The Best of Robert Bloch

  First of all, he could call the police. He'd simply explain what had happened, they would simply not believe him, and he'd simply go to the gas-chamber.

  Secondly, he could tell his receptionist. She was a sweet young thing, and madly in love with him as a Father-Image. Her reaction was predictable; she'd pop him into her car and they'd drive off to Mexico together, where they'd live happily ever after until she ran off with a bullfighter. No, the gas-chamber was better. But why wait, when there were even faster methods?

  Maybe he could adopt some of Connors' ideas to his own use. Perhaps he could jump out of the window, or cut himself up into little pieces and hide in the file-cabinet. Merely a logical extension of filing one's fingernails.

  No, he was irrational. He needed time to think. Time to think—

  Dr. Placebo stared at the cellophane envelope which still rested on his desk where Connors had tossed it after taking the capsule. Time Capsule.

  "Alters time-sense both subjectively and objectively." Suppose it were true? Once again he picked up the cryptic literature and studied it closely. And all of a sudden he found himself translating fluently. Only the vowels were missing.

  "Instructions

  Enclosed samples for professional use only. Each is capable of producing temporal dislocation permanently and translating user into another continuum or time vector."

  It was plain English, all right, and even the last line of the literature made sense now. He read it slowly.

  "Don't get your vowels in an uproar."

  Excellent advice. Advice from an area where the time-sense was altered, where linguistics were attuned to another tempo, where others marched to a different drummer.

  Cookie had vanished suddenly, Connors slowly. Why the difference? Perhaps because Cookie had taken the capsule with water and Connors swallowed his dry. Took a while for the gelatin coating to dissolve.

  Funny, Connors seeing those hallucinations. All very symbolic—the earth in an egg-timer and somebody squeezing it; the sands of time running forth. Running where? Running out, that's where. In another minute his time would run out; the receptionist would run in and ask where his patients were.

  He had lost his patients. He had lost his patience. It all came back to the same thing—call the police, run off to Mexico, jump out of the window, or kill himself and stuff his dead body in the file. Sort of a necro-file. Maybe he deserved to die, if he was capable of making puns like that. It would rise up from the grass over his grave to haunt him, for the pun is mightier than the sward—

  No time for that now.

  No time.

  But a Time Capsule—

  He picked up the cellophane container gingerly.

  Why not?

  It was a way out. Way out, indeed—but a way.

  For one idiotic instant, Dr. Placebo took a good hard look at himself. A fat, foolish little man, driven by greed, who had never known love in all his life except as a professional Father-Image. A man surrounded by sensualists like Cookie and opportunists like Connors. What was he doing here in the first place?

  "I am a stranger and a Freud, in a world I never made."

  It was a terrible realization, a bitter pill to swallow. But swallow it he must. There was no other choice. Fingers trembling, he extracted the last Time Capsule from the packet and raised it to his lips. He swallowed.

  There was no sensation. He floated over to the water-cooler and poured a drink. It gurgled down his throat. And then came the kaleidoscope, engulfing him.

  Five minutes later his receptionist walked into the empty office. She inspected it, panicked, but eventually recovered and did what any sensible girl would do under the circumstances—called the Bureau of Missing Persons.

  There was no answer . . .

  There was, of course, no kaleidoscope. Nor did Dr. Placebo find himself entrapped in a cosmic egg-timer whirling in outer space. No huge hand stretched forth to menace his reason and he knew that he had not died.

  But there was a dizzying sensation and he waited until it ceased before he allowed the autonomy of his nervous system to resume sway and blinked his eyes open once more.

  Dr. Placebo was prepared for almost anything. If, indeed, the Time Capsule had been efficacious, he knew that he could have gone an infinite distance forward or backward in temporal dimensions. Long conditioning through attendance at monster-movies led him to expect either the titanic vistas of papier-mâché cities of the far future or papier-mâché dinosaurs of the distant past. In either era, he knew, nothing would bear the slightest resemblance to the world he had lived in, except that the women of the future or the prehistoric age would still wear lipstick and mascara.

