The Sheep Look Up

by John Brunner

  “Maua! You want screw, soldier man? Twenty-five francs one time, hundred francs all night, baby!”

  “Oh, God. She’s off her rocker like the rest of them. Here, someone get—Hey, let go, you little bitch! Hey!”

  THIS IS THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ME BERTIL OLAV SVENSSON ordinarily resident at 45 Vasagatan, Malmö, who, being of sound mind and not having sampled or tasted or ingested poisoned food at Noshri (contrary to rumor) but having diagnosed in myself a strain of trachoma resistant to all known therapy which will inevitably make me blind, do purpose to terminate my life. I DEVISE AND BEQUEATH ...

  “Christ,” he said. And repeated, “Christ! It’s as if the world is just ...”

  “Crumbling?” she offered, and when he didn’t disagree, gave a nod. She hadn’t looked his way. She was watching the tanks and armored cars closing in on the food rioters. A stray rock had starred the window, but they’d fixed that with adhesive tape to keep out the street air.

  “But I can’t go to the House with a—a fucking tube stuck up me!” Howell barked.

  “Yes, I know that,” the doctor sighed. “But would you rather live to be governor or die in two weeks?”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Senator, you try going without a pee for a day or two, see if you prefer the catheter or not.”

  “What the hell is it due to, anyhow?”

  “I don’t know. Sorry. I’m waiting for the lab report, but they’re taking anything up to ten days.”

  Command of the armed forces was today assumed by Colonel Joku Amnibadu, following the indisposition of General Kaika. It’s understood that Brigadier Plitso, widely tipped as the heir apparent, is in Switzerland for a medical examination.

  Washing the windshield of her—their—car: Jeannie Goddard. Taking Pete to work this morning the wipers hadn’t coped with the greasy deposit left by the last rain. And she wanted to see her way clearly to the prenatal clinic. Find out whether this constant nausea was to be endured, or needed treatment.

  But the size of the bill already ...

  Well, it was for the baby’s sake, after all, not just her own.

  “Oh, nothing to worry about, Mrs. Mason. A very common thing these days, this blepharitis, nothing at all to do with your little girl’s strabismus. Why, I must have seen twenty or thirty similar cases in the past month. Now I’ll give you a note for your own doctor—isn’t it Dr. McNeil?—and ...”

  “The number you have reached is not a working number. Please hang up and—”

  ...

  “The number you have reached is not—”

  ...

  “The number you have—”

  ...

  “Operator, can I help you? ... Yes, sir, but you must appreciate we’re very short of staff right now ... Well, sir, what is the problem? I have lots of other— Can you spell that? ... H-E-N-L ... Henlowe. Yes, sir, just a moment. Ah, here it is. All calls to that number are being referred to— What was that? ... Well, sir, on the memo I have here it says her sister is looking after their little girl until they come out of the hospital ... I don’t know, sir, but the memo is dated—I’m sorry? ... You’re welcome.” You son of a bitch!

  In his office at his handsome antique desk: Dr. Clayford. The phone rang.

  “Hello? ... No, I will not accept a call from my wife! Tell her to wait until I’m done with my morning appointments. She knows she mustn’t bother me at work.”

  He slammed down the phone and looked toward the door, trying to discern who the next patient was. But the features blurred, and there was this discomfort at the corner of his right eye.

  Funny.

  Seems to be swimming.

  And that damned noise. Got to complain to the police about—

  “Doctor? Doctor!”

  That hurt. Nose and cheekbone. Symptoms consistent with ...

  “Nurse, I think the doctor’s passed out.”

  In his magnificent office, Roland Bamberley signing a letter to his lawyers concerning the faults so far found in the Mitsuyama water-purifiers and requesting advice on the possibility of a suit for breach of contract. He broke off after the Christian name because his arm had developed cramp all of a sudden. He shook it, and continued: Bam—

  Again, without warning, the agonizing pain. He looked at his hand grasping the pen and saw with surprise how white the fingers were. Experimentally, he flexed them. The pen fell on the paper and left a long black streak; the letter would now have to be retyped.

