Cedric sat perfectly still. Mulberry 5-9037 was actually Helena's apartment phone number. He hadn't recognized it until Gerald Bocek told him.
"Now you're beginning to understand," Cedric said after a moment. "Once you realize that your mind has walled off your consciousness from reality and is substituting a rationalized pattern of symbology in its place, it shouldn't be long until you break through. Once you manage to see one thing as it really is, the rest of the delusion will disappear."
"I understand now," Jerry said gravely. "Let's have some more of it. Maybe I'll catch on."
They spent an hour at it. Toward the end, Jerry was able to finish the descriptions of things with very little error.
"You are definitely beginning to get through," Cedric said with enthusiasm.
Jerry hesitated. "I suppose so," he said. "I must. But on the conscious level I have the idea—a rationalization, of course—that I am beginning to catch on to the pattern of your imagination so that when you give me one or two key elements I can fill in the rest. But I'm going to try, really try—Dr. Elton."
"Fine," Cedric said heartily. "I'll see you tomorrow, same time. We should make the breakthrough then."
When the four officers had taken Gerald Bocek away, Cedric went into the outer office.
"Cancel the rest of my appointments," he said.
"But why?" Helena protested.
"Because I'm upset!" Cedric said. "How did a madman whom I never knew until yesterday know your phone number?"
"He could have looked it up in the phone book."
"Locked in a room in the psychiatric ward at City Hospital?" Cedric said. "How did he know your name yesterday?"
"Why," Helena said, "all he had to do was read it on my desk here."
Cedric looked down at the brass nameplate.
"Yes," he grunted. "Of course. I'd forgotten about that. I'm so accustomed to it being there that I never see it."
He turned abruptly and went back into his office.
He sat down at his desk, then got up and went into the sterile whiteness of his compact laboratory. Ignoring the impressive battery of electronic instruments, he went to the medicine cabinet. Inside, on the top shelf, was the glass stopped bottle he wanted. Inside it were a hundred vivid yellow pills. He shook out one and put the bottle away, then went back into his office. He sat down, placing the yellow pill in the center of the white notepad.
There was a brief knock on the door to the reception room and the door opened. Helena came in.
"I've canceled all your other appointments for today," she said. "Why don't you go out to the golf course? A change will do you—" She saw the yellow pill in the center of the white note pad and stopped.
"Why do you look so frightened?" Cedric said. "Is it because, if I take this little yellow pill, you'll cease to exist?"
"Don't joke," Helena said.
"I'm not joking," Cedric said. "Out there, when you mentioned about your brass nameplate on your desk, when I looked down it was blurred for just a second, then became sharply distinct and solid. And into my head popped the memory that the first thing I do when I have to get a new receptionist is get a brass nameplate for her, and when she quits I make her a present of it."
"But that's the truth," Helena said. "You told me all about it when I started working for you. You also told me that while you still had your reason about you I was to solemnly promise that I would never accept an invitation from you for dinner or anything else, because business could not mix with pleasure. Do you remember that?"
"I remember," Cedric said. "A nice pat rationalization in any man's reality to make the rejection be my own before you could have time to reject me yourself. Preserving the ego is the first principle of madness."
"But it isn't!" Helena said. "Oh, darling, I'm here! This is real! I don't care if you fire me or not. I've loved you forever, and you mustn't let that mass murderer get you down. I actually think he isn't insane at all, but has just figured out a way to seem insane so he won't have to pay for his crime."
"You think so?" Cedric said, interested. "It's a possibility. But he would have to be as good a psychiatrist as I am—You see? Delusions of grandeur."
"Sure," Helena said, laughing thinly. "Napoleon was obviously insane because he thought he was Napoleon."
"Perhaps," Cedric said. "But you must admit that if you are real, my taking this yellow pill isn't going to change that, but only confirm the fact."
"And make it impossible for you to do your work for a week," Helena said.
