble will seem like a lot of nonsense. Where is the asteroid? Show me!”
He looked up. City glow and city haze blotted out the stars. Squinting, Storm searched for the red dot of Mars, but failed to find it. “I don’t know,” he said wearily. He flung a hand at the stars. “Somewhere out there. Somewhere. It’s just a little hunk of rock.”
“ Your hunk of rock, Johnny.”
“I can’t be sure of that, even.”
She looked at him sharply. “Johnny, are you sure you didn’t tell anyone what you found?”
“Sure I’m sure.” He took her hand in his, squeezed it lightly, and managed a faint smile. Tension racked him, and the smile was a costly effort of will. They were after him, he thought, and he didn’t even know who they were. They had blotted out his claim. They had obliterated his records. They were going to steal his asteroid. They —
Storm shook his head and tried to brush the irrational thoughts away. Like scruffling things with claws, they came crawling back into his brain. He took a deep breath.
“Let’s just walk,” he said. “I haven’t seen a city in two years. We’ll walk, and then we’ll eat somewhere, and then we’ll take in a show. Or something.”
“Whatever you’d like to do,” Liz said. “It’s your homecoming, after all.”
They walked, first. It was good to be walking down a city street again, good to be seeing lights and activity and people, the overhead glow of a commuter-copter and the sour drone of a Europe-bound strato-rocket. It was good to feel the honest tug of Earth’s gravity again, and the warmth of Liz at his side, and good to be able to breathe real air out under the open sky. The noise of the city, the filth, the crowdedness—all these were good to have again, after the silent emptiness up there.
But the bitterness and the tension kept returning to puncture his tranquility. All about him were people, millions, billions of people, and all of them, the humblest, the dirtiest, the ugliest of the lot had a number, had official reality.
But not John Storm.
He was maimed by the loss of his identity the way another person would be maimed by the loss of his limbs. Without identity numbers, he could not file or press his claim to the asteroid. So long as the asteroid remained up for grabs, his whole future was uncertain.
He resented the element of irrationality that had entered his life. It was one thing to gamble on making a lucky spin of the dice; he had taken that gamble, the dice had fallen his way, and luck had been his in the asteroids. But then to come home and find that the rules of the game have surreptitiously been changed by an unseen hand, that the table is gone and the dice are now round, that his luck has arbitrarily been cancelled out—no, it made no, sense, it was too much to accept.
“Johnny?”
“Yes?”
“Stop thinking about it!”
“I wish I could.”
“Look up. Up at the stars. It’s up there, Johnny. Your asteroid.”
“I don’t see anything but smoke and haze,” he said.
“It’s there, and it’s still yours.”
“No,” Storm said. “They’re taking it away from me. And I don’t even know who they are!”
Liz began to say something, halted, started a
gain. “There’s a restaurant,” she said. “I’m starved!”
“So am I,” Storm lied. “Let’s eat.”
They ate. It was a so-called “Martian” restaurant, and Liz told him that this sort of place had become very popular in the last year. The decor was imitation Mars, with murals of the red deserts. And the menu included a couple of “genuine Martian specialties.” There was a sketch of Marsville on the menu cover, but it was a Marsville of some ideal future.
Storm didn’t tell Liz about the tin shacks of Marsville, or about the slop that passed for food on that rugged planet. He let the illusion remain unbroken, and ate his food with as much enjoyment as he could muster, and paid the inflated check, and they left.
Liz dragged him off to a solly show next, a tri-dim that had opened only the week before. They stood in line for twenty minutes to get into the theater. The show was a comedy of some sort, Storm gathered. But he watched the realistic three-dimensional figures capering around the stage as though from a million miles away. He was totally detached, and the plot made no sense to him, and the jokes rang hollowly.
Maybe they’re right , he thought. Maybe I am some kind of creature from another world. I’m sure not part of this one right now .
He saw Liz home, near midnight. Helene was there, and Helene’s friend, who turned out to be some sort of chemist for a large drug corporation. The three of them made a futile attempt to draw Storm into a conversation about his experiences in the asteroid belt, but he was sullen and uncommunicative, and they soon let the talk peter out.
“He’s tired,” Liz explained. “He just landed from Mars today, you know. And he’s had a long day.”
They accepted that, and Storm left with Helene’s friend, who was going to put him up on a day-bed.
Liz said, “Meet me here in the morning. I’ll go up to Nyack with you. For moral support.”
Storm smiled thinly. He knew he’d need whatever support he could get. He had a big job ahead of him, tomorrow. He had to prove he was real.