Concentration camp: An enclosed area into which people suspect to their government or to an occupying power are herded. No progressive country or liberation movement can operate a concentration camp, since by definition these have full support of the people. NB: Liberals consider it impolite to mention Nisei in this connection.
Conformist: One who accepts establishment values without asking troublesome questions. Cf. nonconformist.
Conservative: See aggression, bombing, brutality, chauvinism, colonialist, concentration camp, conformist, establishment, fascist, imperialist, McCarthyism, mercenary, military-industrial complex, missile, napalm, pig, plutocrat, prejudice, property rights, racist, reactionary, repression, storm trooper, xenophobia.
Criminal: A fascist, especially when apprehended and punished. Cf. martyr.
Democracy: A nation in which the government, freely elected, remains responsive to the popular will, e.g., Czechoslovakia.
Development: (1) In fascist countries, the bulldozing of trees and hillsides, erection of sleazy row houses, etc., or in general, the exploitation of the environment. (2) In progressive countries, the provision of housing for the masses, or in general, the utilization of natural resources to satisfy human needs.
Ecology: (1) Obsolete: The study of the interrelationships of living things with each other and with the general environment. (2) Everything nonhuman which is being harmed by the establishment, such as trees and falcons but not including rats, sparrows, algae, etc. Thus progressive countries have no ecology.
Establishment: The powers that be, when these are conservative.
Fallout: Radioactive material from a nuclear weapon, widely distributed if this is tested in the atmosphere, universally condemned for its deleterious effect upon public health and heredity, unless the test is conducted by a progressive country.
Fascist: A person who favors measures possibly conducive to the survival of the West.
Freedom: Instant gratification.
Glory: An outworn shibboleth, except when applied to a hero or martyr.
Hero: A person who sacrifices and takes risks in a progressive cause. Cf. pig and storm trooper.
Honor: See glory.
Human rights: All rights of the people to freedom, when held to take infinite precedence over property rights, since the latter are not human rights.
Imperialist: A person who advocates that any Western country retain any of its overseas territory.
Liberation: Foreign expulsion and domestic overthrow of Western governments, influences, and institutions. Sacred liberation: Liberation intended to result in a (People’s) Republic. Love: An emotion which, if universally felt, would automatically solve all human problems, but which some (see conservative) are by definition incapable of feeling.
Martyr: A person who suffers or dies in the cause of liberation. Not to be confused with a criminal or, collectively, with enemy personnel.
McCarthyism: Character assassination for political purposes, by asserting that some person is a member of the Communist conspiracy, especially when this is done by an admirer of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Not to be confused with asserting that some person is a member of the fascist conspiracy, especially when this is done by an admirer of Sen. Eugene McCarthy.
Mercenary: A soldier who, for pay, serves a government not his own. Cf. United Nations.
Military-industrial complex: An interlocking directorate of military and industrial leaders, held to be in effective control of the USA. Not to be confused with military and industrial leaders of the USSR or the various (People’s) Republics.
Missile: A self-contained device which delivers high explosives from the air, condemned for its effects upon women, children, the aged, the sick, and other noncombatants, unless these happen to have resided in Saigon, Da Nang, Hue, etc. Cf. bombing.
Napalm: Jellied gasoline, ignited and propelled against enemy personnel, condemned by all true liberals except when used by Israelis upon Arabs.
Native: A non-White inhabitant of a region whose ancestors dispossessed the previous lot.
Nonconformist: One who accepts progressive values without asking troublesome questions. Cf. conformist.
Nuclear weapon: A weapon employing some form of atomic energy, used by fascist governments for purposes of aggression and by progressive governments to further the cause of peace.
One man, one vote: A legal doctrine requiring that, from time to time, old gerrymanders be replaced with new ones. The object of this is the achievement of genuine democracy.
Organic: Of foods, grown only with natural manures, etc., and with no chemical sprays, etc., hence free of harmful residues and of earthborne diseases or serious insect infestation, since surrounding lands have been artificially fertilized and chemically sprayed.
