“Yes, I have,” General Toad said. “And I must say at this time that I am personally glad because my decision was an unpleasant one.”
“Then we can arrange for implosion at reentry,” Benz said after a pause.
“The three of you are to make the decision,” General Toad said. “Since it involves your lives. It's been entirely left up to you. Whichever way you want it. If you're convinced you're in a closed time loop, and you believe a massive implosion at reentry will abolish it—” He ceased talking, as tempunaut Doug rose to his feet. “Are you going to make another speech, Doug?” he said.
“I just want to thank everyone involved,” Addison Doug said. “For letting us decide.” He gazed haggard-faced and wearily around at all the individuals seated at the table. “I really appreciate it.”
“You know,” Benz said slowly, “blowing us up at reentry could add nothing to the chances of abolishing a closed loop. In fact that could do it, Doug.”
“Not if it kills us all,” Crayne said.
“You agree with Addi?” Benz said.
“Dead is dead,” Crayne said. “I've been pondering it. What other way is more likely to get us out of this? Than if we're dead? What possible other way?”
“You may be in no loop,” Dr. Fein pointed out.
“But we may be,” Crayne said.
Doug, still on his feet, said to Crayne and Benz, “Could we include Merry Lou in our decision-making?”
“Why?” Benz said.
“I can't think too clearly anymore,” Doug said. “Merry Lou can help me; I depend on her.”
“Sure,” Crayne said. Benz, too, nodded.
General Toad examined his wristwatch stoically and said, “Gentlemen, this concludes our discussion.”
Soviet chrononaut Gauki removed his headphones and neck mike and hurried toward the three U.S. tempunauts, his hand extended; he was apparently saying something in Russian, but none of them could understand it. They moved away somberly, clustering close.
“In my opinion you're nuts, Addi,” Benz said.“But it would appear that I'm the minority now.”
“If he is right,” Crayne said, “if—one chance in a billion—if we are going back again and again forever, that would justify it.”
“Could we go see Merry Lou?” Addison Doug said. “Drive over to her place now?”
“She's waiting outside,” Crayne said.
Striding up to stand beside the three tempunauts, General Toad said, “You know, what made the determination go the way it did was the public reaction to how you, Doug, looked and behaved during the funeral procession. The NSC advisors came to the conclusion that the public would, like you, rather be certain it's over for all of you. That it's more of a relief to them to know you're free of your mission than to save the project and obtain a perfect reentry. I guess you really made a lasting impression on them, Doug. That whining you did.” He walked away, then, leaving the three of them standing there alone.
“Forget him,” Crayne said to Addison Doug.“Forget everyone like him. We've got to do what we have to.”
“Merry Lou will explain it to me,” Doug said. She would know what to do, what would be right.
“I'll go get her,” Crayne said, “and after that the four of us can drive somewhere, maybe to her place, and decide what to do. Okay?”
“Thank you,” Addison Doug said, nodding; he glanced around for her hopefully, wondering where she was. In the next room, perhaps, somewhere close. “I appreciate that,” he said.
Benz and Crayne eyed each other. He saw that, but did not know what it meant. He knew only that he needed someone, Merry Lou most of all, to help him understand what the situation was. And what to finalize on to get them out of it.
Merry Lou drove them north from Los Angeles in the superfast lane of the freeway toward Ventura, and after that inland to Ojai. The four of them said very little. Merry Lou drove well, as always; leaning against her, Addison Doug felt himself relax into a temporary sort of peace.
“There's nothing like having a chick drive you,” Crayne said, after many miles had passed in silence.
“It's an aristocratic sensation,” Benz murmured. “To have a woman do the driving. Like you're nobility being chauffeured.”
Merry Lou said,“Until she runs into something. Some big slow object.”
Addison Doug said, “When you saw me trudging up to your place … up the redwood round path the other day. What did you think? Tell me honestly.”
“You looked,” the girl said, “as if you'd done it many times. You looked worn and tired and—ready to die. At the end.” She hesitated. “I'm sorry, but that's how you looked, Addi. I thought to myself, he knows the way too well.”
