The dark figure, with rhythmic grace, ebbed from his spot on top of the high stool, flowed step by step across the room and got a glass from the cabinet. Awed by the movement of the man, Manfred looked directly at him, and at that moment the dark man looked back, meeting his gaze.
“You must die,” the dark man said to him in a far-off voice. “Then you will be reborn. Do you see, child? There is nothing for you as you are now, because something went wrong and you cannot see or hear or feel. No one can help you. Do you see, child?”
“Yes,” Manfred said.
The dark figure glided to the sink, put some powder and water into the glass, presented it to Mr. Kott, who drank down the contents, chattering all the while. How beautiful the dark figure was. Why can’t I be like that? Manfred thought. No one else looked like that.
His glimpse, his contact with the shadow-like man, was cut off. Doreen Anderton had passed between them as she ran into the kitchen and began talking in high-pitched tones. Once more Manfred put his hands to his ears, but he could not shut out the noise.
He looked ahead, to escape. He got away from the sound and the harsh, blurred comings and goings.
Ahead of him a mountain path stretched out. The sky overhead was heavy and red, and then he saw dots: hundreds of gigantic specks that grew and came closer. Things rained down from them, men with unnatural thoughts. The men struck the ground and dashed about in circles. They drew lines, and then great things like slugs landed, one after another, without thoughts of any sort, and began digging.
He saw a hole as large as a world; the earth disappeared and became black, empty, and nothing. . . . Into the hole the men jumped one by one, until none of them were left. He was alone, with the silent world-hole.
At the rim of the hole he peeped down. At the bottom, in the nothing, a twisted creature unwound as if released. It snaked up, became wide, contained square space, and grew color.
I am in you, Manfred thought. Once again.
A voice said, “He has been here at AM-WEB longer than anyone else. He was here when the rest of us came. He is extremely old.”
“Does he like it?”
“Who knows? He can’t walk or feed himself. The records were lost in that fire. Possibly he’s two hundred years old. They amputated his limbs and of course most of his internal organs were taken out on entry. Mostly he complains about hay fever.”
No, Manfred thought. I can’t stand it; my nose burns. I can’t breathe. Is this the start of life, what the dark shadowfigure promised? A new beginning where I will be different and someone can help me?
Please help me, he said. I need someone, anyone. I can’t wait here forever; it must be done soon or not at all. If it is not done I will grow and become the world-hole, and the hole will eat up everything.
The hole, beneath AM-WEB, waited to be all those who walked above, or had ever walked above; it waited to be everyone and everything. And only Manfred Steiner held it back.
Setting down his empty glass, Jack Bohlen felt the coming apart of every piece of his body. “We’re out of booze,” he managed to say to the girl beside him.
To him, Doreen said in a rapid whisper, “Jack, you must remember, you’ve got friends. I’m your friend, Dr. Glaub called–he’s your friend.” She looked into his face anxiously. “Will you be O.K.?”
“God sake,” Arnie yelled. “I got to hear how you’ve done, Jack. Can’t you give me anything?” With envy he faced the two of them; Doreen drew away from Jack imperceptibly. “Are you two just going to sit there necking and whispering? I don’t feel good.” He left them, then, going into the kitchen.
Leaning toward Jack until her lips almost touched his, Doreen whispered, “I love you.”
He tried to smile at her. But his face had become stiff; it would not yield. “Thanks,” he said, wanting her to know how much it meant to him. He kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were warm, soft with love; they gave what they had to him, holding nothing back.
Her eyes full of tears, she said, “I feel you sliding away farther and farther into yourself again.”
“No,” he said. “I’m O.K.” But it was not so; he knew it.
“Gubble gubble,” the girl said.
Jack closed his eyes. I can’t get away, he thought. It has closed over me completely.
When he opened his eyes he found that Doreen had gotten up from the couch and was going into the kitchen. Voices, hers and Arnie’s, drifted to him where he sat.
“Gubble gubble gubble.”
“Gubble.”
Turning toward the boy who sat snipping at his magazines on the rug, Jack said to him, “Can you hear me? Can you understand me?”
Manfred glanced up and smiled.
“Talk to me,” Jack said. “Help me.”
There was no response.
Getting to his feet, Jack made his way to the tape recorder; he began inspecting it, his back to the room. Would I be alive now, he asked himself, if I had listened to Dr. Glaub? If I hadn’t come here, had let him represent me? Probably not. Like the earlier attack: it would have happened anyhow. It is a process which must unfold; it must work itself out to its conclusion.
The next he knew he was standing on a black, empty sidewalk. The room, the people around him, were gone; he was alone.
Buildings, gray, upright surfaces on both sides. Was this AM-WEB? He looked about frantically. Lights, here and there; he was in a town, and now he recognized it as Lewistown. He began to walk.
“Wait,” a voice, a woman’s voice, called.
From the entrance of a building a woman in a fur wrap hurried, her high heels striking the pavement and setting up echoes. Jack stopped.
“It didn’t go so bad after all,” she said, catching up with him, out of breath. “Thank God it’s over; you were so tense– I felt it all evening. Arnie is dreadfully upset by the news about the co-op; they’re so rich and powerful, they make him feel so little.”
Together, they walked in no particular direction, the girl holding on to his arm.
“And he did say,” she said, “that he’s going to keep you on as his repairman; I’m positive he means it. He’s sore, though, Jack. All the way through him. I know; I can tell.”
He tried to remember, but he could not.
“Say something,” Doreen begged.
After a bit he said, “He–would make a bad enemy.”
“I’m afraid that’s so.” She glanced up into his face. “Shall we go to my place? Or do you want to stop somewhere and get a drink?”
“Let’s just walk,” Jack Bohlen said.
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Are you afraid of Arnie? He may try to get revenge on you, for–he doesn’t understand about your father; he thinks that on some level you must have–” She shook her head. “Jack, he will try to get back at you; he does blame you. He’s so goddamn primitive.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“_Say_ something,” Doreen said. “You’re just like wood, like you’re not alive. Was it so terrible? It wasn’t, was it? You seemed to pull yourself together.”
With effort he said, “I’m–not afraid of what he’ll do.”
“Would you leave your wife for me, Jack? You said you loved me. Maybe we could emigrate back to Earth, or something.”
Together, they wandered on.
13
For Otto Zitte it was as if life had once more opened up; since Norb Steiner’s death he moved about Mars as in the old days, making his deliveries, selling, meeting people face to face and gabbing with them.
And, most particularly, he had already encountered several good-looking women, lonely housewives stranded out in the desert in their homes day after day, yearning for companionship . . . so to speak.
So far he had not been able to call at Mrs. Silvia Bohlen’s house. But he knew exactly where it was; he had marked it on his map.
Today he intended to go there.
For the occasion he put on his best suit: a single-breasted gray English sharkskin suit he had not worn for years. The shoes, regrettably, were local, and so was the shirt. But the tie: ah. It had just arrived from New York, the latest in bright, cheerful colors; it divided at the bottom into a wild fork shape. Holding it up before him he admired it. Then he put it on and admired it there, too.
His long dark hair shone. He felt happy and confident. This day begins it all afresh for me, with a woman like Silvia, he said to himself as he put on his wool topcoat, picked up his suitcases, and marched from the storage shed–now made over into truly comfortable living quarters–to the ‘copter.