Peace: The final solution of the fascist problem. Peaceful coexistence: A stage preliminary to peace, in which aggression is phased out and sacred liberation proceeds.
People: (Always used with the definite article and often capitalized.) Those who support liberation. Hence everyone not a fascist is counted among them, whether he wants to be or not.
Personnel: Members of a military or police organization, whether hostile or useful. Not to be confused with human beings.
Pig: (1) An animal known for its value, intelligence, courage, self-reliance, kindly disposition, loyalty, and (if allowed to follow its natural bent) cleanliness. (2) A policeman. Cf. activist.
Plutocrat: A citizen of a republic who, because of enormous wealth which he refuses to share with the poor, wields undue political power. Not to be confused with a Kennedy.
Poor: (Always used with the definite article and often capitalized.) That class of persons who are defined by someone as possessing less than their rightful wealth and privilege. The progressive definition includes all non-fascist Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow persons, regardless of income.
Pot: Marijuana. Must we go through that alcohol-tobacco-tranquilizers-are-legal routine again?
Prejudice: Hostility or contempt for a person or group, on a purely class basis and regardless of facts. Not to be confused with judgment passed on enemies of the people (see conservative).
Progressive: Conducive to liberation.
Property rights: The alleged rights of persons who have earned or otherwise lawfully obtained property, or of taxpayers who have similarly acquired property which is then designated public, to be secure in the enjoyment thereof, irrespective of human rights.
Racist: A White person who, when any Black person rings a bell, fails to salivate.
Reactionary: Not progressive.
Red: (1) Of American Indian descent; from the skin color, which ranges from brown to ivory. Not to be confused with Black, Brown, White, or Yellow, nor with “Mexican,” even though most Mexicans are of American Indian stock. (2) Struggling for liberation or struggling in its aftermath.
Repression: Denial of the right of free speech, e.g., by refusal to provide a free rostrum for an activist, or the right of a free press, e.g., by refusing to print, televise, or stock in libraries every word of an activist, or the right to be heard, e.g., by mob action against an activist. Not to be confused with protection of the people from reactionary infection.
Republic: A country whose government is chosen not on a basis of heredity or riches but by the electorate, from whom political power grows. People’s Republic: One in which the electorate consists of a gun barrel.
Self-determination: The right of a culturally or ethnically distinct group to govern themselves, as in Biafra, East Pakistan, Goa, Katanga, the Sinai, Tibet, the Ukraine, etc.
Storm trooper: A person who sacrifices and takes risks in a fascist cause. Cf. hero.
United Nations: An international organization which employs Swedish, Indian, Irish, Canadian, etc. troops in other parts of the world than these so as to further self-determination.
White: Of Caucasoid descent; from the skin color, which ranges from brown to ivory. Not to be co
nfused with Black, Brown, Red, or Yellow.
Winds of change: Poetic metaphor for the defeat of reactionary forces. Not applicable to any advance or restoration of these.
Women’s Liberation: A movement which opposes male chauvinism.
Xenophobia: Distrust of the ability of strangers to run your life for you.
Yellow: Of Mongoloid descent; from the skin color, which ranges from brown to ivory. Not to be confused with Black, Brown, Red, or White.
4
FOR A MOMENT, as I entered, my office was foreign to me. That rolltop desk, gooseneck reading lamp, worn leather-upholstered swivel chair and horsehair-stuffed seat for visitors, shelf of reference books, framed diploma, door ajar on the surgery to give a glimpse of cabinets wherein lay instruments and drugs that Koch would mostly have recognized--all was out of place, a tiny island in time which the ocean was swiftly eroding away; and I knew that inside of ten years I’d do best to retire.
The snowfall had thickened, making the windows a pale dusk. Jack had turned the lamp on so he could read a magazine. Beyond its puddle of light, shadows lay enormous. The steam radiator grumbled. It turned the air dry as well as warm.
He rose. “Sorry to give you this bother, Dr. Anderson,” he said.
I waved him back into the armchair, settled myself down, reached for a fresh pipe off the rack. That much smoking was hard on the mouth, but my fingers needed something to do.