  There was just one thing Dr. Placebo didn't expect to see when he opened his eyes—the familiar walls of his very own private office.

  But that's where he found himself, sitting upon his own couch. And most uncomfortably, too, because he was wedged between Cookie and Connors.

  "Oh, here you are," Cookie greeted him. "Where'd you go, Doc?"

  "Nowhere. I've been here all the time. Where did you go?"

  "Never left the couch."

  "But you weren't here when I showed up," Ray Connors interrupted. "Then I saw you and I lost the Doc."

  Dr. Placebo shook his head. "That's not the way it happened at all! First she disappeared and then you disappeared. I stayed right where I am."

  "You weren't right where you are a minute ago."

  "Neither were you."

  "What does it matter? We're back, now," Connors said. "I told you those pills were fakes."

  "I'm not so sure. We didn't travel in space, obviously, because we're in the same place we started. But if the capsules affect objective time—"

  "So each of us passed out and lost a couple minutes. Big deal." Cookie sniffed and swayed to her feet.

  She glanced curiously at the calendar on the desk. "Hey, Doc," she called. "What kind of a month is Jly?"

  Instantly, Dr. Placebo was at her side. "You're right," he groaned. "It does say 'Jly.' And that's not my writing on the note-pad. Who is this 'Dr. My'?"

  "Maya," said a soft voice. "We don't write the vowels but we pronounce them. Indoctrinated associative reflex."

  Placebo turned to confront the newcomer to the room. She was a tall, plump, gray-haired woman with a rounded face and shoe-button eyes. She wore a plain smock and a bright smile.

  "You must be the new patients," she observed, glancing at the trio. "Armond did his job well." She glanced again at the startled faces before her. "I had hoped for a random sampling, but you actually exceed my expectations."

  "We're not patients," Dr. Placebo exploded. "I happen to be a practicing psychiatrist. And expectations be damned—we want explanations!"

  "Gladly given." The woman who called herself Maya moved into the chair behind the desk. "Please sit down."

  The trio retreated to the couch.

  "First of all," Dr. Placebo began, "where are we?"

  "Why, here, of course."

  "But—"

  "Please." Maya lifted a plump hand. "You don't deny that you are here, do you? If so, you're more disturbed than I thought. Believing yourself to be a psychiatrist is dangerous enough without any further disorientation."

  "I am a psychiatrist!" Dr. Placebo shouted. "And this used to be my office."

  "It still is, in another temporal vector. But when you swallowed one of Armond's little capsules, you entered a parallel continuum."

  "Hey, how about making with like English?" Cookie demanded. "I don't dig."

  "This must be one of those crazy planets," Connors muttered. "And she's an alien." He stood up and approached the desk. "So take me to your leader."

  "Leader? There is no leader."

  "Then who runs things around here?"

  "Things run themselves."

  "But who's the boss?"

  "We all are."

  Maya turned back to the girl. "I note your saying that you don't dig. Allow me to reassure you—in ou
r society there is no need for physical labor. I'm sure you'll find a worthy niche here for whatever you are qualified to do."

  "Wait a minute," Connors interrupted. "Nobody books this chick except me. I'm her agent."

  "Agent?"

  "Yeah, her manager, like. I find her work and collect my ten per cent."

  "Ten percent of what—the work?"

  "No, the money."

  "Ah, yes, money. I'd forgotten about that."

  "You'd forgotten about money?" Dr. Placebo asked, excitedly. "Very peculiar symptom indeed. Rejection of the economic incentive—"

  But Maya ignored him. Again she addressed herself to the girl. "Might I inquire just what sort of work you perform?"

  "I'm a stripper."

  "I see," Maya said, though it was obvious she didn't. "And just what do you strip?"

  "Why, myself, of course."

  "Oh, an exhibitionist." Maya smiled. "That's very nice. We have lots of them around. Of course, they don't get any recompense for it here, outside of their own pleasure."

  "You mean they do it for fun?" Cookie demanded. "Standing up there on a bare stage with the wind blowing up your G-string and letting a lot of meatheads watch you break your fingernails on your zippers—this you call kicks?"

