Harper Baldwin, the introductions over, said in his overbearing, ultrafirm voice, “I think our status, our true status, is that of slaves. Let’s stop a minute and review this whole matter, how we happen to be here. The stick and the carrot. Am I right?” He glanced from side to side, seeking confirmation.
“Plowman’s Planet,” Miss Yojez spoke out, “is not a backward, deprived planet. It has an advanced society active and evolving on it; true, it’s not yet a civilization in the strict sense of the word, but it’s not herds of food-gatherers nor even clans of food-planters. It has cities. Laws. A variety of arts ranging from the dance to a modified form of 4-D chess.”
“That’s not true,” Joe said, with scathing anger. Everyone turned toward him, startled by his tone. “One vast old creature lives there. Apparently infirm. Nothing about an advanced city society.”
“Wait a minute,” Harper Baldwin said. “If there’s one thing Glimmung is not it’s infirm. Where’d you get your information, Fernwright? From the government encyclopedia?”
Joe said uncomfortably, “Yes.” And secondhand, too.
“If the encyclopedia described Glimmung as infirm,” Miss Yojez said evenly, “I’d be interested to know what else it said. I’m just curious to see how far your knowledge of Plowman’s Planet departs from the reality situation.”
With growing discomfort, Joe said, “Dormant. Advanced age; hence senile. Hence harmless.” And harmlessness had not been apparent in Glimmung, at least as he had appeared to Joe. And to the others.
Standing, Mali Yojez said, “If you’ll please excuse me—I think I’ll go sit in the lounge and perhaps read a magazine or nap.” In brisk, short steps she departed from the passenger compartment.
“I think,” the plump woman busily knitting said, without looking up from her work, “that Mr. Fernwright ought to go to the lounge and apologize to Miss Whateverhernameis.”
His ears red, and the back of his neck prickling, Joe got to his feet and followed after Mali Yojez.
As he descended the three carpeted steps an eerie feeling came over him. As if, he thought, I’m going to my death. Or is it life, for the first time? The process of being born?
Someday he would know. But not now.
6
He found Miss Yojez, as she had declared, seated in one of the great soft couches of the lounge, reading Ramparts. She did not look up at him, but he took it for granted that she was aware of him. Therefore he said, “How—do you happen to know so much about Plowman’s Planet, Miss Yojez? I mean, you didn’t get your knowledge out of the encyclopedia. Obviously. As I did.”
Reading on, she said nothing.
After a pause Joe seated himself near her, hesitated, then, wondering what to say. Why had her statements about the society on Plowman’s Planet angered him so? He didn’t know; it seemed as irrational to him now as it had seemed to the others. “We have a new game,” he said, finally. She continued reading. “You search the archives for the funniest headlines ever printed, each player topping the others.” She still did not speak. “I’ll tell you the headline that struck me as the funniest,” he said. “It was hard to find; I had to look all the way back to 1962.”
Mali glanced up. Her face showed no great emotion, no resentment. Merely detached curiosity, of a social nature. No more. “And what was your headline, Mr. Fernwright?”
“ELMO PLASKETT SINKS GIANTS,” Joe said.
“Who was Elmo Plaskett?”
“That’s the point,” Joe said. “He came up from the minors; nobody ever heard of him. That’s what makes it funny. I mean, Elmo Plaskett—he came up for one day, hit one home run—“
“Basketball?” Miss Yojez asked.
“Baseball.”
“Oh yes. The game of inches.”
Joe said, “You have been on Plowman’s Planet?”
For a moment she did not answer and then she said, simply, “Yes.” He noticed that she had rolled the magazine into a tight cylinder, holding it with both hands, very tightly. And her face showed severe stress.
“So you know firsthand what it’s like. And you encountered Glimmung?”
“Not really. We knew he was there, half-dead or half-alive; whichever way you’d put it . . . I don’t know. Excuse me.” She turned away.
Joe started to say something further. And then he saw, in a corner of the lounge, what appeared to be an SSA machine. Getting to his feet he went over to it and inspected it.
