Report on Probability A

by Brian W Aldiss

  The rear or south-west wall of the room rose up to a central point to meet the long central roof tree. The corresponding central point on the front or north-east wall of the room was not visible, for, at a short distance below, a platform had been built out into the room. This platform was the floor of a small compartment designed for pigeons and entered from without by a pattern of eight holes let into the brickwork for that purpose. Only one pigeon, designated X, now used this pigeon loft, the rear of which was boarded across so that birds could not enter the attic.

  The long central roof tree was supported in three places by beams and cross-beams, the latter coming down to within a metre and a half of the tawny floor. As he walked up and down, S avoided these three low cross-beams in a practised manner, ducking his head and shoulders without breaking his stride or removing his hands from the pockets of his trousers.

  Near the middle one of these three cross-beams, and placed to one side so that its lid almost touched the tiles, was a black stove. The stove stood on an iron tray. Although cylindrical in shape, from top to bottom the stove was embellished by grills, traps, doors, lids, vents, slides, dampers, patent pokers, spinwheels, knobs, sliding panels, catches, bulges, decorations, flanges, and a mica eye no larger than the eyepiece of S’s telescope. The lid on top was ornamented, while round the lid on the body of the stove, written there in florid and raised imitation of a person’s handwriting, were the words Stentorian 1888. These two words almost surrounded the lid.

  From a point at the back of the stove rose a pipe thicker than a man’s upper arm. The upper end of it, which was protected from rain by a raised and jointed cap, protruded through the roof, thus enabling any smoke generated in the stove to be released outside.

  Beside the stove, in the iron tray on which the stove stood, lay pieces of wood of various kinds, pithy lengths of elder wood, beech twigs, a stout piece of bamboo, broken and hairy strips of white wood off some kind of packing case—one or two with nails protruding from them—and dark fragments of wood that might have been chopped off old furniture. A hatchet lay beside the wood.

  When S had walked up and down the room past the stove some two dozen times, thus avoiding the three low beams some six dozen times, and each time without pausing in his stride or removing his hands from the pockets of his flannel trousers, he retired to a log of wood close by the round window that gave a view of the back of the house, and sat down upon it. This log bore on its uppermost surface innumerable scars where it had been struck by a blade, possibly by a hatchet. Most of the cuts were less than five centimetres long. Where two or more intersected, the bark of the log had in some cases sprung away, revealing a triangle of the lighter wood underneath.

  Apart from the log and the stove, the room contained only two pieces of furniture.

  One of these pieces was hung between the first and the second of the low-cross-beams. It was a canvas hammock. From each end of this hammock, a converging series of ropes ran to a pair of thick metal rings; these rings were hung over two large nails driven deep, one into the first and one into the second of the beams. From the hammock hung the corners of two grey blankets and an arrangement of sacks stuffed with folded newspaper and strung together with garden twine to form a kind of bedspread.

  The other piece of furniture was a long arrangement of shelves and partitions which stood along the south-east wall, on S’s left hand as he sat on the log with his back to the round window that commanded a view of the house. This shelving had once been used to house various equipment appertaining to pigeons, nesting boxes, bags filled with round black pellets, perches, grit, small numbered rings made of a metal like pewter.

  Some of this equipment still remained, though in the main the shelving was monopolized by articles belonging to or acquired by S.

  Among these articles, the following could be distinguished: a storm lantern of antique design; a bowler hat; two empty jam jars; a patent inhaler made to fit the nostril; a streamlined pottery representation of a cart-horse, the head missing; a pair of nail clippers; a collection of nail clippings, gathered in an ash tray; a mousetrap; part of the skeleton of a long-eared bat, discovered during an expedition to the chamber below; a brief-case purchased on the day that S had been given the post of secretary to Mr. Mary; the leg of an upright chair, worm-eaten; a fountain pen constructed of a tartan plastic; a hot water bottle; a brass handle off a drawer; a cotton reel on which was wound brown thread, with a needle balanced on the top of it; a pigskin purse, lying open and empty; a chipped china candlestick on which had been printed a crude representation of the devil; a paperbound book with a curled-up cover entitled “The Penguin Handyman”; three walnuts; a coach lantern with its glass smashed; another empty jam jar; an umbrella, across which lay a straw hat with a red and blue band round it; an oval notice made of metal coated with enamel, on which was printed the legend Beware of the Dog; an oblong notice of the same materials bearing the same legend; a punched bus ticket; a comb with teeth missing; a hair brush with hair missing; an upright shaving mirror with the mirror missing; an elaborate iron key; a cigarette packet; a free luncheon voucher; another jam jar, this one containing purple runner bean seeds; a brass hinge; an oily rag; a small basin with a floral design containing a razor, a shaving brush, and a spoon; a rag; a slice of green soap; an enamel chamber pot without handle; a brass crocodile eight centimetres long; a small collection of groceries and eating utensils, among which a blue and white striped cup and a packet of tea were noticeable; a row of books, including a “Typist’s Desk Book”; “Low Point X”; Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables”; “Pickwick Papers” without its cover; “Pregnancy—Conception to Childbirth”; Band I of Spengler’s “Der Untergang des Abendlandes”; “Toys Through the Ages”; “Living for Jesus”; “First Steps in the Bible”; “First Steps in Chemistry”; “First Steps in Philosophy”; “Understanding God”; “A Shorter Shorthand Manual”; “Sex in Practice”; “Black’s Picturesque Tourist of England”; “My Alps,” by Mrs. Meade; and the “Boy’s Own Paper” for the second week in August, 19—.

