“We can create new art forms,” he said.
“People have been trying to create new art forms for a long time, sir. Almost all fell by the wayside. People just didn’t like them.”
“We’ll learn to like them. Damn it, we’ll have to.”
“And they’ll help, for a while. More new art forms have been born in the last two centuries than in the previous million years—though none in the last fifteen years. Scent-symphonies, tactile sculpture, kinetic sculpture, zero-gravity dance—they’re all rich new fields, and they are generating mountains of new copyrights. Mountains of finite size. The ultimate bottleneck is this: that we have only five senses with which to apprehend art, and that is a finite number. Can I have some water, please?”
“Of course.” The old man appeared to have regained his usual control, but the glass which emerged from the arm of her chair contained apple juice. She ignored this and continued.
“But that’s not what I’m afraid of, Senator. The theoretical heat-death of artistic expression is something we may never really approach in fact. Long before that point, the game will collapse.”
She paused to gather her thoughts, sipped her juice. A part of her mind noted that it harmonized with the recurrent cinnamon motif of Bulachevski’s scent-symphony, which was still in progress.
“Artists have been deluding themselves for centuries with the notion that they create. In fact they do nothing of the sort. They discover. Inherent in the nature of reality are a number of combinations of musical tones that will be perceived as pleasing by a human central nervous system. For millennia we have been discovering them, implicit in the universe—and telling ourselves that we ‘created’ them. To create implies infinite possibility, to discover implies finite possibility. As a species I think we will react poorly to having our noses rubbed in the fact that we are discoverers and not creators.”
She stopped speaking and sat very straight. Unaccountably her feet hurt. She closed her eyes, and continued speaking.
“My husband wrote a song for me, on the occasion of our fortieth wedding anniversary. It was our love in music, unique and special and intimate, the most beautiful melody I ever heard in my live. It made him so happy to have written it. Of his last ten compositions he had burned five for being derivative, and the others had all failed copyright clearance. But this was fresh, special—he joked that my love for him had inspired him. The next day he submitted it for clearance, and learned that it had been a popular air during his early childhood, and had already been unsuccessfully submitted fourteen times since its original registration. A week later he burned all his manuscripts and working tapes and killed himself.”
She was silent for a long time, and the senator did not speak.
“‘Ars longa, vita brevis est,’” she said at last. “There’s been comfort of a kind in that for thousands of years. But art is long, not infinite. ‘The Magic goes away.’ One day we will use it up—unless we can learn to recycle it like any other finite resource.” Her voice gained strength. “Senator, that bill has to fail, if I have to take you on to do it. Perhaps I can’t win—but I’m going to fight you! A copyright must not be allowed to last more than fifty years—after which it should be flushed from the memory banks of the Copyright Office. We need selective voluntary amnesia if Discoverers of Art are to continue to work without psychic damage. Fact should be remembered—but dreams?” She shivered. “…Dreams should be forgotten when we wake. Or one day we will find ourselves unable to sleep. Given eight billion artists with effective working lifetimes in excess of a century, we can no longer allow individuals to own their discoveries in perpetuity. We must do it the way the human race did it for a million years—by forgetting, and rediscovering. Because one day the infinite number of monkeys will have nothing else to write except the complete works of Shakespeare. And they would probably rather not know that when it happens.”
Now she was finished, nothing more to say. So was the scent-symphony, whose last motif was fading slowly from the air. No clock ticked, no artifact hummed. The stillness was complete, for perhaps half a minute.
“If you live long enough,” the senator said slowly at last, “there is nothing new under the sun.” He shifted in his great chair. “If you’re lucky, you die sooner than that. I haven’t heard a new dirty joke in fifty years.” He seemed to sit up straight in his chair. “I will kill S.4217896.”
She stiffened in shock. After a time, she slumped slightly and resumed breathing. So many emotions fought for ascendancy that she barely had time to recognize them as they went by. She could not speak.