“Like I'd done it too many times.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then you vote for implosion,” Addison Doug said.
“Well—”
“Be honest with me,” he said.
Merry Lou said, “Look in the back seat. The box on the floor.”
With a flashlight from the glove compartment the three men examined the box. Addison Doug, with fear, saw its contents. VW motor parts, rusty and worn. Still oily.
“I got them from behind a foreign-car garage near my place,” Merry Lou said.“On the way to Pasadena. The first junk I saw that seemed as if it'd be heavy enough. I had heard them say on TV at launch time that anything over fifty pounds up to—”
“It'll do it,” Addison Doug said. “It did do it.”
“So there's no point in going to your place,” Crayne said. “It's decided. We might as well head south toward the module. And initiate the procedure for getting out of ETA. And back to reentry.” His voice was heavy but evenly pitched. “Thanks for your vote, Miss Hawkins.”
She said, “You are all so tired.”
“I'm not,” Benz said. “I'm mad. Mad as hell.”
“At me?” Addison Doug said.
“I don't know,” Benz said. “It's just—Hell.” He lapsed into brooding silence then. Hunched over, baffled and inert. Withdrawn as far as possible from the others in the car.
At the next freeway junction she turned the car south. A sense of freedom seemed now to fill her, and Addison Doug felt some of the weight, the fatigue, ebbing already.
On the wrist of each of the three men the emergency alert receiver buzzed its warning tone; they all started.
“What's that mean?” Merry Lou said, slowing the car.
“We're to contact General Toad by phone as soon as possible,” Crayne said. He pointed. “There's a Standard Station over there; take the next exit, Miss Hawkins. We can phone in from there.”
A few minutes later Merry Lou brought her car to a halt beside the outdoor phone booth. “I hope it's not bad news,” she said.
“I'll talk first,” Doug said, getting out. Bad news, he thought with labored amusement. Like what? He crunched stiffly across to the phone booth, entered, shut the door behind him, dropped in a dime, and dialed the toll-free number.
“Well, do I have news!” General Toad said when the operator had put him on the line. “It's a good thing we got hold of you. Just a minute—I'm going to let Dr. Fein tell you this himself. You're more apt to believe him than me.” Several clicks, and then Dr. Fein's reedy, precise, scholarly voice, but intensified by urgency.
“What's the bad news?” Addison Doug said.
“Not bad, necessarily,” Dr. Fein said. “I've had computations run since our discussion, and it would appear—by that I mean it is statistically probable but still unverified for a certainty—that you are right, Addison. You are in a closed time loop.”
Addison Doug exhaled raggedly. You nowhere autocratic mother, he thought. You probably knew all along.
“However,”Dr. Fein said excitedly, stammering a little,“I also calculate— we jointly do, largely through Cal Tech—that the greatest likelihood of maintaining the loop is to implode on reentry. Do you understand, Addison? If you lug all those rusty VW parts back and implode, then
your statistical chances of closing the loop forever is greater than if you simply reenter and all goes well.”
Addison Doug said nothing.
“In fact, Addi—and this is the severe part that I have to stress—implosion at reentry, especially a massive, calculated one of the sort we seem to see shaping up—do you grasp all this, Addi? Am I getting through to you? For Chrissake, Addi? Virtually guarantees the locking in of an absolutely unyielding loop such as you've got in mind. Such as we've all been worried about from the start.” A pause. “Addi? Are you there?”
Addison Doug said, “I want to die.”
“That's your exhaustion from the loop. God knows how many repetitions there've been already of the three of you—”
“No,” he said and started to hang up.
“Let me speak with Benz and Crayne,” Dr. Fein said rapidly. “Please, before you go ahead with reentry. Especially Benz; I'd like to speak with him in particular. Please, Addison. For their sake; your almost total exhaustion has—”
He hung up. Left the phone booth, step by step.
