Time Is the Simplest Thing (30 page)

“That I did.”

“And you can take us there?”

“No one needs to take you. You can go yourself.”

“You are one of us, young man. You have an honest face. You wouldn't lie to us?”

Blaine smiled. “I wouldn't lie to you.”

“Then tell us how to go.”

Someone cried out: “Can we take some stuff with us?”

Blaine shook his head. “Not much. A mother could take her baby if she held it in her arms. You could pack a knapsack and strap it on your back. You could sling a bag across your shoulder. You could take along a pitchfork and an ax and another tool or two.”

A man stirred out of line and said: “We'll have to go about this right. We'll have to figure out what we want to take. We'll need food and garden seed and some clothes and tools.…”

“You can come back for more,” said Blaine, “any time you like. There's nothing hard about it.”

“Well,” said the gaunt-faced woman, “let's not be standing here. Let us get about it. Why don't you tell us, sir?”

“There's just one thing,” said Blaine. “You have long tellies here?”

“I'm one of them,” the woman told him. “Me and Myrtle over there and Jim back in the crowd and—”

“You'll have to pass the word along. To as many as you can. And the ones you pass it on to will have to pass it on to others. We have to open the gates to as many as we can.”

The woman nodded. “You just tell it to us.”

There was a murmur in the crowd and they all were moving forward, flowing in on Blaine and Anita to form a ring around them.

“All right,” said Blaine, “catch on.”

He felt them catching on, gently closing in upon his mind, almost as if they were becoming one with him.

But that wasn't it at all, he thought. He was becoming one with them. Here in the circle the many minds had become one mind. There was one big mind alone and it was warm and human and full of loving kindness. There was a hint of springtime lilac and the smell of nighttime river fog stealing up the land and the sense of autumn color when the hills were painted purple by an Indian summer. There was the crackling of a wood fire burning on the hearth, and the dog lay there sleeping by the fire and the croon of wind as it crawled along the eaves. There was a sense of home and friends, of good mornings and good nights, of the neighbor across the way and the sound of church bells ringing.

He could have stayed there, floating, but he swept it all away.

Here are the co-ordinates of the planet you are going to
, he told them.

He gave them the co-ordinates and repeated them again so there'd be no mistake.

And here is how you do it
.

He brought out the slimy alien knowledge and held it for them to see until they became accustomed to it, then step by step he showed them the technique and the logic, although there really was no need, for once one had seen the body of the knowledge, the technique and the logic became self-evident.

Then he repeated it again so there'd be no misunderstanding.

The minds drew back from him, and he stood alone with Anita at his side.

He saw them staring at him as they drew away.

What's the matter now?
he asked Anita.

She shuddered.
It was horrible
.

Naturally. But I've seen worse
.

And that was it, of course. He'd seen worse, but these people never had. They'd lived all their life on Earth; they knew nothing but the Earth. They had never really touched an alien concept, and that was all this concept was. It was not really as slimy as it seemed. It was only alien. There were a lot of alien things that could make one's hair stand up on end while in their proper alien context they were fairly ordinary.

Will they use it?
Blaine asked.

The gaunt-faced woman said to him:
I overheard that, young man. It's dirty, but we'll use it. What else is there for us to do?

You can stay here
.

We'll use it
, said the woman.

And you'll pass it along?

We'll do the best we can
.

They began to move away. They were uneasy and embarrassed as if someone had told a particularly dirty joke at the church's ice-cream social.

And you?
Blaine asked Anita.

She turned slowly from his side to face him.
You had to do it, Shep. There was no other way. You never realized how it would seem to them
.

No, I never did. I've lived so long with alien things. I'm part alien, really. I'm not entirely human.…

Hush
, she said.
Hush, I know just what you are
.

Are you sure, Anita?

Very sure
, she said.

He drew her to him and held her tight against him for a moment, then he held her from him and peered into her face, seeing the tears that were just behind the smile inside her eyes.

“I have to leave,” he told her. “There's one thing else to do.”

“Lambert Finn?”

He nodded.

“But you can't,” she cried. “You can't!”

“Not what you think,” he told her. “Although, God knows, I'd like to. I would like to kill him. Up to this very moment, that was what I had intended.”

“But is it safe—going back like this?”

“I don't know. We'll have to see. I can buy some time. I'm the only man who can. Finn's afraid of me.”

“You'll need a car?”

“If you can find me one.”

“We'll be leaving, probably shortly after dark. You'll be back by then?”

“I don't know,” he said.

“You'll come back to go with us? You'll come back to lead us?”

“Anita, I can't promise. Don't try to make me promise.”

“If we're gone, you'll follow?”

He only shook his head.

He could give no answer.

THIRTY-THREE

The hotel lobby was quiet and almost empty. One man was dozing in a chair. Another read a paper. A bored clerk stood behind the desk, staring across the street and snapping his fingers absent-mindedly.

Blaine crossed the lobby and went down the short corridor toward the stairs. The elevator operator lounged beside the open cage.

“Lift, sir?” he asked.

“No bother,” Blaine told him. “It's just one short flight.”

He turned and started up the stairs and he felt the skin tightening on his back and there was a prickling of the hairs at the base of his skull. For he might very well, he knew, be walking straight to death.

But he had to gamble.

The carpet on the tread muffled his footfalls so that he moved up the stairs in silence except for the nervous whistling of his breath.

He reached the second floor and it was the same as it had been before. Not a thing had changed. The guard still sat in the chair tilted back against the wall. And as Blaine came toward him, he tilted forward and sat spraddle-legged, waiting.

“You can't go in now,” the guard told Blaine. “He chased everybody out. He said he'd try to sleep.”

