Dr. Futurity (1960) (5 page)

A roar of indignation burst from the circle around him. "All right," Stenog said, gesturing. "I want you all to leave; you're making it impossible for me to perform my job."

They left reluctantly.

When the last had gone, Stenog walked to the window and stood for a moment.

"We had no idea," he said at last to Parsons, over his shoulder. "When I brought you in here, it was for a routine examination." He paused. "Why didn't you dye your body all over? Why just in parts?"

Parsons said, "No time."

"You've just been here briefly." Stenog glanced over the written material on his clipboard. "I see that you claim no knowledge of how you got from your time segment to ours. Interesting."

If it was all there, there was no point in him saying anything. He remained silent. Past Stenog he could see the city, and he began to take an interest in it. The spires . . .

"What bothers me," Stenog said, "is that we dropped experimentation with time travel something like eight years ago. The government, I mean. A principle was put forth, showing that time travel was a limited application of perpetual motion and hence a contradiction of its own working laws. That is, if you wanted to invent a time machine, all you'd have to do was swear or prophesy that when you got it working, the first use you'd put it to would be to go back into time, to the point at which you got interested in the idea." He smiled. "And give your earlier self the functioning, finished piece of equipment. This has never happened; evidently there can be no time travel. By definition, time travel is a discovery that, if it could be made,
would already have been made.
Perhaps I oversimplified the proof, but substantially--"

Parsons interrupted, "That assumes that if the discovery had already been made, it would be publicly known. Recognized. But nobody saw me leave my own world." He gestured. "And do you think they realize now what's happened? All they know is that I disappeared, with no trace. Would they infer that I was carried into time?" He thought of his wife. "They don't know," he said. "There was no warning." Now he told Stenog the details; the younger man listened attentively.

"A force field," Stenog said presently. With a sudden shudder of anger he said, "We shouldn't have given up experimentation; we had a good deal of basic research done, hardware constructed." Now, he pondered. "That hardware--God knows what became of it. The research never was kept secret. Presumably the hardware was sold off; a lot of valuable components were involved. That was last year or so. We had it so clearly in mind that time travel would show up in some vast historic way, interfere with the collapse of the Greek City States, assist the success of Napoleon's European plan and thereby obviate the following wars. But you're implying a
secret
, limited time travel. For some personal reasons. Not official, not for social aims." His boyish face drew into a troubled scowl.

"If you recognize that I'm from another time," Parsons said, "From another culture, how can you convict me for what I did?"

To that, Stenog nodded. "You had no knowledge, of course. But our law has no clause about 'persons from another culture.' There is no other culture, no diversity whatever. Ignorant or not, you have to stand trial for sentence. There's a historic concept: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. And isn't that what you're claiming?"

The patent injustice of it staggered Parsons. Yet he could not tell from Stenog's tone just how serious the man was; the faintly detached, ironical quality could not be interpreted. Was Stenog mocking himself?

Parsons said stiffly, "Can't you use your reason?"

Chewing his lip, Stenog said, "You have to abide by the laws of the community in which you live. Whether you came voluntarily or not. But"--He now appeared to be genuinely concerned; the irony had gone--"possibly some suspension can be worked out. The motions could be gone through."

Going from the room, he left Parsons alone for a time. When he returned he carried a polished oak box with a lock on it. Seating himself, he produced a key from his robe and unlocked the box. Out of it he lifted a massive white wig. With solemnity, he placed the wig on his head; at once, with his dark hair concealed, and the heavy rolls of the wig outlining his face, he lost the appearance of youth. A gravity and importance entered his appearance.

Stenog said, "As Director of the Fountain, I have the authority to pass judgment on you." From beneath his peruke, he scrutinized Parsons. "What we mainly have to consider is the formal procedure of exile."

"Exile!" Parsons echoed.

"We don't maintain our prison colonies here. I forget what system your culture employed. Work camps? C.C.C. in Soviet Asia?"

After a pause, Parsons managed to say, "By my time the C.C.C. camps were gone. So were the slave labor camps in Russia."

