“Your position,” Corning said, “is serious but not hopeless; there’s a difference. We can work out something … that’s why I’m here. Stop crying and sit up straight and listen to me and I’ll try to explain.” He unzipped his briefcase.
“I know,” Kathy said. “You want me to spy on Marm Hastings. You’re after him because he advocated signing a separate peace with the reegs that time on TV. Jesus, you’ve infiltrated this whole planet. Nobody’s safe.” She got up, groaned with despair, went to the bedroom for a handkerchief, still sniffling.
“Would you watch Hastings for us?” Corning said, when she returned.
“No.” She shook her head. Better to be dead, she thought.
“It’s not Hastings,” the uniformed Lilistar policeman said.
Corning said, “We want your husband. We’d like you to follow him to Cheyenne and take up where you left off. Bed and board, I think the Terran phrase is. As soon as it possibly can be arranged.”
She stared at him. “I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
“We broke up. He left me.” She could not understand why, if they knew everything else, they didn’t know that.
“Resolutions of that type in a marriage,” Corning said, as if speaking with the weary wisdom of an infinity of ages, “can always be reduced to the status of a temporary misunderstanding. We’ll take you to one of our psychologists—we have several excellent ones in residence here on this planet—and he’ll brief you on the techniques to use in healing this rift with Eric. Don’t worry, Kathy; we know what went on here last night. Actually it works out to our advantage; it gives us an opportunity to talk with you alone.”
“No.” She shook her head. “We’ll never be back together. I don’t want to be with Eric. No psychologist, even one of yours, can change that. I hate Eric and I hate all this crap you’re mixed up in. I hate you ’Starmen, and everyone on Terra feels the same way—I wish you’d get off the planet, I wish we’d never gotten into the war.” Impotently, with frenzy, she glared at him.
“Cool off, Kathy.” Corning remained unruffled.
“God, I wish Virgil were here; he’s not afraid of you—he’s one of the few people on Terra—”
“No one on Terra,” Corning said absently, “has that status. It’s time you faced reality; we could, you know, take you to Lilistar, instead of killing you … had you thought about that, Kathy?”
“Oh God.” She shuddered. Don’t take me to Lilistar, she said to herself, praying in silence. At least let me stay here on Terra with people I know. I’ll go back to Eric; I’ll beg him to take me back. “Listen,” she said aloud. “I’m not worrying about Eric. It isn’t what you might do to him that frightens me.” It’s myself, she thought.
“We know that, Kathy,” Corning said, nodding. “So this really ought to please you, when you examine it without distracting emotion. By the way …” Dipping into the briefcase, Corning brought out a handful of capsules; he laid one on the kitchen table and the capsule rolled off and fell to the floor. “No offense meant, Kathy, but—” He shrugged. “It is addictive. From even one exposure, such as you indulged yourself in at 45 Avila Street last night. And Chris Plout isn’t going to get you any more.” Picking up the capsule of JJ-180 which had fallen to the kitchen floor, he held it out to Kathy.
“It couldn’t be,” she said faintly, declining. “After just one try. I’ve taken dozens of drugs before and never—” She regarded him then. “You bastards,” she said. “I don’t believe it and anyhow, even if it is true, I can get unaddicted—there’re clinics.”
“Not for JJ-180.” Returning the capsule to his briefcase, Corning added casually, “We can free you of your addiction, not here but at a clinic in our own system … perhaps later we can arrange this. Or you can stay on it and we can supply you for the rest of your life. Which won’t be long.”
“Even to break a drug habit,” Kathy said, “I wouldn’t go to Lilistar. I’ll go to the reegs; it’s their drug—you said so. They must know more about it than you do if they invented it.” Turning her back to Corning, she walked to the living room closet and got her coat. “I’m going to work. Goodbye.” She opened the door to the hall. Neither ’Starman made a move to halt her.
It must be true, then, she thought. JJ-180 must be as addictive as they say. I haven’t got a goddam chance; they know it and I know it. I have to cooperate with them or try to escape all the way across to the reeg lines, where it originates, and even then I’d still be addicted; I wouldn’t have gained anything. And the reegs would probably kill me.