“Furthermore,” he went on, “I will not tell anyone why I’m doing it. It will begin the end of my career in public life, which I did not ever plan to leave, but you have convinced me that I must. I am both…glad, and—” His face tightened with pain—“and bitterly sorry that you told me why I must.”
“So am I, sir,” she said softly, almost inaudibly.
He looked at her sharply. “Some kinds of fight, you can’t feel good even if you win them. Only two kinds of people take on fights like that: fools, and remarkable people. I think you are a remarkable person, Mrs. Martin.”
She stood, knocking over her juice. “I wish to God I were a fool,” she cried, feeling her control begin to crack at last.
“Dorothy!” he thundered.
She flinched as if he had struck her. “Sir?” she said automatically.
“Do not go to pieces! That is an order. You’re wound up too tight; the pieces might not go back together again.”
“So what?” she asked bitterly.
He was using the full power of his voice now, the voice which had stopped at least one war. “So how many friends do you think a man my age has got, damn it? Do you think minds like yours are common? We share this business now, and that makes us friends. You are the first person to come out of that elevator and really surprise me in a quarter of a century. And soon, when the word gets around that I’ve broken faith, people will stop coming out of the elevator. You think like me, and I can’t afford to lose you.” He smiled, and the smile seemed to melt decades from his face. “Hang on, Dorothy,” he said, “and we will comfort each other in our terrible knowledge. All right?”
For several moments she concentrated exclusively on her breathing, slowing and regularizing it. Then, tentatively, she probed at her emotions.
“Why,” she said wonderingly, “It is better…shared.”
“Anything is.”
She looked at him then, and tried to smile and finally succeeded. “Thank you, Senator.”
He returned her smile as he wiped all recordings of their conversation. “Call me Bob.”
“Yes, Robert.”
HALF AN OAF
When the upper half of an extremely fat man materialized before him over the pool table in the living room, Spud nearly swallowed his Adam’s apple. But then he saw that the man was a stranger, and relaxed.
Spud wasn’t allowed to use the pool table when his mother was home. Mrs. Flynn had been raised on a steady diet of B-movies, and firmly believed that a widow woman who raised a boy by herself in Brooklyn stood a better than even chance of watching her son grow into Jimmy Cagney. Such prophecies, of course, are virtually always self-fulfilling. She could not get the damned pool table out of the living room door—God knew how the apartment’s previous tenant had gotten it in—but she was determined not to allow her son to develop an interest in a game that could only lead him to the pool hall, the saloon, the getaway car, the insufficiently fortified hideout and the morgue, more or less in that order. So she flatly forbade him to go near the pool table even before they moved in. Clearly, playing pool must be a lot of fun, and so at age twelve Spud was regularly losing his lunch money in a neighborhood pool hall whose savoriness can be inferred from the fact that they let him in.
But whenever his mother went out to get loaded, which was frequently these days, Spud always took his personal cue and bag of balls from their hiding place an
d set ’em up in the living room. He didn’t intend to keep getting hustled for lunch money all his life, and his piano teacher, a nun with a literally incredible goiter, had succeeded in convincing him that practice was the only way to master anything. (She had not, unfortunately, succeeded in convincing him to practice the piano.) He was working on a hopelessly impractical triple-cushion shot when the fat man—or rather, half of the fat man—appeared before him, rattling him so much that he sank the shot.
He failed to notice. For a heart-stopping moment he had thought it was his mother, reeling up the fire escape in some new apotheosis of intoxication, hours off schedule. When he saw that it was not, he let out a relieved breath and waited to see if the truncated stranger would die.
The fat man2 did not die. Neither did he drop the four inches to the surface of the pool table. What he did was stare vacantly around him, scratching his ribs and nodding. He appeared satisfied with something, and he patted the red plastic belt which formed his lower perimeter contentedly, adjusting a derby with his other hand. His face was round, bland and stupid, and he wore a shirt of particularly villainous green.
After a time Spud got tired of being ignored—twelve-year-olds in Brooklyn are nowhere near as respectful of their elders as they are where you come from—and spoke up.
“Transporter malfunction, huh?” he asked with a hint of derision.