“May I be of help, sir?” a stewardess said, and approached him. “Would you like me to seal the lounge off so that you and Miss Yojez can make love?”
“No,” he said. “I’m interested in this.” He touched the control panel of the SSA machine. “How much does it cost to use it?”
“SSA service is free during your flight for one time,” the stewardess said. “After that it takes two genuine dimes. Do you want me to set it up for you and Miss Yojez?”
“I’m uninterested,” Mali Yojez spoke up.
“How unfair to Mr. Fernwright,” the stewardess said, still smiling, but, in her voice, conveying a reprimand. “He can’t use it alone, you understand.”
“What do you stand to lose?” Joe asked Mali Yojez.
“You and I has no future together,” she answered.
“But that’s the whole point of the SSA machine,” Joe protested. “To find out what—“
“I know what it finds out,” Mali Yojez interrupted. “I’ve used they before. Okay,” she said abruptly. “So you can see how it works. As a—“ She searched for the word. “Experience.”
“Thanks,” Joe said.
The stewardess began setting up the SSA machine in a rapid, efficient fashion, meanwhile explaining it. “SSA stands for sub specie aeternitatis; that is, something seen outside of time. Now, many individuals imagine that an SSA machine can see into the future, that it is precognitive. This is not true. The mechanism, basically a computer, is attached via electrodes to both your brains and it swiftly stores up immense quantities of data about each of you. It then synthesizes these data and, on a probability basis, extrapolates as to what would most likely become of you both if you were, for example, joined in marriage, or perhaps living together. I will have to shave two spots of hair on both your heads, please, in order to attach the electrodes.” She brought out a little stainless steel instrument. “How far ahead are you interested in?” she asked as she shaved the two spots on Joe’s skull and then on Mali Yojez’s. “A year? Ten years? You’re free to choose, but the less timeelapse you pick, the more accurate the extrapolation will be.”
“A year,” Joe said. Ten years seemed too remote; probably he would not even be alive, then.
“Is that agreeable to you, Miss Yojez?” the stewardess asked.
“Yes.”
“It will take the computer fifteen to seventeen minutes to gather, store, and process all the data,” the stewardess said, as she attached two electrodes to Joe’s scalp and then two to Mali Yojez’s. “Merely sit still and relax; there is of course no discomfort; you won’t feel a thing.”
Mali Yojez said tartly, “You and I, Mr. Fernwright. Together a whole year. What a mellow, friendly year.”
“You did this before?” Joe asked. “With another man?”
“Yes, Mr. Fernwright.”
“And the extrapolation was unfavorable?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry I rubbed you the wrong way, back there,” Joe said, feeling humble and profusely apologetic.
“You called me a—“ Mali Yojez flipped through her dictionary. “A liar. In front of all. And I have been there and you have not.”
“What I meant to say—“ he began, but the stewardess interrupted him.
“The SSA computer is gathering data from your minds, now. It would be best if you would relax and not quarrel for a time. If you could sort of gently free-float . . . let your minds open, open wide and let the probes gather data. Think of nothing in particular.”
That’s hard to do, Joe reflected. Under these circumstances. Maybe, he thought, Kate was right about me; in ten minutes I managed to insult Miss Yojez, my flight companion and an attractive girl. . . . He felt gloomy and oppressed. All I have to offer her is ELMO PLASKEIT SINKS GIANTS. But maybe, he thought suddenly, she would be interested in pot-healing. Why didn’t I talk about that the first time around? he asked himself. After all, that’s the basis on which we’re here: our skills, experience, knowledge, training.
“I’m a pot-healer,” he said aloud.
“I know,” Mali Yojez said. “I read your biographical material; remember?” But she did not sound so miffed, now. Her hostility, conjured up by his ineptness, had abated.
“Are you interested in pot-healing?” Joe asked.
“I’m fascinated by it,” she answered. “That’s why I so—“ She gestured, then again consulted her dictionary. “Delighted. To sit and talk with you. Tell me—is the pots perfect again? Not mended but . . . like you say; healed.”