Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (26 page)

“Then you did it just like me,” Hassel exclaimed. “Odd we didn’t run into each other.”

“Not odd at all.”

“I got Columbus.”

“I got Marco Polo.”

“I got Napoleon.”

“I thought Einstein was more important.”

“Mohammed didn’t change things much—I expected more from
him
.”

“I know. I got him too.”

“What do you mean, you got him too?” Hassel demanded.

“I killed him September 16, 599. Old Style.”

“Why, I got Mohammed January 5, 598.”

“I believe you.”

“But how could you have killed him after I killed him?”

“We both killed him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“My boy,” I said, “time is entirely subjective. It’s a private matter—a personal experience. There is no such thing as objective time, just as there is no such thing as objective love, or an objective soul.”

“Do you mean to say that time travel is impossible? But we’ve done it.”

“To be sure, and many others, for all I know. But we each travel into our own past, and no other person’s. There is no universal continuum, Henry. There are only billions of individuals, each with his own continuum; and one continuum cannot affect the other. We’re like millions of strands of spaghetti in the same pot. No time traveler can ever meet another time traveler in the past or future. Each of us must travel up and down his own strand alone.”

“But we’re meeting each other now.”

“We’re no longer time travelers, Henry. We’ve become the spaghetti sauce.”

“Spaghetti sauce?”

“Yes. You and I can visit any strand we like, because we’ve destroyed ourselves.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When a man changes the past he only affects his own past—no one else’s. The past is like memory. When you erase a man’s memory, you wipe him out, but you don’t wipe out anybody else’s. You and I have erased our past. The individual worlds of the others go on, but we have ceased to exist.”

“What d’you mean, ‘ceased to exist’?”

“With each act of destruction we dissolved a little. Now we’re all gone. We’ve committed chronicide. We’re ghosts. I hope Mrs. Hassel will be very happy with Mr. Murphy… . Now let’s go over to the Académie. Ampère is telling a great story about Ludwig Boltzmann.”

H
ow to say? How to write? When sometimes I can be fluent, even polished, and then,
reculer pour mieux sauter
, patterns take hold of me. Push. Compel.

I have no control, but I try anyways.

I wake up wondering who, what, when, where, why?

Confusion result of biological compensator born into my body which I hate. Yes, birds and beasts have biological clock built in, and so navigate home from a thousand miles away. I have biological compensator, equalizer, responder to unknown stresses and strains. I relate, compensate, make and shape patterns, adjust rhythms, like a gridiron pendulum in a clock, but this is an unknown clock, and I do not know what time it keeps. Nevertheless I must. I am force. Have no control over self, speech, love, fate. Only to compensate.

Quae nocent docent
. Translation follows: Things that injure teach. I am injured and have hurt many. What have we learned? However. I wake up the morning of the biggest hurt of all wondering which house. Wealth, you understand. Damme! Mews cottage in London, villa in Rome, penthouse in New York, rancho in California. I awake. I look. Ah! Layout familiar. Thus:

So. I am in penthouse in New York, but that bath-bath-back-to-back. Pfui! All rhythm wrong. Pattern painful. Why have I never noticed before? Or is this sudden awareness result of phenomenon elsewhere? I telephone to janitor-mans downstairs. At that moment I lose my American-English. Damn nuisance. I’m compelled to speak a compost of tongues, and I never know which will be forced on me next.

“Pronto. Ecco mi. Signore Marko. Miscusi tanto—”

Pfui! Hang up. Hate the garbage I must sometimes speak and write. This I now write during period of AmerEng lucidity, otherwise would look like goulash. While I wait
for
return of communication, I shower body, teeth, hairs, shave face, dry everything, and try again.
Voilà!
Ye Englishe, she come. Back to invention of Mr. A. G. Bell and call janitor again.

“Good morning, Mr. Lundgren. This is Peter Marko. Guy in the penthouse. Right. Mr. Lundgren, be my personal rabbi and get some workmen up here this morning. I want those two baths converted into one. No, I mean it. I’ll leave five thousand dollars on top of the icebox. Yes? Thanks, Mr. Lundgren.”

Wanted to wear grey flannel this morning but compelled to put on sharkskin. Damnation! Black Power has peculiar side effects. Went to spare bedroom (see
diagram
) and unlocked door which was installed by the Eagle Safe Company—Since 1904—Bank Vault Equipment—Fireproof Files & Ledger Trays—Combinations changed. I went in.

Everything broadcasting beautifully, up and down the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves down to 1,000 meters, ultraviolet up into the hard X-rays and the 100 Kev (one hundred thousand electron volts) gamma radiation. All interrupters innn-tt-errrr-up-ppp-t-ingggg at random. I’m jamming the voice of the universe at least within this home, and I’m at peace. Dear God! To know even a moment of peace!

So. I take subway to office in Wall Street. Limousine more convenient but chauffeur too dangerous. Might become friendly, and I don’t dare have friends anymore. Best of all, the morning subway is jam-packed, mass-packed, no patterns to adjust, no shiftings and compensations required. Peace.