“Eh?” said the fat man, noticing Spud for the first time. “Whassat, kid?”
“You’re from the Enterprise, right?”
“Never heard of it. I’m from Canarsie. What’s this about a malfunction?”
Spud pointed.
“So my fly’s open, big deal…” the fat man2 let go of his derby and reached down absently to adjust matters, and his thick muscles rebounded from the green felt tabletop, sinking the seven-ball. He glanced down in surprise, uttered an exclamation, and began cursing with a fluency that inspired Spud’s admiration. His pudgy face reddened, taking on the appearance of an enormously swollen cherry pepper, and he struck at the plastic belt with the air of a man who, having petted the nice kitty, has been enthusiastically clawed.
“…slut-ruttin’ gimp-frimpin’ turtle-tuppin’ clone of a week-old dog turd,” he finished, and paused for breath. “I shoulda had my head examined. I shoulda never listened ta that hag-shagger, I knew it. ‘Practically new,’ he says. ‘A steal,’ he says. Well, it’s still got a week left on the warranty, and I’ll…”
Spud rapped the butt-end of his cue on the floor, and the stranger broke off, noticing him again. “If you’re not from the Enterprise,” Spud asked reasonably, “where are you from? I mean, how did you get here?”
“Time machine,” scowled the fat man, gesturing angrily at the belt. “I’m from the future.”
“Looks like half of you is still there.” Spud grinned.
“Who ast you? What am I, blind? Go on, laugh—I’ll kick you in…I mean, I’ll punch ya face. Bug-huggin’ salesman with his big discount, I’ll sue his socks off.”
The pool hall had taught Spud how to placate enraged elders, and somehow he was beginning to like his hemispheric visitor. “Look, it won’t do you any good to get mad at me. I didn’t sell you a Jap time machine.”
“Jap? I wish it was. This duck-fucker’s made in Hoboken. Look, get me offa this pool table, will ya? I mean, it feels screwy to look down and see three balls.” He held out his hand.
Spud transferred the cue to his left hand, grabbed the pudgy fingers, and tugged. When nothing happened, he tugged harder. The fat man2 moved slightly. Spud sighed, circled the pool table, climbed onto its surface on his knees, braced his feet against the cushion, and heaved from behind. The half-torso moved forward reluctantly, like a piano on ancient casters. Eventually it was clear of the table, still the same distance from the floor.
“Thanks, kid…look, what’s your name?”
“Spud Flynn.”
“Pleased to meetcha, Spud. I’m Joe Koziack. Listen, are your parents home?”
“My mother’s out. I got no father.”
“Oh, a clone, huh? Well, that’s a break anyway. I’d hate to try and talk my way out of this one with a grownup. No offense. Look, are we in Brooklyn? I gotta get to Manhattan right away.”
“Yeah, we’re in Brooklyn. But I can’t push you to Manhattan—you weigh a ton.”
Joe’s face fell as he considered this. “How the hell am I gonna get there, then?”
“Beats me. Why don’t you walk?”
Joe snorted. “With no legs?”
“You got legs,” Spud said. “They just ain’t here.”
Joe began to reply, then shut up and looked thoughtful. “Might work at that,” he decided at last. “I sure an’ hell don’t understand how this time-travel stuff works, and it feels like I still got legs. I’ll try it.” He squared his shoulders, looked down and then quickly backed up, and tried a step.
His upper torso moved forward two feet.
“I’ll be damned,” he said happily. “It works.”
He took a few more steps, said, “OUCH, DAMMIT,” and grabbed at the empty air below him, leaning forward. “Bashed my cop-toppin’ knee,” he snarled.
“On what?”
Joe looked puzzled. “I guess on the wall back home in 2007,” he decided. “I can’t seem to go forward any farther.”
Spud got behind him and pushed again, and Joe moved forward a few feet more. “Jesus, that feels weird,” Joe exclaimed. “My legs’re still against the wall, but I still feel attached to them.”
“That’s as far as I go,” Spud panted. “You’re too heavy.”
