“Yes, Mister.” Heliogabalus closed his magazine and stepped down from the stool. “I overheard. Why don’t you send them out? They are no good, no good at all, Mister.” From the cabinet over the sink he took the package of bicarbonate of soda; he spooned out a teaspoonful.
“Who cares about your opinion?” Arnie said.
Doreen entered the kitchen, her face drawn and tired. “Arnie, I think I’ll go home. I really can’t take much of Manfred; he never stops moving around, never sits still. I can’t stand it.” Going up to Arnie she kissed him on the ear. “Goodnight, dear.”
“I read about a kid who thought he was a machine,” Arnie said. “He had to be plugged in, he said, to work. I mean, you have to be able to stand these fruits. Don’t go. Stay for my sake. Manfred’s a lot quieter when a woman’s around. I don’t know why. I have the feeling that Bohlen’s accomplished nothing; I’m going out there and tell him to his face.” A glass of warm water and baking soda was put into his right hand by his tame Bleekman. “Thanks.” He drank it gratefully.
“Jack Bohlen,” Doreen said, “has done a fine job under difficult conditions. I don’t want to hear anything said against him.” She swayed slightly, smiling. “I’m a little drunk.”
“Who isn’t?” Arnie said. He put his arm around her waist and hugged her. “I’m so drunk I’m sick. O.K., that kid gets me, too. Look, I put on that old coded tape; I must be nuts.” Setting down his glass he unbuttoned the top buttons of her blouse. “Look away, Helio. Read your book.” The Bleekman looked away. Holding Doreen against him, Arnie unbuttoned all the buttons of her blouse and began on her skirt. “I know they’re ahead of me, those Earth bastards coming in everywhere you look. My man at the terminal can’t even count them any more; they been coming in all day long. Let’s go to bed.” He kissed her on the collar bone, nuzzled lower and lower until she raised his head with the strength of her hands.
In the living room, his hotshot repairman hired away from Mr. Yee fiddled with the tape recorder, clumsily putting on a fresh reel. He had knocked over his empty glass.
What happens if they get there before me? Arnie Kott asked himself as he clung to Doreen, wheeling slowly about the kitchen with her as Heliogabalus read to himself. What if I can’t buy in at all? Might as well be dead. He bent Doreen backwards, but all the time thinking, There has to be a place for me. I love this planet.
Music blared; Jack Bohlen had gotten the tape going.
Doreen pinched him savagely, and he let go of her; he walked from the kitchen, back into the living room, turned down the volume, and said, “Jack, let’s get down to business.”
“Right,” Jack Bohlen agreed.
Coming from the kitchen after him, buttoning her blouse, Doreen made a wide circuit to avoid Manfred, who was down on his hands and knees; the boy had spread out a length of butcher paper and was pasting bits cut from magazines onto it with library paste. Patches of white showed on the rug where he had slopped.
Going up to the boy, Arnie bent down close to him and said, “Do you know who I am, Manfred?”
There was no answer from the boy, nothing to show he had even heard.
“I’m Arnie Kott,” Arnie said. “Why don’t you laugh or smile sometimes, Manfred? Don’t you like to run around and play?” He felt sorry for the boy, sorry and distressed.
Jack Bohlen said in an unsteady, thick voice, “Obviously he doesn’t, Arnie, but that’s not what concerns us here, anyhow.” His gaze was befuddled; the hand that held the glass shook.
But Arnie continued. “What do you see, Manfred? Let us in on what you see.” He waited, but there was only silence. The boy concentrated on his pasting. He had created a collage on the paper: a jagged strip of green, then a perpendicular rise, gray and dense, forbidding.
“What’s it mean?” Arnie said.
“It’s a place,” Jack said. “A building. I brought it along.” He went off, returning with a manila envelope; from it he brought a large crumpled child’s crayon drawing, which he held up for Arnie to examine. “There,” Jack said. “That’s it. You wanted me to establish communication with him; well, I established it.” He had some trouble with the two long words; his tongue seemed to catch.