Jack nodded at the pamphlet I’d tossed on the desk. “How do you like it?” he asked tonelessly.
I peered through the upper half of my bifocals. This was not the boy who knew he would lose his father, nor the youth who tried and failed to hide his wretchedness when his mother took unto him a stepfather-only last year. A young man confronted me, whose eyes were old.
They were gray, those eyes, in a narrow straight-nosed face upon a long head. The dark-blond hair, the slim, middle-sized, slightly awkward body were Tom’s; the mouth, its fullness and mobility out of place in that ascetic countenance, was Eleanor’s; the whole was entirely Jack Havig, whom I had never fathomed.
Always a careless dresser, he wore the plaid wool shirt and blue denims in which he had gone for that tramp across the hills. His attitude seemed alert rather than uneasy, and his gaze did not waver from mine.
“Well,” I said, “it’s original. But you must admit it’s sort of confusing.” I loaded the pipe.
“Yeah, I suppose. A souvenir. I probably shouldn’t have brought anything back.”
“From your, uh, trip away from home? Where were you, Jack?”
“Around.”
I remembered a small stubborn person who gave the same reply, after an unknown had returned him to his father. It led me to recall much else.
My wooden match made a scrit and flare which seemed unnaturally strong. I got the tobacco burning, took a good taste and smell of it, before I had my speech put together.
“Listen, Jack. You’re in trouble. Worse, your mother is.” That jarred him. “I’m the friend of you both, I want to help, but damnation, you’ll have to cooperate.”
“Doc, I wish I could,” he whispered.
I tapped the pamphlet. “Okay,” I said, “tell me you’re working on a science-fiction story or something, laid in 1970, and this is background material. Fine. I’d think you’re needlessly obscure, but never mind; your business.” Gesturing with the pipestem: “What is not your business is the fact it’s mimeographed. Nobody mimeographs anything for strictly personal use. Organizations do. What organization is this?”
“None. A few friends.” His neck stiffened. “Mighty few, among all those Gadarene swine happily squealing their slogans.”
I stood. “How about a drink?”
Now he smiled. “Thanks. The exact prescription I want.”
Pouring from a brandy bottle--sometimes it was needful for both a patient and myself, when I must pronounce sentence--I wondered what had triggered my impulse. Kids don’t booze, except a little beer on the sly. Do they? It came to me afresh, here was no longer a kid.
He drank in the way of an experienced if not heavy drinker. How had he learned? He’d been gone barely a month.
I sat again and said: “I don’t ask for secrets, Jack, though you know I hear a lot in my line of work, and keep them. I demand your help in constructing a story, and laying out a program of future behavior, which will get your mother off the hook.”
He frowned. “You’re right. The trouble is, I can’t think what to tell you.”
“The truth, maybe?”
“Doc, you don’t want that. Believe me, you don’t.”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty-” Why did Keats hand the world that particular piece of BS? He’d studied medicine; he knew better. “Jack, I’ll bet you ten dollars I can relate a dozen true stories which’ll shock you worse than you could ever shock me.”
“I won’t bet,” he said harshly. “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
I waited.
He tossed off his drink and held out the glass. In the yellow lamplight, gaunt against the winter window, his face congealed with resolution. “Give me a refill, please,” he said, “and I will tell you.”
“Great.” The bottle shook a bit in my grasp as the liquor clucked forth. “I swear to respect any confidentiality.”
He laughed, a rattling noise. “No need for oaths, Doc. You’ll keep quiet.”
I waited.
He sipped, stared past me, and murmured: “I’m glad. It’s been such a burden, through my whole life, never to share the the fact of what I am.”
I streamed smoke from my lips and waited.
He said in a rush, “For the most part I was in the San Francisco area, especially Berkeley. For more than a year.”
My fingers clenched on the pipe bowl.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded. “I came home after a month’s absence. But I’d spent about eighteen months away. From the fall of 1969 to the end of 1970.”