“How come? There’s only half as much of me.”
“So what’s that—a hundred and fifty pounds?”
“Huh. I guess you’re right. But I got to think of something. I gotta get to Manhattan.”
“Why?” Spud asked.
“To get to a garage,” Joe explained impatiently. “The guys that make these time-belts, they got repair stations set up all the way down the temporal line in case one gets wrecked up or you kill the batteries. The nearest dealership’s in Manhattan, and the repairs’re free till the warranty runs out. But how am I gonna get there?”
“Why don’t you use the belt to go back home?” asked Spud, scratching his curly head.
“Sure, and find out I left my lungs and one kidney back here? I could maybe leave my heart in San Francisco, but my kidney in Brooklyn? Nuts—this belt stays switched off till I get to the complaint department.” He frowned mightily. “But how?”
“I got it,” Spud cried. “Close your eyes. Now try to remember the room you started in, and which way you were facing. Now, where’s the door?”
“Uh…that way,” said Joe, pointing. He shuffled sideways, swore as he felt an invisible doorknob catch him in the groin, and stopped. “Now how the hell do I open the door with no hands?” he grumbled. “Oh, crap.” His torso dropped suddenly, ending up on its back on the floor, propped up on splayed elbows. The derby remained fixed on his head. His face contorted and sweat sprang out on his forehead. “Shoes…too slop-toppin’…slippery,” he gasped. “Can’t get…a decent grip.” He relaxed slightly, gritted his teeth, and said, “There. One shoe. Oh Christ, the second one’s always the hardest. Unnh. Got it. Now I gotcha, you son of a foreman.” After a bit more exertion he spread his fingers on the floor, slid himself backward, and appeared to push his torso from the floor with one hand. Spud watched with interest.
“That was pretty neat,” the boy remarked. “From underneath you look like a cross-section of a person.”
“Go on.”
“You had lasagna for supper.”
Joe paled a little. “Christ, I hope I don’t start leaking. Well, anyhow, thanks for everything, kid—I’ll be seein’ ya.”
“Say, hold on,” Spud called as Joe’s upper body began to float from the living room. “How’re you gonna keep from bumping into things all the way to Manhattan? I mean, it’s ten miles, easy, from here to the bridge. You
could get run over or something. Either half.”
Joe froze, and thought that one over. He was silent for a long time.
“Maybe I got an angle,” he said at last. He backed up slightly. “There. I feel the doorway with my heels. Now you move me a couple of feet, okay?” Spud complied.
“Terrific! I can feel the doorway. When I walk, my legs back home move too. When I stand still and you move me, the legs stay put. So we can do it after all.”
“‘We’ my foot,” Spud objected. “You haven’t been paying attention. I told you—I can’t push you to New York.”
“Look, Spud,” Joe said, a sudden look of cunning on his pudding face, “how’d you like to be rich?”
Spud looked skeptical. “Hey, Joe, I watch TV—I read sf—I’ve heard this one before. I don’t know anything about the stock market thirty years ago, I couldn’t even tell you who was president then, and you don’t look like a historian to me. What could you tell me to make me rich?”
“I’m a sports nut,” Joe said triumphantly. “Tell me what year it is, I’ll tell you who’s gonna win the World Series, the Rose Bowl, the Stanley Cup. You could clean up.”
Spud thought it over. He shot pool with one of the best bookies in the neighborhood, a gentleman named “Odds” Evenwright. On the other hand, Mom would be home in a couple of hours.
“I’ll give you all the help I can,” Joe promised. “Just give me a hand now and then.”
“Okay,” Spud said reluctantly. “But we gotta hurry.”
“Fine, Spud, fine. I knew I could count on you. All right, let’s give it a try.” The fat man2 closed his eyes, turned right and began to move forward gingerly. “Lemme see if I can remember.”
“Wait a minute,” said Spud with a touch of contempt. Joe, he decided, was not very bright. “You’ve gotta get out of this room first. You’re gonna hit that wall in a minute.”
By Any Other Name Page 3