Blaine nodded. “He had a real tough time.”

The guard said, confidentially: “I never seen a man hit quite so hard. Who do you figure done it?”

“Some more of this damn magic.”

The guard nodded sagely. “Although he wasn't himself even before it happened. He was all right that first time you saw him, but right after that, right after you left, he was not himself.”

“I didn't see any difference in him.”

“Like I told you, he was all right. He came back all right. An hour or so later I looked in and he was sitting in his chair, staring at the door. A funny kind of stare. As if he maybe hurt inside. And he didn't even see me when I looked. Didn't know that I was there until I spoke to him.”

“Maybe he was thinking.”

“Yeah, I suppose. But yesterday was awful. There was all the crowd here, come to hear him speak, and all of them reporters, and they went out to the shed where he had this star machine …”

“I wasn't here,” said Blaine, “but I heard about it. It must have been quite a shock.”

“I thought he'd die right there,” said the guard. “Right there on the spot. He got purple in the face and—”

“What do you say,” suggested Blaine, “if we just look in? If he's asleep, I'll leave. But if he's still awake, I'd like a quick word with him. It's really quite important.”

“Well, I guess that would be all right. Seeing you're his friend.”

And that, thought Blaine, was the final pay-off in this fantastic game. Finn had not breathed a word about him, for he'd not dared to breathe a word about him. Finn had let it be presumed that he was a friend, for such a presumption was a shield for Finn himself. And that was why there'd been no hunt for him. That was why Finn's hoods had not turned Hamilton inside out in a frantic search for him.

This was the pay-off, then—unless it was a trap.

He felt his muscles tensing and he forced them to relax.

The guard was getting up and fumbling for the key.

“Hey, wait a minute there,” said Blaine. “You'd better shake me down.”

The guard grinned at him. “No need of that,” he said. “You was clean before. You and Finn went out of here arm in arm. He told me you was an old friend he hadn't seen in years.”

He found the key and unlocked the door.

“I'll go in first,” he said. “I'll see if he's asleep.”

He swung the door open quietly and moved across the threshold, Blaine following close behind.

The guard stopped so abruptly that Blaine bumped into him.

The guard was making funny noises deep inside his throat.

Blaine put out a hand and pushed him roughly to one side.

Finn was lying on the floor.

And there was about him a strange sense of alienness.

His body was twisted as if someone had taken it and twisted it beyond the natural ability of a body to contort itself. His face, resting on one cheek, was the visage of a man who had glimpsed the fires of hell and had smelted the stench of bodies that burned eternally. His black clothing had an obscene shine in the light from the lamp that stood beside a chair not far from the body. There was a wide blot of darkness in the carpeting about his head and chest. And there was the horror of a throat that had been slashed wide open.

The guard still was standing to one side of the door and the noises in his throat had changed to gagging noises.

Blaine walked close to Finn and there, beside the out-flung hand, was the instrument of death—an old-fashioned, straight-edge razor that should have been safely tucked away in a museum.

Now, Blaine knew, all hope was gone. There could be no bargain made. For Lambert Finn was beyond all bargaining.

To the very last the man had stayed in character, had remained his harsh, stern self. No easy way for him, but the toughest way of all for a man to take his life.

But even so, Blaine thought, staring in chilled horror at the red gash in the throat, there had been no need to do the job so thoroughly, to keep on slashing with the razor even as he died.

Only a man of hate would do that, a man insane with the hate of self—a man who despised and loathed what he had become.

Unclean—unclean with an alien mind inside his antiseptic skull. A thing like that would drive a man like Finn to death; a fastidious fanatic who could become obsessed with his self-conceived idea of a perfect state could not live with nor survive the disorderly enigma of an alien mind.

Blaine turned on his heel and walked out of the room. In the corridor the guard was in a corner, doubled over, retching.

“You stay here,” Blaine told him. “I'll call the cops.”

The man turned around. His eyes were glazed with horror. He wiped feebly at his chin.

“My God,” he said, “I ask you, did you ever see a mess—”

“Sit down,” said Blaine, “and take it easy. I'll be right back.”

Although he wouldn't be. Now was the time to blow. He needed time and he'd get a little time. For the guard was too shaken to do anything for quite a little while.

But as soon as the news was known, all hell was bound to break.

God help the parry, Blaine thought, who is caught this night!

He went swiftly down the corridor and ran down the stairs. The lobby still was empty and he set out across it briskly.

As he reached the door, it came open suddenly and someone came through it, walking briskly, too.

A purse clattered to the floor, and Blaine's hands reached out to steady the woman who had come through the doorway.

Harriet! Get out of here! Get out!

My purse!

He stooped to scoop it up and as he lifted it, the catch came open and something black and heavy fell. His free hand snapped at it and had it and he worked it back along his palm so that it was hidden.

Harriet had turned around and was going out the door. Blaine hurried after her and caught her by the elbow, urging her along.

He reached his car and stooped to open the door. He pushed her to the seat.

But, Shep, my car is just a block
—

No time. We're getting out of here
.

He ran around the car and got in. He jerked it from the curb and out into the street. Moving far more slowly than he wanted, he eased it down the block, turned at the intersection, heading for the highway.

Just ahead stood the gutted structure of the Trading Post.

He had been holding the purse in his lap and now he gave it to her.

“How about the gun?” he asked.

“I was going to kill him,” she shouted. “I was going to shoot him dead.”

“No need to do that now. He is already dead.”

She turned toward him quickly.

“You!”

“Well, now, I guess that you could say so.”

“But, Shep, you know. You either killed him or you—”