  But he couldn’t feel his fingers, only the cramp.

  He raised his left hand and began to massage his right one. A minute passed; so did the pain.

  “Leave that ball alone! It’s Rick’s!”

  “What? Ah, shit, I know it was Rick’s, but like Zena said he’s gone away and he won’t be coming—”

  “He is so coming back! Let go that ball—that’s right! Now I’ll put it back where you found it, so when Rick comes here he’ll find all his things waiting nice and neat ... I don’t like you!”

  Shouldn’t have tried washing that foot in sea water, Tab thought. But when you tread on a nail sticking out of a piece of board that runs its rusty spike clear through your shoe, and you can’t afford to go to a clinic ...

  He forced himself to forget about the pain and the swelling and the nasty wetness of the pus. Another passerby was turning the corner. He hobbled forward.

  “Say, friend, can you spare a—?”

  “No!”

  THINGS AROUND HERE JUST AREN’T THE SAME WITHOUT YOU. WE ACTUALLY GET SOME WORK DONE!

  Only kidding! Best wishes to Mel for a quick recovery from the gang at the office.

  Dear Sergeant Tatum:

  I’m pleased to advise you that in view of your length of service you are to be granted 48 per cent of your eventual pension. I honestly wish it could have been more, but naturally you’ll appreciate there is a necessary distinction between injury in the line of duty which entails premature retirement, and the contraction of a disease, even one as severe as polio.

  (On wall after wall after wall, from California to Nova Scotia, painted or scrawled or chalked or even carved, the same slogan accompanied by the same device: STOP, YOU’RE KILLING ME! [??])

  “In place of the advertised program, regrettably postponed owing to the indisposition of key staff members at our New York studios, we’re giving you another chance to see ...”

  Terry Fenton? Septicemia. (Something got into a self-inflicted cut while he was razor-styling Petronella’s hair. She quit going to Guido’s the third time there was something awful in the water.)

  Ian Farley? Bronchitis. (He’d left his filtermask at home, all the dispensers in the lobby of the ABS Building were empty, and it was a long time before he found a cab.)

  Lola Crown? Earache and swollen parotid glands. (It won’t yield to the standard therapy for mononucleosis, so maybe it isn’t mono at all. They took her off antibiotics. Sulfa drugs might turn the trick, with luck.)

  Marlon? Alternating between Terry’s bedside and the can. (Convinced the doctor tending him is useless, because he makes such nasty remarks about his—uh—hemorrhoids. Oughtn’t to be allowed to practice medicine if he won’t help people in real pain. Wish he could feel that acid diarrhea going out!)

  And others, from the Big Bosses right on down.

  Same as everywhere.

  “Mr. Greenbriar, look. Uh—would you have any objection to a male secretary? We’ve tried every agency in town, and— I’m sorry? ...

  “An out-of-work actor, sir. Stranded by the cutback in programs at ABS ...

  “Oh, highly recommended, sir ... Yes, sir. Which ones are those—the blue pills, or the green ones?”

  Name(s): MURPHY Phelan Augustine

  MURPHY Bridget Ann née O’Toole

  Address: “West Farm,” nr. Balpenny,

  Co. Waterford, Eire.

  APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO UNITED KINGDOM: REFUSED

  The priest looked doubtfully at the vast bluish
bruises on his forearms. Then he hauled up the skirts of his habit to inspect those on his legs. They were just as bad.

  Why wouldn’t these Satan-serving Tupas go ahead and hang him, as they’d hanged the American, Hannigan, and the major?

  Oh, of course. The Tupas had gone away. He’d forgotten.

  Since they left, many people in the prison-camp had talked about going home. Somehow they hadn’t done anything about it. Several of them had simply lain down and not moved again. All with these dark marks under the skin, many with bleeding mouths, too.

  Something to do with food. The Tupas had said something. But one would not take advice from servants of the devil.