After a moment, he added: “That’s not a whole year and a half. But you’ve got to count my visits to the further future.”
Steam hissed in the radiator. I saw a sheen of sweat on the forehead of my all but adopted son. He gripped his tumbler as tightly as I my pipe. Yet in spite of the tension in him, his voice remained level.
“You have a time machine?” I breathed.
He shook his head. “No. I move around in time by myself. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know.”
His smile jerked forth. “Sure, Doc,” he said. “Paranoia. The delusion that I’m something special in the cosmos. Okay, I’ll give you a demonstration.” He waved about. “Come here, please. Check. Make certain I’ve put no mirrors, trapdoors, gimmickry in your own familiar office.”
Numbly, I felt around him, though it was obvious he’d had no chance to bring along, or rig, any apparatus.
“Satisfied?” he asked. “Well, I’ll project myself into the future. How far? Half an hour? No, too long for you to sit here gnawing your pipe. Fifteen minutes, then.” He checked his watch against my wall clock. “It’s 4:17, agreed? I’ll reappear at 4:30, plus or minus a few seconds.” Word by word: “Just make sure nobody or nothing occupies this chair at that period. I can’t emerge in the same space as another solid body.”
I stood back and trembled. “Go ahead, Jack,” I said through the thuttering in my veins.
Tenderness touched him. He reached to squeeze my hand. “Good old Doc. So long.”
And he was gone. I heard a muted whoosh of air rushing in where he had sat, and nothing else. The chair stood empty. I felt, and no form occupied it.
I sat down once more at my desk, and stared for a quarter of an hour which I don’t quite remember.
Abruptly, there he was, seated as he had been.
I struggled not to faint. He hurried to me. “Doc, here, take it easy, everything’s okay, here, have a drink--”
Later he gave me a one-minute show, stepping back from that near a future to stand beside himself, until the firs
t body vanished.
Night gathered.
“No, I don’t know how it works,” he said. “But then, I don’t know how my muscles work, not in the way you know--and you’ll agree your scientific information is only a glimmer on the surface of a mystery.”
“How does it feel?” I asked, and noticed in surprise the calm which had come upon me. I’d been stunned longer on Hiroshima Day. Well, maybe the bottom of my mind had already guessed what Jack Havig was.
“Hard to describe.” He frowned into darkness. “I . . . will myself backward or forward in time . . . the way I will to, oh, pick my glass off your desk. In other words, I order whatever-it-is to move me, the same as we order our fingers to do something, and it happens.”
He searched for words before he went on: “I’m in a shadow world while I time-travel. Lighting varies from zero to gray. If I’m crossing more than one day-and-night period, it flickers. Objects look dim, foggy, flat. Then I decide to stop, and I stop, and I’m back in normal time and solidness. . . . No air reaches me on my way. I have to hold my breath, and emerge occasionally for a lungful if the trip takes that long in my personal time.”
“Wait,” I said. “If you can’t breathe en route, can’t touch anything or be touched, can’t be seen-how come you have the feeble vision you do? How can light affect you?”
“I don’t know either, Doc. I’ve read physics texts, however, trying to get a notion about that as well as everything else. And, oh, it must be some kind of force which moves me. A force operating in at least four dimensions, nevertheless a force. If it has an electromagnetic component, I can imagine how a few photons might get caught in the field of it and carried along. Matter, even ionized matter, has rest mass and therefore can’t be affected in this fashion. . . . That’s a layman’s guess. I wish I dared bring a real scientist in on this.”
“Your guess is too deep for me already, friend. Uh, you said a crossing isn’t instantaneous, as far as you yourself are concerned. How long does it take? How many minutes per year, or whatever?”
“No particular relationship. Depends on me. I feel the effort I’m exerting, and can gauge it roughly. By, well, straining, I can move . . . faster . . . than otherwise. That leaves me exhausted, which seems to me to prove that time traveling uses body energy to generate and apply the thrusting force. . . . It’s never taken more than a few minutes, according to my watch; and that was a trip through several centuries.”
Two in Time Page 24