Corning said, “Take my card, Kathy.” He walked to her, extending the small white square. “When you find yourself requiring the drug, must at any cost have it—” He dropped the card into the breast pocket of her coat. “Come and see me. We’ll be expecting you, dear; we’ll see you’re supplied.” He added, as an afterthought, “Of course it’s addictive, Kathy; that’s why we put you on it.” He smiled at her.
Shutting the door after her, Kathy made her way blindly to the elevator, numbed now to the point where she felt nothing, not even fear. Only a vague emptiness inside her, the vacuum left by the extinction of hope, of the ability even to conceive a possibility of escape.
But Virgil Ackerman could help me, she said to herself as she entered the elevator and touched the button. I’ll go to him; he’ll know exactly what I should do. I’ll never work with the ’Starmen, addiction or not; I won’t cooperate with them about Eric.
But she knew, before long, that she would.
6
It was during the early afternoon, as she sat in her office at TF&D arranging for the purchase of a 1935 artifact, a reasonably unworn Decca record of the Andrews Sisters singing “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,” that Kathy Sweetscent felt the first withdrawal symptoms.
Her hands became oddly heavy.
With extreme care she put the delicate record down. And there was a physiognomic alteration in the objects around her. While at 45 Avila Street, under the influence of JJ-180, she had experienced the world as consisting of airy, penetrable, and benign entities, like so many bubbles; she had found herself able—at least in hallucination—to pass through them at will. Now, in the familiar environment of her office, she experienced a transformation of reality along the lines of an ominous progression: ordinary things, whichever way she looked, seemed to be gaining density. They were no longer susceptible to being moved or changed, affected in any way, by her.
And, from another viewpoint, she simultaneously experienced the oppressive change as taking place within her own body. From either standpoint the ratio between herself, her physical powers, and the outside world had altered for the worst; she experienced herself as growing progressively more and more helpless in the literal physical sense—there was, with each passing moment, less which she could do. The ten-inch Decca record, for instance. It lay within touch of her fingers, but suppose she reached for it? The record would evade her. Her hand, clumsy with unnatural weight, hobbled by the internal gathering of density, would crush or break the record; the concept of performing intricate, skillful actions in reference to the record seemed out of the question. Refinements of motion were no longer a property belonging to her; only gross, sinking mass remained.
Wisely, she realized that this told her something about JJ-180; it lay in the class of thalamic stimulants. And now, in this withdrawal period, she was suffereing a deprivation of thalamic energy; these changes, experienced as taking place in the outside world and in her body, were in actuality minute alterations of the metabolism of her brain. But—
This knowledge did not help her. For these changes in herself and her world were not beliefs; they were authentic experiences, reported by the normal sensory channels, imposed on her consciousness against her will. As stimuli they could not be avoided. And—the alteration of the world’s physiognomy continued; the end was not in sight. In panic she thought, How far will this go? How much worse can it get? Certainly not much worse … the im
penetrability of even the smallest objects around her now seemed almost infinite; she sat rigidly, unable to move, incapable of thrusting her great body into any new relationship with the crushingly heavy objects that surrounded her and seemed to be pressing nearer and nearer.
And, even as the objects in her office settled massively against her, they became, on another level, remote; they receded in a meaningful, terrifying fashion. They were losing, she realized, their animation, their—so to speak—working souls. The animae which inhabited them were departing as her powers of psychological projection deteriorated. The objects had lost their heritage of the familiar; by degrees they became cold, remote, and—hostile. Into the vacuum left by the decline in her relatedness to them the things surrounding her achieved their original isolation from the taming forces which normally emanated from the human mind; they became raw, abrupt, with jagged edges capable of cutting, gashing, inflicting fatal wounds. She did not dare stir. Death, in potentiality, lay inherent in every object; even the hand-wrought brass ash tray on her desk had become irregular, and in its lack of symmetry it obtained projecting planes, shot out surfaces which, like spines, could tear her open if she was stupid enough to come near.