"A small price to pay for sanity," Cedric said. "No, I'm going to take it."
"You aren't!" Helena said, reaching for it.
Cedric picked it up an instant before she could get it. As she tried to get it away from him, he evaded her and put it in his mouth. A loud gulp showed he had swallowed it.
He sat back and looked up at Helena curiously.
"Tell me, Helena," he said gently. "Did you know all the time that you were only a creature of my imagination? The reason I want to know is—"
He closed his eyes and clutched his head in his hands.
"God!" he groaned. "I feel like I'm dying! I didn't feel like this the other time I took one." Suddenly his mind steadied, and his thoughts cleared. He opened his eyes.
On the chart table in front of him, the bottle of yellow pills lay on its side, pills scattered all over the table. On the other side of the control room lay Jerry Bocek, his back propped against one of the four gear lockers, sound asleep, with so many ropes wrapped around him that it would probably be impossible for him to stand up.
Against the far wall were three other gear lockers, two of them with their paint badly scorched, the third with its door half melted off.
And in various positions about the control room were the half-charred bodies of five blue-scaled Venusian lizards.
A dull ache rose in Gar's chest. Helena Fitzroy was gone. Gone, when she had just confessed she loved him.
Unbidden, a memory came into Gar's mind. Dr. Cedric Elton was the psychiatrist who had examined him when he got his pilot's license for third-class freighters—
"God!" Gar groaned again. And suddenly he was sick. He made a dash for the washroom, and after a while he felt better.
When he straightened up from the washbasin, he looked at his reflection in the mirror for a long time, clinging to his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He must have been out of his head for two or three days.
The first time. Awful! Somehow, he had never quite believed in space madness.
Suddenly he remembered Jerry. Poor Jerry!
Gar lurched from the washroom back into the control room. Jerry was awake. He looked up at Gar, forcing a smile to his lips. "Hello, Dr. Elton," Jerry said.
Gar stopped as though shot.
"It's happened, Dr. Elton, just as you said it would," Jerry said, his smile widening.
"Forget that," Gar growled. "I took a yellow pill. I'm back to normal again."
Jerry's smile vanished abruptly. "I know what I did now," he said. "It's terrible. I killed six people. But I'm sane now. I'm willing to take what's coming to me."
"Forget that!" Gar snarled. "You don't have to humor me now. Just a minute and I'll untie you."
"Thanks, Doctor," Jerry said. "It will sure be a relief to get out of this straitjacket."
Gar knelt beside Jerry and untied the knots in the ropes and unwound them from around Jerry's chest and legs.
"You'll be all right in a minute," Gar said, massaging Jerry's limp arms. The physical and nervous strain of sitting there immobilized had been rugged.
Slowly he worked circulation back into Jerry, then helped him to his feet.
"You don't need to worry, Dr. Elton," Jerry said. "I don't know why I killed those people, but I know I would never do such a thing again. I must have been insane."
"Can you stand now?" Gar said, letting go of Jerry.
Jerry took a few steps back and forth, unsteadily at first, then with better coordination. Hi
s resemblance to a robot decreased with exercise.
Gar was beginning to feel sick again. He fought it.
"You okay now, Jerry boy?" he asked worriedly.
"I'm fine now, Dr. Elton," Jerry said. "And thanks for everything you've done for me."
Abruptly Jerry turned and went over to the air-lock door and opened it.
"Good-bye now, Dr. Elton," he said.
"Wait!" Gar screamed, leaping toward Jerry.
But Jerry had stepped into the air lock and closed the door. Gar tried to open it, but already Jerry had turned on the pump that would evacuate the air from the lock.
He watched as Jerry glanced toward the side of the air lock and smiled, then spun the wheel that opened the air lock to the vacuum of space and stepped out.