  Then he saw a mosquito and weakly made to swat it, and missed, and after that he couldn’t quite recall what he’d been thinking about.

  Entering his office after a call at the hospital, where they had trouble with blocked filters again: Alan Prosser.

  “Dorothy! What in hell’s happened to your eye? It’s all swollen!”

  “Just a sty,” Dorothy said wryly. “My own fault. I washed at the sink when my filter was out. Got something in the root of an eyelash. Come to that, you’re not looking so good yourself.”

  “No, I’m a bit bilious. Can’t seem to keep any food in my belly these past few days. I’ll go see Doug this afternoon. Or maybe tomorrow. Christ, is that my mail? It’s six indies high!”

  “Dr. Farquhar? ... Oh, morning, Alec. This is Angie McNeil. Look, Doug’s laid up with a mild bout of”—cough—“so sorry!”—cough, cough, COUGH—“oh, dear! ...No, no, nothing serious, Doug’s given me something already, just the dust, I guess ... But what I was calling about: Doug has all these patients in the hospital and ... Oh, blast!” Cough cough cough, COUGH. “Sorry! ... What? Mervyn got to you already? Damn. Well, do you know”—cough, cough, cough cough, COUGH—“Sorry! Do you know a good source of what-you-call-’ems around Denver—locums?” Cough. “Are you sure? No one at all? Doug thought maybe a medical officer at the Air Force Academy ... They what? Are you putting me on? Mumps? Oh, Christ. How long is the quarantine going to last?”

  (As though a bucket of sand had been thrown into a complex machine. This year, so many of the people who matter out of circulation, even if only for a week or two, and so many more—millions more—working far below their peak. On the Stock Exchange, dealings suspended in Angel City, Bamberley Trust Corporation, Plant Fertility, Puritan Health Supermarkets ... and others.)

  “Lady, I don’t care if they’re crawling up your cunt, you understand? I have thirty-five more calls to make before I get around to your rats!”

  The use of the fine house had been assigned to Maud Bamberley during her lifetime, but Jacob had omitted to provide adequate funds to support it, her, and the remaining children. Querulous on the last morning before departure, she rang her bell for Christy. But it was Ethel the cook who answered, limping a little for the verrucae in her right heel. (She’d come to ask advice about them yesterday, but the sight was too disgusting; Maud had told her to wait for Dr. Halpern to call again, forgetting that they were compelled to move from here.)

  “Christy’s sick, ma’am,” Ethel said. “It’s her lungs, I guess. She wheezing all the time.”

  “Where is she?” Maud demanded. “In bed?”

  “No, ma’am. She seeing to Mister Noel. He done wetted himself again.”

  Dear Jesus. Dear sweet kind loving Jesus. Maud gathered the silk sheets of her bed into a bundle on her left arm and began to croon to it.

  Dr. Halpern had to come after all, despite his palpitations (since about two weeks ago), and the moving gang went away without anything; perhaps as well because they were eight men under their scheduled strength of fourteen. Cornelius went with the empty van—it was deemed advisable to hospitalize him what with his rash, his blocked sinuses and his non-stop trembling. Claude was pretty well okay. His broken wrist, three weeks old, was healing nicely considering his inability to metabolize calcium properly.

  But Maud had to be given an injection, and when Ronald came to him all adult, as the oldest male in the house and the father of Christy’s baby (not yet known to Maud), demanding information, the doctor did not feel justified in offering a favorable prognosis.

  Christy’s child was about three months gone when she miscarried it from brucellosis. Just as well. Mongoloid. She was forty.

  “Honestly, Mrs. Byrne, I don’t know how Dr. Advowson coped—no, no, don’t move your head, just hold still ... There! That’ll do the trick, though it’ll smart for a while. Very nasty, these furuncles, especially to someone like yourself—if you’ll forgive my saying so—with a generous growth of facial hair. Put the ointment on night and morning.”

  Running water into the sink, reaching for the antiseptic soap.