"We make no attempt to rehabilitate the criminal," Stenog said. "That would be an invasion of his rights. And, from a practical standpoint, it doesn't work. We don't want substandard persons in our society."

"The
shupos
," Parsons said, with dread. "They're involved in these colonies?"

Stenog said, "The
shupos
are too valuable to be sent off Earth. A good deal of them are our youth, you understand. Especially the active element. The
shupo
organization maintains youth hostels and schools set apart from society, operated in the Spartan manner. The children are trained both in body and in mind. They're hardened. The activity that you saw, the raid on the illegal political group, is incidental, a sort of field expedition. They're quite zealous, the boys from the hostels. On the streets they have the right, as individuals to challenge any person they feel is not acting properly."

"What are the prison colonies like?"

"They're city sized. You'll be free to work, and you'll have a separate dwelling of the apartment type where you can pursue various hobbies or creative crafts. The climate, of course, isn't favorable. Your life-span will be cut down enormously. Much depends on your own stamina."

"And there's no way I can appeal your decision?" Parsons demanded. "No trial system? The government brings the charges and then acts as the judge? Merely by putting on a medieval periwig--"

"We have the girl's signed complaint," Stenog said.

At that, Parsons stared at him. He could not believe it.

"Oh, yes," Stenog said. "Come along." Rising, he opened a side door, beckoning Parsons to follow him. Formidable and solemn in his wig, he said, "Possibly this will tell you more about us than anything you have seen so far."

They passed by door after door; Parsons, in a daze, followed the bewigged younger man, barely able to keep up with his springy step. At last Stenog halted at a door, unlocked it, and stepped aside for Parsons to enter.

On the first of several small stages lay a body, partly covered by a white sheet. Icara. Parsons walked toward her. Her eyes were shut and she did not move. Her skin had a faded, washed-out quality.

"She filed the complaint," Stenog said, "just before she died." He switched on a light; gazing down, Parsons saw that beyond any doubt the girl was dead, possibly had been for several hours.

"But she was recovering," he said. "She was getting well."

Reaching down, Stenog lifted the sheet back. Along the side of the girl's neck, Parsons saw a careful, precise slash. The great carotid arteries had been cut, and expertly.

"In her complaint, she charged you with deliberately obstructing the natural process of seelmotus," Stenog said. "As soon as she had filled out this form she called her residential euthanor and underwent the Final Rite."

"Then she did it herself," Parsons said.

"It was her pleasure. By her own will she undid the harm you had attempted." Stenog shut off the light.

FIVE

In his own personal car, Stenog took him to his house for dinner.

As they drove through the afternoon traffic, Parsons tried to see as much of the city as possible. Once, when the car halted for a three-level bus, he rolled down the window and leaned out. Stenog made no move to inhibit his actions.

"There's where I work," Stenog said once. He slowed the car and pointed. A flat building, larger than any others that Parsons had seen, lay to their right. "That's where we were-- in my office at the Fountain. That means nothing to you, but you were at the most highly guarded spot we possess. We've been all this time getting through the check-stations." They had been in the car now for almost half an hour. "Every day I have to go through this," Stenog said. "And I'm the Director of the Fountain. But they check me, too."

A final uniformed guard halted the car, took the flat black card that Stenog showed him, and then the car started up onto a through ramp. The city fell below them.

"The Soul Cube is at the Fountain," Stenog said, by way of explanation. "But that makes no sense to you either, does it?"

"No," Parsons said. His mind was still on the girl, and on her death.

"Concentric rings," Stenog continued. "Zones of importance. Now, of course, we're out in the tribal areas again." The brightly colored dots that Parsons had first seen now passed by them at high velocity; Stenog did not appear to be a fast driver. In the daylight, Parsons noticed that each passing car had one of the tribal totem animals painted on its door, and, on the hoods, metal and plastic ornaments that might have been totem--the cars moved by too fast for him to be certain.

"You'll stay with me," Stenog said, "until time for your emigration to Mars. That should be in a day or so; it takes a little time to arrange transportation, what with all the red tape and government forms."