The combox on her desk buzzed. Lucile Sharp, Virgil Ackerman’s secretary, said, “Mrs. Sweetscent, Mr. Ackerman would like to see you in his office. I’d suggest you bring along the new ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön’ record you purchased today; he expressed interest in it.”
“Yes,” Kathy said, and the effort almost buried her; she ceased breathing and sat with her rib-cage inert, the basic physiological processes slowing under the pressure, dying by degrees. And then, somehow, she breathed one breath; she filled her lungs and then exhaled raggedly, noisily. For the moment she had escaped. But it was all worsening. What next? She rose to her feet, stood. So this is how it feels to be hooked on JJ-180, she thought. She managed to pick up the Decca record. Its dark edges were like knife blades sawing into her hands as she carried it across the office to the door. Its hostility toward her, its inanimate and yet ferocious desire to inflict destruction on her, became overwhelming; she cringed from the disc’s touch.
And dropped it.
The record lay on the thick carpet, apparently unbroken. But how to pick it up once more? How to drag it loose from the nape, the backdrop, surrounding it? Because the record no longer seemed separate; it had fused. With the carpet, the floor, the walls, and now everything in the office, it presented a single indivisible, unchangeable surface, without rupture. No one could come or go within this cubelike spaciality; every place was already filled, complete—nothing could change because everything was present already.
My God, Kathy thought as she stood gazing down at the record by her feet. I can’t free myself; I’m going to remain here, and they’ll find me like this and know something’s terribly wrong. This is catalepsy!
She was still standing there when the office door opened and Jonas Ackerman, briskly, with a jovial expression on his smooth, youthful face, entered, strode up to her, saw the record, bent unhinderedly down and gently lifted it up and placed it in her outstretched hands.
“Jonas,” she said in a slow, thickened voice, “I—need medical help. I’m sick.”
“Sick how?” He stared at her with concern, his face twisted up, wriggling, she thought, like nests of snakes. His emotion overpowered her; it was a sickening, fetid force. “My God,” Jonas said, “what a time you picked—Eric’s not here today, he’s in Cheyenne, and we haven’t got the new man that’s replacing him yet. But I could drive you to the Tijuana Government Clinic. What is it?” He gripped her arm, pinching her flesh. “I think you’re just blue because Eric’s gone.”
Take me upstairs,” she managed to say. “To Virgil.”
“Boy, you do sound awful,” Jonas said. “Yes, I’ll be glad to get you upstairs to the old man; maybe he’ll know what to do.” He guided her toward the office door. “Maybe I better take that record; you look like you’re about to drop it again.”
It could not have taken more than two minutes to reach Virgil Ackerman’s office and yet to her the ordeal consumed a vast interval. When she found herself facing Virgil at last she was exhausted; she panted for breath, unable to speak. It was just too goddam much for her.
Eyeing her curiously, and then with alarm, Virgil said in his thin, penetrating voice, “Kathy, you better go home today; fix yourself up with an armful of women-type magazines and a drink, propped up in bed—”
“Leave me alone,” she heard herself say. “Christ,” she said, then, in despair. “Don’t leave me alone, Mr. Ackerman; please!”
“Well, make up your mind,” Virgil said, still scrutinizing her. “I can see that Eric’s leaving here and going to Cheyenne to—”
“No,” she said. “I’m okay.” Now it had worn off a little; she felt as if she had imbibed some strength from him, perhaps because he had so much. “Here’s a fine item for Wash-35.” She turned to Jonas for the record. “It was one of the most popular tunes of the times. This and ‘The Music Goes Round and Round.’ ” Taking the record, she placed it before him on his big desk. I’m not going to die, she thought; I’m going to get through this and recover my health. “I’ll tell you what else I have a line on, Mr. Ackerman.” She seated herself in a chair by the desk, wanting to conserve what energy she had. “A private recording which someone made, at the time, of Alexander Woollcott on his program, ‘The Town Crier.’ So the next time we’re up at Wash-35 we’ll be able to listen to Woollcott’s actual voice. And not an imitation. As we’re doing.”
“ ‘The Town Crier’!” Virgil exclaimed in childish joy. “My favorite program!”