  None of these articles was free of dust. The dust was like a very fine powder, and sometimes noticeably white or orange in tone.

  S selected the “Boy’s Own Paper” and sat down on the scarred log with it. He began to read episode three of The Secret of The Grey Mill. When he had read the first two coumns, he put the magazine down, laying it on the planking open and face-upwards, and knelt to look out of the round window.

  S, the watchful S, the ex-secretary—there was something predatory about him. A more menacing character than G, thought Domoladossa. But could events so be interpreted? Suppose this strange world, this Probability A, was so strange it knew no sin? Suppose God had a myriad worlds, all lying there like nursery beds, in which He tried out various combinations of sin or innocence?

  As he conjectured, Domoladossa’s eyes rested on the desk photograph of his wife. From beyond its convenient frame, the Distinguishers were watching him.

  There were four Distinguishers on duty at present, all standing gravely in the open air, gazing at the tall manifestation, on which Domoladossa could be seen at his desk, leafing through the report.

  “He looks much as we do.”

  “Obviously a world of almost co-determinate synchronicity.”

  “But we have no key to scale.”

  “Scale?”

  “He may be no bigger than my thumb. He may be as tall as a house.”

  “Keep watching. His entire probability-sphere may evaporate at any minute, like a puff of steam.”

  Part Two

  S The Watchful

  1

  The Distinguishers stood on their hillside, solemnly staring at the curious mirage in the air, on which was a representation of a world to which they had only just discovered limited access.

  The screen depicted a man called Domoladossa, who was leaning comfortably back in a chair, doing nothing but read a report. Domoladossa was as occupied by his report as the Distinguishers were
with him. The affairs of his life were forgotten while he followed the activities of an unknown man called S, who saw fit to examine the back door of a house through his telescope.

  Below the door was a stone step. This stone step had two features, one permanent, one temporary. The permanent feature stood on the right, the temporary feature stood on the left. The permanent feature was a shoe scraper of ornamental ironwork, the two ends of which curved upwards like dragons’ heads; through the telescope’s circle of vision, it was impossible to determine if they were intended to represent dragons’ heads. At the other end of the step stood a milk bottle. It was empty, and had been washed, so that the brickwork of the house was visible through it, though dulled and distorted. As S inspected the milk bottle through the telescope, a slight wash of colour and light spread over the bottle and over the step, so that the bottle took on a gleam along its sloping shoulders. At the same time, a dead leaf whisked through the circle of vision, over the step, and was gone into the darkness that always surrounded the circle of vision.

  Lowering the telescope, S blinked his eyes and looked out of the round window. Pale sunshine lay across the garden. It came through the round window at an oblique angle and touched a little of the woodwork and an even smaller strip of the brick to the lower left-hand side of the window. If S had leant forward and looked past the south corner of the house in a south-easterly direction, he would have seen the sun appearing through cloud. Instead, he returned the telescope to his right eye and directed it towards the house.

  The empty milk bottle stood on the left of the stone step below the back door. It floated in the centre of the circle of vision. The centre of vision moved up to the knob of the door; it moved left over the brickwork to peer in through the open kitchen window; it moved right to peer in through the dining-room window; it moved upwards to peer in through the bathroom window; it slid left again to peer in through the two windows of the two spare rooms; it returned to the doorstep, over which a shadow now fell as a cloud moved across the sun; this cloud movement was the only movement it detected on its tour.

  Gradually the circle of vision moved away from the house. It slid to the right. It picked out the back of the garage built of asbestos and concrete. There was a door in the back of the garage. Above the door, under the peak of the garage roof, was a small square window divided into four square panes; one of the four panes was missing. The telescope was not focused to pick out the details of the garage clearly.

  Sliding away from the garage, still moving towards the right, the circle of vision picked out the brick wall that ran from behind the garage to mark the south-east boundary of the property. Above this wall, some distance on the other side of it, rose the steeple of a church; the telescope was not focused to reveal the steeple properly; it remained blurry; prismatic colours ran up and down it, particularly down its left side.

  S removed the telescope from his eyes. He yawned and blinked. With the thumb and index finger of his left hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He changed the telescope into his left hand and rubbed his forehead and eyes with his right hand. He returned the telescope to his right hand and applied the eyepiece to his eye; simultaneously, he steadied the far end of the telescope with his left hand and directed the instrument towards the house.

  The circle of vision came to rest on the guttering that ran along the roof. At either end of the roof, the guttering met vertical drainpipes before continuing round the angles of the house to serve the rest of the roof. The circle of vision slid down the left of these two vertical drainpipes, and slid across the two windows of the two spare bedrooms, moving slowly so as not to miss any movement within the room, but moving continuously. When it reached the next window along, the window of the bathroom, it paused. All that could be distinguished through the bathroom window was a lamp-shade with a short length of flex above it, pointing upwards to the ceiling before being obscured by the upper casement of the window; the shade was so obscured by shadow that its colour could not be made out through the telescope. There was no movement in the bathroom.