  "I've had it," Connors announced, leaning over the desk. "The way I figure it, there's just two answers to the whole kockamamie deal. Either you're squirrelly or we've been kidnapped. Maybe both. But I'm calling the fuzz."

  "Fuzz?"

  "Law. Coppers. Police."

  "There is no police force. Unnecessary. For that matter, no method of outside communication."

  "You don't have a telephone?"

  "Unnecessary."

  "Then, lady, you'd better start hollering for help. Because if you don't send us back where we came from in thirty seconds, I am going to lean on you."

  "Why wait?" Cookie bounded to her feet, raced over to the window, and flung it open. She leaned out.

  "Help!" she yelled. "Hel—"

  Her voice trailed off. "Holy Owned Subsidiary!" she whispered, faintly. "Sneak a preview at this!"

  Connors and Dr. Placebo moved to her side and stared out at this.

  This was the city below them, a city they knew as well as they knew the month of the year.

  But the month was Jly, and the city too was oddly altered. The buildings seemed familiar enough, but they were not nearly so high here in the downtown section, nor were there so many of them. No traffic hummed in the streets below, and pedestrians moved freely down the center of the avenues. The sides of the structures were not disfigured by billboards or painted advertisements. But the most drastic difference was a subtle one—everything was plainly visible in clear bright sunlight. There was no smoke, no soot, no smog.

  "Another continuum," Dr. Placebo murmured. "She's telling the truth."

  "I still want out," Connors said. He balled his fists. "Lady, I'm asking you in a nice way—send us back."

  Maya shook her head. "I can't possibly do so until next week. Armond must return and prepare the antidotes."

  Cookie frowned. "You still insist we got here just because we swallowed some kind of Mickey Finn? You didn't smuggle us aboard a spaceship or whatever?"

  "Please, my dear, let me explain. As I understand it, in your time-vector you employ a variety of drugs—heroin, cannabis indica, various preparations such as marijuana and peyotl which affect the time-sense."

  "I never touch the stuff," Cookie snarled. "I'm clean, see?"

  "But there are people who use these concoctions, and it does affect their time-sense. Their subjective time-sense, that is. A minute can become an eternity, or a day can be compressed into an instant."

  "I buy that," Connors said.

  "My friend Armond has merely extended the process. He perfected a capsule which actually produces a corporeal movement in time. Since it is impossible to move into a future which does not yet exist, or into a past which exists no longer, one merely moves obliquely into a parallel time-stratum. There are thousands upon thousands of worlds, each based upon the infinite combinations and permutations of possibility. All co-exist equally. You have merely gone from one such possible world to another."

  "Merely," Cookie muttered. "So Connors was right You kidnapped us. But why?"

  "Call it an experiment. Armond and I worked together, to determine the sociological variations existing in several continuums. You will remain here a week, until he returns. During that time, let me assure you, no harm can possibly befall anyone. You'll be treated as honored guests."

  Ray Connors stepped closer to Cookie. "Don't worry, baby—I'll protect you," he said. "You know I only got eyes for—wow!"

  Wow stood in the doorway. She was about eighteen, with baby-blue eyes, but any resemblance to infancy ended right there.

  "This is Lona," Maya told him. "She will be your hostess during your stay here."

  Lona smiled up at Connors and extended her hand. "I already have my instructions," she said. "Shall we go now?"

  "Over my dead body!" Cookie screeched. "If you think for one minute I'm gonna let you fall out of here with that hunk of Bastille-bait, you got another—"

  It was her turn to react, when the tall young man entered. He too was about eighteen, but big for his age.

  "I'm Terry," he said. "Your host during the coming week. If you'll be good enough to accompany me—"

  "I'm good enough," Cookie told him.

  "Now wait a minute," Connors interrupted. "If you go off with this gorilla, how'm I gonna protect you?"

  "You better worry about protecting yourself, buster," Cookie told him, eyeing the clinging blonde. She turned to the waiting Terry. "Off to Funville," she said, and swept out.