As he climbed back into the car, he heard their two alert receivers still buzzing. “General Toad said the automatic call for us would keep your two receivers doing that for a while,” he said. And shut the car door after him. “Let's take off.”
“Doesn't he want to talk to us?” Benz said.
Addison Doug said, “General Toad wanted to inform us that they have a little something for us. We've been voted a special Congressional Citation for valor or some damn thing like that. A special medal they never voted anyone before. To be awarded posthumously.”
“Well, hell—that's about the only way it can be awarded,” Crayne said.
Merry Lou, as she started up the engine, began to cry.
“It'll be a relief,” Crayne said presently, as they returned bumpily to the freeway, “when it's over.”
It won't be long now, Addison Doug's mind declared.
On their wrists the emergency alert receivers continued to put out their combined buzzing.
“They will nibble you to death,” Addison Doug said. “The endless wearing down by various bureaucratic voices.”
The others in the car turned to gaze at him inquiringly, with uneasiness mixed with perplexity.
“Yeah,” Crayne said. “These automatic alerts are really a nuisance.” He sounded tired. As tired as I am, Addison Doug thought. And, realizing this, he felt better. It showed how right he was.
Great drops of water struck the windshield; it had now begun to rain. That pleased him too. It reminded him of that most exalted of all experiences within the shortness of his life: the funeral procession moving slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue, the flag-draped caskets. Closing his eyes he leaned back and felt good at last. And heard, all around him once again, the sorrow-bent people. And, in his head, dreamed of the special Congressional Medal. For weariness, he thought. A medal for being tired.
He saw, in his head, himself in other parades too, and in the deaths of many. But really it was one death and one parade. Slow cars moving along the street in Dallas and with Dr. King as well … He saw himself return again and again, in his closed cycle of life, to the national mourning that he could not and they could not forget. He would be there; they would always be there; it would always be, and every one of them would return together again and again forever. To the place, the moment, they wanted to be. The event which meant the most to all of them.
This was his gift to them, the people, his country. He had bestowed upon the world a wonderful burden. The dreadful and weary miracle of eternal life.
THE EXIT DOOR LEADS IN
Bob Bibleman had the impression that robots wouldn't look you in the eye. And when one had been in the vicinity small valuable objects disappeared. A robot's idea of order was to stack everything into one pile. Nonetheless, Bibleman had to order lunch from robots, since vending ranked too low on the wage scale to attract humans.
“A hamburger, fries, strawberry shake, and—” Bibleman paused, reading the printout.“Make that a supreme double cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate malt—”
“Wait a minute,” the robot said. “I'm already working on the burger. You want to buy into this week's contest while you're waiting?”
“I don't get the royal cheeseburger,” Bibleman said. “That's right.”
It was hell living in the twenty-first century. Information transfer had reached the velocity of light. Bibleman's older brother had once fed a ten-word plot outline into a robot fiction machine, changed his mind as to the outcome, and found that the novel was already in print. He had had to program a sequel in order to make his correction.
“What's the prize structure in the contest?” Bibleman asked.
At once the printout posted all the odds, from first prize down to last. Naturally, the robot blanked out the display before Bibleman could read it.
“What is first prize?” Bibleman said.
“I can't tell you that,” the robot said. From its slot came a hamburger, french fries, and a strawberry shake. “That'll be one thousand dollars in cash.”
“Give me a hint,” Bibleman said as he paid.
“It's everywhere and nowhere. It's existed since the seventeenth century. Originally it was invisible. Then it became royal. You can't get it unless you're smart, although cheating helps and so does being rich. What does the word ‘heavy' suggest to you?”
“Profound.”
“No, the literal meaning.”
“Mass.” Bibleman pondered.“What is this, a contest to see who can figure out what the prize is? I give up.”
“Pay the six dollars,” the robot said, “to cover our costs, and you'll receive an—”
“Gravity,” Bibleman broke in. “Sir Isaac Newton. The Royal College of England. Am I right?”
“Right,” the robot said.“Six dollars entitles you to a chance to go to college—a statistical chance, at the posted odds. What's six dollars? Pratfare.”