“I’m reasonably sure I can get it,” Kathy said. “Of course, until I actually pay over the money there could still be a hitch. I have to fly out to Boston to make the final arrangements; the recording is there, in the possession of a rather shrewd spinster-lady named Edith B. Scruggs. It was made on a Packard-Bell Phon-o-cord, she tells me in her correspondence.”
“Kathy,” Virgil Ackerman said, “if you can actually turn up an authentic recording of the voice of Alexander Woollcott—I’m going to raise your salary, so help me God. Mrs. Sweetscent, sweetheart, I’m in love with you because of what you do for me. Was Woollcott’s radio program over WMAL or WJSV? Research that for me, will you? Go through those ’35 copies of the Washington Post—and by the way, that reminds me. That American Weekly with the article on the Sargasso Sea. I think we’ll finally decide to exclude that from Wash-35 because when I was a boy my parents didn’t take the Hearst papers; I only saw it when I—”
“Just a moment, Mr. Ackerman,” Kathy said, raising her hand.
He cocked his head expectantly. “Yes, Kathy?”
“What if I went to Cheyenne and joined Eric?”
“But—” Virgil bleated, gesturing. “I need you!”
“For a while,” she said. Maybe that will be enough, she thought. They might not demand any more. “You let him go,” she said, “and he keeps you alive; he’s a lot more vital than I am.”
“But Molinari needs him. And he doesn’t need you; he has no babyland he’s building; he’s not a bit interested in the past—he’s full of gas about the future, like an adolescent.” Virgil looked stricken. “I can’t spare you, Kathy; losing Eric was bad enough but the deal in his case is that I can send for him any time I get into difficulty. I had to let him go; it was the patriotic thing, in wartime—I didn’t want to; in fact I’m scared as hell without him. But not you.” His tone became plaintive. “No, that’s too much. Eric swore to me when we were at Wash-35 that you wouldn’t want to go with him.” He shot a mute, appealing glance at Jonas. “Make her stay, Jonas.”
Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Jonas said to her, “You don’t love Eric, Kathy. I’ve talked to you and to him; you both tell me your domestic woes. You’re as far apart from each other as it’s possible to be and not commit an outright crime … I don’t get this.”
“I believed
that,” she said, “while he was here. But I kidded myself. Now I know better, and I’m sure he feels the same way.”
“Are you sure?” Jonas said acutely. “Call him.” He indicated the vidphone on Virgil’s desk. “See what he says. Frankly I think you’re better off separated, and I have no doubt Eric knows it.”
Kathy said, “May I be excused to go? I want to get back down to my office.” She felt sick at her stomach and achingly frightened. Her damaged, drug-addicted body yearned for relief and in its thrashings it directed her actions; it was compelling her to follow Eric to Cheyenne. Despite what the Ackermans said. She could not stop, and even now in her confusion she could read the future; she could not escape the drug JJ-180—the ’Starmen had been correct. She would have to go back to them, follow up on the card that Corning had given her. God, she thought, if I only could tell Virgil. I have to tell someone.
And then she thought, I’ll tell Eric. He’s a doctor; he’ll be able to help me. I’ll go to Cheyenne for that, not for them.
“Will you do me one favor?” Jonas Ackerman was saying to her. “For heaven’s sake, Kathy; listen.” Again he squeezed her arm.
“I’m listening,” she said with irritation. “And let go.” She tugged her arm away, stepped back from him, feeling rage. “Don’t treat me like this; I can’t stand it.” She glared at him.
Carefully, in a deliberately calm voice, Jonas said to her, “We’ll let you follow your husband to Cheyenne, Kathy, if you promise to wait twenty-four hours before you go.”
“Why?” She could not understand.
“So that this initial period of shock at the separation has a chance to wear off,” Jonas said. “I’m hoping that in twenty-four hours you’ll see your way clear to changing your mind. And meanwhile—” He glanced at Virgil; the old man nodded in agreement. “I’ll stay with you,” Jonas said to her. “All day and all night, if necessary.”
Appalled, she said, “Like hell you will. I won’t—”