Arnie, however, did not care how drunk his repairman was. He was accustomed to having his guests tank up; hard liquor was rare on Mars, and when people came upon it, as they did at Arnie’s place, they generally reacted as Jack Bohlen had. What mattered was the task which Jack had been given. Arnie picked up the picture and studied it.
“This it?” he asked Jack. “What else?”
“Nothing else.”
“What about that chamber that slows things down?”
“Nothing,” Jack said.
“Can the boy read the future?”
“Absolutely,” Jack said. “There’s no doubt of it. That picture is proof right there, unless he heard us talking.” Turning to Doreen he said, in a slow, thick voice, “Did he hear us, do you think? No, you weren’t there. It was my dad. I don’t think he heard. Listen, Arnie. You aren’t supposed to see this, but I guess it’s O.K. It’s too late now. This is a picture nobody is supposed to see; this is the way it’s going to be a century from now, when it’s in ruins.”
“What the hell is it?” Arnie said “I can’t read a kid’s nutty drawing; explain it to me.”
“This is AM-WEB,” Jack said. “A big, big housing tract. Thousands of people living there. Biggest on Mars. Only, it’s crumbling into rubble, according to the picture.”
There was silence. Arnie was baffled.
“Maybe you’re not interested,” Jack said.
“Sure I am,” Arnie said angrily. He appealed to Doreen, who stood off to one side, looking pensive. “Do you understand this?”
“No, dear,” she said.
“Jack,” Arnie said, “I called you here for your report. And all I get is this dim-witted drawing. Where is this big housing tract?”
“In the F.D.R. Mountains,” Jack said.
Arnie felt his pulse slow, then with difficulty labor on. “Oh, yeah, I see,” he said. “I understand.”
Grinning, Jack said, “I thought you would. You’re interested in that. You know, Arnie, you think I’m a schizophrenic, and Doreen thinks so, and my father thinks so . . . but I _do_ care what your motives are. I can get you plenty of information about the UN project in the F.D.R. Mountains. What else do you want to know about it? It’s not a power station and it’s not a park. It’s in conjunction with the coop. It’s a multiple-unit, infinitely large structure with supermarkets and bakeries, dead center in the Henry Wallace.”
“You got all this from this kid?”
“No,” Jack said. “From my dad.”
They looked at each other a long time.
“Your dad is a speculator?” Arnie said.
“Yes,” Jack said.
“He just arrived from Earth the other day?”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“Jesus,” Arnie said to Doreen. “Jesus, it’s this guy’s father. And he’s already bought in.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“Is there anything left?” Arnie said.
Jack shook his head.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Arnie said. “And he’s on my payroll. I never had such bad luck.”
Jack said, “I didn’t know until just now that this was what you wanted to find out, Arnie.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Arnie said. Speaking to Doreen, he said, “I never told him, so it’s not his fault.” He aimlessly picked up the boy’s drawing. “And this is what it’ll look like.”
“Eventually,” Jack said. “Not at first.”
To Manfred, Arnie said, “You did have the information, but we got it from you too late.”
“Too late,” Jack echoed. He seemed to understand; he looked stricken. “Sorry, Arnie. I really am sorry. You should have told me.”
“I don’t blame you,” Arnie said. “We’re still friends, Bohlen. It’s just a case of bad luck. You’ve been completely honest with me; I can see that. Goddamn, it sure is too bad. He’s already filed his claim, your dad? Well, that’s the way it goes.”
“He represents a group of investors,” Jack said hoarsely.
“Naturally,” Arnie said. “With unlimited capital. What could I do anyhow? I can’t compete. I’m just one guy.” To Manfred he said, “All these people–” He pointed to the drawing. “Are they going to live there, is that it? Is that right, Manfred? Can you see lots of people living there?” His voice rose, out of control.
“Please, Arnie,” Doreen said. “Calm down; I can see how upset you are, and you shouldn’t be.”
Raising his head, Arnie said to her in a low voice, “I don’t see why this kid never laughs.”