The house, small, part of a group of many houses built along the same lines, reminded Parsons of his own house. On the front steps he halted for a moment.

"Go ahead in," Stenog said. "The car parks itself." His hand on Parsons' shoulder, he steered him up the steps and onto the porch. The front door, open, let out the sound of music. "You lived before the age of radio, didn't you?" Stenog said as they entered.

"No," Parsons said. "We had it."

"I see," Stenog said. He seemed tired, now, at the end of the day. "Dinner should be ready," he murmured; sitting down on a long low couch he removed his sandals.

As Parsons moved about the living room he realized that Stenog was gazing at him oddly.

"Your shoes," Stenog said. "Didn't you people take off your shoes when you entered a house?"

After Parsons had removed his shoes Stenog clapped his hands. A moment later a woman appeared from the back of the house, wearing a flowing, brightly colored robe, her feet bare. She paid no attention to Parsons. From a low cabinet set against the wall she brought forth a tray on which stood a ceramic pot and a tiny glazed cup; Parsons smelled tea as the woman set the tray down on a table near the couch on which Stenog sat. Without a word, Stenog poured himself tea and began to drink.

None for me,
Parsons thought. Because he was a criminal? Or were all guests treated this way? The differing customs. Stenog had not introduced the woman to him. Was she his wife? His maid?

Gingerly, Parsons seated himself on the far end of the couch. Neither Stenog nor the woman gave any sign that he had done rightly or wrongly; the woman kept her black eyes fixed on Stenog while he drank. She, too, like all the others Parsons had seen in this world, had the long shiny hair, the dark coloring; but in her he thought he saw one difference. This woman seemed less dainty, more heavily built.

"This is my
puella
," Stenog said, having finished his cup of tea. "Let's see." He relaxed, yawned, obviously glad to be out of his office and in his own home. "Well, there's probably no way I can express it to you. We have a legal relationship, recorded by the government. It's voluntary. I can break it; she can't." He added, "Her name is Amy."

The woman held out her hand to Parsons; he took it, and found himself shaking hands. This hadn't changed, this custom. The sense of continuity raised his morale slightly, and he found himself, too, relaxing.

"Tea for Dr. Parsons," Stenog said.

While the two men sipped tea, Amy fixed dinner somewhere out of sight, behind a fragile-looking screen that Parsons recognized as distinctly Oriental. And here, as in his office, Stenog had a harpsichord; on this one stood a stack of sheet music, some of it very old looking.

After dinner, Stenog rose and said, "Let's take a run down to the Fountain." He nodded to Parsons. "I want you to understand our point of view."

Together, in Stenog's car, they drove through the night darkness. The air, fresh and cold, blew around Parsons; the younger man kept the windows down, clearly from habit. He seemed withdrawn into himself, and Parsons did not try to talk to him.

As they were being processed through the check-stations once more, Stenog abruptly burst out, "Do you consider this society morbid?"

"There are strains of it," Parsons said. "Visible to an outsider. The emphasis on death--"

"On life, you mean."

"When I first got here, the first person who saw me tried to run me down and kill me. Thinking I wanted to be killed."
And Icara,
he thought.

"That person probably saw you roaming around alone at night, on foot, on the public highway."

"Yes," Parsons said.

"That's one of the favorite ways for certain types of dashing individuals with a flair for the spectacular. They go out on the highway, outside the city, and it's the custom that the cars that see them run over them. It's time-honored, established. Didn't persons in your society go out at night, onto bridges, and throw themselves off?"

Parsons said, "But they were a trivial few, a mentally disturbed minority."

"Yet the custom, even so, was established within society! It was
understood.
If you decided to kill yourself, that was the proper way." Now, working himself up emotionally, Stenog said, "Actually, you know nothing about this society--you just came here. Look at this."

They had come out in a huge chamber. Parsons halted, impressed by the maze of corridors that stretched off in all directions. Even at night, work continued; the corridors were active and alight.