  Slipping downwards, the circle of vision inspected the long windows of the dining-room; no movement could be detected behind them. The circle of vision moved to the back door, noted that the empty milk bottle still stood on the left of the step, and moved on to the window of the kitchen. The right-hand portion of this window was open to admit air to the room; through the aperture could be distinguished the top of a table; on the top of the table, but half hidden from the watcher’s view by one of the uprights of the window, was an object that resembled a basket. There was no movement in the kitchen.

  Bringing the telescope away from his right eye, S laid it on the flooring below the round window. He did not press its four sections together. He rubbed both hands over his eyes. He peered at the house through the square centre panel of glass of the round window.

  He could just see the milk bottle standing on the step below the back door. He could not see the shape that resembled a basket inside the kitchen. He could not see any movement in any of the windows of the house. He picked up “The Boy’s Own Paper” for the second week of August 19—, and took it over to the log with the numerous cuts on its upper surface. He sat down on the log and began to read the third episode of a serial entitled “The Secret of the Grey Mill,” commencing from a sentence at the bottom of the second column: Clutching Tom’s arm, Frank Masters pointed towards the open door.

  When S had read to the bottom of the next page, he reached a sentence which said, Thirsty though he was, he watched the brackish water drain away without regret. At this point, S stopped reading and put the magazine down on the flooring, open and face upwards. With the thumbnail of his right hand, he picked between two front teeth in his lower jaw. As he did this, he looked about him.

  Along the two long sides of the room, the roof with its curling orange tiles sloped down to within about a metre and a half of the floor. For the most part, these side walls and the two end walls were papered with wallpaper of a light orange; this paper had a pattern of large bunches of flowers divided from each other by a sort of thin brown trellis. In many places, damp had entered and discoloured the paper, making it darker, and frequently leaving patterns and tide marks upon it. In other places, the paper had peeled away from the wall or had been pulled from it; in the blank places where it had been, the bricks were revealed to have been whitewashed. The whitewash had been appiled many years ago; it fell from the walls when they were touched, like pollen from overloaded flowers; and where it had fallen the bricks were revealed in their original state, except that now they were a faded orange. Their dust lay orange on the floor, and over S’s few possessions.

  Here and there, S had made his own attempt to decorate the room. In the rear wall, situated only half a metre above the floor, was a square window scarcely bigger than a man’s hand; above this window had been pasted a large travel poster printed to advertise a Belgian airline. The name of this airline had been cut from the bottom of the poster, so that the only words remaining on it were Fly To Tahiti. Above these words was a picture of a beach of golden sand, curving unbrokenly into the distance. On the landward side of this beach, tall palms with feathery topknots grew; to seaward, lines of white breakers swept towards the shore; above the beach, a solitary sea bird punctuated an expanse of sky that filled half the area of the poster without revealing a cloud. On the beach, two lovers lay under a bright beach umbrella. The artist’s viewpoint was from above (as it might be from a Belgian airliner circling for a landing); the umbrella was tilted back, so that the faces of the lovers could be seen underneath; their faces were two ovals of brown, featureless when examined closely except for small white chips to represent smiling mouths. The picture was dimmed by a covering of dust; some of the dust was a fine orange powder.

  To the cross-beam just above S’s head as he sat on the log was nailed another invented scene, executed in an artist mode differing greatly from that of the travel poster. This picture was framed in a simple
wooden frame to the back of which a metal device was affixed; this device raised a loop of metal above the back of the frame, and it was through the loop that the picture had been nailed so that it hung against the cross-beam.

  Reproduced in black and white, the picture bore a legend in the white margin below it which read: W. H. HUNT; The Hireling Shepherd (Oil, 1851). Two figures were depicted in a sunlit rural scene. The left-hand figure was the hireling shepherd whose flock of sheep had caught a death’s head moth and appeared to be displaying this insect to the second figure, a girl who sat with a lamb upon her lap. The hireling shepherd leant close against her to demonstrate his capture; since the girl with the lamb on her lap appeared to have removed one of her outer garments, the nature of their past, present, and future relationships was ambiguous. The girl looked over her right shoulder with an expression that also was ambiguous. Her mouth appeared pale, with an ample lower lip that perhaps pouted slightly; her eyelids drooped as she looked askance at the man. On some occasions it seemed to S that she regarded the hireling shepherd with a sort of indolent contempt, on other occasions that her expression was one of lazy complaisance.

  When S had looked at this for some while, he turned to the round window, knelt, and peered out of it. Pale sunshine lay over the garden now. He looked across the asparagus beds at the house. On the step below the back door was a small white object.

  To the right of the round window, a vertical line of bricks had been omitted when the old brick building was built, forming a small niche. Without removing his gaze from the house, S stretched out his right hand and thrust it into the niche. His outstretched fingers met only the brickwork at the back of the niche.