In subway car I catch a glimpse of an eye, narrow, bleak, grey, the property of an anonymous man who conveys the conviction that you’ve never seen him before and will never see him again. But I picked up that glance and it tripped an alarm in the back of my mind. He knew it. He saw the flash in my eyes before I could turn away. So I was being tailed again. Who, this time? U.S.A.? U.S.S.R? Interpol? Skip-Tracers, Inc.?

I drifted out of the subway with the crowd at City Hall and gave them a false trail to the Woolworth Building in case they were operating double-tails. The whole theory of the hunters and the hunted is not to avoid being tailed, no one can escape that; the thing to do is give them so many false leads to follow up that they become overextended. Then they may be forced to abandon you. They have a man-hour budget; just so many men for just so many operations.

City Hall traffic was out of sync, as it generally is, so I had to limp to compensate. Took elevator up to tenth floor of bldg. As I was starting down the stairs, I was suddenly seized by something from out there, something bad. I began to cry, but no help. An elderly clerk emerge from office wearing alpaca coat, gold spectacles, badge on lapel identify:
N. N. Chapin
.

“Not him,” I plead with nowhere. “Nice mans. Not N. N. Chapin, please.”

But I am force. Approach. Two blows, neck and gut. Down he go, writhing. I trample spectacles and smash watch. Then I’m permitted to go downstairs again. It was ten-thirty. I was late. Damn! Took taxi to 99 Wall Street. Drivers pattern smelled honest; big black man, quiet and assured. Tipped him fifty dollars. He raise eyebrows. Sealed one thousand in envelope (secretly) and sent driver back to bldg. to find and give to N. N. Chapin on tenth floor. Did not enclose note: “From your unknown admirer.”

Routine morning’s work in office. I am in arbitrage, which is simultaneous buying and selling of moneys in different markets to profit from unequal price. Try to follow simple example: Pound sterling is selling for $2.79H in London. Rupee is selling for $2.79 in New York. One rupee buys one pound in Burma. See where the arbitrage lies? I buy one rupee for $2.79 in New York, buy one pound for rupee in Burma, sell pound for $2.79H in London, and I have made H cent on the transaction. Multiply by $100,000, and I have made $250 on the transaction. Enormous capital required.

But this is only crude example of arbitrage; actually the buying and selling must follow intricate patterns and have perfect timing. Money markets are jumpy today. Big Boards are hectic. Gold fluctuating. I am behind at eleven-thirty, but the patterns put me ahead $57,075.94 by half-past noon, Daylight Saving Time.

57075 makes a nice pattern but that 94¢! Iych! Ugly. Symmetry above all else. Alas, only 24¢ hard money in my pockets. Called secretary, borrowed 70¢ from her, and threw sum total out window. Felt better as I watched it scatter in space, but then I caught her looking at me with delight. Very dangerous. Fired girl on the spot.

“But why, Mr. Marko? Why?” she asked, trying not to cry. Darling little thing. Pale-faced and saucy, but not so saucy now.

“Because you’re beginning to like me.”

“What’s the harm in that?”

“When I hired you, I warned you not to like me.”

“I thought you were putting me on.”

“I wasn’t. Out you go.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m beginning to like you.”

“Is this some new kind of pass?”

“God forbid!”

“Well you don’t have to worry,” she flared. “I despise you.”

“Good. Then I can go to bed with you.”

She turned crimson and opened her mouth to denounce me, the while her eyes twinkled at the corners. A darling girl, whatever her name was. I could not endanger her. I gave her three weeks’ salary for a bonus and threw her out.
Punkt
. Next secretary would be a man, married, misanthropic, murderous; a man who could hate me.

So, lunch. Went to nicely balanced restaurant. All chairs filled by patrons. Even pattern. No need for me to compensate and adjust. Also, they give me usual single corner table which does not need guest to balance. Ordered nicely patterned luncheon:

But so much cream being consumed in restaurant that I had to compensate by drinking my coffee black, which I dislike. However, still a soothing pattern.

x
²
1 x 1 41 5 prime number. Excuse, please. Sometimes I’m in control and see what compensating must be done … tick-tock-tick-tock, good old gridiron pendulum … other times is force on me from God knows where or why or how or even if there is a God. Then I must do what I’m compelled to do, blindly, without motivation, speaking the gibberish I speak and think, sometimes hating it like what I do to poor mans Mr. Chapin. Anyway, the equation breaks down when x 5 40.

The afternoon was quiet. For a moment I thought I might be forced to leave for Rome (Italy) but whatever it was adjusted without needing my two ($0,02) cents. ASPCA finally caught up with me for beating my dog to death, but I’d contributed $5,000.00 to their shelter. Got off with a shaking of heads. Wrote a few graffiti on posters, saved a small boy from a clobbering in a street rumble at a cost of sharkskin jacket. Drat! Slugged a maladroit driver who was subjecting his lovely Aston-Martin to cruel and unusual punishment. He was, how they say, “grabbing a handful of second.”

In the evening to ballet to relax with all the beautiful Balanchine patterns; balanced, peaceful, soothing. Then I take a deep breath, quash my nausea, and force myself to go to
The Raunch
, the West Village creepsville. I hate
The Raunch
, but I need a woman and I must go where I hate. That fair-haired girl I fired, so full of mischief and making eyes at me. So,
poisson d’avril
, I advance myself to
The Raunch
.