Screaming Jerry's name senselessly in horror, Gar watched through the small square of thick glass in the door as Jerry's chest quickly expanded, then collapsed as a mixture of phlegm and blood dribbled from his nostrils and lips, and his eyes enlarged and glazed over. Then one of them ripped open and collapsed, its fluid draining down his cheek.
And when Gar finally stopped screaming and sank to the deck, sobbing, his knuckles were broken and bloody from pounding on bare metal.
The End
© 1958, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc, 1986, by the Estate of Roger Phillips Graham. Originally appeared in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION, October 1958 and reprinted by permission of Barry N. Malzberg, agent for the Estate.
They Don't Make Life Like They Used To
Alfred Bester
The girl driving the jeep was very fair and very Nordic. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but it was so long that it was more a mare's tail. She wore sandals, a pair of soiled bluejeans, and nothing else. She was nicely tanned. As she turned the jeep off Fifth Avenue and drove bouncing up the steps of the library, her bosom danced enchantingly.
She parked in front of the library entrance, stepped out, and was about to enter when her attention was attracted by something across the street. She peered, hesitated, then glanced down at her jeans and made a face. She pulled off the pants and hurled them at the pigeons eternally cooing and courting on the library steps. As they clattered up in fright, she ran down to Fifth Avenue, crossed, and stopped before a shop window. There was a plum-colored wool dress on display. It had a high waist, a full skirt, and not too many moth holes. The price was $79.90.
The girl rummaged through old cars skewed on the avenue until she found a loose fender. She smashed the plate-glass shop door, carefully stepped across the splinters, entered, and sorted through the dusty dress racks. She was a big girl and had trouble fitting herself. Finally she abandoned the plum-colored wool and compromised on a dark tartan, size 12, $120 reduced to $99.90. She located a salesbook and pencil, blew the dust off, and carefully wrote: I.O.U. $99.90. Linda Nielsen.
She returned to the library and went through the main doors, which had taken her a week to batter in with a sledgehammer. She ran across the great hall, filthied with five years of droppings from the pigeons roosting there. As she ran, she clapped her arms over her head to shield her hair from stray shots. She climbed the stairs to the third floor and entered the Print Room. As always, she signed the register: Date—June 20, 1981. Name—Linda Nielson. Address—Central Park Model Boat Pond. Business or Firm—Last Man on Earth.
She had had a long debate with herself about Business or Firm the last time she broke into the library. Strictly speaking, she was the last woman on earth, but she had felt that if she wrote that it would seem chauvinistic; and "Last Person on Earth" sounded silly, like calling a drink a beverage.
She pulled portfolios out of racks and leafed through them. She knew exactly what she wanted; something warm with blue accents to fit a twenty-by-thirty frame for her bedroom. In a priceless collection of Hiroshige prints she found a lovely landscape. She filled out a slip, placed it carefully on the librarian's desk, and left with the print.
Downstairs, she stopped off in the main circulation room, went to the back shelves, and selected two Italian grammars and an Italian dictionary. Then she backtracked through the main hall, went out to the jeep, and placed the books and print on the front seat alongside her companion, an exquisite Dresden china doll. She picked up a list that read:
Jap. print
Italian
20 × 30 pict. fr.
Lobster bisque
Brass polish
Detergent
Furn. polish
Wet mop
She crossed off the first two items, replaced the list on the dashboard, got into the jeep, and bounced down the library steps. She drove up Fifth Avenue, threading her way through crumbling wreckage. As she was passing the ruins of St. Patrick's Cathedral at 50th Street, a man appeared from nowhere.
He stepped out of the rubble and, without looking left or right, started crossing the avenue just in front of her. She exclaimed, banged on the horn, which remained mute, and braked so sharply that the jeep slewed and slammed into the remains of a No. 3 bus. The man let out a squawk, jumped ten feet, and then stood frozen, staring at her.
"You crazy jaywalker," she yelled. "Why don't you look where you're going? D'you think you own the whole city?"