Bibleman handed over a six-dollar coin.
“You win,” the robot said. “You get to go to college. You beat the odds, which were two trillion to one against. Let me be the first to congratulate you. If I had a hand, I'd shake hands with you. This will change your life. This has been your lucky day.”
“It's a setup,” Bibleman said, feeling a rush of anxiety.
“You're right,” the robot said, and it looked Bibleman right in the eye. “It's also mandatory that you accept your prize. The college is a military college located in Buttfuck, Egypt, so to speak. But that's no problem; you'll be taken there. Go home and start packing.”
“Can't I eat my hamburger and drink—”
“I'd suggest you start packing right away.”
Behind Bibleman a man and woman had lined up; reflexively he got out of their way, trying to hold on to his tray of food, feeling dizzy.
“A charbroiled steak sandwich,” the man said, “onion rings, root beer, and that's it.”
The robot said, “Care to buy into the contest? Terrific prizes.” It flashed the odds on its display panel.
When Bob Bibleman unlocked the door of his one-room apartment, his telephone was on. It was looking for him.
“There you are,” the telephone said.
“I'm not going to do it,” Bibleman said.
“Sure you are,” the phone said. “Do you know who this is? Read over your certificate, your first-prize legal form. You hold the rank of shavetail. I'm Major Casals. You're under my jurisdiction. If I tell you to piss purple, you'll piss purple. How soon can you be on a transplan rocket? Do you have friends you want to say goodbye to? A sweetheart, perhaps? Your mother?”
“Am I coming back?” Bibleman said with anger. “I mean, who are we fighting, this college? For that matter, what college is it? Who is on the faculty? Is it a liberal arts college or does it specialize in the hard sciences? Is it government-sponsored? Does it offer—”
“Just calm down,” Major Casals said quietly.
B
ibleman seated himself. He discovered that his hands were shaking. To himself he thought, I was born in the wrong century. A hundred years ago this wouldn't have happened and a hundred years from now it will be illegal. What I need is a lawyer.
His life had been a quiet one. He had, over the years, advanced to the modest position of floating-home salesman. For a man twenty-two years old, that wasn't bad. He almost owned his one-room apartment; that is, he rented with an option to buy. It was a small life, as lives went; he did not ask too much and he did not complain—normally—at what he received. Although he did not understand the tax structure that cut through his income, he accepted it; he accepted a modified state of penury the same way he accepted it when a girl would not go to bed with him. In a sense this defined him; this was his measure. He submitted to what he did not like, and he regarded this attitude as a virtue. Most people in authority over him considered him a good person. As to those over whom he had authority, that was a class with zero members. His boss at Cloud Nine Homes told him what to do and his customers, really, told him what to do. The government told everyone what to do, or so he assumed. He had very few dealings with the government. That was neither a virtue nor a vice; it was simply good luck.
Once he had experienced vague dreams. They had to do with giving to the poor. In high school he had read Charles Dickens and a vivid idea of the oppressed had fixed itself in his mind to the point where he could see them: all those who did not have a one-room apartment and a job and a high school education. Certain vague place names had floated through his head, gleaned from TV, places like India, where heavy-duty machinery swept up the dying. Once a teaching machine had told him, You have a good heart. That amazed him—not that a machine would say so, but that it would say it to him. A girl had told him the same thing. He marveled at this. Vast forces colluding to tell him that he was not a bad person! It was a mystery and a delight.
But those days had passed. He no longer read novels, and the girl had been transferred to Frankfurt. Now he had been set up by a robot, a cheap machine, to shovel shit in the boonies, dragooned by a mechanical scam that was probably pulling citizens off the streets in record numbers. This was not a college he was going to; he had won nothing. He had won a stint at some kind of forced-labor camp, most likely. The exit door leads in, he thought to himself. Which is to say, when they want you they already have you; all they need is the paperwork. And a computer can process the forms at the touch of a key. The H key for hell and the S key for slave, he thought. And the Y key for you.