  "Shall we go?" Lona asked Connors. "A week is so little time, and I've so much to learn—"

  "That's the spirit," Connors said. "Come on."

  As they exited, Dr. Placebo glanced at Maya. "And what is in store for me—something out of Lolita?"

  The plump woman frowned at the unfamiliar reference. "Why, you'll be my guest. Stretch out on the couch and make yourself comfortable. I expect there are a few questions you'd like to ask."

  Dr. Placebo was beyond resistance. Meekly, he sank down on his own couch—which wasn't really his own couch anymore—and Maya promptly joined him.

  "Really," spluttered the little man. "This is hardly approved psychotherapeutic procedure."

  "I'm not a psychotherapist," Maya told him. "I'm your hostess."

  "Need you be so hospitable?" Dr. Placebo protested.

  "My feet hurt," Maya explained, kicking off her shoes and wriggling her toes. "Besides, is there any rule that says you have to conduct a sociological experiment standing up?"

  "This is an experiment?"

  "Of course. Why did you think Armond brought you here?" She stared at him levelly.

  "I was going to ask about that. There are so many things I don't understand."

  "Look into my eyes. Perhaps I can tell you better in that way than by questions and answers."

  "Hypnosis? Telepathy? Rubbish!"

  "Three labels, in as many words. Just forget that you're a scientist for a moment and open your mind. Look into my eyes. There, that's better. Keep looking. What do you see there?"

  Dr. Placebo stared fixedly. His breathing altered oddly and his voice, when he spoke, seemed to come from far away. "I see—everything," he whispered.

  There was the world he came from, and there was this world. But these were only two in a coexistent infinity of possible states of being, each subject to an individual tempo, and each ruled by the Law of the Universe, which men call If.

  There was a world where the dinosaurs survived, and the birds who ate their eggs perished. There was a world in which amphibians crawled out upon the land and found it uninviting, then swarmed back into the sea. There was a world in which the Persians defeated Alexander, and Oriental civilization flourished on the site of what would never be Copenhagen.


  Dr. Placebo, guided by some power of selection emanating from Maya's will, sampled a dozen of these possibilities in rapid succession.

  He saw worlds which had developed in a manner very similar to his own, with just a tiny difference.

  A world in which a few tiny birds wheeled and took flight at the sight of sailing vessels, so that Columbus never noticed them and sailed on his course to the coast of Mexico where he and his men were quickly captured by the Aztecs and enslaved. So quickly did the inhabitants of Central America learn the arts of their prisoners that within a hundred years they built ships and weapons of their own, with which they conquered Europe . . .

  A world where it didn't rain along the Flemish plains one night early in the nineteenth century—and next morning, Napoleon's cavalry charged to victory across a dry field instead of tumbling into a sunken road. After winning Waterloo, there was no Bourbon restoration, no ensuing Republic, no Commune, no rise of Communist theory, no German nation or Russian Revolution, no World Wars. And Napoleon VI was emperor of all the earth . . .

  Dr. Placebo saw the world in which the Hessians overheard the sound of oars one Christmas Eve at Trenton, and hanged George Washington. He saw the world where an ax slipped, and a young rail-splitter named Abe Lincoln lost his left leg and ended up as the town drunk of Magnolia, Ill. He saw a world in which an eminent scientist suffered a minor toothache and neglected to investigate the queer mould which he'd observed, with the result that two of the men who might have subsequently developed atomic power installations died of disease instead, because there was no penicillin to save them, and a whole continent subsequently plunged into war and . . .

  Faster and faster the worlds whirled; the one in which Adolf Hitler was just a man who painted houses and Winston Churchill painted landscapes fulltime instead of on Sundays . . . a world in which a real detective named Sherlock Holmes wrote a highly-successful series of stories about an imaginary London physician whom he called Arthur Conan Doyle . . . a world ruled by great apes, and a somewhat similar world ruled by a teen-age aristocracy who were proud of their blue genes.

  "Possible," murmured Maya's voice, from a great distance. "All possible. Do you understand, now?"