He stared and stammered. He was a big man, with thick, grizzled hair, a red beard, and weathered skin. He was wearing army fatigues, heavy ski boots, and had a bursting knapsack and blanket roll on his back. He carried a battered shotgun, and his pockets were crammed with odds and ends. He looked like a prospector.
"My God," he whispered in a rusty voice. "Somebody at last. I knew it. I always knew I'd find someone." Then, as he noticed her long, fair hair, his face fell. "But a woman," he muttered. "Just my goddamn lousy luck."
"What are you, some kind of nut?" she demanded. "Don't you know better than to cross against the lights?"
He looked around in bewilderment. "What lights?"
"So all right, there aren't any lights, but couldn't you look where you were going?"
"I'm sorry, lady. To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting any traffic."
"Just plain common sense," she grumbled, backing the jeep off the bus.
"Hey, lady, wait a minute."
"Yes?"
"Listen, you know anything about TV? Electronics, how they say …"
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"No, this is straight. Honest."
She snorted and tried to continue driving up Fifth Avenue, but he wouldn't get out of the way.
"Please, lady," he persisted. "I got a reason for asking. Do you know?"
"No."
"Damn! I never get a break. Lady, excuse me, no offense, got any guys in this town?"
"There's nobody but me. I'm the last man on earth."
"That's funny. I always thought I was."
"So all right, I'm the last woman on earth."
He shook his head. "There's got to be other people; there just has to. Stands to reason. South, maybe you think? I'm down from New Haven, and I figured if I headed where the climate was like warmer, there'd be some guys I could ask something."
"Ask what?"
"Aw, a woman wouldn't understand. No offense."
"Well, if you want to head south you're going the wrong way."
"That's south, ain't it?" he said, pointing down Fifth Avenue.
"Yes, but you'll just come to a dead end. Manhattan's an island. What you have to do is go uptown and cross the George Washington Bridge to Jersey."
"Uptown? Which way is that?"
"Go straight up Fifth to Cathedral Parkway, then over to the West Side and up Riverside. You can't miss it."
He looked at her helplessly.
"Stranger in town?"
He nodded.
"Oh, all right," she said. "Hop in. I'll give you a lift."
She transferred the books and the china doll to the back seat, and he squeezed in alongside her. As she started the jeep she looked down at his worn ski boots.
"Hiking?"
"Why don't you drive? You can get a car working, and there's plenty of gas and oil."
"I don't know how to drive," he said despondently. "It's the story of my life."
He heaved a sigh, and that made his knapsack jolt massively against her shoulder. She examined him out of the corner of her eye. He had a powerful chest, a long, thick back, and strong legs. His hands were big and hard, and his neck was corded with muscles. She thought for a moment, then nodded to herself and stopped the jeep.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Won't it go?"
"What's your name?"
"Mayo. Jim Mayo."
"I'm Linda Nielsen."
"Yeah. Nice meeting you. Why don't it go?"
"Jim, I've got a proposition for you."
"Oh?" He looked at her doubtfully. "I'll be glad to listen, lady—I mean Linda, but I ought to tell you, I got something on my mind that's going to keep me pretty busy for a long t …" His voice trailed off as he turned away from her intense gaze.
"Jim, if you'll do something for me, I'll do something for you."
"Like what, for instance?"
"Well, I get terribly lonesome, nights. It isn't so bad during the day—there's always a lot of chores to keep you busy—but at night it's just awful."
"Yeah, I know," he muttered.
"I've got to do something about it."
"But how do I come into this?" he asked nervously.
"Why don't you stay in New York for a while? If you do, I'll teach you how to drive and find you a car so you don't have to hike south."
"Say, that's an idea. Is it hard, driving?"
"I could teach you in a couple of days."
"I don't learn things so quick."
"All right, a couple of weeks, but think of how much time you'll save in the long run."
"Gee," he said, "that sounds great." Then he turned away again. "But what do I have to do for you?"
Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 Page 25