  “Sad about little Eileen, wasn’t it? Tetanus is a terrible disease.”

  Cause of death: Inhalation of vomitus (while intoxicated)

  Name of deceased: CLARK—

  “Brian, do you spell that name with or without an E at the end?”

  “Without. Was it the drink that did for him, then?”

  “It was indeed. Trying to drown his sorrows and somebody taught them to swim.”

  Before the shrine of his honorable ancestors: Mr. Hideki Katsamura. In his right hand the necessary knife. About his body the correct silk—strictly, dacron—robe. No respectable alternative, following announcement of suit impending from California where Mr. R. Bamberley had so much difficulty with water-purifiers. Also in Colorado, Illinois, New York and Texas.

  Place to aim for would be site of ulcer reputed doctor, friend of family, warned yesterday will perforate and cause marked physiological mishap within short time.

  In company of ancestors conceivably not burdened with ulcerable intestines.

  Arriegas! That name is one in our minds with those of Guevara, Uñil, and other great heroes of the continuing revolution, struck down by the foul agents of the imperialist conspiracy!

  OWING TO THE INDISPOSITION OF PROFESSOR DUVAL THE FOLLOWING CLASSES WILL NOT BE HELD, VIZ ...

  “Yes, this is Moses Greenbriar ... Oh, how is she? ... Cystitis? Is that serious?”

  ... ascribed to the continuing shortage of manpower. Many local police forces...

  (The sound of creaking, as when a tree grows old and can no longer endure the thrashing of the gale.)

  Of all the damned silly things, Carl thought, lying out on a hillside under bushes to wait for dark and his chance to elude the Colorado border patrols. Hiccoughs! And he couldn’t stop them. They must have been going on for hours.

  After being angry he had started to be afraid. They were making him so tired.

  Name of patient: YOUNG Sylvia June (Miss)

  Address: c/o UN

  Ward: B

  Diagnosis: Alcoholic poisoning

  “Doug?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I don’t want to worry you, but I’ve tried to get through to Millicent at least a dozen times, and there’s no reply. Do you think I ought to run over there and see how she is?”

  DURING THE INDISPOSITION OF MR. BOLLINGER THE FOLLOWING TEMPORARY RE-ALLOCATION OF RESPONSIBILITIES ...

  “This will clear it up in a few days, Mr. Cowper. It’s a very effective vermifuge, this. I imagine it must have been badly-cured pork that caused the trouble. I’ve had a number of cases of trichinosomiasis lately.”

  Owing to the indisposition of the Reverend Horace Kirk, joint services will be held at...

  “Where the hell is that black bastard? He should have been here two hours ago! I can’t hang around all night!”

  “He called in to say his wife’s died.”

  “Oh, Christ. Who’s going to let people in the building, then? I can’t do his tour as well as my own!”

  “Mom?” And then, louder: “Mom!”

  The kid advanced slowly on the still dark form in the untidy bed. A fly was buzzing against the shut window, trying to get in, against its own interests because the
re was a fly-strip hanging right over the bed. Also on the seat of the chair that doubled for a bedside table, there were the usual sleeping pills.

  The boy said again, “Mom!” This time the word peaked into a cry.

  Who takes advice from a garbage-man?

  “Sorry, Mr. President, Mr. Penwarren isn’t in today. His doctor told him to take the rest of the week off ... No, nothing serious, I understand. Something he ate disagreed with him.”

  FOR SALE: A substantial holding of 3241½ acres down to vegetables between Bockville and Candida, formerly operated by Mr. Lem Walbridge, together with the farmhouse (18 rooms, 2 baths, good structural condition), various outbuildings, all necessary plant and equipment including late-model tractors (6), cultivating and spraying machinery ...

  In a back room at a friend’s pad: Ossie. He was making bombs. Now and then he paused to scratch his crotch. He had urticaria, and so did the friend, and so did everybody around here this month. It was the in disease. But those mothers mustn’t be allowed to get away with arresting Austin Train on a false charge in plain sight of sixty million people.